The LORD *really* caused me to put up or shut up yesterday.
In fellowship with a dear brother and sister in Christ on Sunday, I told them of how I was beginning to feel less harsh toward people who don't seem to "get it"... less prone to want to remove their heads for their rebellion... because I was being permitted to see, through His Word, that no one can even come to Him for sight, or for Life, unless the Father draws him to Him in the first place (John 6:44). What is more, I, not so very long ago at all, was in the same state of spiritual death; a heart of stone waiting for the LORD our God to make it flesh and begin the work of transformation and conformity into that of His Son.
In other words, having seen how far the LORD has brought me, I thought I was getting someplace.
Then came Halloween.
I had prepared my daughters weeks in advance for what would be a drastic difference for them; we would not participate in any form or fashion of it. I explained to them clearly *why* we would be separate from it; "The LORD doesn't want His children to even *imitate* what is evil, girls, and anyone who belongs to Him must obey Him, no matter how difficult it is or how we might feel about it. We belong to Him. That is all there is to it."
They had taken it with good grace, thanks be to God. My 5 year old was about to cry before I held her and reminded her of how important it is to *her* to do what is right above what is not. There were a few frowns on the face of my 7 year old as they came home from school to tell of what their classmates were discussing about costumes and candy. But I had activities planned for them to keep their minds from what their friends were doing, and thanked the LORD that we were given grace to honor His Word.
Then I picked them up yesterday after work, and my oldest daughter was barely holding back tears.
Her 2nd grade teacher, whom before this moment I had a measure of respect for, decided, for no reason I can possibly fathom, to say to them that morning, "OK, class. Show of hands; how many of you will be celebrating Halloween today?" All of the children raised their hands. All, that is, except the one with my last name. Questions of shock and surprise came from her friends as they turned on her, with obtuse questions from friends, to withering jeers from those with cruelty in their hearts.
It lasted, in varying forms, throughout the entire day. Even when I picked my daughter up, one of the most notoriously ill-behaved of the bunch that I knew from infancy plastered a smug look on her face and said, "Aah. My grandma is here to take me trick-or-treating now..." I saw the words sink home, and watched my daughter wilt just a little more beneath the satisfied expression as they parted company.
Yet I saw the LORD's sovereignty in this, brothers and sisters. He is constantly working in all of our lives. In this case, He was dealing with both myself *and* my little girl.
I ran my mouth with such confidence the day before, oblivious to the fact that the LORD said that He looks at the heart and tries the reins. Faith is tested. Following Jesus, at *any* age, will cause us to *feel* the separation from the world which His followers are called to. He *told* us it would hurt.
He TOLD us.
"“If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love [you as] its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you on account of My name, because they don’t know the One who sent Me." (John 15:18-21)
I am prepared to die for the truth if I must. I have run the scenarios over and over in my head; substituting myself and my family when I read of those who are tortured and killed, beheaded, beaten, burned alive, right now, on this planet, for not renouncing the Master. I have seen imagery of telling one of my dear children that Daddy will be right there while they have a hunting knife to their throat, wielded by the armies of satan. I have the Master's Word, that I must love Him more than children, wife, parents, friends, my very life. Here she was beginning the process of isolation and rejection from the world, as it was promised to us.
I had to lay myself down. Another twist to the Sword necessary now for the command to die daily... because the words which ran through my head for the teacher alone are unfit for print. The actions I conceived of are even worse. Were I still alive, my towering rage would have been sufficient to drown the surface of the Earth in unquenchable flame.
She is my daughter, afterall...
...but I am only steward of her life. In truth, she is *His* daughter. I am broken in tears just confessing this to you, for I love her so much, and would trade my life for hers without a moment's hesitation. She belongs to Him. She is one talent in the parable of the talents, for which I must give an accounting when the Master returns and tallies the assets He left in my care.
This is not made much clearer than in Psalm 139:16 "Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began."
Somewhere, the LORD has a Book, and in it is recorded that on October 31st 2011, after her Daddy had done all he could to prepare her, Julia Fortt would be separated from her classmates and identified as one of His, and that process would afflict her and her Daddy, with a measure of pain.
And that is ok, because *He* said that *nothing* would snatch those who are given grace to be His sheep from His Father's Hand.
GLORY TO GOD! His provision is sufficient, for I am not alone; I have true brothers and sisters, given to me by HIM, to share experience and life with--who seek to obey and serve Him also! His grace is sufficient, despite any of my own wishes or felt needs! It is a privilege, for which I will never be worthy, to be His slave, and bring up in the way they should go *His* children, of whom I am only steward, but HE is KING!. Glory to His Name!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Grace To Receive The Bad News First.
"Have no love for the world or for the things which are in the world. If any man has love for the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Because everything in the world, the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but of the world. And the world and its desires is coming to an end: but he who does God's pleasure is living for ever." 1 John 2:15-17
I first encountered this and thought, "So, we are neither to love the world, or anything in it... Ouch."
To this day, the longer I count the things I came to love and which fall under the three categories listed in that Scripture, the farther my jaw drops, and the greater clarity of denial of self I receive. It began with inanimate objects which were given life in my chest through either nostalgia or plain old preference.
"That song was the jam..."
"That was my favorite TV show..."
"No place will ever compare with that place, in that time..."
"Man, I can eat that until I burst..."
Once I then truly submitted to the painful (and necessary) internal "purge cannon" of the Word of God and His Spirit, to those places in my heart which exalted people and things, there was additional Scripture provided (and, as it turns out, desperately needed) to steel me for those targets which I had yet to even consider.
"Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:31-33
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matthew 10:37-39
As my flesh began crawling, I thought, "...really? Let me get this straight... stop worrying about my needs, seek after Your righteousness, peace, and joy... and trust *You* to provide for me if I do that? ... that's trust, all right. I believe, LORD, help thou my unbelief... but this other stuff... My parents?? My children???
"Even my life?"
I became involved with the International Christian Concern, a ministry which brings awareness of, and real help to, followers of Jesus around the world, who are persecuted and even have their lives taken for it. Pastors are slain in front of their families. Children are beheaded for their parents' refusal to renounce Christ, in countries which the United States calls "ally" and "friend", like India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Egypt. People are truly living and dying for Christ, while, at least for the moment, I am free to worship the LORD without sanctioned persecution in these United States.
Children beheaded before their eyes... without the grace to repent and be His, without the salvation of (and by our resulting obedience, peace with) our LORD and our Savior, what can one do in the face of such evil, such monstrous cruelty, except despair and die?
I think of my own children, for whom I would gladly trade my own life, and I fight a flood of tears at the thought of having to endure such a crucible.
Then I think of the only begotten Son of God, Who exists with His Father in the very definition of perfect love, dying for my sins--and I begin to comprehend facts which the world, including my own flesh, rejects.
Such as the fact that those things created which our five senses receive, for all their tactile registering, is of no value in comparison to the things of God which are unseen and register to our faith in His Son. If I am not to love the world or even worry about the needs of myself and my family, seeking to follow, obey and trust Him instead, and if "the world and its desires are coming to an end", it would then behoove me to live my life in the manner in which *He* said to live it.
Then I had the majority of my remaining personal delusions stripped from me.
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
So... not only am I not to love anything more than God--I do not even BELONG to my SELF.
I do not own my own head, so should someone have power to take it from my neck, it is because God has delivered me into their hand. I reserve of my own power the right to precisely nothing; not my mind, nor my heart, nor my hands and feet. I have no right to my opinions, my frustrations, my hopes, dreams, desires, wants or whims. I have been ransomed. Purchased for an unspeakable price. My insurmountable debt of sin paid for in the process, in the only Way possible. Even as the children of Israel were freed from the slavery of Pharaoh to the slavery of God, salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, was accomplished that I might no longer be captive to the corruption of my flesh, but instead to the will of God; to love, trust, and obey Him.
The undeniable, inescapable fact, is that despite all declaration of freedom or emancipation in any document written by men regarding the inalienable rights of my person, the truth is that I am, body and soul, a slave. The property of God.
This forces me to both see myself as the LORD my God sees me, and to truly know and accept my true place as His unworthily saved creation. It is only by His grace alone that I am permitted to accept it.
The simultaneous horrors of being humiliated... spit upon... beaten... rejected... subjected to suffer through the sadistic horror of Roman scourging and crucifixion... and, worst of all, being made, in the manner of the sin offering of lambs in their first year, the object of wrath of His Father, Whom He loves enough to obey to the death... for our filthy, wretched, desperately wicked selves and all our sin, was a cup which our LORD chose to endure for us unto the most horrific, bitter dregs.
He *chose* to submit to this, as made crystal clear in a statement simultaneously declaring both His sovereignty and His divinity; "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." John 10:17-18.
His sovereignty is evident in His decision to lay His life down, and His divinity in possessing the power to take it again.
He willingly endured this, to pay for and save us from the wages of sin; being burned in fire which never goes out, among worms which do not die.
Once I finally was given grace to see *this*, the Bad News *and* the Good... I finally understood the concept of being on my face in thanksgiving before God, praising and glorifying Him. If I am able to speak a coherent word through my tears, it will of itself be a miracle, and it will take conveyance of His will to get me to ever lift my unworthy face from the ground before Him.
It takes being broken by Him first to receive His grace and mercy. If this fact offends your sensibilities, as it first did mine, the alternative to being broken and remade in His image is unimaginably worse.
"And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." Luke 20:17-18
We fall upon Him and are broken and reformed by His grace, or He falls upon us and are utterly destroyed by His judgment. There is no third alternative.
That takes being shown exactly who we are and being shattered by the truth of it, and then, by His grace and mercy, redeemed, reforged, and remade by the salvation of our LORD.
Without the grace of God to accept that we are "bought for a price", we are the world--which dares imagine that what was bought by the precious blood of Christ is ours to do with it as we see fit. What is worse, we then reject the Living God in favor of one that is an idol we made, which requires no repentance, and will therefore reap no consequence for defiance of His will; to be what we are instead of strongly deny and reject it in favor of *His* reforming. That Scripture is fraught with example after example of the immediate death sentence for willful sin, despite the LORD's clearly conveyed *intolerance* for such rebellion, is a truth by which such opinions are completely unburdened.
Rejection of the Way, the Truth, and the Life; rejection of the LORD Jesus, will *only* leave us to pay the un-payable debt, resulting in the Second Death, and yet so many of us, many of whom call ourselves Christian, give our love and devotion to the world's way, and therefore hate Christ despite all lip service to the contrary. We would sooner shut our eyes and cling to our idols of comfort, things *we* made to worship because we don't have to change in order to do it, than even acknowledge that we feel the heat of the open furnace at the end of the wide road.
May it please the LORD that everyone who reads this sees with clarity that anyone who will not repent of their way of life and accept Jesus as the only Way will pay the full price for every offense against the Father.
We are only hearing (or, have mercy, LORD, telling) part of the truth these days.
I humbly submit that anyone who would purse their lips and deride the Good News, the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, may want to hear the Bad News first, and reconsider the worldview which makes their own way look like the better alternative.
The Good News is that He died to pay the blood debt of our sin, and that repenting of our way of life, never to go back, and taking on His Way instead with faithful obedience, will save us from the penalty of that sin.
As rarely as the message of repentance is even told in the institutional church any longer, people are being told the Bad News, which the Good News of the gospel addresses, even less. The world's preferred worship of the things we are commanded as Christians to reject; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, blind us to the humility necessary to receive the truth of it in full.
As the institutional church welcomes in and caters to the world rather than speak the inconvenient truth to it as it was commissioned, people are by and large being spoonfed one chief ingredient of pleasant truth--that God is love--while having the rest of the truth of Who He is, those things which demand change--His Holiness and Righteousness--withheld from them, as it does not make the hearer happy.
World opinion, those things which the world prefers and are comprised largely of temporal lies rather than eternal truth, is the substitute mixed liberally with "God is love", the age old formula of making the resulting lie far more potent. The world of today retrofits love with tolerance of an ever increasing list of things--the length of which metastasizes with greater proficiency than stage 4 cancer. We end up with something which doesn't make us uncomfortable in our skin as it should... an interaction where God fits in as *we* will Him to, like a slightly glorified genie who answers when we call, and keeps its mouth shut and obeys when we tell him to leave us alone.
A deadly, potent lie.
It would behoove us all to toss that away and lend credence instead to what the LORD says of Himself. Scripture shows us that God is love in context with everything *else* that He is.
In addition to love, God is also righteous, which is to act in accordance with His everlasting divine law.
In addition to love, God is also holy, which is exalted above all things, and separate, especially from our opinion of fairness, as nothing has parity with Him to even discuss it.
These are aspects of the Creator of Heaven and Earth; He Who does not now, nor ever, tolerate sin--and that means as *He* has defined it, not as the world and its fickle moral codes accept.
May it please the LORD that we each remain permanently aware that He gave His only Son to be crushed, His blood poured out as the final sin offering for us. May we be given grace from Him to never again spit upon and reject that supremely loving sacrifice. May we receive grace to turn from our way and submit to His. May we not through our rejection join in the cries to crucify Him ,or share in the cry that His blood be upon us and our children, as those who ordered His execution--the same who praised Him with those same lips scant days beforehand, even as we do.
Father, if it is in accordance with Your will... if it would glorify and honor You... may all who read this, if they have not already, receive the grace to receive the Bad News of our truly decrepit, destitute state--that we have no hope of salvation without You--and our resulting desperate need for You to draw us to You and transform us, that we might then receive Your further mercy and grace to be one of Your own, and repent, and thereby submit themselves to be slaves to You rather than to sin. May we see that there are no other true choices, Father. May I be faithful to the same task of living a life that is not my own, but Yours. May I root out all pride and will of my own and put it to death, that I might live a life which is pleasing to You, LORD. In the matchless Name of Your Son, Who made it possible through obedience to You.
Amen.
I first encountered this and thought, "So, we are neither to love the world, or anything in it... Ouch."
To this day, the longer I count the things I came to love and which fall under the three categories listed in that Scripture, the farther my jaw drops, and the greater clarity of denial of self I receive. It began with inanimate objects which were given life in my chest through either nostalgia or plain old preference.
"That song was the jam..."
"That was my favorite TV show..."
"No place will ever compare with that place, in that time..."
"Man, I can eat that until I burst..."
Once I then truly submitted to the painful (and necessary) internal "purge cannon" of the Word of God and His Spirit, to those places in my heart which exalted people and things, there was additional Scripture provided (and, as it turns out, desperately needed) to steel me for those targets which I had yet to even consider.
"Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:31-33
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matthew 10:37-39
As my flesh began crawling, I thought, "...really? Let me get this straight... stop worrying about my needs, seek after Your righteousness, peace, and joy... and trust *You* to provide for me if I do that? ... that's trust, all right. I believe, LORD, help thou my unbelief... but this other stuff... My parents?? My children???
"Even my life?"
I became involved with the International Christian Concern, a ministry which brings awareness of, and real help to, followers of Jesus around the world, who are persecuted and even have their lives taken for it. Pastors are slain in front of their families. Children are beheaded for their parents' refusal to renounce Christ, in countries which the United States calls "ally" and "friend", like India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Egypt. People are truly living and dying for Christ, while, at least for the moment, I am free to worship the LORD without sanctioned persecution in these United States.
Children beheaded before their eyes... without the grace to repent and be His, without the salvation of (and by our resulting obedience, peace with) our LORD and our Savior, what can one do in the face of such evil, such monstrous cruelty, except despair and die?
I think of my own children, for whom I would gladly trade my own life, and I fight a flood of tears at the thought of having to endure such a crucible.
Then I think of the only begotten Son of God, Who exists with His Father in the very definition of perfect love, dying for my sins--and I begin to comprehend facts which the world, including my own flesh, rejects.
Such as the fact that those things created which our five senses receive, for all their tactile registering, is of no value in comparison to the things of God which are unseen and register to our faith in His Son. If I am not to love the world or even worry about the needs of myself and my family, seeking to follow, obey and trust Him instead, and if "the world and its desires are coming to an end", it would then behoove me to live my life in the manner in which *He* said to live it.
Then I had the majority of my remaining personal delusions stripped from me.
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
So... not only am I not to love anything more than God--I do not even BELONG to my SELF.
I do not own my own head, so should someone have power to take it from my neck, it is because God has delivered me into their hand. I reserve of my own power the right to precisely nothing; not my mind, nor my heart, nor my hands and feet. I have no right to my opinions, my frustrations, my hopes, dreams, desires, wants or whims. I have been ransomed. Purchased for an unspeakable price. My insurmountable debt of sin paid for in the process, in the only Way possible. Even as the children of Israel were freed from the slavery of Pharaoh to the slavery of God, salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, was accomplished that I might no longer be captive to the corruption of my flesh, but instead to the will of God; to love, trust, and obey Him.
The undeniable, inescapable fact, is that despite all declaration of freedom or emancipation in any document written by men regarding the inalienable rights of my person, the truth is that I am, body and soul, a slave. The property of God.
This forces me to both see myself as the LORD my God sees me, and to truly know and accept my true place as His unworthily saved creation. It is only by His grace alone that I am permitted to accept it.
The simultaneous horrors of being humiliated... spit upon... beaten... rejected... subjected to suffer through the sadistic horror of Roman scourging and crucifixion... and, worst of all, being made, in the manner of the sin offering of lambs in their first year, the object of wrath of His Father, Whom He loves enough to obey to the death... for our filthy, wretched, desperately wicked selves and all our sin, was a cup which our LORD chose to endure for us unto the most horrific, bitter dregs.
He *chose* to submit to this, as made crystal clear in a statement simultaneously declaring both His sovereignty and His divinity; "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." John 10:17-18.
His sovereignty is evident in His decision to lay His life down, and His divinity in possessing the power to take it again.
He willingly endured this, to pay for and save us from the wages of sin; being burned in fire which never goes out, among worms which do not die.
Once I finally was given grace to see *this*, the Bad News *and* the Good... I finally understood the concept of being on my face in thanksgiving before God, praising and glorifying Him. If I am able to speak a coherent word through my tears, it will of itself be a miracle, and it will take conveyance of His will to get me to ever lift my unworthy face from the ground before Him.
It takes being broken by Him first to receive His grace and mercy. If this fact offends your sensibilities, as it first did mine, the alternative to being broken and remade in His image is unimaginably worse.
"And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." Luke 20:17-18
We fall upon Him and are broken and reformed by His grace, or He falls upon us and are utterly destroyed by His judgment. There is no third alternative.
That takes being shown exactly who we are and being shattered by the truth of it, and then, by His grace and mercy, redeemed, reforged, and remade by the salvation of our LORD.
Without the grace of God to accept that we are "bought for a price", we are the world--which dares imagine that what was bought by the precious blood of Christ is ours to do with it as we see fit. What is worse, we then reject the Living God in favor of one that is an idol we made, which requires no repentance, and will therefore reap no consequence for defiance of His will; to be what we are instead of strongly deny and reject it in favor of *His* reforming. That Scripture is fraught with example after example of the immediate death sentence for willful sin, despite the LORD's clearly conveyed *intolerance* for such rebellion, is a truth by which such opinions are completely unburdened.
Rejection of the Way, the Truth, and the Life; rejection of the LORD Jesus, will *only* leave us to pay the un-payable debt, resulting in the Second Death, and yet so many of us, many of whom call ourselves Christian, give our love and devotion to the world's way, and therefore hate Christ despite all lip service to the contrary. We would sooner shut our eyes and cling to our idols of comfort, things *we* made to worship because we don't have to change in order to do it, than even acknowledge that we feel the heat of the open furnace at the end of the wide road.
May it please the LORD that everyone who reads this sees with clarity that anyone who will not repent of their way of life and accept Jesus as the only Way will pay the full price for every offense against the Father.
We are only hearing (or, have mercy, LORD, telling) part of the truth these days.
I humbly submit that anyone who would purse their lips and deride the Good News, the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, may want to hear the Bad News first, and reconsider the worldview which makes their own way look like the better alternative.
The Good News is that He died to pay the blood debt of our sin, and that repenting of our way of life, never to go back, and taking on His Way instead with faithful obedience, will save us from the penalty of that sin.
As rarely as the message of repentance is even told in the institutional church any longer, people are being told the Bad News, which the Good News of the gospel addresses, even less. The world's preferred worship of the things we are commanded as Christians to reject; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, blind us to the humility necessary to receive the truth of it in full.
As the institutional church welcomes in and caters to the world rather than speak the inconvenient truth to it as it was commissioned, people are by and large being spoonfed one chief ingredient of pleasant truth--that God is love--while having the rest of the truth of Who He is, those things which demand change--His Holiness and Righteousness--withheld from them, as it does not make the hearer happy.
World opinion, those things which the world prefers and are comprised largely of temporal lies rather than eternal truth, is the substitute mixed liberally with "God is love", the age old formula of making the resulting lie far more potent. The world of today retrofits love with tolerance of an ever increasing list of things--the length of which metastasizes with greater proficiency than stage 4 cancer. We end up with something which doesn't make us uncomfortable in our skin as it should... an interaction where God fits in as *we* will Him to, like a slightly glorified genie who answers when we call, and keeps its mouth shut and obeys when we tell him to leave us alone.
A deadly, potent lie.
It would behoove us all to toss that away and lend credence instead to what the LORD says of Himself. Scripture shows us that God is love in context with everything *else* that He is.
In addition to love, God is also righteous, which is to act in accordance with His everlasting divine law.
In addition to love, God is also holy, which is exalted above all things, and separate, especially from our opinion of fairness, as nothing has parity with Him to even discuss it.
These are aspects of the Creator of Heaven and Earth; He Who does not now, nor ever, tolerate sin--and that means as *He* has defined it, not as the world and its fickle moral codes accept.
May it please the LORD that we each remain permanently aware that He gave His only Son to be crushed, His blood poured out as the final sin offering for us. May we be given grace from Him to never again spit upon and reject that supremely loving sacrifice. May we receive grace to turn from our way and submit to His. May we not through our rejection join in the cries to crucify Him ,or share in the cry that His blood be upon us and our children, as those who ordered His execution--the same who praised Him with those same lips scant days beforehand, even as we do.
Father, if it is in accordance with Your will... if it would glorify and honor You... may all who read this, if they have not already, receive the grace to receive the Bad News of our truly decrepit, destitute state--that we have no hope of salvation without You--and our resulting desperate need for You to draw us to You and transform us, that we might then receive Your further mercy and grace to be one of Your own, and repent, and thereby submit themselves to be slaves to You rather than to sin. May we see that there are no other true choices, Father. May I be faithful to the same task of living a life that is not my own, but Yours. May I root out all pride and will of my own and put it to death, that I might live a life which is pleasing to You, LORD. In the matchless Name of Your Son, Who made it possible through obedience to You.
Amen.
Friday, June 3, 2011
The Wages Of Sin Remain Death... Even Those Mislabeled By Consensus
No more disclaimers. This is for whomever will listen, and for me to remember.
In the Bible are written givens and conditions which are absolute. Among the givens are those which describe attributes of the Most High God, to which the conditions of our salvation are subjected. In the discipline of geometry, givens and conditions must be known and accepted by all who would work out the equations and wish to come to the correct conclusions. Those found within the Word of God are even more strict, in that where geometry equations may sometimes be worked out with more than one method to arrive at the answer, God makes clear in His Word that only His Way laid out in its pages is the only way to be saved.
For example, one given we know from the Scriptures is that God is Holy.
"For I am the LORD your God: you shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy" Leviticus 11:44. The Hebrew word for holiness, transliterated "kedushah" (קדושה) strongly implies separateness. God commanded His people Israel, as well as those who follow Jesus His Son, to be holy and therefore separate from the world, because God Himself is holy and separate. "Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty."" 2 Corinthians 6:17-18.
Another given from the Scriptures is that God is Righteous. "Therefore has the LORD watched on the evil, and brought it on us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he does: for we obeyed not his voice." Daniel 9:14. The Hebrew word for righteousness, transliterated "tse'dek" (צדקים), means both morally correct and in accordance with the law. Paul said in his letter to the Romans "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed." Everything that God is and does is morally correct and in acccordance with the law which He established. His world; His rules, and it pleases Him to abide by them faithfully even as His creation violates convenant after covenant from its depravity. It is pure folly to think that God's love overlooks our sin. He loved His people Israel, and they had to continuously offer innocent blood on their behalf because of it. Unblemished lambs had to die for them. He loved the world in this sacrificial manner; He gave the only Son He has to die for us, so that no more blood need be shed for sin.
"Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand." Isaiah 53:4-10
We'd better know who God says He is before we listen to any lies or make any assumptions.
The Scriptures tell us also that, as He is holy and righteous, He does *not* tolerate sin. "See, the day of the LORD is coming—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins." Isaiah 13:9-11.
What is sin? We know that the cost of sin is death (Romans 6:23), so it would behoove us to know how it is defined within God's Word. Sin is any thought, word, or deed that breaks God's law, and severs all relationship between humanity and God. Hebrew has 3 words that are translated as sin, giving the word fuller meaning.
1) "Pesha'" (פֶּשַׁע): transgression, defection, rebellion.
2) "'avon" (עָוֹן): perversity, depravity, iniquity, guilt or punishment of iniquity.
3) "chet'" (חֵטְא): unintentional sin, crime, or fault, missing the mark, as in archery.
Note that whether we intend to sin or not, they all fall under the umbrella of that which separates us from God and for which the penalty is death. More importantly, notice what is missing from these definitions:
What the world finds acceptable.
Only God defines what separates from Him and places us under His wrath. We can't remove anything from the list and get away with it.
Keep this in mind as we look at another more popular attribute of the Almighty God in Scripture: Love. "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John 4:8
We know also from the Scriptures that love has other basic attributes, all falling under the umbrella of who God is. "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Those descriptors are contained within a complete thought; each condition of love described is joined with the other. This means that one can *not* therefore take "love bears all things" outside of the context of all the other things love is, such as rejoicing in truth and not sin, or as a defining attribute of the One who is also Holy and Righteous and therefore utterly intolerant of sin.
All the givens of who God is must be considered in total, lest one arrive at an answer that is not simply incorrect, but fatal to the soul.
Most unfortunately for humanity, there are givens about us which make us refuse to do so on our own, as our hearts refuse to repent, our pride enjoys our sin, our will accepts what society says above what God says and won't tolerate subjection. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it? I the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." Jeremiah 17:9-11.
So where does that leave us?
Repent.
We now know exactly what sin is, let's get to know the full meaning of the only remedy for it.
There are two words in Hebrew; "nacham" (נָחַם): literally; to draw the breath forcibly, to pant, to groan, to be sorry, to rue, to regret, suffer grief. Also "shuwb" (שׁוּב): to return, turn away, turn back, go back. The word was used to describe what God wanted His captive people in Babylon to do with regard to their idolatry... which is the act of worshiping something other than God.
Two in Greek; "metamelomai" (μεταμέλομαι): literally; To care afterwards, to repent one's self. Very close to "nacham". Also "metanoeō" (μετανοέω): to change one's mind for the better, think differently, heartily to amend with abhorrence (to find repugnant, be hostile) to one's past sins. "Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" contains this word.
We must repent of our sin, then, which means we must groan in anguish over our rebellion. We must regret it and suffer grief over our perversity. We must turn back and away from our defection. We must care afterwards about the act and not be indifferent to it when we miss the mark. WE MUST FIND OUR SIN REPUGNANT. WE MUST HAVE HATRED FOR OUR SIN.
Yes, God is Love, but our society's act of mistaking Love for tolerance and acceptance of what God has already called sin, and because our flesh likes it a lot *we* decide it is *who we are* and *defines* us, is lethal error; which embraces the penalty of sin in full. Such an act embraces death.
Yes, Jesus spent time with people who were living in sin even by the standards of society. He was very clear as to why. "And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, "Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."" Luke 5:30-32.
One can not help but see the implication here; Jesus did not come for everybody.
He didn't come for people who think they are already perfect on their own and require no change; He came for those who know their spirits are destitute and doomed. He came for people who know that they have a terminal disease from which only Jesus, the Great Physician", can heal them.
As I illustrated in "Destroy Your Will", indeed, as this very blog is titled, this isn't Afternoon of Games time; this is a fight to the death, and WE are the ones that will die. ALL of us.
GET THIS. Whether we bow the knee to Christ now, or when we are before the Throne of Judgment, we will bow, and we will die. Here is the catch; when we are saved, we only have die once. You follow what I'm saying?
IF WE STOP PLAYING STUPID GAMES, HATE ALL OF OUR SIN *AS GOD HAS DEFINED IT*, PUT OUR WILL AND PRIDE TO THE SWORD AND FOLLOW JESUS, WE DIE ONLY FOR THIS BLINK OF AN EYE PERIOD THAT SPANS THE DATES THAT WILL BE MARKED ON OUR HEADSTONES!
IF WE *DON'T* STOP ACTING LIKE WE CALL THE SHOTS, AND LOVE OUR SIN *AS GOD HAS DEFINED IT*, AND WORSHIP INSTEAD OUR WILL AND PRIDE, WE DIE BOTH AFTER THE EYE BLINK WE SPEND HERE *AND FOR ALL ETERNITY*.
I'm talking about the Second Death.
Come on, stay with me. We've got sin, we've got repentance, now get what the gifts from the LORD of repentance and salvation keep us from.
"He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Revelation 21:7-8
ENDLESSS DEATH. THIS IS NOT ALLEGORY FOR MERE SEPARATION FROM GOD, THIS IS A PLACE WHICH JOHN THE APOSTLE SAW WITH HIS OWN EYES.
READ THIS NEXT LIKE YOUR SOUL DEPENDS ON IT. GET THIS AND GET IT IN FULL.
The lake of fire and brimstone is an actual place. Jesus referred to it many many times. Everytime he spoke of tares being bundled and put in the fire, or broken, fruitless vine branches picked up and thrown in the fire, trees not bearing good fruit cut down and thrown in the fire, it would be better to go into eternal life crippled than have all your limbs and be thrown into the fire, THAT WE SHOULD NOT FEAR MEN WHO HAVE POWER ONLY TO KILL OUR BODIES BUT FEAR RATHER HIM WHO HAS POWER NOT ONLY TO KILL OUR BODIES BUT THROW OUR SOULS INTO THE FIRE... The Almighty God is speaking about the place He prepared for the devil and his angels. NOT FIGURATIVE. NOT AN ALLEGORY EVEN FOR OBLIVION.
Everlasting fire. Endless spiritual death. Where the worm which consumes does not die, and the fire is never extinguished. Why is it like this? Why does it last forever? Because in addition to being love, God is holy, and righteous, and does NOT. TOLERATE. SIN.
"The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
"Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." Revelation 20:10-15
Acknowledge your sin. NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS, WHAT *GOD* SAYS IT IS. The act will be more excruciating for some than for others, depending on how deeply they identify with their sin.
The LORD spoke to His disciples about this and how it applies.
"“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other." John 15:1-17
We will all bleed. No one will be spared from the pruning shears. All that your will and pride can do to resist, it will do; no matter the cost to your soul.
"WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THOSE SHEARS?? DON'T CUT THAT OFF--NOOO!!! THAT'S MINE!! I NEEDED THAT!! I'VE HAD THAT FOREVER! I'VE BEEN THAT MY WHOLE LIFE!!"
The longer and harder we identify with a sin, the more it will hurt. I am speaking now to those who label themselves homosexual. I do so with love and respect, as someone who is dear to me and brother from another mother counts himself among you. I pray to God it pleases Him to give you the grace to read this in full and seriously consider the words. God loves you, but do not be deceived; forget what those who are filled with hate and fear say; this speaker is not one of them. It is not the person God hates, and as the Spirit of God is in me, nor do I. It is the sin. The Word of God is truth. It is not merely words written by desert nomads thousands of years ago--it is the Word of the LORD, which it pleased Him to use His prophets and apostles to write down to provide instruction for all on whom He pours out His spirit. What you have embraced to your bosoms and identified as *you* is a lie which your will and your pride have declared to your flesh. If it is truly by predisposition, that fact makes it no different from all the sin that the human thought and emotion are capable of.
For example, the greatest sin which my selfish flesh loved most was that of partaking in pornography, no less an abominable sexual sin as homosexuality, as much considered a right to do in our society as homosexuality, and every bit as murderous to the soul. You have placed yourselves in a worse predicament than many of us, because while all who are saved are delivered from sin, not all of us identified with that sin so completely, or joined in solidarity with others who owned it, as to consider ourselves right to make it a permanent part of our lives. That would make the pruning of it from your life cause massive trauma, but such is the elaborate efficiency of this particular sin. Our wills do whatever is necessary to allow what we crave to remain in our lives. It will tell absolutely any lie. It will literally sell your soul and make you believe you got the better of the deal.
And the lie only has to hold until you die.
It is grace of God we all need. Grace of God; a gift we do not deserve, to remove the scales from our eyes and to open them. More and more churches, even what was once my beloved United Church of Christ, defy what the Bible says about this, crafting policies like "Open and Affirming" to bring more people who are unaware or unwilling to acknowledge their sin and be comfortable in the church building. It doesn't want to make people angry by telling them the truth that would save their souls. It would rather lie to them and keep them comfortable and entertained as returning customers... as if they will not have to answer for their disobedience before God. This is what Jesus said about those who lie and lead the flock astray as the United Church of Christ does;
"Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves.
“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him." Luke 17:1-3
The lie only has to hold until you die.
When He gives us this grace to see our true condition, we are then broken, and we cry out to Him for dear life. FOR DEAR LIFE. We repent, we turn away from us and back to God, we confess our sin to Him, we ask for His forgiveness by the Blood of His Son on the cross, and we give our lives over to Him in full. We don't want what our will craves anymore, we just want what our Creator wants to be done in our lives. We in fact recognize our will as the traitor of our souls and put it to death for its treachery. We don't want to yield to whatever form of rebellion our bodies have been satisfied with all these years up to that point; we want only to please the LORD our God and find everlasting joy. Our will and our pride scream and fight and kick and argue against the change, but if God gives us the grace, He drags us to Him inexorably as fish drawn into a boat in a net.
The lie only has to hold until you die.
Then we pray and read the Bible like we sleep and eat nourishing food, beause we want to know more and we are sick of falling for the lie. Then we join Bible studies with other brothers and sisters whom God has also called to serve Him, the true Body of Christ, so we can begin to understand finally what the folks who care more for numbers than for condition of soul neglected to teach. We learn that *we* are to be the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, *we* are to be the church, and the Holy Spirit does not occupy a Temple that is unclean. ""Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty."
The lie only has to...
The lie only has to fall and break upon the Stone before it falls on us.
"And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder." Matthew 21:44
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17
Be broken, dear brother, beloved sister. Trust in God's Word. You have been deceived by your own will. Flesh doesn't care about the spirit, so when it lies, it does an excellent job. I speak specifically to one who is very, very dear to me. You know who you are, and I am tired of standing among those who choose to respect you to death. I have loved you like a brother for 75 percent of my life, and as great as it is, I know that my love is nothing in comparison to that of the One who made us. I know it, because His Spirit is in me. He loved me despite my abominable sins, and would have delivered this son of ministers to the fire had He not given me grace to be His sheep, hear His voice, turn back from what I wanted, turn away from my sin and find it repugnant, and give Him my life, that I might serve Him and defend His truth.
Not my opinion, brother. Not a flimsy lie, sister.
God's truth, from His Word, which He gave grace to the prophets and apostles to speak and write down. God's love for you and for me.
God is love. God is righteous. God is holy. Separate. Be ye therefore separate.
Come out from among them.
COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM!!!
My pleading, even now, means nothing. Nothing. If it is His will, then you will. If it is not, then you won't. I pray only that we all seek His face and receive the grace to repent, be forgiven, and be followers of Christ in a world that is swirling the drain.
He loves us. He does not love our sin.
*We* are *not* our sin, no matter what the slogans of those who are bound to them by their flesh say. We are sinners in need of grace, mercy and forgiveness, and to switch labels on what is sin before the LORD, no matter what society says, deceives no one but us, and sends us to the Second Death.
The LORD Jesus said in Luke 6:22 "Blessed are you, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake."
"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" 2 Corinthians 6:17
In the Bible are written givens and conditions which are absolute. Among the givens are those which describe attributes of the Most High God, to which the conditions of our salvation are subjected. In the discipline of geometry, givens and conditions must be known and accepted by all who would work out the equations and wish to come to the correct conclusions. Those found within the Word of God are even more strict, in that where geometry equations may sometimes be worked out with more than one method to arrive at the answer, God makes clear in His Word that only His Way laid out in its pages is the only way to be saved.
For example, one given we know from the Scriptures is that God is Holy.
"For I am the LORD your God: you shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy" Leviticus 11:44. The Hebrew word for holiness, transliterated "kedushah" (קדושה) strongly implies separateness. God commanded His people Israel, as well as those who follow Jesus His Son, to be holy and therefore separate from the world, because God Himself is holy and separate. "Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty."" 2 Corinthians 6:17-18.
Another given from the Scriptures is that God is Righteous. "Therefore has the LORD watched on the evil, and brought it on us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he does: for we obeyed not his voice." Daniel 9:14. The Hebrew word for righteousness, transliterated "tse'dek" (צדקים), means both morally correct and in accordance with the law. Paul said in his letter to the Romans "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed." Everything that God is and does is morally correct and in acccordance with the law which He established. His world; His rules, and it pleases Him to abide by them faithfully even as His creation violates convenant after covenant from its depravity. It is pure folly to think that God's love overlooks our sin. He loved His people Israel, and they had to continuously offer innocent blood on their behalf because of it. Unblemished lambs had to die for them. He loved the world in this sacrificial manner; He gave the only Son He has to die for us, so that no more blood need be shed for sin.
"Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand." Isaiah 53:4-10
We'd better know who God says He is before we listen to any lies or make any assumptions.
The Scriptures tell us also that, as He is holy and righteous, He does *not* tolerate sin. "See, the day of the LORD is coming—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins." Isaiah 13:9-11.
What is sin? We know that the cost of sin is death (Romans 6:23), so it would behoove us to know how it is defined within God's Word. Sin is any thought, word, or deed that breaks God's law, and severs all relationship between humanity and God. Hebrew has 3 words that are translated as sin, giving the word fuller meaning.
1) "Pesha'" (פֶּשַׁע): transgression, defection, rebellion.
2) "'avon" (עָוֹן): perversity, depravity, iniquity, guilt or punishment of iniquity.
3) "chet'" (חֵטְא): unintentional sin, crime, or fault, missing the mark, as in archery.
Note that whether we intend to sin or not, they all fall under the umbrella of that which separates us from God and for which the penalty is death. More importantly, notice what is missing from these definitions:
What the world finds acceptable.
Only God defines what separates from Him and places us under His wrath. We can't remove anything from the list and get away with it.
Keep this in mind as we look at another more popular attribute of the Almighty God in Scripture: Love. "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John 4:8
We know also from the Scriptures that love has other basic attributes, all falling under the umbrella of who God is. "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Those descriptors are contained within a complete thought; each condition of love described is joined with the other. This means that one can *not* therefore take "love bears all things" outside of the context of all the other things love is, such as rejoicing in truth and not sin, or as a defining attribute of the One who is also Holy and Righteous and therefore utterly intolerant of sin.
All the givens of who God is must be considered in total, lest one arrive at an answer that is not simply incorrect, but fatal to the soul.
Most unfortunately for humanity, there are givens about us which make us refuse to do so on our own, as our hearts refuse to repent, our pride enjoys our sin, our will accepts what society says above what God says and won't tolerate subjection. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it? I the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." Jeremiah 17:9-11.
So where does that leave us?
Repent.
We now know exactly what sin is, let's get to know the full meaning of the only remedy for it.
There are two words in Hebrew; "nacham" (נָחַם): literally; to draw the breath forcibly, to pant, to groan, to be sorry, to rue, to regret, suffer grief. Also "shuwb" (שׁוּב): to return, turn away, turn back, go back. The word was used to describe what God wanted His captive people in Babylon to do with regard to their idolatry... which is the act of worshiping something other than God.
Two in Greek; "metamelomai" (μεταμέλομαι): literally; To care afterwards, to repent one's self. Very close to "nacham". Also "metanoeō" (μετανοέω): to change one's mind for the better, think differently, heartily to amend with abhorrence (to find repugnant, be hostile) to one's past sins. "Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" contains this word.
We must repent of our sin, then, which means we must groan in anguish over our rebellion. We must regret it and suffer grief over our perversity. We must turn back and away from our defection. We must care afterwards about the act and not be indifferent to it when we miss the mark. WE MUST FIND OUR SIN REPUGNANT. WE MUST HAVE HATRED FOR OUR SIN.
Yes, God is Love, but our society's act of mistaking Love for tolerance and acceptance of what God has already called sin, and because our flesh likes it a lot *we* decide it is *who we are* and *defines* us, is lethal error; which embraces the penalty of sin in full. Such an act embraces death.
Yes, Jesus spent time with people who were living in sin even by the standards of society. He was very clear as to why. "And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, "Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."" Luke 5:30-32.
One can not help but see the implication here; Jesus did not come for everybody.
He didn't come for people who think they are already perfect on their own and require no change; He came for those who know their spirits are destitute and doomed. He came for people who know that they have a terminal disease from which only Jesus, the Great Physician", can heal them.
As I illustrated in "Destroy Your Will", indeed, as this very blog is titled, this isn't Afternoon of Games time; this is a fight to the death, and WE are the ones that will die. ALL of us.
GET THIS. Whether we bow the knee to Christ now, or when we are before the Throne of Judgment, we will bow, and we will die. Here is the catch; when we are saved, we only have die once. You follow what I'm saying?
IF WE STOP PLAYING STUPID GAMES, HATE ALL OF OUR SIN *AS GOD HAS DEFINED IT*, PUT OUR WILL AND PRIDE TO THE SWORD AND FOLLOW JESUS, WE DIE ONLY FOR THIS BLINK OF AN EYE PERIOD THAT SPANS THE DATES THAT WILL BE MARKED ON OUR HEADSTONES!
IF WE *DON'T* STOP ACTING LIKE WE CALL THE SHOTS, AND LOVE OUR SIN *AS GOD HAS DEFINED IT*, AND WORSHIP INSTEAD OUR WILL AND PRIDE, WE DIE BOTH AFTER THE EYE BLINK WE SPEND HERE *AND FOR ALL ETERNITY*.
I'm talking about the Second Death.
Come on, stay with me. We've got sin, we've got repentance, now get what the gifts from the LORD of repentance and salvation keep us from.
"He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Revelation 21:7-8
ENDLESSS DEATH. THIS IS NOT ALLEGORY FOR MERE SEPARATION FROM GOD, THIS IS A PLACE WHICH JOHN THE APOSTLE SAW WITH HIS OWN EYES.
READ THIS NEXT LIKE YOUR SOUL DEPENDS ON IT. GET THIS AND GET IT IN FULL.
The lake of fire and brimstone is an actual place. Jesus referred to it many many times. Everytime he spoke of tares being bundled and put in the fire, or broken, fruitless vine branches picked up and thrown in the fire, trees not bearing good fruit cut down and thrown in the fire, it would be better to go into eternal life crippled than have all your limbs and be thrown into the fire, THAT WE SHOULD NOT FEAR MEN WHO HAVE POWER ONLY TO KILL OUR BODIES BUT FEAR RATHER HIM WHO HAS POWER NOT ONLY TO KILL OUR BODIES BUT THROW OUR SOULS INTO THE FIRE... The Almighty God is speaking about the place He prepared for the devil and his angels. NOT FIGURATIVE. NOT AN ALLEGORY EVEN FOR OBLIVION.
Everlasting fire. Endless spiritual death. Where the worm which consumes does not die, and the fire is never extinguished. Why is it like this? Why does it last forever? Because in addition to being love, God is holy, and righteous, and does NOT. TOLERATE. SIN.
"The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
"Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." Revelation 20:10-15
Acknowledge your sin. NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS, WHAT *GOD* SAYS IT IS. The act will be more excruciating for some than for others, depending on how deeply they identify with their sin.
The LORD spoke to His disciples about this and how it applies.
"“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other." John 15:1-17
We will all bleed. No one will be spared from the pruning shears. All that your will and pride can do to resist, it will do; no matter the cost to your soul.
"WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THOSE SHEARS?? DON'T CUT THAT OFF--NOOO!!! THAT'S MINE!! I NEEDED THAT!! I'VE HAD THAT FOREVER! I'VE BEEN THAT MY WHOLE LIFE!!"
The longer and harder we identify with a sin, the more it will hurt. I am speaking now to those who label themselves homosexual. I do so with love and respect, as someone who is dear to me and brother from another mother counts himself among you. I pray to God it pleases Him to give you the grace to read this in full and seriously consider the words. God loves you, but do not be deceived; forget what those who are filled with hate and fear say; this speaker is not one of them. It is not the person God hates, and as the Spirit of God is in me, nor do I. It is the sin. The Word of God is truth. It is not merely words written by desert nomads thousands of years ago--it is the Word of the LORD, which it pleased Him to use His prophets and apostles to write down to provide instruction for all on whom He pours out His spirit. What you have embraced to your bosoms and identified as *you* is a lie which your will and your pride have declared to your flesh. If it is truly by predisposition, that fact makes it no different from all the sin that the human thought and emotion are capable of.
For example, the greatest sin which my selfish flesh loved most was that of partaking in pornography, no less an abominable sexual sin as homosexuality, as much considered a right to do in our society as homosexuality, and every bit as murderous to the soul. You have placed yourselves in a worse predicament than many of us, because while all who are saved are delivered from sin, not all of us identified with that sin so completely, or joined in solidarity with others who owned it, as to consider ourselves right to make it a permanent part of our lives. That would make the pruning of it from your life cause massive trauma, but such is the elaborate efficiency of this particular sin. Our wills do whatever is necessary to allow what we crave to remain in our lives. It will tell absolutely any lie. It will literally sell your soul and make you believe you got the better of the deal.
And the lie only has to hold until you die.
It is grace of God we all need. Grace of God; a gift we do not deserve, to remove the scales from our eyes and to open them. More and more churches, even what was once my beloved United Church of Christ, defy what the Bible says about this, crafting policies like "Open and Affirming" to bring more people who are unaware or unwilling to acknowledge their sin and be comfortable in the church building. It doesn't want to make people angry by telling them the truth that would save their souls. It would rather lie to them and keep them comfortable and entertained as returning customers... as if they will not have to answer for their disobedience before God. This is what Jesus said about those who lie and lead the flock astray as the United Church of Christ does;
"Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves.
“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him." Luke 17:1-3
The lie only has to hold until you die.
When He gives us this grace to see our true condition, we are then broken, and we cry out to Him for dear life. FOR DEAR LIFE. We repent, we turn away from us and back to God, we confess our sin to Him, we ask for His forgiveness by the Blood of His Son on the cross, and we give our lives over to Him in full. We don't want what our will craves anymore, we just want what our Creator wants to be done in our lives. We in fact recognize our will as the traitor of our souls and put it to death for its treachery. We don't want to yield to whatever form of rebellion our bodies have been satisfied with all these years up to that point; we want only to please the LORD our God and find everlasting joy. Our will and our pride scream and fight and kick and argue against the change, but if God gives us the grace, He drags us to Him inexorably as fish drawn into a boat in a net.
The lie only has to hold until you die.
Then we pray and read the Bible like we sleep and eat nourishing food, beause we want to know more and we are sick of falling for the lie. Then we join Bible studies with other brothers and sisters whom God has also called to serve Him, the true Body of Christ, so we can begin to understand finally what the folks who care more for numbers than for condition of soul neglected to teach. We learn that *we* are to be the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, *we* are to be the church, and the Holy Spirit does not occupy a Temple that is unclean. ""Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty."
The lie only has to...
The lie only has to fall and break upon the Stone before it falls on us.
"And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder." Matthew 21:44
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17
Be broken, dear brother, beloved sister. Trust in God's Word. You have been deceived by your own will. Flesh doesn't care about the spirit, so when it lies, it does an excellent job. I speak specifically to one who is very, very dear to me. You know who you are, and I am tired of standing among those who choose to respect you to death. I have loved you like a brother for 75 percent of my life, and as great as it is, I know that my love is nothing in comparison to that of the One who made us. I know it, because His Spirit is in me. He loved me despite my abominable sins, and would have delivered this son of ministers to the fire had He not given me grace to be His sheep, hear His voice, turn back from what I wanted, turn away from my sin and find it repugnant, and give Him my life, that I might serve Him and defend His truth.
Not my opinion, brother. Not a flimsy lie, sister.
God's truth, from His Word, which He gave grace to the prophets and apostles to speak and write down. God's love for you and for me.
God is love. God is righteous. God is holy. Separate. Be ye therefore separate.
Come out from among them.
COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM!!!
My pleading, even now, means nothing. Nothing. If it is His will, then you will. If it is not, then you won't. I pray only that we all seek His face and receive the grace to repent, be forgiven, and be followers of Christ in a world that is swirling the drain.
He loves us. He does not love our sin.
*We* are *not* our sin, no matter what the slogans of those who are bound to them by their flesh say. We are sinners in need of grace, mercy and forgiveness, and to switch labels on what is sin before the LORD, no matter what society says, deceives no one but us, and sends us to the Second Death.
The LORD Jesus said in Luke 6:22 "Blessed are you, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake."
"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" 2 Corinthians 6:17
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Destroy Your Will
****** Warning: This is for servants of the LORD only.*******
If you love this life; if you are governed by the idol of your will, and are thus deathly allergic to the truth, get out. Now. Return to your delusion, where *you* call the shots, where *you* make the choices, where your will holds dominion, where *you* are captain of ship and master of soul. This message is not for you and you are not equipped to receive it.
You have two paragraphs to reach minimum safe distance.
Navigate to another page. Eat, drink, be merry, and await the moment in which the truth shall fall upon you and grind you and your will to powder beneath it.
If, however, you are given grace of the LORD to belong to Him and are therefore slave to the truth, I invite you to read on, and prepare yourself. Have the Helm of Salvation strapped to your skull. Check the bindings on the Breastplate of Righteousness and Belt of Truth and be sure they are snug. Steel the muscles of the arm to which the Shield of Faith is strapped and set your shoulder behind it. Take up then the Sword of the Spirit in your hand, and be prepared to have your will, your very self, slain upon it.
Yes, you read that correctly.
THE ENEMY IS OUR WILL, AND IT THEREFORE MUST DIE.
The thing screaming in your ears right now at the above statement... exhorting you to ignore it... telling you that it has every right... no, that *you* have every right to live as you please... that's your will. It is being insistent because it does not want to die without *you*. You have been a most gracious host, and no parasite wishes to be severed from the host which grants it sustenance.
It will, in fact, fight you for that self-proclaimed right to the very death, even though it means that it has to *end* you with it.
That is what your *good* will, and mine, looks like with its kindly, smiling mask removed and its true face exposed.
Your will is destined for eternal death, you see. It's fate is that of the devil and his angels, and does not want to go to meet it without you.
Brethren, the Fight To The Death is deeper than the struggle between us and the one who Accuses us before the Throne of God day and night; it is between our will, and what shall be the completed good work which Christ has begun in all whom He saved by His good pleasure.
You begin to see what this means, don't you.
The Sword of the Spirit within our hands; the Word of God, must claim our lives. Our will must be impaled upon it and die. The life of our will must be snuffed out by its diamond-cutting edges. Our pride must be run through by it and gutted. Our dreams and desires and wants must be put to the Sword before our nature tells us they have *as much right to exist as the finished work does*.
They lie, and they lie damnably. They have *no* such right. By transitive property, *we* do not have that right. A bought, paid for, ransomed slave has no right to do whatever it pleases. The clay has no right to tell the Potter what He *should* have made it into. The iron has no right to complain that the fire and pressure and additional elements it must endure in order to become steel are too much, too painfully inconvenient, and do not fit just now in the plan it laid out for its life because it changes what it is into something else it can not see.
Our will is, in the end, irrelevant.
The first time I was ever exposed to this fact came from hearing the words of my brother in Christ, Cyril Jermin. I heard this man say on blogtalk radio the following words regarding the Son of God when He walked on the earth, and what following Him means:
"He loved the truth. He loved His Father. He valued obedience to His Father before anything else. *Why don't we?* Why don't we understand that He said if we were going to be His disciples, that we have to pick up our cross? "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow". What did that mean? Die. *Die.* Die to *self*. Die to your self opinions. Die to your carefully crafted image. Die to your reputation. Because the truth is more important than your reputation."
He went on to say something that knocked me over where I stood:
"This is not a popularity contest. Being a follower of Jesus is not a popularity contest. It is a death sentence, and we need to understand that, but too few of us do."
The man even went on to find use for the content of my post entitled "Destroy Your Pride", and said this:
"It is a fight to the death. And that means two things. It is a fight. It is a struggle. it is a war to the death, which means something has to die. *We* think it is the Enemy, but *Jesus* said it's us."
May it please the LORD that we each accept this and bow before it in submission, beloved sister... dear brother. We can no longer afford to look away from our selves when seeking the enemy that needs to have the Word of God brought to bear against it. When *we* think one way, and the *LORD* says the other, we are in trouble of the worst kind.
It is we who must die. It is our will that must die. It is our pride that must die. All that we place as idol before God must die by the Sword.
No, there is no third alternative. There are only two:
1) Know your place as ransomed slave, bow before the Living God, surrender your will and die to your self while your heart beats, and dwell by His loving sacrifice, in His presence, when it stops beating, in life everlasting.
2) Be your own master, believe in *your* power to choose your path while your heart beats, stick out your chest before the golden calf of your pride and will and bask in its glow, until the day in which your soul is required of you, and exist in the judgment of the Living God, outside of His presence forever, where the worm which consumes flesh does not die, and the fire which burns is never quenched.
That is all. There is no easy grace; to live the one is to both utterly reject and be at eternal enmity with the other. One contains permanent death of the will and rejection of the world, the other everlasting torment of the soul with the majority of the world.
We must pray that it would please the LORD that we each be formed into that which serves and obeys Him at the cost of our will. We must seek His mercy from our knees and from upon our faces, our hearts contrite before Him--seeing our abject need for Him and utter helplessness without Him.
The Son of God spoke of the upside to living His way, and acknowledged what we would have to endure, while cutting through the lack of comprehension which His disciples expressed when He did so. He simultaneously removed any notion that there are other alternatives beyond those which He laid out.
"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know."
Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." John 14:1-7
Many mansions. Ultimate security in that the LORD Himself prepares them for us. But one path. One. One way. One truth. One life.
Your will by now, as mine did, is asking what the point is of hoping for what you can not see, when you can instead spend your energies having everything right here and now. Plenty of church-going folk believe that.
Really? This crude, temporary matter? These "riches" which avail us nothing once the heart stops, or become broken flotsam once the tornado destroys, or the flood waters recede, or the earthquake shatters, or the fire consumes? Do you really want treasures stored here, where moths eat, and thieves steal?
No lie is too big for your will to whisper into your ear. For this it must die.
Thanks be to God, that when we are too slow to get the details, He is patient, and loves us enough to show us clearly what must be known and accepted.
"Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us."
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
"Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
"If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever--the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." John 14:8-18
Here are the conditions people don't talk about in steepled buildings. All the blessings, all the promises, all the security of abiding with the LORD forever, have the condition to love Jesus. To love Him, by His own definition and not our own; to KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. Not as best we can. Not in our own way.
Keep.
His.
Commandments.
The best way we can love Him is insufficient. Our own way of loving Him comes up like life; too short, and there is no "e" for efforts granted for any who are in disobedience to the Word of God.
If Jesus' definition of loving Him is to keep His commandments, then *our* own way of fitting Him in is failure to love Him at all, and therefore rebellion--by *His* definition, not our own. May it please the LORD that I bow in submission to this, which can never be unseen once seen.
"A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." John 14:19-21
THIS is seeing the Father; having and keeping His commandments is OBEYING them. He reiterates the definition of loving Him, and says that by the act of loving Him, that of having and keeping His commandments, we are loved by the Father, and the LORD will love and manifest Himself to us. We then live forever; not through an act of our own, but because He lives in us.
That can not happen with our will in the way.
"You want to see Me? You want fellowship with me?" He asks us. "Show that you love Me by obeying Me." He then goes on to tell us that such obedience, and the revelation that comes with it, is not for the world, but for the one who obeys. He lays it out while speaking in no uncertain terms of the difference between those who follow Him and those who do not.
"Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?"
"Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.
"These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. 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. You have heard Me say to you, 'I am going away and coming back to you.' If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, 'I am going to the Father,' for My Father is greater than I.
"And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here." John 14:22-29.
Jesus told us that so long as we love Him and keep His Word, He will live with us. His Holy Spirit would come and teach us all things, and remind us of what the LORD said. If we don't obey Him, we do not love Him.
Our will can not have this; do not take its silence for acquiesence. ALL of this means our will is dead with our sins, and it will sooner cajole you into thinking your will, which is subject to your flesh and your pride, can coexist with the will of the LORD than be revealed as your mortal enemy. So long as you buy it long enough for your heart to stop beating.
Just as our LORD had to die, so must we.
And no, *I* did not say it. *He* did.
In the 9th Chapter of Luke, Jesus *first* tells them that *He* must die.
"And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Luke 9:22
*Next*, and I mean RIGHT AFTER He says this, He tells them that all who follow Him, who are no greater than He is, must do the same.
"Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." Luke 9:23-24.
*Lastly*, He speaks on precisely what I've mentioned regarding the world and its treasures.
"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?"
Not only does your will lie to you, it adheres to no logic. We are ALL going to die. Every single one of us will pass away. It makes no sense therefore to preserve the earthly life of sin and pride and will on this earth, only to lose it all at an hour completely unknown to us.
We are provided by our LORD and Saviour the perfect illustration of the completely illogical lie of our will in the 12th Chapter of Luke.
"Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought to himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry." ' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?'
"So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." Luke 12:16-21
All arguments of our will are therefore empty, pitifully temporal, and self serving. The lies it deploys on its own behalf, seeking pleasure to the pride-infused flesh that worships it as an idol, consider the truth of its inevitable death as nothing, and will blind you with pleasure long enough for it to be too late.
It is Public Enemy Number One to the follower of the Christ.
Our task, as soldiers of the Truth War on the side of the LORD, is to hunt down our will and kill it with the Sword we are given by the LORD. The will is wanted dead. Not alive; Dead. When it begs for it's life, we must silence the pleadings immediately with the edge of the Sword. It must not be allowed to escape, or it will return and sink a knife into us when we are not prepared. If it tries to be clever and run to the altar and grab it by the horns, we are to spill its blood right where it is.
By the grace of the LORD Almighty. Amen.
If you love this life; if you are governed by the idol of your will, and are thus deathly allergic to the truth, get out. Now. Return to your delusion, where *you* call the shots, where *you* make the choices, where your will holds dominion, where *you* are captain of ship and master of soul. This message is not for you and you are not equipped to receive it.
You have two paragraphs to reach minimum safe distance.
Navigate to another page. Eat, drink, be merry, and await the moment in which the truth shall fall upon you and grind you and your will to powder beneath it.
If, however, you are given grace of the LORD to belong to Him and are therefore slave to the truth, I invite you to read on, and prepare yourself. Have the Helm of Salvation strapped to your skull. Check the bindings on the Breastplate of Righteousness and Belt of Truth and be sure they are snug. Steel the muscles of the arm to which the Shield of Faith is strapped and set your shoulder behind it. Take up then the Sword of the Spirit in your hand, and be prepared to have your will, your very self, slain upon it.
Yes, you read that correctly.
THE ENEMY IS OUR WILL, AND IT THEREFORE MUST DIE.
The thing screaming in your ears right now at the above statement... exhorting you to ignore it... telling you that it has every right... no, that *you* have every right to live as you please... that's your will. It is being insistent because it does not want to die without *you*. You have been a most gracious host, and no parasite wishes to be severed from the host which grants it sustenance.
It will, in fact, fight you for that self-proclaimed right to the very death, even though it means that it has to *end* you with it.
That is what your *good* will, and mine, looks like with its kindly, smiling mask removed and its true face exposed.
Your will is destined for eternal death, you see. It's fate is that of the devil and his angels, and does not want to go to meet it without you.
Brethren, the Fight To The Death is deeper than the struggle between us and the one who Accuses us before the Throne of God day and night; it is between our will, and what shall be the completed good work which Christ has begun in all whom He saved by His good pleasure.
You begin to see what this means, don't you.
The Sword of the Spirit within our hands; the Word of God, must claim our lives. Our will must be impaled upon it and die. The life of our will must be snuffed out by its diamond-cutting edges. Our pride must be run through by it and gutted. Our dreams and desires and wants must be put to the Sword before our nature tells us they have *as much right to exist as the finished work does*.
They lie, and they lie damnably. They have *no* such right. By transitive property, *we* do not have that right. A bought, paid for, ransomed slave has no right to do whatever it pleases. The clay has no right to tell the Potter what He *should* have made it into. The iron has no right to complain that the fire and pressure and additional elements it must endure in order to become steel are too much, too painfully inconvenient, and do not fit just now in the plan it laid out for its life because it changes what it is into something else it can not see.
Our will is, in the end, irrelevant.
The first time I was ever exposed to this fact came from hearing the words of my brother in Christ, Cyril Jermin. I heard this man say on blogtalk radio the following words regarding the Son of God when He walked on the earth, and what following Him means:
"He loved the truth. He loved His Father. He valued obedience to His Father before anything else. *Why don't we?* Why don't we understand that He said if we were going to be His disciples, that we have to pick up our cross? "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow". What did that mean? Die. *Die.* Die to *self*. Die to your self opinions. Die to your carefully crafted image. Die to your reputation. Because the truth is more important than your reputation."
He went on to say something that knocked me over where I stood:
"This is not a popularity contest. Being a follower of Jesus is not a popularity contest. It is a death sentence, and we need to understand that, but too few of us do."
The man even went on to find use for the content of my post entitled "Destroy Your Pride", and said this:
"It is a fight to the death. And that means two things. It is a fight. It is a struggle. it is a war to the death, which means something has to die. *We* think it is the Enemy, but *Jesus* said it's us."
May it please the LORD that we each accept this and bow before it in submission, beloved sister... dear brother. We can no longer afford to look away from our selves when seeking the enemy that needs to have the Word of God brought to bear against it. When *we* think one way, and the *LORD* says the other, we are in trouble of the worst kind.
It is we who must die. It is our will that must die. It is our pride that must die. All that we place as idol before God must die by the Sword.
No, there is no third alternative. There are only two:
1) Know your place as ransomed slave, bow before the Living God, surrender your will and die to your self while your heart beats, and dwell by His loving sacrifice, in His presence, when it stops beating, in life everlasting.
2) Be your own master, believe in *your* power to choose your path while your heart beats, stick out your chest before the golden calf of your pride and will and bask in its glow, until the day in which your soul is required of you, and exist in the judgment of the Living God, outside of His presence forever, where the worm which consumes flesh does not die, and the fire which burns is never quenched.
That is all. There is no easy grace; to live the one is to both utterly reject and be at eternal enmity with the other. One contains permanent death of the will and rejection of the world, the other everlasting torment of the soul with the majority of the world.
We must pray that it would please the LORD that we each be formed into that which serves and obeys Him at the cost of our will. We must seek His mercy from our knees and from upon our faces, our hearts contrite before Him--seeing our abject need for Him and utter helplessness without Him.
The Son of God spoke of the upside to living His way, and acknowledged what we would have to endure, while cutting through the lack of comprehension which His disciples expressed when He did so. He simultaneously removed any notion that there are other alternatives beyond those which He laid out.
"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know."
Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." John 14:1-7
Many mansions. Ultimate security in that the LORD Himself prepares them for us. But one path. One. One way. One truth. One life.
Your will by now, as mine did, is asking what the point is of hoping for what you can not see, when you can instead spend your energies having everything right here and now. Plenty of church-going folk believe that.
Really? This crude, temporary matter? These "riches" which avail us nothing once the heart stops, or become broken flotsam once the tornado destroys, or the flood waters recede, or the earthquake shatters, or the fire consumes? Do you really want treasures stored here, where moths eat, and thieves steal?
No lie is too big for your will to whisper into your ear. For this it must die.
Thanks be to God, that when we are too slow to get the details, He is patient, and loves us enough to show us clearly what must be known and accepted.
"Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us."
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
"Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
"If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever--the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." John 14:8-18
Here are the conditions people don't talk about in steepled buildings. All the blessings, all the promises, all the security of abiding with the LORD forever, have the condition to love Jesus. To love Him, by His own definition and not our own; to KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. Not as best we can. Not in our own way.
Keep.
His.
Commandments.
The best way we can love Him is insufficient. Our own way of loving Him comes up like life; too short, and there is no "e" for efforts granted for any who are in disobedience to the Word of God.
If Jesus' definition of loving Him is to keep His commandments, then *our* own way of fitting Him in is failure to love Him at all, and therefore rebellion--by *His* definition, not our own. May it please the LORD that I bow in submission to this, which can never be unseen once seen.
"A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." John 14:19-21
THIS is seeing the Father; having and keeping His commandments is OBEYING them. He reiterates the definition of loving Him, and says that by the act of loving Him, that of having and keeping His commandments, we are loved by the Father, and the LORD will love and manifest Himself to us. We then live forever; not through an act of our own, but because He lives in us.
That can not happen with our will in the way.
"You want to see Me? You want fellowship with me?" He asks us. "Show that you love Me by obeying Me." He then goes on to tell us that such obedience, and the revelation that comes with it, is not for the world, but for the one who obeys. He lays it out while speaking in no uncertain terms of the difference between those who follow Him and those who do not.
"Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?"
"Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.
"These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. 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. You have heard Me say to you, 'I am going away and coming back to you.' If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, 'I am going to the Father,' for My Father is greater than I.
"And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here." John 14:22-29.
Jesus told us that so long as we love Him and keep His Word, He will live with us. His Holy Spirit would come and teach us all things, and remind us of what the LORD said. If we don't obey Him, we do not love Him.
Our will can not have this; do not take its silence for acquiesence. ALL of this means our will is dead with our sins, and it will sooner cajole you into thinking your will, which is subject to your flesh and your pride, can coexist with the will of the LORD than be revealed as your mortal enemy. So long as you buy it long enough for your heart to stop beating.
Just as our LORD had to die, so must we.
And no, *I* did not say it. *He* did.
In the 9th Chapter of Luke, Jesus *first* tells them that *He* must die.
"And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Luke 9:22
*Next*, and I mean RIGHT AFTER He says this, He tells them that all who follow Him, who are no greater than He is, must do the same.
"Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." Luke 9:23-24.
*Lastly*, He speaks on precisely what I've mentioned regarding the world and its treasures.
"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?"
Not only does your will lie to you, it adheres to no logic. We are ALL going to die. Every single one of us will pass away. It makes no sense therefore to preserve the earthly life of sin and pride and will on this earth, only to lose it all at an hour completely unknown to us.
We are provided by our LORD and Saviour the perfect illustration of the completely illogical lie of our will in the 12th Chapter of Luke.
"Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought to himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry." ' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?'
"So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." Luke 12:16-21
All arguments of our will are therefore empty, pitifully temporal, and self serving. The lies it deploys on its own behalf, seeking pleasure to the pride-infused flesh that worships it as an idol, consider the truth of its inevitable death as nothing, and will blind you with pleasure long enough for it to be too late.
It is Public Enemy Number One to the follower of the Christ.
Our task, as soldiers of the Truth War on the side of the LORD, is to hunt down our will and kill it with the Sword we are given by the LORD. The will is wanted dead. Not alive; Dead. When it begs for it's life, we must silence the pleadings immediately with the edge of the Sword. It must not be allowed to escape, or it will return and sink a knife into us when we are not prepared. If it tries to be clever and run to the altar and grab it by the horns, we are to spill its blood right where it is.
By the grace of the LORD Almighty. Amen.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Not By *us*, But By Him Who Calls
This is going to rub brothers and sisters the wrong way. I know, because it treated this
son of ministers in the same fashion when I received it. So I encourage every reader to be
prepared to do their due diligence and verify what I say here in Scripture before
rejecting or saying Amen to it.
If we are saved by grace of God, through faith... and even this faith is a gift of God
and not of ourselves, lest any of us should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9), then what is being
done to people when they are "extended an invitation to Christian discipleship" during
an altar call and told to make a decision to choose Christ as Savior and Lord?
I say we do not choose, as God has already done it when it was just The Almighty and the Void. It should be noted that I say this from the context of what is written in Scripture, not what was written by a man named John Calvin.
"What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the
Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display
my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God
has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?”
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed
it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of
the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" Romans 9:14-21
I say again, we do not have the power to choose. That's not our place. It is of grace,
lest any man should boast, and say "*I* chose to accept Jesus today!" This after hearing
in church service, "We invite you. Please come and make the choice to answer Him right now." to the tune of: Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling...
It is as lovely and yearning an image as it is deceptive. Whether the deception is
deliberate or not is entirely irrelevant. Some churches do *not* claim that the call will save you, but the fact is that it was a recent fabrication of man in the first place. It was brought into Christendom in the 1830s by a man named Charles Finney, and evangelist who looked for forced decisions and results and got them with this method. Its newness may not identify it as "wrong" in and of itself, but it is notable that it was not a practice Jesus or his Disciples, or any of the early church practiced. And most importantly, is it explicit, or even implicit, anywhere in the Word, that we are to force decisions and get results?
Fred G. Zaspel conveys it this way: "The altar call is for a man to physically move from one point to another. The gospel call is for a man to flee to Christ. The gospel call is for a man to spiritually identify with Christ through faith, to reach out with the hand of faith and lay hold of Him Who is life. Accordingly, the duty of the evangelist is to command and even plead with men to run to Him for refuge. But this must never be confused with a command to move anywhere physically. Neither Jesus nor His apostles ever instructed anyone that in order to be saved they must "come to the front" or "come for prayer" or "go to the inquiry room" or go to any geographical location. They needn't go anywhere. They were exhorted to go to Christ and nowhere else. Moreover, they are exhorted and assured that going to Him they need go nowhere else."
He goes on to quote Charles Spurgeon: "Go to your God at once, even where you are now!" he would insist. "Cast yourself on Christ, now, at once, ere you stir an inch!" Spurgeon's practice was according to the Biblical model exactly. He would allow nothing to confuse the direction of the sinner's attention: it must be to Christ, and to Christ alone they are instructed look and go. Nor would they be allowed to entertain any notion that they should go somewhere else first. No! "Ere you stir an inch! Cast yourself on Christ now!"
Is salvation something which the spiritually dead can even respond to, through forced decision or otherwise, as we all were before we were given the gift of grace and faith in Jesus? They have to receive the grace to waken in their spiritual tombs, hear the call to "Come Forth!" and be dragged to the Savior.
Yes, I said dragged.
Jesus said in John 6:44 "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me *draw* him: and I will raise him up at the last day."
That sounds like a decision was made, right; a choice to give in to calling and cajoling? If it does, it is because English translation from the original Greek dillutes the potent significance of the word translated as "draw".
There are two words in Biblical Greek, used by the Apostle John, translated into English as "draw". The one used by John for what Jesus said above means literally, to drag, used
elsewhere by the Apostle to describe the way a net full of fish is "drawn" in aboard a fishing vessel.
Fish in a net have no choice in the matter. They're not being wooed or cajoled by their emotions into the boat. This is not their desire. It is not even done through their effort. They're being dragged inexorably by something more sovereign over their fate than themselves.
We are like those fish. It is not our will to be saved while we are dead. A thing dead by sin and corruption sees nothing of its condition, and so neither acknowledges nor sees a need to be saved, and finds the whole idea complete foolishness.
But this is precisely what is being sold when people are told to come down to the altar late in the service and repeat a prayer after the caller. Not all altar calls, I have been admonished by my true brother, speak of easy grace in this way. Indeed, there are houses of worship where the call comes with a warning. But this takes the focus away from the spiritual act and makes it a physical one which *we* have control over.
My question is, in light of what has been written here, and the scriptures we've seen here, is all that the altar call implies scripturally correct? Is what the vast majority of altar calls are claiming the sinner can do for themselves true?
"Rogaine can restore your hair!!" is pedalled in the same manner of easy grace. It goes right at the pride of the balding person and starts soothing it without truly fixing the problem, or doing what it truly claims. It apparently can make some strands appear and make you feel like your hair is growing back... it *doesn't* tell you that the process can cause what natural hair you have left to fall out as it gets replaced by the peach fuzz Rogaine causes to appear... or that said peach fuzz rarely grows longer than half an inch.. or that it only lasts on the scalp for a limited time, and that once you stop using it (and therefore buying it), those feeble wisps fall right out and leave you with *less* hair than you started with.
"Make a decision for Christ today!!" is an even worse deception. The altar call declaring this, already not used by the Lord nor taught to His disciples, does the same disservice to the hearer, in that he or she is made to think the act of being cajoled down the aisle, (as though the Spirit of the Living God were an entity that created all things but we can somehow RESIST) to then sign a card, or repeat a prayer, will save them, because *they* have made the decision. Pride, feeding all those pricked emotions, is soothed deep inside, while the heart is still crafted from stone and sees no need to change anything; after all, they're saved as is, and no change is required, no life to be submitted.
The truth is, we choose nothing good for ourselves in the midst of our sin.
"The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
So without the grace of God, we respond only to emotions of guilt or fear, evoked from well crafted words, and run to an altar, only to have the decision cool once the fear abates and guilt subsides. *With* that grace, we focus only on running to Christ, right where we are, and having our hearts and lives changed by Him.
Altar calls, no matter the message delivered from them, do not save souls. Grace, through faith in the Son of God--all gifts from the Father--are what saves a soul. The moment of salvation is a moment where the attention needs to leave the sinner and where they are physically, and focus on the Savior.
What Altar Calls *do* often accomplish, however, is to take people and plant their behinds in the pews, as regularly as guilt can be pricked and pride soothed. They must be regularly overwhelmed by the treacherous emotion of guilt, which always up and vanishes in the face of a dearly loved pet sin. Meanwhile, the state of their repentance from their sin goes largely unaddressed, because it is too offensive for their pride to endure in full. Besides, grounds must be maintained. Massive buildings growing ever more massive must be heated and cooled. Staff must be paid. Utilities kept on. This is at *best* in the modern church; we won't even begin to go into what is required to keep some of these "bishops" and "prophets" in their luxurious lifestyles. This is not true of all, but no one can deny it is true of too many that get the facetime presented to the world to represent whatever *isn't* that way.
Unrepentant, guilt ridden people are made into paying customers, and leave out double doors riddled with the same guilt when the guilty *feeling* wears off, just like Rogaine. The problem is that they have not entered through those doors for the reasons they came in the book of Acts.
Numbers were added to the Body of Christ not through invitation, but because the disciples were
obedient and did what Jesus said would identify them as His; they loved one another. People saw the LORD when they saw the assemblage of the early Body of Christ, and they were *drawn* by grace of the LORD, through faith in His Son.
"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:42-46
The Lord added to their number *daily*.
Does this not completely fly in the face of what occurs within most church buildings every week? Do we fellowship together? Do we even know each other or sit near the same people? Do we speak to our brethren and share our burdens completely? Do we truly make their troubles *our* troubles, breaking bread together regularly, discussing the Word regularly? Or do we show up on Sunday for an hour or so and go back home?
The answer, sadly, is yes, it does. This is hard truth. No one likes the hard truth, and everyone hates the messenger of it. We are dashed upon it like a sailing vessel driven into it by a violent storm. Nothing can be done save to either be broken upon its impregnable, unyielding surface and reformed as the Living God wills it, or be eventually crushed under its inexorable weight.
We are clay in the Potter's hands. No matter what our pride and 1830s traditions whisper to the contrary, that's all we are. Clay has no say regarding how it is formed. That is the Potter's dominion.
That is our place. We can either slay our pride, bow and accept it; trusting and obeying Him, that the LORD may form us by His grace and mercy, or let our pride hurl curses at it because we don't like it, be dashed to ruin, and remain broken shards fit only for the refuse kiln.
For those still clinging to the idea that *we* do the choosing to accept invitations to be saved, consider the following scripture:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:3-14
Who chose us in Him, according to SCRIPTURE? If you answered "we did," read it again.
Who predestined us to be adopted as His children through Christ Jesus, according to SCRIPTURE? If you answered "we did," read it again.
We were predestined according to Whose plan? If you said it was *our* or the *pastor's* plan to repeat a prayer and make an emotionally charged decision, read it again.
It was done according to Whose pleasure and will? If you said it was our will or our choice, read it again.
Not by *us*, but by Him Who calls.
Our pride will war against us over this and many other things we have owned previously, but we must accept that we are in a fight to the death, our spirit against our flesh and all that it loves. A wise man once told me, we think it is Satan who will die. But Jesus said it was *us*. Put your pride therefore to the sword, and give your life over in living sacrifice to the One Who ransomed us, and live. *We* are to be the temple of the Living God. *We*, not the building on the corner with the steeple that depends upon the government for its tax exempt status and will find itself in dire straits when it is soon revoked. *We* are the Body of Christ. May the LORD give us grace and mercy, to trust and obey the LORD, and be ready for His return.
Amen
son of ministers in the same fashion when I received it. So I encourage every reader to be
prepared to do their due diligence and verify what I say here in Scripture before
rejecting or saying Amen to it.
If we are saved by grace of God, through faith... and even this faith is a gift of God
and not of ourselves, lest any of us should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9), then what is being
done to people when they are "extended an invitation to Christian discipleship" during
an altar call and told to make a decision to choose Christ as Savior and Lord?
I say we do not choose, as God has already done it when it was just The Almighty and the Void. It should be noted that I say this from the context of what is written in Scripture, not what was written by a man named John Calvin.
"What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the
Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display
my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God
has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?”
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed
it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of
the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" Romans 9:14-21
I say again, we do not have the power to choose. That's not our place. It is of grace,
lest any man should boast, and say "*I* chose to accept Jesus today!" This after hearing
in church service, "We invite you. Please come and make the choice to answer Him right now." to the tune of: Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling...
It is as lovely and yearning an image as it is deceptive. Whether the deception is
deliberate or not is entirely irrelevant. Some churches do *not* claim that the call will save you, but the fact is that it was a recent fabrication of man in the first place. It was brought into Christendom in the 1830s by a man named Charles Finney, and evangelist who looked for forced decisions and results and got them with this method. Its newness may not identify it as "wrong" in and of itself, but it is notable that it was not a practice Jesus or his Disciples, or any of the early church practiced. And most importantly, is it explicit, or even implicit, anywhere in the Word, that we are to force decisions and get results?
Fred G. Zaspel conveys it this way: "The altar call is for a man to physically move from one point to another. The gospel call is for a man to flee to Christ. The gospel call is for a man to spiritually identify with Christ through faith, to reach out with the hand of faith and lay hold of Him Who is life. Accordingly, the duty of the evangelist is to command and even plead with men to run to Him for refuge. But this must never be confused with a command to move anywhere physically. Neither Jesus nor His apostles ever instructed anyone that in order to be saved they must "come to the front" or "come for prayer" or "go to the inquiry room" or go to any geographical location. They needn't go anywhere. They were exhorted to go to Christ and nowhere else. Moreover, they are exhorted and assured that going to Him they need go nowhere else."
He goes on to quote Charles Spurgeon: "Go to your God at once, even where you are now!" he would insist. "Cast yourself on Christ, now, at once, ere you stir an inch!" Spurgeon's practice was according to the Biblical model exactly. He would allow nothing to confuse the direction of the sinner's attention: it must be to Christ, and to Christ alone they are instructed look and go. Nor would they be allowed to entertain any notion that they should go somewhere else first. No! "Ere you stir an inch! Cast yourself on Christ now!"
Is salvation something which the spiritually dead can even respond to, through forced decision or otherwise, as we all were before we were given the gift of grace and faith in Jesus? They have to receive the grace to waken in their spiritual tombs, hear the call to "Come Forth!" and be dragged to the Savior.
Yes, I said dragged.
Jesus said in John 6:44 "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me *draw* him: and I will raise him up at the last day."
That sounds like a decision was made, right; a choice to give in to calling and cajoling? If it does, it is because English translation from the original Greek dillutes the potent significance of the word translated as "draw".
There are two words in Biblical Greek, used by the Apostle John, translated into English as "draw". The one used by John for what Jesus said above means literally, to drag, used
elsewhere by the Apostle to describe the way a net full of fish is "drawn" in aboard a fishing vessel.
Fish in a net have no choice in the matter. They're not being wooed or cajoled by their emotions into the boat. This is not their desire. It is not even done through their effort. They're being dragged inexorably by something more sovereign over their fate than themselves.
We are like those fish. It is not our will to be saved while we are dead. A thing dead by sin and corruption sees nothing of its condition, and so neither acknowledges nor sees a need to be saved, and finds the whole idea complete foolishness.
But this is precisely what is being sold when people are told to come down to the altar late in the service and repeat a prayer after the caller. Not all altar calls, I have been admonished by my true brother, speak of easy grace in this way. Indeed, there are houses of worship where the call comes with a warning. But this takes the focus away from the spiritual act and makes it a physical one which *we* have control over.
My question is, in light of what has been written here, and the scriptures we've seen here, is all that the altar call implies scripturally correct? Is what the vast majority of altar calls are claiming the sinner can do for themselves true?
"Rogaine can restore your hair!!" is pedalled in the same manner of easy grace. It goes right at the pride of the balding person and starts soothing it without truly fixing the problem, or doing what it truly claims. It apparently can make some strands appear and make you feel like your hair is growing back... it *doesn't* tell you that the process can cause what natural hair you have left to fall out as it gets replaced by the peach fuzz Rogaine causes to appear... or that said peach fuzz rarely grows longer than half an inch.. or that it only lasts on the scalp for a limited time, and that once you stop using it (and therefore buying it), those feeble wisps fall right out and leave you with *less* hair than you started with.
"Make a decision for Christ today!!" is an even worse deception. The altar call declaring this, already not used by the Lord nor taught to His disciples, does the same disservice to the hearer, in that he or she is made to think the act of being cajoled down the aisle, (as though the Spirit of the Living God were an entity that created all things but we can somehow RESIST) to then sign a card, or repeat a prayer, will save them, because *they* have made the decision. Pride, feeding all those pricked emotions, is soothed deep inside, while the heart is still crafted from stone and sees no need to change anything; after all, they're saved as is, and no change is required, no life to be submitted.
The truth is, we choose nothing good for ourselves in the midst of our sin.
"The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
So without the grace of God, we respond only to emotions of guilt or fear, evoked from well crafted words, and run to an altar, only to have the decision cool once the fear abates and guilt subsides. *With* that grace, we focus only on running to Christ, right where we are, and having our hearts and lives changed by Him.
Altar calls, no matter the message delivered from them, do not save souls. Grace, through faith in the Son of God--all gifts from the Father--are what saves a soul. The moment of salvation is a moment where the attention needs to leave the sinner and where they are physically, and focus on the Savior.
What Altar Calls *do* often accomplish, however, is to take people and plant their behinds in the pews, as regularly as guilt can be pricked and pride soothed. They must be regularly overwhelmed by the treacherous emotion of guilt, which always up and vanishes in the face of a dearly loved pet sin. Meanwhile, the state of their repentance from their sin goes largely unaddressed, because it is too offensive for their pride to endure in full. Besides, grounds must be maintained. Massive buildings growing ever more massive must be heated and cooled. Staff must be paid. Utilities kept on. This is at *best* in the modern church; we won't even begin to go into what is required to keep some of these "bishops" and "prophets" in their luxurious lifestyles. This is not true of all, but no one can deny it is true of too many that get the facetime presented to the world to represent whatever *isn't* that way.
Unrepentant, guilt ridden people are made into paying customers, and leave out double doors riddled with the same guilt when the guilty *feeling* wears off, just like Rogaine. The problem is that they have not entered through those doors for the reasons they came in the book of Acts.
Numbers were added to the Body of Christ not through invitation, but because the disciples were
obedient and did what Jesus said would identify them as His; they loved one another. People saw the LORD when they saw the assemblage of the early Body of Christ, and they were *drawn* by grace of the LORD, through faith in His Son.
"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:42-46
The Lord added to their number *daily*.
Does this not completely fly in the face of what occurs within most church buildings every week? Do we fellowship together? Do we even know each other or sit near the same people? Do we speak to our brethren and share our burdens completely? Do we truly make their troubles *our* troubles, breaking bread together regularly, discussing the Word regularly? Or do we show up on Sunday for an hour or so and go back home?
The answer, sadly, is yes, it does. This is hard truth. No one likes the hard truth, and everyone hates the messenger of it. We are dashed upon it like a sailing vessel driven into it by a violent storm. Nothing can be done save to either be broken upon its impregnable, unyielding surface and reformed as the Living God wills it, or be eventually crushed under its inexorable weight.
We are clay in the Potter's hands. No matter what our pride and 1830s traditions whisper to the contrary, that's all we are. Clay has no say regarding how it is formed. That is the Potter's dominion.
That is our place. We can either slay our pride, bow and accept it; trusting and obeying Him, that the LORD may form us by His grace and mercy, or let our pride hurl curses at it because we don't like it, be dashed to ruin, and remain broken shards fit only for the refuse kiln.
For those still clinging to the idea that *we* do the choosing to accept invitations to be saved, consider the following scripture:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:3-14
Who chose us in Him, according to SCRIPTURE? If you answered "we did," read it again.
Who predestined us to be adopted as His children through Christ Jesus, according to SCRIPTURE? If you answered "we did," read it again.
We were predestined according to Whose plan? If you said it was *our* or the *pastor's* plan to repeat a prayer and make an emotionally charged decision, read it again.
It was done according to Whose pleasure and will? If you said it was our will or our choice, read it again.
Not by *us*, but by Him Who calls.
Our pride will war against us over this and many other things we have owned previously, but we must accept that we are in a fight to the death, our spirit against our flesh and all that it loves. A wise man once told me, we think it is Satan who will die. But Jesus said it was *us*. Put your pride therefore to the sword, and give your life over in living sacrifice to the One Who ransomed us, and live. *We* are to be the temple of the Living God. *We*, not the building on the corner with the steeple that depends upon the government for its tax exempt status and will find itself in dire straits when it is soon revoked. *We* are the Body of Christ. May the LORD give us grace and mercy, to trust and obey the LORD, and be ready for His return.
Amen
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Check the Integrity of your Gatekeeper
Check the Integrity of your Gatekeeper.
A brother in Christ by the name of Brian Jones wrote recently something so profound that it both laid me out from the sheer concussive force of it, and then led me to share and elaborate as the Spirit led me. He wrote the following;
"The Great Wall of China would barely be finished before they would be invaded three times. The invaders did not go over the wall, they didn't dig under it, they simply bribed the gatekeeper. Our mind has a gatekeeper. Have you bribed yours to allow an invasion? Check whom and what you are letting in, then tell me you don't have a security breech!"
As with all truth I have been exposed to lately, I first needed to get up off the floor from the sheer impact. Then, once I conveyed to him how much what he said blessed and edified me, I started writing.
When a member of the elect submits their life to the LORD, an eviction notice is served to all of the old inhabitants of *us*... what we are told is the temple of the Living God (2 Corinthians 6:16). All of them. The older, more entrenched ones, the ones which we came to love for the lying comforts they offered, the ecstasies they granted us; all which they made us feel before we were convicted of the sin, have rent controlled quarters within us. These usually have to be gassed, smoked out, bound, and dragged, kicking and screaming, from the premises, as the LORD grants us grace to do when we earnestly seek His face and bow to the Truth. We are then set free; the scales removed from our eyes so that they finally see and acknowledge the truth of our inherent sinfulness and need to be saved, the iron shackles removed from our wrists and ankles to allow us to at last be free, now that we are justified and made holy by the blood of the Son of God, to make war upon the enemy of our souls. We are supplied with armor, and by study of the Word of the LORD, shown how to wear them. We are supplied with the Sword of the Spirit, and by study of the Word of the LORD, shown how to wield the blade.
But the story does not end there.
"24 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”" Luke 11:24-26
We are not given armor and weapons for show. We are not given sight to recognize our need for Him, supplied with weapon and armor, taught in their use, to then use them only on occasion, or when and where convenient. Our new way of life, from now until death, is the way of the warrior which champions the truth and lays down his or her life for it. We will be called to arms at all hours, day and night. We had best learn the practice of *sleeping* in the armor, with the Sword clenched in our fist, or we will perish, because that which left us by the Sovereign grace of the LORD will come back to test our mettle again. And again. And again. It *will not stop*, so we must depend ever more upon the LORD for our strength. The walls must always be vigilantly manned. The gatekeeper in the tower above the gates must have integrity such that they can not be bribed, nor feel pity or compassion when the unclean spirit we once harbored returns with another tactic, and by begging and bringing up how it comforted us before, or reminds us of how we once loved it, and thus seeks mercy to be allowed to enter in again.
To fail in any of this is to be overrun.
"1 They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. 2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. 3 This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. 4 For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. 7 He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”
9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” 10 And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
11 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12 The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” 13 He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
14 Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. 15 When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. 17 Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. 19 Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed." Mark 5:1-20
One thing that gave me deeper understanding and appreciation of the grace of sight without scales; every unclean spirit Jesus encounters knows Him by sight. The people knew Him as the carpenter Joseph's son. His disciples weren't sure in the beginning *who* He was. But these demons knew Him immediately. Not only did they know Him, they pointed at Him and called out to Him in the way the condemned behold their executioner at the time appointed for their execution. "What do You want with me?"
4 chapters earlier in Mark, Jesus encounters one in the synagogue, (That's right... *in the place of worship*. Let that sink in a few moments.) and it asks "Have You come to destroy us?" This is the same question which the condemned have answered for them unspoken, when the warden and the priest and guards assemble before the cell door and he says "It is time."
They know their fate. They know it is coming. Everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. They commit their acts knowing there is no forgiveness, nothing but payment exacted for their audacity to rebel against their Creator. I read of the man with Legion within him dwelling near tombs, crying out and causing the man to cut himself.
Monstrous despair. It made sense that it would both be where it was and doing what it was doing to the host. Self hatred and loathing must be at the root of each of them, and the myriad ways in which they weaponize and deploy the weapons of their master the Accuser; "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" are proof that they have no other purpose than to use as many means to bring you to their level of misery and despair as possible, and see you tormented with them. They have nothing left.
CAST THEM OUT!!! By the grace and authority given to us, by the LORD and Savior who ransomed us with His own blood, cast them over your walls far from you AND DON'T LET A SINGLE ONE OF THEM BACK IN, no matter how piteous the cry or overwhelming the force arrayed is, FOR THEY THAT BE WITH US ARE MORE THAN THEY THAT BE WITH THEM.
Bring the gatekeeper of your mind, where the battlefield truly is, before the throne of God, and trade up for one with impregnable integrity. Because anything that gets in and does not glorify the LORD your God is only there to kill you. Submit therefore to the Absolute Truth of the Almighty, use what He has given you and taught you, be strengthened by your obedience to love Him with all you have, and among the brethren encourage and love one another, and live. Fail and be taken with those who see only their destruction in front of them, and share their fate.
A brother in Christ by the name of Brian Jones wrote recently something so profound that it both laid me out from the sheer concussive force of it, and then led me to share and elaborate as the Spirit led me. He wrote the following;
"The Great Wall of China would barely be finished before they would be invaded three times. The invaders did not go over the wall, they didn't dig under it, they simply bribed the gatekeeper. Our mind has a gatekeeper. Have you bribed yours to allow an invasion? Check whom and what you are letting in, then tell me you don't have a security breech!"
As with all truth I have been exposed to lately, I first needed to get up off the floor from the sheer impact. Then, once I conveyed to him how much what he said blessed and edified me, I started writing.
When a member of the elect submits their life to the LORD, an eviction notice is served to all of the old inhabitants of *us*... what we are told is the temple of the Living God (2 Corinthians 6:16). All of them. The older, more entrenched ones, the ones which we came to love for the lying comforts they offered, the ecstasies they granted us; all which they made us feel before we were convicted of the sin, have rent controlled quarters within us. These usually have to be gassed, smoked out, bound, and dragged, kicking and screaming, from the premises, as the LORD grants us grace to do when we earnestly seek His face and bow to the Truth. We are then set free; the scales removed from our eyes so that they finally see and acknowledge the truth of our inherent sinfulness and need to be saved, the iron shackles removed from our wrists and ankles to allow us to at last be free, now that we are justified and made holy by the blood of the Son of God, to make war upon the enemy of our souls. We are supplied with armor, and by study of the Word of the LORD, shown how to wear them. We are supplied with the Sword of the Spirit, and by study of the Word of the LORD, shown how to wield the blade.
But the story does not end there.
"24 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”" Luke 11:24-26
We are not given armor and weapons for show. We are not given sight to recognize our need for Him, supplied with weapon and armor, taught in their use, to then use them only on occasion, or when and where convenient. Our new way of life, from now until death, is the way of the warrior which champions the truth and lays down his or her life for it. We will be called to arms at all hours, day and night. We had best learn the practice of *sleeping* in the armor, with the Sword clenched in our fist, or we will perish, because that which left us by the Sovereign grace of the LORD will come back to test our mettle again. And again. And again. It *will not stop*, so we must depend ever more upon the LORD for our strength. The walls must always be vigilantly manned. The gatekeeper in the tower above the gates must have integrity such that they can not be bribed, nor feel pity or compassion when the unclean spirit we once harbored returns with another tactic, and by begging and bringing up how it comforted us before, or reminds us of how we once loved it, and thus seeks mercy to be allowed to enter in again.
To fail in any of this is to be overrun.
"1 They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. 2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. 3 This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. 4 For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. 7 He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!”
9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” 10 And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
11 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12 The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” 13 He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
14 Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. 15 When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. 17 Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. 19 Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed." Mark 5:1-20
One thing that gave me deeper understanding and appreciation of the grace of sight without scales; every unclean spirit Jesus encounters knows Him by sight. The people knew Him as the carpenter Joseph's son. His disciples weren't sure in the beginning *who* He was. But these demons knew Him immediately. Not only did they know Him, they pointed at Him and called out to Him in the way the condemned behold their executioner at the time appointed for their execution. "What do You want with me?"
4 chapters earlier in Mark, Jesus encounters one in the synagogue, (That's right... *in the place of worship*. Let that sink in a few moments.) and it asks "Have You come to destroy us?" This is the same question which the condemned have answered for them unspoken, when the warden and the priest and guards assemble before the cell door and he says "It is time."
They know their fate. They know it is coming. Everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. They commit their acts knowing there is no forgiveness, nothing but payment exacted for their audacity to rebel against their Creator. I read of the man with Legion within him dwelling near tombs, crying out and causing the man to cut himself.
Monstrous despair. It made sense that it would both be where it was and doing what it was doing to the host. Self hatred and loathing must be at the root of each of them, and the myriad ways in which they weaponize and deploy the weapons of their master the Accuser; "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" are proof that they have no other purpose than to use as many means to bring you to their level of misery and despair as possible, and see you tormented with them. They have nothing left.
CAST THEM OUT!!! By the grace and authority given to us, by the LORD and Savior who ransomed us with His own blood, cast them over your walls far from you AND DON'T LET A SINGLE ONE OF THEM BACK IN, no matter how piteous the cry or overwhelming the force arrayed is, FOR THEY THAT BE WITH US ARE MORE THAN THEY THAT BE WITH THEM.
Bring the gatekeeper of your mind, where the battlefield truly is, before the throne of God, and trade up for one with impregnable integrity. Because anything that gets in and does not glorify the LORD your God is only there to kill you. Submit therefore to the Absolute Truth of the Almighty, use what He has given you and taught you, be strengthened by your obedience to love Him with all you have, and among the brethren encourage and love one another, and live. Fail and be taken with those who see only their destruction in front of them, and share their fate.
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Grace To Know To Whom You Belong
5 words she said to me. I did not know that these were the last words she would speak to me on this earth.
Grandma. The hands which gave me my first Bible and prompted me to read it before a church congregation at the age of 4. Hands that eased me through a week long stomach virus while living in her home. Hands that both eased coughs away, and beat my behind for lying. Those hands were about my neck in the apartment she last lived in, surrounded by what belongings she kept from a lifetime of marriage and over 20 years of widowhood, hugging my face to hers.
5 words.
"Remember to Whom you belong."
At some level I knew what she meant. I knew to capitalize the first pronoun in my mind as I heard it, and not the second, at least.
The fathoms of my own blind ignorance, however, were just beneath the thin veneer of my nod into her warm neck; as deep a deception as the thought that, just as I had soothed myself with countless times over the years, I would visit her again while she still inhabited her flesh.
I yielded nothing. I submitted nothing. I had the temerity to think to fit God into my life, let Him be my steering wheel instead of bowing to Him in humble submission and having Him drive. True worship... denial of self... true humility... was lip service at best.
The same murderous delusion as that which dwells within the vast majority of all who lay claim to the title "Christian".
I did not even begin to know how to accept the fullness of what she was given to know. Whether by the truth; of the filthy rags of anything which *I* could do to live a clean life acceptable in His sight, or the lie; of the utter devaluation of my self worth's currency--I did not even see her words past my horrifyingly feeble hope... that I would somehow die within the handful of seconds between "repentance" of sin, and the commission anew of what I had just declared I would never do again. All her guidance, her cajoling... her hours of conversation on the phone, or one on one, throughout decades of life, whether in times of inner peace or scarcely reined atomic fury, all coalesced into those five words.
The LORD, Whom she faithfully served, granted me the grace to have the scales removed from my eyes regarding her words.
8 *years* after she died.
******************************
When I lived in Brooklyn, many of the members of my father's church lived on Bainbridge Street with us. I would see them several times a week, on the way to and from school or church. It was part of the continuity I so cherished. One of them lived across Stuyvesant Avenue, about 6 or seven houses from the corner. I can not at the time of this writing remember her name (see: senility) but she was an elderly lady who was very kind to me. I shoveled the snow from before her house in the winter in addition to ours, but we shared a common interest which I have recently recovered in her honor.
She was a lover of green growing things, as I was. One of my folks told her about my interest, and she invited me into her brownstone one day to show me her many well cared for plants. I remember at age 13 or so, looking in the front room of her home, just to the left of the iron-wrought entry, looking over the green plants, and doing a double take at colors and shapes I did not expect. Closer inspection revealed that she had, growing in Brooklyn, New York, two different kinds of fruit trees, miniature versions of their tropical counterparts; an orange tree. the golf ball sized oranges catching my eye from the hallway, and one I did not recognize. It was the largest of all, sat in a pot on the floor, and had spreading, intricate leaves at the top of a long brownish trunk without bark, and a gathering of fruit clustered where the top of the trunk met the explosion of leaves.
I asked what it was, seeing that she had 4 or 5 other, smaller versions of it, in smaller pots in the sills facing the front of her home among her other plants. "That is a papaya tree," she said in her contralto voice. She went on to answer all my questions about how the trees are cared for, and how with proper care they would fruit all year round. When it was time for me to leave, she kindly rewarded my obvious interest and handed me a few small, wrinkled, black seeds in a "dixie" cup.
I spent the next couple of years trying to replicate what she had done, but in my own bedroom window. I had yet to learn that the heat register directly above said window placed too much dry air on the young plants, although one of them grew to a decent height and even flowered. but did not produce fruit (I'm thinking now, in retrospect, that this one was a male, which produces no fruit but is advisable to have for pollination).
The 28 or so years (...*wowzers*) since I fell in love with the papaya tree saw little to no opportunity to have one. The thought of growing one in Washington D.C. struck me as just wrong; my reasoning--why on earth would I subject another living thing to live in hell along with me...? I relegated the memory of the papaya tree and the kind neighbor who taught me about them to the inviolate place in my memory where I stored all things and people from Brooklyn; the place where I lived before consignment to... well, you know.
Anyway, a 41 year old man looked at the memory this past January and thought, "Hey, man, you're an adult (sort of) a husband and father... go ahead and get some seeds and some soil and do honor to that memory, Steve." And I did; I ordered some seeds from a place in Hawaii, learned that there are several types of papaya, and ordered the one called "Linda" in honor of the beautiful woman who is my wife and mother of my children. When they arrived in a tiny, air tight envelope, I bought some soil and degradable pots, and planted 4 seeds, all in the midst of a pleasant moment reliving the memory of what I had been taught about planting the seeds only so deep, and watering the soil every day, expecting to be able to see the seedlings inside of two weeks or so.
Man...
Two weeks came and went. Nothing. 3 weeks. A month. NADA.
Every morning, when making breakfast for the girls in the morning school routine, I would look on the kitchen sill above the sink.
Bupkis.
I'd water it faithfully each day. Wait another week. Tumbleweeds.
At one point I held the pot in one hand while no one was looking, twisted up my mouth, and from the depths of useless knowledge in my memory banks, pulled out Doug E. Fresh, complete with 1980s echo chamber:
"WEEEEEE, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful... We have done so much, for so long, with so little-ittle-ittle, that we are now qualified to do anything with-with-with-with... NOTHIN-othin-othin... Say what?... NOTHIN-othin-othin... I can't hear you!... NOTHIN-othin-othin..."
A mind is a terrible thing.
After over 6 weeks, two seedlings appeared. At the same exact moment, both in the same state of unfolding from the soil on the same exact morning. Two. So what if I planted 4--two appeared, in sync, in thrice the expected germination time.
****************************************
Herein lies a lesson in the sovereignty of the LORD. I can be as huge a control freak as I want to be; I am not in control. The One Who determines which seeds will grow and when is the same One Who determined when and where I would exist, and determines how long my heart will beat and my lungs will take in air. I must continuously trust and obey the LORD, and all pretense of control I exert over something is precisely that, a pitiful pretense, lasting the equally pitiful length of time it takes to be born on this earth and die. Obey and trust Him with all you have in you, that He may be glorified." That's all there is.
I look at that pot of baby papaya trees and thank the LORD for the lesson; I am to be faithful and concentrate on doing what I am here to do, and things will happen in His way, in His time, in accordance with His good pleasure and as He sees fit. Not the way *I* want it, beacuse that is less than irrelevant. Not the way *you* want it, either, save by happy coincidence of your will being in alignment with His own over a particular thing. Don't look at your own will, Steve. Don't even hold any bit of it in your hand or clutch it to your chest because your flesh craves/wants/will sell your soul for a nickel for its own sake to obtain. Give it to the Father and accept that *He* is LORD and not you. Trust and obey Him above *you* and your will's delusion of might and strength. Love Him with all that you have, and your true neighbor as yourself, and be thankful... BE THANKFUL EVERY NANOSECOND OF YOUR LIFE... that He made you a good seed, one of His, from before the foundation of the world, for His glory, and not a tare, indistinguishable from the wheat, but known... *known* beyond all doubt... to those who will harvest.
"Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”" Matthew 13:24-30
"Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." Matthew 13:36-43
We covered these verses in our Bible study recently. My brother in Christ, Cyril Jermin, said, "Anyone who is familiar at all with farming knows that a farmer keeps a collection of choice seeds, and determines when and where they will be planted. We were in *His* hand, sown from His hand..."
"...before the foundation of the world." I spoke aloud. And, remembering my grandmother's final admonishment to me, I cried in front of all of those people. It was one of the few moments in my life when it took all of my strength to restrain weeping in strangled silence, and not let it pour out of me in shameless floods.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:" Ephesians 1:3-4
""Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." Matthew 25:34
"And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day." John 6:39
"All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast--all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." Revelation 13:8
No longer do I need to search for stones in my soil. No longer do I have a place to harbor any doubt of whether I am sheep or belligerent goat. I belong to Him. I am His sheep, and hear His voice. The sure knowledge that I am His and He has ransomed me is *not* license to act any way I want, but an opportunity to show my gratitude and serve Him more faithfully.
Thank You, Father, for a heart that wants to trust and obey *You* above what I want. You gave this to me despite the fact that I am the wretch the song Amazing Grace refers to.
Thank You, Father, for a heart that knows that the *only* thing which we are all genetically predisposed to do is SIN, and that we can only be freed from that condition through Your salvation; being one of Yours, sown in the world by Your hand and written in the Book of Life before the world was even made.
Thank You, Father, for teaching me to learn my place and stay in it; a creation. A bit of shadows and dust You formed. That *You* ALONE are God, and that You ALONE are sovereign over everything.
Thank You for a grandmother who loved me enough to convey to me with everything she had to remember to Whom I belong, and for Your choosing to let me live long enough to accept it as truth.
Grandma. The hands which gave me my first Bible and prompted me to read it before a church congregation at the age of 4. Hands that eased me through a week long stomach virus while living in her home. Hands that both eased coughs away, and beat my behind for lying. Those hands were about my neck in the apartment she last lived in, surrounded by what belongings she kept from a lifetime of marriage and over 20 years of widowhood, hugging my face to hers.
5 words.
"Remember to Whom you belong."
At some level I knew what she meant. I knew to capitalize the first pronoun in my mind as I heard it, and not the second, at least.
The fathoms of my own blind ignorance, however, were just beneath the thin veneer of my nod into her warm neck; as deep a deception as the thought that, just as I had soothed myself with countless times over the years, I would visit her again while she still inhabited her flesh.
I yielded nothing. I submitted nothing. I had the temerity to think to fit God into my life, let Him be my steering wheel instead of bowing to Him in humble submission and having Him drive. True worship... denial of self... true humility... was lip service at best.
The same murderous delusion as that which dwells within the vast majority of all who lay claim to the title "Christian".
I did not even begin to know how to accept the fullness of what she was given to know. Whether by the truth; of the filthy rags of anything which *I* could do to live a clean life acceptable in His sight, or the lie; of the utter devaluation of my self worth's currency--I did not even see her words past my horrifyingly feeble hope... that I would somehow die within the handful of seconds between "repentance" of sin, and the commission anew of what I had just declared I would never do again. All her guidance, her cajoling... her hours of conversation on the phone, or one on one, throughout decades of life, whether in times of inner peace or scarcely reined atomic fury, all coalesced into those five words.
The LORD, Whom she faithfully served, granted me the grace to have the scales removed from my eyes regarding her words.
8 *years* after she died.
******************************
When I lived in Brooklyn, many of the members of my father's church lived on Bainbridge Street with us. I would see them several times a week, on the way to and from school or church. It was part of the continuity I so cherished. One of them lived across Stuyvesant Avenue, about 6 or seven houses from the corner. I can not at the time of this writing remember her name (see: senility) but she was an elderly lady who was very kind to me. I shoveled the snow from before her house in the winter in addition to ours, but we shared a common interest which I have recently recovered in her honor.
She was a lover of green growing things, as I was. One of my folks told her about my interest, and she invited me into her brownstone one day to show me her many well cared for plants. I remember at age 13 or so, looking in the front room of her home, just to the left of the iron-wrought entry, looking over the green plants, and doing a double take at colors and shapes I did not expect. Closer inspection revealed that she had, growing in Brooklyn, New York, two different kinds of fruit trees, miniature versions of their tropical counterparts; an orange tree. the golf ball sized oranges catching my eye from the hallway, and one I did not recognize. It was the largest of all, sat in a pot on the floor, and had spreading, intricate leaves at the top of a long brownish trunk without bark, and a gathering of fruit clustered where the top of the trunk met the explosion of leaves.
I asked what it was, seeing that she had 4 or 5 other, smaller versions of it, in smaller pots in the sills facing the front of her home among her other plants. "That is a papaya tree," she said in her contralto voice. She went on to answer all my questions about how the trees are cared for, and how with proper care they would fruit all year round. When it was time for me to leave, she kindly rewarded my obvious interest and handed me a few small, wrinkled, black seeds in a "dixie" cup.
I spent the next couple of years trying to replicate what she had done, but in my own bedroom window. I had yet to learn that the heat register directly above said window placed too much dry air on the young plants, although one of them grew to a decent height and even flowered. but did not produce fruit (I'm thinking now, in retrospect, that this one was a male, which produces no fruit but is advisable to have for pollination).
The 28 or so years (...*wowzers*) since I fell in love with the papaya tree saw little to no opportunity to have one. The thought of growing one in Washington D.C. struck me as just wrong; my reasoning--why on earth would I subject another living thing to live in hell along with me...? I relegated the memory of the papaya tree and the kind neighbor who taught me about them to the inviolate place in my memory where I stored all things and people from Brooklyn; the place where I lived before consignment to... well, you know.
Anyway, a 41 year old man looked at the memory this past January and thought, "Hey, man, you're an adult (sort of) a husband and father... go ahead and get some seeds and some soil and do honor to that memory, Steve." And I did; I ordered some seeds from a place in Hawaii, learned that there are several types of papaya, and ordered the one called "Linda" in honor of the beautiful woman who is my wife and mother of my children. When they arrived in a tiny, air tight envelope, I bought some soil and degradable pots, and planted 4 seeds, all in the midst of a pleasant moment reliving the memory of what I had been taught about planting the seeds only so deep, and watering the soil every day, expecting to be able to see the seedlings inside of two weeks or so.
Man...
Two weeks came and went. Nothing. 3 weeks. A month. NADA.
Every morning, when making breakfast for the girls in the morning school routine, I would look on the kitchen sill above the sink.
Bupkis.
I'd water it faithfully each day. Wait another week. Tumbleweeds.
At one point I held the pot in one hand while no one was looking, twisted up my mouth, and from the depths of useless knowledge in my memory banks, pulled out Doug E. Fresh, complete with 1980s echo chamber:
"WEEEEEE, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful... We have done so much, for so long, with so little-ittle-ittle, that we are now qualified to do anything with-with-with-with... NOTHIN-othin-othin... Say what?... NOTHIN-othin-othin... I can't hear you!... NOTHIN-othin-othin..."
A mind is a terrible thing.
After over 6 weeks, two seedlings appeared. At the same exact moment, both in the same state of unfolding from the soil on the same exact morning. Two. So what if I planted 4--two appeared, in sync, in thrice the expected germination time.
****************************************
Herein lies a lesson in the sovereignty of the LORD. I can be as huge a control freak as I want to be; I am not in control. The One Who determines which seeds will grow and when is the same One Who determined when and where I would exist, and determines how long my heart will beat and my lungs will take in air. I must continuously trust and obey the LORD, and all pretense of control I exert over something is precisely that, a pitiful pretense, lasting the equally pitiful length of time it takes to be born on this earth and die. Obey and trust Him with all you have in you, that He may be glorified." That's all there is.
I look at that pot of baby papaya trees and thank the LORD for the lesson; I am to be faithful and concentrate on doing what I am here to do, and things will happen in His way, in His time, in accordance with His good pleasure and as He sees fit. Not the way *I* want it, beacuse that is less than irrelevant. Not the way *you* want it, either, save by happy coincidence of your will being in alignment with His own over a particular thing. Don't look at your own will, Steve. Don't even hold any bit of it in your hand or clutch it to your chest because your flesh craves/wants/will sell your soul for a nickel for its own sake to obtain. Give it to the Father and accept that *He* is LORD and not you. Trust and obey Him above *you* and your will's delusion of might and strength. Love Him with all that you have, and your true neighbor as yourself, and be thankful... BE THANKFUL EVERY NANOSECOND OF YOUR LIFE... that He made you a good seed, one of His, from before the foundation of the world, for His glory, and not a tare, indistinguishable from the wheat, but known... *known* beyond all doubt... to those who will harvest.
"Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”" Matthew 13:24-30
"Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." Matthew 13:36-43
We covered these verses in our Bible study recently. My brother in Christ, Cyril Jermin, said, "Anyone who is familiar at all with farming knows that a farmer keeps a collection of choice seeds, and determines when and where they will be planted. We were in *His* hand, sown from His hand..."
"...before the foundation of the world." I spoke aloud. And, remembering my grandmother's final admonishment to me, I cried in front of all of those people. It was one of the few moments in my life when it took all of my strength to restrain weeping in strangled silence, and not let it pour out of me in shameless floods.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:" Ephesians 1:3-4
""Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." Matthew 25:34
"And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day." John 6:39
"All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast--all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." Revelation 13:8
No longer do I need to search for stones in my soil. No longer do I have a place to harbor any doubt of whether I am sheep or belligerent goat. I belong to Him. I am His sheep, and hear His voice. The sure knowledge that I am His and He has ransomed me is *not* license to act any way I want, but an opportunity to show my gratitude and serve Him more faithfully.
Thank You, Father, for a heart that wants to trust and obey *You* above what I want. You gave this to me despite the fact that I am the wretch the song Amazing Grace refers to.
Thank You, Father, for a heart that knows that the *only* thing which we are all genetically predisposed to do is SIN, and that we can only be freed from that condition through Your salvation; being one of Yours, sown in the world by Your hand and written in the Book of Life before the world was even made.
Thank You, Father, for teaching me to learn my place and stay in it; a creation. A bit of shadows and dust You formed. That *You* ALONE are God, and that You ALONE are sovereign over everything.
Thank You for a grandmother who loved me enough to convey to me with everything she had to remember to Whom I belong, and for Your choosing to let me live long enough to accept it as truth.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
One Way Or The Other
In the One Way, or in the other, the name of the LORD *will* be glorified, both by my life and by yours, as surely as there is a Sun in the sky and night follows the day.
This truth requires nothing from us. Neither our consent, nor our acceptance, our compliance, our obedience, nor even our acknowledgement of its existence, are necessary. Hopefully, we receive the grace to know our true place, as slaves and bond-servants of either to sin, or to He Who ransoms us from it. Or perhaps through the parasitic cancer of pride we consider ourselves to be potential gods striving to "recover former glory". Or maybe we bow to no god but the idol of currency, like most of the world. Perhaps we merely hold *ourselves* in higher esteem than He Who created us. Whatever our worldview, OUR LIVES *WILL* GLORIFY HIM.
The Sovereign, Holy, Almighty LORD needs no one to worship Him, or be His people.
His Sovereignty is such that all of the Heavens are His roof, and the Earth is His footstool. It is such that if His followers had been silent rather than shouting their praise and glory as the Master entered Jerusalem, then the very *stones* would have cried out. His glory is magnified by all creation, whether it yields its will in submission, or refuses and is made into an example of His wrath. His Holiness is so intolerant of sin that the laws given to Israel simply could not be followed without a spirit and heart broken and contrite before the LORD. Pride must be *absent*, our souls completely cleansed of its terminal cancer, to see the utterly hopeless calamity of our soul's state; the complete unworthiness of us to anything but *death* beside His holiness. This remains so for those of us who are disciples of His Son today, because it was only by the Blood of Christ that we may stand before Him.
Yet from the time of Aristotle, on through to today's world, pride and self will are considered virtue and are exalted, while humility, and the denial of self necessary to follow Jesus are considered weakness and are shunned.
The LORD has made clear what is of value to Him.
"Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD." 2 Kings 22:19
"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17
"For this is what the high and lofty One says--he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." Isaiah 57:15
"Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity." Joel 2:13
Those infested with Pride and the Will to wield it are impaled upon them both before the LORD. To wield them rather than *yield* them is unbowed rebellion against Him, and the Word shows that severe, lasting consequence follow, even when we are forgiven.
Yes, I said infested; Pride is a parasite with the benefit of a good press agent. It grows, and metastasizes, and KILLS; like cancer. It is an affliction which causes blindness to the condition of the soul it preys upon, until that soul is brought, naked, all pride and will torn away before the presence of the LORD in the day of judgment. By then it is too late, and the soul is delivered to the Second Death.
The theme of "Obey the LORD or be used as an example of wrath upon disobedience to Him," is not a state that has changed with the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, folks; that was the only way in which the Father would accept restoring us to Him. It did not change the condition of God's Holiness and Sovereignty in any way.
"God is not like people. He tells no lies. He is not like humans. He doesn't change his mind. When He says something, He does it. When He makes a promise, He keeps it." Numbers 23:19
Are you one who thinks that your sense of right and wrong need not submit wholly to, or requires no alignment with, that of the LORD? Do you think that He will see the difference in your measurement and understand; excuse the differences? Do you think He sent His ONLY Son to be tortured and crushed so He could start winking with the rest of the world at that which He calls sin and abomination?
Do you even fear the LORD at all?
Consider the scriptures, both listed here, and the innumerable others within the Word which expose those thoughts of presumption for the deadly lie which they are, and consider where your worldview aligns with them, and THINK AGAIN. Jesus said that the way to life is narrow and few will find it because of those untold billions who think that same way; that their way is good enough.
Do you not like these questions I have asked? Do you consider them unfair? Intolerant? Inconsiderate of your feelings?
You would be correct. The truth doesn't take our feelings into any account whatsoever; we are either accepting of the Truth, allow ourselves to be branches of the Vine, be painfully pruned and roll with it, or we reject it, are cut off from the Vine, and are crushed by it as it rolls right over us... before we are summarily burned in the fire.
The truth is absolute and unchanging. Permanent. It is therefore intolerant of all your desired modifications to it.
This--this life--*being* here; the dates that will mark our headstones signifying the blink of an eye between our birth and our death--this is not about us. You do not breathe in and out for the sake of what you think is fair or what pleases you or makes *you* happy; the dream of pursuit of whatever pleases you is *not* the will of the LORD. You are placed here to love, worship, and glorify the One Who made you. That's it. Do it *His* way and live forever; do it your own way and die for all eternity. This is the central theme throughout the Word of the LORD from Genesis through the Revelation of John. It requires sacrifice, rejection, and enmity with the entire world, because it rejected the Truth long ago and *knows* you are removed from its fate, and are insulated from the evil of its dominion.
When Jesus said, "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." in Matthew 10:22, did you think he was playing? Did you think you had devised some clever way to be saved while avoiding the hatred and persecution that will come with it, when the LORD also said, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."?
You still think you've "got this", *your* way, and don't need Him, don't you.
For your own sake; please think again. The lie only lasts for as long as you breathe, and the breathing can stop at any time; in your sleep, walking down the street, behind the wheel of your car, at your desk reading a blog...
No euphoric, temporal façade, which defies the Absolute Truth of God's Sovereignty and lasts for precisely the split second we inhabit this place and no longer, is worth the burning agony of eternity separated from Him.
Behold two Kings of Israel. Both glorified God.
One Saul. One David.
Saul was chosen of the people in rejection of the LORD. David was chosen by the LORD in spite of the choice of the people, to establish His Kingdom forever.
Saul made decisions based upon fear of his own people, and forgot his true place. David made his choices based upon his fear of the LORD, and when he forgot his place, he truly repented, even as he was harshly punished.
Saul was blinded by his pride into thinking he could disobey the LORD, deceive the prophet Samuel, and get away with it, because he esteemed himself above his need to obey. David was blinded by his lust, disobeyed the LORD and repented when confronted by the prophet Nathan, because he loved the LORD above himself and knew in his heart that deceiving Him was impossible.
Saul reacted to the truth of his sin with fear rather than contrite submission, compounding the sin with ever more sin, until the LORD used him to make an example of what happens when a person abandons His way in favor of their own. David reacted to the truth of his sin with repentance, his heart broken by that truth, and the LORD used him to show that even as your sin has lasting consequence, if you repent and set your heart upon pleasing Him you will be forgiven, and be made into an example of His grace and mercy. (Even as David's first son born from Bathsheba died in infancy because of his sin in taking her for his wife, he received the punishment in full acceptance, and moved on in service to the LORD). That is severe punishment and lasting consequence for *the anointed King of Israel*, chosen of the LORD, recognized by the Almighty Himself as a man after His own heart... and some of us have the hubris to think we can escape consequence... we, the *creation*, *willing* our sense of right and wrong to be *complied* to by the *Creator*, instead of the other way around.
Saul was king for 2 years. *2 years.* He died abandoned by the LORD for having forsaken Him. The bodies of his sons were slain beside him, and there were no farewells. Even at the moment of his death, Saul fell upon his own sword for fear of what the enemy's humiliation would be once they caught him. David was king for *40 years* and died in his bed as a servant of the LORD. He said his farewells to Solomon his son, advising him to both observe what the LORD requires, and walk in His ways. His line was established forever, because his heart was after God's own.
Behold two kings of Israel. BOTH glorified God.
In one way, or in the other, our lives *will* do the very same, serving as examples of grace and mercy, or examples of wrath and destruction.
Please. Yield to the will of the LORD and serve Him. It is for no one's sake but your own, because He will be glorified by your example whether you do or not.
This truth requires nothing from us. Neither our consent, nor our acceptance, our compliance, our obedience, nor even our acknowledgement of its existence, are necessary. Hopefully, we receive the grace to know our true place, as slaves and bond-servants of either to sin, or to He Who ransoms us from it. Or perhaps through the parasitic cancer of pride we consider ourselves to be potential gods striving to "recover former glory". Or maybe we bow to no god but the idol of currency, like most of the world. Perhaps we merely hold *ourselves* in higher esteem than He Who created us. Whatever our worldview, OUR LIVES *WILL* GLORIFY HIM.
The Sovereign, Holy, Almighty LORD needs no one to worship Him, or be His people.
His Sovereignty is such that all of the Heavens are His roof, and the Earth is His footstool. It is such that if His followers had been silent rather than shouting their praise and glory as the Master entered Jerusalem, then the very *stones* would have cried out. His glory is magnified by all creation, whether it yields its will in submission, or refuses and is made into an example of His wrath. His Holiness is so intolerant of sin that the laws given to Israel simply could not be followed without a spirit and heart broken and contrite before the LORD. Pride must be *absent*, our souls completely cleansed of its terminal cancer, to see the utterly hopeless calamity of our soul's state; the complete unworthiness of us to anything but *death* beside His holiness. This remains so for those of us who are disciples of His Son today, because it was only by the Blood of Christ that we may stand before Him.
Yet from the time of Aristotle, on through to today's world, pride and self will are considered virtue and are exalted, while humility, and the denial of self necessary to follow Jesus are considered weakness and are shunned.
The LORD has made clear what is of value to Him.
"Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD." 2 Kings 22:19
"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17
"For this is what the high and lofty One says--he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." Isaiah 57:15
"Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity." Joel 2:13
Those infested with Pride and the Will to wield it are impaled upon them both before the LORD. To wield them rather than *yield* them is unbowed rebellion against Him, and the Word shows that severe, lasting consequence follow, even when we are forgiven.
Yes, I said infested; Pride is a parasite with the benefit of a good press agent. It grows, and metastasizes, and KILLS; like cancer. It is an affliction which causes blindness to the condition of the soul it preys upon, until that soul is brought, naked, all pride and will torn away before the presence of the LORD in the day of judgment. By then it is too late, and the soul is delivered to the Second Death.
The theme of "Obey the LORD or be used as an example of wrath upon disobedience to Him," is not a state that has changed with the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, folks; that was the only way in which the Father would accept restoring us to Him. It did not change the condition of God's Holiness and Sovereignty in any way.
"God is not like people. He tells no lies. He is not like humans. He doesn't change his mind. When He says something, He does it. When He makes a promise, He keeps it." Numbers 23:19
Are you one who thinks that your sense of right and wrong need not submit wholly to, or requires no alignment with, that of the LORD? Do you think that He will see the difference in your measurement and understand; excuse the differences? Do you think He sent His ONLY Son to be tortured and crushed so He could start winking with the rest of the world at that which He calls sin and abomination?
Do you even fear the LORD at all?
Consider the scriptures, both listed here, and the innumerable others within the Word which expose those thoughts of presumption for the deadly lie which they are, and consider where your worldview aligns with them, and THINK AGAIN. Jesus said that the way to life is narrow and few will find it because of those untold billions who think that same way; that their way is good enough.
Do you not like these questions I have asked? Do you consider them unfair? Intolerant? Inconsiderate of your feelings?
You would be correct. The truth doesn't take our feelings into any account whatsoever; we are either accepting of the Truth, allow ourselves to be branches of the Vine, be painfully pruned and roll with it, or we reject it, are cut off from the Vine, and are crushed by it as it rolls right over us... before we are summarily burned in the fire.
The truth is absolute and unchanging. Permanent. It is therefore intolerant of all your desired modifications to it.
This--this life--*being* here; the dates that will mark our headstones signifying the blink of an eye between our birth and our death--this is not about us. You do not breathe in and out for the sake of what you think is fair or what pleases you or makes *you* happy; the dream of pursuit of whatever pleases you is *not* the will of the LORD. You are placed here to love, worship, and glorify the One Who made you. That's it. Do it *His* way and live forever; do it your own way and die for all eternity. This is the central theme throughout the Word of the LORD from Genesis through the Revelation of John. It requires sacrifice, rejection, and enmity with the entire world, because it rejected the Truth long ago and *knows* you are removed from its fate, and are insulated from the evil of its dominion.
When Jesus said, "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." in Matthew 10:22, did you think he was playing? Did you think you had devised some clever way to be saved while avoiding the hatred and persecution that will come with it, when the LORD also said, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."?
You still think you've "got this", *your* way, and don't need Him, don't you.
For your own sake; please think again. The lie only lasts for as long as you breathe, and the breathing can stop at any time; in your sleep, walking down the street, behind the wheel of your car, at your desk reading a blog...
No euphoric, temporal façade, which defies the Absolute Truth of God's Sovereignty and lasts for precisely the split second we inhabit this place and no longer, is worth the burning agony of eternity separated from Him.
Behold two Kings of Israel. Both glorified God.
One Saul. One David.
Saul was chosen of the people in rejection of the LORD. David was chosen by the LORD in spite of the choice of the people, to establish His Kingdom forever.
Saul made decisions based upon fear of his own people, and forgot his true place. David made his choices based upon his fear of the LORD, and when he forgot his place, he truly repented, even as he was harshly punished.
Saul was blinded by his pride into thinking he could disobey the LORD, deceive the prophet Samuel, and get away with it, because he esteemed himself above his need to obey. David was blinded by his lust, disobeyed the LORD and repented when confronted by the prophet Nathan, because he loved the LORD above himself and knew in his heart that deceiving Him was impossible.
Saul reacted to the truth of his sin with fear rather than contrite submission, compounding the sin with ever more sin, until the LORD used him to make an example of what happens when a person abandons His way in favor of their own. David reacted to the truth of his sin with repentance, his heart broken by that truth, and the LORD used him to show that even as your sin has lasting consequence, if you repent and set your heart upon pleasing Him you will be forgiven, and be made into an example of His grace and mercy. (Even as David's first son born from Bathsheba died in infancy because of his sin in taking her for his wife, he received the punishment in full acceptance, and moved on in service to the LORD). That is severe punishment and lasting consequence for *the anointed King of Israel*, chosen of the LORD, recognized by the Almighty Himself as a man after His own heart... and some of us have the hubris to think we can escape consequence... we, the *creation*, *willing* our sense of right and wrong to be *complied* to by the *Creator*, instead of the other way around.
Saul was king for 2 years. *2 years.* He died abandoned by the LORD for having forsaken Him. The bodies of his sons were slain beside him, and there were no farewells. Even at the moment of his death, Saul fell upon his own sword for fear of what the enemy's humiliation would be once they caught him. David was king for *40 years* and died in his bed as a servant of the LORD. He said his farewells to Solomon his son, advising him to both observe what the LORD requires, and walk in His ways. His line was established forever, because his heart was after God's own.
Behold two kings of Israel. BOTH glorified God.
In one way, or in the other, our lives *will* do the very same, serving as examples of grace and mercy, or examples of wrath and destruction.
Please. Yield to the will of the LORD and serve Him. It is for no one's sake but your own, because He will be glorified by your example whether you do or not.
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