VITAL AWARENESS
UNVEILED
[BOOK TWO] By: J. Farrell Fisher
[March 20, 2016 –May 12,2016]
Copyright: 2016, James Farrell Fisher &/or Susan M. Fisher,
1809 Rollingwood Court, Bedford, Texas, 76021
Published by:
INTRODUCTION
Writing Book One was an interesting, challenging journey, and I knew when I finished Book One that it was only the beginning, but I had become ‘brain-drained’ when I decided to close it.
Of course, after some healthy rest, I knew the second book was about ready to be birthed. Nine chapters began to flow – and I decided, “I’ll rest before the next nine or ten chapters become that burning within the mind and heart!”
I’m also convinced that those new nine chapters are critical in our maturing in our personal faith from the infancy of conversion to the maturity of selfless service and dedication!
You, no doubt, are familiar with Peter’s word in 1 Peter 2:2 when he wrote: “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, Verse 3, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
“If?’ Do you get the scriptural drift that some set aside the Word of God as unimportant in their lives, and though “vibrant in their profession,” the possession of Christ, the Living Word, they see as unimportant to their spiritual health or spiritual maturity, ignoring “that you may grow thereby”?!?
I see no evidence in the Word of God anywhere about ignoring His Holy Word in one’s maturing process! And it’s my passionate desire and prayer that Book Two of “Vital Awareness Unveiled” will touch you deeply and set new paths in your spiritual journey!
E.G. Sellers wrote the following hymn which I found in the “Broadman Hymnal”, published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1940. The hymn is entitled: “Thy Word Have I Hid In My Heart.” It says:
“Thy Word is a lamp to my feet, A light to my path always; To guide and to save me from sin, and show me the heavenly way.
Forever, O Lord, is Your Word Established and fixed on high; Your faithfulness unto all men Abideth forever nigh.
At morning, at noon, and at night I ever will give You praise; For You are my portion, O Lord, and shall be through all my days!
Through Him whom Your Word has foretold, The Savior and Morning Star, Salvation and peace have been brought To those who have strayed afar.
Your Word have I hid in my heart, That I might not sin against You, That I might not sin , That I might not sin, Your Word have I hid in my heart.” Amen?
OUTLINE
CHAPTER ONE: “VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? OLD COVENANT – NEW COVENANT.”
CHAPTER TWO: “THE CALLED – THE CARING”
CHAPTER THREE: “THE GATHERED – THE GATHERING”
CHAPTER FOUR: “EASE-TOUR OR EASTER- TRIUMPHANT?”
CHAPTER FIVE: “THE EARTHLY KINGDOMS – THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM!”
CHAPTER SIX: “DEAF TO THE SAVIOR OR DESPERATE FOR THE SAVIOR?”
CHAPTER SEVEN: “THE SHORT-SIGHTED OR THE SAINTLY SIGHT?”
CHAPTER EIGHT: “THE FLESHLY UNFULFILLED – THE SPIRITUALLY FULFILLED”
CHAPTER NINE: “THE GARMENTS OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS OR THE CLOTHING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS?”
CHAPTER TEN: “LIBERTY IN CHRIST, A LICENSE TO SIN?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “FAITHFULNESS OR DISTRESSING DISGUISES?”
CHAPTER TWELVE: “DARK NIGHTS – BRIGHT LIGHTS?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: “SELF-EFFORT RIGHTEOUSNESS OR SOVEREIGN-IMPLANTED RIGHTEOUSNESS?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: “ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OR ETERNAL LIFE?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “ABOUNDING MISERY AND CHAOS OR ADVOCACY PEACE AND BLESSING?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: “CONTENTED WITH SELF OR CONVERTED TO NEW LIFE?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: “MUTUALLY INDIFFERENT OR MERCIFULLY INVOLVED?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: “RABID RESISTANCE TO GOD OR REDEMPTIVE RECONCILIATION?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN: “BOUND IN SIN OR BLESSED IN TRUSTING THE SAVIOR AND LORD?”
CONCLUSION
FOREWARD
By Col. Tim Cole, USMC
CHAPTER ONE
“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? OLD COVENANT- NEW COVENANT”
When there was an allegiance to the Old Covenant that came out of the overflow of allegiance to Its Author, that allegiance came about because of confidence in His saving grace and mercy, to be unveiled in the Crucified Life of the Messiah who was to come, they didn’t know when, but there WAS “saving faith” beyond their submission to the Old Covenant that exposed their inability to keep it perfectly because they understood that one could keep the whole law, yet to offend in one point was to be guilty of all! [James 2:10].
In fact, Jesus Himself said in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” In Galatians 3:5-9 Paul gives a clear picture of Old Covenant –New Covenant when he wrote: “Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by 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 [redemptive 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 of the earth shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”
Of course, the “great divide,” the “great separation” comes between religious folks who have no true understanding of the necessity of the “Redeemer” and those who’ve “rested” in Him from Abraham to the end of the ages! And Old Covenant religious Jews never understood “Blood Redemption” though faithful to animal sacrifices and other temple observances without even an inkling of the Son of God’s shed blood; in fact, religious Jews, Sadducees, and Pharisees led the way in nailing Christ to the Cross!
In Jeremiah 4:1-2 the Lord spoke through the prophet, “If you will return, O Israel,” [return, O America, O Europe, O Asia!], “Return to Me; and if you will put away your abominations out of My sight, then you shall not be moved. And you shall swear, ‘The Lord lives,’ [In Resurrection Power, Resurrection Life, Resurrection Eternal Hope?], in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him they shall glory.”
Judaism in the Old Testament became ‘performance’ apart from true faith, ‘self-promotion’ in gaining the approval of God, religious ‘back-slapping’ for good attempts at being godlike, even awards for ‘perishable crowns’ unaware of the imperishable crown, with Paul even saying in 1 Corinthians 10:5 about “God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness,” telling the Corinthians about ‘warning examples’, Verse 6, “to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted;” Oh, and then receive what THEIR end result was! Verses 7-12 tells us:
“And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, AND they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
Is ‘religious faith’ today much like Israel’s gross religiosity that dealt with ‘outward appearances’ and ‘sincere showings’ without any heart-change? Did their outward devotion ever reveal ‘spiritual transformation’ by the grace and mercy of God? Or was there within the crowd of ‘pretenders’ the “remnant of faith-followers” that truly lived in the reality of the “Promised-Coming Messiah”, who, yes, “lived by the Life of Another”? THERE IS A HIGHER PLAIN OF TRUE FAITH THAN MERE RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES!
You are aware that there are many in our ‘modern-day-world-of –supposed- Christianity’ that are truly devoted to their religious opinions of themselves when we know through the Word Holy God crucified the ‘reverence of men about themselves’ two thousand years ago with and in Christ on the Cross! This is why Christ Jesus preached, “You must be born again”!
Don’t you find Hebrews 4:15 spiritually awakening? The author said, “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.” “Sympathize with our weaknesses? There’s nothing weak about one like me! I have nothing I should be ‘sorry’ for – I’m a self-made, determinedly independent, conscience-clear man, even if the ridiculously absurd “Holy Bible” declares that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”!”
Would YOU find Isaiah the prophet a ‘warped, misguided, uninfluential prophet’ when you read him saying in Isaiah 5:18, “Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, (falsehood, fleshly pride), and sin as if with a cart rope” ? He described many in Verse 20 when he said: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Is that “the wise in their own sight”, who are completely unaware Holy God releases His army, whistles for them, with the result, Isaiah 5:30, “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”: – “But we don’t have to be concerned about any judgment from Holy God on our nation – we believe (whether we “behave or not scripturally”!).” Really?
What does Romans 5:12 tell us? “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death [spiritual] through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned (or all sin!).” From generation to generation, from family to family, from nation to nation, “ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, without an exception but Christ Jesus born of the virgin Mary!
In human nature, in all men and women, boys and girls, there IS “the law of sin and death” – we’re born with it, and it separates us from Holy God. Are YOU ‘short of the glory of God’, and so aware that apart from Christ Jesus’ blood redemption you are bound in the chains of universal damnation because of the sin nature? I love Oswald Chambers’ divine wisdom when in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.206], he wrote: “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 Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation.”
I know you probably know John 3:16 from even childhood memorization, but what about John 3:17-19? Jesus said, “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 [trusts, relies upon, adheres to, obeys] 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.”
Are you aware of the world-wide ‘religion’ of ‘self-worship,’ ‘self-disposition,’ ‘self-determination: “I’m my own god and ruler – I do as I please”…so they choose to allow again and again the Lord’s cruel crucifixion, as they gloat, until they encounter the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords? Do you not discern the ‘self-altars’ where men bow down to adore who they are, all wrapped up in ‘self-worship,’ ‘self-adoration,’ without an ounce of ‘self-denial’ because they are so ‘in love’ with who they are, and especially without any true biblical overtones ruling them?
These find the Lord Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:24-26 so strange and foreign to their “self-idolized religion of self-worship”! Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his crops, 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?” [Have YOU answered that question of the Lord for yourself?]
Are YOU aware of the fallen-away-ness of human nature without God’s plan, provision, promises, and power to make the difference in one’s life? Gardiner Spring hit a home-run when he once spoke about “the voluntary renunciation of everything inconsistent with the glory of God [in man!] or the good of our fellow-men.” [The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, p.398].
Oh, and this brings us to the necessary consideration of the “New Covenant”, planned by God before the world’s Creation! In fact, even the beloved John wrote in Revelation 13:8 about those “whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” I believe I’d make sure that “I am a blood-bought saint of Christ to the glory of God”, or still a son/daughter of the devil himself!
Paul gave his transformation from, yes, an unredeemed rabbi to a true disciple of Christ Jesus when he wrote 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, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood…”
Flesh reveals men in both the best and worst of human nature, so short of God’s implanting of His divine nature in a “blood-bought man/woman”! Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.207], wrote: “Just as the disposition of sin entered the human race by one man, so the Holy Spirit entered the human race by another Man; and Redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin and through Christ Jesus can receive an unsullied heredity, viz., the Holy Spirit.”
Have you grasped, received, and are living by the very passion Paul was “new-born with” when in 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 he wrote to the Corinthians and us in our modern-day needy world, “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.”
As I began this new writing today, March 23, 2016, our gracious Lord implanted the message of “Newness” in me with these words:
“Newness is the truth of Divine Restoration; newness is the grace of our Amazing Savior.
New is God’s aim in the lame made whole, a Sovereign work of love for a needy world to behold.
New is His message to alienated humanity, God Himself so intent in birthing heavenly sanity.
New man from the old man sovereignly graced, the blackness of so and man’s nature lovingly erased.
New man from death to divine life birthed, a new heart implanted and an old life interred.
New days given by God’s gracious will, a new life granted as His Presence is instilled.
New source of power to withstand every temptation, and no doubts to confuse because of His habitation.
New identity as new daughters and sons, birthed by His Spirit, assured of our victory in the race to be run.
New victories to be won as we rest in God’s Son, Jesus’ Resurrected Life IN US our trophy won.”
Made the righteousness of God in Him? God’s pleasure to reveal His Son in us through repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross? Called to be saints or individual repentant souls who lean not to their full understanding but in all their ways yield to the Christ within them? Death to sin and raised to new life?
Doesn’t His Holy Word tell us about “the ark of God, carried upon a new cart”? Are we clothed in “new garments”? Has He granted to us “new wine”? Are you aware of a life ready to burst open because of “new wineskins”? How thrilled are you, because of our Lord’s grace, mercy, and love, that He’s in-tuned you with a “new song” that doesn’t die out or ever fades? How enriched are YOU in His “new fruits”? Are you comfortable, blessed, enriched by your “new name written down in glory”? Do you thank God for His unveiling to you of the “new gate” into His abiding presence?
Yes, there is a “new covenant”, a “blood covenant,” a new and living way every new day that doesn’t fade away? Are you walking, living, learning, leaning, being guided by the “new and living way,” with the “new heart” and “new spirit” evidences of His amazing grace?
Is there evidence of a “new bottle” holding that “new wine” to be poured out through your walk and witness? As a “new creation”, are you drinking the new wine in the “Eternal Kingdom of God” NOW? What’s YOUR “new name”? Didn’t Peter tell us in 1Peter 2:2, “as newborn babes [in Christ!], desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby…”?
What did Paul tell the “new creations” in Romans 6:4? “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 the newness of life.” [That was not ‘water baptism’ but the baptism of His “blood-death” through the Cross! Don’t be misled by well-intentioned, ill-informed teachers and leaders!].
And be assured, evidence of true biblical faith is found in Romans 6:10-12 when Paul wrote: “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.” Your life? Or your life in and through His Victorious Resurrected Presence? If it pleases God to reveal His Son through us, is it by our best efforts or by the energizing of the very Spirit of God in us and through us? You saw it earlier! Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “…I die daily!” [2 Corinthians 2:9-10!].
CHAPTER TWO
“THE CALLED – THE CARING”
Evil does exist – but there are many who refuse to acknowledge it until they personally encounter and experience evil clouds or personalities that inflict horrible, unmerciful attitudes or actions!
In Psalm 142:1-4 is an example of David hidden away in “a cave” because of persecutors intense opposition to him. It says: “I cry out to the Lord with my voice; with my voice to the Lord I make my supplication. I pour out my complaint before Him; I declare before Him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then You knew my path. In the way in which I walk they have secretly set a snare for me. Look on my right hand and see, for there is no one who acknowledges me; refuge has failed me; NO ONE CARES FOR MY SOUL.”
It was written by John Quincy Adams entitled “Letter to A. Bronson, July 30, 1838, when he wrote the following: “In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill-will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow-men, not knowing what they do,” which may have been then the reality of human slavery, but we aren’t aware of that today in pitiful human attitudes toward others or even an uncaring consideration of those void of the presence and mercy and love of God for their lives?
It’s vitally important that, especially in and through every local church committed to the Lordship of Christ, that that fellowship, those ‘Christians, are not hidden away behind some “iron curtain” away from a world Christ Jesus shed His own blood for! Christians know, teach, reflect upon the eternal, divine love of God, but the question is, “Is it truly and faithfully shared?”
As new-born believers in Christ, we not only reflect upon “amazing Grace” extended to us by God Himself, but, by the Holy Spirit within, we’re instructed, influenced, empowered, and challenged, to share our faith literally because we cannot keep the “Good News” for ourselves only – WE HAVE A CALLING!
I have no doubt this is why Peter was motivated to share the Word and Spirit of Holy God when in 2 Peter 1:10-11 he wrote: “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call 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.”
There are spiritual wars waged in every true disciple’s life, and among them is the warfare often waged as to whether or not one is called to be a “witness”. But haven’t we seen through our journey through the Book of Acts, Acts 1:8, the Resurrected Christ instructing His disciples, “But YOU shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem (hometown), and in all Judea and Samaria, (surrounding states!), and to the end of the earth, (world vision!).” And Paul further broadened the early church’s vision when in Acts 2:32 he said: “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses!” Do YOU bear the witness of the Resurrected Christ in you and through you?
You do understand that the spiritual warfare of the soul extends beyond our spiritual maturing (WE DO WAR BETWEEN FLESH AND SPIRIT!), but the spiritual warfare of the soul can and is our heart-break over “the lost condition of men without Christ”! I’m convinced Paul also was encouraging resolving a true disciple’s calling to touch the world around him in concern, compassion, and consecration, to fight the good fight of faith for the souls of men! 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 tells us, “For though we walk in the flesh [in the midst of alienated, lost, sons of Satan, worlds without redemptive Truth!], we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but might in God for pulling down strongholds [of unbelief!], casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought captive (in others) to the obedience of Christ…”
Fleshly endeavors in the spiritual realm of one’s journey of faith and obedience easily excuses a life of faith indifferent to the world Christ died for, and deep ditches in the old man Christ crucified on the Cross, some allow to be ‘hiding places’ in their walks of faith, and they entrench themselves in ditches away from the eternal needs of fallen mankind!
Has your church, your community of fellowship, your family of faith, instructed you, equipped you, anointed you, and sent you out faithfully to share His redemptive Word of Faith and Hope and Love? There should be no church-wide ‘back-slapping’ if the church exists voiceless IN the dead and dying world! What did the Apostle Paul write in 1 Corinthians 13:2? “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” And that includes a deep and abiding love of the Risen Christ as our world’s only hope!
Dare I tell you that a part of the true evidence that one has been delivered from his sin and old sin nature is not only the “peace that passes all understanding”, but that the blood of Christ that washed me as white as snow is the shed blood for those around me without any awareness of His redemptive mercy and love? And we become extensions of His Resurrected Life, expressions of His forgiving grace, and, yes, proof of His faithful, overcoming power in the minds of those made stone-deaf by the spirit of their unbelief, with miracle-power demonstrated through faithful witnesses fulfilling their calling!
Are you aware of how quickly even the initially called or ‘set-aside-people’ to the glory of God fell away or abandoned faithfulness and rapidly even adopted, adapted, or alienated themselves from the true remnant, as they began to worship ‘foreign’ gods?
In Isaiah 1:2-4 Holy God spoke through the prophet: “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, [Alas, sinful Asia, sinful Americas, sinful Europe, sinful African continent!], 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.”
Divine sovereignty was set aside for “selective religious activity”, even idolatry, even child sacrifices, even ‘performance-oriented’ spiritual activities “as we see fit”! Yes, even today, there are “called out” assemblies, religions, man-manufactured “faiths”, that lead many down a “primrose path” to satanic bondage! And I often wonder how many believers today have heard God’s voice as Stephen spoke to the high priests in Acts 7:2-3, “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.’”
And the Living God still calls! He calls by His Spirit, He calls by His Everlasting Word, He calls by His witnesses, He calls through the destructions or triumphs in lives and nations! But understand, when the ‘called’ are confronted by Holy God, sadly, there are many who ignore, dilute, rebel, self-interpret to satisfy the longings of the old sin nature, illegitimatising or translating God’s Word to fit a fleshly mind and a compromising spirit by spiritual immaturity, demonic activity, or strong family, cultural influences!
As the “Holy Calling of God comes,” be aware that there will be strong influences on every life, pastors included, to “compromise one’s calling”! Several vital words:
- To compromise divine revelation, the Lord’s clear Word, even His demands, is to acknowledge one’s awareness of that disobedience, and to stand under God’s judgment! Half-hearted obedience is the essence of self-worship!
- To compromise is to acknowledge our understanding of God’s awareness, increasing our personal responsibility of the consequences!
- To compromise is to decay obedience and to bring a deterioration of moral and scriptural responsibility, and especially as it blinds even more an immoral, faithless society!
- To compromise is to invite the very absence of blessing, anointing, dreams or visions, but a descent into a deep pit of silence from the voice of God! [Hear me! As a disciple of Christ Jesus, we are called to be ‘in the world’ but not of the world!]
And be assured, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, also understood the reality of devilish, demonic activity in enticing, tempting, drawing into his net of deception any and every believer if possible, but our Lord and Savior interceded for every one of His disciples, including those of the year 2016, when in John 17:11b-18 the Lord Jesus prayed to the Father: “…Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”
Sent into the world? Sent into darkness to bear the Light? Sent into the ‘lion’s den’ to set the captives free? Sent to discern, by the Spirit and the Holy Word, that which is so opposite to the nature and character of Christ, faithfully bearing ‘witness’ even if it costs you your life?
True disciples have taken the sentence of death unto their old sin natures and the sentence of death to the warped ways of a godless world, yes, even witnessing as a cruel, dark, evil world takes your last breath from your earthly body! [Be assured of this one thing: As America continues its downward spiral in decay, unbelief, wretched sinfulness, that whish is holy, true, pure, and Christ-honoring will, will one day cost “tons” of true believers their very lives!
Do you know what the brother of Jesus had to say as he wrote James 4:4-5? “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” But those who understand true discipleship take the sentence of death daily to the “world’s wicked ways” that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested through their mortal flesh!
Sentences of death daily? How about separation from, not the assimilation of, the world’s daily death sentences to faith, hope, obedience, submission, and the fruit of His Spirit? How about, like Moses, refusing to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter, (Hebrews 11:25), “choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, (Hebrews 11:26), Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward”?
“The Called?” How determined, disciplined, divinely inclined was Paul when he wrote 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 (fleshly or the best efforts of human flesh!) 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…”! Yet, much of modern-day ‘education’ (?) revolves around high level sophisticated, philosophical ‘brain-washing’, convincing youth of America that gospel truth is a fantasy programmed by brainless preachers-teachers who bought “lies” about Christ and His Resurrection, His Reign, His Kingdom-Rule! Really?
I love what Oswald Chambers wrote in his famous book, (“My Utmost…”, p.186), “We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christ’s view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognize the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his mind.”
And doesn’t “The Called” also see unveiled before them by the life example of Christ and His faithful teaching that uppermost in Christ’s earthly walk was “The seeking and saving of the lost”? Isn’t that the Life Example of our Lord and Savior of “The Caring”, as Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 20:25-28, “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.”
Do you remember, in John 13, as Jesus began to wash the disciples’ feet, and Peter said, in Verse 8, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered proud Peter, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
After He had washed the disciples’ feet, He said in Verses 12-17, “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 Savior, 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.”
I’ll never forget many years ago being in one of the cities in India, teaching for four days, when on the last day of the conference the Lord had prompted me to have a “foot-washing” service! As I began to wash the pastors’ feet one by one, all of a sudden, there was the eruption of great, unceasing weeping! These India pastors could not believe an American preacher-teacher would bow down and wash their feet, which I did! They’d NEVER been a part of a foot-washing service – and their ministries caught the very Spirit of our Lord and Savior!
Receive Oswald Chambers’ words from “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.188], “The things that Jesus did were of the most menial and commonplace 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 sordid 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. ‘I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.’…If we do not do the running steadily in the little things, we shall do nothing in the crisis.” Tell me about YOUR ‘towel ministry’!
Do you remember in Matthew 20:20-21 when the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to the Lord Jesus with those sons, kneeling down before Jesus, and Jesus asking her, “What do you wish?” She said to Jesus, “Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.” Verse 22, But Jesus answered and said, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”
They said to Jesus, “We are able,” defining clearly their clouded minds of true discipleship! But is it any different in “modern-day” Christianity? Then in Verses 25-28 the Lord Jesus equipped new disciples in their eternal ministries, which has never changed! He said: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great [in fallen mankind’s eyes!], 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.”
Are you aware that true disciples genuinely flourish as they fully realize the true ministry of Christ Jesus to them, in their blackness, their darkness, their selfishness, their sinfulness, as He washes their feet – and they’re broken, convicted, believing and surrendering, willing to “take the towel and be a servant”?
As I close this chapter, reflect upon Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12:15 when he said, “And I will gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved,” also with the words of Jesus in Matthew 23:10-12 when He said: “And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” AMEN?
CHAPTER THREE
“THE GATHERED – THE GATHERING”
Dare I tell you that Christ Jesus made an incredible statement in Matthew 22:14 when He said: “For many are called, but few are chosen”? And the ‘chosen’ are “the gathered”! In Matthew 15:16-17 our Lord and Savior spoke about “The Cost of Christ’s Choosing”! “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.”
Oh, and then in John 15:13 our Lord declared: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for His friends.” And then our Lord said so clearly in Matthew 12:30, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.” Are You “The Gathered AND The Gathering”?
Sadly, Psalm 41:6 speaks of those whose “hearts gather iniquity to itself”, so self-introspective and self-indulgent, they couldn’t care at all about Holy God gathering them to Himself! They are “comfortable” as they ‘gather’ “corruption” or ‘gather’ the choking cares, concerns, riches, pleasures and treasures of their self-absorbed lives, that are fantasies without any divine fulfillment!
Do you remember the disciples of Jesus urging Him to “eat”, in John 4:31? Then in Verse 32 Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” [Has that changed much today in, yes, the modern church age?]. The disciples were then saying to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”
Follow Jesus’ words in John 4:34-38! “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 for that which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.” Did our Lord speak about “gathering fruit for eternal life”?
In 1 Samuel 3:1 it tells us, “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” But is there in this day “widespread revelation” but rare “in-take” of the Word as “the bread” and “meat” of spiritual life and spiritual health? In 1 Samuel 3 Samuel was lying down, and the Lord called him! Twice he ran to Eli, “here I am, for you called me.” “I did not call.” But the third time the voice occurred and Samuel ran to Eli, Eli said, “ If He calls you, you must say, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears’.” God did – Samuel responded!
1 Samuel 3:19 says, So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.” What an amazing unveiling of the heart and desire of Holy God to speak to His people, but how many are really listening, or in this day of full revelation spiritually feeding on His Word?
Jesus, in Matthew 4, having been led by the Spirit into the wilderness, “to be tempted by the devil.” Our Lord fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterward was hungry. The devilish tempter, Satan, came to Him saying in Verse 3, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Our Lord’s response, Verse 4? Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
That’s true of our Savior and Lord! That’s true of every “born-again child of faith”! That’s true of every pastor-teacher! That’s true of every ‘member’ of a local church fellowship, small or large! When one is drawn to Christ, he/she is the “called,” the “chosen,” the “elect,” the “soldier of God’s eternal spiritual army,” and there’s nothing inactive about true soldiers of the Cross – there’s no ‘early retirement’ – there’s no “I’ve been saved from my sin, and that is what the Christian Faith is all about, right?” God’s “Plan” of Redemption was and is purchasing slaves of Satan to be servants of the Most High God to extend His Kingdom, experience His love and express it, and prove God’s power as they “witness” to others around them about His passionate love and desire for them to be a part of His eternal Family of Redemptive Faith! All disciples, born-again by the love, grace, and mercy of God, are “called” and “appointed and anointed” to make Christ Jesus known!
“The Gathered”? If God calls, the “gathered” say “Yes”, not maybe, not in my time, not on my terms, with a person’s mind and heart response of a true “Yes” or a defiant “No”, or maybe ‘in time,’ or “on my fleshly terms and for the purpose of my self-satisfying desires”!
The ‘un-gathereds’ response’ may be a willingness to listen to the Lord’s claims but with no learning, hearing but no heeding, carrying in the mind His thoughts but no comprehension of His Truth, hearing an order but offering no obedience, or maybe receiving the offer in the mind but no reception in the heart! Unsaved men may talk of God’s will without any submission to His will or Word or ways or wisdom.
But “The Gathered”? It’s more than one’s admiration of God’s Truth but one’s surrender to His Lordship and saving grace! Didn’t Jesus say in Luke 6:46, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not DO the things which I say?” Under God’s eternal heaven, I cannot understand how “the church” (supposedly) can even think or teach that “obedience is an option in the age of grace”!
Do you know how Paul was so enriched and enlightened by the Spirit as he closed out his letter to the Romans? Romans 16:25-27 tells us: [I challenge you: listen with your heart as well as your mind!], “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandments of the everlasting gospel, FOR OBEDIENCE TO THE FAITH – to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” [“So Be It!”].
“Obedience to the faith” I highlighted because some read without seeing with spiritual eyes or even hearing with their spiritual ears! For others, it just “doesn’t line up with my church’s teaching,” or, “The prophet was just wrong!” as they thought they could expose Isaiah’s words as false from God Himself: [Isaiah 1:19-20], “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.” And the compromisers respond, “God wouldn’t do that to us!”
Exposing untruths, deceived ‘believers’, rebellious sons and daughters, will respond unmercifully to “Truth-Bearers and Truth Proclaimers”! Do you remember young Stephen described in Acts 6:8 as “full of faith and power, (who) did great wonders and signs among the people”? But Acts 7 highlights Stephen’s addressing the Council, religious priests and elders, and as he spoke the truth of God’s prophetic utterance, it became a very costly walk as a true disciple of Christ! He said of them in Acts 7:51, “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.”
Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, always resisting the Holy Spirit, is not a position any “professing believer” should make, but a heart and mind that has been birthed through repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross, indwelt and led by the Holy Spirit, called to be fed in the milk and meat of the Word daily, yielded to the Spirit in faithful witnessing and proclamation of saving grace, and, yes, faithful to the church Jesus loves and gave Himself for, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together! And for that Spirit on and in Stephen’s life, Acts 7:58 says ‘the religious crowd’ “cast him out of the city and stoned him.” He died in and for the redemptive Faith of the Word of God!
“The Gathered”? Matthew 18:20 is an awesome Word King Jesus gives to His true disciples, even if they find themselves in the midst of nations, states, cities, families, jobs, where there are no fellow disciples, no teachers, no leaders; but Jesus said: “For where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there in the midst of them”!
Having traveled over India for twenty-five years, I can tell you I’ve ministered in small communities with, maybe ten to fifteen “TRUE” disciples, in pastors conferences of twenty-five to literally thousands of pastors! I’ve seen ‘open-air crusades’ in India villages with, maybe 200 gathering, or as many as 40,000! And, I thank God for ‘gatherings’, small or large!
“The Gathered”? Peter, in Acts 12, had been freed from prison, fully aware of God’s grace and mercy on his life, and he journeyed , Acts 12:12 tells us, “to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered together praying.”
Are you aware that many “professing Christians” will tell you they seldom pray except when they are in real trouble or face desperate, dark circumstances? There will be wars and fights and battles in every true believer’s life, which is why I’m convinced James, the brother of Jesus, told us in James 4:7-10, “Therefore submit (surrender, yield, rely or depend upon) to God. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. [We don’t serve an absentee ‘land-lord’!]. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
Slaves to sin may appear as ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ in their concept of worldly living but are hopeless apart from washed in the blood of the Lamb and sealed by His Spirit as sons and daughters of the Most High God! The beauty of slaves to sin may be impressive to ‘flesh’, but the beauty of servants unto Christ glorify God Himself! There are “gods of the lower-world” ruled by the king of darkness, the devil, but the God of the Kingdom of Light, Life, Liberty, and Love, births forgiveness, freedom, victory over the devil, and a filled-full Life of Holy Presence with present and eternal blessing beyond measure!
How aware are YOU of the very best fallen humankind can manufacture, so absent of God’s eternal intent and divine plan, and, at the same time , so aware of the very worst of mankind, slaves to immoral living, prisoners of the devil’s chains of darkness, disappointment after disappointment, a ‘ragtag’ existence, aware of the heights both make and the depths they sink to, both unaware of the saving grace of God, and by the Word of Holy God, both without His saving love and mercy through Christ Jesus are hopeless?
Sadly, some hear of the Cross of Christ without even being aware of the Biblical Truth that, when Jesus shed His blood on the Cross, they were crucified with Him! Doesn’t Galatians 2:20-21a tell 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 [bodily] 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…”.
I pray you see it, sense it, and stand upon it! “I accept God’s judgment on my old, fleshly, sinful life, and to be declared a ‘saint’, I willfully become the bond-servant of Christ Jesus, yes, purchased by His shed blood!” Oh, I know that there are those who have no desire to be identified with Christ if it requires submission, surrender, and suffering, but “the way of the Cross” always leads to opposition, indifference, ignoring one of truth faith, often so embittered by the exposure of the Light of their own darkness that they WILL persecute, even kill, His true disciples!
What did Peter tell us 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.” Glory!!
But beyond the blessings of “The Gathered,” what does the Holy Word tell us about “The Gathering”, and are we a part of His eternal mission of touching our world with His love, grace, and mercy?
As I begin this part of “The Gathering”, there should be an awareness of the reality of spiritual fathering as much as physical fathering – it does involve seed planting but includes so much more!
I know that in 1 Corinthians 6:19-29 that Paul was exposing sexual immorality with his emphasis on “to Whom the Corinthian believers belonged”, and sexual immorality was no longer to be part of their lives, their walks, their witness to an unredeemed world around them! But I believe that word of Paul had even more significance because of a godless world in too many lives who needed to know to whom and to what they must belong – or Hell awaits them, demonic bondage would continue, but beyond that would be their emptiness and absence of the Loving Savior who so desires to wash them in His blood, give them a new heart, in-fill them with His Holy Presence and Spirit, and assign them the calling to be His witnesses, like a loving shepherd who faithfully seeks any lost sheep!
In Matthew 9:35-38 the Word unveils the very heart, mission, and plan of the Lord Jesus Christ. It says: Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
Are you aware of what our Lord said in Matthew 18:1-5 as Jesus was approached by that initial group of early disciples? They asked Jesus, “Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in their midst, 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.” A humble child in the eternal kingdom of heaven IS the child of faith who receives Christ, equipped to, yes, bring “other children” into the family of God by their witness!
Jesus went on to say in Matthew 18:10-11, “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little children, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. For the Son of Man has come TO SAVE THAT WHICH WAS LOST.” Dare I tell you that the billions of lost souls, unredeemed by the blood of the Lamb, are like “the little ones” we just read about that Jesus so wants all believers to “bring them into My Kingdom!”
The Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross, shed His sinless, innocent blood, that fallen mankind could be reconciled to Holy God as “new-born citizens of His eternal Kingdom,” and commissioned by Him to His “new-born disciples” to bear witness to His redeeming love and mercy and grace! [And that’s not ‘bench-warmers’ in a local church], but Spirit-anointed, Spirit-empowered, and Spirit-led witnesses! He called us out of our ‘world-bondage to sin,’ redeemed us, anointed us, and sent us back into the world with the world’s ONLY HOPE – Salvation in Christ alone!
And, of course, thank God, most true believers understand salvation is the gracious gift of God to be received through repentance toward Him and faith in His Son’s Calvary-shed blood! In fact, the Lord Jesus stated in His famous prayer to Father-God in John 17:6-8, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. [Out of the world? The world of sin and death? The world of fleshly enslavement and demonic bondage? The world of “me, my, and mine, and nothing or no one else”?]. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. [“Oh, really; Jesus believed the true people of Faith would be sons and daughters of obedience?”]. 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 have come forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.”
Are YOU a “true disciple of the Word and redemptive Faith through Christ alone – or ‘just religious’?” What did our Lord say in Matthew 7:17-20? “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.” True redemptive faith is evidenced by the very nature and character of Christ, the Indwelling Fruit-Producer!
In 2 Corinthians 13:4-5 Paul wrote: “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.”
“The Gathering”? The true disciple’s life unashamedly committed and faithful to the “calling” and “commission” to be His witnesses? In Philippians 1:20-21 Paul wrote: “according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body whether by life or death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Moffatt, in his translation, spoke of “that now as ever I may do honor to Christ in my own person by fearless courage.”
Are YOU so determined in your walk of Redemptive Faith that YOU will not be ashamed to share that Faith, taking courage, by the Spirit, in an evil world that must, at least, hear the Gospel Truth of the love and mercy of God – and, yes, YOU are even willing to die for that Faith?
If Christ “was offered once to bear the sins of many,” is it spiritually sensible for a disciple to be so selfish that he/she never “gathers” those who eternally need to be “gathered to Christ”, knowing their sins have been forgiven, and Jesus offers them eternal, everlasting life in the here and now, yes, citizenship in His eternal Kingdom-reign and rule? Knowing Christ Jesus, “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,” but we’re unsure if it is necessary for us to let a lost, perishing, godless world of unbelief, know of God’s amazing love and grace for them?
In John 7:37-38 Jesus said, “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.” The Word then said that He spoke of the Holy Spirit that all true believers would receive –“ but it doesn’t mean that’s my call to witness!” Really? Dare I remind you that Acts 1:8 says, Jesus speaking, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem (hometown), and in all Judea and Samaria (neighboring states and nations), and to the end of the earth (the whole world!).”
I love what Oswald Chambers said about a river when in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.184], he wrote: “A river is victoriously persistent, it overcomes all barriers…a river will drop out of sight for miles, and presently emerge again broader and grander than ever.” Tell me about YOUR “river of witnessing”! How’s the flow? Chambers closed his paragraph saying, “If you believe in [trust in, rely upon, adhere to] Jesus, you will find that God has nourished in you mighty torrents of blessing for others.”
Can you say, “I accept my Lord’s mandate, ministry, and mission of touching my world with His True Light, True Life, and True Eternal Blessings?”
It was J.P. Scholfield who in the early 1900’s wrote the hymn, “Saved, Saved!” It says: “I’ve found a friend who is all to me, His love is ever true; I love to tell how He lifted me and what His grace can do for you.
He saves me from every sin and harm, Secures my soul each day; I’m leaning 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 new life sublime! Life now is sweet and my joy is complete, For I’m saved, saved, saved!” Amen?
CHAPTER FOUR
“EASE-TOUR OR EASTER-TRIUMPHANT?”
My wife, Sue, recently read me from “Facebook”, (I think), a statement from Ravi Zacharias’ event at a university, when he allowed public questions. A young man asked him about, “why are you so afraid of subjective morality?”, with Dr. Zacharias responding, “Do you lock your doors at night?”, indicating there is nothing redemptive about one’s ‘subjective morality’!
‘Subjective morality’ is biblical unbelief and a divorce from God’s calling to “Be holy, for I am holy,” and there is no true holiness in the fleshly ‘best’ of alienated, fallen, unredeemed-by-the-blood-of- Christ- Atonement! Man-made ‘morality’ is nothing more than acceptance and demonstration of godless commitment, ignoring God’s “Blood-bought Redemption”!
So, fallen mankind pats itself on the back because it manufactures guided missiles, guided morals, guided men by their ‘godless minds’, with a failing awareness of one’s “obligation of conformity to the will of God,” [Charles Hodge!].
The “Ease-Tour”? Do you remember Moses and Aaron going in to the Pharoah, saying to him, “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.” Pharoah was on an “Ease-Tour”!
Are you familiar with Jesus saying to Martha in Luke 10:41-42 about the “Ease-Tour OR Easter-Triumphant” the choices every human being faces? “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
And I would say to you as we begin this journey on the “Ease-Tour or Easter – Triumphant”, “What’s the part you’ve chosen in every life’s spiritual journey? Your easiness of fitting into the world without God or the way of “Easter-Triumphant”?” Dare I tell you that fallen mankind often finds failing pleasures in the world’s ways for a time, but their end is the way of disappointment, of darkness, and of eternal death and separation from Holy God? But, “The Way of the Cross Leads Home”!
The “Ease-Tour”? How sad do you find what some describe for themselves as “Patron-saints of drug distribution or drug addictions of personal ‘highs’?” Some “Ease-Tours” are ‘life-counterfeiters’ like a U.S. government that prints phony U.S. dollars with nothing to back them up with, but assure the general, deceived public, “It’s all OK, with no consequences” except a bankrupt nation with a deep and long-lasting ‘depression’ to follow, which is a vivid picture of counterfeit lives that have “No God” to guarantee their genuineness in divine living!
The “Ease-Tour”? That’s ‘homosexual freedom’ by a depraved government, and even some public support of it in their own blinded, faithless reality of demonic stupidity and devilish deception, and a ‘slant’ of sinners that “Sacred Scriptures” are stupid, determined by their own minds of ‘slant’ in their fleshly ‘wisdom’!
But it’s not only ‘homosexual freedom’ but hollow, mindless, senseless allegiance to one’s ‘fleshly opinions’, even setting aside, for themselves the Eternal Word of God! Have you ever heard an unbeliever say to you, “That may be YOUR Faith that you’re devoted to, but we have faith in our feelings, even our ‘faithlessness’, which is our expression of our self-determined religion!”
The “Ease-Tour”? “My ‘self-awareness’ is the faith I hold onto – I need no God!” “My self-consciousness is my wealth and storehouse or personal bank-vault of true riches, but your Jesus nailed that to His Cross? That’s a foolish thing, if He really did it!”
At the same time, there are some who are not financially wealthy because they’ve become victims who are ‘poverty-stricken’ without any awareness, at times, of where their next meal is coming from – and in that state, being ‘poverty-stricken’, they often can’t fathom that Holy God wants to make them “rich” in the eternal things that matter most to Him for them, “and He was willing to die for me that I might be made truly rich in Him?”
Do you believe this might be why Jeremiah 9:23-24 tells us what God says? “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
The “Ease-Tour”? “My natural life and its pleasures far out-do anything your Holy God has to offer me. Don’t you ‘Christians’ know your own human potential without God interfering? Aren’t you aware your ‘Holy God’ ought to accept for your ‘salvation’ your own rightness, your noble deeds, your fleshly goodness? You’re the people I really feel sorry for!”
And there are those so bewitched by the powers of darkness that there never could be any consideration of “crucified with Christ” or attending a ‘funeral’ of their ‘old-man sin nature’ or a funeral of personal dependence in their own strengths, fleshly desires, unholy alliances, or strong self-wills! Once again, 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 [for himself] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
The “Ease-Tour”? The psalmist, in Psalm 123:3-4, shared his prayer to God for His mercy because, “we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorn of those who are at ease, with the contempt of the proud.” The “at-ease-crowd” mostly resent the “sold-out-crowd” who’ve claimed Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Master of their lives, but the “at-ease-crowd” knows nothing about bending or bowing before Holy God because they are consumed with bowing before their “idols” of self-adulation and self-pleasure and self-worship!
The “Ease-Tour” specialists major in planting their own seeds and end up harvesting rotten fruit! They are ‘professionals’ at the performances of ‘life in the flesh’ directed by ‘the will of the flesh,’ ‘the shared will of fallen, rebellious men to God,’ and also directed by Satan himself without even know his deathly intents! In fact, deceived sinners don’t even know they constantly bow before the devil’s throne as they yield to sin after sin after sin, especially the sin of unbelief that fosters their rebellion!
Sometimes there are a few “Ease-Tour” specialists who are extremely wealthy. In Luke 18:18-23 a certain ‘ruler’ asked Jesus, “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 ruler” responded to Jesus, “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,” with the clear indication he chose his riches over Christ Jesus because that was what really had his heart!
The “Ease-Tour”? One of the godless tragedies is the reality of a spiritual blindness overshadowed by a spirit of darkness that so hinders one seeing the Light! In John 12:35-36 Jesus said to those who were eye-witnesses of His presence, mostly unbelievers, but Jesus spoke these words, “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.” Son of Light or son of darkness?
Dark-walkers have no awareness or comprehension of what it means to walk through life without God as the Author and Finisher of lives’ journeys – void of the Creator and Sustainer and Savior and Lord of life, they don’t even know where their “after-lives” will spend eternity! [And in a modern-world, even pastors and churches often ignore unbelievers’ assignments in Hell if they refuse repentance and faith in Christ’s victory over sin and death at the Cross!]. And, of course, dark-walkers have bought into ‘self-sufficiency, self-adulation, even ‘self-worship’ being god unto themselves!
Let me shift gears here! For you, for the world in you and around you, is it “curious observers” or the “converted, God-bought, blood-purchased sons and daughters paid by God Himself for your ransom and freedom from sin and death? Are you ‘a religious pretender’ or a richly possessed servant of God’s “Prince of Peace”? Is it possible that there are even ‘surface believers’ with no solid foundation or truly ‘saved sons’ who stand on the Solid Rock?
Are YOU a ‘church attender’ or a “Body of Christ-Altar” where daily sacrifices have become “the” way of life? Is it a ‘cheap imitation’ or “the” costly investment, even daily, taking the sentence of death to yourself that His Resurrection Life is manifested in your mortal flesh? Have far too many ‘church-goers’ simply become “testy-sinkers” in Satan’s sands or Christ’s true sons standing on the “Sure Foundation,” my body His Temple, my heart His home, my walk His Witness, my true faith evidenced by the triumphant force of His Indwelling Spirit and Presence? Is your life a revealing of one who walks in the “Ease-Tour” or one who, yes, experiences daily “Easter-Triumphant”?
If we’re called to “examine yourselves as to whether or not you are in the faith”, then 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 unveils for us “divine understanding” and “holy apprehension”! It says: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? DO NOT BE DECEIVED. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, no adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomies, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. BUT YOU WERE WASHED, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God.”
If you recall, the Lord Jesus came saying, “I did not come to be ministered unto but to minister and to give My life a ransom for many!” (Matthew 20:28!). I find Revelation 7:9-17 one of the most informative, thrilling, uplifting passages in all the Word of God. It says: After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying: ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever.’
Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?” And I said to him, “Sir, you know.” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And Go will wipe every tear from their eyes.
I’m afraid for some who read that they will be greatly distressed as they read what I believe our Lord is telling us. If 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells me, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
And some will say, “But Revelation is about ‘the future kingdom and doesn’t relate to the here and now,’ yet Christ Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And in the kingdom living of here and now on earth, even through great tribulation, we who live by faith alone in Christ, have had our lives washed in the blood of the Lamb!”
Because we “SERVE A RISEN SAVIOR”, having been indwelt by His Holy Presence, we day by day, [even beyond “Easter-Triumphant”!], take that sentence of death, and give Him our bodies as His present earthly temple! You desire the glorified life? Notice, “Christ Jesus IS Resurrection Life”
In John 11:25-26 Jesus said the 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?” Do YOU believe this?
As Paul began his writing to the Rome believers, he began by saying, [Romans 1:1-7], Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, (former Jewish Rabbi!), called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which He promised before through His prophets, in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and DECLARED TO BE THE SON OF GOD WITH POWER according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Through Him we have received grace and apostleship FOR OBEDIENCE TO THE FAITH AMONG ALL NATIONS FOR HIS NAME, among whom YOU ALSO ARE THE CALLED OF JESUS CHRIST; To all who are in Rome, (Bedford, Texas, Ocala, Florida, Mumbai, India, London, England , beloved of God, called to be saints (or those “set apart” to glorify Christ through their bodies made available for Kingly Living in an earthly tabernacle!). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was W.P. Lemon who once wrote: “Easter is not a passport to another world; it is a quality of perception for this one;” but I believe that it’s more than a ‘perception’ – it’s the literal presence of “Christ in you the hope of glory”! Yet, I’m afraid, too many lose eternal truths in the dark veils of fleshly misrepresentation and interpretation and leave His presence “out there” for some future time!
What did the Lord Jesus say in John 5:24-25? “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes [relies upon, adheres to, trusts in] in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. [That’s the spiritually dead before God, but physically alive in a body!].
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.” Do YOU understand ‘the spiritually dead’ raised out of their death in ‘flesh, ‘sin-nature’ corruption into the divine nature of incorruption, God putting on the mortal man immortal Presence? Isn’t Jesus the “life-giving spirit” and Resurrected Presence of Holy God?
If Christ Jesus is the joy of loving, repentant, faithful, fully surrendered and yielded disciples, if He is the very fountain of eternal life, if He is Heaven’s Blessing granted to repentant hearts, fully surrendered souls, if He is the Light within that never loses its “Shine”, then how do some profess but never possess all that He is in them?
But also I pray you understand that beyond Christ’s Resurrection Life, CONSIDER THAT CHRIST JESUS IS RESURRECTION POWER! What did Jude tell us in Jude 24-25? “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, DOMINION AND POWER, both now and forever. Amen or “So be it”!”
Paul said simply but dramatically and in an enlightening spirit in 1 Corinthians 1:24b, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Overcoming the darkness of the human heart and mind to the glory of God is only by the Resurrection Power of Christ who not only overcomes darkness because He is the Light, but also fleshly power, demonic power, worldly power, cannot withstand the eternal power that created our world, cannot withstand the eternal power of divine love honored and glorified through the Cross, and, hear me!, cannot withstand or overcome the Christ IN YOU!
What did Jesus say in Matthew 28:18? “All authority (all power!) has been given to Me in heaven AND ON EARTH!” If, “As He is so are we,” then how under God’s heaven could any true believer think he is powerless? Certainly in his flesh, but not with Christ in him! In Ephesians 3:20-21 We read, “Now to Him who is able (Christ is not able for you? Give me a break!) to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Dare I tell you that “spiritual stagnation” will always occur when disciples seek to be a disciple in their own strength devoid of the anointing of His power! It may be time, if stagnation reigns with a lingering smell that is sickly, that we need to remind ourselves, individually, families, churches, governments or nations, what one of the verses was Francis Scott Key wrote in the U.S.’s, “Star Spangled Banner”! It says: “Praise the power that has made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must when our cause it is just, and this be our motto, ‘In God is our trust!’”
If YOU have never known, or have let slip away, the awesome power resident in every true believer, then consider Philippians 3:8-14! “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…”
Is “power” needed in overcoming the very testings and temptations of Satan Himself and his demon armies? In Revelation 12:10-12 John tells us, Then I heard a voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. AND THEY OVERCAME HIM by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
In Christ we serve, not only a Risen Savior, but we serve the “power-anointing Lord” for all disciples to reign in that power in a demonized world, over the oppressive devil, and even demonized enemies of the one True Faith! In Acts 10:35-38 Peter proclaimed: “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.” Glory!! But you’re ‘in Christ’ and have no understanding of “power-anointing” to serve Him? [You just might need to be “born-again”!].
In 2 Peter 1:2-4 we read, “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.” Are YOU an overcomer because of God’s power?
CONSIDER ALSO THAT CHRIST JESUS IS, ALWAYS HAS BEEN, ALWAYS WILL BE, OUR RESURRECTION HOPE! You’ll remember that even Job once said, Job 7:6, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.”
I found it so interesting to come across a writing by Oscar Wilde, in his “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” [Pt.111, st.3i], “We did not dare to breathe a prayer Or to give our anguish scope! Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope.”
Sadly, Paul after presenting “the hope of the gospel which you heard”, warned of “moving away” from its hope! [Colossians 1:21-23], challenging ,yes, all of us to “continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the gospel which you heard…!” But, SOME DO MOVE AWAY, abandon, retreat, even deny the true redemptive faith, so desirous of fleshly, self-important pride, vain in their determination their best in themselves gives them the only ‘hope’ they need!
But what Peter declared in 1 Peter 1:2-4 is eternally life-changing for any hopeless man! 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, 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 ready to be revealed in the last time.”
And, I tell you with all my heart, there is no sickness, no suffering, no testing, no turmoil, that should ever turn you to hopelessness and despair, because our Lord and Savior experienced the torment of the devil’s winds and waves, saying, always, “Peace, be still.” You understand that ‘fleshly gods’ fade and fall away, but the God of Calvary’s love, even in the world’s greatest death, brought forth Christ in Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!
It was John Greenleaf Whittier who once wrote: [Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations by Frank S. Mead, Fleming H. Revell Com. Westwood, New Jersey],
“Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, who loves all His works, has left His hope for all.”
It was Fanny Crosby and Robert Lowry, long before its publication in 1940 in the Baptist Hymnal of Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennesseee, who wrote the hymn, “All The Way My Savior Leads Me” – and the word you need to stand upon is the eternal Truth that He doesn’t lead you in hopelessness but Eternal Hope! It says:
“All the way my Savior leads me; What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who through life has been my Guide? Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, Here by faith in Him to dwell! For I know, whatever 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 a-thirst may be, Gushing from the Rock before me, Lo! A spring of joy I see.
All the way my Savior leads me; Oh, the fullness of His love! Perfect rest to me is promised In my Father’s house above. When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day, This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way.” Has He led YOU into His “Easter-Triumphant”?
CHAPTER FIVE
“THE EARTHLY KINGDOMS OR THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM?”
Isn’t it amazing to you that, as you read the Word, God exposes the intent of our hearts and minds – acceptance of devotion and allegiance to earthly kingdoms, or hesitant to surrender allegiance faithfully to Christ, or to God’s Heavenly Kingdom, or fully yielded and even willing to die for the Heavenly Kingdom?
I’m sure this is why the Spirit led the author of Hebrews to write, in Hebrews 4:12-13, “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. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
How does the Living Word of God unveil or expose your full surrender or your compromised walk or your full denial and rejection of the Holy Word? Devotion to “earthly kingdoms” apart from God are easily identifiable, and devotion to His “Heavenly Kingdom” is easily discernable – “by their fruits you shall know them!” Even how clearly did the Anointed Word expose the Galatians when in Galatians 3:1-4 Paul asked them (and any of us in this modern-day if it’s convicting!), “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh [old sin nature]? Have you suffered so many things in vain – if indeed it was in vain?”
“The Earthly Kingdoms”? The Bible does speak often of “the kingdoms of the earth,” or “the kingdoms of the heathen,” or “the kingdoms of the idols,”; even in Isaiah 23:16-17 Holy God exposed Tyre, as in the song of the harlot: “Take a harp, go about the city, you forgotten harlot; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that you may be remembered.” And it shall be, at the end of seventy years, that the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire, and commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.” Dare you to think that ‘nations’ or ‘people-groups’ or ‘community attitudes’ can voluntarily accept, unite, become wedded to, idolatrous, wicked intercourse that violates God’s intent, and promotes indifference, indulgence, immorality – whatever satisfies the appetites of the ‘flesh’ of its earthly kingdom, citizenry desires?
Historical nations through human history have fallen under the very judgments of God Himself because they so ignore Divine Authority in individual lives, cities, states, or nations – and God’s Word clearly exposes His judgments on those careless, calloused, cold-hearted-to-God people!
And all nations that reject God’s authority, His Divine Will, and His Heavenly love and mercy, experience His eternal judgments! Ezekial 31:14b declares the word of the Lord, “For they have all been delivered to death, to the depths of the earth, among the children of men who go down to the Pit.” That’s not good!
I find it so burdensome to know that many, many peoples and nations have set aside God’s authority over their governments, their states and cities, and their homes and families, adapting to the ways, the cultures, the times, yes, the fleshly desires from the nature of sin and death – and, for them, “It’s all OK; everybody does it!” Really?
In Isaiah 26: 7-10 is a description briefly of the unjust, but truly identifies the just or the ‘justified’: “The way of the just is uprightness; O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just. 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. With my soul I have desired You in the night, Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early; For when Your judgments are in the earth (or the “Land”), the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Let grace be shown to the wicked [AND Holy God has done that!], yet he will not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.” Do the same ‘worldly, godless, dishonoring spirits’ still burden the nations?
Do you grasp the heart-break of God as He reveals through prophet after prophet the desolation, the darkness, the devastations of many nations, lives, and families, though “through it All” He still honors Himself through His remnant? Even the chosen nation of Israel God, through the prophet, described in Isaiah 5:13-16, “Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; their honorable men are famished (they don’t know the Bread of Life!), and their multitude dried up with thirst (they don’t know the Living Water!). Therefore Sheol (“place of death”) has enlarged itself and opened its mouth beyond measure; their glory and their multitude and their pomp (or “party spirit”), and he who is jubilant, shall descend into it. People shall be brought down, each man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty (or proud in himself/herself) shall be humbled. But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness.”
Yes, godless nations become kingdoms of darkness, kingdoms of resistance to the authority of God, even resistant to His holy love; kingdoms of baseness, fleshliness, immorality, un-holiness, nakedness, shamelessness, conscienceless compromise; yes, even ‘professing God nations’ will deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, celebrating “our freedom in Christ to do as we please since we’re forgiven”, exposing their blindness to divine truth and holy living! How deceived is that? Do you understand that ‘men of the fallen world’ will profess a ‘faith’ at times when their one desire is “our portion of evil AND our portion of the good,” and even with that, still express no surrender, yieldedness, or obedience to the King of kings and Lord of lords!
“Earthly Kingdoms”? Oh, there are many “who say that we have fellowship with Jesus, and walk in darkness, [they] lie and do not practice the truth.” That’s 1 John 1:6 followed by 1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
“Earthly Kingdoms”? They have no fear of God because “a public world is no place for God or His Word or His will; we’re blessed with independence,” as deterioration, deceit, defaming God and His Word, yes, ungodly men, who turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ, becoming public examples of lost-ness and separation from God, though famed, by their fleshly kingdom allegiance! How often have you witnessed fleshly kingdom allegiance ‘show-cased’ in Hollywood depravity, Washington deception, even some church-defiance of the pure, the holy, the Christ-honoring?
“Religious Earthly Kingdoms”? Do you discern at times as a true believer that there is in some a counterfeit of outward allegiance that has nothing to do with a “new heart,” a “new life,” a “new creation,” a “new name,” a “new covenant,” a “new heart and new spirit,” a living hope of “all things made new”? But they walk religious paths, if they feel they have to – they’d really rather just be expressive of their fleshly pleasures, “knowing God will forgive me”! Ever heard that?
Are you aware that there are many, many ‘laborers for God’, but far less of the professors of faith who truly want to walk in step with Him? Oswald Chambers has a short section in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.206], which is so on target, and convicting, when he wrote: “The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Heb. 9:26) – an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not (simply) immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization – I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and upright, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition…. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but IF when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation.”
WOW! What an awesome word! And the judgment? Christ, the “Light”, has come into our world, but sadly some love their darkness and not His Light!
LET’S TURN TO “THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM”! Dare I even begin with “The Lord’s Prayer” found in Matthew 6:9-13? I believe I will! “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 (Matthew 4:4?). 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.”
How did Christ Jesus continue His “kingdom message”? In Matthew 6:33 our Lord said, “SEEK FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (“what I’ve said before!”) shall be added to you.”
But ‘modern-men’, even some believers, contend their ‘faith’ is an ‘addendum’ or ‘add-on’ or a ‘supplement’ to their already ‘spiritually-minded, successful, settled lives’ in their own self-determined , spiritual-elitist kingdom, established by themselves out of their ‘sincere hearts’!
It’s so interesting, as we wed together ‘kingdom building from fallen men’s desires, wants, and ambitions’ and ‘The Kingdom of God and His will for the redeemed’! In Matthew 6:25 Jesus asked, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about 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?” And, He went on later to ask these same folk and us, in verses 31-33, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles (that’s unbelievers!) seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. BUT, seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
Even as a true believer in the Lordship of Christ Jesus, have you ever examined the testimony of your own life as to whether or not YOU are living by, demonstrating, fully persuaded, that your Lord and Savior is ever faithful in meeting all your needs: body, soul, and spirit? “Seek first”, what? The Kingdom of God!
Reading Oswald Chambers’ book recently, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [pps.254-255], he had quoted 2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” He then 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,” adding a paragraph that says: “The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Spirit, Who produces these agonies, begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way about.”
No doubt that this is why John wrote in 1 John 4:9-10 and verse 14, “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. Verse 14, And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.”
And since the eternal love of God has been poured out for us, 1 John 5:11-13 declares for our evaluation, examination, and assurance: “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, (with John then declaring in Verse 13), 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.”
I absolutely love and praise God for the simple, sanctified, and saving word of Jude in just a few words! He wrote: “Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are CALLED, SANCTIFIED by God the Father, and PRESERVED IN JESUS CHRIST…” Glory!
“The Heavenly Kingdom”? First, THAT”S CITIZENS CALLED TO GOD’S WILL, HIS ABIDING PRESENCE IN US THROUGH THE RESURRECTED, REIGNING, RULING PRESENCE, WHO YIELD TO HIS CONTROL!
It was Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander and William H. Jude who wrote the old hymn, “Jesus Calls Us’, [Broadman Hymnal, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1940], “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.”
“THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM”? Second, THAT”S DISCIPLES CALLED, BUT ALSO SANCTIFIED BY GOD HIMSELF, OR MORE UNDERSTANDABLY, “SET APART” FOR HIS ETERNAL PURPOSES! It’s really, really interesting that in John 10:31-32 we see the Jews took up stones again to stone Jesus, and Jesus asked them, “For which of those works (which He did often before their very eyes!) do you stone Me?” Then in the very next verse the Jews answered Jesus, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make yourself God.”
John 10:34-38 tells us Jesus’ answer! “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him WHOM THE FATHER SANCTIFIED AND SENT INTO THE WORLD, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”
Is “Christ in you the hope of glory” the calling AND the sanctification of every true disciple? If YOU are His, do you understand YOUR “setting apart” for the glory and honor of Christ? And do you remember Him saying in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven”?
If “we were buried with Him,” “arisen to life,” and if “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved,” are we, as His disciples sent to condemn the world around us, or to seek and see them saved as WE share His love? Are YOU “set apart, sanctified, sent to serve” those around you as Jesus did to those around Him?
When Paul said to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “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,” does it awaken you concerning His purpose for your life of faith, and arouse you anew to honor Him only?
You’ll do so by Reflection; you’ll not deny His will but be committed to a walk of Reception of that will; you’ll be led by the Spirit in Recognition of your life, walk, and ministry as His disciple; and you’ll Rejoice in the Release of His Holy Spirit through YOU as a witness, and you’ll Rest in Eternal Peace!
But, I’ve wondered, at times even in a moment of despondency, if our Lord and Savior looks upon our modern cities He died for, just as He died for Jerusalem, drawing near our cities, and weeping over them, saying again, [Luke 19:42-44], “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.”
THIRD: “THE HEAVENLY VISION”? Called! Sanctified! THAT”S PREPARED DISCIPLES PRESERVED IN CHRIST JESUS! A reminder: “Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To Those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ. Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.”
What did the Lord Jesus say to us in Luke 17:32-33? “Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” Loses one’s life for the honor of Christ “preserves” it? That word is the Greek word, dzoogonecho, from a word meaning “engendering alive, rescued, or saved from death”! “The wages of your sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life In Christ Jesus our Lord!” And that has never changed!
The “strange gods” of fallen mankind blind eyes to Christ Jesus and leave them without even a desire to know the Truth! The “strange gods” ARE evil demons deceiving as many as they can to the Truth! The “strange gods” could care less that unredeemed sinners never know the Truth of Christ’s “blood sacrifice, and even if they learn of Him, deceive just as many at Christ’s “Door”, but choose the devil’s exit to Hell and the eternal death that never dies!
It’s refrigerator Verses! 1 Peter 1:3-5, “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.” GLORY!
“Preserved in Christ Jesus our Lord”? The “divinely designed process of salvation,” instituted by the Lord God Almighty for truly repentant hearts of faith in the “finished work of Christ at the Cross”, received by the broken over their sin and death, washed pure and clean through the blood of the Lamb, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, received and walk in the “promises”, these precious sons and daughters stand on Truth about the “redeemed life in Christ”, pay no attention to what they once were without Him, limited in the natural, and rely upon the supernatural and Spirit-development of Christ’s “new creation”!
Didn’t Christ Jesus quote what Isaiah the prophet received, Isaiah 61:1-3? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” [That’s Luke 4:17-19!]. Verse 20 then says, Then Jesus closed the book, and gave it to the attendant and sat down. AND THE EYES OF ALL WHO WERE IN THE SYNAGOGUE WERE FIXED ON HIM. Are YOUR eyes ‘fixed, stayed, remaining on King Jesus’?
CHAPTER SIX
“DEAF TO THE SAVIOR OR DESPERATE FOR THE SAVIOR?”
There is an amazing, encouraging, uplifting, miraculous word in Mark 7:31-37 that should challenge all true disciples in the ministry of prayer intercession for their friends or fellow citizens who ‘appear’ deaf to the words of the Savior! It says: Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee. Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him. And Jesus took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in His ears, and He spat and touched His tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephatha,” that is, “Be opened.” Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.
Then Jesus commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded, the more widely they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
And, I have to wonder, “Did He say, “Don’t tell”, (over and over), because He knew, if they are truly His disciples, they can’t help but to tell!” [Just my thought!].
“Deaf to the Savior or Desperate For the Savior”? I don’t know how you react to deafness to the True Savior and Lord of life, but I am aware of what I hope to do another book on later related to what I’ve seen or witnessed about “the innovativeness of spiritual or fleshly cover-ups”! It’s mind-boggling to me the unbelief, the denial, even strong opposition to our Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection, but then I sense ‘spiritual heart problems’ more than eyesight!
“Deaf to the Savior” IS because of one’s, yes, fleshly-birthed life with the old sin-nature! I know the Prophet Isaiah, anointed of God, was confronting rebellious Israel, yet at the same time, I believe in Isaiah 1:4, as he addressed, “Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, (the prophet went on) ,Verse 4, 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”, Isaiah gave us an on-target description of all peoples, birthed with the sin nature! Doesn’t Romans 3:23 declare that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”? “Missed marks of divine intention” never honors God but blots the life with darkness not light, with imitation not divine life and presence within, a blotched canvas without the Master-Presence of the Lord and Savior, but signed by “Sinner, Entertainer of Darkness”!
[I would encourage you to pause right now and read the Book of Ecclesiastes, and especially what you’ll find in an unveiling of a life without God, which is darkness for sure, but with the added curses of spiritual blindness and deafness!]
The psalmist simply asked in Psalm 25:12, “Who is the man that fears the Lord?” Then he talked about the man who does fear the Lord and how God blesses Him, but if one has no fear of God and turns his ears willfully to ‘deafness’, what’s his just punishment? No fear of God is so very obvious in the man whose ears are willfully turned to ‘deafness’ – that man cements his ears from any Word from Holy God! Warped minds, void of sincere belief, trust, and fear of God, warps the ears, and all he’s able to hear are the sounds of self-indulgence, self-assertiveness, and self-interests only! Sensuality, self-seeking, and slovenliness become the strong-suit of a strong-willed ‘sinner’ who closes his ears to the voice and calling of Holy God who loves him so much more than he’ll allow himself to hear! Unbelief IS spiritual deafness!
“Deaf to the Savior”? Deafness is the true reality of any man in facing the reality to the truth of conviction, conversion, and consecration, because that’s not what he wants! The “deaf-ears-man of unbelief” wants no part of a “new creation, new-born, newly blessed right relationship with Holy God” because he’s not at all interested in being “crucified with Christ” and see his sin, selfishness, self-indulgence put away by Christ’s shed blood! He loves his worldliness, his carnality, his fleshliness, and thrives on the things (yes, mostly unknown to him) that shames God, breeding obstinacy that he calls strength, and deafness to God that he calls satisfaction in his worldly bent, and certainly doesn’t see his bent to sin as his personal funeral announcement!
“Deaf to the Savior”? That’s the bold announcement of self-interest only, the promotion of “Me,” my interests, my indulgences, my desires, my self-preservation, my covetousness, my idea of a religion – the worship and adoration of my sinful nature! – my self-enthroned rule of my own house, governed as I see fit – a self, stolen like a thief, and hidden away in one’s personal darkness – self, the law of desecration, disease, and denial of any eternal intent, (except Hell, self really should want no part of!); Emerson once spoke about “selling the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure”! Selfishness?
Alexander MacLaren once wrote: “That which of all things unfits man for the reception of Christ as a Saviour, is not gross profligacy and outward, vehement transgression, but it is self-complacency, fatal self-righteousness and self-sufficiency.” [The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H. Revell Com. Westwood, New Jersey, p.399].
“Deaf to the Savior” is more than a curse, which it is, but also it’s a “cloud”, a “dark shadow,” and an “evil presence” that speaks: “self, self, self,” over and over! Oh, there are many who don’t think so, but “self” (with closed ears to hear the voice and Word of God) is a concentered-bent, eyes and ears only, to see and hear what satisfies the “me, my, mine” philosophy or my religion of selfishness! The ‘profits’ of deafness to God’s Word always is a short-sighted investment in sure bankruptcy!
Are you aware that deafness to the voice of Jesus always has been, always is, always will be, and even more and more establishments of man-made religious activities, whether the pagan-stone idols of the past, or the raising up of new but spiritually dead Pharisees even today? But what about sin and guilt and its consequences, what do some people do? Is it possible one can just “bury your past” and forget it, if you know that there is a throne of eternal judgment before which you will be required by Holy God to stand before and give your explanation before He hands His final judgment?
I read a statement in a magazine recently about personal or business failures and how one can overcome with a right mind-set. Big bold letters: “Being mindful and present allows us to escape our fixation on the past and the future and be open to what is.” That may slide one by in the business world, but God Himself authors divine conviction and an ‘eternal fix’ over one’s shame and guilt that the Bible defines as “the blood of the Lamb of God” – one may resolve his business failures, life failures, marriage failures, personal sin-failures, but a “positive mind over that is not Holy Spirit conviction to bring us to repentance toward God and faith in Jesus’ finished work at the Cross!
I love Thomas Adams’ long-ago statement when he said, “Self-righteousness is the devil’s masterpiece to make us think well of ourselves.” Even “the power of positive thinking” void of the will, the Word, and the ways of God may make a difference in your business-world thinking, but it doesn’t change your heart before Holy God! “Deaf to the Savior” is the strategy of the powers of darkness that deceive human lives alienated and separated from Holy God, and the devil wants to keep them in that state of mind and heart: “Deaf to God!”
If human flesh is birthed into the world with the sin nature, and we know it is, born spiritually barren, alienated and separated from God, born as a citizen of the kingdom of darkness, born, and before long, the nature of sin, disobedience, and rebellion begins to raise its “ugly” head and heart, even displaying a character that is not of God but of fallen human flesh, and one senses, at least if he/she is a true believer, “God, help us bring our sons and daughters to you, as we came, so that they also become “children of the Light”, WE PRAY, WE BOW BEFORE YOU: SAVE OUR CHILDREN OF DARKNESS!” And, God help those who don’t agree! Apart from Godly, faithful fathers and mothers, who intercede for their children, to expose them to the Eternal Word, yield to the Holy Spirit to guide them as parents, they’ll witness a tragic scene of some children separated to the powers of darkness!
I’m telling you, to see, yes, unbelieving parents at times, and unbelieving sons and daughters, is to witness people like play-pieces on a checker-board, played by the ruler of darkness, with decisions, moves, and results, that says: “You ALL missed the Light – good, stay in the darkness with the devil and us demons!” How sad is that?
“Deaf to the Savior”? In “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” noted elsewhere in this book, Tryon Edwards made a convicting statement: “Unbelief, in distinction from disbelief, is a confession of ignorance where honest inquiry might easily find the truth. “Agnostic” is but the Greek for “ignoramus”!” Deaf ears are “Easter-less” without any hope except The Risen Savior miraculous opening them! But He does say, “Take up your cross, and follow Me!”
In transitioning from “Deaf to the Savior” to “Desperate for the Savior”, let me share with you I 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’; (Isaiah 53:9!), 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, (Really?), 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.”
In Luke 24 we see that Jesus had been crucified and buried in the borrowed tomb, resurrected, with several disciples going near the place with the Resurrected Christ appearing to them, but they did not know Him. The Word says, “But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.”
In Luke 24:17 Jesus said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?” Cleopas responded, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem,, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?” “What things?” Jesus asked. They said to Jesus, Verse 19, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, Verse 20, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. Verse 21, But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel…”! Oh, and then in Verses 25-27, the Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”
Are you aware of “the slowness of heart to believe who we are alienated from God, separated, governed by one’s old sin nature, in need of a Savior” – not to make us better, but aware of the need of a “new nature, new life, new hope, new relationship” by the crucifixion with Christ and raised into His Spirit-world and eternal Kingdom-Rule through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished, victorious work when He shed His own blood, sacrificing His Life for you? Psalm 119:70 speaks of a “heart, fat as grease” or “calloused”, having been birthed in flesh with a heart “uncaring” about the true, eternal things of Holy God, until Confronted by “Messiah’s shed blood and death on the Cross” in YOUR place!
Hebrews 2:9-10, and verses 14-18, and Hebrews 3:1-6, explains the atoning work of Christ, then followed with a vital warning that ought to put the Holy Fear of God fresh in your heart! Let’s examine these passages!
Hebrews 2:9-10 says, “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.”
Hebrews 2:14-18 then says, “In as much 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.” Then, also, Hebrews 3:1-6! It says: “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him (God the Father) who appointed Him (God the Son), as Moses also was faithful in all His house. For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.”
I’m afraid to tell you, but I’m sure that there are those beginning in the faith who do not hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end because they are “led astray,” “fall by the wayside,” “give in or over as a victim of temptation and sin” rather than “victors faithful in Christ’s Victory”! Through His suffering of death, it was and is His eternal desire to bring many sons to the crowning of glory and honor also! Chambers said, “God became incarnate for the purpose of putting away sin; not for the purpose of Self-realization”, yet many see their “faith” as an improvement of their flesh, not the “Saving Faith” that sees it “crucified with Christ,” becoming, yes, “new creations”!
In Philippians 3:7-12 Paul instructs, equips, and inspires true followers of the Lordship of Christ when 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, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” And that’s by surrendering to “Christ in you, the hope of glory”!
Isn’t this why the inspired Word of God tells us the following in Romans 6:6-7, “knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin (IN YOU & ME!) might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.” The ‘self-discipline of obedience To sin’ was put to death AT THE CROSS, so why yield to the old man of sin rather than to the new man of Christ’s imparted, implanted, imputed righteousness, and Life of Freedom from sin’s power and control? Examine to whom your allegiance belongs! A few words I wrote as of April 2, 2016!
“Free from the old life, crowned with the new, the blood of Christ births me true, True to His Word, true to His work, Calvary’s blood is not for ‘jerks’!
‘Jerks’ are the self-justified who have no shame in denying Jesus and pumping self-fame! “Who needs God? I’m more than able to care for my sod; human nature may be ‘imagination’, but, for me, it’s my creation from God’s expectation – it’s MY ‘bod’!”
Arrogance is a life exalting its self against the knowledge of God, proud, fleshly delusions, so sure it doesn’t need “God’s nod”!
“I’m a self-made man, and no ‘gospel’ is needed – I’m determined my life will not be one that’s heeded!” Ramparts and wells are so strongly erected that the minds and hearts of many choose not to be selected!
If you carefully search in your biblical research, you’ll soon see man’s battles with true faith are the battles of ‘Who is in control’?, because, sadly, many want to captain their own souls!
But I’ve been redeemed by Jesus’ shed blood, and the Spirit of God came in as a flood! A flood that carries me in the Way of His completeness, no shortness of blessing but His fullness complete, my life has no door for Satan to compete!
I’m sovereignly owned by God through the blood of His Son, never again to be in a race that Satan has won; I’m free in His Name, never again the same, but only a servant that proclaims His fame!”
Charles Wesley and John Zundel wrote the old Hymn, “Love Divine,” [The Broadman Hymnal by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn. 1940]. It says: “Love divine, all loves 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 now 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?
Colossian 2:9-10 declares, “For in Him (Christ Jesus) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” Thank You, Lord Jesus!
CHAPTER SEVEN
“THE SHORT-SIGHTED OR THE SAINTLY SIGHT?”
There’s an interesting statement Peter Marshall made in his book entitled, “Mr. Jones, Meet The Master,” when he said, “Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.”
But the sad truth is that we live in a time-period of human history when there is little personal, clear vision, and so, many men settle into to their “best” or “bitter”, whatever spiritual state of heart and mind they find themselves in and settle for, because they ‘believe’ Holy God has no vision for them, choosing to walk ‘short-sighted’ to the best of their human capabilities!
In Acts 26:12-19, Paul the Apostle was sharing his encounter with the Resurrected Lord! “While thus occupied, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, TO WHOM I NOW SEND YOU, TO OPEN THEIR EYES, in order TO TURN THEM FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins AND AN INHERITANCE AMONG THOSE WHO ARE SANCTIFIED (remember, it means “set apart”!), yes, SANCTIFIED BY FAITH IN ME.”
What an awesome revelation!! Oh, but let me, I pray, inspire you even more! 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 is Paul’s inspired unveiling of more and more of the Savior’s intent! He wrote: “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Liberty! Unveiled faces! Transformed! Same image! From glory to glory! The Holy Spirit institutes it in every repentant child of faith’s life!
But the “Short-Sighted”? What did Paul say in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4? “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.”
“Short-Sighted” fleshly, unbelieving, clouded minds, hearts, and wills, to God’s eternal purpose in Christ Jesus’ “blood Atonement” is because of a personal choice of “my destiny” without God Himself! Most don’t even know they’ve been deceived by the devil himself, bound to the devil’s darkness, enslaved to give their allegiance to ‘harvesting’ the unfruitful works of darkness, fooled into the state of death that is dissipation, wasting by misuse, fleshly diversions from divine reality, indulgence in the shameful to Holy God but pleasurable to sin-bound, demonically oppressed, and “short-sighted” sinners!
“Short-Sighted” is spiritual blindness! Without Christ as Lord and Savior, all men walk “in the futility of their minds”; they’ve, yes, CHOSEN to “have their understanding darkened,” willfully choosing to be alienated from the life of God, unaware of their spiritual ignorance and blindness of their hearts, allowing the ‘searing’ and hardening and blindness of their hearts, eyes, and minds, resulting in “giving themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness.” (Ephesians 4:17-19!).
“Short-Sighted”? If our Lord and Savior spoke about “being born again”, which He did, and it is necessary, if He said, in Matthew 18:3, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven,” – how short-sighted is that to ignore, turn from, or try to refute the Holy Word of God? Whether or not you know it, knew it, disliked it, or tried to refute it, without Christ as Lord and Savior, one IS –apart from “new birth” – a slave to self, sin, Satan, and certain eternal death that will not die, and separation from Holy God!
And, of course, there are those who say, “I’m satisfied with my natural life and have no desire to even think about conversion, second birth, becoming as ‘a child’ before your Holy God. I’m a man! Or I’m a beautiful woman! Or I’m ‘wiser’ than most church preachers!” No conversion, certainly no right relationship with Holy God, even if they’re ‘religious,’ ‘church-goers’, maybe a brilliant university professor without an ounce of biblical, eternal wisdom outside of Holy Scriptures! Then, of course, we see, sense, and are sure that rejecters of biblical truth, divine wisdom, and holy love, do so because they see redemptive faith requires surrender to His sovereignty, with a willingness to do what He says! “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but will not do what I say?’ That would require all-out personal yielded-ness which many are not willing to do, seeing themselves ‘wiser’ than the Creator!
“Short-Sighted”? It’s not what one maybe does as a feeling of ‘right choice’ for him/her, but the sad refusal of doing what they do for selfish reasons rather than seeing the hand of God, His equipping of them for His honor, glory, and praise, and His wisdom equipping them for extending His life, expressing His love, and proving His power and anointing – they ignore Him, then continually pat themselves on the back as being smarter than God!
That’s like Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s comment in his writing, “The Devil’s Thoughts,” when he said: “And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility.” Just how vain is that? But it’s not only a devilish lie, but a humanistic deception!
In the “Essay on Man,” [Epis.1,l.124], Alexander Pope wrote: “In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere and rush into the skies, Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods,” and of course that’s ‘fallen angels,’ ‘deceived devil,’, and a self-centered, godless man! Unbelievers’ false reverence of themselves is the ‘vice-grip’ of Satan!
I remind you, Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” Yet, many say, “Deny himself? Take up a cross to the death of MY fleshly desires? Forsake all and follow your Jesus? I think not!” And, by ‘mind’ and ‘heart’ hostility, they fall short of “Kingdom-Living”!
“Short-Sighted”? Have you ever heard anyone say, “Well, Jesus may have His standards of acceptance into His kingdom, but be assured, I have my own standards, and I measure up as high as I desire to go! I’ll take “my way” and leave Jesus to “His Way”!” Do you understand “obstinacy”? That’s “my opinion, as I said, which is what I determine is essential for me.” That’s “unyielding, because no God tells Me what I ought to do!” That’s “No desire to be told anything by anybody, no desire to be led, fed, bred in anything that doesn’t adapt to me, not me to it!” That’s “I make my stand for myself come hell or high water or any ‘life-storm wind’ – I’m able for anything, anywhere, at any time; nothing has, holds, or hopes to make the difference in me; I am my own gauge!”
Here’s how the Lord Jesus responds to that characteristic of a ‘short-changed life’: John 15:5-6 tells us, “Master-Jesus” speaking: “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 (of eternal significance honoring the Savior and Lord?). 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.”
Do you see and sense lives, even on a national governmental screen, or national platform of recognition who know nothing of “the hand of God” in blessing, or national athletic performers who believe they achieve by their own gifts and see nothing as from God’s sovereign, able hands to mold them, make them, master their efficiency in whatever game they play, or “the least becoming the best – and it all has to do with my positive mind!” Really? It’s Holy God’s heart and desire to take the “natural man” and transform him into the “new man” to His glory!
“Short-Sighted”? I’m convinced that atheism is a bad, sad, mad disease, but just as damaging is one who knows there is God but chooses not to live in Him, by Him, or for Him, because they ‘love’ their independence! They choose “God-less” lives! With that frame of reference and internal ‘heart-condition’, one might think the Following:
“Living for my name is the name of my game, Living for Another named Jesus is only a bother!
Living free of any biblical restraint doesn’t produce in me fleshly complaints; I’m free as a bird flying to my own ‘tree of rest;’ Who says, “God crucified it, even your best”?
Living in the ‘flesh’ is a ‘path of death’?, when I see it as the best of human breath – “Do as you please is the great release, even if some say, ‘You serve the Beast’!”
But ‘soon’ the sounds of pain will be heard from the depths of Hell that are so absurd! Jesus’ Voice is the “Voice of Peace” as men discover His release!
Living in freedom is the promise of the Savior, no bondage or forgiveness or sacrifice for which YOU labor! He gave His all that YOU might be released from the Fall, and invited daily and forever to His “Celebration Ball”!
From death to dancing, having heard the trumpet sound, joining in with the lute and the harp, we gather to celebrate with our breath praising the Lord, from Whose Presence we’ll never depart!”
But in Romans 1:18-32 we learn of those who choose ‘death’ over “Resurrection Life, Power and Hope”! It says: “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 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, [“The Lie”? You can sin and not die!], and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even 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, 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.”
And here, why any insight from me about “short-sightedness”, when God’s Word just exploded before us in passionate warning about sin’s penalty! So… let’s turn our attention to “The Saintly Sight”!
If Paul, after His Damascus Road encounter with the Resurrected Christ, was saved and sent by Him, as we saw in Acts 26:15-18, is that encounter not important to every new New Testament convert then and now? “Who are You, Lord?” And Jesus said to Him, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you, TO OPEN THEIR EYES, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins AND an inheritance among those who are sanctified [“set apart”!] by faith in me.”
Do you understand both the preciousness of forgiveness and the privilege and responsibility of telling others, yes, “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God,” and, yes, even more – “that they may [having received forgiveness of sins] PLUS, an “inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me (Christ Jesus!).” Oswald Chambers said, [“My Utmost….”, p.8], “In sanctification [again meaning “set apart”] the regenerated soul deliberately gives up his right to himself to Jesus Christ, and identifies entirely with God’s interest in other men,” which is their salvation, their forgiveness, their new birth, their calling and commission, and His faithful provision to meet it! Grace abounds!
What is “aspiration to please God” if we, sadly, fail to understand “assignment to please our Lord’s commissioning and ambassadorial assignment” to the lost, the separated, the alienated, the spiritually needy, the sin-sick soul who knows nothing or little of his diagnosis of eternal death and separation from Holy God? A ‘professing disciple’, without an understanding of sovereign assignment, can ‘spiritually aspire’ yet sadly fail miserably if he/she never shares in the spirit of Christ “who came to seek and to save that which is lost”! I’m telling you, strong, healthy, maturing disciples are those who know and obey, out of an overflow of Christ’s love in them, their sharing the gospel of Christ with the unsaved generations that surround them. It’s time the “church” (?) learns obedience to Christ in “out-the-doors-of-the-church-evangelism and missions!
Sometimes disciples of Christ, sadly, live stymied lives about their faith and obedience, but David said in Psalm 40:7-8, “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 (or Word) is within my heart.” Will YOU say that?
Do you remember in Acts 4 , after the ‘lame man’ had been healed, the religious rulers, elders, as well as scribes, the high priest and others, setting Peter and other disciples before them, asking, “by what power or by what name have you done this (Healing)?” And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, responded, “…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.”
What did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 1:18 and Verse 24? “But 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,” with Verse 24 added, speaking of preaching Christ crucified, which was a stumbling block to a Jew and foolishness to a ‘wise’(?) Greek, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Then in 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul tells us, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, ARE BEING CHANGED (TRANSFORMED!) into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” “Amazing grace, how rich the sound that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see!”
The transforming power of the love of Christ “forgives” and “frees” and “fulfills” a man into the beauty, blessing, honor, and calling as a “child of the King”! It was Hattie E. Buell and Rev. John B. Summer who in the 1900’s wrote a hymn entitled “A Child of the King.” It says:
“My Father is rich in houses and lands, He holds the wealth of the world in His hands! Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, His coffers are full, He has riches untold.
My Father’s own Son, the Saviour of men, Once wandered earth as the poorest of them; But now He is pleading our pardon on high, That we may be His when He comes by and by.
I once was an outcast stranger on earth, A sinner by choice, And an alien by birth; But I’ve been adopted, my name’s written down, An heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown.
A tent or a cottage, why should I care? They’re building a palace for me over there; Though exiled from home, yet, still I may sing: All glory to God, I’m a child of the King.”
But understanding that there are battles and wars concerning the “faith-walk”, sometimes doubts and fears will move in, around, or about, but to the true child of redemptive faith they will not stay! Why? Because ‘faith in Christ’ is faith in, not only a living power, but a living hope in our Risen Savior and Lord, and that faith and hope never dies! Dr. Mandell Creighton, former Bishop of London, in 1904 wrote the book, “The Mind of Peter.” He said: [p.9], “ Here and there the battle may seem to waver. But the hope of the Risen Lord is a living hope, which can never fail. Through the changes and chances of this mortal life, beyond the varying fashions of the world’s thought and endeavor, the eye of faith can find the outlines of a divine purpose growing ever clearer and more distinct. The immediate future may be impossible to forecast, for the kingdom of God comes not with observation. But he who is servant of an eternal hope, founded on the knowledge of the risen life, can feel more than he can explain, and can communicate more than he can express. Sympathy passes without words. Assurance is conveyed by the sense of a steadfast attitude toward life.” And that’s because He’s given us eyes to see, the gift of faith to trust, and the Holy Spirit to fulfill His unchangeable Word in us and through us!
In 1 Peter 1:13-21, we’re given “the Solid Rock” upon which to stand! It says, “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 unveiling] of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to your former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called us 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 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 your hope are in God.” AMEN?
The High Priest, the religious elders of Judaism, the “Sad-U-sees”, the Pharisees, even much of the Jerusalem ‘public’ who crucified Christ, came against Peter because they’d commanded him to not teach ‘in this name’, filling Jerusalem with their ‘doctrine’, intending, they said, “to bring this Man’s blood on us,” which it was! Peter responded in Acts 5:29, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
Oh, and then in Acts 5:30-32, Peter and the other apostles responded: “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 the 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.” Glory!!
Is it for YOU: “The Short-Sighted OR The Saintly Sight”?
CHAPTER EIGHT
“THE FLESHLY UNFULFILLED – 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.
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?
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 some Christians have not been disciplined in “bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”? As a result, their view of their salvation 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 (some) of God, 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 time after 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 to 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,” and most aren’t even aware of their “faulty foundations”!
“The fleshly unfulfilled”? Sadly, most don’t even know of a ‘way of evil’, walking perverted paths, with no concern for the path of uprightness because they truly love or are enamored with the ways of darkness, rejoicing in doing evil things, delighting in the perversity of the wicked, looking for crooked paths, devious pleasures, even satisfied as devilish men or 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 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.
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 still, “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 Jesus 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 that 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 nurse their fresh-sown seeds, or a water that cleans a dirty car or what they can 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 a 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, of Holy Presence, or of Holy Purpose and Power!
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 fountains 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 he wrote in Lamentations 5:4, “We pay for the water we drink!”
Oh, there’s a water that the world drinks that is not the “water of Life”? There’s a water that is not the water that cleanses the heart? There’s a water that is not “purifying water”? Are you aware that Peter, 2 Peter 2:17, wrote about, “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, 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 there are those who say, “Who cares what God thinks? We’re in charge of our own lives!” But a day of reckoning 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 then 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 furthermost thing from their minds!
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! “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.”
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 defiant – 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 their walks before Him.
“The fleshly unfulfilled”? Most will never admit it, but they are men, and 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 begins to consider himself related to a fleshly worldly 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 of worldly rather than eternal intent. It says: Now when He 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 eternal plan – “my ideas take precedent over eternal will”, and they’re eternally settled into that frame of mind and heart, though blinded to their ‘demonic marriage’ to 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 its brought them pain, suffering, and 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 hordes of Hell’s demons have in store for them, do they?
After life? Oh, yes! The body may 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 yielding to him rather than yielding to Jesus! Eternal agony is the identifying reward for all unbelievers, even ‘religious 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! 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 interpret6 their influence of human affairs! Really? Or is it not more of human attempts of 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’ on “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 to be, what I choose, what I want in possessing 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 of the things he possesses.”
Dare I tell you that you’ve just read up on “The Fleshly Unfulfilled”? But now, let’s examine what the Holy Word of God has to say about “The Spiritually Fulfilled”!
Colossians 1:24-28 is a strong foundation for our beginning together the study on “The Spiritually Fulfilled” – or should I even begin speaking about true, Spirit-birthed sons and daughters of God, through Christ, who are “filled full” of eternal graces and blessings?!?
Paul 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 generations, but nor has been revealed to His saints. To them 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.”
Rejoice in the sufferings for one another? Yes, filling up in one’s self even the ‘continuing’ sufferings of Christ? Fulfilling the word of God? Unveiling what has been hidden from the masses? Sharing what has been revealed to those “set apart” as His ‘saints’ or ‘ambassadors’? Christ IN YOU, the hope of glory? And, as a result of His Indwelling, Resurrected Life and Holy Presence, we warn every man, teach every man in all wisdom, desiring to see THEM declared PERFECT in Christ Jesus?
“Best-Effort-Religion” is NOT New Testament discipleship, but is the reality of a lacking of true spiritual understanding of the necessity of “taking the sentence of death daily to ourselves” that the Resurrected Life of Christ is manifested in and through our mortal flesh!
Have you ever been around strong personalities professing faith vocally, but practically, no evidence of the “fruit of the Spirit”? Is there, as Chambers once said, the possibility of “refined spiritual culture”, but the absence of the Spirit of God?
Sometimes individuals, professing a faith in Jesus, are out to promote or identify themselves as “truly religious”, when in reality it is the pumping of the ‘flesh’ or old sin-nature, not the honoring or glorifying of Christ only! How did Paul unveil the scriptural reality of the “new-born life”? In 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 we read, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, HE IS A NEW CREATION; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
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.”
Are you aware of “eternal, divine change”? Or, is your ‘spiritual’ mind-set, “Thank God, my sins are forgiven; so I can go on sinning without a penalty?” How phony is that, and yet so pervasive in a ‘modern-day’ church culture? “If anyone is IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATION; old things have passed away; behold, all things become new.”
Dare I tell you that the safest, most secure place, in your whole life, is the manifestation of “Christ in YOU the hope of glory”? In fact, Paul declared in 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.” And, how many do you know or hear who preach that the verses are speaking of Christ’s Second Coming in the ‘end times’, when Paul was declaring that through repentance toward God and true faith in our Lord’s finished work at the Cross, His manifested Presence “in you” unveils Him, and you know it by the awareness of His glory being manifested through you, never fading, but becoming stronger and more real and vibrant every day?
In 2 Samuel 22:2-7, David sang a song to the Lord about his deliverance from his enemies: And he said: “The Lord is my rock 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.
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 God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry entered His ears.”
But receive the New Covenant relationship! In 2 Corinthians 6:16 Paul declared: “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God.” Earlier, in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul said: “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.” I think that too many ‘professing disciples’ who say they believe in Jesus have never considered God’s eternal plan for their earthly bodies to be holy temples where the Resurrected Christ would have His earthly residence – though fleshly men once, now, because of God’s transforming and regenerating power, He has built, by His grace and through your faith, His temples of Holy Presence, not made by human hands, but “as living stones being built up as spiritual houses to be the holy priesthood” to the glory and honor of Christ alone!
True New Testament disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ are not ‘shadows’ but substantive realities of the Indwelling Presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords, with Jesus saying, “You’ll know them by their fruits”! In fact, in 1 Peter 1:13-16, Peter tells us about “gird up the loins of your mind, be sober (serious-minded!), and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation (the unveiling) of Jesus Christ (in you, as you grow in Him); as obedient children, not concerning yourselves to the former lusts; 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’s in the here and now – not when you get to heaven someday! True disciples live on that foundation of hope in the finished work of Christ through His Cross and Resurrection, and continue in the spirit of hopefulness for our walks because the same Resurrected Christ lives in His temples and through His temples! In Christ, we are servants of His eternal hope, and, maturing in our faith in that hope, we live with the blessed assurance that the Christ in us never dies again, but lives eternally with the Father and the Spirit in those of us who truly live by the eternal hope!
In fact, Peter boldly challenges us in 1 Peter 2:9-10, “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; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy,” even adding in 1 Peter 2:15-17, “For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men – as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.”
Oh, but hear me! In Peter’s early walk as one of the twelve inner circle disciples, you’ll remember that he failed miserably, which often or sometimes happens to young, immature followers of Christ! Did Jesus ever speak to Simon about his “sleeping”? The one thing I’m assured of is that the large majority of disciples, though ‘sleeping’ for a time, will be aroused to the greater hope because of the greatness of our Lord’s calling and, yes, knowing “conformed to the image of Christ”, true disciples, though down for some “counts”, arise to a greater ‘knock-out’ of the old life and continual resurrection in the fullness of the new life in Christ! Isn’t that why Peter said in 1 Peter 2:25, “For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls”?
CHAPTER NINE
“THE GARMENTS OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS OR THE CLOTHING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS?”
It’s really interesting that the brother of Jesus, in James 5:2, exposing the corrupt ways of many “rich” people, said of them, “Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten,” saying then in Verse 5, “You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.” But, of course, we know, though some may be ‘penniless’, without Christ as Lord and Savior, these folks are just as ‘moth-eaten’ as the richest people on the face of the earth!
‘Moth-eaten’ lives are described in Philippians 3:18-19 as follows, “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 mind on earthly things.”
Incarnate, ‘fleshly’, faithless individuals, are void of the conviction of their sin and separation from Holy God, content in their “best efforts” of human flesh! “Godly sorrow” is to them ‘a disease of brainless church-folk’ who aren’t as smart as they are!
“Vital Awareness Unveiled” is for most unbelievers, “I don’t need your salvation message – I’m fundamentally ‘sound’ and don’t need your Savior!” Sadly, they live with unsound consciences and deafened ears, spiritually blinded eyes and hearts, and warped wills, but at times will see simply, as Oswald Chambers stated, “remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself”,[My Utmost For His Highest, p.254], but not at all needing “The Clothing of Righteousness”!
“Garments of unrighteousness” are evidenced by many, many reactions toward the Lord Jesus Christ: The prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 53:2b-3 & Verse 6, “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. Verse 6, 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.”
Do you see that “Vital Awareness Unveiled” is the spiritual barrenness of all lives that are birthed in the fallen image of all men, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”? Life in “the flesh”, in the “best efforts of fallen men,” in the “self-determined attitudes of what will guide my life,” is a life that the Word declares is void of divine forgiveness, void of eternal reconciliation on God’s terms, void of “new birth” but satisfied with “my way”, and void of the Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, or Resurrection Hope! In fact, Jesus described unbelievers in the Promised Messiah for their salvation, healing, deliverance, and Holy Presence, in Matthew 17:17, as a “faithless and perverse generation”!
In John 8:24 Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews, and all unbelievers, past, present, and future, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He (whom God sent!), you will die in your sins.” Jesus, a few verses later, (Verses 42-47), said: “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? 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.”
“Garments of unrighteousness”? That’s “undone” before Holy God and blind to it! That’s “undressed” before God and men, unashamed of one’s spiritual nakedness! That’s “unfaithful” before Holy God, but ‘pumped up’ by other fallen men! That’s “friendship and fellowship” with the unfruitful works of darkness and no shame in claiming them!
In fact, in Romans 1:28-32, Paul highlighted for us “those who did not like to retain God in their knowledge, (and as a result!), 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 (of consequences!), 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.”
That’s the alienated from God ‘crowd’, enemies of God willfully in their minds and hearts, evidenced by the paths they choose to walk on! And how many ‘victims’ are you aware of, cheated through man-made philosophies and empty deceptions, which is called “fitting in with the crowd” but void of devotion to Holy God through Christ alone? Are you aware of the “masked appearances” of man’s wisdom in his self-created, self-imposed religious dabblings, cosmetically adorning himself/herself in a false humility, even unashamedly bowing before his/her idols of fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and calling it ‘my frame of reference as to my religious faith’?
You are aware that there are ‘lawless, faithless, unbelieving’ men, demons, and pretenders who do the work of Satan himself, some even with power, signs, and lying wonders, and especially with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, and it happens because they refused to receive “the love of the truth” that they might be “saved”, and in their resistance to the love, grace, and mercy of God, Holy God sends upon them “strong delusions”, that they should believe the lie, God sovereignly deciding, their penalty? “Condemned, because they did not believe the Truth but had their pleasure in unrighteousness”! And where did that come from? I came across a writing years ago, not even remembering when or where it came from, but it was written by Heinrich Heine entitled “Pictures of Travels, The Return Home.” He wrote:
“I called the devil, and he came and with wonder his form did I closely scan;
He is not ugly, and is not lame, But really a handsome and charming man.
A man in the prime of life is the devil, Obliging, a man of the world, and civil;
A diplomatist too, well skilled in debate, He talks quite glibly of church and state.”
In his writing entitled “Table Talk”, Martin Luther wrote: “The Devil has two manner of shapes or forms, wherein he disguises himself; he either appears in 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.”
Would you even see the devil sometimes masked as “good”, and then in a flash, enslave the ‘fleshly’ in a cloud of evil? And, sadly, some are ‘hood-winked’ in believing that the devil’s good and evil is only in one’s imagination! The ‘devil’s good’? Just consider, think about, reflect upon, and resolve it in your own Biblical researches, as you contemplate Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words in her “Aurora Leigh”, (Bk.1V,l. 499),
“Good critics who have stamped out poet’s hope, Good statesmen who pulled ruin on the state, Good patriots who for a theory risked a cause, Good kings who disemboweled for a tax, Good popes who brought all good to jeopardy, Good Christians who sat in easy chairs And damned the general world for standing up. – Now may the good God pardon all good men!”
But does the devil use “goodness” to gain inroads before he releases his evil intent? I personally think it’s one’s own “death sentence” when he/she receives good apart from God and entertains the evil the devil wanted to grant you through his “goodness” that subverts God’s grace, mercy, and love!
There are strong witnesses for unbelief who become ‘marked out for condemnation’ by Holy God! They are ungodly men “who turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ”! And there are even national leaders religiously in many ungodly nations that promote their false religions and will “crucify” those who oppose their religious, false faith! And there are still modern-day ‘Sodoms and Gomarrahs’ reveling in their ‘religious’ sexual immorality and all types of ‘strange flesh’!
How aware are you of “unwise” men, even some who’ve been men of faith but fallen away? In 1 Timothy 6:6-10 Paul ‘wisely’ informs ALL men/women of faith, or, yes, even the faithless: “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.”
“Garments of Unrighteousness”? “Who are these Christians who look outside themselves for help when, if they plant their feet firmly on the sod underneath their feet, there is no table-land too high they cannot climb – they just need to be self-energized, not “new-born”!” But the best of ‘self-motivated’ mountain climbers are not reconciled to God by best efforts, re-born by self-determination, or transformed by fleshly genius – it’s only through “the blood of the Lamb”, and nothing or no one else!
I don’t know who E. Herman is, but in the “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations”, [p.63, by Fleming H.Revell Com., Frank S. Mead,Editor], his words are so strong and right on target: “For one who rejects Christianity because he misunderstands it, ten reject it because they understand it too well – because they know it is a call to the selfless and sacrificial life.” How many have you encountered with the ‘true faith’ who are nothing more than ‘human reasoning thinkers’, strong in their minds, but stone-hearted in their opposition to divine Truth, yes, comfortable even in their opposition to the love of God, and unmoved by the “sacrificed life of Christ in their place at Calvary’s Cross”? They’ll settle for their biblically defined “garments of unrighteousness” when by repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at Calvary, they could be clothed in His righteousness!
Do you understand that the “fall of man” was the self-establishment of one’s own kingdom-rule of his/her own life? But the “new birth” reality that Jesus proclaimed is, yes, entrance into His eternal Kingdom? Isaiah said, in Isaiah 64:6-7a, “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. There is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You…” ! But God Himself takes hold of us through His Holy Spirit’s dramatic conviction, convincing, and converting from the “old life” in sin to the “new life” in Christ’s Resurrection presence! “Christ in you the hope of glory”!
LET’S NOW EXAMINE OUR, IN CHRIST, CLOTHING IN RIGHTEOUSNESS! And Jesus, early in His ministry, laid out the challenge for those darkened by their own ‘self-righteousness’ but fully aware of His promise of divine righteousness. Our Lord said in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
There’s an early passage in Genesis 15 that inspires one’s journey into God’s desire for men to come into His righteousness. In Verses 1 and Verses 4-6 we read of the blessing of men who enter the door of the gift and grace of God’s righteousness! It says: Verse 1, 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.” Verses 4-6 then telling us, And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. {The Promised Messiah]! Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed in the Lord, [trusted in, relied upon, adhered to], and He ACCOUNTED IT TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Accounted? That’s ‘credited’ to him His own “clothing in righteousness”!
How clear for you is 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.”
Yet how many “religious people” do you know who major on that “best effort” of “self- actualization” or “self-realization” in their determination to prove to God their ‘worthiness’ of His acceptance? No! The true disciple of Christ Jesus has abandoned any hope in himself for acceptance before God – he/she rests in 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”! Dependence upon God alone, directed by His Word and Spirit, and living delighted in His eternal blessings and faithful provisions! [But, you have a better way?].
How did Paul explain his victorious life in Christ? Galatians 2:20 says of Paul, “I have been CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me”! And no amount of ‘religious devotion’ is a life-changing, eternally solved, graced way of dependence upon Holy God – apart from Christ, men, religions, even some “churches” (?), become the very enemies of Christ Jesus!
There is no fleshly independence and fleshly efforts of men that settles their “sin accounts” or their ‘understanding’ of His eternal purpose through Christ alone – in fact, most unbelievers stress their ‘independence’ is the all-sufficient way God should accept, without considering Christ Jesus as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” – without Him alone, all, yes, religious activity is nothing more than a stand for individual independence from God, even debunking any absolute loyalty to the Lordship of Christ Jesus!
But in Romans 6:17-18 Paul educates, equips, and encourages us in our call to be “slaves of Christ”! “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.” That’s the IMPUTED, IMPARTED, IMPLANTED RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST ALONE!
Never forget or overlook Romans 5: 17-18! “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.” Yet “slaves of unrighteousness” are out for earning their own ‘salvation’, totally disinterested, some even opposed strongly, in “gifts from God” – “We can provide for ourselves!” And they refuse God’s free gifts!
The brother of Jesus, James, said in James 1:17-18a, “Every good gift and every 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…”.
Do you celebrate “the gift of righteousness”? In Hebrews 6 the author goes beyond the “elementary principles of Christ” to challenge us in Verses 4-6 with a word of warning! It says: “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, AND HAVE TASTED THE HEAVENLY GIFT, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.”[This word of warning should not be taken lightly – “falling away” from the heavenly gift is treasonous before Holy God!].
Paul said in Ephesians 3:6-7 that, not only the redeemed Jewish remnant, but “that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise “in Christ through the gospel,” of which I became a minister according to “the gift of the grace of God” given to me by the effective working of His power.” Gift of righteousness, the heavenly gift, and “the gift of the grace of God.” Oh, but there’s more!
Romans 6:23 declares: “For the wages of sin is death, BUT THE GIFT OF GOD is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Glory! And, remember, Paul said in Romans 5:15, it is “the free gift”! Earlier, in Romans 1:11, Paul told the new believers in Rome that, “I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established” – and that word means: “made to stand”, Paul so desirous of seeing the Roman disciples living a celebratory life in Christ as “equipped servants” of the Lord!
And how does all this have its start in the new-born citizens of the kingdom-rule of Christ through their walks? Peter said in Acts 2:38-39, “Repent, and let everyone of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” No new child of faith, no new servant of Christ, has to begin his/her daily walk of faith apart from the gift of the Holy Spirit!
What about “the gift of living water”? How exciting, enlightening, expressive, or energizing to your “spiritual man” do you find Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John 4? John 4:7 says that a woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” In Verse 9 the woman of Samaria said to Jesus, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”
Jesus answered and said to her (Verse10), “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 Samaritan woman responded to Jesus, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?”
In Verse 13 Jesus answered her and said, “Whoever drinks of this 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.” Glory, again and again and again!
I’m going to tell you that I, personally, am convinced that the “living water” is the “living Word” that is more than ink on the pages of a printed Bible, but “LIFE IN THE WORD”! In fact, Hebrews 4:12 declares, “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 “living Word” will quench your ‘fleshly thirst’, will quiet your troubled moments, will empower you in your calling, will explain divine will and purpose through you, will equip you for your spiritual battles and spiritual conflicts and testings, even draw near faithfully to the weakest saint!
Hebrews 3:5-6 is a word of challenge to every believer about holding faithful and strong in one’s testimony of faith and continual celebration of the Lordship of Christ. It says: “And Moses indeed was faithful in all His (God’s) house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence AND “the rejoicing of the hope” FIRM TO THE END.” What a challenge!
Edward H. Plumptre and Arthur H. Messiter, in the 1940 Baptist Hymnal by Broadman Press, wrote the hymn, “Rejoice, You Pure In Heart.” It says:
“Rejoice, you pure in heart, Rejoice, give thanks and sing; Your festal banner wave on high, The cross of Christ Your King.
Bright youth and snow-crowned age, Strong men and maidens meek; Raise high your free, exulting song, God’s wondrous praises speak.
With all the angel choirs, With all the saints on earth, Pour out the strains of joy and bliss, True rapture, noblest mirth.
Yes, on through life’s long path, Still chanting as you go; From youth to age, by night and day, In gladness and in woe.
Then on, you pure in heart, Rejoice, give thanks and sing; Your glorious banner wave on high, The Cross of Christ your King.”
And the “pure in heart” are declared so because of the “shed blood of the Lamb of God” – not by “Garments of Unrighteousness” but by “The Clothing of Righteousness”!
CHAPTER TEN
“LIBERTY IN CHRIST OR A LICENSE TO SIN?”
“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED”? I don’t know of a matter vital question to be examined than what we’ll be dealing with in this chapter, but it will help us all to come to John 8 and read about Jesus talking to those who “believed in Him.” John 8: 31-48 is vital for our understanding! It says:
Then 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 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 and said to Jesus, “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? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s word; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.” Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not rightly say that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
“Liberty In Christ Or A License To Sin”? You do understand that in a lot of churches across America today, and, yes, even the world, there are those who publicly teach and believe that “Christians” can’t do anything but sin until they get to heaven! I pray YOU hear Jesus for yourself saying, “I assure you that everyone who sins is a slave of sin.”
He does sin and he keeps on sinning, he does sin and he keeps on sinning, he does sin and he keeps on doing sin! THAT’S THE NATURE OF A MAN WHO HAS FALLEN AWAY FROM GOD, LIVING UNDER THE DOMINATION OF HIS SIN NATURE!
In 2 Peter 2 Peter illuminates “the danger of false teachers”, and we must see what he wrote in Verses 12-22! “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 covetousness 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 the Lord and Savior 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.’”
I want you to reflect on two verses out of John 8, first Verse 34, and then Verse 33! Jesus answered (in Verse 34), “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” In Verse 33 the unbelieving Jews had answered Jesus, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?”
Would you dare consider slavery and bondage to a government that spurns God Almighty? And yet the majority of our world is enslaved to godless governments!
Would you dare even look at or examine ‘religious traditions’ that have no relevance to revealed truth? Just think about those unreservedly committed to an Old Testament tradition that has already been fulfilled in the Resurrected Life of Christ!
Has ‘self-righteousness’ played a role in the bondage and slavery of men to themselves and what their ‘flesh’ dictates? Have you ever considered, thought about, dealt with the demonic bondage you’ve been a part of your whole life up until now? If you didn’t know it, Satan himself comes after you!
In Job 1:6-22 we read, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?”
So Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”
So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person!” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house; and a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, when the Sabeans raided them and took them away – indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; and I alone escaped to tell you!”
While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
THEN JOB AROSE, TORE HIS ROBE, AND SHAVED HIS HEAD; AND HE FELL TO THE GROUND AND WORSHIPPED. And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Now…
What about the real bondage and slavery to unbelief of the Historic Christ and His able-ness to forgive you, set you free, and fulfill God’s eternal destiny of YOUR life?
Consider, enslaved to godless governments, enslaved, yes, even to some ‘religious traditions’, or to ‘self-righteousness’, to demonic bondage: What did Jesus say in Mark 4:15? “The seed that fell on the hard path represents those who hear the message, but Satan comes at once and takes it away from them.” Bondage then – bondage now!
In 1 Timothy 5:15 Paul spoke of some “professors of faith” who had no true possession of the title deed of their lives in Jesus’ Name and His hands! He said: “For some have already turned aside after Satan.” What a sad commentary of some who “profess” but allow Satan to “possess” them because of their love of ‘fleshly indulgences’!
In Isaiah 61:1-3 the prophet informs us of Sovereign God’s eternal, present plan! “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 those 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.”
Do you truly understand ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’? Without a doubt it is the liberty and freedom to totally ignore God and make a mess of your life and surroundings or ‘master’ yourself and your surroundings as you think they ought to be from a ‘fleshly’ point of view or the liberty and freedom of yielded-ness and surrender and willingness to let God “in Christ Jesus” have His way in your life!
I found William Cowper’s statement to be so fundamentally true. He said: “To die for the truth is not to die merely for one’s faith or one’s country; it is to die for the world. Their blood shed is shed in confirmation of the noblest claim – the claim to FEED UPON IMMORTAL TRUTH, TO WALK WITH GOD, AND BE DIVINELY FREE.”
And if you didn’t know, Satanic freedom is greater bondage and enslavement! But, (John 8:36), “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Liberty or liberated or liberation or freedom – tremendous words for every man regardless of his residence or rank! That relates to personal liberty, national liberty, or even marital liberty in the sense that mates don’t enslave but free a partner to become highest in God’s determination for a husband or a wife – and, remember, Jesus didn’t come “to be served, but to serve and give His life a ransom for many, yes, a ‘foot-washing” servant!
Liberty or freedom is best understood as a person who has truly been in bondage in his/her past but who now is no longer in the chains of relationship but free and certainly able to respond to God’s will for every choice one makes.
Liberty or freedom is clearly revealed as the defense of the freedom of discovery of who God intends that man to be and intends for that man to do which honors God the most through his life, even at the point of suffering, or sacrifice, or, yes, the choice of death to himself in every circumstance or situation.
But you ask: ‘What IS liberty’? It is the eternal license of Heaven to honor God in submission and obedience. Bondage comes when the sin nature reigns, disobedience is the constant of one’s life, and a phony license of satisfying one’s ‘flesh’ is a constant and even favored by the fallen majority.
I’m telling you, without hesitation, one of the most God-honoring things a man can do is to shed his own blood in behalf of divine truth, in behalf of the all-out commitment to walk with God, and to exemplify freedom, even as one is crucified for the faith!
Liberty in Christ overrules, let’s say, ‘freedom in America to determine one’s destiny’ – there are literally millions in our nation who experience degrees of political freedom but are in total bondage concerning their sin natures and rebellion toward the God who made them, lost them, then bought them with a price!
Divine freedom, spiritual liberty, is so far superior to one’s political freedom. In fact, for a true believer, a loving smile will be even extended to his executioner as his head is chopped off! That’s true freedom and heavenly liberty!
What did Isaiah say, again, in Isaiah 61:1, “He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.”
Alexander Maclaren, in his “Expositions of Holy Scriptures,” [Vol.10, John 1-10, p.349], said: “But when once you get to understand the depths of your own need, and the depths of your brother’s need, then nothing less than the Christ who died to solve the problem, insoluble else, of how to emancipate the soul and the world from the tyranny of sin, will be enough for you.” John 8:36 says, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
In Romans 6:15-18 we read: “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 slave 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.”
There’s no greater word in the English language than the word “free” – and there’s no greater man on earth than the man who spends his life for the freedom, yes, spiritual freedom of others, and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ!
Governmental bondage is for those who see no significance to the Godly-rule whose leadership is spiritual freedom that cares about, commits to, and continually seeks after setting captives free! And I firmly believe eternal honor is given to those who expend their lives to free others from the chains of civil bondage and are committed to seeing that men are possessing and enjoying God-given rights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and blessing is not intended to be a USA only principle!
The chains of religious superstitions and demonic philosophies are violations of the very nature and character of God Himself! There are dark and deadly influences that will overshadow, shut down, oppress, and even enslave sincere but unsuspecting souls who are not rooted and grounded in God’s Holy Word!
The bondage of carnal desires and instinctive, fleshly, sin-anointed inclinations are abundant taking one further downward than he/she already is, blackening the heart more, corrupting the mind unmercifully, rotting one more and more with the bad fruit of a deadly spiritual virus and disease, enslaving one more and more and more with the devil’s yoke of bondage.
But have you also become aware of the “time-bomb” of self-reformation and self-improvement and self-adulation as one promotes himself/herself? Transformation is God’s business – ‘flesh’ improvement is the devil’s corner of our world! “Born-again” is Jesus’ miracle of grace and mercy – acceptance by an unbelieving world is Satan’s push through you of his prominence and perversions.
But also, what about chained to the hurts and pains of the past? And one refuses to deal with it, expose it, forgive, and find reconciliation where needed? Some blame God and never consider that the pain of their past was a ‘masterpiece’ of the devil himself! The devil is a ‘master-strategist’, and he knows how to capture, deceive, corral, and embitter folks, certainly promoting unforgiveness and promoting ‘self-protection’ against what pains you, not realizing or knowing that exposure of past hurts can be Heaven’s help in holy healing!
Far more and deeper darkness and greater bondage is one’s, yes, ignorance of his/her spiritual death before God! It’s clear: Romans 6:23!! “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [But, how many do you know who would laugh at you because you quote to them God’s Truth?].
Others know their spiritual depravity, their present awareness of “guilty before God,” and sense for themselves a spirit of hopelessness – “God’s love can’t be that extreme and unlimited to forgive me!” Here’s the TRUTH!! 1 John 1:5-10 says: “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
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. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
Again, John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will indeed be free.” The Son? That’s the Son of God! That’s Emmanuel, ‘God with us’! That’s Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, who willingly chose the Cross for Himself for our Redemption and our Release!
There is no true freedom apart from Christ Jesus! The highest intellectual, the most brilliant scholar, is destined for the emptiness of divine recognition without Christ as Lord and Savior of his/her life! Self-effort righteousness is vain and a curse on one’s life while the Sovereign-implanted righteousness in and through Christ’s shed blood is one’s saving grace, Masterful mercy, and eternal likeness, liberty, and the loving stamp of approval and Godly-identification!
Do you even understand your redemption and freedom and liberty was planned by God before the world was created? In Revelation 13:8 we read, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him,(the beast) whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Several Truths to note personally: FIRST, YOUR SALVATION AND MINE, WAS SOVEREIGNLY PLANNED, PERSONALLY IMPLEMENTED, AND WILLINGLY CHOSEN BY JESUS, THE LAMB OF GOD!
In Isaiah 53:6-10 the Holy Word prophetically spoken was written some 700-800 years prior to Christ’s birth, ministry, and crucifixion! The prophet wrote: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord God has laid on Him (Jesus) 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.
He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked – but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord God shall prosper in His hand.”
SECOND, YOUR SALVATION AND MINE WAS SACRIFICIALLY PURCHASED! 1 Peter 1:18-25 declares: “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 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.”
Receive Spurgeon’s words: [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.8, p.201]: “You go free (clear of your sin debt) because He (Jesus) bore your burden [your sin-burden and guilt] for you. See Him bear His agony – “crushed beneath the millstone of the law, till all His head, His hair, His garments bloody be.” Yes, see Him dragged to Pilate’s hall, bound, whipped like a common felon, scourged like a murderer, and dragged away by hell-hounds through the streets, fastened by those cruel fetters which went through His flesh to the accursed wood! See Him yielding up His liberty to the dungeon of death! There the Mighty One sleeps in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. Dearly did He purchase with His own bondage the liberty which He so freely gives.”
THIRD, YOUR SALVATION AND MINE WAS SWEETLY PRESENTED! In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said to you and to me, “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.”
Jesus doesn’t come with a big stick but with open arms! He doesn’t come in anger but with mercy and grace! He doesn’t come in an accusatory tone but with holy admiration and heavenly love. He sees us as slaves to the world’s darkness and offers us His eternal Light, He sees us imprisoned in chains of sin and death and offers us forgiveness, freedom, and a forever relationship.
He comes to us and knocks on our hearts’ doors because the truth is, no man has ever sought God own his own merit but only because of the Master’s mercy!
That man in the deepest darkness of a hellish existence, alienated and separated from God is offered an open door to Heaven, an eternal relationship with the Son of Light, and given a mission responsibility of touching the unworthy around them with God’s Calvary love!
FOURTH, YOUR SALVATION AND MINE IS A PRESENT POSSESSION! There’s an interesting verse that David gives us when in Psalm 27:4 he said, “The one thing I asked of the Lord – the thing I seek most – is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in His Temple.”
But a new day has dawned, a new event has occurred, a new residence has been established by God – and your redeemed, regenerated, re-made, restored to eternal intent body, has actually become the Temple of the Lord, His earthly dwelling place, His, yes, desired residence on this earth – IN YOU!
Examine 1 Corinthians 3:16-17! “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.”
Paul later said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “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.” He later wrote in his Ephesians’ letter: Ephesians 2:22, “in whom you also are being built for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit,” having mentioned in Verse 21 growing “into a holy temple in the Lord”!
FIFTH, YOUR SALVATION “IN CHRIST” IS A PERFECT PARDON! I love what Paul wrote to us and the Philippian church when he said in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ…”.
Do you understand, live by, grasp the truth every day that Holy God is, does, and will complete His good work in you, and that, really, His perfect pardon inspires YOU more and more to honor and bless the Holy One who has touched you with grace and mercy, and called you, ‘another son, another daughter, just like My Eternal Son, Jesus Christ’?
In Matthew 18:3 Jesus clearly said, “I assure you, unless you turn from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“A perfect pardon”? That’s as a baby, a growing infant, a maturing child is totally dependent upon his parents, so our perfect pardon is our Lord and Savior overseeing our lives of faith as we grow and mature in Him – we’re birthed in the Kingdom as if we’ve already finished the race – He sees us as “complete in Christ” lacking nothing!
A hardened, godless heart, encountering Christ, and surrendering to His Lordship and His Salvation as the Promised Messiah and Savior, “Emmanuel” – God with Us”, finds a new heart of total tenderness and love like a stony heart that now beats with the heart-beat of Christ every moment since the moment of his/her divine conversion!
It was John Keats, in his “Letter to J.H. Reynolds,” who said: “There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of immortality.” That’s so amazing, so true, and so encouraging and uplifting!
Hear me! “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is LIBERTY.” What does His Holy Word tell us? “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”
“Free from bondage because Christ paid the price, Free from the devil because our Lord broke his chains, Free to live victoriously because it’s King Jesus who reigns…
From God’s Throne grace reigns, and Jesus shed His blood and there is remission; Because He paid the price of sin and death, there’s no condemnation – He’s given us a perfect salvation.
His glorious calling will never be amended because Jesus’ sacrifice was holily attended – blood shed, LIFE DIED, but in God’s power our Lord was resurrected.
Self-effort is vain and always the same, but Jesus in His sacrifice glorified God’s Name; though troubled by the Cross He never saw it as His loss, but lifted up, He drank the cup of suffering and death to cloth us in God’s amazing grace.” (JFF,2015).
In John 11;25-25 Jesus told 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?”
Examine carefully and reflectively on 1 Peter 1:3-6 where the apostle wrote: “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.”
Paul then gave a word of his personal testimony when in Philippians 3:7-14 he wrote: “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.”
Alexander Maclaren’s words in his “Exposition of Holy Scriptures”, [John 1-14, pps.349-350], says: “And, brethren, just as the ignoring of the fact of sin makes the understanding of Christ and His word impossible, so it makes the real reception of Him for ourselves impossible. Many men are brought near to Jesus by other roads; thank God for it! There are a thousand ways to the Cross, but it is the Cross that we must clasp, if any in true sense we are to clasp Christ. And there is the difference between the superficial, partial, and easy-going profession of Christianity which is so common among us today, and the life-and-death clutching and clinging to Him which comes when, and only when, a man feels that the tyrant whom he served as a slave is close behind him, and that his only chance of freedom is to hold fast by the horns of the altar of the sanctuary, and to cleave to Christ in whom, and in whom alone, we are free indeed.”
Do you think this just may be why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I die daily”? In fact, in 2 Corinthians 1:9, he also wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead”!
In my friend Jim Hylton’s book entitled “The Supernatural Skyline: Where Heaven Touches Earth,” (pps.138-139, [Destiny Image Publishers, Inc. PO Box 310, Shippensburg,PS 17257-0310], Brother Jim wrote: “When seven men were asked the question, “But who are you?” by a demon, they had no answer. Without an answer, they fled, stripped naked, wounded, and were afraid. Many Christians today feel the same nakedness and fear when challenged by a diabolical enemy. These seven brothers were challenged by a demon because the brothers commendably sought to offer freedom to a person in bondage. This account is a significant intelligence report: Jim then quoted Acts 19:13-16 (TLB),
“At team of itinerant Jews who were traveling from town to town casting out demons planned to experiment by using the name of the Lord Jesus. The incantation they decided on was: “I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish priest, were doing this. But when they tried it on a man possessed by a demon, the demon replied, “I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” And he leaped on two of them and beat them up, so that they fled out of his house naked and badly injured.”
Dare I ask? “But who are you?” What a question to be answered as you digest this chapter: “Liberty in Christ OR A LICENSE TO SIN?”
Many years ago Samuel Francis Smith wrote the song, “America”. One of the verses says:
“Long may our land be right With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by Your Might, Great God, our King.”
Freedom! It’s “the pearl of great price” given to us by Christ alone, King of kings and Lord of lords! Amen?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? FAITHFULNESS OR DISTRESSING DISGUISES?”
I don’t know how you’ll respond to the title of this message because only you really know the secret chambers of your heart and your 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 or does. 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, 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 continuing falling away from Him by their own free will, poisoned by the powers of darkness.
Don’t you find it interesting, convicting, and challenging, that in Revelation 2:10b, Jesus tells us: “Be fruitful 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, 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 the 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 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, sometime, somewhere led them down, they believe, to a place, a practice, a persuasion that didn’t line up with the desire for a ‘worldly lifestyle’, even when the Word declares ‘separate from sinners’.
I’m really sorry, but I do not see projected in God’s Holy Word ‘comfort’ or ‘comfortable’ in a world where Holy Truth is seen as needed to be suppressed and certainly worthless in schools, universities, or any governmental institutions locally or nationally!
How dangerous is it for men of all standings, places, positions, 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?!?
“Distressing Disguises”? Are you ever confronted by those who have known Truth and then, all of a sudden, because of multitudinous fleshly ‘crises’, the door is 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 relationships, resulting in undefinable criticism, and like a ‘wounded snake’ they slither 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,’ four times, Verse 21, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and you will dies 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 God’s mercy, grace, and love, but deception blinds men to their need of God because they grade 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?
“Distressing Disguises”? Can’t you wrap 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 wot not 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.” 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 1 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 [any longer!], for I put my trust in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You.” Whose integrity and uprightness preserving him? God’s alone!
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 temptings, 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 and 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. 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 to me, for some like Pharoah, that ‘wealth’ or ‘riches’ lead an awful lot of people to bow down in idolatry and not worship, praise, or give 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 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; 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 hole of his adulterous mate with an irate, almost uncontrollable husband.
The church leader had lied, and then at least 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 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, if the ‘fruit’ of your ‘profession’ ignores the local assemblies? 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 the Cross is absent!
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.”(Followed by words on Page 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 allegiance! ‘Iceberg city’ – the creeping sickness of unconscious allegiance to self- birthing 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 an unjust steward. Read carefully and consider your walk as a professing disciple of Christ! Jesus said to His disciples: “There was a 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.”
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 resolves 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, ‘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? How about what belongs to Him you profess to be the steward of?
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 which one must discern for himself- 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 then 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.
Then 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.” “Blood of Christ Blessing or BEST EFFORT CURSES?”
WE ARE SAVED, RECONCILED, RE-BORN BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH IN HIS FINISHED WORK AND BY THAT FAITH ONLY! WE ARE JUSTIFIED BY FAITH! Examine Romans 3:21-26 very, very carefully! “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.”
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, 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 your 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.’ [Genesis 15:6!]. 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 FASHION OF MEN! 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 tells 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.”
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.”
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 TO 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 string 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 1 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 God and His Loving Savior who is so ever faithful to us all! In Lamentations 3:22-24 Jeremiah shares both a broken heart because of Israel’s sin, but also a peaceful heart and soul because he knows the faithfulness of God’s compassion for His blessed Remnant! “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!” Even Isaiah was awed by God’s faithfulness! In Isaiah 25:1 he wrote: “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 inventors of simply religious activities but fully surrendered lives available to His presence, purposes, power, and promises to be expressed through us!
It was the old “The Defender” magazine that has 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.
Out of an old “English Hymn Book” a song was written by an S.C. Foster. It was entitled, “I Love Him”:
“Gone from my heart the world and all its charm; Gone are my sins and all that would alarm; Gone evermore, and by His grace I know The precious blood of Jesus cleanses white as snow.
Once I was lost upon the plains of sin; Once was a slave to doubts and fears within; Once was afraid to trust a loving God, But now my guilt is washed away in Jesus’ blood.
Once I was bound, but now I am set free; Once I was blind, but now the Light I see; Once I was dead, but now in Christ I live, To tell the world the peace that He alone can give.
I love Him, I love Him, because He first loved me, And purchased my salvation on Calvary’s tree.” Amen?
CHAPTER TWELVE
“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? DARK NIGHT – BRIGHT LIGHTS”
I’ll never forget a “dark night” event in my home when I was about eleven to twelve years of age. I had gone to bed early because my mother and step-father were having a party. It was late, late, maybe 3-4 a.m., when I was awakened by loud noises of things breaking as a drunken brawl occurred in the home. I was so frightened I just hid under the covers of my bed until about 5 a.m. when I looked around to see devastation; all were gone including my mother, but my step-father was passed out on the bed in the guest bedroom.
It was pitch-black night as I made my way to my grandparents’ home so afraid, plus I had to go down an unlighted road to get to their home. I felt so safe when the lights came on and they opened their door to me. Needless to say, I never again experienced that dark-night of the soul! [And you should know that, finally, within a few weeks of his eighty-ninth birthday, my step-father asked me to explain the Gospel of Christ to him once more – and he prayed to receive Christ! Weeks later he died!]
Jeremy Taylor, in his “Holy Living” writing, [p.259], said: “A man may be damned for despairing to be saved.” Thank God, my step-father finally saw, not “dark nights” but “bright lights”.
“Dark Nights”? Leo Tolstoy, in his writing entitled “The Kingdom of God,” [ch.12], said: “The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgement and profession of the truth by each one of us.”
But you do realize that darkened hearts, minds, and free wills delight in the fallen nature of men alienated and separated from God! Their fleshly pleasures become deadly poison – and they’re so unaware of THEIR dark nights of the soul.
I love what Spurgeon wrote in “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Memorial Library, Vol.9,pps.176-177}: “He [God] makes not the child of God to be a serf, a slave, in fear of punishment, but He so changes the nature of men that they turn away with loathing from the things they once delighted in, and can no more indulge in the sins which were once sweet to them, than an angel could wallow in the mire with the swine. Oh! This is a gracious work, and this is a blessed covenant in which it is promised that we shall be taught to know and love and do the right thing with a willing mind.”
Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines ‘darkness’ like this: “Absence of light; a state of being intellectually clouded; great trouble and distress; calamities; perplexities; empire of Satan; land of darkness – the grave.”
In John 3:19 we read: “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.”
Even though Joel wrote prophetically to alert the people of Israel in his day, the prophetic word is as relevant today as it was then! Joel 2:1-2 says, “Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand: a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains…”
Later, in Joel 2:25, God speaks about a land or a life that experiences “swarming, crawling, chewing locust.” God said, “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…My great army which I sent among you.” Why? Because His created people chose ‘self-rule’ over God’s saving grace! They chose the fallen spirits over the Holy Spirit! They chose futile flesh over divine will, purpose, and power! They chose fleshly pleasure over the Holy Spirit! AND GOD SENDS THE ‘LOCUST’!
DARK DAYS? LET’S LOOK, FIRST, AT THE ‘LOCUST’ OF PERSONAL DESOLATION! In Matthew 23:37-38 we read, Jesus speaking, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you DESOLATE…”.
Men actually, personally, choose to live an uninhabited life without God’s presence in them or through them! They choose fleshly ruin over His royal Throne to bow before. They choose a ravaged, ruined, neglectful life of yieldedness to the Sovereignty of God and to His amazing love for them, the One who willingly laid down His life for them, and only desired in His love and mercy to bless and fulfill their existence with divine presence! AND THE RESULT? Micah 6:13-14 says: “Therefore I will also make you sick by striking you, by making you desolate because of your sins. You shall eat, but not be satisfied; [Hunger yes, even physical hunger, bur more strongly a spiritual hunger they personally can never satisfy!]; Hunger shall be in your midst. You may carry some away, but shall not save them; and what you do ‘rescue’ I will give over to the sword.” [How serious do YOU find these words?].
How do you feel when you read a work like Isaiah 1:7 when it says: “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers [to God!] devour your land in your presence; and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.”
DARK DAYS? SECOND, LET’S CONSIDER JOB 38:2 WHEN GOD CONFRONTED JOB AND SAID: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
Hear me, “If man lives only by physical bread alone, and not every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God,” then how truly ‘wise’ are those who “darkens counsel by words without knowledge”?
Oh, there are those who ‘seek counsel’ because they want to hear what they want to hear, but apart from the eternal counsel and Word from God Himself! Proverbs 12:5 clearly says, “…the counsels of the wicked are deceitful…”
In Jeremiah 7:23-24 we read, God speaking, the Lord of hosts: “But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.”
You’re either pressing in to the Lord or you’re continuing to fall away! You’re either found in the Light or sickened by the devil’s darkness, being made ready with his demons for and eternal Hell of Light absence!
THIRD, DARK DAYS? SPIRITUAL SIGHT AND INSIGHT OBLITERATED BY DISTRESSES! I love Psalm 107 because it is so informative and illustrative of a life with God or a life without Him. Psalm 107 challenges us to see life’s “troubles” as a “door-closer” to God OR a “door-opener” to Him.
Four times in Psalm 107 the Word tells us: [Verses 6, 13, 19, and 28], “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and HE DELIVERED THEM OUT OF THEIR DISTRESSES.”
And some choose, yes, choose to live in their ‘distresses’ without ever crying out to the merciful, caring, gracious Lord and “Savior”! But for the true believer, the “redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,” he/she understands, “in the world you will have tribulations,” but our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, declared in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” GLORY!!
Consider and reflect upon what Paul the Apostle wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10! “But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”
FOURTH, DARK DAYS? WHAT ABOUT EXCESSIVE AND BURDENING DISCOURAGEMENT OR DISAPPOINTMENT? As we consider the matter of discouragement, is it possible that, regardless of circumstances, some would be unhappy if God gave them an unlimited inheritance or share of His abundant blessings?
But be assured, in this very historic moment of your life, if you have not yielded in repentance and faith in Christ, you have one choice to make of two opportunities: 1) You may find yourself under the dark shadows of judgment, separation from God forever, and a Hell with your guilty “pass”, or, 2),you’ve chosen to walk in the Light of God’s love, grace, and mercy, with an eternal residence in our Lord’s Holy Presence!
The children of Joseph said to Joshua, in Joshua 17:14, that they were those whom “the Lord has blessed us until now”! Walking in our walk with the Lord is not a walk of discouragement but of blessing! Have you forgotten or overlooked Romans 8:16-17? “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.”
Some have come to the faith and then experienced the reality of persecution and isolation and are disenfranchised by family and friends, and were never discipled of, yes, it’s pain and suffering at times. In Philippians 1:27-30 Paul wrote the Philippians AND US: “Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.” [But in ‘modern-day’ Christianity? “There is no suffering, just celebrating”, and I have to wonder, “What ‘gospel’ are they celebrating? Their ‘gospel’ or the true “Gospel of Christ Jesus”?
FIFTH, WHAT ABOUT THE DARK DAYS OF DISILLUSIONMENT OR DISPLEASURE? My prayer for all of God’s people is for a true spirit of discernment as they engage a world of needy people around them. It’s so true that the God we serve is the One True and Living God who is moved with compassion for the wounded, the grief-stricken, the man or woman overwhelmed by the awareness of their guilt and separation from God and that their sin nailed Jesus to the Cross!
Psalm 147:3 is so very clear: “He [the Lord God] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds [or sorrows].”
What a magnificent and beautiful world our God has created – and yet beyond our small little world are universes of omnipotence, galaxies of divine glories, habitations of Holy Presence – yet He has time for the bleeding, wounded, sin-infested heart, the broken marriage, the lost and wandering son or daughter of faith – and especially does the Lord God Almighty sense the suffering, serious wounds of open rebellion, scarred hearts, captive wills, darkened, diseased minds – and “the Great Physician” reaches out to touch those wounded hearts and sin-stricken souls, speaking “Peace” and healing grace and abundant mercy!
There’s an old U.S. African-American spiritual song that says: “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There’s power enough in heaven, to cure a sin-sick soul.
Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain, But then the Holy Spirit REVICES my soul again.
If you cannot sing like angels, If you can’t preach like Paul, You can tell the love of Jesus and say He died for all.”
In Luke 12:8-9 Jesus said: “Also I say to you, whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” [I don’t think that would be a “good announcement” about you before the angels if you reject the Lord Jesus!].
Oh, BUT FROM THE “DARK DAYS”, LET’S LOOK JOYFULLY AT THE “BRIGHT LIGHTS”! In John 3:18-21, and Verses 35-36, Jesus said: “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."
Then Verses 35-36 declares, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
It’s so interesting, convicting, and illuminating that James 1:17 tells us that, “Every good gift and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
God the Father is the Father of lights without a doubt, and Jesus the Son IS the true light of the world. And in John 8:12 Jesus spoke saying: “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” He’s not a liar, He’s not a crazy, uncontrollable lunatic, He’s not a deceiver, He’s not an evil spirit masquerading as Truth – He Is the TRUTH! He IS the Way! He is the Author and Finisher of Resurrection Life, Power, and Hope!
If you are an unbeliever, a doubter, a denouncer of Christ, if you’re so sure and certain, then stand openly before the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and tell him you’re an atheist, an unbeliever, an agnostic, a doubter – and you then refuse to bow before God’s sacrificial Lamb who DIED FOR YOU, and tell Him that you’re willing to live without Him because you choose to not live for Him so you can revel and rebel in your fallen state – and then just go to Hell forever with the devil and his demons and all your atheistic, agnostic, unbelieving ‘sinners’!!??
Yes, Jesus Is “THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD”! But beyond the reality of His eternal, resurrection life, is the story of true born-again, indwelt sons and daughters of God! In Ephesians 5:8-14 we see unfold the historical truth of “children of light”! It says: “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. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful 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. Therefore He says: ‘Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”
How did and does that happen? In 1 Peter 2:9-10, God declared through Peter, “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; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”
The Lord Jesus always had a passion for the true disciples to understand their role of oneness in Him. In John 12:35-36 He said: “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 the light.”
Did you see it? Repentant, faith believers BECOME “SONS OF LIGHT”!! It was John who, later, wrote 1 John 1:5-7, “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Are you familiar with the “New Jerusalem” which I truly believe to be present – not a future possibility? Revelation 21:22-27 tells us, “But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there”. And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
We’ve seen “the Father of lights, the Savior of Light – let’s look now at His Holy Word, the Bible, God’s revelation or unveiling of Himself and those WHO ARE “IN CHRIST”! Let’s examine Psalm 119!
Psalm 119:9 says, “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 119:14, “I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches.”
Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.”
Psalm 119:24, “Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.”
Psalm 119:25, “My soul clings to the dust; revive ma according to Your word.”
Psalm 119:28, “Strengthen me according to Your word.”
Psalm 119:37, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way.”
Psalm 119:54, “Your statutes have been my song in the house of my pilgrimage.”
Psalm 119:67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.”
Psalm 119:72, “The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.”
Psalm 119:92, “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.”
Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Psalm 119:111, “Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.”
Psalm 119:120, “My flesh trembles for fear of You, and I am afraid of Your judgments.”
Psalm 119:130, “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.”
Psalm 119:133, “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.”
What was it Jesus said in 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 ALSO, “the church”, the local “assembly of believers,” “the functioning body of Christ” visibly, is to be a “Bright Light”! In Ephesians 5:22-32 Paul compares the husband and wife relationship as a picture of the church, both universal and the local body of believers, where one lives out his/her spiritual marriage to Christ!
There is no doubt that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the Great Shepherd of the sheep, the flock of God. But there are ‘under-shepherds’ assigned by God in caring for the local flocks of a Christ-like, caring under-shepherd who knows how to feed sheep, shear sheep, and guide them by the Word and Spirit to grow and mature and, yes, reproduce themselves to the honor of Christ!
Jesus Himself said in John 6:37-40, giving each repentant follower true hope: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 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 on the last day.”
To be a part of a local church fellowship is both an honor and a calling – representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ looking out for others more than we look out for ourselves! The local assembly is “mutual submission”, yes, in the fear of the Lord, because it is to Him we each are held accountable as to our devotion to the church He loved and gave Himself for or our lack of devotion which breaks the Lord’s heart!
After 79 years of life affiliated with a local church, I can say, even with a few “horror” stories, that I’ve been eternally blessed and seen birthed all around a sense of true brotherhood. In John 17:20-23 Jesus prayed to Father-God: “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.” And if the Lord’s words you’ve just read doesn’t intensify in you a greater love for His local body or bodies of believers, I believe I’d seek to examine whether or not I was ever born again!
Receive Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s words in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons”: [Memorial Library, Vol.18, p.64], “Christians are not a miserable company of restless spirits; they are not a pack of dogs howling at one another, and smarting under the keeper’s lash; but they are a flock feeding in happy communion, while Jesus in their midst finds for them a place where they may rest at noon. He so loves His own, and so reveals Himself to His own, that they are a happy [blessed] people highly favored, and greatly honored. God has blessed them, and they should be blessed, let the world say what it will concerning them!”
Timothy Dwight and Aaron Williams wrote an old hymn that NEEDS A RESURRECTION! It says: “I love Your kingdom, Lord, the house of Your abode, The Church our blest Redeemer saved with His own precious blood.
I love Your Church, O God! Her walls before You stand, Dear as the apple of Your eye, And graven on Your hand.
For her my tears shall fall; for her my prayers ascend; To her my cares and toils be given Till toils and cares shall end.
Beyond my highest joy I prize her heavenly ways, Her sweet communion, solemn vows, Her hymns of love and praise.
Sure as Your truth shall last, To Zion shall be given The brightest glories earth can yield, And highest bliss of heaven.” Amen?
I close this chapter with a statement by Henry Ward Beecher about the church. He said: “The Church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones.” Why not join the training and equipping and disciplining of the local church as a “soldier” of the Cross of Christ?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? SELF-EFFORT RIGHTEOUSNESS
OR SOVEREIGN-IMPLANTED RIGHTEOUSNESS?
I want to lay a clear and solid and life-changing foundation for you out of Genesis 15:6 where the Holy Word tells us: “And he [Abram] believed in the Lord; and He [God] counted [or credited] it to him for [or as] RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
But, fallen men are so self-assertive that they say: “I don’t need God because I can become righteous on my own – I’m able!” Self-effort righteousness is a ‘sham’, with Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary saying of ‘sham’: “False, counterfeit, pretended…”, And that is so on target identifying self-effort righteousness!
It was Sir Francis Bacon who once said in the “New Atlantis”, “The reverence of a man’s self is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.” Oh, how true is that!?!
I was really shocked when I came across a statement by Benjamin Franklin: “God helps those who help themselves.” And I had to put a huge question mark by that statement! No! God helps those who empty themselves and are filled with Holy Presence through the Resurrection Life of Christ!
Yes, it’s the Cross of Christ before which lost men are to bow, but also one better, or must, place his ‘self-effort’ on the Cross or their ‘self-effort righteousness’ becomes a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the heart and mind, which leaves one eternally separated from Holy God!
Aren’t you aware of “pumped-up flesh” that readily identifies one as a ‘slave in bondage’ to “self-effort righteousness”? In Exodus 6:9 the Word says, “So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel; but they did not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.” They weren’t even aware of their spiritual condition but had become servants of ‘self-effort righteousness’, even in their chains!
Do you remember Galatians 4:3 when Paul said: “Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world”? That’s ‘self-effort’ righteousness – no freedom but only bondage and slavery to a world culture.
I’m sure you’ve at least read Colossians 2:8 where Paul said: “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.” He later said in Colossians 2:23, “These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.”
Self-effort righteousness is the constancy of self-enslavement. Self-effort righteousness is pulverizing pride; it is one puffed up in himself just like Satan himself. Job 35:12 speaks of those who at least ‘cry out’, “but God does not answer, because of the pride of evil men.”
Follow Proverbs 1:24-33! “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, 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.”
Oh, and then receive Isaiah 54:17!! It says: “No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from [or out of] Me,” says the Lord!
Aren’t you aware of the great difference, the chasm, between “self-effort righteousness” and “Sovereignly-implanted righteousness”? A purchase price was paid for “Sovereignly-implanted righteousness”, and the price paid was our Savior’s blood shed on Calvary’s tree, the Cross! Is it ‘either-or’? Of course, it is – it always has been! Self in opposition to Holy God, my righteousness opposed to God’s righteousness, righteousness earned or His righteousness implanted? Your ‘righteousness’ is pride in yourself OR you’re humbled by the awesomeness of God’s love, grace, and mercy!
You do understand, from earthly beginnings through Adam and Eve, until this present generation, the powers of darkness until now are out to sell Satan’s lie: “you can sin and not die”!
You and I have an enemy whose goal and ambition is spiritual blindness, eternal deafness, to the will, mind, and heart of Holy God and His Son, the Lord Jesus, and to the voice and intimacy with God’s Holy Spirit! But His Word speaks volumes, loudly, plainly, strongly, to the Truth of our Lord’s love, grace, and mercy – and if one listens and responds, he/she walks away from the bondage of self-righteousness and walks free in God’s Sovereignly-implanted righteousness a new man/woman!
Self-effort righteousness is one’s self-determination of what gives him/her satisfaction, happiness, or pleasure – believing ‘without consequences’! It’s fallen man/woman living by self-rule to give ‘peace’ top his/her passions as he/she settles in to satisfying the flesh! What or who controls my passions, my desires, my longings, my temptations, my fleshly fulfillment? “Whatever silences ‘the demons’ within and gives me a sense of reward for me ‘fallen-away-from-God’ decisions!” Really?
Horatius Bonar put it like this: “No man can quench his thirst with sand, or with water from the Dead Sea; no man can find rest from his own character, however good, or from his own acts, however religious.”
Why? Because ‘self-effort righteousness’ is counterfeit, counter-productive, not honoring God or giving glory to His Name! “Self-effort righteousness,” “self-control programs,” “self-attempts at being religious,” “self-mastery over sin and death and the grave and alienation and separation from God,” are attempts at a “new birth” that proves ‘deathly at its inception’, which is “still-born’!
What’s a “good thought” if Truth is absent? What’s a “passionate prayer” if all you’re doing is indulging and promoting and calling attention to yourself, and even the name of Jesus is completely omitted?
Robert R. Brown once 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.” Just how true is that?
I love what Sir Walter Scott wrote in “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” VI. He said: “The wretch concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored and unsung.”
I’m telling you that ‘self-mastery’ in one’s determination of self-righteousness is Satan’s number-one achievement in your life if your only goal and ambition is to think well of yourself!
But I want you to look carefully at the eternal reality of “SOVEREIGN-IMPLANTED RIGHTEOUSNESS”! In 2 Corinthians 5:21 our Lord opened the heart and mind of true understanding and saving faith when He said through Paul: “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.” Oh, what a strong, redemptive revelation!
Speaking of the passage in 2 Corinthians 5:21, Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.224], “The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy. The New Testament view is that He bore our sins not by sympathy, but by identification. He was ‘made to be sin.’ Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the explanation of His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy with us. We are acceptable with God not because we have obeyed, or because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and in no other way. We say that Jesus Christ came to reveal the Fatherhood of God, the loving-kindness of God; the New Testament says He came to bear away the sins of the world. The revelation [or unveiling] of His Father is to those to whom He has been introduced as Savior. Jesus Christ never spoke of Himself to the world as one Who revealed the Father, but as a stumbling block (see John 15:22-24).” …[In closing out his understanding of 2 Corinthians 5:21, Chambers said: “It is not Christ “for” me unless I am determined to have Christ formed “in” me.”].
Don’t ever forget or even overlook Isaiah 54:17! Remember, God said, “…This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from [out of] Me,” says the Lord!
Spurgeon preached on Isaiah’s word for us: [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.2, p.164], “Now, if I wished to test you all, and might ask you only one question, I would ask this: What is your righteousness? O, I am as good as my neighbors. God along with you; you are not my comrade. What is “your” righteousness? Well, I am rather better than my neighbors, for I go to chapel regularly. Off with you, sir; you do not know the watchword. And you next; “what is your righteousness? I have been baptized, and am a member of the Church.” Yes, and so you may; and if that is your hope, you are in the gall of bitterness. Now you next; what is your hope? O, I do all I can, and Christ makes up the rest. RUBBISH! You are a Babylonian, you are no Israelite; What is your righteousness? My righteousness is filthy rags, except one righteousness which I have with Christ wrought out for me on Calvary, imputed to me by God Himself, which makes me pure and spotless as an angel. Ah, brother, you and I are fellow-soldiers: I have found you out; that is the watchword. “Your righteousness is of Me, says the Lord.” I do not ask whether you are a Churchman, or whether you are Methodists, or Independents, or Baptists, if you do but know the watchword – ‘Your righteousness is of me, says the Lord.’ Your blood and righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress.”
Again, Isaiah so truly educates, informs, instructs, and inspires us as he tells us in Isaiah 64:6, us apart from saving grace and mercy, “But we are ALL like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.”
And when one becomes so aware of that true condition of unrighteousness, is graciously exposed to true righteousness, and knows without Christ’s shed blood washing his life he’s hopeless, and, yes, begins to cry out, “God, be merciful TO ME, the SINNER,” then and only then does the repentant heart begin to experience and appropriate the righteousness of God!
Don’t you find it so amazing that Almighty God, Author of His Holy Word, God of the Cross and Empty Tomb, informs us of who true believers are, and gives us a picture of both the righteous and the unrighteous? For example, Jesus tells us about a wedding in Matthew 22 and opens our understanding of who is refused entrance for the wedding and who enters? This is Jesus telling, informing, revealing, yes, the ‘righteous’ who enter the wedding and the feast: Verses 11-13,
“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.”
Tell me about your preparation of attendance at that awesome, glorious, sacred, celebration wedding of Christ Jesus and His bride! Are you the called, the chosen, the true bride of Christ who daily prepares for the wedding celebration? Or do you “seek to enter” on your own terms?
‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And you’re unsure what it is? Do you even consider, think about, put on, God’s gift of mercy and grace? But, you are aware that the independent soul takes on Frank Sinatra’s famous song, “I did it my way”! “Your way” is that distinguishing mark that shuts the door to your entrance to the eternal wedding!
‘Friend, you are not clothed in a wedding garment! Is there no respect, no acknowledgement in you, no desire to truly honor the King of kings and Lord of lords, or no appreciation of submission to His Way?’
‘Friend, this is the prince’s wedding – not yours.’ And the wedding we’re seeing is a picture portrait of Christ and His bride, but the ‘friend’ came dressed in rebellion, disobedience, self-assertion, a breed of independent walks of life that only pours out contempt on the Crucified Christ and spits on His empty tomb!
Consider, also that many are of the opinion that there is more than one way to find acceptance with God – and multitudes are of the ‘opinion’, “it’s what I believe, it’s how I feel, and God should accept my offering and share my way with His way!”
Wherein God’s Holy Word do you ever find reconciliation with Holy God by man’s activity through that man’s personal wisdom, practical efforts (to them!), with flesh-effort being the sole remedy of his/her ‘salvation’, which is better called ‘evil evolution’!
I remind you again of what Paul preached 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.”
Are you familiar with the terms IMPARTED, IMPUTED, IMPLANTED righteousness which comes out of the mind and heart and will of God only? Have you failed or neglected to read the words of God through Isaiah the prophet of God? Isaiah 1:18-20 says: “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be 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.”
But, PLEASE, receive also Isaiah 1:27-28! “Zion (The Kingdom rule and reign of Christ in His ‘spiritual King-dom’!, shall be redeemed with justice, and her penitents with righteousness. (BUT) The destruction of transgressors and sinners shall be together, (crushed!), and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.” (And “consumed” is burned alive with “the fire that will not die!”).
Spurgeon spoke of “the insolence of self-righteousness” which so easily, emphatically, denies the righteousness of God through Christ! Oh, and then, of the ‘self-righteous’ religious crowd, he said: “Spiritually he [they] is a very well washed corpse – that is all.”
Haven’t you witnessed it, seen it, been astounded and appalled by the discomfort and denial of the chorus that speaks of “Oh, the blood of Jesus” – and they want no part of it because it doesn’t highlight “what I do, what we are, what we do”!! And that’s outward religious appearances without an inner heart-change! “Born again”, to them is offensive bible-babbling!
Irving Peake Johnson once wrote: “Righteousness as exemplified by Christ is not merely the absence of vice or the presence of virtue. It is a consuming passion for God which sends you forth in His name to establish His kingdom.”
Church attendance without recognizing your calling to establish His kingdom, bow to His rule daily, and practically to embrace Him in submission to His eternal purpose of reconciling a fallen world to Holy God, and seeing yourself brought in unto His divine intent in YOU LIVING THROUGH HIM A RIGHTEOUS LIFE, is a spiritual “sham” of Hell itself!
In 1 Corinthians 15:34 Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit wrote: “Awake to RIGHTEOUSNESS, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.” Have you overlooked Romans 5:17? “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.”
Paul also said in Romans 6:13, “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.” Why not “rest” yourself in Paul’s words in Romans 10:9-10? “…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.”
We DO have a mandate and ministry in honoring our Lord and Savior! 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 tells us, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though 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.” Glory!
“Self-Effort Righteousness or Sovereign-Implanted Righteousness”? In Philippians 3:8-10 Paul defines the surpassing value of knowing, receiving, living in and through the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords: “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…”
And we learn of Christ and His righteousness through the revelation of God’s Holy Word! 2 Timothy 3:14-17 tells us about a true man of God and the true Word of God: “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.”
Oh, hear me! Imputed, imparted, implanted righteousness is the work of God Almighty in and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! In Hebrews 11:6-7 the Word tells us , “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”
In closing this chapter, remember that “wedding” garment? In revelation 19:5-9 we read: 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, ‘Allelujah! 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.”
Are YOU arrayed in the “wedding garments”? A few words I wrote recently that seem to fit right in for the closing of this chapter:
“I walk through the forest trees and see God there; I climb the high mountains and see Him everywhere.
Even the bud of a flower is God’s high tower and the sands of the beach His forgiving reach.
Nations and peoples, governments and leaders, give a small look at God and His ‘breeders’
But a blood-bought life of one so broken Is the visible gaze into God’s gracious eternal token.
Born-again by the grace of God puts a “new man” on heavenly sod; Redeemed by the Lamb, forgiven of all sin, reminds all seekers what God intends.
Sons of faith, daughters of truth, are living examples of “the Holy Root”; redeemed by His sacrifice, indwelt by His Life, empowered by His Spirit, they witness of freedom from sin’s strife!
“Doing the Truth” children of faith live in His Light, clearly evidence of His transforming might; ‘flesh’ is of the devil, and loves the dark, but men of righteousness silence the devil’s bark!
Wedded to Christ in eternal union, men of faith are testimonies of God, firmly planted, standing erect, the soldiers of faith become God’s rod – God’s select!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OR ETERNAL LIFE”?
Considering the title of this chapter-teaching, “Eternal Punishment Or Eternal Life?”, it’s not an easy thing to do for some because one can be so involved in so many things or ‘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, at times, because I know: “My time of earthly departure is near.” As I write this, in just about seven-eight weeks, I’ll celebrate my 80th birthday, but knowing my “Papa Fisher” died at 78 years of age, and my father, James Emerson Fisher, died at 78 years of age , I’ve at least wondered at times, “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.” [These verses might be a serious study for many “end-times” folks!].
Ant the seasons are still with us, but there IS coming an hour or a time when God will arise from the throne, and declare: “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 marriages, in spiritual journeys? Have you known outstanding success but all of a sudden you experience defeat after defeat after defeat?
Consider your own “spiritual journey” of faith. Oh, I know there are some disciples of faith who move steadily along in their spiritual journey without even experiencing even 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 temporarily blinded to the presence of God’s Holy Spirit!
Has ‘affliction’ ever hit you physically, morally, emotionally, spiritually, mentally – and you pause, reflect, examine, question, hopefully even asking others for counsel and advice? Are you aware, having experienced it yourself, that there are times when up is down and down is up, out is in and in is out, when ‘normalcy’ becomes so abnormal, when all of a sudden your life, your situation, your walk, experiences a serious disarrangement and your “brightness of Holy Sonshine” begins to experience some dark clouds of ‘my straying’?
I personally can’t even fathom a day without one resolving for himself/herself “eternal punishment or eternal life”! ‘Life’ and its journey can be at times very uncertain! And because of it, 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, birth, or, yes, ‘resurrect’ “new hearts and new hopes and new futures”, and you pause and consider: “How could anyone miss, ignore, or try to refute 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 in and through the shed blood of the Lamb of God! But, beyond deathly empty religions, are the aching void and emptiness of, yes, a Godless life and one who is offended by anybody sharing “saving faith and God-given repentance”!
Even 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 and lives in desperate need of blood Redemption!
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 in parental nurturing both educationally and spiritually! 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 choose ‘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 ‘conformed to the image of Christ”!
In Matthew 10:33 Jesus spoke even so clearly: “But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father in heaven.” “ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OR ETERNAL LIFE?” Don’t take Romans 5:17-19 lightly! “For if by one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Christ Jesus. Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came, 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, acknowledging awareness of one’s own spiritual death and status of separation from Holy God, the consideration also 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 and those around you – you will stand before Holy God’s throne and give an answer, an account, of rejection or repentance!
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! Luke 13:22-30 says: And He 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 He that gate? John 10:9, Jesus speaking, says, “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 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 to God? 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 they are so much a part!
‘Attachment’ is a powerful persuader of devotion to godlessness, to the ‘flesh’, to, yes, the sinful, acceptable ways of their godless friends or ‘pretenders of faith’! “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 laden; 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 crushing them more and more to 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 they experienced the reality of ‘spiritual death.’ “You can sin and not die,” Satan said – 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 judgment does not slumber.”
Oh, but then in 2 Peter 2:12-15a and verses 18-20 Peter exposes the spiritual hypocrisy (“play-acting”) that is so deadly and deceptive! “But these, like natural 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 forsaken children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray…”
Verse 18-20 the tell us, “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!
But, “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 and are sadly influenced to devilish sins, vices, lusts, and choices that distress, disturb, demean, and destroy our vey souls!
Satan isn’t out to heal you but to harm you; he’s not interested in simply binding up your wounds but cutting and harming you deeper; he’s not out to encourage you toward a Godly faith but to deceive 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 about 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 moment, this given moment, between you and God only, I want you to seriously 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 became a hindrance and a stumbling-block because they were not willing to obey the Master! 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 often does take precedence over the “God’s Way declaration”, and “I do it my way ‘crowd’” turn their backs on Christ and His eternal truth!
In “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Memorial Library, Vol.12, pps.293-309], the great preacher of England listed a number of reasons why some walk away and lose their souls!
- They depart from Christ because they cannot bear His doctrine. 2. They depart from Christ for the sake of gain – money speaks loud. 3. They depart from Christ because they’re afraid of persecution. 4. They depart from Christ out of sheer levity. 5. They depart from Christ tempted by evil companions. 6. They depart from Christ for the sake of sensual enjoyments! 7. They depart from Christ because their life circumstances changed. 8. They depart from Christ because unsound doctrine led them to apostatize. 9. 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, relies upon, adheres to] should not perish but have ETERNAL LIFE.”
Paul laid it out for us in a clear, convincing, and convicting way when in Romans 6:23 he said, “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 us in Romans 6:22! “But now having been set from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end everlasting life.” [Dare I tell you that continual sin is a sure sign of a devil-dominated 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! “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 [“just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned!”]. 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 act the “free gift” came to all men, resulting in justification of life.” Glory! Again and again and again!!
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,” and, 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!
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 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,” freely granted upon the basis of your repentance toward God Himself and redemptive faith in Christ’s Calvary, shed blood in your place! Stop being so determined and become totally dependent in 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 shall also 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, and YOU NOW LIVE BY HIS MANIFESTED PRESENCE IN YOU AND FOR HIS PURPOSES, HONOR, AND GLORY!
Receive 1 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 again 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 be also glorified together.”
His death on the Cross, your death with Him on the Cross, and your 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, obedience, 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 have read this message, I don’t know who you are or where you are in your 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.” Does that still occur today? John12:28 speaks of Jesus saying to His Father, “Father, glorify Your name,” as He reflected upon the Cross to come, followed by a voice from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” Some heard the voice and thought it had ‘thundered’ – the same is true today: they hear, but to them it’s ‘thunder’, not the truth from the heart of God! In John 12:30, the Lord Jesus declared: “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 the “Voice” – and it will declare “Eternal Punishment or Eternal Life”. What is His voice saying to YOU right now?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“ABOUNDING MISERY AND CHAOS
OR ADVOCACY PEACE AND BLESSING?”
I really don’t know for sure the public’s response to the Scripture I’m about to share, but I sense in my inner man an awful rejection of the Scripture. It comes from John 3:36 when John said: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
I’d personally say that what we’ve just read is a frightening and future event that you’d think most people would like to avoid! “The wrath of God abides on him.”
In Jeremiah 45:5 our Lord spoke: “And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh,” says the Lord, “But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.” The last part of that verse reminds me of “I must decrease – He must increase.” But the first part is about those who have not believed, will not believe, and, as a result, the wrath of God abides on him.
“Abounding Misery and Chaos or Advocacy Peace and Blessing?” Jeremiah 32:38-40 speaks of those who enter an everlasting covenant with Holy God. It says:
“They shall be My people and I will be their God; then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.”
But I want you to know that much or most of what Jeremiah wrote, he did from behind prison bars! His devotion to Truth and its Author cost him dearly! At the very same time as he was writing from behind bars God was at work establishing the door to Advocacy Peace and Blessing! In fact, in Jeremiah 33:30, God spoke to Jeremiah and to us, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”
Jeremiah didn’t know and never would know if Almighty God had not opened his door to “Advocacy Peace and Blessing” – he would have, as most men, only known “Abounding Misery and Chains”! Godless, the majority of men know only “abounding misery and chaos”, while “the few”, broken by Holy God, discover “advocacy peace and blessing.” Show me a man of true peace and blessing, and I’ll show you a man who has been to the Cross of Christ!
It’s not a reason to rejoice at all, but in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 Paul wrote: “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the [exact, perfect] image of God, should shine on them.”
A ‘veiled gospel’ that has erupted in “abounding misery and chaos”, and having received a veil gospel’, the recipients don’t even know what they’ve been enveloped by; “death” is advancing in them more and more!
Do you understand someone speaking of “a soul so base as mine”? That’s a picture of one “abounding in misery and chaos” who know nothing about amazing grace and eternal peace through Christ alone! They know and understand the paralysis of sin and the pulverizing power of a dead conscience, basically powerless, in themselves, to even believe in Christ’s shed blood of the Atonement shed fully at Calvary’s Cross! Their own sin is allowed selfishly or by demonic blindness to overshadow divine grace and love, filling them only with fleshly despair. It’s as if the powers of darkness instill within unbelievers a deadly disease called ‘sin’ that breeds despondency, discouragement, doubt and fear, and cements their minds with lies that “God Himself can’t help you!”, and all of a sudden they seem to be emotionally and mentally paralyzed with hopelessness – and the devil shouts, “Yes, it’s done – I’ve won another soul for my devilish self!”
But if Jesus says, and He does, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest,” what He did over 2000 years ago at the Cross, He still does today! But people who are ‘heavy laden’ are actually anguished body, soul, and spirit, and add more ‘weights’ trying to overcome on their own with their burden of sin growing stronger with despair and discouragement intensifying.
Have you heard the defiant to ‘saving faith’? “If I try harder, I’ll find the peace I’m looking for.” “If I earn my place on an athletic team, I’ll quiet my demons.” “If I earn a lot of money, everything will be OK.” “If I make a name for myself, I’ll adjust the mental, moral, and spiritual problems.” “If I stay busy, busy, I won’t have time to worry, worry, doubt, doubt, or be afraid, afraid.” Above all, they want to ignore God’s knock at the door of their heart. They want to totally shut out any references to the Cross and Christ’s shed blood. They want to refute the necessity of repentance and faith because that speaks of accountability before Holy God!
Opposite of self-effort and fleshly intent to be an overcomer of sin and death in and through one’s self is Christ Jesus as He faced the judgment of unbelievers and the Cross praying to the Father in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” So true, because every willful sin represents the nails in our Lord’s body!
In fact, in Matthew 24:12, Jesus said, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” But ‘cold-hearted’ people need to know that the Holy Word of God tells us in Romans 5:20, “…But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,” Verse 21 then saying, “so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
And I believe our Lord is telling us that the person who is the furtherest throw away from God is His target with the arrow of grace, mercy, and love – and though they’ve abounded in misery and chaos, our God is ABLE through advocacy peace and blessing to birth new life, new hope, new purpose, with God glorifying Himself through a transformed sinner to a Heavenly saint!
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 speaks so clearly, hopefully, powerfully, assuringly about those who had abounded in misery and chaos, sinners separated, bound, hopeless, and unknowingly ‘separated from God’ – but they meet the Resurrected Christ and are ‘comforted’ by God! It says:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our 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 is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the suffering, so also you will be partakers of the consolation.”
Abounding misery or Advocacy Peace? Abounding chaos or Advocacy Blessing? Tribulation or consolation? Trouble or comfort? Hopeless or steadfast? Sufferings debilitating or Eternal Salvation Elevating? Bondage and chains or liberty and freedom? A sin-bound life of death and separation from God or ‘sainthood’ by the Life and oneness “in Christ”? A paralysis of sin and guilt or the eternal pleasure of forgiveness, freedom, and fullness through our bondage-breaker, the Lord Jesus?
And the amazing, life-changing Truth? Romans 8:28 declares, “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,” even suffering! Do YOU long for the Lord’s nearness to YOU? In Psalm 34”18 David said: “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite (or crushed) spirit.” David didn’t stop there but went on to say in verse 19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
Advocacy peace and blessing reigns supreme! Years ago Andrae Crouch wrote and sang the song entitled “Through It All.” It’s a spiritual classic! It says:
“I’ve had many tears and sorrows, I’ve had questions for tomorrow, there’s been times I didn’t know right from wrong. But in every situation, God gave me blessed consolation, that my trials come to only make me strong.
I’ve been to lots of places, I’ve seen a lot of faces, there’s been times I feel so all alone. But in my lonely hours, yes, those precious lonely hours, Jesus lets me know that I was His own.
I thank God for the mountains, and I thank Him for the valleys, I thank Him for the storms He brought me through. For if I’d never had a problem, I wouldn’t know God could solve them, I’d never know what faith in God could do.
Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God. Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.”
No doubt this is why David wrote in Psalm 32:7, “You are My hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance.” Do you believe, have you experienced the reality of the God who “gives songs in the night”?
Reading through Acts recently I came across Acts 16:25. “But at midnight Paul and Silas [imprisoned] were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
I’m telling you: Dark nights are OUR opportunities for “songs of light”! A night of sorrow may be your hallowed moment of Holy Presence like you’ve never known before! It may be in “the dark” when your enemies come to arouse and threaten you, but then Holy God steps in, in the Light of His Glorious Presence! It may be a dark night of fear and doubt but Holy Truth raises you above it! It may be a dark night of worrisome anxiety but Holy Peace stands up in Holy Promises! And the dark night becomes your “song of light”!
Out of “The Mourning Bride,” William Congreve wrote: “What do the damned endure, but to despair?” Despair or to delight, to sorrow or to celebrate, to be assaulted by the powers of darkness and the enemies of God or to be affirmed by our advocate of peace and blessing?
It was John Calvin, in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” who wrote: “God foreordained for His own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sins, to eternal damnation.” Are YOU the “called” or the “cursed”?
Can you believe it? Jesus dared to say, [Matthew 23:33], “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” And I love what Thomas Scott once wrote when he said: “No affliction nor temptation, no guilt nor power of sin, no wounded spirit nor terrified conscience, should induce us to despair of help and comfort from God.”
Why? How? Who? Because His Word says: “Whosoever will may come.” That tells me of God’s pardon and forgiveness, not His penalty and unforgiveness! What does Revelation 22:17 tell us? And the Spirit and the Bride say “Come”! And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”
Acts 2:21 tells us, And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Or, how could one resist the words of Jesus in John 11:25-26? “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” “Believe”? That means “trust in, rely upon, adhere to!!” Is that YOUR testimony of belief and trust? Do you really have a mind and heart of “trust” in God?
It was Horace Bushnell who said: “Trust God for great things; with your five loaves and two fishes, He will show you a wat to feed thousands.”
ABOUNDING MISERY AND CHAOS, OR ADVOCACY PEACE AND BLESSING? I’m sure you understand that a Christless life is a life of continual, addictive sin, but when we come to Christ as Lord and Savior we hear Him say, “Go and sin no more.”
But the beloved John tells us in 1 John 2:1, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And IF anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” John then said in Verse 6, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked,” and He never walked in sin but He went to the Cross to die for your sin and mine, that we, in faith, no longer have to live in bondage to our old sin natures!
And before Father-God we see Jesus, our advocate, representing us before Him because of our faith and trust in our Lord and Savior’s atoning work in our behalf as our ‘legal attorney’! I don’t know who wrote it, but the words are so encouraging: “We have listened to the preacher – Truth by him has now been shown; But we want a Greater Teacher, from the everlasting throne: APPLICATION is the work of God alone.”
In 1 Thessalonians 5:5-11 there are powerful statements of encouragement by Paul. He said: “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.”
Both the above Scripture and words by Spurgeon really challenge all true believers in their ministries! Spurgeon said: “As the spiritual guide of the flock of God along the intricate mazes of experience, it is the duty of the gospel minister to point out every turning of the road to heaven, to speak concerning its dangers or its privileges, and to warn any whom you suspect to be in a position peculiarly perilous. Now, there is a portion of the road which leads from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, which has in it, perhaps, more dangers than any other portion of the way. It does not abound with lions; there are no dragons in it; it has no dark woods, and no deep pitfalls; yet more seeming pilgrims have been destroyed in that portion of the road than anywhere else, and not even Doubting Castle, with all its hosts of bones, can show so many who have been slain there. It is part of the road called the Enchanted Ground. The great geographer, John Bunyan, well pictured it when he said: ‘I then saw in my dream that they went on till they came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy, if he came a stranger into it.
And here Hopeful began to be very dull, and heavy of sleep; wherefore he said unto Christian, I do now begin to grow so drowsy that I can scarcely hold up my eyes; let us lie down here, and take one nap.
‘Christian’: By no means, said the other, lest sleeping, we never awake more.
‘Hope’: Why, my brother? Sleep is sweet to the laboring man; we may be refreshed if we take a nap.
‘Christian’: Do you not remember that one of the shepherds bid us beware of the Enchanted Ground? He meant by that, that we should beware of sleeping: wherefore, ‘let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.”
And Spurgeon went on to speak “concerning the condition of the majority of churches in the present day.” He said, “they are lying down on the settles of LUKEWARMNESS, in the Arbors of the Enchanted Ground. There is not that activity and zeal we could wish to see among them; they are not, perhaps, notably heterodox; they may not be invaded by the lion of persecution, but they are somewhat worse than that, – they are lying down to slumber, like HEEDLESS and TOO-BOLD in the Arbor of Sloth. May God grant that His servants may be the means of arousing the church from its lethargy, and stirring it up from its slumbers, lest haply professors should sleep the sleep of death.”
What was the verse that inspired that? 1 Thessalonians 5:6, “Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober [self-controlled].” Advocacy peace and blessing does not breed abounding misery and chaos – but sin and self-abandonment to sin does just that! Sin and self-abandonment to sin breeds spiritual paralysis and satanic deception! Advocacy peace and blessing breeds true security, eternal peace, and Heavenly Hallelujahs! Amen?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“CONTENTED WITH SELF OR CONVERTED TO NEW LIFE?”
Have you ever heard the term or word called “self-aggrandisement”? Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines ‘aggrandisement’ as: “One exalting self in power, rank, or honor – exalting one’s self as greater – (should I dare insert ‘even greater than God Himself’?), or enlarged in one’s own opinion of self…”
It was Paul, in Romans 12:3, who said: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”
And, contextually, it’s clear that every birthed human being has a ‘measure of faith’, but that ‘measure’ can turn inward rather than upward, me rather than what God has willed, my becoming rather than a “new birth” reality!
No doubt this is why the author of Proverbs gave us the strong word in Proverbs 25:27! “It is not good to eat much honey; so to seek one’s own glory is not glory.” How clear is that revelation word?
‘Contented with self people’ are more than likely people who have no control over themselves, though they want you to think that they do! ‘Contented with self people’ want you to think they have control in ‘all things’, but, really, they have no control even over themselves! You’ll usually find that ‘self-contented people’ are usually those with ‘the city of their lives broken down without walls’, because they have no rule over their own spirits though they want to rule over you!
You do see that ‘self-pride’ people, content with who they are and what they do, never can come up with a truthful answer of what it is he/she is really proud of. And, of course, pride goes before a fall. Sheared Samson is a prime example of one who allows self-promotion to take precedence over God Himself being number One in one’s life.
Contented with self people are symbolized, yes, by many pastors who ‘tone down truth’ because they might lose financial support for the local church they pastor! Sadly, Samson was shorn, and so are many pastors because ‘contented with self’ they would compromise Divine Truth!
Can you even begin to imagine Jesus, confronted by the scribes and Pharisees, and those ‘religious freaks’ threaten Him with a ‘closed-door’ to the Temple if He doesn’t tone down His preaching to them? “Why, you brood of vipers and snakes”!! And Jesus didn’t back off!
Don’t ever forget Queen Esther!! She was wife to the strong ruler, Ahasuerus. Haman is determined to destroy her nation and he gets a decree to do just that! Here cam Mordecai! He confronts Esther that she must speak to the king. If she does, she knows she’ll possibly die! And Esther? “If I die, I die; but I must speak deliverance for my people, because who knows if I came to my ‘Queen’ position for such a time as this? “ Was the Queen guided by convenience or conviction? And what guides your life as a believer, a follower, a disciple, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ?
In 1 John 2:18-20 John tells us: “Little children, it is the last hour; [not long until 70 AD and the destruction of Jerusalem forever, replaced by the New Jerusalem!]; 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. [“None of them?” The Jewish leaders, elders, priests, and the deceived who followed them rather than the Resurrected Christ!]. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.”
Paul put it like this in 1 Corinthians 11:19, “For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized by you.” Have you ever faced the dilemma in your faith-walk of those who ‘shout’ convenience over commitment to need, or ‘greater blessing’ over the ‘laid-down life’ at the point of the truly greatest need?
Contented with self or converted to new life? Don’t you find it so amazing and, yes, so disturbing, as we read 2 Timothy 4:10 where Paul told Timothy, “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world”?
Do you remember Paul’s word to the church at Colossae? [Colossians 4:17]. “And say to Archippus, ‘Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” Every single disciple IS a minister while some are pastoral ministers, but all followers of Christ are commissioned as ambassadors, ushering in His kingdom-rule!
The Apostle Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:22-24, “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; NO DO I COUNT MY LIFE DEAR TO MYSELF, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I have received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
He understood who he was ‘in Christ’! In Galatians 1:1 he wrote: “Paul, an apostle (not from men,, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead.” He saw “converted to new life” – not devoted to religious activity! In Galatians 1:15-16 he wrote, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to REVEAL HIS SON IN ME…!!” And if you hadn’t seen it yet in your own pilgrimage, Galatians is God’s call to each of us in FAITH, FREEDOM, FULLNESS, FRUIT, and the FIGHT!
Do you remember the disciples coming to Jesus and saying to Him, (Matthew 18:1), “Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And Jesus answered in Verses 3-4, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted [“born again”] and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
But you choose “senior, adult, manly pride in self” while Jesus says the greatest is the one dependent as a little child? You choose “fleshly wit” over divine wisdom? You choose what your fallen flesh dictates (even “my fleshly best”) over the Holy Revelation of Divine Truth? You choose reason, your reasoning ‘genius’, over the Divine mind and will of God?
Contented with self or converted to new life? Oh, I tell you, Paul hit a ‘world series home run’ when in 2 Corinthians 10:5 he said: “Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, [thus] bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Contentment with self is blind allegiance to ‘fallen flesh’ alleging even higher, greater thoughts and deeds than God Himself in Christ!
And only when one brings a captive mind to Christ will the enslaving chains be broken and shattered. In fact, in 2 Corinthians 10:4, Paul said: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (fleshly) but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.”
A ‘contented self’ is a powerful stronghold in defiance of Holy God and the Servant Spirit of Christ because ‘contented selves’ are those who want to be served rather than to serve. But sometimes even immature new believers impulsively begin to act on their own, and spiritual problems occur! In “My Utmost For His Highest,” Oswald Chambers said: [p.186], “Then take ourselves – a vivid religious experience, and every project born of impulse put into action immediately, instead of being imprisoned and disciplined to obey Christ.”
“I’m saved from my sin, but I believe I’m smart enough to make decisions on my own and even fight my own battles!” Well, just how childish and immature and irrational is that when the Resurrected King of kings is available to be our rescuer?
This is why Chambers said on the same page: “We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christ’s view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognize the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his mind.” And, of course, yielding to the control of the Indwelling Christ and His gift of the awesome Holy Spirit!
Contented with self or converted to new life? And contented with self is the testimony of an unregenerated life of pretense while converted to new life is the eternal truth and testimony of “Christ in you the hope of glory.” It’s not in an unregenerate man to bring about in himself eternal salvation or even a life that honors Holy God. Even a regenerate man has no testimony in himself of a saving ability but he has fully repented, trusted in the finished work of Christ At The Cross, and experienced the “new birth” and infilling of the Holy Spirit! Doesn’t the Word of God tell us, “For it is God who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure?”
Contented with self? Oh, sadly, there is a world filled with people who don’t even know they are spiritually dead before Holy God, and His desire to give them His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope that is eternal through Christ Jesus! Do you remember Ezekial 37:3 where God asked Ezekial, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekial said, “O Lord God, You know,” as if to say in that given moment he wasn’t sure. But he did as God commanded him, and in Verse10 Ezekial tells us, “So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came upon them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.” Oh, there IS conversion to new life!
And for all those who’ve gone on through death to await God’s final rendering, in John 5:25-29, Jesus spoke: “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.”
Every individual will stand personally before Holy God to receive either his sentencing or his blessing.
That means that professors who know nothing of being possessed by Him will give an account of their empty faith or rebellious reasoning. Historical verifiers who stand before the Author of His-story but no testimony of re-birth will hear His verdict of aliens and strangers. Devoted legalists will hear the Savior say, “I never knew you – depart.”
Daniel 12:2-3 tells us, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.”
William Wordsworth, in “Intimations of Immortality”, wrote: “Not in utter nakedness, bit trailing clouds of glory do we come.”
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
That sounds like a person converted to new life, not one contented with self! Someone anonymously wrote “Out in the Fields” – and I pray as you read it that you stand before God’s fields of service and spiritually sense what Holy God would have you do from this day forward in His “fields of service and blessing”!
“The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday, Among the fields above the sea, among the winds at play…Among the hushing of the corn, where drowsy poppies nod, Where ill thoughts die and good are born – Out in the fields of God.”
Are you playing in your ‘sand-boxes’ of fleshliness or God’s fields of true harvest?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? MUTUALLY INDIFFERENT OR MERCIFULLY INVOLVED?”
When one reads 1 John 3:1, he/she stands in awe of God’s amazing love and grace! “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” And true believers are, yes, constantly in awe of the love and mercy of God!
But then, in Verse 2, John wrote, “Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” Mutually indifferent people who ignore the love of God through the Resurrected Savior and Lord are “common sense people” who’ve figured out their existence for themselves, telling themselves, deluding their own hearts and minds, “I don’t need a “born-again life – I’m steady and sure of myself,” which is a lie out of the Pit of Hell itself and the influences of the devil in his deception that “you can sin and not die”! But, “ALL HAVE SINNED AND FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD!” “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in and through Christ alone!”
How many ‘mutually indifferent’ folks have you crossed paths with who assure you, “I know my way, and I like what my way gives me,” without one ounce of understanding of being created by God for God’s purposes, not our own? Most ‘common sense’ folks mastered life’s plan for themselves with deaf ears and closed eyes to the “Highway of Holiness”, yes, without an ounce of guilt over sin or sadness over ignoring God’s eternal plan for their lives!
The ‘mutually indifferent’ to the heart of God and His desires for “HIS CREATIONS” are lives constructed on a faulty foundation that stresses ‘self-indulgence’ is the god they bow down to – they are devoted to the “sublime intimacy” of the idol of “me, my, mine”, and they don’t appreciate you telling them otherwise!
The measure of human merit is, for many, how they view ‘success’ in life or ‘failure’ in life without one ounce of any accountability to the God who made them, lost them, then paid for their sin debt through the shed blood of His Own Son! They are spiritually blind and deaf to the “godly sorrow that works repentance leading to salvation.”
In John 8, beginning in Verse 3 and reading through Verse 12, we have the victorious story of the woman caught in adultery and ready to be stoned by the scribes and Pharisees! “Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?”
This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.”
So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
When one reads about ‘the scribes and Pharisees’, you understand, this was the leading ‘religious figures of their day’, yet they were men who walked overshadowed by clouds and darkness, who knew nothing of “Light” shining in redeemed hearts and lives! Those who ‘walk in darkness’ are fleshly flippant and walk, some even religiously, in the familiarity of ‘fleshly indulgence’ in sin and a dominant sin-nature, because they don’t understand or comprehend that they are in bondage to the devil himself and know nothing about “delivered out of the hands of the wicked one”!
But, also, one of the disturbing realities of the human condition, men separated from Holy God because of their sin natures and deafened ears to His “calling”, is the personal paralysis of disillusionment and disbelief that only God Himself can make the eternal difference in the human heart and mind! Oswald Chambers said in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.154], “Our Lord’s confidence in God and in what His grace could do for any man was so perfect that He despaired of no one. If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone.” Oh, how true is that statement?!
But fallen humanity, alienated and separated from Holy God, seldom sees that as a ‘desperate state of affairs’ or a ‘dark cloud of despair and hopelessness’ – “I’ve got hope in my own abilities to overcome anything I face – and to mention despondency or spiritual destitution is to hear stupidity from the ‘religious’ crowd who doesn’t understand or comprehend human potential!” Yet how many have you known pumped up in ‘fleshly pride’ who suddenly face the reality of death, and wonder, “How stupid have I been? God made ME for a heavenly purpose, but I chose to live for my fleshly pleasures?” Sometimes rude awakenings alert one to his/her need of Holy God!
That attitude or frame of reference to human living without God may be why the Spirit inspired Paul, in Ephesians 5:13-14, “But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Does that mean that enlightenment to spiritual need is a vital step to reaching out of ourselves to the God who made us? Present or past desperation is usually the only firm and faithful step to eternal resolution of life’s greatest problem: sin and one’s separation from Holy God and His eternal purpose for that man’s life!
Earlier, in Ephesians 5:11-12, Paul wrote: “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.”
“Unfruitful works of darkness”? You are aware of how the choice of “mutually indifferent” to God darkens one’s heart and mind to the eternal purpose of glorifying God in the human life and walk, evading His “calls,” and ignoring, yes, His pleas: “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest,” satisfied in being his/her own personal dictator, regardless of the consequences!
Do you remember Jesus saying in John 11:40, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe [trust in, rely upon, adhere to] you would see the glory of God?’ But a “common-sense mentality” says: “What difference does that make for me? I’m independently strong, common-sense guided, fleshly determined, and on my “mount” I reign, and nothing or no one can take me down,” until they stand before Him at the Eternal Throne of Judgment! It’s so easy to “retire” into one’s own expectations of himself/herself, and shut the door in the face of Merciful God! Personal ‘gain’ breeds “silence” while God’s glory released in a man births “shouts” of “Glory-be-to God for His grace, mercy, and love”!
I remind you of Moses and Aaron going in to Pharoah of Egypt, challenging him by God’s order, “Let My people go!” But in Exodus 5:2 we read, Pharoah saying, “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,” signing his own death warrant! Pharoah’s strong assertion of “not knowing God”, and possessing no desire to know Him, always brings one to their ‘valley of indecision’ or even the ‘mountain-peak’ of total resistance and rebellion to Calvary’s love!
But beyond a Pharoah’s assertion of not knowing God, there is the reality of “professors of ‘a’ faith”, because most men will at least acknowledge God’s reality and existence, but rebel against their need of Him! So, in the absence and denial of the True Faith in the Blood Redemption of Christ, fallen men have always established ‘religions’ of some kind, but eventually there comes the day when Holy God reveals, and they realize, they’ve established and entered a ‘gorilla cage’! Have you ever witnessed, experienced, or become aware of ‘religious activity’ that indicates a ‘dry-as-dust’ walk that stirred Martin Luther King’s passionate heart?
That’s like Robert Andrews Millikan, I believe former professor at Yale, who once stated, “The service of the Christian religion and my own faith in essential Christianity would not be diminished in one iota if it should in some way be discovered that no such individual as Jesus existed.” [ University Press, From “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H. Revell com., Westwood, NJ,p371]. Apart from Jesus Christ there is no ‘Christian religion’, but certainly religious scams perpetrated by the devil himself and proud, self-centered ‘pious’ men, atheists, and demons in disguise!
Are you aware of the deadly disease of “human egotism” that produces “deadly fevers” of monumental proportions, diluting the brain, damaging the heart in deathly fashion, and blinding one’s spiritual vision, to the point they’ll war against the one “True Faith” and murder their supporters, because “Our religion is more deserving than your statement of redemptive and reconciliation to God by the blood of one called Jesus!”
So, their ‘religion’ comforts them, but they’re not reconciled to the one true Living God? Their ‘religion’ is sometimes at least considerate of the sick but void of true faith in the Great Physician? Oh, of course, if it pumps ‘faith’ in their compassionate, at times, service to the needy, at least they get pats on the back from their religious, political, and social engineers who are out to promote their “good image” to the public at large!
What does James 1:26-27 tell us? “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. 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.”
In James 2 the brother of Jesus shattered the “faith without works” precept as delusional, deceptive, deadly, and destructive, when he said in Verses 21-24, and Verse 26, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works (obedience!), and by works faith was perfected? And the Scriptures was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed [trusted in, relied upon, adhered to!] God, and it was accounted [credited to his account!] to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
Verse 26, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Wasn’t it St. Augustine who once said, “Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves”? And ‘disobedient’ “professors of faith” are folks as delusional as they come when it relates to the “mutually indifferent” or the “mercifully involved”, yes, THE true disciples of Christ Jesus! If the Lord Jesus still says, “By their fruits you shall know them,” is that still operative and functional today, or is “bad fruit” so prevalent in the church world today, who cares whether it’s “fleshly best” or “The Father’s fruit in us”?
The words you’ve read in this particular chapter may not have initially bode well with you, but, by the Conviction of the Holy Spirit, we know there is: “mercifully involved”! No doubt this is why James closed his writing with the following words in James 5:19-20! “Brethren, 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.” SO… let’s examine “the mercifully involved”!
“Mercy”? In “The Random House College Dictionary” of 1973, “mercy” is defined as “compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one’s power; compassion, pity, or benevolence.” And this is why “Mutually Indifferent Or Mercifully Involved?” becomes such a huge question in our modern day time period!
And, if true believers are, by His grace and mercy, “made partakers of the divine nature”, we’re not those who live ‘merciless lives’ but are in the forefront of laying down our lives, if necessary, to see the needy, body, soul, and spirit, blessed in and through His sovereign care and mercy THROUGH US! True believers are not to be examples of ‘impoverished people’ who know nothing of ‘true wealth’ and ‘true, divine identities’, but sons and daughters of the Holy Family of God who allow His Indwelling Presence and Compassionate Presence to “make all grace abound”, because stamped, sealed, and sent, we extend His Life, express His Love, and prove His Power!
In Ephesians 1:17-23 we read of the “merciful mandate”! Paul wrote: “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 placers, 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.”
It was William Shakespeare, in “The Merchant of Venice,” [Act 1V,sc.1,l.184], who wrote: “Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown…It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, it is an attribute of God Himself…”
Revelation 5:8-10 tells us of the “twenty-four elders who sang a new song”! They sang: “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.” Are YOU, “in Christ”, reigning on earth?
In 2 Corinthians 4:5-6 Paul was so very clear concerning the true foundation of the “merciful mandate”! He wrote: “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.”
But far too many ‘professing believers’ see themselves as ‘kings and priests’ with very little or no understanding of the ‘kingly reign of Christ’ and the ‘priestly role’ as He laid down His life as “the servant of men”, even demonstrating the humility of the True Lord and Savior as He knelt down to wash the feet of His disciples! It’s so interesting that as the Lord Jesus made His “triumphal entry” into the city of Jerusalem, fulfilling Isaiah 62:10-12, Matthew 21:4-5 tells us: All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
The true ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ? In John 13:13-17 our Lord laid out His intent as “Emmanuel” – “God with us” – with the visual example of the “foot-washing” call on His true servants and followers: “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.”
It’s so interesting as Paul spoke, in Romans 8:28, about knowing “that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” And you can hear some, even today, talking about their positioning around His Throne, with no desire to be servants, slaves, foot-washers, or “mop-pushers”, having to deal with King Jesus’ example and instruction about ‘servanthood’!
Do you remember the disturbance among the disciples, yes, a major dispute among young, spiritually immature disciple? It’s found in Luke 22:24-27! Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest. 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 Philippians 2:5-9 we read about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who humbled Himself before fallen mankind and was exalted by Father God! It says for our learning, maturing, understanding, and appropriating of His very Life and Spirit,
“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 s 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…”
One of the most dangerous tendencies among the ‘Christian communities’ is an attitude of ascendency, even over those Jesus cared about the most! Do you remember the mother of Zebedee’s sons coming to Jesus with her sons asking Jesus, “Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.” [At least she knew about “Your kingdom”!]. The ten other brothers heard it and were greatly displeased! Jesus called them to listen carefully to what He had to say. In Verses 25-28 Jesus declared to them and us the call to “true kingdom service’!
“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.” Glory! “Yes, Lord, that once again we might see “servants” birthed who are willing to lay their lives down in caring and serving and blessing others!”
Do you remember the “servant” sent by Isaac’s family to find a bride for him, meeting Rebekah, needing water to drink but no pitcher? Rebekah emptied her pitcher for him, his servants, and the camels! Genesis 24:26-28 tells us: Then the man bowed down his head and worshipped 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 to the house of my master’s brethren. So the young woman ran and told her mother’s household these things.”
I remind you over and over again that the scriptural, profound writings of Oswald Chambers have inspired me for years and years as he faithfully made practical and inspirational the Word of God. In “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.236), he said: “We have to be so one with God that we do not continually need to ask for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God, and the natural life of a child is obedience – until he wishes to be disobedient, then instantly there is the intuitive jar. In the spiritual domain the intuitive jar is the munition of the Spirit of God. When He gives the check, we have to stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind in order to make out what God’s will is. If we are born again of the Spirit of God, it is the abortion of piety to ask God to guide us here and there. “The Lord led me,” and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design, which, if we are born of God, we will credit to God.”
Are YOU “led by God”? Out of the old “Broadman Hymnal”, published by “The Broadman Press, [Nashville, Tenn.,Copyrighted in 1940, p.236], is a song by Ernest W. Shurtleff and Henry Smart entitled “Lead On, O King Eternal.” It says:
“Lead on, O King Eternal, The day of march has come; Henceforth in fields of conquest Your tents shall be our home. Through days of preparation Your grace has made us strong; And now, O King Eternal, We lift our battle song.
Lead on, O King Eternal, Till sin’s fierce war shall cease, And holiness shall whisper The sweet Amen of peace; For not with swords loud clashing, Nor roll of stirring drums; With deeds of love and mercy, Your heavenly kingdom comes.
Lead on, O King Eternal, We follow, not with fears; For gladness breaks like morning Wherever Your face appears; Your cross is lifted over us; We journey in its light: The crown awaits the conquest; Lead on, O God of might.”
“In the way,” are you yielded to our Lord’s sovereign, deliberate, and victorious conquest over sin, self, the devil, temptation, even wars of the world and the flesh and their strong leanings away from God rather than fully yielded TO GOD?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“RABID RESISTANCE TO GOD OR REDEMPTIVE RECONCILIATION?”
There are carnal, fleshly, sinful, unbelieving, even resentful people toward the Lord Jesus, who have no desire to hear about, examine, reflect upon, or turn to Him as their “Savior and Lord”! Some remain in, not only total opposition to the ‘mercy of God’, but are “rabid resistors” to anything Biblical, anything promoting, teaching, or preaching about “King Jesus, the Lamb of God”!
Smug indifference, self-interest ‘sleep’, self-morality “as I determine it” is one self-wedded to one’s independence, and especially from God and ‘spiritual’ people, self-centered individuality that has no room or reason for any ‘faith’ considerations, a selfish ‘shell’ with no need of God’s indwelling, has become much of modern man’s determinations about their present state, but without any consideration as to the Creator’s eternal purpose!
“Rabid resistance” to the will and Word of God heats up when one becomes aware of the call to total abandonment of ‘self’ in allegiance, submission, and obedience to the King of kings and Lord of lords. “No thank you; I’ll take care of myself in my own way,” and they shut the mind and heart’s door to the Eternal Savior and True Lord of Life!
There has emerged in my lifetime of eighty years an awareness of a ‘fetish’ indifference to the reality of one’s need of God in their lives and a fanatical opposition to the Gospel of Christ, many literally mindless of even who Christ Jesus is! It’s like Isaiah speaking in his day, Isaiah 40:30, “Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.” Yes, even Jeremiah said about his day, Jeremiah 3:13, ‘Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice,’ says the Lord.”
The beloved John, brother of Jesus, wrote in 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
Do you remember Jesus saying in John 8:36, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed”? Free from what? A prisoner of what? Bound as a captive by what? Enslaved to what? In John 8:34-35 Jesus opened the door of our understanding of true freedom when He described ‘spiritual slavery’! “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,” sharing the choice of slavery to the world, the flesh, and the devil, or servants as spiritual sons and daughters of God!
You do understand that birthed into this world, we were birthed as descendants of Adam and Eve, becoming sons and daughters of the ‘flesh’ inheritance, with Paul telling us in 1 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.” So, spiritual birth IS an absolute necessity, with Jesus telling us in John 3, “You must be born again!” He, in the next chapter, made mention of “mere men” – that’s the ‘natural man’ who does not receive the things of the Spirit of God – he’s incapable, and must experience a miraculous birth from the natural to the spiritual, from the ‘flesh’ to the Spirit-man, from the old creation to the new creation!
“Mere men ‘manhood’”, sadly, is ‘brainless’, ‘mindless’, even ‘heartless’ when it comes to spiritual realities and the true salvation that only comes through Christ Jesus – to them the “True Gospel” relates to “silly things” that only “silly” church members have a mind for. Fleshly unbelief is the incarnation of men who ‘think’ they can live without God! Fleshly unbelief is one guided, girded, and guarded by, yes, the love and satisfaction of what their sin natures produce in them, and they have no desire to live apart from it – unless THEY ARE CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT and “LIGHT DAWNS” before them, around them, and in them!
Most of the unbelieving world lives with “the reflex action of disgust” with true disciples of Christ because they are so “satisfied” with their sin natures that they have no desire to hear about being “freed” from their bondages!
Fault-filled, bound-in-the-flesh-bondage-to-sin, utterly impure in heart without God, fruitless as to the nature and character of God but plenteous in the fruit of the flesh or sinful nature: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish and self-centered ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, or “reflections, imitations of the devil himself”! What you’ve just read? The inheritance of every man, woman, youth, or child, birthed by the flesh, in need of “New Birth” by the Spirit through the shed blood of the Lamb of God!
What is the “foundation” of your ‘life-building? And if it is on any other foundation than Christ Jesus, you are presently crumbling, and the “full crash” is about to happen! If your “life-foundation” is anything other than Christ Jesus, then you are in a perilous condition! If there is reliance on anything other than God Almighty for true “life-blessing”, your faulty foundation already has the sign on it: “Building Condemned – Stay Clear”, imminent danger, it’s about to explode!
“Rabid resistance” to the things of Holy God? “It’s just my natural affinities! That’s what really guides me; why should I have to ask God what He would have me to do?” Yet, Paul said, in Philippians 3:19, “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.” Yet, the “resisters”, some without even knowing it, “are enemies of the cross of Christ”; why? “Their god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame – who set their minds on earthly things” with no desire to be transformed!
Do you understand “self-centeredness”? Have you witnessed “strong, self-assertiveness”? How would YOU describe that perilous pit of “self-indulgence” that governs far too many lives? Are you aware of how devoted most people are to ‘proper diets’ of their physical foods as they seek to maintain good body health, but when it comes to the spiritual nature of their lives they could careless what their bodies and minds digest!
And “rabid resistance” to the things of God breeds a spiritual disease called “stagnation” or no flowing to the true things of spiritual health and a life-giving, receiving- relationship with “Living Water” but stagnating, no ‘flow’ in the Spirit but becoming more ‘foul’ in the flesh, a regressing more and more into rebellion, disobedience, unbelief, ‘excuses’, and even a ‘pumping’ of the ‘flesh-man’ as superior to the “man in Christ”!
Some ‘rabid resistance” emerges or “blooms” because one has been mesmerized, deceived by, yes, poisoned by the sad spirit of self-indulgence, like addictive drugs or booze or immoral sexual rebellion, even deceived that their darkness is brighter than the Light, more pleasurable to the flesh than obedience to God in the Spirit, and more rewarding in temporal satisfaction than the call to please and honor and glorify God alone in one’s earthly pilgrimage. But if one is truly “in Christ”, even though trouble may be in one’s pilgrimage, our Savior grants “the peace that passes all understanding”; even though pain may be in the path, we “pray, and don’t faint”; we reach beyond our grasp to the grace of God; we sign on to our Savior’s Cross, understanding even death is “three days away from resurrection life”!
How often have you been reading the Word of God, and you read about Moses, in Numbers 10:35? That “whenever the ark set out, Moses would say: “Rise up, O Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You [or Your Presence!].” And God’s enemies are your enemies! To be “in Christ” is to become aware of “rabid resistance” to the King of kings and Lord of lords, and His people! There IS a vitriolic, caustic, embittered opposition to Christ, His Truth, His Mission, His salvation, His people, and His purpose of true blood Redemption!
But also be aware that “rabid resistance” comes, not only from those clear, distinct, vocal enemies of God sold out to their debauchery, disgraceful, fleshly indulgences, but also the reality of “smarter-than-God”, ‘elite’ intellectuals who deem themselves more brilliant than God; they frown upon the “faith community”, they “look down” upon true believers; they promote the ‘writers’ they believe make more sense to them than God’s Holy Word! There’s not one ‘sand-grain’ in their minds that would ever yield to our Lord’s Word about “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me” – their idol of individuality is the call to “our real worship and adoration – the bowing to the best of ‘me,my, mine’, because “who needs the Master?” It’ not that they possess an undisciplined spiritual nature – they are owners of only a flesh-nature given over to the lusts of the flesh, overwhelmed by the ways of the world, and deceived by the distractions of the devil himself from anything that would turn their attention to Holy God! Their ‘individuality’ counterfeits ‘worship’ of the one, true, living God! They say, “Why salt when I can be “hot pepper”? Why ‘Light’ when my darkness pumps my flesh? Why a man called Jesus when I’m accepted by those like me who ‘love’ the flesh and can play with the devil’s crowd?”
But the Holy Word tells us, Galatians 5:24, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” This is why Oswald Chambers wrote [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.256], “It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence and self-assertiveness, and this is where the battle has to be fought.” Who or what reigns in your heart and mind? Self-independence or truly Savior-dependence?
No “rabid resistance” for you? Good! But what about “rabid indifference”? That’s just as bad! What about ‘perpetual procrastination’? Do you not even consider the danger of postponing when ‘sudden, unexpected death’ can happen in a flash? No! It’s time to turn to “redemptive reconciliation”!
In Colossians 1:12-14 Paul told the Colossians’ believers AND US, “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.”
How often do you hear or read about ‘reconciled to God by the blood of the Lamb’? I’m afraid not often, because many major on ‘church membership’ apart from ‘blood redemption’, leaving, yes, many unredeemed and unborn because divine truth is omitted!
In 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 Paul wrote, “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.”
“Redemptive Reconciliation” is far more than ‘awareness’ about Christ Jesus – it is the divine reality, following repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross, that the human life is exchanged for the Resurrection Presence of Christ within you as His holy temple, His earthly tabernacle, His abiding presence!
In Ephesians 2:4-7 Paul wrote, “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.”
It’s so interesting to grasp what Christ Jesus was speaking about when in Luke 16:9 Jesus said, “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” Are you aware of how many people live on “best effort”, a “friend’s influence”, a philosophy of ‘here and now’ with no consideration of one’s eternal ‘home’ that becomes Hell? Christ Jesus is “the door of eternal blessing”; ‘flesh’ is “the door of the curse”; Christ Jesus is “the door of glory”; ‘unbelief’ is the door of spiritual fools; Christ Jesus is “the door of divine fulfillment”; rebellion to Him is to be the recipient of the devil’s award of spiritual stupidity!
Redemptive pretentiousness is not the “Redeemer’s playtime” with people’s lives but “blood redemption” is the divine reality of transformation from the sinner’s bondage to the “saints in Christ blessing”, who live in divine liberty and freedom through the indwelling presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords, his/her life having become the “temple” of His abiding presence!
Didn’t Paul tell us wisely in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 the following Truth? “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 are not your own any longer? You were bought at a price? The price was the shed blood of the Lamb of God to free me from the pain, penalty, and prison of guilt in sin? I then will no longer be my own?” And some reject “divine ownership” and settle for self, the world, and the demonic, devilish bondage that binds them to their ‘chains’ but they think they are free as birds!
In 1 John 1:5-7 we read, “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. BUT if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Are you aware of “the many” who would suggest that being one with God is by “attaining,” by, yes, even fleshly resolution and determination to do ‘better’? They ‘pay the price’ in their self-effort, their ‘anguish of spirit’, their determined effort for peace with God through themselves, with no understanding of the Cross?
But the Apostle Paul graciously gives glory to God, understanding “dead men” in themselves are bankrupt when it comes to resolving their alienation and separation from God, pointing to Christ alone, not legalistic performances by fallen men WHO CANNOT GET UP ON THEIR OWN! In Colossians 2:13-15 he wrote: “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.”
If we are “saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,” then where does self-determination come in rather than self-abandonment to the mercy, love, and grace of God? ‘Flesh-determined’? James 1:14-15 is clear: “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.” But, praise God, James didn’t stop there, leaving fallen mankind hopeless – In James 1:18 he tells us: “Of His [God’s] own will He brought us forth [into “new life”] by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” This is why James later told of fulfilled Scripture in the life of Abraham in James 2:23, And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
“Redemptive Reconciliation” is through “Blood Atonement” and that alone! That’s God’s grace, mercy, and love in full and everlasting terms! It was Charles Wesley who wrote in his writing “Free Grace” who said: “He [Jesus] left His Father’s throne above, (So free, so infinite His grace!), Emptied Himself of all but love And bled for Adam’s helpless race.”
William Cowper and Lowell Mason wrote the old Hymn, “There Is A Fountain”. “There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.
The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day; And there may I, though vile as he, Wash all my sins away.
Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till all the ransomed Church of God Be saved, to sin no more.
Ever since by faith I saw the stream Your flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die.
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave, Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Your power to save!”
Though nailed to the Cross, both feet and hands, and a crown of thorns thrust on His brow, though pierced in the side by a soldier’s spear, and immediately blood and water came gushing out, Jesus cried as He died, “It is finished!”, and from the throne of His cross they buried Him in the Tomb, for three days of rest before He arose to give them the composition of the Great Commission and to sing from His heart His eternal intention: “Receive the Spirit’s power and carry out your mission; witnesses of Me in your generation, and witnesses of Me in all times of eternal restoration, extending the call, before Me to fall, understanding My mission to see men saved from their perverse generation, redeemed by My blood for the forever regeneration, continuing steadfastly in the Spirit’s anointing and overseeing, guiding our walks to our Lord’s honor and praise, seeing others “new born” to His glory and favor, blessed in His promises in our assigned endeavors, captured and kept by His calling, inspired in His love and inflamed by His Spirit we faithfully walk seeing Him bless every jot and tittle!
“Redemptive Reconciliation”? The Holy Word doesn’t author spiritual hallucinations, but visible “holy births”! Faith in His shed blood is faith in the “new covenant” which is His shed blood for many “for the remission of Sins.” Faith in the blood covenant is the “Gospel Truth” that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” The redemptive reconciliation is so evident: the old man is gone, and in true faith the “new man” is created, birthed, blessed “in true righteousness and holiness.”
The “blood redeemed” are indwelt by “Christ in them the hope of glory,” the “eternal Light of Holy Presence has been ‘turned on’, never to dim but intensify in its brightness”, the fruit of the Holy Spirit becomes so evident in His flood of holy goodness, the divine righteousness, and eternal Truth that becomes more and more evident as faithful, born-again servants yield to His control! And, yes, as the “blood redeemed” receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, their sons and daughters of the true faith see the Holy Spirit poured out on them as eternal fresh springs, and, as a result those sons and daughters also rise up to prophesy, they see visions and they dream eternal dreams – apart from that, they’re just “pew sitters”!
“Redemptive Reconciliation”? It’s ‘knowing Him, loving Him, serving Him’ with the word of our Lord inspiring us when He said, “Go, and do likewise”! Remember, 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.”
I know that many ‘profess’ to follow, but He says “few find the true way”! Our Lord 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.”
The “door” of blood redemption is, always has been, and is, even now, in your brief lifespan and mine, “Yes” to Him in all He asks us to do – and it relates to victorious living in Him by the daily sentence of death to ourselves and the willing surrender to His presence in us that He wants to express through us! Sovereign grace mercifully exposes our inabilities and unveils ALL Christ is willing to do Himself through us! “Let go, let God, let the Resurrected Christ be Himself in you”!
It’s a paraphrase of what Philip Schaff once wrote or said: “Without Christ life (in the flesh) is as the twilight with dark night ahead;”(but I write,JFF), “in Christ, it’s eternal presence like a continual ‘Sonrise’, with eternal light and life motivating us as we yield to His dawning of morning lights and the Radiant Presence of the Indwelling Christ feeling more and more at home in us as our days move forward under His guidance!”
What did Paul write in Romans 6:6-13? And these words follow Paul’s declaration in Verse 5, “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.” Is that your clear understanding, appropriation, and settled resolve? “Yes, I was deserving and needy of my Lord taking Me to the Cross to die with Him!” “Knowing this: Verses 6-13, 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.”
“Redemptive Reconciliation”? United with Christ in His death, my old man of sin crucified with Christ, washed in His blood is my victory over sin and death, no longer slaves of sin and the old sin nature but servants of our Master and partakers of His divine nature, living in resurrection life, freedom, and the power of His indwelling presence; daily we take the sentence of death to our flesh that Christ might reign supreme through the Spirit’s indwelling, and we daily present ourselves to God and our walks, words, and witness as instruments of righteousness to God!
And, friends, it has nothing to do with any religious “bents” we may have felt in our lives, or our determined “self-efforts” or the “best flesh can produce”; the “blood atonement” and our trust in who He is and what He did, and now our full surrender to His Lordship, is the only ‘door’ to ministry and service that glorifies God: “Christ in us, Christ through us, to the glory of God”!
When Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:2 that “those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints,” sanctified and sainthood are basically identical: men and women, yes, boys and girls, called by God are “set apart” in honor, glory, and praise to Him in us and through us as we choose death to ourselves, life in Christ, anointed in the fullness and blessing of the Holy Spirit!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“VITAL AWARENESS UNVEILED? BOUND IN SIN OR BLESSED IN
TRUSTING THE SAVIOR AND LORD?”
The Lord Jesus had returned to Nazareth where He had been raised, and “as was His custom,” He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath, opened the Scriptures and read a prophetic passage from Isaiah about the coming of Messiah. That’s Luke 4:17-19. It speaks of being anointed by the Spirit, appointed to preach “the Gospel” to the poor; sent to heal the brokenhearted, TO PROCLAIM LIBERTY TO THE CAPTIVES..,” with more following, like: “Setting at liberty those who are oppressed.”
It didn’t take long in His public ministry until in Luke 4:31-33 we read about the Lord Jesus going down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, teaching on the Sabbath, when Verse 33 tells us, “Now in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon.” Jesus rebuked the demon and commanded it: “Be quiet, and come out of him!” AND IT DID COME OUT!
Luke 4:36 says, Then they were all amazed and spoke among themselves, saying, “What a word this is! For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.”
Bound by demons is not a spiritual state one should ever desire or long for, but many unbelievers and deceived pretenders are primary targets of the powers of darkness! Still as critical, destructive, and enslaving are individuals living in denial of the need of “saving grace and mercy”, bound by their own strong, self-centered trust in themselves!
Do you ever sense that “men are so full of themselves,” that they can’t help but put false values on themselves and willingly “crucify Christ” again and again and again? How many men do you know that are ever ‘disappointed’ in themselves? Most men ‘pump’ flesh and deny the Spirit of God! As one ‘grows’ up in himself, he lessens his need of ‘saving grace and mercy’, embraces more and more ‘self-love’, rejecting the love of God in and through Calvary’s Cross, building ‘altars’ on which they offer their sacrifices in ‘self-worship’, with never a turning from self to the Savior and Lord, satisfied with “my own universe” where he/she willingly tears God off His throne [they think!] to establish their own rule, their own constitution, their own ‘playground in sin and death’, really believing, “I’m living the life to its fullest!”
Sir Walter Scott’s words in “The Lay of the Last Minstrel”, (VI), says profoundly: “The wretch concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.”
Are you aware of the dreaded disease I would call as “spiritual impertinence”? That’s radical stupidity against Holy God’s declaration that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”! That’s insolence against Innocent Jesus who took our sinfulness upon Himself and shed His blood for our forgiveness and restoration to Holy God’s eternal intent for men “in Him.” It’s ‘unmanly’ as one refuses to relate to the Father’s eternal purpose; it’s ‘insolence’ masquerading as “my right”; it’s absurd reasoning when one, so self-centered, has no understanding of the purpose or desire of His Creator; it’s the false premise or the “mask-wearing” of “I’m as good as God without His help!”
It was James Milner who once wrote: “While a man rests on his own merits for acceptance with God, it is little consequence whether he be a pagan idolater, or a proud, ignorant Pharisee. – I know not which of the two is most distant from the kingdom of God.” While a man holds a high opinion about himself without God, be assured, he’s already experienced “the fall” away from Him! These are men who are convinced they can change the world, yes, without Him, though they are men operating in total darkness, deadly deception, and demonic influences!
I’ve never known a single man who feels himself “blessed” who lives only for the satisfactions of himself. A life apart from God is a life full of ‘self-worship, self-praise, and self-adulation’, a life committed to ‘self-preservation’ without any consideration of ‘preserved for Who and Why’, a life that one writer called living “on the banana peel of self-interest”!
Do you sense how serious the situation is when the ‘world’ around you senses for itself “no need of God, we can handle things on our own”? But then, William Congreve, in his “The Mourning Bride,” [Act 111,sc.1], wrote: “What do the damned endure, but to despair?” And that’s a problem for many because “in the democracy of the dead”, with only mortal vision, they never have seen “The Upper Room” of Holy Presence in the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords – they’ve never sat down before Him as He “breaks the bread” and “drinks the wine”!
Death to an unbeliever is the devil’s ‘celebration’ because he leads another ‘bound slave’ to his table of celebration with the demons and the saddened, mournful unbelievers in their chains of bondage with their ‘dearth’ songs of desperation, sadness, loneliness, mournfulness, and ridicule! They’ve learned quickly “death’s sting” and the grave’s “constant bitterness” and see the devil’s smile as they “weep” over their indifference to the Truth of Holy God!
“Bound in sin”? Does ‘foul shame’ penetrate your mind and heart? Does “deadly disease” stir spiritual ‘dis-ease’ in you? What will be YOUR ‘tale of death’ as you stand before Holy God to give an account? A ‘sin-nature’s debt’ is enormous for a man, a husband, a father, a friend, because he/she learns accounting day has come, as he has died, and now, “the books are opened”! And God explains why you were so brazenly indifferent to Him!
The “bound in sin” are oblivious to the need of the Redeemer and one true Lord, many unaware of the blessed reality of His Redemption Sacrifice, and through His Presence the creative life of divine power and privilege as sons and daughters of the Most High God, and enlightened by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:5-9, that true sons and daughters of redemptive faith “were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation [or unveiling] of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
I find it so interesting and enlightening that also, in Romans 15:29, Paul informed the church at Rome, and us, “But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.” “Fullness? The blessing? The fullness of the blessing? The blessing of the gospel? The blessing of the gospel [“good news”] of Christ?” Is the testimony of Paul your testimony of “blood redemption”, or have you, as an unbeliever, defined your reasoning of disobedience and rebellion, or defined the surface goals and aims of sinful living, or settled in to the end result of a Christ-less life?
The writer of Hebrews, in Hebrews 10:26-27, and 29-31, wrote: “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. Verses 29-31, 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.”
Oswald Chambers made an applicable statement relating to God’s judgment. [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.206]. “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 Christ 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.” (the critical moment), “that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.”
Men loved darkness rather than light; men loved fleshly pleasure more than the divine will of pleasing God; men were blinded to the reality that their sin brought death; men were pleased with moral degradation rather than the Master’s deliverance; men slander the Master rather than allowing the Master to save them from sin and death; men are mesmerized, fascinated, ‘spellbound’ by the depths of depravity they can fall into with many uncaring about any deliverance or healing; men, in a majority, fail to grasp the danger of the devil’s stronghold or his deceptive control over their mind-set and heart understanding – in fact spiritual blindness is the powerful tool of Satanic activity!
Fallen men, bound by satanic forces, mostly are unaware they are citizens of the kingdom of darkness controlled by the devil! They’ll even blindly say, “My earthly kingdom of ‘me, my, and mine’ may dwell in eternal darkness, but I find nothing but fleshly bliss – I’m not interested in a ‘dove-eyed’ Master who says He’ll bring me into the “Light” and give me eyes to see what really counts. I’m satisfied with ‘self’ and have no desire for One to rule over my passions, they’re pleasurable!”
It’s amazing to me that much of fallen mankind, alienated and separated from Holy God, is like an animal instinct of survival but for men the sinner’s bent in defending their ‘right’ to live in spiritual death, when the highest message of Holy God is ‘death on the Cross with Christ in order to be birthed into the reality of the eternal death to self-importance and resurrected with Him in the fullness of Holy Presence, Holy Purpose and Holy Power, which is why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:10-12, “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 may be manifested in mortal flesh. So then death is working in us…”. And that’s ‘daily death to self’ that Christ’s presence is manifested in us and through us to God’s Glory!
Which leads us to “A Life of Blessing in Trusting Our Lord and Savior”! Do you remember and reflect often upon 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.”
Do you remember what Jesus said in John 2:23-25? Now when He 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.”
Oh, and the very next chapter, John 3:3, Jesus declared Eternal Truth, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
But if true conversion is a heart matter, and it is, some have no desire for that necessity because they are still gripped by the love of the world, the unclean desires of their own hearts, and they don’t want to surrender to the control of Another, even Christ, His Spirit, and His Word!
True conversion is total surrender to His saving grace and mercy and His power to raise men up in His Resurrected Life! You’ll remember that Jesus said, in both the Old and New testaments, and especially for us in this chapter, Hebrews 10:7 declaring about Christ: Then I said, “Behold, I have come – in the volume of the book it is written of Me – to do Your will, O God.”
Be reminded! John 3:16-17 tells us: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
Trust! Not trying! Trust! Not even despairing about yourself! Trust! Not choosing the endless sense that you’re able! Trust! Not relying upon what Robert Browning described as “dumb-founder doubt” in one’s self – because in one’s ‘self’ there is no true foundation, there is no ‘solid rock’ of resistance to life’s storms, there is no ‘self-ascendency’ into the atmosphere of divine, blessed, abiding life! Trust! Not choosing “the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is called knowledge” by wayward men and women, “straying from the true faith.”
Psalm 4:1-5 is a profound and powerful declaration about the true “chosen vessels” of Holy God. King David wrote these words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. [And God responds!],
‘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. 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.”
We’ve already seen that the Lord Jesus did not commit Himself to some ‘believers’ because He knew what was in ‘pretenders’! In Hebrews 10:5-7 the author tells us, Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come – in the volume of the book it is written of Me – To do your will, O God.”
Oh, but His Truth doesn’t stop there! In Verses 9-10 the Holy Word declares, “Behold, I (the Lord Jesus!) have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first (sacrifices and burnt offerings for sin) that He may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified [“set apart”] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all,” followed by Verse 14, “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”
Do you see that Jesus declared, “I have come to do Your will, O God,” and true disciples are those yielded daily to His indwelling presence and His expression of daily obedience to the Father’s will! The ‘best of the flesh’ is death as it has always been! But yieldedness to Christ is “true trust” that honors God the Father! Is your trust truly in His marvelous Name and finished work, or are you still ‘trying’ rather than “trusting”?
In Matthew 11:25 Jesus declared, “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.” That’s “new-born babes in Christ”, not the earthly-wise, the philosophically mature, or the best-efforts of human flesh! In Christ we don’t ‘try’, we trust; in Christ we don’t ‘strive’ in flesh, we yield to His Indwelling Presence; we don’t think ‘good thoughts’, we “Trust” His eternal Truth!
Paul said in Romans 16:25-27, “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith – to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.”
I was reading in the doctor’s office recently From Charles Stanley’s “In Touch” daily readings for April, 2016, about “The God Who Saves.” Dr. Stanley wrote: “Recently I was talking with a man about his spiritual life. When I asked, “Are you saved?’ he answered, “No, but I’m working at it.” When I pressed him, he explained that he was making some changes in his life. He had given up smoking and drinking, among other things. I knew I should help him understand a few important principles, as he was making some incorrect assumptions.
Dr. Stanley went on, This gentleman needed to realize that what we do or what we give up for Jesus doesn’t amount to much. The Lord isn’t looking for people who change a few habits by sheer force of will; He’s calling for people to surrender themselves to Him. The only action God expects of a seeker is to believe in Jesus [which means trust in, rely upon, adhere to!] – that He is who He says, He will do what He says, He has the authority to forgive, and He will equip His people to live a godly life. Because of those convictions, a new Christian is empowered to turn away from his old life – in other words, to repent – and begin the process of becoming “a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17).”
It’s so true: WE DON’T WORK AT ATTEMPTING TO BE LIKE CHRIST! That’s “imitation theology” when true salvation is the crucifixion with Christ of the Old man and raised by Him in Resurrection Life! Our Lord and Savior doesn’t ‘patch up our natural virtues’ – He crucified them when He died At Calvary!
What did Paul tell us in Ephesians 4:20-24? “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.”
Paul had just prayed for the Ephesian Christians and us, saying in Ephesians 3:16-19, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might THROUGH HIS SPIRIT in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
A ‘decision’ about Christ is never an entrance into Christ, but religious sentiments only that are not a part of His “Redemption Story”! He’s “King of kings and Lord of lords” – and the entrance into His Kingdom is by repentance toward God and True faith in His finished work through His Cross and His Resurrection! Does “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” describe you, trained by His disciplines, chastened for a few days, “that we may be partakers of His holiness”?[Hebrews 12:11].
“Blessed In Trusting The Savior And Lord”? Do you understand or grasp that the pilgrimage of true faith has spiritual disciplines, encounters, battles, war zones, and the true disciple, though disciplined, and even rebuked by the Lord or chastened, knows the Lord loves Him, and discipline by the Father is necessary? This is why in Hebrews 12:7-9 the author was inspired to write, “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 [true believers} 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?”
In Christ we are not maimed any longer, but “Mastered” by His presence within us! In Christ we are no longer spiritually bankrupt men and women, but enriched through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace! In Christ we are no longer determined as “sinners” but “saints” set apart by God Himself in honoring His Son through us! We’re no longer a part of the “old humanity” living in and through their fallen sin natures, but the “new creations” living in the power of His “new birthing” and the power of His Holy Spirit!
I don’t believe I have to tell you that true discipleship is the toughest battle an earthly man redeemed by the blood of the Lamb has ever faced! Your enemy, the world, the flesh, and the devil, is out to hold on to you at any cost! If the Lord Jesus Christ is bringing you into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, do you believe that’s a clear, smooth surface walk-way or is there a cross before you? Remember, Jesus said, “Take up YOUR cross, and follow Me.”
I think it was Oswald Chambers who once spoke about people who want Jesus as a ‘poetical genius’ but flinch when He requires ‘a sternly surgical path’!
Isaac Watts and Thomas A. Arne, in the old “Broadman Hymnal” of 1940, published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, wrote the 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 to 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.”
“Vital Awareness Unveiled”? “Bound in sin or Blessed in Trusting Christ As Savior and Lord”? If you’ve come with me this far, I’m sure YOU KNOW! Are YOU ‘the slave of Christ” who has learned ‘obedience leading to righteousness’? And, no longer does ‘sin’ and the ‘old sin nature’ have dominion over you, but YOU are yielded to His Lordship and God’s Sovereign rule over your life, expressed in His love, grace, and mercy!
And your spiritual eyes have been eternally opened to see His amazing grace bountifully supplied to you in His faithfulness and fulfilling of every promise! Sin no longer holds dominion over you, but YOU are ruled, guided, blessed, uplifted into His Eternal Kingdom, yes, even now, not someday out there in the “sweet by and by”! No longer the slave of sin, by His love you’ve become a servant of His righteousness! “Vital Awareness Unveiled” is a poem or writing I penned on May 10, 2016! It says:
“Unbelief is the road to superstition with the devil’s intent of God’s elimination. To him, truth is a lie, as souls to him easily deny the one True God and Savior of men, to be deceived by his deceptive spin.“You won’t die” was his voice to Eve, as he came to easily deceive, to turn her from God to the fleshly sod.
‘Wise men’ are the devil’s ‘dumbed-down’, eventually changing their smiles into frowns; ‘pleasure-seekers’ are his main targets, to “pleasing God,” not even a nod!
“Sin is God’s term,” he so easily spouts, blinding men to what God’s all about. Separation from Truth is his main occupation: “Quit listening to those who speak about “God’s Restoration”!
He wants you bound, spiritually unsound, indulging the ‘flesh’ to your own satisfaction. To him, God’s intent has no relevance to a devil’s program of personal devastation.
“Me, my, mine” are his themes of personal praise, with no desire for heavenly anthems raised – “deny yourself? What a ridiculous request! Give me your will as your most beloved bequest!”
But the Savior of men, Christ Jesus is His name, needs no “Hall of Fame”, because across our vast worlds is His Signature stamped, and especially in the lives of men who with Christ have camped.
Forgiveness of sin is His divine appointment and renewal of true faith in the Savior of anointments – “Free at last” is their holy cry as upon the Savior they faithfully rely.
“Set apart” to His glory, transforming men in His everlasting story, with repentant men becoming witnesses of Him, extending His Kingdom, yes, with redemptive hymns.
Spending their lives in His glorification, daily desiring His continuous exaltation, true men of faith will honor the Son, as day by day, person by person, they share His story of divine restoration.
There comes a time when one examines his life, and begins to evaluate: “Have I ended some strife, as I pointed others to the Savior of their life?” “Have I shown them the door to the fruit of His Spirit,” fully desiring His holy blessing as I showed them “the door” to His precious resting?
“Come unto Me” is still His call, as repentant men faithfully fall, resting in His “finished work”, they rise to duty and calling that they’ll never shirk!
But, if you’re not prepared for the day of your death, what will your florist have to post on your door? Dead flowers for a life poorly lived, or a welcoming wreath to God’s Holy Presence, because you at least boasted in His finished work and YOUR Restoration.
Birthed to “new life” – and in Him you never die, because of His love, you eternally rely – from the door of death to His throne on high, you give evidence: “On Him, I’ll never deny, but constantly hear His faithful reply: ‘Your walk of faith has finished its course – Welcome Home, son, to your merciful reward.’”
J. Farrell Fisher, May 10, 2016
CONCLUSION:
“Vital Awareness Unveiled”! As I close out the second book of this theme, I’m awed by our Lord’s graciousness and kindness in allowing me the blessed privilege of writing both this book and the first book on the same theme!
You do understand that divine privilege is before every human born, past, present, or future, and it is up to each individual to respond to deny God’s calling on their lives. He “proved His love for us” by the sacrificial death of His Son on Calvary, and then sent His Holy Spirit to “knock” on every life’s heart and mind! You either respond in repentance and faith or you deny Christ His rightful place as Lord and Savior of your life!
It can be in a man’s mind and heart to please God, accept Christ’s “finished work” at the Cross, or close the door of your heart to Him. The Savior doesn’t ‘force’ His way in! But if a man/woman, boy or girl, does open that door of true repentance and faith to the Savior and Lord, “New Life” begins, and one grows from spiritual babyhood to mature, adult men and women of the faith!
But if a man/woman, boy/girl doesn’t have it in their mind, heart, will to surrender, but they rebel in unbelief, denial of the Gospel, a yielded life to the flesh and their old sin natures, HELL AWAITS!
There is the “door of redemption” or the “door of self-reliance”; the “door of reconciliation” with God Himself or the “door of the devil’s ‘entertainment” (?); the “door of adoption in our Lord’s eternal family” or the “door of demonic bondage”; the “door of the blessing of the fruits of righteousness” or the “door of devilish rottenness”; the “door of restoration of God’s eternal intent” or the “door of eternal distress, darkness, constant discontent, or constant discord and disease.”
I pray with all my heart that YOU have repented, received forgiveness, renewed in God’s eternal purpose for your life, and that you have and will continue in the “Vital Awareness Unveiled” that daily can and will guide your life as daily you take the sentence of death to yourself that His resurrection life may be manifested !