I don’t know how you’ll respond to the title of this chapter because only you really know the secret chambers of your heart and mind. Why? Appearances can be deceiving; outward ‘show’ can be simply fictitious, uneventful heart-change, or a desire not to be exposed for what one really believes.

It was C.S. Lewis who once wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because of it I see everything else.”

But then in a real world of life and death, success or failure, blessing and disappointment, true examples and pretenders, wise or blinded, divine fruit or diseased or dis-eased citizens, people will either “press in to Him” or fall away by their own free will.

Don’t you find it interesting, convicting, and challenging, that in Revelation 2:10b, Jesus tells us: “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”? Is it possible that some begin the walk of faith, are faithful for a period of time in what they know, and then walk away? “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Are bad turns made away from the highway of holiness that lead to ‘dead-end’ places? Does disappointment in one’s self or others mean, “I choose to be disappointed in Jesus also”? If a ‘Texas dust storm’ can restrict your vision, can a believer’s storm of doubt cast dark shadows on one’s devotion and allegiance and all-out surrender to the King of kings and Lord of lords?

Oh, and hear me – can a preacher-pastor’s ‘falling away’ be the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back,’ and you decide, “I want nothing more to do with ‘phony Christianity’?

In Ezekial 18:23 God spoke: “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” And whatever is opposite of the Word and the will of God and His ways is determined wicked and brings a judgment of death – and God says, “turn from YOUR ways and live!” He went on to say in verses 31-32, “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord. “Therefore turn and live!”

I know, and I assume you also know, that there are “distressing disguises”! It’s so evident by spiritual blindness, unholy hearing, willful rejection, painful indifference, yes, even deeply-wounded scars from spiritual events of the past that one holds on to, residence in a jail of unforgiveness because someone, somehow, somewhere led them down, they believe, to a place, a practice, a persuasion that didn’t line up with the desire for a ‘godly lifestyle’ but an ungodly lifestyle even when the Word declared and still declares ‘separate from sinners.’

I’m really sorry, but I do not see projected in God’s Holy Word ‘comfort’ or ‘comfortable’ or ‘pleasurable for the flesh’ in a world where Holy Truth is seen as needed to be suppressed and certainly worthless in schools, universities, or any governmental institution locally or nationally!

How dangerous is it for men of all standings, places, ranks, abilities or inabilities, education or the absence of it, to find themselves in a place they don’t feel comfortable, identifying themselves as men unreservedly sold out to Christ so they ignore the church Jesus loved and gave Himself for, going the way of “silent allegiance” when Jesus instructs us to identify ourselves as His true followers and devoted to build up, strengthen, and, yes, laboring for His church-body’s success?!? “Distressing disguises”? Are you ever confronted by those who once have known Truth and then, all of a sudden, because of multitudinous fleshly crises, the door was opened to cast doubt on the Word of God? Sadly, I’ve known men over the years who so devotedly shared God’s Holy Word, but crisis came from business, family, spiritual family, resulting in undefinable criticism, and like a wounded ‘puppy’ they crawl away from upholding Truth!

“Distressing disguises”? Are you aware of those who have been ingrained with partial truth and they profess “Peace, peace! When there is no peace”? [Jeremiah 6:14]. It’s as if the ‘gospel’ they held onto was ‘peaches and cream’ without Jesus’ word, “In the world you will have tribulation!” I would urge every disciple over the next three to four months to devote himself/herself to the four gospels and determine if Jesus ever talked about a ‘trouble-free walk of discipleship!’

“Distressing disguises”? Do you remember in the Gospel of John Jesus telling the scribes and Pharisees that denying Him was the result that they never knew the One True and Living God? In John 8:13 they told Jesus, “You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.” In the eighth chapter alone Jesus told the ‘religious crowd’ about 4 times, similar to verse 21, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.”

“Distressing disguises”? I hope it doesn’t seriously offend you if I tell you that there are “sticklers” for legalism apart from God’s grace, mercy, and love! On the tablet of stone God carved out and imprinted Ten Commandments that exposed men as true ‘law-breakers’ in need of mercy, grace, and love, but deception blinded men to their true need of God because they graded by the ‘curve’, wanting acceptance by self-effort rather than acceptance through the finished work of Christ at the Cross, with God then writing His love, His law, and His liberty on a redeemed heart! How about your devotion? Is it by law or the very love of Calvary’s Cross and the reality of Jesus’ empty tomb and His present residence in Heaven at the throne of God interceding in your behalf?

“Distressing disguises”? Have you not wrapped your mind around the fact that fallen humanity is fully absorbed in the mind-set and heart-absorption of materialism, and the more one has, the nearer he/she is to God? Yet, our Lord and Savior and True Master of all of life has said, Matthew 16:24-26, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life [for himself] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

“Distressing disguises”? You’ll remember as Moses was leading Israel to the Promised Land there came a time when he went up on the mountain for an alone-time with God that became a long time – and his people became anxious.

They went to Aaron and told him, Exodus 32:1, “Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what is become of him.” Verse 4 tells us he, Aaron, received golden earrings from the people, and fashioned it with a graving tool into “a molten calf”; and the people said, “This be our gods who brought us out of the land of Egypt.” Then the end of verse 6 then tells us, “and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” God then told Moses, “your people, Moses, which you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.”

Has anything changed? What is it that has become your own ‘distressing disguise’? But reality also speaks so loud and clear as when Samuel said in I Samuel 10:19, about some in Israel, “And you have this day rejected your God, who Himself saved you from all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said to Him, ‘No, set a king over us!’”

At least David had the sane attitude of brokenness, repentance, and turning from that which scarred him and others so deeply. In Psalm 25:17-22 he prayed: “The troubles of my heart have enlarged; bring me out of my distresses! Look on my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins. Consider my enemies, for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred. Keep my soul, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You.”

I’m sure you’ll remember Paul challenging the church at Corinth when he said in 2 Corinthians 6:12, “You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.” And he paid a heavy price for standing in truth! He said to the Corinthians and us in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE. For when I am weak, then I am strong [in Him].”

Paul further testified in 2 Corinthians 13:4-6, “For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.”

In Christ you are made to soar, not to sink; you’re a new creation in Him to live victoriously, not defeated; in Him you overcome the devil himself and his temptations, not swallowed up in a sea of denial of truth or ocean depths of drownings in deceptions opposite of Holy Revelation, Eternal Truth, and His ever-abiding presence in you!

“Distressing disguises”? I picked up again recently Mark Levin’s book entitled “LIBERTY OR TYRANNY,” sub-titled “A Conservative Manifesto.” I read it several years ago, but on the back cover of his book he had a statement of Abraham Lincoln, spoken in 1864. Lincoln said, “We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.”

Do you remember the unbelieving Pharoah of Egypt? In Exodus 5:1-2 we read, “Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharoah, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ And Pharoah said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.’”

It’s certainly not always true, but it seems, for some like Pharoah, that ‘wealth’ or ‘riches’ lead an awful lot of people to bow down in idolatry and not live in worship, praise, or thanksgiving, with adoration and submission and loyalty to the God who laid down His Son at the Cross! “That’s not MY calling!” – have you ever heard that? “I serve the Lord who blesses me,” yet the Lord God Almighty, Emmanuel (“God With Us”), Savior and Lord, Master of all of life said: Deuteronomy 30:14-20, “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, THAT YOU MAY DO IT. [“Why, YOU legalistic God! Who would want to submit to Your Word, Your will, Your way? Not me!”] See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God WILL BLESS YOU in the land which you go to possess. BUT IF YOUR HEART TURNS AWAY SO THAT YOU DO NOT HEAR [and some choose, ‘I don’t want to hear what God says!’] and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today THAT YOU SHALL SURELY PERISH; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

[And just as a reminder if you have questions about what you just read and its spiritual relevance to New Testament disciples, John 8:56 says, Jesus speaking: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”]

“Distressing disguises”! I pastored a church many years ago in which a very visible leader became involved in an adulterous relationship with another church member. In my office he denied it and assured me it never happened.

A few weeks later I received a late night call to hurry to a particular home where the police had already arrived. The church leader was in the home of his adulteress mate with an irate, almost uncontrollable husband.

The church leader had lied and then resigned his visible office in the church. I advised our church officers or deacons that this situation required church discipline, but they all said, “He’s our friend, and it won’t happen. He deserved better than having to care for a sick wife!” Within a short time, God moved our leadership role as pastor elsewhere!

When open sin is ignored it manifests itself in abundant rebellion to God’s Holy Word – I heard years later that adultery, broken marriages, and a suffering church had about died, until several pastors later God placed His man in a strong place of leadership – now, the church prospers spiritually.

“Distressing disguises”! Consider it, examine it, reflect upon it – what’s the result of half-hearted allegiance to a local body of believers, yes, the local body Jesus suffered, bled, and died for? What’s the result of the negligence of whole-heartedness; what’s the result of divided allegiance; what’s the outcome of ‘profession’ apart from possession of the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ; what’s the ‘fruit’ of a ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude concerning a needy fellowship of believers?

Is it really possible that believers feel no sympathy for, devotion to, or commitment of their lives to a needy church fellowship or even comfort and healing grace to despondent saints, a battered pastor, or, yes, immature church members? But they find ‘their’ place where the crowd gathers, where the smiles abound, but in far too many living a “laid-down life” is omitted! It’s even happening today that ‘forsaking of the assembling of yourselves together’ is like an old ‘wives’ tale’ – “we don’t need the church assembling”!

I was reading Spurgeon recently. [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.15, pps. 78-79]. He said: “Is it so, that because you are yourself a member of a flourishing church, and because you enjoy all sorts of Christian privileges, you therefore harden your heart concerning dying churches and desponding saints? Do you imagine that the body can be sick, and yet you as a member of it will not suffer? I tell you, if the church of God goes aside it will be to your injury;’ if the truth of God be not preached you will be a loser; if Christian life be not vigorous you will be weakened.”…(p.80), “If you are not creating a holy warmth, the chill of sin is freezing you.”

‘Ice-berg city’ – the gathering of chilled believers! ‘Ice-berg city’ – the union place of divided allegiances! ‘Ice-berg city’ – the creeping sickness of unconscious allegiance to self-birthing of paralyzed infants who don’t know where they came from or where they are headed. The Lord Jesus said in Revelation 3:11, “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.” [It would be worth your effort and time to research about “your crown.”]

“Distressing disguises”! It was so interesting and challenging recently when in Luke 16:1-13 I read about the parable of the unjust steward. Read carefully and consider your walk as a professing disciple of Christ! Jesus also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.

So he called him and said to him, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” [I pray you realize “stewardship” has much more to do in your walk than what you “give” in money!]

Then the steward said within himself, “What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.” So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.

He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Is Jesus teaching us about faithfulness in ‘little things’? Is He teaching us about money and its blessing or curse? Is He informing us about faithfulness in what belongs to another man? But now, let’s transition from “distressing disguises” to “FAITHFULNESS”! We’ve just witnessed Jesus talking about “faithfulness” in three ways. Is there more in His precious and powerful Word we should discern and apply?

It’s not difficult to grasp or understand or comprehend the subject of “faithfulness” – the battle comes when faith and faithfulness must be exercised and YOU must discern for yourself, ‘a walk of fleshly sight and its desires OR a walk of faith and faithfulness to honor the God of the Cross and the empty tomb!

I do not know or understand how a person reads or hears read Ephesians 2:4-8, 12-13, and determines to walk away from saving grace! It says: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

And raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God…Verses 12-13, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH AND BY FAITH ALONE! That’s what you just read!

WE ARE JUSTIFIED BY FAITH! Examine Romans 3:19-26 very, very carefully: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Do you remember the lame man outside the temple asking alms as Peter and John were about to go in? Follow Acts 3:6-16, 19-20, 23, 26: Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them – walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God.

Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon’s, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: ‘Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pontius Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.

But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know.

Verses 19-20, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before..

Verse 23, And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people… Verse 26, To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”

WE ARE TO CONTINUE IN THE FAITH. In Acts 14:21-22 Paul was endeavoring to build a solid foundation in new disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith. It says: “And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”

WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND, RECEIVE, WALK IN THE WALK OF OUR HEART, MIND, SOUL, AND SPIRIT PURIFICATION BY FAITH. Acts 15:6-9 says: Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.”

WE ARE TO WALK IN THE PEACEFUL REST OF FAITH LIKE ABRAHAM. In Romans 4:1-8 we read of the faith of faithful Abraham: “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”

WE ARE TO BE EMPOWERED BY FAITH – NOT IN THE EARTHLY WISDOM OF MEN. I Corinthians 2:4-5 instructs us: Paul speaking, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

WE ARE TO BE AT PEACE IN OURSELVES BECAUSE OF OUR FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT THE CROSS. Galatians 2:20 illumines our minds and hearts as Paul tells us: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Verse 21, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

WE ARE TO BE DILIGENT TO THE END BECAUSE OF OUR INHERITANCE OF GOD”S PROMISES. In Hebrews 6:11-12 we see our calling as true believers: “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

WE ARE TO BE WELL-TRAINED, PERSONALLY DISCIPLINED, AS A TRUE SOLDIER IN GOD’S ARMY, NOT GIVEN AN ‘AWOL’ SPIRIT, BUT DEVOTED TO HIM AND THE CHURCH JESUS LOVED AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR. Paul wrote young Timothy as a wise spiritual father, 2 Timothy 2:1-4, “You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”

Earlier, in I Timothy 6:12, he told Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

You do understand that we serve a God and Savior who is so ever faithful to us! In Lamentations 3:22-27 Jeremiah shared both a broken heart because of Israel’s sin but also a peaceful heart and soul because He knew the faithfulness of God’s compassion:

“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: GREAT IS YOUR FAITHFULNESS!! ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him!’ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.”

And I have no doubts that this is why Isaiah encourages us in Isaiah 25:1 because he knew God’s faithfulness: “O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.”

Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, His people sprout and bear His fruitfulness! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness to us, our faithfulness to Him is not to be a probability but a sure certainty! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, we don’t enlist for a seat in a church pew but a place in the front-line of a holy war! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, we’re not to be inventers of simply religious activities but fully surrendered lives available to His presence, power, and promises to be expressed through our available lives!

It was the old “The Defender” who had this quote: “Faith is dead to doubt, dumb to discouragement, blind to impossibilities.” How true!

Off-key lives are invaded by the “Master-Tuner” and discords vanish and perfect harmonies erupt! When repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross finds a permanent home, empty barrels become the overflowing presence of His never-ending LIFE!!

Faithfulness is not a philosophy but Divine Presence, holy certainty, continual blessing, and a sacred marriage of eternal bliss!

Faithfulness is the Shining Sonlight of the resident Christ within, the evidence of God’s Holy Presence, and the certainty of the Holy Spirit’s fulfilling ministry in sons and daughters of faith.

It was B.B. McKinney who wrote the old hymn, “Have Faith In God.” “Have faith in God when your pathway is lonely, He sees and knows all the way you have trod; Never alone are the least of His children; Have faith in God, have faith in God.

Have faith in God when your prayers are unanswered, Your earnest plea He will never forget; Wait on the Lord, trust His Word and be patient; Have faith in God, He’ll answer yet.

Have faith in God in your pain and your sorrow, His heart is touched with your grief and despair; Cast all your cares and your burdens upon Him, and leave them there, oh, leave them there.

Have faith in God though all else fail about you; Have faith in God, He provides for His own; He cannot fail though all kingdoms perish, He rules, He reigns upon His throne.” AMEN?

By J. FARRELL FISHER, June 5-6, 2017

In 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 Paul challenges us, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal (fleshly or according to the old Adam-nature!). For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and BEHAVING LIKE MERE MEN?”

It was Fenelon who once said: “There is practically nothing that men do not prefer to God. A tiresome detail of business, an occupation utterly pernicious to health, the employment of time in ways one does not dare to mention. Anything rather than God.” A number of lessons I need to deal with in these moments:

1. MERE MEN WALK AND WANDER APART FROM GOD! In 2 Corinthians 5:11 Paul said, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…”. In fact, in Proverbs 1:7 the ‘wise man’ wrote: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” And the ‘persuasion of men’?

A. Though they’ve been ‘lost’ to God, “In Christ” they are found! B. Though they’ve been separated to God, “In Christ” they’re made one with God in and through Him! C. Though they were without Christ mortal only, “In Christ” they become immortal in Him! D. Though they were dominated by an old sin nature, “In Christ” they’ve become partakers of the divine nature!

Genesis 5:24 tells us, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for GOD TOOK HIM!” In 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 and Verses 17-21 we read: 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Verses 17-21, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” That, my friends, is a Glory to God Word!

2. MERE MEN THOUGH SUBSTITUTE THEIR BEST FOR GOD’S BEST! In Genesis 2:15-17 we read, Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord commanded the man, “of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

I love Jose Desalzo’s comment in his writing, “God’s Frontier” when he wrote: If God is lacking, nothing a man does is of more consequence than the acts of a mouse.” Your best as a ‘mouse’ or God’s best as a “man in Christ”?

In Galatians 2:20 Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Christ Jesus said in John 15:4-5, “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.”

3. MERE MEN WALK DIVISIVELY, NOT IN A UNIFYING MANNER! Again 1 Corinthians 3:3, “for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?”

In Psalm 133 we find a powerful, unifying theme! It says: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of (Mt.) Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; For the Lord commanded the blessing – Life forevermore.”

Do YOU love the ‘brotherhood’? I’ll never forget doing a meeting in southern India in Coimbatore years ago – I had insisted outreach to every church, every pastor or priest, every gathering regardless of denominational affiliation! After four or five days together, I saw men truly “love one another”!

4. MERE MEN WALK IN THE FLESH, NOT IN THE SPIRIT! In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, not thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

I love what the blind Helen Keller said before her death. “Never consent to creep when you feel the impulse to soar!” But again, Paul in Ephesians 5:17-21, said: “Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

5. MERE MEN WALK WITH FLESHLY AMBITIONS ONLY – NOT TO PLEASE GOD! In 2 Corinthians 5:4-9 we read: “For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God; who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.” But not unbelieving men consumed with fleshly ambitions! It was Pierre Duplessis who said: “Surely, if all the world was made for man, then man was made for more than the world.” Do YOU know what that is?

6. MERE MEN WALK WITH AN AFFIRMATION OF THEIR LIVES APART FROM GOD – THE MASTER’S MEN HAVE NO TRUST IN THEMSELVES! In 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Paul wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, Verse 10 who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”

Paul enlarged our understanding in 2 Corinthians 3:5 when he said, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.” Proverbs 3:5-8 is so essential in living a victorious, overcoming life. It says: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him (Giving God His rightful place as Sovereign Administrator over your life!) and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones.”

It was Thomas a Kempis who once wrote: “God never deceives; but a man is deceived whenever he puts too much trust in himself. MAN PROPOSES BUT GOD DISPOSES.” The prophet Hosea gave a call to repentance to the nation Israel, and, yes, to all across our world today: Hosea 10:12-13, “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. You have plowed wickedness; you have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, because you have trusted in your own way…”

7. MERE MEN WALK WITH BLINDED EYES – GOD’S MEN WALK WITH SPIRITUAL, HEAVENLY VISION! Again, Paul made it so clear by the anointed writing through the Holy Spirit! In 2 Corinthians 4:3-7 he said, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Men with blinded eyes? Epictetus, in his writing, “Fragments”, wrote: “Man is a little soul carrying around a corpse.”

8. MERE MEN WALK ON THE BASIS OF THEIR PERSONAL PERFORMANCE – GOD’S MEN WALK ABOUT STANDING ON THE PROMISES! In 2 Corinthians 7:1 we read, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

In Daniel 11:32 the prophet tells us, “Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.”

Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.239), “The promises of God are of no value to us until by obedience we understand the nature of God. We read some things in the Bible three hundred and sixty-five times and they mean nothing to us, then all of a sudden we see what God means, because in some particular we have obeyed God, and instantly His nature is opened up. “All the promises of God in Christ are Yes, and in Him Amen.” The “yes” must be born of obedience; when by the obedience of our lives we say “Amen” to a promise, then that promise is ours.”

9. MERE MEN WALK EARTHBOUND – GOD’S MEN LIVE IN THE HEAVENLIES! In Ephesians 2:4-10 we read, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Mere men earthbound or Holy Men of God living in the heavenly kingdom now? Mere men or Messengers of God? Mere men or Mighty Men of valor? Mere men or Ambassadors of Christ? Mere men or sons and daughters of God our Father? Mere men or ministers of reconciliation? Mere men or Witnesses of Saving Grace? Mere men or the Elect, the Chosen of God? Mere men or the Apples of God’s eyes? Mere men or God’s workmanship? Mere men or Partners with God? Mere men or Vessels of honor before Holy God?

Mere men or clay in the hands of the Potter sculpted in His Holy Image? Mere men or partakers of the divine nature? Mere men alone in emptiness or One in Him the fullness of Him who fills all in all?

10. MERE MEN WILL WALK RELIGIOUSLY – BUT NOT RE-BORN! In John 3, If Jesus says, “You must be born again,” does that mean “best effort” or “Amazing Grace”? It was Max Depree who wrote: “We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” And that means all of fallen mankind must accept the crucifixion of their “old man” with Christ at Calvary’s Cross, and the “new-birth” resurrection life in Christ!

Mere men or the new born? “In Christ” has profound, life-changing, eternal realities! Her Me! “I’m chosen of God to bear His Name! A royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own special person!

I’m the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, born again into the Holy Family of God. “in Christ” we’re sons and daughters of our heavenly family, our lives have been “hidden with Christ in God,” and He’s raised us up to be seated with Christ in Heavenly Places, declared to be ministers of reconciliation, ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ, entrusted with the Gospel and counted worthy to walk with Christ.

Jesus is the Bridegroom – we’re the Bride of Christ, witnesses of His Redeeming Grace, trustees of the mystery of godliness, and God says we’re “priests and kings unto Him”, the very fragrance of Christ, His peace-makers, His disciples, His soldiers of the Cross.

And “in Him” we’re more than conquerors, new creations, living sacrifices, epistles, poems of the grace, mercy, and love of God – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, disciples, “Followers of Christ”, servants of the King, bearing the image of the Heavenly Man, the called, the separated, the anointed, indwelt by the Fullness of God, Messengers, Proclaimers, Heralds of the Gospel,

The Glorious Body of Christ and members of that Holy Body in particular, Vessels through which God reveals His Son, the salt and light, the Symphony God sings about, the music of His heart, and over us He sings the sounds of joy and sweet pleasure!

There’s an old hymn by Charles Wesley and John Zundel published in”The American Hymnal” in 1933 by The Broadman Press in Nashville, Tennessee. It says: “Love divine, all love excelling, Joy of Heaven, to earth come down! Fix in us Your humble dwelling; All Your faithful mercies crown. Jesus, You are all compassion, Pure, unbounded love You are; Visit us with Your salvation; Enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe Your loving Spirit Into every troubled breast! Let us all in You inherit, Let us find that second rest. Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be; End of faith, as its beginning, Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver, Let us all Your life receive; Suddenly, return, and never, Nevermore Your temples leave; You we would be always blessing, Serve You as Your hosts above, Pray, and praise You without ceasing, Glory in Your perfect love.

Finish then Your new creation; Pure and spotless let us be; Let us see Your great salvation, Perfectly restored in You; Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before You, Lost in wonder, love, and praise.” AMEN?

Psalm 88:12, “Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?”

INTRODUCTION

This summer has been such an interesting, exciting, perplexing journey! I have no doubts at all that our Lord wanted me writing “Fatal Forgetfulness”! He put it on my heart and began to birth it day by day. I have to say to you that I was being challenged by our Lord to face up to challenges, crossroads, doubts, fears, possibilities, new horizons, even new sorrows, heartaches, deep, deep valleys and high, high mountains that had to be crossed.

For well over ten years I’ve had some physical problems that have really been a challenge but September 17, 2010 to October 21, 2010, I had to have four left shoulder replacements in five weeks because the new “reverse joint” just would not stay in place. It took a major toll body, soul, and spirit. Then February, 2011, my wife Sue had to have both knees replaced. March 3, 2011, I had to have right shoulder surgery because of a rotator-cuff tear. And as I entered this summer of 2012, I knew I had more physical problems with two bad knees and two bad hips.

And I began to ask, “Lord, have I forgotten You? Have I slipped physically because I have slipped spiritually?” Gracious God was so clear, so kind, so gentle: “No, son; it’s our opportunity together to challenge our friends, nationally and internationally, that I haven’t forgotten them and I don’t want them forgetting Me. I want you to write about “Fatal Forgetfulness”! Let’s walk through it together, My son, as I help you, heal you, and happily bestow upon you new wisdom and understanding. Write the book.”

It’s almost September 1, 2012 – and “Fatal Forgetfulness” has been completed! And one thing I know: “This man, Farrell Fisher, will not forget Him!” AMEN?

I will have both knees replaced September 24, 2012. After a healing period I will then have surgery on both hips, December 3, 2012. Keep Farrell Fisher in your prayers! At this point I have no direction for a new book, but I do know that through tough times He births amazing revelations and insights. Let’s pray together about the next book our Lord would have me write! Beyond that? How about a major heart attack in April, 2013, when they gave me an hour to live, but, praise God, my heart surgeon was in the hospital on a Saturday night at 8pm, and I was in surgery within 22 minutes! Successful to say the least – he told my wife, Sue, later that I ought to live to a hundred at least!

It’s for certain I do not possess an ounce of fatal forgetfulness about my God of divine healing grace and mercy. But, sadly, we must, for the sake of others, look to the matter of “Fatal Forgetfulness”!

I pray you find glorious reminders of “pressing in” to Christ alone in your walk of faith, or the lack of it. Know for sure, God knocks on your heart’s door regularly. Beyond that, He’s the Healer of your forgetfulness – just look at His Holy Word! It was written specifically for you and for me!

Our Lord loves you with an everlasting love, and has no desire to be separated from you eternally because you allow fatal forgetfulness to grow in its deathly power! “Lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge, bow before, repent, and rest in His finished work at the Cross of Calvary in your behalf!”

OUTLINE

CHAPTER ONE: WHY NATIONS FORGET GOD

CHAPTER TWO: WHEN MERCY IS MEANINGLESS – FATAL FORGETFULNESS

CHAPTER THREE: WHEN GRACE IS GODLESS – FUTILE FORGETFULNESS

CHAPTER: FORGOTTEN? GOD WITH US?

CHAPTER FIVE: FORGOTTEN? BODY LIFE – BODY MINISTRY?

CHAPTER SIX: FORGOTTEN? THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES?

CHAPTER SEVEN:FORGOTTEN? A PASTOR’S PRIZE AND PRIVILEGE OF PREACHING?

CHAPTER EIGHT: FORGOTTEN? FIG-LEAF RELIGION IS NOT A FAITH RELATIONSHIP?

CHAPTER NINE: FORGOTTEN? WE ALL HAVE AN ENEMY?

CHAPTER TEN: FORGOTTEN? CHILDREN OF FAITH ARE DISCIPLINED BY THE LORD?

CHAPTER ELEVEN: FORGOTTEN? MARRIAGE: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE AND BLESSING?

CHAPTER TWELVE: FORGOTTEN? CHILDREN A BLESSING – NOT A BURDEN?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: FORGOTTEN? GOD’S BLESSING OF VISIONS, VOICES, AND DREAMS?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: FORGOTTEN? HOLY FIRE OR SMOKY FEELINGS?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: FORGOTTEN? JOY COMES IN THE MORNING?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN? FORGOTTEN? PROFIT THAT BECOMES LOSS?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: FORGOTTEN? THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE OF PERSONAL WATCH-CARE?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: FORGOTTEN? THE SPIRITUAL ALERTNESS OF “TODAY”?

CHAPTER NINETEEN: FORGOTTEN? THE HOLY SPIRIT TO LIVE IN ME?

CHAPTER TWENTY: EVANGELISM: HEARTBEAT OF CHRISTIANS & CHURCHES?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: FORGOTTEN? ‘DEAF TO,’ ‘COLD TO’ THE WARMTH OF HIS WORD AND VOICE? [LISTENING TO THE REDEMPTIVE VOICES]

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: FORGOTTEN? THE CONSEQUENCES OF ‘SINKING SANDS’ OR THE BLESSING OF THE SOLID ROCK?

CHAPTER ONE

WHY NATIONS FORGET GOD

There is a stark, shocking verse in Psalm 9:17. It says: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” …In Psalm 50:22 God says: “Now consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” “Forgetting God?”

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of forgetfulness: “The quality of losing the remembrance or recollection of a thing; or rather, the quality of being apt to let anything slip from the mind…loss of remembrance or recollection; a ceasing to remember; oblivion…neglect, negligence; careless omission; inattention; as forgetfulness of duty.”

Do you remember Daniel confronting Belshazzar in Daniel 5:22-23? [NAS], “Yet you Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzer, have not humbled your heart even though you knew this, but you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see, hear, or understand. But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and your ways, you have not glorified.”

Did Daniel say of some, “There are those who have not, do not, will not GLORIFY GOD”? What did he say? “But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and your ways, you have not glorified.” But a Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “Now thanks be to God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ.” Is your walk of faith a testimony of ‘triumph in Christ’ or an unveiling of negligence toward Him, ‘careless omission, inattention; as forgetfulness of duty?’

Romans 1:18-32 are earth-shattering, heart-breaking verses about people and nations who forget God! [Please read before continuing!]

In Hosea 13:4-9 there are sad, prophetic words that ought to grip, convict, and convert every human soul: “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. O Israel, you are destroyed, but your help is from me.”

How easy for some to forget Proverbs 14:34!! “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Righteousness is ‘salt’ that preserves while ‘sin’ is poison that destroys. Righteousness is God’s divine preservative for nations while sin is self-inflicted destruction. Psalm 2:11-12 tells us: “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are those who put their trust in Him.”Do you understand “perishing in the way”? Let’s see if we can discern some of the ways “Why Nations Forget God”!

FIRST, NATIONS FORGET GOD BY OMITTING RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD. In Psalms 37:23 we read: “The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord.” God is to be in control of every man’s life, yes, his every step. The New American Standard translates it: “The steps of a man are established by the Lord; and He [God] delights in his way.”

I was reading in Marketplace Ministries magazine a statement by Jay Badry. He wrote: “Many people hold fast to the idea that ‘God can do anything,’ but I shrink from that for there is one thing God is incapable of doing: violating His own perfections and attributes. What this means to me is that in a constantly changing world, sinking ever deeper into the mire of depravity, the perfect God is both timeless and changeless. As a kite must be tethered to a fixed point for stability, so my soul, indeed all that I am must be tethered to Him at all times.” That’s a person, a people, and a nation!

If a nation, a life, a family, a business, a ministry, is not ‘tethered’ to God, there is no line, strong line, holding it up soaring in the air where God wants it to soar, but releasing itself from God’s control, it crashes!!

Do you understand that when a government omits responsibility to God it shuts the door on a nation ‘blessed by God’? If you’ve studied American History at all you know that Thomas Jefferson was one of our founding fathers. He is reported to have said: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that those liberties are the gift of God?”

WHEN GOVERNMENT IGNORES, DENIES, SEEKS TO REFUTE THE DIGNITY OF DIVINE INITIATIVE IN ESTABLISHING, YES, A ‘HOLY NATION,’ IT VIOLATES EVERYTHING God intended for the human society He created. When government assumes the Jehovah-Jireh spirit, it has stolen and betrayed the ministry only God can fulfill.

It was D.A. Carson in his book “For The Love Of God” who wrote: “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

A nation is not liberated if it omits, yes, legislatively that God has no place in our nation – “We’re Free”!! No, that nation that denies God’s right to rule is bound by the chains of darkness and the devil himself!

Is America today being ‘governed’ by “LIBERALS”? Are far too many churches being ‘governed’ by “LIBERALS”? Are far too many academic institutions today being ‘governed’ by “LIBERALS”?

Liberals foul the mind and fool the conscience. Liberals promote their ‘truth’ and crucify “The Truth.”

Liberals bow at the throne of its own deceptive governments and denounce the government of God. Liberals preach tolerance, interpreted by its own actions as intolerant, especially of God and men and women of saving faith.

Liberals spout freedom while subjecting its students to their bondage, spouting individual determination of one’s own destiny void of the true, lasting, eternal foundation of faith in the God who made them, lost them, and then bought them with the price of the shed blood of the Lamb of God.

Liberals bow before the idol of education leaving its devotees anchored to emptiness, impotence, and shallowness, while it celebrates its poverty and bankruptcy and avoids the true riches of grace.

Liberals and their liberalism, having become one of the largest religious systems in the world, builds its ‘foundations of faith’ on the doctrines of death, seen in the philosophy, ’you can make it without God,’ ‘Christians are kooks, the truly uneducated of our society,’ or, ‘the Bible is the fool’s book.’

Liberals major on mental imaginations of men who see themselves as men of superior intellects, when in reality they are the spiritual midgets and dwarfs void of REALITY. Liberalism masks itself in the assertions of “superior knowledge and intellect,” validated by their degrees, failing to see their unmasking because of their denial that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Liberalism promotes a Godless society, not understanding “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God!’” Liberalism is the cloud of “political correctness” that darkens the sky of constitutional and scriptural freedoms, constitutional intent and scriptural ideals, a nation built on the foundation of faith and submission and obedience and worship and devotion to the one True and Living God as revealed in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Liberalism is the noose around the neck of nations and peoples, strangling the very life of divine intent out of institutions, families, and individuals, captured by the deceptions of foolish men intent on enslaving the wills and minds of those under their diabolical influences.

Liberalism is the release of scriptural restraints upon a society unleashing the release of rebellion, ungodliness, “my way,” my thoughts, ‘god’ unto myself, releasing the supposed higher thoughts of men in total opposition to the holy truths of God.

Do you grasp what I’m speaking about? It’s that shallow grasp for a mystical, meaningless nothing; a deception of diabolical, evil, devilish proportions – no God, no truth, no sin, no wrong, no shame, a reckless abandonment of decency and honor for a moment of soul, sensual, sinful, satanic satisfaction that never satisfies.

For many, their better is better than God’s best, satisfied with the philosophy and religion of personal achievement; for many, educational achievement rules and reigns as supremacy over God’s best, intellectually superior to even the knowledge and wisdom of God Himself.

What did I say ‘FIRST’? “NATIONS FORGET GOD BY OMITTING RESPONSIBILTY TO GOD!” That’s not freedom ‘in Christ’ but freedom from responsibility in doing what God says. Didn’t Jesus say, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ – but you do not do what I say.”

Oh, I pray you don’t miss what’s going on across our nation today! They say, “We’re free!!”, and by that there are those who mean “Freedom of release of responsibility in relationships that includes not only God but free from the spiritual care of others! False freedom is the freedom to do your own thing without any consideration of the consequences to the covenant Body of Christ, yes, your local assembly!”

False freedom is the freedom to go your own way and do your own thing without one serious thought of leaving voids and vacuums in others! False freedom is the freedom to exercise self-initiative without any submission to Holy Spirit-direction and leadership!

False freedom is the freedom to believe the Gospel without the insight to walk it out where God places you! False freedom is the freedom to see your wisdom as valid that invalidates the wisdom of God for you.

False freedom is the freedom to believe one can preach the Gospel without the nature of Christ leading and to believe one can do that without imparting one’s own life as well. False freedom is to say you’re a friend without the “greater love” of laying down your life for your “friends”.

False freedom is to receive but not to give, the freedom to take and not to share, the freedom to be blessed and ignore the Blessers.

False freedom is to move in an apparent spirituality in order to steal and take from others who accept you blindly because of their loyalty to the Spirit of Christ in them.

False freedom is to abdicate the calling of ministry “helps” with no feeling of guilt or regrets. False freedom is to ignore ‘brotherhood’ because of a greater allegiance to “me-hood”!

False freedom is to reduce others to ‘less-ness’, unimportant to you because of one’s prideful ‘more-ness.’ False freedom is the phony freedom of virtuousness that is a vacuum as one victimizes the greater victors, yes, victimizing the true disciples of Christ with no regrets!

SECOND, NATIONS FORGET GOD AS THEY IGNORE, DENY, SUPPRESS THE MANDATES OF GOD! Deuteronomy 8 is one of God’s most powerful words for any nation anywhere. Please follow me in your own Bible with a marking pen in hand!!

Deuteronomy 8:2-3 says: “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”

I’m convinced without a doubt that God wants to put His own fingerprint, His own palm-print, His own signature on our lives! Look at verses 11-14!! “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 your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is 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…”

What is a ‘lifted-up heart’? That’s pride, that’s self-sufficiency, that’s pumped up flesh! Look at verses 17-19! 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.”

In Matthew 4:4 we read of Jesus saying the same thing we read in Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”….Do you remember what the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy? 2 Timothy 3:14-17, “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

I pray that you have not failed to grasp the authority, the power, the true freedom that comes for nations through the Word of God. Psalm 119 is so powerful, so liberating, so redemptive in its truth!! Are you ready? Come to Psalm 119!!

Psalm 119:9, 11…Verse 9, “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.” Verse 11, Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”

Psalm 119: 24-25, “Your testimonies also are my delight, and my counselors. My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to Your word.”

Psalm 119:37, “Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way.” Verse 18, “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.”

Psalm 119: 49, “Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope.” Verse 54, “Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.”

Psalm 119: 67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” Verse 72, “The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.”

Psalm 119: 89, “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.” Verse 92, “Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction.”

Psalm 119: 101, “I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word.” Verses 103-104, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.”

Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Verse 111, “Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.”

Psalm 119:130, “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Verse 133, “Direct my steps by Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me.”

Psalm 119:140, “Your word is very pure; therefore Your servant loves it.” Verse 160, “The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”

Psalm 119:162, “I rejoice at Your word as one who finds great treasure.” Verse 165, “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.”

Do you remember Jeremiah’s testimony in Jeremiah 15:16? He said, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”

This is why Peter wrote in I Peter 2:2, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow [up into your salvation.]”

What did Jesus tell us in Matthew 7:24-29? Listen carefully!! “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

Have you ignored, denied, suppressed the Living Word of God?

THIRD, NATIONS FORGET GOD BY THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CELEBRATION AND WORSHIP OF GOD. Come to John 4:7-26!

All around you there is FAMILY DISINTEGRATION but no celebration and worship of the one true and living God. All around you there is pulpit and church quietness but no celebration and worship of the one true and living God. All around you there is national moral decay but no celebration and worship of the one true and living God. All around you there is ‘false religion domination’ but no celebration and worship of the one true and living God!

Nations forget God by the suppression of the celebration and worship of God.

FOURTH AND LAST, NATIONS FORGET GOD BY FORGETTING INTENTIONALLY AND SEEKING TO OBLITERATE THE GREATEST SACRIFICE OF GOD HIMSELF – THE VERY SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD, JESUS, TO COVER A NATION’S SIN!! Obliterate? Listen to Noah Webster’s definition in his 1828 Dictionary: “To efface, to erase or blot out…to wear out, to destroy by time or means…to reduce to a very low or imperceptible state…to obliterate the monuments of antiquity…”

Well, what about obliterating the truth of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world? That’s Revelation 13:8!! “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.” Before nations existed God knew what fallen nations would do and He decided before the world came into existence that the Son would be the Savior as the Lamb of God slain on the Cross!

Come to Revelation 19:5-10, “Then a voice came from the throne, saying, ‘Praise our God, all you His servants and those who fear Him, both small and great!” And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! 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.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write” ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!!” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

In your history studies did you ever come across the French Statesman Alexis Compte de Tocqueville? In early American history Tocqueville said: “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her rivers, lands, and prairies, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.”

GOD, HELP US! GOD, SAVE OUR NATION! GOD, LIGHT THE FLAME AGAIN OF CELEBRATION AND WORSHIP OF THE ONE TRUE AND LIVING GOD! GOD, HELP US AGAIN BE A NATION OF DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS!”

H. Ernest Nichol wrote this old, old hymn that ought to be resurrected: “We’ve a story to tell to the nations, That shall turn their hearts to the right, A story of truth and mercy, A story of peace and light…

For the darkness shall turn to the dawning, and the dawning to noonday bright; And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth, The kingdom of love and light.

We’ve a song to be sung to the nations, That shall lift their hearts to the Lord, A song that shall conquer evil and shatter the spear and sword.

We’ve a message to give to the nations, That the Lord who reigns up above, Has sent His Son to save us, And show us that God is live.

We’ve a Savior to show to the nations, Who the path of sorrow has trod, That all of the world’s great peoples, Might come to the truth of God.

For the darkness shall turn to the dawning, And the dawning to noonday bright; And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth, The kingdom of love and light.”

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN MERCY IS MEANINGLESS – FATAL FORGETFULNESS

I don’t know how you respond when you read a verse like Isaiah 27:11, but it does tell us our Lord is speaking of people who have “no understanding.” It then says, “Therefore He who made them WILL NOT HAVE MERCY ON THEM, and He who formed them will show them no favor.”

I love what Peter wrote about “mercy” as a heavenly inheritance when in I Peter 1:3 he said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” What did Peter call God’s mercy? ABUNDANT MERCY! But there are those upon whom He will have no mercy!

Why is that? It’s ‘fatal forgetfulness’ – mercy is not a ministry of God, an event of epoch proportions, they are interested in. Oh, they may at least on the surface be aware of the mercy of God, but it’s not a road they need to walk down – about like Solomon who said in I Kings 3:6, “You [God] have shown great mercy [Underline that! At least Solomon knew God’s mercy was great!] to Your servant David my father, because He walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.”

Solomon was saying what? “God, You’ve shown great mercy to my dad, and you were merciful giving me his throne, but as for me mercy is meaningless – merit is my ambition and I’ll earn whatever I set my mind to!” Does Solomon reflect at all on modern man today who find mercy meaningless to their existence? Look with me at Psalm 103:17-18,

“But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them.” The mercy of God is for WHO? Those who “fear Him,” to those who understand blood covenant relationship and keep it, to those who sense His commandments are to be kept! [Why do some miss ‘mercy’? “That’s salvation by works”!!]

But, sadly, many are blinded to the misery of fallen sin natures and sense no need to cry out to God for “mercy”! You’ll remember Jesus making that visit to His hometown in Mark 6:5-6 that says: “Now HE could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief…” Does that explain “mercy” as “meaningless” to some people?

Have you forgotten the Galatian dilemma? It explains tons of understanding about “when mercy is meaningless”! In Galatians 3:3 Paul asked: “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

And do you understand that meaningless mercy is not only for heathens or pagans or the self-assured – it’s for deceived masses in the borders of Christendom who substitute repentance for the rigors of personal disciplines and pats on the back of their self-sufficiency!

But…it’s not what YOU achieve but what you receive as a gift from God! It’s not what YOU earn but what you receive by His grace. It’s not a portrait you paint of yourself but the precious privileges God grants to you! It’s not “trying harder” – it’s trusting God more and more.

Deaf ears, blinded eyes, clouded senses to the nearness of God in a man’s life assign him to a meaningless existence weighed against the eternal purpose of God for one’s life. But put that up next to the story of Joseph! In Genesis 41:50-51 Joseph named his firstborn Manesseh and said: “It is because God has made me FORGET all my troubles and all my father’s household.”

But some men manufacture forgetfulness of God, establishing in their minds and hearts that “mercy is meaningless”, but God mercifully blots out our troubles, blessing us with the forgetfulness of man-made miseries and builds in us Heaven’s blessings!!

Men manufacture forgetfulness of God like a Pharoah who says in his mind and heart: Exodus 5:2, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” Men easily obliterate the memory of God because they’re bound to the god of self-rule, self-adulation, self-importance, and are comfortable in their state of godlessness and their paralysis of self-analysis!!

But God remains the same! Acts 17:24-31 says: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

In fact, in Matthew 5:45 Jesus said of Father-God: “…for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous…”

Listen to A.W. Pink in his “The Attributes of God – The Mercy of God”: “…let us note how vain is the presumptuous hope of the wicked, who, notwithstanding their continued defiance of God, nevertheless count upon His being merciful to them. How many there are who say, ‘I do not believe that God will ever cast me into Hell; He is too merciful.’ Such a hope is a viper, which if cherished in their bosoms will sting them to death. God is a God of justice as well as mercy, and He has expressly declared that He will “by no means clear the guilty,” [Exodus 34:7]. Yes, He has said, “The wicked shall be turned into Hell, all the nations that forget God.”

The willful pride of blindness to God’s mercy, the fleshly forgetfulness of God’s graciousness and kindness, the soulish settling on “me, my, or mine”, deludes one into darkened, defeated, devilish, disillusioned misery with eyes, ears, minds, and hearts off of mercy, God’s mercy, into a state of despair, in which one is comfortable because he’s in control!

There are those who even unashamedly seek to defame, deny, disgrace, and seek to delude the ‘infinite efficacy of the Savior’s atoning death.’ IT WASN’T FOR THEM JESUS SUFFERED, BLED, AND DIED ON THE CROSS! Yet II Corinthians 5:15 clearly tells us: “and He [Jesus] DIED FOR ALL, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”

I was reading Spurgeon recently when he told of a man who decided to keep a ‘tame’ leopard in his home. The man had nursed it from a cub and allowed free roam in the house. The man was sleeping soundly one day when the growing cub licked his hand and it licked a cut where the blood was still seeping…and all the jungle instincts kicked in and the beast began to feed…awakened, the man knew he was in trouble – a life or death situation was before him and he knew it was his life or the leopard’s life.

There was a loaded pistol beside the couch and without hesitation he aimed it at the hungry leopard and killed it!….Whether you believe it or not the leopard of sin, rebellion, disobedience, unbelief, is out to drain your blood – give up your precious leopard of lust, livid sin, furious fleshly instincts – leave them at the Cross where Jesus willingly and gladly took them and yourself upon Himself and willingly laid down His Life for you!! Jesus killed your leopard sin-nature!

I know it’s so hard for prideful men and women to admit the bankruptcy of their births; it is so hard for some and so easy for others to acknowledge high treason against Holy God. In fallen man there are no glamorous genes or heavenly glories or personal worthiness that merits the favor of God!

There’s an amazing confession of King David in 2 Samuel 7:18-22! Hear it:

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord; and he said: ‘Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that You have brought me this far? And yet this was a small thing in Your sight, O Lord God; and You have also spoken of Your servant’s house for a great while to come. Is this the manner of man, O Lord God? Now what more can David say to You? For You, Lord God, know Your servant. For Your word’s sake, and according to Your own heart, You have done all these things, to make Your servant know them. Therefore, You are great, O Lord God. For there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” I ask you: ARE YOU LISTENING TO GOD?

And before you came to faith in Christ, I’m sure you wondered like David: “Who am I, O Lord God, that You’ve shown me YOUR MERCY?” Without faith in God, mercy is meaningless to many. Without Holy Spirit conviction, mercy is a futile term. Without the historic crucifixion of Christ, mercy is an insignificant, unimportant eternal truth.

But for those who know “the narrow way that leads to life,” they understand deliverance from the pit of destruction; they are aware of God’s lifting them up out of the miry clay of sin and deceitfulness; they clearly grasp freedom from a prison of sin, selfishness, and self-importance apart from God; they rejoice that God’s mercy is His eternal heavenly light, leading them out of the darkness of Egyptian bondage of sin, separation from His “Holy Land,” and the silence of the lightning bolts of eternal revelation and purpose. They know God has shown them HIS MERCY!

But still, for me, there rages an ever-building question, repeated often: “Why, for some, is mercy so meaningless? Why does intentional forgetfulness of God’s mercy dominate so many lives?” WHY?

FIRST, BECAUSE SOME WILL ACCEPT MERCY IF THERE’S NO CALL UPON THEIR LIVES TO WALK MERCIFULLY WITH OTHERS! In Micah 6:8 there is an illuminating verse that reveals why some miss God’s mercy. It says: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

How does one ‘do justice’ when he/she could care less about others? How does one ‘love mercy’ when he/she is so merciless toward others? How does one ‘walk humbly with God’ when they’re so proud and so self-sufficient, void of the need of God to be God in and over their lives?

Come to Matthew 18:23-35 which is such an eye-opening, heart-convicting story that calls for examination of ourselves, yes, testing ourselves to see if we’re truly of the Faith and the faithful: “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. [Before inflation that was about $18 million dollars!!].But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had,, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave the debt. But [THEN] that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; [about $18] and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt [$18 million!!] because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry; and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

What does Luke 1:50 tell us? “And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.” It’s why in 2 Corinthians 5:11 Paul wrote: “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men…” Proverbs 1:7 tells us: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…”

Come to Proverbs 14:26-27. “In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death.” Beside this passage I wrote in my Bible the following statement – I don’t remember if I wrote it or it was a quote, but the sentence says: “Even what one likes, that is not necessarily evil, can become an entrapment of death, like cheese in a mouse-trap.”

Here is Jesus’ amazing challenge to those who believe or border on mercy being meaningless for them and hold no fear of God – Matthew 11:25-28 – At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

SECOND, FOR SOME MERCY IS MEANINGLESS BECAUSE THEY DENY SIN, CONCEAL SIN, EXCUSE SIN, OR ACCEPTING THEIR SINFUL STATE BEFORE HOLY GOD AS NORMAL OR NATURAL! But look at Proverbs 28:13!! “He who conceals his sins [transgressions, wrongs, violations of God’s laws] does not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes and renounces his sin finds mercy.”

Do you remember John’s word in I John 1:7? “But if we walk in the light as He [Jesus] is in the light…the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” I love what Oswald Chambers said about the truly conscious awareness of sin in a person: “The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me.”

Concealment is a covering and convincing of one’s self that sin may be a problem for others but not for the deceived mind. And because of that there are God-sent, God-mandated, even God-initiated consequences in one’s life – like an empty prosperity that never satisfies, like a barking, biting dog in the inner man that never quits or quiets down, like a rich man who loses all his monies because the bank within him is bankrupt, like a criminal who believes he’ll never be caught but lives every moment expecting arrest and final judgment!

I love the call of God on our lives as true believers as expressed by Paul in Galatians 6:1-2 [NIV], “Brothers, if a man is trapped in some sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself; you may also be tempted…Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ.”

Listen to John Piper in his book, “A Godward Life,” [p.77], “Don’t be muzzled by the comment that you can’t force your religion or morality on others. You are not forcing it; you are commending it for serious consideration. Declaring and persuading are not forcing. Commending is not coercion. The fact is this: Everybody’s idea about what should be done is guided by some kind of prior commitment. Secularists as well as Christians have a world-view that governs their opinions. Every policy suggestion is rooted in view of how things should be.”

Exposing sin is merciful. Exposing sin is an act of grace. Challenging sinners with the claims of Christ builds foundations of possible super-structures in the new lives He can birth and bless!

THIRD, FOR SOME MERCY IS MEANINGLESS BECAUSE THEY’VE NEVER BEEN CONFRONTED WITH GOD’S CLAIMS OF JUDGMENT. I want you to come to Nahum 1:2-8. “God is jealous, and the Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies; The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts. The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt, and the earth heaves at His presence, Yes, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him. But with an overflowing flood He will make an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue His enemies.”

Two things that are easily discernible here: 1) God is ‘slow to anger,’ and 2) God “will not at all acquit the wicked.”

In Spurgeon’s Sermons, his “Memorial Library,” the great English preacher preached on the verses we just read. Hear Spurgeon: “God ‘will not acquit the wicked.’ Let me unfold this, first of all; and then let me, after that, endeavor to trace it also to its source: God ‘will not acquit the wicked.’ How do I prove this? I prove it by this. Never once has God pardoned our unpunished sin; not in all the years of the Most High, not in all the days of His right hand, has He once blotted out sin without punishment. What say you, were not those in heaven pardoned? Are there not many transgressors pardoned, and do they not escape without punishment? Has He not said, ‘I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and like a thick cloud your iniquities?’ Yes, true, most true, and yet my assertion is true also – not one of all those sins that have been pardoned were pardoned without punishment! Do you ask me why and how such a thing as that can be the truth? I point you to a dreadful sight on Calvary; the punishment which fell not on the forgiven sinner fell there. The cloud of justice was charged with fiery hell; the sinner deserved it; it fell on him; but, for all that, it fell, and spent its fury; it fell there, in that great reservoir of misery; it fell into the Savior’s heart…It is Jesus suffering all the plagues of sin. Sin is still punished, though the sinner is delivered.”

It was Orin Philip Gifford who said: “You may juggle human laws, you may fool with human courts, but there is a judgment to come, and from it there is no appeal.” I pray you find God’s court of mercy, because in His court of judgment, Daniel 5:27 says: “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting.”

I want you to be confronted with God’s claim of judgment. In Jeremiah 5:3 Jeremiah asked the Lord, “O Lord, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.”

Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 6:10, “To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.”

Do you see it? Do you hear it? Do you sense it right now for yourself? GOD DESIRES TO GIVE YOU “THE SURE MERCIES OF DAVID.” [Acts 13:34]. SURE MERCIES ARE REDEMPTIVE – God bought you out of slavery to sin that you might be servants of Christ.

SURE MERCIES ARE REGENERATIVE – God takes you out of spiritual death unto His ETERNAL LIFE.

SURE MERCIES ARE REFLECTIVE – we see no longer a man in his bondage and brokenness – we see Christ in His fullness.

SURE MERCIES ARE RESPONSIVE – in Jeremiah 29:11 God says: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Hear me! Jeremiah 31:3 says: “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”

And I say to you: Sense His tug, surrender to His Sovereignty, and side with our Savior and Lord!!

You may have denied it – but today is the day to side with Sovereign Mercy! It was Edwin Hubbell Chapin who wrote: “Mercy among the virtues is like the moon among the stars – not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. It is the bow that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm is past. It is the light that hovers above the judgment seat.”

This is why David came to say in Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

In the old Broadman Hymnal there is a song simply entitled “Calvary”. It says: “On Calvary’s brow my Savior died, It was there my Lord was crucified; it was on the cross He bled for me, and purchased there my pardon free…

‘Mid rending rocks and darkening skies My Savior bows His head and dies; The opening veil reveals the way To heaven’s joys and endless day…

O Jesus, Lord, how can it be That You should give Your life for me, To bear the cross and agony In that dread hour on Calvary!

O Calvary! Dark Calvary! Where Jesus shed His blood for me; O Calvary! Blest Calvary! It was there my Savior died for me!”

Do you grasp it when to you mercy has been meaningless? If you were the only person to have ever lived – past, present, future – what Jesus did 2000 years ago At Calvary, He did it just for you!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the never-ending care of God for each of us!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the measure of God’s forgiving, never-ending love!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the reality of God’s remedy of a godless life!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the explanation of God’s possession of the land of our souls and spirits!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is not man trying harder but hearing Christ say: “It is finished” as He died on Calvary’s cross!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the voice of God saying to a praying man: “Your prayer has been heard” [Luke 1:13].

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the stepping stone into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the open door into Holy Presence!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is God’s remedy for a man paralyzed by his past!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the healing grace of spiritual amnesia, fleshly blindness, and a darkened heart!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the divine healing of a hurtful, harmful, hideous past!

In closing this teaching, please come to Luke 18:9-14, And He []Jesus] spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN GRACE BECOMES GODLESS – FUTILE FORGETFULNESS

In your church life, in your own devotional life, in small group studies, have you ever found yourself shocked by those who interpret ‘grit’ as saving grace, or you hear those who grind on grace because their emphasis and allegiance is on self-motivation and they’d just as soon spit on biblical grace? At 77 years of age now, I am shocked by the subtle erosion of divine grace with more emphasis on human effort and human ability to be ‘god-like’.

I sense a cumulative effect of spiritual thievery among those who major on ‘the power of positive thinking’ concerning human initiative, genius genes, fleshly ability and energy that God could use if He’d only concede their superior ranks among lesser men and women, like those ‘grace-gifted disciples’.

John Eldredge in his book “Waking The Dead,” [p.13], made a very powerful statement. He said, “The world in which we live is a combat zone, a violent clash of kingdoms, a bitter struggle unto the death.”

That’s why there are those who look upon “Amazing Grace” as ‘alarming grace’ – for them, that’s too much emphasis on God and not enough on human potential! And what we see, hear, sense, and even taste at times is the souring essence on grace and the soaring of the glory of that human potential apart from God Himself.

Wasn’t it C.S. Lewis in his “The Weight of Glory” who talked about “the evil enchantment of worldliness”? And there’s a reason for that: Intellectual attainments in one’s mind of ‘their’ understanding of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness often become nothing more than crippling, cancerous, corrupt ideas void of God and saving grace.

Effort, apart from scriptural grace, becomes the creation of despair – not deliverance and divine healing. Oh, I know there are those who effect changes in their outward behavior and even mental stability but that is not the spiritual circumcision of the heart by the grace of God through the shed blood of the Lamb of God!

Reaching up, reaching high, is not the same thing as being raised from the dead by God’s power and His redeeming grace! Sinful natures are not to be cloaked or covered but by grace are to be crucified with Christ.

You’ve heard it, yes, in some churches where men are devoted to what they’ve paid for and built. “I’m a man so devoted to the bricks and mortar, the lights and stained glass, of our beautiful church building,” failing to understand by God’s grace, their bodies are His holy temple by His grace, mercy, and love.

In Zechariah 9:16-17 we read: “The Lord their God will save them in that day, as the flock of His people. For they shall be like the jewels of a crown, lifted like a banner over His land – for how great is its goodness and how great its beauty!’

But what we see across a lot of the ‘church-world’ today are ‘band-aids’ rather than heart transplants by the Great Surgeon of grace. In Jeremiah 6:14 we read: “They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace.”

Many grace-less souls today are nothing more than puppets of the powers of darkness, mouthpieces of a satanically controlled army of God’s enemy – even the devil himself. It’s why Eldredge said: [“Waking The Dead”,p.161], “they are not glaring opponents [of grace]; they are “IMPOSTERS”. But God does not stand idly by, unconcerned about ‘graceless individuals.’ He gives us a promise through Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 49:24-26! Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of the righteous be delivered? But thus says the Lord: “Even the captives of the mighty army shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible be delivered; for I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children. I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All flesh shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Putting it simply, understandably, importantly – those who manufacture spiritual ‘grease’ rather than stand on God’s grace are anarchists who devise a substitution for the Blood Atonement! Cornelius Platinga Jr. in his book “Beyond Doubt,” made a strong statement: [p.199], “Grace is not God’s applause for the comfortable. Grace is God’s long reach for sinners who are far away.” But the “grace-less” are defined by John in I John 1:8 when he said: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” That’s how law-breakers become anarchists and atheists bordering on criminality!

Paul assuredly knew “saving grace” when to Timothy he wrote: [I Timothy 1:15], “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” That’s not ‘godless grace’ but the God of all grace doing a work in a ‘lost man’s heart’! This is why George MacDonald said: “And then my soul, awaking with the morn Shall be a waking joy, eternally new-born.”

The ‘faith-less’ who are ‘grace-less’ are men and women of famished minds and famished hearts who’ve never fed on scriptural grace. In Ephesians 2:7-8 Paul wrote: “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.”

But some do not do well nor pay attention but build their home and heart-camps in darkness! In 2 Peter 1:16-19 Peter shared a vital word, no doubt having been accused of following ‘baseless fables’. He wrote: “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He 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 that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts..”

You’ve heard the saying, “None are so blind as those who will not see.” In Luke 18:35-43 is the story of Jesus coming near Jericho where a blind man was seated by the road begging. He heard the multitude and asked what the noise was all about. They told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The crowd tried to silence him but he cried out more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Then Jesus said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And the blind man said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” Listen to Jesus’ response! Verse 42, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” Then verse 43 says: And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.”

Are you aware that living apart from grace is like a blind-man comfortable in his blindness? Living apart from grace is a godless existence that was not God’s intention in Creation. When Jesus says, “Come to Me and I will give you rest,” those words fall on deaf ears to spiritual truth because there is no spiritual thirst and hunger for life beyond one’s self!

Grace is denied in many lives, even cultures, religions, and governments, because, as C.S. Lewis wrote: “mere decency passes for heroic virtue and utter corruption for pardonable imperfection.”

Grace is denied in many lives because grace in the heart of God calls for sacrifice, laying down one’s life in behalf of others, even dying so that others might live – the grace of God in God Himself was so great He gladly yet sorrowfully gave His Son as the sacrifice on the Cross – and to follow ‘grace’ means: “Deny yourself; take up your cross, and follow Jesus!”

Grace is denied because if God forgives my debt, then I must enter a living relationship with Him of forgiving others who violate me!

Grace is denied because the biblical mandate of I Timothy 4:7 is “exercise yourself toward godliness,” – and if I’m surrounded, indoctrinated, influenced, poisoned by a godless world, how would I ever fit in with grace and mercy and love?

Grace is denied because as Jesus was confronted with the question [Matthew 22:36], “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” And Jesus answered, verse 37, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

That’s surrender which many are not willing to do! That’s giving which many refuse to do! That’s obedience which many totally reject! That’s Godly-longing and Godly-pursuit of that which gives Him glory alone which the masses see no importance for! That’s taking fallen man’s hits, accusations, even libels, as honors unto Jesus which grace-less men refuse because of that pride and self-importance!

Grace becomes godless for some because the call to be “steadfast, immovable, abounding in the work of Jesus Christ” is more than they are willing to be or do! Do you remember when Jesus was at Bethany and the woman came with that jar of costly ointment and poured it on Jesus’ head? The people around her and Jesus scolded her, but Jesus said, “Let her alone…she has performed a good service for me…she has done what she could…!” [Mark 14:3-8]. Graceless lives are unwilling to be shaped in the nature and character of Christ or even this caring saint who loved Jesus!

Grace is denied when one realizes God’s call to “proclaim the praises of Him who calls you out of darkness into His marvelous light,” [I Peter 2:9], and the silent settle for Christ-less living “if I have to be vocal about Jesus!”

Grace is denied by some when they misunderstand and fail to realize God’s call to be “saints” – [Romans 1:7] – You’ve heard it: “I’m no saint” – but if you are ‘in Christ’, you are “set apart” [that’s a saint!!], set apart to the honor, glory, praise, and blessing of the Christ in you, God’s hope of glory for you!

Cornelius Platinga Jr. so ably and powerfully describes “the saints” like this: [“Beyond Doubt,” p.270], “The body of Christ, the temple of God, the bride of Christ, the people of God – these wonderful phrases tells that the church is all about belonging. Even the word “church” reflects this fact. The English word “church” (like the German ‘KIRCHE’) is derived from a Greek word that means “belonging to the Lord.” The church belongs to the Lord of the church…What follows from this? A great deal. The institutional church is not our club rigged up to suit ourselves and to meet our religious needs. The church is rather a living instrument of Jesus Christ, equipped to do His work in the world. It is set up to serve not only ourselves but also those outside our gathering. We do not form ourselves into a church by our voluntary cooperation. We are rather “called” as a people to praise God, to serve His children, and to give ourselves for others in the same way as Christ sacrificed Himself for us. In other words, the Christian church is an agent, witness, and model of the gospel itself…A church turned in on itself is like people who shut themselves in a closet and try to live by breathing their own carbon dioxide.”

Acts 2:42,44 tells us: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. All who believed were together…” But “grace” is denied because some don’t need, will not, and refuse to have a relationship with God’s people.

Grace is denied because there are those who assume church attendance, even membership is OK, but you’ve spoiled their “show” if you reveal Christ’s calling of men to be His disciples.

Grace is denied and becomes godless when some realize God’s plan for their lives to be the very base of operation for the Kingdom of God, experiencing His Life, expressing His love, proving His power, as we extend that Kingdom around us – and the grace-less say: “Not through me!”

It’s why grace is godless for some because of an unwillingness to “take My yoke upon you” – fearful of being yoked with Christ in the yoke of His calling! They don’t understand or comprehend that to be yoked with Christ is life on Heaven’s plain, not life under a dictator but life through a Liberator!

Grace is denied because false images have been formed that say “Christians are poverty-stricken, the intellectualy bankrupt society, the moral misfits, hostile individuals who want us imprisoned to their cold, cruel, callous life-styles” – when the truth is Christians are united as one in Christ ‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” according to Colossians 2:3.

Grace is godless when one is convinced “if I can’t earn my own way, I want no part of Kingdom living.” It’s godless when one is willing to profess allegiance but without the call to obedience even though Jesus said: “Why do you call Me ‘Lord! Lord!’ but you do not do what I say.”

Grace is denied when some want allegiance to His prominence but not allegiance to His preeminence. Grace is denied and is godless when some gather around ‘fleshly allegiance’ to a prominent pastor but deny gathering around those living in and through the power of His resurrected Life and Holy Spirit presence!

Grace is denied when social conformity to a certain Christian group is accepted but spiritual second-birth, singular submission to Christ’s Lordship is called for – spiritual transformation, spiritual formation, those are unacceptable terms!!

Grace becomes godless when some hear that following Jesus means radical devotion to His Word, His Spirit, His Vision, His intent, His mandates – oh, they’ll accept religious activity and especially what they will define as allowable and acceptable on their terms, but Jesus said in John 14:15-17, “:If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”

Grace becomes godless to some because when Paul says in Galatians 5:24, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” they say, “My passions and desires are who I am,” and they surrender themselves to their chains, their bondages, to the prison-cell of self because that’s WHO they love! But Jesus gives ‘grace-folks’ a promise: John 12:26, “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.”

Grace becomes godless because grace calls for unconditional surrender to Christ’s Lordship – and if He is to be Lord of all or not Lord at all, for them they choose ‘boss’ of their own defiled minds and hearts. Look with me at Isaiah 1:2-9!! “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: ‘I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me; the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider.’ Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward. Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your land in your presence; and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.”

But there is a more encouraging word! Come to Psalm 16:8-9! “I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope.” Which of these last two sections of scripture do you choose for you and your family?

I want you to hear words spoken by Thomas Watson in “All Things For Good,” spoken about the year of 1663! [Reprint, Banner of Truth Trust, 1986, p.74]. Thomas Watson said: “The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of God. ‘When I awake, I am still with You.” [Psalm 139:18]. The thoughts are as travelers in the mind. David’s thoughts kept heaven-road. “I am still with You.” God is the treasure, and where the treasure is, there is the heart. By this we may test our love to God. What are our thoughts most upon? Can we say we are ravished with delight when we think on God? Have our thoughts got wings? Are they fled aloft? Do we contemplate Christ and glory?…A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts. He never thinks of God, unless with horror, as the prisoner thinks of the judge.”

Grace is not a ‘fairy-tale’ but faith-truth! Grace is not even a mystery but a miracle of everlasting love! Grace is not fortune-telling but assurance of Christ-likeness!

It was H. Richard Niebuhr who said: “The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.”

I know and believe that you realize how easy it is even for some Christians all over the world to put a dark veil over the grace of God at times, but it’s time we unveil His expressive grace, His embracing grace, His extravagant grace, His extending grace, His empowering grace, His enlightening grace, and His ‘earth-quake-ness’ of grace! Hear the Word!!:

Ephesians 2:8-9, “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.”

Romans 3:24, “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 5:1-2, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have received access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have abundance for every good work.”

2 Corinthians 12:9, “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Galatians 1:15-16, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me…”

Ephesians 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace..”

Titus 2:11-14, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed, and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”

Titus 3:7, “that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

I Peter 1:13-15, “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation [or the unveiling of Christ in His fullness!!]; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct…”

II Peter 3:17-18 “You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.”

I love what the great Methodist preacher said about grace, Dr. Charles L. Allen: “In the Bible there are three distinctive meanings of grace: it means the mercy and active love of God; it means the winsome attractiveness of God; it means the strength of God to overcome.”

Charles Wesley in “Refuge” wrote: “Plenteous grace with You is found, Grace to cover all my sin; Let the healing streams abound; make and keep me pure within.”

Grace for the godless is just as rich and full and free as grace for the God-filled who walk in the fullness of Christ!

CHAPTER FOUR

FORGOTTEN? GOD WITH US?

Isn’t it amazing to you that as you read Genesis 3 and find in verse 8 that Adam and Eve “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God”, newly created by Holy God but they want to hide from Him? But the sad truth is that there are many across the world of fallen mankind who never think about hiding from God because they don’t sense God is near or even if there is a God – and for sure, for some, there are those who have no desire for God to be with them. “God With Us?” “That’s a fairy tale, foolish talk, feeble-minded belief!”

Jeremiah, the prophet, heard God speak and recorded it! In Jeremiah 23:23-24 God said: “Am I a God near at hand,” says the Lord, “and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?” says the Lord; “do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord.” And God speaks of His omnipresence!

In Genesis 11, as fallen mankind began to “make a name for ourselves,” they began to construct a “tower whose top is in the heavens.” They were intent on the reign, rule, regulation of their own lives with the high tower of “self-rule” that became known as the Tower of Babel – the word “babel” means ‘confusion,’ which is always true of those who don’t believe in God, don’t believe God is near, and certainly will not assert, stand on, or proclaim that “God is with us!”

Oh, there are those like Jonah who know God is real, know God has a purpose for each life, but Jonah ran from God’s direction as men today run from divine destiny! Jonah 1:3 is clear – “But Jonah arose to flee Tarshish from the presence of the Lord!” He was running from God’s call on his life as many still do today. [We’ll look at Jonah together a little later!].

We’re going to look at King David more fully later, just as we will Jonah, but I want you to know early on in this chapter even David, at a certain point in his life, wasn’t sure HE wanted God around! In Psalm 139:7-12 we read a part of David’s journey of faith on momentary faithlessness! He said: “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall fall on me,’ even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to you.”

In the four gospels are we aware of the Crucifixion of Christ? Does it embarrass you that even Jesus, on the Cross, cried out: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” That’s Matthew 27:46! But that ought to give you comfort that even Jesus, in a fragment of a moment, wondered about “God With Me?”

There are dark clouds in all human circumstances at times and the “Son-Light” may be hidden for a time, but God Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you!”

Some who question “God With Us” have witnessed family, friends, faith-folk, in even, yes, horrendous circumstances, horrible pain, heavy, heavy burdens, and they can’t see His light, they don’t know His promises, and witnessing the hard times in those they know, love, and care about, their tears, their sorrow, their anger, their doubts, their fears, block the holy hand of God with healing grace reaching around those He loves more than they love themselves!

Others who doubt “God With Us” are handicapped when they view the Christian faith as ‘pie in the sky by and by,’ ‘a rosy world with no thorns,’ ‘marriages with no heartaches,’ ‘children with no calamities, deformities, or failures,’ ‘people with no pain, no suffering, no sorrows,’ ‘people with peace, people with the absence of disease, people with no sudden disagreements, disappointments, distresses – perfect people in a perfect world!’ I don’t think so!

You’ve heard it: “God with us?” Where was He when the Holocaust happened with six million Jews killed? Where was God when the towers were destroyed in New York and thousands killed? God with us? War after war after war after war! God with us? Broken marriages, broken hearts, broken children! God with us? The fires burn and burn and burn – they destroy home after home! God with us? Millions and millions imprisoned worldwide. God with us? Sickness, disease, death!

If you’ve read my books, you know I love the writings of John Piper! On-line on my computer I came across one of his messages entitled “The Supremacy of Christ in an Age of Terror – Desiring God.” Piper wrote: “So even in our own experience – in our own souls – believers or unbelievers, there is a kind of witness that the world of evil and pain and misery and death is not a meaningless place. It is not a place without a good and purposeful God. Some people – not all –have found in the greatest evil – the time of greatest sorrow – the greatest need for God and the greatest evidence of God…It happens like this. A great evil happens – say the holocaust with 6,000,000 murders. Or the Stalinist Soviet gulag with many more than that sent to their deaths. In the midst of these horrors, the human soul, that had been blithely pursuing its worldly pleasures with scarcely a thought about God and with no serious belief in any absolutes like evil and good, or right or wrong – happily living in a dream-world of relativism – suddenly is confronted an evil so horrible and so great as to make the soul scream out with ultimate moral indignation: No! This is wrong! This is evil! And for the first time in their life they hear themselves speaking with absolute conviction. They have a conviction of absolute reality. They know now beyond the shadow of a doubt that such a thing as evil exists. They admit that all their life up till then was a game. And now they are confronted with the stark question: If there is such a thing as evil – if there is a moral reality that is above and different from the mere physical processes of evolutionary energy plus matter – then where does it come from, and what is it based on?….”

And what does Romans 5:8 tell us? “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

You’ve heard people say, “If God is truly real, why doesn’t He reveal Himself?” “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” What did your friend say, what did your parent say, what did your professor say? “If God is with us, why doesn’t He speak to us?” “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

How many have you met on your path of life who’ve convinced themselves we’re here by chance – not by God’s choice of Sovereign will?” How many have sought to influence you into believing our world came from nothing or no one and has no divine purpose or plan? What did Paul write in Romans 1:20? “For since the creation of the world His [God’s] invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” But…are there excuses why some have convinced themselves “God is NOT with us”?

FIRST, THERE ARE THOSE WHO HAVE CONVINCED THEMSELVES “GOD IS NOT WITH US” BECAUSE, LIKE JONAH, GOD’S PLAN IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT “I” DESIRE! Come to Jonah 1:1-3, “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.’ But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”

Notice: Jonah “arose to flee…from the presence of the Lord;” Notice: “Jonah went down..” It’s always a downward spiral when one ‘flees’ from the Lord! Notice: Jonah made a willful choice opposite of the will of God!

What was going on with Jonah? He was running from God’s call on his life! In Proverbs 1:20 the inspired Word of God says: “Wisdom calls aloud in the streets [right on your journey!!]…Verse 23, Surely I will pour out My spirit on you; I will make My words known to you. Verse 24, Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded.”

No regard for God’s Word is ‘running’ so you can fall on your own words, choices, decisions, plans, and fleshly purposes! There’s no regard for the reality of one’s need of God because he’d rather fall because of self-will, self-pleasure, self-plans apart from our Eternal Maker and Blesser and Redeemer.

It’s kind of like one of my grandsons, Zack; as he first began to walk and talk, Sue or I would call for him to come, and Zach would say, “I don’t want to!”, and then he’d run! That’s a picture of a little two-year old which many grown men and women, when hearing God call, like Jonah, they say: “I don’t want to!”, and run from God Himself!!

In Jeremiah 16:10-13 we read a sad prophetic word from the mouth of God! “And it shall be, when you show this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great disaster [Shipwreck?] against us? Or what is our iniquity?” Or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ then you shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken Me,’ says the Lord; ‘they have walked after other gods and have served them and worshipped them, and have forsaken Me and not kept My law. And you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, each one follows the dictates of his own evil heart, so that no one listens to Me. Therefore I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not know, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night, where I will not show you favor.”

Do you remember Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic”? “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat, He is sifting out the hearts of men before His Judgment Seat.”

I don’t believe that men want to be weighed in the balances and found wanting but most have no clear understanding of God’s eternal purposes and they get caught up in “my way.” It was John Greenleaf Whittier, in “The Pressed Gentian,” who wrote: “Man judges from a partial view. None ever yet his brother knew; The Eternal Eye that sees the whole May better read the darkened soul, And found, to outward sense denied, The flower upon its inmost side!” Only God gives “eternal blossoms” – man births only ‘enhanced fleshliness’!

SECOND, SOME SEE “GOD NOT WITH US” BECAUSE, EVEN MOMENTARILY, THERE ARE SOME WHO WANT LESS THAN GOD DESIRES FOR THEM; THEY WANT ‘LOOSENESS FEELINGS’ BECAUSE GOD BINDS THEM, OR THEY’RE TEMPTED BY LEWDNESS – SO GOD MUST BE FAR AWAY.

Think about David for a period time in his life! There was a time in David’s pilgrimage that he ‘show-cased’ the fallen nature of us all without God’s saving grace! In Psalm 12:1-4 David wrote: Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases! For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. They speak idly everyone with his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaks proud things, Who have said, ‘With our tongue we will prevail; our lips are our own; Who is Lord over us?’

In Romans 1:18-19 Paul nailed it so strongly! “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.”

Come to Psalm 139:5-12, 15-16….What did God do? Verses 5-12, “You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me; it is high, I cannot attain it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall fall on me.’ Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.” Verses 15-16, “My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 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.” Hear me, men’s fleshliness doesn’t stop God’s eternal ambition for any of us, even the atheists and agnostics and the ‘pretenders’! Verses 17-18 tells us: “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You.” [I challenge you!! Look at the sands of all seashores across our world – and know: God’s thoughts ABOUT YOU are more than that number!]

Though Jonah ran from the presence of the Lord, though David ran from the presence of the Lord, though Adam and Eve sought to hide from God, “GOD WITH US” IS ETERNAL TRUTH THAT NEVER FADES AWAY!! And if Jonah needed a storm, God was willing to bring it on! Though David failed miserably in the flesh, God sent His Holy Spirit’s convicting power and Psalm 51 was birthed! And even though Adam and Eve trusted “fig leaves,” God’s “forever love” never failed them!

In Isaiah 46:9-13 there is such a powerful word of hope for those who think God is deterred by their choices! His Word says: “Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’ Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it. Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness; I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, for Israel My glory.” [You do know there is an eternity’s difference between physical Israel and spiritual Israel – right?]

THIRD, SOME SEE “GOD NOT WITH US” BECAUSE NATURAL MINDEDNESS CAN BE A BLINDER RATHER THAN A CALL FOR EYES TO SEE WHAT GOD HIMSELF WOULD HAVE ONE SEE; NATURALNESS, WITHOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT, IS BREEDING SPIRITUAL DEAFNESS TO THE VOICE OF GOD, AS WELL AS SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS TO THE SOVEREIGN WORKS OF GOD.

In I Corinthians 2:4-16 we read, Paul speaking, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For ‘who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”

Are you aware that “persuasive words of human wisdom” do nothing in opening understanding in one’s mind and heart? Paul said redemptive words only come alive in a man’s mind and heart by the ‘demonstration of the Spirit and of the very power of God,’ because redemptive faith comes, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God!

But minds apart from the Holy Spirit are not in tune to the voice of God or His Word! This is why in 2 Corinthians 7:1 Paul talked about “perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” I would then surmise: no faith – no fear!

I love how Oswald Chambers dealt with this in his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” [pps.55-56], “Having therefore these promises.” I claim the fulfillment of God’s promises, and rightly, but that is only the human side; the Divine side is that through the promises I recognize God’s claim on me. For instance, am I realizing that my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, or have I a habit of body that plainly will not bear the light of God on it? By sanctification the Son of God is formed in me, then I have to transform my natural life into a spiritual life by obedience to Him. God educates us down to the scruple. When he begins to check, do not confer with flesh and blood, cleanse yourself at once. Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk….I have to cleanse myself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit until both are in accord with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I insubordinate in intellect? Am I forming the mind of Christ, who never spoke from His right to Himself, but maintained an inner watchfulness whereby He continually submitted His spirit to His Father? I have the responsibility of keeping my spirit in agreement with His Spirit, and by degrees Jesus lifts me up to where He lived – in perfect consecration to His Father’s will, paying no attention to any other thing. Am I [are you?] perfecting this type of holiness in the fear of God? Is God getting His way with me, and are other people beginning to see God in my life more and more?”

FOURTH, SOME SEE “GOD NOT WITH US” BECAUSE NATURAL MEN PLACE NO VALUE ON KNOWING CHRIST WHO IS CALLED “EMMANUEL”, “GOD WITH US”!!

And you do understand that even “religious” men can be caught up with their belief, “God Isn’t With Us Either!” In John 8:13-20 we read about those who came against Emmanuel! It says: “The Pharisees therefore said to Him, “You bear witness of Yourself. Your witness is not true.” Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from and where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.” Then they said to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have also known My Father also.” These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come.”

And, no doubt, you remember that Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews who “came to Jesus by night.” Why the night? Was the reality of the Pharisaical view of Christ being torn down in him? Was the reality of “God with us” moving heavily on this man? Did he not want his world around him to know he wanted to know Truth? One’s ego CAN be the death-nail in one’s coffin of life as it is – or one, like Nicodemus, CAN risk the upward reach for truth beyond what he has learned or known.

There IS a world around you that has forgotten, forsaken, even fought against the knowledge of God. Examine your own schools, universities, networks, businesses, local or national governments that have departed from the awareness of God. And the one thing I pray that you learn in this very moment if you haven’t already is: Ezekial 33:11, “Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?”

I pray that by God’s Spirit you and yours have your eyes opened, ears opened, minds and hearts opened to the great truth of Emmanuel, “God With Us,” because in 2 Timothy 2:8-9 Paul told us: “Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained.”

In Acts 4 you’ll remember Peter and John let go by the ruling authorities in Jerusalem. Follow carefully verses 23-33: And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: “Why did the nations rage, and the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.” For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.

How did that come to fruition? We read in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were yet sinners, while fallen men chose blindness to God and absence from God, He demonstrated His love! While His created world was filled with rebellious, disbelieving, sinful, godless men, He came and demonstrated His love for us. While His created world floundered in the broken ages of spiritually-blinded futility, He demonstrated His love! While alienated people, alienated from God, alienated from His divine plan and purpose, living sadly, living savagely, living ultimately unto themselves alone, GOD PROVED HIS LOVE FOR US!

Have you missed Jeremiah 32:40? “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.” What a promise! That everlasting covenant is the blood covenant between God the Father and God the Son as Jesus shed His blood on Calvary’s Cross for you and me! And there’s no turning to God apart from Emmanuel! In I Peter 3:18 we read: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He [Christ Jesus the Lord] might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.”

The Cross of Christ is not only God’s proof of His love for us – it is the pulling power of His grace, mercy, and love, translating us out of our seas of forgetfulness into His heavenly grace and grip of lovingkindness! Jeremiah 31:3-4 says: “The Lord has appeared of old to me saying: ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Again, I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! You shall again be adorned with your tambourines, and shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoiced.”

What amazing, anointed, life-altering verses in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15!! “For the love of Christ compels us, because we thus judge: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.”

You may not be familiar with the name, Charles Hodge. He was a 19^th Century Reformed theologian. He wrote: “A Christian is one who recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, as God manifested in the flesh, loving us and dying for our redemption; and who is so affected by a sense of the love of this incarnate God as to be constrained to make the will of Christ the rule of his obedience, and the glory of Christ the great end for which he lives.” [Charles Hodge, “Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians,” Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdman’s Publ. Co., p.133]

Oh, you need to hear it over and over and over: “Christ died for the ungodly…We are now justified by His blood.” [Romans 5:6,9].

I close this chapter of forgetfulness concerning those who hadn’t as yet discerned Christ but now have, with words Paul spoke in Colossians 3:1-2!! “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on the things on the earth.”

CHAPTER FIVE

FORGOTTEN? BODY LIFE – BODY MINISTRY?

In Dallas Willard’s “The Great Omission” a statement was made from “World Christian/U” magazine, [January 1989], a magazine printed for university and college students. The statement? [p.172 of Willard’s book], “Frequently in the evangelical church, we’ve been taught that to be a disciple only requires us to read a portion of scripture daily and to pray. But those two activities easily become meaningless.”

And I believe after more than 70 years of church life I’ve witnessed such a vast chasm between New Testament ‘church life’ and what far too many professing Christians settle for – “read the Bible, then pray” – when God’s Word paints a far different picture!

I’ll just go ahead and shock you just a little before we get fully into “Forgotten? Body Life – Body Ministry”! In Titus 2:14 Paul wrote Titus: “[Christ] who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us…and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”

I’m not really sure how confident and assured most church folk are when they hear, having been redeemed, having been purified by the shed blood of the Lamb, that now they are “His own special people, zealous for good works.” I wondered if a lot of church folk are layered in a ‘religious familiarity’ rather than birthed into relational faith!

Sometimes I feel like Mary when she came to Jesus’ tomb and He wasn’t there. She said: [John 20:2], “They have taken away the Lord, my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid Him.” Has Jesus been “taken away” and been substituted for everything but what He died for?

In John 12:32 Jesus said, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” I believe without a doubt Jesus was talking about His crucifixion and that as He was lifted up to die for all, it would draw men to Himself. But often rather than a spiritual magnet drawing men to Himself, the church, rather than exemplifying the crucified and resurrected Christ “forgets” who they are in Him and what they are to be about!

Church life was never to resemble children’s games, but at times you have to wonder: Where is Kingdom of Christ demonstration? Has the church of today, purchased by the Blood of the Lamb, been challenged to take the sentence of death unto itself, been “dispersed” or settled in to a quiet, separated unto itself, comfortable community, without the intent of Christ through them touching our world with grace, mercy, and love? In the early church ‘the Acts of the apostles’ became willing marching orders dispersed into a dying world that so needed the words of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and holy intent to reconcile that dying world into Resurrection Life, Resurrection Hope, and Resurrection Power!

Two verses out of I Peter 2 that I pray will prick your heart and turn you into our Lord’s earthly representative: 1) I Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…” 2) I Peter 2:21, “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps…”

It was Cornelius Platinga Jr. in “Beyond Doubt,” [p.185], who made a very powerful and thought-provoking statement about the modern Church in these ‘last days’: “So often we are nature’s victims and culture’s captives,” when in reality, in Christ, we are new creation victors and Christ’s liberated servants!

In his book “A Godward Life” John Piper has a chapter entitled: “Matthew’s Amazing Warnings Not To Be A False Disciple,” [pps. 255-257]. Piper said, quoting Matthew 5:20, “I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” saying, “The righteousness called for here is not the imputed righteousness of Christ, as utterly crucial as that is at the bottom of the Christian life.” Then, commenting on Matthew 7:21-23, Piper wrote: “Prophesying, casting out demons, and doing mighty works in the name of Jesus do not prove that Jesus has known us. The evidence of being savingly known by Jesus is to be an evildoer no longer, that is, to have righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees. Religious zeal and even miracle working do not prove a new heart of love.”

FORGOTTEN? FIRST, LET’S LOOK AT THE FORGETFULNESS OF BODY LIFE. It’s so interesting, so convicting, as you read Jesus’ words and seriously consider them! In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus said: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Then in Matthew 10:39 Our Lord and Savior draws the line in the sand. He said: “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” I’m not so sure a lot of church folk really know about the Body Life that comes because of ‘self-denial’! In Matthew 16:24 Jesus told His disciples: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him DENY HIMSELF, and TAKE UP HIS CROSS, and FOLLOW ME.”

In the early days of Peter’s ‘follow-ship’ with Jesus, the Lord had a question, John 13:38, for him: Jesus answered him, “Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times.” The last part of Romans 4:17 speaks of “…God, who gives life to the dead (spiritual death) and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.” You know that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Apart from our Lord death reigns in us all, sin abounding, but grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This is why Paul told the church at Galatia, Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ [not only Paul but every sin-infested human being, past, present, or future!]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; [Why? TO EXTEND HIS LIFE, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, AND TO PROVE HIS POWER!!]; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

And this “Life In Christ” is not simply an earth-experience! In I Corinthians 15:19 Paul wrote: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitied.” Life in Christ? It is eternal life!! Hear me! Far too many ‘church folk’ are centered on their ‘flesh walk’ with no serious consideration of our ‘forever walk’! In Galatians 6:7-8 Paul wrote: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”

The beloved John was so passionate about God’s people fully knowing and understanding in and appropriating the very fullness of our life in Christ. In I John 5:11-13 the beloved John shared with us: “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.:

This is why Jude challenges us in Jude 20-21! “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.” No doubt, this is why George Herbert wrote: “And here in dust and dirt, O here the lilies of His love appear.” I believe it’s our calling in “Body Life” to truly be a part of spiritual revolution that brings resurrection hope into the very churches of our modern day. I believe this is why H. Richard Niebuhr has written: “The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.”

Life in Christ for true disciples is not trying to achieve what always seems so beyond “us” – but acceptance of divine gifts through God’s faithful promises and His amazing grace! In Acts 2:41-47 we see “Body Life”! “Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”

Did you notice “continued steadfastly”? Did you notice “godly, holy fear” that guided their daily life? Did you notice “all who believed were together”? Did you notice they shared what God Himself had blessed them with? Did you notice the “daily walk”? Did you notice they had reason to continually “praise God,” they had “favor with all the people,” and they were daily being blessed with the birth of new disciples?

In “This Little Church Went To Market” by Gary E. Gilley, he has written a powerful convicting word: [pps.38-39], “One would hope that things would be different [today] among evangelical Christians, but such does not seem to be the case. It appears that the church is in lockstep with the world. The problem is this – Christians have been seduced and trained by the same forces that have enticed society as a whole. Too many Christians, just like their unsaved counterparts, are impressed by appearances rather than structure; are seeking thrills and excitement rather than substance; are more apt to respond to emotional manipulation than to rational discourse. How does a church compete in this rather crowded marketplace? If entertainment has become the primary value of the American way of life (as some are suggesting) then how can the church vie unless they become a bastion of entertainment? But if it gives way to this powerful temptation has not the church been transformed into something other than the church? [Quoting Neil Postman, author of “Amusing Ourselves To Death,”] Gilley wrote: Postman, who does not pretend to be a Christian, nevertheless recognizes, ‘Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether…There is no doubt, in other words, that religion can be made entertaining. The question is, by doing so, do we destroy it?” Gilley then said: This is a question all serious Christians should contemplate. The problem is that the main business of entertainment is to please the crowd, but the main purpose of authentic Christianity is to please the Lord.”

I’m so sorry if “Body Life” is offensive to you and you desire the church to be that entertainment center of your life – but when I read I Corinthians 1:18-23 I see our Lord’s wisdom about “Body Life”, and I know that’s where I want to see churches today centering themselves. What did Paul write? “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.’ 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. 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…”

I have a deep, deep thought that our modern religious world, yes, even Christian world, would like to muzzle the very voice of our Lord and Savior and neglect every word He and His Holy Word has to say about “Body Life.” You may have read about Leo Tolstoy who said: “I lived only during those times I believed in God.” Can the church today say, “We live only through the time Christ IS our “LIFE”, and He lives through us”?

If ever there is the death of hope in the church that Jesus alone is our “LIFE”, then we will become those who witness anew spiritual death all around us, leaving a church world in despair and so very empty!

You know what John said, but do you still believe it for the modern-day church? John 1:1-4, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” I pray you let the previous verses and the following verses seal in your minds and hearts the churches’ abundant LIFE IN CHRIST!

John 3:14-15 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in [trusts, adheres to, relies upon] Him, should not perish but have eternal life.”

John 5:38-40, “But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom God sent, Him you do not believe. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me [Jesus]. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

John 6:51, 53, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world…Verse 53, Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”

John 10:10, 27-28, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. Verses 27-28, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

John 11:25-26, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

John 17:3, Jesus speaking, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You [God Himself], the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

Romans 5:10, “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.”

Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me…”

Colossians 3:3-4, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

2 Timothy 1:8-12, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus, before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.”

I 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; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

Revelation 21:27, “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination, or a lie, but only those who are written the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

Do you remember the words Shakespeare wrote in “Macbeth”? “Life…is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” But, a modern-day version? “Church life…is a tale told by the untaught, full of noise and fight, signifying denial of all Jesus offers.”

If “Body Life” is forgotten, you can be sure “Body Ministry” takes a back-seat in church planning! Oh, hear me! I’m not down on all churches, denominations, pastors, or leaders – in my over 50 years of “church life and relationships with pastors” I’ve been blessed to know some of our Lord’s gifted, graced pastors, and been blessed by Spirit-led, Spirit-anointed, Christ-honoring churches that so reflected fruitful ministries.

But, sadly, many churches are ‘vision-less’ as to “Body Ministry”! Dallas Willard, in his book “Renovation of the Heart,” [p.203], made a statement that I would like to change only one word. Willard said, “Where LIFE MEANING is lacking, performance is at a premium.” My sentence? “Where LIFE MINISTRY is lacking, performance is at a premium.”

One thing is sure though – the least gifted Body of Christ is stronger, more significant, and more beneficial than the “best” a fallen society has to offer! In his book, “Body Life: The Church Comes Alive,” [Regal, Glendale, Ca., 1972, p.13], Ray Stedman wrote: “God’s first concern is not what the church does, it is what the church IS. Being must always precede doing, for what we do will be according to what we are. To understand the moral character of God’s people is a primary essential in understanding the nature of the church. As Christians we are to be a moral example to the world, reflecting the character of Jesus Christ.” HOW HUGE IS THAT IN CHURCH MINISTRY! Is there a “Forgetfulness” Of BODY MINISTRY?

FIRST, BODY MINISTRY IS WITNESSING, SHARING, PROCLAIMING, UPHOLDING, DECLARING, AND, YES, PORTRAYING BY ONE’S DAILY WALK CHRIST JESUS, SAVIOR AND LORD!

In Acts 1:8 God’s inspired Word says, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” You barely get into Acts 2 before Peter challenged Israel as the church OUGHT to be challenging every community! Those who heard Peter were challenged and convicted! Acts 2:37 says: “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter followed Jesus’ ministry by saying, Acts 2:38, Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Look at what happened in Acts 2:41! Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.” It doesn’t matter to me what you call it, but when a church loses its evangelistic impact on the world around it, it is signing its own death certificate! I find it so interesting, wondering if a church, because of its witnessing ministry is ready for a jail sentence! It happened in Acts as God’s people were determined to touch its world with grace.

SECOND, BODY MINISTRY IS THE DIVINE WORK OF EQUIPPING THE SAINTS TO DO THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY. Please come to Ephesians 4:11-16! “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, FOR THE EQUIPPING OF THE SAINTS FOR THE WORK OF MINISTRY, FOR THE EDIFYING OF THE BODY OF CHRIST, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

Without hesitation, I am firmly convinced that modern Christianity has totally reversed roles, ministries, and callings, with an attitude, mind-set, delusional thinking: “That’s what we pay a pastor for!!” And many pastors succumb to the role of DOING what they were called to do in equipping the saints to DO THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY!! As you read these verses in Ephesians 4, did you notice, were you gripped by Ephesians 4:13? “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;”

Listen, feed on, incorporate what Oswald Chambers said in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.141], “The church ceases to be a spiritual society when it is on the look-out for the development of its own organization. The rehabilitation of the human race on Jesus Christ’s plan means the realization of Jesus Christ in corporate life as well as individual life. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this purpose – that the corporate PERSONALITY might be realized. We are not here to develop a spiritual life on our own, or to enjoy spiritual retirement; we are here so to realize Jesus Christ that the Body of Christ may be built up.”

As a disciple, as a church member, as a follower of Christ, are you sharing in the mission of growing people into the fullness of Christ? Chambers said earlier, “The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Christ Jesus.” In Hebrews 10:24-25 the writer tells us: “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Redemptive faith births community ‘followship’ and fellowship. God’s redemption, His redemptive work, is His blessed ministry of making the Body of Christ complete by the inclusion of every ‘body-part’ – nothing is to be missing, ignored, overlooked, denied – but inclusive to the honor of Christ!

Come to I Corinthians 12:11-31!! But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, whether slave or free – and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you;” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way.” [Then comes chapter 13!!!]

THIRD, BODY MINISTRY IS INVASIVE AT THE POINT OF HUMAN NEED AND INTROSPECTIVE OF ONE’S SELF TO THE HONOR AND GLORY OF CHRIST. Look at James 1:27, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

I’ve been in Brazil to work for the honor of Christ alone and been shaken to the core to learn of child prostitution. I’ve been in the major cities across India to witness orphans and widows with cardboard over their heads on busy streets for shelter with millions of people passing them by! America is fast becoming ‘horror’ cities where children are abused and widows totally neglected!

True religion! How do YOU define it? How is “true religion” played out through your journey as a church community? Is your ‘church’ breaking out, moving out, planning ‘out’ or outside its four walls to touch its community with grace?

FOURTH, BODY MINISTRY IS THE BIBLICAL PATTERN OF “MAKING DISCIPLES”! I don’t know how churches so easily omit Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:19-20! “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.”

In my early days of pastoring in the Florida area, I always loved to hear Dr. Jess Moody preach at our pastors’ conferences, evangelism conferences, or local events in the area where I was pastoring. One of the things Dr. Moody always talked about was the problem, omission, failure of “undiscipled disciples”!

In Dallas Willard’s “The Great Omission,” he wrote: [p.9], “Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, nondiscipleship costs you exactly that abundance of life Jesus said He came to bring [John 10:10]. The Cross-shaped yoke of Christ is after all an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with Him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul.”

Do you really have a handle on discipleship? In Acts 10:38 we read what should be true of every equipped, trained church member! It says: “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.” Paul was so strong, as he should have been, as he addressed the Corinthians, 10:31, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

FIFTH, BODY MINISTRY IS ‘KINGDOM OF GOD’ LIVING. Do you remember what John the Baptist said as he began his public ministry? Matthew 3:1-3 tells us: “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’ For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord. Make His paths straight.’”

The young disciples had asked Jesus to teach them to pray, and in Matthew 6:9-10, Jesus said they were to pray in this manner: ‘Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and the end of verse 13 says, ‘For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” Then in Matthew 6:33 Jesus said: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

We’re seeing the kingdom of God on earth that is a kingdom to be entered! But then in Matthew 7:21 Jesus said: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My father in heaven.’” Willful surrender, willful submission to the will of Father God, willful sub-ordinance [or subject to control], willful sufficiency knowing God’s ample supply to meet any need we might have according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus! In ‘kingdom of God’ living, in 2 Corinthians 9:8, Paul wrote: “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”

And how did the anointed Paul describe kingdom-ministry? Look at Romans 14:17!! “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Jesus Himself made such a profound, eye-opening, sobering, even shocking statement when in John 14:12 He defined kingdom ministry for all, yes, ALL of His disciples. He said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these he will do because I go to My Father.” JESUS ANNOUNCED THAT HIS DISCIPLES, HIS SERVANTS, HIS ‘BODY OF CHRIST’ MINISTRY, would be DOING THE WORKS OF JESUS!

I would dare say that most ‘church disciples’ are shocked when they hear about ‘kingdom ministry’ or ‘doing the works of Jesus.’ Our personal inadequacy should open the door to Holy Spirit anointing and adequacy in every disciple! It was T.Z. Koo who said: “The kingdom of God does not exist because of your effort or mine. It exists because God reigns. Our part is to enter this kingdom and bring our life under His sovereign will.” Since my college days, over 55 years ago, I’ve been a fan of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He said: “If we let passion take the place of judgment, and self-will reign instead of Scriptural authority, we shall fight the Lord’s battles with the devil’s weapons, and if we cut our own fingers we must not be surprised.”

But that’s not our calling as we usher in Kingdom authority through “Body Ministry”! Listen to Peter in 2 Peter 1:3-4! “…as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

And Matthew 16:19 is our rock of assurance and hope in honoring Christ through our church’s “Body Ministry”: “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” “Body Ministry” IS “KINGDOM OF GOD ALLEGIANCE” that is seen, interpreted, explained, witnessed, proven, by the ‘Servant’ spirit. Listen to Jesus in Matthew 20:25-28!! But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

“Body Ministry” is “KINGDOM OF GOD ALLEGIANCE” that is seen as the sacrificial spirit of lives, yes, laid down in touching others with His love, grace, and mercy! In Hebrews 13:12-16 we read: “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

You’ll remember Paul saying in Galatians 2:20, “…and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me…,” and that love and giving spirit of Christ should permeate the walk of every true disciple of Christ! In John 7:38 Jesus tells us: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Oswald Chambers put it like this: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.181], “Our Lord’s teaching is always “anti”– self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure.”

I close this chapter with a statement by Dallas Willard in his book, “The Spirit of the Disciplines.” He wrote: “The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes – a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power.” AMEN?

CHAPTER SIX

FORGOTTEN? THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES?

In Psalm 88:12 a highly significant question is asked by the psalmist as he “cries out to God day and night”: “Shall Your wonders be known in the dark? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?” And it would be no surprise to me if some of us found ourselves at a place in life that we wondered if God had forgotten us, but we know that’s not true – the greater problem is when men forget Him, and especially forget “the Name above all names”!

The prophet Jeremiah heard the broken heart of God. In Jeremiah 2:32 he heard God say: “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.” In Jeremiah 3:21-22a the prophet wrote: “A voice was heard on the desolate heights, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel, for they have perverted their way; THEY HAVE FORGOTTEN THE LORD THEIR GOD…’Return, you backsliding children, and I [God] will heal your backslidings.”

Through biblical prophets God will speak to bring warnings of disaster to those who find themselves “falling away” or forgetting the Name above all names. Jeremiah 18:12-18, 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.” Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Ask now among the Gentiles, Who has heard such things? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing. Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon, which comes from the rock of the field? Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters? Because My people have FORGOTTEN ME, they have burned incense to worthless idols. And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, from the ancient paths, to walk in pathways and not on a highway, to make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face in the day of their calamity.’ Then they said, ‘Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us attack him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.”

In Deuteronomy 32 we find “The Song of Moses” as he sang out a convicting word about the dilemma of a people “encircled” by the Lord Himself but they found it easy to forsake God! Look at verses 9-12 followed by verses 15-20!! Beginning at verse 9, “For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, so the Lord alone led him, and there was no foreign god with him.” Now verses 15-20!! “But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; You grew fat, you grew thick, you are obese! Then he forsook God who made him, and scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger. They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear. Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who fathered you. And when the Lord saw it, He spurned them, because of the provocation of His sons and His daughters. And He said: ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation.”

I know without hesitation that there are times, seasons, even circumstances of the soul when one feels, “Where is my Lord? Has He forsaken me, left me, forgotten all about me?” Have you ever been there? In Isaiah 49:14-16 the prophet Isaiah wrote: But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.”

There is a promise God gave us all in Proverbs 3:1-2. It says: “My son, do not forget My law, but let your heart keep My commandments; for length of days and long life and peace they will add to you.” Then, please look carefully at Proverbs 3:5-6 and let the Holy Spirit guide you into “the way.” “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.”

And that “way”? In John 14:6 Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus is the “way” that leads to Life, the “way” that opens LIFE to the fullness of God Himself, the “way” that leads to the fullness of blessing, the “way” that is the eternal foundation of Holy Living! But then our Lord has a word of warning: Matthew 7:21-23!! “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who DOES the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” “Forgotten? Forgotten the Name above all names? Forgotten the Master, forgotten the Message, forgotten the ministry of His Name, forgotten the might and power of the Name above all names?”

To the church at Philippi Paul wrote a powerful word about Christ Jesus: Philippians 2:9-11! “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” That’s God Almighty’s ministry of exaltation of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! And, thank God, there are those who never forget – Revelation 2:12-13 tells us of that body of believers in Pergamos who held fast to His Name and DID NOT DENY THE FAITH!

Why does Pergamos hold fast to Jesus’ Name but others deny Him? Do you remember the first few verses of Jesus teaching His disciples “The Model Prayer” in Matthew 6:9-10? “In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” “Hallowed be Your name?” Strong’s Concordance says the word ‘Hallowed’ comes from a Greek word HAGIAZO meaning ‘made holy’, ‘sacred’, ‘pure’, ‘blameless’, and I believe that’s holding the name of our Lord in the highest esteem, the holiest elevation, and heart-felt and held elevation above all ‘names’!!

I find it so interesting that John, in Revelation 2:12, saw the Lord Jesus with “the sharp two-edged sword” in His hand! It is serious business to know our Lord as ‘commander-in-chief’ who has been, who is, and forever will be defending Truth. Yes, our Lord judges, our Lord defends, our Lord follows up, sweeps up, and with the sharp sword will cut away what needs to be cut away. He says He sees into every church, every life, every family, with constant oversight, just as He saw Pergamos. Jesus ‘saw’ that they “dwell…where Satan’s throne is,” and Pergamos stood faithfully to honor His Name! But sadly many do not! Why is it that far too many people choose to ignore, deny, forsake, accuse, and abuse the “Name above all names”?

FIRST, I BELIEVE FORGETFULNESS OF THE NAME ABOVE ALL names IS BECAUSE OF OUT-AND-OUT DENIAL OF HIS PRECIOUS NAME. In Matthew 12:30 Jesus said: “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.”

You’ll remember Moses and Aaron going before Pharoah of Egypt saying to 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.”

What goes on in the hearts and minds of people like Pharoah? If the very knowledge of God and the very awareness of Christ Himself was birthed in them by God Himself, what has gone on in them? In Paul’s letter to the Romans [Romans 1:18-25], the inspired Word reveals the deadly ‘self-introspection’ that crowds out the saving grace of God through the shed blood of the Lamb of God: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 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.”

In Matthew 10:38 Jesus clearly said: “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.” But rather than denial of Jesus as ‘the Name above all names,’ John said in I John 4:15, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” ‘Confesses’ is a present tense, continuous action word! Confesses and keeps on confessing, confesses and keeps on confessing, confesses and keeps on confessing, but God help the man that denies and keeps on denying!

It was Spurgeon who said: “A life in which we have shunned the cross of Christ will lead to a state in which we shall miss the crown of glory.”

SECOND, I BELIEVE FORGETFULNESS OF THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES IS BECAUSE OF ‘PEER PRESSURE’. The man born blind met Jesus and Jesus “anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,” and his eyes were opened! The Jews didn’t believe and they called the parents of the man who had his eyes opened and said to them: [John 9:19], “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” But then look at John 9:20-21! His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.” And then verse 22? His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed that He [Jesus] was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.

Earlier in John, John 7:10-13, we see that same ‘peer pressure’ that adversely affects redemptive faith! “but when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, ‘Where is He?’ And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him. Some said, ‘He is good’; others said, ‘No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.’ However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews.”

‘Peer pressure’ can be, sadly, parentally impacted; peer pressure can come from religious rulers who will protect their religious agenda void of the redemptive atonement of Christ’s shed blood! In John 12:42-43 we see a heart-breaking story: “Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”

Jesus Himself warned us of the peer pressure that would come from some parents, some faithless religious leaders, even peer pressure from some godless governmental ‘leaders’, peer pressure from close friends, employers, university professors: In John 16:1-4 we read of the warning of our Lord and Savior because He knew as the faithless hated Him, they would also hate His followers or those on the edge ready to make a step toward ‘saving faith’: “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning because I was with you.”

David’s son, Absalom, was not in ‘lock-step’ with his father. In fact the time came when Absalom became treasonist toward his father.” 2 Samuel 15:6 says, “So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.” There are also times when ‘peer pressure’ is active even in the area of ‘bribery’! Exodus 23:8 says, “And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.”

THIRD, I BELIEVE FORGETFULNESS OF THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES IS BECAUSE OF THE POISON OF PROCRASTINATION. It’s so amazing to me that the Apostle Paul, arrested for his faith, appeared before Felix and his wife Drusilla ‘concerning the faith in Christ.’ [Acts 24:24]. But then look at Felix’s response to Paul in verse 25! “Now as he [Paul] 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.’” But there is no evidence Felix ever found ‘a convenient time’ – he procrastinated.

In Acts 25-26 Paul was brought before King Agrippa. He shared his testimony of conversion after Christ Jesus the Lord had appeared to Paul in that “light from heaven, brighter than the sun.” And Paul told the King he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

In Acts 26: 22-23 Paul challenges Agrippa: “Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing to both small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come – that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Gentiles and to the Jewish people.” Then in verses 27-28 we see the ‘bottom line’ and end result! “King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do believe.” Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.” How many have you known who procrastinated and never yielded to our Lord’s saving grace?

FOURTH, I BELIEVE FORGETFULNESS OF THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES HAPPENS WHEN SOME ARE ‘BRAIN-WASHED’ AND HEART-HARDENED BY FALSE ‘PROPHETS’, FALSE TEACHING, AND A FUTILE, FLESHLY FAITH OF THEIR OWN.

Paul was so clear and convicting when he wrote to the church at Colossae, [Colossians 2:8], “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” You’ve heard from the godless, from the highly educated faithless professors and teachers who’ve decided they are smarter than God Himself, from those who believe ‘if’ there is a God He’s not interested in them, from evil men who wax worse and worse with a futile approach to life without meaning or purpose, from blackened hearts who’ve chosen the way of sin, the way of earthly, fleshly pleasures void of an ‘interfering God’ who doesn’t want them happy as they try to satisfy their depraved natures!

The ‘cheated’ don’t even know, understand, or comprehend the emptiness of deceit that has flooded their minds so fully, that for them, there is no spiritual hope, not knowing God’s faithful Word tells them that God is able to save the UTTERMOST, or the one the furtherest throw away from Him!

2 John 7 says: “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh [Emmanuel]. This is a deceiver and an anti-Christ.” Frightening, sad verses come also from John in I John 2:18-19, “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”

What did John say in I John 4:1-3? “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.”

In I Timothy 6:20-21 receive the passion of Paul for his spiritual son, Timothy! “O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, AVOIDING THE PROFANE AND IDLE BABBLINGS AND CONTRADICTIONS OF WHAT IS FALSELY CALLED KNOWLEDGE – by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.” He told Titus in Titus 1:14, “not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men WHO TURN FROM THE TRUTH.”

If Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Emmanuel – the name God GAVE HIM – if He is Lord and Savior and the True Master of all of life, if Jesus is [and He is!!] the “faithful and true witness,” then how does one turn away, refuse to hear Him, and call Him ‘LIAR’? Please understand – it is an evil act, an evil mind, and evil intent to reject Jesus and live as ‘lord and savior and god’ of your own life! We all are His creation with eternal purpose and eternal designs that were given to honor, bless, exalt, please, magnify, and glorify the Living God who is the resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords but only through the New Birth, Second Birth that is ours because of the gift of redemptive faith through repentance toward God and the finished work of Christ at Calvary!

FIFTH, I BELIEVE FORGETFULNESS OF THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES BECOMES A LIFE CHOICE WHEN THE PLEASURES OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS CAPTURE ONE’S HEART, MIND, AND SOUL. You’ll remember the parable of the sower that Jesus told us about in Luke 8:7 where some ‘seed’ fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it, explaining in verse 14: “Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are CHOKED WITH CARES, RICHES, AND PLEASURES OF LIFE, and bring no fruit to maturity.”

One who refused that disastrous way of life was Moses. In Hebrews 11:23-26 we see, yes, a young boy who when confronted with the pathway of sin rather than the pathway of holiness chose to please God rather than satisfy his flesh or fallen sin nature! The Word says: “By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command. By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.”

Again, Paul was faithfully instructing his spiritual son, Titus, when in Titus 3:3-7 he wrote: “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

LIFE CHOICES? Heir of Christ or son of Satan? Citizen of Jesus’ Kingdom of Light or slave to Satan’s kingdom of darkness? Pleasing our Lord and Savior or indulging our fallen sin natures? In 2 Timothy 3:4 Paul spoke of those who are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” And the one thing we all must be confronted with is the reality of only temporary satisfaction in earthly pleasures with eternally bad results!

What are “the wages of sin”? I believe the Holy Word is so very clear: THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH!! In 2 Peter 2:12-17 the Holy Spirit of God anointed Peter to “shock” some into spiritual reality and see birthed repentant hearts!! “But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity; a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”

There was a man who discovered God’s Holy Word, and out of that encounter a prophet was birthed, Jeremiah! In Jeremiah 15:16 he wrote: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.” And notice what God Himself revealed to Jeremiah, sending him out to call God’s people to repentance, return, and restoration!!In Jeremiah 16:10-13 we read: “And it shall be, when you show this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great disaster against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ then you shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken Me,’ says the Lord; ‘they have walked after other gods and have served them and worshipped them, and have forsaken Me and not kept My law. And you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, each one follows the dictates of his own evil heart, so that no one listens to Me. Therefore I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not know, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night, WHERE I WILL NOT SHOW YOU FAVOR.”

THAT IS THE FUTURE OF EVERY LIFE THAT WILLFULLY, SINFULLY, REBELS AGAINST GOD’S GRACE AND MERCY!! “NO FAVOR FROM GOD”!!

SIXTH, I BELIEVE FORGETFULNESS OF THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES RESULTS IN A WILLFUL, DELIBERATE DETERMINATION TO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT HOLY NAME – THEY WILLINGLY AND GLADLY FORSAKE HIS NAME. In Hebrews 3:8 the author of Hebrews quotes from an Old Testament passage about: “Do not harden your hearts AS IN THE REBELLION, in the day of trial in the wilderness.” Then in verses 9-10 the Holy Spirit spoke: “Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I [God] was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.”

Because they have not known God’s ways, they are blinded and even ignorant of the end result of a Christ-less life! Just listen to James 5:19-20 where the brother of Jesus is urging true believers to turn back the spiritually blinded, the wanderers, the faithless, who do not know or understand the end result of denial of the Name above all names. James wrote: “Brethren [of the true, saving faith], if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way WILL SAVE A SOUL FROM DEATH AND COVER A MULTITUDE OF SINS.”

The danger in willingly and gladly forsaking the Name above all names? Once again Paul wrote the Romans, [Romans 1:21-25], “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God FOR THE LIE [“You can sin and not die!”], and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

In Romans 1:24, 26, 28, three times the inspired Word of God says, “God also gave them up,” “God gave them up,” “God gave them over.” Do you, do those you encounter, do those near you who deny our Lord’s saving grace, really know “the righteous judgment of God”?

Unbelief is sin! Faithlessness is sin! Denial of faith is sin! Willful rejection of Jesus is sin! In Romans 6:16 God’s Word says: “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.” WHAT HAVE YOU CHOSEN?

As Paul told the Galatians, [Galatians 1:6-7], “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert [distort] the gospel of Christ.” Would it surprise you that even some of the early followers of Christ Jesus walked away from Him? John 6:66 says: “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”

This is why in Luke 9:62 Jesus said: “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom.” You’ve heard it: “No Jesus for me,” “No ‘churchianity’ for me,” “No spiritual tiddelly-winks for me,” “no ‘religious, holy-roller ‘ life for me,” “No relationship for me with all those church hypocrites,” “No cross, no washing feet for me, no servant activity for me,” and on-and-on and-on it goes with rebellious determination: “No faith-walk for me”! And they deny our Lord and Savior! “Blot His name from my memory!”

I can only pray that as you read this book YOU are convicted, convinced, and cemented as one with Christ willingly and gladly!! Oh, but, praise God, there ARE THOSE like Pergamos in Revelation 2:13, “I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. And you HOLD FAST TO MY NAME, and did not deny My faith…”

Acts 3 is such a powerful passage, and certainly the preaching by Peter! The lame man had been healed, the people were leaping and praising God, and the men of Israel who put Christ on the Cross were not happy at all! Follow these verses, Acts 3:11-21!! Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon’s, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: “Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

Not all deny, disbelieve, denounce the Name above all names! In John 1:11-12 we read: “He came to His own [domain], and His own [people] did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe [trust, adhere to, rely upon] in His name.”

Peter and John had been arrested and appeared before the Sanhedrin – [Acts 4:5-12]. In verse 7 they asked of these disciples: “By what power or by WHAT NAME have you done this?” Peter didn’t hesitate, wasn’t afraid, and had no doubts! In verses 10-12 we read, “let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that BY THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands before you whole. ‘This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

This is why Paul encouraged the church at Colossae, and us: [Colossians 3:17], “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all IN THE NAME of the LORD JESUS, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” We’ve seen earlier in this book that His name is Immanuel or Emmanuel, or “God With Us”!! [Isaiah 7:14]. And Isaiah 9:6 says, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

In Isaiah 12:4, because of the redemptive power of His Wonderful Name, a hymn of praise is birthed in Isaiah’s heart. Verse 4 says, And in that day you will say: “Praise the Lord, call upon His name; declare His deeds among the peoples, make mention that His name is EXALTED.” What is your ‘desire’? In Isaiah 26:8 the prophet said: “Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for You; THE DESIRE OF OUR SOUL IS FOR YOUR NAME and FOR THE REMEMBRANCE OF YOU.” Let us who’ve not denied the faith intercede for those around us who need Jesus to be “the desire of our soul” and remember Him, not falling into fatal forgetfulness!

You’ll remember Holy God leading Moses and Israel “with His glorious arm, dividing the water before them to make for Himself an everlasting name.” Though you may fall into forgetfulness, in your eternal separation from the Name above all names, I believe you’ll witness a ‘flash-back’ to Almighty God dividing the waters! This is why Jeremiah said, in Jeremiah 3:17, “At that time Jerusalem shall be The Throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem. No more shall they follow the dictates of their evil hearts.”

God’s true people “glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord.” Why is that? Because His Name is the Name of God Almighty; His Name is Jealous; in Jeremiah 10:6 the prophet said: “Inasmuch as there is none like You, O Lord [You are great, and Your name is great in might”]; His Name is MESSIAH! [Look at John 4:25-26!], The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” [who is called Christ]. When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” JESUS IS “SAVIOR OF THE WORLD!!” Do you really know about His Name?

JESUS IS: Our Atoning Savior, Our Advocate before the judicial bar of heaven, Our Abundant provider, Our Access to Father God, Our All in All, Our “I AM THAT I AM,” Our Apostle and High Priest, Our Author of Eternal Salvation, Our Author and Finisher of our Faith,”

JESUS IS: Our Balm of Gilead, Our Beautiful Savior, Joy of the Whole Earth, Our Begotten Son of God, Our Bishop of our Souls, Our Blesser, Our Bondage-Breaker, Our Bread of Life, Our Breadth and Length of God’s Love, Our Breaker of the Bands that Bound Us, Our Breastplate of Righteousness, Our Bridegroom, Our Brightness of God’s Glory, Our Substitutionary Broken Body and Shed Blood, Our Builder, Our Buried Yet Resurrected Lord and Savior, Our Buyer Who Bought Us Off the Auction Block of Sin and Death and Separation from God.”

JESUS IS: Our Calling Into One Hope, Our Cloud of Heavenly Glory That Rests In Us, Upon Us, and Around Us, Our Comfort for Troubled Hearts, Our Coming King of kings, Our Commander-in-Chief, Our Confidence Toward and In Our Lord Himself, Our Everlasting Consolation, Our Covenant Sacrifice and Provider, Our Creator and Co-Author of Our Salvation, Our Cross and Crown Victorious Warrior.

JESUS IS: Our Daystar, Our Defender, Our Delight, Our Deliverer, Our Departed But Soon Coming Lord and Savior, Our Desire In The Flooded Heart of Holy Presence, Our Declaration of a Ready Mind, Our Royal Diadem in the Oneness of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, Our Director of Every Step, Our Discoverer of Deep things even in Darkness, Our Doer of the Will of God, Yes, Even the Cross, Our Door Into Holy Presence, Our Dove of Peace Constantly Present, Our Dresser of the Vineyard of Our Lives, Our Dwelling Place in All Generations.

JESUS IS: Our Eagle’s Eye of Holy Watch-care, Our Earnest Expectation and Hope, Our Everlasting Gospel To Preach, Our Escape From Earthly Meaninglessness And Our Entrance Into Eternal Joy.

JESUS IS: Our Favor Before God, Our Fellowship and Follow-ship of Holy Presence, Our Forgiveness of Sin Through His Shed Blood, Our Protective Fortress, Defender, and Deliverer, Our Foundation That Stands Sure, Our Fountain of Living Water.

JESUS IS: Our Gentleness and Goodness In The Very Fruit Of The Spirit, Our Girder With Enduring Strength, Our Oil of Gladness, Our Giver of Power and Great Glory, Our Guardian of Life and Faith, Our Guide on the Highway of Holiness.

JESUS IS: Our Habitation of God in the Spirit, Our Haven of Rest, Our Head of the Church, Our Healer and Helper, Our Hearkener, Our Heart, Our Heaven on Earth, Our Heritage To Be Honored, Our Hope of Glory, Our Hope That Doesn’t Fade Away, Our Hope That Is Living Hope, Our Husbandman Who Waits For Precious Fruit, Our Hyssop That Purges.

JESUS IS: Our Image of the Invisible God, Our Immortality Brought to Light Through the Gospel, Our Imputer of Righteousness Apart From Works, Our Increaser of Godly Likeness, Our Inheritance Incorruptible and Undefiled And That Does Not Fade Away, Reserved In Heaven For You.

JESUS IS: Our Jealous God, Our Joint-Heir, Our Joyous Journey of Faith, Our Judge of All, Our Justification.

JESUS IS: Our Keeper, Our Keeper of the Keys To The Kingdom of Heaven, Our Kindler of Heaven’s Earthly Spiritual Fires, Our King of kings, Our Kinsman-Redeemer.

JESUS IS: Our Lamb of God, Our Lord of lords, Our Lamp of God, Our Ancient Landmark of Heaven’s Boundary, Our Language of Godly Love, Our Leader To Eternal Liberty, Our Lifter of Our Heads, Our Light In The Darkest of Nights, Our Limitless Provider, Our Longsuffering Savior and Lord, Our True Lover of Our Souls.

JESUS IS: Our Majesty Enthroned in Heaven, Our Man among men, Our Manifested Name among Men, Our Marked and Bruised.

JESUS IS: Our Nail-Scarred Hands of Suffering Sacrifice, Our Name Above All Names, Our Narrow Way, Our Nazarene, Our Necessary Atoner, Our ‘Nevertheless’ of Life In Christ, Our Now and Always Present Lord.

JESUS IS: Our Obedient Son of God Even Unto Death, Our Obtainer of Our Eternal Inheritance, Our Offering of Himself For Us, Our Oil of Gladness, Our Omnipotent Lord Who Reigns.

JESUS IS: Our Passover, Our Prince of Peace, Our Peace-Maker, Our Perfect Love, Our Pillar of Strength and Stability, Our Plentiful Provider of Every Need, Our Possessor of Heaven and Earth, Our Poured-Out Drink Offering, Our Present Power of God, Our Praying Savior and Lord, Our Preacher of Repentance, Our Powerful Presence Presiding Over Life In Him, Our Preserver of All Things Eternal, Our Prophet, Priest, and King, Our Proclaimer of Liberty and Freedom, Our Promise-Keeper.

JESUS IS: OUR QUICKENER FROM SPIRITUAL DEATH TO SPIRITUAL LIFE.

JESUS IS: Our Ransom For All, Our Reconciler, Our Redeemer, Our Refresher, Our Reigning King of kings and Lord of lords, Our Reason of Rejoicing and Celebration, Our Crown of Rejoicing, Our Repairer of Breaches, Our Rest, Our Restorer of Life and Brokenness, Our Resurrection, Our Rewarder and Reward, Our Riches in Glory, Our Righteousness.

JESUS IS: Our Sabbath of Rest, Our Sacrifice of Praise to God, Our Safety and Peace, Our Salvation, Our Security, Our Sovereign Ruler and Helpmate, Our Same Savior – Yesterday, Today, and Forever, Our Sanctification, Our Satisfier, Our Sword of the Lord Defending the Faithful, Our Faithful and Humble Servant, Our Shepherd, Chief Shepherd of His Sheep, Our Sign and Wonder of Eternal Grace, Mercy, and Love, Our Solid Rock and Sure Foundation, Our Son of God, Our Souls’ Safeness and Soundness, Our Spoiler of Principalities and Powers, Our Storm-Stopper, Our Stream of Living Water, Our Strengthener and Our Song, Our Strong Defender, Our Surety of a Better Covenant.

JESUS IS: Our True Tabernacle, Our Teacher, Our Tender Mercy, Our Therefore, Wherefore, Here-For, Our Tidings of Great Joy, Our Tiller of Our Hearts, Our Touch of Healing Grace, Our Towel-Bearer Who Humbly Washes Our Feet, Our Transformer, Our Eternal Truth, Our Eternal Treasure, Our Tree of Life, Our Triumphant Hymn of Praise.

JESUS IS: Our Able-Savior To The Uttermost.

JESUS IS: Our Verily, Verily Teacher, Our Vine of Truth, Life, and Fruit, Our Vision of the Heavenly.

JESUS IS: Our Warrior For Truth and Faith, Our Watchman On The Wall of Our Hearts and Homes, Our Water-Well Springing up in Life, Our Way, Our Whenever, Wherever, Whatever, Whoever, Our True Wine, Eternal Wisdom, and Faithful Witness, Our Wonder of Wonders, Our Wonderful Work of God, Our Word of Eternal Life.

JESUS IS: Our Yoke of Yieldedness to the Father’s Will.

JESUS IS: Our Zealous Lord Intent on Fulfilling God’s Purpose.

YES!!?? Jesus’ Name IS the Name above every name! “Hallowed be Your Name!” We’ll hold it fast by the renewing of our minds. We’ll adhere to His Name and let unbelievers be the liars. We’ll proclaim His Name until the day we die. We’ll be “fools for Christ’s sake.” We’ll defend the priceless preciousness of His Name. We’ll faithfully bow before His throne. We’ll sing of the preeminence of His Name. We’ll orchestrate the masses to continually surrender to Alpha and Omega. We’ll uplift the unchanging Truth: JESUS, “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” We’ll let our world know that “there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

The old hymn says it strongly: “Jesus, the name that charms our fears, That bids our sorrows cease; It’s music in the sinner’s ears, It’s life, and health, and peace.” AMEN?

CHAPTER SEVEN

FORGOTTEN?

A PASTOR’S PRIZE AND PRIVILEGE OF PREACHING?

I know the context of Isaiah 17 and “The burden against Damascus,” but as I read verse 10-11, I could not help but ask, “Lord, is this a prophetic word for pastors and preachers who’ve slid into negligence concerning their preaching ministries?” Isaiah 17:10-11 says: “Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the Rock of your stronghold [or refuge], therefore you will plant pleasant plants and set out foreign seedlings; In the day you will make your plant to grow, and in the morning you will make your seed to flourish; but the harvest will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.”

If you continue on in Isaiah, there is a word in Isaiah 46:2 that describes a lot of modern-day preachers: “They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but have themselves gone into captivity.” I believe that to be one of the saddest verses I’ve read of late! And our modern-day preaching problem? It’s, rather than remembering the high calling and ultimate privilege of preaching, some really do forget while others have no history of faithfulness in preaching! And it’s for sure, if a preacher has no history of biblical preaching, he has no meaning to his role as pastor-preacher!

Deuteronomy 8:10-20 needs to be read as if these verses were written to negligent pastors who’ve forgotten the weighty responsibility of ministering to their people faithfully in the Word of God: “When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. 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 [church buildings] and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks [church membership] multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied [tithes and offerings], and all that you have is 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 [demons?] 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.’ [I, I, I, Me, Me, Me]. And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth [ to prosper in preaching for His glory alone!!], that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. Then it shall be, if you [preacher] by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, [other gods? Preachers preaching a false gospel and a false word?], 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.”

God never gives up on preachers standing behind the sacred desk! Through Jeremiah 3:15 God gave His people a promise: “And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” But then in Jeremiah 5:1-2 the prophet heard a word from God: “Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem [Mumbai, Chennai]; see now and know; and seek in open places IF YOU CAN FIND A MAN, if there is anyone who executes judgment, who seeks the truth to preach God’s truth!], and I will pardon her. Though they say, As the Lord lives,’ surely they swear falsely.” And Jeremiah responded in verse 3: “O Lord, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.”

I sincerely am afraid that Jeremiah, Old Testament prophet, is spurned and scorned by many preachers today who have forgotten “the prize and privilege of preaching.” I believe Jeremiah wetted the pages of his scroll as he wrote Jeremiah 6:10! “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.” Jeremiah 9 the prophet said, verse 3, “…[There are those who] are not valiant for the truth on the earth…”

Does God indict preachers in modern days who are not valiant for the truth? If ALL SCRIPTURE is God-breathed, including the book of Jeremiah, read carefully Jeremiah 18:11-12, God spoke: “Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah [leaders, teachers, preachers!!] and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem [the holy city, the gathered assembly], saying, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one [of you straying preachers!] 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 [stubbornness, imagination] of his evil heart.’”

But in the midst of this modern-day madness among many ‘messengers’, there is a word of hope, of grace, and of a blessed future! Jeremiah 20:9 says: Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name,” but His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.”

Sadly, there are many commissioned by God to preach His Word who do not believe that He is interested in guiding, governing, and giving Holy Spirit anointing and leadership in how that pastor is to “feed” His people and faithfully proclaim that Word to the “lost”! The truth is there are those who’ve turned deaf ears toward what God wants to say through them in His Word! It’s also true that many are simply indifferent to the preaching of God’s Word and they paraphrase their preacher-friend’s insights but it’s not that birthed in them by God Himself!

I really want you to approach this chapter with Spirit-dependency, Word consciousness, and a love for preaching and preachers! How is a preacher’s prize and privilege of preaching lost over time and the freshness and faithfulness in preaching forgotten and set aside?

FIRST, FORGETFULNESS IS A CRIPPLING SPIRITUAL DISEASE CAUSED BY A LACK OF SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE. And for the preacher-pastor this is deadly! Listen to what Paul wrote in I Corinthians 9:27! “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” Do you believe the ‘castaway’ spirit produces passionate, Spirit-anointed, life-changing preaching? I don’t think so!

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5, talked about “this treasure” of Truth and truth that we possess in ‘earthen vessels’, and if our lives are going to be fulfilling rather than forgetful ministries in preaching, then, we need to understand [Verse 10] “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body,” Yes, as we share the Word with those our Lord has put in our trust!

If spiritual discipline daily is not a part of a preacher’s walk, then be assured ‘forgetfulness’ of the prize and privilege flies out of the window of his mind and heart! Well, then, some might ask: “As Paul said, ‘I keep under my body,’ practically, what does that mean?” Again, in 2 Corinthians 5:11 Paul said, “For we who live [we who preach] are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” Yes, preachers are, or should be, daily delivered to death for Jesus’ sake that in their preaching His Voice is heard, His Word is declared, and His conviction finds a fertile heart!

It will never be His Word through us until it’s His Word in us! Preachers prepared to preach His Word faithfully and with fire? Andrew Murray, in “The Believer’s Absolute Surrender,” [Dare I say “The Preacher’s Absolute Surrender”?] [Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Minn.: 1985, p.45]. “Please note that this is what man [preacher] was created for – to be a vessel into which God could pour His wisdom, goodness, beauty, and power. That is the heritage of the believer [the preacher]. It is God that makes the seraphim and cherubim flames of fire. The unrestricted glory of God passes through them. They are vessels prepared by God, come from God, that they might let God’s glory shine through them.”

SECOND, FORGETFULNESS OF THE PRIZE AND PRIVILEGE OF PREACHING OCCURS WHEN THE PREACHER IS NOT SPIRIT-FED AND SPIRIT-LED. In I Corinthians 2:3-5 Paul said: “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.”

See if your pulpit preacher can be recognizable in the Spirit-realm of Revelation 4:5 “And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.”

The prophet Isaiah really had a word so vital for every preacher to hear: Isaiah 32:13-15 says, “On the land of My people will come up thorns and briers, Yes, on all the happy homes in the joyous city; Because the palaces will be forsaken, the bustling city will be deserted. The forts and towers will become lairs forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks – UNTIL THE SPIRIT IS POURED UPON US FROM ON HIGH, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest.”

Here’s how Oswald Chambers put it in his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.251-252], “Never rely on the clearness of your exposition, but as you give your exposition see that YOU are relying on the Holy Spirit. Rely on the certainty of God’s redemptive power, and He will create His own life in souls.”

Preacher, preachers, you must be so aware that you are the vessel – Jesus and the Holy Spirit are to be the content and overflow of your life, your sermon preparation, and your preaching, always expecting heavenly results! Didn’t Paul say elsewhere, “as though God did beseech you by us?” [2 Corinthians 5:20]. What did Jesus say in John 12:32? “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”

As Paul continued training and equipping the church in I Corinthians 2, you must not overlook I Corinthians 2:9-13! But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has REVEALED THEM TO US THROUGH HIS SPIRIT [HIS HOLY SPIRIT!] For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

Do you not understand that a twelve year old boy, anointed, in-filled with the Holy Spirit, can speak more redemptive wisdom than the preacher with his PhD and no Holy Spirit? ‘Wise’ words apart from the Holy Spirit are just like the spring water you may physically drink, but in those waters there is no existence or experience of “the rivers of living water!!” Didn’t David say in Psalm 87:7, “All my fresh springs are in You”?

THIRD, FORGETFULNESS OF THE PRIZE AND PRIVILEGE IN PREACHING ERUPTS STEADILY BECAUSE OF A LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF OUR BATTLE FRONTS. In Isaiah 61:1-3 the prophet received from the Holy Spirit our preaching ministry agenda! “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified.”

Oh, contemplate the heart of God, the mission of God, the intent of God through the coming, the ministry, the death of the world’s only Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ of Nazareth! And consider also that to give allegiance and devotion to Christ Jesus as a preacher is to invite the opposition of Satan himself to come against you full-bore!! It was A.W. Tozer who said: “So, it becomes the devil’s business to keep the Christian’s [the pastors’] spirit imprisoned. He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of the grave of his sins and trespasses. From that point on, Satan works [aggressively] that much harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave clothes. He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage we are not much better off than when we were spiritually dead.” How frightening is that? It ought to scare the living hell away from you and from your intent to preach anointed in the Spirit the unsearchable riches of Christ!

Decide right now! NO TOE-HOLD BY SATAN! Decide right now! NO DAY IN WHICH I HAVE LEFT UNDONE DEATH TO SELF THAT THE SPIRIT MIGHT REIGN THROUGH ME IN MY CALLING TO PREACH! I will fulfill the ministry of the anointed Word in Isaiah 61!!

But if I or you or some preacher you know exhibits characteristics, signs, markings, trends, that are opposite Isaiah 61, what do you conclude? John Eldredge in his book “Waking The Dead” wrote: [p.161], “Religion and its defenders have always been the most insidious enemy of the true faith because they are not glaring opponents; they are IMPOSTERS.” You are aware that there are those ‘messengers’ with no redemptive ministry who are nothing more than puppets of the powers of darkness!

Preacher, are you truly converted [born again, born the second time?], have you truly been cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb body, soul, and spirit? Have you consecrated your preaching ministry on His altar of sacrifice? Have you chosen come hell or high waters to preach His Word passionately? Have you yielded to His constant cleansing as needed by His Blood? Do you live in a state of confession of all He is and desires to be through you?

FOURTH, FORGETFULNESS OF THE PRIZE AND PRIVILEGE OF PREACHING OFTEN COMES ABOUT BY A SPIRIT OF ARROGANCE AND CONDEMNATION THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. Job’s friends surely felt they were ‘superior’ in knowledge and understanding, and so, they came against Job unmercifully!

Read carefully Job 6:24-30. “Teach me, and I will hold my tongue; cause me to understand wherein I have erred. How forceful are right words! But what does your arguing prove? Do you intend to rebuke my words, and the speeches of a desperate one, which are as wind? Yes, you overwhelm the fatherless, and you undermine your friend. Now therefore, be pleased to look at me; for I would never lie to your face. Yield now, let there be no injustice! Yes, concede, my righteousness still stands! Is there injustice on my tongue? Cannot my taste discern the unsavory?”

Have you ever been in on a preacher with ‘windy words’ foreign to the fruit of the Spirit? Have you ever been around that one so in love with himself, so proud of his manhood, so into himself he had no words of comfort for the troubled, so into himself no passion for the lost, so into himself no comprehension of ‘fleshly failures,’ horrible mistakes, ‘yes’, even some bordering on superstitions with no grace, mercy, or love! Sadly, for some preachers there is no fruit of the Spirit and, therefore, no love for the sinners as they are.

Far too many preachers are ‘self-confident’ rather than Holy Spirit dependent! Listen to Spurgeon, [Memorial Library, Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 19, pps. 215-216], “Certain persons are very proud because they are self-made men. I will do them credit to admit that they heartily worship their maker. Self made them, and they worship self. We have among us individuals who are self-sufficient, and almost all-sufficient; they sneer at those who do not succeed, for “they” can succeed anywhere at anything. The world to them is a football which they can kick where they like. If they do not rise to the very highest eminence it is simply out of pity to the rest of us, who ought to have a chance. A vat of sufficiency ferments within their ribs!…Self-confidence is the death of confidence in God; reliance upon talent, tact, experience, and things of that kind, kills faith. Oh that we may know what faith means, and so look out of ourselves and quit the evil confidence which looks within!”

You’ll remember Acts 5:19-20! “The angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, ‘Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.” Question! “Led by the fruit of the Spirit, do you stand strong and speak to the people all the words of this life?

FIFTH, FORGETFULNESS OF THE PRIZE AND PRIVILEGE OF PREACHING IS OFTEN HINDERED BECAUSE OF ZEALOUSNESS FOR EVERYTHING BUT PREACHING. In the Book of I Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 12, Paul wrote: “Even so you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that you seek to excel.”

Preachers, what are you zealous for concerning your oversight of your churches? In Titus 2:14 Paul encouraged Titus and us, “who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” Truly, how is your development of New Testament disciples? Think about your ‘equipping ministry’ of the people under your trust and watch-care. In your preaching ministry to the church, what about your zealousness, not your sluggishness, but a true imitation and reproduction, and building up of men, women, boys, and girls, who “through faith and patience, [learn] to inherit the promises?”

Beauchene said it: “You are never a great man when you have more mind than heart.” It could be said: “You are never a great preacher when you mentally approach your people but void of Calvary love!!” Does the Word explain that attitude or approach? Jeremiah 6:14 says: “They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying “Peace, peace!” when there is no peace.” Another translation says: “They dress the wounds of My people as though it were not serious.”Zealousness! Fervency!

To the church at Galatia, Paul put it like this: Galatians 5:24, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” Is that your spiritual frame of reference as a preacher? Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest” [p.256], spoke about this verse: “Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” – it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something. Jesus said, “If any man will be My disciple, let him deny HIMSELF,” i.e., his right to himself, and a man has to realize WHO JESUS CHRIST IS before he will do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.” Does that fit you, Preacher, in your pulpit ministry?

SIXTH, FORGETFULNESS OF THE PRIZE AND PRIVILEGE OF PREACHING IS OFTEN HAMPERED BY THE LOSS OF A TRAVAILING SPIRIT. I’m sure you know the verse in Isaiah 66:8! “For as soon as Zion was in labor, travailing, she gave birth to her children.”

I cannot help but wonder if this is not the problem of most all the preachers of faith wherever they preach in whatever nation they preach! Is there such a characteristic of ‘agony of spirit’ about the Word God that would have you preach out of concern for your hearers? Eruptions of revival fires? Not apart from the labor and travailing spirit of God’s intercessors! Major waves of spiritual growth in your people, Preacher? Not apart from the travailing spirit! Giant spiritual quakes tearing down strongholds in the lives of those around you, Preacher? Not apart from the agony of spirit!

Agony of spirit? Travailing in spirit? Brokenness over the future of those without Christ? Sorrow that pervades your every wakened moment because of the spiritual lost-ness of your citizenry? A weighted mind and heart because of Satan’s delusions capturing family, friends, and foes?

Inactivity in touching our world with grace, indifference to our world’s ultimate destiny apart from Christ, insensitivity to even the spiritual dilemma of our own children and grandchildren and their friends and classmates, blindness and deafness to their separation from God, cold heartedness to the condition and future of Men without Christ? Where have we come to as preachers, churches, or disciples of Christ? Oh, we’re good at the band-aid approach when what is needed are heart transplants!!

What did God say through Jeremiah concerning, yes, His preachers of Today? Jeremiah 2:12-13!! “Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; Be very desolate,” says the Lord. “For My people [preachers] have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

If God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds,” what are preachers doing today with their travailing spirits or lack of them? Do you even know, comprehend, understand the weight of pain God Himself has carried concerning the lostness of fallen humanity, the pain He has had to carry concerning those who are separated from Him, and what did God do? His Son, our Savior, came and willingly travailed and suffered AT THE CROSS for their salvation! Jesus came and “gave His life [on the Cross] as a ransom for many.” [Matthew 20:28].

I pray that you as a preacher of the Gospel are not captured by a ‘care-less’ attitude in your preaching ministry! I pray that you as a preacher of the Gospel are one who has laid down your life as Jesus did His! I pray that you, if you have to stand alone, WILL stand alone, preach His Word passionately and lay your life down for the salvation of your people! I pray, with Paul, “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” [Ephesians 1:18].

CHAPTER EIGHT

FORGOTTEN? FIG-LEAF RELIGION IS NOT A FAITH RELATIONSHIP?

Deceivableness is a major outbreak of spiritual sickness, blindness, unrighteousness, releasing all manners of man-made religious activity that carries men and women further away from God and they don’t even know they are hiding from true redemption. When you think about deception and its origin among men, only one look is explainable, and that is at the source of deception which is the devil himself!

How easy to lose track of the road of redemption, reconciliation, regeneration, or re-birth! And, of course, because our enemy is a step ahead plotting our demise concerning true redemption! I know that you haven’t forgotten what Jesus said in John 10:10! “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, and have it to the full.” Satan isn’t interested in your blessing – he wants you captured in your ‘curse’!

Our Lord and Savior faced the onslaught of Satanic opposition just as we all do. There even came a time when Satan backed away from our Lord for a more opportune time. He left Jesus “for a season.” Satan’s one desire is to frustrate, deny, cover over both Christ’s and your divine purpose, intention, and holy will. Yes, even substitutions of the real truth will do for your sinister opponent!

Can you translate Adam and Eve out of the garden and put yourself there for a moment? They were God’s creation! They WERE man and wife! They were both naked there, and not ashamed! In Genesis 3 the serpent who is Satan came to Eve first to say, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’” Eve responded that what the serpent said contradicted what God told them, but his intent is to cast doubt in all our lives concerning the TRUTH of the Word of God!

Eve said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of THE TREE which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.” And the devil’s response? “You surely shall not die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When Eve saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of that fruit and ate. She then gave some to her husband and he ate. Then what happened?

Please examine carefully Genesis 3:7-9! Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed FIG LEAVES together and MADE THEMSELVES COVERINGS. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”

Think about what God just said to Adam! Do you really believe God didn’t know where Adam was or was God probing Adam to alert himself concerning his present spiritual condition? Was God’s question drawing two pictures?: 1) Genesis 2:25, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” 2) Then, hiding from God’s presence, because now they were ashamed!! Satan, sin, sad choices left them in a spiritual dilemma, and they determined they had to take matters into their own hands!

You do realize that this picture drawn by Adam and Eve in the earliest days of their “Fall” away from God is given by the grace of God to alert us all about the danger of believing our “fig-leaves” are a true faith relationship! “Fig-Leaf Religions” are men’s inventions to take redemption into their own hands, their own way, determining for themselves how to be acceptable before Holy God! I’m sorry if it irritates you, but, Christianity, biblical Christianity, is not a ‘religion’ but a relationship! I look at Romans 5:8 and wonder, how deceived were Adam and Eve and the founders of world religions when the heart of God has always been out for a relationship – not religions founded by men? “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And then in Romans 5:9-11 we see ‘Relationship’ because of reconciliation! “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have NOW received the reconciliation.” Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who has torn away our “fig leaves” and given us, by His grace, mercy, and love, a Living, Breathing Relationship!

Do you remember Jesus weeping over Jerusalem? Luke 19:41-44 tells us about this “religious city”! Now as He [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.”

‘Hidden from your eyes?’ Has ‘Fig-Leaf Religion’ or religions, become the stumbling block to true redemptive faith? For the Jewish city of Jerusalem it was “the pride of Pharisaism” that shut the door to many hearts concerning saving faith – and that spirit still exists all over the world! Millions flock to their “religious cities”, holy places, sacred sights – and go away from, not toward, Holy God!

In reading Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost..”, I came across words of a verse of a hymn: “Since my eyes have looked on Jesus, I’ve lost sight of all beside, So enchained my spirit’s vision, Gazing on the Crucified.” I might ask: “How are you dressed? Fig-Leaves or Redemptive Faith?

Later, Chambers wrote: [p.69], “We can never fathom the agony in Gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and Man in one, face to face with sin. We know nothing about Gethsemane in personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary stand for something unique [I could say, eternal!]; they are the gateway into Life for us.” Understand? Fig-leaves are statements about spiritual death, false religions, empty results – redemptive Faith is the shed blood of Christ Jesus on the Cross in our stead birthing Life, Faith, Hope, Relationship, Fulfillment – not emptiness and self-awareness of: “I’m empty, lost, separated from God; I better do something about my spiritual condition!”

“Fig-Leaf Religion” is the scheme of self-help, self-importance, self-abilities, self-enhancement, totally ignoring “saving grace”! It was Daniel Yankelovich, in his book, “New Rules: Searching for Self-fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down,” [New York: Random House, 1981, p.237], who wrote: “the human self can be wholly autonomous, solitary, contained and ‘self-created.” Let me paraphrase it: “the religious self can be wholly autonomous [and is!], solitary [separated from God], contained [selfishly harbored and protected for what I believe to be religious faith], and ‘self-created’, [a religious work of art by my own hand!]”

“Fig-Leaf Religion” is the absence of God from spiritual life and the insertion of man’s own abilities to correct, enhance, and shine out his amazing spiritual skills to recover on his own!

“Fig-Leaf Religion” is man-centered – not God-centered, believing man is able, on his own, to do exceedingly abundantly above all he sets his mind to!

“Fig-Leaf Religion” is man loving himself so much that he doesn’t have to look beyond his own nose to help himself – he’s a true ‘self-lover’ so opposite of what Jesus said in John 12:25! “He who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.”

“Fig-Leaf Religion” is man serving himself with himself only in view, but Jesus Himself said in John 12:26 “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me,” when self-serving religion is devotion to one’s self, not devotion to the claims of Christ!

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? That’s all-out total absorption in one’s self-awareness, fleshly abilities, yes, even worth and value wrapped up in the cheap tissues of religious activities when Jesus says to us through what Paul learned: Philippians 3:7-8, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? Haven’t you heard it? “If Christ died for the ungodly, then what relevance is that to me? I’m Okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay!” Across our modern world how rampant do you believe ‘self-importance’ has become, even to the point of ignoring God Himself to establish one’s own ‘religious identity’ apart from repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ?

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? Rules, regulations, rituals, reaching for What Cannot Be Obtained, opposite of ‘rest,’ ‘rejuvenation,’ regeneration, restoration of God’s eternal intent, standing on the record of our Lord’s ‘finished work,’ not our best efforts!

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? Bondage to the devil and the powers of darkness! Satan loves ‘religious’ people because he knows they are in his camp whether they know it or not! But true faith, true relationship with Holy God? Hebrews 2:14-15 says: “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself [Jesus] likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Are you aware that ‘religious’ activity equals bondage and no freedom?

“Fig-Leaf Religion?” An earthly, fleshly, selfish attempt to ‘save’ one’s self by ‘doing better’ but never coming to the end of one’s self in the crucifixion with Christ at the Cross! “Crucified with Christ? That doesn’t compute with me! I can take care of myself – I’m a religious person!” Oh, really? It was Abraham Kuyper who once said: “There is not an inch of any sphere of life over which Jesus Christ does not say, ‘Mine.’” Are you His or are you ‘yours’?

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? “Slaves of sin, chained to slave masters, convinced ‘I am what I am, I am where I am, I do what I do’, because this appears to be a normal way of life for most folks,” when in reality Jesus came to totally set us free, then gladly and willingly chained to Christ, I “serve” out of a new heart of joy and gladness and divine fulfillment that honors my Lord and Savior!

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? “Earning! That’s what religious activity is all about! Self-discernment about what is right and good! That’s what a religious person is up to! Rightly taking care of number one, me, is truly beneficial activity [when on the Cross Jesus took our best and worst and put it all to death!].”

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? “Don’t concern yourself about my spiritual condition. It’s A-OK! I joined First Church last Sunday!” Really? Our ‘Christian’ world now defines the ‘Second Birth’ as joining the church, adding my name to the church rolls, showing up occasionally to verify I’m on board?”

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? ‘You really, Pastor, shouldn’t be down on people because they sin, but now that deacon of yours, Joe Blow, you may think he’s a holy, righteous, godly man, but I see him as an abomination to the Lord.” Oh, really? Proverbs 17:5 says: [RSV translation!] “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord,” but, remember, “Fig-Leaf Religion” is so valuable to some while the ‘Faith-Walk’ is abhorrent to them!

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? It is that drive that what matters is one’s devotion to make a better world around us without any consideration or motivation of the ‘eternal’ or our residency in heaven one day! The Christian faith is centered on the here and now as well as beyond the grave! “Fig-Leaf” people, sadly, are motivated by what goes on in their ‘flesh,’ in the ‘here and now,’ but bristle when a true believer suggests as great a devotion to eternity as their present reality! Could that fleshly, fig-leaf mind-set be “saving one’s life, but losing his soul”?

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? “Accumulation, accumulation, accumulation! A man’s life does consist in what he accumulates! It shows he’s favored by God “– when in reality Jesus said in Luke 12:15, “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions!” What did Paul write to the church at Rome and us in Romans 8:5-6? “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally [fleshly] minded is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? “I cannot believe that your pastor and church elders really believe that they need to deal with or discipline Brother So & So. That is so unlike Jesus or God on His throne!” Yet Hebrews 12:5-11 says: “And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? “Those Christians, those fanatical preachers, those misinformed Bible teachers, are so off base when they talk about ‘fearing God’! Why, I believe I’m His best friend – and there is no fear in me!” Yet the Bible I read tells me that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” [Psalm 111:10]. I read in Psalm 34:7 that “The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him, and delivers them.” Was Jesus so unwise, untaught, off base about ‘fearing God’? I read in Matthew 10:28, Jesus speaking, teaching, enlightening, His disciples: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? Can’t you hear it? “Those Christians! They really believe that, because of this Jesus’ shed blood, that God calls on them to live pure, holy, clean, unstained lives. Well, I believe that I can’t do anything but sin until I get to heaven someday or find myself waking up in some paradise of purity and holiness – I know I’ll never be fully pure!” Yet, we’ve already seen in Titus 2:14 that God’s, YES, Holy Word says: “[Christ] gave Himself for us to redeem us…and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” I’m not sure that the one who says he can’t do anything but sin has ever read passionately God’s Holy Word! In Romans 6:1-14 we read one of the most liberating passages of God’s Holy Word that exposes the “Fig-Leaf Religion” concept you just read about! It says: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe 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 indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? “ Suffering? Trouble? Tribulation? Heartache? Tears? That may be what you sense is in your path as a religious man/woman, but religious faith that really means something in the life here and now is a life void of all pain and heartache – that’s what I sense!” But does that line up with the Lord of our salvation? In John 16:33 Jesus said: “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.”

I’m not sure that you know of Samuel Rutherford, but you should learn all you can by this brilliant minister and teacher of humanities at the University of Edinburgh in the 1600’s. He received a theology degree also and later pastored a church at Anworth in the year of 1627. From church history you may have read about the Episcopalians rising up to rule over the Scottish church. Rutherford was a nonconformist and, as a result of that, was imprisoned. He learned such strong, eternal, life-changing truths while in jail!! E.M. Bounds quoted him in “Heaven: A Place, a City, a Home,” [Grand Rapids: Baker House, 1975, p.13]. Don’t miss this!! Hear it!!:

“If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then had told me that He should begin by crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a close room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps, and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven.” God’s ways ARE NOT the ways of “Fig-Leaf Religion”!!

How did Habakkuk respond about this, in agreement with Rutherford? Habakkuk 3:17-18 says: “Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls – Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” WOW!!**!!

“Fig-Leaf Religion”? “This concept that God knows us all personally, intimately, and practically has a special plan for every life is so unnecessary, so unfounded! He’s a Big God with an overview of all – knowing us personally is so unfounded!” Really? In Romans 1:5-6 Paul wrote: “Through Him [Jesus}, we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, among whom YOU ALSO are the called of Jesus Christ…”

In his book, “The Power of the Call,” [p.35], Henry Blackaby wrote: “God Himself CHOSE US, CALLED US IN HIS TIME, and separated us out FOR HIMSELF. As clearly as God separated from all other days and sanctified the seventh day [set it apart for Himself, Genesis 3:3] and commanded it to be “the Sabbath of the Lord your God” [Exodus 20:10], so God set you apart from all others – for Himself!!” Glory! Hallelujah! God be praised! God be Blessed and Exalted! He’s not the author of “Fig-Leaf Religion” but the author of “FAITH BLESSED RELATIONSHIPS”!! AMEN?

As I close this chapter, I would fail you miserably if I did not point out to you that in the wanderings of Adam and Eve in the “Fig-Leaves”, God showed up!! “Where are you, Adam?” God knew – but it was time for Adam to come to his spiritual senses and rest himself and his bride at the throne of God where grace, mercy, and love resides!

CHAPTER NINE

FORGOTTEN? WE ALL HAVE AN ENEMY?

I don’t know if you are familiar with Leif Enger – I wasn’t – but I saw a statement he wrote that spurred me on into this chapter. He said: “We and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves.” Certainly, mankind has had an enemy called the ‘devil,’ Satan, the serpent, since the day of Creation of man and woman in the Garden when he came to Eve calling God ‘a liar.’ And ‘the serpent’ hasn’t changed but fallen humanity has, yes, and bought into his ‘lie’ and still suffers from the consequences of a cruel spiritual war!

Have you ever heard this from blinded, deluded, captured by Satan individuals? “Evil isn’t real – it’s the result of mental illness!” “The demonic or demons aren’t real – it’s mental illness!” “The devil or Satan isn’t real – he’s a disjointed, convoluted figure of ‘Christian’ delusional thinking!” “The powers of darkness? That’s nothing more than ‘self-imposed,’ personal choices of ‘less-than-my-best’!” “Sin? That’s only personal failures that make us stronger over the long haul – nothing deadly about that!”

But let me hit this theme head-on: John 10:10, Jesus Himself said, “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I [Savior and Lord] have come that they may have life, and have it to the full [maximum intensity God wants us all to have].” But there is a thief, a robber, a deceiver, a killer of God-ordained hopes and dreams in too many lives – mostly because they’ve never done battle, warfare, spiritual attacks against their enemy!

It’s really a bit of intellectual brain-deadness to say that demon-activity is reserved for ‘primitive people’ or ‘the educationally deprived’! Or, yes, to say ‘there is no devil’ or ‘Satan’ or that the armies of Hell are not real or surrounding us for attacks on us and our families! It doesn’t matter to me if you’re in the darkest area of Africa spiritually or the most modern, up-to-date city in the U.S.A – the old serpent is comfortable in any surroundings!

I will not forget being in a major mountain city up from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. Mark and Colleen Handy were with me along with Billy Graham Paulose, son of Moses Paulose of Rameswaram, India. After the day’s seminar had finished, we’d had dinner, and were ready for bed; as we got our hotel room keys, the lady-manager, who was from England, said to me: “I know you are Christians and you minister spiritually to the needy. One of my hotel house-cleaners has a spiritual need. Could you help her?” I said, “When she comes to work in the morning make sure her husband is with her, and send them to my room.” The team met there early to pray before we started the day’s seminar. The worker came with her husband – she barely had gotten into the room before she “fell out”! We all knew it was demonic – that her enemy, the devil, wanted to disable or kill this woman. I began to pray, to take authority over the controlling demons of this troubled woman, and I gave the demons a command in the Name of Jesus to come out this lady! Immediately, though this lady knew no English, never spoken English, out of her mouth a strong male voice spoke in English saying, “We don’t have to come out and we’re not coming out!” The battle intensified, but those demons came out of the woman, she was healed, came to Christ, and left the hotel room rejoicing in Jesus.” Later, Billy Graham Paulose said to me, “Papa, that’s the first demon I’ve ever heard speak English here in India!!” For some, India may seem ‘primitive’, but I’ve witnessed demons coming out of highly educated Americans also.

It absolutely amazes me that here in America there are those who sadly believe that Jesus was only adapting Himself to the limited thought patterns of His day, and He went along to get along. GOD FORBID! There was no accommodation on Jesus’ part – only commitment to dethrone the ‘god’ of this fallen world – Satan! In I John 5:19 John wrote, “The whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” But the one thing you will learn right here is that the shed blood of our Lord and Savior has erased the sting or bite of the serpent who wants you dead – we’re, in Christ, recipients of resurrection life and hope – and our Lord has defanged our enemy!

There is a powerful word of instruction in Isaiah 52:1-2 for Jerusalem then and the people of Jesus NOW! It says: “Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you. Shake yourself from the dust, arise; sit down, O Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion!” Notice: “Put on your strength [that’s Jesus!]; put on your beautiful garments [His robe of righteousness!]; Shake yourself from the dust [defeated demons because of Jesus’ shed blood!]; Loose yourself [Taking the authority Jesus has given you!]!!” In Christ, you ARE “more than conqueror!!”

From the Garden of Eden to the heartland of America, from the Garden of Eden to busy streets all over Europe, from the Garden of Eden to the over-populated streets of Asian cities, from the Garden of Eden to the dark corners of Africa, those armies of Hell itself are armed to capture, enslave, bind, suffocate, mar, maim, cripple, put to sleep, steal, blind, and, yes, claim you for the citizenry of darkness! Look at Revelation 12:7-9!! “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.”

I pray that you please hear me, give heed to God’s Word, and also look across our known world to the devastation your Enemy leaves behind in his movements in lives, families, cities, and nations! Revelation 12:12b says: “For the devil has come down TO YOU, having great wrath [fury, anger], because he knows that he has a short time.” I so love and appreciate what John Eldredge had to say in his book “Waking The Dead,” [Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 2003, p.152], “To live in ignorance of spiritual warfare is the most naïve and dangerous thing a person can do.”

Eldredge then quoted William Gurnall: “The devil has more temptations than an actor has costumes for the stage. And one of his all-time favorite disguises is that of a lying spirit, to abuse your tender heart with the worst news he can deliver – that you do not really love Jesus Christ and that you are only pretending, you are only deceiving yourself.”

Disguises? It’s so amazing to me that Paul was used of our Lord and Savior in challenging us to be discerning on our spiritual journeys. He said in 2 Corinthians 11:14, “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light,” requiring every earthly citizen to walk in spiritual discernment! There is a War going on for every human soul and especially believers as Satan wants us disarmed. This is why Paul said in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” That’s Satan’s kingdom of darkness – He hates the Light and those who dwell in the Light!

In I Peter 5:8-10 are encouraging words, at least for the one who knows he’s in a war for his soul! It says: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour [swallow up]; whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.” Peter said his intent is to :devour” you; but he’ll seek to deceive you, disillusion you, defeat you, disarm you, decay you, depress you, denounce your faith, detour you away from your only hope!

Adrian Rogers, before his death, wrote a book on “Kingdom Authority,” and in it he wrote: “Satan is a consummate liar, and he is spiritually wicked, brilliantly stupid, and hideously beautiful. He wants to pull the veil of darkness over his activities. For a while he may persuade sophisticates that he does not exist at all. They think of him as a mythological character or in the comic sense as a little guy in a red suit with a pitchfork trying to catch somebody bending over.” [B&H Publ Group, Nashville, Tn. 2002, p.6]. Do you understand? Do you sense it in what you see happening all around you with some family members, maybe your own parents, close friends, classmates, government leaders, business leaders, the movie industry, the nation? And you, they, society in general, are unaware that Satan thrives on darkness, destruction, disease, dying, death! What did we see about ‘the thief’ in John 10:10? “The thief comes not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.”

Satan was cast out of heaven because he chose to be his own boss! Have you? He would not be ruled over, led by, or even blessed by God! Cast out of heaven? Because he loved the indecent, the impure, the dirty, unclean, immoral! Your enemy thrives on spiritual sickness and sadness! He’s blessed by those who allow personal torment and paralyzing acts to guide their daily lives for a ‘bigger kick’ than they received yesterday from their own debauchery instigated by Satan! Oh, how he thrives on the breaking up of meaningful relationships, yes, especially where ‘church splits’ divide, separate, usually disillusioning some! Marriages and families are primary “fronts” of attacks! [I had lunch with our church’s Youth Minister recently, and sadly he told me, I believe, that eleven or twelve of the young boys in his youth group had no fathers around them!] Satan is filled with hatred of Christ and Christ’s children of faith! He despises it all!

And the one thing I want you to grasp, Frederick Buechner said it so well: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Concerning our Lord and Savior, concerning eternal purpose, concerning lives of blessing – so many are deprived, denied, yes, even enslaved in dark cells of demonic activity, because Satan is not interested in those around you, blinded by him, that there is another Way – where you are, with whom you relate, God has placed you there to let them know ‘freedom in Christ’, yes, from demonic activity!!

It was C.S Lewis who once said: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” And you see not only Christ’s finished work at the Cross – you see the prison cells of life where many ARE enslaved by the demon powers! But the sad thing is that many Christians ignore the ministry of caring that Jesus daily exemplified including “deliverance” of many from the clutches of Satan’s hold! Certainly George Bernard Shaw was not a believing disciple of Christ but he sadly nailed the church-at-large when he said: “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.” But too many ‘believers’ are so fragile when it comes to outreach opportunities among the spiritually enslaved to the powers of darkness because their situation and circumstance is beyond the disciple’s ability to help – but the problem is not one’s inability but his availability to all Jesus IS!! And He’s the Deliverer!!

I found it so very, very interesting and convicting in reading what John Stott had to say in his book, “Human Rights and Human Wrongs [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1999, pps.83-84]. He wrote: “Our Christian habit is to bewail the world’s deteriorating standards with an air of rather self-righteous dismay. We criticize its violence, dishonesty, immorality, disregard for human life, and materialistic greed. “The world is going down the drain,” we say with a shrug. But whose fault is it? Who is to blame? Let me put it like this. If the house is dark when nightfall comes, there is no sense in blaming the house; that is what happens when the sun goes down. The question to ask is, “Where is the light?” Similarly, if the meat goes bad and becomes inedible, there is no sense in blaming the meat; that is what happens when bacteria are left alone to breed. The question to ask is “Where is the salt?” Just so, if society deteriorates and its standards decline until it becomes dark night or stinking fish, there is no sense in blaming society; that is what happens when fallen men and women are left to themselves, and human selfishness is unchecked. The question to ask is, “Where is the Church? Why are the salt and light of Jesus Christ not permeating and changing our society?” It is sheer hypocrisy on our part to raise our eyebrows, shrug our shoulders, or wring our hands. The Lord Jesus told us to be the world’s salt and light. If therefore darkness and rottenness abound, it is largely our fault and we must accept the blame.” And sadly I don’t see too many ‘church-folk’ invading a demonized society with Jesus’ promise of liberty and freedom!!

And I have no hesitation in reminding you of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s words: “Action springs not from thought, but a readiness for responsibility.”

Plus, C.S. Lewis really shared insightful words when he wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because of it I see everything else.” And you’re unsure whether Christ and His Word has enlightened you as to the ministry of deliverance concerning the Satanic, demonic world you encounter just about every day? God’s Holy Word has shown us, revealed to us, opened the door to us, in understanding the “Distressing Disguises” the Devil himself tries to dress us with, but Jesus exposed and won the victory over “them” through His shed blood at Calvary’s Cross!

Luke 9:42 tells us: “And as he was still coming, the demon threw him down and convulsed him. Then Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the child, and gave him back to his father.” WHAT A WORD OF HOPE!

In Revelation 12:11 never forget this Word as you step out and step on the battlefield against Christ’s and His enemy, Satan: “And they overcame him [the Devil and Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

“DISTRESSING DISGUISES?” Satan casts doubt on the Word of God, but we do know “All Scripture is God-breathed…!!!” Satan is a stickler for legalism apart from grace, mercy, and love. Satan confesses to ‘Lies’ – not to the Truth! Satan twists the Truth [ask Eve!] and misuses Scripture to what he believes is his advantage! Satan fights, wars, for what he “thinks” is his; Satan induces bitter souls to end sadness before they find “joy”, giving his approval to any and all who will take their own lives! Satan is the master of anxiety, worry, fear, discouragement, and sin! Satan majors on shifts of spiritual eye-contact – always away from God, from His Word, from Jesus, majoring on your ‘short-sightedness’ about our Lord’s eternal purpose for that person! Satan majors on thorns, briers, unplowed fields of the human heart and mind, unseeded fields void of the seeds of His Holy Word! But there is:

“DIVINE GRACE”!! I John 5:18 says: “We know that whosoever is born of God [Second Birth, John 3] sins not; but he that is begotten of God keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not.” And that happens because as Paul said in Ephesians 4:26-27, Be angry and sin not; let not the sun go down upon your wrath; neither give place to the devil.” And didn’t James say that if we submit ourselves to God, RESIST the devil, that he will flee from us? James 4:7. Divine Grace CONQUERS !!

I want to close this chapter With Adrian Rogers’ conclusion to his book on “Kingdom Authority”!! He wrote:

*Rather than “Lord, be with us,” pray, “Father, we welcome Your presence.”

*Rather than “Lord, give us victory,” pray, “Lord, you are our victory. I thank you to cause us always to triumph.”

*Rather than “Lord, defeat Satan,” pray, “Lord, I thank you that Satan has been defeated by your shed blood.”

* Rather than “Lord, give me strength,” pray, “Lord, you are my strength, shield, and deliverer.”

*Rather than “Lord, help me to be a better servant,” pray, “Lord, I consciously yield myself to you. I report to duty.”

I encourage you, in spiritual warfare against Satan and his armed forces, RESIST him in the name of Jesus, resist him through Jesus’ shed blood, resist him, yes, because you love your life in Christ even to the point of death if necessary for the honor of your Savior and Lord alone!! To the devil, Satan himself, if he comes to you, speak the words of Jesus, the victory of Jesus at the Cross and empty tomb, and stand on His promises that in Him YOU are more than conqueror!

CHAPTER TEN

FORGOTTEN?CHILDREN OF FAITH ARE DISCIPLINED BY THE LORD?

I know for those who are intimately acquainted with New Testament discipleship that they are not unfamiliar with New Testament ‘discipline’ as they journey on in the pathway of faith and faithfulness, but ‘youngsters’ in the faith sometimes are those, yes, like little children learning the discipline of caring parents. Our ‘walk with God’ IS an intimate relationship like Parent to a growing child, and that does include spiritual disciplining just as much as true parental disciplining! Aren’t you aware of ‘friends’ in the faith whose walks fail to exemplify ‘trained disciple’ but picture tragically untrained pilgrimages, untrained hopes and dreams of usefulness to the glory of Christ, even possibly resenting even any mention that true faith is founded on true faithfulness birthed out of steady, scriptural disciplines?

To the young or immature disciple of the Lord Jesus, spiritual discipline seems to make no sense to them because they’ve fallen for the idea that “common sense” is their guide! They are smart enough to decipher for themselves what is good or bad, what is holy or unholy, what is right or wrong – but in John 16:12-14 Jesus said: “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.”

Now, please notice, wrestle with, decipher what God is saying to YOU through Hebrews 12:5-13! “And have you FORGOTTEN the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.’”

Notice, ‘dislocation’. Have you ever known the pain ‘dislocation’ brings? In the Spirit-realm that’s to be without discipline! What about lameness? What about feeble knees? What about illegitimacy? What about weakness? No discipline means careless, fruitless, short-sighted living, apart from that God desires you to have! Our Lord and Savior is not interested in seeing anyone with hands hanging down, feeble knees, or crooked paths! He wants you strong in Him walking straight paths to His glory, honor, and praise! Undisciplined living spiritually for any man opens the door to drastic erosion like the physical erosion seen in Florida or California shorelines! It can be explosive ‘sinkings’ in the spirit-realm leaving some to ask, “Is there any hope?” For some there is no hope for them because they bought in to a “false gospel” producing deception, disillusionment, unrealized spiritual dreams, because that “false gospel” related to self-effort, self-assertiveness, self-fulfillment, and self-glory, and no biblical directive of “the way of salvation.” Sheep are willing to be led – sadly donkeys usually have to be driven!

The donkeys of undisciplined lifestyles are described in Psalm 147:10 where the psalmist wrote: “He [God] does not delight in the strength of the horse; He [God] takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.” That’s the one standing “on his own” in no need of saving grace or mercy! Then verse 11 says, “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.” The undisciplined ‘donkey-style’ of life misses our Lord’s mercy and grace, but sheep have the Shepherd they’re willing to be led by! And God gives those a promise: Isaiah 45:2-3, “I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord who call you by your name, am the God of Israel.” Amen?

Have you FORGOTTEN His exhortation? Have you forgotten children of faith ARE disciplined by the Lord? How does that happen? Why does it happen?

I BELIEVE THE FORGETFULNESS OUR LORD SPOKE ABOUT IS BECAUSE OF AN ALLEGIANCE TO SELF, THE FLESH, THE ‘OLD MAN’ IN FALLEN ADAM BECAUSE OF A REFUSAL TO DENY SELF. In Matthew 16:24 Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

A lot of people across the world ‘follow Christ,’ but refuse the cross, and certainly have no plans at all in denying self! Our Lord and Savior said in Matthew 10:32-33, “Therefore whoever confesses 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.”

Do you remember the passage where Jesus described those on “His right hand,” and also “those on His left hand”? It’s Matthew 25: 31-34, 41-46! May the Holy Spirit of God open all eyes who read this passage! Verses 31-36, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 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…Verses 41-46, Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ Then they also will answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

The “Forgotten Exhortation” of Hebrews 12 starts with verse one which is your challenge right now! “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

Oswald Chambers wrote in his “My Utmost For His Highest,”, [pps.257-258], “The characteristics of individuality are independence and self-assertiveness. It is the continual assertion of individuality that hinders our spiritual life more than anything else. If you say – “I cannot believe,” it is because individuality is in the road; individuality never can believe. Personality cannot help believing. Watch yourself when the Spirit of God is at work. He pushes you to the margins of your individuality, and you have either to shall – “I shall not,” or to surrender, to break the husk of individuality and let the personal life emerge. The Holy Spirit narrows it down every time to one thing [Matthew 5:23-24], “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” The thing in you that will not be reconciled to your brother is individuality. God wants to bring you into union with Himself, but unless you are willing to give up your right to yourself He cannot. “Let him deny himself” – deny his independent right to himself, then the real life has a chance to grow.”

I BELIEVE THE FORGETFULNESS OUR LORD SPOKE ABOUT IS ALSO BECAUSE MOST WALK AWAY FROM GOD – NOT TOWARD HIM. In Genesis 5:24 there is a very simple yet declarative verse. It says: “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.”

If you have any doubt or doubts about a man’s faith or not, just examine his walk! Examining a man, consider the mundane experience of every-day living, not simply when the “religious spotlight” is shining on him! If you look at Hebrews 11:5 you see another word about Enoch. It says: “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, and was not found, because God had taken him ; for before he was taken, he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”

It is so interesting and thrilling and challenging to me as I read John 1:36 which says: “And looking at Jesus as He walked, John said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” As Jesus was known by His walk as well as His word, so, true disciples reveal their devotion to their own watch-care over their walks. But too many ‘fallen men’ spiritually refuse to walk toward or with God. Independence is the rule of their every step, yet think of Peter in Matthew 14:29, who “walked on the water to go to Jesus!”

Jude had been talking about “ungodly sinners” who speak against Jesus, and then said in Jude 16, “These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts…” John said it like this in I John 2:11, “But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” And do you understand – for some they could care less that they’ve chosen darkness and missed the True Light!

I call the Psalms “The Story of Authenticity!” And it begins with Psalm 1: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way [the walk] of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

I BELIEVE ALSO THE FORGETFULNESS OUR LORD SPOKE ABOUT IS THE WRESTLING AND WARFARE GOING ON IN ONE’S MIND THAT THEY SELFISHLY ALLOW TO WIN OUT OVER THE TRUTH OF GOD. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul made mention of those who are, yes, even presently having to: “cast down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God…” Isn’t it sad to you that even ‘religion’ in men’s minds become stumbling blocks to the True Faith?

There is no hesitation in saying to you that redemptive faith majors on the heart, but often the ‘mind’ of fallen men put up strong roadblocks to keep one penetrating their hearts. Morally men oppose the Gospel and forget the Gospel, but mentally the ‘brain-washing’ process is just as dangerous excusing the filthiness of mind, flesh, and spirit as “the price I pay to be free to please and satisfy myself”!

How did Paul put it to the Corinthians? I Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.”

Didn’t God say through one of His prophets, “My thoughts are not your thoughts”? And, sadly, you do know that one of the great ‘sins’ of fallen humanity is insubordination toward God and His Word!?!?

In Philippians 2:5-8 by His Word God challenges all through Paul: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

Our example of a yielded mind? “Yes, God, even to the point of dying,” and, as result many say, “That’s not my mind-set!”

FORGETFULNESS? FATAL FORGETFULNESS? “IF GOD EXPECTS ME TO DEAL WITH WHAT IS IN MY LIFE THAT OFFENDS HIM OR HINDERS MY SPIRITUAL GROWTH, FORGET IT, I’M NOT INTERESTED!” Are you familiar with Matthew 5:30? Jesus said: “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”

What in the world was our Lord saying? He was saying that nothing, not even your right hand, was important enough in your life if it caused you to miss or forfeit “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” That was not an edict for all smart spiritual people to go cut off their right hand! But that right hand is not more valuable to you than relationship to Christ! Except that it is true for many because they place no value on knowing Christ – they are saviors of all they deem important for themselves!

Do you remember Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead? You’ll find the story in John 11 as Jesus had ministered to Martha about resurrection life. Jesus spoke, “Lazarus, come forth!” And verse 44 says, “And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.” How many have crossed your path disinterested in your testimony because they are comfortable in their ‘grave-clothes’ and have no desire to hear about the One who sets captives free! Comfort in grave-clothes? No interest in removing deathly consequences?

Paul passionately wrote to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 7:1-3, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Open your hearts to us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one. I do not say this to condemn; for I have said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.” Perfecting holiness? Forget it! Seeing myself cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit? Perfecting holiness in the fear of God in me? Forget it! Open my heart to others like Paul? Forget it! Choosing death daily that I might experience resurrection life in its fullness? Forget it!”

FORGETFULNESS? “COMMIT TO DISCIPLINE SO FRUIT WILL COME THROUGH ME HONORING CHRIST?” “The free gift of God in Christ has personal responsibility tied to it to be a fruit-producer that honors Him? I don’t think so. Hard ground in me has to be plowed, the soil of my life enriched, good seed planted, watering with the water of His Word, waiting for a crop? I believe I’ll pass!”

Peter had been talking about one being a partaker of the divine nature – and in 2 Peter 1:5-11 he said: “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control, perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has FORGOTTEN that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Please check the eighth verse again! “For if these things are yours and abound, you will neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Oswald Chambers was so on target! In “My Utmost…” he said: [p.96], “When we begin to form a habit we are conscious of it. There are times when we are conscious of becoming virtuous and patient and godly, but it is only a stage; if we stop there we shall get the strut of the spiritual prig.” Well, that’s true of some, but others are of the attitude and frame of reference, “I don’t want to be a fruitful field for God!” and they mean it!

FORGETFULNESS? “THE NECESSITY OF SPIRIT-ANOINTED LIVING? I’M NOT IN CONTROL? I BELIEVE I’LL PASS.” In Luke 24:49 Jesus said: “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

I don’t know how anyone could casually read through the Book of Acts and not be excited about Spirit-Anointed Living! A few disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, turned their known world upside down, inside out!

Receiving the ministry of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential for every man Jesus loves and wants to breathe into His spiritual breath of life, but with some people in some places the Holy Spirit is not welcome when His one desire is to quicken Christ in us and empower us to overcome! Don’t reject the Holy Spirit! Don’t refuse His desire to bless you as He convicts you of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come!

Rather than forget, ignore, deny the Holy Spirit, why not say, right now, “Oh, Holy Spirit, I welcome you right now to honor Jesus IN ME and THROUGH ME. I yield to your desire to bless me ‘in Christ,’ I yield to your desire to cover me and crown me in Your anointing, empowering me to honor Christ rather than refuse His saving grace, mercy, and love. Fill me, Holy Spirit, with power divine – I’m tired of my impotence that does nothing redemptive in me or through me. Amen!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FORGOTTEN? MARRIAGE: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE AND BLESSING?

FORGOTTEN? When you look at our modern America and, yes, our world-at-large, concerning home and family, have we fatalistically been wrapped in a futile hope of something good and lasting being restored or will we be fully wrapped in the “Blessed Hope” of Faith and Fulfillment in families – or do we just settle in to marriage being ‘forgotten’ as God ordained it to be?

I’m sincerely afraid that for far too many homes and families biblical marriage, home and family have been set aside, or, at least for a period of time, ‘masquerading’ as if everything is A-OK in our ‘house’. Has America forgotten its biblical roots concerning marriage?

Are we pulled, pressured, paralyzed by a perilous secular society, sin-ladened, which it and us in the church refuse to recognize as our dilemma, OR, can there be again a spiritual reformation and re-awakening through a powerful pull of God by His convicting Holy Spirit, sin-forgiven through His mercy and grace and the blood of Christ concerning ‘family forgetfulness,’ gladly, again, giving Jesus His rightful place as Lord over our marriages and homes?

Related to the marriages, homes, and families, have we ‘FORGOTTEN GOD,’ living though as ‘practical atheists, believing in God yet living separately as if He didn’t exist,’ OR, will we be once again fully immersed, not only in belief in Him and His Word, but learning to LIVE the ‘exchanged LIFE IN CHRIST’ – living by the Resurrection Life of our Lord in our homes and families?

FORGETFULNESS? Have we all of a sudden inherited a lost sight of God in our marriages corresponding to a lost sight of our true identity in Christ, BLINDED by the ‘god’ of this world, OR, can we say once again: “You, God, see us in our homes and families…and Your gaze on us has gracefully and graciously revealed that we need “to turn our eyes [of marriage and family] once again on Jesus Only.”

Marriage? Home? Family? Kids? Have we FORGOTTEN? Will it be the “godless” lives of choice – selfish, impersonal, radical disobedience to Holy God, OR, will our marriage and home and family be the predestined, the redeemed, the reconciled – a “Christ-filled LIFE” of selflessness, service, caring, loving, ministering, teaching, disciplining, blessing – intent on marriage and family being a God-honoring witness?

There is no doubt in my mind that what was established by God as a holy, reflective institution of God Himself has been stolen by fallen humanity and establishing for themselves the absence of ground rules, with their own ideas negating biblical revelation!

Henry de Lubac in “The Drama of Atheist Humanism,” [trans. By Edith M.Riley, 1950; New York; World Publishing Com. 1963, IX] wrote: “Man cannot organize the world [dare I say (JFF) ‘cannot organize marriage & family’?] for himself without God; without God he can only organize the world against man, [dare I say [JFF], ‘disorganize marriage & family for his own selfish interests?]. Exclusive humanism is inhuman humanism.” And I believe that explains so much about the debacle of marriage and family.

Christopher Dawson wrote “Progress and Religion: An Historical Inquiry, [1931, Peru, Il: Sherwood Sugden & Co., 1991, p.228]. He said: “It seems as though a new society was arising which will acknowledge no hierarchy of values, no intellectual authority, and no social or religious tradition, but which will live for the moment in a chaos of pure sensation.” Is that descriptive to a great degree of marriages and families in our world today?

But I believe that what has been forgotten is God Almighty’s intent that “Marriage [be]: A Celebration of Life and Blessing”! I was recently reading through Hebrews 11 and God so clearly spoke to my heart about true believers in a maddening world of marriage and family chaos! My wife and I on June 10, 2012, celebrated our 56^th anniversary of marriage. Hebrews 11:13 says, speaking of heroes of the true faith: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”

Hebrews 11:14-16 goes on to say: “For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” Is your desire a ‘better country’ for marriage and family around you, “that is, a heavenly country”?

You do understand that our ‘faith in Christ’ is because we knew, by His grace and by His Spirit, that we needed to be saved by His grace, had to be saved or we personally had no hope, but also, just as in the fleshly realm with fallen sin natures and a walk away from God, fleshly men AND women are only concerned in marriage with what brings them pleasure, and if their fallen sin natures aren’t pleased they look for new territory and new opportunities to satisfy that fallen sin nature!

In our modern society our population has been geared toward self-determination without God, self-rationalization as to what satisfies us the most with our fallen sin natures, self-realization on our own terms, and, yes, self-gratification which opens huge, wide doors away from God’s purpose and plan in Christ! Marriage failures usually come through one or even possibly both parties that live by a false philosophy of “self-enlightment” which is nothing more than fleshly indulgence! Mostly men, but at times some women, have decided to be free from marriage because they are “free from God”!

Read carefully Martin Buber’s convicting comment in Thomas F. Torrance’s “God and Rationality,” [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971, p.29], where Buber said: “Something has stepped between our existence and God to shut off the light of heaven…,[and] that something is in fact ‘ourselves,’ our own bloated selfhood.”

In I Corinthians 3 Paul challenged ‘men’ in the church, but I believe it speaks to all ‘men’ and especially those who live imitating men of fallen sin natures as it relates to their marriages or marriage failures. Paul said in the first three verses: “And I, men, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal,[fleshly, men with their old sin natures], as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you [do you believe that would include marriage troubles or divorces?], are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?”

Isn’t it sad to you and heart-breaking that our marriage culture in America has become so superficial, so faithless, even indifferent in far too many families as to personal and family trust and yieldedness to Holy God and our loving Savior and Lord and to His Church? It’s as if marriage has decayed to a meaningless relationship that has no blessing, no reward, no prize out of the participants’ participation even though they live under the same roof!

This attitude toward marriage is what Martin Luther foresaw as he wrote the following: “[Fallen human nature] is completely self-centered…It puts itself in the place of everything else, even in the place of God himself and seeks only its own purposes and not God’s. For this reason it is its own chief and most important idol.” [ Luther, quoted in Paul Althause’, “The Theology of Martin Luther, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966, p.147]. Would you even think or consider that divorce, home-break-up, absentee fatherhood or motherhood, is because most bow before and yield to the idol of self-devotion, self-pleasure, self-idolatry? Could or would we even dare to speak about “marital narcissism” or self-indulgence at any price?

Too many marriage partners have established themselves as the final authority on what they intend to do in their marriages – stay or go? – and God and His will about it is overthrown, usurped, denied, as the partner wanting divorce establishes and bows before self-centered omnipotence! Can’t you hear them? “God may exist, but when it comes to what makes me happy I decide for myself!” And they reject, deny, even defame biblical authority! Do you sense as I do that tons of people in marriages across America and the world see no relevance of God to their situations and circumstances as it relates to what they do or don’t do in their marriages and families? Will of man in marriage or will of God in marriage? I’m convinced our Lord’s Lordship is as vital for our marriages as our personal relationship is to Him as our Lord of lords!

One of the reasons I sense for marriage failures and not blessing and celebration is a lack of “response-ability” [a term Craig Gay uses]. When I saw that term of Gay’s and hid it away in my mind and heart, I immediately thought of Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child [yes, a marriage mate] in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Most ‘bail out’ when they should ‘hold on’! Think about what Jesus said and relate it to your marriage and family: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [That’s ‘rejuvenation’ or ‘made young again’!]. Take My yoke upon you [Are you and your wife mutually yoked to Christ?] and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

And I tell you, it doesn’t matter about age – young, old whatever – as a marriage partner, get in the yoke of Christ; He’s strong, steady, set apart to the Glory of God alone – and every step tied to Him will be straight and in the right path!! But if you become your own ‘chief and most important idol’, even in your marriage, apart from God, you become just like yourself!! And Psalm 135:15-18 says: “The idols of the nations [marriages, self-worship etc.] are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. [Made by a fallen sin nature, the making of one’s self into its own idol, and worshipped, bowing before, yielded to!!] They have mouths, but cannot speak [wisely], eyes, but they cannot see; [blinded to God’s will, God’s way], they have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths [spiritually dead before Holy God and His Word!]. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”

That should spur thoughts in you, right now, this very moment, about why there is ‘forgetfulness’ of celebration and blessing in marriages – you’re not sure? Come to Luke 22: 25-27! And Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves.” In your marriages are you lords or servants?

Have you not grasped it yet? Has our Lord’s example in relationships not been enough for you? Taking the sentence of death unto ourselves daily, “in marriage,” is the awesome spiritual reality of overcoming fleshly selfishness and blocking out selfishness that the servant spirit of Christ might reign through us to our wives! Look at I John 3:16, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for [our wives!!].”

Charles Swindoll, in his book “The Quest For Character”, [p.107], wrote the following: “Home is indeed where life makes up its mind. It is there – with fellow family members – we hammer out our convictions on the anvil of relationships. It is there we cultivate the valuable things in life, like attitudes, memories, beliefs, and most of all, character. Give God thanks today for His help in using your home to develop these all-important essentials…”

Do you remember Paul and Silas imprisoned in Acts 16? The ‘keeper of the prison,” after the earthquake, said to them, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said to him, Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, YOU AND YOUR HOUSEHOLD.” Because marriage is to be a redemptive relationship between husband and wife and parents and children!

Though Karl Heim was writing about “the Church”, I’m taking the liberty to change ‘The Church’ to marriage. In his “Christian Faith and Natural Science, [New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957, p.24], Heim wrote: “[Marriages often] are like a ship on whose deck festivities are still kept up and glorious music is heard, while deep below the waterline a leak has been sprung and masses of water are pouring in, so that the vessel is settling hourly lower though the pumps are manned day and night.”

What is ‘the leak’? One or both of the marriage partners has ‘sprung a leak’! One or both marriage partners have lost ‘mutual submission in the fear of God’! One or both marriage partners have lost the sacrificial spirit of laying down one’s life! One or both marriage partners have lost ‘the denial of self and the taking up of Christ’s cross’ to serve the partner!

Why would I apologize to you about what I firmly believe and know: Jesus Himself is not only the Savior of the world – He is the Savior of every marriage if He was given His rightful place! Christian marriage and Christian family living begins at the Cross and the empty tomb with all members yielded to His saving grace and Sovereign Lordship!

I love what Larry Christenson wrote in his book, “The Christian Family,” [p.151], “It is not a child’s intellectual immaturity, but the adult’s intellectual sophistication, which is the real barrier to faith. “Now they were bringing even ‘infants’ to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” [Luke 18:15-17]. Since it is by “FAITH” that we receive the Kingdom, we have here the unmistakable authority of Jesus to assure us that children – ‘even infants’ – can indeed receive His saving grace. This is absolutely fundamental to Christian family living. We must have the faith that the Holy Spirit works in even the very small child, bringing him into personal relationship with Jesus.”

Oh, I know you’ve heard it – but I’ll say it again: The family that prays, stays! The couple that prays, stays! Yes, even the children that pray, often hold families together! In the Name of Jesus, forget the old decaying life of marriage and settle in to the “celebration and blessing of marriage” in the Lord Jesus – He’s your marriages’ eternal foundation!

CHAPTER TWELVE

FORGOTTEN? CHILDREN A BLESSING – NOT A BURDEN?

You are so aware of this chapter title whether you experienced your childhood as if it were a ‘horror’ movie or not. I doubt if any family in America has lived through their generations without awareness of one’s own family, friends, neighbors, who’ve experienced that some parents didn’t, wouldn’t, haven’t seen children as a ‘blessing’ and not a burden. I was a product of a broken marriage, family, and especially with my father. The divorce was not my father’s desire, but even so, I only stayed in my father’s home only one night in my entire life. I never had a call, a note, or any encouraging word from him. It was if when my mother wanted the divorce, it included me also. But at three years of age, after the divorce, in 1939, I was taken by my mother to live with her parents as she went to another city to find employment. My grandparents raised me from three years of age to about twelve years of age when my mother re-married. There’s no doubt for my grandparents that I was a burden but also a blessing. They received me lovingly, carefully, and with a commitment to see I was nurtured and cared for physically and spiritually. They were always in church every time the church door was opened! There I was touched by many caring people who also saw it was their responsibility to be a blessing and nurture a needy child. I thank God for that and for all those years under the care of my grandparents and a caring church family.

Psalm 127:3-5 says to us: “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate.” Don’t you find these verses so interesting? Blessed with our children! A reward from God! A full quiver doesn’t make you ashamed, but even opens the door for you to speak with your enemies “in the gate.” I truly believe there is so much in those words that most of us have never touched what our Lord is telling us, but it sounds to me like our kids are even door-stoppers as our enemies seek to press in!!

In Deuteronomy 7:13 we read: “And He [God] will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also “BLESS THE FRUIT OF YOUR WOMB” and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He swore to your fathers to give you.” Blessing? The fruit of the womb is blessing? The birth of new babies, the children of our households, our kids now teens then adults, and they are a blessing? I thank God, praise God, rejoice in His gifts to Sue and me – four grown children, and now nine grandchildren, and now one great grandchild – and I’m not blessed? Sue and I aren’t blessed?

David said and sang in Psalm 139: 13-16, “For You [God] formed my inward parts [and God made a mistake?]; You covered [wove] me in my mother’s womb[And He made a mistake?] I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame [bones] were not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” How awesome is that? From God’s point of view, He’s known of every birth in every nation, knew us before we were born, and put blessing after blessing after blessing in His book of the days fashioned for each one of us! And parents know that or they coldly reject anything God has to do with their children! That’s when “FORGETFULNESS” is birthed! That’s when children become a burden and not a blessing! Sadly some parents deny God any right to their children! But even with that attitude God overruled in my case! There is such an informative word for parents in Psalm 34:11 where David was speaking, “Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” And without a doubt this is that stumbling block for a lot of parents! “Fear God? I’m to teach my children the fear of the Lord?”

Isn’t that amazing? Rather than receiving that holy word, some parents believe themselves to be smarter than God and refuse to put that basic foundation into their children’s lives, even when Proverbs tells us at least 12 times that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge or wisdom!” In Proverbs 8 the Word speaks about “wisdom”: Verses 22-36, “The Lord possessed me [wisdom] at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I [wisdom] have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there ever was an earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth; while as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primal dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, Then I was beside Him as a master; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men. Now therefore, listen to me [wisdom!], my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not disdain it. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoever finds me finds life, and obtains favor from the Lord; but he who sins against me wrongs his own soul; all those who hate me love death.”

I do not know of a more vital or important section of God’s Word than what you just read. Yes, we are to teach our children “the fear of the Lord,” understanding that precious “fear of God” opens parents and children to the wisdom of God, the wisdom of His Word, and the wisdom of parental watchcare of their kids as a sacred trust from God. As a result parents build the bridge in their children for the reception of “divine life,” “obtaining the favor of the Lord,” and having instilled within them a love for His life, not “wronging their own souls”!

Do you remember the angel appearing to Zacharias in Luke 1 telling him his wife would bear him a son, his name was to be John, and that he was to go before Jesus in the spirit and power of Elijah, verse 17, “to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just [or justified], to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” How awesome and challenging is that concerning parental responsibility! Making ready and preparing your children FOR THE LORD!

I want you to also come to Matthew 7:6-11! Follow carefully!! “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

I pray you also read the previous passage in Matthew from parents or a parental standpoint! Asking – receiving, seeking – finding, knocking – opened…BECAUSE YOU ARE PARENTS OR A PARENT FAITHFULLY GOING BEFORE GOD IN BEHALF OF YOUR CHILDREN!

But you realize there are those I call “bottom-feeders!” That’s parents with no faith, no interest in the things of God, rejection of the Gospel of Christ as an offense to them, who had just as soon give their children “stones” for bread, and the “satanic” for fish!

Though Titus was speaking of qualifications for elders in a local church, I believe what he said about “elders” should be true in every parent concerning their rearing of children or the lack of it. Titus 1:6 says a man is eligible for eldership if: “if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation [ debauchery or incorrigibility] or insubordination.” To Timothy Paul talked about a ‘bishop’ “ruling his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence.”

Often in children, youth, you see not submission but rebellion, not faithfulness but unfaithfulness, not purity but impurity, not one who is moldable, but one who is incorrigible! Jesus even spoke of “children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death,” [Mark 13:12]. Spurgeon said: “Put poison in the spring [or well], and it will impregnate the whole stream.” A good, strong, worldly education will not equip your children for a God-blessed life – it requires, yes, requires daily parental example and instruction about devotion to the one true and living God and to a redeemed, reconciled, regenerated relationship with Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords!

Do you “teach” and live before your children the faith of our Lord and Savior? Do you impart the Word of God to them as their necessary milk, meat, fruit, bread, and water of the Word that spiritually sustains their lives? Oh, you know it’s true, except for a few reserved, nervous children! Excitement reigns in their little minds and hearts when you first take them to school. Why do you think it would be any different with them when you as a parent become their ‘spiritual school teacher’ and share God’s Word with them?

You’ve got to recognize and accept your parental responsibility in preparing your children for a life of faith, a pilgrimage with God, a journey of discovery for them of His good, acceptable, and perfect will for their lives.

It may not be easy at first or maybe never easy, but it is essential, necessary, mandated from God that every parent must respond to and to answer God Himself as to how we handled parental responsibility of nurturing our children. Children come into this world so cute and cuddly but it doesn’t take long for parents to learn that they are unplowed fields, yes, hardened soils of a separated heart from God, no order, no discipline, no awareness of why you plow and plow and plow, and why you carefully treat the soil of their hearts, and why you carefully seed them with eternal seeds of supernatural miracles coming to life through them! But they will and do learn. I really don’t know who said it, but I’ve kept it close and knew the moment would come when it would challenge some folks – how about parents? “To be on the road is not tantamount to arrival, but it is better than never starting.”

I’ve always appreciated Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings. You know he was imprisoned by Nazi Germany for his faith that could not, would not be silenced. In prison he wrote a powerful word for a niece who was about to be married. Bonhoeffer’s note to his niece said: “Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which he wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal – it is a status, an office.”

I even see marriage as a ‘holy calling,’ a heavenly ministry, an eternal training ground and equipping center, the location of the field of evangelistic harvesting, new-birth nurturing, and heavenly blessing on earth. It is to be an earthly expression of the heavenly body and enterprise of touching our world with grace. No church is built to the honor of Christ apart from parents and children living Him out in and through the daily life of home and their rich relationships. What do we read in Psalm 127:1? “Unless the Lord builds the house [dare I say family?], those who build it labor in vain.”

As I looked to closing out this particular chapter, I really wanted to pin-point for parents what is needed to spiritually, parentally, succeed in child-rearing blessings and not burdens in the children God entrusted to their watch-care. I was reading Spurgeon, and before my eyes, mind, and heart, there it was! Spurgeon taught on parents teaching the fear of the Lord! [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.2, p.356].

First, “Teach morality.” ‘What man is he that desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” [Psalm 34:12-14].

Second, “Teach godliness, and a constant belief in God’s oversight.” ‘The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry.’ [Psalm 34:15].

Third, “Teach the evil of sin.” ‘The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.’ Psalm 34:16-17

Fourth, “Teach your children the necessity of a broken heart open to the Lord Himself.” ‘The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.’ Psalm 34:18.

Fifth, “Teach them the inestimable blessing or blessedness of being a child of God.” ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones: not one of them is broken.’

There’s no desolation of godly parents as they disciple and discipline and define their children in their Lord and Savior! There’s no desolation of children as they receive the care, training, discipling of godly parents! AMEN?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FORGOTTEN? GOD’S BLESSING OF VISIONS, VOICES, AND DREAMS?

You’ve heard it in your spiritual pilgrimage: “You hear from God? What planet are you from? I may not be a PhD, but I’m smart enough to know your “talks, visitations, voices” from God is sure lunacy! If I were you, I’d visit a professional, highly intelligent psychiatrist!” And they walk away from you as if they had met the devil himself if they believed in him.

But I would point you to Abraham who was one of world history’s most famous people. In Genesis 15 “the word of the Lord came to Abram ‘in a vision,’ God saying to Abram, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” And the history, the pilgrimage, the journey is still going on! In fact in John 8:56, Jesus said: [Did you read it right? Yes! “Jesus said,”] “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

Listen carefully to Galatians 3:5-9! “Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? – just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

After being a Baptist pastor for 12 years, 1962 – 1974, in February 1974 I was truly and mercifully born again, born the second time, born of the Spirit, and began an amazing journey of faith and obedience to my Lord and Savior. Between 1975 through 1981, I made about one trip a year to Brazil, working along the Amazon River. A friend said to me in 1981, “Farrell, you need to go to India!” I was not impressed but our gracious Lord DID put India on my heart. My first trip there was about 1982, a door being opened by another friend to a Church of South India church fellowship where I taught pastors in the daytime and did a three-night open-air crusade in a huge lot next to the church. After the final service was over that Sunday night, alone, I walked around that open field, thanking the Lord for the gracious harvest and the huge blessings. Then the Lord clearly spoke as if in an audible voice – I will never forget it. It was if God opened the heavens and said to me, TO ME!, “Son, you are to begin a journey with the purpose of the rest of your life ministering life and truth to my India pastors!”

In 1983 Macedonian Ministry of Missions was established and for 25 years, 4-5 trips a year, from 3 weeks to 3 months, I have ministered all over India in pastors’ conferences and open-air crusades. I taught in Haiti, the Philippines, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Thailand, Cambodia, and a few conferences in England – all because I HEARD THE VOICE AND VISION OF GOD FOR MY LIFE AND MINISTRY!

In Numbers 24:1-4 God’s Holy Word says, “Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not go as at other times, to seek to use sorcery, but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam raised his eyes, and saw Israel encamped according to their tribes; AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD CAME UPON HIM. Then he took up the oracle and said: ‘The utterance of Balaam the son of Beor, the utterance of him who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, who falls down, with eyes wide open..” What an awesome revelation from the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever! GET READY- HIS VISION, VOICE, OR DREAM IS ABOUT TO COME TO YOU!!**

Since God is no respecter of persons, examine Psalm 89:15-24, putting your name alongside David’s expecting God to do for you what He did for David! “Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! They walk, O Lord, in the light of Your countenance. In Your name they rejoice all day long, and in Your righteousness they are exalted. For You are the glory of their strength, and in Your favor our horn [strength] is exalted. For our shield belongs to the Lord, and our king to the Holy One of Israel. THEN YOU SPOKE IN A VISION TO YOUR HOLY ONES, and said: “I have given help to one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from among the people. I have chosen My servant David; with My holy oil I have anointed him, with whom My hand shall be established; also My arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him. I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague those who hate him. But My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him, and in My name his horn shall be exalted.” And, Thank God, that the God of true salvation is no respecter of persons!

I remember being in a pastors’ conference that Pastor Peter Lord led in his church in Titusville, Florida, many years ago. As I recall that conference, I remember a young pastor in his late twenties or early thirties asking Peter a question. Peter had been teaching on hearing God’s voice and the young pastor said to him, “I’ve never heard the voice of God! How does it happen?” And Peter instructed us all as well as the young pastor to bow our heads in total silence, begin to ask the Father to speak to us personally, and after a number of minutes, in that quietness, we all began to hear a man weeping. It was the questioner – and Peter said: “Young man, what did God say to you?” And the young pastor, through his tears, said, “God said, ‘You are My son, and I love you!’” He or you will never be the same when God speaks, envisions for you, or gives you a ‘dream’ out of the heart of God!

What does Proverbs 29:18 tell us? “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” or “cast off restraints”! In Proverbs 8:32-36 there is such a valuable Word that truly opens the door to divine opportunity or closes that door leaving a man to ‘try’ and find his own way, which usually leads him away from God, not towards Him! It says: “Now therefore, listen to me [to wisdom], my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not disdain it. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoever finds me finds life, and obtains favor from the Lord; but he who sins against me wrongs his own soul; all those who hate me love death.”

But, what if you are one who does NOT love “death,” but has a deep longing in your heart to hear God, how does one ‘get in’ on “The Blessing of Visions, Voices, or Dreams?”

I BELIEVE THE BLESSING OF VISIONS, VOICES, OR DREAMS BECOMES REALITY WHEN ONE IS TRULY SENSITIVE AND OPEN TO GOD’S UNVEILINGS OF HIMSELF AND HIS WILL THROUGH HIS HOLY WORD! When you come to the Book of Habakkuk, in chapter 2, verse 1, we read: “I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He [God] will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected.”

That is one huge ‘life-changer,’ the attitude of standing watch over one’s own heart, setting one’s self in the frame of reference of WANTING TO HEAR GOD, and “watching to see what God will say to me.. and what I will answer when I am corrected!” But far too many are not interested in ‘correction’ but God’s approval for them to continue down the road of self-affirmation!

The promise IS GIVEN! Verses 2 & 3 tell us: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” In other words, God’s Word is sure!

What did Jesus quote to Satan who came to tempt Him in Matthew 4:4? “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Do you understand? God’s Holy Word has been written specifically for YOU as if YOU were the only one it was ever written for! Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word, God, is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Is that true for you? The psalmist said in Psalm 119:130, “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.”

No doubt this is why Peter said in I Peter 2:2, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,” [or grow up into your salvation!]”. It’s so interesting and so valuable and so important to us what God said in Jeremiah 23:22!! “But if they [the prophets] had stood in My counsel, and had caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.”

I BELIEVE THE BLESSINGS OF VISIONS, VOICES, AND DREAMS, ARE BIRTHED EVEN IN THE MIDST OF GOD’S OPPORTUNITIES IN DRASTIC HUMAN EVENTS. Do you remember Paul and Silas imprisoned for the faith in Acts 16? Look with me at verses 25-34! But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. SUDDENLY THERE WAS A GREAT EARTHQUAKE, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.”

Jail, prison, hospital, family crisis, student dilemma, war and a soldier in a fox-hole, job crisis, job loss, business failure, marriage seemingly down the tubes of failure,…and somebody cries out: “God, help me,” – and He sends Jesus as your rescuer and Redeemer!

I BELIEVE THE BLESSINGS OF VISIONS, VOICES, AND DREAMS, ARE BROUGHT TO REALITY AND FRUITION BY THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. In I Corinthians 2:9-12 we read: But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

All of a sudden, by grace through faith, my journey is not determined by my best efforts, my own ‘wise’ or ‘unwise’ counsel, by even my fleshly attempt to learn from others’ failures, but by the holy presence of God’s promise of the Holy Spirit to be in me, ‘guiding me into all truth,’ ‘testifying of Jesus and His plans for my life,’ and ‘opening up God’s Word through Holy Spirit interpretation practically for MY journey day by day!’

Oswald Chambers said in his “My Utmost For God’s Highest,” [p.265], “If you try to dam up the Holy Spirit in you to produce subjective experiences, you will find that He will burst all bounds and take you back again to the historic Christ. Never nourish an experience which has not God as its Source and faith in God as its result.”

In John 20:21-22 we read, So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” No doubt this is why Paul had to ask the Corinthians if their walk was an explanation of Holy Spirit presence and power: I Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

Isn’t it amazing to you as it is to me after discovering God’s blessing of the Indwelling Holy Spirit that Christians often fear the Holy Spirit and apart from faith the unsaved don’t even know “the power of God and His leadership through the Holy Spirit?” Three times in the first five verses of Romans 8 Paul said: “according to the Spirit”! The Holy Spirit convicts, convinces, and converts, then consecrates a “new-born life” on the altar of sacrifice! Yield to the Holy Spirit!

I BELIEVE THE BLESSINGS OF VISIONS, VOICES, AND DREAMS, FLOURISH WHEN ONE IS OPEN TO SOVEREIGN, DIVINE DIRECTIVES, OUT OF THE MIND, HEART, AND SPIRIT OF GOD HIMSELF. Come to Acts 8:26-35! Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading from Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come and sit with him. The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away, and who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself, or of some other man?” Then Philip opened His mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.”

Notice, an angel of the Lord spoke to him. Notice, also, the Holy Spirit directs Philip. And notice, Philip was available to represent God before the eunuch! You’ve, no doubt, heard of “entertaining angels unaware”! Then praise God, the eunuch was spiritually sensitive enough to seek for himself, with help! But when pride enters in, when rebellion fills the heart, when hardness shuts the door, opposites of the eunuch neither listen, hear, or envision what God truly has in store for them.

It was T.S.Eliot in “Choruses from the Rock” who wrote: “Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?”

How on target is that? Endless activity, but no time for an angel! Endless effort, but no time for Life! Speech, words, motion but no time for the Master! Blessing doesn’t come in and of ourselves. Eternal purpose is never discovered when my ears are deaf to the spoken Words of Jesus. Overcoming power of fleshly lives never becomes “God’s helping hands” when I see only myself as the answer to and for me. In Jeremiah 13:25-27 [NIV] we read: “Because you have forgotten me and trusted in false gods, I will pull up your skirts over your face that your shame may be seen – your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution!”

In “The Power of the Call,” Henry Brandt wrote: [p.49], “If a man is a sinner, the diagnosis disturbs him. It is my responsibility and the pastors’ to declare the truth to him. [Like an angel!]. It is important we speak the truth in love by describing what he will see in the mirror of God’s Word.”

Wrong road travelers need angelic assistance, passionate Philips, and those who speak to them under Holy Spirit anointing! Those under the curse and not the blessing need “truth-speakers” not agree-ers who know the end result of going one’s own way, doing only what one’s fallen sin-nature dictates, and feeling comfortable walking the ways of the godless, and at the same time thinking everything is A-OK when I deny God His rightful place in my life.

At least the psalmist feared God! In Psalm 119:37-38 we read: “Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way. Establish Your word to Your servant, who is devoted to fearing You.”

In 2 Corinthians 1:8, Paul walked where a lot of people in our troubled world walk, but not without hope. While he was in Asia trouble came his way to the point he was ‘burdened beyond measure..despairing even of life. Verse 9, Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.” Spiritually dead! Trust in God – not in yourself!

I BELIEVE THE BLESSINGS OF VISIONS, VOICES, AND DREAMS ARE ACTIVE AND FULFILLING WHEN ONE”S HEART IS SINGULAR AND NOT DIVIDED. In 2 Chronicles 26:16 the Word says of Uzziah, “But when he had become strong, his heart was so lifted up that he acted corruptly. For he was false to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to make an offering on the altar of incense.”

At one point here was a man who grew in stature before the Lord and men, then fell away. Did it say “his heart was lifted up?” A lifted-up heart when God says, “Guard your heart?” A lifted-up heart when God tells us “the heart is deceitful?” A lifted-up heart when in Jeremiah 17:9 God tells us: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? Verse 10, I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”

But do you understand a “darkened heart”? Are you aware of a “deceived heart”? Does a “disillusioned heart” say anything to you? Human lives with no hope of “new”, “changed or exchanged,” “God-given hearts”, or some of the saddest people you’ll ever be around, even as they ‘smile’ at you or make fun of your faith!

Peter said “you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,” and he was talking about Jesus with whom God was well-pleased! [2 Peter 1:19]. Look at verses 16-18! “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He 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.”

Is your heart singular minded in yieldedness to Almighty God or are you still divided as to your allegiance and reception of God’s “His-Story”?

I BELIEVE THE BLESSINGS OF VISIONS, VOICES, AND DREAMS ARE TRULY LIFE-YIELDING WHEN ONE PRAYS THE PRAYER OF REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD AND FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT THE CROSS – I SIGN ON TO THE TRUTH OF GOD’S UNVEILING OF THE ONE TRUE SAVIOR AND LORD! Look at Romans 10:8-13!! But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach); 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. 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.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Billy Graham’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz has written a book entitled: “My Heart’s Cry.” [pps. 18-20], She wrote: “Years ago I had the privilege of praying with a woman in my class as she responded to God’s Word by confessing her sin, claiming the cross as her atonement for sin, and inviting Jesus into her heart and life, surrendering to Him as Savior and Lord. Her face was soaked in tears and wreathed in smiles when she got up off her knees. She was assured she belonged to the Shepherd and was safely inside the fold of a personal, permanent relationship with God.

Several days later, she asked me to accompany her as she went to tell her pastor of the decision she had made. I sat beside her on the small sofa in the pastor’s elegantly appointed study as she poured out her heart. With a voice that trembled with emotion and eyes that brimmed with tears, she described the commitment she had prayerfully made earlier in the week then blurted out, “I’ve been born again!”

The pastor, wearing a three-piece pinstripe suit with a gold watch chain draped across the front of his vest, listened attentively as he sat in a red leather desk chair. His silver hair was immaculate, his manicured fingers were fanned out and pressed together in a thoughtful pose, and his expression was kindly patient as his deep voice resonated in the paneled chamber. With a condescending tone that might be used with a rather slow-witted child, he explained, “But my dear Susan, you weren’t born again this week! Why, you were baptized when you were twelve years old! You’re a member of this church. You teach Sunday school. You’ve been a Christian all your life.”

I barely noticed the hostile dagger of a glance he threw me because I was so incredibly dumbfounded! His reaction to Susan was a totally unexpected revelation of what seemed to be a false shepherd!…Susan had taken God at His Word! She had heard the voice of the Shepherd, calling her by name, and she responded by following Him in a life of faith, with the first step being her own salvation. And this professional shepherd was saying it wasn’t so!…It was depressingly obvious that he was a false shepherd who had led that very prestigious church possibly without ever having entered through the Door of the fold for himself! He did not recognize or acknowledge the Shepherd’s voice in Susan’s life.”

Almighty God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the precious and powerful Holy Spirit, The Holy Word of God, that loving pastor, that caring friend, that unannounced angel, the heavenly, eternal music, that stranger in the night, that caring, ministering doctor treating you in the hospital, that true grocer, that loving neighbor…on and on and on!! Visions, voices, and dreams! They aren’t flukes of nature, lies out of hell, fiction stories from phony teachers – IT’S GOD! IT’S JESUS! IT’S THE HOLY SPIRIT!! And they say, “Come, come unto Me…and I [Jesus] will give you rest! I’ll make you young again!!” Come! Come to Him! His vision, voice, and dream is for your salvation!

“Where there is no vision the people perish!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

FORGOTTEN? HOLY FIRE OR SMOKY FEELINGS?

Have you ever heard it? “Well, Brother Fisher, when I’m up, I’m up; when I’m in, I’m in; but when I’m down, I’m down; and when I’m out, I’m out; I don’t know about this “fiery stuff”, but I do have smoky feelings at times and really believe I just might be what I profess!” But there’s no change that reflects the Indwelling Christ. Could it be too much smoke and not enough fire?

What I’ve learned over my 78 years of life is: Wordy sermons touch heads; holy fires touch hearts. Intelligent teaching touches minds; holy fires touch the will of men. Classy speech in the pulpit moves intellect; holy fires touch the diseases of a compromised life!

Have you ever seriously considered why the first four centuries of the Christian faith were so powerful in touching our world with grace, but our modern world concerning church life and its impact on a sick world is so fragmented and fruitless to a great degree? I was recently reading Exodus and verses just exploded off the page in Exodus 3:1-5! Listen with your heart and your mind: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”

Did you see “mountain of God” or high places? Did you consider “the Angel” [messenger of the Lord] appearing to him? Did you see a manifestation “in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush”? Did you see Moses saying, “I will turn aside and see…?” Did you see, in the midst of all that, God saying, “HOLY GROUND”? What is it for you: smoky feelings or Holy Fire? Heart changes never come about redemptively through social or political recommendations but through the “holy fires of God”!

Has that changed for this modern day? I don’t think so! In Deuteronomy 4:11-12, as Moses spoke to Israel, so God speaks to us: “Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice.” GOD HELP US! WE NEED GOD AGAIN SPEAKING TO US OUT OF THE FIRE!

In Jeremiah 23:29 God spoke through the prophet: “Is not My word like a fire?” says the Lord, “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” Jeremiah the prophet suffered because he sought to be faithful to God’s revealed Word, will, and way. There came a moment when he thought he’d have to walk away. But listen to what Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 20:9, “Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name,’ But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.” God help us again to witness, not smoky feelings, but a fire in our bones!

Don’t you find it interesting, and, yes, convicting, that God’s Word tells us in Hebrews 1:7, “And of the angels [messengers] He [God] says: ‘Who makes His angels spirit and His ministers a flame of fire’”? How did John put it in Luke 3:16? John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Oh, really? Show me the fire in you! I was reading recently George Mallone’s book “Furnace of Renewal.” He really laid it out for disciples and churches when he emphasized ‘cosmetic renewal of the church’ is not an option churches and disciples are to take, but to find themselves “refined in the furnace of renewal”! That sounds to me like disciples and churches getting enveloped in “the fires of God”, not their fleshly best!

Leonard Ravenhill, in his book “Why Revival Tarries” made several penetrating statements: [p.20], “Preachers used to sow seed; now they string intellectual pearls. (Imagine a field sown with pearls!)…Away with this palsied, powerless preaching which is unmoving because it was born in a tomb instead of a womb, and nourished in a fireless, prayerless soul.” If one becomes ‘fireless’, it is an indication he hasn’t been on his face before the throne of God, and, is an indication spiritual death reigns in him rather than Resurrection Life, Resurrection Hope, and Resurrection power! No doubt this is why Samuel Chadwick wrote what he did: “Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, are things Christ unsparingly condemned. Destitute of fire, they are nothing more than a godless philosophy, an ethical system, and a superstition.”

Oh, but hear me: You know ‘godly fire’ when a man or a church’s impotence is infused with God’s omnipotence! You know ‘godly fire’ when a man or a church’s weakness is totally overshadowed by God’s reigning Spirit of power! You know ‘godly fire’ when the dry faith of a dried-up, shrinking disciple or the dried-up skins of a shrinking church’s faith is lit on fire by Holy Spirit anointing with rivers of living water flowing, yes, even through the flames! You really want to know what true Christianity and true church-life and true discipleship is all about? Stand next to the flames of the fires of God!

It was Andrew Reed who prayed: “Come as the fire, and purge our hearts with sacrificial flame; Let our soul an offering be to our Redeemer’s Name.” Sacrificial flames? You know, I’m sure, about Chuck Colson, former Special Counsel to President Nixon who ended up in prison and then came into the fullness of an intimate relationship with Christ Jesus. I read about him in the book “For Such a Time as This.” It’s an amazing story of the evidence of a Christ-lived, fiery testimony! Listen: [p.43], And on the darkest day of my life – when my dad had died, and my mother was alone, and the other Watergate fellows were released because they were sentenced by a different judge – the darkest day of my life – I received a phone call from Al Quie, the seventh ranking Republican Congressman in the U.S. House of representatives, later Governor of Minnesota. He said, “Chuck, I know what you’re going through in prison. Your prayer group has been praying and I’m going to see President Ford tomorrow and ask him if I can come in and serve the rest of your prison sentence.” I went to my bunk that night and said, “Thank You, Lord. I know you are real when no greater love as this, that a man will lay his life down for a brother.”

But that’s not all of the story! Listen to what else Colson wrote! [pps.43-44]. “I told that story across America. One day, a woman for PBS was interviewing me in Chicago after I received the Templeton Prize, and I told her that story. She said to me, “How can you be so sure that Christ is real?” I told her the story. As I was telling it, you could see the mascara was covering a lot of scars on her face. And as I was telling that story, the tears started to roll down her cheeks. She said, “Excuse me a minute Mr. Colson,” and she went in the washroom. When she came back, she had washed her face and gotten all the cosmetics back on. She said, “Let’s film that scene again. Would you repeat that story?” I repeated the story and I looked over the second time and the tears were flowing down her cheeks; she couldn’t stop. I met with her afterwards; she had grown up in the church, fallen away, got disinterested, and she looked at me and said, “If that really is the church, I’ve got to go back and be part of it.”

Our Savior’s love, grace, and mercy is a heavenly fire that attracts, draws, and embraces one to the point he’s willing to lay his life down as Jesus did His! Warm fires have drawing powers to cold souls! And certainly communities of saving faith are to be communities that are so strong and warm and loving and caring and touching others with our Lord’s selfless love that those touched don’t want to be any other place than surrounded by fires of divine love and compassion! This is why Paul said in Galatians 1:15-16, “…when it pleased God…to reveal His Son in me.” In Christ, you, yes, that’s YOU! And you are the “bond-fire” of His Living Presence that God uses to attract others to Himself!

But some say, “I haven’t sensed the ‘fire’; or, “I’m afraid that the fire I’ve known needs to be re-kindled!” I love how Robert Browning put it in “Fifine at the Fair”: “Beneath the veriest ash, there hides a spark of soul Which, quickened by love’s breath, may yet pervade the whole O’ the gray, and, free again, be fire.” The Lord Jesus is the Author of promises, and on His promises you can stand, filled again with ‘holy fire’!

It was Reinhard Bonnke in “Evangelism by Fire” who said: [p.22], “Fire is the ensign of the Gospel, the sign of the Son of Man. Only Jesus baptizes in fire.” I don’t know how it is with you, but one thing I’m assured of: Deep hunger calls for hot fires in the Spirit-realm of our journey! Fiery passion, not faithless pursuit, opens the door of Heaven for God Almighty to step down in our midst releasing His ‘rivers of Living Water’! Sovereign intervention ‘strikes the match’ to Holy Spirit release in us who find ourselves empty, dry, wondering how we fulfill His eternal purpose, and crying out for God’s help. Someone asked John Wesley about the “how” of his explosive ministry in England and across the world of his day, and he responded, saying, “I just set myself on fire for God and people come to see me burn!!”

I want you to come to Romans 8:22-23, 26-27! “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body…Verses 26-27, Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the SPIRIT HIMSELF makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” THANK GOD FOR THE INTERCEDING HOLY SPIRIT!

“Flesh” does not, cannot, will not bear witness to redemptive Truth, but the Holy Spirit “bears witness” through surrendered, yielded lives! Come to I John 5 where the ‘beloved disciple’, John, bears witness because of the Holy Spirit within Him: Verses 6-11, “This is He who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. AND IT IS THE SPIRIT [the HOLY SPIRIT] who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” THE SPIRIT BEARS WITNESS!

This is why Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:18, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” Didn’t we read in the beginning of this chapter, Hebrews 1:7, that God makes “His angels [messengers] a flame of fire”? That comes to each and every disciple! But do all receive that available gift and anointing? I don’t think so!

Fire without faith is a futile, fragile, feeble representation of the presence of Holy God in His fullness. Fire without fruit is the absence of the nature and character of Christ and fatal to an on-going walk that reflects Christ in His fullness. And fire without fullness is emptiness, a dry-well life, a river or lake spiritually drained to the degree of drought.

In Chuck Swindoll’s book, “Come Before Winter,” [p.44], he told about how, during the reign of Oliver Cromwell, that the British government began to run low on silver for coins. Swindoll said: “Lord Cromwell sent his men on an investigation of the local cathedral to see if they could find any precious metal there. After investigating, they reported: ‘The only silver we could find is the statues of the saints standing in the corners,’ to which the radical soldier and statesman of England replied: ‘Good! We’ll melt down the saints and put them in circulation!’” Does a melted saint speak to you?

In Ezekial 34:26 God spoke then and now: “I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing.” That is Spirit-fullness and Spirit-fire! Don’t miss Acts 2:14-21!! Please read!

In the close of Swindoll’s book, “Flying Closer To The Flame,” [pps.246-247], he wrote: “When we are Spirit-filled and therefore rightly related to the Spirit of God:

*We are surrounded by the Spirit’s omnipotent shield of protection, continually and routinely.

*We have an inner dynamic to handle life’s pressures.

* We are able to be joyful…regardless.

*We have the capacity to grasp the deep things of God that He discloses to us in His Book.

*We have little difficulty maintaining a positive attitude of unselfishness, servanthood, and humility.

*We have a keen sense of intuition and discernment; we sense evil.

*We are able to love and be loved in return.

*We can be vulnerable and open.

*We can rely on the Spirit to intercede for us when we don’t even know how to pray as we ought.

*We need never fear evil or demonic and satanic assault.

*We are enabled to stand alone with confidence.

*We experience inner assurance regarding decisions as well as right and wrong.

*We have an “internal filtering system.”

*We can actually live worry-free.

*We are able to minister to others through our spiritual gift(s).

*We have an intimate, abiding “Abba relationship” with the living God.

Have we so easily forgotten what John proclaimed in Matthew 3:11? “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.” Oh, how there needs to be the radiance of the Spirit over rituals, fruit of the Spirit over fleshly smoke, willfulness under the Spirit’s leadership over fleshly waywardness, the Spirit-Age over any church-age, tongues of Spirit-anointed truth over our ‘fleshly’ interpretations, solid Spirit-revealed Truth over the professor’s faithless interpretation, the divine ‘fire’ of the Holy Spirit over ‘dummy ammunition,’ the fullness of the blessing over the emptiness of Satan’s lies, furnaces of holy presence over the empty tin-can promises of Satan!!

In fact, in God’s Holy Word, Isaiah 59:19b, His precious Word tells us ALL: “…When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.”

I close this chapter with words from Oswald Chambers in his “My Utmost…” [p.248] Quoting John 16:14, “He shall glorify Me,” Chambers wrote: “The pietistic movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them; there is nothing about them that needs the Death of Jesus Christ; all that is required is a pious atmosphere, and prayer and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous, it did not cost the passion of God, it is not dyed in the blood of the Lamb, not stamped with the hall-mark of the Holy Ghost; it has not that mark on it which makes men say, as they look with awe and wonder – “That is the work of God Almighty.” That and nothing else is what the New Testament talks about….Jesus said, ‘When He the Spirit of Truth is come…He shall glorify.” When I commit myself to the revelation made in the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit Who begins to interpret to me what Jesus did; and does in me subjectively all that Jesus Christ did for me objectively.” And that objective work in me? The Spirit lights a fire!

For you, what is it? Holy fire or smoky feelings?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FORGOTTEN? JOY COMES IN THE MORNING?

As long as ‘professing Christians’ are in control of their own spiritual destiny, ‘joy’ is not only forgotten, it is totally absent from the ‘professor of faith.’ Does it ever occur to us that ‘our choices’ cripple our joy in Jesus? Whatever happened to “Your will be done on earth [through me] as it is in heaven?” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Happiness is an emotion of feelings that has nothing to do with faith, but joy is the very fruit of the Holy Spirit filling, directing, and blessing your life! And, oh, how easy it is to slip out of Spirit-control to our own ‘fleshly control’!

Oswald Chambers wrote this: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.178], “What was the joy that Jesus had? It is an insult to use the word happiness in connection with Jesus Christ. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do. “I delight to do Your will, Father-God.” Jesus prayed that our joy might go on fulfilling itself until it was the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?”

As a pastor who performed many, many weddings, I don’t believe I ever knew a “friend of the bridegroom” who was downcast, unhappy, but literally joyful over his friend’s wedding! And “friends of the Bridegroom-Jesus”, are blessed with eternal joy, not fickle feelings of happiness!

There was a purpose, eternal purpose about why Jesus came. Isaiah 61:1-3, and verse 7, tells us: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me, to preach good tidings [joy?] to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness [or depression]; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified…Verse 7, Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; Everlasting Joy shall be theirs.” Wow! What a promise fulfilled through the Indwelling Christ in us!

Have you ever been around folks whose countenance is usually ‘uncommon despair’? But then you come face to face with a Paul! Listen to Dallas Willard in his book “Renovation of the Heart,” [p.236], “The weakness of the vessel, Paul’s physical reality, was accepted and recognized by him as the occasion for the triumph of the treasure.” And I’m sure the ‘triumph of the treasure’ was and is the Indwelling Christ and the fruit of His Spirit including “joy”!

Earlier in the same book, [p.133], Willard said: “But for joy, ‘all’ is well, even in the midst of specific suffering and loss. Self-sacrificial love is therefore always joyous – no matter the pain and loss it may involve. For we are always looking at the larger scene in which love rules: Where all things (no matter what) work together for good to those who love God and are drawn into his purposeful actions on earth.” No doubt this is why Paul said in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”

In Psalm 30:5b we read: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” That’s a sure promise from God Himself, but I have to ask, “Is a ‘night’ a twenty-four period or a season of the soul that is dark? Is the ‘morning’ the next sunrise or also that which can be future, a few days, a few years, or even decades?” But why do some forget, doubt, or refuse to believe, at least in their case that joy will come ‘in the morning’?

I BELIEVE SOME INTENTIONALLY FORGET THAT “JOY COMES IN THE MORNING” BECAUSE THEY CANNOT RELATE ‘TROUBLE,’ ‘CONFLICTS’, OR ‘TRIBULATION’ AS A PART OF RELIGIOUS FAITH. But in John 16:33 Jesus Himself said: “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.”

Can’t you hear the doubters, the drifters, the defiant ones, who would like to be a part of God’s Kingdom, but not if trouble is their ticket to a full and blessed life? “Your God can’t protect you? Your God can’t deliver you from trouble? You mean if I come to Christ I should expect hardship, battles, troubles, conflicts, even injuries body, soul, and spirit?”

Our walk with Christ, with the Living God, is a walk in His winepress – and we’re the grapes that will be crushed so His pure wine through us is released! Let me tell you of “the celebration of privilege” from Paul’s point of view! 2 Corinthians 11:22-28! “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? – I speak as a fool – I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness – besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all churches.”

Hear me! There is abiding joy in Jesus regardless of our circumstances! There is abundant joy in Jesus in the midst of suffering! There is an always abounding joy in Jesus irrespective of what comes our way because HE IS WITH US! He tells us: “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” And “joy comes in the morning!”

I BELIEVE ALSO SOME CIRCUMSTANTIALLY FORGET “JOY COMES IN THE MORNING” BECAUSE FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND AN UNBELIEVING WORLD AROUND YOU OPPOSE YOUR FAITH –IT’S HEAVY – BUT WE DON’T LOSE HEART! It was Eliphaz who said to Job in Job 4:7-9, “Remember now, whoever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright ever cut off? [You do see that Job’s friend thought he was cut off by God when Job’s suffering is coming from his friend in false accusations!]. Even as I have seen those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of His anger they are consumed.”

Blaming behavior is a technique of friends and family who have no relationship with God or are totally deprived of understanding of His Word because they never read it! In Job 8:6-7 Bildad came against Job unmercifully: “If you were pure and upright, surely now He would awake for you, and prosper your rightful dwelling place. Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would increase abundantly.”

And here is an amazing blessing: Job 42:10, “And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” “Joy comes in the morning!”

I BELIEVE “JOY IN THE MORNING” IS FORGOTTEN WHEN WE STRIVE IN OUR OWN STRENGTH AND FAIL! Nehemiah 8 is such an important chapter of biblical reading for every person anywhere in the world. Why? Because fleshly effort had birthed only failure and guilt and they knew they were ‘law-breakers’ without any strength!

But then in Nehemiah 8:10b Nehemiah said to those who had no joy but bathed themselves only in sorrow, “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Try or trust? My effort or His ease? Our attempts or His Atonement?

I hope you clearly understand God’s understanding of YOU WITHOUT HIM! IN Romans 5:6 Paul wrote: “For when were we still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

Self-strength people are truly the most hopeless people on earth because they believe they are “able” when truly, before Holy God, they are and need to be “helpless”!

In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Paul bares his soul: “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasures in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Do you see that, understand it, rest in it? Your strength – no joy, your striving – no joy, your best effort – no joy? You’ve seen it more often than you’d like – “self-made” individuals with any suggestion by you that they need to be finished with themselves and rest in the finished work of Christ at the Cross!

I BELIEVE “JOY IN THE MORNING” IS FORGOTTEN WHEN SOME ARE OVERWHELMED BY FALSE ACCUSATIONS AND THEY SUCCUMB TO THEIR ACCUSERS AND FALL IN ‘LOCK-STEP” WITH THEM RATHER THAN OUR LORD – AND WHATEVER JOY THEY EXPERIENCED IS LOST. I’ve witnessed that in a number of lives over the years, but I’m so encouraged when I see, read about, or witness the attitude of those like David: Psalm 27:11-14, “Teach me Your way, O Lord, and lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence. I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”

We just saw in Nehemiah 8:10 that “The joy of the Lord is your strength!” But the false accusations can be so debilitative if we are not cemented in His Word and standing faithfully with the heroes of the faith who are not swayed by the false accusers!

In Proverbs 25:18-20 we read: “A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow. Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth, and a foot out of joint. Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather, and like vinegar on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.” Because of your faith in Christ, have you ever felt “the club, the sharp arrow, or the sword” in your mind, heart, or spirit? But then Proverbs 25:28 challenges us: “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.” Who or what ‘rules your own spirit’ – God and His Holy Word, OR, the false accusations of false accusers? As a result…Next,

I BELIEVE “JOY IN THE MORNING” IS FORGOTTEN OR LOST BECAUSE SOME WILLINGLY WALK AWAY FROM THE AWARENESS OF HIS ABIDING PRESENCE. In Psalm 16:11 there is such an encouraging, illuminating verse of hope and assurance: “You [God] will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” True? Absolutely – without any shadow of a doubt! But then there came a brief ‘moment’ when even David cried out, “God, where are You?”

I know, and I’m thankful, that there are those precious people who’ve never stepped away, never had a doubt, never stumbled into a state of despair or spiritual frustration, but at the same time I know the awareness of His abiding presence can slip away for moments, days, weeks, even years! And that ‘choice’ produces clouds of doubts about His presence.

So…settle it in your mind and heart: Jesus says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you!” But, like David, there was a departure and he lost his joy! In Psalm 51:12 he cried out: “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.” The deep valley of your own humiliation can become the mountain peak of His constant restorative love and grace!

Oswald Chambers wrote: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.139], “Have you the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any particular in this new proposition which God has put before you? [ Let me insert Proverbs 3:5-6 right here, right now! “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.”] That is what probing means. It is quite true to say –“I cannot live a holy life,” but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. ‘YOU CANNOT SERVE THE LORD GOD,’ but you can put yourself in the place where God’s almighty power will come through you. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect Him to manifest His wonderful life in you?” It’s time to ‘run to Jesus’ if you’ve lost His joy!

I BELIEVE “JOY IN THE MORNING” IS LOST WHEN WE FAIL TO SEE “JOY” AS PLANTED SEED WITH “JOY” COMING AS WE FAITHFULLY REAP. Psalm 126:5-6 says, “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seeds for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”

There’s a sad word in Isaiah 16 as God came into Moab in judgment – and His Word says: Verse 6, “We have heard of the pride of Moab – he is very proud – of his haughtiness and his pride and his wrath; but his lies [or vain talk] shall not be so.” And the result? Verse 10 says, “Gladness is taken away, and joy from the plentiful field; in the vineyards there will be no singing, nor will there be shouting; no treaders will tread out wine in the presses; I HAVE MADE THEIR SHOUTING CEASE.”

Isaiah 9 has a more encouraging word for those who want to “reap” JOY: Verses 3-4, “You have multiplied the nation and increased its joy; they rejoice before You according to the joy of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For You [God] have broken the yoke of his burden…” [Could that burden for you be “no joy”? It’s broken in Jesus Name!! Receive afresh and anew the joy of the Lord!!]

How did Paul put it for us in I Thessalonians 2:19-20? “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy.” Are you planting the seeds of joy and seeing a faithful harvest?

I BELIEVE “JOY IN THE MORNING” IS SIDE-TRACKED WHEN WE FAIL TO SEE THE TRUE ‘KINGDOM OF GOD’ LIVING IN THE HERE AND NOW. How often have you heard it: “Oh, Kingdom of God living? That’s when we get to heaven in the after-life.”

You do realize there are those who don’t believe the Bible to be God’s Holy Word, or, if they do believe it, never open it! But in Matthew 6:9-10 as Jesus Himself was teaching men to pray, He said: “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Paul so amplified it for us when in Romans 14:17 he wrote: “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And if the kingdom of God IS “joy in the Holy Spirit” in the here and now, it’s time to claim Kingdom of God ruling and reigning in our lives!

I BELIEVE “JOY IN THE MORNING” IS FORFEITED WHEN MEN LOSE SIGHT OF PRAYER AS THEIR FORTIFICATION AND FULFILLMENT OF GOD’S PROMISES. In Romans 15:22-33 Paul shared about his plans in the Lord to visit Rome. Don’t miss this for the very health of your daily spiritual life!

“For this reason I also have been much hindered from coming to you. But now no longer having a place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come to you, whenever I journey to Spain, I shall come to you. For I hope to see you on my journey, and to be helped on my way there by you, if first I may enjoy your company for a while. But now I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. For it pleased those from Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem. It pleased them indeed, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things. Therefore, when I have performed this and have sealed to them this fruit, I shall go by way of you to Spain. But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may COME TO YOU WITH JOY BY THE WILL OF GOD, and may be refreshed together with you.”

Why would Paul request prayer for his joyous arrival in Rome? Do you remember him telling the church at Ephesus to “put on the whole armor of God” including the weapon of prayer? Because there are enemies of the Faith in the natural world and from the god of this age, even Satan! If there is ‘prayerlessness’ it is because we have no enemies in darkness, only friends, OR, we are shamefully neglectful of finishing our journey well – one becomes complacent, then indifferent, and then comes ‘shots’ out of Hell itself putting an end to your ‘profession’.

This is why Jesus said in Luke 18:1, “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” I’ve never seen a ‘fainting spell’ by a lady or a gentleman to be a joyous occasion! Let’s let Oswald Chambers enlighten us a little bit: [p.259], “Our work lies in coming into definite contact with God about everything, and we shirk it by becoming active workers.” And there is such a huge distance between ‘active worker’ and ‘active warrior’ – and no one is ready to be a joy-filled servant who has lost the passion of prayer! Is prayer for others an evidence of a joy-filled heart?

In I John 3:16-17 are vitally important and discerning words: “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” And I don’t believe that you can separate love from joy or joy from love. Has your spiritual temperature?

Let me close this chapter in Hebrews 12:2, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Where are you presently seated?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died early in the year of 1861. I have a book of her poems that was published in 1838. It is 400 pages long. Her last poem was entitled “Weariness”. Follow her words carefully: “Mine eyes are weary of surveying the fairest things, too soon decaying; Mine ears are weary of receiving The kindest words – ah, past believing!…

Weary my hope, of ebb and flow; Weary my pulse, of tunes of woe: My trusting heart is weariest! I would – I would, I were at rest!

For me, can earth refuse to fade? For me, can words be faithful made? Will my embittered hope be sweet? My pulse forego the human beat?

No! Darkness must consume mine eye – Silence, mine ear – hope cease – pulse die – And o’er mine heart a stone be pressed – Or vain this, – ‘Would I were at rest!’

There is a land of rest deferred: Nor eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, Nor hope beheld is hope no more! There, human pulse forgets its tone – There, hearts may know as they are known!

Oh, for dove’s wings, thou dwelling blest, To fly to thee, and be at rest!”

I’m not really sure Where Browning was spiritually when she wrote “Weariness”, but I assure you that you can “FLY AWAY” with a joyous heart because of Jesus!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

FORGOTTEN? PROFIT THAT BECOMES LOSS?

Because a man “gains the whole world,” is unusually successful in meeting all his pre-planned goals, pats himself on the back as a super-achiever, what has he ‘gained’ or what has he ‘lost’? It was the great Methodist preacher, J. Wallace Hamilton, who said: “people are training for success when they should be training for failure. Failure is far more common than success; poverty is more prevalent than wealth; and disappointment more normal than arrival.” And with that being true, which I think it is, what do we do about it?

Henry C. Link said: “While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.” And I don’t look at that “becoming superior” as pride or arrogance, but one who learns true values, eternal purposes, a divine plan, that if he falls, he gets up and moves on with God!

Dr. James Kennedy, in his book “Cross Purposes,” [p.171], says the following: “The death of an unbeliever can be unpleasant. Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, was a great prince. In fact, he is immortalized as a royal personification in Machiavelli’s “the Prince.” He was devious and consummately dexterous in dealing with men and affairs. He was prepared for every extremity, for every circumstance of life. However, shortly before his death in a besieged castle in 1507, he is said to have written, ‘I have provided in the course of my life for everything except death. Now, alas, I am to die almost entirely unprepared!”

And I would say to you, “No man is prepared to live who is not prepared to die!” Why? Because this earthly, short life, is only a breath – after death is ETERNITY! Beyond the reality of death, ever before us as we live, is the question, “What is this earthly life all about?” And some never answer it although they find answers about how to prosper financially in the world they think they made for themselves!

There’s a reason for that: Look at Romans 1:21, 25! Verse 21, “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened…Verse 25, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

Forgotten? “Profit or Loss?” In Matthew 16:26 Jesus said: “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?” Richard Foster, in his book “Money, Sex, and Power,” [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985, p.29], wrote these words: “Behind money are invisible spiritual powers, powers that are seductive and deceptive, powers that demand an all-embracing devotion.”

Didn’t Jesus give us all a warning in Luke 12:15? “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” It is possible for a man to be wealthy who is not captured by the deception of worldliness because the Lord Jesus has his heart, not his wealth being an idol he bows before!

I believe Jeremiah was so on target, so understanding of “profit or loss”, so gripped by the eternal difference between the life that truly profits against the life that ends up ‘bankrupt’. In Jeremiah 6:16 he heard the Lord! “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls…But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”

Do you remember Jesus saying in Luke 14:11 these words? : “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” “Profit or loss?”

For many ‘profit’ is nothing more than self-promotion and bowing before an idol that one calls “wealth, money, lots of it for my pleasure!” For others ‘profit’ is counterfeiting dignity or the grace of human potential for ‘self-glory’. Your importance to God is not to be indulged in as importance to yourself only as number one in your own life or better or more important than anyone else! God is the author of visions and dreams and drives in every single life – profit or loss is dependent on whose road map you use, yours or God’s!

Are you familiar with T.S. Eliot’s “The Cocktail Party”? He wrote: “Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important..

They don’t mean to do harm – but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it, because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

And, how many have started, yes, even a walk with Jesus, and ended up disappointed, disillusioned, deterred, and detoured, fallen away, because they didn’t understand or know about “failing” or “falling” and getting up, or stopping short of the goal rather than persevering or pressing in or enduring to the end? They didn’t know, hadn’t learned, or comprehended about “counting the cost”, failing to see a cross in the walk before the manifestation of resurrection power!

In Romans 6:16 Paul wrote: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are the one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness.” Phillips’ translation says it like this: “You ‘belong’ to the power which you choose to obey, whether you choose sin, whose reward is death, or God, obedience to whom means the reward of righteousness.”

And, either ‘profit’ or ‘loss’ is a radical choice that an individual makes on his own, influenced to spiritual profit by the Holy Spirit testifying of Jesus, or, influenced to ‘loss’ by the powers of darkness, brought into bondage by the devil himself even though his way appeared so ‘right,’ so ‘rewarding,’ but left one bankrupt!

John Bunyan wrote about the man he called “Mr. Facing-Both-Ways,” but that has never worked, never will work, and leaves one so fragmented, so fractured, so falling short of divine intent! This is why our Lord said: [Matthew 6:33], “But SEEK FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

In the book by Billy Graham entitled “The Secret of Happiness,” [p.7], he wrote: “A French leader has said that if the whole world had enough to eat, money to spend, and security from the cradle to the grave, they would ask for nothing more.” That sounded to me like President Obama and his ‘socialist’ philosophy bringing a people into bondage under government control! Jesus didn’t come to enslave a people but to set them free. Dr. Graham responded later, [p.9], “No man is so ignorant as he who knows nothing and knows not that he knows nothing. No man is so sick as he who has a fatal disease and is not aware of it. No man is so poor as he who is destitute and yet thinks he is rich.”

I’m not sure of Machiavelli’s spiritual allegiance or lack of it, but in “The Prince” he wrote: “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.”

I want you to come back with me to Matthew 16 – and in this passage I want us to see verses 24-26, not just verse 26! It says, Jesus speaking, 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 [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?” “Profit or loss?”

What has Jesus told us? 1) DENY YOURSELF. Have YOU? Do you? Will you? 2) TAKE UP THE CROSS. And that’s daily – the sentence of death to one’s self daily, and, 3) FOLLOW CHRIST.

Mary B.C. Slade, in the 1800’s, wrote a hymn entitled “Footsteps of Jesus.” Hear these words:

“Sweetly, Lord, have we heard You calling, ‘Come follow Me!’ And we see where Your footprints falling, lead us to Thee….Tho’ they lead o’er the cold dark mountains, Seeking His sheep, Or along by Siloam’s fountains, Helping the weak…If they lead through the temple holy, Preaching the Word; Or in homes of the poor and lowly, Serving the Lord…By and by through the shining portals, Turning our feet, We shall walk with the glad immortals, Heaven’s golden street…Then at last when on high He sees us, Our journey done, We shall rest where the steps of Jesus End at His throne…Footprints of Jesus, That makes the pathway glow, We will follow the steps of Jesus, Where’er they go.”

Let me share several things my Lord has shown me: FIRST, SUBSTITUTIONARY LIFE FOR THE REAL, THE ETERNAL, THE PURPOSE-FILLED, THE BLESSING, IS SO AIMLESS AND EXTENDS AND EXPANDS ‘DEATH’ ALL AROUND FOR SOME! I don’t care how you interpret it but: “The wages of sin IS death,” always has been, always will be! There is such a huge difference in how fallen man interprets ‘life’ and how God interprets ‘life’! And you have grasped, if you’ve read this book this far that there is such a vast difference between ‘trying to survive’ and one being blessed, ‘trying to exist’ and truly “LIVING”, ‘trying to make it’ and being “made by God Himself”!

Haven’t you witnessed it far too often – the man who has defined life for himself void of God and saving grace, sold out to comfort, sold out to wealth security, sold out to a life of pleasure and prosperity. For this man, he is one navel-noticed and navel-rooted! He is the man who could be defined in no other way than ‘self-centered’. His wife knows it, his children know it, his friends know it, and even the world around him knows it! Substitutionary Life – without Christ!

SECOND, THE MAN WHO ALLOWS JESUS’ SUBSTITUTIONARY DEATH ON THE CROSS TO BE FOR HIM AS IF JESUS SACRIFICED HIMSELF FOR THAT MAN ALONE FINDS LIFE ETERNAL AND ETERNAL GAIN AND PROFIT! John put it a little differently but so on target! In John 1:4-9, 12-13, John wrote: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world…Verses12-13, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

IN HIM [JESUS] WAS LIFE, AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN! In John 8:12 Jesus told the woman ‘caught in adultery,’ “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of light.” Apart from Jesus Christ men are locked into the reality of spiritual death and separation from God Himself, but Jesus came “to set the captives free”!

Oh, please look, listen, and lay ‘your’ life down as you read Romans 5:1-2, 6-11! “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God….Verses 6-11, For when we were still without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

RECONCILIATION! Reconciled TO God, reconciled to His eternal purpose, reconciled to the God-head of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reconciled to eternal life – not fleshly, spiritual death, reconciled to the usefulness of our redeemed lives in honoring Him, reconciled to His purpose of being an extension of His life, an expression of His love, and the proof of His power, reconciled to be His vessel to touch our world with His grace, mercy, and love!

Usefulness to the glory, purpose, and honor of God! Do you have a “Big Dream”? I was recently reading Bruce Wilkinson’s book entitled “The Dream Giver”. He has a chapter entitled “You Were Born For This.” Don’t miss a word, but as you read contemplate our Lord’s words in John 14:12, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” Hear Bruce Wilkinson’s story!

“The Hollywood producer didn’t believe it was true, and I couldn’t seem to change his mind, even though I was about to buy him lunch at my favorite neighborhood restaurant. He couldn’t believe that every person has been created with a Big Dream, and that most people, for one reason or another, just aren’t pursuing it. He said only a few people are ‘born dreamers.’ “Just because you happen to be one of them,” he said, “you don’t really think everyone in this restaurant is one, do you?”

I was losing the debate as we took our seats, and I didn’t know what to do. Our conversation had special meaning to me because, although my producer friend didn’t know it, I was trying to help him pursue HIS Big Dream. I was almost to the point of giving up when an idea came to mind. Why not try to prove it right in front of him?

When our waitress Sonja came to take our order, my heart was pounding. But I took a risk. I asked her, “Are you doing what you’ve always wished you could be doing?” She looked at me questioningly. “What do you mean?” she asked. I said, “Well, maybe you ARE doing your dream, and that would be terrific. But I wonder, do you have a Big Dream inside of your heart that hasn’t come true yet?”

Sonja thought for a moment. Then she said, “My mother is a nurse. My sister is a nurse. And I always dreamed of becoming a nurse.” “Would you have been a good nurse?” I asked. Sonja became emotional. “I would have been a really good nurse,” she said softly. “Would you like to be a nurse at this very moment?” I asked. “Yes,” she said.

So I took another risk. “Do you happen to believe that God wants you to be a nurse?” I asked. She looked away for a minute, then said, “I think so.” “If God wants you to be a nurse, then there must be a way for you to be one,” I said. “What has stopped you?” Sonja listed the reasons: an education cut short by marriage, then two children, then the demands of raising a family. “Now it’s impossible,” she said. “It’s too late.” I heard the sadness in her voice.

“What would have to happen for you to become a nurse,” I asked. “We don’t have enough money,” she said. “I can’t afford a babysitter, so I can’t go to school.” “So if you had a babysitter, you would go to school?” I asked. “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

I glanced at my producer friend to make sure he was taking this all in. Then I took another risk, “Sonja, I believe there’s somebody in your life that cares about you and would babysit your children for free. Who is that person?” Sonja thought for a moment, then her face lit up. “It’s my mother!” she exclaimed. “She just retired two months ago! She loves her grandchildren. And she’s always wanted me to have my dream. She’d babysit my kids for free if I just asked her!”

While she spoke, her eyes brimmed with tears. Mine did, too. Anytime I see someone else’s dream surfacing, I’m deeply touched because I know how sad it is not to be able to live your dream. Without even taking our order, Sonja slid in next to a friend at another table to announce that she was going back to school. “I’m going to be a nurse!” she said with tears of joy.

My friend sat across from me, shaking his head. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” he said, “I wouldn’t have believed it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe everybody DOES have a Big Dream.” [Multonomah Publishers, Sisters, Oregon, 2003, pps.72-75]

Look at I Corinthians 2:9! But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” WOW! In John 12:24-25 Jesus tells us all: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Tell me about your ‘love-hate’ relationship with yourself in this world!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FORGOTTEN? THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE OF PERSONAL WATCHCARE?

Have you considered that which is ‘spiritual’ has to do with a man’s relationship with God, or the lack of it? Are disciplines that which relates to athletes and the sports’ world? What about what is personal – does ‘personal’ define what goes on in the inner man between a man and his God? Is there such a responsibility to be accounted for called ‘watch-care’? Have you, have we, forgotten?

It’s my prayer that you are not one among many who so easily forgets “the spiritual discipline of personal watch-care”! It is not something that comes in a flash like a meteorite crossing the dark night’s sky afire and then is gone. It is not that which comes and goes like a temporary habit – but it is to be that which is constant, firmly established in the inner man, and permanently preparing a man for a God-honoring, Christ-exalting walk among men.

It was Robert Burns in “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” who wrote: “Compared with this, how poor Religion’s pride, In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide, Devotion’s every grace, except the heart!”

And if “the spiritual discipline of personal watch-care” IS everything but the heart, one has become lost in the sea of self-esteem not honoring God at all! But in Matthew 24:42-44 we read: “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

John Wesley was so wise as he wrote “Letter To Charles Wesley”. “I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life, between two boundless oceans.” Why? Freedom in this life to choose to look toward God Himself, knowing we have an enemy called Satan, is to be free to be all God desires me to be ‘in Christ’ – not deceived by the powers of darkness who want me enslaved to my ‘old man’ under Satan’s domination!

I don’t believe most men understand life apart from God’s blessing and presence with them and in them – “there’s nothing hazardous about being an unbeliever; I’m master of my own destiny;” but for those who know that there is a huge ‘masculine’ journey of faith, they want answers! I don’t know at all about journeys on the open seas without any directional helps at all. And when it comes to the journeys of life apart from God who created us, I don’t know how any man survives – and there is such a huge difference between a life of ‘survival’ and a life blessed by God Himself!

So…you ‘gain the world, the whole world’ but lose your soul? What advantage is that? What reward is that? What kind of blessing is that to “lose your soul”?

In William Barclay’s “Daily Study Bible,” [Vol. 2 on Matthew, p.170], Barclay wrote: “A man owes himself and everything else to Jesus Christ; and there is nothing that a man can give to Christ in place of his life. It is quite possible for a man to try to give his money to Christ, and yet to withhold his life. It is still more possible for a man to give lip-service to Christ, and to withhold his life. Many a person gives his weekly freewill offering to the church, but does not go to church; obviously that does not satisfy the demands of church membership. The only possible gift to the Church is ourselves; and the only possible gift to Christ is our whole life. There is no substitute for it, and nothing less will do.”

And, although church membership is a part of our journey, it is not my emphasis in this chapter – the emphasis is between you and Jesus alone! “The Spiritual Discipline of Personal Watch-care!”

Let’s look, first, AT THE MATTER OF SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE THAT RELATES TO ONE’S PERSONAL EXAMINATION AND TEST EVALUATION – ‘DO I BELONG TO CHRIST’? In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul wrote: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you – unless indeed you are disqualified?”

It’s so interesting that earlier, in I Corinthians 9:26-27, Paul said: “Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”

Does that sound like a man who could care less about his spiritual development or one that knew, yes, the daily discipline of keeping watch over his body, soul, and spirit, as it related to Christ? And more than his own personal watch-care, he knew to Whom he had committed himself! In I Thessalonians 5:23-24 Paul said: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He also who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.”

Paul knew personal responsibility but also yieldedness to the Christ within him. He understood the attitude of the wise man of Proverbs 3:5-6, “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.”

Isn’t it amazing to you that the Son of God, Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, “…increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men”? [Luke 2:52]. In verse 40 of Luke 2 it also says: “And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.”

“Grace of God, be on us! Grace of God, abound toward us! Grace of God, increase our stature and our favor with You and with men around us! Grace of God, make us strong in spirit! Grace of God, fill us with Your heavenly wisdom! Grace of God, honor yourself through us who do examine ourselves whether we’re in the faith or not!”

But also, LET’S LOOK AT OURSELVES CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE OF PERSONAL WATCH-CARE RELATED TO GOD’S DIVINE PURPOSE AND PLAN FOR OUR OWN PILGRIMAGE. You’ll remember Stephen being martyred in Acts 7 as “the stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, who always resisted the Holy Spirit,” and along with Saul of Tarsus, consented to stoning Stephen to death!

Acts 8 opens with a great persecution against the church – and again, here’s Saul of Tarsus right in the middle of it! Acts 8:3 says “As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison [because of their faith and commitment to Christ Jesus!].

Acts 9 opens with Saul “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” He’s determined to wipe them off the face of the earth! But look at Acts 9:3-6!! “As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So he, trembling and astonished, said, ‘Lord, what do You want me to do?’”

But, do you realize or comprehend how few there are who ask that question Paul asked? I love Oswald Chambers’ statement in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.145], “A man is a slave for obeying unless behind his obedience there is a recognition of a holy God. Many a soul begins to come to God when he flings off being religious, because there is only one Master of the human heart, and that is not religion but Jesus Christ.”

There is nothing ‘passive’ about the spiritual discipline of personal watch-care! “Lord, what would YOU have me to do?” shows true faith is active as one lays his own life down for the glory of God alone. But far too many would not even ask Paul’s question because for them it’s surrender to someone else’s sovereignty other than their own!

This leads us to LOOK AT OURSELVES CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE OF PERSONAL WATCH-CARE RELATED TO THE DAILY DISCIPLINE OF DEATH TO SELF FOR THE MANIFESTATION OF RESURRECTION LIFE, POWER, AND HOPE. In Galatians 5:24 Paul is so very clear! “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh [your old sin nature] with its passions and desires.”

What did we see in Matthew 16:24? Jesus speaking, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” I’m actually afraid for many who have never, ever, considered themselves as someone who needed to deny himself, or take up his cross, or truly follow Jesus as his/her only hope! But Jesus not only volunteered for the Cross, He took us with Him – what did Paul say in Galatians 2:20? “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

In Romans 6 Paul laid it on the line for us to resolve in and of ourselves! Romans 6:1says:”What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” [Look at Romans 5:20b-21! “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”] Now, look at Romans 6:4-14! “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe 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 indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

Again, Oswald Chambers so illumined for us in his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.256], the battle most ‘church-folk’ never enter! He wrote: “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” – it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something…;Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.” In I Corinthians 15:31 Paul said: “I die daily”!!

But there is something else we all MUST CONSIDER! IN OUR SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE OF PERSONAL WATCH-CARE ARE WE AWARE OF THAT WHICH CAN SEDUCE, DISTRACT, AND DISTURB ‘GODLY CONTENTMENT’? Come to I Timothy 6:6-20! “Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life, to which you were also called and confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen. Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust….”

Paul was so clear when in I Corinthians 7:35 he wrote: “And this I say for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you, but for what is proper, and that you may serve the Lord without distraction.” Are you aware in your pilgrimage of alluring distractions? The New American Standard version speaks of securing “undistracted devotion to the Lord.” For some it’s an ‘obsession’! I Timothy 6:3-5 says: “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.”

It was Francois de Salignac who said: “Resign every forbidden joy; restrain every wish that is not referred to God’s will; banish all eager desires, all anxiety; desire only the will of God; seek him alone and supremely, and you will find peace.” Does the cup of your life, your walk, your witness, overflow with ‘Godly contentment’?

Let’s look also at THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE OF OUR LORD’S CHALLENGE AND COMMISSION TO ALWAYS PRAY. Look at Luke 18:1 where our Lord’s Holy Word says: “Then He [Jesus] spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.”

Do you understand our Lord’s passion and love for His disciples? He’s not interested in a single disciple losing heart, fainting in the way, or stumbling along the way. I want to challenge you to take your Strong’s Concordance and compare the word ‘ought’ in Luke 18:1 to the word ‘must’ in John 3:7! You’ll not be surprised that the necessity of the ‘new birth’ is the same ‘ought-ness’ of “always praying and not losing heart”!

I so love Alfred Lord Tennyson’s words in “Morte d’ Arthurt”: “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friends? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.” Later Tennyson wrote about “battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer.”

Prayerless men are inept and useless to the glory and honor of God! Prayerless men are void of the very keys and notes of music that bring about the symphony of heavenly blessing and a heavenly harmony that soothes the troubled soul! Prayer calms the storms! Prayer chains our enemy! Prayer grabs hold of God who grabs hold of a praying man! Prayer is one saying ‘Yes’ to God’s willingness to answer and to bless! Prayer opens the door to the heart of heaven itself!

But, yes, the adventure of the spiritual discipline of personal watch-care grows rapidly WHEN THERE IS OPENNESS TO CONFRONTATIONS AND CHALLENGES OF CARE, CONCERN, AND COMMITMENT TO BE HIS INSTRUMENT OF OTHERS’ RECONCILIATION TO OUR LORD. Come to I Corinthians 9:16, 19-23! Verse 16 says, “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!…Verses 19-23, “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.”

Alan Redpath, author of “The Royal Route To Heaven,” studies in I Corinthians, has a chapter entitled “The Genuine Article,” and it is I Corinthians 9! He wrote, [p.107], “I believe the world is tired of religion that is a sham. People want to see in the hearts and lives of those who profess Christ the characteristics of the genuine article. Unless these marks are upon our testimony, others will not desire our Lord.”

Redpath later said: [p.110], “I do not wish to be uncharitable, but isn’t it sad that in so many instances Christian people move in their own little watertight compartments and never launch out into somebody else’s situation at all? They are locked in; their circle never touches the circles of unbelievers. They move only in their little circle of Christian fellowship; very seldom do they take the plunge outside in order to win another for Christ. I believe perhaps the greatest need of all in our evangelical circles today is that we might have the boldness in Christ to cross some of the barriers that exist to win others for Him. ‘Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel,’ says Paul.”

Let me close this chapter with the spiritual discipline of personal watch-care that thrives on ‘LOVING AND LEANING ON HIS HOLY PRESENCE’! In Psalm 16:11 David said: “You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

I don’t know how it is with you, but I’m so thankful that living in His Holy Presence blesses me with the fullness of joy and that at His right hand are pleasures forevermore!

In fact, when I read Acts 3:19, my heart flourishes in His joy: “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.”

Don’t you know that the eternal desire of Jesus for you and for me is, “That My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full,”?[John 15:11].

The seventy returned with joy to Jesus, saying to Him, [Luke 10:17-20], “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

FORGOTTEN? THE SPIRITUAL ALERTNESS OF “TODAY”?

It was really interesting as the Lord had laid “Today” on my heart – and I really wanted to know what He was saying to me. I opened up Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary to the word “today” expecting this huge explanation to stretch my brain and heart, and it simply said: “The present day.” ‘Present’ was really interesting because Webster said first: “Being in a certain place; opposed to ‘absent’. One thing is for certain – we should not be those absent from God’s presence!! And I was thrilled as I looked at John 14:25 where Jesus said to His disciples, “These things I have spoken to you while being PRESENT with you.”

Is Jesus ‘present’ with you “today” or somehow have YOU wandered away from His presence? Remember, He told the disciples that He would never leave us nor forsake us.

I really don’t know all that “Today” is to mean for each of us but there is building in my inner man an irrepressible desire, assurance, and confidence of His abiding presence with me and in me! It’s that inner awareness that apart from Him I could never fulfill God’s plan for my life but one with Him “Today” will be celebration day in the fulfillment of His good, acceptable, and perfect will!

You’ll probably remember C.S. Lewis’ statement in “Mere Christianity,” [New York, Simon & Shuster, 1996, p.21], “If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” But, I’m thinking, dissatisfaction with self is because I was made for another Lord – not lord unto myself but the Lordship of Jesus Christ in this world that I’m appointed to by His grace! If you’re ‘delighting’ in yourself, you’re living a lie, but if you delight in Jesus, you’re living in the Truth!

I don’t think any person has ever entered true beauty, true blessing, and a true benediction to life who has not settled into “I am the resurrection and the life…,” Jesus’ words of Himself. And when one is settled into Him, life becomes more than daily routine – it becomes divine reconciliation and enjoyment and blessing and fulfillment and satisfaction and peace and hope and love that is eternal and mercy that is Master-full!

Yet “today” there are those who ‘die’ in despair having never been enlightened to the Lord of this day and every day! You’ll remember Christopher Reeve who played ‘Superman.’ Before his premature death he said: “When I do good I feel good. When I do bad I feel bad. And that’s my religion.”

Hardness of heart is not a haven of rest for those who have “Forgotten” TODAY! Hardness of heart is not hope for those who have no hope in themselves and never see ‘hope’ in others’ choices.

It was the year 1969 when Lloyd John Ogilvie wrote his book “A Life Full of Surprises.” Receive what he wrote then for now! It’s his first chapter, first paragraph, and it’s so needed 43 years later! “The most exciting thing I see in our time of history is the new breed of humanity God is raising up out of the traditional church. In the midst of all the bad news about the failure of the church, much of which is more than justified, something now needs to be said about this amazing cadre of people who have come alive and about their churches which are wrestling with what it means to be a liberating fellowship. These are winsome, willful men and women who are constantly surprised by what God is able to do with life completely under his marching orders. They have a radical freedom expressed in a reconciling ministry. For them there is no tyranny of the either/or. They have both personal faith and social concern – love for Christ and love for the world – time for devotion and time to demonstrate.”

How awesome is that! “Today”!! A time for devotion and a time to demonstrate! “Today”! A time in radical freedom to be reconciling ministries! “Today”! The moment for the Master’s mind and will expressed through available vessels!!

Let’s look, First, at the “TODAY” OF HEARING HIS VOICE AND NOT HARDENING OUR HEARTS. In Psalm 95:7b-11 we read: “…Today, if you will hear His voice: Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, When your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘they shall not enter My rest.’”

Have you ever considered, thought about, or contemplated: “How many people are there who are listening for His voice ‘today’? How many are anxious and excited to hear God speak to them? I’m convinced God has spoken and still speaks through the revelation of His Holy Word. I have no doubt that when a man of God stands and preaches God’s undiluted, uncompromising Word, men can hear Him. I believe you’d be foolish to say that God cannot, has not, will not, speak through human circumstances and events. And I’m also assured His audible voice is heard at times by servants of the Most High God. And Jesus, Lord and Savior, also has appeared and has spoken to chosen servants.

But rebellion can close ears, blind eyes, and bring folks into an awful state of denial, intent on being masters of their own destinies! Israel tested God in the wilderness, tried the Lord as if He needed to be imprisoned by their judgments, and grieved Him in His heart for refusing to give Him His rightful place in their minds, their hearts, and their wills. They rebelled, they went astray from God, they refused to know His ways, and they did not enter His rest!

Is our modern day any different than those in the wilderness who in their ‘today’ harden their hearts and refuse to hear His voice? Peter spoke of those who “once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.” [I Peter 2:10]. The God I serve is the God of love, grace, and mercy, who still is reaching out, speaking clearly, tapping on the shoulder, shining bright lights, and saving souls!!

But also in Joshua 5:9 there is such a word of hope that ought to put you on shouting grounds. Hear God’s Voice in this: The Lord said to Joshua, “Today, this day, this very moment in time, I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” Therefore the name of this place is called Gilgal [rolling away] to this day.” GOD ROLLS AWAY YOUR REPROACH!

For 400 years Israel was in bondage, in slavery, captive to a people and rulers who did not know God and had no desire to know Him – they opposed Him at every turn. To be unsaved, to be an unbeliever, to shamefully be controlled, manipulated, abused, by the powers of darkness, you are covered in reproach, bound in spiritual chains, locked up tight by enemies who call you their friends! To be in sin is to be in spiritual grave-clothes, bound body, soul, and spirit, by those who want you sharing their darkness!

The reproach of Egypt! Incarnate unbelief! The reproach of Egypt! Unbridled recklessness, abandonment of God, unbelief! The reproach of Egypt! Accursed actions, sexual abuse, immorality! The reproach of Egypt! Ungodly pleasures, ungodly biases and blunders, ungodly relationships, ungodly unions! The reproach of Egypt! Separation, saturation in worldly, fleshly, demonic activities, bowing before idols man-made, man-accursed, man-alienated from God!

But God “rolls away your reproach”! It’s by the blood, in the blood, through the shed blood of Jesus on Calvary’s Cross, that your reproach is now gone!

Lelia N. Morris, over a hundred years ago, wrote a hymn that says: “In the misty days of yore Jesus’ precious blood had power Even the thief on the cross to save; Like a bird his spirit flies to its home in Paradise, Through the power of Calvary’s crimson wave…I was lost and steeped in guilt, but the blood for sinners spilt Washed away my sins and set me free; Now and evermore the same, praise, O praise His holy name! Will the cleansing stream availing be…God in mercy asks you why, brother sinner, will you die When such full redemption He provides? You have but to look and live, life eternal He will give, For the power of Calvary still abides…Bring your burdens, come today, turn from all your sins away, He can fully save and sanctify; From the wrath to come now flee, let your name recorded be With the blood-washed, and redeemed on high…And the blood has never lost its power…No, never, no, never, Jesus’ blood avails for sins forever…And will never lose its power.”

And, having been washed in His blood and your reproach rolled away, God comes and says to us: “SON, GO, WORK TODAY IN MY VINEYARD.” That’s Luke 21:28! Verse 29 says that he answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went.”

Having been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and your reproach rolled away, you don’t believe God has divine intent for you in holy service to the Lord? “Go, work today in my vineyard.”

Have you ever witnessed a new field of opportunity made ready for a harvest? There’s clearing away what needs to go; there’s making sure those weeds and wild things are removed; there’s the plowing and breaking up of hard ground; and then there comes the seed planting which is the precious seed of the Word of God. There’s watering, more weeding, still soil preparation – and then a harvest!

Whoever said “witnessing” for our Lord was easy – I’m not sure what they were talking about when it comes to ‘working’ in His vineyard! Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 3:11, “For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies.” And that is so true – it’s as if they see the field to be prepared for the harvest but they stand outside the fence and watch, but never work!

Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:19, “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.” In 2 Timothy 4:5 he told Timothy, “But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

And that’s the ministry of sharing the faith in our work-a-day-world! He had said to Timothy earlier in 2 Timothy 1:8, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God.”

As a result of God’s grace and our salvation, what’s the end result? Ephesians 2:10 says: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Tell me about your ‘walk’ of faith and your ‘good works’!

But there’s something else I must ask you about. We’ve just seen the ministry of evangelism. Is there legitimately and genuinely A MINISTRY OF DISCIPLES OF COMPASSION AND CARING FOR THE NEEDY AND THE POOR? In Luke 19:1-10 look with me at Zacchaeus and his encounter with Christ: Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was short of stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.” Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Is there a true test of heavenly spirituality or have we concluded that all that matters is showing up at church regularly and paying our tithes? I believe “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” is so beyond our church attendance!

Carelessness, carnality, and coldness toward the needy are not trade-marks of a true disciple devoted to the resurrected and reigning Christ! Look with me at John 13:14! Jesus said: “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

Listen to Oswald Chambers in his “My Utmost For His Highest,” [pps.187-188], “Ministering as opportunity surrounds us does not mean selecting our surroundings, it means being very selectly God’s in any haphazard surroundings which He engineers for us. The characteristics we manifest in our immediate surroundings are indications of what we will be like in other surroundings…The things that Jesus did were of the most menial and common-lace order, and this is an indication that it takes all God’s power in me to do the most commonplace things in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels and dishes and sandals, all the ordinary things of our lives, reveal more quickly than anything what we are made of. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty as it ought to be done.”

But, also, I want you to consider “today” what you have chosen for yourself – A BLESSING OR A CURSE! Come to Deuteronomy 11:26-28!! “Behold, I set before you TODAY a blessing and a curse; the blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.”

It was Thomas Carlyle in “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches” who said: “Blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord.” And I have no doubt that ‘in the Lord’ IS THE BLESSING and without the Lord is THE CURSE!

To the Ephesians Paul wrote: [Ephesians 1:3], “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Have you fully grasped what Paul is telling us?

“God chose us in Christ,” “predestined us to adoption as sons,” “made us accepted in the Beloved,” “redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins,” “He abounded wisdom and understanding to us,” “He revealed His will to us,” “we have obtained an inheritance,” “we shall BE to the praise of His glory,” “we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” “we have our guarantee”!!

And you choose “the curse”? Listen to Deuteronomy 30:14-20! “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earthy as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

I believe I’ll “side” with Joshua and Jesus!! Joshua 24:14-15 says, “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served…Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Why not see yourself as a new Jeremiah for our day? Jeremiah 1:4-10 says: Then the word of the Lord came to ME, saying: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said: “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.” But the Lord said to me: “Do not say, ‘I am a youth.’ For you shall go to all whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces. For I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord. 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 this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.” Look at verses 17-19! “Therefore PREPARE YOURSELF and arise, and speak to them all that I command you. Do not be dismayed before their faces, lest I dismay you before them. For behold, I have MADE YOU FOR THIS DAY a fortified city and an iron pillar, they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you. For I am with you,” says the Lord, “to deliver you.”

“Today” is not ‘never’; “Today” is not later; “Today” is not tomorrow; “Today” is not sometime; ”Today” is NOW! In Luke 6:21 Jesus said: “Blessed are you who hunger NOW, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep NOW, for you shall laugh.” What a promise from our Lord!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

FORGOTTEN? THE HOLY SPIRIT TO LIVE IN ME?

Isn’t it amazing to you how easily some ignore the revelation of God’s Holy Word about the Trinity? That’s God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – the three in one! Some say, “How is that possible?”, when they look at man and see man, husband, and father effectually working as one! Have you heard them? “I don’t even like to think about the ‘man’ part, and ‘husband’? Lord, help us! And ‘father’? What a poor representation of man!” But sadly some totally ignore the Trinity, and especially God the Holy Spirit – as if they’d wandered over into ‘ghost-land’!

I really don’t know, don’t understand, that if ‘discipling’ is a primary, foremost responsibility of the local church, how “Receive the Holy Spirit” is usually totally ignored by those in charge! Yet, most discipleship training materials are void of Holy Spirit training. But I also know that there has been abuse, misinterpretation, false teaching, even antagonism against those who do include Holy Spirit equipping and training. “God, help us! Save us from biblical ignorance and ill-equipped disciplers who will not touch Holy Spirit training!”

But I’m also confident that ‘power religion’ is not Spirit relationship. I’m also confident that much of the Spirit-training by some compartmentalizes private thoughts about their interpretation of Spirit-activity apart from the revelation of the Word! I’m also confident that if one teaches ‘ministry of the Holy Spirit’ from a denominational frame of reference much then of the all-inclusive ministry of the Holy Spirit is lacking, ignored, or even denied by some!

Of all the teachings necessary for a free, full, fulfilling relationship to Christ and His Holy Word, I’m convinced it is the scriptural foundation in one’s pilgrimage as disciple of Christ to be that of a proper, empowering leadership of the Holy Spirit in one’s daily life. But there is such controversy about the Spirit that some have assumed teaching about the Holy Spirit causes too many problems, causes too much controversy, and causes some to “fall away” not understanding no leadership of the Holy Spirit creates that vacuum!

Questions! Is the Holy Spirit truly a part of the Trinity or an invention of misdirected Bible teachers? Is the Holy Spirit a part of my salvation process? Is the Holy Spirit absolutely essential in the maturing process as a follower of Christ? Is the Holy Spirit necessary in understanding the Word of God? Is New Testament evangelism founded on the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Is a follower of Christ to be led by the Holy Spirit on one’s spiritual journey daily? These questions, and I’m sure others, will be with us as we traverse the paths of the Holy Spirit’s leadership.

Let me begin this study of the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:1 where God “created the heavens and the earth,” with verse 2 telling us “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters,” letting us know Creation was a partnership arrangement between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In Genesis 1:26 our Holy Word tells us, Then God said, “LET US [PLURAL] make man in ‘OUR’ image, according to our likeness…” And this is so vital in your own understanding of your need of the Holy Spirit in the “new creation” activity of your own life in Christ – and, just as God saw “that it was good” in the natural creation [Genesis 1:31], so does Holy God see your “new creation” in Christ as good! The Spirit was, is, and always will be so involved in what God the Father and God the Son are up to in your life – look at Hebrews 9:14! “how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Did you notice, did you highlight “the eternal Spirit”? When Pharoah decided to set Joseph over Egypt as an officer over the food and grain of the land, he said to his servants, Genesis 41:38, “Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?” Even pagan Pharoah recognized God’s Holy Spirit in and on a man like Joseph!!

Moses knew God’s people should not be without a shepherd. In Numbers 27:17 we see where Moses spoke with God about His ‘sheep which have no shepherd,’ and in verse 18 the Lord said to Moses: “Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him…” And, then, in Joel 2:28-29 God gives ALL His precious promise of the Holy Spirit to be with us in so exalting Christ through our daily lives. Through Joel God said: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”

What did God’s angel tell Zechariah in Zechariah 4:6? “This is the word of the Lord: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” It’s the Holy Spirit that authenticates the work and Word of the Lord – not men’s ‘might’ or men’s ‘power’! I’m sure this is why Thomas a Kempis once said: “Many are deceived in the end, who at first seemed to be led by the Holy Spirit.”

The one thing I pray for as I do this chapter is that I don’t misinform but inform, that I don’t mislead but lead, that I in no way deceive but enlighten us all in the ministry of the Holy Spirit! Evangelical spirituality is sadly scarred and bruised when ‘fleshly fruit’ is majored on rather than the Fruit of the Holy Spirit! Notice what God’s Word says about the Holy Spirit!

WHEN THE SPIRIT HAS COME [and He has!] THERE IS CONVICTION OF SIN! Here are the words of Jesus: [John 16:7-8], “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 to come.”

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of CONVICTION: “The act of convincing, or compelling one to admit the truth of a charge; the act of convincing of sin or sinfulness; the state of being sensible of guilt…” And remember: “For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

What Paul then says elsewhere is so vital! 2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

Hear Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost For His Highest”! [pps.240-241], “Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin; we know the experience of being disturbed because of having done wrong things; but conviction of sin by the Holy Ghost blots out every relationship on earth and leaves one relationship only – “Against You, You only, have I sinned!” When a man is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every power of his conscience that God dare not forgive him; if God did forgive him, the man would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the rending of His heart in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the Divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. When we have been convicted of sin we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary, and nothing less; the love of God is spelt [spelled out] on the Cross and nowhere else. The only ground on which God can forgive me is through the Cross of my Lord. There, His conscience is satisfied.”

BUT, ALSO, WHEN THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS COME, THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, HE WILL GUIDE US INTO ALL TRUTH. Isn’t that what John 16:13 tells us? “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.”

And I’m talking about GOD’S TRUTH, not a ‘truth’ some fallen man has fashioned or designed for himself. This is why ‘religious truth’ is so dangerous. In 2 Peter 2:1-3 Peter wrote: But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.

Then verse 10 speaks of those who are “presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries,” and then in verses 12-17 we read: 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, or as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity; a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

But the Holy Spirit has a different ministry than false teachers or false prophets! 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 says: But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And God graciously gives us the Spirit of Truth! In John 14:15-17 Jesus tells us: “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” Look at John 15:26! “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.” JESUS IS TRUTH!!

But also DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE NECESSITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE REALITY OF NEW BIRTH FROM A SON OF SATAN TO A SON OF GOD? In John 3:1-8 we read: There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “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 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. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Physical birth? We know the reality of that – and most thank God for it! But the failure comes, those dark nights and days of the soul when one figures spiritual birth is fiction. Is it fiction or is it a reality and necessity of life? Jesus said: “YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN!” Truth or fiction? Nicodemus said: “How can a man be born when he is old?” He was looking only at physical birth and not the birth of the Spirit! But Jesus said and says today: John 3:3, “most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John had said in John 1:12, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe [rely upon, trust in, adhere to] in His name.” Are you glued to Christ?

New birth is new allegiance! Your old man is old allegiance to self-rule, but the new man is new allegiance to the reign of Christ as Lord and King of the kingdom of God. New birth is new sanctified eyes where I begin to “see” my life under the sovereign rule of Christ as Lord of my life!

BUT ALSO WE MUST DISCERN THAT, HAVING RECEIVED THE HOLY SPIRIT, WE DID NOT RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT IN PART, OR PIECEMEAL, OR ‘A LITTLE DAB WILL DO YOU’!! WE RECEIVED HIM IN HIS FULLNESS! In John 3:33-34 we read: “He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give His Spirit by measure.” Look at Romans 8:9-11! “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

Is there a limitation to the Holy Spirit’s work in us? Oh, I don’t think so – there may be a limitation in us, a blockage in us – but not in Him! I’m not talking about a life now with sanctified common sense, but a life indwelt by the fullness of the Holy Spirit – He has no limitations but only our resistance to what He wants to do through us!

In Romans 8:26 Paul said: “We know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Never find yourself insensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit! Never close the door on His promptings! Never consider self as wise enough to make eternal decisions on your own – rest in the fullness of God’s Spirit and the fullness of God’s Spirit’s leadership!

I’M ALSO CONVINCED THAT WE MUST BE YIELDED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT IN BOTH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC WORSHIP! In John 4:23-24 Jesus said to the woman at the well: “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 in spirit and truth.”

Worship, both private and public, is one bowing before Father-God in full surrender, in one grabbing hold of God and holding on, in one bowing, under the Spirit’s leadership, in a life dedicated afresh and anew to the glory of God.

Worship is, led by the Spirit, a fresh bowing and a new and full surrender to our Lord’s Lordship – it’s yielding, it’s surrendering, it’s renewing, it’s rekindling! Dwight Bradley put the Spirit-worshipping life like this: [“Leaves From a Spiritual Notebook,” Harper & Row Publishers]: “For worship is a thirsty land crying out for rain, It is a candle in the acts of being kindled, It is a drop in quest of the ocean…It is a voice in the night calling for help, It is a soul standing in awe before the mystery of the universe…It is time flowing into eternity…a man climbing the altar stairs to God.”

In John 4:24 again – it must be cemented in your mind, heart, and spirit of daily living! “God IS A SPIRIT; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

I don’t see worship though as a rule but release of the fullness of the life within us. Worship is not a law but the overflow of love. Worship is not a life-jacket on the ship of “Faith’ but inner Presence expressed in outward magnifying! It was Napoleon Bonaparte who said: “If Socrates would enter the room we should rise and do him honor. But if Jesus Christ came into the room we should fall down on our knees and worship Him.”

David, in I Chronicles 16:29 said: “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” And, I wonder: How many ‘worship’ and ‘bow down’ in full surrender’!

ONE LAST TRUTH OF VITAL IMPORTANCE FOR OUR UNDERSTANDING OF OUR NEED TO BE YIELDED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT: FLESH [YOUR OLD SIN NATURE] DOES NOT, CANNOT, WILL NOT TESTIFY OF OR GLORIFY CHRIST – THAT IS THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN AND THROUGH YOU. In John 15:26 we read again: “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, HE WILL TESTIFY OF ME.”

And then in John 16:14 Jesus said of the Spirit, “He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” The Holy Spirit is YOUR limitless resource of honoring Jesus in your daily walk! Understand – the Holy Spirit reveals your blessing in Christ, your life in Christ, and interprets your every step as opportunity to honor Him and glorify Him on earth as He is glorified in heaven! YOU, in Christ, are a ‘partaker’ of the Holy Spirit, and He enlightens, empowers, and encourages your walk in Christ.

Settle in to Romans 8:26-27! “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

Oh, please hear and receive God’s Word for your own “SPIRIT-BLESSED SPIRITUAL HEALTH”!! I Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that YOUR BODY IS THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO IS IN YOU?” Have you made your body “a den of thieves” or is it the Most Holy Place where the Holy Spirit resides and is to reign honoring Christ? B.B. McKinney and Edwin Hatch wrote they hymn: “Breathe On Me”. It says: “Holy Spirit, Breathe on me, Until my heart is clean; Let sunshine fill its inmost part, With not a cloud between…Holy Spirit, Breathe on me, My stubborn will subdue; Teach me in words of living flame What Christ would have me do…Holy Spirit, breathe on me, Fill me with power divine; Kindle a flame of love and zeal Within this heart of mine…Holy Spirit, breathe on me, Till I am all Thine own, Until my will is lost in Thine, To live for Thee alone…Breathe on me, breathe on me, Holy Spirit, breathe on me; Take Thou my heart, cleanse every part, Holy Spirit, breathe on me.”

Tell me of your prayer to be filled with and by the Holy Spirit!

CHAPTER TWENTY

FORGOTTEN? EVANGELISM: HEARTBEAT OF CHRISTIANS AND CHURCHES?

Colin Sterne and H.E.Nichol wrote a powerful hymn many years ago entitled: “We’ve a Story To Tell.” It says: “We’ve a story to tell to the nations, That shall turn their hearts to the right; A story of truth and sweetness, A story of peace and light, A story of peace and light…We’ve a song to be sung to the nations, That shall lift their hearts to the Lord; A song that shall conquer evil and shatter the spear and sword, And shatter the spear and sword…We’ve a message to give to the nations, That the Lord who reigns above, Has sent us His Son to save us, And show us that God is love, And show us that God is love….We’ve a Savior to show to the nations, Who the path of sorrow has trod, That all of the world’s great people Might come to the truth of God, Might come to the truth of God!…For the darkness shall turn to the dawning, And the dawning to noon-day bright, And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth, The kingdom of love and light.”

Darkness does prevail over most of our world today, but ‘in Christ’ the Light is shining – and our Lord, because of His grace, mercy, and love toward His chosen, redeemed people, has said: [Matthew 5:16], “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Because of what our Lord has done graciously and mercifully in Christians and churches, we are assigned the responsibility of touching our world around us with the same grace and mercy! Jesus even said in Matthew 5:13, “YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

In John 7:38 Jesus said of His new-born disciples, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” That’s a disciple – that is to be His church! If the Lord poured out His life for our salvation, is the mandate and mission on Christians and churches to be the same?

If the Word declares that He [Jesus] is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world, [I John 2:2], then do we have thrust upon us, Christians and churches, THE MISSIONARY MANDATE, THE WORK OF WITNESSING, AND THE WITNESSING OF HIS REDEMPTIVE TRUTH? If Jesus says “Go”, do we have the option to “stay”? If Jesus says “Tell,” do we have an option to be “silent” about Him? In Acts 20:17-28 Paul called for the elders of the churches of Ephesus: “From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he said to them: ‘You know, from the first day that I came to Asia, in what manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews; how I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me. But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And indeed, now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

Right before His Ascension Jesus spoke to His disciples in Matthew 28:16-20. Do you believe “last words” are important? Listen to Jesus! Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshipped Him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earthy. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” AMEN.

How could any disciple, any church, entrusted with God’s Holy Word ignore or set aside as an ‘option we hold’, Acts 1:1-8? “The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’ Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

“You shall be witnesses to Me…!” Paul put it a little differently in 2 Corinthians 5:11, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men;…” Then, in a few verses later, he identifies all believers in this particular way: [2 Corinthians 5:14-20], “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer; Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

Witnesses, ministers of reconciliation, Ambassadors for Christ, Truth-Tellers, men and women of the holy, heavenly persuasion, living epistles known and read by men! In 2 Corinthians 2:12-17 Paul also said: Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened to me by the Lord. I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I departed for Macedonia. 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. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.”

Let’s look, FIRST, AT OUR HEARTBEAT FOR OTHERS BECAUSE OF WHAT JESUS CAME TO DO. When Jesus was speaking about Zacchaeus in Luke 19:9-10 He said: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” BUT WE’RE NOT A PART OF THAT?

In I Timothy 1:15 Paul said, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” And didn’t we just read in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing [or reckoning] their trespasses to them, and HAS COMMITTED TO US THE WORD OF RECONCILIATION”?

RECONCILIATION? Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says this: “In Scripture, the means by which sinners are reconciled and brought into a state of favor with God, after natural estrangement or enmity…” And, ‘in sin,’ all are naturally estranged from God [“LOST”] and live even in enmity toward God! Well, what about our “lost-ness” in our sins and estrangement from God? Again, Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says: “Ruined, destroyed, wasted or squandered; employed to no good purpose;…forfeited, a ‘lost’ estate; unable to find the right way;…alienated; perplexed; being in a maze; hardened; ‘lost’ to shame; ‘lost’ to all sense of honor; shipwrecked, sunken…” And THAT”S WHO JESUS CAME FOR! THAT’S THOSE FOR WHOM HE DIED! THAT’S THE ONES FOR WHOM HE SHED HIS BLOOD! “LOST!!”

It was Jean Nicolas Gross, in “Alliance Weekly,” who said: “Do not shelter the mirror which reflects your soul’s lack of beauty; rather welcome the truth, and believe that next to the knowledge of God nothing is so precious as the knowledge of self.”

William R. Newell and Daniel B. Towner wrote these words to the song “At Calvary”: “Years I spent in vanity and pride, Caring not my Lord was crucified, Knowing not it was for me He died on Calvary…By God’s Word at last my sin I learned; Then I trembled at the law I’d spurned, Till my guilty soul imploring turned to Calvary…Mercy there was great, and grace was free, Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary.”

Omission of Truth, carelessness of self-contemplation, denial of God’s deep love for the ‘fallen’ and the ‘lost’, irreparably unmade apart from God’s mercy and grace, deceived as to one’s separation from God and His eternal intent for man – it ALL says “Lost!” But I wonder, isn’t it better to say, “I was ‘lost’ but Jesus found me, I was blind but He made me see, I was bound in sin’s cruel bondage, but Jesus set me free!!??”

Also, OUR HEARTBEAT FOR OTHERS IS BECAUSE WE KNOW THOSE OTHERS AROUND US DON’T HAVE TO LIVE CAPTIVE AND SLAVE-LIKE ANY LONGER TO THEIR OLD SIN NATURES. In 2 Timothy 2:19b Paul said, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

I remember reading of those World War II U.S. veterans imprisoned by the Japanese in a prisoner of war camp who remained in their cells after U.S. soldiers approached the camp even though the Japanese had unlocked their cells then ran off! When some have been enslaved to their old sin natures for so, so long, it’s hard to believe they are truly free by our Lord’s sacrificial death and resurrection!

Didn’t Paul tell us in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Verse 21, I do not set aside the grace of God…”

To the church at Rome, and us, Paul wrote in Romans 6:10-23, [OH, how vital these words are to you, believer!]. For the death that He [Jesus] died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 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 of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In Christ, we are FREE!! No longer are we captives and slaves of our old sin natures! The pillars of the Christian faith that keeps our spiritual health so strong are the pillars of God’s Holy Revelation about us ‘in Christ’ and the pillars of eternal freedom! Jesus died to set the captives FREE! John 8:36 says, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” And what happens to most of us is, we have to experience the renewing, the re-programming of our minds according to God’s Revelation, not our feelings, thoughts, or opinions! This is why in Galatians 5:1 Paul wrote: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty where-with Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

OUR HEARTBEAT FOR OTHERS IS BECAUSE WE KNOW, IN CHRIST, ONE DOESN”T HAVE TO LIVE UNDER THE CONTROL OF SATAN AND DEMON POWERS. To Timothy Paul wrote in I Timothy 4:1, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” But, who are these who give heed to these spirits and demons? In 2 Timothy 3:13 Paul told Timothy, “But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

Do I believe ‘born-again believers’ can be harassed, challenged, intimidated, influenced, maybe even ‘led astray’ for a short period of time, or maybe “sifted like wheat”? Absolutely! But there is a difference for true believers between oppression and possession. In Hebrews 2:14-16 hear the truth of Christ’s aid to “the seed of Abraham”: “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself [Jesus] likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham.”

Can the demon-possessed be freed by Christ? Absolutely! He has conquered not only sin but the devil and every demon the devil sent to you! Listen to Revelation 12:9-17!! So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ has come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

This large spiritual warfare is actual global warfare between the devil and people of God on every continent. Satan leads the war between good and evil, between the saints and the powers of darkness, between the armies of the Most High God and the armies of the devil himself. Ephesians 6:12 tells us: “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.”

But the promise of God’s Holy Word for every follower of Christ is found in Colossians 2:15! Jesus, “having disarmed principalities and powers, [He] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it [the Cross].”

And I ask you, right now, to pause and reflect upon Jesus – was He tempted, tried, tested by the devil? But you don’t believe unbelievers and believers have to consider a warfare with Satan and the powers of darkness? Please – let them all know that Jesus is their victory over their enemies! But if they refuse, if they rebel, if they yield even an inch to their enemy, share 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12! “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

It is also so vital that you share with those separated from God and His eternal purpose that ONE DOESN”T HAVE TO LIVE SEPARATED, EMPTY, AIMLESS, MEANINGLESS LIVES MISSING OUT ON WHAT GOD PASSIONATELY DESIRES FOR THEM TO HAVE, MISSING OUT ON WHAT GOD INTENDED FOR THAT LIFE!

In Romans 12:1-2 Paul challenges our aimless world, our self-centered societies, our ‘pressed-in’ and sadly influenced godless culture, that there is a better way! “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Earlier, in Romans 5:1-2, 8-10, Paul gives hope for those who are “without strength,” for those alienated and separated from God, experiencing only death in the daily walk. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Verses 8-10, But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

God has called YOU! I Peter 2:9 says: “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” And this precious, purposeful, powerful calling is so blessed with holy privilege. In I Peter 3:15 Peter wrote of the blessing of God’s intention of your faith-filled life in influencing others: “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.”

But also there’s something else you must grasp and give to your unsaved friends, family, and foes: ONE DOESN’T HAVE TO LIVE BLINDED TO GOD BUT CAN HAVE ONE’S EYES OPENED TO SEE, TO CELEBRATE, AND TO HONOR OUR LORD. In James 1:21-25 we read: “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

Disintegration of life is a sad, sad state. A divided life is a terrible turmoil. Discouraged lives are those based on self and not the Savior. Darkened lives are those never lit by the fiery, inner presence of Christ! But James said, verse 25, “But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

The perfect law of liberty? In John 8:36 Jesus said, and still says: “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Freedom is forgiveness in Christ. Freedom is fullness in Christ. Freedom is heavenly force for the fight of faith. Freedom is the free gift of blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing – in Christ! Which leads us to:

ONE DOESN’T HAVE TO LIVE ISOLATED FROM THE GREAT BLESSING OF BEING A PART OF GOD’S KINGDOM, HIS COMMUNITY OF FELLOWSHIP, AND HIS FAMILY OF FAITH, OR BECOMING ONE WITH HIM WHO DESIRES TO WORK IN AND THROUGH YOU IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS! In Philippians 2:5-18 we read some of the most encouraging, challenging, fruitful verses that relate personally to a believer in a dark world and a community of faith that needs YOU! It says: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 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. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.”

In “My Utmost For His Highest” Oswald Chambers wrote: “Are you willing to be offered up for the work of the faithful – to pour out your life blood as a libation on the sacrifice of the faith of others? Or do you say – ‘I am not going to be offered up just yet, I do not want God to choose my work. I want to choose the scenery of my own sacrifice; I want to have the right kind of people watching and saying, ‘Well done.’…It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dignified heroism, but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by God means being a door-mat under other people’s feet. Suppose God wants to teach you to say, ‘I know how to be abased’ – are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in the bucket – to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served? Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work and remain saints because it is beneath their dignity.”

Beneath one’s dignity? Our Lord and Savior humbled Himself and became a “foot-washer”, but that’s too menial for you? Have you “FORGOTTEN” Jesus? Poured spoke of being “poured out as a drink offering” – but you’re unsure of laying your life down in service of others? Almighty Jesus emptied Himself that we might be filled – open your life, pour it out, and see those around you blessed for eternity! The steadfastness of ministry in the name of Jesus should be the main highway you travel on! Be blessed!!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

FORGOTTEN? “DEAF TO…”, “COLD TO THE WARMTH OF HIS WORD AND VOICE”,

OR, “LISTENING TO THE REDEMPTIVE VOICES”!!

Intro: There is one thing that must be settled in every human heart – redemptive faith is never the result of fleshly sight and fleshly hearing! Oh, all across the world everyday people are hearing voices that they think they ought to heed and follow.

In Deuteronomy 18:9-22 God is so gracious to forewarn His people: LISTEN!! “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations…There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer,, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. [That’s a demon!!]. For all who do those things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you. The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’ And the Lord said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ – when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken;; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of Him.” Do you understand how many ‘prophetic voices’ are around you every day? – and their conscious or unconscious desire is to lead you away from God, away from His purpose, away from His Person and APPOINTED PROPHET?

Are you aware that ever since the Fall of man in God’s Garden of Holiness that even a ‘snake’ showed up there voicing deception and never spoke “TRUTH”?

And because of the Fall, there is the need of Redemption and Reconciliation with Holy God, regeneration through faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross – Redemption is God’s Reality, Redemption is God’s Restoration, Redemption is God’s Release into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

But too many have ears superbly trained to hear what they want to hear, to hear what pumps their flesh, to hear what everybody does so they can fit in with anyone but the God who made them, lost them, but then bought them with a price!

I say to you: Beware of any voice, anywhere, anytime, that competes, contends against, or tries to contradict the Voice of Jesus only, the Voice of the One True and Living God, and beware of the voices that speak their opinions and not the revelation of His Word!

Redeemed men have redeemed ears to hear and serve God because they’re blessed with a divine love-gift of a life that hears Him speak, responds to His voice, and reaches out for His destiny and purpose in them and through them.

Redeemed men are not such that are inclined to tell God what they think He ought to do or to let out for His approval their plans, their ambitions, and their determination to “get- er-done” with or without Holy Him.

Redeemed men, blessed as “partakers of the divine nature,” are men who know and understand that it “pleased God…to reveal His Son in [them}..” and they comprehend their “walks” as disciples are an overflow, a release, a service, to the honor of Christ out of the explanation of sheer love, sacrificial devotion, spontaneous obedience to the Proven Voice and Living Word within them!

Do you remember Genesis 15? Verse 1 says, “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.’” THAT’S FAITH IN GOD – NOT FAITH IN HIMSELF! And God gives Abram a vision –

Verse 5, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them…So shall your descendants be.”….”How will this be?”, Abram was asking. And God cut a blood covenant with Abram! WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?…Verse 11 says, “And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.” Oh, what a fighter, what a defender of the Faith, what a warrior in the eternal warfare of the ages! RIGHT?….Verse 12, “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; [Ever felt you’ve been in a deep spiritual sleep?]…and behold, HORROR & GREAT DARKNESS FELL UPON HIM.”….Verse 17 tells us: in that darkness “a smoking oven & a burning torched passed between those pieces,” God assuring Abram “he was on the right journey”!

COVENANT HAD BEEN ESTABLISHED! At the end of chapter 16, it says Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.” [13 years before Genesis 17:1!] – “When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said: “I am Almighty God; walk before me and be blameless.” Verse 3 – Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him…” He gave Abram a new name: Abram was ‘Exalted Father’ – Abraham was “Father of a Multitude”!

Sue and I established early in our marriage a mutual covenant – a covenant of prayer for our line of the Fishers to be established for a 1000 generations to honor God – WE HAD HEARD HIS VOICE!

In Job 42:2 Job said to the Lord, “I know that You can do all things and that no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted.”….And this, no doubt, is why David wrote the 23^rd Psalm out of a heart that had learned to listen to God’s heart-beat and God’s Voice!! ….[READ!!]

In 2 Timothy 2:7-9 Paul wrote: “Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things. Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not bound or chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”

I’m telling you: YOU NEED TO STRIP FROM YOUR MINDS the thin gauzes of doubt, unbelief, speculation, indifference, and irreverence toward God’s Voice, and put on yourself the Royal Robe of Submission, Surrender, and SOLE RELIANCE on the VOICE OF GOD, not the wagging tongues from defiled hearts & rebellious minds who’ve determined: “WE DON’T NEED TO HEAR GOD’S VOICE!!” – I’m telling you: RUN even from a classroom, or a doctor’s office, or from a lawyer who is the ‘Law’ unto himself!

Listen to Dr. R.G. Lee out of his famous book “Payday Someday,” [pps. 55-56]. Dr. Lee preached: “In this Word of God which can never be bound or imprisoned, the historian has found his most thrilling chapters, the artist his loveliest conceptions, the poet his loftiest themes, God’s prophets their divinest messages, ethics its greatest authority, philosophy its profoundest inspiration, oratory its most beautiful quotations to bejewel its grandest flights, and many writers multitudinous themes and suggestions that blossom like rare and fragrant flowers in the world’s vast garden of literature.”

Do you understand that when one turns a deaf ear to “Redemptive Voices”, they have personally awakened in themselves afresh and anew the death knell to blessing, liberty, freedom, guidance, and the eternal destiny of fullness in Christ?

What did Paul say to the Athenians? “In Him [in Christ] we live, and move, and have our being”! And, I say, “Thank God for those who listen, hear, and respond in faith and obedience to the Redemptive Voices!”

FIRST, WE NEED TO HEAR, LISTEN, AND RESPOND TO THE VOICE OF THE LAW OF GOD. I want you to come to Exodus 19:4-6 and witness precious privilege, a treasured possession, a holy vow, and a Godly promise. The Word Says: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”…Then look at verse 19, ‘Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice.” And then comes the voice of Holy Exposure in Exodus 20:1-21!!

Why the Ten Commandments engraved on those tablets of stone? Come to Galatians 3:10!! Are you ready? “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’” – Law’s Purpose? Galatians 3:24 tells us: “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” Verse 7 has already told us “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.” Why?

In John 8:56 Jesus said of Abraham: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”…THE LAW CARRIES EVERY MAN TO THE HOLY BAR OF GOD! THE LAW CONDEMNS EVERY MAN FOR VIOLATIONS! THE BROKEN LAW CAUSES US TO CAST OURSELVES ON THE MERCY SEAT and GRACE and LOVE OF GOD TO LEARN HIS ETERNAL WAY OF SALVATION and HEALING PROVISION

Look at the 10 Commandments, Listen to the Voice of God speaking, and then LEAN ON HIM in repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross!!…..THE VOICE OF THE LAW CONDEMNS –THE VOICE OF THE CROSS LIBERATES!….THE VOICE OF THE LAW SEPARATES – THE VOICE OF THE CROSS UNITES!….THE VOICE OF THE LAW EMBITTERS – THE VOICE OF THE CROSS SWEETENS!…THE VOICE OF THE LAW DECLARES JUDGMENT – THE VOICE OF THE CROSS DECLARES INNOCENCE!…THE VOICE OF THE LAW DECLARES DARKNESS TO THE SOUL – THE VOICE OF THE CROSS DECLARES “LIGHT” TO THE SAINTS!…

I want you to hear words from the great British preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, dead now almost 150 years ago: [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol. 4, pps. 237-238],…”Now, I beseech you, hear this word and believe it: ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.’ Oh, you can say, ‘I believe this Word – it is true – blessed be His dear name; it is true to me, for whatever I may not be, I KNOW THAT I AM A SINNER; [a Law-of-God breaker!]:…And, good Lord. You know when I say I am a sinner, I do not mean what I used to mean by that word. I mean that I am a real sinner. [A LAW OF GOD VIOLATER!!]. I mean that if you should damn me, I deserve it; if You should cast me from Your presence forever, it is only what I merited [ earned] richly. O my Lord, I am a sinner; I am a hopeless sinner, unless You save me; I am a helpless sinner, unless You deliver me. I have no hope in my self-righteousness; and Lord, I bless Your name, there is one thing else, I am a sorrowful sinner, for sin grieves me; I cannot rest, I am troubled. Oh, if I could get rid of sin, I would be holy, even as God is holy, Lord, I believe.’ But I hear an objector cry out, ‘What, sir, believe that Christ died for me simply because I am a sinner!’ yes, even so. ‘No sir; but if I had a little righteousness; if I could pray well, I should then think Christ died for me.’ No, that would not be faith at all, that would be self-confidence. Faith believes in Christ when it sees sin to be black, and trusts in Him to remove it all. Now, poor sinner, with all your sin about you [Law-breaking etc.], take this promise in your hands, go home today, or if you can’t, do it before you get home – go home, I say, upstairs alone, down by your bedside, and pour out your heart, ‘O Lord, it is all true what the preacher said today; I am condemned, and Lord, I deserve it. O Lord, I’ve tried to do better, and I have done nothing with it at all, but have only grown worse. O Lord, I have slighted Your grace, I have despised Your Gospel: I wonder You haven’t damned me years ago; Lord, I marvel at myself, that You suffer such a base wretch as I am to live at all. I have despised a mother’s teaching, I have forgotten a father’s prayers. Lord, I have forgotten You; I have broken the Sabbath, taken Your name in vain. I have done everything that is wrong; and if You condemn me, what can I say? Lord, I am done before Your presence. I have nothing to plead. But Lord, I come to tell You, You have said in the Word of God, ‘Him that comes unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.’ Lord, I come; my only plea is that You have said, ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.’ [Sinners? Law of God breakers and violators!!] Lord, I am THE SINNER; He [Jesus] came to save ME; I trust in it – sink or swim – Lord, this is my only hope..[THE LAW] has pointed me to Christ alone!”

I wish you could have heard my son’s Youth Minister preach recently on Mark 9:7-8, “And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!’ Suddenly when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but Jesus only with themselves.”

SECOND, WE NEED TO HEAR, LISTEN, AND RESPOND TO THE VOICES OF HEAVEN’S ANGELS AND DEPARTED SAINTS….Come to Revelation 11:15-18, “Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, and He [Jesus] shall reign forever and ever!’ And the 24 elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying, ‘We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come. Because You have taken Your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth.” [You do understand! God isn’t talking about non-environmentalists here!!}

I want to ask you a very serious question! Are you aware that there are loud voices opposed to God, loud voices intent on the destruction of the earth, of God-ordained intent, God-ordained purpose, and a God-ordained ‘way of life’?….Rather than ushering in ‘heaven on earth just as it is in heaven now,’ there are co-conspirators intent on ‘hell on earth as it is in hell right now’!

I love reading John Piper – and, in his book, “A Godward Life,” he wrote: [pps.207, 209], “Jesus had a lively, daily awareness of heaven & hell. These awesome realities were always relevant for the way He lived and taught. He was radically reasonable about these things. If we will live forever in bliss or torment, then securing the one and escaping the other is more important than most of what we think about…So He motivated loving actions with the hope of God’s fellowship in heaven, and he motivated radical purity with the fear of separation & torment in hell. For Jesus a profound desire for heaven and a potent fear of hell were practical, daily parts of living a glad and holy life….We are playing games if we say we long for heaven more than this earth & then live like earthbound people.” And then Piper quoted I John 3:3, “Everyone who has this hope fixed on [Christ] purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

Back in the early ‘80’s as I was pastoring Highlands Church in Ocala, Florida, it was the spring of the year. Into the Sunday a.m. fellowship walked a man & woman I’d never seen before – he had a white suit on and his lady friend, coal-black hair, also had a white suit. They filled out a visitor’s card and the address was the apartment complex across the street from the church. As per every Tuesday I made the visit, invited in, found out about his nationally known Christian ministry of piano with Rex Humbard’s church and even numerous appearances with Bill Gaither.

After casual and cordial conversation, he then informed me that the two were not married, that they both had left their mates and children so they could be together! I WAS STUNNED, to say the least! I then carefully dismissed myself and asked the man if he could come by my office the next morning – he agreed. Wednesday morning had almost passed – it was lunch time and I needed to go eat with Sue. But, as I was leaving, the man opened the church door, big smile on his face, then said: “Pastor Fisher, what did you think about what I told you yesterday about me and my lady friend?”….I pointed my finger at the man and said to him: “Sir, you are an adulterer and the woman you’re living with is an adulteress. And unless you both repent you’re bound for Hell! And I want you to know, unless you repent, don’t step foot in this door of God’s church.”…I walked out – and left him standing with his mouth wide open.

One year later, 2:30 a.m. in the morning I received a phone call. It was this man. He was weeping, crying, hard for him to talk, but I heard him through his tears say: “Pastor Fisher, I want to thank you. You are the only pastor nationally who told me the truth. Across Canada and America I asked leading pastors, well-known pastors, what they thought – and all but you said, “It’s OK, Brother; God wants you happy!”….NO!! GOD ISN’T INTERESTED IN YOUR HAPPINESS – HE WANTS YOU HOLY!!

The piano player and his wife had been reconciled, God had given them a ministry to troubled marriages, and they wanted to come to Ocala and share what God had done through truth shared!…Please, please, hear me: There are those “spiritually lost, spiritually destitute, spiritually inclined” to deny truth and destroy the earth – but there are the servants of God, the prophets, and the saints who’ve heard His Voice, Fear His name, and are willing to stand, & yes, die for eternal truth!

THIRD, WE NEED TO HEAR, LISTEN, AND RESPOND TO THE VOICE OF GOD CALLING OUT FOR VOLUNTEERS! Come to Isaiah 6:1-9! “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 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 is 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, & tell this people:…”

Did you catch it? I don’t know how you could miss it! Isaiah said what? “..I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go FOR US?” US?…ALMIGHTY GOD – LOVING SON and THE HOLY SPIRIT CALL TO US!! “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’; …And Isaiah responded: “Here am I! Send me.”

Are you aware that every day, men and women, boys and girls, are confronted by open doors to the habitations of the temporal or the habitations of the Eternal?….You are either pressed in to ‘pathological self-obsessions,’ ‘acute self-consciousness,’ the childish framework of ‘me, my, mine’ – or you’ve heard God’s Holy Voice calling out: “Whom shall I send and who will go for Us?”

In Mark 1:14-15 Jesus had begun His public ministry. Mark wrote: “Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, & believe in the gospel.” BUT THAT’S NOT ALL

Look at Mark 1:16-17!! “And as HE [Jesus] walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon & Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them: “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”

In Dallas Willard’s “The Divine Conspiracy,” Willard wrote: “This is a call for us to reconsider how we have been approaching our life, in light of the fact that we now, in the presence of Jesus, have the option of living within the surrounding movements of God’s eternal purposes, of taking our life into His life.”….I’d rather say, “taking His life into our lives,” and with Isaiah say: “Here am I! Send me!” “I want to be what you want me to be! I want to go where you want me to go! I’ll be a shoe-shiner for the glory of Christ! I’ll be a carpenter for the honor of my Lord. I’ll be a musician for the honor & blessing of Christ Jesus. I’ll be a scientist, and especially one who affirms God’s creative genius – not one who denies it. I’ll be a doctor extending my Lord’s healing grace and power.”

How can one profess redemptive life and redemptive love and redemptive liberty and redemptive privileges, and not say with Isaiah: ‘Here am I! Send me!’………You may find yourself so very much at home with the Rangers and the Mavericks and the Phil Micklesons and your pets and favorite movie stars – but you need to grasp that it is God who made you, the Lord who saved you, and a world that needs you out there! Out there is a God-birthed, God-blessed, God-bathed, God-enveloped world that needs Him!….Have you ever heard it? “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal”? And you understand – you can be heaven’s messenger of healing grace!….With transparent, transformed, and triumphant lives because of God’s grace and mercy, with the flames of our Lord’s unquenchable love, with a faithful and truthful presence and an available “Send me,” we can change the world around us!

It was Henry Ward Beecher who wrote: “Consecration is not wrapping one’s self in a holy web in a sanctuary & then coming forth after prayer and twilight meditation and saying, ‘There, I am [now] consecrated.’ Consecration is going out into the world where God is and using every power for His glory. It is taking all advantages [opportunities, crises] as trust funds – as confidential debts owed to God. It is simply dedicating one’s life, in its whole flow, to God’s service.”

FOURTH, AND LAST, WE NEED TO HEAR, LISTEN, AND RESPOND TO THE VOICE OF CHRIST – SAVED OR UNSAVED, LOST OR FOUND, SPIRITUALLY RE-BORN OR SPIRITUALLY DEAD!….Come to Revelation 3:18-22!….Let me tell you of the love of Jesus!! “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

It was Charles Morrison who once said: “The love of God is no mere sentimental feeling; it is REDEMPTIVE POWER.”……….Harold Cooke Phillips put it like this: “This coming to know Christ is what makes Christian truth redemptive truth, the truth that transforms, not just the truth that informs…”….I want to close with an old hymn!!

“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!…Verse 2, 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!…Verse 3, While life’s dark maze I tread, And griefs around me spread, Be Thou my guide; Bid darkness turn to day, Wipe sorrow’s tears away, Nor let me ever stray From Thee aside…Verse 4, When ends life’s transcient 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!”

What is our Lord saying to us? From “Ashes to Fire”, From slave of Satan to son and servant of Holy God,

From a world-promoter to a world-changer, From a life of indifference to a life of passion to be God’s instrument in touching others with His grace and mercy,

From a nobody to His somebody, From chains to freedom in Christ,

From a darkened soul to an enlightened spirit,

From self-consumption to spirit-sacrifice,

From deaf ears and blinded eyes to one who hears and sees and responds to our Lord’s compassion for the needy!

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

FORGOTTEN? THE CONSEQUENCES OF ‘SINKING SANDS’ OR THE BLESSINGS OF THE SOLID ROCK?

Do you believe that every church building you see is exemplary of the True Body of Christ? Are you aware of the massive differences between ‘man-made churches’ and the spiritual ministries of born-again disciples of Christ? Does ‘profession of’ always mean the reality of ‘possession’ by the Indwelling and Ever-Presence of the Living Lord?

Is explosive growth always evidence of Christ-anointing and Holy Spirit presence? Does ‘pastoral personality of attractiveness’ assure Heaven’s Hand of anointing TO THE GLORY OF GOD?

‘Jokesters,’ ‘pumpers of flesh,’ ‘All-Stars’ of intellectual genius, ‘mental manipulators’ void of the Master, knowledgeable men acquainted with the Scriptures but absent of its Author – what goes on today in churches when ‘members’ of the congregation are hand-cuffed by a man’s personality, drugged by fleshly or false doctrines, fooled by a familiar spirit, and tranquilized by a man’s interpretation apart from God’s revelation?

Do men’s business acumen (sharp perception), talents, and training assure a church’s ‘success’ to the glory of God or does it become a stumbling block in hearing the voice of God because they ‘know’ it all?

God’s “beware” of false prophets is the divine call and encouragement for His people to “be wise” in the Word led by the Holy Spirit who will, if we let Him, ‘guide us into all truth.’ Then there are the spiritual arsonists who can craftily create ‘false fires’ which have nothing to do with the Holy Fires of God; ‘kiddies’ kindling small match-book fires never realizing they can erupt into major fire-storms – and though false preachers only want to light matches under, over, and in young followers, lighting devoted ‘followship’ to them, they are so unaware of spiritual deception in themselves that they don’t even flinch when their devoted followers begin to ‘burn’ in their fleshly spiritual bondage – prisoners of their preacher rather than bound to Christ!

“Stars” of the ‘false preachers parade’ shine best with darkness not Light, wanting to hover over their subjects in commanding fashion, not Christ-like faith and fellowship and fullness of the Servant Spirit. Christ Jesus IS Lord before whom we are to bow but I have personally witnessed ‘pastors’ who demanded devotion to them as if ‘they’ were the true Lord, them becoming so assertive and controlling of their parishioners as if they were the Lord Himself!

There’s an interesting verse in Isaiah 10:21-22 where God said to Isaiah, and us, “The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God….For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet [only] a remnant of them shall return…” Do you remember what Samuel said to Saul in I Samuel 15:23? “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king [or reigning with Him].”

I don’t know how familiar you are with Habakkuk, but you need to major on it for days! Habakkuk 1:5-9 and also verse 12, “Look among the nations and watch – be utterly astonished! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you. For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation which marches through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places which are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers [or horsemen] charge ahead; their calvary comes from afar; they fly as the eagle that hastens to eat. They all come for violence; their faces are set like the east wind. “they gather captives like sand.” And verse 12? Are You not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed them for judgment; O ROCK, You have marked them for correction.”

Revelation 20 speaks of a day when Satan will be bound for a 1000 years. Then verse 7 says, “And when the 1000 years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. Verse 8 says, “And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”

Now you must come and read, ponder, think, evaluate Matthew 7:13-27!! Here it is!! “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken to a wise man WHO BUILT HIS HOUSE ON THE ROCK; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, FOR IT WAS FOUNDED ON THE ROCK. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house ON THE SAND; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

“SINKING SANDS OR THE SOLID ROCK?” “Sinking Sands?” In Proverbs 2:18, speaking of the “strange woman,” we read: Amplified Bible, “For her house SINKS down to death, and her paths to the spirits [of the dead].” Does that ring an awakening bell in your mind and heart? Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of “strange” that it means “foreign, pale,…odd, unusual, irregular, estranged…” And could we say ‘estranged from God Himself’? “SINKING SANDS”!

Woodward said: “That finer matter called ‘sand’, is no other than very small pebbles.” And what are ‘pebbles’ when compared to ‘Solid Rock’? Is ‘sand’ what you’d build your spiritual house on or on the foundation of ‘Solid Rock’?

What did Jesus say in Matthew 7:26-27? [Amplified Version]. “And every one who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a stupid [foolish] man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great and complete was the fall of it.”

A decision in one’s mind, heart, and spirit, to choose sinking sand to build one’s life upon is no doubt a major part of fallen man’s old sin nature! There is that that every man wrestles with: SELF-WILL, SELF-PLEASURE, SELF-RULE – warped living that always wants to shut God out and become himself the crumbling center of his own godless universe, denying God, denying the Word of God, denying the Son of God, denying the Cross and the Resurrection, and pushing to the surface of his mind, heart, and will, his own decision as to ruling, his own sick ambition to be his own lord, ‘master’ of his own destiny, denying accountability to Holy God at God’s judgment seat.

Sinking Sands? How casual, how indifferent, how resentful are they to the sinking, shifting sands, when they are defined, explained, or scripturally exposed! Sinking sands? That’s the world, the flesh, and the devil himself and his demon hordes that enslave, capture, confine, restrict, limit, abuse, accuse, bind up, suffocate, squeeze out any turning to eternal truth! In Luke 22:31 we read, “And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.” Have you been ‘sifted’ lately?

What a warning for any life choosing to walk on sinking sands! It’s 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10: “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.”

Sinking sands? In 2 Thessalonians 3:1-3 Paul wrote: “Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one.”

Sinking sands? I Thessalonians 1:9b-10 says” “…and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He [God] raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”

Sinking sands? Ignorance of ‘the times and the seasons’ – that’s a day when every man, woman, boy or girl, will stand before Holy God and give an account, “What then did you do with Jesus who is called the Christ?” In I Thessalonians 5:1-7 Paul calls us to spiritual sobriety while the world, the flesh, and the devil, are crying out “Peace and safety” for themselves when their eternal destruction is knocking on their door. The Word says:

“But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord 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. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night.”

It was Alexander Maclaren who wrote: “That which of all things unfits man for the reception of Christ as Savior, is not gross profligacy and outward, vehement transgression, but it is self-complacency, fatal self-righteousness and self-sufficiency.” Sinking sands!

“Sinking sands”? It is a walk through life in the animalistic intent on success and survival on ‘my terms’ strictly on the basis of ‘self-interest’ with no concern as to God’s eternal intent! This is why Jesus boldly said in Matthew 16:24, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

Listen to Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost For His Highest”! [p.257], “Individuality is the husk of personal life. Individuality is all elbows, it separates and isolates. It is the characteristic of the child and rightly so; but if we mistake individuality for the personal life, we will remain isolated. The shell of individuality is God’s created natural covering for the protection of personal life; but individuality must go in order that the personal life may come out and be brought into fellowship with God. Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself; individuality debases human nature for itself.”

Do you see that, understand it, run from it – to God? “Sinking sands”? “…individuality debases human nature for itself…!” “Individuality… all elbows” with no reaching hand of faith and trust and surrender and obedience to God! “Individuality… counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love…!”

“Sinking sands”? That’s standing in life fully devoted to carnality, at war with the Spirit of God, an unrenewed, fallen, rebellious sin nature, a nature and state and determination of one’s life to go it’s own way, to satisfy ‘flesh’, to deny ‘saving faith,’ one consumed with the passion to live, enjoy, incorporate his unrenewed nature in opposition to God’s eternal intent!

“Sinking sands”? It’s ‘bitten’ by the “Serpent” with a deadly poison flowing through one’s veins that has brought on a condition of life that defies human remedies! That one, yes, all, opposed to “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross” live ‘soul-shaken’! and ‘sin-stricken’, ignoring, denying, refusing, pleading blindness to saving grace!

“Sinking sands”? That’s establishing man-made religions in opposition to a personal relationship with God through the sacrifice of Christ! That’s ‘cosmetic coverings’ apart from true conversion in Christ! But there if ‘Hope’, not fatal forgetfulness; there is THE eternal answer to fallen man’s dilemma, not fleshly hopelessness; there is the Sovereign remedy of life and heart change and eternal hope as one stands saved, secure, sanctified, and Sovereignly sure on “The Solid Rock”!!

But there is ‘hope’, not fatal forgetfulness; there is THE eternal answer, not fleshly hopefulness; there is the Sovereign remedy of life and heart change and eternal hope as one stands saved, secure, sanctified, and Sovereignly sure on “THE SOLID ROCK”! Oh, please, please, STAND ON “THE SOLID ROCK”! In Matthew 7:24-25 what precious, personal, powerful words we find! Jesus is speaking here! “therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house ON THE ROCK; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”

It was Edward Mote and William B. Bradbury who wrote the famous hymn “My Hope Is Built”, or also known as “The Solid Rock.” The hymn says: “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly live on Jesus’ name…. When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil….His oath, His covenant, His blood, Support me in the whelming flood; When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay….When He shall come with trumpet sound, Oh, may I then in Him be found; Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before the throne…. On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand. AMEN.”

In Matthew 16:13 Jesus had come to the region of Caesarea Philippi and He asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” And, no doubt, that questioned is ignored, answered faithlessly, denying Him carelessly, and, to them, totaling obliterating His Name as a subject they want to discuss or discern. But the disciples answered Him in verse 14, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Then, here it comes…!

Then Jesus said to them, “But WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?” And, praise God, for Simon Peter who answered in verse 16, “You are the Christ [the Messiah, the Eternally Anointed Promised Savior], the Son of the Living God.” In verses 17-19, what a revelation! Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and ON THIS ROCK I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

And for yourself, WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS? Plus, you do understand that how you answer is evidence of your life on “sinking sands or Solid Rock”!

SINCE CHRIST JESUS IS “THE SOLID ROCK,” THEN ONE’S ANSWER DETERMINES HIS FAITH IN GOD’S MIRACLE OF GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE – OR ONE’S LACK, VOID, ABSENCE OF TRUST IN CHRIST ALONE! What did Jesus say? “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to Father-God but by and through Me and My redemptive work at the Cross.”

I John 5:12 says, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” Then in John 17:3 we read, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Oh, how misconstrued life becomes when one alarmingly believes it’s what he/she wants, what he/she wills to do, and what he/she does to form their private constitution independent of Christ!

I want you to know “The Solid Rock” is our Lord and Savior, and intends He become our Master and mastery of life! “The Solid Rock” is Emmanuel, ‘God With us’! In his book, “The Secret of Happiness,” written by Billy Graham in 1955, he wrote: [p.136], “To know about Christ is not enough. To be convinced that he is Savior of the world is not enough. To affirm your faith in Him, as we do in the Apostles’ Creed is not enough. To believe that He has saved others is not enough. You really don’t actively believe in Christ until you make a commitment of your life [to Him] and receive Him as your Savior [and Lord]…You can best demonstrate your faith in a bank by putting your money in it. You can best show your faith in a doctor by trusting him with your physical welfare in times of illness. You can best prove your faith in a boat by getting aboard and going someplace on it. You can best demonstrate your faith in Christ by trusting him with your life and receiving him unconditionally as your Savior.”

SINCE CHRIST JESUS IS “THE SOLID ROCK”, THEN ONE’S FAITH UNDERSTANDS, KNOWS, AND IS WILLING TO COMMIT TO “STANDING” ON “THE SURE FOUNDATION.” In I Corinthians 3:10-11 we read: “According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

So desirous of encouraging young Timothy, in 2 Timothy 2:19-21, Paul wrote: “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.”

Is your life “founded on the Rock”? Is your life “safe on the Rock”? Is your journey “sure on the Rock”? No doubt this is why the wise man wrote in Proverbs 10:25, “As the whirlwind passes, so is the wicked no more; but the righteous is an everlasting foundation!”

Raging winds, raging waters, raging wars – but the life “founded on the Rock” will never blow away, wash away, or be a victim of a senseless spiritual war – His Rock Is Christ!

SINCE CHRIST JESUS IS “THE SOLID ROCK,” AND ONE IN REPENTANCE AND FAITH RESTS HIS/HER LIFE ON THE SURE FOUNDATION, THEN IT’S NOT “THE RUDDER OF RHETORIC” BUT THE REVELATION OF GOD’S HOLY WORD THAT KEEPS OUR FEET ON THAT SURE FOUNDATION! I want you to open your own Bible to 2 Samuel 22! What an awesome Word! It’s David, King David, and he’s singing a song to the Lord!

In verses 2-4, as David sings, “The Lord IS my ROCK and my fortress and my deliverer; the God of my strength, in whom I trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; my Savior, You save me from violence. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.” And I’m asking you, right now, this given moment of opportunity: IS GOD YOUR ROCK, YOUR FORTRESS, YOUR DELIVERER?

In verse 5-7 David sings about opposition and God’s answer to it: “When the waves of death surrounded me, the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my voice; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry entered His ears.” And I’m asking you, right now, this given moment of more than likely your own opposition: “In YOUR distress have YOU called upon the Lord?

In verses 8-20 David sings about those ‘shaking sands’, the Sovereign answer, and David’s deliverance!

In verses 21-31 David sings about “Solid Rock rewards,” about “Solid Rock watchcare,” about “Solid Rock” windows of enlightment”!!

SINCE CHRIST JESUS IS “The Solid Rock,” HIS PEOPLE SHOULD BE THOSE WHO “ASCRIBE GREATNESS TO OUR GOD”!! Deuteronomy 32 :3 Moses proclaims “the name of the Lord;” and he says, “Ascribe greatness to our God.” Why? Deuteronomy 32:4, “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.”

Isn’t it sad when you read a Socrates saying, “If we could but see God, we would know how we ought to live,” and yet ever before any man, anywhere, anytime, God has shown Himself! Isn’t that John 1:14? “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

In “Mere Christianity” C.S. Lewis wrote: [chapter 10], “If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world (something supernatural and eternal.”)

But you know that some deny “The Solid Rock” and have no desire to “ascribe greatness to…God.” They suppress Truth and live for The Lie!!

In closing this chapter I want YOU to turn in your Bible and read Romans 1:16-32 at least three times!! Amen??

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What did Jesus say in Matthew 11:28-30? “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will GIVE YOU REST. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and YOU will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

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

BUT! “NO SHAME – NO GAIN OF TRUE LIFE!” John 3:18-21 we read, “He who believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. BUT he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” Could this be why Paul said: “I die daily”?

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

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

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

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will of what is Mine, and declare it to you”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’ Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done!” I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

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

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

What an awesome Word that should encourage every new “babe in Christ” or maturing disciple – YOU HAVE A RESIDENT TRAINER AND EQUIPPER IN ETERNAL TRUTH, THE HOLY SPIRIT! Later, in John 16:7-15, Jesus declared, yes, to us in the 21^st Century, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more (in the flesh!); of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, HE WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL TRUTH; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. HE WILL GLORIFY ME (the Holy Spirit – not your ‘best effort’!), for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said (to you) that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

What a promise to every new “child of the King”! The Holy Spirit IS your faithful guide into Biblical Truth and Divine Will , an eternal and never-ceasing forceful empowerment, and the True, full-unveiling of Christ’s Resurrection Presence, which is why, in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, Paul instructs us, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, AUGUST 19-20, 2017

Extremely interesting Verse is the ‘spur’ from the Spirit for this message in Psalm 42:6, “O my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore I will remember You.” And then in Verse 11 the ‘forgetful mind’ examined deeper as he clearly examined himself: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.” And as I read those Verses I had to pause, consider, reflect when the psalmist said, “For I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God,” because I see him at that moment still in the grips of a forgetful mind! “Yet praise Him?” Yes, there are times in spiritual immaturity when one has to work through his ‘down moments’ of, yes, devotion to the One who redeemed us!

And, spiritually, forgetful minds are usually the result of neglect intentionally of failing to “be still” before Holy God because one gets wrapped up ‘soul satisfying’ as that person yields to his/her ‘flesh’ and not yielded to the Spirit! If one “thirsts for God,” “hopes for God,” “has known the health and help and holy purpose of God”, how does one get swept away from “the River of Life” into a “down-stream of forgetfulness”?

One of Job’s counselors said in Job 8:11-21, “Can the papyrus grow without a marsh? Can the reeds flourish without water? While it is yet green and not cut down, it withers before any other plant. So are the paths of all who forget God; and the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, (“hypocrites are ‘play-actors’!”), whose confidence shall be cut off, and whose trust is a spider’s web. He leans on his house, but it does not stand. (Is that the problem of forgetful minds? They lean on themselves and ‘fall away’?). He holds it fast, but it does not endure. He grows in the green sun, and his branches spread out in his garden. (His garden? How easy is it for some to choose ‘God’s garden’, their professing lives, but no trust in the God who blesses you with your own garden with insistence of ‘my way’ but not God’s way, will, and awesome wonder of birthing, raising, and using His sons as, yes, He used Christ Jesus?). Bildad continued in Verse 17, His roots wrap around the rock heap, and look for a place in the stones. If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’ Behold, this is the joy of His (God’s) way, and out of the earth others will grow. Behold, God will not cast away the blameless, nor will He uphold the evildoers. He will YET fill your mouth with laughing, and your lips with rejoicing.”

Do YOU get the feeling, the sensing, the hoping, that even if a man of faith finds himself overcome by the cloud of forgetfulness that Holy God still shines behind one’s dark cloud, and He is able to blow it away to reveal He had no desire to cut you off, but to pick you up, and kick you in your rear to get you back in His Way? It’s so interesting in studying the history of Israel, God’s initial ‘chosen people’, in seeing them, as Judges 3:7 describes them, “So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God, and served the Baals and Asherahs,” “gods and goddesses” of the ‘brain-dead’ and ‘fleshly-minded’ “chosen of God”, again, yielding to the old sin-nature rather than faithfulness to their divine calling!

Is it any different today in the divine calling of God, in, yes, the “chosen people” sovereignly birthed by the Holy Spirit, being built up as the “temple of Christ’s Holy Presence”? As Israel was fragmented by many, and shame came on God’s Name because of them, does it happen in the Christian community at times that some have no desire to be identified in Christ’s sufferings since they want to, at times, share in the world’s shame? Oswald Chambers once said, “Men have sought to procure the carrying out of God’s order by a short cut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering, the way of the “long, long trail.””

And, if according to Romans 8:28-29 that “All things work together for good to them that love God,” or as the New King James Version (Holman Study Bible) interprets it, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

A “forgetful mind” takes no time, moment by moment, daily, some never even weekly, to sit before God the Father, Jesus the Son seated on the Throne by the Father, or the Spirit of Christ within, the Holy Spirit, but certainly have the time hours at a time to “watch” television broadcasters and shows ignoring, “Father, what would YOU have me to do?” A “forgetful mind” has no desire for Holy God to obliterate in them their “personal ambitions” void of eternal will or to see Him wipe out “selfish, fleshly desires, or my personal determinations which are my individual rights”, telling God the Father and the True Master of one’s life for eternal blessing, “I am my own boss – you should, as God, appreciate my personal ingenuity”! Just how stupid is that?

As most know who hear my messages or read them, I love Oswald Chambers’ writings in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest”. In one writing (p.231), he highlighted Romans 8:28-29, which says: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are THE CALLED according to His purpose. For whom HE FOREKNEW, HE ALSO PREDESTINED TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren,” entitling it: “The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances”, saying,

“The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint (one set apart to the glory of God!) there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God is bringing you into places and among people and into conditions in order that the intercession of the Spirit in you may take a particular line. Never put your hand in front of the circumstances and say – I am going to be my own providence here, I must watch this, and guard that. All your circumstances are in the hand of God, therefore never think it strange concerning the circumstances you are in. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to enter into the agony of intercession, but to utilize common-sense circumstances GOD PUTS YOU IN, and the common-sense people He puts you amongst by His providence, to bring them before God’s throne and give the Spirit in you a chance to intercede for them. In this way God is going to sweep the whole world with His saints.”

Remember, “saints” are those “set apart” to honor, glorify, praise, by yielding, submitting, obeying, taking advantage of every situation He places you in certain circumstances to testify of His love, His grace, His mercy, His intent for that life in that very situation he/she finds himself/herself in!

“Forgetful minds” are minds of men and women who easily become personal “back-slappers” and forget, omit, or overlook the VERY MIND OF GOD REVEALED THROUGH HIS HOLY WORD! “Forgetful minds” easily proclaim allegiance to “my Savior and Lord”, when in reality their day by day journey ‘in the faith’ is utmost confidence in their own abilities, bowing before their natural virtues, reminding God of how fortunate He is to have them on His team!

Just as it is in our modern-day ‘religious culture’, so it was in Jeremiah’s day as Holy God unveiled the true and the false devotees to the One True Living God! In Jeremiah 29 there is an amazing Word from God for “the captives of the Jewish faith” who’ve been in bondage. Receive Verses 4-14 as a prophetic word for YOU in the life settings, circumstances, and, yes, the divine place of opportunity Holy God has allowed you to be in!! It says:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel (the God of the U.S.A., the God of your present location and abiding), to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and begat sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters – that you may be increased there, and not diminished. AND SEEK THE PEACE OF THE CITY WHERE I HAVE CAUSED YOU TO BE CARRIED AWAY CAPTIVE, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel (the God of Bedford, Texas, the God of Cleveland, Tennessee, the God of New York, California, all of North America, South America, Europe, Asia): Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams WHICH YOU CAUSE TO BE DREAMED. For they prophesy falsely in My name; I have not sent them, says the Lord.

For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. (GET READY!!!). For I know the thoughts that I think TOWARD YOU, says the Lord, THOUGHTS OF PEACE AND NOT OF EVIL, TO GIVE YOU A FUTURE AND A HOPE.

Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me, and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I WILL BE FOUND BY YOU, says the Lord, AND I WILL BRING YOU BACK FROM YOUR CAPTIVITY…”. Dare YOU to examine yourself and your pilgrimage up to this moment? And are you WHAT AND WHERE AND WHO merciful God desires you to be? OR, are you STILL “a captive in a land foreign to the nature and character of loving God?”

One of the saddest Verses in God’s Word is John 6:66 after the Lord Jesus had spoken about “eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His blood”, because Jesus said, “If you don’t, you have no life in you” – and they didn’t receive that, couldn’t understand it, and certainly didn’t want to appropriate the Life of Another other than themselves! John 6:66 then says: “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him, Jesus then saying to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” Peter responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Are Your “thoughts” God’s “Truths” with your journey of discipleship grounded, founded, sustained on the abiding truth of “Christ in you, through you, for you” to His glory and His praise for, yes, His hope of glory through you, humbling people around you because they sense the presence of the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords in you? Or is it for you ‘maturity in the faith’ denied, overlooked, abandoned, because one ‘senses’, “How proud God must be to have ME on His team”, rather than you the vessel, the temple, the tabernacle, in which willfully through repentance and faith in Christ alone HE DWELLS, RESIDES, and PRESIDES TO HONOR HIS FATHER THROUGH YOU? Natural virtues, which most men hold onto, were “crucified with Christ”, your good and your bad! Your ‘best’ and your ‘worst’, yes, was crucified with Christ! When your best and your worst finally dries up in you because you see it crucified with Christ, Holy God rejoices and releases all of Heaven’s advantages to be expressed through you.

In Psalm 87:7 there is the psalmist praising God for His blessings and cloud of glory on “the Holy City”, but, for me, I see God no respecter of just cities, churches, or groups of peoples, but the individual, heart-trusting lives redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God, new “cities”, new “lives”, new “dwelling places” like the Holy Temple where Christ Jesus the King, Lord, and Savior has taken up residence! Psalm 87:7 clearly says” “All my fresh springs are in YOU.”

I pray that you are fascinated by, enlightened by, encouraged by every emphasis Christ Jesus put upon His “new-born servants” coming into His fullness of the blessing of His gospel or His “good news”. And a part of that “good news”? Follow John 4:7-26! A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “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.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as wells as his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this (physical) water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 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 in spirit and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” AND I ASK: DO YOU TRULY KNOW THE TRUE MESSIAH, AND HAVE YOU DIED TO YOURSELF THAT THE RESURRECTED CHRIST MAY RULE, REIGN, AND BRING “ETERNAL REST” TO EVERY NEEDY SOUL AROUND YOU?

I close with words again from Oswald Chambers in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.271), saying: “The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but remnants of what God created man to be. We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues.”

YES, your ‘natural virtue life’ was crucified with Christ that you may be confronted by the greatness of God’s love for you in exchanging your ‘old man of sin’ for the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which IS: “Christ in you the hope of glory”!

S.Walcott and W.F.Sherman wrote the hymn, “Christ For the World We Sing.” It says: “Christ for the world we sing; the world to Christ we bring; With loving zeal; The poor and them that mourn, The faint and overborne, Sin-sick and sorrow-worn, Whom Christ does heal.

Christ for the world we sing; The world to Christ we bring, With fervent prayer; The wayward and the lost, By restless passion tossed, Redeemed, at countless cost, From dark despair.

Christ for the world we sing; The world to Christ we bring, With one accord; With us the work to share, With us reproach to dare, With us the cross to bear, For Christ our Lord.

Christ for the world we sing; The world to Christ we bring, With joyful song; The new-born souls, whose days, Reclaimed from error’s ways, Inspired with hope and praise, To Christ belong.”

How settled in your heart and mind are you that Christ Jesus IS your Lord and Savior to the glory of God the Father who in His marvelous grace and mercy “CHOSE” YOU? Settle it, if you haven’t!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you don’t think sitting with Christ on His throne and listening to His voice would include, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel”? In Matthew 20:27-28 Jesus said: “And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By: J.FARRELL FISHER

“Heirs of His grace, brought face to face, indwelt by His presence, an eternal, heavenly celebration, complete in Christ with nothing lacking, a ‘finished work’ of heavenly grace, blessed with His Spirit’s faithful backing!” (JFF).

INTRODUCTION

To say ‘it’s been easy to write a book on “Christ-given Amazing Grace Or Fleshly-Grit” is a fiction in one’s spiritual journey’ because of so many ‘opinions,’ mis-interpretations, and even demonic deception some fall victim to!

Without a doubt “Christ-Given Amazing Grace” is so eternal in its authorship, yet stripped by some of its authenticity, its challenges, and its benefits and blessings. Consider, that for some, God’s grace is, for them, ‘amazing grease’ that enhances their ‘self-effort-sliding’ but not into Heaven but Hell itself!

“Fleshly Grit” has become for some, in their interpretations of ‘living For Jesus’, the very threshold of ‘good discipleship’! But, is the walk of a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ by his/her ‘self-improvement’ or by the Sovereignly-implanted Presence of the Resurrected, Reigning Christ? Is one’s ‘salvation experience’ the call to self-righteous determinations or the Savior’s “rescue” of your life from the devil’s control?

Is ‘fleshly grit’ one’s self-righteous determinations or the blessing of the gift of Christ by grace of His eternal gifts of forgiveness, His Indwelling, and His calling, that through YOU He’ll touch your world with the same Grace, Mercy, and Love?

Is it blasphemous self-righteousness OR the Savior’s rescue of your life from an imploding, unfulfilling, fleshly, worldly, devilish existence? Is it the unbelieving, self-prominence that deepens the chasm between fallen man, or the “Door-Way” through the loving Savior who longs for YOUR Spirit-transformation, by grace, into a true Spirit-birthed son or daughter of God?

If a leper is confident that he/she is incurable, is that any different for men/women who say, “What you see is what you get – and I’m satisfied with my fleshly world and what I’m becoming by my own self-will, self-dependence, and self-determination”?

There is no consolation for a man who loves his own old sin nature, alienated from God and content with that reality. The best moment of an unredeemed life is when he/she repents (convicted and convinced by the Holy Spirit!) and willingly receives God’s grace that saves, redeems, washes him/her with the blood of the Lamb of God, and indwells that person as the new residence, tabernacle, temple of Jesus’ holy presence!

The worst moment is when spiritual blindness to saving grace becomes blasphemous as one “pumps ‘flesh’ or self-righteousness” over God’s “Amazing Grace”!

Do you understand or comprehend that ‘self-righteousness’, or ‘earn my own way,’ or even determining ‘goodness’ over godliness, is the closing of the “Door” of Christ to one’s heart TO THE SCRIPTURAL RIGHTEOUSNESS IMPARTED BY GOD’S GRACE?

Dare I tell you in this “Introduction” that there is no consolation for a man/woman who ‘loves’ and is devoted to his/her own, old sin-nature and self-governance? You are aware, I assume, that you understand that ‘conscience’ is often, for many, the will of convenience, and they’ll execute that, but “mighty grace” resisted reveals ‘midget, marred, masked men or women’ trying their best, at times, to be ‘religious’. Christ Jesus isn’t interested in your ‘choice of a religion’ – He’s proven His interest is your “new birth”!

I love Paul’s anointed declaration in Romans 1:3-7 (Amplified Bible by Zondervan): “[THE GOSPEL] regarding (God’s) Son, Who as to the flesh (His human nature) was descended from David;

And [as to His divine nature] according to the Spirit of holiness, was openly designated the Son of God in power – in a striking, triumphant and miraculous manner – by His resurrection from the dead, even Jesus Christ our Lord, the Messiah, the Anointed One.

It is through Him THAT WE HAVE RECEIVED GRACE – God’s unmerited favor – and (our) apostleship to promote obedience to the faith and make disciples for His name’s sake among all the nations,

And this includes yourselves, CALLED OF JESUS CHRIST and INVITED (as you are) to belong to Him. To [you then] all God’s beloved ones in Rome, CALLED TO BE SAINTS AND DESIGNATED FOR A CONSECRATED LIFE: GRACE and spiritual blessing and peace be yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I tell you, without hesitation, one who “trusts AND obeys” Christ alone as His only ‘hope of glory’ is the true believer who ‘floats’ on God’s never-ending ‘stream or river of grace’! Called by God to serve His Son in faith and obedience never happens by ‘grit’ but by grace! Grace ‘grinds’ the SIN IN US by the blood of the Lamb and gives us His gracious gift of ‘overcoming power’!

In “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare, he wrote: “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose, An evil soul, producing a holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart.”

WE CLOSE THE DOOR TO THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE IN US IF we think ‘grace’, God’s grace, is unimportant in our walks!

I came across a quote of Spurgeon in Ray Comfort’s “Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit of Righteousness.” Spurgeon said: “Salvation by Grace does not erase a single precept of the Law (of God), nor lower the standard of justice in the smallest degree; on the contrary, as Paul says, we do not make the Law void through faith, but we establish (or ‘MAKE TO STAND’) the Law. The Law is never honored by fallen man TILL HE COMES UNDER ITS CONDEMNING RULE, and walks by faith [and obedience! JFF], and live under the covenant of grace.” AMEN?

FOREWARD

By Dr. Doug Darville, Professor at Rome, Georgia’s “SHORTER COLLEGE”,

OUTLINE

CHAPTER ONE: “The Necessity of a New ‘Great Awakening’ of the Gospel of Grace”

CHAPTER TWO: “Stall or Call?”

CHAPTER THREE: “The Intentionality of True Discipleship”

CHAPTER FOUR: “VOID OF THE WORD OF GOD OR VICTORY THROUGH THE WORD?”

CHAPTER FIVE: “Abounding Grace – Gracious Ministries”

CHAPTER SIX: “WANDERING FROM THE FAITH?”

CHAPTER SEVEN: “GUTSY GRIT OR GODLY SORROW?”

CHAPTER EIGHT: “ASININE CHOICES OF FLESHLY DEVOTION TO CHRIST?”

CHAPTER NINE: “CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH!”

CHAPTER TEN: “SHEDDING THE SHAME – LIVING TO THE GLORY!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN: “BEARING THE NAME – LIVING WITH SHAME!”

CHAPTER TWELVE: “EVIDENCES OF NEW-BIRTH CONVERSION”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: “THE UNDESERVED OR UNRESERVED RELEASE OF GOD’S OMNIPOTENT POWER!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: “THE FLESHLY UNFULFILLED OT THE SPIRITUALLY FULFILLED?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “OPTIONAL EXPRESSIONS OF LIFE”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: “FATAL FORGETFULNESS”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: “FAITHFULNESS OR DISTRESSING DISGUISES?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: “CONSIDERING A WORLD OF ABSURDITIES!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN: “THE DIVINE MIRACLE OF A TRANSFORMED MIND”

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER ONE

“THE NECESSITY OF A NEW ‘GREAT AWAKENING’ OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE”

In Max Lucado’s “The Inspirational Bible, (Copyright, @1987, 1988, 1991 by Word Publishing), Romans 5:21 says, “Sin once used death to rule us, but God gave people more of His grace so that grace could rule by making people right with Him. And this brings life forever through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Oh, but then Romans 6:1 Paul wrote: “So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us more grace?” How inciteful is that inspired word? Verse 2 then says, “No! We died to our old sinful lives, so how can we continue living with sin?”

If YOUR ‘old life’ of sin and a sin-nature was crucified with Christ, how convenient and ‘conscious-less-ness’ is it for modern-day ‘church-folk’ to assert, ‘we can’t do anything but sin until we get to Heaven’? In Verses 8-11 the “Inspirational Bible” continues:

“If we died with Christ, we know we will also live with Him – Christ was raised from the dead, and we know that He cannot die again. Death has no power over Him now. Yes, when Christ died, He died to defeat the power of sin one time – enough for all time. He now has a new life, and His new life is with God. In the same way, YOU should see yourselves as being dead to the power of sin and alive with God through Christ Jesus.”

I wanted to put Verse 12 by itself as one of the necessities of a new “Great Awakening” of the Gospel of Grace! It says: “So, do not let sin control your life here on earth so that you do what your (old) sinful self wants to do.” Continuing to willfully sin after supposedly receiving Christ as Lord and Savior is to insult Sovereign God and ‘shame’ the Victory of Jesus for you through His sacrificial death and resurrection!

Examine for yourself as we begin this chapter Romans 5:18-21! It says: “So as one sin of Adam brought the punishment of death to all people, one good act that Christ did makes all people right with God. And that brings true life for all. One man disobeyed God, and many became sinners. In the same way, one Man obeyed God, and many will be made right…

The law came to make sin worse. But when sin grew worse, God’s grace increased. Sin once used death (spiritual death) to rule us, but God gave people more of His grace so that grace could rule by making people right with Him. And this brings life forever through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (That is, IF men repent and rest in His finished work! It’s “finished”, but that doesn’t mean automatic salvation of all with no repentance and faith!)

Why then “The Necessity of a New ‘Great Awakening’ of the Gospel of Grace”? Because ‘deception’ IN the church, offered by many pastors, teachers, leaders, and ‘grass-root-sympathizers’, who major on what ‘devoted, religious people’ (?) can do apart from true repentance toward God and faith alone in the finished work of Christ at the Cross and through His empty tomb and available Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection-Ever-Present-Eternal-Hope (!!) in the here and now, this present moment of your opportunity IF you RESPOND ON His terms!

But how broad a support does one find across our world today concerning “The Gospel of Grace”? Whether a ‘liberal’ church in New Testament times or a ‘liberal’ church today worldwide, many churches, seminaries, pulpits, or ‘professing’ believers have substituted fleshly wisdom for divine truth, or ‘intellectual professors (?) and teachers’ opinions for holy revelation, or ‘fallen men’s’ warped ideas of human existence void of God,’ or even worldly plans ‘to be religious’ on their terms!

One of the major concerns today is: IS IT POSSIBLE TO SEE A “NEW GREAT AWAKENING” spiritually in the hearts, homes, holy gatherings, OR ‘will compromise, convenience, and false comfort zones prevail’?

A question for YOU in this very moment of reading is: Is it ‘fleshly impotence’ at its best the answer for true revival, renewal, and the spiritual, eternal life importance in touching OUR world redemptively or a return to revival in, restoration through, and full appropriation and full realization BY divine blessing through the amazing power of the Sovereign Work of God’s Grace?

A few words I recently wrote just might be a tool God uses to arouse your search and your hunger for only what God desires to graciously GIVE TO YOU: HIS AMAZING GRACE! It says:

“In the midst of a darkened world, the LIGHT of God’s GRACE still shines; as a darkened world bows before it’s ‘self’, the Throne of God’s Grace still radiates!

Whether in darkness or light, day or night, His mercy and grace and love remains, with repentant hearts and men of faith, bowing before Him with new and opened hearts, they are gladly receiving what Grace alone imparts!

It’s the God of Heaven and the God of the Cross that resurrects ‘dead hearts’ to daughters and sons of the ‘Redeemer’s Faith’, born again by the grace of God, the re-born extending His Kingdom, expressing His love, and imparting His grace to a spiritually dead race!

‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ no longer has any solid ground on which to stand, as the ‘devil’s brand’ gives wayward men NO solid surface on which to land, but only a ‘social change’ outside Heaven’s rule and reign!

‘Happiness is my goal’ is what most men strive for, when it’s God who says, “I’m The Door”! No lofty, fleshly goal ever opens that “Door”, but only a passion, a prayer, a life-presentation with longing for Him alone who IS the ‘eternal cure’!

“Blessed” is God’s intent with an ever enlarging gathering of repentant, trusting, and obedient hearts, but “blind and cursed”, never to be erased is the devil’s gathering of darkened minds, lost lives, and limited fleshly plans.

BUT, “God is able,” the Word declares, and so able to take the repentant sinner and yielded heart and lavish His grace fully on the life that desires only God’s part!

No longer ‘manipulators’ of the best of human nature, but only resting in “the hope of His calling,” no longer ‘stalling’ but fully desiring to be His Temple-manifestation of Holy Presence, not a museum of mortal flesh, but the residence of Christ as His earthly home!

God Himself is our OWNER, our MASTER ENGINEER, using our resident hearts His Way to draw near – near to the needy, near to the lost, near to those who never imagined the price of Heaven’s cost, to reconcile the broken, grant them His token of Amazing Grace for full restoration to Heaven’s Purpose and Place.”

It’s very interesting that as Paul defended his ministry in the Corinthian church, (2 Corinthians 10:4-5), (again, Lucado’s “The Inspirational Bible,”p.1333), “We fight with the weapons that are different from those the world uses. Our weapons have power from God that can destroy the enemy’s strong places. We destroy people’s arguments and every proud thought that raises itself against the knowledge of God.”

When you personally evaluate, if you do, ‘self-evaluation,’ or fallen humanity’s present condition, or even dare to look at whether ‘present-day- church-life’ abounds in the fullness of God’s blessing or is involved in ‘back-slapping’, proud of how they’ve ‘ worked for God’, what do you see or sense based on DIVINE REVELATION?

In his book, “The Gospel of Grace,” by James Montgomery Boice, he magnified the “True Church” of the Lord Jesus Christ as a church that stands for or holds to FIVE CONVICTIONS: 1) SCRIPTURE ALONE 2) CHRIST ALONE 3) GRACE ALONE 4) FAITH ALONE 5) GLORY TO GOD ALONE!

But, consider, 1) How many churches or denominations do you examine or witness who select ‘partial tenets’ but bankrupt or avoiding ALL THE WORD OF GOD? 2) How many churches or denominations uphold their ‘prominent leaders’ as more important than sold out to Christ alone? 3) How many churches, pastors, denominations have you witnessed, heard, or seen on TV promoting ‘grit’ rather than grace alone? 4) Have you ever heard some speak, in the church, about “do your best,” when Christ crucified both your worst and your best? 5) And, in Romans 11:36, Paul talked about “to Him be the glory forever,” but in many corners of the modern-day Christian world, there is a lot of “personal back-slapping”!

I found it so interesting recently to come across one of Martin Luther’s “The Ninety-five Theses,” where he once said: “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said ‘repent’, He meant the entire life of believers should BE ONE OF REPENTENCE,” and I would say, “Absolutely true until Christ Jesus is fully formed in you who “do not lean to your own understanding, but in all your ways you give Him His rightful place in you as Savior, Lord, and Master of your life!”

“Christ-Given Amazing Grace Or Fleshly Grit”? In your circles of religious influences do you witness “THE NECESSITY OF A NEW ‘GREAT AWAKENING’ OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE”? Again, 2 Corinthians 10:5 (the old KJV), “Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God”!

In “Christ-Given Amazing Grace”, there ARE “EVIDENCES OF NEW-BIRTH CONVERSION”! In his book entitled “Inklings of God,” Kurt Bruner used a quote by Winston Churchill in his Introduction that says: “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time will pick himself up and continue on.”

Do you realize how true that statement is? And, especially when confronted by Christ with “You must be born again, born from above, born of the Spirit,” many are offended, resentful, and continue on in unbelief! “I don’t want to hear that, truth or not!”

I was impressed by Kurt Bruner when later in the same book, (p.147), he said: “Frankly, I embrace the Christian faith because it points to God who expects us to behave ourselves but who also knows we can’t.”

Do you know that God knows we can’t ‘redeem’ ourselves? Yet, man-made ‘religions’ worldwide that are so ‘synthetic’ are still active , they think “authentically” to Deny Christ and His call to “You must be born again.” And, sadly, many modern-day ‘so-called’ “Christian” churches live in the façade of even active denial of “new birth” when they believe ‘church membership’ is the same!

Walter Chantry, in his writing, “Today’s Gospel,” 9p.13), wrote: “Products of modern evangelism are often sad examples of Christianity. They make a profession of faith, and then continue to live like the world… ‘Decisions’ for Christ mean very little. Only a small proportion of those who ‘make decisions’ evidence the grace of a transformed life.”

But sadly a large number of American churches AND some preachers major on a “You can do it” mentality rather than “Christ IN YOU the hope of glory”!

No wonder Socrates became a well-appreciated philosopher! He once said: “To move the world we must first move ourselves.” Where do you find THAT in the Word of Almighty God? Didn’t Paul tell us, 2 Corinthians 1:9, [New Chain Reference Bible], “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead,”?

Most humans all across the world in this nation, the USA, and every other nation, are oblivious to the state of their spiritual death and separation from Holy God! Spiritual success in life is not by the mental philosophy of ‘whatever you sense, you can succeed in’, which may have some ‘truth’ for the ‘flesh’ (or old sin nature) but has no relevance at all to the spiritual dimension that most know nothing about!

So many today, yes, even worldwide, are locked into the philosophy of ‘self-achievement’ so strongly that rewarding ‘self’ with pats on one’s back blocks, denies, or starves any word, leaning, or turning from that ‘self’ to a “Savior”? Life is not a ‘do what you can, as best as you know how’ mental philosophy but an eternal opportunity to be one with God Himself through Christ alone!

It’s amazing to me, and exciting, as I read a statement by Benjamin Franklin. He said several hundred years ago (!), “There is perhaps not one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

Are you aware of the “embarrassing encumbrances” that are brought to a lot of ‘church folk’ who are swamped by ‘self-importance’, drowning in ‘self-worth’ that Christ crucified, yet stubbornly, stupidly, studiously in pagan teachings, devote themselves to “what we’ve become” apart from the revealed knowledge of God as to the Way, the only Way, to their salvation, healing, and deliverance?

David F. Wells, in his book, “No Place For Truth,” [Wm.B.Eerdmans Publishing Com. Grand Rapids, Michigan & Inter-Varsity Press, Leichester, England, (1993)], so unveiled for me a story that encouraged this book and this chapter [Introduction,p.10]: Wells wrote: “I’m saying that I am a staunch disbeliever in the modern world, I do not wish to appear immodest, as if I come finished with the knowledge of a new discovery. In fact, I do not. In this connection, I will remember G.K.Chesterton’s story about the restless yachtsman who set sail from England with the intention of arriving at an exotic South Sea Island. After many days, he sighted land and, as soon as he could, beached his boat and went inland. Before him stood a dreadful pagan temple. Undaunted, he decided to claim it for England. He scaled its walls and bravely planted the Union Jack [flag] at its pinnacle. Only then did he realize that what he had scaled was the Brighton Pavilion on England’s south coast! He thought he had sailed in a straight line, but, because of an unfortunate miscalculation he had actually traveled in a circle. He imagined that he was first in the land, but it turned out that he was the last.”

Do you realize, sense, or discern that many, many people begin their “religious journey” on the basis of men’s speculations about what they think “God expects” rather than Jesus’ declaration: “You MUST be born again”? Do you remember Paul saying in Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, [and I would also say TODAY: “and don’t be conformed to a man-made religious world”!], but be [BEING] transformed by the renewing of your mind.” And what the Holy Word through Christ Jesus teaches is not simply a ‘mind change’ but a mind changed by the birthing of a new heart through our Lord’s shed blood on Calvary as Heaven’s expression of its love, grace, and mercy, as a result of Holy Spirit-conviction, and conversion!

Several verses from John 3 that I want to use as I continue building, I pray, a strong foundation to this chapter and book: John 3:5-7 [Holman Study Bible NKJV Edition], Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water [the water of the Word!] and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again,’” because Jesus KNEW the difference between born of flesh and birthed by the Holy Spirit!

And then, in John 3:16-21, we read: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Him should not perish but have life everlasting. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world THROUGH HIM might be saved.

He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” THAT’S PAUL’S DECLARATION, “I die daily that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested in my mortal flesh”!

EVIDENCES OF NEW BIRTH CONVERSION? FIRST, NO LONGER IS THERE THE DENIAL OF ONE’S ‘OLD MAN’ SIN NATURE AND SEPARATION FROM GOD, BUT A PASSIONATE, SUSTAINED LONGING AND LEANING ON BIBLICAL ‘RECONCILIATION’! Sometimes it takes a Holy Word from God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to release His deep conviction reality of one’s old, lost, alienated, separated from Him, awareness in what was unbelieving hearts; and I do believe 2 Peter 2:4-5 can be that ‘shock awareness’ in some hearts and minds to awaken afresh and anew what they once were without His saving grace! It says: (NKJV), “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down into hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly…”.

Notice: GOD DIDN”T SPARE EVEN ANGELS WHO SINNED BUT CAST THEM INTO HELL! GOD DIDN”T SPARE EVEN THE ANCIENT WORLD, EVEN ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENDERS’ CALLED “JUDAIZERS”, OR ‘PROMINENT’, WELL-KNOWN POLITICAL LEADERS’, OR THE “DO MY BEST” CROWD of the ‘self-anointed’ who worship and are devoted to their old sin natures as personal points of admiration to which they yield themselves!

In fact, Hebrews 10:25-31, my prayer is that “IT WILL SCARE HELL OUT OF YOU!” It says: “…not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

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.”

If YOU were “crucified with Christ”, does that not mean He took YOU, your old sin nature, your old godless-living life, and put it to death on the Cross with Him as He shed His blood and died that ALL YOUR SIN AND MINE MIGHT BE WASHED AWAY? WHY RESURRECT WHAT CHRIST CRUCIFED WITH HIM ON THE CROSS? (Galatians 2:20!)

SECOND: “EVIDENCE OF NEW-BIRTH CONVERSION”? “NO LONGER A DEEP, ABIDING LOVE OF THE WORLDLY INFLUENCES, OR PEACE WITH ALL THE DEVILISH AND DEMONIC INFLUENCES AND CONTROL”! Here’s how John relates this as we read his anointed exposure and heavenly challenge in 1 John 2:2-6! “And He Himself (Jesus Christ the righteous) is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. Now by this we know that we know Him, IF we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. BUT whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked.”

Jesus was so aware of both the religious influences of false Judaism (not the true “remnant”!) and the darkness of devilish, demonic activities through man-made “religious expressions”, when in John 6:57,60-69, He said, with Peter grabbing hold and holding on to “Jesus Only”! Follow the Word:

“As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” Then look at Verses 60-69! 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, [And to us today?], “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 (that’s ‘best-effort’ of human devotion apart from the Spirit!) profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and 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 and walked with Him no more.

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 and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

There is such a vast difference between ‘religious’ individuals who WILL FALL AWAY, and the vital picture and reality of a regenerated soul, birthed by, indwelt by, and led by the Holy Spirit! I love Watchman Nee’s word in his book, “Ye Search The Scriptures,” [Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc. New York. Copyright @1974, p.16], “Canst thou by searching find out God?” Nee then saying, “God is never arrived at through research. He is found by one way only – through the regenerated spirit.”

In 2 Corinthians 2:1-4, [Amplified Bible], Paul wrote: “As for myself, brethren, when I came to you proclaiming to you the testimony and evidence or mystery or secret of God [concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation of men] in lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom;

For I resolved to know nothing – to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of [nothing] – among you except Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and Him crucified. And I (passed into a state of) weakness and was in fear (dread) and great trembling [after I had come] among you.

And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive (enticing and plausible) words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the [Holy] Spirit and power of God, operating on me and stirring in the minds of my hearers the most holy emptions and thus persuading them.”

An unbelieving world, a self-indulgent flesh, and a demonically, devilish controlled mind will create and establish all kinds of ‘religious mannerisms’ but oppose “You MUST be born again”! For the most part, fallen humanity and the devil’s crowd, including ‘church pretenders’, will settle for religious entertainment but highly oppose no longer living for yourself but for Christ alone!

What did Paul write in 2 Corinthians 5:14-19? “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died FOR THEM and rose again.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

And I say to you, “Don’t casually (kinda) knod at this Word, overlook, or reject Eternal Truth related to YOUR salvation opportunity! I have no doubts that even many ‘church-folk’ easily accept the blood of the Cross for their forgiveness but will rebel, excuse, accuse faithful men of the Word for ‘lying’ when they even share Jesus saying, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, but you do not do what I say?” Dare I tell YOU that obedience is not an option in the age of grace?

Spiritual focus, even in a religious setting, is more often on fleshly concerns than divine revelation! I love what Charles Stanley wrote in his booklet, “In Touch”, [April,2016, p.13], “The Lord isn’t looking for people who change a few habits by sheer force of will; He’s calling people to surrender to Him…We don’t evolve into a saved people by deleting old habits and instituting better religious ones; we are transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ when we believe [trust in, rely upon, adhere to] Him.”

Many ‘church folk’ are highly appreciative of ‘compromisers’ because they ‘believe’ that “fleshly indulgence is justified”, because, though one is ‘saved’, he/she cannot do anything but sin until Christ comes – so, they blame God rather than trust His Truth! They are euphorically violent to those who uphold Jesus’ Word when He said, “Go, and sin no more,” but they believe sin in a believer is normal, and that without ‘guilt’, because “God is love.”

There’s even, by some, a ‘ministerial’ maligning of the Holy Word because they feel ‘justified’ in ungodly behavior though a professing believer. In the ‘world’ around you there is philosophical rationalization because of ‘spiritual brain-tumors and deformed hearts’ called resistance to Holy Truth: “Who really needs a Savior and Lord? We’re OK – and you, with or without Christ are OK”! Really?

But I can tell you without hesitation that to continue sinning as a ‘believer’ is to deny Jesus’ Victory at the Cross and to refute Jesus’ words in John 15:22 that, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but NOW they have NO EXCUSE FOR THEIR SIN!”

Do you remember Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:34? [Amplified Bible], “Awake (from your drunken stupor and return) to sober sense and your right minds, AND SIN NO MORE. For some of you have not the knowledge of God – you are utterly and willfully and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, LACKING THE SENSE OF GOD’S PRESENCE AND ALL TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM. I say this to your shame.”

But, in Isaiah 41:8-15, there is a powerful word of hope to, ‘sometimes,’ discouraged disciples who’ve tried to live the overcoming life, no discipleship-training, but only a sad, ‘pastoral’, “do your best”! IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, AT THE CROSS Jesus took your worst and your best, and it was: “Crucified with Christ”! But look at what God said in the Isaiah passage I just mentioned:

• Verse 9 – “I have chosen you and not cast you off.” 2) Verse 10 – “Fear not…for I am with you.” 3) Verse 10 – “I am your God…(Elohim), meaning the high and lifted up, the Mighty One,” and He’s ‘able’ to sustain us, strengthen us, and guard us (if we let Him) against the world you face, the “old man” trying to resurrect, and even victorious, for us, over Satan! 4) Verse 10 – “I WILL STRENGTHEN YOU and HARDEN YOU TO [DIFFICULTIES]…” And this is probably why Paul shared, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” because he did not lean on ‘fleshly abilities’ but Holy Presence – Christ in YOU the hope of glory!

5) Verse 10 again – “I will hold you up and retain you with My victorious right hand of rightness and justice.” God said in Isaiah 42:13, “The Lord will go forth as a mighty man; HE WILL ROUSE HIS ZEALOUS INDIGNATION AND VENGENCE LIKE A WARRIOR; HE WILL CRY, YES, HE WILL SHOUT ALOUD, HE WILL DO MIGHTILY AGAINST HIS ENEMIES.” 6) Verses 11-13 – “Behold, all they who are enraged and inflamed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; they who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall PERISH. You shall seek those who contend with you, and shall not find them; they who war against you shall be as nothing, as nothing at all.” 7) VERSE 15 – “Behold, I will make you to be a new, sharp, threshing instrument having teeth…” In 2 Corinthians 13:10 Paul wrote: “So I write these things while I am absent from you, that when I come to you I may not have to DEAL SHARPLEY in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me, [to be employed, however] for building [you] up and not tearing you down.”

THE “SHARP TOOL” OF HOLY TRUTH will ‘shape’ you up in His image OR ‘silence’ your voice if you betray Him!

“EVIDENCE OF NEW-BIRTH CONVERSIONS” sharpened in life by His Word, Will, and Work” – OR seeing the slicing to threads the disobeying, compromising, contented disciple who “plays” on both sides of the street! WHICH LEADS ME TO POINT NUMBER THREE AND LAST:

“NO LONGER DEVOTION TO WALK OUT ONE’S LIFE OF ‘FAITH’ (?) ON THE STREETS OF “SELF-INDULGENCES” AND “SELF- EMPHASES,” But STEPPING FAITHFULLY ON HIS HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS!” In Colossians 2:5-10 (Holman Study Bible, NKJV Edition), Paul so strongly laid the foundation of a truly ‘birthed’ and ‘overcoming-LIFE IN CHRIST”! “For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, SO WALK IN HIM, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”

Don’t you think this foundation of the true “Evidence of New-Birth Conversion” is seen in what Paul wrote to us? AND it strongly agrees with what Christ Jesus Himself said in John 7:37-38! On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to], as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Even in the walk of redemptive faith there are doors before us – some to condemnation, frustration, and captivity, while others are Christ’s ‘door’ to liberty, freedom from bondage to the old nature and ‘birthed’ to the freedom of everlasting life in the here and now, in and through Christ alone! So…it’s either:

Self-directed in one’s ‘walk of flesh-faith’ or “born-again to new Life In Christ”; it’s either a ‘kingdom-rule, self-determined, that is fleshly rich in sensual satisfactions’ OR the Holy Spirit-enriched life in the very wealth of Holy God and Heaven’s Son, better known as “Emmanuel” or “God With Us, God in us, God through us,” because of Resurrection Life in Christ, Resurrection Power through Christ, and Resurrection Hope instilled within us by His Holy Presence!

It’s ‘philosophically-wise’ in godless ways or personally and intimately blessed with the very “mind of Christ”! It’s either trained by the best of world deceivers, even the devil himself, or Sovereignly guided by the Holy Spirit, truly enriched by the treasures of His Holy Word, and “Master-led” disciple-makers who “feed” us on the “bread of life”, the “milk of the Word,” and upon the very “meat” of God’s Holy Truth!

In Philippians 3:7-14 Paul gives us a “New Testament Hallelujah Chorus”! It says: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

The claim of Christ that He had come that we might have life and that abundant was not a fictitious claim of a ‘false prophet’ but from the Creator of mankind and the Savior and Lord over mankind!

Jesus said: “I AM THE DOOR” to reconciliation with God, the Door of divine forgiveness, the Door to abiding presence of God within repentant and faith-filled hearts, and the Door of receiving, walking in, and being blessed by the fruit of His Holy Life and His Holy Spirit!

Don’t you find it sad and heart-breaking that you see around you, yes, multitudes who are ‘satisfied’ with the ‘flesh-life’ and all it has to offer (?), closing the Door on the love, grace, and mercy of God? But time will unveil for many the fundamental reality that vocational and financial successes fall short of filling the inner hunger that ONLY Christ Jesus meets and fills!

In Catherine Marshall’s book, “Something More,” [Copyright, 1961, Published by Chosen Books, Lincoln, Va. 22078,p.3], she wrote about: “the famous Hollywood actress, Mary Astor, (who) has known the fairy-tale of movie stardom. An Academy Award, glamourous marriages, two children, several Beverly Hills mansions, furs, jewels, publicity – what more could any woman want? Yet Mary Astor admitted in print that “for years – even in the midst of fame and glamor – I yearned for contentment, happiness. It took me almost twenty years to go from idle curiosity about religion…to meeting God as a Person and a Father and knowing that walking in (redemptive) faith meant growing up.”

AND THAT “GROWING UP” IS “FALLING DOWN” before the King of kings and Lord of lords, repenting, resting in His finished work at the Cross, and experiencing the reality of His Indwelling Presence! IS YOUR BODY NOW HIS “HOLY TEMPLE”?

H.G.Spafford and P.P.Bliss wrote an old, old hymn entitled, “It Is Well With My Soul”:

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea-billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast 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.”

Do YOU rest in body, soul, and spirit-contentment because you’ve “rested” in Jesus only? YES!! THERE IS THE NECESSITY OF A NEW GREAT AWAKENING OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE!!

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”!

CHAPTER THREE

“THE INTENTIONALITY OF TRUE DISCIPLESHIP”

There is a very interesting story in Judges 3 beginning at Verse 20 when Ehud went in to the ‘private chamber’ of King Eglon of Moab, saying to him, “I have a message from God for you.” So the king arose from his seat. Oh, and then Ehud, Verse 21, reached with his left hand, took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into King Eglon’s belly. He died! And later the king’s servants came to find him, but the door had been locked. The servants took a key, unlocked the door, and went in to find their master dead on the floor. (Judgment of God or judgment of man?)

What I desire you examining is the statement by Ehud to a compromising, self-serving king: “I have a message from God for you.” Paul had an interesting word for Timothy to say to a rebellious though ‘religious people’ in 2 Timothy 3:8-9, Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth; men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.”

And then in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said to his spiritual son (in training), “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Ehud’s message to King Eglon? “I have a message from God for you.”

And when it comes to “The Intentionality of True Discipleship,” “I have a message from God for you,” and we see it in Luke 19:10 when the Lord Jesus said, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” From Adam onward, most men are totally unaware of God’s eternal intent for each AND every man, but “few there be who find it”, which is sad commentary on fallen mankind or even most of the Christian community, intended by God to be extensions of His life, expressions of His love, and the proof of His power!

As a ‘professing disciple’ of the Lord Jesus Christ, even to you who ‘profess’ but ‘publicly’ deny by silence and daily intent to avoid saying to anyone and everyone around, “I have a message from God for you,”, is there the day, the time when Holy God exposes one’s silence concerning His “Intentionality of True Discipleship”?

Isaiah 50:4-11 is another awakening, prophetic word about the coming ministry of Emmanuel and ends with the word of warning for ‘neglectful’ followers of God who ‘profess the Light’ but walk in darkness! It says, “The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned.

The Lord God has opened My ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away. I gave My back to those who struck Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know I will not be ashamed. He is near who justifies Me; Who will contend with Me Let us stand together. Who is My adversary? Let him come near Me.

Surely the Lord God will help Me; Who is he who will condemn Me? Indeed they will all grow old like a garment; the moth will eat them up. Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircles yourselves with sparks; walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled – this you shall have from My hand: YOU SHALL LIE DOWN IN TORMENT.”

I love the statement Charles Spurgeon shared in one of his powerful teachings related to this same passage from Judges 3:20, “I have a message from God for you;” Spurgeon said: “It cannot be that God has left the world; it must be that the world has left God. It is not possible that God has ceased to speak to the soul. Surely the soul has ceased to hearken to God; to acknowledge His messages; or to reply to them.”

In fact, if you read Proverbs, you discern “wisdom” from God Himself that should turn one from ‘fleshly wisdom, self-intent, and worldly avoidance of surrender and loyalty to’ “the God of eternal His-story”! In Proverbs 1:24-33 the Spirit-inspired ‘wise-man’ wrote: “BECAUSE I HAVE CALLED AND YOU REFUSED, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, Because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes,

When your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. THEN they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke.

Therefore they shall “eat the fruit of their own way,” and be filled to the full with their own fancies. FOR THE TURNING AWAY OF THE SIMPLE WILL SLAY THEM, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; BUT whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.” What an amazing revelation and unveiling of the “graceless crowd” so proud of their independence from God and the “saving blood of Christ, the Redeemer”!

“God called – and YOU refused”? Is it your indifference to spiritual matters? Is it extreme ‘fleshly carelessness’ that blocks the door to your mind and heart about God’s wisdom? Is it that you only fraternize with worldly, flesh-reinforcing, societal curses, influences of godless parents or wayward associates, friends or neighbors? Does a well-trained, philosophical, godless community of unbelievers succeed in a continual defiling of mind and heart about the “Blood Redemption” Holy God provided for you, but you sense for yourself, “Too late – I’m gripped, guided, and governed by my fleshly intent and that alone!”

“God called – and YOU refused”? Dare I tell you: IT’S NOT TOO LATE! MY GOD SITS ON THE THRONE OF MERCY AND GRACE, READY, SAYING TO YOU: “COME UNTO ME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST!!” “I, J.Farrell Fisher, have a message from God for YOU!”

Holy God has called and called and called and called! Holy God encapsulated within the human heart and mind His reality and their need of Him, but ‘selfish flesh’, demonic deception, and a lost world’s neglect of submission and obedience to Holy God and His , promotes ‘self-allegiance’ as normal and natural, which it is not! So: “God called – and you refused?” And, as a result, you became enchanted with devotion to your old sin nature, delighted to a ‘low degree’ of Satanic deception, like a magical spell, a ‘bewitching’, a ‘charming of indifference to the will and purpose of Holy God’!

In 2 Kings 20 there is a powerful, convicting, life-changing word as Isaiah said to King Hezekiah, “Thus says, the Lord: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.” “I have a message of God for you!”

Why did the Lord Jesus come? Why did He willingly yield Himself to Calvary’s Cross? Why did He rally twelve disciples to be His messengers? And were they? And what happened to them? As Christ was crucified in YOUR place and died, each of those twelves messengers also sacrificed their lives for the sake of the Gospel!

FIRST, PLEASE NOTICE THAT JESUS CAME TO RECONCILE US ALL TO HOLY GOD! Sadly, He shed His blood for all men to reconcile them to God, but many ignore the “Door” to reconciliation with Holy God, even attempting to ‘debunk’ our Lord’s death and resurrection!

In Hebrews 2:9-10, 14-17, we read of the blessed, “Good News” of reconciliation with God! It says: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for to suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, might taste death for everyone.”

Verses 14-17, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Glory!!

Reconciled to God means Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross voided the penalty of every man for his/her sin, destroyed the devil’s power over men, and released them from the curse of death and bondage TO life, freedom, and the fullness of Holy Presence: Christ in you the hope of glory! Romans 5: 17 is so encouraging and uplifting. It says: “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more THOSE WHO RECEIVE ABUNDANCE OF GRACE and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

Again, reflect upon more words from Oswald Chamber in his “My Utmost…” book, [p.206]: “Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. “And this is the judgment.” 9the critical moment”, “that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.”

Reconciled to God Because we were “redeemed by the blood of the Lamb”! But…

SECOND, HAVING BEEN REDEEMED BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB AND RECONCILED TO GOD, THERE IS THE HEAVENLY PURPOSE REVEALED WHICH IS: REVEALING THE RESURRECTED CHRIST IN ME TO THOSE AROUND ME! Look at Galatians 1:15-16a! “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles…”!

Transformed by the blood of the Lamb, indwelt with Jesus’ resurrection life, anointed with and by the Holy Spirit, discipled in and through His Holy Word, a new believer receives his/her ‘marching orders’: Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Peter later said in Acts 2: 32: “This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses.”

Some ‘disciples’ in the modern-day church feel or sense that witnessing is for preachers and evangelists, but is not necessary as simply a ‘believer’s calling or ministry’. For them, it’s beyond their capabilities. But receive Acts 26: 22-23! Paul said: “Therefore HAVING OBTAINED HELP FROM GOD, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come – that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to Gentiles.”

Without Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, men you know are alienated FROM GOD, under Satan’s control and domination, limited in the Spirit-realm by ‘flesh’ and without hope of any spiritual blessing – but as a believer you sense no responsibility? Will you stand alone before God’s Judgment Seat one day to give an explanation of your sin, disobedience, unbelief, and rejection of His mercy and grace through Christ, or will your attorney, your advocate, be Christ Jesus Himself?

I rest in Hebrews 9:24-28! “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another – He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”

What an amazing revelation! And the encouragement the Word gives? 2 Corinthians 5:20-21, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ (the Redeemed, the Reconciled!), as though God were pleading through us: We implore you on Christ’s behalf, BE RECONCILED TO GOD. For He (God) made Him (Christ Jesus) who knew no sin TO BE SIN FOR US, that WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.” There is no such possibility ever that a man is reconciled to God by his own self-effort or religious bent! It is the biblical unveiling of Blood Redemption through Christ – not by one’s best effort or a ‘conscious experience’ that he’s able to “save” himself! A religious life based only on a man’s self-determination is a fraudulent expression of religious intent that has NO redemptive element at all!

And, as the “righteousness of God in Him,” entrusted with God’s redemptive plan and Person of reconciliation only, 1 Peter 3:15 instructs us, “But sanctify (set apart) the Lord God in your hearts, and ALWAYS BE READY to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear…!”

THREE: “THE INTENTIONALITY OF TRUE DISCIPLESHIP”? I’M FIRMLY CONVINCED IT GOES BEYOND THE FIRST TWO POINTS TO THE AWARENESS OF THE END RESULT OF AVOIDING BOTH – NO REPENTANCE, NO RELEASE OF THE WITNESS, THEN THE AWESOME AWARENESS OF GOD’S FINAL JUDGMENT!

“No repentance”? “No heart-broken confession before Holy God of one’s independence from Him and trust only in his/her own fleshly abilities to ‘please God’? No discernment of His eternal intent that humanity, having repented, become, yes, ‘temples’ or ‘tabernacles’ of Christ’s Resurrection Presence? No awareness of THE final judgment when every man/woman stands before the Holy Throne to “give an account of their ‘saving faith’ or lack of it”?”

Do you remember Christ Jesus Reminding those in His day and ours about being cast into hell “where ‘Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’? And, yes, He made mention of “being cast into hell”! The awesome awareness that one cannot save himself/herself is ever before all humanity, or should be, and true disciples, inhabited by Christ Jesus in His resurrection, is the same Christ who preached, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest”, informing us and the world around us, “Unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish!”

Fallen humanity CANNOT SAVE ITSELF! Fallen humanity CANNOT ATONE FOR ITS WILLFUL SIN AND SEPARATION FROM GOD! But there IS “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” whose names IS Christ Jesus, one and only, Redeemer, Reconciler, of fallen men to Holy God!

Receive what Spurgeon said long ago – it never changes! [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.12, p.39], “Methinks I hear the cry of spirits lost without hope; mark the worm that never dies, and witness the agonies of conscience never appeased, while the remembrance of opportunities haunts them, and the wrath of God stirs the fire that never shall be quenched.”

Examine carefully 2 Peter 3:10-13! It says: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, WHAT MANNER OF PERSONS OUGHT YOU TO BE IN HOLY CONDUCT AND GODLINESS, LOOKING FOR AND HASTENING THE COMING OF THE DAY OF GOD, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” [Dare I ask? Does righteousness dwell in you?].

CHAPTER FOUR

“VOID OF THE WORD OF GOD OR VICTORY THROUGH THE WORD OF GOD”?

Have you ever considered that you as a believer are to be guided by God’s Holy Word? Being united WITH Christ in your heart, soul, and mind, is it in the fabric of your redemptive faith to “be being saved” in and through your devotion to His Holy Word? Is it possible that in your “wedding vows” with Christ you omitted “devoted to His Word and His will”?

Is it in you as it was with Davis as he wrote in Psalm 25:4-5, “Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day,” but YOU know nothing of the daily discipline of His Word to be taught personally day by day by the King of kings and Lord of lords?

Your will be done”, but you never daily yield yourself to discover His will, His ways, His directive Word, but you settle in, “I’m saved; that’s all I need to know?” I believe that I read IN Psalm 25:12, “Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that He chooses.” And God’s choice? Matthew 4:4, But He [Jesus] answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

I would challenge you as you’re reading this to evaluate your “saving experience” in Christ IF you are void or neglectful of His Word! So-called “religious experiences” that never leads one to His “revelation” and a hunger to know His will and Word absolutely frightens me! If one has been “born again”, I believe one of the evidences is “that we might KNOW the things that are freely given to us of God” [1 Corinthians 2:12]. Consider a “crying baby” for the warm milk of its mother’s breasts, but for so-called believers , as babes in Christ, how foolish, they say, to “cry for the milk of the Word of God”!

To his spiritual son, Timothy, Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:15, “Be DILIGENT to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly diving the word of truth.” I look upon God’s revelation of divine truth in both the Old and New Testaments as magnificent promises and instructions for maturing men and women, boys and girls, who have come to Him in true repentance and faith.

It was Peter who told us in 2 Peter 1:2-4, “Grace and peace be multiplied to YOU in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us ALL things that pertain to life and godliness, through the KNOWLEDGE OF HIM WHO CALLED US BY GLORY AND VIRTUE, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that THROUGH THESE you may be PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

“Christ-Given Amazing Grace or Fleshly Grit”? Do you remember Abraham’s servant, sent by Abraham to find a bride for his son Isaac? In Genesis 24:48 the servant spoke: “And I bowed my head and worshipped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, who had led me IN THE WAY OF TRUTH to take the daughter of my master’s brother for his son.” Thank God for His servants who are “led in the way of truth!”

In Mark 4 Jesus had been explaining His parables to the new disciples. Verses 33-34 tell us: “And with many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples.” [Do You have an “alone time” with Christ Jesus daily to hear His will and Way?]. The very desire of Jesus for you right now is that you listen to Jesus and let Him “explain all things in the Word to you” by the Holy Spirit who “guides us into all truth.” In John 16:13-14 our Lord told His disciples, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” The Holy Spirit if Heaven’s personal “tutor” in the Holy Word of God!

But haven’t you heard it? “I don’t need a personal “tutor” to teach me the Bible! I don’t accept the Bible as the authoritative Word of God – I’m smart enough in myself to sense there is no divine truth as there is no ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’ – find a brain-dead ‘christian’ and you’ll probably fool them, but not me!” And if you haven’t learned it yet in your classrooms or from many university professors who ‘are smarter than God Himself’ they believe, by human interaction you will learn that the most harmful ‘curse’ in life’s spiritual realm is personal pride and intellectual superiority, yes, even superior to Jesus Himself who IS “God in Flesh”!

Have you ever examined thoroughly Jesus’ passionate PRAYER IN John 17 for you and for all mankind as He described “grace” as that which reveals Him and then He unveils “eternal life” by His “grace”? John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You [God Himself ], the only true God, AND Jesus Christ whom You sent.” Oh, and then in Verse 17 Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” Sanctify? “Set them apart,” “save them, redeem them, reconcile them, declare them ‘holy’ by Your Word”!! As Josh MacDowell used to say of Jesus: “Liar, lunatic, or the Lord God?”

BUT, “void of the Word of God”, men will, at least some, profess a mental assent and knowledge of Him but never experience “Victory in Him alone through His eternal Word”! Oswald Chambers, in his famous book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” []p.4], said: “Natural devotion may be all very well to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His fascination, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion (fleshly admiration) will always deny Jesus somewhere or other.” What did the Lord Jesus tell us in John 3:3-7?

Jesus answered and said to Nicodemus, “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 [that’s the “water” of the Word!], AND the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Didn’t Jesus then say, “Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.”

All believers, then and now, born-again believers, WILL face worldly and satanic opposition to their true faith, but Paul tells all believers in Ephesians 6:10-19, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, WHICH IS THE WORD OF GOD, praying always with all prayer, and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

And for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.” [Don’t you find it interesting that Paul said, ‘And for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel,” yet sadly most believers never consider their mandate as God’s messengers or even ask that He will open their mouths wide to share the gospel! Much of ‘Christendom’ remains silent in vocal ‘witnessing’ to the lost, alienated, separated from God, but ‘rests’ in, “I’m saved, what else matters?”

But what you need to grasp is that ‘natural mankind’ poses fierce opposition to Jesus because they in their natural minds are “void of the Word of God” and have no heavenly understanding. Even the early disciples, like Philip, had a hard time understanding who Jesus was and what He was about. Look at John 14:7-11!! “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him and have seen Him…”

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works…

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” But natural mankind and far too many ‘professing believers’ do not realize the resurrected presence of Christ’s desire to live within them, within them to fulfill divine intent and purpose: “Christ in you the hope of glory”!

Natural mankind and ‘deceived professors of faith’ are, yes, void, opposed, and ‘willfully’ resist Biblical Truth that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.” Natural mankind is highly opposed to Biblical Truth that says, “obedience to Jesus is required as evidence of a born-again life”, even when Jesus said in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” In fact, in Luke 6:46 Jesus said: “But why do you call Me ‘

Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say?” Obedience is not an option in the age of grace but is the evidence grace is at work in you ‘finishing’ its work in you!

We do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that not all of Israel was “lost” because of rejection of the coming of the Promised Messiah – there was a ‘remnant’! But Romans 10:21 says, But to Israel he says, “All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” And even as “Jews” there are those who lived in the “natural”, yes, fully opposed to “saved by grace”! Natural mankind are those who are “a disobedient and contrary people” who have no desire to live by the Life of Another, even by Emmanuel or “God in flesh”!!

Natural mankind, friends of the world, the flesh, and the devil, does not “know” Father-God or the Son of God or the Holy Spirit, the Three in One! We ALL came into this world through “fallen Adam”, yes, “hiding from God, without hope in ourselves, or hope in each other” – we needed a miracle of God! In John 17:25-26 Jesus prayed, “O righteous Father! THE WORLD HAS NOT KNOWN YOU, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be IN THEM, and I IN THEM.” Yes! Glory! Jesus prayed for YOU and ME that God’s love would capture our minds and hearts and wills, drawing us out of the land of darkness of unbelief to the “Promised Land” of heavenly living on earth through His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

“Void of the Word of God”? I pray that you have not set aside the Epistle to the r! In Hebrews 1:1-3 we read, “God, who at various times and in various ways, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

But those who are “void of the Word of God,” “void of Christ Himself”, willfully shut the door to His saving grace and mercy and have no seat in the heavenly places! Read carefully Ephesians 2:4-7! “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 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.”

“Void of the Word of God”? That’s those blinded by the world, the flesh, and the devil! It’s why in Galatians 6:7-8 Paul tells us all: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh [that’s his old sin nature, old man, First Adam] will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit [of God] will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”

“Void of the Word of God”? Are you aware of the “stumblers”? Peter told us in 1 Peter 2:8, “…they stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.” God Himself read their hearts and appointed them to their just reward, yes, because of a mental, willful, head and heart rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ!

I think it vitally important to have you read also 1 Corinthians 1:18-31!! Receive it for yourself: “For the message [or word] 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.’ Where is the wise ? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer [the debater] 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. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;…

But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God…

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;

And the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh [First Adam, old sin nature], should glory in His presence…

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” Foolishness of men ‘void of the Word’ OR Victory through the Word because we “glory” only in the finished work of Christ “At The Cross”, living a celebratory life because of His Resurrection from the dead?

How about for you an eternal shift by the grace of God to “Victory Through His Word”? In 1 John 5:4-5 John tells us: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. [Our trust in Christ, our relying upon Christ, our total dependence upon Christ, through His shed blood, His death, His Resurrection, His Ascension, and His soon coming to celebrate with Him eternally!!]. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

I’m forever sorry and broken that ‘religious’ people will never see Jesus in heaven but only at the Judgment Seat as He tells them, “Depart from Me, you who work iniquity!!”

But “born of God”? Are you familiar with Galatians 1:15-16? “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb AND CALLED ME THROUGH HIS GRACE, to reveal His Son in me…” What an awesome revelation!

Do you remember what Jesus said in John 5:38-40? “But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. 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.”

There are those who will “read” the Word without “resting” in its Author. There are professors of allegiance to the ‘paper’ of the Book but fail to possess its Author and His Resurrection Life, Power, and Hope! There are ‘historical verifiers’ without “blood-bought, redeemed hearts”! And certainly there are devoted legalists without the Person and heavenly love of the Lord.

The Holy Word tells us: 2 Timothy 3:14-17, “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Have YOU been “made wise for salvation through faith in Christ alone”? What did Paul tell us in Romans 5:10? “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.” Have you forgotten “justified by His blood” and “saved by His grace”?

The author of the Hebrews letter put it like this in Hebrews 9:11-14, “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation…

Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,…how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

If your life is not a testimony of continuous rejoicing in God for His forgiveness and, yes, forgetfulness of your old sin nature and your pattern and participation in fleshly sins, I believe I would seriously examine what I “thought” was my salvation and what God Himself “says” it is!

Hebrews 10:12-14 tells us, “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice f or 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.”

Your sin became His “pain,” your pain became His suffering, His suffering became your freedom, and your freedom became the theme of your praise to your true Savior, Lord, Redeemer, your Liberator from sin and death, BY HIS GRACE!

So…YOU take the sentence of death DAILY that the Resurrection Life of your Lord and Savior may be manifested in and through you for an unbelieving world to see and seek!

Have you forgotten, overlooked, or never seen and received Paul’s word to us in Galatians 5:24? “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” so…Verse 25, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Is it your daily ambition to honor Christ in your earthly walk?

I close this teaching, this chapter, with Oswald Chambers’ words: “Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.” [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.256]. AMEN?`

CHAPTER FIVE

“ABOUNDING GRACE – GRACIOUS MINISTRIES”

For me, at least, there is an amazing revelation Paul gave us in 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 when he wrote: “Now then, WE ARE AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, BE RECONCILED TO GOD. For He [God the Father] made Him [God the Son] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” “Abounding Grace – Gracious Ministries”!

“Now then…”! But what was “before then”? Are you aware of ‘strong-willed’, ‘self-determined’, ‘intensely proud flesh’, and, yes, a life dictated to by the devil and the powers of darkness, or even ‘religious people’ shaped by ‘self-indulgent rulers’ of their own destinies, who ignore “Amazing Grace” and lean on their own ‘fleshly grit’ to prove their ‘worthiness’?!?

Christ Jesus spoke, after revealing the “abounding grace” of John 3:16, saying in Verses 17-21, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, (Why? Because a godless, faithless life has already been birthed into a life of ‘self-rule’, godless or not!), but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. AND THIS IS THE CONDEMNATION, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone PRACTICING EVIL hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

Are you aware that the ‘human spirit’, without “born the second time”, yet warned, no doubt, as Paul talked about “taking the sentence of death daily, that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested in (my) mortal flesh”, (2 Corinthians 1:9-10), is unbelieving people who self-appoint themselves to be “cut in two and appointed to his place or portion with the hypocrites, ‘play-actors’ who experience eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth”? Or is that unveiling of “death to self” taking place in your faith-walk, and as a result, you’re experiencing eternal, resurrection life and hope? Or are YOU, or those around you who ARE unbelievers, like the masses, even from the world’s creation, ‘mockers’ of God and true disciples of Christ unveiling the world’s mentality of, yes, limited mental prowess, maimed minds, and warped wills, while the Holy Word of God describes them (and you, if that’s where YOU stand!) as: “idle talkers and deceivers” (Titus 1:10), and Titus 1:15b, “…but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled”!

In Revelation 21:8 the Holy Word says this: “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and ALL LIARS shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death.”

Are you aware that “sinners” are “slaves”, imprisoned in the human spirit, since Adam, and completely unfit to be a servant of God in Christ apart from the “Blood Redemption” and Miraculous Resurrection into sons and daughters of God through biblical repentance and saving faith in Christ alone, offered by God’s grace and that alone? [Didn’t Jesus say in John 8:56 to the Jews: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad”?!?].

In 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5 Paul wrote, blessed and anointed by the Holy Spirit, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

I wonder how many “believers” you know who sense an awesome, heavenly gratitude, daily, to God, the God of love and Grace and mercy, who tells us in Revelation 1:5-6, “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (Or SO BE IT!!)”! Do YOU have an ‘Amen’ in your life or a ‘So Be It’?

But our theme of this chapter? “Abounding Grace – Gracious Ministries”! Question! Did man reach out to God or God Himself reached out to man? In Genesis 3, lied to by Satan himself, Eve and then Adam ate of ‘the forbidden fruit’, instituting “Fig-leaf religion” with verse 7 telling us, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings”! God spoke, and Genesis 3:8 then says, aware of their nakedness, they “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

Men hide themselves by willful blindness, by woeful ‘dressings’ of nature, by outright, ignoramus ideas that He doesn’t exist, by ‘worshipping’ self or idols, by wrapping themselves in the ‘garments’ of human inadequacy, fleshly disgrace, and invented religious preferences – but YOU don’t see anything wrong with that as “men make their own acceptable away to appease empty hearts and minds, and feel ‘justified’ in self-efforts of their ‘religious needs’”?

Historical mankind has gone from one major conflict to another, from battle to battle, from ‘ups and downs’ to ‘ins and outs,’ from stress to stress, sensing if he remains faithful to what he has determined for himself fleshly, religiously, educationally or not, it’s “My best effort that counts”! Really?

Unbelievers, atheists, agnostics, religions apart from Christ, enemies of Christ’s resurrection, ascension, and coming again, are untiring warriors against “Abounding Grace – Gracious Ministries”! And, though untiring, even by neglect or indifference, their judgments are already sealed by the Victorious, Conquering King of kings and Lord of lords! It’s SO interesting that we read in Jude 14-21,”Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesies about these men (apostates), 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.”

These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain an 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 (of historical Judaism) 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.”

Opponents of “redemptive faith” are no worthy opposition to the message of “abounding grace” and, certainly cannot even by killing its “messengers”, put a halt to the move and ministry through their “gracious ministries”! Holy God appoints His ‘ambassadors’, inspired even by men recognizing they and their country need God’s mercy and grace! In Acts 16:9 we read, And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Tell me of YOUR encounters with men pleading with you, “Come over to….and help us”! But, without men, Holy God will intervene in your life as a disciple of Christ Jesus, “Come over and help us,” or God Himself, “I send YOU as my appointed, anointed representative and ambassador – tell them about Christ Jesus!” I’m convinced it’s time for God’s “assembled church” to begin asking Him, “Lord what would you have us to do?” And I believe He’ll say, “Lift up Christ Jesus WHO WILL draw all men to Himself!”

And…how do YOU respond or react to Christ Jesus’ indictment of ‘religious pretenders’? Examine Matthew 23:27-28! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites (or ‘play-actors’)! 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.”

Bu God gives a life-changing, eternal promise in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14! “…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, THEN I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Are YOU aware of His “abounding grace”? Are you celebrating in your life the awesome grace of the Prince of Peace and rejoicing that He chose You and assigned you as a ‘special ambassador’ with His “gracious ministry”? And having fully surrendered to this awesome calling, amazing privilege, and ambassadorial assignment, are you aware of how, at times, “sheep are led to the slaughter”, because the world, the flesh, and the devil, want NO interference in their ‘world’ they’ve chosen for themselves! Let’s nail it down permanently in our minds, hearts, and wills!!

FIRST, EVERY CHRISTIAN, EVERY DISCIPLE OF CHRIST, EVERY MEMBER OF HIS REDEEMED BODY IS COMMISSIONED AS HIS REPRESENTATIVE AMBASSADOR! Again, 2 Corinthians 5:20, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us; we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

Even across the world nations acknowledge, welcome, and honor ‘ambassadors’ from other countries. But, are you aware of nations today closing their doors to Christian- discipleship ministers, men or women, no longer allowed to enter their nations to evangelize?

Again, what did Christ Jesus tell us in Luke 24:46-48? “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, AND that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.”

Examine the dramatic, life-change in Simon Peter, from a casual fisherman of fish, to an eternally significant “messenger” of Christ’s redemptive power! In Acts 4, being examined by the rulers, elders, and scribes around Jerusalem, they asked him, Verse 7, “By what power or by what name have you done this?”

Verse 8 and following, Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, BY HIM this man stands here before you whole. This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven, given among men by which we must be saved.”

And what really thrills me in this section of the Holy Word? Verse 13! Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.

In Romans 11 there is a very interesting unveiling of divine intent about a true remnant “according to the election of grace.” It says: Verses 1-7, Paul speaking, “I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. (The true remnant of faith, grace, and mercy ‘within’ Israel the nation that crucified the Christ!). Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, ‘Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life’? But what does the divine response say to him? ‘I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant ACCORDING TO THE ELECTION OF GRACE.”

God’s intent today for any nation, anywhere, any time? “I have reserved for Myself faithful men, faithful disciples, faithful messengers, and they have beautiful feet and carry the message of the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things” to the needy, alienated, separated from Me, men and women, who need to hear of God’s “Abounding Grace – Gracious Ministries”!

What does Romans 10:14-15 tell us? “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher (a “messenger”)? And how shall they preach (witness) unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!’”

SECOND, COMMISSIONED, ANOINTED, DIVINELY ORDAINED MESSENGERS, ARE FULLY AWARE OF BOTH GOD’S HEART AND HIS ULTIMATE INTENTION THROUGH THEM! In Ezekial 33:11 there is a profound, liberating word from God! It says, Say to them, ‘As I live’, says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live. Turn, turn, from your evil ways! For why should you die…”, apart from abounding grace and a gracious ministry, in you, through Christ?

What did Holy God say to Isaiah in Isaiah 1:18-19? “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.”

With that revealed by God, how is it that many professing believers and preachers are deceived into thinking we have, in Christ, no demands on discipleship – “only believe and receive”; like a famous author I’ve admired for many, many years, coming along in his day to say, [“Spurgeons’ Sermons”, Vol. 12, p. 132], “With what joy should a rebellious sinner hear the voice of the ambassador who brings no hard conditions from God”; really? No hard conditions from God?

In Proverbs 15:10 the inspired writer wrote: “Harsh discipline is for him who forsakes the way, and he who hates correction will die.” Dare I paraphrase Proverbs 15:5? “A fool or foolish disciple of Christ despises Father-God’s instruction, but he who receives correction is prudent (or discerning or wise!).”

Did Jesus say, “IF you are willing and obedient?” IF YOU are not aware of biblical truth, please note Luke 14:25-33! Now great multitudes went with Him. And He (Christ Jesus) turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it – lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see begin to mock him saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish’? Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

I don’t know how YOU read what you just read in the previous paragraphs, but I’m convinced it is His challenge that true disciples are fully devoted to Him, first and foremost, and highlights radical, personal devotion and surrender to His Lordship! How easy to ‘profess’ a creed, a religious creed, but it’s ‘tough’ to “forsake all and follow Me!” Dare I tell you that the evidence of true conversion, the evidence of a ‘new-born’ life in Christ, the evidence of a true son or daughter of God, IS unaltered obedience and surrender, denying ‘self’ and willfully exalting Christ, and witnessing in your yielded life the ever-abiding and spiritual reality of His Holy Presence being Himself because you chose to be dead to your old self, daily, that His Resurrection Life, then free, to be Himself through YOU!

True disciples willingly offer themselves without hesitation to the Person, Presence, and Purpose of the Indwelling Christ, even as Chambers once said: (“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.26), “It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dignified heroism, but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by God means being a door-mat under other people’s feet.” But unbelieving, fallen mankind is often so ‘comfortable’ in themselves and their chosen way of life they often say, “Who cares?”, but when trouble arises, it’s either hear God, or, watch your walls fall down! Song of Solomon 5:2 says, “I was asleep, but my heart was awake. A voice! My Beloved was knocking: Open to Me!” Isn’t that Acts 17:28 (NIV)? “For in Him we live and move and have our being”?

It’s so interesting to me that many ‘professing disciples’ are devotedly religious but avoid the Word, the Spirit, the very instruction of Christ Jesus, like when He said in John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and THEY FOLLOW ME,” and I wondered as I read that passage recently, if those ‘professing disciples’ are willing to be stoned! John 10:31 says, Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Jesus.” Have you forgotten, overlooked, or were never taught 1 Corinthians 1:9? It says, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord”?

In Isaiah 40:27-31, it’s as if God sees and senses His ‘chosen people’ saying “God’s asleep” when it’s really careless disciples not fully awakened to His claims on their lives! It says: “Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints not 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.” Dare I ask? Are YOU “waiting on the Lord”?

THIRD, AND LAST POINT IN THIS CHAPTER, “BUT FULLY AWARE OF GOD’S INTENT THROUGH US, ARE YOU ‘FOLLOWING, FULFILLING, FINISHING WHAT HE ASSIGNED TO YOU TO DO AS HIS AMBASSADOR’?” Again, 2 Corinthians 5:20, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

Are YOU aware that God wants you pleading for the salvation of others? Did Paul say, “as though God were pleading through you”? But to unbelievers, there is the message of witnessing disciples, Ezekial 18: 31b-32, God speaking, “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 American unbeliever? For I (God Almighty) have no pleasure in the death of one who dies (in his/her sin!)”, says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!” Repent, return, rest in Christ alone!

What will it be? Ears that are open and responding to His Call: Repent, return, sand rest in My finished work at the Cross and the Empty Tomb, OR, Ears that are closed to “Abounding Grace & Gracious Ministries”? It’s a sad, sad day when Gracious, Loving, Merciful God on His Throne, continues to witness hardened hearts, unbelieving races, world leaders, stubborn students, national ‘all-sufficient-in-self’ political leaders and educational overseers, who sense no need of God’s grace and mercy being ‘worthy’ of their consideration or inclusion in their ‘reigns’ – SO.. “Welcome, Devil – you’re more acceptable with us than God Himself!”

I choose with Paul, Philippians 2:17, “Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.”

CHAPTER SIX

“WANDERING FROM THE FAITH?”

There are not many men anywhere who live with a total disregard of Holy God; and there are many men all over the world who in their deep and abiding love for Him would never consider ‘walking away’ from Him. But, at the same time, there are those “journeyers” with Jesus who have chosen, not simply to willfully walk away, but at times are “drawn away”, or often “swept away” by powerful tides of false influences thrusting them onto the rocks of “doubt, fears, twisted unbeliefs, or careless, fleshly indulgences”! And, for them, ‘surprisingly’ (?) they “fall into” those temptations and give way to the devil’s strong deceptions, the devil even telling some, “you cannot do anything but sin until you get to heaven; so, at least, have a little ‘fun’ on the way!”

“Faith journeys”? There are missed or messed-up directions that some believers take that become “detours” away from the true and living Way, and become “dead-end streets” that cause a “scattering” and not “gathered unto Jesus”! In fact, in John 16:32, Jesus SPOKE TO HIS DISCIPLES! “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.”

Don’t you pray that that never happens to you, to yours, to your fellow believers, to your pastoral leadership, even ‘up-until-now’ faithful political leaders who for the most part have sought to honor the Lord Jesus Christ? But are you aware of, yes, some “wandering from the Faith”?

Are you aware of how easy it is to be ‘side-tracked’ to personal interests rather than the cause of Christ in a careless world of, often, a “straying from the faith”? Are there “mental” strayings from pure devotion and surrender to Christ’s Lordship? Are there “willful” choices to disobey and stray away? Are there “inner desolations” or “private sins” that no one sees but God Himself that has captured one’s heart and mind “spoiling” the redemptive blessing of a “new life” in Christ?

course, when you read Luke 19:41-44 about Christ Jesus “weeping over Jerusalem”, you clearly understand how the ‘religious pretenders’ claimed allegiance to Jesus but then participated in His crucifixion, but since “All Scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God (anywhere, anytime, anywho!) may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work,” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), hear the Master, Lord, and Savior in the Luke passage!!

“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 one stone upon another, BECAUSE you did not know the time of your visitation.” WOW! [Happened to Jerusalem – can happen to you!]

In our “faith journeys” does the Lord Jesus tell us that there are “times of visitation” that become His “times of examination” of ALL disciples? Don’t you find it so interesting and challenging to read King David in Psalm 26:2-8? “Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my mind and my heart. For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth.

I have not sat with idolatrous mortals, nor will I go in with hypocrites. I have hated the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I will wash my hands in innocence; So I will go about Your altar, O Lord, that I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all Your wondrous works. Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells.”

In the “faith journey”, with an awareness of examinations and testings by Father-God, some live out the faith carelessly unaware of God’s plan and desire to ‘conform us all into the very image and likeness of Christ’, but darkening opportunities, avoiding divine ability, and limiting the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ! I really don’t know how it is that many ‘believers’ consider “self-effort-best” in the walk of faith when “Christ in us IS the hope of glory!”

How many do you know or become aware of in your pilgrimage who know nothing about “the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us In Christ Jesus”, not in one’s best effort? But, in the “journey” of “being conformed to the image of Christ”, is it possible that some ‘fall way from the faith’?

In Jeremiah 6:10 the “Lord of hosts” spoke to a “falling-away-people”: “To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. [Why?], Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.”

Oh, but Holy God didn’t stop there! Jeremiah 6:13-15 is a strong, holy, convicting, awakening Word! He said: “Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; nor did they know how to blush. Therefore THEY SHALL FALL among those who fall; At the time I punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the Lord.

Do you remember Joseph preparing his brothers for their ‘journey’ back to Israel and their father? He said, in Genesis 45:24 So he sent his brothers away, and they departed; and he said to them, “See that you do not become troubled along the way.” Did YOU have a spiritual father of the faith who told you that as you began your “pilgrimage of faith and devotion to Christ Jesus”? And yet many failed to warn sons and daughters of the faith that “troubles” leading to a “falling away” can be numerous and horrific!

Didn’t Paul warn the Thessalonians about “the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish (along the way), because they did not receive (or see as necessary for themselves because they were so “spiritual” in their own understanding!) the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). Oh, and then God made a sovereign judgment! Verses 11-12 says, “AND FOR THIS REASON GOD will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie ( like ‘you can sin and not die’?), that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Isn’t it true, haven’t you heard them, read them, witnessed them, teaching and preaching the “white-washing” of “dark truths”, promoting “one can sin, and sin, and sin, and not die, because God overlooks a believer’s sin but condemns sinners”?, when it hasn’t changed: “The wages of sin is death!”

Thank God FOR “the Pauls” who serve Him faithfully and warn of the dangers of “falling away”! In Galatians 5:1 and Verses 4-6, Paul wrote: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage….Verses 4-6, You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law ( you who compromise and want to blend fallen flesh with “new birth spirit”); you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.”

And isn’t “the liberty of Christ” the liberty of freedom from, not the liberty to be or do as redeemed ‘flesh’ dictates, but the liberty of Lordship, committed to and dominated by His Holy Will, which IS “Go and sin no more”? (John 8:11!). What ‘yoke’ have you submitted to? The yoke of indulgent flesh or the yoke OF “Christ-Liberation”?

There’s an awesome word from the Lord in Revelation 3:10-12 which says: “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! (Have YOU heard His “door-knocking” at your heart?). 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.” There doesn’t have to be a “wandering away from the true, redemptive Faith in Christ alone”, but, sadly, there are those who do!

WANDERING FROM THE FAITH? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THERE ARE THOSE WHO BEGIN THE JOURNEY WITHOUT COUNTING THE COST? I assume that the words of the Lord Jesus apply as we seek to determine why the ‘wandering away’ occurs – Right? In Luke 14:25-33 we see several ‘types of followers’, temporary-eternal, adapters-adopted, reckless-reliant, divided allegiances- undivided devotion, cost ignoramuses-cost evaluators! Receive Christ Jesus’ “demands of true discipleship”!

Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it – lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish? Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegate and asks conditions of peace. SO LIKEWISE, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

A ‘king’ considering the cost? Jesus evaluated the ‘human condition’ of sin and separation from Holy God, willingly giving Himself in death to bring opportunity for Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope to every man who lives in repentance toward God and faith in the Savior’s finished work at the Cross, then three days later rising from the dead, then offering every repentant soul forgiveness, a “new Life”, ushering in the eternal kingdom of God, and assigning all “followers” to endure ‘world rejection’ but rejoice daily in God’s eternal affirmation of a true child of faith that rejects what a fallen world offers and ‘rests’ in what Christ Jesus assures!

It was Paul who said in Acts 17:26-28, “And He (God) has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being…”. And then in Acts 17:30-31 we find out about the eternal governance of God! “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now Commands all men everywhere to repent, BECAUSE He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” Glory!

Were you informed of “the cost” when you “joined” a church? In Luke 24:46-49 Jesus said, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, AND THAT REPENTANCE AND REMISSION OF SINS SHOULD BE PREACHED IN HIS NAME TO ALL NATIONS, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

Repentance? Brokenness over one’s sin and sin nature, brokenness over alienation and separation from Holy God who made you, brokenness that you ignored Christ’s historic death for you too long, brokenness over the alienation and separation from God’s desire to extend His love, express His grace, and exalt His Son through you – but for too long you ignored divine intent, lived with a closed mind to His love, His will, His sacrifice, brokenness realizing that if YOU were the only sinful man who ever lived, and Christ died just for you, how do you relate to that? Will YOU just wander away from redemptive faith or halt the mis-direction of your life and “lean on Christ Jesus only”? “Count the cost”? Death to the old man and full surrender to the “new man” in Christ!

WANDERING FROM THE FAITH? IS IT POSSIBLE A BELIEVER, HAVING REPENTED, SERVED FAITHFULLY HIS MASTER FOR SOME TIME, CAN BELIEVE THE MASTER ‘MAY DELAY HIS COMING’, THEREFORE “I” CHOOSE TO PLAY AROUND FOR AWHILE! Come to Luke 12: 42-46 where Jesus speaks so clearly about this danger that comes over some ‘believers’ lives: “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has. But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint his portion with the unbelievers.”

It’s really, really interesting that early in the church’s existence the Apostle Paul had to intervene, at least in Thessalonica, but you’ll find his concern elsewhere in his writings if you so desire, but in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 he stirs up a strong warning to the “play-around” folks who engaged in sexual immorality. Paul wrote:

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles, who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.

For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”

I wonder how many “flesh indulgers” of the past, having come to Christ, consult their Master and Lord before plunging into a sea of sexual immorality? Of course, sadly, some were never discipled as to the ‘holy life’ as “ambassadors of Christ”! When Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world,” which, I believe, is certainly a call in one’s life of faith that ‘kingdom living’ under His Lordship is opposite of submission to, entertainment of the world’s fleshly ways, especially sexual immorality!

Have you been taught that coming to Christ through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross opens the door of your heart and life to “Kingdom Allegiance”? Jesus told the religious Pharisees in Luke 17:20-21, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

In Romans 14:16-19 we find interesting, convicting, challenging words: “Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; [but at the same time, I add: “but do not let your evil be spoken of as good”, or “Sexual immorality is OK! Don’t let the ‘Bible-thumpers’ scare you! We all do it.” Really?]. for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.”

In 1 Thessalonians 4:1-3 I repeat what I read earlier: “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us HOW YOU OUGHT TO WALK AND PLEASE GOD; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is THE WILL OF GOD, your sanctification: THAT YOU SHOULD ABSTAIN FROM SEXUAL IMMORALITY…!”

WANDERING FROM THE FAITH? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT SOME BELIEVERS, SO ENAMORED WITH “PEACE AND SAFETY” TEACHINGS, RATHER THEN “PURSUE, PRESS IN, OR PERPETUALLY” HOLD ONTO CHRIST JESUS, THEY BECOME SO IN LOVE WITH PLEASING ‘FLESH’ THEY ALLOW “SPIRIT-HUNGER” TO DIE? It’s really amazing to me and heart-breaking to read in Isaiah 56:9-12 about Israel’s careless, compromising, irresponsible leaders that influenced a ton of Israel’s people, with only the true remnant remaining steadfast! It says: “All you beasts of the field, come to devour, all you beasts in the forest. (And Jerusalem was ultimately destroyed in 70AD!) His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down loving to slumber.

Yes, they are greedy dogs which never have enough. And they are shepherds who cannot understand; THEY ALL LOOK TO THEIR OWN WAY, every one for his own gain, from his own territory. “Come,” one says, “I will bring wine, and we will fill ourselves with intoxicating drink; Tomorrow will be as today, and much more abundant.” But they ended bankrupt!

That’s “flesh-loving, flesh-desiring, flesh domination”, even as one sings “Peace and Safety”! Oh, but then! SUDDEN DESTRUCTION COMES! In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 Paul challenges every believer then and now: But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly 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. Therefore let us NOT SLEEP, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who ARE OF THE DAY be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.

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

Of course, the question of the moment is, “Are you walking, now, this very moment, in the ‘darkness’ of fleshly indulgence or in the “Light” of glorious grace and mercy?” Walking in the “peace and safety” frame of reference is often held by ‘believers’ walking both sides of the street – a devotion to flesh observance during the week and a spirit observance on Sundays! In Matthew 6:24 Jesus said: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Are YOU a ‘compromising disciple’ walking both sides of the street, or His disciple willing to walk in His “way of the Cross” that leads home victoriously?

In Revelation 1:17-18 John was blessed in the divine unveiling of Christ’s Presence! He said: And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I AM He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen.” Amen means “So be it,” and our Lord intends His “AMEN” to be YOUR “AMEN”, not in “falling away” but resting in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

If there has been a tendency in YOU to “walk away”, never resist His Holy Presence within you or around you, or even His Presence through caring, compassionate ambassadors of Christ who have no desire seeing you fall away! HE WILL COME! THEY WILL COME! And caring, loving brothers and sisters ‘in Christ’ will seek to turn you back to Him, not rest as they see you turning to satisfy your ‘flesh’ and fall away!

In Deuteronomy 33:26-27 there is a word of ‘hope’ for Israel as a nation, but also a word of ‘hope’ for people committed to Christ Jesus today, for God is the Same ‘yesterday’, ‘today’, and ‘forever’! “There is no one like the God of Jeshuran, who rides the heavens to help you, and in His and in His excellency on the clouds. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, and will say, “Destroy!”

You didn’t let Revelation 1:17 just fly over your head without understanding, did you? Again, “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last..”, saying then and now: “I’m Lord over everything you face – you don’t have to “fall away” – let Me finish your earthly walk of faith as you choose to be dead to yourself but fully alive and overcoming in Me!”

I love Oswald Chambers’ words in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest”. (P.104-105): “He laid His right hand upon me.” In the midst of the awfulness (and JFF says, ‘the awfulness of falling away”!), a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. The right hand not of restraint nor of correction nor of chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it is ineffable peace and comfort, the sense that “underneath are the everlasting arms,” full of sustaining and comfort and strength.”

The question is: When the temptation comes to “fall away”, will I yield to the ‘old man’ OR surrender to the “new man” in Christ; will I give Jesus His rightful place, in me, as Savior, Lord, Master, Conqueror over temptation Himself, conqueror over sin itself, and Conqueror over the spiritual death within you, and the Author of everlasting Life through your available vessel? “CHOOSE CHRIST, THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and ,THE EVERLASTING LIFE”, finishing strong, not in flesh-effort that fails!

CHAPTER SEVEN

“GUTSY GRIT OR GODLY SORROW?”

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?

CHAPTER EIGHT

“ASININE CHOICES OF FLESHLY DEVOTION TO CHRIST”

Who could ever believe that ‘the safe place of a coffin is about the only choice to live out one’s devotion to Christ’? Certainly assaults against one’s devotion to the Lord and Savior has, can now, and will in the future stir up opposition and resentment toward faithful believers! Genuine, passionate, faithful hunger to know the Lord indicts unbelievers, incites their anger often, and releases personal intimidation against the faithful!

Unbelievers don’t see the desire to know the Lord as ‘sane thinking’ but as exposing believers’ stupidity! It’s as if they think heart passion to know the Lord Jesus is an ‘asinine’ activity, not worthy of their time! ‘Asinine’? The Random House Collegiate Dictionary (Revised Edition, 1975) defines ‘asinine’ as “stupid, unintelligent, silly, or foolish”, which sadly unveils the condition of many opponents of the faith, yet at the same time unveils the sad condition of many professing Christians!

Some believers look on radical disciples who hunger for God’s Word and live to extend His kingdom, walk in His love, and ‘witness’ to others about the Way of reconciliation, as ‘arrogant, pride-full, stuck-up slaves’, which is exactly what many ‘pretenders’ openly are!

Asinine choices of fleshly devotion to Christ is evident when you often hear ‘church members’ talk about, “We work hard at seeking to be like Jesus”; and I have to ask, “What’s the scriptural text for that false assertion?’ Have you ever heard a ‘pretender’ say, “I’m trying to be faithful in making some changes from my fleshly-indulgent days,” not even aware he/she was crucified with Christ over 2000 years ago, yes, your worst and best of human existence put to death on the Cross with Christ? The Living Savior does not, as Charles Stanley wrote in his “In Touch” Bible readings of April, 2016, (p.13), “The Lord isn’t looking for people who change a few habits by sheer force of will; He’s calling people to surrender themselves to Him.” Dr. Stanley went on to say in the same article, “We don’t evolve into a saved people by deleting old habits and instituting better religious ones; we are transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ when we believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to) in Him,” and I add: “Trust in Him only to ‘birth me to oneness with the divine, eternal Kingly-Presence of Christ in me, my hope of heavenly glory’”!

There was an interesting statement on national television a few days ago when someone said, “The cop who breaks the law doesn’t deserve to wear the shield!” But compare that to someone professing faith in Christ saying, “I’m so thankful that my forgiveness through His shed blood overshadows any sin I continue to willfully enjoy”, totally oblivious to His ‘finished work’ on the Cross!

In Revelation 2:7 the angel (or messenger) of the church of Ephesus wrote: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”

But remember the title of which I am now writing: “Asinine Choices of Fleshly Devotion to Christ”! Where, in the Bible, do you find, “A Christian can’t do anything but sin until he/she gets to heaven one day,” when the Holy Word tells me, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God…”. That’s Galatians 2:20-21!

“Asinine Choices of Fleshly Devotion to Christ”? Do you remember what followed in Galatians 3:1? Paul went on to say, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified?” Oh, then adding in Verse 3, “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?”

When Jesus said on one occasion: “In the world you will have tribulation..”, (so try your best to overcome? No!..;), but, “ be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).

But, sadly, many are ‘programmed’ that, yes, “Sin in the believer is still normal; get used to it – you’re forgiven,” when the Holy Word declares, Jesus Himself speaking, (John 8:34-36), “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

“Asinine Choices of Fleshly Devotion to Christ”? Rather than ‘pressing on’ in fleshly determination, is there the biblical reality of willful evaluation of the bankruptcy of ‘self-effort’ and the willful trust in Christ’s work on the Cross in my place?

In Philippians 3:7-11 Paul illuminates, not an ‘asinine choice of fleshly devotion to Christ’, but THE spiritual trust in His finished work on the Cross in my place! He said: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I HAVE SUFFERED THE LOSS OF ALL THINGS, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found IN HIM, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but THAT WHICH IS THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I MAY KNOW HIM AND THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION, and THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS, BEING CONFORMED TO HIS DEATH.”

This is why “spiritual ‘fleshers’” (?) of devotion to Christ are so “self-exposing” as to Who or what they put ‘faith’ or trust in, which is “the accomplishment of the best of our self-effort to honor Jesus”, which is nothing more than “pumped up flesh with a religious ‘twang’” that celebrates ‘fallen-men’ at their ‘religious best’ – not “the finished work of Christ” in the Cross and empty tomb!

This is why in 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Paul wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we SHOULD NOT TRUST IN OURSELVES but in God who raises the dead, who delivers us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us..”.

“Asinine Choices of Fleshly Devotion to Christ”? I’m taking personal liberty in Matthew 15:29-31 to use “the physically afflicted” as a “picture”, ‘blown up’, to describe “fleshly people devoted to Christ” who spiritually are still ‘sick’, ‘crippled’, ‘blind,’ ‘no voice of a true, eternal testimony that glorifies God alone,’ even ‘spiritually maimed’ though professing, I’m saved! It says: Jesus departed from there, skirted the Sea of Galilee, and went up on the mountain and sat down there. Then great multitudes came to Him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others; and they laid them down at Jesus’ feet, and He healed them. So the multitude marveled when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified God.”

“Asinine Choices of Fleshly Devotion to Christ”? How many “asinine assemblies” have you observed in your faith walk? How many “asinine voices” have you heard that make you want to throw up? How many “asinine publicly professing leaders” have you heard, encouraging you to follow their examples, which often leads to nothing more than fleshly indulgences?

At least Paul, ordained of the Holy Spirit, was able to say, “Follow my example”! In Philippians 3:17-19 the Apostle wrote: “Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame – WHO SET THEIR MINDS ON EARTHLY THINGS.”

“Asinine Choices of Fleshly Devotion to Christ”? There are those who ‘profess’ devotion and allegiance to Christ Jesus, but “seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus”! (Philippians 2:21). Paul later said, Philippians 3:2, “Beware of dogs, (professing unbelievers), beware of evil workers, beware of mutilation!” Why did Paul write Colossians 2:8? “BEWARE lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ."

Later, in Colossians 3:5-6, Paul challenged, yes, Christians and the church at Colossae and the Christians here in America and the rest of the world, “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,” and he is saying, “Part-time indulgence is as dangerous as full-time indulgence”!

“Asinine Choices of Fleshly Devotion to Christ”? In Colossians 4:3-8 we are confronted with another stout Biblical warning, and especially in a nation like the U.S.A. where “fleshly indulgences” appear to be rampant! The Word says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”

In Isaiah 26:3 is a ‘song’ of the salvation, healing, and deliverance for the ‘biblical remnant’! It says: “You (God) will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” Are you aware of how “the mind of Christ” can be neglected and the “implanted mind of ‘flesh’” can rule in ‘religious pretenders’? The perfect peace of Christ can be amended, altered, or torched by the “hot flashes” of ‘self-indulgence’ while ‘professing’ allegiance to the Savior, Lord, and Master of eternal life in the Spirit! The perfect peace of Christ starves ‘fleshly imagination’ and STAYS on Father-God! But many leave behind His peace and live on their indulgences! Many are ‘zoned in’ on the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ or ‘zeroed’ Him out in the ‘stultification’ of fleshly futility or absurd distractions from Christ Himself to adoring one’s fallen sin-nature!

It’s so sad that some ‘believers’ easily forget, as Chambers once said, “Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve!” In his “My Utmost For His Highest,” [Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566, Grand Rapids, Mich.,49501,p.31], Chambers wrote, writing about 1 Samuel 3:10, “Speak Lord; for Your servant hears,” saying, “Because I have listened definitely to one thing from God, it does not follow that I will listen to everything He says. The way in which I show God that I neither love nor respect Him is by the obtuseness of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I intuitively detect what he wants, and Jesus says, “You are My friends if you do what I command you,” (John 15:14); Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord’s this week? If I had realized it was a command of Jesus, I would not consciously have disobeyed it; but most of us show such disrespect to God that we do not even hear what He says, He might never have spoken.” It’s as if in the Christian pilgrimage many have determined it’s ‘OK’ to live TO himself/herself, but not to the glory and honor of Christ alone!

What a promise we find in Isaiah 60:1-3! “Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles (unbelievers) shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

What a calling! What a promise! What an opportunity! What a privilege! Used by God to touch your world with “Amazing Grace”! Isaiah 59:20-21 says: “The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” says the Lord. “As for Me,” says the Lord, “this is my covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the Lord, “from this time and forevermore.” Amen? “SO BE IT, LORD!”

CHAPTER NINE

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH”

At a “National Hispanic Leadership Conference” in Houston, Texas, April 29, 2015, former Florida governor and presidential candidate, at the time, Jeb Bush, said: “There is no more powerful and liberating influence on this earth than the Christian conscience in action and today in America it is important to respect and to protect Christians acting on their faith…not just talking about their faith, but there is a constitutional right and more importantly for a loving society Christians need to have the space to be able to act on their conscience.” My only problem with his statement is, that often, the ‘Christian conscience’ is willful determination of ‘flesh’ opinions rather than Holy Word of God revelation!

It wasn’t long ago, maybe same day as Jeb Bush, that former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, said, maybe same conference, “We are living in perilous times where people who are Christian are on the brink of being criminalized for their convictions.”

And both men, stressing their beliefs, are easily, in this day and time, set aside and considered ‘radical’ by ‘godless’ or even ‘misinformed’ professing believers who don’t stand on the Word of God! It’s difficult to “stand for Truth” when one’s foundation is built on “self-evaluation” rather than “God-revealed-Holy Truth”!

We can go all the way back to Joshua’s day when in Joshua 24:14-15 we read, Joshua speaking, “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

We live in days as a nation that are not foreign to any nation, any people, or even to one, and can visualize what goes on anywhere, anytime, with any persons, just like the historical history of Christ’s crucifixion on the Cross several thousand years ago! Come with me to Luke 23, beginning with Verse 32! “There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And they divided His garments and cast lots. And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” {“If”? Are you aware of the reality of literally millions and millions, more likely billions, who understand, ‘There IS the King of the Jews, the King of all Americans, the King of every European, African, or Asian’ but who selfishly decide for themselves as to whether or not they will choose to serve the Lord?!?}.

In Luke 23:34 then tells us that Christ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do,” {Which is so true of literally millions and millions who do not know what they do when they trivialize Christ, join those who divide His garments and “roll the dice” hoping what He says is not true – BUT IT IS!}. Even the rulers of Israel SNEERED, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

Don’t you find that so interesting? They had an inkling about ‘the Christ, the chosen of God,’ but couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t receive the prophetic word from many of their prophets hundreds and hundreds of years before His actual coming! Do you remember Jesus saying in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad”? Verse 57 follows, Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” In Verse 58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” And their response? THEN they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them (the “stone-throwers”), and SO PASSED (THEM) by.” {Will Jesus have to “pass you by” when all are brought before His Throne of Judgment, whether you like it or not?}.

In Luke 23:36-38 we read: The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrews: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Didn’t we just read in Luke 23:33, “And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.” At least Luke KNEW Jesus was not a criminal, but, as God in the flesh, Who willingly offered Himself as THE sacrifice for the sins of all humanity! Even John, early in his writing of the Gospel of John, John 1:14, wrote: “And the Word (the Living Word of God!!) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” proclaiming in Verse 29, The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Examine John 1:32-35! And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ AND I HAVE SEEN AND TESTIFIED THAT THIS IS THE SON OF GOD.” Again, the next day, John stood with two of His disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Dare I tell you that Christ Jesus IS “the Way of Life” that leads to the “way of death”? In Matthew 10:16-18,21-22 Jesus challenged the original ‘twelve disciples’, saying to them, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

Verses 21-22 then says, “Now brother will deliver up brother TO DEATH, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

It is so evidently true that to “follow Christ Jesus” is to follow Him in every step He had to take, including the way of ‘suffering’, the way of ‘rejection’, the way of ‘obedience’, willing to fulfill the Father’s eternal will: death to Himself that resurrection life and hope could, would, and was manifested! Oh, and then in John 20, after His crucifixion and burial and resurrection, in Verses 19-21, we read:

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:30-31 then says: And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

And do you understand that “life in His name” does not come in full fruition apart from the awareness of and willingness to die daily to the ‘flesh’, the old sin-nature, and self-will, plus, a readiness of physical death by persecution if it comes your way, BECAUSE you will not deny Him?

In 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Apostle Paul wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death (“the wages of sin is death”!), and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”! Did Holy God, the Father, allow Jesus’ death and then manifest His Holy Power to raise the dead after Jesus’ three days in the grave?

And, how pleased is God the Father for the willingness of 21^st Century disciples to offer their lives daily as a “willing sacrifice” taking that sentence daily to themselves that His Resurrection Life may be manifested in their mortal flesh?

Do you remember Paul and Silas imprisoned, Acts 16:20-24? It says: And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.” ( Ever heard it yourself? “We’re free Americans and not interested in anything you ‘Christians’ have to say! Keep on, and we’ll have you imprisoned, or kill you ourselves!”}. [I actually heard that threat in India as I preached openly on the streets!].

Continuing in Acts 16:22-24, Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.”

That was a literal event for faithful believers, and it does still happen today that some believers are physically jailed for faithful testimonies in certain locations. BUT there IS a ‘symbolism’ which extends to many today who are vocal for the faith but ostracized by ‘friends’ and ‘family’, opponents shutting the door on them for their outspoken challenge to receive Christ!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? Are you aware of Christian Institutional and openly, strong, faithful disciples of Christ witnessing a rapidly growing opposition and threats because of many enemies of God who are becoming openly hostile to the Word and Will of God and against those who uphold “All Scripture is divinely inspired…”?

Prayer is rapidly being removed from classrooms with kids being told “School is not a place to pray!” Really? Yes, really! Ten Commandments are being removed from lots of places across the Nation where the banners of Truth used to fly! In Sweden pastors have been jailed for opposing homosexuality – and that threat is not far away in the U.S.A.!

There’s an active homosexual- sick man named Mitchell Gold whose diatribe against the Word of God and churches, pastors, and faithful disciples who stand on that Word of God, who has said, “They must be made to take homosexuality off the sin list,” and a New York Time’s writer, Frank Bruni, affirmed Gold’s obscene opposition to Holy God and His Word, saying, “His commandment (that’s Mitchell Gold’s commandment) is worthy – and warranted.”

And what sickens me is when I hear some say of their pastors, “They’ll not expose or speak the Truth because they don’t want to offend ANYBODY!” God, help us! It’s as if our formerly great nation, “one nation under God”, is fast becoming a nation under opposition to God!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? I want to urge you right now to commit yourself to reading faithfully, over and over, the Book of Daniel for at least a week! In Daniel you’ll find, not trivializing Truth, but many who want Biblical Truth obliterated from the national scene or stage! Follow Daniel 6:1-16!

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps, to be over the whole kingdom; and over these, three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.

So the governors and satraps SOUGHT TO FIND SOME CHARGE AGAINST DANIEL concerning the kingdom; BUT THEY COULD FIND NO CHARGE OR FAULT, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, “We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”

So these governors and satraps thronged before the king, and said thus to him, “King Darius, live forever! All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisers, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.” Therefore King Darius signed the written decree.

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows opened toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.

And they went before the king, and spoke concerning the king’s decree: “Have you not signed a decree that every man who petitions any god or man within thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered and said, “The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.”

So they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is one of the captives from Judah, does not show due regard for you, O king, or for the decree you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

And the king, when he heard these words was greatly displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men approached the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed.”

SO the king gave the command, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. But the king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you.”

In Verses 21-22 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”

AND the accusers, on the king’s command, were all cast into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions overpowered them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever came to the bottom of the den!!!

What was King Darius’ response? He wrote a proclamation! Verses 25-28 says: “To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel For He is the living God, and steadfast forever; His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall endure to the end.

He delivers and rescues, and He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, Who has delivered Daniel from the power of lions.” So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Glory!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? John 8 is a strong chapter defining Christ’s strong “Personal Witness” against the ‘religious’ Pharisees who determined He deserved to die because He opposed their religious pretense and no true eternal foundation upon which they walked and talked “the game” yet they never faced their guilt, sin, and separation from Holy God, and certainly had no ears to hear both prophetic utterances from hundreds and hundreds of years before or His declaration of Messianic identity!

Jesus told them in John 8:19, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” Oh, and then in John 8:23-24 Jesus released the eternal arrow of Truth about the scribes and Pharisees and the ‘religious but unredeemed’ Jews: “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.”

In John 8:37-47 Jesus then said: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.” They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I

heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father – God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.

Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

So…Christ Jesus Himself was ‘criminalized’ by the religious, unbelieving, unrepentant crowd and CRUCIFIED ON THE CROSS for all men because of God’s great love for the world!

What went on then still goes on today! The unbelieving world still condemns the holy and congratulates the hollow; the unbelieving world sentences the sincere and celebrates the sinner; the unbelieving world imprisons the faithful and frees the ‘foul’ from any and every offense; the unbelieving world still maligns the merciful and merits the ‘molded’ in mind and heart!

It was Harriet Beecher Stowe who once said: “No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.” And, in most cases, it’s the godless man criminalizing those who stand for, in, and through the truth, resulting, for them, a Hell forever with the devil, his demons, and all rejecters of Biblical Truth, and all sin-infected ‘profound minds’, and all ‘superficial thinkers’ who know nothing about standing on Eternal Truth!

CHAPTER TEN

“SHEDDING THE SHAME-LIVING TO THE GLORY OF CHRIST’S NAME”

You’ll remember that I wrote a teaching recently entitled, “Bearing the Name, Living With Shame”! And it certainly majored on “pretenders”, “imitation game-players in the spiritual arena”, or like the scribes and Pharisees about whom Christ Jesus spoke “woes”, in one case saying, (Matthew 23:14), “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.”

There is a powerful, encouraging, challenging word in Psalm 4:2-3 when David “sang”: “How long, O you sons of men, will you turn my glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood? But know that the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly; The Lord will hear when I call to Him”, saying in Verse 8, “I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

What you’ve just read from the Psalms is both a song of divine safety, Prince of Peace gifting, and a song of living to the Glory of Christ’s Name, because through His shed blood, we are reconciled to the protective arms of Almighty, Holy, Loving, Caring, Holy God and His family of redemptive faith!

“Shedding the Shame”? The prophet, Isaiah, in Isaiah 54, began the chapter alerting attention to the “barren ones…who have not born,” alerting us to the fact and reality that, “For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord!

Oh, but then in Isaiah 54:3, enlightening the “true remnant of Israel”, are God’s promises to them, and us, “For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited.”

And then in Verses 4-8, the prophet increases the intensity of excitement, saying, “Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; (not Mohammed, not Confusius, not the idols of pagan peoples with their pagan gods); He is called the God of the whole earth!

For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused, says your God. “For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; BUT WITH EVERLASTING KINDNESS I WILL HAVE MERCY ON YOU,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.”

And when Holy God “sheds your shame”, He then said in Isaiah 54:14, “In righteousness you [Now!] shall be established [or “made to stand!],” adding in Verse 17, “This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me,” says the Lord.

Nor a ‘self-attained’ righteousness but a divinely implanted righteousness, not a recollection in one’s mind about God, but reconciliation with God through repentance and faith, not a positive ‘best effort’, but a persuasive, perpetual, powerful, Prince of Peace miracle of grace, not a collection or gathering of like-minded folks, but a conversion of the flesh-minded to the very mind of Christ, not a mental adjustment of a moral nature, but the might and miraculous power of Holy God; Oh, but then Paul, in Titus 3:5-7, declared, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, THROUGH the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that HAVING BEEN JUSTIFIED [declared ‘just as if we’d never sinned’!] by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” WHAT A DECLARATION OF REDEMPTIVE FAITH!

In “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations” that I turn to frequently as I write, I came across a statement by someone named Dwight E. Stevenson,(p.67), that shocked me! Whoever he is, Dwight Stevenson is credited with the following: “The Christian church is not a congregation of righteous people. It is a society of those who are not good.” And, I immediately was ‘sickened’, all because a man declares the ‘church’ ‘a society of those who are not good’! The ‘church’ of the Lord Jesus Christ is the “gathered” by Christ through their repentance and faith, and before Holy God the Bridegroom, Jesus, was united with you, His believing, trusting, yielded bride, “the righteous”, whom Jesus described in Matthew 13: 43, “Then the RIGHTEOUS will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

But as Jesus dealt with the ‘spiritual elite’ of Israel in His day of ministry on earth, the scribes and Pharisees, he spoke directly to a ‘seeking’ Pharisee, Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, in John 3:3-9, “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 (that’s ‘the water of the Word’!) and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said, to Him, “How can these things be?”

“Shedding the Shame – Living To The Glory of His Name”! How familiar are you with Ephesians 2:8-16? Paul wrote: “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.

THREFORE REMEMBER that you, once Gentiles in the flesh – who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands – that at that time YOU WERE WITHOUT CHRIST, BEING ALIENS from the commonwealth of Israel and STRANGERS FROM THE COVENANTS OF PROMISE, HAVING NO HOPE and WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD.

BUT NOW in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, [That’s God and man!] and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinance, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.”

Oh, we clearly know that man without God is fully described when in Romans 3:23 Paul said, “For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..”, but then in Verse 24-26 continues, (thank God!), “being JUSTIFIED FREELY by His grace through THE REDEMPTION THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS, whom GOD SET FORTH AS A PROPITIATION BY HIS BLOOD, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Let Biblical Truth sink in!! “Brought near by the blood of Christ”, the open door to the Holy Presence of God! “No separation from God but oneness with Him” through the blood! “Holy God births ‘new men’ through faith in Christ’s sacrifice”!

“Reconciled to God through Christ’s Cross”! “Redeemed” by the blood of the Lamb”! “Peace with God through Christ alone”! “Justified freely by God’s grace through Christ’s blood sacrifice”! “From ‘strangers to God’ to sons of God through Christ”! “Hopeless without the hope only Jesus gives to be brought into the Holy Family of God”! “God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus”! “Through Christ’s Cross, the old sin nature crucified – Resurrected, He grants Holy Presence within every true son and daughter of faith”! “Grit grounded and buried – grace the love gift of God in and through Christ Jesus”!

“No wavering before the promises of God in unbelief, but fully convinced that what God has promised, He’s ABLE to fulfill, in you”! “No excusing God’s sentence of death on your old nature, old man, old fleshly ambitions, but daily celebration and thanksgiving for being reconciled to God through the blood of the Lamb”! “No longer bound by the shame of a godless life, fleshly rebellion, loveless indifference, worldly desires, but NOW consumed with the passion to KNOW HIM and THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION, and THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS”!

Do YOU rejoice “in Christ” every day? Do YOU thank Him, every day, for your new, eternal, heavenly identity? Do YOU praise God that NOTHING has to separate YOU from God’s love because of WHO Christ Jesus is? Paul says in Romans 8: 37-39, “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created things, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

But “the battle, the warfare,” to separate us from our Savior is not any ‘small disturbance’ as we live in this world, but the battle-fronts of the world, the flesh, and the devil are faced in our life’s journey, regularly, looking for opportune moments to turn us away from our Lord and Savior! Paul assures us of “Victory In Jesus” when we lean not to our own understanding BUT Lean on Jesus, the Spirit, and the Word, reminding ourselves to Whom we truly belong!

In 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 Paul reminds us again of the spiritual war-clouds, war-storms we will face! “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 things that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”

How ‘strange’ a term Paul highlights for our modern day in America and American churches! Did he really say, “bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” and as a result refute the point many churches, pastors, leaders assert: “To say Christians have to obey” is, for them, to assert you don’t have to obey – “that would be salvation by works”! No, True salvation births a yielded, surrendered, willing heart, desirous of pleasing the Lord, Master, and Savior who has made true disciples His Holy Temple!

“Christ in you the hope of glory”, but you choose the choice of whether today you want Jesus to be Jesus in you, but when and how and where you please?

True believers are temples of Holy Presence! True believers are men so desirous of honoring Christ in them! True believers understand He ‘predestined’ repentant hearts and yielded souls to, yes, be conformed to the image of God’s Son, and that they clearly understand God called them to His intent, justified them, sanctified them, and glorified them in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

“LIVING TO THE GLORY OF HIS NAME”? Is this why God inspired Paul to instruct us, enlighten us, empower us in Romans 12:1-2? “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world but be [being!] transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

IF we are true believers living to the glory of His Name, are we, yes, praying daily, “Lord, your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, in us, through us, and by our devotion to Your Holy Presence to extend Your life to others, express Your love to others, and prove, yes, Your present life and power, extending Your Kingdom-rule, and fulfilling the eternal ‘heart-beat of the Father for His Kingdom-rule through others’”?

Even King David became awed by God’s purpose when in Psalm 40:5-10 he prayed: “Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened. [Are YOU hearing the voice of God speaking to YOU?]. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.

Then I said, “Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart. I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness in the great assembly; indeed, I do not restrain my lips, O Lord, You Yourself know. I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great assembly.”

“LIVING TO THE GLORY OF HIS NAME”? It was Leo Tolstoy, in his writing, “The Kingdom of God,” (Chapter 12), who wrote: “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 of us.” How true, and yet many believers remain “silent servants”, embracing ‘a tale told by others’ but not worthy enough for them to lay down their lives extending His Kingdom, expressing the fruit of His Spirit, and proving, by faithful trust, His power and able-ness in bringing others to His glory, grace, mercy, love, and eternal purpose through them! Are you “fruitful” in the extending and expressing and enlightening of Kingdom Living under Christ’s Lordship?

I heard a black disciple, not a pastor, speak in my son’s (Scott) church recently and hearing him say: “Churches are full but their doors are closed,” and what he was speaking about was a ‘cloud of unconcern’ for those of another race, with few outreach ministries, black or white, in both cultures!

I read an interesting quote from Frederick William Robertson, {“The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations”, compiled by Frank S.Mead, p.294}: “In these two things the greatness of man consists, to have God dwelling in us as to impart His character to us, and to have Him dwelling in us, that we recognize his presence, and know that we are His, and He is ours. – The one is salvation; the other, the assurance of it.” But I add a third: A deep awareness of responsibility in extending His Kingdom rule and expressing His love to the “lost” who need His “Blood-Redemption” also for their wayward walks apart from Him and His eternal purpose and plan through their redeemed lives!

“LIVING TO THE GLORY OF HIS NAME”? Holy God “convicts” one of his sin nature and need of redemption! Holy God “bears witness” through Christ’s Life, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and His desire to make your heart and life His earthly tabernacle and sanctuary of Holy Presence: Again, “Christ in YOU the hope of glory”! Holy God mandates in every new believer’s heart this word, Acts 1:8, “But YOU shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; AND YOU SHALL BE WITNESSES TO ME IN JERUSALEM, AND IN ALL JUDEA AND SAMARIA, AND TO THE END OF THE EARTH.” Didn’t Paul say later, in Acts 2:32, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.” Glory!

It’s so interesting AND convicting when we read in Matthew 20:25-28 that as Jesus called His disciples to Himself, He said: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

“LIVING TO THE GLORY OF HIS NAME”? We just read that Jesus came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” The one thing you ought to be assured of in this moment is that Christ came to You, forgave you, redeemed you, and anointed and appointed YOU to live and share the glory of His Name!! Christ Jesus came to unveil God’s mercy to you and through you!

In John 10:10b, Christ Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” HE CAME TO GIVE HIS LIFE AS A RANSOM FOR MANY, but how many around YOU are you seeing who lay their lives down for the lost, the alienated, the separated from God who so needs His love, grace, and mercy?

Hear me, “The soul that sins (and keeps on sinning) shall die,” but the soul that repents, returns, confesses and forsakes his sin, finds mercy and grace through the Lamb’s blood! And the “new, bright, eternal day” dawns and one begins to live to the glory of His Name, His honor, His praise! Spurgeon quoted an old, old hymn from his day, (Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, p.66), that says: “Come, guilty souls, and flee away, and look to Jesus’ wounds; This is the accepted Gospel day, Wherein free grace abounds….God loved His church, and gave His Son to drink the cup of wrath; And Jesus says He’ll cast out none Who come to Him in faith.” Faith is more than awareness – it’s trust!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“BEARING THE NAME-LIVING WITH SHAME”

“Bearing the Name, then living with the shame, is a life professing faith in Christ Jesus but continuing in a love-relationship with the world, the flesh, and the devil; sadly that’s a life still governed by selfishness rather than the Savior and Lord!

In “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” (p.398), Robert R. Brown 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.”

“Bearing the Name, then living with the shame of self-promotion and self-indulgence”, rather than faithful submission to Christ’s Lordship, is a willing renunciation of that Lordship and compromise with that which is diabolically opposed to the honor and glory of Holy God! And, sadly, sin-indulgent men live with no awareness of its harm and destructive influence and impact on others, even those and that it influences in its ‘cursing’ disregard of ‘blessing and honoring of God’!

Some are confronted with the claims of Christ Jesus for their hearts and lives, but are so contaminated by the sin of self-indulgence that “they” consider ‘suicide’ a better calling for them than surrender to Christ’s Lordship! THAT, my friends, is the depth rebellion can carry one to! But “cold-hearted”, “sin-bound” men will just celebrate their “lost-ness” and “separation” from God with indifference! Oh, and then, “believing Christians” just profess: “We’re under the Blood! So, it’s OK!”

There is a sad, sad commentary of Israel in Jeremiah 11:15-17, (Bearing a resemblance to Titus 1:10-16!!), with God saying in the prophetic passage: “What has My beloved to do in My house, having done lewd deeds with many? And the holy flesh has passed from you. When you do evil, then you rejoice. The Lord called your name, Green Olive Tree, Lovely and of Good Fruit. With the noise of a great tumult He has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken. For the Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced doom against you for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke Me to anger in offering incense to Baal.”

Isn’t it liberating to know what Proverbs 28:13 says? “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” But “covered” sounds so inviting, but “continuing” in after “forgiveness” (?) is more than costly – it’s deadly, destructive, deceiving, dis-abling, and reveals a lingering heart and mind of a darkened mind and heart, if though a ‘religious one’!

And I believe if one presses into Proverbs 28:13 he/she finds biblical covering through the shed blood of the Lamb of God that there is both forgiveness AND freedom to live in the fullness and blessing of His Resurrection Life – but forgiveness with a warped mind, “I can continue to sin since I’m under the blood of the Lamb” which is disgracing the name and work of Christ at the Cross!

In YOUR church surroundings have you witnessed “fig-leaf” dressing rather than clothed in the “finished” garments of the crucified and Resurrected Christ? The shed blood of Christ “washes” clean, but “fig-leaf” rationale suggests “self-will” rather than divine revelation!

Do you hear ‘unbelievers’ even denying their “sin” or sinful state and ‘trusting’ in their personal ‘pretense’, or ‘excusing’ themselves in blaming others – parents, teachers, ‘stars’ that surround them in ungodly behavior and ‘faith-denial’, and because they are such good people, good citizens, good soldiers, but faithless as to the blood redemption, they leave ‘flesh followers’ with no redemptive hope because they view it as unimportant to their ‘refined’ life?

In fact, many, many people, influenced by godless lives, ‘excuse’ their ‘sin’ as a ‘religionized, homogenized milk’ that is fundamental to every human, without consequence, because: “If there is a God, He made us this way; and it’s normal and natural, without consequence!” Others assert, “God’s to blame because He made us this way!” Blame God?

I love what Spurgeon said about it when he once said: “Shall the prisoner at the bar bring accusations against the Judge who tries him?” And “the prisoner in prison” blames the prison superintendent for his guilt and sentence of death?

“Fleshly denial” is certainly a strong influence for many ‘naturalized’ unbelievers AND ‘professing Christians’ who ‘blame God’. “If God ‘made’ man, ‘birthed’ man, and that with a sin nature, then it’s reasonable to blame Him, and free ourselves from guilt. The fault lies with God who made us, and He ought not be holding us accountable for what He created!”

Some say, ‘ God’s harsh in His judgments’, when fallen men initiate perverseness of lifestyles and vacuums of faith, trust, and obedience to the God who birthed them for the pleasures of self-will, self-pleasure, and self-rule – “We may be ‘fallen men’ in God’s mind, but we’re free to do as we please!” And most sense no need of the Savior, Lord, and Master of life!

Oh, but then there are those fully aware of disobedience to God, diabolical hiding to loving, caring Godly parents, and a coveting, masking, fraudulent hiding from even their fallen world around them, because, at least, they have no desire to be included with “transgressors”! So, they choose “dark clouds”, “deceitful explanations”, or only “deceived circles of sin” that they mostly move in, but at least “profess” and “attend” the church that Jesus loved and gave Himself for. They ‘imitate’, they ‘mimic’, they ‘copy’, they ‘assume’ the religious mask when they feel it’s necessary!

Again, Spurgeon wrote: [ Memorial Library, Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.12, p.187-188], “Possibly they themselves held their tongue, and flattered themselves that no observer witnessed their movements or could divulge their action. So it was with Achan. I dare say he took the wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment, ‘mid the confusion of the battle, and hid it when his comrades seemed to much engaged to notice so trivial an affair. While they were rushing over the fallen walls of Jericho, amidst the debris and the dust, he might be unmolested; and then, in the dead of night, while they slept, he turned the sod of his tent, dug into the earth, and buried there his coveted treasure. All looks right, to his heart’s content. He has smoothed it down, and spread his carpet over the grave of his lust. Little did he count on the unerring lot that would come home to the tribe of Judah, to the family of the Zarhites, to the house of Zabdir, and, at last, to the son of Carmi, so that Achan himself would have to stand out confessed as a traitor – a robber of his God. Men little know the ways in which the Almighty can find them out, and bring the evidence that convicts out of the devices that were intended to cover their sin.”

“Bearing the Name – Living with Shame”! One of the things that the “shameful” fail to realize, comprehend, or understand, is that ‘mental dexterity’ does not see, sense, or take note, that, though good at ‘covering their compromising lifestyle’, it does not close the door on Holy God’s spiritual examination and exposure of what’s going on in the secret places of a divided heart!

In Luke 11:17-26 we find a strong, exposing word from Jesus about “kingdom division”! He said: “Every kingdom divided against itself (‘half to Jesus – half to me?’) is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelezebub. And if I cast out demons by Beelezebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. HE WHO IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE WHO DOES NOT GATHER WITH ME SCATTERS.

When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came. And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

“Half to Jesus – half to me”, and the devil rejoices! “Split kingdoms are open doors to devilish shame”! A split kingdom is the devil’s opportunity to thrive in “spoiling” one’s compromised allegiances! Does that result in “empty vines”? Does that mean some measure “fruitfulness” in the spiritual walk as “fruit for myself”? I dare you to search the Scriptures for what it has to say about “divided hearts”!

How strong, how awakening do you find Romans 1:16-25, speaking of a religious but rebellious people who “bear the Name but live with shame”, except for “the few” who are truly the “blood bought” and who DIDN’T exchange “the Truth for the lie”, the lie meaning you can sin and NOT die! It Says:

“For I am not ashamed of the GOSPEL OF CHRIST, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes [Rests in, relies upon, & adheres to!), 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 shall live by faith.’

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who SUPPRESS THE TRUTH in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even the eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

Because, although THEY KNEW GOD, they DID NOT GLORIFY HIM as God nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

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, (the lie? You can sin and not die!), and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

“Bearing the name –Living with the shame?” It’s as if one who ‘bears the name’ believes he/she can cover “disobedience” by occasional response to Christ in some ‘form’ of a ‘Christ-like’ activity when in reality he/she loves the crossing of the line and life of holiness in fleshly rebellion “some of the time”. Concealed sin, cunning deliberation about how to hide it, evasions of responsibility and accountability, are ignored – then the Holy Word speaks! In Numbers 32:23 Moses said: “BE SURE YOU SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT!”

“Coverings, masks, excuses, ‘fleshly interpretations’, even outright denials of sin before Holy God” will have “no grounds” of excuse before the Judgment Bar of Holy God! Even long, elegant robes like the Pharisees and priests often wore in Temple activities, cannot conceal what reigns in the heart!

But there is eternal hope – not in our ‘self-efforts’, but in the finished work of Christ at the Cross! In Hebrews 13:20-21 we read: “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE EVERLASTING COVENANT, make you COMPLETE in every good work TO DO HIS WILL, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Again, Psalm 85:2 says: “You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; YOU HAVE COVERED ALL THEIR SIN. You have taken away all Your wrath; You have turned from the fierceness of Your anger,” and in His love, grace, and mercy, He sweeps us up in the arms of His Holy Presence, caresses us in His compassion, anoints us in His Spirit-Power, and the Most High establishes us in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

And like Paul, we’ve learned to daily take the sentence of death unto ourselves that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in mortal flesh! That’s “Christ in you the hope of glory”!

All because of the Love of God! Sinners declared saints, rebellious children birthed into the Holy Family of God, darkened lives becoming enlightened minds and hearts in the Glory of God, sin-imprisoned souls transformed into sons and daughters of Heaven’s Royal Family, condemned souls because of sin and the sin nature translated out of fleshly slavery to consecrated spirits of spiritual freedom and spiritual identity as royal ambassadors of the eternal Kingdom of God, the ‘chained’ to the devil’s dark kingdom-rule freed by the power of Christ over demonic control, ‘darkness’ allegiance, and the deathly walk of deception, loosed by the blood of the Lamb, no longer condemned because of sin but commissioned by the Master as His messengers!

Atoned, anointed, appointed, birthed, blessed, baptized in the Spirit, broken bread, poured out wine, consecrated on the altar of service as delegated representatives of the King of kings and Lord of lords, commissioned as holy representatives of the Savior and Lord, guiltless blood for guilty men, from darkened nights of the soul Christ changes miraculously the repentant heart into the Eternal Daylight by His Being, His Presence, His Purpose, His Power, as constant “Son-risers” and “Servant-saints”, and “Sanctified-Sermons” of His grace, mercy, and love!

Do YOU testify and testify regularly? Far too many ‘believers’ who ARE “temples of Christ’s holy presence”, though ‘steepled’, too often fail to ring their “bells” of worthy testimony that the spiritually unlearned might be drawn to Christ by their ringing – but sadly too many times, those “bells” are never rung!

You, as you hear this, may be those who have been redeemed but you haven’t truly reverenced Him because you’re not sure He can redeem others through you! But John 15:13 tells us about “greater love” – and it says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends”; and then Jesus said in Verse 14, “YOU ARE MY FRIENDS, if you do whatever I command you.” Has there been a New Testament, Christ-Spoken, Spirit-anointed Word to all believers? YES!

In John 15:22 Jesus went on to say to His disciples, and us, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, BUT NOW THEY HAVE NO EXCUSE FOR THEIR SIN.” And, of course, some would say that that related to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but not to all Christians since then. Really? Don’t forget what “All Scripture” is for all believers!

There certainly is the reality of men who pore through the Word but deny its worth for the redemption of their souls! There are those who ‘examine’ Him but without any intent of “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at Calvary’s Cross and the Empty Tomb! There are those who admire His compassion but will deny His Crown! There are those who give credit to Him for His strong character and caring outreach to the hungry and needy, but care not that He confessed He was the Promised Messiah! To them, “No man can atone for the sin of all humanity!”

In 1 Peter 2:22-25 Peter wrote, speaking of Christ Jesus, “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.”

This is why the author of Hebrews sought to awaken sleeping souls when he wrote in Hebrews 9:27-28, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” A sinful vessel washed, purified, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, becomes the holy temple of His residence in true believers of redemptive faith! Parodies abound in unbelieving hearts and minds, but “symphonies of praise” are heard worldwide by the “Blood-bought” citizens of Christ’s glorious Kingdom!

Oh, it’s ‘easy’ to deny Christ’s saving grace and mercy when one’s intent is to live with and satisfy one’s sin nature! Self-pride, self-indulgence, self-adulation becomes ‘ruler’ in so many sin-blackened minds and hearts! But one, also, of the great stumbling blocks in unbelievers is their ‘love’ of indifference and unconcern for anything ‘spiritual’! In fact, most unbelievers and rebellers against Holy Truth are “listless”, or, as the Dictionary describes it: “feeling or showing no inclination toward or interest in anything,” except self-rule, self-indulgence and self-pleasure!

Most unbelievers are immersed in the monopoly of what promotes the success I want in what “I” determine as ‘my way of salvation’. But since only true redemptive faith in Christ’s shed blood washes away one’s guilt, ‘fleshly resolutions’ become the fallen’s avenue to success, but always falling short, missing the mark, and coming up empty and drained without saving grace and mercy and love from God Himself!

In Isaiah 45:22-24 the prophet wrote a word from God that call every unbelieving man to repentance and faith. God said: “LOOK TO ME, AND BE SAVED, all you ends of the earth! For I AM GOD, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself’ the word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, THAT TO ME EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW, EVERY TONGUE SHALL TAKE AN OATH. He shall say, ‘Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, and all shall be ashamed who are incensed against Him.”

No ‘looking to Him,’ no repenting of one’s sin, no surrendering to His Lordship, no resting in His shed blood and His promise of forgiveness and resurrection life, no turning to worship and praise the God of Creation, the God of the Cross, and the God whose Throne is in Heaven, Over the Earth, and according to Hebrews 1:8, But to the Son God says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. Verse 9, You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

Yet, how easy for many to “Bear His Name –Yet – Live With Shame”! But then the grace of God is “Rescuing the perishing, and caring for the fallen!” I love Frederick William Robertson’s words in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” [p.399], “We are too much haunted by ourselves, projecting the central shadow of self on everything around us. – And then comes the Gospel to rescue us from this selfishness. – Redemption is this, to forget self in God.”

B.B. McKinney and W.T. Dale co-authored an old Hymn entitled: “Crimson Calvary Answers, ‘No!’” Their words? “Shall I be condemned forever, If I to the Lord draw near; If I sue for peace and pardon, Will He deign to hear my prayer? Will He scorn my deep contrition, Will He not His grace bestow? Will He scorn my heart’s petition? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

I am mourning over my follies; I am weeping over my sin; For my guilt’s become oppressive, And a burden long has been; Will the Lord be gracious to me, If I tell Him all my woe, Will He leave me in my anguish? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

If I go and tell Him truly How I have His love abused, How I’ve sinned against His mercy, And His pardon have refused; Will He grant His loving favor When in penitence I go; Or in wrath will He forsake me? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“EVIDENCES OF NEW-BIRTH CONVERSION”

In his book entitled “Inklings of God”, Kurt Bruner used a quote by Winston Churchill in his Introduction that says: “Man will occasionally STUMBLE OVER THE TRUTH, BUT MOST OF THE TIME HE WILL PICK HIMSELF UP AND CONTINUE ON,” and I say, totally ignoring ‘divine intervention’!

But do YOU realize how true that statement is? And, especially when confronted by Christ Himself saying to us all, “You MUST be born again, born from above, born of the Spirit,” but many are offended, resentful, and continue on in unbelief.

I was impressed by Kurt Bruner when later in the same book, (p.147), he said, “Frankly, I embrace the Christian faith because it points to a God who expects us to behave ourselves but who also knows we can’t.” But do YOU also know that God KNOWS we can’t ‘redeem’ ourselves? Yet, man-made ‘religions’ worldwide think and act ‘synthetically’, thinking they are ‘authentically’ worshipping, even though like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, deny Christ, the Promised Messiah, and deny His calling: “You must be born again”, and still today the ‘synthetic’ denies the “authentic”, “eternal reality of the Crucified, Resurrected Lord and Savior”!

And, sadly, many modern-day, so-called ‘Christian churches’, live in the façade of even active denial of “new birth” when they believe ‘church membership’ is the same!

Walter Chantry, in his writing, “Today’s Gospel,” (p.13), wrote: “Products of modern evangelism are often sad examples of Christianity. They make a profession of faith, and then continue to live like the world… ‘Decisions’ for Christ mean very little. Only a small proportion of those who ‘make decisions’ evidence the grace of a transformed life.”

But sadly a large number of American churches AND some preachers major on a “you can do it” mentality rather than “Christ in you the hope of glory”! No wonder Socrates became a well-appreciated philosopher! He once said: “To move the world we must first move ourselves.” Where do you find that in the Word of Almighty God? Didn’t Paul tell us, 2 Corinthians 1:9, [New Chain Reference Bible], “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead”?

Most humans all across the world in their nations, or here in the USA, are mostly oblivious to the state of their spiritual death and separation from Holy God! Spiritual success in life is not by the mental philosophy of ‘whatever you sense, you can succeed,’ which may have some ‘truth’ for the ‘flesh’, but has no relevance at all to the spiritual dimension that most know nothing about!

So many today, yes, even worldwide, are locked into the philosophy of ‘self-achievement’ so strongly that rewarding ‘self’ with pats on one’s back blocks, denies, ignores, or starves any Word, leaning, or turning from that ‘self’ to the “Savior”! Life is not a ‘do what you can’ mental philosophy, but an eternal opportunity to be ONE with God Himself through Christ alone!

It’s amazing to me, and exciting, as I read a statement by Benjamin Franklin. He said several hundred years ago,(?), “There is perhaps not one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of ‘my humility’.” That’s Why we were “crucified with Christ”!

Are you aware though, at times, of the “embarrassing encumbrances” that are brought on a lot of ‘church folk’ who are swamped by ‘self-importance’, who are drowning in ‘self-worth’ that Christ crucified, and stubbornly, stupidly, studiously in pagan teachings, devote themselves to “what we’ve become” apart from the revealed knowledge of God as to the Way, the only Way, to their salvation, healing, deliverance, and completion?

David F. Wells, in his book, “No Place For Truth,” [Wm.B.Eerdmans Publ. Com., Grand Rapids, Mich., & Inter-Varsity Press, Leichester, England, 1993], so unveiled for me a story that encouraged this message! [Introduction, p.10}” Wells wrote: “In saying that I am a staunch disbeliever in the modern world, I do not wish to appear immodest, as if I come finished with the knowledge of a new discovery. In fact, I do not. In this connection, I will remember G.K.Chesterton’s story about the restless yachtsman who set sail from England with the intention of arriving at an exotic South Sea Island. After many days, he sighted land and, as soon as he could, beached his boat and ventured inland. Before him stood a dreadful pagan temple. Undaunted, he decided to claim it for England. He scaled its walls and bravely planted the Union Jack [flag] at its pinnacle. Only then did he realize that what he had scaled was the Brighton Pavilion on England’s south coast! He thought he had sailed a straight line, but because of an unfortunate miscalculation he had ACTUALLY TRAVELED IN A CIRCLE. He imagined that he was first in the land, but it turned out that he was the last.”

Do you realize, sense, or discern, that many, many people begin their “religious journeys” on the basis of men’s speculations about what they think God expects rather than Jesus’ declaration: “You MUST be born again”?

Do you remember Paul saying in Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, [and I would say also, “and don’t be conformed to a man-made religious world”!], but be {being} transformed by the renewing of your mind.” And what the Holy Word through Christ Jesus teaches is not simply a ‘mind change’ but a mind changed by the birthing of a new heart through our Lord’s love, grace, and mercy, AS A RESULT OF HOLY-SPIRIT-CONVICTION AND HOLY SPIRIT CONVERSION!

Several verses from John 3 that I want to use in the foundation and overview of this message: John 3:5-7 says: (Amplified Bible), Jesus answered, “I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, except a man be born of water (that’s the “water of the Word”!) and (even) the Spirit, he cannot [ever] enter the kingdom of God.[Ezekial 36:25-27].

What is born of [from] the flesh is flesh – of the physical is physical; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not – do not be surprised, astonished – at My telling you, “You must all be born anew (from above).”

Oh, and then in John 3:16-21 (Amplified Bible) we read: ‘FOR god so greatly loved AND dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only-begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts, clings to, relies upon) Him shall not perish – come to destruction, be lost – but have everlasting life.

For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge – to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on – the world; but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.

He who believes on Him – who clings to, trusts in, relies on Him – is not judged (he who trusts in Him never comes up for judgment; for him there is no rejection, no condemnation; he incurs no damnation). But he who does not believe (not cleave to, rely on, trust in Him) is judged already; (he has already been convicted; has already received his sentence) because he has not believed on and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God. – He is condemned for refusing to let his trust rest in Christ’s name.

The [basis of the] judgment (indictment, the test by which men are judged, the ground for the sentence) lies in this: that the Light is come into the world, and people have loved the darkness rather than and more than the Light, for their works (deeds) were evil. [Isaiah 5:20].

For every wrongdoer hates (loathes, detests) the light and will not come out into the light, but shrinks from it, lest his works – his deeds, his activities, his conduct – be exposed and reproved. BUT HE WHO PRACTICES TRUTH – who does what is right (according to God’s Word, will, and His ways!) – comes out into the light; so that his works may be plainly shown to be what they are, wrought with God – divinely prompted, done with God’s help, in dependence upon Him.”

“EVIDENCES OF NEW BIRTH CONVERSIONS”? FIRST, NO LONGER IS THERE THE DENIAL OF ONE’S ‘OLD MAN’ SIN NATURE AND SEPARATION FROM GOD BUT A PASSIONATE LONGING OF RECONCILIATION!

Sometimes it takes a Holy Word from God to release His deep conviction in one’s lost, alienated, separated from Him awareness in unbelieving hearts; and I believe 2 Peter 2:4-5 can be that ‘shock awareness’ in some hearts and minds! It says: [Amplified Bible], “For God [even] SPARED NOT ANGELS THAT SINNED, BUT CAST THEM INTO HELL, DELIVERING THEM TO BE KEPT THERE IN PITS OF GLOOM TILL THE JUDGMENT AND THEIR (FINAL) DOOM. And He spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven other persons, when He brought a flood upon the world of ungodly [people].”

Notice! GOD DIDN”T EVEN SPARE ANGELS WHO SINNED BUT CAST THEM INTO HELL! GOD DIDN”T SPARE EVEN THE ANCIENT WORLD, EVEN ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENDERS’ CALLED “JUDAIZERS”, OR ‘PROMINENT’, WELL-KNOWN NATIONAL POLITICAL LEADERS, OR THE “DO MY BEST” CROWD OF the ‘self-anointed’ who worship and are devoted to their old sin natures as personal points of admiration to which they yield themselves!

In fact, Hebrews 10:25-31, my prayer is that “IT WILL SCARE HELL OUT OF YOU, IF NEEDED TO!” It says: “Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together [as believers], as is the HABIT OF SOME PEOPLE, but admonishing – warning, urging and encouraging – one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching.

For if we go on deliberately and willfully sinning after once acquiring the knowledge of the Truth, there is no longer any sacrifice to atone for [our] sins – no further offering to which we look forward. [There is nothing left for us then] but a kind of awful and fearful prospect and expectation of divine judgment and the fury of burning wrath and indignation which will consume those who put themselves in opposition [to God]. [Isaiah 26:11].

Any person who has violated and [thus] rejected AND set at naught the Law of Moses is put to death without pity or mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. [Deut. 17:2-6]. How much worse (sterner and heavier) punishment do you suppose he will be judged to deserve who has spurned AND [thus] trampled under foot the Son of God, and who has considered the covenant blood by which he was consecrated common and unhallowed, thus profaning it and insulting the (Holy) Spirit (Who imparts) grace – the unmerited favor and blessing of God? {Exo.24:8}.

For we know Him Who said, Vengeance is Mine – retribution and the meting out of full justice rest with Me; I will repay – I will exact the compensation, says the Lord. And again, The Lord will judge and determine and solve and settle the cause and the cases of His people. It is a fearful (formidable and terrible) thing to incur the divine penalties AND be cast into the hands of the living God!”

IF you were “crucified with Christ”, does that not mean He took YOU, your old sin nature, your old godless-living life, and PUT IT TO DEATH on the Cross with Him as He shed His blood that ALL YOUR SIN AND MINE MIGHT BE WASHED AWAY? Why ‘resurrect’ what Jesus crucified?

SECOND, “EVIDENCE OF NEW-BIRTH CONVERSION”? “NO LONGER A DEEP, ABIDING LOVE OF THE WORLDLY INFLUENCES OR PEACE WITH ALL THE DEVILISH AND DEMONIC INFLUENCES AND CONTROL”! Here’s how John relates this, as we read his anointed exposure and heavenly challenge in 1 John 2:2-6!

“And He – that same Jesus Himself – is the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins, and not for ours alone but also for [the sins of] the whole world. And this is how we may discern [daily by experience] that we are coming to know Him – to perceive, recognize, understand and become better acquainted with Him: if we keep (bear in mind, observe, practice) His teachings (precepts, commandments).

Whoever says, I know Him – I perceive, recognize, understand and am acquainted with Him – but fails to keep and obey His commandments (teachings) is a liar, and the Truth [of the Gospel] is not in him.

But he who keeps [treasures] His Word – who bears in mind His precepts, who observes His message in its entirety – truly in him has the love of ‘and’ for God has been perfected (completed, reached maturity). By this we may perceive and know and recognize and be sure that we are in Him;

Whoever says he abides in Him ought – as a personal debt – to walk and conduct himself in the same way in which He walked and conducted Himself.”

Christ Jesus was so aware of both the religious influences of false Judaism (not the true “remnant”!) and the darkness of devilish, demonic activities through man-made ‘religious expressions’, when in John 6:57-69, He said, with Peter then grabbing hold and holding on to “Jesus Only”:

“Just as the living Father sent Me, and I live (by, through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me – who takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me – shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me. This is the Bread which came down from heaven. It is not like the manna which our forefathers ate and yet died. He who takes this Bread for his food shall live forever.

He said these things in a synagogue while He was teaching at Capernaum. When His disciples heard this, many of them said, This is a hard and difficult and strange saying – an offensive and unbearable message. Who can stand to hear it? – Who can be expected to listen to such teaching?

But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were complaining and protesting and grumbling about it, said to them: Is this a stumbling block and an offense to you? – Does this upset and displease and shock and scandalize you? What then [will be your reaction] if you should see the Son of Man ascending to the place where He was before?

It is the Spirit that gives life – He is the Life-giver; the flesh conveys no benefit whatever – there is no profit in it. The words (truth) that I have been speaking to you are spirit and life. But [still] some of you fail to believe and trust and have faith. For Jesus knew from the first who did not believe and had no faith, and who would betray Him and be false to Him.

And He said, This is why I have told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him – unless he is enabled to do so – by the Father. After this many of His disciples drew back – returned to their old associations – and no longer accompanied Him.

Jesus said to the twelve, Will you also go away? And do you too desire to leave Me? Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words (the message) of eternal life. And we have learned to believe and trust; and [more], we have come to know [surely] that You are the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of the living God.”

There is such a vast difference between ‘religious’ individuals who WILL FALL AWAY and the vital picture and reality of a regenerated soul, indwelt by and led by the Holy Spirit! In John 6:63 Jesus said: “It is the Spirit that gives life – He is the Life-giver; the flesh conveys no benefit whatever – there is no profit in it. The words (truths) that I have been speaking to you are spirit and life.”

I love Watchman Nee’s word in his book, “Ye Search The Scriptures,” [Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc. New York, Copyright 1974], (p.16), “Canst thou by searching find out God”, challenges the Book of Job (11:7). God is never arrived at through research. He is found by one way only – through the regenerated spirit.”

In 1 Corinthians 2:1-4, “As for myself, brethren, when I came to you I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony and evidence or mystery or secret of God [concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation of men] in lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom;

For I resolved to know nothing – to be acquainted with nothing; to make a display of the knowledge of [nothing] – among you except Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and Him crucified. And I (passed into a state of) weakness and was in fear (dread) and great trembling [after I had ] among you.

And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive (enticing and plausible) words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the [Holy] Spirit and power of God, operating on me and stirring in the minds of my hearers the most holy emotions and thus persuading them.”

An unbelieving world, a self-indulgent flesh, and a demonically, devilish controlled mind will create and establish all kinds of ‘religious mannerisms’ but oppose “You must be born again”! For the most part, fallen humanity and the devil’s crowd and, yes, ‘church pretenders’ will settle for religious entertainment but highly oppose no longer living for yourself but living for Christ alone!

What did Paul write in 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1? Don’t miss, overlook, or casually kind of knod at his word!! It says: [Again, Amplified Bible!], “Do not be unequally yoked up with unbelievers – do not make mismated alliances with them, or come under a different yoke with then [inconsistent with your faith]. For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness? Or how can light fellowship with darkness?

What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial [the devil]? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement [can there be between] a temple of God and idols? For (In Christ!) WE ARE the temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

SO, come out from among (unbelievers), and separate (sever) yourselves from them, says the Lord, and touch not [any] unclean thing; then I will receive you kindly and treat you with favor. And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

7:1, Therefore, since these great promises are ours, beloved, LET US CLEANSE ourselves from everything that contaminates and defiles body and spirit,, and bring [our] consecration to completeness in the (reverential) fear of God.”

I have no doubts that even most ‘church folk’ easily accept the blood of the Cross for their forgiveness but will rebel, excuse, accuse faithful men of the Word for lying when they even share Jesus saying, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, but you do not do what I Say?” Dare I tell YOU that obedience is not an option in the age of grace?

Spiritual focus, even in a religious setting, is more often on fleshly concerns rather than divine revelation or the ultimate Will of God’s eternal intent? I love what Charles Stanley wrote in his booklet, “In Touch”, [April,2016, p.13], “The Lord isn’t looking for people who change a few habits by sheer force of will; He’s calling people to surrender to Him…We don’t evolve into a saved people by deleting old habits and instituting better religious ones; we are transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ when we believe [trust in, rely upon, adhere to] Him.”

Many ‘church folk’ are highly appreciative of ‘compromisers’ because they ‘believe’ that “fleshly indulgence is justified because, though one is ‘saved’, he/she cannot do anything but sin until Christ comes again – so they blame God rather than trust His Truth! They are euphorically violent to those who uphold Jesus’ Word, like when He said, “Go, and sin no more,” but they believe sin in a believer is ‘normal, and that without ‘guilt’, because “God is love”.

There’s even by some a ‘ministerial’ maligning of the Holy Word because they feel ‘justified’ in ungodly behavior though a professing believer. And in the world around you there is philosophical rationalization because of spiritual ‘brain-tumors’ called resistance to Holy Truth! “Who needs a ‘Savior’? We’re OK , you with or without Christ are OK”! Really?

But I can tell you without hesitation that to continue sinning as a ‘believer’ is to deny Jesus’ Victory at the Cross and to refute Jesus’ words in John 15:22, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but NOW they have no excuse for their sin.”

Do you remember Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:34? “Awake (from your drunken stupor and return) to sober sense and your right minds, AND SIN NO MORE. For some of you have not the knowledge of God – you are utterly and willfully and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, LACKING THE SENSE OF GOD’S PRESENCE AND ALL TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM. I say this to your shame.”

But, in Isaiah 41:8-15, there is a powerful word of hope to, ‘sometimes’, discouraged disciples who’ve ‘tried’ to live the overcoming life, (with no ‘discipleship’ training), but only a sad pastoral “do your best”. IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, at the Cross Jesus took YOUR worst and YOUR best, and it was “crucified with Christ”! Look at Isaiah’s ‘Word of Hope’!

• Isaiah 41:9, “I have chosen you and not cast you off.” 2) Verse 10, “Fear not…for I am with you.” 3) Verse 10, “I AM your God…(Elohim), meaning the “high and lifted up, the mighty One,” and He’s ‘able’ to sustain us, strengthen us, and guard us (if we let Him) against the world you face, the “old man” trying to resurrect, AND even victorious over Satan! 4) Verse 10, “I WILL STRENGTHEN AND HARDEN YOU TO [DIFFICULTIES]…”. This is probably why Paul shared, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” because he did not lean on ‘fleshly abilities’ but Holy Presence – ‘Christ in YOU the hope of glory’! 5) Verse 10 again – “I will hold you up and retain you with My victorious right hand of rightness and justice.” God said in Isaiah 42:13, “The Lord will go forth as a mighty man; HE WILL ROUSE HIS ZEALOUS INDIGNATION AND VENGENCE LIKE A WARRIOR; HE WILL CRY, YES, HE WILL SHOUT ALOUD, HE WILL DO MIGHTILY AGAINST HIS ENEMIES.” 6) Verses 11-13 – “Behold, all they who are enraged and inflamed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; they who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall PERISH. You shall seek those who contend with you, and shall not find them; they who war against you shall be as nothing, as nothing at all.” 7) Verse 15 – “Behold, I will make you to be a new, sharp, threshing instrument having teeth…” In 2 Corinthians 13:10 Paul wrote: “So I write these things while I am absent from you, that when I come to you I may not have to DEAL SHARPLY in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me, [to be employed, however] for building [you] up and not tearing you down.” The “SHARP TOOL” of Holy Truth will ‘shape’ you in His image or ‘silence’ your voice if you betray Him!

“Evidence of NEW-BIRTH CONVERSIONS”, sharpened in life by His Word, Will, and Work OR slicing to threads the disobeying, compromising, contented disciple who “plays” on both sides of the street? WHICH LEADS US TO NUMBER THREE AND LAST: “NO LONGER DEVOTION TO WALK OUT ONE’S LIFE OF ‘FAITH’ (?) ON THE “STREETS OF SELF-INDULGENCES AND SELF-FLESH EMPHASES,” BUT STEPPING FAITHFULLY ON THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS!

In Colossians 2:5-10 Paul so strongly lays the foundation of a truly birthed and overcoming ‘Life In Christ’! “For though I am away from you in body, yet I am with you in spirit, delighted at the sight of your [standing shoulder to shoulder in such] orderly array and the firmness and the solid front and steadfastness of your faith in Christ, [that leaning of the entire human personality on Him in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom and goodness]. As you therefore received the Christ, [even] Jesus the Lord, [so] walk – regulate your lives and conduct yourselves – in union and conformity to Him.

Have the roots [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him] – fixed and founded in Him – being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding and overflowing in it with thanksgiving.

See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism, and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human traditions – men’s ideas of the material [rather than the spiritual] world – just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe, and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ, the Messiah.

For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead), continues to dwell in bodily form – giving complete expression of the divine nature. AND you [in Christ] are in Him, made full and have come to fullness of life – in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and reach full spiritual stature. And He is the Head of all rule and authority – of every angelic principality and power.”

Don’t you think this foundation of the true “Evidence of New-Birth Conversion” is seen in what Paul wrote to us? And it strongly agrees with what Christ Himself said when in John 7:37-38 we read: “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink! He who believes in Me – who cleaves to and trusts in and relies upon Me – as the Scripture has said, Out from his innermost being springs and rivers of living water shall flow (continuously).”

Even in the walk of redemptive faith there are doors before us – some to condemnation, frustration, and captivity, while others are Christ’s ‘door’ to liberty, freedom from bondage to the old sin nature and ‘birthed’ to the freedom of everlasting life in the here and now, in and through Christ alone! SO…it’s either:

Self-directed in one’s ‘walk of faith’ OR “born-again to new LIFE IN CHRIST”; it’s either a ‘kingdom rule’ that is fleshly rich in sensual satisfactions or the Holy Spirit-enriched life in the very wealth of Holy God and Heaven’s Son, better known as “Emmanuel”, or “God With Us, God in Us, God through Us”, because of Resurrection Life in Christ, Resurrection Power through Christ, and Resurrection Hope instilled within us by His Holy Presence!

It’s ‘philosophically-wise’ in godless ways or personally and intimately blessed with the very “mind of Christ”! It’s either trained by the best of a world’s ‘master’ deceivers, even the devil himself, or Sovereignly guided by the Holy Spirit, truly enriched by the treasures of His Holy Word, and “Master-led” disciple makers who “feed” us on the “bread of life,” the “milk of the Word,” and upon the very “meat” of God’s Holy Truth!

The claim of Christ that He had come that we might have life and that abundant was not a fictitipous claim of a ‘false prophet’ but from the Creator of mankind and the Savior and Lord over mankind!

Jesus said: “I AM THE DOOR” to reconciliation with God, the door of divine forgiveness, the door to abiding presence of God within repentant and faith-filled hearts, and the door of receiving, walking in, and being blessed by the fruit of His Holy Life and His Holy Spirit!

Don’t you find it sad and heart-breaking that you see around you, yes, multitudes who are ‘satisfied’ with the ‘flesh-life’ and all it has to offer, closing the door on the love, grace, and mercy of God. But time will unveil for many the fundamental reality that vocational and financial successes fall short of filling the inner hunger that only Christ Jesus meets and fills!

In Catherine Marshall’s book, “Something More,” [COPYRIGHT, 1961, by Catherine Marshall, Published by Chosen Books, Lincoln, Va. 22078], (p.3), she wrote about “the famous Hollywood actress, Mary Astor, (who) has known the fairy-tale of movie stardom. An Academy Award, glamourous marriages, two children, several Beverly Hills mansions, furs, jewels, publicity – what more could any woman want? Yet Mary Astor admitted in print that ‘for years – even in the midst of fame and glamor – I yearned for contentment, happiness. It took me almost twenty years to go from idle curiosity about religion…to meeting God as a Person and a Father, and knowing that walking in (redemptive) faith meant growing up.”

AND THAT “GROWING UP” IS “FALLING DOWN” before the King of kings and Lord of lords, REPENTING, TRUSTING, RESTING IN HIS FINISHED WORK AT THE CROSS< AND EXPERIENCING THE REALITY OF HIS INDWELLING PRESENCE THROUGH THE “EVIDENCES OF A NEW-BIRTH” RELATIONSHIP!

IS YOUR BODY NOW THE “HOLY TEMPLE”?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“THE UNDESERVED OR UNRESERVED RELEASE OF GOD’S OMNIPOTENT POWER!”

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 FOURTEEN

“THE FLESHLY UNFULFILLED OR THE SPIRITUALLY FULFILLED?”

In 2 Corinthians 1:12 Paul stated, “For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.” ‘Conduct in the world’? And Paul laid down his challenge: “Not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God”! And, you realize, there are multitudes who live by ‘grit’, honoring one’s fleshly determination or fleshly abilities, but not to God’s honor and glory, leaving ‘fleshly lives; UNFULFILLED, though crowned by the world and the devil as outstanding folks and ‘worthy examples’.

As Jesus was instructing His disciples, He said in Mark 9:35, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Yet how many do you know who function through ‘flesh’ at its best and miss God’s eternal intention, with a fleshly, unfulfilled, short of God’s blessing, satisfied with their best life-style and fleshly effort?

Are you aware of the danger of fleshly imagination that has nothing to do with ‘eternal purpose’, but is even that which either doesn’t consider ultimate intention by divine design, or personally chooses to exalt one’s self through personal self-determination above even the knowledge of God Himself?

If the Lord Jesus lived “to do My Father’s will”, don’t you find it so strange that even most Christians have not been disciplined in “bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”? As a result, their view of their salvation ‘experience’ is short-changed concerning relating to worldly influences, old sin-nature limitations, or even the devil’s interferences with the fullness of their development!

But, “the fleshly unfulfilled” I see as worldly, unfulfilled unbelievers who determine to be ‘god’ or ‘goddesses’ themselves, godless lives governed by self-rule, even satisfied with their own “just-rewards”. Didn’t Paul tell young Timothy about those who were “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of, (some) having a form of godliness but deny its power. And from such people turn away”? [2 Timothy 3:5].

It’s interesting that even in old Israel there came a time, even a time after the time, when, As Deborah said that she arose as a ‘mother’ in Israel only to see Israel “choosing new gods”! [Judges 5:8]. But, of course, in modern-day America, I’m not sure many Americans (?) now have any grasp of the “new gods they choose wo worship”!

Most today bow to a ‘god or goddess’ of appearances with more attention to outside ‘show’ but no inward purified hearts by the blood of the Lamb! Psalm 82:5 speaks of those who, “do not know, nor do they understand; they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of [their] earth is unstable.”

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? Sadly, most are unaware of a ‘way of evil’, walking perverted paths, with no concern for the path of uprightness because they truly love the ways of darkness, rejoice in doing evil things, delight in the perversity of the wicked, looking for crooked paths, desirous pleasures, and devilish men and women – they love unrighteousness and bow willingly before their idols of darkness, deceit, and deathly deception.

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? In 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, Paul spoke of a ‘lawless one (who) will be revealed, saying, “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. AND FOR THIS REASON God will send them a strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth BUT HAD PLEASURE IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.”

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? I have no hesitation in saying that unbelievers that avoid “spiritual fulfillment” are individuals undeniably interested only in themselves, with an attitude of mind and heart that is in “what pleases me, the cares of my world, the concerns of what satisfies me and me alone.” Many are so carnal, crude, self-caring, that to expose their need of the Redeemer heightens their anger, resentment, and bitterness! For many, it’s ‘cold minds’, ‘cold hearts,’ and ‘over-all coldness’ to even the awesome love of God for them or even the Name of Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior!

In Luke 19:41 as Jesus “wept over Jerusalem”, I’m convinced the Ascended Lord at the right hand throne of Almighty God still weeps over cities all over the world, 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.”

How many times have you heard someone say that Jesus spoke in parables to make it easily understandable to them about what He wanted them to grasp? Yet when you read what He said in Matthew 13, having spoken of “the Parable of the Sower,” in verses 3-9, the disciples of Christ came asking Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” Jesus responded in Verses 11-17,

“Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, BUT TO THEM IT HAS NOT BEEN GIVEN. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, BECAUSE SEEING THEY DO NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY DO NOT HEAR, NOR DO THEY UNDERSTAND. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes THEY have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so I should heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

You do realize that when most men hear about “water” they are considering a physical water to drink, or a water to nourish their fresh-sown seeds, or a water that cleans a dirty car or what they wash their sweaty bodies with, but they never consider “living water”, or as Proverbs 21:1-2 says, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes. Every way of man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.” [And does YOUR heart over-flow with rivers of your own will or rivers of the divine will?]. Sadly, most ‘fleshly’ lives are not even aware of any fountains of life that ought to be ‘abounding with the water” of Life in Christ, of Holy Presence, or of Holy Purpose!

In Jeremiah 2:13, though speaking historically of ‘the chosen people of Israel’, what the prophet heard God say speaks prophetically of all men who go their own way: “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 Jeremiah is usually associated with “Lamentations” – and he certainly had much to lament about as he saw his own people turning to their own fleshly ways. There is a bold, icing word he gives us when in Lamentations 5:4 he wrote: “We pay for the water we drink!”

Yes, there is a water the world drinks that is not the “water of life”! There’s a water that is not the water that cleanses the heart! There is a water that is not “pure water”! Are you aware that Peter, in 2 Peter 2:17, wrote: “These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever”?

In the previous verses of 2 Peter 2, he was pointing out the “depravity of false teachers” who were warped in their understanding of the holy life birthed through the blood of Christ! He spoke about those who ‘perish in their own corruption,’ ‘spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions’, ‘eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin,’ ‘enticing unstable souls,’ ‘hearts trained in covetous practices, AND ARE ACCURSED CHILDREN,’ ‘having forsaken the right way and gone astray,’ ‘loving the wages of unrighteousness,’ and, Yes, ‘rebuked for one’s iniquity’; but you realize these are those who say, “Who cares what God thinks? We’re in charge of our own lives!” Then, a day of reckoning awaits them! And it does come!

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? How many do you know who major on things in their lives that will surely guarantee a “successful life” if they set their own goals, and they meet their goals to their satisfaction, but never ask, ‘Is this God’s will, God’s purpose, God’s plan for my life?” Sadly, for many ‘successful people’, relationship to Holy God is the furtherest thing from their minds, if at all!

But, there was “the rich young ruler” who at least acknowledged the reality of eternal life but deemed his riches should be his ‘calling card’ into a blessed life! This ‘rich young ruler’ even took advantage of an opening door to Jesus’ presence, asking Jesus in Luke 18:18, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus reminded him of ‘the commandments’ with the rich young ruler responding, “All these things I have kept from my youth.”

Then in Verses 22-23 we read about those who major on “self” and refuse “selflessness” as a way of life! It says: So when Jesus heard these things, He said: “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. [How rich are YOU in yourself?].

Being even sorrowful is not full surrender if one wants his wealth more than the will of God! Did he understand it? Yes! For him, he didn’t walk away defiantly – he purposefully listened, but reasoned his fleshly goal was more important to him than God’s eternal desire for men, proven in the sacrifice of His own Son on the Cross of Calvary! His desire for fleshly wealth became more vital to him than a “fire in his bones” for the glory of God’s earnest desire for sons of true faith in their hearts and walks before Him.

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? Most will never admit it, but they are men, if they were to ever consider the will of God for their lives, would at least admit that their “self-allegiance and self-devotion” takes precedent over a man’s devotion to God or His Son, the Lord Jesus! For them, there’s no discouragement about a Godless life, no disenchantment with ‘self-idolatry’, no darkness for them about ‘self-love’ or ‘self-devotion’ – they’ll even say, “That’s my religious faith – I am my own main god!”

And being one’s own conviction about “self”, there are so many who are overwhelmed by the influences of family, or friends, or even societal circumstances, like a war, where many are hardened by the splitting of devotion to protecting lives or ending lives in human wars! There’s nothing that should EVER turn you away from Him, but always turn you to Him in absolute, total surrender and submission to His eternal watch-care, but many are divided, weakened, and become unbelieving that a Holy God could ever care about them!

As one even begins to consider himself related to a fleshly world purpose or eternal divine intent, there’s always, “follow your instincts” or “follow His inspiration” – and, of course, in the world, many are overcome by “the world, the flesh, and the devil”!

There’s a powerful few verses in John 2:23-25 that reveals our Lord’s insight as a discerner of human hearts and their exposure to worldly rather than eternal intent. It says: Now hen Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”Illusions, ideas, intents, personal intuitions, for many, become more important than divine revelation or Eternal Will, eternal purpose, eternal provision, or plan – “my ideas take precedent over eternal will,” and they’re eternally settled into that frame of mind and heart, united with the devil himself, though they’d never admit that to you, but look upon you as a ‘spiritual lunatic’ or a child of the devil yourself!

For unbelievers, even on their dying death-beds, they’ll hold out for their way of human existence, even if it’s brought them pain, suffering, a void of eternal purpose – “I’ve had my way, and with that, I’ll live and leave with what I face after my death.” Oh, really? They really don’t know what the devil and the hordes of Hell’s demons have in store for them, do they?

After life? Oh, yes! The body way decay to “ashes and bones”, but the true ‘you’ is eternal with the devil’s insignia of ownership if you were never ‘purchased by the blood of the Lamb’! The one thing about Hell you need to be reminded of is the fact the devil doesn’t leave you for a season, but day after day inflicts the consequences of your yieldedness to him rather than to Jesus! Eternal agonizing is the identifying reward for all unbelievers.

Do you have any conception at all of an unbeliever’s ‘multiplied sorrow’ forever and ever as the reward of his/her unbelief and rebellion and disobedience before Holy God? There IS the sorrow of heart and mind that intensifies and is never soothed or removed! There is a sorrow of heart that gets heavier and heavier for any unbeliever under Satan’s domination – and it intensifies more and more, forever and forever! Proverbs 10:10 says, “He who winks with the eye causes trouble, but a prating fool will fall.” Prating? Idle chatter, foolish talking, absurd reactions to the love and purpose of Holy God! That’s about as good as I can describe ‘a prating fool’ – God says, “He/she falls!”

Are you familiar with “astrologers”? “Astrology” is a ‘professed science’ that supposedly can “read the stars” and, for them, basically, interpret their influences on human affairs! Really? Or is it not more of human attempts at ascending to God’s throne and seeing for themselves how they’d like to see things turning out? It’s like men who are natural desiring to be supernatural, determining for themselves how earthly things ought to be since “we see it in the stars”! Dream-World?

Oh, certainly, there are “fleshly star-gazers” who believe they’ve seen heavenly visions for themselves with a ‘bright light’ or “me, my, mine” so alien to submission to the King of kings and Lord of lords. Walking in their “own light, as I see it,” with a strong sense of self-will, self-direction, because of a fleshly sense of property and a fleshly sense of personal right, even ahead of or more than God’s divine sovereignty! It’s the fallen attitude of fallen men that “my life consists of what I want it to be, what I choose, what I want to possess for myself”, when the Lord Jesus said, and still says, (Luke 12:15), “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundances of the things he possesses”, or packages according to his own flesh desire, worldly influence, or devilish possession and domination!

Dare I tell you that you’ve just read up on “The Fleshly Unfulfilled”? But, what about “The Spiritually Fulfilled”? Why not truly examine the Word of God for yourself about Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“OPTIONAL EXPRESSIONS OF LIFE – HUMAN OR DIVINE, FLESHLY OR SPIRITUAL, TEMPORARY OR ETERNAL?”

A life bleak or blessed, a life scarred with sin and the old sin nature, or a life conceived by the Holy Spirit, a life trying or trusting, a life programmed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, or a life purposed, promised, and spiritually prosperous in God’s Kingdom because of “new births”, or a life experiencing, exposed to, exasperated by, encapsulated by fears, anxieties, worries, doubts or a life enraptured with, enduring, exciting, and exhilarating in the joy of Jesus’ indwelling, overcoming, victorious Resurrection Presence?

What is your life? Is it the life in Christ Jesus with a peace that passes all understanding or is it a life of spiritual death of the guilty, a life of sinful flesh to offer as best one can, or the “Life in Christ” graciously granted in victorious, overcoming, rejoicing- in- Jesus hearts with symphonic Hallelujahs and glorious praise and thanksgiving from a new-born heart?

A ‘worldly life’ sustained by physical bread alone and the best ‘fallen flesh’ has to nibble on without an ounce of true repentance or pure sustenance or purified heart and mind, void of the Holy Spirit, void of the “fruit” of heavenly love, eternal peace, and life-changing joy that never subsides, wanes, or falters, is a life, though mentally religious but never “born again”, that tries to imitate, even pretend, and attempts with all flesh has to offer, but falls short of the reality of truly transformed hearts and lives by the miracle of the “new birth”!

Do you ever consider, think about, evaluate ‘God-less –living’ as empty, self-centered, mindless, purposeless, unfulfilling, unrewarding in its long haul, or a life filled with the manifestations of Holy Presence in Christ?

Do you remember Jesus saying, “Come to Me, learn of Me, rest in Me, and you’ll find “rest” that is eternal and blessing for your soul” that truly is indescribable?

Is your life based on fleshly ‘fairy’ tales or a life blessed on the divine, eternal, revelation of the Christ of Resurrection Life, Resurrection power, and Resurrection Hope?

The enemy of the “God-Life”, the devil, deceives, entraps, blinds men to the “Christ-in-you-Life” of Holy presence, Holy purpose, and Holy power, with ‘imitation’, ‘non-redemptive,’ ‘fleshly intents alone,’ without any consideration of the miracle of “new birth,” the blessing of “Christ-in-you,” or the fulfillment of divinely-ordained, eternal intent, or sovereignly, ordained, and graciously given “Oneness” with the divine nature in and through Christ!

It was Philip James Bailey, in his “Festus, A Country Town,” who once wrote: “We live in deeds, not years; in thought (or Truth) not breath: In feelings, not figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. Life’s but a means unto an end; that end Beginning, mean, and end of all things – God.”

What is YOUR life? “Hell’s bells” or “the Joy-Juice of Jesus’ Presence”? A fleshly flame revealing failing, futile living or the pure flame of the Eternal Son and Sun of Life within us, the Crucified, Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords?

Life is not a ladder finitely stepped – never has been, never will be – Life was extraordinarily given to give men personal choice of ‘flesh-life’ or the “Divine Life” – life without God or life in Him – not fleshly dreams, finite feelings of sensual pleasures, or faltering feelings of human successes, but a life, not of temporary thoughts of pleasure and satisfactions, but one of eternal peace, resurrection presence, and heavenly joys!

Is your life the “bondage” of your ‘old- as- ADAM’ SIN NATURE OR THE “BLESSING” of LIVING IN, BY, and FOR THE LIFE OF ANOTHER, EVEN CHRIST ALONE THE HOPE OF GLORY?

A man who lives only to satisfy his Adam’s original nature, his flesh, his old, ancient sin nature, his selfish ambitions, is a man who never discovers perfect peace in Christ, selfless surrender to the sovereignty of God, or complete liberty and freedom and desire to honor, bless, exalt, and please the Savior, the Blessed Redeemer only!?!

A life that is satisfied with ‘flesh’ (the old sin nature), that knows no ‘self-denial’, that accepts the devil’s ‘slant’ that ‘You Can Sin And Not Die, That Thinks “devotion to God” is unnecessary, that’s been deceived by the powers of darkness, that loving the world and its lust of the flesh is not evil, never submitting to the reality that THAT world of idiotic, fleshly foolishness, is fading, failing, unfulfilling, and that the lust of it is death constantly just warmed over, and is passing away into a dark abode of demon presence, insisting it’s ‘OK’ – and that’s a life ‘OVERCOMING’ ?– just not overcoming by the blood of the Lamb?

You’ve heard it: “Live while you live – satisfy the passions of your old sin nature, realize you are your own, do as you please, never silencing the demons, and you “just go to Hell” – “it’s OK” – “everybody does it”; while that’s true for the most – it’s not true for God’s redeemed, blood-bought remnant – they find the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life!

How sad that many never come to know the Life that is “in Christ”, never know the true pleasures that never fade that Jesus brings, that never experience the peace that passes all understanding, that never knows “death to self” and “Life in the Savior”, or “death to the fallen nature” and Life in the fullness of the divine nature, or the “death of bad fruit” and not the Life of “the fruit of the Spirit”!

Are you aware of the man-made philosophy that ‘best effort here’ is worthy of life in the “here-after”, that “fleshly best ensures life forever”, that “trusting is good for humanity,” even if God says trusting in Him alone is your only hope?

“Live while you live as your ‘flesh’ dictates” or “Live in Me alone” as Jesus declared? “Live while you live for the pleasures that satisfy your fleshly tendencies” or is it “Live for the purpose of honoring the God who made you, lost you, but bought you with a price, even the blood, innocent blood, of the precious Lamb of God?”

How many do you know who see “life is living it to the fullest for yourself as YOU see it for yourself,” or is it “Life is living as God desires, defines, declares, and delivers me to through a repentant heart, fully trusting and receiving forgiveness, and the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Have you ever heard it? “A man’s ingress into his own world is knowing, satisfying, and promoting himself with all due diligence”, without any consideration of the eternal purpose of God of ordination as a vessel or container of divine life and holy presence? It’s not ingress in ‘self’ but INDWELT by Resurrection Life in Christ alone!

Facts of human existence are not as Fosdick once spoke of as ‘loose types with many meanings,” but human existence was intended before time began to be habitations of Holy Presence as “temples” of a loving Lord and Savior, but many have fallen victims desiring the “Las Vegas’ residences of self-indulgence, unbelief, and fleshly rebellion”!

Can you even ‘see’ in fallen humanity the reality of “chaotic disarrangement” and “self-centered”, self-serving, cynical or godless arrangements, fleshly affirmations and loyalties, and descents into hellish, hollow, and ‘holey’ attempts at life in the flesh alone ,but wanting spiritual existence on their own terms? That’s nothing more than fragments of existence offered as one’s best but never aligning or becoming one with God’s intent! But in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15, (Is this the testimony, not simply of your existence but God’s Indwelling?),

“But we have this treasure in earthern vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed (at times), but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.”

Do you see it? Do you sense it? Have you settled it? Are you aware of it? There is the reality of one’s “best”, the “fleshly unfulfilled”, or God’s “best”, the spiritually re-born, indwelt, regenerated, Spirit-anointed, and “blessed” with the Resurrection Presence of the Living Lord, OR there is the unending evidences of the godless OR the eternal workings of Christ in the “Spirit-Man”.

Yes, there is “the sufferings of the saints” who ARE SUSTAINED BY THE SAVIOR, and who know both toughness in determination to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, and at the same time are tender followers who show others the way of Redeeming grace, purpose, and power! And though most saints are “forgotten by the world”, they live “fulfilled, blessed, contented, peaceful lives in and through Christ alone”! They are prayers, prepared, and equipped by the Word and the Spirit!

Do you comprehend “fleshly lives as containers of man’s best” or “spiritual lives birthed by the Spirit as recipients and containers and vessels of God’s best, the Living Christ, crucified, resurrected, ascended, reigning, and available to any repentant heart willing to be the temple of the Eternal Christ”?

In ‘fallen flesh” the “best” of human existence is only ‘variations’ and ‘shadows of the True’, but only ‘IN CHRIST’ is there the ‘victory over sin and death and emptiness and meaninglessness’, when only in the flesh is there the rewards of God’s enemy; but ‘IN CHRIST’ is the reaping and receiving of everlasting Life in Him! Christ-less lives are “oil-less lamps” with no ‘Light” that shines forth God’s glory.

Christ-less lives are ‘fragmented’ left-overs of ‘what could have been’ rather than Christ-Indwelt lives, fully revealing a God-ordained, and God-birthed Resurrection Presence!

Fleshly lives at the human-level “best” is only a cheap imitation of illumined, divine, resurrection presence of eternal life, eternal hope, and eternal fruit.

Free men? That’s not ‘freedom’ to do as one “damn well pleases”, but spiritual freedom in the Spirit to honor Christ alone! Only “in Christ” are men truly liberated to honor Holy God!

Most men, apart from God, arise each morning thinking, “What will really make ‘my day’ and ‘pump my flesh’ to historic levels?”, rather than, “What will honor God and exalt Christ through me to the world around me?”

A mortal man is only committed and satisfied in his self-complacency, his self-promotion, and his self- indulgence , but the “Christ-man” desires, longs for, driven by, and holds onto “honoring Christ alone, the hope of glory through me, as a vessel!”

Everything that promotes ‘flesh’, even ‘flesh at its best’, gives honor to the ‘old sin-nature’, turns a blind eye to the will, the Word, and purposes of Holy God, and is a clear exposure of one’s spiritual nakedness and his ‘egression’ willfully further away from God, and not his willful ‘ingression’ in Him by “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ alone.”

Misspent lives apart from the presence of Christ are like ‘empty glasses or vessels’ rather than residences of Christ in them as His Holy Temple!

Useless living is ‘born in sin’ with no desire to be reconciled to God, just indifferent to His Word and will, with no desire or longing or fleshly impulse to reconciliation or understanding of His Word or anything different from ‘fleshly satisfaction’ or even a thought about ‘birthed in Christ’ through repentance and faith! Yes, millions live without any desire to be “citizens of the Kingdom of God”, living consumed in promoting ‘self’ , not understanding the rebellious attitude that is the ‘death-nail’ to eternal purpose. Personal imagination and personal intent is not divine life nor divine presence nor divine power, but simply “best of the flesh” honoring “self-made men” of temporary existence, fading fame, tainted rewards, and terrible, eternal residences apart from the God who loved them, wanted them, but lost them by their lusts, their stubbornness, indifference, and mindlessness and heartlessness to His good, acceptable, and perfect will –“best effort” or “fallen flesh” is acceptable to them, and not even the Crucified and Resurrected Christ matters to them!

It’s not even ‘how long you lived’, but “in Whom you lived”, not the “best of self-effort existence in the sands of life” but “the solid foundation” of the True Rock who is Christ alone.

Do YOU fathom, do you understand, do you comprehend lives that are nothing more than ‘helpless pieces’ on “Life’s Game-board” with no submission or open door in them to the True Author of Everlasting Life, Purpose, or Divine Moves on their ‘play-boards’ of one’s earthly existence? Apart from Jesus it’s emptiness, vainness, personal game-playing – not the unveiling and revealing and revelation of Eternal Intent!

Life ‘found’ for one’s self apart from the Savior and Lord is a life guaranteed of eternal loss and one of serious desperation and consequences, but life “FOUND” in Christ for His honor, His glory, His praise, will stand eternally before Holy God, constantly reflecting, radiating, revealing Jesus’ everlasting Presence! It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his “A Psalm of Life,” who wrote: “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal,” but I’m not sure if he even grasped, “Life is eternal” – and it’s either ‘in your best’ or Jesus’ “Resurrection Life and Holy, Resurrected Presence”; yes, there is life that continues beyond the grave and Hell with all its demons, devil, and unbelievers, but with the “graced saints” graciously living in God’s gift of eternal life in and through Christ’s “finished work”, there IS Heaven! Yes, Jesus Only!

Any definition of ‘life’ that has no foundation under it of honoring and glorifying Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior is ‘fruitless’, even ‘hollow religions’, ‘unregenerate church members’, or ‘temples steeped with ‘hypocrites’! But Jesus IS “the Light”, and “Jesus Only” is the ONLY UNVEILING OF LIGHT within men!

Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, Promised Messiah, IS the “Life”, the “Bread of Life”, is the “Author of LIFE” and that more abundantly, IS the “gift of God” and the only door to “eternal life”, and Paul says, “To live ‘in Christ’ is to flourish, and to die ‘in Christ’ is to gain eternal Presence and an eternal home in Heaven; life apart from Christ is a ‘vapor’ that only ‘exists’, and that ‘forever’ with flesh’s author and finisher who is the devil, but ‘in Christ’ there is victorious presence that never dies, falters or fades away in insignificance, but constantly joins Heaven’s Angels in the “Hallelujah Chorus”!

Unhappy lives or even ‘happy lives’ are not “God-blessed” or “Spirit-birthed” but just Adam-seeded, sin-natured attempts at “doing one’s best” with even totally unconcerned, misinformed, or blinded allegiance to God’s purpose in their ‘creation’. Have you ever heard someone say, “The purpose of life is just be yourself to your fullest and be happy?” when God’s intent is one being through with himself, accepting God’s judgment of his/her death with Christ as his/her only hope, and rejoicing daily in His Resurrection Presence in their repentant, redeemed, reconciled to God hearts!

It was Shakespeare, in his “Macbeth”, [Act V, sc.5.1,26], who wrote: “Life…is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” Did the prophet mention the one who says, “Peace, peace, but there is no peace?”

You do understand, you do comprehend, you have evaluated the consequences of “Godless-men, nations, individuals” who ‘try’ to live with “no need of God”! Leo Tolstoy was right on target when in his writing “The Kingdom of God,” (Chapter 12), he said: “The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgement and profession [and I, JFF, would add ‘confession’ and ‘acceptance’] of the Truth by each one of us.”

I like what Augustine said when he spoke, “Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves”! “The wages of (“my”) sin is death, but the ‘gift of God’ IS eternal life in and through Christ ONLY!” And as a result of receiving the “finished work of Christ AT THE CROSS,” resurrected to the King’s Presence, His Kingdom, and His witness in us and through us, He gives us graciously the “gift of the Holy Spirit,” and Romans 8:16 declares: “The Spirit (the Holy Spirit!) Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”

As a result of the amazing miracle of grace and the habitation of the Risen Christ within repentant hearts, and the recipients of the Holy Spirit “bearing witness in us and through us,” do you doubt, or just never informed and discipled to be led by the Holy Spirit? “The Spirit bears witness!” Is He “bearing witness” in you and through you?

I love Oswald Chambers’ explanation of “The Witness of the Spirit” in his amazing writings entitled, “My Utmost For His Highest.” (p.218). “We are in danger of getting the barter spirit when we come to God, wanting the witness before we have done what God tells us to do. “Why does not God reveal Himself to me?” He cannot, it is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the road as you won’t abandon absolutely to Him. Immediately you do, God witnesses to Himself. He cannot witness to you, but He witnesses instantly to His own nature in you. If you had the witness before the reality, it would end in sentimental emotion. Immediately you transact on the Redemption, and stop the impertinence of debate, God gives the witness. As soon as you abandon reasoning and argument, God witnesses to what He has done, and we are amazed at our impertinence in having kept Him waiting. If you are in debate as to whether God can deliver from sin, either let Him do it, or tell Him He cannot. Do not quote this and that person, try Matthew 11:28, – “Come unto Me.” “COME”, if you are weary and heavy laden; “ask”, if you know you are evil. (Luke 11:13).

Chambers went on to say: (p.219), “The Spirit of God witnesses to the Redemption of our Lord, He does not witness to anything else; He cannot witness to our reason. The simplicity that comes from our common-sense decisions is apt to be mistaken for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of Redemption, never to our reason. If we try to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder we are in darkness and perplexity. Fling it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give the witness.”

That’s so true “IF”! “If any man be in Christ, If any man is finished with his old life, old sin-nature, and his ‘fleshly ambitions’, willing ALL old things “are passed away,” then the “new-creation man”, indwelt by Resurrection Life in Christ, is then ready to “receive the Holy Spirit” to guide, direct, empower, and overflow in you and through you with, yes, “the gifts of the Spirit,” ready to reveal a redeemed, re-born, Spirit-filled, appointed, anointed witness to the glory and honor of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

In the old American hymnal of Robert Coleman’s, published by The Broadman Press in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1933, I came across the song By Horatuis Bonar entitled “I Heard The Voice of Jesus Say.” It says:

“I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Come unto Me and rest; Lay down, you weary one, lay down your head upon My breast.” I came to Jesus as I was, Weary, and worn, and sad; I found in Him a resting-place, And He has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold I freely give The living water; thirsty one, Stoop down, and drink, and live.” I came to Jesus and I drank of that life-giving stream; my thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in Him.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s light: Look unto Me, your morn shall rise, And all your days be bright.” I looked to Jesus and found in Him my Star, my Sun; And in that light of life I’ll walk Till all my journey’s done.”

Old man – “new man”; flesh – Spirit; the sinner’s man – His saint; the Undone – in Him a “finished work” complete in Christ lacking nothing; grit, grease, garbage, and gall – “in Christ” is grace, victorious virtue, “fresh springs”, and perfect “God-Likeness”; empty, insignificant, earthly dwelling of ‘human flesh’ – “in Christ” is eternal Life, Holy Presence, and All-Sufficient grace; ‘flesh-poverty? – how about “enriched in Him, heirs, sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, co-laborers in the Savior’s eternal, redemptive work, recipients of the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, blessed with “amazing assurance”, divine anointings, holy callings, the natural crucified but resurrection Life amplified, Kingdom living and resident address, Kingdom presence, Kingdom power, Kingdom privileges, and Kingdom testimonies, visions and dreams, and Holy anointings in fulfilling His good and acceptable and purposeful will, citizens of the eternal Kingdom, members of the divine Family, appointees “in Christ” to the mission of world-wide “redemption” through our testimonies of “the blood of the Lamb and His Resurrection Presence in every “born-again” life! “Rise up, O men of God!”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“WHEN MERCY IS MEANINGLESS – FATAL FORGETFULNESS”

I don’t know how you respond when you read a verse like Isaiah 27:11, but it does tell us our Lord is speaking of people who have “no understanding.” It then says, “Therefore He who made them WILL NOT HAVE MERCY ON THEM, and He who formed them will show them no favor.”

I love what Peter wrote about “mercy” as a heavenly inheritance when in I Peter 1:3 he said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” What did Peter call God’s mercy? ABUNDANT MERCY! But there are those upon whom He will have no mercy!

Why is that? It’s ‘fatal forgetfulness’ – mercy is not a ministry of God, an event of epoch proportions, they are interested in. Oh, they may at least on the surface be aware of the mercy of God, but it’s not a road they need to walk down – about like Solomon who said in I Kings 3:6, “You [God] have shown great mercy [Underline that! At least Solomon knew God’s mercy was great!] to Your servant David my father, because He walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.”

Solomon was saying what? “God, You’ve shown great mercy to my dad, and you were merciful giving me his throne, but as for me mercy is meaningless – merit is my ambition and I’ll earn whatever I set my mind to!” Does Solomon reflect at all on modern man today who find mercy meaningless to their existence? Look with me at Psalm 103:17-18,

“But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them.” The mercy of God is for WHO? Those who “fear Him,” to those who understand blood covenant relationship and keep it, to those who sense His commandments are to be kept! [Why do some miss ‘mercy’? “That’s salvation by works”!!]

But, sadly, many are blinded to the misery of fallen sin natures and sense no need to cry out to God for “mercy”! You’ll remember Jesus making that visit to His hometown in Mark 6:5-6 that says: “Now HE could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief…” Does that explain “mercy” as “meaningless” to some people?

Have you forgotten the Galatian dilemma? It explains tons of understanding about “when mercy is meaningless”! In Galatians 3:3 Paul asked: “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

And do you understand that meaningless mercy is not only for heathens or pagans or the self-assured – it’s for deceived masses in the borders of Christendom who substitute repentance for the rigors of personal disciplines and pats on the back of their self-sufficiency!

But…it’s not what YOU achieve but what you receive as a gift from God! It’s not what YOU earn but what you receive by His grace. It’s not a portrait you paint of yourself but the precious privileges God grants to you! It’s not “trying harder” – it’s trusting God more and more.

Deaf ears, blinded eyes, clouded senses to the nearness of God in a man’s life assign him to a meaningless existence weighed against the eternal purpose of God for one’s life. But put that up next to the story of Joseph! In Genesis 41:50-51 Joseph named his firstborn Manesseh and said: “It is because God has made me FORGET all my troubles and all my father’s household.”

But some men manufacture forgetfulness of God, establishing in their minds and hearts that “mercy is meaningless”, but God mercifully blots out our troubles, blessing us with the forgetfulness of man-made miseries and builds in us Heaven’s blessings!!

Men manufacture forgetfulness of God like a Pharoah who says in his mind and heart: Exodus 5:2, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” Men easily obliterate the memory of God because they’re bound to the god of self-rule, self-adulation, self-importance, and are comfortable in their state of godlessness and their paralysis of self-analysis!!

But God remains the same! Acts 17:24-31 says: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

In fact, in Matthew 5:45 Jesus said of Father-God: “…for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous…”

Listen to A.W. Pink in his “The Attributes of God – The Mercy of God”: “…let us note how vain is the presumptuous hope of the wicked, who, notwithstanding their continued defiance of God, nevertheless count upon His being merciful to them. How many there are who say, ‘I do not believe that God will ever cast me into Hell; He is too merciful.’ Such a hope is a viper, which if cherished in their bosoms will sting them to death. God is a God of justice as well as mercy, and He has expressly declared that He will “by no means clear the guilty,” [Exodus 34:7]. Yes, He has said, “The wicked shall be turned into Hell, all the nations that forget God.”

The willful pride of blindness to God’s mercy, the fleshly forgetfulness of God’s graciousness and kindness, the soulish settling on “me, my, or mine”, deludes one into darkened, defeated, devilish, disillusioned misery with eyes, ears, minds, and hearts off of mercy, God’s mercy, into a state of despair, in which one is comfortable because he’s in control!

There are those who even unashamedly seek to defame, deny, disgrace, and seek to delude the ‘infinite efficacy of the Savior’s atoning death.’ IT WASN’T FOR THEM JESUS SUFFERED, BLED, AND DIED ON THE CROSS! Yet II Corinthians 5:15 clearly tells us: “and He [Jesus] DIED FOR ALL, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”

I was reading Spurgeon recently when he told of a man who decided to keep a ‘tame’ leopard in his home. The man had nursed it from a cub and allowed free roam in the house. The man was sleeping soundly one day when the growing cub licked his hand and it licked a cut where the blood was still seeping…and all the jungle instincts kicked in and the beast began to feed…awakened, the man knew he was in trouble – a life or death situation was before him and he knew it was his life or the leopard’s life.

There was a loaded pistol beside the couch and without hesitation he aimed it at the hungry leopard and killed it!….Whether you believe it or not the leopard of sin, rebellion, disobedience, unbelief, is out to drain your blood – give up your precious leopard of lust, livid sin, furious fleshly instincts – leave them at the Cross where Jesus willingly and gladly took them and yourself upon Himself and willingly laid down His Life for you!! Jesus killed your leopard sin-nature!

I know it’s so hard for prideful men and women to admit the bankruptcy of their births; it is so hard for some and so easy for others to acknowledge high treason against Holy God. In fallen man there are no glamorous genes or heavenly glories or personal worthiness that merits the favor of God!

There’s an amazing confession of King David in 2 Samuel 7:18-22! Hear it:

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord; and he said: ‘Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that You have brought me this far? And yet this was a small thing in Your sight, O Lord God; and You have also spoken of Your servant’s house for a great while to come. Is this the manner of man, O Lord God? Now what more can David say to You? For You, Lord God, know Your servant. For Your word’s sake, and according to Your own heart, You have done all these things, to make Your servant know them. Therefore, You are great, O Lord God. For there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” I ask you: ARE YOU LISTENING TO GOD?

And before you came to faith in Christ, I’m sure you wondered like David: “Who am I, O Lord God, that You’ve shown me YOUR MERCY?” Without faith in God, mercy is meaningless to many. Without Holy Spirit conviction, mercy is a futile term. Without the historic crucifixion of Christ, mercy is an insignificant, unimportant eternal truth.

But for those who know “the narrow way that leads to life,” they understand deliverance from the pit of destruction; they are aware of God’s lifting them up out of the miry clay of sin and deceitfulness; they clearly grasp freedom from a prison of sin, selfishness, and self-importance apart from God; they rejoice that God’s mercy is His eternal heavenly light, leading them out of the darkness of Egyptian bondage of sin, separation from His “Holy Land,” and the silence of the lightning bolts of eternal revelation and purpose. They know God has shown them HIS MERCY!

But still, for me, there rages an ever-building question, repeated often: “Why, for some, is mercy so meaningless? Why does intentional forgetfulness of God’s mercy dominate so many lives?” WHY?

FIRST, BECAUSE SOME WILL ACCEPT MERCY IF THERE’S NO CALL UPON THEIR LIVES TO WALK MERCIFULLY WITH OTHERS! In Micah 6:8 there is an illuminating verse that reveals why some miss God’s mercy. It says: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

How does one ‘do justice’ when he/she could care less about others? How does one ‘love mercy’ when he/she is so merciless toward others? How does one ‘walk humbly with God’ when they’re so proud and so self-sufficient, void of the need of God to be God in and over their lives?

Come to Matthew 18:23-35 which is such an eye-opening, heart-convicting story that calls for examination of ourselves, yes, testing ourselves to see if we’re truly of the Faith and the faithful: “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. [Before inflation that was about $18 million dollars!!].But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had,, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave the debt. But [THEN] that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; [about $18] and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt [$18 million!!] because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry; and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

What does Luke 1:50 tell us? “And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.” It’s why in 2 Corinthians 5:11 Paul wrote: “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men…” Proverbs 1:7 tells us: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…”

Come to Proverbs 14:26-27. “In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death.” Beside this passage I wrote in my Bible the following statement – I don’t remember if I wrote it or it was a quote, but the sentence says: “Even what one likes, that is not necessarily evil, can become an entrapment of death, like cheese in a mouse-trap.”

Here is Jesus’ amazing challenge to those who believe or border on mercy being meaningless for them and hold no fear of God – Matthew 11:25-28 – At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

SECOND, FOR SOME MERCY IS MEANINGLESS BECAUSE THEY DENY SIN, CONCEAL SIN, EXCUSE SIN, OR ACCEPTING THEIR SINFUL STATE BEFORE HOLY GOD AS NORMAL OR NATURAL! But look at Proverbs 28:13!! “He who conceals his sins [transgressions, wrongs, violations of God’s laws] does not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes and renounces his sin finds mercy.”

Do you remember John’s word in I John 1:7? “But if we walk in the light as He [Jesus] is in the light…the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” I love what Oswald Chambers said about the truly conscious awareness of sin in a person: “The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me.”

Concealment is a covering and convincing of one’s self that sin may be a problem for others but not for the deceived mind. And because of that there are God-sent, God-mandated, even God-initiated consequences in one’s life – like an empty prosperity that never satisfies, like a barking, biting dog in the inner man that never quits or quiets down, like a rich man who loses all his monies because the bank within him is bankrupt, like a criminal who believes he’ll never be caught but lives every moment expecting arrest and final judgment!

I love the call of God on our lives as true believers as expressed by Paul in Galatians 6:1-2 [NIV], “Brothers, if a man is trapped in some sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself; you may also be tempted…Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ.”

Listen to John Piper in his book, “A Godward Life,” [p.77], “Don’t be muzzled by the comment that you can’t force your religion or morality on others. You are not forcing it; you are commending it for serious consideration. Declaring and persuading are not forcing. Commending is not coercion. The fact is this: Everybody’s idea about what should be done is guided by some kind of prior commitment. Secularists as well as Christians have a world-view that governs their opinions. Every policy suggestion is rooted in view of how things should be.”

Exposing sin is merciful. Exposing sin is an act of grace. Challenging sinners with the claims of Christ builds foundations of possible super-structures in the new lives He can birth and bless!

THIRD, FOR SOME MERCY IS MEANINGLESS BECAUSE THEY’VE NEVER BEEN CONFRONTED WITH GOD’S CLAIMS OF JUDGMENT. I want you to come to Nahum 1:2-8. “God is jealous, and the Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies; The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts. The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt, and the earth heaves at His presence, Yes, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him. But with an overflowing flood He will make an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue His enemies.”

Two things that are easily discernible here: 1) God is ‘slow to anger,’ and 2) God “will not at all acquit the wicked.”

In Spurgeon’s Sermons, his “Memorial Library,” the great English preacher preached on the verses we just read. Hear Spurgeon: “God ‘will not acquit the wicked.’ Let me unfold this, first of all; and then let me, after that, endeavor to trace it also to its source: God ‘will not acquit the wicked.’ How do I prove this? I prove it by this. Never once has God pardoned our unpunished sin; not in all the years of the Most High, not in all the days of His right hand, has He once blotted out sin without punishment. What say you, were not those in heaven pardoned? Are there not many transgressors pardoned, and do they not escape without punishment? Has He not said, ‘I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and like a thick cloud your iniquities?’ Yes, true, most true, and yet my assertion is true also – not one of all those sins that have been pardoned were pardoned without punishment! Do you ask me why and how such a thing as that can be the truth? I point you to a dreadful sight on Calvary; the punishment which fell not on the forgiven sinner fell there. The cloud of justice was charged with fiery hell; the sinner deserved it; it fell on him; but, for all that, it fell, and spent its fury; it fell there, in that great reservoir of misery; it fell into the Savior’s heart…It is Jesus suffering all the plagues of sin. Sin is still punished, though the sinner is delivered.”

It was Orin Philip Gifford who said: “You may juggle human laws, you may fool with human courts, but there is a judgment to come, and from it there is no appeal.” I pray you find God’s court of mercy, because in His court of judgment, Daniel 5:27 says: “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting.”

I want you to be confronted with God’s claim of judgment. In Jeremiah 5:3 Jeremiah asked the Lord, “O Lord, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.”

Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 6:10, “To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.”

Do you see it? Do you hear it? Do you sense it right now for yourself? GOD DESIRES TO GIVE YOU “THE SURE MERCIES OF DAVID.” [Acts 13:34]. SURE MERCIES ARE REDEMPTIVE – God bought you out of slavery to sin that you might be servants of Christ.

SURE MERCIES ARE REGENERATIVE – God takes you out of spiritual death unto His ETERNAL LIFE.

SURE MERCIES ARE REFLECTIVE – we see no longer a man in his bondage and brokenness – we see Christ in His fullness.

SURE MERCIES ARE RESPONSIVE – in Jeremiah 29:11 God says: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Hear me! Jeremiah 31:3 says: “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”

And I say to you: Sense His tug, surrender to His Sovereignty, and side with our Savior and Lord!!

You may have denied it – but today is the day to side with Sovereign Mercy! It was Edwin Hubbell Chapin who wrote: “Mercy among the virtues is like the moon among the stars – not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. It is the bow that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm is past. It is the light that hovers above the judgment seat.”

This is why David came to say in Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

In the old Broadman Hymnal there is a song simply entitled “Calvary”. It says: “On Calvary’s brow my Savior died, It was there my Lord was crucified; it was on the cross He bled for me, and purchased there my pardon free…

‘Mid rending rocks and darkening skies My Savior bows His head and dies; The opening veil reveals the way To heaven’s joys and endless day…

O Jesus, Lord, how can it be That You should give Your life for me, To bear the cross and agony In that dread hour on Calvary!

O Calvary! Dark Calvary! Where Jesus shed His blood for me; O Calvary! Blest Calvary! It was there my Savior died for me!”

Do you grasp it when to you mercy has been meaningless? If you were the only person to have ever lived – past, present, future – what Jesus did 2000 years ago At Calvary, He did it just for you!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the never-ending care of God for each of us!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the measure of God’s forgiving, never-ending love!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the reality of God’s remedy of a godless life!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the explanation of God’s possession of the land of our souls and spirits!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is not man trying harder but hearing Christ say: “It is finished” as He died on Calvary’s cross!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the voice of God saying to a praying man: “Your prayer has been heard” [Luke 1:13].

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the stepping stone into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the open door into Holy Presence!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is God’s remedy for a man paralyzed by his past!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the healing grace of spiritual amnesia, fleshly blindness, and a darkened heart!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the divine healing of a hurtful, harmful, hideous past!

In closing this teaching, please come to Luke 18:9-14, And He []Jesus] spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“FAITHFULNESS OR DISTRESSING DISGUISES?”

I don’t know how you’ll respond to the title of this chapter because only you really know the secret chambers of your heart and mind. Why? Appearances can be deceiving; outward ‘show’ can be simply fictitious, uneventful heart-change, or a desire not to be exposed for what one really believes.

It was C.S. Lewis who once wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because of it I see everything else.”

But then in a real world of life and death, success or failure, blessing and disappointment, true examples and pretenders, wise or blinded, divine fruit or diseased or dis-eased citizens, people will either “press in to Him” or fall away by their own free will.

Don’t you find it interesting, convicting, and challenging, that in Revelation 2:10b, Jesus tells us: “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”? Is it possible that some begin the walk of faith, are faithful for a period of time in what they know, and then walk away? “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Are bad turns made away from the highway of holiness that lead to ‘dead-end’ places? Does disappointment in one’s self or others mean, “I choose to be disappointed in Jesus also”? If a ‘Texas dust storm’ can restrict your vision, can a believer’s storm of doubt cast dark shadows on one’s devotion and allegiance and all-out surrender to the King of kings and Lord of lords?

Oh, and hear me – can a preacher-pastor’s ‘falling away’ be the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back,’ and you decide, “I want nothing more to do with ‘phony Christianity’?

In Ezekial 18:23 God spoke: “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” And whatever is opposite of the Word and the will of God and His ways is determined wicked and brings a judgment of death – and God says, “turn from YOUR ways and live!” He went on to say in verses 31-32, “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord. “Therefore turn and live!”

I know, and I assume you also know, that there are “distressing disguises”! It’s so evident by spiritual blindness, unholy hearing, willful rejection, painful indifference, yes, even deeply-wounded scars from spiritual events of the past that one holds on to, residence in a jail of unforgiveness because someone, somehow, somewhere led them down, they believe, to a place, a practice, a persuasion that didn’t line up with the desire for a ‘godly lifestyle’ but an ungodly lifestyle even when the Word declared and still declares ‘separate from sinners.’

I’m really sorry, but I do not see projected in God’s Holy Word ‘comfort’ or ‘comfortable’ or ‘pleasurable for the flesh’ in a world where Holy Truth is seen as needed to be suppressed and certainly worthless in schools, universities, or any governmental institution locally or nationally!

How dangerous is it for men of all standings, places, ranks, abilities or inabilities, education or the absence of it, to find themselves in a place they don’t feel comfortable, identifying themselves as men unreservedly sold out to Christ so they ignore the church Jesus loved and gave Himself for, going the way of “silent allegiance” when Jesus instructs us to identify ourselves as His true followers and devoted to build up, strengthen, and, yes, laboring for His church-body’s success?!? “Distressing disguises”? Are you ever confronted by those who once have known Truth and then, all of a sudden, because of multitudinous fleshly crises, the door was opened to cast doubt on the Word of God? Sadly, I’ve known men over the years who so devotedly shared God’s Holy Word, but crisis came from business, family, spiritual family, resulting in undefinable criticism, and like a wounded ‘puppy’ they crawl away from upholding Truth!

“Distressing disguises”? Are you aware of those who have been ingrained with partial truth and they profess “Peace, peace! When there is no peace”? [Jeremiah 6:14]. It’s as if the ‘gospel’ they held onto was ‘peaches and cream’ without Jesus’ word, “In the world you will have tribulation!” I would urge every disciple over the next three to four months to devote himself/herself to the four gospels and determine if Jesus ever talked about a ‘trouble-free walk of discipleship!’

“Distressing disguises”? Do you remember in the Gospel of John Jesus telling the scribes and Pharisees that denying Him was the result that they never knew the One True and Living God? In John 8:13 they told Jesus, “You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.” In the eighth chapter alone Jesus told the ‘religious crowd’ about 4 times, similar to verse 21, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.”

“Distressing disguises”? I hope it doesn’t seriously offend you if I tell you that there are “sticklers” for legalism apart from God’s grace, mercy, and love! On the tablet of stone God carved out and imprinted Ten Commandments that exposed men as true ‘law-breakers’ in need of mercy, grace, and love, but deception blinded men to their true need of God because they graded by the ‘curve’, wanting acceptance by self-effort rather than acceptance through the finished work of Christ at the Cross, with God then writing His love, His law, and His liberty on a redeemed heart! How about your devotion? Is it by law or the very love of Calvary’s Cross and the reality of Jesus’ empty tomb and His present residence in Heaven at the throne of God interceding in your behalf?

“Distressing disguises”? Have you not wrapped your mind around the fact that fallen humanity is fully absorbed in the mind-set and heart-absorption of materialism, and the more one has, the nearer he/she is to God? Yet, our Lord and Savior and True Master of all of life has said, Matthew 16:24-26, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life [for himself] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

“Distressing disguises”? You’ll remember as Moses was leading Israel to the Promised Land there came a time when he went up on the mountain for an alone-time with God that became a long time – and his people became anxious.

They went to Aaron and told him, Exodus 32:1, “Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what is become of him.” Verse 4 tells us he, Aaron, received golden earrings from the people, and fashioned it with a graving tool into “a molten calf”; and the people said, “This be our gods who brought us out of the land of Egypt.” Then the end of verse 6 then tells us, “and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” God then told Moses, “your people, Moses, which you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.”

Has anything changed? What is it that has become your own ‘distressing disguise’? But reality also speaks so loud and clear as when Samuel said in I Samuel 10:19, about some in Israel, “And you have this day rejected your God, who Himself saved you from all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said to Him, ‘No, set a king over us!’”

At least David had the sane attitude of brokenness, repentance, and turning from that which scarred him and others so deeply. In Psalm 25:17-22 he prayed: “The troubles of my heart have enlarged; bring me out of my distresses! Look on my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins. Consider my enemies, for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred. Keep my soul, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You.”

I’m sure you’ll remember Paul challenging the church at Corinth when he said in 2 Corinthians 6:12, “You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.” And he paid a heavy price for standing in truth! He said to the Corinthians and us in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE. For when I am weak, then I am strong [in Him].”

Paul further testified in 2 Corinthians 13:4-6, “For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.”

In Christ you are made to soar, not to sink; you’re a new creation in Him to live victoriously, not defeated; in Him you overcome the devil himself and his temptations, not swallowed up in a sea of denial of truth or ocean depths of drownings in deceptions opposite of Holy Revelation, Eternal Truth, and His ever-abiding presence in you!

“Distressing disguises”? I picked up again recently Mark Levin’s book entitled “LIBERTY OR TYRANNY,” sub-titled “A Conservative Manifesto.” I read it several years ago, but on the back cover of his book he had a statement of Abraham Lincoln, spoken in 1864. Lincoln said, “We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.”

Do you remember the unbelieving Pharoah of Egypt? In Exodus 5:1-2 we read, “Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharoah, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ And Pharoah said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.’”

It’s certainly not always true, but it seems, for some like Pharoah, that ‘wealth’ or ‘riches’ lead an awful lot of people to bow down in idolatry and not live in worship, praise, or thanksgiving, with adoration and submission and loyalty to the God who laid down His Son at the Cross! “That’s not MY calling!” – have you ever heard that? “I serve the Lord who blesses me,” yet the Lord God Almighty, Emmanuel (“God With Us”), Savior and Lord, Master of all of life said: Deuteronomy 30:14-20, “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, THAT YOU MAY DO IT. [“Why, YOU legalistic God! Who would want to submit to Your Word, Your will, Your way? Not me!”] See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God WILL BLESS YOU in the land which you go to possess. BUT IF YOUR HEART TURNS AWAY SO THAT YOU DO NOT HEAR [and some choose, ‘I don’t want to hear what God says!’] and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today THAT YOU SHALL SURELY PERISH; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

[And just as a reminder if you have questions about what you just read and its spiritual relevance to New Testament disciples, John 8:56 says, Jesus speaking: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”]

“Distressing disguises”! I pastored a church many years ago in which a very visible leader became involved in an adulterous relationship with another church member. In my office he denied it and assured me it never happened.

A few weeks later I received a late night call to hurry to a particular home where the police had already arrived. The church leader was in the home of his adulteress mate with an irate, almost uncontrollable husband.

The church leader had lied and then resigned his visible office in the church. I advised our church officers or deacons that this situation required church discipline, but they all said, “He’s our friend, and it won’t happen. He deserved better than having to care for a sick wife!” Within a short time, God moved our leadership role as pastor elsewhere!

When open sin is ignored it manifests itself in abundant rebellion to God’s Holy Word – I heard years later that adultery, broken marriages, and a suffering church had about died, until several pastors later God placed His man in a strong place of leadership – now, the church prospers spiritually.

“Distressing disguises”! Consider it, examine it, reflect upon it – what’s the result of half-hearted allegiance to a local body of believers, yes, the local body Jesus suffered, bled, and died for? What’s the result of the negligence of whole-heartedness; what’s the result of divided allegiance; what’s the outcome of ‘profession’ apart from possession of the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ; what’s the ‘fruit’ of a ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude concerning a needy fellowship of believers?

Is it really possible that believers feel no sympathy for, devotion to, or commitment of their lives to a needy church fellowship or even comfort and healing grace to despondent saints, a battered pastor, or, yes, immature church members? But they find ‘their’ place where the crowd gathers, where the smiles abound, but in far too many living a “laid-down life” is omitted! It’s even happening today that ‘forsaking of the assembling of yourselves together’ is like an old ‘wives’ tale’ – “we don’t need the church assembling”!

I was reading Spurgeon recently. [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.15, pps. 78-79]. He said: “Is it so, that because you are yourself a member of a flourishing church, and because you enjoy all sorts of Christian privileges, you therefore harden your heart concerning dying churches and desponding saints? Do you imagine that the body can be sick, and yet you as a member of it will not suffer? I tell you, if the church of God goes aside it will be to your injury;’ if the truth of God be not preached you will be a loser; if Christian life be not vigorous you will be weakened.”…(p.80), “If you are not creating a holy warmth, the chill of sin is freezing you.”

‘Ice-berg city’ – the gathering of chilled believers! ‘Ice-berg city’ – the union place of divided allegiances! ‘Ice-berg city’ – the creeping sickness of unconscious allegiance to self-birthing of paralyzed infants who don’t know where they came from or where they are headed. The Lord Jesus said in Revelation 3:11, “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.” [It would be worth your effort and time to research about “your crown.”]

“Distressing disguises”! It was so interesting and challenging recently when in Luke 16:1-13 I read about the parable of the unjust steward. Read carefully and consider your walk as a professing disciple of Christ! Jesus also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.

So he called him and said to him, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” [I pray you realize “stewardship” has much more to do in your walk than what you “give” in money!]

Then the steward said within himself, “What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.” So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.

He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Is Jesus teaching us about faithfulness in ‘little things’? Is He teaching us about money and its blessing or curse? Is He informing us about faithfulness in what belongs to another man? But now, let’s transition from “distressing disguises” to “FAITHFULNESS”! We’ve just witnessed Jesus talking about “faithfulness” in three ways. Is there more in His precious and powerful Word we should discern and apply?

It’s not difficult to grasp or understand or comprehend the subject of “faithfulness” – the battle comes when faith and faithfulness must be exercised and YOU must discern for yourself, ‘a walk of fleshly sight and its desires OR a walk of faith and faithfulness to honor the God of the Cross and the empty tomb!

I do not know or understand how a person reads or hears read Ephesians 2:4-8, 12-13, and determines to walk away from saving grace! It says: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

And raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God…Verses 12-13, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH AND BY FAITH ALONE! That’s what you just read!

WE ARE JUSTIFIED BY FAITH! Examine Romans 3:19-26 very, very carefully: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Do you remember the lame man outside the temple asking alms as Peter and John were about to go in? Follow Acts 3:6-16, 19-20, 23, 26: Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them – walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God.

Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon’s, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: ‘Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pontius Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.

But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know.

Verses 19-20, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before..

Verse 23, And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people… Verse 26, To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”

WE ARE TO CONTINUE IN THE FAITH. In Acts 14:21-22 Paul was endeavoring to build a solid foundation in new disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith. It says: “And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”

WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND, RECEIVE, WALK IN THE WALK OF OUR HEART, MIND, SOUL, AND SPIRIT PURIFICATION BY FAITH. Acts 15:6-9 says: Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.”

WE ARE TO WALK IN THE PEACEFUL REST OF FAITH LIKE ABRAHAM. In Romans 4:1-8 we read of the faith of faithful Abraham: “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”

WE ARE TO BE EMPOWERED BY FAITH – NOT IN THE EARTHLY WISDOM OF MEN. I Corinthians 2:4-5 instructs us: Paul speaking, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

WE ARE TO BE AT PEACE IN OURSELVES BECAUSE OF OUR FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT THE CROSS. Galatians 2:20 illumines our minds and hearts as Paul tells us: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Verse 21, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

WE ARE TO BE DILIGENT TO THE END BECAUSE OF OUR INHERITANCE OF GOD”S PROMISES. In Hebrews 6:11-12 we see our calling as true believers: “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

WE ARE TO BE WELL-TRAINED, PERSONALLY DISCIPLINED, AS A TRUE SOLDIER IN GOD’S ARMY, NOT GIVEN AN ‘AWOL’ SPIRIT, BUT DEVOTED TO HIM AND THE CHURCH JESUS LOVED AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR. Paul wrote young Timothy as a wise spiritual father, 2 Timothy 2:1-4, “You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”

Earlier, in I Timothy 6:12, he told Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

You do understand that we serve a God and Savior who is so ever faithful to us! In Lamentations 3:22-27 Jeremiah shared both a broken heart because of Israel’s sin but also a peaceful heart and soul because He knew the faithfulness of God’s compassion:

“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: GREAT IS YOUR FAITHFULNESS!! ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him!’ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.”

And I have no doubts that this is why Isaiah encourages us in Isaiah 25:1 because he knew God’s faithfulness: “O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.”

Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, His people sprout and bear His fruitfulness! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness to us, our faithfulness to Him is not to be a probability but a sure certainty! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, we don’t enlist for a seat in a church pew but a place in the front-line of a holy war! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, we’re not to be inventers of simply religious activities but fully surrendered lives available to His presence, power, and promises to be expressed through our available lives!

It was the old “The Defender” who had this quote: “Faith is dead to doubt, dumb to discouragement, blind to impossibilities.” How true!

Off-key lives are invaded by the “Master-Tuner” and discords vanish and perfect harmonies erupt! When repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross finds a permanent home, empty barrels become the overflowing presence of His never-ending LIFE!!

Faithfulness is not a philosophy but Divine Presence, holy certainty, continual blessing, and a sacred marriage of eternal bliss!

Faithfulness is the Shining Sonlight of the resident Christ within, the evidence of God’s Holy Presence, and the certainty of the Holy Spirit’s fulfilling ministry in sons and daughters of faith.

It was B.B. McKinney who wrote the old hymn, “Have Faith In God.” “Have faith in God when your pathway is lonely, He sees and knows all the way you have trod; Never alone are the least of His children; Have faith in God, have faith in God.

Have faith in God when your prayers are unanswered, Your earnest plea He will never forget; Wait on the Lord, trust His Word and be patient; Have faith in God, He’ll answer yet.

Have faith in God in your pain and your sorrow, His heart is touched with your grief and despair; Cast all your cares and your burdens upon Him, and leave them there, oh, leave them there.

Have faith in God though all else fail about you; Have faith in God, He provides for His own; He cannot fail though all kingdoms perish, He rules, He reigns upon His throne.” AMEN?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“CONSIDERING A WORLD OF ABSURDITIES”

When individuals go through a God-created, God-ordained, and a God-sustained world without any consideration of His intent, desires, and pleasures, they void from their lives the awesome discovery of God-blessed lives. Without hesitation, a ‘God-less world’ is ‘a world of absurdities’!

An ‘absurdity’? The ‘Random House Collegiate Dictionary’ of 1975 defines it as “contrary to all reason, or common sense, illogical, ridiculous, untrue; absurd, ridiculous, preposterous, inconsistent with reason or common sense.” I then liked the dictionary telling me ‘preposterous’ “implies an amazing extreme of foolishness.”

That definition may be why the Holy Word of God tells us in Psalm 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

You do understand that highly distinctive people you meet in your lifetime can be superbly blessed people who look inward to themselves and their upbringing with no consideration at all of God’s divine intent or eternal purpose for His reason, desire, intent, or purpose for their existence – they just ‘journey’ in love with who they are and no consideration of “WHO” God IS! They ‘journey’ void of the awesome treasure of being “reconciled to Holy God”!

Just as sad is the person who acknowledges “God is” but has no intention of giving Him His desired place in their hearts and lives, content to make “my way in my world by my personal choice of ‘god unto myself’”!

A little more than two thousand years ago Holy God used strong, influential, political and religious figures of the day, powerful men, to bring about the awesome historical reality of the crucifixion of His Son, the Promised Messiah, not even understanding that they were ushering in His eternal plan of “blood redemption.”

Here’s God’s eternal heart: John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Superbly blessed people, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights, often “choose” in moral stupidity, to go their own way with no concern for the awesome love of God and His eternal purpose in and through His Son and the only Savior from sin and death! Multitudes turn blind eyes and deaf ears to His unchanging love and awesome sacrifice choosing recklessly to go their own way void of eternal intent and purpose.

Selfish utilization of divine intent is the “door-closer” to eternal intent of heavenly blessing! When Paul wrote Ephesians 2:10 he had been sovereignly blessed with the eternal awareness that he existed in the divine plan through the heavenly door of Resurrection Life, Resurrection power, and Resurrection purpose and intent: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Unselfish living is the “door-opener” to dynamic living of a life honoring the reality of the “Indwelling Christ”! It’s that “sentence of death daily that the Resurrected Christ may be manifested in mortal flesh.” There is not a redeemed person living void of eternal intent – every new-born believer has been “gifted” by the Holy Spirit, yes, in some dramatic way, to honor and glorify the Indwelling Christ as they willfully choose to express His love and prove His power.

In 2 Timothy 1:9-11 Paul testified about ‘the gospel according to the power of God’ that He “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, and apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.”

It should be so very clear to you that every disciple has a true, distinct, God-honoring call through Christ Jesus, their Savior, Lord, Master, and Guide to the Father’s glory. I want to major on two things in this teaching: First, Our Calling, and Second, Our Commission.

First, Our Calling. Did we just read in 2 Timothy 1: 9, that ‘the gospel according to the power of God’ is that He “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,” which tells us of Creation, the Fall, and God’s determination of the need of “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.”

How clear do you find 2 Timothy 1:10 about “God’s own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus BEFORE TIME BEGAN”, “now revealed (clearly) by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, WHO HAS ABOLISHED DEATH AND BROUGHT LIFE AND IMMORTALITY TO LIGHT THROUGH THE GOSPEL,” opening the Door to:

• Following Christ as Lord, Savior, and Master over our earthly existence, transforming fleshly life into Heavenly Presence! “Christ in you the hope of glory”! What did Jesus say to His first and all disciples after them? “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.” When the Savior and Lord of life calls you it is the calling of hearing, submitting, and following His Sovereign leadership – a new door opened to touch the world around you with His love, grace, and mercy! We extend His life, express His love, and offer His power to transform others!

Paul said Christ “abolished (spiritual) death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,” and that ‘life and immortality through the gospel’ births disciples submitted to His Lordship and His eternal purpose, “I came to seek and to save that which is lost,” which results in

• Disciples who worship Him and submit to His Lordship and leadership! “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but you do not do what I say?” Worship apart from submission? Worship apart from doing what He says? Worship apart from yieldedness to the divine intent of expressing His love, sharing His power, and expressing His eternal desire to reconcile all men to Himself?
• Are YOU the tree “planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither; and does what prospers and honors His Master, Lord, and Savior”?
• Examine “the fields” around you! In John 4:34-38 Jesus said: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
• Be ready, be prepared for His coming to you and for you! I often wonder if any consider regularly as they arise, “This may be my final day, hour, or breath. Am I ready to meet my Lord and Savior? Have I fulfilled all He asked of Me?” I tell you: This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Gladness or grief? Gladness or sorrow over His unfulfilled desires for your life, walk, and witness? Gladness in obedience or sadness in your failure to fulfill His calling?

SECOND, CONSIDER A WORLD OF ABSURDITIES! Did I begin this teaching emphasizing ‘a godless-world is a world of absurdities’? I said, “When individuals go through a God-created, God-ordained, and a God-sustained world without any consideration of His desires, His intent, or His pleasures, they void from their lives the awesome discovery of God-blessed lives”!

They ‘breathe’, and have no appreciation of God’s blessing – breath to them is ‘natural’, not super-natural, human without any consideration of divine intent, one’s fleshly ‘best’ without even a thought of eternal purpose, divine will, or sovereign significance!

• Consider a world of absurdities that there is willful sinfulness and no recompense! Have you never heard Romans 6:23? “For the wages of sin is death…”!

What did the Apostle Peter write in 2 Peter 2:1-22? But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.

By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked

(for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) – then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority.

They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.

But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime.

They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children.

They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet.

These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error.

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.

For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire’.”

Sin without recompense? That’s destructive heresy! Sin and no penalty? That’s the devil’s lie and the sinner’s reward! Sin and no judgment? That’s the destructive way of denying the word of truth and blaspheming the very Name of Christ! Sin and no consequences? Paul said under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Galatians 6:7-8, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”

• Consider a world of ‘profession’ but no possession. Our Lord and Savior declared in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

A profession but no possession! A talk but no walk of true faithfulness and submission. A song but the wrong writer, wrong theme, and wrong intent, which is ‘pumping flesh’ and strangling the Spirit! Though dressed like a sheep, they walk inwardly as ravenous wolves! That’s ‘planked eyes’ that cannot see revealed Truth! That’s lives hearing the sayings of Jesus but never does them because their ‘house of faith’ has no true foundation, and when the floods come and the winds blow and beat on that ‘empty house’ of professed faith, it falls – and great and sad and eternally lives with its reward: kinship with the devil and his demons and a condemned world of faithless people! Jesus will say, “I called, but you refused; I implored, but you ignored the call of the laid-down life; I entreated, but you retreated into your own spiritual world of ‘make-believe’ when I invited you to heaven on earth!”

• Consider a world of ‘claimed allegiances’ but with no responsibilities, accountabilities, or true devotion! To Titus Paul wrote in Titus 1:10-16, “For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.
• One of them, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. THEY PROFESS TO KNOW GOD, BUT IN WORKS THEY DENY HIM, BEING ABOMINABLE, DISOBEDIENT, AND DISQUALIFLED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK.”

Profession is not possession! This is why in 1 Corinthians 1:1-3 Paul declared: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ THROUGH the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST JESUS, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Called to be saints? That means “set apart” by God from enmity against God in the flesh to oneness in Him in the Spirit through the sacrificial death and resurrection of God’s Son and our Savior by repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross!

But, sadly, some have been deceived by the powers of darkness, that they cannot but sin until they get to Heaven one day when Jesus said, “Go and sin no more”!

I’m not surprised at all that Paul had to expose those who taught opposite of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, yes, denying the ‘doctrine which accords with godliness’, saying that they are ‘proud, knowing nothing, even believing ‘that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.’ [1 Timothy 6:3-13!].

Before Christ – alienated from God; In Christ – united with God! Before Christ – enemies of God; In Christ – one with God! Before Christ – owned, controlled, dictated to by the powers of darkness; In Christ – transformed into sons and daughters of the Holy Family of God!

Paul closed out his writing to Timothy saying in 1 Timothy 6:20, “O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is called knowledge – by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.”

Some live by ‘grit’ apart from grace and receive an unbeliever’s reward rather than “blessed in and through Christ alone”! Sainthood is a life lived in continual gratitude to Holy God for His amazing love and awesome grace!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“THE DIVINE MIRACLE OF A TRANSFORMED MIND”

I was recently reading a new book by pastor-friend, Jim Hylton, entitled “Being At Ease”, subtitled Thinking At Ease – Lessening Disease. It is a powerful, challenging, encouraging, informative read that every disciple of Christ ought to read. My son, Scott, bought the book for me and had Jim sign it with “To Farrell a special friend!” Jim Hylton, with a scripture reference, Luke 12:32, then shared Jesus speaking, “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

I’ve often wondered how many ‘pulpit pastors’ have majored on the reality of “kingdom living” through “The Divine Miracle of a Transformed Life”! Are you familiar with Romans 12:2 where Paul challenged the Roman disciples and us saying, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be [‘being’] transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

It was after the Bruce Jenner – Caitlyn Jenner diabolical disaster that Sue and I heard a psychiatrist, Dr. Paul R. McHugh, speaking about Jenner, and spoke of “the disorder of assumption” – and I’ve often wondered about how many so-called ‘Christians’ who are “pretenders” having never experienced, lived by, or taught the truth of “The Divine Miracle of a Transformed Mind,” but are, too many, ‘professors of faith’ who will someday fall into the perilous state of Hosea’s word from God when in Hosea 4:6 the prophet recorded Holy God saying, “My people perish for lack of knowledge.”

To be ‘found in Christ’ is what Jim stated as “the mystery of God” or the “secret of God”, quoting Colossians 1:26-27, [The Message Version of the Bible], “This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of his or her background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you; therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple.”

But the sad reality for many, even some ‘professors of faith’, is never being possessed, owned, bought, indwelt by Christ, through repentance toward God and faith in His finished work at Calvary’s Cross, resting in “saved by grace through faith”, and being declared by God Himself as a true son or daughter of the blood redemption, but living with or contending with or conquered by the sad reality of a worldly mind with no eternal purpose, practicing mental and spiritual gymnastics apart from the thoughts and truths of God, even educational geniuses of worldly thought apart from the thoughts, truths, or mind of Holy God, or, yes, even a redeemed life with an uninformed mind or a born-again believer living on a starvation diet apart from the ‘bread,’ the ‘milk’, or the ‘meat of God’s Word’.

Pre-salvation is a state of mind and heart, void of redemptive faith, but governed by an attitude of “enemies of God”, “helpless”, “hopeless”, yet loved by God to the extent of the sacrifice of His Son on the cruel Cross that we might be redeemed through “the blood of the Lamb,’ reconciled, regenerated, restored to His eternal state and plan as sons and daughters of true redemptive faith, “sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling” (1 Corinthians 1:12), no longer enemies or pretenders or professors, but “possessors” of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope that is eternal!

In 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 Paul gloriously declared, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we thus judge: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God IN HIM.”

Are you at all familiar with Ezekial 11 as God informed the prophet and Israel and us of His “New Covenant” that was coming? Verses 19-21 declares: “Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes (or My Word) and keep My judgments and do them, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose hearts follow the desire for detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord.

There’s a description in Isaiah 28:14 about scornful men in Israel who lived in deception, professing one thing, but living another, even the religious majority of Israel , living in deception with their idols, with sexual immorality, and the shedding of innocent blood as some offered their own children as bodily sacrifices in God’s Holy Temple! Isaiah 28:15 tells us of many in Israel who “made a covenant with death”, even admitting, “For we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

And in Isaiah 29: 13-16a Holy God prophetically declared for both then and now, Therefore the Lord said: “Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, BUT have removed their hearts far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men, Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder; [my son, Scott, described it as “shock and awe”!], for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.” Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord, and their works are in the dark; They say, ‘Who sees us?’ and, ‘Who knows us?’ Surely you have turned things around!” In fact, earlier in Isaiah 1:12-21, Holy God spoke:

“When you come to appear before Me, Who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts? Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies – I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting !!! Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. IF you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword”; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. How the faithful city has become a harlot!”

What you’ve just read is a sad indictment against “pretenders” who “profess” religious loyalty but deny “blood redemption” through the sacrificial Lamb of God! It’s like Moses and Aaron confronting the Pharoah of Egypt with Pharoah saying in Verse 2, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go,” telling him, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness,’” eventually leading to Pharoah and his armies being swept away in the Sea of God’s judgment!

If you are familiar with the Psalms, you’ll remember in Psalm 1:1-2 that David described “the blessed man” who “walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night;” then stating in Verses 4-6, “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

Psalm 2 then unveils “the realness of rebellion”, which is people plotting “vain things”, taking personal counsel against Holy God! As a result, in Verse 4-5, God describes “the rareness of personal laughter” because Holy God, yes, does and will “distress them in His deep displeasure”! Oh, but then in Verse 6, Holy God unveils “the revelation of compassion” as He sets His King on “My holy hill of Zion” called Mt. Calvary! Then, Verses 7-11, Holy God introduced “the richness of relationship”, Yes! “You are My Son, today I have begotten You,” with holy sons and daughters, “serving the Lord with fear, and rejoicing with trembling” faithfully “kissing the Son” because they no longer have any desire to experience God’s anger or perish in their self-centered ways, but long for, pursue, and rest in “the blessing” of putting their trust in Christ Jesus only!

“The Divine Miracle of a Transformed Mind”! I find Colossians 3:16 to be such a powerful word of encouragement as Paul wrote, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

How did David describe this attitude of heart and mind in Psalm 100? “Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.”

I, years ago, highlighted Psalm 34 as one’s “Lordship Ministry”, 1) Calling for a life of praise, “I will bless the Lord at all times,” 2) Calling for a life of continual seeking of Him and His will and Word, Verse 4, 3) Becoming aware of His “birthing changes”, Verse 6, as this Poor man cried out, the Lord hearing, and saving him out of all his troubles, 4) Verse 7, Awed by His release of angelic ministries, 5) Awed in Verses 15-16 by His fastened eyes and opened ears to the cries of His righteous ones, 6) Promising us deliverance, Verses 17-18, as the “righteous cry out to Him, God hearing, and God delivering them OUT OF ALL THEIR TROUBLES!” Hear me! Verse 18, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit,” 7) With a firm declaration of Lordship ministry! Verse 19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Our Lord and Savior transforms trouble into triumph, pain into praise, even ‘wars’ into righteous deliverance!

In the process of “The Miracle of a Transformed Mind”, at times the walk of a true disciple is faced with the clouds of terror, the clouds of temptations, the clouds of triviality, and, for some, the clouds of fleshly treason against the One True Living God and the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords, and even against the Holy Spirit! At the same time, God empowers His true disciples to exercise fortitude in the midst of faithless, formidable, frightening opposition! And “The Miracle of the Transformed Mind” is KNOWING there are consumers of religious fabrications or confessors of eternal Truth!

Some walk in their path of redemptive faith apart from the divine revelation and explanation of God’s eternal intent that His children of faith live, not under a man-made philosophy, but under revelation of holy truth and divine authority! In Colossians 2:1-10 Paul wrote:

“For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and YOU ARE COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of all principality and power.”

How clear was Paul to the Ephesians and us, when he instructed “the saints who are in Ephesus, and [the] faithful in Christ Jesus”, testifying in the Lord, that [Ephesians 4:17-24], “you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, AND THAT YOU PUT ON THE NEW MAN which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” How awesome is that?!?

Do you understand, receive, and walk in “the new beginning”, that through Christ Jesus alone God has granted to you “a new spirit” under a “new covenant”, miraculously birthing “a new creation”, instructing us to sing to Holy God “a new song”, yes, with “shouts of joy”? The biblical command you read in the previous paragraph is: “put on the NEW MAN which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

Colossians 1:6-7 declares: [NASB], “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord [or received Christ Jesus as Lord over your life], so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and NOW being built up in Him and established [or “made to stand”] in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.”

If Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life”, and you are now “in Him”, are you experiencing day by day resurrection life, resurrection power, resurrection presence, and resurrection hope? Do YOU think, ‘as He is so am I’? If Jesus IS “the Light of the world”, and He now lives in you, how do you explain unfruitful works of darkness in your pilgrimage with Him? If Jesus ‘overcame’ and He lives in you, then why is there, in you, at times, the ‘overcoming spirit’ of the world of lawlessness, indifference, or ingratitude?

Or, for you, with Paul, does “the thorn in the flesh” speak to you at times? In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 the apostle alerted us, “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

“The Miracle of a Transformed Mind”? Though ‘birthed in the world with an old sin nature’, and ‘thorned in the flesh’ by the devil and demons, even ‘held captive by a godless world spirit’, the Savior came whose Name is Jesus, and the “new day” dawned for a blessed deliverance.

Though ‘birthed in bondage’ as a slave to the sin nature, blackened in mind and heart to a destructive life, void of trust in God’s eternal purpose, mankind wandered in a world of unending strife.

Though ‘best’ effort arose in place of a ‘blessed life’, humanity continued in godless strife; “I am able to do as I please” without a thought of sin’s dreaded disease – a state of mind, a darkened heart, a fleshly will that set God apart. No need of Him – we’re fit and trim, happy in sin, unaware of any consequences.”

Though ‘birthed in spiritual death’ sinners sincerely try to make sense of their emptiness, their godlessness, their imaginary happiness, even declaring for themselves that darkness is light, that self-determination is might, and that willful rebellion to Holy God is a fleshly right.

Though going through life in defense of self-will, they blind themselves to God’s holy will; and walking alone apart from divine purpose, fallen mankind walks in pride and arrogance, never knowing their spiritual emptiness and brokenness, never receiving the gift of God’s mercy and graciousness.

Though granted by God with an awesome free-will, most men in their selfishness never take time to be still; time to look inward, time to look upward, for most men is time to be selfish, time to be enslaved to the pleasures of flesh, but no time to look inward to their godless existence!

Though challenged by God and calling men out, most will relax in their sin-natures of drought, deaf ears to God and eyes that are blinded to God’s invitation and His awesome provisions – oneness with Him and His blessed intent to fill each new heart with Sovereign promises, His Holy Presence, and a heart of assent, raised from death to life, from poverty to wealth, a child of the King in His family of the blessed!

“The Miracle of a Transformed Mind”? I close with Paul’s words to the Philippians in Philippians 3:7-14, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have (fully) apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Amen?

CONCLUSION

_{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?}

_Leo 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, Sept. 2-3, 2017

I was deeply moved, reminded of, and, yes, convinced of “life experiences’ being either closed doors to the desire of God to “Bless” us or convinced “I’m on my own, and I’ll try my best to overcome all that I’m facing without anybody’s help, including your God!”

Life apart from trouble, heartaches, disappointments, producing frustrations like an explosive volcano, are at times seemingly out of control. And, of course, one has to ask: “Well, in this present life situation, who IS in control?” Do you understand, sense, and become aware of those who are ‘shaken’, yes, even in every good or bad moments of their lives and circumstances, and they crumble right before your eyes because they’ve never looked in to the heart and mind or UP TO THE LOVING GOD AND FATHER WHO’D LIKE TO INTERVENE!

Guided by present failures or disastrous events, the independent mind senses no need of God’s help or His people’s help – “I can make it on my own!” One thing is sure for me in Texas today in this time period of ‘natural disasters’, most Texans are thankful for His people’s help AND HIS FAITHFUL INTERVENTION AND BLESSING OF THE TROUBLED MINDS, HEARTS, AND FAMILIES WHO STAND IN NEED! And God arises!

In His “Rising Up” in the time of trouble, He calls on His people, whether some know Him or not, to hear the call to duty, to receive the rallying cry of ‘community cooperation’, to pause, reflect, pray, saying, “Lord, what would YOU have me to do?” In every life there are those life-circumstances where one must stop, ask Him, evaluate under His Spirit’s control and oversight, of what is necessary, what is vital, what is valid, and what is of most importance to ME as a vessel of His Holy Presence, fighting the good fight of faith, understanding and resolving what my present responsibility is – but is it to MY world, MY flesh desires, or even a ‘vessel’ of invasion by the powers of darkness that limits God’s Compassion, ignoring God’s eternal purposes, OR what is most important to Him and His ministry in, to, AND through me?!? Isn’t there historically present from our world’s foundation and creation the activity of God seeking to BE the difference in the betterment of human lives and human affairs? Yet many ignore or even buy in to Satan’s lies! “Has God really said…?” Isn’t that what Satan asked or spoke to Eve and Adam? And doesn’t Satan still continue to degrade, deny, or denounce His eternal Truth in the Word or in the Living Word of Christ’s Presence?

But in 2 Peter 1:1-4 Peter wrote and testified, yes, to “the Grace of God’s Intervention” for our blessing, multitudinous benefits, and as a barricade against Satanic, worldly, or fleshly interference! Peter said: “To those who have obtained like precious faith with us BY the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness”, THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM WHO CALLED US BY GLORY AND VIRTUE, by which HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO US exceedingly great and precious promises, that THROUGH THESE you may be PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

And remember! It is His glory and His virtue that you by repentance and faith receive! They are “gifts” of His grace, His mercy, His love, poured out upon YOU in extending His Kingdom ministry, extending His Kingdom calling, and Extending His Kingdom care through You to others around you!

And did Peter say He “called us” BY HIS GLORY AND HIS VIRTUE? It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his writing, The Children of the Lord’s Supper”, (l.177), who said: “The glory of Him who Hung His masonry on naught, when the world He created.” And, no doubt, it was why Isaiah was inspired to write: (Isaiah 6:3), “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.”

And, I pray, you understand that it’s His desire to have your redeemed life by the blood of the Lamb through repentance and faith to become the Holy Temple, YOUR LIFE FILLED WITH HIS GLORY as His Resurrection Life in you unveils, shines, and releases His glory in your walk! This is why in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that Paul also wrote: “Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, you are to do all to the glory of God!”

But remember! We’re looking in the Word first about lives guided by present failures, disastrous events, or beyond that, the foolish ‘decisions, omissions, and intended affronts’, an affront being disrespectful of others, trying to intentionally shame, intentionally abuse, or unnecessarily even defame one of honorable and proven reputation! And when the abuses are occurring, Holy God may or will call on you to step in where at times even angels fear to tread! And that can happen, yes, for the decency and concern of human care from unbelievers, whether they learned to bow before King Jesus or not! Jesus said, “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for the many.” And, at times, unbelievers are, yes, used by Christ Himself to help , myself as a young, little boy of eight to twelve years of age even considering or remembering family members, unredeemed, yet voluntarily putting on the soldiers armor and going to war! What some do in life’s journeys is not for the glory of God but, at times, the release of fleshly, human decency!

And that does help in the midst of human catastrophes because few godless or Godly people will go through their life without trouble, without heartaches and disappointments, needing, at times, the care of the human family, whether it’s extending God’s love or a release of human decency. But ‘human decency’ is no evidence of “reconciled to God” or “re-born by the Spirit of God in Christ” to “new creations.” Sadly, across my 81 years of life, I’ve seen unredeemed men used by Holy God to care for others while the ‘church’ sat in their pews satisfied in their ‘religious devotion’ – and, at times, true disciples want to throw up, sickened by the neglect of a supposed ‘caring community’!

Are you aware of Holy God rallying unbelieving armies in Old Testament days, used as His “war weapons” of leaders, nations, or people who shamed human decency, and HE inspired them to be His judgment tool, His weapon, and His arm of, yes, annihilation?

In John L. Bray’s book entitled “Matthew 24 Fulfilled”, he unveiled the destruction of Jerusalem AND the “Holy Temple” (?), so loved by the ‘religious Jews’! Bray said, (p.84), “The Romans once again urged the Zealots to surrender so that their religious laws and sacrifices could continue, and once again were ignored. Josephus himself, acting as translator for Titus, said, “It is God therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans, and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of pollutions.” (Josephus, 432).

And in the very next paragraph John Bray wrote this: “One woman who had lost everything but her baby to these bloodthirsty Jews, then killed her baby son, “and then roasted him, and ate the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.” When the seditious men smelled “the horrible scent of this food, they threatened her, that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied, that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them; and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight; when she said to them, ‘This is mine own son; and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat this food; for I have eaten of it myself!’ The men left, trembling and frightened. The whole city was overcome by distress when they heard of such a thing.” (Josephus, 443-444).

What have you heard of lately that distresses you concerning lives, families, cities, businesses, nations, where even the worst of human indecencies, though sorrowful, doesn’t turn a needy soul, family, business, city, state, or nation to the Throne of merciful God? Indecencies are often overshadowed by indecisive “do-nothingness”!

Are you aware of and alerted to the reality that in many communities disastrous events, futile failures, ARE NOT “WAKE-UP CALLS”, but fretting, fussing, and fighting for one’s own way without “resting IN the Lord Himself”? But in Psalm 91 we learn of the reality of opportunity of “abiding under the shadow of the Almighty”! Receive the Word:

He who dwells in the secret places of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.”

Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways (Yes! Praise the Lord! Angelic Oversight!). In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread (metaphorically!) upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot.

Because (Farrell Fisher) has set his love upon Me, therefore I WILL DELIVER HIM; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation.” Glory! Praise the Lord! Bow before Him in full repentance and faithful worship, surrender, and service to the glory of His Name by being daily dead to yourself, but “Yes”, ALIVE IN CHRIST! Do you know what 2 Chronicles 16:9 says?

“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.” In your journey of life, YOU WILL FIND superior, fleshly forces out to take you down, BUT GOD IS ABLE TO DO EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY ABOVE AND BEYOND IN ALL WE NEED AND MUST HAVE FROM HIM!

Often times God sovereignly chooses to allow open doors of opposition to Him to come against YOU! (Don’t miss this!), Because He wants YOU LEARNING IN FAITH to “lean not to your own understanding, but in all the ways and places and circumstances you choose, He wants you “trusting Him with all your heart, leaning not to your own understanding; desiring YOU choosing to acknowledge Him, giving Him His rightful place as Lord, Savior, Master, Director, Liberator, and Conqueror”!!

In Romans 8:35-39 Paul wrote: “Who (Or what?) shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” YET, IN ALL THESE THINGS, WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. For I AM PERSUADED, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

You do understand that Sovereign God, at times, in and through the burdens He allows, like Spurgeon wrote, “The burden God places squeezes the grapes and out comes the wine; most of us see the wine only;” and there’s a reason for that! We want no part of ‘trouble’ that turns us outside ourselves, no part of ‘testing’ that reveals our ‘faith-trust’ as poor as we lean to our own determination to have, face, win or lose, but especially to “my glory”, because “I believe, I’m able”! Really?

Commonplace lives, confident in ‘self’, are not “high-noon” lives living in the brightness of their own glory, but deceived lives trying to live in incarnate laziness and indifference to the necessary Help of God Almighty! The “best” of flesh, of self-will, self-determination, with self-assured brilliance and a marvelous, fleshly, carnal mind, (even ‘hanging around’ in some believers!), is the call of God, by His Spirit of conviction, appealing to you to “shake off your incarnate, spiritual laziness, and, yes, “Fight the good fight of faith”, until in you and through you, you see the Victory of the Resurrected Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, and His inspired Word overcoming any and every worldly, fleshly, or demonic intrusion YOU ALLOW! Stand UP! Fight the Good Fight of Faith!

Do you understand, comprehend, claim, “rest in” what the Holy Word declares? What Christ Jesus declared? John 8:31-32, “IF you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” But what happens in the journeys of many professing disciples?

For some, there comes a time of a mixture of motives between ‘flesh’ and the Spirit of Jesus. At times some believers wander from their calling of honoring and glorifying God in their daily walk, and what becomes for them, a mundane journey, not being fully instilled in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ; and, yes, some ‘adult, having matured some, slips back into childhood carelessness, forgetting, “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God!”

I was amazed reading Spurgeon tonight when he said: (“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.238), “It takes God’s Spirit in us to make us so absolutely humanly His that WE ARE UNNOTICEABLE.” Is it God’s purpose, His intention, His eternal plan, even before the foundation of the world, that men would, under His Spirit-conviction, come to the end of themselves and allow “Christ Jesus to be their All in All?” Yes! That’s God’s desire, His “high calling” for you to BE THROUGH WITH YOURSELF, and let Christ Jesus reign in and through you by the power of His Holy Spirit!

OH, THAT YOU BE GRACED BY GOD’S INTERVENTION!! Charlotte Homer and Charles Gabriel wrote an old hymn published in the 1933 The American Hymnal. It’s entitled, “Draw Near Immanuel”. It says: “Draw nigh to us, O God of hosts, And fill us to the uttermost With zeal to work for You today, In Your all-wise appointed way; Reveal Your will in us, and show Your hand divine, That we may know We are Your children, You our Guide and hiding-place, what-e’er betide.

Draw nigh to us, O Mighty One! Our shelter be from sun to sun; Our Alpha and Omega YOU Before whom every knee shall bow; Deliver us from every sin; In us a mighty work begin; Increase our faith, our strength renew, Fit us a mighty work to do.

Draw night to us, Immanuel, You Mighty God of Israel! Once more from Sinai’s flaming height Speak, that we may be led aright; Almighty, everlasting King of kings, with contrite hearts we sing, The righteous majesty and love of Him who built the heavens above.” And do you see yourself as the special work of God Almighty, “crucified with Christ”, and raised up to walk in the “newness of life” which is only our Lord’s “Resurrection Life”!

You “draw near” daily to take the sentence of death to yourself that Christ’s Resurrection Presence is manifested through your mortal body! “Jesus, be Jesus in me, No longer me but thee, “Resurrection Power” fill me this hour, Jesus, be Jesus in me!” AMEN?

By J.Farrell Fisher, May 25-26, 2017

By J. Farrell Fisher, July 9-11, 2017

Paul gives us holy, eternal, and life-changing truth when in 1 Corinthians 2:14 he wrote: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” even mentioning in 1 Corinthians 3:3 about those, in the Corinthian church, who “are carnal and behaving like mere men”!

How clear was Christ Jesus when in John 3:6 He said to Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,’ and that’s true of every natural man – and born of flesh, his greatest need is to be “born of the Spirit”!

As you study the Word of God, are you clear about why Christ Jesus “exposed” the religious Jews of His day? In John 8:31-44 is an unveiling of the “True seed” and those of Satan’s family loyalists! It says: The Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, “You will be made free.” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin (present tense, continuous action!) is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.” They answered Him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.”

Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father – God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from (or out of) God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.

You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

To be confronted by Christ Jesus is to have one’s heart and mind exposed to Truth, to the need of blood redemption, to the alternative of ‘life in Christ’ or death under Satan’s domination, or to “the desires of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do,” or to resurrection life, resurrection power, or resurrection hope!

If you continued in John 8:48-51, you’d discover your greatest hope! Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges. Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.”

“Never see death”? We all ‘see’ death, but Christ Jesus was saying that if anyone stands in His Word he’ll never be held in death’s bondage eternally but live in His life throughout eternity, and those who live without Him will be held eternally under Satan’s control in the death that never dies with all unbelievers! And dare I to say, “to live without Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior and Master of one’s life is to be bound by a hopeless and unfulfilling existence forever and ever”?

And one has to wonder: “Why the great chasm between ‘professing Christians (?)’ and true disciples, true followers, true sold-out-disciples?”

I was highly impressed and encouraged when I read in Dallas Willard’s book, “The Great Omission”, in his introduction, he satiated, “The governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be ‘Christians’ forever and never become disciples.” And he called it the Great Omission with Great Disparity flourishing, or, “Will they break out of churches to be His Church”? So, I would assume, one of the greatest needs across ‘modern-day’ church life is the necessity of re-instituting “making disciples”!

So, let’s examine, FIRST, in discovering YOUR greatest need: HAVE YOU TRULY BEEN RECONCILED TO GOD THROUGH THE GIFT OF CHRIST JESUS IN REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD AND TRUE FAITH IN CHRIST’S REDEMPTIVE WORK THROUGH HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION?

In 2 Corinthians 7:10 Paul tells us, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” Didn’t Jesus say in Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”?

My concern? Sometimes one’s grief about his circumstances and situations in life is but the shadow of God’s convicting presence apart from a true desire to be reconciled to God! But Isaiah 61:1-3 unveils a true repentant mind and heart! It says: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn,

To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

It was William Cowper who once wrote: “The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown; no traveler ever reached that blessed abode who found not thorns or briers in his road.” And I would ask YOU, “Have you recognized, repented of, and seen the blood of the Lamb removing from you what separated you from Him? Is there, was there, sorrow in your heart when the Holy Spirit convicted you, if He did, of your sin and separation from Holy God?

It was Harriet Beecher Stow who many years ago wrote: [The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H. Revell Com., Westwood, N.J.], “Sorrow is divine. Sorrow is reigning on all the thrones of the universe, and the crown of all crowns has been one of thorns. There are many books that treat of the sympathy of sorrow, but only one that bids us glory in tribulation, and count it all joy when we fall into divers afflictions, that so we may be associated with that great fellowship of suffering of which the Incarnate Son of God is the head, and through which He is carrying a redemptive conflict to a glorious victory over evil. If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.”

How familiar ARE YOU WITH THE Book of Lamentations? [But, of course, there are those who would say, “Old Testament truths have nothing to do with New Testament disciples,” but I would say, “These folks are far, far from the Truth!”]. You should read ALL of Lamentations, but let me share Lamentations 1:12-16!!

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought upon me, which the Lord has inflicted in the day of His fierce anger.

From above He has sent fire into my bones, and it overpowered them; He has spread a net for my feet and turned me back; He has made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions was bound; they were woven together by His hands and thrust upon my neck. He made my strength fail; the Lord has delivered me into the hands of those whom I am not able to withstand.

The Lord has trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst; He has called an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord trampled as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. For these things I weep; my eye, my eye overflows with water; because the comforter, who should restore my life, is far from me; my children are desolate because the enemy prevailed.”

SECOND, HAS YOUR LIFE SITUATIONS BROUGHT YOU TO THE ETERNAL SITUATION OF EXAMINING YOURSELF, DETERMINING WHAT REALLY HAS YOUR HEART? I’m really sorry if the Word offends you, but YOU must examine what really has your heart! It’s as if some church folk today, and certainly those in and of the world, are convinced it’s their choice as to what rules and reigns in their own hearts!

And it was Oswald Chambers who once commented on either ‘selective affinity (that) dies’ or the ‘sanctified abandonment’ of lives that live in and through Christ only! [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.120]. He said: “You cannot consecrate what is not yours; there is only one thing you can consecrate to God, and that is your right to yourself (Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experience out of you. God’s experiments always succeed. The one mark of a saint (One set apart to God’s glory!) is the moral originality which springs from abandonment to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing wellspring of original life all the time; the Spirit of God is a well of water springing up, perennially fresh. The saint realizes that it is God Who engineers circumstances, consequently there is no whine, but a reckless abandon to Jesus.”

And the question of this very moment for you before Holy God is: Are you abandoned only to the glory of Christ alone or does ‘selective affinity’ rule and reign over you? What YOU face in your life’s pilgrimage up until now, have those ‘life experiences’ brought you to what or who has your heart?

THIRD, HAVING BEEN RECONCILED, HAVING DETERMINED WHO HAS YOUR HEART, AND NOW AS “THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS”, ARE YOU EXERCISING THROUGH GOD’S DIVINE POWER ALL AUTHORITY OVER THE THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO LIFE AND GODLINESS?

You do understand that in the ‘religious world’, including even your local church setting, that you will find some awareness or awakenings we all need to be alerted to! For example: There can be an inclination to without the appropriation of, there can be thoughtful considerations without transformation, there can be argumentation without acceptance by God, there can be theories of the mind religiously without Truth that transforms, and one can possess a ‘thirst’ but no desire for the “Living Water’!

In 2 Peter 1:1-11 Peter awakens us to the true righteous remnant! (And I’ll never forget Miss Bertha Smith, missionary to China most of her adult life, who said on an occasion, teaching in a church I pastored: “Probably 90-95% of the church pastors in America need to be “born again”!” I tell you, it scared Hell out of some pastors that day!) Peter wrote:

“To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN TO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO LIFE AND GODLINESS, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,

By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue,

To virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren, nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

THEREFORE, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Our modern-day world, related to ‘Christian activity’, is faced with, I believe, three distinct choices that people everywhere can choose from: 1) Cultural Christianity (where a very significant number have chosen to live, 2) World religions, that number millions upon millions, or 3) Christ-Given Re-Birth! In fact, in John 3:3, Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In the kingdom of God, King Jesus rules and reigns! Does He rule over, in, through your heart, mind, spirit, and body?

A spiritual evaluation? 1) Is there in you “undivided devotion”? Check Luke 14: 26! 2) Is there costly commitment? Check Luke 14:27! 3) Is there costly analysis? Check Luke 14:31! 4) Is there “awesome and full surrender? Luke 14:33!

Frank S. Mead wrote “The March of Eleven Men”. Listen with both mind and heart!! “James the brother of Jesus and James the son of Zebedee preach and are killed by mobs in Jerusalem; Matthew is slain on a sword in Ethiopia; Philip is hanged in Phrygia; Bartholomew flayed alive in Armenia. Andrew is crucified in Achaia, Thomas is run through with a lance in East India, Thaddeus is shot to death with arrows, a cross goes up in Persia for Simon the Zealot, and another in Rome for Peter. Matthias is beheaded; only John escapes a martyr’s grave.”

D.W.Whittle and May Whittle Moody wrote an old hymn entitled “Moment by Moment”. (The American Hymnal of 1933). It says: “Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine; living with Jesus, a new life divine; Looking to Jesus till glory does shine, 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, and never a groan, Never a teardrop and 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.”

In “Christ Ascended,” Michael Bruce wrote: “In every pang that rends the heart, The Man of Sorrows has a part.” He’s with you, He’s in you, He works through you!

Can you say that Christ Jesus is your “everlasting portion”, more than a friend or life, all along your ‘pilgrim journey’, but the Lord and Savior of your inner strength?

Can you say, “not for ease or worldly pleasure, not even for fame will your prayer be, but you’ll gladly toil, even suffer, if it gives glory and honor to Him”?

Can you say, “Lead me, if necessary through the vale of shadows, Just bear me over the fitful seas, Knowing the gate of life eternal, Open it wide, Lord, for You and me”?

In Ephesians 1:11-14 are powerful verses unveiling “our greatest needs” met and fulfilled in and through Christ alone! It says: “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise pf His glory.”

YOUR GREATEST NEED? To be reconciled to Holy God through Christ! To be forgiven because of His shed blood! To come into oneness with God through Christ, His ambassador and reconciler! To be made a part of the Holy Family as sons and daughters birthed by the Spirit of God! To understand and make yourself available to others as His messenger! To see the significance of being joined with the choir of angels and fellow family members singing in the heart daily the “Hallelujah Chorus” as a “born-again” song-bird of Saving Faith!

FROM THE ETERNAL WORD OF GOD

BY

JAMES FARRELL FISHER

INTRODUCTION

HAVING BEEN INTRODUCED TO CHRIST, HIS CHURCH AND THE BIBLE, WHICH IS HIS HOLY WORD, AS A CHILD OF DIVORCED PARENTS, LIVING WITH GRANDPARENTS OF MY MOTHER FROM THE AGE OF THREE YEARS UNTIL I WAS THIRTEEN YEARS OF AGE, AND STRONGLY WITNESSED TO BY HER TWO SISTERS – AT LEAST SEEDS WERE PLANTED, CHURCH ATTENDED, SCHOOL ADVANCEMENTS ENJOYED, BAYLOR UNIVERSITY GRADUATE, SOUTHWESTERN SEMINARY IN FT.WORTH, TEXAS. AT THIRTEEN YEARS OF AGE, WHEN MY MOTHER REMARRIED, I WAS THEN TAKEN TO LIVE WITH HER AND HER NEW HUSBAND. HE WAS NOT A CHRISTIAN, BUT FOR FIFTY YEARS I WITNESSED TO HIM OFTEN ABOUT OUR LORD’S SAVING GRACE, AND WHEN HE WAS IN HIS MID 80’S, HE SAID TO ME, “FARRELL, I KNOW YOU’VE TOLD ME THE GOSPEL WITNESS OVER AND OVER – I DIDN’T LISTEN, BUT NOW? WOULD YOU TELL ME ONE MORE TIME, HOW CAN I, AN AGED MAN IN HIS MID 80’S BE “SAVED”. I DID-HE PRAYED TO RECEIVE CHRIST. THREE WEEKS LATER HIS NURSING HOME TOLD ME, “WHAT’S HAPPENED TO FRANK CALLAWAY?AFTER YOUR VISIT THREE WEEKS AGO, EVERY DAY HE TELLS EVERYONE AND ANYONE AROUND HIM HOW TO BE GLORIOUSLY “BORN AGAIN”!” THREE WEEKS LATER, HE DIED!

AFTER APPROXIMATELY FIFTEEN YEARS OF PASTORING, I WAS CONVICTED POWERFULLY BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE SPIRIT OF MY WIFE, AND THE PRAYERS, I’M SURE OF MANY TRUE DISCIPLES, AND THEN,TRULY, HAVING REPENTED, I EXPERIENCED THE “NEW BIRTH”, NOT JUST ‘church membership’, BUT ENTERING THE HOLY, ETERNAL MEMBERSHIP IN THE “BODY OF CHRIST”, WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH!

IT WAS ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER THAT THAT I WAS INVITED BY A FRIEND TO PARTICIPATE IN MISSIONS, FIRST TO BRAZIL, THEN TO INDIA. FOR OVER 25 YEARS I TRAVELED ON TRIPS, AT LEAST THREE WEEKS TO THREE MONTHS, IN LEADING PASTORS’ CONFERENCES AND PREACHING IN CITY-WIDE,OUTDOOR EVENGELISTIC MEETINGS. AFTER HEART-FAILURE BUT A SURE RECOVERY, THE FAMILY, FRIENDS,AND OTHER WITNESSES ENCOURAGED ME TO LEAVE OVERSEAS MISSIONS TO OTHERS.

SO, IN THE RECOVERY MODE, IMMERSION IN GOD’S WORD, I HAVE SPENT MANY HOURS AND MANY DAYS WRITING MESSAGES AND BOOKS. I BELIEVE IT HAS BEEN ABOUT 18 TO 20 BOOKS ALREADY PUBLISHED, BUT AT LEAST 8-10 YEARS AGO, I ONLY WROTE WITHOUT PUBLISHING. BUT NOW, I SENSE THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF A FEW FRIENDS, THAT IT’S TIME TO PUT NEW MESSAGES IN A NEW PUBLICATION! RECENTLY I READ A STATEMENT OF A.W.TOZER IN HIS WRITING YEARS AGO ENTITLED, “A MAN OF GOD.” IN THAT BOOK HE SAID: “WE CANNOT AFFORD TO LET DOWN OUR CHRISTIAN STANDARDS JUST TO HOLD THE INTEREST OF PEOPLE WHO WANT TO GO TO HELL AND STILL BELONG TO A CHURCH.” “GOD, HELP US!” AROUND THE WHOLE WORLD THERE ARE MANY WHO HAVE “PROFESSED CHRIST” BUT NEVER BEEN “BORN AGAIN.” MAY ANOTHER “GREAT AWAKENING” HAPPEN IN OUR DAY, AS WE NOT ONLY PROFESS CHRIST BUT ARE FULLY POSSESSED BY HIS INDWELLING PRESENCE THROUGH TRUE REPENTANCE AND BIBLICAL FAITH, NOT JUST THE ‘TOKEN’ OF A LOCAL CHURCH’S MEMBERSHIP, BUT,YES, A “SOLDIER IN THE ARMY OF CHRIST IN AND OUT OF LOCAL CHURCH GATHERINGS, WITNESSING TO A NEEDY WORLD”!

I WANT TO BE OBEDIENT TO THE WORD, AND THROUGH THAT BLESSED ENCOURAGEMENT OF FRIENDS TO “PUBLISH” A NEW BOOK; I’M “AT IT” & WILL SOON CONCLUDE IT! I PRAY YOU, AND YOUR FAMILY, YOU AND YOUR CHURCH, YOU AND YOUR STATE AND NATION WILL BE BLESSED, EVEN AS YOU SHARE BOOKS OF MINE WITH DISCIPLE-FRIENDS AROUND YOU, EVEN IN OTHER NATIONS! EXTEND YOURSELF IN SHARING! THERE ARE MANY,MANY PEOPLE AROUND YOU WHO,YES,DO HAVE ‘SPIRITUAL APPETITES’ BUT DON’T KNOW THE ETERNAL “SPIRITUAL CHEF WITH HIS AMAZING MENU!”AMEN? JAMES FARRELL FISHER

OUTLINE

CHAPTER ONE:

CHAPTER TWO:

CHAPTER THREE:

CHAPTER FOUR:

CHAPTER FIVE:

CHAPTER SIX:

CHAPTER SEVEN:

CHAPTER EIGHT:

CHAPTER NINE:

CHAPTER TEN:

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

CHAPTER TWELVE:

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

CHAPTER NINETEEN:

CHAPTER TWENTY:

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:

Reinhard Bonnke made a very powerful statement that we ought to be repeating until it’s eternally settled in our minds and hearts: “GOD MEANS ME TO BE MORE THAN I THOUGHT I WAS!” What a challenge! And today we’re looking at “Double Portions – Dynamic Presence!” Because, remember Eccl 4:9, not only for marriage but MINISTRY! LISTEN: “Two are better than one, because they have a great, good reward for their labor…v.10, For if they fall, one will lift up his companion…”

Remember the TWO DISCIPLES on the Emmaeus Rd.? Lk. 24:32, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” TWO BURNING COALS PRODUCE MORE HEAT THAN ONE!

Amos 3:3 asks, “Can TWO walk together, unless they are agreed?” Zech. 4:3 speaks of two olive trees & then explains in verse 14, “These are the two anointed ones (two witnesses) who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth.”…& Mk. 6:7 tells us Jesus called the 12 to Him, &” began to send them out two by two, & gave them power over unclean spirits.”

Look at John 8:17-18, Jesus speaking: “It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true…I am One who bears witness of Myself, & the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.

It’s the first day of the week; resurrection has occurred; Mary entered the tomb; and what did she see? John 20:12 says: “And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head & the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.”……And what a THRILLING PROMISE in Matt. 18:20, “For where TWO or THREE are gathered together in My Name, I AM THERE IN THE MIDST OF THEM.”

And aren’t you glad there are TWO COVENANTS, one giving birth to bondage & death, and the other to freedom & life!! Gal. 4:24

Listen to Noah Webster’s definition of “DOUBLE”: “Twice as much; twice the number, sum, value, quantity or length…[he adds] – a sum of money doubles by compound interest in a little more than 11 years.”

To the church at Rome [Romans 5:9-10], Paul said, “MUCH MORE then, having now been justified by His blood, WE SHALL BE BEING SAVED FROM WRATH THROUGH HIM…” Verse 10, “Much More, having been reconciled, WE SHALL BE BEING SAVED BY HIS [CHRIST’s] LIFE.” THERE IS MUCH MORE!! “GOD MEANS ME TO BE MORE THAN I THOUGHT I WAS!”

There’s a theologian by the name of George Lindberg who has a book entitled “The Nature of Doctrine.” He writes: “A scriptural world is able to absorb the universe.” MUCH MORE!

I have no desire to be nominalized, but a “new creation”, being more than I ever thought I could be! I have no desire to be rationalized, but explained only as “the fullness of Him who fills all in all”! I have no desire to be ‘religionized’, but regenerated and resplendant because of re-birth,’ inheriting the fullness of Holy Ghost anointing!

Listen to Bonnke, [“Mighty Manifestations,” p.40], “The apostles discovered a new resilience, a new strength within them, a power that operated in their weakness and sent them out into a brutal world to demolish its idol establishment & change history. That is a true mark of the Spirit-filled LIFE.” “ God means me to be more than I thought I was!” GOD WANTS TO SEND US ALL OUT INTO A “Brutal World” and see lives, homes, histories changed to the glory of God! We Need “MUCH MORE,” We need “DOUBLE-PORTIONS”!

FIRST, THERE IS THE DOUBLED PORTION OF A DOUBLED BREASTPLATE OF HEART PROTECTION! Come to Exodus 39:8-9!! “And he made the breastplate, artistically woven like the workmanship of the ephod, of gold & blue& purple & scarlet thread, & fine linen thread..They MADE THE BREASTPLATE BY DOUBLING IT: a span was its length & a span its width when doubled.” [ A span? 9 inches.] WHAT’S GOING ON?

THE BREASTPLATE COVERED THE HEART!! Do you understand what our gracious Lord is telling us? Do you know what He is most concerned about? IT’S YOUR HEART!!…Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; Who can know it?…Verse 10, “I, the Lord, SEARCH THE HEART…” In Jeremiah 17:5 He’d already spoken, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man & makes flesh his strength, WHOSE HEART DEPARTS FROM THE LORD…”

In Jeremiah 4:14 God calls out, “O Jerusalem, wash your heart from your wickedness, THAT YOU MAY BE SAVED. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?” And do you notice – God’s not talking about your HEAD, but your HEART!

In Matt. 12:34 Jesus says, “…Out Of The ABUNDANCE OF THE HEART, THE MOUTH SPEAKS.” And what God said through Jeremiah was ‘OUT OF THE ABUNDANCE OF THE HEART, THE MIND THINKS!!”…..In Matt 6:21, again, Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there your HEART WILL BE ALSO.” WHAT DO YOU TREASURE?

HAVE YOU DOUBLE-BREASTED YOUR HEART? There’s a reason!! Matt.5:8 says, “Blessed are the PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD.”….PARENTS, have your children MEMORIZE Proverbs 4:23!! “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life.”…I MENTION 4 THINGS:

• DOUBLED BREASTPLATED HEART PROTECTION BEGINS WITH A NEW HEART! Ezekial 36:24-26, God speaking: “I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land…Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, [the Water of the Word!], & you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness & from all your idols…I will give you A NEW HEART & PUT A NEW SPIRIT WITHIN YOU; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh & give you a heart of flesh.” A HEART TENDER TO THE TRUTHS OF GOD!!
• DOUBLED BREASTPLATED HEART PROTECTION CONTINUES WITH A GUARDING COMMITMENT!! I Timothy

6:20 says, “O Timothy, Guard what was committed to your trust…” What does that mean? YOU STATION THE HONOR OF GOD AT THE DOOR OF YOUR HEART! YOU STATION THE HONOR OF YOUR SAVIOR & HIS GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AT THE DOOR OF YOUR HEART!

Spurgeon put it like this: “Beware of no man more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.” You older folks will remember Oscar Wilde, poet, actor, author, well-known for his humanist lifestyle, who wrote at the end of his disgraced life these words:….”The gods have given me almost everything, but I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless & sensual ease. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search of a new sensation…I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character…I allowed pleasure to dominate me, & I ended in horrible disgrace.”

• DOUBLED BREASTED HEART PROTECTION FLOURISHES WHEN I KNOW GOD SEES ALL THAT I THOUGHT I’D HIDDEN IN MY HEART! Psalm 44:21…”…GOD KNOWS THE SECRETS OF THE HEART…”..Enough said!
• DOUBLED BREASTPLATED HEART PROTECTION IS MAXIMIZED WHEN I LEARN SPIRIT-CONTROLLED LIVING NOT FLESHLY MANIPULATIONS! Gal. 5:16 says, “Walk in the Spirit, & you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Do you know SPIRIT-CONTROLLED LIVING?

SECOND, I WANT YOU TO SEE THE DOUBLE PORTION OF DOUBLED-DEVOTION OF HEART MINISTRY! Deu 15:12-18 says, “If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed; you shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. From what the Lord has blessed you with, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today. And if it happens that he says to you., ‘I will not go away from you’, because he loves you and your house, since he prospers with you, then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. It shall not seem hard to you when you send him away free from you; for he has been worth a Double-Hired Servant in serving you six years. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.” Are you a “doubled-hired servant” to the glory of God? Has your love for Christ Jesus become so rich that you’ve been “marked” or “branded”? Are you God’s servant forever?

I was reading Derek Prince this week in his book “Experiencing God’s Power.” [pps 126-127]: “For 25 years I searched for something permanent & satisfying in poetry, philosophy, and the world, with all its pleasures & intellectual challenges. The more I looked, the less satisfied I became. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR. However, when the Lord revealed Himself to me & baptized me in the Holy Spirit, I knew instantly that this is what I’d been seeking all the time…God poured into my heart an overwhelming love that finally, completely satisfied me.” What is this “DOUBLED-DEVOTION OF HEART MINISTRY”?

1)IT’S THE DOUBLED-DEVOTION OF THE HEART MINISTRY OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVED! “As He is..So Am I!” Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners CHRIST DIED FOR US.”

2)IT’S THE DOUBLED-DEVOTION OF THE HEART MINISTRY OF UNCHANGING LOVE! “As He is..So Am I!” I Cor. 13:4, “Love suffers long, & is kind…”

3) DOUBLED-DEVOTION OF THE HEART MINISTRY OF UNENDING LOVE! “As He is..So Am I!” John 13:1 says, “..having loved His own who were in the world, HE LOVED THEM TO THE END!” In Jesus’ HIGH PRIESTLY PRAYER, John 17:26, Jesus said, “And I have declared to them Your name, & will declare it, THAT THE LOVE WITH WHICH YOU LOVED ME MAY BE IN THEM, & I IN THEM.”……It was just after Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet. In John 13:34-35, He said: “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another…BY THIS (Not an awl in the ear, but the awl in the heart!!) ALL WILL KNOW THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES, if you have love for one another.”

DOUBLE-PORTION LOVE is so much more than TOLERATION – TRIUMPHANT SPIRIT OF THE CROSS! DOUBLE-PORTION LOVE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN A CHARACTERISTIC – IT’S THE VERY CHARACTER OF CHRIST IN YOU! DOUBLE-PORTION LOVE is so much more than a temporary ray of light – it’s the ETERNAL SON OF THE SOUL & HEART! DOUBLE-PORTION LOVE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN A RESEMBLANCE OR A REFLECTION OF GOD – IT’s THE REALITY OF HOLY PRESENCE RULING IN YOUR HEART! DOUBLE-PORTION LOVE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN A LINK IN THE CHAIN OF GOD-RELATEDNESS – IT’S THE GOLDEN CHAIN THAT CONNECTED US TO THE VERY HEART OF GOD! DOUBLE-PORTION LOVE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN CHEAP IMITATIONS – IT’S THE CROWN JEWELS OF THE INDWELLING, OVERFLOWING, ABIDING LIFE IN & OF CHRIST ALONE!

DON’T TELL ME YOU LOVE SOMEBODY WHEN OUT OF YOUR MOUTH FLOWS BITTERNESS, RESENTMENT, & UNFORGIVENESS! Do you remember what Paul said to the church at Colossae? [Col. 3:14] “But above all these things, PUT ON LOVE WHICH IS THE BOND OF PERFECTION.” Do you want to be perfected? Are you being perfected? Will you allow yourself to be perfected?

THIRD: THE DOUBLE-PORTION OF HEAVEN”S ANOINTING!! 2 Kings 2:7-15, DON’T MISS THIS!! “And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went & stood facing them at a distance, while the two of them [Elijah & Elisha] stood by the Jordan. Now Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up, and struck the water; and it was divided this way & that, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground. And so it was, when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?’ Elisha said, ‘Please, let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.’ So he said, ‘You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so.’ Then it happened, as they continued & talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried out, ‘My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen!’ So he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces. He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back & stood by the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, and said, ‘Where is the Lord God of Elijah?’ And when he also struck the water, it was divided this way and that; and Elisha crossed over. Now when the sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.’ And they came to meet him & bowed to the ground before him.”

The Double Portion of Heavens Anointing? 1) It was because of a SENSE OF NEED IN HIMSELF – and Elisha HUMBLED HIMSELF! “If God is going to accomplish through me what He did through you, because of my own emptiness, ineptness, impotence, weakness, nothingness, IT WILL TAKE TWICE AS MUCH OF GOD’S ANOINTING! 2)Because of a SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY, SEEING THE WORLD AROUND ME – The world isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse. Men are not more enlightened – there’s a greater deception! The opposition doesn’t grow weaker – it gets stronger! Oh…Oh…!! And I do want to be a WORLD-CHANGER! I don’t want to see things altered – I WANT THEM REDEEMED & TRANSFORMED! I NEED A DOUBLE PORTION! 3) AND BECAUSE OF A SENSE OF RECOGNITION THAT GOD IS NOT LIMITED BY WHAT HE DOES THROUGH ONE MAN, like Elijah, I offer Him my life to be an extension of His Life, an expression of His love, and the proof of His power…THROUGH ME! HERE I AM, Lord!……….4)Because of a SENSE OF REFLECTION! Elisha didn’t want to be a man honored among the fellow prophets – his passion was he wanted to be recognized as “A HOLY MAN OF GOD!” 2 Peter 1:21 explains Elisha’s understanding: “prophecy never came by the will of man, BUT HOLY MEN OF GOD SPOKE AS THEY WERE MOVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.”…..No one understood John 6:63 more than Elisha: There Jesus said: “It is the Spirit who gives LIFE: THE FLESH PROFITS NOTHING…”

“Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you!” And Elisha said, “Please, let a DOUBLE PORTION of YOUR SPIRIT be upon me.” And what did 2 Kings 2:15 say? “The spirit of Elijah rests on ELISHA!!”……”Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way! HOLD O’ER MY BEING ABSOLUTE SWAY! [Does that sound like DOUBLE-PORTION ANOINTING? Absolute Sway! Full Surrender! Mighty Rivers Flowing! Mighty Winds Blowing! Mighty Fires Burning!] ..”Fill with Your Spirit till ALL shall see CHRIST ONLY, ALWAYS, LIVING IN ME!”

FOURTH, THE DOUBLE PORTION OF HEAVEN’S BLESSINGS!! **Isaiah 61:1-7!! “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness [or depression]; That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.’ And they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. Strangers shall stand & feed your flocks, and the sons of the foreigner shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But you shall be named the priests of the Lord, they shall call you the servants of God. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your shame you shall have Double Honor, and instead of confusion they shall rejoice they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be theirs.”……HAVE YOU CLAIMED EPHESIANS 1:3 as your own possession? “Blessed be the God & Father of our LJX, who has BLESSED US with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”………WEBSTER: “Blessed?” ENJOYING SPIRITUAL HAPPINESS & THE FAVOR OF GOD; enjoying HEAVENLY FELICITY [happiness or rather great happiness;] Blessedness; Blissfulness, appropriately the joys of Heaven.” WOW!…….Sir Thomas Browne [Religio Medici] prayed: “Bless me in this life with but peace of my conscience, command of my affections, the love of Yourself & my dearest friends, & I shall be happy enough to pity Caesar.”………..In Hamlet, Shakespeare penned these words: “A double blessing is a double grace.”…..”AMAZING GRACE!!!” [Deu. 28:2-12!]

FIFTH, THE DOUBLE PORTION OF HEAVEN’S RESTORATIONS!! Zech. 9:9-12, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly & riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” I will cut off the chariot of Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem; the battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth….As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. RETURN TO THE STRONGHOLD, you prisoners of hope, even today I declare that I will restore double to you.”

There has to be RESTORATION because of a DESTRUCTIVE INVASION by the powers of darkness, RESTORATION because of a STEALING, a THEFT OF WHAT GOD INTENDED FOR YOUR LIFE, FOR THIS CHURCH….RESTORATION because of a violation against DIVINE INTENT….RESTORATION because of the MARRING, SCARRING, & THE STRIPPING!

God moved on the prophet Joel [1:11-12], “Be ashamed, you farmers, Wail, you vinedressers, for the wheat & the barley; BECAUSE THE HARVEST OF THE FIELD HAS PERISHED (or rotted)…the vine has dried up, the fig tree has withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm also, & the apple tree – all the trees of the field are withered; Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men.” ..END OF MESSAGE! RIGHT? HOPELESS! RIGHT? NO POSSIBILITY OF RECOVERY! RIGHT?….WRONG!!

Joel 2:25-27, “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, & the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you…You shall eat in plenty & be satisfied, & praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; & My people shall never be put to shame…”

There’s an interesting part of a verse in Psalm 17:3. It says, “YOU HAVE VISITED ME IN THE NIGHT…” It’s talking about God visiting us in those dark nights of the soul

IT’S A DARK NIGHT when we’ve BEEN SPIRITUALLY ROBBED! A DARK NIGHT when one rebels! A DARK NIGHT when you RUN & HIDE FROM GOD! When you renounce God’s calling upon your life – “I CALLED & YOU REFUSED!”…When you HAVE NO REST FOR THE SOUL!…WHEN YOU MAKE A POOR EXCHANGE & LOSE YOUR SOUL! When you SETTLE FOR THE TEMPORAL & NOT THE ETERNAL! When you’ve GIVEN SIN THE RIGHT TO RAVAGE YOUR SOUL, FAMILY, or FUTURE! HOW TRAGIC! HOW DEVASTATING!

BUT, what does God’s Word say? “IN THE NIGHT…GOD HAS VISITED ME, US!” “He came to seek & to save that which is lost!” “He came to the midst of our mired-ness, bringing us out of a horrible pit, setting our feet on the Rock of Christ, establishing our steps, & giving us a new song to sing…”….”He came to our darkness & led us to His Light!”…”He came to our bondage & gave us His new liberty!” “He came to the night-ness of our nothingness & graciously granted to us His ALL IN ALL!” [Romans 8:31-39]

SIXTH, THE DOUBLE PORTION OF HEAVEN’S HONOR!! I’m going to read I Timothy 5:17 as it is & then paraphrase it. LISTEN: “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of DOUBLE HONOR; especially those who labor in the word & doctrine.”….Paraphrased:…”Let the [MATURE IN CHRIST] who [REIGN IN LIFE THROUGH CHRIST] be counted worthy of DOUBLE HONOR…”

Without hesitation, this ought to be every disciple’s passion; it ought to be the DRIVING AMBITION that shapes everything that we do or say!!…In 2 Cor. 5:9 Paul said: “Therefore WE MAKE IT OUR AIM, whether present or absent, TO BE WELL PLEASING TO OUR LORD.”…Is that the CRY OF YOUR HEART?

To Timothy [2 Timothy 2:15], Paul said, “BE DILIGENT to present yourself APPROVED TO GOD, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”….Diligence for a DOUBLE PORTION of Heaven’s Honor!…..I Corinthians 9:23-27 says, “Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body & bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached, testified, to others, I myself should become disqualified.”

I don’t have to tell you of the 5, 2, or 1 talent parable that Jesus told us about. But I do need to remind you, or ask you, or challenge you: “What’s your SPIRITUAL AMBITION?”…SIMPLE ACCEPTANCE OR CHRIST-HONORING EXALTATION? SIMPLE ENTRANCE OR CHRIST-HONORING ELEVATION?…TAKE THE TALENT FROM HIM OR “WELL DONE, GOOD & FAITHFUL SERVANT”?

It was Frank Gaines who said: “Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.”..I ASK YOU: ARE YOUR EYES FIXED ON JESUS or are you walking around with double vision? Double vision gets you nothing but singular vision, focused on Christ, gives you the DOUBLE PORTION OF HEAVEN’S HONOR……So the writer of Hebrews challenges us: Hebrews 12:2-3, “looking unto Jesus, the author & finisher of your faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, LEST YOU BECOME WEARY & DISCOURAGED IN YOUR SOULS.”

Steve Farrar in “Finishing Strong,” [p.199], said: “In order to finish strong, we must have vision. Vision for what is really important, vision for what our kids really need, & the vision to STEEL OURSELVES against the strategies of the enemy to destroy everything near & dear to our hearts.” [2 Samuel 23:8-12]

IT WILL NOT HAPPEN – WE REST IN CHRIST ALONE; WE LAY HOLD OF GOD ON HIS THRONE; WE YIELD TO THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD!!!

By J. Farrell Fisher

It’s so highly interesting to me that in the early history of mankind, through God’s creation of human presence on His earth, in Genesis 3:8, Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, “and Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

But the one thing I pray you learn from this time together around God’s Holy Word is that God isn’t interested in you hiding from His Holy Presence but letting Him unveil Himself to you! In Luke 24:31-32 we read of the early disciples, seated at a table with the Lord, but unsure of WHO He really was! It says: “Then their eyes were opened and THEY KNEW HIM; and (then) He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while HE OPENED THE SCRIPTURES TO US?”

I tell you, there is nothing dull or dreary when Christ Jesus knocks on YOUR heart’s door – there IS “a burning heart sensation that pulsates within you”! In Revelation 3:20-22 we hear our Lord speaking to us! “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.”

What does the word of wisdom say to us in Proverbs 1:24-32? “Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, Because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, When your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction 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 they will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, They would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke.

Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies. For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.”

You are aware that many have no desire to hear anything God has to say to them! In Psalm 10:3-7 we read: “For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire; he blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord. The wicked in ‘his proud countenance’ does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts.

His ways are always prospering; God’s judgments are far above, out of his sight; as for all his enemies, he sneers at them. He has said in his heart, ‘ I shall not be moved; I shall never be in adversity.’ His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression; under his tongue is trouble and iniquity.” Oh, and then in Verses 8-11, the psalmist, inspired of the Spirit, describes the “godless, the faithless, the unredeemed” with the images of “wild animals”!

Did Luke 24:32 say, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road…”? Is there a “road” called “wherever you go”? Doesn’t Joshua 1:9b tell us: “..do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go”?

Do you remember Moses saying to both Israel and Joshua, as he faced his earthly departure, these words? Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them (the world, your enemies, the devil and his demon-tribes?); for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”

“In Christ” every disciple has begun a ‘faith pilgrimage’, like Moses and Israel in the journey of the “Promised Land”- walking with our Lord and Savior AND His people, His servants, His ‘soldiers of the Cross’! And as I was reading in Luke 10 as the “seventy were sent out” commissioned by the Lord Jesus, I was uplifted to the seventh heaven again when I read Luke 10:17! Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” Do you think those early disciples learned about walking, serving, and ministering in and with His Holy Presence?

How strange it is that somehow, someway, by some insane reasoning, many ‘professing Christians’ have never entered the “blessed, holy land of oneness with and in Christ”! But then the Holy Word enlightens us! In Colossians 3:1-11, Paul instructs us and challenges us:

“If then you were raised with Christ [brought out of sin’s death in you to resurrection life in Him!], seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. [Is seeking those things which are above the reality of ‘pressing in to the eternal’ rather than captured by the temporal?].

Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth [the ‘fleshly,’ the ‘devilish’, the worldly’?]. FOR YOU DIED [ with Christ!], and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory [When you get to Heaven someday or the manifestation of heavenly glory in His resurrection presence in you through His Spirit here and now?].

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 sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked WHEN YOU LIVED IN THEM. [But “in Christ” you don’t live or walk their anymore!].

But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have PUT OFF THE OLD MAN with his deeds, and HAVE PUT ON THE “NEW MAN” who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor fee, but CHRIST IS ALL IN ALL.”

The passage you’ve just read is one of those ‘identifying passages’ of true believers! Have YOU been “raised with Christ”? Are YOU a “seeker” of eternal things? Is your MIND easily adaptable to world thinking OR is it “fixed” on eternal Truth revealed in Christ? Are you ‘comfortable’ with ‘world thinking’ or captured by Christ on His Heavenly Throne equipping your mind in Eternal Truth? Were YOU “crucified with Christ” or does your ‘religious (?) sin-nature’ still reign?

Did Paul tell us that “in Christ” our life “is hidden with Christ in God”? No wonder Paul said in Galatians 6:14-15, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.”

FIRST TRUTH I WANT TO NAIL DOWN ABOUT LIVING IN OUR LORD’S PRESENCE: Does ‘deliverance from the bondage of sin and death, from devilish captivity, or world allegiance’ speak to you at all? What do we see related to how we should respond to or react to Old Testament events? But I see a physical picture that has eternal meaning and relevance in our journey through life with enemies like the world, the flesh, and the devil, out to take us down! In 2 Samuel 22:1 we read: Then David spoke to the Lord the words of this song, on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. And he said:

“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; the God of my strength, in whom I WILL TRUST; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, and my refuge; my Savior, You save me from violence. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.” David then spoke about “waves of death that surrounded him,” about “floods of ungodliness made me afraid,” and then in Verses 17-20, David sang: “He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me; for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.”

It was in Psalm 17:8-9 that David also prayed: “Keep me AS THE APPLE OF YOUR EYE; hide me under the shadow of Your wings, From the wicked who oppress me, from my deadly enemies who surround me.”

Don’t you find it extremely sad when in Deuteronomy 32, in the song of Moses, there was a sad refrain when he said in Verse 18: “Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who fathered you”? Oh, but then in Verse 43d, Moses sang, “He (God) WILL PROVIDE ATONEMENT FOR HIS LAND AND HIS PEOPLE!” In Israel there was a faithful remnant WHO “RESTED” IN HIS HOLY PRESENCE AND PROMISES! What a tower of blessed assurance!

SECOND, THERE IS A TOWER OF SACRED TRUST! In 1 Timothy 4:10 we read Paul strengthening our foundation of assurance, protection, and the overcoming Life in Christ when he said: “For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we TRUST IN THE LIVING God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of all men, especially of those who believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to).”

In Proverbs 28:25-26 we read God’s discernment about the ‘foolish’ and the “faithful”; “He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the Lord will be prospered. He who trusts in his own heart (I say, or mind!) is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.”

Have you, as a disciple of Christ, ever found yourself centered in the midst of trouble, testings, turmoil of the world opposed to the reign of the King of kings and Lord of lords, even questioning your survival because you’ve been ‘burdened beyond measure’? In 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 Paul wrote to the Corinthian church then, and us now, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia; that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death (that’s dead in our trespasses and sins!), and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”

In Proverbs 3:5-6 ‘wisdom’ speaks! “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him (give Him His rightful place as Lord of your life!), and He shall direct your paths.”

THIRD, THERE IS THE TOWER OF SPIRITUAL TRIUMPH! Aren’t you thankful, every day, as a true follower of Christ, that Holy God has given us a “hymn of praise” of “Victory in Jesus”? Spiritual triumph? And, even if we go “through the valley of the shadow of dark trials and deathly circumstances”, in Christ we reside in the ‘tower’ of spiritual triumph!

In Romans 8:18-25,28-30, and Verses 35-39, we read: “For I (Paul) consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the EARNEST EXPECTATION of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

Not only that, but we also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. FOR WE WERE SAVED IN THIS HOPE, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? BUT if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

Come to Verses 28-30! And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those WHO ARE THE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

OH, AND THEN IN VERSES 35-39, WE COME TO THE “HALLELUJAH DECLARATION”! “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’

YET, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created things, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And you doubt yourself in Christ as a servant who lives in “the tower of spiritual triumph”? This isn’t “the power of positive thinking” – it’s the gift of living in His tower of spiritual triumph, and “resting” in His finished work! In Colossians 1:19-23 we receive the Apostolic message of true reconciliation!

“For it pleased the Father that in Him (Christ Jesus!) all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And YOU, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.”

Here’s the question: If God declares us “in Christ” to be more than conquerors, then WHY did Paul state in the Colossians passage, Colossians 1:22-23, “present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – IF INDEED you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are NOT MOVED AWAY from the hope of the gospel…!??” But tragically there are some who become so totally deceived, they ‘move away from the hope of the gospel’ to live in “their main attraction” of proving their self-worth, without Christ!

Never forget Colossians 2:9! “For in Him (in Christ) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”

FOURTH, THERE IS ALSO THE TOWER OF SET TIMES BY THE LORD! In Psalm 118: 24 God’s people gathered together and they sang: “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

I began pastoring in the early 1960’s as I finished my final year at Baylor University, attended Southwestern Seminary for three years, and from the early days of pastoral ministry, mission enterprises in Brazil, India, and other nations, and I can tell you without a fear or a doubt, I’ve seen and heard many men, women, children and youth, on their ‘death-beds’ proclaim the goodness of the Lord, yes, even in the day when they knew they had come to their final breath in their physical bodies, and because of true, redemptive faith, they understood, “absent from the body, present with the Lord.”

True born-again believers live in God’s time-clock – not their own! “My times on earth are in His hands – and He assures me, in Christ, “I” never die!” And they are at peace, whether on earth or in heaven around the throne of the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

Oh, certainly, there are vessels of wrath fitted for Hell, but vessels of grace are adorned in Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope! They are clothed in the glory of the Glorious One even Christ! They are heirs of all Jesus is and has! They are ‘marriage partners’ in Christ with all His great covenant promises! “As He is so am I in this world!” “As Jesus sits on the throne of Heaven as King, as He is so am I!” It’s not a matter of ‘common sense’ but “sacred trust”!

It was Spurgeon, in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” (Vol.19, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Mich.,p.356) , who said: “The things we have to preach of, such as everlasting life, union with Christ, resurrection from the dead, reigning with Him forever and ever, seem to the dull hearts of men to be as idle tales. Tell them of a high interest for their money, of large estates to be had for a venture, or of honors to be readily gained, and inventions to be found out, they open all their eyes and their ears, for here is something worth knowing; but the things of God, eternal, immortal, boundless – these are of no importance to them. They could not be induced to go from Ur to Canaan for such trifles as eternal life, and heaven, and God Himself!”

“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it,” because we “lean not to our own understanding, but in all our ways, we acknowledge Him, we give Him His rightful place as Lord and Master of our lives and all He desires to do through us, and we become “living sacrifices”, taking the sentence of death unto ourselves, that His resurrected Presence may be manifested in mortal flesh!”

H.G.Spafford and P.P.Bliss wrote the old hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul.” [American Hymnal, The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1933]. It says:

“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, though 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?

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, JUNE 10-12, 2018

It is absolutely amazing to me that in our world, even as in the day of Adam and Eve, that men and women, just like them, embrace the “darkness” and cannot, in their minds, consider or give credit to Holy God for, not only the reality of “day-light or darkness”, but that there is an eternal difference in all of our spiritual worlds, and for some, like them, yes, hold onto the selfish indifference to God’s “Light”, choosing to “embrace one’s spiritual darkness, and hold onto it, when God graciously, mercifully, and lovingly, grants freely “The Light of the world” whose name is Christ Jesus the Lord!

It’s also amazing to me that, worldwide, men will CHOOSE to “embrace the darkness”, while Holy God extends the spiritual eyesight to see “the Light” or continue to embrace the darkness! God forces no man to ‘walk in the ‘Light’ if his mind, heart, and will wants to “walk in the darkness” and chooses to ignore God’s Light’!

It was Joshua who once said: “Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”! And the eternal choice a man makes about his earthly life and his eternal residence is determined by his/her response from the mind and heart to the eternal will, plan, and provision of merciful God “in Christ” or a continual commitment to the deception of the world, his open fallen flesh, or bondage to the powers of darkness instructed by Satan himself!

The heritage eternally of the unredeemed who ‘rest’ their lives in ‘fleshly’ commitment, ‘spiritual’ blindness, and demonic domination, is Satan’s ‘prison cell’ in place of God’s Paradise! One’s ‘life journey’ is either a ‘fairy tale’ of ‘best effort’ or the Sovereign history of the yielded, believing, trusting surrendered life to the Lordship of Christ made real by the Holy Spirit unveiling the “Lamb’s Blood, His Resurrected Presence, and His Spirit-Anointing Power and His Resurrection Presence” as a testimony around those and for those who are not “new-born”!

Alonzo B. Bragdon, in his writing, “When the Day is Done”, wrote: “From fibers of pain and hope and trouble And toil and happiness – one by one, – Twisted together, or single or double, The varying thread of our life is spun.

Hope shall cheer though the chain be galling; Light shall come though the gloom be falling; Faith will list for the Master calling Our hearts to His rest, – when the day is done.”

But in Hebrews 3:7-15 the anointed author wrote Hebrews 3:7-15, says, Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: (I have to ask! “Do YOU listen to the Holy Spirit guiding you and enlightening you to the Lord’s precious Word?”): “Today, IF YOU WILL HEAR HIS VOICE, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’” HOW SAD THAT SOME HAVE ‘SHARED IN CHRIST’S “REST”, AND THEN CHOSEN TO WALK AWAY, YES, DECEIVED AGAIN BY THE WORLD, THE OLD-SIN NATURE, AND SATAN HIMSELF!! Right now, WHERE AND IN “WHO” DO YOU STAND?

Have you seen the TV Ad where a professor is on a tall ladder in his classroom finishing up a huge blackboard of his ‘present inspired’ writing for his class – all original, unfolding in his mind moment by moment, but then becoming aware of a school janitor back at the beginning of the class blackboard erasing his classical, highly informative statement that would have made him an international star in higher education, but the initial foundational statements were washed away, and he KNEW he couldn’t remember what he wrote?

The lost world citizens, your own condition, at times, find yieldedness to the ‘old man’ as alluring influences, AND the deceiving influences of Satan himself, CAN & WILL, at times, seek to impact your memory to WHO and to WHAT you committed yourself to!! Don’t ever “FORGET” Jesus and His “daily Bread” for continuing sustenance ,not sudden suffocating of His purpose THROUGH YOU!!

Highly interesting and convicting passage in Luke 12:35-40! Christ Jesus said: “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you, that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.

BUT know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

NOTICE!! VERSE 41!! Then Peter said to Him, “Lord, do You speak this parable only to us, or to all people?” Oh, don’t overlook, by-pass, or willfully ignore Verses 42-46!! And the Lord said, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has.

But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.”

Do you take accept the Truth of Old Testament words as important to a New Testament disciple’s walk with the Lord, the Savior, the Author of both Old Testament and New Testament? What was the Apostle Paul talking about when he wrote to his spiritual son, Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17? “ALL SCRIPTURE (BOTH OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS!!!) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (Of course, there are some things ‘set aside’ because of the New Covenant – but there are some Old Testament truths that never are set aside because of, now, the New Covenant. As in the Old Testament some were “set aside”, so in the New Testament, Peter talks about a ‘servant’ betraying his calling, and “being cut into and appointed his portion with the unbelievers.”) And the unbelievers are assigned an eternal place of bars as well as the ‘believers’ who can’t decide between the Savior and their fleshly desires? In Hell itself – a God-appointed place for the devil and his angels along with the betraying sinners and careless, shameless disciples who “thought they could eat the ‘cake’ of their own desires”, and still have a chair at the Lord’s Table in eternity, ‘servants of the Lord’ living carelessly, selfishly, more in tune with the world and their old sinful selves but assuring themselves, apart from Divine Truth, that Heaven will still be their eternal home because they’re ‘in church’ a lot of Sundays but compromising lifestyles during the week?

“FOLLOWING THE LIGHT”; Jesus said: “I AM the LIGHT OF THE WORLD” – and some know He Is the True Light, but they willfully choose to “Profess the Light” for their ‘flesh’, but “embracing darkness” that they can’t seem to let go of, and, at the same time, it’s as if there is the path of “darkness” they have one foot in, and, at the same time, step over to “follow the Light”! Paul was very clear when in Ephesians 5:8-15 he wrote: “For you once were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. There He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from (or out of) the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Sadly, there are precious people in the Lord, who, yes, for a short time, will camouflage who they are “in Christ”, pretending to be their former selves, momentarily putting on a worldly ‘coat’ of flesh-indulgence! Then the convicting Holy Spirit comes to correct the dark path they chose temporarily, and put them back on the Highway of Holiness and the Street of the Holy Spirit-led journey!

Paul actually said in Ephesians 5:15-21, “See then that you walk circumspectly (If “off the chosen path”, “if carelessly indiscreet, or momentarily deceived”, WAKE UP, EVALUATE, “turn back” if necessary, because indiscreet spiritual behavior can lead to “cast from the kingdom-rule if the sin-nature becomes more important to you than the gifted divine nature of Christ in us our only hope of glory” – back to Paul, “walking circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation (Could that ‘drunk with wine’ even be “Drunk on the wine of self-indulgence in the old fallen sin nature? Just asking!); BUT BE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT,( not flesh spirits or over-indulging in real wine!), speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.” NO FEAR OF GOD, THEN ONE IS OPEN, YES, TO A CONTINUAL “Flesh Indulgence” as a believer that does lead to tragedy!!!

To Holy God, to your Loving Savior, to the convicting Holy Spirit, though ‘fallen away’, to return, yes, to the blazing Light of His glory, no longer to live with traces of shame, sadness, and dissatisfaction with one’s fleshly acts that do bring shame on the name of Christ one professes he/she is following! Most disciples, at some point in their journeys, have sinned while one with Christ in their hearts and minds, but temporarily led astray by Satan, the world, or one’s own weak flesh they thought to be strong, not aware in their “disciple’s understanding”, that old man was carried to the Cross by Christ, and there your ‘old man’ died, but Satan knows how to fool you and release your crucified self to a darkened spirit, darkened attitude, and the darkened world around you!

THERE MUST BE A RETURN TO THE “ADMISSION” THAT, YES, CHRIST JESUS BOUGHT YOU, OWNS YOU, AND MEANS TO RULE OVER YOU, but the world, the flesh, and Satan, put up a major warfare with Truth, surely informing you, “It’s OK. Jesus understands”, when He has no desire to see any child of faith who IS His straying from Him – His heart is broken, but He comes to pick up His shamed child of faith who temporarily fell into a moment of self-indulgence. Jesus knows it could become fatal if not confronted, fatal if not confessed, and fatal if the “fall” led one further and further and further away from Him!! If there’s presently unconfessed sin in YOU, you better run to the Lord’s Throne and be washed in the blood of the Lamb!

THERE MUST BE A RENEWING OF ATTITUDE AND ACTION IN ONE’S WALK OF OBEDIENCE AS HIS DISCIPLE! In 1 Peter 2:21-25 Peter wrote, “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 (not goats!) going astray, but HAVE NOW RETURNED TO THE SHEPHERD AND OVERSEER OF YOUR SOULS!” [Are you presently “embracing darkness” or RETURNING TO “THE EVERLASTING LIGHT OF CHRIST” FOR YOUR SOUL?]

THERE MUST BE A CONSTANT, NEVER-CHANGING, CROWNING OF THE TRUTH WITHIN YOU OF THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST JESUS, YES, “JESUS ONLY” AS THE EXPLANATION OF A VICTORIOUS LIFE AND WALK!

In Colossians 1:9-18 we read, “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father WHO HAS QUALIFIED US TO BE PARTAKERS OF THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS IN THE LIGHT.

He has DELIVERED US FROM THE POWER OF DARKNESS and conveyed us into the kingdom of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (or are “held together” – be assured, if it’s falling apart around you, it’s man in charge, not King Jesus!!). And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from that the dead, THAT IN ALL THINGS HE MAY HAVE THE PREEMINENCE.”

THERE MUST BE HONEST HEARTS, MINDS, AND WILLS, FULLY SURRENDERED TO CHRIST’S LORDSHIP!

1) IT CANNOT BE, MUST NOT BE, INCLINATION WITHOUT APPROPIATION! 2) IT CANNOT BE THOUGHTS ABOUT A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LORD AND SAVIOR IN THE MIND APART FROM DIVINE TRANSFORMATION IN BOTH HEART AND MIND FULLY SURRENDERED IN ONE’S WILL!

3)IT CANNOT BE VERBAL ARGUMENTATION WITHOUT WILLFUL ACCEPTANCE IN HEART, MIND, AND BODY OF CHRIST WITHIN YOU AND YOUR BODY AS HIS EARTHLY TABERNACLE AND ETERNAL, HOLY TEMPLE!

4) IT CANNOT BE A UNIVERSITY -PROFESSOR’S THEORY, OR A SCHOOL TEACHER’S RELIGIOUS THOUGHTS, OR EVEN A PARENT’S IDEAS ABOUGHT RELIGIOUS THOUGHT! IT MUST BE THE AUTHOR OF TRUTH, JESUS HIMSELF, GUIDING, UNVEILING, REVEALING, BLESSING HIS TRUTH IN YOU!

5) IT IS NOT ‘THIRST’ FOR RELIGIOUS IDEAS BUT THE HUNGER AND THIRST FOR THE “LIVING WATER”, FOR CHRIST’S ABIDING PRESENCE WITHIN, FOR “THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST” AS TAUGHT AND GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT!

From an old Greek Melody Whitfield wrote these words: “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.” Because you “tried” or because you “trusted” in Christ’s death, resurrection, and reigning throne Presence over sin and death?

“KINGDOMS BURNING OR

THE KINGDOM BLESSED?”

By: J.Farrell Fisher, June 3-4, 2017

There is a very interesting passage of Holy Scripture in Matthew 4:1-11 informing us of Satan’s attempt to turn Christ Jesus away from His eternal mission and purpose, as well as Satan coming against all true believers and pretenders, and even the unbelieving from allegiance to the King of kings and Lord of lords, tempting us all with lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life, and with the lust of the eyes!

The one thing you must grasp and hold onto in your journey is that Satan is out to keep you in the throes, the troubles, and, yes, the terrors of ‘kingdoms burning’, and turning one away from “Kingdom Blessed”!

Notice the Word as a strong foundation for this teaching! Matthew 4:1-11 we read: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” (Lust of the flesh!).

But Jesus answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’. Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He (God) shall give His angels charge over you”, (Boastful pride of life!), and ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You fall down and worship me.” (Lust of the eyes!)

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

Kingdom realities are something the devil himself is eternally interested in because in his ‘kingdom of darkness’ he longs to enlarge AND to pollute the “Kingdom Blessed” by King Jesus! (Boastful pride of life!).In Hebrews 2:14-18 the author of Hebrews enlightens us as to our Christ-given victory over “kingdoms Burning”, granting us a wide-opened Door into “Kingdoms Blessed”! The Word says:

“Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”

Yes, King Jesus Himself had before Him an open door to worldly temptations – it caused Him ‘great suffering’, but He never gave in to fleshly temptations! It was Oswald Chambers, in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest” (p.192), who wisely wrote: “Temptation is not something we may escape, it is essential to the full-orbed life of a man. Beware lest you think you are tempted as no one else is tempted; what you go through is the common inheritance of the race, not something no one ever went through before. God does not save us from temptations, He succors us in the midst of them.”

Later, in Hebrews 4:15-16, the Holy Word declares: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let US therefore come boldly to the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

When ‘kingdoms’ are burning around us or in us, is there no help from the Lord God Almighty? In Jeremiah 8:21-22 the prophet mourned asking, out of the overflow of pain and misery, “For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt. I am mourning; astonishment has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no physician there? Why then is there no recovery for the health of the daughter of my people?” But THERE IS!! His name is Christ Jesus, the Great Physician!

There’s an old Hymn written by J.H.Stockton and William Hunter published in the old “The American Hymnal.” It’s entitled “The Great Physician” – and I praise God that I learned it as a child, a teen-ager, and adult, and sang it as long as the old hymnals were published, then we came to the period of “new music” (?), much of it without solid foundations in the Word! The old hymn says:

“The great Physician now is near, The sympathizing Jesus; He speaks the drooping heart to cheer, Oh, hear the voice of Jesus.

Your many sins are all forgiven, Oh, hear the voice of Jesus; Go on your way in peace to heaven, And wear a crown with Jesus.

All glory to the dying Lamb! I now believe in Jesus; I love the blessed Savior’s name, I love the name of Jesus.

Sweetest note in seraph song, Sweetest name on mortal tongue; Sweetest carol ever sung, Jesus, blessed Jesus.”

But how much of modern society today recognizes, admits, or even tries to deal with “kingdoms burning”? To me, it’s so awakening to come to the Holy Word of God and find the Loving, Caring, Merciful God does not desire to punish, to sentence to death any man – He’s the Author and Finisher of true redemptive faith, blessing obedience but offering curses and eternal punishments upon those who live for the “flesh” and not to the honor of the Spirit and Truth of the Living God!

In Deuteronomy 28:15 we read, “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you,” and that’s because men and women, boys and girls, (Verse 14), “go after other gods to serve them.”

In fact, we live in a time period of human history when speaking of “fearing God” results in fierce opposition to a faithful messenger! Yet in Psalm 25:12-22, “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way He chooses,” yet fallen mankind decides for himself what has his heart, and he/she isn’t interested in what Holy God has to say! But one who is tired of ‘kingdoms burning’ can, by the grace and mercy of God, enter the “Kingdom Blessed”!

Didn’t Christ Jesus teach His early disciples and us to pray: Matthew 6:9-13, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Or so be it, Lord!).” Does YOUR prayer ministry include, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”?

In Ephesians 1:15-23 Paul encourages us in the “Kingdom Blessed”! He said: Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

If YOU are “in Christ” and “Christ in you”, are you walking in “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ”? “The man who fears the Lord?” Back for a closing moment in Psalm 25! “Who is the man who fears the Lord?”

Psalm 25:12b, He’s a learner! “Him shall He teach in the way He chooses!

Psalm 25:13, He’s blessed! “He himself shall dwell in prosperity, and His descendants shall inherit the earth.”

Psalm 25:14, He’s fearful! “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them (unveil in them) His covenant.”

Psalm 25:15, He’s able by God’s grace to fulfill God’s purposes through him! “My eyes are ever toward the Lord, For He shall pluck my feet out of the net.”

Psalm 25:16-17, He’s aware of his own weaknesses! “Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have enlarged; bring me out of my distresses!

Psalm 25:18, He knows God’s heart! “Look on my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins.”

Psalm 25:20-22, He knows where and with Whom to yield himself! “Keep my soul, and deliver me; Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You.

Redeem Israel, Oh God, (or redeem Bedford, Texas, Tennessee, New York, California, every state, every city, every home!), redeem us out of all our troubles!”

One last Verse of Holy Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2:11b-12, “Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” AMEN? REJOICE IN: “KINGDOM BLESSED!”

By: J.Farrell Fisher, September 5, 2014

Considering the title of this teaching, “Eternal Punishment Or Eternal Life?”, it’s not an easy thing to do because one is so involved in so many ways that consideration of eternal outcomes puts one on an uneasy street, especially if present time living has captured you but eternal punishment or eternal life you’d like to delay, cancel, put off, or face it wisely and courageously.

I don’t mind telling you that I consider my last years, or last months, or last days frequently because I know, my earthly departure is near.” At 78 years of age, knowing my “papa Fisher” died at 78 years of age, my father, James Emerson Fisher, died at 78 years of age – and I’ve at least wondered, “Is this my year of departure?”

In Genesis 8:21-22 God said in His heart (after the flood!), “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night, shall not cease.”

And the seasons are still with us, but there IS coming an hour or a time when God will arise from His throne, and He’ll say: “Gentlemen, IT’S CLOSING TIME FOR THE EARTHLY!” That will be “Hell” for some but “Heaven” for others!

Consider “LIFE”! Are you aware of some ‘achieving’ while others experience ‘failure’? Have you experienced “joy”; and then a cloud of sorrow moves over you? Does ten steps forward and five steps in reverse describe you at times in business, in studies, in work, in marriage? Have you known outstanding success but all of a sudden you experience defeat after defeat after defeat?

Think about your own “spiritual journey” of faith. Oh, I know there are some disciples of faith who move steadily along in their spiritual journey without ever experiencing an ounce of trouble, but for the majority of us as disciples there have been high mountains and low, low valleys, there have been phenomenal advances in the Word and the Spirit, there have been the “easy street” of soul-winning and discipling, but for some their faith-trip has been a lonely journey, often even isolated from a vibrant fellowship and having to “press in” alone, fearful, discouraged, and maybe even blind to the presence of God’s Holy Spirit!

Has ‘affliction’ ever hit you physically, morally, emotionally, spiritually, mentally – and you pause, reflect, question, hopefully even asking others for counsel and advice? Are you aware, having experienced it yourself, that there are times when up is down or down is up, when ‘normalcy’ becomes so abnormal, when all of a sudden your life, your situation, your walk, your experiences become some dark clouds of ‘my straying’?

I can’t even fathom a day without one resolving for himself/herself “eternal punishment or eternal life”! Life is so very uncertain! I can’t comprehend Godless sorrow, Godless lives, Godless futures!! Oh, and then, you try to understand Godless religions that have no hope, no precious promises, no power to implant “new hearts and new hopes and new futures,” and you paused and consider: ‘How could they miss Divine Revelation’? But they do.

What happens with unregenerate religionists is that they become devoted to ‘outward regularity’ without inward heart-change by the grace and mercy of God! But beyond deathly empty religions, there is the aching void and emptiness of, yes, a Godless life and one who is offended by anybody sharing “saving faith”!

Most ‘church folk’ have little, if any, understanding of the purpose of the law of God. Oh, they think they do, and, more than likely brag about not being ‘law-breakers’! But Jesus said, “Offend in one point and you’re guilty of ALL!!” Law-breaking is the exposure of guilty hearts that need Blood Redemption – Jesus’ only!

Look around your little world! You’re not aware at all of the manifestations of ‘sin’ that are so apparent? Your little world is a ‘jewel’ and ‘crown’ of godliness? How is your state’s divorce rate? Tell me about your schools where the majority of students have both parents for parenting nurturing! Is abortion a non-issue in your state and community? What’s your prison population like and what does it cost your state? “Sir, you may be a Christian, but I choose ‘my way,’ I chose ‘my pleasures;’ I’ll think as I want to think! Who needs the mind of Christ? I’m a promoter of self-aggrandisement and could care less about being ‘conformed to the image of Christ’!”

In Matthew 10:33 Jesus spoke ever so clearly: “But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father in heaven.” ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OR ETERNAL LIFE? And don’t take Romans 5:17-19 lightly! Examine your own heart, mind, and spirit! “For if by the one man’s offense [Adam] death reigned through the one, much more, those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Each of us must deal personally with “offense” against God and His Word, the awareness of one’s spiritual death status before Holy God, the consideration of judgment, the matter of, yes, God’s condemnation, and the end result of disobedience. It must not be taken lightly or of no concern to you – you will stand before Holy God’s throne and give an answer of rejection or of the repentance and faith that gripped, graced, and birthed a “new life”!

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, came “to seek and to save that which is lost.” In Luke 13 our Lord introduced “the narrow way.” Don’t miss His life-changing or life-condemning word! Verses 22-30 says: And He [Jesus] went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” And He said to them,..

“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.’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out…

They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. And indeed there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last.”

Did you catch it? Were you stopped in your tracks? Have you examined YOUR heart? Have you contemplated your ways or His will for your life? What did Jesus say? “Many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” He spoke of “the strait gate” – is Jesus that gate? John 10:9 says, Jesus speaking, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” SAVED? SAVED FROM WHAT?

Let’s look at the sad reality of “ETERNAL PUNISHMENT”! If you didn’t know, it was Cain who murdered his brother Abel! In Genesis 4:8 we read that “Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.” Deadly actions, deadly deeds, deadly choices, yes, deadly resistance to God’s Way always opens the door to one’s ‘eternal punishment’! Murder is violent but so is ‘murder’, not only as a deed, but as one’s self-determination of supremacy over others, even ‘killing’ by gossip, word, or deed!

Have you never considered that a man’s ‘fool-ish-ness’ is a deadly involvement? Have you never evaluated the price and extent of a man’s disobedience? I’ve already mentioned that the breaking of one commandment brings judgment as if I’d broken all the Law of God! Most men embrace the world’s godless ways because they have not, cannot, will not, separate themselves from that in which they believe that they are so much a part !

‘Attachment’ is a powerful persuader of devotion to godlessness! “They’re my friends – I can’t forsake them,” even if it costs them an eternal relationship with Christ! “It’s my religion for generations,” even if their ‘religion’ closes the door to oneness with Christ!

‘Similarity’ is a common excuse by a lot of fallen people! “Everybody labors and is heavily ladened; why should I look to one who says He’ll give me rest? Rest from what?” And they don’t even know that godlessness is like the full weight of the world itself crushing them to more and more death!

‘Paralysis’ spiritually is so similar to “spiritual blindness” because one has no desire to move toward God and certainly has no insight to sense Holy Presence before him with open arms – so he ignores a loving Savior and Lord.

‘Deception’ is a devilish tool with sad results. Satan lied to Eve and Adam and the experienced the reality of spiritual death! “You can sin and not die” – but they did! Have you read recently 2 Peter 2:1-3? Peter wrote: “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction…

And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed… By covetousness THEY WILL EXPLOIT YOU WITH DECEPTIVE WORDS; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.”

Oh, but then in 2 Peter 2:12-14 and verses 18-20 Peter exposes the spiritual hypocrisy that is SO DECEPTIVE AND DEADLY: Verses 12-14, “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…

Verses 18-20, 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 them than the beginning.”

But then we read a word of hope from Paul when he said in Romans 8:31, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” It is so vital for you to know in the midst of even Satanic deception, GOD IS FOR YOU! He wants to see you overcoming in Christ Jesus – not by your own effort!

“Born of sinful flesh” is the reality of every human born into this world! Though we are not owned by Satan and his demons, we certainly were sadly influenced to devilish sins, vices, lusts, and choices that distress, disturb, demean, degrade, and destroy our very souls!

Satan isn’t out to heal you but to harm you; he’s not interested in binding up your wounds but cutting you deeper; he’s not out to encourage you toward a Godly faith but to decei9ve you into his ‘hellish’ fires!

And Satan’s greatest deception? Paul spoke about those who are “ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,” certainly in opposition to the call to submit one’s self to the righteousness of God! [Romans 10:1-3]!

God’s righteousness or your own righteousness? Pleasing self or pleasing God? Trusting ‘religion’ or His Divine Revelation? Obeying a surface, religious faith that has not, will not, cannot change your heart OR heart obedience in Christ to honor God Himself? Do you realize that there are those who hold ‘respect’ for religious activity but have not an ounce of commitment to obey God? Aren’t you aware of others around you, maybe even yourself, that ‘outward appearance’ has veiled, yes, a rebellious heart and mind? Religious but unregenerate, separate from most of the world but knowing nothing of justification, sanctification, or glorification? Outward allegiance to religious truths but no full surrender to Eternal Truth whose name is Jesus?

Oh, but I pray you clearly understand that there are those who never have and never will come to Christ in repentance and faith. But in this given moment I want you to consider, yes, defectors from the Faith! If you read John 6:66 His Word tells us: “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.” WHAT A SAD COMMENTARY!!

One of the most heart-rending moments a true church family may endure is not separation from a local body to another local body, but when there are those you’ve shared your life with who choose to walk away from the Redemptive Faith of Christ! John 6:67 then tells us Jesus asked His inner circle, “Do you also want to go away?”

You’ll remember that earlier in John 6, verse 56, Jesus said: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” And the response? Verse 60, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” And I believe the biblical demands of true discipleship become a hindrance and a stumbling-block because they were not willing to obey Him! Don’t you know and realize that personal prejudices, one’s own likes or dislikes, one’s devotion to his/her depraved life, can and does take precedence over the “I do it “I do it my way” crowd?!

In Spurgeon’s Sermons, [Memorial Library, Vol. 12, pps.293-309], the great preacher of England listed s number of reasons why some walk away and lose their souls!

• They depart from Christ because they cannot bear His doctrines.
• They depart from Christ for the sake of gain – money speaks loud.
• They depart from Christ because they’re afraid of persecution.
• They depart from Christ out of sheer levity.
• They depart from Christ tempted by evil companions.
• They depart from Christ for the sake of sensual enjoyments.
• They depart from Christ because their life circumstances changed.
• They depart from Christ because unsound doctrine led them to apostatize.
• They depart from Christ out of sheer laziness.

That should cover “A Mournful Defection” admirably! ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OR ETERNAL LIFE?

In John 3:14-15 Jesus tells us: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him [trusts in, abides in] should not perish, but have ETERNAL LIFE.”

Paul laid it out for us in a clear and convincing way when in Romans 6:23 he wrote, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Oh, but also consider what he wrote in Romans 6:22! “But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.”

Performance or Provision? By one’s ‘grit’ or by God’s grace? By our self-effort or Jesus’ ‘self-less sacrifice’? Look at Romans 5:15-18 which tells us, But ‘the free gift’ is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more, the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many…

And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification….

For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more, those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ…

Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous acts “the free gift” came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”

Have you come to a full understanding of this ‘gift’ God has given to us in Christ? We’re: “justified as a gift by His grace,” “free gift,” “the gift of righteousness,” “eternal gift,” “your own gift,” “a generous gift,” “a bountiful gift,” “an indescribable gift,” “the spiritual gift within you,” “the heavenly gift,” “the perfect gift,” “a special gift,” – Oh, yes, “The gift of Jesus Himself!!”

Do you understand “freely received” so we “freely give”? Have you experienced: “…such as I have, I give to you”? Have you discovered that it’s more blessed to give than to receive? And when one has received God’s greatest gift in true sacrifice, tell me about the pattern of YOUR “laid-down life” in service and ministry to others, yes, because of what God has given you, understanding He never gave gifts to “pump your flesh” but to service and bless others and His precious Body called the Church of Christ!

I remind you of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:3 when He prayed to Father-God, “And THIS IS ETERNAL LIFE, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Yes, you do understand, you do know, but have you ventured your all in full surrender to His Lordship and taken “the sentence of death to yourself” that His Resurrection Life can be fully manifested in and through you?

I love what Oswald Chambers said in his “My Utmost For His Highest.” [p.74]. He said: “It takes omnipotence to live the life of the Son of God in mortal flesh.” And it’s so true, so necessary, and so fully available! We don’t ‘copy’ Jesus – we surrender to His resurrection presence in us: “Christ in you the hope of glory!” Stop being so determined and become totally dependent on Him because ‘He Is Able!’

In Acts 4:13 the Word tells us, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized [or took knowledge of] that they had been with Jesus.”

Hear me! WE WERE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST! If you didn’t know, when Jesus went to the Cross He took us all with Him! I want you to slowly, intently, passionately read over and over Romans 6:5-14!!

“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that OUR OLD MAN WAS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin…

For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe 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 indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord…Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts…

And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

This is why Paul could testify in Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” You either are boasting in yourself or you’ve accepted your crucifixion with Christ, and you boast only in Jesus!

His death at the Cross and your identity with Him on the Cross tells me YOU ARE TOTALLY AWARE OF GOD’S JUDGMENT ON YOUR SIN – and you, yes, choose death to sin in you, death to a depraved world spirit, death to your own personal self-interest and ambition, and you passionately long for your own full awareness that the “old self” died with Christ on the Cross!

Receive I Corinthians 2:12! “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been given freely to us by God.”

Paul told the Roman believers, and us, Romans 8:15-17, “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”

His death on the Cross, your death with Him on the Cross, and you’re full awareness now that you are ‘joint-heir’ with Him in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, brings you to a confident, assured, blessed journey of faith and eternal hope. And you know it how?

Examine our Lord’s words for us in John 14:27! “My peace I leave with you, My peace I GIVE TO YOU; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Paul told the church at Philippi, [Philippians 4:7], “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

As you read this message, I don’t know who you are or where you are in your own spiritual journey – and you are in a journey of faith or a journey of faithlessness – I don’t know, but you know and God knows. In John 12:37 His Word tells us, “But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him.” Oh, and then follow carefully John 12:26-36!

“If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him will My Father honor. Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I came to this hour…

Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.’ Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to Him.’ Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake…

Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” This He said, signifying by what death He would die…

The people answered Him, “We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?’

Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.

I pray you caught it as you read Jesus answering the people in John 12:30! Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake.” Have you heard His voice? It was Him speaking to you “for your sake”! There is a “Voice” – and it will declare “Eternal Punishment” or “Eternal Life.” What is His “Voice” saying to you right now?

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, SEPT.23-25, 2019

ARE YOU AWARE OF THE ‘LESS AND LESS’ OF FALLEN HUMANITY WITHOUT FULL, SERIOUS, COMPLETE EXAMINATION OF GOD’S “MORE AND MORE”? THE ONE THING THE WORD OF GOD DECLARES WITHOUT WAVERING IS FOUND IN JOSHUA 24:15 WHEN JOSHUA SAID: “And if it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you shall serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorities, in whose land you dwell; BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.”

In Deuteronomy 30:19-20a, Moses declared, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; choose life, that both you and your seed may live (and that’s in the Abiding Presence of Christ, before the Throne of God, filled with the Holy Spirit who birthed your life through true repentance and faith!), that both you and your seed may live; That you (and yours!) may love the Lord your God, AND that you may obey His voice, and that you may cleave unto Him (Is that “holding fast?), for He is your life, and the length of your earthly days…!” But! Look at the “Christ-less life” as it chooses ‘self’ over the “Savior”, ‘sin’ over the “Righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”, ‘worldly pleasure, wandering from God pursuits’ over the Lord’s freedom-gift of “His Eternal Life & Presence”!

“LESS & LESS?” IN JOB 2:7-10 WE READ, “SO WENT SATAN FORTH FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD, SMOTE JOB WITH SORE BOILS FROM THE SOLE OF HIS FOOT UNTO THE CROWN. AND HE TOOK WITH HIM A POTSHARD TO SCRAPE HIMSELF ALL OVER; AND HE SAT DOWN WITH THE ASHES.

THEN SAID HIS WIFE UNTO HIM, “DO YOU STILL RETAIN YOUR INTEGRITY? CURSE GOD AND DIE.” BUT JOB SAID TO HIS WIFE, “YOU SPEAK AS ONE OF THE FOOLISH WOMEN SPEAKS. WHAT? SHALL WE RECEIVE GOOD AT THE HAND OF THE GOD, AND SHALL WE NOT RECEIVE EVIL? IN ALL THIS JOB DID NOT SIN WITH HIS LIPS.

“LESS &LESS OR MORE &MORE?” IN JOB 19:23-27 ARE FOUND MORE INSPIRING WORDS ABOUT THE “LESS & LESS OR THE MORE & MORE”: JOB SAID, “OH THAT MY WORDS WERE NOW WRITTEN! OH THAT THEY WERE PRINTED IN A BOOK! THAT THEY WERE GRAVEN WITH AN IRON PEN AND LEAD IN THE ROCK FOR EVER!

FOR I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES, AND THAT HE SHALL STAND AT THE LATTER DAY UPON THE EARTH; (AND KEEP ON STANDING THERE?): AND THOUGH AFTER MY SKIN WORMS DESTROY MY BODY, YET IN MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD.”

“LESS & LESS?” MANKIND WAS BIRTHED BY GOD IN HUMAN FORM, YES, WITH THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE! ADAM’S NATURE OR GOD’S NATURE? FLESH OR SPIRIT? WRONG OR RIGHT OR WRONG MINGLED IN WITH A TASTE OF RIGHT? SELF-EMPTINESS OR SOVEREIGN FULLNESS? A HELLISH, DEVILISH, DEMONIC WORLD’S BEST OR: “HEAVEN CAME DOWN AND GLORY FILLED YOUR SOUL”?

A GREAT OLD HYMN OF THE 1940’S IN THE OLD BROADMAN HYMNAL (P.357) SAYS: “ARE YOU TIRED OF THE LIFE YOU’RE NOW LIVING? ARE YOU WEARY OF SIN AND ITS SNARES? ARE YOU SEEKING FOR THAT WHICH IS LASTING? LOOK TO JESUS; YOU’LL FIND THAT HE CARES.

ARE YOU LONGING TO KNOW HIS FORGIVENESS? DO YOU YEARN TO BE FREE FROM ALL SIN? DOES YOUR LONELY HEART LEAP WHEN YOU WITNESS GOD’S WONDERFUL LOVE FOR ALL MEN?

LOOK TO JESUS THE BLESSED REDEEMER, GIVE YOUR HEART, AND YOUR ALL TO THE LORD; TO HIS OPEN ARMS RUN FOR SALVATION, HE HAS PROMISED IT ALL IN HIS WORD.

HE IS WATCHING, HE IS WAITING, HE IS LONGING YOUR SOUL TO SET FREE; WEARY ONE, GIVE YOUR HEART TO THE SAVIOR, LIVE WITH HIM THROUGH ALL ETERNITY.”

DO YOU KNOW, DO YOU UNDERSTAND, DO YOU COMPREHEND, THAT LIFE AFTER DEATH IS EITHER HELL OR HEAVEN, CONTINUING ‘FLESH-BONDAGE UNDER SATAN’S CONTROL’ OR “ETERNAL FREEDOM FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH”, BECAUSE YOU ARE, WERE, WILL NOW FOREVER BE FREE FROM THAT LAW OF SIN AND DEATH BECAUSE OF THE SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD? LIFE NOW & LIFE AFTER DEATH IS EITHER ‘FLESH’ OR SPIRIT, HUMAN NATURE OR DIVINE NATURE FOREVER FLOWING THROUGH YOUR VEINS, MIND, AND HEART, WRONG NATURE OR RIGHT NATURE, SELF-EMPTINESS OR SOVEREIGN FULLNESS. AND YOU? YOUR ALL IN ALL OR CHRIST IN YOU YOUR ONLY HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE, ETERNAL BLESSING, ETERNAL PRESENCE, YES, ETERNAL BEFORE THE THRONE OF CHRIST JESUS WILLING TO DAILY BE HIS “FOOT-WASHER”?!!!?

AGAIN, IN JOSHUA 24:25-28, WE FIND POWERFULLY CONVICTING WORDS: “SO JOSHUA MADE A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE THAT DAY, AND SET THEM A STATUTE AND AN ORDINANCE IN SHECHEM. AND JOSHUA WROTE THESE WORDS IN “THE BOOK OF THE LAW OF GOD”, AND TOOK A GREAT STONE, AND SET IT UP THERE UNDER AN OAK, THAT WAS BY THE SANCTUARY OF THE LORD. SO JOSHUA SAID UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE, BEHOLD, THIS STONE SHALL BE A WITNESS UNTO US; FOR IT HAS HEARD ALL THE WORDS OF THE LORD WHICH HE SPOKE UNTO US; IT SHALL BE THEREFORE A WITNESS UNTO YOU, UNLESS YOU DENY YOUR GOD. SO JOSHUA LET THE PEOPLE DEPART, EVERY MAN UNTO HIS INHERITANCE.”

“EVERY MAN UNTO HIS INHERITANCE”?“THIS STONE A WITNESS UNTO YOU”? GOD’S WORD CUT INTO A LARGE NATURAL STONE WRITTEN FOR MEN TO READ? AND YOUR INHERITANCE? SOME READ, SOME TRUSTED, SOME OBEYED, AND EXTENDED THE KINGDOM OF GOD THEN! BUT DO YOU KNOW GOD DECLARES IN HIS WORDS THE “NEW STONE” FOR MEN TO READ? IN LUKE 20:9-13 JESUS TELLS US ABOUT A MAN PLANTING A VINEYARD:

THEN BEGAN JESUS TO SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE THIS PARABLE: “A CERTAIN MAN PLANTED A VINEYARD, AND LET IT FORTH TO HUSBAND-MEN, AND WENT FORTH INTO A FAR COUNTRY FOR A LONG TIME. AND AT THE SEASON HE SENT A SERVANT TO HIS HUSBANDMEN, AND WENT INTO A FAR COUNTRY FOR A LONG TIME.

AND AT THE SEASON HE SENT A SERVANT TO THE HUSBANDMEN, THAT THEY SHOULD GIVE HIM OF THE FRUIT OF THE VINEYARD; BUT THE HUSBANDMEN BEAT HIM, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY. AND AGAIN HE SENT ANOTHER SERVANT; AND THEY BEAT HIM ALSO, AND ENTREATED HIM SHAMEFULLY, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY.

AND AGAIN HE SENT ANOTHER SERVANT; AND THEY BEAT HIM ALSO, AND ENTREATED HIM SHAMEFULLY, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY. AND AGAIN HE SENT A THIRD; AND THEY WOUNDED HIM ALSO, AND CAST HIM OUT. THEN SAID THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD, WHAT SHALL I DO? I WILL SEND MY BELOVED SON; IT MAY BE THEY WILL REVERENCE HIM WHEN THEY SEE HIM.” DARE I ASK? WHO IS THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD? THAT’S ALMIGHTY, HOLY, PASSIONATE GOD OVERSEEING HIS WORLD OF LOST MANKIND, DEAD-FRUIT, WILLFUL SINNERS – AND BECAUSE HE’S THE GOD OF LOVE, MERCY, AND GRACE, WITH A FORGIVING HEART, HE SENDS HIS OWN SON TO BE THE SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SIN, THE SAVIOR FROM YOUR MISGUIDED, DECEIVED, SIN-BOUND, SATANIC-CONTROLLED MIND, BLACKENED HEART, AND A WORLDLY PERCEPTION AND DETERMINATION TO DO AS “FLESH, THE WORLD AROUND YOU, AND SATAN PROGRAMS YOU INTO!!!”

SATAN’S INTENT? SATAN’S INITIATIVE? DESTROY THE HEIRS OF FAITH! DESTROY THEIR SAVIOR AND LORD! DESTROY THE HOPE OF ETERNAL PURPOSE, OF HEAVENLY PLEASURE, OF THE PEACE OF GOD WHICH PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING, BUT OVERFLOWS YOUR MIND AND HEART WITH THE REALITY OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION-PRESENCE!! DESTROY ANY HOPE OF AN OVERCOMING LIFE OF THE WORLD, YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, OR SATAN AND DEMONIC PRESENCE AND ACTIVITY! SATAN SAYS, “YOU’RE MINE TO DO IN YOUR FLESH WHAT HELL INTENDS, NOT HEAVEN OR WHAT A SO-CALLED ‘LORD AND SAVIOR’ SAYS!”

DARE I SAY IT? I BELIEVE I WILL! “YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE UNDER THE CLOUD OF SATANIC DECEPTION ANY LONGER!!” THERE IS THE REALITY, THE ETERNAL TRUTH, THE BLESSED ASSURANCE, THAT IN CHRIST JESUS YOU CAN BE “MORE THAN A CONQUEROR” OVER THE WORLD-SPIRIT, OVER THE SIN-NATURE DISEASE, AND THE ‘DIS-EASE’ OF WORLDLINESS, OF A SIN-BOUND MIND AND HEART, AND SATANIC-PRETENSE!

IN ROMANS 8:8-14 WE READ, “SO THEN THEY THAT ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD. BUT YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH, BUT IN THE SPIRIT, IF SO BE THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. NOW IF ANY MAN DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS. AND IF CHRIST BE IN YOU, THE BODY IS DEAD, BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. (IF THE SPIRIT IS LIFE IN YOU BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, DOES THAT MEAN AS A NEW, TRUE BELIEVER IT’S “OK!” IF I SIN NOW AND THEN AS I PLEASE?).

BUT IF THE SPIRIT OF HIM THAT RAISED UP JESUS FROM THE DEAD DWELL IN YOU, HE THAT RAISED UP CHRIST FROM THE DEAD SHALL ALSO QUICKEN (MAKE ALIVE HIMSELF IN YOU!) YOUR MORTAL BODIES BY HIS SPIRIT THAT DWELLS IN YOU. THEREFORE, BRETHREN, WE ARE DEBTORS, NOT TO THE FLESH (YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE!), TO LIVE AFTER THE FLESH.

FOR IF YOU LIVE AFTER THE FLESH, YOU SHALL DIE; BUT IF YOU THROUGH THE SPIRIT DO MORTIFY THE DEEDS OF THE BODY, YOU SHALL LIVE. FOR AS MANY AS ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, THEY ARE THE SONS OF GOD.”

LESS & LESS OR MORE & MORE? IT IS A CHOICE YOU MAKE! “BEST EFFORT OR SOVEREIGN BLESSING?” THE INTELLECTUAL MIND-SET OF SELF-DETERMINATION OR THE HEART AND MIND WASHED CLEAN THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD BY THE CONVICTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE BIRTH IN THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THE EMPOWERMENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN GUIDING YOU INTO THE REALITY OF THE GIFT OF ABIDING TRUTH, EVEN CHRIST JESUS EXPRESSING HIMSELF IN SPIRITUAL WARFARE AGAINST SATAN AND HIS DEMON FORCES THROUGH YOU AS YOU REJOICE WITNESSING JESUS BEING JESUS, SAVIOR AND LORD, AND KING AND SOVEREIGN OVER SATAN, YOUR OLD WORLD ALLEGIANCE, AND YOUR WARPED, GODLESS ALLEGIANCE TO YOUR “CHURCH” THAT MOSTLY ‘PRETENDS’, EVEN UPSET IF YOU ASSERT LOYALTY TO THE INDWELLING CHRIST BUT NOT LOYALTY TO THEIR ‘CHURCH OF IMITATION’!

IN REVELATION 7:9-17 WE READ ABOUT THE “SEALED SERVANTS OF GOD’’! “AFTER THIS I BEHELD, AND, LO, A GREAT MULTITUDE, WHICH NO MAN COULD NUMBER, OF ALL NATIONS, AND KINDREDS, AND PEOPLE, AND TONGUES, STOOD BEFORE THE THRONE, AND BEFORE THE LAMB, CLOTHED WITH WHITE ROBES, AND PALMS IN THEIR HANDS;

AND CRIED WITH A LOUD VOICE, SAYING, SALVATION TO OUR GOD WHO SITS UPON THE THRONE, AND UNTO THE LAMB. AND ALL THE ANGELS STOOD ROUND ABOUT THE THRONE, AND ABOUT THE ELDERS AND THE FOUR BEASTS, AND FELL BEFORE THE THRONE ON THEIR FACES, AND WORSHIPPED GOD. SAYING, AMEN: BLESSING, AND GLORY, AND WISDOM, AND THANKSGIVING, AND HONOR, AND POWER, AND MIGHT, BE UNTO OUR GOD FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN. AND ONE OF THE ELDERS ANSWERED, SAYING UNTO ME, WHAT ARE THESE WHICH ARE ARRAYED IN WHITE ROBES? AND WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?

AND I SAID UNTO HIM, SIR, YOU KNOW. AND HE SAID TO ME, THESE ARE THEY WHICH CAME OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION, AND HAVE WASHED THEIR ROBES, AND MADE THEM WHITE IN & THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB. THEREFORE ARE THEY BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD, AND SERVE HIM DAY AND NIGHT IN HIS TEMPLE: AND HE THAT SITS ON THE THRONE SHALL DWELL AMONG THEM.

THEY SHALL HUNGER NO MORE, NEITHER THIRST ANY MORE; NEITHER SHALL THE SUN LIGHT ON THEM, NOR ANY HEAT. FOR THE LAMB WHICH IS IN THE MIDST OF THE THRONE SHALL FEED THEM, AND SHALL LEAD THEM UNTO LIVING FOUNTAINS OF WATERS; AND GOD SHALL WIPE AWAY ALL TEARS FROM THEIR LIVES.”

“LESS AND LESS OR MORE AND MORE?” DO YOU WALK ‘LESS AND LESS’ IN WILLFUL CONDEMNATION AND SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS BECAUSE YOU’VE ASSURED YOURSELF THAT HOLY GOD WILL BE PLEASED WITH YOUR “BEST EFFORT” OR THAT YOU “JOINED A CHURCH” OR THAT YOU ‘TRY HARD TO DO THE RIGHT THING’?

PLEASE COME WITH ME TO ROMANS 8 EXAMINING CAREFULLY VERSES 1-10! “THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION TO THEM WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH (THAT MEANS “STILL IN LOVE WITH YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE!”), BUT YOU WALK IN AND AFTER THE HOLY SPIRIT. FOR THE LAW OF “THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS” HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH. FOR WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO, IN THAT IT WAS WEAK THROUGH THE FLESH, GOD SENDING HIS OWN SON IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH, AND FOR SIN, CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH ( THE FLESH? IS THAT THE OLD MAN BIRTHED INTO PHYSICAL LIFE WITH THE CHOICE OF SELF-ALLEGIANCE OR THE CHOICE OF THE NEED OF GOD IN THEM?);

THAT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE ‘FLESH’ (OR ALLEGIANCE AND DEVOTION IN SATISFYING THE CONDEMNED ‘SIN NATURE’!), BUT THEY WALK AFTER, IN, BY, GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! FOR THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE FLESH DO MIND (ATTEND TO) THE THINGS OF THE FLESH; BUT THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE SPIRIT THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. FOR TO BE CARNALLY MINDED IS DEATH; BUT TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE. BECAUSE THE CARNAL MIND IS ENMITY AGAINST GOD; FOR IT IS NOT SUBJECT TO THE LAW OF GOD, NEITHER INDEED CAN BE. SO THEN THEY THAT ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD. BUT YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH, BUT IN THE SPIRIT, IF SO BE THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. NOW IF ANY MAN DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS CHILDREN. AND IF CHRIST BE IN YOU, THE BODY IS DEAD, BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

FROM THE “BREAKFRONT DAILY” FROM THE COLSON CENTER, THERE WAS A WRITING ON “ACADEMIC AND CORPORATE ‘WOKENESS’: THE REAL THREAT TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.” (IT WAS RECORDED BY JOHN STONESTREET WITH ROBERTA RIVERA.) IN IT THEY WROTE THE FOLLOWING: (A PORTION ONLY!) “THE SOUND YOU HEAR IS DOORS OF OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS SLAMMING SHUT EVERYWHERE. BASICALLY, ANY ORGANIZATION THAT RUNS AFOUL OF THE NEW SEXUAL ORTHODOXY THAT’S DRIVING THIS NEW POLICY WILL FIND IT MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO RECRUIT YALE LAW SCHOOL GRADS; AND THOSE GRADS WHOSE MOTIVATIONS RUN TOWARD NON-PROFIT OR PUBLIC SERVICE WILL FIND THEIR CHOICES SIGNIFICANTLY NARROWED.

YALES’ BLATANT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE WITH TRADITIONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IS AN IMPORTANT REMINDER OF WHERE THE GREATEST CHALLENGE TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CURRENTLY LIES IN OUR CULTURE. AS DAVID FRENCH WROTE AT NATIONAL REVIEW, ONE OF ‘THE PRIME SOURCES OF [CULTURE WAR] CONFLICT IS THE INCREASING TENDENCY TO USE THE FINANCIAL AND CULTURAL POWER OF PROGRESSIVE INSTITUTIONS TO FORCE SOCIAL CHANGE REGARDLESS OF THE UNDERLYING MISSION OF THE INSTITUTION.”

AND I SAY TO YOU, “UNLESS THERE IS A SECOND, A THIRD, A FORTH, A FIFTH, “GREAT AWAKENING”, MAYBE EVEN MORE, OUR NATION WILL BECOME MORE AND MORE, MAYBE, FINANCIALLY RICHER, BUT PROBABLY BARREN OF THE LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY OF HOLY GOD! SHUT THE DOOR ON GOD? AND HE’LL SHUT THE DOOR ON YOU!!” BUT, IN JOHN 7:37, JESUS SAID, “IF ANYONE THIRSTS (FOR GOD?), LET HIM COME TO ME AND DRINK.”(NKJV EDITION).

LET ME SHARE THIS MESSAGE FROM PSALM 97 EXALTING THE MAJESTY OF GOD’S REIGN IN THE HUMAN HEART ADVANCING HIS KINGDOM THROUGH THEM: “THE LORD REIGNS: LET THE MULTITUDE OF ISLES BE GLAD THEREOF (BECAUSE OF IT!). CLOUDS AND DARKNESS ARE ROUND ABOUT HIM: RIGHTEOUSNESS AND JUDGMENT ARE THE HABITATION OF HIS THRONE.

A FIRE GOES BEFORE HIM, AND BURNS UP HIS ENEMIES ROUND ABOUT. HIS LIGHTNINGS ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD: THE EARTH SAW, AND TREMBLED. THE HILLS MELTED LIKE WAX AT THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD OF THE WHOLE EARTH. THE HEAVENS DECLARE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND ALL THE PEOPLE SEE HIS GLORY. CONFOUNDED BE ALL THEY THAT SERVE GRAVEN IMAGES, THAT BOAST THEMSELVES OF IDOLS: WORSHIP HIM, ALL YOU GODS.

ZION HEARD, AND WAS GLAD; AND THE DAUGHTERS OF JUDAH REJOICED BECAUSE OF YOUR JUDGMENTS, O LORD. FOR YOU, LORD, ARE HIGH ABOVE ALL THE EARTH: YOU ARE EXALTED FAR ABOVE ALL GODS. YOU THAT LOVE THE LORD, HATE EVIL; HE PRESERVES THE SOULS OF HIS SAINTS (THE “SET-APART ONES”?); HE DELIVERS THEM OUT OF THE HAND OF THE WICKED. LIGHT IS SOWN FOR THE RIGHTEOUS, AND GLADNESS FOR THE UPRIGHT IN HEART. REJOICE IN THE LORD, YOU RIGHTEOUS ONES; AND GIVE THANKS AT THE REMEMBRANCE OF HIS HOLINESS.” WHEN I COME TO HEBREWS 9:14, I REJOICE IN THE “HALLELUJAH TRUTH”! “HOW MUCH MORE SHALL THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, WHO THROUGH THE ETERNAL SPIRIT OFFERED HIMSELF WITHOUT SPOT TO GOD (JESUS WAS YOUR SIN OFFERING!!), PURGING YOUR CONSCIENCE FROM ‘DEAD WORKS’ TO SERVE THE LIVING GOD.”

ARE “YOU” RE-BORN? HAVE YOU BEEN TRANSFORMED FROM A CHILD OF DARKNESS TO THE CHILD OF ETERNAL LIGHT BECAUSE OF YOUR REPENTANCE, YOUR SAVING FAITH, AND YOUR DESIRE TO DAILY HONOR HIM WHEREVER YOU GO AND IN WHATEVER YOU DO? HEAR ME! CHRIST JESUS “IS” RESURRECTION PRESENCE, RESURRECTION POWER, RESURRECTION PRIVILEGE, ARRIVING, ABIDING, ASKING, EVEN PLEADING: “OPEN YOUR HEART’S DOOR, AND I WILL COME IN.”

CHRIST BLED – SO HE PLEADS, HE KNOCKS ON YOUR HEARTS’ DOORS, COMPASSIONATELY SAYING, “SIN NO LONGER IS TO BE YOUR MASTER ANYMORE. MY BLOOD I’VE SHED, YOUR BOOK OF LIFE I’VE READ – AND MY SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SIN?” FOR CHRIST JESUS, IT’S AS IF YOUR SIN HAD NEVER BEEN!! (ARE YOU A REJOICING, THANKFUL, CELEBRATING SON AND DAUGHTER OF GOD, OR ARE YOU “TUNED IN” TO ALL THE WORLD, YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, AND SATAN HIMSELF HAS TO DECEIVE YOU? WHY NOT, RIGHT NOW, ACCEPT YOUR CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST TO DO AWAY WITH YOUR OLD SELF, BEING “RAISED UP IN THE NEWNESS OF HIS EVERLASTING LIFE AND PRESENCE” TO LEAD YOU THROUGH THE DARK SHADOWS OF EARTHLY EXISTENCE INTO THE PRESENT FULLNESS OF HIS FOREVER REIGN? YOUR DAY – GOD’S TIME?

BY:

JAMES FARRELL FISHER

INTRODUCTION

ON JUNE 12,2019, I WILL CELEBRATE MY 83^RD BIRTHDAY! AMAZING TO ME SINCE BOTH MY GRAND-FATHER & MY FATHER DIED AT AGE 78! THE LORD HAS EXTENDED MY LIFE FOR AN ETERNAL PURPOSE.AFTER COLLEGE AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY IN WACO, TEXAS, ENROLLING THERE WITH A FOOTBALL SCHOLARSHIP AS A ‘RUNNING BACK’ FOR THE “BEARS”, GRADUATING, THEN SEMINARY AT SOUTHWESTERN SEMINARY, THEN PASTORING FOR ABOUT 22 YEARS, THEN THE LORD LED ME INTO MISSION WORK OVERSEAS EVANGELIZING THROUGH LARGE CRUSADES ACROSS INDIA MOSTLY, BUT IN ABOUT FIVE NATIONS IN AFRICA AT TIMES, & BRAZIL, PLUS THE ‘MAJOR RESPONSIBILITY’ OF TEACHING CHURCHES & PASTORS IN “WORD OF GOD MINISTRY” FOR ABOUT THIRTY YEARS, TRIPS ABOUT 5-6 TIMES A YEAR, FOR PERIODS OF 3 WEEKS TO 3 MONTHS, BACK & FORTH ON AIRLINES!AFTER THOSE STRENUOUS TRAVELS FOR YEARS & YEARS, WHEN I CAME HOME, ALL I’D DO WAS REST, READ THE BIBLE, & REFRESH MY SOUL & SPIRIT, BUT ALSO OVER THE YEARS WRITING ABOUT 25 BOOKS FOR PUBLICATION AND CIRCULATION. THIS NEW BOOK WILL BE THE FIRST IN A NUMBER OF YEARS! I PRAY THAT IT BLESSES YOU, ENCOURAGES YOU,INSPIRES YOU,CHALLENGES YOU TO GET OUT IN THE “TRENCHES” ON YOUR STREET, CITIES, STATES, YOUR NATION, &,YES, EVEN NATIONS ACROSS THE WORLD THAT NEED YOUR “WITNESS”! AMEN?

COPYRIGHT, 2019

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FOR:JAMES FARRELL FISHER & WIFE, SUSAN M.FISHER!

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER ONE: A SERIOUS INSPECTION OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE!

CHAPTER TWO: THE DECEPTION OF FALLEN WORLD-CULTURES OR THE TRUTH: “GOD LOVES ME”?

CHAPTER THREE: REMAINING FLAWED OR ‘FAITHING’ THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST?

CHAPTER FOUR: ILLOGICAL DEBATE OR CONVINCED, CONVERTED, CONSECRATED, & CONFIRMED ‘LIFE IN CHRIST’?

CHAPTER FIVE: BRINGING FALSE RELIGIONS TO GOD’S TRUE FAITH!

CHAPTER SIX: STRANGERS IN A ‘GOD-BLESSED LAND’ OR “CITIZENS OF HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM?”

CHAPTER SEVEN: “PUMPING SELFISH FLESH OR PRAISING THE SUPREME FATHER?”

CHAPTER EIGHT: MENTAL MISTAKES OF MISGUIDED MEN

CHAPTER NINE: VICTIMIZED LIVING OR A VICTORIUS LIFE?

CHAPTER TEN: SPIRITUAL INSANITY OR SPIRITUAL REALITY?

CHAPTER ELEVEN: LESS & LESS OR MORE & MORE?

CHAPTER TWELVE:FALLEN HUMANITY OR THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD’S COMPASSION?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DEATH? THE DOOR TO HELL’S WORST OR THE DOOR TO GOD’S ETERNAL COMPASSION?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SMALL SEED –GREAT FRUIT!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE HOLY TRUTH OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION LIFE!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SURE TESTS FOR BLOOD-REDEEMED LIVES “IN Christ”!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A CHURCH’S,A PASTOR’S,A DISCIPLE’S MINISTRY TO A LOST, NEEDY, SINFUL WORLD!

CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE JOY OF A HOLY HOPE!

CHAPTER TWENTY: CARE OF THE CARNAL MIND OR CARE OF THE SPIRITUAL SOUL?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: A CRAVING,FLESHLY HEART OR A NEW-CREATION MIRACLE?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: RAISING SPIRITUAL SONS

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: ABANDONING HOPE OR ABIDING IN HOPE?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: BLANDSOME, HANDSOME,OR AWESOMELY TRANSFORMED?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: BRINK-LIVING OR BREAK-THROUGH LIBERTY?

TWENTY-SIX: ASININE CHOICES OR FLESHLY DEVOTION TO CHRIST?

TWENTY-SEVEN: BRINGING FALSE RELIGIONS TO GOD’S TRUE FAITH!

TWENTY-EIGHT: CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH!

TWENTY-NINE: GOD DWELLS WHERE THE THRONE IS!

THIRTY: ‘AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY!

THIRTY-ONE: ADAPTABLE CHURCHES OR APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES?

THIRTY-TWO:AUTHENTIC SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

THIRTY-THREE: CAPTURING THE VISION

THIRTY-FOUR: MARVELOUS MERCY & MATCHLESS GRACE!

THIRTY-FIVE: KINGDOM LIVING – KINGDOM BLESSINGS!

THIRTY-SIX: FACING NEW DAYS CONFIDENTLY!

CHAPTER ONE

A SERIOUS INSPECTION OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE

THE GREAT HISTORICAL FIGURE OF THE PAST, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, ONCE SAID, “SO GREAT IS MY VENERATION FOR THE BIBLE THAT THE EARLIER MY CHILDREN BEGIN TO READ IT, THE MORE CONFIDENT WILL BE MY HOPE THAT THEY WILL PROVE USEFUL CITIZENS TO THEIR COUNTRY, AND RESPECTABLE MEMBERS OF SOCIETY.”

I OFTEN WONDER HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE PARENTS MAKE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WORD OF GOD THEMSELVES AND FOR “THEIR CHILDREN”! ARE PARENTS SERIOUS ABOUT THE HOLY WORD OF GOD? ARE PARENTS COMMITTED TO INSTILLING WITHIN THE CHILDREN THEY RAISE, YES, A LOVE FOR AND FAITHFULNESS TO DAILY STUDY OF THE WORD OF GOD AS USUALLY AS THEY FAITHFULLY PREPARE THREE PHYSICAL MEALS A DAY FOR THEM?

IN 2 CORINTHIANS 12:14-15 PAUL WROTE: “BEHOLD, THE THIRD TIME I AM COME TO YOU; AND I WILL NOT BE BURDENSOME TO YOU: FOR I SEEK NOT YOUR’S, BUT YOU; FOR THE CHILDREN OUGHT NOT TO LAY UP FOR THE PARENTS, BUT THE PARENTS FOR THE CHILDREN. AND I WILL VERY GLADLY SPEND AND BE SPENT FOR YOU; THOUGH THE MORE ABUNDANTLY I LOVE YOU, THE LESS I BE LOVED.” WHAT A STRANGE ‘TWIST’! PAUL WAS SEEING HIS INTERST IN MINISTERING TO THEM WAS NOT TO TAKE WHAT THEY HAD BUT TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY NEEDED, THE GIFT OF FAITH AND TRUST IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST; BUT THEN HE SAW, THAT THOUGH HE GAVE FREELY THE RICHNESS OF GOD’S GRACE & MERCY, FROM THEM HE RECEIVED NO BLESSING, AFFIRMATION, OR ENCOURAGEMENT AT ALL-HE SENSED AND WAS MADE AWARE OF “LESS LOVE” FROM “BLESSED OF GOD SOULS HE BROUGHT TO SAVING FAITH IN CHRIST”! WELL, SINCE REDEEMED BY THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, BORN AGAIN, BREATHED UPON BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, COMMISSIONED BY CHRIST, COMMITTED TO A LOST, UNBELIEVING WORLD AROUND YOU, BECAUSE OF “YOUR” “SERIOUS INSPECTION OF THE WORD OF GOD”, HOW MOTIVATED ARE YOU IN SHARING YOUR LIFE, YOUR TESTIMONY, YOUR WITNESS TO A SPIRITUALLY NEEDY, HUNGRY, DARKENED LIFE AROUND YOU WHO ALSO NEED TO KNOW “HOW” TO BE BORN AGAIN, RECONCILED TO GOD BY YOUR WITNESS?

IN EZEKIAL 34:18 WE READ, “DOES IT SEEM A SMALL THING UNTO YOU TO HAVE EATEN UP THE GOOD PASTURE, BUT YOU MUST TREAD DOWN WITH YOUR FEET THE RESIDUE OF YOUR PASTURES? AND TO HAVE DRUNK OF THE DEEP WATERS, BUT YOU MUST FOUL THE RESIDUE WITH YOUR FEET?” SPIRITUALIZE THAT FOR ME, PLEASE! AND, I PRAY, FOR A GREAT AWAKENING IN YOU CONCERNING YOUR ‘OMISSION’ OF A DISCIPLE’S MISSION, OR THE COMMISSION OF IT, LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO “INSPIRES US” TO SHARE CHRIST!IS THIS WHY KING JESUS SPOKE THESE WORDS IN MATTHEW 16:25? “FOR WHOSOEVER WILL SAVE HIS LIFE (FOR HIMSELF WITHOUT ANY CONSIDERATION OF OTHERS?) SHALL LOSE IT, AND WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE “HIS” LIFE FOR MY SAKE SHALL FIND IT.” BEFORE HOLY GOD’S THRONE RIGHT NOW: “WILL HOLY GOD SEE YOU AS ‘SAVING YOUR LIFE FOR YOURSELF’ OR, YES, SACRIFING YOUR LIFE, LAYING DOWN YOUR LIFE, TESTIFYING TO BIBLICAL TRUTH, EVEN IF IT COSTS YOU YOUR PHYSICAL LIFE, BUT YOUR “SPIRIT-LIFE” THO’ MARTYRED, (MAYBE), IS RAISED UP TO “GLORY-LAND” TO BOW AT THE THRONE OF JESUS AS HIS “FOOT-WASHER”?”

A SERIOUS INSPECTION OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE? ST.THOMAS AQUINAS, IN HIS WRITING “SUMMA THEOLOGICA 1”, WROTE: “THERE CAN BE NO FALSEHOOD ANYWHERE IN THE LITERAL SENSE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.” THE HOLY WORD OF GOD, IN THE BIBLE YOU OWN OR OUGHT TO OWN, HAS WORDS FROM THE APOSTLE PAUL THAT SAYS IN ROMANS 15:4, “FOR WHATSOEVER THINGS WERE WRITTEN AFORETIME WERE WRITTEN FOR OUR “LEARNING” THAT WE THROUGH PATIENCE,AND COMFORT OF THE SCRIPTURES, MIGHT HAVE HOPE.”

IN 1 JOHN 5:13 THE BELOVED JOHN WROTE: “THESE THINGS I HAVE WRITTEN UNTO YOU THAT BELIEVE ON THE NAME OF THE SON OF GOD; THAT YOU MAY KNOW THAT YOU HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, AND THAT YOU MAY BELIEVE (OR “TRUST) ON OR IN THE NAME OF THE SON OF GOD.” SERIOUSLY, IS JESUS THE SAVIOR & LORD & MASTER & RECONCILER & REDEEMER, YOUR “BREAD OF LIFE”, “YOUR HEAVENLY MEAT”, “YOUR GRACED ‘HONEY’”, THE “ANOINTED ONE” WHO WILLFULLY SHED HIS OWN BLOOD FOR REGENERATING YOU, ASSIGNING YOU AS HIS MESSENGER? ARE “YOU” AN “AMBASSADOR OF CHRIST” WILLFULLY REPRESENTING HIM, INTRODUCING HIM & HIS DESIRES TO “RECONCILE OTHERS THROUGH YOU TO HIMSELF”?

IN HEBREWS 10:35-36 WE READ, “CAST NOT AWAY THEREFORE YOUR CONFIDENCE, WHICH HAS GREAT RECOMPENCE OF REWARD. FOR YOU HAVE NEED OF STEADFASTNESS,THAT,AFTER YOU HAVE DONE THE WILL OF GOD, YOU MIGHT RECEIVE HIS PROMISE.” INTERESTING VERSES IN EPHESIANS 3:1-12!! PAUL TELLS US: “FOR THIS CAUSE I PAUL, THE PRISONER OF JESUS CHRIST FOR YOU GENTILES, IF YOU HAVE HEARD OF THE DISPENSATION OF THE GRACE OF GOD WHICH IS GIVEN ME TO YOU-WARD: HOW THAT BY REVELATION (OR UNVEILING) GOD MADE KNOWN UNTO ME THE MYSTERY; (AS I WROTE AFORE IN FEW WORDS,WHEREBY, WHEN YOU READ, YOU MAY UNDERSTAND MY KNOWLEDGE IN THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST), WHICH IN OTHER AGES WAS NOT MADE KNOWN UNTO THE SONS OF MEN, AS IT IS NOW REVEALED UNTO HIS HOLY APOSTLES AND PROPHETS BY THE SPIRIT;

THAT THE GENTILES SHOULD BE FELLOWHEIRS, AND OF THE SAME BODY, AND PARTAKERS OF HIS PROMISE IN CHRIST BY THE GOSPEL:WHEREOF I WAS MADE A MINISTER,ACCORDING TO THE GIFT OF THE GRACE OF GOD GIVEN UNTO ME BY THE EFFECTUAL WORKING OF HIS POWER. UNTO ME, WHO AM LESS THAN THE LEAST OF ALL SAINTS, IS THIS GRACE GIVEN, THAT I SHOULD PREACH AMONG THE GENTILES THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST;

AND TO MAKE ALL MEN SEE WHAT IS THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE MYSTERY, WHICH FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD HAS BEEN HID IN GOD, WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST:

TO THE INTENT THAT NOW UNTO THE PRINCIPALITIES, AND POWERS, IN HEAVENLY PLACES MIGHT BE KNOWN BY THE CHURCH THE MANIFOLD WISDOM OF GOD, ACCORDING TO THE ETERNAL GOSPEL WHICH HE PURPOSED IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.” AS A RESULT?

HAVING BEEN REDEEMED, WASHED IN CHRIST’S BLOOD, FILLED WITH RESURRECTION LIFE, POWER, AND HOPE, VERSES 16-21 DECLARES:

JESUS “IS” THE “BRANCH” OF GOD’S TREE OF LIFE THAT WAVES HIS “branches” (you&me!)AROUND US! JESUS IS THE “BELOVED SON”, HE’S THE “CORNERSTONE” OF OUR HOUSE OF FAITH, HE’S THE “MASTER” OVER THE WINDS AND THE WAVES OF YOUR LIFE AS YOUR ‘SHIP OF FAITH’ LAUNCHES, & OH, HE’S THE “BRIGHT AND MORNING STAR”, WHILE YOUR WORLD, YOUR SIN-NATURE, AND SATAN TRIES TO ‘DIM’ HIS “ETERNAL LIGHTING”!

CHRIST JESUS IS THE “TRUE VINE”, COMING, CALLING, KNOCKING ON MEN’S HEARTS’ DOORS, ENTERING, ASSUMING HIS MASTERFUL LEADERSHIP ROLE LIKE THE “CAPTAIN” ON A SHIP SAILING A STORMY SEA!

“A SERIOUS INSPECTION OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE?” WHAT ABOUT EPHESIANS 3:21? “UNTO HIM BE GLORY IN THE CHURCH BY CHRIST JESUS THROUGHOUT ALL AGES WORLD WITHOUT END.AMEN.” “UNTO HIM”? IS THERE IN YOU THE “EXTENSION” OF HIS GLORY TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU THAT CANNOT, WILL NOT BE EXTINGUISHED BECAUSE THE “FIRE” OF THE SPIRIT, THE “FIERY FURNACE OF HIS LIVING WORD & MISSION NEVER DIES”, JESUS SAYING, “WORLD WITHOUT END”?

I MOVE ON WITH SECOND PETER,FOLLOWED BY A CHALLENGING HYMN, 2 PETER 1:19-21, “WE HAVE ALSO A MORE SURE WORD OF PROPHECY; WHEREUNTO YOU DO WELL THAT YOU TAKE HEED, AS UNTO A LIGHT THAT SHINES IN A DARK PLACE, UNTIL THE DAY DAWN, AND THE DAY STAR ARISE IN YOUR HEARTS:

KNOWING THIS FIRST, THAT NO PROPHECY IS OF ANY PRIVATE INTERPRETATION. FOR THE PROPHECY CAME NOT IN OLD TIME BY THE WILL OF MAN; BUT HOLY MEN OF GOD SPOKE AS THEY WERE MOVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.”

ARE “YOU” BEING MOVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT? ARE “YOU” CONVICTED & CONVINCED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT HE DESIRES TO FRESHLY ANOINT YOU TO WITNESS TO “LOST MEN” AROUND YOU? ARE YOU AWARE, THAT IN, UNDER, AND THROUGH HIS ANOINTING, YOU HAVE NO NEED TO FEAR, BUT BE BOLD TO HONOR CHRIST IN YOUR WITNESS TO THE UNSAVED AROUND YOU?

AS “YOU” OPEN YOUR MIND, YOUR HEART, AND YOUR WILL TO BE A “WITNESSING DISCIPLE”, DIDN’T JESUS SAY, “CALL- AND I WILL COME,PRAY-AND I’LL ANSWER, REST- AND I WILL CONVICT, CONVERT, AND CONSECRATE YOU AS A TEMPLE IN WHICH I DWELL & MINISTER THROUGH YOU”? DO YOU PRAY? IN THE AMERICAN HYMNAL,1933, PUBLISHED BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN,P.510, IS A HYMN BY CHARLOTTE G.HOMER & CHARLES H.GABRIEL ENTITLED, “DRAW NIGH, IMMANUEL”: (I CLOSE WITH WORDS FROM THIS HYMN.):

“DRAW NIGH TO US, O GOD OF HOSTS, AND FILL US TO THE UTTERMOST WITH ZEAL TO WORK FOR YOU TODAY, IN YOUR ALL-WISE APPOINTED WAY; REVEAL YOUR WILL IN US, AND SHOW YOUR HAND DIVINE, THAT WE MAY KNOW WE ARE YOUR CHILDREN, & YOU ARE OUR GUIDE AND HIDING PLACE, WHATE’ER BETIDE.

“DRAW NIGH TO US, O MIGHTY ONE! OUR SHELTER BE FROM SUN TO SUN; OUR ALPHA AND OMEGA THOU BEFORE WHOM EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW; DELIVER US FROM EVERY SIN;IN US A MIGHTY WORK BEGIN; INCREASE OUR FAITH, OUR STRENGTH RENEW, FIT US “IN YOU” A MIGHTY WORK TO DO.

“DRAW NIGH TO US,IMMANUEL, MIGHTY GOD OF ISRAEL! ONCE MORE FROM SINAI’S FLAMING HEIGHT SPEAK, THAT WE MAY BE LED ARIGHT; ALMIGHTY, EVERLASTING KING OF KINGS! WITH CONTRITE HEARTS WE SING, THE RIGHTEOUS MAJESTY AND LOVE OF HIM WHO BUILT THE HEAVENS ABOVE.

DRAW NIGH, DRAW NIGH,IMMANUEL, IN GRANDEUR AND MAJESTY REVEAL YOURSELF TODAY; REJOICE, REJOICE, O ISRAEL, YOUR GOD OMNIPOTENT SHALL REIGN WITH UNIVERSAL SWAY; IN GRANDEUR AND IN MAJESTY REVEAL YOURSELF TODAY, YES, GOD OMNIPOTENT SHALL REIGN WITH UNIVERSAL SWAY!” AMEN?

CHAPTER TWO

THE DECEPTION OF FALLEN WORLD-CULTURES OR THE TRUTH: ‘GOD LOVES ME’?

IN THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE FOR AN APPOINTMENT TODAY, AS I WAITED I BEGAN TO READ A CURRENT “SPORTS ILLUSTRATED” MAGAZINE. THERE WAS AN ARTICLE ENTITLED “DONTE’S EPIC” WITH AN EARLY MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT CALLED “WRANGLER” WITH A STATEMENT: “STAY IN YOUR ELEMENT: EVERYDAY VERSATILITY, OUTDOOR CREDIBILITY”.

I WAS STARTLED,DISTURBED,AGITATED, ‘BECAUSE’, I WONDERED,WHAT DOES ‘EVERYDAY VERSATILITY OR OUTDOOR CREDIBILITY’ HAVE TO DO WITH “RECONCILED TO GOD”,BY BIBLICAL REPENTANCE AND TRUE FAITH, WHERE ONE FINDS “RECONCILED” TO GOD BY THE CONVICTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDING US INTO ALL TRUTH, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT SEEING TO IT THAT OUR HEARTS HAVE BECOME FERTILE GROUND OF THE FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE RESURRECTED CHRIST, AND THE THRONE OF GOD ERECTED IN THE TRUE DISCIPLE’S HEART!

HOW EASY, YET STRONGLY POISONOUS IN THE HUMAN HEART AND MIND IT IS TO LIVE WITHOUT GOD’S LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY, OR THE TREE OF DIVINE LIFE SURELY PLANTED, THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT NOT BEING PRODUCED IN THE CONVICTED HEART, PLUS FAILING TO ALLOW THE INDWELLING GUIDANCE OF GOD HIMSELF TEACHING US BECAUSE, THERE IS NO FERTILE SPIRITUAL SOIL FOR THE SCHEDULED ERUPTION OF THE SEED PLANTED!?! “FLESH”, ONE’S OLD SIN NATURE IS UTTERLY UNABLE TO ‘PRODUCE’ THE LIFE OF GOD WITHIN APART FROM BIRTHED,MATURED, &GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT!

I’M SURE IT’S EASY IN DECEIVED MINDS AND HEARTS TO RELY UPON ONE’S ‘INNER SOCIAL AGENDA’ – TRYING TO BE THE FRIEND OF GOD WITHOUT “TRUSTING”, RELYING UPON A SOCIAL INNER SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE WITHOUT GOD ENLIGHTENING A TRUE REPENTANT, TRUSTING HEART! “BEST EFFORT” IS MAN’S ‘SICK THEOLOGY’ WHILE GOD’S DIVINE CONVICTION, GRACIOUS “GIFT”, AND, HAVING TRULY REPENTED, TO THEN KNOW THAT HE,GOD,OPENED THE DOOR OF ONE’S HEART, AND THEN THEY HEAR JESUS SAY: “I’LL COME IN!”

I’M NOT OPPOSED TO ‘OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES’, BUT ‘EPIC’ LIVING APART FROM “RECONCILED TO GOD”? NO DOUBT MILLIONS AND MILLIONS ACROSS THE WORLD, INCLUDING AMERICA,ARE FLOUNDERING, DROWNING, IN SOCIAL,PHYSICAL,& SELFISH SATISFACTION, WITHOUT BEING CONVICTED,CONVERTED,COMPOSED, FULLY AWARE OF CHRIST’S PRESENCE WITHIN THE HEART AS HIS NEW TABERNACLE OF “PRESENCE” AFTER OPENLY REPENTING& TRUSTING IN A HEART, MIND, & SOUL,

WHO WANTS “RECONCILED TO GOD” BY HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTION, “RE-BORN” BIRTHED BY THE SPIRIT, NURTURED, MATURED, & REVEALING CHRIST IN THE “NEW-BORN LIFE”, & IN EVERY “NEW-BORN LIFE”,REVEALING WHAT THEIR CALLING, MISSION, & MINISTRY IS IN HONORING THE “RESURRECTED CHRIST” WITHIN THEM!

IN HEBEWS 12:28 WE READ: “WHEREFORE WE RECEIVING A KINGDOM WHICH CANNOT BE MOVED, LET US HAVE GRACE, WHEREBY WE MAY SERVE GOD ACCEPTABLY WITH REVERENCE & GODLY FEAR!” THIS REMINDS ME OF SOLOMON, IN 1 KINGS 3:5-15! IT SAYS: “IN GIBEON THE LORD APPEARED TO SOLOMON IN A DREAM BY NIGHT: & GOD SAID, ‘ASK WHAT I SHALL GIVE YOU.’ AND SOLOMON SAID, “YOU HAVE SHOWN UNTO YOUR SERVANT DAVID,MY FATHER, GREAT MERCY,

ACCORDING AS HE WALKED BEFORE YOU IN TRUTH,&IN RIGHTEOUSNESS,&IN UPRIGHTNESS OF HEART WITH YOU; &YOU HAVE KEPT FOR HIM THIS GREAT KINDNESS,

THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN HIM A SON TO SIT ON HIS THRONE,AS IT IS THIS DAY.AND NOW,O LORD MY GOD,YOU HAVE MADE YOUR SERVANT KING INSTEAD OF DAVID MY FATHER;& I AM BUT A LITTLE CHILD:I KNOW NOT HOW TO GO OUT OR COME IN. AND YOUR SERVANT IS IN THE MIDST OF YOUR PEOPLE WHICH YOU HAVE CHOSEN, A GREAT PEOPLE,THAT CANNOT BE NUMBERED NOR COUNTED FOR MULTITUDE.

GIVE THEREFORE YOUR SERVANT AN UNDERSTANDING HEART TO JUDGE YOUR PEOPLE, THAT I MAY DISCERN BETWEEN GOOD & BAD: FOR WHO IS ABLE TO JUDGE THIS YOUR SO GREAT A PEOPLE? AND THE SPEECH PLEASED THE LORD, THAT SOLOMON HAD ASKED THIS THING. AND GOD SAID UNTO HIM, BECAUSE YOU HAVE ASKED THIS THING, & YOU HAVE NOT ASKED FOR YOURSELF LONG LIFE;NEITHER HAVE ASKED RICHES FOR YOURSELF, NOR HAVE ASKED THE LIFE OF YOUR ENEMIES;BUT HAVE ASKED FOR YOURSELF UNDERSTANDING TO DISCERN JUDGMENT; BEHOLD,I HAVE DONE ACCORDING TO YOUR WORDS; &LO, I HAVE GIVEN YOU A WISE AND AN UNDERSTANDING HEART; SO THAT THERE WAS NONE LIKE YOU BEFORE YOU, NEITHER AFTER YOU SHALL ANY ARISE LIKE UNTO YOU.

AND I HAVE ALSO GIVEN YOU THAT WHICH YOU HAVE NOT ASKED, BOTH RICHES & HONOR:SO THAT THERE SHALL NOT BE ANY AMONG THE KINGS LIKE UNTO YOU ALL YOUR DAYS. AND IF YOU WILL WALK IN MY WAYS, TO KEEP MY STATUTES & MY COMMANDMENTS, AS YOUR FATHER DAVID DID WALK, THEN I WILL LENGTHEN YOUR DAYS!” OH,! WHAT A WORD OF CONVICTION, CONVERSION, CONSECRATION, COMFORT&CHALLENGE! AND “YOU” MUST REMEMBER 2 TIMOTHY 3:15-17 AS PAUL CHALLENGED A YOUNG SPIRITUAL SON & US!! HE SAID: “AND THAT FROM A CHILD YOU HAVE KNOWN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES,WHICH ARE ABLE TO MAKE YOU WISE UNTO SALVATION THROUGH FAITH “WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS”.ALL SCRIPTURE IS GIVEN BY INSPIRATION OF GOD, & IS PROFITABLE FOR DOCTRINE, FOR REPROOF, FOR CORRECTION, FOR INSTRUCTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS: THAT THE MAN OF GOD MAY BE PERFECT, THOROUGHLY FURNISHED UNTO ALL GOOD WORKS.”

ARE “YOU” LIVING IN THE DECEPTION OF A FALLEN WORLD?” OR DO YOU KNOW THAT HOLY GOD “KNOCKS” ON YOUR HEART’S DOOR & MIND &WILL, TO SAY TO YOU, “OPEN THE DOOR & I WILL COME IN & I WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL BIBLICAL TRUTH!”?? I WROTE WORDS OF POETRY RECENTLY THAT SAYS: “STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND,SELFISHLY LIVE AS ‘SLAVES’ TO A WORLD, A DEVIL, & A ‘FLESHLY’ BAND;IGNORING GOD & SINGING THEIR OWN SONG, ‘OFF-KEY’, THEY’RE LOUD & SINFULLY STRONG.

STRANGERS TO “TRUTH” & ALL THINGS “RIGHT”, THEY WANDER ON EARTH IN THEIR ‘SOULISH NIGHT’ IGNORING THE GOD OF LOVE & LIGHT, DANCING &PRANCING & JUMPING IN THEIR SIN, THEY EASILY TURN AWAY FROM “GOD’S MIGHT HAVE BEEN”.

“NEW LIFE IN CHRIST” IS TO THEM A ‘BORE’, BECAUSE LIFE ON THEIR OWN IN SINFUL PLEASURE, VOID OF GOD IS THE SIN-NATURE’S ‘LEISURE’:SO DAY BY DAY IN THEIR SELFISH WAY, THEY WILLFULLY LIVE BLINDED TO GOD’S “BEST DAY”; THE DAY OF REDEMPTION FOR SOULS IN SIN, BUT MANY WILLFULLY CHOOSE WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!”

ARE “YOU” LIVING IN “THE DECEPTION OF A FALLEN WORLD-CULTURE OR “LIVING IN” THE TRUTH: “GOD LOVES ME & SO WANTS TO REDEEM ME,RECONCILE ME,& RE-TRAIN ME ABOUT “TRUE DISCIPLESHIP”, SO THAT I,YOU, THE “BODY OF CHRIST” IN EVERY CONTINENT & NATION, STATE & CITY, MAY TRULY BE HIS “ROYAL AMBASSADORS” EXTENDING THE KING’S MINISTRY!!!

“GOD LOVES ME, THIS I KNOW, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO; LITTLE ONES TO HIM BELONG, THEY ARE WEAK, BUT HE IS STRONG! YES, JESUS LOVES ME,YES, JESUS LOVES ME; YES, JESUS LOVES ME – THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO!” IN THE OLD “THE AMERICAN HYMNAL”PUBLISHED IN 1933 BY ‘THE BROADMAN PRESS’, NASHVILLE,TENN.,IS A HYMN ENTITLED, “O COULD I SPEAK”,(P.11), THAT SAYS: “O COULD I SPEAK THE MATCHLESS WORTH, O COULD I SOUND THE GLORIES FORTH WHICH IN MY SAVIOR SHINE, I’D SOAR, &TOUCH THE HEAVENLY STRINGS, AND VIE WITH GABRIEL AS HE SINGS IN NOTES ALMOST DIVINE, IN NOTES ALMOST DIVINE.

I’D SING THE PRECIOUS BLOOD JESUS SPILT, MY RANSOM FROM THE DREADFUL GUILT OF SIN, & WRATH DIVINE: I’D SING HIS GLORIOUS RIGHTEOUSNESS, IN WHICH ALL-PERFECT, HEAVENLY DRESS MY SOUL SHALL EVER SHINE, MY SOUL SHALL EVER SHINE.

I’D SING THE CHARACTERS HE BEARS, & ALL THE FORMS OF LOVE HE WEARS, EXALTED ON HIS THRONE:IN LOFTIEST SONGS OF SWEETEST PRAISE, I WOULD TO EVERLASTING DAYS MAKE ALL HIS GLORIES KNOWN, MAKE ALL HIS GLORIES KNOWN.

WELL,THE DELIGHTFUL DAY WILL COME WHEN MY DEAR LORD WILL BRING ME HOME, AND I SHALL SEE HIS FACE; THEN WITH MY SAVIOR, BROTHER, FRIEND, A BLEST ETERNITY I’LL SPEND, TRIUMPHANT IN HIS GRACE, TRIUMPHANT IN HIS GRACE.”

FOR YOU,YOUR CHOICE! SELF OR THE SAVIOR,LUST OR HIS LOVE, MY WORLD OR HIS KINGDOM, MY FLESHLY PLEASURES OR HIS ETERNAL PEACE, MY DARKNESS OR HIS LIGHT, MY ‘TRYING’ OR HIS WORD OF “TRUST”, MY SELF-EFFORT OR HIS SAVIOR’S LOVE EXCELLING, MY NATURAL BREATH OR HIS BREATH OF THE LOVING SPIRIT, MY ‘SPOTS’ AS SATAN’S MARKING OF SIN-CAPTURED LIVING OR GOD’S “SPECIAL GRACE” OF ‘NEVER-FAILING’ PRESENCE & POWER TO LIVE AS “MORE THAN CONQUERORS, BUT ETERNAL VICTORS” BECAUSE OF HIS BLOOD, HIS DEATH, HIS RESURRECTION, HIS ASCENSION, & HIS ETERNAL EYE ON YOU TO MAKE SURE YOU WALK IN HIS VICTORIOUS CONQUEST OVER SATAN, OVER SIN, & OVER PHYSICAL DEATH! CAN “YOU SAY, ‘HALLELUJAH! GLORY TO THE NAME OF KING JESUS!”

CHAPTER THREE

“REMAINING FLAWED OR “FAITHING”

THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST”

• Sinners, willing to remain as they are, but pleased to ‘acknowledge’ Jesus Christ, profess ‘faith’, and join a ‘church’ ARE ‘flawed professing disciples’ asserting their ‘completion’ "in Christ", when HE, the Resurrected, Reigning King of kings and Lord of lords, ‘knocked’, but wasn’t allowed to enter with the gifts of a "new heart" and "new Spirit" with the ‘professors of faith’ continuing on deceiving and being deceived! "Christ (alone) in you IS the.hope of glory", but, IN truly "Repentant minds and hearts", willing to indeed be dead to themselves daily, IS His Resurrection Life manifested in mortal flesh!!

I’m sure you’ve heard it said: "Oh, I ‘believe’ in Jesus, as long as He allows ME to be myself. I want to be with Jesus, but if I must die to myself, to my old sin nature, and to my devotion to my world philosophies, and even enjoy it at times, and yes, my devotion to Satan’s false assertions, and to the desires of fleshly demons in me to remain themselves, I guess I’ll just have to pay the price for a stubborn heart, mind, will, and life, and say: ‘good-by, Jesus’!"

Sinners, willing to be believers remaining as they are, but pleased to acknowledge Jesus, ‘profess faith’, and join a ‘church’, ARE ‘flawed disciples’ asserting their ‘completion in Christ’ when He is not around to "bless and claim as His own the ‘pretenders111 !

Are you aware that there are ‘pretenders’ who are not "servants in and through and by Christ Jesus"? Are you aware of many who ‘join a church’ yet never died to the old ‘self­ nature’ that His Resurrection Life might find a ‘temple’ or ‘tabernacle’, but live ‘professing’ apart from being possessed by Christ Himself through His "blood purchase" at the Cross?

There is such a vast difference between ‘world-followers’, deceived by the powers of darkness and, yet "religious believers", who’ve declared allegiance to a ‘pretending savior’ but know nothing of the "Prince of Peace who, yes, sacrificed His divine life that fallen men could be reconciled to Holy God through His shed blood, merciless death, then burial, but resurrected on the third day as reigning Lord over sin and death and separation from Holy God, ascending to Heaven’s Throne where He still reigns!" But ‘pretenders’ know nothing about "taking the sentence of death daily to themselves (knowing crucified with Christ)", that Jesus’ Resurrection Life could, would, was, is, after true repentance and "rest-filled faith", reconciling them to Him with, in, and through His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Hope, and Resurrection Power, and His Life then expressed daily in the life now ‘dead to self, dead to their old sin-nature, dead to the unbelieving world around them, and dead to Satan’s impotent armies of fleshly deceit, fleshly expression, and fleshly control, living only to, yes, please the Lord in a daily ‘laid-down-life’ to LET HIM BE JESUS IN THEM AND THROUGH THEM!’

In Matthew 10:1, Verses 7-8, 16-20, 22-26, 28-34, 36-40, we read about "sent ones loyal to the Savior and Lord"! Matthew 10:1 says, "And when He had called unto Himself His twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Verses 7-8 says, And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons; freely you have received, freely give.

Verses 16-20 follows, Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;

And you shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them, and the (unbelieving Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak, For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you.

Verses 22-26, "And you shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake; but he that endures to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee you into another: for verily I say unto you, You shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. (His Resurrection Presence!!

Glory!!).

Verses 28-34 then says, "And fear them not them, which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without the Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear you not therefore; you are of more Value than many sparrows. Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Verses 36-40 then says, And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that takes not his cross, and follows after Me, is not worthy of Me. He that finds his life shall lose it; and he that loses his life for My sake shall find it.

He that receives you receives Me, and he that receives Me receives Him that sent Me."

What an awesome, challenging, enriching ‘Life-changing Word’ for every repentant heart and soul, but, yes, a scary, ‘fear-full Word’ for every unbeliever, every pretender, and, yes, every ‘kingdom’ of man’s building that wants no part of Holy God and His merciful Savior and Lord!!

‘World-followers’, ‘imitating, pretending, church followers’, possessors of ‘fervent lips but divided hearts’, willing to ‘hear the Word of God without obeying’, even making long prayers, but according to 2 Timothy 3:5 have ‘a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof; from such turn away’, because You will be in danger of ‘getting scorched’!

"Remaining ‘flawed’ though ‘professing faith"? How ‘strange’ that some disciples are seen as ‘professing faith in Christ’ yet holding on to a past life of the world, the flesh, and Satan himself, sadly, with no desire to be ‘sanctified ‘wholly’ rather than fully freed in Christ’s Indwelling Life’ victorious over the powers of darkness!

I was so impressed recently when reading Oswald Chambers’ book entitled "My Utmost For His Highest " :, (which I read regularly with the Word, yes, over and over again and again – a ‘wise, Spirit-anointed preacher!’ from England a long time ago’!),majoring on a disciple’s ‘fleshly exhaustion’ by quoting Isaiah 40:28, "The everlasting God…faints not, nor ever grows weary," saying, (p.29), "Has the way in which you have been serving God betrayed you into exhaustion? If so, then rally your affections. Where did you start the service from? From your own sympathy OR from the basis of the Redemption of Jesus Christ? CONTINUALLY go back to the foundation of your affections and recollect where the source of power is. You have no right to say’ "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you in order to EXHAUST YOUR JOY IN YOURSELF. Be exhausted ‘for God’, but remember that your supply comes from (and "in Him"!), "All my fresh springs shall be in You." Amen?

The continuing, disappointing, ‘falling-short’ philosophy, of many ‘trying-disciples’ is, "Do your best"! NO!! Ten thousand times, NO!!" True disciples DAILY "take the sentence of death daily that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in them and through them as they yield to the Holy Spirit to continually guide and express "Jesus Only"" through them!!"

Self-assertiveness in a ‘professing disciple’ is a big nail that gets stronger and stronger in place of their "hope of glory"! One "in Christ" doesn’t need the ‘nails of devotion to his/her old flesh-

nature’, but the "new-life" only in and through His Resurrection Presence, being Himself eternally the same, even in opposition to the demons and Satan himself who hang around!

Tell me! "Why do some ‘professing believers’, crucified WITH Christ, still ‘think’ that they are ‘the ones able’ WHEN He nailed their ‘sinfulness and able-ness to His Cross’ thousands of years ago?

‘Self-consciousness’ and ‘self-awareness’, living as ‘professing disciples as servants of Christ but in, of, and for themselves, ignoring His Resurrection Presence if truly ‘born-again’, ‘think’ that their ‘self-absorbed- life’ that they hold onto can adequately unveiled Christ’s presence, when all it does is ‘shame’ Christ’s completed work through the Cross and His empty tomb!

‘Self-consciousness’ professing Christ is a curse, not a blessing! ‘Self-consciousness’ is a ‘noose around the neck’; not the "new creation reality of His indwelling Presence"! ‘Self­ consciousness’ of ‘professing believers’ never gives ‘confidence’ in a compromised believer’s walk, but only a ‘leaking life of limited expression’ of the True Christ! Again, "Christ IN YOU IS the Hope of Glory!"

If Christ Jesus "gives ‘rest’", why do so many "try-ers" live unfulfilling lives as ‘professing disciples’, yes, unaware ‘possessed disciples’ ARE viewers of God’s amazing grace as Jesus is Himself in them and through them even conscious that it’s Him, not them that honors God the Father?

Again, Isaiah 40:31 says: "But they that wait upon the Lord, (letting Him be Himself in them and through them!), shall renew their strength (which IS their faith in His bodily presence and bodily participation THROUGH THEM, not by them at all!); they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

WHAT AN AMAZING TRANSITION FROM ‘SELF­ CONSCIOUSNESS’ INTO "CHRIST-AWARENESS, AVAILABILITY, AND HEAVENLY ACTION" THROUGH "CHRIST-RELEASE OF HIS RESURRECTION -PRESENCE THROUGH YOU"! I Are YOU the

"poor in spirit" who know HOW to let, "Jesus, BE Jesus in me, no longer me but Thee, Resurrection Power fill me this hour, Jesus, be Jesus in me"?

The promised ‘life in Christ’ was never intended to be the new believer trying and trying! No! Every day, as your days begin "in Christ", must be days when the "It is finished" proclamation includes "finished with myself so Christ Jesus can be, is, and forever will be, "my ALL IN ALL"!!

"REMAINING FLAWED" OR, "FAITHING THE FINISHED WORK"

BY CHRIST JESUS ALONE! Are YOU "crucified with Christ", and the life in Him you now live is the daily dedication of ‘death to self’ that His Resurrection Presence might be expressed through you?

It was P.P. Bliss, in the old "Broadman Hymnal", that wrote the words to the hymn, "That Will Be Glory For Me". It says:

"I know not the hour when my Lord will come To take me away to His own dear home; But I know that His presence lightens my gloom, And that will be glory for me.

I know not the song that the angels sing, I know not the sound of the harp’s glad ring; But I know there’ll be praises to Jesus our King, And that will be glory for me.

I know not the form of my mansion fair, I know not the name that I then shall bear; But I know that my Savior will welcome me there, And that will be glory for me.

And that will be glory for me, Oh, that will be glory for me; When I stand in His presence, and like Him shall be, Oh, that will be glory for me." In Luke 24:32, as the true disciples had been with Jesus, and then He was gone, say: "Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?"

Question! Do YOU live with a "burning heart" in you because of His Abiding Presence that never leaves you? Are YOU ‘professing Him’ but living without expressing His promise, "I’ll never leave you nor forsake you?" "Burning hearts"? Is that the testimony of your earthly existence as a redeemed disciple of King Jesus? Sadly, many live countless lives of unawareness, not "shining lights" rejoicing in His abiding presence! Again, Oswald Chambers, in his book "My Utmost For His Highest" wrote: (pps. 58-59), "Much of our distress as Christians comes not because of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own (spiritual) nature. For instance, the only test as to whether we allow an emotion to have its way is to see what the outcome of the emotion will be. Push it to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something God would condemn, allow it no more way. But if it be an emotion kindled by the Spirit of God and you do not let that emotion have its right issue in your life, it will react on a lower level.

That is the way sentimentalists are made. The higher the emotion, the deeper the degradation will be, if it is not worked out on its proper level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many things inevitable as possible, let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay on the mount of transfiguration, but we must obey the light we received there; we must act it out."

SO…. When the temptation, the ‘testing’, the ‘trial’, comes by the demons, LET THE KINDLING SPIRIT OF THE HOLY GHOST be

loosed in you to ward off any satanic, worldly, OR fleshly desire! CHOOSE DAILY TO HONOR KING JESUS!! AMEN?

CHAPTER FOUR

“ILLOGICAL DEBATE OR CONVINCED, CONVERTED, CONSECRATED, AND CONFIRMED LIFE IN CHRIST”

THE PSALMIST, IN PSALM 111, WAS,(YES), INSPIRED TO WRITE, VERSE 5, "GOD HAS GIVEN MEAT UNTO THEM THAT FEAR HIM: HE WILL EVER BE MINDFUL OF HIS COVENANT." BUT ‘ILLOGICAL DEBATERS’, STRONGLY ‘POISONED’ BY ‘GOD-RESENTERS’ ACCEPT ‘LESSONS’ (?) FROM THE ‘FLESH OR SIN-NATURED’ MEN OR WOMEN, WHO RATHER THAN "TRUST GOD" WHO BIRTHED MANKIND WITH THE CHOICE FOR THEIR LIFE’S JOURNEY TURN INWARD & AROUND BUT NOT TO GOD, WHO,YES,EVEN THOUGH HE "KNOCKS", AND THEY REFUSE TO OPEN THE HEART’S DOOR BECAUSE THEY

‘LOVE’ "FLESH" NOT SPIRIT I LOVING A "LOST

WORLD’S RESENTMENT OF DEVOTION TO GOD",SO, "GUIDED BY ‘HEART-DEAD, MIND BLINDED’, AND WARPED WILLS DECEIVED BY SATAN HIMSELF", THERE WILL BE THOSE WHO FOOLISHLY CHOOSE TO REMAIN SEPARATED FROM GOD, UNDER SATAN’S DOMINATION, BLINDED BY·’ A FOOLISH LOST-WORLD MENTALITY’, UNAWARE THEY’VE CHOSEN ‘ILLOGICAL, NATURAL,DEMONIC,AND ‘HELLISH’ INSIGHT THAT LEAVES MERCIFUL, LOVING, GRACIOUS, CARING GOD & HIS WILL, WORD, & WAYS OUT OF THEIR LIVES, SO THEY "CHOOSE" THE WORLD’S GODLESS SPIRIT, THE SIN NATURE’S DEPRAVITY, AND SATAN’S BLINDNESS II

"ILLOGICAL DEBATERS" ARE OFTEN BLINDED BY AN INNER ‘ATTITUDE’, STRONG BUT WEAK AND DEFENSELESS, THAT, "UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING BUT SIN", THEY LIVE HOLDING ONTO, ‘IN SOME’, A "WILDER-LESS", "WONDER-LESS", "WISDOM-LESS", "WITNESS LESS" ATTITUDE THAT EVEN ‘BELIEVERS’ (?)

WHO CALL THEMSELVES ‘DISCIPLES OF CHRIST’, CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT SIN SINCE ‘BEING SAVED'(?), THOUGH JESUS TOLD HIS THE MAN IN THE TEMPLE THAT HE HEALED, JOHN 5:14, "BEHOLD, YOU ARE MADE WHOLE:SIN NO MORE, LEST A WORSE THING COME UPON YOU."

"ILLOGICAL DEBATERS"? IN TITUS 3:2-11 PAUL STOUTLY AND WISELY WROTE: "TO SPEAK EVIL OF NO MAN, TO BE NO BRAWLERS, BUT GENT.LE, SHOWING ALL MEEKNESS UNTO ALL MEN.

FOR WE OURSELVES ALSO WERE SOMETIMES FOOLISH, DISOBEDIENT,DECEIVED,SERVING DIVERS LUSTS AND PLEASURES, LIVING IN MALICE AND ENW, HATEFUL, AND HATING ONE ANOTHER. BUT AFTER THAT THE KINDNESS AND LOVE OF GOD OUR SAVIOR TOWARD MAN APPEARED, NOT BY WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH WE HAVE DONE, BUT ACCORDING TO HIS MERCY HE SAVED US, BY THE WASHING OF REGENERATION, AND RENEWING OF THE HOLY GHOST;

WHICH HE SHED ON US ABUNDANTLY THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOR; THAT BEING JUSTIFIED BY HIS GRACE (JUSTIFIED? "JUST-AS-IF-WE’D-NEVER-SINNED!"), WE SHOULD BE MADE HEIRS ACCORDING TO THE HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE.

THICH IS A FAITHFUL SAYING, AND THESE THINGS I WILL THAT YOU AFFIRM CONSTANTLY, THAT THEY WHICH HAVE BELIEVED IN GOD MIGHT BE CAREFUL TO MAINTAIN GOOD WORKS, THESE THINGS ARE GOOD AND PROFITABLEUNTO MEN. BUT AVOID FOOLISH QUESTIONS, AND GENEALOGIES, AND CONTENTIONS, AND STRIVINGS ABOUT THE LAW; FOR THEY ARE UNPROFITABLE AND VAIN.

A MAN THAT IS A HERETIC AFTER THE FIRST AND SECOND ADMONITION REJECT; KNOWING THAT HE THAT IS SUCH SUBVERTED, AND SINS, BEING CONDEMNED OF HIMSELF." WHAT A POWERFUL, ENLIGHTENING, CONVICTING REVELATION OF THE HOLY WORDI!

"ILLOGICAL DEBATERS" ARE DESCRIBED IN PSALM 2:1-41 THE PSALMIST ASKS, "WHY DO THE HEATHEN RAGE, AND THE PEOPLE IMAGINE A VAIN THING? THE KINGS OF THE EARTH SET THEMSELVES, AND THE RULERS TAKE COUNSEL TOGETHER, AGAINST THE LORD, AND AGAINST HIS ANOINTED, SAYING ‘LET US BREAK THEIR BANDS ASUNDER, AND CAST AWAY THEIR CORDS FROM US. HE THAT SITS IN THE HEAVENS SHALL LAUGH; THE LORD SHALL HAVE THEM IN DERISION. ( THAT WORD ‘DERISION’ MEANS, ‘RIDICULE’ OR ‘MOCKERY’!)

PLUS, IT’S SATAN HIMSELF & HIS DEMONIC WARRIORS THAT "PUT CORDS & BANDS" ON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF ALL BIRTHED MANKIND WHO MUST RECEIVE CHRIST’S BLOOD REDEMPTION FOR THEM TO BE FREE FROM SATANIC BONDAGE!

BUT, IN THIS MOMENT, THIS TIME PERIOD OF YOUR LIFE, ARE YOU AN "ILLOGICAL DEBATER" OR ARE "YOU" A "CONVINCED,CONVERTED, CONSECRATED, CONFIRMED TRUE DISCIPLE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST"? A VERY ENLIGHTENING VERSE IS FOUND IN HEBREWS 11:4! "BY FAITH ABEL OFFERED UNTO GOD A

EXCELLENT SACRIFICE THAN CAIN, BY WHICH HE OBTAINED WITNESS THAT HE WAS RIGHTEOUS, GOD TESTIFYING OF HIS GIFTS; AND BY IT BEING DEAD YET SPEAKS." (A WITNESS THAT ‘CONTINUES’, EVEN AFTER ‘YOU’ DIED? "AMAZING GRACE"!I).

ARE "YOU" CONVINCED? AND "CONVINCED", DO "YOU" ALLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT TO "CONVINCE" OTHERS THROUGH YOU? IN MATTHEW 10:19-20, JESUS TELLS US: "BUT WHEN THEY DELIVER YOU UP, TAKE NO THOUGHT HOW OR WHAT YOU SHALL SPEAK: FOR IT SHALL BE GIVING YOU IN THAT SAME HOUR WHAT YOU SHALL SPEAK. FOR IT IS NOT YOU THAT SPEAKS, BUT THE SPIRIT OF YOUR FATHER WHICH SPEAKS IN YOU (AND "THROUGH YOU"I)."

"CONVINCED" BECAUSE YOU "WERE CONVERTED"? IS THAT "BORN AGAIN", GRACE FILLED, SPIRIT-BIRTHED, SPIRIT-ENLIGHTENED, SPIRIT-CONFIRMED,SPIRIT-ANOINTED, SPIRIT GUIDED, TO TOUCH YOUR WORLD WITH THE ETERNAL GOSPEL STORY OF GOD’S POWER TO SAVE OTHERS THROUGH YOU AS YOU LIFT UP THE MESSAGE OF "BLOOD REDEMPTION, RECONCILIATION, AND REACHING OUT THROUGH YOU WITH HIS AMAZING GRACE TO OTHERS?"

"CONVINCED", "CONVERTED", BUT ARE YOU "CONSECRATED"? IS THAT "SET APART", AS ONE DISTINCTIVELY DIFFERENT BY THE GRACE AND MERCY OF GOD, "BORN AGAIN", A "NEW CREATION" NO LONGER ONLY UNTO ONE’S SELF, BUT "CAPTURED, CONVERTED, CONSECRATED, ONE BECOMES CHRIST’S "ROYAL AMBASSADOR", COMMISSIONED BY CHRIST TO BE HIS WITNESS TO A WORLD THAT NEEDS TO BE RECONCILED TO GOD, REPENTING OF SIN AND SEPARATION FROM HIM, BUT THEN "SET APART" FOR THE UNVEILING OF THE GLORY, GRACE, AND MERCY OF GOD THROUGH YOU BECAUE OF THE RESURRECTED, REIGNING CHRIST WITHIN YOU!!

"CONVINCED,CONVERTED, CONSECRATED" – GOOD, EXCELLENT, GRACE-GIVEN -AND – "CONFIRMED" BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, EVIDENCED BY THE "FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT" MULTIPLYING IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU!

MARCUS M.WELLS, IN "THE AMERICAN HYMNAL", PUBLISHED IN 1933, BY THE BROADMAN PRESS OF NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, (P.188),WROTE THE HYMN, "HOLY SPIRIT, FAITHFUL GUIDE". IT SAYS: "HOLY SPIRIT, FAITHFUL GUIDE, EVER NEAR THE CHRISTIAN’S

SIDE; GENTLY LEAD US BY THE HAND, PILGRIMS IN A DESERT LAND;

EVER PRESENT, TRUEST FRIEND, EVER NEAR YOUR AID TO LEND, LEAVE US NOT TO DOUBT AND FEAR, GROPING ON IN DARKNESS DREAR.

WHEN OUR DAYS OF TOILSHALL CEASE, WAITING STILL FOR SWEET RELEASE, NOTHING LEFT BUT HEAVEN AND PRAYER, WONDERING IF OUR NAMES WERE THERE.

THEN JESUS SPEAKS! WHISPERING SOFTLY, ‘WANDERER, COMEI FOLLOW ME, I’ll GUIDE YOU HOME!

WEARY SOULS FOREVER REJOICE, WHILE THEY HEAR THAT SWEETEST VOICE, WHEN THE STORMS ARE RAGING SORE, HEARTS GROW FAINT, AND HOPES GIVE O’ER,WADING DEEP THE DISMAL FLOOD, PLEADING NAUGHT BUT JESUS’ BLOOD, THE SPIRIT SPEAKS, WHISPERING SOFTLY, "WAN DERER, COME! FOLLOW ME, I’llGUIDE YOU HOME!"IS THE WORD, THE "TRUTH", THE HOLY SPIRIT, YOUR GUIDE TO VICTORY OR IN "BEST EFFORT",

"FLESH-SPIRIT"I "SATAN-DECEIVED" ATTEMPTS

TO BE ‘CHRIST-LIKE’, HAVE YOU "FALLEN AWAY" FROM THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST?

HE IS THE "FULLNESS", BUT YOU "TRIED" RATHER THAN "TRUSTED"? "ATTEMPTED" RATHER THAN "ATONED"? "SELF-EFFORT" RATHER THAN "BOUGHT WITH A PRICE", ‘PAID FOR’ REDEMPTION BY THE SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD BECAUSE "GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD"? IN WHOM WILL "YOU" STAND WITH BEFORE HOLY GOD AT HIS ETERNAL JUDGMENT SEAT WHEN YOUR DAY OF DEATH COMES?!?

CHAPTER FIVE

“FEAR-FILLED OR FEARLESS IN THE FAITH OF CHRIST JESUS?”

Highly, highly interesting Scriptures in Philippians 2:12-13 where Paul the Apostle said: “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION IN FEAR AND TREMBLING; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

“His good pleasure”, to “work in you”, “BOTH to will AND to do for His good pleasure”? And as He “works in you” according to His good pleasure”, you think any ‘believer’ professing Christ has the ‘right’ and the ‘privilege’ to ‘work out his/her salvation on his/her terms without any consideration to what pleases God Himself who, yes, laid down the life of His Son in your place’?

BUT!!!… If we understand God “worked out” His terms of our salvation, “both to will and to do (in us!) what IS His good pleasure”, being “set free from the law of sin and death, thus, that gives us the right to live our lives, then, on our terms”? Give me a break! From ‘fleshly’ but ‘still retaining a ‘right’ to do as one pleases’? How easily is it to be warped concerning “revelation-Truth”!! Jesus Himself clearly said in Luke 6:46 that one doesn’t obey in order to be saved, but because he/she has been saved, therefore, they thus, yield to Christ’s Lordship in their “walk of faith”, which IS obedience TO the Master! “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do the things which I say?”

Jesus had just spoken on good men AND evil men when in Luke 6:44-45, He said: “For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For EVERY tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.”

Is it possible that ‘pretenders to obedience’, professing Christ, ARE, as Jesus described them in Luke 6:41-42?, “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! (“Play-actor!”). First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your own eye.” Is that clear to you? Or are YOU determined to ‘gather grapes from the bramble bush of a sin-infested, worldly programmed, devilish influence’?

Many religious pretenders are BOUND in the strong bonds of spiritual pretense without even one fruit of God’s Spirit produced only by His Presence within them, yet still seek to see themselves as ‘Jesus-disciples’, though void of true repentance and, yes, Biblical Faith, that IS “trust and obedience”! Faith or obedience in the one that at least ‘professes it’ but doesn’t ‘stand on the sure foundation’ is certain to falter into more spiritual frailty, more spiritual feebleness, and losing any crippled confidence he or she had been able to muster in, yes, their ‘counterfeit state of allegiance’ rather than having been “second-born by the Holy Spirit”!

When the Lord Jesus said, “Come unto Me”, it was not for a spiritual badge to wear on one’s everyday outer clothing, but coming to Him, willfully dying daily to one’s old sin-nature-identity, and “resting” in His abiding, Resurrection Presence in the true heart of the now “born-again believer”!

In Luke 18:1-30 we read a solemn, serious, saving Word from King Jesus! He spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint: Saying (That’s Jesus speaking!), There was in a city a judge, who had no fear of God, neither regarded any man; And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary.

And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, Yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she wearies me. And the Lord said,

Hear what the unjust judge said. ‘And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bears long with them’? And He spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, yet despised others: “Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

The Pharisee stood up and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess’. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me the sinner’. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one that exalts himself shall be abased; he that humbles himself (before God) shall be exalted”..

And they brought unto Him also infants, that He would touch them: but when His disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto Himself, and said, “Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein to God’s Kingdom!”

And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? None is good, save one, that is, God. You know the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not Kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and your mother." And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. When Jesus heard these things, He said unto him,

“Yet you lack one thing: sell all that you have, and distribute unto the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me.” When the ruler heard this, he was very sorrowful; for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, He said: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God? For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

And they that heard it said, “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Then Peter said, “Lo, we have left all, and followed You.” And Jesus said unto them, “Verily I say unto you, There is no man that has left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, Who shall not but receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.”

What an awesome chapter in the Word of God! And yet many are not even moved one inch toward Holy God in their ‘self-determined’, mind-analyzed, ‘world-system’ allegiance, or the ‘deceived-by-Satan-mentality’, doing ‘religious allegiance’ “My way”!! All around you are individuals who are personally, morally, spiritually,‘bankrupt-souls’, blinded to the love, mercy, and grace of God, fully content to live a ‘religious’ but godless life, indulging their ‘flesh-nature’, corrupted by an army of deceitful devils, and a ‘Satan-inspired lifestyle of even ‘religious indifference’ to the good, acceptable, and perfect Will of Holy God’!

I’m thoroughly convinced that, beside the inspired Word of Holy God, IS the “faith-walk of a regenerated, re-born, Spirit-led Life, obedient to every Word of God, and IS the still-revealed- Resurrection-Presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords”! In Oswald Chambers’ book, “My Utmost For His Highest”, Chambers wrote a convicting, powerful, Truth-filled word! He said: (p.242), building on John 17:4, Jesus saying, “I have finished the work which You, Father-God, gave Me to do.” He wrote:

“The Death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very Mind of God. There IS NO ROOM FOR LOOKING ON JESUS CHRIST AS A MARTYR; His death was not something that happened to Him which might have been prevented: His death was the very reason why He came…

Never build your preaching on forgiveness on the fact that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. It is untrue to Jesus Christ’s revelation (or unveiling) of God; it makes the Cross unnecessary, and the Redemption “much ado about nothing.” If God does forgive sin, it is because of the Death of Christ. God could forgive men in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted to be Savior because of His death. “We see Jesus…because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” The greatest note of triumph that ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ – “IT IS FINISHED.” That is the last word in the redemption of man…

Anything that belittles or obliterates the holiness of God by a false view of the love of God, is untrue to the revelation given by Jesus Christ. Never allow the thought that Jesus Christ stands with us against God out of pity and compassion; that He became a curse for us out of sympathy with us. Jesus Christ BECAME A CURSE FOR US BY DIVINE DECREE. Our portion of realizing the terrific meaning of the curse is conviction of sin, the gift of shame and penitence is given us – this is the mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the wrong in man, and Calvary is the estimate (or unveiling) of His hatred.” So powerfully convicting, liberating, and life-changing eternally by, yes, the grace, the love, and the mercy for us in “the crucified, dead, buried, but resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords”!!

And, when that sinks in to your mind, heart, and will, with Paul, (1 Corinthians 10:31), “Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do ALL to the glory of God.” Is THAT Scriptural awe and shock, or not?

In Malachi 3:10b the prophet heard Holy, merciful, loving God, saying: “…prove Me now herewith, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour YOU out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Do YOU “live” IN “the open windows of heaven” with the overflow from you being, yes, the extension of Christ’s Life through you, the expression of His faithful, loving nature through you, and the living proof of His still awesome power to resurrect the dead, yes, Him through YOU?).

“Fear-filled OR Fearless in the Faith of Christ Jesus”? In Matthew 5:1-16 we read: And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain; and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him. AND He opened His mouth, and taught them, saying, “Blessed are the poor (the poverty-stricken in themselves!) in spirit, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek (the teachable!), for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they WHICH DO HUNGER AND THIRST after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for their’s IS the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” HEAR ME!

You (”In Christ”) are the salt of the earth; but, if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under the foot of men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.(Are you SET on Calvary’s hill and Christ’s empty tomb?) Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a basket (a church building?), but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house (of human civilization?). Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Dare I tell you? Believe I will!! “The ‘Eternal Morning Light” never has a day it doesn’t dawn – bright or cloudy or stormy or rainy – Jesus, the Eternal Morning Light still shines – Are YOU in the ‘darkness’ or do you and yours ‘Radiate’ the Eternal Light WHO IS CHRIST JESUS?

Are YOU “Fear-filled OR Fearless in the Faith?”

CHAPTER SIX

“STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND OR CITIZENS OF HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM”

IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS, IT’S BEEN AMAZING TO ME AT GOD’S INSPIRATION IN ME IN WRITING, I PRAY, BLESSED TEACHINGS THAT WILL TEACH & REACH MANY FOR TRUE SALVATION IN THE SAVIOR’S NAME BY CONVICTION, CONVERSION, CONSECRATION, AND THEN,COMMISSIONING OF CHILDREN OF FAITH AS HIS MESSENGERS, AMBASSADORS, SERVANTS, PASTORS & TEACHERS & EVEN AS MISSIONARIES! AS WELL AS TEACHINGS, OUR LORD HAS EVEN INSPIRED POETRY IN ME EVERY NOW & THEN! HERE’S A SAMPLE: "STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND, SELFISHLY LIVING AS ‘SLAVES’ TO A WORLD, A DEVIL, & A ‘FLESHLY’ BAND; IGNORING GOD & SINGING THEIR OWN SONG, ‘OFF-KEY", THEY’RE LOUD & SINFULLY STRONG.

STRANGERS TO "TRUTH" & ALL THINGS RIGHT, THEY WANDER ON EARTH IN THEIR ‘SOULISH NIGHT’, IGNORING THE GOD OF LOVE & LIGHT, DANCING & PRANCING & JUMPING IN THEIR SIN, THEY EASILY TURN AWAY FROM "GOD’S: MIGHT HAVE BEENI"

"NEW LIFE IN CHRIST" IS TO THEM A ‘BORE’, BECAUSE LIFE ON THEIR OWN IS IN INDULGENT & SINFUL TREASURE, BUT VOID OF GOD, IT’S SIN-NATURE’S ‘PLEASURE'(?).

SO DAY BY DAY IN THEIR SELFISH WAY, THEY WILLFULLY LIVE BLINDED TO GOD’S "BEST & BETTER DAY"; THAT’S THE DAY OF REDEMPTION FOR SOULS IN SIN, BUT THEY WILLFULLY IGNORE WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.”

"STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND"? IN THE LAST PART OF HEBREWS 11:13,THERE IS A PHRASE DESCRIBING HEBREW BELIEVERS BEFORE THEY FOUND, YES, BY GOD’S MERCY & GRACE, THE TRUE PATH OF BLOOD REDEMPTION: PAUL WROTE, THAT MANY WERE: "STRANGERS & PILGRIMS ON THE EARTH", AT LEAST FOR AWHILE, THEN’HEARING GOD’S PROMISE’, WERE PERSUADED TO HOLD ON FROM THAT DAY FORWARD TO THEIR COMING CROWNING IN THE BLESSING OF SPIRITUAL FREEDOM THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST’S GOSPEL FOREVER & EVER EVEN AFTER THEIR EARTHLY PHYSICAL DEATH TO LIVE ETERNALLY WITH CHRIST IN HEAVEN, NOT HELL, STILL FAITHFULLY READY TO "WASH THE MASTER’S FEET THERE AS THEY DID HERE!"

IN "THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS", WILLIAM COWPER AUTHORED WORDS HE ENTITLED "LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS", SAYING: "BLIND UNBELIEF IS SURE TO ERR, AND SCAN GOD’S WORK IN VAIN; GOD IS HIS OWN INTERPRETER, AND HE WILL MAKE IT PLAIN."

BUT, STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND? STRANGERS TO GOD HIMSELF? STRANGERS TO HIS SON, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST? STRANGERS TO HIS HOLY SPIRIT? STRANGERS TO HIS ETERNAL WORD, HIS "MILK", HIS "BREAD", HIS "FRUIT", HIS "PATHWAY", HIS "GUIDING LIGHT" & STRANGERS TO HIS"GRACIOUS MAP OF BLOOD REDEMPTION & RECONCILIATION WITH THE HOLY FATHER FOR ALL MANKIND", THRU TRUST IN CHRIST’S SHED BLOOD, HIS DEATH, HIS RESURRECTION, HIS ASCENSION, CROWNED IN GLORY, SEATED ON GOD’S THRONE & INTERCEDING FOR YOU IN PARTICULAR AS IF YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE THE LORD JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED FOR?

HE TOOK WITH HIM TO THE CROSS YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE & MINE. WHEN JESUS ALLOWED HIS CRUCIFIXION, HE KNEW "YOU" HAD TO BE "CRUCIFIED WITH HIM", YOUR ‘OLD MAN’ YOUR ‘OLD SIN-NATURE, YOUR ‘OLD LIFE DECEIVED BY SATAN HIMSELF’! HOW CAN I SHARE THIS TRUTH WITHOUT ITS FOUNDATION IN GENESIS 2:1-14?

THUS THE HEAVENS & THE EARTH WERE FINISHED, AND ALL THE HOST OF THEM. AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY GOD ENDED HIS WORK WHICH HE HAD MADE; AND GOD BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY, & SANCTIFIED IT (OR "SET IT APART"); AND HE RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORK WHICH HE HAD MADE.

THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF THE HEAVENS & THE EARTH WHEN THEY WERE CREATED, IN THE DAY THAT THE LORD GOD MADE THE EARTH & THE HEAVENS. AND EVERY PLANT OF THE FIELD BEFORE IT WAS IN THE EARTH, AND EVERY HERB OF THE FIELD BEFORE IT GREW; FOR THE LORD GOD HAD NOT CAUSED ITTO RAIN UPON THE EARTH, AND THERE WAS NOT A MAN TO TILL THE GROUND.

BUT THERE WENT UP A MIST FROM THE EARTH, & WATERED THE WHOLE FACE OF THE GROUND. AND THE LORD FORMED MAN OF THE DUST OF THE GROUND, & BREATHED INTO HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE; AND MAN BECAME A LIVING SOUL. {BUT ONLY A LIVING SOUL, BECAUSE, AS YET, NOT "NEW-BORN" CITIZENS OF GOD’S ETERNAL KINGDOM & HIS SPIRITUAL FAMILY!).

VERSE 8 &FOLLOWING: AND THE LORD GOD PLANTED A GARDEN EASTWARD IN EDEN; AND THERE HE PUT THE MAN WHOM HE HAD FORMED. AND OUT OF THE GROUND MADE THE LORD GOD TO GROW EVERY TREE THAT IS PLEASANT TO YOUR SIGHT, AND GOOD FOR FOOD; THE TREE OF LIFE ALSO IN THE MIDST OF THE GARDEN, & THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & EVIL.

AND A RIVER WENT OUT OF EDEN TO WATER THE GARDEN; AND FROM THERE IT WAS PARTED, & BECAME INTO FOUR HEADS. THE NAME OF THE FIRST IS PISON; THAT IS IT WHICH COMPASSES THE WHOLE LAND OF HAVILAH, WHERE THERE IS GOLD; [INTERESTING WORD,HAVILAH; EXODUS 15:22 SPEAKS OF THOSE WHO "WENT OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS OF SHUR…". IT WAS SW OF PALESTINE I OH, "WHERE THERE IS GOLD"I]

LITERALLY,PHYSICAL GOLD CAN CAPTURE A MAN TO THE POINT HE’S SO ENRAPTURED WITH FINDING "GOLD" THAT HE/SHE MISSES GOD!

VERSE 12 SAYS," AND THE GOLD OF THAT LAND IS GOOD; THERE IS BDELLIUM & THE ONXY STONE." BUT YOU UNDERSTAND, MANY ARE ‘ENSLAVED’ TOWARD, LITERALLY, ‘GOLD’ BUT RESISTANT TO THE GIFT OF GOD OF ‘SPIRITUAL GOLD’, TO THE POINT, MANY ‘PROFESSORS OF FAITH’ LIVE BANKRUPT, PENNILESS LIVES OF FAITH, IGNORING WHAT THE TRUE INHERITANCE OF "BORN-AGAIN SAINTS ARE",& LIVING A SPIRITUALLY ‘POVERTY-WALK’, LIKE A ‘BEGGAR’ ON A STREET CORNER, ‘SIN-NATURE RICH,BUT SPIRITUALLY IMPOVERISHED’, POOR & BABKRUPT AS "HELL" IS ITSELF UNDER SATAN’S FOREVER IMPRISONMENT!!!

BUT IN 1 PETER 2:9 THE APOSTLE SAID, "BUT YOU, (DISCIPLE OF CHRIST!), ARE A CHOSEN GENERATION, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PECULIAR PEOPLE, THAT "YOU" SHOULD SHOW FORTH THE PRAISES OF HIM WHO HAS CALLED YOU OUT OF (YOUR) DARKNESS INTO "HIS" MARVELOUS LIGHT"!

REALLY? "STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED

LAND?" OR: "BORN-AGAIN CITIZENS OF HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM?"

ARE "YOU" A BORN-AGAIN CITIZEN OF HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM?" ARE "YOU" LIVING FOR THE "LEAST" THE WORLD AROUND YOU OFFERS, OR DO YOU PASSIONATELY PURSUE ALL GOD SAYS YOU ARE "IN CHRIST"?

I AFFIRM THIS TEACHING WITH THE WORDS OF PAUL IN EPHESIANS 2:13-22! "BUT NOW ‘IN CHRIST JESUS’ YOU WHO SOMETIMES WERE

FAR OFF ARE MADE NIGH BY THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. FOR HE IS OUR PEACE, WHO HAS MADE BOTH ONE (THE HOLY SAVIOR & THE SANCTIFIED " SAI NT11 !), AND HAD BROKEN DOWN THE MIDDLE WALL OF PARTITION BETWEEN US;

HAVING ABOLISHED IN HIS ‘FLESHLY BODY’ THE ENMITY, EVEN THE LAW OF COMMANDMENTS CONTAINED IN ORDINANCES; FOR TO MAKE IN HIMSELF OF TWAIN ONE NEW MAN, SO MAKING PEACE; AND THAT HE MIGHT RECONCILE BOTH UNTO GOD IN ONE BODY BY THE CROSS, HAVING SLAIN THE ENMITY THEREBY:

AND CAME & PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHICH WERE AFAR OFF, & TO THEM THAT ARE NEAR.

(IS THAT ‘NEAR’ BUT NOT " RE-B ORN11,‘NEAR’ BUT NOT "SPIRIT-BIRTHED & SPIRI T-FILLED11 ?).

FOR THROUGH CHRIST JESUS, WE BOTH HAVE ACCESS BY ONE SPIRIT UNTO THE FATHER. "NOW" THEREFORE YOU ARE NO MORE STRANGERS & FOREIGNERS, BUT FELLOW CITIZENS WITH THE SAINTS, & OF THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD.

AND ARE BUILT UPON THE FOUNDATION OF THE APOSTLES & PROPHETS, JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF BEING THE CHIEF CORNER STONE; IN WHOM ALL THE BUILDING FITLY FRAMED TOGETHER GROWS UNTO AN HOLY TEMPLE IN THE LAND: IN WHOM YOU ALSO ARE BUILT TOGETHER FOR AN HABITATION OF GOD THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT." (CAN YOU SAY, "AMEN"?).

THERE IS A HYMN OF GREAT IMPORTANCE, A HYMN FROM THE "BROADMAN HYMNAL",(PUBLISHED BY THE BROADMAN

PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE,IN THE YEAR, 19401}. THE TITLE? "THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT"(P.216)1( WHERE HAVE YOU CHOSEN, OR, BEEN CHOSEN, TO DWELL?}

"THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT, WHERE SAINTS IMMORTAL REIGN; ETERNAL DAY EXCLUDES THE NIGHT, & PLEASURES BANISH PAIN.THERE EVERLASTING SPRING ABIDES, & NEVER WITHERING FLOWERS; DEATH, LIKE A NARROW SEA, DIVIDES THIS HEAVENLY LAND FROM OURS.

SWEET FIELDS BEYOND THE SWELLING FLOOD STAND DRESSED IN LIVING GREEN; SO TO THE JEWS OLD CANAAN STOOD, WHILE JORDAN ROLLED BETWEEN. BUT TIMOROUS MORTALS START & SHRINK TO CROSS THE NARROW SEA, AND LINGER,SHIVERING, ON THE BRINK, & FEAR TO LAUNCH AWAY.

OH, COULD WE MAKE OUR DOUBTS REMOVE, THOSE GLOOMY DOUBTS THAT RISE, AND SEE THE CANAAN THAT WE LOVE WITH UNBECLOUDED EYES! COULD WE BUT CLIMB WHERE MOSES STOOD, AND VIEW THE LANDSCAPE O’ER, NOT JORDAN’S STREAM NOR DEATH’S COLD FLOOD SHOULD FRIGHT US FROM THE SHORE."

ARE "YOU" IN THE "LAND OF PURE DELIGHT" OR ARE YOU STILL WALKING IN "THE LAND OF SELF, FLESH, FALLEN WORLD WITH SATAN’S DELIGHT & YOUR DECEPTIVE REWARD?" IN OUR CHURCH WORSHIP THIS MORNING AT "NORTHWOODS CHURCH" IN KELLER, TEXAS, I HEARD A SONG l’D NEVER HEARD BEFORE –IT’S FAIRLY NEW, ENTITLED, "JESUS CHRIST, MY LIVING HOPE", (BETHEL MUSIC; ADORANDO PUBLISHING HOUSE) I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH THE WORDS

"HOW GREAT THE CHASM THAT LAY BETWEEN US, HOW HIGH THE MOUNTAIN I COULD NOT CLIMB. IN DESPERATION I TURNED TO HEAVEN AND SPOKE "YOUR NAME" INTO THE NIGHT.

THEN THRU’ THE DARKNESS YOUR LOVING KINDNESS {GOD’S!) TORE THRU’ THE SHADOWS OF MY SOUL.

THE WORK IS FINISHED THE END IS WRITTEN, JESUS CHRIST MY LIVING HOPE.

WHO COULD IMAGINE SO GREAT A MERCY, WHAT COULD FATHOM SUCH BOUNDLESS GRACE? THE GOD OF AGES STEPPED DOWN FROM GLORY TO WEAR MY SIN AND BEAR MY SHAME.

THE CROSS HAS SPOKEN –I AM FORGIVEN – THE KING OF KINGS CALLS ME HIS OWN. BEAUTIFUL SAVIOR, l’MYOURS FOREVER, JESUS CHRIST MY LIVING HOPE.

HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE ONE WHO SET ME FREE, HALLELUJAH! DEATH HAS LOST ITS GRIP ON ME! YOU HAVE BROKEN EVERY CHAIN, THERE’S SALVATION IN YOUR NAME, JESUS CHRIST, MY LIVING HOPE

THEN CAME THE MORNING THAT SEALED THE PROMISE YOUR BURIED BODY BEGAN TO BREATHE; OUT OF THE SILENCE THE ROARING LION DECLARED THE GRACE HAS NO CLAIM ON ME. "JESUS YOURS IS THE VICTORY."

HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE ONE WHO SET ME FREE, HALLELUJAH, DEATH HAS LOST ITS GRIP ON ME. YOU HAVE BROKEN EVERY CHAIN THERE’S SALVATION IN YOUR NAME-JESUS CHRIST MY LIVING HOPE SHOW LESS OF ME AND MORE OF THEE." CAN YOU SAY: "HALLELUJAH! GLORY!TO HIS NAME"? WITH OPEN-ARMS-JESUS SAYS, "COME TO ME!"

CHAPTER SEVEN

“PUMPING SELFISH FLESH OR PRAISING THE SUPREME FATHER?”

“FALLEN-AWAY MANKIND FROM GOD’S BIRTHING OF THEM WITH A RIGHT TO CHOOSE”, NATURAL MEN CHOSE & STILL CHOOSE ‘FLESHLY FATE’ & IGNORES GOD’S GRACIOUS GIFT OF SAVING FAITH! FLESHLY FATE IS THE ‘SELFISH RULING’ IN A MAN’S HEART & MIND INDEPENDENT OF GOD & HIS LOVE, GRACE, & MERCY! SPIRITUAL NOBILITY IS IGNORED & RADICAL SPIRITUAL NUMBNESS REIGNS! UNBELIEF IGNORES EVERY MIRACLE OF GOD THAT ABOUNDS AROUND MANKIND LIKE THE OCEANS OF THE WORLD SURROUND ‘DRY LAND’!

IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,(P.457), I READ A STATEMENT BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL IN HIS WRITING ENTITLED “BIBLIOLATRIES”. HE SAID: “GOD IS NOT DUMB, THAT HE SHOULD SPEAK NO MORE; IF YOU HAVE WANDERINGS IN THE WILDERNESS AND DON’T FIND SINAI, IT’S YOUR SOUL& YOUR HEART (& YOUR SELF-CENTERED WILL) THAT IS POOR.” TODAY AS I READ THAT WISE STATEMENT I THOUGHT, “THE SELFISH PUMPERS OF FLESH”, IN LOVE WITH THEIR OLD SIN-NATURES, IGNORE ‘SINAI’ BUT ALSO “THE SAVIOR”, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!- IS TODAY,2019, DIFFERENT FROM ALL ‘HUMAN HISTORY’ THAT IGNORED OR IGNORES GOD’S “KNOCK” ON THEIR HEARTS’ DOORS?

IN JOHN 12 I WANT YOU TO SEE THE LORD JESUS’S CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF “PUMPING FLESH” OR “PRAISING THE SUPREME FATHER”! JOHN 12:23-28a, tells us, Jesus speaking, “The hour is come, that the ‘Son of Man’ should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of fall into the ground and die, it abides alone:but if it die, it brings forth much fruit.

He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will My Father honor. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour?But for this cause came I unto this hour. Verse 28a, “Father, glorify Your name.”

There was no spirit in Christ Jesus of “Pumping Flesh”,but living His life fully and faithfully to honor the Father’s will and purpose for His life as the Son of God – and if it meant the Cross, “So be it”!,,, without a doubt or fear!!

In the world around you are, sadly, lives lived unaware of the will of God – and for many, even though they know the will of God, they will not say “Yes” to Him! Sadly, many live, countless lives, of unawareness of their becoming and being,through saving faith in His beloved Son, Christ Jesus,“shining lights”, who are to live lives rejoicing in His abiding presence within them, and the “Light” in them shining through them to enlighten the unsaved, unredeemed, ‘away from God people living for self’!

Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest” wrote: (pps.58-59), “Much of our distress as Christians comes not because of sin,but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own spiritual nature. For instance, the only test as to whether we allow an emotion to have its way is to see what the outcome of the emotion will be. Push it to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something God would condemn, allow it no more way. But if it be an emotion kindled by the Spirit of God and you do not let that emotion have its right issue in your life, it will react on a lower level.”

Where have your “life choices” left you? The “low level” of self-choice, self-will, self-pleasure, self-satisfaction, even if it means continual, eternal separation from the God who made you, lost you, but paid a price through the shed blood of His Son on the Cross to redeem you & reconcile you to Holy God?

Or has it been, will it be, the “Eternal Life Choice” by repentance to God and faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross, His precious blood to bring you forgiveness from the very heart of God, elevated out of spiritual death into “Eternal Life”, and by God’s grace and mercy then commissioning you as “disciples of Christ” and “faithful witnesses” of His blood redemption to labor to needy souls surrounding you that they might find Christ Jesus?

Again, in John 12,following the Father’s voice, after Jesus had said, “Father, glorify Your Name,” in Verses 28-29, we read:then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore,that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said,An angel spoke to Him.

Verses 30-32, Jesus answered & said, “This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” OH; THEN,IN VERSES 35&36,JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, “YET A LITTLE WHILE IS THE LIGHT WITH YOU. WALK YOU WHILE YOU HAVE THE LIGHT, LEST DARKNESS COMES UPON YOU; FOR HE THAT WALKS IN DARKNESS DOESN’T KNOW WHERE HE GOES.” OH, SO, WHERE IS YOUR ‘LIFE PATH’? IS IT ‘SPIRITUAL DARKNESS’ OR DO YOU “WALK IN THE LIGHT OF THE ‘ETERNAL SONSHINE’ OF CHRIST JESUS”?

AGAIN, JOHN 12, VERSES 42-50! NEVERTHELESS AMONG THE CHIEF RULERS (EVEN A MODERN-DAY PRESIDENT & SENATE OR HOUSE CONGRESSMEN?),ALSO BELIEVED ON “CHRIST”; BUT BECAUSE OF THE PHARISEES THEY DID NOT (‘PUBLICLY’) CONFESS HIM. LEST THEY SHOULD BE PUT OUT OF THE SYNAGOGUE: FOR THEY LOVED THE PRAISE OF MEN MORE THAN THE PRAISE OF GOD.

JESUS CRIED AND SAID, “HE THAT BELIEVES ON (TRUSTS IN, RELIES UPON, ADHERES TO!) ME, BELIEVES NOT ON ME, BUT ON HIM THAT SENT ME. AND HE THAT SEES ME SEES HIM THAT SENT ME.I AM COME A LIGHT INTO THE WORLD, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVES ON ME (TRUSTS, RELIES UPON,YIELDS TO, ABANDONS THE OLD ‘CRUCIFIED LIFE’, TO BE BLESSED WITH THE “NEW LIFE” OF THE TRUE SAVIOR & LORD & MASTER & RULER OVER ALL – OVER ALL?THIS WORLD INFILTRATED BY SATAN & HIS KINGDOM, SATAN’S DOMAIN- OR THE SAVIOR’S SOVEREIGN RULE OVER HIM & HIS, YOU & YOUR LIFE OF UNBELIEF & DISOBEDIENCE OR HIS MASTER-FULL RULE OVER YOU & YOURS?), AGAIN, BUT TRUSTING CHRIST,, RELYING UPON, YIELDED TO, HAVING ACCEPTED JESUS’ ATONEMENT & ‘THE END’ OF YOUR FLESHLY, SINFUL, WORLDLY, DEVIL-DOMINATED EXISTENCE, YOU COME TO LIVE,BREATHE,& SHARE WITH OTHERS THE “VERY LIFE, BREATH, FULLNESS, & POWER & PURPOSE OF ‘CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY’!!

BACK TO JOHN 12:47-50! “AND IF ANY HEARS MY WORDS, & BELIEVES NOT, I JUDGE HIM NOT: FOR I CAME NOT TO JUDGE THE WORLD, BUT TO SAVE THE WORLD. HE THAT REJECTS ME, AND RECEIVES NOT MY WORDS, HAS ONE THAT JUDGES HIM: THE WORD THAT I HAVE SPOKEN, THE SAME SHALL JUDGE HIM IN THE LAST DAY.(THAT’S THE MAN OR WOMAN,OLD OR YOUNG!).

FOR I HAVE NOT SPOKEN OF MYSELF; BUT THE FATHER WHICH SENT ME, HE GAVE ME A COMMANDMENT, WHAT I SHOULD SAY, AND WHAT I SHOULD SPEAK. AND I KNOW THAT HIS COMMANDMENT IS LIFE EVERLASTING; WHATSOEVER I SPEAK THEREFORE, EVEN AS THE FATHER SAID TO ME, SO I SPEAK.”

BUT “HEAR ME!” IN THE WORLDWIDE CULTURES, EVEN ‘RELIGIOUS CULTURES’, LIKE THE ‘RELIGIOUS JEWS (?)’ OF JESUS’S DAY WHO WANTED NO PART OF HIM SINCE THEY WERE ‘SO RELIGIOUS ALREADY’, THEY THEN BELIEVED, ‘WHO NEEDS A SAVIOR IF YOU’RE RELIGIOUS?’ AND IN ACTS 4:18-20, THE ‘RELIGIOUS JEWS’,IN JERUSALEM, CONFRONTED BY “EVANGELISTIC CRUSADERS”, HAD NO PATIENCE AT ALL WITH HEAVEN’S “BORN-AGAIN SONS OF SAVING FAITH”, WITH THE “BELOVED LUKE’S WORDS”,

“AND THEY (JEWISH RELIGIOUS LEADERS) CALLED THEM (JESUS’S “BORN-AGAIN DISCIPLES”!), AND COMMANDED THEM NOT TO SPEAK AT ALL NOR TEACH IN THE NAME OF JESUS. (ANOTHER PAUSE! ARE YOU FULLY AWARE OF 21^ST CENTURY AMERICA WHERE, YES, PUBLIC PROCLAMATION OF THE WORD OF GOD IS BECOMING INTOLERANT TO “STUPID POLITICAL LEADERS, BRAIN-DEAD PROFESSORS, & DECEIVED MASS-GATHERINGS OF OPPOSERS TO GOD, HIS SON, HIS SPIRIT, & HIS WORD”?). ACTS 4:19-20, BUT PETER & JOHN ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO THEM, “WHETHER IT BE RIGHT IN THE SIGHT OF GOD TO HEARKEN UNTO YOU MORE THAN UNTO GOD, JUDGE YOU. FOR WE CANNOT BUT SPEAK THE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE SEEN & HEARD.”

ALWAYS REMEMBER, AS A TRUE FOLLOWER OF KING JESUS, YOUR SAVIOR & LORD, & APPOINTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT TO BE “CHRIST’S WITNESSES”, THAT LIKE PETER & JOHN IN ACTS 4:29-31, YOU’LL FIND “GREAT ASSURANCES” AS YOU CHOOSE TO BE HIS WITNESS IN THE MIDST OF CULTURAL OPPOSITION! THE WORD SAYS: “AND NOW, LORD, BEHOLD THEIR THREATENINGS: AND GRANT UNTO YOUR SERVANTS, THAT WITH ALL BOLDNESS THEY MAY SPEAK YOUR WORD,

BY STRETCHING FORTH YOUR HAND TO HEAL; AND THAT SIGNS & WONDERS MAY BE DONE BY THE NAME OF YOUR HOLY CHILD JESUS. BUT WHEN THEY HAD PRAYED THE PLACE WAS SHAKEN WHERE THEY WERE ASSEMBLED TOGETHER; AND THEY WERE ALL FILLED WITH THE HOLY GHOST, AND THEY SPOKE THE WORD OF GOD WITH BOLDNESS.”

HOW MANY ARE YOU AWARE OF IN CHURCHES ACROSS AMERICA WHO LIVE SERVING CHRIST, SUPPOSEDLY, BUT HAVE NEVER “CROSSED THE LINE” TO UNSAVED SOULS TO SHARE “REDEMPTIONS’ STORY OF “NEW-BORN IN CHRIST ALONE”? ‘BEST EFFORT’ DOESN’T BIRTH DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, ‘BOGUS APPEARANCE’ DOESN’T SEE MIRACLES OF GRACE, ‘PHONY-BOLOGNA’ DOESN’T FEED THE SICK IN SIN EXCEPT BY “THE TOUCH OF THE MASTER’S HANDS ON THE MIND, HEART, & SOUL OF UNBELIEVERS”!

ROMANS 1:20-28 IS GOD’S EXPOSURE THROUGH PAUL OF UNBELIEVERS & PRETENDERS! “FOR THE INVISIBLE THINGS (OF GOD) FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD ARE CLEARLY SEEN, BEING UNDERSTOOD BY THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE, EVEN HIS ETERNAL POWER & GODHEAD; SO THAT THEY ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE: BECAUSE THAT, WHEN THEY KNEW GOD, THEY GLORIFIED HIM NOT AS GOD, NEITHER WERE THANKFUL; BUT BECAME VAIN IN THEIR IMAGINATIONS, AND THEIR FOOLISH HEART WAS DARKENED.

PROFESSING THEMSELVES TO BE WISE, THEY BECAME FOOLS,AND CHANGED THE GLORY OF THE INCORRUPTIBLE GOD INTO AN IMAGE MADE LIKE TO CORRUPTIBLRE MAN, & TO BIRDS,&FOUR-FOOTED BEASTS, AND CREEPING THINGS. WHEREFORE GOD ALSO GAVE THEM UP TO UNCLEANNESS THROUGH THE LUSTS OF THEIR OWN HEARTS, TO DISHONOR THEIR OWN BODIES BETWEEN THEMSELVES:

WHO CHANGED THE TRUTH OF GOD INTO A LIE, & WORSHIPPED & SERVED THE CREATURE MORE THAN THE “CREATOR” WHO IS BLESSED FOREVER. AMEN. FOR THIS CAUSE GOD GAVE THEM UP UNTO VILE AFFECTIONS: FOR EVEN THEIR WOMEN DID CHANGE THE NATURAL USE INTO THAT WHICH IS AGAINST NATURE: & LIKEWISE ALSO THE MEN, LEAVING THE NATURAL USE OF THE WOMAN ( AND THAT’S IN MARRIAGE ONLY!!!), BURNED IN THEIR LUST ONE TOWARD ANOTHER; MEN WITH MEN WORKING THAT WHICH IS UNSEEMLY, & RECEIVING IN THEMSELVES THAT RECOMPENCE OF THEIR ERROR WHICH WAS MEET. (OR MET IN ONE’S LOST ESTATE OF SIN & DEATH,SEPARATED FROM HOLY GOD UNTIL THEY OPEN THE HEART’S DOOR & A WILLFUL MIND TO CONFESS THEIR SIN & THEIR NEED OF “THE SAVIOR & LORD” TO BE IN, OVER, & AROUND THEIR EVERY STEP THROUGH THE REMAINING EARTHLY TIME!). VERSE 28,

AND EVEN AS THEY DID NOT LIKE TO RETAIN GOD IN THEIR KNOWLEDGE, GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO A REPROBATE MIND, TO DO THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT CONVENIENT!’

ARE “YOU” ‘OK’ WITH YOUR REPROBATE MIND? OR WOULD YOU HEAR, ACCEPT, & RECEIVE GOD’S “GIFT” OF A “NEW HEART, NEW MIND, & NEW WILL” OUT TO PLEASE THE LORD OF GLORY & MERCY & LOVE? I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH AN OLD HYMN IN THE BROADMAN HYMNAL PUBLISHED IN 1940 BY THE BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, WRITTEN BY FANNY J.CROSBY & W.H.DOANE. IT SAYS: “PASS ME NOT, O GENTLE SAVIOR, HEAR MY HUMBLE CRY; WHILE ON OTHERS YOU ARE CALLING, DO NOT PASS ME BY.

LET ME AT A THRONE OF MERCY FIND A SWEET RELIEF; KNEELING THERE IN DEEP CONTRITION, HELP MY UNBELIEF.

TRUSTING ONLY IN YOUR MERIT, WOULD I SEEK YOUR FACE; HEAL MY WOUNDED, BROKEN SPIRIT, SAVE ME BY YOUR GRACE.

YOU THE “SPRING” OF ALL MY COMFORT, MORE THAN LIFE TO ME, WHOM HAVE I ON EARTH BESIE YOU? WHOM IN HEAVEN BUT YOU?

SAVIOR, SAVIOR, HEAR MY HUMBLE CRY; WHILE ON OTHERS YOU ARE CALLING, (PLEASE) DO NOT PASS ME BY.” COULD THESE WORDS OF A GREAT OLD HYMN STIR YOUR HEART ENOUGH FOR “YOU” TO CRY OUT: “LORD, JESUS, PLEASE, DON’T PASS BY ME! NO MAN ON EARTH NEEDS YOU MORE THAN ME.”

WHY NOT, RIGHT NOW, “RUSH” TO THE THRONE OF CHRIST WHERE HE SITS IN THE SEAT OF MERCY, GRACE, & LOVE, LONG-WAITING ON YOU TO CALL ON HIM!

AMEN?

CHAPTER EIGHT

“MENTAL MISTAKES OF MISGUIDED MEN”

I don’t know how anyone can read Paul’s message in Romans 1 and not understand the “mental mistakes of misguided men”! Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote in Verses 16-26, and Verse 28, the following:

Romans 1:16-26,28 says: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every who believes (or trusts in!); to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (or the African, the Arminian, the European, the American, the South American, the Asian, any man on any continent of the entire world!!);

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith (or “trust”)’. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Because that which may be known of God IS MANIFEST IN THEM; for God shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they (all mankind then and now!) are without excuse: BECAUSE THAT, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful; but became vain in their imaginations (or ‘speculations’), and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore GOD ALSO GAVE THEM UP to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause GOD GAVE THEM UP unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

Verse 28, And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO A REPROBATE MIND, to do those things which are not convenient..”! AND THEY GOT FILLED UP! LOOK AT VERSES 28b-32!

“…and God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

OH!! Then in Romans 2:4-16 Paul tells us about the “captured by Christ” or the “contentious ones opposed to repentance and faith in Christ alone”, saying, “Or do you despise the riches of God’s goodness and forbearance or longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads you TO REPENTANCE? But after your hardness and impenitent heart treasures up unto yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life:

BUT unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also the Gentile; BUT glory, honor, and peace, to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; BUT glory, honor, and peace to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentiles; (Every man working good? Honoring, yielded to, surrendered to the King of kings and Lord of lords, being the “temple” in which the eternal Christ dwells to extend His Kingdom, express His love, and prove His power, THROUGH YOU?).

For there is no respect of persons with God. (Although many feel God ought to respect them concerning their “best effort”, even when it has nothing to do with “True Faith”?). For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the DOERS of the law shall be justified.

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

The mental, yes, and the ‘blinded, darkened, unbelieving heart’ explain, expose, and uncover the personal, religious, and, for many, the national indifference to Divine Revelation and Unveiling of the One and Only Savior and Lord, Christ Jesus! BUT, the “captured by Christ” no longer live under the bondage of unbelief, religious pretense, or religious ‘best-effort’ mentality! They accept “crucified with Christ” and “raised up in the newness of His resurrected, reigning ministry”, daily taking the sentence of death to the “old man”, yielding daily to His Indwelling Presence in the “new man”, again, extending His Kingdom, proving His power, and expressing His love, THROUGH THE TRUE, REPENTANT, YIELDED BELIEVER TO HIS EVER ABIDING PRESENCE IN YOU, HIS “NEW TEMPLE”, having repented, and willfully choosing to allow Jesus, yes, to be Himself through you!!!

MERCY is the measure of the very heart of God told to all of fallen humanity, but not all of fallen humanity even know, care, or are out to find God’s mercy – they say,“In our best effort we’re OK”! REALLY? But this is why the Holy Word says, in Hebrews 4:15-16, “For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let US therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, THAT WE MAY OBTAIN MERCY, AND FIND GRACE TO HELP IN TIME OF NEED.”

To be without Christ Jesus, abiding within, ruling and reigning, expressing Himself as “the Light of the world” in you and around you and through you, is willfully choosing to be your own lord, striving to overcome only what is overcome through the blood of the Lamb of God, infecting your world more and more with the radical consequences of a ‘sin-loving’ but ‘religious, empty, self-serving life’, convinced by deceived religious thinkers that “best effort” is all Holy God is concerned about, never considering His “Temple Presence” in true repentant, yielded choice of “Christ in me, for me, through me”, extending His eternal Presence, in the avenue and street of the “born-again believers”, those believers willing to choose death daily to their old self , that His Resurrected Life in you might be, not simply prominent for a world to witness but preeminent in HIS SELF EXPRESSION IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU DAILY!!!

Do YOU really know the “cost of true faith”, the “cost of true religion”, the “cost of true abandonment of the best of fleshly effort”? In Luke 14:25-27 we read, And there went great multitudes with Him: and He turned, and said unto them, “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father; and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whosoever does not bear His cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.” How clear is that for you?

Christ Jesus comes! Receive Revelation 3:19-22!! “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hears My voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and him with Me. To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.”

Christ Jesus comes! And as He comes, through the witness of the Holy Spirit and His awesome Word, He exposes the unrestrained sinfulness of men AND unveils the unrestrained love of God!

Christ Jesus still abides in the repentant heart and trusting mind that says “No” to the world, one’s old sin nature, and even to Satan himself, but true believers say “Yes” to the resurrected, reigning Christ! In 2 Corinthians 1:19-24 Paul enlightens us even more, saying, “For all the promises of God in Christ are ‘yes’, and in Him ‘Amen’, unto the glory of God through repentant, trusting believers;

Who Now He which establishes us with you in Christ, (establish means “makes to stand”), AND ‘anointed’ us is God Himself; who has also ‘sealed us’ and given the earnest of the Spirit (the guarantee, the abiding treasure, the never-ending pledge) of the Spirit in our hearts.

Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth. Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy; for by faith you stand.”

Dare I ask you? Do you believe? Are you trusting in Him, His Word, His ever abiding Presence? Is it by Faith in Him you stand, walk, live, unveiling His Resurrected Presence in your daily journey through life wherever it carries you?

In the old “Broadman Hymnal”, published in 1940 by The Broadman Press of Nashville, Tennessee. It says: “O come, all you faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come you, O come to Bethlehem; Come and behold Him born the King of angels;

Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation, O sing, all you bright hosts of heaven above; Glory to God, all glory in the highest;

Yes, Lord, we greet You, born this happy morning, Jesus, to You be all glory given; Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;

O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.”

This Easter Sunday! Is it your declaration of submission to His earthly reign through His abiding presence in you? Or do you need to open the door of your heart, maybe for the first time, saying, “Christ, be Jesus in me; No longer me but Thee; Resurrection Power, fill me this hour; Jesus, be Jesus in me”? Can you say right now: “Make ME this day another earthly residence where you reign as King of my heart and life”?

CHAPTER NINE

“VICTIMIZED LIVING OR A VICTORIOUS LIFE?”

The Random House Collegiate Dictionary, Revised Edition, 1975, by Random House, Inc., says ‘victimized’ means, “to make a victim of, to dupe, swindle, or cheat; to slay as or like a sacrificial victim.”

And “victimized living by the masses of unbelievers in Christ’s Blood Atonement” live, yes, like many ‘church folk’, deceived, demeaned, distressed, yes, led astray from the victorious Truth of “crucified with Christ”, and following repentance toward God and a vibrant faith and trust in the Blood Atonement, those of true repentant, trusting minds and hearts are “New Born” by the Holy Spirit into Heaven’s gracious gifting of “everlasting life”!

BUT “Victimized living” is deception accepted from the world around you that easily blinded even Adam and Eve from the ‘flesh’ that deceives you and keeps the door of one’s heart and mind opened to the world, the flesh, and Demonic, Devil-constant temptation, so wanting to keep those doors opened, so one loses sight of the fullness of the blessing of Christ as their deceit, the gift of Satan himself, leading them on in yielding to devilish deceit while professing allegiance to Christ’s revealed Truth! It was John Wesley who once said: “All the works of our evil nature are the work of the devil,” but some ‘professing believers’ live their ‘faith-walk’ consenting, yielding, and for a time enjoying their satanic deception!

It was William Shakespeare, in his writing “Twelfth Night”, (Act 111, sc.4,l.108), who wrote: “What, man! Defy the devil: consider he’s an enemy to mankind.” But far too many keep their doors open to Satanic invitations blinded by his hellish ways!

What was it Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:10-13? “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

Yet, many ‘believers’(?) professing Christ have no mature, scriptural understanding that Satan’s aim is to deceive true disciples, seeking, yes, daily, to ruin your witness, your testimony, and your surrender faithfully to Christ’s Lordship, leading YOU down the pathway of his “darkness”!! If you’ve ever read St. Augustine’s “The City of God”, XV, remember, he said: “The Devil often transforms himself into an angel to tempt men, some for their instruction and some for their ruin.” He IS a “master deceiver” out to hold captivity captive under “the wiles of the devil”!

Oh, have you ever read Alexander Brome’s writing called “New Montebank”? Brome wrote: “The devil’s ever kind to his own.” So, there are multitudes of worldly folk who “know the kindness (?) of Satan” as he leads them, deceives them, distracts them from the “true salvation in and through Christ only”, even substituting ‘fleshly best’ for the fullness and fruit of the Holy Spirit! And, dare I say it? Believe I will! “Every temptation of Satan to citizens of God’s world of divine opportunity are temptations DOWNWARD, not to turn you TO God, but away from Him!”

Satan IS “the birther of lies, the author of deception, and the Hollywood-imitator of a sincere ‘religious’ soul”, as he leads you down the pathways of self-indulgence rather than knowing you were crucified with Christ, that your old man, yes, deserved death but Christ Jesus took your old man to Calvary so that no longer he (or YOU) could be manipulated by Satan’s powers of darkness, disbelief, and distraction away from God’s gracious pull on your heart, mind, and spirit. Satan loves, adores, appreciates “falling stars” who were birthed “in Christ”!!

Are YOU aware how Satan so easily sways people, serving them devilish consequences rather than divine rewards? It’s a sad, sad day when one is blinded to his, yes, gentle, calm, but corruptive ways! An old Dutch Proverb said: “Never was hood so holy but the Devil could get his head in it;” and, sadly, far too many ‘religious folk’ are blinded to his occupation in them and around them through their wide-open acceptance of all Christ Jesus died for, Satan wanting to maintain his deceitful and misleading occupation around them, even for some ‘in them’ with his dark presence trying to dim the Light of Christ and His Word!

“Victimized living”? Satan BINDS, Satan BLINDS, he BRUISES, he BELITTLES, he ‘BLESSES’ with his ‘happy, self-satisfying bits and tastes of diseased honey,’ he BETRAYS promising one thing that seems so ‘blissful’ but is BEDABBLED with the ‘paint’ of his satanic artistry, he BEFOULS, he BITTERS every word and every promise of God assuring his enchained that it was God who BOUND them over to Satanic care! Really?

It was Cotton Mather, in his “A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World”, who wrote: “That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from an ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.” WOW!

What about what Shakespeare wrote in “Troilus and Cressida”, (Act 111, sc.4,l.108)? “Sometimes we are devils to ourselves When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency,” no doubt understanding that, yes, true believers can “play-act”, willfully betraying the Christ within to indulge the old crucified life in fleshly, demonic, worldly desires and unfulfilling fantasies that cannot, will not honor the divine within!! Satan’s portrait of a life professing both faith in Christ and a consistency with hell’s intentions is a life that loves being blessed by God, but quietly, privately, indulges darkness not knowing their ‘dance partner’ is Satan himself or one of his assigned demons to ultimately take you down again to his dark domain!

“Victimized living”? Can true believers, at times, be overtaken by spiritual carelessness, even being unconcerned about demonic activity? In 2 Peter 5:6-11, the beloved disciple of Christ wrote: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time; Casting all your care upon him; for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

But the God of all grace, who has called us unto eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. OR “SO BE IT, LORD”, as you daily take the sentence of death daily to your old self that Christ in you, for you, and through you, wages war against Satan for Christ’s honor through you as Christ’s servant, not Satan’s slave!!!

Jessie Brown Pounds wrote a hymn entitled “A Place in the Ranks for Me”, in the old “American Hymnal” of 1933! It says: “Listen! The trumpet of God is sounding, Is sounding from sea to sea; On the field where the brave are falling, There’s a place in the ranks for me.

See, the army of God advances, In strength of His holy might; See the flash of the moving lances, And the glitter of helmets bright.

Like the trumpet of God is sounding, Is sounding for victory; I must go, for the brave are falling, And the Captain has need of me.

There’s a place in the ranks for me! A place in the ranks for me! On the field where the brave are falling, There’s a place in the ranks for me.”

Whether YOU are aware of it or not, Satan is alive, he is active, and he so longs to reinstate demonic bondage! He comes as a thief in the night to steal every rich blessing Christ has promised, given, and will protect if we give Him His rightful place as Lord, Savior, Master, Conqueror over every evil we face including Satan and his demon forces that are just as active today as they were in the days of our Lord and Savior thousands of years ago!

In Luke 22:31-32 the Lord Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for you that your faith fail not; and when you are converted, strengthen your brothers.”

There is a “strong-arm commander-in-chief” of the forces of darkness, desirous that God’s created world should be a kingdom of darkness, even challenging Jesus as he does us, so desirous of leading us astray from loyalty to our Lord and Savior to a supposedly sanctified life of good AND evil, of the Savior and Satan, and of Heaven’s best and Hell’s imitations! Luke 4:1-13 is an insightful Word of preparation for all believers! It says:

“And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost (Do YOU understand for Christ to be in You is also for YOU to live in the fullness of the Holy Spirit?) returned from Jordan, AND was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto Him, If You be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

And Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” And the devil, taking Him up into a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And Satan said unto Him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”

And the devil, taking Him up into a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, All this power will I give to you and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me (by every birthed man, woman, or child? It doesn’t take long for every birthed baby to instantly ‘cry’ for what they want!); and to whomsoever I will I give it. If You (Jesus) therefore will worship me, all shall be Yours.

And Jesus answered and said unto Satan, Get behind Me, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord God, and Him only shall you serve. [What about YOU? Are YOU still “serving” the world, the old sin-nature, AND Satan? OR are YOU fully submitted to the King of kings and Lord of lords?].

And he brought Jesus to Jerusalem, and set Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him, “If You be the Son of God, cast yourself down from here. For it is written, He shall give His angels charge over You, to keep You. And in their hands they shall bear You up, lest at any time You dash Your foot against a stone.” And Jesus answering said, “It is said, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” And when the devil had ended all temptations, he departed from Him for a season.

How illumined are you in your mind, your spirit, and your walk, as YOU LEARN that YOU are a prime target of Satan, understanding he’s out to turn YOU away from ALL JESUS IS for you, in you, through you, substituting fleshly failure for full obedience, or momentary pleasures for eternal obedience, or “ONLY ONE LITTLE FALLING AWAY”, when the demonic activity can be fatal to faith, obedience, and love of the Savior, because obedience to Satan introduces again that fatal darkness?

Again, receive Peter’s incisive, illumining, liberating words! 1 Peter 5:6-11 we read: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you. Be sober, (serious minded!), be vigilant; because YOUR adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brothers (of faith) that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who has called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.”

I have to share Shakespeare’s words in “Comedy of Errors”, (Act IV, sc.3,l.65), “He must have a long spoon that shall eat with the devil.” Oh, and Martin Luther’s words in “Table Talk”? Satan has two manner of shapes, as he disguises himself: the shape of a serpent, to affright and kill; or else in the form of a silly sheep, to lie and deceive; these are his two court colors.”

Satan IS the world’s principle author and boastful egotist as he lies about himself, lays traps for all, ‘hires’ the brain-dead, the self-fulfillers, and the ‘flesh –world’, bound by his chains of darkness, immorality, and self-pleasure in sensual fulfillment that ‘smells’, self-idolatry that ‘binds’ and ‘ruins’ even some ‘professors’ of religious faith! In his writing, “Handbook of Proverbs”, Henry George Bohn wrote: “The Devil entangles youth with beauty, the miser with gold, the ambitious with power, the learned with false doctrine.” Is it possible that you, a ‘professor of faith in Christ’, having been blinded to victory over Satan because, for you, his ‘poisonous delights, worldly pleasures, and self-indulging, was just too delightful to turn from, that you refused “Christ’s knock”, and kept on being deceived in “Satan’s lock” though broken by Christ Jesus on the Cross, through the Cross, for the glory of His Name, not Satan’s fame?

What was it Elizabeth Barrett Browning said in “Aurora Leigh”? “The devil’s most devilish when respectable.” Are you still “respecting” Satan as he leads you joyfully in his deceits and lies and imitation-spiritual-skills? There IS a hell to gain and a heaven to lose if you choose to play with him on his terms, willfully choosing to shut God’s door to His never-ending, freeing, yes, emancipating, liberating, disengaging ministry of, yes, His victory and conquest over Satan’s devilish, demeaning, destructive, disuniting activity, but you ‘think’ it’s OK to ‘play’ around with Satan and his army, like children with their birthday play-toys, but Satan is not a ‘play-toy’ – he’s an enemy of God, of the Holy Spirit, of Christ Jesus, including the ‘church’ Christ Jesus births and keeps on birthing! Satan ‘loves’ to disguise himself and his hellish co-laborers called ‘demons’ because he’s out to literally crucify Christ but to nail His ‘children of faith’ to the same cross of cruel suffering!

But Jesus Christ IS our “more than conqueror” – He’s our Victorious Liberator over sin, over Satan, over death itself! William F. Sherwin wrote the song, “Sound the Battle Cry” found in The American Hymnal of 1933! It says:

Sound the battle cry! See, the foe is nigh; Raise the standard high For the Lord; Gird your armor on, Stand firm, every one; Rest your cause upon His holy word.

Strong to meet the foe, Marching on we go, While our cause we know, must prevail; Shield and banner bright, Gleaming in the light; Battling for the right We never can fail.

O! You God of all, Hear us when we call, help us one and all by Your grace; When the battle’s done, And the victory’s won, May we wear the crown Before Your face.

Rouse, then soldiers, rally round the banner, Ready, steady, pass the word along: Onward, forward, shout a loud Hosanna! Christ is Captain of the mighty throng.”

Are YOU strong in the grace of God? AND – Are YOU “a soldier of the Cross of Christ, yes, His spiritual army fighting the good fight of faith, and knowing your field of spiritual warfare,ready to daily show up warring against Christ’s enemies in the spiritual realm with the armor of the Word and the lead of the Holy Spirit ? Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:3-15 the following words of encouragement saying,

“You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who enlisted him as a soldier. And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer must be first to partake of the crops. Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.

Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This IS a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. (So, Paul warns “the wages of sin IS death”, even if you’re a consenting disciple in sinful participation!).

Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

Were YOU crucified with Christ? Have YOU repented and turned from your sin nature and its practices? Were you “enlisted” by the Spirit as a soldier in the Lord’s spiritual army? Tell me: Just how faithful does your heavenly report card reveal about your honorable walk as representative of the King of kings and Lord of lords? Are YOU “duty-ready”, having died with Christ, raised by the Holy Spirit, equipped by the Word and the Spirit, and, yes, daily fighting the good fight of faith in uplifting Him, honoring Him and His Word, His purpose for your life, and His desire to use YOU to free “the prisoners of sin, of Satan, of a dark world”, igniting in YOU the Light of His Glory?

CHAPTER TEN

“SPIRITUAL INSANITY OR SPIRITUAL REALITY?”

In Proverbs 16:9 we find man’s deceptive insanity and God’s eternal Truth. It says: “A man’s heart devises his way; but the Lord directs his steps.”

You do understand that there is eternal difference between self-educated men and men who “rest” in the revelation of the Word of God!?!

In Jeremiah 9:23-24 we read, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord.” Is Holy God “delighted” in your ‘self-allegiance’ over “trusting and resting in the finished work of Christ at Calvary’s Cross and the Empty Tomb”, more delighted in self-determination than the Savior’s declaration and Heaven’s determination of Christ’s “blood sacrifice” over fallen humanity’s “best effort”??

Are you aware of how deep, wide, and broad spiritual insanity is in a large number of mankind’s deceived minds and hearts as to Biblical Truth? The wise man, again in Proverbs 9:10, wrote, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Really? ‘The fear of the Lord?’ Many say without embarrassment, “I don’t fear God – I adore Him”, while they live in spiritual insanity doing as they ‘fleshly please’, unaware of spiritual consequences for their ‘religious, fleshly, worldly indulgences with no guilt, embarrassment, or conviction’ about the “holy life within” as they profess to follow while recklessly hold on to their ‘spiritual profession’, with no “fear of the Lord in hating evil”! (Proverbs 8:13).

I absolutely love the words of Proverbs 10:30 where the “wise man” wrote, “The righteous shall never be removed; but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.” Are you truly aware that God has an eternal plan of His Kingdom on earth being eternally established? I grew up in a church who sang regularly, faithfully, and in full conviction, “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen, Amen!” Righteous never removed, but the wicked not inhabiting? The righteous never removed from the earth, (because Christ’s Kingdom is established in their hearts, while unbelievers ‘choose’ the world’s, the flesh’s, the devil’s eternal kingdom of separation from God and His chosen people?).

Joseph Parker once wrote (The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H. Revell Company, p.183), “Have no fear for the unsettlement or the disturbance of the Kingdom of heaven. It began in eternity, it will go on through everlasting; there is no panic in the divine personality. God IS peace, God gives peace, God gives rest.”

You do understand that there are kingdoms of self-centered men and self-centered, worldly establishments, that want a “fleshly paradise”, but only God’s Kingdom on earth becomes faithfully His “Paradise”!

I don’t know who wrote it, but I remember growing up singing in my “home church” the hymn that says: “His kingdom is coming: Oh, tell me the story! God’s banner exalted shall be; The earth shall be filled with His wonder and glory, As waters that cover the sea.”

The heart, mind, will, purpose of God is that your earthly life would become, by repentance and by redemptive faith, God’s eternal Paradise on earth, yes, eternally! Your eternal life “in Christ” is His eternal Kingdom being established on, in earth, as it is in Heaven? “In Christ” one is through Him bringing Heaven to earth with His ever, abiding Presence??!!

It was Phillips Brooks who once wrote: “Be such a man, and live such a life, That if every man were such as you, And every man a life like yours, This earth would be God’s Paradise.” Is your life an extension, expression, an interpretation of God’s Paradise?

Do you remember the Lord teaching His new disciples to pray in Matthew 6:7-13? Christ Jesus said: “But when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not you therefore like unto them: for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him.

After this manner therefore pray: ‘Our Father Who Is In Heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptations, but deliver us from evil; for Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” The kingdom, the power, the glory forever? On earth? Several Truths You Must “Rest in”!!

FIRST, CHRIST ONLY IS YOUR EVERLASTING PROMISE OF A BLESSED LIFE! How necessary is the prophetic Word to your life in Christ?!? In Jeremiah 17:5-7 we read, “Thus says the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.”

In the old “Broadman Hymnal” of 1940, is a hymn written by Edward Mote and William Bradbury that says: “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the vale. His oath, His covenant, His blood, Support me in the whelming flood; when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound, Oh, may I then in Him be found; Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before His throne.

On Christ, the solid Rock I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.” Your life on the Solid Rock of Christ or is it on ‘sinking sand’?

SECOND, CHRIST ONLY IS YOUR SOVEREIGN HEAD! In Colossians 2:9-10 the Holy Word tells us: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are COMPLETE IN HIM, which is the head of all principality and power…”!.

But YOU are simply satisfied with God’s forgiveness through Christ, but unavailable to prove His love, express His power, and extend HIS KINGDOM, because, forgiven, you’re now thankful you can continue in the life of yours that He carried with Him to the Cross, so you hold onto ‘self’ as your sovereign ruler? Where is that in the Word of God?

Is your spiritual walk paths you interpret for yourself or do you “live” by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God? In Matthew 4:4 we read, “But Jesus answered and said, ‘It is written, Man shall not LIVE by physical bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

THIRD, CHRIST ONLY IS YOUR ETERNAL HEART! In Proverbs 28:26 we read, “He that trusts in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walks wisely, he shall be delivered.” We know the Word is so clear and convicting and convincing when we read in Verse 13, “He that covers his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.”

Merit-minded men, intent on doing their own thing, even religiously, while still thinking they can’t do anything but sin even as a disciple of Christ, are men void of understanding of “Christ in you your only hope of glory.” In Romans 5 and 6 we learn that the grace of God is not fleshly grease allowing men to slide into heaven in their earthly, fleshly, demonic and satanic leanings, but the grace of God birthing “new lives” in and through the eternal heart of the crucified but resurrected Christ reigning NOW in His eternal spiritual Kingdom! Romans 5:1 2 tells us, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God THROUGH our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, AND REJOICE IN HOPE OF THE GLORY OF GOD.” And Romans 5:10? “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be (being) saved by His (resurrected, reigning) life.” GLORY!!

Oh, but glory in God even more because in Romans 6:17-18 we also are trained, informed, inspired, and, yes, amazed at our calling! “But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was (and presently IS) delivered to you. Being then MADE FREE FROM SIN, YOU BECAME THE SERVANTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

And understanding that “Christ only IS your eternal heart”, you daily take the sentence of death to the “old self” that the resurrection life of Christ may literally, daily, be yielded to His Indwelling Presence!

FOURTH, CHRIST ONLY IS OUR STRONG HELP! I don’t know how any ‘believer’ can read Psalm 42 and not rejoice in continual Hallelujahs! David wrote, Psalm 42:5, 8, and 11, the following words: Psalm 42:5, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

Verse 8, Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

Verse 11, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” Dare I ask? “How is the health of your countenance?” “IS CHRIST ONLY YOUR STRONG HELP?”

FIFTH, CHRIST ONLY IS THE HERALD OF LIFE’S BLESSING! Christ-less-ness is a curse, but “in Christ” is eternal blessing. Didn’t Jesus say, John 10:10, “I am come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly”?

How about “the river of God’s abundant pleasures”, Psalm 36:8? Or, beyond abundant life and pleasure, how about “the bank of God’s abundant grace”, 2 Corinthians 2:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that YOU, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work,” OR, “the reservoir of God’s abundant power, His ample supply, and His amazing entrance into His eternal Kingdom?

Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us”? OR,

The open door to amazing supplies that never run dry? Philippians 4:19, “But my God shall supply all you need according to His riches in glory by or in Christ Jesus”?

OR, His abundant entrance? 2 Peter 1:11, “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

SIXTH, CHRIST ONLY IS OUR PERPETUAL HAPPINESS AND JOY! Oh, how clear is Nehemiah 8:10? “The joy of the Lord is your strength”? Or Psalm 16:11? “In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures for evermore.”

Do YOU walk in perpetual happiness and joy? Do YOU walk in a state of ‘fleshly bliss’ or “Sovereign Blessing”? Is it ‘happiness attained in the best of human effort’ or is it the “Holy Estate of Heavenly Presence in the repentant rest of true Biblical Faith” that reveals Christ in you as your hope of glory?

Examine carefully Romans 4:1-5! “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh has found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he has whereof to glory: BUT NOT BEFORE GOD. For what does the Holy Scriptures tell us?

Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto Him for righteousness. Now to him that works at it is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt? But to him that works not, but believes in, trusts in, relies upon, Him that JUSTIFIES the ungodly, that one’s faith is counted for righteousness.” That, my friend, is “Amazing Grace”!!

SEVENTH, CHRIST IN YOU IS THE ONLY DOOR INTO LIVING IN, BY, FOR THE GLORY OF GOD’S ABIDING PRESENCE! Follow carefully Colossians 2:6-10 and then Colossians 1:19-29!

Colossians 2:6-10 says, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.: Rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are COMPLETE IN CHRIST.” What IS that “completeness in Christ”? Colossians 1:19-29 is so inspired, so informative, so liberating. It says:

“For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell; And having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

And you, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight:

If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not removed from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church: Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God;

Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; WHICH IS ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labor, striving according to His working, which works in me mightily.” IS JESUS AT WORK IN YOU MIGHTILY?

EIGHTH, BECAUSE OF THE BIBLICAL FOUNDATION OF YOUR ONENESS IN CHRIST, IS THE HISTORY OF YOUR ONENESS IN CHRIST THE RECOGNITION OF HISTORICALLY, PERSONALLY, INSPIRATIONALLY, DAILY CHOOSING DEATH TO YOUR OLD SELF SO THAT CHRIST IN YOUR NEW-BORN HEART IS ABLE TO EXTEND HIS LIFE, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, AND THROUGH YOU PROVE HIS POWER, TOUCHING THE WORLD THROUGH YOU WITH HIS NEVER-ENDING PRESENCE?

This walk in redemptive faith is not ‘trying’ but “trusting”, not ‘attempting’ but “allowing Him to be Himself in you and through you”, not ‘determining’ rationally what you choose to do as a disciple of Christ, but “depending upon Christ in you, Christ through you, Christ for you touching your world around you with His atoning power and amazing purpose!

For YOU, what is it? Spiritual insanity in “the best of human effort”, or is it the “spiritual reality of the new-born Life in Christ”? You do have a choice! “Choose you this day whom you will serve”, making yourself available to His Resurrected Presence! Amen?

I’ve paraphrased the old hymn “Saviour, Again” found in the old hymnal of Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, (1940). It says: “Savior, again to Your dear name we raise With one accord our parting hymn of praise; Once more we bless You ere our worship cease, Then, lowly kneeling, wait Your word of peace. (Is that “welcome to the Throne of Christ as your, truly, Lord and Savior”?).

A cloud of witnesses around Hold you in full survey; Forget the steps already trod, And onward urge God’s way, And onward urge God’s way.

It’s God’s all animating voice That calls you from on high; It’s His own hand presents the prize To your aspiring eye, To your aspiring eye.

Blest Savior, introduced by God, Have I my race begun; And, crowned with victory, (eternally!), at Your feet I’ll lay my honors down, I’ll lay my honors down.”

Examine Matthew 25:31-46! The day is coming when the King of glory, the Son of man, shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He shall sit upon the throne of His glory:

And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, (That’s the King of Heaven AND Earth!!): Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was hungered, and you gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me.

Then shall the righteous (the sheep but not the goats!) answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you hungry, and fed you? Or thirsty, and gave you drink? When saw we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? Or when saw we you sick, or in prison, and came unto you? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these me brethren, you have done it unto me.

Then shall he say unto them on the left hand (the goats), Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; For I was hungry, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto you? Then Jesus answered them, saying, Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as you did not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”

Dare I ask? “Where are YOU headed? In whom or what have YOU “rested”? Finished with your old sin nature or finalized forever through repentance and faith in Him alone, “complete in Christ lacking nothing”?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“LESS & LESS OR MORE & MORE?”

ARE YOU AWARE OF THE ‘LESS AND LESS’ OF FALLEN HUMANITY WITHOUT FULL, SERIOUS, COMPLETE EXAMINATION OF GOD’S “MORE AND MORE”? THE ONE THING THE WORD OF GOD DECLARES WITHOUT WAVERING IS FOUND IN JOSHUA 24:15 WHEN JOSHUA SAID: “And if it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you shall serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorities, in whose land you dwell; BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.”

In Deuteronomy 30:19-20a, Moses declared, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; choose life, that both you and your seed may live (and that’s in the Abiding Presence of Christ, before the Throne of God, filled with the Holy Spirit who birthed your life through true repentance and faith!), that both you and your seed may live; That you (and yours!) may love the Lord your God, AND that you may obey His voice, and that you may cleave unto Him (Is that “holding fast?), for He is your life, and the length of your earthly days…!” But! Look at the “Christ-less life” as it chooses ‘self’ over the “Savior”, ‘sin’ over the “Righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”, ‘worldly pleasure, wandering from God pursuits’ over the Lord’s freedom-gift of “His Eternal Life & Presence”!

“LESS & LESS?” IN JOB 2:7-10 WE READ, “SO WENT SATAN FORTH FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD, SMOTE JOB WITH SORE BOILS FROM THE SOLE OF HIS FOOT UNTO THE CROWN. AND HE TOOK WITH HIM A POTSHARD TO SCRAPE HIMSELF ALL OVER; AND HE SAT DOWN WITH THE ASHES.

THEN SAID HIS WIFE UNTO HIM, “DO YOU STILL RETAIN YOUR INTEGRITY? CURSE GOD AND DIE.” BUT JOB SAID TO HIS WIFE, “YOU SPEAK AS ONE OF THE FOOLISH WOMEN SPEAKS. WHAT? SHALL WE RECEIVE GOOD AT THE HAND OF THE GOD, AND SHALL WE NOT RECEIVE EVIL? IN ALL THIS JOB DID NOT SIN WITH HIS LIPS.

“LESS &LESS OR MORE &MORE?” IN JOB 19:23-27 ARE FOUND MORE INSPIRING WORDS ABOUT THE “LESS & LESS OR THE MORE & MORE”: JOB SAID, “OH THAT MY WORDS WERE NOW WRITTEN! OH THAT THEY WERE PRINTED IN A BOOK! THAT THEY WERE GRAVEN WITH AN IRON PEN AND LEAD IN THE ROCK FOR EVER!

FOR I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES, AND THAT HE SHALL STAND AT THE LATTER DAY UPON THE EARTH; (AND KEEP ON STANDING THERE?): AND THOUGH AFTER MY SKIN WORMS DESTROY MY BODY, YET IN MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD.”

“LESS & LESS?” MANKIND WAS BIRTHED BY GOD IN HUMAN FORM, YES, WITH THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE! ADAM’S NATURE OR GOD’S NATURE? FLESH OR SPIRIT? WRONG OR RIGHT OR WRONG MINGLED IN WITH A TASTE OF RIGHT? SELF-EMPTINESS OR SOVEREIGN FULLNESS? A HELLISH, DEVILISH, DEMONIC WORLD’S BEST OR: “HEAVEN CAME DOWN AND GLORY FILLED YOUR SOUL”?

A GREAT OLD HYMN OF THE 1940’S IN THE OLD BROADMAN HYMNAL (P.357) SAYS: “ARE YOU TIRED OF THE LIFE YOU’RE NOW LIVING? ARE YOU WEARY OF SIN AND ITS SNARES? ARE YOU SEEKING FOR THAT WHICH IS LASTING? LOOK TO JESUS; YOU’LL FIND THAT HE CARES.

ARE YOU LONGING TO KNOW HIS FORGIVENESS? DO YOU YEARN TO BE FREE FROM ALL SIN? DOES YOUR LONELY HEART LEAP WHEN YOU WITNESS GOD’S WONDERFUL LOVE FOR ALL MEN?

LOOK TO JESUS THE BLESSED REDEEMER, GIVE YOUR HEART, AND YOUR ALL TO THE LORD; TO HIS OPEN ARMS RUN FOR SALVATION, HE HAS PROMISED IT ALL IN HIS WORD.

HE IS WATCHING, HE IS WAITING, HE IS LONGING YOUR SOUL TO SET FREE; WEARY ONE, GIVE YOUR HEART TO THE SAVIOR, LIVE WITH HIM THROUGH ALL ETERNITY.”

DO YOU KNOW, DO YOU UNDERSTAND, DO YOU COMPREHEND, THAT LIFE AFTER DEATH IS EITHER HELL OR HEAVEN, CONTINUING ‘FLESH-BONDAGE UNDER SATAN’S CONTROL’ OR “ETERNAL FREEDOM FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH”, BECAUSE YOU ARE, WERE, WILL NOW FOREVER BE FREE FROM THAT LAW OF SIN AND DEATH BECAUSE OF THE SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD? LIFE NOW & LIFE AFTER DEATH IS EITHER ‘FLESH’ OR SPIRIT, HUMAN NATURE OR DIVINE NATURE FOREVER FLOWING THROUGH YOUR VEINS, MIND, AND HEART, WRONG NATURE OR RIGHT NATURE, SELF-EMPTINESS OR SOVEREIGN FULLNESS. AND YOU? YOUR ALL IN ALL OR CHRIST IN YOU YOUR ONLY HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE, ETERNAL BLESSING, ETERNAL PRESENCE, YES, ETERNAL BEFORE THE THRONE OF CHRIST JESUS WILLING TO DAILY BE HIS “FOOT-WASHER”?!!!?

AGAIN, IN JOSHUA 24:25-28, WE FIND POWERFULLY CONVICTING WORDS: “SO JOSHUA MADE A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE THAT DAY, AND SET THEM A STATUTE AND AN ORDINANCE IN SHECHEM. AND JOSHUA WROTE THESE WORDS IN “THE BOOK OF THE LAW OF GOD”, AND TOOK A GREAT STONE, AND SET IT UP THERE UNDER AN OAK, THAT WAS BY THE SANCTUARY OF THE LORD. SO JOSHUA SAID UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE, BEHOLD, THIS STONE SHALL BE A WITNESS UNTO US; FOR IT HAS HEARD ALL THE WORDS OF THE LORD WHICH HE SPOKE UNTO US; IT SHALL BE THEREFORE A WITNESS UNTO YOU, UNLESS YOU DENY YOUR GOD. SO JOSHUA LET THE PEOPLE DEPART, EVERY MAN UNTO HIS INHERITANCE.”

“EVERY MAN UNTO HIS INHERITANCE”?“THIS STONE A WITNESS UNTO YOU”? GOD’S WORD CUT INTO A LARGE NATURAL STONE WRITTEN FOR MEN TO READ? AND YOUR INHERITANCE? SOME READ, SOME TRUSTED, SOME OBEYED, AND EXTENDED THE KINGDOM OF GOD THEN! BUT DO YOU KNOW GOD DECLARES IN HIS WORDS THE “NEW STONE” FOR MEN TO READ? IN LUKE 20:9-13 JESUS TELLS US ABOUT A MAN PLANTING A VINEYARD:

THEN BEGAN JESUS TO SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE THIS PARABLE: “A CERTAIN MAN PLANTED A VINEYARD, AND LET IT FORTH TO HUSBAND-MEN, AND WENT FORTH INTO A FAR COUNTRY FOR A LONG TIME. AND AT THE SEASON HE SENT A SERVANT TO HIS HUSBANDMEN, AND WENT INTO A FAR COUNTRY FOR A LONG TIME.

AND AT THE SEASON HE SENT A SERVANT TO THE HUSBANDMEN, THAT THEY SHOULD GIVE HIM OF THE FRUIT OF THE VINEYARD; BUT THE HUSBANDMEN BEAT HIM, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY. AND AGAIN HE SENT ANOTHER SERVANT; AND THEY BEAT HIM ALSO, AND ENTREATED HIM SHAMEFULLY, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY.

AND AGAIN HE SENT ANOTHER SERVANT; AND THEY BEAT HIM ALSO, AND ENTREATED HIM SHAMEFULLY, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY. AND AGAIN HE SENT A THIRD; AND THEY WOUNDED HIM ALSO, AND CAST HIM OUT. THEN SAID THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD, WHAT SHALL I DO? I WILL SEND MY BELOVED SON; IT MAY BE THEY WILL REVERENCE HIM WHEN THEY SEE HIM.” DARE I ASK? WHO IS THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD? THAT’S ALMIGHTY, HOLY, PASSIONATE GOD OVERSEEING HIS WORLD OF LOST MANKIND, DEAD-FRUIT, WILLFUL SINNERS – AND BECAUSE HE’S THE GOD OF LOVE, MERCY, AND GRACE, WITH A FORGIVING HEART, HE SENDS HIS OWN SON TO BE THE SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SIN, THE SAVIOR FROM YOUR MISGUIDED, DECEIVED, SIN-BOUND, SATANIC-CONTROLLED MIND, BLACKENED HEART, AND A WORLDLY PERCEPTION AND DETERMINATION TO DO AS “FLESH, THE WORLD AROUND YOU, AND SATAN PROGRAMS YOU INTO!!!”

SATAN’S INTENT? SATAN’S INITIATIVE? DESTROY THE HEIRS OF FAITH! DESTROY THEIR SAVIOR AND LORD! DESTROY THE HOPE OF ETERNAL PURPOSE, OF HEAVENLY PLEASURE, OF THE PEACE OF GOD WHICH PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING, BUT OVERFLOWS YOUR MIND AND HEART WITH THE REALITY OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION-PRESENCE!! DESTROY ANY HOPE OF AN OVERCOMING LIFE OF THE WORLD, YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, OR SATAN AND DEMONIC PRESENCE AND ACTIVITY! SATAN SAYS, “YOU’RE MINE TO DO IN YOUR FLESH WHAT HELL INTENDS, NOT HEAVEN OR WHAT A SO-CALLED ‘LORD AND SAVIOR’ SAYS!”

DARE I SAY IT? I BELIEVE I WILL! “YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE UNDER THE CLOUD OF SATANIC DECEPTION ANY LONGER!!” THERE IS THE REALITY, THE ETERNAL TRUTH, THE BLESSED ASSURANCE, THAT IN CHRIST JESUS YOU CAN BE “MORE THAN A CONQUEROR” OVER THE WORLD-SPIRIT, OVER THE SIN-NATURE DISEASE, AND THE ‘DIS-EASE’ OF WORLDLINESS, OF A SIN-BOUND MIND AND HEART, AND SATANIC-PRETENSE!

IN ROMANS 8:8-14 WE READ, “SO THEN THEY THAT ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD. BUT YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH, BUT IN THE SPIRIT, IF SO BE THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. NOW IF ANY MAN DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS. AND IF CHRIST BE IN YOU, THE BODY IS DEAD, BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. (IF THE SPIRIT IS LIFE IN YOU BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, DOES THAT MEAN AS A NEW, TRUE BELIEVER IT’S “OK!” IF I SIN NOW AND THEN AS I PLEASE?).

BUT IF THE SPIRIT OF HIM THAT RAISED UP JESUS FROM THE DEAD DWELL IN YOU, HE THAT RAISED UP CHRIST FROM THE DEAD SHALL ALSO QUICKEN (MAKE ALIVE HIMSELF IN YOU!) YOUR MORTAL BODIES BY HIS SPIRIT THAT DWELLS IN YOU. THEREFORE, BRETHREN, WE ARE DEBTORS, NOT TO THE FLESH (YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE!), TO LIVE AFTER THE FLESH.

FOR IF YOU LIVE AFTER THE FLESH, YOU SHALL DIE; BUT IF YOU THROUGH THE SPIRIT DO MORTIFY THE DEEDS OF THE BODY, YOU SHALL LIVE. FOR AS MANY AS ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, THEY ARE THE SONS OF GOD.”

LESS & LESS OR MORE & MORE? IT IS A CHOICE YOU MAKE! “BEST EFFORT OR SOVEREIGN BLESSING?” THE INTELLECTUAL MIND-SET OF SELF-DETERMINATION OR THE HEART AND MIND WASHED CLEAN THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD BY THE CONVICTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE BIRTH IN THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THE EMPOWERMENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN GUIDING YOU INTO THE REALITY OF THE GIFT OF ABIDING TRUTH, EVEN CHRIST JESUS EXPRESSING HIMSELF IN SPIRITUAL WARFARE AGAINST SATAN AND HIS DEMON FORCES THROUGH YOU AS YOU REJOICE WITNESSING JESUS BEING JESUS, SAVIOR AND LORD, AND KING AND SOVEREIGN OVER SATAN, YOUR OLD WORLD ALLEGIANCE, AND YOUR WARPED, GODLESS ALLEGIANCE TO YOUR “CHURCH” THAT MOSTLY ‘PRETENDS’, EVEN UPSET IF YOU ASSERT LOYALTY TO THE INDWELLING CHRIST BUT NOT LOYALTY TO THEIR ‘CHURCH OF IMITATION’!

IN REVELATION 7:9-17 WE READ ABOUT THE “SEALED SERVANTS OF GOD’’! “AFTER THIS I BEHELD, AND, LO, A GREAT MULTITUDE, WHICH NO MAN COULD NUMBER, OF ALL NATIONS, AND KINDREDS, AND PEOPLE, AND TONGUES, STOOD BEFORE THE THRONE, AND BEFORE THE LAMB, CLOTHED WITH WHITE ROBES, AND PALMS IN THEIR HANDS;

AND CRIED WITH A LOUD VOICE, SAYING, SALVATION TO OUR GOD WHO SITS UPON THE THRONE, AND UNTO THE LAMB. AND ALL THE ANGELS STOOD ROUND ABOUT THE THRONE, AND ABOUT THE ELDERS AND THE FOUR BEASTS, AND FELL BEFORE THE THRONE ON THEIR FACES, AND WORSHIPPED GOD. SAYING, AMEN: BLESSING, AND GLORY, AND WISDOM, AND THANKSGIVING, AND HONOR, AND POWER, AND MIGHT, BE UNTO OUR GOD FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN. AND ONE OF THE ELDERS ANSWERED, SAYING UNTO ME, WHAT ARE THESE WHICH ARE ARRAYED IN WHITE ROBES? AND WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?

AND I SAID UNTO HIM, SIR, YOU KNOW. AND HE SAID TO ME, THESE ARE THEY WHICH CAME OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION, AND HAVE WASHED THEIR ROBES, AND MADE THEM WHITE IN & THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB. THEREFORE ARE THEY BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD, AND SERVE HIM DAY AND NIGHT IN HIS TEMPLE: AND HE THAT SITS ON THE THRONE SHALL DWELL AMONG THEM.

THEY SHALL HUNGER NO MORE, NEITHER THIRST ANY MORE; NEITHER SHALL THE SUN LIGHT ON THEM, NOR ANY HEAT. FOR THE LAMB WHICH IS IN THE MIDST OF THE THRONE SHALL FEED THEM, AND SHALL LEAD THEM UNTO LIVING FOUNTAINS OF WATERS; AND GOD SHALL WIPE AWAY ALL TEARS FROM THEIR LIVES.”

“LESS AND LESS OR MORE AND MORE?” DO YOU WALK ‘LESS AND LESS’ IN WILLFUL CONDEMNATION AND SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS BECAUSE YOU’VE ASSURED YOURSELF THAT HOLY GOD WILL BE PLEASED WITH YOUR “BEST EFFORT” OR THAT YOU “JOINED A CHURCH” OR THAT YOU ‘TRY HARD TO DO THE RIGHT THING’?

PLEASE COME WITH ME TO ROMANS 8 EXAMINING CAREFULLY VERSES 1-10! “THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION TO THEM WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH (THAT MEANS “STILL IN LOVE WITH YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE!”), BUT YOU WALK IN AND AFTER THE HOLY SPIRIT. FOR THE LAW OF “THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS” HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH. FOR WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO, IN THAT IT WAS WEAK THROUGH THE FLESH, GOD SENDING HIS OWN SON IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH, AND FOR SIN, CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH ( THE FLESH? IS THAT THE OLD MAN BIRTHED INTO PHYSICAL LIFE WITH THE CHOICE OF SELF-ALLEGIANCE OR THE CHOICE OF THE NEED OF GOD IN THEM?);

THAT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE ‘FLESH’ (OR ALLEGIANCE AND DEVOTION IN SATISFYING THE CONDEMNED ‘SIN NATURE’!), BUT THEY WALK AFTER, IN, BY, GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! FOR THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE FLESH DO MIND (ATTEND TO) THE THINGS OF THE FLESH; BUT THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE SPIRIT THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. FOR TO BE CARNALLY MINDED IS DEATH; BUT TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE. BECAUSE THE CARNAL MIND IS ENMITY AGAINST GOD; FOR IT IS NOT SUBJECT TO THE LAW OF GOD, NEITHER INDEED CAN BE. SO THEN THEY THAT ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD. BUT YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH, BUT IN THE SPIRIT, IF SO BE THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. NOW IF ANY MAN DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS CHILDREN. AND IF CHRIST BE IN YOU, THE BODY IS DEAD, BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

FROM THE “BREAKFRONT DAILY” FROM THE COLSON CENTER, THERE WAS A WRITING ON “ACADEMIC AND CORPORATE ‘WOKENESS’: THE REAL THREAT TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.” (IT WAS RECORDED BY JOHN STONESTREET WITH ROBERTA RIVERA.) IN IT THEY WROTE THE FOLLOWING: (A PORTION ONLY!) “THE SOUND YOU HEAR IS DOORS OF OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS SLAMMING SHUT EVERYWHERE. BASICALLY, ANY ORGANIZATION THAT RUNS AFOUL OF THE NEW SEXUAL ORTHODOXY THAT’S DRIVING THIS NEW POLICY WILL FIND IT MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO RECRUIT YALE LAW SCHOOL GRADS; AND THOSE GRADS WHOSE MOTIVATIONS RUN TOWARD NON-PROFIT OR PUBLIC SERVICE WILL FIND THEIR CHOICES SIGNIFICANTLY NARROWED.

YALES’ BLATANT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE WITH TRADITIONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IS AN IMPORTANT REMINDER OF WHERE THE GREATEST CHALLENGE TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CURRENTLY LIES IN OUR CULTURE. AS DAVID FRENCH WROTE AT NATIONAL REVIEW, ONE OF ‘THE PRIME SOURCES OF [CULTURE WAR] CONFLICT IS THE INCREASING TENDENCY TO USE THE FINANCIAL AND CULTURAL POWER OF PROGRESSIVE INSTITUTIONS TO FORCE SOCIAL CHANGE REGARDLESS OF THE UNDERLYING MISSION OF THE INSTITUTION.”

AND I SAY TO YOU, “UNLESS THERE IS A SECOND, A THIRD, A FORTH, A FIFTH, “GREAT AWAKENING”, MAYBE EVEN MORE, OUR NATION WILL BECOME MORE AND MORE, MAYBE, FINANCIALLY RICHER, BUT PROBABLY BARREN OF THE LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY OF HOLY GOD! SHUT THE DOOR ON GOD? AND HE’LL SHUT THE DOOR ON YOU!!” BUT, IN JOHN 7:37, JESUS SAID, “IF ANYONE THIRSTS (FOR GOD?), LET HIM COME TO ME AND DRINK.”(NKJV EDITION).

LET ME SHARE THIS MESSAGE FROM PSALM 97 EXALTING THE MAJESTY OF GOD’S REIGN IN THE HUMAN HEART ADVANCING HIS KINGDOM THROUGH THEM: “THE LORD REIGNS: LET THE MULTITUDE OF ISLES BE GLAD THEREOF (BECAUSE OF IT!). CLOUDS AND DARKNESS ARE ROUND ABOUT HIM: RIGHTEOUSNESS AND JUDGMENT ARE THE HABITATION OF HIS THRONE.

A FIRE GOES BEFORE HIM, AND BURNS UP HIS ENEMIES ROUND ABOUT. HIS LIGHTNINGS ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD: THE EARTH SAW, AND TREMBLED. THE HILLS MELTED LIKE WAX AT THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD OF THE WHOLE EARTH. THE HEAVENS DECLARE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND ALL THE PEOPLE SEE HIS GLORY. CONFOUNDED BE ALL THEY THAT SERVE GRAVEN IMAGES, THAT BOAST THEMSELVES OF IDOLS: WORSHIP HIM, ALL YOU GODS.

ZION HEARD, AND WAS GLAD; AND THE DAUGHTERS OF JUDAH REJOICED BECAUSE OF YOUR JUDGMENTS, O LORD. FOR YOU, LORD, ARE HIGH ABOVE ALL THE EARTH: YOU ARE EXALTED FAR ABOVE ALL GODS. YOU THAT LOVE THE LORD, HATE EVIL; HE PRESERVES THE SOULS OF HIS SAINTS (THE “SET-APART ONES”?); HE DELIVERS THEM OUT OF THE HAND OF THE WICKED. LIGHT IS SOWN FOR THE RIGHTEOUS, AND GLADNESS FOR THE UPRIGHT IN HEART. REJOICE IN THE LORD, YOU RIGHTEOUS ONES; AND GIVE THANKS AT THE REMEMBRANCE OF HIS HOLINESS.” WHEN I COME TO HEBREWS 9:14, I REJOICE IN THE “HALLELUJAH TRUTH”! “HOW MUCH MORE SHALL THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, WHO THROUGH THE ETERNAL SPIRIT OFFERED HIMSELF WITHOUT SPOT TO GOD (JESUS WAS YOUR SIN OFFERING!!), PURGING YOUR CONSCIENCE FROM ‘DEAD WORKS’ TO SERVE THE LIVING GOD.”

ARE “YOU” RE-BORN? HAVE YOU BEEN TRANSFORMED FROM A CHILD OF DARKNESS TO THE CHILD OF ETERNAL LIGHT BECAUSE OF YOUR REPENTANCE, YOUR SAVING FAITH, AND YOUR DESIRE TO DAILY HONOR HIM WHEREVER YOU GO AND IN WHATEVER YOU DO? HEAR ME! CHRIST JESUS “IS” RESURRECTION PRESENCE, RESURRECTION POWER, RESURRECTION PRIVILEGE, ARRIVING, ABIDING, ASKING, EVEN PLEADING: “OPEN YOUR HEART’S DOOR, AND I WILL COME IN.”

CHRIST BLED – SO HE PLEADS, HE KNOCKS ON YOUR HEARTS’ DOORS, COMPASSIONATELY SAYING, “SIN NO LONGER IS TO BE YOUR MASTER ANYMORE. MY BLOOD I’VE SHED, YOUR BOOK OF LIFE I’VE READ – AND MY SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SIN?” FOR CHRIST JESUS, IT’S AS IF YOUR SIN HAD NEVER BEEN!! (ARE YOU A REJOICING, THANKFUL, CELEBRATING SON AND DAUGHTER OF GOD, OR ARE YOU “TUNED IN” TO ALL THE WORLD, YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, AND SATAN HIMSELF HAS TO DECEIVE YOU? WHY NOT, RIGHT NOW, ACCEPT YOUR CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST TO DO AWAY WITH YOUR OLD SELF, BEING “RAISED UP IN THE NEWNESS OF HIS EVERLASTING LIFE AND PRESENCE” TO LEAD YOU THROUGH THE DARK SHADOWS OF EARTHLY EXISTENCE INTO THE PRESENT FULLNESS OF HIS FOREVER REIGN? YOUR DAY – GOD’S TIME?

CHAPTER TWELVE

“FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE OR THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?”

THE AMAZING “CREATION OF GOD” OF BOTH THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD,PLANETS,STARS,PLUS BIRTHING OF FLESHLY HUMANITY WITH “FREE WILL” TO CHOOSE WHETHER TO SERVE GOD OR NOT, IS TRULY, BOTH SAD AND GLAD – SAD, BECAUSE SOME “FREE-WILL MEN AND WOMEN” CHOSE THE PATH OF “ME, MY, AND MIND” RATHER THAN THE PERFECT, PERFECTING, PRECIOUS PRIVILEGE OF THE WINSOMENESS, THE WILL, THE “WORD”, AND THE WAYS OF HOLY GOD!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE, IN CHOOSING SELF-WILL FOR SELF-PLEASURE, (FROM A NATURAL MIND AND NATURAL HEART!), WERE “BIRTHED”- ‘BRAIN-DEAD’, ‘FLESH-DEFILED’,‘HEART-DARKENED’,AND WILLFULLY ‘DELIRIOUS’, WITH THE ENEMY OF MANKIND, SATAN, ‘DEMONSTRABLY ACTIVE’ IN ‘DECEIVING MANKIND’, SAYING, “IF YOU SIN, DISOBEY, OR DEFY GOD, YOU WON’T DIE”, WHILE THE SPIRIT OF HOLY GOD SPEAKS TO YOU, CONVICTS YOU, SAYING, IN JOSHUA 24:15,“AND IF IT SEEMS EVIL UNTO YOU TO SERVE THE LORD,CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE; WHETHER THE ‘gods’ WHICH YOUR FATHERS SERVED,OR THE ‘gods of self-willed peoples’, IN WHOSE LAND YOU DWELL;BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.” (AND THE REWARD ‘of self-willed peoples’? ROMANS 6:23, “FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH” –NATURALLY & ETERNALLY, IF THERE’S NO REPENTANCE, BELIEF, TRUST, & YIELDEDNESS TO THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS!).

NATURAL MANKIND BIRTHS NATURAL CHILDREN, AND WHETHER NATURAL MANKIND OR NATURAL CHILDREN, BOTH MUST KNOW TRUE REPENTANCE BEFORE HOLY GOD, AND FULLY AWARE THAT REPENTANCE WITH TRUE BIBLICAL FAITH, GIVES BIRTH WITHIN TO PURE HEARTS WASHED CLEAN BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB, AND THEN THE ETERNAL BLESSING OF HIS PRESENCE, (CHRIST JESUS!), ENTERING THEIR HEARTS, MAKING THE HEART THE TABERNACLE OF HIS ETERNAL DWELLING, HIS ABIDING,EARTHLY RESIDENCE,AND,YES,THE “THRONE” BEING YOUR HEART AND LIFE THROUGH WHICH YOU ALLOW KING JESUS TO AGAIN GRANT EARTHLY PRESENCE, SOVEREIGN RULE, AND MERCIFUL OUTREACH TO YOU & THROUGH YOU TO OTHERS WHO NEED “BLOOD REDEMPTION” & “RECONCILIATION” WITH HOLY GOD, THEIR, YES, LOVING FATHER! AND UPON CONVERSION, FROM THAT DEATH FORWARD, ALL BELIEVERS ARE TO BE HIS “WITNESSING ARMY” TO SHARE “HIS TRUTH OF THE REALITY OF NEW BIRTH” TO ANY EARTHLY RESIDENT AROUND YOU!

(BUT THE SAD TRUTH? MOST CHURCHES AND PREACHERS AROUND YOU ARE ‘DEVOTED TO GOOD SUNDAY MORNING CLASSES & MESSAGES’ WITHOUT A PENNY’S WORTH OF CONCERN OR COMPASSION FOR THE LOST CITIZENS LOCALLY OR NATIONALLY OR NATIONS THAT SURROUND THEIR BORDERS, OR NATIONS OVERSEAS!)

MY GREATEST CONCERN TODAY, JUST A FEW WEEKS BEFORE MY 83^RD BIRTHDAY ON JUNE 12, 2019? THAT TOO MANY CHURCHES, TOO MANY PASTORS, TOO MANY MEMBERS, TOO MANY DENOMINATIONAL LEADERS, ARE GROWING “SO FAT” ON CHRISTIAN NEWS OF SATISFIED ‘TO BE CHURCH MEMBERS’, THAT THEY WILLFULLY BLIND THEMSELVES OF BEING TOOLS IN GOD’S HANDS TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, OR PROVE HIS POWER!

THE PSALMIST,KING DAVID, IN PSALM 8:4-9, WROTE: “WHAT IS MAN, THAT YOU, GOD, ARE MINDFUL OF HIM?AND THE SON OF MAN,(KING JESUS), THAT YOU VISIT HIM? BUT YOU BIRTHED “HIM” A LITTLE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS, AND HAVE CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOR.YOU,GOD, MADE HIM (CHRIST JESUS!) TO HAVE DOMINION OVER THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; YOU PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIS FEET:ALL SHEEP AND OXEN,YES,AND THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD; THE FOWL OF THE AIR, AND THE FISH OF THE SEA, AND WHATSOEVER PASSES THROUGH THE PATHS OF THE SEAS. O LORD OUR LORD, HOW EXCELLENT IS YOUR NAME IN ALL THE EARTH.”

‘FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE?’ ‘FALLEN HUMANITY’S SIRITUAL BLINDNESS? FALLEN HUMANITY’S SHAME OF SELF-WILL OR SELF-GOVERNMENT? FALLEN HUMANITY’S HARDNESS OF HEART BECAUSE OF THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN?FALLEN HUMANITY’S STUPIDITY IN BOWING TO THE FOREFATHERS WHO SOUGHT ONLY TO BE SELF-RELIANT AS THEIR OWN SELF-INSTITUED ‘master’, ‘ruler,’ and ‘savior’ lifestyle and explanation of ‘good living’ rather than “GOD-BIRTHED, GOD-BLESSED, GOD-ANOINTED LIFE-IN-CHRIST JESUS”?

ACROSS THE ‘CHRISTIAN WORLD’,YES, WORLDWIDE, MY GREATEST CONCERN TODAY FOR THE DAYS BEFORE US? DAYS THAT SHOULD BE DAYS THROUGH US WHICH GOD THE FATHER USES TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, AND PROVE HIS POWER, BUT,”SADLY” MUCH OF ‘PROFESSING CHRISTIANITY, PROFESSING CHURCHES, PROFESSING LEADERS’, LIVE UNDER, SERVE UNDER, PLAN UNDER, PROVIDE UNDER, PERFORM UNDER, ‘RELIGIOUS PLANS’ RATHER THAN “HOLY-SPIRIT-POWER AND ANOINTING AND INSPIRING” THE, YES, SPIRITUAL PLANTING, TENDING, AND HARVESTING OF THE FRUIT OF MEN’S LOST, SEPARATED SOULS, TO BECOME SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF TRUE FAITH EXPERIENCING DIVINE, DRAMATIC CONVERSIONS THAT SIT TO EAT AROUND HIS TABLE (HIS HOLY WORD!), AND SERVE IN HIS FIELDS FOR NEEDY, SIN-SICK, SATAN-DELUDED SOULS”!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? LOOKING IN, THEY ONLY SEE THE NATURAL, THE EARTHLY, THE FLESHLY, THE ‘LESS OF WHAT THEY ‘WANT’ AND NOT WHAT LOVING GOD PLANNED’, THE SHALLOWNESS OF WHAT ‘SIN-NATURE’ WANTS AND NOT THE “DEEP WATERS” OF GOD’S GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE, THE ‘SOULISH’ SATISFACTION OF ‘SELF-INDULGENCE’ THAT DROWNS THEM IN THE SHALLOW WATERS OF FLESHLY INDULGENCES, WORLDLY,WILD PLEASURES, AND SATANIC & DEMONIC, HELL-BOUND SCHEMES AND ‘WILD DREAMS’!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? “CROWN ‘YOU’ (ME,US- THE ONLY ONES WHO NEED TO REIGN!” “BE ‘FALLEN WORLD’S PARTNER’ UNITING WITH WHATEVER BLINDS YOU SPIRITUALLY WHEN YOU WALK ‘HERE’! BE ‘NOBLE’ IN THE WORLD “YOU” CHOOSE; AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO KNEEL BEFORE A ‘god’ TO SUCCEED–you’re your own man!”

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? “SATISFIED WITH SOULISH LIVING, SATISFIED WITH SELF-WILL, SATISFIED WITH EARTHLY,MAN-INSPIRED EDUCATION APART FROM HOLY GOD’S INSPIRATION,SATISFIED IN THIS FLESH-LIFE AND MY SELF-INDEPENDENT-DETERMINATION TO MAKE IT HERE WITHOUT ‘YOUR GOD’S HELP’; ‘I, MY PERSONAL, MY ‘GLORIFED’,STOIC SELF, DO NOT NEED YOUR SAVIOR!”THAT’S LIKE A STATEMENT I READ SIMILAR OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,(P.396, PUBLISHED BY FLEMING H.REVELL COMPANY, WESTWOOD,NJ),THAT SAID: “GOD HELPS THOSE THAT HELP THEMSELVES.” A THOUSAND TIMES, “NO!” GOD HELPS THOSE FINISHED WITH THEMSELVES, BECAUSE THE “OLD MAN” CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST ON THE CROSS, IS NOT TO HAVE EVEN A FRACTION OF AN INCH IN THEM OF “TRYING” TO BE SAVED, BUT, YES, “RESTING IN CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK ON THE TOMB OF THE HISTORIC CROSS, AND THOUGH DEAD IN A TOMB THREE DAYS, GOD RAISED HIM!”

AND GOD “RAISES YOU” IF YOU REPENT! GOD “RAISES YOU” IF YOU ‘REST’! GOD “RAISES” YOU WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED WITH YOUR OLD MAN AND OLD NATURE AND SATANIC DECEPTION! FINISHED IF YOU’RE “FINISHED” WITH MAN-INSPIRED DREAMS AND VISIONS, AND “READY” FOR THE CHRIST IN YOU TO CONTINUE HIS ETERNAL EARTH-JOURNEY TO TOUCH OTHERS WITH HIS PROMISES AND HIS ETERNAL WORK BY HIS PRESENCE IN YOUR HEART & LIFE LITERALLY!! “CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY”!!!!****

HAVE “YOU” CLOSED THE DOOR ON FALLEN HUMANITY’S FLESHLY DREAMS AND “RESTED” IN “THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?”

I CHALLENGE YOU THIS VERY MOMENT AS YOU READ: “REST IN”, “WILLFULLY RELAX”, “WISELY REPENT”, AND IN “HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTED HEART, MIND, AND WILL OF GOD”, WHY NOT, YES, SIMPLY “TRUST AND OBEY”? IN JAMES 1 THE BROTHER OF JESUS WAS INSPIRED TO WRITE BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, VERSE 18, (GET READY! DON’T BE DECEIVED!!), “OF HIS OWN WILL GOD BIRTHED US WITH THE WORD OF TRUTH…”, WITH SIMON PETER TELLING US IN 1 PETER 1:2-5, “ELECT ACCORDING TO THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, ( PAUSE! DID IT SAY: “FOREKNOWLEDGE”? YOU MEAN BEFORE HUMANITY EVER EXISTED, GOD KNEW WHO, HOW MANY, HE THEN “YES”, SOVEREIGNLY CHOSE THEM TO BE HIS HEAVENLY FAMILY OF SONS AND DAUGHTERS THROUGH THEIR GIFT OF FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT CALVARY AND THROUGH HIS EMPTY-TOMB RESURRECTION, HIS ASCENSION, AND HIS HEAVENLY REIGN! BEFORE CREATION GOD THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT CHOSE THE “FAMILY OF FAITH” AND SAW TO IT THAT THEY WERE, ARE, AND WILL BE “BORN AGAIN”, ADOPTED INTO THE HOLY FAMILY, HAVING BEEN “RECONCILED THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE CROSS AND HIS RESURRECTION, ASCENDING TO THE RIGHT HAND THRONE OF GOD TO WATCH AFTER GOD’S PRE-ORDAINED, ETERNALLY PROGRAMED SPIRITUAL BIRTHS, AND AFTER A LIFE OF EARTHLY SERVICE, UPON THEIR SPIRITUAL DEATHS, HE “CALLS THEM HOME” TO THE THRONE-ROOM, WHERE AT THE THRONE THEY’RE WELCOMED BY KING JESUS, AND, YES, GIVES ALL SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF “BORN-AGAIN FAITH” TO BE HIS FOOTWASHERS, SERVANTS, TABERNACLE-TENDERS, CHOIR SINGERS – A BLESSED, ETERNAL, THRILLED FAMILY OF NEVER-DYING, NEVER-ENDING MINISTRY TO THE “LORD OF GLORY”!

OH, BACK TO 1 PETER 1, VERSE 2A, “ELECT…”, BUT NOTICE ALSO 2B, THERE’S “SANCTIFICATION OF THE SPIRIT (THE HOLY SPIRIT) UNTO OBEDIENCE, AND SPRINKLING OF THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST”..FOR GRACE THROUGH YOU TO BE MULTIPLIED!!”

Verse 3 EXPLAINS: “BLESSED BE THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHICH ACCORDING TO HIS ABUNDANT MERCY HAS BEGOTTEN US AGAIN UNTO A LIVING HOPE BY THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THE DEAD, VERSE 4, TO AN INHERITANCE, INCORRUPTIBLE, AND UNDEFILED, AND THAT FADES NOT AWAY, RESERVED IN HEAVEN FOR YOU, VERSE 5,‘WHO ARE KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD THROUGH FAITH (OR TRUST) UNTO SALVATION, READY TO BE REVEALED IN THE LAST DAYS.”

IF CHRIST JESUS SAID ON THE CROSS RIGHT BEFORE HE DIED: “IT IS FINISHED!”, I TELL YOU, SUMMED UP IN THE STATEMENT OF JESUS IS THE DETERMINATION OF THE ‘WHO’ WILL BE SAVED, AND THE GUARANTEE THAT HIS WORK “FOR THEM” IS OVER! ON THE CROSS, BEFORE, IN HIS EARTHLY MINISTRY, BEFORE MANKIND WAS EVER CREATED, JESUS KNEW WHO, WHERE, AND WHEN THEY’D BE BORN, THEN RE-BIRTHED SPIRITUALLY THROUGH HIS MERCY AND LOVE, SERVED HIM FAITHFULLY, AND THEN, UPON EARTHLY DEATH, READY TO BE RAISED CELEBRATING HIM AND HIS ETERNAL “KINGDOM OF GOD REIGN” IN HEAVEN AS HE DID ON EARTH!

“THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?” THAT’S WHO GOD IS;THAT’S WHAT FLOWS IN YOU AND AROUND YOU; IT’S WHAT “HE DOES” IN CHOOSING YOU, AND IN CALLING YOU, AND IN CONVERTING YOU, AND COMPASSIONATELY INDWELLING YOU; AND BECAUSE YOU RESPOND TO HIS PRESENCE, YOU CHOOSE DAILY TO YOUR ‘OLD MAN’, YOUR ‘OLD SIN-NATURE’, DEATH TO IT & YOURSELF, THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE AND SPIRIT OF CHRIST MAY HIMSELF FLOW FREELY, FULLY, AND FAITHFULLY THROUGH YOU DAILY! & YOU LIVE SINGING:

“EVERY DAY I LIVE IN HIS GLORY, EVERY DAY I SHARE HIS STORY: ‘GOD REDEEMS BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB’, NEW CREATIONS REJOICE AS A CHOIR, LOUDLY SINGING: ‘IT’S IN ME CHRIST JESUS’ HOUR; PURCHASED BY HIS BLOOD, RE-BORN IN HIS FLOOD, A REPENTANT MEN NOW SHARES HIS LIFE & HIS MISSION, FULLY FORGIVEN, AMAZINGLY ASSURED: CHRIST MY SAVIOR IS NOW MY LORD”.

WALK IN OBEDIENCE YOUR LORD TO PLEASE, KNOWING LIFE IN HIM IS NO LONGER YOUR DISEASE, BUT A LIFE OF PEACE FREED FROM DISTRESS, BECAUSE IN JESUS YOU SHARE IN HIS ETERNAL REST; NO LONGER SHAMED IN SIN AND UNBELIEF, BY FAITH IN CHRIST’S SACRIFICE, I’VE BECOME HIS DELIGHT! “CHRIST IN ME MY HOPE OF GLORY, CHRIST THROUGH ME MY WORLD’S REDEMPTION STORY. POWERED BY THE SPIRIT AND AWAKENED TO MEN’S “LOST”, I GLADLY SHARE JESUS AT ANY COST.

IN CHRIST OUR “NEW LIFE” GLOWS, AND FREED IN THE SPIRIT GOD’S WORD NOW FLOWS! IT’S THE SEED OF HIS WORD PRODUCING FRUIT, EVEN “NEW-BORN LIVES” AS HIS GREAT DELIGHT! FROM THE GRAVE OF SIN AND DEATH, FROM THE LIES OF RICHES IN ‘FLESH’S WEALTH’, THE TRUTH OF GOD’S MERCY AND GRACE FULLY ABIDE, AS A REPENTANT HEART FAITHS ONLY: “I WANT TO BE ON GOD’S SIDE!”

SO I DIE TO MY SIN, I REST IN HIS GRACE, AND AMAZINGLY SEE, “I’M NOW PART OF HEAVEN’S RACE, EXTENDING HIS LIFE, EXPRESSING HIS LOVE, UNVEILING HIS PRESENCE, I’M LIKE A HEAVENLY DOVE!” I REJOICE IN MY SAVIOR, I REST IN HIS LOVE; I’VE BEEN RAISED UP, SEATED ABOVE! ABOVE SIN AND DEATH, I GLOW IN HIS GLORY, AS LOVINGLY I SHARE REDEMPTION’S STORY; “I AM HIS, AND HE IS MINE, AND IN HIS ABIDING I SHINE.”

IN MATTHEW 16:24 JESUS SAID: “IF ANY MAN WILL COME AFTER ME, LET HIM TAKE UP HIS CROSS, AND FOLLOW ME!” ARE “YOU” FOLLOWING? ARE “YOU” SHARING REDEMPTION’S STORY? DOES YOUR LIFE “GLOW” WITH HEAVEN’S GLORY? I TELL YOU: “SELF-DENIAL” TO SHARE GOD’S GLORY IS NOT AN INCLINATION BUT THE “REVELATION” AND INSPIRATION OF DISCIPLESHIP DUTY, OVERFLOWING FROM THE REALITY OF CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST TO THE REVELATION OF RESURRECTION LIFE IN CHRIST, RAISED UP, IN-FILLED, AND OVERFLOWING WITH HIS HOLY PRESENCE TO BE HIMSELF, TOUCHING MEN AROUND YOU WITH HIS “GREATER LOVE”, HIS “HEAVENLY GLORY”, AND A “NEW LIFE” WILLING TO SHARE HIS STORY! ARE YOU “NEW IN CHRIST WITH THE GREATER LOVE WHICH SHARES HIS STORY”? THAT’S HEAVEN’S LOVE FOR LOST MEN’S EARTHLY NOTHINGNESS THAT HONORS GOD IN THEM, EXCEPT “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, BURIED IN HIS TOMB, BUT RAISED IN 3 DAYS IN ETERNAL GLORY”! IS THAT “YOUR STORY”?

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE OR “THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“DEATH? THE DOOR TO HELL’S WORST OR THE DOOR TO GOD’S ETERNAL GOODNESS?”

IT WAS AN ANONYMOUS WRITER THAT YEARS AND YEARS AGO WROTE THE FOLLOWING: “SOME DAY THE BELL WILL SOUND, SOME DAY MY HEART WILL BOUND, AS WITH A SHOUT THAT SCHOOL IS OUT AND LESSONS DONE, I HOMEWARD RUN.” WHEN I READ THAT COMMENT, I HAD TO ASK, “HOMEWARD BOUND TO WHERE? TO ‘NO-MAN’S LAND’?” TO SOME FLESHLY DREAM-WORLD, AFTER LIFE IS OVER THAT ONE ENVISIONS FOR HIMSELF, OR TO AN UNCERTAIN DESTINATION, OR THE CERTAIN DESTINATION OF A GRAVE-SIGHT, AND THERE IS NO MORE”?

ANOTHER STATEMENT I READ ONCE SOMEWHERE, WRITING DOWN ONLY THE WORDS, BUT WHAT I READ STIRRED SOMETHING IN MY HEART AND MIND TO TRULY EXAMINE ‘DEATH’S REALITY’! THOSE WORDS? “SOME DIE WITHOUT HAVING REALLY LIVED, WHILE OTHERS CONTINUE TO LIVE, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE DIED.”

GODLESS LIVING,WHETHER THE DECEPTION OF AN ATHEISTIC MIND OR THE DESIRE AND MIND AND HEART OF SELF-WILL, SELF-PLEASURE, AND SELF-GOVERNING,LIKE PSALM 14 THAT DAVID SANG ABOUT: “THE FOOL HAS SAID IN HIS HEART, ‘THERE IS NO GOD’. THEY ARE CORRUPT, THEY HAVE DONE ABOMINABLE WORKS, THERE IS NONE THAT DOES GOOD, (WHICH I’M SURE IS GOD’S ANOINTING OF DAVID IN EXPOSING THE FUTILITY OF ‘SELF-DETERMINATION’, ASSERTING, “WHO NEEDS GOD?”) CONTINUING DAVID SANG:

THE LORD LOOKED DOWN FROM HEAVEN UPON THE CHILDREN OF MEN, TO SEE IF THERE WERE ANY THAT DID UNDERSTAND, AND SEEK GOD. (BUT),VERSE 3, “THEY ARE ALL GONE ASIDE, THEY ARE ALL TOGETHER BECOME FILTHY: THERE IS NONE THAT DOES GOOD, NO, NOT ONE. VERSE 4, HAVE ALL THE WORKERS OF INIQUITY NO KNOWLEDGE? WHO EAT UP MY PEOPLE AS THEY EAT BREAD, AND CALL NOT UPON THE LORD?”

NOTICE THAT DAVID SANG PUBLICLY, ANOINTED OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, SAYING, “WORKERS OF INIQUITY WITH NO KNOWLEDGE”? WHAT DOES PAUL DECLARE, ALSO ANOINTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHEN IN ROMANS 3:23, HE SAID, “FOR ALL HAVE SINNED AND FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD.” SIN, THE SIN-NATURE, SIN, THE DEVILISH DECEIT OF SATAN HIMSELF, SIN, THE BIRTHING IN GODLESS HEARTS OF ALIENATION AND SEPARATION FROM HOLY GOD, SIN, THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF SELF-WILL, SELF-PLEASURE, SELF-DETERMINATION “WITHOUT GOD’S INTERFERENCE IN MY SELF-SERVING LIFE”, HUMANITY’S ‘DEATH-NAIL’; AND THOUGH HUMANITY LIVES ON PHYSICALLY ALIVE BUT SPIRITUALLY DEAD, “GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD”, HE DESIGNED ONE’S DELIVERANCE FROM SPIRITUAL DEATH THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF JESUS, THE SACRIFICIAL “LAMB OF GOD”!

AND DEATH, SPIRITUAL DEATH,HOW DID PAUL EXPLAIN THIS IN 2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-21? “FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINS US; BECAUSE WE THUS JUDGE, THAT IF ONE DIED FOR ALL, THEN WERE ALL DEAD: AND THAT HE DIED FOR ALL, THAT THEY WHICH LIVE “SHOULD NOT HENCEFORTH LIVE UNTO THEMSELVES, BUT UNTO “HIM” WHICH DIED FOR THEM, AND ROSE AGAIN”.

WHETHER HENCEFORTH KNOW WE NO MAN AFTER THE FLESH: YES, THOUGH WE HAVE KNOWN CHRIST AFTER THE FLESH, YET NOW HENCEFORTH KNOW WE HIM NO MORE. THEREFORE IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATION; AND THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY; BEHOLD, ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW. AND ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, WHO HAS RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF BY JESUS CHRIST, AND HAS GIVEN TO US THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION;

TO WIT, THAT GOD WAS IN CHRIST, RECONCILING THE WORLD UNTO HIMSELF, NOT IMPUTING THEIR TRESPASSES UNTO THEM; AND HAS COMMITTED UNTO US THE WORD OF RECONCILIATION. NOW THEN WE ARE AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST, AS THOUGH GOD DID BESEECH YOU BY US: WE PRAY YOU IN CHRIST’S STEAD, BE YOU RECONCILED TO GOD. FOR HE HAS MADE HIM TO BE SIN FOR US, WHO KNEW NO SIN, THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS IN HIM.”

ARE YOU AWARE OF THAT? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? EXAMINE CAREFULLY 1 JOHN 3:7-10! HOLY GOD’S WORD SAYS, (THOUGH ‘MODERN-DAY’, ‘ILL-INFORMED’ DISCIPLES FOOLISHLY SAY:”WE CANNOT DO ANYTHING BUT SIN UNTIL WE GET TO HEAVEN?” PHONY-BOLOGNA!), “LITTLE CHILDREN, LET NO MAN DECEIVE YOU: HE THAT DOES RIGHTEOUSNESS IS RIGHTEOUS, EVEN AS CHRIST IS RIGHTEOUS. HE THAT COMMITS (PRESENT TENSE) SIN IS OF THE DEVIL; FOR THE DEVIL SINNED FROM THE BEGINNING. FOR THIS PURPOSE THE SON OF GOD WAS MANIFESTED THAT HE MIGHT DESTROY THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL.

WHOSOEVER IS BORN OF GOD DOES NOT COMMIT SIN (PRESENT TENSE GREEK, “COMMITS-AND-KEEPS-ON-COMMITTING SIN” AS A ‘WAY OF LIFE’!”); FOR GOD’S SEED REMAINS IN HIM: AND HE CANNOT SIN, BECAUSE HE/SHE IS BORN OF GOD. IN THIS THE CHILDREN OF GOD ARE MANIFEST (UNVEILED), AND THE CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL; WHOSOEVER DOES NOT RIGHTEOUSNESS IS NOT OF GOD, NEITHER HE THAT LOVES NOT HIS BROTHER.”

“DEATH? THE DOOR TO HELL’S WORST AS ONE LIVES IN SELF-SATISFACTION THAT THE SIN-NATURE REMAINS, EVEN AS A BELIEVER,(“ENJOY IT”!), “OR”, AS PAUL EDUCATES US IN 2 CORINTHIANS 1:8-12, “FOR WE WOULD NOT, BRETHREN, HAVE YOU IGNORANT OF OUR TROUBLE WHICH CAME TO US IN ASIA, THAT WE WERE PRESSED OUT OF MEASURE, ABOVE STRENGTH, INSOMUCH THAT WE DESPAIRED EVEN OF LIFE: “BUT” WE HAD ‘THE SENTENCE OF DEATH IN OURSELVES (DAILY)’, THAT WE SHOULD NOT TRUST IN OURSELVES, BUT IN GOD, WHO RAISES THE DEAD: WHO DELIVERED US FROM SO GREAT A DEATH, AND STILL DELIVERS; IN WHOM WE TRUST THAT HE WILL YET DELIVER US; YOU ALSO HELPING TOGETHER BY PRAYER FOR US, THAT FOR THE GIFT BESTOWED UPON US BY THE MEANS OF MANY PERSONS THANKS MAY BE GIVEN BY MANY ON OUR BEHALF.

FOR OUR REJOICING IS THIS, THE TESTIMONY OF OUR CONSCIENCE, THAT IN SIMPLICITY AND GODLY SINCERITY, NOT WITH FLESHLY WISDOM, BUT BY THE GRACE OF GOD, WE HAVE HAD OUR CONVERSATION IN THE WORLD, AND MORE ABUNDANTLY TO YOU.”

‘DEATH’ IN YOUR PRESENT LIFE NOW AS A BELIEVER? 2 CORINTHIANS 5:21 DECLARES, “FOR GOD HAS MADE JESUS TO BE SIN FOR US, CHRIST WHO KNEW NO SIN (IN HIMSELF), THAT WE MIGHT (THROUGH HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND REIGNING PRESENCE WITHIN YOU) BE (BEING) MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM!”

DO YOU REMEMBER THAT “THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH”? IN 2 PETER 3:9-11, SAYS, “THE LORD IS NOT SLACK CONCERNING HIS PROMISE, AS SOME MEN COUNT SLACKNESS; BUT IS LONGSUFFERING TOWARD US, NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, BUT THAT ALL SHOULD COME TO REPENTANCE.

BUT THE DAY OF THE LORD WILL COME AS A THIEF IN THE NIGHT; IN THE WHICH THE HEAVENS SHALL PASS AWAY WITH A GREAT NOISE, AND THE ELEMENTS SHALL MELT WITH FERVENT HEAT, THE EARTH ALSO AND THE WORKS THAT ARE THEREIN SHALL BE BURNED UP. SEEING THEN THAT ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE DISSOLVED, WHAT MANNER OF PERSONS OUGHT YOU TO BE IN ALL HOLY CONVERSATION AND GODLINESS”

OH! DON’T FORGET 2 PETER 2 VERSES 19 & 22!. “WHILE THEY PROMISE THEM LIBERTY, THEY THEMSELVES ARE THE SERVANTS OF CORRUPTION; FOR OF WHOM A MAN IS OVERCOME, OF THE SAME IS HE BROUGHT INTO BONDAGE. VERSE 22,BUT IT IS HAPPENED UNTO THEM ACCORDING TO THE TRUE PROVERB, ‘THE DOG IS TURNED TO HIS OWN VOMIT AGAIN; AND THE SOW THAT WAS WASHED TO HER WALLOWING IN THE MIRE.”

ARE THERE ‘DISCIPLES’ TODAY WHO,AT TIMES, BETRAY THE LORD WITHIN, AND WILLFULLY CHOOSE TO PLAY AGAIN IN THEIR ‘POOLS OF SIN-VOMIT’? THERE ARE SOME WHO ARE TOTALLY UNAWARE OF SPIRITUAL DILIGENCE, AND IN THEIR CHILDISH STATE OF FAITH STILL, AT TIMES, WILL INDULGE IN THE ‘DIRT’ OF GODLESSNESS, YES, DECEIVED BY THE DEMONS, THE WORLD, AND THEIR OLD SIN-NATURE!

DO YOU AS A BELIEVER NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THE DIVINE, HOLY SPIRIT WITHIN YOU IS THERE, NOT TO EXTINGUISH YOUR “NEW LIFE IN CHRIST”, BUT TO INTERCEDE IN YOU TO “TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY TO YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, YOUR OLD LIFE THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE CONTINUALLY MANIFESTED IN YOUR MORTAL FLESH?

IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”, (BY EDITOR, FRANK S. MEAD, PUBLISHED BY FLEMING H. REVELL COM., WESTWOOD, NEW JERSEY),ARE WORDS WRITTEN BY EDMUND VANCE COOKE ENTITLED “HOW DID YOU DIE?”, SAYING, “DEATH COMES WITH A CRAWL, OR COMES WITH A POUNCE. AND WHETHER HE’S SLOW OR SPRY, IT ISN’T THE FACT THAT YOU’RE DEAD COUNTS, BUT ONLY, HOW DID YOU DIE?”

“HOW WILL YOU DIE?”UNAWARE OF ETERNAL REALITIES-FLESH OR SPIRIT, HELL OR HEAVEN, SATAN’S WELCOME OR KING JESUS WITH OPEN ARMS?

I MUST SHARE THIS MESSAGE FROM ROMANS 8:1-14!! PAUL SAID: “THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION TO THEM WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, ‘WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH (OR OLD SIN-NATURE!)’, BUT AFTER THE HOLY SPIRIT. FOR THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE ‘IN CHRIST JESUS’ HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH.

FOR WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO, IN THAT IT WAS WEAK THROUGH THE FLESH, GOD SENDING HIS OWN SON IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH, AND FOR SIN, CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH: THAT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH, BUT AFTER THE SPIRIT.

FOR THEY THAT ARE AFTER FLESH (CELEBRATING THEIR OLD SIN-NATURES!) DO MIND THE THINGS OF THE FLESH; BUT THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE SPIRIT THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. FOR TO BE CARNALLY (FLESHLY) MINDED IS DEATH; BUT TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE. BECAUSE THE CARNAL MIND IS ENMITY AGAINST GOD: FOR IT IS NOT SUBJECT TO THE LAW OF GOD, NEITHER INDEED CAN BE. SO THAT THEY THAT ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD.

BUT YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH, BUT IN THE SPIRIT, IF SO BE IT THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. NOW IF ANY MAN DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS. AND IF CHRIST BE IN YOU, THE BODY IS DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. VERSES 11-15 FOLLOW, HEAR IT!!

BUT IF THE SPIRIT OF HIM THAT RAISED UP JESUS FROM THE DEAD DWELLS IN YOU, HE THAT RAISED UP CHRICT FROM THE DEAD SHALL ALSO QUICKEN YOUR MORTAL BODIES BY HIS SPIRIT THAT DWELLS IN YOU. THEREFORE, BRETHREN,WE ARE DEBTORS, NOT TO THE FLESH (OR YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE!), TO LIVE FOR IT.

FOR IF YOU LIVE AFTER THE FLESH, YOU SHALL DIE; BUT IF YOU THROUGH THE SPIRIT DO MORTIFY THE DEEDS OF THE BODY, YOU SHALL LIVE. FOR AS MANY AS ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, THEY ARE THE SONS OF GOD. FOR YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE AGAIN TO FEAR; BUT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION, WHEREBY WE CRY, ‘ABBA,FATHER’.”

I CLOSE WITH HYMN WORDS WRITTEN BY ISAAC WATTS THAT SAYS: “ALAS! AND DID MY SAVIOR BLEED? AND DID MY SOVEREIGN DIE? WOULD HE DEVOTE THAT SACRED HEAD FOR SUCH A WORM AS I?

WAS IT FOR CRIMES THAT I HAD DONE THAT HE GROANED UPON THE TREE? AMAZING PITY! GRACE UNKNOWN! AND LOVE BEYOND DEGREE!

WELL MIGHT THE SUN IN DARKNESS HIDE, AND SHUT HIS GLORIES IN, WHEN CHRIST, THE MIGHTY MAKER DIED FOR MAN THE CREATURE’S SIN.

BUT DROPS OF GRIEF CAN NEVER REPAY THE DEBT OF LOVE I OWE; HERE, LORD, I GIVE MYSELF AWAY, IT’S ALL THAT I CAN DO.”

DO YOU ACCEPT, LIVE IN, AND SHARE WITH OTHERS OUR LORD’S VICTORY OVER THEIR SIN AND DEATH IN ORDER TO “SET THE CAPTIVES FREE”? IN ISAIAH 12:2-3 THE PROPHET SAID: “BEHOLD, GOD IS MY SALVATION; I WILL TRUST HIM, AND NOT BE AFRAID; FOR THE LORD JEHOVAH IS MY STRENGTH AND MY SONG; HE HAS BECOME MY SALVATION. THEREFORE WITH JOY SHALL YOU DRAW WATER OUT OF THE WELLS OF SALVATION”. HAVE YOU “TRUSTED THE LORD”?

VERSES 4-6 FOLLOW SAYING, “AND IN THAT DAY SHALL YOU SAY, (IS THAT SAYING TO OTHERS AROUND YOU?), PRAISE THE LORD, CALL UPON HIS NAME, DECLARE HIS DOINGS AMONG THE PEOPLE, MAKE MENTION THAT HIS NAME IS EXALTED.SING UNTO THE LORD; FOR HE HAS DONE EXCELLENT THINGS; THIS IS KNOWN IN ALL THE EARTH. CRY OUT AND SHOUT, YOU INHABITANTS OF ZION; FOR GREAT IS THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL THAT IS IN YOUR MIDST.” – CAN YOU SAY,RIGHT NOW: “I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST: FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION TO EVERY ONE WHO BELIEVES.” BUT HOW CAN THEY BELIEVE IF THEY NEVER HEARD, AND IF YOU AS CHRIST’S SERVANT AND ASSIGNED MESSENGER NEVER SHARE THE GOOD NEWS? DO YOU SEE THAT YOU “IN CHRIST” ARE A DEBTOR TO THE LOST WORLD AROUND YOU AND THAT WHAT YOU HOLD AND POSSESS OUT OF GOD’S LOVE, WAS GIVEN FREELY TO YOU TO JOYFULLY SHARE WITH OTHERS? “RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD!BE DONE WITH THE FOOLISH”!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?

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

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

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

YOU’LL HEAR MANY ‘RELIGIOUS ,OPINIONATED’, EVEN ‘SORELY CONCEITED INDIVIDUALS’ ‘VERY MUCH IN LOVE WITH THEIR RELIGIOUS SELVES’, THAT THEY ‘STRUT’ IN CHURCHES & THEIR NEIGHBORLY ACTIVITY OF TRYING TO "SAVE OTHERS" WHEN IN THE MIND & HEART & SPIRIT KNOW NOTHING ABOUT "BLOOD ATONEMENT", OR "CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST", OR THE OLD SINFUL

SELF GONE, WITHOUT EVER TAKING "THE SENTENCE OF DEATH TO SELF DAILY THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED IN & THROUGH THEIR MORTAL FLESH"!!!

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

"ACTIVE RELIGION?" "FEELING RELIGIOUSLY ACCEPTABLE",BUT NOT KNOWING: "CHRIST IN ME MY HOPE OF GLORY"! SUNDAY APPEARANCES APART FROM EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY WATCHING CHRIST BE HIMSELF IN YOU & THROUGH YOU, EXTENDING HIS LIFE, EXPRESSING HIS LOVE, & PROVING HIS POWER? MAN’S

INVOLVEMENT IN ‘RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES’ IS NOT AN EXTENSION OF CHRIST’S LIFE, AN EXPRESSION OF HIS LOVE, OR THE PROOF OF HIS POWER-THAT ONLY OCCURS IN "BORN-AGAIN BELIEVERS WHO ARE ,TRULY,MENTALLY, SPIRITUALLY & HISTORICALLY PRESENTABLE, AS THOSE WHO WERE "CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST", & IN HIS

RESURRECTION-PRESENCE, HE COMES IN TO "ABIDE, BEING HIMSELF", AS "YOU" AS A NEW CHILD OF GOD, "TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH!"

"ACTIVE RELIGION? ‘TRYING’ OR "TRUSTING"? SELF­ DETERMINED OR SAVIOR-GRACED? ‘ATTEMPTING’ OR "ATONED THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB", NEW-BORN, & SOVEREIGNLY,WILLINGLY,LIVING IN YOUR HEART AS HEAVEN’S KINGDOM-RULER IN REPENTANT, OBEDIENT HEARTS, GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO GLORIFIES CHRIST IN YOU AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN II IN WATCHMAN NEE’S BOOK, "THE SPIRITUAL MAN", (PUBLISHED BY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP PUBLISHERS,INC., NEW YORK,1968) ON PAGE 43 NEE WROTE: "THE MAN GOD FASHIONED WAS NOTABLY DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER CREATED BEINGS. MAN POSSESSED A SPIRIT SIMILAR TO THAT OF THE ANGELS & AT THE SAME TIME HAD A SOUL RESEMBLING THAT OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. WHEN GOD CREATED MAN HE GAVE HIM A PERFECT FREEDOM. HE DID NOT MAKE MAN AN AUTOMATON, CONTROLLED AUTOMATICALLY BY GOD’S WILL. THIS IS EVIDENT IN GENESIS 2 AT THE TIME GOD INSTRUCTED THE ORIGINAL MAN WHAT FRUIT HE COULD EAT &WHAT NOT. THE MAN GOD CREATED ‘WAS NOT’ A MACHINE RUN BY GOD:INSTEAD HE HAD PERFECT FREEDOM OF CHOICE. IF HE CHOSE TO OBEY GOD, HE COULD; IF HE DECIDED TO REBEL AGAINST GOD, HE COULD DO THAT TOO. MAN HAD IN HIS POSSESSION A SOVEREIGNTY BY WHICH HE COULD EXERCISE HIS VOLITION IN CHOOSING TO OBEY OR DISOBEY. THIS IS A MOST IMPORTANT POINT, FOR WE MUST REALIZE THAT IN OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE

GOD NEVER DEPRIVES US OF OUR FREEDOM. UNLESS WE ACTIVELY COOPERATE, GOD WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANYTHING FOR US. NEITHER GOD NOR THE DEVIL CAN DO ANY WORK WITHOUT FIRST OBTAINING OUR CONSENT, FOR MAN’S WILL IS FREE." WOW! DOUBLE-WOW!" AND, "FREE TO CHOOSE", HISTORIC MAN CHOSE ‘HIS WORLD, HIS FLESH-SIN-NATURE, HIS DECEIVED MIND, "THANKS TO SATAN", AND FELL AWAY FROM HOLY GOD, THEN IN NEED OF RECONCILIATION THROUGH THE "LAMB’S BLOOD ATONEMENT", BIRTHED UPON REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK AT THE CROSS,&, HE/SHE IS THEN BORN-AGAIN, INFILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, & LED ON THE PATH OF TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS TO HONOR THE SAVIOR & LORD!!

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

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

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

IN MY OLD "AMERICAN HYMNAL"( PUBLISHED IN 1933 BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE,TEN-N.) IS A HYMN ENTITLED "BLESSED ASSURANCE". IT SAYS:

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

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

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

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

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

AGAIN, SAME "THE AMERICAN HYMNAL",(P.43),IS A HYMN BY MAY WHITTLE MOODY ENTITLED "MOMENT BY MOMENT". IT SAYS: "DYING WITH JESUS, BY DEATH RECKONED MINE; LIVING WITH JESUS, A NEW LIFE DIVINE; LOOKING TO JESUS TILL GLORY SHINES, MOMENT BY MOMENT, 0 LORD, I AM THINE.

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

NEVER A HEARTACHE, & NEVER A GROAN, NEVER A TEAR-DROP & NEVER A MOAN; NEVER A DANGER, BUT THERE ON THE THRONE, MOMENT BY MOMENT HE THINKS OF HIS OWN. NEVER A WEAKNESS THAT HE DOES NOT FEEL, NEVER A SICKNESS THAT HE CANNOT HEAL; MOMENT BY MOMENT, IN WOE OR IN WEAL, JESUS, MY SAVIOR,ABIDES WITH ME STILL.

MOMENT BY MOMENT I’M KEPT IN HIS LOVE; MOMENT BY MOMENT I’VE LIFE FROM ABOVE; LOOKING TO JESUS TILL GLORY DOES SHINE; MOMENT BY MOMENT, 0 LORD, I AM THINE."

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

IN ROMANS 8:29-39,THERE IS TEACHING WITH A REVELATION SO ENRICHING & INSPIRING TRUE SERVANTS OF CHRIST. PAUL SAYS: "FOR WHOM GOD FOREKNEW, HE ALSO PREDESTINED OR PREDETERMINED TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE (EXACT LIKENESS!) OF HIS SON, THAT HE MIGHT BE THE FIRSTBORN AMONG MANY BRETHREN.

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

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

WHO SHALL LAY ANY THING TO THE CHARGE OF GOD’S ELECT? IT IS GOD THAT JUSTIFIES. WHO IS HE THAT CONDEMNS ?IT IS CHRIST THAT DIED,YEA RATHER, THAT IS RISEN AGAIN, WHO IS EVEN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, WHO ALSO MAKES INTERCESSION FOR US. WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST? SHALL TRIBULATION, OR DISTRESS, OR PERSECUTION, ORFAMINE OR NAKEDNESS, OR PERIL, OR SWORD? NO, IN ALL THESE THINGS WE "ARE" MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUG H HIM THAT LOVED US.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“SMALL SEED – GREAT FRUIT”

HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU KNOW WHO SEE THEIR LIFE AS NOTHING MORE THAN A “RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE”? THEY REALLY DON’T KNOW WHO THEY ARE AND WHY THEY’RE HERE IN THIS AWESOME WORLD? A MEANINGLESS EXISTENCE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE “BIRTHED OR IMAGINED” BECAUSE DOUBT ABOUT LIFE’S MEANING, AT LEAST FOR THEM, HAS DUG THE GRAVE ON BIBLICAL FAITH,MERCY,AND THE LOVE OF GOD,WITH A SIN-NATURE,A SATANIC BLINDING,AND A “LOST WORLD’S DISPOSITION” OF OPPOSING GOD IF THEY AT LEAST ADMIT HE IS AROUND AND ‘MAY’ HAVE CREATED THE WORLD!

AND IF ‘YOU’ HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT YET,AT LEAST, BE ASSURED THAT YOU’RE NOT ALONE IN YOUR DOUBTS AND FEARS, BECAUSE NATURAL MEN WHO BAR THE DOOR TO SPIRITUAL TRUTH AND ITS REALITY ARE ACCOMPLICES OF TYRANNY IN OPPOSITION TO THE GOD THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW! THEY ARE “SEED” WITHOUT ANY “SUBSTANCE” OR UNDERSTANDING ABOUT EVEN WHY GOD WOULD BIRTH A FALLEN PEOPLE!THE TRUTH IS THAT HIS DESIRE FOR HIS SPIRITUAL KINGDOM WAS THAT, AS HE CREATED NATURAL KINGDOMS AND MASSES OF PEOPLE, HE WANTED “ALL” TO HAVE A CHOICE OF A GOD-RELATIONSHIP OR NOT! HE DIDN’T WANT ‘PUPPETS’ ON A STRING MEETING HIS EVERY DESIRE! HE WANTED PEOPLE WHOM HE CALLED TO HIMSELF WHO WOULD BE PEOPLE ALIGNING WITH HIM ON HIS TERMS! IN FACT, HOLY GOD PLANTED IN ALL OF FALLEN MAN’S EXISTENCE THE REALITY OF LIFESTYLE CHOICES: “FLESH OR SPIRITUAL”, “NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL”, “EARTHLY OR HEAVENLY”, “BEST EFFORT” OR “BLESSED REST” IN A SAVIOR’S FINISHED WORK ON THE CROSS”, ‘WILLFUL MINDFULNESS’ OR “SOVEREIGN MERCY”, ‘MAN’S MAN-MADE BROAD HIGHWAYS’ OR “GOD’S NARROW WAY OF LIFE IN CHRIST ALONE”, ‘ACCEPTABLE RELIGIONS’ OR “SPIRITUAL FREEDOM IN THE TABERNACLE OF GOD’S MERCY & GRACE”!

IT WAS BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER BUT I LOVED IT. IT WAS IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,P.107, THAT SAYS: “GOD MADE BEES, AND BEES MADE HONEY; GOD MADE MAN, AND MAN MADE MONEY, PRIDE MADE THE DEVIL, AND THE DEVIL MADE SIN; SO GOD MADE A COAL-PIT TO PUT THE DEVIL IN.” LIFE’S CHOICES? A BLACKENED COAL PIT WITH SATAN, OR HEAVEN ON EARTH IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST?

“SMALL SEED –GREAT FRUIT!” IN HEBREWS 11:17-19 we read, “BY FAITH ABRAHAM, WHEN HE WAS TRIED (TESTED), OFFERED UP ISAAC: AND HE THAT HAD RECEIVED THE PROMISES OFFERED UP HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, OF WHOM IT WAS SAID, ‘THAT IN ISAAC SHALL YOUR SEED BE BLESSED; ACCOUNTING THAT GOD WAS ABLE TO RAISE HIM UP,EVEN FROM THE DEAD;FROM WHENCE ALSO HE RECEIVED HIM IN A FIGURE.” YOU UNDERSTAND –‘TESTING’ TO PLEASE GOD IS NOT MAN OFFERING THEIR SIN-NATURED SONS TO DIE, ‘THINKING’ SURELY GOD CAN RAISE THEM, BUT SONS WITH A ‘SIGN’ OF AN OPEN, YIELDING TO ‘SIN’, EVEN IF THEY DID GRASP ‘REPENTANCE’, ARE NOT, WERE NOT, WILL NOT BE BIRTHED IN THE ‘FLESH’ WITH A ‘SINLESS NATURE’ BUT ‘FLESHLY BIRTHED’ TO CARRY ON ‘SIN-NATIONALITY’, UNLESS CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, GUIDED INTO “TRUTH”, BIRTHED AGAIN THROUGH THE “SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST ON CALVARY’S CROSS”,

THE GUILTY THO’ RELIGIOUS’LIKE MOST OF THE JEWS OF JESUS’S “DAY” ARE NOT “BORN AGAIN” EXCEPT THROUGH CALVARY’S STORY, CHRIST’S RESURRECTION, CHRIST’S KNOCKING ON THEIR HEART’S DOOR TO TRULY AWAKEN THEM! WHEN HE CAUGHT THEIR ATTENTION, JESUS SAID, “REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND!”

FOLLOW ME IN 2 PETER 1:1-12!! SIMON PETER, A SERVANT AND AN APOSTLE OF JESUS CHRIST, TO THEM THAT HAVE OBTAINED ‘LIKE PRECIOUS FAITH’ WITH US “THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD AND OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST: (SAVED FROM WHAT? UNRIGHTEOUSNESS? DISOBEDIENCE TO HOLY TRUTH? WORLD DEVOTION BLINDED TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD WITH FEEBLE ATTEMPTS & FAILING ATTEMPTS THROUGH ‘RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES’ RATHER THAN JESUS TELLING THEM & US, “YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN”, DYING TO YOUR WORLD, YOUR SIN-NATURE, AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS OF SATAN HIMSELF?)

VERSE 2 & FOLLOWING: “GRACE AND PEACE BE MULTIPLIED UNTO YOU THROUGH “THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST: ACCORDING AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN UNTO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE AND GODLINESS, THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF “HIM” THAT HAS CALLED US TO GLORY & VIRTUE; WHEREBY ARE GIVEN UNTO US EXCEEDING GREAT & PRECIOUS PROMISES:THAT BY THESE YOU MIGHT PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, HAVING ESCAPED THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD THROUGH LUST.

VERSE 5 & FOLLOWING: AND BESIDE THIS, GIVING ALL DILIGENCE, ADD TO YOUR FAITH VIRTUE; AND TO VIRTUE KNOWLEDGE; AND TO KNOWLEDGE TEMPERANCE; AND TO TEMPERANCE PATIENCE; AND TO PATIENCE GODLINESS; AND TO GODLINESS BROTHERLY KINDNESS; AND TO BROTHERLY KINDNESS CHARITY.

VERSE 8 &FOLLOWING: FOR IF THESE THINHS BE IN YOU, AND ABOUND,THEY MAKE YOU THAT YOU SHALL NEITHER BE BARREN OR UNFRUITFUL IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. BUT HE THAT LACKS THESE THINGS IS BLIND, AND CANNOT SEE AFAR OFF, AND HAS FORGOTTEN THAT HE WAS PURGED FROM HIS OLD SINS. WHEREFORE THE RATHER, BRETHREN, GIVE DILIGENCE TO “MAKE YOUR CALLING AND ELECTION SURE”; FOR IF YOU DO THESE THINGS, YOU SHALL NEVER FALL; FOR SO AN ENTRANCE SHALL BE MINISTERED UNTO YOU ABUNDANTLY INTO THE EVERLASTING KINGHDOM OF OUR LORD & SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

WHEREFORE I WILL NOT BE NEGLIGENT TO PUT YOU ALWAYS IN REMEMBRANCE OF THESE THINGS, THOUGH YOU KNOW THEM, AND BE “ESTABLISHED” (OR “MADE TO STAND”!) IN THE PRESENT TRUTH.”

THE PRESENT TRUTH? THAT “YOU” WERE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, &THE OLD LIFE THAT DIED ON THE CROSS WAS BURIED IN THE ‘SEA OF GOD’S FORGETFULNESS’, THAT HOLY GOD THEN “RAISED YOU UP IN THE “NEWNESS OF LIFE”, COMMISSIONED YOU AS A SERVANT WHO ALLOWS ONE’S SELF TO BE THE “TABERNACLE” WHERE CHRIST DWELLS, AND CHOOSES TO DO “THROUGH YOU” ALL THE FATHER TELLS YOU TO DO – YOU THEN EXTEND HIS LIFE, EXPRESS LOVE TO HIM MOMENT BY MOMENT, AND HE PROVES HIS RESURRECTION POWER THROUGH YOU AS YOU “REST IN HIM” & ALLOW HIM TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH YOU!!

“SMALL SEED”? BUT GREAT POTENTIAL WHEN “SEED PLANTED BY GOD, WATERED & FERTILIZED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, WITH THE ‘SONSHINE’ OF GOD’S MERCY BLAZING ON IT, PRODUCES CONTINUING, GREAT “FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT” REVEALING THE MERCY, GRACE, AND LOVE OF GOD THROUGH HEAVEN-BORN “TREES OF FAITH & TRUST” IN GOD’S ABILITY TO RAISE THE “DEAD” TO “NEW-LIFE IN & THROUGH THE BLOOD REDEMPTION OF CHRIST’S CROSS, HIS DEATH, & HIS RESURRECTION”!!

I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH WORDS OF JAMES, THE BROTHER OF JESUS, IN JAMES 5:10-20, AS HE WROTE INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT: VERSE 10-20, “TAKE, MY BRETHREN, THE PROPHETS, WHO HAVE SPOKEN IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, FOR AN EXAMPLE OF SUFFERING AFFLICTION, AND OF PATIENCE (OR STEDFASTNESS). BEHOLD, WE COUNT THEM HAPPY WHICH ENDURE. YOU HAVE HEARD OF THE PATIENCE OF JOB, AND HAVE SEEN THE END OF THE LORD; THAT THE LORD IS VERY PITIFUL, & OF TENDER MERCY.

BUT ABOVE ALL THINGS, MY BRETHREN,SWEAR NOT,NEITHER BY HEAVEN,NEITHER BY THE EARTH,NEITHER BY ANY OTHER OATH:BUT LET YOUR YES BE YES; AND YOUR NO,NO; LEST YOU FALL INTO CONDEMNATION. IS ANY AMONG YOU AFFLICTED?LET HIM PRAY.ISANY MERRY?LET HIM SING PSALMS. IS ANY SICK AMONG YOU?LET HIM CALL FOR THE ELDERS OF THE CHURCH; AND LET THEM PRAY OVER HIM,ANOINTING HIM WITH OIL IN THE NAME OF THE LORTD: AND THE PRAYER OF FAITH SHALL SAVE THE SICK, AND THE LORD SHALL RAISE HIM UP; AND IF HE HAS COMMITTED SINS, THEY SHALL BE FORGIVEN HIM.

CONFESS YOUR FAULTS ONE TO ANOTHER, AND PRAY ONE FOR ANOTHER, THAT YOU MAY BE HEALED. THE EFFECTUAL FERVENT PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN AVAILS MUCH. ELIAS (OR ELIJAH) WAS A MAN SUBJECT TO LIKE PASSIONS AS WE ARE, AND HE PRAYED EARNESTLY THAT IT MIGHT NOT RAIN:

AND IT RAINED NOT ON THE EARTH BY THE SPACE OF 3 YEARS & 6 MONTHS. AND HE PRAYED AGAIN, & THE HEAVEN GAVE RAIN, & THE EARTH BROUGHT FORTH HER FRUIT. BRETHREN,IF ANY OF YOU DO ERR FROM THE TRUTH, AND ONE CONVERT HIM; LET HIM KNOW, THAT HE WHICH CONVERTS THE SINNER FROM THE ERROR OF HIS WAY SHALL SAVE A SOUL FROM DEATH, & SHALL HIDE A MULTITUDE OF SINS.”

“SMALL SEED-GREAT FRUIT”? WHAT IS HOLY GOD DOING THRU’ YOUR LIFE? ‘NO SEED-NO FRUIT’? OR “SMALL SEED-GREAT FRUIT”? IT IS AN ETERNAL LIFE CHOICE!!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“THE HOLY TRUTH OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION-LIFE!”

RESURRECTION POWER, RESURRECTION PRESENCE, RESURRECTION PRIVILEGE, ARRIVING, ABIDING, ASKING, EVEN PLEADING,CHRIST JESUS, RESURRECTED AND REIGNING, SAYS: “OPEN YOUR HEART’S DOOR, AND I, JESUS, WILL COME IN.” CHRIST BLED, CHRIST PLEADS, CHRIST KNOCKS ON YOUR HEART’S DOOR”, COMPASSIONATELY SAYING, “SIN NO LONGER YOUR MASTER ANYMORE. MY BLOOD I’VE SHED, YOUR BOOK OF LIFE I’VE READ – AND MY SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SIN? IT’S FOR ME AS IF YOUR SIN NEVER HAD BEEN!”

THOUGH SIN IS ONE’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM GOD, PRODUCING THE “GRAVE OF LIFE” IN WHICH ONE DWELLS, THE SAVIOR COMES SAYING, “THE GLOOM IS GONE, YOUR TOMB IS NOW EMPTY; MY RESURRECTION IS YOUR LIFE OF PLENTY!

MY PLENTY IS YOUR GIFT OF GRACE, MY INTERCESSION IS YOUR GIFT OF A NEW PLACE! MY PLAN IS ‘IMMORTAL HOPE THAT DISPELS THE GLOOM, WITH MANY ANGELS MAKING SURE OF YOUR ROOM’!

EARTH MAY STILL REMAIN EARTH, ASHES WILL HOLD ON AS ASHES, DUST WILL BE DUST – BUT IN RESURRECTION LIFE, WE LIVE OVERCOMING STRIFE, THE GRAVE, AND THE DUST HAS LOST ITS STING – WE ONLY HEAR THE ANGELS SING!

CHRIST IS WELCOMED AS DEPARTED SAINTS SING, AND WE WHO FOLLOW WILL MAKE THE HEAVENS RING! YES, JOY TO OUR WORLD NEVER TO SUBSIDE, BECAUSE JESUS OUR LORD FOREVER ABIDES!

NEVER TO LEAVE US, NEVER TO FORSAKE US, NEVER TO SAY TO US, “THIS IS NOT YOUR PLACE! THOUGH EARTHLY TIME IS REAL, ETERNAL LIFE REMAINS, AND HEAVEN ON EARTH WILL NEVER BE RESTRAINED!

ABIDE IN ME, AND I IN YOU –MARRIED IN MERCY, GRACE, AND LOVE, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THOUGH I DIED ON A CROSS, BURIED IN A TOMB, THREE DAYS LATER I ROSE AGAIN, SO YOU WILL TASTE DEATH BUT CELEBRATE MORE IN RESURRECTION LIFE ETERNALLY; THAT’S HEAVENLY PRESENCE IN SHARED IMMORTALITY.

THE ‘SON-DIAL’ IS SET, THE SON AND MOON NEVER FALL, BECAUSE CHRIST JESUS IS LORD OVER ALL! REJOICE YOU SAINTS; IN YOUR SAVIOR ABIDE, BECAUSE JESUS OUR LORD NEVER HIDES! HE’S EVER-PRESENT YOUR LIFE TO WATCH OVER, WHEN SATAN IN DARKNESS SEEKS YOU TO CLOSE, JESUS SINGS, BECAUSE HE AROSE!

AND OVER YOUR LIFE OF FAITH AND OBEDIENCE AND SERVICE IN THE KING’S NAME, KING JESUS REJOICES AND REVEALS YOUR FAME – MADE FAMOUS IN CHRIST BECAUSE OF THE BLOOD THAT HE SHED, CONTINUALLY PRAISING BECAUSE OF THE FAITH YOU HAVE READ.

TRUSTING HIS WORD, PROVIDENTIALLY IN FAITH WE’RE FULLY BLESSED, CONFIDING IN ‘PROVIDENCE’, WE SURELY “REST”! THOUGH TESTED AND PRESSED AND HEMMED IN ON EVERY SIDE, CHRIST JESUS IS LORD AND SAVIOR REIGNING OVER YOU UNTIL HIS ETERNAL LIGHT SHINES THROUGH.

IN CHRIST YOU’RE VICTORIOUS, THOUGH IT SEEMS YOU OUGHT TO FROWN, BUT BECAUSE OF HIS RESURRECTION PRESENSE IN YOU, ALL SATAN CAN DO IS ACT LIKE A CLOWN. YOU ARE THE WINNER BECAUSE “IN CHRIST” YOU ABIDE, KNOWING JESUS STANDS WITH YOU, BEHIND YOU, AND BY YOUR SIDE.TOUGH, ROUGH, FIERCE TIMES MAY COME YOUR WAY, LIKE A SPARROW THAT SUDDENLY FALLS TO THE GROUND, BUT THE RESURRECTED SAVIOR WILL SURELY BE FOUND, KEEPING WATCH OVER HIS CHILDREN AS THE FATHER OF THEIR FAITH; STRONG IN HIS WORD, SOUND IN HIS WILL – WHEN HIS CHILDREN ARE TESTED, HE DOESN’T REMAIN STILL!

THE “PURE IN HEART” ARE THOSE WHO SEE GOD, WHILE THE SPIRITUALLY BLIND ARE THOSE WITHOUT HOPE WHO SPEAK IN FLESHLY ELOQUENCE WHILE THEIR CHAINS GROW TIGHTER, BUT THE CHILDREN OF FAITH AND OBEDIENCE ARE TRUE SAINTS WITH NO DESIRE OF ANY TAINTS! KNOWING GOD LOVES THE “PURE IN HEART”, A MAN OF TRUE FAITH NEVER LETS ‘RUST’ REMAIN, BUT EVERY DAY HE TAKES THE SENTENCE OF DEATH THAT HE MIGHT CONTINUALLY REJOICE IN HEAVEN’S DOMAIN! THE “PURE IN HEART” NEVER CONSIDER FORSAKING THE WORD’S BIBLICAL STANDARDS, BUT DAILY TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH TO THE OLD MAN THAT THE NEW MAN “IN CHRIST” MAY UNCEASINGLY REJOICE, SECURELY RESTING ON HIS FAITHFUL PROMISES, MIRRORS OF HIS ABIDING PRESENCE!

“IN CHRIST” ONE’S HEART IS TO BE TRANSPARENT AS PURE CRYSTAL; “IN CHRIST” ONE’S MIND IS THE SOUL’S NEW IMAGE, EVEN FIGHTING TO BE BOLD TO KEEP IT PURE! “CHRIST IN YOU IS YOUR HOPE OF GLORY”, HIM FAITHFULLY STANDING TO FIGHT YOUR FIGHT OF FAITH WHEN THE ‘STORM CLOUDS’ RISE, SATAN SURE THAT HE AND HIS DEMONS CAN TAKE YOU DOWN HOPING YOU NEVER RISE TO RESIST THEIR FLOOD; SO IN FAITH PLEAD THE BLOOD!!“THE HOLY TRUTH OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTED LIFE HAS NEVER LOST ITS POWER”! SO IN JESUS, IN THIS HOUR OF EARTHLY TESTINGS, RELAX IN THE WORD, THE SPIRIT, AND THE PROMISES, WATCHING JESUS FIGHT FOR YOU AS GOD’S VICTOR! HE’S MORE THAN CONQUEROR – HE’S ETERNAL VICTOR, OVER THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND SATAN!”

THAT’S THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A VESSEL (ME,YOU!),THAT SO DESIRES HOLY GOD TO RELEASE,UNVEIL, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST’S PRESENCE, SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, HAVING HIS WAY “IN ME,IN YOU AS WE HEAR OR READ HIS MESSAGE”! ARE YOU FAMILIAR AT ALL WITH THE POWERFUL UNVEILING OF CHRIST JESUS IN JOHN ONE? THAT’S WHERE THE APOSTLE JOHN WAS INSPIRED TO WRITE THE FOLLOWING:

JOHN 1:1-5,”IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.(IS THAT JESUS, “THE RESURRECTED, REIGNING, ‘RICH IN LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY’, THE SOVEREIGN MERCIFUL SAVIOR AND LORD?”)

THE SAME WAS IN THE BEGINNING WITH GOD. ALL THINGS WERE MADE BY HIM; AND WITHOUT HIM WAS NOT ANY THING MADE THAT WAS MADE. IN HIM WAS LIFE,(LITERALLY, “IN THE HOLY SPIRIT’S BIRTHING, AND WITH THE “CREATOR’S ETERNAL BLESSING”,JESUS PROMISING “I’LL NEVER LEAVE YOU NOR FORSAKE YOU!”); AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN. (BUT) THE “LIGHT” SHINES IN DARKNESS; AND THE DARKNESS COMPREHENDED IT NOT.”

UNBELIEVERS, IN THEIR DARKNESS, HAVE TO HAVE A WITNESS THAT, YES, THERE IS “THE LIGHT OF CHRIST” THAT CAN TAKE ONE OUT OF THE EMPTINESS OF A SPIRITUALLY DARKENED, SIN-FILLED,SATANICALLY DEVISED,SELF-RULING EXISTENCE TO BRING ONE INTO “THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!”

LET THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDE “YOU” OUT OF SPIRITUAL DARKNESS INTO HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT UNVEILING FOR YOU THE HEAVENLY,ETERNALLY, LIFE-GIVING SAVIOR AND LORD WHO FOREVER REIGNS VICTORIOUSLY THROUGH REPENTANT, “TRUSTING” HEARTS AND SOULS, WHO “TAKE UP THE CROSS, CHOOSING TO FOLLOW JESUS”!

NOTICE,JOHN 1:6-7, “THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROMGOD, WHOSE NAMES WAS JOHN. THE SAME CAME FOR A WITNESS, TO BEAR WITNESS OF THE LIGHT, THAT ALL MEN MIGHT BELIEVE (OR TRUST, SURRENDER, YIELD!).” WHY? BECAUSE RELYING UPON ONE’S INNER,SOCIAL,SELF-ACCEPTED RIGHT TO RULE WITHOUT THE HEAVENLY FATHER’S, YES, INNER SPIRIT AGENDA IN A REPENTANT, TRUSTING HEART, THAT, YES, CHOOSES “DYING DAILY TO ‘THAT’ SELF SO THAT RESURRECTED JESUS IS GIVEN HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE TO LIVE IN YOU AND REIGN THROUGH YOU, TOUCHING YOUR WORLD WITH HIS LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY, WITH YOU AS HIS “WISE, REPENTING, TRUSTING, YIELDED SERVANT,OBEYING TO ‘GO INTO ALL YOUR WORLD PREACHING THE GOSPEL, WITNESSING OF HIS ETERNAL ‘MASTER-WORK’ IN BIRTHING DEAD SPIRITUAL LIVES INTO TEMPLES OF THE INDWELLING LORD AND SAVIOR, HIS HOLY SPIRIT, AND HIS ETERNAL VISION OF WORLD REDEMPTION, THROUGH “YOU” IN FAITHFUL MINISTRY OF INTRODUCING THOSE AROUND YOU WITH THE “GOOD NEWS” OF CHRIST JESUS’S BLOOD SACRIFICE, RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, AND REIGNING ETERNALLY IN REPENTANT MINDS AND HEARTS, ALLOWING, “JESUS, BE JESUS, IN ME – NO LONGER ME, BUT THEE; RESURRECTION POWER, FILL ME THIS HOUR, JESUS, BE JESUS IN ME!”

ALSO, IN JOHN 1, NOTICE VERSES 8-16! “JOHN WAS NOT THAT LIGHT, BUT WAS SENT TO “BEAR WITNESS” OF THAT LIGHT. THAT WAS THE TRUE LIGHT, JESUS, WHICH LIGHTS EVERY MAN THAT COMES INTO THE WORLD. (THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS AN AMAZING UNVEILING OF EVERY MAN IN ANY NATION – HOLY GOD HAS BORNER ‘WITNESS’ UNTO THEM WHETHER THEY RECEIVE IT OR NOT!!!). JOHN CONTINUES, VERSES 10-16,

JESUS WAS IN THE WORLD, AND THE WORLD WAS MADE BY HIM, AND THE WORLD KNEW HIM NOT. HE CAME UNTO HIS OWN (HIS JEWISH HERITAGE, HIS EARTHLY RELATIVES!), HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT. “BUT” AS MANY AS RECEIVED HIM, TO THEM HE GAVE POWER TO BECOME SONS OF GOD, EVEN TO THEM THAT BELIEVE (OR “TRUST”) ON HIS NAME:

WHICH WERE BORN, NOT OF BLOOD, NOR OF THE WILL OF THE ‘FLESH’ (OR OLD SIN-NATURE’), NOR OF THE WILL OF MAN, BUT OF GOD. AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US, (AND WE BEHELD HIS GLORY, THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF FATHER-GOD!DID “YOU”?), FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH.JOHN BORE (&BARES) WITNESS OF HIM, CRYING OUT, SAYING, THIS WAS “HE” OF WHOM I SPOKE, ‘HE THAT COMES AFTER ME IS PREFERRED BEFORE ME; FOR HE WAS BEFORE ME. AND OF HIS FULLNESS HAVE ALL WE RECEIVED, AND GRACE FOR GRACE.”

GRACE FOR GRACE? GRACE GIVEN-GRACE SHARED! GRACE WORKING IN ME – GRACE WORKING THROUGH ME! GRACE FOR THE LOST – GRACE FOR THE FOUND! GRACE TO EXPOUND-GRACE TO ENLIGHTEN OTHERS! GRACE TO GROUND ONE ON THE TRUE FOUNDATION OF VICTORIOUS LIVING – GRACE TO TRANSPORT US THROUGH THE GRAVE UNTO OUR EARTHLY MINISTRIES THEN UNTO OUR ETERNAL HOME AROUND CHRIST’S THRONE, GOD GRACIOUSLY ALLOWING US TO ETERNALLY BE CHRIST’S “FOOT-WASHERS” AS SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE KING OF GLORY!

DEATH IS AND HAS NO “STING” –IT’S THE OPENING OF THE DOOR TO UNENDING SERVICE TO THE RESURRECTED SAVIOR AND LORD ON HIS THRONE! RESURRECTION LIFE! RESURRECTION POWER! RESURRECTION GLORY AND GRACE AND GLOW!

IN THE OLD BROADMAN HYMNAL PUBLISHED BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, COPYRIGHTED IN 1940, IS THE OLD HYMN “PEACE!BE STILL!”, WRITTEN BY MARY BAKER AND H.R.PALMER. IT SAYS:

“MASTER, THE TEMPEST IS RAGING! THE BILLOWS ARE TOSSING HIGH! THE SKY IS O’ER-SHADOWED WITH BLACKNESS, NO SHELTER OR HELP IS NIGH: “CAREST YOU NOT THAT WE PERISH?” HOW CAN YOU LIE ASLEEP? WHEN EACH MOMENT SO MADLY IS THREATENING A GRACE IN THE ANGRY DEEP?

MASTER, WITH ANGUISH OF SPIRIT I BOW IN MY GRIEF TODAY; THE DEPTHS OF MY SAD HEART ARE TROUBLED; O WAKEN AND SAVE, I PRAY! TORRENTS OF SIN AND OF ANGUISH SWEEP O’ER MY SINKING SOUL! AND I PERISH! I PERISH, DEAR MASTER; O HASTEN, AND TAKE CONTROL!

MASTER, THE TERROR IS OVER, THE ELEMENTS SWEETLY REST; EARTH’S SUN IN THE CALM LAKE IS MIRRORED, AND HEAVEN’S WITHIN MY BREAST. LINGER, O BLESSED REDEEMER, LEAVE ME ALONE NO MORE; AND WITH JOY I SHALL MAKE THE BLEST HARBOR, AND REST ON THE BLISSFUL SHORE.

“THE WINDS AND THE WAVES SHALL OBEY GOD’S WILL, PEACE, BE STILL!” WHETHER THE WRATH OF A STORM-TOSSED SEA, OR DEMONS, OR MEN, OR WHATEVER IT BE, NO WATER CAN SWALLOW THE SHIP WHERE LIES “THE MASTER” OF OCEAN AND EARTH AND SKIES; THEY ALL SHALL SWEETLY OBEY MY WILL; PEACE, BE STILL!” ARE “YOU”AT PEACE WITH HOLY GOD, BY CHRIST JESUS, CONVICTED, CONVINCED, CONSECRATED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT?

IN EXODUS 14:8, PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT, LIKE SATAN OVER HELL, HAD HIS HEART HARDENED, AND HE CONTINUED PURSUING THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, LIKE SATAN TODAY STILL PURSUES THE SONS OF FAITH, THE CHILDREN OF GOD, THE JOINT-HEIRS AND ANOINTED AMBASSADORS OF CHRIST JESUS,BUT IN VERSES 13-14 WE READ: AND MOSES SAID UNTO THE PEOPLE, “FEAR YOU NOT, STAND STILL, AND SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD, WHICH HE SHALL SHEW TO YOU TODAY; FOR THE EGYPTIANS (THEN, BUT THE WORLD, YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, AND SATAN NOW!) WHOM YOU HAVE SEEN TODAY, YOU SHALL SEE THEM AGAIN NO MORE FOR EVER. THE LORD SHALL FIGHT FOR YOU, AND YOU SHALL HOLD YOUR PEACE.”

“THE HOLY TRUTH OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION LIFE?” THAT’S INHERITING THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST IN YOU AS YOU DAILY DIE TO YOUR OLD SELF THAT THE “NEW MAN” IN CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH! AND YOU KNOW IT’S REALITY BY THE INDWELLING HOLY SPIRIT OF CHRIST WHO ESTABLISHES THE KINGDOM OF GOD WITHIN AND BEARS FRUIT! GALATIANS 5:22-25 SAYS, “BUT THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE, JOY, PEACE, LONGSUFFERING, GENTLENESS, GOODNESS, FAITH, MEEKNESS (TEMPERANCE OR SELF CONTROL!); AGAINST SUCH THERE IS NO LAW. (AS A RESULT) VERSE 24 SAYS, AND THEY THAT “ARE CHRIST’S” HAVE CRUCIFIED THE FLESH (DAILY!?!) WITH ITS AFFECTIONS AND LUSTS. VERSE 25! “IF WE LIVE ‘IN THE SPIRIT’, LET US ALSO “WALK IN THE SPIRIT”!

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY OF FAITH IN THE CHURCH, YOUR COMMUNITY, YOUR NATION, AND THE WORLD! ARE YOU THE “FAITHFUL AMBASSADOR OF CHRIST THE LORD”? IN A BOOK I HAD PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER, 2006, ENTITLED “OUR GRACIOUS GOD”, ON PPS.90-91, I WROTE: “I CAME ACROSS A STORY THAT SO EASILY COULD HAVE BEEN MY LIFE. LOCATION –BELLE CHASE, LOUISIANA. A COUPLE WAS OUT ON A ROMANTIC DRIVE THROUGH A WOODED SECTION. ONE OF THEM GLANCED ASIDE TO SEE A SHIMMERING, WHITE GLOW THAT CAUGHT THE EYES. THEY DECIDED TO INVESTIGATE AND FOUND A DEAD TEENAGER HANGING FROM A TREE LIMB WITH A BED-SHEET WRAPPED AROUND HIS NECK. HE LEFT A NOTE ADDRESSED TO “MOM AND DAD.” IT SAID:

“I NEVER DID DEVELOP INTO A REAL PERSON AND I CANNOT TOLERATE THE FALSE AND EMPTY EXISTENCE I HAD CREATED. WHAT FRUSTRATED ME MOST IN THE LAST YEAR WAS THAT I HAD BUILT NO TIES TO FAMILY OR FRIENDS. THERE WAS NOTHING OF LASTING WORTH AND VALUE. I LED A DETACHED EXISTENCE. I AM A BOMB OF FRUSTRATION AND SHOULD NEVER MARRY OR HAVE CHILDREN. IT IS SAFEST TO DEFUSE THE BOMB HARMLESSLY NOW, SIMPLY CREMATE ME AS JOHN DOE.” I WENT ON CLOSING OUT THAT CHAPTER, WRITING: “NO ONE EVER CLAIMED HIM OR TO HAVE KNOWN HIM. HE TRULY DIED ‘alone’,(a lonely, godless, unbelieving ‘child’!).THAT SO EASILY COULD HAVE BEEN THE STORY OF MY LIFE. COMING OUT OF A FAMILY OF A BROKEN MARRIAGE, I WAS THREE YEARS OF AGE, TAKEN TO LIVE WITH MY GRANDPARENTS –AND EVEN THOUGH THEY LOVED ME, THERE WAS THAT GNAWING EMPTINESS OF UNIMPORTANCE TO ANYBODY. ALL THROUGH THE YEARS OF MY LIFE (EVEN COLLEGE & SEMINARY!!!) UNTIL MY LATE THIRTIES SUICIDE WAS A POSSIBILITY – BUT SOMETHING HELD ME BACK UNTIL I WAS BORN AGAIN IN FEBRUARY, 1974!! IT WAS THE LOVE OF MY WIFE, SUE, MY CHILDREN, THE LOVE OF FAMILY, AND YES THE LOVE OF THE BODY OF CHRIST, THEIR LOVE FOR HIM SHINING THE LIGHT THAT GOD HIMSELF ALWAYS LOVED ME AND WANTED TO BE MY SAVIOR, MY SHIELD, AND MY PROTECTOR AND PROVIDER AND PROVISION OF “CHRIST IN ME, MY HOPE OF GLORY”, YES, MY GUARANTEE OF “MORE THAN A CONQUEROR THROUGH CHRIST WHO LOVED ME AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME.

TELL ME! WHAT ABOUT YOU NOW, THROUGH DEATH’S DOOR, ENTERING AN EVERLASTING HOME: “IN CHRIST”, HEAVEN! APART FROM HIM, “AN ETERNAL HELL WITH SATAN, THE WORLD, AND UNREDEEMED LIVES”! CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY!!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“SURE TESTS FOR BLOOD-REDEEMED LIVES ‘IN CHRIST’!

SEVERAL VERSES TO LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR THIS MESSAGE ARE FOUND, FIRST, IN LUKE 10:38, WHERE THE CONVERTED PHYSICIAN SAID, “HOW GOD ANOINTED JESUS OF NAZARETH WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT AND WITH POWER, WHO WENT ABOUT DOING GOOD AND HEALING ALL WHO WERE OPPRESSED BY THE DEVIL, FOR GOD WAS WITH HIM.”

THEN WE READ IN ACTS 19:11, “NOW GOD WORKED UNUSUAL (OR “EXTRAORDINARY”) MIRACLES BY THE HANDS OF PAUL.” BUT ARE YOU AWARE THAT OVER THE CENTURIES THE “GOOD NEWS” WAS SO ‘WATERED’ DOWN THAT ‘BELIEVERS’ COULDN’T SEE CHRIST WANTED TO BE HIMSELF “IN THEM” SO THAT THROUGH THEM HE COULD EXTEND & EXPRESS & UNVEIL “THE GOD OF SIGNS AND WONDERS”?

ARE THE “PROMISES” AND MULTIPLE “ASSURANCES” IGNORED, OR WILLFULLY BLINDED TO, OR WIPED OUT THROUGH ONE’S ‘SELF-ASSURANCE THAT I’M FORGIVEN, AND THAT’S ALL THAT I’M CONCERNED ABOUT?’, WHEN ONE, A MAN OR WOMAN, BOY OR GIRL, IS,YES,(ROMANS 3:24) “BEING JUSTIFIED FREELY BY GOD’S GRACE THROUGH THE REDEMPTION THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS,” WE, THEN, ARE FREE TO ENJOY OUR ETERNAL BLESSINGS WITH NO CONCERN FOR THOSE AROUND US WHO DON’T KNOW ABOUT “GOD’S SAVING GRACE & MERCY THROUGH CHRIST JESUS”?

RECONCILIATION TO HOLY GOD, BUT NO REACHING OUT TO THOSE WHO NEED HIS RECONCILIATION PROMISE? “RE-BIRTH” THROUGH REPENTANCE AND FAITH, BUT NO CONCERN OF EXTENDING THE FAMILY OF FAITH? THE DOOR OPENED BY CHRIST TO HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM YOU WERE WELCOMED INTO, BUT BLINDED TO OTHERS WHO NEED THE SAME GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE? YOU, “CLOTHED IN HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS”, BUT “you”HAVE NO DESIRE TO CLOTHE OTHERS IN “CHRIST’S MINISTRY” TO BIRTHED, NATURAL SEEDED BABIES, DESPERATELY NEEDING TO BE RAISED OUT OF SPIRITUAL DEATH INTO THE EVERLASTING REALMS OF ETERNAL LIFE & CLOTHED, YES, AS THE HOLY WORD SAYS IN REVELATION 16:15b, “BLESSED IS HE THAT WATCHES, AND KEEPS HIS GARMENTS, LEST YOU WALK NAKED, AND THEY SEE YOUR SHAME??” EXAMINE CAREFULLY 2 CORINTHIANS 5:4 WHERE PAUL SAID: “FOR WE THAT ARE IN THIS (PHYSICAL) TABERNACLE DO GROAN, BEING BURDENED; NOT FOR THAT WE WOULD BE UNCLOTHED (ANY LONGER!), BUT CLOTHED UPON, THAT MORTALITY WOULD BE SWALLOWED UP OF LIFE”, WHICH MEANS MORTAL BEINGS WHO REPENT AND FAITH CHRIST WILL BE CLOTHED IN THE “GARMENTS OF HIS SALVATION” PLUS THE FRUITS OF HIS HOLY SPIRIT ‘JUICING US UP’ TO THE GLORY OF GOD!!

“IN CHRIST” ARE YOU “A VESSEL UNTO HONOR, SANCTIFIED, AND MEET (OR PREPARED, EQUIPPED, DRESSED) FOR THE MASTER’S USE?” ARE YOU “CLOTHED IN CHRIST’S GARMENTS” OF HIS “GRACED PRESENCE WITHIN”,“GRACE GIFTS”, “GRACE CALLINGS & ORDERS”, PLUS, “GRACE EXPOSURES WHEN THE REDEEMED DISCIPLES THINK THEIR ‘EFFORTS ARE SURELY ACCEPTABLE WHEN’, (IF THEY WERE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST), EVEN THEIR BEST EFFORTS BECOME POOR SUBSTITUTIONS FOR JESUS’ RESURRECTED, REIGNING, RULING,AND JESUS WILL REACH THROUGH THE STUNNED PRETENSE OF ‘THE GIVE-IT-YOUR-BEST ATTITUDE’, ‘OR DOES A DISCIPLE’S GRIT, HIS BEST EFFORT, AND HIS MENTAL ABILITIES’ CARRY HIM/HER ON LIFE’S HIGHWAY, BUT SHAMING CHRIST BECAUSE HE/SHE WALKS NAKED, NOT CLOTHED IN THE FULLNESS OF HIS HOLY PRESENCE IN SPIRIT-ABIDING WITHIN, AND CERTAINLY NOT IN “HIS ARMOR” TO PROTECT ONE WHO GOES OUT INTO DARKNESS TO SHARE THE “LIGHT”, UNVEILING THE ‘SINNERS’ DARKNESS’ AND HOPING “CHRIST IN YOU & THROUGH YOU” IS ALIVE AND WELL & THAT HE WILL BE IN YOU, YES, “AS YOU TRIED SHINING HIS “LIGHT” BUT THOSE BEFORE YOU WHO “MUST BE BORN AGAIN” NEED THE RESURRECTED CHRIST, NOT A ‘BEST-EFFORT DISCIPLE’ WITH ‘NATURAL LIGHT’ BUT NOT “SPIRIT-ANOINTING” TESTIFYING THROUGH TRUE VESSELS, THAT ARE “VESSELS”,BUT HIS PRESENSE WITHIN YOU, YES, ISN’T SPEAKING TO THE NEEDY THROUGH YOU BECAUSE ‘YOU’ “TRY” BUT AREN’T “TRUSTING” TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH YOU?

“SURE TESTS FOR THE BLOOD-REDEEMED ‘IN CHRIST’?” IN MATTHEW 9:31 JESUS SPOKE TO HIS DISCIPLES, [LET ME PAUSE BEFORE I READ]: (IF “YOU” ARE A TRUE DISCIPLE OF CHRIST, DO “YOU” HEAR HIM SPEAK TO “YOU” THROUGH HIS WORD, HIS HOLY SPIRIT WHO “GUIDES YOU INTO ALL TRUTH”, AND THROUGH “YOUR” SCRIPTURAL AND “YOUR” MIND AND HEART-UNDERSTANDING THAT, HAVING REDEEMED YOU BY HIS OWN BLOOD, BOUGHT & FREED YOU FROM SATANIC BONDAGE, POURED INTO YOU HIS HOLY SPIRIT, AND COMMISSIONED YOU TO BE HIS WITNESSES, HIS MESSENGERS TO THE ‘UNSAVED’, YOU ONLY SEE THAT, AS A ‘CHURCH MEMBER’, IT’S THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PREACHERS, EVANGELISTS, AND MISSIONARIES, BUT NOT “YOU”?)

MATTHEW 9:31? “BUT THEY, WHEN THEY WERE DEPARTED, SPREAD ABROAD HIS FAME IN ALL THAT COUNTRY.” OH, BUT THEN LOOK AT MATTHEW 9:35-38, “AND JESUS WENT ABOUT ALL THE CITIES AND VILLAGES, TEACHING IN THEIR SYNAGOGUES, AND PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM, AND HEALING EVERY SICKNESS AND EVERY DISEASE AMONG THE PEOPLE. (PAUSE! QUESTION: “DO YOU THINK ‘DISEASE’ INCLUDES “DIS-EASE”, OR TROUBLED, BLINDED, DARKENED BY SIN, CAPTURED BY THE LOVE OF THE WORLD, THE ‘FLESH’, OR DEVILISH, DEMONIC ACTIVITIES?”).VERSES36-38,”BUT WHEN HE SAW THE MULTITUDES, ‘HE’ (JESUS) WAS MOVED WITH COMPASSION ON THEM, BECAUSE THEY FAINTED, AND WERE SCATTERED ABROAD, AS SHEEP HAVING NO SHEPHERD.

THEN SAID JESUS UNTO HIS DISCIPLES, “THE HARVEST IS TRULY PLENTEOUS, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW; PRAY YOU THEREFORE THE LORD OF THE HARVEST THAT HE WILL SEND LABOURERS INTO HIS HARVEST.”

“SURE TESTS FOR THE BLOOD-REDEEMED IN CHRIST?”

1! “ARE THE BLOOD-REDEEMED IN CHRIST FAITHUL WITNESSES COMMISSIONED BY CHRIST?” IN MATTHEW 28:18-20, JESUS CAME (AND HE STILL COMES!!), SAYING, “ALL POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH. GO YOU THEREFORE, AND TEACH ALL NATIONS, BAPTIZING THEM IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, & OF THE SON, & OF THE HOLY GHOST: TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THINGS, WHATSOEVER I HAVE COMMANDED YOU; AND, LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD.”

2! “ARE THE BLOOD-REDEEMED ‘OBEDIENT’ SONS AND DAUGHTERS, FOLLOWING THE LORD’S GREAT COMMISSION?” IN ACTS 22, UPON SAUL’S CONVERSION BY CHRIST “SEEING (THE “LIGHT”!), WHO BECAME PAUL, WROTE: VERSES 10-15, SAYING, AND SAUL SAID,”WHAT SHALL I DO, LORD?” AND THE LORD SAID, “I AM JESUS OF NAZARETH, WHOM YOU JEWS PERSECUTE.” AND THEY THAT WERE WITH ME SAW INDEED THE LIGHT, AND WERE AFRAID; BUT THEY HEARD NOT THE VOICE OF HIM THAT SPOKE TO ME.

AND I SAID, “WHAT SHALL I DO, LORD?” AND THE LORD SAID TO ME, “ARISE, AND GO INTO DAMASCUS; AND THERE IS SHALL BE TOLD YOU OF ALL THINGS WHICH ARE APPOINTED FOR YOU TO DO.”- (HAVE “YOU” RECEIVED “YOUR DIVINE APPOINTMENT”?). AND WHEN I COULD NOT SEE FOR THE GLORY OF THAT LIGHT, BEING LED BY THE HAND OF THEM THAT WERE WITH ME, I CAME INTO DAMASCUS.

AND ONE, ANANIAS, A DEVOUT MAN ACCORDING TO THE LAW, HAVING A GOOD REPORT OF ALL THE JEWS WHICH DWELT THERE, CAME UNTO ME, AND STOOD, AND SAID UNTO ME, BROTHER SAUL, RECEIVE YOUR SIGHT. AND THE SAME HOUR I LOOKED UP UPON HIM. AND HE SAID, “THE GOD OF OUR FATHERS HAS CHOSEN YOU, THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW HIS WILL, AND SEE THAT “JUST ONE”, AND SHOULD HEAR THE VOICE OF HIS MOUTH. FOR “YOU” SHALL BE “HIS” WITNESS UNTO ALL MEN OF WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN & HEARD.”

ARE “YOU”, HAVING BEEN SAVED, A “PROCLAIMER OF TRUTH”? WERE “YOU” COMMISSONED BY CHRIST? ARE “YOU”, ACCORDING TO 2 TIMOTHY 2:15, “STUDYING TO SHOW YOURSELF APPROVED UNTO GOD, A WORKMAN THAT NEEDS NOT TO BE ASHAMED, BUT RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH”?

“SURE TESTS FOR THE BLOOD-REDEEMED ‘IN CHRIST’?”

3! “ARE THE BLOOD-REDEEMED “IN CHRIST” THOSE WHO FAITHFULLY ‘PROTECT & PERFECT’ THEIR TESTIMONY OF ‘FAITH IN CHRIST’?” HEAR 2 PETER 3:13-14!! “NEVERTHELESS WE, ACCORDING TO “HIS” PROMISE, LOOK FOR NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH WHEREIN DWELLS RIGHTEOUSNESS. WHEREFORE, BELOVED, BRETHREN, SEEING THAT YOU LOOK FOR SUCH THINGS, BE DILIGENT THAT YOU MAY BE FOUND OF HIM IN PEACE, WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH.”

DO “YOU” WALK IN PARTIAL PURITY SINCE CONVERSION, OR IN THE PURITY OF CHRIST? DO “YOU” WALK IN PARTIAL OBEDIENCE SOME OF THE TIME, OR SOLD OUT TO BE AN OBEDIENT SERVANT OF THE KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS?

4) “ARE THE BLOOD-REDEEMED “IN CHRIST” THOSE WHO,YES, WALK IN CONFIDENCE & BLESSED ASSURANCE”? IN HEBREWS 3:1 & 6-14 WE FIND CHALLENGING WORDS: 3:1 “WHEREFORE, HOLY BRETHREN, PARTAKERS OF THE HEAVENLY CALLING, CONSIDER THE “APOSTLE AND HIGH PRIEST” OF OUR ‘PROFESSION’, CHRIST JESUS.”, FOLLOWED BY VERSES 6-14! “CHRIST AS A SON OVER “HIS” OWN HOUSE;WHOSE HOUSE ARE WE “IF” WE HOLD FAST THE CONFIDENCE AND THE REJOICING OF THE HOPE FIRM TO THE END. WHEREFOR (AS THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYS, ‘TODAY IF YOU WILL HEAR HIS VOICE,

HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS, AS IN THE PROVOCATION, IN THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS: WHEN YOUR FATHERS TEMPTED ME, AND SAW MY WORKS FORTY YEARS. WHEREFORE I WAS GRIEVED WITH THAT GENERATION, AND SAID, ‘THEY DO ALWAYS ERR IN THEIR HEART; AND THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN “MY”WAYS. SO I SWORE IN MY WRATH, “THEY SHALL NOT ENTER INTO MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER INTO MY REST.)

TAKE HEED,BRETHREN, LEST THERE BE IN ANY OF YOU AN EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF, IN DEPARTING FROM THE LIVING GOD. BUT EXHORT ONE ANOTHER DAILY, WHILE IT IS CALLED “TODAY”; LEST ANY OF YOU (BELIEVERS) BE HARDENED THROUGH THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. FOR WE ARE MADE PARTAKERS OF CHRIST, IF WE HOLD THE BEGINNING OF OUR CONFIDENCE STEDFAST UNTO THE END.”

IN THE OLD “AMERICAN HYMNAL”, PUBLISHED IN 1933, (BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.),P.21, IS A HYMN ENTITLED, “HAIL, JESUS ONCE DESPISED”,SAYING, “HAIL, YOU ONCE DESPISED JESUS! HAIL, YOU GALILEAN KING! YOU SUFFERED TO RELEASE US; YOU DID FREE SALVATION BRING.

HAIL, YOU AGONIZING SAVIOR, BEARER OF OUR SIN AND SHAME! BY YOUR MERITS WE FIND FAVOR; LIFE IS GIVEN THRO’ YOUR NAME.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“A CHURCH’S, A PASTOR’S, A DISCIPLE’S MINISTRY TO A LOST, NEEDY, SINFUL WORLD”

VERY ‘WEIGHTY,CONVICTING VERSES’ RESIDES IN JAMES I:26-27 WHERE THE BROTHER OF JESUS, JAMES, WROTE: “IF ANY MAN AMONG YOU,SEEM TO BE RELIGIOUS, AND BRIDLES NOT HIS TONGUE, BUT DECEIVES HIS OWN HEART, THIS MAN’S RELIGION IS VAIN. PURE RELIGION AND UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD AND THE FATHER IS THIS,..

TO VISIT THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS IN THEIR AFFLICTION, AND TO KEEP HIMSELF UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.” THE BROTHER OF JESUS SAW A GREAT NEED, ‘THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS IN THEIR AFFLICTION.’ THANK GOD FOR JAMES BECAUSE “HE SAW” A GREAT NEED AND INSTRUCTED DISCIPLES AROUND HIM TO MEET THAT NEED! BUT IS THAT ALL THAT A CHURCH, A PASTOR, OR A DISCIPLE IS CALLED TO DO? “I DON’T THINK SO! I KNOW IT’S NOT ALL! DID JAMES REALLY SAY: “TRUE DISCIPLES ARE TO KEEP THEMSELVES UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD”?

BUT MULTITUDES ACROSS AMERICA AND THE REST OF THE WORLD WILL IGNORE “BLOOD ATONEMENT THRU’ CHRIST’S CRUCIFIXION, IGNORE HIS RESURRECTION, DENY HIS PROMISE, “OPEN THE DOOR OF YOUR HEART AND I WILL COME IN!” BUT RATHER THAN REPENTING, INVITING JESUS IN, LETTING THE “HISTORIC CHRIST” BE HIMSELF IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU, MOST PROFESSORS OF FAITH IN CHRIST ‘PROFESS’ BUT THEY WANT ‘CHURCH MEMBERSHIP’ APART FROM “NEW BIRTH”!

IN 2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17 PAUL WROTE: “ALL SCRIPTURE IS GIVEN BY INSPIRATION OF GOD, AND IS PROFITABLE FOR DOCTRINE, FOR REPROOF, FOR CORRECTION, FOR INSTRUCTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS: THAT THE MAN OF GOD MAY BE MADE PERFECT, THOROUGHLY FURNISHED IN ALL GOOD WORKS.” WHAT POWERFUL, CONVICTING, INSTRUCTIVE WORDS OF GOD TO EVERY DISCIPLE!

THE CONVERTED, POWERFUL, NATURAL FISHERMAN AND SPIRITUAL FISHERMAN,SIMON PETER, WROTE IN 2 PETER 1,FIRST,VERSES 3-4, “ACCORDING AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN UNTO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE AND GODLINESS, “THROUGH” THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST WHO HAS CALLED US TO GLORY AND VIRTUE: AND, WHEREBY ARE GIVEN UNTO US EXCEEDING GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES: THAT BY THESE YOU MIGHT “BE” PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, HAVING ESCAPED THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD THROUGH LUST”!

READ IN YOUR OWN BIBLE VERSES 5-7 BEFORE YOU CONTINUE READING THE FOLLOWING, VERSES 8-11, WHEN PETER,YES, ALSO INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, WROTE: “FOR IF THESE THINGS BE IN YOU, AND ABOUND,THEY MAKE YOU THAT YOU SHALL NEITHER BE BARREN NOR UNFRUITFUL IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. BUT HE THAT LACKS THESE THINGS IS BLIND, AND CANNOT SEE AFAR OFF, AND HAS FORGOTTEN THAT HE WAS PURGED FROM HIS OLD SINS.

WHEREFORE THE RATHER,BRETHREN,GIVE DILIGENCE,TO MAKE YOUR CALLING AND ELECTION SURE; FOR IF YOU DO THESE THINGS, YOU SHALL NEVER FALL; FOR SO AN ENTRANCE SHALL BE MINISTERED UNTO YOU ABUNDANTLY INTO THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.”

I’M SORRY IF IT ‘BOTHERS’ YOU THAT I SHARE SO MUCH SCRIPTURE WITH YOU, BUT I’M FULLY CONVINCED THAT YOU NEED GOD’S TRUTH MORE THAN MY THOUGHTS!

WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO READ IS GOD’S HOLY CALLING TO FAITHFUL DISCIPLES TO, YES, BE MISSION-MINDED MEN AND WOMEN IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD LITERALLY AND FAITHFULLY LAYING DOWN YOUR LIFE IF NECESSARY TO SHARE THE EVANGELISTIC TRUTH OF GOD’S LOVE FOR THE WORLD THROUGH HIS SACRIFICE OF HIS SON! AND YOU?

SO…IN 1 CORINTHIANS 1:17-31 WE READ EVERY TRUE DISCIPLE’S CALLING AND LIFE-IN-CHRIST’S MISSION AND MINISTRY!! IT SAYS: “FOR CHRIST SENT ME NOT TO BAPTIZE, BUT TO PREACH THE GOSPEL: NOT WITH WISDOM OF WORDS, LEST THE CROSS OF CHRIST SHOULD BE MADE OF NO EFFECT. FOR THE PREACHING OF THE CROSS IS TO THEM THAT PERISH FOOLISHNESS; BUT UNTO US WHO ARE ‘BEING’ SAVED IT IS THE POWER OF GOD.

FOR IT IS WRITTEN, I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND WILL BRING TO NOTHING THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRUDENT. WHERE IS THE WISE?WHERE IS THE SCRIBE?WHERE IS THE DISPUTER OF THIS WORLD?HAS NOT GOD MADE FOOLISH THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD?” (‘THE DISPUTER OF THIS WORLD’? THAT’S MEN WHO BELIEVE THE WORLD WAS MADE ‘FOR THEM’, NOT FOR THE GLORY OF GOD ALONE!).

VERSES 21-31 FOLLOWS: “FOR AFTER THAT IN THE WISDOM OF GOD THE WORLD BY WISDOM KNEW NOT GOD, IT PLEASED GOD BY THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING TO SAVE THEM THAT BELIEVE. FOR THE JEWS REQUIRE A SIGN, AND THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM:(LET ME PAUSE &SAY,“FOOLISH AMERICANS, ASIANS,AFRICANS,EUROPEANS”?),VERSES 23-31!BUT WE PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED, UNTO THE JEWS A STUMBLING BLOCK, AND UNTO THE GREEKS FOOLISHNESS; BUT UNTO THEM WHICH ‘ARE CALLED’, BOTH JEWS AND GREEKS, CHRIST,THE POWER OF GOD,AND THE WISDOM OF GOD.

BECAUSE THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD IS WISER THAN MEN; AND THE WEAKNESS OF GOD IS STRONGER THAN MEN. FOR YOU SEE YOUR CALLING,BRETHREN,HOW THAT NOT MANY WISE MEN AFTER THE FLESH, NOT MANY MIGHTY, NOT MANY NOBLE, ARE CALLED;

BUT GOD HAS CHOSEN THE FOOLISH THINGS OF THE WORLD TO CONFOUND THE WISE; AND GOD HAS CHOSEN THE WEAK THINGS OF THE WORLD TO CONFOUND THE THINGS WHICH ARE MIGHTY; AND BASE THINGS OF THE WORLD, AND THINGS WHICH ARE DESPISED, HAS GOD CHOSEN,YES, AND THINGS WHICH ARE NOT, TO BRING TO NOTHING THINGS THAT ARE:THAT NO FLESH (OR OLD ‘SIN NATURE’) SHOULD GLORY IN HIS PRESENCE. (YOU’RE AWARE,MAYBE,THAT EVERY BELIEVING MAN OR WOMAN,AND EVERY UNBELIEVING MAN OR WOMAN, WILL STAND BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF HOLY GOD TO EXPLAIN TO HIM ONE’S LACK OF FAITH OR ONE’S FULL TRUST IN THE BLOOD REDEMPTION SACRIFICE OF KING JESUS!!).

VERSES 30-31, “BUT OF HIM ARE “YOU” IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO OF GOD (GET READY FOR THE FOLLOWING!!), “YOU IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO OF GOD IS MADE UNTO US (HIS) WISDOM, AND (HIS) RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND (HIS)SANCTIFICATION, AND (HIS) REDEMPTION: THAT, ACCORDING AS IT IS WRITTEN, “HE THAT GLORIES (IN LIFE’S JOURNEY), LET HIM/HER GLORY IN THE LORD”!!!

B.B.MCKINNEY,IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL” OF 1940 (COPYRIGHTED BY BROADMAN PRESS IN NASHVILLE,TENN.)WROTE THE HYMN “HE LIVES ON HIGH”(P.336) THAT SAYS: “CHRIST THE SAVIOR CAME FROM HEAVEN’S GLORY,TO REDEEM THE LOST FROM SIN AND SHAME; ON HIS BROW HE WORE THE THORN-CROWN GORY, AND UPON CALVARY HE TOOK MY BLAME.

HE AROSE FROM DEATH AND ALL ITS SORROW, TO DWELL IN THAT ‘LAND OF JOY AND LOVE’; HE IS COMING BACK SOME GLAD TOMORROW, AND HE’LL TAKE ALL HIS CHILDREN HOME ABOVE.

WEARY SOUL, TO JESUS COME CONFESSING, REDEMPTION FROM SIN HE OFFERS THEE; LOOK TO JESUS AND (SURRENDER?) AND RECEIVE A BLESSING, THERE IS LIFE, THERE IS JOY AND VICTORY .”

DO “YOU” UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS “VICTORY IN JESUS” OVER THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH, A GOD-ORDAINED LAW? DOESN’T ROMANS 3:23 TELL US:”FOR ALL HAVE SINNED, AND FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD”? DARE I SAY IT? BELIEVE I WILL! “ARE YOU AWARE THAT SOME ‘PROFESSING BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, CHURCH MEMBERS’, SINCERELY BELIEVE THEY CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT SIN UNTIL JESUS COMES THE SECOND TIME?” JESUS “CAME” AND HE STAYS IN THE HEARTS OF TRUE BELIEVERS, EXPRESSING HIMSELF,EXTENDING HIS LOVE, & PROVING HIS POWER – AND HE DOES IT, BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO IS, CONVICTING, CONVERTING, TRANSFORMING,ESTABLISHING ANOTHER “TEMPLE” IN WHICH HE RESIDES, REMAINS, AND REACHES OUT THROUGH THEM TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM RULE IN MANY MORE HEARTS AND LIVES!

OH, THEN IN ROMANS 5:5 PAUL WROTE: “HOPE MAKES YOU NOT ASHAMED (ANY LONGER!MY TWO WORDS!); BECAUSE THE LOVE OF GOD IS SHED ABROAD IN OUR HEARTS BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO IS GOD’S GIFT TO ALL TRUE BELIEVERS!!”

BUT YOU ARE AWARE OUR KNOWN WORLD IS ALSO FILLED WITH “RELIGIOUS SUBSTITUTIONS”, ‘THAT’ IN AND THROUGH WHICH RELIGIOUSLY DECEIVED MINDS WILL EXERCISE THEIR ‘REIGIOUS FEELINGS’ APART FROM CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, APART FROM CONVERTED TO “NEW LIFE IN CHRIST” AND UPON CONVERSION, IN-FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND COMMISSIONED AS HIS “ROYAL AMBASSADORS”!

SO MANY CHOOSE NOTHING BUT “ME, MY, AND MINE”,OR SOME WILL ‘UNITE’ WITH, ‘LIAR-OLOGY’, ‘MYTH-OLOGY’, ‘FLESH-OLOGY’, ‘WORLD-RELIGIONS’ THEOLOGIES, ‘SELF-ORDAINED THEOLOGY’ – CHOOSING ‘MY CHOICE IS BETTER THAN GOD’S CHOICE, YOUR CHURCH’S CHOICE, OR THE FALSE CHOICES OF OTHER WORLD RELIGIONS’! “AS FOR ME? I’LL TRY TO BE THE BEST RELIGION-PARTICIPANT I CAN BE!” REALLY?

BUT IN 2 CORINTHIANS 12:7-12 PAUL ENLIGHTENS US EVEN MORE AS HE WROTE: “AND LEST I SHOULD BE EXALTED ABOVE MEASURE, THROUGH THE ABUNDANCE OF “REVELATIONS GIVEN TO ME”, THERE WAS GIVEN TO ME A THORN IN THE FLESH, THE MESSENGER OF SATAN TO BUFFET ME, LEST I SHOULD BE EXALTED ABOVE MEASURE. FOR THIS THING, I BESOUGHT THE LORD THRICE, THAT IT MIGHT DEPART FROM ME. AND HE SAID UNTO ME, “MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU: FOR MY STRENGTH IS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS.

MOST GLADLY THEREFORE WILL I RATHER GLORY IN MY INFIRMITIES, THAT THE POWER OF CHRIST MAY REST UPON ME. THEREFORE I TAKE PLEASURE IN INFIRMITIES, IN REPROACHES, IN NECESSITIES, IN PERSECUTIONS, IN DISTRESSES FOR CHRIST’S SAKE: FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN AM I STRONG.” WHY? BECAUSE HE DOESN’T PROFESS THROUGH “BEST EFFORT” BUT “RESTS” IN JESUS’S BEST, & BECAUSE YOU “DIE DAILY THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH.”

IT’S TIME FOR YOU AS A ‘PROFESSING DISCIPLE’ TO ALLOW JESUS TO POSSESS YOUR BODY, HEART, AND MIND THROUGH WHICH HE LIVES OUT HIMSELF THROUGH YOU TO TOUCH THE WORLD AROUND YOU WITH HIS MERCY, GRACE, AND LOVE.

I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE FROM ANOTHER HYMN OUT OF THE BROADMAN HYMNAL, THE HYMNAL I QUOTED FROM EARLIER, BUT HERE IT’S A HYMN (P340)BY P.P.BLISS THAT SAYS:

“FREE FROM THE LAW (THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH?),O HAPPY CONDITION, JESUS HAS BLED, AND THERE IS REMISSION; CURSED BY THE LAW AND BRUISED BY THE FLL, GRACE HAS REDEEMED US ONCE FOR ALL.

NOW ARE WE FREE – THERE’S NO CONDEMNATION, JESUS PROVIDES A PERFECT SALVATION; “COME UNTO ME”, O HEAR HIS SWEET CALL, COME, AND HE SAVES US ONCE FOR ALL.

“CHILDREN OF GOD”, O glorious calling, surely his grace will keep us from Falling; passing from death to life at his call, blessed salvation once for all.

Once for all, O sinner, receive it; once for all,O brother, believe it; cling to the cross, the burden will fall, Christ has redeemed us once for all.”

AT THE ETERNAL THRONE OF JUDGMENT AS GOD EXAMINES “YOU”, WILL IT BE, “I TRIED MY BEST”, OR: “I TRULY, WHOLE-HEARTEDILY, ONCE FOR HIM ONLY DO I “REST” THROUGH CHRIST’S DEATH, RESURRECTION, ASCENSION, HIS REIGN IN ME, REJOICING DAILY IN HOPE!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“THE JOY OF A HOLY HOPE!”

It’s so interesting, convicting, and illuminating to read the Book of Job, seeing the extremes of serious doubts and unbeliefs, but then to see a man coming into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There was a time period of doubts, fears, and unbelief, but by the grace and mercy and love of God Job became an overcomer, victorious through God’s faithful pursuit of his soul! In Job 42:5 we read Job saying to the Lord, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You!” Verse 10 says, “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

In Job 31 Job highlighted the fatal, false steps of unbelievers who choose the ‘flesh walk’ totally void of the Spirit’s blessing, hearts ‘deceived’ and ending up experiencing ‘the consuming fire’, inheriting a consuming destruction, and rewarding one with spiritual bankruptcy eternally! I don’t know who said it, but I read in the “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations”, (p.231), the following statement: “Life with Christ is an endless hope, without Him a hopeless end.” So very, very true! But there are many who refuse to answer God’s knock at their hearts’ doors, willfully, ignorantly slamming the heart’s doors when the Savior knocks!

“The Joy of The Holy Hope” but you choose a ‘faithless life’ that without Christ dissipates into a coveted state of eternal captivity under the control of the demons of Hell and Satan accepting you as their and his forever slave in darkness forever, separated from King Jesus and the Holy Father and the Holy Spirit who so desired to “guide you in all eternal Truth”? One never comes into the blessed state of life who never truly trusts in the eternal redemptive hope found in Christ’s crucifixion, His resurrection, and His ascension to the eternal throne of God patiently waiting for the full increase of redeeming grace manifested in the minds and hearts of all born-again-‘faithers’!!

As I write this truth I do so just a few weeks AFTER!! I’m sure if you’ve attended any churches you found some singing, “O Little Town of Bethlehem, The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” – And that’s about the celebration of the birth of Christ who came to “set the captives free” through His sacrificial death, His Resurrection, His present reign at the right-hand throne of God, and ‘His resting men and women’ who, yes, let Christ in them BE their hope of eternal glory!

Dare I say it? Believe I will! “Lost eternal hope is the fainting, falling, faithless life that “play-acts” life’s purpose as he, she refuses to answer Christ’s “knock” at their heart’s door!”

Are you aware that there are, sadly, multitudes world-wide who, yes, choose to live in a darkened, gray, indeterminate world of spiritual unbelief, no mindful consideration of revealed truth, no “fix” on eternal spiritual Truth, and, for them, absolutely no consideration of anything the Holy Spirit, God the Father, or Christ Jesus has to say, and certainly, for many, no consideration of anything Christians or churches have to say?!?

“Christ in you the hope of glory”? Yet multitudes live their lives independent of Holy God and His “Holy Hope”, living lives in “false hopes”, not lives established on the eternal Truths spoken by God! Multitudes ignore God’s holy knock on their hearts’ doors, certain in themselves but uncertain about heavenly help! Are YOU living your life on uncertain foundations? Consider several uncertainties!

One, consider the uncertainty of one’s trust in his/her conception of true beauty! Psalm 39:11 says, “When you with rebukes correct a man for iniquity, you make his beauty to consume away like a moth; surely every man (without God in Christ as his/her Savior and Lord) IS VANITY!”

Two, consider the shallowness of fleshly trust in men! Psalm 146:3 clearly says, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help,” but put your trust only in God’s promises! How clear to you is 2 Corinthians 1:20? “All the promises of God in Christ Jesus are ‘yes’, and in Him “AMEN”, unto the glory of God.”

Three, consider the ‘fleshly pride’ in one’s self-allegiance that has no room for “trust in the finished work of Christ alone at Calvary”! In 2 Corinthians 1:9 Paul the Apostle said, “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.” Men who are ‘fleshly alive’ and ‘preeminently alive’ in themselves exchange a false identity God never desired for them to be deceived in, and even for the ‘fool’, he says, “There is no God”, when forever and ever the Resurrected Lord and Savior reigns and keeps on reigning to the Father’s glory, honor, and praise!

Four, examine the reality of the troubling tombs of godless lives, yes, men/women, boys and girls, with “darkened hearts, warped wits, and worldly wills”, because there is eternal difference between ‘fleshly darkness’ and Christ Jesus God’s “Eternal Spiritual Light”!

Fifth, in 1 Thessalonians 2, Verses 4-13 we learn about our “calling” by Christ into His eternal Kingdom! Paul wrote: “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which tries our hearts. Foe neither at any time used we flattering words, as you know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, whom we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ.

But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were dear to us.

For you remember, brethren, our labor and travail; for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe:

As you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father does his children, That you would walk worthy of God, who has called you unto His kingdom and His glory. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe.”

Dare I say it? Simply mental belief apart from full surrender to the Lordship of Christ with His “gift” of resurrection presence, eternal forgiveness, and new life, new purpose, new power, and new privilege, IS ‘head knowledge’ absent of a “new heart”! And that end result? Religious activities with open doors to Satan’s realm of deception rather than “kingdom allegiance” under the Banner of the Resurrected, Reigning, Royal King of kings and Lord of lords!

But because of grace that leads one to faith, as Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:13-15, we “gird up the loins of our minds, being sober (eternally seriously minded!!), and hoping to the end for the grace that is to be brought to us as Christ is revealed in us, As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in our ignorance; But as He which called us IS HOLY, so you be holy in all manner of conversation or your walk through the journey of your earthly pilgrimage with Christ as your Lord, your Savior, and your guardian presence with Christ in you!!

Do YOU truly have the spiritual understanding of reconciliation to Holy God in and through the blood sacrifice of Christ and His victorious resurrection, now continuing to reign at the right hand Throne of Holy God, yet telling us He also makes the redeemed heart His place of earthly residence? Do you daily take the sentence of death to your old man in order for the Resurrected, Reigning Christ to be Himself in you and through you?

Hear me! Living without “Christ in you” as Savior and Lord is to be a life residing in abiding, hellish darkness, not freed into the “Light” of Resurrection Presence!

I truly love what John Wesley wrote in his writing entitled “Christian Perfection”! Wesley said, “The holiest of men still need Christ as their Prophet, as “the light of the world.” For He does not give them light but from moment to moment; the instant He withdraws, all is darkness. They still need Christ as their King, for God does not give them a stock of holiness. But unless they receive a supply every moment, nothing but unholiness would remain. They still need Christ as their Priest, to make atonement for their holy things. Even perfect holiness is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ.”

Much of modern-day ‘Christianity’ is based upon misdirected curiosity but with limited inquiry totally short of, yes, the divine revelation! Reject the mystery of Christ’s existence, or look upon Him as only a historic person and riddle of a past life short-lived for only about 33 years, and the mixed mess of examining Christ Jesus sadly surfaces for some as only an “inexplicable riddle”!

SO…what does one do with John 3:16? “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes (or Trusts) in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Blaise Pascal once said, “Jesus Christ is God to whom we can approach without pride, and before whom we may abase ourselves without despair.” Why? How? Because we understand through the revelation of God’s Holy Word that “all sinners were crucified with Christ on His Cross, buried with Him in His grave, but raised with Him through God’s power, released in us by, yes, our God-given faith and heart-led repentance, new-born, then filled with the Holy Spirit, and commissioned as His royal ambassadors! YES! We willfully crown Him in our hearts as “Lord of all”, you and me included because He called us, convicted us, converted us, anointed us, and declared us as His chosen, adoptive children in the Holy Family of God!!

Is it any wonder to you that “in Christ”, through the gifts of repentance and faith, that guided by the Holy Spirit you live royally blessed with the whole treasury that flows out of God’s heart, through His throne, through His Son, and, yes, through His born-again, new-birthed sons and daughters as the richness of His grace abounds, His graciousness embraces the true child of faith, and continues from one’s spiritual birth, to enrich their lives of faith with Heaven’s treasures??

Hear me! The Christian faith is not an intellectual theory or a self-centered speculation – it IS Christ’s Resurrection Presence living in the repentant heart and life resting in His promises! I grew up from early childhood of my home church in Cleveland, Tennessee, singing from the very old “American Hymnal” the hymn by R. Kelso Carter entitled “Standing On the Promises”, but you do know that far too many ‘professing Christians’ just “Sit On The Premises”, mindless of Christ’s intent of a repentant heart and faith-captured life becoming the Temple of His Holy Presence, yes, Christ in you, through you, as you daily take the sentence of death to yourself so that He might reign through you, extending His life, expressing His love, and proving His power! The Hymn?

“Standing on the promises of Christ my King, Thro’ eternal ages let His praises ring; Glory in the highest, I will shout and sing, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises that cannot fail, When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, By the living Word of God I shall prevail, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord, Bound to Him eternally by love’s strong cord, Overcoming daily with the Spirit’s sword, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises I cannot fall, Listening every moment to the Spirit’s call, Resting in my Savior, as my all in all, standing on the promises of God.”

ARE YOU STANDING ON THE PROMISES OF GOD? The “Promises” are Merciful God’s “Creative Providence” in action, in you, for all around you to discover the Christ in you which can be their hope of eternal life, eternal rest, and eternal “Victory In Jesus”!! AMEN?

Once an outcast – but in Christ NOW a son or daughter in His redeemed, blood-bought family! Once living in darkness – but NOW living in the “Light” of His abiding Presence!

Once separated from God – but Christ’s coming, Christ’s Cross, Christ’s empty tomb, Christ’s “faithful knocking” at the hearts doors of all redeemed sons and daughters, Christ’s abiding presence and His constant, personal persuasion, blessedly favors us not to rest in “best effort, human trying” but trusting His Word: “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you”!!

In the old “American Hymnal” published in 1933 by the editor, Robert H. Colman, written by Fanny J. Crosby and W.H. Doane, is the hymn “Safe In The Arms of Jesus.” It says: “Safe in the arms of Jesus, There by His love overshadowed, Sweetly my soul shall rest. Hark! It’s the voice of angels, Borne in a song to me, Over the fields of glory, Over the jasper sea…Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast, There by His love overshadowed, Sweetly my soul shall rest.” Amen? Are YOU “Safe In The Arms of Jesus”? Proverbs 29:25 states, “The fear of man brings a snare; but whoso puts his trust in the Lord shall be safe,” followed by Verse 26 which says, “Many seek the ruler’s favor; but every man’s judgment comes from the Lord.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“CARE OF THE CARNAL MIND OR CARE OF THE SPIRITUAL SOUL?”

Is a ‘carnal mind’ the merely human effort of one’s ‘best’ at discerning for himself/herself what one is looking for in life because there is in ‘fallen flesh’ no desire to know what Holy God is up to concerning one’s earthly purpose? I don’t think there is any doubt about that!

Many of the lives birthed in our modern world are strictly ‘fleshly’ in orientation without any consideration of God’s eternal purpose of men willfully choosing their lives as “vessels” of His divine Presence and extensions through them to amazingly touch the world around them with His mercy, grace, and love! They’re “busy” about the “care of the carnal mind” and all it supposes or proposes or imposes!

If there are great, spiritual events in one’s ‘carnal mind’, “it’s all ‘circumstantial’, not providential”, they think! And if anything “great” occurs, it’s from the ‘heart-spring’ of personal initiative not Holy intent! If “dark doors” are before them, carnal minded men ‘might’ say, “Well, that must come from lower powers out of hell”, never sensing ‘godlessness’ is fertile ground for demonic activity without God’s protection against the powers of darkness because they have no intent of being dependent upon Holy God for anything in their fleshly nature since they’re perfectly capable of taking care of themselves!

Natural-minded men are blinded concerning “the lusts of the flesh, the lies of Satan, or the blinded deceits of a world population”! How many ‘natural men’ do you know who discern Holy God as the Author, Creator, and Celebrator of His world, its purpose ordained in Him, and His power and love seeing it come to full fruition in His timing? “God’s on His throne, and all is right in His world?” How many do you know who discern THAT for themselves?

How much of the comprehension of, at least, the care of the carnal mind relates to ‘fleshly comfort’, ‘earthly success’, or a ‘worldly dream or ambition’, imprinted by only ‘self-relevance’ independent of Holy God? Do you even think the masses of earthly-minded men controlled by ‘self-intent’ even care about what Holy God thinks? Personal pride “in my potential” is the ‘self-strutting peacock’ more proud of his ‘feathers’ than his Creator!

Oh, but then, there are the ‘religiously proud’ through the ages, like William Warburton, Bishop of Glouchester, that Charles Churchill wrote about in his article entitled “Independence”: “He was so proud that should he meet the Twelve Apostles in the street he’d turn his nose up at them all and shove his Savior from the wall.” I’d call that “The pride that captured Satan and shamed the ‘fallen angels’!

The cultivation of the mind void of the desire and intent of Holy God is like an automobile without an engine, or birds without wings, or, yes, human populations void of the awareness that the Creator-God came, birthed by the Virgin Mary, sacrificed His own Life on the Cross in “Blood Redemption”, but they continue ignoring Biblical History, just blindly trying to find their way without any consideration why Holy God sent His Son or why, under the Sovereign Administration of Holy God, “Why am I here?”!!

Is it possible that “the care of the carnal mind” rules over many because its finiteness has its own self-imposed limits, and one in that phase of existence only has no interest in God’s boundless, limitless, exceedingly great and unending infinite mercy and grace, especially if it costs them their independence, “if your God expects ME to obey Him”? And, is it possible, that to the extreme, there are those human beings, to the extreme point of pain, troubles, heartaches, despair, troubles, unhappiness, loneliness in the ‘inner man’, strongly twisted together to the point they come to the place to say to themselves, “Not even God cares about me”?

“Care of the carnal mind”? Could such devotion to ‘flesh’, to the ‘temporary’, to the ‘world scene’, to ‘human achievement’ without any need or even a ‘thought’ about God, or a ‘thought’ about the Savior, or a ‘thought’ about ETERNITY and one’s role in it, become so dominate one ends up ‘poverty stricken’ rather than “rich” in the Savior’s love? It’s not an accountant’s ‘ledger’ that will reveal what has the human heart, mind, and soul, because the “kingdom of God’ is not based on men’s bank accounts, investments, stock dividends, royalties, but the eternal reality of ONENESS with the Savior, Master, and True Lord of life that blesses and blesses and blesses, and keeps on blessing ! The richest man in the whole world, past, present, and future, is not the man with huge stocks, bonds, or bank accounts, but the man rich in redemptive faith, the recipient of a transformed life and new heart, and the man entrusted with Heaven’s Good News”, the Gospel, gain, and grip of King Jesus on his heart and mind, and HE’S NOT ASHAMED OF IT!

Will Carleton, in “The Ancient Miner’s Story”, wrote: “But I have learned a thing or two; I know as sure as fate, When we lock up our lives for wealth, the gold key comes too late.” One wonders if the ‘ancient miner’ ever knew or had any inkling at all about “true wealth” that only comes, lastingly, in one’s oneness in Christ alone as Lord, Savior, and the Master of, yes, Eternal Life!

Paul wrote challenging, enlightening words in 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5, so ‘eternal-life-instructing’! He said: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

“Temporary”? Does that mean not permanent to you or those around you? Does temporary mean I don’t have to be serious about my ‘present’, though my ‘present’ may be the key to what Door or door I walk through as ‘eternity’ calls my name? Some have never even considered that the ‘temporary’ IS only a stepping stone toward the ‘eternal’, blessed or unblessed, good or bad, fleshly or spiritual, Satanic or Master-Jesus oriented – it seldom enters some minds, though they see themselves as a very ‘profound person’. “I operate on ‘common sense’, not like those Christians who talk about ‘spiritual sensitivity’ to the things of God and obedience to what He reveals – not me!”

“Temporary”? “The sower sows the word.” That’s Christ Jesus speaking in Mark 4:13-20, and He’s explaining “cares of the carnal minds” AND “the care of the Spiritually-Re-born Soul in oneness with Christ”! Jesus said: “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear Satan COMES IMMEDIATELY and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.

These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have NO ROOT IN THEMSELVES, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.

Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. BUT these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit; some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

Is the word of God being sown by the wayside of the earthly population on any and every continent of our world? It’s happening! But is it received by every citizen of all nations? Of course not! “Few there be who find it,” Jesus said, but, yes, there are those who hear, receive, repent, and obey, yielding themselves to the Lordship of Christ!

And, receiving Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior of some lives in some countries has cost them their lives – having traveled to India and other countries in Asia, I knew those who became ‘martyrs for the faith’! But, with Paul, (Acts 20:21), they were willing “to testify…repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ”, even if persecuted or killed!

There was a particular time when in Madras, India, I was preaching on the streets before my conference there started, when two young men confronted me, threatening me that if I came back tomorrow, they would come and kill me. I told them of the time and place where I would be preaching the next day. When the time came, our church musicians were singing, but my translator, Pastor Anand, came and said, “If you’re going to preach, you better do it now, because there are ten to twelve men close by headed this way, each one carrying a machete. I preached, prayed, extended an invitation to trust Christ, and when I finished my prayer, I saw the two ‘mob leaders’ on their knees before me. They prayed to receive Christ, and were baptized by Pastor Anand and became a part of his local church!

Yes, there are those who hear the word, accept it, repent, are baptized, and begin to bear the fruit of the Indwelling Christ! And there MUST BE “the care of spiritual souls”! In Matthew 18:2-5 Jesus said: Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.”

And, in the care of spiritual souls, I’m sure there are those who endorse ‘sinning’ as THE option every believer has, even if Christ Jesus Himself said: “Go and sin no more”! What does Matthew 18:6 tell us, again, Jesus speaking? “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea!”

The evidence that a man or woman, boy or girl, has been delivered FROM SIN is their sorrowful heart over what their sin nature cost Christ on the cruel Cross! And they have no desire to shame the “Blood Atonement” but to live only the overcoming life in and through Christ’s Resurrected Presence within them – they die daily to themselves and the old sin nature that Christ may be honored through them! In 1 John 1:7 the beloved John wrote: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.”

In his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” Oswald chambers wrote: “If I walk in the light as God is in the light, not in the light of my conscience, but in the light of God – if I walk there, with nothing folded up, then there comes the amazing revelation, the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all sin so that God Almighty can see nothing to censure in me. In my consciousness it works with a keen poignant knowledge of what sin is. The love of God at work in me makes me hate with the hatred of the Holy Ghost all that is not in keeping with God’s holiness. To walk in the light means that everything that is of the darkness drives me closer into the center of the light.”

Do you believe Jesus when He said, “And, lo, I am with you always…”, and because of His promise one can sin if he/she chooses? Walking with Him in one’s spiritual pilgrimage day by day, feeding daily on His Word, relying upon the Holy Spirit to guide us only in the way that honors Christ, does not open a door of ‘fleshly choices’ to do as I please, even sinning if I can’t help it. Where does that come from? What “strange gospel” is it that grants “do as you please if you since a desire to sin – Jesus understands.” No! He doesn’t understand ‘flesh’ ever choosing consenting to sin if He’s Captain of one’s Ship of Faith and Obedience! He’s given you the Holy Spirit to “guide you into all truth”, not to concur with your desire to do as you please!

In “The Pastor’s Guide to Effective Ministry”, (Edited by William H. Willimon, Beacon Hill Press, 2002), there’s a powerful word from the Puritan Thomas Watson. He said: “The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of God. “When I awake, I am still with Thee” (Psalm 139:18). The thoughts are as travelers in the mind. David’s thoughts kept heaven-road. “I am still with Thee.” God is the treasure, and where the treasure is, there is the heart. By this way we may test our love of God. What are our thoughts most upon? Can we say we are ravished with delight when we think upon God? Have our thoughts got wings? Are they fled aloft? Do we contemplate Christ and glory?…A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts. He never thinks of God, unless with horror, as the prisoner (guilty prisoner) thinks of the judge.”

Revelation 5 speaks of “The Worthy Lamb of God”, with Revelation 5:12 and Verse 13 saying: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing” with Verse 13 following: “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

Would YOU dare say that’s your hymn of praise to the Reigning Christ in your life because your “Life-Walk” IS testimony He has inspired to “the caring of your redeemed soul” honoring Him daily?

Rev.E.A.Hoffman and Rev.J.H.Stockton, in the “American Hymnal” of the early 1930’s wrote a hymn entitled “Glory To His Name.” It says: “Down at the cross where my Savior died, Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, There to my heart was the blood applied; Glory to His Name.

I am so wondrously saved from sin, Jesus so sweetly abides within, There at the cross where He took me in; Glory to His name.

Oh, precious fountain that saves from sin, I am so glad I have entered in; There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean; Glory to His name.

Come to this fountain so rich and sweet; Cast your poor soul at the Savior’s feet; Plunge in today, and be made complete; Glory to His name.

Glory to His name, Glory to His name; There to my heart was the blood applied; Glory to His name.”

Do YOU sing the “Glory Song” to Jesus because He applied His shed Calvary blood to redeem you from your bondage in sin? It’s time – there is no promise of ‘tomorrow’! Romans 15:13 declares: “NOW may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” ARE YOU A SPIRIT-FILLED DISCIPLE ABOUNDING IN ETERNAL HOPE IN JESUS?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘PLAYED FOR THE FOOL’ OR “PURCHASED BY GOD”?

Beyond the shadow of any fleshly doubt is the reality that there is not a man or woman who has ever lived without an awareness of the presence of God, even if it’s only the acknowledgement He HAS KNOCKED ON THEIR HEART’S DOOR! AND, IF HOLY GOD BIRTHED MANKIND WITH AN AWARENESS OF HIM, what is it that blinds one to what he/she already knows? Would you be bold enough, truthful enough, to admit, though now you deny Him, that you have been possessed and over-run by a strong spirit of “natural individuality” that says, “For me, NO NEED OF GOD”? Could it be ‘deceived by Satan’?

“No need of God?” Psalm 14:1 clearly declares, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” But, at least for true believers, understanding spiritual identity as ‘new-born sons and daughters of God’, one is aware of the warfare that does exist in the unbeliever’s heart as one truly ‘deceived by the powers of darkness’! Most unbelievers being ‘played by the powers of darkness’ as “fools” are blinded to, yes, the grace and mercy and love of God as “new-born sons and daughters by the Holy Spirit”, having been “crucified with Christ”, old sin-natures done away with, with Satan and his demons telling folks, “That’s just impossible – natural sin-natures done away with and Resurrection Life manifested in you? Impossible! Be satisfied with your sin-nature; God will still love you.” Really?

In Galatians 2:17-21 Paul illumines the “crucified life” that has now been “justified” by Christ’s death on the Cross. He wrote: But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but CHRIST LIVES IN ME; and the life which I now live in the flesh (the old man!) I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” WHAT AN AWESOME, LIBERATING, CHRIST-HONORING WORD!

Yet the fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ Really? In Exodus 5:1-2 the Word tells us, Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh (of Egypt), “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’

And Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.” He bought his personal ticket to the eternal Hell, choosing separation from Him as his personal choice.

Yet how many unbelievers do you know who live casually, comfortably, supposedly convinced “life without your God and His Son is a life I choose that is superior and more satisfying than your walk as a disciple of Christ”! There is a spiritual war related to the true saving of souls in and through Christ only, but the spirit of a darkened world, the independence of a self-sufficient soul, and the vainness of a proud ‘self-made man’ pumped up by Satan and his demons deceives the minds of many of “no need of faith in your ‘saving’ God – we’re sufficient in ourselves”!

But in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 the Apostle Paul wrote: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” Know anyone exalting himself/herself against the knowledge of God?

Yes, many are “played for the fool” by Satan, demonic forces, the world spirit, and a strong, self-independent, soul existing life, they think, with no need of merciful God! Yes, though many are “played for the fool” by Satan, at the same time there ARE multitudes who understand that “in Christ” one no longer has to be enslaved to the old sin nature because, by His “blood-purchase” Jesus set us free from the law of sin and death, freed us from the world’s deceitful bondage and slavery, and, yes, freed us from the chains of fleshly death into the ‘Kingdom-Crown of liberty, freedom, and the peace that passes all understanding – through the “Lamb’s Blood” we were washed, birthed, and indwelt with the fullness of the blessing of His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Hope, and Resurrection Power!

Through His “blood purchase” we were delivered from bondage to WALK IN THE NEWNESS OF LIFE, to WALK IN OUR NEW IDENTITY, and to WALK EMPOWERED BY THE MIGHTY HOLY SPIRIT AND OUR TRUST AND OBEDIENCE TO HIS ETERNAL WORD! YES, “IN CHRIST” WE “BRING EVERY THOUGHT INTO CAPTIVITY TO THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST”! WE “quit trying” and learned “to trust His ever faithful Word and His abiding Presence in us being Himself through us to honor, glorify, and BE the LIFE” THAT HONORS MERCIFUL, LOVING, COMPASSIONATE, ENABLING GOD!!

Yet, still, many ‘believers’, many ‘followers of Christ’, many ‘disciples’, have those ‘lapse moments’, having, yes, sinned then doubted whether they can ever again see themselves as sons or daughters of Holy God, living in immense frustration with the ‘old self’ blinding, clouding out, or thinking they’ve lost their identity as a true servant of Christ Jesus! Dare I tell you? Believe I will!

IF GOD BIRTHED YOU INTO HIS KINGDOM, IF ONE ‘STEPS AWAY’ IN A MOMENT OF SELF-INDULGENCE, DOES “FATHER-GOD” DISOWN A CHILD OF FAITH, BECAUSE IN A MOMENT OF IMMATURE, CHILDISH ABANDONMENT, HOLY GOD WRITES THEM OFF AS UNWORTHY, NOT TRUST-WORTHY ENOUGH TO BE CALLED HIS SON OR DAUGHTER ANY LONGER? SATAN WILL TELL YOU THAT – BUT NOT YOUR LOVING FATHER!

There was a time in Paul the Apostle’s life when in the ‘present tense’ he called himself ‘a miserable man’, and that was a time period in his life as merciful God was pouring the Word through him, yet he KNEW those ‘moments’ he’d strayed away – but he learned, “God wouldn’t let me go where I foolishly had chosen to walk for a time, but held on to me, and wouldn’t let me go”!

Holy God uses ‘life-walk-failures-as-disciples’ TO BE MOMENTS OF ETERNAL EDUCATION IN THE MERCY, LOVE, AND GRACE OF GOD! Receive Paul’s inspired testimony in Romans 7:21-8:14!! “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, THE ONE WHO WILLS TO DO GOOD. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I THANK GOD – THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Romans 8:1-14 follows: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (New Covenant!) has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors –not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” How SPIRITUALLY CLEAR IS THAT TO YOU?

“Led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God?” Sons of God, birthed by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, guided by the Spirit, gifted by the Spirit, are blessed with “the glorious liberty of the children of God”, no longer pawns of the powers of darkness! It’s so interesting to read in Jeremiah 17:10, God speaking, “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS WAYS, according to the fruit of his doings.” A difference between ‘the fruit of a man’s doings’ OR is there an opportunistic way of things that please and honor Holy God blessed by the Holy Spirit in a yielded vessel’s life?

In Galatians 5:22-25 Paul wrote: “But the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. AND those who are Christ’s HAVE CRUCIFIED THE FLESH (DAILY!) WITH ITS PASSIONS AND DESIRES. (SO…) IF we live in the Spirit, LET US ALSO WALK IN THE SPIRIT.”

‘Best effort’? OR “SPIRIT-BLESSED”? ‘Trying’ OR “TRUSTING THE SPIRIT TO HONOR CHRIST THROUGH YOU AS YOU DAILY CHOOSE TO LIVE THE LIFE HONORING CHRIST JESUS BY THE BLESSED FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ALLOWED TO BE HIMSELF IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU?

The third verse of the old hymn published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1940, says: “Come, Holy Comforter, Your sacred witness bear In this glad hour: You who Almighty ART, NOW RULE IN EVERY HEART, and ne’er from us depart, Spirit of power.”

I.H.Meredith in the same hymnal wrote “Seal Us, O Holy Spirit.”

“Seal us, O Holy Spirit, Grant us Your impress, we pray; We would be more like the Savior, Stamped with His image today.

Seal us, O Holy Spirit, Help us Your likeness to show; Then from our lives unto others Streams of rich blessings shall flow.

Seal us, O Holy Spirit, Make Us Your own this hour; Let us be useful, dear Master, Seal us with witnessing power.

Seal us, seal us, Seal us just now, we pray; Seal us, O Holy Spirit, Seal us for service today.”

Concerning YOU in your present path of ‘faith’, as if misguided, diluted, or truthfully a lack of faith, choosing for yourself again the mortal sphere of misguided men, OR have you willfully stepped over into the immortal sphere of the redeemed, the “blood-bought”, the “new-born”, indwelt by the Spirit of the Resurrection Life of Christ, anointed by the Holy Spirit sensing more and more every day of, yes, the “fruit of the Spirit” as God’s Holy Word verifies it? Does “the tree of your life of saving faith” flourish with the “Fresh Fruit of the Holy Spirit”?

Chapter 22RAISING SPIRITUAL SONS

Nowhere in my earthly dreams or spiritual visions did I ever consider myself a “spiritual father.” I’ve looked UP to many men in my forty-two years of ministry as strong spiritual guides and encouragers – and even at 68 years of age I still look for them and warmly receive them.

But my November, 2004, trip to India confirmed some things in me that I genuinely had not realized. Though a lot of the India pastors call me “Papa,” I’m definitely appreciative of their love – but when they say, “Papa Farrell, you are to me my spiritual father and I love you for the example you’ve been to me,” IT IS VERY HUMBLING!!

There is an awesome responsibility that is so real, so needy in mentoring, training, and equipping young men TO WALK WITH CHRIST AS A MATURING DISCIPLE AND A WINNING WITNESS.

It is filled with heartaches and disappointments as well as great joys and distinct pleasures. There are days and weeks and months that oftentimes it is so dark and cloudy because of choices some of your spiritual sons make – decisions that blot their witness but crush your heart! Then the sun shines brightly because one son begins to look like Jesus more and more, and you rejoice.

Physically I’m the father of three sons and a daughter and I look upon them as spiritual sons and a spiritual daughter. How I pray and long that they’ve picked up the best from Sue and me – not our worst! I came into physical and spiritual parenting with a lot of baggage; a lot of unresolved conflicts; and even more basic, a lack of my true identity in Christ. And in all four, Scott, Susan, Stan, and Steve, no father could be as proud as I am of all of them. THEY DO LOVE JESUS!

Spiritually God has blessed me beyond measure. He has put into my sphere of influence even guys I didn’t know I was influencing! But then there are those that I’ve walked with, worked with, wept with – blessed a hundred-fold!

November, 2004, Coimbatore. Young university students and graduates who were thankful for the ministry of the Word then commented, “We look to you as our spiritual father.” Mumbai, engineer-pastor, bi-vocational, “Since the first time I heard you teach eight years ago, I’ve looked to you as my spiritual father. The anointing, the Word, your spirit in Christ captured me heart.” Mumbai, a New Life senior pastor – “

Papa Farrell, I’ll always look to you as my spiritual father; a lot of India pastors feel the same way.”

I want no glory, no honor, no praise – if there is any, “Let It Go To Calvary.” But it has awakened some new and wonderful things in me. I sense a weighty, weighty responsibility on me the the “sentence of death” on me is a daily reality so “The RESURRECTION LIFE OF JESUS IS MANIFESTED IN MY MORTAL FLESH>“ I sense that passion for Christ to be all He wants to be through me. I sense a call to greater humility, greater dependance, greater hunger, more wisdom, more power than a lowly disciple could ever try to muster up on his own. I love what Paul said to the Philippians about himself – “apprehended of God” – and for God’s purposes; “apprehended of God” – and for His people; “apprehended of Go” – and for His pleasure.

It was certainly the intent of Christ Jesus in spiritual fathering. There’s the twelve He drew to Himself. There was that inner circle with such quality time with their teacher. And I do know it is WHAT He taught, but also what they “CAUGHT” from Him in those years together, and what He “WROUGHT” into their lives by Word, deed, and Holy Presence.

I remember those two disciples on the road to Emmaeus as their “hearts burned within them” as Jesus opened the Word and Spirit.

That deep bond between Paul and the Ephesian elders speaks so loud to us as we see that history of time, teaching etc., “holding back nothing that was necessary” for their spiritual health.

Does early Acts speak to you? They were together, had all things common – and they CONTINUED STEDFASTLY IN THE APOSTLES’ DOCTRINE AND FELLOWSHIP. Does that say anything about fathering “spiritual sons and daughters?”

From the Old Testament I’m reminded of the prophets and…”the sons of the prophets.” I see a Naomi and a Ruth. What about Elijah and tha “mantle of Elijah” that Elisha “picked up?” I look at an Eli encouraging a young Samuel, “When you hear the voice again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ “ And Samuel is raised up, prepared to serve God in a powerful way.

What was the role of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo in equipping “wise men” to look for the “Star?” And hundreds of years later the “teaching” is still going on and “wise men” from the East show up at Jesus’ birthplace to bless the newborn King!

Zacharias’ son John gets a prophetic word through his father that he’ll PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD and even be a servant of God turning the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

In 2 Timothy 2:1-2, Paul speaks: “You therefore, MY SON, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus…AND THE THINGS YOU HAVE LEARNED FROM ME AMONG MANY WITNESSES, COMMIT THESE TO FAITHFUL MEN WHO WILL BE ABLE TO TEACH OTHERS ALSO.” What a revelation and inspiration to training, mentoring, discipline!!

I saw in MalachI I as I was flying back from India verse 6 when God said, “a son honors his father,” yet today in far too many corners of our globe ‘sons’ (and I use that reservedly) use their fathers, accuse and abuse, ignore, circumvent his leadership, blessing and birthright, and with the Korahs, Dathans and Abirims go out on their own insisting “all are holy” and they don’t need, don’t want, and could care less about a “father’s blessing.”

I believe Jesus was very clear when in Luke 16:12, He said: “And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, WHO WILL GIVE YOU WHAT IS YOUR OWN?” There are those ‘sons’ who KNOW NOTHING ABOUT FAITHFULNESS TO THAT WHICH IS ‘ANOTHER MAN’S…and they really never know the blessing that COULD HAVE BEEN THEIR OWN. Oh…they believe they have it!

I remember a young evangelist about twenty-five years ago who used to preach on “You may get what YOU WANT, but not want what you get!” That is so on target! Even Jesus Himself said, “You are of your father the Devil, for his works you do.” And how disappointed Jesus must have been with the eloquent professors who never possessed one ounce of earnestness of faith and obedience to the “SPIRIT of OUR FATHER!”

You may not know the name Frederick Faber, but he was a discouraged Anglican minister who had left that church to become a part of Roman Catholism.And there he found an emptiness of strong hymns of faith and the joy of singing, so he began to write “new songs.” He was so fearful of “new religious movements” and new attitudes of ‘discipleship’ that looked only at the experience of the moment, immediacy of the moment, that left a void of devotion to relationships. One of his hymns says:

“Faith of our fathers! Living still In spite of dungeon, fire and sword; O how our hearts beat high with joy When’er we hear that glorious word!….Faith of our fathers, HOLY FAITH! We will be true to You till death.”

And I wondered if Faber had been in the role of “spiritual fatherhood” and had his heart broken over ‘immediacy,’ ‘all are holy,’ ‘I do it my way,’ ‘I have things I want to accomplish’ – leaving a father in despair as wayward sons manufacture self-appointed ‘ministries’ and begin to build their own little kingdoms.

In the matter of “spiritual fathers” and sons in training there are certain principles of RELATIONSHIP, RIGORS IN TRAINING, AND, YES, RELEASE – but far too many ‘sons’ want relationship without the rigors of training and certainly not ‘RELEASE’ because that interferes with the ‘me, my, mine’ philosophy. It’s why Steve Farrar wrote in “Finishing Strong,” (p39), “…the qualification for having a public ministry is not ‘giftedness.’ The qualification for ministry is PROVEN CHARACTER.” And Jesus told some that they ought to make friends for yourself who have ‘deep pockets,’ because when you fail they can take care of you, inferring He’s not going to. Why? No faithfulness in little things, no faithfulness in handling money in a godly fashion, and no faithfulness to the nurturing father!! That’s Luke 16 if you need it!! And sometimes you wonder, “Who will be true till death” in relationships?

I want us to examine as thoroughly as possible “RAISING SPIRITUAL SONS” from a biblical perspective:

Let’s look FIRST at THE FATHERS AND THE PRODIGALS: And what God’s Word is telling us is that some sons are intent on leaving the father’s presence and living a self-centered, self-willed, self-indulgent life. And try as the father may some are ‘hell-bent’ on ‘me, my, my way, my choices, my decisions,’ and they end up wasting so much of their lives, potential, and possessions with prodigal living. Life choices like that brings one to a “spent all” style of living with a loss of not only any possessions but any small degree of ‘family heritage’ he may have possessed.

It always leaves these sons of personal choice beginning to be in want! He stoops to swine-slop and no one seems to care. But in Luke 15:17 God’s Word tells us, “when he came to himself.” That is so very good. And we all rejoice because finally he decides, “I will arise and go to my father’s house.”

But in the midst of all this I’m wondering, “What’s going on with the Father?” And I begin to say, “Father, as you’ve given us roles and ministries to fulfill as earthly fathers and spiritual fathers, how do we relate to WAYWARD SONS?” And I learn several things:

One, God has built into us all the will of self-determination. He has not, will not, violate the free will of man in choosing his destiny over the will of the Father. The loving Father is not interested in ‘puppets on a string’ or electronic robots, but sons desperate for the father’s love, the father’s blessing, and the father’s intent.

Secondly, even the son who stayed, ‘the elder brother,’ missed the ‘spirit’ of the father. Close proximity is no guarantee of the spirit of a father’s heart. Sometimes the need is never sensed until one FINDS himself at the end of the road.

Third, the father’s heart never changes. He’s “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Sorrowful, but wise as to the need of one discovering who he is and what he needs. Able, but unwilling to force the issue. Loving, whether the son stays or oes into the “wild, black yonder.” Forgiving because He understand illumined sons have greater potential than blinded sons.

Fourth, a loving father’s eyes are never off “the road of return and restoration.” Compassionately he waits, energetically he prays, with vision he plans, with anticipation he prepares for “the party.”

Fifth, He did not run after the son – he patiently waited because “the ball is in the court” of the son, not in the court of the father!!

Secondly, look at the spiritual fathers and the ‘John Marks’ as the ‘fathers’ relate to the sons’ fears, frustrations, failures and fallabilities.

And the one thing I want you to grasp is, that whether it’s sons or disciples, our walk RELATES TO THE CROSS – our Lord’s cross and our own. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”

In Mark 14:51-52 I believe our Lord is giving us insight into the pattern a lot of sons set for their lives. We see this picture of John Mark’s early steps, however fault-ridden, into the beginning of his ‘becoming.’ And I believe later in life John Mark is telling about himself!!

“Now a certain young man followed Him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body. And the young men laid hold of him…and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.” When the ‘cross’ is omitted in a son’s life it always leaves him in a state of ‘spiritual nakedness.’

But something is going on in John Mark’s life. Don’t know about his natural father, but we learn in Acts 12 that Peter came to a certain house after the iron gate of the prison was opened and Peter was freed. What house did he come to?

Acts 12:12, “…he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying.” John Mark had a powerful witness from a praying mother and a grandmother!

Verse 25 of that same chapter says, “Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark.”

A spirirtual father, Paul the apostle, is now in the strong circle of influence of John Mark. Acts 13:5 says that as Barnabas and Saul are sent out on a new mission that they have a “helper” named John Mark! Then verse 13 of Acts 13, please see it, “John left them and returned to Jerusalem.” Is fear a reason? Is faithlessness a guiding factor? Is human fallability rather than divine identity a controlling influence? Does frustration capture a son because he wants a greater role and believes he has a better vision?

It was so very, very serious that the spiritual father, Paul, does not want John Mark on another ministry with him – the mission is too vital! In Acts 15:37-38, “And Barnabas was desirous of taking John, called Mark, along with them…But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.”

In fact, verse 39, says: “there arose such a sharp disagreement that Barnabas and Paul separated from one another…” And Barnabas took John Mark with him.

How wrong was Paul? He wasn’t wrong at all! The mission was too vital, the call was too clear, the danger too imminent to have to be consumed with one who could walk away again! But, thank God, for “sons of encouragement” who are willing to “diaper-rize” spiritually infant sons who ought to be spiritual, vibrant sons already.

But then look at 2 Timothy 4:11!! He’s writing Timothy and says, “Only Luke is with me. Get MARK and bring him with you, FOR HE IS USEFUL TO ME FOR MINISTRY.”

The ministry was and always is uppermost in a spiritual father’s life and plans. And sometimes someone else has the role of spiritual encourager to bring a ‘son’ along.

And get this – the day came when John Mark ‘probably’ penned the first Gospel. Thank God, for team effort that brings us all along where the Father truly wants us to be!!

Third, look at the spiritual fathers and their relationship to ‘sons’ who struggle with opposition, persecution, and doubts. Who might that be? Do you think maybe Paul and Timothy?

My New King James Bible opens 2 Timothy with a statement: “Prison is the last place from which to expect a letter of encouragement,” but that’s what it is because Paul somehow has learned the plight or position his young spiritual son finds himself in. Paul’s in prison, the opposition is very intense, persecution abounds all around him, and Timothy is wondering, “Is this walk of faith worth it?” He’s even been weeping about it!

Without a doubt I believe Timothy was on the verge of walking away! Remember Peter? “I’m going back to fishing.” I don’t know what Timothy might have done if Paul, his spiritual father, had not sent him that letter of encouragement. [ I remember calling the home of a “fallen son” and he never returned my call. And I don’t know his spiritual health to this day. Heartbreaking. I did hear he trashed me all over his area for ‘interfering.’]

I was flabbergasted when I read Farrar’s book “Finishing Strong” and he told about John Bisagno’s future father-in-law telling him that it had been his observation “that just one out of ten who start in full-time service for the Lord at 21 are still on track by the age of 65.” He said, “they’re shot down morally, they’re shot down with discouragement, they’re shot down with liberal theology, they get obscessed with making money….but for one reason or another NINE OUT OF TEN FALL OUT.” (p6)

No wonder Paul wrote to the Ephesians (4:1-2), :I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called…with all lowliness and gentlness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love.”

When you read 2 Timothy 1:8 you realize the battle that Timothy was in as he must have been wrestling as to whether or not devotion to Christ was really worth it. Paul said, “..do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God.”

And then Paul hit’s a homerun when in verse 9 he reminds Timothy that God “has SAVED US and CALLED US WITH A HOLY CASLLING, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was GIVEN TO US IN CHRIST JESUS BEFORE TIME BEGAN!!!”

That is so awesome! And how it needs to be spoken by spiritual fathers to struggling, unsure sons – “You’re SAVED, Washed In The Blood Of The Lamb, Called Of God to a distinct ministry and gifting, GIVEN TO US Before Time Had Even Begun, THE CHOSEN AND ELECT OF GOD, …AND YOU CAN’T WALK AWAY!!!”

Encouragement from spiritual fathers? Paul reminds Timothy he’s “a good soldier” of Jesus Christ; he reminds him he’s “a strong athlete” with a gold medal awaiting him; and he reminds him as a “profitable farmer” he gets to enjoy the abundance of the harvest!

Encouragement from spiritual fathers? “Defeat, Timothy, is not a stumbling block – it’s a stepping stone. Doubt, Timothy? It’s the door to certainty and confidence; Fear, Timothy? It’s a step away from the greatness and ableness of God!!”

Henry Ward Beecher put it like this: “It is defeat that turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes people invincible, and forms those heroic natures that are now in ascendancy in the world. Do not, then, be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.”

Fourthly, look at spiritual fathers who give their sons lofty and significant goals for their lives and not a sense of shortsightedness. Come to Colossians 4:17 where Paul challenges Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.”

Two things to note here: One, ministry received “in the Lord.” I have no doubts that some men are shoved into places they should never be by thoughtless and unspiritual men. But true ministry is ‘in the Lord.’ It’s not an option I have – it’s a conviction God holds for one’s life.

And, two, ministry is to be fulfilled! What did Paul say in 2 Timothy 4:7-8? “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith…Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

What greater example than Christ Himself? In John 17:4, He said to the Father, “…I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.” Pressing in, laying hold, finishing the work is a Call we cannot run from! Break the tape, cross the line, then….rest in the arms of Jesus! Not now will I stop short; not now will I slow down in the race; not now will I R & R in the time of the battle of the ages. Not now – WE’RE GOING ON, WE’RE GOING IN!!

Fifth, consider Jesus and Judas! There is BETRAYAL; there is DENIAL; and there is REFUSAL TO TAKE A BIBLICAL PATH TO RESTORATION. In spiritual parenting there is always the path of brokenness, deep sorrow, and fearfulness over one you relate to who turns on you, betrays your trust, out for what the ‘son’ can get on his own. He’ll even publicly kiss you and then put a knife right into your heart. Because his consideration is, “What can I gain?’ rather than “What can I give?”

Judas’ want to hold the purse strings. Judas’ want the majority vote. Judas’ have “legitimate” explanations for betrayal and denial – and even if it dawns on them they’ve been wrong, a noose is better than the Good News of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ. They go it alone and abandon even their fellow disciples and choose Pharisees. Judas’ are down on spiritual extranagance like the woman with the expensive perfume pouring it all over Jesus, washing His feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. Judas’ are guided by, “That doesn’t sell,” as if discipleship and ministry are marketable products. “God, help us. Where have we come to in the American church?”

No wonder James Boren said, “It’s hard to look up to a leader who keeps his ear to the ground.” Judas’ are political poll watchers who put their finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing rather than “Follow Me.” Judas’ measure their devotion by the visible not the invisible and they never become a part of seeing the impossible accomplished. They are “nickles and dimes” folk and not ministry or servant hood focused.

Remember Judas’ approach to Jesus? He’s going to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver by way of a ‘kiss.’ But Jesus said to him, “Friend, why have you come here?” HOW AWESOME! Do you doubt Jesus knew what was about to happen? But He still called him, “Friend…”

I’m ith Peter – ‘let’s cut off some ears,” but thank God that Jesus says, “Put your sword in its place!” Yes, Lord; but I sure would like to tanny some fanny! Yes, Lord; but will those faithless sons pay? Yes, Lord; but can I call down a little fire and brimstone? And ‘In His Time’ there is an accounting of one’s stewardship of trust in the “purse strings” of responsibility and relationship – and the FATHER will work it out.

The only problem I see in spiritual fathers and “sons” relationship is what is going on in a son’s heart? It was John Ruskin who said: “When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.” Big God Himself has a major problem getting even into “small packages.”

It’s why Josiah Gilbert Holland cried out: God give us men. A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands.

Men whom the lust of office does not kill, men whom the spoils of office cannot buy, men who possess opinions and a will, men who love honor, men who will not lie.”

Whether a spiritual father or a growing, maturing spiritual son, Paul has inspired advice when truthfully he said in Philippians 3:12-14, (TLB),

“I don’t mean to say I am perfect. I haven’t learned all I should even yet, but I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ saved me for and wants me to be…..

No, dear brothers, I am still not at all I should be but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us.”

That is my passionate heart-cry for myself and for anyone our Lord has put in my path to influence, inspire, encourage – whatever; so that we all might come into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Rise up, fathers! Rise up, sons! BE ALL CHRIST SAVED YOU TO BE! Hold on, fathers, to that high and holy calling of nurturing, mentoring, and training! Hold on, sons, until the ‘father’s release!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“ABANDONING HOPE OR ABIDING IN HOPE?”

In the Random House Collegiate Dictionary the word “hope” is described as follows: “The feeling that what is desired is also possible, or that events may turn out for the best..; to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence..; that something desired may happen..; trust, rely.” And no doubt, redeemed or not, there are people gripped in their minds with a “hope” that what they put their faith in may happen or it may not happen. But ‘fleshly hope’ is nowhere near Biblical hope! Some, both out of or in the church “hope things turn out for the ‘best’,” or like others they live, they strive, they ‘try’, but live in a state of mind AND heart : “I hope against hope,” which IS a sad state of mental, physical, and spiritual levels of living! Why not ABIDE IN BIBLICAL HOPE without being swayed by the world, the flesh, or the devil?

In John 15:4-11 the Lord Jesus tells us: Jesus says, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, AND My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Would you say that Jesus was extremely clear when He said that if you and I as believers “abide in Him” that we will be strongly held in the arms of Him whose arms cannot be broken? Did He also say that only in and through Him does Sovereign fruitfulness become a reality? And in that “rest” in Him only, did He also say that abiding in Him supernaturally allows divine fruitfulness, to bud and produce, yes, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of Christ, the fruit of God?

But, notice John 15:2! “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit the Father takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” And in the branch should one, yes, be concerned about minimum or maximum ‘fruit-production’? Is the “fruit” that the Word declares the evidence of one’s “new birth experience” or an unredeemed life that just “hopes for the best”, but hoping for the best is not the same as “resting in the hope Christ has promised” which is “His best” revealed in His full surrender to God the Father’s “Before Creation, but settled in His Mind, His Heart, and His Will: “My Son will be the “hope of all repentant, trusting hearts, in reconciliation to My eternal purpose for created, sin-bound men who are only set free from godlessness and led by Christ into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Do you remember Jesus saying thousands of years after Abraham’s birth, life, and death that “Abraham rejoiced to see My day and he was glad?” Father-God knew that in the reality of men’s birthing on earth He didn’t want “spiritual zombies” as sons and daughters but people free to choose whether they wanted to be independent of God or dependent upon Him for mercy and grace! And, yes, Abraham and many Old Testament citizens learned of the Coming Messiah who would be the “blood sacrifice” in behalf of repentant hearts and souls.

But, sadly, multitudes abandoned hope from God holding on to “best effort” human genius! That’s like Pharaoh of Egypt, confronted in Exodus 5 by Moses and Aaron on a mission from God, telling Pharaoh that Holy God said to “Let My people go” from their Egyptian bondage and slavery with Pharaoh saying in Exodus 5:2, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.”

Even though Sovereign God determined the Savior of the world would come as “Emmanuel” or “God in flesh”, and that He would come being born of the Virgin Mary, only true, God-trusting Old Testament believers of Israel put their faith in the Savior their physical eyes would never see, indicating certainly “spiritual vision” far outweighs being able to see with only physical eyes! Yes, “Abraham (having never seen) rejoiced to see My day, and he was glad!”

Most of Israel abandoned hope although they were devoted to religious observances! Most of the world today doesn’t even look back to the Cross of Christ as most of Israel in the Old Testament didn’t look forward to His coming! They were satisfied with their religious observances even as they practiced, yes, a godless lifestyle, heavily reinforced with religious activities, never sensing the Voice of Christ or the Holy Spirit’s unveiling of Christ to them. Why? “Who needs a Savior when we’re capable of doing whatever our natural or religious minds determine! We’re able to be religiously devoted!”

And there are still those even today who “take up stones to throw at Christ”! To them it was justified because they didn’t see the great “I AM” Jesus as worthy of anything but stoning! But, I urge you, reflect upon Saul’s attitude toward the prophet Samuel who had just learned from God, “Saul doesn’t follow Me”, and Holy God instructed Samuel to tell Saul, as well as all unbelievers today, 1 Samuel 15:22-23, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.”

Of course, we don’t have to be concerned in the church today about being called ‘kings’, or do we? In Revelation 5:9-10, “the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. And they sang a new song, saying: (Speaking to the Lamb of God, King Jesus!), “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and nation, (GET READY!!!), and have MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS TO OUR GOD; AND WE SHALL REIGN ON THE EARTH.”

That’s not when you die and go to heaven, but when on earth you choose the sentence of death unto yourself that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in you as He anoints YOU IN HIM to reign upon the earth!

But around you daily you cross paths with people who “abandon hope” and refuse to even consider “abiding in hope” because some tell them, “If you even rang God’s heavenly doorbell, He wouldn’t answer you because even God can’t help the hopeless,” which is so foreign to the mind, heart, and will of God. I tell you, God is able to save, heal, deliver the worst sinner on the face of the earth if he/she, in true repentance and faith calls out for God’s mercy and grace!

But I tell you also, there is a huge difference between a ‘religious hope fabricated by men’ and redemptive hope written forever by the shed blood of the Lamb of God who still says: “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.” I don’t know who wrote it, but I came across an anonymous statement: “There is more hope for a self-convicted sinner than there is for a self-conceited saint,” and to that I say, “Amen!”

I wrote a few words I pray will enlighten you, bless you, and encourage you – no title yet, just a few, I hope, challenging words!!

“Lord Jesus, Son of God, Savior of repentant, faith-believing minds and hearts, Open our understanding of all Your gracious deeds as, by Your Spirit, we examine our heart-felt needs!

That’s the need to abandon hopelessness and be swept up in the sea of Your abiding hope! Our wanderings without you birthed a life of a world of grief because, we as your children, rested in ourselves as thieves.

In ourselves, no hope; in ourselves, no cure; in ourselves, no help; becoming hopeless and helpless, blinded by ‘flesh’, deceived by Satan, fooled by the world, we dance the death that will not die, even blinding ourselves to God’s open eye!

There are dark clouds for men without God, but gracious God, in amazing love, placed His Son on our very sod; hope is His gift, mercy His song, His invitation to Him belong!

“Come to Me and I’ll give you rest, find your place in Heaven’s nest – no longer the sad song of life’s frustration, but washed in His blood, indwelt in your body, you see your heart as My destination.”

There is for your life, though clouds may come, the starlight of heaven shining on your home. Circumstances may arise with Satan’s intent to discourage your walk, but never give in to his empty talk.

Christ Jesus has spoken, and His received Word need never be broken! He ever abides to stand by your side, that you in His glory may continue to abide. His sunset of hope, like an anchor to hold, is never swept away but continually abides to stand by your side, His promise that cannot be denied!” Amen?

“Abandoning Hope Or Abiding in Hope?” I pray you’ll join me in “Abiding in Hope”! Let’s look first at “God’s Amazing Promise”! In Hebrews 6:9-20 we read: “But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.’ And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. [A forty year wait!].

For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, DETERMINED TO SHOW MORE ABUNDANTLY TO THE HEIRS OF PROMISE THE IMMUTABILITY OF HIS COUNSEL, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. [Did Abraham ‘lay hold of the hope’ AFTER HE HAD PATIENTLY ENDURED? Again, there is ‘birth’, ‘infancy’, ‘youth’, ‘young adult’, and the ‘senior fully matured in the faith’!].

Hebrews 6:19-20 continues: “This hope we have AS AN ANCHOR OF THE SOUL, BOTH SURE AND STEADFAST, and which enters the “Presence” behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Are YOU “standing on our Lord’s promises and resting in the sure Word of God that never fades away or changes?

SECOND, ABIDING IN HOPE IS BEING ENRICHED BY THE ANOINTED WORD OF GOD! Don’t ever forget or overlook in ‘discipleship training’ the words of Jesus in Matthew 4:4 as Jesus responded to Satan’s temptations! He said: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Tell me, first, about your physical dieting! Do you at least try to eat three square meals a day? BUT, is there the necessity of ‘spiritual feeding’ of the redeemed soul? If you eat three square meals a day to maintain your physical body, what about maintaining the ‘spiritual life’ that MUST BE NOURISHED IN THE BREAD, MEAT, AND VEGETABLES AND HONEY OF GOD’S SPIRIT-WORD?

In John 6:63-64 Jesus said: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” How many ‘believers’ and ‘church folk’ have crossed your path who insist there is no need of discipline in the Word “after” one had been born again?

Very interesting Verse in Psalm 49:20! “A man who is in honor, yet does not understand, is like the beasts that perish.” And, I thought: How many honorable men in the church or outside the church are esteemed but couldn’t give you one word about himself as a student of God’s Holy Word feeding on it daily? Are you “being enriched” by the living and abiding Word of God?

THIRD, ABIDING IN HOPE IS BEING SUSTAINED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! In Romans 8: 1-2 Paul wrote: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh (one’s old sin nature), but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

Abandoning hope is the determination to choose to live by one’s best effort without any need of “God’s interference” with one proving he/she can do it on one’s own determination! But Holy God just happens to be smarter than fallen mankind’s assessment of himself, God fully aware ‘in the flesh’ fallen mankind cannot, does not, will not live the overcoming life against the world, one’s old sin nature, or Satan’s interference; therefore merciful God sustains us by the Holy Spirit in divine conviction, divine conversion, and divine consecration – the Holy Spirit sustains true believers!

In Romans 8:8-11 Paul continued laying the foundation for a true believer “abiding in hope”! He wrote: “So then those who are in the flesh (living under the control of their old sin nature) cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And IF Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Holy Spirit who dwells in you.”

But there are those ‘professing believers’, ‘active church members’, even ‘preachers’, who say, “Oh, someday, in the sweet by and by, we’ll finally experiencing what it means to live in Christ’s fullness!” Yet Paul wrote in Romans 15:29, “But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.” Really? In the here and now? That’s the true gospel! And “in Christ” you can “live with joy by the will of God,” “daily refreshed in His resurrection life, resurrection power, and resurrection hope”! I say to you: NEVER FORGET Martin Luther’s words in his famous hymn that says: “A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe Does seek to work us woe; His craft and power are great, And, armed with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing, Were not the right Man on our side, The Man of God’s own choosing. Do you ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth is His name, From age to age the same, And He must win the battle.

And tho’ this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, For God has willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim – We tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, For lo! His doom is sure: One little world shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers – No thanks to them – abideth; The Spirit and the gifts are ours Through Him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also; The body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever.” Can YOU say AMEN to the grace, mercy, and love of God as YOUR ABIDING HOPE, or do you presently walk on “the sinking sands” of fleshly suffocation?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“BLAND-SOME, HANDSOME, OR AWESOMELY TRANSFORMED?”

It was really interesting when I read casually a statement written anonymously but included in a major book called “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations.” The encyclopedia was a Fleming H. Revell Company publication. The statement? “Beware of no man more than yourself.” And I’m sure without hesitation that there ought to be at times the necessity of looking to ourselves, examining ourselves, and determining if we’re responsible and accountable to God about our ‘present state’, mentally, emotionally, health-wise, and certainly spiritual evaluation about ourselves, whether under our own control or moving daily through life under God’s agenda and not our fleshly anticipation!

It was Alexander Maclaren who once said, “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step.” So true!

When there is no inward analysis about where we presently are in the inner man, it is so easy in making turns more and more away from God but centering and surrendering and classifying ourselves as our own ‘man’ able to determine one’s own spiritual destiny or as an ‘asserting believer sure of one’s ‘salvation’ because they attend ‘church’ regularly yet bear “no fruit” of a redeemed, Spirit-led walk of true discipleship!

Shockingly I read where Benjamin Franklin once said, “God helps those who help themselves.” NO! A THOUSAND TIMES, NO! God helps those who empty themselves of self-control, choosing death daily to our ‘old man’ and being filled with and controlled by the Holy Presence of Christ and His “guiding” Holy Spirit, by the reality of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

A paraphrased statement of Charles Caleb Colton says: “Heroism, magnanimity, and self-denial, in which they do not spring from the foundational truth of “death to self and pure life only in Christ’s Resurrection Presence within”, may be religious in their tendencies, but are only on the ‘personal altar’ of sacrifice of one kind of self-love to another kind of self-love,’ with no glory to God and no honor to the pretender,” but just promotes attention to ‘self-gratification”!”

Have you ever heard people in religious circles encouraging those in their circles having a hard time adjusting to their ‘profession of faith’, “You must TRY HARDER”! And the true disciple understands that it’s not a matter of ‘trying harder’ but “trusting more and more”, like we read through Paul’s teaching, led by the Holy Spirit, “Take the sentence of death daily that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in your mortal flesh”!

Daily denial of the “old self” willfully explodes”(!*) in the reality of the heart’s open door to the “Master-ing” of Christ Himself through you! Holy God longs and looks for those who willfully deny themselves and are filled and over-flowing with the Holy Presence of the Resurrected Christ, yes, Him reigning as the Victorious King in one’s humble heart, daily dead to self and the old man but living in “the fullness of the blessing” of His moment by moment “reign in victory” over your life, even over all your trials, temptations, and troubles! Sadly, in much of modern-day Christianity, many know nothing of “the joy of the Lord”!

Modern-day ‘humanity’, the general public, the national or international make-up of men, includes often rulers with no allegiance to “King Jesus”, business owners and some of their employees, State leaders with some having NO allegiance to the will of God, even universities or local school employees or state governments who’ve decided the “Sacred Scriptures” have no place in their communities, even doctors, nurses, and hospitals who have no desire or place for the ministry of the Great Physician! And even more sad is when some churches are ‘ruled’ by some pastors and elders who major more on their personal philosophies than they do “Preaching and Teaching the Word of God”, yes, excellent in its history but void and empty of its message to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel”, or validating His Presence in them by witnessing, evangelizing, loving and caring for the lost community that surrounds the local gathering and ‘smart’ preacher (?)!

Let’s examine “The Bland-some”! In “The Random House Collegiate Dictionary”, Revised Edition of 1975 by Random House Inc., the word “bland” is described as follows: “pleasantly gentle or agreeable, (and I have to ask, “With anything and everything”?), non-irritating,lacking in interest (of what doesn’t fit their mind or heart-set?,lacking liveliness, lacking loveliness in what miraculously blesses it?),unemotional, indifferent, casual, possessing either a softness, or harshness, or irritating.”

The bland-some? That’s individuals being consumed in their self-awareness that they do not like, but indifferent to the “knock” at their hearts’ doors to a caring, merciful, able God, Savior, and Lord, able to do exceedingly above All that one might consider or think, even miraculously producing a “new man”!

The bland-some, un-governed, have no desire to be governed by Another who IS the Master of an individual’s destiny! The bland-some, though within their minds and hearts are often encouraged by even a human touch or a fleshly encouragement, are strongly minded against anything Holy God has to say about them! That’s why Jesus said about the rulers over the religious Pharisees, in John 12:43, fearful of being put out of the synagogue, “for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God”!

Even from the time of beginning, by God, of man’s earthly residency, many of natural mankind had an aversion to God! And because of, and even being created “in the image or likeness of God”, and really for His glory only(!), some of natural mankind had and has no desire to be birthed again (in the Spirit!) and see their ‘seed’ becoming “servants of God”! And buried in the recesses of their minds and darkened hearts was and is, by some, was and is, resistance to obedience to God’s will or purpose for their lives! That attitude is still paramount across our known world! (That’s why true believers are called by Christ to be “witnesses to their world” of saving grace, love, power, and purpose!).

The bland-some? Have you ever read through early Exodus about Moses’ encounter with the Pharaoh of Egypt? Holy God sent faithful Moses as a witness, but Pharaoh’s heart was “hardened by God” because of his resistance to divine truth, the divine Way, and the divine purpose, exactly the ‘spiritual disease’ of the bland-some!

In 1 Samuel 8 we find the historical record of ‘bland-some’ folk who have no desire to even know what God thinks about the purpose of their existence! Follow carefully the historical record, beginning at Verse 4 through Verse 9! It says: “Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” [Please consider!! What would happen worldwide if nations declared allegiance to Jesus’ saving grace and Jesus’ eternal purpose for lives, homes, cities, states, and nations?].

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day – with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods – so they are doing to you also. Now therefore, heed there voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them.” [Tell me of the present result in your life of the results of the “bland-some king of flesh” ruling in you, through you, for his hellish ‘academy award’ of deceit reigning over you presently!].

OH, BUT THEN, BEYOND THE BLAND-SOME, LET’S EXAMINE THE HANDSOME, THE ‘HOLLYWOOD’ PRODUCTION OF SELF-BEAUTIFIED, SELF-GLORIFIED, SELF- CELEBRATING!!

In, yes, the context of human existence, beyond the ‘bland-some’, there are the ‘handsome’ who truly are ‘successful’ in what most consider to be “successes, academy award winners of the best efforts of ‘flesh’, best efforts of godless men, best efforts of human achievements.” And the world around them celebrate, rejoice, and are giddy about their achievements – but GOD LAUGHS and opens the door to Hell’s celebration of their self-centered, godless existence!

Are you familiar with Pharoah of Egypt’s handsomeness, his impressiveness in ascending to national leadership, and his allegiance to his ‘handsome way’ of leadership(?)? He had ‘the peacock-pride’ of self-will, self-rule, self-preeminence! He was ruler, he was ‘master’ over slaves, he owned Egypt (he thought), and lived a self-centered, wealthy, prosperous life-style while his citizens hungered! Some consider ‘pride’ as the beginning of sin, when in reality it is only the bad fruit of what is already there, thus reigning ‘in sin’ as he ruled over his people! What are You ‘reigning’ in as you live, yes, independently of the Indwelling Christ as He makes a man’s redeemed life the center of His Earthly Throne and His Heavenly Presence?

The ‘handsome back-slappers’ have no awareness of the sin of pride, of hypocrisy, and of, yes, their vain-glory! The ‘fallen’ are spiritually blind and need the miracle of God’s saving grace to “open their eyes” to see eternal opportunity!! I was reading somewhere, not sure where or even by whom, but I wrote down a reference to the words of Charles Churchill in his writing “Independence” about William Warburton, Bishop of Glouchester, in England, many, many years ago. The statement? Speaking about the Bishop:

“He was so proud that should he meet the Twelve Apostles in the street he’d turn his nose up at them all and shove his Savior from the wall.” Wow! What an illuminating statement! Can YOU believe that even some national church leaders have been ‘pretenders’, imitators, comical ‘showboats’, shaming their profession of Christ without an ounce of possession of “the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”? Was it pride that shamed some angels even before human creation?

Do you even grasp the absurdity of ‘fallen’, ‘professing’, ‘religious’, ‘pretending’, supposedly ‘righteous men’, celebrating their ‘religious faith’ (?), but they hold out, yield to a ‘heaven-inspired’ (?) of their ‘salvation’ when the historical, living testimony, is a Christless life never yielding to the Christ who desires to indwell them, but they profess that on their terms! YOUR “BEST” IS NOT HIS BLESSED PRESENCE!!!

You don’t seek to understand so that you may believe, you TRUST what Jesus says He’s already accomplished through His death, His Resurrection, and His Throne-Reigning in Heaven, graciously granting His Holy Spirit’s residence in you to “guide you into all truth” in “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ”!

Valiant, blessed, fulfilled, rejoicing individuals, though having “embraced the darkness of their old sin natures” COME TO THE LIGHT OF CHRIST IN AND THROUGH And BY HIS GRACE AND MERCY THEY ARE ETERNALLY CHANGED INTO SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF A TRUE, LIVING, TRANSFORMING FAITH – It’s “JESUS ONLY”! THIS BRINGS US TO:

THE DIVINE REALITY, THE HEAVENLY MIRACLE OF GRACE OF AWESOME TRANSFORMED LIVES THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST!! In John 1:14, 16 we read: “And the Word (that’s Jesus!) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”, with Verse 16 telling us, “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” Are you trying to live the Christian walk by ‘grit’ or by God’s grace?

Patiently read and follow with me Ephesians 1:15-2:10!! It says: “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God (and Father!) of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, they eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, ACCORDING TO THE WORKING OF HIS MIGHTY POWER WHICH HE WORKED IN CHRIST WHEN HE RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD AND SEATED HIM AT HIS RIGHT HAND IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And God put all things under Christ Jesus’ feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 2:1-10, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Can you say, “Glory, Hallelujah”?

Do you know and understand what Paul was saying in Ephesians 3:19? He was praying for Ephesian believers and us in the 21^st Century in America and the world over that we should “know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Oh, and then in Ephesians 5:17-21 we read:

“Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.” Is there a continuous song of praise in your heart, spirit, and mind, even when it may be the darkest moment of your life, walk, and journey of faith and trust?

I AM TRULY ALWAYS AWED WHEN I READ PAUL’S ANOINTED ASSETMENT OF THE “PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST JESUS” IN COLOSSIANS 1:9-18! It says: For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, FULLY PLEASING HIM, being fruitful in every good work and INCREASING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who HAS QUALIFIED US TO BE PARTAKERS OF THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS IN THE LIGHT.

He has “delivered us from the power of darkness” and “conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love”, in whom “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins”. He (Christ Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have preeminence.”

Question! “If Christ Jesus is meant to have preeminence IN ALL THINGS, in your life and walk, does He have preeminence in who you are and what you do? Does He have ‘preeminence’ in determining the streets upon which you walk? Your education, your training, who you date, who you marry, your evaluation and commitment of your ‘best effort’ to what you consider your spiritual, eternal calling?” What did the Word just say? “that in all things He may have the preeminence”! DOES JESUS HOLD PREEMINENCE IN YOUR LIFE’S JOURNEY? Fanny Crosby and Robert Lowry wrote the following hymn words: “All the way my Savior leads me; What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who thro’ life has been my Guide? Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, here by faith in Him to dwell! For I know, whate’er befall me, Jesus does all things well.

All the way my Savior leads me, Cheers each winding path I tread, Gives me grace for every trial, Feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter, and my soul athirst may be, Gushing from the Rock before me, Lo! A spring of joy I see.

All the way my Savior leads me; Oh, the fullness of His love! Perfect Rest to me is promised in my Father’s house of love. (Now, not someday, ABOVE in the after-life!).When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day (Actual Heaven’s abode!), This my song thro’ endless ages: JESUS LED (IN ME) ALL THE WAY; (EVERY DAY IN THE STILL ETERNAL DAY, IN THE ENDLESS AGES OF NO DEATH, NO SORROW, NO PAIN, NO SEPARATION)!” And His “Eternal Light” in us never dims, never fades, never darkens! AMEN?

ARE YOU ENJOYING AND CELEBRATING AND CONTINUALLY REJOICING AND PRAISING HIM THAT BY HIS GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE, THROUGH REPENTANCE AND FAITH, YIELDEDNESS AND SURRENDER, YOUR “NEW-BORN” LIFE IN CHRIST BECOMES HIS HOLY TEMPLE OF ABIDING PRESENCE, YES, HEAVEN ON EARTH!??!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“CROWNED PRINCES,CROWNED PRINCESSES SERVING THE KING OF KINGS”?

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

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

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

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

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

WHEREFORE I WAS GRIEVED WITH THAT GENERATION, & SAID, THEY DO ALWAYS ERR IN THEIR HEART; & THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN MY WAYS. SO I SWORE IN MY WRATH, ‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER INTO MY REST “TAKE HEED, BRETHREN,LEST THERE BE IN ANY OF YOU AN EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF, IN DEPARTING FROM THE LIVING GOD.

BUT EXHORT ONE ANOTHER DAILY, WHILE IT IS CALLED ‘TODAY’; LEST ANY OF YOU BE HARDENED THROUGH THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. FOR WE ARE MADE “PARTAKERS OF CHRIST” “””IF”””!! WE HOLD THE BEGINNNG OF OUR CONFIDENCE STEDFAST (OR FIRM) UNTO THE END.” WOW!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES!”

Troubling Tombs? Troubling Tombs of Godless lives, like self-centered lives striving in a Godless existence, even striving to find meaning to life without God but assured in self, worldly, demonic deception that your life will work it out and find meaning, a sense of peace and purpose without Him, though for most with godless minds, they never consider what or who or why life has to be a struggle finding any sense of blessing or peace or satisfaction as they see it, doing so without eternal identity and eternal purpose!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? When in James 1:8 the brother of Jesus said, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,” you get a true picture of a godless life that has a hint of a God-filled life as a possibility, but has no desire to die to the ‘flesh’, the old sin-nature, or devotion to a world of unbelief – he, she desires, though troubled, because their greater allegiance is satisfying the ‘fullness of the flesh’ rather than experiencing “New Birth” in and through the Holy Spirit!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How clear do you find the words of Christ Jesus in Luke 11:34 when He said: “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when your eye is single (Settled in on God alone in His love, grace, and mercy!), your whole body is full of light; but when your eye is evil, your body also is full of darkness.” Some say Jesus was “too strong” in His words about lives that choose to accept, visit, remember, hold on to, indulge in a false confession of faith with one foot stepping forward in Him and the other foot yielding to the world, the old sin-nature, and, yes, to Satanic, demonic deception! Haven’t you crossed paths with, yes, many ‘religious’ (?) people who want the best of both worlds?

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? Is that a “downcast life”, a life that seldom, if ever, looks UP toward the King of kings and Lord of lords, as He sits on His throne ready to respond to the needy, empty, sin-sick soul, though they mentally, at times, at least ‘wanting’ to be religious without being ‘dead to the old sin-nature’, but they never ever consider being made ‘alive’ in the Resurrection Presence of the Reigning Lord and Savior?

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How easy is it for Godless lives, even some modern-day ‘religious profess-ors’, to ‘profess’ but never “POSSESS” the fullness of the blessing of the Resurrected Christ? There are ‘religious-cave-dwellers’ that are not just prehistoric men but modern-day-religious pretenders dwelling in the cave of self-determination, “saying” one thing about their ‘faith’ (?) but “living” still in their ‘godless life’, though they sing about “blessed assurance” as they practice their “cursed existence”!!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How aware are you of the disease of “the reverence of a man’s self-nature”, so in love with his/her ‘fleshly passions’, that he/she never looks to the eternal Truth of, yes, “crucified with Christ”; or, as some, they profess allegiance to the false expression: “God helps those who help themselves, saying “I try”, rather than truly trusting in Christ’s finished work at the Cross”, or, “Do your best”, as religiously they bow at the altar of ‘self-control’ rather than “resting” in Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope IN “Christ Only, One’s Only Hope of the Glorified Life”!!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? Oh, how easy it is for far too many people to live in a false pretense of faith rather than the “blessed assurance” in and through Christ alone! Alexander MacLaren once said, “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step.” This is why in Galatians 2:20 Paul said, “I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in this fleshly body I live by The Faith of The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me,” adding in Verse 21, I do not frustrate the grace of God!”

In the short but sensational word of Jude you find him writing about “pretenders”, though they ‘dressed’ daily in imitation garbs! In Verses 3-5 and Verses 8-15 Jude exposes not only those in his day but also those in modern centuries and in our current century who live the “victimized life of religious pretense” filling some church pews!!

Jude said, Verses 3-5, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

For THERE ARE CERTAIN MEN CREPT IN UNAWARES, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God INTO LASCIVIOUSNESS, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I will therefore put YOU in remembrance, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Verses 8-15 then says: Likewise also these filthy dreamers (who) DEFILE THE FLESH, DESPISE (CHRIST’S) DOMINION, AND SPEAK EVIL OF DIGNITIES. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you.

But, these speak evil of those things which they know not; but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear; clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints,

To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

It was Sir Francis Bacon in his writing, “New Atlantis”, who said: “The reverence of a man’s self is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.” Have you ever crossed paths, in a local church, with ‘active’ church members who are ‘brain and heart dead’ to “taking the sentence of death daily to the mortal sin-nature that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in and through their mortal flesh?”

Oh, and reflect upon the startling, shocking, awakening words of Charles Caleb Colton, (The Enclypodia of Religious Quotations, p.397, Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey)!! “Heroism, magnanimity, and self-denial, in all instances in which they do not spring from a principle of religion (and, I say, “Biblical Faith”!), are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.”

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS SADLY DENYING RESURRECTION LIFE IN AND THROUGH CHRIST ONLY!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS DOMINATED BY FLESHLY “WARPED WITS”!!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS STILL SATISFIED WITH HIGHLY EDUCATED WORLDLY WILLS, YES, CELEBRATED BY SATAN AND HIS DEMONIC DECEIVERS!!!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE INDIVIDUALS VICTIMIZED BY THE POWERS OF DARKNESS RADIATING THE “FLESHLY LIGHTS OF SEIF-IMPORTANCE AND SELF-INDULGENCE” WITH NO NEED OF BEING RESCUED BY GOD!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE LIVES JOHN MILTON ONCE DESCRIBED AS: “HE WHO REIGNS HIMSELF AND RULES HIS PASSIONS, DESIRES, AND FEARS IS MORE THAN A KING,” and, I say,- “HE, SHE IS A DECEIVED SINNER WITHOUT ANY NEED OF A SAVIOR SINCE “SELF-RULE” STUPIDLY REIGNS!!”

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE LIVES RADIATING THE ‘DARKNESS’ OF CAGED SELFISHNESS THOUGH ‘PROFESSING’ A RELIGIOUS FAITH!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? OH, THERE IS FOR MANY A TROUBLING AWARENESS OF THEIR ‘SIN-NATURE’ BUT IN THEIR DARKENED HEARTS AND BONDAGED-SELF-WILL NO AWARENESS OF THE NEED OF GOD’S INTERVENTION – THEY CAN HANDLE THEIR ‘MENTAL MISTAKES”! REALLY?

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? HAVE YOU EVER CROSSED PATHS WITH,YES, CROWDS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE APPRECIATIVELY INFORMED ABOUT CHRIST’S “BLOOD SACRIFICE” IN THEIR BEHALF BUT SEE AT AS AN UNNECESSARY EVENT BY GOD SINCE THEY SEE THEMSELVES AS RELIGIOUSLY “OK”?

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? “BELIEF” THAT IS DARKENED UNBELIEF THAT DESTROYS BECAUSE, THOUGH “CONFESSING CHRIST”, ONE’S WALK- HIS PATH, HER PILGRIMAGE-IS AN IMMORAL DESERT WHERE ONE CONTINUES TO WALK DEAFENED TO THE PRECIOUS VOICE OF GOD AND BLINDED TO HIS FOOTSTEPS TO CALVERY, OUT OF THE TOMB, BUT HIS CONTIUNUING WALK WORLD-WIDE TO KNOCK ON THE DOORS OF MEN’S HEARTS! HAVE YOU OPENED THE DOOR TO THE SAVIOR’S LORDSHIP AND SOVEREIGN REIGN OVER YOUR WALK, YOUR PATH, YOUR PILGRIMAGE TO HONOR HIM DAILY? It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her writing “The Cry of the Human”, who wrote:“There is no God,” the foolish says, But none, “There is no sorrow”; And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow. Eyes which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, “God be pitiful,” Who never said, “God be praised.”

Sadly, yes, across many ‘Christian paths’, people walk and talk and pretend but are blinded in unbelief by the mind of religious human reasoning, superficial in religious thoughts and pretense, but void of Resurrection Presence – Christ knocked, but they didn’t answer because their pretense was sufficient rather than His Presence!

How clear and convicting was Paul when in 1 Corinthians 13:11 he wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Are You ruled by ‘self-love’ or fully embraced and overflowing with your love for Christ Jesus who suffered, bled, and died on the Cross of Calvary as He, yes, carried YOU with Him to be “crucified with Christ”? In Mark 8:34 Jesus said: “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS (DYING DAILY!), AND FOLLOW ME.” For YOU? A TROUBLED TOMB OR TRIUMPHANT IN JESUS?

In the old “American Hymnal” of 1938, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, is a hymn entitled, “O For A Faith That Will Not Shrink.” It says:

“O for a faith that will not shrink Tho’ pressed by many a foe, That will not tremble on the brink Of poverty or woe.

That will not murmur nor complain Beneath the chastening rod, But in the hour of grief or pain Can lean upon its God.

A faith that shimes more bright and clear When tempests rage without, That, when in danger, knows no fear, In darkness feels no doubt.

Lord, give me such a faith as this, And then, whatever may come, I taste even now my hallowed bliss Of my eternal home.”

Can YOU say Amen to that Truth? Are YOU settled and cemented in Christ alone, or do you ‘rest’ in your fleshly self?

Are YOU a TROUBLED TOMB OR HIS TRIUMPHANT TEMPLE OF ETERNAL PRESENCE REIGNING VICTORIOUSLY THROUGH YOU?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH”!

At a “National Hispanic Leadership Conference” in Houston, Texas, April 29, 2015, former Florida governor and presidential candidate, at the time, Jeb Bush, said: “There is no more powerful and liberating influence on this earth than the Christian conscience in action and today in America it is important to respect and to protect Christians acting on their faith…not just talking about their faith, but there is a constitutional right and more importantly for a loving society Christians need to have the space to be able to act on their conscience.” My only problem with his statement is, that often, the ‘Christian conscience’ is willful determination of ‘flesh’ opinions rather than Holy Word of God revelation!

It wasn’t long ago, maybe same day as Jeb Bush, that former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, said, maybe same conference, “We are living in perilous times where people who are Christian are on the brink of being criminalized for their convictions.”

And both men, stressing their beliefs, are easily, in this day and time, set aside and considered ‘radical’ by ‘godless’ or even ‘misinformed’ professing believers who don’t stand on the Word of God! It’s difficult to “stand for Truth” when one’s foundation is built on “self-evaluation” rather than “God-revealed-Holy Truth”!

We can go all the way back to Joshua’s day when in Joshua 24:14-15 we read, Joshua speaking, “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

We live in days as a nation that are not foreign to any nation, any people, or even to one, and can visualize what goes on anywhere, anytime, with any persons, just like the historical history of Christ’s crucifixion on the Cross several thousand years ago! Come with me to Luke 23, beginning with Verse 32! “There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And they divided His garments and cast lots. And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” {“If”? Are you aware of the reality of literally millions and millions, more likely billions, who understand, ‘There IS the King of the Jews, the King of all Americans, the King of every European, African, or Asian’ but who selfishly decide for themselves as to whether or not they will choose to serve the Lord?!?}.

In Luke 23:34 then tells us that Christ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do,” {Which is so true of literally millions and millions who do not know what they do when they trivialize Christ, join those who divide His garments and “roll the dice” hoping what He says is not true – BUT IT IS!}. Even the rulers of Israel SNEERED, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

Don’t you find that so interesting? They had an inkling about ‘the Christ, the chosen of God,’ but couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t receive the prophetic word from many of their prophets hundreds and hundreds of years before His actual coming! Do you remember Jesus saying in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad”? Verse 57 follows, Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” In Verse 58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” And their response? THEN they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them (the “stone-throwers”), and SO PASSED (THEM) by.” {Will Jesus have to “pass you by” when all are brought before His Throne of Judgment, whether you like it or not?}.

In Luke 23:36-38 we read: The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrews: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Didn’t we just read in Luke 23:33, “And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.” At least Luke KNEW Jesus was not a criminal, but, as God in the flesh, Who willingly offered Himself as THE sacrifice for the sins of all humanity! Even John, early in his writing of the Gospel of John, John 1:14, wrote: “And the Word (the Living Word of God!!) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” proclaiming in Verse 29, The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Examine John 1:32-35! And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ AND I HAVE SEEN AND TESTIFIED THAT THIS IS THE SON OF GOD.” Again, the next day, John stood with two of His disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Dare I tell you that Christ Jesus IS “the Way of Life” that leads to the “way of death”? In Matthew 10:16-18,21-22 Jesus challenged the original ‘twelve disciples’, saying to them, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

Verses 21-22 then says, “Now brother will deliver up brother TO DEATH, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

It is so evidently true that to “follow Christ Jesus” is to follow Him in every step He had to take, including the way of ‘suffering’, the way of ‘rejection’, the way of ‘obedience’, willing to fulfill the Father’s eternal will: death to Himself that resurrection life and hope could, would, and was manifested! Oh, and then in John 20, after His crucifixion and burial and resurrection, in Verses 19-21, we read:

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:30-31 then says: And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

And do you understand that “life in His name” does not come in full fruition apart from the awareness of and willingness to die daily to the ‘flesh’, the old sin-nature, and self-will, plus, a readiness of physical death by persecution if it comes your way, BECAUSE you will not deny Him?

In 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Apostle Paul wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death (“the wages of sin is death”!), and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”! Did Holy God, the Father, allow Jesus’ death and then manifest His Holy Power to raise the dead after Jesus’ three days in the grave?

And, how pleased is God the Father for the willingness of 21^st Century disciples to offer their lives daily as a “willing sacrifice” taking that sentence daily to themselves that His Resurrection Life may be manifested in their mortal flesh?

Do you remember Paul and Silas imprisoned, Acts 16:20-24? It says: And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.” ( Ever heard it yourself? “We’re free Americans and not interested in anything you ‘Christians’ have to say! Keep on, and we’ll have you imprisoned, or kill you ourselves!”}. [I actually heard that threat in India as I preached openly on the streets!].

Continuing in Acts 16:22-24, Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.”

That was a literal event for faithful believers, and it does still happen today that some believers are physically jailed for faithful testimonies in certain locations. BUT there IS a ‘symbolism’ which extends to many today who are vocal for the faith but ostracized by ‘friends’ and ‘family’, opponents shutting the door on them for their outspoken challenge to receive Christ!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? Are you aware of Christian Institutional and openly, strong, faithful disciples of Christ witnessing a rapidly growing opposition and threats because of many enemies of God who are becoming openly hostile to the Word and Will of God and against those who uphold “All Scripture is divinely inspired…”?

Prayer is rapidly being removed from classrooms with kids being told “School is not a place to pray!” Really? Yes, really! Ten Commandments are being removed from lots of places across the Nation where the banners of Truth used to fly! In Sweden pastors have been jailed for opposing homosexuality – and that threat is not far away in the U.S.A.!

There’s an active homosexual- sick man named Mitchell Gold whose diatribe against the Word of God and churches, pastors, and faithful disciples who stand on that Word of God, who has said, “They must be made to take homosexuality off the sin list,” and a New York Time’s writer, Frank Bruni, affirmed Gold’s obscene opposition to Holy God and His Word, saying, “His commandment (that’s Mitchell Gold’s commandment) is worthy – and warranted.”

And what sickens me is when I hear some say of their pastors, “They’ll not expose or speak the Truth because they don’t want to offend ANYBODY!” God, help us! It’s as if our formerly great nation, “one nation under God”, is fast becoming a nation under opposition to God!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? I want to urge you right now to commit yourself to reading faithfully, over and over, the Book of Daniel for at least a week! In Daniel you’ll find, not trivializing Truth, but many who want Biblical Truth obliterated from the national scene or stage! Follow Daniel 6:1-16!

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps, to be over the whole kingdom; and over these, three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.

So the governors and satraps SOUGHT TO FIND SOME CHARGE AGAINST DANIEL concerning the kingdom; BUT THEY COULD FIND NO CHARGE OR FAULT, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, “We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”

So these governors and satraps thronged before the king, and said thus to him, “King Darius, live forever! All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisers, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.” Therefore King Darius signed the written decree.

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows opened toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.

And they went before the king, and spoke concerning the king’s decree: “Have you not signed a decree that every man who petitions any god or man within thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered and said, “The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.”

So they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is one of the captives from Judah, does not show due regard for you, O king, or for the decree you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

And the king, when he heard these words was greatly displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men approached the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed.”

SO the king gave the command, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. But the king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you.”

In Verses 21-22 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”

AND the accusers, on the king’s command, were all cast into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions overpowered them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever came to the bottom of the den!!!

What was King Darius’ response? He wrote a proclamation! Verses 25-28 says: “To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel For He is the living God, and steadfast forever; His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall endure to the end.

He delivers and rescues, and He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, Who has delivered Daniel from the power of lions.” So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Glory!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? John 8 is a strong chapter defining Christ’s strong “Personal Witness” against the ‘religious’ Pharisees who determined He deserved to die because He opposed their religious pretense and no true eternal foundation upon which they walked and talked “the game” yet they never faced their guilt, sin, and separation from Holy God, and certainly had no ears to hear both prophetic utterances from hundreds and hundreds of years before or His declaration of Messianic identity!

Jesus told them in John 8:19, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” Oh, and then in John 8:23-24 Jesus released the eternal arrow of Truth about the scribes and Pharisees and the ‘religious but unredeemed’ Jews: “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.”

In John 8:37-47 Jesus then said: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.” They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I

heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father – God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.

Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

So…Christ Jesus Himself was ‘criminalized’ by the religious, unbelieving, unrepentant crowd and CRUCIFIED ON THE CROSS for all men because of God’s great love for the world!

What went on then still goes on today! The unbelieving world still condemns the holy and congratulates the hollow; the unbelieving world sentences the sincere and celebrates the sinner; the unbelieving world imprisons the faithful and frees the ‘foul’ from any and every offense; the unbelieving world still maligns the merciful and merits the ‘molded’ in mind and heart!

It was Harriet Beecher Stowe who once said: “No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.” And, in most cases, it’s the godless man criminalizing those who stand for, in, and through the truth, resulting, for them, a Hell forever with the devil, his demons, and all rejecters of Biblical Truth, and all sin-infected ‘profound minds’, and all ‘superficial thinkers’ who know nothing about standing on Eternal Truth!

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

GOD DWELLS WHERE THE THRONE IS!!

Revelation 4:1-5:14

It’s not seen with the visible eye, but every life has a throne – and WHO sits on that throne defines that life.

Life is not defined by outward appearances but is defined by the authority on the throne of that life.

It is not explained by educational degrees, bank accounts, or even meritorious accomplishments – it’s explained by WHO gets the glory.

Life is not explained by beauty, talent, genes, abilities or the lack of them, religious inclinations or the lack of them, ancestral heritage or the lack of it, hall of fame awards or the lack of them – LIFE is defined by either a temporal throne or the Eternal Throne.

It’s either a throne of religious devotion or The THRONE OF REDEMPTIVE MERCY.

It’s either a throne of self-declaration as ‘god’ unto myself or submission in the heart at the Throne of Sovereign, Mighty God.

It’s either a throne of self-reflection or the Throne of God where repentance is the welcome Door-Opener to an Eternal relationship with Him.

It’s either a throne of self-satisfaction consumed by constant introspection or the Throne of a life bent toward God because His drawing power of us was not in vain.

Do you remember the godless saying to the Psalmist, Psalm 42:3. “Where is your God?” Can I tell you?

“God dwells where the Throne is” – not your throne but His Throne. He’s at home where His Throne has been established. He’s honored where He feels welcomed and received.

As John Piper so ably expressed, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Jesus put it even clearer when in John 14:23 He said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make Our home with him.”

Do you see it? A God-loving heart, a welcoming home, and a Royal Throne.

In Revelation 4 and 5, 14 times the word, ‘throne’ is used. Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of the word ‘throne’, “The place where God peculiarly manifests his power and glory…sovereign power and dignity…”

Psalm 99:1-3 declares: “The Lord reigns; Let the peoples tremble! He dwells between the cherubim; Let the earth be moved!…The Lord is great in Zion. And He is high above all the peoples…Let them praise Your great and awesome name – He is holy.”

“Where is your God?” He’s seated on His throne, He reigns on His throne, He dwells on His throne, and He feels at home on His throne.

And my one driving ambition of life should be to be raised up and seated with Him in heavenly places. Where is that? Let’s see what God’s Word is telling us – I want you to see 9 truths:

GOD DWELLS WHERE THE THRONE IS? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

First, God dwells on THE THRONE OF SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY. Revelation 4:1, “After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, ‘Come up here, and I WILL SHOW YOU THINGS WHICH MUST TAKE PLACE AFTER THIS.”

How do you read that? Are you side-tracked onto a path of prophetic utterances or is God revealing Himself? “I will show you…I will explain what’s to take place…I, as absolute Monarch, I as Sovereign Ruler, will tell you what is about to happen.”

We think life is ‘chance;’ we believe life is just ‘a roll of the dice;’ we’re convinced ‘whatever will be will be’ and WHOMEVER (God) has nothing to do with it; we believe ‘free will’ trumps divine influence and God is left out in the cold; we believe man is something in himself and God is an option he can take or omit when the truth is God Sovereignly rules and He will have mercy on whom He wills to have mercy!

Listen to me, we ought to rush the Throne of Sovereign Authority. We ought to take hold of the horns of the altar and, with Jacob, cry out, “I’ll not let go until YOU bless me.” We ought to be caught up in the Sovereign wind currents of Holy Grace resting our lives at the foot of His Throne.

Listen to Paul instructing Timothy in I Timothy 6:15-16, “… He who is the blessed and only [Sovereign], the King of kings and Lord of lords… who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, TO WHOM BE HONOR AND EVERLASTING POWER.

AMEN.”

Psalm 103:19 says, “The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.”

The question is, ARE YOU SUBMITTED TO HIS SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY?

Second, God’s Word tells us A THRONE OF MERCY IS AVAILABLE! Look at Revelation 4:3, “And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a RAINBOW around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.”

In Ezekial chapter one, verse 26, God’s Word speaks about “a throne,” and then, in verse 28, it says: “Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it.” And I hear a Word from the heart of God:

“Your life has been dark clouds, it’s been rainy days, the storms have been so intense upon you, but look up – there’s a rainbow, which means behind your darkest clouds the Sun still shines, behind your darkest days, God reigns with mercy-drops; to this point the testimony of your pilgrimage has been hollow and meaningless with blackness in your heart – but look up because your redemption draws nigh! Look up, open wide, and let those mercy-drops of God settle within your life!!

Listen to Psalm 147:11, “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those WHO HOPE IN HIS MERCY.”

You probably know Psalm 23 by memory, but let me share it: “The Lord id my shepherd, I shall not want..He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters…He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; For Thou art with me.; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me…Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows… Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

What did Paul say to the Ephesian church? “But God who is rich in mercy…” That’s it! That’s where God dwells!!

Where do you dwell? Where have you settled on your residence? And I’m not talking about the country you are from! What do you call your permanent home? What is your address?

Write it down! My address is “Hope in God’s Mercy Alone.” My permanent residence is not personal merit but Providential Mercy. It’s not my attainment but appropriation of His ATONEMENT. My dwelling place is not on the avenue or street of disciplined ‘doing’ but the DIVINE “DONE” – “It is finished” – and I rest in God’s mercy alone!

“O the love that drew salvation’s plan! O the grace that brought it down to man! O the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary…

Mercy there was GREAT, and grace was free; Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty AT CALVARY.”

Where does God dwell? On the THRONE! And third, we see that throne IS A THRONE OF AWESOME SPIRIT-ANOINTING!! Revelation 4:5, “And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, WHICH ARE THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD.”

I so love what Reinhard Bonnke had to say in his book, “Mighty Manifestations.” (p9), “A powerless gospel preacher is like an unwashed soap salesman.”.

How many disciples do you know who’ve crossed over into the realm of the supernatural because of the “New Birth” but continue to live as if they are only ‘natural’ beings?

It’s why Paul, in I Corinthians 3:3, spoke of those Corinthian disciples “behaving like mere men!!”

In Acts 2, Peter quotes the prophet Joel, in verses 17 and 18, God speaking, “I will pour out My Spirit…I will pour out My Spirit in those days,” and then Peter says, in verse 39, “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Later, (p35), Bonnke said, “Without that vitality we have a secularized, nominalized, anglicized, rationalized, and harmless religion.” I don’t want a harmless religion – I want where God Himself feels at home in supernatural anointings, enduements with power from on high, and where God’s people walk in Spirit-baptisms!!

Listen to Chuck Swindoll in “Flying Closer To The Flame,” (p.75), “What fuel is to a car, the Holy Spirit is to the believer. He ENERGIZES us to stay the course. He motivates us in spit of the obstacles. He keeps us going when the road gets rough. It is the Spirit who comforts us in our distress, who calms us in times of calamity, who becomes our companion in loneliness and grief, who spurs our “intuition” into action, who fills our minds with discernment when we are uneasy about a certain decision. In short, He is our spiritual fuel. When we attempt to operate without Him or to use some substitute fuel, all systems grind to a halt.”

Fourth, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF UNENDING ADORATION! Revelation 4:8, “and they do not rest day or night, saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!”

Adoration, worship, praise is not simply a bodily position (although we do bow down) but an attitude of the heart. Adoration is not simply acknowledgement of God but selfless surrender and constant commitment to Who He Is and What He Desires! Adoration is more than “respectful and formal recognition of God” – Jesus put it like this to Satan in Matthew 4:10, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.”

Did you see it? “…worship…and…serve.” Worship and the walk. Worship and the witness. Worship and the waiting. Worship and willful yielding to the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

Psalm 22:3 says, “But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel.” Psalm 84:4 says, “Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they are ever and ever praising You.” You want to know where God dwells?

Look at Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable spiritual service of worship.”

Fifth, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF THE ETERNAL! Revelation 4:9-10, “Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, WHO LIVES FOREVER AND EVER…the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever…”

And the one thing I want you to grasp is resolving where you center your life and your walk – on that which is so temporal or upon Him Who Is Eternal?

In Exodus 3:14, God said to Moses, “I Am Who I AM;” “I Am Who I Always Was;” “I Am Always The Present I Am,” and…”I Am Is He Who Will Always Be!!”

In Genesis 21:33 He’s called “The Everlasting God.” In Psalms 90:2, Moses said, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.” And the one thing you must lay hold of here is that mankind either centers its life upon what is so temporary or centers its life upon that which is Eternal! You have a choice.

And this is our Gospel message and is to be our Gospel preaching – I John 5:20-21, “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true: and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God AND eternal life.” That’s where I want to dwell!!

Sixth, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF SUBMISSION AND SURRENDER! Revelation 4:10, end of the verse, these worshippers “cast their crowns before the throne…”

They lay everything down at the feet of Jesus. They take “hands off” of the governing of their lives. They, with Saul of Tarsus, say, “Lord, what would You have me to do?’

If “As Jesus Is, So Am I” is true, and it is, then I must find my holy place of Gethsemane, and I must say deliberately, willingly, passionately as Jesus, (Matthew 26:39), “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; NEVERTHELESS, not as I will, but as You WILL.”

God dwells where the Throne is where men are casting their crowns at His feet. God dwells where self-will dies and Divine Will is uppermost. God dwells where men hear His voice and go out not even knowing where they’re going – but God has spoken and we must follow. God dwells where human will is swallowed up by Divine Life.

“I am resolved no longer to linger, Charmed by the world’s delight; Things that are higher, things that are nobler, These have allured my sight…

I am resolved to follow the Savior, Faithful and true each day; Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth, He is the living way…

I am resolved to enter the kingdom, Leaving the paths of sin; Friends may oppose me, foes may beset me, Still I will enter in…” [Palmer Hartsougfh]

Seventh, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF UNVEILING OF THE PRESENCE OF THE WORTHY LAMB! Revelation 5:1-6

God dwells where Jesus is honored. God dwells where the Son of God is lifted up. God dwells where the Savior is magnified. God dwells where the Worthy Lamb is unveiled.

He’s the Lion of the House of Praise, He’s the Root of King David, He’s the sacrificial Lamb, He’s the Friend of Sinners, He’s the Loving Savior, He’s the Merciful Master…And He says, (John 12:32), “And I, if I am lifted from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”

I want to be drawn to Jesus more and more. I want to lift Him up more and more. I want to exalt the name that is above every name. I want to pray more and more, “Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus.”

I want to “Preach Christ and Him crucified!” I want to preach “The Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords.” I want to create expectancy that “The King Is Coming,” Prepare to meet Him.

Preach it, pastors, REDEEMED, “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (I Peter 1:19)

Eighth, God Dwells Where The Throne IS, A THRONE OF SYMPHONIC PRAISE AND WORSHIP! Revelation 5:9-13

How many do you know who sing old songs, dead songs, man-inspired songs, but they have nothing to do with what matters most. Redemption is absent. Reconciliation is a foreign language. Regeneration is not simply a mystery – it’s a lost language.

But when the Lamb is lifted up – there’s a “new song,” there’s a new symphony, there’s a new orchestra, there are new singers, and with loud voices they make much of the Worthy Lamb.

Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to Him – and they major on that. Spurgeon wrote: “A heart full of praise is heaven in the bud. Perfect praise is heaven full-blown.” Why? Because of our redemption through the blood of Christ, “Heaven came down and Glory filled our souls!!”

We sing of the mercies of our Lord forever and ever. We sing of the marvelous, wondrous grace f God forever and ever. We sing of the love of God forever and ever.

Luke 19:37-40, “And as He was now approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, saying…”Blessed Is The King Who Comes In The Name Of The Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”…And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”…And Jesus answered and said, “I tell you, if these become silent, THE STONES WILL CRY OUT!”

I don’t want to be a hardened rock that someday acknowledges Christ ashamedly – I want to be “a living stone” that worships Him so appreciatively!! (Revelation 5:12)

Lastly, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF A COMPLETED WORK BECAUSE OF OUR PRAYER OF AGREEMENT! Revelation 5:14, “Then the four living creatures said, “AMEN!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever.”

“AMEN?” “It is done – It is finished – So be it, Lord. We stand upon Calvary’s completed work. We rest in the resurrection out of our empty tombs. We claim only the finished work of Christ. Our merit is Your mercy. Our hope is Your help. Our salvation is Your sacrifice. Our life is Your death, burial, and Resurrection. Our past and present has a future – His Name Is Jesus Only!! “AMEN!!”

Nehemiah 8:6, “And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. Then all the people answered, ‘Amen! Amen!’”

Psalm 41:13, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen.”

Psalm 72:19, “And let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen.”

Psalm 106:48, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’”

Jeremiah 28:6, Jeremiah, “Amen! The Lord do so; the Lord perform your words which you have prophesied, to bring back the vessels of the Lord’s house…”

Mark 16:20, “And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. AMEN.”

Ephesians 3:21, “to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. AMEN.”

2 Peter 3:18, “To Him be the glory both now and forever. AMEN.”

I John 5:21, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. AMEN.”

Revelation 22:20, He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” AMEN. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Verse 21, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. AMEN.”

Will you put an AMEN into your life? Will you put an AMEN into your prayers? Will you put an AMEN into your home, your church, your business, your ministry? AMEN – it’s finished! AMEN – SO BE IT, LORD, only according to Your signature.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY!”

EPHESIANS 5:14

God says: “Awake, you who ‘SLEEP’, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light!”

Isn’t it amazing to you that the Holy Word of God is so filled with biblical Truth about those “choosing” to “live in the dark,” “sleepy-time lives”, totally unaware of their ‘fleshly destinies’? In Proverbs 6:4-5 the wise man wrote: “Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from THE hand of the hunter, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler (or ‘hunter’ who seeks to slay you!).” And then in Verses 6-11 the wise man continued, desiring to “wake us all up” from the “sleep” of spiritual death, alienation from God, incapable of personal deliverance from its powerful sentence of spiritual death – a ‘sluggard’ of spiritual inactivity, a ‘sluggard’ of perpetual spiritual sleep, a ‘sluggard’ of slothfulness and indifference to the “Holy Truths” of God, and, yes, even indifferent to His amazing love and grace and mercy, just satisfied to live in “the darkness of a deep spiritual sleep,” unconcerned about his void of spiritual life and faith and purpose, or its penalty!

So, Proverbs 6:6-15, declares so wisely, so convicted, “Wake up, go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, Which, having no captain, ( no Savior, no Redeemer, no Lord, no loving spiritual caretaker), overseer or ruler, Provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard? WHEN WILL YOU ARISE FROM YOUR SLEEP? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep – SO SHALL POVERTY (that’s spiritual poverty and spiritual bankruptcy!) COME ON YOU LIKE A PROWLER (one who comes to steal, like the devil!), AND ON YOUR NEED LIKE AN ARMED MAN (or robber or thief, yes, “the powers of darkness”!).”

Verses 12-15 then solemnly, seriously, and in convicting fashion, describes the end of a sleeping, spiritually negligent, self-serving individual, who resists his need of “spiritual awakening”: “A worthless person, a wicked man, walks with a perverse mouth (“that Bible may be what YOUR God says, but I don’t care!”); He winks with his eyes, he shuffles his feet, he points his fingers; Perversity is in his heart, he devises evil continually (that’s ANYTHING THAT LEAVES GOD OUT OF ONE’S ‘MIXED-BAG-OF-LIFE CHOICES’!), he sows discord, (Opposition to eternal Truths). THEREFORE his calamity shall come suddenly; suddenly he shall be broken without remedy.”

Oh, but there is “hope that is eternal”! There can be, must be, if you let Him, an “awakening” from spiritual sleep and slumber, spiritual death, spiritual hopelessness, to the reality of the true, merciful, spiritual awakening in and through “Christ Jesus” alone!

In Joel 1:5 the word of the Lord had come to Joel: “Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.” Is this ‘literal’ speech or ‘metaphorical’? The ‘drunkards’ are ‘sinners separated from Holy God ‘intoxicated’ in unholy, unbiblical, un-redeeming truths! The ‘drunkards’ are ‘willful sinners’ intoxicated with the ‘devil’s brew’ of unbelief, rebellion, disobedience, self-centeredness, and purposely, willfully, so intoxicated with self, one has ‘no sense’ or ‘will’ or ‘desire’ to live for God! “IS IT EVIDENT IN SOME ‘MODERN-CHURCHES’? WITHOUT ANY DOUBT! But loving, merciful, caring, compassionate God takes on the mission to awake those who sleep, resurrect those who are spiritually dead, and by repentance toward Him and faith in Christ Jesus’ “finished work” at the Cross, the ‘dead’ can be, will be, have been “raised from spiritual death’ from the ‘slumber of the devil’ INTO THE REALITY OF THE SAVIOR’S MERCY,LOVE,&GRACE!!

Get ready! It’s going to be an interesting, awe-inspiring ‘journey’ from spiritual sleep to “awakened by the love, mercy, and grace of GoD”!! FIRST! LET’S LOOK AT THE REALITY OF GODLESS MEN/WOMEN,TEENS/CHILDREN, WHO “ARE” CAPTURED IN BIRTH BY THE REALITY OF A COVETED SIN-NATURE, ‘STRIVING’ TO “LIVE”, BUT WITHOUT HOLY GOD! GOD HAD NO DESIRE IN BIRTHING MEN WITH NO “FREE WILL” because He knew it’s consequences, “BUT THE ‘FREE WILL” OF ‘FLESH’ had to be because Holy God was not interested in seeing men & women as automatic robots”, and certainly, natural birth WAS & IS NOT “LIFE IN THE SPIRIT OF HOLY GOD”! THIS IS WHY JESUS CONFRONTED ‘REALITY’ OF THOSE SEPARATED FROM GOD WHEN HE ‘MENTIONED’ IN JOHN 1:13 ABOUT THOSE ‘BORN NOT OF SPIRITUAL BLOOD BUT OF THE WILL OF THE FLESH’, THE WILL OF FALLEN MANKIND!

IN ACTS 7:51 STEPHEN HAD BEEN CALLED BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN TO ANSWER QUESTIONS THEY HAD ABOUT HIS “OPEN CHRISTIAN WITNESS” – THEY WERE READY TO KILL HIM! HAVING BEEN THREATENED, HE SAID TO THE PUBLIC OFFICIALS & ISRAELI LEADERS, “YOU STIFFNECKED & UNCIRCUMCISED IN HEART & EARS, YOU DO ALWAYS RESIST THE HOLY SPIRIT: AS YOUR FATHERS DID, SO DO YOU.”+ (DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT “RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS” WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF THE SAVIOR AS LORD, BIRTHS A GREATER ‘BONDAGE’, A STRONGER ‘RELIGIOUS PRIDE’ THAT CRUCIFIED KING JESUS, & MULTIPLIES DEEPER DECEPTION & RESENTMENT OF TRUTH ABOUT “TRUSTING” WHEN THEY’RE SO DEVOTED TO THEIR ‘RELIGIOUS TRYING’, TO THE POINT THAT WHEN KING JESUS SAID, “FORSAKE ALL & FOLLOW ME”, THE UNBELIEVERS & RELIGIOUS PRETENDERS UNITED TO SEE THAT HE, JESUS, WAS CRUCIFIED ON THE CROSS, FAILING TO UNDERSTAND ‘THE CROSS’ WAS GOD’S PLAN, BUT THEIR EMBITTERED ‘RELIGIOUS HEARTS’ & SPIRITUALLY ‘BRAIN-DEAD MINDS’ ACTUALLY WAS “USED” BY HOLY GOD TO CARRY OUT HIS ETERNAL PLAN OF “BLOOD REDEMPTION” THROUGH THE SACRIFICE OF HIS OWN SON ON CALVARY’S CROSS!

THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH ! THE NATURAL MAN, UNREDEEMED CAN SIN, UNAWARE IT EXPOSES THEIR ‘SPIRITUAL DEATH’! SIN-NATURES “DO NOT NATURALLY BIRTH ‘SAINTS’, BUT BIRTHS SINNERS UNDER SATAN’S MANAGEMENT CONTROL, A LOST WORLD’S DEFENCELESS DECEIT, &, YES, THE SINNER’S ‘OPINION’ THAT ‘SIN DOESN’T PRODUCE DEATH –IT’S FUN’, BUT HOLY GOD OVERSEES & SETTLES THE ETERNAL DESTINY OF THE UNRESPONSE TO HIS LOVE & GRACE AS BEFORE HIS JUDGMENT SEAT THEY DID, DO, & WILL STAND BEFORE HIM AS HOLY GOD ISSUES FOR ALL, SINFUL OR SINLESS, WORLDLY OR HEAVENLY, PERSONAL PERSUASION OR PRINCE OF PEACE’S PRESENCE IN THE REPENTANT, REDEEMED, RECONCILED, REWARDED, & RELEASED “TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD” WHO “GO OUT TO SHARE HIS GOOD NEWS OF ETERNAL SALVATION IN & THROUGH CHRIST’S BLOOD SACRIFICE & THE FREE GIFT OF RECONCILIATION IS GRANTED”!

SECOND, LET’S EXAMINE THAT “FREE GIFT” & HOW “HE” SHOULD INSPIRE OUR DAILY WALK OF “CHRIST IN US OUR HOPE OF GLORY”! IN THE “ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS” (P183) IS A QUOTE BY ST. PATRICK (SIGERSON,tr.), THAT SAYS: “GOD’S MIGHT TO DIRECT ME, GOD’S POWER TO PROTECT ME, GOD’S WISDOM FOR LEARNING, GOD’S EYE FOR DISCERNING, GOD’S EAR FOR HEARING, GOD’S WORD FOR MY CLEARING.”

IN MICAH 7:1-7,&18-19! THE PROPHET SAID: “WOE IS ME! FOR I AM AS WHEN THEY HAVE GATHERED THE SUMMER FRUITS,AS THE GRAPE-GLEANINGS OF THE VINTAGE:THERE IS NO CLUSTER TO EAT:MY SOUL DESIRED THE FIRSTRIPE FRUIT. THE GOOD MAN IS PERISHED OUT OF THE EARTH (“THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH”!); & THERE IS NONE UPRIGHT AMONG MEN:THEY ALL LIE IN WAIT FOR BLOOD;THEY HUNT EVERY MAN HIS BROTHER WITH A NET.

THAT THEY MAY DO EVIL WITH BOTH HANDS EARNESTLY, THE PRINCE ASKS, & THE JUDGE ASKS FOR A REWARD; & THE GREAT MAN, HE UTTERS HIS MISCHIEVOUS DESIRE:SO THEY WRAP IT UP. THE BEST OF THEM IS AS A BRIER:THE MOST UPRIGHT IS SHARPER THAN A THORN HEDGE: THE DAY OF THEIR WATCHMEN & THEIR VISITATION COMES;NOW SHALL BE THEIR PERPLEXITY. TRUST YOU NOT IN A FRIEND,PUT YOU NOT CONFIDENCE IN A GUIDE:KEEP THE DOORS OF YOUR MOUTH FROM HER THAT LIES IN YOUR BOSOM.

FOR THE SON DISHONORS THE FATHER, THE DAUGHTER RISES UP AGAINST HER MOTHER, THE DAUGHTER IN LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER IN LAW; A MAN’S ENEMIES ARE THE MEN OF HIS OWN HOUSE. THEREFORE I WILL LOOK UNTO THE LORD; I WILL WAIT FOR THE GOD OF MY SALVATION:MY GOD WILL HEAR ME.”

THEN IN VERSES 18-19 THE PROPHET EXPLAINS! “WHO IS A GOD LIKE UNTO ‘YOU’, “HE” PARDONS INIQUITY, & PASSES BY THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE REMNANT OF “HIS” HERITAGE? HE RETAINS NOT HIS ANGER FOREVER, BECAUSE “HE” DELIGHTS IN MERCY. HE WILL TURN AGAIN, HE WILL HAVE COMPASSION UPON US;HE WILL SUBDUE OUR INIQUITIES; & HE WILL CAST ALL THEIR SINS INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.” THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA? THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA OF GOD’S FORGETFULNESS? THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS REALITY FOR SINNERS WHO REPENT & “TURN”, FULLY SURRENDERING TO CHRIST’S BLOOD ATONEMENT, HIS FORGIVENESS, & BECAUSE YOU TRULY REPENTED, HE MAKES YOUR BODY ,HEART, & SPIRIT, INTO A “NEW HABITATION” THAT BECOMES HIS TEMPLE OF EARTHLY RESIDENCE, NEVER TO LEAVE US OR FORSAKE US! GLORY!

“AWAKE YOU WHO SLEEP! ARISE FROM THE DEAD,& CHRIST JESUS WILL GIVE YOU LIGHT!” THERE MUST BE IN THE 21^ST CENTURY ANOTHER GREAT “SPIRITUAL AWAKENING” WHERE THE “LIGHT OF CHRIST JESUS IN REPENTANT, BORN-AGAIN HEARTS & MINDS” REVEALS HIS MISSION THROUGH THEM AS “WITNESSES FAITHFULLY TO NEEDY, UNSAVED, SEPARATED-FROM-GOD PEOPLE, UNREDEEMED, WHO MUST BE RECONCILED TO HIM FOR HEAVENLY GLORY TO “REST” IN THEM & THROUGH THEM, BEING HIS “HOLY TEMPLES” OF ETERNALLY ABIDING PRESENCE”!

THIRD, KNOWING CHRIST JESUS GIVES ‘LIGHT’, DOES THAT INCLUDE THE NECESSITY OF GRASPING THE UNDERSTANDING OF TRUE SPIRITUAL GROWTH & MATURITY IN HONORING CHRIST, OBEYING CHRIST, & YES SHARING CHRIST BEYOND THE FOUR WALLS OF ONE’S CHURCH? JESUS SAID IN MATTHEW 4:4 THAT, “IT IS WRITTEN, MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY (PHYSICAL) BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.” SO “EATING BREAD ALONE, FOR MY ENJOYMENT & SATISFACTION”, BUT IGNORING THE STARVING, EMPTY HEARTS & MINDS OF THE “LOST”, ALIENATED FROM GOD, IN NEED OF CHRIST’S “BLOOD REDEMPTION”, BUT YOU LOCK IT & THE NEEDY IN THE SEA OF FORGETFULNESS & “LET THE WORLD AROUND YOU “GO TO HELL”?

FOURTH, AS A “FOLLOWER OF CHRIST”, ARE YOU COMMITTED, NOT ONLY TO “FAITH”, BUT ALSO “OBEDIENCE”? IF YOU’RE A “TRUE FOLLOWER” OF CHRIST, IF HE SAID & SAYS, MATTHEW 4:19, “FOLLOW ME & I WILL MAKE YOU ‘FISHERS OF MEN.’ IN PROVERBS 11:30 WE READ, “THE FRUIT OF THE RIGHTEOUS IS A TREE OF LIFE; & HE THAT WINS SOULS IS WISE.” EVEN THE PROPHET DANIEL HAD A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE MINISTRY OF MEN & WOMEN ‘RECONCILED TO GOD’! HE SAID, IN DANIEL 12:3, “AND THEY THAT BE WISE SHALL SHINE AS THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE FIRMAMENT; & THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHTEOUSNESS, AS THE STARS FOR EVER & EVER!” TELL ME! “HOW’S YOUR TESTIMONY TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU WHO LIVE APART FROM RECONCILED TO GOD, RE-BORN, & ‘SHINING’ ON OTHERS THE PATH OF “BLOOD REDEMPTION”?

I CLOSE THIS PARTICULAR TEACHING WITH THE WORDS OF AN OLD HYMN ENTITLED “RISE UP,O MEN OF GOD”, (FOUND IN THE 1940 PUBLICATION OF “THE BROADMAN HYMNAL,” BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.). IT SAYS: “RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! HAVE DONE WITH LESSER THINGS; GIVE HEART & MIND & SOUL & STRENGTH TO SERVE THE KING OF KINGS.

RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! HIS KINGDOM TARRIES LONG; BRING IN THE DAY OF BROTHERHOOD AND END THE NIGHT OF WRONG.

RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! THE CHURCH FOR YOU DOTH WAIT, HER STRENGTH UNEQUAL TO HER TASK; RISE UP, & MAKE HER GREAT!

LIFT HIGH THE CROSS OF CHRIST! TREAD WHERE HIS FEET HAVE TROD; AS BROTHERS OF “THE SON OF MAN”, RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD!”

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY”? IS IT ‘REAL’ FOR “YOU”? IF ‘YOU’ ARE YIELDED TO THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS, ARE “YOU” OBEDIENT OR COMPLACENT? COMPLACENT? “SATISFIED IN ONE’S SELF, UNCONCERNED ABOUT WHAT HOLY GOD HAS TO SAY,INDIFFERENT, & EVEN UNCONCERNED ABOUT GOD’S MISSION THROUGH YOU AS A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST IN BEING “HIS WITNESSES” TO UNREDEEMED, INDIFFERENT, UNCONCERNED ‘FOLKS’ ABOUT THEM BEING RECONCILED TO GOD? ARE “YOU” OBEDIENT TO THE “CALL”, “GO & SHARE THE GOSPEL!”

ONE MORE HYMN OF “CHALLENGE” FROM THE SAME OLD HYMNAL,P.187! IT’S ENTITLED, “O JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED”! IT SAYS: “O JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED TO SERVE YOU TO THE END; BE THOU FOREVER NEAR ME, MY MASTER & MY FRIEND; I SHALL NOT FEAR THE BATTLE IF YOU ARE BY MY SIDE, NOR WANDER FROM THE PATHWAY IF YOU WILL BE MY GUIDE.

O LET ME FEEL YOU NEAR ME, THE WORLD IS EVER NEAR; I SEE THE SIGHTS THAT DAZZLE, THE TEMPTING SOUNDS I HEAR:MY FOES ARE EVER NEAR ME, AROUND ME & WITHIN; BUT, JESUS, DRAW YOU NEARER, & SHIELD MY SOUL FROM SIN.

O JESUS, YOU HAVE PROMISED TO ALL WHO FOLLOW THEE THAT WHERE YOU ARE IN GLORY THERE SHALL YOUR SERVANT BE; AND, JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED TO SERVE YOU TO THE END; O GIVE ME GRACE TO FOLLOW MY MASTER & MY FRIEND.” ARE YOU A TRUE FOLLOWER OF CHRIST, AVAILABLE TO SHARE HIS LIFE, EXTEND HIS LIFE, & EXPRESS HIS LOVE TO OTHERS?

CHAPTER THIRTY

“ADAPTABLE CHURCHES OR

APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES?”

In Exodus 19:5-6 we find an illuminating statement from God about His “chosen people.” And you have to ask, “Did the people God intended His word for become the “special treasure to Him above all people”? Sadly, some didn’t, but with thankful hearts some did! What did Holy God say?

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

What an awesome calling yet easily ‘adaptable’ by many churches today! Today it’s ‘one priest’ without the equipping of all saints to touch the darkened world with the True Light, the Lord Jesus Christ, with many, many churches maintaining their survivability without directions, examples, or equipping of the church’s calling to be “witnesses” to the needy world – evangelism is a lost ministry in many churches, even discipleship training is absent in many churches, and to think that a pastor has the role of equipping saints to “do” the work of the ministry is an ‘archaic, religious tradition’ – not the ‘way of a super-saint’ calling!

In fact, if one truly devoted himself/herself to the inspired words of Simon Peter, one might come to a different conclusion and a more sound foundation to ‘church building’! In 1 Peter 2:7-9 Peter wrote: “Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they were also appointed. BUT YOU (in Christ) are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…”

How much preparation is given in far too many churches nation-wide to being “witnesses”, equipping ‘saints’ to touch their needy world with Redemptive Truth? Sadly, it’s near or about ‘zero’!

Come to Acts 13:1-5a where we find an obedient witness to the Promise of the Holy Spirit to every disciple to fulfill our calling as a follower of Christ! It says: Now to the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manean who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away. SO, being sent out by the Holy Spirit…” How awesome do you find that commissioning upon every disciple of Christ!?

You can be assured that I for one do not distinguish between ‘leadership’ responsibility and the role and ministry of every true born-again believer. Are there different callings and ministries under the same tent of faith? Of course, but not in excluding or excusing some from being “witnesses”!

I pray you’ll follow with me through John 17 as I look at the prayer of Jesus to His Father in heaven. Don’t miss this! John 17:1-3, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent…”

John 17:6 says, Jesus speaking, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given me out of the world.” Oh, and then look at what the Lord Jesus said in John 17:17-18! “Sanctify (or “set apart”) them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You (God the Father!) sent me INTO THE WORLD, I ALSO HAVE SENT THEM INTO THE WORLD.”

And then in John 17:25-26 Jesus thanks the Father and reflects upon His eternal ministry and ours! “O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

And are you familiar with the rest of John’s gospel? Jesus’ betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane, even disciples’ denial, the choosing of Barabbas’ freedom over Christ’s, the soldiers scourging of the Lord Jesus, Pilate’s deliverance of Christ to be crucified, His piercing, His burial, and then, praise God, “the empty tomb”! Oh, and then, before His ascension, He said to His disciples, “Follow Me!” And that following is a willful surrender of self-will to the divine will of Father-God! Oh, and then Acts 1 unfolds the eternal purpose, the sovereign grace, and the all sufficient supply to fulfill divine intent through our re-born lives!

In Acts 1:7-8 Jesus spoke to the “gathered assembly of true believers”, saying: “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And, praise God, Acts 2:32 declares, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all WITNESSES!”

You are aware that there is a worldwide battle for the souls of men by the world, the flesh, and the devil himself with his demonic forces opposed to anyone or anything that relates to the “blood redemption” of our world – why? Because “God so loved the world” that He desired to rescue as many as received His message and the Master of true life, the Lord Jesus Christ – salvation of the “lost” and alienated from God reduces his kingdom numbers who’ve been the devil’s enslaved!

Notice Paul’s emphasis in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5! “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” [Hear me! I know that much of what we just read relates to the warfare between the old man and the new man, between flesh and spirit – but, at the same time I see our weapons in Him fighting against those spirits that have men and women, boys and girls, enslaved in the demonic kingdom of alienation from Holy God and the Eternal Word!

Apart from Christ fallen mankind ‘drinks’ of worldly streams, devilish rivers, and lakes of unredeemed curses and ‘snake-like’ strangle-holds with its released poisons of godlessness! When Jesus said you’ll know people by their ‘fruits’, it’s either the “Fruit of the Spirit” or the “Foul Fruit of Satanic indifference” to the things of Holy God and His Kingdom rule and reign. I believe the Lord Jesus “celebrates” the child-like obedience of children of the faith to allow their bodies to be the kingdom of His holy presence and through which He bears witness Himself!

It’s really, really interesting that in Revelation 1:5-6 the Holy Spirit unveils the beauty and blessing “from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,” but continuing, “the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, AND HAS MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” That’s ‘kings’ and ‘priests’ in His heavenly kingdom, sovereignly appointed to be the vessel to a world of self-rule, self-worship, and self-gratification, and the change comes in that world when disciples of Christ allow Him to be Himself through them!

No wonder Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”

But my concern in this modern day is that, sadly, “Apostolic Assemblies” are set aside for “Adaptable Churches” that want to be so accepted by the world that they tone down biblical truth to make it acceptable, ignore specifically “Preach the Word”, fearing to say what God has said would limit their attendance, and, certainly feel justified to do their best at Bible teaching without encouraging pure devotion to His commissioning to be His witnesses in our lost, needy, alienated from God world!

According to Paul in Ephesians, 3:10-12, there is a divine design by God in maturing the ‘saints’ one has and the mobilizing of the body of Christ in reaching out to a needy world even if it costs us our lives! Paul said, “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.” That’s confidence in boldly approaching the very throne of Holy God AND boldness in touching our needy world; and that has, can even today, cost you your physical existence!

I’m convinced that much of the problem of churches that do not have mission support worldwide, evangelism outreach locally, or even discipleship training and equipping of the saints to do evangelism ministry, is that “heavenly joy” in Jesus has been ignored, denied, or never understood. In John 15:11-17 Jesus said:

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends IF you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.” Yes, rather than an “Adaptable Church,” what about making sure your fellowship of believers is an “Apostolic Assembly”!!

I guess one of the huge questions one must deal with initially is: Do I have a teachable spirit anxious to know what Christ Jesus has to say to me? It was David’s heart when he said in Psalm 27:11, “Teach me Your way, O Lord..” Is that the attitude of YOUR heart?

FIRST, PLEASE NOTE THAT GOD PERSONALLY LOVED YOU ENOUGH THAT EVEN IF YOU WERE THE ONLY HUMAN BEING TO EVER LIVE, BECAUSE OF GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU CHRIST WOULD HAVE DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOU ALONE, BUT HE DIED TO SAVE ALL MEN, BUT SOME DO NOT BELIEVE IN, RELY UPON, TRUST IN, OR ADHERE TO HIM!

In Romans 8:35-39 Paul gives us a powerful word of hope that should strengthen your ‘faith journey’! He said, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor death, nor any created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And our Savior, the Lord Jesus, said in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Rev. J.M. Driver wrote an old hymn entitled “Wonderful Story of Love. [Broadman Hymnal, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1940]. The first verse says:

“Wonderful story of love; Tell it to me again; Wonderful story of love; Wake the immortal strain! Angels with rapture announce it, Shepherds with wonder receive it; Sinner, O won’t you believe it? Wonderful story of love.”

SECOND, AWARE OF HIS GREAT LOVE, THE SINNER WHO IS DESIROUS OF FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION, IS LED TO THE ALTAR OF REPENTANCE. In Romans 2:4 wise Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote: “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance?”

When you look upon an ungodly world, one is saddened that a man in his sin and sin nature is not aware of his separation from God and from Holy God’s divine design for his life, so “messengers” are sent praying initially for the truth of the burden of sin and death, then the crucifixion of Christ in his stead! This is why in 2 Corinthians 7:10 the Holy Word instructs us, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

I so admire Oswald Chambers and his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.254). In it Chambers wrote: “The marvels of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I HAVE SINNED. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says it and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.”

Examine John 16:5-11 Jesus explains: “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” And apart from repentance, there is no reconciliation with Holy God!

THIRD, HAVING BEEN CONVERTED THROUGH FAITH AND REPENTANCE, THE WORD TELLS US THAT THE “APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES” LIVE VICTORIOUS, OVERCOMING LIVES BY HOLY SPIRIT GUIDANCE INTO BIBLE TRUTH! In John 16:12-15 Christ Jesus’ holy instruction for new disciples says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. HE will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine, and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

Christ Jesus emphasized the ministry role of Spirit-assistance, the ministry as faithful guide, the “Joy-Giver” of the full unveiling of Christ in you, and grants each disciple a forceful empowerment!

In Romans 8:26-27 Paul unveils this ‘representative ministry’ of the Holy Spirit before the Throne of God in our behalf. Receive the Word with joy and gladness! “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

And there is no Spirit-anointed victories in “Apostolic Assembles” or ‘professing lives of allegiance to Christ’ if there is no allegiance to, awareness of, and willfully “yielding” daily to the Holy Spirit’s ministry! Paul asked a penetrating, challenging word in Romans 6:16: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” Are YOU yielded to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, whose God-inspired role is to glorify Christ through your daily walk?

As Jesus was profoundly concerned about “false prophets” early in His ministry, he warned in Matthew 7:15-16a, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruit.”

I want to close out this teaching with the solid scriptural challenge of Galatians 5:16-25! It says: Paul speaking, I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

BUT the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

Has that changed somewhere along the line or path of discipleship? Is it that some in the 21^st Century feel we’re so intellectually superior that “Christians” shouldn’t be concerned whether they need to walk in the Spirit or Not? The “Abnormal Christian Life” is avoidance of Spirit-ministry in an available vessel! The challenge to be filled with all the fullness of God does not become a reality apart from the Spirit’s abiding and anointing! The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in us and through us, and only as we willfully yield to the Spirit’s control is Christ’s presence in us fully revealed! Walking in the Spirit is not an option believers hold but an eternal necessity!

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUALLEADERSHIP

In I Timothy 3:1, Paul said to Timothy, “This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of bishop, he desires a good work.” The New English Bible interprets this verse, “To aspire to leadership is an honorable ambition.”

One translation says “desires” and the other says “aspires.” And I am convinced God’s Word is ever true, and desiring and aspiring is not evil.

At the same time, not many of our biblical heroes desired or aspired to leadership – they were drafted by God into service. That’s true of Abraham, Moses, reluctant prophets, and questioning young disciples: “Are You sure, Lord?”

But James and John were bold. In Mark 10:37, they said to Jesus, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.”

Then Jesus responded, “But are you able to drink the cup I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

J. Oswald Sanders, in his book, “Spiritual Leadership,” (p10), talked about “mere place seekers and charlatans.” Then he added, (p12), “They coveted a crown of glory but were not ready for a crown of thorns. Coronation interested them, but not crucifixion.”

Following Christ Jesus in leadership is not a call to supremacy but servanthood; it was not a call to ascendancy but humility; it was not a call to personal ruling but a pouring out of life as a drink offering!

But Nehemiah was confronted with serious problems in his day just as we confront serious problems today concerning leadership. In Psalm 48:2 God describes “the holy city of Jerusalem” as “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great King.”

And what did Nehemiah find? Nehemiah 2:17 says, “You see the distress we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.”

Are you familiar with Raphael who was commissioned to paint the frescoes of the Vatican walls in Rome?

When several cardinals walked by one day they had to come against Raphael. One cardinal said, “The face of the apostle Paul is too red,” to which Raphael responded: “He blushes to see into whose hands the church has fallen!”

It was Warren Weirsbe, in his book, “The Integrity Crisis,” who wrote (p56), “In recent years, the church has had too many celebrities and not enough servants, too many people with plenty of medals and no scars.”

If Jesus is Prophet, Priest, and King, and, “As He is so are we in this world,” (I John 4:17), do ministers today minister in the prophetic role calling men to account, the priestly role of intercession, and the kingly role of true biblical authority and anointing?

We’re not to be as Ron DeArmand said, “High Gloss – Cheap Merchandise,” but a reflector of, an imitation of, an interpretation of Jesus Himself!

Yet, often, leaders today stand behind the sacred desk, and minister, as someone has said, “imperiled by familiarity and [lost] our sense of awe and reverence.”

The Book of Joshua is the text for this teaching, but I want Psalm 78:70–72 to capture your heart first! Listen:

“He also chose David His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the ewes that had young He brought him to shepherd Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.”

And you want to cry out, “God, do it again and again, over and over; give us leaders with the integrity of a holy heart, and skills engrafted by Your Own Holy Hands!”

Come to Joshua 1. Notice, First:

LEADERSHIP IS BECAUSE OF THE ETERNAL DETERMINATION OF GOD TO USE MEN AS AN EXTENSION AND EXPRESSION OF HIS OWN SOVEREIGN LEADERSHIP.

Joshua 1:1–2 says, “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them – the children of Israel.”

Do you remember Exodus 3:10? “Come now, therefore, [Moses], and I will send you to Pharoah that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” Moses was divinely chosen of God. Abraham was sovereignly chosen by God.

David was supernaturally chosen by God. Prophets were appointed and anointed by God. Joshua, an assistant, is chosen by God to replace Moses as the leader of Israel.

Jesus chose twelve disciples. The apostle Paul was chosen by Jesus being confronted on the Damascus Road.

What did Jesus tell those early disciples in John 15:16? “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit…”

And here is the amazing, heart–shaking truth: Ephesians 1:4, “just as He [God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” Do you remember the 180,000 warriors, men chosen by God?

How humbling is I Corinthians 1:26–29? “For consider your calling, brothers, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the FOOLISH things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the WEAK things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the BASE [insignificant, lowly] things of the world and the things which are DESPISED God has chosen, and the things WHICH ARE NOT [nothings, zeroes], to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

A true leader is a man touched by the scepter of God’s grace. A true leader is a man who knows he’s a nothing, but by God’s mercy is enabled to see God’s hand on his life, validating he’s “the chosen of God.” A true leader is not of “elite” status but of the ELECTED, and empowered by God’s presence and His holy purpose, can literally shake continents! A true leader is always and forever confounded by God’s choice of him as a chosen leader for such a time as this! Second,

GOD’S AUTHENTIC LEADERS ARE THOSE BLESSED BY GOD WITH THE PROMISE TO BE WITH US. Look at Joshua 1:5! “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so will I be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.”

In Joshua 6:27 the Word says, “So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout all the country.”

And your “fame” in pastoral ministry is not because of any educational degrees you’ve earned – but because GOD IS WITH YOU.

Your “fame” is not because of your best efforts – but because of Holy Presence. Your “fame” is not because you’re blessed with keen insights and wise words – but because you’re a habitation of God in the Spirit!

It’s why David sang in Psalm 40:10, “I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart.” What is your hope of glory, pastors? What are the riches of glory you are a part of? Colossians 1:27 says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory!”

You may find yourself on the backside of a desert pouting about your pastoral problems – then all of a sudden there’s a “burning bush.”

You may find yourself with your head on a stone as your pillow, the darkest night of your ministry because of an offended brother – and you find out your darkest night is the very house of God.

You may run like a David from one of your spiritual sons and hide in a cave – and God shows up with 400 brothers to stand, walk, and fight with you.

You may deny your calling and you sulk by the seashore – then the Savior appears.

In 2 Timothy 4:16–18, Paul says: “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be fully preached through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the lion’s mouth…AND THE LORD WILL DELIVER ME FROM EVERY EVIL WORK, and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you!”

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS VICTORIOUS OUT OF DIVINE STRENGTH AND HOLY COURAGE. Four times in Joshua 1 God said to Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage.”

Come to Joshua 14:6–11! This passage relates to Caleb getting his promised mountain after 45 years of

“Standing On The Promises!”

Verse 6, Caleb had a word from God. Verse 7, it was in his heart. Verse 8, he wholly followed the Lord his God. Verse 9, he knew his inheritance and that of his children which was a forever promise. Verse 10, 45 years later he still stands on the promise. Verse 11, “As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in.”

In 2 Corinthians 2:1,4, Paul wrote: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. Verse 4, My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”

Are you getting the picture? What does 2 Chronicles 16:9 tell us? “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

The great South African preacher and author, A.W. Tozer, wrote: “Before we follow any man we should look for the oil on his forehead. We are under no spiritual obligation to aid any man in any activity that has not upon it the marks of the cross.”

Don’t ever forget Paul’s testimony to the Corinthians! 2 Corinthians 3:5–6, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also MADE US SUFFICIENT as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but OF THE SPIRIT; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Do you understand divine ministry of holy strength and a holy courage? Where does it come from? In 2 Corinthians 3:10–11, Paul said he carried in his body “the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his body.” And the result? “the resurrection life of Jesus manifested in our body.” That’s power; that’s courage; that’s the divine strength of the indwelling Christ! Not of you, but of Christ Jesus Himself!

In 2 Corinthians 4:7 Paul said, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” Did you hear it with your heart? “that the excellence of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

John Piper wrote the book, “Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.” In chapter one he wrote, “We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet. It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ. Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake.”

Then Piper quoted E.M. Bounds: “The preacher…is not a professional man; his ministry is not a profession; it is a divine institution, a divine devotion.” And let me add, it is the overflow of the indwelling of the power of our Lord and Savior – and He gives us courage!

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP PROSPERS OUT OF REMEMBRANCE. In Joshua 4:3, the Lord spoke to Joshua about taking twelve stones out of the middle of the Jordan River, from the place where the priests’ feet stood firm.

And then he told Joshua that the children would be asking what the stones are all about, “What do these stones mean?”; then the children would learn anew, the parents and leaders would remember, from where they came, what they’re about, to whom they belong, and where they’re going!

Again, it was Tozer who wrote: “The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.”

And the first step down for a leader is when he not only surrenders his high opinion of God, but fails to remember from where he came, what he’s to be about, who he represents, and where he’s going!

The people under Ezra’s leadership had failed to “remember,” and in Ezra 9:6, Ezra cries out: “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens.”

Here’s how John Piper challenges us about “remembrance,” (“Brothers, We Are Not Professionals,” p113), “The keener the memory of our awful rescue, the more naturally we pity those in a similar plight. The more deeply we feel how undeserved and free was the grace that plucked us from the flames, the freer will be our benevolence to sinners.”

But the question is, “Have you forgotten or do you remember?” When it comes to an authentic, spiritual ministry, if remembrance is set aside it breeds forgetfulness, it lights a destructive fire of indifference evidenced by what one calls “lazy bones and limp minds,” with the end result of divided hearts and misplaced allegiance!

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS EVIDENCED BY THE CONTINUAL PREPARATION FOR BATTLE AND SPIRITUAL WARFARE. In Joshua 4:13–14, God’s Word says, “About 40,000 prepared for war crossed over before the Lord for battle, to the plains of Jericho. On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel…”

Do you remember God’s Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11? Let me amplify verses 33–34! “who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle [or war], turned to flight the armies of aliens…”

There is a War against the Lamb of God and His followers. There is a fight concerning the Faith. There are battles to crush you, disillusion you, destroy you.

There are wars within ourselves concerning flesh or Spirit. There are wars in the streets over Truth and The Lie. There are wars about the Bible, God’s Word, inerrant, infallible – that Word which is Living, Powerful, and Sharper than any two–edged sword!

There is a war against Satan and his demon powers of Hell, the foul spirits, the unclean spirits of an unholy army. And we must be those who “Fight the good fight of Faith.”

It was Amy Carmichael, from England, who went to India in her early twenties (1890’s) after “bombing out” in Japan. She devoted almost 60 years of her life to the dusty trails and needy people of southern India.

I’ve visited her Donavour Fellowship several times. She wrote:

“Have you no scars? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand? I hear you sung as mighty in the land, I hear them hail you the bright ascendant star: Have you no scar?

Have you no wound? Yet, I was wounded by the archers, spent, Leaned me against the tree to die, and rent by ravening beasts that compassed me, I swooned: Have you no wound?

No wound? no scar? Yes, as the Master shall the servant be. And pierced are the feet that follow Me; But yours are whole. Can he have followed far who has no wound? No scar?”

I so love what J.Oswald Sanders wrote in his book, “Spiritual Leadership,” (p108), “The loneliest preacher today is the man who has been entrusted with a prophetic message that is ahead of his times, a message that cuts across the prevailing temper of the age.”

In 2 Timothy 2:3–4, Paul challenges his spiritual son, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”

Pastor, were you enlisted as a “please all” kind of pastor, or a soldier of truth that may cost you friends or even your life?

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS A LEADER WHO PROSPERS BECAUSE HE GETS A PROMISE AND STANDS ON IT. We saw this earlier in Joshua 14 when Caleb got a promise and waited 45 years for its fulfillment. In Joshua 14:6–7, Caleb speaks, “You know the word which the Lord said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was 40 years old when Moses sent me.”

Caleb says in verse 9 that he was given a promise about an inheritance. In verse 10, he’s now 45 years older, and he says in verse 12, “give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke.”

Caleb stood on a promise of God for 45 years and was blessed. An authenticated, true, spiritual leader is a man who thrives on the promises of God, even if the fulfillment comes 45 years later!

S.D. Gordon put it like this: “Let it once be fixed that a man’s ambition is to fit into God’s plan for him, and he has a North Star ever in sight to guide him steadily over any sea, however shoreless it seems.”

That North Star of an authentic, spiritual leader is the reality of God’s faithful promises! That leader knows, “All the promises of God in Christ Jesus are “Yes” and “Amen” to the glory of God!

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS WITNESSED AS PRECIOUS BECAUSE THAT PECULIAR LEADER HAS A HEART FOR A LEGACY OF MINISTRY TO THE GLORY OF GOD.

Joshua 24:15 says, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

It was Andrew Murray of South Africa who wrote many years ago, “God has no more precious gift to a church or an age than a man who lives as the embodiment of [God’s] will, and inspires those around him with the faith of what grace can do.”

Is that in your heart as a pastor? Is your heart an “embodiment of God’s will?” And do you keep your heart with all diligence because you know the heart reveals your true motive of ministry?

In John 17:6, Jesus speaks, “I have manifested [revealed, unveiled] Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS NOT ONLY THAT WHICH IS “CAUGHT” BUT ALSO TAUGHT. In 2 Timothy 2:2, (the Williams translation), Paul writes, “The things you learned from me before many witnesses, you must commit to trustworthy men who will be competent to teach others too.”

Caught and Taught are both foundational to a fulfilling, Christ–honoring ministry.

In Mark 10:42–44, “Jesus called the disciples to Himself and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.”

What an illuminating, exposing, revealing passage of authentic ministry!

In Galatians 6:17, Paul wrote: “From henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

Do you bear in your body and pastoral ministry the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Is it earthly riches that define your ministry or the riches of grace?

Is it “jargon” you speak or preaching the talk of divine truth?

Is it “junk” you speak or the testimony of the treasures of God’s Word?

Is it “high gloss – cheap merchandise” or the spiritual tiaras of eternal truth and eternal values?

Praising Christ in ministry is prizing Christ in the practical ministry of Who He Is, What He Said, and How He Walked!

Let me close: Do you understand our Lord’s divine pathway to true happiness and blessing and an authentic, spiritual ministry?

Hebrews 11:26, “the reproach of Christ [is] greater wealth than [all] the treasures of Egypt.”

What is your testimony of ministry? Who gets the glory?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“CAPTURING THE VISION”

Carl Henry wrote a book entitled “Twilight of a Great Civilization.” This theologian knew who the real heroes of a given age are – those who know divine visitation and have been captured by heavenly vision! Examine what he wrote: “The real heroes of our time are those who in a faithless age hold, live, and share their faith in God. Genuine revolutionary courage belongs to those who remain true even if atheistic rulers force them underground or punish citizens simply for being Christians…The true immortals will be those who seek to apply the principles of the Bible concretely to the complicated realities of modern life, who preserve a devout and virtuous family life, who are faithful to the abiding values of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”

Modern life, both politically, socially, and spiritually is being pounded by waves of indifference, shoals of apathy spiritually, rocks of opposition to God and His Truth, even endless tidal waves of the visionless and a lack of virtuous, victorious living. We are a people being programmed for failure, governed for godlessness, educated for imbecility, and silenced to hear and trust God alone for ourselves.

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

No…it’s not a common-sense basis but the uncommon Spirit of visions and dreams. It’s not human compassion but divine appointment. It’s not fleshly reasoning but Faithful Revelation. Paul said in Galatians 1:15-16, “BUT WHEN IT PLEASED GOD…TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME…” Dynamic, dynamite, distinctive service unto God is that which is unveiled by God! George McDonald wrote, “The one principle of hell is, ‘I am my own.’” Cal Thomas put it in a little different way when he commented in his book, “The Things That Matter Most” (Harper-Collins Publishers, 1994, New York, NY, p.145): “The fact is, burden-less lives create superficial people whose only interest is themselves.” And visionless lives also create sham people and preachers whose only concern is themselves, and they never listen to the God who gives visions and dreams!

The poet said it well when he wrote: “There is a secret in his breast that will never let him rest.” What I want to say is: There is a “Vision” in the true disciple’s heart that will never let him rest!

Jeremiah 29:11-14 is such a powerful, personal, and practical Word. Three truths are amplified there: 1) God’s thoughts and purposes toward us are good. 2) God has a living hope and an abiding future for us. 3) God hears our cries and is ever-present to lead us and enable us to His highest calling for our lives.

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” I think it is very important for you to consider what your vision is, what God has revealed to you about yourself and your future, about your family, about your nation and about your church. WE NEED VISION FROM GOD!!

In Acts 26:16-19, Paul is relating his testimony of his encounter with the Lord on the Damascus Road. Look at what the Lord said to him: “But arise, and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; delivering you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’ Consequently, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision…”

So, this encounter with the Lord, Paul calls it a “heavenly vision.” He met the Lord on the road to Damascus, God revealed to him that he was to be a minister and a witness to the things he’d already seen, and to the things in which the Lord would appear to him and reveal to him. And Paul states, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision…”

Look at Revelation 1:1-2: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.” Now, look at verses 9-11: “I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos, because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. “I WAS IN THE SPIRIT” on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, saying, ‘Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches…” John was IN THE SPIRIT on the Lord’s day. I am firmly convinced that our yieldedness to the Holy Spirit is vitally imperative if we’re going to receive this vision from the Lord. I am fully convinced Saul of Tarsus was under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, or he would not have said, “Lord, what would You have me to do?” I think he came to the realization that His encounter with the Lord was through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. WE NEED TO BE YIELDED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT.

I don’t believe there is any man or church that advances without a sense of need, awareness, conviction or direction; aware that God has something to say to each one of us; that He has a purpose and a plan for every one of our lives. The greatest need of our day is God’s vision!

George Moore is an English novelist. In one of his novels was an illustration of Irish peasants during a period of great depression. The government put them to work building roads. At first the peasants were joyous. They worked appreciatively; they were glad to have a job. Over a period of time, however, they learned the truth – they were building roads to nowhere! They were roads that went out to the wilderness area and just stopped there. As they became aware that they worked for no purpose, only to provide them employment and as an excuse to feed them, the laborers grew listless, stopped singing, and the work building roads came to a halt. Here is George Moore’s comment in this novel: “The roads to nowhere are difficult to make. For a man to work well and sing, there must be an end in view.” I’m convinced the “end in view” is VISION FROM GOD! “WHERE THERE IS NO VISION, THE PEOPLE PERISH!”

Beth Moore, from her book, “Things Pondered,” has written these words entitled “The Mountain”:

“I hear You call ‘Come meet with Me, See that which eyes are veiled to see And ears in vain will please to hear Except your heart should draw you here!…Abandon deeds down at My feet, No crowns as yet, no Judgment Seat, Surrender here all noble plans, Just lift to Me your empty hands…I’ll fill them with the richest fare And circumcise your heart to dare To reach beyond all earthliness For on this mount you’re Mine to bless…With gentle hands ‘til heart is stretched I’ll have MY Word upon it etched ‘Til only knees can catch the fall Of one who cries ‘You are my all!’”

What is this vision? We can say that it’s something seen, something that has been heard, something that has been revealed, maybe in a dream; it may be at the height of spiritual ecstasy under the anointing of the Spirit of God or it may be a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation, a will, a purpose, a plan to your life; but God comes and speaks to the hearts of men.

Rudyard Kipling has a poem called “The Explorer.” He wrote: “There’s no sense of going further, it’s the edge of cultivation, so they said and I believed it, broke my land, sowed my crop, built my barn, strung my fences in the little border station, tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop, ‘til a voice as bad as conscience rang interminable changes on one everlasting whisper day and night repeated, ‘Something hidden; go and find it; go and look beyond the ranges. Something lost behind the ranges, lost and waiting for you, go.”

There is the vision beyond the ranges of the common place to man. There is a vision behind the hills that are hidden away for the life of a man who will listen, for the life of a man who will look, for the life of a man who will stop and hesitate and wait upon God because God is no respecter of persons. What are visions and dreams all about?

FIRST, LET’S EXAMINE THE BLESSER OF VISIONS:

The Blesser of Visions is God Himself! Look again at Revelation 1:1, “The revelation of Jesus Christ WHICH GOD GAVE HIM TO SHOW TO HIS BOND-SERVANTS.” So God Himself gives to you His vision! Joel 2:26 says, “And you shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you…”God is the giver of a vision. God authors spiritual dreams. And we need to recognize that since God is no respecter of persons, God wants to give YOU a vision for your life.

This needs to be a matter of prayer, of laying hold of the horns of His altar and hold on!! “God, do You have something for me individually? God, are You speaking to my family, my church, our nation?” Unless we have that attitude prevailing in our hearts, we’re going to miss what God has to say to our lives. We ALL need to bow before the Blesser of Visions and say, “God, since You are no respecter of persons, what is Your vision for me, for my family, for my church, for my nation?” I believe the Word of God reveals our need of bowing before the Blesser of Visions and saying, “Lord, here we are; what do You want to say to us today?”

SECOND, LET’S EXAMINE THE BIRTH OF VISIONS!

• Here is an Abraham, who is given a vision that he is going to be the father of a great nation. So he leaves Ur of the Chaldeas, not knowing where he was going, but only that God had sent him and said to him, “You’re going to be a blessing to all the nations of the world.” [Didn’t Jesus say that Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus’ Day, and he was glad?]
• Here is a young Joseph. He is given a vision. Just a young farm boy, yet God says in Joseph’s childhood, “You’re going to be a great leader, and there are going to be many in the world who are going to bow down to you; they will acknowledge the leadership that is in your life.”
• Here’s a Moses, given a vision of the God of fire who cannot be consumed. This vision is of God taking Moses’ life and making him a leader of his people out of bondage.
• Here’s a Nehemiah, given a vision of a restored city. He’s given a vision of a mighty work of God, which compels him and thrusts him out on the edge of a new adventure for his life. He goes into the city of Jerusalem. He cannot come down off of the wall because of the significance of the work. He cannot compromise with the Arabs (that’s very, very interesting) because of the vision God has given him.
• Here’s a Joel, given a vision of a land that is prosperous, of people that are filled with plenty, of a band of followers of a Holy God; people who’ll find satisfaction in their lives and will not be disappointed regardless of what comes against them. They’re going to be a people blessed of Almighty God.
• Here’s a band of disciples who are so very few, about 12 in number, given a vision of ushering in and establishing the kingdom of God on earth. What a vision! Twelve men – ushering in the kingdom of God!
• Here’s that grain of wheat, given a vision of dying to itself, of reproducing many more grains of wheat and being fruitful in its life.
• Here’s a Paul, given a vision of touching his world with the gospel of which he was not ashamed!
• Here’s a John, whose friends are dying for the faith, given a vision of hope and victory, a vision of a new heaven and a new earth, and of celebration in the wedding of the Lord Jesus Christ with all His followers. With that vision in his heart not even death could discourage John or the Body of Christ, and they walked on victoriously because of the vision that God had given to them!

My co-laborer in India for ten years was Dwayne Weehunt, now founder and director of “Sower of the Seeds International,” who commented in one of his meetings: “When the church has vision, it changes society around it. But when there is no vision, society changes the church!”

Then you come and you think about where Satan’s seat is (I’m not sure that there is any church on the face of the earth today that’s not where Satan’s seat is – Bedford, Texas, Dallas, Texas, Nigeria, India or some place in Europe, Satan’s seat is prominent in the land). But “Here Is A Church That’s Given a Vision!” It’s going to be a faithful, caring, giving, telling, and healing community with a vision of hope, health, helpfulness, growth and prosperity, and spiritual plenty. It has a vision of joy and blessedness abounding, true salvation, the healing of the hurting and the broken-hearted, marriages restored, deliverance of captives, godly families putting their hands to the plow and not looking back, people who hunger and thirst after righteousness, a loving and caring family, a cooperative body of a rejoicing people that praise God for their present and for their future, a praying people that loose and bind, that release and restrain, that uplift and cast out.

There’s an old hymn that says:

“Once to every man and nation [or church?] Comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, For the good or evil side; Some great cause, some great decision, Offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, ‘Twixt that darkness and that light.”

The birth of a vision! All these men of God had a vision, and it was birthed within their hearts. And if there is the birth of a vision , what’s yours? What is it that God has revealed to you that He wants to accomplish in and through your life? We need to see and hear that vision. We need to know that God has spoken to our hearts. We need to be thankful that God is the God of visions and dreams, and that He is no respecter of persons. He has a vision for each one of our lives!

W. Graham Scroggie has written: “If one would be Christ-minded he must be missionary-minded, and one who is not this has no justification for calling himself a disciple of Christ. Are you missionary-minded?” Have YOU seen this vision?

Henry T. Blackaby, in “The Power of the Call” (Broadman & Holman, Nashville, TN. P.35) wrote: “God Himself chose us, called us in His time, and separated us out for Himself. As clearly as God separated from all other days and sanctified the seventh day (set it apart for Himself, Gen. 3:3) and commanded it to be ‘the Sabbath of the Lord your God’ (Exodus 20:10), so God set you apart from all others – for Himself!” And I would add – for His purposes, His visions, and His dreams!

THIRD, LET’S EXAMINE THE BATTLE OF THE VISIONS!

You need to be aware that whenever a vision is given and birthed within a person’s life, there is always going to be a battle about that vision. God ALWAYS gives a vision that places men at the point of their extremity where God begins to have an opportunity in their lives. GOD ALWAYS GIVES YOU A VISION THAT IS BEYOND YOURSELF! God gives a vision that puts people on the edge of impossibility where God becomes known as the God with whom all things are possible. That’s what our lives are all about: the God with whom all things are possible! So…He gives you a vision. I don’t know what that vision is going to be for you, but I’ll tell you this, it’s going to place you at the point where God has the opportunity to bring the impossible into reality as a demonstration of the greatness of our God. In fact, the vision God gives always brings His people to the point of “death” where they discover God as the power and authority and the Author of Life over death! Let me explain:

Let’s think about Abraham: “Abraham, you’re going to be the father of a great nation. Through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” (By the way, how old was Abraham at this particular time when he gets this vision? I believe he’s about 100 years old and that the Bible says Sarah was past the age of childbearing.) So God gives them a vision, and says, “You’re going to have a son.” What did Sarah do? She began to laugh – but God had brought them to a place of impossibility in the natural, so that through the supernatural work of Almighty God, the vision He gave them can be fulfilled by Him!!

Think about Joseph. He’s the farm-boy, the little child to whom God had given a vision that this little shepherd boy would shepherd nations! God saw him as a world-leader. So what happened to Joseph? He was sold into slavery, falsely accused, and imprisoned; yet God raised him up as a world leader.

Consider Moses. “Moses, you’re going to lead My people out of bondage!” You cannot read the life of Moses, even before the burning bush experience, and not know that it was already in the heart of Moses that God had told him he was going to be the deliverer. So he goes out, acts impulsively, kills the Egyptian, and then out of fear of Pharoah runs for his life and spends 40 years on the backside of a desert with his rod as a shepherd. But even in spite of that, God raised Moses up!

And here are the disciples. They’re going to usher in and establish the kingdom of God on earth! Then their King is killed. They in their despair said, “We may as well go back to the old way of life; let’s just go back and be fishermen again,” yet the Resurrected Christ re-appointed them!

Here’s John – a new heaven, a new earth; you’re going to have life and victory – yet, the world around him was crumbling, his friends were dying about him every day. BUT GOD SAYS, “There’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth.”

What about “the wheat”? The one grain of wheat was going to be fruitful and bring forth a great harvest. Yet, it was placed into the ground, it rotted, it died. Then here came the mighty harvest!

What about the church? Victorious, mighty army, strong, dynamic force penetrating society, changing society, for the glory of God! When you read the Book of Acts, all of a sudden they were scattered abroad, everywhere, alone, weak, feeble, struggling. Yet the Bible says they turned their world upside down!

The battle of the vision! I don’t know what all that means. I have heard many people say to me, “God gave me a vision of what He was going to accomplish in my life. It was totally beyond the realm of human possibility, but God honored Himself and brought the fulfillment of that vision and dream into my heart.” Whatever He shows you is going to bring you to the edge of your own impossibility, where whatever He shows you will be possible for your life because “HE IS ABLE…!!”

God may say to you, “You’re going to be a doctor someday.” You reply, “A doctor? How could I be a doctor? I don’t even enjoy Biology or Chemistry!” God will bring it to pass. Whatever He says to you, He’s able to do! He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask or think!

FOURTH, EXAMINE THE BLESSINGS OF A VISION! What are the blessings?

THERE’S THE BLESSING OF DIRECTION. Just because we haven’t arrived as yet to the fulfillment of the vision that God may give to us does not make the vision unreal. So many times God gives a vision, it is ‘out there’ to be fulfilled, totally beyond us, it seems. Just because we haven’t stepped the soles of our feet on every inch of ground in that land of promises doesn’t mean the vision and the promises and the purpose of God has been defeated for us! But the sense of direction that we KNOW we heard from God, we know that He revealed His purpose, we know that He gave us the Divine blueprint, and it gives a sense of direction to us.

Dr. Paul Tillet made this statement: “God is present in the unknown forces that make us restless.” AND IF YOU’RE NOT RESTLESS, YOU’RE NOT LIVING ON THE EDGE OF GROWTH! If you’re not restless, you’re not on the edge of maturity, not on the edge of hunger and thirst for what God wants to do in and through your life. But if you’re there, and God has said, “This is what I’m going to accomplish through your life,” then there is a striving toward that sense of direction. It’s called the “Sabbath Rest”! Our striving is being finished with ourselves and found us in His faithfulness.

Oswald Chambers said in his “My Utmost For His Highest” (p.51) that we don’t “attain to a vision, we must live in the inspiration of it until it accomplishes itself.” Paul said, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

There is nothing more beautiful than to see one who has heard from God and knows what God’s purpose and God’s plan is for that life. They commit themselves to that, they hold on to it, and they see the fulfillment of that vision. It may take years. Think about Caleb. It was forty years before Caleb saw the fulfillment of his vision. God said to Caleb, “I’m going to give you a mountain.” After he came into the land of promise, he went to his mountain, and said, “Give me my mountain.” It was 40 years from the time God gave him that vision of what his inheritance was going to be. He held onto it. It gave a sense of direction to his life, it gave a sense of purpose to his life. He would not be detoured away from what God had revealed to him. It gave him the blessing of direction!

THERE’S THE BLESSING OF DEPENDENCY. What did we say about the birth of a vision? About the battle of a vision? God is always going to bring you, with whatever He asks of you, to the place of impossibility. Why? So that whatever God is revealing, it takes Him to fulfill it. So there is the blessing of dependency. When I know that God has brought me there and given me a vision that is beyond me, then every day of my life I find myself dependent upon God for that fulfillment of the vision – and that’s a good place to be!

The Lord said when you pray, pray like this: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Give us this day our fulfillment of the vision, give us this day whatever is necessary to meet the physical, emotional, mental, material, spiritual needs of our lives – absolutely dependent!

Georgia Harkness is an outstanding Methodist theologian. The author wrote: “Christianity’s major world in the western world is secularism. Secularism defined? “The organization of human life as if God did not exist.” I thought about that as I read that statement. How many people organize their daily life as if God did not exist? And that’s true of some businesses, some families, yes, even some pastors and churches.

Acts 26:16 says: “I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you.” Verse 17 says, “…I am sending you.” Here is one who has a vision. As a result of that vision, he is sent out. Read verse 18. Whatever the vision is, there is purpose behind it: “To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God in order that they also may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.” Look at verse 22: “And so, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the prophets said was going to take place.” Notice the first part of that 22^nd verse: “And so having obtained help from God…” That’s the blessing of dependency. God gives Paul such a vision that he understands that vision cannot be fulfilled in and of Paul himself. Paul understood that, and he obtained help from God! We ALL need that kind of vision – every one of us! We need the kind of vision that will cause us to be shipwrecked on the isle of God’s sovereignty and stranded on the island of His omnipotence, where, if the vision that God gives us is going to be fulfilled, He has to be the provider of everything that is necessary to fulfill that vision.

THERE IS ALSO THE BLESSING OF DELIVERANCE. Joel 2:32 says: “And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape…” Deliverance from what?

Deliverance from the bondage of criticism of what we’re about with our lives. There is deliverance for the man who has a vision from God. Here’s the man who has this vision from God: He begins to “live” that vision, he begins to “die” for that vision, he begins to invest everything in himself to that vision…and opposition arises! Here comes a family member; along come close friends; business associates arise and begin to say, “You’re being so foolish; do you know what you’re doing? Do you realize what price you’re paying? How foolish can a man be?” Yet, what happens? Well, here’s a Paul who says, “It’s good to be a fool for Christ’s sake.” He was delivered from criticism of what he was about!

One of the biggest hindrances to the fulfillment of a vision in a person’s life is the opposition that comes from those who have no spiritual understanding of hearing the voice of God, of seeing a vision from God or a dream from God, and then pouring out their lives to see that vision come to be a reality within them. But if there is that vision burned within your heart, it doesn’t matter what family or friends may say. When you know that you’ve heard from God, you’re willing to lose everything, lay down your life and die, so that vision can be fulfilled through you!

There is deliverance from aimlessness. What is life all about with the people you come in contact with every day? Think about it – the people in your neighborhood, the people in your business office, the people where you work at that factory, the people you rub elbows with every day – what is their life all about? Can I tell you? Can I tell you that probably 80-90% of the people you come in contact with, their whole reason of existence is simply survival. They’re just doing the best they know how to survive. They have no purpose to life, no meaning to life, no aim to life, no goal to life except that they’re just trying to get by every day and survive life as it is. What a sad state of life! But when you have met Christ, when you have heard the voice of God, when you know He has spoken to you about your life purpose, you have an aim. You have direction. You have a goal. You have a purpose for living. And your life will never be the same! You are all business for the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

Let’s come back to Joel 2:26. “You shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied [Are you satisfied? REALLY satisfied? Is there contentment to your life?] and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; then My people will never be put to shame.” YOU shall praise the name of the Lord your God! Prayer and praise are how you maintain a vision. God inhabits the praises of His people! Prayer and praise maintain the vision! God inhabits the praises of His people! And when you arise in the morning, in that inner man, there ought to be that thankful spirit. When you walk through the day, there ought to be that thankful spirit that God has a purpose for your life; He’s given you a vision and a dream and you are fulfilling that vision and that dream. Praise the name of the Lord!

Not only is there praise to maintain the vision, but there is participation in the vision. Paul said: (Acts 26:19), “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” That is so practical to our lives. If we’re not participating with God in the fulfillment of what He reveals to us, we’re not maintaining the vision, and the vision will die! Paul was obedient to the vision God gave to him for his life and as a result of that he was maintaining the vision, there was fire in the vision, there was warmth to the vision, and it carried him through even to the point that he died for it because he knew God had spoken to his heart and life.

WHAT ABOUT BOUNDARIES TO THE VISION. Joel 2:28-29, “And it will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. And even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.” Boundaries?

GOD HAS A VISION FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL. (Philippians 1:21), “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” What is your purpose to life? What is your reason for living? What is the purpose in what you do with your daily life? Paul said, “For to me, to live is CHRIST” – to honor the Lord through all he is and all he does.

GOD HAS A VISION FOR YOUR OCCUPATION. (Exodus 31:1-6), “Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze, and in cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship. And behold, I Myself have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all who are skillful I HAVE PUT SKILL that they may make all that I have commanded you.” God gives severally as He wills. He gives gifts unto men. That is a vision God will reveal to you, as clear as a ringing bell! It may take a while for that bell to ring clearly in your mind and heart and spirit, but God has a purpose for your life!

GOD HAS A VISION FOR YOUR FAMILY. (Genesis 12:1-3) “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” God is no respecter of persons. If God had a vision for Abram and his family, through which all the families of the earth shall be blessed, then God has a vision for your family. Begin to thank Him!

GOD HAS A VISION FOR INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES. Acts 1:7-8, He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs [seasons] which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” God revealed His purpose to individuals, and to the body of believers. He gives a vision, a dream, a direct order, yes, to fellowships.

What did we begin with? “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” What is YOUR vision before God? What has God revealed to you? I believe we ought to pray for that vision or dream. We ought to have a vision for our nation! Whenever we lose sight of the vision of God for a nation, the people perish. Whenever a fellowship loses sight of its vision, the people perish. Even in marriages – when they have no vision of what their purpose is before Holy God in marriage, marriages drop like dying flies! It’s so true, yes, of individuals. That’s why it’s so important to be committed to that one, to the many, whose hearts are going after God. For what fellowship does light have with darkness? There is none. We need a vision!

Barbara Reynolds, a liberal columnist for USA Today, wrote an enlightening column for June 25, 1993. She was addressing the clouds and thunderclaps of lawlessness and lack of social order that hangs over far too many country’s major cities. She wrote: “Those murderous habits aren’t based solely on financial poverty, but on a bankrupt human spirit caused by an absence of the Spirit of God. If it weren’t for the religious faithful [in cities and schools], life would be utterly hopeless.” She was so right! But even more, if we lose the religious faithful who’ve been captured by Vision, Vision from God, all segments of human life will be utterly hopeless! But we are not “hopeless” people; we are hope-filled servants of the Most High God who unveils for us the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God!

Let me close this truth of vision with several tremendous statements penned by Gloria Gaither in “An Old Friend Not Forgotten.” Bill Gaither included this in his “Homecoming Collectors’ Edition (Gaither Music Company, 1993): “The world is oblivious for there are too few visionaries. Too blind to subtleties and too imprisoned by carnivals. Too numb to gentleness and too overwhelmed by power. Too deaf to music and too stimulated by noise. Too dull to recognize the permanent – too focused to the transient. Too tuned out to the prophets, too attuned to the hucksters. The world is oblivious for there are too few visionaries…The world is losing heart for there are too few dreamers. Too much cynicism and not enough faith. Too much hype and not enough hope. Too much savvy and not enough wisdom. Too much money and not enough treasure. Too much form and not enough substance. Too many takers and not enough givers. Too many dissenters and not enough inspirers. The world is losing heart, for there are too few dreamers…Into such a world God sends His poets, prophets, troubadours who see what we have missed, who warn us lest we self-destruct, and who fill the songless night with music. They surround our alienation with love’s embrace; they burn through the fog of our oblivion with the piercing light of truth, and they sing the dream back into our hearts.” AMEN?

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

MARVELOUS MERCY & MATCHLESS GRACE

Micah 7:18–20

I don’t know where your faith rests, but I want to let you know my faith is not in my natural abilities, my fleshly instincts, my educational degrees, my personal disciplines or lack of them; it’s not in my personal goals, visions or dreams; it’s not in self, dogged determinism, my best efforts, my untiring discipline.

Here’s how Paul put it in I Corinthians 15:10, “and His grace toward me was not in vain.” And the one thing I want you to discern today is that His marvelous mercy and matchless grace will never fall short of your point of need!

Remember Jesus speaking in Luke 11: 11–12? “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer a scorpion?” YOU KNOW THE ANSWER!

He sits on the throne of mercy. He governs by the spirit of grace. He’s the Father looking down the road for the prodigal’s return – and He awaits, not with scolding and condemnation, but a celebration spirit that it’s Heaven’s “party–time”!

Have you ever felt hopeless in your spiritual pilgrimage – and then you hear there is a haven of rest? Have you ever sensed a lack of confidence on your spiritual journey – and then you become aware of “holy presence” revealing the Way?

Have you ever found yourself on the canvas of life, on your back, trying to comprehend the knock–out blow to your chin, ever so helpless – then Jesus says, “Get up – this bout is not over, it’s just begun?”

Have you ever been in the throes of spiritual darkness, not discerning the next step to take in what direction – but you hear a voice: “This is the Way, walk you in it?”

Have you ever been “down” – “I’ve fallen & I can’t get up!” But then Jesus says , “Rise & Walk” – and you arise & walk!

It’s been a self–indulgent, spiraling downward, careless, corrupt life–style – and you wonder, “Is there any hope?’ “Is there a recovery possibility?” “Am I too far gone?”

That’s what the powers of darkness would like you to think. That’s what the faithless want you to believe. That’s what the hopeless hope you hold to so there’ll be miserable feelings in you as well as them, the misery loves company crowd!

A cloud of confusion colors the true picture of the nature and character of God – “I’ve fallen beyond the reach of God and, really, He could care less about me.” Is that true?

“I’m too far gone – and His reach is shortened by my degree and depth of sinfulness.” Is that true?

Can’t you hear it? “I’ve gone too far, I’ve fallen too hard, I’m too deep in bondage for even God Himself to help me.” Is that true?

Fallen sin–nature theories, immature conceptions and ideas, even vain imaginations control even the minds of saints who have fallen when they ignore biblical revelation and, yes, the very heart of God!

I want to smash the mental entrenchments that ignore revealed truth. I want to smother the poisonous gases of fleshly determinations about the heart of God. I want to suffocate the breaths of spiritual ignorance that paint a false picture of God’s activity in behalf of fallen humanity and reveal the true knowledge of God that brings salvation, healing, deliverance, restoration, and renewal.

I believe Paul told the church at Corinth [2 Corinthians 10:5], that we’re to “bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

How many of us have walked in our faith for a long time on the sea of smooth waters, and then, all of a sudden we find ourselves under dark clouds, stormy waters, and the horrendous winds of a walk contrary to God’s will? Have you ever been there?

How many of us have forgotten where we once were with Christ, and now we’re filled with fear as to whether or not we can recover what we once had and move on into His fullness?

There is the ministry of the interior but I’ve majored on the exterior. There is the ministry of the Spirit But I’ve focused on the flesh. There is the ministry of the eternal but I’ve settled on the temporal. And there is no joy, no peace, no contentment, no spiritual satisfaction of blessing in my relationship to Him – Is there a word?

In Hebrews 13, two phrases in verses 5 & 6 I want you to see:

Hebrews 13:5, “For He Himself has said…” Hebrews 13:6, “So we may boldly say…”

Can you rest your life on that? Can you settle your hope for eternity on those two phrases? Can you say what God says?

Faithlessness, futility, feebleness, frailty, frustrations are not to be words, spirits, seasons, or points in our walk that describe our eternal relationship with Holy God. “For He Himself has said…,” so now “we may boldly say!”

I love I Corinthians 10:13! Let me paraphrase: “No test has overcome or overtaken you except such as is common to man; but GOD IS FAITHFUL who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the testing will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”

There is something that must be indelibly printed on your mind and your heart: THE MEASURE OF YOUR FAILURE, YOUR FALL, YOUR PAIN, YOUR DISAPPOINTMENT WITH YOURSELF, IS NOT GREATER THAN GOD’S MARVELOUS MERCY AND MATCHLESS GRACE!!

Hebrews 7:25 says, “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost [the furtherest throw away from Him] those who come to God through Christ, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

Three things of vital importance for you to rest in today from Micah 7:18–20:

FIRST, “ONCE AGAIN…” Can you rest your faith on those two words? “Once again…!”

I don’t believe the spirit of those two words is carte blanche for open sin and rebellion. I don’t believe it’s saying, “Do as you please – God doesn’t care as long as you believe.” I don’t believe it’s a call to acceptance of His grace without any accountability. I don’t believe it is a liberating license to licentiousness and the low road to lesser than Christ’s best.

That’s how some fall into the trap of “God’s obligation to accept me regardless of what I do because I believe.”

“Once again” is the description of the heart of God. “Once again” is the hymn of God’s faithfulness. “Once again” is the clarion call to turn to Him, not the acceptance of our self–indulgence with our hollowness and emptiness.

“Once again” is God’s demonstration of His great love for us “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” [Romans 5:8]. ‘Demonstrates’ is the “once again” of present tense, continuous action, out of the overflow of God’s heart.

“Once again” is God’s covenant of grace with Himself & us – the rainbow that reminds Him the world will never again be destroyed by a flood of water.

“Once again is God’s cry of victory over the battles you felt you’d horribly lost.

“Once again” true sheep have wandered but the True Shepherd seeks them out, even though wandering on the dark mountains of sin, selfishness, and shame.

“Once again” is the unveiling of the authenticity of God’s mercy and grace and the awareness and amplification of our great need of Him.

“Once again” is the authority of God over the “god of this age” bringing victory in your life over the powers of darkness even when “the whole world is in the power of the evil one.”

“Once again” is the unconditional love of the Father for His children who fell short of the Family heritage and loyalty.

“Once again” is the proof of God’s unfailing love for us when we’ve been seared by the paralyzing torture of falling short and He picks us up when we stumble and sings over us the hymn of His acceptance.

“Once again” is His knock at our heart’s door when we thought it best to shut Him out – “I’m not worthy of Him!” – communion was absent but the hound dog of heaven was hot at our heels!

“Once again” is the symphony of praise that cannot be drowned out even when you wonder, “How do you sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

It was Samuel Rutherford, Scottish minister in the 1600’s, imprisoned for his ‘non–conformity’ by Episcopalians who did not welcome his Presbyterian persuasions. He spent two years in prison. In prison he gave us a strong look at the true “once again,” enduring peace, pleasure, and blessing.

[E.M. Bounds wrote about it in “Heaven: A Place, A City, A Home.” Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1975, p13.]: “If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then had told me that He should begin by crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a close room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven.”

You are in darkness – but the light of heaven once again shines upon you!

You have sunk to a depraved state – but the light of heaven once again radiates upon you!

You were ready to denounce your faith because of your disappointment in yourself – but the light of heaven has broken through!

You’ve heard it from the atheists and liberal, faithless professors: “Born again” is not possible – but “once again” there is a new creation.

“Born again” is a figment of one’s imagination – but “once again” imagination is replaced by redemptive reality.

“Born again” is natural man’s ascendancy to human potential – but “once again” God signs His name in the blood of Christ on the heart of that man saying, “He’s Mine!!”

“Born again” is religious foolishness that blinds the uneducated, an “opiate” of the people dulling their senses – but “once again” we fled for refuge, found strong encouragement, and laid hold of heavenly hope, an anchor of the soul!

Hear me, church! THE THEREFORE OF GOD’S WHEREFORE OF OUR “ONCE AGAIN” VIBRANT FAITH WITH A VIEW OF ETERNAL REALITY WILL CAPTURE US AND WE’LL SAY: GOD LOVES US AND HAS “ONCE AGAIN” MADE A WAY FOR US!

SECOND, “ONCE AGAIN – GOD WILL!” How powerful is that! Is it “you will” or “God will”? – and every man has that choice in himself as to what foundation he rests his life upon.

It’s God’s will that birthed salvation by grace through faith. It’s God’s will that this is accomplished through the shed blood of the Lamb of God alone. It’s God’s will that fallen man experiences that salvation through repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at Calvary. It’s God’s will that that salvation process is perseverance unto perfection, “conformed to the image of Christ.” [Romans 8:29]

Listen to John 6:39–40! “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

You will or God will?

Hear Jesus! Matthew 4:19, “and I WILL make you fishers of men.” Matthew 11:28, “and I WILL give you rest.”

Matthew 16:19, “I WILL give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, But My words WILL BY NO MEANS pass away.”

Romans 5:17, “…much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness WILL REIGN IN LIFE THROUGH THE ONE, JESUS CHRIST.”

Do you remember Paul saying that we should “understand what the will of the Lord is?” [Ephesians 5:17]

What did we read in Micah 7:18–20? “Who is a God like You?” What a profound, penetrating, perfecting statement in the heart of a man who wants to know God! What did Micah say?

“He will again have compassion on us…He will subdue our iniquities…He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea…He will give truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham…”

There is something marvelous that is about to happen if you haven’t sensed it as yet. In Acts 9:16 God promises His “return” – and when He does, He says: “I will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, And I will set it up, verse 17, So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord…”

2 Peter 3:9 says, “God is NOT WILLING that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Jesus says, “I’m WILLING – be cleansed.”

What did we see in John 6:40? “And this IS THE WILL OF HIM WHO SENT ME, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I WILL raise him up at the last day.”

What’s the old saying? “None are so blind as those who will not see!” Did you hear it? “This is the will of Him who sent Jesus!” God’s heart, God’s design, God’s desire, God’s pleasure, God’s passion, God’s intent, God’s strategy, God’s Way, Truth, and Life – “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] may have everlasting life; and [Jesus] will raise him up at the last day.”

THIRD TRUTH: “ONCE AGAIN – GOD WILL – REMIND US OF EVERLASTING COVENANTS.” Look at Micah 7:20, “You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from days of old.”

Is that written into the fabric of your faith? “You have sworn, You swore to our fathers, and You swore from days of old until now, and You’ll still be swearing in the days to come!”

Are you familiar with Isaiah 55:11? HEAR IT! [God speaking], “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me VOID [or empty without fruit], but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall proper in the thing for which I sent it.”

You heard earlier Jesus speaking in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”

“Lord, I was so foolish in that fall; but I remind You, You’ve said: “You’ll have compassion on me, You’ll subdue my iniquities, You’ll cast all my sins into the sea of Your forgetfulness, and You’ll give me truth to stand on, because You swore to my spiritual fathers, even from the foundation of the earth until now.”

“Lord, I was so stupid to give a ‘toe–hold’ to the devil; I opened the door of temptation; I let sin reign in that moment rather than righteousness. I was so wrong – but You say there’s a throne of mercy and the gift of grace. I need it today – right now.”

“Lord, we both were so selfishly insane in our marriage, choosing self–will over divine will, flesh over Spirit, my way or the highway. But You say, ‘Marred marriages are My specialty. Right now take the sentence of death unto yourselves and the resurrected Life of Jesus will be manifested.”

Come to Psalm 121 and follow and see from where your true Help comes: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills – from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul… The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.”

Daniel B. Towner understood this when he wrote this hymn: “Years I spent in vanity and pride, Caring not my Lord was crucified, Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary.

By God’s Word at last my sin I learned; Then I trembled at the law I’d spurned, Till my guilty soul imploring turned To Calvary.

Now I’ve given to Jesus everything, Now I gladly own Him as my King, Now my raptured soul can only sing Of Calvary.

O the love that drew salvation’s plan! O the grace that brought it down to man! O the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary!

Mercy there was great, and grace was free; Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty…At Calvary!”

In “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p266], Oswald Chambers has a powerful word for us about Galatians 6:14 which says, “But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hear it:

“The Gospel of Jesus Christ always forces an issue of will. Do I accept God’s verdict on sin in the cross of Christ? Have I the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death, to be killed right out to all interest in sin, in worldliness, in self – to be so identified with Jesus that I am spoilt for everything else but Him? The great privilege of discipleship is that I can sign on under His cross, and that means death .”

And from Micah 7:18–20 you’re reminded: IT’S HIS DEATH THAT LIBERATES ME! IT’S HIS SACRIFICE THAT SETS ME FREE! Hear me wanderer; no, hear me wandering child of faith – God has a word for you: Isaiah 54:4–8! “Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth. For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused, says your God. For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.”

His compassion is real; His strength to subdue our iniquities is real, His grace to cast all our sins into the depths of the sea is real, and His covenant truth reigns forever!

Accept His Marvelous Mercy and His Matchless Grace!

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“KINGDOM LIVING – KINGDOM BLESSINGS!”

It’s a day in “Christian circles”, whether schools, universities, churches, businesses, or homes, when the revelation truth of “Kingdom Living” needs to be resurrected ! I’m really not sure if even ‘seminaries’ have taught at all about this subject but rather majored on ‘church life’ void of what is called by most the “Lord’s Prayer”! I want you to read it carefully at least a dozen times in one sitting, and for a period daily of at least one month! I want you immersed in the Lord’s Prayer! It says in Matthew 6:9-13 the following words of Jesus as He trained His disciples, yet, it was months, even years before it sank in to their minds and hearts and wills – Hear His Prayer!

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

But I wonder! How many prayers are engaged in the pure desire to see Christ’s Kingdom-Rule on earth, in their hearts and homes, overseeing and ruling in a redemptive Way in all they do, to His honor, His glory, and passionately praying to be equipped “in Him” in touching our world with His Kingdom mission and Kingdom blessings”?

Oh, and here’s the real “kicker”! In Matthew 6:33 the Lord Jesus said, “But seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” And, in seeking First “the kingdom of God”, is that willful submission and faithful obedience in all He tells you to do? “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN”! Does that shock you or surprise you that the heart of Jesus’ prayer and your praying is to usher in heavenly living on earth?

And how interesting and awakening do you find it when in Matthew 6:25-27 the Lord Jesus says, “Therefore I say to you, take no thought for your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on? Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?”

Your heavenly Father KNOWS your birthing, He knows how to bless you, He knows how to “bear with you” in life’s struggles, their turmoils, their ups and their downs, He knows how to bid and abide peaceably and confidently in your every step, and His heart and mind overflows in benevolence for your sovereign care! And, again, in Matthew 6:32b Jesus said, “…For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things…”, so why ‘worry’ when you can worship the One who cares for you more than you care about yourself?

Do you grasp that Father-God, the Lord Jesus, and the convicting and convincing Holy Spirit wants YOU living day by day in the CONFIDENCE of God’s faithfulness? “Kingdom Living”? In Matthew 13:18-23 Jesus shared the parable of the sower. He said: “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone HEARS THE WORD OF THE KINGDOM, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.

But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Are you aware that in this 21-first-century that there are not many, if any, places where the Word of God has not gone? I traveled our ‘known’ world for twenty-five years, and I seldom found nations or countries without a church, but I soon learned that a local church does not necessarily mean their location had been saturated with the Word of “blood Redemption” through Christ Jesus! I saw people on the streets of foreign cities who had never heard the name of Christ Jesus or heard that He shed His own blood for their salvation, reconciling them to God’s eternal earthly, worldly purpose for their lives and families!

“Seek first the kingdom of God”, “Take no thought for your life (in the flesh)”, “Hear the word of the kingdom”, yet masses of people locally or worldwide have no understanding about “steadfastly in Christ possessing their souls” with the deed of their bodies, minds, spirits, and souls transferred to the ownership of Christ Himself!

Pause to reflect upon what it is that consumes most people in their everyday lives: “I know I was ‘birthed’ – and I’ll ‘try my best’ to make the most I can out of it, with others possessing not even a penny’s worth of concern about why they are here other than ‘self-indulgence’, trying to find something or someone to satisfy the vast emptiness of the mind, soul, and body!

“I’m here, and eternal purpose for me is not a consideration – I live motivated by what satisfies ME!” “I’m here, and it takes a job of some kind to supply what I want!” “I’m here – and I don’t want to live a ‘naked existence – I’ve got to clothe myself and my family!” “I’m here – and breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with snacks in between requires I labor!”

Do you sense at all that many Americans are more concerned about their “outward dressing” more than they are how they are “heart-dressed” before Holy God? Is it “physical bread” without any consideration of “the manna from Heaven”?

In Matthew 4:1-11 there are “soul-awakening, spirit-shocking” Verses! It says: Then Jesus WAS LED UP BY THE SPIRIT (THAT’S THE HOLY SPIRIT!) into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him (Is it possible that the “tempter” has come to you many times nut you didn’t recognize him?), he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

But Jesus answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Is there a hunger in you for the “bread of Truth” and for the “meat of His Word”, or is it just three square meals a day physically that satisfies you?

In Deuteronomy 8:1 Holy God spoke: “Every commandment which I command you today you MUST BE CAREFUL TO OBSERVE, that you may live and multiply, AND GO IN AND POSSESS THE LAND OF WHICH THE Lord swore to your fathers.” Dare I tell you that “the land” you are to possess wisely is the land of your own mind, heart, soul, and spirit, possessed wisely by yielding daily to the True Owner who “bought you with a price”, yes, the shed blood of the Lamb of God!

Jesus said in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” And later, in John 16:7-15, we learn of one of the most important of “Kingdom Blessings”! Jesus said to young disciples, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said to you that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.” ARE YOU KEEPING THE SOVEREIGNLY, ORDAINED APPOINTMENTS OF SPIRIT-ASSISTANCE IN GUIDING YOU IN ALL BIBLICAL TRUTH?

I find it extremely interesting and convicting to hear the Lord Jesus speak to me and you when He said in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you AND appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”

And “Kingdom Living” through the grace, mercy, and love of God leads to the true remnant of faith involved in “Kingdom Blessings”! “Kingdom Living” comes about because of the “grafted in” “Kingdom Character” which abounds in “Kingdom Blessings”!!

And do you remember the First of the “kingdom Blessings” found in Matthew 5:3 where Jesus spoke the following: “BLESSED are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” That’s “heaven on earth in the life of a ‘poor in spirit’ person who repents”, who turns from ‘self’ to the Savior and Lord, who abandons and exchanges the old sin nature for the “new Life in Christ”, who tires of his fleshly best, even seeing no ushering in of Kingdom allegiance by his endeavor to, at least, live acceptably by the world around! But ‘the world around’ is not going to lead one to True Kingdom allegiance apart from devotion to the King of kings and Lord of lords!

So, Matthew 5:4 declares: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” What did the prophet Isaiah hear about the Spirit on Christ Jesus and His ministry to and through our Savior and Lord, even extended to us? Isaiah 61: 1-3 says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach glad tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

In Matthew 5:5 we read, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The meek? They’re the “teachable”, not the stiff-necked, cold-hearted, or minds dominated by stubbornness and indifference when it comes to trusting Holy God! The ‘earth’ is the new invisible ‘kingdom of righteousness’ being built by the Master-Contractor who takes you and me as ‘stones’ in the building of His Holy Temple only seen by spiritual, re-born eyes in tune to His eternal will and purpose!

And the ‘teachable’ inheriting ‘the earth’? Because we achieve or we receive? Because we merit it or we’re mercied? Earned or credited? Pumped up or poured out on us by God’s grace and mercy? Bought personally or paid for by the Lamb’s blood? Self-genius or Sovereign grace? Talented or “touched by the Master’s hands and taken over in our minds and hearts? Entering Man-made doors or embraced by His amazing love? Personal initiative or the Prince of Peace’s intervention? Perplexed or persuaded?

What does Matthew 5:6 tell us? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled.” We hunger and thirst, but the filling of us in righteousness is God’s doing! “Shall be filled” is in the “passive” voice – Someone else does the filling as we hunger and thirst before Him for His righteousness!

In Matthew 5:7 we read, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” It’s not in the human anatomy apart from God to be merciful – it’s much easier for lost men to be “revenge-filled”, but when Christ enters our hearts, He’s able to be Himself in us, and He extends mercy through us!

Oh, in Matthew 5:8, Jesus really gets “testy”! He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Get ready! Christ Jesus really stirred the waters among the “religious Jews” – and He can do the same in some ‘religious communities’! In Matthew 23:23-28 Jesus exposed ‘outward loyalty’ apart from true devotion to the Righteous One, the Lord Jesus. He said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!

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

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

Would you say that modern-day Pharisaism is “pretense” at attempting to live ‘religiously’ apart from “re-birth” and “true transformation by the grace of God and the blood of the Lamb”? Are you a “pretender” or, yes, a “partaker of Christ’s Sufferings”? (1 Peter 4:13).

“Kingdom Living and Kingdom Blessings” come about by being finished with one’s own abilities and “resting” in the Resurrection Life of Christ! Personal ambitions and personal drives block “Christ in you the hope of glory”! Individual evaluation and individual determination that doesn’t begin at the Cross of Christ and His empty Tomb and His heavenly reign in you is fraudulent, deceived, and totally misleading! Your way is not God’s Way – never has been and never will be! Accept YOUR death with Christ on the Cross, and live in, through, and by His Resurrection Presence in you! What did Paul say in 2 Corinthians 5:17?

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things become new.” For you, is it “newness living in Christ” or the “gut-it-up mentality” of the “pretenders”?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

FACING NEW DAYS CONFIDENTLY

Time. What is it? The seconds, minutes or hours on your wrist watch? For the ancients was time just the shadow on their sun dial? Is time the gauging of the midnight hour on your old grandfather clock? Is it the grains of sand seeping through the hour glass?

Tolstoy, in “War and Peace,” said: “Time is infinite movement without one moment of rest.” Sometimes I say YES to that! J.A. Van Horn, in “Physics Today,” said: “To the philosopher, time is one of the fundamental quantities. To the average man, time has something to do with dinner.” Longfellow wrote in “Hyperion,” “Time is the life of the soul.” That definition gets a little closer to the truth! Plato put it like this: “Time is the image of eternity.”

Considering all of the prior attempts at defining time, I believe a better explanation would be, “Time is the moment for a life, with the brush of faith, to stroke on the canvas of one’s being the masterpiece of the presence of God, the reflection of the eternal, through repentance, reconciliation, and redemption.”

Look with me at Ecclesiastes 3:1-9. “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven – a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing. A Time to search, and a time to give up as lost; a time to keep, and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?”

And verse 9 brings us to the moment of divine confrontation, “What eternal profit is there in the daily investment of my life?”

In “A Psalm of Life,” Longfellow wrote: “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sand of time.” Leah Richmond said, “There is a time to be born and a time to die, says Solomon, and it is the momento of a truly wise man; but there is an interval between these two times of infinite importance.”

In Galatians 4:10,11, Paul is talking to a church who saw only the “surface” and had not yet majored on the “substance.” “You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.”

Jesus spoke to the multitude in Luke 12:54-56, “And He was also saying to the multitude, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way. You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?”

The Psalmist had a discerning of the days when in Psalm 39:4-7 he said, “Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the extent of my days, let me know how transient I am. Behold, You have made my days as handbreaths, and my lifetime as nothing in Your sight, surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Surely every man walks about as a phantom; surely they make an uproar for nothing; he amasses riches, and does not know who will gather them. And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.”

I want us to study what we must possess in order to face new days confidently. FIRST, WE MUST KNOW THE DAYS ARE DIVINELY ORDAINED.

Psalm 31:15 says, “My times are in God’s hand…” Do you believe that, or is each day just an accident of the ages? Ecclesiastes 8:15 speaks of “the days of [a man’s] life which God gives him under the sun.” Are the days of my life gifts of His grace? Is He in control of those seconds, minutes, hours, days on the clock of my life?

Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” How awesome when we see it!

I believe without a doubt that multitudes never come into confident living in their hour because they’ve never seen themselves as a piece of the puzzle that God is putting together. I believe that many never come into confident living in their marriages because they have never really seen their marriages as an interpretation to the world of what Christ and His bride are like. I believe that far too many businessmen have missed eternal blessings because they’ve built, they think, businesses as a reward of their own diligence and not a tool to honor God and expand His kingdom.

Frederick William Faber: “The surest method of arriving at a knowledge of God’s eternal purposes about us is to be found in the right use of the present moment. Each hour comes with some little fagot of God’s will fastened upon its back.” I would only add, “…not some little fagot of God’s will, but the full assurance of divine intent fastened to your heart!”

Paul, in Acts 17:26-28, said to the aimless Athenians, “And He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist…”

Isaiah 49:5 says, “And now the Lord says, Who formed ME from the womb to be His servant…” And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, according to Psalm 62:8, I will “Trust in Him at all times…” In verse 5 the Psalmist said, “My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation (or hope) is from Him.”

And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, according to Psalm 34:1, “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth…” And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, I’ll not see change as a disaster, but as a blessing! Daniel 2:20-22 says, “Daniel answered and said, let the name of the Lord be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him. And it is He who changes the times and epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men, and knowledge to men of understanding. It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him.”

In Robert Wise’s book, “When The Night Is Too Long,” he quotes a poem written by Ruth Harms Calkin entitled “Once For All.” The poem was found in the belongings of a friend, Jan Wolfard, who had helped him with typing over the years. Jan had suffered from a serious mental illness, he says, “triggered by the failure of her marriage.” But with God’s help and Robert Wise’s, she’d climbed back. At the age of 38, she died. In her belongings they came across Ruth Calkin’s poem: “Lord, may I settle it once and for all that I am dealing directly with You. You need never apologize for any plan You ordain for me since nothing but good can come from Your hand. You are sufficient for every changing circumstance in my God-planned life, for every unchanging circumstance as well.”

Do you sense divine ordination over your life? In Jeremiah 1:9,10, Jeremiah says, “Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Is God’s divine ordination written on your mind and heart yet? Look with me at Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your Book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF DIVINE OPPORTUNITY. In Ephesians 1:5,6, Paul said, “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will – to the praise of the glory of His grace.” Verse 12 goes on to say, “that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.” And verse 14 reiterates, “to the praise of His glory.”

Days of divine opportunity are to be days of magnifying Him! 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

To the Galatians, Paul put it like this: “but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace…to reveal His Son in me!”

Robert Wise, in “When The Night Is Too Long,” tells an awesome story of Christ-like ministry and response as we walk life’s paths of opportunity:

“Kitty Hart is an amazingly energetic woman with great drive. An x-ray technician, she has also raised two out-standing sons. Perhaps the most remarkable quality one discovers as Kitty talks is her energetic buoyancy and zest for living. Considering the extraordinary pain that has filled her life, her optimism is confounding. The fact that she is alive is itself something of a miracle.

As a teenage Jewish girl, Kitty and her family were torn apart by the Nazi assault that ripped her world to pieces. As her family struggled to survive annihilation, they were separated. She and her mother were shipped to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Her father and her brother disappeared.

Kitty discovered quickly that survival depended on doing daily jobs too nauseating to describe. Such tasks as carrying out buckets of human waste from latrines provided minimal shelter to keep winter ice storms from devouring her. Removing jewelry and other items from bodies being prepared for crematoriums gave her precious trinkets with which to bargain for bits of food. Being on a detail that spent the days throwing bodies onto wagons kept her out of the endless flow of human traffic toward the crematoriums. Kitty’s adolescence was spent in pursuit of an existence that seems worse than death.

The horror of the murder of six million Jews is so overwhelming that statistics have persuaded many that people are essentially only animals. The Hitlers, Himmlers, Eichmanns, and Mengelas seem to prove the hypothesis that humanity is no more than the most cunning and dangerous of all species. The death camps suggest that survival of the fittest is a fact and the only measure of right in this universe. So the experience of Kitty Hart poses an unavoidable question for us. Can people really be a reflection of a God of love?

As the years dragged on, Kitty was subjected to horrors that only increased with time. During one period she worked in the infirmary. As the sick poured in, Kitty found old friends and relatives among the multitude. Reunions were a singular source of joy when she was able to smuggle in a crumb of bread or an article of clothing to help someone survive. On one of those bleak winter mornings, the commandant appeared, demanding that the entire infirmary be emptied into waiting trucks. Instantly everyone knew that must mean death.

The influx of more and more Jews had produced an overload of sick people. The Nazi solution for the crowding was to exterminate the present population. Since none would survive anyway, recovering patients were only marking time until they disappeared.

Kitty knew there was no alternative but to comply with the orders, which soldiers stood ready to enforce with club and bayonet. One by one she helped her friends out of the cold, shabby sick bay on their way to death. At such moments the terror and horror that mingled with overwhelming anger created a single desire. Should she survive, the day would come when she would avenge the butchery. Hate kept Kitty alive.

Even though the end of the war was at hand and the defeat of the Nazis had become imminent, Kitty and her mother were sent on a death march to another camp. All that kept her bleeding feet moving was the burning intention to get her hands on her German captors. Germans of any shape or size. Germans who would bleed and die as her people had. Germans who could be strangled.

On the final day of their imprisonment, Kitty and her mother noticed that men in strange uniforms were walking outside the barbed wire. Then an SS guard appeared and announced surrender to the Allies. Immediately the prisoners turned on him, tearing his uniform from his body. As the other inmates beat him, Kitty saw his dagger fall to the ground. Instantly she grabbed the knife and ran for the gate out of the camp. Surging together, the prisoners rampaged into the town seeking food. Kitty clutched at the dagger with one thought in mind. Somewhere she would find a German to try to even a score that had never been settled.

Breaking down the door to one of the village houses they poured in seeking food. The house appeared empty until a prisoner noticed a door that went down to the basement. Quickly Kitty descended the stairs with the knife in the air, poised for attack. From out of the shadows the forms of people began to emerge. There they were. Germans who were trapped just as Kitty and her friends had been for all those years.

“Throw it!” someone yelled in her ear. “Stick them!” As one man stepped from the group, Kitty drew her arm over her head ready to plunge the knife into his chest.

“Throw it!” the man behind her screamed. With the blade overhead, a most contrary impulse surged up from her soul. An almost lost emotion touched her intention. Deep within the recesses of her mind, compassion arose. Unexpected goodness froze the knife in the air. Her obsession with revenge gave way to thoughts of forgiveness. To Kitty’s amazement, her own hand turned, hurling the knife against a wall where it fell harmlessly to the floor.

“I realized that if I killed the man, the Nazis would have succeeded in making me like them,” she now reflects. By bearing humiliation and degradation with forgiveness, Kitty demonstrated that the inhumanity of the Nazis was only a momentary perversion of true humanity. Kitty is living proof that the image of God can be obscured, but not destroyed. The worst life offers produced in her a transcendent quality of character.

Kitty found that she was changed by her decision. By exchanging benevolence for bestiality, she profited the most.

How can the effect of years filled with hate be revised in a few moments of forgiveness? Nothing compares with the power of love. No cleansing agent, no scouring powder, no catharsis can accomplish what a few moments of absolution will do for the soul. The darkest depths of hate reveal most fully the highest possibilities of love.” WOW! DAYS OF OPPORTUNITY – days of ministry to reveal Christ!

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF OCCUPATION! Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 says, “I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

Luke 10:13 makes a similar point: “So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Occupy (or do business) till I come.” Do you remember young Jesus’ response to His parents when they came back to Jerusalem to find him? Luke 2:49, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

George Macdonald, in the “Marquis of Losaie”, wrote, “I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.”

** DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DECISIONS – Ephesians 1:1 says, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God…” What is the will of God for your life? I Corinthians 2:2 says, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Ephesians 6:6 says, “servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart…”

**DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DETERMINATION – Look with me at 2 Samuel 23:10-12, “He arose and struck the Philistines until his hand was weary and clung to the sword, and the Lord brought about a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to strip the slain. Now after him was Shammah the son of Agee a Hazarite. And the Philistines were gathered into a troop, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils, and the people fled from the Philistines. But he took his stand in the midst of the plot, defended it and struck the Philistines; and the Lord brought about a great victory.”

Henry Parry Liddon says, “Nothing is really lost by sacrifice; everything is lost by failure to obey God’s call.” John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, “In simple trust like theirs who heard beside the Syrian Sea the gracious calling of the Lord, let us, like them, without a word rise up and follow God.”

Hebrews 12:2-3 says, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.”

** DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DISCIPLINE – Look carefully at I Corinthians 9:23-27 and ask yourself, “Is my walk with Christ disciplined?” “And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I buffet my body, and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”

As Paul came near the end of his life, he wrote in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF ORDER: Do you remember “good King Hezekiah?” In 2 Kings 20:1-2 Hezekiah was sick and near death and Isaiah the prophet went to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.” In Amos 4:2 God said, “Prepare to meet your God!!” Set your house in order! Days of order are days of preparation, examination, devotedness and readiness.

In Luke 16:2 Jesus speaks of the rich man’s steward when he called him to himself and said, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship…”

To the church at Corinth Paul said, “It is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” Set your house in order.

Matthew 25:10 speaks of those five foolish virgins: “And while the five foolish virgins went to buy, the bridegroom, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding. And the door was shut.” Set your house in order!

Revelation 19:7 also speaks of a wedding. “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and HIS WIFE HAS MADE HERSELF READY.” Set your house in order!

Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest” wrote, “The great need for the Christian worker is to be ready to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience is. The battle is not against sin or difficulties or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in work that we are not ready to face Jesus Christ at every turn. That is the one great need, not the facing of our belief, or our creed, the question whether we are of any use, but to face Him…Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical connections. The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord’s surprise visits. It is not service that matters, but intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn…If you are ‘looking off unto Jesus’ avoiding the call of the religious age you live in, and setting your heart on what He wants, on thinking on His line, you will be the only one who is ready. Trust no one, not even the finest saint who ever walked this earth, ignore him, if he hinders your sight of Jesus Christ.” SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER!

WE MUST LIVE THE DAYS WITH THE PROMISE OF OVERCOMING! I John 5:4 says, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world – our faith!”

In I Corinthians 15:57 we read, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Is it so? Then…”These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace; In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”

We are not called to Christ to be men and women filled with pessimistic fear, but men and women empowered by a powerful faith of “Victory In Jesus.” We are not called to Christ to be disciples clouded by doubts, but disciples who are gloriously certain of our conquest because of the unconquerable majesty of Christ. We are not called to Christ to be His servants bathed in the foul smell of failure and short coming, but servants flooded with the heavenly perfume of Christ’s joy, His triumphant victory, and His overcoming life.

We don’t walk despondently toward heaven’s gates, we ride the chariot of faith radiant in the triumphant procession of oneness with Christ. We don’t walk toward heaven’s gates hoping that at least some of our time we are triumphant in Christ, the Word says God “always” leads us in triumph in Christ! We walk toward heaven’s gates because we willfully chained ourselves to Christ, responding to the unfathomable love of the Victor!

George Matheson wrote the text to the hymn, “O Love That Will Not Let Me God.” Those four verses say: “O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.

O Light that follows all my way, I yield my flickering torch to Thee; my heart restores its borrowed ray, that in Thy sunshine’s blaze, its day may brighter, fairer be.

O joy that seeks me through pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee; I trace this rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that many shall tearless be.

O grace that lifts up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be.”

“A YEAR’S ENLIGHTMENT

FOR PASTORS, TEACHERS, AND DISCIPLES”

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER

April-May, 2017

INTRODUCTION

At 80 years of age, I look back over 60 years of pastoring, teaching, evangelizing, spending 25 years after pastoring traveling primarily across India, but other nations as well, inspired and led by God in sharing the Word.

I’ve been so encouraged by other nations across the world that have witnessed anointed messengers proclaiming, teaching, preaching, and evangelizing, when, at times, I’ve wondered what the American church has been ‘busy’ about – the Truth or their opinions?

There is an interesting observation by the author of Proverbs when we read in Proverbs 11:24 a convicting passage. It says: “There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.” Question! Are there ‘professing disciples’ who claim allegiance to Christ but ‘scatter’ more than they ‘gather in’? Lost souls, that is, that true disciples are committed to “Bringing in the sheaves”! Yet, many pastors, and church folk, by their ‘poverty in the Word and Spirit’, live on a spiritually- starvation- diet, living on a ‘seldom-search of the Word’, not understanding Jesus’ words in Matthew 4:4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

In John 6:63-64 Jesus told a number of disciples who followed Him for a season and then abandoned Him because of “His Words”, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh (old sin nature!) profits nothing, zip, zero. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Later, in John 7:33, Jesus said to them, “I shall be with you a little longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.”

Is that because the Pharisaical Jews wanted to be ‘religious’ apart from “Re-Born in the Spirit”? Oh, and then in John 7:37 Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to!), as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Did Jesus say, “As the Scripture has said…?” In 2 Timothy Paul wrote about troubling times and troubled men, saying, in Verses 8-9, “Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these (Judaizers?) also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was,” continuing in Verses 13-17,

“But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But YOU must continue in the things which you have learned AND BEEN ASSURED OF, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS.”

Sadly, many “professing Christians” are made ‘wise’ in denominational tendencies, but void of the eternal reality of “born-again” sons and daughters of, yes, blood redemption salvation through Christ Jesus alone! I introduce this book with words from 1 Peter 1:18-23! It says: “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 and 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.

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever…!”

In the old “The Broadman Hymnal”, by the Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, (copyrighted in 1940), there is an old hymn by E.O.Sellers that says: “God, Your Word is a lamp to my feet, A light to my path always; To guide and to save me from sin, And show me the heavenly way.

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

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

Through Him (Christ Jesus!) Your Word has foretold, The Saviour and Morning Star, Salvation and peace have been brought To those who have strayed afar.

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

But a tragedy of many in the ‘modern-day church’? They don’t understand the Spirit of the Lord as “Servant”, and sadly, they have no desire to be His ‘representative foot-washer’ (John 13:14!)! Oswald Chambers once said: “Towels and dishes and sandals, all the ordinary sordid things of our lives, reveal more quickly than anything what we are made of. (And I,JFF, say, “What we are made of as a true disciple of Christ or not”!). It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty as it ought to be done. Jesus said: “I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Watch the kind of people God brings around you, and you will be humiliated to find that this is His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says, exhibit to that one (in need) exactly what I have shown to you.”

Dare I tell you that true disciples of Christ are the men and women, boys and girls, who are the folks who do not count their lives dear unto themselves, but, yes, are superbly committed to serve as the servants, even bond-slaves, of their Master, the Lord Jesus Christ? I believe I’ll tell you in this new book! This book is 52 chapters long, desiring you to read and re-read each chapter, one a week, to, I pray, absorb the Holy Word of God as never before in your pilgrimage as a “saint”! Amen?

BOOK CONTENT

FOREWARD: BY DR. DANNY MCMAHON :

CHAPTER ONE: VOID OF THE WORD OF GOD OR VICTORY THROUGH THE WORD OF GOD?

CHAPTER TWO: THE BEAUTY AND THE BLESSING OF THE WORD OF GOD

CHAPTER THREE: INTELLECTUAL ALLEGIANCE OR INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION?

CHAPTER FOUR: THE CALL OF THE UNQUALIFIED

CHAPTER FIVE: LIFE’S REJECTS RECEIVED

CHAPTER SIX: THE DECLARATION OF EXCLUSIVITY

CHAPTER SEVEN: CONFIDENCE IN THE CRUCIFIED ‘SELF’ OR ASSURANCE IN RESURRECTION LIFE?

CHAPTER EIGHT: FATE, FURY, OR THE FINISHED WORK?

CHAPTER NINE: CONFLICTING LOYALTY OR ALL- CONSUMING LOVE?

CHAPTER TEN: THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF LOVE?

CHAPTER ELEVEN: BAD NEWS OR GOOD NEWS?

CHAPTER TWELVE: IMITATION ALLEGIANCE OR SOVEREIGN BIRTHING?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CHILDREN OF THE FLESH OR CHILDREN OF THE PROMISE?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: EVIDENCES OF NEW TESTAMENT CONVERSION

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: OPITONAL EXPRESSIONS OF LIFE – HUMAN OR DIVINE, FLESHLY OR SPIRITUAL, TEMPORARY OR ETERNAL?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: BEARING THE NAME – LIVING WITH SHAME

CHAPTER NINETEEN: WANDERING FROM THE FAITH

CHAPTER TWENTY: GUTSY GRIT OR GODLY SORROW?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: WHY NATIONS FORGET GOD!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: REMEMBER!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: IT’S A MATTER OF THE HEART BEFORE GOD!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: VICTIMS OR VICTORS?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: IRRESPONSIBLE IMPREGNATION OR SOVEREIGN SELECTION?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: IN OUR LORD’S PRESENCE

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: NO SHAME – NO GAIN OF TRUE LIFE

CHAPTER THIRTY: AWAKENINGS NECESSITY – THE KINGLY REIGN OF CHRIST!

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: INTROSPECTIVE IDOLATRESSES!

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: INTROSPECTIVE IDOLATERS!

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: ADAPTABLE CHURCHES OR APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES?

CHAPTER-THIRTY-FOUR: ALL OUR HOPE IS IN CHRIST ALONE!

CHAPTER-THIRTY-FIVE: UNFORGIVENESS – UNFORGIVEN

CHAPTER- THIRTY-SIX: WORLD PHILOSPHERS OR WILLFUL PROMOTION BY GOD?

CHAPTER – THIRTY-SEVEN: ENCOUNTERED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT!

CHAPTER – THIRTY-EIGHT: EXPERIENCING THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!

CHAPTER – THIRTY-NINE: ENDURING THROUGH FAILURE!

CHAPTER FORTY: HOLY PRAYING!

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: MAJOR HINDRANCES TO THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: THE AFFIRMATION TO ASPIRATIONS!

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: PERVERTED GRACE OR PERFECTING GRACE?

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: THE CALL TO HOLINESS

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: THE GLORIOUS MINISTRY OF “CHRIST IN YOU”!

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: SELF-MADE ‘STARS’ OR SOVEREIGN-ORDAINED SERVANTS?

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: IMITATION ALLEGIANCE OR SOVEREIGN BIRTHING?

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: SOVEREIGN BIRTHING – SELFLESS ALLEGIANCE!

CHAPTER FORTY NINE: GRACED, GOVERNED, GIFTED, AND GLOWING WITH GLORY!

CHAPTER FIFTY: HOLDING FAST TO THE NAME AND FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS!

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE: WHOLE-HEARTED ALLEGIANCE OR PARTIAL PARTICIPATION WITH CHRIST?

CHAPTER FIFTY TWO: PROPER ATTIRE FOR THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST!

CONCLUSION:

[ Copyright@ by James Farrell Fisher and Susan M. Fisher. All rights reserved, 2017]

FOREWARD

By: Dr. Danny Mcmahon

CHAPTER ONE

VOID OF THE WORD OF GOD OR VICTORY THROUGH THE WORD OF GOD?

In Hebrews 4:12 we read, “For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”, Oh, and then the very next Verse describes “no creature hidden from His sight, with all things naked (before Him) and open to the eyes of Him TO WHOM WE MUST GIVE ACCOUNT.”

I’ve often wondered how deep, wide, and broad the absence of daily devotion to the Holy Word makes in the people of the world, but even in the people of the church who sadly see no significance daily to feeding on His Word when He said, “Man does not live by (physical) bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”!

Has it ever entered your mind that you as a believer are to be guided by God’s Holy Word? Being united WITH Christ in your heart, soul, and mind, is it in the fabric of your redemptive and daily living to “be being saved” by your devotion to His Holy Word? Is it possible that in YOUR “wedding vows” with Christ you omitted to His Word and His will and His faithful teaching?

Is it in you as it was with David as he wrote in Psalm 25:4-5, “Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day,” but YOU know nothing of the daily discipline of His Word to be personally taught day by day by the King of kings and Lord of lords, guided in that Eternal Word by the Holy Spirit?

“Your will be done” but you never daily yield yourselves to discover His will, His ways, His directive word, but you settle in, “I’m saved; that’s all I need to know”? I believe that I read in Psalm 25:12, “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that He chooses.” And God’s choice? Matthew 4:4, But He [Jesus] answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

I would challenge you as you’re reading this to evaluate your “saving experience” in Christ if you are void of His Word! So-called “religious experiences” that never lead one to His “revelation” with a hunger to know His will and Word absolutely frightens me! If one has been “born again”, I believe one of the evidences is the desire for His “milk and meat of the Holy Word” and a passion to KNOW the things that are freely given to us of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:12).

To his spiritual son, Timothy, Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:15, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” I look upon God’s revelation of divine truth, the Holy Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments as magnificent promises for maturing men and women, boys and girls, who have come to Him in true repentance and faith.

It was Peter who told us in 2 Peter 1:2-4, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that THROUGH THESE you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

Tell me about your reception daily through God’s Holy Word of His “exceedingly great and precious promises,” and of your daily discovery and acquired knowledge of “the things freely given to us of God,” yes, and YOUR appropriation of His truths that show you the “escaping [of] the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

Do you remember Abraham’s servant, sent by Abraham to find a bride for his son Isaac? In Genesis 24:48 the servant spoke: “And I bowed my head and worshipped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, who had led me IN THE WAY OF TRUTH to take the daughter of my master’s brother for his son.” Thank God for His redeemed, willful servants who are “led in the way of truth!”

In Mark 4 Jesus had been explaining His parables to the new disciples. Verses 33-34 tell us, “And with many such parables He spoke the Word to them as they were able to hear it. But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples.” The very desire of Jesus for you right now is that you listen to Jesus and let Him “explain all things in the Word to you” by the Holy Spirit who “guides us into all truth.” In John 16:13-14 our Lord told His disciples, “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 (from God the Father!) He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” The Holy Spirit is Heaven’s personal “Tutor” in the Holy Word of God!

But haven’t you heard it? “I don’t need a personal “Tutor” to teach me the Bible! I don’t accept the Bible as the authoritative Word of God – I’m smart enough in myself to sense there is no divine truth as there is no “heaven” or “hell” – find a brain-dead ‘christian’ and you’ll probably easily fool them!” [And if you haven’t learned it yet in your classrooms or from many university professors who see themselves as smarter than God Himself, they believe, and by human interaction you will learn that the most harmful ‘curse’ in life’s spiritual realm is personal pride and intellectual superiority, yes, even superior to Jesus Himself who said He was and IS “God in Flesh”!].

Have you ever examined thoroughly Jesus’ passionate prayer in John 17 for you and for all mankind as He described “grace” as that which reveals Him, and then He unveiled “eternal life” by His grace? John 17:3 then says, in His prayer to Father-God, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You [God Himself], the only true God AND Jesus Christ whom You sent.” Oh, and then in Verse 17 Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” Sanctify? “Set them apart,” “save them, redeem them, declare them ‘holy’ by Your Word! As Josh MacDowell used to say of Jesus: “Liar, lunatic, or the Lord God?” HE IS LORD TO THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER!

But “void of the Word of God” men and women, boys and girls, will, at least some, profess a mental knowledge of Him but never experience “victory in Him through His eternal Word and shed blood”! Oswald Chambers, in his famous book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.4), wrote: “natural devotion may be all very well to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His fascination, but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will always deny Jesus somewhere or other.” What did the Lord Jesus Christ tell us in John 3:3-7?

Jesus answered and said to Nicodemus (a ruler of the Jews), “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 [that’s the “water” of the Word?], and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” ALL believers, true believers, born again believers, will face worldly and satanic opposition to their true faith, but Paul tells all believers in Ephesians 6:10-19:

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is THE WORD OF GOD; praying always with all prayer, and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints – And for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.”

Natural mankind poses fierce opposition to Jesus because they in their natural minds are “void of the word of God” and have no heavenly understanding. Even the early disciples, like Philip, had a hard time understanding who Jesus was and what He was about. Look at John 14:7-11! “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the work. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”

Natural mankind is void, opposed, and ‘willfully’ resists Biblical Truth that “the blood of Jesus Christ, THE Lamb of God, cleanses us from all sin.” Natural mankind is highly opposed to Biblical Truth that says “obedience to Jesus is required: as evidence of a born- again life”, even when Jesus said in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he/she who does the will of My Father in heaven.” In fact, in Luke 6:46 Jesus said, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say?” Obedience is not an option in the age of grace but is the evidence grace is at work in you finishing its work through you!

We do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that not all of Israel was “lost” because of rejection of the coming of the Promised Messiah – there was a ‘remnant’! But Romans 10:21 says, BUT TO ISRAEL HE SAYS, “All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” And even as “Jews” there are those who chose to live in the “natural”, yes, fully opposed to “saved by grace” – performers of religious activity but void of “the blood of the Lamb washing them white as snow”! Natural mankind, the majority of “Israel” included, are those who are “a disobedient and contrary people” who have no desire to live by the Life of Another, even by “Emmanuel, “God in flesh”!!

Natural mankind does not “know” Father-God or the Son of God or the Holy Spirit, the Three in One by WHOM we ALL came into this world through “fallen Adam”, yes, “hiding from God, without hope in ourselves, or hope in each other” – we needed a miracle of God! In John 17:25-26 Jesus prayed: “O righteous Father! THE WORLD HAS NOT KNOWN YOU, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” Yes, Jesus prayed for YOU and ME that God’s love would capture our minds and hearts and wills, drawing us out of the land of darkness of unbelief to the “Promised Land” of heavenly living on earth NOW through His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

“Void of the Word of God”? I pray you have not set aside the Epistle to the Hebrews! In Hebrews 1:1-3 we read, “God, who at various times and in various ways, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

But those who are “void of the Word of God,” “void of Christ Himself”, willfully shut the door to His saving grace and mercy and have no seat in the heavenly places! Read carefully Ephesians 2:4-7! “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

“Void of the Word of God?” That’s those blinded by the world, the flesh, and the devil! It’s why in Galatians 6:7-8 Paul tells us: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh [that’s his old sin nature, old man, First Adam] will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit [of God] will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”

“Void of the Word of God”? Are you aware of the “stumblers”? Peter told us in 1 Peter 2:8, “…they stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.” God Himself read their hearts and appointed them to their just reward, yes, because of a mental, willful, head and heart rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ!

I think it to be vitally important to have you to read and receive for yourself 1 Corinthians 1:18-31!! “For the message [or word] 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.’ Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer [debater] of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through [its] wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; BUT we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh [First Adam, old sin nature], should glory in His presence.

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’”

Foolishness of men ‘void of the Word’ OR Victory through the Word because we “glory” only in the finished work of Christ “At The Cross”, living a celebratory life because of His Resurrection from the dead? How about for you an eternal shift, an everlasting heart-change, a willful surrender of your ‘old man’, receiving the gift of the “new man in Christ”, your “Victory Through His Word”? In 1 John 5:4-5 John tells us: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. [Our trust in Christ, our relying upon Christ, our total dependence upon Christ, through His shed blood, His death, His Resurrection, His ascension, and His soon coming to celebrate with Him eternally!!]. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes, trusts in, relies upon Jesus as the Son of God who willingly came to die on the Cross, resurrected, and now reigning in him and through him?

I’m forever sorry and broken that ‘religious’ people will never see Jesus in heaven but we at the Judgment Seat as He tells them, “Depart from Me, you who work iniquity – I never knew you!” BUT, the “born of God” through repentance and faith? Are you familiar with Galatians 1:15-16? “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me…” What an awesome revelation!

Do you remember what Jesus said in John 5:38-40? “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.”

There are those who will “read” the Word without “restimng” in its Author. There are professors of allegiance to the ‘paper’ of the Book but fail to process its Author and His Resurrection Life, Power, and Hope! There are ‘historical verifiers’ without “blood-bought, redeemed hearts”! And certainly there are devoted legalists without the Person and heavenly love of the Lord.

The Holy Word tells us: 2 Timothy 3:14-17, “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Have YOU been “made wise for salvation through faith in Christ alone”?

What did Paul tell us in Romans 5:10? “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.” Have you forgotten “justified by His blood”?

The author of the Hebrews letter put it like this in Hebrews 9:11-14, “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, HOW MUCH MORE SHALL THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

If your life is not a testimony of continuous rejoicing in God for His forgiveness and, yes, forgetfulness of your old sin nature and your pattern and participation in fleshly sins, I believe I would seriously examine what I “thought” was my salvation and what God Himself “says” it is!

Hebrews 10:12-14 tells us, “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 (HIS SINLESS SELF!) He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”

You sin, my sin, the world’s sin became His “pain,” your pain became His suffering, His suffering became your freedom from bondage, and your freedom became the theme of your praise to your true Savior and Lord, your Blessed Redeemer! SO, you take the sentence of death daily that the Resurrection Life of your Lord and Savior may be manifested in and through you for an unbelieving work to see and to seek!

Have you forgotten, overlooked, or never seen Paul’s word to us in Galatians 5:24? “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” so, Verse 25, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Is it your daily ambition to honor Christ in your earthly walk?

I close this first chapter with Oswald Chambers’ words: “Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.” [My Utmost For His Highest, p.256]. AMEN?

CHAPTER TWO

THE BEAUTY AND BLESSING

OF THE WORD OF GOD

Words fail me in attempting to express how I feel about the Word of God, THE Holy Scripture, the divinely-ordained words of the Heavenly Father. Never have I ever doubted the veracity of the Bible as His “inspired Word”!

I don’t believe that’s ignorance or shallowness or short-sightedness but confidence in a “Thus says the Lord…” Recognition that it is “…living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword;” Yes, agreement with the words of Jesus, “The words that I speak unto you are spirit and they are life!” It amazes me that men trust their limited intellect over the divine Word of God that is “God-breathed,” Spirit-anointed, and totally trustworthy.

I had a ten-year old granddaughter visiting my home years ago who had been interviewing me for a school project. One of the questions she asked was, “What is the greatest advice you ever received?” and without hesitation I shared Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.”

But rather than “directed paths” there are those who walk in their own personal preferences; rather than yielding their lives to the Creator, they think they are smarter than God, or at least, smart enough to take care of themselves! Can you imagine that God would say to us that He will direct our paths but not give us an anointed roadmap? Is it remotely possible that Almighty God sees us as wise enough to determine “eternal matters” on our own?

I came across a G.K.Chesterton story recently about a British yachtsman who wanted to sail from the shores of England and find his way to an exotic south-sea paradise. He sailed for many days and the sighted land. He was ecstatic! On land he saw a pagan temple. He claimed it for England! He raised up the Union Jack flag, so proud of himself! But then, all of a sudden, it dawned on him – he had scaled the Brighton Pavilion on the southern coast of England! He had determined for himself “a straight line,” but came up with a circle that took him nowhere near where he wanted to be.

I have no hesitation in saying to you that many “Christians” and many church-groups have charted a course for their journey that is oblivious to divine revelation and eternal Truth! In Isaiah 59:14 the prophet says, “…truth is fallen in the street…” But I believe also that Truth is perishing in the pew. In these modern days it is not, for many, submission to the Holy Word of God but mind-boggling imposition of our own opinions and ideas upon that holy book!

David F. Wells has written a powerful book entitled “No Place For Truth”, and in it he speaks about those who see truth, theology, doctrine as an “embarrassing encumbrance”. He says many have actually turned inward upon themselves and substitute their knowledge for the knowledge!

Once I was in a home in a southern city where I saw and heard two men say that they did not accept the Bible as authoritative but only the “words of men,” and you certainly “cannot accept what Paul wrote!” To which I responded, “All Scripture is God-breathed…”. I told them that God took fishermen, farmers, kings, even tax-collectors and through them, as His instruments, breathed the Word of God.

One said, “If in India no more than 20% have come to Christ, what about the 80%? You surely don’t believe God would assign them to Hell?” And I assured them God’s love had made the way through Christ – “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” And both said, “We don’t accept that! What about the Muslims? They serve the one God.” To which I responded, “Allah is not the God of Calvary’s Cross but ‘self-instigation’ of a fallen creation plus the devil himself.” And they both said, “Our God is a forgiving God. And we feel sorry for you that you don’t know the God of forgiveness.”

I responded, “And I feel sorry for you that you don’t accept God’s Word. The lost are our responsibility. That’s why I’m in India.. That’s why there are martyrs for the faith. And Paul says, “They are without excuse.” Their response? “We don’t accept Paul.”

My last comment to them? “Your belief that there is more than one way to be reconciled to God is an affront to Christ and a slap in the face of the Lamb of God and also a slap in the face of the martyrs of the ages who laid down their lives for the Gospel of Christ.” And I then quoted John 3:16-18 to which they responded, “We just don’t accept that.”

I was heart-sick for days. These were well-educated worldly men “ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth.” They substituted their ‘church’ disciplines for the Holy Revelation! No wonder God spoke through the prophet Hosea in Hosea 8:12, “I have written for him the great things of My law (or Word!), but they were considered a strange thing.”

Though there are those who do not accept Scripture as the voice of God, there still stands the forever verse of Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword…” But still there are those who look upon the Holy Word of God as “old-fashioned,” not relevant for their “up-dated, modern, intellectual superior way of thinking,” destitute in Life-giving, redemptive Truth because they believe in ‘universal salvation’, and bankrupt as to Messiah’s mission as the only way of reconciliation to Holy God, WHICH IT TRULY IS!!

J.C.Ryle was the first bishop of Liverpool in the Church of England. He published a book entitled “No Uncertain Sound.” In it (p.199) he wrote: “Stand fast in the old belief that the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation was given by inspiration of God, and that the historical facts recorded in the Old Testament are all credible and true. Do not be shaken by the vague assertions and big swelling words of those who sneer at everything supernatural, and talk about ‘the laws of nature, the discoveries of science, and the results of modern criticism.’”

Has the time come? 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires (their own thoughts, their own ‘convictions’ that hold them and strangle true faith), because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears from the truth, and be turned aside to fables (myths, wild thoughts opposing even God’s revelation!).”

What did God say to Ephraim through Hosea? “I have written to him the great things of My law (My Word!), but they were counted as a strange thing.” And again, in another time period of human history, in a “new age” of man’s reasoning opposing eternal TRUTHS, in an era of off-repeated attempts at defusing the powerful, eternal, electrical currents of God’s Word, there are still men who believe they are intellectually superior to God Himself and do not need to be guided by the Holy Spirit in revealed truth.

Let me again quote the Episcopalian bishop, J.C.Ryle: (p.208), “The subject of inspiration is “always important.” It is the very keel and foundation of Christianity. If Christians have no Divine book to turn to as the warrant of their doctrine and practice, they have no solid ground for present peace and hope, and no right to claim the attention of mankind. They are building on quicksand, and their faith is vain. If the Bible is not given by inspiration throughout, and contains defects and errors, which would invalidate any legal settlement or will, it cannot be a safe guide to heaven. We ought to be able to say boldly, ‘We are what we are, and we do what we do, and teach what we teach, because we have here a book which we believe to be, altogether and entirely, the Word of God.’” That was preached in the 1800’s – and how far have we fallen from his conviction?

There are tragic, destructive steps that far too many professing believers take that leads them onto a slippery slope of senseless, sensual, self-centered determinism that dethrones to wisdom of God and enthrones the foolishness of fallen humanity. They substitute their personal mind-set for God’s revealed Truth! They continue on the perverted path of human reasoning calling it a blessing and freedom. They major on listening to false teachers and false prophets and feel vindicated that they know more than God Himself! Dr. James Draper wrote: “They make the individual the final arbiter of truth.” What a dangerous place to be! I do not want to be there – ever! You do understand that not only is it the fallacy of human rationalism, but also there are those who rest their faith strictly and narrowly to their particular church’s “disciplines” with very little regard for His revealed Word. And in 99.9% of either human rationalism or a church’s disciplines they take THAT above Holy Scripture. And that position has cemented one dangerously on the spiritual terra firma of their personal knowledge that transcends God’s Word and HIS ULTIMATE AUTHORITY in all matters of faith and spiritual disciplines.

John 20:21 says, “These are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.’ But you have a better explanation than God? Even Jesus Himself said in John 17:17, “Your Word is truth,” but you possess a better interpretation? Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” but you trust your better way of human reasoning? 1 Peter 1:23 says, “having been born again, not of corrupt seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,” but you believe His Word is untrustworthy and you stake your life and eternal future on your good thoughts?

James, the brother of Jesus, overseer of the church around Jerusalem wrote, (James 1:18), “Of His won will He brought us forth by the word of truth,” but you look upon it as a word of errors and are not “brought forth”? To the church at Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 2:13), Paul said, (Forgive me. But I believe Paul was an available vessel of God’s faithful Word, as You “in Christ” are to be as His faithful witness!),”For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe,” but you rest what ‘faith’ you have in human reasoning and not God’s Holy Word? Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” but you believe faith rests in your fallen “brilliance”?

And you know what literally breaks my heart? It’s not only blindness but their influence that spreads to children, grandchildren, friends and neighbors, like a poison, and they have not, nor probably ever share, if they thought they had them, words of redemptive hope.

Clement of Rome, from about A.D. 100, said: “Look carefully into the Scriptures which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit.” Again I don’t have any hesitation in saying that there are those who truly despise the Word of God yet profess a faith that has no redemptive hope. They don’t believe God’s Holy Word is “the true utterances of the Holy Spirit.” They truly believe it’s okay that they replace God as the Author of His Holy Word and replace Him with themselves as author, interpreter, and defender of what they believe to be truth.

Two or three things I want to magnify. First is the Author and authority of the Word of God! That should be enough – the Author of the Word of God! Pick up your Bible and KNOW that it is the awesome writing of God Himself; every letter possesses the penmanship of Holy God; every beautiful words flows from the mouth of Holy God revealed to available trustees, their personalities, their vocabularies, their circles of reference; and each letter – even the dotting of every “i” and the crossing of every “t”- was flooded over with Holy Spirit-authority and brooded upon until it came forth as “the great things of My law.”

Receive Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s words who wrote and preached powerfully in England so long ago: (“Spurgeon’s Sermons”, Memorial Library, Vol.1, p.26), “ Moses was employed to write his histories with his fiery pen, God guided that pen. It may be that David touched his harp, and let sweet Psalms of melody drop from his fingers; but God moved his hands over the living strings of his golden harp. It may be that Solomon sang canticles of love, or gave forth words of consummate wisdom, but God directed his lips, and made the preacher eloquent. If I follow the thundering Nahum, when his horses plough the waters, or Habakkuk, when he sees the tents of Cushan in affliction; if I read Malachi, when the earth is burning like an oven; if I turn to the smooth pages of John, who tells of Love, or the rugged, fiery chapters of Peter, who speaks of fire devouring God’s enemies; if I turn to Jude, who launches forth anathemas upon the foes of God, everywhere I find God speaking; it is God’s voice, not man’s; the words are God’s words, the words of the Eternal, the Invisible, the Almighty, the Jehovah of this earth. This Bible is God’s Bible!” And you would cast doubt on His Holy Word?

Consider its style! Look at its focus and subjects! Examine its glorious doctrines and truths! Pause for even a second at the truth of God’s sovereignty! Reflect upon God’s plan of the Lamb slain before the world ever was! Be astonished and amazed that before time began, or before you were formed in your mother’s womb He knew you, called you, set you apart for His eternal purpose! His thoughts are ON YOU as if YOU were the man, woman ever to live on His earth; His plan is for your reconciliation to Holy God; and He pours you out as a drink offering to all around you so that through you He is revealed to fallen humanity! And YOU question its Author and authority?

Second, Look at the AIM OF THE WORD OF GOD! CONSIDER HOLY GOD’S AIM THROUGH HIS REVEALED WORD! We could start earlier in His Word, but receive to Him as He spoke in Exodus 7:5! “And the Egyptians shall know that I AM the Lord.” And I challenge you to take out a Strong’s Concordance and study verse after verse after verse saying, “…they shall know that I AM the Lord!”

Do you believe Jesus spoke when He was on the earth? Was it recorded? Are His words trustworthy? John 17:3 says, Jesus speaking, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, (Not Allah, not Buddha, not elephants, not snakes, not cows, not a self-proclaimed deceived man who sees himself as a ‘god’!), and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

I want you to come in your Bible to John 3 and read along with me verses 30-36. John is speaking: “He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthy and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who HAS received His testimony has certified that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Unless, of course, you don’t believe in the wrath of God! You’re just so above that! To you that’s a twisted theology, but God calls it triumphant truth!

Third, EXAMINE THE AFFIRMATION OF THE WORD OF GOD! We’ve seen the Author and the authority; we’ve seen the aim of the Word; and now what about its REPEATED AFFIRMATION? Check out Romans 8:29. This is the verse that Almighty God used to break the heart of a twelve-year pastor and bring him to “new birth”. “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Though Adam and Eve were created ‘in the image of God’ there was a tragic fall. And even before that fall, Holy God had determined how the holy image would be restored to a scarred, marred, broken, separated, darkened humanity. Genesis 5:3 says, “And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begat a son IN HIS OWN LIKENESS, after his image, and named him Seth.”

And the plan of God before and after the Fall? “…predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son…!” Make Galatians 1:15-16 your daily celebration of a hymn of praise, “But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me…” In Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior we become partakers of the divine nature, becoming “complete in Him,” and daily take unto ourselves the sentence of death that the resurrection of Christ might be manifested in our mortal flesh, in the here and now, and not just when we get to Heaven someday! What an affirmation in God’s Holy Word of your true identity “in Christ”!

Fourth, CELEBRATE IN ADORATION OF THE WORD OF GOD! I want to close this chapter amplifying a biblical attitude of adoration of the Word of God. I challenge you to major on all of Psalm 119 over your next few days, but I want to whet your appetite!

PSALM 119:140, “Your word is very pure; therefore Your servant loves it.” Unless YOU call it impure!

Psalm 119:162, “I rejoice at Your word as one who finds great treasure.” Unless you treasure your “opinions” above His revelation!

Psalm 119:165, “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.” Unless you refuse to allow God’s law in you to expose your need of the Savior!

Psalm 119:72, “The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.” Some spend more time examining their bank and retirement accounts than hungering for God’s Word!

Psalm 119:54, “Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.” Unless there is no “new song” in your soul!

Let me close “The Beauty and Blessing of the Word of God,” with two quotes from JC Ryle in his book, “No Uncertain Sound,” (pps. 208 & 211), “…let me charge you to hold fast the authority, supremacy, and Divine inspiration of the whole Bible,” and “The thrice-repeated saying of our Lord, taken from Deuteronomy, ‘It is written,’ when tempted by the devil, is deeply significant and instructive.” (Matthew 4:5-10). That is, unless Jesus is not your Way, your Truth, or your Life!

William Butler Yates poetically, and I believe prophetically, wrote these words that so describe resisters to Divine Truth:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst, Are full of passionate intensity.”

When did God’s Word become “fool’s gold”? When did it become the blotted “Sun of Righteousness”? When did “Light” become rays of darkness? When did the “Glory of His Word” become a gory expression in a man’s mind?

I’m so very, very sorry for those who do not trust or love God’s Word. I’m deeply troubled for those who look upon Holy Scripture as a simple addendum to their life’s story and do not stand upon faith in its Author and authority, its aim, its affirmation, and certainly possess no adoration for the Holy Bible! I stand, and will always stand, upon “The Beauty and Blessing of God’s Word”!

CHAPTER THREE

INTELLECTUAL ALLEGIANCE OR INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION?

It’s interesting to me to hear what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:1-2, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you – unless you believed in vain.”

I would ask: “Is intellectual allegiance a state of ‘vainness’? Is intellectual allegiance the act of ‘moral stupidity’ or ‘intellectual blindness’? Is ‘intellectual allegiance’ simply a ‘pietistic movement’ with no blood redemption? Is ‘intellectual allegiance’ a mind-awareness with no heart-change through true repentance and all-out surrender to Christ’s Lordship? Is, at least, intellectual allegiance a ‘short-changed acknowledgement’, maimed, minimized, though seemingly spiritual, yet still morally and spiritually bankrupt, or, does the maimed spiritual awareness, at least, lead one to his/her place before the reigning King of kings and Lord of lords where he/she, having truly repented, put their, yes, saving faith in Christ’s “finished work at the Cross”, then hearing Father-God saying, “You shall be PERFECT, just as your Father in heaven is perfect”?

In 1 John 4:17 the beloved John wrote, “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as Jesus is, so are we in this world.” But, in ‘the day of judgment’, where does the ‘intellectual elite’ stand, while intellectually acknowledging the reality of Christ as the True Redeemer, Lord, and Savior, “but…I don’t need to be “saved” – I can make it on my own”, without realizing it that they intellectually acknowledged, and gained Hell with the devil and his demons! In Chapter 5:12 John stressed, “He who HAS THE SON HAS LIFE; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

‘Intellectual Allegiance’? That’s awareness of the reality of Christ but ‘void’ of His abundant mercy given to one as he/she rests in “the living hope” in and through Christ alone, repenting not of their sins because they’ve determined for themselves that Jesus died in vain because they’ve lived ‘worthy lives’ deserving His commendation, not His love and grace and mercy!

‘Intellectual allegiance’? In fact, there are many, many people who are seriously hindered in the absence of a “God-ordained, new-born life” because they live in an orb of indifference, a ‘fleshly, dream world’ of contentment in, of, for, because of their mental independence from anything that clouds their pride, and because they bow to self, exalting unbelief in anything or anyone who would dim or darken ‘self’ as their ‘true god’! Oh, and then they say, “Can you believe that the Christian’s Bible tells them, ‘unless you are CONVERTED and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven,’ when we are mature, educated, well-trained members of an adult world – we’ll have nothing to do with becoming a ‘child’!” So, they go to Hell instead of Heaven! Really brilliant isn’t it?

‘Intellectual allegiance’ can and does exempt God, by their choice, when Christ, our Lord and Savior, wants to be our, their deliverer! In Psalm 31:9-16 we find a song of David! He sang: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble (godlessness is, will be: “the absence of God”, but His presence will transform ‘my trouble’ into His triumph!); my eye wastes away with grief, yes, my soul and my body! For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.

I am a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and am repulsive to my acquaintances; those who seek me outside flee from me. I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel. For I hear the slander of many; fear is on every side; while they take counsel together against me, they scheme to take away my life.

But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in Your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me. Make Your face shine upon Your servant; Save me for Your mercies’ sake.”

‘Intellectual allegiance’? In John 14:9-11 there is another sobering, awakening, convicting, and challenging word from King Jesus when He said to Philip, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” Acknowledgement but doesn’t truly know, or knows and doesn’t want to surrender to His Lordship?

But, there are those who know, yield, and surrender fully to Christ’s Lordship as Savior, Redeemer, ‘God in flesh’ laying down His life to set men free from their bondage – to be without Christ as Lord and Savior is to be one enslaved to his flesh, to the world spirit of rebellion to God, and, yes, controlled by the devil and the powers of darkness. Consider: First Adam or Second Adam – Christ Jesus!

FIRST ADAM? The Fleshly Nature! SECOND ADAM? The Divine Nature! FIRST ADAM? Bad Fruit! SECOND ADAM? Good Fruit! FIRST ADAM? Old man! SECOND ADAM? New man! First Adam? Earthly bound! New man? Heavenly blessed! Old man! Darkness-covered! New man? Light eternally unveiled! First Adam? Disillusioned! Second Adam? Divine-destined-dreamer “in Christ”, with Eternity his/her residence!

Revelation 5:9-13 declares the “re-born” celebrating “the Lamb of God”! And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; For You were slain, and have REDEEMED US TO GOD BY YOUR BLOOD out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us (the repentant ones) kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!”

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying:

“Blessing and honor and glory and power Be To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

Did you see it, receive it, rest in it? “A kingdom of priests! REDEEMED, REMADE, REINSTITUTED WITH A SOVEREIGN COMMISSIONING, RULING AND REIGNING IN THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!” They understand it, convicted and convinced of Him, they RECEIVE HIM AND CROWN HIM AS LORD OF THEIR LIVES!

Doesn’t John 1:12-13 tell us, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in (trust in, rely upon, adhere to!) His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

“The kingdom, under Christ’s Lordship!” But for most in the world today, and even the ‘church-world’, the Kingdom of God, in the here and now, is unknown, sadly unseen, unreceived, unconcerned, unappreciated, and unclaimed! Many adore their ‘church allegiance’ ignoring the Ruling, Reigning, Resurrected Christ!

“Intellectual Allegiance”? When one considers the Israeli nation, except for the “True Remnant”, you find a people in 2 Corinthians 3:12-16 mindfully aware but gripped by ‘unveiled hearts’! It says: “Therefore, since WE have such hope, we use great boldness of speech – unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily of what was passing away (Old Covenant allegiance!). But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies of their heart. Nevertheless WHEN ONE TURNS TO THE LORD, THE VEIL IS TAKEN AWAY.”

“Intellectual allegiance”? An acceptance of spiritual blindness? An acceptance of “the hidden things of shame”? An acceptance in walking through life in craftiness and mental, moral, and spiritual deception? For instance, I just heard on national television a ‘conservative’ (?) commentator casually speak about: “Our faith (as a nation) is faith in the democratic majority!”, which resembles closely the majority of spiritual ‘isolationists’ who sit in churches and never invade, penetrate, proclaim, or share ‘Truth’ with the citizens of darkness!

“Intellectual allegiance”? Have you noticed a change in ‘intellectual allegiance’ to “intellectual allegiances” because there is an intensification in that intellectual allegiance from the out-and-out sinner to even the radical, unbelieving ‘professors’, even some in seminaries? Have you ever been confronted by men with their ‘ineffable charms’ of spiritual deception saying, either, ‘There is no God’, OR, “Faith is not worthy of your time, thoughts, or commitment – just enjoy your ‘fallen sin natures’ – nothing is going to change!” Of course not! Without Christ nothing changes from a fallen man’s perspective – he just keeps on ‘indulging’!

“Intellectual allegiances, pluralized (!)”, because the sin nature grows deeper, higher, stouter, stronger, and one’s godless mind becomes more impertinent to the things of God, as the godless man becomes impertinent to the unveiling of God in Christ and His saving grace! But it’s not just ‘hardened sinners’, poisoned more by the fallen world around them, but even in churches there will be spiritual ‘isolationists’ who ‘sit’ there but never invade, penetrate, or share “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” in Christ with the citizens of darkness! And if one grasps redemptive truth by the Holy Spirit who ‘guides us into all Truth’, if one refuses the ministry of the Holy Spirit, even in conviction and equipping, where does that leave the unbeliever baffled, blinded, bruised, and bewildered, if a ‘believer’ senses no responsibility to be a ‘witness’ because he/she has no Spirit of Christ?

“Intellectual allegiance”? “If I become a Christian, Jesus must understand that there is a limit to what I’m willing to do.” Does that sound like convenient consecration on one’s own terms? But in Romans 12:1-2 the Holy Word of God through Paul declares: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be (being) transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”

I love Oswald Chambers’ statement in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest”, (p.120), “The first thing we realize when we come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatever to our natural affinities. We have the notion that we can consecrate our gifts to God. You cannot consecrate what is not yours; there is only one thing you can consecrate to God, and that is your right to yourself.” YES! YOU YIELD TO THE LORD’S SOVEREIGN CONTROL! Have YOU yielded, surrendered, abandoned your ‘self-will’ to live under the Master’s will?

“Intellectual allegiances abandoned! Internal transformation accepted!” How clear is our Lord’s Word when He said to Nicodemus in John 3:3, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In John 3:5-6 He stressed, “Most assuredly (Is that, ‘eternally True’, based on the Word of Christ Himself, God in Flesh?), I say to you, unless one is born of water (Water of the Word of God?) and the Spirit (born of the Spirit?), he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh (Old, fallen, inherited, Adam sin nature?), and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Christ-less men and ‘church-member-pretenders’ live with a Robert Ingersoll fleshly principle that “happiness is the legal tender of the soul,” (Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” p.209), when the truly ‘born again’ are BLESSED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT – and they know it! It was Frank W. Moyle, in the “Watchman Examiner” who years and years ago wrote: “The question of the authority of the Bible need not trouble the humblest reader. It is not ‘a code which fell from the sky, guaranteed by an ecclesiastical imprimatur,’ but a collection of writings (inspired by the Holy God!) which breathes upon us the only authority that is worth regarding – the authority of the power of the Holy Spirit.” Glory!

Yet, in John 5:38-40, Christ Jesus warned the ‘devout, religious, priestly Jews’, saying, “But you do not have God’s word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe (rest in, adhere to, or selflessly comply with!). You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and THESE ARE THEY WHICH TESTIFY OF ME (the Promised Messiah!). but YOU are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

It was Peter who wrote in 1 Peter 1:18-21 an amazing, eternal, life and heart-changing Word when he said: “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 and 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 (or trust in) God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, SO THAT your faith and hope are in God (only).” Amen?

But “the blood-redeemed”, “the born again of the Spirit,” “the elect according to the foreknowledge of God, even before the foundation of the world and its inhabitants,” ARE the Living Witnesses of “new life in Christ alone”!

The beloved John really laid it out for us clearly, convincingly, convictionally, and confidently when he wrote in 1 John 1:6-9, “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 God’s Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That, my friends, is an amazing “Glory be to Almighty God”!

Question! Do YOU say, “I really do believe in Jesus, but I have a problem: I still choose to walk, at times, in the darkness of, I know, my decaying world”, – and I say to you, if you have not taken the sentence of death to your mortal, sinful self, you have never been “born again”, but just adapted to a compromising church’s fleshly mentality! I’ll come close to closing this chapter with powerful words from Oswald Chambers in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (pps.269-270)!

Matthew 18:3-4, “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.” Oswald’s words?

“These words of our Lord are true of our initial conversion, but we have to be continuously converted all the days of our lives, continually to turn to God as children. If we trust to our wits instead of to God, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. Immediately our bodies are brought into new conditions by the providence of God, we have to see that our natural life obeys the dictates of the Spirit of God. The relation of the natural to the spiritual is one of continuous conversion, and it is the one thing we object to. In every setting in which we are put, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered, but we have to “put on the new man.” God holds us responsible every time we refuse to convert ourselves, our reason for refusing is willful obstinacy. Out natural life must not rule, God must rule in us.”

And, do you think that what I just read reveals why Paul said what he did, inspired of the Spirit, in 2 Corinthians 1:9-10? “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”, saying also in 1 Corinthians 15:31 and Verse 34, “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I DIE DAILY…” followed a few verses later, Verse 34, “Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.”

Let the Holy Word of God in Hebrews 2:8-18 enlighten, inspire, and encourage in you “The Christ-Inspired, Victorious, Eternal Life”! It says: “’You, God, have put all things in subjection under his feet.’ For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to you.” And again: “I will put My trust in Him.” And again: “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is,, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”

W.T.Sleeper and George C. Stebbins had published in the old hymnal entitled “The Broadman Hymnal” (By The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1940), a hymn entitled “You Must Be Born Again.” It says:

“You children of men, attend to the word, so solemnly uttered by Jesus the Lord; And let not this message to you be in vain, “You Must be born again.”

O you who would enter that glorious rest, And sing with the ransomed the song of the blest; the life everlasting if you would obtain, “You must be born again.”

A dear one in heaven your heart yearns to see, At the beautiful gate may be watching for you; then listen to the note of this solemn refrain, “You must be born again.”

That hasn’t changed through the ages, and will not change now! “YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN!”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE CALL OF THE UNQUALIFIED

You are no doubt familiar with King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and Daniel’s interpretation. It lays such a tremendous foundation for this chapter. To help make this chapter more meaningful, I recommend that you read Daniel 4 before continuing. In Daniel 4 the king has been given a dream by “a holy one.” The king sees a tree chopped down and doesn’t know it’s his reign! In verse 26 Daniel tells him, “Your kingdom shall be assured to you, AFTER you know that heaven rules.” At the end of the chapter the king finally sees that God rules!

Robert R. Brown wrote wisely when he 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.” What a contradiction with the intent of God and the total inconsistencies of man! Paschal called us “confused chaos.” And it’s so true.

Even though we were “fearfully and wonderfully made,” mankind has walked faithlessly and woefully. Most men become a ‘god’ unto themselves and never know “the wonder of usefulness to God”! The basic problem is that most people major on their ‘abilities’ and fail to realize God is only interested in their availability to His eternal plan and purpose! Most people feel they are of a superior order beyond even angels in their status. Most people assume they are of such refined quality that regeneration and redemption and reconciliation are strange terms!

The “finest of flesh” falls so short of the fullness of God. Fields of service unto God are not flowing with the names of the more notable but the less known. Positions in kingdom service are not replete with the grandeur of high-office qualifications but with the grace of servant-hood greatness. Self-assurance and ‘self’-confidence are two blind eyes that lead the proud into ditches, not the highway of ministerial service and blessing.

I Corinthians 10:12 says, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” Earlier in 1 Corinthians 3, Paul talked about the church’s carnality or fleshliness. In verses 3-7 he wrote, “for where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like men? For when one says, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I am of Apollos,’ are you not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters but God gives the increase.” (NKJ)

Look at 2 Corinthians 4:5-7. “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” (NKJ)

That’s such a hard lesson for some to learn. It is so hard to receive when one is full of himself and full of the self-estimation of his importance, even to God! In 1 Corinthians 1:25-29, from the Amplified, “For {simply} consider your own calling, brethren; not many {of you were considered to be} wise, according to human estimates and standards; not many influential and powerful; not many of high and noble birth. {No}, for God selected – deliberately chose – what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame. And God selected – deliberately chose – {what} in the world {is} lowborn and insignificant, and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are so that no mortal man should {have pretense for glorying and} boast in the presence of God.” Is that clear? It’s “The Call of The Unqualified”!

William Barclay, in his 1 Corinthians commentary, wrote: “It is the amazing and the true fact of life that it is the people who realize their own weakness, their own lack of wisdom, their own helplessness and powerlessness, who in the end are strong and wise. It is the fact of experience that the man who thinks he can take on life by himself in the end is certain to make shipwreck of life.”

But listen to Jonathan Edwards: “There is no leveler like Christianity, but it levels by lifting all who receive it to the lofty table-land of a true character and of undying hope both for this world and the next.” Now, notice what God does!

FIRST, GOD CALLS THE FAITHLESS AND RAISES THEM UP AS “FATHERS OF THE FAITH”! Never forget Romans 3:10-12, “As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” (NKJ).

An if that is true, and it is, how do men all of a sudden become instruments in God’s hands for His purpose and His glory? God’s divine sovereignty!

To the church at Rome, Paul put it like this, Romans 9:15-16, “For God says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” (NKV)

In John 6:44 Jesus tells us clearly: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” Do you understand? God called “faithless” Abram and raised him up as the “Father of the Faith.”

Come to Acts 7:2-3; Stephen tells the high priest who was filled with doubt and distrust, “Men and brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives and come to a land that I will show you.” (NKV)

In Joshua 24:2, we read that Joshua spoke to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods.” Abram came out of an idolatrous family. Abram was faithless. Abram wasn’t bent toward God – his bent was away from God. Abram Wasn’t a seeker – he was a sinner. Abram wasn’t righteous – he was unrighteous. Abram wasn’t a believer – he was an unbeliever.

Arthur Pink, in “Gleanings in Genesis,” (p.140) wrote: “There was nothing whatever in the object of God’s choice which commended Abram to God. There was nothing whatever in Abram which merited God’s esteem…” He then quotes Isaiah 51:1-2, “Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him.” (NKJ)

What was God saying? Remember the rock of idolatry from which you’ve been taken; remember the dark hole of faithlessness from which you’ve been dug; remember the vast separation between sinful man and Holy God; but also “remember, from there I called you, I blessed you, and I increased you! “ All Glory Belongs To God Alone!

SECOND, GOD CALLS THE SPEECHLESS AND RAISES THEM UP AS “MOUTHS OF GOD”! Come to Exodus 4:10-12. Moses has been “sitting down by a well” for forty years like so many in our world today. They’ve been silent, they’ve been voiceless as to Truth, maybe even a little “ashamed of the Gospel.” But God shows up! “I have a purpose for your life!” And do you comprehend that there are blazing, glowing, radiating, burning bushes all around you? And God is calling. What did Moses say and what often have we said? “Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.’ So the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go and I will be your mouth and teach you what you shall say.” (NKV)

God takes the speechless and raises them up as “mouths of God” by an implosive, irrepressible work of grace: Acts 4:20,21: “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.’ So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done.” (NKV)

God takes the speechless and raises them up as “mouths of God” by His anointing: Acts 2:4, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (NKJ)

God takes the speechless (related to the Truths of God!) and raises them up as “mouths of God” through the inevitability of a maturing faith: 2 Corinthians 4:13-15, “But since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed, and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.” (NKJ)

God takes the speechless and raises them up as “mouths of God” through, yes, the explosion of an inward fire: Jeremiah 20:9, “Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name. But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.” (NKV)

I am not eloquent – “Good”! God wants to energize you! I cannot speak – “Good”! God will teach you! I don’t feel like an ambassador – “Good”! God will announce through you what He wants to say. I’m so speechless, slow, sensitive to what others may think – “Good”! God will quickly release a “thus says the Lord” through you as He sees fit!

THIRD, GOD CALLS THE LEAST AND RAISES THEM UP AS “LEADERS OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD”! Come to Judges 6:10-16, and notice “Gideon’s call!” And notice especially Gideon’s response in verse 15: “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is weakest in Manasseh, and ‘I am least in my father’s house’!” And God celebrates! He’s found His man. In Galatians 6:3 Paul wrote, “For if anyont thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” (NKV)

My tribe is the weakest – “Good” – YOU CAN FIND MY STRENGTH! I’m the least in my father’s house – “Good” – I”LL RAISE YOU UP! Do you remember Paul’s explanation of God’s usefulness of his life? 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in my infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake; FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN (IN CHRIST!) I AM STRONG!”

Are you getting the “conquering, overcoming, useful credentials”? I AM NOTHING – but God is everything! I AM LEAST – but Jesus is my all in all! I AM WEAK – but God is strong! I AM HELPLESS – but I lift up my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. I’M A FAILURE – but my Lord finishes what He starts VICTORIOUSLY!

Look with me at 2 Peter 1:3 where the Apostle encourages us about our calling in Christ: “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.” His Glory! His Virtue! We’re the least, the weakest, but because God calls us by His grace, we go from the cow pasture to the Crown Room of ABIDING HOLY PRESENCE!

FOURTH, GOD CALLS THE YOUNG AND RAISES THEM UP AS YOKEFELLOWS OF TRUE MINISTRY AND SERVICE! Come to Jeremiah 1:4-8. “Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations…Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.’ But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ for you shall go to all whom I send you, AND whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you,’ says the Lord.” (NKJ)

Nowhere in God’s Word do you find youthfulness described as a curse – it’s a blessing! Nowhere do you find youthfulness described as a handicap – it’s an encouragement! Nowhere is it described as a hindrance – it’s a HELP!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in Aurora Leigh, wrote: “I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God.” And notice, God called a youngster to be a prophet. God called a young shepherd-boy to be a giant-slayer. God called young Mary to birth the Son of God. God called the young man Saul to be an apostle. God called the youthful Joseph to lead a nation in feeding the hungry. God called the young Daniel to be an interpreter of dreams and visions. God called young Timothy to be “an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”

Arthur Miller and Ralph Mattson, in their book, “The Truth About You,” (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1972, p.9), wrote: “There are thousands of young people who are accused of not having direction in their live, and most of them want direction but do not know how to find it…Most people are certain about the rightness and usefulness of their lives. They are looking for signposts that will give them purpose and direction.” Do you remember young Samuel in Eli’s home when he hears that voice in the night? Finally he learned to say as all youth should, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Young person, you don’t have to be a victim of the visible; you can be one with God Himself! Richard Halverson, in “No Greater Power,” (p.148), wrote: “Live for pleasure – become shallow, empty, giddy; Live for fame – become haughty, arrogant, rude; Live for power and influence – become overbearing, oppressive, insensitive; Live for wealth – become greedy, selfish; Live for the will of God – become selfless, loving, caring, whole.” What are YOU living for?

Jeremiah 2:5 says, “They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” YOUTH IN THE CROSSROADS! Worthless or of great value to God as His vessel? Trash or treasure in the hands of God? Junk or a precious crown jewel? A garbage dump or a graced disciple? What did the Lord do for young Jeremiah? Chapter 1, verses 9 & 10, “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 THIS DAY SET YOU OVER THE NATIONS AND OVER THE KINGDOMS, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and throw down, to build and to plant.”

FIFTH, GOD CALLS THE “MESSED-UP” AND RAISES THEM UP AS MASTERPIECES OF HIS MAGNIFICENCE! In Mark 16:9 we read, “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons.” (NKV)

Does that sound like a “messed-up” life? And yet, notice, she’s the first to whom the resurrected Christ Jesus appeared! Henry Brandt, in “The Power of the Call,” (p.116) wrote: “The complexities of your background do not cut you off from God’s resources – nobody can do that.” And Brandt is so right. Our Lord comes where we are, in the midst of our complexities, our corruptness, our corrosiveness, even our callousness, and He pours in the “oil and the wine” of healing grace into the wounds of body, soul, and spirit and HE MAKES US WHOLE, COMPLETE IN CHRIST JESUS, LACKING NOTHING!

In Matthew 9:13, tongue-in-cheek, Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (NKV). The “self-righteous” never sense a need of God, but the “messed-up” are on the doorstep of entrance to mercy and grace! Look at Verse 12: “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” (KJV) The “whole” never discover the “whiteness” the red Blood of the Lamb produces. The “righteous” never experience redemption and regeneration because they never see that from which they need to be saved!

In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul put it like this: “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” (NKV) It’s why to the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 4:3-4) that Paul said, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” (NKV)

But if you know you’re “messed-up” – you’re about to be ready to be made whole. If you know you’re “sick” – you’re about ready to receive the touch of the Great Physician. If you know you’re “blind” – you’re about ready to receive “new eyes”, spiritual eyesight, that is! If you know you’re “enslaved” – you’re about ready for God’s spiritual emancipation proclamation!

It was Myrna Brooks Welch who wrote the following powerful poem: “Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer thought it scarcely worth his while to waste much time on the old violin, but held it up with a smile.

“What am I bid, good folks?” he dried. “Who’ll start the bidding for me? A dollar, a dollar – now two, only two – Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?” “Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three”! But no! From the room far back a gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow; then wiping the dust from the old violin, and tightening up all the strings, he played a melody pure and sweet, as sweet as an angel sings.

The music ceased, and the auctioneer, with a voice that was quit and low, said: “What am I bid for the old violin?” And he held up the bow. “A thousand – and who’ll make it two? Two thousand – and who’ll make it three? Three thousand once and three thousand twice – and going and gone!” said he.

The people cheered, but some of them cried, “We do not quite understand. What changed its worth?” The man replied, “the touch of the master’s hand.” And many a man with life out of tune, And battered and torn with sin, is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin. A “mess of pottage,” a glass of wine, a game – and he travels on, he’s going once, and going twice, he’s going – and almost gone!

But the master comes, and the foolish crowd never can quite understand The Worth of a Soul and the changes that’s wrought by the touch of the Master’s hand!

SIXTH, GOD CALLS THE “ZEROES” AND RAISES THEM UP AS MEN AND WOMEN COMPLETE IN CHRIST! Come to 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not (‘Zeroes’), to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.” What a powerful testimony of true disciples!

Now come to Colossians 2:6-10! “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up IN HIM and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For IN HIM dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, AND YOU ARE COMPLETE IN HIM…” That doesn’t say you someday will be; it says you are – you are – COMPLETE IN HIM! That’s how God sees YOU NOW “IN CHRIST”! COMPLETE!

Henry Blackaby, in “The Power of the Call,” (p.229), wrote: “The credentials of a spiritual leader (or disciple) is the presence of God, AT ALL POINTS AUTHENTICATING HIS SERVANT.” Isn’t it amazing? A “zero” becomes a cup of life overflowing in the presence of God! A “zero” becomes a vessel in which Holy God pours in blessing after blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it all. A “zero” overcome by his emptiness becomes a container full of the joy of the Lord which is his strength. A “zero” void of the love of God becomes the vacuum in which the deep fullness of God’s love overflows without measure. A “zero” drunk with the wines in self-importance all of a sudden becomes “filled with the Holy Spirit of God.” A “zero” empty of faith all of a sudden comes to “a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

I want to be qualified “in Christ,” I want to be counted or reckoned worthy, knowing in myself alone, I am not. I’d rather exchange the old man for the new man rather than trying to dress up a corpse! John 1:16 says, “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.”

SEVENTH, GOD CALLS THE “EMPTY” AND RAISES THEM UP AS TESTIMONIES OF HIS ALL-SUFFICIENT GRACE! Read carefully before continuing 1 Kings 17:8-16!! Here’s my challenge to you: You take your bin of “self-rising” flour that always runs out and give me the God-anointed sustenance of sure promises! You take your jar of “drying-up” oil and give me the sustenance of God’s sure and all-sufficient anointing. You can major on your own ‘morsels’, but give me God’s fresh manna! You can major on the well-water of your own explorations, but give me the deep well of God’s unending “rivers of living water”! Do you remember Thomas Erskine’s classic statement? “Most men are so possessed by themselves that they have no vacuum into which God’s deep waters rise.” Halverson, again, in “No Greater Power, “ (p.182), wrote: “Our culture says, blessed are…those who’ve made it, the achievers, those who’ve got it together…those who are unrestrained by moral and ethical taboos, those who live it up, those who, if it feels good, do it;…the strong, the powerful, those in authority..” In contrast, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek (or teachable); blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; blessed are the merciful; blessed are the pure in heart; blessed are the peacemakers; blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.”

Then Halverson had a prayer I want to share: (pps.150-151), “Our Father in Heaven, we live so much of our lives as though we were animals. We pay so much attention to the physical, so little to the spiritual. We provide the best food for our bodies and feed our souls on rubbish. We clothe our bodies with fine garments and subject our minds to garbage. We stuff the flesh and starve the Spirit, then wonder why there is so little joy, so much depression. We take pills for highs and lows when we could be energized by Your Holy Spirit and relaxed in Your gracious love and care. Help us to realize, dear Lord, that we are God-hungry and nothing else will satisfy." Do you know that? Have you experienced that? Is your greatest hunger for the Living God? Are you empty and ready to be filled? Your only redeemable qualification? “I need God’s love, grace, and mercy”! Your only beneficial qualification? “Without Him I am nothing!” Your only transforming qualification? “In Him I live and move and have my being!” Your only abounding dividend? “Blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ!” Your only saving qualification? “Predestined to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will!” Your only reconciling qualification? “NOW in Christ Jesus we who once were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ!” You choose grit – I take grace! You choose earning it – I take God’s unspeakable gift! You walk merit-way – I’ll walk the path of mercy!

CHAPTER FIVE

LIFE’S REJECTS RECEIVED

A “reject” in our modern day? For some, a “reject” is some one that should just be thrown away, because, in a sick society’s opinion that ‘person’ is unqualified, even for life, and should be discarded, useless to the ‘public good’, unsatisfactory when evaluated by the ‘super smart,’ the ‘highly qualified’, or the ‘self-sainted’, and certainly able to discern a “reject’s” usefulness to an elite society ot not!

Some who become ‘judge and jury’ of a society’s ‘qualifications’ for admittance are certainly adept, professional, and determined not to have anything to do with the “low-lifes,” the “outsiders,” the “uneducated,” the visibly weak and insignificant”, the “foreigners” to a society’s usefulness in making a nation great, and certainly determined that “these have no part with us”!

And sadly, my question is: “Does it ever happen in church life that there comes a place in a church’s ministry when “life’s rejects” should be rejected and utmost care given to who it is one gives his/her attention to”?

But be assured of one thing: In the darkest shadows of human existence, Holy God has His eyes on the “least” a modern-day society or “self-serving ‘church’” thinks ‘worthy’ or ‘needy’ of their time, consideration, or witness, because “God so loved the world that He gave His own Son” for their redemption, reconciliation, re-birth, and eternal ‘rest’ in the Holy Family of God!

There’s a quote in Acts 2:21 from Joel when Peter said: “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (delivered, escaped, freed)!” But today, some refuse ‘ministry’ to rejects?

I don’t know if you’ve sensed it or not in your reading of the Bible, but even Christ Jesus, THE ONLY LORD AND SAVIOR of all mankind – there is no other Redeemer- is considered by many, religious or not, as a “reject” worthy only of the Cross! In Acts 2:22-25 Peter preached to “the men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem,” (and ultimately Holy God extended that message to all of Israel and to every corner of the globe!), Peter declaring, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know – Him, being delivered by the determinate purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; WHOM GOD RAISED UP, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”

Question. Do you see it, as Christ Jesus was taken by, yes, ‘lawless hands’ and crucified by them, that those who crucified Him were part of the whole of fallen humanity who needed blood redemption? “God so loved the world”! Even a world of ‘lawless hands’, ‘religious activity professionals’, the ‘mockers’, lives enslaved to the old sin nature that separates them FROM God, the promiscuous, the profane, the perverted? “There’s hope for them?” Absolutely!

But in the midst of the “fallen – away world” from Holy God you find ‘life’ primed by self-importance over Sovereign-intent, ‘flesh’s finest’ and ‘flesh’s worst’ in place of the fullness of redemptive faith, passionate indulgences in the place of Prince of Peace birthing and blessing, the ‘preyed-on’ by the powers of darkness rather than the ‘prayed-over’ by the conquering King of liberty and freedom from sin’s chains and bondage, internally in the heart satisfied with their ‘self-importance’ more than eternally joined by repentance and faith to the King of kings and Lord of lords!

And, I speak of the ‘good folks’, decent but deceived, productive but paralyzed spiritually, warped in the ‘spirit-realm’ but ‘winsome’ in a sinful society, marred but adaptable, playful but perverted in a ‘people’s world’ of pleasures and perversions and ‘pass-times’ that have forgotten Holy God and majored on the promotion of the ‘satisfying of the flesh’!

I’ve often wondered and, yes, examined if what took place in ‘religious’ Israel has any significance of ‘modern-day’ participants as they attempt to adapt their world, their flesh, AND their devil to a ‘desire’ to be a part of God’s family at the same time.

If you were to examine Ezekiel 36 you’d find a true picture of ‘old religious devotees’ and, yes, the true hope of “new covenant blessings”! In Verses 22-27 we find an awesome picture of loving God’s eternal intent! It says, God speaking through Ezekiel to us in the 21^st Century: Therefore say to the house of Israel, “Thus says the Lord God: ‘I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord,’ says the Lord God, ‘when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you back into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

[Would it be important to examine what it means to “profane God’s holy name among the nations”? What is one’s ‘filthiness’ or one’s devotion to idols? And do you grasp and understand “hearts of stone”?]

But IF one receives what Ezekiel 36 declared, will he/she act upon that Holy Word? I repeat Ezekiel 36:26-27! “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” Life’s ‘rejects’ received, beginning the journey of ‘royalty’ in the Holy Family of God and found faithful because of the Spirit God puts within us!

LIFE’S REJECTS RECEIVED? Let’s look to John 4 where Holy God unveils the receiving of life’s rejects! It doesn’t take long there to see and sense Holy God’s overseeing and, yes, His determination of one who NEEDS Him! It’s about a Samaritan woman who meets Christ Jesus! What thrills and touches my heart and mind so deeply? John 4:4 states, “But He (Christ Jesus) needed to go through Samaria.”

What was “the need”? What was pressing in on His spirit to ‘go through an area that most Jews considered being defiled by one’s presence there’? Does ministry to the ‘unclean’, the ‘foul’, the ‘dirty’, the ‘polluted,’ the ‘tainted’ automatically corrupt the true saints of God? That thought is so foreign to the nature, the character, the eternal intent of Holy God! “God so loved the world that He gave His Son” to come and rescue the rejects! That has never changed and has stood even before the world was formed and man had been created!

It was Bernard Iddings Bell in his writing “Argosy” who said: “I should like to see Christian leaders disregard their timid followers and, like Francis of Assisi or John Wesley, go out of the church buildings, shake the dust of denominationalism from impatient feet, and appeal to the folks generally. Americans will listen to religion if and when it claims to have relationship to real life. Let the churches recognize that their job is not to nurture the pious nearly so much as it is to rouse, convict of sin, convert, a pagan nation.” AMEN?

In Verse 10 of John 4, 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 a living water.” She’s dumbfounded! She responded in Verse 11, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?” In Verse 13 Jesus said to her, “Whoever drinks of this (well) water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” [Do you think the “water” just gave her, “living water”, was the “water of God’s Holy Word”?

She said to Jesus in Verse 15, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to drink.” Verse 16? Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” Verse 17, The woman answered Him and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ Verse 18, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

The ‘religious defense’ is intensified as the woman, in Verses 19-20 said to Jesus, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus then said to her in Verses 21-24,

“Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 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 truth.” This woman at least professed an awareness of the “Messiah coming (who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus then said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” She “rested” in Christ and became a “rest-teller”!

Life’s rejects received? It’s so interesting to me, and so heart and mind gripping, when I come to John 5 and see Jesus going up to Jerusalem. He went to a pool that had five porches. John 5:3 says, “In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.” [Are there ‘porches’ today where ‘sick people’ scurry about hoping for a ‘stirring’ and ‘healing’ of what ails them?].

John 5:5 says, “Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. WHEN JESUS SAW HIM LYING THERE, and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, Jesus said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” What a question! But so legitimate because many settle into what a ‘fleshly life’ offers and have no ambition for “healing grace and mercy”! In Philip Bennett Power’s book, “The ‘I Wills’ of Christ”, [The Banner of Truth Trust, 1984, pps.51-52], Power spoke of “the one great truth that is all powerful everywhere,” then sharing, “There was once a caravan crossing to the north of India, and numbering in its company a godly and devoted missionary. As it passed along, a poor old man was overcome by the heat and labors of the journey, and sinking down was left to perish on the road. The missionary saw him, and kneeling down at his side, when the rest had passed along, whispered into his ear, “Brother, what is your hope?” The dying man raised himself a little to reply, and with a great effort succeeded in answering, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin!” and immediately expired with the effort. The missionary was greatly astonished at the answer, and in the calm and peaceful appearance of the man, he felt assured he had died in Christ. How, or where, he thought, could this man, seemingly a heathen, have got this hope? And as he thought of it, he observed a piece of paper grasped tightly in the hand of the corpse, which he succeeded in getting out. What do you think was his surprise and delight, when he found it was a single leaf of the Bible, containing the first chapter of the first epistle of John, in which these words occur! On that page the man had found the gospel!” “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin!” Has He cleansed you?

Do you grasp it, rest in it, rely upon it? In Christ, one is translated, by faith from darkness into Eternal Light, from bondage to liberty, from sin to sanctification, from ‘flesh-realm’ to the “spirit-world”, from chains of Satanic bondage to the freedom of the character and nature of Christ, from a world of the flesh and a hellish existence to the kingdom of the Spirit and heavenly blessings now and forever, from a consciousness of sin-bondage to an abiding confidence in His presence within the repentant heart, and the true recipient of His pleasure and power! I close with Jesus’ words in John 6:51-58 and notice, Jesus said these things in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum! Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven – not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.” Reject, renegade, or one re-born?

CHAPTER SIX

THE DECLARATION OF EXCLUSIVITY

You can be religious without being regenerated – that’s why Jesus says, “You MUST be born again.” You can be awakened to conscience without being reborn in the Spirit. You can be conscious of God without being reconciled to God. You can even be a ‘professing Christian in culture’ without being captured by Christ, converted, or “born again.”

You can be knowledgeable of truths without being kept by Him who is truth. You can be a faithful devotee to the tenets of your chosen religion without being a faithful disciple of Christ’s “shed-blood” redemption. You can be ambitious to be cloaked in the activities of a specific religion with no aim to be pleasing to God alone – He says, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

Good deeds do not necessarily mean God-like! Attendance of a mosque, church, synagogue, or temple doesn’t necessarily mean the true worship of God in Spirit and in Truth! Following a “prophet” doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve found God or been led to God by that ‘prophet’. The conflict of the ages has always been, “Is there more than one way to God, multiple doors, many windows?” OR is Christ Jesus the only hope?

Is it what I do before God, or what God has done in my behalf? Is it “grit” or Grace? Is it the measuring of a man’s doing or the mercy of God that is ‘the finished work’? Is it man’s precepts or the Promised Messiah? Is it man’s demands of acceptability before God or God’s conditions of alliance, “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ?”

What are man’s opinions when we have historically the revelation of God pertaining to man’s salvation? What are man’s creations of religious activities when the Creator, before the foundation of the world, ordained the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ?

I want to lay the foundation for this chapter out of God’s Holy Word. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through Me.” What an awesome, definitive statement! The May 6, 2002, issue of the “U.S.News and World Report” has an article entitled, “Faith in America.” After reading Jesus’ statement in John 14:6, I knew you’d find the article interesting, sad, and awakening to your own mind, your own convictions, or perhaps, the lack of them.

The sub-tile of the article says, “It’s as important as ever, no matter what you believe.” Does it matter what one believes? In their poll among Christians in America –get this- only 20% of Christians believed their faith was the only true faith! Absolutely shocking!

Only 50% of the Christians polled said they had experienced God’s presence! Egon Mayer, sociologist at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, said in the article: “It’s not that Americans don’t believe anything; they believe everything.”

If Jesus were to come into our world today He would not find a warm welcome. Because of Hid “declaration of exclusivity” a religious world would stone Him, or try to crucify Him again! And His declaration confronts us in the valley of decision: are there many doors to God or only one? Is God debtor to man’s religious inventions? Or is man debtor to God and His declarations? Can we take different paths and all arrive at God’s doorstep?

Which brings us to examine Jesus and ask, as Josh McDowell did in “Evidence That Demands A Verdict”, “s Jesus liar, lunatic, or the Lord God?” Is it settled in your mind and heart? And do you understand man’s dilemma when his religion is void of the Truth of Christ?

What are man’s buildings or temples in comparison to God telling man he becomes the True Temple through the very habitation of God in the spirit? What is some “light” if it’s not the True Light? What are moral principles without the Evangel of Truth? What is direction if it leads the wrong way, away from the True God revealed in Christ and void of the divine destiny God authors?

What is strictness apart from Sanctification/ What is regimentation without a return to God through Christ? What are traditions if they’re empty of the Triumphant Christ who rose from the dead? What is an earthly glory that fades away without the manifestations of the glory of Christ’s presence that never dies?

What are devotions without the disciplines that reveal a true desire to unveil Christ? What are authors of religious activities without the Author and Finisher of a saving faith? Would you dare compare hollowness with the wholeness God desires? What is busy-ness compared to God’s desire for birthing, blessing, and becoming? What are prayers that penetrate nothing when God desires prayer that lays hold of Him?

Do you remember Adam and Eve in the garden after the Fall when they pieced fig leaves together when they realized their nakedness? That’s “fig-leaf religion” – man’s attempts at his own salvation apart from God! But God, through the Cross of Christ, clothes us in His robes of righteousness, He dresses us in the garments of His salvation, He declares us worthy because of the winsomeness of Calvary’s Cross, which has nothing to do with religion but everything to do with the revelation and unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ!

If the One, True, Living God, Who is the true source, the fountain out of which all the universe flows, the One Who only is right and good, and He chooses to unveil Himself to us, how does He do it? Do you remember the angels’ message to Mary in Luke 1:34-35? Mary had asked how she could have a baby since she was a virgin and had known no man intimately. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.” In another place, He is called Immanuel, meaning God in the flesh! That is why, in John 14”6, Jesus exclusively declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through Me.”

It’s been years now, but a dear friend, Joyce Baird, deceased a number of years ago, sent me an article from the “Temple Telegram” about a new “church” starting in Temple called “The Church of Today”. It’s not truly a ‘church’ and is not of “today” but goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Satan asked, “Has God Really Said?” They view the Bible not as a literal document but simply a spiritual guide. The article said, “They also believe that there are many wonderful viable paths to God and that no one path is correct for everyone, not even our own, and therefore they honor all paths to God be they Buddhist, Baptist, Jew, old or new, Muslim or Mormon. If any path to God has love as a basis we honor it.” I wonder if they also “hate what God hates?” The promoters of this new “church”? Leaders such as Oprah, and authors such as Dyer, Chopra and Vansant…” Sorry, but I have no appreciation for Oprah’s supposedly ‘spiritual knowledge’! Why?

First, Let’s look at THE EXCLUSIVE DECLARATION OF THE WAY! You’re aware that most do not honor Christ Jesus Alone, but promote Satan’s lies, even denying Jesus Christ as the “only Way”! He said: “I am THE way.” And that, dear friends, IS the “exclusivity of opportunity”!

Just what is the “way’ that Jesus defined Himself as? He is THE way back to God, back to a holy relationship with a loving, caring God, who we were separated from because of our sin – separated, severed, disconnected from Mighty God, lost and wandering away.

Notice, it’s not simply what He taught – IT’S WHO HE IS! You understand, we’re all part of a deathly dilemma without Him! Romans 5:12 (NIV) says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man (Adam), and death through sin…” And we know it! Sin and shame, death and darkness are in “flesh’ veins! In Ephesians 2:3 Paul said of us that we “…were by nature children of wrath, just as the others…” Back to Romans 5:12, “..and in this way death came to all men, BECAUSE ALL SINNED.”

Death came as a penalty for sin upon all men and the condemnation of Almighty God stands against sin. In Romans 8:3 (NIV) Paul writes, “For what the law was powerless to do…God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in sinful man…” However, in Jesus Christ, that penalty is paid, the sacrifice of His blood is the offering for sin that is available to every man who repents and puts his faith in the Crucified, Resurrected Christ!

In his recent book, “Beyond Beliefs To Conviction”, Josh McDowell writes, (p.89), “That is what the Incarnation says to you – and to all of us. Despite your sin, Jesus valued you enough to die for you. His love for you is so great, He spread His arms the width of the Cross and said: “I lay down My life for you, Immanuel, God in flesh, and I come to be a sacrifice.”

John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness, declared in Matthew 3:3, “…Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight…” Notice, “The Way of the Lord,” the way of the Lord God Almighty, the way of the One True and Living God! There is only one way to Him and it is “the way of the Cross.”

There’s a story in the Old Testament, Genesis 24, about Abraham sending his servant to Abraham’s home place to find a bride for his son Isaac. In Genesis 24:27, the servant speaking, said: “…as for me, being on the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” And he found Rebecca. But for us it’s not being ON the way that’s good, but being IN the way – that’s Jesus, the Lamb of God that takes away our sin; That’s Redeemer – Jesus, who with His own blood shed at the Cross reconciles us to God!

SECOND, THERE IS, ALWAYS HAS BEEN, AND FOREVER WILL BE THE EXCLUSIVE DECLARATION OF THE TRUTH! The exclusivity of observation! What Jesus said certainly was truth, but when He said “I am the truth” it was not what He taught, but Who He Is! In John 15:22 Jesus said, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now (because I’ve come) they have no excuse for their sin.” Jesus IS TRUTH and the very presence of truth removes the excuse of ignorance or the fabrication, imitation, or self-determination of what truth really is to us! And the “TRUTH” is, there’s only one Lamb of God whose shed blood washes away sin and guilt – THE Lamb of God, THE Lord Jesus Christ!

The truth? There is one mediator between God and man – the God-Man, Jesus! The truth? There is only one door into the heart of God – Jesus is that door! The truth? There is only one sacrifice that satisfies the offense of Holy God because of our sinfulness – the sacrifice of Himself, the Son of God who became the Son of Man that the sons of men might become the sons of God!

The Truth? There is only one bread that is truly the spiritual staff of life that nourishes hungry souls – Jesus is that bread!

Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of the area of Judea, was confronted by Christ Jesus as Jesus was brought to court. John 18:33-38 (NIV) unveils that encounter: “Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked Him, ‘Are You the king of the Jews?’ [34], ‘Is that your own idea’, Jesus asked, ‘or did others talk to you about Me?’ [35] ‘Am I a Jew?’ Pilate asked. ‘It was Your people and Your chief priests who handed You over to me. What is it You have done?’ [36] Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is from another place.’ [37] ‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate. Jesus answered, ‘You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me.’ [38] ‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, ‘I find no basis for a charge against Him.’”

In Matthew’s account of the interchange between Jesus and Pilate, he wrote: “…he (Pilate) took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, ‘I m innocent of the blood of this person. You see to it.’” Matthew 27:24 (NIV). The truth is that NONE OF US ARE INNOCENT OF THE BLOOD OF JESUS – it was because of your sin and mine that Jesus died!

THIRD, COME FOR YOURSELF EXAMINING THE EXCLUSIVE DECLARATION OF THE LIFE! That’s the exclusivity of overflow! In John 10:10 Jesus declared, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Understand that though we were born physically, we were birthed in a state of spiritual death – physical life but no life in the Spirit! The Apostle Paul stated this truth in Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…”

There’s a famous India man by birth, now a devoted follower of Christ and one of the great Christian thinkers of our day, Ravi Zacharias. In his teen years living in India, he began to deal with two realities in us all – sin within himself and death within himself. He knew the answer was not in religion but relationship – “if we all are separated from God because of our sin and we experience death in the inner man, where do we find life?” And all of a sudden he realized it wasn’t his search for God, but God’s search for him. In Romans 5:8 Paul writes, “But God proved His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us…”

Jesus took our death on Himself that we might have His life! Jesus took our unrighteousness on Himself that we might have His righteousness! Jesus took our curse upon Himself that we might have His blessing! Jesus came to a place called Calvary so that we could go to His place called Heaven to live with Him forever through the gift of forgiveness, reconciliation, new birth, and the Holy Spirit to care for us and guide us in everlasting Truth!

My dear friend and former classmate and teammate at Baylor University, Bill Anderson, pastor for about 27 years at Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida, shared with Sue and I once a very interesting story. Sue and I had been invited to share in Bill’s retirement service at Calvary and had the privilege of having dinner with Bill and his wife the following night. We began to share “war stories” of our years in ministry. Bill shared a phenomenal story that occurred in the Hebrew synagogue in Clearwater where he’d been invited by the Rabbi to speak to the people. Bill shared from the Word for about forty-five minutes and then answered questions for about as long as his message. As he was leaving the synagogue Bill noticed an elderly lady with a sweet smile on her face motioning him to come where she was standing. He did. And then the lady pulled up her arm sleeve to show him four numbers on her arm. Bill said, “You were in Auschwitz weren’t you?” She answered in the affirmative, and Bill said, “Please, tell me about it.”

The lady said she was twelve years of age when she and all her family and friends were confined there. She saw a lot of them die. She said that all they had to eat each day was one bowl of soupy water with usually a rotten cabbage leaf – each and every day – and she and the others were always on the edge of starvation. But they learned that if they ate blades of green grass at least their stomachs felt full, until the Germans learned what they’d been doing and began to shoot them on sight. But the lady said that she became so hungry one morning that even if the guards shot her she’d at least die on a full stomach. She went outside to a grassy area early in the morning, knelt down, began to eat the grass, and then heard the cock of the gun, a rifle. She turned around, and at the corner of her barracks, she saw a German guard with his gun aimed right at her. She cried out, “Oh, God, please send someone to help me,” and she said, “He sent Jesus standing directly between me and the German guard. The gurd saw Him, too, and threw down his gun and ran away. I’ve been walking with Jesus ever since that day in Auschwitz.”

Bill said, “What are you doing here in the synagogue?” And she said telling those who need to hear the Gospel of how Jesus saved me, body, soul, and spirit.” Bill said, “Did you talk to your Rabbi?” She said, “I did, and he asked why I hadn’t asked God to send Moses, and I told the Rabbi, I asked God for help and He sent Jesus.” Her name is Anna Kellerman. What a story!

In Ephesians 4:14-15 Paul says, “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all things into Him who is the head – that is, Christ.”

Pontius Pilate stood with Jesus before a large crowd and said: “What then shall I do with this Jesus who is called the Christ?” That question is asked of each of us – “what will YOU do with this Jesus who is called the Christ?’ And in your minds and hearts you know there are only two possible options: one, crown Him as the King of YOUR salvation; or, join in with the cries of that crowd before Pilate and declare, “Crucify Him.”

Throughout time and history He has been reaching out to men and women, boys and girls, from every nation, every tribe, every tongue, revealing Himself, even as He did to a young twelve-year old Jewish girl in a death camp. We have the opportunity to respond to Him, to His claim that He and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life. It is a claim of exclusivity – how will you respond? The Apostle Paul warns us in 1 Timothy 4:1 that “in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons…” Where and with Whom are YOU standing today?

CHAPTER SEVEN

CONFIDENCE IN THE CRUCIFIED “SELF” OR

ASSURANCE IN RESURRECTION LIFE?

It was Polonius in Hamlet who said: “To thine own self be true.” But, is that an attempt at “pumping flesh” by inflating one’s ‘self-esteem’? Is that focusing on “self” rather than centered, cemented, or covered in “the shed blood of the Lamb of God”? Have you ever heard a parent say to a child: “Your place in OUR family is for YOU to become something!” Really? And someone attempting to become something is blinded to the Christ who took our ‘old man’, ‘our old sin-nature’, ‘old SELF’ to the Cross, with the God-inspired, Holy Word telling us in Romans 6:6, “knowing this, that our old man (that’s the ‘old sin-nature’ – YOURS and MINE) WAS CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should NO LONGER be slaves of sin.”

Dare I say it, and be crucified ‘again’ by a compromising ‘religious establishment’ that says, “You can’t do anything but sin until you get to Heaven”? Believe I will! Being “true to yourself and your old sin nature is to be blinded and void of “Amazing Grace’”! Confidence in the ‘best efforts’ of human flesh IS “fleshly, eternal darkness”, void of the dawning and bright days of “Christ in you the hope of glory”, (Colossians 1:27)!

There’s not a man, a family, a nation that does not need Christ Jesus as “the light of their world”, because the man, the family, the nation, without Christ as Lord and Savior remains in the “darkness” of the world of unbelief and deception, patting themselves of their backs by Satan himself who IS the lord and master of one’s darkness! No wonder the Holy Word declares, affirms, and continually announces Christ Jesus as THE PROPHET, PRIEST, and KING, because, only in and through Him is ‘darkness’ removed, only in and through His ruling heart, mind, and soul of Resurrection Presence is there “Eternal Life and Light”, and only through “Jesus Only” is the reality of bondage and slavery to the world, the flesh, or the devil removed, and ONLY by His Kingly Presence in the human heart, mind, and soul is there acceptance by God the Father who sent His Son to be our Savior!

I was shocked recently when I read a statement by one of the U.S.A’s early founders, Benjamin Franklin, who once said: “God helps those who help themselves.” But, I tell you, ‘Confidence in one’s best effort of “crucifying myself” is a ‘lie’ out of the very pit of Hell itself!’ NO!! “I am (by God’s justice, judgment, and decree!) CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” In the old writing, “New Atlantis,” Sir Francis Bacon once said: “The reverence of a man’s SELF is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.” [The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotes,” p.396].

You are aware of an ‘allegory’, which the Random House Collegiate Dictionary defines as “a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete (Is God’s Word secure, stable, and eternal concrete?) or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another; a symbolic narrative (of the Way, the Truth, and the Life?).” So…HOW ABOUT ONE’S REVERENCE OF HIMSELF/HERSELF? “In Christ” WE are not ‘symbolic narratives’ but “chosen vessels”!

In 2 Corinthians 4:5-11 Paul wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit of Truth, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness WHO HAS SHONE IN OUR HEARTS TO GIVE THE LIGHT OF THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE FACE OF CHRIST JESUS.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. FOR WE WHO LIVE (IN CHRIST) ARE ALWAYS DELIVERED TO DEATH FOR JESUS’ SAKE, THAT THE LIFE OF JESUS ALSO MAY BE MANIFESTED IN OUR MORTAL FLESH.” [AND that doesn’t mean someday, or after physical death, or in “the after-life”, but MANIFESTED IN OUR MORTAL FLESH!].

Yet MANY “lose heart” in their spiritual pilgrimages, because for them it has been a “best-effort-attempt” at trying to be Christ-like! Paul went on to say, in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outer man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day”, and that’s through the eternal Word, the awesome ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the encouragement, even, at times, the confrontation and motivation of true friends in the faith!

The ‘outward man’ IS ‘fallen flesh”, not Spirit-birthed! The ‘outward man’ flourishes because of ‘deceit’, because of pressured influences from a ‘separated from God society’, because of ‘self-reverence for dead flesh’! Surrender to the Sovereignty of God severs, puts to death, annihilates selfish ambition and self-allegiance, thus at the “holy altar of death to self”, presenting one’s life to Holy God, His Sovereign Power, and His Amazing Love, Grace, and Mercy in need of being “washed in the Blood of the Lamb”, you ARE an altar or ‘redeemed being and presence’ in which the Resurrected Christ lives, reigns, ministers through you!

Sadly, in this 21^st Century within the American ‘Church’, one finds ‘apathy, indifference, complacency’ in the place of the holy anointing of the Spirit and the very “Fire of God” flowing through their veins – only a ‘cold indifference’ to the commissioning of God, “You shall be My witnesses”! Are there churches that ignore the call to evangelize? Do they ignore the training, equipping, commissioning, and sending out their ‘students’ as “salt and light” in their dark world? Does ‘infidelity’ to His commission describe the ‘modern’ church within America?

It was Isaac Barrow who once wrote: “Infidelity, indeed, is the root of all sin; for did man heartily believe the promises to obedience, and the threats to disobedience, they could hardly be unreasonable as to forfeit the one and incur the other.” [The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey, 1965, Frank S. Mead].

Alexander MacLaren once said (Same Encyclopedia! P.397), “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step,” in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ! That’s altars in the mind, heart, and spirit where I, we, with Paul, “die daily”? (1 Corinthians 15:31b).

In 2 Corinthians 1:8-12 Paul testified: “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. [ I personally knew pastors in India that I taught and disciple who were ‘martyred’ for the faith!]. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.”

If every day you begin it by purposefully, mentally, willfully constructing your altar, and every day you yield to the Sovereignty of God, and every day you prepare for your ‘witness’, your ‘ministry’, your ‘testimony’, are you then ready, if the opposition comes, to, yes, kill you for the faith? I’ve altered Charles Caleb Colton’s words minimally to build conviction and biblical wisdom in every disciple’s life and ministry. Colton said, “Heroism, magnanimity, and ‘self-denial’, in all instances in which they do not spring from biblical principles (for the glory of God only), are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another king of self-love (religious but not redemptive, one’s best but not blessed by the Indwelling Christ), ‘reverencing one’s flesh’ but void of the omnipotent power of Holy God through the Resurrected Christ and fullness of the Holy Spirit!”

ONLY the man crucified with Christ, and knows it, who repents of his sin and sin nature convicted by the Holy Spirit, and willfully confesses his/her need of the Savior – only is that man “born again” becoming the recipient of “new life in Christ,” clad with “new garments,” given a “new song” in his heart and mind to sing to God and to others, entering a “new and blessed blood covenant on His terms”, “blessed with a new heart and a new spirit,” “fed new fruits, bread, and meat of the Word of God,” granted by His grace a “new and living testimony,” moved into the “new and everlasting Kingdom of God NOW, not when ‘out there’ you finally get to Heaven’s gates and grounds someday,” and all in ALL A “NEW CREATION IN AND OF Christ’s Holy Presence, Christ IN YOU the hope of glory”!

Here’s how Paul was inspired to write about the above truths in Romans 6:1-14! He said: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we WHO DIED TO SIN live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus WERE baptized into His death? [That’s “crucified with Christ”!]. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, [not our water baptism but our identity with Him and His chosen, willful, purposeful, loving sacrifice in our place!], that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so WE ALSO should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been UNITED TOGETHER in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, THAT THE BODY OF SIN MIGHT BE DONE AWAY WITH, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. FOR he who has died (with Christ?) has been freed from sin. NOW, IF WE DIED WITH CHRIST, we believe 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 DIES, He died to sin once for all; but the LIFE THAT HE LIVES, HE LIVES TO GOD. Likewise YOU also, RECKONING YOURSELVES TO BE DEAD INDEED TO SIN, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. [Are you really aware of how strong the old man, the old sin nature, and the demons of darkness are, yes, trying, tempting, testing you, if you’re a ‘flesh-believer’ or a “Born-again son and daughter of Father God”?].

And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. FOR SIN shall not have dominion over you, FOR YOU ARE NOT UNDER LAW BUT UNDER GRACE.” [BUT, if you “profess faith” but constantly live in sin’s bondage to the flesh or old man, it just possibly may be that you need to be “born again”!].

A few words of fresh poetry! Written as this message mushroomed in my mind and heart: “Under marvelous grace God leads us along, from ‘sin-sadness ‘ He gives us a “new song”;

A song for the soul, a hymn of the heart, a chorus for the mind, as in “new life” we start; praises to God for His amazing grace, darkness to light through His eternal might, His grace but His glory as the “new son” is born, sovereignly birthed to live in His reign, no longer sin-bound to live in disdain, but more than a conqueror through His precious name!

Grace for the battles, grace for the fears, grace for those trials that soon will come near! Grace is God’s governance, His strength and His might, because every son and daughter will know, at times, darkness in their night.

Though ‘darkness’ may be, at times, you facing the deep, He comes faithfully for you NOT to weep! He’s strong and He’s able and He assures us He’s available, so lean not on your own but settle where the Word has been sown – live in the Light, not in the darkness, live in His light, not in your despair, know He is able to separate the wheat from the tares!

An unbelieving soul, with Paradise all around, will blind himself to Heaven, but bear the bad fruit of a devilish hell. A compromising ‘believer’ will celebrate his ‘grit’, even “damned by God’s grace – I like the ‘taste’ of my fleshly vision, I like my mind’s reasoning; who needs God’s grace? I’ve got my pleasure in His place!”

There is a world that has sunk into shame, delirious at even the mention of the Lord’s Name! Their hearts are dead, their minds engulfed, their wills enslaved and bound in the chains of ‘self-approval’ – nothing else matters, “certainly not God’s pleasure or His chatter!”

There is a world that knows about ‘soul’ but has no desire for life in the Spirit. Their fleshly ambition trumps God’s purpose, and for the call to faith, most of the world declares ‘its worthless’! Its worldly stage is constantly degrading, bound to the nature of ‘God-despising’; but the world of God’s Faith and His world of awesome love takes the hungry soul of man into the ‘Promised Land’ of God’s eternal song!

Yes, sing to the Lord for the Victory is His, sing to the Lord for glorious is His triumph, sing praises to His name, no longer sin’s shame, but Holy God has exalted His Son’s fame! He’s Lord to God the Father, Lord to His redeemed sons and daughters, Lord forevermore!

It’s the song of the “Well-Beloved” whose vineyards are repentant sons of faith, and repentant sons of faith are available lands of His merciful grace. The seed of His Word is planted, His vineyards are watered, the Sun of grace shines brightly upon them, and the fruit of His Spirit is the fruit of the righteous, fruitful in every divine work in heavenly blessing!

Though man makes a mire, God hasn’t retired, but mercifully and faithfully He loves to inspire! Look at the Cross, and know it’s His love, look to the tomb and know it’s His power, Look to Jesus, and know it’s YOUR God-ordained hour!

Under marvelous grace God leads us along, from “sin-sadness” He gives a new song! Sing, My beloved, for mercy and grace is yours. Tell me the hour, the day, the year, the place, of YOUR announcement of His Amazing Grace!” [By JFF! 4-13-2017].

Examine YOUR confidence, YOUR assurance, YOUR outlook of YOUR “self-made man” or tell me of YOUR “blessed assurance”, your “new creation,” your “eternal song of faith of transformation in your heart” by the hand and heart of God exalting Christ as your Mediator between Holy God and a needy man!

CHAPTER EIGHT

FATE, FURY, OR THE FINISHED WORK?

The Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, 1975, (Copyrighted by Random House Inc., New York), defines ‘fate’ in several ways: “Something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot. (Or), ultimate agency by which the order of things is prescribed. (Or) that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny. (Or) a prophetic declaration of what must be: death, destruction, or ruin, Or (JFF), life in Christ, complete in Christ, eternal blessing in Christ!” What’s YOUR choice?

Choice? “I choose to do my ‘best’, hoping that is acceptable to the Living God!” It’s not and never has been! It’s so amazing to me that even in the old covenant days of Judaism Holy God gave “precious promises”! In Ezekiel 36:22-27, God spoke to Israel and us!

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: I do not do this for your Sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. And I (Holy God!) will sanctify My great name, which you have profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you (the “water of the Word of God”?), and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh (tender toward God, purified within, yielded to His Sovereign will!). I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.”

Sadly, much of Israel in those days did not take God at His Word, but there was a “true remnant” that submitted themselves to the sovereignty of God, to His Spirit, and “LIVED” in and through His Holy Promises!

But, do you remember, in Matthew 23:12-13, Jesus went into the temple of God (in Jerusalem) and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And Jesus said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.’”

Is it possible that God, desiring your body to be the “temple of His Holy presence” has sadly seen it become a fleshly temple of self-indulgence? God’s desire, will, and purpose of redeemed flesh is becoming His “Holy Temple”, but “the world, the flesh, and the devil” see it as opportunity for “a den of robbers” stifling God’s intent and ‘lusting’ in the flesh, choosing ‘desolate houses’ instead of the desire, will, and pleasure of being the vessel of His Holy Presence, satisfied with the identity of ‘the den of robbers’, which they sanitized by fleshly, acceptable deception!

In Joshua 24:14-25 there is an amazing story that has resemblance to “professors” today without “possession” of faithfulness to God’s promises! It says: “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! (Lay out FOR YOURSELF what Joshua just said to the, at least, inquisitive Israelis!).

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.”

The beloved John, standing with two of his disciples, in John 1:35, ‘looking at Jesus as He walked’, said: “Behold, the Lamb of God”! But earlier, in John 1:29, it says, John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Doesn’t that astonish you? IF the sin of the world has been washed away through the shed blood of the Lamb of God, if forgiven, what keeps one from being united with the Savior? It’s their desire, will, and pleasure to do as their flesh dictates, not what Jesus demands! In fact, in Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus unveiled why even some ‘believers’ don’t enter the eternal Kingdom! He said: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Fate? Is that determined by ‘what way you choose’ to live your life’s journey – by YOUR GRIT OR BY HIS GRACE? In Matthew 7:13-14 the Lord Jesus declared, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and DIFFICULT IS THE WAY which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Do you understand, comprehend, and are able to discern the difference between spiritual ‘natural affinities’ and ‘the sufferings of this present time’ as Paul wrote about in Romans 8:18-29? Receive it! My New King James highlights these key verses as “From Suffering To Glory”! It says:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits FOR THE REVEALING OF THE (TRUE) SONS OF GOD. For the creation was subjected to futility ( the deep, deep vacuum of ungodliness!), not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; (there’s no other way for spiritual blessing other than the habitation of Christ in the repentant heart!)… because the creation itself also WILL BE delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of the children of God. [I don’t know what the “end of the world folks” do with ‘the creation itself delivered from a bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children itself’!]. Verse 22 & following: For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now (even now? Even into the 21st Century?). Not only that, but we also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were SAVED IN THIS HOPE, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession FOR US with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that all things work together FOR GOOD to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Are you ‘brethren’ or simply a “good church member”? AND THERE IS A DIFFERENCE, yes, an eternal difference!

The “FATE” of the ungodly, the unbeliever, the pretender? And with “Fate” foremost in many lives, what about the “promised Fury of the Lord”? In Mark 9: 19 Jesus shared a convicting, scary warning when He said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” Oh, and then in Verse 42 Jesus said, “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.”

Is it the ungodly, the unbeliever, or the ‘pretender’ who “deceives little ones”, causing them to stumble, and ‘the offender in religious deceit’ who finds himself with ‘a millstone hung around his neck, and thrown into the sea’ of eternal separation from God and eternal punishment at the hands of the devil and his demons?

In Isaiah 2:10-12, and Verses 17-19, as Isaiah hears, sees, and understands the judgment, the fate of the ungodly, the unbeliever, and the pretenders, his heart and mind and spirit becomes aware of “the terror of the Lord AND the glory of His majesty.” Do YOU understand it and find yourself humbled before Holy God? Hear the Word! Isaiah 2:10-12 says, “Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of “the Lord of hosts” shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up – and it shall be brought low –“

Then Isaiah 2:17-19 says, “The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. But the idols He shall utterly abolish. They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, FROM THE TERROR OF THE LORD and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily.”

There is an illuminating word from Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:2 when he wrote, and no doubt taught publicly, on the streets, and, yes, even in the temples! He said: “But we (Paul and his associates in Christ!) have renounced ‘the hidden things of shame’, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” The “hidden things of shame”? Violaters of the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Word of God need to be aware of 2 Corinthians 4:5 speaks about “the Lord coming, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the heart.” For some, it may be glorious what the Spirit of Christ witnesses, but for others there is THE EXPOSURE of the hidden things of darkness in his heart and mind!

Will you be hiding from the Lord when He comes “to shake your earth, your world” mightily? There are ‘compromising religious people’ who thrive in walking both sides of the streets, one flesh-side, the other the Spirit and holy side! Loving God but pumping the flesh, feeding the ‘spirit-heart and mind’ but indulging the “hidden lusts of a divided life”, Holy Spirit interest but pummeled by self-interests – yes, divided-mind devotees to Christ with little interest in the Holy Word of God, when the Word declares that “Man does not live by physical bread alone but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”!

There will be a day of judgment coming – not only for unbelievers, but the game-players in the Christian community, as well as every sold-out, yielded, born-again, Spirit-filled child of the King!

In Colossians 1:24-29 we get a view, the introduction of, the unveiling of, yes, a “sold-out disciple” of Christ Jesus! Is this our introduction, picture, viewing of the reality of “The Finished Work”? To the church at Colossae Paul wrote: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, TO FULFILL THE WORD OF GOD, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, BUT NOW HAS BEEN REVEALED TO HIS SAINTS. TO THEM God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: WHICH IS ‘CHRIST IN YOU’, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, THAT WE MAY PRESENT EVERY MAN PERFECT IN CHRIST JESUS.”

Is “EVERY MAN PERFECT IN CHRIST JESUS”? Is the Gospel a “FINISHED WORK”? Of course, IT IS! But it doesn’t mean “every man” is automatically now “a child of the King”! In Luke 24:46-49 Jesus said: “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that REPENTANCE AND REMISSION OF SINS SHOULD BE PREACHED IN HIS NAME TO ALL NATIONS, beginning at Jerusalem. And you, repentant disciples, are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

Consider ‘modern-day’ churches around you! Would you say that “repentance” IS the major message of churches to the ‘lost’ and ‘unreconciled to God’? Or, is it, “Make sure you’re a member of a local church’, which could be an invitation to “miss Christ”! Did Paul talk about “fulfilling the Word of God”; yet how often have you heard the “compromisers” talk about: “That’s salvation by works!” Absolutely not! It’s the evidence true salvation has occurred! Do you know the “bible teacher” is on target or void of the mission of Christ? Is he “pressing in” to Christ and “preaching”, “bearing witness to the lost”, of their need of His saving grace, mercy, and love?

I’ve often wondered if in Romans 12:2, as Paul wrote about, “Don’t be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world”, if that would include the patterns of the church world that too often are totally silent and unproductive about “missions” and “evangelism”! In James Montgomery Boice’s book, “Whatever Happened To The Gospel of Grace?” (Crossway Books, Good News Publishers, Copyright, 2001, p.42), he wrote about the church “breaking away from and repudiating the world’s ‘worldview’,” but there came a huge question to me, after 30 years of ‘overseas missions’, proclaiming Christ, even on major streets of needy ‘world’ cities, “Has the church-at-large been ‘transformed by the renewing of its mind, and does evangelism and missions take its place as a major endeavor of the church’?”

In Boice’s book he included a statement from Harry Blamires that came from Blamires’ book, “The Christian Mind: How Should A Christian Think?” (p.44). “To think secularly is to think within a frame of reference bounded by the limits of our life on earth; it is to keep one’s calculations rooted in this – worldly criteria. To think Christianity is to accept all things with the mind as related, directly or indirectly, to man’s eternal destiny as the redeemed and chosen child of God.” CHOSEN? CHOSEN WITH A PURPOSE AND PLAN? In YOU, is there an awareness and commitment to, “YOU shall be My WITNESSES?”, but no understanding in you that YOU ARE TO TELL THE WORLD AROUND YOU OF GOD’S SAVING GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE IN AND THROUGH CHRIST’S CALVARY’S CROSS?

I close this teaching with an old hymn entitled “Rise Up, O Men of God”, written by William Pierson Merrill and Aaron Williams, in the old “Broadman Hymnal”, (published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1940!). It says: “Rise up, O men of God, Have done with lesser things; Give heart and mind and soul and strength TO SERVE THE KING OF KINGS!

Rise, up, O men of God! His kingdom tarries long; Bring in this day of brotherhood And end the night of wrong.

Rise up, O men of God! The Church for you does wait, Her strength unequal to her task; Rise up, and make her great!

Lift high the cross of Christ! Tread where His feet have trod; As brothers of the Son of man, Rise up, O men of God!”

I don’t know how YOU respond to God’s Holy Word, but John 6:53-56 is clear, convicting, and challenging! The Lord Jesus said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him.”

In Verse 60 many of His disciples voiced a major concern: “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” Oh, but then we read in Verse 66, “From that time many of His disciples WENT BACK and WALKED WITH HIM NO MORE,” yet some still “sat” in ‘church pews’ within a ‘grain’ of commitment to “be My witnesses”! God, help us!

CHAPTER NINE

“BAD NEWS OR GOOD NEWS?”

In Proverbs 25:25 we read, “As cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a far country.” I clearly understand that, because for 25-30 years I traveled 3-6 months a year, 3 weeks to 3 months at a time, equipping, encouraging, and, I pray, inspiring pastors in their ministries, plus proclaiming the Gospel in crusades and youth ministries, and at times I needed the cold water for a weary soul.

There are times when disciples of Christ become “weary souls”, but, thank God, for the encouragers rather than the “bad news bears”! In Genesis 27:46, Rebecca said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

At the same time some become wearied, yes, even from “bad, sad, maddening news”, but they are those who understand that the “good news” CAN overcome bad circumstances and events and, for others, it’s “news” that totally disheartens them, good news or bad news. But in fact, in Galatians 6:9, Paul wrote: “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” In life’s journeys, some lose heart because they major on “bad news” rather than the “good News” of God’s grace, mercy, and love!

In Genesis 24:27 “the man” said: “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” How interesting do you personally find that! “As for me, being in the way, the Lord led me…”? Dare I say to you in beginning, “To not be in the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Christ, is to be traveling on the highway of “bad news”, yet, at the same time, some have committed to the True Way of “good news” yet willfully wander or are deceived by “the powers of darkness” and choose “rough roads” rather than the “Welcome Highway” of goodness, graciousness, and gentleness of Spirit, even satisfied, at times, to ‘taste’ the “bad news” from their “fleshly choices”!

Be assured! Holy God does not Author the “bad News” of one’s life unless that person lives with “my way” to the point he/she doesn’t care for God’s “Amazing Grace” because he/she is wedded to “what I want, not what God declares AND demands”! How many do you know who favor their own ‘religious conceit’ to the divine will of God?

“Bad News” is consistency and devotion to one’s fallen sin nature, to the “stubborn will” of what one desires and not what God commands, to the ‘false peace’ of the godless, world-citizens, who write and observe their own constitutions, void of the will of God!

There are fleshly, devilish, worldly wedges called ‘self-pride, self-will, or self-justification and approval’ of “Who I am and what I desire apart from anything your God demands,” so they willfully choose the “bad news” of “My way – I do it my way – not what your God expects!” “Bad News”? “I’m deeply in love with my natural virtues and passionate about the ways of my godless world!” “There’s nothing evil about my ‘evil thoughts’, just a little bit of the beastly and lots of the demonic that makes my godless life fun, pleasurable, and enjoyable – you Christians ought to try it sometime!” I don’t know how some see it and say it without shame, but they do: “Most of humanity spends its best hours choosing between evils that are rampant all around them – jump in, have fun,” not knowing that’s a leap into the pit of Hell with the devil’s crowd!

“Bad News”? When you turn to the Book of Revelation, in Revelation 2, the heading of my New King James Version of the Bible, entitles Revelation 2:18 and following as “The Corrupt Church”. Certainly it fitted Thyatira, but it also can be an inspired Word of conviction for any compromising church, group of Christians, or even one professing disciple of Christ! Hear it!

Revelation 2:18-29 are words from the angelic messenger over Thyatira, And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: “These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass. ‘I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first. NEVERTHELESS I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.

Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who ‘commit adultery’ with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.

Now to you I say, and to the rest in (Thyatira), as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden. But hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations – ‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’ – as I have also received from My Father, and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says TO THE CHURCHES.”

“Bad News”? My dear friend, fellow classmate and football teammate at Baylor University, from 1956-1958, seminary classmate at Southwestern Seminary also, sent me a message about 8 years ago that was Vance Havner’s sentence about the ‘average Baptist church’ that I feel now is the right time to share it with you! Havner said: “If an airplane had as many useless parts as the average Baptist church, it’d fly about as fast as a canary with a sack of wheat tied to its tail!” But dare I say it? ‘Useless parts of any church today across the USA defined with a tied tail trying to fly that bag of wheat’?

“Bad News”? THERE IS LITTLE PROCLAMATION OF “EXCEPT YOU REPENT, YOU WILL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH!” In fact, most in our modern day simply say, “Join our church – and everything will be OK!” What you see across, around, within most churches today is what Walter Chantry, in his book, “Today’s Gospel – Authentic Or Synthetic?”, wrote about: “in love for souls, true evangelicals invariably present some profound truths in their witnessing. Yet by THE UNCONSCIOUS OMMISSION OF ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS OF THE GOSPEL, many fail to communicate even that portion of God’s Word which they meant to convey. When a half truth is presented as the whole truth, it becomes an untruth.”

“REPENT!” Really? Is that in a church’s ‘salvation’ presentation? “FORSAKE!” Really? Isaiah 55:7-9 clearly says, God Himself speaking, proclaiming, informing: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; LET HIM RETURN TO THE LORD, and He (the Lord Himself) will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, now are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heaven are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” AND THE FLESHLY PROUD UNBELIEVER SHAKES HIS FIST AGAINST HOLY GOD, AND TURNS TO HIS SINFUL WORLD TO SATISFY HIS ‘FLESH’ OR OLD, ADAMIC SIN-NATURE! And the fleshly sinner turns away from Holy God’s merciful invitation, trying to be ‘happy’ in himself rather than knowing “the Joy of the Lord”!

It was H.W.Webb-Peploe, in Kurt Bruner’s “Inklings of God”, (p.21) who said, “Joy is not gush; joy is not jolliness. Joy is perfect acquiescence in God’s will because the soul delights itself in God Himself.” Bruner closed out his book, saying, (p.193), “Every religion reminds me that I am made for more. Every religion reaches for God. Every religion offers to make the wrong right again. But only one religion, Christianity, is honest enough to tell me that I can’t solve my own problem. I can’t obey enough rules, offer enough sacrifices, or become enlightened enough to rise above the wretchedness around and within me. All I can do is humbly accept the redemption offered by the One who made me for more and who heroically sacrificed Himself on my behalf. It’s like the preacher told me when I was seven. I am a sinner who needs to be saved.”

Life without the Redeemer, the Atoner, the Savior and Lord, is a life like a bronze statue but void of God’s eternal Presence in and through Christ Jesus. Because to come to Him is to confess: “Without His Resurrection Life and Presence within me, I have no hope, no peace, no eternal purpose – I just ‘counterfeit’ what I have determined is my purpose and my chosen intent!” And Bruner, later in his book, used powerful, convicting words: (p94), “…air out of the illusion of adult omniscience.” And the problem with most of the unregenerate world? Daniel 5 tells us about “Belshazzar’s feast”, and Verses 3-4, unveils, not only an idolatrous worship then but unfolds what, I believe, the Spirit of God sees today in a lot of churches! “Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God which had been in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.”

Dare I tell you that that ‘religious observance’, like much across the religious world today, is like ‘another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority’ – Revelation 18:1, and the earth (the present religious systems!) is now or will be soon “illuminated with his glory.” And he cried mightily: Verses 3-8, “For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and GOD HAS REMEMBERED HER INIQUITIES! [But today? Most in ‘churchianity’ profess “Glad our sins have been forgiven and that the loving God understands we can’t do anything but sin until we get to Heaven!”] HOW PHONY IS THAT, even to the words of Jesus: “Go, and sin no more!” (John 8:10-12!).

Three things out of John 8:10-12! 1. “Sin no more” because Christ Jesus says so! 2. “Sin no more” because of what sin does! 3. “Sin no more” because “sin” promotes “fleshliness” of the old sin nature that Christ took to the Cross – Christ Jesus gives, after repentance toward God and faith in His finished work at the Cross the “new life” of liberty and freedom from sin and the sin-nature bondage with His Presence within to be released as with Paul we “take the sentence of death to ourselves that His Resurrected Life will be manifested in our mortal flesh”!

False ‘religious hopes’ and ‘carnal mind-twisting of the Scriptures’, vague resemblances, cheap imitation, fleshly, fallible persuasions, a “give your best” mandate substituting what Christ did at the Cross for what one sees him/her capable of doing in one’s outer countenance and personal determination, puts many on ‘dirt roads’ rather than the Christ-constructed “Highway of Holiness”! And this ‘spirit’, this attitude, this fleshly-minded determination , may be why God inspired through Paul, in 2 Corinthians 13:5-6, to write: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves – that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified, [Paul and the co-laborers traveling with him!].

Hear me! There are blessed assurances in the Word to the true believer who “leans not (even) to his own understanding, but in all his/her ways they acknowledge their “only hope” is Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and moment by moment abiding with the true “born-again believer”, saying, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.” Glory!

Paul said in Galatians 1:15-16, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and CALLED ME THROUGH HIS GRACE, to reveal His Son in me…,” with John saying in 1 John 3:24, “Now he who keeps His (Christ’s) commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”

We know! Do you? Serious assurance and confidence flows out of the child of the King because they repent, they rest in His Resurrection presence with them, in them, through them, no longer ‘self-deceived hypocrites’, but living daily, yes, even moment by moment, “Lord, what do You desire to do in me and through me – I’m Yours?” And YOU KNOW you’ve been drawn to Him because YOU KNOW that you were born again, not of the will of men, but of God!” (John 1:13). Do you understand Ezekial 36:25-27, AND receive it? The Lord God speaks! “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean (real water or the water of the Word?); I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

Glory! A walk of grace, of divine favor, of the supernatural power of the Spirit of God!

I close with a writing I assume, by Max Lucado in his book, “In The Grace of God”, (Copyright, 1996 by Max Lucado, W Publishing Group, A division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. www. Thomas Nelson. Com). It’s entitled “What a God!” (p.55):

“Ponder the achievement of God.

He doesn’t condone our sin, nor does He compromise His standard.

He doesn’t ignore our rebellion, nor does He relax His demands.

Rather than dismiss our sin, He assumes our sin and, incredibly, sentences Himself.

God’s holiness is honored. Our sin is punished… and we are redeemed.

God does what we cannot do so we can be what we dare not dream: perfect before God.”

DO YOU UNDERSTAND? GOD’S GRACE IS GREATER THAN ALL OUR SIN!

William Hunter and J.H. Stockton wrote the old hymn, “The Great Physician”. It’s found in the Broadman Hymnal of Broadman Press, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee. It says: “The great Physician now is near, The sympathizing Jesus; He speaks the drooping heart to cheer, Oh, hear the voice of Jesus.

Your many sins are all forgiven, Oh, hear the voice of Jesus; Go on your way in peace to heaven, And wear a crown with Jesus.

All glory to the dying Lamb! I now believe in Jesus; I love the blessed Savior’s name, I love the name of Jesus.

Sweetest note in seraph song, Sweetest name on mortal tongue; Sweetest carol ever sung, Jesus, blessed Jesus.” AMEN?

CHAPTER NINE

CONFLICTING LOYALTY OR ALL-CONSUMING LOVE?

Conflicting Loyalty? Is that saying one thing but doing another? Is that the demonstration of divided allegiance? Is that the picture vividly being painted on one’s ‘life-canvas’ of one foot in heaven and the other foot touching the outer limits of hell itself?

Conflicting Loyalty? Is that, “Yes, Sir,” to the General or “Do as I please” to the corp? Is that public dedication to be honorable and godly to the vows you make to your wife to be but then you feel at liberty to play the field of available women?

Conflicting Loyalty? Is that a vow of dedication to be honest in your school or university exams but you determine the best way to ‘cheat’ on your exams? Be assured, every day there will be a ‘test’!

Conflicting Loyalty? Is that a president’s public oath to defend, uphold his nation’s constitution but daily, verbally, and in his deeds, he shreds every page he can? Conflicting Loyalty? You’ve hear it! “Yes, I believe the Bible is divinely inspired, God-breathed, Holy Word, but I also believe my devotion to it is an option I hold for myself!” Conflicting Loyalty? Have you ever witnessed an elected national representative or senator talk about his firm belief in liberty and freedom but continually votes for policies that enslaves, endanger s his constituents?

Conflicting Loyalty? “Oh, yes! One man – one woman for life,” but then voices support of men with men and women with women in gross violation of God’s Holy Word – and the sad thing is public support of immorality continues in the U.S.A.!

Conflicting Loyalty? “I’m a devoted kind of guy – He can count on me,” but stumbles, falls, rebels on the first lap with no intention of getting up! Conflicting Loyalty? You’ve seen him/her so consumed by worldly ambition that ‘The Kingdom of God’ is squeezed out by an undaunted intent of “making a name for myself”, and glorifying the Lord takes a back seat!

Conflicting Loyalty? “The high cost of following Jesus? I thought this was a ‘free ride’, but I’ll do what I feel at ease to do, whatever pleases me, even if my choices close the door to Him!”

Conflicting Loyalty? Many professing disciples become totally disappointed, disillusioned, even despairing because they believed they were called to ‘give my best’ – they do, then get a failing grade because true discipleship has nothing to do with ‘our best’ but Christ’s best! Denying ‘self’ for some is asking way too much!

Conflicting Loyalty? “I WILL uphold my devotion to Christ and be a staunch warrior defending the faith,” but after several skirmishes, peer pressure, or procrastination, it takes a damaging toll!

Remember the son born blind and then healed by Jesus? The Pharisees had come to his parents asking about his blindness: “We don’t know how – ask him – he’s of age to answer for himself!” And John 9:22 says: “His parents said these things because they feared the Jews…”. They didn’t want to be put out of the synagogue!

Conflicting Loyalty? You’ll remember that Jesus said: “Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.” There are those “who want to” but the price appears extremely steep! Spurgeon said: “A life in which we have shunned the cross of Christ will lead to a state in which we shall miss the crown of glory.”

Conflicting Loyalty? In relationships between man to man, sometimes compromise has benefits, but to seek to “compromise” God’s revealed Truth breeds disaster! To compromise our Lord’s commands is to acknowledge disobedience and to stand under God’s judgment. To compromise is to decay obedience and to bring on a deterioration of morals, if one had any! To compromise is to vacate privilege. To compromise is to willingly slice off those parts of “unpleasant truths” that you sense “don’t fit my personality and make-up of who I know I am!”

Conflicting Loyalty? Spurgeon, in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Memorial Library, Vol.19, p.359], has a message entitled “No Compromise.” Spurgeon said: “The new plan is to assimilate the church to the world, and so include a larger area within its bounds. By semi-dramatic performances they make houses of prayer to approximate the theatre; they turn their services into musical displays, and their sermons into political harangues or philosophical essays – in fact, they exchange the temple for the theatre, and turn the ministers of God into actors, whose business it is to amuse men. Is it not so, that the Lord’s Day is becoming more and more a day of recreation or of idleness, and the Lord’s house either a joss-house full of idols, or a political club, where there is more enthusiasm for a party than zeal for God.” “Lord, help us!”

Conflicting Loyalty? How many people have crossed your paths “in church” who are more at ease with church as a combat zone than a celebration of Jesus? Divisiveness is their strong “suit”, opposition their true bonnet they wear regularly, commitment to their way fighting the pastor and God’s true people to the death in one bitter struggle after another! Proverbs 21:2 says, “All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart.”

Conflicting Loyalty? Oh, they play the religious game as “one cool dude,” calloused to the core, with willingly closed eyes to anything but their way or the highway! [Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. ‘Eat and drink,’ he says to you, but his heart is not with you.”

Conflicting Loyalty? You’ve witnessed it, no doubt: Intellectual attainments in one’s mind of their understanding of the Bible, God’s Holy Word, often becoming nothing more to them but crippling beliefs! “Thus says the Lord” is translated: “As I see it…!”

Conflicting Loyalty? Effort apart from transformation by repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross creates despair for them, not deliverance, healing, or salvation!

Conflicting Loyalty? A change in outward behavior is not the spiritual circumcision of the heart! Romans 2:28-29 tells us: “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew (true Jew!) who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.”

Conflicting Loyalty? Reaching up, reaching high, is not the same as being raised from the dead (spiritual death!) by God’s power! Look at 1 Corinthians 15:14-19! Verse 14 & fl.: “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up – if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”

Conflicting Loyalty? Sinful natures are not cloaked with religious garments, religious conversations, or religious activities, but “Crucified with Christ” is the ‘death-nail’ to sinful natures! Galatians 2:20-21a is so clear! “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God…”

Conflicting Loyalty? You’ve heard it or witnessed it! “I’m a man so devoted to the costly bricks and mortar, the lights and stained glass, of our beautiful church,” failing to understand his body is God’s holy temple because of His grace, mercy, and love! 1 Corinthians 6:19 boldly declares: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” I hate to tell you, but Paul already scared the Hell out of a lot of Corinthian pretenders! He had said in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” IF YOU’VE BEEN BORN AGAIN!

Conflicting Loyalty? “Discipline and self-determination are the marks of an award-winning follower of Christ.” No! The mark of a true disciple is one “set apart by God Himself for Himself”, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use!

Conflicting Loyalty? “Fig leaves” fashionable sophistication, proper outward attire, educated common sense, band-aids rather than ‘heart transplants’, a manly ticker-ing with myself on my terms, Ali’s style: “Superman don’t need no seat-belt!” Look at Matthew 13:15! “For the hearts of the people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed (Is that ‘religious Jews’ who crucified Christ?), Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, SO THAT I (HOLY GOD!) should heal them.”

Conflicting Loyalty? I love what John Eldridge said in his book, “Waking The dead” – so on target! [p.161], “Religion and its defenders have always been the most insidious enemy of the true faith precisely because they are not glaring opponents; they are IMPOSTERS.” Insidious? Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines “insidious” as: “lying in wait; watching for an opportunity to ensnare and entrap; deceitful, treacherous…”

Conflicting Loyalty? It’s not ‘fate’ but faith, fellowship, freedom, fullness, and a fight! Personal fate is out to steal God’s glory! Anarchy becomes a substitution for the Blood Atonement! T.S. Eliot sorrowfully lamented: “Endless invention, endless experiment, brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; knowledge of speech, but not of silence; knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?” [Out of “Choruses from the Rock.”].

Conflicting Loyalty? Have you chosen the sanctified life or the starving life because to be without Christ as Lord and Savior, to be without the Bread of Life is shrinking, starving, and shriveling up! Jesus said: “I have come that you might have Life and have it more abundantly!”

Conflicting Loyalty? “Temptation is not a trap – it’s an opportunity of discerning what I really want or not.” Oh, really? James 1:13-15 says: “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

Conflicting Loyalty? “Pressure, pressure, pressure! This job is so demanding – I’ going to have to ‘cut corners’ somewhere, somehow, even if it’s wrong!” Hudson Taylor had difficult trials he had to face up to – he wrote out of that hard moment: “It doesn’t matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is WHERE THE PRESSURE LIES – whether it comes between you and God or whether it presses you nearer His heart.” NEVER LET PRESSURE TO CAUSE YOU TO PASS BY, OVERLOOK, OR SHUT OUT JESUS HIMSELF FROM YOUR STRESSFUL MOMENT!

Conflicting Loyalty? That’s when courage is called for but one allows cowardice to call the shots! No doubt this is why the famous Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in “East and West”, [New York, Harper & Row, 1980, p45], “Must one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end.”

Conflicting Loyalty? It was Martin Luther who once said: “The ultimate proof of the sinner is that he does not know his own sin.” Please read carefully from Jerry Falwell’s “25 of the Greatest Sermons Ever Preached,” [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, p.18], a quote of George Whitfield from his famous message, “The Method of Grace”, based on Jeremiah 6:14! Whitfield said: “As God can send a nation or people no greater blessing than to give them faithful, sincere, and upright ministers, so the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm, and unskilled guides. And yet, in all ages, we find that there have been many wolves in sheep’s clothing…that prophesied smoother things than God did allow.”

Conflicting Loyalty? I was reading recently Dr. James Kennedy’s and Jerry Newcombe’s book, “Cross Purposes.” [Multonomal Publ., 2007, pps.25-26]. “When I was in seminary, I went to a jail to preach the gospel to those who were locked inside. I had never been to a place like that to preach, and I must say I was a little unnerved by it. I was sent into a big room where I was separated by bars from probably a dozen prisoners. As they were milling around, I started to talk to them. I probably hadn’t gotten two minutes into my talk when one of the largest inmates suddenly came to the bars (which I was happy were there at that point) and said to me, “Mister, you just go tell that God of yours all I want from Him is what I deserve!”….”Sir,” I replied. “if you got what you deserved from God, the floor would open up right where you stand and drop you straight into hell, for that is precisely what you deserve. I don’t say that because you’re behind these bars while I’m outside them, because that is what we all deserve. If we got our just deserts, we would each and every one be condemned – because, you see, we’re actually already condemned. Christ said of the whole human race, “You are condemned already.” (John 3:18!). Dare I tell You that the “condemned” are already pardoned, but most accept their “bars” rather than His mercy and grace!

Let me “shift gears”! I pray “conflicting loyalty” never becomes the pattern in your life but that “by faith and obedience to it” you appropriate our Lord’s “All-Consuming Love”!

The Scripture I feel so led by our Lord to share with you in this moment is Romans 8:35-39 where Paul wrote: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet IN ALL THESE THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I don’t know how you read the above passage, but the one thing I’m sure of is the fact there are those who would like to “separate” you from Christ Jesus! “The love of Christ” is an offense to Satan and the powers of darkness; “the love of Christ” is a stumbling block to those who would be reconciled to God on their terms; “the love of Christ” becomes contemptible to some because they don’t receive God in Christ Who FIRST loved us; “the love of Christ” separates some because relationship to Holy God, they think, is merited, earned, rewarded by what THEY DO – not what CHRIST HAS DONE ONCE FOR ALL AT THE CROSS!; “the love of Christ” infuriates some because “my behavior should be recognized by God, rewarding me because of my undaunted radiance in ‘self-performance’ – I shine brighter than even Jesus who was called “the Light of the world.”

Love for God is not manufactured in a fallen man’s heart or mind! It’s why John wrote in 1 John 4:19, “We love Him because He first loved us.”

There has never been man, woman, boy, or girl, inclined to love God and be His follower and devoted servant. The darkness of one’s being, unredeemed, has never produced ‘new life’ but only His amazing love transforms our darkness into His Life and Liberty and Light and Love! It is very, very clear throughout all the Word of God that any man who does not passionately love God, because God FIRST loved him, has never truly known Him or been ‘birthed’ into a family of faith relationship!

And ‘if’ we have been ‘birthed’ into a family of faith relationship, does that mean our ‘LIFE-STYLE’ is unconditional love of others? In 1 John 4:10-11 we read: “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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Spurgeon was a very bold, brilliant preacher and student of God’s Word. In his ninth volume of Spurgeon’s Sermons, [pps.307-308], he wrote: “Now no man is a Christian who does not love Christians. He, who, being in the church, is yet not of it heart and soul, is but an intruder in the family. But since love to our brethren springs out of love to our one common Father, it is plain that we must have love to that Father, or else we shall fail in one of the indispensable marks of the children of God: “We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren;” but we cannot truly love the brethren unless we love the Father; therefore, lacking love to God, we lack love to the church, which is an essential mark of grace.”

There are two verses in John 1 that we need to put together! John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Then look at Verse 18! “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made Him known.”

Do you see it? THE WORD [EMMANUEL, ‘GOD IN FLESH’] BECAME FLESH! AND THE GOD WE’D NEVER KNOWN BECAME CLESARLY VISIBLE!! All of a sudden, flashing before us like 10,000 rays of the Sun is Jesus! GOD IS LIGHT! GOD IS LOVE! GOD IS LIBERTY! GOD LIFTS US OUT OF DESPAIR TO A THRONE OF GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE! Didn’t Paul tell us through his Colossians letter: “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God.” [Colossians 1:15], and then Colossians 1:22 says: “For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”

“Wondrous love so full of Life, Wondrous Love subsiding strife, Wondrous Love to us is given, Wondrous Love translates to Heaven. Wondrous Love, there rings the Bell, Wondrous Love delivered us from Hell. Wondrous Love, Jesus came to show God, Jesus, and the Spirit One in the Same. Wondrous Love to set us free, No longer a captive of Satan to be. Wondrous Love, God’s Son was groaning, because of His Love from sin Atoning!” Paul said in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners CHRIST DIED FOR US,” What an AWESOME REVELATION! The word ‘demonstrates’ is from a Greek word meaning “to commend, establish, stood near, consists” or “holds together”! In Ephesians 4 Paul had been talking about “the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ,” Verse 12, and then said in Verse 15, “but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – Verse 16, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” NOW…

How do we rationally, faithfully, responsibly, practically, put all this together to honor God’s faithfulness to us?

• GOD HIMSELF PROVED, COMMENDED, DEMONSTRATED HIS LOVE TOWARD ALL MEN! What does John 3:16 say? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
• GOD KNEW, UNDERSTOOD, GRASPED THE SORROWFUL TRUTH THAT MEN’S SIN BROUGHT SEPARATION FROM HIM! I don’t know who wrote it, but they sure understood sin’s consequence ! “Sin is man’s declaration of independence of God.” It was John Bunyan in “The Pilgrim’s Progress” who wrote: “”One leak will sink a ship; and one sin will destroy the sinner,” and God’s intent is to resurrect dead, destroyed sinners who have been separated from His eternal love!
• GOD SOVEREIGNLY DETERMINED ONLY A SINLESS SACRIFICE WAS SUFFICIENT, SUPREMELY EFFECTIVE, TO SAVE SINFUL MAN FROM HIMSELF, HIS SIN, AND RECONCILE HIM TO HOLY GOD! Romans 6:23 tells us, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul had told the church at Rome, and us, in Romans 5:21, “so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Oh, then Paul really dispelled the phoniness of some modern-day teachings, that Christians can’t do anything but sin until they get to heaven! Romans 6:1-3, 10 says: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Verse 10, For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”

Oh, and, yes, please read carefully, contemplate, receive, and stand on Oswald Chambers’ words about Romans 5:10 which says: “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,” Chambers saying, “The salvation of God does not stand on human logic, it stands on the sacrificial death of Christ Jesus. We can be born again because of the Atonement of our Lord. Sinful men and sinful women can be changed into new creatures, not by their repentance or their belief, but by the marvelous work of God in Christ Jesus which is prior to all experience. The impregnable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We have not to work out these things for ourselves; they have been worked out by the Atonement. The supernatural becomes natural by the miracle of God; there is the realization of what Jesus Christ has already done – “It is finished”!

God’s Heavenly Love made practical for us? 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

• AMAZING LOVE? GOD IN CHRIST “DIED ON THE CROSS” FOR YOU! Amazing love? If you were the only person who had ever lived – past, present, future – on the Cross Jesus would have died there JUST FOR YOU! “God commended His love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, CHRIST DIED FOR US!” Can YOU say, “Christ died for me”?

I don’t know how you respond to that, but in Job 42:5-6 we read: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” To see Jesus on the Cross dying just for you, is to see yourself as God sees you, yet He loves you anyway – and PROVES HIS LOVE!

Dr. James Kennedy, in his book, “The Presence of a Hidden God,” [p.191], wrote: “Just imagine for a moment that God were NOT love. Suppose, instead, that God were a cosmic ogre, playing with people like grasshoppers in a bottle – suppose God were a demon, filled with malevolent hatred, or suppose God were an impersonal force, like fate or some machine that had no feeling, no sympathy whatsoever toward mankind.”

But THAT’S NOT OUR GOD OF CALVARY’S CROSS! Oh, there are those who truly wish God were dead, but even to them the Cross and empty tomb still stand as expressions of eternal love for eternal fools! “The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God’!” But, history stands: Our God is the God who will not die – we serve a Risen Savior!

You need to know it if you haven’t heard it: “We love Him because He first loved us!”

An old hymn says it like this: “See, from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingling down; Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

Do you understand? It’s only in seeing Jesus suffer, bleed and die for our sins that one truly discovers, discerns, and depends on the love of God! Here’s how Spurgeon put it long ago: [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.9, p.311],

“Again, our love to God does not spring from the self-determining power of the will. I greatly question whether anything does in the world, good or bad. There are some who set up the will as a kind of deity – it does as it wills with earth and heaven; but in truth the will is not a master but a servant. To the sinner his will is a slave; and in the saint, although the will is set free, it is still blessedly under bonds to God. Men do not will a thing because they will it, but because their affections, their passions, or their judgments influence their wills in that direction. No man can stand up and say, “I, unbiased and unaided, will to love God and I will not love Satan.” Such proud self-assuming language would prove him a liar; the man would be clearly a worshipper of himself. A man can only love God when he has perceived some reasons for doing so; and the first argument for loving God, which influences the intellect so as to turn the affections, is the reason mentioned in the text: ‘We love Him because He first loved us.”

God Himself established forever His love for you as Jesus suffered, bled, and died on the Cross! God demonstrated! God proved His love for YOU at Calvary! Now, how is that awesome understanding maintained productively and efficiently day by day? Look at Romans 5:5! “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been POURED OUT IN OUR HEARTS BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO WAS GIVEN TO US.”

History! Historic presence and power! Romans 5:6 then says, “For when we were still without strength (“helpless”), in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” We were without strength, helpless, hopeless in ourselves – “but Christ died for the ungodly.” We were “enemies” but reconciled to God through the death of His Son, Romans 5:10, and having been reconciled, “we shall be [being] saved by His life.”

History? John Piper, in his book “The Pleasures of God,” [p.165], wrote: “Jesus wants us to see that His willingness to lose His life is because of His love for the glory of the Father.” He then quoted John 17:4, Jesus speaking to the Father, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.”

Then Piper said: “All of Jesus’ work was designed to honor the worth of His Father’s glory. Everything Jesus suffered, He suffered for the sake of God’s glory. Therefore, all His pain and shame and humiliation and dishonor served to magnify the Father’s glory, because they showed how infinitely valuable God’s glory is, that such a loss should be suffered to demonstrate its worth.”

And what about your life, your walk, your calling, your purpose? Is it to honor the worth of the Father’s glory? How did Paul put it? 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Let me close this chapter with words again from Oswald Chambers out of “My Utmost For His Highest.” (p.238). “The tendency is to look for the marvelous in our experience; we mistake the sense of the heroic for being heroes. It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, no one paying the remotest attention to us. If we do not want mediaval haloes, we want something that will make people say – ‘What a wonderful man of prayer he is! What a pious devoted woman she is!’ If you are rightly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have rightly reached the sublime height where no one ever thinks of noticing you, all that is noticed is that the power of God comes through you all the time.” Revelation 1:4-5 is John’s hymn of praise! “Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood…” AMEN?

CHAPTER TEN

THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF LOVE?

Sacred, holy marriage is not unpredictable but assured because the Christian commitment is in the ‘spirit of Christ’ who laid His life down for all, not the few! “God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son!” Giving in marriage Sacred, holy marriage is not unpredictable but assured because the Christian, yielding to, clinging to, devoted to, is not a ‘sacred vow’ one makes “if everything goes well or goes ‘my way’”!

There are interesting Verses in Matthew 18:3-4 when Jesus said to His new disciples, “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.”

But is there “the kingdom of marriage” planned, instituted, and blessed by Almighty God with the clear understanding of marriages’ predictability of unending love as man and wife, before Holy God, who consecrate themselves and their marriage to Him and to each other?

Oh, but then in Matthew 18:4 God identifies why for some THERE IS “the unpredictability of love”! “Therefore whoever humbles himself (herself) as this little child IS the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Are there those who do NOT humble themselves before God, “in marriages”, because ‘self-rule, fleshly desires, and warped biblical understandings let the flesh do as it pleases’?

I’ve often wondered, over my 80 years of life, having lost my family at the age of three, taken by my mother to live with her parents, my grandparents, from age three to twelve. But then my mother married again and took me to live with her and my step-dad. And I lived day by day filled with doubt if I’d truly be loved in the spirit of Christ’s ‘predictable love’ –“I’ll never leave you nor forsake you”! And His predictable love never faltered or failed, faithfully released through my grandparents, their two daughters, one six years older than me, the younger only two years older than me – and they were stout witnesses on His unending love and grace and mercy!

And, of course, in a world of ‘free will’, men and women sometimes live with, yes, the ‘unpredictability of love’ because they choose to be ‘lord’ over their own destinies! What did Jesus say in Matthew 18:3? “…unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Of course, the question of the here and now is, is there “the kingdom of heaven in marriage, and do I or we enter it with or without that assurance that Holy God will bless, oversee, and fulfill His promises to us and through us, as we stand true to our ‘sacred vows’”?

I really find it interesting and informative to read Paul saying in Galatians 4:19, “My little children, for whom I labor in birth (pains?) again until Christ is formed in you.” Just as in the spiritual realm of babyhood in Christ, children in Christ, youth in Christ, and adulthood in Christ, is it true in marriage, that there is a path and pilgrimage in the journey that, yes, REQUIRES patience, steadfastness, and heavenly glee over every new step of maturing as we “grow in grace” in ‘marital blessing’ and ‘marital fulfillment’, and ‘marital pleasure’?

But some step into the holy ground of marriage with only ‘my will, my pleasure as I define it, my desire for what I want in my marriage’, not the good, acceptable, or perfect will of God!

Reading through Jeremiah recently, I saw in Jeremiah 4:1 a very powerful word from God that I believe relates not only to national blessing in submitting wholly to God’s will, but, yes, even in marriage! God spoke through the prophet saying, “If you will return, O Israel,” says the Lord, “Return to Me; and if you will put away your abominations out of My sight, THEN YOU SHALL NOT BE MOVED.”

Is it possible that in marriage some “CHOOSE” to fall away from the very Spirit of Sovereign God and choose to live by the ‘best’ and the ‘worst’ of fallen flesh rather than the Word, the will, and the Spirit of God Himself, experiencing not, ‘shall not be moved’, but seeing the foundation of biblical faith in marriage ignored, denied, or overlooked and ‘moved away’ from true devotion to one another? And Jeremiah 4:2 then says, “And you shall swear, ‘The Lord lives,’ in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness,” with God then saying, “The nations (including the sovereign nation of marriage’?) SHALL BLESS THEMSELVES IN HIM, AND IN HIM THEY SHALL ‘GLORY’.”

I love Oswald Chambers’ word in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest”, (p.269), when he said, “The battle is lost or won in the secret places of the will before God, never first in the external world ( world of the flesh- control rather than Spirit or Word controlled! JFF). The Spirit of God apprehends me and I am obliged to get alone with God and fight the battle out before Him. Until this is done, I lose every time (barring divine will and Spirit and glorifying ‘flesh’ and ‘selfishness’ even in the sacredness of marriage! JFF). The battle may take one minute or a year, that will depend on me, not on God; but it must be wrestled out alone before God, and I must RESOLUTELY go through the hell of a renunciation (of ‘selfishness’ in one’s marriage JFF) before God. Nothing has any power over the man (and I say his marriage! JFF) who has fought out the battle before God and won there.” ( But don’t you find Chambers’ words very strange across the marriage world of the U.S.A. today?)

In the Chicago Tribune, Heidi Stevens, Contact Reporter of Tribune Newspapers said: “With more Americans than ever saying ‘I Don’t’ to marriage, it’s time to reinvent the institution.” In her October 7, 2014 article she said: “Fewer Americans are married than ever before, and a growing percentage are happy to stay unhitched.” She went on:

“A Pew Research Center analysis of 2012 census data found that one in five adults age 25 and older – roughly 42 million people – have never been married, meaning the United States is made up of a historically high number of single people. (In 1960 by comparison just one in 10 adults 25 and older had never been hitched).”

In her article she quoted Susan Pease Gadoua, licensed therapist and co-author of “The New ‘I Do’: Reshaping Marriage For Sceptics, Realists, and Rebels.” (Seal Press). She said: “Analysts cite such factors as the rising median age for first marriages, an increased acceptance of cohabitation, and difficult economic times for the increase in singles. But our views of marriage – an institution celebrated and sanctified in every real from the spiritual to the retail – are changing too. When analyzing the census figures, Pew researchers asked people how valuable marriage is for society at large. A full 50 per cent of respondents said society is ‘just as well off if people have other priorities’.” That, my friend, is a shocking observation!

But, do YOU believe “marriage” is a sacred institution, a strong center of witness to the glory of God, in a marriage where both husband and wife live together to honor and glorify Him in and through their holy marriage? The day a husband and wife say, “I Do”, that’s the day, in that present moment and every day to follow, when mutually they agree, “We’re united together to glorify Him in our marriage!” There is an interesting, convicting, awakening Word in Hebrews 13:4, when the author, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote: “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed, undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”

And don’t you find it so enlightening to continue in Hebrews 13:5-6 when the author wrote: “Let your conduct (in marriage?) be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say:

‘THE LORD IS MY (OUR?) HELPER; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” Or, maybe, ‘What can my mate do to me to obliterate ABIDING LOVE, SOVEREIGN OVERSIGHT, AND FAITHFUL PROVISION OF WHAT IT TAKES TO HONOR HIM THROUGH YOUR MARRIAGE IN YOUR, YES, SERVANT SPIRIT”? Didn’t Christ Jesus say, “I didn’t come to be served but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for the many”?

It was just today that I heard Roberta Flack’s singing of the song “EVER I SAW YOUR FACE” (by Evan Mccoll by way of THE ROYAL NETWORK INC.). I have chosen to change the words from her chosen male love to the LOVE of the Glory and Honor of God through His redemptive work by Christ on Calvary’s Cross. My edited words?

“The first time I saw Your face, I thought the Son rose in (or through Your eyes). And the moon and stars were the gifts You gave, To the dark and endless, eternal skies.

The first time I ever kissed Your (hand) I felt the earth move in my heart! Like the trembling heart of a captive bird That was there at the time you COMMENDED AND COMMANDED Your love to me.

And the first time I ever “rested” in You I felt Your heart so one in mine, And I knew Your joy would fill the earth and last forever, my greatest love…

The first time ever I saw Your face, Your face, Your face…I knew I was covered by Your grace!” Amen?

I feel led to share a letter my wife Sue wrote to her mother, probably 10-15 years before her mother died. The mother, having read the letter, gave it to Sue’s sister, Amy Rodgers, probably to alert the younger daughter of her sister’s ‘radical’ views of New Testament ‘discipleship’ –( unsure of why Virginia did that). But…Sue wrote:

Dear Mother, I sure hope you are better! Margaret (the one who drove me to the doctor), called me yesterday and Jamie, her oldest daughter has bronchial pneumonia. When Stan (our second son) had pneumonia when he was a child, they took a smear of mucous from his nose to determine the kind of medicine to use. Did they do that with you?

The Millers (the judge from Oklahoma) and their two children came back through and spent Saturday night with us, so they could go to the Bible Study at Thomas Baird’s Sunday morning (Thomas being a lead attorney in his law firm and co-elder with Farrell in our fellowship in Belton). And Susan and Ted Owenby to go with us, too. (They had left at 5a.m.). Farrell had smoked a turkey Saturday and I made dressing and fixed green beans and new potatoes, and triffle for dessert. So we had that Saturday night with the Millers and Sunday noon again with the Millers and Owenbys. The Millers left Sunday afternoon and the Owenbys left Tuesday afternoon.

So I spent yesterday cleaning house to get ready for the Bible study group last night. And Farrell studied, cleaned the carpet in the trailer, and started building a sidewalk up from the steps to the back gate. He built a frame and dug up all the grass and leveled it off. And he’s going to lay flat stones and concrete.

Our garden is doing great. We will have a lot of yellow squash by this weekend and we have lots of tomatoes about the size of grapes and lots more blooms. The beans, cucumbers, peppers, and zucchini squash have lots of blooms, too. And we got some onions yesterday, and should start getting potatoes next week. The okra is coming along, but needs more hot weather. And we have lots and lots of greens!

Farrell and I saw the dermatologist Tuesday and we look like we’ve been in a fight and both lost! He burned off places on Farrell’s face and arms. He then cut off and burned off moles on my neck, chest and mid-drift. And then removed a lot of the whiteheads between my brows. We are a sight!

Stan and LeAnn are coming down for Monday and Tuesday and Zach is going to stay with us until Friday. Farrell is supposed to preach at a church in Dallas Sunday the 21^st, so we’ll take him back with us, and spend the weekend up there. We are supposed to leave for Montana with Vaughn and Joyce Baird.

We are looking forward to the trip, but dread those long days of riding. But we really want to see that part of the country. I just have to figure out how to take a “tee-tee pot” or wear adult diapers!

Mother, I enjoyed having you here so much. And you have a home here where you would be welcome and loved if you ever want it or need it.

I know that what we are all about (in the “faith-realm”) is a real puzzle to you, and I wish I could help you understand. You think that we are against everything and critical of everything and everybody. And I am so sorry it comes across that way. I want to give you a simple illustration. If you were driving down a road and discovered the bridge was out and that if anyone went over it, it would mean certain death. Wouldn’t you flag cars down and do all you could to warn the drivers of the danger ahead? Now you might look a little crazy out in the middle of the road flapping your arms and screaming, and some folks might choose to go right on by you, as they discuss that crazy person out in the road. And they might even roll up their windows and lock their car doors “to protect themselves” from the nut in the road.

Well, the bridge is out – it has been out for a long time, and we are the “nuts” out in the road, warning of the washed-out bridge of true, redemptive faith in and through Christ alone! And we aren’t alone, though sometimes it seems like it! It is happening all over this country and the other countries we have visited. People are meeting in homes, barns, gyms, store fronts etc. sharing their lives, studying God’s Word, weeping over and praying for the church (not only ‘criticizing’ as some say, but exposing extreme errors in their ‘faith’)! Some we stand with are so hungry for “GOD” and “REALITY OF THE TRUE FAITH” that they refuse to play the religious ‘games’ any longer. They refuse to close their eyes and stick their heads in the sand and say something is working that does not work – call it powerful when it is weak and helpless, call it alive when it is dead, and has been dead for years! Paul said that in his day and beyond men would have a “form” of Godliness, but denying its power. A form of Godliness is not Godliness! But it causes great deception and gives a false ease and a false peace. I heard a homosexual on the news the other day, dying of aids, saying it would soon be over and he would be in heaven. Yet the Scripture is real blunt and says NO homosexuals will be in heaven. But the churches say “God is love” and we must love and we must not criticize and judge. Most churches won’t dare tell anyone they are going to Hell, so the homosexuals and lesbians, most of them without true repentance and life- change through Christ’s shed blood, die and go to Hell “thinking” they are going to heaven. That is not love if one denies God’s Truth! Denying Truth is rebellion to God and His Word. So they shake their fists in God’s face and saying His way and Truth isn’t right, “we have a right to be what WE want!” But the “bridge of Truth” is still out for many and they go over the self-determined brink and perish in Hell!

We saw it experientially for years and then began to see it in the Holy Word, Old and New Testament. It didn’t sneak up on God! The prophets of old prophesied about the declining, compromising, ‘flesh-approving’ churches! Proverbs calls her “the strange woman, the whore, the harlot” – claiming to be married to the Lord and in bed with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with sin and every evil thing.

Look at Colossians 3:5-10. In Verse 5 Paul said that immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed are all idolatry! My, my, I thought for years that idols were only in foreign countries. Then, I think it is in Romans, that Paul said that there are demons behind every idol, and that, when you participate in what God hates, you are actually worshipping demons.

The condition of the homes and children and youth of many ‘church’ parents is evidence enough! But the condition of our whole country screams out that “the church is dying or dead already”! The upsurge of Satan worship is the result of the absence of God in too many churches – no power, no truth, no help – only a ‘form of godliness’!

A law enforcement officer on the news the other night, said that he did not believe it would be an exaggeration that witchcraft and Satan worship is practiced in every town in America, and animal sacrifices and possibly human sacrifices (babies particularly!) are performed in all of their gatherings! And the poor, big, rich, weak, dead churches are “totally helpless” to do anything about it (or just don’t want to!). They don’t even believe in demons – that is not for the ‘sophisticated’, well-educated, cultured people (which Jesus was not!). Many do not even believe there is a devil or a hell.

Well, I didn’t mean to turn this into a sermon. And I know I can’t make you see anything – only God and His Word can – I pray He will. I know we look strange. As time goes on it will be more exaggerated. We aren’t a part of this world system, and we feel our job is to call people out, to Him and His Word! It can’t be cleaned up, straightened up, or rehabilitated. The Bible calls Satan the ‘god’ of this world. So, it has to be forsaken. And in most cases many churches have become a part of the natural world – in fact, if you are honest you can’t tell the difference. So our emphasis is on the only True God who is powerful and mighty to set men free from the power and bondage of sin and to give them clean hands and pure hearts – without which they/we will not see God.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem and said, “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem – who stoned the prophets…” And then when Jesus told the Jews they didn’t know God and that they were worshipping Satan, they shut Him up, too, imprisoned Him, then crucified Him! And history repeats itself, always. I think it was Will Rogers who said, “If there is no God, nothing matters. If there is a God, nothing else matters!” Hence the magnificent obsession and possession.

We Love You, Sue and Farrell…..P.S. I’ve included a statement by Martin Luther that we ran across some years ago. His statement? “I WAS BORN TO FIGHT DEVILS AND FACTIONS. IT IS MY BUSINESS TO REMOVE OBSTRUCTIONS, TO CUT DOWN THORNS, TO FILL UP QUAGMIRES, AND TO OPEN AND MAKE STRAIGHT PATHS. BUT IF I MUST HAVE SOME FAILING LET ME RATHER SPEAK THE TRUTH WITH TOO GREAT SEVERITY THAN ONCE TO ACT THE HYPOCRITE AND CONCEAL THE TRUTH.”

What you’ve just read is a powerful love letter from a daughter to her mother that she personally and passionately loved and longed for her to understand what following Christ truly means!

If Hebrews was meant to speak to those around Jesus’ day who had the prophetic letters of the Old Testament, swore by them, but failed to see “Christ in them as the hope of glory” can church folk today, many, not all, “refuse Him who speaks”, even Jesus Himself? In Hebrews 12:25-29 we read:

“See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.’ Now this, ‘Yet once more’, indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, (Old Testament Judaism and a man-made temple?), as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. (That’s Christ Jesus!).”

In Psalm 25:12-15 we find, not the unpredictability of love, but its grace and assurance! It says: “Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him shall He (God) teach in the way which He chooses. He himself shall dwell in prosperity, and his descendants shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him (honor and reverences Him first in their lives!), and He will show them His covenant. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.” (Sad to say, there are some who don’t even know they are trapped in the world and its religious system, in their ‘flesh’ allegiance!).

Whether kingdoms of the world or the ‘kingdoms of marriage’, before Holy God IS there an accounting to take place by Him? What did God say to the ‘pretending’ nation of Israel who crucified the Christ, the Promised Messiah? In Matthew 21:43-44 Jesus spoke! “Therefore, I say to you (Israel), the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone (the Rock of Christ?) will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”

How many marriages do you know of, whether one or both partners in the marriage were “ground to powder” because they had no desire, no insight, no agreement with the purpose of God for the relationship, even after ‘holy vows’ and/or holy pledges before Him?

Elsewhere in Matthew 21:33-42 plus Verse 43, examine it related to “the kingdom of marriage”! Jesus said: “Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to the vinedresser and went into a far country. Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another.

Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son. But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance’. So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?” They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?’” [How “marvelous” do YOU find the work of God’s Sovereign Grace through Christ?].

Verse 43-44 is so important! “Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Can you relate these last eleven verses to ‘the kingdom of marriage’? In your ‘kingdom of marriage’, tell me about “the fruit of it” that reveals the honoring, the uplifting, and the glorifying of Christ through your relationship to your mate! Remember, Jesus said, “I didn’t come to be served but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for many.”

Is ‘the stone’ of your marriage relationship evidence of the fruit of the Spirit of Christ, serving, or do flesh-masters insist on their way or the highway? Are you aware that many in the marriage relationship avoid it being ‘mastered by the Master’, satisfied to make it “a den of thieves”?

God, help us in America to witness the revival, renewal, and reclaiming of Your ordained way to honor You! Amen?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“BAD NEWS OR GOOD NEWS?”

By J. FARRELL FISHER, APRIL 10, 2017

In Proverbs 25:25 we read, “As cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a far country.” I clearly understand that, because for 25-30 years I traveled 3-6 months a year, 3 weeks to 3 months at a time, equipping, encouraging, and, I pray, inspiring pastors in their ministries, plus proclaiming the Gospel in crusades and youth ministries, and at times I needed the cold water for a weary soul.

There are times when disciples of Christ become “weary souls”, but, thank God, for the encouragers rather than the “bad news bears”! In Genesis 27:46, Rebecca said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

At the same time some become wearied, yes, even from “bad, sad, maddening news”, but they are those who understand that the “good news” CAN overcome bad circumstances and events and, for others, it’s “news” that totally disheartens them, good news or bad news. But in fact, in Galatians 6:9, Paul wrote: “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” In life’s journeys, some lose heart because they major on “bad news” rather than the “good News” of God’s grace, mercy, and love!

In Genesis 24:27 “the man” said: “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” How interesting do you personally find that! “As for me, being in the way, the Lord led me…”? Dare I say to you in beginning, “To not be in the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Christ, is to be traveling on the highway of “bad news”, yet, at the same time, some have committed to the True Way of “good news” yet willfully wander or are deceived by “the powers of darkness” and choose “rough roads” rather than the “Welcome Highway” of goodness, graciousness, and gentleness of Spirit, even satisfied, at times, to ‘taste’ the “bad news” from their “fleshly choices”!

Be assured! Holy God does not Author the “bad News” of one’s life unless that person lives with “my way” to the point he/she doesn’t care for God’s “Amazing Grace” because he/she is wedded to “what I want, not what God declares AND demands”! How many do you know who favor their own ‘religious conceit’ to the divine will of God?

“Bad News” is consistency and devotion to one’s fallen sin nature, to the “stubborn will” of what one desires and not what God commands, to the ‘false peace’ of the godless, world-citizens, who write and observe their own constitutions, void of the will of God!

There are fleshly, devilish, worldly wedges called ‘self-pride, self-will, or self-justification and approval’ of “Who I am and what I desire apart from anything your God demands,” so they willfully choose the “bad news” of “My way – I do it my way – not what your God expects!” “Bad News”? “I’m deeply in love with my natural virtues and passionate about the ways of my godless world!” “There’s nothing evil about my ‘evil thoughts’, just a little bit of the beastly and lots of the demonic that makes my godless life fun, pleasurable, and enjoyable – you Christians ought to try it sometime!” I don’t know how some see it and say it without shame, but they do: “Most of humanity spends its best hours choosing between evils that are rampant all around them – jump in, have fun,” not knowing that’s a leap into the pit of Hell with the devil’s crowd!

“Bad News”? When you turn to the Book of Revelation, in Revelation 2, the heading of my New King James Version of the Bible, entitles Revelation 2:18 and following as “The Corrupt Church”. Certainly it fitted Thyatira, but it also can be an inspired Word of conviction for any compromising church, group of Christians, or even one professing disciple of Christ! Hear it!

Revelation 2:18-29 are words from the angelic messenger over Thyatira, And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: “These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass. ‘I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first. NEVERTHELESS I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.

Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who ‘commit adultery’ with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.

Now to you I say, and to the rest in (Thyatira), as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden. But hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations – ‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’ – as I have also received from My Father, and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says TO THE CHURCHES.”

“Bad News”? My dear friend, fellow classmate and football teammate at Baylor University, from 1956-1958, seminary classmate at Southwestern Seminary also, sent me a message about 8 years ago that was Vance Havner’s sentence about the ‘average Baptist church’ that I feel now is the right time to share it with you! Havner said: “If an airplane had as many useless parts as the average Baptist church, it’d fly about as fast as a canary with a sack of wheat tied to its tail!” But dare I say it? ‘Useless parts of any church today across the USA defined with a tied tail trying to fly that bag of wheat’?

“Bad News”? THERE IS LITTLE PROCLAMATION OF “EXCEPT YOU REPENT, YOU WILL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH!” In fact, most in our modern day simply say, “Join our church – and everything will be OK!” What you see across, around, within most churches today is what Walter Chantry, in his book, “Today’s Gospel – Authentic Or Synthetic?”, wrote about: “in love for souls, true evangelicals invariably present some profound truths in their witnessing. Yet by THE UNCONSCIOUS OMMISSION OF ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS OF THE GOSPEL, many fail to communicate even that portion of God’s Word which they meant to convey. When a half truth is presented as the whole truth, it becomes an untruth.”

“REPENT!” Really? Is that in a church’s ‘salvation’ presentation? “FORSAKE!” Really? Isaiah 55:7-9 clearly says, God Himself speaking, proclaiming, informing: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; LET HIM RETURN TO THE LORD, and He (the Lord Himself) will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, now are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heaven are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” AND THE FLESHLY PROUD UNBELIEVER SHAKES HIS FIST AGAINST HOLY GOD, AND TURNS TO HIS SINFUL WORLD TO SATISFY HIS ‘FLESH’ OR OLD, ADAMIC SIN-NATURE! And the fleshly sinner turns away from Holy God’s merciful invitation, trying to be ‘happy’ in himself rather than knowing “the Joy of the Lord”!

It was H.W.Webb-Peploe, in Kurt Bruner’s “Inklings of God”, (p.21) who said, “Joy is not gush; joy is not jolliness. Joy is perfect acquiescence in God’s will because the soul delights itself in God Himself.” Bruner closed out his book, saying, (p.193), “Every religion reminds me that I am made for more. Every religion reaches for God. Every religion offers to make the wrong right again. But only one religion, Christianity, is honest enough to tell me that I can’t solve my own problem. I can’t obey enough rules, offer enough sacrifices, or become enlightened enough to rise above the wretchedness around and within me. All I can do is humbly accept the redemption offered by the One who made me for more and who heroically sacrificed Himself on my behalf. It’s like the preacher told me when I was seven. I am a sinner who needs to be saved.”

Life without the Redeemer, the Atoner, the Savior and Lord, is a life like a bronze statue but void of God’s eternal Presence in and through Christ Jesus. Because to come to Him is to confess: “Without His Resurrection Life and Presence within me, I have no hope, no peace, no eternal purpose – I just ‘counterfeit’ what I have determined is my purpose and my chosen intent!” And Bruner, later in his book, used powerful, convicting words: (p94), “…air out of the illusion of adult omniscience.” And the problem with most of the unregenerate world? Daniel 5 tells us about “Belshazzar’s feast”, and Verses 3-4, unveils, not only an idolatrous worship then but unfolds what, I believe, the Spirit of God sees today in a lot of churches! “Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God which had been in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.”

Dare I tell you that that ‘religious observance’, like much across the religious world today, is like ‘another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority’ – Revelation 18:1, and the earth (the present religious systems!) is now or will be soon “illuminated with his glory.” And he cried mightily: Verses 3-8, “For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and GOD HAS REMEMBERED HER INIQUITIES! [But today? Most in ‘churchianity’ profess “Glad our sins have been forgiven and that the loving God understands we can’t do anything but sin until we get to Heaven!”] HOW PHONY IS THAT, even to the words of Jesus: “Go, and sin no more!” (John 8:10-12!).

Three things out of John 8:10-12! 1. “Sin no more” because Christ Jesus says so! 2. “Sin no more” because of what sin does! 3. “Sin no more” because “sin” promotes “fleshliness” of the old sin nature that Christ took to the Cross – Christ Jesus gives, after repentance toward God and faith in His finished work at the Cross the “new life” of liberty and freedom from sin and the sin-nature bondage with His Presence within to be released as with Paul we “take the sentence of death to ourselves that His Resurrected Life will be manifested in our mortal flesh”!

False ‘religious hopes’ and ‘carnal mind-twisting of the Scriptures’, vague resemblances, cheap imitation, fleshly, fallible persuasions, a “give your best” mandate substituting what Christ did at the Cross for what one sees him/her capable of doing in one’s outer countenance and personal determination, puts many on ‘dirt roads’ rather than the Christ-constructed “Highway of Holiness”! And this ‘spirit’, this attitude, this fleshly-minded determination , may be why God inspired through Paul, in 2 Corinthians 13:5-6, to write: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves – that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified, [Paul and the co-laborers traveling with him!].

Hear me! There are blessed assurances in the Word to the true believer who “leans not (even) to his own understanding, but in all his/her ways they acknowledge their “only hope” is Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and moment by moment abiding with the true “born-again believer”, saying, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.” Glory!

Paul said in Galatians 1:15-16, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and CALLED ME THROUGH HIS GRACE, to reveal His Son in me…,” with John saying in 1 John 3:24, “Now he who keeps His (Christ’s) commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”

We know! Do you? Serious assurance and confidence flows out of the child of the King because they repent, they rest in His Resurrection presence with them, in them, through them, no longer ‘self-deceived hypocrites’, but living daily, yes, even moment by moment, “Lord, what do You desire to do in me and through me – I’m Yours?” And YOU KNOW you’ve been drawn to Him because YOU KNOW that you were born again, not of the will of men, but of God!” (John 1:13). Do you understand Ezekial 36:25-27, AND receive it? The Lord God speaks! “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean (real water or the water of the Word?); I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

Glory! A walk of grace, of divine favor, of the supernatural power of the Spirit of God!

I close with a writing I assume, by Max Lucado in his book, “In The Grace of God”, (Copyright, 1996 by Max Lucado, W Publishing Group, A division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. www. Thomas Nelson. Com). It’s entitled “What a God!” (p.55):

“Ponder the achievement of God.

He doesn’t condone our sin, nor does He compromise His standard.

He doesn’t ignore our rebellion, nor does He relax His demands.

Rather than dismiss our sin, He assumes our sin and, incredibly, sentences Himself.

God’s holiness is honored. Our sin is punished… and we are redeemed.

God does what we cannot do so we can be what we dare not dream: perfect before God.”

DO YOU UNDERSTAND? GOD’S GRACE IS GREATER THAN ALL OUR SIN!

William Hunter and J.H. Stockton wrote the old hymn, “The Great Physician”. It’s found in the Broadman Hymnal of Broadman Press, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee. It says: “The great Physician now is near, The sympathizing Jesus; He speaks the drooping heart to cheer, Oh, hear the voice of Jesus.

Your many sins are all forgiven, Oh, hear the voice of Jesus; Go on your way in peace to heaven, And wear a crown with Jesus.

All glory to the dying Lamb! I now believe in Jesus; I love the blessed Savior’s name, I love the name of Jesus.

Sweetest note in seraph song, Sweetest name on mortal tongue; Sweetest carol ever sung, Jesus, blessed Jesus.” AMEN?

CHAPTER TWELVE

“IMITATION ALLEGIANCE OR SOVEREIGN BIRTHING?”

There is an interesting Verse of the Holy Word in Isaiah 26:3 when the prophet spoke, saying, “You (God) will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in you.” But can there be, is there a ‘spirit’ today in many minds AND hearts focused on themselves, “my best”, one’s ‘spiritual determination to live godly’, but ignoring “You MUST be born again”? Dare I tell you that today there IS ‘a spiritual starvation diet’ though ‘devoted’ to “trying” to be acceptable to Holy God, clearly unaware that their old man with its old sin nature was crucified with Christ?

There IS a ‘religious climate’ today where “pretenders” announce their ‘right standing before God’ because “we are fully devoted in our best efforts to honor Him” – “Imitation Allegiance”! – when the Holy Word, through Paul, 2 Corinthians 10:4-6, unveils, not ‘imitation allegiance’ but “Sovereign Birthing”! It says: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing (in a man’s fleshly mind!) that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”

Is ‘punishing all disobedience’ the exposing of every lawless deed that raises itself up in one’s disobedience in order to unveil the love, mercy, and grace of God for the spiritually needed, the ‘sinner’, the alienated and separated from God? Of course it is, but “imitators” sense no need to be “witnesses” to a godless generation, but at ‘peace’ that they are a part of the family of God, so no concern for the ‘imitators’ or deniers of Emmanuel, “God with us”!

Our ‘modern-day’ in American- evangelical circles is often guided by ‘suspicions’ rather than Revelatory Truths! Many in ‘modern-day’ religious circles are focused on idols of self-invention and not the Holy Word of God! Oh, they want to be ‘religious’, but ignore the path and Person of “blood redemption”! Look at many in Israel who ‘heard’ biblical Truth but still lived devoted to idols, sexual immorality, and the shedding of innocent blood! Of course, in America today, aborting babies is reasonable without any spiritual consequences! Really? In fact, Isaiah says, in Isaiah 28:15, Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, IT WILL NOT COME TO US, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

Does that sound like a ‘life testimony’ based on falsehood, on deception, on the excusing of the sin-nature apart from the blood of the Lamb of God? Does that sound like ‘self or flesh vindication’ and an unwillingness to accept the crucifixion of the flesh and old sin-nature, but acceptance or adapting or affirming one’s independence from God, exalting ‘individuality’ as all their life is and will be without any consideration of divine, eternal intent?

You are aware of the multitudinous assumptions, not only of fallen men but even ‘religious devotees’, who create their own ‘canned faiths’, but are void of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope! And just because one ‘attends’ a church and ‘professes’ faith does not mean that they are exemplary ‘unveil-ers’ of Christ’s indwelling presence!

I was awakened more to this ‘message-Truth’ when I came across Winston Churchill’s amazing word when serving as England’s stout leader! He said: “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on,” just being a religious observer apart from ‘You must be born again’!

As I recently opened Isaiah’s prophetic word, in Isaiah 1:2, I was gripped by a convicting passage that I saw relating not only to the nation of Israel but even many ‘church-goers’ across the world! It says: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! FOR THE LORD GOD HAS SPOKEN: ‘I have nourished and brought up children, and they have REBELLED AGAINST Me!”

“Sovereign Birthing” is not for a ‘believer’s desire’ to be religious apart from being ‘atoned for by the blood of the Lamb’, or ‘new-born’ in the sense that the ‘flesh’ has learned how to ‘perform’ religious leanings, or ‘pretending’, ‘imitating’, or at least ‘leaning’ toward Christian ideas! Isaiah continued in Isaiah 1:4 saying, “Alas, sinful nation (which was the majority of Israel, the chosen people of God!), a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! THEY HAVE FORSAKEN THE LORD, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have TURNED AWAY BACKWARD.”

Walter Chantry wrote a little book full of prophetic truth in 1970 entitled “Today’s Gospel – Authentic or Synthetic?” His ‘Introduction’ began, saying, “Evangelicals know that all is not well in their churches and missions. Behind the façade of glowing missionary reports and massive statistics there is a profound awareness that the church has little power in evangelism. While bravely trying to produce an aura of joy and victory among their followers, church leaders are uneasy and deeply dissatisfied with their present experience and the result of their efforts.”

As a disciple, a church, a pastor, a gathering of the “blood-bought”, certainly there IS a calling ‘out of the world’s ways’ but not abandoning them to their ‘lost estate’! True disciples are called to abandon their self-centered, idolatrous ways, and to faithfully yield to the Lord in submission and obedience to His every Word, including “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”Amen?

Is there ‘rebellion’ today in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ or a serious surrender to His calling with the church touching their world with “saving grace”? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in his Volume 19, “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” (p.60) wrote: “The true church consists of men who are called, and faithful, and chosen. They are redeemed from among men, and called out from among their fellows by effectual grace. God the Holy Spirit continues to call out, and bring to the Lord Jesus, those who are chosen of God according to the good pleasure of His will.”

I often have wondered, over my, now, 80 years of life, how Acts 1:8 has become so buried in a ‘believer’s’ (?) mind, since you know, sadly, it’s not in most ‘church’ hearts, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And, sadly, most Christians ‘prove’ their loyalty by church attendance but ignore His “Great Commission”! Are YOU, as a disciple of Christ, the ‘faithful witness’, the ‘ambassador of Christ’, the ‘openers to others’ of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, or do you emit an appearance of only a religious man without identity before God as a faithful sharer of the Truth to your needy friends, family, or a nation’s followers void and empty of Saving Grace and Mercy and Calvary’s love?

Again, Walter Chantry nailed it strong when in his book, (p.11), he wrote about ‘the church’ in our day, and individual Christians, “lowering their estimate of the value of truth.” He stated: “In a large congress on evangelism we could not insist on a truth of God’s Word that would offend ANY brother evangelical. Thus we must find the lowest common denominator to which all born-again Christians hold. The rest of the Bible will be labeled ‘unessential’ for missions. After all, unity (among Christians) is more essential than doctrinal preciseness,” and especially if it means we should be stressing evangelism and witnessing as one of the primary essentials of a “Live” congregation! God, help us!

If YOU did your ‘discipleship’ thesis, what would be your strong points of emphasis, besides one’s fellowship and communion with your Savior and Lord? Would it include “the just living by faith” AND the awareness of those who know nothing of justification, sanctification, and glorification? Come to Romans 1:16-32 – patience, please, as I share these 16 Verses! It says:

“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 gospel of Christ!) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse; because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 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; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

With that sad word of faithless men’s condition, please hear and receive God’s Word of intent for all men “in Christ”! Colossians 1:12-18 illumines our minds and hearts, granting us mercy and grace! Paul said: “giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 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. (Is that so one can continue in it without any consequences? GIVE ME A BREAK! HOW UNGODLY IS THAT?)

He (Christ Jesus) is the image (exact likeness and identity) of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation (new creation!). For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. ALL THINGS WERE CREATED THROUGH HIM AND FOR HIM. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (or ‘are held together’).

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.” Do you see yourself as a “new creation” in Christ, having been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb? Are YOU “a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in the light (of His eternal glory)”? Have YOU been delivered from the powers of darkness and then, yes, conveyed into the Kingdom of the Son of God’s love? If Christ Jesus says, “You must be born again,” is that true of you? If it pleased Father-God that “in Christ” all the fullness should dwell, are YOU living in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you see yourself, new-born, having been conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love? And that’s here and now, not in the “sweet by and by”!

“IMITATION ALLEGIANCE OR SOVEREIGN BIRTHING”? Isn’t it true that James was inspired to unveil the sin of partial allegiance or obedience? In James 2:14-17 he wrote: “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

To me, “imitation allegiance” is a half-hearted, compromising, convenient way of declaring ‘salvation in Jesus’ with no evidence of the “new-born life in Christ”! Several things I encourage you to deal with, examining your own mind and heart which God clearly reads:

• TO COMPROMISE THE LORD’S LIFE AND COMMANDS IS TO ACKNOWLEDGE DISOBEDIENCE AND TO STAND UNDER ALMIGHTY GOD’S JUDGMENT! Didn’t Jesus say, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, but you do not do what I say?”
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO ACKNOWLEDGE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF ITS CONSEQUENCES, INCREASING OUR ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE THE GOD OF THE THRONE WHO RULES AND REIGNS IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, AWARE ONE’S OWN CHOICES HAS CONSEQUENCES! “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ but you do not do what I say?”
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO DECAY OBEDIENCE, BRINGING ON THE OPEN DOOR TO THE DETERIORATION OF BIBLICAL MORALITY AND LORDSHIP HONOR! Do you think the Lord Jesus is pleased if, at least, you do half of what He says?
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO INVITE THE ABSENCE OF BLESSING AND ANOINTING, OPENING THE DOOR AGAIN TO “LIVING UNDER THE CURSE”! David came to the spiritual awareness of what betrayal to Holy God could bring! In Psalm 28 he stared spiritual danger in the face, cried out to Holy God, and was delivered! He said: “To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock: Do not be silent to me, lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.

Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands (in surrender?) toward Your holy sanctuary. Do not take me away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors, but evil is in their hearts.

Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors; give them according to the work of their hands; render to them what they deserve.

Because they do not regard the works of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them and not build them up. Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplications! The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;

Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him. The Lord is their strength, and He is the saving refuge of His anointed. Save YOUR PEOPLE, BLESS YOUR INHERITANCE; Shepherd them also, and bear them up forever.”

Reading Spurgeon recently in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons”, (Vol. 19,p.66), Spurgeon wrote and preached, no doubt, about Abram before he became Abraham. He said, God speaking to Abram, “You have left Ur of the Chaldees – the place of open sin; but you have not come to Canaan the holy.” Is that why some “professors of faith” never enter into their Land of Promise because, as Spurgeon said a few sentences later, “They are willing to be saved by the cross of Christ, but they are not willing to take up Christ’s cross, and come right out decidedly upon His side at all times.”

And “compromisers” have not the blessing of perfect peace, abounding joy, intimate fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, but live with ‘religious appreciation’ of “imitation allegiance” but not Heaven’s blessing in and through Christ alone, knowing, yes, “Sovereign Birthing” by the Holy Spirit with “the seed of His eternal Word” blooming in their “new-born” Life in Christ! AMEN?

I’m so impressed with Isaac Watts and George F. Root’s hymn entitled, “There Is a Land of Pure Delight,” – and I believe it’s illumining the “Land of Sovereign Birthing”! It says: “There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; Eternal day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides, And never withering flowers; Death, like a narrow sea, divides This heavenly land from ours.

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green; So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink To cross this narrow sea, And, lingering, shivering, on the brink, And fear to launch away.

Oh, could we make our doubts remove, Those gloomy doubts that rise, And see the Canaan that we love With un-be-clouded eyes!

Could we but climb where Moses stood, And view the landscape o’er, Not Jordan’s stream nor death’s cold flood Should fright us from the shore.” [Dare I tell you? I’m not frightened by ‘death’s cold flood’ because of Christ in me!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHILDREN OF THE FLESH OR CHILDREN OF THE PROMISE

BY J. FARRELL FISHER, OCTOBER 2, 2014

Please, with all of your mental and spiritual feelings and faith, read Romans 9:1-5 with an alert mind and heart! It will reveal where one truly is in his/her faith walk of compassion for others or a lack of it. In Romans 9:1-5 it’s as if my aged Bible has been drenched again and again with tears of sadness. Paul wrote:

“I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh,…

Who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.”

Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, came through the “seed of Abraham,” but not all of Abraham’s descendants became “children of promise”, but only children of flesh, because that was their level of commitment, living only with a desire to be “religious” apart from surrender to obedience to God’s Holy Word!

In Romans 10:1-4 Paul went on to write: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge…

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

Paul clearly understood, was spiritually heart-broken over the Israelites who had a “zeal for God,” but not according to the revelation-Truth of the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of the True, Eternal, and Historic Christ that they never saw with spiritual eyes, understood, or comprehended, but willfully rejected Him, ignored Him, and, yes, willingly had Him crucified!

Most Israelites denied Jesus Christ, deplored His presence in their Holy Book, denounced His preaching, and declared His worthiness only of the Cross. They had no sorrow, but in the prophetic passage of Isaiah 53:3 we learn of Christ Jesus, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

I recently found a writing by Harriet Beecher Stowe that speaks of sorrow: “Sorrow is divine. Sorrow is reigning on all the thrones of the universe, and the crown of all crowns has been one of thorns. There have been many books that treat of the sympathy of sorrow, but only one that bids us glory in tribulation, and count it all joy when we fall into divers afflictions, that so we may be associated with that great fellowship of suffering of which the incarnate Son of God is the head, and through which He is carrying a redemptive conflict to a glorious victory over evil. If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.”

Do you see and sense Paul’s sorrow over the Israelites denial of Jesus to be “that great fellowship of suffering” that you as a true believer in Christ Jesus share in? I have no hesitation in saying to you that grief, sadness, or sorrow are but the shadow of God’s Holy Presence over and around your life! It was Edwin Hubbell Chapin who said, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of heaven.” Glory!!

And we’re examining “children of the flesh” or “children of the Promise” with Paul as a child of the Promise willing to forego His place “in Christ” if His Israelite “family” could take his place! But it doesn’t happen, can’t happen – before Holy God every man stands alone before Him to answer for himself – “What then did YOU Do with Jesus called the Christ?”

Listen to Romans 9:30-33! “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone…

As it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

The unbelieving Israelites “stumbled at the stumbling stone and stumbled over the rock of offense” [whose name is Jesus, the Promised Messiah] because they substituted self-effort for the Savior and Lord, and, yes, attempted self-improvement by trying to keep the Law given to expose their need of a Savior, and revealed by their disobedience to God’s revelation that they would establish their own righteousness and crucify God’s righteousness – and things haven’t changed thousands of years later!!

Have you forgotten or omitted what Isaiah had to say at least 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ? It’s reported by Paul in Romans 10:16-17, “But they [Israel] 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.”

Yes, the majority of Israel, then and now, have rejected God’s compassionate heart and redemptive Way, going about to establish their own worthiness and ability to “do right”, failing to understand from Adam and Eve onward, God determined all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are unworthy, taking us all, yes, ALL, and CRUCIFYING US ALL WITH CHRIST!!

What did Paul tell us in Galatians 2:20? “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Verse 27, I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

Jesus did not die in vain – He died in “VICTORY”!! Yes, He was then raised, by God, from the dead three days later, continuing to live in and through repentant, trusting, surrendered, believing “sinners” who by their repentance are now declared “saints,” servants of Christ, ambassadors of our Lord and Savior, messengers, earthly “point-men” of the Resurrected Christ, witnesses of His winning Way that in “death” there is the new reality of “Life in Christ” alone! In Galatians 3:26 Paul tells us, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”

And, having been crucified with Christ, birthed into the Kingdom as babes in Christ, indwelt by His Resurrection Life, it doesn’t mean that “babes in Christ” attain to instant adulthood in the faith, but we learn! It is why in Galatians 5:1 Paul wrote to us, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

Have you ignored the Word in your daily walk? I remind you that Jesus tells us, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” I’ll guarantee you that most men eat physically three meals a day with snacks in between – but, please, tell me how spiritually the Word of God sits on a table and you only occasionally open it? You “LIVE” by the Word of God, you are to “HUNGER” for the Word of God, you “MATURE IN FAITH” by the Word of God!

Look at Colossians 2:9-10! “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him…” Oswald Chambers made a statement that aroused concern in me for “believers” who take lightly the importance of “studying to show yourselves approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed.” He said: “Disobedience in mind to the heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ.”

Chambers wrote about a half-paragraph later: “We are apt to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we have had. If there is one standard in the New Testament revealed by the light of God and you do not come up to it, and do not feel inclined to come up to it, that is the beginning of backsliding, because it means your conscience does not answer to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you for going on as a more true disciple of Jesus Christ or for going back as a deserter.”

What do we find in John 6:60-68? It’s a startling revelation for some! It 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 profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life…

But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and 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 and walked with Him no more. 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 life.”

Disciples who “went back and walked with Him no more?” Was that “professors” who never fully surrendered to our Lord’s Indwelling Life? Was that “followers” who had never been freed from spiritual bondage? Was that sympathizers with a “cause” who never understood “divine change” from the old man to the new man, from the sinner to the “saint,” from the fleshly to the Spirit-led, from a temporal devotion and not eternal surrender to the Lord of all of life?

Too many ‘church-goers’ are those really who’ve never put their hands to the plow of the Lord in preparing the “fields of their lives” for His seed, fruit, and harvest! Too many so-called “believers” are just like Pharoah on a fleshly pursuit religiously for Moses, but Holy God had removed their ‘chariot wheels’ and Pharoah drowned in the deep waters without a “Life-Preserver” whose name is Jesus! Too many “scribes and Pharisees” impose ‘traditions’ apart from Truth and so burden the people trying to seek that they only are able to talk about their tiredness, their futility, their sadness, their darkness, and not the “Light of the world” whose name is Jesus!

“Children of the flesh” or “Children of the Promise”? What was Paul’s Prayer in Romans 10:1-3? “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

“Children of the flesh”? Without hesitation they are usually led by people who are “ZEALOUSY WRONG – EVEN OPPOSED TO THE REVELATION, UNVEILING, AND ACTUAL PRESENCE OF THE SAVIOR AND REDEEMER, WILLING ONLY THAT HE BE CRUCIFIED!”

That is a world of people who surround you totally indifferent to the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God to cover and wash away their sins by His precious blood! There is a world oblivious to His grace, mercy, and love! Oh, yes, some have a “zeal” FOR GOD, but they don’t even know, understand, or have a true desire to be reconciled to Him!

Have you ever been around those absolutely “zealous” for their church but void of redemptive love and a desire to truly honor the Lord and Savior through a surrendered walk to His Lordship? Have you ever been around those so vocal, so aroused, but off-base in every scriptural truth, and you wonder: ‘how many have bought their lies, misinterpretations, deceptions, and been led astray?’

But what about those who, yes, kill the opposition to their radical, devilish, unsound, ‘screwed-up’ teachings? It was Jesus Himself who said in Matthew 23:34-36, “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.”

You are aware that there were those, are those, who are so warped in their “religious minds” that they believe and believed that they were anointed servants doing God’s service killing others! How would you describe those unredeemed “scribes and Pharisees”? Would “self-righteous idiots” even get close? How about “spiritual ignoramuses”?

What was it Paul said in Romans 10:2-3? “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

Fleshly righteousness or divine righteousness? The sinners’ righteousness or the Savior’s righteousness? Self-righteousness or God’s righteousness? Self-improvement righteousness or Sovereign-declared righteousness? Ignorant righteousness or Spirit-inspired, implanted righteousness? A righteousness that declares one “guilty” before Holy God of a cheap imitation or Jesus’ righteousness that declares one eternally innocent before Holy God? “Fig-leaf righteousness” or “tree of life righteousness”? Head-strong righteousness or the “new Heart” righteousness? “My own estimation” righteousness or God’s robe of righteousness? God-insulting human attempts or God-inspired finished work? Righteousness by hook or by crook or righteousness in and through Christ alone? Feverish attempts tirelessly or the faithful Atonement truthfully, refreshing us without end? Righteousness in what we do or righteousness because of Who Jesus is and what Jesus did 2000 years ago on the Cross? Salvation by man’s grit or salvation by the Master’s grace? Salvation by one’s “best efforts” religiously or salvation by the willingness to rest in the “blood-bought” release from guilt and eternal separation and “death” by the sacrifice of Christ in “my,” “our,” “your,” behalf! DO YOU SEE, UNDERSTAND, RECEIVE, REST IN BEING “A CHILD OF PROMISE”?

I close this teaching with words from Oswald Chambers from his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.271], “The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but remnants of what God created man to be. We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues.” Can I tell you, “Jesus crucified your worst and your best” so that you, as a child of promise could live by the Life of Another, yes, Emmanuel, “God With Us,” “God in us,” and “God through us”!! That’s “children of the Promises!!

CHAPETER FOURTEEN

“EVIDENCES OF NEW-BIRTH CONVERSION”

In his book entitled “Inklings of God”, Kurt Bruner used a quote by Winston Churchill in his Introduction that says: “Man will occasionally STUMBLE OVER THE TRUTH, BUT MOST OF THE TIME HE WILL PICK HIMSELF UP AND CONTINUE ON,” and I say, totally ignoring ‘divine intervention’!

But do YOU realize how true that statement is? And, especially when confronted by Christ Himself saying to us all, “You MUST be born again, born from above, born of the Spirit,” but many are offended, resentful, and continue on in unbelief.

I was impressed by Kurt Bruner when later in the same book, (p.147), he said, “Frankly, I embrace the Christian faith because it points to a God who expects us to behave ourselves but who also knows we can’t.” But do YOU also know that God KNOWS we can’t ‘redeem’ ourselves? Yet, man-made ‘religions’ worldwide think and act ‘synthetically’, thinking they are ‘authentically’ worshipping, even though like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, deny Christ, the Promised Messiah, and deny His calling: “You must be born again”, and still today the ‘synthetic’ denies the “authentic”, “eternal reality of the Crucified, Resurrected Lord and Savior”!

And, sadly, many modern-day, so-called ‘Christian churches’, live in the façade of even active denial of “new birth” when they believe ‘church membership’ is the same!

Walter Chantry, in his writing, “Today’s Gospel,” (p.13), wrote: “Products of modern evangelism are often sad examples of Christianity. They make a profession of faith, and then continue to live like the world… ‘Decisions’ for Christ mean very little. Only a small proportion of those who ‘make decisions’ evidence the grace of a transformed life.”

But sadly a large number of American churches AND some preachers major on a “you can do it” mentality rather than “Christ in you the hope of glory”! No wonder Socrates became a well-appreciated philosopher! He once said: “To move the world we must first move ourselves.” Where do you find that in the Word of Almighty God? Didn’t Paul tell us, 2 Corinthians 1:9, [New Chain Reference Bible], “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead”?

Most humans all across the world in their nations, or here in the USA, are mostly oblivious to the state of their spiritual death and separation from Holy God! Spiritual success in life is not by the mental philosophy of ‘whatever you sense, you can succeed,’ which may have some ‘truth’ for the ‘flesh’, but has no relevance at all to the spiritual dimension that most know nothing about!

So many today, yes, even worldwide, are locked into the philosophy of ‘self-achievement’ so strongly that rewarding ‘self’ with pats on one’s back blocks, denies, ignores, or starves any Word, leaning, or turning from that ‘self’ to the “Savior”! Life is not a ‘do what you can’ mental philosophy, but an eternal opportunity to be ONE with God Himself through Christ alone!

It’s amazing to me, and exciting, as I read a statement by Benjamin Franklin. He said several hundred years ago,(?), “There is perhaps not one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of ‘my humility’.” That’s Why we were “crucified with Christ”!

Are you aware though, at times, of the “embarrassing encumbrances” that are brought on a lot of ‘church folk’ who are swamped by ‘self-importance’, who are drowning in ‘self-worth’ that Christ crucified, and stubbornly, stupidly, studiously in pagan teachings, devote themselves to “what we’ve become” apart from the revealed knowledge of God as to the Way, the only Way, to their salvation, healing, deliverance, and completion?

David F. Wells, in his book, “No Place For Truth,” [Wm.B.Eerdmans Publ. Com., Grand Rapids, Mich., & Inter-Varsity Press, Leichester, England, 1993], so unveiled for me a story that encouraged this message! [Introduction, p.10}” Wells wrote: “In saying that I am a staunch disbeliever in the modern world, I do not wish to appear immodest, as if I come finished with the knowledge of a new discovery. In fact, I do not. In this connection, I will remember G.K.Chesterton’s story about the restless yachtsman who set sail from England with the intention of arriving at an exotic South Sea Island. After many days, he sighted land and, as soon as he could, beached his boat and ventured inland. Before him stood a dreadful pagan temple. Undaunted, he decided to claim it for England. He scaled its walls and bravely planted the Union Jack [flag] at its pinnacle. Only then did he realize that what he had scaled was the Brighton Pavilion on England’s south coast! He thought he had sailed a straight line, but because of an unfortunate miscalculation he had ACTUALLY TRAVELED IN A CIRCLE. He imagined that he was first in the land, but it turned out that he was the last.”

Do you realize, sense, or discern, that many, many people begin their “religious journeys” on the basis of men’s speculations about what they think God expects rather than Jesus’ declaration: “You MUST be born again”?

Do you remember Paul saying in Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, [and I would say also, “and don’t be conformed to a man-made religious world”!], but be {being} transformed by the renewing of your mind.” And what the Holy Word through Christ Jesus teaches is not simply a ‘mind change’ but a mind changed by the birthing of a new heart through our Lord’s love, grace, and mercy, AS A RESULT OF HOLY-SPIRIT-CONVICTION AND HOLY SPIRIT CONVERSION!

Several verses from John 3 that I want to use in the foundation and overview of this message: John 3:5-7 says: (Amplified Bible), Jesus answered, “I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, except a man be born of water (that’s the “water of the Word”!) and (even) the Spirit, he cannot [ever] enter the kingdom of God.[Ezekial 36:25-27].

What is born of [from] the flesh is flesh – of the physical is physical; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not – do not be surprised, astonished – at My telling you, “You must all be born anew (from above).”

Oh, and then in John 3:16-21 (Amplified Bible) we read: ‘FOR god so greatly loved AND dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only-begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts, clings to, relies upon) Him shall not perish – come to destruction, be lost – but have everlasting life.

For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge – to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on – the world; but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.

He who believes on Him – who clings to, trusts in, relies on Him – is not judged (he who trusts in Him never comes up for judgment; for him there is no rejection, no condemnation; he incurs no damnation). But he who does not believe (not cleave to, rely on, trust in Him) is judged already; (he has already been convicted; has already received his sentence) because he has not believed on and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God. – He is condemned for refusing to let his trust rest in Christ’s name.

The [basis of the] judgment (indictment, the test by which men are judged, the ground for the sentence) lies in this: that the Light is come into the world, and people have loved the darkness rather than and more than the Light, for their works (deeds) were evil. [Isaiah 5:20].

For every wrongdoer hates (loathes, detests) the light and will not come out into the light, but shrinks from it, lest his works – his deeds, his activities, his conduct – be exposed and reproved. BUT HE WHO PRACTICES TRUTH – who does what is right (according to God’s Word, will, and His ways!) – comes out into the light; so that his works may be plainly shown to be what they are, wrought with God – divinely prompted, done with God’s help, in dependence upon Him.”

“EVIDENCES OF NEW BIRTH CONVERSIONS”? FIRST, NO LONGER IS THERE THE DENIAL OF ONE’S ‘OLD MAN’ SIN NATURE AND SEPARATION FROM GOD BUT A PASSIONATE LONGING OF RECONCILIATION!

Sometimes it takes a Holy Word from God to release His deep conviction in one’s lost, alienated, separated from Him awareness in unbelieving hearts; and I believe 2 Peter 2:4-5 can be that ‘shock awareness’ in some hearts and minds! It says: [Amplified Bible], “For God [even] SPARED NOT ANGELS THAT SINNED, BUT CAST THEM INTO HELL, DELIVERING THEM TO BE KEPT THERE IN PITS OF GLOOM TILL THE JUDGMENT AND THEIR (FINAL) DOOM. And He spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven other persons, when He brought a flood upon the world of ungodly [people].”

Notice! GOD DIDN”T EVEN SPARE ANGELS WHO SINNED BUT CAST THEM INTO HELL! GOD DIDN”T SPARE EVEN THE ANCIENT WORLD, EVEN ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENDERS’ CALLED “JUDAIZERS”, OR ‘PROMINENT’, WELL-KNOWN NATIONAL POLITICAL LEADERS, OR THE “DO MY BEST” CROWD OF the ‘self-anointed’ who worship and are devoted to their old sin natures as personal points of admiration to which they yield themselves!

In fact, Hebrews 10:25-31, my prayer is that “IT WILL SCARE HELL OUT OF YOU, IF NEEDED TO!” It says: “Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together [as believers], as is the HABIT OF SOME PEOPLE, but admonishing – warning, urging and encouraging – one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching.

For if we go on deliberately and willfully sinning after once acquiring the knowledge of the Truth, there is no longer any sacrifice to atone for [our] sins – no further offering to which we look forward. [There is nothing left for us then] but a kind of awful and fearful prospect and expectation of divine judgment and the fury of burning wrath and indignation which will consume those who put themselves in opposition [to God]. [Isaiah 26:11].

Any person who has violated and [thus] rejected AND set at naught the Law of Moses is put to death without pity or mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. [Deut. 17:2-6]. How much worse (sterner and heavier) punishment do you suppose he will be judged to deserve who has spurned AND [thus] trampled under foot the Son of God, and who has considered the covenant blood by which he was consecrated common and unhallowed, thus profaning it and insulting the (Holy) Spirit (Who imparts) grace – the unmerited favor and blessing of God? {Exo.24:8}.

For we know Him Who said, Vengeance is Mine – retribution and the meting out of full justice rest with Me; I will repay – I will exact the compensation, says the Lord. And again, The Lord will judge and determine and solve and settle the cause and the cases of His people. It is a fearful (formidable and terrible) thing to incur the divine penalties AND be cast into the hands of the living God!”

IF you were “crucified with Christ”, does that not mean He took YOU, your old sin nature, your old godless-living life, and PUT IT TO DEATH on the Cross with Him as He shed His blood that ALL YOUR SIN AND MINE MIGHT BE WASHED AWAY? Why ‘resurrect’ what Jesus crucified?

SECOND, “EVIDENCE OF NEW-BIRTH CONVERSION”? “NO LONGER A DEEP, ABIDING LOVE OF THE WORLDLY INFLUENCES OR PEACE WITH ALL THE DEVILISH AND DEMONIC INFLUENCES AND CONTROL”! Here’s how John relates this, as we read his anointed exposure and heavenly challenge in 1 John 2:2-6!

“And He – that same Jesus Himself – is the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins, and not for ours alone but also for [the sins of] the whole world. And this is how we may discern [daily by experience] that we are coming to know Him – to perceive, recognize, understand and become better acquainted with Him: if we keep (bear in mind, observe, practice) His teachings (precepts, commandments).

Whoever says, I know Him – I perceive, recognize, understand and am acquainted with Him – but fails to keep and obey His commandments (teachings) is a liar, and the Truth [of the Gospel] is not in him.

But he who keeps [treasures] His Word – who bears in mind His precepts, who observes His message in its entirety – truly in him has the love of ‘and’ for God has been perfected (completed, reached maturity). By this we may perceive and know and recognize and be sure that we are in Him;

Whoever says he abides in Him ought – as a personal debt – to walk and conduct himself in the same way in which He walked and conducted Himself.”

Christ Jesus was so aware of both the religious influences of false Judaism (not the true “remnant”!) and the darkness of devilish, demonic activities through man-made ‘religious expressions’, when in John 6:57-69, He said, with Peter then grabbing hold and holding on to “Jesus Only”:

“Just as the living Father sent Me, and I live (by, through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me – who takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me – shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me. This is the Bread which came down from heaven. It is not like the manna which our forefathers ate and yet died. He who takes this Bread for his food shall live forever.

He said these things in a synagogue while He was teaching at Capernaum. When His disciples heard this, many of them said, This is a hard and difficult and strange saying – an offensive and unbearable message. Who can stand to hear it? – Who can be expected to listen to such teaching?

But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were complaining and protesting and grumbling about it, said to them: Is this a stumbling block and an offense to you? – Does this upset and displease and shock and scandalize you? What then [will be your reaction] if you should see the Son of Man ascending to the place where He was before?

It is the Spirit that gives life – He is the Life-giver; the flesh conveys no benefit whatever – there is no profit in it. The words (truth) that I have been speaking to you are spirit and life. But [still] some of you fail to believe and trust and have faith. For Jesus knew from the first who did not believe and had no faith, and who would betray Him and be false to Him.

And He said, This is why I have told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him – unless he is enabled to do so – by the Father. After this many of His disciples drew back – returned to their old associations – and no longer accompanied Him.

Jesus said to the twelve, Will you also go away? And do you too desire to leave Me? Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words (the message) of eternal life. And we have learned to believe and trust; and [more], we have come to know [surely] that You are the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of the living God.”

There is such a vast difference between ‘religious’ individuals who WILL FALL AWAY and the vital picture and reality of a regenerated soul, indwelt by and led by the Holy Spirit! In John 6:63 Jesus said: “It is the Spirit that gives life – He is the Life-giver; the flesh conveys no benefit whatever – there is no profit in it. The words (truths) that I have been speaking to you are spirit and life.”

I love Watchman Nee’s word in his book, “Ye Search The Scriptures,” [Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc. New York, Copyright 1974], (p.16), “Canst thou by searching find out God”, challenges the Book of Job (11:7). God is never arrived at through research. He is found by one way only – through the regenerated spirit.”

In 1 Corinthians 2:1-4, “As for myself, brethren, when I came to you I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony and evidence or mystery or secret of God [concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation of men] in lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom;

For I resolved to know nothing – to be acquainted with nothing; to make a display of the knowledge of [nothing] – among you except Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and Him crucified. And I (passed into a state of) weakness and was in fear (dread) and great trembling [after I had ] among you.

And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive (enticing and plausible) words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the [Holy] Spirit and power of God, operating on me and stirring in the minds of my hearers the most holy emotions and thus persuading them.”

An unbelieving world, a self-indulgent flesh, and a demonically, devilish controlled mind will create and establish all kinds of ‘religious mannerisms’ but oppose “You must be born again”! For the most part, fallen humanity and the devil’s crowd and, yes, ‘church pretenders’ will settle for religious entertainment but highly oppose no longer living for yourself but living for Christ alone!

What did Paul write in 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1? Don’t miss, overlook, or casually kind of knod at his word!! It says: [Again, Amplified Bible!], “Do not be unequally yoked up with unbelievers – do not make mismated alliances with them, or come under a different yoke with then [inconsistent with your faith]. For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness? Or how can light fellowship with darkness?

What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial [the devil]? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement [can there be between] a temple of God and idols? For (In Christ!) WE ARE the temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

SO, come out from among (unbelievers), and separate (sever) yourselves from them, says the Lord, and touch not [any] unclean thing; then I will receive you kindly and treat you with favor. And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

7:1, Therefore, since these great promises are ours, beloved, LET US CLEANSE ourselves from everything that contaminates and defiles body and spirit,, and bring [our] consecration to completeness in the (reverential) fear of God.”

I have no doubts that even most ‘church folk’ easily accept the blood of the Cross for their forgiveness but will rebel, excuse, accuse faithful men of the Word for lying when they even share Jesus saying, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, but you do not do what I Say?” Dare I tell YOU that obedience is not an option in the age of grace?

Spiritual focus, even in a religious setting, is more often on fleshly concerns rather than divine revelation or the ultimate Will of God’s eternal intent? I love what Charles Stanley wrote in his booklet, “In Touch”, [April,2016, p.13], “The Lord isn’t looking for people who change a few habits by sheer force of will; He’s calling people to surrender to Him…We don’t evolve into a saved people by deleting old habits and instituting better religious ones; we are transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ when we believe [trust in, rely upon, adhere to] Him.”

Many ‘church folk’ are highly appreciative of ‘compromisers’ because they ‘believe’ that “fleshly indulgence is justified because, though one is ‘saved’, he/she cannot do anything but sin until Christ comes again – so they blame God rather than trust His Truth! They are euphorically violent to those who uphold Jesus’ Word, like when He said, “Go, and sin no more,” but they believe sin in a believer is ‘normal, and that without ‘guilt’, because “God is love”.

There’s even by some a ‘ministerial’ maligning of the Holy Word because they feel ‘justified’ in ungodly behavior though a professing believer. And in the world around you there is philosophical rationalization because of spiritual ‘brain-tumors’ called resistance to Holy Truth! “Who needs a ‘Savior’? We’re OK , you with or without Christ are OK”! Really?

But I can tell you without hesitation that to continue sinning as a ‘believer’ is to deny Jesus’ Victory at the Cross and to refute Jesus’ words in John 15:22, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but NOW they have no excuse for their sin.”

Do you remember Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:34? “Awake (from your drunken stupor and return) to sober sense and your right minds, AND SIN NO MORE. For some of you have not the knowledge of God – you are utterly and willfully and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, LACKING THE SENSE OF GOD’S PRESENCE AND ALL TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM. I say this to your shame.”

But, in Isaiah 41:8-15, there is a powerful word of hope to, ‘sometimes’, discouraged disciples who’ve ‘tried’ to live the overcoming life, (with no ‘discipleship’ training), but only a sad pastoral “do your best”. IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, at the Cross Jesus took YOUR worst and YOUR best, and it was “crucified with Christ”! Look at Isaiah’s ‘Word of Hope’!

• Isaiah 41:9, “I have chosen you and not cast you off.” 2) Verse 10, “Fear not…for I am with you.” 3) Verse 10, “I AM your God…(Elohim), meaning the “high and lifted up, the mighty One,” and He’s ‘able’ to sustain us, strengthen us, and guard us (if we let Him) against the world you face, the “old man” trying to resurrect, AND even victorious over Satan! 4) Verse 10, “I WILL STRENGTHEN AND HARDEN YOU TO [DIFFICULTIES]…”. This is probably why Paul shared, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” because he did not lean on ‘fleshly abilities’ but Holy Presence – ‘Christ in YOU the hope of glory’! 5) Verse 10 again – “I will hold you up and retain you with My victorious right hand of rightness and justice.” God said in Isaiah 42:13, “The Lord will go forth as a mighty man; HE WILL ROUSE HIS ZEALOUS INDIGNATION AND VENGENCE LIKE A WARRIOR; HE WILL CRY, YES, HE WILL SHOUT ALOUD, HE WILL DO MIGHTILY AGAINST HIS ENEMIES.” 6) Verses 11-13 – “Behold, all they who are enraged and inflamed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; they who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall PERISH. You shall seek those who contend with you, and shall not find them; they who war against you shall be as nothing, as nothing at all.” 7) Verse 15 – “Behold, I will make you to be a new, sharp, threshing instrument having teeth…” In 2 Corinthians 13:10 Paul wrote: “So I write these things while I am absent from you, that when I come to you I may not have to DEAL SHARPLY in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me, [to be employed, however] for building [you] up and not tearing you down.” The “SHARP TOOL” of Holy Truth will ‘shape’ you in His image or ‘silence’ your voice if you betray Him!

“Evidence of NEW-BIRTH CONVERSIONS”, sharpened in life by His Word, Will, and Work OR slicing to threads the disobeying, compromising, contented disciple who “plays” on both sides of the street? WHICH LEADS US TO NUMBER THREE AND LAST: “NO LONGER DEVOTION TO WALK OUT ONE’S LIFE OF ‘FAITH’ (?) ON THE “STREETS OF SELF-INDULGENCES AND SELF-FLESH EMPHASES,” BUT STEPPING FAITHFULLY ON THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS!

In Colossians 2:5-10 Paul so strongly lays the foundation of a truly birthed and overcoming ‘Life In Christ’! “For though I am away from you in body, yet I am with you in spirit, delighted at the sight of your [standing shoulder to shoulder in such] orderly array and the firmness and the solid front and steadfastness of your faith in Christ, [that leaning of the entire human personality on Him in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom and goodness]. As you therefore received the Christ, [even] Jesus the Lord, [so] walk – regulate your lives and conduct yourselves – in union and conformity to Him.

Have the roots [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him] – fixed and founded in Him – being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding and overflowing in it with thanksgiving.

See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism, and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human traditions – men’s ideas of the material [rather than the spiritual] world – just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe, and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ, the Messiah.

For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead), continues to dwell in bodily form – giving complete expression of the divine nature. AND you [in Christ] are in Him, made full and have come to fullness of life – in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and reach full spiritual stature. And He is the Head of all rule and authority – of every angelic principality and power.”

Don’t you think this foundation of the true “Evidence of New-Birth Conversion” is seen in what Paul wrote to us? And it strongly agrees with what Christ Himself said when in John 7:37-38 we read: “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink! He who believes in Me – who cleaves to and trusts in and relies upon Me – as the Scripture has said, Out from his innermost being springs and rivers of living water shall flow (continuously).”

Even in the walk of redemptive faith there are doors before us – some to condemnation, frustration, and captivity, while others are Christ’s ‘door’ to liberty, freedom from bondage to the old sin nature and ‘birthed’ to the freedom of everlasting life in the here and now, in and through Christ alone! SO…it’s either:

Self-directed in one’s ‘walk of faith’ OR “born-again to new LIFE IN CHRIST”; it’s either a ‘kingdom rule’ that is fleshly rich in sensual satisfactions or the Holy Spirit-enriched life in the very wealth of Holy God and Heaven’s Son, better known as “Emmanuel”, or “God With Us, God in Us, God through Us”, because of Resurrection Life in Christ, Resurrection Power through Christ, and Resurrection Hope instilled within us by His Holy Presence!

It’s ‘philosophically-wise’ in godless ways or personally and intimately blessed with the very “mind of Christ”! It’s either trained by the best of a world’s ‘master’ deceivers, even the devil himself, or Sovereignly guided by the Holy Spirit, truly enriched by the treasures of His Holy Word, and “Master-led” disciple makers who “feed” us on the “bread of life,” the “milk of the Word,” and upon the very “meat” of God’s Holy Truth!

The claim of Christ that He had come that we might have life and that abundant was not a fictitipous claim of a ‘false prophet’ but from the Creator of mankind and the Savior and Lord over mankind!

Jesus said: “I AM THE DOOR” to reconciliation with God, the door of divine forgiveness, the door to abiding presence of God within repentant and faith-filled hearts, and the door of receiving, walking in, and being blessed by the fruit of His Holy Life and His Holy Spirit!

Don’t you find it sad and heart-breaking that you see around you, yes, multitudes who are ‘satisfied’ with the ‘flesh-life’ and all it has to offer, closing the door on the love, grace, and mercy of God. But time will unveil for many the fundamental reality that vocational and financial successes fall short of filling the inner hunger that only Christ Jesus meets and fills!

In Catherine Marshall’s book, “Something More,” [COPYRIGHT, 1961, by Catherine Marshall, Published by Chosen Books, Lincoln, Va. 22078], (p.3), she wrote about “the famous Hollywood actress, Mary Astor, (who) has known the fairy-tale of movie stardom. An Academy Award, glamourous marriages, two children, several Beverly Hills mansions, furs, jewels, publicity – what more could any woman want? Yet Mary Astor admitted in print that ‘for years – even in the midst of fame and glamor – I yearned for contentment, happiness. It took me almost twenty years to go from idle curiosity about religion…to meeting God as a Person and a Father, and knowing that walking in (redemptive) faith meant growing up.”

AND THAT “GROWING UP” IS “FALLING DOWN” before the King of kings and Lord of lords, REPENTING, TRUSTING, RESTING IN HIS FINISHED WORK AT THE CROSS< AND EXPERIENCING THE REALITY OF HIS INDWELLING PRESENCE THROUGH THE “EVIDENCES OF A NEW-BIRTH” RELATIONSHIP!

IS YOUR BODY NOW THE “HOLY TEMPLE”?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“THE FLESHLY-UNFULFILLED OR THE SPIRITUALLY FULFILLED?”

In 2 Corinthians 1:12 Paul stated, “For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.” ‘Conduct in the world’? And Paul laid down his challenge: “Not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God”! And, you realize, there are multitudes who live by ‘grit’, honoring one’s fleshly determination or fleshly abilities, but not to God’s honor and glory, leaving ‘fleshly lives; UNFULFILLED, though crowned by the world and the devil as outstanding folks and ‘worthy examples’.

As Jesus was instructing His disciples, He said in Mark 9:35, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Yet how many do you know who function through ‘flesh’ at its best and miss God’s eternal intention, with a fleshly, unfulfilled, short of God’s blessing, satisfied with their best life-style and fleshly effort?

Are you aware of the danger of fleshly imagination that has nothing to do with ‘eternal purpose’, but is even that which either doesn’t consider ultimate intention by divine design, or personally chooses to exalt one’s self through personal self-determination above even the knowledge of God Himself?

If the Lord Jesus lived “to do My Father’s will”, don’t you find it so strange that even most Christians have not been disciplined in “bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”? As a result, their view of their salvation ‘experience’ is short-changed concerning relating to worldly influences, old sin-nature limitations, or even the devil’s interferences with the fullness of their development!

But, “the fleshly unfulfilled” I see as worldly, unfulfilled unbelievers who determine to be ‘god’ or ‘goddesses’ themselves, godless lives governed by self-rule, even satisfied with their own “just-rewards”. Didn’t Paul tell young Timothy about those who were “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of, (some) having a form of godliness but deny its power. And from such people turn away”? [2 Timothy 3:5].

It’s interesting that even in old Israel there came a time, even a time after the time, when, As Deborah said that she arose as a ‘mother’ in Israel only to see Israel “choosing new gods”! [Judges 5:8]. But, of course, in modern-day America, I’m not sure many Americans (?) now have any grasp of the “new gods they choose wo worship”!

Most today bow to a ‘god or goddess’ of appearances with more attention to outside ‘show’ but no inward purified hearts by the blood of the Lamb! Psalm 82:5 speaks of those who, “do not know, nor do they understand; they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of [their] earth is unstable.”

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? Sadly, most are unaware of a ‘way of evil’, walking perverted paths, with no concern for the path of uprightness because they truly love the ways of darkness, rejoice in doing evil things, delight in the perversity of the wicked, looking for crooked paths, desirous pleasures, and devilish men and women – they love unrighteousness and bow willingly before their idols of darkness, deceit, and deathly deception.

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? In 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, Paul spoke of a ‘lawless one (who) will be revealed, saying, “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. AND FOR THIS REASON God will send them a strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth BUT HAD PLEASURE IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.”

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? I have no hesitation in saying that unbelievers that avoid “spiritual fulfillment” are individuals undeniably interested only in themselves, with an attitude of mind and heart that is in “what pleases me, the cares of my world, the concerns of what satisfies me and me alone.” Many are so carnal, crude, self-caring, that to expose their need of the Redeemer heightens their anger, resentment, and bitterness! For many, it’s ‘cold minds’, ‘cold hearts,’ and ‘over-all coldness’ to even the awesome love of God for them or even the Name of Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior!

In Luke 19:41 as Jesus “wept over Jerusalem”, I’m convinced the Ascended Lord at the right hand throne of Almighty God still weeps over cities all over the world, 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.”

How many times have you heard someone say that Jesus spoke in parables to make it easily understandable to them about what He wanted them to grasp? Yet when you read what He said in Matthew 13, having spoken of “the Parable of the Sower,” in verses 3-9, the disciples of Christ came asking Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” Jesus responded in Verses 11-17,

“Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, BUT TO THEM IT HAS NOT BEEN GIVEN. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, BECAUSE SEEING THEY DO NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY DO NOT HEAR, NOR DO THEY UNDERSTAND. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes THEY have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so I should heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

You do realize that when most men hear about “water” they are considering a physical water to drink, or a water to nourish their fresh-sown seeds, or a water that cleans a dirty car or what they wash their sweaty bodies with, but they never consider “living water”, or as Proverbs 21:1-2 says, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes. Every way of man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.” [And does YOUR heart over-flow with rivers of your own will or rivers of the divine will?]. Sadly, most ‘fleshly’ lives are not even aware of any fountains of life that ought to be ‘abounding with the water” of Life in Christ, of Holy Presence, or of Holy Purpose!

In Jeremiah 2:13, though speaking historically of ‘the chosen people of Israel’, what the prophet heard God say speaks prophetically of all men who go their own way: “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 Jeremiah is usually associated with “Lamentations” – and he certainly had much to lament about as he saw his own people turning to their own fleshly ways. There is a bold, icing word he gives us when in Lamentations 5:4 he wrote: “We pay for the water we drink!”

Yes, there is a water the world drinks that is not the “water of life”! There’s a water that is not the water that cleanses the heart! There is a water that is not “pure water”! Are you aware that Peter, in 2 Peter 2:17, wrote: “These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever”?

In the previous verses of 2 Peter 2, he was pointing out the “depravity of false teachers” who were warped in their understanding of the holy life birthed through the blood of Christ! He spoke about those who ‘perish in their own corruption,’ ‘spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions’, ‘eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin,’ ‘enticing unstable souls,’ ‘hearts trained in covetous practices, AND ARE ACCURSED CHILDREN,’ ‘having forsaken the right way and gone astray,’ ‘loving the wages of unrighteousness,’ and, Yes, ‘rebuked for one’s iniquity’; but you realize these are those who say, “Who cares what God thinks? We’re in charge of our own lives!” Then, a day of reckoning awaits them! And it does come!

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? How many do you know who major on things in their lives that will surely guarantee a “successful life” if they set their own goals, and they meet their goals to their satisfaction, but never ask, ‘Is this God’s will, God’s purpose, God’s plan for my life?” Sadly, for many ‘successful people’, relationship to Holy God is the furtherest thing from their minds, if at all!

But, there was “the rich young ruler” who at least acknowledged the reality of eternal life but deemed his riches should be his ‘calling card’ into a blessed life! This ‘rich young ruler’ even took advantage of an opening door to Jesus’ presence, asking Jesus in Luke 18:18, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus reminded him of ‘the commandments’ with the rich young ruler responding, “All these things I have kept from my youth.”

Then in Verses 22-23 we read about those who major on “self” and refuse “selflessness” as a way of life! It says: So when Jesus heard these things, He said: “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. [How rich are YOU in yourself?].

Being even sorrowful is not full surrender if one wants his wealth more than the will of God! Did he understand it? Yes! For him, he didn’t walk away defiantly – he purposefully listened, but reasoned his fleshly goal was more important to him than God’s eternal desire for men, proven in the sacrifice of His own Son on the Cross of Calvary! His desire for fleshly wealth became more vital to him than a “fire in his bones” for the glory of God’s earnest desire for sons of true faith in their hearts and walks before Him.

“The fleshly unfulfilled”? Most will never admit it, but they are men, if they were to ever consider the will of God for their lives, would at least admit that their “self-allegiance and self-devotion” takes precedent over a man’s devotion to God or His Son, the Lord Jesus! For them, there’s no discouragement about a Godless life, no disenchantment with ‘self-idolatry’, no darkness for them about ‘self-love’ or ‘self-devotion’ – they’ll even say, “That’s my religious faith – I am my own main god!”

And being one’s own conviction about “self”, there are so many who are overwhelmed by the influences of family, or friends, or even societal circumstances, like a war, where many are hardened by the splitting of devotion to protecting lives or ending lives in human wars! There’s nothing that should EVER turn you away from Him, but always turn you to Him in absolute, total surrender and submission to His eternal watch-care, but many are divided, weakened, and become unbelieving that a Holy God could ever care about them!

As one even begins to consider himself related to a fleshly world purpose or eternal divine intent, there’s always, “follow your instincts” or “follow His inspiration” – and, of course, in the world, many are overcome by “the world, the flesh, and the devil”!

There’s a powerful few verses in John 2:23-25 that reveals our Lord’s insight as a discerner of human hearts and their exposure to worldly rather than eternal intent. It says: Now hen Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”Illusions, ideas, intents, personal intuitions, for many, become more important than divine revelation or Eternal Will, eternal purpose, eternal provision, or plan – “my ideas take precedent over eternal will,” and they’re eternally settled into that frame of mind and heart, united with the devil himself, though they’d never admit that to you, but look upon you as a ‘spiritual lunatic’ or a child of the devil yourself!

For unbelievers, even on their dying death-beds, they’ll hold out for their way of human existence, even if it’s brought them pain, suffering, a void of eternal purpose – “I’ve had my way, and with that, I’ll live and leave with what I face after my death.” Oh, really? They really don’t know what the devil and the hordes of Hell’s demons have in store for them, do they?

After life? Oh, yes! The body way decay to “ashes and bones”, but the true ‘you’ is eternal with the devil’s insignia of ownership if you were never ‘purchased by the blood of the Lamb’! The one thing about Hell you need to be reminded of is the fact the devil doesn’t leave you for a season, but day after day inflicts the consequences of your yieldedness to him rather than to Jesus! Eternal agonizing is the identifying reward for all unbelievers.

Do you have any conception at all of an unbeliever’s ‘multiplied sorrow’ forever and ever as the reward of his/her unbelief and rebellion and disobedience before Holy God? There IS the sorrow of heart and mind that intensifies and is never soothed or removed! There is a sorrow of heart that gets heavier and heavier for any unbeliever under Satan’s domination – and it intensifies more and more, forever and forever! Proverbs 10:10 says, “He who winks with the eye causes trouble, but a prating fool will fall.” Prating? Idle chatter, foolish talking, absurd reactions to the love and purpose of Holy God! That’s about as good as I can describe ‘a prating fool’ – God says, “He/she falls!”

Are you familiar with “astrologers”? “Astrology” is a ‘professed science’ that supposedly can “read the stars” and, for them, basically, interpret their influences on human affairs! Really? Or is it not more of human attempts at ascending to God’s throne and seeing for themselves how they’d like to see things turning out? It’s like men who are natural desiring to be supernatural, determining for themselves how earthly things ought to be since “we see it in the stars”! Dream-World?

Oh, certainly, there are “fleshly star-gazers” who believe they’ve seen heavenly visions for themselves with a ‘bright light’ or “me, my, mine” so alien to submission to the King of kings and Lord of lords. Walking in their “own light, as I see it,” with a strong sense of self-will, self-direction, because of a fleshly sense of property and a fleshly sense of personal right, even ahead of or more than God’s divine sovereignty! It’s the fallen attitude of fallen men that “my life consists of what I want it to be, what I choose, what I want to possess for myself”, when the Lord Jesus said, and still says, (Luke 12:15), “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundances of the things he possesses”, or packages according to his own flesh desire, worldly influence, or devilish possession and domination!

Dare I tell you that you’ve just read up on “The Fleshly Unfulfilled”? But, what about “The Spiritually Fulfilled”? Why not truly examine the Word of God for yourself about Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“OPTIONAL EXPRESSIONS OF LIFE – HUMAN OR DIVINE, FLESHLY OR SPIRITUAL, TEMPORARY OR ETERNAL?”

A life bleak or blessed, a life scarred with sin and the old sin nature, or a life conceived by the Holy Spirit, a life trying or trusting, a life programmed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, or a life purposed, promised, and spiritually prosperous in God’s Kingdom because of “new births”, or a life experiencing, exposed to, exasperated by, encapsulated by fears, anxieties, worries, doubts or a life enraptured with, enduring, exciting, and exhilarating in the joy of Jesus’ indwelling, overcoming, victorious Resurrection Presence?

What is your life? Is it the life in Christ Jesus with a peace that passes all understanding or is it a life of spiritual death of the guilty, a life of sinful flesh to offer as best one can, or the “Life in Christ” graciously granted in victorious, overcoming, rejoicing- in- Jesus hearts with symphonic Hallelujahs and glorious praise and thanksgiving from a new-born heart?

A ‘worldly life’ sustained by physical bread alone and the best ‘fallen flesh’ has to nibble on without an ounce of true repentance or pure sustenance or purified heart and mind, void of the Holy Spirit, void of the “fruit” of heavenly love, eternal peace, and life-changing joy that never subsides, wanes, or falters, is a life, though mentally religious but never “born again”, that tries to imitate, even pretend, and attempts with all flesh has to offer, but falls short of the reality of truly transformed hearts and lives by the miracle of the “new birth”!

Do you ever consider, think about, evaluate ‘God-less –living’ as empty, self-centered, mindless, purposeless, unfulfilling, unrewarding in its long haul, or a life filled with the manifestations of Holy Presence in Christ?

Do you remember Jesus saying, “Come to Me, learn of Me, rest in Me, and you’ll find “rest” that is eternal and blessing for your soul” that truly is indescribable?

Is your life based on fleshly ‘fairy’ tales or a life blessed on the divine, eternal, revelation of the Christ of Resurrection Life, Resurrection power, and Resurrection Hope?

The enemy of the “God-Life”, the devil, deceives, entraps, blinds men to the “Christ-in-you-Life” of Holy presence, Holy purpose, and Holy power, with ‘imitation’, ‘non-redemptive,’ ‘fleshly intents alone,’ without any consideration of the miracle of “new birth,” the blessing of “Christ-in-you,” or the fulfillment of divinely-ordained, eternal intent, or sovereignly, ordained, and graciously given “Oneness” with the divine nature in and through Christ!

It was Philip James Bailey, in his “Festus, A Country Town,” who once wrote: “We live in deeds, not years; in thought (or Truth) not breath: In feelings, not figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. Life’s but a means unto an end; that end Beginning, mean, and end of all things – God.”

What is YOUR life? “Hell’s bells” or “the Joy-Juice of Jesus’ Presence”? A fleshly flame revealing failing, futile living or the pure flame of the Eternal Son and Sun of Life within us, the Crucified, Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords?

Life is not a ladder finitely stepped – never has been, never will be – Life was extraordinarily given to give men personal choice of ‘flesh-life’ or the “Divine Life” – life without God or life in Him – not fleshly dreams, finite feelings of sensual pleasures, or faltering feelings of human successes, but a life, not of temporary thoughts of pleasure and satisfactions, but one of eternal peace, resurrection presence, and heavenly joys!

Is your life the “bondage” of your ‘old- as- ADAM’ SIN NATURE OR THE “BLESSING” of LIVING IN, BY, and FOR THE LIFE OF ANOTHER, EVEN CHRIST ALONE THE HOPE OF GLORY?

A man who lives only to satisfy his Adam’s original nature, his flesh, his old, ancient sin nature, his selfish ambitions, is a man who never discovers perfect peace in Christ, selfless surrender to the sovereignty of God, or complete liberty and freedom and desire to honor, bless, exalt, and please the Savior, the Blessed Redeemer only!?!

A life that is satisfied with ‘flesh’ (the old sin nature), that knows no ‘self-denial’, that accepts the devil’s ‘slant’ that ‘You Can Sin And Not Die, That Thinks “devotion to God” is unnecessary, that’s been deceived by the powers of darkness, that loving the world and its lust of the flesh is not evil, never submitting to the reality that THAT world of idiotic, fleshly foolishness, is fading, failing, unfulfilling, and that the lust of it is death constantly just warmed over, and is passing away into a dark abode of demon presence, insisting it’s ‘OK’ – and that’s a life ‘OVERCOMING’ ?– just not overcoming by the blood of the Lamb?

You’ve heard it: “Live while you live – satisfy the passions of your old sin nature, realize you are your own, do as you please, never silencing the demons, and you “just go to Hell” – “it’s OK” – “everybody does it”; while that’s true for the most – it’s not true for God’s redeemed, blood-bought remnant – they find the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life!

How sad that many never come to know the Life that is “in Christ”, never know the true pleasures that never fade that Jesus brings, that never experience the peace that passes all understanding, that never knows “death to self” and “Life in the Savior”, or “death to the fallen nature” and Life in the fullness of the divine nature, or the “death of bad fruit” and not the Life of “the fruit of the Spirit”!

Are you aware of the man-made philosophy that ‘best effort here’ is worthy of life in the “here-after”, that “fleshly best ensures life forever”, that “trusting is good for humanity,” even if God says trusting in Him alone is your only hope?

“Live while you live as your ‘flesh’ dictates” or “Live in Me alone” as Jesus declared? “Live while you live for the pleasures that satisfy your fleshly tendencies” or is it “Live for the purpose of honoring the God who made you, lost you, but bought you with a price, even the blood, innocent blood, of the precious Lamb of God?”

How many do you know who see “life is living it to the fullest for yourself as YOU see it for yourself,” or is it “Life is living as God desires, defines, declares, and delivers me to through a repentant heart, fully trusting and receiving forgiveness, and the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Have you ever heard it? “A man’s ingress into his own world is knowing, satisfying, and promoting himself with all due diligence”, without any consideration of the eternal purpose of God of ordination as a vessel or container of divine life and holy presence? It’s not ingress in ‘self’ but INDWELT by Resurrection Life in Christ alone!

Facts of human existence are not as Fosdick once spoke of as ‘loose types with many meanings,” but human existence was intended before time began to be habitations of Holy Presence as “temples” of a loving Lord and Savior, but many have fallen victims desiring the “Las Vegas’ residences of self-indulgence, unbelief, and fleshly rebellion”!

Can you even ‘see’ in fallen humanity the reality of “chaotic disarrangement” and “self-centered”, self-serving, cynical or godless arrangements, fleshly affirmations and loyalties, and descents into hellish, hollow, and ‘holey’ attempts at life in the flesh alone ,but wanting spiritual existence on their own terms? That’s nothing more than fragments of existence offered as one’s best but never aligning or becoming one with God’s intent! But in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15, (Is this the testimony, not simply of your existence but God’s Indwelling?),

“But we have this treasure in earthern vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed (at times), but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.”

Do you see it? Do you sense it? Have you settled it? Are you aware of it? There is the reality of one’s “best”, the “fleshly unfulfilled”, or God’s “best”, the spiritually re-born, indwelt, regenerated, Spirit-anointed, and “blessed” with the Resurrection Presence of the Living Lord, OR there is the unending evidences of the godless OR the eternal workings of Christ in the “Spirit-Man”.

Yes, there is “the sufferings of the saints” who ARE SUSTAINED BY THE SAVIOR, and who know both toughness in determination to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, and at the same time are tender followers who show others the way of Redeeming grace, purpose, and power! And though most saints are “forgotten by the world”, they live “fulfilled, blessed, contented, peaceful lives in and through Christ alone”! They are prayers, prepared, and equipped by the Word and the Spirit!

Do you comprehend “fleshly lives as containers of man’s best” or “spiritual lives birthed by the Spirit as recipients and containers and vessels of God’s best, the Living Christ, crucified, resurrected, ascended, reigning, and available to any repentant heart willing to be the temple of the Eternal Christ”?

In ‘fallen flesh” the “best” of human existence is only ‘variations’ and ‘shadows of the True’, but only ‘IN CHRIST’ is there the ‘victory over sin and death and emptiness and meaninglessness’, when only in the flesh is there the rewards of God’s enemy; but ‘IN CHRIST’ is the reaping and receiving of everlasting Life in Him! Christ-less lives are “oil-less lamps” with no ‘Light” that shines forth God’s glory.

Christ-less lives are ‘fragmented’ left-overs of ‘what could have been’ rather than Christ-Indwelt lives, fully revealing a God-ordained, and God-birthed Resurrection Presence!

Fleshly lives at the human-level “best” is only a cheap imitation of illumined, divine, resurrection presence of eternal life, eternal hope, and eternal fruit.

Free men? That’s not ‘freedom’ to do as one “damn well pleases”, but spiritual freedom in the Spirit to honor Christ alone! Only “in Christ” are men truly liberated to honor Holy God!

Most men, apart from God, arise each morning thinking, “What will really make ‘my day’ and ‘pump my flesh’ to historic levels?”, rather than, “What will honor God and exalt Christ through me to the world around me?”

A mortal man is only committed and satisfied in his self-complacency, his self-promotion, and his self- indulgence , but the “Christ-man” desires, longs for, driven by, and holds onto “honoring Christ alone, the hope of glory through me, as a vessel!”

Everything that promotes ‘flesh’, even ‘flesh at its best’, gives honor to the ‘old sin-nature’, turns a blind eye to the will, the Word, and purposes of Holy God, and is a clear exposure of one’s spiritual nakedness and his ‘egression’ willfully further away from God, and not his willful ‘ingression’ in Him by “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ alone.”

Misspent lives apart from the presence of Christ are like ‘empty glasses or vessels’ rather than residences of Christ in them as His Holy Temple!

Useless living is ‘born in sin’ with no desire to be reconciled to God, just indifferent to His Word and will, with no desire or longing or fleshly impulse to reconciliation or understanding of His Word or anything different from ‘fleshly satisfaction’ or even a thought about ‘birthed in Christ’ through repentance and faith! Yes, millions live without any desire to be “citizens of the Kingdom of God”, living consumed in promoting ‘self’ , not understanding the rebellious attitude that is the ‘death-nail’ to eternal purpose. Personal imagination and personal intent is not divine life nor divine presence nor divine power, but simply “best of the flesh” honoring “self-made men” of temporary existence, fading fame, tainted rewards, and terrible, eternal residences apart from the God who loved them, wanted them, but lost them by their lusts, their stubbornness, indifference, and mindlessness and heartlessness to His good, acceptable, and perfect will –“best effort” or “fallen flesh” is acceptable to them, and not even the Crucified and Resurrected Christ matters to them!

It’s not even ‘how long you lived’, but “in Whom you lived”, not the “best of self-effort existence in the sands of life” but “the solid foundation” of the True Rock who is Christ alone.

Do YOU fathom, do you understand, do you comprehend lives that are nothing more than ‘helpless pieces’ on “Life’s Game-board” with no submission or open door in them to the True Author of Everlasting Life, Purpose, or Divine Moves on their ‘play-boards’ of one’s earthly existence? Apart from Jesus it’s emptiness, vainness, personal game-playing – not the unveiling and revealing and revelation of Eternal Intent!

Life ‘found’ for one’s self apart from the Savior and Lord is a life guaranteed of eternal loss and one of serious desperation and consequences, but life “FOUND” in Christ for His honor, His glory, His praise, will stand eternally before Holy God, constantly reflecting, radiating, revealing Jesus’ everlasting Presence! It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his “A Psalm of Life,” who wrote: “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal,” but I’m not sure if he even grasped, “Life is eternal” – and it’s either ‘in your best’ or Jesus’ “Resurrection Life and Holy, Resurrected Presence”; yes, there is life that continues beyond the grave and Hell with all its demons, devil, and unbelievers, but with the “graced saints” graciously living in God’s gift of eternal life in and through Christ’s “finished work”, there IS Heaven! Yes, Jesus Only!

Any definition of ‘life’ that has no foundation under it of honoring and glorifying Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior is ‘fruitless’, even ‘hollow religions’, ‘unregenerate church members’, or ‘temples steeped with ‘hypocrites’! But Jesus IS “the Light”, and “Jesus Only” is the ONLY UNVEILING OF LIGHT within men!

Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, Promised Messiah, IS the “Life”, the “Bread of Life”, is the “Author of LIFE” and that more abundantly, IS the “gift of God” and the only door to “eternal life”, and Paul says, “To live ‘in Christ’ is to flourish, and to die ‘in Christ’ is to gain eternal Presence and an eternal home in Heaven; life apart from Christ is a ‘vapor’ that only ‘exists’, and that ‘forever’ with flesh’s author and finisher who is the devil, but ‘in Christ’ there is victorious presence that never dies, falters or fades away in insignificance, but constantly joins Heaven’s Angels in the “Hallelujah Chorus”!

Unhappy lives or even ‘happy lives’ are not “God-blessed” or “Spirit-birthed” but just Adam-seeded, sin-natured attempts at “doing one’s best” with even totally unconcerned, misinformed, or blinded allegiance to God’s purpose in their ‘creation’. Have you ever heard someone say, “The purpose of life is just be yourself to your fullest and be happy?” when God’s intent is one being through with himself, accepting God’s judgment of his/her death with Christ as his/her only hope, and rejoicing daily in His Resurrection Presence in their repentant, redeemed, reconciled to God hearts!

It was Shakespeare, in his “Macbeth”, [Act V, sc.5.1,26], who wrote: “Life…is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” Did the prophet mention the one who says, “Peace, peace, but there is no peace?”

You do understand, you do comprehend, you have evaluated the consequences of “Godless-men, nations, individuals” who ‘try’ to live with “no need of God”! Leo Tolstoy was right on target when in his writing “The Kingdom of God,” (Chapter 12), he said: “The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgement and profession [and I, JFF, would add ‘confession’ and ‘acceptance’] of the Truth by each one of us.”

I like what Augustine said when he spoke, “Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves”! “The wages of (“my”) sin is death, but the ‘gift of God’ IS eternal life in and through Christ ONLY!” And as a result of receiving the “finished work of Christ AT THE CROSS,” resurrected to the King’s Presence, His Kingdom, and His witness in us and through us, He gives us graciously the “gift of the Holy Spirit,” and Romans 8:16 declares: “The Spirit (the Holy Spirit!) Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”

As a result of the amazing miracle of grace and the habitation of the Risen Christ within repentant hearts, and the recipients of the Holy Spirit “bearing witness in us and through us,” do you doubt, or just never informed and discipled to be led by the Holy Spirit? “The Spirit bears witness!” Is He “bearing witness” in you and through you?

I love Oswald Chambers’ explanation of “The Witness of the Spirit” in his amazing writings entitled, “My Utmost For His Highest.” (p.218). “We are in danger of getting the barter spirit when we come to God, wanting the witness before we have done what God tells us to do. “Why does not God reveal Himself to me?” He cannot, it is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the road as you won’t abandon absolutely to Him. Immediately you do, God witnesses to Himself. He cannot witness to you, but He witnesses instantly to His own nature in you. If you had the witness before the reality, it would end in sentimental emotion. Immediately you transact on the Redemption, and stop the impertinence of debate, God gives the witness. As soon as you abandon reasoning and argument, God witnesses to what He has done, and we are amazed at our impertinence in having kept Him waiting. If you are in debate as to whether God can deliver from sin, either let Him do it, or tell Him He cannot. Do not quote this and that person, try Matthew 11:28, – “Come unto Me.” “COME”, if you are weary and heavy laden; “ask”, if you know you are evil. (Luke 11:13).

Chambers went on to say: (p.219), “The Spirit of God witnesses to the Redemption of our Lord, He does not witness to anything else; He cannot witness to our reason. The simplicity that comes from our common-sense decisions is apt to be mistaken for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of Redemption, never to our reason. If we try to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder we are in darkness and perplexity. Fling it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give the witness.”

That’s so true “IF”! “If any man be in Christ, If any man is finished with his old life, old sin-nature, and his ‘fleshly ambitions’, willing ALL old things “are passed away,” then the “new-creation man”, indwelt by Resurrection Life in Christ, is then ready to “receive the Holy Spirit” to guide, direct, empower, and overflow in you and through you with, yes, “the gifts of the Spirit,” ready to reveal a redeemed, re-born, Spirit-filled, appointed, anointed witness to the glory and honor of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

In the old American hymnal of Robert Coleman’s, published by The Broadman Press in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1933, I came across the song By Horatuis Bonar entitled “I Heard The Voice of Jesus Say.” It says:

“I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Come unto Me and rest; Lay down, you weary one, lay down your head upon My breast.” I came to Jesus as I was, Weary, and worn, and sad; I found in Him a resting-place, And He has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold I freely give The living water; thirsty one, Stoop down, and drink, and live.” I came to Jesus and I drank of that life-giving stream; my thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in Him.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s light: Look unto Me, your morn shall rise, And all your days be bright.” I looked to Jesus and found in Him my Star, my Sun; And in that light of life I’ll walk Till all my journey’s done.”

Old man – “new man”; flesh – Spirit; the sinner’s man – His saint; the Undone – in Him a “finished work” complete in Christ lacking nothing; grit, grease, garbage, and gall – “in Christ” is grace, victorious virtue, “fresh springs”, and perfect “God-Likeness”; empty, insignificant, earthly dwelling of ‘human flesh’ – “in Christ” is eternal Life, Holy Presence, and All-Sufficient grace; ‘flesh-poverty? – how about “enriched in Him, heirs, sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, co-laborers in the Savior’s eternal, redemptive work, recipients of the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, blessed with “amazing assurance”, divine anointings, holy callings, the natural crucified but resurrection Life amplified, Kingdom living and resident address, Kingdom presence, Kingdom power, Kingdom privileges, and Kingdom testimonies, visions and dreams, and Holy anointings in fulfilling His good and acceptable and purposeful will, citizens of the eternal Kingdom, members of the divine Family, appointees “in Christ” to the mission of world-wide “redemption” through our testimonies of “the blood of the Lamb and His Resurrection Presence in every “born-again” life! “Rise up, O men of God!”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

BEARING THE NAME – LIVING WITH SHAME

“BEARING THE NAME – LIVING WITH SHAME!”

“Bearing the Name, then living with the shame, is a life professing faith in Christ Jesus but continuing in a love-relationship with the world, the flesh, and the devil; sadly that’s a life still governed by selfishness rather than the Savior and Lord!

In “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” (p.398), Robert R. Brown 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.”

“Bearing the Name, then living with the shame of self-promotion and self-indulgence”, rather than faithful submission to Christ’s Lordship, is a willing renunciation of that Lordship and compromise with that which is diabolically opposed to the honor and glory of Holy God! And, sadly, sin-indulgent men live with no awareness of its harm and destructive influence and impact on others, even those and that it influences in its ‘cursing’ disregard of ‘blessing and honoring of God’!

Some are confronted with the claims of Christ Jesus for their hearts and lives, but are so contaminated by the sin of self-indulgence that “they” consider ‘suicide’ a better calling for them than surrender to Christ’s Lordship! THAT, my friends, is the depth rebellion can carry one to! But “cold-hearted”, “sin-bound” men will just celebrate their “lost-ness” and “separation” from God with indifference! Oh, and then, “believing Christians” just profess: “We’re under the Blood! So, it’s OK!”

There is a sad, sad commentary of Israel in Jeremiah 11:15-17, (Bearing a resemblance to Titus 1:10-16!!), with God saying in the prophetic passage: “What has My beloved to do in My house, having done lewd deeds with many? And the holy flesh has passed from you. When you do evil, then you rejoice. The Lord called your name, Green Olive Tree, Lovely and of Good Fruit. With the noise of a great tumult He has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken. For the Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced doom against you for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke Me to anger in offering incense to Baal.”

Isn’t it liberating to know what Proverbs 28:13 says? “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” But “covered” sounds so inviting, but “continuing” in after “forgiveness” (?) is more than costly – it’s deadly, destructive, deceiving, dis-abling, and reveals a lingering heart and mind of a darkened mind and heart, if though a ‘religious one’!

And I believe if one presses into Proverbs 28:13 he/she finds biblical covering through the shed blood of the Lamb of God that there is both forgiveness AND freedom to live in the fullness and blessing of His Resurrection Life – but forgiveness with a warped mind, “I can continue to sin since I’m under the blood of the Lamb” which is disgracing the name and work of Christ at the Cross!

In YOUR church surroundings have you witnessed “fig-leaf” dressing rather than clothed in the “finished” garments of the crucified and Resurrected Christ? The shed blood of Christ “washes” clean, but “fig-leaf” rationale suggests “self-will” rather than divine revelation!

Do you hear ‘unbelievers’ even denying their “sin” or sinful state and ‘trusting’ in their personal ‘pretense’, or ‘excusing’ themselves in blaming others – parents, teachers, ‘stars’ that surround them in ungodly behavior and ‘faith-denial’, and because they are such good people, good citizens, good soldiers, but faithless as to the blood redemption, they leave ‘flesh followers’ with no redemptive hope because they view it as unimportant to their ‘refined’ life?

In fact, many, many people, influenced by godless lives, ‘excuse’ their ‘sin’ as a ‘religionized, homogenized milk’ that is fundamental to every human, without consequence, because: “If there is a God, He made us this way; and it’s normal and natural, without consequence!” Others assert, “God’s to blame because He made us this way!” Blame God?

I love what Spurgeon said about it when he once said: “Shall the prisoner at the bar bring accusations against the Judge who tries him?” And “the prisoner in prison” blames the prison superintendent for his guilt and sentence of death?

“Fleshly denial” is certainly a strong influence for many ‘naturalized’ unbelievers AND ‘professing Christians’ who ‘blame God’. “If God ‘made’ man, ‘birthed’ man, and that with a sin nature, then it’s reasonable to blame Him, and free ourselves from guilt. The fault lies with God who made us, and He ought not be holding us accountable for what He created!”

Some say, ‘ God’s harsh in His judgments’, when fallen men initiate perverseness of lifestyles and vacuums of faith, trust, and obedience to the God who birthed them for the pleasures of self-will, self-pleasure, and self-rule – “We may be ‘fallen men’ in God’s mind, but we’re free to do as we please!” And most sense no need of the Savior, Lord, and Master of life!

Oh, but then there are those fully aware of disobedience to God, diabolical hiding to loving, caring Godly parents, and a coveting, masking, fraudulent hiding from even their fallen world around them, because, at least, they have no desire to be included with “transgressors”! So, they choose “dark clouds”, “deceitful explanations”, or only “deceived circles of sin” that they mostly move in, but at least “profess” and “attend” the church that Jesus loved and gave Himself for. They ‘imitate’, they ‘mimic’, they ‘copy’, they ‘assume’ the religious mask when they feel it’s necessary!

Again, Spurgeon wrote: [ Memorial Library, Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.12, p.187-188], “Possibly they themselves held their tongue, and flattered themselves that no observer witnessed their movements or could divulge their action. So it was with Achan. I dare say he took the wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment, ‘mid the confusion of the battle, and hid it when his comrades seemed to much engaged to notice so trivial an affair. While they were rushing over the fallen walls of Jericho, amidst the debris and the dust, he might be unmolested; and then, in the dead of night, while they slept, he turned the sod of his tent, dug into the earth, and buried there his coveted treasure. All looks right, to his heart’s content. He has smoothed it down, and spread his carpet over the grave of his lust. Little did he count on the unerring lot that would come home to the tribe of Judah, to the family of the Zarhites, to the house of Zabdir, and, at last, to the son of Carmi, so that Achan himself would have to stand out confessed as a traitor – a robber of his God. Men little know the ways in which the Almighty can find them out, and bring the evidence that convicts out of the devices that were intended to cover their sin.”

“Bearing the Name – Living with Shame”! One of the things that the “shameful” fail to realize, comprehend, or understand, is that ‘mental dexterity’ does not see, sense, or take note, that, though good at ‘covering their compromising lifestyle’, it does not close the door on Holy God’s spiritual examination and exposure of what’s going on in the secret places of a divided heart!

In Luke 11:17-26 we find a strong, exposing word from Jesus about “kingdom division”! He said: “Every kingdom divided against itself (‘half to Jesus – half to me?’) is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelezebub. And if I cast out demons by Beelezebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. HE WHO IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE WHO DOES NOT GATHER WITH ME SCATTERS.

When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came. And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

“Half to Jesus – half to me”, and the devil rejoices! “Split kingdoms are open doors to devilish shame”! A split kingdom is the devil’s opportunity to thrive in “spoiling” one’s compromised allegiances! Does that result in “empty vines”? Does that mean some measure “fruitfulness” in the spiritual walk as “fruit for myself”? I dare you to search the Scriptures for what it has to say about “divided hearts”!

How strong, how awakening do you find Romans 1:16-25, speaking of a religious but rebellious people who “bear the Name but live with shame”, except for “the few” who are truly the “blood bought” and who DIDN’T exchange “the Truth for the lie”, the lie meaning you can sin and NOT die! It Says:

“For I am not ashamed of the GOSPEL OF CHRIST, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes [Rests in, relies upon, & adheres to!), 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 shall live by faith.’

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who SUPPRESS THE TRUTH in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even the eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

Because, although THEY KNEW GOD, they DID NOT GLORIFY HIM as God nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

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, (the lie? You can sin and not die!), and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

“Bearing the name –Living with the shame?” It’s as if one who ‘bears the name’ believes he/she can cover “disobedience” by occasional response to Christ in some ‘form’ of a ‘Christ-like’ activity when in reality he/she loves the crossing of the line and life of holiness in fleshly rebellion “some of the time”. Concealed sin, cunning deliberation about how to hide it, evasions of responsibility and accountability, are ignored – then the Holy Word speaks! In Numbers 32:23 Moses said: “BE SURE YOU SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT!”

“Coverings, masks, excuses, ‘fleshly interpretations’, even outright denials of sin before Holy God” will have “no grounds” of excuse before the Judgment Bar of Holy God! Even long, elegant robes like the Pharisees and priests often wore in Temple activities, cannot conceal what reigns in the heart!

But there is eternal hope – not in our ‘self-efforts’, but in the finished work of Christ at the Cross! In Hebrews 13:20-21 we read: “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE EVERLASTING COVENANT, make you COMPLETE in every good work TO DO HIS WILL, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Again, Psalm 85:2 says: “You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; YOU HAVE COVERED ALL THEIR SIN. You have taken away all Your wrath; You have turned from the fierceness of Your anger,” and in His love, grace, and mercy, He sweeps us up in the arms of His Holy Presence, caresses us in His compassion, anoints us in His Spirit-Power, and the Most High establishes us in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

And like Paul, we’ve learned to daily take the sentence of death unto ourselves that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in mortal flesh! That’s “Christ in you the hope of glory”!

All because of the Love of God! Sinners declared saints, rebellious children birthed into the Holy Family of God, darkened lives becoming enlightened minds and hearts in the Glory of God, sin-imprisoned souls transformed into sons and daughters of Heaven’s Royal Family, condemned souls because of sin and the sin nature translated out of fleshly slavery to consecrated spirits of spiritual freedom and spiritual identity as royal ambassadors of the eternal Kingdom of God, the ‘chained’ to the devil’s dark kingdom-rule freed by the power of Christ over demonic control, ‘darkness’ allegiance, and the deathly walk of deception, loosed by the blood of the Lamb, no longer condemned because of sin but commissioned by the Master as His messengers!

Atoned, anointed, appointed, birthed, blessed, baptized in the Spirit, broken bread, poured out wine, consecrated on the altar of service as delegated representatives of the King of kings and Lord of lords, commissioned as holy representatives of the Savior and Lord, guiltless blood for guilty men, from darkened nights of the soul Christ changes miraculously the repentant heart into the Eternal Daylight by His Being, His Presence, His Purpose, His Power, as constant “Son-risers” and “Servant-saints”, and “Sanctified-Sermons” of His grace, mercy, and love!

Do YOU testify and testify regularly? Far too many ‘believers’ who ARE “temples of Christ’s holy presence”, though ‘steepled’, too often fail to ring their “bells” of worthy testimony that the spiritually unlearned might be drawn to Christ by their ringing – but sadly too many times, those “bells” are never rung!

You, as you hear this, may be those who have been redeemed but you haven’t truly reverenced Him because you’re not sure He can redeem others through you! But John 15:13 tells us about “greater love” – and it says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends”; and then Jesus said in Verse 14, “YOU ARE MY FRIENDS, if you do whatever I command you.” Has there been a New Testament, Christ-Spoken, Spirit-anointed Word to all believers? YES!

In John 15:22 Jesus went on to say to His disciples, and us, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, BUT NOW THEY HAVE NO EXCUSE FOR THEIR SIN.” And, of course, some would say that that related to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but not to all Christians since then. Really? Don’t forget what “All Scripture” is for all believers!

There certainly is the reality of men who pore through the Word but deny its worth for the redemption of their souls! There are those who ‘examine’ Him but without any intent of “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at Calvary’s Cross and the Empty Tomb! There are those who admire His compassion but will deny His Crown! There are those who give credit to Him for His strong character and caring outreach to the hungry and needy, but care not that He confessed He was the Promised Messiah! To them, “No man can atone for the sin of all humanity!”

In 1 Peter 2:22-25 Peter wrote, speaking of Christ Jesus, “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.”

This is why the author of Hebrews sought to awaken sleeping souls when he wrote in Hebrews 9:27-28, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” A sinful vessel washed, purified, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, becomes the holy temple of His residence in true believers of redemptive faith! Parodies abound in unbelieving hearts and minds, but “symphonies of praise” are heard worldwide by the “Blood-bought” citizens of Christ’s glorious Kingdom!

Oh, it’s ‘easy’ to deny Christ’s saving grace and mercy when one’s intent is to live with and satisfy one’s sin nature! Self-pride, self-indulgence, self-adulation becomes ‘ruler’ in so many sin-blackened minds and hearts! But one, also, of the great stumbling blocks in unbelievers is their ‘love’ of indifference and unconcern for anything ‘spiritual’! In fact, most unbelievers and rebellers against Holy Truth are “listless”, or, as the Dictionary describes it: “feeling or showing no inclination toward or interest in anything,” except self-rule, self-indulgence and self-pleasure!

Most unbelievers are immersed in the monopoly of what promotes the success I want in what “I” determine as ‘my way of salvation’. But since only true redemptive faith in Christ’s shed blood washes away one’s guilt, ‘fleshly resolutions’ become the fallen’s avenue to success, but always falling short, missing the mark, and coming up empty and drained without saving grace and mercy and love from God Himself!

In Isaiah 45:22-24 the prophet wrote a word from God that call every unbelieving man to repentance and faith. God said: “LOOK TO ME, AND BE SAVED, all you ends of the earth! For I AM GOD, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself’ the word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, THAT TO ME EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW, EVERY TONGUE SHALL TAKE AN OATH. He shall say, ‘Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, and all shall be ashamed who are incensed against Him.”

No ‘looking to Him,’ no repenting of one’s sin, no surrendering to His Lordship, no resting in His shed blood and His promise of forgiveness and resurrection life, no turning to worship and praise the God of Creation, the God of the Cross, and the God whose Throne is in Heaven, Over the Earth, and according to Hebrews 1:8, But to the Son God says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. Verse 9, You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

Yet, how easy for many to “Bear His Name –Yet – Live With Shame”! But then the grace of God is “Rescuing the perishing, and caring for the fallen!” I love Frederick William Robertson’s words in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” [p.399], “We are too much haunted by ourselves, projecting the central shadow of self on everything around us. – And then comes the Gospel to rescue us from this selfishness. – Redemption is this, to forget self in God.”

B.B. McKinney and W.T. Dale co-authored an old Hymn entitled: “Crimson Calvary Answers, ‘No!’” Their words? “Shall I be condemned forever, If I to the Lord draw near; If I sue for peace and pardon, Will He deign to hear my prayer? Will He scorn my deep contrition, Will He not His grace bestow? Will He scorn my heart’s petition? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

I am mourning over my follies; I am weeping over my sin; For my guilt’s become oppressive, And a burden long has been; Will the Lord be gracious to me, If I tell Him all my woe, Will He leave me in my anguish? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

If I go and tell Him truly How I have His love abused, How I’ve sinned against His mercy, And His pardon have refused; Will He grant His loving favor When in penitence I go; Or in wrath will He forsake me? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“WANDERING FROM THE FAITH”

There are not many men anywhere who live with a total disregard of Holy God; and there are many men all over the world who in their deep and abiding love for Him would never consider ‘walking away’ from Him. But, at the same time, there are those “journeyers” with Jesus who have chosen, not simply to willfully walk away, but at times are “drawn away”, or often “swept away” by powerful tides of false influences thrusting them onto the rocks of “doubt, fears, twisted unbeliefs, or careless, fleshly indulgences”! And, for them, ‘surprisingly’ (?) they “fall into” those temptations and give way to the devil’s strong deceptions, the devil even telling some, “you cannot do anything but sin until you get to heaven; so, at least, have a little ‘fun’ on the way!”

“Faith journeys”? There are missed or messed-up directions that some believers take that become “detours” away from the true and living Way, and become “dead-end streets” that cause a “scattering” and not “gathered unto Jesus”! In fact, in John 16:32, Jesus SPOKE TO HIS DISCIPLES! “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.”

Don’t you pray that that never happens to you, to yours, to your fellow believers, to your pastoral leadership, even ‘up-until-now’ faithful political leaders who for the most part have sought to honor the Lord Jesus Christ? But are you aware of, yes, some “wandering from the Faith”?

Are you aware of how easy it is to be ‘side-tracked’ to personal interests rather than the cause of Christ in a careless world of, often, a “straying from the faith”? Are there “mental” strayings from pure devotion and surrender to Christ’s Lordship? Are there “willful” choices to disobey and stray away? Are there “inner desolations” or “private sins” that no one sees but God Himself that has captured one’s heart and mind “spoiling” the redemptive blessing of a “new life” in Christ?

course, when you read Luke 19:41-44 about Christ Jesus “weeping over Jerusalem”, you clearly understand how the ‘religious pretenders’ claimed allegiance to Jesus but then participated in His crucifixion, but since “All Scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God (anywhere, anytime, anywho!) may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work,” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), hear the Master, Lord, and Savior in the Luke passage!!

“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 one stone upon another, BECAUSE you did not know the time of your visitation.” WOW! [Happened to Jerusalem – can happen to you!]

In our “faith journeys” does the Lord Jesus tell us that there are “times of visitation” that become His “times of examination” of ALL disciples? Don’t you find it so interesting and challenging to read King David in Psalm 26:2-8? “Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my mind and my heart. For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth.

I have not sat with idolatrous mortals, nor will I go in with hypocrites. I have hated the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I will wash my hands in innocence; So I will go about Your altar, O Lord, that I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all Your wondrous works. Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells.”

In the “faith journey”, with an awareness of examinations and testings by Father-God, some live out the faith carelessly unaware of God’s plan and desire to ‘conform us all into the very image and likeness of Christ’, but darkening opportunities, avoiding divine ability, and limiting the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ! I really don’t know how it is that many ‘believers’ consider “self-effort-best” in the walk of faith when “Christ in us IS the hope of glory!”

How many do you know or become aware of in your pilgrimage who know nothing about “the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us In Christ Jesus”, not in one’s best effort? But, in the “journey” of “being conformed to the image of Christ”, is it possible that some ‘fall way from the faith’?

In Jeremiah 6:10 the “Lord of hosts” spoke to a “falling-away-people”: “To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. [Why?], Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.”

Oh, but Holy God didn’t stop there! Jeremiah 6:13-15 is a strong, holy, convicting, awakening Word! He said: “Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; nor did they know how to blush. Therefore THEY SHALL FALL among those who fall; At the time I punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the Lord.

Do you remember Joseph preparing his brothers for their ‘journey’ back to Israel and their father? He said, in Genesis 45:24 So he sent his brothers away, and they departed; and he said to them, “See that you do not become troubled along the way.” Did YOU have a spiritual father of the faith who told you that as you began your “pilgrimage of faith and devotion to Christ Jesus”? And yet many failed to warn sons and daughters of the faith that “troubles” leading to a “falling away” can be numerous and horrific!

Didn’t Paul warn the Thessalonians about “the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish (along the way), because they did not receive (or see as necessary for themselves because they were so “spiritual” in their own understanding!) the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). Oh, and then God made a sovereign judgment! Verses 11-12 says, “AND FOR THIS REASON GOD will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie ( like ‘you can sin and not die’?), that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Isn’t it true, haven’t you heard them, read them, witnessed them, teaching and preaching the “white-washing” of “dark truths”, promoting “one can sin, and sin, and sin, and not die, because God overlooks a believer’s sin but condemns sinners”?, when it hasn’t changed: “The wages of sin is death!”

Thank God FOR “the Pauls” who serve Him faithfully and warn of the dangers of “falling away”! In Galatians 5:1 and Verses 4-6, Paul wrote: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage….Verses 4-6, You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law ( you who compromise and want to blend fallen flesh with “new birth spirit”); you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.”

And isn’t “the liberty of Christ” the liberty of freedom from, not the liberty to be or do as redeemed ‘flesh’ dictates, but the liberty of Lordship, committed to and dominated by His Holy Will, which IS “Go and sin no more”? (John 8:11!). What ‘yoke’ have you submitted to? The yoke of indulgent flesh or the yoke OF “Christ-Liberation”?

There’s an awesome word from the Lord in Revelation 3:10-12 which says: “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! (Have YOU heard His “door-knocking” at your heart?). 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.” There doesn’t have to be a “wandering away from the true, redemptive Faith in Christ alone”, but, sadly, there are those who do!

WANDERING FROM THE FAITH? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THERE ARE THOSE WHO BEGIN THE JOURNEY WITHOUT COUNTING THE COST? I assume that the words of the Lord Jesus apply as we seek to determine why the ‘wandering away’ occurs – Right? In Luke 14:25-33 we see several ‘types of followers’, temporary-eternal, adapters-adopted, reckless-reliant, divided allegiances- undivided devotion, cost ignoramuses-cost evaluators! Receive Christ Jesus’ “demands of true discipleship”!

Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it – lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish? Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegate and asks conditions of peace. SO LIKEWISE, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

A ‘king’ considering the cost? Jesus evaluated the ‘human condition’ of sin and separation from Holy God, willingly giving Himself in death to bring opportunity for Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope to every man who lives in repentance toward God and faith in the Savior’s finished work at the Cross, then three days later rising from the dead, then offering every repentant soul forgiveness, a “new Life”, ushering in the eternal kingdom of God, and assigning all “followers” to endure ‘world rejection’ but rejoice daily in God’s eternal affirmation of a true child of faith that rejects what a fallen world offers and ‘rests’ in what Christ Jesus assures!

It was Paul who said in Acts 17:26-28, “And He (God) has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being…”. And then in Acts 17:30-31 we find out about the eternal governance of God! “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now Commands all men everywhere to repent, BECAUSE He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” Glory!

Were you informed of “the cost” when you “joined” a church? In Luke 24:46-49 Jesus said, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, AND THAT REPENTANCE AND REMISSION OF SINS SHOULD BE PREACHED IN HIS NAME TO ALL NATIONS, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

Repentance? Brokenness over one’s sin and sin nature, brokenness over alienation and separation from Holy God who made you, brokenness that you ignored Christ’s historic death for you too long, brokenness over the alienation and separation from God’s desire to extend His love, express His grace, and exalt His Son through you – but for too long you ignored divine intent, lived with a closed mind to His love, His will, His sacrifice, brokenness realizing that if YOU were the only sinful man who ever lived, and Christ died just for you, how do you relate to that? Will YOU just wander away from redemptive faith or halt the mis-direction of your life and “lean on Christ Jesus only”? “Count the cost”? Death to the old man and full surrender to the “new man” in Christ!

WANDERING FROM THE FAITH? IS IT POSSIBLE A BELIEVER, HAVING REPENTED, SERVED FAITHFULLY HIS MASTER FOR SOME TIME, CAN BELIEVE THE MASTER ‘MAY DELAY HIS COMING’, THEREFORE “I” CHOOSE TO PLAY AROUND FOR AWHILE! Come to Luke 12: 42-46 where Jesus speaks so clearly about this danger that comes over some ‘believers’ lives: “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has. But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint his portion with the unbelievers.”

It’s really, really interesting that early in the church’s existence the Apostle Paul had to intervene, at least in Thessalonica, but you’ll find his concern elsewhere in his writings if you so desire, but in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 he stirs up a strong warning to the “play-around” folks who engaged in sexual immorality. Paul wrote:

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles, who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.

For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”

I wonder how many “flesh indulgers” of the past, having come to Christ, consult their Master and Lord before plunging into a sea of sexual immorality? Of course, sadly, some were never discipled as to the ‘holy life’ as “ambassadors of Christ”! When Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world,” which, I believe, is certainly a call in one’s life of faith that ‘kingdom living’ under His Lordship is opposite of submission to, entertainment of the world’s fleshly ways, especially sexual immorality!

Have you been taught that coming to Christ through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross opens the door of your heart and life to “Kingdom Allegiance”? Jesus told the religious Pharisees in Luke 17:20-21, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

In Romans 14:16-19 we find interesting, convicting, challenging words: “Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; [but at the same time, I add: “but do not let your evil be spoken of as good”, or “Sexual immorality is OK! Don’t let the ‘Bible-thumpers’ scare you! We all do it.” Really?]. for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.”

In 1 Thessalonians 4:1-3 I repeat what I read earlier: “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us HOW YOU OUGHT TO WALK AND PLEASE GOD; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is THE WILL OF GOD, your sanctification: THAT YOU SHOULD ABSTAIN FROM SEXUAL IMMORALITY…!”

WANDERING FROM THE FAITH? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT SOME BELIEVERS, SO ENAMORED WITH “PEACE AND SAFETY” TEACHINGS, RATHER THEN “PURSUE, PRESS IN, OR PERPETUALLY” HOLD ONTO CHRIST JESUS, THEY BECOME SO IN LOVE WITH PLEASING ‘FLESH’ THEY ALLOW “SPIRIT-HUNGER” TO DIE? It’s really amazing to me and heart-breaking to read in Isaiah 56:9-12 about Israel’s careless, compromising, irresponsible leaders that influenced a ton of Israel’s people, with only the true remnant remaining steadfast! It says: “All you beasts of the field, come to devour, all you beasts in the forest. (And Jerusalem was ultimately destroyed in 70AD!) His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down loving to slumber.

Yes, they are greedy dogs which never have enough. And they are shepherds who cannot understand; THEY ALL LOOK TO THEIR OWN WAY, every one for his own gain, from his own territory. “Come,” one says, “I will bring wine, and we will fill ourselves with intoxicating drink; Tomorrow will be as today, and much more abundant.” But they ended bankrupt!

That’s “flesh-loving, flesh-desiring, flesh domination”, even as one sings “Peace and Safety”! Oh, but then! SUDDEN DESTRUCTION COMES! In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 Paul challenges every believer then and now: But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly 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. Therefore let us NOT SLEEP, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who ARE OF THE DAY be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.

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

Of course, the question of the moment is, “Are you walking, now, this very moment, in the ‘darkness’ of fleshly indulgence or in the “Light” of glorious grace and mercy?” Walking in the “peace and safety” frame of reference is often held by ‘believers’ walking both sides of the street – a devotion to flesh observance during the week and a spirit observance on Sundays! In Matthew 6:24 Jesus said: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Are YOU a ‘compromising disciple’ walking both sides of the street, or His disciple willing to walk in His “way of the Cross” that leads home victoriously?

In Revelation 1:17-18 John was blessed in the divine unveiling of Christ’s Presence! He said: And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I AM He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen.” Amen means “So be it,” and our Lord intends His “AMEN” to be YOUR “AMEN”, not in “falling away” but resting in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

If there has been a tendency in YOU to “walk away”, never resist His Holy Presence within you or around you, or even His Presence through caring, compassionate ambassadors of Christ who have no desire seeing you fall away! HE WILL COME! THEY WILL COME! And caring, loving brothers and sisters ‘in Christ’ will seek to turn you back to Him, not rest as they see you turning to satisfy your ‘flesh’ and fall away!

In Deuteronomy 33:26-27 there is a word of ‘hope’ for Israel as a nation, but also a word of ‘hope’ for people committed to Christ Jesus today, for God is the Same ‘yesterday’, ‘today’, and ‘forever’! “There is no one like the God of Jeshuran, who rides the heavens to help you, and in His and in His excellency on the clouds. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, and will say, “Destroy!”

You didn’t let Revelation 1:17 just fly over your head without understanding, did you? Again, “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last..”, saying then and now: “I’m Lord over everything you face – you don’t have to “fall away” – let Me finish your earthly walk of faith as you choose to be dead to yourself but fully alive and overcoming in Me!”

I love Oswald Chambers’ words in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest”. (P.104-105): “He laid His right hand upon me.” In the midst of the awfulness (and JFF says, ‘the awfulness of falling away”!), a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. The right hand not of restraint nor of correction nor of chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it is ineffable peace and comfort, the sense that “underneath are the everlasting arms,” full of sustaining and comfort and strength.”

The question is: When the temptation comes to “fall away”, will I yield to the ‘old man’ OR surrender to the “new man” in Christ; will I give Jesus His rightful place, in me, as Savior, Lord, Master, Conqueror over temptation Himself, conqueror over sin itself, and Conqueror over the spiritual death within you, and the Author of everlasting Life through your available vessel? “CHOOSE CHRIST, THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and ,THE EVERLASTING LIFE”, finishing strong, not in flesh-effort that fails!

CHAPTER TWENTY

“GUTSY GRIT OR GODLY SORROW?”

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?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH”!

At a “National Hispanic Leadership Conference” in Houston, Texas, April 29, 2015, former Florida governor and presidential candidate, at the time, Jeb Bush, said: “There is no more powerful and liberating influence on this earth than the Christian conscience in action and today in America it is important to respect and to protect Christians acting on their faith…not just talking about their faith, but there is a constitutional right and more importantly for a loving society Christians need to have the space to be able to act on their conscience.” My only problem with his statement is, that often, the ‘Christian conscience’ is willful determination of ‘flesh’ opinions rather than Holy Word of God revelation!

It wasn’t long ago, maybe same day as Jeb Bush, that former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, said, maybe same conference, “We are living in perilous times where people who are Christian are on the brink of being criminalized for their convictions.”

And both men, stressing their beliefs, are easily, in this day and time, set aside and considered ‘radical’ by ‘godless’ or even ‘misinformed’ professing believers who don’t stand on the Word of God! It’s difficult to “stand for Truth” when one’s foundation is built on “self-evaluation” rather than “God-revealed-Holy Truth”!

We can go all the way back to Joshua’s day when in Joshua 24:14-15 we read, Joshua speaking, “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

We live in days as a nation that are not foreign to any nation, any people, or even to one, and can visualize what goes on anywhere, anytime, with any persons, just like the historical history of Christ’s crucifixion on the Cross several thousand years ago! Come with me to Luke 23, beginning with Verse 32! “There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And they divided His garments and cast lots. And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” {“If”? Are you aware of the reality of literally millions and millions, more likely billions, who understand, ‘There IS the King of the Jews, the King of all Americans, the King of every European, African, or Asian’ but who selfishly decide for themselves as to whether or not they will choose to serve the Lord?!?}.

In Luke 23:34 then tells us that Christ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do,” {Which is so true of literally millions and millions who do not know what they do when they trivialize Christ, join those who divide His garments and “roll the dice” hoping what He says is not true – BUT IT IS!}. Even the rulers of Israel SNEERED, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

Don’t you find that so interesting? They had an inkling about ‘the Christ, the chosen of God,’ but couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t receive the prophetic word from many of their prophets hundreds and hundreds of years before His actual coming! Do you remember Jesus saying in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad”? Verse 57 follows, Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” In Verse 58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” And their response? THEN they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them (the “stone-throwers”), and SO PASSED (THEM) by.” {Will Jesus have to “pass you by” when all are brought before His Throne of Judgment, whether you like it or not?}.

In Luke 23:36-38 we read: The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrews: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Didn’t we just read in Luke 23:33, “And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.” At least Luke KNEW Jesus was not a criminal, but, as God in the flesh, Who willingly offered Himself as THE sacrifice for the sins of all humanity! Even John, early in his writing of the Gospel of John, John 1:14, wrote: “And the Word (the Living Word of God!!) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” proclaiming in Verse 29, The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Examine John 1:32-35! And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ AND I HAVE SEEN AND TESTIFIED THAT THIS IS THE SON OF GOD.” Again, the next day, John stood with two of His disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Dare I tell you that Christ Jesus IS “the Way of Life” that leads to the “way of death”? In Matthew 10:16-18,21-22 Jesus challenged the original ‘twelve disciples’, saying to them, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

Verses 21-22 then says, “Now brother will deliver up brother TO DEATH, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

It is so evidently true that to “follow Christ Jesus” is to follow Him in every step He had to take, including the way of ‘suffering’, the way of ‘rejection’, the way of ‘obedience’, willing to fulfill the Father’s eternal will: death to Himself that resurrection life and hope could, would, and was manifested! Oh, and then in John 20, after His crucifixion and burial and resurrection, in Verses 19-21, we read:

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:30-31 then says: And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

And do you understand that “life in His name” does not come in full fruition apart from the awareness of and willingness to die daily to the ‘flesh’, the old sin-nature, and self-will, plus, a readiness of physical death by persecution if it comes your way, BECAUSE you will not deny Him?

In 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Apostle Paul wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death (“the wages of sin is death”!), and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”! Did Holy God, the Father, allow Jesus’ death and then manifest His Holy Power to raise the dead after Jesus’ three days in the grave?

And, how pleased is God the Father for the willingness of 21^st Century disciples to offer their lives daily as a “willing sacrifice” taking that sentence daily to themselves that His Resurrection Life may be manifested in their mortal flesh?

Do you remember Paul and Silas imprisoned, Acts 16:20-24? It says: And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.” ( Ever heard it yourself? “We’re free Americans and not interested in anything you ‘Christians’ have to say! Keep on, and we’ll have you imprisoned, or kill you ourselves!”}. [I actually heard that threat in India as I preached openly on the streets!].

Continuing in Acts 16:22-24, Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.”

That was a literal event for faithful believers, and it does still happen today that some believers are physically jailed for faithful testimonies in certain locations. BUT there IS a ‘symbolism’ which extends to many today who are vocal for the faith but ostracized by ‘friends’ and ‘family’, opponents shutting the door on them for their outspoken challenge to receive Christ!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? Are you aware of Christian Institutional and openly, strong, faithful disciples of Christ witnessing a rapidly growing opposition and threats because of many enemies of God who are becoming openly hostile to the Word and Will of God and against those who uphold “All Scripture is divinely inspired…”?

Prayer is rapidly being removed from classrooms with kids being told “School is not a place to pray!” Really? Yes, really! Ten Commandments are being removed from lots of places across the Nation where the banners of Truth used to fly! In Sweden pastors have been jailed for opposing homosexuality – and that threat is not far away in the U.S.A.!

There’s an active homosexual- sick man named Mitchell Gold whose diatribe against the Word of God and churches, pastors, and faithful disciples who stand on that Word of God, who has said, “They must be made to take homosexuality off the sin list,” and a New York Time’s writer, Frank Bruni, affirmed Gold’s obscene opposition to Holy God and His Word, saying, “His commandment (that’s Mitchell Gold’s commandment) is worthy – and warranted.”

And what sickens me is when I hear some say of their pastors, “They’ll not expose or speak the Truth because they don’t want to offend ANYBODY!” God, help us! It’s as if our formerly great nation, “one nation under God”, is fast becoming a nation under opposition to God!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? I want to urge you right now to commit yourself to reading faithfully, over and over, the Book of Daniel for at least a week! In Daniel you’ll find, not trivializing Truth, but many who want Biblical Truth obliterated from the national scene or stage! Follow Daniel 6:1-16!

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps, to be over the whole kingdom; and over these, three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.

So the governors and satraps SOUGHT TO FIND SOME CHARGE AGAINST DANIEL concerning the kingdom; BUT THEY COULD FIND NO CHARGE OR FAULT, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, “We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”

So these governors and satraps thronged before the king, and said thus to him, “King Darius, live forever! All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisers, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.” Therefore King Darius signed the written decree.

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows opened toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.

And they went before the king, and spoke concerning the king’s decree: “Have you not signed a decree that every man who petitions any god or man within thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered and said, “The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.”

So they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is one of the captives from Judah, does not show due regard for you, O king, or for the decree you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

And the king, when he heard these words was greatly displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men approached the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed.”

SO the king gave the command, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. But the king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you.”

In Verses 21-22 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”

AND the accusers, on the king’s command, were all cast into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions overpowered them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever came to the bottom of the den!!!

What was King Darius’ response? He wrote a proclamation! Verses 25-28 says: “To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel For He is the living God, and steadfast forever; His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall endure to the end.

He delivers and rescues, and He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, Who has delivered Daniel from the power of lions.” So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Glory!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? John 8 is a strong chapter defining Christ’s strong “Personal Witness” against the ‘religious’ Pharisees who determined He deserved to die because He opposed their religious pretense and no true eternal foundation upon which they walked and talked “the game” yet they never faced their guilt, sin, and separation from Holy God, and certainly had no ears to hear both prophetic utterances from hundreds and hundreds of years before or His declaration of Messianic identity!

Jesus told them in John 8:19, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” Oh, and then in John 8:23-24 Jesus released the eternal arrow of Truth about the scribes and Pharisees and the ‘religious but unredeemed’ Jews: “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.”

In John 8:37-47 Jesus then said: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.” They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I

heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father – God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.

Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

So…Christ Jesus Himself was ‘criminalized’ by the religious, unbelieving, unrepentant crowd and CRUCIFIED ON THE CROSS for all men because of God’s great love for the world!

What went on then still goes on today! The unbelieving world still condemns the holy and congratulates the hollow; the unbelieving world sentences the sincere and celebrates the sinner; the unbelieving world imprisons the faithful and frees the ‘foul’ from any and every offense; the unbelieving world still maligns the merciful and merits the ‘molded’ in mind and heart!

It was Harriet Beecher Stowe who once said: “No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.” And, in most cases, it’s the godless man criminalizing those who stand for, in, and through the truth, resulting, for them, a Hell forever with the devil, his demons, and all rejecters of Biblical Truth, and all sin-infected ‘profound minds’, and all ‘superficial thinkers’ who know nothing about standing on Eternal Truth!

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WHY NATIONS FORGET GOD

There is a stark, shocking verse in Psalm 9:17. It says: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” …In Psalm 50:22 God says: “Now consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” “Forgetting God?”

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of forgetfulness: “The quality of losing the remembrance or recollection of a thing; or rather, the quality of being apt to let anything slip from the mind…loss of remembrance or recollection; a ceasing to remember; oblivion…neglect, negligence; careless omission; inattention; as forgetfulness of duty.”

Do you remember Daniel confronting Belshazzar in Daniel 5:22-23? [NAS], “Yet you Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzer, have not humbled your heart even though you knew this, but you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see, hear, or understand. But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and your ways, you have not glorified.”

Did Daniel say of some, “There are those who have not, do not, will not GLORIFY GOD”? What did he say?: “But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and your ways, you have not glorified.” But a Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “Now thanks be to God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ.” Is your walk of faith a testimony of ‘triumph in Christ’ or an unveiling of negligence toward Him, ‘careless omission, inattention; as forgetfulness of duty?’

Romans 1:18-32 are earth-shattering, heart-breaking verses about people and nations who forget God! [Please read before continuing!]

In Hosea 13:4-9 there are sad, prophetic words that ought to grip, convict, and convert every human soul: “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. O Israel, you are destroyed, but your help is from me.”

How easy for some to forget Proverbs 14:34!! “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Righteousness is ‘salt’ that preserves while ‘sin’ is poison that destroys. Righteousness is God’s divine preservative for nations while sin is self-inflicted destruction. Psalm 2:11-12 tells us: “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are those who put their trust in Him.”

Do you understand “perishing in the way”? Let’s see if we can discern some of the ways “Why Nations Forget God”!

FIRST, NATIONS FORGET GOD BY OMITTING RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD. In Psalms 37:23 we read: “The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord.” God is to be in control of every man’s life, yes, his every step. The New American Standard translates it: “The steps of a man are established by the Lord; and He [God] delights in his way.”

I was reading in Marketplace Ministries magazine a statement by Jay Badry. He wrote: “Many people hold fast to the idea that ‘God can do anything,’ but I shrink from that for there is one thing God is incapable of doing: violating His own perfections and attributes. What this means to me is that in a constantly changing world, sinking ever deeper into the mire of depravity, the perfect God is both timeless and changeless. As a kite must be tethered to a fixed point for stability, so my soul, indeed all that I am must be tethered to Him at all times.” That’s a person, a people, and a nation!

If a nation, a life, a family, a business, a ministry, is not ‘tethered’ to God, there is no line, strong line, holding it up soaring in the air where God wants it to soar, but releasing itself from God’s control, it crashes!!

Do you understand that when a government omits responsibility to God it shuts the door on a nation ‘blessed by God’? If you’ve studied American History at all you know that Thomas Jefferson was one of our founding fathers. He is reported to have said: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that those liberties are the gift of God?”

WHEN GOVERNMENT IGNORES, DENIES, SEEKS TO REFUTE THE DIGNITY OF DIVINE INITIATIVE IN ESTABLISHING, YES, A ‘HOLY NATION,’ IT VIOLATES EVERYTHING God intended for the human society He created. When government assumes the Jehovah-Jireh spirit, it has stolen and betrayed the ministry only God can fulfill.

It was D.A. Carson in his book “For The Love Of God” who wrote: “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

A nation is not liberated if it omits, yes, legislatively that God has no place in our nation – “We’re Free”!! No, that nation that denies God’s right to rule is bound by the chains of darkness and the devil himself!

Is America today being ‘governed’ by “LIBERALS”? Are far too many churches being ‘governed’ by “LIBERALS”? Are far too many academic institutions today being ‘governed’ by “LIBERALS”?

Liberals foul the mind and fool the conscience. Liberals promote their ‘truth’ and crucify “The Truth.”

Liberals bow at the throne of its own deceptive governments and denounce the government of God. Liberals preach tolerance, interpreted by its own actions as intolerant, especially of God and men and women of saving faith.

Liberals spout freedom while subjecting its students to their bondage, spouting individual determination of one’s own destiny void of the true, lasting, eternal foundation of faith in the God who made them, lost them, and then bought them with the price of the shed blood of the Lamb of God.

Liberals bow before the idol of education leaving its devotees anchored to emptiness, impotence, and shallowness, while it celebrates its poverty and bankruptcy and avoids the true riches of grace.

Liberals and their liberalism, having become one of the largest religious systems in the world, builds its ‘foundations of faith’ on the doctrines of death, seen in the philosophy, ’you can make it without God,’ ‘Christians are kooks, the truly uneducated of our society,’ or, ‘the Bible is the fool’s book.’

Liberals major on mental imaginations of men who see themselves as men of superior intellects, when in reality they are the spiritual midgets and dwarfs void of REALITY. Liberalism masks itself in the assertions of “superior knowledge and intellect,” validated by their degrees, failing to see their unmasking because of their denial that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Liberalism promotes a Godless society, not understanding “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God!’” Liberalism is the cloud of “political correctness” that darkens the sky of constitutional and scriptural freedoms, constitutional intent and scriptural ideals, a nation built on the foundation of faith and submission and obedience and worship and devotion to the one True and Living God as revealed in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Liberalism is the noose around the neck of nations and peoples, strangling the very life of divine intent out of institutions, families, and individuals, captured by the deceptions of foolish men intent on enslaving the wills and minds of those under their diabolical influences.

Liberalism is the release of scriptural restraints upon a society unleashing the release of rebellion, ungodliness, “my way,” my thoughts, ‘god’ unto myself, releasing the supposed higher thoughts of men in total opposition to the holy truths of God.

Do you grasp what I’m speaking about? It’s that shallow grasp for a mystical, meaningless nothing; a deception of diabolical, evil, devilish proportions – no God, no truth, no sin, no wrong, no shame, a reckless abandonment of decency and honor for a moment of soul, sensual, sinful, satanic satisfaction that never satisfies.

For many, their better is better than God’s best, satisfied with the philosophy and religion of personal achievement; for many, educational achievement rules and reigns as supremacy over God’s best, intellectually superior to even the knowledge and wisdom of God Himself.

What did I say ‘FIRST’? “NATIONS FORGET GOD BY OMITTING RESPONSIBILTY TO GOD!” That’s not freedom ‘in Christ’ but freedom from responsibility in doing what God says. Didn’t Jesus say, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ – but you do not do what I say.”

Oh, I pray you don’t miss what’s going on across our nation today! They say, “We’re free!!”, and by that there are those who mean “Freedom of release of responsibility in relationships that includes not only God but free from the spiritual care of others! False freedom is the freedom to do your own thing without any consideration of the consequences to the covenant Body of Christ, yes, your local assembly!

False freedom is the freedom to go your own way and do your own thing without one serious thought of leaving voids and vacuums in others! False freedom is the freedom to exercise self-initiative without any submission to Holy Spirit-direction and leadership!

False freedom is the freedom to believe the Gospel without the insight to walk it out where God places you! False freedom is the freedom to see your wisdom as valid that invalidates the wisdom of God for you.

False freedom is the freedom to believe one can preach the Gospel without the nature of Christ leading and to believe one can do that without imparting one’s own life as well. False freedom is to say you’re a friend without the “greater love” of laying down your life for your “friends”.

False freedom is to receive but not to give, the freedom to take and not to share, the freedom to be blessed and ignore the Blessers.

False freedom is to move in an apparent spirituality in order to steal and take from others who accept you blindly because of their loyalty to the Spirit of Christ in them.

False freedom is to abdicate the calling of ministry “helps” with no feeling of guilt or regrets. False freedom is to ignore ‘brotherhood’ because of a greater allegiance to “me-hood”!

False freedom is to reduce others to ‘less-ness’, unimportant to you because of one’s prideful ‘more-ness.’ False freedom is the phony freedom of virtuousness that is a vacuum as one victimizes the greater victors, yes, victimizing the true disciples of Christ with no regrets!

SECOND, NATIONS FORGET GOD AS THEY IGNORE, DENY, SUPPRESS THE MANDATES OF GOD! Deuteronomy 8 is one of God’s most powerful words for any nation anywhere. Please follow me in your own Bible with a marking pen in hand!!

Deuteronomy 8:2-3 says: “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”

I’m convinced without a doubt that God wants to put His own fingerprint, His own palm-print, His own signature on our lives! Look at verses 11-14!! “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 your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is 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…”

What is a ‘lifted-up heart’? That’s pride, that’s self-sufficiency, that’s pumped up flesh! Look at verses 17-19! 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.”

In Matthew 4:4 we read of Jesus saying the same thing we read in Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”….Do you remember what the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy? 2 Timothy 3:14-17, “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

I pray that you have not failed to grasp the authority, the power, the true freedom that comes for nations through the Word of God. Psalm 119 is so powerful, so liberating, so redemptive in its truth!! Are you ready? Come to Psalm 119!!

Psalm 119:9, 11…Verse 9, “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.” Verse 11, Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”

Psalm 119: 24-25, “Your testimonies also are my delight, and my counselors. My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to Your word.”

Psalm 119:37, “Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way.” Verse 18, “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.”

Psalm 119: 49, “Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope.” Verse 54, “Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.”

Psalm 119: 67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” Verse 72, “The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.”

Psalm 119: 89, “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.” Verse 92, “Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction.”

Psalm 119: 101, “I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word.” Verses 103-104, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.”

Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Verse 111, “Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.”

Psalm 119:130, “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Verse 133, “Direct my steps by Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me.”

Psalm 119:140, “Your word is very pure; therefore Your servant loves it.” Verse 160, “The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”

Psalm 119:162, “I rejoice at Your word as one who finds great treasure.” Verse 165, “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.”

Do you remember Jeremiah’s testimony in Jeremiah 15:16? He said, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”

This is why Peter wrote in I Peter 2:2, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow [up into your salvation.]”

What did Jesus tell us in Matthew 7:24-29? Listen carefully!! “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

Have you ignored, denied, suppressed the Living Word of God?

THIRD, NATIONS FORGET GOD BY THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CELEBRATION AND WORSHIP OF GOD. Come to John 4:7-26!

All around you there is FAMILY DISINTEGRATION but no celebration and worship of the one true and living God. All around you there is pulpit and church quietness but no celebration and worship of the one true and living God. All around you there is national moral decay but no celebration and worship of the one true and living God. All around you there is ‘false religion domination’ but no celebration and worship of the one true and living God!

Nations forget God by the suppression of the celebration and worship of God.

FOURTH AND LAST, NATIONS FORGET GOD BY FORGETTING INTENTIONALLY AND SEEKING TO OBLITERATE THE GREATEST SACRICE OF GOD HIMSELF – THE VERY SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD, JESUS, TO COVER A NATION’S SIN!! Obliterate? Listen to Noah Webster’s definition in his 1828 Dictionary: “To efface, to erase or blot out…to wear out, to destroy by time or means…to reduce to a very low or imperceptible state…to obliterate the monuments of antiquity…”

Well, what about obliterating the truth of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world? That’s Revelation 13:8!! “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.” Before nations existed God knew what fallen nations would do and He decided before the world came into existence that the Son would be the Savior as the Lamb of God slain on the Cross!

Come to Revelation 19:5-10, “Then a voice came from the throne, saying, ‘Praise our God, all you His servants and those who fear Him, both small and great!” And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! 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.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write” ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!!” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

In your history studies did you ever come across the French Statesman Alexis Compte de Tocqueville? In early American history Tocqueville said: “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her rivers, lands, and prairies, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.”

GOD, HELP US! GOD, SAVE OUR NATION! GOD, LIGHT THE FLAME AGAIN OF CELEBRATION AND WORSHIP OF THE ONE TRUE AND LIVING GOD! GOD, HELP US AGAIN BE A NATION OF DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS!”

H. Ernest Nichol wrote this old, old hymn that ought to be resurrected: “We’ve a story to tell to the nations, That shall turn their hearts to the right, A story of truth and mercy, A story of peace and light…

For the darkness shall turn to the dawning, and the dawning to noonday bright; And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth, The kingdom of love and light.

We’ve a song to be sung to the nations, That shall lift their hearts to the Lord, A song that shall conquer evil and shatter the spear and sword.

We’ve a message to give to the nations, That the Lord who reigns up above, Has sent His Son to save us, And show us that God is live.

We’ve a Savior to show to the nations, Who the path of sorrow has trod, That all of the world’s great peoples, Might come to the truth of God.

For the darkness shall turn to the dawning, And the dawning to noonday bright; And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth, The kingdom of love and light.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“REMEMBER!”

There’s a very interesting verse of Scripture in 1 John 4:16 that, for me, heightens “remembrance”, which I believe should be a part of every man’s reflection upon his/her spiritual pilgrimage, or lack of it, because of the grace and mercy and love of God for ALL mankind –“God so loved the world!” It says: [The New Open Bible Edition, by Thomas Nelson Inc., 1990], “And we have known and believed [or trusted in, relied upon, adhered to, and, yes, reflect upon faithfully!] the love of God for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, AND GOD IN him!”

And I can only ask in beginning this teaching: “In your own life and spiritual pilgrimage, tell me about your journey to the Mountain of Remembrance and your reflection upon your journey as YOU “remember” what Holy God has done in and through others and in your own personal pilgrimage as Holy God unveils Himself in and through Christ as God’s ‘only Door” to reconciliation, restoration, re-birth into His ETERNAL INTENT for you and me before even the foundation of the heavens and the earth?”

AND, I SAY THIS EARLY IN THIS TEACHING, BECAUSE, SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME, THERE ARE THOSE WHO PROMOTE, ‘FORGET GOD AND THE SAVIOR’! In 3 John 9-11 we read: “I wrote to the church, but DIOTREPHES, WHO LOVES TO HAVE THE PREEMINENCE AMONG THEM, DOES NOT RECEIVE US. Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren (the truly ‘born-again believers’) and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good (spiritually) is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God.”

False messengers harp on one’s mind: “Forget God! Forget the PHONY BOOK CALLED THE BIBLE! FORGET WHAT ‘SPIRITUALLY-POVERTY-STRICKEN-PREACHERS AND BIBLE TEACHERS TELL YOU (!),” while faithful messengers remind and challenge you: “REMEMBER GOD’S WORD AND ETERNAL REVELATION – AND REMIND YOURSELF FAITHFULLY WHAT HE ASKS OF YOU,” because “Man does not live by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God!”

It’s evil to forget – it’s good and godly to “remember”! It’s evil to cast doubt on the Word of God – it’s good and holy to partake daily of the Word’s eternal nutrition! It’s evil to promote “my opinion” or assert “This is what I think” – it’s good and godly to “rest in God’s revealed revelation or His Holy Word”! It’s powerless and ‘self-destructive’ to settle into “This is what I think”, rather than, “THIS IS WHAT GOD HAS SAID!”

Don’t you rejoice when you read about Jeremiah saying in Jeremiah 31:3, “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you,” and that’s “drawn you to Myself”?! ?

Two psalms I want to share with you as we journey: First, Psalm 20! It’s entitled in the NKJV “The Assurance of God’s Saving Work”, which I entitled “The Song of Confidence and Assurance”! It says: “May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble; ( and I pray, “Lord, forgive those who stand to preach and teach that to follow Christ is to be free from tribulation or trouble or heartaches or pain!”). May the name of the God of Jacob defend you; (And it is a day of trouble when the “Dream-Buster, the Devil” shows up at your door to defuse the explosive and energetic power of a dream, vision, or eternal reality from God of, yes, the Resurrection Life in you as he did with Jesus, thinking His death on the Cross was its ending, when we know Jesus had just begun His redemptive work! Resurrection was to come!). David went on:

May He send you help from the sanctuary, and strengthen you out of Zion; May He remember all your offerings, and accept your burnt sacrifice. May He grant you according to your heart’s desire, and fulfill all your purpose.

We will rejoice in your salvation, and in the name of God we will set up our banners! May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. Now I know that the Lord SAVES HIS ANOINTED; He will answer him from heaven with the saving strength of His right hand.

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They have bowed down and fallen; but we have risen and stand upright. Save, Lord! May the King [King Jesus for you and me today!) answer us when we call.”[But you’re unsure, unbelieving, or even doubtful of the Name, King Jesus?].

But before we turn to the second Psalm, I think it’s very important for me to share 1 Peter 1 in its entirety!! It says: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocie, Asia, and Bithynia [that’s “scattered former Jews who’ve received “The Truth in Christ!”], elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. [Revelation 1:1-3!]. [AND, is the last time the last days of Judaism and Jerusalem when the city was destroyed in 70AD?].

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith – the salvation of your souls.

Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, (the righteous remnant), searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which have NOW been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things which angels desire to look into.

Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober [or ‘serious-minded’], and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy for I am holy.”

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 and 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. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,

Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because ‘All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.’”

And, I would say, if we have a redemptive remembrance of salvation in and through Christ alone, we have joined with Heaven’s Family in continual “remembrance of what God has done in us and for us through the finished work of Christ alone”!

Second Psalm? Psalm 21! It’s titled “Joy in the Salvation of the Lord”! It says: “The king shall have joy in Your strength, O Lord; and in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! [Just an insert here: Revelation 1:5-6! “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. [Amen, or “so be it!”].

You (God) have given him his heart’s desire, and have not withheld the request of his lips. For You meet him with the blessings of goodness; You set a crown of pure gold upon his head. He asked life from You and You gave it to him – {AMEN?!?} – length of days forever and ever.

His glory is great in Your salvation; honor and majesty You have placed upon him.{“As Jesus is so are we in this world!”}. For You have made him most blessed forever; You have made him exceedingly glad with Your presence (“Christ in YOU the hope of glory!”).

For the king trusts in the Lord, and through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved. Your hand will find all Your enemies; Your right hand will find those who hate You. [And as a result of that denial of and hatred for the sovereignty of God and His great mercy toward them?].

You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of Your anger; the Lord shall swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire shall devour them. Their offspring You shall destroy from the earth, and their descendants from among the sons of men.

For they intended evil against You; they devised a plot which they are not able to perform. Therefore You will make them turn their back; You will make ready Your arrows on Your string toward their faces. Be exalted, O Lord, in Your own strength! We will sing and praise Your power!”

How awesome do YOU find these two psalms of David, songs of “remembrance”? But their intent, from me in this teaching, is to touch the deepest cords of your heart and mind in true reflection and evaluation if YOU are as deeply moved, convicted, and TURNED truly to full surrender and awesome “remembrances yourself of what Holy God and the Holy Spirit have brought to full fruition in you concerning Christ Jesus as Savior, Lord, Master of your life, living within you, extending His love, expressing the fullness of His Life within you, and proving His power still reigns today – THROUGH YOU?” Follow, as we examine Jesus’ relationship with His early disciples and His intent through them AND US!

FIRST, “REMEMBER” THE CALL AND COMMAND TO REPENT! In Mark 6:7 Christ Jesus called the twelve “to Himself, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them power over unclean spirits,” and then in Verses 10-12, Jesus told them and us, “In whatever place you enter a house, stay there till you depart from that place. And whoever will not receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!” So they went out and preached that people should repent.”

You’ll remember in Acts 2 that Peter obeyed and went out preaching, saying in Verse 36, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ,” and the Word says that those who heard were cut to the heart, saying to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Verse 37, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

In Verses 38-39 of Acts 2 Peter said to them, “Repent, ( which means ‘confess’ and turn away from the old sin nature!) and let every one of you ( as a testimony) be baptized in the name (and honor of Christ alone) for (or because of His remission, forgiveness, cleansing of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. FOR THE PROMISE is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

As Paul the Apostle was writing to one of the churches He saw God raise up through Christ, he wrote in Ephesians 5:8-10, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.”

“The Changed Life” book by Henry Drummond, published sometime between 1889 to 1893, is a powerful little quick-read! He began it with a statement by Aldous(?) Huxley that says: “I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning, I think I should instantly close the offer.”

Oh, but then Drummond made mention of the only Holy Redemptive Truth when he quoted Paul’s words in Romans 8:29, “For whom He (God) foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brethren,” with my adding Verse 30! “Moreover whom He (God) predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Glory!

And repentant sinners become justified, sanctified, glorified “saints”, set apart to His honor and glory alone! But later, Drummond, (p.50), declared with biblically authority, “Today men are properly told to confess their sins and to ask forgiveness. But evangelists and pastors are forgetting to tell sinners to repent. Consequently this misinformed age imagines that it can continue in its old ways of life while adding Jesus as a personal Hell insurance for the world to come. Treasures on earth “and” treasures in Heaven. Who could turn down that bargain! Pleasures of sin “and” joys of eternity. That is a good deal! Sinners are not being saddened, as was the young ruler, to learn that they must turn from sin to have eternal life. Yet it is the “sine qua non” of the Gospel promises. Scripture always joins repentance AND remission of sins,” then affirming Truth from Proverbs 28:13, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesses and forsakes his sins (AND SIN-NATURE!) shall have mercy.”

FIRST, THERE MUST BE AN AWARENESS OF, SORROW FOR THE REALITY THAT CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS AND SIN-NATURES, AND WAS RESURRECTED THAT WE WHO REPENT MAY THEN “LIVE FOR, IN, AND THROUGH HIS RESURRECTION LIFE AND THAT ALONE”! Not religion, but a relationship; not a ‘trying, but a trusting’; not improved attempts at godliness by self-effort, but repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ through the Cross and Empty Tomb!

Isn’t this why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:9-11, “Yes, we had the sentence of death IN OURSELVES, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises from the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.” [Dare I say that I believe it was more than their financial support of Paul’s ministry, but the “gift” of willingness to share the Gospel with the lost and needy everywhere they went or where they knew Paul went to minister?].

But the still rampant, resistant, rebellious response to God’s call? Doesn’t Proverbs’ “wise man of wisdom” tell us, even in our modern-day world of much ‘intellectual and fleshly denial’, Proverbs 1: 24-33, the following? “Because I called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, Because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, When your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.

Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies.

For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; BUT whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.”

Are we hearing and “remembering” God’s call to repent or does ‘the spirit of wandering away from His Word, His will, and His way’ have a ‘strangle-hold on our minds, wills, and emotions’ to the point God has to say to the spiritually deaf, blind, and ‘heartless’ toward God Himself, as Jeremiah described them in Jeremiah 14:10, hearing God Himself say: Thus says the Lord to this people: “Thus they have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet. THEREFORE the Lord does not accept them; He will remember their iniquity now, and punish their sins.” “Holy God, come today to modern-day America and ‘call out’ sinners to repent!”

In Proverbs 28:13 we read: “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses AND forsakes them will have mercy.”

SECOND, “REMEMBER” THE CALL TO MEDITATE, PONDER, AND TO FEED ON THE WORD OF GOD! In Psalm 63:1-5, as David was wandering in the wilderness, assaulted, and having to run from ungodly men, he SANG: “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.

So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.” I would urge you to personally and seriously examine Psalm 119! But let me whet your appetite related to true discipleship and the Word of God as your ‘daily food’! It says:

Psalm 119:9, “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed to Your word.” Psalm 119:11, “Your word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:24, “Your testimonies are my delight and my counselors.” Psalm 119: 28b, “Strengthen me according to Your word.”

Psalm 119:49, “Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope.” And it continues to amaze, equip, and encourage one’s “feeding on the Word of God” when in Psalm 119:89 David said, “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven,” saying also in Verse 92, “Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction,” adding in Verse 97, “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.”

In Psalm 119:101-104 the author said (Spirit-enlightened!): “I have restrained my feet from every evil way, THAT I MAY KEEP YOUR WORD. I have not departed from Your judgments, for You Yourself have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.”

Two other Psalm 119 words, and then we’ll move on: Psalm 119:105 says: “Your word, God, is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Then, Psalm 119: 111, “Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.” [Tell me: How many ‘church-folk’ do you know who are truly ‘faithful feeders’ on the Holy Word of God? Many says, “I’m saved, I know it – nothing else about the Bible concerns me!” Really?].

In Matthew 4:1-4 we read, Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become flesh.’ But He answered and said, “It is written, Man shall not live by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

In John 6:53-58 the Lord Jesus declared to the ‘religious and self-serving Jews” the following: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven – not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

THIRD, “REMEMBER” THE TESTIMONY OF TRUE DISCIPLESHIP IS HOLDING ONTO IN FAITHFUL DEVOTION TO THE CHRIST WITHIN YOU! In Galatians 2:20-21a Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live(in old sinful flesh still living), BUT CHRIST LIVES IN ME; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God…!” And dare I tell you that the grace of God is strong, enduring, and able to do in us even above all we ask or think!

In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward 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.”

And I assure you that to live in and through God’s grace reveals to all ‘seekers’ and ‘settlers’ in the Kingdom of God in and through Christ knows the power, the blessing of bestowed grace and continual, faithful victory, because in Him we “are more than conquerors”!

Robert Robinson and John Wyeth wrote the old hymn entitled “Come, God’s Fount”, a hymn I grew up on through my childhood and teen years and into my adult life. It’s found in The American Hymnal, copy-righted by Robert H. Coleman in 1933, published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee,. It says:

“Come ‘Christ-Fount’ of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Your grace; Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above; Praise the mount – I’m fixed upon it – Mount of Your redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Your help I’m come; And I hope by Your good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be! Let Your goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to You; Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for Your courts above.”

Dare I say: “And seal us in Your courts of heavenly power, grace, and love in the here and now”?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“IT’S A MATTER OF THE HEART BEFORE GOD!”

There’s a powerful, eye-opening, convicting statement when Isaiah said in Isaiah 64:6-7, “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our iniquities. [You are aware, I would think, that the ‘unclean thing’ or ‘filthy rags’ are rags stained, like a woman’s disposable rags, from her menstrual cycle!). And, how many do you know outside the ‘redeemed community’ who ‘appreciate’ Holy God’s description of their sinful lives and condemned position as ‘a menstrual rag’ prior to its ‘waste basket’ tossing?

In another prophetic book, Ezekiel 37, the prophet, in Verse One, describes, in a vision, “The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.” In Verse Three God asked Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And Ezekiel said to Him, “O Lord God, You know.” Oh, and then there is the eternal calling of Holy God upon His ‘chosen people’ saying to an Ezekiel and every true, blood-bought servant of the Most High God, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Surely I will cause breath to enter into you (physical breath or the spiritual breath of Holy God?), and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring (new) flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.’”

You are, more than likely, fully aware that many within the professing ‘church family’ are void of understanding or comprehension of “sinners made saints,” the “lost being found,” the “ungodly declared godly through God’s grace,” or the “worldly becoming true citizens of the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior”! The unredeemed have only a “grave address”, living without any hope in themselves to influence their world redemptively, but can do an admirable job in “fleshly best” living apart from God, leaving their “friends” as unredeemed as themselves! Only God’s amazing grace unveils what human nature looks like apart from “Christ in you the hope of glory”!

I’M SURE YOU’RE AWARE OF WHAT Genesis 6:5 DECLARES early in ‘human history’! It says: “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Romans 3:23 clearly says: “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And, sadly, many are aware of the glory of God but more devoted to their sin and sin nature! But they do not understand that “the wages of sin is death” when they are so alive in themselves to what their fallen flesh dictates! And impregnation with devotion to the old sin nature continues until convicted by the Holy Spirit and converted to “new life” in Christ! It was Spurgeon who once said: “Sin is a sovereign till sovereign grace dethrones it.” So true!

The counterfeit of obedience to God, if there is any inclination to that ‘thought’, is one’s “best effort” of determination to prove what many perceive “ought to please Him as He sees my strong self-will”! And nowhere in the Word of God do you find any indication of God desiring you to do your ‘best’ but acknowledging and resting in YOUR “crucifixion with Christ at the Cross” and receiving the fullness of the blessing of His Resurrection Life as you repent! Isn’t this what Paul was telling us in 2 Corinthians 7:10? “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

You haven’t forgotten already Isaiah’s declaration of fallen men’s hearts before Holy God in Isaiah 64:6-7a? “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; [and in the ‘flesh’, the old sin-nature] we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And THERE IS NO ONE WHO CALLS ON GOD’S NAME, who stirs himself up to take hold of you,” BUT Jesus tells us in Revelation 3:20, “BEHOLD, I stand at the door (of your heart!) 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.”

And this is why I know Paul wrote in Romans 15:13, “NOW may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing (trusting in, relying upon, adhering to!), that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Several things I want you to “rest in” as you see: “It’s A Matter Of The Heart!” FIRST, IT’S A MATTER OF HEART CONVICTION INITIATED BY THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT! Receive Spurgeon’s words in “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.255), when 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.”

In 1 John 4:9-13 the beloved John 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By THIS WE KNOW THAT WE ABIDE IN HIM, AND HE IN US, BECAUSE HE HAS GIVEN US OF HIS SPIRIT.” Have YOU received, rested in, and relying upon the Holy Spirit daily?

Even in the short ‘epistle’ of Jude he wrote: Verses 20-21, “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.”

SECOND, IT’S A MATTER OF THE HEART CONCERNING HEART PREPARATION DAILY FOR NOT ONLY ACKNOWLEDING HIS PRESENCE WITHIN US BUT YIELDING TO HIS LEADERSHIP THROUGH US IN GLORIFYING AND HONORING THE LORD JESUS! In the Galatian letter Paul wrote: Galatians 6:8, “For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” How vital is it to you in your journey of faith to be daily yielded to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in you and through you?

There Is, for some, a counterfeit of allegiance apart from full desire to be one WITH God and honoring the Christ within by being yielded to the Holy Spirit! It’s as if for them the Holy Spirit is an unnecessary part of the Godhead! But for true believers who honor Christ in their daily walks of faith, there is a deliberate, daily determination to be “led by the Holy Spirit”!

The Lord Jesus said in John 16:13-14 of the work or ministry of the Holy Spirit in every true believer: “…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 (from God the Father) 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.”

You do realize, out of spiritual immaturity or out-right rebellion, that some believers live with a pious attitude worked up in their flesh and minds with ‘good intentions’ but fall far short of glorifying or honoring Christ Jesus when we’ve just read King Jesus saying, “He, the Holy Spirit, will glorify Me!” Grace includes God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the true child of the King! In John 7:37-38 we read: On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believed in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Do you remember Jesus’ conversation with “the woman at the well” in John 4:23-24? He said: “…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 in spirit and in truth.”

THIRD, IT’S A MATTER OF HEART-AND- MIND TRANSFORMATION BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! Paul told us in Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be (being) transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Even in the Old Testament, Ezekial 11:19, as God informed Israel and the world-at-large of a coming “new covenant”, He declared, “Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of the flesh and give them a heart of (tender) flesh”, willing to follow His Word and His Spirit!

In 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 Paul also exposes ‘fleshly’ disciples and pretenders, even demonic presence, desiring to keep people from the “eternal Truth”! He said: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to THEIR works,” not God’s work through Spirit-anointing, presence, and power within His true disciples!

Do you ever find yourself in a “so-called spiritual gathering” where some are so easily led astray, even falling away, because they bought in to ‘fleshly lies’ substituted for spiritual, eternal Truth? In 1 Timothy 6:20-21 Paul wrote to his spiritual son and us saying, “O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge – by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.”

The Spirit-inspired Word of 1 Peter 4:1-2 says, “Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.”

Disciples of Christ today are often challenged, criticized, condemned, or ostracized by the ‘kingdoms’ or ‘worldly men’ of devotion to the “best of human ability”, whether by godless governments, spiritually-mindless educators, unbelieving entrepreneurs, or unredeemed neighbors who see your love of Christ, His Word, and His church as ‘misplaced, brainless devotion’ to an empty cause! But in 1 Peter 4:13-14 Peter went on to say: “…rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, FOR the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”

FOURTH, IT’S A MATTER OF HEART-ILLUMINATION AS TO THE REALITY AND EVIDENCE OF SPIRIT-ANOINTED SERVANTS OF CHRIST! In Matthew 7:15-20 our Lord and Savior warns us, saying, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn-bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

Paul had given a substantive challenge when in Galatians 5:16 he said: I say then: “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” In Verses 22-25 he then instructed us: “But the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” There are no ‘short-cuts’ to victorious living as a disciple of Christ or “cheap-shots of my best effort” – Death to self only and life in His Resurrection fullness, no fleshly, personal ambition but only His revelation and unveiling of the Spirit, no individual determination to reveal or unveil Christ ‘through me”, but only, as Jesus said, “You’ll know them by their fruit!”

Isaac Watts and George F. Handel really nailed it when they wrote the old Christmas classic together entitled “Joy To The World.” It says: “Joy to the world! The Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, and Heaven and nature sing!

Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy!

No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found! He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love!” What song of faith do you sing right now in your life?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“VICTIMS OR VICTORS? ADAPTABLE CHURCHES OR APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES?”

Did Jesus come to heighten your darkness or to bring you “Light”? Did Jesus come to improve your darkened conscience or to transform you into the fullness of the blessing of His gospel or His “good news”? Did Jesus come to adapt ‘religious people to a little better plateaus of ‘self-acceptance’ or to BIRTH the “royal race of redeemed disciples”?

Did Jesus come to let you know, though clouds may surround you, in Him is the Bright Son-Light of Ever-Abiding-Presence? Did Jesus come to assure us, that even if sorrow or sadness befall us, in Him it will not stall us in complacency, doubt, or fear, but will be our reminder: ‘I’ll never leave you nor forsake you”?

In 2 Samuel 23:1-5 we read about David’s ‘last words’! It says: Now these are the last words of David. “Thus says David the son of Jesse; thus says the man raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel: ‘The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me: He who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun arises, a morning without clouds, like the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining after rain.’ Although my house is not so with God, yet He has made me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. For this is all my salvation and all my desire; will He not make it increase?’”

Now let’s look at Acts 13:49-52! And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them, and came to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

Question! “Is there coming a day when even in America there will be intense persecution, opposition, even excommunicating devout disciples of Jesus from America’s ‘liberated society’, ‘schools and universities’, and local governments’?”

“Victims or Victors? Adaptable Churches Or Apostolic Assemblies?” Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines “victim” as follows: “Something destroyed; something sacrificed in the pursuit of an object. How many persons have fallen “victims” to jealousy, to lust, to ambition!?!” Oh, and then, Webster defined “victor” as “one who conquers in a war; a vanquisher; one who defeats an enemy in battle…one who wins, or gains the advantage…” as GRACE will carry us ‘victoriously’ through all difficulties.”

I want us to look at this truth before we unveil the reality of one, by repentance and faith, becoming “Victor” or adaptable churches becoming truly “Apostolic Assemblies”!

It was the great Englishment, G.K. Chesterton, who once said: “Anyone who doesn’t believe in God will believe in anything.” And there’s no doubt that some have slid into the muck and mire of “no God” and opened themselves up for an on-slaught of victimization!

Stephen Olford, in his Commentary on Philippians, made a comment about Dr. Arthur F. Glasser, dean of the school of world missions at Fuller Theological Seminary evaluating Chesterton’s statement: “If you…fall into the relativistic vacuum of thinking any religion is good as another, you can end up falling patsy to any kind of ideology, such as a Manson family, a Hitler, a Jim Jones…The religious relativism and secularized nihilism of the times [leave] many unable to distinguish between religious realities and fraud, between the divine and the demonic.” And, Oh, how true that statement is!!

There came a moment in time in early human history, after the Fall, that God said: [Genesis 6:5-7], “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”

John Piper, in his book “A Godward Life”, commented on the previous verses, (p.221), “To answer this, consider another instance of God’s action that (like creation) resulted in great sin and pain. Acts 2:23 says that Jesus was delivered up to crucifixion “by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.” In other words, God knew ahead of time that He was sending Jesus to be killed. Yet the killing of the Son of God was more evil than all the evil in Noah’s day that made God feel regret that He had made man. Thus if God regretted the creation of mankind when He saw the great misery and evil that it unleashed, may we not assume that He also felt a similar regret over the incarnation of the Son when He saw the undeserved, wicked, infinitely evil murder and suffering of His “only begotten” and “beloved Son”?…Yet we are told explicitly that God not only knew this would happen, but planned it (Acts 2:23, Isaiah 53:10). So of His Son’s murderers and at the suffering of the Son Himself, then it must be that He was capable of approving the sending of the Son Himself and at the same time experiencing in advance the sorrow and regret over the sin and suffering involved in the Son’s death. If this is conceivable in the incarnation of the Son, it is conceivable in the creation of man.”

What was Piper telling us? No doubt, God knew of the Fall of man – not happiness over it, no joy so He could then show His redemptive love and mercy, but showing us two sides of a ‘coin’ – sorrow over the Fall, sureness of His eternal purpose to make ‘victors’ out of ‘victims’, and even converting ‘adaptable churches’ into “Apostolic Assemblies”!

“Victims”? If “the thief comes to steal, KILL, AND DESTROY”, ARE THERE THOSE PEOPLE WHO ARE CAPTURED BY THE ‘THIEF’ AND HIS ADVANCING ARMIES? Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5:8-11, “Be sober (serious-minded), be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. BUT may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen (or “SO BE IT!”).”

Sorry if you don’t believe ‘demons’ and ‘powers of darkness’ are real – it just reveals how ‘victimized’ you’ve become! In Ephesians 6:11-12 the Apostle Paul wrote: “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.”

When the Word speaks of “pulling down strongholds” it certainly refers not only to man-made strongholds, but those demonic strongholds where the powers of darkness have settled in to captured territory in one’s life, with the demons at ease because they so easily deceive unbelievers, compromisers, and those ‘professing believers’ who know nothing about fighting the good fight of faith! Deliverance is needed!

Victims? Do a Word-study sometimes on ‘false gods’ and their origin – they all come out of rebellion to the One, True, Living God, with an unwillingness to bow before Him – so, they invent, fabricate, indulge in fleshly religious feelings and pleasures that deceptively make them feel good about themselves.

You are aware that our world easily produces and accepts ‘religious frauds’ and their inventors – the ‘religious charlatans’! In 2 Peter 2:1-3 we read: But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.”

Paul warned the Philippians of the same deception! In Philippians 3:2 we read: “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation!” And should I dare even propose that ‘mutilation’ was circumcision as a religious ritual, but mutilation, I believe, goes far beyond that, even the ‘killing’ of some faithful disciples with some crucified!

F.B. Meyer called these “pests of every Christian community.” He said: These are “the fanatical and unbalanced [some people IN the church!], the ‘cranks’;…They exaggerate the importance of trifles; they catch up every new theory and vagary, and follow it to the detriment of truth and love…It is impossible to overestimate the harm that these people do, or the desirability of keeping clear of them…”

“Victims”? Because of Fallen sin natures, there are those who remain “chained” by their own intensity of “pumping flesh”, proud of their fallen sin natures, perverted in its demonstration, powerless in themselves to break the ‘hold’ on their lives! Look at Romans 8:12-13a! “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh (that’s the old sin nature!). For if you live according to the flesh YOU WILL DIE…!” “Pumping flesh”? Someone wrote: “The man who sings his own praises always gets the wrong pitch.”

“Victims”? There’s an interesting verse in 1 John 4:18 where John wrote: “But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” Fear is a crippler! In “The Bible Friend”, from the “Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations”, there’s comments by Ann Landers, famous newspaper counselor: “She was asked if there was any one problem, which predominates throughout the letters she receives, and her reply was the one problem above all others, ‘seems to be fear.’ “People are afraid of losing their health, their wealth, their beloved ones. People are afraid of life itself.” I wondered if Ann Landers herself knew about “the spirit of fear”!

“Victims”? Have YOU ever wrestled with the difference between ‘speculation’ and ‘certainty’? Speculations are not bad when they include CONTEMPLATION! But when ‘speculation’ becomes simply one’s ‘opinions’, it becomes that which has nothing to do with ‘fact’ but one’s theories. Truth isn’t speculative – it’s reality, divine certainty without a ‘blink’! Certainty is fact, certainty is verified, certainty produces eternal results – “I Know that My Redeemer Lives!” “Behold, as the eyes of servants look upon the hand of their masters…so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God.” [Psalm 123:2]. No speculation – just eternal certainty!

“Victims”? Are you aware of any around you who became a ‘victim’ of those dark, subtle, seductive ‘fishing lures of sin’ that hooked them strongly, and then led them to a gage for future skinning and death? Even some around you in the broad-expanse of the ‘Christian community’? You do know we have ‘an adversary’ who is out to ‘devour’ you!

“Victims”? What deception when one chooses the prison of ‘self-analysis’ for an evaluation of himself! In 2 Corinthians 10:12 Paul wrote: “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those WHO COMMEND THEMSELVES. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” And YOU ‘choose’ your ‘self-consciousness’ over “Christ Consciousness”? Are you aware that you are either cemented in yourself or you’re ‘anchored’ in Christ? Hebrews 6:17-20 says: “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.”

“Victims”? Yes, even ‘Christians’ who are at least faithful every Sunday to a local church but faithless to a lost, alienated, separated world around them! But I know, like in India, there were pastors or beloved witnesses for Christ who attended my conferences and later were martyred for the faith. It was Dr. A.T. Pierson who once said: “A light that does not shine, a germ that does not grow, a spring that does not flow, is no more of an anamoly of a Christian who does not witness.”

“Victims”? In 2 Timothy 2:22 Paul wrote: “Flee…youthful lusts,” but across the American scene immorality is fast capturing a large segment of the youth population with shame becoming a lost term! Wild orgies, reckless alcoholic binge drinking, drugs, promiscuous sex – a youthful population is being “pumped” to plunge into and wade and wallow in “dirt”!

“Victims”? It’s not true of all children who live under the influence of godless parents but it is true of a great number. Bossuet said: “Great men are formed on the knees of their mothers.” But also it is just as true that evil men are adversely impacted by godless dads and moms! There was a man I read about sentenced to 15 years hard labor for a violent crime. At his sentencing he was given permission by the judge to speak: “I pardon the judges; their sentence is just; I pardon the police; they did well to arrest me. But there are two people in this court I will never forgive. They are my parents, who brought me up without God and without hope.” How sad is that?!?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“IRRESPONSIBLE IMPREGNATION OR SOVEREIGN SELECTION?”

“Irresponsible impregnation”? And I’m not writing about careless, unwanted, unexpected ‘child-births’ by immoral behavior and choices, but rather ‘sinful choices’ infusing, fertilizing, permeating a life with fallen nature’s fleshly desires, the world’s lust, and the devil’s delight!

Irresponsible impregnation is individuality and its choices as the ‘husk’ of an unredeemed life! It was Oswald Chambers who wrote: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.257], “Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love,” and that is so on target! He had said earlier, [p.256], “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best.”

And I’m sure that the ‘irresponsible impregnators’ are unaware that “ they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” or as Paul said in Galatians 5:24, “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh WITH ITS PASSIONS AND DESIRES.” In the flesh men are dominated by, controlled by, even deceived by their, yes, devotion to their old sin nature, devotion to “if I want to do this, I’ll do it,” without any consideration of the natural consequences of opposing God’s Purpose, His will, or His holy desire for their lives!

“Irresponsible impregnation” is bowing before the idol of ‘self-indulgence’ intent on satisfying their ‘natural independence’ from God Himself, from His Son, and resist strongly the convicting power of the Holy Spirit BECAUSE “I crown the passions of my heart, my desires, my wants – and if that’s opposite of the Way, the Word, or the Will of God, who cares?” GOD DOES AND HE DEMONSTRATED HIS LOVE AND CONCERN THROUGH HIS SON AND THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST’S LIFE ON CALVARY’S CROSS WITH YOUR NAME ON HIS LIPS, MIND, AND HEART!

But are you aware of how strong ‘spiritual selfishness’ is as unbelievers ignore, close their ears, and seek to avoid even any contact with ‘true seekers’ and ‘faithful disciples’? It’s as if they feel or sense God, the Savior, or His people are “out to make something of me I don’t want to be!” So they erect ‘high walls’ of resistance to Biblical Truth, or to ‘emancipation proclamations’, or even testimonies about “blood redemption through Christ and His transforming power” because they’re satisfied with their “irresponsible impregnation” of self-will, self-rule, and selfish pleasures! It’s absolutely heart-breaking to encounter ‘smug indifference’ to the love of God! It’s so disturbing when you encounter ‘fleshly pride’ in the fallen sin nature in people you encounter regularly who have no desire to hear or learn about ‘godless existence with a hellish ending’ because they truly are enslaved to a self-love, self-enchantment, and a slavish determination to satisfy every sinful, self-centered desire, warped or not!

Do you remember Jesus’ encounter with the ‘rich young ruler’ in Luke 18? Verses 18-27 tell us: Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good, but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”

And the rich young ruler responded, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.

And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And those who heard it said, “Who then can be saved?”

But Jesus said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Then Peter said, “See, we have left all and followed You.” So He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

A “blessed life” is not because one chooses for himself/herself ,or both, what satisfies them, what they work for in their fleshly goal, fulfilling it and feeling ‘rewarded’ – personal ambition takes precedent over the eternal purpose of God and they miss out on eternal blessings through Christ only; self-determined, fleshly plans, goals, ambitions super-cede the eternal will of God “in Christ”; and spiritual self-centeredness -making one’s self the “idol” before which they bow, worship, and consent , without any awareness of serious consequences-, is the establishment of a fleshly altar before which they “bow” to worship their ‘self-realization’!

It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her “The Poetical Works Of Elizabeth Barrett Browning”, (From 1826-1844, J.E.Beale Book Department, The Fancy Fair, Bournemouth, Eng.,p76), who began “The Soul’s Travelling” saying: “I dwell amid the city, the great humanity which beats its life along the stony streets, Like an unsunned river In a self-made course, is ever Rolling on, Rolling on!,” saying a little later: “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, And that is melancholy! – The voice is a complaint, O crowned city, The blue sky covering you, like God’s great pity!’”

The prophet Isaiah was given by God a glance of Holy God’s judgment on the nation of Israel and the holy city’s destruction in 70AD, and I believe a warning to every human being between then and now,(Isaiah 5:30),“In that day they will roar against them like the roaring of a sea. And if one looks to the land, BEHOLD, darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened by clouds.” And if you are unsure about God’s fulfillment of judgment upon lives, cities, states, or nations, examine what Jesus had to say in Luke 21: 20-28!

But Holy God does not leave His children of faith hopeless in the midst of a faithless, rebellious people, whether family or friends, states or nations! In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 Paul wrote: “But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

For when they say, “Peace and safety!”,(while doing their own thing!), then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. AND THEY (who do their own thing without the Savior!) SHALL NOT ESCAPE ( OR AVOID GOD”S JUDGMENT)! 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.

Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day (Day of the Lord & His presence and governing and watchcare over us?) be sober (serious-minded), putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.

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

But for many who live without redemptive, saving faith in the victorious work of Christ at the Cross and beyond His empty tomb, there is the sad reality of many who “choose” to ignore “saving grace and mercy” and are ‘self-determined’ to ‘rescue’ and ‘save themselves’!

But then there are those who have, not an ounce, of fleshly hope in themselves at all, and cannot even see in the fleshly successful of our modern-day world any example of ‘better, fleshly living’, but at the same time remain deaf to our Lord’s entreaty, “Come to Me, and I’ll give you rest!”

In contemplating this teaching of “Irresponsible Impregnation Or Sovereign Selection?”, a few words of distraught souls who ignore His holy plea and invitation to be birthed “In the Spirit”. I wrote: “The rich man has a tower, the politician has power, the beauty has an orchid-flower, but I only cower.

No life, no hope, no talent, no gift, no rope – just a helpless, hopeless feeling of no purpose on earth. Stars shine even in the darkest night, for some, while others feel there is no hope, and respond: “Just not right!”

Eyes on their circumstances, selfish will clamoring to change their surroundings, but no looking up to the God who made them, and no desire for Him to ‘save’ them.

In Mary and Joseph’s day, “No room at the inn,” before Jesus was born. But in this modern-day, no room for Jesus in “my world of scorn!”

“Deny yourself”, was that Jesus’ call? So why should I do what He says at all? Master of my own destiny, owner of my own home – it’s ‘my will, my way,’ not Jesus at all!

Unteachable minds, darkened hearts, self-centered wills, for just a start, in explaining the blindness and pain of men’s hearts who have no desire to be reconciled but willing to live apart.

No desire for reconciliation, no sorrow over separation, no sadness of incoherence of His divine intent – “just leave me to myself and all my flesh invents!”

In the ‘lust of self-vindication’ men willingly attack or just ignore the “love of His vibrant manifestation” – but devotion to their ‘sad sweet selves’ takes precedence over His INTERCESSION!

So easily ignoring divine revelation and spoofing the Truth of Jesus’ crucifixion, men will try to debunk His ‘holy-blood sacrifice’, willingly choosing to assert their “all-rightness”.

But the day will soon come when sinful sorrows will be multiplied as they traded away God for ‘flesh’ and a ‘sin-nature’ as the companions of their side – “No Savior for me as I ‘save’ myself, enjoying my walk in a fool’s paradise’!”

You are aware that though many rebel and talk about their “peace and safety”, the day is coming when before Holy God they’ll have to stand with an explanation of their spiritual stupidity! But, let me shift gears from God saying “I called, but you refused” to Jesus saying, in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

“Come to Me!” Don’t YOU find it so interesting that unredeemed men and women, even boys and girls, have their sights, souls, intents, desires, and passionate longings on everything and anything except God’s eternal intent for willful sons and daughters, birthed in His ultimate intent spiritually to be vessels of His Holy Presence, temples of His resident-ministry, and extensions of His passionate longing to “draw” all mankind unto Himself through them?

It’s so eternally life-changing when one hears, receives, and walks in what Jesus said in John 14:6! “I AM THE WAY, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” True salvation, true redemption, true reconciliation to Holy God, true service, at His bidding, is only by “Christ in you the hope of glory.”

In 2 Corinthians 1:9 Paul wrote, revealing God’s eternal intent for true disciples “in Christ”: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that WE SHOULD NOT TRUST IN OURSELVES but in God who raises the dead…”! And, no doubt, this is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I DIE DAILY.” If Christ Jesus intended to be Himself in us, then why do men attempt to imitate Him rather than be dead to one’s self, allowing His Resurrection to be manifested in them and through them?

Do you believe this is why we read in 2 Corinthians 4:10-12 the following true plan of loving God for our lives as His ‘temples’ in which He dwells? Paul said: “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life (fleshly life) in you.” Paul was intent on maturing ‘messy diaper babies’ into sons and daughters of true faith who die to themselves daily that His Resurrection Life may be manifested in and through their mortal flesh!

This just may be why we read early in the Old Testament writings, Genesis 24:26-27, of the man who said: “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on (or in) the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” And, IF JESUS IS THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE, then why do we assume He lauds our ‘best efforts’ when in reality, He weeps?!?

Did Jesus come to heighten your darkness or to bring you “Light”? Did Jesus come to improve or transform? Did Jesus come to ‘alarm’ or to say, ‘Be not afraid’? Did Jesus come to adapt ‘religious people and unbelievers’ to a plateau of ‘self-acceptance’ or to crucify you and your old sin nature with Him on the Cross? Did He come to affirm your best intentions or to atone for blackened hearts, selfish wills, and godless minds?

Did Jesus come to let you know, though clouds may surround you, in Him the Bright Son-Light of God’s love for you can be affirmed in your heart and mind by His ever-abiding, Spirit-raised, resurrection Presence in a redeemed heart and mind? Did Jesus come to assure us that even if sorrow or sadness befall us, in Him it will not stall us in complacency, doubt, or fear, but will be our reminder, “I’ll never you nor forsake you!”?!?

I find it so encouraging, so enlightening, so uplifting to read and absorb that early prayer of Christ Jesus as He sought to equip His early disciples and those to come when in Matthew 6:9-10 and Verse 13 He taught them “In this manner, therefore pray: “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” with the strong plea of Verse 13, “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen (Or “so be it!”), and you have to ask: “Are ‘Christians’ today discipled to live under the King’s rule, His leadership, His heavenly desire for their earthly ministries?”

Do we say daily, just as the Genesis 24 man stated, “I being in the way, the Lord led me..”? Do we say with Paul as he stated in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified WITH CHRIST; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Verse 21, I do not set aside the grace of God”, relying on my “grit” and “self-will, self-determination, or self-pleasure”? NO! We take the sentence of death unto ourselves daily that the resurrection Presence of Christ may be manifested, released, and extended through our mortal flesh!

This is why Paul declared in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation…

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He (God) made Him (Christ Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.”

Discipleship in Christ is not the best of human effort or the best of fleshly adornment and improvement, but the reality of “new creations” through Christ Jesus’ BLOOD ATONEMENT!

There’s an old hymn in “The American Hymnal,” published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, copyrighted in 1933! The hymn is entitled “Crimson Calvary Answers, “No!”, written by W.T.Dale and B.B. McKinney. It says:

“Shall I be condemned forever, I I to the Lord draw near; If I sue for peace and pardon, Will He deign to hear my prayer? Will He scorn my deep contrition, Will He not His grace bestow? Will He scorn my heart’s petition? Crimson Calvary answers “No!”

I am mourning o’er my follies; I am weeping o’er my sin; For my guilt’s become oppressive, and a burden long has been; Will the Lord be gracious to me, If I tell Him all my woe, Will He leave me in my anguish? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

If I go and tell Him truly, How I have His love abused, How I’ve sinned against His mercy, And His pardon have refused; Will He grant His loving favor When in penitence I go; Or in wrath will He forsake me? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

While upon the cross He suffered, Jesus prayed with dying breath, “Father, oh, forgive them,” cried He, “Save them from eternal death;” Am I worse than those who mocked Him, And who pierced Him long ago, Have I passed beyond His mercy? Crimson Calvary answers, “No!”

The chorus then says: On the cross the blessed Savior Paid the sin price long ago; All who will on Him believe, Full redemption shall receive, For the blood of Jesus cleanses Whiter than driven snow.”

Ephesians 1: 7-8 declares: “In Him (in Christ Jesus) we have REDEMPTION through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence..”! Redemption! Forgiveness of sin and the sin nature crucified with Him!

Reconciliation! That’s reconciled to God and “adopted” as sons and daughters of God by Jesus Christ! But hear me! One of the most thrilling truths of having been reconciled to God is: If YOU are a “born-again” child of God, it is because Holy God choice you and called you to Himself! In John 15:16 the Lord Jesus said: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you,” saying in Verse 19, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not (any longer) of the world, but I CHOSE YOU out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

Self-chosen, self-appointed, self-determined ‘service’ (?) in the name of Jesus is so opposite of Genesis 22:3 where the Word tells us: “So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey…and arose and went to the place of which God had told him,” obedience to the call, faithful in the divine ministry, intimacy based on faithful, personal response in His eternal purposes!

In 2 Timothy 1:8b-11 Paul testifies, edifies, and instructs true “disciples of Jesus”: “…share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and CALLED US WITH A HOLY CALLING, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.” And if Jesus redeemed You, reconciled YOU to Holy God, and set YOU apart as a chosen son or daughter of the true faith, please understand, it’s not what YOU choose and select for your ‘witness’ but what He gifts you to be and to do for His honor and glory! One thing you need to reflect upon! Jesus said: “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give My life a ransom for many!”

And the called, the chosen, the gifted, the assigned, are those “born again” and set aside by the Lord Jesus as His ambassadors in our troubled world! We aren’t redeemed to do what we selfishly want to do in His kingdom, but to respond obediently to His gifting, His leading, yes, His directive for your life of ministry and service to the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

Since it’s mid-December, 2016, just prior to the “Christ-mas Celebration” and reminder, receive Adolf Adam’s, “O Holy Night,” from the old American Hymnal”! It says: “O holy night; the stars are brightly shining; It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth; Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till He appeared, and the soul felt His worth;

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and cloudless morn! Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices, O night divine! O night when Christ was born! O night divine! O night, O night divine!

Led by the light Of faith serenely beaming; With glowing hearts by His cradle to stand; Led by the light of the star, so brightly gleaming, Here came the wise men from Orient land;

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and cloudless morn! Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices, O night divine! O night when Christ was born! O night divine! O night, O night divine!” Jesus has come!

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“IN OUR LORD’S HOLY PRESENCE”

It’s so highly interesting to me that in the early history of mankind, through God’s creation of human presence on His earth, in Genesis 3:8, Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, “and Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

But the one thing I pray you learn from this time together around God’s Holy Word is that God isn’t interested in you hiding from His Holy Presence but letting Him unveil Himself to you! In Luke 24:31-32 we read of the early disciples, seated at a table with the Lord, but unsure of WHO He really was! It says: “Then their eyes were opened and THEY KNEW HIM; and (then) He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while HE OPENED THE SCRIPTURES TO US?”

I tell you, there is nothing dull or dreary when Christ Jesus knocks on YOUR heart’s door – there IS “a burning heart sensation that pulsates within you”! In Revelation 3:20-22 we hear our Lord speaking to us! “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.”

What does the word of wisdom say to us in Proverbs 1:24-32? “Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, Because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, When your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction 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 they will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, They would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke.

Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies. For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.”

You are aware that many have no desire to hear anything God has to say to them! In Psalm 10:3-7 we read: “For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire; he blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord. The wicked in ‘his proud countenance’ does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts.

His ways are always prospering; God’s judgments are far above, out of his sight; as for all his enemies, he sneers at them. He has said in his heart, ‘ I shall not be moved; I shall never be in adversity.’ His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression; under his tongue is trouble and iniquity.” Oh, and then in Verses 8-11, the psalmist, inspired of the Spirit, describes the “godless, the faithless, the unredeemed” with the images of “wild animals”!

Did Luke 24:32 say, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road…”? Is there a “road” called “wherever you go”? Doesn’t Joshua 1:9b tell us: “..do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go”?

Do you remember Moses saying to both Israel and Joshua, as he faced his earthly departure, these words? Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them (the world, your enemies, the devil and his demon-tribes?); for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”

“In Christ” every disciple has begun a ‘faith pilgrimage’, like Moses and Israel in the journey of the “Promised Land”- walking with our Lord and Savior AND His people, His servants, His ‘soldiers of the Cross’! And as I was reading in Luke 10 as the “seventy were sent out” commissioned by the Lord Jesus, I was uplifted to the seventh heaven again when I read Luke 10:17! Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” Do you think those early disciples learned about walking, serving, and ministering in and with His Holy Presence?

How strange it is that somehow, someway, by some insane reasoning, many ‘professing Christians’ have never entered the “blessed, holy land of oneness with and in Christ”! But then the Holy Word enlightens us! In Colossians 3:1-11, Paul instructs us and challenges us:

“If then you were raised with Christ [brought out of sin’s death in you to resurrection life in Him!], seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. [Is seeking those things which are above the reality of ‘pressing in to the eternal’ rather than captured by the temporal?].

Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth [the ‘fleshly,’ the ‘devilish’, the worldly’?]. FOR YOU DIED [ with Christ!], and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory [When you get to Heaven someday or the manifestation of heavenly glory in His resurrection presence in you through His Spirit here and now?].

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 sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked WHEN YOU LIVED IN THEM. [But “in Christ” you don’t live or walk their anymore!].

But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have PUT OFF THE OLD MAN with his deeds, and HAVE PUT ON THE “NEW MAN” who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor fee, but CHRIST IS ALL IN ALL.”

The passage you’ve just read is one of those ‘identifying passages’ of true believers! Have YOU been “raised with Christ”? Are YOU a “seeker” of eternal things? Is your MIND easily adaptable to world thinking OR is it “fixed” on eternal Truth revealed in Christ? Are you ‘comfortable’ with ‘world thinking’ or captured by Christ on His Heavenly Throne equipping your mind in Eternal Truth? Were YOU “crucified with Christ” or does your ‘religious (?) sin-nature’ still reign?

Did Paul tell us that “in Christ” our life “is hidden with Christ in God”? No wonder Paul said in Galatians 6:14-15, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.”

FIRST TRUTH I WANT TO NAIL DOWN ABOUT LIVING IN OUR LORD’S PRESENCE: Does ‘deliverance from the bondage of sin and death, from devilish captivity, or world allegiance’ speak to you at all? What do we see related to how we should respond to or react to Old Testament events? But I see a physical picture that has eternal meaning and relevance in our journey through life with enemies like the world, the flesh, and the devil, out to take us down! In 2 Samuel 22:1 we read: Then David spoke to the Lord the words of this song, on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. And he said:

“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; the God of my strength, in whom I WILL TRUST; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, and my refuge; my Savior, You save me from violence. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.” David then spoke about “waves of death that surrounded him,” about “floods of ungodliness made me afraid,” and then in Verses 17-20, David sang: “He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me; for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.”

It was in Psalm 17:8-9 that David also prayed: “Keep me AS THE APPLE OF YOUR EYE; hide me under the shadow of Your wings, From the wicked who oppress me, from my deadly enemies who surround me.”

Don’t you find it extremely sad when in Deuteronomy 32, in the song of Moses, there was a sad refrain when he said in Verse 18: “Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who fathered you”? Oh, but then in Verse 43d, Moses sang, “He (God) WILL PROVIDE ATONEMENT FOR HIS LAND AND HIS PEOPLE!” In Israel there was a faithful remnant WHO “RESTED” IN HIS HOLY PRESENCE AND PROMISES! What a tower of blessed assurance!

SECOND, THERE IS A TOWER OF SACRED TRUST! In 1 Timothy 4:10 we read Paul strengthening our foundation of assurance, protection, and the overcoming Life in Christ when he said: “For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we TRUST IN THE LIVING God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of all men, especially of those who believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to).”

In Proverbs 28:25-26 we read God’s discernment about the ‘foolish’ and the “faithful”; “He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the Lord will be prospered. He who trusts in his own heart (I say, or mind!) is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.”

Have you, as a disciple of Christ, ever found yourself centered in the midst of trouble, testings, turmoil of the world opposed to the reign of the King of kings and Lord of lords, even questioning your survival because you’ve been ‘burdened beyond measure’? In 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 Paul wrote to the Corinthian church then, and us now, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia; that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death (that’s dead in our trespasses and sins!), and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”

In Proverbs 3:5-6 ‘wisdom’ speaks! “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him (give Him His rightful place as Lord of your life!), and He shall direct your paths.”

THIRD, THERE IS THE TOWER OF SPIRITUAL TRIUMPH! Aren’t you thankful, every day, as a true follower of Christ, that Holy God has given us a “hymn of praise” of “Victory in Jesus”? Spiritual triumph? And, even if we go “through the valley of the shadow of dark trials and deathly circumstances”, in Christ we reside in the ‘tower’ of spiritual triumph!

In Romans 8:18-25,28-30, and Verses 35-39, we read: “For I (Paul) consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the EARNEST EXPECTATION of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

Not only that, but we also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. FOR WE WERE SAVED IN THIS HOPE, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? BUT if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

Come to Verses 28-30! And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those WHO ARE THE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

OH, AND THEN IN VERSES 35-39, WE COME TO THE “HALLELUJAH DECLARATION”! “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’

YET, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created things, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And you doubt yourself in Christ as a servant who lives in “the tower of spiritual triumph”? This isn’t “the power of positive thinking” – it’s the gift of living in His tower of spiritual triumph, and “resting” in His finished work! In Colossians 1:19-23 we receive the Apostolic message of true reconciliation!

“For it pleased the Father that in Him (Christ Jesus!) all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And YOU, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.”

Here’s the question: If God declares us “in Christ” to be more than conquerors, then WHY did Paul state in the Colossians passage, Colossians 1:22-23, “present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – IF INDEED you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are NOT MOVED AWAY from the hope of the gospel…!??” But tragically there are some who become so totally deceived, they ‘move away from the hope of the gospel’ to live in “their main attraction” of proving their self-worth, without Christ!

Never forget Colossians 2:9! “For in Him (in Christ) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”

FOURTH, THERE IS ALSO THE TOWER OF SET TIMES BY THE LORD! In Psalm 118: 24 God’s people gathered together and they sang: “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

I began pastoring in the early 1960’s as I finished my final year at Baylor University, attended Southwestern Seminary for three years, and from the early days of pastoral ministry, mission enterprises in Brazil, India, and other nations, and I can tell you without a fear or a doubt, I’ve seen and heard many men, women, children and youth, on their ‘death-beds’ proclaim the goodness of the Lord, yes, even in the day when they knew they had come to their final breath in their physical bodies, and because of true, redemptive faith, they understood, “absent from the body, present with the Lord.”

True born-again believers live in God’s time-clock – not their own! “My times on earth are in His hands – and He assures me, in Christ, “I” never die!” And they are at peace, whether on earth or in heaven around the throne of the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

Oh, certainly, there are vessels of wrath fitted for Hell, but vessels of grace are adorned in Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope! They are clothed in the glory of the Glorious One even Christ! They are heirs of all Jesus is and has! They are ‘marriage partners’ in Christ with all His great covenant promises! “As He is so am I in this world!” “As Jesus sits on the throne of Heaven as King, as He is so am I!” It’s not a matter of ‘common sense’ but “sacred trust”!

It was Spurgeon, in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” (Vol.19, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Mich.,p.356) , who said: “The things we have to preach of, such as everlasting life, union with Christ, resurrection from the dead, reigning with Him forever and ever, seem to the dull hearts of men to be as idle tales. Tell them of a high interest for their money, of large estates to be had for a venture, or of honors to be readily gained, and inventions to be found out, they open all their eyes and their ears, for here is something worth knowing; but the things of God, eternal, immortal, boundless – these are of no importance to them. They could not be induced to go from Ur to Canaan for such trifles as eternal life, and heaven, and God Himself!”

“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it,” because we “lean not to our own understanding, but in all our ways, we acknowledge Him, we give Him His rightful place as Lord and Master of our lives and all He desires to do through us, and we become “living sacrifices”, taking the sentence of death unto ourselves, that His resurrected Presence may be manifested in mortal flesh!”

H.G.Spafford and P.P.Bliss wrote the old hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul.” [American Hymnal, The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1933]. It says:

“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, though 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?

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW?”

I really am not sure how to begin this, I pray, a biblical study on man’s or one’s search for meaning to their ‘existence’, if that, to them, is all they sense about their earthly presence or ‘fleshly’ pilgrimage. One thing I’m sure of: most men without God are out to find the ‘filling’ for their empty, tortuous, godless living, and are not even sure they want to learn about His “eternal intent” for them as ‘vessels’ or ‘containers’ of His Heavenly Presence in their hearts and lives! If they are not in control, they’ll substitute anything, anyway, any-how, any-‘who’, if they can find even a moment’s relief from their ‘pointless lives’!

Societies, lives, families, nations, even churches, have choices: Christ or the chaotic, fleshly or the spiritual, sin-nature determinations or ‘vessels of Christ’s Holy Presence that he calls “temples”’, or compromise with convenience or conviction of His Holy Truth, or a participant in societal disintegration or a soldier of Biblical discipline trained in the Lord’s army, or a ‘self-determined idolater’ worshipping what his sin nature dictates or a life convicted, converted, captured, and controlled by His Indwelling Holy Spirit?

I know that the Prophet Hosea was a tool to speak to the rebellious nation of unrepentant, unredeemed Israel, but I also know “All Scripture” does speak to any man, any where, any time! The national judgment of Israel did not apply to the repentant, redeemed, blood-bought sons and daughters of true faith within Israel! But in Hosea 4: 6 God spoke and still speaks: “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.”

Oh, and in Verse 8, God said: “They (demons and ‘the religious of the mind and not the heart’, and unfaithful, unbelieving powers of darkness) eat up or feed (on) the sin of My people; they set their heart on their iniquity,” even approving of all that is opposite to the Truth and Holiness of God!

There IS a ‘world’ of “Yesterday-minded men and women, even boys and girls” who fall into the devilish trap of “Has God really said? You surely will not die – if you sin and fall away – God’s too loving”! Really?

“YESTERDAY”? I pray that YOU see that there was a time when your life was WITHOUT HIM, life without purpose, meaning, a goal or God! “Yesterday”? Pain, emptiness, no spiritual goal or intent at all, no God but simply the ‘god’ you willingly bowed down to daily, your ‘self’!

“YESTERDAY”? Striving but failing, trying but drooping, attempting but falling ‘short’, seeking to prove yourself worthy but wilting short of God’s intent and purpose and plan!

“YESTERDAY”? It’s either a forgotten or painful memory OR that stone on which you choose to stand without Him to determine your next step without God with accumulated failures of emptiness, and the ‘hole’ seems to get deeper and wider – and you’re surprised, even shocked by your own spiritual ineptness!

YESTERDAY”? For most, it’s just sad memories because that ‘emptiness’ and ‘unfulfilled desire’ wasn’t seen as God’s provision of an exposure of life without Him, but just a human failure, a cultural blunder, and a sad reward. When ‘self-awareness’ is all one sees in his fleshly journey, it’s difficult for some to see, “This is the day the Lord has made – I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

“YESTERDAY”? That’s a backward look at an empty space without any consideration, contemplation, or confidence at all of divine intent and eternal purpose! At the same time, how many do you know who are pleased in the arrogance of their ‘fleshly successes’ without one ounce of understanding or consideration of the eternal plan and planting

of God for their lives?

“YESTERDAY”? That’s a backward look at one’s ‘age of anxiety’ without any consideration at all of the Historic Day of Atonement! That’s even a backward look at those who enter churches or temples or religious sanctuaries with no understanding that God doesn’t make His abiding in places made by human means but in the “new-born” temples of men’s repentant, regenerated hearts! In John 17:3 Jesus declared: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent,” with 1 Peter 2:4-5, telling us, “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up “a spiritual house”, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

“YESTERDAY”? That’s man’s fleshly will in full control even if he/she ‘professes’ faith in Christ! There’s a huge gap between ‘believing’ and ‘belonging’ to Jesus Only! It was H.W.Webb-Peploe who once said: “Joy is perfect acquiescence in God’s will because [at last! JFF!] the soul delights itself in God Himself.” That’s God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, and a redeemed heart and mind trusting in Him alone!

“YESTERDAY”? It was Leo Tolstoy who once said, “I lived only during those times when I believed in God,” and I couldn’t help but wonder: “How fleshly is that? Life on, life off, life on, life off – blessed when I believed but cursed when I departed from Him?” Temporary belief or temporary loyalty is not “Oneness with Christ”! That’s, no doubt, why C.S Lewis could describe some spiritual journeys as “an ever increasing desire for an ever diminishing satisfaction.”

The holiest interpretation of Christ is not any man, any woman, at his/her ‘best’, but the “with Christ crucified” that His Resurrected Life may be God’s interpretation of Holy Presence in a present-day earthly setting – your redeemed body as the ‘temple’ of His Holy Presence! Perfect good is not man at his earthly best, even attempting to interpret His Holy Presence, but the “born-again life” in which Resurrection Presence is allowed to be Himself in us, our only hope of glory!

I was reading Kurt Bruner’s book entitled “Inklings of God,” [Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530, Copyright by the author! P.79], when he wrote about Mother Teresa in India before she died. She was one stout lady of true faith who ministered the Truth in India. Bruner wrote, speaking of the Hindu religion, “Its law of karma teaches that those who suffer are paying off debt from a former life, purifying themselves in this life so that they can reincarnate into something better, like a cow, in the next. The entire caste system depends upon the premise that we are destined to pay in one life for messing up in another. To help those suffering is to extend their payment plan. That is why the sick, poor, and disabled suffer so in and beyond India. Their suffering is meant to be. So, in the name of compassion, their religion tells them to avert their eyes [or ‘turn aside’ from how God sees them!].”

Dare I tell you that Hindus in India, unbelieving ‘self-sufficient’ in the U.S., “yesterday” men and women unrepentant, unbelieving anywhere, live breathing the air of ‘personal, self-omniscience’, smarter than God, yet living with illusions encouraged by the devil himself! And they live in the ‘death’ of their hopelessness, not interested in God’s eternal Word of hope, Christ alone! Should I dare tell you that what you believe in the spiritual realm of fallen humanity determines how you live it out, to the glory of fallen flesh or to the glory of Holy God!

“YESTERDAY”? That’s men on their own, even in a religious sense or scene, determining what should be ‘acceptable to God’ on the basis of their “best efforts”! It’s really, really interesting to me to hear Jesus say in John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him,” saying later, in John 12:32, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” Verse 33 then says, This He said, signifying by what death He would die.” And if the Cross hasn’t drawn you to God, nothing else will!

Yesterday’s men and women are drawn by religious activity that leads nowhere – but the “blood-redeemed” understand the willingness of full surrender to the Lordship of Christ! A born-again believer is “drawn” to Christ by the Spirit, while the ‘pretenders’ attempt by best effort to disassociate themselves from godless living but always fall far short of “Redemptive Truth” in and through Christ alone!

Isn’t this why Paul said in Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world”?

“YESTERDAY”? Have you heard the ‘religious world’, world-wide, proudly asserting that “There are many ‘doors’ to God – any ‘door will do’ as long as you promote the religious door you entered and uphold its religious dogma,” which I believe means “eat any old ‘dog-ma meat’ you desire – you’ll be okay,” but I trust only the divine Word like 1 John 1:7 which says, “But 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 His (God’s) Son cleanses us from all sin.” Hear me! The Holy Word just declared the eternal way only by which fallen man’s sin-nature is transformed into “new life” is through the shed blood of the Lamb of God, and His shed blood on the Cross unveils the seriousness of my need of deliverance from the penalty of sin and its presence, imparting to me the eternal Truth that I have been made complete in Christ, lacking nothing, but daily ‘resting’ in Him and His manifestation through me of His fullness, His blessing, His purpose, His power, and His desire to express His love, prove His power, and manifest His eternal will through an available ‘vessel’!

In Romans 13:11-14 Paul challenged both the redeemed remnant of Israel and the newly-birthed redeemed of Rome and us in the 21^st Century: “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us was properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in envy and strife. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”

“YESTERDAY”? Loyalty to lust or loyalty to the Lord Jesus? Loyalty to the ‘flesh’ or loyalty to the Spirit? Loyalty to one’s natural affinities or loyalty to His eternal birth-marks, God-honoring giftings, and the servant-understanding that, yes, “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose,” (Romans 8:28!)? Loyalty to ‘my interpretation’ or loyalty to His revelation, like John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep My commandments”? Loyalty to the ‘privacy of my own desires’ or loyalty to His “blood-bought possession” of my life, like 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 declaring: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

And how many ‘doors’ are then shut TO God, and ‘self-serving’ folks, some religious ‘church-goers’, because, even though they ‘profess’ loyalty to Christ, when it comes to ‘religious activities’ they still “call the shots for our own lives”! Paul went on to say in 1 Corinthians 6:17, “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him,” and HE IS LORD OF ALL OR NOT LORD, for them, AT ALL!!

THEN, WHAT ABOUT “TODAY” IN YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY? Do you remember Zacharias’ prophetic utterance in Luke 1: 67-79? He had been filled with the Holy Spirit, and then he prophesied! “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, [Is God the Lord over every nation in the world? YES, whether they yield to Him or not!], for He has visited and redeemed His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David [Or in the house of His servant J.Farrell Fisher or YOU?], as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, who HAVE BEEN (and still are!) SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN,

That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, To perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham: To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; (The Beloved John?], for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, To give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

There’s another ‘prophetic word, not only about the birthing of the Promised Savior, of the Coming Savior of the world, the Lamb of God to be sacrificed by merciful God on the Cross for our redemption,’ but to the true faithful sons and daughters who “TODAY” unveil the Resurrected, Reigning Christ to a needy world: Psalm 2:7-12 is about “The Richness of Relationship In God’s Eternal Son AND sons!” It says:

I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, TODAY I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, AND the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron (Biblical Truth?); You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’

Now therefore, be wise, O kings (“In Christ” are we declared “kings and priests unto God the Father”?); Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO PUT THEIR TRUST IN HIM.”

In his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.227), Oswald Chambers quoted 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”

“Crucified with Christ, raised to “New Life” in Him, and now, “Today”, the new “Temple of Resurrection Presence,” with the biblical awareness: “I AM NOT MY OWN,” agreeing with, aligning with, receiving the instruction of Paul and Chambers: “We are not sanctified for ourselves, we are called into the fellowship of the Gospel, and things happen which have nothing to do with us, God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have His way, if you do not, instead of being of the slightest use to God in His Redemptive work in the world, you will be a hindrance and a clog.” OR, shouldn’t you and I daily choose: “I take the sentence of death daily that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in my mortal flesh” TODAY?

What did Isaiah say in Isaiah 60:1? “Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.” Do you daily live with that awareness?

ONE OTHER OBSERVANCE AND REFLECTION: WHAT ABOUT “TOMORROW”? And, have you reflected upon what Paul quoted and wrote about in 1 Corinthians 15: 49, and Verses 54-58? 1 Corinthians 15:49, “And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.”

1 Corinthians 15:54-58, “So WHEN this corruptible has put on the incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

You may, at times, sense the ‘onslaught of Satan’ and his demonic forces, but remember, IN CHRIST, WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS! Are YOU “at Rest” in Christ as you face YOUR “Tomorrow”? C. Wordsworth, in the old “The American Hymnal”, wrote the words to this hymn entitled “O Day of Rest and Gladness.”

“O day of rest and gladness, O day of joy and light, O balm of care and sadness, Most beautiful, most bright; Om You, the high and lowly, Bending before the throne, Sing, Holy, Holy, Holy, To the great Three in One.

On You, at the creation, the light first had its birth; On You, for our salvation, Christ rose from depths of earth. On You our Lord victorious, The Spirit sent from Heaven; And thus on You most glorious, A triple light was given.

Today on weary nations The heavenly manna falls; To holy convocations The silver trumpet calls, Where gospel light is glowing With pure and radiant beams, And living water flowing With soul-refreshing streams.

New graces ever gaining From this our day of rest, We reach the rest remaining To spirits of the blest. To Holy Ghost be praises, To Father and to Son; The Church her voice upraises To You, blest Three in One.”

Will YOUR “Tomorrow” be the ‘curse’ or the Everlasting Blessing in Christ alone?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“NO SHAME – NO GAIN OF TRUE LIFE!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What did Jesus say in Matthew 11:28-30? “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will GIVE YOU REST. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and YOU will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

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

BUT! “NO SHAME – NO GAIN OF TRUE LIFE!” John 3:18-21 we read, “He who believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. BUT he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” Could this be why Paul said: “I die daily”?

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

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

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

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will of what is Mine, and declare it to you”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’ Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done!” I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

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

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

What an awesome Word that should encourage every new “babe in Christ” or maturing disciple – YOU HAVE A RESIDENT TRAINER AND EQUIPPER IN ETERNAL TRUTH, THE HOLY SPIRIT! Later, in John 16:7-15, Jesus declared, yes, to us in the 21^st Century, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more (in the flesh!); of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, HE WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL TRUTH; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. HE WILL GLORIFY ME (the Holy Spirit – not your ‘best effort’!), for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said (to you) that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

What a promise to every new “child of the King”! The Holy Spirit IS your faithful guide into Biblical Truth and Divine Will , an eternal and never-ceasing forceful empowerment, and the True, full-unveiling of Christ’s Resurrection Presence, which is why, in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, Paul instructs us, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER THIRTY

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE KINGLY REIGN OF CHRIST!”

In 1 John 4:17-19 we have an amazing, life-changing, uplifting revelation: “Love (agape love) has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because AS HE IS, SO ARE WE IN THIS WORLD. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.”

Do YOU have a “new song” that you sing, like the twenty-four elders who fell down before the Lamb of God in Revelation 5:9-14? And they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God BY YOUR BLOOD out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, AND HAVE MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS TO OUR GOD; AND WE SHALL REIGN ON THE EARTH.” Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice:

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!’ Then the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever.’”

I find it so interesting, at times disheartening and discouraging, because too many ‘believers’ in Christ Jesus have no true foundational knowledge of their ‘identity’ “In Christ”! If “in Christ” ‘we are more than conquerors’, then why are some believers stymied in their journey of redemptive faith? In Romans 8:37-39 Paul wrote: “Yet in all these things (tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, or peril) WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. For I am persuaded that neither death not life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul clearly understood for his people in his day, and, yes, for the people of our day today who’ve put their faith in Christ Jesus. He said, Romans 8:25, “For He (Christ Jesus) MUST REIGN till He has put all enemies under His feet,” that was then, and it is now in your life and walk of faith: WE MUST BE DAILY YIELDED TO HIS LORDSHIP in all of OUR circumstances! “HE MUST REIGN”!!

Psalm 110:1-3a, David said, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’ The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies! Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power…”

It’s really interesting as you’re going through the Word to come across a passage like Judges 8:22-23! Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, both you and your son, and your grandson also; for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian.” But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord (Himself) shall rule over you.”

And Micah 4:1-7 really gets interesting when you know 70AD was coming for the end of Israel, which is also true of any ‘fleshly reign or rule’! And you and I have a choice of Who reigns over us, in us, and through us! It says: “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days ( Last days of Worldly existence or last days of Israel?) that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it.

Many nations shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. For all people walk each in the name of his god, But we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

“In that day,” says the Lord, “I will assemble the lame, I will gather the outcast and those whom I have afflicted; I will make the lame a remnant, and the outcast a strong nation; So the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from now on, even forever.”

And who is that? Those who walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever! Does John 1:1-4 describe both the “true light” AND those who do not comprehend it? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. ALL THINGS were made THROUGH HIM, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

The next few verses tell us John was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of the Light, that all men through Him might believe. Verses 8-9 clearly says that John “was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of the Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.”

And then in John 1:10-14 John tells us, “He (Christ Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. BUT as many as received Him, TO THEM He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in [trust in, rely upon, adhere to], in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but [BORN!] of God.”

In 1 Timothy 4:8-10 we read: “For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, BECAUSE WE TRUST IN THE LIVING GOD, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe [trust in, rely upon, adhere to!].”

I would think the legitimate question at this point would be: WHO or what rules over you? In Colossians 2:8-10 Paul warns us all! “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For IN HIM dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” Several truths we must rest in:

FIRST, THERE IS THE REIGN OVER TEMPTATION WHEN I KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE REALITY OF TEMPTATION! In Luke 4:1 we read, “The Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.” Christ Jesus – filled with the Holy Spirit! Christ Jesus – led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Christ Jesus – tempted by the devil for forty days! Several lessons we must learn and rest in:

• The reality of temptation is no evidence of sin! In Hebrews 4:15-16 we read, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. LET US THEREFORE come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Later, in Hebrews 10:19-23, the author wrote: “Therefore, brethren, (brothers and sisters in the Faith!), having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God ( 2 Corinthians 6:16b declares, “For YOU are the temple of the living God!”), let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

• The reality of temptation is no sign of God’s Lack of Love for us because He allows temptation! Did we read in Luke 4:1 that Jesus “was led by the Spirit (the Holy Spirit!) into the wilderness, BEING TEMPTED FORTY DAYS BY THE DEVIL.” Jesus WAS tempted, loved of the Father! In fact, at Jesus’ baptism, in Matthew 3:17, we read: “And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And the very next event in the life of Christ? Matthew 4:1 again says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
• The reality of temptation is no implication of doubt about one being “a child of the King”! Again, the Son of God was tempted – the Eternal Son of God was tested – the “First-Fruit” tasted the fire of temptation to evil! It tells us that the Primacy of Sonship in Scripture FACED THE PERILOUS HOUR OF TESTING TRIUMPHANTLY – and so can you! Spurgeon, in “Spurgeon’s Sermons”, (Vol.18, p.339), wrote: “Temptation is a mark of sonship rather than any reflection thereupon.” So true!
• The reality of temptation is not an opened door for participation in the evil invitation or an opened door to penalty because of it! Temptation Never has to lead to sinful involvement! It’s said of Christ Jesus, “The same yesterday, today, and forever,” therefore one pure in Christ before temptation can be, must be pure in Him after temptation! How? 1 John 5:18b says, “…He that is born of God KEEPS HIMSELF and the evil one (the devil) does not touch him.” “Keeps”? That’s “to guard, to watch over, to be alert to, to keep one’s self, by prayer? Matthew 6:13, “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil – For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. SO BE IT or Amen!”
• The reality of temptation is not a door of opportunity for murmuring and complaining, but the message that we’re not above or below our Master, Lord, and Savior! Luke 6:40 is Jesus telling us, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” And Jesus? Even if it’s Peter, not fully trained as yet, that Jesus confronted in Mark 8:33, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not (yet) mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
• The reality of temptation is not the way of suffering before the release of His reign! Hebrews 2:18 equips us by saying, “For since He Himself was tempted in that which He suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” Yes, He stands at YOUR door, ready to be available to you in any moment of the devil’s onslaught! The writer of Hebrews said also in Hebrews 12:3, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners (and Satan!) against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.” His invitation in your trial of faith by the devil? “Lean on Me,” Jesus says, over and over and over again and again! And is that “your performance” or His position, “your grit” or His grace and mercy, “your determination” or faithful dependence upon the King of kings and Lord of lords? Romans 5:17 says, “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

SECOND, THERE IS THE REIGN OVER TEMPTATION WHEN I KNOW THE TENDERNESS OF MY SYMPATHEITIC SAVIOR! In Hebrews 2:17-18 we read, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, HE IS ABLE TO AID THOSE WHO ARE TEMPTED.”

• I become aware of the Avenue of His suffering in temptation: The Avenue of EMOTION is involved! Did we just read, “in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted…?” In Spurgeon’s Sermons, (Vol.18, p.329), Spurgeon preached, “Many persons are tempted, but do not suffer in being tempted. When ungodly men are tempted, the bait is to their taste, and they swallow it greedily. Temptation is a pleasure to them; indeed they sometimes tempt the devil to tempt them. They are drawn aside of their own lusts and enticed; so that temptation, instead of being suffering to them becomes a horrible source of pleasure. But good men (godly men) suffer when they are tempted, and the better they are the more they suffer.” And if that’s true of good and godly men, then how must have it have been emotionally for the PURE AND PERFECT, SINLESS SON OF GOD? Spurgeon went on, “Our Lord and Master had such a delicate sensitiveness of soul with regard to holiness, that the sight of sin must have torn Him as a naked man would be torn by thorns, and thistles, and briers.”

The Avenue of PLACE is involved: Christ Jesus left His Eternal Home and came to the sin-infested earth! He was “rich, yet for our sakes He became poor.” He left the place where He could never be tempted to come to the place where temptation is a way of life – and He suffered! (Matthew 26:36-46).

The Avenue of Weariness is involved: We read in John 4:5-6, So Jesus came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour (or noon). Oh, and then we read in Hebrews 5:7-9, “who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” Are YOU learning obedience by what YOU SUFFER when temptation comes your way?

The Avenue of Aloneness is involved: Do you remember Jesus crying out as He faced the Cross? “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ God hadn’t forsaken Him, but He had withdrawn temporarily, and for Jesus, it was if God had forsaken Him and it felt as if He’d been deserted! That’s like Job! “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to His throne!” In Psalm 42:1-5 we read about those passionate FOR GOD in the midst of their distresses thinking they are alone!

THE AVENUE OF EMPATHY IS INVOLVED! In 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 we find the “Hallelujah Chorus” of comforted sufferers! It says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.” How true is that to the true disciple’s walk of faith even today?

• I become aware of The Aid of our Sympathetic Savior. Hebrews 2:18 is so clear! “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to AID THOSE WHO ARE TEMPTED.” I’m sure this is why we read 1 Thessalonians 3:5 when Paul said, “For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that THE TEMPTER MIGHT HAVE TEMPTED YOU, and our labor should be in vain.” It’s also interesting that we read in Luke 4:13, “And when the devil had finished every temptation (against Jesus), he departed from Him until a more opportune time.”

We are, yes, fully aware of the aid of our sympathetic Savior because HE OVERCAME TEMPTATION! Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.” In Galatians 2:20-21 Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God…”! We are fully aware of our sympathetic Savior because He made toothless the tempter! In Colossians 2:13-15 we read: “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”

Oh, but Martin Luther nailed it strong for us when he wrote the great old hymn, “A Mighty Fortress”! It says: “A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Out helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing; For still our ancient foe Seeks to work us woe; His craft and power are great, armed with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing, Were not the right Man on our side, The Man of God’s own choosing. Do you ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth is His name, from age to age the same, And He must win the battle.

And tho’ this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God has willed His Truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim – We tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, For lo! His doom is sure: One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers – No thanks to them – abideth; The Spirit and the gifts are ours Through Him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also; The body they may kill; God’s Truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever.” AMEN?

THIRD, THERE IS THE REIGN OVER TEMPTATION WHEN I KNOW THE TESTIMONY OF COMMON BELIEVERS WHO’VE OVERCOME WHAT I FACE! 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us: ‘No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man (to fellow believers, to true disciples!).”

In Philippians 2:10-16 we have, yes, true, powerful testimonies! “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.”

Did Paul say, “I press toward the prize or mark of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”? If so, then why would the true disciple turn downward rather than pressing in to the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ? The “present reign” of Christ is interpreted through faithful believers who reign in and through Him actively, purposefully, benevolently, judicially, and victoriously!

Hebrews 12:1-2 we joyfully read, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, LOOKING UNTO JESUS, the author and FINISHER of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

FOURTH, THERE IS THE REIGN OVER TEMPTATION WHEN I KNOW THE TRIUMPHANT NATURE OF MY FAITHFUL GOD! 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 says, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO BE TEMPTED BEYOND WHAT YOU ARE ABLE, but with the temptation will also MAKE THE WAY OF ESCAPE, that you may be able to bear it.” What an awesome, encouraging word!

There’s a promise in Psalm 89:36-37 that says, “His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before Me; It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky.”

Isn’t it amazing? Psalm 119:86 says: “All Your commandments are faithful…”, and He never falls short of upholding, sustaining, even rescuing each of His sons or daughters who yield to Him!

Proverbs 13:17b says, “…a faithful ambassador brings health”, and is not the author of fleshly sicknesses in one’s spiritual journey! Isaiah 55:3 speaks “faithful mercies”1

Look at 1 Corinthians 1:9 where Paul declared, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” And BECAUSE THE LORD IS FAITHFUL, 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says, “Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.”

Doesn’t Revelation 19:11 speak about “heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.”

Do you understand that Almighty God has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you!” It’s not in “the sweet by and by” but in the ‘here and now’ that the triumphant nature of our faithful God finds full release!

G.A. Young, in the 1930’s, wrote a hymn entitled “God Leads Us Along.” [Renewal by Lillenas Publishing Co., Owner}. It says:

“In shady green pastures, so rich and so sweet, God leads His dear children along; Where the water’s cold flow bathes the weary one’s feet, God leads His dear children along.

Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright, God leads His dear children along; Sometimes in the valley in the darkest of night, God leads His dear children along.

Tho’ sorrows befall us, and Satan oppose, God leads His dear children along; Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes, God leads His dear children along.

Away from the mire, and away from the clay, God leads His dear children along; A – -way up in glory, eternity’s day, God leads His dear children along.

Some thro’ the waters, some thro’ the flood, Some thro’ the fire, but all thro’ the Blood; Some thro’ great sorrow, but God gives a song, In the night season and all the day long.” Amen?

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“INTROSPECTIVE IDOLATRESSES?”

I hope the title doesn’t shock you or embarrass you, but we’re seeing a day in modern-day America when ‘motherhood’ for many is an unwanted, disappointing, and frustrating ‘ministry’ they would just as soon do without – or, let someone else care for the children they birthed – “hire me a ‘nanny’ or I’m leaving”!

The society of modern self-centered, self-serving moms, sadly indifferent to the “Servant-Spirit in Christ”, unknowingly to themselves, prefer the title of “Queen of Disappointing Child-Birthing”!

Educated unbelievers or believers, enslaved to their ‘godless’ enmity of ministry and service to others, even their own babies, live frustrated, disappointing, parent-days, because it interferes with “what I want, what I desire, what I seek”, without any consideration of God’s eternal plan of Godly-parenting for His glory and honor and the ‘selfless’ building of His kingdom through their sons and daughters!

I know – it’s not ALL mothers who are ‘introspective idolatresses’ – I know my loving wife of 60 years used to say in the ‘early days’ of our marriage with two sons and a daughter birthed in the first five years, “If you come home one day and can’t find me, ( with 3 children, full of boundless energy-one more to come about six years later!), look under the bed; you’ll probably find me there flipping my lips!” That was during a time period when I commuted about 100 miles one way, 4 hours of seminary classes 4 days a week, returning home at about 2:30pm, going to work from 3:30-10:30pm! (I usually studied as one of my seminary buddies drove, four or five in our car-pool!).

But a mother disenchanted with one or two very little children? A mother who truly resents ‘childcare’? A mother who believes her husband has betrayed her with his ‘professional busy-ness’? A mother who feels betrayed in her pursuit of ‘working’ but now can’t because of babies? A mother encouraged by other ‘self-serving’ moms who pump each other’s ‘fleshly resentment’ of being tied down to kids? When I have come across this sad attitude, I wonder if it all comes from resentment of Holy, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Planning God? Is there a total ‘black-out’ of mind to the true calling of disciples “in Christ”(including “stressed ‘moms’!) who said He didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many?

I look back over my own life journey, fully aware of parental disenchantment. My father and mother were divorced when I was three years of age, taken by my mother to her parents who, “Thank God”, cared for me from the time I was three until twelve years of age when she re-married and I went to live with my mother and step-father. One thing I became fully aware of was revealed to me in Psalm 27:10, “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.” My grandparents still had at home two of my mother’s sisters who were God-placed ‘angels’ to love me, bless me, care for me, and inspire in me the blessings of walking with Christ Jesus and living with a caring community of true believers, both men and women, in a church that lived out the spirit of Jesus in ‘community care’, yes, for needy kids- I still can picture in my mind the caring men and women who nurtured me!

But presently, mothers who ARE “introspective idolatresses”? I will follow later with “introspective idolaters”, or ‘fathers’ who ignore the parental calling of God to care for those they birthed!

You are aware that ‘some’ mothers make it a point to arise every morning indulging in that ‘discontentment’ of motherhood, diseased with a spirit of ‘self-pity’. As professing Christians, some are unaware of the sovereign oversight and Throne-of-God desire to be in them ALL He desires to be through them!

Even Paul the Apostle of first-century followers of Christ, in Philippians 3:12, wrote: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” And, if Christ has “laid hold of a woman for motherhood”, is He “able to do exceedingly above all that we ask or think”? Yet often a mother’s ‘thought life’ is her own and her prayer life is non-existent – so, she thought: “Just do your best”, rather than being the vessel through the Lord and Savior Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever!

I found it interesting in reading the Psalms recently to hear the psalmist speak about “servants of the Lord,” saying in Psalm 113, Verse 9, “He, God, the Lord, grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children; Praise the Lord!” So, I had to ask, “What causes a mother to have no joy but only complaints about motherhood?” Or, “Who is it that produces only everlasting joy in a mother who will not be overcome by her motherly responsibilities?”

If you were to examine the ‘fall of Israel’ as “the princes of Israel: each one has used his power to shed blood in you”, Ezekiel 22:6, followed by, Verse 7, “In you they have made light of father and mother,” you will discover a pattern that still exists today, sadly, in some mothers and disgracefully in some fathers! Since we’ll deal with “dads” in a new writing, suffice it to say here, “Yes, there are SOME mothers who’ve made light of motherly, Christ-honoring ministry to sons and daughters, because they never fully considered parenting as a holy ministry in honoring the Lord!”

And, more than that, consider what King David sang about in Psalm 139! Verse one, “O Lord, You have searched me and known me.” (Does Holy God “know” every mother across the face of our world?). David went on to say in Verse 13, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb,” adding in Verse 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.” [Do you believe Holy God, seeing one in its mother’s womb, has designed His holy plan for that child, yes, every child, but do SOME mothers deny God’s purpose for their child and willfully, ignorantly, unbelievingly fashion their own fleshly designs on God’s child, even before it was birthed? That, my friends, is sorrowfully possible!]

Are you aware, understanding God’s vision for every mother AND her children, that as we just saw in Ezekiel 22:7, some “make light” of parental care of the “kids” before Holy God, that there is ‘false fruit’ leading a ‘mom’ or the “true fruit of the very Spirit”, nature, and character of the Indwelling Christ? I sometimes fear for the sad failure of unbelieving moms, doubt-filled moms, fleshly moms, because somehow, somewhere, some-who, failed in the ministry of queenly preparation of mothers to birth and care for their children in “Spirit-terms”, not “fleshly-best-terms”!

Consider 2 Timothy 2:20-26, not for instruction as an approved worker in the Kingdom of God, but instruction for godly mothers in the Parental Kingdom of Family with boys and girls as her fruit! It says, “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 (herself) from the latter, he (she) will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace 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.”

Has it ever crossed your mind that much of the tumult in ‘child-rearing’ can and does come from the ‘snaring of the devil’ in demonic bondage, moms unaware their futility IS the snare of the devil of darkness and not the Light of the Kingdom of Christ?

At the same time, as we examine the diabolical tumult in marriages and divorces in our modern-day, plus the broken heart-strings of many, many children without Christ-centered ministries from moms, does the paraphrasing of Hebrews 11:1 ring true? “Now then, in the 21^st Century, parenting as a mom ‘is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” for many, but, praise God, not all!

As I moved into this message on “Introspective Idolatresses”, I was reminded of a book I purchased years and years ago, read it, then put it on one of my book shelves. When I was convinced I should write of the disease of ‘idolatresses’, I went to my office to find this book entitled, “Side-Saddle On The Golden Calf”, edited by George H. Lewis, College of the Pacific, copyrighted by Goodyear Publishing Company Inc, Pacific Palissades, California in 1972. It relates to sociological issues in mass society from a ‘pop-artist,’ artistic devotion to ‘flesh at its best and worst’, and a ‘greater social consciousness’ certainly void of repentance toward God and faith alone in the finished work of Christ “At The Cross”!

“The Golden Calf”, I see, as living independently from allegiance to Holy God and ‘riding’ on the ‘golden calf’ of one’s determination to live as I please! But modern America has moved from ‘Side-Saddle’ to holding on to the ‘tail’ of one’s chosen ‘calf’, the allegiance to a social consciousness rather than a sovereign allegiance to the Merciful Master of life, Christ Jesus, Lord over sin and death! And sadly, many modern mothers fail to see ‘child-care’ as an eternally rewarding blessing for those who, yes, lay down their lives, without complaint, in the care of their kids, and “RIDE” in His saddle, not ‘side-saddle’ or ‘tail-grabbing’, rather their “Yes” to the Lord in undivided devotion to honor Him in the ‘child-care arena’ of motherly devotion!

Hear me! One’s journey of faith in the land of motherhood is as the true church’s continuation of the Cross and its reliance upon Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope! A modern-day mother needs to take the hymn as a daily profession of faith and surrender to what she sings: “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, (as a mother), I stand on the Rock; all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

I don’t know who wrote it, but I read it in a book by Dennis Linn and Matthew Linn entitled “Healing Life’s Hurts.” [Copyright @1978 by The Missionary Society of St.Paul the Apostle, State of New York]. The writing? “Healing Harvest.” It says:

“O memory of a painful time, are you seed or stone? A dark and deadly tomb, Or seed with life to bloom? Only if I say, ‘I want you,’ will I really know.

O sprouting seed, are you angry at the dark and choking dirt? What grates your tender shoot and blocks your chosen route? Only if I say “I forgive you,” will I really know.

O tender shoot, are you bargaining, Demanding sun before you grow? Or would you rather as the sun Pour warm love on everyone? Only if I say “I forgive you first,” Will I really know.

O roots, do you wander depressed Searching in drought for tears? Or do you need more sun To dry the tears that run? Only if I say “Forgive me,” Will I really know.

O golden wheat, can you accept The gifts of pulsing seed? Are you wheat or golden bread? Are you bread or Christ instead? Only if I say “Thank You,” Will I really know.

Unless a grain of wheat Falls into the earth and dies, It remains alone: But if it dies, It bears much fruit. (John 12:24)”

Question! “Is motherhood the “Healing Harvest” as a mother faithfully lays down her life daily for the honor of Christ through her “motherly care”? Does a mother today see herself as “clay in the hands of the Potter” but without the recognition of “ply-able-ness” from His hands?

In Ecclesiastes 3:10-15 we read about Holy God “putting eternity in ALL hearts” – and if He does, and He has, does a ‘mother’ operate on the temporal or the eternal? The Ecclesiastes author tells us: “I have seen the God-given task with which the sons (and daughters!) of men are to be occupied. He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

I know that nothing is better for them (even over-burdened mothers) than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his (or her) labor – IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD. I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. GOD DOES IT, that men ( and mothers) should fear before Him. That which is has already been, and what is to be has already been; and God requires an account of what is past.”

It’s a sad day when ‘pedestrian persuasion’ becomes the ultimate expression of what some mothers choose rather than the unveiling revelation of Christ’s divine care of children through a Spirit-manifested Presence!

Do you remember Holy God coming to Abraham saying, (Genesis 22:2), “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” God into ‘child sacrifices’? No! God into searching what’s in a mother or dad’s heart! Obedience to His heart and spirit or fleshly, mindful choices of an unsure, unknowing heart and mind of ‘fleshly loyalty’?

As most of my hearers and readers know, I read a lot from Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost For His Highest.” In his book he wrote about the Genesis 22:2 passage. He said, Verse 3, “And Abraham rose up early in the morning…and went unto the place of which God had told him.” The wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not confer with flesh and blood. Beware when you want to confer with flesh and blood, i.e., your own sympathies, your own insight, anything that is not based on your personal relationship to God. These are the things that compete with and hinder obedience to God… Always guard against self-chosen service for God; self-sacrifice may be a disease. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential order of God for you is a hard time of difficulty, go through with it, but never choose the scene of your martyrdom. God chose the crucible for Abraham, and Abraham made no demur (or objection); he went steadily through. If you are not living in touch with Him, it is easy to pass a crude verdict on God. YOU must go through the crucible before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because in the crucible (if one is open to what God thinks! JFF) you learn to know God better. God (Yes, Holy God!) is working (through you, mother!) for His highest ends until His purpose and man’s purpose become one.” Glory be to God for touching, taking over, and triumphantly seeing His children raised by a truly committed mother!

It was Lydia Huntley Sigourney who wrote “The Mother of Washington,”( l.33). She wrote: “And say to mothers what a holy charge is theirs – with what a kingly power their love Might rule the fountains of the new-born minds.” How true!

Maternal love and maternal ministry either reveals the very nature and character of God Himself or the “bitter-sweet” songs of a mother who questions ‘why’ SHE has to be so bothered by child care when all she wants is “to be free to do as I please”, unveiling so clearly a self-centered life, disappointed in God’s will of mothering! I pray YOU are aware that mothering is the gift and glory of God, and her most precious awards from Him are a mother’s sons, daughters, or both!

We need to pray for Holy God, Loving Father, the caring Christ, and through the power of the Holy Spirit to usher in a new “great awakening” of blessed motherhood, and see God crown those willing mothers as truly God-appointed queens of heavenly-blessed families!

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“INSTROSPECTIVE IDOLATERS”

After writing recently on “Introspective Idolatresses”, I truly felt compelled to research the probability that both “Introspective Idolatresses” and “Introspective Idolaters” feed off of each other, but ‘bottom-line’, that ‘spirit’ of ‘fleshly introspection’ has a benefactor called the “powers of darkness” that feeds and celebrates in the ‘curse’ of self-importance and self-indulgence in its basest display!

In fact, in Ephesians 5:1-7, Paul enlightens us between ‘imitators of God as dear children’ or the extension of the fleshly, devilish, self-promoting of ‘the idolater’! Paul wrote: “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love (is that ‘laying down one’s life willingly without regret, like Jesus at the Cross’?), as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God FOR A SWEET-SMELLING AROMA (not a soured countenance of disappointment in child-care!).

But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.”

Much or most of the inter-action between “introspective idolaters” and “introspective idolatresses” is ‘being fed’ or ‘feeding’ one another in the fruit of flesh, not the “fruit of the Spirit”! And there is definitely an eternal difference between the two, but, sadly, some look upon “feeding off ‘flesh’ or the ‘old sin-nature’ as normal and natural until one gets to Heaven one day in the ‘far-off future’”! How biblically wrong is that? Yes, there is a massive spiritual difference between living in “the best of motherly or fatherly faith” and living in “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ” as a mother or a father!

Have YOU ever wondered what ‘rock’ some “moms” or “dads” drink from? In 1 Corinthians 10:4b-5 Paul wrote of both the “gathered” and the “scattered” when he said of those ‘gathered’, “For they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness,” challenging us in the 21^st Century, Verse 6, “Now these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted,” – “my way of parenting or God’s way”? [Paul later said in Verse 14, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry”! And one can only pray, “Holy God, instill Christ-like, selfless service in both moms and dads, and tear down their altars to the ‘flesh-way’, even at its ‘best’!”].

Yes, I know Paul, in 2 Corinthians 6:16, was speaking about ‘temple priests’, not only before Christ but after His crucifixion, and about ‘temple’ idolatry when he wrote: “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” But… has there been, in some, a blinded devotion to ‘mothering or fathering as I see fit’ apart from, “Lord, what would You have me to do?”, even blinded to the Christian walk as a life that was crucified with Christ at the Cross, and, “my ‘faith-walk’ IS Christ in me and through me to His glory, honor, and praise, my life as mother or father reflecting His presence, purpose, and power”?

I would be amiss if I failed to point out that the author of Hebrews 11:4-5 shared the major difference between, yes, a “mother’s best effort” and the “more excellent way”: “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.”

The righteousness of “motherhood” or “fatherhood” is imparted, implanted, impacted by the mother’s awareness or the father’s awareness, understanding, desire for, need of, the “obtained witness” of the ministry of the Indwelling Holy Spirit who honors and magnifies Christ through the emptied vessel of flesh, whether father or mother! The ‘Cain-ish way’ of fatherhood or the “Abel-way” through faith and obedience TO the fruit of the Spirit? Do you understand, realize, or comprehend through examples from others, examination of “best effort failures”, or suddenly ‘dumb-founded’ because of no devotion at all to the ways of God in Christ for fathers and mothers, or simply: “Who needs God’s help as a father or mother? I can do it on my own.”

Are future fathers and mothers ever trained or equipped to be “representative parents of Holy God” or is it a ‘best-effort’ philosophy? I wrote a teaching in November of 2004 in which I said: “Even though we are immortal in Christ, as human followers, we have tendencies to fallibility, to failure, and to futility – and sadly some of us accept that and settle in to being our petty little selves! And sadly, some of us settle for religious spasms every now and then, but fail to press in to the High Calling.”

Fathers, mothers, grandparents, friends, neighbors, co-workers, professing Christians, I challenge you: reflect upon 2 Timothy 1:9 where Paul wrote: that God “has SAVED US and CALLED US with A HOLY PURPOSE, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus, BEFORE TIME BEGAN.”

Holy God has had an eternal plan for marriage and parenting even before the world was created? And whether it’s parenting, pastoring, participating in the present world and kingdom living as fathers and mothers, is there an eternal word of hope for moms and dads who trust in Christ alone for parenting skills and parenting ministries? Psalm 138:7-8 says, “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch out Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me. THE LORD WILL PERFECT THAT WHICH CONCERNS ME; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.”

And I have to ask: Do you, parents, see your present parenting ministry as the works of God’s hands? Are YOU confident in Him when it seems the “candle” has been burned at both ends, and the fire of parenting is about to die out, in you? But, we just read: “THE LORD WILL PERFECT THAT WHICH CONCERNS ME.”

In the previous message on “Introspective Idolatresses” I made mention of Ezekiel 22:6-7, and it’s just as relevant here. “Look, the princes of Israel: each one has used his power to shed blood in you. In you they have made light of father and mother…”. Making light of marriage or parental responsibilities is a sad commentary in this 21^st Century! And one wonders: “In marriage, in parenting, do marriage couples and/or fathers and mothers nonchalantly take marriage and parenting without a clear biblical equipping, alerting them to both pleasure and/or problems, or do they allow themselves to be fully aware of both weaknesses and strengths, dangers and glorious times, its insignificance as seen by some or it’s heavenly ministry, day by day, as formulated, instituted, and empowered by God Himself?

Husbands and/or fathers? Vessels of the Indwelling Christ? Purpose-driven marriages and parenting? Solid witnesses or insensitive husbands and fathers? I often am confronted with guys who have not treated their parental responsibility as a “God-representative father” or their ministry as a God-ordained husband but both as totally insignificant to their “life’s pleasures” – and I want to cry, but I do definitely pray for insensitive fathers and husbands!

It was Sir Charles Villiers Stanford who wrote the following – let it sink in ‘dads’ and husbands! “Human excellence apart from God, is like the fabled flower, which, according to the rabbis, Eve plucked when passing out of paradise. Severed from its native root, it is only the touching memorial of a lost Eden – sad while charming and beautiful, but dead.”

There are a number of truths that I feel vital to share in order not to be “Introspective Idolaters” as fathers in, sadly, a world of ‘fathers’ in America who are absent, away, yes, forsaken “the family fires and gatherings” under the Sovereign administration of King Jesus!

FIRST, THERE MUST BE A REVIVAL AND RETURN OF “TRUSTING” IN CHRIST JESUS TO OVERSEE AND ADMINISTER GODLY FATHERING! In Psalm 22:4-5 David, yes, sang these words: “Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; they trusted in You, and were not ashamed.” Is Holy God a respecter of persons?

Trust is visibly and spiritually witnessed as one “leans not to his/her understanding, but trusts in the Lord with ALL of one’s heart; (but) in all ‘the father’s way’, as a father, he sees he must acknowledge the Lord, allowing Him to direct the father’s path”- in child-care with spiritual nurturing!

But the heart-breaking reality? Christ Jesus KNOWS whether an earthly father is truly trusting Him to oversee the care of his children in, yes, cooperation with that father! In John 2:23-25 we find a powerful, awakening, convicting few verses. It says: Now when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. BUT Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. (Rather than just a ‘mind-reader’, Christ Jesus was and is a ‘heart-reader’ – He Knows every man’s “heart” – unredeemed or redeemed, fleshly or spiritual, out to pump ‘self-image’ or a heart and life to glorify Holy God through Christ by the ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit)!

SECOND, THE ATTITUDE OF “TRUSTING” LEADS TO THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN ‘BIRTHING’ AND ‘BLESSING’ THE NEW-BORN FATHERS IN THEIR PARENTAL MINISTRIES! What did Jesus say in John 3:3? “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus questioned that, (he was a highly religious Pharisee in the Jewish hierarchy!), and in Verses 5-7 Jesus responded to him, “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. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”

How shocking that ‘religious leaders’ needed to be born again – we understand the ‘out and out, fully committed unbeliever to his/her sin nature – but even the religious’? Religion is NOT a redemptive relationship, but one’s fleshly devotion – and that crucified Christ as well as the darkest sinner! “YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN!”

THIRD, THERE MUST BE IN GODLY FATHERS THE DAILY HUNGER, FEEDING, APPLYING AND EMPOWERING OF GOD’S HOLY WORD! After Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, tested by the devil himself, Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

And our Lord reaffirmed the historical validity of seeking men and fathers when in John 6:63-64 He said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh (even the “best efforts” of human flesh that fail to birth Sovereign life?) profits NOTHING (redemptive or eternal!); The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”

The wise author of the book of Hebrews, anointed and inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote in Hebrews 4:12, “for the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

The Word of God, inspired by the Spirit, is like the “Master-Surgeon” of the ages, applying divine skills in “saving” men from living in ‘death’, cut away at the Cross, and granted Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

You are aware, I’m sure, that it is in every man’s mind, heart, and will to decide for himself whether or not he’s even interested in the things, ways, truths of God concerning himself – and he will leave open or eternally shut the door as the Lord knocks! I’m even sure that there can be a counterfeit of outward allegiance apart from brokenness, hunger, or desire to be all God has revealed to them even in their ‘pre-birth’ stage of spiritual journeying!

In fact, to the early disciples of Christ, in Luke 6:46, Jesus asked, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” And concerning marriages in general, whether we look at husbands and fathers or wives and mothers, is there that daily consideration, “Lord, what would You have me to do?” Is parenting to be, as disciples of Christ, of faithful feeding and digesting of His Holy Word to honor Him or the ‘pumping’ of “best-effort flesh”! Be careful dads about asserting, “I have no time to be in the Word!” That is a self-destructing word of ‘flesh’! Be guided, inspired, directed, empowered by His never-dying Word!

FOURTH, DOES FAITHFUL INTERCESSORY PRAYER DAILY, AS FATHERS, FOR MOMS, KIDS, AND SELF PLAY A VITAL ROLE IN, YES, AN OVERCOMING FAMILY MINISTRY? In 1 Timothy 2:1-8 the Apostle Paul was truly such a powerful equipper of men about the care of themselves and those around them. He said:

“Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle – I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying – a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting…”

Even to the church at Ephesus, and us in our modern day, in Ephesians 6:18, Paul said: “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.” Is there to be an attitude of prayer throughout your day? I believe so with all my heart! Without hesitation I’m convinced it’s how we begin our days, continue our days, and end our days! Prayer is the invisible pillow upon which the true “set-aside-saint-of-God” lives his/her life! I love the statement Henry Ward Beecher once made: “It is not well for man to pray cream, and live like skim milk.” A “skim-milk prayer life” short-changes some too often!

Prayer, faithful prayer, is the evidence of a finely ‘fermented in- the- Spirit life’ of a disciple who knows that he/she is the bottle and Holy God pours in the ‘wine of Holy Presence’ to fulfill through an available vessel His eternal will! I believe this is why Robert Burns, in “The Cotter’s Saturday Night,” (st.6), wrote: “They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!” And I’m sure there is no “arightness” to a prayerless disciple, parent, church, or pastor!

I often wonder how many see “prayer” as simply an adornment of a professing Christian rather than the absolute necessity of requesting, receiving, and resting in the revealed will of God as father or mother – as one said from a long time ago, “to preserve the web of life from unraveling.” (Robert Hall).

Is it possible that some fathers do not see the “prayer ministry” as an absolute essential of being a “God-blessed” husband or father, but just “gut it up and do what you think is best or right” rather than, yes, the will of God?

I need to share a statement by G. Ashton Oldham that I came across in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, “ (p.345), where he said: “Prayer is the chief agency and activity whereby men align themselves with God’s purpose. Prayer does not consist in battering the walls of heaven for personal benefits or the success of our plans. Rather it is the committing of ourselves for the carrying out of His purposes. It is a telephone call to headquarters for orders. It is not bending God’s will to ours, but our will to God’s. In prayer, we tap vast reservoirs of spiritual power whereby God can find fuller entrance into the hearts of men.”

I would be praying faithfully, dads or moms, “Holy God, Lord Jesus, I pray for those I’m most concerned about for only a seeking of the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God in ‘parenting’ and ‘child-responsibility’ in the ‘raising-up’ ministry of dads and moms.” Let’s close with challenging words for personal examination as parents in Romans 1:20-21! It says: “For since the creation of the world the invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Let’s pray for ‘darkened’ hearts and minds to biblical child-caring to be enlightened by the “King of Parenting-Care, the Lord Jesus”! Amen?

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“ADAPTABLE CHURCHES OR

APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES?”

In Exodus 19:5-6 we find an illuminating statement from God about His “chosen people.” And you have to ask, “Did the people God intended His word for become the “special treasure to Him above all people”? Sadly, some didn’t, but with thankful hearts some did! What did Holy God say?

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

What an awesome calling yet easily ‘adaptable’ by many churches today! Today it’s ‘one priest’ without the equipping of all saints to touch the darkened world with the True Light, the Lord Jesus Christ, with many, many churches maintaining their survivability without directions, examples, or equipping of the church’s calling to be “witnesses” to the needy world – evangelism is a lost ministry in many churches, even discipleship training is absent in many churches, and to think that a pastor has the role of equipping saints to “do” the work of the ministry is an ‘archaic, religious tradition’ – not the ‘way of a super-saint’ calling!

In fact, if one truly devoted himself/herself to the inspired words of Simon Peter, one might come to a different conclusion and a more sound foundation to ‘church building’! In 1 Peter 2:7-9 Peter wrote: “Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they were also appointed. BUT YOU (in Christ) are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…”

How much preparation is given in far too many churches nation-wide to being “witnesses”, equipping ‘saints’ to touch their needy world with Redemptive Truth? Sadly, it’s near or about ‘zero’!

Come to Acts 13:1-5a where we find an obedient witness to the Promise of the Holy Spirit to every disciple to fulfill our calling as a follower of Christ! It says: Now to the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manean who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away. SO, being sent out by the Holy Spirit…” How awesome do you find that commissioning upon every disciple of Christ!?

You can be assured that I for one do not distinguish between ‘leadership’ responsibility and the role and ministry of every true born-again believer. Are there different callings and ministries under the same tent of faith? Of course, but not in excluding or excusing some from being “witnesses”!

I pray you’ll follow with me through John 17 as I look at the prayer of Jesus to His Father in heaven. Don’t miss this! John 17:1-3, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent…”

John 17:6 says, Jesus speaking, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given me out of the world.” Oh, and then look at what the Lord Jesus said in John 17:17-18! “Sanctify (or “set apart”) them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You (God the Father!) sent me INTO THE WORLD, I ALSO HAVE SENT THEM INTO THE WORLD.”

And then in John 17:25-26 Jesus thanks the Father and reflects upon His eternal ministry and ours! “O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

And are you familiar with the rest of John’s gospel? Jesus’ betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane, even disciples’ denial, the choosing of Barabbas’ freedom over Christ’s, the soldiers scourging of the Lord Jesus, Pilate’s deliverance of Christ to be crucified, His piercing, His burial, and then, praise God, “the empty tomb”! Oh, and then, before His ascension, He said to His disciples, “Follow Me!” And that following is a willful surrender of self-will to the divine will of Father-God! Oh, and then Acts 1 unfolds the eternal purpose, the sovereign grace, and the all sufficient supply to fulfill divine intent through our re-born lives!

In Acts 1:7-8 Jesus spoke to the “gathered assembly of true believers”, saying: “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And, praise God, Acts 2:32 declares, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all WITNESSES!”

You are aware that there is a worldwide battle for the souls of men by the world, the flesh, and the devil himself with his demonic forces opposed to anyone or anything that relates to the “blood redemption” of our world – why? Because “God so loved the world” that He desired to rescue as many as received His message and the Master of true life, the Lord Jesus Christ – salvation of the “lost” and alienated from God reduces his kingdom numbers who’ve been the devil’s enslaved!

Notice Paul’s emphasis in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5! “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” [Hear me! I know that much of what we just read relates to the warfare between the old man and the new man, between flesh and spirit – but, at the same time I see our weapons in Him fighting against those spirits that have men and women, boys and girls, enslaved in the demonic kingdom of alienation from Holy God and the Eternal Word!

Apart from Christ fallen mankind ‘drinks’ of worldly streams, devilish rivers, and lakes of unredeemed curses and ‘snake-like’ strangle-holds with its released poisons of godlessness! When Jesus said you’ll know people by their ‘fruits’, it’s either the “Fruit of the Spirit” or the “Foul Fruit of Satanic indifference” to the things of Holy God and His Kingdom rule and reign. I believe the Lord Jesus “celebrates” the child-like obedience of children of the faith to allow their bodies to be the kingdom of His holy presence and through which He bears witness Himself!

It’s really, really interesting that in Revelation 1:5-6 the Holy Spirit unveils the beauty and blessing “from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,” but continuing, “the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, AND HAS MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” That’s ‘kings’ and ‘priests’ in His heavenly kingdom, sovereignly appointed to be the vessel to a world of self-rule, self-worship, and self-gratification, and the change comes in that world when disciples of Christ allow Him to be Himself through them!

No wonder Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”

But my concern in this modern day is that, sadly, “Apostolic Assemblies” are set aside for “Adaptable Churches” that want to be so accepted by the world that they tone down biblical truth to make it acceptable, ignore specifically “Preach the Word”, fearing to say what God has said would limit their attendance, and, certainly feel justified to do their best at Bible teaching without encouraging pure devotion to His commissioning to be His witnesses in our lost, needy, alienated from God world!

According to Paul in Ephesians, 3:10-12, there is a divine design by God in maturing the ‘saints’ one has and the mobilizing of the body of Christ in reaching out to a needy world even if it costs us our lives! Paul said, “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.” That’s confidence in boldly approaching the very throne of Holy God AND boldness in touching our needy world; and that has, can even today, cost you your physical existence!

I’m convinced that much of the problem of churches that do not have mission support worldwide, evangelism outreach locally, or even discipleship training and equipping of the saints to do evangelism ministry, is that “heavenly joy” in Jesus has been ignored, denied, or never understood. In John 15:11-17 Jesus said:

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends IF you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.” Yes, rather than an “Adaptable Church,” what about making sure your fellowship of believers is an “Apostolic Assembly”!!

I guess one of the huge questions one must deal with initially is: Do I have a teachable spirit anxious to know what Christ Jesus has to say to me? It was David’s heart when he said in Psalm 27:11, “Teach me Your way, O Lord..” Is that the attitude of YOUR heart?

FIRST, PLEASE NOTE THAT GOD PERSONALLY LOVED YOU ENOUGH THAT EVEN IF YOU WERE THE ONLY HUMAN BEING TO EVER LIVE, BECAUSE OF GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU CHRIST WOULD HAVE DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOU ALONE, BUT HE DIED TO SAVE ALL MEN, BUT SOME DO NOT BELIEVE IN, RELY UPON, TRUST IN, OR ADHERE TO HIM!

In Romans 8:35-39 Paul gives us a powerful word of hope that should strengthen your ‘faith journey’! He said, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor death, nor any created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And our Savior, the Lord Jesus, said in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Rev. J.M. Driver wrote an old hymn entitled “Wonderful Story of Love. [Broadman Hymnal, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1940]. The first verse says:

“Wonderful story of love; Tell it to me again; Wonderful story of love; Wake the immortal strain! Angels with rapture announce it, Shepherds with wonder receive it; Sinner, O won’t you believe it? Wonderful story of love.”

SECOND, AWARE OF HIS GREAT LOVE, THE SINNER WHO IS DESIROUS OF FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION, IS LED TO THE ALTAR OF REPENTANCE. In Romans 2:4 wise Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote: “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance?”

When you look upon an ungodly world, one is saddened that a man in his sin and sin nature is not aware of his separation from God and from Holy God’s divine design for his life, so “messengers” are sent praying initially for the truth of the burden of sin and death, then the crucifixion of Christ in his stead! This is why in 2 Corinthians 7:10 the Holy Word instructs us, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

I so admire Oswald Chambers and his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.254). In it Chambers wrote: “The marvels of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I HAVE SINNED. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says it and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.”

Examine John 16:5-11 Jesus explains: “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” And apart from repentance, there is no reconciliation with Holy God!

THIRD, HAVING BEEN CONVERTED THROUGH FAITH AND REPENTANCE, THE WORD TELLS US THAT THE “APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES” LIVE VICTORIOUS, OVERCOMING LIVES BY HOLY SPIRIT GUIDANCE INTO BIBLE TRUTH! In John 16:12-15 Christ Jesus’ holy instruction for new disciples says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. HE will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine, and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

Christ Jesus emphasized the ministry role of Spirit-assistance, the ministry as faithful guide, the “Joy-Giver” of the full unveiling of Christ in you, and grants each disciple a forceful empowerment!

In Romans 8:26-27 Paul unveils this ‘representative ministry’ of the Holy Spirit before the Throne of God in our behalf. Receive the Word with joy and gladness! “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

And there is no Spirit-anointed victories in “Apostolic Assembles” or ‘professing lives of allegiance to Christ’ if there is no allegiance to, awareness of, and willfully “yielding” daily to the Holy Spirit’s ministry! Paul asked a penetrating, challenging word in Romans 6:16: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” Are YOU yielded to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, whose God-inspired role is to glorify Christ through your daily walk?

As Jesus was profoundly concerned about “false prophets” early in His ministry, he warned in Matthew 7:15-16a, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruit.”

I want to close out this teaching with the solid scriptural challenge of Galatians 5:16-25! It says: Paul speaking, I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

BUT the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

Has that changed somewhere along the line or path of discipleship? Is it that some in the 21^st Century feel we’re so intellectually superior that “Christians” shouldn’t be concerned whether they need to walk in the Spirit or Not? The “Abnormal Christian Life” is avoidance of Spirit-ministry in an available vessel! The challenge to be filled with all the fullness of God does not become a reality apart from the Spirit’s abiding and anointing! The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in us and through us, and only as we willfully yield to the Spirit’s control is Christ’s presence in us fully revealed! Walking in the Spirit is not an option believers hold but an eternal necessity!

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“ALL OUR HOPE IS IN CHRIST ALONE!”

I don’t know how you personally respond to the title of this teaching, but one thing I’m assured of, and that is the vast difference between fallen mankind’s view of hope and the true biblical hope which is in Christ alone.

I really felt it very comical when I first went to a dictionary, and read in the “Random House Collegiate Dictionary” of 1975, copyrighted by Random House Inc.! Their first words to define hope? “The feeling that what is desired is also possible, or that events may turn out for the best…” (A ‘feeling’? Or ‘what is desired is possible’- even if it deepens and broadens the separation between God and man?) The second words in the Dictionary as they tried to define hope? “A particular instance of this feeling: ‘the hope of winning’! (But has ‘winning’ in one’s fleshly journey enhanced his/her nearness to God, or, because of “pride” in winning and achieving, is the gap widened and broadened before a lost man and the seeking God?).

The third words in Random House’s interpretation of hope? “There is little or no hope of his recovery”, yes, hope for many is really hopelessness in human flesh seldom making a difference in one’s desire for something better than they’ve known.

But somehow, by God’s grace and divine intervention, fallen humanity must see the voice of God and the hand of God lifting people out of spiritual hopelessness to the realm of never-ending seasons of hopefulness! And we’ll search this out in the Word in a few moments, but for now, examine “hope” from the human perspective without divine intervention!

“Hope”? A healthy body! Yet how many have you witnessed in healthy bodies who ARE sin-sick souls? “Hope”? Food on the table every day, but all it does is feed the sin-sick body! “Hope”? A decent income for life’s comfort! Well-fed in the body but dead because of spiritual malnutrition! “Hope”? Pleasurable activities to keep one restrained from having to consider and wrestle with the eternal purpose of God! “Hope”? The ramping up of acceptable ambitions that keeps one reasonably at peace with himself and void of consideration of God’s intention! “Hope”? A relatively cheap acceptance of true devotion or even an awareness of a “God-life”! “Hope”? For a truly fleshly, hopeful life, there must be a strong defense and avoidance of whatever would introduce Light and Life, especially since one is comfortable in darkness and death! “Hope”? Have YOU ever heard someone say to you, “Aren’t I allowed to choose to be at peace in myself with my own darkness and spiritual death?”

And God still says: “Choose you this day whom you will serve”, because Holy God is not interested in imitation discipleship on one’s own terms, but men and women who voluntarily choose, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”

You realize that there are ‘make-shift stars’ in the galaxy of one’s own fleshly creation, but there IS the Holy Presence of “Heaven’s Star of Bethlehem” never fading but more gloriously illuminated when ‘death to self’ is unreservedly yielded to!

Educated unbelievers are enslaved to their godless enmity of God’s holiness, and enormously arrogant concerning their godless identity! You’ve heard it: “Who cares what God desires? I call the shots of my own life-direction!”

Dare I tell you that unbelievers, smart or dumb, are, and one day will be, called before the Holy Throne of God to explain their “life decision”! Consider Revelation 20:11-15! Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the “BOOK” Of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. {God’s determination and declaration of eternal punishment?}. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. {Is that cast into the lake of fire called Hell after God’s declaration of guilt because of unbelief, but For the Blood Redeemed, the New Creations, the Sons and Daughters of Redemptive Faith, it’s “Kingdom Living” in God’s realm of, yes, His Eternal Heaven?}

I tell you, it’s absolutely heart-breaking to know, sense, and have to declare that rejecters of the true gospel, rejecters of the Resurrected Christ, enemies of the Cross, are, in the flesh, as the embodiment of self-will, self-rule, reserving the right of self-determination, and are mentally deranged, morally bankrupt, fully ‘flesh-inspired’, demonically controlled, and ‘motherly ill and sin-sick’ like a disguised Jezebel!

Oh, but listen!! Romans 5:5-11! “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength (“helpless” as to be being reconciled to God by ‘fleshly effort’!), in due time CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be (being) saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be (being) saved by His Crucified but Resurrected Life!. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have NOW received the reconciliation.” [Don’t you find it strange to hear some Bible teachers talk about everything related to redemptive faith to be finalized IF Jesus comes back to “get” them?]. To far too many ‘hope’ is future, yet when I look at HOPE I see “Hope” like this: “H” or holy, “O” like this: omnipotent, “P” like this: power, “E” or endowed (or blessed with a personal, eternal gift!)! “HOPE”!!

Is it possible that this is why David wrote in Psalm 87:7, “All my ‘fresh’ springs shall BE IN You,” when for all of fallen humanity, apart from a redeemed heart, we drank from streams of dirty water? I know the Book of Jeremiah was written specifically in his day for enslaved Jews, but since the Word declares “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable…,” does all of fallen humanity drink from ‘dirty waters” needing the “new spring of life and living water in Christ”? I think so! Hear me! “The living ‘hope’ doesn’t make one ashamed, but inflamed in the blaze of God’s love, grace, and mercy – out of the “death of the ungodly”, through repentance and faith, we leap with sure and complete confidence in our Lord’s saving grace, and we’ll never be ashamed to honor Him!

Several truths you and I need to rest in: FIRST, THE ASSURANCE OF UNASHAMED HOPE THAT NEVER DIES! But, for an enemy of Christ, they live, at least some, with a false hope of ‘self-betterment’ by their fleshly ‘best’, assuming God should recognize their personal effort at self-improvement, whole others are gripped by their spiritual poverty, satisfied ‘with the husks the swine eat’!

And whether they recognize it or not, ‘unashamed hope in one’s self’ IS the vast void that is a personal stronghold, the unawakened aching abyss of the unbelieving heart, and the diseased heart and mind that resists strongly any conviction of sin, or their part because of sin being the reason Christ Jesus chose Calvary’s Cross in their place! Yes, Jesus died for both ‘saints’ and sinners!

But true believers redeemed by the blood of the Lamb? Having repented, they received forgiveness, reconciliation, “new life in Christ”, and a hope that is eternal! In Hebrews 10:12-14 we see, sense, are sure of, the validity of Christ’s eternal work in our place for our forever benefit! It says:

“But this Man (Christ Jesus), 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.”

The assurance of unashamed hope that never dies? I can tell you without hesitation or reservation, Holy, Loving, Merciful God intends every true believer resting in and rejoicing in Christ alone and, yes, His gift of assurance in His unashamed hope that never dies! In Philippians 2:5 Paul said, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…”, who made Himself of no reputation…, Verses 8-11, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. THEREFORE God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that AT THE NAME OF JESUS every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

And Paul’s primary concern for the believers he was apart from at the time he wrote the letter? Verse 15: “that you (as a disciple of Christ!) may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, AMONG WHOM YOU SHINE AS LIGHTS IN THIS WORLD, Verse 16, holding fast the word of life…”. Tell me about your testimony of “unashamed assurance and hope that never dies”!

SECOND, KNOWING HOPE NEVER DIES OR THAT THE JOURNEY DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DELAYED, FORSAKEN, OR PARTIALLY ACHIEVED, DO WE STAND ON GOD’S PROMISES? Hear the Biblical Assurance of Victory in Jesus! In Romans 5 I remind you of what Paul wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit: Verses 5-10, “Now hope does not disappoint, BECAUSE the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For when we were still without strength (“helpless”), in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. BUT God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

MUCH MORE THEN, having NOW been justified by His blood, we shall be (being) saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, WE SHALL BE (BEING) SAVED BY HIS LIFE.” GLORY!

It was J.P.Scholfield who wrote the old hymn entitled: “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 strong 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 ne life sublime! Life now is sweet and my joy is complete, For I’m saved, saved, saved!” Is that YOUR testimony?

THIRD, HAVE YOU BEEN DISCIPLED, AFTER RECONCILIATION AND CONVERSION, IN THE LIFE ENCOUNTER, ENLIGHTMENT, AND ENERGIZING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT? I’m sure you’re aware of what Jesus said before His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. In John 16:13-15 our Lord said: “…when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

Didn’t Romans 5:5 tell us, “Nor hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us,” followed by the awesome truth of the ministry of ‘helps’ by the Spirit under His sovereign guidance in Romans 8:8-14,

“So then, those who are in the flesh (old sin-nature!) cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh (any longer if Christ lives within you!) but IN THE Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

But IF the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

Are you aware of the “Super-Intended Life” over-seen, watched over, trained in the skills of spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh, the devil? Did Romans 8:14 tell us, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God?” Did Romans 5:5 tell us, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us”?

And as the result of the Holy Spirit’s presence in true disciples and His eternal watch-care over us, guiding us into all truth, the Spirit interprets tribulation for us as the opportunity of receiving His perseverance, showing us perseverance produces character, and character, endless hope, because we see, receive, rely upon, and welcome every testing and our victories in and through the Spirit!

In fact, what did Paul tell us in Romans 8:26-27? “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He (the Spirit) makes intercession FOR THE SAINTS according to the will of God.”

How shocked are you that the God who searches men’s hearts is interested in the prayers of the Holy Spirit when He clearly understands an immature disciple’s life of prayer, if there is one, is ‘selfish praying’ of ‘fleshly convenience’? Do you just, maybe, think that Jesus Himself witnessed and understood the prayers of many when He said, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.” (Matthew 21:13).

We need a yieldedness to the Holy Spirit as we pray! And learning to pray, we learn from men like Paul who said to us in Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” I’m convinced it’s going to be a shocking day when professing disciples, pastors, missionaries, teachers, dads and moms, governmental leaders locally and nation-wide, have their daily prayer calendars, if there is one, of their intercessory prayers for all!

I find it alarmingly mind-boggling to read a statement, I don’t know who, who nailed my concerns about “prayerless Christians, men and women, husbands and wives, even, yes, children, who never pray”! The statement? “If Christians spent as much time praying as they do grumbling, they would soon have nothing to pray about.” Do you understand? Prayer is the precious privilege of laying hold of God’s desire to willingly release His longing, His passion, His desire, His, yes, willingness, to bless you – your prayerless life is a broad wall in you that God sees as your lack of desire in having Him truly involved in your life!

From the editor of the very old Des Moines “Register”, a letter written in to him said: “To get nations back on their feet, we must get down on our knees.” And that’s a true God-blessing position for any man! If the Holy Spirit represents us before the Throne of God, does He do so out of the hearts of men and women who desire nothing but answered prayer to the glory of God? I have no doubts! W.W.Walford and William B. Bradbury wrote together an old hymn together entitled “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” I close with these words:

“Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer! That calls me from a world of care, And bids me at my Father’s throne Make all my wants and wishes known; In seasons of distress and grief, My soul has often found relief, and oft escaped the tempter’s snare By your return, sweet hour of prayer.

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer! Your wings shall my petition bear To Him whose truth and faithfulness Engage the waiting soul to bless; And since He bids me seek His face, believe His Word and trust His grace, I’ll cast on Him my every care, And wait for You, sweet hour of prayer.

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer! May I your consolation share, Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height, I view my home, and take my flight; This robe of flesh I’ll drop, To seize the everlasting prize; And shout, while passing through the air, Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer.”

Don’t you believe it’s time to resurrect prayer lives, prayer families, prayer churches, prayer disciples who faithfully grab the Throne of God and don’t let go? “All Our Hope Is In Christ Alone!” Do you believe it, receive it, walk in it?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

UNFORGIVENESS– UNFORGIVEN

It sounds like an extremely harsh title of a sermon or teaching, but His Word is truth and that is what His people are to stand upon. And I’m convinced, whether husband and wife, pastor and people, employer and employee, friend to friend, God’s Word is clear.

Come first to Matthew 6:12, 14–15! Get Ready! Verse 12, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.Verses 14–15, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

But please look at the nature and character of Christ as we read Luke 23:33–34, “And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’”

Sinless Jesus nailed to a Cross as a common criminal, but He says, ‘Father forgive them.’”

Holy Jesus crucified as an unholy man, but He says, “Father forgive them.”

Pure Jesus brutalized as an impure sinner, but He says, “Father forgive them.”

There are some things you must wrestle with and come to a clear understanding about:

Forgiveness is far better for any man than bank accounts filled with earthly riches – especially the forgiveness of God – but unforgiveness is self–imposed personal bankruptcy!

Forgiveness is of the spirit and nature of God Himself, while unforgiveness reveals the frailty and failures of fallen flesh.

Forgiveness is the revelation of the indwelling nature and character of Christ, while unforgiveness is the unveiling of the malignant sick nature of “the old man,the “First adam,“The fallen sinnerat odds with God Himself.

Forgiveness is freedom in and through the Indwelling Holy Spirit, while unforgiveness is the living picture of a despairing soul, locked in a self–imposed cage of vanity and vindictiveness.

Forgiveness is peace and the portrait of the indwelling Christ, while unforgiveness is an enslaved, dying sinner, maybe even with sorrow and remorse but dreading to face the prospect of their future because they have an inkling their attitude is horribly wrong and even inexcusable, and even sense a bleak, dark future if things aren’t made right!

I read Spurgeon recently who said, because of unforgiveness: “You will bewail in everlasting misery the mercy that through your willfulness was unavailing.”

Religion without reality is, yes, a professing believer walking without eternal purpose to be conformed to the image of Christ but captured by his old sin nature and willfully walking in unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, resentment, holding grudges and determined to have his selfish way and refuse to bear witness to the spirit of Christ and His saving grace!

Relationships – and it doesn’t matter what the relationship is: marriage, business, church, friend to friend, family member to family member, parent to child or child to parent – relationship is not a matter of winning or losing, BUT…is God glorified in any of this or ‘flesh’ magnified? – what matters is whether or not we decide to walk in the nature and character of Christ and glorify Him in the good and the bad, in the down and the dirty, even ‘flesh’ activity or ‘Spirit’ activity.

Sometimes I wonder if God allows, permits, yes, difficult events or circumstances, to expose us as to how and where and why and with whom we choose to walk:

With the forgivers or the unforgivers, flesh folk or Christ’s fullness, sweet Jesus or sour grapes?

And Lamentations 3:32 gives me a challenging word: “Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.”

Oswald Chambers really hit a ‘grand–slam homerun when he wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,[p.241]: “Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God – God is so loving and kind that of course He will forgive us. That sentiment has no place whatever in the New Testament. The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ; to put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favour is through the Cross of Christ, and in no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification with the simplicity of faith, and to forget at what enormous cost to God it was all made for us.”

Hear me! Forgiveness is the testimony of the Cross, the unveiling of the indwelling Christ, and the power that transforms circumstances and sets the captives free!

Unforgiveness denies God, closes the door on eternal relationships, honors the devil, and blemishes the name of Jesus!

I know you’re familiar with Stephen and his prophetic stand and preaching to Israel. Acts 7:51 says, Stephen speaking, “You stiff–necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.”

And, remember, they took him out of the city and stoned him, as he was calling on God and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then in Acts 7:60, it says that he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

True believers walk in forgiveness. True believers choose the attitude and actions of their Savior and Lord because to do otherwise shames the holy name of Jesus. They’d rather take stones snuffing out the breath of life than deny the Lord’s spirit and grace and mercy.

And the one thing I want you to see out of Stephen’s testimony is its impact on one called Saul of Tarsus. After the stiff–necked Israelites stoned Stephen to death, Acts 7:58 says, “And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.Acts 8:1 says, “Now Saul was consenting to his death.”

But then Saul met our Lord on the Damascus Road – he’s redeemed, saved, transformed, set aside as a mighty witness of the Faith. In 2 Corinthians 2, the converted Saul – now Paul – has to deal with the church at Corinth who had to exercise church discipline but then failed to walk in loving forgiveness toward the brother. Look at 2 Corinthians 2:1–11,

“But I determined this within myself, that I would not come to you again in sorrow. For if I make you sorrowful, then who is he who makes me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me? And I wrote this very thing to you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow over those from whom I ought to have joy, having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you. But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you to some extent – not to be too severe. This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man, so that on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. For to this end I also wrote, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.Does Paul talk about forgiveness exercised in church discipline? You need to realize ‘restoration’ is always God’s intent in the necessity of church discipline.

My wife Sue and I celebrated our 50^th anniversary June 10, 2006. Friends from Temple, Texas, came to our celebration and gave us a print that said: “A successful marriage is the union of two great forgivers.”

I’m sure if Sue were with us she’d say: “We never thought about divorce – the word ‘divorce’ was never allowed to be mentioned by any of our four children, but murder? That is on the table!”

[Just a little family joke! Loosen up!]

Daniel : says, “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.And that’s true – but don’t stop reading there! Look at Daniel :10–13!

“We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws [His Word!], which He set before us by His servants the prophets. Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him. And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.[Is that a relevant passage for today?]

A number of years ago my son, Scott, and I were in the Phillipines doing pastors’ conferences and on a weekend an open–air crusade right outside Manila in a city park. Before the service our Filipino organizer asked me, “I know you’ll give an evangelistic invitation after your message, but will you also pray for the sick?And, of course, I said ‘Yes.’

There were four Americans and four Filipino pastors that formed eight lines to pray for healing grace on the sick. A young mother stood before me after I’d prayed for several others. When she came I said, “Young lady, how can I help you?”

She said, “I’ve been sick for several weeks but I don’t know what it is.Immediately I heard the Lord say, “Ask her about her husband.And when I did, I saw the demons manifest all over her – her face began to contort, her teeth began to grind back and forth, anger began to boil over – and she said: “My husband left me and our three children three weeks ago for another woman – and I hate him.”

I said, “Young lady, I’d like to pray for you, but I can’t. God will not heal your sickness by accepting your hatred, bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness.It rang a bell within her! She said, “What must I do?”

And I said, “If you promise me, after I pray, that you go find your husband and ask his forgiveness for your hatred and anger and unforgiveness toward him, I’ll pray for you – and God will heal you.She said, “Yes”!

I prayed – brokenness came, tears began to flow, Christ Jesus began to radiate all over her and in her. Though I never saw her again, I believe her new–found spirit and attitude even brought a wayward husband home to a new wife and his three children!

Come to Matthew 18:21–35! “Unforgiveness – Unforgiven!Read it carefully at least five times!

Forgiveness is the heart–cry of Jesus for and all disciples! It’s not an option! I see several vital, important, life–altering truths from the lips of Jesus:

1} Forgiveness is without limit! Matthew 18:22

2} God Himself settles accounts – there is a reckoning! Matthew 18:23

3} God calls a ‘spade’ a ‘spade’ and nothing less! Matthew 18:32 “wicked servant”!

4} There’s things God is ‘angry’ about and unforgiveness is one of them! Matthew 18:34

5} An unforgiving servant of God causes God to deliver that one to ‘the torturers’ – that’s delivered over to the demons, the powers of darkness, for hopefully correction, forgiveness, and a God–honoring life. Matthew 18:34

6} Because of unforgiveness God reinstates the debt! Matthew 18:34

7} God gives an unfailing promise – if one does not forgive from his heart his brother, God will not forgive him. Matthew 18:35!

It’s important that you see how God uses the Deceiver, yes, the devil, the demons, the powers of darkness to discipline and hopefully bring correction to His own children. Come first to Isaiah 5:24–30:

“Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will ascend as dust; Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people; He has stretched out His hand against them, and the hills trembled. Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. He will lift up a banner to the nations from afar, [“THAT’S THEM – the demons!], and will whistle to them from the end of the earth; surely they shall come with speed, swiftly. No one will be weary or stumble among them, no one will slumber or sleep; nor will the belt on their loins be loosed, nor the strap of their sandals be broken; whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses’ hooves will seem like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. Their roaring will be like a lion, they will roar like young lions; Yes, they will roar and lay hold of their prey; they will carry it away safely, and no one will deliver. In that day they will roar against them like the roaring of the sea. And if one looks to the land, Behold, darkness and sorrow; and the light is darkened by the clouds.What an awesome passage!

But look also at Isaiah 7:18–1! “And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will “WHISTLEfor the fly that is in the farthest part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Syria. They will come, and all of them will rest in the desolate valleys and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all thorns and in all pastures.”

How illuminating is God’s Holy Word!! See if you’ve seen before or witnessed in churches what Job saw in Job 12:16–25! :

“With Him are strength and prudence. THE DECEIVED AND THE DECEIVER ARE HIS. He leads counselors away plundered, and makes fools of the judges. He loosens the bonds of kings, and binds their waist with a belt. He leads princes [priests] away plundered, and overthrows the mighty. He deprives the trusted ones of speech, and takes away the discernment of the elders. He pours contempt on princes, and disarms the mighty. He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings the shadow of death to light. He makes nations great, and destroys them; He enlarges nations and guides them. He takes away the understanding of the chiefs of the people of the earth, and makes them wander in a pathless wilderness. They grope in the dark without light, and He makes them stagger like a drunken man.Oh, God, help us!”

One last Scripture: Come to Joel 2:4–13, and verses 25–2! God tells the prophet about a people coming, great and strong, then He tells the prophet what’s coming down the pikes of life!

“Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; and like swift steeds, so they run. With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array. Before them the people writhe in pain; all faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like men of war; every one marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another; every one marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall; they climb into the houses, they enter at the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; who can endure it? Now, therefore, says the Lord, ‘Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.’ So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.”

Verses 25–2, “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust. And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you; and My people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel; I am the Lord your God and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”

And why is this? What’s the difference between the Isaiah passages we read and the last few verses of Joel we just finished reading?

Because we choose to walk in FORGIVENESS, not unforgiveness; we choose to walk in the Spirit, not futile flesh; we choose to die to sin, not celebrate it as under the blood, so we can live and act and do as we please!

Let me close with a true story. I was in Madras, India, now Chennai, India, having finished a pastors’ conference during the week, then preaching on a Sunday morning for the host pastor, Pratap Singh, a graduate of Lee University in my hometown of Cleveland, Tennessee. Pratap is a visionary and our Lord has blessed his ministry phenomenally and powerfully!

I preached that morning on “How Shall We Escape If We Neglect So Great A Salvation?When I gave the invitation, a man in his mid–forties came forward, absolutely broken, weeping uncontrollably.

As Pratap was taking me to my hotel after the service, I said: “Pratap, tell me about the man who was so broken at the invitation.”

He said, “He’s married to one of the ladies in our church with two grown children – 13 years ago he left his wife and children to go to California with a new engineering job. In 13 years he never talked to his wife or children, never sent one dime of support. In that 13–year period he lived in an adulterous relationship.

His wife never ceased to love him or pray for him. She went back to school, finished her degree, became a teacher, taught the children daily to pray for their father, honor him, love him, because one day he was coming home. She taught only love, respect, and confidence in God to hear and answer their prayers…

He said – last week the husband and father called the wife from the States to see if it was alright for him to come home to see the children. She said, “Oh, yes! They are going to be so happy and pleased that you are coming home. You are most welcome!”

He came – and they received him as if he’d never been away! When he came during the invitation, he told Pastor Pratap, “Please tell me of this Jesus who built such a loving, forgiving heart in my wife and children!SAVED BY THE GRACE OF GOD – because of a wife who walked in forgiveness!

Just about 7 years ago I was interim pastor at Calvary Baptist Church, Winter Haven, Florida. I told Pratap’s story. Next morning my fishing buddy and I had launched our boat in a prime lake for big bass. I was ready to catch my lunker. About 30 minutes into our fishing extravaganza, I

Heard crying in the back of the boat –

“Bob, what’s the problem?Bob Davidson said, “Pastor, I heard that story yesterday – I haven’t spoken to my 80–year–old father in over a year. Sorry, but we’ve got to go in – I need to be forgiven and reconciled to my father!We did – and he did – and God was honored

Have you seen the picture? Forgiveness – forgiven! Unforgiveness – unforgiven! What will you do?!

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“WORLD PHILOSOPHERS OR WILLFUL PROMOTION BY GOD”

There’s an interesting couple of verses for you to examine carefully as you look at Psalm 75:6-7 where the psalmist says: “For promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge; He puts down one, and sets up another.”

In Psalm 147:6 it speaks of God’s Word AND His providence: “The Lord lifts up the humble; He casts the wicked down to the ground.” All world philosophers are not “wicked,” but the majority are “too smart in themselves” to ever see God as necessary in their lives!

Didn’t Paul tell us 2000 years ago, in Colossians 2:8, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”?

Acts 17:16-21 is about philosophical “new things” in opposition to the Eternal Truths of God. Follow it: Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit provoked him when he saw that the city was given over to idols…

Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshippers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there…

Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection…

And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.”

For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

And if you follow it carefully, you’ll discern that ‘world philosophies’ are devotion to “wise things” that really have nothing to do with the heart – it’s all mental and divorced from the spiritual nature of fallen men!

Participants in world culture of which we all are a part does not mean we deny Him but affirm, surrender, and yield to our Lord and Savior who IS the King of kings and Lord of lords! It doesn’t mean we’re “not at home” unless we sell our souls as the majority of the world, but we recognize our “worldly home” is in need of God’s grace, mercy, and love.

World philosophers or willful promotion by God Himself! Read carefully Oswald Chambers in his writing, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [pps.175-176], “Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mount of God. If you don’t obey the light, it will turn into darkness. ‘If therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is the darkness!’ The second you waive the question of sanctification [ it means: ‘set apart to the glory of God only’!] or any other thing upon which God gives you light, you begin to get dry rot in your spiritual life. Continually bring the truth out into actuality; work it out in every domain, or the very light you have will prove a curse…The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the smug satisfaction of an experience to which he can refer back, but who is not working it out in practical life. If you “say” you are sanctified, “show it.”… Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent”! What’s that? What pleases me and doesn’t line up with the Spirit of God who sacrificed His all!

World ‘philosophers’ are so adept at convincing people that belief, trust, repentance and faith in Holy God is so unnecessary for the ‘smart folks’ – yet the educated crowd can center their lives in the darkest darkness and call it ‘light’!

It doesn’t take long to discover the worldly, self-righteous individual, or the ‘professor’ of self-satisfaction – and if you stay around them very long you sense a spirit of discontent with all they know and an uncertainty of mind as unbelief always brings on fractures in what they really think.

So often when the Holy Word and the convicting Holy Spirit is shared with a world philosopher, you’ll see and sense degrees of dismay in many because they’re on the threshold of discovering their lost condition and separation from God!

In life as a believer, transformed by the mercy and grace and love of God, aren’t you shocked at times when you see the worldly crowd comfortably seated at a worldly table, easily laughing at any worldly, dirty joke, when in the innermost heart is a person at war with Holy God, embittered by their own set of circumstances, AND WILL NOT LOOK UP TO THE CARING THRONE OF GOD AT THE GOD OF CALVARY’S CROSS?!?

Psalm 4:2 says, “How long, O you sons of men, will you turn My glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood?” You realize there are “sons of men” and there are “sons of God”! You understand that there are those whose hearts are cemented in ‘earthly, fleshly values’ that are worthless in comparison to the heavenly treasures that increase in worth and blessing and true enrichment more and more!

In 2 Corinthians 4:1-4 Paul lifts the worldly veil that blinds or hinders true spiritual understanding of the gospel of Christ. He wrote: “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart…

But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God…

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”

And that will break your heart if it hasn’t already because there are those whom you know whose hearts are ‘veiled’ to truth and whose minds are ‘blinded’ by the god of this age – they at least feel comfortable in their spiritual state of lostness because they are not alone; tragically, they’re blinded to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, not knowing they reflect the darkness of the devil himself!

“World philosophers”? It was Paul in Colossians 3:2 who said, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” And because you received the death of Christ and your crucifixion with Him, and you died with the result that your life is now hidden with Christ IN GOD, verse 5, “therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

An ‘idol worshipper’? That’s the worldly ‘dude’ who has saved his life for himself because he loves the world and all that it offers, not God! I know that you are not totally ‘brain-dead’ because you look at our world today and you witness ‘civilization catastrophes’ that grow more corrupt and, yes, ‘sinful’ world-wide!

“World philosophers” certainly major on ‘riches’ any way you can get it! But they are void of understanding about what ‘great gain’ is all about. In I Timothy 6:6-10 Paul advised his spiritual son, saying: “Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out…

And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition…

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” When did that change?

I believe when the author of Proverbs 14:24 spoke of “the crown of the wise”, he certainly was not speaking of “the crown of life” or “the crown of glory” because wisdom apart from God’s wisdom and revelations is a false righteousness that does not lead to repentance and true faith. It says: “The crown of the wise is their riches, but the foolishness of fools is folly.”

In Proverbs 1:28-33 the ‘wise-man’, inspired by God Himself, gives us ALL a word of warning: “Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord…

They would [have] none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof… Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices… For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them…

But whoso hearkens unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.”

“World Philosophers or Willful Promotion By God?” Oh, I tell you, God’s Word is so rich and man’s worldly philosophies are so bankrupt! Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Led by the world or led by God Himself?

What did Paul say in II Corinthians 4:3-5? “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age [the devil] has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.”

Willful promotion by God? Bound in the flesh to the world philosophies, ideals, earthly gains, human pride in self-effort, but freed in Christ to divine life, eternal principles, heavenly blessings, holy privilege in sharing God’s faithful provisions, joy in the Lord forever not fleshly happiness, and a crown of glory and rejoicing that does not fade away, with an eternal family under the Fatherhood of God and His Sovereignty!

Willful promotion by God? We’re no longer “slaves of Satan” bound in satanic chains – in Christ we’re “sons and daughters of God” in the Heavenly Family! We’re no longer ‘flavorless’ but we’re the salt of the earth! We’re no longer ‘darkness’ – we’re light in the Lord! We’re no longer empty in the inner man, but filled with the Holy Presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit!

We’re no longer of the unrighteous descendants but men and women who through repentance and faith in Christ have been declared righteous in the very righteousness of God imparted and implanted in our washed vessel of trust in Him! We’re not the “happy hour” crowd – we’re the eternally blessed members of the Royal Family of God! Our identity is no longer slaves of Satan, but now the very children of Holy God! We’re not ‘impersonaters’ of our Lord and Savior, but possessors of His Resurrection Life, “vessels of the Victor”!

We’re not distant stars blinking in the darkened nights of men’s souls but “lights” on a hill that cannot be hidden.

Robert Browning, in “Paracelsus”, wrote: “If I stoop, Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time; I press God’s lamp close to my breast; its splendor soon or late Will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day.” And even when destiny brings us temporarily to a “dark tremendous sea of cloud,” WE WILL EMERGE BRIGHTER THAN EVER BEFORE!

We’re sons and daughters of God’s eternal faith, and though doubt, at times, will try to rob us of light’s glow and meaning, and even when I find myself in my darkest moment as a follower, I choose to rest in Him!

I found it so interesting that the agnostic or atheist, Robert Ingersoll, at his brother’s funeral, spoke and said: “From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death, Hope sees a star, [but for him it was not the Bright and Morning Star whose name is Jesus!] and listening Love can hear the rustle of a wing.” Oh, that somehow he learned of the Love of God but I doubt he ever did!

If God gave you “existence”, did He do so apart from eternal purpose? Of course not! His one beckoning call is, “Be reconciled to God,” and in that ministry of reconciliation, the blood of Jesus takes center-stage, first place, the only door through which we can walk into the presence of God! It’s why in Matthew 5:8 Jesus said: “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.”

It was Thomas a’ Kempis who said: “Simplicity reaches out after God; purity discovers and enjoys Him.”

I so appreciate Noah Webster’s description of ‘providence’ in his 1828 Dictionary. He said: “Providence – in theology the care and superintendence which God exercises over His creatures. He that acknowledges a creation and denies a ‘providence,’ involves himself in a palpable contradiction; for the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence…By divine providence is often understood God Himself.”

The God who made you, is He unable to save, sustain, and complete you to His good pleasure? In Romans 3:24-26 God’s Holy Word tells us: “being JUSTIFIED FREELY by His grace through the resurrection that is in Christ Jesus…

Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Thank God for Chambers’ insight! Listen to what he wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest”: [p.247], “The Gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the revelation which it brings is not palatable. There is a certain pride in man that will give and give, but to come and accept is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom, I will give myself in consecration, I will do anything, but do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is to accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.” BUT THAT’S IT! IT’S ALL OF HIM and not us in the matter of our redemption, our re-birth, and our reconciliation!

He said a few sentences later, “He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves, we have to enter His Kingdom through the door of destitution.” WOW!

Oh, I’m telling you: Jesus is to every repentant believer the complete and whole treasury of God!

Remember – we’re looking at “World Philosophy OR Willful Promotion By God”!! And when “world philosop[hy” begins to surface strongly and willful promotion by God takes a backseat, you begin to sense a sad decaying of true faith, an allegiance to the flesh [your old sin nature – so anything goes!], even church attendance by many who have no intention of denying self and taking up His Cross [and our own], and suddenly the Word of God is set aside, truth is left outdoors, and doubt about the veracity of God’s Holy Word takes over the pulpit and the classroom!

Philosophy may give a few insights, but Christ Jesus births “:new men”! It was the German theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, who said: “Not until man has become so utterly unhappy, or has grasped the woefulness of life so deeply that he is moved to say, and mean it: LIFE HAS NO VALUE FOR ME – NOT TILL THEN IS HE ABLE TO MAKE A BID FOR CHRISTIANITY.”

AND ALMIGHTY, HOLY, WISE, LOVING, CARING GOD STEPS UP TO REVEAL HIS UNCHANGING LOVE AND MATCHLESS MERCY TO WOUNDED HUMANITY BY OUR SELF-INFLICTED SIN NATURES!

John 3:14-18 illumines Heaven on earth! “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Paul built out of the Cross of Christ and His Resurrection eternal truth!! Look at Romans 5:6-11!! “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die…

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life…

And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

There’s an old hymn entitled “Grace Greater Than Our Sin.” It says: “Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt…Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, There where the blood of the Lamb was spilled…

Sin and despair, like the sea waves cold, Threaten the soul with infinite loss; Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold, Points to the refuge, the mighty cross.

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide. What can we do to wash it away? Look! There is flowing a crimson tide, Brighter than snow you may be today…

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, Freely bestowed on all who believe! You that are longing to see His face, Will you this moment His grace receive?

Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within, Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin.”

World philosophers or Willful Promotion By God? It’s your choice!

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“ENCOUNTERED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT!”

There is, according to Biblical Truth, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the “Three in One”! In this writing, we’re going to be examining one’s “encounter with the Holy Spirit”! Let it be clearly known: no man has ever come to redemption in Christ apart from the conviction ministry of the Holy Spirit!

It’s so interesting and enlightening what the Word of God declares about the “natural man” in 1 Corinthians 2:14 where Paul wrote: “But the ‘natural man’ does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” In 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 Paul continued his enlightenment of the “new-born in Christ” about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He said:

“But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age (Satan!) has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image (or unveiling) 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 glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.”

And the God who commanded ‘light to shine out of darkness’, shining in our hearts ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God’, in, through, and by the face of Jesus Christ? God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, the amazing God of “Three in One”, opens our eyes, minds, and hearts by His Spirit, manifesting to us “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God IN THE FACE OF CHRIST JESUS”?

It would be so interesting, so illuminating, for one to search out his/her nature in comparison to the nature, character, presence, and living example of Christ Jesus! In 2 Corinthians 4:10-11 Paul added, “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal body.” Is your ‘walk of faith’ in the naturalness of “fallen men” or in the supernatural presence of the Resurrected Christ? Is your life testimony one of full surrender and allegiance to your ‘old flesh’ under one’s own ‘self-allegiance’ or a life testimony of the very evidence of Spirit-supernatural birthing and blessing? Let’s look at the Word since man does not live by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God!

FIRST, WE KNOW WE’VE ENCOUNTERED THE HOLY SPIRIT AND BEEN LED TO CHRIST BECAUSE OF OUR ENCOUNTER WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE DIVINE CONVICTION OF OUR SIN! In Isaiah 6: 4-5 the prophet had a holy encounter with the Spirit of the Living God! He said: 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.”

And Isaiah was “touched”, and Verse 7 tells us he became aware of sovereign grace, mercy, and love, and he heard the Voice: Verse 7, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.” He learned of the cleansing power of the blood of the Lamb of God and put his faith in Him, not his own best efforts!

What does John 1:29 tells us as John and two of his new disciples saw Jesus walking before him? He said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” And later, in John 16:7-8, Jesus said: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment…”! The Spirit turns one from self-absorption in sin to the eternal desire of ‘finished with the old man of sin and its bondage’ to the fulfillment of sin forgiven and Resurrection Life manifested through me in the “new man” by His mercy, grace and love!

George Matheson and A.L. Peace wrote the old hymn entitled “O Love That Will Not Let Me go”, published in the “American Hymnal”, by Broadman Press in 1933! It says: “O Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in You; I give You back the life I owe, That in Your ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be.

O Light that follows all my way, I yield my flickering torch to You; My heart restores its borrowed ray, That in Your sunshine’s glow its day May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seeks me through pain, I cannot close my heart to You; I trace the rainbow through the rain, And feel the promise is not vain That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that lifts up my head, I dare not ask to hide from You; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms read Life that shall endless be.”

And it is because of God’s great love for us that He sends the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment!

SECOND, WE KNOW WE’VE ENCOUNTERED THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHEN CONVICTED, WE WILLINGLY TURN TO THE ACCEPTANCE OF BIBLICAL TRUTH ENLIGHTENED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! You are aware that there is across the world, then and now, a coldness, an insensitive spirit to the reality of Biblical Truth!

Unredeemed hearts and minds are clear, perfect examples of fallen mankind’s obstinacy toward Holy God’s desire to lift one out of the domain of darkness into the eternal kingdom of light! The spirit of ‘fleshly independence from God’ is bound in the strong wall of godless ‘independence and self-will’, actually, for many, deifying one’s self as more important, more satisfying, more fulfilling than being yielded to the God who made them, lost them, and bought them with the price of the Lamb’s blood shed at Calvary in their place!

In 1 John 2:3-6 are several verses of vital ‘self-examination’ of how devoted and faithful we are, or are not, in obedience to our Living Lord and Savior! “Now by this we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked.”

Do you remember Paul’s illuminating word in Ephesians 4:30? “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Has there been a ‘grieving’ of the Holy Spirit concerning your walk as Christ’s disciple and earthly ambassador? In 1 Corinthians 6:17 Paul stated, “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him,” adding in Verses 19-20, “Or DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT YOUR BODY IS THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO IS IN YOU, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

You’ll remember that early in Jesus’ ministry there were some disciples ‘troubled’ and ‘offended’ by some of the things Jesus had to say. In John 6:60-64 we read, 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 profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Would you please circle, “It is the Spirit who gives life”?

Come to John 14:15-18 and Verses 23, 25-26 where Jesus added to His disciples understanding of the need of the Holy Spirit! He said, Verses 15-18, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” Then..

Verses 23, 25-26! “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” Verses 25-26 says: “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

THIRD, BECAUSE OF OUR AWARENESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT’S PRESENCE WITHIN US, AND OUR AWARENESS OF HIS GUIDANCE THROUGH THE WORD, WE ALSO MUST BECOME FULLY AWARE OF THE SPIRIT’S DESIRE TO HONOR CHRIST THROUGH US! In John 16:14 the Lord Jesus clearly told the disciples then and now, “He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”

Oswald Chambers made a powerful statement in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.248), when he said: “When I commit myself to the revelation made in the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit Who begins to interpret to me what Jesus did; and does in me subjectively all that Jesus Christ did for me objectively.”

And ‘subjectively’ the Spirit is up to unveiling mankind’s eternal help in and through Christ alone! In Romans 5:5 Paul said: “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

If God poured out His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, was it strictly for a believer’s ‘well’ or reservoir of personal benefit or for the believer to be led by the Spirit in extending Christ’s kingdom-rule, releasing His love to the unloved, and unveiling the supernatural power of God in the Spirit to make eternal differences in one’s life, marriage, occupation, or ministry?

FOURTH, BECAUSE OF OUR AWARENESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT’S INDWELLING IN OUR REDEEMED HEARTS, IS IT ALSO BECAUSE HOLY GOD UNDERSTOOD AND STILL UNDERSTANDS THE MAJOR WARFARE BETWEEN FLESH AND THE SPIRIT? In Galatians 5: 16-18 the Apostle Paul wrote: “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law (of ‘try your best’!).”

Oh, and then in Galatians 5:19-25, Paul unveils for us the differences between a ‘flesh walk’ and the “Spirit-filled walk”! It says: Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, THAT THOSE WHO PRACTICE SUCH THINGS WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”

The “Spirit-filled walk”? Ephesians 5:22-25 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

The identifying ‘stamp’ of the ‘flesh walk’ is one’s approval of, participation with, and defense of ‘alive unto’ the world, the flesh, and the devil, but the identifying mark of a Spirit-filled disciple of Christ is not one’s imitation of Him, but one’s death to self daily that the Resurrection Presence of Christ may be manifested, unveiled, and loosed through a yielded vessel to the Lord’s intent in and through that surrendered life to His and the Spirit’s Lordship!

FIFTH, IN THE SPIRIT’S INDWELLING OF EVERY BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER, HE IS THERE, NOT AS A FREQUENT VISITOR, BUT THE RESIDENT INTERCESSOR FOR EVERY TRUE BELIEVER WHO YIELDS TO HIM. In Romans 8:26-27 we read, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself MAKES INTERCESSION FOR US with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He MAKES INTERCESSION for the saints according to the will of God.”

What an awesome revelation! YOUR BODY IS THE RESIDENT TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT – and He’s there to intercede in your behalf before Sovereign God! Does this mean I personally need never to pray? I don’t believe that’s what Jesus taught us – check out in your Concordance every time when Jesus said, “When you pray…”! And, yes, at the same time we give the Holy Spirit the blessing of His intercessory praying in our behalf. Just as Jesus said, “I and My Father are one,” in the same vein of eternal relationships between God and the redeemed heart, ‘In Christ’ our bodies become the temples of Holy Spirit presence, and we become “One in the Spirit” and He intercedes in our behalf when we are even so limited in what WE should ask of God the Father – so the Holy Spirit intercedes! It was J.B.Dykes, in the old “American Hymnal” of 1933, published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., who wrote the prayer hymn “Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove,” (p.178). It says: “Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, With all Your quickening powers; Kindle a flame of sacred love In these cold hearts of ours.

In vain we tune our formal songs, In vain we strive to rise; Hosannas languish on our tongues, And our devotion dies.

Dear Lord, and shall we ever live At this poor dying rate? Our love so fain, so cold to You, And Yours to us so great!

Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, With all Your quickening powers; Come, shed abroad a Savior’s love, And that shall kindle ours.”

Is there the ‘kindling fire’ of the Holy Spirit in you? Have you been “birthed by the Spirit,” “blessed by the Spirit,” “guided by the Spirit,” “empowered by the Spirit with Heaven’s radiant, glowing, strengthening power”? Another prayer hymn in the same hymnal was written by B.B.McKinney and Edwin Hatch entitled “Breathe On Me.” It says: “Holy Spirit, breathe on me, until my heart is clean; Let sunshine fill its inmost part, With not a cloud between.

Holy Spirit, breathe on me, My stubborn will subdue; Teach me in words of living flame What Christ would have me do.

Holy Spirit, breathe on me, Fill me with power divine; Kindle a flame of love and zeal Within this heart of mine.

Holy Spirit, breathe on me, Till I am all Your own, Until my will is lost in Yours, To live for You alone.

Breathe on me, breathe on me, Holy Spirit, breathe on me, On My heart, cleanse every part, Holy Spirit, breathe on me.” Is that your prayer need of the day?

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

EXPERIENCING THE POWER OF THE

PROMISED, PRECIOUS HOLY SPIRIT

It’s amazing to me that many write or speak or preach or teach about “evangelical spirituality” and totally ignore or try to refute the words of Jesus Himself about “wait for the Promise of the Father,” which relates to the “anointing, enduement, filling, or baptism in the Holy Spirit”

In no way do I ignore, make light of, or substitute “…the Gospel of Christ which is the Power of God Unto Salvation,” for a “power” that pumps my ‘flesh.’ But I do recognize in my ‘flesh’ an inability to fulfill the “good, acceptable, and perfect will of God” through my walk as a disciple without His Promise.

If my Savior “fills All in All,” I hunger for the All filling me so that His All is fulfilled through me! If “wait” was among Jesus’ last words for His disciples then, I’m asking, is that “wait” relevant for NOW?

I know there is redemptive power in the Gospel of Christ, but I also know about a released power in the Holy Spirit given His rightful, reigning place in your life.

The question of Paul to the Ephesian followers in Acts 19 is urgent for today: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2), And they responded in verse 3, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”

I have no hesitation in saying to you that “the counterfeit of consecration” is a believer’s life lived independently of the awesome anointing of the Holy Spirit evidenced by no Godly freedom or fullness or “fire in my bones.”

Disciples with uninformed lives about the necessity of the Holy Spirit anointing never experience the unrivaled, unlimited power of God released through their lives.

In Galatians 3:3 Paul asks a vitally important question: “…Having begun in the Spirit (that’s “born of the Spirit” in the second birth), are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” Much of the ‘churchianity’ of today is ‘cosmetic covering’ without the reality of Spirit-anointing! A cheap imitation?

Paul was so on target when in 2 Timothy 3:5 he spoke of “having a form of godliness but denying its power…” That’s why Samuel Chadwick wrote: “A religion of mere emotion and sensationalism is the most terrible of all curses that can come upon any people. The absence of reality is sad enough, but the aggravation of pretence is a deadly sin.”

Are we willing to settle for our impotence when there is the reality of His omnipotence? Are disciples of today content to stand at our Lord’s tomb or to walk through the doors of the power of Pentecost? Are we asleep on pillows of indifference or standing at the pillars of divine enabling? Are we “mesmerized spectators” or mounted on the wings of Holy Ghost anointing?

It was Isaiah who sadly said, (Isaiah 64:7), “And there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You…” God help us that we not be men and women who do not stir themselves up to take hold of His promised anointing, but that we be truly men and women God-graced, God-gripped, God-galvanized in the fullness of His Holy Spirit! How do we experience that power of His promised, precious Holy Spirit?

First, of all, God’s Word is so very clear – HE IS NO RESPECTOR OF PERSONS! AND IF HE FILLS ONE, IT’S HIS DESIRE TO FILL ALL! Come to Acts 10:38!! “…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.”

Don’t you find it amazing that the Son of God who became the Son of Man, Emmanuel – “God in flesh” – received and experienced God’s anointing “with the Holy Spirit and with power?” And there’s a reason or explanation:

Come to Philippians 2:7 where Paul says Jesus “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men…” The NASB says “emptied Himself.”

John 17 explains the “emptying” so there could be in His life God’s FILLING! Verse 2, “no authority” – but God gave it to Him. Verse 5, “no glory” – but God glorified the Son. Verse 6, “no disciples” – but the Father gave Him His disciples. Verse 8, “no words,” – but God gave Him the very words to speak.

In John 17:18, Jesus said, “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” Jesus chose to be totally dependant upon all the Father is so He could appropriate all the Father has! And by His example, we are to be dependant disciples anointed by the Father with the Holy Spirit and power just as Jesus was!

John 5:19 says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do…” Verse 30 says the same thing, “I can of Myself do nothing!” But we believe we can? No, as the Father anointed Jesus, so He is to anoint us. RECEIVE THE ANOINTING!

[Second,] you begin to experience that power when you clearly understand, “It is the will of God!” Come to Ephesians 5:17-18. Listen! “Therefore do not be unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is…and do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; BUT BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT.”

The Holy Spirit is the generating Spirit of Divine Life! In Romans 8:11, Paul writes, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

Flesh effort is a futile possibility of honoring our Lord through our walks, but Spirit-anointing, which is God’s will for each of us, fills us full of faith, fire, and power. It’s the will of God!

In the book, “Rent Heaven,” R.B. Jones writes, “A few years ago a warm current called El Nina, which usually comes before Christmas, swept southward along the west coast of South America in greater volume than ever before. It brought with it torrential showers, which visited parts of which had not known rain since the year 1551. El Nina turned thousands of miles of desert into paradise in an incredibly short time, as it caused millions of hardy seeds which had lain dormant in the ground through decades of drought to sprout and grow with incredible vigor.”

And God’s will? It’s for a spiritual El Nina in your barren life germinating divine seeds of Life through you “with incredible vigor. “It’s the will of God!

Experiencing God’s power comes also as an answer to intercessory or personal prayers! Come to Ephesians 3:16 where Paul prays, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His grace, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.”

Do you remember Jesus saying, “You have not because you ask not.” And sadly many walk in spiritual futility about dynamic service to our Lord because they are prayerless or have no one praying in their behalf.

If it is the will of God that we be filled with the Holy Spirit, do we really believe if we pray to that end He’ll not answer? I don’t think so.

It was not only God’s will for Paul but for all disciples to know and experience the anointing. And Romans 15:29 says, Paul speaking, “But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.”

The Ephesian Christians hadn’t heard of the Holy Spirit, but Acts 19:6 says, “And when Paul laid hands on them (without praying? I don’t think so!), the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.”

There is a [third ]consideration of vital importance about our anointing in the Holy Spirit – It is showing up for “the fight!” Come to Galatians 5:16-17, 24-25.

Verses 16-17, “I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh…For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”

Verses 24_25, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires…If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

My traveling companion, Drew Bennett, taught several years ago and used the Spirit and flesh as “two dogs” in a fight. Which one is stronger? And he said, “Feed one and starve the other.”

It is an imperative that if we walk in the fullness of God’s Spirit it is because we’ve starved that doggish ‘flesh’ spirit that wants to dominate. And to be gut-level honest, I don’t believe there is a true “Spirit-filled life,” even if one speaks in tongues, while at the same time that one walks with an unbridled flesh life!

Come to Romans 8:12-14, “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh…For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live…For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God.”

Let’s reverse those last three verses. Who Are The Sons Of God?

• They are those led by the Spirit of God!
• They are putting to death, by the Spirit, the deeds of the body or flesh.
• And, they understand no debt to their old sin natures and long for the Holy Life and its fullness in them!

[Fourth], we experience the power of the Holy Spirit as, in tune with Christ, we resist temptation and refuse to entertain Satan! Luke 4:1-14 is so vital to our understanding of this Victorious, Spirit-anointed walk.

If you look at verse 22 of Luke 3, after Jesus’ baptism, “the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Jesus…!!” Chapter 4, verse 1 says, “Then Jesus filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the , and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness…verse 2, being tempted by the devil for 40 days.”

Was that a test God allowed in the life of His Son? We are all tested – and we are all tempted! But Jesus resisted! Hebrews 4:15 says of Jesus, “…in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin…” Then Hebrews 4:16 follows, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

Grace to help? That’s the Holy Spirit! Now…come back to Luke 4:13-14, “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until a more opportune time… THEN (when?) Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to …”

I have no reservation in saying to you His resistance brought a mighty release of power in Jesus’ walk and ministry! Though filled with the eternal reservoir of Holy Ghost power, the release came because He refused to entertain Satan’s temptation choosing to honor His Father.

Do you know my concern for believers and their relationship to the Holy Spirit? They want to be “zappedin an instant when God wants them to zero in on resistance to temptation! They want a “quick-fixwithout an eternal qualified fight. They want an easy path when it’s an experience and expression of precious privilege through the “bloody battlesagainst our Enemy who wants to lead us back into black darkness and bondage. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you,and as you resist a river, a wind, a fire breaks out from within your inner man!! Which leads us to the [fifth] truth about experiencing the explosive power of the promised, precious Holy Spirit”

It comes because of our unwavering understanding that we cannot win the war against the power of darkness apart from Spirit-anointing! Matthew 12:28, listen to Jesus, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the has come upon you.”

Do you have a problem with that verse? If so it is because you have omitted in your training as a disciple understanding about the and the kingdom of darkness.

If it’s a problem it’s because someone blinded you to the gracious, merciful activity of God’s Kingdom. In Luke 9:1-2, Jesus “called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases…He sent them to preach the and to heal the sick.”

And if you’ve been taught that ended with the early apostles, then you bought into a great deception that has hindered the effective, eternal ministry of Christ Jesus.

We know that Satan was cast down from heaven and that he deceives the whole world, but our Lord and Savior has no desire for His people to be caught up in that deception but to deliver people from it. Fighting the good fight of faith surely includes setting people free from demonic control and even setting them free from blindness of spiritual warfare.

[Sixth] Holy Spirit anointing? Jesus tells us it is an unceasing, undying, passionate hunger for the third person of the Holy Trinity having His way in us! Come to John 7:37-39, “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink…He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water…But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

And check out the verbs! “Present tense verbs” which mean in the original Greek, present tense,continuousaction. I thirst and keep on thirsting; I come and keep on coming; I drink and keep on drinking; I believe and keep on believing! And the result? “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water – but He was speaking of the overflow of the Holy Spirit!!”

Are you hearing “process” in that? Are you hearing “passion” in that for more than you’ve experienced? Are you hearing “hunger” for the “much more” of a vibrant, victorious faith?

Romans 15:13 says, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

But what a sad word when Paul had to say to the church at Corinth, (2 Corinthians 6:12), “you are restrained by your own affections.” Restrained or released to the fullness? Hindered or helped by divine power? Restricted or fully active in the rivers of living water?

One last truth – experiencing the power by the faithfulness of “tarrying” and “waiting” until the fire of anointing falls! Luke 24:49, “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

What was Jesus saying? There is nothing more important in a disciple’s life than experiencing God’s power! Nothing should distract us! Nothing should become a substitute for the Savior’s Spirit-anointing! Nothing should divert our attention away from “the rushing wind” of Holy Ghost enduement!

I so love how John the Baptist put it in Matthew 3:11, “I indeed…but He!” Look at it in your Bible. Sit until it sinks in!

“I indeed” can give you a taste! “But He…” will give you the tool! “I indeed” can accomplish a few things.” “But He…” fulfills everything!

“I indeed” cannot really see! “But He…” opens my eyes to the eternal spiritual dimension! “I indeed” have a feel of temporal water! “But He…” shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire.”

Do I know I’ve been baptized because I now have a gift? No, I know I’ve had Spirit-baptism because His fruit is being produced in me! Donkeys are gifted – disciples under the anointing are graced with Christ-likeness.

Francis Macnutt, in “The Nearly Perfect Crime,” (P63), wrote: “There is no one list of things that always happens to every person. It is as if God tailors the outpouring of the Spirit to each person individually.”

That’s I Corinthians 12:11 where God’s Word says, “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.” Then in verses 29-30 Paul asks, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles?…Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?”

And what is the obvious answer? “No” to every question Paul asked! We don’t box up the Holy Spirit as to who is truly anointed. Be a fruit-inspector not a gift evaluator! God doesn’t major on giving special status and standing differentiating one gift from another! But more than anything else, YIELD YOUR TOTAL BEING AS A DISCIPLE TO THE SOVEREIGN ADMINISTRATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT! Get caught up in “the wind.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

ENDURING THROUGH FAILURE!

Some will find it a bit uneasy for many, for me to share two chapters on the Holy Spirit’s ministry in us and through us and then come along in this chapter to share about “enduring through failures”, but the sad reality is that there are times when the Holy Spirit is not in control or has been ignored, set aside, even denying His conviction when we’ve chosen a wrong path or turn or choice for the ‘flesh’ and not fully yielded to the Spirit. But the one thing you can be assured of as a believer is that even if there’s a ‘mis-step’, the Holy Spirit doesn’t run from you but to you to, yes, turn you back to the fullness of Spirit-anointed living, honoring and glorifying the Christ within, not resurrecting the old man in you Jesus crucified on the Cross with Him!

In Matthew 24 the disciples have asked Jesus about “the sign of His coming and the end of the age.” Jesus responds in this way – “The end of the age?” Verse 4, a time of great deception; Verse 7, a time of great conflict; Verses 8-9, a time of great suffering; Verse 12, a time of great open sin; and Verse 14, a time of great opportunity. And in the midst of this description of the end of the age, Jesus said in Verse 13, “BU HE WHO ENDURES TO THE END SHALL BE SAVED!”

“ENDURING through our failures, fires, and fights!” How many do you know who have started a walk with Jesus and end up disappointed, disillusioned, detoured, and are “falling away” because they didn’t understand or know about “failing” and getting up, stumbling short of the goal but getting up, persevering, and pressing in?

Far too many don’t know or understand about counting the cost, failing to see a cross in the path before experiencing the manifestation of resurrection power! High pinnacles – fast falls, slippery slopes, muddy ditches with seemingly high walls they can’t crawl out of, stained banners of allegiance – rotting devotion and passion! Sadly, true biblical faith about the true journey of discipleship has been blurred, even counterfeited by modern ‘church life’ that is co contrary to Jesus’ words, “Follow Me and I will make you to become fishers of men!”

Even though we are immortal in Christ, as human followers, and more than that students in a false ‘school of discipleship’ sadly promoted by ‘fleshly churches and flesh-dominated teachers’! But even ‘in Christ’ if we fail to take the sentence of death daily to ourselves yielding faithfully to His Holy Presence within us, we will see ‘flesh’ not Spirit manifesting in fallibility, failure, and futility – and sadly some accept a compromised allegiance to Christ and yield to the world, the flesh, and the devil, content for a time with one’s petty ‘little’ self! Some, more ‘church’ loyal than Christ-yielded will settle for a few religious spasms every now and then, but fail to press in to the High Calling in Christ.

Chuck Swindoll, in his book, “Come Before Winter,” has a chapter entitled “The Fine Art of Blowing it.” Do you know about which he speaks? Have you ever found yourself enveloped with a heavy fog of failure? John Maxwell’s book, “Failing Forward,” is so rich in reality. One of the first dynamic truths Maxwell writes is, “Your attitude, more than your aptitude, will determine your altitude!” And that redemptive attitude from Christ’s indwelling and not one’s “I’ll try” will daily elevate one into the fullness of Christ’s blessings, avoiding, yes, any failures in the Spirit-realm! But if our hearts are truly one “in Christ’, then even a ‘failure’ will not be a stumbling block but a stepping stone in Christ’s fullness.

It was James Long who said, “One reason God created time was so that there would be a place to bury the failures of the past!” “He who ENDURES TO THE END shall be saved!”

One of the saddest verses in all of the Bible is found in Psalm 78:9, “The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, TURNED BACK IN THE DAY OF BATTLE.” Some of you as you’re reading this chapter feel so hopeless, fearful, doubt-filled. Some of you are determined to walk away from your ministry as a disciple of Christ because you’ve conceived within yourself a sense of failure – and you’re brought to a crossroads:

Escape or cope? Weakened or strengthed? Clueless or constructively enlightened? Human effort failing and falling or divine enabling strengthening? Pushed down or pressing in? Wilting or working out your own salvation in fear and trembling? Taken over by a defeatist attitude or triumphant through God’s promises and helps? A mind duped by its failures or a mind deepened in God’s truths recognizing by grace I have “the mind of Christ”? Debilitated by your mistakes or discipline in God’s mercy? Adapting to your natural tendencies to failure in the ‘flesh’ or appropriating His supernatural provisions for holy success?

There is such a life-principle of “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ!” (Philippians 1:6)

Ken Hubbard wisely wrote: “There is no failure except no longer trying (or better: trusting!). There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.” But that’s flesh! In Christ we become spiritual beings inhabited with His resurrection life and purpose! Paul had to remind Timothy, and I remind you, (2 Timothy 1:9), that God “has saved us and called us with a holy purpose, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus BEFORE TIME BEGAN.”

It was Pericles who wrote: “The brave are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet GO OUT TO MEET IT.” I love the old hymn that somehow needs to be resurrected: “Rise up, O men of God, have done with lesser things,” and the lesser thing is your self-effort that you choose to be through with, but opening the door to His presence, His ministry, His vision, and His plan through your available ‘vessel’!

Victor Frankel said it: “everything can be taken from a man except the last of human freedoms – TO CHOOSE ONE’S ATTITUDES IN ANY GIVEN SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES,” (Death to self, available only to Christ!), and yielded to Him, and yielded to Him, whatever comes our way, we persevere and endure!

It was Louis Pasteur who once wrote: “Chance favors the PREPARED MIND”, and I add PREPARED, YIELDED HEART TO CHRIST’S FULL CONTROL, SENSITIVE TO THE VERY HEART OF GOD IN ME! Several truths of vital importance as an “enduring disciple”:

FIRST, PERSEVERANCE PROMPTED BY GOD’S UNCEASING LOVE!

Let’s look at “perseverance to the end because of the precious precept of the unfailing, unchanging, unceasing love of God”! Three statements out of 1 Corinthians 13 that ought to grip your heart today as you consider God’s love for you: Verse 4, “Love suffers long and is kind.” Verse 7, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Verse 8, “Love never fails!” When you think about the walk of Simon Peter, have you considered that Peter denied Jesus three times after his strong assertions that he never would? AND HERE COMES JESUS! What did He bring to Peter? A big stick? A harsh look? A mean stare? A sign saying, “Displeased, disappointed, doubtful of Peter?” NO! Jesus came, not only with the look of love, but an affirmation of confidence, an acceptance of his person, and an aim for his life – “Feed My sheep!” Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

How could we interpret God’s love as conditional, as changing, as ceasing, with the cross of Christ ever before us? What does God say? “I love you only when you always get it right? I love you only when you never deny Me? I love you when and only when you’re totally perfect? I love you only when you rank high as the best of preachers? I love you only when you score all A’s on the life exams? I love you only when you don’t look back? I love you only when you don’t stumble? I love you only when you don’t wear a mask or pretend? I love you only when you’re so pious that you externally ‘dress the part’”?

In John 15 Jesus instructed His followers: “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you, abide in My love.” When you’ve fallen, Jesus’ love is there to pick you up! When you’ve failed, Jesus’ love is saying, “You’re My success!” When you’re afraid of what tomorrow holds, “My perfect love casts out and overcomes your fear because I hold your tomorrow!”

SECOND, PERSEVERANCE IN THE FACE OF PERSECUTION: I must say it! “Perseverance to the end because of the powerful awareness that persecution IS “the red badges of courage” for every disciple!” In 2 Timothy 3:10-12 we read, “But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, PERSEVERANCE, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra – what persecutions I endured. And out of them all THE LORD DELIVERED ME. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ WILL SUFFER PERSECUTION.” Has that changed because we’re supposed to be such an advanced culture?

To the church at Thessalonica, Paul made an even bolder statement: 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3, telling why he sent Timothy to them – “our brother and minister of God, and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ, to establish (make to stand!) you and encourage you concerning your faith, that no one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that WE ARE APPOINTED TO THIS.” How shocking! God’s Word is telling us, “We have an appointment with persecutions and afflictions!”

Mac Cleland is a former U.S. senator from Georgia who had his legs and an arm blown off by a grenade in the Vietnam war, and he boldly talks about “turning your scars into stars!” And yet, do you realize how many, at the first sign of trouble through persecution and various trials, easily walk away rather than press in to Christ? Or rather than walk away, they just get “down-in-the-mouth”, sad, embittered about what their faith has brought them to.

Charles Allen, the former great Methodist minister wrote: “Valleys are for moving through, not wallowing in.” So true! I’m always amazed when I re-read Paul talking to his Corinthian friends about his “light afflictions.” That’s 2 Corinthians 4:17. Then in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 he tells them and us: “…in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was ship-wrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep, in journeys often in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirsting, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness…”

It was Aldous Huxley who wrote: “Experience is not what happens to you. Experience is what you do with what happens to you.” “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus WILL suffer persecution.” What did Jesus say in John 15:20? “A servant is not greater than his master, If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” And do you remember the rise of persecution against the early church in Acts 8:1? “At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad.” What happens following this? “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also!” “Great persecution?” So, let’s deny our calling and go back to fishing, right? Listen to Jesus!

Matthew 5:11-12! “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. ‘Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” In Luke 6, Jesus said, “Leap for joy!”

THIRD, PERSEVERANCE BECAUSE OF THE UPWARD CALL OF GOD! There must be in you an awareness of ‘the prize’ of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus! Philippians 3:13-14 says, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the mark for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” I don’t even know what all that means!

But, I read in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” In Hebrews 12:2 I get an inkling of it, “looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith Who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand throne of God.” Do you see it? 1) Finisher of our faith 2) Joy set before Him 3) Seated at the right hand throne of God!

Listen to 2 Peter 3:11-13, “Therefore, since all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” And “the new heavens and a new earth” IS the establishment of Kingdom-rule in the here and now – not when you get to heaven someday! Paul said twice to the Romans, there’s “much more” coming!

FOURTH, PERSEVERANCE BECAUSE OF OUR CONFIDENCE IN GOD AND HIS WORD! Look with me at “perseverance to the end because of the powerful persuasion of our confidence in God”! In 2 Timothy 1:12 we read, “…for I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day.” Confidence in the God who is able! Where is your confidence? Jude 24-25 says clearly: “Now to HIM Who is ABLE TO KEEP YOU FROM STUMBLING, AND TO PRESENT YOU FAULTLESS before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, Who Alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.”

The great old hymn will never die! “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

John Jasper may not be a name you recognize, but his story and faith was so powerful. Years and years ago he was pastor of the great black church in Richmond, Virginia, called Sixth Mt. Zion Baptist Church. He was a tremendous preacher. Political figures from Washington, D.C. would make their way to Richmond to hear him preach. There came a time they needed to put a state highway right through Richmond which meant they’d have to demolish Jasper’s church. But local and national figures caused an uproar and they had to curve the road round Jasper’s church. He came late in life one Sunday morning to the pulpit and stretched his thinning skin on his hand and said: “Very soon I’m going home to be with God,” and his people in their characteristic way began to speak out, “No, Brother John, No. You can’t go home to be with God. You must stay here and be our pastor.” And Jasper responded, “Now hush, my children, Hush. I tell you what is going to happen. One morning soon the death angel will come and call my name, ‘John Jasper, it’s time to go. Follow me. And I will follow, and he’ll lead me up to the pearly white gates where I’ll meet that catechizing angel, and he’ll say, “Who are you?” And I’ll say, “I’m John Jasper.” And he’ll say, ‘John Jasper, you ain’t no good. You don’t have any right coming in here.’ And I’ll say, ‘You’re right, Mr. Angel, I’m no good, and I don’t have any right coming in here, but I’m not depending upon my righteousness, I’m depending upon the righteousness of Jesus who loved me and gave Himself for me.,

Then he’ll say, ‘Come on in, John Jasper, that’s the way we like to hear men talk.’” Powerful persuasion of our confidence in God alone!

You wouldn’t know, but personally the last ten-fifteen years, I’ve fought through some battles that I wish I didn’t have to go through, but I’ve learned ‘life’s tests as a disciple are necessary’! What happens when it seems that some simply lose sight of your ministry – no longer important, no longer necessary, not really important to sacrifice after 25 years of investment in India; it will go on without him! He’s too old!

My dear friend, Dr. Bill Anderson, shared words of encouragement with Sue and me at the time we were going through our questioning moments of “Is our ministry over or not?” He shared Psalm 138:7-8 which I will never forget! It says: “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch out Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me. THE LORD WILL PERFECT that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.” And God will not forsake us!

FIFTH, PERSEVERANCE BECAUSE WE KNOW OUR CALLING BY CHRIST IS CERTAIN!

2 Peter 1:10-11 says, “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for IF YOU DO THESE THINGS ‘you will never stumble’, for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Do you remember God taking those tablets of stone and writing on them and giving them to Moses? “The Ten Commandments?” And one of them says, Exodus 20:7, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” Make YOUR calling and election sure!

Have you been born again? Does Christ live within you? Are you the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus? Are you alive in Christ? Have you been raised up and seated with Christ in heavenly places? Do you have a new song in your heart and the new name to which you respond? Do you know with great assurance, “I am the Chosen of God?” Do you know, “Saved and called with a holy calling?”

SIXTH, PERSEVERANCE BECAUSE “IN HIM” WE ARE PERSISTENT! Proverbs 24:16 speaks about “a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again.” We don’t accept our failures – we’ll not be half-hearted but whole-hearted, even if we stumble. There may be a time we fall on our faces, but watch us get up! Warren Wiersbe nailed it: “A realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned.”

Calvin Coolidge, one of our former United States presidents wrote: “Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” That’s like the early disciples asking Jesus, “Lord, what would you have us to do?” with Jesus responding: “Follow Me, and I’ll make you fishers of men.”

Jesus demonstrated this trait of relentlessness in Luke 9:51. “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Jesus to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Have you steadfastly, resolutely, determinedly set your face to follow Jesus, persevering and enduring to the end? In 1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul says, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” WHAT HAVE YOU DETERMINED? Have you resolutely set yourself to live by the way of the cross (daily!) so the resurrection life will be manifested through you? Is it settled? Steadfastly I am persevering and enduring?

Epictetus wrote: “Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors (fully surrendered to the Lordship and leadership of Christ alone?). Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal (Christ in you the hope of glory?). The trials you encounter will introduce you in your strengths (“In Christ!”). Remain steadfast…and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential (in Christ!).”

It was G.K.Chesterton who said: “I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.” Well, I am going to act! I am going to settle it daily! It’s resolved! “Christ in me, Christ through me, Christ for me, Christ acting in me for His glory, His Honor – not mine!” And I challenge you! Romans 12:1-2,

“I beseech you therefore brethren by the multitudinous mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice (daily), holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world but be being transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God?” Do you operate on fleshly whims or the Divine Will of God?

It’s by an unknown author but speaks so loudly! “When things go wrong as they sometimes will, when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, when the funds are low and the debts are high, and you want to smile but you have to sigh, (maybe cry), when care is pressing you down a bit, rest if you must, but don’t you quit. success is failure turned inside out, the silver tint of the clouds of doubt, and you can never tell how close you are, it may be near when it seems afar. So stick to the fight when you’re hurt and hit – it’s when things go wrong that you must not quit.” AND I WILL NOT QUIT, NOW AT ALMOST 81 years of age as of June 12, 2017!

One of my dear friends called me saying, “Really, shouldn’t you slow down?” And I said, “You’ll know I’ve slowed down when they’ve closed the casket top!”

Is there a ‘why’ in that? Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” God’s purpose for you or me ended, over, fulfilled? No!

Through it all, I’m building my altar and presenting myself to God anew! I haven’t quite reached eighty-one yet, but every day is a new day with the altar before me – and I choose to die to self that He might live fully through me!

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford once wrote: “Human excellence apart from God, is like the fabled flower, which, according to the rabbis, Eve plucked when passing out of paradise. Severed from its native root, it is only the touching memorial of a lost Eden – sad while charming and beautiful, but dead.”

“He who perseveres to the end shall be saved!” Our lives, not memorials of a lost Eden, but testimonies of the Redeemed who persevere and endure. God, help us!

CHAPTER FORTY

HOLY PRAYING

The title of this chapter may seem to some a strange title because I am convinced what some call ‘praying’ is not true prayer and what some call ‘holy praying’ is so unholy! Some speak out, praying, to what they call ‘God’ and it’s like speaking to a cold, dark, dead wall, and because they have some concern to pray but not to the One True & Living God, they are ‘baited and switched’ and all of a sudden CUNNINGLY they begin to hear faint, soft whispers out of Hell and believe Heaven has spoken!

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his “Essays, FIRST SERIES: SELF-RELIANCE,” wrote: “Prayer as a means to a private end is MEANINGLESS AND THEF.” I don’t hesitate: Prayer that is not for the Glory of God alone is UNHOLY PRAYING! Unholy praying is systematically learning to pray well in man’s eyes, but holy praying is passion to have God’s ears and expectantly wanting to hear His voice! Unholy prayer is when one senses it has to be done, like a pastor beginning his church service and briefly, casually, with no passion or eternal purpose, but “It’s expected, say it quickly, get it over with”!

At the same time unholy praying can be systematically learning to pray well in man’s eyes because one wants to be admired by others in his praying techniques, but holy praying is passion to have God’s ears!

Unholy praying is the strong inhaling of the spirit of self, of the fallen, sinful man who prays only for selfish reason, while holy praying is the inhaling of the greater desire unceasingly for the Spirit of God and Will of God and Word of God enlightened through us because we want Him to be gloriously honored!

Unholy praying is simply “business as usual” while things never change, while Holy Praying is as Kierkegaard says, prayer “is that which lifts the world off its hinges.” Unholy praying is saying what I think without meaning what I say – Holy Praying is rightfully resting upon willful trust and truth.

Unholy praying is sadly an occasional impulse that has no grounds of true faith while Holy Praying is one’ life passion. Unholy praying is selfish desires to hear how eloquently we can pray with our educated wordiness, while Holy Praying is surely getting the door open to hear God speak in His enveloping worthiness and willfulness and wise ways.

Unholy praying is proud – Holy Praying is humbled and broken! Unholy praying is that which overflows out of the dumbness of a man’s dead heart, while Holy Praying is that which surges out of the dependence of a man’s living heart upon Holy God – he/she understands: Without Him, I’m nothing!

Unholy praying is prayer that tries to obtain more strength for the strong man one thinks he/she is – Holy Praying is for nothing less than God’s ability, God’s aim, God’s availability “to do with me as He pleases”!

Unholy praying is the nourishing of “the blind life within the brain” (Tennyson), while Holy Praying is like Whittier said, “I am groping for the keys of heavenly harmonies.”

You’ll remember Elijah on Mt. Carmel confronting the false prophets of Baal and of course their false gods – 1 Kings 18:24, “You call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.” Literal fire or metaphorically speaking? Verse 26, “O Baal hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered.” Truth is, they never did and never do!!

Psalm 115:3-18 must be read in your Bible, right now, before continuing! .” Literal fire or metaphorically speaking? Verse 26, “O Baal hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered.” Truth is, they never did and never do!!

Psalm 115:3-18 must be read in your Bible, right now, before continuing! You’ll immediately recognize it as a powerful statement of Holy Praying!! From it we learn: 1. Our God is in Heaven; He does whatever He pleases – and we TRUST HIM! 2. He is our Help, our Shield. 3. Our God IS mindful of us! 4. He WILL bless us! 5. He continually increases us – blessed more and more by our Lord who made Heaven and Earth! 6. We are blessers of our Lord forever! Holy Praying! Let’s examine “Holy Praying”!

FIRST, HOLY PRAYING IS PRAYER THAT COMES OUT OF THE OVERFLOW OF ONE”S ENCOUNTER WITH CHRIST! The early disciples witnessed Jesus and learned that He was a ‘praying Son’! In Acts 9:1-11 we learn this vital truth: Look at what happened! Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate not drank.

From Acts 10 to Acts 13 it’s about Peter, but then look at Acts 13:1-2, “Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul…AS THEY MINISTERED TO THE LORD AND FASTED, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I HAVE CALLED THEM.”

What an explosion of spiritual maturity an encounter with Christ brings! Paul knew by experience what he wrote about, “Therefore if any man be IN CHRIST, he is a NEW CREATION. Old things have passed away and all things become new.” In Acts 16 it’s a dark hour, it’s midnight, and Saul, now Paul, has been imprisoned. Verse 25 says, “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.” Hear me! Because of oneness in Christ a seeming defeat becomes opportunity for a Victory. THEY PRAYED – and THERE WAS AN EARTHQUAKE. They prayed, and THERE WAS A SHAKING, they prayed, and as all around then fled, PAUL STOOD TO PREACH, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved and your household.”

Do you remember Acts 20? Paul was with the Ephesian elders, and Verse 36 tells us, “and when he had said these things HE KNELT DOWN AND PRAYED WITH THEM ALL.” In Acts 27, around the island of Malta, Paul met Publius, “leading citizen of the island,” and Publius’s father was sick with fever and dysentery; Verse 8 then tells us, “Paul went in to him and prayed, and he laid hands on him and healed him.”

Hear me! I’m not calling attention to an AWESOME MAN but to an AWESOME GOD! I’m not writing this to BRAG ON PAUL but to BLESS THE LORD! And I’m not writing this just to elevate our Lord but to EXALT HIM! Jesus met Paul, Jesus converted Paul, Jesus called Paul, Jesus gave him a new heart, Jesus crowned him with a precious ministry, Jesus gave him great compassion, Jesus anointed him with the Holy Spirit, AND JESUS INSPIRED PAUL’S PRAYER LIFE! “Behold, HE IS PRAYING!”

SECOND, HOLY PRAYING IS PRAYER THAT COMES FROM THE CHRIST –LIKE EXAMPLE OF CHOICE! JESUS HIMSELF CHOSE TO PRAY! Never forget Philippians 2:5-8a, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God…but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, AND COMING IN THE LIKENESS OF MEN…but being found in appearance as a man, HE HUMBLED HIMSELF AND BECAME OBEDIENT…” to whatever Father-God told Him to do!

NOW…you understand that the Scriptures are TRUE and TO THE POINT! Romans 3:11 says, “There is none who seeks after God…THEY HAVE ALL GONE OUT OF THE WAY…” ALL BUT JESUS! Luke 2:40 says, “And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” YOU DON’T BECOME STRONG IN SPIRIT WHILE BEING WEAK OR VOID OF A PRAYER LIFE! Filled with wisdom means a life that talks to God, listens, and does what He tells you!

Luke 3:21-22 says, “…Jesus also was baptized; and WHILE HE PRAYED, the heaven was opened…And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, ‘YOU are My beloved Son; in YOU, I am well-pleased.”

Well=pleased because He IS God’s Son, but God was also pleased because His beloved Son prays! Mark 1:35 says, “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He (Jesus) went out and departed to a solitary place; AND THERE HE PRAYED.” Luke 5:18 says, “So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”

Luke 9:29 says, “And as He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening.” Luke 22:32 tells us that Jesus said to Peter, “I have prayed for you that your faith will not fail…” Do you remember that agonizing time in Gethsemane? Luke 22:41-42, “And He was withdrawn from the disciples about a stone’s throw, and HE KNELT DOWN AND PRAYED:…Father, if it is Your will, remove this cup from Me; NEVERTHELESS NOT MY WILL, BUT YOURS, BE DONE!”

Even as He died, in Luke 23:46 we read, “And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commend My Spirit.” Twice Jesus said: “I can do nothing of Myself”, a choice to be true to the Father’s Word, the assignment, the calling only of Father-God! In fact, in John 5:19 we read: “Most assuredly, I say to you, THE SON CAN DO NOTHING OF HIMSELF, BUT WHAT HE SEES THE FATHER DO…”

And receive Jesus’ words in John 12:49! “For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave a command, what I should say and what I should speak.”

Do you receive it? Jesus says: “I don’t do anything I don’t see the Father doing. I don’t say anything I don’t hear the Father say.” How did He KNOW? They communed in prayer! The Lord Jesus willingly made a choice – He PRAYED TO THE FATHER AND ASKED HIS WILL, HIS WORD, HIS DIRECTION, HIS MISSION FOR HIS LIFE ON EARTH as God’s Son!

THIRD, HOLY PRAYING IS PRAYER THAT COMES FROM THE DYNAMIC NEED OF DIVINE COUNSEL! Do you remember Acts 9:6? Paul said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” The disciples had asked the Lord to teach them to pray. And as He ended that teaching, that foundational, that basic prayer, He taught them in Matthew 6:10, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done in earth as it is in Heaven.”

In Psalm 143:10 the psalmist prayed: Teach me to do Your will; for You are my God; Your spirit is good; LEAD ME IN THE LAND OF UPRIGHTNESS…”. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THE BLESSED MAN IS NOT THE MAN WALKING IN THE COUNSEL OF THE UNGODLY BUT WALKING IN THE COUNSEL OF GOD!! Psalm 33:11 says, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.” [Isn’t it sad, sorrowful, heart-breaking that the “one nation under God is fast becoming the nation of many ‘gods’?].

Jeremiah’s day, like Elijah’s, was a day of false prophesy. In Jeremiah 23:16-17 the Lord spoke, THUS SAYS THE LORD, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own hearts, not from the mouth of the Lord…They continually say to those who despise Me, The Lord has said, You shall have peace…And to everyone who walks according to the imagination of his own heart, No Evil Shall Come Upon You…For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord, and has perceived and heard His Word? WHO HAS MARKED HIS WORD AND HEARD IT?”

Do you sense within your own life the dynamic, even the desperateness, of hearing the divine counsel of our Lord? To the Ephesians Paul said (Ephesians 1:11) that God had “predestined (us) according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to THE COUNSEL OF HIS WILL.” But do you want to know those who wandered in the wilderness and died? Psalm 107:10-15 tells us! It says: “Those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, bound in affliction and irons – Because they rebelled against the words of God, and despised the counsel of the Most High, THEREFORE He brought down their heart with labor; they fell down, and there was none to help. THEN they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their chains in pieces. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!”

FOURTH, HOLY PRAYING IS PRAYER THAT COMES FROM DIVINE CONVICTION! Isn’t that what Jeremiah 33:3 produces in a seeking heart? A divine conviction birthed within one that God says, ‘Call’ – I ‘call’, AND I K NOW HE’S GOING TO ANSWER ME! In Psalm 81:7 God said, “You called in trouble, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder…” Oh, IT GETS BETTER! Psalm 65:5 says, “By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us, O God of our salvation, You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of the far-off seas.”

YOU HAVE A CONVICTION – GOD IS ABLE AND HE ANSWERS!! Spurgeon said of Paul’s prayer life: “He believed in the influence that God can have upon men’s hearts…” So he prayed and encouraged others to pray! Further, he said: “Do you not also believe that the hearts of all men are in the hands of the Lord? Do you not believe in the supremacy of the will of God over the freewill of man? Do you not rejoice that there is not only Providence that shapes our ends, but a secret influence which moulds men’s hearts?” (Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.17, p.19).

What did Paul say to the church at Ephesus? (3:20), “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” WE PRAY – GOD ANSWERS – BECAUSE HE IS ABLE!

FIFTH, PRAYING IS PRAYER THAT COMES FROM COMPELLING RESTRAINT! 2 Corinthians 5:14 says, “FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINS US…!!” The love of Christ constrains us that we should no longer live unto ourselves, but living unto Him who loved us and died for us! The love of Christ constrains us to lay down our lives as He did His. The love of Christ constrains us to ‘seek and to save that which is lost, alienated, separated from Him, the love of Christ constrains us to love one another.

In John 17:20-26 receive Christ Jesus’s prayer for every son and daughter of faith! “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one; I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

And, OH!, what compelling constraint we sense from Jesus’ prayer is, yes, to passionately PRAY TO THE FATHER AS JESUS PRAYED! He said in Verse 13, “But I come now to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves,” and dare I say, compels us to be prayer warriors for ourselves AND the lost and alienated from God?

The passionate desire of the Lord Jesus was for loving, praying saints! The heart-cry of our Lord was for loving servants who, Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all their hearts, and lean not to THEIR own understanding…In all their ways they acknowledge God (Knowing that) He shall direct their paths.”

SIXTH, HOLY PRAYING IS PRAYER THAT COMES FROM THE RECOGNITION OF THE CALLING OF CONTINUALLY CROWNING GOD WITH THANKSGIVING AND PRAISE! Psalm 18:3 says, “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.” Psalm 100 says it like this: “Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.”

Psalm 34:8-10 really explains why one should continually, day by day, crown the Lord with blessing, honor, and praise! It says: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; BLESSED is the man who trusts in Him! Of, fear the Lord, you His saints! There IS NO WANT TO THOSE WHO FEAR HIM. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.”

It was Oswald Chambers in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.187), who wrote: “The workshop of missionary munitions is the hidden, personal, worshipping life of the saint.” And I’m sure this is why Hebrews 13:15 tells us, “Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise of God, that is, the FRUIT OF LIPS THAT GIVE THANKS TO HIS NAME.”

In Psalm 50:23 we read, “Whoever offers praise GLORIFIES ME; and to him who orders his conduct aright, I will show the salvation of God.” GLORY! And I must ask: As a saint set apart to the glory of God, do YOU have a hidden, personal, worshipping life?

Moses and the children of Israel had just been delivered out of Egypt. But Pharoah is on their heels with his great army. God opened the Red Sea, they went across on dry land, and then God closed the waters of death over Pharoah and his army. Receive Exodus 15:1-2! “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.” Five things to rest in:

• Prayer is praise because in our hearts we know God is our salvation.
• Prayer is praise because we have been and continually will be delivered from our enemies.
• Prayer is praise because our God has triumphed gloriously and we thank Him.
• Prayer is praise because we know He is our Father – “Our Father which is in heaven, hallowed be Your Name…Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.”
• Prayer is praise because it’s in our hearts and minds TO EXALT HIM! Never forget: God inhabits the praises of His people!!

SEVENTH, HOLY PRAYING IS PRAYER THAT COMES FROM COMMUNITY COMMUNION AND SUPPLICATIONS! Come to Romans 15:30-33 where Paul reached out to the church at Rome with an impassioned plea. Having met Christ on the Damascus Road and becoming a man of prayer, now he faced Rome and his possible death. Follow carefully:

“Now I beg you, brothers, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and love the love of the Spirit, THAT YOU STRIVE TOGETHER WITH ME IN YOUR PRAYERS TO GOD FOR ME, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints…that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you…NOW THE GOD OF PEACE BE WITH YOU ALL. AMEN.”

YOU ARE AWARE THAT ANY CHURCH HAS THE CHOICE OF LOWER LEVEL LIVING IN THE FAITH, PRAYERLESS, OR THE UPPER ROOM MINISTRY OF FAITHFUL, PASSIONATE PRAYING AND INTERCEDING, PRAISING HIM, AND CELEBRATING HIS HOLY, PRECIOUS NAME!

In Acts 1 Jesus had just told His disciples to “wait for the promise of the Father.” Verses 13-14 tell us, “And WHEN they had entered, they went up into THE UPPER ROOM…these ALL CONTINUED WITH ONE ACCORD IN PRAYER AND SUPPLICATION, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” DO YOU REALIZE THE POWER OF THE CONSTANCY OF CORPORATE PRAYING?

In Acts 4 the rulers, elders, and scribes moved against the disciples. They commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But the disciples boldly declared: “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” As they faithfully prayed, did those early disciples hear Jesus speaking to them?

Come to Verses 29-31!! THEY PRAY –TOGETHER-CORPORATELY-UNITEDLY- AS A COMMUNITY OF TRUE BELIEVERS! “Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word…by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus…(Listen!)…And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the Word of God with boldness!”

EIGHTH, HOLY PRAYER IS PRAYER THSAT COMES FROM THE DEEPEST CRIES OF THE HUMAN HEART IN DEPENDENCE AND TRUST IN GOD ALONE! Several Psalms passages I want to share here also: Psalm 119:145-149 first, “I cry out with my whole heart; Hear me, O Lord! I will keep Your statutes. I cry out to You; Save me, and I will keep Your testimonies. I rise before the dawning of the morning, and cry for help; I hope in Your word. My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word. My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word. Hear my voice according to Your loving kindness; O Lord, revive me according to Your justice.”

In Psalm 119:169-176 we read: “Let my cry come before You, O Lord; Give me understanding according to Your word. Let my supplication come before You; deliver me according to Your word. My lips shall utter praise, for You teach Me Your statutes. My tongue shall speak of Your word, for all Your commandments are righteousness. Let Your hand become my help, for I have chosen Your precepts. I long for Your salvation, O Lord, and Your law is my delight. Let my soul live, and it shall praise You; and let Your judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments.”

In Psalm 120:1-2 we read: “In my distress I cried to the Lord, and He heard me. (He always does!). Deliver my soul, O Lord from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue.”

Hannah More wrote: “Prayer is not eloquence but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul.” It was Tennyson who wrote about “battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer”, while, sadly, most pray sometimes a ‘light wind of words’, apart from the need of being truthful with God! But I believe there IS opening the gates of heaven with prayers of brokenness!

2 Kings 20:5-6 says, “Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, THUS SAYS THE LORD, THE GOD OF DAVID YOUR FATHER, ‘I have heard your PRAYERS, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord…And I WILL ADD TO YOUR DAYS 15 YEARS.” [Does ‘the third day’ represent “Resurrection Day”?].

Samuel Henry Price wrote: “The world is full of faces, black with anger, green with envy and red with shame, WHICH COULD BE MADE RADIANTLY WHITE WITH HOLINESS AND SPIRITUALITY AGLOW BY THE TRANSFIGURING POWER OF PRAYER!” I CRIED UNTO THE LORD!!

And I don’t hesitate. I urge you to pray for me in HOLY FASHION. Pray, not for a double portion of His power and anointing, but the Mighty One’s unlimited outpouring, praying for me to receive more and more of His heavenly wisdom. Pray for me to enter in to MORE OF HIM and less of me. Pray for release of Heaven’s gold that’s been hoarded to release in and through me more of His heavenly treasures and biblically wisdom. Pray for the fire in my bones. I like what Spurgeon wrote: (Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.17,p.12), “A man cannot be charged with egotism if he begs for personal support when he is engaged in labors for others, and is not seeking himself but the success of The Great Cause.” AND YOU? WHAT IS IT OR WHO IS YOU SEEK AND PRESS INTO?

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

MAJOR HINDRANCES TO THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER

The title of this chapter suggests or implies that there can be major roadblocks in effective, redemptive prayer. Are you aware of that? Let me inform you of the meaning of the word ‘hindrance’ if you don’t already know. From Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary the word ‘hindrance’ means: “The act of impeding or restraining motion…impediment; that which stops progress or advance; obstruction.”

And related to major hindrances to the ministry of prayer, ‘obstruction’ by the world, the flesh, or the devil is probably what ‘blocks’ effective intercessory prayer or conversations with the Father. I Peter 3:7 is very clear when it says, “…that your prayers may not be hindered,” or obstructed, or because of indifference, just ‘set aside’ for another day!

In Revelation 5:8 the Word says, “Now when (the Lamb, the Lion of the tribe of Judah) had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders FELL DOWN BEFORE THE LAMB, each having a harp, and golden bowls of incense WHICH ARE THE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS.”

And the prayers of the saints are precious to God. They please Him. Yet at the very same time Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” The word “regard” comes from a Hebrew word meaning “to see”, “to have”, “to respect”, “to approve”, “to gaze on or take heed to.” If that’s in my heart, THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR ME.

But that’s not God’s heart or desire for any of us, BUT THERE ARE SPIRITUAL LAWS ESTABLISHED BY GOD FOR A FRUITFUL WALK IN THE KINGDOM-AREA OF PRAYER, and if those laws are violated, we’ve personally chosen to exempt ourselves from conversations with God or receiving His blessings.

To the Galatians, (6:7), Paul said correctly, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” Yet in John 11:42 Jesus spoke confidently and said to the Father, “And I know that You always hear Me.” Why? Because Jesus sowed the seeds of faith and obedience, not the wild tares of unbelief and rebellion to the nature and character of God!

THE ONE THING I WANT YOU TO TAKE AWAY FOR YOURSELF IN THIS CHAPTER IS THAT THE NORMAL FOR THE TRUE DISCIPLE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IS TO LIVE IN CONSTANT COMMUNION WITH GOD and to live the abundant, joyful, fruitful life of daily answered prayers.

But you know how a water-line can sometimes build up corrosion and all of a sudden the flow of fresh water is stopped. In the same way, there can come a time when one is not praying because there is a ‘blockage’. In Leviticus 26:19 God said, “I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.” It’s not an “open heaven” when the pathway of ‘self-reliance’ is chosen over surrender, yieldedness, and the need of God to help a person!

David said in Psalm 35:13 that he would pray, even fast, but (LISTEN!), “my prayer would return to my own bosom or heart.” Even Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, said in Lamentations 3:8-9, “Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer…He has blocked my ways with hewn stones; He has made my paths crooked.” In Verse 44 of the same chapter, Jeremiah said, “You have covered Yourself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through.” To me, that sounds serious! To me, that’s major! And something or someone can and often does close the ‘Free-Way’ to Heaven’s heart!

It gets real serious in Isaiah 1:15 when God said to His people, “When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD.” I don’t want our prayers to be a ‘mess’ before God; I want them going up as a MEMORIAL! I don’t want to draw near to God with my mouth only and honor Him with my lips while my heart may be far from Him, like the Pharisees – I want to be one with Him. I don’t want to trifle at the throne with ignoramus tidbits – I want to be joined in TRUTH and TRUST with the Christ of Calvary!

There’s a great old hymn I grew up on, and in the chorus it says: “Nothing between my soul and the Savior, SOTHAT His blessed face may be seen,; Nothing preventing the least of His favor, Keep the way clear! Let nothing between!” Is there something between you and Jesus? Is there a major hindrance to the effective ministry of your prayer life? The other verses of that precious old hymn says this:

“Nothing between my soul and the Savior, Naught of this world’s delusive dream; I have renounced all sinful pleasure, Jesus is mine, there’s nothing between.

Nothing between like worldly pleasure; Habits of life, tho’ harmless they seem, Must not my heart from Him ever sever – He is my all, there’s nothing between.

Nothing between, like pride or station; Self or friends shall not intervene; Tho’ it may cost me much tribulation, I am resolved, there’s nothing between.

Nothing between, even many hard trials, Tho’ the whole world against me convene; Watching with prayer and much self-denial, I’ll triumph at last, with nothing between.” How glorious is that hymn?

BUT IN THIS MOMENT, MAYBE, SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT – and YOU know it! In this moment, is it a major blockage? In this moment have you allowed hindrances to abound? In this moment, do you sense Heaven may be closed to you? Thomas Benton Brooks wrote: “God hears no more than the heart speaks; and if the heart be dumb, God will certainly be deaf.”

Sometimes God is deaf to our cries because we treat Him like “A COSMIC BELL-BOY.” Silence comes from Heaven’s side because we’ve seen Him like our personal ‘errand-runner’! Sometimes It’s expectation apart from appreciation! Sometimes it’s even earnestness without any expression of True Faith! Sometimes it’s an infrequent or occasional impulse like an unimportant call to a duty that doesn’t have one’s heart! Sometimes it’s presumption or assuming “we know what God must do for us!” Sometimes it’s the high sounds of unceasing words seeking only to get God down to our point of view rather than submission to what we know God would have us doing! Sometimes it’s the finest of phrases, but empty, because it’s ‘heartless’ praying rather than laying hold of and freshly submitting to Who God Is!

1 Peter 3:12 says, “For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers: But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” Serious truth! [Maybe, just maybe, one should research what offends Holy God!]. Major hindrances to the ministry of prayer? Let’s look at it!!

FIRST, THE MAJOR HINDRANCE OF A DIVIDED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUSBANDS AND WIVES! Examine carefully before continuing reading this chapter 1 Peter 3:1-7, noticing Verse 7, “that your prayers may not be hindered.” It is not a statement only for husbands as the first six verses are laid out to show how a wife can be the blockage to answered prayer! Certainly, sadly, both are to blame, at times, for shutting prayer out of their lives!

If you read those six verses over and over seeking to hear and understand what God is saying to the woman about why her prayers are not answered, I believe you could sum it up in one word – “REBELLION!”

Listen to Dr. John R.Rice, (Prayer, Sword of the Lord Publishers, p.281), “Rebellion is the sin of fallen angels. Rebellion is the sin which damns every Christ-rejecting sinner. Rebellion against authority is the heart of all crime, and every criminal in a penitentiary has been guilty first not of murder, nor of theft, but has been guilty first of rebellion against authority. This was the sin of the prodigal son. Rebellion is the very heart of all sin. Dear Christian wife, God says to you that if you will not be subject to your husband that your prayers are hindered.” (I just wish Dr. Rice had emphasized the same thing to husbands, because the Truth of the Word is “mutual submission”!).

But God declares through Peter that a woman’s husband is not won over by outward beauty alone, but (Listen!), Verse 4, “let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit, WHICH IS VERY PRECIOUS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD.” Steam-rolling wives do not express the Spirit of Christ! But in Peter’s unveiling of husband-wife relationships, he doesn’t mean husbands are “off the hook” because they have a rebellious wife – it just may be wives rebelling against everything their husbands are not!

Three things God says to husbands: 1) “Dwell with them with understanding,” in other words LIVE WITH YOUR WIFE ACCORDING TO THE BIBLICA TRUTH OF HEALTHY MARITAL BLISS AND BLESSING> FIND OUT, HUSBANDS, WHAT GOD EXPECTS OF YOU! 2) “Giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel…” It doesn’t say she Is the weaker vessel! I’ve seen many wives far beyond the “strength” of husbands in many areas. He said, “…as to the weaker vessel”; she’s like priceless china or crystal that must be carefully cared for! She’s not a flower without fragrance! She’s not a body without a mind and will! She’s not a partner without a distinct contribution to make!

Martin Luther once wrote: “Earth has nothing more tender than a woman’s heart when it is the abode of piety.” So true! Thomas Otway, in “Venice Preserved,” wrote: “O woman! Lovely woman! Nature made you to temper man: we had been brutes without you; Angels are painted fair, to look like you; There’s in you all that we believe of Heaven, Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love.” It’s why, husbands, you give her honor and appreciation! But to keep you humble, ladies, listen to Spurgeon: “God save us all from wives who are angels in the streets, saints in the Church, and devils at home.”

3)“as being HEIRS TOGETHER of the grace of life…”. A husband takes his place as the wife takes her place. And with Joshua, because we want our prayers answered: “As for me and my house, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.” Do you remember Ephesians 5:29? “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, JUST AS THE LORD DOES THE CHURCH.”

Home disturbances hamper our prayer lives! Home discord disrupts effective communication with God! Home distresses call for emergency SOS’S of broken repentance so we can reach God! Home disunity muddies the waters of trying to reach out to God! Home diatribes silence the response of God! It’s SERIOUS!! “That your prayers may not be hindered.”

SECOND, THERE’S THE MAJOR HINDRANCE OF BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS OF BROTHERS IN CHRIST! Receive Matthew 5:23-24!! “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you…leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Do you remember why Jesus said of Zacchaeus (Luke 18:9), “Today SALVATION HAS COME TO THIS HOUSE!!” Why did Jesus say it? Because He saw an outward demonstration of a true inward response. In Verse 8 Zacchaeus had said, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore four-fold.”

In Matthew 18:15 Jesus said, “Moreover IF your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.”

Well, what else have you gained? You’ve gained the ear and attention of God! You’ve gained the overflowing heart and blessing of God who wants to do nothing but bless you. You’ve gained the help and the hand of the Almighty God!

In Philippians 2:3 Paul said, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, (KJV says it, ‘let nothing be done through STRIFE OR VAINGLORY), but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.”

Now do you understand why some don’t have their prayers answered? They see themselves better than others, ‘deserve more respect’, “it’s my way come hell or high waters, hot words of a heated event and they deserved every word! ‘Wrongs are medals I wear proudly’! Grudges are golden in my scheme of things!’ Anger and revenge are justifiable attitudes in my cosmic constitution! Hatchets are so helpful in self-justification! The cost of hatred is not a high price to pay when you’ve been wronged! Injuring the offender is excusable! Slighting the one who has hurt me is sane! Indulging unforgiveness is a virtue of true manhood, not a vice! I don’t mind de-clawing the lion-hearted and extracting his teeth if he comes against me and I get my ounce of revenger – doesn’t he know who I am?”

Receive Matthew 6:14-15! “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you…BUT IF YOU DON”T FORGIVE MEN THEIR TRESPASSES, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Is that clear? There can never be an ounce of misunderstanding between you and a brother if you want your prayers answered!

THIRD, LOOK AT THE MAJOR HINDRANCE OF THE STRANGLING ATTITUUDE OF UNFORGIVENESS! Matthew 6:12 says, as Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…” And what a classic teaching in Matthew 18:21-35! It is so life-shaking! If this passage doesn’t wake you up on your path of unforgiveness, NOTHING WILL! Read it carefully, examining whether or not you’ve held on to grudges! It says:

Then Peter came to Him (Jesus) and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. [I read in the footnotes of my KJV bible that “the talent was the largest unit of currency equivalent to approximately 6000 days’ wages.” Think of ten thousand talents with one talent 6000 days wages! It’s mind-boggling for a non-mathematician!].

But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all. Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave the debt.

BUT that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will pay you all. And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him. SO My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

No sun should ever set until you’ve forgiven every offense. No week should come to a close until you’ve willfully forgiven every wrong. No month should ever pass until there’s mending of our messes. No year should ever face its last days until yieldedness to God’s ways and will have found full fruition in a True disciple!

Mark Twain put it like this: “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” One little boy repeating what he thought was the Lord’s Prayer, prayed it like this: “And forgives us our debts as we forgive those who are dead against us.” I love what James Hilton in “Time and Time Again” wrote: It’s a classic!! “If you forgive people enough you belong to them, and they to you, whether either person likes it or not – squatter’s rights of the heart.”

And when forgiveness becomes the testimony of your walk, God has exercised His squatter’s rights right in your heart! But to be unforgiving, and try to pray? It’s not that God will stammer – He’ll be silent toward you!

FOURTH, THERE IS THE MAJOR HINDRANCE OF THE ROBBING SPIRIT OF COVETOUSNESS OR GREED! In Malachi 3:6-12 we read, “For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. “But you said, ‘In what way shall we return?’

“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.

And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” says the Lord of hosts; “And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says the Lord of hosts.

And I would ask, ‘Are YOU and YOUR family, You and Your business, You and Your church ‘a fruitful nation’, or is God’s evaluation on target, so ‘the curse’ is on? And do you understand that closing one’s heart to the spirit of giving TO GOD closes God’s heart to the blessings He wants to bestow? Aren’t you aware that a covetousness man ‘never has money – it HAS him? In fact Colossians 3:5 speaks of “greed…which is IDOLATRY!” In your lifetime haven’t you witnessed the blessed disciple financially who has turned inward on himself , and what he has became a ‘curse’ rather than a blessing?

Robert South wrote that “covetousness is both the beginning and end of the devil’s alphabet – the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.”

In Luke 12:15 Jesus said, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses.” How could we ever forget Achan? A long time ago I did a message entitled “The Consequences of Buried Sin.” It related to how one man’s sin of greed and covetousness withheld the blessing of God upon all His people! Receive Joshua 7:21! “When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I COVETED THEM AND TOOK THEM. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent with the silver under it.”

POSSESSING OR BEING POSSESSED BY ALL THE WEALTH OF THE WORLD IS NOT WORTH HAVING TO EXPERIENCE THE SILENCE OF GOD! It’s an amazing statement when one quotes the Word that there are men who have no guilt at all in actually ‘robbing God’! Oh, one may feel secure in his selfishness withholding from God, but that ‘sense of security’ is going to fade in a flash when God arises, “I AM the same – I do not change!” Listen to this now-departed saint who once said: “…those who sing, ‘Oh, How I Love Jesus,’ but do not love Him a dime’s worth out of a dollar will not go far in their praying. If you cannot trust God to supply your need and to repay you for all the tithes and offerings you bring in to Him, you have not much faith.” Are you ‘short-changed’?

FIFTH, A MAJOR HINDRANCE OF THE DESTRUCTIVE TRACK ONE WALKS ON IS IN DISOBEDIENCE, ROTTEN REBELLION, AND A STRONG SELF-WILL! In 1 Samuel 15:22-23 we read, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offering and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams…For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”

I made a comment in the last teaching on prayer that the only prayer God hears from a sin-darkened heart is the cry of repentance. That hasn’t changed. I have no doubt that Saul wanted to pray to God, even with Samuel, but Samuel knew Saul’s only intent was personal honor before his people, not the honor of God alone! In fact, Verse 30 says, “I have sinned; YET HONOR ME NOW, PLEASE, BEFORE THE ELDERS OF MY PEOPLE AND BEFORE ISRAEL…” [That’s what rebellion is all about: self-interest, self-concern, self-consideration, self-domination, self-thought, self-will, self-desires, self-serving, self-seeking! Can you hear the spirit of that?

And if one prays with that attitude, what’s the end result of it? SILENCE – TOTAL SILENCE. The deafened ears of God that do not hear are overridden or closed by the stubborn heart and rebellious will because of a cemented-self-concern! Thomas Erskine wrote: “Most men are so possessed by themselves that they have no vacuum into which God’s deep water may rise.” Why did Jesus die? 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, “And He died for all, that those who live SHOULD NO LONGER LIVE FOR THEMSELVES, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” We are not living ‘for the Lord’ or ‘by Him’ when we’re so consumed with ourselves even when we pray!

SIXTH, ALSO THERE IS THE MAJOR HINDRANCE OF THE ADVERSE ACTION OF ALWAYS ASKING AMISS! Never forget James 4:1-3!! “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?…You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask…You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

“Amiss”? It comes from a root word, (LISTEN!), diseased, evil, grievously, miserably, sick, sore!!” But then we read in Psalm 2:8 where God said, “”ASK OF ME, and I will give you the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession.”

Just think of the contrast between the heart of God and His desire to bless AND the heart of a man, even in asking God to help him build his own miserable kingdom of flesh, personal pleasures, and a sick ‘sin-centered ego’. It will help you understand why Jesus said what He did in Matthew 21:13! :My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”

Fenelon once wrote: “To pray…is to desire, but it is to desire what God would have us desire. He who desires not from the bottom of his heart, offers a deceitful prayer.” And I would add, “who desires, not from the bottom of God’s heart, offers a deceitful prayer.”

SEVENTH, THERE IS THE MAJOR HINDRANCE OF THE DEADENING DOUBT OF A DIVIDED HEART! James 1:6-8 says, “But let him ask in faith, with No Doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind…let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;—He Is a Double-minded Man, unstable in all his ways.”

Let me give you two statements by anonymous writers: 1) “Doubt digs the grave of faith.” It’s why Jesus, in Matthew 14:31, said to Peter, “O you of little faith, WHY did you doubt?” Jesus was saying, ‘Why doubt?’ Even if you are sinking – I’m here!

2)”Doubters invert the metaphor and insist that they need faith as big as a mountain in order to move a mustard seed.” Isn’t that so often true? Do we really believe nothing is impossible with God? Do we really believe that He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think?

Spurgeon preached: “It is never worthwhile to make rents in a garment for the sake of mending them, nor to create doubts in order to show how cleverly we can quiet them.”

Doubt in a divided heart is tyranny against God! Doubt in a divided heart is a cruel taskmaster! Doubt in a divided heart is another expression of cowardice – fearful to stand! Doubt in a divided heart is ‘self-burial’ in a rotting grave! Doubt in a divided heart is the present hell of a human soul intensifying hell’s control as one yields to ‘flesh’ and not the Spirit and the Word of God!

Soren Kierkegaard put it like this: “The method which begins by doubting in order to philosophize is just as suited to its purpose as making a soldier lie down in a heap in order to teach him to stand up straight!”

I don’t want to live in doubt – I want to live in faith! I don’t want to live in fear – I want to live in trust! I don’t want to live in unbelief – I want to live in THE confidence and assurance that I know Whom I have believed, and I AM persuaded that He is able – whatever – He is able!

EIGHTH, ALSO EXAMINE THE MAJOR HINDRANCE OF DEAFENED EARS THAT CAN SO EASILY AND CONVENIENTLY NEGLECT MERCY! Proverbs 21:13 says, “Whosoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard.” Is that plain? Is that clear? Is there understandable?

In Zechariah 7 the Lord had been talking about showing mercy and compassion, not oppressing the widow or the fatherless or the alien or the poor or your own brother. But His people “refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear.” Verse 13, “Therefore it happened, that just as God proclaimed and they would not hear (the cries of the needy), so THEY CALLED OUT AND I WOULD NOT LISTEN, says the Lord of hosts.”

In Matthew 25:41-46 we read: “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.” Then they will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

NINTH, THERE CAN BE DEAFENED EARS TO THE WORD OF GOD! Oh, Proverbs 28:9 is a shocker! It says, “One who turns away his ear from hearing (God’s Word) the law, EVEN HIS PRAYER SHALL BE AN ABOMINATION.” But what is the opposite of that? Psalm 1:1-3 says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.

Jesus challenged us in John 15:7 when He said, “Abide in Me, AND My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.” And so, I ask, “How are you ever going to please God IF you have no pleasure in the power of His Word? What did Jeremiah say? “Your words were found and they became the joy and rejoicing of my heart”, but for a man who SHUNS God’s Word? SILENCE FROM THE THRONE OF GOD!

TENTH! CONSIDER LASTLY THE MAJOR HINDRANCE OF UNCONFESSED SIN THAT CLOSES HEAVEN’S GATES! You know what it says! Psalm 66:18, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR.” Receive Dr. John R. Rice’s word! “…it is not primarily the fact of sin, but it is a love for sin, a willingness to sin, an excusing of sin that make it so God cannot answer our prayers.” He’s right on target!

God also says in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and SEEK MY FACE, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Some say, ‘Is there a New Testament word for His people’? 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Isaac Watts and R.E. Hudson nailed it strongly in their hymn “AT THE CROSS”! It’s in my old “The Broadman Hymnal” of 1940 published by the Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn.). It says: “Alas and did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?

Was it for crimes that I have done, He groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity! Grace unknown! And love beyond degree!

But drops of grief can ne’er repay The debt of love I owe: Here, Lord, I give myself away (To You, Lord!), It’s all that I can do! [AND THAT’S SO TRUE! FOR YOU, TOO?]

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

THE AFFIRMATION TO ASPIRATIONS

The biblical text for this chapter is 1 Timothy 3:1! “This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop (and I add: pastor, overseer, faithful servant!), he desires a good work.” And shouldn’t we include parental ministry, home oversight, business eldership, school maintenance, or also, how about team sports?

I’m convinced John Greenleaf Whittier’s words should serve us well as seekers of divine will, heavenly calling, and fruitful ministries! He 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 Him!” That’s an ordained path! But, I think, you’ll find many “followers” who’ll begin to call themselves ‘followers of Christ’, except when they read something about Christ’s obedient testimony as a Son before Holy God! In Luke 2:49-52 we have an awesome testimony of “the affirmation to aspirations! It says:

And Jesus said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them. Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Did the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of Man AND Son of God, ever have a doubt as to His eternal purpose? Didn’t Christ Jesus declare, “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give My life a ransom for many”? (Matthew 20:28!) And, of course, there are those who consider themselves “the spiritual elite”, but have no desire to be a “foot-washer” like Christ Jesus!

The Random House Collegiate Dictionary of 1975 (Revised Edition) defines ‘aspiration’ as: “strong desire, longing, or aim, and even aspiring (or longing for).” Affirmation? The Dictionary I just mentioned defines ‘affirmation’ as ‘the act of affirming, a confirmation or ratification,’ which I see as a declaration of Truth! But some “affirm” with no intention of being ‘fully submitted’ to Christ’s Lordship, but assume ‘acquaintance’ is “the affirmation to aspirations” when Christ Jesus clearly says, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ but you do not do what I say!”

This is why George Eliot once said, “It is vain thought to flee from the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found – in loving obedience.” And this thought highlights our FIRST POINT: THE AFFIRMATION TO ASPIRATION OF LEADERSHIP IS A GOOD AND GODLY DESIRE! Christ Jesus led by example as “servant of all!” And that ambition should be true of every man, husband, father, business owner, or employee! He, Christ Jesus, extends Himself through a bought, purchased, blood-washed, yielding vessel!

And I’m sure you understand that there is such a vast difference between fleshly ambition and the aspiration to be or do whatever God desires for your life. AN ASPIRATION OF LEADERSHIP WITHOUT A WILLFUL CRUCIFIXION OF SELF-GLORY BECOMES NOTHING MORE THAN A CORONATION TO VAINNESS AND SELF-IMPORTANCE. The aspiration of leadership or witness that honors God is NOT CARNAL AMBITION BUT SPIRIT-ANOINTED PASSION TO BE THE VESSEL THROUGH WHICH CHRIST EXTENDS HIMSELF, SHARES HIS LOVE, AND PROVES HIS PASSION – and you, ‘dead to self but alive in Christ’, get to see Him fulfill His ‘business’ through you! Glory!

Spiritual aspiration is not the best efforts of fallen flesh but redeemed, “blood-bought” men and women aflame in the fires of Holy Ghost anointing! Spiritual aspiration is not based on how many servants I have in the little kingdom I’m building, but the number I serve because I’ve given myself to them as a poured out drink offering. Spiritual aspiration is not an unsatisfied thirst for power and prominence, but a satisfied thirst for meeting other’s needs expecting nothing in return!

Spiritual aspiration is not a consideration for a place of rank or title but a passion to see that Christ is uplifted and honored as I bow at the feet of others TO DO AS CHRIST DID AND STILL DOES THROUGH YOU!

Oswald Chambers, in “Spiritual Leadership,” (p.16), made a powerful statement about the need of the church: “The overriding need of the church, if it is to discharge its obligation to the rising generation, is for a leadership that is authoritative, spiritual and sacrificial”…(Listen!)… Authoritative, because people love to be led by one who knows where he is going and who inspires confidence. They follow almost without question the man who shows himself wise and strong, who adheres to what he believes…Spiritual, because a leadership that is unspiritual, that can be fully explained in terms of the natural, although ever so attractive and competent, will only result in sterility and moral and spiritual bankruptcy…Sacrificial, because modeled on the life of the One who gave Himself a sacrifice for the whole world, who left us an example that we shall follow His steps.”

Always remember what Jesus said about the essence of true leadership, Matthew 20:25-28: “But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

SECOND POINT: THE AFFIRMATION TO THE ASPIRATION OF THE PLEASURE OF GOD: Receive 1 Thessalonians 4:1, “Finally, then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us, how you ought to walk and to please God.” To the Galatians Paul made it even clearer: Galatians 1:10, “For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”

Do you realize how foreign a concept this is to fallen humanity? The whole bent of most folks is the approval of men more than the approval of God! Receive Romans 15:1-3! “We then who are strong ought to bear the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written “THE REPROACHES OF THOSE WHO REPROACHED YOU (GOD) FELL ON ME.”

This is why Paul strongly affirms “SPIRIT-ANOINTED- LIVING” in Romans 8, Verse 8, “So that, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” SPIRIT-ANOINTED LIVING ia taking willfully, daily, that SENTENCE OF DEATH UNTO OURSELVES THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED IN OUR MORTAL FLESH!

John 8:29, Jesus speaking, lays out for us His eternal example of ‘the good and faithful servant.’ He said: “And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I ALWAYS do those things that please Him.” I’m going to tell you that 1 Samuel 12:22 ought to ‘rattle the rafters’ of your redeemed life! It says: “For the Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, BECAUSE IT HAS PLEASED THE LORD TO MAKE YOU HIS PEOPLE!”

Are you the possessor of a white-hot affection to please God? And that white-hot affection to please God is always because of God’s Grace and Mercy which far too many professing believers have misinterpreted as “grease” – just sliding into heaven doing the same things the Devil got kicked out for!

True grace is so much more than “Pardon” – it’s power! In 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 Paul wrote: “Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy to this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him,(Listen!), according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ!”

Grace that is power? Titus 2:11-14 says: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men TEACHING US THAT, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”

I absolutely love the truth John Piper wrote when he said: “We are His pleasure when He is our treasure.” (“The Pleasures of God,” Multonomah Publishers, Sisters, Or., 97759, p.250). We’re no “Ivory Tower” inhabitants, but initiated trustees of the inspired truth that, that which truly pleases God is, a life laid down in the sacrificial spirit of His Son and our Savior.

In Isaiah 55:11 God spoke! “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” ARE YOU ‘PROSPERING’ IN THE SPIRIT BECAUSE OF YOUR PASSION TO PLEASE GOD?

THIRD POINT: THERE IS THE AFFIRMATION OF ASPIRATION TO THE ASCENT TO HEAVENLY LIVING! And I’m not talking about wanting to die so you can go to heaven, but the passion of your soul to see Heaven in your life! Look with me at Psalm 37:4! “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

Do you remember those ‘heroes of the faith’ in Hebrews 11? Verse 16 says, “But not they desire a better, that is, a Heavenly country…Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” And do YOU realize that it’s God’s eternal desire to make your heart His home, establishing His Holy Presence IN YOU?

When you’re pressed by the flesh-nature, you’re asking, “Is there anything of the spiritual real of my life worth living for or dying for? When you know your “life is a vapor that appears briefly and the vanishes away”, one ought to be asking, “Is there anything of eternal significance?” – OR at least YOU OUGHT TO BE ASKING THAT! When you become aware of how infantile, fleeting, and unimportant your fleshly thoughts are, you’re probably asking “What is there of value to renew my mind and set my eternal course and destiny? When you see the downgrading, the degradation, the dark side of a “Brittany Spears”, you begin asking yourself, “Is there a better reflection in life to live out before my world?”

Receive Colossians 3:1-4! “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. For you died (did you? Do you see yourself ‘crucified with Christ?’), and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

Many years ago in a church I pastored someone came with a broken heart. “Pastor, you know ‘so and so’ is a leader among our youth but she’s fast gaining the reputation of being promiscuous and I’m really concerned for her, for our youth, but most of all the cause of Christ since she’s so vocal about her ‘faith’.” I told them, “I’m glad you came. I’ll reach out to her.”

I asked her to come by my office for a visit. And when she did I told her of her fast-growing reputation that was not good. I asked her, “When you gave your heart to Christ did you believe that didn’t include your glands…do you not know that you’re fast becoming like a ‘tackling dummy’ on an athletic field that boys like to hit on or…do you not realize God means you to be a jewel, a royal treasure, a holy gift of the husband He’s picked out for you?” And she broke own and wept and sobbed and repented and gave her heart, mind, will, and glands to God! Her reputation changed and she became a glowing witness of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Life is made of choices: The glory of God or the goriness of a mangled, messed-up, self-inflicted sick life? The blessing of God or the curse of the fallen sin-nature? Eternal values or the wreck and recklessness of a misspent life?

I so love what William Cullen Bryant wrote: “So live that when your summons comes to join the innumerable caravan which moves…to that mysterious realm where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death…You go not, like the quarry-slave at night, scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed…By an unfaltering TRUST, approach your grave like one that wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

Isn’t it sad that so many do not lie down to pleasant dreams but nightmares because there was or is no aspiration of the ascent to Heavenly Living?

FOURTH: THERE IS THE AFFIRMATION OF ASPIRATION TO THE APPROPRIATION AND ASSIMILATION OF YOUR GOD-APPOINTED AND GOD-ANOINTED SPIRITUAL GIFT AND MINISTRY! 1 Corinthians 14:1 says, “Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.” A prophetic ministry, yes, to a godless society around you? Did Paul say, “…desire spiritual gifts…”? It ought to be an all-consuming passion that through the Word and the Spirit YOU discover the spiritual motivation and direction of your life AS DEFINED BY GOD HIMSELF! Look at 1 Corinthians 12:11! “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”

How vital, how inspiring, how fulfilling, how challenging AND informative do you find Colossians 1:24-29? “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to HIS WORKING which works in me mightily.”

It was a thrilling statement Elizabeth Barrett Browning made many years ago! (Sonnets from the Portuguese, Number 26), “God’s gifts put man’s dreams to shame.” Yet many Christians are unaware of God’s giftings and seek to manufacture their own interpretation of what Christ would have them be and do!

Examine 1 Corinthians 12:7-10, 18-31:”But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. Verses 18-31, But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. NOW you are the body of Christ, and members individually. And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way.”

Chuck Swindoll, in his writing, “The Quest For Character,” (p.146) wrote: “Marbles or grapes, which will it be? Every congregation has a choice. You can choose to be a bag of marbles…independent, hard, loud, unmarked, and unaffected by others. Or you can be a bunch of grapes…fragrant, soft, blending, mingling, flowing into one another’s lives. Marbles are made to be counted and kept. Grapes are made to be bruised and used. Marbles scar and clank. Grapes yield and cling!” So true! Grapes make sweet wine – marbles bang around and make noise! What’s your life made of? Loud marbles or sweet wine?

FIFTH, WE’LL EXAMINE AFFIRMATION OF ASPIRATION TO AN ARRIVAL OF BEING WHERE AND WHAT GOD WANTS ME TO BE! Romans 15:22-24, 29, 32 says: “For this reason I also have been much hindered from coming to you. But now no longer having a place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come to you, whenever I journey to Spain, I shall come to you. For I hope to see you on my journey, and to be helped on my way there by you, if first I may enjoy your company for a while Verse 29, But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ, Verse 32, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you.”

Galatians 4:4 is also so uplifting and encouraging when Paul said, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, Verse 5, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Does ‘son or daughter of God’ intensify your love for and devotion to God’s intent for your life to be ‘the temple of His Holy Presence through Christ Jesus’?

GOD SENT FORTH HIS SON – right time, right place, right purpose! Listen to Jesus’ response in John 4:34 – “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” What is the “food” that you’re partaking of? The “food” of self-will or the “food” of the Master’s will? In John 5:30 Jesus said, “I can of Myself do nothing…I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” Then, in John 6:36, Jesus said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” And He said in John 10:18, “No one takes (My life) from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”

Do YOU understand the Gospel? Do you receive “adoption as sons”? Do you see walking on the basis of divine will – not fleshly likes and dislikes? Can you really say, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth, in my life, through Your sovereignly prescribed and gracious provision of Resurrection Life through Jesus, gracing me with His Life, His Purpose, His Plan of touching His world through His amazing love and eternal act of mercy through the Cross, with me taking His cross into my life as if I become anew Golgotha’s hill and His abode of Resurrection Presence? William Shakespeare, in Henry VIII, (Act 3, scene 2, line 456) wrote: “Had I but served God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies.” Oh, how much truth is in that poetry? Many serve themselves about where they’re going to be and what they’re going to do, rather than the will of God – and as a result, go “un-dressed” in one’s own way wherever “I” want to be, not knowing, before God, the faithless one has been stripped naked! Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Is your heart-cry, “Lord, I want to be exactly where You place me, want me, where I honor only You?”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

PERVERTED GRACE OR PERFECTING GRACE?

Barclay gave us an interesting translation of Jude 3-4 when he wrote: “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, and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

And when I read that, I saw the two camps of the false and true devotions, some to the dark cloud of perverted grace but others to the light of perfecting grace! Receiving a ‘twisted, perverted grace’ is the doorway to Hell itself, but true grace is, yes, the wide-open door to “new-birth in Christ” and an eternal home forever in His eternal temple or tabernacle!

One is either being deceived by a ‘cheap grace’ or is enlightened by “costly grace”! One is either walking in danger today with a ‘trifling grace’ or one walks in the blessed assurance and confidence with the treasures of “Amazing Grace” because he/she left all to follow Jesus!

Perverted grace allows compromise in ‘so-called’ Christians so one can maintain his/her fleshly, sinful, lustful, do-your-own thing ‘life’ (?) because, under their ‘grace’ which I call ‘grease’, they feel ‘justified’ in maintaining their fleshly desires, ambitions, and worldly acceptance of worldly friends! But perfecting grace is a ‘completing’ grace that, yes, demands we walk in Christ’s way, dying to the flesh and the old sin nature daily with power and victory because through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work alone one becomes “partakers of the divine nature.”

You do understand, you are aware, you are alert to the fact that there are those who “turn the grace of God into licentiousness”! In the Random House College Dictionary (Revised Edition, 1975 by Random House Inc.0 ‘licentiousness’ is defined as “sexually unrestrained, lewd, unrestrained by law or morality, lawless, immoral, going beyond customary or proper bounds or limits.” And, of course, you are aware of more than licentious, immoral sexual behavior, but even the reality of licentious spiritual behavior. No doubt this is what James wrote about when in James 4:4 he said, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?”

Is there an expectation of judgment from one’s surrender to ‘perverted grace’ and its consequence? In Hebrews 10:29-31 we read, “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.” But, thank God, one can be enlightened, convicted, turning from his/her wicked ways, repenting and resting in Jesus Only!

Before I take you to about ten truths on “perfecting grace”, I want to lay a strong foundation from Romans 6:15-23! It says: “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 OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves on uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. BUT NOW having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

FIRST, PERFECTING GRACE IS THE GRACE THAT UNVEILS THE CRUCIFIED CHRIST AND BRINGS MOURNING, SORROW, HEART-BREAK OVER WHAT YOUR SIN COST JESUS! In Zechariah 12:10-11a we read: “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Bedford, Texas, Cleveland, Tennessee, New York City, San Francisco, Ca., Brazil, Europe, Asia) the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be great mourning….”

Dare I tell you that I’m not sure if the ‘majority’ of the church in America knows ANYTHING about “a great mourning over sin and its consequence of the Crucified Christ!” But in Ephesians 2:7-10 Paul wrote: “…that in the ages to come He (God of mercy) 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.”

Hebrews 2:9 is just as clear! “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.”

SECOND, PERFECTING GRACE IS SAVING GRACE THAT BRINGS AND BLESSES ONE WITH THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS! Ephesians 1:7-8 tells us, “In Him (in Christ Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence…”

Do you remember Christ Jesus instituting the “Lord’s Supper” in Matthew 26:26-29? And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take eat, this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”

I’m sure that you remember John the Baptist’s introduction to God’s “Amazing Grace” through the sacrifice of His Son and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Luke 1:76-79 John the Baptist received Zacharias’ prophecy! “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people BY THE REMISSION OF THEIR SINS, Through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Glory!

Didn’t the beloved John say in 1 John 2:2, “And He Himself (Jesus Christ the righteous!) is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” Jesus’ death has brought forgiveness for every man’s sin? Absolutely! But it doesn’t mean they’ve been reconciled to God because most will accept forgiveness but reject Christ as Lord of their lives! In 1 Timothy 4:10 Paul wrote to Timothy saying, “For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe (or trust in, rely upon, adhere to!).”

THIRD, PERFECTING GRACE IS ‘INSTRUCTING GRACE’ THAT CALLS GOD’S TRUE SONS TO HOLY LIVING! And I can assure you most of the “professors of faith” will accept ‘forgiveness’ apart from declaring Jesus as Lord of their lives – they want to be forgiven but not “forged” into the very image and likeness of Christ!

In Titus 2:11-15a, Paul wrote to a spiritual son in his day and for those of us thousands of years later! “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself HIS OWN SPECIAL PEOPLE, zealous for good works. Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority.”

Oh, but then Paul extended his message about ‘the grace of God’ applying it to the daily ministry of all true sons and daughters! In Titus 3:1-8 Paul wrote: “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, TO OBEY, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. BUT when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, THROUGH THE WASHING OF REGENERATION AND RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, THAT HAVING BEEN JUSTIFIED BY HIS GRACE we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.”

FOURTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS THE LABOR OF LOVE THAT CAUSES MEN TO LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR OTHERS! In 1 Corinthians 15:9-11 Paul wrote: “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, AND HIS GRACE TOWARD 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 was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”

In Acts 4:33 Luke shares the foundation of true, victorious, successful, overcoming ministry of men like Peter and John. He wrote: “And WITH GREAT POWER the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.”

I’ve always in my ministry days loved, and still do, Oswald Chambers’ words in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest.” In one section he quoted Psalm 87:7 (P.B.V.), “All my fresh springs shall be in You, Lord.” Chambers then wrote: “Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues. “Put on the new man,” see that your natural human life puts on the garb that is in keeping with the new life. The life God plants in us develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience.”

In Jeremiah 29:11-13 the Lord spoke! “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” But, hear me! I’m convinced through the Word that IF one is not laying down his life for others, then he/she has settled for perverted grace, not perfecting grace!

FIFTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS COMMITMENT TO THE UNLIMITED OPPORTUNITY OF GRACE FOR EVERYONE, YES, EVEN IMPOWERMENT IN FULFILLING OUR CALLING! In Acts 11 Peter had gone up to Jerusalem to inspire how, yes, Gentiles could be saved as well as Jews. In Verses 15-17 we read, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, “John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?”

Now… in Verses 20-24, we see this never-changing opportunity of grace for everyone, even empowerment in fulfilling our calling! The Word says: “But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come up to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Then mews of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came and HAD SEEN THE GRACE OF GOD, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.”

SIXTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS GRACE THAT GIVES WARNING AND THE CALL TO JUDGMENT! Examine Acts 13:37-43! “…but He (Jesus) whom God raised up saw no corruption. Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you: ‘Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish! For I work a work in your days, a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you.’ SO…when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.” Dare I ask? I believe I will! “Do you preach, teach, live by “the grace of God”?

SEVENTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS GRACE THAT LEADS US AND LEAVES US WITH THE REMNANT OF ENCOURAGEMENT! In Ezra 9:8-9 we read: “And now for a little while GRACE has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. For we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage, but He extended mercy to us…”

Are you aware that God has ‘graced’ you with His divine nature if you’ve repented of your sins and sin nature and “rested” in the finished work of Christ at the Cross? In 2 Peter 1:2-4 we discover the true foundation of redemptive faith that insures our ‘home foundation of faith’ standing, even in and through ‘the storms of life’! It says: “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.”

We are not “illuminated versions” of the Resurrected Christ or “cheap imitations” molded by one’s creative imagination, but through repentance and faith in Him alone, we rest in His Resurrection Life, Power, and Hope, as temples, tabernacles, and as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:9, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building,” saying in Verse 16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” A disciple of Jesus Christ, a true disciple, a ‘born-again’ child of the King is fitted by God as the “vessel” in which Christ Jesus resides to be Himself in that vessel touching the world He loves with His grace and mercy!

EIGHTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS GRACE THAT SAYS WHAT JESUS SAYS! Psalm 45:1-2 says it so clearly, so convincingly, so comfortingly when the psalmist “sang”, “My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. You (Lord Jesus) are fairer than the sons of men; Grace is poured on Your lips; Therefore God has blessed You forever.”

And certainly there is no doubt about what Paul meant when in Colossians 4:6 he wrote: “But let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”

In Ephesians 4:29-32 Paul instructs us further! He said: “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

NINTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS REIGNING GRACE! Romans 5:20b-6:11 instructs us, “…But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:1-11! What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! (May it never be!). How shall we WHO DIED TO SIN LIVE ANY LONGER IN IT? Or do you not know that as many of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that WE SHOULD NO LONGER BE SLAVES OF SIN. For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe 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.” Are YOU ‘ruined’ or are YOU “reigning in and through Christ Jesus”?

TENTH AND LAST FOR THIS CHAPTER: PERFECTING GRACE IS GIFTING GRACE! In Ephesians 4:7-8 Paul tells us: “But to each one of us (in Christ) grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says: ‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.” What an awesome declaration of Redemptive Faith and Grace! He equips us all to fulfill His continuing ministry in our world today!

There’s not a day that passes that allows us to lean on ourselves or to choose for ourselves what we think might please God the Father. How sad is that delusion? God is interested IN YOU being His chosen vessel of the “new man in Christ”! It’s clear and it’s best that you understand and comprehend that your “old man, old sin and sin-nature” was CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST

Oswald Chambers wrote in his famous book, “My Utmost For His Highest” (p.271), “The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but remnants of what God created man to be. We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people in the service of God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them, depending on what they have by the accident of heredity…But as we bring every bit of our bodily life into harmony with the new life which God has put in us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus…”And every virtue we possess IS HIS ALONE!” AMEN?

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

THE CALL TO HOLINESS

In Hebrews 12:14-17 we find a strong challenge for the peace of God and true holiness! It says: “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully, lest anyone should fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness spring up causes trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.”

Be assured! Holy God, before the foundation of the earth, prepared the Way for sinful men to return to Him! In Isaiah 35:8 the prophet has heard about “preparing the Way of the Lord”! He said, “a highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness,” with Verse 9b saying, “But the redeemed shall walk there.” That’s the “blood-bought” purchased by the “blood of the Lamb of God!

Revelation 21 speaks about ‘the holy city, the New Jerusalem’, and most see that as a ‘last days’ location, but true kingdom living IS “the holy city, New Jerusalem, the true tabernacle of God with men, yes, Him dwelling with them, in them, through them, and they learn He’s THERE”, Revelation 21:5, sitting on His throne in the repentant heart, saying, “Behold, I make all things new”, with John saying, And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”

How many times does God have to say something for it to be true, to you? In 1 Peter 1:13-21 Peter is enlightening, encouraging, and hopefully empowering disciples by Biblical Truth and the Holy Spirit to live the overcoming life of holiness and godly witnessing. He said: “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober (or serious-minded!), and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation (or unveiling) of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44).

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 and 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.”

Back to Hebrews 12! Especially examine Verses 14-15! “Pursue peace, follow after peace, AND holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.”

“Pursuing or following after” is to be an intense pursuit with great strength and character of life. It’s a WORD PICTURE! Consider the picture of an animal stalking another animal in order to sustain life! Picture a man in the Olympics running a race, striving with every muscle of his body to win! In Luke 13:24-27 Jesus shared “striving to enter” the Kingdom of God! He said, spurred by one’s inquiry, “Lord, are there few who are saved?”

And He said to them, “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.’”

“Pursue peace”! In Christ, we are to be ‘peace’ creators, designers, makers, models of “the peace of God that passes all understanding!” It doesn’t say ‘blessed are those who allow peace’; it doesn’t say ‘blessed are those thank God for the possibility of peace’; BUT blessed are those who initiate peace proceedings in every situation. Are YOU a peacemaker?

“Pursue peace and “HOLINESS” without which no man will see the Lord!” So… the FIRST STRONG POINT I WANT TO MAKE IS ‘WHAT HOLINESS IS NOT!’ It’s so easy to be misled about ‘a holy life or holy walk’! There’s about 36 things I want to expose that are not ‘true holiness’!

• Holiness is not ‘following Jesus’: Judas did that and many others ‘followed’ Jesus, but they were not ‘holy people’! Oh, maybe ‘religious’ but not “re-born”! There’s a difference between ‘following’ and “following After”!
• Holiness is not ‘a profession of faith’: There are some who believe that if one makes a profession of faith that it guarantees holiness. It isn’t true In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, BUT HE WHO DORES THE WILL OF MY FATHER in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders if Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
• It isn’t being ‘religious’: Saul of Tarsus was a religious man and after his conversion preached on Mars Hill in Athens and said to the Athenians: “I perceive among all men that you are most religious,” but they weren’t saved or “born-again”! ‘Religious doesn’t mean saved or holy!
• It doesn’t mean having a good and godly parentage! There was a priest in the Old Testament named Eli. He had two sons, Hophini and Phinehas. In fact those 2 sons caused the people of God under Eli to despise offerings to the Lord. Eli was godly – his sons were not! (Check 1 Samuel 3:11-14!).
• Salvation in Christ doesn’t mean religious zeal working with religious frenzy! Paul in Romans 10 speaking of some Israelites said: 10:2, “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” The Bible declares that prophets of Baal walked about in a religious frenzy but weren’t right with God. It isn’t how high one jumps but how straight he walks when he comes down, inspired by Jesus alone! Religious intensity doesn’t mean holiness unto the Lord!
• It doesn’t mean attempting to live a morally clean life, an upright life. Do you remember the rich young ruler? Check Luke 18:18-23! “All these things I have kept from my youth up,” and Jesus didn’t rebuke him for that statement. He may well have done so, but “closeness to is not membership in the Holy Family of God! Ever you ever heard said, “That man was such a good man”? But is “goodness” the prerequisite of being “born again”?
• It doesn’t mean keeping good company: Demas kept good company. Diotrephes kept good company. Judas kept good company. 1 Corinthians 5 speaks of a member of the Corinthian church, yet he lived in incest.
• It does not mean to possess innate ability or talent: Tradition says Herod the Great had tremendous ability as an administrator, but he wasn’t holy!
• It does not mean to have a high position in religious affairs: Consider Caiaphas! High-positioned leaders at times have been exposed as “low-lives”
• It does not mean one is “holy” because he/she has a knowledge of Scripture: One could have memorized it from cover to cover, but it doesn’t Mean: “Shazam! I’m now holy!” Many of the scribes of Jesus’ day memorized the entire Old Testament, but that didn’t guarantee ‘holiness’!
• It does not mean one is holy because one knows what a great and horrible sinner he is. Many believe that and have not been “saved” or “born again”! In James 1:23-24 the brother of Jesus nailed it! He said, “For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”
• It does not mean one is holy because he is “sorry for my sins”: Judas was sorry for his sins, but wasn’t holy! (Matthew 27:1-5!)
• It does not mean that one is holy even if he/she admits that Jesus is the Son of God and even sinless – Pilate believed that!
• It does not mean one is holy is he joins a church and its ministries! Again, Judas did that and partook of the Lord’s Supper – but he was not saved or holy!
• It does not mean one is holy if he holds a position of leadership in the church. The world assumes that if you’re some kind of church leader, you must be some kind of virtuous person, but remember Judas was treasurer of the first church!
• It does not mean holy if one gives money to God’s works! How perilous do you find ‘stealing’ from God? In Acts 5 you’ll find Ananias and his wife Sapphira conspiring to hold back a portion of what they knew God wanted in their giving! Ananias and Sapphira both fell down dead after being confronted by Peter.
• It does not mean ‘holy working for God’! You’ve heard it said: “He’s a worker, and that could be seen as commendable, even worthy, but it doesn’t guarantee holiness! In Acts 8:17-21 we find, after the Apostles had prayed for some to receive the Holy Spirit, an interesting confrontation! Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. “
• It does not mean ‘holy’ preaching! Saul, in the Old Testament was considered a ‘prophet’, but he was not “saved”!
• It does not mean one is holy because he/she allows himself/herself to hear good sermons! Agrippa and Felix heard some of the greatest sermons ever preached but it didn’t make them holy!
• It does not mean one is holy if he/she lives in good surroundings: Adam and Eve were in a paradise but lost!
• It does not mean salvation has arrived because someone had ‘a special religious experience. Balaam, in the Old Testament, had a great religious experience. Saul, again, had a religious experience. There are those who think if they experience some mysterious, marvelous, magical experience that “I must be holy.”
• It does not mean great ecclesiastical heritage! But the Pharisees and Sadducees had that!
• It does not mean the ‘influence’ of a positive nature in one’s community: Nicodemus had that: He had been “a ruler of the Jews”!
• It does not necessarily mean spiritual gifts and abilities: We think the man must be ‘holy’ when in Romans 11:29 we read, “For the gifts and callings of God are without repentance.”
• It does not mean men are holy because they ‘pray’ al the time: Many men many ‘religious’ men of various faiths pray, even ALL THE TIME! Jesus told the Pharisees: “You wear me out praying all the time.” It doesn’t mean one is holy!
• It doesn’t mean one is holy even if he/she believes God is answering all their prayers: God answered Cornelius’ prayers before he’d even been saved, that is, that’s what Cornelius thought – but the Bible says that He “rains on the just and the unjust.” The blessings of God come on all kinds of persons. Many even think: “Why, I couldn’t be so blessed or as successful as I am if I were not holy!” Not so!
• It does not mean one is holy because he “fasts”! Would it be an evidence of holiness if I fasted one day a week, or 3 days a week, or 40 days straight? The Pharisees fasted two days every week! No food at all those two days.
• It does not mean one is holy by ‘alms giving’: Cornelius did that.
• It does not mean one is holy is he has a good reputation among religious leaders. Micaiah the prophet had that!
• It does not mean one is holy if he holds to a belief in God: “I believe in God”, along with “the devils believe, and they tremble!” (James 2:19).
• It does not mean one is holy if he/she is a possessor of magical or occult powers! Jannes and Jambrees in the Old Testament had tremendous powers. Do you remember the young ‘damsel’ in Acts 16 who had the spirit of divination who “brought her masters much gain by soothsaying”? The ‘occult’ is not of God, the demonic is not divine! It is not holiness!
• It does not mean one is holy even if they have ‘the bent’ to cast out demons! In Acts 19, Sceva and the seven sons who were exorcists, cast out demons, but they weren’t ‘holy men’! Acts 19:14.
• It doesn’t mean one is holy if he/she participates in ‘holy ascetism’ (which is denying one’s bodily appetites) which the Pharisees did often! The Essenes did that. Even men in India do that regularly! In Micah 6:6-7 we read Micah saying, “With what shall I come to the Lord? Should I give the fruit of my body for the sins of my soul? Shall I sacrifice my child? Will God be pleased with that?” And the answer? “NO!”
• It doesn’t mean holy ritual righteousness! The Pharisees were known by it, continually ‘nose-deep’ in religious ritual, dressing out in fancy regalia, easily identifiable as they walked the streets!
• It doesn’t mean one is an inheritor of great, religious privileges, many saying, “My grandfather was saved, my father was saved, so surely I’m saved.” That’s horrible logic!
• It does not mean “holy religious followings”! “Oh, he’s got thousands following him! He must be a man of God!” In Acts 5 Judas “had it”, Theadas had it, Jim Jones fed ‘poison’ to followers in Guyuna who ‘had it’! There ARE “religious sorts” or “the blind leading the blind” and both wind up in Hell’s ditches! THAT IS NOT WHAT HOLINESS MEANS! A ‘following’ doesn’t mean holiness! THAT OFTEN IS WHAT HOLINESS IS NOT!!

Now, many times, if a man IS holy, signs will follow in his life! But it doesn’t guarantee that if a man has one or two or a dozen that it helps him to “see the Lord”! WHAT DOES IT MEAN? The definition of “HOLY” in the Word? It’s a state of being set apart TO God, that is, an act, by God, first of all, resulting in a state which results in a process! An act of God becomes a state or condition in my life that is then evidenced by the ‘activity of the demons’ that I am one set apart to the glory of God!

But holiness is not and cannot be simply an acts of God! It is not and cannot be simply the state of mind in which I exist! It MUST BE the act, the state, the process, or the activity of ‘holiness’ coming to fruition and maturity in my life, “completing” and “perfecting” and “surrendering daily to His Indwelling Presence! Let’s LOOK at “HOLINESS”!

FIRST, HOLINESS IS AN ACT OF GOD SETTING YOU APART FOR SPECIAL SERVICE TO HIS HONOR, GLORY, AND PRAISE! There’s a simple New Testament picture to show that! Consider “Hagiasmos”, a potter taking moist clay and making several vessels, puts them into the ‘kiln’, their dried, then he sets them out to sell. Let’s say 4 come to the Maker:

A man comes along: “I want one bowl of water to water my garden”; a woman comes along: “I want one bowl to cook dinner in”; another comes along wanting one bowl as a decorative ornament in my home;” the priest comes saying, “I had a pot in the Temple, broken, and I need another!” He buys it, takes it to the temple, consecrates it to the glory of God, the Lord, and it can’t be used for anything else!

NOW… the world is filled with vessels God made! There are many lives lived for different reasons. But God comes along to you! He comes along today to say to you, “I want you for Myself!” He confers upon you His Holiness! “YOU ARE MINE” and you are stamped and sealed by the grace of God! It’s not worked up, but it becomes eternal reality by the grace of God! YOU can’t create an act of holiness – it’s the “gift” of God. You can’t win it – God claimed your victory in and through the Cross! That means at least three things as I see it:

• The act of being made holy is that you must come to God as He has come to you, and be made willing to be set apart for His purpose, His plan. There IS decision involved on your part. “Do I want to exist ONLY for the glory of God alone?” And God is the ONLY One in the universe that can confer holiness upon anything or anyone! In the Bible holiness was never conferred upon anything by any human! If we were able to get millions and millions of people together in one place, and they decided, “Farrell Fisher is an OK-guy – let’s confer holiness upon him!”, how foolish is that? We couldn’t confer holiness any more than in our own power gather at a cemetery to resurrect the dead! “In our power – Rise!” How foolish is that?
• I must come and deal with God personally – when in truth HE COMES TO ME! Some of you may have a grandchild, a great grandchild, a great, great grandchild…But God has no grandchildren – He only has first generation children. You’re either His as He deals directly with you or you’re not His by YOUR choice, surrender, and yieldedness!
• One must come, respond to Him personally according to God’s terms! If one is in an orphanage – a truly, dependent child – and someone comes along and says, “I want to adopt you, love you, care for you, meet your needs,” that child doesn’t lay down terms of the adoption – all the child can say is: “All I have to comment to you is my need as a child to be loved and cared for.” And on the terms of adoptive parents, the child is adopted, setting him/her apart, like the ACT of holiness by which God chooses us, on His terms!

SECOND, HOLINESS IS ‘A STATE OF LIFE’ OF THOSE WHO BY REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD AND FAITH IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST HAVE ‘ROYSLTY’ CONFERRED UPON THEM AND THEREBY ARE DECLARED BY GOD AS HIS SONS OR DAUGHTERS! That’s what it is!

Shakespeare, in the “Twelfth Night”, had a great statement: “Some men are born to greatness, (born into royalty). Others achieve greatness while others have greatness thrust upon them.” IF YOU are ever great in God’s eyes, it will not be because you were born into it, achieved it, but because God Himself graciously conferred it upon you! He thrust it upon You! An Act of God and a state of His graciousness!

THIRD, HOLINESS IS A PROCESS BY WHICH ONE DEMONSTRATES HE HAS BEEN SET APART BY GOD HIMSELF! One is able to interpret the ‘state’ and ‘act’ of holiness by the life one lives. And someone says, “Prove it!” There is a rule in the Greek language which Jesus used: Every noun in Greek language that ends in ‘SMOS’ always speaks of process. That’s the way it is! This word, HAGIASMOS, IS process!

That is an in-working, graciously of God, but not valid, not real, if it’s not the OUTWORKING OF HOLINESS WHICH IS, ALWAYS HAS BEEN, MUST BE THE RESULT OF A TRUE BELIEVER’S UNION WITH JESUS CHRIST! “In Christ” one shares His nature, consenting to be ruled by it! “Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, but you do not do what I say?” In 2 Peter 1:2-4 Peter tells us: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, AS HIS divine power has been 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.”

In 1 Peter 1:13-16 Peter had already challenged those under his influence saying, “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober (serious-minded), and rest your hope upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation (or unveiling) of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’” And that is not for a ‘special breed’ of Christians, preachers, evangelists, or priests’ – the nature of salvation is both sharing Christ’s nature and the willingness to be ruled by that divine nature! And the paradox? It’s already been done if you’re ‘saved’ or ‘born again’!

1 Corinthians 6:11 says: “And such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” But also: 11 Corinthians 7:1 declares: “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” “Perfecting”? How? ONLY IS, you are pursuing what is already perfected in your life ! The worldly say, “Handsome is as handsome does,” while God says, “Handsome does as handsome is!” One is not saved ‘by good works’ but ‘good works’ are because one has been saved! We don’t progress into holiness, we progress inside and because of the God-implanted declaration and liberty of ‘graced holiness’! It’s weird for some, but the ‘goal’ stands, not at the end of the Christian track of faith but in its beginning! “Fisher, you’re saved, redeemed, sanctified, holy, a winner, a champion of Christ – go, let Him be Himself through you 0- you’re already the ‘winner’ in the Race of Faith!

Let me wrap this chapter up! “How, as a believer, do I respond to great, unchanging, never-ending Truth? 1) It is in the imperative mood! God says: “You must follow holiness without which you won’t see Me!” Some think it’s an elective in the Christian life or an option. But the Word says, “You be holy…!” 2) It is a present active imperative: Keep on keeping on! When, or if, does a man graduate from the school of holiness? NEVER does a man graduate from the school of holiness! 3) Pursue IN the actual state AND PROCESS! What if one doesn’t pursue or follow after holiness? IT MEANS THEY’VE NEVER BEEN “BORN AGAIN”! If there is no outworking of holiness there was never a previous in-working! 4) The world will never understand you if you start pursuing holiness like the Bible speaks about! In 1 John 2:15-17 we read, “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 was William Gurnall who once said: “Do not claim that you are begotten of God and have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove lineage by THIS heroic spirit – “To dare to be holy in spite of men and devils!” Amen?

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

THE GLORIOUS MINISTRY OF “CHRIST IN YOU”!

There are extremely interesting, convicting, and motivating words from Psalm 25:12 when David wrote and sang: “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way He chooses.” But how many do you know, some even in the church, who say: “Do as God says? No, I’m created, birthed, living, to DO AS I PLEASE!” There are ‘worlds of folk’ who are on a path of seeking only their own fleshly will and fleshly purpose without any consideration of the God who made them, lost them, and even went so far as to make a “blood-purchase for their freedom, identity, and eternal purpose”!

If there is a path of ‘self-purpose’, just remember that those folks are on the path of seeking great things for themselves without any consideration of God’s eternal intent! Self-centered interest in only clouds, only ‘drives’, only personal ambitions and determinations of “What I choose to be about,” creates human, selfish, and devil-driven barriers to the will of God for one’s life! Some are so intent on ‘self-driven’ ambitions and dreams that their ears are closed to the eternal intent of God through Christ!

In Colossians 1:24-29 Paul unveils “the glorious ministry of “Christ in YOU”! He wrote: “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. TOTHEM God willed to make known what are the riches of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” SOMEDAY OR IN THE HERE AND NOW?

Have you, as a professing believer or devout ‘church member’ ever considered your holy calling as the chosen representative of the King of kings and Lord of lords, that YOU are Holy God’s earthly but saved and sanctified “stepping stone” between fallen men and the Loving Savior and Lord, that YOU, washed in the blood of the Lamb and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, are being transformed from your earthly body and existence to the very Temple and Tabernacle of Christ Jesus, a Holy House in which the Resurrected Savior and Lord has made His dwelling place, yet the day came with Christ had to confront the ‘pretenders’ of His day, saying, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it into a den of thieves!”

I love what Oswald Chambers said in his famous book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.233), “It is not the strength of one man’s personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through the elements of the worker’s life.” So true!

I was amazed and inspired as I read Max Lucado’s “Introduction” to his book, “In the Grip of Grace”. He said: My only qualification for writing a book on grace is the clothing I wear. Let me explain. For years I owned an elegant suit complete with coat, trousers, even a hat.. I considered myself quite dapper in the outfit and was confident others agreed.

The pants were cut from the cloth of my good works, sturdy fabric of good deeds done and projects completed. Some studies here, some sermons there. Many people complimented my trousers, and I confess, I tended to hitch them up in public so people would notice them.

The coat was equally impressive. It was woven together from my convictions. Each day I dressed myself in deep feelings of religious fervor. My emotions were quite strong. So strong, in fact, that I was often asked to model my cloak of zeal in public gatherings to inspire others. Of course I was happy to comply.

While there I’d also display my hat, a feathered cap of knowledge. Formed with my own hands from the fabric of personal opinion, I wore it proudly. “SURELY GOD IS IMPRESSED WITH MY GARMENTS,” I often thought. Occasionally I strutted into his presence so he could compliment the self-tailored wear. He never spoke. “His silence must mean admiration,” I was convinced.

But then my wardrobe began to suffer. The fabric of my trousers grew thin. My best works started coming unstitched. I began leaving more undone than done, and what little I did was nothing to boast about. “No problem,” I thought. “I’ll work harder.”

But working harder WAS a problem. There was a hole in my coat of convictions. My resolve was threadbare. A cold wind cut into my chest. I reached up to pull my hat down firmly, and the brim ripped off in my hands.

Over a period of a few months, my wardrobe of self-righteousness completely unraveled. I went from tailored gentlemen’s apparel to beggars’ rags. Fearful that God might be angry at my tattered suit, I did my best to stitch it together and cover my mistakes. But the cloth was so worn. And the wind was so icy. I gave up. I went back to God. (Where else could I go?).”

Do YOU know anything about being absorbed in “fleshly thoughts, fleshly ambitions, fleshly dreams, in self-absorbed traps and cycles that continue downward in diminishing appreciation or fulfillment” when you were convinced by the world, the flesh, and the devil that this is where “living” is really at its best, when ‘flesh, the old sin-nature, the worldly mind’ is the smartest, but then there’s the bottom of godlessness, the bottom of fleshly ‘fantasies’, the bottom of fleshly fulfillment which IS fleshly nothingness!

I challenge you to begin reflecting upon ‘world religions’, considering Jews, or the Hindus I ministered to in India, or the masses of Muslims worldwide, or the Buddhists, or the Catholics, the Mormons, or even the Protestants, or the “branched-off sects” of them all! And, then, would you dare say that “in them all, there may be a few who’ve found, rested in, been transformed into the true family of God in Christ alone”? I believe it’s possible! I’ve asked my wife, Sue, to give you the story of Anna Kellerman before I carry you further into “The Glorious Ministry of Christ IN YOU!” Ms. Kellerman told her story to my Baylor classmate and Baylor football teammate in the mid to late 1950’s, Dr. Bill Anderson, former pastor for 26 years at Calvary Baptist, Clearwater, Florida. Receive this amazing unveiling of a changed heart and life by God’s grace and mercy! Tell it, Sue!

There is NO WAY you can look upon the modern religious world and convince yourself, “Any religion will do, or all ‘faiths’ are certainly valid, or like Shirley Maclaine used to say, sadly, “I am God!” No she’s not, and neither are you or me!

I was reading Kurt Bruner’s book recently entitled “Inklings of God”. In Chapter 22 he spoke about “My first encounter occurs in a spiritual community called “astara” located in Upland, California. (He was seeking to evaluate, understand “spiritual communities” seeking, truly, to extend the Lordship of Christ if possible!) Bruner said that “the tranquility of the environment fades as I read the brochure describing the kinds of “spiritual exploration” hosted here,” (p.165), but then one page later he began reading what they hosted and encouraged: (www.astara.org.),

“People from all faiths study esoteric teachings and mystic philosophy through Astara. You may maintain membership in any religion and still become Astarian. This is a way to explore life’s most personal and meaningful treasures. If you want the mystical wisdom of the ages, if you want to express hidden potential of mind and Higher Self, you may be very near the answers to your desires. If you seek enlightenment, healing for body and soul, new inspiration and aspiration, you may find the realization of your personal goals and dreams through Astara, a place of light, a lodestar on the true path of the soul.”

Bruner asked the “host lady” if she could help him understand a few things because he had a major project for a class he was attending. He had a few questions he wanted her to answer – she was willing! 1) How would you describe God? 2) Who is Jesus? 3) What is wrong with our world? 4) How do we find salvation? He wanted her to answer or compare her ‘faith’ to his clear explanation! She said: 1. God is not a personal, loving father. He/She/It is the cosmic oneness we all inhabit.

2 Jesus is not God in the flesh. He is one of many enlightened ones who invite us to discover our higher selves. 3. Ours is not a world of fallen, sinful men and women. Ours is a world of men and women who have forgotten their true goodness – and their true goodness. 4. Salvation is not through faith in Christ. It is through higher consciousness.

I hate to be the one to tell you, but our God, our Holy Bible, our true promise of salvation in Christ alone, “finds few who find the only Way, the only Truth, or the only Life” – your battle with true, redemptive faith, always revolves around what God has said, what God has done in and through Christ, not a ‘religious world’s vast numbers of opinions’! This is why in 1 John 1:5-10 we read what John wrote, which unveils, yes, the one and only way to be reconciled to God:

“This IS the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him 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. If we say we have no sin (when we do) we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned (when we have!), we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

Walter Chantry, Pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, had a book published by “The Banner of Truth Trust” initially in 1970 with a number of years following of ‘fresh’ printings entitled “Today’s Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic?” He wrote: ‘If only all Bible-believing people join together, the world will sit up and listen,’ thinks the church (in this modern day!). Let’s merge our mission boards to pool our funds and our personnel. Let’s join giant evangelistic projects. If every evangelical joins in a common organization, we can have greater depth of evangelism. Thus organizational unity becomes the aim of Gospel churches…Having accepted the theory that unity is all-important for world evangelism, both the church and the individual must lower their estimate of the value of truth. In a large congress on evangelism we could not insist on a truth of God’s Word that would offend ‘any’ brother evangelical. THUS we must find the lowest common denominator to which all born-again Christians hold. The rest of the Bible will be labelled ‘unessential’ for missions. After all unity (among Christians) is more essential than doctrinal preciseness.” Chantry is a brave pastor! He’s not afraid to expose modern-day ‘church’ stupidity and denial of even Christ’s own words in His day! Repentance toward God and faith in Christ alone has become “doubts” in a large segment of the professing church in America!

Consider what the ‘modern-day church’ accepts today, evidenced by what a lot of ill-informed pastors and leaders who ‘twist’ truth to shallow the eternal Truth! The most unimportant theme of many ‘preachers’ and ‘teachers’ that got Paul killed in his day was, like Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” And you preach the necessity of personally dying daily that Christ’s Resurrection Life may be manifested in you – and many in the ‘church-world today will label you a ‘lunatic’!

The ‘modern-day church’? There’s no emphasis about ‘death to self,’ ‘death to one’s indulgence in sin,’ or ‘ death to the ‘old man’, or ‘death to a fallen world’s devotion to its failing allegiance of no surrender to the Sovereignty of God’! Even most ‘church folk’ don’t know that their ‘old man’ was crucified with Christ, therefore, sin can’t be rejected, only accepted, and that without consequences! I call that ‘phony bologna’!

But, thank God, in Colossians 3:3, Paul wrote: “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” “Hidden with Christ IN GOD?” The psalmist, in Psalm 91, wrote: “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High SHALL ABIDE UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ALMIGHTY. I will say of the Lord, “He is my REFUGE AND FORTRESS; My God, in Him I will trust.” Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; HIS TRUTH shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look and see the reward of the wicked. BECAUSE you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, YOUR DWELLING PLACE, No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways!”

Are YOU “hidden with Christ”? Is Holy God your Refuge and Fortress? Martin Luther wrote the old, the golden, the marvelous truth of “A Mighty Fortress”! I reflected upon it from “The Broadman Hymnal” of 1940, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn.! It says: “A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe Does seek to work us woe; His craft and power are great, And, armed with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing, Were not the right Man on our side, The Man of God’s own choosing. Do you ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth is His name, From age to age the same, And He must win the battle.”

And though this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God has willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim – We tremble not at him; his rage we can endure, For lo! His doom is sure: One little word shall fell him.

That Word above all earthly powers – No thanks to them – abideth; (But) The Spirit and the gifts are ours Through Him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also; the body they may kill; God’s truth abides us still, His Kingdom is forever.” Can YOU say, “Amen! Glory to God alone – our Victor, our Overcomer, our Mighty Conqueror, our Lord the bulwark never failing?”

What a “Victory in Jesus” to be transformed by the grace and mercy of God from the ‘old man’ to the “new man in Christ”, translated out of darkness into Eternal Light, taken from control of the powers of darkness to the power of His never-ending Life!

God, our Savior, is the Giver of Eternal Life! God, our Redeemer, has washed away all guilt of sin and set the captives free! God, our Master-Teacher, guides us only into All Truth! God, our Protector, IS the Master-Defender of our Life and Faith! God, our Author of Redeemed Life and Over-coming Faith leads us through the shadows of death and darkness into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Yes!

In Romans 8:35-39 Paul sings the Anthem of Praise to God’s everlasting love, faithful mercy, and unending watch-care! He said: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I close this chapter with Charles Wesley and John Zundel’s old hymn entitled “Love Divine”, (From the old “American Hymnal” published by “Broadman Press”, Nashville, Tenn., copyrighted by Robert Coleman in 1933!). The hymn says:

Love divine, all love excelling, Joy of heaven, to earth come down! Fix in us Your humble dwelling; All Your faithful mercies crown. Jesus, You are all compassion, Pure, unbounded love you are; Visit us with Your salvation; Enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe Your loving Spirit Into every troubled breast! Let us all in You inherit, Let us find that second rest. Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be; End of faith as its beginning, Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver, Let us all Your life receive; Suddenly return, and never, Nevermore Your temples leave: You we would be always blessing, Serve You as Your hosts above, Pray, and praise You without ceasing, Glory in Your perfect love.

Finish then Your new creation; Pure and spotless let us be; Let us see Your great salvation, Perfectly restored in Thee; Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before You, Lost in wonder, love , and praise.” AMEN!

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

SELF-MADE ‘STARS’ OR SOVEREIGN-ORDAINED SERVANTS?

I don’t know how aware YOU are concerning the discouragement and disenchantment and doubt and even disgust that unbelieving, ‘Self-Made Stars’ live with in the real world, in the privacy of their own hearts, in their efforts at pleasure with no eternal rewards filled and overflowing with ‘sorrow’ in the inner man, refusing to look to the Holy God who made them, lost them, and paid the eternal price of death on Calvary’s Cross in order to bring them to the awareness, “I’m loved by God!”

Self-Made ‘Stars’, though ‘rich’ in self-approval, are bankrupt concerning “rest in the will of God for their lives”. The “riches of self-consciousness” breeds ‘self-doubt’, and ‘self-doubt’ breeds reckless abandonment to the world’s ways, striving desperately to find meaning, purpose, and reward in life, but without faith in God they remain in a hopeless cycle of unbelief and despair, holding contempt for those who’ve forsaken ALL to follow Jesus!

Don’t you find it alarming, yet illuminating, to hear Jesus call the ‘world of unbelievers’ “heathen”? Follow Matthew 6: 7-8, followed by His Masterful prayer in Verses 9-11! Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:

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

But “self-made stars” are out to promote themselves and establish their own, little, fleshly kingdom! Theirs is “my kingdom, my will, my fleshly desires, my power, and my glory”, ending in a godless life void of the goodness, mercy, love, and divine intent of Holy God! And in a world of ‘self-absorbed indulgence’, always seeking a “bigger kick than the last,” always yielding to one’s fleshly wishes and whims, benignly imprisoned in love with one’s old sin nature, blindly unwilling to “see spiritual realities and consequences,” blinded to the spiritual realities and bound to fleshly indulgences, a person or persons avoids “saving Grace” or “sovereign mercies”!

It was William Shakespeare who once wrote: “He jests at scars who never felt a wound.” ‘Self-made stars’ are reproductions of Budzisewski’s comment in his writing “Revenge” when he said: “Disbelieving in God was a good way to get back at Him for the various things which predictably went wrong in my life,” not receiving the Lord Jesus’ words in John 16:33 when He said, “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.”

It’s interesting to me that Old Testament saints understood trouble or tribulation or tormenting situations were divine opportunities for God to be Himself as He sheltered, watched over, or cared for His own. In Psalm 28:6-9 David’s song was, “Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplications! The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him. The Lord is their strength, And He is the saving refuge of His anointed. Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance; Shepherd them also, and bear them up forever.”

How familiar are you with Isaiah 53? It ought to be consumed by you every day for a week, several times a day! But Isaiah said in Verse 3-6, unveiling Christ, “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. BUT He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace WAS UPON HIM, and BY HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” saying also in Verse 11b, “By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.”

But, you are aware, most of a nation’s people, birthed into life with the nature of sin, are totally unaware of that nature or its absence of a pressing need to be reconciled to God. Most assume a rational education of the “self” is sufficient without an awareness of the fact of sin, or that it’s fruit IS spiritual death, assuming one can rule over his sin nature without a heart-change! Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” wrote: (p.127), “If sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is no possible ultimate but that. The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will be true in your history and mine. In our mental outlook we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin as the only explanation as to why Jesus Christ came, and as the explanation of the grief and sorrow in life.”

Do you think what you’ve been reading may alert you to follow Paul’s direction in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5? “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, CASTING DOWN ARGUMENTS AND EVERY HIGH THING THAT EXALTS ITSELF AGAINST THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ!”

‘Self-Made Stars’? ‘Self-assertiveness’ is shouldered by truly believing that if you fight for what’s right, if one stresses his ‘goodness’, or if he/she exalts independence, they’re OK, without awareness ‘OK-NESS’ is not Godliness! “Self-made stars” are in love with themselves, with their lusts, and with their godless affections! But if Christ Jesus has declared, still declares, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest”, “Come to Me, and I will see you completed”, or “Come to Me, and I will give you the gift of eternal life,” most aren’t even aware of the disintegration of their lives by the worldly, by the sin-nature control, or by the devilish and demonic activity of the powers of darkness! Apart from salvation in and through Christ, fallen mankind, alienated and separated from God, is fully, sinfully, and morally void or conscious of the need of “Blood Redemption”!

‘Self-Made Stars’? That’s lives seduced about ‘the light in me’, which Jesus says is nothing more than ‘spiritual darkness’, independently ‘living unto myself’, unaware God wanted me for His glory, His honor, and His praise! They live to satisfy themselves! They live void of Holy Revelation, like Paul saying in Galatians 1:15-16, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME…!” And can’t you hear it? “Well, that may have been for Paul, but that’s not God’s plan for every life” even when we know the Word declares: “Christ in you the hope of glory” – and that’s for every born-again believer!

‘Self-Made Stars’? Didn’t Peter tells us about “They stumble ( fall, alienated from God), being disobedient to the Word, to which they also were appointed.” God has a plan, God has a purpose, God has a Voice, and God speaks to ALL Humanity as He pleases! But His call is never to congratulate your fallen nature, seeking to use what killed His Son – No! His call is to expose, enlighten your deadly sinful nature within you, and awaken you to His amazing grace! But if one’s plan of ‘stardom’ in his own fleshly ‘show’ without the consciousness of one’s need to be reconciled to God, “new birth, new life, new purpose” will never be born or birthed in them by the grace and mercy of God!

Jesus said in John 6:63-64, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh (the old sin-nature) profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”

‘Self-Made Stars’? Sin is the signature of a ‘self-made star’! ‘Self-made stars’ sin and fall short of the glory of God! ‘Self-made stars’, rather than humbling themselves under the mighty hand of God, live proudly, arrogantly, defilingly, deficiently, even senselessly, spiritually unconscious, and “certainly unaccountable to a supposed God who rules my world”! Proud ‘sinners’ are arrogant defiers of God’s declarations concerning them, certain they can ‘palliate’ (which means ‘an attempt to mitigate or conceal the gravity of offenses by excuses’), or ‘relief without a curing’!

In Walter L. Carson’s writing entitled “Interpretation” he said: “Sin is twisting and distorting out of its proper shape a human personality which God designed to be a thing of beauty and a joy forever.” Theodore Dalrymple, British psychiatrist, authored a book entitled “Life At The Bottom” (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001, p.5). In it he dealt with the false ideas, “There is no God!” He wanted to expose the error and hypocrisy of “No need of a God!” And certainly he exposed no accountability, no concern, or no foundation for choosing wrong with consequences or choosing right with consequences! He said: “The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong…Implicitly they disagree with Bacon’s famous dictum that ‘chiefly the mold of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.’ Instead they experience themselves as putty in the hands of fate.”

And, sadly, ‘self-made stars’ are ‘fleshly oriented’ with no interest in the things of a Biblical or Spirit-nature! For them, there is no interest in Christ’s crucifixion because they have no desire for the enlightenment that He died for their sin! Some truly understand, while the majority just don’t want to know, having nothing to do with or the slightest interest in His crucifixion with them, crucified with Him to put to death their old, Adam-sin nature, because that ‘death’ would be leaving the darkness to live in the Light when they desire to maintain an interest and affiliation with sin, with worldliness, and, for some, even demonic, devilish activity! Joining Jesus would be putting to death their fleshly allegiances – and some are not willing for that to happen to their sin-nature kingdom under their own control! So, they live in sin, die in sin, die, and then without Christ go to Hell!

Oh, but there is another part of humanity in, yes, the real world? And, that is, “The Kingdom of Sovereign-Ordained Servants!” It was Paul W. Harrison who once wrote: “Wherever God rules over the human heart as King, there is the kingdom of God established.” And T.Z.Koo really builds enlightment in true followers of Christ when he wrote: “The kingdom of God does not exist because of your effort or mine. It exists because God reigns. Out part is to enter His kingdom and bring our life under His sovereign will.” [Both statements came out of “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” Fleming H. Revell Com., Westwood, New Jersey, p.265].

In Matthew 6:33, after teaching His disciples earlier to pray, “Your kingdom come, Oh God,” and “Yours IS THE KINGDOM and the power and the glory forever,” Jesus then said in Verse 33, “Seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

But there is a very sad Word in Isaiah 66:3d-4 when the Lord God spoke through the prophet! It says: “…just as they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations, So I will choose their delusions, and bring their fears on them; Because, when I called, no one answered, when I spoke they did not hear; but they did evil before My eyes, and chose that in which I do not delight.” Chose?

In Joshua 24:14-15 the author, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gave mankind an unchanging challenge! “Now therefore, fear the Lord, (That’s: HOLD HIM IN REVERENTIAL AWE!!), serve Him in sincerity and in truth, put away the gods which your fathers served ( the god of immorality, the god of ‘self’ inspiration, the god of ‘flesh’ at both its worst and its best, the god of ‘self’ aggrandizement, the god of fleshly, carnal, sensual, morally corrupt indulgence)…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, or the gods of the land in which you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Has it ever come to your mind, heart, and will that, “Yes, praise God, He has a purpose for my life”? In Galatians 1:15-16 I remind you of Paul’s calling which is not unique to him but is true of any and every ‘visitation’ of Christ to those whom He has chosen! Paul wrote: “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me…!” It’s not what I would like to do in and through my “best efforts”, but the sovereign understanding and administration of “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, in me, as I make myself fully available to Your eternal will”! Isn’t this why we hear the Verse daily? “Christ in you the hope of glory!” “Christ through you in His ever-abiding presence!”

“The call of God!” How do YOU respond to Matthew 28: 18-20? Many say, “Oh, that was a call to the first twelve disciples, to the early church in Jerusalem, but it really is not my involvement or the modern-day church’s calling.” And, I say, “Phony bologna!” “Yes, it is the calling of every true disciple to touch his world with grace, even if it’s only his personal financial support and prayers for those who go out, called of God, to a specific location or nation!” JESUS SAID: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. GO THEREFORE and MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL NATIONS, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, TEACHING THEM to observe all things that I have commanded you; and LO, IAM WITH YOU ALWAYS, even to the end of the Age.” AMEN?

“The Kingdom of Sovereign-Ordained Servants”? I have found Romans 5:10-11 to be one of the most enlightening, empowering, enveloping passages in all of Scripture! It says: “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.” Is that reconciled to God with no concern for those who haven’t been reconciled?

Examine carefully Romans 8:28-30! “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to THOSE WHO ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE. For whom He foreknew, He also PREDESTINED to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

It breaks my heart at times when I hear some men preach or teach on television or the radio, and they appear by their teachings that they are either blind to the Holy Word in their hands or deaf to the very voice of God, because God tells us, in Romans 5:21, “For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Your sin and mine was placed by Sovereign God willingly on His Son – our sin and sin nature, our trespasses, our unrighteousness, our ‘self-assertive’, godless life Jesus took upon Himself, and He and your godless nature WAS CRUCIFIED ON THE CROSS! Crucified, dead, buried, but resurrected the third day! And the word of reconciliation to Holy God was announced, is announced, and will be announced and proclaimed by “THE KINGDOM OF SOVEREIGN-ORDAINED SERVANTS!”

In Mark 10:42-45 Jesus called His inner circle to Himself to share the glorious news of what their lives and ministries were to be about. King Jesus said: “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

No wonder Paul exclaimed in Galatians 6:14-15, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.”

There’s a “new commandment”! In John 13:34-35 Jesus said: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love (agape) one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Psalm 33:3 speaks about “singing to Him a ‘new song’!” All of this because His amazing grace has manifested to an old man enslaved to his old sin nature who has been transformed by the grace, mercy, and love of God, and before the sinful world Jesus Presents the “new man”! And in Ephesians 4:17-19 he unveiled that ‘old man’!

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, BEING ALIENATED FROM THE LIFE OF GOD, because of the ignorance in them, because of the BLINDNESS OF THEIR HEART; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” Hut Paul didn’t stop there! He moved into the “kingdom of God realm”, into the story and truth of God’s amazing grace! In Ephesians 4:20-24 he wrote:

“But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth IS IN JESUS: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, AND BE RENEWED IN THE SPIRIT OF YOUR MIND, and that YOU PUT ON THE NEW MAN WHICH WAS CREATED ACCORDING TO GOD, in true righteousness and holiness.” And that is not an option- it’s the evidence of a truly born again, redeemed life, ‘hidden with Christ in God’

Kurt Bruner, author of “Inklings of God”, in his “Conclusion: The Right Key”, he wrote: (pps 195-196), “Religion (and I, JFF, say relationship to & with God!) is like a marriage. It is by definition exclusive. That doesn’t mean a religious person hates all other faiths or even views them as entirely wrong. (But I, JFF, see them as religious scams!!). But we can’t view them as equally right. The creed of each excludes the creed of others. Jesus certainly did when He rejected the notion that all paths lead to God. (Amen to that exposure!). “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13).

What is “the Door” by which YOU have ‘entered’ the Kingdom of God? I close this chapter with Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:1-10! Rejoice with me “blood-bought saint of God in Christ”! 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 devil himself!), the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, MADE US ALIVE TOGETHER WITH CHRIST (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

For we are HIS WORKMANSHIP, created IN CHRIST JESUS for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Do you walk by ‘grit’ or by grace, by self-effort or by God’s Sovereign administration, by ‘trying’ or by TRUSTING, by the perversion of a strong self-will or by the presence of Christ’s Resurrection Life in and through you? I choose “The Kingdom of Sovereign-Ordained Servants”!! Amen?

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

IMITATION ALLEGIANCE OR SOVEREIGN BIRTHING?

Much of the so-called ‘spiritual inspiration’ of our day is sadly ‘religious idolatry’ without symbolic idols but ‘imitations’ of true submission and obedience, many ‘pretending’ without “Sovereign Birthing”!

It was William Shakespeare, in Henry V, (Act 1V, sc.1,l. 257), who wrote: “What art thou, thou idol ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more of mortal griefs than they do thy worshippers?”

Sadly, much of “Christian activity” today is one who is “affiliated with” but not “Blood-Atoned For”! Fleshly impulses rule many lives, self-awareness foolishness is often the source of religious awareness actually idolizing the natural traits at their best in some fallen men, with self-will and self-determination facing earthly trials ‘successfully’ because “both for us is just as good as your ‘trust’ in your God to see you through”!

But ‘imitation allegiance’ is not the miraculous, heavenly blessing of a “new creation” with ‘old things passing away’. I love Oswald Chambers writing in his book “My Utmost For His Highest.” In it he said (p.219), “As soon as you abandon reasoning and argument, God witnesses to what He has done, (and able to do in and through the repentant, submissive heart! JFF), and we are amazed at our impertinence in having kept Him waiting. If you are in debate as to whether God can deliver from sin, either let Him do it, or tell Him He cannot. Do not quote this and that person, try Matthew 11:28 – “Come unto Me.”

How very, very illuminating is Luke 11:13 when Jesus said, “If You then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” But ‘imitation allegiance’ to a faith is without the eternal foundation of the solid rock of Christ’s finished work in and through the Cross! And “old things” don’t pass away by ‘fleshly determination and self-will! And ‘imitation allegiance’ doesn’t need God’s help – they “give my best”, and miss God’s gifts of all spiritual necessities to a God-honoring life and ministry!

“Imitation allegiance” is a fleshly life at its best without understanding or comprehension that God sovereignly crucified the ‘natural man’ at its worst or at its best! This is why in Galatians 5:24-25 Paul wrote, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh (old sin nature) with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

But that biblical proclamation becomes a huge problem for a strong, self-willed, ‘child’s mind-set’: “That toy is mine – and you leave it alone!” I don’t have any problem identifying the strong, self-willed individual, resistant to all Biblical Truth, as one who idolizes ‘self’, counterfeits ‘devotion’ to a ‘higher being’, and wraps himself/herself in the garments of godlessness called ‘my independence’ and ‘my self-worth’, and as Chambers once said: “Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.” (“My Utmost –p.256).

I have no hesitation to say, that if you’ve come this far in this book, YOU have no question as to the difference between the natural and the spiritual, the godless and the Godly, or the cheap ‘imitation allegiance’ and the Sovereignly birthed life! But, in the realm of ‘imitation allegiance’ there is the, yes, tragedy of spiritual imitation totally apart from the “new-born Life in Christ”! In John 16:33 Jesus said to His disciples then and now, “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.” Wouldn’t you think this just might be why Paul spoke strongly saying, “Christ in you the hope of glory”?

In the old hymnal, “The Broadman Hymnal”, (Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1940 copyright, p.96), they included a hymn by Edward Mote and WilliamB.Bradbury entitled “The Solid Rock”. It says: “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace, In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the vale.

His oath, His covenant, His blood, Support me in the whelming flood; When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound, Oh, may I then in Him be found; Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.” Glory!

In Max Lucado’s Introduction to his book, “In The Grip of Grace”, he wrote, after mentioning “Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne,” “I have a hunch that some of you know what I’m talking about. You’re wearing a handmade wardrobe yourself. You’ve sewn your garments, and you’re sporting your religious deeds…and, already, you’ve noticed a tear in the fabric. Before you start stitching yourself together, I’d like to share some thoughts with you on the greatest discovery of my life: the grace of God.”

There was a book I wrote in 2005 that I had published in India for the thousands of pastors I taught there over 25 years. I entitled it “Behold I Make All Things New.” In Chapter One, p.15, I wrote: “Do you understand the curse of “modern-day Christianity”, and even “church life”? It’s the curse of self-will, self-realization, self-determination, self-satisfaction, self-centeredness – and following that we proclaim, “We are followers of Christ.” No!! He is not an addendum to my self-determined life! “I press toward the mark of the ‘high calling’ of God in Christ Jesus!! God has, ‘Saved us and called us in a “Holy Calling”!’ A new passion in our lives!”

And the “new passion” in one’s life is not “Imitation Allegiance”! In Galatians 3:9 Paul wrote: “So then those who are of faith (redemptive faith) are blessed with believing Abraham”, and it shocks many that Abraham’s faith was not imitation allegiance but surrender to the Sovereignty of God! Interesting Verses related to Jesus and Abraham in John 8:54-59! It says: Jesus answered (the religious Jews), “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is the Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God.

Yet you HAVE NOT KNOWN HIM, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”

Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, “I AM.” Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

And Jesus “passed them by” because in John 8:20, responding to the arrogant scribes and Pharisees, He said: “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” And even though Jesus came birthed into their world of supposedly “God representatives”, the majority of Judaism exercised incarnate unbelief!

In fact, about 700 years before, Isaiah was called upon by God to reveal God’s proclamation against Jerusalem! In Isaiah 22:1-14 is the solemn pronouncement to which “few” Israelites listened and received! It says: The burden against the Valley of Vision. What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops, You who are full of noise, a tumultuous city, a joyous city? Your slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle. All your rulers have fled together; they are captured by archers. All who are found in you are bound together; they have fled from afar.

Therefore I said, “Look away from me, I will weep bitterly; do not labor to comfort me because of the plundering of the daughter of my people.” For it is a day of trouble and treading down and perplexity by the Lord God of hosts in the Valley of Vision – breaking down walls and of crying to the mountain. Elam bore the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield.

It shall come to pass that your choicest valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate. He removed the protection of Judah. You looked in that day to the armor of the House of the Forest (storehouse); You also saw the damage to the city of David, that it was great; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool. You numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses you broke down to fortify the wall.

You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to its Maker, nor did you have respect for Him who fashioned it long ago. And IN THAT DAY the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and for mourning, for baldness and for girding with sackcloth. But instead, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

Then it was revealed in my hearing by the Lord of hosts, “Surely for this iniquity there will be no atonement for you, even to your death,” says the Lord of hosts.”

“Imitation Allegiance Or Sovereign Birthing?” Please, please, understand that redemptive faith is so beyond intellectual allegiance which is for most imitation activity apart from repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ alone, not one’s best effort or one’s intellectual awareness of Christ Himself! One can say, “I know Jesus’, but never surrender to His Lordship; one can say, “I believe in Jesus”, but never submit to His every command: Again, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ but you do not do what I say?”

“Blood Atonement?” Romans 5:10-11 tells us, “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.” Belief apart from heart change? Belief apart from surrender to His divine will and eternal orders? Belief apart from “newness of life”? Belief, but barren of “the peace that passes all understanding”? Belief, but no ‘kingdom rule’ in you, willfully bowing daily to the King of kings and Lord of lords?

It was Sir Francis Bacon in his writing “Aphorisms” (no.49) who wrote: “Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true”, but “Sovereign Birthing is the “Thus says the Lord,” and what He says, you are called to obey! That’s not in order to be saved but because you have been saved!

Samuel Butler, in “Hudibras”, (Pt.111, Canto 11, l,p.481), wrote: “For fools are stubborn in their way, As coins hardened by th’ allay; And obstinacy’s never so stiff as when it’s in a wrong belief.”

“Imitation Allegiance” is often unveiled in exposing obstinacy, disobedience, even disinterest in the Holy things of God, evidenced by a mindful rebellion to His Holy Word! In John 12:44-50 the Word says, The Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me (Sovereign Holy God the Father!). And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me (which is the major reason they crucified Jesus!). I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My word, has that which judges him – the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that HIS COMMAND is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father told Me, so I speak.”

But there is a vast difference between verbal allegiance, saying one thing but not obeying, OR, ‘hearing Him AND doing what He says’! In John 13:12-17 we learn about the “truly blessed”! It says: So when He (Jesus) had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?

You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

Dallas Willard, in his book “The Divine Conspiracy,” (pps.38-39), asks vital questions: “Can we seriously believe that God would establish a plan for us that essentially bypasses the awesome needs of present human life and leaves human character untouched? Would He leave us even temporarily marooned with no help in our kind of world, with our kind of problems; psychological, emotional, social, and global? Can we believe that the essence of Christian faith and salvation covers nothing but death and after? Can we believe that being saved really has nothing to do with the kinds of persons we are?…Are we to suppose that God gives us nothing that really influences character and spirituality? Are we to suppose that in fact Jesus has no substantial impact on our ‘real lives’?”

John 3:3! What an amazing revelation! Jesus answered and said to Nicodemus, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”, amplifying it further in John 3:4-8 with Nicodemus responding in Verse 4, “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 him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water (the water of the Word!) and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit.”

Have YOU been born again or is ‘church affiliation’ your only concern? But Thomas Carlyle, in “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” (Vol.5, Pt.10), once said: “Blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord.” Are YOU “LIVING” in the Lord? Harold A. Bosley, in his writing, “Religion In Life”, wrote: “Dostoevski cause one of his characters to say: ‘I am X in an indeterminate equation. I am sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, who has forgotten his own name.’ The affirmation that we find in the Gospel causes us to confront every man with the word, ‘I know your real name. You are not an X in an indeterminate equation or a phantom in life, you are a child of God, you are a brother of mine in Christ.”

Dare I tell you? “Knowing you are a brother of in Christ is your greatest identity?”

CHAPTER 48

SOVEREIGN BIRTHING – SELFLESS ALLEGIANCE!

You do clearly understand that outside the hope we find in the Gospel of Christ fallen humanity lives hopelessly about radical change in human nature! “We are what we are ! Accept it.” And they descend or remain in a deep pit of desperation, condemnation, indifference, ‘fantasy living,’ or devotion to the desires of a depraved nature.

Billy Graham said, (“How To Be Born Again,” Guideposts, Carmel, NY, 1977), “Human viciousness breaks out as people steal, cheat, lie, murder, and rape.” Yet from God’s perspective, beyond the thieves, the liars, the murderers, or the rapists, what about those who camouflage the “dead corpse” with education – “ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” – with social activities, calling it ‘reconciliation with God-likeness’ – with philanthropy, giving to everybody but God – with attempts at achieving self-described moral goals but disillusioned that we fall so short – with religions, but falling short because religion cannot change the ‘leopard’s spots’! Camouflaged “dead corpses” with hidden slums, ghettos, and garbage dumps, never disappearing apart from the radical change of the human heart – or “New Birth”!

Camouflaged “sin natures” never sense our Savior’s newness. Camouflaged “old men” like fallen Adam have a hard time even believing “Second Adam” and saving grace.

Camouflaged “horrible-pit-dwellers” find it so difficult to believe there is a Savior and Lord able to lift them out of the miry clay of sin and death and able to set their feet upon the Rock of forgiveness and a new life.

And camouflaged religiosity will never take the place of Christ’s Word: “You must be born again!”

I want to include and extend the words of Scripture from the previous chapter, highlighting for you John 3:1-21! It says: There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

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

Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We (The Father, the Son, AND the Holy Spirit!) speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. BUT he who DOES the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly see, that they have been done in God.” So! “We choose daily death to ourselves that Christ’s Resurrection Life may be manifested in our mortal flesh”? It’s all because of God’s love for us! BUT WHAT DOES THIS “BORN AGAIN” REALLY MEAN FOR US IN THIS 21^st CENTURY? “SOVEREIGN BIRTHING – SELFLESS ALLEGIANCE”?

FIRST, NEW BIRTH – NEW BEGINNING IS THE INITIATIVE OF GOD HIMSELF! If you’re not familiar with Romans 3, you must spend necessary time there, but let me begin here with Verses 10-12. “As it’s written: ‘There is none who understands; there is NONE WHO SEEKS AFTER GOD…they have ALL TURNED ASIDE; they have together become unprofitable, there is none who does good, no, NOT ONE.”

But, you say, “What about Nicodemus who ‘came to Jesus by night and spoke to Jesus’?” In John 6:44 Jesus declared, “NO ONE can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me DRAWS HIM…” Nicodemus came because God sought him! God drew him! He came because God led him to the only hope Nicodemus had or the only hope you and I have! We seek Him because He sought us! We love Him because HE FIRST LOVED US! “New Birth – New Beginning,” the initiative of God Himself!

Receive 2 Corinthians 5:18-19! “Now all things are of God, WHO HAS RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation…that is, THAT GOD WAS IN CHRIST RECONCILING THE WORLD TO HIMSELF…” It was Martin Luther who couldn’t understand how God could tolerate fallen man untiringly. He said, “If I were God and the world treated me as it treated Him, I would kick the wretched things to pieces.” And Luther probably would have tried…but God?

2 Peter 3:9 says, (The YOUNG READER’S STUDY BIBLE, 1994 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.), “He isn’t really being slow about His promised return, even though it sometimes seems that way. But He is waiting, for the good reason that He is not willing any should perish, and He is giving more time for sinners to repent.” Do you understand?

SECOND, NEW BIRTH –NEW BEGINNING IS THE RESULT OF OPENED EYES AND OVERTAKING GRACE! The Lord Jesus saved, sent, and anointed Paul for what purpose? Look at Acts 26:16-18. Do you see it in your Bible? OPENED EYES, in order to turn them,…that they may receive forgiveness of sins – OVERTAKING GRACE! How do you interpret “salvation”? What is redemption? When has a man experienced “atonement”? He has REPENTED and RECEIVED FROM GOD FORGIVENESS THROUGH OPENED EYES, OVERTAKEN BY AMAZING GRACE! SOVEREIGN BIRTHING – SELFLESS ALLEGIANCE?

Do you understand that there are those who’ve had their eyes or their ears opened yet never experienced overtaking grace? It was Major Ian Thomas who used to teach the difference between “awakened souls and regenerated spirits!!” Oswald Chambers wrote (MY Utmost For His Highest, p.7), “When a man is born again, he knows it is because he has received something as a gift from Almighty God and not because of his own decision.” OPENED EYES – OVERTAKING GRACE!

“That they may receive (WHAT?) – forgiveness of sins!” “That they may receive (WHAT?) – an inheritance among those who are sanctified (or set apart) by faith in Christ!” “That they may receive (WHAT?) – John 1:12 “But as many as received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, v13…who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but (BORN) of God.” “That they may receive (WHAT?) – John 1:16, “and of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” “That they may receive (What?) – Galatians 6:17, “….for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

We need to hear what Paul said to the Church at Colossae, (Colossians 3:9-10), “Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds…and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”

OPENED EYES – OVERTAKING GRACE? Titus 3:5 says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit!!”

THIRD, NEW BIRTH – NEW BEGINNING? IT’S THE DEEP AWARENESS OF AND COMMITMENT TO KINGDOM LIVING! Let’s look at John 3:3 and John 3:5! Jesus answered and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

You’ll remember Jesus, in Matthew 6, teaching us about prayer. And in what is often called “the Lord’s Prayer” He made it clear about when one has left the kingdom of darkness and entered the Kingdom of Light!! When? When one has left his world behind and crossed the threshold into Kingdom living! Matthew 6:9-10 says, “In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…!!”

Do YOU understand “KINGDOM LIVING?” It’s that abandonment of Self-Rule and submission to the Sovereignty of God. It’s the absence of ‘Self-Centeredness’ and allegiance to the King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness…” Are you a seeker? Is His Kingdom-Rule your passion? Are you dominated by the desire to know, please, honor, and obey Him?

Romans 14:17 says, “For the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost!!”

Here’s how Dr.J.Wallace Hamilton put it: (“Who Goes There?” Fleming Revell, 1958, p.45), “A little girl, watching her father total up his income tax, noticed the difference between the tax to the government and his gifts to the church, and said: ‘Look, Daddy, Uncle Sam gets more than God.’” And Dr. Hamilton commented, “Liquor gets more than God in America; luxury, movies, tobacco, even cosmetics get more than Christ and Christ’s Church. First? We spend more on the skins of women than on the souls of mankind.” QUESTION! ARE YOU TRULY COMMITTED TO KINGDOM LIVING? IT’S A SIGN OF BEING “BORN AGAIN!!”

FOURTH, NEW BIRTH – NEW BEGINNING? IT’S UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER TO THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST JESUS! In Matthew 18:1-4 we read, “At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?…Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them,…and said, Assuredly I say to you unless you are converted 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.”

Please notice, “becoming as little children” and “humbling himself as this little child…” – what is Jesus talking about? Three things about children: 1) A CHILD FINDS HIS LIFE FROM ANOTHER, 2) A CHILD IS TOTALLY DEPENDANT, #) A CHILD IS SO TRUSTING. SOVEREIGN BIRTHING – SELFLESS ALLEGIANCE?

Jesus had to ask it and still does, Luke 6:46, “But why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say?” You’ll remember that Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the Cross…And what has God done because of what Christ did in submission to the will of the Father? Philippians 2:9-10 says, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him (Christ Jesus) and given Him the name which is above every name…that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those in earth, and of those under the earth…AND THAT EVERY TONGUE SHOULD CONFESS THAT JESUS IS LORD, to the glory of God the Father.”

Is Jesus truly the Lord of your life? Romans 14:9 says, For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might BE LORD of both the dead and the living.”

FIFTH, NEW BIRTH – NEW BEGINNING? READ CAREFULLY!! BECAUSE OF “THE REMISSION OF SINS,” THERE IS A DISSATISFACTION AND A DISCONTENT WITH THE OLD LIFE OF SIN!! 1 John 3:9 clearly declares, “Whoever has been born of God does not sin (Present tense, continuous action!), for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin (and keep on sinning) because he has been born of God.”

Separated from God! And in “that” state who is without sin? No wonder God spoke through Isaiah (45:22) and said, “Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”

What did John say? “Whoever is born of God does not commit sin.” Here’s how Oswald Chambers put it (“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.167), “Do I seek to stop sinning or have I stopped sinning? To be born of God “means” THAT I HAVE THE SUPERNATURAL POWER OF GOD TO STOP SINNING. In the Bible it is never – should a Christian sin? The Bible puts it emphatically – ‘a Christian must never sin.’ The effective working of the new birth life in us is that we do not commit sin, not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have stopped sinning. 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we CANNOT sin; it means that if we obey the life of God in us, WE NEED NOT SIN.”

Spurgeon is even stronger. In his book “The Soul-Winner” (p.31), he taught, “Idle are the boasts of a man who harbors within himself the love of any transgression. He may feel what he likes and believe what he likes, but he is still in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity while a single sin rules in his heart and life. True regeneration implants a hatred of all evil. Where one sin is delighted in, the evidence is fatal to a sound hope. A man need not take a dozen poisons to destroy his life; one is quite sufficient.” Sovereign Birthing – Selfless Allegiance?

IS THERE IN YOU A DISSATISFACTION AND A DISCONNECT WITH A LIFE OF SIN?

SIXTH, NEW BIRTH – NEW BEGINNING? IT’S THE GLORIOUS NEW EXPERIENCE THAT THE OLD IS GONE AND THERE IS THE NEW BEGINNING! 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Do you believe what Jesus said in Revelation 21:5? “BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW.”

No wonder David sang “unto Him a new song” (Psalm 33:3)!! Has David put that eternally new melody line into your life? Is there a symphony of praise that cannot be contained? Jeremiah was bathed in “new mercies every morning” (Lamentations 3:23), because he knew the faithfulness of God.

We saw in Ezekiel NEW HEARTS, NEW SPIRITS. Paul, in Ephesians, talks about the new man. Because of Jesus’ shed blood we walk “By a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:20). Revelations 2:17 speaks of our “new name.”

For far too many the “NEW” is totally irrelevant because they’re consumed by the OLD MAN; in fact, they’re in bondage to it! For some their hankerings are “sin for a season.” For others it’s love of the old man, love of rotten fruit and spoiled senses and cloudy minds. They’re at home there!!

BUT THEN THERE’S THAT ONE – “I AM IN CHRIST. THE OLD HAS TRULY PASSED AWAY. AND ALL THINGS HAVE BECOME NEW!!”

SEVENTH, NEW BIRTH – NEW BEGINNING? THERE”S A DEEP AWARENESS OF THE AWESOME LEADERSHIP OF OUR LORD! Do you remember Abraham’s servant being sent out to find a bride for Isaac? Genesis 24:27 says, the servant speaking, “…As for me, being on the way, THE LORD LED ME…” Did YOU hear that with your heart?

You know you’re on the way and it dawns on you, “The Lord has led me and the Lord will lead me.” I’m not adrift on the sea of life – I’m guided by the compass of God’s sovereign will! I’m not a “loose cannon” – I’m an arrow in the holy bow of God’s divine providence! My life IS NOT a “roll of the dice” – I’m a blueprint of the awesome and amazing design of God’s Holy Purpose!

Romans 8:14 declares, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Isaiah 55:12 says, “For you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace.” Psalm 77:20 says, “You led Your people like a flock…”

I DON’T WANT TO “CALL THE SHOTS” FOR MY LIFE – I WANT TO BE LED! “GUIDE ME, O THOU GREAT JEHOVAH!!”

EIGHTH, NEW BIRTH – NEW BEGINNING? A DEEP CONVICTION OF IRREPRESSIBLE CONFIDENCE IN GOD! Here’s how Paul put it for the church at Colossae (3:3), “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

On my own I wasn’t hidden – I WAS EXPOSED! On my own I wasn’t covered – I WAS SO VULNERABLE! On my own I wasn’t hidden

I’m no longer on my own – I’ve entrusted myself to the hands and heart of God! With Paul (2 Timothy 1:12), I say, “I know WHOM I have believed and am persuaded that HE IS ABLE to keep what I have committed to Him until that day.” – I WAS A CLEAR TARGET FOR THE FIERY DARTS OF EVIL! On my own I wasn’t hidden – I WAS OPEN GAME FOR ANY FOUL FORCE! BUT NOW?…

NINTH, NEW BIRTH – NEW CONFIDENCE? IRREPRESSIBLE CONFIDENCE IN GOD ALONE? Philippians 1:6, “being CONFIDENT of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ!!” The writer of Hebrews affirms (3:5-6) that as Moses was faithful over his house, “Christ as a Son (was faithful) over His own house, WHOSE HOUSE WE ARE IF, IF, IF, IF, WE HOLD THE CONFIDENCE AND THE REJOICING OF HOPE FIRM TO THE END.” Sovereign Birthing – Selfless Allegiance?

From the old aristocracy of Russia a prominent lady came to America in the 1920’s. She came with nothing because of the Bolshevik revolution. She got away with her life. Once here she was confronted with the claims of Christ and was converted. With the opportunity to share her new-found faith she talked about the coming of two revolutions. Because of the Bolshevik revolution she lost her fortune but because of Christ and His shed blood she lost her sins! In contemplation she shared, “What if the second revolution had been first? What if the aristocracy of Russia, the privileged class had truly been born again, those famous ten days of revolution by the Bolsheviks might never have happened.”

Then she said, “Revolution didn’t begin with an atheist or a Karl Marx, but in the visions of the prophets, the good news out of the heart of Israel, out of the very heart of a caring, compassionate God who loved the world, who proved His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Who not only raised His Son from the dead but who incredibly takes sinners and makes them saints, who takes the dead and raises them spiritually, victoriously, and literally, WHO CRUCIFIES US WITH CHRIST AND YET WE LIVE, NOT US, BUT THE CHRIST LIVES IN US!” GLORY! “Born again by the grace of God!!”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

GRACED, GOVERNED, GIFTED, AND GLOWING WITH GLORY

I was deeply impressed AND convicted when I first read years ago Jonathan Edwards profound and biblically powerful comment: “Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.” How do you respond to the marvelous grace of our loving Lord?

No doubt this is why Thomas Adams shared: “Grace comes into the soul. As the morning sun into the world; first a dawning; then a light; and at last the full sun in his full and excellent brightness.”

And if you’re aware of “law and grace”, you know grace exposes ‘guilt’ in breaking God’s law even if you ‘keep the law, but offend in one point, one becomes guilty of it all!’ Then, we stand in need of both mercy AND grace! I remember at one point in my journey reading E. Stanley Jones in his writing “The Way,” (by Abingdon Press, p.196) when he said: “Grace binds you with far stronger cords than the cords of duty or obligation can bind you. Grace is free, but when once you take it you are bound forever to the Giver, and bound to catch the spirit of the Giver. Like produces like. Grace makes you gracious, the Giver makes you give.”

THAT IS SO VERY, VERY TRUE! Consider the grace of God as it calls you out, births new life within you, and THEN grace pours you out as a drink offering to a thirsty land that you dwell in! The nature of grace? Man at His worst – God at His best – “new man birthed, new man poured out as a drink offering, new man reflected and glowing with the glory of God”! Apart from grace there is no inward glow to the glory of God but only the ‘enlightenment’ of fleshly, sensual, carnally dimmed lighting of a short life but eternal darkness!

August Lang once stated that “whatever man is able to do in order to experience the effects of divine grace is merely owing to the action of the Holy Spirit which draws us toward God.” But what a man does to enjoy, temporarily embrace the effects of grace, or even lean toward God’s full desire and eternal will, does not mean, he has been transformed but ‘tempted’ in his flesh to at least give the Spirit a hearing! How many in your life journey have you seen ‘taste’ of grace but then give way to one’s ‘grit’ and self-determination? No doubt this is why Oswald Chambers once said, “Beware of making a fetish of consistency to YOUR convictions instead of being devoted to God.”

FIRST, CONSIDER WITH ME THE AMAZING GRACE OF GOD IN ITS UNCHANGING GLORY, TRUTH, AND MATCHLESS MINISTRY.

Biblical grace is not a ‘fleshly “gutting it out” until one arrives at his desired goal of spirituality’, but one confronted by Christ, convicted by the Spirit, confessing a need of the “Blood Redemption in Christ Alone”, and being raised up out of spiritual death into the glow of His eternal Life and Presence within the repentant and faith-filled heart AND mind – and he/she never sways from Him and His Truth!

Max Lucado’s book, “In The Grip of Grace, (W. Publishing Group, A division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.), has under the front-cover title: “He will love you forever.” In his introduction he quoted Galatians 3:27 which says, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” or, in his own words said, “My son, you are now clothed with Christ.” Grace is the garment, not of the ‘self-dressed’, but of the super-natural ‘clothing’ by God of the very life, nature, character, and mission of Christ ‘in You the hope of glory’!

In Psalm 4:3-8 we read of the “glory” graced on true sons and daughters. It says: “But know that the Lord (in His Sovereign Mercy!) has set apart (chosen) for Himself him who is godly; the Lord will hear when I call to Him. Be angry (‘shaking’, trembling!), and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, ‘Who will show us any good?’ Lord, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us. You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the season that their grain and wine increased. I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

But ‘the graceless’? Bondage to the human nature, bound by the chains of the devil, darkness, and domination of one’s old sin nature, life built on a faulty foundation, embracing ‘imaginations’ and every low thing or high thing that exalts ‘self’ over the knowledge of God! ‘The graceless’? Easily moved by circumstances, easily swayed by the world’s ‘wandering’ participants, easily drawn into life’s drudgeries by the world, the flesh or the devil’s temporary, non-redemptive activities, promotions or schemes, easily deceived by the world’s ‘norm’ of lust, lying, or ‘fleshly inspiration’ that is so temporary, so misleading, even falsifying why one is even here on life’s tableland, created by Holy, Awesome, Redeeming, Merciful God!

In “The American Hymnal” of 1933 published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, there is an old Hymn by Robert Robinson and John Wyeth entitled “Come, Thou Fount”. It says: “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Your grace’ Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above; Praise the mount – I’m fixed upon it – Mount of They redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Your help I’m come; And I hope by Your good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be! Let Your goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for Your courts above.”

In 2 Corinthians 1:21 Paul wrote: “Now He who establishes us is God, who also HAS SEALED US and GIVEN US THE SPIRIT IN OUR HEARTS AS A GUARANTEE.” How uplifting and inspiring do YOU find that!?! Oh, and then in 2 Corinthians 9:8-9, he wrote: “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written: ‘He has dispersed abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever,” AND THAT’S THE GRACE OF GOD!! Are YOU graced by God?

SECOND, GRACE IN SALVATION REALITY LEADS TO GRACE THAT GOVERNS THE REDEEMED HEART AND LIFE. In Isaiah 9: 6-7 Isaiah was given a glimpse of the Savior, the Redeemer, who will be King of kings and Lord of lords! “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever!! The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”

He has, He does, and He does so forever and ever, through the government of His Son and our Savior! Christ’s “government” is the guidance of our Lord through His Word and through His Spirit and through, yes, the godly witness of the “Born again”! Do you remember from Genesis 24:26-27 “the man” bowing down his head and worshipping the Lord? And he said: “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me…!” Wow! Are YOU led by the Lord daily?

In Exodus 15:13 Moses and the children of Israel sang, yes, sang: “You in Your mercy have led forth the people whom You have redeemed; You, God, have guided them in Your strength to Your holy habitation.”

Another very old hymn unveils this grace in salvation reality leading to more grace that governs the redeemed heart and life. It was written by Sir John Bowring and Ithamar Conkey entitled “In The Cross of Christ.” It says: “In the cross of Christ I glory, Towering over the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime.

When the woes of life overtake me, Hopes deceive, and fears annoy, Never shall the Cross forsake me; Lo! It glows with peace and joy.

When the sun of bliss is beaming Light and love upon my way, From the Cross the radiance streaming Adds more luster to the day.

Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, By the Cross are sanctified; Peace is there that knows no measure, Joys that through all time abide.” Are you graced and governed by the Resurrected and Reigning Christ Jesus?

THIRD, GRACE IN SALVATION TRANSFORMATION IS GRACE THAT “GIFTS” EACH AND EVERY BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER. It was Paul again who laid the strong, enduring wisdom about God’s “gifting” of each and every child of the King! And no gifting is more or less valuable or important than one or the other. In 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 we are trained and equipped in “Body Life Appreciation” for the whole family of faith! Paul said:

“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: YOU KNOW that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

THERE ARE DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But the one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually AS HE WILLS.” GLORY! Oh, and then in Romans 11:29 we read: “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable – what was true through Israel’s history, good or bad, as God’s chosen messengers and His gifted “army”, the equipped “army” today is just as gifted!

The brother of Jesus, James, has another enlightening word about “gifts”. He said in James 1:16-18, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her writing, “Sonnets from the Portuguese,” (no.26), wrote: “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.” And yet the sad truth is, many who are gifted and never use them to God’s glory, are spiritually blinded to God’s graciousness in ‘gifting’ them! Yes, many enriched by God treat Him as ‘paupers’ – “We have nothing to give to God’s unimportant work?” But I also wonder at times, “Do those who do give do so, yes, to the glory of God alone?”

FOURTH, GRACE IN SALVATION TRANSFORMATION IS EVIDENCED BY THOSE OUTWARDLY OR INWARDLY WHO CONTINUALLY “GLOW IN GLORY”! It’s so very short and simple yet celebratory for every moment of your faith-walk! Psalm 21:1-7 Davis “sang” to the glory of the Lord: “The king shall have joy in Your strength, O Lord; and in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! You have given him his heart’s desire, and have not withheld the request of his lips. For You meet him with goodness; You set a crown of pure gold upon his head. He asked life from You, AND You gave it to him – Length of days forever and ever. His glory is great in Your salvation; honor and majesty You have placed upon him. For You have made him MOST BLESSED FOREVER; You have made him exceedingly glad with Your presence. For the king (and I say all “the kings and priests of the family of faith”, every disciple!) trusts in the Lord, and through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved.”

I really don’t know, understand, or comprehend how many “professors of faith” are ‘dumb’ as to the Glory of God! And especially when He tabernacles in the inner man or inner woman who repents toward merciful God and rests in Christ’s Resurrection Life, His Resurrection Power, and His Resurrection Hope! His eternal will for your earthly life of faith in Christ is not a matter of doubt, debate, or delay! Jesus says: “Take up YOUR cross and follow Me!” Do you believe that’s daily death to self and yieldedness to the Savior’s Presence within you?

I tell you, with all of my heart and mind: “To be Heavenly relevant is to be, yes, earthly radical in willing obedience and yieldingness to the Christ within!” AMEN?

CHAPTER FIFTY

HOLDING FAST TO THE NAME AND FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS!

In Revelation 2:12-14 we read about the Lord, the Alpha and Omega, the Savior WHO WAS DEAD after the Cross, BUT IS ALIVE FOREVERMORE! And in these Verses, 12-13 of Chapter Two, we hear Him say, “And to the angel (the messenger) of the church in Pergamos write, (or can we legitimately say, ‘to the church in your immediate area, city, state, and nation?), These things says He who has the sharp two-edged sword (the Word of God?): “I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is ( like Judaism in Jesus’ day, head-quartered in Jerusalem! Or a modern-day Dallas or Ft. Worth?). And you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you…” Is it at all possible that “the angel over your area examines you and your church family, and must say, ‘I have a few things against you”?

I would surmise that the most important thing of the moment for you and me is, “Are we holding fast to the name and faith in Christ Jesus?” I think it’s vital at times! In 2 Corinthians 13: 4-6 the Apostle Paul wrote: “For though He (Christ Jesus) was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ IS IN YOU? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we (Paul and his co-laborers with Him) are not disqualified.”

Here Christ Jesus comes! He carries the “two-edged sword” in His hand! And beyond a shadow of any doubt, there’s not a disciple, a church, a gathering in His Name, when He’s not absent but present, examining the “professors and possessors” of His eternal promises! In Hebrews 2:8-18 we read one of those powerful explanations of WHY you and I should hold fast to His Name and Faith! It says: “You (God the Father) have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through the sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: ‘I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.’ And again, ‘I will put My trust in Him.’ And again, “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.’

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”

Are YOU aware of ‘the ability of Christ’s aid’ in helping you, when temptation comes, to hold fast to the name and faith of those “In Christ”? Understanding that you have ‘arch-enemies’ to your faith in Christ (the world, the old sinful flesh, and the devil!), do you receive and walk in the eternal truth that YOU “are more than conquerors through Him who loved us”? Paul asked the Roman believers in one of their testy times, Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

CONSIDER, FIRST, THAT “IN CHRIST” WE ARE BLESSED WITH THE STRONG AND VICTORIOUS WARRIOR OVER SIN AND THE WORLD AND THE DEVIL! “In Christ” we who know His abiding Presence with us and within us, when troubles, trials, and testings come, attempting to lead us astray from Him, but we’re reminded that Christ, the Captain of the Lord’s armies, has said to us: “Come to Me, and I will give you rest!” And Christ Jesus is the “Living Word”, and Hebrews 4:12 tells us, “For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Even beyond His abiding Presence with you and in you, consider what His gifts to you are related to living in a world of trials, troubles, and tribulations; so..He leaves us ill-equipped or unprepared? I don’t think so! In Matthew 3:11 John the Baptist said, “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 with fire.” Is it you as “I indeed” OR in ‘holding His name and your faith in it’, OR, “I choose the baptism of the Holy Ghost and the fire of God” to stand victorious in me and through His Word to me? How about holding to all three options, or better, all three provisions?

There is another challenging Verse that should awaken some readers! It’s Isaiah 33:14 about God’s judgment on “Zion”! It says: “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites; who among us shall dwell in the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”

But… IF the ‘sword of the Lord’ is your strong defense, be assured, as you walk and rest in Him, you are to have no fear because Jesus IS YOUR STRONG DEFENSE! In Zechariah 9:9-17 are YOUR refrigerator verses for the year!! It says: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! BEHOLD, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem; the battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth’.”

CONSIDER, SECOND, THAT “IN CHRIST” WE’RE BLESSED WITH HIS CONSTANT, CARING OVERSIGHT, BECAUSE HE’S PROMISED NOT TO TAKE US OUT OF OUR WORLD SETTINGS, WHICH CAN MEAN ABUSE, ATTACKS, ABOMINABLE ACCUSATIONS, ADULTEROUS TEMPTATIONS, AFFLICTIONS OF CHAINS, PERSECUTIONS, ISOLATION, AND ON AND ON IN DEVILISH RESENTMENTS, BUT TO OVERSEE OUR JOURNEY OF FAITH! Did we read in Revelation 2:13 about ‘the church in Pergamos’? Did ‘the angel of the church’ there say that He (the Lord Jesus Christ) “has the sharp two-edged sword” and He “knows where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is”, and that He knows “you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days in which Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells?”

When you scan our modern world around us, are you aware of the spirit of godlessness that rules many hearts, where there is no shame for obsceneness, licentiousness, adulteries fleshly and spiritual, hypocritical pretenses, fleshly and spiritual idolatries, blasphemies, Sodom and Gomorrah shamelessness, and ‘out-of-control’ societal sickness of unbelief, rebellion, and Satanic oppositions? In Luke 22:31-34 the Lord Jesus spoke predicting Simon Peter’s denial! He said: “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” But Peter said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.” Then He said to Peter, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me,” and it happened, but with the Lord’s confrontation, and even “following Jesus at a distance,” there came a time of brokenness, sorrow, repentance, AND ‘sold-out allegiance’!

As a missionary who traveled worldwide but primarily in India, I can tell you I’ve had India pastor friends whom I’ve known who, yes, were martyred for the faith, beaten and left for dead but survived, even their wives and sons and daughters horribly mistreated because they proclaimed Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord! At the same time, I’ve heard of men there who “fell away”, “wandered from the faith and calling”, some even becoming arch-enemies of Christ and His gospel!

Some have asked me, “How does that happen that allegiance becomes perverted”? For some it’s been a temporary allegiance apart from the eternal reality of the “Second Birth”. For others it’s been by ‘procrastination’, or an attitude of ‘later, but not now’, or by peer pressure from family, friends, or worldly foes that can be intense, even life-threatening, like John 9:20-23 and what the parents of the ‘man born blind’ had to day after His miraculous healing! The Jews had put intense pressure on them actually confronting them saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”

Verses 20-23, the parents answered them and said, “We know that it is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.”

Others deny the faith by complacency and indifference about whether the Lord ‘confesses them before Father-God or not’ – they just don’t care! Jesus said in Luke 11:23, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” And to ‘scatter’ people away from Christ rather than ‘gather’ them to Him is, yes, a criminal offense in the eyes of Christ Jesus!

In Spurgeon’s Sermons, (Memorial Library, Vol.19, p.41), Spurgeon wrote: “A life in which we have shunned the cross of Christ will lead to a state in which we shall miss the crown of glory.” And since He is “the way, the truth, and the life,” how is it some perpetuate unbelief, doubt, indifference, or fleshly philosophies? In Colossians 2:8-9 Paul warns: “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” Hoy’s YOUR faith? Complete or incomplete or you’re just getting started? If it’s a new start, then “press in” daily, resting in His finished work! When you surrender to Christ, you begin your pilgrimage “complete in Him lacking nothing!” Live like it! Jesus says, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you!”

THIRD, “IN CHRIST” WE HOLD FAST THE NAME AND FAITH OF CHRIST BY, YES, THE DAILY RENEWING OF OUR MINDS THROUGH HIS FAITHFUL WORD! Paul gives every true believer instruction as to living daily as “living sacrifices” to the glory of Christ when in Romans 12:1-2 he wrote: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable serve. AND do not be conformed to this world, but be (being) transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Interesting word in Acts 17:10-12a when the “brethren” had sent Paul and Silas on their journey of touching their world with grace. The Word says, “Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble, or fair-minded, than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”

Paul also wrote to the Thessalonians an important word! 1 Thessalonians 2:13 he said, “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you hear from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.”

In Matthew 4 the Word tells us that Jesus had been led ‘by the Spirit’ into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and the Word says that afterward He was hungry. And who came to Him? The tempter, the devil, and aid to Him, in Verse 3, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But Jesus responded in Verse 4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” In John 6:63 Jesus said to, yes, many of His own disciples who had a hard time understanding about “eating His flesh and drinking His blood.” They called it ‘a hard saying’ and ‘who can understand it?’ Jesus responded, “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 profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”

In 1 Thessalonians 2:13 Paul affirmed the new Thessalonian believers saying to them: “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe )trust in, obey, adhere to!).” Are YOU feeding on the Word of God daily? One meal like breakfast, second meal like lunch, or third meal like night dinner or supper? Are you “holding fast” the Name and Word of God?

FOURTH, WE HOLD FAST TO THE NAME AND FAITH “IN CHRIST” BECAUSE WE KNOW THE PRICELESS PRECIOUSNESS OF THAT NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES! Paul said in Philippians 2:8-11, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Are there ever in your quiet times as you reach out and rest in Him that you hear the unnumbered masses of “born again believers” who’ve passed on or still around you, yes, by the billions, and you hear erupting to your inner man the “Hallelujah Chorus”! They are exalting Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, united in praising “Christ – My Lord and my God!”

True believers never have a mind-change because their hearts are surrendered to and yielded to “the preeminence of His Name”! Didn’t Jesus say at one time, “I AM Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending”? In Matthew 1:20-21 the angel told Joseph, husband of Mary, before Jesus was born, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” GLORY NOW AND GLORY THROUGH ALL OF ETERNITY – WE SERVE A RISEN SAVIOR AND LORD!

Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, before the Sanhedrin or rulers of the people of Jerusalem and the nation Israel, declared in Acts 4:10-12, after a dramatic healing, said, “Let it be known to you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ NOR IS THERE SALVATION IN ANY OTHER, FOR THERE IS NO OTHER NAME UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN AMONG MEN BY WHICH WE MUST BE SAVED.”

FIFTH, WE HOLD FAST TO THE NAME AND FAITH “IN CHRIST” BECAUSE OF THE PRICELESS BENEFITS AND BLESSING OF RESTING IN HIM! In Philippians 4:6 Paul challenges us with Christ’s holy care and comfort! “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; AND the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds THROUGH CHRIST JESUS.”

I close this chapter with words of an old, old hymn I grew up on, written by Edward Mote and William B. Bradbury well before the year 1930 when “The American Hymnal” was published – only the first Verse and Chorus:

“My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.” AMEN?

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

WHOLE-HEARTED ALLEGIANCE OR PARTIAL PARTICIPATION?

There are several Verses in Hebrews 13:5-6 that I want to highlight as we begin this chapter. It says: “Let your conduct (as a believer in Christ Jesus) be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

And some disciples who have ‘professed’ are often more influenced by the world, the flesh, and the devil, than they are by the inspired Word of God or the Savior who does knock on one’s ‘heart-door’!

In Luke 11:37-52 we find Jesus invited by ‘a certain Pharisee’ to fine with him. The ‘Pharisee’ was a part of the Judaic system which certainly promoted ‘a monotheistic system’ of ‘religious beliefs’ but avoided “the Coming Messiah”, in fact crucifying Him on their ‘whims’ because of their ‘worship’ of their false belief in how God should relate to them!

It’s like, yes, multitudes today who ‘worship and serve’ the ‘anti-Christ’, the center of man-made religious systems! In 1 John 2:18-23 the beloved John wrote: “Little children, it is the last hour; (What last hour? The last hour of the Judaic system before its destruction by the Romans in 70AD!); and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that THEY might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. BUT you have an anointing from the Holy Spirit, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie if of the truth. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus IS the Christ (or, yes, The Promised Messiah!). He IS antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; he who acknowledges the Son (gives Him His rightful place in them!) has the Father also.”

Who IS ‘the liar’? He/she who denies Jesus Is WHO He says He is, he/she who takes a stand with a world of unbelievers, he/she who has no grasp of eternal Truth but is ‘blindly’ aligned with self-centered allegiance masquerading as the “pure gospel”!

Who is ‘the liar’? The ‘partial participant’, the ‘half-hearted’ soul with one foot in Hell and, he thinks, one foot in Heaven, or like Shakespeare in “Troilus and Cressida,” (Act 11, sc.2,l, 56), “It’s mad idolatry to make the service greater than the god;” AND BE ASSURED, there are multitudes of ‘performers’ who’ve never been “born again,” “born of the Spirit,” or “birthed into ‘New Life In Christ”, but see themselves as greater than the “servant- Christ Jesus”, even greater than God on His governing Throne!

Who is ‘the liar’? The “drainers of the swamp” through their best efforts, their ‘higher education’ and self-performance, their ‘intellectual brilliance’ that they see as “smarter than God Himself”, their ‘vain’ self-imagination that substitutes fleshly wisdom in place of spiritual truth and revelation, their denial of the everlasting God who never faints or grows weary, but, as ‘self-appointed ruler of their own hearts’, they have no desire to enter the process of the grace of God, becoming broken bread and poured out wine, but prefer the ‘self-made wine of fleshly performance’?

It was Isaiah in his prophetic word in Isaiah 40:25-31 who hears God Himself say to him, “To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who created these things, who brings out their hosts by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God”? ( Do you sense that there was and are folks who believe “God is asleep”, unconcerned about them, OR they evidence it by their words, actions, choices, or deeds?).

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.”

Psalm 106 is a very powerful Word related to ‘partial obedience’, a ‘compromised life-style of faith’, or ‘worshipping’ likenesses, imitations, but not true, undying allegiance to the King of kings and Lord of lords! In Psalm 106: 15 the psalmist wrote: “And He (Holy God) gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.” (Have you ever heard someone say, “You may get what you want but you may not want what you get?”).

In Psalm 106:35-40 we read, “But they mingled with the Gentiles and learned their works; they served their idols, which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they were defiled by their own works, and played the harlot by their own deeds. Therefore the wrath of the Lord was kindled against His people, so that He abhorred His own inheritance.”

Did the Holy Word call ‘unbelievers’ “minglers”? The Random House Collegiate Dictionary of 1975 calls “minglers” ‘those who become ‘mixed, blended, or united’, (like one united with the world, the flesh, and the devil!), combined, or put together in a mixture, blended, united, joined, or conjoined.”

In God’s Holy Faith Book, the inspired Word of God, highlights and exposes unbelief as that which is the absence of spiritual life in Christ apart from ‘repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ “At The Cross” and “the empty tomb”! It IS the life of sin and the sin-nature that blinds, darkens, and destroys, that limits eternal intention or purpose, that establishes inwardly a moral desert where there is the absence of eternal intent, or the hearts and minds and purposes are pumped by satisfying ‘the flesh-nature’ or ‘sin at its fleshly best’!

Would you consider as I do that ‘mockers of the true Faith who are the ‘minglers’ are truly lives with no true, eternal foundation, living ‘vain’, purposeless lives’? It was William Blake in his writing “Mock On” who once wrote: “Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, mock on; it’s all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, and the wind blows it back again.” Superficial, fleshly thinkers, though brilliant in their intellectual ‘thinking’ of math or philosophy, or science, post ‘grades’ of D’s and F’s when it comes to eternal and, yes, historical history and Truth of Emmanuel, the One who is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace!

But apart from the ‘minglers’, there is the Messenger who comes, and still comes, and knocks on the door of men’s hearts with the desire to come in ushering in healing, deliverance, salvation, and assurance that He is able to do exceedingly above all we might ask or think!

In Mark 5:25-34 we find ‘a certain woman’ who had an issue of blood for twelve years’! The Word tells us, that she “had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, ‘If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.’ Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched My clothes?’

But His disciples said to Him, “You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’ And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the WHOLE truth. And Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”

Without a doubt, I am sure there are those who say, “Well, if a woman lives recklessly in the world as she did, she may have needed, as you Christians say, to be ‘saved’ out of her promiscuous lifestyle, but we in the world today try our best to be decent,” not receiving Romans 3:23 where the Word declares, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

How easy it is for the ‘proud and arrogant’ to look down on a woman of lowly character yet fail to look inward to the absence of the “God- Life” in all created human beings given the option of life in themselves or Divine Life in the Savior! What’s interesting about the ‘certain woman’ is that she at least was “looking for a cure” – most adapt, ignore, or seek to refute any serious concern about their condition, physically, mentally, or spiritually!

Are you aware of the huge depth of unconcern about many related to their ‘spiritual state’, even to the drastic depths of insensibility, because in their proud state of self-righteousness, there is nothing they cannot overcome and endure! It was Spurgeon in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” (Vol. 19, p.104), who wrote: “Indifference is the rule; indifference about their immortal souls! Many are sick with dire spiritual diseases, but they make no resolve to have it cured; they trifle with sin, and death, and heaven and hell.”

There’s a huge summation of the godless condition in Romans 8:5-8 when Paul wrote: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal (fleshly, ‘me, mine’ philosophy) 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 (under the domination of their old sin nature and the devil himself) cannot please God.”

The Lord Jesus raised up a true family of born-again disciples and set aside His choice of godly men as “Apostles” to guide the church in its early conception and, yes, childlike growth. But the ‘religious establishment of Judaism’ pitched a fit! In Acts 5:17-20 we read, “Then the high priest rose up, and all those who were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with indignation, and laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, ‘Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.”

They did! But when the prison officials and officers discovered the prisoners were gone, they found them faithful to their calling, testifying and preaching! In Acts 5:28 the high priest of Judaism said, “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name (the name of Christ Jesus!)? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man’s blood on us!”

And here came the eternal calling then and now! In Acts 5:29-32 the Word tells us, But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And WE ARE HIS WITNESSES to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given TO THOSE WHO OBEY HIM.”

Yes, some in Israel responded to Truth as some in America today respond to Truth, but the sad reality is there are multitudes in America and across the world who live under a cloud of a destructive deception that ‘salvation’ is for the dumb-minded, not the mentally alert – “We don’t despair for our lack of God’s mercy and grace and love, and we don’t despair as if we lived in a state of hopelessness.” Trifling with Truth, they dig their own deep hole of alienation and separation from Holy God!

You are aware that there is a huge, huge movement of physical strength and physical health in both men and women and boys and girls! “Stay physically healthy and alert – pay the price,” but does a modern-day, self-made society give God any time, any serious consideration, even welcoming His Spirit to guide them into all truth?

There are some, like this woman at the well! It may for her been desperation only, but at least she reached out! Didn’t the Word tell us that this woman “touched the hem of Jesus’ garment” as He passed by Her? He responded: “Who touched Me?”

With all my heart, I pray that you are, will be, always will be, in whatever spiritual, emotional, physical, or mental state you find yourself in , as a woman or a man, willing to grab hold of the hem of Jesus’ garment of salvation, of healing, and of deliverance! She held to the hem of Jesus’ robe – and Jesus responded to her gentle ‘touch’!

Hear me! “Touching Jesus”, laying hold of Him, unwilling to let go, and transformation eternally occurs! I want you to come with me to Psalm 4! And in it we’re going to see, sense, and celebrate the greatness of God’s healing grace and mercy. My new Holman Study Bible, NKJV, translated it saying: “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.

How long, O you sons of men will you turn my glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood? But know that the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly; the Lord will hear when I call to Him. (Set apart? That’s the realization of one being a chosen vessel by God Himself – He sought you, rather than you seeking Him!).

Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who will say, ‘Who will show us any good?’ Lord, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us.

You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the season that their grain and wine increased. I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Is it for YOU, “You alone, O Lord, make ME dwell in safety?”

W.H.Doane and Fanny J. Crosby wrote the old Hymn, “Safe In The Arms of Jesus” found in the “American Hymnal” of 1933 by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee. It says: “Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast, There by His love overshadowed, Sweetly my soul shall rest. Hark! It’s the voice of angels, Borne in a song to me, Over the fields of glory, Over the jasper sea.

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

Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast, There by His love overshadowed, Sweetly my soul shall rest.” HAVE YOU ENTERED HIS REST?

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

PROPER ATTIRE FOR THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST!

Paul was blessed by our Lord and Savior as a willful, determined, well-prepared “soldier” in the “Army” of King Jesus, just as every born-again believer is to be equipped in “fighting the good fight of Faith”! In 2 Timothy 2:1-5 Paul wrote to his spiritual son, “You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.”

In writing to the church at Ephesus Paul put forth his challenge just a ‘tad’ differently but honed in specifically concerning “the whole armor of God”. He said in Ephesians 6:10-18, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints –“!

I’d be shocked if I heard a professing Christian say, “I really don’t understand what Paul was talking about – I don’t face any enemies, any battles, any conflicts in my walk.” And I would have to ask, “What highway have you been walking on? In Christ we’re not removed from our world setting, but are in the midst of it with imminent battles and warfronts, yes, constantly erupting – if we live and walk “in Christ”!”

Sadly, some ‘believers’ are totally unaware of the battlefields of their own existence, unconcerned that temptations from the world or even demonic activity in the mind and old flesh, can and do become major ‘battle-fronts’ that sadly can take a believer down! In James 1:12-16 the brother of Jesus wrote: “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he/she is DRAWN AWAY By his/her desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.”

Do you ever sense that time or chance or temptation finds fertile ground in all peoples that they might move in and bring about evil rather than good or the devil rather than the honor of God alone? Ecclesiastes 9:12, supposedly written by King David’s son, Solomon, states: “For a man also does not know his time: like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls upon them.”

In Luke 19:41-44 we find Jesus as He drew near to Jerusalem with the Word telling us that 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 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.” Now, I know this passage related to Jerusalem, but in life’s spiritual realm is there not for, yes, every city those things that exist void of any concern of God’s oversight because “cities can operate without looking to God”? For the Jews in Jerusalem they lived in the fleshly pride of governmental Pharisaism which my dictionary I use defines it as “practicing or advocating strict observance or external forms and ceremonies of religion or conduct without regard to the spirit; self-righteous; sanctimonius.”

Jesus said what? “If you had known, even YOU, especially in this YOUR day, the things that make for your peace.” Interesting Verse in Proverbs 29: 18 that says, “Where there is no revelation (or unveiling of the will of God), the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law (the Word of God!).” It was Phillips Brooks whose quote is found in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” (p.320). He said: “Obedience must be the struggle and desire of our life. Obedience, not hard and forced, but ready, loving and spontaneous; the doing of duty, not merely that the duty may be done, but that the soul in doing it may become capable of receiving and uttering God.”

Yet, how many do you know who question the ‘obedience factor’ because they assume that’s teaching obedience in order to be saved rather than the truth that one obeys because he/she has been saved!

It’s so easy for many to profess allegiance to Christ, but when they witness in the Word His full surrender to the will of God, even the Cross, they begin to wonder why they looked to Him for getting their lives ‘straightened out’! They so casually read “The Lord’s Prayer” and omit, overlook, or deny that Jesus meant what He said as He teaches them to pray! Matthew 6:9-10 His prayer begins, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Do YOU deny Christ’s crucifixion was THE WILL OF FATHER-GOD?

In Matthew 27:27-31 we read, Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.”

Oh, and here was His willful intent for His death on the Cross: Colossians 1:12-14! “…giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness, and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

Paul the Apostle became the strong ambassador of Christ in proclaiming the true Gospel – and it cost him his life, but he was well-prepared for it! In 2 Corinthians 1:9-11 he wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us…”

The beloved John wrote an affirming word of the call in taking that sentence of death daily that Christ Resurrection Life would be manifested in our mortal flesh. In 1 John 4:9-10 John unveils true redemptive love by way of the Cross! He 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.”

The physical crucifiers of Jesus on the Cross were not only soldiers but the motivaters of the ‘religious establishment’ and, yes, fallen humanity then and even now and beyond, until God says: “Gentlemen, it’s closing time.” Before that moment, all men of fallen flesh voted “Yes” for Christ’s crucifixion!

Now, come back with me to Ephesians 6:10-18, and let’s equip ourselves in the “Proper Attire For the Soldiers of Christ”! First, “BE STRONG IN THE LORD AND IN THE POWER OF HIS MIGHT.” It always amazes me when I hear some ‘believers’ saying, “I tried, I really tried, but I just couldn’t live the ‘Christ-Life’,” and I wonder, where or who taught them to ‘give your best’, when Jesus crucified not only Himself but your worst AND your best!

It doesn’t matter, Old Testament or New Testament, Holy God sought men and women, boys and girls, nations and governments, states and cities, businesses, schools, yes, even religious institutions where He could be Himself in them and through them as they chose not to lean to their own understanding but to yield to Him, acknowledging and giving Him His rightful place as “Lord over all”!

Second, IN EPHESIANS 6:11, HE CHALLENGES US TO PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD, THAT WE MAY BE ABLE TO STAND AGAINST THE WILES OF THE DEVIL! I find it so strange that many Christians or ‘church members’ are completely unaware of a constant attempt by the devil and the powers of darkness to silence or obliterate their ‘war’ against him or them!

But in Matthew 4:1-4 we read, Then JESUS was ‘led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil’. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” (That’s the ‘lust of the flesh’!).

But Jesus answered and said, (To the devil!), “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” And don’t ignore or pass by Verses 5-11!! Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: “He shall give His angels charge over You,” AND “In their hands they shall bear You up, Lest You dash Your foot against a stone.” (That’s the ‘boastful pride of life’!).

Jesus said to him, “It is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” (That’s the ‘lust of the eyes’!)

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

Third, In Ephesians 6:12-13, HE UNVEILS THE SERIOUSNESS OF WHAT EVERY TRUE BELIEVER FACES BY OPPOSITION OF THE DEMONIC FORCES, EMPHASIZING THE UTMOST PREPARATION FOR THE WAR OF EVIL THAT IS TO COME AGAINST YOU! The Word says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. 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.”

Oh, and then in Verse 18 Paul said: “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

It is of very serious concern if we’re not enlisting “soldiers to the true faith” and just as serious if there is no training, equipping, and discipling new believers in how to fight the good fight of faith! Oswald Chambers once said: “Beware of squatting lazily before God instead of putting up a glorious fight so that you may lay hold of His strength.” So true!

Fourth, in Ephesians 6:14-19, PAUL PREPARES THE “NEW RECRUITS” CONCERNING HOW TO STAND, BEING EQUIPPED WITH GOD”S GRACIOUS ARMOR FOR EVERY SOLDIER IN HIS ARMY OF FAITH! He said: “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with TRUTH, having put on the BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod your feet with THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; and above all, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the enemy.

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 – and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel…”

Do YOU believe there can be another “Great Awakening” in this modern day? Do YOU believe we stand in need of another outpouring of the Mighty Waves of God’s Spirit, convicting, converting, consecrating, yes, whole nations, states, and cities to the Gospel of Christ and His very Indwelling Presence? I SAY, YES! TO THE GLORY OF GOD!

It’s my prayer that this Book, yes, even this chapter, has awakened in you a new spirit of determination to truly walk in submission and obedience to our Lord and Savior who was “Servant to all”! Jesus had just washed the disciples feet, and in John 13:12b-17 we read what took place in those holy moments! Jesus said: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, for you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

And for YOU? What do you know about the ministry of Christ? AND, what are YOU up to related to YOUR oneness in Christ? Spurgeon, in his masterful book (& series, 19 books in Spurgeon’s Sermons) wrote, (p.232, Vol.19), “Ah, dear friend! Christ intended that the gospel should repeat His own experience, and then should triumph like Himself. The gospel lives by being killed and conquers by defeat. Cast it where you will, it always falls upon its feet. You need not be afraid of it under any trial. Just now, the wisdom of man is its worst foe, but the Lord will deliver it “now”. The gospel lives and reigns. Tell it out among the heathen, that the Lord reigns from the tree, (the Cross), and from that tree of the curse He issues His supreme commands. The self-same day in which Jesus died, He took with Him into His kingdom and His inmost paradise a thief who had hung at His side. He lives and reigns forever and ever, and calls to Himself whomsoever He has chosen. Let us drown the taunts of the adversary with our shouts: Hallelujah!”

CONCLUSION

This has been an amazing journey for me, and I pray for you also! The Word of God IS living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, announcing eternal life in Christ OR eternal death that never dies if one rejects Him. Heaven is a much better place for one’s eternal home, but without Christ men ‘choose’ to dwell with the devil and his demons, with unbelievers, with the ‘cursed’, rather than with the King of kings and Lord of lords and His servants! ‘Death songs of Hell’ have no hope, but ‘Life songs in Christ’ are the eternal Hallelujah Choruses!

“Choose you this day whom you will serve – as for me and my house, WE CHOOSE TO SERVE THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!” JFF!

By:J.Farrell Fisher, June 19-21, 2018

The “Living Word”, IN AND THROUGH Christ Jesus, never fades or grows old or uninteresting or uninviting , but actually every new day of coming to the Throne of the “Living Word”, enlarges its understanding while maturing it’s hungry disciple, expands one’s horizon of spiritual-hunger resolved, and advances one’s calling and mission as they “lean not to their own understanding, but are willing to obey, adopt, and adapt” as they appropriate the ‘meat’, the ‘Bread’, and the ‘fruit’ of the Spirit of the Word in their daily journey of the ‘walk’ of faith and obedience!

In Matthew 7:21-27 King Jesus spoke loud and clear! He said: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, BUT HE “WHO DOES” THE WILL OF MY FATHER IN HEAVEN. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and DOES them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

CONSIDER: “Stars birthed, Stars radiant, Stars temporarily enlightening, Stars falling, Stars dimming fast, Stars gone!” AND, THAT’S “temporary ‘stars’ of a religious or governmental faith that ‘shine’ for a while but “fall away” because they are, yes, ‘in love’ with the “best of their religious devotion and political persuasion” but becoming blinder and falling faster spiritually because of the very height of their “falling away” – from the height of God’s Eternal Glory to the darkness, grime, and dirt of Satan’s eternal Hell with “flesh” in the middle!!” Yes, some ‘leaders’ miss out on allowing God to be God through them!

How interestingly, how clearly, and how in Spirit-conviction Paul wrote to the Thessalonians about the “unbelievers”! He said, in 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, “which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that YOU may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer; since it is A RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled (Disciples troubled? Beyond any doubt!! Then, and at times ‘now’ across the world!!) rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,

IN FLAMING FIRE taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed (or Trusted, or Relied upon!).”

Did you catch Paul who said “accompanied God” in administering “God’s Righteous Judgment”? Paul said that the “Lord Jesus would be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels.” (I’ll never forget years ago traveling in India with Duane and Leslie Weehunt. On an India street, I saw visibly at least a 10-foot angel, if not taller, and maybe Jesus Himself, standing before us as we prepared to preach on the streets. I turned to Dwayne and Leslie saying, “Did YOU see that visible appearance of the angel?” They both said, “Yes”; and I responded, “Get ready! This is going to be an awesome conference!” AND IT WAS!!).

Later, in 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12, Paul powerfully wrote: “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; (Is that mystery of lawlessness still at work across every continent?), only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish,

Because they did not receive the love of truth, that they might be saved. And FOR THIS REASON God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, (the lie? You can sin and not die!), that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

How many do you know who have no love of the truth, but whose lives are addicted to “pleasure in unrighteousness”? It’s amazing to me the number of people nation-wide across America today opposing President Trump without a tiny ‘grain’ of submission to the ‘governing authorities’, especially a Donald Trump! RECEIVE ROMANS 13:1-7!!

“Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.

For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” (And one becomes a part of a ‘civilized society’ whether your particular country honors God or not! At least in most nations there are degrees of civility whether the nations are submitted to God or not! If a ‘nation’ is not submitted TO God, judgment day does come around!).

It amazes me when I read in Ezekiel 13:1-10a the following ‘word of the Lord’ to Ezekiel: And the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy out of their own heart, ‘Hear the word of the Lord!’” Thus says the Lord God: “Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! O Israel, your prophets are like foxes in the deserts. You have not gone up into the gaps to build a wall for the house of Israel to stand in battle on the day of the Lord.

They have envisioned futility and false divination, saying, “Thus says the Lord!” But the Lord has not sent them; yet they hope that the word may be confirmed. Have you not seen a futile vision, and have you not spoken the false divination? You say, ‘The Lord says,’ but I have not spoken.” Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you,” says the Lord God.

“My hand will be against the prophets who envision futility and who divine lies; they shall not be in the assembly of My people, nor be written in the record of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord God. Because, indeed, because they have seduced My people, saying, “’Peace!’ when there is no peace”.

“Peace” is not “man-made-best efforts” at pleasing God, but God’s BEST, His eternal blessing of the Indwelling Christ upon the convicted, confessing, trusting life in the Lord’s “finished work” at Calvary and His victory over that sin and death also through His Resurrection and Ascension to the Throne of God where He everlastingly reigns to God’s glory!

In John 14:1-18 we read about Christ’s Way, the Truth, and the Everlasting Life, from the lips, mind, and heart of Christ Jesus! He said: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” [That’s no ‘best effort’! That’s no ‘flesh trying to overcome one’s old sin-nature”! That’s not ‘striving to climb the mountain of ‘faith’ but “resting” in Him Alone!].

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?

The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. [But the Christ IN YOU DOESN’T DO the WORKS THROUGH YOU, because you’ve “discerned for yourself”: ‘Try your best’?]. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me [trusts in Me, relies upon Me, adheres to Me!], the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. If you love Me, keep My commandments.

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”

It breaks my heart at times to hear some ‘professing people’ at times expounding about their “best efforts” in seeking to supposedly honor Christ when it is nothing more but “pumping their flesh” in admiration of their “supposed Christ-likeness”!! I wonder if they’ve ever read the Book of Ephesians!

In Chapter One Paul, by the Holy Spirit, unveils the identity of true disciples of Christ! Notice Ephesians 1:3! “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places IN CHRIST!” What is Paul telling us?

Ephesians 1:4 “God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world”! Verse 7, “In Christ we have redemption through His blood…Verse 9, which He purposed in Himself! Verse 10,He gathers together in one all things in Christ! Verse 11, “In Christ” we’ve obtained an inheritance! Verse 12, because we TRUSTED IN CHRIST, we should be to the praise of His glory!

Verse 13, Having trusted, we are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”, the guarantee of our inheritance!

Ephesians 2:1, “And YOU He (Christ Jesus) made alive, who were dead…”, (‘spiritually dead’, alienated from God,) BECAUSE, Verse 2, you “once walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now walks in the sons of disobedience,” Verse 3, “…were by nature children of wrath…,” and when one reads that with an open mind and a convicted heart, he/she asks, “Is there any hope for, yes, “sinners” separated from God”?

Examine Ephesians 2:4-10! “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For WE are HIS WORKMANSHIP, created IN CHRIST JESUS for good works, which GOD PREPARED BEFOREHAND that we should walk in them.”

In the old “Broadman Hymnal”, published in 1940 by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, there’s an old hymn entitled “Heavenly Sunlight”! It says:

“Walking in sunlight, all of my journey, Over the mountains, through the deep vale; Jesus has said “I’ll never forsake you,” Promise divine that never can fail.

Shadows around me, shadows above me, Never conceal my Savior and Guide; He is the Light, in Him is no darkness; Ever I’m walking close to His side.

In the bright sunlight, ever rejoicing, Pressing my way to mansions above; Singing His praises gladly I’m walking, Walking in sunlight, sunlight of love.

Heavenly sunlight, heavenly sunlight, Flooding my soul with glory divine; Hallelujah, I am rejoicing, Singing His praises, Jesus is mine.” Amen?

Are YOU daily “singing His praises”? I close this chapter with Ephesians 2:11-19!! It says: “Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh – who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands – that at that time you were without Christ (every naturally birthed child WAS birthed without Christ! Don’t ever forget it, Mom or Dad!), without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, HAVING NO HOPE AND WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

For He Himself is our PEACE, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father (Kingdom of God Presence!!). Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Glory! Glory BE to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, the Three in One, who graciously allows us to be one through Christ’s shed blood in the “household of God”!!

THE STORMS OF LIFE?”

By: J.FARRELL FISHER, MARCH 27-28, 2017

How inspirational and life-strengthening do YOU find the Word of Holy God for your daily life and existence, good days or bad, in trouble or triumph, in days of gladness or sadness, in times of weariness and exhaustion with self but even with self at its best – is it mind-reasoning or the Master’s revelation?

Interesting verses in Isaiah 40:27-31! The nation of Israel, at least the majority of ‘religious pretenders’, had come to a troubled time, and Isaiah spoke saying : Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God”? [They felt abandoned by God in their rebellion although He abided at their ‘door’]. The prophet then said: 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.”

“FLESH FAINTS! THE FALLEN SIN-NATURE AT ITS BEST FALLS SHORT AND NEVER ENTERS “THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!” SIN-DOMINATED LIVES NEVER OVERCOME SPIRITUAL DEATH BY A ‘BEST-EFFORT STRATEGY’! STRONG-MINDED RELIGIONISTS ARE DETERMINED BUT VOID OF THE REALITY OF REDEEMED LIVES BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB!

In John 1:10-13 the beloved John wrote: “He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own (the Jewish community), and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in (rest in, rely upon, adhere to, submit to) His name: who were born, not of blood (physical descendants), not of the will of the flesh (best effort), nor of the will of man (strong masculinity), but of God.”

There is an ‘eternal difference’ between those who live in the “shadows of religious faith” and the “true friends of God” who live in the blood-bought “land of the redeemed (by the shed blood of Christ!)”.

It was Thomas Adams who wrote (The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Edited by Frank S. Mead, Fleming H. Revell Comp.,Westwood, NJ.): “Grace comes into the soul, as the morning sun into the world; first a dawning; then a light; and at last the sun in his full and excellent brightness.” Soulish awareness – a dawning of the need of God; soulish alertness in hope – they hear Truth of the Redeemer; soulish enlightment-as Jesus and His eternal purpose is unveiled by the Holy Spirit!

In Romans 1:1-6 Paul illumines our minds and hearts about our entrance into God’s designed and blessed “storm shelter”! He said: “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle [Your calling? Disciple, pastor, evangelist. Missionary, teacher, witness, ambassador?], separated to the gospel of God, which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures (then, that was the Old Testament!), concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, among whom you also are the called Of Jesus Christ;…”

The “separated”, although in the world, are not ‘of the world’ any longer – yet many ‘church-folk’ ‘profess’ but never are “possessed” in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ Jesus as the called of Jesus Christ! Have you missed, been blinded to, or untrained in the eternal Truth as Paul challenged us, Romans 1:1, “separated TO the gospel of God!” Are you aware that there are many who are about “separating themselves” yet missing Christ Jesus? How numerous are the “white-washers” attempting to cover themselves apart from the atoning blood of the Lamb of God! And the Gospel of the Lamb of God has nothing to do with a man’s ‘religious interests’, his ‘flesh-efforts’, or his/her ‘maxed-out attempts at imitating Christ’!

But, also, one of the major tragedies and misunderstandings or maligned teachings is, that when one comes to Christ, he/she is then exempt from “the storms of life”, when in the reality of biblical truth we’re not “sheltered from” but “sheltered in” the storms of life!

In John 16:33 there is an informative word from Jesus to every true follower of the Master. He said: “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.”

I want you to follow carefully Hebrews 5:5-9 because it unveils, yes, “not sheltered from, but sheltered IN the storms of life”! “So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He (God the Father) who said to Him (God the Son): “You are My Son, today I have begotten You.” As He also said in another place: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”; who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, YET He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. AND having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him…”

Dare I remind you? True disciples of Christ are not “sheltered FROM the storms of life”, but “sheltered IN the storms of life”! It’s so interesting to hear the prophet, Isaiah, say in Isaiah 32:13, “On the land of my people will come up thorns and briers, yes, on all the happy homes in the joyous city…”! I don’t think Eliphaz was unwise in saying, yes, to Job in Job’s troubles. Job 5:7-11 is Eliphaz’s encouragement to Job to SEEK GOD when ‘troubles’ emerge! He said: “Yet man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. But as for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause – Who does great things, and unsearchable, marvelous things without number. He gives rain on the earth, and sends waters on the fields. He sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety.” (Thank You, Lord God Almighty, yes, for Your sovereign watch-care over us!)

Are you aware that the walk of faith is not always smooth highways but bumpy roads, not always exempt from tribulation but exalted in it and over it, not a ‘fleshly lesson’ of “grit” in overcoming but the spiritual Truth of grace that abounds and overcomes the world, the flesh, and the devil?

In Mark4:35-41 there is Christ Jesus on the boat in the midst of a great windstorm with the waves beating against the boat to the point the disciples were sure they were about to sink! Verse 38 says, But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?’ In Verse 39 it says: Then Jesus arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” I tell you: God’s intent, design, purpose, and promise IS: “Peace in life’s storms, not peace from them”!

Yes, I KNOW! There can be, sometimes are, or often will be, ‘crashing winds’ that move over one’s life circumstances, tumultuous winds of trouble that want to take you down, sudden, unexpected storms that “blow against the mind and spirit”- but you need to know: the grace of God is stronger than your earth’s stoutest winds, more powerful than the tempter’s desire to slay you, with John Newton’s testimony a shining example of what yours and mine should always be when in “Amazing Grace” he wrote: “Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come, It’s grace that brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.”

Though there may be ‘darkness’ before you, or around you now, don’t lay the ‘darkness’ of your life circumstance as “troubles God has ordained for you”, but seek to understand, unveil, and expose the world of trouble that surrounds you, look inward to the old sin nature that defiles you, and consider the “devil” as the composer of life’s music of heartache, despair, and ‘venomous’ “snake-bites!”

Do you clearly understand the ministry of Emmanuel, “God in Flesh”, Promised Messiah, Lord and Savior, King of kings and Lord of lords? And He suffered, bled, and died, and we were “crucified with Christ”! And the “suffering Savior” willingly met, in life’s inevitable storms, Father-God and again and again “rested in the Father”!

What has “compassed you about” in your pilgrimage as Jesus Himself was “compassed about” in His journey? In Job 26:10-12 Job delivered a powerful statement of understanding that should enlighten you even more about what YOU may be facing in “storms” from the world, the flesh, and the devil: “He (God!) drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters (“stormy seas, troubling waters”?), AT THE BOUNDARY OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at His rebuke. He stirs up the sea with His power, and by His understanding HE BREAKS UP THE STORM.” Glory!

Remember! The message you’re reading is: “Sheltered From Or Sheltered In The Storms?” And it’s vitally important that YOU understand – inviting Christ Jesus into your life is to open the door to the reality of world-indifference to your faith, while at the same time opposed to all Christ Jesus stands for in your life! Salvation in Christ is the open door to the “storms” an unbelieving world will release! Hear the Lord’s words in John 15:18-19, and John 16:1-4!!

John 15:18-19 says, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet, because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” Oh, and then, in John 16:1-4, hear The Lord and Savior again:

“These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.”

If, for now or up to now, you haven’t experienced any “storm clouds”, be alert – they will move in and over your walk of faith or over a life even void of faith! Storms do arise, dark clouds do move in at times, wild, frenzied events do boil up to sweep you away from devotion to Christ Jesus!

Interesting verses for our spiritual insight concerning the “storms of life”! It says, in Hebrews 5:5-9, speaking of Jesus, understanding, “as He is so are we in this world,” “So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He (God) who said to Him (Jesus): “You are My Son, today I have begotten You.” As He also says in another place: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”; who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, YET HE LEARNED OBEDIENCE BY THE THINGS WHICH HE SUFFERED. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him…”!! Christ Jesus walked through the “storms of life”, understanding it was His calling as well as ours!

How interesting and illuminating do you find Mark 10:21b, “and come, take up your cross, and follow Me,” yet how many do you know who see “suffering”, “bearing one’s cross”, as foreign to so-called “modern-day discipleship”! They’ll say: “That can’t be true – suffering is for sinners, not saints!” Yet how wrong is that twisted theology, denying one must ‘take up his cross, and follow Jesus’ down worldly streets and avenues’! To be “in Christ” is to dwell amidst a crowd of worldly followers of the world spirit, world design, and world intent, which doesn’t include (in their worldly minds!) obeying or submitting to His holy reign where we live.

In John 3:27-36 there is another clear difference between “Sheltered From” or “Sheltered In The Storms of Life”! It says: John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but I have been sent before Him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He (Christ Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease.

He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.

The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) the Son has everlasting life; and he who does believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on Him.” Christ Jesus IS our Shelter in the midst of life’s storms!

Another challenging, Scriptural awakening call is found in John 7, as Jesus was confronted by the ‘religious Pharisees’, in Verse 15, saying of Jesus, “How does this Man know letters, having never studied?” Jesus answered them and said, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true; and no unrighteousness is in Him.”

Are there those today who “speak from themselves seeking his/her own glory”? Or are there those today sent by Christ to unveil His eternal Truth? In John17:6-8 Jesus said, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You. For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; AND THEY HAVE RECEIVED THEM, and have known surely that I came forth from You (or out of Him!); and they have believed that You sent Me.”

“Sheltered From Or Sheltered IN The Storms of Life”? I close this teaching with an old, old hymn written by Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander and William H. Jude found in “The Old American Hymnal”, composed by Robert H. Coleman in 1933! It’s entitled “Jesus Calls Us”, saying: “Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea, Day by day His sweet voice sounds, Saying, “Christian follow Me.”

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

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

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

Give our hearts to His obedience? Did Jesus ever willfully go out opposed to the Father’s will? NO! He went out graciously centered and yielded to the reality of being “Sheltered In the storms of life”!! Amen?

“SMALL SEED – GREAT FRUIT”

HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU KNOW WHO SEE THEIR LIFE AS NOTHING MORE THAN A “RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE”? THEY REALLY DON’T KNOW WHO THEY ARE AND WHY THEY’RE HERE IN THIS AWESOME WORLD? A MEANINGLESS EXISTENCE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE “BIRTHED OR IMAGINED” BECAUSE DOUBT ABOUT LIFE’S MEANING, AT LEAST FOR THEM, HAS DUG THE GRAVE ON BIBLICAL FAITH,MERCY,AND THE LOVE OF GOD,WITH A SIN-NATURE,A SATANIC BLINDING,AND A “LOST WORLD’S DISPOSITION” OF OPPOSING GOD IF THEY AT LEAST ADMIT HE IS AROUND AND ‘MAY’ HAVE CREATED THE WORLD!

AND IF ‘YOU’ HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT YET,AT LEAST, BE ASSURED THAT YOU’RE NOT ALONE IN YOUR DOUBTS AND FEARS, BECAUSE NATURAL MEN WHO BAR THE DOOR TO SPIRITUAL TRUTH AND ITS REALITY ARE ACCOMPLICES OF TYRANNY IN OPPOSITION TO THE GOD THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW! THEY ARE “SEED” WITHOUT ANY “SUBSTANCE” OR UNDERSTANDING ABOUT EVEN WHY GOD WOULD BIRTH A FALLEN PEOPLE!THE TRUTH IS THAT HIS DESIRE FOR HIS SPIRITUAL KINGDOM WAS THAT, AS HE CREATED NATURAL KINGDOMS AND MASSES OF PEOPLE, HE WANTED “ALL” TO HAVE A CHOICE OF A GOD-RELATIONSHIP OR NOT! HE DIDN’T WANT ‘PUPPETS’ ON A STRING MEETING HIS EVERY DESIRE! HE WANTED PEOPLE WHOM HE CALLED TO HIMSELF WHO WOULD BE PEOPLE ALIGNING WITH HIM ON HIS TERMS! IN FACT, HOLY GOD PLANTED IN ALL OF FALLEN MAN’S EXISTENCE THE REALITY OF LIFESTYLE CHOICES: “FLESH OR SPIRITUAL”, “NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL”, “EARTHLY OR HEAVENLY”, “BEST EFFORT” OR “BLESSED REST” IN A SAVIOR’S FINISHED WORK ON THE CROSS”, ‘WILLFUL MINDFULNESS’ OR “SOVEREIGN MERCY”, ‘MAN’S MAN-MADE BROAD HIGHWAYS’ OR “GOD’S NARROW WAY OF LIFE IN CHRIST ALONE”, ‘ACCEPTABLE RELIGIONS’ OR “SPIRITUAL FREEDOM IN THE TABERNACLE OF GOD’S MERCY & GRACE”!

IT WAS BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER BUT I LOVED IT. IT WAS IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,P.107, THAT SAYS: “GOD MADE BEES, AND BEES MADE HONEY; GOD MADE MAN, AND MAN MADE MONEY, PRIDE MADE THE DEVIL, AND THE DEVIL MADE SIN; SO GOD MADE A COAL-PIT TO PUT THE DEVIL IN.” LIFE’S CHOICES? A BLACKENED COAL PIT WITH SATAN, OR HEAVEN ON EARTH IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST?

“SMALL SEED –GREAT FRUIT!” IN HEBREWS 11:17-19 we read, “BY FAITH ABRAHAM, WHEN HE WAS TRIED (TESTED), OFFERED UP ISAAC: AND HE THAT HAD RECEIVED THE PROMISES OFFERED UP HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, OF WHOM IT WAS SAID, ‘THAT IN ISAAC SHALL YOUR SEED BE BLESSED; ACCOUNTING THAT GOD WAS ABLE TO RAISE HIM UP,EVEN FROM THE DEAD;FROM WHENCE ALSO HE RECEIVED HIM IN A FIGURE.” YOU UNDERSTAND –‘TESTING’ TO PLEASE GOD IS NOT MAN OFFERING THEIR SIN-NATURED SONS TO DIE, ‘THINKING’ SURELY GOD CAN RAISE THEM, BUT SONS WITH A ‘SIGN’ OF AN OPEN, YIELDING TO ‘SIN’, EVEN IF THEY DID GRASP ‘REPENTANCE’, ARE NOT, WERE NOT, WILL NOT BE BIRTHED IN THE ‘FLESH’ WITH A ‘SINLESS NATURE’ BUT ‘FLESHLY BIRTHED’ TO CARRY ON ‘SIN-NATIONALITY’, UNLESS CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, GUIDED INTO “TRUTH”, BIRTHED AGAIN THROUGH THE “SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST ON CALVARY’S CROSS”,

THE GUILTY THO’ RELIGIOUS’LIKE MOST OF THE JEWS OF JESUS’S “DAY” ARE NOT “BORN AGAIN” EXCEPT THROUGH CALVARY’S STORY, CHRIST’S RESURRECTION, CHRIST’S KNOCKING ON THEIR HEART’S DOOR TO TRULY AWAKEN THEM! WHEN HE CAUGHT THEIR ATTENTION, JESUS SAID, “REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND!”

FOLLOW ME IN 2 PETER 1:1-12!! SIMON PETER, A SERVANT AND AN APOSTLE OF JESUS CHRIST, TO THEM THAT HAVE OBTAINED ‘LIKE PRECIOUS FAITH’ WITH US “THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD AND OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST: (SAVED FROM WHAT? UNRIGHTEOUSNESS? DISOBEDIENCE TO HOLY TRUTH? WORLD DEVOTION BLINDED TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD WITH FEEBLE ATTEMPTS & FAILING ATTEMPTS THROUGH ‘RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES’ RATHER THAN JESUS TELLING THEM & US, “YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN”, DYING TO YOUR WORLD, YOUR SIN-NATURE, AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS OF SATAN HIMSELF?)

VERSE 2 & FOLLOWING: “GRACE AND PEACE BE MULTIPLIED UNTO YOU THROUGH “THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST: ACCORDING AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN UNTO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE AND GODLINESS, THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF “HIM” THAT HAS CALLED US TO GLORY & VIRTUE; WHEREBY ARE GIVEN UNTO US EXCEEDING GREAT & PRECIOUS PROMISES:THAT BY THESE YOU MIGHT PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, HAVING ESCAPED THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD THROUGH LUST.

VERSE 5 & FOLLOWING: AND BESIDE THIS, GIVING ALL DILIGENCE, ADD TO YOUR FAITH VIRTUE; AND TO VIRTUE KNOWLEDGE; AND TO KNOWLEDGE TEMPERANCE; AND TO TEMPERANCE PATIENCE; AND TO PATIENCE GODLINESS; AND TO GODLINESS BROTHERLY KINDNESS; AND TO BROTHERLY KINDNESS CHARITY.

VERSE 8 &FOLLOWING: FOR IF THESE THINHS BE IN YOU, AND ABOUND,THEY MAKE YOU THAT YOU SHALL NEITHER BE BARREN OR UNFRUITFUL IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. BUT HE THAT LACKS THESE THINGS IS BLIND, AND CANNOT SEE AFAR OFF, AND HAS FORGOTTEN THAT HE WAS PURGED FROM HIS OLD SINS. WHEREFORE THE RATHER, BRETHREN, GIVE DILIGENCE TO “MAKE YOUR CALLING AND ELECTION SURE”; FOR IF YOU DO THESE THINGS, YOU SHALL NEVER FALL; FOR SO AN ENTRANCE SHALL BE MINISTERED UNTO YOU ABUNDANTLY INTO THE EVERLASTING KINGHDOM OF OUR LORD & SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

WHEREFORE I WILL NOT BE NEGLIGENT TO PUT YOU ALWAYS IN REMEMBRANCE OF THESE THINGS, THOUGH YOU KNOW THEM, AND BE “ESTABLISHED” (OR “MADE TO STAND”!) IN THE PRESENT TRUTH.”

THE PRESENT TRUTH? THAT “YOU” WERE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, &THE OLD LIFE THAT DIED ON THE CROSS WAS BURIED IN THE ‘SEA OF GOD’S FORGETFULNESS’, THAT HOLY GOD THEN “RAISED YOU UP IN THE “NEWNESS OF LIFE”, COMMISSIONED YOU AS A SERVANT WHO ALLOWS ONE’S SELF TO BE THE “TABERNACLE” WHERE CHRIST DWELLS, AND CHOOSES TO DO “THROUGH YOU” ALL THE FATHER TELLS YOU TO DO – YOU THEN EXTEND HIS LIFE, EXPRESS LOVE TO HIM MOMENT BY MOMENT, AND HE PROVES HIS RESURRECTION POWER THROUGH YOU AS YOU “REST IN HIM” & ALLOW HIM TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH YOU!!

“SMALL SEED”? BUT GREAT POTENTIAL WHEN “SEED PLANTED BY GOD, WATERED & FERTILIZED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, WITH THE ‘SONSHINE’ OF GOD’S MERCY BLAZING ON IT, PRODUCES CONTINUING, GREAT “FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT” REVEALING THE MERCY, GRACE, AND LOVE OF GOD THROUGH HEAVEN-BORN “TREES OF FAITH & TRUST” IN GOD’S ABILITY TO RAISE THE “DEAD” TO “NEW-LIFE IN & THROUGH THE BLOOD REDEMPTION OF CHRIST’S CROSS, HIS DEATH, & HIS RESURRECTION”!!

I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH WORDS OF JAMES, THE BROTHER OF JESUS, IN JAMES 5:10-20, AS HE WROTE INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT: VERSE 10-20, “TAKE, MY BRETHREN, THE PROPHETS, WHO HAVE SPOKEN IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, FOR AN EXAMPLE OF SUFFERING AFFLICTION, AND OF PATIENCE (OR STEDFASTNESS). BEHOLD, WE COUNT THEM HAPPY WHICH ENDURE. YOU HAVE HEARD OF THE PATIENCE OF JOB, AND HAVE SEEN THE END OF THE LORD; THAT THE LORD IS VERY PITIFUL, & OF TENDER MERCY.

BUT ABOVE ALL THINGS, MY BRETHREN,SWEAR NOT,NEITHER BY HEAVEN,NEITHER BY THE EARTH,NEITHER BY ANY OTHER OATH:BUT LET YOUR YES BE YES; AND YOUR NO,NO; LEST YOU FALL INTO CONDEMNATION. IS ANY AMONG YOU AFFLICTED?LET HIM PRAY.ISANY MERRY?LET HIM SING PSALMS. IS ANY SICK AMONG YOU?LET HIM CALL FOR THE ELDERS OF THE CHURCH; AND LET THEM PRAY OVER HIM,ANOINTING HIM WITH OIL IN THE NAME OF THE LORTD: AND THE PRAYER OF FAITH SHALL SAVE THE SICK, AND THE LORD SHALL RAISE HIM UP; AND IF HE HAS COMMITTED SINS, THEY SHALL BE FORGIVEN HIM.

CONFESS YOUR FAULTS ONE TO ANOTHER, AND PRAY ONE FOR ANOTHER, THAT YOU MAY BE HEALED. THE EFFECTUAL FERVENT PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN AVAILS MUCH. ELIAS (OR ELIJAH) WAS A MAN SUBJECT TO LIKE PASSIONS AS WE ARE, AND HE PRAYED EARNESTLY THAT IT MIGHT NOT RAIN:

AND IT RAINED NOT ON THE EARTH BY THE SPACE OF 3 YEARS & 6 MONTHS. AND HE PRAYED AGAIN, & THE HEAVEN GAVE RAIN, & THE EARTH BROUGHT FORTH HER FRUIT. BRETHREN,IF ANY OF YOU DO ERR FROM THE TRUTH, AND ONE CONVERT HIM; LET HIM KNOW, THAT HE WHICH CONVERTS THE SINNER FROM THE ERROR OF HIS WAY SHALL SAVE A SOUL FROM DEATH, & SHALL HIDE A MULTITUDE OF SINS.”

“SMALL SEED-GREAT FRUIT”? WHAT IS HOLY GOD DOING THRU’ YOUR LIFE? ‘NO SEED-NO FRUIT’? OR “SMALL SEED-GREAT FRUIT”? IT IS AN ETERNAL LIFE CHOICE!!

By J.Farrell Fisher, December 26, 2016

By J. Farrell Fisher

[Volume One]

Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

Copyright: 2016, James Farrell Fisher and/or Susan M. Fisher

1809 Rollingwood Court, Bedford, Texas, 76021

FOREWARD

[“Dr.” David Clark, spiritual son of Farrell Fisher, longtime faithful disciple who has ministered in Florida prisons for years. His wife, Sharon, is also a strong faithful witness to the honor of Christ! They are a part of Farrell & Sue’s sons and daughters!].

INTRODUCTION

Writing this book has been, I believe, an inspiration of Holy God to me as I have entered the year of 2016, and on June 12, 2016, I will be celebrating my 80^th birthday! The one thing I have sought to be sensitive to in my journey is the leadership of our Lord through His Word, His Spirit, and, yes, the wise words of His people to me through the years. Closed, deaf, unconcerned ears to the voice of God is not a wise pilgrimage!

How do YOU respond to the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:31-34? “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 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.”

And I believe “kingdom consideration” is vital for every human being! Of course, a falling, failing, ‘full of self’ kingdom faces a destiny that sadly is death and not life, darkness and not Light, the curse and not our Lord’s blessing, and in one’s self lives devotedly for the prison of self-will, self-desires, self-pleasures, unaware of what Holy God so lovingly longs for them in and through His divine will and His holy pleasures!

In Matthew 11:28-30 the Lord Jesus Christ said to a needy world, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

It’s been a few months ago that I was in my study-room, and Holy God began to speak to me about “Death or Life?” I penned some words as He stirred my heart. It says: Death, an event every life does face; death, the call that men cannot erase. Yet death, as strong as it seems, has no power to erase God’s dreams.

Strong, yes mighty, no one can deny, but death has no power when upon Christ we rely; eternal life is our Lord’s faithful supply.

Repentance and faith are heavenly gifts He readily supplies, and grants us the grace of His heavenly eyes; eyes to see what He mercifully gives, promises of His Word that allows us to live.

Death as it comes cannot be denied, but death when it happens, is God’s open door to the curse of Hell or to the blessing of Heaven’s “much more”.

The “best of men” may seem slow to die, but effort in ‘flesh’, though mighty and strong, does not unveil to whom they belong.

Death is the door to God’s heavenly rest, or death is the door to the devil’s hellish pests; no rest for the godless as eternity dawns, receiving the poison they clearly had sown.

Death is the dawn of Heaven’s best, or death is the birthing of greater slavery and chains, hopeless though crying for a moment’s rest.

The “tomb” of death is no resting place but a constant wailing of pain and disgrace, as the devil and demons, with foolishness and shame, awaken their prisoners to remind them of blame.

Blame for accepting their sinful state, blame for denying the Lord too late. Pleasure they sought without any awareness of what Jesus had bought.

By the blood of the Lamb sinful bondage is broken, but ‘sinners’ refuse to accept what was spoken. Freedom from sin because of His blood, but bondage with Satan because of his flood.

Life everlasting our Lord’s gracious call, made One in Him though bruised by the Fall; Light has come to enlighten our Way, the darkness of day has no more to say; but Heaven’s Light forever shines at the Table of the Lord in Heaven we dine.

Blessed is the man who lives in “Resurrection Life”, freed from sin and its inevitable strife, brought out of ‘death’, blessed in His Life.

Blessed is the man set apart to live with Him sustained by His resurrected life and heart. Gifts of God continually abound as the saint in Christ is valiant in choosing Heaven’s sound.

No strife, no pain, no fleshly blame – just resting in Jesus, no longer sinfully lame. New life, new hope, new dreams abound, dreams that emit only Heaven’s holy sounds.

Blessed is the man most blessed by God’s Word, no longer unmindful or ashamed of his devotion to the Lord, but so devoted and settled in the Truth that binds a heart and mind to the glory of our God, not coldly, carelessly, merciless just buried in the sod.

A new name given, a new purpose defined – set apart to Him to honor His Name, so thankful for His blessing and so aware of the same, to lay down our lives in His holy name; dead to ourselves and our fleshly games, no slamming the door in the face of God, but ‘planting’ our lives in this earthly sod by His witness of Life, wholly given to God!

His glory so freely bestowed is His gift to the man who freely sows God’s mercy and grace and love where God chooses to place us, with a God-given call, that whatever we do, we do it in awe of the God who placed us in the midst of man’s Fall, to sound His words: “redeemed from the Fall,” and recipients of God’s All.

God’s All of forgiveness and freedom and force, to equip as servants, as we rest in His course – no plans of our own but happily choosing to serve where we’re sown.

A crown of glory so freely awaits the man or woman who ‘drinks His blood,’ so fully aware they’re ‘saved from the ‘flood’; and those deceived by the devil’s untruths, those unaware of His spiritual abuse, the sons of God so boldly face the Fall of men in fleshly disgrace, and pour out their lives to see the change that our Lord’s sacrifice so richly inflames – A flame of God that purifies the soul, seta a man free, and enriches his life, free from guilt, free from godlessness, free to breathe in His gracious gifts, equipping His people to pronounce salvation from fleshly rifts!

Heaven forever in relationship with God, married to Him with the old man in earth’s sod. Heaven forever as the gift of His grace, ever soaring on eagles’ wings until I’m safe in His place. His love gave me wings, even a voice to sing, and eyes to see my eternal resting place, graciously a recipient of His matchless grace!

“Amen” to God forever the same, the God of love that has washed our blame, and seated us with Christ in heavenly places that we might view His love of all races, anointing us in His Spirit and blessing us with heavenly graces, to see our world as His Creation, with Holy Desire as His habitation, unveiling Christ Jesus as His Holy Revelation! [Written by James Farrell Fisher at the beginning of this new book!]

OUTLINE

Chapter 1 – “I NEVER KNEW YOU”! SIGNED: GOD

Chapter 2 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED”

Chapter 3 – “THE VITAL AWARENESS OF THE NEED OF SPIRITUAL LABORING”

Chapter 4 – “VITAL AWARENESS OF THE AMAZING GOD AND AMAZING GIFTS”

Chapter 5 – “THE AMAZING UNVEILING OF AWESOME TRUTH BY PREACHING PEACE THROUGH CHRIST JESUS’ CROSS”

Chapter 6 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? FALLEN FOLLOWER – FAITHFUL FOLLOW-UP”

Chapter 7 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? THE CALL TO ONE’S NEED OF SELF-EXAMINATION”

Chapter 8 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? PRAYERLESS LIFE – PRAYERFUL LIBERATION”

Chapter 9 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? BESTOWED GRACE – BLESSED VICTORY”

Chapter 10 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? ONE LEGISLATOR – ONE LORD”

Chapter 11 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? VOID OF GOD’S WORD OR VICTORY THROUGH GOD’S WORD?”

Chapter 12 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? EXPERIENCING THE POWER OF THE PROMISED, PRECIOUS HOLY SPIRIT!”

Chapter 13 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? WORLD PHILOSOPHERS OR WILLFUL PROMOTION BY GOD?”

Chapter 14 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? CONFLICTING LOYALTY OR ALL-CONSUMING LOVE?”

Chapter 15 – “Vital Awareness Unveiled? Victims Or Victors?”

Chapter 16 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? CARING FOR OTHERS – THE SIGN OF CHRIST’S PRESENCE!”

Chapter 17 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? SIN’S COMPLICATIONS – SIN’S REMEDY!”

Chapter 18 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? HUMANLY DEVELOPED STRENGTH OR GOD-GIVEN POWER?”

Chapter 19 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? UNFOUNDED EXPECTATION OR ETERNAL TRUTH UNVEILED?”

Chapter 20 – “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? THE REALITY OF HELL AND HEAVEN?”

CHAPTER ONE

“I NEVER KNEW YOU!”

SIGNED: “GOD”

In reading the Psalms recently, I read a Scripture that heightened the ‘holy fear of God’ in my heart. It was Psalm 31:1 when David wrote: “In You, O Lord, do I put my trust and seek refuge; let me NEVER be put to shame or (have my hope in You) disappointed; deliver me in Your righteousness!”

In Verse 4 David prayed: “Draw me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me; for You are my strength and my stronghold.”

If David found himself in “the net”, a “net that they have laid secretly for me,” with certainty it was his fleshly enemies, though religious, who wanted to bring the king down!

Are you aware that there are ‘enemies’ who want to bring King Jesus down even today? And there are ‘enemies’ who want to bring you down even this very moment!

Sadly, there are false accusers who desire to bring down anything or anyone whose attitude and aim of life is to give glory to God as they ‘walk out the Faith’ in the midst of a troubled, disturbed, and disbelieving world, yes, even a religious world that consents to anything opposite of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Remember, it was “the scribes and Pharisees” and even religious priests of Jesus’ day who nailed Him to the Cross – and even today there are religious people in church somewhere every Sunday, used by Satan, to falsely accuse you, seeking to defame you, discourage you, discolor the whiteness of your reputation as a true follower of Christ and servant of God, never understanding that their false accusations, mouthed by their own bitterness and anger, exposes to whom they belong – and the defamers aren’t someone owned by Christ Jesus!

Are you aware of the reality of abuse that “the humble and oppressed” face in their journeys? And are you aware that the “wicked condemn, spurn, renounce and divorce themselves” from God Himself? If they accuse God, you then are not a target of His enemies? Please hear me! YOU are a target of Hell itself and Hell’s manifestations through lives NOT FILLED with the Spirit, nature, and character of Christ!

Pumped up, arrogant flesh, is an academy award winner right out of Hell itself, manifested in bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, manifested by false accusations, making ‘darkness’ out of light, feeding others (uneatable pies) out of the rotten fruit of a pumped-up self- importance, and in their hearts and minds their seeds of wickedness sprout in anger, bitterness, and resentment, with festering sores which wilts any true spiritual wisdom and reflection of the character of Christ who even on the Cross said, “Father, forgive them.”

When Christ Jesus went to the Cross, He took us all with Him, putting to death the “old man”, the “man of sin,” the “man of a vile nature and character,” the “man of bitterness and resentments and unforgiveness”, yes, crucified with Christ. But if that’s true, and it definitely is, how does a ‘professing believer’ still act like the devil himself?

If a man chooses unforgiveness, what does he receive? If a man chooses bitterness, what is his fruit? If a man is dominated by anger and resentment, what will he receive from God as he stands before the Throne in his moment, day, and time there?

I want you to read carefully James 3:6-16 before we continue on! This is vital, yes, relating to your eternal existence! And I’m using here, and elsewhere in this message, the Amplified Bible!

“And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is a world of wickedness set among our members, contaminating and depraving the whole body and setting on fire the wheel of birth – the cycle of man’s nature – being ignited itself by hell [Gehenna].

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea animal, can be tamed and has been tamed by human genius (nature).

But the human tongue can be tamed by no man. It is (an undisciplined, irreconcilable) restless evil, full of death-bringing poison.

With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who were made in God’s likeness!

Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing. These things, my brethren, ought not to be so.

Does a fountain send forth [simultaneously] from the same opening fresh water and bitter?

Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can a salt spring furnish fresh water.

Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his [good] works with the (unobtrusive) humility [which is the proper attire] of true wisdom.

But if you have bitter jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry, selfish ambition) in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on it and thus be in defiance of and false to the Truth.

This [superficial] wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual (animal), even devilish (demonical),

For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry and selfish ambition) there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil and vile practices.”

And unless one receives the Truth, acknowledges his selfish guilt and envy, responds repentantly before Holy God of his rivalry spirit and selfish ambition, defies the Truth and is false TO the Truth and won’t repent, then he is bound by an earthly, fleshly, demonic spirit, and while calling out to Jesus will bust Hell’s doors wide open, enslaved to those devilish demons and the spirits of men overcome by anger, hatred, and fleshly bitterness, not even knowing the fruit of the Spirit they profess to possess!

The Amplified Bible, in Proverbs 16:5 says, “Every one proud and arrogant in heart is disgusting, hateful and exceedingly offensive to the Lord; be assured – I pledge it – he will not go unpunished.”

GOD SAYS: “I never knew you!” Let’s examine choices men make that shuts God out and away from them:

FIRST, ARE YOU AWARE OF THE FALSE GODS MEN CREATE TO BOW BEFORE PROFESSING ALLEGIANCE TO THEM BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE RELIGIOUS ON THEIR OWN TERMS!

In Amos 8:13-14 we read: [“The Message” Bible by Eugene H. Patterson, Nav Press, Colorado Springs, co. 80935], “On Judgment Day, lovely young girls will faint of WORD-THIRST, robust young men will faint of GOD-THIRST,

Along with those who take oaths at the Samaria Sin-and-Sex Center, saying, ‘As the lord god of Dan is my witness!’ and ‘The lady goddess of Beer-Sheba bless you!’ Their lives will fall to pieces, they’ll never put it together again.”

Idol worshippers! Allegiance to man-made idols, whether religious, fleshly, sinful, or demonic. Literal idols that men bow before all over the world and never hear a word, never sense a touch, never receive an anointing, never entertain angels but have the full support of demonic powers.

In Acts 19: 23-28 we hear from the “loud mouths and lost minds” of those getting rich off making idols! Listen to their explanation:

But as time went on there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way [of the Lord Jesus].

For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of (the goddess) Artemis (not Diana), brought no small income to his craftsmen.

These he called together, along with the workmen of similar trades, and said, Men, you are acquainted with the facts and understand that [Are YOU ready?] from this business we derive our wealth and livelihood.

Now you notice and hear that not only at Ephesus but almost all over [the province of] Asia this Paul has persuaded and induced people to believe his teaching and has alienated a considerable company of them, saying that gods that are made with human hands are not really gods at all.

Now there is danger not merely that this trade of ours may be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemas may come into disrepute and count for nothing, and that her glorious magnificence may be degraded and fall into contempt, she whom all Asia and the wide world worship.

As they listened to this they were filled with rage, and they continued to shout, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

Oh, but hear me: Idolatry is more than the worship of man-made, devil-inspired stones to worship before and bow down to! In 1 Corinthians 10:14 Paul pled with the Corinthian church and our church-world today, saying, [Amplified]

“Therefore, my dearly beloved, shun – keep away from, avoid by flight if need be – any sort of idolatry (of loving or venerating anything more than God).”

Did you hear that with your spiritual eyes and ears? “Keep away from – avoid – any sort of idolatry”! In “The Art of Worldly Wisdom, XXVI”, Baltasar Gracian Y Morales wrote: “All men are idolaters, some of fame, others of self-interest, most of pleasure.”

Oh, but then you read 1 Samuel 15:23 and the Word tells us: [Amplified Bible]“For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim (good luck images). Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”

It was Martin Luther in “Table Talk” who said: “We easily fall into idolatry, for we are inclined thereunto by nature, and coming to us by inheritance, it seems pleasant.”

The Amplified Bible in Colossians 3:5-6 translates Paul’s words as follows: “So kill (deaden, deprive of power) the evil desire lurking in your members – those animal impulses and all that is earthly in you that is employed in sin; sexual vice, impurity, sensual appetites, unholy desires, and all greed and covetousness, FOR THAT IS IDOLATRY [the deifying of self and other things instead of God…]

It is on account of these [very sins] that the [holy] anger of God is ever coming upon (those who are obstinately opposed to the divine will) the sons of disobedience.”

Did you receive that ? A son, a daughter of disobedience is the same as an idol! An idolater is one obstinately opposed to the divine will (the sons of disobedience)!

And Paul gives us all a warning in 2 Corinthians 6:16 when he said: “What agreement [can there be between] a temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in and with and among them [that’s the church!] and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Paul was concerned about God’s people choosing to worship idols? Is it any different today than it was in Paul’s day?

SECOND, HOW GUILTY DO YOU BELIEVE GOVERNMENTS ARE WHEN MEN SUBVERT THE RULE OF GOD IN GOVERNMENT AND ENTHRONE THEMSELVES, YES, TO RUTHLESSLY AND SELFISHLY AND DECEPTIVELY RULE OVER THE PEOPLE?

Psalm 67 is one of the most informative passages about God’s rule in government you’ll not find in most national governments’ constitutions. It says: [Amplified Bible]

“God be merciful and gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us and among us, SELAH [pause, and calmly think of that]! That Your way may be known upon earth, Your saving power [Your deliverances and Your salvation], among all nations.

Let the peoples praise You, [turn away from their idols] and give thanks to You, O God; let all the peoples praise and give thanks to You. O let the nations be glad and sing for joy; for You will judge the peoples fairly, and guide, lead or drive the nations upon earth. SELAH [pause, and calmly think of that]!

Let the peoples praise You, [turn away from their idols] and give thanks to You, O God; let all the peoples praise and give thanks to You. The earth has yielded its harvest [in evidence of God’s approval]; God, even our own God will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall reverently fear Him.”

And, if you happened not to hear it in your heart or overlooked or just didn’t understand it, let me highlight it for you! Judgment comes upon the nations! People who are truly praising the Lord are turning away from their idols! Holy God WILL guide, lead, or drive the nations upon the earth!

Question: Are there godless governments in churches or are some churches infiltrated by godless people intent on shaping ‘our church’ to ‘our way of thinking’?

1 Peter 4:17-18 tells us, “For the time [has arrived] for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will [be] the end of those who do not respect or believe or obey the good news (the Gospel) of God? And if the righteous are barely saved, what will become of the godless and the wicked?”

Proverbs 11:30-31 is both encouraging and frightening! It says: “The fruit of the [uncompromisingly] righteous is a tree of life, and he who is wise captures human lives for God [as a fisher of men] – he gathers and receives them for eternity. Behold, the [uncompromisingly] righteous shall be recompensed on earth; how much more the wicked and the sinner! [And if the righteous are barely saved, what will become of the ungodly and wicked?”]

Have you followed through with studying 2 Peter? If you did, you had ‘Hell’ scared right out of you if you lingered because Peter was inspired by Holy God to write 2 Peter 2:1-10! It says,

“But []in those days] there arose false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among yourselves, who will subtly and stealthily introduce heretical doctrines – destructive heresies – even denying and disowning the Master Who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

And many will follow their immoral ways and lascivious doings; because of them the true Way will be maligned and defamed. And in their covetousness (lust, greed) they will exploit you with (cunning) false arguments. From of old the sentence [of condemnation] for them has not been idle; their destruction (eternal misery) has not been asleep.

For God [even] spared not angels that sinned, but cast them into hell, delivering them to be kept there in pits of gloom till the judgment and their doom. And He spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven other persons, when He brought a flood upon the world on ungodly [people].

And He condemned to ruin and extinction the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ashes []and thus] set them forth as an example to those who would be ungodly. [Genesis 19:24].

And He rescued righteous Lot, greatly worn out and distressed by the wanton ways of the ungodly and lawless. [Genesis 19:16,29]. For that just man, living [there] among them, tortured his righteous soul every day with what he saw and heard on [their] unlawful and wicked deeds.

NOW if [all these things be true, then be sure] the Lord knows how to rescue the godly out of temptations and trials, and how to keep the ungodly under chastisement until the day of judgment and doom; And particularly those who walk after the flesh and indulge in the lust of polluting passion, and scorn and despise authority. Presumptuous and daring – self-willed and self-loving [creatures]! They scoff at and revile dignitaries (glorious ones) without trembling.”

But can I tell you? There’s coming a day when the ungodly will want to shake themselves out of this world that belongs to Holy God, unaware they’ve shaken themselves into Hell itself!

THIRD, AND LAST, ARE YOU AWARE OF WHERE ‘FLESHLY’ PRETENSE LEADS THE ACTUAL ‘SELF-PROMOTERS’? ARE YOU READY TO BE CONFRONTED BY HOLY TRUTH? In Matthew 7:15-29 we read, [bear with me!], 14 Verses!

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you dressed as sheep, but inside they are devouring wolves. [Have you ever encountered them?].

You will fully recognize them by their fruits. Do people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Even so every healthy (sound) tree bears good fruit – worthy of admiration; but the sickly (decaying, worthless) tree bears bad and worthless fruit.

A good (healthy) tree cannot bear bad (worthless) fruit; nor can a bad diseased tree bear excellent fruit – worthy of admiration. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. Therefore you will fully know them by their fruits.

Not everyone who says to Me [that’s Jesus!], Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and driven out demons in Your name, and done many mighty works in Your name?

And then I will say to them openly (publicly) I never knew you; depart from Me, you who act wickedly – disregarding My commands [Psalm 6:8]. So everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts upon them – obeying them – will be like a sensible (prudent, practical, wise) man who built his house upon the rock;

And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And every one who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a stupid (foolish) man who built his house upon the sand; And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great and complete was the fall of it.

When Jesus had finished these sayings [the Sermon on the Mount], the crowds were astonished and overwhelmed with bewildered wonder at His teaching. For He was teaching as [One] who had [and was] authority, and not as did the scribes.”

I’ve pastored in Florida, Alabama, Arizona, and Texas. And that was over a period of about 50 years. So the true story I’m about to share, you’ll not know where this story occurred, true, sad, and so convicting.

A man I know had a personal friend who was running for public office – and for certain this man was sure, confident, and at peace in giving his close friend full support.

But the man had a neighbor a few blocks away who had decided to run for the same office, and so he went to the neighbor, asking for his support.

The central man of the story told the neighbor, “I wish I could, but one of my long-time best friends is running, and I’ve committed my support to him.” The neighbor was incensed and marked the central man voting for his friend as the neighbor’s number one enemy. He became so embittered, and from that day forward lived with a grudge, a resentment, a tactic of nothing good to say about the man who voted for his friend rather than this neighbor.

Dare I tell you the embittered neighbor is an active church-goer? He professes Christ Jesus but lives in a state of unforgiveness and bitterness!

What did Jesus say in Matthew 7:23? “Ant then I will say to them openly (publicly) I NEVER KNEW YOU; depart from Me, you who act wickedly – disregarding My commands.”

Receive our Lord’s words in Mark 11:25-26! “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, FORGIVE HIM AND LET IT DROP – leave it, let it go – in order that your Father Who is in heaven may also forgive you your [own] failings and shortcomings and let them drop.” But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your failings and shortcomings.”

I was 37-38 years of age, I believe, when I knew I had serious business to take care of if I wanted God’s blessing on my life, my wife, my children. I was the product of a broken home. At three years of age my parents divorced, and I was taken by my mother to the home of her parents who cared for me for about 9-10 years. Then my mother remarried, and I was taken to live with her and her new husband.

In all my years of life my father was never in my home with me, Sue, and his grandkids. One time, my senior year in high school, playing against Knoxville Central High School in Knoxville, I tackled their single-wing tailback, 230 pounds he weighed, hitting him at his knee level, knocked unconscious in the early second quarter, transferred to the Catholic Hospital in Knoxville, parents and family unsure that I might live through the night.

When I awoke at 4:30 in the morning, all of my family was standing at the door of my hospital room, including my Dad and his second wife. I lived – and I played the next Friday night against Notre Dame High of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Beyond that, if I desired to see my Dad, which I did, I would ride a bus from Cleveland, Tennessee, to his office in Athens, Tennessee, where I was born. He never ever came to my home. At the 37-38 years stage of life, wanting God’s full and fresh blessing, God said, “Go, and forgive your mother and father now!” Which I did! And as a result, received “the peace of God that passes all understanding.”

It’s time – forgive, free yourself, and walk in His fullness and eternal blessing! Examine Ephesians 1:7-12, [NKJV Edition, Holman Bible Edition], “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”

Question! Are YOU living to the praise of His glory and honor? Do YOU walk in forgiveness to those who wounded YOU? Is your song “Mercy and Grace” or is it the song of unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment, even with flashes of hatred? In 2 Corinthians 7:10 we read, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

In your journey through life, what is truly your spiritual desire? A disease or the fruit of the blessing of the Indwelling Christ who forgives by His shed blood? A man who walks in the spirit of unforgiveness WILL NOT KNOW our Lord’s blessing apart from exchanging their bitterness for His forgiveness, even seeking sincere relationships not closed doors, because we were reconciled to Christ through His Cross, and true reconciliation is not only with Christ but a true relationship with those who ‘hurt, offended, or slighted us’!

If you’ve “entered the Kingdom of God”, why not act like it? 1 John 4:9 says, “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.” Have YOU entered the Kingdom of God? Are you living and demonstrating and validating the Truth of His Indwelling Life?

It was Gladden and Smith who wrote the old Hymn, “O Master, Let Me Walk With Thee.” It says: “O Master, let me walk with Thee, In lowly paths of service free; Tell me Your secret, help me bear The strain of toil, the fret of care.

Help me the slow of heart to move By some clear, winning word of love; Teach me the wayward feet to stay, And guide them in the homeward way.

Teach me Your patience! Still with You In closer, dearer company, In work that keeps faith sweet and strong, In trust that triumphs over wrong. In hope that sends a shining ray Far down the future’s broadening way, In peace that only You can give, With You, O Master, let me live.” Does He “know YOU” or not?

CHAPTER TWO

VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED

Are you aware of a ‘religious faith’ birthed in one’s mind on the basis of one’s distinct, self-actualizing moral efforts, or the ‘True Faith’ birthed, built, based and blessed on God’s initiative, inspiration, and divine insight?

Is there a religious spirit apart from the Holy Spirit that invents requirements apart from God’s revelation, unveiling, promise, and verification of divine life only through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ?

Have you ever witnessed a mass religiosity so opposite to ‘repentance toward God and true faith in the finished work of Christ on the Cross’? “Vital Awareness Unveiled”?

Religious convictions or Divine Truth? Devotion to a church’s constitution or devotion to Christ’s Resurrected, Reigning Indwelling Life? Devotion to what an ‘intellectual’ professor says or devotion to who Christ Jesus is? Devotion to a world’s united, unbiblical teachings that there is more than one way to God, including every religion manufactured by men’s deceived hearts, or holy revelation of the vital awareness unveiled of God’s only “one way”? Is it man’s ‘religious foundation’ offered by ‘the best’ in intellectual superiority or God’s best and blessed in the awesome Truth of who Christ Jesus is and what He did on Calvary’s Cross over 2000 years ago, and, in fact, birthed in the heart of Holy God before our world was ever created?!?

Is vital awareness unveiled by the ‘Apostates’ Creed’ or the “Apostles’ Revelation” unveiled by the sold-out disciples who all died for the Eternal Truth? [And maybe even a bigger question today: “Are you a true disciple ready to die for the only Way of true salvation – the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and soon-coming of Christ Jesus?”] Is it vital unawareness unveiled by social experiments rather than the true declaration of the Holy Word concerning Christ, or the vital awareness unveiled by the sacrificial death of Christ on the Cross?

An ‘Apostates’ Creed’ is all in for self-awareness, self-individuality, self-honoring, while the “Apostles’ Creed” is the affirming, relying upon, declaration, and submission to Christ’s Lordship and His “victory” in and through His sacrificial death on the Cross, releasing men from the penalty of their sin and their surrender to His “Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope”!

In fact, in Matthew 16:24-26, Jesus declared, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” That’s the true words of the Lord Jesus!

Do you realize that one substituting his individuality in seeking to be reconciled to Holy God is “banking” on God believing our self-efforts are eternally rewarding, and God should be thankful to have us on His side? But, God says, Matthew 16:24, “If ANYONE desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

I was awe-struck when I read Dietrich Bonhoffer’s statement: [Bonhoeffer, by Eric Metaxes, p.138], “The church has only one altar, the altar of the Almighty…before which all creatures must kneel. Whoever seeks something other than this must keep away; he cannot join us in the house of God…The church has only one pulpit, and from that pulpit, faith in God will be preached, and no other faith, and no other will than the will of God, however well-intentioned.”

What was true in the very day of Christ Jesus is true even today! In John 6:66-68 we read, From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. 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.” And there are those who “do go away”, captured in mind and spirit, because, for them, “the way of the Cross” does not lead home to safety, convenience, or acceptance by a sadly, Godless world, enslaving themselves to their religious bondage so opposite to the true freedom in Christ Jesus!

The sad truth of a ‘fallen world’, so expressive of ‘fallen man’, alienated and separated from Holy God, is that “the blood of Jesus Christ” shed on the Cross was totally unnecessary because their ‘sin’ and ‘sin nature’ was not that serious that a wise, understanding, sympathetic God, should, would, could, and did shed the literal blood of His own ‘assumed’ Son. The lost, alienated, unbelieving world says, “The ‘fleshly god’ of one’s own natural life is enough to deliver himself, even if one hears of a “greater salvation”, because there is nothing better in man than his own self-deification, self-strength, and self-ability to overcome any minor or major spiritual short-coming – who needs Jesus?” You’ve heard it!

But a greater, sadder truth? Just like the scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ day who rejected Him and crucified Him, those in this modern day who do the same thing, Jesus says, John 7:33-34, “I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.” Are you a believer or an unbeliever, a receiver or a rejecter, an independent, foolish man or truly a wise man of redemptive, life-changing faith?

“Vital Awareness Unveiled?” Hear the words of Jesus Christ in John 14:6! “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

FIRST, VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED IS CHRIST JESUS, THE ONLY WAY FALLEN MEN ARE RECONCILED TO HOLY GOD! What did Jesus Himself say? “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” And, if Christ Jesus declares, “I AM THE WAY,” then what is taking place in the minds and hearts of unbelievers? It’s total, complete, destructive deception, breeding ‘death’ for one’s eternal reward!

In Psalm 36:1-4, David wrote about the wickedness of a sinful man! “An oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked: THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE HIS EYES. For he flatters himself in his own eyes, when he finds out his iniquity and when he hates. The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit; he has ceased to be wise and to do good. He devises wickedness on his bed; he sets himself IN A WAY THAT IS NOT GOOD; he does not abhor evil.”

And that takes place, without shame, before the Lord’s mercy, in spite of God’s faithfulness in working out his redemption, and his bed, at nighttime, is where he thinks out his wickedness, and ends up doing what? “He sets himself in a way that is not good!” No doubt this is why the author of Proverbs was inspired to write in Proverbs 12:15, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, BUT he who heeds counsel is wise.” And those who are spiritually unwise, in Proverbs 13:15, God declares, “the way of the unfaithful is hard.” Just a chapter later, in Proverbs 14:12, Yes, Holy God declares through His servant, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

Oh, but then in Psalms 18:28-30 King David was so inspired to write, “For You will light my lamp; the Lord will enlighten [illumine] my darkness. For by You I can run against a troop, by my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.”

Isn’t there an old hymn that says, “Trust and obey for there’s no other way?” In fact, in John 14:6, Jesus declared, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life. NO ONE comes TO the Father except through Me.” Wasn’t it Josh MacDowell who once said “Jesus? Liar, lunatic, or the Lord God?”

Aren’t you awed by God’s holy choices to serve Him in proclaiming Christ? Are you aware that Saul of Tarsus was an enemy of Christ Jesus, persecuting Him, imprisoning Him, and ready to slaughter Him, but Holy God had a different plan that even included God washing Saul of Tarsus in the blood of the Lamb and raised Paul the Apostle up to be one of His greatest witnesses!

In 1 Corinthians 15:9-20, [patience, please! Eleven verses! But eternal truth!], Paul wrote, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward 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 was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up – if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!

Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. BUT NOW CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Let me highlight an extremely valuable word for you in the tenth verse! “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain…!” That’s “bestowed grace – blessed victory!” Jesus raised you and me up out of spiritual death, instilled His Resurrection Life, planted our feet on the “Solid Rock,” and showed us “His Way”!

Do you remember the man meeting Rebekah as she drew water in Genesis 24:27, saying to her, “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being in the way, the Lord led me…!” And “Christ Jesus, the only way fallen mankind is reconciled to Holy God? Yes! Ten thousand times, Yes! Jesus said, “I AM THE WAY!”

Are you aware of what King David said in Psalm 18:32? “It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect.” Follow in the Word! Proverbs 10:17 says, “He who keeps instruction is in the way of life!”

You are aware of a man’s choice of the ‘highway’ on which he chooses to walk. In Isaiah 35:8 we read, “A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness,” with Verse 9 saying, “…the redeemed shall walk there,” as they ‘return to God,’ ‘coming with singing,’ and overflowing with “everlasting joy and gladness on their heads”!

Isaiah 59:8 speaks of “the way of peace” that most Israelites did not know, sadly! Are you aware of “the way to Zion”? Jeremiah 50:5, the Word of the Lord! It relates to the nation of Israel that lost its ‘way’ to God! But the holy prophet challenged them [and, yes, even the ‘church’ in America today!], “They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces toward it, saying, ‘Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that will not be forgotten.’” Sadly, only a remnant then and a remnant now seeks the way of Zion, which is, by the way, the Way of His abiding presence!

I know it may not sit well with ‘broad-minded’ preachers, but according to Jesus Himself, He said in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Are you aware of ‘the way of God in truth’? [Matthew 22:16]. Do you know “the way of escape”? [1 Corinthians 10:13]. How many do you know and relate to who walk “the more excellent way”? [1 Corinthians 10:31]. What about “the new and living way”? [Hebrews 10:20]. Oh, I tell you, “All the WAY our Lord desires to lead us!”

SECOND, VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED IS ETERNAL TRUTH THAT IS ONLY, YES, THE VERY EMBODIMENT OF “CHRIST IN YOU” – ALL ELSE? HUMAN DECEPTION! 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.”

Do you receive what Paul wrote in Colossians 1:26 about “the mystery” that “has been revealed to His saints”? Then, Verses 27-28, reveals to us the absolute essential of “Vital Awareness Unveiled”! “To them God willed to make known are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”

“Christ in you, the hope of glory”? Vital awareness unveiled – in YOU? Aren’t you absolutely raised with joy and thanksgiving when you read 2 Corinthians 5:21? “For He [God Almighty, Lord over all!] made Him [Christ Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become [through Jesus only!] the righteousness of God in Him.”

I’m also awed when I read Hebrews 10:14 where Holy God inspired the author to share these words: “For by one offering He [God] has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” And the word ‘sanctified’ means “set apart”, yes, for His glory and honor and praise alone! By the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary’s Cross, and that alone, one is reconciled to Holy God, indwelt with King Jesus, infilled with the Holy Spirit, and declared God’s finished work in us through His Son and our Savior and Lord!

We have nothing in and of ourselves to boast, but we can boast on the Christ in us who has set us apart unto Himself, and we glory in the Lord Jesus Christ! No ‘flesh’ glories in Christ’s resurrected presence, but the true born-again disciple of Christ glories in His Indwelling Presence! 1 Corinthians 1:30-31 tells us, “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus who became FOR US wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’” Are YOU glorying in the Lord Jesus Christ in your day by day journey?

THIRD, VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED IS, NOT DEATH AND ITS WORTHLESS FRUIT, BUT ABUNDANT, EVERLASTING, ETERNAL LIFE, AND ITS ETERNAL, FRESH, NEVER-WILTING FRUIT OF CHRIST AND HIS SPIRIT! Did Jesus tell us in Matthew 12:33 that “a tree is known by its fruit”- understanding that there is no fruit of the flesh that honors Holy God, but only the fruit of the Spirit of God!

How familiar are you with Galatians 5:22-25? It says: “But the fruit [the fruit of God’s Spirit] is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

The best of human flesh, regardless of its realms of performance, cannot, will not honor Holy God! The best efforts of human flesh never attain to even a small glimpse of the nature and character of Christ! God didn’t call us out for grand performances to look like Jesus, but He called us out to “rest” in Him! In Philippians 2:12-13 we read, “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.”

And your ‘working out’ your own salvation, and that with fear and trembling’? It is turning to Holy God – it is not you ‘perfecting your ways’ – they were crucified with Christ when He died on the Cross two thousand years ago – God’s interest in you is your availability to Him and all He can do through you!

In 1 Corinthians 2:1-4 Paul testified for our understanding: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.

For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

It was Oswald Chambers who wrote the following in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest.” He said: [p.252], “When once you are rooted in Reality [that’s Divine Reality, Divine Presence in you!], nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens is likely to upset that faith; but nothing can ever upset God or the almighty Reality of Redemption; base your faith on that, and you are as eternally secure as God. When once you get into contact, personal contact, with Jesus Christ, you will never be moved again. That is the meaning of sanctification. God puts His disapproval on human experience when we begin to adhere to the conception that sanctification is merely an experience, and forget that sanctification itself has to be sanctified. I have deliberately to give my sanctified life to God for His service, so that He can use me as His hands and His feet.”

J.W. Van DeVenter and W.S. Weeden wrote the old hymn, “I Surrender All.” It says: “All to Jesus, I surrender, All to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.

All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow; Worldly pleasures all forsaken, Take me, Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus I surrender, Make me, Savior, wholly Yours; Let me feels the Holy Spirit, – Truly know that You are mine.

All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to You; Fill me with Your love and power, Let Your blessing fall on me.”

Can YOU surrender ALL to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, owned by His purchase of YOU through His shed blood? He’s calling YOU right now!

CHAPTER THREE

THE VITAL AWARENESS OF THE NEED

OF SPIRITUAL LABORING

In Isaiah 66:7-11 and then Verses 22-24, we read both sad words and glad words from God because of a nation and people who, some, rejected God’s Holy Word, and a remnant received His Word and held on to it for generations ,for centuries, with its Truth upheld that God’s Son would be birthed and a new, eternal spiritual nation formed called “the children of God, the children of the Messiah, the children of the Holy Spirit!

Isaiah 66:7-11 says first, “Before she was in labor, she gave birth; before her pain came, she delivered a male child. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For AS SOON AS ZION WAS IN LABOR, she gave birth to her children. Shall I bring to the time of birth, and not cause delivery? Says the Lord. Shall I who cause delivery shut up the womb? Says your God. Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her; rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn for her; that you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom, that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.”

Isiah 66:22-24 then says, “For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,” says the Lord, “So shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

Did you see that? “That you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory”? Do you understand? Israel was chosen of God to receive and share Divine Blessing! Yes, it was through the ‘holy remnant of Israel’, through the ‘chosen virgin mother, Mary,’ there would come the unveiling of divine blessing, through the birth of the Christ-child, who would, when Holy God heard the voice of sorrow over sin, and the remnant of Israel’s cry over the sorrow for sin and their need of the Savior, Holy God in His Amazing Grace would use the few to touch the many!

It was in God’s timing, in His awareness of desperation for needy people, in their extremity of woefulness over their spiritual emptiness, which God saw and still sees as His eternal moment of divine opportunity; in their deep anxiety, in their moment of the ultimate agony of spirit, in their moments of darkness and seeing no light, God turned on the Heavenly Light, and darkness became the door of the Eternal Light, and the Lord Jesus was birthed by Mary to the glory of God!

I know you didn’t miss it! “As soon as Zion travailed, as soon as Zion was ‘in labor,’ as soon as the remnant saw the desperation for divine life outside their fleshly determination, outside their religious traditions, outside their “We can handle our own problems,” Holy God sent His Son – divine opportunity for new life, a new relationship, a new available presence and sustenance of Divine Life, a new resurrection power over sin and death and meaninglessness and emptiness, through His Son, God’s Promised Messiah whose name Isaiah told them and us about in Isaiah 9:6-8! It says:

“For unto us a Child is born,[does that ring a bell in your mind and heart?], unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this!”

But for many in Israel they were content with what the high priest and chief priests had to offer which was fleshly devotion to their religious pretense! Even the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jesus day were the pretenders who became the executioners of the King of kings and Lord of lords! And you must understand: There’s not much difference at all between hate and indifference – one can be very vocal and violent, while others, just in an attitude of “I couldn’t care less”!! Or, “corruption and compromise” related to the Spirit and the Word of God, Or, the true possession of one’s own pretense as he/she ‘fakes the faith’! Or, the best of ‘fleshly imitation’ or the “rest” of counterfeit imitation; Or, how about the devilish delusion of deception about ‘sin’ that says, ‘you shall not die’ as they keep on sinning and keep on dying in the death cycle that will not die! Holy God certainly has promised one the end result of his foolish life choices!

I’m sure this is why Charles Caleb Colton, in “ The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations”, [Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey, Edited and Compiled by Frank S. Mead], said: “After hypocrites, the greatest dupes the devil has are those who exhaust an anxious existence in the disappointments and vexations of business, and live miserably and meanly only to die magnificently and rich. – They serve the devil without receiving his wages, and for the empty foolery of dying rich, pay down their health, happiness, and integrity.” But it’s true of every ‘independent, self-serving man, rich or poor’!

Several lessons we must share related to “ The Vital Awareness of The Need of Spiritual Laboring”: FIRST, NO TRAVAILING – NO SPIRITUAL BIRTH! I was ashamed, heart-broken, to hear a TV pastor say recently that he never talked about sin and the wages of sin because the lost of this world need the “good news”! But do you understand that the Holy Word declares that the wages of sin is death, the wages of sin is separation from God, the wages of sin cost the Life of the Son of God on the Cross – and without “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at Calvary”, there is no reason for one to come smiling before Holy God, but broken, sorrowful, ashamed, rejoicing that there is a way out of one’s eternal spiritual dilemma!

No travailing – no spiritual birthing! No repentance – no rejoicing! No seed of bitterness over the shameful life of sin, indifference, and fleshly indulgence and bondage – no true sons of God! No going away from an ungodly lifestyle, void of Holy Presence within – no coming into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ! No brokenness – no blessing! No identifying evidence of a Godly presence within – no rejoicing in the joy of the Lord!

There was a time off and on when Israel hid from God, or sought Him – in the Old and New Testament it was like a spiritual roller coaster, up and down, around and around, one day with awesome devotion, allegiance, and affirmation of Holy God and His Truth, but another time a rapid departure and unfaithfulness to His calling and mission through them.

Are you aware of what Holy God said through the prophet Amos? In Amos 3:2-3, through the prophet, God spoke: “You only [Israel] have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?”

And then in Amos 3:7-8 the prophet shared, “Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets. A lion has roared! Who will not fear! The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?”

Is Holy God the same yesterday, today, and forever? When God spoke of “her” in Hosea, He was speaking to those birthed for His glory, honor, and praise, but most of Israel chose to serve the gods of the world, the flesh, and the devil! So God said, Hosea 2:13, “I will punish her for the days of the Baals [foreign gods, idols!] to which she [Israel] burned incense. She decked herself with earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers; But Me she forgot,” says the Lord.”

And if one lives his/her life in a spiritual state of ‘forgetfulness’ of God, what doors have been opened? In Job 8:11-15 Bildad said to Job, “Can the papyrus grow without a marsh? Can the reeds flourish without water? While it is yet green and not cut down, it withers before any other plant. SO ARE THE PATHS OF ALL WHO FORGET GOD; and the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, Whose confidence shall be cut off, and whose trust is a spider’s web. He leans on his house, but it does not stand. He holds it fast, but it does not endure.” How shocking do you find Psalm 9:17? “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”

I was recently reading Oswald Chambers in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” and he surely, truthfully, convictingly, affirmed what the Holy God of Scripture through His prophets, teachers, and evangelists, truly understand about “No Travailing – No Spiritual Birth”! He said: “The plaintive, self-centered, morbid kind of prayer, a dead-set that I want to be right, is never found in the New Testament [and I,JFF, might add, OR THE OLD TESTAMENT!]. The fact that ‘I am trying to be right with God is a sign that I am rebelling against the Atonement. ‘Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer; I will walk rightly if You will help me.’ I CANNOT make myself right with God, I CANNOT make my life perfect; I can only be right with God if I accept the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to resign every kind of claim and cease from every effort, and leave myself entirely alone in His hands, and then begin to pour out in the priestly work of intercession.”

Dare I tell you that much of worldwide ‘Christianity’ today is: “travailing is strange to our understanding salvation of how we’re ‘saved’ – repenting, forsaking our grasp of salvation independent of us ‘trying’? We don’t think so!” SO.. they must come in repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ AT CALVARY as He suffered, bled, and died in their place!

“No travailing – no spiritual birth”? Oh, receive the words of King David! Psalm 51:1-13 is David’s repentant prayer of faith from a life broken because of his sin! “Have mercy upon Me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitudes of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight – that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice.

Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.”

The True Faith of the reality of eternal spiritual birth is never evidenced by an ungodly life style, the breaking of Holy Laws, the absence of sorrow over sin or the absence of brokenness over separation from God, because sin separates not interprets God’s love, grace, and mercy, but intensifies one’s need of Holy God’s divine conviction! Out of conviction comes confession; out of confession comes conversion; out of conversion comes consecration; out of consecration comes submission and obedience to the holy calling of Holy God, yes, miraculously turning the natural into the supernatural, the old man into the new man, the life of willful obstinacy into a life of “walking in the light, as Jesus is in the light”, fully aware that “the blood of Jesus has, is, and will cleanse us from all sin”, because, “I have no desire to walk in that which separates me from God, but a walk evidenced by His miracle of a “new-born life”!

Oswald Chambers wrote, in “My Utmost For His Highest”, [p.268], “The love of God at work in me makes me hate with the hatred of the Holy Ghost all that is not in keeping with God’s holiness.” Be assured, a ‘casual lifestyle of supposed commitment to Christ Jesus, as one has no concern, conviction, or abhorrence of the evil of their sin and a willingness to be separated from it, is evidence of the ‘professors of faith’ without possession and transformation of the True Faith!

SECOND, “THE VITAL AWARENESS OF THE NEED OF SPIRITUAL LABORING”? THE ETERNAL REALITY OF BEING ‘NEW-BORN’, BECOMING GOD’S EARTHLY MAN OR WOMAN UNVEILING CHRIST JESUS TO ALL AROUND HIM/HER!

In 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 Paul wrote: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For ‘who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?’ But we have [the “new-born”] the mind of Christ.”

Our call to follow Christ is a journey, a pilgrimage, yes, even a ‘warfare’ between ‘flesh’ and Spirit, the devil and our Living Lord within us, a world of opposition from the world’s true enemies against Holy God and Divine Truth, and a pull from the ‘old man’ against the ‘new man’! And, if one understands the ‘infancy of faith’, the ‘maturing of faith,’ and God’s ultimate goal in us of “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ”, he/she sees the pilgrimage to the unveiling of His fullness, yes, in every true child of faith!

As the Lord Jesus is “lifted up within us”, there is the drawing of His power through us to touch our world with His grace, mercy, and love. Even a little child of faith can touch their world by their faithful testimony though not yet in the fullness of spiritual maturity!

And the ‘eternal reality of the new-born’? I believe we hear Jesus saying, even in the infancy of our faith, Matthew 16:24-25, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

But, one asks, “What is spiritual awareness of the need of laboring”? Though positionally we are ‘in Christ’, the fullness of His practical and true presence within is being worked out, which is why Paul said, “I die daily”! In fact, in 2 Corinthians 4:7-12a, Paul challenged the Corinthian church and us, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed [at times!], but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – ALWAYS CARRYING ABOUT IN THE BODY THE DYING OF THE LORD JESUS, THAT THE LIFE OF JESUS ALSO MAY BE MANIFESTED IN OUR BODY. For we who live are ‘always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake,’ that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us..”

Dare I tell you that true spiritual reality in Christ is learning ‘daily’ that 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 enlightens, informs, trains, and spiritually educated and equips all disciples when Paul said, “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…” AND HE DOES; HE IS WILLING AND ABLE TO DO EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY ABOVE ALL WE ASK OR THINK!

There are those even preaching, indoctrinating, misleading, informing deceptively, because they’re deceived themselves, “It’s over! You prayed a prayer, and it’s over!” No, the journey has just begun! Receive Philippians 3:12-14! Paul wrote, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold on me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I PRESS TOWARD THE GOAL FOR THE PRIZE OF THE UPWARD CALL OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS!” Are YOU pressing in to Christ Jesus?

THIRD, THE VITAL AWARENESS OF THE NEED OF SPIRITUAL LABORING BECAUSE OF FALLEN MAN’S SEPARATION FROM HOLY GOD AND MAN’S NEED OF REDEMPTION, RECONCILIATION, AND SPIRITUAL RE-BIRTH! Oh, very simply: “Heart-birthed ‘travailing’ WILL AND DOES birth true, holy children of God, through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ!”

It’s His Atonement, not our attempts at being like Him, that reconciles us to Holy God and to our foreordained eternal purpose! Tell me of YOUR church’s ministry, your personal vision, your personal call of God on your life to touch your world with His saving grace!

Is there truly a heart burden in you, a heart-cry, and, as a result heart-blessings, because you see your ministry of touching your world by Who He is in you, because you see and are broken over a lost world around you, and because you sense the Christ in you so longing to extend His Life, express His love, and prove His power through YOU?

Dare I tell you that, sadly, most of the modern church-world is silent, indifferent, distracted, unconcerned about “lost sinners”, empty lives, teetering marriages and relationships, Godless governments and leaders, a rebellious teen-world, and even Hollywood, mostly, not all, who would rather entertain their customers with garbage and indecency than extenders of a blessed life in Christ and His Word and goodness and holy honor of Him, even willing and content to contaminate their customers with ‘Hell on earth’! Oh, and it was Spurgeon who even once said, “God ploughs deep while sluggish churches sleep.”

FOURTH, THE VITAL AWARENESS OF THE NEED OF SPIRITUAL LABORING BECAUSE WEARY INDIFFERENCE, SOULISH UNCONCERN, WORLDLY – WAYS -COMPANIONSHIP NEVER PRODUCES GODLY, HOLY, WONDROUS RESULTS TO HIS HONOR! In Psalm 25:14 David wrote wisely: “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him.”

And because one is consumed by, not only knowing the secret of the Lord being with those who fear Him, but also consumed with a passion to honor His Will, His Word, and His ways, that disciple or those disciples began to say, “Lord, what would You have us to do?”! If our Lord and Savior says, “Watch with Me, wait for Me, walk with Me, work with Me, and, yes, witness with Me, how is it that a ‘thriving’ church has no “training of disciples to be witnesses”, frowns on visitation saturation of its community, sleeps as a world around them never hears their testimonies, which like, while Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, the disciples slept!

“Lord, what would You have us to do?” And in John 20:21 The Lord Jesus said to those disciples and us, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”I’m telling you with all my heart: There is a counterfeit of true faith if there is no strong commitment to be one with our Lord and Savior in His mission of touching an unsaved world around Him; the ones who say, ‘we choose to be faithful to our church, but reaching out beyond the four walls of the church is somebody else’s calling, not ours,’ sadly, they walk in tragic deception. Before His Ascension, after His Resurrection, the Lord Jesus said to His disciples and us who are a part of His redeemed body and churches, Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Oh, and then in Acts 2:32, the early disciples, in-filled with God’s Holy Spirit witnessed verbally: “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.” Is that so with this particular church-age?

Oswald Chambers had introduced a chapter in his book, “My Utmost for His Highest,” [pps. 218-219], based on Romans 8:16, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”

Chambers said: “We are in danger of getting the barter spirit when we come to God, we want the witness before we have done what God tells us to do. ‘Why does God not reveal Himself to Me?’ He cannot, it is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the road as long as you won’t abandon absolutely to Him. Immediately you do, God witnesses to Himself, He cannot witness to you, but He witnesses to His own nature in you. If you had the witness before reality, it would end in sentimental emotion. Immediately you transact on the Redemption, and stop the impertinence of debate, God gives on the witness;” and it gratefully becomes His witness through you. Will you daily die to yourself that the Resurrection Life and Witness may be manifested in and through your mortal presence, fully surrendered to what He desires to do through you?

CHAPTER FOUR

VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED OF THE AMAZING GOD AND AMAZING GIFTS

In Hebrews 13:8 our Lord is described as “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.” And then in Verse 15 the author wrote, “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” That is thanks to His name for Who He Is and for What He does!

In Acts 10:38, Dr. Luke wrote, “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” And the exciting news is, it was not only Christ upon whom the power of the Holy ministered to and through, but also upon His newly converted disciples. Follow Acts 19:11, “Now God worked unusual (or “extraordinary”) miracles by the hands of Paul.”

I want you to come to Psalm 33:6-9 and hear David: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”

And His Word and His works are still standing fast unveiling “Amazing God and Amazing Gifts”! Churches used to believe and stand on the eternal Truth that “There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.”

Reinhard Bonnke, in his book “Mighty Manifestations,” (p.12), wrote: “God is a God who specializes in the impossible. He thinks only in terms of the impossible.” We need to be reminded of the Kingdom of God being the present realm and the rule of God in which God’s awesome power is sovereign and supreme and supernatural and never dies!

Don’t overlook or forget, but remind yourself daily, Acts 2:39, Peter emphasizing that (Listen and receive and stand in and appropriate: “The promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off [even in 2016!], as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Later, (p33), Bonnke said, “The emblem of God is fire, not stone!” Yet how many believers have you been around who are more like an immovable Egyptian sphinx than a God-anointed “burning bush”? Is the Spirit of the Lord God upon you? Luke 4:18-19 says, Jesus speaking, (remember – “As He is so am I in this world!”), “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 preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

When did this Word fall to the ground like Truth perishing in the streets? Receive John 14:12-14! “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

The question of this moment as you are confronted by His words, ‘Will you be a volunteer? Psalm 110:33 says, “Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power.” What an awesome, vital awareness unveiled! Volunteers surrendering to the God of grace and amazing gifts, surrendering to the God of Holy Ghost power, surrendering to the God of the awesome rivers of heavenly anointing!

Psalm 62:11 says, “God has spoken once, twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God!” Our God, yes, in Christ Jesus, is the God of unusual and extraordinary miracles! Our God in Christ is the God of the impossible! Our God is the God of amazing miracles of grace, the God of amazing gifts, and the God of amazing wonders!

In Jeremiah 32:17-20, the prophet responds to God’s amazing unveiling of His power and authority: “Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. You show lovingkindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them – the Great, the Mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts. You are great in counsel and mighty in work, for Your eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. You have set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, to this day, to this day, and in Israel and among other men; and You have made a name, as it is this day.” His name? The amazing God of amazing grace, amazing gifts, amazing greatness, ready to be the Same in you following your “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ”, followed by your obedient submission and death to yourself, but Resurrection Power, Presence, and Promises, as you yield to the leadership of His Living Presence in you!

Even Nebuchadnezzar declared in Daniel 4:2-4, “I thought it good to declare the signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked for me. How great are His signs, and how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation.”

What was Paul’s attitude after God’s mighty anointing on his life? Romans 15:17-19 is a word of Paul’s testimony: “Therefore I have reason to glory in Christ Jesus in the things which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient – in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”

Here’s how Shakespeare put it in “Henry V1” 9Part 1, Act 11) – “God is our fortress, in whose conquering name Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks!” The Amazing God and the God of Amazing Gifts!

FIRST, LET”S EXAMINE SCRIPTURALLY THE GOD OF THE SIGN AND WONDER OF DELIVERANCE! Come to Exodus 7:1-5 where “So the Lord said to Moses, See, I have made you as God to Pharoah, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall tell Pharoah to send the children of Israel out of his land. And I will harden Pharoah’s heart, AND MULTIPLY MY SIGNS AND WONDERS IN THE LAND OF EGYPT. But Pharoah will not heed you, so that I may lay My hand on Egypt and bring My armies and My people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.”

And you understand that the Exodus stands forever as the sign and wonder of the Amazing God revealing His Amazing gifts, the liberation of His people! But there’s more. Come to Daniel 6:20-27 and follow carefully: “and when he came to the den, he cried out with a lamenting voice to Daniel. The king spoke, saying to Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions? Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever. My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you. Now the king was exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he believed in God. And the king gave the command, and they brought those men who had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions – them, their children and their wives; and the lions overpowered them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever came to the bottom of the den. Then King Darius wrote: To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. For He is the living God, and steadfast forever; His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall endure to the end. He delivers and rescues, and HE WORKS SIGNS AND WONDERS in heaven and on earth, Who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.”

[And, of course, you understand that there are more than physical lions like in Africa, but there are spiritually demonic lions out of Hell itself!]

But do you remember what is said in Luke 4 about “The Spirit of the Lord upon Me?” And what was one of the ministries? “Deliverance to the captives!”

God is the God who is the bondage – breaker – Not the bondage-maker! God is the God who is the chain-buster – Not the chain-entangler! God is the God who is the prison-door opener – Not the prison-confiner!

Henry George Bohn, in his “Handbook of Proverbs,” wrote: “The Devil entangles youth with beauty, the miser with gold, the ambitious with power, the learned with false doctrines.” There are still ‘Pharoahs’ who want people enslaved! There are still ‘Pharoahs’ who want your family under hard taskmasters! There are still ‘Pharoahs’ who want you chewed up in a lion’s den of fleshly deceptions and sins! There are still ‘Pharoahs’ who want any decency or bent toward God swallowed up by the inhaling powers of darkness!

[On the ‘Inner-net’ today on my wife’s computer, she told me of a statement by the man named Stephen Hawking who said, “Heaven is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.” Immediately John Lennox responded, “Atheism is a fairy tale for those afraid of the Light.”] Amen?

Hear me! The God of the sign and wonder of deliverance arises with healing in His wings! I recently picked up Smith Wigglesworth’s book, “Greater Works – Experiencing God’s Power,” (p36). He shared a story that occurred just after his baptism in the Holy Spirit. He knew that infusion of divine power but was asking, ‘Why,’ ‘Why me?’ What’s the purpose? RECEIVE IN JESUS’ HOLY NAME!:

“One day I came home from work and went into the house, and my wife asked me, ‘Which way did you come in?’ I told her that I had come in the back door. She said, “There is a woman upstairs, and she has brought in an eighty-year old man to be prayed for. He is raving up there, and a great crowd has gathered outside the front door, ringing the doorbell, and wanting to know what is going on in the house.”

Wigglesworth said, “This is what I baptized you for.” I carefully opened the door of the room where the man was, desiring to be obedient to what my Lord would say to me. The man was crying and shouting in distress, “I am lost! I am lost! I have committed the unpardonable sin. I am lost! I am lost!” My wife asked, “Smith, what should we do?” The Spirit of the Lord moved me to cry out, “Come out, you lying spirit.” In a moment the evil spirit went, and the man was free. God gives deliverance to the captives! And the Lord said again to me, “This is what I baptized you for.” And then Wigglesworth said: “There is a place where God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, reigns supreme in our lives. The Spirit reveals, unfolds, takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us (John 16:15) and prepares us to be more than a match for satanic forces.”

The God of the signs and wonders of deliverance! You find yourself enslaved – through the Passover Lamb, there is liberty and freedom! You find yourself in a state of spiritual death – through Jesus there is Life, Life in the Spirit, Life abundant, Life eternal! You find yourself in guilt and condemnation – but Jesus says: “I the sacrificial Servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, through My shed blood, have brought pardons, innocence, justification, ‘just-as-if-you’d-never sinned’! You find yourself hopeless – He blesses you with a living, eternal Hope! You find yourself troubled – He is triumphant, “more than conqueror,” and always in the midst of stormy waters still says, “Peace, be still!” You find yourself separated from Holy God – in Christ He came to reconcile you! You find yourself aimless – “For me to live is Christ!” You find yourself sensing worthlessness about yourself – He counts you worthy because of the Lamb of deliverance!

SECOND, LET’S CONSIDER THE GOD THE MIGHTY GOD OF THE VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED OF THE SIGN AND WONDER OF DECLARATION! Look with me carefully at Deuteronomy 4:32-39! “For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of fire, as you have heard, and live? Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; there is none other besides Him [regardless of what Muslims or any other idolaters say!]. Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; and He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power, driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.”

I pray that the Spirit of Holy God reveals to you “the Lord Himself in heaven above and on the earth beneath” – always has been and forever will be! The God of the vital awareness unveiled of the sign and wonder unveils Himself, reveals Himself – He is not, will not, hide Himself from you! In Exodus 6:7 God’s Holy Word says, “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians”, or from under the burdens of the ungodly poured out on you, or from under the burdens of godless people who seek to intimidate you, indict you in the halls of fleshly unbelief, or from under the burdens of demonic activity intending to weigh you down straight into Hell itself!

But you shall know, see, sense, understand, as the shackles fall off you or as the chains are broken, as cruel, evil sinful taskmasters drown under the weight of God’s judgment, that His declaration is your deliverance!

You’ll remember that Moses had a word from God for Pharoah that the plagues would come that they might know that there is none like our God in all the world. He wants even His enemies to hear His declaration! In Exodus 10:1-2, God sends Moses, “that I may show these signs of Mine before [Pharoah] and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and you son’s son the mighty things I have done in Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them, THAT YOU MAY KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD.”

On the journey God gives “bread” to His children that they may “know that I am the Lord your God.” He instructed that twelve stones were to be stacked in the midst of the Jordan River as His people crossed over so “that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is MIGHTY, that YOU may fear the Lord your God forever.” (Joshua 4:24).

In 1 Samuel 17:46 David had struck down Goliath, “that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.” What did Paul say to his spiritual son, Timothy, in 2 Timothy 1:12? “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is ABLE…!!!”

You are to be a “stone” in the river of life declaring God’s power, His identity, His ability, His amazing love, His unlimited grace and mercy! There has never been an act or action of God that was not for the purpose of unveiling His heart so all might know Him! “For God so loved the world…!!!”

THIRD, EXAMINE FURTHER THE UNVEILING OF THE VITAL AWARENESS OF THE MIGHTY GOD OF THE SIGN AND WONDER OF DEPENDENCE! Joshua 24:13-15 is clear, “I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant. Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

God mentions land He gave them and groves and vineyards they did not plant! Do you know what Paul asked the church at Corinth? (1 Corinthians 4:7), “And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if indeed you did receive it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” And all I have to consider to rattle my cage is the very breath of life itself! It’s a God-thing!

In 2 Corinthians 5:18, he said, “All things are of God!” Unless of course you’re a constant navel examiner and truly believe all you are and all you have is of yourself! Earlier, in 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul said, “yet for us there is only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.” For some it’s as if “we spoke and our worlds were framed!”

Let me deflate your progressive, self-importance just a little bit: According to Exodus 31:1-5, even your job skills are of God! According to Haggai 2:8, even your money belongs to God – you’re a trustee who will give an account of your stewardship! According to Psalm 50:10 the forest is His, the beasts of the forest are His, and even the cattle on a thousand hills! No Texas rancher has reason to boast except in God alone! The Lord even taught us to pray, “God, give us our daily bread!”

Do you realize how dependent we are upon God? It’s like I’ve heard my wife Sue say to our kids as they were growing up, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out!” (A little comedy please in the midst of heavy heat!).

I so love Paul’s confrontation with the Athenians in Acts 17:24-30. It’s too vital to omit even a syllable! “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.”

Here’s a vital question: Is it my reign over my life or God’s reign as I totally surrender in dependence upon Him, not only for the very breath of physical life but also that breath of The Spirit? R.A.Torrey, in his book, “The God of the Bible,” (p116), tells us about Napoleon: “Napoleon was the ablest general of his day, and probably of all time. At the same time, he was the most adroit politician the world has ever seen, and he was also a man of the most unconquerable will. He willed to have the whole world at his feet, and it seemed as if it would be, as if nothing could prevent it. But God willed otherwise. When Napoleon tried to enter Russia, God spoke, and the soft and gentle snowflakes fell and fell and fell and kept on falling, and Napoleon Bonaparte fell also. His army was decimated and his reign shortly came to an end.”

Revelation 19:6 says, “And the Lord God omnipotent reigns!” Are you committed and submitted as a dependent child of faith upon the Father’s reign over you?

FOURTH, GO DEEPER, DISCOVERING THE UNVEILING OF THE AWESOME AWARENESS OF THE SIGN AND WONDER OF DESTINY! I know you remember and are familiar with Elisha’s journey with Elijah and how Elijah had urged him to stay behind because God was sending Elijah on to Bethel. And Elisha responded, (2 Kings 2:2), “as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” They traveled together. Then the time came close for Elijah’s departure in that whirlwind of glory and he asks Elisha, “What may I do for you, before I am taken away?” And in verse 9 Elisha said, “Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.”

Elijah promised Elisha his request would be granted! Now, notice verses 13-15, “He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that; and Elisha crossed over. Now when the sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha…”

Come now to 2 Kings 3:11! “But Jehoshapat said, Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord by him? So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.” Question!

What is the reputation you want about yourself in the eyes of the world around you? Is it that you fit in, that you are one of the gang, or one like Elijah or Elisha? Or would it be that “sense of divine destiny” – the servant of Elijah, a holy man of God that passes by, a man who reflects the image of his Lord, a man who walks in the double portion of Spirit-blessing and anointing and empowering?

In Acts 4:13 it is said of Peter and John, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they were men who had been with Jesus.” What a testimony! I found an epitaph in a book that is such a blessing. It read, “Here lies the body of John Smith, who for 40 years cobbled shoes in this village to the glory of God,” which leads us to:

FIFTH, THE UNVEILING OF THE AWESOME AWARENESS OF THE GOD OF THE SIGN AND WONDER OF DEMONSTRATION! Isaiah 8:18 says, “Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts who dwells in Mount Zion.”

Did you receive that for yourself, your family, your employees or employer, for your city, state, or nation, and receiving that Truth and demonstrating that Truth, YOU SEE YOURSELF AS A SIGN AND WONDER to an unbelieving world to the glory of God?

It’s not just to the church at Corinth that Paul wrote the following but to our homes! Receive 2 Corinthians 3:2-4, “You (your homes, your families) are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men. YOU are manifestly an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God.”

An anonymous writer has penned these illuminating words: “Jesus began His ministry of miracles at a wedding feast. He was invited there. His presence made the difference. He turned a desperate dilemma into a memorable miracle.” That was in a home, at a wedding!

Spurgeon said, “When home is ruled by the Word of God, angels might be asked to stay with us, and they would not find themselves out of their element.” Are our homes ruled by the Word of God? Do we see our homes and families as signs and wonders of the glory of God to an unbelieving world and even as examples in our local churches? Are our homes and families “memorable miracles” or desperate dilemmas? Are they vital demonstrations of Holy Presence and eternal purpose?

SIXTH, EXAMINE THE GOD OF AMAZING SIGNS AND WONDERS OF DISTINCTION! Let’s let the Word speak powerfully and in a convicting reality within us: Mark 16:19-20, “So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through accompanying signs. Amen.”

Following Pentecost, having left the upper room where the disciples had hidden for fear of the Jews, and confronted their world in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2:43 says, “Then fear came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders were done through the apostles.”

But here’s the strange turn – whenever God steps in to be Himself, even through His own people, opposition arises! When you come to Acts 4 the disciples are BEING DISCIPLES and the threats come! Peter and John pray for boldness that they may speak God’s Word, and look at verse 30, “by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.” And the result?

Acts 4:33 says, “And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.” Our prayerful, unceasing heart-cry as disciples should be passionately uttered that WE long for days of distinction, days of great grace, days producing holy fear in hearts of unbelievers and disciples alike because God steps down to be Himself through us! Hebrews 2:4 says, “God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will.”

Reinhard Bonnke has a tremendous statement of challenge to be repeated by true disciples of Christ until it permeates their total being, “God means me to be more than I thought I was.” That’s an amplification of 1 John 4:17 when John said, “As Jesus is, so are we in this world!”

What’s a “system of divinity” without the stream of divine power? What’s a “scheme of theology” without the Spirit of Truth? What’s a learned person with his PhD void of the lifting power of the Holy Ghost? What’s the best of human-flesh ‘churches’ without the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire of the Spirit?

Ephesians 2:1 doesn’t say, “and you He stiffened” – it says, “you He made alive!” In Acts 1:8 Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” That’s explosive, volcanic-erupting, dynamite power! Donald Gee preached, that the Spirit was not “the subject of theological dogma (or debate), but a burning experience,” and Holy Presence released within you! Are those around you observing your “burning” in awe of Holy God?

LAST, (In this chapter!), LET ME STRONGLY EMPHASIZE THE AMAZING UNVEILING OF AWESOME TRUTH OF THE GOD OF THE SIGN AND WONDER OF DIVINE TESTIMONY! In Acts 2:22-24 Peter preached and preaches right now, “Men of Israel, hear these words of Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you, by miracles, wonders and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know – Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death: whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”

Testimony! The call upon every true believer’s life! Testimony! Not cold-water committees but fellow comforters in God’s proven love for them! Testimony! That which blesses the church, encourages, uplifts, and challenges unbelievers with the Truth! Testimony! That which tips the scales of a life hanging in the balance! Testimony! That which gives honor to Jesus!

In Acts 20 you’ll remember Paul telling the Ephesian elders that he held back nothing that was helpful and profitable to them, Verse 21, “testifying to Jews and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” He knew he was “bound in the spirit”{ to go to Jerusalem, knowing trouble awaited him. Then in verse 24, (Oh, my!), “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, TO TESTIFY TO THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD.”

Do you see that calling and ministry upon your life to be a sign and wonder of divine testimony to the gospel of the grace of God?

Oh, it was Isaac Watts who wrote the old, old hymn, “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” It says: “Am I a soldier of the cross, A follower of the Lamb? And shall I fear to own His cause, Or blush to speak His name?

Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize, And sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend of grace, To help me on to God?

Sure I must fight, if I would reign; Increase my courage, Lord; I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain, supported by Your word.” Amen?

And your ‘last days’ testimony as short as all of our lives are? “I’ll confront my dying world, I’ll confront in the Name of Christ and for His honor, glory, and praise; I’ll be consistent with Biblical Truth, conquering even the devil’s opposition, challenging repentance to God and a yielded given faith from God as a gift, yes, for every unbeliever, and teach them graciously of a yielded faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross and through God’s Resurrection Power!

CHAPTER FIVE

THE AMAZING UNVEILING OF AWESOME TRUTH BY PREACHING

PEACE THROUGH CHRIST JESUS’ CROSS

I want you to be Holy Spirit inspired and informed and instructed as you read the following passage, Acts 10:34-38 & 43! Then Peter opened his mouth and said: “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 Jesus Christ – 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.”

Verse 43, “To Him (the Lord Jesus) all the prophets witness that through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”

“Believes in Him?” The word ‘belief’ truly means “trust in, rely upon, adhere to”! It’s not ‘ I believe’, and there is no heart-change, or I believe, and there is no relying upon, or I believe, and there is no adhering to! That’s modern-day ‘churchianity’, not eternal “Christ-ianity”! And, no doubt, this is why Paul had to write in Ephesians 2:1-2, “And you He [Christ Jesus] 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…”

Isaiah 32:13-15 unveils fleshly religiosity and then unveils Spirit conviction and wildernesses becoming fertile, fruitful fields! Isaiah wrote, God speaking, “On the land of my people will come up thorns and briers, Yes, on all the happy homes in the joyous city; Because the palaces will be forsaken, the bustling city will be deserted. The forts and towers will become lairs forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks – Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest.”

And whether or not it is unveiled religiosity that is a seedless, barren, infertile life, absent of Holy Presence – so barren of true life, so sterile of Living Truth, so unproductive of even any acknowledgement of the need of Divine intervention – it’s a sad picture for true believers of a life unredeemed as a heart-breaking pain so desirous of witnessing the true fruit of Life in Christ in every life!

Are you aware that there is a ‘carnal world’ surrounding you every day, carnal lives captured by the powers of darkness, deceit, and disobedience before Holy God, convinced their way is better than the holy way, settled into defenses, life-styles, ‘my’ ideas, that exalts itself against the eternal knowledge of God, with their every thought captured by self-will, self-pleasure, and self-aggrandisement, determined or unaware they actually walk in “spiritual death” under the devil’s control, and miss out on the grandeur of God-ordained “re-birth” and “new-life” and “eternal blessing” – just living under the ‘curse’!

Christ Jesus dealt with all men’s sins at Calvary – and through His shed blood we “stand still and see the salvation of God in and through Christ’s shed blood”, but sadly a lost world, unbelievers, the “dire-straights of fallen humanity owned by the devil” never “stand still” in awe to observe the wonderful and marvelous grace of God seen in Christ Jesus as He paid the price for their sins through His shed blood at the Cross – and they miss out!

Sadly, spiritually indulgent people, living to satisfy the ‘flesh’, the ‘old sin nature,’ the ‘empty life syndrome,’ the ‘self-realization indulgence through sinful living’ trying to satisfy the evil heart, most are unaware of “saving grace,” “redemption,” the “new life gift by the grace of God through Christ Jesus” – but His life in You, His forgiveness through you, His power for you, is fully and readily available to any and every repentant soul – and opens the windows of heaven to reveal the awesome Truth that “the gift of eternal peace’ comes through Christ’s Cross”!

Luke 10:18-20 is such a powerful, comforting word from Christ to every repentant disciple. Jesus said to them and us, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” ETERNAL PEACE!

In John 14:25-27 Jesus informs every true disciple of the “true evidence” of His life within them, even as they face a world of opposition and rebellion to divine Truth! He said, “These things I have spoken to you while present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” “THE AMAZING UNVEILING OF AWESOME TRUTH BY PREACHING PEACE THROUGH CHRIST’S CROSS”! Let’s consider THIS eternal Truth!

FIRST, PREACHING PEACE THROUGH CHRIST’S CROSS REVEALS, UNVEILS, EXPOSES WHAT IS IN MEN OF ADAM’S FALLEN-AWAY NATURE?

Do you understand the reality of the ‘carnal man’ alienated, separated, even in an unconscious rebellion against the Holy God who made him, lost him, yet loves him, fully explained in Christ’s shed blood “At The Cross”?

Are you aware in your mind, and heart, “Cursed are the impure in heart; and they do not see God, except at His Eternal Judgment Seat?” But the Lord Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

And seeing God, knowing Him intimately and personally, is the absolute necessity of accepting your crucifixion and death of your old carnal nature with Him at Calvary, and your constant awareness of its former reality, and becoming more and more fully aware that it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” not fleshly devotion to one’s flesh-inspired religiosity!

Yes, when one is spiritually “born-again”, he-she receives new eyes to see God and a new heart fully indwelt by His peace-filled Presence in YOU! Though one is still living in the physical world with fallen humanity, because of one’s faith in Christ, repentance toward God, and indwelt by His Holy Spirit, one lives now in the new realm of the spiritual Kingdom of God, living in and on the eternal plain of His abiding presence in us – and that births His peaceful Presence in YOU and establishes another elevated plain of life in Christ, because Jesus said in Revelation 5:9-10 tells us of our representative ‘twenty-four elders falling down before the Lamb of God’ singing:

“You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”

Peace apart from repentance? Peace apart from reconciliation with Holy God? Peace as a slave of sin, and not as a true servant of our Master? Peace apart from our presence at the Cross with Christ, and totally unaware of “the godly sorrow that works repentance TO salvation”?

You are aware that there are “dreamers” living lives consumed by ‘flesh,’ ‘the old sin nature,’ captives of demonic activity and even ‘fleshly best’ but not “blessed” – and with Jude we gain insight: Jude 10, “But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know ‘naturally’, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.” And that’s corrupting themselves more and more, and falling away more and more from the love of God and the Lordship of Christ Jesus!

Oh, but then Jude went on to say, Jude 20-21, “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.”

In the old Broadman Hymnal of 1940 produced by the Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, a hymn by Julia H. Johnston and J.W. Henderson, is entitled “He Ransomed Me.” It says:

“There’s a sweet and blessed story Of the Christ who came from glory, Just to rescue me from sin and misery; He in loving-kindness sought me, And from sin and shame has brought me, Hallelujah! Jesus ransomed me!

From the depth of sin and sadness To the heights of joy and gladness Jesus lifted me, in mercy full and free; With His precious blood He bought me, When I knew Him not, He sought me, And in love divine He ransomed me.

From the throne of heavenly glory – Oh, the sweet and blessed story! Jesus came to lift the lost in sin and woe Into liberty all-glorious, Trophies of His grace victorious, Evermore rejoicing here below.

By and by with joy increasing, And with gratitude unceasing, Lifted up with Christ forevermore to be; I will join the hosts there singing, In the anthem ever ringing, To the King of Love who ransomed me.

Hallelujah, what a Savior! Who can take a poor lost sinner, Lift him from the miry clay and set him free; (Hallelujah!) I will ever tell the story, Shouting glory, glory, glory, Hallelujah! Jesus ransomed me!”

SECOND, THERE IS THE VITAL UNVEILING OF AWARENESS OF PREACHING CHRIST OPENING THE DOOR TO THE BATTLE-FIELD OF FLESH AND SPIRIT, THE DEVIL AND JESUS, AND THE WORLD AGAINST THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN YOU AND AROUND YOU! Even as one comes to “new birth” and Christ’s indwelling, it doesn’t mean true believers are exempt from reality, opposition, even pain and suffering, in honoring, upholding, and desirous of living a life that exalts Him!

In John 16:33 Jesus clearly spoke to all disciples, then and now, saying: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world [as you live out your earthly existence facing opposition!] you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Did the Lord Jesus say, “Disciples of Mine, you will have trouble!” But you thought it was a walk without trouble or tribulation? You thought it was a walk without the world, the flesh, or the devil in seeking your demise as a follower of Christ? You thought true Christianity was a ‘trouble-free’ zone?

Even in Galatians 1:6-7, Paul wrote: “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.”

The Lord Jesus never said, “Follow Me, and you’ll never face trouble again, or any opposition that opposes you, or any demonic influences to trip you up, or even any godless governments, enemies of God, cruel taskmasters or job bosses,” – No, a thousand times ‘No!’ To commit to Christ is to commit to His honor and praise, which means automatically you’ve committed yourself to walk in the vital awareness unveiled, preaching Christ, living Christ, magnifying Christ in your life, thus opening your life to ‘trouble’, or should I say ‘troubles’?

I’m convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus never said, “Following Me means no trouble,” when in reality we’ve seen in John 16:33, Jesus saying, “In the world you will have trouble”, which means our salvation in Christ is not the door to freedom from trouble, but His door, His presence, His promises, tell us of His presence with us as we live out our faith in the midst of our troubles!

I truthfully was freshly inspired when I read Thomas Carlyle’s clear statement: “The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough.” That’s from “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations” edited and compiled by Frank S. Mead [Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey]. In the same encyclopedia, E. Stanley Jones wrote concerning “The Way” [p.235, Abingdon Press], “The Christian under trouble doesn’t break up – he breaks out,” and the ‘breaking out’ is leaning on Jesus, trusting His Word, like Paul said: Romans 8:35-39:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”

THIRD, THERE IS THE VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED OF PREACHING CHRIST BECAUSE CHRIST IS GOD’S ETERNALLY DETERMINED SACRIFICE AND OUR AMBASSADOR, AND THROUGH HIM, FOREORDAINED BY GOD THE FATHER, AS “MEDIATOR” BETWEEN GOD AND FALLEN MAN!

As Paul wrote Timothy to mature him in his young faith, His word to Timothy is so important for you and me. Paul said in 1 Timothy 2:1-7, [NKJV EDITION OF THE HOLMAN STUDY BIBLE], “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN, THE MAN CHRIST JESUS, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle – I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying – a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”

Even ‘religions’ apart from Christ as Lord and Savior are fleshly determined and resemble nothing concerning His call upon their lives – no awareness of their fallen natures, no grasp of understanding about The Eternal Christ put to death on the Cross as a mortal man AND eternal Lord and Savior, and willingly laying down His life that they might be resurrected from the dead to be “new creations” of Holy Presence, extending His life, expressing His love, and proving His power, no longer in them unawareness of the unbelieving results of a Christ-less life, no longer pretense, imitation, or the best of their own fleshly efforts – Christ saves, redeems, reconciles, and, yes, restores to God’s eternal intent, releasing them under the Holy Spirit’s control and they begin to sing the repentant one’s song:

“Lord Jesus, to You I yield, wash Me in Your blood, and baptize me in the rivers of Your flood; redeeming grace for the human race, redeeming us from the disgrace of dishonoring Your Holy Face!

Lord Jesus, in You, I rest, so tired of deception in me as ‘my best’; I long to know the Holy Will, and until then I’ll not be still! My heart and soul is Yours, no longer a life of sin, but holiness within!

“Lord Jesus, I hear You call, and before Your throne I willingly fall, yielded to Your Spirit, made new by Your blood, willing to stand where You once stood; ‘New man’ celebration, a new voice for all Your creation.

Lord Jesus, I thank You for Your marvelous grace, and upon Your Word I safely rely, certain to sing what no one can erase – Your sacrifice is true and Your resurrection undeniable, Your empty tomb is still reliable.

Lord Jesus, from death to Life, Your blood applied removes the strife; No longer war with God or the devil and his demons; born-again men by the Spirit, reverence His meaning: Death to life as His blood is applied, firmly aware of His mercy that cannot be denied!

Lord Jesus, saved by Your grace because of Your love, my new desire is to rest with You forever in Heaven above; I know life is fleeting and only by receiving do we understand overcoming and beating; the lawless may libel, the sinners may slander, the religious may banter, but in Christ we surrender to His love, grace, and place in Your eternal heavens!”

Jesus bought us, He sought us, He found us, He convicted us, He received our repentance, He sings of our faith, and forever and ever we’ll gather around His Throne to praise His name over and over as His very own children of faith, resting from the wars and resting in His victory in our behalf! We know that a man’s life does not consist of what He possesses, but the wealth of awareness that we’ve found peace through His Life, peace through His death, peace through His Resurrection, and peace through His never-failing promises!

It was R. Kelso Carter who wrote: “Standing on the promises of Christ my King, through eternal ages let His praises ring; Glory in the highest, I will shout and sing, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises that cannot fail, When the howling storms od doubt and fear assail, By the living word of God I shall prevail, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord, Bound to Him eternally by love’s strong cord, Overcoming daily with the Savior’s sword, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises I cannot fall, Listening every moment to the Spirit’s call, Resting in my Savior, as my all in all, Standing on the promises of God.”

Yes! There must be in the church of this modern day the call to reverently, in a rejoicing manner, with a heart and mind and body fully yielded to the Glory of our Lord!

I close with Jesus’ words in John 8:34-35! “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin! And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever, with Verse 36 added, Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Amen? Speak out about YOUR true freedom by “blood”, that’s Jesus’ Calvary blood to take away your sin and give “new life”!

CHAPTER SIX

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? FALLEN FOLLOWER – FAITHFUL FOLLOW-UP!”

In Luke 22:54 it tells us Jesus had been arrested and taken to the high priest’s house with Peter following at what he thought a safe distance. Peter actually sat among the enemies of Christ around a bonfire in the courtyard. A servant girl in the crowd told the ruling authorities, “This man (Simon Peter) was also with Him (with Jesus).”

Verse 57 tells us, But he (Peter) denied Jesus, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” Another in the crowd said the same thing, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, Verse 58b, “Man, I am not!” He denied Jesus a third time, and Verse 61 says, And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” So Peter went out and wept bitterly.

The rooster crows three times! And a Peter is aware of being ‘a fallen follower’, so broken on the reality that what Jesus told him was a historic reality of an immature, though filled with still fleshly presumption, even a haughty attitude that it was certain he’d never fall, and though walking with the Lord of true confidence and assurance and awareness of who He eternally was, Peter didn’t understand what the writer, the wise writer, in Proverbs 16:18-20 had to say about pride and self-importance in a God-filled, God-blessed, eternal relationship of His doings, not immature disciples!

It says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. He who heeds the word wisely will find good, and whoever trusts in the Lord, blessed is he.”

Earlier, in Luke 22, before Peter’s actual “falling away”, Verses 31-32 tells us of what Jesus said, And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail;” [Jesus said that knowing Peter was going to be in this immaturity of childish faith!], but after His praying said, “and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” What an amazing revelation! Christ Jesus knew Peter was about to fall, and He knew Holy God would pick him up!

Peter’s falling away? Present-day followers today falling away? It was Spurgeon who once said, “Only to think that Peter, under temporary discouragement, should play the coward!”

But even today, in a world of destructive unbelief, unbelievers already fallen away from God and under the control of a birthed sin-nature, experience the natural curses of a ‘fallen away life-style’! In fact, many across our known world, as unbelievers, perceive it’s totally unimportant, for them, to consider ‘God-things’, and especially when one even mentions Christ Jesus to them – “how ridiculous to consider ‘a need of the Savior and Lord’ when we are all-sufficient in ourselves!”

In the Luke 22 passage, Verse 55 is highly significant because it alerts us to what can happen in the lives of some disciples: “Now when they [Christ’s enemies!] had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.” And he wasn’t there by the fire to warn Christ’s enemies, he was there warming his hands with them!

“Fallen followers?” Do you remember the Lord Jesus in Matthew 26 coming with His disciples “to a place called Gethsemane,” saying to His disciples, “sit here while I go and pray over there.” In Verse 38 Jesus said to His followers, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” Between Verses 39 and 44 three times He sees His disciples “sleeping”! Later in the chapter Judas betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver! And the end of Verse 56 tells us: “Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled.”

“Watch with Me,” not watch for Me! “Watch with Me,” not watch in view of what sometime Might happen! “Watch with Me,” not watch as you ‘sleep’ dreaming of your own safety and rewards! “Watch with Me” in the most critical time of His earthly journey, not watch as you consider the rewards of a ‘most needed’ fleshly nap! It was Oswald Chambers, in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest” [p.183] who wrote: “How are we going to understand sufficiently to watch with Him in Gethsemane, when we do not know even what His suffering is for?”

Too many ‘professing disciples’, though ‘watching FOR Christ’ while they ‘sleep’, are nothing more than examples of ‘fleshly unbelief’, or an ‘immature, self-protective faith’, that has no mature understanding of “Forsake all and follow Me,” “deny yourself and take up YOUR cross,” or, understanding that true discipleship is the willing choice of self-sacrifice even if it costs me a cross to bear!

In John10:11-18 the Lord Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.

And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd. Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This COMMAND I have received from My Father.”

The majority of ‘professors’ for Christ without being “possessors of His Resurrection Life and Spirit” are those outwardly who adopt certain ‘traits’, but apart from the indwelling of the Author of Eternal Truth, they walk the walk of academy award winners who do well at pretense and outward appearances without inward transformation!

“Jesus may say, ‘Forsake all’, but to me that is an over-emphasis, an unnecessary request, a de-emphasis of what is necessary in one’s worldly existence,” which clearly indicates a ‘this world mentality’, a ‘me, my, mine style of life,’ that which unveils ‘my self-realization’ but shuts the door to one’s mind, heart, and will, to the intent of Christ-unveiling, Christ-realization, or Christ-actualization in the repentant heart and life! “Religious activity is my major desire – not the actual preeminence of Christ Jesus in and through me, that’s other worldly, even Heaven, if I get there!” And, sadly, that explains a lot of boring ‘religious activity’ that they assume essential to give a ‘boring testimony’ (?).

This powerful word and story that we’re examining has a ton of important eternal truths I want us to examine!

FIRST, ARE YOU AWED AND BLESSED THAT OUR LORD SEES US, KNOWS US, AND IS MOVED IN ETERNAL COMPASSION FOR US? In Mark 6:34 we read: “And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.”

One of the most rewarding, abiding consciousness of life and hope, an unveiled present awareness and promise is: “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me!” How awesome is that! In Hebrews 13:5b, we read: For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So boldly we may say: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

Remembering Peter’s awareness of the eyes of Christ upon him, even as he denied Him, there came that moment in him of Christ’s watchcare even as Christ Jesus looked upon Peter compassionately and longingly praying for Peter’s return to true faith, yes, that did cost Peter his own life eventually!

Our Lord sees us, oversees us, keeps on seeing us, never takes His eyes off of us – that ought to increase the intensity of Holy fear because there’s never a moment His eyes are not on us! Perfect, clear, unaltered eternal eyesight, unhindered by the dark activity in a soulish, fleshly, entertaining-sin-mind, never running from a life storm-tossed by the raging waves of the demons and personal sin-activity – Holy God, the Resurrected, Reigning Christ sees our ‘stormy’ choices and comes to say, “Peace, be still!”

I don’t believe it would be a stretch that most men, even some unbelievers, still, if they sin, are aware that it’s not unknown to Holy God, but are aware that, sometimes if God sees the tragic scene of sin in one’s life, He sighs and sorrows and sends by the Spirit a heavenly heartbeat of true desire: “Repent, return – and turn from that destructive choice!” Hear this! If one strays and roams or runs from “the true field of life”, the Shepherd is on that person’s heels, heart, mind or will, “Repent, return – I still love you! Don’t let the devil have his will in your life, but turn back to Me as your Way, your Truth, and your Life!”

SECOND, “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED”? YOUR SAVIOR AND LORD IS A “MAN OF SORROWS” ACQUAINTED WITH THE GRIEF SIN BRINGS! It was C.S.Lewis, in his writing, “The Great Divorce”, who wrote: “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Your will be done,” and those to whom God says [sadly, has to say at times!], “All right, then, have it your way.” How tragic is that?

And the blind Helen Keller of many, many years ago, used to say, “If the blind put their hand in God’s, they find their way more surely than those who see but have not faith in God.” [Doubleday & Company}.

In Isaiah 53:1-7 there is an awesome prophetic unveiling of our true Lord and Savior! It says: “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.

He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.”

So…how do you relate to too much ‘circus antics’, without a doubt far too much self-governing, silly-willy two-year old child’s play, even open gates of godless behavior, encouraging playing the flesh games out of church, even in church, as long as you say: “I’ve been baptized, I ‘joined the church’, and it’s over as far as I’m concerned.” Really? Where’s the Cross in your life? Where’s the “Follow Me”! Where’s the “laying down your life”? Where’s the “suffering Servant” Spirit?

Are you aware of going through the ‘winepress’ where “the grapes of life” are squeezed out as you willfully choose to honor Jesus at all costs? “Struggle in the Faith”? Study to be approved of God in the faith-walk? “Adapt to a culture of spiritual discipline, even laying my life down daily?” Hear me! True faith, after repentance toward God and faith in Christ, the true consistency of the saint is, laying down one’s life, even willing to suffer, and as I have known in India for many years, servants of Christ are punished, imprisoned, beaten, killed – and they do it with a smile on their faces!

Is this why Peter wrote, in 1 Peter 4:12-14, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” Blessed because you partake of Christ’s sufferings? Blessed because you’re reproached for the name of Christ? Blessed because you’re called even to the fiery trials? Blessed because you willingly partake of Christ’s suffering when necessary? If Jesus suffered according to the will of God, is your walk in the will of God?

Consider, because of your young faith in Christ, rejection by unbelieving family members. Consider, constant abuse from fellow employees and even business owner and managers at times! Consider, stupid abuse of school or university leadership people anti-Christ, anti-Word, anti-Constitution, anti-You for your life-changing, eternal Biblical faith! But ‘suffering for the Name of Christ’ is celebration for the true disciple of Christ, and anticipatory celebration before Holy God’s Throne one day, but personal celebration now in you as you examine your identity in Christ!

THIRD, “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED” AS WE LOOK AT FOLLOW-UP FORGIVENESS THROUGH THE ALL-SEEING EYES OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR! In Luke 22:60b-62 we read, Immediately, while he [Peter] was still speaking, the rooster crowed! AND THE LORD TURNED AND LOOKED AT PETER. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” So Peter went out and wept bitterly.

With all my heart, I don’t believe the look of Christ on Peter’s fall was resentment, bitterness, or “Watch out! Your judgment is coming,” but Peter, “You’ve sinned so dramatically, just as I said, but I love you and want you restored!” Is that like, “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me”?

Are you aware that the Word tells us that there is the reality of divine conviction? If one even desires to come to Christ, it is because of Holy Spirit conviction of a man’s sin and His eternal need of the Savior. Men are born with an ‘Adamic’ sin-nature, dominated by it, controlled by it, blinded by it without any awareness of his/her need of restoration to Holy God apart from, yes, biblical conviction! And the Holy Spirit comes in biblical conviction to unveil for him/her specific sins that will unveil the sin nature that has released a corrupt spirit in his/her veins, yes, even an unclean spirit, and like Isaiah after King Uzziah had died, in Isaiah 6:4-5, the Word tells us, “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.”

Holy God is so aware of the alienated heart and mind of fallen humanity! The Lord Jesus came, suffered, and died on the cruel Cross because of His great love for sinful humanity! The Holy Spirit unveiled the merciful heart of God as He viewed man’s sinfulness, assuring each of us that the devil’s accusations about Holy God and his view of deceit of our Lord was unfounded! In Galatians 3:1 Paul asked, “O foolish Galatians! Who has ‘bewitched’ you that you should not obey “the truth,” before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?” And John said what in John 3:16-17? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes [trusts in relies upon, adheres to] in Him should not perish [in his sin & sin nature] but have everlasting life. FOR GOD DID NOT SEND HIS SON INTO THE WORLD TO CONDEMN THE WORLD, but that the world through Him might be saved.” GLORY!!

There’s another amazing Word of God in Hebrews 2:9 when the author wrote, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.”

“Forgiveness” by men’s great efforts? “Forgiveness” because a man sees himself as smarter than the feeble minds of ‘other men’ – and “I can handle my own life, knowing I can overcome my own sin – and God Himself ought to accept me”? I don’t think so! Do you see and sense “the hardened heart through the deceitfulness of sin” with no desire to be reconciled to Him through the “shed blood” of Christ on Calvary’s tree? Wasn’t it Augustine who once prayed, “O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself”?

Oh, and then hear Oswald Chambers who said in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.244], “Spiritual leakage begins when we cease to lift up our eyes unto Him. The leakage comes not so much through trouble on the outside as in the imagination; when we begin to say – “’I expect I have been stretching myself a bit too much, standing on tiptoe and trying to look like God instead of being an ordinary humble person [or humble disciple!].”

In Ephesians 4:32 Paul talked about walking in the Spirit and true nature of Christ alone! He said: “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Forgiveness how in your life? “AS GOD IN CHRIST FORGAVE YOU!”

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED”? AS WE LOOK AT FOLLOW-UP FORGIVENESS THAT UNDERSTANDS, YES, SEPARATION FROM FALLEN-MEN’S WAYS! It was a strong, powerful, convicting statement from Paul to the Corinthian church when he said in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of living God. As God has said:

‘I will DWELL IN THEM and walk among them, I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ Therefore, ‘COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM [their ways, actions, attitudes, sins] AND BE SEPARATE, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’”

What happened to Peter when he realized the eyes of Jesus were fixed on him in his ‘self-indulgence’; but more importantly for this very moment in your own walk with Christ, if you’ve been wandering, overcome with a dry, unclean spirit, are YOUR eyes open to the Lord’s loving gaze on YOU in your sin?

What did the author of Hebrews tell us in Hebrews 12:1-2? “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” ARE YOU CLOTHED WITH THE CLOUD OF HIS HOLY PRESENCE IN YOU?

CHAPTER SEVEN

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? THE CALL TO ONE’S NEED OF SELF-EXAMINATION”

It was in the book, “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations”, [Edited & Compiled by Frank S. Mead, Fleming H. Revell Com., Westwood, New Jersey, p.297], a statement by Donald T. Kauffman, in his writing “Gist of the Lesson”, “A good marriage is not a contract between two persons but a sacred covenant between three. Too often Christ is never invited to the wedding and finds no room in the home. Why? Is it because we have misrepresented Him and forgotten His joyful outlook on life?”

But what about the Biblical faith of “holy matrimony” between Christ as the ‘bridegroom’ and you as His bride? Did you simply ‘join’ His church or ‘take vows’ of surrender, dedication, and submission to be Savior, Lord, and Spiritual Head of your heart and life? I hate to be the one to tell you, but ‘church membership’ does not mean necessarily married and yielded to His Lordship!

In Matthew 21 Jesus had gone into the temple and was confronted by the chief priests of the temple and the elders of the people of Jerusalem. They said to Jesus in Verse 23b, “By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?” Back and forth the conversation went on, and Jesus alerted them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Oh, and then in Verses 28-32, “the call to one’s need of self-examination” began with Jesus exposing their need of such an examination! Jesus said, “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?”

They said to Jesus, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.”

Are you familiar with Jeremiah the prophet and how the Lord spoke to him about the difference between ‘the Jewish pretenders’ and ‘His true remnant’ among them? In Jeremiah 15:11, the Lord said to Jeremiah, “Surely it will be well with your remnant…,” and then said, BUT!, in Jeremiah 15:15-16 Jeremiah called out to Holy God!! “O Lord You know; Remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me and my persecutors. In Your enduring patience, do not take me away. Know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke. Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”

And the compassionate Lord God reassured His holy prophet in Verses 19-21, Therefore thus says the Lord: “If you return, then I will bring you back; you shall stand before Me; If you take out the precious from the vile, you shall be as My mouth. Let them return to you, but you must not return to them. And I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; and they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you; FOR I AM WITH YOU TO SAVE YOU AND DELIVER YOU,” says the Lord. I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you from the grip of the terrible.”

What an awesome word of conviction and confidence and comfort! Holy God KNOWS those who are His – and HE IS their defender! Does He know you? AND, How Vital is it for every professing believer to examine whether or not HE is a true worker in the Father’s vineyard fulfilling the Lord’s calling and assignments to every disciple?

FIRST, TWO SONS CALLED BY THE FATHER TO WORK IN HIS VINEYARD – ONLY ONE DID! Now, isn’t the son who didn’t go the picture of a ‘pretender’ of faith but the fruitlessness of his work exposes himself as one who walks in disobedience not obedience, in self-direction not Christ-directed, in outward performances but no inward heart-change, still as selfish and self-centered as he always was since birth!

Do you remember Pharoah of Egypt in Exodus 5:2 saying to Moses and Aaron, “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.” At least the Pharoah spoke the truth! He didn’t know the Lord, and he wouldn’t let Israel go! But ‘a son’ who pretends before his father that he will go and do what the father said, but had no intention of doing it because of a self-centered, self-motivated style of life, and it didn’t include doing the father’s will?

Does the ‘unwilling, disobedient, yes, rebellious son’ describe even the scribes and Pharisees of Matthew 23:13-15 whom Jesus called ‘hypocrites’? What a strong indictment by the Lord of love! He said of them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

Have you ever witnessed those who are ‘strong professors’ of the faith verbally but ‘sad examples’ of even those who are visible ‘actors’ still dominated by the corruption that is in the world through lust, even barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, buying destructive heresies, even exploiting others with deceptive words, [“believers can’t do anything but sin until they get to heaven,” when Jesus said, “Go and sin no more!”], perishing more and more in their own corruption, presumptuous, self-willed, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, constantly forsaking the right way, going astray, loving the wages of unrighteousness, even “dogs returning to their own vomit or a ‘sow’ wallowing in her mire”!

Hear me! Supernatural overcoming of the old sin nature is not devotion to it but Christ’s deliverance, in you, from it! As a ‘true son’, fruitful in the work of the father’s vineyard, one is not to walk in their own lusts – a ‘true son’ walks in the fullness of the Indwelling Christ and the fullness of His Holy Spirit, overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil, not dominated by them! In Acts 24:14-16 Paul testified: “But this I confess to you, that ‘according to the Way’ which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the prophets. I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men.” Are your ears, your heart and mind, sensitive to the Word and the Spirit, or dominated by what separates one and keeps him/her from hearing “Holy Truth,” what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God?

SECOND, IS IT FALSE FAITH – VERBAL FAILURE, OR TRUE FAITH- VICTORIOUS FULFILLMENT? What did Matthew 21:32 reveal to us? “For John came to you ‘in the way of righteousness,’ and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.”

Do you understand the vastness of people who ‘hear’, but they do not respond, do not receive, do not repent, do not rest in God’s finished work At The Cross through the Lord Jesus’ “blood sacrifice”, but go their own way, even saying “yes” at times to Christ Jesus as they continue in the ‘broad way’ of personal administration and rejecting God’s calling by a willful response, “We’ll do it our way”!

Are you aware that “many are called, but few are chosen”? Even as you come to Matthew 22 Jesus’ concern grows stronger and stronger as He unveiled a “False faith – Verbal failure”! Beginning in Verse 2 of Chapter 22 of Matthew , Jesus illuminates divine invitations to “The Holy Wedding”, and then exposed a man dressed so inappropriately. Let the Holy Spirit do a work of grace in you if this story touches you! Jesus said: (Verses 2-14),

“The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted calf are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”

But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

Then he said to his servants, “The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding. So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came in to see the guests, HE SAW A MAN THERE WHO DID NOT HAVE ON A WEDDING GARMENT. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are called, but few are chosen.”!!

Are you aware that there are those who, in a fleshly way, ‘like’ to be a part, at times, of a spiritual celebration, but have no desire to ‘dress’ as the King requires! “Requires? You, preacher, must be a part of a strange cult – why should I be concerned about how I dress at the wedding if I show up?” And the Lord Jesus SAID: “Depart! I never knew you!” Clothed properly matters?

It was Paul who said to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, “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, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this [earthly] tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.”

Do you know what Job said in Job 29:14? “I put on righteousness and it clothed me..” That’s God’s righteousness, imputed, imparted, implanted by His grace, mercy, and love! Are you aware of being “clothed with humility”, (1 Peter 5:5b), the where does ‘fleshly pride’ fit in to a believer’s humble journey? What’s the color of the robe you wear? Pure and white linen? What about a “robe dipped in blood”?

In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul wrote TO THE CHURCH specifically but also to the world at large: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified.” How convicting is that?

False Faith – Verbal Failure or True Faith – Victorious Fulfillment? In Malachi 3:1-3 the prophet, used By God, brings HIS life-changing Word of faith-transformation and true offerings as the evidence! God spoke: “Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord [Christ Jesus, the Promised Messiah!], will suddenly come to His temple [1 Corinthians 3:16-17 which asks, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”], even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.”

True Faith – And Victorius Fulfillment? I don’t know who wrote the old song that is worth treasures, at least the words!

“The King Himself comes near, and feasts His saints today; Here we may sit and see Him here, And love, and praise, and pray.

One day amidst the place Where my dear God has been Is sweeter than ten thousand days of pleasurable sin.”

In Psalm 84 I want you to be inspired by Verses 1-2 and Verses 10-12! “How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Verses 10-12, “For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in You!”

It just may be that in this moment’s time in your own spiritual story or time-period of faith or lack of it, you discover Psalm 85:6 as the ‘sons of Korah’ cried out, “Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?”

Why would anyone who has personally known, received, and rejoiced in the presence of the Lord in his/her life not want to know the amazing grace of renewal, fresh resurrection power, a new baptism of Calvary’s river of blessing that still flows, and a restoration of renewal with the God who calls Himself “My Friend”, if for some reason, one fell away.

You don’t reject – you receive! You don’t deny – you accept! You don’t substitute – you surrender! You don’t try to evolve – you accept His “You must be born again!” You don’t depend upon your superior education – you turn and accept His imputed righteousness! You don’t stamp yourself with ‘the insolence of self-righteousness’ – you surrender to the righteousness of God, sealed together in His shed blood! You don’t settle for the poisonous juices of an immoral, old sin nature – you trust in the power of the “new life, new hope, new awareness and understanding, of the Resurrected Christ in you, the hope of glory”! You don’t settle for a life outside His church, but commit yourself to honor Him in and through the church He loved and gave Himself for, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together!

I’m truly, truly sorry, but I have no understanding of anyone who looks at the Cross of Jesus, knowing it was for him/her He suffered, bled, and died, but chooses to shut his ears, close his eyes, turn away from His Word and will, and settles for a “best-effort style of life” I cringe for fear of their ultimate, sure, pain-filled life in Hell with the devil, his demons, and the darkened souls of a faithless, disobedient life – they will burn forever and ever in Hell without a second’s relief!

Do you think this just might be why Jesus said in Luke 12:40, “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect,”?

I’m a super-fan of Oswald Chambers and his historic, loved, deeply appreciated book, “My Utmost For His Highest.” On pages 63-64, I found a true word that should alert, awaken, and uplift every seeker of the true faith. He wrote:

“Jesus rarely comes where we 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 being ready for the Lord’s surprise visits. It is not service that matters, but intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This will give our life the attitude of child-wonder which He wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious (that is, using religion as a higher kind of culture) and be spiritually real.”

“Vital Awareness Unveiled”? THE CALL TO ONE’S NEED OF SELF-EXAMINATION! Is Jesus the Author and Finisher of Your Faith – and are you ready for Him to examine you? Felice De Giardini wrote an old Italian hymn entitled “Come, Thou Almighty King.” It says: “Come, Thou Almighty King, Help us Your name to sing, Help us to praise: Father, all glorious, Over all victorious, Come, and reign over us, Ancient of Days.

Come, Thou Incarnate Word, Gird on Your mighty sword, Our prayer attend; Come, and Your people bless, And give Your Word success; Spirit of holiness, On us descend.

Come, Holy Comforter, Your sacred witness bear In this glad hour: You who Almighty art, Now rule in every heart, And never from us depart, Spirit of power.

To the great One in Three Eternal praises be Hence evermore. His sovereign majesty May we in glory see, And to eternity Love and adore.” Amen?

CHAPTER EIGHT

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? PRAYERLESS LIFE –

PRAYERFUL LIBERATION”

How does a person examining a true disciple’s life and walk do so without the awareness of his prayer life and prayer ministry? Oh, I know: “By their fruits you shall know them,” but without that unveiling of his ‘work’ in the prayer closet one can come up with an exemplary report that doesn’t interpret the true disciple’s greater ministry – the ministry of intercessory prayer! I believe it was Oswald Chambers who once said, “Prayer does not fit us for the greater works; prayer “is” the greater work.”

A ‘stalwart’ disciple’s life is not sustained in power and authority apart from the ministry of prayer. Stalwart means “strongly and stoutly built, sturdy, robust; strong and brave; valiant. Firm, steadfast, or uncompromising.” [That’s “The Random House Collegiate Dictionary”, Revised Edition, 1975!]

You know, if you’re a student of God’s Holy Word and you “feed” on His daily bread, that He teaches us the vital importance of “prayerful liberation”, not a prayerless life! As Paul was equipping the saints in Ephesus he wrote, Ephesians 6:13, about “taking up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” And then in Ephesians 6:18 he included in ‘the whole armor’, “praying always with all prayer and supplication for all the saints, and for me”, which is absolutely vital but only a part of one’s faithful prayer-life!

I was reminded again recently as I was reading in the Gospel of Luke, coming to Luke 18, and in the first five Verses the Lord Jesus spoke a parable of great, great significance. It says, Luke 18:1-5, “Then He spoke a parable to them, THAT MEN ALWAYS OUGHT TO PRAY AND NOT LOSE HEART, saying, “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary. And he would not for a while but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by continual coming she wears me out.”

Dare I tell you that Holy God is not troubled by your continual coming before Him in prayer but welcomes it? Didn’t Christ Jesus tell us in Luke 18:1, “Men always ought to pray and not lose heart”? Yet, many ‘lose heart’ to pray because the very heart of fleshly individuality is so strong, believing “I’m able”, that they seldom pray, except, maybe, in their desperate stage of failure, futility, and fear!

One of the sad stages of a spiritual journey is when a ‘mature’ (?) believer thinks that by his/her many, many prayers, Holy God should recognize how blessed He is to have such a strong ‘prayer’ on His team. Too many, still ‘fleshly’ disciples, consider God blessed by their exemplary prayer-life rather than them blessed by God’s inspiration for them to pray!

In fact, in John 16:23b-24, Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing IN MY NAME. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

But many times a believer ask, ask, ask, ask – doesn’t receive because God operates from His throne of wisdom and understanding; if my asking violates Sovereign Will, God sovereignly does not answer! Often though it is a process of maturing, understanding, and acceptance of His holy time table. For example, my mother, after being divorced from my father for about ten years, re-married, and I had an unsaved step-father. Did I pray for Him? You better believe I did! I prayed for him for about 50 years (?), and six weeks before his 89^th birthday, as I visited him in the nursing facility, Frank said to me, my wife present also, “Farrell, I know all these many years that you’ve shared the Gospel story. Would you tell me one more time how I can be saved?”

I shared the gospel story with Frank Callaway, and he responded, “Farrell, would you help me to pray a sinner’s prayer?” I did – he did, and just before he died about six weeks later, the ladies in the facility said: “Farrell, Sue, what has happened to Frank? He is a totally changed man, even joining in Bible Study and prayer-time!” We told them, “Frank prayed to receive Christ as Lord and Savior of his life!” Glory! Yes, Glory Hallelujah!

And, day by day, as the spiritual journey continues, the Lord Jesus continues to say, “Lean not to your own understanding, but in all of your ways, (including prayer), acknowledge Me, give Me My rightful place on the throne of your heart – I’ll see and will answer your unselfish prayer!”

Do you remember the sisters, Martha and Mary, in John 11, whose brother, Lazarus, was sick? They sent to Jesus, Verse 3, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.” Verse 4 says, When Jesus heard that, He said, [Hasn’t even seen Lazarus at this point!], “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

John 11:5-6 tells us, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. Oh, but then in Verse 11 Jesus said to His disciples, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” Dare I tell you that that ‘sleep of Lazarus’ was “The Sleep of Death”? Jesus said in Verse 14-15 to His disciples, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”

It gets better, and especially as the sisters encounter Christ Jesus! John 11:21-27 we read, Now Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha said to Jesus, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Martha said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is come into this world.”

After several more Verses, in Verse 34, Jesus said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Jesus then, “Lord, come and see.” Verse 35 then says, “Jesus WEPT!” He wept over their sorrow, He wept over Lazarus’ suffering and pain and death, and He wept over those who experience death because of sin, and He wept over those who weep for whatever circumstance they find breaking their heart!

Beginning at Verse 38-44, we find the raising of Lazarus from the dead! Jesus prayed to the Father! [Isn’t that amazing to some folks – JESUS PRAYED!]. Then Jesus said, Verse 43, “Lazarus, come forth!” He was raised from the dead, graveclothes on, and Jesus said, “Loose him, and let him go.” But YOU, in your graveclothes of spiritual death and separation from Holy God, are unaware that He has stood before your tomb of spiritual death, called your name, “Come forth”, which you haven’t, and as a result, it tells me You’ve refused to hear, you’ve refused to see, and you continue on the self-made journey of doubt and unbelief!

Oh, but then in John 11:40, Jesus said to Martha, and to you and me, “Did I not say that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” Doesn’t it awaken, excite, and point you to pressing in to see the glory of God? At the end of John 12, Verse 41, John wrote: “These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him.”

This Chapter heading? “Vital Awareness Unveiled”? PRAYERLESS LIFE – PRAYERFUL LIBERATION! Do YOU think Martha and Mary prayed? Did they pray for divine invasion of human need? Did they pray for one they loved deeply? Of course! They wanted divine help, the divine remedy, the divine Lord and Savior to come in where they were in the midst of their tragic sorrow and pain!

Is your life a “prayerless life”? In 1 Samuel 12:21-25 we read of, yes, spiritual tragedy for those who abandon prayer to Holy God. It says, “And do not turn aside; for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing. For the Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and right way. Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you. But if you still do wickedly (forsaking the prayer-life?), you shall be swept away, both you and your king.” Satan is so, yes, abusive, even in introducing to ‘believers’ the “incoming of craftiness”, even emphasizing the unimportance of prayer, except when you need something, but the devil doesn’t desire you praying to God because you love Him or needing a definite supply of Heaven’s glorious blessings!

Rather than, with Jesus, saying, “I have finished the work You’ve given Me to do,” far too many ‘followers’ do not know Whom they follow or why they follow, but they would be like a little child who’s glad his parent gave him some sweets to chew on!

Too often the prayerless life is evidence of carry-over forces from the natural life that really sees no need in asking God in prayer for ‘things,’ praying to Him because someone told you He likes to hear you pray, or void of the need to pray because the ‘self-sufficient’ life still has a hold! Didn’t Chambers once say, “It is not so true that ‘prayer changes things’ as that prayer changes “me” and I then, by the grace of God, become instruments of His change.” “God is abundantly able to do above all we ask or think!” When did that change?

In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:5-13, we find our Lord’s ‘life-training’ of His true disciples! Jesus said: “And when you pray you shall not be like the hypocrites. [“Play-actors!]. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen [Or “so be it!”].”

The Lord Jesus was, yes, passionately training and equipping His “new followers” in true “kingdom of God discipleship” on earth! Several vital considerations for YOUR mature, Christ-like prayer-journey!

In Matthew 5:48 I’m convinced our Lord is challenging disciples to “look to the Father as He truly has been, is, and always will be”: Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect – which means true disciples consider Who and What has gone before! In Luke 6:35-36 we read Jesus saying, “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” True disciples who faithfully pray only to be seen and heard by God? Are YOU a ‘son of the Most High?’

“When YOU pray?” Matthew 6:6, “but you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” Do you understand that prayer is one of the most important things you do between you and your Heavenly Father – and it’s done not to be seen of men! [That doesn’t mean public prayer is ungodly – I don’t buy that for a minute!]. But spiritual intimacy between a disciple and His Master is a privileged and blessed relationship! That means: Shut out the distractions, shut out noise interference, shut out being judged by fleshly men as you pour out your heart and mind before Holy God, get still, quiet, resting in Him!

Biblical praying? It’s the power to understand His Resurrection Power, His judgmental power, His creative power, and His power, though reserved in the secret place, He can reward you openly as He reads your heart, mind, soul, and desires!

It’s the power released to proclaim a victorious witness of the Resurrected Christ! It’s the power released to live a holy life! In Romans 8:11-14 tells us, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh [That’s the “old man, old sin nature, old ways without Christ!]. For if you live according to the flesh you will die [and your ‘prayers?’ also!]; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” But the Spirit doesn’t lead you to pray? You can do it on your own?

It’s also power unveiled to see things happen, even mighty manifestations as the Spirit so desires! In 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 we read, “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”

I find it so amazing, as I approach my 80^th birthday as of June 12, 2016, that very little is made in this particular age of ‘the church’ of “Holy Spirit” helps! In Romans 8:26-27 we read of what should happen but not necessarily does happen: “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

It’s the power released as our Lord told us in John 16:12 of His appointment of the Holy Spirit for ‘Spirit-assistance’: In John 16:12-15 our Lord and Savior said, “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 [through YOU!], for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

The following hymn is from the old “Broadman Hymnal” of 1940, [The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee], entitled “Holy Spirit, Faithful Guide,” by Marcus M. Wells. It says:

“Holy Spirit, faithful Guide, Ever near the Christian’s side; Gently lead us by the hand, Pilgrims in a desert land; Weary souls forever rejoice, While they hear that sweetest voice, Whispering softly, ‘Wanderer, come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.

Ever present, truest friend, Ever near God’s aid to lend, Leave us not to doubt and fear, Groping in the darkness drear; When the storms are raging sore, Hearts grow faint, and hopes give o’er, Whisper softly, ‘Wanderer, come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.”

When our days of toil shall cease, Waiting still for sweet release, Looking up to heaven in prayer, Joyful that our names are there: Fearing not the dismal flood, Pleading naught but Jesus’ blood, Whisper softly, “Wanderer, come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.”

Why not, right now, pray: “Holy Spirit, to you I yield, in my life for you build, The fullness of Christ’s Indwelling Life, through me forever overcoming life’s strife!” Amen?

CHAPTER NINE

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED?

BESTOWED GRACE – BLESSED VICTORY?”

Aren’t you overwhelmed, overjoyed at times when you come across a particular Verse of Scripture, and you’re awed by what you read with a ‘fresh touch’ of Spirit-anointing?

1 Corinthians 15:10 tells us, “But by the grace of God I am what I am. And His grace toward 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.”

Rather than ‘spiritual, perplexing, back-slapping’ before God because one thinks He ought to be overjoyed by who it is for Him to have on His team, meaning a proud, bloated, self-promoting, spiritual-world personal back-slapper, as if one’s own superior effort birthed his/her salvation and blessed His kingdom, all true believers should see themselves humbled before Holy God for His marvelous grace, mercy, and love given to a child of faith who has humbled himself/herself before the Cross!

I hope and pray your spiritual eyes are truly open as you witness what took place in Matthew 14:14-21, yes, beyond our Lord’s ability to feed five thousand men, plus women and children! Read carefully examining whether or not you see the difference He desires and can make in your own life and circumstances and opportunities! It says:

“And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.”

But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” Jesus said, “Bring them here to Me.” [That’s, bring your five loaves and two fish.].

Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. [Multitudes? Would you think, maybe, 20,000-30,000 people?].

So they ALL ATE AND WERE FILLED, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained. Now those men who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Don’t you find it so amazing, so encouraging, so uplifting, that our Lord took a natural need and turned it into a supernatural provision for those He cared about? And as He saw YOU, convicted YOU, called YOU to Himself, what was His intent, His plan, His worthy provision in you to help Him change the world around you? Was His call, “You’re filled up with what men need, join Me, and let’s change men’s hearts and minds,” or, “I see your emptiness – I want to fill you with My presence,” or, “I see no potential in you, therefore an empty vessel becomes My earthly tabernacle,” or, “I see your earthly wisdom certificates – let me wash them away by My blood so I can then invade a blood-bought container and express Myself through you!”

There’s a very strong prayer the Lord Jesus made, early in His three-year public ministry before the Cross. It’s Matthew 11:25-27! At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

It’s very clear that Holy God knew, understood, and, yes, was broken-hearted over the unbelief of men toward Him AND over the ‘belief’ in some, yet, it did nothing for them except promote ‘religious pride’ without ‘life-change’ by the grace, mercy, and love of God!

I’ve written over Psalm 14, a psalm written by King David, the words: “A Fool’s Paradise”! Psalm 14 says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have abominable works, there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God.

THEY HAVE ALL TURNED ASIDE, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, No, not one. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call on the Lord?

There they are in great fear, for God is with the generation of the righteous. You shame the counsel of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord brings back the captivity of His people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.”

Early mankind, except for a few men touched and taken over by God, highlighted the fallen-away generation after generation, with Holy God then finding a Moses and an Aaron, and God speaking through them. In Exodus 20 Holy God unveiled the Ten Commandments , but I only highlight one here – Exodus 20:3 is Holy God declaring, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Other gods were fallen men’s creations to try and appease the guilt of their godless lives because they surely had no desire to believe in, trust, or obey the Eternal God of Creation and the God of the coming Cross they would learn about! Shed blood, to them, was an animal slain and the blood strewn over their ‘religious tables’ but certainly didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t be covering for their sin, sins, or sinful nature – they didn’t have one, they thought, because they were so religious!

Has our ‘modern world’ embraced or rebelled against Holy God? Are ‘major religions’ the imprint of Christ’s Resurrection Presence or ‘cheap imitations’ of devotion to the exalting of the ‘best’ humanity has to offer – and, “If your God, your Jesus can’t accept us in our interpretation of the best of fleshly man’s religion, let Him be crucified again, and we’ll put the nails in his hands and feet, and gleefully watch Him die again. So what?”

Modern-day humanity, as a whole, since Jesus said, “Few there be who find the Holy Way,” is a world still gripped in shame, but overcoming it by criticism of the True Faith, slurs on the Holy Bible, devalued as counterfeit declaring Himself Savior and Lord, “no divinity there – maybe a good man trying to make a difference in a Hell-bent world,” and “even His faith, of a conservative variety, was ‘narrow,’ obstinate to other religions, unyielding concerning compromise; and though there are millions across the world who acknowledge Him, our vast world denies His saving blood and even His purported resurrection. We’re religious – Jesus deceived the masses in His day.” Really?

Hear me! Paul the Apostle dealt Spirit-Anointed in heavenly brilliance when in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 he told us, “Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. NOW all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, THAT IS, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us; we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He [God] made Him [Christ Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Glory!!

The man who says he has been reconciled to God and believes He[Jesus] became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, yet goes on sinning, is the man who hears Christ say to him, “Go and sin no more,” but takes pleasure in his lack of understanding that God the Father ‘made Jesus Christ the Son who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,’ which is religious unbelief parading as true spiritual understanding that professing Christians can’t do anything but sin until they get to heaven someday, totally ignoring “death to self and life in and through the Indwelling Christ”!

Are you aware that 2 Corinthians 6:21 tells us, “For He (God) made Him (Christ Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin FOR US [on the Cross], that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,” so some ‘sinning believers’ simply say, “So what? I believe even as I choose to sin,” which means their old sin nature is very much alive as they ‘celebrate’ their old sin nature and deny their “new creation life in Christ”!

Some preachers, teachers, even some ‘professing disciples’ teach that by Christ’s death on the Cross ‘for me’, I can go on sinning until I get to Heaven ‘out there,’ is not Biblical teaching anointed of the Spirit! But His Holy Word declares ‘death to the old sin nature’ and resurrection life in Him because I accept my death with Him and praise Him that my bondage to sin was broken, yes, put to death at the Cross, and by His grace I receive His gift to me of His very righteousness!

Are you even aware that in Psalm 4:1 that David sang to the Lord God Almighty, “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness,”? Even in Isaiah 51:1 God spoke, “Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the Lord; [because there are those who want to walk in His fullness!]: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. [No doubt the pit of spiritual death, religious death, yes, sinful death!].

Oh, and then in Isaiah 51:7-8, we read, “Listen to Me, YOU WHO KNOW RIGHTEOUSNESS, you people in whose heart is My law; do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults. For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but MY RIGHTEOUSNESS will be forever, and My salvation from generation to generation.”

God said what? “MY RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL BE FOREVER”, except in modern-day churches where men perform as best as they can, never grasping that His righteousness is imparted through Christ, implanted by the very Seed of His Life, Death, and Resurrection, imploding the old sin nature as He releases Himself, the Divine Nature, in repentant hearts and faith in Truth, yes, imputing grace, mercy, and love fully by the ruling presence of His Indwelling Resurrection Life, because as Paul wrote in Colossians 2:9, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; AND YOU ARE COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of all principality and power.” You’re not made ‘complete’ by what you do, but by WHAT JESUS DID IN YOUR PLACE ON THE CROSS!

Aren’t you awed, inspired, encouraged, uplifted, when you read Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1:9, saying, “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead…”! That’s spiritual death in all men but raised to “new life” by Christ, and even with Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I DIE DAILY!”

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? BESTOWED GRACE – BLESSED VICTORY?” When one comes to Romans 5:17, what is he/she being discipled in? Performance or Position? Gritted or Graced? Trying or Trusting? Keeping, as best as one can, or Kept by the power of God? 1 Peter 1:3-5 tells us: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to HIS ABUNDANT MERCY has begotten us again to a living hope THROUGH THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THE DEAD, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does fade away, reserved in heaven for you, WHO ARE KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? BESTOWED GRACE – BLESSED VICTORY?” Are you overwhelmed, awed, uplifted, motivated, Kept by the power of God? Romans 8:35-39 inspires us, Paul saying, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? BESTOWED GRACE – BLESSED VICTORY?” Poor confession or rich profession? Bankrupt confession or enriched by God confession? Penniless confession or Prince of Peace confession? In 1 Timothy 6:11-16, the Apostle Paul trains, equips, inspires, and illuminates the heart and mind of young Timothy, telling him: “But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen, or “so be it!” Is He the “Amen” of YOUR life??

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? BESTOWED GRACE – BLESSED VICTORY?” The Eternal Truth of God unveiled or the eternal nakedness of man’s deception appealed by the faithless? Our fallen, faithless world must be constantly reminded that man’s view of truth falls away from God, while the Crucified, Resurrected Christ of Eternal Truth leads us to God! “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life! No one comes to Father-God but through Me!”

Dare I tell you? Christ Jesus IS the “Highway of Holiness”! In Isaiah 35:8-10 the prophet unveils the glory of our Lord and the excellency of our God. “A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not Passover it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; It shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

There’s an old, old hymn by Fanny J. Crosby and Mrs. J.F. Knapp in the 1940 Baptist Hymnal, published by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, entitled, “Blessed Assurance” that never grows old really. 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 and blest; Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.”

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? BESTOWED GRACE – BLESSED VICTORY?” Fleshly faith that always falls short or Eternal Faith in Christ’s “finished work” that always leads one in blessed confidence and eternal assurance because of ‘perfect submission’, not my will but His will be done in and through one’s daily walk! Have you grasped as yet that “kingdom living” under His Lordship is present and future, while some process ‘in Christ’ as future without consideration of Christ-honoring life in the here and now!

Sorry, but I don’t see Revelation 21 as ‘future’ but Kingdom Living Now! John wrote, Verses 21:1-8, “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away [Crucified WITH Christ!”]. Also there was no more sea [or “separation”!]. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, THE TABERNACLE OF GOD IS WITH MEN, [“You are the holy tabernacle or Temple of the Resurrected, Indwelling Christ!”], and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things are passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are faithful and true. He said to me, “It is done!” “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” [And that’s the eternal death that never dies for the Christless lives, even the ‘religions’ (?) of the world!].

You don’t gain ‘merit’ for eternity as you “try your best” – one’s “FAITH” is in mercy through the grace of God, birthing Christ’s eternal, indwelling, Resurrection Life! One’s hope is in Him – not his/her self-will or self-determination! The question from Holy God will be, “What then did YOU do with Jesus who is called the Christ?” Are YOU the “illumined temple” of His indwelling in you through your faith alone in His finished work at the Cross and your old man of sin crucified with Him – and NOW you celebrate daily your death with Him and YOUR resurrection to “new life” through Him? The eternal is Now, not when or if you get to Heaven someday!

I was shocked when I read recently a statement by Augustine. In his “Letter 130” he actually wrote: “The sole purpose of life in time is to gain merit for life in eternity.” The sole purpose of life in the here and now is to gain the mercy of God through repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross, which without, one misses mercy and continues his messes in Hell! There is no merit for life in eternity ignoring the Cross! Or ignoring Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

A best-effort, self-constructed life, even with its ‘stained glass windows of self-improvement’, doesn’t house the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords! Jesus said, “You must be born again!”

CHAPTER TEN

“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? ONE LEGISLATOR – ONE LORD”

Have you ever sought to write for yourself your own ‘life agenda’? Some would say, “I live by the bread I produce day by day, though as far as the inner, spiritual part of me is concerned, who cares?” Or, “I live by the good fleshly deeds I do – what’s this ‘living by the life of another’? – I choose me, my, mine!” Others would say, “I live in my ‘dream world’ – fairy tale living is as good as it comes!” Or, “The beginning, means, and end of all things, is that I tried to do my best.” Or, “The ruling reason of my life is, “just do what makes YOU happy – who cares what others or some God has to say!”

Think with me about fallen humanity as we will eventually consider “One Legislator – One Lord”! But as we look to fallen humanity, fallen away from God, fallen from God’s intent in man’s creation, fallen away from the need of “blood redemption”, what is it men settle for? Well, “Certainly for my view, no consideration of what some call immortality – let me spend or expend my life’s resources for myself in the here and now; why consider what’s after death?” “Me? Whatever pumps my flesh and satisfies my glands, what else matters?” Or, “What’s the problem with a useless life? I’m my own man and ought to satisfy my own lusts!” Or, “I’ll spin the web of my own life on my own terms. Who cares what God’s intent was?” And fallen men have no clear understanding that the mind of fallen men, alienated and separated from Holy God, is an evil life of unbelief, with God’s Holy Word declaring in Genesis 6:5, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

MAN WITHOUT GOD! And, yes, in early Genesis we see “the beginning of the unveiling” of God’s grace, mercy, and love! But even with that view of God, there are those who dim the mind to the Light of God, sear and steel the conscience with indifference toward God’s Word written and viewed in and through Emmanuel, God in the flesh, dim their hearts toward the Cross, the suffering, the death of Christ on the Cross in their behalf, as totally unimpressive: “What a foolish man!” they say.

MAN WITHOUT GOD? The majority of fallen men have no true or abiding consciousness of God, though some men will acknowledge but sense no need of Him because they are ‘god unto themselves’! Many are so stale, stoic, selfish, sin-sick, superior to any idea of God or need of repentance before their Creator. Plus, godless men, and women, birth family victims, family dis-function, disgrace, and despair, family separation, family sorrow and abuse, resentment, anger, disgust, accusations after accusations, dislike with an “I hate you” stance of relationships, followed by a disloyal pledge of bitterness! And without loving God as their hope and help, they live unfulfilling lives with no fulfilling relationships and rewards because they have no place in their hearts for a sacrificial, serving, selfless love!

MAN WITHOUT GOD? Are you aware most men exalt selfish imaginations, and really, anything or anyone that exalts himself/herself against the knowledge of God? They know zero about deliverance from sin and death, but celebrate in it, totally unaware of seeing a natural life birthed by God into a spiritual life that exalts and honors Him – with rich and eternal rewards! They possess no sense of innocence before Holy God and man because they are guilty, live in guilt, and try to cover it any way they can – which never happens apart from the shed blood of Christ as Emmanuel, “God with them.”

MAN WITHOUT GOD? Captives in their own souls, minds, wills, unaware of “the wages of unrighteousness”, walking in the counsel of the ungodly, drawing iniquity with cords of vanity like a cart with no wheels, famished souls with no true ‘bread of life’ or ‘water’ of the Word and the Spirit, living in rejection to the Law of the Lord of hosts, despising the Living Word, the Holy One of Israel, without knowing their life choices ‘stricken them’, and ‘the walking dead’ are like the carcasses of refuse in the very middle of a “Hollywood-like Boulevard” with their banners flying over every unbelieving life: “Unbeliever, and proud of it,” not knowing, Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” fall after fall after fall, deeper and deeper and deeper in the grips of a hellish devil, and eternal destruction that never fades or dies away!

MAN WITHOUT GOD? Alienated, separated, enslaved, deceived, enticed violaters of the Word and Will and Ways of God, being swallowed by the bad breath of Sheol, greedy for gain anyway, anytime, anywhere, with anyone, disdaining of counsel and eternal help, loving the darkness without any Light, delighting in the perversity of the wicked, devious to gain the upper hand and unearned wealth and unrewarding consequences, “just so I can have my way in all things”!

MAN WITHOUT GOD? Proverbs 6:16-19 says: “These six things the Lord hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.”

MAN WITHOUT GOD? That’s the one or many or masses that ignore Christ Jesus, inspire lustful living, betray the Holy Word, bow before “scientific discoveries” more than to the Lord God who created them, resistant to governorship of the Lord Jesus who loves them far more than they know how to ‘love’ themselves, so in love with the perversions out of the selfish hearts of men they had just rather crucify the King of kings and Lord of lords and bow unto their sin natures, God-less ideals, and their lives governed by “flesh” alienations than Holy Spirit birthing!

MAN WITHOUT GOD? Proverbs 27:6 expose so much about the nature and character of our fallen world. It says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy [toward God and YOU] are deceitful.” Can you grasp that? But, not only the deception of one’s enemies, including the devil and his appointed demons, how easy is it for unreconciled, unrighteous, unbelieving, ungodly men and women, even youth and children, to be encouraged toward rebellion against God rather than submission to His eternal Way and ways? For far too many “blood redemption” by the Lamb of God is unreality, unnatural, and unnecessary!

MAN WITHOUT GOD? It was John Greenleaf Whittier, in his writing, “A Sabbath Scene,” who said: “Foul shame and scorn be on you all Who turn the good to evil, and steal the Bible from the Lord and give it to the devil.” Of course, though, we don’t have to worry about that in this ‘modern-day’, do we?

Are you familiar with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s writings? One is entitled “The Cry of the Human,” and in it she wrote: “There is no God,” the foolish saith, But none, “There is no sorrow”: And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow.

Eyes, which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, “God be pitiful,” Who never said, “God be praised.” Does that still ‘fit’ in an unbelieving state of life and mind today?

Many unbelieving men will question true believers at times, “How can you believe in God?” And only true wise men of faith stand to say, “I examine the billions of planets He designed, then the awesome people He created, lost, and re-birthed – and I rejoice, thank, and praise His Holy Name,” which now leads us to examine, “Vital Awareness Unveiled? One Legislator – One Lord!”

Taking a look at the nation enslaved in Egypt yet liberated by Holy God and given “a land of promise”, Israel is or was the recipient of God’s faithfulness yet there came a time that most of Israel, except the remnant, abandoned God and promoted ‘religion’ without a personal relationship!

In Joshua 24:14-15 we see the challenge that is just as true today as it was in Joshua’s day imprinting the call to turn to the “True Legislator and the Only Redeeming Lord”! Joshua said, “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and truth, [any different Word for today in our service to the King of kings and Lord of lords?], and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. SERVE THE LORD! [Unless you’re content with enslavement to your old sin nature and your ‘fleshly faith’!].

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.”

Self-legislation – self-rule or One Legislator – One Lord whose name is Christ Jesus, the Promised Messiah? Flesh domination – flesh damnation or Christ Rule – Christ’s Reign? Wicked thoughts – wicked separation or Divine Truths – Divine Oneness? Seared consciences – sickened life or New Ruler – New life, new hope, new peace, new rejoicing, new awakened consciences accountable to Holy God!

Formerly self-righteous thinking is transformed by the grace and mercy of God through Christ’s shed blood, and having repented, a man of faith begins to say daily, “Lord, what would YOU have me to do?” And what excuse do “born-again believers”, who have died to the old man and old sin nature and been indwelt by “Christ who is our life”, have? Were YOU crucified with Christ? Does Christ live in you? Do you scripturally possess now “the mind of Christ”? Are you a recipient, now owner, of the Glorious Word of God called the Holy Bible, yes His instruction manual on living the overcoming, never-ending, victorious life of Christ who is more than conqueror? As YOUR liberator, He’s your educator, legislator, yes, the Lover of your soul, your mind, and should be, your will, your wisdom, your warrior of overcoming faith!

Dare I tell you that the “mind of God in Christ” is omnipotent, omnipresent, all-wisdom, all-Truth, all understanding, all-love, all-seeing, all-knowing – Emmanuel, “God in the flesh”, King of kings, Lord of lords, Who desired to make YOUR life the residence of His abiding presence, YOUR life His earthly extension, His heavenly expression, and His Kingdom throne which is righteousness, peace, joy, and the fullness of Holy Spirit anointing, guidance, illumination of what He is all about in touching the world around you with eternal desires, directions, disciplines, discernments, and destiny!

Are you so diseased in mind and heart that God’s eternal plan may be for others, but not you? Have you been so alienated from Holy God so long, and witnessed the death sentences being lived out around you by family, friends, and fellow-unbelievers, that for YOU it is beyond even considering that if you were the only man/woman, teenager, child, to ever live, “how could I, (we), them, my closest family and friends, ever consider the audacious Truth, if it is true, that the Crucified, Resurrected, Reigning Christ, chose me, us, to establish His earthly residence and reign?” And it’s TRUE!

Hear me! Romans 3:23-26 declares for us all, all human residents on earth, yes, worldwide: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, BEING JUSTIFIED FREELY BY HIS GRACE through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Justified? By grit or by grace? By self-effort or Sovereign provision? “Justified”? Working for it or resting in our Lord’s finished work at the Cross?

Romans 5:17 declares the repentant heart, forgiven, washed in the blood, surrendered to His earthly throne IN the “blood-washed life”, filled with His Holy Spirit and His abiding Presence, teaches us about the Royal, Residing, Reigning Christ in and through every true born-again believer! It says: “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, MUCH MORE those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” Glory! Glory be to God!

Have YOU ever considered, searched out, rested in God’s eternal revelation of one’s true identity “in Him,” “in Christ”, “in the blood-bought family of God”?

Genesis 15:1, “Do not be afraid, Farrell Fisher; I AM your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

Genesis 17:2-4, Loving God expanded Abram’s vision and His desire for YOU! “And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations.” But the powers of darkness tell you, “But that couldn’t be YOU!?”

How many do you know that, like Jacob, had a dream as Holy God revealed Himself more and more THROUGH A DREAM?!? In Genesis 28:15-17 we read: “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Have YOU EVER SEEN YOUR LIFE AS THE HOUSE OF GOD AND THE GATE OF HEAVEN?

Oh, it gets deeper, richer, more awe-inspiring! In Genesis 35:10-12 we read: And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.” So He called his name Israel. Also God said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from your body. The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this land.”

Do YOU read the Word discovering Holy God’s true identity and how He identifies you under His watch-care? In Exodus 3:14-15 it gets richer and, yes, even more rewarding! And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus YOU shall say to the children of Israel, (to the children of the U.S.A. and worldwide!), “I AM has sent me to you.” Moreover God said to Moses (and to Farrell Fisher!), “The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.” Even your generations in America and beyond?

Are you awed when you learn it is God’s eternal desire to set YOU apart as He did ‘the chosen of Israel’? In Exodus 31:13 He identifies “My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout all generations, that YOU may know that I AM the Lord who sanctifies YOU [or sets YOU apart for His honor, glory, and praise!!].”

All through the Word Holy God is reminding people: “I AM the Lord your God,” yet many of the Israelites fell away! And He confronts, convicts, convinces that “I AM the Lord your God who brought YOU out of a deceived world, like Egypt, OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE,” with the command, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

If you’ve never known, it’s so vital that you ‘rest’ in His eternal truths and Truth this very moment! In Psalm 46 David sang: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling,” with Verses 10-11 challenging us, “Be still, and know that I AM GOD; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The question? Is He exalted in YOU and YOURS?

And, the New Testament doesn’t speak to YOU about “the Great I Am”? How familiar are you with Matthew 11:28-30? Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light,” yet He bore the sins of all fallen humanity on the Cross!

Really now, just how spiritually hungry are you? If so, in John 6:35, Jesus says to us, “I AM the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” But the ‘fleshly thirsty’ keep looking and looking but never find “True Bread” or “Living Water”, and wander in spiritual darkness and deception, but the Lord Jesus Christ said then and now in John 8:12, “I AM the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

The Lord Jesus said in John 14:6, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through Me;” and was it John Wimber who used to ask? “Christ Jesus: Lord, liar, or lunatic?” I’m telling you: Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith. “Jesus is Emmanuel, ‘God with us,’”; Jesus is the “True Vine”; our Lord said, “I AM the resurrection and the life. He who believes in [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Christ Jesus IS Alpha and Omega, Christ Jesus IS the Bright and Morning Star, Christ Jesus IS the root of all “New-Born, Spirit-filled lives”, Christ Jesus is the Eternal Bridegroom who says to His Bride, “Forsake all, and follow Me!”

It was Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [pps.200-201], who wrote about the Lord’s statement in Mark 10:21, “One thing you lack…come, take up your cross, and follow Me.” Chambers wrote: “The rich young ruler had the master passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple. He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself – a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship.” Jesus doesn’t ‘fit in’ – He takes over the “crucified life” and resurrects it in His fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

What did Paul tell us in Galatians 2:20-21a? “I have been crucified WITH CHRIST; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh [or fleshly body!] I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God…”!

This is why in 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul wrote: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!”

“New Birth”, “New Life,” “New Hope,” “New Day Dawning,” “New Glory,” “New Help,” “New Heaven on Earth, “New Dwelling Place – Eternal in the Heavens,” “New Helps,” “New Confidence and Assurance,” “New Work,” “New Spirit” coming upon every new born-again believer!

New words recently given – I pray they inform, inspire, and introduce the Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, more and more:

“A new-born person, blessed even in the midst of strife, conquers by the Peace Christ brings through His Resurrection Life.

Though trouble may come to new creations, Christ blesses that life by His invasion; storm-clouds may cover, but He rules over whatever may come whether dust-like or clover!