Following

Note: After Uncle Joe was visited by an angel in 1959 and healed of the cancer that the doctors said would kill him in 60 to 90 days, he immersed himself in the Scriptures, and as he studied the Bible, he wrote out many of his thoughts. Here is one of them.

If something influences us, we follow it. The question, “Who are you following?” is only another way of asking, “Who is influencing you?” We can, of course, follow, or be influenced, by good as well as by evil. When Paul exhorted the saints to “follow after the things that make for peace”(Rom. 14:19), that was only another way of saying, “Let yourself be influenced by the peaceful spirits of others.” When he wrote, “follow after charity” (1Cor. 14:1), he was only saying, “Let your spirit be influenced by the charity you see in others.”

Here are some other things Paul wanted the saints to follow:

1Thess. 5:15: “Ever follow that which is good” (that is, “Always let good people influence you.”)

1Tim. 6:11: “Follow after righteousness” (that is, “Let righteous people influence you.”)

2Tim. 2:22: “Follow faith, charity, and peace” (that is, “Let faithful, loving saints influence you.”)

Heb. 12:14: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness” (that is, “Let God’s holiness and peace influence how to treat others.”)

Heb. 13:7: “Remember those who have the rule over you, who have spoken to you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conduct” (that is, “Let the example of faithful elders influence you.”)

Heb 6:11,12: “And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end, so that you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (that is, “Work steadily in the Lord as you see others do.”)

1Peter 2:21: “. . . leaving us example that you follow His steps” (that is, Let the example of Jesus influence you.)

My father once told me that others will follow you, once your mind is made up. In other words, you will influence others once Jesus has sufficiently influenced you. But not only will people follow us once we are on the right path. On the day of judgment something else will follow us, too, as Uncle Joe’s last Scripture shows us!

Rev. 14:13: “And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.”

The Sacrifices of Israel

Jesus said that he was “meek and lowly in heart”, and then he issued an invitation to his disciples to “Come, learn from me” (Mt. 11:29). Men of God, years later, would write that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is “the radiance of God’s glory and the reflection of His very being” (Heb. 1:3) and “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). But if the Son is the mirror image of his Father, and the Son says he is ”meek and lowly in heart”, then what does that truth tell us about the Father?

It tells us in words what the Father told Israel in works.

In Leviticus, the laws governing sacrificial works in Israel are given. One of the astonishing things about God’s sacrificial system is how simple and generous it is. While the gods of the Gentiles were demanding extravagant and costly gifts, including the sacrifice of innocent children, the God of Israel demanded so little that Israel could not even believe it was sufficient. The main reason ancient Israel failed in their walk with God was that He was so good that they could not believe it. For one instance, if the entire nation of Israel was found to have transgressed, what was required to make atonement for the sins of all those millions of people was one bullock! That was all: “When the sin which they have sinned against it [God’s law] is known, then the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the sin” (Lev. 4:14).

Perhaps even more astonishing, especially in comparison to the oppressive, self-serving demands of heathen gods recorded in the sagas and laws of ancient Gentiles, is what God demanded when someone stole from Him as compared to when someone stole from a mere mortal: Here are God’s requirements for such sins, as found in Leviticus:

Trespass Offering for stealing from God
1. The owner must bring the offering to the Lord (Lev. 5:15a).
2. It must be a ram without blemish (5:15b).
3. A fine will be determined by the priest (5:15c).
4. The guilty must “make amends” for the harm, and add 20% to it (5:16a).
5. “And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the Trespass Offering, and it shall be forgiven him” (5:16b).

Trespass Offering for stealing from a neighbor
1. The owner must bring the offering to the Lord (6:6a).
2. It must be a ram without blemish (6:6b).
3. A fine will be determined by the priest (6:6c).
4. The guilty must restore what he has stolen, and add 20% to it (6:5).
5. “And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him.” (6:7).

The humility of the Almighty revealed in these Trespass offering laws is breath-taking. He could have demanded anything – everything – of those who succumbed to fear, or greed, or were just ignorant, and failed to render to Him what was His due, in tithes and offerings. But His concern was not with Himself; His concern was for the one who had done the wrong, to restore him to fellowship and safety within the congregation of the Lord’s people. The focus of God’s law was on our well-being because the focus of God’s heart was on our well-being.

“If there had been a law given which could have given life,” wrote Paul, “surely righteousness would have been by the law (Gal. 3:21). Before the Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost so that we could walk in it, walking in the light of the law that God gave Israel was as close to God as anyone could be. The righteousness of the law was a pure and great a righteousness as anyone could have before God shared His righteousness with us, through the Spirit. The Old Testament law revealed God’s loving heart, and His perfect justice, as well as it could have been revealed without having God Himself dwell in us and guide us from within. The sacrificial system of the law was just one of the tools God used to reveal Himself to Israel, but other than the sunshine and the rain, it was the one He used the most.

If you would like a copy of my summary of Israel’s sacrificial system as it is described in the book of Leviticus, it is available. It was a very simple system; still, one must study it carefully in order to grasp its beauty.

A Psalm 119 Imitation

David wrote a Psalm (119) in which each section begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. He went through the whole alphabet in order. I thought I'd try that, and it blessed me. I really felt some good feelings when I did it. YOU try it and see how you feel. Here is mine:


All my ways are in you.
Before the beginning you knew me, and you loved me.
Come to me now, and teach me.
Do not leave me to those who hate me, for
Evil men would destroy me.
Forgive the foolishness of my youth.
Give me life, and I will delight in you.
Hide me in the shadow of your wings, for
I am poor and needy.
Just the breath of your mouth made the heavens.
Keep me as your own, and make me glad.
Let me walk in your ways.
Make me to know you and to be as you are.
Never let me be moved.
Open my ears with your song.
Put your hand upon me for good.
Quicken my steps so that I can walk in your ways.
Raise me up to sit with you in glory.
Save me.
Take me into your kingdom forever.
Until I see your face, I will not be satisfied.
Very often my thoughts are on you.
When will I see your face?
EXcept for hope in your mercy, I would have been overwhelmed.
You are life to me.
Zeal for your people has driven me to your altar.

Wanted by Carnally Minded Men: The Flesh, Dead or Alive

or “Why Seek Ye The Living Among the Dead?”

It is, of course, very important to know who is saint and who is not. God makes a person a saint by baptizing him with the holy Ghost, for a saint is anyone who has been sanctified, regardless of whether or not he has remained faithful to the Sanctifier, Jesus Christ. The act of being sanctified by the Spirit makes one a saint, not the behavior of that saint after being sanctified. Every person who has received the holy Spirit is a saint because of what God has done, not what that person has done. And such a person is a saint, whether or not men say so. A person’s becoming a saint is altogether the work of God, not of men. Only the One who has the power to baptize with the holy Ghost has the power to sanctify.

Christians have a bizarre and extended rite by which they claim to make a person a saint. As part of that prolonged ecclesiastical process (sometimes it takes many years), the rotted corpses of dead candidates for sainthood are disinterred and examined. From the January 11, 1999 edition of U.S. News and World Report comes a detailed description of how Christians make saints. Part of the process is that the persons who have nominated someone for sainthood must write a detailed, scholarly paper, called a posito, in defense of their candidate. On page 56 of the article, we are told that the posito “is often accompanied by the much grimmer task of exhuming the candidate’s corpse.” For example, the thoroughly decayed corpse of Pierre Toussaint, who died in the 19th century, was dug up by Christians in 1990, and “a forensics team spent 15 days excavating his grave, using computer imaging to match the skull to an antique photo of Toussaint.” Explained one of the Christians who was promoting Toussaint for Christian sainthood, “Rome wanted assurances that these were the real remains of Pierre Toussaint, and not just a bunch of bones.”

That’s a good idea, I think. If you’re about to make somebody a saint, you’d better make sure you have the right guy.

The article goes on to explain that disinterment of a corpse is especially needed in cases in which the candidate has been dead a long time, because “the church requires proof that the person actually existed.”

This is another good idea. If you’re about to make somebody a saint, it is best to make sure the guy even existed.

It’s a good thing that the Lord never has to dig people up and examine their skull for fifteen days before giving him the holy Ghost. With their tongues rotted away, it would be very difficult for them to speak in tongues. Can you picture Jesus, in making his decision to give someone the holy Ghost, sending a band of angel investigators to earth to make sure the guy existed? If it were not for the fact that Christians claim to be doing the weird things that they sometimes do in the name of the Lord, they would be committed to a mental asylum. Instead, they honor each other and are honored by worldly men as wise, devoted servants of God. What a world!

Actually, the digging up and admiration of corpses is a long-standing tradition among Christians. This is not a well-known fact, but it is an indisputable, historical fact. Any reputable history of early Christianity will describe the crucial role that “relics” played in the spread of Christianity to Barbarian societies in northern and western Europe. “Relics” are body parts taken from dead Christian saints, believed to have power to bring good fortune to those who possess and revere them. Incredible lengths have been taken by multitudes of Christians, especially in Europe, to secure (sometimes even rob graves and steal) body parts of dead saints.

The rapid spread of Christianity among the superstitious Barbarian peoples was made possible in large measure by the use of relics. This gruesome element of the Christian experience is described in many histories of early Christianity, but the practice of the veneration of relics is not merely an ancient phenomenon; it has remained an important part of Christianity. In the late 16th century, king Philip of Spain, an extremely devout Christian, collected thousands of various body parts from cadavers of saints – hands, feet, ears, fingers, whatever he could get – then placed them in golden vessels in a specially prepared gold-plated wall in his palace, and slept close to them. To this day, body parts from Christian corpses can be found in thousands of chapels and “holy sites” around the world, and pilgrimages to those relics are still made by faithful Christians.

The most famous disinterment came in the “cadaver synod” of A.D. 897. In this case, Pope Stephen VI ordered that the still-rotting corpse of his hated, recently deceased predecessor, Pope Formoses, to be exhumed and put on trial. From page 83 of the book, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (Eamon Duffy. Yale University Press, 1997), we are told that “the corpse, dressed in pontifical vestments and propped up on a throne, was found guilty of perjury and other crimes, was mutilated by having the fingers used in blessings hacked off, and was then tossed into the Tiber [River].” We are not told what defense the dead Pope offered on his own behalf. Apparently though, Pope Stephen’s display of Christian zeal was too much for even Christians to endure. Stephen was deposed, and later, while in prison, strangled. We are not told if his body was brought to trial or was sliced up and given out to provide relics for various chapels in Europe.

Folks, such a history as this is unworthy of the name of Jesus. But this is Christianity’s history, and God ordained that men should record it so that His people could clearly see how ungodly that religion is, and so that they would be encouraged to obey God and come out of it. That is why I am bringing it to your attention. It is a nasty thing to dig up a corpse for any reason, but it is spiritual insanity to dig up a rotting cadaver as part of one’s service to Jesus. To do so is to partake of one of the world’s grossest delusions. Is there any wonder that the Spirit is crying out to us, “Come out of her, My people”?

My advice is for us all to wait until Jesus comes, and let him raise up the dead. He’s the only one who really knows how. Those whom he raises up will live again, and will live in new, glorified bodies, not in the same old fleshly bodies in which they lived previously. Those decayed corpses of flesh will be left behind for the entertainment of fools, to worship or to condemn in court – whatever they choose to do with them. Those who belong to Christ have far better things to do.

The Offender, The Offended, and Jesus

I have edited this message which Uncle Joe (1915-1996) wrote in private almost half a century ago. As usual with the things he wrote, one can sense both his wisdom and his struggle with putting forth what he saw in words. Hopefully, with my few additions and clarifications, I have made the wonderful insight of his message more accessible to the reader. Uncle Joe and I were kindred spirits, and knowing what he meant to say made my task much easier than if I were editing the message of a stranger.

I hope you will enjoy this and other messages from Uncle Joe, written in private after he was healed of cancer in 1959, but that are now being salvaged from his papers, typed and made public. In this one, he is trying to describe a place with God that is only found in the Spirit.

jdc
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The Offender, The Offended, and Jesus

By

Joseph H. Murray

As long as we are among those offending "one of the least of these" or among those being offended by "one of the least of these", we cannot be of help to either of those two groups. In fact, we are found to be in one group or the other, needing help ourselves.

Before one can be used of the Lord to help God’s people, we have to move from the stage of being an offender or from the state of being offended at every little thing that comes our way -- and move to the plateau of which Paul wrote when he said, “none of these things move me” (Acts 20:24).

It is written, “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea” (Mark 9:42). No one can be offended unless there is an offense in him, because we cannot reap anything that we do not sow. Therefore, we should depart from all sin so that no one could sin against us.

If we are liars, we should stop being liars so that no one could lie to us. We should stop deceiving others so that we could not be deceived. Again, I say, we can only receive into our basket what we have it open for, and what we already have in it. If a trash basket, we receive trash. If a vessel of honor, we receive the good things of God and things that are honorable.

Jesus never puts any one down but draws both the offender and the offended to the same level. When he was arrested in the Garden, this happened: “And one of them [Peter] smote the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. Then Jesus [rebuked Peter and] touched his ear, and healed him” (Luke 22:50,51). Here, Jesus put Peter and the man whom Peter wounded with his sword on the same level. He rebuked his disciple and helped his enemy. They both needed his righteousness.

Again it is written, “Then said Jesus unto Peter, put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it” (John 18:11). Then said Jesus unto him, "Put your sword back in its place, for all they that take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52).

On another occasion, Jesus stood on the stage of one of life’s tragedies, “And the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what do you say? This they said, tempting him, so that they might have something by which to accuse him, but Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

"And then again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground, and they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

"When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more” (John 8:3-11).

It is a pity that those Pharisees and Scribes did not stay around long enough to hear Jesus speak those consoling words to this wretched woman, for neither would he have condemned them for wanting to throw stones but not being able to. He would have spoken the same words to them: "Go and sin no more.”

In doing what he did on this occasion, Jesus demonstrated that, to him, the offender and the offended in this world were on the same level. And he was able to help them both because he was neither one.

The Law of the Lord was Prophetic -- And Still Is!

The Law of the Old Testament was God’s Law. It made God’s requirements clear for the lifestyle, worship, and justice system of Israel. The Law was a revelation of how God viewed right living, right worship, and good government. And God still thinks what He has always thought! What God thought was righteous conduct in Moses’ day, He still thinks is righteous conduct. And what God thought was righteous judgment then, He still thinks is righteous judgment. If God’s Son, Jesus Christ, is “the same today, yesterday, and forever,” then what is the Father? If you know God at all, then you know this:

1 - God has never learned anything.
2 - God has never had to correct anything He ever said or did.

The principal reason God gave His Law to Israel was to point them to the coming Messiah, His Son. Paul described the Law as Israel’s schoolmaster which led to Christ (Gal. 3:24). And that same Law, written on our hearts by the Spirit, is now doing for us what it once did for Israel. It is pointing us to Jesus Christ, preparing us for his coming, but this time it is his second coming, not his first.

Governing the Earth

A very great benefit of studying the Law of Moses is that the kind of judgments found in the Law are God’s kind of judgments; therefore, they are the kind of judgments that Jesus will render when he rules the earth for a thousand years. The Law is not a dead, worthless relic of the past; it is telling us what kind of government to expect from Jesus when he sets up his kingdom on earth. Jesus will rule over the wicked, “with a rod of iron”, and the “iron” judgments he will execute are the kinds of judgments found in Moses’ Law! The Law is still pointing to Christ and preparing God’s children to reign with him.

To prepare to reign with Christ Jesus means to learn to agree with him in judgment! We certainly are not prepared to reign with Christ if we disagree with his judgments. We are supposed to be in the process of developing the mind of Christ so that we judge as he judges, and feel as he feels about everything. We are in training. That is why God sends trials and temptations our way. Consider this description of the millennial reign of Jesus, from Zechariah 14:

16. And it shall come to pass, that every one who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
17. And it shall be that whoever will not come up of all the families of the earth to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.
18. And if the family of Egypt that has no rain still does not go up, and come not [to Jerusalem to worship God], then there shall be the plague with which the Lord will smite the heathen who come not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
19. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

At the present time, believers are given no authority to physically punish the wicked. For that, we must wait for the return of Jesus. It is sin for a believer today to become entangled in the political or military affairs of this world. We are citizens of a heavenly country, and we are here as ambassadors of Christ. This world’s social ills and political controversies are none of our business. Our king is coming to conquer and replace every government in every place. His kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit, and we who believe are in the critical process of learning to walk in the Spirit, judge in the Spirit, and stand in the Spirit against strong opposition. We are kings and priests to God, but not yet with earthly civil authority. That will come, though. Are you prepared to judge the world with Christ?

The Son of God occupies his position as well as he does only because he completely agrees with everything his Father thinks. How well we occupy our places in the kingdom of God will be determined by the same standard. Do we think what God thinks? Do we feel what He feels? I am only as good a pastor as I agree with Jesus. I am harmful to the body of Christ unless I judge as he judges. Any time I think one thing when Jesus is thinking another, I am wrong, and I have become a stumbling block to every saint under my care.

Because Jesus always thinks the way the Father thinks, Jesus is always right. The fundamental issue of life for every child of God is, Do we think the way our heavenly Father thinks? Jesus has the mind of his Father, but do we have the mind of Christ? The value of the Law of Moses is that it gives us a glimpse into the Father’s mind. Moses’ Law was the most precious insight into the heart of God ever known until the Spirit of God was poured out on the day of Pentecost. But what kind of thinking, what kind of judgments, did the Spirit bring into men’s hearts when it came, if not God’s kind of thinking and God’s kind of judgments? That was, after all, what God promised in Jeremiah 31:

31. “Behold, the days come”, says the Lord, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah,”. . . says the Lord.
33. “This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days,” says the Lord, “I will put my Law into their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.
34. And they will teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord!’ For they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” says the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

That promise, that the Law would be put into believers’ hearts, was fulfilled when Christ ascended into heaven and the Spirit of God was sent to dwell within us and to give us the knowledge of God.

What about the Other Commandments?

We are all familiar with God’s moral commandments that are in the Law, laws such as “love your neighbor as yourself”, “thou shalt not steal”, “thou shalt not bear false witness”, “thou shalt not covet”, etc. Everyone agrees that God’s moral commandments are “holy and just and good.” But what about the other judgments of God revealed in the Law, the ones that reveal what God considers to be perfect justice? What about His commandments for the judges and rulers of Israel, the criminal judgments (perfect because the Giver was perfect) such as public whippings for wicked transgressors, or the execution of murderers, adulterers, and harlots, or the forced double or quadruple repayment of stolen property?

• Do we agree with God’s Law, that kidnappers should be put to death? Jesus does, and he will execute such judgments when he returns.
• Do we agree with God’s Law, that the owner of a dangerous animal should be executed if that animal kills someone and the owner knew the animal was dangerous? Jesus does, and he will execute such judgments when he returns.
• Do we agree with God’s Law, that every witch should be burned alive? Jesus does, and he will execute such judgments when he returns.

• Do we agree with God’s Law, that every person who worships any God but Jehovah should be executed? Jesus does, and he will execute such judgments when he returns.
• Do we agree with God’s Law, that every homosexual should be put to death? Jesus does, and he will execute such judgments when he returns.
• Do we agree with God’s Law, that every adulterer and adulteress should be put to death? Jesus does, and he will execute such judgments when he returns.
• Do we agree with God’s Law, that every son or daughter who rebels against his parents and becomes stubbornly self-indulgent is to be stoned? Jesus does, and he will execute such judgments when he returns. (Jn. 8:1-11).

The Law of Moses is telling us about the future reign of Christ! It is not a useless ancient document. It came from God and served a purpose to point people to Christ – and it still does, though now it points to his future reign instead of his suffering and death.

David offered the following descriptions of the Law and the judgments of God, from Psalm 19:

7. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
8. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
10. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Do we feel as David felt about the Law and judgments of God? To the extent that we do, we have the mind of Christ and are prepared to reign with him. To the extent that we do not, we are carnally minded and unprepared to reign with Christ, and we will doubtless be a stumbling block to some child of God while we live.

God’s ways are not our ways, but they are right. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, but they are perfect and true. And only those who think as He thinks will reign with His Son when he returns to this earth.

A Parable: “The Manner of the Jews”

In John 11, Jesus called for Lazarus to come out of the tomb, and the dead came to life. When Lazarus came out of the pitch blackness of death and walked out into the sunlight again, the poor man could not even see how liberated he was. He could not enjoy the liberty he had been given because his trunk, his hands, and his legs were still wrapped tight in the burial cloth in which the dead were wrapped in those times. You’ll remember that when Jesus died, he was similarly wrapped and that within his linen burial blankets, spices were added to reduce the smell of the corpse as it began to decay. His face, too, was wrapped with a cloth, according to John 20:7.

Now, we are plainly told, in John 19:40, that this way of burying the dead was “the manner of the Jews”. So, when Lazarus’ spirit, at rest in Paradise, heard the voice of the Savior calling him back into its earthly body, Lazarus returned to a body tightly wrapped in spices and burial cloths, as was “the manner of the Jews”. How his revived body managed to get up from his hewn-out bed while still tightly wrapped up, I don’t know, but somehow Lazarus managed to rise and waddle to the door, where the light of this sun shone upon him again.

Do you remember what Jesus first said when Lazarus came out of the shadows and appeared at the door? He gave a command to those standing by: “Loose him, and let him go!”

Now, we all know that the resurrected Lazarus was just as alive before he was unwrapped from the linen burial cloths as he was after they unwrapped him. He was fully alive from the moment his spirit entered into his body again. But it was only when “the manner of the Jews” was removed from him that he was able to experience what life really should be.

On the day of Pentecost, the disciples of Jesus Christ received the life of God and came out of the tomb of human nature, which is dead to the things of God. But “the manner of the Jews” still had them bound. They could not see, even though they were alive, the light of the Son that they felt. The arms and legs of their minds were bound by the manner of the Jews in a tight little area of Jewish controlled territory; they could not reach out to the Samaritans and Gentiles. They were alive, but they still could not fully experience what life in Christ could be because “the manner of the Jews” still had them bound.

But Jesus called Paul up to the third heaven and commanded him to go loose men from “the manner of the Jews”. He was sent to the Gentiles whom Jesus would call out of death into life, so that they could go where God wanted them to go, and see what God wanted them to see.

On the day of Pentecost, the disciples of Jesus were filled with life, but they did not understand the kind of life they had. Peter was so wrapped up with “the manner of the Jews” that he did not even understand the keys of the kingdom of God that Jesus had given him, the keys he had been anointed to use! He even argued against God when God tried to show Peter that He was about to invite unwrapped Gentiles into His kingdom. Peter would never have gone to that Gentile’s house and used his keys to open for him the door of the kingdom if God had not compelled him to go. Think about this, and what this tells us about Peter’s understanding! If Peter had done only what he felt at liberty to do, he would never have gone to open the door for the Gentiles! God had to send the same vision three times to Peter just to make him willing to have his legs unwrapped, to loose his arms, and to reach out with the love of God to those who were not like him! God had to compel Peter to let Him unwrap the burial cloth that covered Peter’s eyes so that he could walk to Cornelius’ house!

Jesus said that no one who has been drinking old wine wants the new, for they say the old is better. This was true about Peter. He thought the old was better. He didn’t want the liberty that Jesus was forcing upon him because he had never tasted a drop of it. He had confidence in God only within the confines of “the manner of the Jews”. He knew how to waddle around in burial clothes just as well, or better, than anyone. And for many of Peter’s fellow Jewish believers, Peter’s reputation would remain intact only if he stayed bound up with them, and he was well aware of how those saints would feel about him if he ever became unwrapped. In fact, he felt the same way.

Peter tried being unwrapped once at Antioch, a Gentile city, but he quickly covered his face and wrapped himself up in those binding clothes of dead tradition again when he saw some Jewish brothers walking up to the front door. Paul rebuked him for that hypocrisy and for making Gentile believers feel pressured to also submit to “the manner of the Jews”, when Peter knew perfectly well that God did not want that for them.

When God gives you life, He wants you free, not only from “the manner of the Jews” but from the manner of every other earthly bondage so that you can serve Him and do good in His sight. What good to God or to anyone else are saints so wrapped up in fear of new wine that they can’t drink in His sweet Spirit and move, and so bound by traditions and cultures that they don’t dare think God’s thoughts or feel God’s feelings?

I know you have life, if you have the Spirit. The Spirit is life. But have you been unwrapped yet? Has the truth made you free? Or is your mind still dominated by wrong ideas about your God?

When Jesus gave life to the Gentiles, they were without the wrappings of the Jews’ “manners”, or traditions. Thinking this was not good, some Jewish teachers told Gentile believers that they needed to be wrapped up like the Jews and that they were not acceptable to God without being bound in the Jews’ spiced-up straitjackets. Many Gentiles fell for that doctrine and allowed those false teachers to cover their minds and restrain their spirits with “the manner of the Jews”. They surrendered the liberty God gave them! They left the light and waddled back to the tomb. Paul cried out against this institutionalized death. He wrote to his beloved Gentile converts (Gal. 5:1): “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

The Spirit is calling all of God’s children out of all things that hinder them from walking freely in the light. Whose doctrine is keeping you from the liberty Christ has for you?

The Simplicity that is in Christ

“If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it out of hewn stone; if you lift up your tool upon it you have polluted it.”
Exodus 20:25

“King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet with the king of Assyria, and there, he saw an altar that was at Damascus. And king Ahaz forwarded to Urijah the priest [in Jerusalem] the pattern of it, and Urijah the priest built the altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus. And when the king returned from Damascus, the king saw the altar, and the king approached the altar and made an offering on it. And then he moved the brass altar that was before the Lord from the front of the temple and put it on the north side of the new altar.”

(excerpts, 2Kings 16:10-14)

When God made His covenant with Israel, God commanded Israel not to build any fancy altars. But when King Ahaz traveled north to Damascus to meet with the Assyrian king, he saw a beautifully crafted altar there and just could not resist having one made like it in Jerusalem. God’s plain altar must have been an embarrassment to the sophisticated Ahaz, and so he moved it from it’s assigned position right in front of the temple to a less conspicuous location, putting in its place the more expertly crafted altar like the one in the heathen city of Damascus.

The story of the moving of God’s altar from its place represents the spiritual battle between the Spirit and the flesh that God’s people have always had to fight. The Spirit is simple. It is clean and holy and good. And the flesh hates it because it cannot make the Spirit of God into a form; it cannot stylize the holy Ghost. Every time we resort to style to win souls or influence people, we lose some of the glory and power of God. Every time we lean on philosophy instead of on revelation to persuade men to repent, we drift away from true wisdom and into darkness. When some of Paul’s converts were being lured away from the simplicity of the Spirit of God, he wrote them and said, “I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one man, to present a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest, as the serpent led Eve astray by his craftiness, your thoughts should be led astray from the simple and pure devotion which belongs to Christ” (2Cor. 11:2-3).

When we fail to value the call of God and the grace of God on our lives, we find ourselves resorting to style, form, and tradition to fill the gap. It is the inescapable human condition. Young David is one who rose above all human conditions. He loved God’s law, and he loved it simply, with his whole heart. He was satisfied just to be among those chosen and loved by God. He said, “You are my portion O, Lord. . . . At midnight I will rise to give you thanks because of your righteous judgments. I am a companion of all those who fear you and of those who keep your precepts” (Ps. 119-57, 62-63).

Marriage

September 22nd, 2009, marked the beginning of the thirty-fourth year of my marriage. It began on a Sunday afternoon in 1975, near the end of a prayer meeting in Grandma’s farmhouse. My father asked the few saints gathered in that old house to pray for Barbara and me, and when they did, I suddenly felt the Spirit of God put her into my side. It was a surprising, physical sensation. We were married at that instant, and the following Friday afternoon, we went downtown to the local Justice of the Peace and made it official. Then we went on a weekend honeymoon and began our life together, glorying in the work of God.

If we had lightly esteemed the grace of God that joined us together, we would certainly have yielded to the world’s pressure to make a spectacle of the marriage. But if we had done that, then from then until now, people would have pointed to that marriage ceremony as the thing that made us husband and wife, and the flesh would have stolen – again – the glory that belongs to God alone. Another opportunity for God’s people to confess the righteousness of their God would have been forever lost to the flesh. Another expression of the tenderness of God would have been forgotten, and all we would have instead would be a photo album with pictures of a man claiming to do what God had already mercifully done.

Jesus married us in Grandma’s farmhouse when the saints laid their hands on us and prayed, and I refuse to glory in anything but that. When I meet Jesus someday, I will be able to say to him, “I remember the day, Lord, when you joined us together. And I honored your holy grace above all the vanities of earth.” Jesus will remember that day, too, and all the days since then, and he will know that I never let any man steal the glory for the mercy he showed me that day.

God is my portion in the earth, and I will be a companion only to those of a like mind. What God does may be simple, and it may not satisfy the “lust of the eyes” and the “pride of the flesh”, but it is glorious to my soul! His holiness is beautiful to me and to everyone else who has eyes to see it. His glory I will not give to another. As long as I live, in this place and among these saints, the precious altar that God has given to us, we will not move to the side in order to make room for a fancy one from Damascus.

Glorying

Paul said, “If any man glory, let him glory in the Lord.” That is a superfluous commandment to anyone who truly loves God because love for God causes the heart to glory in everything the Lord does, feels, or says. Compared to Him, all the “glorious” things of earth are nothing. David felt this way, and he sang to the Lord, “A day in your courts is better than a thousand [anywhere else].” That is the simple and holy attitude that the love of God brings into the heart, and it is the simplicity of Christ that we must maintain if we hope ever to see the face God. Paul warned the saints to beware lest the simplicity of Christ be stolen from their hearts (2Cor. 11:2-3). It is a warning we would do well to heed.

Knowing God

There is not a baby born on earth who knows its mother or father when it is born. Typically, the newborn quickly learns by smell and touch who the mother is, and a strong bond is quickly formed there. But there is no newborn who quickly learns its father’s thoughts or understands his work or will. It takes years of normal growth for a child to attain to that knowledge.

Likewise, there is not a soul born of God who has ever known God when he first was born of the Spirit, including the very disciples of Jesus. On the day of Pentecost, when they were born of the Spirit, not one of Jesus’ disciples really knew their heavenly Father. They obviously knew things about Him. They had walked with Jesus, the very image of the Father, for several years, and they loved him dearly. But when they received the Spirit, they did not yet know God for themselves. On that day, they began the process of receiving the true knowledge of God. “The day you receive the holy ghost”, my father used to tell us, “is your first day in school.”

Think about it. If you had suggested to Jesus’ disciples on the day of Pentecost that God was going to allow Gentiles to enter His kingdom, the disciples would have considered you mad. That would be contrary to everything God had done from the time of Abraham, and most certainly since Moses. Besides, Jesus plainly and firmly commanded them not to carry the gospel to Gentiles (Mt. 10:5). On the day of Pentecost, not one of those disciples dreamed that God would ever allow a man into His kingdom who was not circumcised after the manner of Moses. The uncircumcised were excluded from covenant with God, period.

Furthermore, if you had told the disciples on the day of Pentecost that the ceremonial worship of the Law would become sin, as Isaiah prophesied in the last chapter of his book, they would have been indignant. Why, even the Lord Jesus observed the Law’s ceremonies while he walked on earth. The disciples did not understand that God would bring ceremonial worship to an end, that the time was at hand when such things as physical circumcision and animal sacrifices would mean nothing to God, much less that the observance of such things would become sin, a stench in God’s nostrils and a reproach to the name of Jesus.

If you had told those disciples that when the door by which Jews entered into Christ was closed, the holy baptism that John the Baptist preached would be holy no more and that having a genealogical connection to Abraham would mean nothing to God, they would have considered you a blasphemer, worthy of death. Even Jesus was a Jew, they would have contended. Didn’t that mean something?

Yes, it meant something. But what did it mean? When Paul returned from his visit to the third heaven, he had the answer:

Romans 15
8. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers,
9. and so that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto your name.
10. And again he said, Rejoice, you Gentiles, with His people.
11. And again, Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles; and laud him, all you people [the Jews].
12. And again, Isaiah said, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.
13. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the holy ghost.

This revelation to Paul about the Gentiles is something that the disciples, on the day they were born of the Spirit, did not understand. They did not know that God was making a New Covenant in which the only true worshipers on earth would be those who worshiped the Father in spirit and in truth. The disciples were very good Jews. They had watched Jesus be a very good Jew, too, as he observed all the carnal commandments of the Law. They did not yet comprehend the ramifications of what Jesus told the woman at the well: “God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” The phrase “in spirit and in truth” means that ceremony is excluded, but they did not understand that. It means that communion with God is a matter of the heart, that baptism is a matter of the spirit, that robes of righteousness have replaced robes of earthly material. But the disciples did not yet understand those things, either.

What God accomplished in Christ is so great, so far beyond the thinking of even the best people on earth, that even Jesus’ disciples did not expect what would happened. They would not have believed it even after it was done, had God not had mercy on them and raised up Paul to teach them.

That is the greatness of Paul’s work. He was taken up into the third heaven, heard things unlawful to speak, and then returned to earth to educate even those who were apostles before him concerning what God had done in Christ Jesus. Paul is the man who broke the yoke of the Law off the back of God’s people, not Peter, not James, not John. Those good Jews continued observing the ceremonies of the Law even after the Spirit came on the day of Pentecost. Paul unlocked the shackles of the Law’s carnal ceremonies and holy days and set God’s people free indeed!

Tithes Before the Law

Excerpt from the book, Tithes and Offerings

Jesus told certain men that if they were indeed the children of Abraham, as they claimed to be, then they would do what Abraham did (Jn. 8:38-40). Jesus’ point was that the spiritual descendants of Abraham are the people who know God’s will and do it, as Abraham did. One of the things Abraham did was to render God’s tithes to Melchizedek. Do Abraham’s children not do the same?

From the examples of both Abraham and Jacob, we learn that tithing was not simply a commandment found in Moses’ law (Gen. 28:20-22). Abraham and Jacob lived hundreds of years before the law was given, and they both rendered tithes to God. Both of these men were righteous, and righteous people have always sensed what was good in the sight of God and then done it, law or no law. There were no laws, commandments, and statutes written down for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to keep, and yet they did the will of God because of their relationship with God. They knew His voice, and obeyed His voice as if what they heard was a law. God once told Jacob (Gen. 26:4-5), “I will make your seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your seed all these countries. And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Paul said it this way: “The law is not made for a righteous man” (1Tim. 1:9). Paul was teaching here that godly people such as Abraham and Jacob did not need the law of Moses to tell them what was right, whether in the matter of tithes and offerings or anything else. Such people, Paul would say, were “a law unto themselves” because they had a heart for righteousness. Therefore, although they lived hundreds of years before the law was revealed to Moses, they still did what was right in the sight of God.

The Law is Holy

Wherefore the Law is holy,
and the commandment is holy, and just, and good.
Romans 7:12

Everyone who commits sin is also transgressing the Law,
for sin is lawlessness.
1John 3:4

When did Paul write Romans 7:12? When did John write 1John 3:4? Before the New Testament began, or after? Afterwards, of course. But note that Paul did not say, “the Law was holy”. He said, “the Law IS holy”. And if in the apostle Paul’s day, the Law of Moses was holy, then the Law of Moses is still holy. Nothing has happened that would change the status of the Law from Paul’s day until now. The New Covenant that Jesus purchased with his blood has not been amended, and never will be. It is an eternal covenant.

This attitude of reverence for the Law is found throughout the NT. Jesus himself honored his Father by recognizing the holiness and the authority of the Law that his Father gave Israel: “Don’t suppose that I’ve come to destroy the Law or the prophets; I didn’t come to destroy but to fulfill. I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota or serif of the Law shall by any means pass away until all things have come to pass (Matt. 5:17-18).

The single most important thing about the Law of Moses that anyone can know is simply that it was God’s Law, not Moses’. It was not the work of human genius; it was revealed from God to Moses and Israel. When God finished giving Moses the Law, He commanded him straitly, “Do not add one thing to this Law, or leave one thing out!” There is not a single sentence in the Law which God gave to Moses that is from man. The whole thing came by revelation of God. The importance of this truth cannot be overstated.

In our time, the world is devoted to the gods of evolution. These demon spirits, gods of this world, have infected every aspect of public life in this culture. What gets most of the attention is the demon of geological and anthropological evolution, but the worst of those evolutionary gods is the demon of theological evolution. That spirit influences ministers and believers of every ilk to think of the faith of Christ as a stage of theological evolution that evolved from the OT Law and prophets into a much higher form, more sophisticated and therefore, more worthy of mankind. The spirit of evolution would have you think that since the law is an older version of true faith, we can no longer trust what it tells us about life, ourselves, and God. This demon of evolution would also have you believe that you have evolved into a higher form of life than Moses and David, who loved God’s Law.

But what Moses and other men of God said about God was not evidence of how far they had evolved from monkeyhood. Every word in the Law that Moses wrote came by revelation from God, who does not evolve. Our Creator was perfect before He created anything; He was perfect in the beginning of Creation; He is perfect now; He will be perfect when heaven and earth pass away; and He will always be perfect. He will never improve, and the only way we will ever improve is if we come down from our high evolutionary horses and humble ourselves to be transformed by His power to be like Him; to think as He thinks, to speak as He speaks, to feel as He feels, and to do as He does! This is what Jesus did, and that is what made him sinless.

The spirit of theological evolution would have you think of the Law of Moses as an outmoded relic of the past, the product of ancient, unsophisticated minds. But Jesus didn’t feel that way. He said if you did not believe Moses, you could not believe him. Paul said the law was “our schoolmaster, to lead us to Christ.” And a long time after the Spirit came, John said the definition of sin is still “transgression of the Law.” The reason those holy men didn’t feel the way that the demon of theological evolution feels about the Law is that God doesn’t feel that way. When Paul said, “The Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good”, he said it because that is what God thinks.

The Law of Moses did not evolve from anything. It came directly from God, fully formed. The New Testament did not evolve from the Law. It was revealed from heaven when the Son was revealed. Men’s vain ideas, traditions, and doctrines evolve, but God’s truth is eternally the same.

“...the times that went over David and Israel...”

“And the acts of David the king, first and last,
behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer,
. . . and the times that went over him and over Israel,
and over all the kingdoms of the countries.”
1Chronicles 29:29-30

“My times are in your hands.”
Psalm 31:15

It is difficult for one generation to fully communicate their times to a generation that follows. We can describe events and the feelings of our time, but the younger generation still cannot completely comprehend the attitudes and choices – the times – of a previous generation.

Our “times” are determined by God alone, and they are always greater than us all. They “go over us” as they went over David and Israel, and the whole world. One famous novel by Charles Dickens begins with the sentence, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” The times described in that book were world events and conditions that swallowed up tens of thousands of people and that affected everyone in Europe, and beyond Europe to one extent or another.

The times that my generation knew included the public availability of holy men, anointed by God, who encouraged true children of God to have faith for healing and deliverance. Every Sunday morning, God’s people could watch Oral Roberts or Katherine Kuhlman heal people on television. A few years later, we were also watching Jimmy Swaggart preach under the joyful anointing of the holy Ghost and watch hundreds of sinners be convicted of their need for God. About the same time, Ernest Angeley was sent by God to heal the sick and afflicted, and he was on television, too. And there were others.

But the times changed. Some of God’s servants grew old and died; some fell into sin and broke the saints’ hearts. Consequently, beginning in the mid-1990's, the next generation was left with hardly anything on national televisions stations that could edify their spirits, and had to settle for little more than stories of how times used to be. We have lived in an evil time since then, a time when the glory of God was rarely seen or felt. But there are signs that a different time may be coming.

There are men rising up again with the glory of God, at least a degree of God’s glory that we have not been used to seeing. Now we can hear, on occasion, the voice of our Shepherd. It is a faint voice still, but it is clearly his, and his people love it. The messages some men are preaching now are clearly the result of them being touched by God. Yet, there is much more glory needed in order for the body of Christ to be healed of its divisions and have our fellowship restored. As the great old hymn goes, “Mercy drops ‘round us are falling; but for the showers we plead!”

It has been a time of drought; pray for the rain. Pray for those men who are touching the mantle of Jesus, who are beginning to say things beyond themselves and feel things from God they do not yet understand. It could develop into a glorious time for the children of God if these men continue to follow the call they are receiving. It is also possible that this hopeful time could degenerate into a system of empty catch-phrases and false claims, as happened with the “charismatic movement” of the 1960's.

And don’t be concerned about whether or not the doctrine these sincere men teach is perfect. Pray for them to discern God’s voice. Everybody starts out wrong, and we are all delivered from wrong thoughts about God only as Jesus drives them out of our minds by revealing his truth. Just pray that the men who are now rising up with the promise of unity and power for God’s people will continue to follow the voice they are hearing. If they do, they will come to know the truth, and the truth will set them, and all who hear them, free indeed.

I long for this generation to see miracles and to hear the true word of God, as I was blessed to be able to do as a child and young man. If this time of promise passes, and men whom God has called refuse to follow Him, let it not be because we have failed to pray for those men. They are fighting battles that most of God’s people know little about, but those battles are real, and the results of those men’s battles will affect every one of us.

Flattering Titles

“Let me not, I pray you, accept any man’s person;
neither let me give flattering titles unto man.
For I know not to give flattering titles;
in so doing, my Maker would soon take me away.”
Job 32:21-22

“Holy and reverend is His name.”
Psalm 111:9b

From conversations with Preacher Clark in the late 1970's.

The word “reverend” means “worthy of deep respect or reverence”, and according to the Psalmist, it is a word that applies only to the name of the Lord. But, of course, fallen man is not content with letting God’s glory be His alone. He has devised a religious system that confers the title, “Reverend” to ministers who will agree to propagate that religion. Actually, within that religious system, fallen man has devised a hierarchy that is distinguished by showy titles. These titles help ordinary people like us to know the degree of reverence we should show certain men. According to this hierarchy, a n ordinary minister is called “Reverend”; but a man who is of the next highest rank is to be called the “Very Reverend”. And a man who has attained to the exalted office of Bishop is granted to title, “the Right Reverend”, while an archbishop in that religion is referred to as “the Most Reverend”. (I don’t know if there are any instructions available that would help us know how to reverence a “Most Reverend” man as opposed to a mere “Right Reverend” man, but it would be helpful if there was such a document.)

Of course, this is all nonsense. Holy and reverend is God’s name, not ours. Paul said, “Let all men be a liar, and let God be true.” I say, “Let God’s name be reverend, and let ours be nothing.”

Vain man’s claim of honor that belongs only to God is not reserved to “flattering titles”. The religion of Christianity routinely trains men to lay claim to many holy things that are God’s alone. For one example, consider baptism. In this eternal new covenant, Jesus alone is ordained by the Father to baptize; and yet, in weak imitation of Jesus’ baptism of the holy Spirit, many Reverends, Right Reverends, and Most Reverends, (all of them wrong Reverends) baptize with earthly water and tell people that God has ordained them to do so.

They are not telling the truth. Baptism belongs only to God in this covenant, and it is accomplished in the Spirit from heaven, not with water on this earth.

I could go on, but you see the point. May God give us the humility and strength to restrain ourselves from claiming glory that belongs only to God. If He does so, we will be more like Jesus, who sought no glory for himself, but only to do the Father’s will and to bring Him glory.

All Things

“It tickles the Devil for God’s people
to blame their troubles on him.”
The word of the Lord to me, August 23, 1981

It is now about six in the afternoon as I write this, August 23, 2009. It was about this time of day, late in the afternoon of August 23, 1981, when I decided to do a study of the Scriptures concerning the attitude of righteous people toward their suffering. My family and I had not long returned from our usual early afternoon prayer meeting, and I had sat down to spend some time researching what David, Moses, Peter, and others said about the difficulties they faced. I wrote down many of their thoughts on suffering and pondered over them.

As the afternoon drew to a peaceful close, I completed my study, put down my pencil, and began to close my Bible. Then Jesus spoke to me, very plainly and very calmly. He said, “It tickles the Devil for God’s people to blame their troubles on him.”

I was astonished at what I instantly understood – its breadth, its depth, its height, its beauty, and its revelation of my heavenly Father’s love that I could hardly take in. I looked down at the several pages of righteous thoughts that I had written down during the previous two hours, and I understood them for the first time. I had felt them before; I had known they were right thoughts. But now, it was as if I could have written them myself. Now, I had fellowship with whoever it was who had thought those thoughts before me. Now, I understood what those righteous men and women had been saying! I was overwhelmed with the power of the truth that Jesus had just spoken to me.

I remember getting up from my study desk and walking in somewhat of a daze out my front door and standing on the porch at the top of the brick steps. I remember staring out at the huge, old, oak tree in the front yard of the house across the street. The word of the Lord had come to me, and suddenly, I was seeing this entire universe in a new way, a holier way, the right way, the way men of God over the millennia had seen this world after God spoke to them!

It had been my habit, picked up from other believers, no doubt, to blame the devil for everything that “went wrong” in life. But now, all I could see was the love of God in everything concerning me. I understood how perfect my heavenly Father was. I knew, I knew it deep in my heart, that every single circumstance in my life had been designed for me by my loving heavenly Father – designed just for me, to perfect my faith and to help make me more like Him. I saw my Father’s love everywhere I looked.

In a way, it was as if all my life previous, I could only speak of our “God”. Now, I thought of God more as “daddy”. I felt Him more than I thought of Him. He was no longer somewhere else, and I had to reach Him. Now, he was everywhere, and I could never be anywhere but surrounded by Him and His love. As David once said, “If I make my bed in hell, you are there.”

Glory

I think that the first thing I fully comprehended when the Lord spoke to me that day was exactly why it “tickles” the Devil for us to blame him for our troubles. It pleases Satan for us to blame him for our trials because as long as we are blaming him, we are not looking for our heavenly Father’s purposes for our suffering. And as long as we are not seeking Him to discover His wise purposes in our sufferings, we can never come to know Him.

To have faith in Satan as having power to determine any of the circumstances of our life is to honor him with glory that belongs to no one but God. To teach, as I once did, that “the Devil might get you if you sin” is to say that the Devil is the one who punishes us for sin, not God. To think those kind of foolish thoughts elevates Satan in our hearts to a position of power that is not his. It glorifies him as a god, the god of all the bad stuff in this life, doing war with the God of all the good stuff, and the God of all the good stuff can never quite keep up with all the bad stuff that the Devil, does. What foolishness!

Shortly after that wonderful, life-changing experience, I went to work on a book about it (All Things), and I asked some people I knew who were suffering to read the manuscript before its publication. The hope that it brought to those who were going through hard times and the peace that it brought to those who were dying let me know, if nothing else did, that the message Jesus gave me needed to be proclaimed.

As long as God’s people have trials to face, they will need to be reminded – and convinced – that their heavenly Father loves them. Nothing accomplishes that so well as for them to be taught that because God alone is God, “all things are working together” for their good. If Satan were in charge of anything concerning us, Paul could not have written that Scripture.

Commandments for a Place

“He brought forth His people [from Egypt] with joy,
and His chosen with gladness.
And he gave them the lands of the heathen,
and they inherited the labor of the people
so that they might observe His statutes,
and keep His laws.”
Psalm 105:43-45

We all know that God brought the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage and that He gave them the “promised land”, the land of Canaan. But what is often overlooked is that He did those things so that the Israelites could fully keep the law that He had given them. Without possessing the promised land, some of God’s statutes could not be kept. It was only when the people of God reached the place which God had appointed for them that they would finally be able to obey all of His commandments. For example, as long as they remained outside the promised land, the Israelites could not provide the three “Cities of Refuge” in Canaan for people who accidentally killed someone. Nor could they observe the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the law’s three holiest times of the year. Outside of Canaan’s land, Israel’s judges could not carry out many commandments dealing with certain civil issues. And even some moral commandments could not be fully obeyed without possessing the land because those commandments concerned property issues. How can you covet or steal land if no one owned any land?

So, it is clear that God gave commandments to His Old testament people that they could not obey until they lived in the place God wanted them to live in. The same is true now, in the Spirit.

God did not call the Israelites out of Egypt just so they could be out of Egypt. He called them to a place, a holy land where they could fully obey and serve Him, and where He could bless them as He wanted to do. Likewise, God did not call us out of sin just so we could be out of sin. He called us to a place in the Spirit, and until we get there – together – we have no hope of fully obeying the commandments of God.

Cleansed from All Unrighteousness

Understanding this, John wrote, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin (1Jn. 1:7). Please notice that John said if “we” walk in the light, Jesus will cleanse “us” from all sin. He said nothing about an individual. The place to which God has called us is fellowship in the light. That is the earthly purpose for the calling of God on our lives, for people will know that Jesus is the Son of God only if they see us walking together in the fellowship of Christ. Jesus said it this way (Jn. 17:20-21): “Not only do I pray for these but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they all might be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be one in us, so that the world might believe that you sent me. And the glory you’ve given me, I’ve given them, that they might be one, just as we are one; I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, and so that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them just as you loved me.”

Our goal and our prayer is that the body of Christ (those whom Paul called “the Israel of God”) will come to the spiritual place to which God has called us! For when the saints attain to fellowship with one another in Christ, no evil will have a place among us. In that happy, holy place called “fellowship”, we as a body of believers will finally be purged from all unrighteousness and be able, at last, to keep all of the commandments of God.

Paul’s Gospel

I’d have you to know, brothers,
regarding the gospel delivered by me,
that it is not of man.
I did not receive it from man,
nor was I taught it;
it came by a revelation from Jesus Christ.
Gal. 1:11-12

Paul’s wonderful gospel brought to light certain truths that had not yet been revealed – even to those who were apostles before him. For example, Paul taught that all forms of worship which are not spiritual in nature are vain. Paul’s stated mission was to make man’s worship of God acceptable to God (Rom. 15:16). How? By preaching the gospel so that men could repent of their vain ways, be sanctified by the holy Spirit and, so, offer acceptable worship to God.

Throughout human history, people of every culture have worshiped God, but being ignorant of the true God, mankind’s worship has been useless. But in Christ, we can at long last offer acceptable worship, for he sanctifies us by the Spirit of God. Jesus came to make us and our worship acceptable to God through the Spirit. “Those who worship,” said the Master, “must worship in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:24).

Before Jesus came, God overlooked much of man’s ignorance, “but now,” preached Paul, “He commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Spiritless worship is vain and must be repented of, if one hopes to please God and be saved in the end. Spiritless religion is Godless religion, regardless of what men call it. Whether Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, or Christianity, no religion is of God without the sanctifying presence of the holy Spirit.

A Heavenly Conversation

One of the thrilling treasures that one can find while reading the Old Testament is a conversation between the Father and the Son before the Son was revealed – speaking to one another through the mouth of a prophet! It is a pearl of great price to be able to recognize the voice of the Son making a request to the Father in the following prophecy from Psalm 102:23-24a, and then to recognize the voice of the Father replying to the Son in verses 24b-28. We know that these latter verses are the Father speaking to the Son because the author of the New Testament book of Hebrews plainly says so (Heb. 1:10-12).

First, the Son makes the same request of the Father that he made in the Garden of Gethsemene; namely, that he would not be made to die early (vv. 23-24a):

He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days. I said, “O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days!”

Then we have the Father’s response to the Son (vv. 24b-27):

"Your years are throughout all generations. Of old have you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They shall perish, but you shall endure. Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shall you change them, and they shall be changed. But you are the same, and your years have no end.”

So, the Son foretells of his prayer for life, and the Father promises the Son that he will live forever. And they do this through the same prophet, during the same prophecy!

David must have wondered who was talking through him when the Spirit took over his mouth and said these things. He knew it was the Spirit (2Sam. 23:1-2), and he also knew that only at a later time would he understand what he was saying (1Pet. 1:10-12). But as for us, it is given to us to know the ones who were speaking through David because the same Spirit that used his voice has used ours and has given us the knowledge that David wanted but didn’t have: the knowledge of the Father and the Son.

Favoring the City of God

“You shall arise and have mercy on Zion,
for the time to favor her,
yes, the set time, has come.
Your servants take pleasure in her stones,
and favor her dust.”
Psalm 102:13-14

There is nothing just “ok” in the kingdom of God. Every situation is designed and perfect. Every doctrine is right and eternal. Every word that is spoken is pure. Every being in that kingdom is holy and is anointed to understand the mind of God and to live forever. There is nothing lacking in God’s kingdom, and there is no need of anything anywhere. Every morsel satisfies completely, and there is no discomfort anywhere, to any degree.

Gods’ servants are wise; they favor the poverty of the kingdom of God over the wealth of this world because they understand that the poverty of God’s kingdom is more precious than all earthly wealth. They trust the nonsense of the gospel over the revered traditions and eloquent philosophies of men because “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” They trust the puniness of the Spirit over the military might of nations because “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1Cor. 1:25).

Everything in the kingdom of God is better than anything in this world. If God’s kingdom has dirt in it, a spoonful of that dirt is more valuable than all the wealth of earth combined. That’s why God’s servants “favor the dust of Zion, and take pleasure in her stones.” The grace to stand in that city of God is more precious than any privilege that any earthly government can grant you. And anything of this world that would diminish your desire for that city, whether men consider it good or bad, is to be hated.

This is why Moses, living in the greatest comforts this world had to offer at the time, chose to go down and suffer with the enslaved children of God. He chose to be associated with the enslaved, chosen people of God than to be king of the whole earth. That is the heart of a true servant of God. He favors the worst of God’s kingdom over the best of anything else.

"Of Mercy and Judgment"

“I will sing of mercy and judgment;
unto you, O Lord, will I sing!”
Psalm 101:1

“Behold therefore the goodness and the severity of God.”
Paul, in Romans 11:22

Those who are called into the kingdom of God are always subject to pressures against real spiritual growth and coming to the knowledge of God. Most of the time, in this culture anyway, the pressure is against the confession that God is “a consuming fire”, whose wrath against the wicked is sure and terrible. It was so in ancient time as well. There were many in Israel who insisted that it was wrong to see God as a God of judgment (Mal. 2:17). But David and Paul both knew better. David rejoiced and sang about both the mercy and the judgment of God, and Paul preached them both. They understood that the only way God’s children will come to know their heavenly Father is for them to be taught both that God is love and that He is “a man of war” (Ex. 15:3) and that “He hates the wicked” (Ps. 11:5). Both are true.

In Psalm 101, God expresses His great mercy by saying that He will watch over those who are faithful to Him and that He will allow those who walk in His commandments perfectly to live with Him forever (v. 6).

In that same Psalm (vv. 4, 5, 7), God expresses His terrible judgment against those who are unfaithful and wicked by making it clear that He will not grant them eternal life at the Final Judgment: "A froward heart shall depart from me; I will not know a wicked person. Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him will I cut off; whoever has a high look and a proud heart will I not tolerate. He who works deceit shall not dwell in my house. He who tells lies shall not tarry in my sight."

The Spirit of Christ could sing through David of the terrible judgments of God just as easily as it could sing of the damnation of the wicked. The Spirit could also preach through Paul of the wonderful grace of God as easily as it could preach that God was “a consuming fire”. Until we can speak as easily of one as the other, we have not yet overcome the spirits of this age who cannot rejoice to hear of the horrors that they will someday surely face. They will try to make the children of God feel unmerciful or unkind if they rejoice in the approaching Final Judgment of the wicked. But that judgment is our eternal deliverance from all the pressures in this world, pressures that come from ungodly people who oppose the righteousness and knowledge of God that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He Is Coming!

“Let the heavens rejoice,
and let the earth be glad!
Let the sea roar, and its fullness!
Let the field be joyful,
and all that is in it!
Then shall all the trees of the wood
rejoice before the Lord, for he is coming!
He is coming to judge the earth;
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the people with His truth.”
Psalm 96:11-13

Jesus is coming again! He will return to reign on earth with perfect justice for a thousand years. Humans have never experienced such a reign, though Israel experienced brief times of perfect justices whenever one of their kings loved God’s law and carried out its righteous judgments. But that did not happen often, and it never lasted long. But even at that, no king of Israel was as pure in heart as the Son of God, and none of those kings, even Solomon, was nearly as wise. The reign of Christ Jesus will be perfect in every part, and what a relief he will bring to the meek and to the upright in heart! Throughout his thousand-year reign, good people will never be oppressed, and wicked people will never escape their just punishment.

The return of Jesus is the greatest hope of all who truly love God. Every person whose heart and life is pleasing to God feels the yearning for the Lord’s return. If the Spirit of God is alive and well in your soul, then you already feel what I am talking about. In one of the last verses of the Bible, the apostle John wrote, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’” (Rev. 22:17). Amen! The holy Ghost in us calls out for Jesus to come, and so do those who are ready for their Bridegroom to come and take them to his wedding feast in the Father’s presence.

The truth of the return of Jesus to rescue us from the governments and cultures of sinful man provides us with great comfort. Listen to what Paul said had been revealed to him by the Lord. He sent this message to the saints in Thessalonica, who were among his most faithful, and most persecuted Gentile converts (1Thess. 4:15-18):

"Now I say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are left here alive until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who sleep; for when the command is given, the Lord himself will descend from heaven with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ will rise first. Next, we who are alive and left here will be caught away together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus will we ever be with the Lord. So, ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER WITH THESE WORDS."

Amen!

The Testimony of the Lord

“The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”
Psalm 19:7

“Thy testimonies are very sure.”
Psalm 93:5

During his great revelation of the end times, John was told that the saints overcome the devil by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony (Rev. 12:11). We know what “the blood of the Lamb” is; it is the holy Spirit that cleanses the soul from sin. But what is the word of our testimony?

First of all, a real testimony is not just talk. I have been in many a prayer meeting in which someone just stood up and talked, thinking they were giving a testimony. It is burdensome to listen to such powerless talk. A testimony in the kingdom of God is a living thing; it is a confession of something God has really done, and it brings the spirit of faith and victory into a room. Solomon said that whatever God does lasts forever (Eccl. 3:14), and this is true about a testimony as much as anything else. I know saints who have testified for decades to a miraculous work that God wrought in their lives, and it still lives and convicts and thrills souls. If God really did what you are talking about, it is still alive. It still teaches, warns, convicts, and edifies. It is not just talk.

That is why, along with the blood of Christ, God’s children overcome the devil with their testimonies. The devil has no testimony because he refuses to tell the truth about himself. He would have to testify that he was a deceitful creature when he was in heaven, that he was cast out of heaven when the Son of God ascended into heaven, and that he is still a liar and cannot stop lying because God will not grant him repentance. If he were in a meeting of the saints, and if he were to testify honestly to the work of God in his life, he would have to cry out, “I am damned! I am damned! And there is nothing I can do to change!” That would be a real testimony on his part. That would be a “testimony of the Lord” because it would be a testimony of what the Lord has done. But Satan would not give such a testimony, for he is “a liar and the father of it.”

Now, what is the Lord’s testimony in your life? If you have such a testimony, please use it! It is a powerful weapon against the forces that are now being marshaled against you and against all others around the world who walk in the light of God in Jesus Christ. Your testimony of God’s work in your life is a rock upon which you, and we, can stand forever, for “the testimony of the Lord is sure.”

"You Are Evil"

“If you, being evil, know how
to give good gifts to your children . . .”
Mt. 7:11

“O generation of vipers, how can you,
being evil, speak good things?”
Mt. 12:34

What kind of relationship would you be able to have with someone who told you to your face that you are evil? What would your attitude be toward that person? Jesus told his disciples they were evil, and yet they kept following him. In fact, one day when they asked him who would be saved in the Final Judgment, he told them that they and all other people were so hopelessly evil that there was nothing they could do to escape the coming wrath of God (Mk. 10:26-27). And they still followed him.

Every man sent by God from the foundation of the world has told fallen man that he is evil, and the only people who have ever escaped from their fallen human nature are those who have believed those servants of God and cried out to God for help. If you are too proud to confess your sinfulness, you will never escape it.

Jesus gave Brother Earl a dream a couple of years ago in which he heard his former pastor, now with the Lord, calmly and gently talking to a brother who had done wrong. I will change the name he used, but here is what that man of God spoke to the backslidden brother: “Do you know how to get out of it, Sam?” Then after a short pause, he said very gently, but with authority, “You own up to it.”

We all “have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, and Jesus has made for us a way out of our sin. All we have to do is humbly bow before him and “own up to it.”

A Change in Speakers

“O come! Let us sing unto the Lord!”

“In the wilderness, your fathers tempted me . . . forty long years.”
Psalm 95:1, 9-10a

It is obvious that the speaker at the beginning of Psalm 95 is not the speaker at the end. The speaker from verse one through most of verse seven is a man, perhaps David. He is calling the people to worship. But the speaker throughout the rest of the Psalm is obviously God, for He is speaking of things He dealt with centuries before this Psalm was composed.

My father, an anointed minster of Christ, told me that a man must preach himself into the anointing of God. His point was that God doesn’t draft lazy people into His service. We labor in the Lord and prove ourselves; then, when He will, God takes over our lives in a new way, just as he took complete control over the Psalmist’s voice in the midst of his singing. From the point of God’s taking control our lives for His service, the difference will be as great as is the difference in Psalm 95, beginning near the end of verse seven.

Read it, and marvel at the power of God as it takes control of the Psalmists’s voice. Then, pray that God will take control of the lives of young men everywhere, to deliver them from their own opinions and anoint them to feed His people with genuine heavenly knowledge.

Planted

“Those that be planted in the house of the Lord
shall flourish in the courts of our God.”
Psalm 92:13

“Every plant that my heavenly Father
has not planted shall be rooted up.”
Matthew 15:13

In the Bible, our entrance into the family of God is described in many different ways. It is described as being “born again”, being “adopted”, being “translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son”, and others. In the Scriptures above, we see both David and Jesus refer to it as being “planted” in God’s house. Isaiah called those whom God chose as His own “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified” (Isa. 61:3).

But Jesus’ mention of being planted also suggested that some who are in God’s house have not been planted there by God. How this can happen is a mystery, but in his famous Parable of the Tares, Jesus plainly stated that Satan really does plant some souls in the assembly of saints (Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43). Paul, Peter, and Jude spoke of men who “creep into” the assembly (Gal. 2 :4; 2Pet. 2:1; Jude 1:4); so, we have to say that such a thing is a reality. And because it is true, we need, as the ancient philosopher Socrates said, to know ourselves. Or, to say it the way Paul told young Timothy, we need to “make our calling and election sure” and to “lay hold on eternal life.”

Take nothing for granted. Jesus, the righteous judge, is coming, and he knows who is his and who is not.

Two Reactions and Two Results

The first two verses quoted above speak of results of being planted by God as compared to not being planted by God. And the two results differ because the two kinds of plants have different responses to the work of God. If you are a plant that God has planted, you rejoice at whatever He does (directly or through one of His servants) and you bear the fruit of righteousness. This is what David meant by saying that God’s plants “flourish” in His courts. But if you have not been planted by God, though you may play the role of a believer for a while, somewhere down the line, God will do something that you don’t like, and you will be exposed as not belonging among the saints. This is what Jesus meant by a plant being “rooted up”. Something God does will, at some point, displease you, and afterward, you will find yourself no longer a part of the assembly of God. How that removal happens is up to God, but that it happens is a sad fact of spiritual life.

The reason there are different responses to the same works of God is that those who have been planted by God have a different nature from those planted by Satan. God’s plants love all that God does, but Satan’s plants love what God does only so long as it fits into their personal agendas.