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.

A Close Call?

“A thousand shall fall at your side,
and ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.”
Psalm 91:7

Try to picture the scene described in the above verse from Psalm 91. You are standing somewhere in the midst of eleven thousand people, and suddenly, a plague sweeps through, and every one of them drops dead beside you. Would you think that the pestilence had come near you? Of course you would, if you are a normal person. You would probably run away so that the plague would not kill you, too, and then you would no doubt tell your friends of your narrow escape from death. But the Spirit of God will give us a different perspective of that event because the Spirit teaches us to look at things from God’s point of view.

In God’s world, if God determined that the plague would not touch you, the truth is the plague did not come anywhere near you, even if some who died by it fell against you when they dropped dead. God’s will governs life, not circumstances. Did Noah almost drown in the Flood? Of course not. He was a safe as he was before it even rained, for God determined that Noah and his family would live. Did Jesus almost catch leprosy when he laid hands on lepers and healed them? Or did he almost sin when he stood in the midst of sinners? God’s will for him was that Jesus would not catch leprosy or commit sin, and that was the determining factor in Jesus’ life. Nothing else was relevant, and Jesus trusted his Father to care for him.

No one who knows God will say that Jesus almost condemned Peter, James, and John as being sons of the devil because they were standing nearby when Jesus condemned others for being sons of the devil. Physical proximity to wicked people is irrelevant in determining how close we are, in our hearts, to wickedness. The only thing that matters is our relationship with God; or more specifically, His will for us. If a nuclear bomb is detonated over our heads, and God has determined that it will not harm us, it would be wrong for us even to tell someone that we barely escape the explosion. For if God had decided we would be unharmed, then that nuclear weapon was as irrelevant to us as if it were not even in our universe.

David understood this. Or, at least, he yielded himself to the Spirit that understood it, and it declared the truth. When we yield our carnal thoughts to that same Spirit, we will judge all things from the perspective of faith, and talk of God’s saving power instead of how close we come to harm.

The Most Hopeless

“Though you grind a fool in a bowl with a pestle,
yet will not his foolishness depart from him.”
Proverbs 27:22

Solomon commented often about fools. He didn’t want his sons to become fools, and so, he strongly emphasized to them the great dangers of foolishness. The many comments which Solomon made about fools seemed to make it abundantly clear that fools are hopelessly lost in sin. I have carefully studied Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and what I have found is that Solomon plainly and consistently implied that there is simply no hope for a fool. He even thought fools to be so worthless and so contrary to a good life that he told his sons that it would be better to run into an angry she-bear than to meet a fool (Prov. 17:12).

That being the case, it is surprising, to say the least, that in Proverbs, Solomon also taught that there are two kinds of people who have less hope than fool! I remember how stunned I was to read those verses in Proverbs, especially after I had studied what Solomon taught about fools. At the time, I wished that I could ask Solomon how such a thing could be, but seeing that was impossible, all I could do was wonder at such wisdom. How can anyone have less hope than someone who has none? Without an answer, the best we can do is just to acknowledge that Solomon was profoundly wise, and then say “amen”, whether we understand it or not.

A Proud Man

The first kind of person who has less hope than a fool is the man who thinks highly of himself; that is, a braggart, or a proud man. Solomon said, in Proverbs 26:11, that even if you manage to separate a fool from his foolishness, he is as sure to return to it as a dog returns to vomit. (Dogs will eat their own vomit, in case some of you don’t know that.) Then, in the very next verse, Solomon added, “Do you see a man wise in his own opinion? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”

A careful reading of Proverbs shows that pride is one of the seven most abhorred things in the eyes of God (Prov. 6:17) and that “every one who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 16:5). The extent of divine contempt for the proud cannot be over-emphasized, and the wrath of God upon every proud soul is certain. To sum up all the warnings Solomon gave his son about pride, we can say, as he did, “Pride goes before destruction” (Prov. 16:18) because God loathes pride (Prov. 8:13).

A Hasty Man

The second kind of person who has less hope than a fool is a man who speaks or acts too quickly. This refers to a man who reaches conclusions too quickly, one who speaks before hearing all the evidence. This is how Solomon said it (Prov. 29:20): “Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” It is very easy to be moved by someone who tells a sad story; but, if we would refrain from making a judgment until we hear all the facts, our conclusion will almost always be different from what it would have been otherwise.

As Israel’s king, Solomon was given holy wisdom so that he refrained from making any judgment until the accused had the opportunity to speak. He learned from God and from experience that some people know how to make themselves appear to be victims and that those people can move others to feel indignation at their “plight”. But Solomon’s strong desire to be a just judge of God’s people caused him to follow after righteousness and to wait until he knew the whole truth. And by doing that, he escaped many a trap that was laid for him by tearful, lying souls who complained to him of being maltreated.

Solomon warned his son of this trap of clever liars who know how to make themselves appear to be needy victims and who plead for a quick decision. Here are a couple of wise things Solomon taught his son concerning them:

“A hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor,
but through knowledge, the just will be delivered.”
Proverbs 11:9

“He who is first in his own cause seems just,
but his neighbor comes and searches him.”
Prov. 18:17

True Wisdom

I am sure that there is a wise man somewhere who is able to explain why it is true that a proud man and a man who speaks hastily are more hopeless than fools. All that I can do is recognize Solomon’s wisdom to be true, and then humbly pray to God that by His holy Spirit, He keeps me, and all of us, from being either proud, hasty, or foolish.

"Of No Reputation"

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, existing in God’s form, did not consider equality with God
as a prize to be seized upon, but made himself of no reputation,
assuming the form of a slave, made in the likeness of men.”
Phip. 2:5-7a

Over the years, as I read the King James Bible, I often marveled that Jesus was able to “make himself of no reputation”. And I wondered, since we are to follow Jesus’ example, how we could follow him in this regard. After all, we cannot control what people think, and a reputation is something that is formed in the minds of others. So, I wondered, how did Jesus live so that he had no reputation? And how can I?

As I lay in bed last night, I was thinking about this, and verses from the Bible came to mind which dealt with Jesus and his reputation. There are many of them! Rather than be ”of no reputation”, it seemed to me that opinions of Jesus abounded and that they reflected two extremes. On the one hand, the Bible states plainly that some in Israel thought and said, among other cruel things, that Jesus was demon-possessed (Jn. 7:20). Those Israelites felt certain that Jesus was cursed by God. In their minds, no one could teach the things Jesus taught without having been turned over to Satan. Isaiah foretold of this reputation that Jesus would have among some of God’s people:

Isaiah 53
3. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we considered him worthless.
4. Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

When people feel this way about you, how can you say that you are “of no reputation”? In fact, those of this opinion would make it so that you have a very big, and bad, reputation!

But at the same time, there were some in Israel who felt just the opposite about Jesus. Among those people, Jesus had the very best reputation that a man can possibly have. At one point (Mt. 16:16), Peter said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” Later, another follower named Martha said, “You are the Christ, the Son of God who is coming to the world” (Jn. 11:27).

So, when people feel that way about you, how can you say that you are “of no reputation”? Those of this opinion would make it so that you have a very big, and good, reputation!

Then I saw that the phrase “having no reputation” may not mean at all that people hold no opinion about you, but that people hold so many conflicting opinions of you that most of the others can’t figure out what to think.

I believe that every person who truly follows Jesus will not only live the holy life he lived but will experience as well both the pain of outrageous slander from some and the comfort of being greatly loved by others, just as Jesus did. And if so, that is as close as one can come to being “of no reputation”, for there will be so many reputations about that person afloat that most people won’t know what to think.

Translation

I am thankful that the King James Translation of Philippians 2:6 included the phrase, “of no reputation” because it has given me much to think about over the years, and I have benefitted from the thoughts that the King James translation has provoked in me. However, that phrase doesn’t actually appear to belong in that verse. Instead of “made himself of no reputation”, the better translation might be, “he emptied himself”, or even better, “he divested himself”, for in this verse, Paul is speaking of the Son of God in heaven leaving behind his glory, or “divesting himself” of his glorified form to come to earth and take on the form of a man.

But that is a lesson for another day. Right now, I have been enjoying pondering over the question of how in the world Jesus managed to make himself “of no reputation”.

The Flesh, the Spirit, and the City

Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God!
I will mention Rahab and Babylon to them who know me.
Psalm 87:3-4a

These words from Psalm 87 were spoken by the Spirit of Christ through a prophet. The prophet knew where Rahab and Babylon were located, but he understood nothing about what the Son of God was actually talking about. Nor did that prophet know about the city of God that was revealed to John the apostle in his Revelation.

There are two ways by which man is brought into bondage in this life. He can be enslaved by the lusts of his own fleshly nature, or he can be enslaved by demons. “Rahab” and Babylon” refer to these two evils. In the Old Testament, “Rahab “ is another name for Egypt (e.g., Isa. 51:9-10), and Egypt is a symbol of the fleshly nature of man (as suggested in Ezek. 16:26). “Babylon”, on the other hand, refers to spiritual uncleanness, the place where men are brought into spiritual bondage by “doctrines of demons” rather than by the lusts of the flesh. Jesus speaks of these things to those who know him. That is, he teaches his children wisdom concerning such things, revealing how those enemies of our souls work their craftiness and ensnare the spirits of men. Paul also spoke of these two evils to the saints in Corinth, exhorting them to cleanse themselves of “from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit” (2Cor. 7:1).

At the same time, Jesus and his servants speak of the glory of the city of God, to which we hope to go when this age is ended. It is a city illuminated not by the sun but by the brightness of the presence of the Father and the Son (Rev. 21:23), and through which flows a river of life, bordered on each side with trees whose very leaves heal (Rev. 22:1-2). It is a city whose streets are laid with transparent gold, and where every hope for peace and pleasantness is realized. Jesus speaks of that city “to those who know me”, and he encourages them to be faithful and diligent so that they may overcome the two great evils that oppose them and, so, obtain that eternal life.

The Safest Place

The sparrow has found a house,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
even your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my king and my God.
Psalm 84:3

Uncle Joe knew that if God had not stricken him with cancer in 1959, he would not have lived thirty-seven more years. His body was so full of cancer when the doctor operated on him that the doctor gave Uncle Joe six to nine months to live. But the cancer was the chastening of the Lord, and in his room in Veterans Hospital in Durham, NC, Uncle Joe humbled himself and turned from his own way, and God forgave him. Then, he was healed and lived that other thirty seven years.

My father, too, testified of being chastened by the Lord the same way. And after the chastisement of God served its purpose and he “set his house in order” as God demanded he do, he referred to his affliction as ‘that blessed cancer”for the next forty-plus years of his life. He was aware of the fact that, without that harsh discipline of God, he may not even have been saved in the end. God wanted him to be pure, and He made him that way.

We who have been severely chastened of the Lord know the feeling of gratitude for chastisement, even though “for the present, the chastening does not seem pleasant, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” The “peaceable fruit of righteousness” is what God is after when He puts us through the fire, and when we humble ourselves and yield to Him what He demands, we always end up happy and thankful for whatever process God used to get us there.

For several years, I had prayed and prayed about a certain thing that troubled my conscience, a situation I could not see a way out of. Lots of people are in the same situation, but Jesus was not pleased that I was one of them. It was always there, somewhere in the back of my mind, and it would pop up at any time and bother my thoughts. I wanted to fix it, but I did not know how. Then, out of the blue, a certain man sued me for things I was completely innocent of. Innocent or not, I knew that, in this world, evil sometimes wins, and so, I got alone with God and spread the lawsuit on the floor and asked God to be the Judge in this case and to judge me if I had done anything wrong. From the moment I asked God to judge me, I became focused on making certain that there was nothing in my life that displeased God, for I knew that He is “no respecter of persons”. And there it was; that situation that had troubled my heart for several years, demanding to be dealt with. Full of the fear of God, I went about resolving it as soon as possible, determined to please God. And I did.

The relief was immediate, and great. So much lighter was my conscience that I told the folk here that “God sued me”, and He did it in order to give me the inner strength I needed to take care of a situation that had irritated my spirit for years. He wanted me to have peace. How I love Him for that! It was, in one way, the worst time of my life. I had never been so publicly accused of anything, especially such evils as I was accused of then. But God transformed it, for me, into a most wonderful time of growth in godliness.

The fiery trial is the place where the swallow can safely build her nest and lay her young. David sang, “We are His people, the sheep of His pasture! Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise!” (Ps. 100:3). That sounds so poetic that we often overlook the point. Think about it. Why were sheep brought through the gates of the city of God and into His courts? To be fed? No, the sheep feed on the hillsides, not in the city. They were, and are, brought into God’s court to be slaughtered and laid on the flaming altar of God! Can you enter into God’s court with thanksgiving?

Paul exhorted us to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service” (Rom. 12:1). And I assume that he, too, would have wanted us to present ourselves with thanksgiving. James felt the same way. That’s why he wrote to the saints, “My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into various trials” (Jas. 1:2).

It is the fiery altar of God which burns the dross out of our souls. It burns nothing but the things of earth that weigh us down and get in our way. God’s altar is a sacred place where the greatest love of God can be found, yet a place that cannot be found by man; one has to be taken to those flames by the tender mercies of God. It is “the secret place of the Almighty”, where sins are purged and wisdom is learned. It is a place for “the trial of faith”, which Peter said was “more precious than gold” (1Pet. 1:7).

To correct the vexing situation I found myself in proved to be very expensive, but then, what is it worth to have perfect peace with God? Looking at it the right way, we will ask, how expensive will it be in the Judgment to meet God with a conscience not purged by the fire? A great and simple secret of wisdom that I learned in the fire was this: the best way to deal with something that troubles the conscience is simply to do it. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? And yet, every one of us have suffered through periods (or, are now suffering through a period) of putting off the conviction of the Spirit, until God picked us up and tenderly placed us on His flaming altar.

Ah, the great relief that comes when we stay on the altar and let the fire of God’s holiness burn off the chains that have held us to something that displeased God! Uncle Joe once testified, decades after his healing of cancer, that he longed to be back in that place he was with God when he had cancer. He did not want cancer again; he just wanted to feel once more that wonderful sense of being overshadowed by God, of having (in his case) bitterness and an unforgiving spirit burned away from his heart. On the altar, no man can help you, no matter how much they love you. You are alone in the hands of God. But what better place to be, if we endure the brief chastening of the Lord?

Now, like all my fathers, from Abraham and David to Uncle Joe and my earthly father, I refer to the most painful time in my life as blessed, for the results were what God and I had both wanted for so long. The whole experience, painful as it was, came from the hand of my loving heavenly Father, for my good, and for the good of others. He saw both my desire for freedom and my weakness, and He brought about just the right series of events, measured to my faith and designed for my maximum benefit.

How can we lose, trusting a God like that?

Judging among the Gods

"God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods."

Psalm 82:1

The term “gods” in the verse above refers to God’s people, not to the idols of heathen nations. The Lord said to Israel, a few verses later, “I have said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High’” (Ps. 82:6). Jesus, himself, even quoted that verse to show that God consider His children to be “gods” (Jn. 10:34-36).

Asaph wrote this Psalm. He was a prophet and he was a leader of the Levitical singers in David’s time. In saying that God is the One who judges among the gods, Asaph was saying that only God was capable of making judgments among His people. The world doesn’t understand God’s people. It doesn’t understand their experiences or their feelings, and so, it cannot rightly make judgments of controversies that arise in the family of God.

When Paul heard that a brother in Corinth had taken another brother to court, he was indignant. How could a judge in a human court reach a righteous conclusion concerning controversies within the family of God? He wrote (1Cor. 6:1-8):

1. Does any one of you, having a dispute with another, dare to go to court before the unjust and not before the saints?

2. Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you not competent to judge the smallest matters?

3. Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more then, mundane issues?

4. If then you do have mundane matters to be judged, appoint as judges men who are least esteemed by the congregation.

5. I am saying this to your shame. Is it really this way, that there is not a single wise man among you, one who is able to judge between his brothers?

6. Instead, brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?

7. But then, there is already a fatal flaw in you, for you are filing lawsuits against each other. Why do you not rather suffer an injustice? Why do you not rather allow yourself to be defrauded?

8. Instead, you do injustice and you defraud – and do that to your brothers.

Paul knew that any child of God who runs to the world to enlist its aid against another brother is doing evil. In everything we are to do things God’s way or not do them at all. The foolish run to the world because they know that if they run to God they’ll find true justice, and that is not what they want. They know that God alone is able to judge among His children because He alone truly knows them, and they turn to the world, hoping that the world never really finds them out.

Talk

A few years ago, I received a phone call from our local newspaper. The reporter told me that she was writing an article about me that the paper would be running the following day, and she wanted some comments from me. She didn’t tell me exactly what was in the article, but she did let me know the names of two of the three people with whom she had spoken, and so I knew, generally, what to expect. But nothing could have prepared me for the shock of seeing the article in the newsstands the next morning – at the top of the front page! I suppose the editor had placed it “above the fold”, as they say, so as to attract as many buyers as possible with its spicy gossip.

When I read what the people in the article said about me, I could hardly believe such worthless gossip would be allowed in print. I knew that if I were an ordinary person reading that article, I probably would not believe all of it, but I would have to think that at least part of it was true. But there was no truth in it at all. And now that it was in the hands of tens of thousands of people, I was helpless to do anything about it. It was the worst day of my life.

Later in the day, I was on my face before God, asking Him how such things could be. Where was the sense of equity and balance that I had always assumed played a part in news reporting? I asked God how anyone could be so callous as to publish such false and humiliating material about somebody without first making sure those things were true. Did the editor of the paper have no feelings for my children or for the children of the wonderful, God-fearing parents associated with me? Those poor kids were now embarrassed to even show up at school. “God,” I pleaded, “How could one human do this to another human being?”

The Lord interrupted my prayer and said to me, kindly but firmly, “ How does it feel, son?”

I could not speak. I knew what the Lord meant. Just as those who would read the newspaper article that day would no doubt reach conclusions about me and the sweet and innocent people here, based on nothing but talk, so had I, in the past, judged others by the same measure. Even though He had just told me that I had done so, I cried out, “O God! Have I done that to others? Have I judged others based on nothing but talk?” Then, I earnestly repented for being influenced by talk, for forming opinions of others based on talk, for reaching conclusions about situations based on talk. It was an extremely humbling, but good, experience.

Still on my face before the Lord, I pleaded with him to help me never again let my heart be moved by talk. And I thanked him for having that slanderous newspaper article published so that I could feel the way I must have made others feel at times by making judgments without having real knowledge. I knew that God put that article in the paper to bring me to my face before Him. It felt at the time that I was reaping a thousandfold for my errors, but knowing the tenderness of God, He was probably being very merciful to limit it to just a few (there were a couple of others) degrading, lie-riddled articles.

But I received more than that from the experience.

When Jesus spoke to me, his words opened my heart to an understanding which I had never possessed. I saw how little anyone on earth really knows about anything, and how much the whole world is moved by talk. Talk-shows on TV, radio, or internet, are extremely influential with people, as are books, magazines, and the like – regardless of the veracity of their content. Men and women who have the ability to speak cleverly enough can earn millions over a lifetime with their mouth, regardless of what they are saying. Politicians who come up with clever, biting “zingers” against their opponents make the headlines, and those “zingers” are played and replayed on television because such crafty talk draws viewers. Eloquent talk sells. It may be that the policies of nations are formed more on the basis of talk than on genuine knowledge. Wars have been initiated on the basis of talk.

In response to this, I wondered to myself, “What does anyone know?” And the Lord showed me that no one knows anything unless the Spirit either reveals it to him or gives him the understanding of something he has seen or heard. No wonder Jesus warned us not to judge! We don’t know anything. Paul reminded his converts in Corinth and Thessalonica that when he came to them, he did not come to them with mere talk but with preaching that was with the power of the holy Ghost (1Cor. 1:4; 2Thess. 1:5). “For”, he told the Corinthians, “the kingdom of God is not in word but in power” (1Cor. 4:20).

The prophet Isaiah said that when Christ came, he would not judge anything by what he saw or heard with his physical eyes and ears (Isa. 11:3), and we are warned to follow Jesus’ example. This is why Paul taught that only those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God (Rom. 8:14). Wisdom and knowledge come from God alone, and until He gives us understanding, we don’t even know ourselves, much less anyone else. Without God’s help, none of us understands anything we see and hear in this world, but Jesus suffered and died to make that help, the holy Spirit, available to us. The Spirit is a dependable guide for our feelings; it is the perfect judge, and it will save us from the foolishness of reaching conclusions based on talk.

It is a precious gift to have true knowledge, a right understanding, about anyone or anything. But such knowledge comes only from the Spirit, not from ourselves. Jesus is full of that Spirit of truth, and he will freely give it to us if we trust him. And if we walk in the knowledge that Christ gives by the Spirit, we will be among the very few on this earth who are not moved by talk.



Looking for the Answer

There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish
And he had a son whose name was Saul.

And the asses of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost.
And Kish said to Saul his son,

"Take now one of the servants with you,
and arise, go seek the asses."
And he passed through Mount Ephraim,

and passed through the land of Shalisha,
but they found them not.

And [Saul’s servant[ said to him,
"Behold now, in the city there is a man of God,
and he is an honorable man;

all that he says surely comes to pass.
Let us now go there.

It may be that he can show us our way that we should go."
Excerpts from 1Samuel 9:1-4, 6

There is a reason Saul and his friend went to Samuel to find the answer to their question. One obvious reason that those two young men went to Samuel for the answer is because of Samuel’s great reputation as a prophet. They didn’t visit the village blacksmith or the local midwife because they didn’t need their services. They needed a prophet. But there is a more fundamental reason than that. It was not because Saul knew Samuel had the answer; rather, it was because Saul really wanted the answer. Those who are sincerely looking for the right answer are always drawn toward the place where the answer really is.

Jesus said that EVERY person whose heart God touched and, so, really wanted eternal life came to him. Every one. Those who are truly hungering and thirsting for God’s righteousness do not go to the Koran because it does not lead people to it. They do not seek to be like Buddha because something in their hearts tells them that to be like JESUS is the answer. They do not feel drawn to a study of philosophy because philosophy is vain. They go to Jesus.

But the same is true of matters other than eternal life. It is true of earthly life, as well. I have seen many people over the years go to the wrong person for counsel, and the reason they went to the wrong person is because they did not really want to hear the truth about their problem. It happens all the time. They may make a show of sincerity by asking for advice, but instead of seeking God’s answer, they are, in fact, running from it. I have seen parents with unruly children, husbands with unfaithful wives (and vice versa), and others with personal problems, visit someone with no anointing from God, for the very purpose of not receiving godly counsel, and yet, at the same time, they congratulate themselves for having done the wise thing in asking for advice. But, you tell me. What’s the point in asking directions from a blind man?

Many years ago, as a young man in Christ, I received an unexpected phone call from a brother who wanted advice, he said, on the purchase of a car. The truth was that he did not want God’s answer; he had already made up his mind to buy the car. He was looking for approval, not advice. In fact, that’s why he called me instead of someone older and wiser in the Lord than both of us. Those elders were available. Why didn’t he call them? You tell me.

This self-willed brother did not realize that Jesus had me under his wing and was teaching me his ways. So, when I gave him the same answer that our elders in the faith (or even sinners with common sense) would have given him, he exploded and yelled at me, "It’s my money, and its my life!", as if I were trying to impose my will on him. I was stunned. He had called me! I didn’t even know that he had been looking for a car. But that’s how it often is with people who are given God’s answer when they’re trying to avoid it. He despised my fellowship with the wisdom of our elders, and in years to come, he would despise me openly for telling him the truth, just as he despised them then, in his young heart.

Until that phone call, long ago now, I had never experienced someone asking for advice but not really wanting any. It was a very bad feeling. Since then, however, I have learned that it is a fairly common occurrence. Be wise, my friends. Do not fall for the flattery of being asked for advice. Always ask yourself, "Why is this person coming to me? Do I have this person’s answer from God?" Those who come to you looking for counsel, but who are in fact running from the truth, may hate you if you surprise them with the answer they are trying to avoid. They may become bitter with disappointment when they learn that you are not quite as foolish and blind as they thought you were.

Do you really want God’s answer? Saul did, and he found it. And he found it because his sincere desire for the right answer led him to the person who had it. And if you sincerely want to know the truth, God will lead you, too, to one of His servants who has it, just as He did young Saul.

It Has Always Been That . . . uh . . .This Way

“As for me, my steps were almost gone;
my steps had well nigh slipped.
For I was envious at the foolish,
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
. . . These are the ungodly who prosper in the world;
they increase in riches.
Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain,
and washed my hands in innocency,
for all the day long have I been plagued,
and am chastened every morning.”
Asaph, in Psalm 73:2-3, 12-14

When we think of the reign of king David, we think of deliverance, righteousness and peace. David was a sort of second Moses to Israel. The previous king’s reign had been a tragic disaster. It had left the nation in shambles, spiritually , militarily, and socially. David restored the integrity of the faith to God’s people, and then God restored Israel’s integrity as a nation.

When we think about the time when Moses led Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness, we think of purity of faith, righteous judgment, and joyful revelation of the true God. Moses boldly led God’s chosen people out of slavery and to the very brink of the Promised Land, as free and holy nation.

I could go on. There are many men and women in the Old and New Testaments whose names stir up thoughts of miraculous events, righteous acts of faith, and feelings of peace and joy. But in the main, that was not the experience of those men and women themselves.

David’s fellow Israelite, Asaph, was a high-ranking Levitical singer, and a prophet. He composed at least eleven of the Psalms, and he, like David, was used by the Son of God to speak mysteries concerning himself before he came to earth (Ps. 78:1-3 with Mt. 13:34-35). It was Asaph, not David, whom God used to reveal that the tribe of Judah had replaced the tribe of Ephraim as the head of all the tribes (Ps. 78:60-72). But Asaph’s psalms also reveal that sin as well as righteousness was prospering in Israel in David’s time. Asaph saw God bless many wicked Israelites, making them rich and happy; consequently, Asaph was discouraged. God wouldn’t let him get by with anything, and He blessed the wicked in spite of anything they did! According to Asaph, God chastened him every morning!

Of course, Asaph recovered himself. He went to the house of God, and something he experienced there opened his eyes again to the reality of the Final Judgment. He sobered up then and considered the eternal destination of the wicked, and the eternal destination of those who humble themselves to receive the chastening of the Lord. But Asaph’s recovery from foolish envy of the wicked is not my point here. My point is that even in the times when the men of greatest faith, like king David, who ruled in Asaph’s time, there was wickedness in Israel.

God said through the prophet Amos that, in their hearts, Israel was not worshiping Him when they followed Moses in the wilderness, but the god Moloch instead (Amos 5:25-26). And even in the days of the apostles, great wickedness existed in the midst of the newly created body of Christ on earth (e.g., Acts 5:1-11 and 1Cor. 5). We understand that the upright have always been in the minority among the nations of earth, but what is often overlooked is the fact that, most of the time, the upright in heart have been the minority even among those who belong to God.

That knowledge will act as a shield for our faith. It should encourage us to make our fellowship with God very personal and gain strength from Him to persevere in righteousness and faith regardless of how others behave. The “wise virgins” are they who are not discouraged by the unfaithful; they understand that ungodliness is among us, seen or not seen, and it will at times raise its ugly head, even in our own midst. All of God’s faithful children have had to deal with it, and they will continue to deal with it until the final purging of the body of Christ which will take place shortly before the second coming of Jesus (Mt. 13:40-43).