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Will The Real Heretics Please Stand Up

Mon, 2 Dec 2019 15:23:32 -0600

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D. Bercot. Our all-time best seller! This is the book that launched Scroll Publishing Co. A fascinating overview of the early Christians (A.D. 90 - 299): Who they were. How they lived. What they believed. And how the Christianity of that era was lost.

Penned in a free-flowing readable style, combined with sound scholarship, this eye-opening book challenges Christians today to return to the simple holiness, unfailing love, and patient cross-bearing of the early Christians. Includes a challenging comparison between the early Christians and today’s evangelicals.

192 pp. Paperback.

$9.95 Quantity 1
Editorial Reviews:

Family Life, October, 1989
Perhaps the single most important thing the book did for me was to introduce me in an unforgettable way to the early Christian writings. ...However, the author, David Bercot, does more than introduce the reader to the early Christians and their writings he advances a powerful and persuasive argument as to why we should take the early Christians and their writings seriously. This argument is basically similar to saying that the further upstream you go, the purer the waters should be. He makes a convincing case that these early Christian writers were in the best possible position to interpret and understand what the inspired writers had in mind when they wrote the New Testament. After all, some of these early Christian leaders were co-workers with the apostles and knew them personally. It is logical that they had a real advantage over us who read the Bible after nearly 2,000 years.

Bookstore Journal, November, 1989
We’ve heard it all before. The church’s decline began when Constantine named Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. David Bercot recounts all this and more. He is deeply concerned with the church’s lack of spirituality. He is upset that the church has adopted worldly standards of success rapid growth and wealth. He is right in feeling and expressing these concerns. And he expresses them well.

The Plough, April, 1990
"Early Christianity was a revolution that swept through the ancient world like fire through dry timber," challenging traditional customs and institutions. The author contends that the early Church’s stance toward society should concern us deeply, as we face many similar burning issues: divorce, abortion, entertainment, war, economic injustice, and the role of men/women.

Bercot, who is also a lawyer, takes the reader on a very stimulating journey in which we meet Polycarp (who was personally discipled by the apostle John) and other second-century witnesses.

The Obligator, August, 1989
To say this book packs a jolt is an understatement. Bercot doesn’t point fingers; he just tells it like it is, and no book other than Snyder’s The Problem of Wineskins has affected my thinking of the church more than this one. This book has my highest recommendations.

Readers’ Reviews

Protestant or Roman Catholic - Neither, February 11, 2008
By Jason F. -

It is funny how people read this book and still come out the other side with a “Paul" or “Apollos" stand. The church is an organism not an organization. I am neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant. Yet I do admit I would have troubles with someone who has a image of the virgin Mary in their home with candles burning in front of it and holds the pope as supreme. I would also have trouble with someone who profits from the Gospel and does not define and live by Gospel precepts. To walk away from this book and say “see the Protestants are wrong or see the Roman Catholics are wrong" is siding with your religion in order to avoid persecution. Both are wrong. Both are idolatrous and are consumed with “their" orthodoxy over orthopraxy. With ritual over love.

Thought-Provoking Look at Early Christianity, December 13, 2007
By Ben Niemand -

When we are reminded that the early Christian church operated under the inspired authority of the apostles it should give give one pause as to how far we have drifted from what the apostles taught and the early church practiced. It is interesting how “mainstream Christianity" has morphed to become almost the polar opposite as to what was originally taught and practiced by the early church under the direction of the apostles.

Perhaps one of the most important books you’ll ever read, January 30, 2007
By J. R. Neumiller (Greensboro, NC) -

I consider this book seminal in both its topics and scope. If you are a Christian, (or even if you have no interest in church history,) Will The Real Heretics Please Stand Up will challenge you as perhaps no other book can or will.

The early Christian writers, (sometimes referred to as “fathers,") left a body of writings that have been preserved to this day, (enough to fill a 10 volume set.) Though not inspired by God, (as were the Apostles who wrote the New Testament,) their writings do reflect what the early church believed and practiced for almost 300 years, (until the church was severely compromised by an unholy union with the Roman state under Emperor Constantine’s overtures.)

When personally challenged to read these writings, David Bercot initially rejected them; discovering that their beliefs were so antiquated and out of step with contemporary beliefs. Yet, as he begin reading them again, he came to the overwhelming conclusion that what the church believes today is drastically different from the beliefs of the early Christians.

* Do you believe that a Christian is saved by faith alone, apart from good works? Then you believe a doctrine rejected as heresy by the early church.

* Do you believe a Christian has no choice in his salvation, but is saved solely by the choice of God? The early church understood every person has a free will and is held accountable by God according to the choices made from it. (The pagans of the day were predestinationalists, believing all of life was controlled by “fate.")

* Do believe a Christian can fight and kill in a war, and still go to heaven? The early Christians knew that those who lived by the sword would be killed by the sword, and therefore strove to live meek and harmless lives; preferring to suffer death at the hands of unbelievers rather than fight to save their lives, (like their Master did before them.)

Included in this book is a very simple and understandable description of exactly where and how the church came to disown these original teachings, and why it currently believes and practices something entirely different today. Bercot’s style is remarkable in its persuasion and meekness; refraining from attacking or belittling those who take the opposing view. (However, his arguments are unanswerable, due to their unavoidable logic and evidentiary conclusions.)

* If you are a Calvinist, (or of that persuasion,) you will not like this book.

* If you are a modern Evangelical, and believe in “Once Saved, Always Saved," you will not like this book.

* If you are participant or supporter of any war or military action, you will be highly offended by this book.

In short, if you are a denier of the literal words and teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are utterly out-of-fellowship with the Believers of the first and second centuries, for they strove to follow Jesus as literally and as earnestly as they could. (And you would be cast out of their churches as a first-class heretic.)

The church today simply does not believe what Jesus taught. The early church did, and we have their writings as evidence of what they believed and accomplished. Scripture decidedly foretells of an end-times apostasy, or “great falling away." When you compare the beliefs of the early church with what is believed and practiced today, you can clearly see that we are most decidedly in the very center of this prophecy. (And its only going to get worse.)

“Flee from the wrath to come!” It was preached 2,000 years ago, and it needs to be preached today. Only the target is YOU, dear Christian, and not some poor pagan unbeliever. (For it will be better for him in the day of judgment than for you, if you refuse to walk in all the commands of the Lord Jesus.)

Eye Opening, a Real Wake Up Call, January 9, 2007
by Paul Pavao “Shammah” (Selmer, TN)

You may not care about what the churches the apostles started were like, or you may think that no one knows what they’re like. This book will change your mind. This is a well-researched book, very accurate and fair to the early church writings. I’ve read everything the 2nd century church wrote as a result of the motivation provided by this book, and he spoke truly about what they said.

If you want to continue on the way you have been, don’t read this book, because it will shake you up. Bercot is a lawyer, and he argues powerfully for his points in this book. I’ve listened to plenty of people try to answer his arguments, both when I worked with David (in 1992), and since, including a few months of talk shows on the radio in Sacramento, CA. These arguments are compelling and un-answerable.

On top of all this, the book is incredibly well-written. It is easy to understand and completely captivating. Every chapter ends with a carrot on a stick to drag you for or against your will into the next one. Don’t start it at night, because you’ll be late for work the next day. You will have to finish it.

This book, because it answers so many questions with straightforward answers and puts the whole world of the early church at your fingertips ought to be a top 10 Christian book of all time.

Church history in a nutshell—and what to do about it!, June 12, 2006
By Derrick Neve (Central France)

I was first introduced to Bercot by his masterly Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, so I all the more readily took a look at this book. The result was that I couldn’t put it down and started hunting for what else he had written on the subject.

Bercot knows what he is talking about from his years of study and research into the Patristic writings -- and this shows through in his writings as he weaves the basic principles of Christianity together and compares them with the pitiful evangelical church of today.

If you are one who is serious about your faith, please read this book.

Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, May 22, 2006
By A Christian Pilgrim “Warren” (CA)

When I was first given the opportunity to read Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, I was reluctant, thinking it would be just another modern un-Biblical teaching. However, this one book, more than any other, outside the Bible itself, has made the most profound difference in my Christian life. It is simple to understand, and very compelling.

Although nearly every group and/or denomination today has some of the truths of the New Testament, they all fail to maintain a consistantly biblical view. In contrast, the church that was founded by the Apostles and their disciples maintained a consistant doctrinal purity for nearly three hundred years.

If you want to know what Christianity was like when it “turned the world upside down,” and how she can once again take up that roll, this book will give you many of the answers.

Will the real Jesus please stand!, February 28, 2006
By Matthew G. Phoenix (Monterey, CA)

Let’s face it... Christianity as a whole has done, in my opinion of course, a **** poor job of being the earthly representatives of Jesus. From Emperor Constantine who claimed he saw a cross in the sky with the words ‘in hoc signo’ meaning ‘in this sign conquer’ to the ‘oops, let’s just forget this ever happened and call it a day’ Spanish Inquisition sponsored by the Catholic church to the wild and wacky antics of Charismatic televangelists, Christianity has a resume’ that even Anna Nicole Smith would look at and say ‘who’s yer lawyer?’.

David Bercot’s book illuminates the reader of a time when Christianity was truly a way of living one’s life as close to Christ’s as possible. So much so that early Christians would die for a mere confession of faith. Regardless, Christianity grew literally by the blood of martyrs. And the amazing thing was that the early Christians chose not to fight back with either violence or civil dispute in court. Instead they followed Christ’s classic teachings, loving one’s enemies, eschewing violence, being peace-makers, being wise as serpents yet harmless as doves.

I read this book when I was in the Army stationed in Manheim, Germany during the first Gulf war. It helped change my life forever! I had no clue who or what the early Christians were even though I was a Christian. In short I changed my understanding of Christianity based the writings of the early church. I have David Bercot to thank for writing this wonderful, easy to read book that gave me enough evidence to humble myself to change the majority of long held beliefs in my Christian faith. After reading Bercot’s ‘Heretics’ ( I kid you not!) I proceeded to leave the U.S. Army as a conscientious objector. I’ve never regretted it since. That’s how much of an impact this had on my life!

Honesty Matters, December 10, 2005
By Aggie Doc “veritas vos liberabit” (College Station, TX) Bercot takes an honest look at what the Christians in the first century believed based on what we have recorded in history. He comes to the comclusion that must be drawn in spite of the things that he has believed in the past. This kind of attitude is a must for one who studies the Bible seriously—and this book is a great way of being introduced the early Christian beliefs.

Brilliant book on Early Christianity, October 14, 2005
By Robert “Bobby” Boyland (Tralee, Ireland)

I am a theologian, and have an interest in books that discuss Early Christianity, and Bercot’s “Heretics..." though short, is “on the ball,” so to speak.

He discusses how the doctrines of Early Christians are different to those of the modern Evangelical faith, with Early Christians believing that, contra Evangelicalism, one could lose their salvation, that baptism was necessary for salvation, and so forth.

Additionally, for the benefit of the reader, who would probably not have heard much about the Early Christians cited in the text (e.g. Justin Martyr), Bercot provides a brief introduction to such individuals, with their background and history.

Although many Evangelicals, some I have shared e-mail correspondences with disagree, this is a must-read, regardless of how “uncomfortable" (Bercot’s choice of words) such a venture will be.

Rated Highly due to its importance, September 5, 2005
By R. Brown (Texas Hill Country)

This book was one of the more influential I have ever read on origins of Christian doctrine. It is not so influential for its scholarship as for its incisiveness.

Bercot approaches the subject like an inquirer, with openness and honesty enough to call into question sacred cows carefully protected down through the years.

The reader familiar with Early Church Fathers will recognize the difficulty in sorting through the morass of sometimes conflicting, even bizarre, early church views. Bercot navigates the waters, and draws from the issues and views that still very much affect, or afflict, the church at large.

I like his brutal honesty and pragmatic approach to parsing the early script. IF there is anything to dislike, it would only be the needed [in my view] distilling of a huge body of Early-Fathers’ writings to yield just a few points that are both controversial and instructive right down to our present time.

A real challenge, August 23, 2005
By Paul R. Turner “Christian Thoughts” (Melbourne, Australia)

Will the real Heretics Please Stand Up, is a book about how Christians beliefs today have drifted away from what the first Christians actually believed. The book shows us through early Christian writings, that what alot of us might accept as true doctrine is not actually correct.

It really opened my eyes to see the difference between Christianity when it first began in its purest form and what it is today. An excellent read and a real challenge for those of us who desire to follow God with obedience and love.

I fell in love - but be mindful! , April 11, 2003
By Abba Poemon the Ubermensch (Boston, MA)

I read this book just as my conversion began. I was with a group who assumed that their doctrines were pure, and that the doctrines and practices of other groups were more or less corrupt. It was assumed that we were a re-establishment of the New Testament Church. I could have quoted you scriptures to defend every belief we had, and summon ones to dismiss every “error" anyone else had. Eventually I asked the obvious question - “if we’ve got the Truth, why aren’t others coming here, and how did things get to be this bad? How did they go wrong?" I wanted a detailed answer, one that quoted texts that chronicled the supposed decline, rather than hearing someone else narrate to me with their own voice, from their own authority what they were told happened, or what they read some author claim had happened. After reading this book, I was forced to concede to the weight of the case made by Bercot, but like Bercot, I conceded happily (Matt.13:44-46) - at the time.

In the beginning section of the book, he fleshes out the vision of the Christians who were instructed by the Apostles, and those who were trained by them in turn. He quotes from their writings and gives you footnotes to follow. Their discipleship was so noble and rugged, I was immediately enthralled by them. They were filled with fire, and pursued the beauty of holiness by ascetic struggle (there was no ‘easy-believism’ or ‘health and wealth’ movements in the early Church). He details how the Church before Constantine (before A.D.325) lived out it’s life of discipleship, and compares it to present-day movements.

The middle section details some central doctrines that the early Church universally believed. He doesn’t do this selectively, quoting only from writings that support his portrait - he only presents a doctrine as being part of the early Church’s teachings if he has found support for it from something like five different writers from five different continents across three centuries. It’s hard for Bercot to misrepresent them when he’s put himself under those kind of criteria. He certainly doesn’t exhaust their theology and spirituality, but he doesn’t actively misrepresent them on the topics he presents.

Given all that, after spending years studying the 200-year period prior to the birth of the Messiah, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament and the Early Fathers from the first 4 centuries, it is painfully obvious that even under his criterion of objectivity, he still comes to the texts with a large number of common assumptions that he shares with the Evangelicals whom he seeks to correct in compassionate love, assumptions which will actively distort the biblical and patristic texts and conceal vast expanses of meaning in them. Please don’t let that stop you, though - just don’t take Bercot as the final word. I’ve provided some helpful books at the end of this review.

In the final section of the book, he traces an outline of how those teachings were “handled and mishandled," as Bercot puts it, up until and through the Protestant Reformation, and offers some suggestions to those who’re wondering where the Church of the early Christians might be. Some of his suggestions in the 3rd edition of the book (not yet available) are guided by concerns that wouldn’t have been familiar to the early Christians. Even in the 2nd edition, he doesn’t talk about some essential beliefs about the nature of the Church that the early Christians both lived out and held firmly to, which are critical, and several other beliefs and practices that they would be grieved to be robbed of. Some of these beliefs and practices, when placed next to the ones Bercot mentions, make them look differently than the way Bercot presents them. Baptism would be one example, as well as the Eucharist (Bercot is not deceiving you, he’s just not giving you the full picture, because he doesn’t have it himself). Undergirding much of these inaccuracies is Bercot’s rotten to non-existent grasp of the early Church’s teachings about the Trinity - neither in his books, nor in his taped audio lectures does he demonstrate an understanding of their experience or understanding of their faith, but rather, re-interprets it through the lens of the presuppositions common to himself and his intended audience. Furthermore, he doesn’t really touch on the subject of early Christian worship - it’s order and structure, and what they thought they were doing when they gathered for worship. The centrality of worship in the early Church for the knowledge of Christ, and thus for doctrine, spirituality and a proper reading of the scriptures cannot be overstated. Read Hippolytus’ “On The Apostolic Tradition," a work not found in the _Ante-Nicene Fathers_ set which Bercot and his group push. Hippolytus outlines entire liturgies of the worship from the 2nd century Church.

It was seven years ago that I first read _Heretics_, so the thicket it landed me in has since become navigatable. Understanding the thrills and frustrations that usually accompany (& follow) reading it, I thought I might offer some advice to those who are wrestling with the book’s contents (I know this is presumptuous of me, but because Bercot makes so many errors that are impossible to address in the space of a review, the list of advice and suggested reading is longer than I’d like it to be, but don’t be intimidated).

First, read the Ante-Nicene Fathers for yourself. If you don’t have time for all of them, at least read the Apostolic Fathers, Irenaeus and Eusebius. I would strongly urge anyone who wants to understand early Christianity to read Irenaeus’s “Apostolic Preaching," translated by John Behr (this work is not included in the Ante-Nicene Fathers set published by Hendrickson), as well as a book by him entitled “The Way to Nicea," which is all about Christianity during the period before the Council of Nicea. That book is slightly academic - it’s not for everyone, though it’s certainly rewarding (also read his pastoral reflections related to that book entitled “Life in Death"). Read a fantastic book by Olivier Clement entitled “The Roots of Christian Mysticism." Read volume 1 of Jaroslav Pelikan’s History of Christian Doctrine entitled “The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition" (that book is _not_ about Roman Catholicism, o frightened reader - Pelikan was a Protestant when he wrote that book).

Secondly, you must understand the world of 2nd Temple Judaism, because that’s the world of Christ Jesus, His Apostles, and some of the earliest, Apostolic Fathers of the Church which Bercot writes about. Bercot does not understand this world. I very, very strongly recommend reading two simple books of N.T. Wright’s, “The Challenge of Jesus" and “The Crown and the Fire." They both bear upon the culture of 1st century Judaism and show how a 1st century Jew would have interpreted the text - Wright is familiar with a vast array of historical material related to that time period that Bercot is not, material quite relevant to the text of scripture and the Apostolic Fathers. If you’re more ambitious, then pick up his slightly more academic (but approachable by a non-expert) “New Testament and the People of God," which will help clarify a great many things that Bercot doesn’t even touch. His portrait of Jesus fits so very well with the pre-Nicene Church’s teachings and life. Read James Vanderkam’s “An Introduction to Early Judaism," which covers the historical period from 516 BC to 70 AD. Furthermore, George Nickelsburg’s “Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins: Diversity, Continuity, and Transformation" will illuminate much of what’s going on the NT that you wouldn’t be able to know without it, because it paints a picture of all the diverse forms of belief and practice amongst Jews during the 1st century, and shows how patterns of Christian belief and practices departed from or were in harmony with the various other assumptions, beliefs and practices of other Jewish groups. The Apostles and their disciples were Jews, so it’s important for us who are neither ethnically Jewish not 1st century Jews to understand what’s going on here. Don’t assume that you understand this until you’ve done the time reading - you’ll be amazed at how many secular assumptions stemming from the so-called “Enlightenment" have infected your thinking and blinded you to the historical situation and thus, some important aspects of the biblical text.

Third, you _must_ understand what was going on in the Jerusalem Temple, which was considered by virtually all Jews to be the center of everything in Jerusalem and Judaism. To this end, begin by reading 2 articles, both of which can be found on the webpage “The Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism," housed by Marquette University (if you type the name of the webpage into Google, you’ll find it - both of the following articles are there under “THEME 14: Jewish Temple Traditions and Christan Liturgy"). The first article is by a british scholar named Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, and it is entitled “The Cosmology of P and Theological Anthropology in the Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach." It outlines the theology of what was going on in the Jerusalem Temple, and clarifies where much of the imagery Jesus uses to describe himself comes from - the Jerusalem Temple Liturgy, the High Priest, clothed in God’s Wisdom (only, clearly, with Jesus it is reversed - Wisdom clothed in Humanity). It will blow your mind, and help you to understand much about the references to Christ, the Church and the Temple that are scattered all over the New Testament and the early Church’s writings. The second article is called “Atonement: the Rite of Healing," and it describes the rite of Atonement in the Jerusalem Temple, and what that action meant. The Temple Liturgy is clearly where the OT images about blood and sacrifice come from, and also where the NT images come from - but it’s meaning is not what you think, and what was going on in the Temple explains the trajectory of Apostolic and Patristic theology (Luther, Calvin, the Reformers and Roman Catholicism from the 16th century onward - misunderstand Atonement in terms of punishment and merit, what was going on in the Temple was very different). Finish by reading Jon Levenson’s “Sinai and Zion." The Marquette University Website is a great resource. The mysticism of Temple theology explains much (I suspect all) of the spiritual gifts mentioned by the Apostles, contra the review of this book by ‘E. Martin “scalawagg.”

Fourth - if you’re intellectually/academically inclined at all, I have found six great minds very helpful after reading Bercot, in ascending order of importance. Wolfhart Pannenberg’s 3 volume “Systematic Theology" was helpful, though it’s errors were corrected both by Avery Dulles “Models of Revelation," and especially by Robert Jenson’s 2 volume “Systematic Theology," which was superior to both. Most importantly David Hart’s “The Beauty of the Infinite," Vladimir Lossky’s “Mystical Theology," and Dumitru Stanilaoe’s “The Experience of God" are must-reads; though Stanilaoe requires patience, the payoff is more than worth it. If you’re interested, feel free to contact me and I’ll tell you why I found these helpful in relation to Bercot’s work, particularly it’s shortcomings.

Fifth, and this is critical, don’t dismiss the Christians who wrote during the centuries that followed after the council of Nicea (325 A.D.). To this end, again, begin by reading that simply fantastic book by Olivier Clement called “The Roots of Christian Mysticism." Do not dismiss Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor (buy Andrew Louth’s book on him), John of Damascus, Symeon the New Theologian (buy his “Mystical Theology" - he titled a section of one of his treatises as “Only the Dead Feel Nothing: The Need for a Conscious Experience of the Holy Spirit"), and many others. Buy the Nicene and Post-Nicene Father’s set from Hendrickson. Buy the Philokalia. Some of Bercot’s portraits/conclusions about the Church’s history during the centuries that followed immediately after Nicea are horridly misleading. He doesn’t do this intentionally, of course; I’ve visited with Bercot twice, and he’s a wonderful man, a generous host, a sincere Christian - and from what I hear from friends who know him, he’s now a Mennonite (you could see it coming, though - whether he’s aware of it or not, he reads the romantic picture of the Anabaptist Christianity that he fell in love with back into the early Church...). If you do dismiss those that came after Nicea, or think that the “visible Church" became corrupted, you’re essentially admitting that the Spirit of God was active for 300 years, guiding the Church, but afterwords failed to fulfill the promises made by Christ that “the gates of Hades/Death will not prevail against [my Church]." If the Church really went apostate after Nicea, then either Christ was wrong, the scriptures misrepresent Him, He is too weak to fulfill His promise, or worse, He was a liar. God Himself dwells in His Church, and He is able to guide her through her errors to fulfill her ministry until the Consummation at the End of the Ages.

I love trading thoughts on this book, and swapping experiences that have come from and with it.

Sometime soon, I hope to post a review of his other book, Common Sense 3 years after first writing this review, many more things have come to my attention.

Like it or not, it’s The Real Deal , January 19, 2005
By Errol V. Amey (Charlotte, NC)

Are you an open-minded lover of truth who is seeking to follow Christ more closely and correctly? If so, then this book could potentially change your life, or at least help to get you pointed more in the right direction.

However, if you think that you have the Bible all figured out, or if you think that your interpretation of it is the only correct one, and you don’t care what the early Christians had to say about it, then in all likelihood, you probably won’t like this book. In fact, you might even get so upset upon reading it that you feel compelled to come online and give it a bad review.

This work is essentially a powerful introductory to who the early Christians were, how they interpreted the Bible, and how they applied the Scriptures and the oral teachings of Jesus and the Apostles to the way that they lived their lives. Some of the highlights that are covered include what the early Christians believed about the role of faith and works in our salvation, our freewill and its relation to God’s foreknowledge, and the importance of baptism. Also included are cogent arguments on why the writings of the early Christians are so important, and a general explanation of how Christianity began to change and gradually forget or abandon many of the original beliefs and doctrines of the early Church. But as I said, this is only an introductory to a few pertinent issues.

Bercot urges the reader to check up on his quotations of the early Christians, and to study the early writings for themselves. For more through treatments of the above listed topics (and many more) I recommend purchasing some of Bercot’s 30+ audio-CDs on “What the Early Christians Believed About..." Salvation, Baptism, Communion, Life After Death, The Trinity, and etc. Also if one cannot afford the ten volume set of The Ante-Nicene Fathers" as a source for the writings of the early Christians, then I highly recommend at least getting Bercot’s A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs.”

Want to know more about this book, who the early Christians were and what they taught, and/or what the Bible has to say about the post-Biblical Christians and the importance of their writings? Then feel free to contact me via E-mail.

Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up: A New Look at Today’s Church, June 16, 2004
By Julius R. Collins (Suffolk, VA)

Praise God! This book really made me think about True Holiness and what it really means! I go to an Apostolic church where everyone believes in being Holy- without no man shall see God! Emphasis is put on being separate from the world in almost every aspect. After reading this book I feel that we(church) are so far from “True Holiness" in light of the early Christians. We say we don’t love the world or the things in the world. We say we have the lifestyle of a christians, but after reading this book, I will have to evaluate everything I’m doing..."Ouch and Amen" is all I have to say! I highly recommend everyone, especially Christians, to read this book!

Very Engrossing First Half, But Spotty in Places, October 27, 2003
By Edgar Foster (U. S.)

David Bercot has written a book that grabs your attention from the start and make Christians of any bent ask how their life compares with the non-Christian world. Bercot discusses early Christian views of entertainment and war. He concludes that the early Christians would have never approved of many movies that are produced today nor would they have gone to war to fight for their country, though it appears that some early believers did remain in the army after baptism, but evidently refused to take up arms against enemy nations.

One weakness to Bercot’s book, however, is that his arguments are condensed and he sometimes fail to examine the context of a given utterance made by a certain church father. Thus, he does not discern that the idolatrous nature of the Roman army also played a part in early Christian pacifism as well as the way Christians exegeted Isa 2:1-4. All in all, Bercot’s book is a nice read. Just don’t depend on it for serious historical analyses or in-depth and rigorous documented accounts.

A valid assessment of American Evangelicalism, October 17, 2003

By Seth Aaron Lowry (Olean, NY

Seldom has a book challenged my views as much as Mr. Bercot’s work has done. David Bercot is an individual qualified to assess exactly just what the Early Christian community taught and believed. Not only is he a lawyer, but he also has a Master of Divinity degree and is an accredited member of the National Patristics Society. What impressed me most about this work was the standard that Mr. Bercot employed to determine if a teaching was truly Apostolic in origin and a valid belief of the Christian community. If a teaching was not held by several Fathers of the same time period from different geographical locations, then that teaching would not be included in the book.

What really convicted me was how different my brand of Christianity is from that of the earliest followers of the Apostles and their Spiritual descendants. For instance, Bercot notes how the Early Church believed that Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptic gospels were literal. Sure, they understood that Jesus wasn’t commanding us to literally pluck out our eyes, but many parts of Jesus’ teaching that they understood literally, todays Christian community has watered down or spiritualized to accomodate our 21st century mentality. For example, how many believe that Jesus really wanted us to sell everything that we own and follow Him? I know of no church that teaches such a doctrine and if one were to teach this they would probably be regarded as strange, bizarre and out of their mind. Yet, this is exactly how the Early Church understood Jesus’ message and this is what compelled Cyprian, the great 3rd century bishop of Carthage, to liquidate his vast fortune and follow Jesus with everything that he had. Most Christians today are victims of the materialistic message of our capitalistic culture and they don’t even realize it; Virtually every church teaches that wealth and possessions are good things and that they are signs of God’s blessings. Many believe that as long as they don’t diligently pursue wealth and possessions that they are ok, but Jesus’ message was simple, a man cannot serve two masters because he will either hate one and love the other. This is exactly what most Christians do, believing that they can pursue some things as long as they don’t do it excessively. Yet, this was not the teaching of the Early Church and it was not how they understood Jesus’ gospel. I am not exempting myself from such criticism because I am guilty of such practices myself, and thanks to this book I have begun to reevaluate my beliefs.

Another aspect of this book that convicted me was Bercot’s explanation of the Early Christians’ view of entertainment. I felt extremely uneasy when I read what Bercot had to say because I knew I was guilty of such practices. I realized I needed to exercise more caution and discretion in deciding what was acceptable to view because such material can and does have an impact on my spiritual well-being. Furthermore, Bercot’s treatment of how the Early Christians viewed baptism should serve as a valuable wake up call to most of Christendom that has substituted man made inventions in place of the biblical practice of the early Christian community.

One thing about this book, it will not be liked by those of the Reformed persuasion. Bercot takes serious issue with Martin Luther and Augustine and disagrees with the Reformation doctrine of Sola Fide. Disagree with him all you like, he proves his point by showing that the Early Church insisted that obedience and a life of holiness were necessary for salvation. Moreover, Bercot disagrees with the doctrine of predestination believing that such a teaching has more in common with Gnosticism than with Apostolic Christianity. Again, disagree with him all you want, but Bercot clearly demonstrates that the Christians of the 2nd and 3rd centuries did not believe in unconditional election, but upheld the idea of free will. For those who argue that the ancient concept of fate and Augustinian predestination are different ideas, that argument will not work. Martin Luther argued in favor of predestination by illustrating how pagans believed in fate and arguing that even pagans relized the truth, showing that Luther believed predestination and fate to be one and the same. Also, Methodius writing in the 3rd century argued that those favoring fate and disavowing free will are guilty of making God the author of evils. Thus, Methodius shows that he equated fate with God and this is squarely predestination.

Anyways, buy this book to discover more about the beliefs of the Early Church. You may not agree with everything Mr. Bercot has to offer but I guarantee it will force you to reassess many of the teachings and principles you currently adhere to and believe in.

Interesting first half, but definitely biased, February 3, 2003
By John Q. Public “Middle Class Working Parent" (West Lafayette, Indiana)

David Bercot is an Anglican priest and an attorney. He is good at argument and presents some interesting points from some very early Christians. However, it becomes clear toward the end of the book that this man does have a strong bias and is not really attempting to be objective in his claims of Christianity from the time of Constantine onward. Here are just a few examples: 1. He claims that icons were “a practice utterly loathsome to early Christians" on page 129. Yet, the footnote is empty (omitted, as a type-o); in cross-reference with his “Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs", most of his support comes from a now Montanistic Tertullian.

2. On page 128 seems to assert that the use of Relics did not occur until Helen “started... relic mania."

3. Chapter 14 brushes over Arianism as if the subject of Christ’s divinity was more a matter of personal opinion than a serious issue that warranted a Church Council (which, incidentally, has precedence in scripture in Acts 15... another fact conveniently ignored by the author).

4. Chapters 17 and 18 simply ignore that Eastern Orthodoxy even exists; this is not an appropriate oversight!

5. Chapter 19 reveals the liberal protestant aim of the author in that we need “unity in the essentials" and “diversity in the non-essentials" since that is the way “the early Christians" were.

After reading it, I am much more skeptical about his assertions in the beginning of the book because the author has not demonstrated that he can present an objective argument. This is a great read for people looking to support an anti-Roman Catholic or anti-Orthodox bent though. If this is what you are looking for, then by all means, buy it!

I like the 1st edition better than the 3rd., November 29, 2002
By John Norman (Pittsburgh, PA

Yes, I read the 1st edition and loved it. I latter lost it which is why I’m buying a new one. I bought the 3rd edition which I believe left out a lot from the first. I have been reading the works of the early fathers off and on now for 4 years and what Bercot says in this book about Baptism, the Lord’s supper, the wealth and health dogma, salvation, evolution, our culture and Roman culture is right on the money. I must admit that when I first read the 1st edition 3 years ago I was shaken. But the Church today needs to be shook and it is a good thing to research these things from the primary sources so that noone can tell you that they didn’t believe it because they did. Also I have noticed that those from a Reformed background have a tendency to hate this book, while those who are not tend to like it. I hope this helps.

Challenging to the Evangelical Christian, November 13, 2002
By Raul Diaz (Parlier, CA

When you read what the early Christians believed regarding Baptism, The Eucharist, the nature of the Church, Apostolic Succession, Faith, Works, Sacraments, Tradition, you will know that these early Christians were not Protestants. The early Church was Catholic, not Protestant. A hard-core Protestant Evangelical will not find a home with the faith of the early Christians while a Catholic will feel at home.

David Bercot’s book is a good introduction and challenge to any Protestant who believes the early Church was Protestant. For more information on what the early Church believed, purchase “Early Christian Doctrines" by J.N.D Kelly, “The Apostolic Fathers" by Philip Schaff, and William Jurgens “The Faith of the Early Fathers." Read what the early Christians believed and decide whether their beliefs match with Protestantism or Catholicism. Read the facts. Don’t take my word for it as one reviewer already suggested.

The 1st of many works, March 16, 2002

By T. Buchser “t_buchser" (Rocky Mountains,

After reading all the reviews posted, I would like to clarify a few things about the author and this book. David Bercot may not have a doctorate, but it is quite clear after over 20 years of study of the complete works of the early church fathers, Editor of “The Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs" and other studies too numerous to mention, this gentleman would be deserving of one. I find it doubtful that any of these reviewers have ever read (much less studied) all 10 volumes of the ante-Nicene fathers. This book is the beginning of a journey by a man who admits to being a pilgrim himself, it is a mind opening book along the lines of “The Gospel according to Jesus" (MacArthur) and “How saved are we?"(Brown) If you are looking for a non-controversial book that never makes you Question if your beliefs are truth and allows you to be a pathetic weak “Christian,” DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. If however you are interested in seeing how the Christians who were taught, ordained and lived with Apostles like John and Paul, viewed and interpreted the Gospel, this book is for you. Wether you agree with it or not it will certainly make you look at your own beliefs.

As for those reviewers who think he did not go far enough, or missed certain points, His second book “Common Sense" and over 30 audio tapes, cover all of those areas and many, many others.

My prayer is that all who proclaim to Follow Jesus, will Make him Lord (not just savior) and DO his will. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?" Luke 6:46

A Good Start: But “Where’s the Eucharist????", February 19, 2002

By Bob Walden (Atlanta, GA)

To honestly examine the early Christian beliefs and practices, and then fail to comment on Christianity’s universal belief in the Eucharist as the actual body and blood of Christ, is very troubling. While Bercot does acknowledge sacramental baptism and apostolic tradition as being essential in the lives of early Christians, perhaps this (the most Catholic belief of all) would be just too far “over the edge" for Protestant readers to accept.

Bercot does an admirable job explaining why we need to study the Early Church Fathers, and why our own beliefs and practices should mirror the early church. But he falls way short of telling us what they believed and were taught by the Apostles about Jesus’ greatest gift: His own body and blood as our spiritual life & power, the cause of our unity, the source of our charity, and the promise of our salvation ("He who eats my body and drinks my blood has eternal life")

How could Bercot have missed the words of Ignatius of Antioch, 110 AD: “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again." ..."Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

And, how could he have missed the words of Justin Martyr, 150 AD: “We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.”

Indeed, anytime Bercot gets too close to sounding “Catholic," his anti-Catholic bias quickly surfaces: “But please don’t confuse apostolic tradition with the later human traditions [of the Roman Catholics]. Most of their traditions originated after the time of Constantine and were unknown to the early Christians" {p.106}. Later he calls the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 a “prime example of this adulteration" by affirming Mary as the Mother of God (Greek: Theotokos) {p.136}. Really.

All in all, this is a useful book. For non-Catholics I would rate it a 4-star for emphasizing the importance of apostolic tradition. For Catholics, I would recommend instead “The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol 1" Liturgical Press, ISBN 0814604323 for a complete index to early Christian beliefs, as well as “This IS My Body: An Evangelical Discovers the Real Presence" by Mark Shea. And for all Christians, I rate this a “must-read" for Bercot’s timely & passionate call to return to the uncompromising zeal of discipleship in loving and serving Jesus Christ.

A good book by an evangelical who loves the truth., February 14, 2002

By A Customer

I read the whole book, and it really surprised me. If you are catholic and you like apologetics, you’ll find something better: Bercot tell us that our christian faith is real love for Jesus, to love Him with all the strenght of our lives and Bercot provides us with old brothers in Christ who made exactly that.

Bercot is not a hidden catholic, and you will confirm this when you read the last chapters of this book. He’s a Christian who loves his protestant heritage (just see his portrayal of the Anabaptists). If you read the original German version of protestant “Theological Dictionary of the NT" by Lothar Coenen or the Spanish translation, you will see that Lothar Coenen asks himself if the protestants are following as God’s word the teachings of the reformers or what the people usually think it is. Lothar Coenen, noted the difference, and David Bercot made the same point but with force. Bercot misses an important point when he reviews the beliefs of the first Christian who lived between I and III centuries A.D: the Eucharist as a sacrifice (read J.N.D Kelly’s book on this point), just find out the Eucharistic interpretation of Mal 1:11 during the first 3 centuries and you will see what I mean. Bercot book is a good book, if you look for the truth in the Bible about salvation, baptism and what the first Christian books believed about those themes, buy this book. When you finish you will confirm that he is an honest Christian who loves the so called Evangelical Church and who dislikes important aspects of the Catholic Church.

The Church That Disappeared, September 28, 2001

By Kevin Kirwan (Sioux City, IA

While I give Bercot one star for at least acknowledging the genuine faith and practice of the pre-Nicene Fathers his dismissal of Constantine as a sort of anti-christ who was primarily responsible for the Church rushing headlong into apostasy shows his complete unfamiliarity with that era and ignorance of what it mean’t to be a Christian in the early Church. It was somewhat surprising that having begun this work by positively showing the post apostolic fathers as faithfully adhering to the gospel he suddenly with the appearence of Constantine literally proclaims that Satan finally figured out how to prevail against Christ’s Church and contrary to Christ’s promise conquers it after 300 plus years.

At least Mr. Bercot admits unlike many Evangelicals there is at least something worthwhile in post 70 a.d. Christianity. If only he could see the promise of Christ extending past Constantine and Nicea.

For the most part really good..., April 16, 2001

By Moses Alexander (Alabama

As a former protestant, I found this book quite interesting in that it addresses many of the issues I wrestled with for a long time (especially why most protestants support the death penalty), and specifically calls protestants to look at their beliefs and behaviours as compared to those of early Christians...those from 33 AD - 300 AD. (Not that I don’t think that Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians couldn’t do the same comparisons in many ways, but this book addresses many of the problems unique to protestantism.)

Bercot points to the fragmented nature of the protestant church (thousands upon thousands of denominations), and how theology changes and shifts from generation to generation, and he has some extremely valid points when speaking about things like Baptism (its sacramental nature isn’t merely an empty symbol.) I think both protestants and non-protestants (especially in the United States) could profit from this book, because it will help various groups figure out where each other are in some ways.

My major complaint is that he makes no mention of the Orthodox Church. He references Roman Catholicism some as pertaining to the Protestant Reformation, but totally ignores the Christian East. Since protestantism grew out of Roman Catholicism this makes sense, but to not comment on Orthodoxy at all seems strange given the fact that many of the early Church Fathers he quotes from are from the East...land which are Orthodox today.

Its easy to read and is straightforward, yet there’s enough substance there to chew on.

1991
Colorado

“I want to thank you for writing the book. It has meant more to me than any other book beside the Bible because it held a lot of answers for me.”

1991
Pennsylvania

“I just read your book. I couldn’t put it down. I have read many books on the subject in your book, but nothing like this.”

1990
New York

“I haven’t been the same since reading it.”
Reviews

Video:The Judgment Seat Of Christ by Leonard Ravenhill

Thu, 18 Oct 2018 18:54:16 -0500

"For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ."
-Romans 14:10 KJV

Leonard Ravenhill (1907 1994)
Leonard Ravenhill was a great man of prayer and even more importantly, a man who knew God. He devoted his whole life to being intimate with God and trying to bring others to the same. He prayed for Revival, looked for Revival and longed for Revival. He was a prophet to the Church of his time.

Leonard Ravenhill

By David Bercot

Leonard Ravenhill was one of Britains foremost outdoor evangelists of the 20th century. God used him to help bring thousands of people to Christ throughout Britain. Unlike the case with many of todays evangelists, the conversions that Leonard helped to bring about were generally lasting conversions. Thats because he did not water down the Gospel when he preached it. Later in life, Leonard and his family moved to the United States, where he worked with Bethany House Publishers. In the 1980s, Leonard and his family moved to a home near Lindale, Texas, a short distance from Last Days Ministries. Leonard regularly taught classes at Last Days Ministries, and he was a mentor to the late Keith Green.

A. W. Tozer, who was a friend of Leonard, said this about Leonard: To such men as this the church owes a debt too heavy to pay. The curious thing is that she seldom tries to pay him while he lives. Rather, the next generation builds his sepulcher and writes his biography—as if instinctively and awkwardly to discharge an obligation the previous generation to a large extent ignored.

Those who know Leonard Ravenhill will recognize in him the religious specialist, the man sent from God not to carry on the conventional work of the church, but to beard the priests of Baal on their own mountain-top, to shame the careless priest at the altar, to face the false prophet and to warn the people who are being led astray by him.

Such a man as this is not an easy companion. He is not the professional evangelist who leaves the wrought-up meeting as soon as it is over to hurry to the most expensive restaurant to feast and crack jokes with his retainers. Such evangelists will find this man something of an embarrassment, for he cannot turn off the burden of the Holy Ghost as one would turn off a faucet. He insists upon being a Christian all the time, everywhere. And again, that marks him out as different.

I first met Leonard in 1989, when he was eighty-two years old and in frail health. At first glance, I would not have thought that God could still use this fragile, white-haired man. He walked slowly and unsteadily, and he sometimes needed help to get up and down from his chair. Yet, as soon as he opened his mouth, I immediately realized that my initial impression was wrong. At eighty-two, Leonard still spoke with fire and conviction, and it felt like his eyes were piercing right through to my soul.

During the last few years of his life, Leonard moderated a prayer meeting held once a week (later once a month), which was attended primarily by pastors and evangelists. Some of these men made a four-hour round trip to attend those prayer meetings. I attended those prayer meetings from 1989 until they ended in the summer of 1994, a few months before Leonards death. During the years that I attended those prayer meetings, I never once left without being deeply challenged by what Leonard had said
Listen to freely downloadable audio sermons by the speakerLeonard Ravenhill in mp3 format. A revivalist and man of God who sought God's will above all else. He was a man of prayer who practiced what he preached. He wrote the book: 'Why Revival Tarries' which has become a classic on revival. His prophetic edge and burden made him to be respected by some and disliked by others. Yet he stayed true to God's call on his life prayed and pleading for true heaven sent revival.
"Those who know of Leonard Ravenhill recognize in him the religious specialist, the man sent from God to battle the priests of Baal on their own mountain top, to shame the careless priest at the altar, to face the false prophet, and to warn the people who are being led astray by him. " - Tozer | "Leonard Ravenhill was one of the few men I have ever known who was a true prophet." - David Wilkerson
download his audio sermons here: Leonard Ravenhill Audio Sermons

The Judgment Seat of Christ by Leonard Ravenhill

Sun, 6 Aug 2017 09:33:50 -0500

Leonard Ravenhill : The Judgment Seat of Christ

"For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ."
-Romans 14:10 KJV

I want to tell you a story about when I was a young boy going to school. You know, I didn't mind school too much, but in those days I was very envious of the school Captain. His name was Renton, and he sat just across the aisle from me. He was the best soccer player in the school and that's what I wanted to be. He was the best at cricket, and I liked cricket. He was the best runner we had, and I liked running. He was not only an excellent athlete, but a very good artist as well. And on top of all that, he was the smartest guy in the whole school.

If I could ever save up my stomachaches, I'd save them until the day before the final exam. But my mother was smart. She knew I was saving them up. I don't know how she knew, but she always did. I'd get up that morning and say, "Oh mother, I don't feel good at all. I think I should stay home today." But she'd always say, "You can stay home tomorrow - but not today." But staying home tomorrow wouldn't do me any good because today was the day of the final exam. Today was the day of judgment!

I know Renton never felt like that because whenever we had a test, as soon as the questions were put down on the board, he would get his paper and dash through them. He was through the first two or three subjects before I'd even gotten the thing read. He and another fellow used to say, "Oh boy, exams!" They knew they'd be first and second in the class when the grades came out, and so they were excited about taking the test. Final exams didn't scare them. These boys were always at the top. They were not afraid of the Day of Judgment. They were not afraid - because they were prepared for it.

QUALITY NOT QUANTITY

"For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. "According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But let each man be careful how he builds upon it. "For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. "Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, "Each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work." (I Cor. 3:9-13)

The above scripture is talking about the day all believers will stand before the Lord. When every follower of Jesus will account for his life and his deeds before all of heaven itself. Notice what it says very carefully, "...the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work." Not how much work, but rather what kind of work. Not the quantity but the quality. This scripture is speaking of your whole life's work. In other words, your life's work can be wood or hay or straw -- or it can be silver, gold, or costly stones. And on that day, the fire will put it to the final test. What fire? The Bible tells that God is love, but it also tells us that He is a consuming fire as well. (Heb. 12:29)

Paul continues by saying, "If any man's work which he had built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire. " (I Cor. 3:14-15) This illustration would be extremely significant to the people of Corinth that Paul was speaking to, because not too long before this was written, their whole city was devastated by fire. They all knew firsthand what damage fire could do. When the fire swept through Corinth, every house that was built out of wood, hay, or straw, was devastated and left in ashes. But the more wealthy people there had houses built with beautiful pillars of granite, and some even had houses built totally out of marble. These houses made of costly stones were still standing after the fire swept through, though they were obviously very badly scorched.

YOUR LIFE INVESTMENT

Let's visualize it another way. One man is given $10,000 and he invests it in wood - maybe some lovely mahogany. So this man's entire life work is made out of wood. It's very beautiful, but when the fire goes through it, what do you have? All you have is ashes, maybe up to your ankles, and that's all there is left. The next man is given $10,000 and he invests it in hay. Another man given the same amount invests all of it in straw. Does that sound foolish? Well, people do it every day. Why? Because if you put $10,000 into hay or straw, it looks like you are getting a lot for your money. You could probably buy half the straw in Texas for $10,000, but, boy, you're going to have a mess when the fire gets to it. Instead of ashes to your ankles, or ashes to your knees, it'll be up to your nose maybe. But that's what some lives are going to be like: wood, hay, stubble - then ashes.

Now let's look at a few people who made much wiser investments. There's a man over here who has $10,000, and he invests it in gold. (He won't get much at $400 an ounce, will he?) The next man invests $10,000 in silver, and another man invests the same amount in costly stones. Each of the six men I've just spoken of had the same amount of money, but they all chose different things to invest it in. Now, we are talking about your life's work. Do you get the picture? Our whole life, from the very moment we begin to witness for Christ, including all of our service and our labor for Him, is going to be tested by fire. We must be very careful to make wise investments, or in the end, all that will be left is ashes.

ETERNAL VALUE

Will our life's work stand the test of the fire when we come before the Lord? Will it have lasting eternal value - or will it end up in ashes? There's an interesting difference between wood, hay, straw - and gold, silver, and costly stones. Wood, hay, and stubble are found above the ground. They catch the eye, just like many people's ministries do. They are quite plentiful and easy to find. On the other hand, silver, gold, and precious stones are found below the ground. Nobody sees them - again, like many people's ministries. They're not just lying around in a field somewhere for anyone to pick up. They are much harder to come by; in fact, it takes a lot of hard work to get them. That's why they are so expensive. They are of much higher quality than many other things, and much more rare too. Again, it's the quality, not the quantity that sets their value. Many things are difficult in the Christian life, but we should desire to acquire those things which will hold their value, not only on earth, but in heaven as well.

MINISTRY AND MONEY

Every person's life, including all of his ministry, is going to pass through the fire. There's a lot of public ministry that's going to go down in flames on that day, my brothers. The fire is going to take the big showy life of every man and burn it until only a bunch of ashes is left. I'm tired of seeing these fellows begging for money on television. I believe every dime that comes into any ministry will need to be answered for before the Judgment Seat of Christ one day. Jesus talked about these men who'd go and take widows' houses. (Luke 20:4647) Well, that's what many are doing now. And they're not satisfied that you give while you're living, they ask you to hand over your house and all the rest to them in your will. They're going to give an account to God in that day, but I believe we're also going to give an account.

A brother was telling me this week that when he got baptized and went down into the water, he suddenly realized that he had his wallet in his pocket. Not many wallets get baptized! We kind of say, "Lord, You look after my sins. I'll look after the rest." You'll give an account to God for every penny you've earned since you became the property of Jesus Christ. He doesn't just take your sins - He takes all of you.

Oh yes, many may want to get filled with the Holy Ghost and get a bank balance, but how many of you are big enough to say, "Lord, in this crucial hour in human history, let me fill up with the sufferings of Christ"? Can He share His sorrow with you? Are you prepared to challenge demon power and say, "Listen, I've moved into the place where the Apostle Paul was when he said, I glory in tribulations and necessities and reproaches'"? Watch out though, because if you're going to get mature in God, all the dwarfs around you will criticize you and sneer at you and say, "Trying to be holier than the rest of us, huh? So you don't have time for basketball or going to see a baseball game?" No, maybe you don't, but that's nobody's business but yours and God's.

Do you get so near to the heart of God that you share His grief over the world and over the backslidden church that we have today? One of the most famous preachers in the country recently called at nearly midnight and said, "I've come to this conclusion: God Almighty has already taken His hand off America - for the simple reason that we've had so much light and we've rejected it!" It's not only true that we live in a world of bankrupt politics, we live in a world (this is the most tragic part of all) of a bankrupt church.

WILL CHRISTIANS BE JUDGED?

I heard a woman say not long ago, "Well, praise the Lord. I'm glad I don't have to account for anything when I go to heaven. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Wait a minute, you can never isolate a scripture by itself. There's no condemnation for our past sins, and I'm sure we are all mighty glad of that. But God was always saying to Israel, "Remember when thou wast a bondsman in Egypt...remember your sin...remember your iniquity."

You might say, "It doesn't say the Christians are going to be judged out of the books." Yes, I think it does. Where? In Malachi (Mal. 3:16). It says that God has a Book of Remembrance, and I think it would do you good before you go to bed every night this week to ask God, "What did You put in Your book today for my life?" It doesn't have to be some outward act. You can worship God on a tractor. It may not be the best way, but you can do it.

The Bible says that "we shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ" (Rom. 14:10 KJV). I think that scripture means just what it says.

THE HOLY DEAD

A hymn writer says,
"From earth's wide bounds and ocean's farthest coast, through gates of pearl, stream in a countless host, singing Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Hallelujah."

All the saints of all the ages are going to be there. There's another old hymn and probably not very many of you could recite it, but I'll bet most of you know the chorus: "Oh, when the saints go marching in." You know, they dance to that every night down in New Orleans. They shuffle their feet along Bourbon Street and have a great time, but that song is not for them, it's for the REDEEMED. It says, "When the saints go marching in." The saints will march into heaven in a multitude which no man can number.

I can't wait to see all the saints of all the ages. Man, I'll be thrilled to look at Isaiah and Jeremiah and those major and minor prophets. We'll be looking around and saying, "Hey, there's Abraham. I didn't think he'd look quite like that." But he's going to be there, all right. And just think of seeing Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and everybody in Acts. Won't it be wonderful to see those men who walked with Jesus!

Let's think about Paul for a moment. He gave his intellect to God. He wrote about 14 epistles and traveled all over Asia Minor. He was lashed at the post 195 times. He was in weariness, and fastings, and pain, and tribulation, and distress, and famine, and nakedness. He was subjected to false brethren and to perils of the deep. What do you think his reward is going to be for living a life like that? GRACE is free, but REWARDS are not free. You might say, "But you're talking about works." Sure I am - because God did. Jesus did!

COSTLY STONES

Silver, gold, precious stones. What are the precious stones? When I read that, I think of the breastplate that was on the priests in the Old Testament. It was divided by four rows of stones - three stones in each row. Each stone was different. Each stone stood for the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. The priest wore the breastplate over his heart as he went into the Holy Place to pray for the sins of the people. How do you handle this? Do you enter the holiest place of all to make intercession for the sins of the people? Do you enter into intercession at all? This is only possible through the blood of Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Intercession is our job now. We don't need to send a priest into the Holy of Holies. We can go ourselves! The New Testament tells us that we are all priests - that we are a part of the Royal Priesthood (I Peter 2:9). Do you wonder why the world is poor and sick outside? Because we really don't know how to pray, that's why! Because we're satisfied that we've left our lousy living and we don't drink or lust or damn ourselves every day. We're Christians now...and we're so content and so happy and so satisfied.

SILVER

The silver . .. what is the silver? I guess you can interpret it in different ways. But I like to think of the scripture in the book of Proverbs that says, "The tongue of the righteous is as choice silver" (Proverbs 10:20). I believe that the silver may signify the words that we speak. I believe that God has an eternal record of every word we have spoken since we've been saved. That may be embarrassing. Oh, we won't be ashamed of the good things we've said, but what about our idle words? You know, the gossip, the slander, the criticism, the prejudice. What about the time when somebody upset you and instead of being quiet, you just spilled out everything that was on your heart at that moment? And can you think of all the awesome words we've preached to thousands of people over the years? We're going to answer for every word - and the fire is going to be put to them. Will they be wood, hay, or stubble - or will they abide the fire?

GOLD

What is gold a sign of? I believe it's a sign of our devotion to God. If I could have a small melting pot here, I'd put your $10,000 worth of gold in it and melt it down. What happens when you burn gold? Nothing! It just changes from solid to liquid, but you don't reduce it. Can you see all the saints standing in heaven? And there's Leonard Ravenhill - standing before Christ whose eyes are filled with holiness. The whole place is breathing holiness. There in the presence and the majesty of an awesome God, the record of my poor life is read before all the saints of all the ages. And He puts the fire to my devotional life. Am I just a good showman? I sure like to preach because God called me to preach. I don't care how I preach, and I don't care whether you believe me either. I'm not responsible for that. I preach out of my heart all I believe, and I'd die for it. But say, am I just a showman? What's my secret life like?

I've said it many times and I'll say it again - no man is greater than his prayer life. I don't care how big his organization is. Let me live with a man awhile and share his prayer life, and I'll tell you how tall I think he is, or how majestic I think he is in God. What's your devotional life like right now? Would you like Gabriel to hand down the book of your devotional life for the last month so it could be read out loud at church this Sunday? The gold is going to be tried through our devotional life.

GREAT MEN OF PRAYER

You'll discover this: The men that have been the most heroic for God have been the men with the greatest devotional life. America has produced some of the greatest prayer warriors in the world. John Hyde was one of them. I knew someone who had prayed with him, and they said it was just awesome when this man went into prayer. There's a little book out on him called "Praying Hyde" that would be well worth your reading.

Edward Payson, better known as praying Payson of Portland, was another great prayer warrior. He used to kneel at the side of his bed and pray, and pray, and pray. When they washed his body for burial, they found great big pads on his knees like a camel has. Tradition says that James had camel's knees, but it's a living fact that Payson had them. When they were washing him, somebody said, "What abnormal knees. They're heavy with callouses." That's because he used to pray at the side ofhis bed with energy - and he wore two grooves about six or seven inches long into that hard floor where he used to pray and make intercession.

One day I was in the Bible School of Wales and there was dear Mrs. Rees Howells. (Her husband was dead now.) We stood on the terrace and she turned and said, "Do you see the room there?" I said, "Yes, I see that room." "That door?" "Yes." "Daddy (meaning her husband) went through that door at six o'clock in the morning and he stayed there until six o'clock at night every day for 11 months except the one day that his mother died."

Let's preview eternity and look at all the apostles and all the saints of all the ages. Look, there's Charles Finney with his amazing revivals. There's William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. There's John Wesley. Here are all the great heroic figures we've all read about, and they are all watching while the book is handed down and somebody's going to read the record. Would you volunteer and say, "Well, I'll be happy to read my record to this multitude"?

Suppose I say, "Gabriel, hand me the record for the year of 1724." When I open the book to that year and go to the "B's," I find the name, David Brainerd. He was a young American who died at the age of 28. All he possessed was a cowhide that he wore with a rope tied around it. He used to ride over the Susquehanna River to follow the Indians. David had a severe case of tuberculosis and only weighed about 95 pounds. I remember reading his diary once. He said, "I got up this morning and the Indians were still committing adultery and drinking and beating their tom-toms and shouting like hell itself. I prayed from a half hour after sunrise to a half hour before sunset. There was nowhere to pray in the Indian camp. I went into the woods and knelt in the snow. It was up to my chin." No, he didn't have a heater with him or anything else. He was just there in the frigid snow, tuberculosis and all. He continued, "I wrestled in prayer until a half hour before sunset, and I could only touch the snow with the tips of my fingers. The heat of my body had melted the snow." What amazing intercessory prayer!

Well, God pity us. We can't even get people into our churches to pray, and we have velvet cushions on the seats and nice stuff on the floor so our darling little knees won't get hurt. David Brainerd, Praying Payson of Portland, John Hyde, and Rees Howells - when God puts the fire to their devotional life, I don't think there will be anything lost. It won't be wood, it won't be hay, and it won't be stubble.

TRUE JOY

I'm embarrassed to be part of the Church today because I believe it's an embarrassment to a holy God. Most of our joy is clapping our hands and having a good time and then afterwards we talk all the nonsense of the world. We're overboard on laughter and happiness. There's an old saying in the world, "Laugh and the world laughs with you." I change it and say, "Laugh and the Church laughs with you, but weep and you weep alone." Because there isn't enough real joy in the house of God, we need entertainment. Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy. Because there isn't enough power in the house of God, people are always looking for something to take its place. We point the finger at the world, but we need to turn to the Church and say we'd better all get sackcloth and ashes and humble ourselves and say "Almighty God!" When I see the Church in the New Testament, they didn't have stately buildings or paid evangelists or a lot of money. (They couldn't get on television and beg!) But I'll tell you what they did - they turned the world upside-down!

Have you ever seen the little plaque that reads, "Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last?" Well, that's not what the poet wrote. The poet wrote this: "Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. And when I am dying, how happy I'll be, if the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee." Do you think all Christians die happy? Not on your life! Some of them die as miserable as sinners. Why? Because they've misused their time and wasted their lives. Many of you have laid dying on a hospital bed and prayed, "Lord, if You would only spare me, I'll do this, that, or the other." Well, have you done it?

I discovered this poem the other day and I want to share it with you.

His Plan For Me

When I stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ
And He shows His plan for me,
The plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way - and I see
How I blocked Him here, and checked Him there,
And I would not yield my will,
Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes,
Grief though He loves me still?
Would He have me rich and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While memory runs like a hunted thing,
Down the paths I cannot retrace.
Lord, of the years that are left to me
I give them to Thy hand
Take me and break me and mold me,
To the pattern that Thou hast planned!
-Author Unknown

The only thing that will tie me in victory continually, through the blood of Christ, is that I give Him my adoration and my tribute every day. It's more than my service. It's more than giving money. But I need to love Him, magnify Him, and adore Him. I need to take Him, as it were, by the feet and worship Him. If we will do this, then we will experience real joy and lasting happiness.

CROWNS, CROWNS, CROWNS!

I don't believe there will be any envy in heaven, but I could remind you that there are at least five crowns to be given in reward. Paul says the Lord will give him a crown of righteousness, which he says the Lord will not only give to him, but to all those who love His appearing (II Tim. 4:8). There's a crown for the martyrs - those who have died and those yet to die. Crowns, crowns, crowns! We won't all be the same in heaven. There will be great distinctions there. When you see a political convention, you see people holding up signs from California or somewhere. Well, maybe there will be signs in heaven. "These are the Prayer Warriors." "These are the Great Sufferers." "These are the Travailers." "These are the Missionaries." "These are the Failures." All kinds of people are going to be listed in that Great Day. There will be great distinctions between people in heaven.

There was a little woman in Ireland who had two shops. She paid all the family expenses with what she made from one shop and she saved all the money that came in from the other shop for missions. She ended up sending four of her children to the mission field and she financed each one of them. Man, she's going to have a reward some day, isn't she? Because she was doing it as unto Him!

Take a look at the dying thief. Oh, he'll be in heaven all right because Jesus said he would - but he wasted his life. Then look at John Wesley for example. He was saved soundly when he was 35 years of age, and he served the Lord for the next 53 years. You couldn't think that the dying thief, a man who got in at the last tick of the clock, is going to have the same reward as John Wesley, could you? Wesley made an awful lot of money. Do you know what he did with it? He built orphanages and churches. He printed Bibles and hymn books. There was no time wasted in his life. He was methodical and systematic. He went to dinner with the greatest man in English literature and the man said, "Now you've finished dinner, let's fold our legs under the table and have a nice time of conversation." Wesley said, "I'm sorry, I have to go." "But it's not yet nine o'clock, why are you going?" Wesley said, "I have an appointment in the morning at four o'clock." "At four o'clock tomorrow morning?" "Every morning of my life," he said. "With whom?" "With God." He disciplined his life. He disciplined his body in eating. He disciplined his hand in his pocket. He'll stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ...an awesome prospect for any of us. "We ought to live every day as though we've come out of another world into this world - but with the power of that world still upon us. We should live and speak and move in that power, and have our whole being in Jesus Christ!"

THE FRAGRANCE OF WORSHIP

I heard the story for years, about the woman who came to Jesus with an alabaster box of ointment, before I understood it - before I realized that she came for one reason only. She came to worship Jesus. How do I know? Because she brought the most sacrificial gift she had and because she never said a word while she was there. How do I know? Because she didn't wash His feet with water, but with her tears. She didn't dry His feet with a towel, but she dried His feet with the hair of her head. And she poured out that costly fragrance and then wiped His feet. So what happened? The fragrance she poured out on Him came back on her.

Do you wonder why your life isn't more fragrant? It's because you don't take time to be holy. You don't take time to be with Jesus. Because you think all the knowledge you get at Bible school is enough. Oh no, God isn't going to measure your intellect. He's going to try your life with His fire. Did you get up this morning and thank God you were pure? Did you thank Him that He broke that devilish fever you used to have for sniffing cocaine or something? Are you really glad you're not a prostitute anymore, but now you're a part of the Bride of the Lamb instead? Are you glad He removed your bad temper and all those creepy horrible things that used to master you?

I think again of a statement A. W. Tozer made to me once. He said, "Len, you know, we'll hardly get our feet out of time into eternity that we'll bow our heads in shame and humiliation. We'll gaze on eternity and say, 'Look at all the riches there were in Jesus Christ, and I've come to the Judgment Seat almost a pauper.'" For God had not only given us Jesus Christ - He has with Him freely given us all things (Rom. 8:32).

A DIFFERENT PEOPLE

I remember crossing a square in the city of Bath in the 1940s. I saw two very fine young ladies - well, one was a young lady and the other was only a girl. They were beautifully dressed and as they marched across that square I thought, "There's something different about those girls." Then I discovered that they were princesses. It was our present Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth, and her sister, Margaret. They were part of English royalty, and you know, there was a dignity about them very different from anybody else who walked there. Well, as Christians, we are part of GOD'S Royal Family, and it should be evident to all that we meet that we are a different type of people. If we can't live as a different people on this earth, we've no right to live here. We shouldn't be affected by changing customs or changing styles or changing opinions, or whether the stock market goes up or down, or whether the clouds are gathering for war. Those things don't make any difference. We ought to live every day as though we've come out of another world into this world - but with the power of that world still upon us. We should live and speak and move in that power, and have our whole being in Jesus Christ!

BAPTISM OF OBEDIENCE

That final day is going to be awesome. Have you figured how you'll get on when you stand there? You and I will stand there alone on that day and be judged for every aspect of our lives - for our praying, our giving, our talking, and our doing. I still believe in the majesty of that eternal court, with the King of kings and the Lord of lords and the Judge of judges. You see, there's no possibility of any rehearsal, and what's more, there's no possibility of any repetition. Because, again, this is the Final Judgment, and to some God will say, "Come, ye blessed," but to others He'll say, "Depart from Me." No, it's not so simple to be a Christian after all. It's a majestic thing.

We ought to live our lives conscious of eternity - ready to be cut off at any moment. If you were to stand before the Lord at this very moment, would you like your life story read by all the millions in eternity? None of the outcasts of hell are going to be there. Won't it be wonderful - or will it? Or do you think you might shrink a bit when you hear now God used David Brainerd or John Wesley or some little washerwoman that had a life of intercession?

There's no burden too heavy, or no situation too hard for the one that you love. If we are love-controlled, love-motivated, and love- energized, it will be all right when we stand up there, because if there's anything about love - it's obedient. We need to become a people who are baptized with obedience. We need to be submissive to the total will of God, not concerned about human opinion, and not asking for more to spend on ourselves. We need to say, "Oh God, I want this life of mine to glorify You, so that when I stand in Your awesome presence, as John says, I shall not be ashamed at Your appearing" (I John 2:28).

------

COPYRIGHT/REPRODUCTION LIMITATIONS: This data file is the sole property of Leonard Ravenhill. It may not be altered or edited in any way. It may be reproduced only in its entirety for circulation as "freeware," without charge. All reproductions of this data file must contain the copyright notice (i.e., "Copyright (C)1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas"). This data file may not be used without the permission of Leonard Ravenhill for resale or the enhancement of any other product sold. This includes all of its content with the exception of a few brief quotations. Please give the following source credit: Copyright (C)1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas- http://www.ravenhill.org

The True Gospel And The False - Zac Poonen

Fri, 5 Aug 2016 08:58:23 -0500

The True Gospel And The False - Zac Poonen

Short articles written over a few decades, addressing the need of that hour.
These articles are copyrighted. Permission however is granted to copy and distribute it (if not for sale), provided the author's name and the CFC website address are clearly mentioned. http://www.cfcindia.com

The True Gospel And The False - Zac Poonen
Christians are generally speaking, categorized into two groups as follows:

(1) "Roman Catholics" and "Protestants" - depending on birth.
(2) "Episcopal" (conformist) and "Free church" (non-conformist) - depending on church-pattern.
(3) "Born again Christians" and "Nominal Christians" - depending on an "experience";
(4) "Evangelicals" and "Liberals" - depending on doctrine.
(5) "Charismatics" and "Non-charismatics" - depending on "speaking in tongues".
(6) "Full-time Christian workers" and "Secular workers" - depending on profession.
There could be other such categorizations too. But none of these categorizations deal with the root of the problem that our Lord came to solve.
Many know that "Christ died for our sins" (1 Cor.15:3). But many do not know that the Bible says that Christ also died "that we should no longer live for ourselves but for Him" (2 Cor.5:15).
A more Scriptural way of categorizing Christians therefore would be as follows: "Those who live for themselves" and "Those who live for Christ"; or "Those who seek their own" and "Those who seek the things of Christ" or "Those who seek earthly things first" and "Those who seek the kingdom of God first"; or "Those who love money" and "Those who love God". (Jesus said it was impossible to love both -Lk.16:13)
But I have never heard of such a categorization being used. This categorization deals with the Christian's inner life and private walk with God, whereas the methods mentioned earlier deal with the external details of his life. Yet it is in this latter way that heaven categorizes Christians. And if that be the case, then this is the only categorization that matters! In this method, others cannot categorize us. We have to categorize ourselves - for no one but we ourselves know our inner motivations and desires. Even our wives may not be aware what we are living for.
Our Lord did not come primarily to give people a doctrine, or a church-pattern or to make them speak in tongues or even to give them an experience!
He came to "save us from sin". He came to lay the axe to the root of the tree. And the root of sin is : Being centered in ourselves, seeking our own and doing our own will. If we do not permit the Lord to axe and uproot this "root" from our lives, we will be Christians only superficially. Satan may however deceive us into imagining that we belong to a higher class than other Christians, because of our doctrine or our experience or our church-pattern!
Satan doesn't care even if we have the right doctrine, experience and church-pattern, so long as we continue to "live for ourselves" (This, by the way, is just another phrase for "living in sin"!!). Christendom today is filled with Christians who seek their own and live for themselves, who are yet convinced that God views them as superior to other Christians, merely because of doctrinal differences or church-pattern or "experiences". This shows what a great work Satan has succeeded in doing in Christendom.
In John 6:38, our Lord said that He came from heaven to earth: (1) To deny His human will (that He had acquired, when He came to earth as a Man), and (2) To do the will of His Father, as a Man. Thereby He became our example.
Throughout Jesus' earthly life -- during all His 33½; years - He denied his own will and did His Father's will. And He told His disciples clearly that those who wanted to be His disciples would have to go the same way. He came to hit at the root of sin in our lives - "doing our own will" - and to deliver us from that.
In the realm of science, for thousands of years, man made the mistake of imagining that the earth was the center of the universe. It looked like that to human eyes - because the sun, moon and stars did indeed appear to be revolving around the earth once every 24 hours. It took the courage of a man like Copernicus to question this popular notion, just about 500 years ago, and to show that it was utterly false and that the earth was not even the center of the solar system, leave alone the universe. The earth, he showed was created to be centered in the sun. As long as man had the wrong center, his scientific calculations and deductions were wrong - because his center was wrong. But once man discovered the right center, then these calculations and deductions turned out right.
It is the same with us when we remain "self-centered" instead of being "God-centered". Our understanding of the Bible and of God's perfect will (our calculations and deductions) will then be wrong. But just as men were convinced for over 5000 years that they were right (as we saw above), we too may imagine that we are right! But actually, we will be 100% wrong.
This is what we see even among many "good Christians" today. They have so many different interpretations of the same Bible - and yet each one is convinced that his interpretation alone is right and everyone else's is wrong. The others, they will say are "deceived". Why is this so? Because they've got their center wrong.
Man was created to be centered in God and not in himself. And when Christians have got their center wrong, their "gospel" will be wrong too. Basically, there are only two gospels being preached today - one man-centered and the other God-centered.
The man-centered gospel promises man that God will give him everything he needs to make his life on earth comfortable and will also give him a seat in heaven at the end of his life. Man is told that Jesus will forgive all his sins, heal all his diseases, bless and prosper him materially, solve all his earthly problems, etc., etc.
Self still remains at the center of such a man's life, and God revolves around him - as his servant - to answer his every prayer and to give him whatever he wants!! All that he has to do is "believe" and "claim every material blessing in Jesus' Name"!!
This is a false gospel, because no mention is made of "repentance". Repentance is what John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, Peter and all the apostles preached first of all. And repentance, unfortunately, is what is not preached today, even last of all!!
The God-centered gospel, on the other hand, calls upon man to repent. It explains that "repentance" means:
Turning FROM Self as the center of one's life, from doing one's own will, from walking along one's self-chosen way, from loving money, and from loving the world and the things in the world (the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life), etc., and
Turning TO God, loving Him with one's whole heart, making Him the Centre of one's life and doing His will henceforth etc.,
Faith in Christ's death on the cross can forgive a man his sins only when he has repented. Then he can receive the power of the Holy Spirit empower him to deny himself daily so that he can live a God-centered life. This is the gospel that Jesus and the apostles preached.
The false gospel makes the gate wide and the way broad (easy to walk along, because one does not have to deny one's Self or stop living for one's own interests or stop seeking one's own gain). Millions attend meetings where such a false "gospel" is preached. And many enter through this gate and walk along this way, imagining that it leads to life. But it actually leads to destruction. The evangelists of this gospel however gloat in, and report about the large numbers of people who "raised their hands and made decisions for Christ" in their meetings!! But it is all a deception. Although some are indeed genuinely converted in such meetings, because of their sincerity, many such "converts" end up becoming "twofold children of hell" (Matt.23:15) - deceived about their true state.
The true gospel however, makes the gate small and the way narrow - not smaller or narrower than Jesus Himself made it, as some "super-spiritual" cultists do, but just the same size as Jesus made it. Few there be, that find this way to life. There is not much for the evangelists of this gospel to report about, and the statistics are not impressive. But this gospel leads people to the Lord Jesus and to heaven.
"Be careful how you listen. Whoever obeys what he has heard, to him more light and understanding will be given. But whoever does not obey what he has heard, even what light and understanding he thinks he has will be taken away from him." (Paraphrase of Luke 8:18).
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
About Zac Poonen:
Zac Poonen was formerly an Indian Naval Officer who has been serving the Lord in India for nearly 50 years as a Bible-teacher. He has responsibility for a number of churches in India and abroad.
He has written more than 25 books and numerous articles in English - which have been translated into many Indian and foreign languages. His messages are available on audio CDs and video DVDs.
Like the other elders in CFC, Zac Poonen also supports himself and his family through "tent-making" and does not receive any salary for his services. He does not receive any royalty for any of his books, CDs or DVDs, that are published by Christian Fellowship Centre, Bangalore. http://www.cfcindia.com/

Marriage + Divorce + Remarriage = ?

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 12:56:37 -0500

Mike and Marion Gorrie have been married since 1961.They have
3 married children and enjoy being active grandparents to their grandchildren.

http://www.highcallingnz.com

Mike is an ordained minister, keen Bible student and gifted seminar speaker. He was born in South Africa and had a successful career as a business manager. After a number of years pastoring an evangelical church in Durban, he and his wife emigrated to New Zealand in 1995/6.
Dr Gorrie worked in Auckland for five years as the counselling manager for Cornerstone Christian Counselling (NZ) Trust, which was the counselling arm of the Christian Radio Station, Rhema Broadcasting.
Mike’s unique character reflects a spirit of drive and enthusiasm. He has an interest in the psychological aspects of human-behaviour.
This, combined with his education and keen analytical mind, has established a broad and professional platform from which he communicates his message.

He is a graduate of Bethany Theological Seminary in Dothan Alabama, U.S.A. He holds the Bachelor of Theology and Doctor of Divinity degrees. Amongst the many subjects studied, Mike has earned theological credits in Pre-Marital Counselling, Understanding People and Pastoral Counselling. These credits, coupled with his broad experience as a Marriage Counsellor, give him a heart to minister to hurting people.

The driving passion of Mike’s ministry is Marriage and the Family, in which he offers fresh insights into Masculinity and Family Relationships. His stimulating family life seminar: “Is your marriage Bliss or Blisters?”, has been a blessing to hundreds of people. Under the anointing of the Holy Sprit, Dr Gorrie has the ability to expound the Word of God in an interesting and dynamic way.

Ever since committing his life to Christ in 1958, Mike has had a burning desire to encourage Christians to walk in holiness and implicit obedience to the Lord.

Sitting under his ministry, will not only encourage and challenge believers, but will also stir them to move to a higher place in God.  

Laodicean Church by Leonard Ravenhill

Sat, 23 Jan 2016 18:33:55 -0600

Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) was a Christian evangelist and author who focused on the subjects of prayer and revival. He is best known for challenging the modern church to compare itself to the early Christian Church as chronicled in the Book of Acts.

Born in Leeds, in Yorkshire, England, Ravenhill was educated at Cliff College in England and sat under the ministry of Samuel Chadwick. He was a student of church history, with a particular interest in Christian revival. His evangelistic meetings during the Second World War drew large crowds. Many converts devoted themselves to Christian ministry and foreign missions.
In 1939, he married an Irish nurse, Martha. The Ravenhills had three sons: Paul, David, and Philip. Paul and David are Christian ministers, and Philip is a teacher.
In 1950, Ravenhill and his family moved from Great Britain to the United States. In the 1960s they traveled within the United States, holding tent revivals and evangelistic meetings.
In the 1980s, Ravenhill moved to a home near Lindale, Texas, a short distance from Last Days Ministries Ranch. He regularly taught classes at LDM and was a mentor to the late Keith Green. He also spent some time teaching at Bethany College of Missions in Minnesota, and some time in Seguin, Texas.
Among others influenced by Ravenhill were Ray Comfort, Ravi Zacharias, Tommy Tenney, Steve Hill, Charles Stanley, Bill Gothard, Paul Washer, and David Wilkerson.
He was a close friend of pastor and writer A. W. Tozer.
Through his teaching and books, Ravenhill addressed the disparities he perceived between the New Testament Church and the Church in his time and called for adherence to the principles of biblical revival.

A.W. Tozer
Tozer said of Ravenhill:
“To such men as this, the church owes a debt too heavy to pay. The curious thing is that she seldom tries to pay him while he lives. Rather, the next generation builds his sepulchre and writes his biography – as if instinctively and awkwardly to discharge an obligation the previous generation to a large extent ignored.”
Ravenhill passed from this life into the next in November 1994 and is interred at Garden Valley Cemetery in Garden Valley, Texas.

Hell, Don’t Go There

Thu, 3 Sep 2015 12:11:15 -0500

A Life-changing must hear message by Robby Mitchell on the reality of Hell, only 18 minutes. As the Apostle Paul says, “Examine yourself and see if you are in the Faith”

This will spark Evangelism in you to reach those outside Christ.

Luke 16:19* ¶ There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
20* And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21* And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22* And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23* And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24* And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25* But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26* And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27* Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
28* For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29* Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30* And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31* And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

What is Your Vision? Leonard Ravenhill

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 15:59:49 -0500

What is your vision?

From Leonard Ravenhill’s last meeting, a prayer meeting for ministers at Calvary Commission. Sept. 14, 1994.

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) was an English Christian evangelist and author who focused on the subjects of prayer and revival. He is best known for challenging the modern church (through his books and sermons) to compare itself to the early Christian Church as chronicled in the Book of Acts. His most notable book is Why Revival Tarries which has sold over a million copies worldwide

We are going to look at what Paul had to say about ministry, in 2 Corinthians 6:3-8

Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry may not be blamed. But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true...
This word may not seem very relevant to us, but I don't let one day go by that I don't pray for my oppressed brother in Bosnia. I saw on the news this morning of a new wave of persecution there. How many young men have died there in the last two or three years - died a martyrs death?

How easy it is to sit and clap our hands and tap our feet and sing, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness..." But, what about when you come to the third stanza?
When all around my soul gives way
When your whole life... your wife is raped in front of your eyes... you have no life... no church... everything goes ... you are dragged through the town. That is what is happening over there this very hour as we are here. I don't think we value our privileges as we ought. Paul talks about redeeming the time, buying back the opportunity. Of the things we waste, we certainly waste time. The word that has been very much on my mind these past two or three weeks is in Ephesians.

Ephesians 2:7 "But in the ages to come ... "
How often do we preach on that? I think there is a danger of something I call "The Peril of the Immediate." We are living in the framework of the immediate. We live there as much as other men. We are not supposed to. We are to live as men branded for eternity.
"In the ages to come... "
Look at Elijah. Elijah was told to hide in the cave. He goes in there for three whole years! Most of us can't stand three hours without turning on a radio or TV. Try three days, try three weeks, cutting yourself off from everything external, everything worldly that has been labeled and poisoned by the world systems. We need to think and get things straight.

Hebrews 11 tells me Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
Paul tells us the things that are seen are temporal and the things that are unseen are eternal. We need to be careful of living in the visible all the time. Visible values, the durability of things that are only for time.
Think of Moses when he was on the backside of the desert, not for four days, not forty days, but forty years - one third of his life! There was a price on his head after having been kicked out of the greatest royal family in the world. He no longer had seven course meals. He lived on the back side of the desert. Do you think he ever thought that one day he would stand on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus and Elijah? He endured as seeing Him who is invisible – Christ. And what did he do? He considered the reproach of Christ – not the Kingdom of Christ – the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.
Did he see Him coming in the clouds?
Did he ever see by faith that he would stand on the Mt. of Transfiguration?
Did he go further, to the end of the age when a multitude which no man can
number out of every kindred, tribe and tongue would sing the song of
Moses and of the Lamb?

We live too much in this world. We're earthbound. How many of us know someone who is eternity conscious? What America needs is somebody who will go through every church in the country and preach for a week on eternity:
Preach one day on the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Preach one day on the Judgment of believers.
Preach one day on the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Again, I've told you before,
I don't just want to go to heaven,
I want to go to the marriage supper of the Lamb,
I don't just want to go to the marriage supper,
I want to be part of the Bride.

The last word of Jesus was not "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel" - that was for the eleven disciples.
The last word of Jesus is in Revelations: Repent, repent, repent.
What is Jesus coming for? A bride.
The Word of God says He is coming for a bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
Do you think the church is that today?
What does Jesus say about the church?
That she is poor, wretched, naked, blind and pitiful.

A while ago I went to a wedding of a millionaire's daughter. As the bride came down the aisle it was just as though a voice said to me, "look." I looked at her. She was beautifully dressed, very educated, quite brilliant. As I looked at her coming down the aisle, I thought, "Is Jesus Christ coming for a bride who is poor and wretched? If I was an artist I would paint the bride on a crutch, one leg almost withered, wearing rags, the other garments looking scruffy like a woman off the streets. Poor, wretched, naked, blind and pitiful – so something has to happen to the church before the Lord Jesus returns!"

One fact should be already decided in our hearts and that is to live with cruelty towards our lives, and abasement of our lives in this present evil world.
What about Elijah? He goes into a cave for three years - three years is a pretty good long time isn't it? He did it.
It says in I Kings 17, "go hide thyself."
It says in I Kings 18, "go show thyself."
One minute he's found before a king,
later he dares to stand before the Israelites...
A man who is intimate with God, is never intimidated by man.
The fear of man goes out entirely.
I certainly believe with all my heart we are not eternity conscious, we live for the everyday. We ought to live with eternity’s values in view. Those people were excited - and us?
We have labored for Christ,
we have labored with Christ,
one day we are going to see Him.

As the hymn writer said,
"Face to face with Christ my Savior,
face to face what will it be ,
when with rapture I behold Him..."
Who would be delighted right now to go and stand before the King? You will have to answer for all your preaching…Very often we take a text and drown it in words…
I woke up this morning about three o'clock thinking about that.
I've been preaching for over 70 years.
Take 120 words times 60 minutes, times 60 times a year,
times 70 years... and I have to give an account to God for all those words.

The more I read the Word of God the more it pierces my heart. It makes me stop and think and meditate. I meditate now more on eternity than I ever have in all my life. Our people are not eternity conscious. Do you think a person who is ready for eternity would miss a prayer meeting? I don't know of anywhere on Earth where there is more freedom than in a prayer meeting where God anoints those who pray and you almost, as it were, rub shoulders with God.
Again I say, when Ahab was breathing down the neck of Elijah, and Jezebel was digging a pit for his feet, do you ever think he thought for a moment he'd stand on the Mountain of Transfiguration with Moses and Jesus?
Apparently Moses could see through the space in time... he could see and he endured. "He chose to suffer."

Suppose you were a twenty year old or a thirty year old in Bosnia or one of these other countries today. You wouldn't have a home to go home to.

Some of these young men today come into my office and say,
"These are wonderful days to be alive".
Sure they are - you go from an air conditioned home,
to an air conditioned car, to an air conditioned church,
where you collect a copious offering and go home to rejoice in the Lord.
What about those who get nothing?

Paul gets to a place where he says, "I have nothing, yet I possess all things." Paul goes through all sorts of cleansing. He did not end up in Romans 7 "it is sin that dwelleth in me." He ended up in Galatians 2:20, "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." That is the ultimate in the Christian life. I don't care how many tongues we have or how many miracles we were able to perform. The word of God says again, "Christ liveth in me." The life I now live in this mortal body is Christ controlled.
People say that in the Old Testament Christ was with them but not in them. But Peter doesn't say that! Christ was in them. Do you think a man could go and pray and say on behalf of the rotten nation he lived in, "Lord kill me," again, he also says, "Take my life. I don't care. I'm not bothered by living."
I want to be so God possessed.
Of course, some say that's fanaticism.
People get weary of hearing about all the trouble in Bosnia
but they can't wait to hear what is going on with the baseball strike.
And I'm talking about men in ministry, I mean preachers.
They rush out from church Sunday morning for home and go watch
baseball or football.
So they are trying to serve two masters.
No man can do that; you can only serve one master.

The more I read this word I find Christ didn't come to just take me to the cross - as Paul says in Romans 6, you can be crucified with Him. But I think the most amazing thing Jesus said is, "The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in Me." He wastes his time tempting Jesus!
He had come through forty days of relentless temptation and trials, after that He was put out of the synagogue, and after that He is being put out all the time.
He was born outside - we sing, "Jesus was born in a manger".
He was buried outside - because He would defile the city it if they buried Him
within.
He is still outside - the church.
Isn't it amazing? In the book of Revelation Jesus is still outside the church standing and knocking, trying to get in. How many churches would He have to say that of today?
We must allow God to be in complete control of us with no ambitions of our own, with no concern but to glorify the Father. There's not much time left. As I said last night, "Believer, we are not in the last days - we are in the last of the last days! In Hebrews 1 it says, "God, Who in sundry times and in divers manners spake, hath in these last days spoken by His Son…" that was 2,000 years ago. As for reading the Book of Revelations, it speaks of things that will shortly come to pass. Dr. Tozer used to say to me very often that we were in the last chapter of Revelations.

More and more and more we should be the light in this dark world. You may not know what a wonderful privilege you have of being an example to young men.
Show them
you’re not tied up with money,
you’re not tied up with position,
you’re not tied up trying to be the best preacher in your
denomination.
Live close to God day by day.
"The Spirit beareth witness."
John Wesley preached on that more than anyone else. I've never heard anyone preach on Romans 8:16, "the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit." In the Acts of the apostles it says the same thing: We're witnesses, so is the Holy Ghost.
We don't need outward acknowledgments. We don't need outward labels.
When I think of what it means in Jude, "Praying in the Holy Ghost," it means more than just tongues, it means the Holy Ghost running in me. If I'm filled with the Holy Ghost then what grieves the Holy Ghost will grieve me. It's not all joy and excitement.

Did the disciples ask the Lord "teach us to preach"? No. They heard the sermon on the mount, the greatest sermon ever preached birthed but
They never said, "Lord teach us to preach."
Jesus sang a hymn and went into Gethsemene, I think He sang often, but
They never said, "Lord teach us to sing."
They never said, "Lord teach us to laugh." No. They said,

"LORD TEACH US TO PRAY."
If I could go back in time, I think I would spend more time in the Word of God and getting into the depths of the lives of men like Praying Hyde. I was told of a man whose friend prayed with Praying Hyde. He said, "I was in India for a convention and I asked for the privilege of praying with Praying Hyde. John Hyde said, ‘I will be praying tomorrow morning.’ As I went in to pray it was nine in the morning. Then someone knocked on the door and I thought, ‘You just get praying and someone interrupts.’ Then there was another knock at the door. I didn't move, Praying Hyde didn't move. Then someone opened the door and said, ‘It’s a quarter to three and you preach at three.’ I had been on my knees from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon and didn't even know where the time had gone! It was an awesome experience listening to this man pour his heart out in prayer."
I'm not saying everyone gets to that level - but I believe the greatest thing we can do is pray. Every time I pray, I don't want God to make me popular, I don't want to have the biggest church in town. - Jesus never had the fastest growing church, in fact His church went down and down until one day there were only eleven and He said, "Will you go away also?" - I don't think we should pray for God to take people out, I'm saying this, you ought to get near to the heart of God.

I trust that God will give you that privilege of travail
that very few people have had.
Paul had it. I don't think a day goes by that I don't think of Paul travailing in birth. Look at his theological background. Look at the epistle to the Romans, look at his epistle to the Ephesians and yet with all that he is still craving that he may get near to the heart of God. "I could wish myself accursed... my own death." I don't think you have to die a martyr's death to be a martyr.
You can be a living sacrifice,
you can die to advantages,
you can die to temptations,
you can die to privileges,
you can die to all those things that don't add to spiritual life, that don't add to spiritual vision, that don't add to spiritual understanding.
When God works in me, He is so altogether different from the theological concept I once had...
Don't live in the immediate. Remember, Moses saw Jesus in the distance.
I see Jesus coming to rule on the Earth. Not to die, not to be pushed around, but He's coming to rule the Earth. The Word of God says at least some will reign with Him. Who? Who reigns with Him?
The overcomers,
overcoming temptation,
overcoming the world,
overcoming our own desires,
being completely God controlled.

I thank God for what He has done in my life. He hasn't stopped and He won't stop. The Word of God say, "We shall all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ." And, "Will not the Judge of all the Earth do right? " That is going to be awful, but if I didn't believe that I think I would go insane.
Who is going to account for all the bloody massacre in Rwanda today?
All the wars of the Earth,
all the Generals, the Kings of England the Presidents of the United
States, are going to stand before God.
When He takes all the masks off and uncovers everything.
Everybody - every preacher will stand before the God.
This is the final reckoning day, I want to live with eternity’s values in view.
If we judge ourselves in the light of God's Word we need not fear the
judgment.
If we walk in the light as He is in the light... that's all He asks of us, to walk
in the light.
And this is what I desire:
That you would get more vision than I've ever had.
More power than I've ever had.
More understanding than I've ever had.

God help us. This is the most difficult period in human history. Never have there been so many nations upside down. The World is like a ship caught in a storm:
it has no anchor,
it has no compass,
it has no chart.
I believe, brethren, you will live to see many from Washington begging the Church of Jesus Christ to bring deliverance. They have ignored it, laughed at it, they have scorned it, but they will come to a place they are so politically helpless, so financially helpless, so morally helpless they will have to call on God. He is the only sure answer.

One thought that amazes as I study the life of Noah is that there is no mention of his prayer life. But when I come to Ezekiel 14, the three most righteous men that ever lived, Noah is one of them, Job another and Daniel. What awesome prayers they offered, but there will come a time when God won't listen to you anymore.

One fellow said, "I just finished three years in Seminary." I asked him,
"Did anyone ever preach a sermon on eternity?"... "No."
"Did you ever hear a sermon on the judgment seat of Christ?"... "No."
"Did anyone preach a sermon on "The Bride of Christ?"... "No."
The man burst into tears. I said,
"In God's name, why do you go to seminary? To learn how to bury the dead?"

There is an eternity in front of us! There is a world that now is in more rebellion than ever! "As in the days of Noah" they rebelled against God. For 100 years Noah never preached a new message, he preached repentance, he preached righteousness. Alexander White used to say, "You can preach divine healing, you can preach prophecy, you can preach anything, but you can't preach righteousness; people won't have it."
I still hope God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Let Him pour out His Spirit, not our man-made thing. We laugh and watch TV all night. When the burden of the Holy Ghost takes hold of you, you taste what happens in revival. I think revival preaching is open heart surgery. The other preaching isn't a semblance of the message.

I'm trying to say that as bad as it is, and we are living in the most critical hour in human history, God hasn't given up. He's still not willing that any should perish. He still loves men and women. I want to be in that place where I can bear the birth pains.

For years I finished every night of prayer meeting the same way. I would say, "O Lord, don't say to me on that great day, ‘Ravenhill, I had many things to say to you but you could not bear them.’" You don't tell your family secrets to your little children. You want to talk to someone who understands.

I BELIEVE GOD WANTS TO GIVE US EARS TO HEAR.
I BELIEVE HE WANTS TO GIVE US NEW UNDERSTANDING.
I BELIEVE HE WANTS TO GIVE US NEW REVELATION.

-------

COPYRIGHT/REPRODUCTION LIMITATIONS: This data file is the sole property of Leonard Ravenhill. It may not be altered or edited in any way. It may be reproduced only in its entirety for circulation as "freeware," without charge. All reproductions of this data file must contain the copyright notice (i.e., "Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill."). This data file may not be used without the permission of Leonard Ravenhill for resale or the enhancement of any other product sold. This includes all of its content with the exception of a few brief quotations. Please give the following source credit: Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/

Fear Of God Has Been Lost In The Church (Compilation)

Tue, 7 Jul 2015 16:14:07 -0500

The work and ministry of sermonindex can be encapsulated in this one word: REVIVAL. sermonindex is not a organisation, business, or any attempt by man to build something for God. It is rather a expression of a heart burden to see the Church revived and brought back to holiness, purity, and power with God. "The mission of SermonIndex is the preservation and propogation of classical vintage preaching and the promotion of genuine biblical revival to this generation." To download more sermons visit SermonIndex at: http://www.sermonindex.net

Divorce and Remarriage (Video) by David Pawson

Tue, 7 Jul 2015 15:49:56 -0500

Remarriage After Divorce? By world renowned Bible Teacher David Pawson.

Consecutive polygamy (as many husbands or wives as you like but only one at a time) is now an accepted norm in contemporary society. Hardly surprising, since the social, legal, moral and financial restraints holding marriages together for a lifetime have been steadily eroded in a relativist age where anything goes.
What is surprising is that divorce and remarriage are becoming as common inside the church as outside, even among Christian leaders and especially in the Evangelical stream. Believers have been outspoken about such issues as abortion and homosexuality ( the words were never specifically used in any of His teachings, although the broader principle by which these are considered sin were) though their Lord Jesus said nothing specifically about either. He did say quite a lot about the subject of this video but there is either a reluctance to take his teaching at face value or an eagerness to enlarge his ‘exception’ until it becomes the rule.
This teaching primarily appeals to those for whom the Bible is the final authority in all matters of belief and behaviour, especially those who preach to, teach and counsel others. David Pawson believes that the church should be leading the world uphill rather than following the world downhill.

• Biblical Principles
•  Part 1 of the series Remarriage After Divorce? Play AudioDownload MP3 Buy CD (UK)Buy CD (USA) 
• Historical Practice
•  Part 2 of the series Remarriage After Divorce? Play AudioDownload MP3 Buy CD (UK)Buy CD (USA) 
• Pastoral Problems
•  Part 3 of the series Remarriage After Divorce? Play AudioDownload MP3 Buy CD (UK)Buy CD (USA) 

About David Pawson

A speaker cum author with uncompromising faithfulness to the Holy Scriptures, David brings clarity and a message of urgency to Christians to uncover hidden treasures in God’s Word.

Born in England in 1930, David began his career with a degree in Agriculture from Durham University. When God intervened and called him to become a Minister, he completed an MA in Theology at Cambridge University and served as a Chaplain in the Royal Air Force for 3 years. He moved on to pastor several churches including the Millmead Centre in Guildford which became a model for many UK church leaders. In 1979, the Lord led him into an international ministry. His current itinerant ministry is predominantly to church leaders. Over the years, he has written a large number of books, booklets, and daily reading notes. His extensive and very accessible overviews of the books of the Bible have been published and recorded in ‘Unlocking the Bible’. Millions of copies of his teachings have been distributed in more than 120 countries, providing a solid biblical foundation.
David & his wife Enid currently reside in the county of Hampshire in the UK.

Scroll Publishing YouTube channel: Early Christianity

Sat, 4 Jul 2015 12:06:12 -0500

Here is a link to Scroll Publishing’s YouTube Channel, great resource to learn what the Early Christians believed:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL6qGDn7Nnd84-UgURpw8Dw/featured

YouTube Description of the Scroll Publishing YouTube channel.

Welcome to the Scroll Publishing YouTube channel. We are a small publisher of Christian books and recorded teaching CD's, but these are not ordinary books and CD's; Our books and CD messages challenge our readers to return to the historic Christian faith that focused on an enduring love-faith relationship with Jesus Christ and obedience to His Kingdom teachings.
Our commitment to you is to publish books and recorded messages that combine intellectual honesty, spiritual integrity, and sound scholarship. We are not affiliated with or beholden to any denomination, church, or religious organization. So we don't have to alter historical evidence in order to please someone else. We seek only to please Christ with what we publish.
Links
• Scroll Publishing
• David Bercot

FROM THEIR WEBSITE:

Scroll Publishing Co. was founded in 1988 as a non-profit publishing house for the purpose of publishing honest, unbiased books about early Christianity. Because we are not connected to any denomination or beholden to any other entity, we are free to openly and objectively publish Christian literature without having to slant it to fit anyone else’s preconceptions.

As Scroll Publishing grew, we added teaching cassettes to our list of publications, and later we added teaching CDs. We also expanded our focus to include not only the early Christians, but also church history and radical Christian discipleship. We recently added Christian music to our list of publications.

We added our website in 1997. On our website, we not only feature our books, music, teaching CDs and tapes, but we also try to provide worthwhile information for our visitors. We invite you to check out our Christian History section. In April of 2006, we added our Reading Room, where we feature timely articles on the Christian life.

In June of 2006, we added a section to our website entitled 100 Key Documents of Christian History. We have always encouraged our readers to go to the original, primary sources for information about any given period of church history. In this section of our website, we have reproduced copies of 100 or more historic Christian documents, ranging from the days of the apostles to the end of the twentieth century.

We’re More Than A Book Publisher!

Scroll Publishing Co. is more than a book, cd, and tape publisher. It does no good to learn about the radical, spirit-infused lives of the early Christians if its only for academic interest. Academic knowledge may enrich us intellectually—but that’s all. The whole reason we publish works about the early Christians is to challenge today’s Christians to return to the uncompromising, radical Christianity of the early centuries.

One aspect of primitive Christianity that is often overlooked by Bible-believing Christians today is its commitment to the poor. Helping the poor was a high priority of the apostles and it continued to be so for the first few centuries after the apostles.

The Problem

     Americans today live in an age of unprecedented prosperity. The United States not only is the wealthiest country in the entire world—it is the wealthiest country that has ever existed. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the present median U. S. income for a family of four is $53,350.00. That’s approximately $4500.00 per month for the average American family. The U. S. minimum wage is nearly $6.00 an hour.

     In contrast, Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. The minimum wage for factory, store and office workers there is 65¢ an hour. Yet, the majority of Honduranean don’t work in factories, stores and offices. The normal wage for farm and other unskilled workers is only 30¢ an hour! That’s a mere $2.40 a day for hard, back-breaking labor. That’s less than half of what a U. S. minimum wage worker earns in just one hour! Most American families waste more each day than what the typical unskilled Honduranean worker earns!

The Answer

     One way to address this huge imbalance is to simply give food and money to the poor in Honduras. But once the food is eaten and the money spent, then what? Keep giving that same family more food and more money? You then create a welfare dependency that merely prolongs the problem.

     A better answer is to enable a poor family to establish a trade or small business that can support them for a lifetime. This empowers them to provide for themselves, and it creates no dependency on American money. Part of the profits from Scroll Publishing go to this program of helping our brothers and sisters in Honduras. If you are not already actively involved in helping the poor, we would welcome your prayers and support for this work in Honduras.

Click on the following link to read our current newsletter about in ministry in Honduras.

Or, you can click on this link to read our past newsletters about our Honduras work

McChurch

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 14:15:45 -0500

McChurch

Our culture demands convenience Christianity. We want it short, simple, fast and cheap.
The McBible does not have the tedious 66 books, but just a few with short sentences and simple words at the fifth grade level. There are numerous pictures and some pages ruled with lines so that you can add your own spiritual thoughts, just in case you get a new revelation.

The McWorship service is all sweetness and love with nothing offensive. The McSermon is easily digested with a minimum of nutrition and a maximum of fat. Each McPrayer is centered on temporal and material things to keep the mind from wandering to the spiritual which is often illusive for the modern American. To keep the kids awake the McHymns are hip-hop style.

McMarriages are performed for folk who like quicky relationships and throw-away vows are the big feature. For those who still hold some traditional notions, there are pre-marital sessions with junk counseling.

The McPastor is a touchy-feely guy who majored in pop psychology and has an in-depth understanding of felt needs.
McSins, commonly called boo-boos, are easily forgiven with fast prayers and of course are soon repeated, but not taken too seriously. There is an effort to virtually eliminate the negative and dwell 100% on the positive.
This whole business is sustained by the McTithe, which is not 10%, but whatever stray dollars happen to be left in the wallet.
The McYouth program is short on Bible study and discipleship, and long on fun and games. It’s designed to give the kids what they want and to teen-sit them so that their parents can go out and have fun evenings without worrying about their kids getting into drugs and sex.
McChurch is staffed, not by professionals, but by hastily hired, part-timers whose strongest spiritual slogan is “Have a nice day”.
This is the church that offers McFellowship, which is not bonding, but just a quick “Hello” with a handshake and a hug and a hope that you do not become too responsible for the other person’s life or spiritual well being.
McSalvation does not have any deep doctrine of substitutionary atonement and regeneration, but a simple human decision or a nod of the head is more than adequate to bring a person into McKingdom, where he hopes to live happily now and in the hereafter.

All of this ends up in a McHeaven where there are no golden streets, but arches that appear over a broad entrance where the grill is scorching and the deep fry grease super hot.

Written by By Vernon C. Lyons,
Ashburn Baptist Church,

True Christianity by Charles Finney

Sun, 24 May 2015 09:34:14 -0500

True Christianity
by Charles Finney

FREE BOOK FROM http://www.anchorcross.org/books.shtml
True Christianity is a collection of sixteen messages by Charles Finney (1792-1875). Divided into four sections -- repentance, prayer, witnessing, and spiritual growth -- the book defines the simple essence of the Christian life. Written primarily for those who call themselves Christians and want a deeper walk with the Lord, each chapter will challenge you with Finney's bold and clear teachings.

Compiled and edited by F. G. Kuruvilla, the 1800s language has been updated for the twenty-first century reader.
The entire content of True Christianity can be downloaded and read from this website free of charge. To view or download the book in pdf format, click here. You are permitted to share this file in electronic or print form, provided that it is not done for profit. Thus you may post this file on your website or make print copies for your personal use without charge and without notifying Anchor-Cross Publishing. Creative Commons License (This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.)

TRUE AND FALSE CONVERSION by the Rev. CHARLES G. FINNEY

Mon, 1 Dec 2014 11:12:01 -0600

Lectures To Professing Christians
Lecture I. 1837
(On Thursday Evening, December 29th, Mr. Finney Commenced his course of Lectures to Christians, or rather, as he said, resumed them at the point where they were broken off by his hoarseness last winter. --Note of Original Editor)
TRUE AND FALSE CONVERSION
by the Rev. CHARLES G. FINNEY

TEXT.--Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of my hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.--Isaiah 50.11.*

IT is evident, from the connection of these words in the chapter, that the prophet was addressing those who professed to be religious, and who flattered themselves that they were in a state of salvation, but in fact their hope was a fire of their own kindling, and sparks created by themselves. Before I proceed to discuss the subject, let me say, that as I have given notice that it was my intention to discuss the nature of true and false conversion, it will be of no use but to those who will be honest in applying it to themselves. If you mean to profit by the discourse, you must resolve to make a faithful application of it to yourselves--just as honest as if you thought you were now going to the solemn judgment. If you will do this, I may hope to be able to lead you to discover your true state, and if you are now deceived, direct you in the true path to salvation. If you will not do this, I shall preach in vain, and you will hear in vain.
I design to show the difference between true and false conversion, and shall take up the subject in the following order:
I. Show that the natural state of man is a state of pure selfishness.
II. Show that the character of the converted is that of benevolence.
III. That the New Birth consists in a change from selfishness to benevolence.
IV. Point out some things wherein saints and sinners, or true and spurious converts, may agree, and some things in which they differ. And,
V. Answer some objections that may be offered against the view I have taken, and conclude with some remarks.
I. I am to show that the natural state of man, or that in which all men are found before conversion, is pure, unmingled selfishness.
By which I mean, that they have no gospel benevolence. Selfishness is regarding one's own happiness supremely, and seeking one's own good because it is his own. He who is selfish places his own happiness above other interests of greater value; such as the glory of God and the good of the universe. That mankind, before conversion, are in this state, is evident from many considerations.
Every man knows that all other men are selfish. All the dealings of mankind are conducted on this principle. If any man overlooks this, and undertakes to deal with mankind as if they were not selfish, but were disinterested, he will be thought deranged.
II. In a converted state, the character is that of benevolence.
An individual who is converted is benevolent, and not supremely selfish. Benevolence is loving the happiness of others, or rather, choosing the happiness of others. Benevolence is a compound word, that properly signifies good willing, or choosing the happiness of others. This is God's state of mind. We are told that God is love; that is, he is benevolent. Benevolence comprises his whole character. All his moral attributes are only so many modifications of benevolence. An individual who is converted is in this respect like God. I do not mean to be understood, that no one is converted, unless he is purely and perfectly benevolent, as God is; but that the balance of his mind, his prevailing choice is benevolent. He sincerely seeks the good of others, for its own sake. And, by disinterested benevolence I do not mean, that a person who is disinterested feels no interest in his object of pursuit, but that he seeks the happiness of others for its own sake, and not for the sake of its reaction on himself, in promoting his own happiness. He chooses to do good because he rejoices in the happiness of others, and desires their happiness for its own sake. God is purely and disinterestedly benevolent. He does not make his creatures happy for the sake of thereby promoting his own happiness, but because he loves their happiness and chooses it for its own sake. Not that he does not feel happy in promoting the happiness of his creatures, but that he does not do it for the sake of his own gratification. The man who is disinterested feels happy in doing good. Otherwise doing good itself would not be virtue in him. In other words, if he did not love to do good, and enjoy doing good, it would not be virtue in him.
Benevolence is holiness. It is what the Law of God requires: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart and soul and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself." Just as certainly as the converted man yields obedience to the law of God, and just as certainly as he is like God, he is benevolent. It is the leading feature of his character, that he is seeking the happiness of others, and not his own happiness, as his supreme end.
III. That true conversion is a change from a state of supreme selfishness to benevolence.
It is a change in the end of pursuit, and not a mere change in the means of attaining the end. It is not true that the converted and the unconverted differ only in the means they use, while both are aiming at the same end. It is not true that Gabriel and Satan are pursuing the same end, and both alike aiming at their own happiness, only pursuing a different way. Gabriel does not obey God for the sake of promoting his own happiness. A man may change his means, and yet have the same end, his own happiness. He may do good for the sake of the temporal benefit. He may not believe in religion, or in any eternity, and yet may see that doing good will be for his advantage in this world. Suppose, then, that his eyes are opened, and he sees the reality of eternity; and then he may take up religion as a means of happiness in eternity. Now, every one can see that there is no virtue in this. It is the design that gives character to the act, not the means employed to effect the design. The true and the false convert differ in this. The true convert chooses, as the end of his pursuit, the glory of God and the good of his kingdom. This end he chooses for its own sake, because he views this as the greatest good, as a greater good than his own individual happiness. Not that he is indifferent to his own happiness, but he prefers God's glory, because it is a greater good. He looks on the happiness of every individual according to its real importance, as far as he is capable of valuing it, and he chooses the greatest good as his supreme object.
IV. Now I am to show some things in which true saints and deceived persons may agree, and some things in which they differ.
1. They may agree in leading a strictly moral life.
The difference is in their motives. The true saint leads a moral life from love to holiness; the deceived person from selfish considerations. He uses morality as a means to an end, to effect his own happiness. The true saint loves it as an end.
2. They may be equally prayerful, so far as the form of praying is concerned.
The difference is in their motives. The true saint loves to pray; the other prays because he hopes to derive some benefit to himself from praying. The true saint expects a benefit from praying, but that is not his leading motive. The other prays from no other motive.
3. They may be equally zealous in religion.
One may have great zeal, because his zeal is according to knowledge, and he sincerely desires and loves to promote religion, for its own sake. The other may show equal zeal, for the sake of having his own salvation more assured, and because he is afraid of going to hell if he does not work for the Lord, or to quiet his conscience, and not because he loves religion for its own sake.
4. They may be equally conscientious in the discharge of duty; the true convert because he loves to do duty, and the other because he dare not neglect it.
5. Both may pay equal regard to what is right; the true convert because he loves what is right, and the other because he knows he cannot be saved unless he does right. He is honest in his common business transactions, because it is the only way to secure his own interest. Verily, they have their reward. They get the reputation of being honest among men, but if they have no higher motive, they will have no reward from God.
6. They may agree in their desires, in many respects. They may agree in their desires to serve God; the true convert because he loves the service of God, and the deceived person for the reward, as the hired servant serves his master.
They may agree in their desires to be useful; the true convert desiring usefulness for its own sake, the deceived person because he knows that is the way to obtain the favor of God. And then in proportion as he is awakened to the importance of having God's favor, will be the intensity of his desires to be useful.
In desires for the conversion of souls; the true saint because it will glorify God; the deceived person to gain the favor of God. He will be actuated in this, just as he is in giving money. Who ever doubted that a person might give his money to the Bible Society, or the Missionary Society, from selfish motives alone, to procure happiness, or applause, or obtain the favor of God? He may just as well desire the conversion of souls, and labor to promote it, from motives purely selfish.
To glorify God; the true saint because he loves to see God glorified, and the deceived person because he knows that is the way to be saved. The true convert has his heart set on the glory of God, as his great end, and he desires to glorify God as an end, for its own sake. The other desires it as a means to his great end, the benefit of himself.
To repent. The true convert abhors sin on account of its hateful nature, because it dishonors God, and therefore he desires to repent of it. The other desires to repent, because he knows that unless he does repent he will be damned.
To believe in Jesus Christ. The true saint desires it to glorify God, and because he loves the truth for its own sake. The other desires to believe, that he may have a stronger hope of going to heaven.
To obey God. The true saint that he may increase in holiness; the false professor because he desires the rewards of obedience.
7. They may agree not only in their desires, but in their resolutions. They may both resolve to give up sin, and to obey God, and to lay themselves out in promoting religion, and building up the kingdom of Christ; and they may both resolve it with great strength of purpose, but with different motives.
8. They may also agree in their designs. They may both really design to glorify God, and to convert men, and to extend the kingdom of Christ, and to have the world converted; the true saint from love to God and holiness, and the other for the sake of securing his own happiness. One chooses it as an end, the other as a means to promote a selfish end.
They may both design to be truly holy; the true saint because he loves holiness, and the deceived person because he knows that he can be happy in no other way.
9. They may agree not only in their desires, and resolutions, and designs, but also in their affection towards many objects.
They may both love the Bible; the true saint because it is God's truth, and he delights in it, and feasts his soul on it; the other because he thinks it is in his own favor, and is the charter of his own hopes.
They may both love God; the one because he sees God's character to be supremely lovely and excellent in itself, and he loves it for its own sake; the other because he thinks God is his particular friend, that is going to make him happy for ever, and he connects the idea of God with his own interest.
They may both love Christ. The true convert loves his character, the deceived person thinks he will save him from hell, and give him eternal life, and why should he not love him?
They may both love Christians; the true convert because he sees in them the image of Christ, and the deceived person because they belong to his own denomination, or because they are on his side, and he feels the same interest and the same hopes with them.
10. They may also agree in hating the same things. They may both hate infidelity, and oppose it strenuously--the true saint because it is opposed to God and holiness, and the deceived person because it injures an interest in which he is deeply concerned, and if true, destroys all his own hopes for eternity. So they may hate error; one because it is detestable in itself, and contrary to God--and the other because it is contrary to his views and opinions.
I recollect seeing in writing, some time ago, an attack on a minister for publishing certain opinions, "because," said the writer, "these sentiments would destroy all my hopes for eternity." A very good reason indeed! As good as a selfish being needs for opposing an opinion.
They may both hate sin; the true convert because it is odious to God, and the deceived person because it is injurious to himself. Cases have occurred, where an individual has hated his own sins, and yet not forsaken them. How often the drunkard, as he looks back at what he once was, and contrasts his present degradation with what he might have been, abhors his drink; not for its own sake, but because it has ruined him. And he still loves his cups, and continues to drink, though when he looks at their effects, he feels indignation.
They may be both opposed to sinners. The opposition of true saints is a benevolent opposition, viewing and abhorring their character and conduct, as calculated to subvert the kingdom of God. The other is opposed to sinners because they are opposed to the religion he has espoused, and because they are not on his side.
11. So they may both rejoice in the same things. Both may rejoice in the prosperity of Zion, and the conversion of souls; the true convert because he has his heart set on it, and loves it for its own sake, as the greatest good, and the deceived person because that particular thing in which he thinks he has such a great interest is advancing.
12. Both may mourn and feel distressed at the low state of religion in the church; the true convert because God is dishonored, and the deceived person because his own soul is not happy, or because religion is not in favor.
Both may love the society of the saints; the true convert because his soul enjoys their spiritual conversation, the other because he hopes to derive some advantage from their company. The first enjoys it because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; the other because he loves to talk about the great interest he feels in religion, and the hope he has of going to heaven.
13. Both may love to attend religious meetings; the true saint because his heart delights in acts of worship, in prayer and praise, in hearing the word of God, and in communion with God and his saints, and the other because he thinks a religious meeting is a good place to prop up his hope. He may have a hundred reasons for loving them, and yet not at all for their own sake, or because he loves, in itself, the worship and service of God.
14. Both may find pleasure in the duties of the closet. The true saint loves his closet, because he draws near to God, and finds delight in communion with God, where there are no embarrassments to keep him from going right to God and conversing. The deceived person finds a kind of satisfaction in it, because it is his duty to pray in secret, and he feels a self-righteous satisfaction in doing it. Nay, he may feel a certain pleasure in it, from a kind of excitement of the mind which he mistakes for communion with God.
15. They may both love the doctrines of grace, the true saint because they are so glorious to God, the other because he thinks them a guarantee of his own salvation.
16. They may both love the precept of God's law; the true saint because it is so excellent, so holy, and just, and good; the other because he thinks it will make him happy if he loves it, and he does it as a means of happiness.
Both may consent to the penalty of the law. The true saint consents to it in his own case, because he feels it to be just in itself for God to send him to hell. The deceived person because he thinks he is in no danger from it. He feels a respect for it, because he knows that it is right, and his conscience approves it, but he has never consented to it in his own case.
17. They may be equally liberal in giving to benevolent societies. None of you doubt that two men may give equal sums to a benevolent object, but from totally different motives. One gives to do good, and would be just as willing to give as now, if he knew that no other living person would give. The other gives for the credit of it, or to quiet his conscience, or because he hopes to purchase the favor of God.
18. They may be equally self-denying in many things. Self-denial is not confined to true saints. Look at the sacrifices and self-denials of the Mohammedans, going on their pilgrimage to Mecca. Look at the heathen, throwing themselves under the car of Juggernaut. Look at the poor ignorant papists, going up and down over the sharp stones on their bare knees, till they stream with blood. A Protestant congregation will not contend that there is any religion in that. But is there not self-denial? The true saint denies himself, for the sake of doing more good to others. He is more set on this than on his own indulgence or his own interest. The deceived person may go equal lengths, but from purely selfish motives.
19. They may both be willing to suffer martyrdom. Read the lives of the martyrs, and you will have no doubt that some were willing to suffer, from a wrong idea of the rewards of martyrdom, and would rush upon their own destruction because they were persuaded it was the sure road to eternal life.
In all these cases, the motives of one class are directly over against the other. The difference lies in the choice of different ends. One chooses his own interest, the other chooses God's interest, as his chief end. For a person to pretend that both these classes are aiming at the same end, is to say that an impenitent sinner is just as benevolent as a real Christian; or that a Christian is not benevolent like God, but is only seeking his own happiness, and seeking it in religion rather than in the world.
And here is the proper place to answer an inquiry, which is often made: "If these two classes of persons may be alike in so many particulars, how are we to know our own real character, or to tell to which class we belong? We know that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and how are we to know whether we love God and holiness for their own sake, or whether we are seeking the favor of God, and aiming at heaven for our own benefit?" I answer:
1. If we are truly benevolent, it will appear in our daily transactions. This character, if real, will show itself in our business, if any where. If selfishness rules our conduct there, as sure as God reigns we are truly selfish. If in our dealings with men we are selfish, we are so in our dealings with God. "For whoso loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?" Religion is not merely love to God, but love to man also. And if our daily transactions show us to be selfish, we are unconverted; or else benevolence is not essential to religion, and a man can be religious without loving his neighbor as himself.
2. If you are disinterested in religion, religious duties will not be a task to you. You will not go about religion as the laboring man goes to his toil, for the sake of a living. The laboring man takes pleasure in his labor, but it is not for its own sake. He would not do it if he could help it. In its own nature it is a task, and if he takes any pleasure in it, it is for its anticipated results, the support and comfort of his family, or the increase of his property.
Precisely such is the state of some persons in regard to religion. They go to it as the sick man takes his medicine, because they desire its effects, and they know they must have it or perish. It is a task that they never would do for its own sake. Suppose men loved labor, as a child loves play. They would do it all day long, and never be tired of doing it, without any other inducement than the pleasure they enjoy in doing it. So it is in religion, where it is loved for its own sake, there is no weariness in it.
3. If selfishness is the prevailing character of your religion, it will take sometimes one form and sometimes another. For instance: If it is a time of general coldness in the church, real converts will still enjoy their own secret communion with God, although there may not be so much doing to attract notice in public. But the deceived person will then invariably be found driving after the world. Now, let the true saints rise up, and make a noise, and speak their joys aloud, so that religion begins to be talked of again; and perhaps the deceived professor will soon begin to bustle about, and appear to be even more zealous than the true saint. He is impelled by his convictions, and not affections. When there is no public interest, he fells[sic.] no conviction; but when the church awakes, he is convicted, and compelled to stir about, to keep his conscience quiet. It is only selfishness in another form.
4. If you are selfish, your enjoyment in religion will depend mainly on the strength of your hopes of heaven, and not on the exercise of your affections. Your enjoyments are not in the employments of religion themselves, but of a vastly different kind from those of the true saint. They are mostly from anticipating. When your evidences are renewed, and you feel very certain of going to heaven, then you enjoy religion a good deal. It depends on your hope, and not on your love for the things for which you hope. You hear persons tell of their having no enjoyment in religion when they lose their hopes. The reason is plain. If they loved religion for its own sake, their enjoyment would not depend on their hope. A person who loves his employment is happy any where. And if you loved the employments of religion, you would be happy, if God should put you in hell, provided he would only let you employ yourself in religion. If you might pray and praise God, you would feel that you could be happy any where in the universe; for you would still be doing the things in which your happiness mainly consists. If the duties of religion are not the things in which you feel enjoyment, and if all your enjoyment depends on your hope, you have no true religion; it is all selfishness.
I do not say that true saints do not enjoy their hope. But that is not the great thing with them. They think very little about their own hopes. Their thoughts are employed about something else. The deceived person, on the contrary, is sensible that he does not enjoy the duties of religion; but only that the more he does, the more confident he is of heaven. He takes only such kind of enjoyment in it, as a man does who thinks that by great labor he shall have great wealth.
5. If you are selfish in religion, your enjoyments will be chiefly from anticipation. The true saint already enjoys the peace of God, and has heaven begun in his soul. He has not merely the prospect of it, but eternal life actually begun in him. He has that faith which is the very substance of things hoped for. Nay, he has the very feelings of heaven in him. He anticipates joys higher in degree, but the same in kind. He knows that he has heaven begun in him, and is not obliged to wait till he dies to taste the joys of eternal life. His enjoyment is in proportion to his holiness, and not in proportion to his hope.
6. Another difference by which it may be known whether you are selfish in religion, is this--that the deceived person has only a purpose of obedience, and the other has a preference of obedience. This is an important distinction, and I fear few persons make it. Multitudes have a purpose of obedience, who have no true preference of obedience. Preference is actual choice, or obedience of heart. You often hear individuals speak of their having had a purpose to do this or that act of obedience, but failed to do it. And they will tell you how difficult it is to execute their purpose. The true saint, on the other hand, really prefers, and in his heart chooses obedience, and therefore he finds it easy to obey. The one has a purpose to obey, like that which Paul had before he was converted, as he tells us in the seventh chapter of Romans. He had a strong purpose of obedience, but did not obey, because his heart was not in it. The true convert prefers obedience for its own sake; he actually chooses it, and does it. The other purposes to be holy, because he knows that is the only way to be happy. The true saint chooses holiness for its own sake, and he is holy.
7. The true convert and the deceived person also differ in their faith. The true saint has a confidence in the general character of God, that leads him to unqualified submission to God. A great deal is said about the kinds of faith, but without much meaning. True confidence in the Lord's special promises, depends on confidence in God's general character. There are only two principles on which any government, human or divine, is obeyed, fear and confidence. No matter whether it is the government of a family, or a ship, or a nation, or a universe. All obedience springs from one of these two principles. In the one case, individuals obey from hope of reward and fear of the penalty. In the other, from that confidence in the character of the government, which works by love. One child obeys his parent from confidence in his parent. He has faith which works by love. The other yields an outward obedience from hope and fear. The true convert has this faith, or confidence in God, that leads him to obey God because he loves God. This is the obedience of faith. He has that confidence in God, that he submits himself wholly into the hands of God.
The other has only a partial faith, and only a partial submission. The devil has a partial faith. He believes and trembles. A person may believe that Christ came to save sinners, and on that ground may submit to him, to be saved; while he does not submit wholly to him, to be governed and disposed of. His submission is only on condition that he shall be saved. It is never with that unreserved confidence in God's whole character, that leads him to say, "Let thy will be done." He only submits to be saved. His religion is the religion of law. The other is gospel religion. One is selfish, the other benevolent. Here lies the true difference between the two classes. The religion of one is outward and hypocritical. The other is that of the heart, holy, and acceptable to God.
8. I will only mention one difference more. If your religion is selfish, you will rejoice particularly in the conversion of sinners, where your own agency is concerned in it, but will have very little satisfaction in it, where it is through the agency of others. The selfish person rejoices when he is active and successful in converting sinners, because he thinks he shall have a great reward. But instead of delighting in it when done by others, he will be even envious. The true saint sincerely delights to have others useful, and rejoices when sinners are converted by the instrumentality of others as much as if it was his own. There are some who will take interest in a revival, only so far as themselves are connected with it, while it would seem they had rather sinners should remain unconverted, than that they should be saved by the instrumentality of an evangelist, or a minister of another denomination. The true spirit of a child of God is to say, "Send, Lord, by whom thou wilt send--only let souls be saved, and thy name glorified!"
V. I am to answer some objections which are made against this view of the subject.
OBJECTION 1 "Am I not to have any regard to my own happiness?"
ANSWER. It is right to regard your own happiness according to its relative value. Put it in this scale, by the side of the glory of God and the good of the universe, and then decide, and give it the value which belongs to it. This is precisely what God does. And this is what he means, when he commands you to love your neighbor as yourself.
And again: You will in fact promote your own happiness, precisely in proportion as you leave it out of view. Your happiness will be in proportion to your disinterestedness. True happiness consists mainly in the gratification of virtuous desires. There may be pleasure in gratifying desires that are selfish, but it is not real happiness. But to be virtuous, your desires must be disinterested. Suppose a man meets a beggar in the street; there he sits on the curbstone, cold and hungry, without friends, and ready to perish. The man's feelings are touched, and he steps into a grocery near by, and buys him a loaf of bread. At once the countenance of the beggar lights up, and he looks unutterable gratitude. Now it is plain to see, that the gratification of the man in the act is precisely in proportion to the singleness of his motive. If he did it purely and solely out of benevolence, his gratification is complete in the act itself. But if he did it partly to have it known that he is a charitable and humane person, then his happiness is not complete until the deed is published to others. Suppose here is a sinner in his sins; he is very wicked and very wretched. Your compassion is moved, and you convert and save him. If your motive was to obtain honor among men and to secure the favor of God, you are not completely happy until the deed is told, and perhaps put in the newspaper. But if you wished purely to save a soul from death, then as soon as you see that done, your gratification is complete, and your joy is unmingled. So it is in all religious duties; your happiness is precisely in proportion as you are disinterested.
If you aim at doing good for its own sake, then you will be happy in proportion as you do good. But if you aim directly at your own happiness, and if you do good simply as a means of securing your own happiness, you will fail. You will be like the child pursuing his own shadow; he can never overtake it, because it always keeps just so far before him. Suppose in the case I have mentioned, you have no desire to relieve the beggar, but regard simply the applause of a certain individual. Then you will feel no pleasure at all in the relief of the beggar; but when that individual hears of it and commends it, then you are gratified. But you are not gratified in the thing itself. Or suppose you aim at the conversion of sinners; but if it is not love to sinners that leads you to do it, how can the conversion of sinners make you happy? It has no tendency to gratify the desire that prompted the effort. The truth is, God has so constituted the mind of man, that it must seek the happiness of others as its end, or it cannot be happy. Here is the true reason why all the world, seeking their own happiness and not the happiness of others, fail of their end. It is always just so far before them. If they would leave off seeking their own happiness, and lay themselves out to do good, they would be happy.
OBJECTION 2. "Did not Christ regard the joy set before him? And did not Moses also have respect unto the recompense of reward? And does not the Bible say we love God because he first loved us?"
ANSWER 1. It is true that Christ despised the shame and endured the cross, and had regard to the joy set before him. But what was the joy set before him? Not his own salvation, not his own happiness, but the great good he would do in the salvation of the world. He was perfectly happy in himself. But the happiness of others was what he aimed at. This was the joy set before him. And that he obtained.
ANSWER 2. So Moses had respect to the recompense of reward. But was that his own comfort? Far from it. The recompense of reward was the salvation of the people of Israel. What did he say? When God proposed to destroy the nation, and make of him a great nation, had Moses been selfish he would have said, "That is right, Lord; be it unto thy servant according to thy word." But what does he say? Why, his heart was so set on the salvation of his people, and the glory of God, that he would not think of it for a moment, but said, "If thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book, which thou hast written." And in another case, when God said he would destroy them, and make of Moses a greater and a mightier nation, Moses thought of God's glory, and said, "Then the Egyptians shall hear of it, and all the nations will say, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land." He could not bear to think of having his own interest exalted at the expense of God's glory. It was really a greater reward, to his benevolent mind, to have God glorified, and the children of Israel saved, than any personal advantage whatever to himself could be.
ANSWER 3. Where it is said, "We love him because he first loved us," the language plainly bears two interpretations; either that his love to us has provided the way for our return and the influence that brought us to love him, or that we love him for his favor shown to ourselves.--That the latter is not the meaning is evident, because Jesus Christ has so expressly reprobated the principle, in his sermon on the mount: "If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? Do not the publicans the same?" If we love God, not for his character but for his favors to us, Jesus Christ has written us reprobate.
OBJECTION 3. "Does not the Bible offer happiness as the reward of virtue?"
ANSWER. The Bible speaks of happiness as the result of virtue, but no where declares virtue to consist in the pursuit of one's own happiness. The Bible is every where inconsistent with this, and represents virtue to consist in doing good to others. We can see by the philosophy of the mind, that it must be so. If a person desires the good of others, he will be happy in proportion as he gratifies that desire. Happiness is the result of virtue, but virtue does not consist in the direct pursuit of one's own happiness, but is wholly inconsistent with it.
OBJECTION 4. "God aims at our happiness, and shall we be more benevolent than God? Should we not be like God? May we not aim at the same thing that God aims at? Should we not be seeking the same end that God seeks?"
ANSWER. This objection is specious, but futile and rotten. God is benevolent to others. He aims at the happiness of others, and at our happiness. And to be like him, we must aim at, that is, delight in his happiness and glory, and the honour and glory of the universe, according to their real value.
OBJECTION 5. "Why does the Bible appeal continually to the hopes and fears of men, if a regard to our own happiness is not a proper motive to action?"
ANSWER. The Bible appeals to the constitutional susceptibilities of men, not to their selfishness. Man dreads harm, and it is not wrong to avoid it. We may have a due regard to our own happiness, according to its value.
ANSWER 2. And again; mankind are so besotted with sin, that God cannot get their attention to consider his true character, and the reasons for loving him, unless he appeals to their hopes and fears. But when they are awakened, then he presents the gospel to them. When a minister has preached the terrors of the Lord till he has got his hearers alarmed and aroused, so that they will give attention, he has gone far enough in that line; and then he ought to spread out all the character of God before them, to engage their hearts to love him for his own excellence.
OBJECTION 6. "Do not the inspired writers say, Repent, and believe the gospel, and you shall be saved?"
ANSWER. Yes; but they require true repentance; that is, to forsake sin because it is hateful in itself. It is not true repentance, to forsake sin on condition of pardon, or to say, "I will be sorry for my sins, if you will forgive me." So they require true faith, and true submission; not conditional faith, or partial submission. This is what the Bible insists on. It says he shall be saved, but it must be disinterested repentance, and disinterested submission.
OBJECTION 7. "Does not the gospel hold out pardon as a motive to submission?"
ANSWER. This depends on the sense in which you must the term motive. If you mean that God spreads out before men his whole character, and the whole truth of the case, as reasons to engage the sinner's love and repentance, I say, Yes; his compassion, and willingness to pardon, are reasons for loving God, because they are a part of his glorious excellence, which we are bound to love. But if you mean by motive a condition, and that the sinner is to repent on condition he shall be pardoned, then I say, that the Bible no where holds out any such view of the matter. It never authorizes a sinner to say, "I will repent if you will forgive," and no where offers pardon as a motive to repentance, in such a sense as this.
With two short remarks I will close:
1. We see, from this subject, why it is that professors of religion have such different views of the nature of the gospel.
Some view it as a mere matter of accommodation to mankind, by which God is rendered less strict than he was under the law; so that they may be fashionable or worldly, and the gospel will come in and make up the deficiencies and save them. The other class view the gospel as a provision of divine benevolence, having for its main design to destroy sin and promote holiness; and that therefore so far from making it proper for them to be less holy than they ought to be under the law, its whole value consists in its power to make them holy.
II. We see why some people are so much more anxious to convert sinners, than to see the church sanctified and God glorified by the good works of his people.
Many feel a natural sympathy for sinners, and wish to have them saved from hell; and if that is gained, they have no farther concern. But true saints are most affected by sin as dishonoring God. And they are more distressed to see Christians sin, because it dishonors God more. Some people seem to care but little how the church live, if they can only see the work of conversion go forward. They are not anxious to have God honored. It shows that they are not actuated by the love of holiness, but by mere compassion for sinners.
In my next lecture, I propose to show to how persons whose religion is selfish may become truly religious.
*original had text reference as Isaiah 1.11, by mistake
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Evolution vs. Creationism

Mon, 1 Dec 2014 10:51:59 -0600

Excellent Article from http://creation.com/laws-of-information-1
Scientific laws of information and their implications
by Werner Gitt, Phd.(Bio here: http://creation.com/dr-werner-gitt)

The grand theory of atheistic evolution posits that matter and energy alone have given rise to all things, including biological systems. To hold true, this theory must attribute the existence of all information ultimately to the interaction of matter and energy without reference to an intelligent or conscious source. All biological systems depend upon information storage, transfer and interpretation for their operation. Thus the primary phenomenon that the theory of evolution must account for is the origin of biological information. In this article it is argued that fundamental laws of information can be deduced from observations of the nature of information. These fundamental laws exclude the possibility that information, including biological information, can arise purely from matter and energy without reference to an intelligent agent. As such, these laws show that the grand theory of evolution cannot in principle account for the most fundamental biological phenomenon. In addition, the laws here presented give positive ground for attributing the origin of biological information to the conscious, wilful action of a creator. The far-reaching implications of these laws are discussed.

Figure 1. The five levels of information. To fully characterise the concept of information, five aspects must be considered—statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics. Information is represented (that is, formulated, transmitted, stored) as a language. From a stipulated alphabet, the individual symbols are assembled into words (code). From these words (each word having been assigned a meaning), sentences are formed according to the firmly defined rules of grammar (syntax). These sentences are the bearers of semantic information. Furthermore, the action intended/carried out (pragmatics) and the desired/achieved goal (apobetics) belong of necessity to the concept of information. All our observations confirm that each of the five levels is always pertinent for the sender as well as the receiver.
In the communication age information has become fundamental to everyday life. However, there is no binding definition of information that is universally agreed upon by practitioners of engineering, information science, biology, linguistics or philosophy.
There have been repeated attempts to grapple with the concept of information. The most sweeping formulation was recently put forward by a philosopher: “The entire universe is information.”1 Here we will set out in a new direction, by seeking a definition of information with which it is possible to formulate laws of nature.
Because information itself is non-material,2 this would be the first time that a law of nature (scientific law) has been formulated for such a mental entity. We will first establish a universal definition for information; then state the laws themselves; and, finally, we will draw eight comprehensive conclusions.
What is a law of nature?
If statements about the observable world can be consistently and repeatedly confirmed to be universally true, we refer to them as laws of nature. Laws of nature describe events, phenomena and occurrences that consistently and repeatedly take place. They are thus universally valid laws. They can be formulated for material entities in physics and chemistry (e.g. energy, momentum, electrical current, chemical reactions). Due to their explanatory power, laws of nature enjoy the highest level of confidence in science. The following attributes exhibited by laws of nature are especially significant:
• Laws of nature know no exceptions. This sentence is perhaps the most important one for our purposes. If dealing with a real (not merely supposed) natural law, then it cannot be circumvented or brought down. A law of nature is thus universally valid, and unchanging. Its hallmark is its immutability. A law of nature can, in principle, be refuted—a single contrary example would end its status as a natural law.
• Laws of nature are unchanging in time.
• Laws of nature can tell us whether a process being contemplated is even possible or not. This is a particularly important application of the laws of nature.
• Laws of nature exist prior to, and independent of, their discovery and formulation. They can be identified through research and then precisely formulated. Hypotheses, theories or models are fundamentally different. They are invented by people, not merely formulated by them. In the case of the laws of nature, for physical entities it is often, but not always,3 possible to find a mathematical formulation in addition to a verbal one. In the case of the laws for non-material entities presented here, the current state of knowledge permits only verbal formulations. Nevertheless, these can be expressed just as strongly, and are just as binding, as all others.
• Laws of nature can always be successfully applied to unknown situations. Only thus was the journey to the moon, for example, possible.

Due to their explanatory power, laws of nature enjoy the highest level of confidence in science.

When we talk of the laws of nature, we usually mean the laws of physics (e.g. the second law of thermodynamics, the law of gravity, the law of magnetism, the law of nuclear interaction) and the laws of chemistry (e.g. Le Chatelier’s Principle of least restraint). All these laws are related exclusively to matter. But to claim that our world can be described solely in terms of material quantities is failing to acknowledge the extent of one’s perception. Unfortunately many scientists follow this philosophy of materialism (e.g. Dawkins, Küppers, Eigen4), remaining within this self-imposed boundary of insight. But our world also includes non-material concepts such as information, will and consciousness. This article (described more comprehensively in ref. 1) attempts, for the first time, also to formulate laws of nature for non-material quantities. The same scientific procedures used for identifying laws of nature are also used for identifying laws governing non-material entities. Additionally, these laws exhibit the same attributes as listed above for the laws of nature. Therefore they fulfil the same conditions as the laws of nature for material quantities, and possessing, consequently, a similar power of inference. Alex Williams describes this concept as a “revolutionary new understanding of information”.5 In an in-depth personal discussion with Dr Bob Compton (Idaho, U.S.A.), he proposed to name the laws of nature on information the “Scientific Laws of Information (SLI)” in order to distinguish them from the physical laws. This positive suggestion is to be taken seriously since it takes account of the shortcomings of the materialistic view. I have therefore decided to use the term here.
What is information?
Information is not a property of matter!
The American mathematician Norbert Wiener made the oft-cited statement: “Information is information, neither matter nor energy.”6 With this he acknowledged a very significant thing: information is not a material entity. Let me clarify this important property of information with an example. Imagine a sandy stretch of beach. With my finger I write a number of sentences in the sand. The content of the information can be understood. Now I erase the information by smoothing out the sand. Then I write other sentence in the sand. In doing so I am using the same matter as before to display this information. Despite this erasing and rewriting, displaying and destroying varying amounts of information, the mass of the sand did not alter at any time. The information itself is thus massless. A similar thought experiment involving the hard drive of a computer quickly leads to the same conclusion.
Norbert Wiener has told us what information is not; the question of what information really is, then, will be answered in this article.
Because information is a non-material entity, its origin is likewise not explicable by material processes. What causes information to come into existence at all—what is the initiating factor? What causes us to write a letter, a postcard, a note of congratulations, a diary entry or a file note? The most important prerequisite for the construction of information is our own will, or that of the person who assigned the task to us. Information always depends upon the will of a sender who issues the information. Information is not constant; it can be deliberately increased and can be distorted or destroyed (e.g. through disturbances in transmission).
In summary: Information arises only through will (intention and purpose).
A definition of universal information
Technical terms used in science are sometimes also used in everyday language (e.g. energy, information). However, if one wants to formulate laws of nature, then the entities to which they apply must be unambiguous and clear cut. So one always needs to define such entities very precisely. In scientific usage, the meaning of a term is in most cases considerably more narrowly stated than its range of meaning in everyday usage (i.e. it is a subset of). In this way, a definition does more than just assign a meaning; it also acts to contain or restrict that meaning. A good “natural-law” definition is one that enables us to exclude all those domains (realms) in which laws of nature are not applicable. The more clearly one can establish the domain of definition, the more precise (and furthermore certain) the conclusions which can be drawn.
Example—energy: In everyday language we use the word energy in a wide range of meanings and situations. If someone does something with great diligence, persistence and focused intensity, we might say he “applies his whole energy” to the task. But the same word is used in physics to refer to a natural law, the law of energy. In such a context, it becomes necessary to substantially narrow the range of meaning. Thus physics defines energy as the capacity to do work, which is force x distance.7 An additional degree of precision is added by specifying that the force must be calculated in the direction of the distance. With this, one has come to an unambiguous definition and has simultaneously left behind all other meanings in common usage.

Information: namely an encoded, symbolically represented message conveying expected action and intended purpose.

The same must now be done for the concept of information. We have to say, very clearly, what information is in our natural-law sense. We need criteria in order to be able unequivocally to determine if an unknown system belongs within the domain of our definition or not. The following definition permits a secure allocation in all cases:
Information is always present when all the following five hierarchical levels are observed in a system: statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics.
If this applies to a system in question, then we can be certain that the system falls within the domain of our definition of information. It therefore follows that for this system all four laws of nature about information will apply.
The five levels of universal information (figure 1)
1 Statistics. In considering a book, a computer program or the genome of a human being we can ask the following questions: How many letters, numbers and words does the entire text consist of? How many individual letters of the alphabet (e.g. a, b, c … z for the Roman alphabet, or G, C, A and T for the DNA alphabet) are utilized? What is the frequency of occurrence of certain letters and words? To answer such questions it is irrelevant whether the text contains anything meaningful, is pure nonsense, or just randomly ordered sequences of symbols or words. Such investigations do not concern themselves with the content; they involve purely statistical aspects. All of this belongs to the first and thus bottom level of information: the level of statistics. The statistics level can be seen as the bridge between the material and the non-material world. (This is the level on which Claude E. Shannon developed his well-known mathematical concept of information.8)
1   Figure 2. The first five verses of Genesis 1 written in a special code. 
1 Syntax. If we look at a text in any particular language, we see that only certain combinations of letters form permissible words of that particular language. This is determined by a pre-existing, wilful, convention. All other conceivable combinations do not belong to that language’s vocabulary. Syntax encompasses all of the structural characteristics of the way information is represented. This second level involves only the symbol system itself (the code) and the rules by which symbols and chains of symbols are combined (grammar, vocabulary). This is independent of any particular interpretation of the code.
2 Semantics. Sequences of symbols and syntactic rules form the necessary pre-conditions for the representation of information. But the critical issue concerning information transmission is not the particular code chosen, nor the size, number or form of the letters—nor even the method of transmission. It is, rather, the semantics (Greek: semantikós = significant meaning), i.e. the message it contains—the proposition, the sense, the meaning.
1 Information itself is never the actual object or act, neither is it a relationship (event or idea), but encoded symbols merely represent that which is discussed. Symbols of extremely different nature play a substitutionary role with regard to the reality or a system of thought. Information is always an abstract representation of something quite different. For example, the symbols in today’s newspaper represent an event that happened yesterday; this event is not contemporaneous; moreover, it might have happened in another country and is not at all present where and when the information is transmitted. The genetic words in a DNA molecule represent the specific amino acids that will be used at a later stage for synthesis of protein molecules. The symbols of figure 2 represent what happened on Creation Day 1 (Genesis 1:1–5).
1 Pragmatics. Information invites action. In this context it is irrelevant whether the receiver of information acts in the manner desired by the sender of the information, or reacts in the opposite way, or doesn’t do anything at all. Every transmission of information is nevertheless associated with the expectation, from the side of the sender, of generating a particular result or effect on the receiver. Even the shortest advertising slogan for a washing powder is intended to result in the receiver carrying out the action of purchasing this particular brand in preference to others. We have thus reached a completely new level at which information operates, which we call pragmatics (Greek pragma = action, doing). The sender is also involved in action to further his desired outcome (more sales/profit), e.g. designing the best message (semantics) and transmitting it as widely as possible in newspapers, TV, etc.
2 Apobetics. We have already recognized that for any given information the sender is pursuing a goal. We have now reached the last and highest level at which information operates: namely, apobetics (the aspect of information concerned with the goal, the result itself). In linguistic analogy to the previous descriptions the author has here introduced the term “apobetics” (from the Greek apobeinon = result, consequence). The outcome on the receiver’s side is predicated upon the goal demanded/desired by the sender—that is, the plan or conception. The apobetics aspect of information is the most important of the five levels because it concerns the question of the outcome intended by the sender.
In his outstanding articles “Inheritance of biological information”5, Alex Williams has explained this five-level concept by applying it to biological information. Using the last four of the five levels, we developed an unambiguous definition of information: namely an encoded, symbolically represented message conveying expected action and intended purpose. We term any entity meeting the requirements of this definition as “universal information” (UI).
Scientific laws of information (SLI)
In the following we will describe the four most important laws of nature about information.9
SLI-110
A material entity cannot generate a non-material entity
In our common experience we observe that an apple tree bears apples, a pear tree yields pears, and a thistle brings forth thistle seeds. Similarly, horses give birth to foals, cows to calves and women to human babies. Likewise, we can observe that something which is itself solely material never creates anything non-material. The universally observable finding of SLI–1 can now be couched in somewhat more specialized form by arriving at SLI–2.
SLI-2
Universal information is a non-material fundamental entity
The materialistic worldview has widely infiltrated the natural sciences such that it has become the ruling paradigm. However, this is an unjustified dogma. The reality in which we live is divisible into two fundamentally distinguishable realms: namely, the material and the non-material. Matter involves mass, which is weighable in a gravitational field. In contrast, all non-material entities (e.g. information, consciousness, intelligence and will) are massless and thus have zero weight. Information is always based on an idea; it is thus also massless and does not arise from physical or chemical processes. Information is also not correlated with matter in the same way as energy, momentum or electricity is. However, information is stored, transmitted and expressed through matter and energy.
The distinction between material and non-material entities
Necessary Condition (NC): That a non-material entity must be massless (NC: m = 0) is indeed a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient to assign it as non-material. To be precise, the “sufficient condition” must also be met.
Sufficient Condition (SC): An observed entity can be judged to be “non-material” if it has no physical or chemical correlation with matter. This is always the case if the following four conditions are met:
• SC1: The entity has no physical or chemical interaction with matter.
• SC2: The entity is not a property of matter.
• SC3: The entity does not originate in pure matter.
• SC4: The entity is not correlated with matter.
Photons are massless particles and they are a good contrast to the SC because they do interact with matter and can originate from and be correlated with matter.
Information always depends on an idea; it is massless and does not originate from a physical or chemical process.11 The necessary condition (NC: m = 0) and also all four sufficient conditions (SC1 to SC4) are also fulfilled, and therefore universal information is a non-material entity. The fact that it requires matter for storage and transportation does not turn it into matter. Thus we can state:
Universal Information is a non-material entity because it fulfils both necessary conditions:
1 it is massless; and,
2 it is neither physically nor chemically correlated with matter.
Occasionally it is claimed that it is a physical (and thereby a material) entity. But as presented under SLI-1, information is clearly a non-material entity.
There is another very powerful justification for stating that information cannot be a physical quantity. The SI System of units has seven base units: mass, length, electric current, temperature, amount of substance, luminous intensity and time. All physical quantities can be expressed in terms of one of these base units (e.g. area = length x length) or by a combination (by multiplication or division) of several base units (e.g. momentum = mass x length / time). This is not possible in the case of information and therefore information is not a physical magnitude!
SLI-3
Universal information cannot be created by statistical processes
The grand theory of evolution would gain some empirical support if it could be demonstrated, in a real experiment, that information could arise from matter left to itself without the addition of intelligence. Despite the most intensive worldwide efforts this has never been observed. To date, evolutionary theoreticians have only been able to offer computer simulations that depend upon principles of design and the operation of pre-determined information. These simulations do not correspond to reality because the theoreticians smuggle their own information into the simulations.
SLI-4
Universal information can only be produced by an intelligent sender
The question here is: What is an intelligent sender? Several attributes are required to define an intelligent sender.
Definition D1: An intelligent sender as mentioned in SLI-4
• is conscious
• has a will of its own12
• is creative
• thinks autonomously
• acts purposefully
SLI-4 is a very general law from which several more specific laws may be derived. We know the Maxwell equations from physics. They describe, in a brilliant generalization, the relationship between changing electric and magnetic fields. But for most practical applications these equations are far too complex and cumbersome and for this reason we use more specific formulations, such as Ohm’s Law, Coulomb’s Law or the induction law. Similarly, in the following section we will present four more specific formulations of SLI-4 (SLI-4a to 4d) that are easier to use for our practical conclusions.
SLI-4a
Every code is based upon a mutual agreement between sender and receiver
The essential characteristic of a code symbol (character) is that it was at one point in time freely defined. The set of symbols so created represents all allowed symbols (by definition). They are structured in such a way as to fulfil, as well as possible, their designated purpose (e.g. a script for the blind such as Braille must be sufficiently palpable; musical symbols must be able to describe the duration and pitch of the notes; chemical symbols must be able to designate all the elements). An observed signal may give the impression that it is composed of symbols, but if it can be shown that the signal is a physical or chemical property of the system then the fundamental “free mutual agreement” attribute is missing and the signal is not a symbol according to our definition.13
SLI-4b
There is no new universal information without an intelligent sender
The process of the formation of new information (as opposed to simply copied information) always depends upon intelligence and free will. A sequence of characters are selected from an available, freely defined set of symbols such that the resulting string of characters represents (all five levels of) information. Since this cannot be achieved by a random process, there must always be an intelligent sender. One important aspect of this is the application of will, so that we may also say: Information cannot be created without a will.
SLI-4c
Every information transmission chain can be traced back to an intelligent sender14
It is useful to distinguish here between the original and the intermediate sender. We mean by the original sender the author of the information, and he must always be an individual equipped with intelligence and a will. If, after the original sender, there follows a machine-aided chain consisting of several links, the last link in the chain might be mistaken for the originator of the message. Since this link is only apparently the sender, we call this the intermediate sender (but it is not the original one!).
The original sender is often not visible: in many cases the author of the information is not or no longer visible. It is not in contradiction to the requirement of observability when the author of historical documents is no longer visible—in such a case he was, however, observable once upon a time. Sometimes the information received has been carried via several intermediate links. Here, too, there must have been an intelligent author at the beginning of the chain. Take the example of a car radio: we receive audible information from the loud speakers, but these are not the actual source; neither is the transmission tower that also belongs to the transmission chain. An author (an intelligent originator) who created the information is at the head of the chain. In general we can say that there is an intelligent author at the beginning of every information transmission chain.
The actual (intermediate) sender may not be an individual: we could gain the impression that, in systems with machine-aided intermediate links, that the last observed member is the sender:
• The user of a car auto-wash can only trace the wash program back to the computer—but the computer is only the intermediate sender; the original sender (the programmer) is nowhere to be seen.
• The internet-surfer sees all kinds of information on his screen, but his home computer is not the original sender, but rather someone who is perhaps at other end of the world has thought out the information and put it on the internet.
• It is by no means different in the case of the DNA molecule. The genetic information is read off a material substrate, but this substrate is not the original sender; rather, it is only the intermediate sender.
It may seem obvious that the last member of the chain is the sender because it seems to be the only discernible possibility. But it is never the case in a system with machine-aided intermediate links that the last member is the original sender (= author of the information)—it is an intermediate sender. This intermediate sender may not be an individual, but rather only part of a machine that was created by an intelligence. Individuals can pass on information they have received and in so doing act as intermediate senders. However, they are in actuality only intermediate senders if they do not modify the information. If an intermediate changes the information, he may then be considered the original sender of a new piece of information.
Even in the special case where the information was not transmitted via intermediaries, the author may remain invisible. We find in Egyptian tombs or on the obelisks numerous hieroglyphic texts, but the authors are nowhere to be found. No one would conclude that there had been no author.
SLI-4d
Attributing meaning to a set of symbols is an intellectual process requiring intelligence
We have now defined the five levels (statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics) at which universal information operates. Using SLI-4d we can make the following general observation: these five aspects are relevant for both the sender and the receiver.
Origin of information: SLI-4d describes our experience of how any information comes into being. Firstly, we draw on a set of symbols (characters) that have been defined according to SLI-4a. Then we use one symbol after another from the set to create units of information (e.g. words, sentences). This is not a random process, but requires the application of intelligence. The sender has knowledge of the language he is using and he knows which symbols he needs in order to create his intended meaning. Furthermore, the connection between any given symbol and meaning is not originally determined by laws of physics or energy. For example, there is nothing physically about the three letters “d, o, g” that necessarily originally caused it to be associated with man’s much loved pet. The fact that there are other words for “dog” in other languages demonstrates that the association between a word and its meaning is mental rather than physical/energetic. In other words, the original generation of information is an intellectual process.
Finally, we make three remarks that have fundamental significance:
Remark R1: Technical and biological machines can store, transmit, decode and translate information without understanding the meaning and purpose.
Remark R2: Information is the non-material basis for all technological systems and for all biological systems.
There are numerous systems that do not possess their own intelligence but nevertheless can transfer or store information or steer processes. Some such systems are inanimate (e.g. networked computers, process controls in a chemical factory, automatic production lines, car auto-wash, robots); others are animate (e.g. cell processes controlled by information, bee waggle dance).
It is important to recognize that biological information differs from humanly generated information in three essential ways:
• In living systems we find the highest known information density.15
•    Even though information requires a material substrate for storage/transmission, information is not a property of matter.      
• The programs in living systems obviously exhibit an extremely high degree of sophistication. No scientist can explain the program that produces an insect that looks like a withered leaf. No biologist understands the secret of an orchid blossom that is formed and coloured like a female wasp … and smells like one, too. We are able to think, feel, desire, believe and hope. We can handle a complex thing such as language, but we are aeons away from understanding the information control process that develop the brain in the embryo. Biological information displays a sophistication that is unparalleled in human information.
• No matter how ingenious human inventions and programs may be, it is always possible for others to understand the underlying ideas. For example, during World War II, the English succeeded, after considerable effort, in understanding completely the German “Enigma” coding machine which had fallen into their hands. From then on it was possible to decode German radio messages. However, most of the ingenious ideas and programs we find in living organisms are hardly, or at best only partly, understood by us at all. To make an exact replica is impossible.
Remark R3: The storage and transmission of information requires a material medium.
Imagine a piece of information written on a blackboard. Now wipe the board with a duster. The information has vanished, even though all the particles of chalk are still present. The chalk in this case was the necessary material medium but the information was represented by the particular arrangement of the particles. And this arrangement did not come about by chance—it had a mental origin. The same information could have been stored/transmitted in Indian smoke signals through the arrangement of puffs of smoke, or in a computer’s memory through magnetized domains. One could even line up an array of massive rocks into a Morse code pattern. So, clearly, the amount or type of matter upon which the information resides is not the issue. Even though information requires a material substrate for storage/transmission, information is not a property of matter. In the same way, the information in living things resides on the DNA molecule. But it is no more an inherent property of the physics and chemistry of DNA than the blackboard’s message was an intrinsic property of chalk.
Conclusion
All these four laws of nature about information have arisen from observations in the real world. None of them has been falsified by way of an observable process or experiment.
The grand theory of atheistic evolution must attribute the origin of all information ultimately to the interaction of matter and energy, without reference to an intelligent or conscious source. A central claim of atheistic evolution must therefore be that the macro-evolutionary processes that generate biological information are fundamentally different from all other known information-generating processes. However, the natural laws described here apply equally in animate and inanimate systems and demonstrate this claim to be both false and absurd.

Implications of the scientific laws of information—part 2
by Werner Gitt
In the past there were so-called perpetual motion experts. These were inventors and tinkerers who wanted to build a machine that would run continuously without the supply of energy. The discovery of the law of conservation of energy (a law of nature) brought all efforts to solve this challenge to a halt because a perpetuum mobile is an impossible machine. Such a machine will never be built, as the laws of nature make it impossible. Evolution could only occur if the possibility existed that information could arise by itself out of matter. Those who believe that evolution is a plausible concept believe in a “perpetuum mobile of information”. If there were laws of nature that preclude a perpetuum mobile of this kind, the theory of evolution would be disproved. Such laws of nature actually exist, and I have presented these at many universities throughout of the world. The concept of this theory of information is explained in the first article (part I) in this issue. There I enumerated four scientific laws of information arising from observations in the real world. None of them has been falsified by way of an observable process or experiment. In this article, eight far-reaching conclusions will be drawn.

Eight comprehensive conclusions
Having firmly established the domain of our definition of information in part 1, and familiarized ourselves with the laws of nature about information derived from experience—known as scientific laws of information (SLI; see figure 1)—we can now zero in on effectively applying them. Hereafter the term “information” will be used when referring to universal information. There are eight very far-reaching conclusions that answer fundamental questions. All scientific thought and practice reaches a limit beyond which science is inherently unable to take us. This situation is no exception. But some of our questions involve matters beyond this limiting boundary and so to successfully transcend it we need a higher source of knowledge. We hold that this higher source of knowledge is the Bible. We will proceed in the following sequential manner:
1 Set out the (briefly formulated) conclusion itself.
2 Establish how we were able to reach this conclusion by applying the laws of nature about information, and
3 Check the result against the Bible.
4
SLI-1: A material entity cannot generate a non-material entity.
SLI-2: Universal information is a non-material fundamental entity.
SLI-3: Universal information cannot be created by statistical processes.
SLI-4: Universal information can only be produced by an intelligent sender.
4a: Every code is based upon a mutual agreement between sender and receiver.
4b: There is no new universal information without an intelligent sender.
4c: Every information transmission chain can be traced back to an intelligent sender.
4d: Attributing meaning to a set of symbols is an intellectual process requiring intelligence.

Figure 1. The four most important laws of nature about information known as scientific laws of information (SLI)
1. God exists; refutation of atheism
Because it can be established that all forms of life contain a code (DNA, RNA), as well as all of the other levels of information, we are within the domain of our definition of information.
We can therefore conclude that:
• There must be an intelligent sender!
[Applying SLI-4]
Basis for this conclusion
Because there has never been a process in the material world, demonstrable through observation or experiment, in which information has arisen by without prior intelligence, then that also must be valid for all the information present in living things. Furthermore, what we do observe about information—namely that it intrinsically depends upon an original act of intelligence to construct it, as defined by SLI-4d—excludes the possibility of information coming from non-intelligence. Thus SLI-4b requires here, too, an intelligent author who “wrote” the programs. Conclusion 1 is therefore also a refutation of atheism.
The top of figure 2 outlines the realm that is, in principle, inaccessible to natural science; namely: Who is the message sender? To answer that the sender cannot exist because the methods of human science (scientific boundary) cannot perceive him, both misapplies science and is untenable according to the laws of information. The requirement that there must be a personal sender exercising his own free will cannot be relinquished. This Sender, the Creator, has revealed Himself so that we do have information about him. He, Jesus, was in the world and the world was made through Him (John 1:10).
2. There is only one god, who is all knowing and eternal
The information encoded in DNA far exceeds all our current technologies. Hence, no human being could possibly qualify as the sender, who must therefore be sought outside of our visible world.
We can conclude that:
There is only one sender, who must not only be exceptionally intelligent but must possess an infinitely large amount of information and intelligence, i.e. he must be omniscient all knowing), and beyond that must also be eternal.
[Applying SLI-1, SLI-2, SLI-4b]
Basis for this conclusion

Figure 2. The origin of life. If one considers living things as unknown systems that can be analysed with the help of natural laws, then one finds all five levels of the definition of information: statistics (here left off for simplicity), syntax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics. In accordance with the natural laws of information, the origin of any information requires a sender equipped with intelligence and will. The fact that the sender in this case is not observable is not in contradiction to these laws. In a huge library with thousands of volumes, the authors are also not visible; but no one would maintain that there was no author for all this information. If one penetrates beyond the boundaries set by the limits of natural science by consulting the Bible, the Sender reveals Himself as the Almighty Creator. View larger image
According to SLI-4b, at the beginning of every chain of information there is an intelligent sender. When one applies this to biological information, then here, too, there must an intelligent author of the information. In DNA molecules we find the highest density of information known to us.1 Because of SLI-1, no conceivable processes in the material realm qualify as the source of this information. Humans, who can, of course, generate information (e.g. letters, books), are also obviously excluded as the source of this biological information. This leaves only a sender who operated outside of our normal physical world. After a lecture at a university about biological information and the necessary sender, a young lady student said to me: “I can tell where you were heading when you spoke of an intelligent sender—you meant God. I can accept that as far as it goes; without a sender, that is, without God, it wouldn’t work. But who informed God so that He could program the DNA molecules?” Two explanations spring to mind:
Explanation a): Imagine that this god was considerably more intelligent than we are, but nevertheless limited. Let’s assume furthermore that he had so much intelligence (thus information) at his disposal that he was able to program all biological systems. The obvious question then is: who gave him this information and who taught him? This would require a higher information-giver I1, that is, a “super-god”, who knew more than God. If I1 knew more than God, but was also limited, then he would in turn require an information-giver I2—i.e. a “super-super-god”. So this line of reasoning leads to an extension of this series—I3, I4 … to Iinfinity. One would require an infinite number of gods, such that in this long chain every n 1th deity always knew more than the nth. Only once one reached the Iinfinity super-super-super … . god, could we say such a god would be unlimited and all knowing. However, traversing an infinite is impossible (whether it is a temporal, spatial or, as in this example, an ontological infinity) and so this explanation is unsatisfactory.
Explanation b): It is more simple and satisfying to assume only a single sender—a prime mover, an ultimate creator god. But then one would need to also assume that such a god is infinitely intelligent and in command of an infinite amount of information. So he must be all knowing (omniscient).

To answer that the sender cannot exist because the methods of human science (scientific boundary) cannot perceive him, both misapplies science and is untenable according to the laws of information.

Which of the explanations a) and b) is correct? Both are logically equivalent. Thus we must make a decision that is not derived from the SLI based on the following considerations. In reality, there is no such thing as an actual infinite number of anything. The number of atoms in the universe is unimaginably vast, but nevertheless finite, and thus in principle able to be counted. The total number of people, ants, or grains of wheat that have ever existed is also vast, but finite. Although infinity is a useful mathematical abstraction, the fact is that in reality there can be no such thing as an infinite number of anything that can be reached by counting for long enough. Thus explanation a) fails the test of plausibility, leaving only explanation b). That means there is only one sender. But this one sender must therefore be all knowing. This conclusion is a consequence of consistently applying the laws of nature about information. It has led us to the same conclusion as that which the Bible also teaches: there is only one God; “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6).
What does it mean that God (the author of biological information, the Creator), is infinite? It means that for Him there is no question that He cannot answer, and He knows all things. Not merely about present and the past; even the future is not hidden from Him. But if He knows all things—even beyond all restrictions of time—then He Himself must be eternal. So through logical reasoning (without the Bible) we have found out why it says in Romans 1:20 that from contemplating the works of creation we can conclude the eternal power of God.2 The Bible also attests to God’s eternality (e.g. Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 40:28; Daniel 6:26).
3. God is immensely powerful
Because the sender:
• ingeniously encoded the information into the DNA molecules,
• must have designed the complex bio-machinery that decodes the information and carries out all the processes of biosynthesis, and
• created all the details of the original construction and reproductive capacities of all living things,
We can conclude that:
• The sender accomplished his purpose and, therefore, he must be powerful.
Basis for this conclusion
In conclusion 2, we determined on the basis of laws of nature that the sender (Creator, God) must be all knowing and eternal. Now we consider the question of the extent of His power. “Power” encompasses all that which would be described under headings such as strength, creativity, capability and might. Power of this sort is absolutely necessary in order to have created all living things.
Because of His infinite knowledge, the sender knows, for example, how DNA molecules can be programmed. But this knowledge is not sufficient to fashion such molecules in the first place.3 Taking the step from mere knowledge to practical application requires the capacity to be able to build all the necessary biomachinery in the first place. Research enables us to observe these “hardware systems”. But we do not see them come about other than through a coordinated process of cellular replication which requires the same biomachinery to transmit and carry out the replication programs. Thus they had to originally be constructed by the sender. He had the task of creating the immense variety of all the basic biological types (created kinds), including the construction specifications for their biological machinery. There are no physio-chemical tendencies in raw matter for complex information-bearing molecules to form spontaneously. Without creative power, life would not have been possible.
The obvious question here is the same as in conclusion 2: who gave Him this power? This would require a higher power-giver, P1, that is, a “super-god”, who has more than God. If we proceed as shown before according to explanation a) and b), we come to the conclusion that the sender must be all powerful.
We can’t even begin to quantify the enormous degree of power required to create life on Earth originally. But the Bible shows us the real extent of the sender’s power by presenting Him as all powerful—omnipotent, almighty: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty’” (Revelation 1:8).4 “For nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
4. God is non-material
Because information is a non-material fundamental entity, it cannot originate from a material one.
We can therefore conclude that:
The sender must have a non-material component (spirit) to his nature.
[Applying SLI-1, SLI-2]

Basis for this conclusion
Unaided matter has never been observed to generate information in the natural-law sense, (i.e. with all five levels: statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, apobetics). Information is a non-material entity and therefore requires for its origin a non-material source. We have already reasoned our way to some characteristics of the sender. Now we have a further one; he must be of a non-material nature, or at least must possess a non-material component to his nature. That is exactly what the Bible teaches in John 4:24: “God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
5. No human being without a soul: refutation of materialism
Because people have the ability to create information, this cannot originate from our material portion (body).
We can therefore conclude that:
Each person must have a non-material component (spirit, soul).
[Applying SLI-1, SLI-2]

Basis for this conclusion
Evolutionary biology is locked into an exclusively materialistic paradigm. Reductionism (in which explanations are limited exclusively to the realm of the material) has been elevated to a fundamental principle within the evolutionary paradigm. With the aid of the laws of information, materialism may be refuted as follows: We all have the capacity to create new information. We can put our thoughts down in letters, essays and books, or carry on creative conversations and give lectures.5 In the process, we are producing a non-material entity, namely information. (The fact that we need a material substrate to store and transfer information has no bearing on the nature of information itself.) From this we can draw a very important conclusion: namely that besides our material body we must have a non-material component. The philosophy of materialism, which found its strongest expression in Marxism-Leninism and communism, can now be scientifically refuted with the help of the scientific laws about information. The Bible, too, corroborates the above conclusion that a person is not purely material. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says: “May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The body is the material component of a person, while spirit and soul are non-material.
6. Big bang is impossible
Since information is a non-material entity, the assertion that the universe arose solely from matter and energy (scientific materialism) is demonstrably false.6
[Applying SL1-2]
Basis for this conclusion
It is widely asserted today that the universe owes its origin to a primeval explosion in which only matter and energy was available. Everything that we experience, observe and measure in our world is, according to this view, solely the result of these two physical entities. Energy is clearly a material entity, since it is correlated with matter through Einstein’s mass/energy equivalence relationship E = mc2. Is this “big bang theory” just as refutable as a perpetual motion machine? Answer: YES, with the help of the scientific laws about information. In our world we find an abundance of information such as in the cells of all living things. According to SLI-1, information is a non-material entity and therefore cannot possibly have arisen from unaided matter and energy. Thus the common big bang worldview is false. The Bible, too, teaches that this world has not arisen from a process of over billions of years but through creation by an all-powerful God in six days. So we read in Exodus 20:11: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day.”
7. No evolution
Since
1 biological information (the fundamental component of all life) originates only from an intelligent sender, and
2 all theories of chemical and biological evolution require that information must have originated solely from matter and energy (no sender),

we conclude that:
All theories or concepts of chemical and biological evolution (macroevolution) are false.
[Applying SLI-1, SLI-2, SLI-4b, SLI-4d]

Basis for this conclusion
Judging by its worldwide following, evolution has become probably the most widespread teaching of our time. In accordance with its basic precepts, we see an ongoing attempt to explain all life on a purely physical/chemical plane (reductionism). The reductionists prefer to think of a seamless transition from the non-living to the living.7 With the help of the laws of information we can reach a comprehensive and fundamental conclusion: the idea of macroevolution—i.e. the journey from chemicals to primordial cell to man—is false. Information is a fundamental and absolutely necessary factor for all living things. But all information—and living systems are not excluded—must necessarily have a non-material source. The evolutionary model, in the light of the laws of information, shows itself to be an “intellectual perpetual motion machine”.

The Creator’s program is so ingeniously conceived that it even permits a wide range of adaptations to new circumstances.

Now the question arises: where do we find the sender of the information stored within the DNA molecules? We don’t observe him, so did this information somehow come about in a molecular biological fashion?
The answer is the same as that in the following cases:
• Consider the wealth of information preserved in Egypt in hieroglyphics. Not a single stone allows us to see any part of the sender. We only find these “footprints” of his or her existence chiselled into stone. But no one would claim that this information arose without a sender and without a mental concept.
• In the case of two connected computers exchanging information and setting off certain processes, there is also no trace of a sender. However, all the information concerned also arose at some point from the thought processes of one (or more) programmers.8
The information in DNA molecules is transferred to RNA molecules; this occurs in an analogous fashion to a computer transferring information to another computer. In the cell, an exceptionally complex system of biomachinery is at work which translates the programmed commands in an ingenious fashion. But we see nothing of the sender. However, to ignore him would be a scientifically untenable reductionism.
We shouldn’t be surprised to find that the programs devised by the sender of biological information are much more ingenious than all of our human programs. After all, we are here dealing with (as already explained in conclusion 2) a sender of infinite intelligence. The Creator’s program is so ingeniously conceived that it even permits a wide range of adaptations to new circumstances. In biology, such processes are referred to as “microevolution”. However, they have nothing to do with an actual evolutionary process in the way this word is normally used, but are properly understood as “parameter optimizations” within the same kind.
In brief: The laws of information exclude a macro-evolution of the sort envisaged by the general theory of evolution.
By contrast, microevolutionary processes (= programmed genetic variation), with their frequently wide-ranging adaptive processes within a kind, are explicable with the help of ingenious programs instituted by the Creator.
The Bible emphasises repeatedly in the account of creation that all plants and animals were created after their kind. This is repeated nine times in the first chapter of the Bible, e.g. Genesis 1:24–25: “And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.”
8. No life from pure matter
Because the distinguishing characteristic of life is a non-material entity (namely information) matter cannot have given rise to it.
From this we conclude that:
There is no process inherent within matter alone that leads from non-living chemicals to life. No purely material processes, whether on the earth or elsewhere in the universe, can give rise to life.
[Applying SLI-1]
Basis for this conclusion
Proponents of evolutionary theory assert that “Life is a purely material phenomenon, which will arise whenever the right conditions are present.” However, the most universal and distinguishing characteristic of life—information—is of a non-material nature. Thus we can apply scientific law SLI-1, which says: “A purely material entity cannot generate a non-material entity.”

Even under the very best chemical conditions, accompanied by optimal physical conditions, there would still be no hope of life developing.

Figure 3 shows an ant with a microchip. Microchips are the storage elements of present-day computers and they represent matter plus information. The ant contains one material part (matter) and two non-material parts (information and life).
We repeatedly hear of the discovery of water somewhere in our planetary system (e.g. on Jupiter’s moon Europa), or that carbon-containing substances have been found somewhere in our galaxy. These announcements are promptly followed by speculations that life could have developed there. This repeatedly reinforces the impression that so long as the necessary chemical elements or molecules are present on some astronomical body, and certain astronomical/physical conditions are fulfilled, one can more or less count on life being there. But as we have shown with the help of two laws, this is impossible. Even under the very best chemical conditions, accompanied by optimal physical conditions, there would still be no hope of life developing.

Figure 3. Ant carrying a microchip. Both the ant and the microchip contain information, a non-material entity, that cannot be generated by a material entity and which points to intelligent, creative input. The ant, moreover, contains two non-material parts: information and life. (From: ‘Werkbild Philips’, with the kind permission of ‘Valvo Unternehmensbereich Bauelemente’, of Philips GmbH, Hamburg).
Since the phenomenon of life ultimately requires something non-material, every kind of living thing required a mind as its ultimate initiator. The four Australian scientists Don Batten, Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati and Carl Wieland thus correctly state: “Without intelligent, creative input, lifeless chemicals cannot form themselves into living things. The idea that they can is the theory of spontaneous generation, disproved by the great creationist founder of microbiology, Louis Pasteur.”9 With this new type of approach, applying the laws of information, Conclusions 7 and 8 have both shown us that we can exclude the spontaneous origin of life in matter.
Conclusion
No one has ever observed water flowing uphill. Why are there no exceptions to this? Because there is a law of nature that universally excludes this process from happening. Many plausible arguments have been raised against the teachings of atheism, materialism, evolution and the big bang worldview. But if it is possible to find scientific laws that contradict these ideas, then, since scientific laws have the highest degree of scientific credibility possible, we will have scientifically falsified them. We will have done so just as effectively as the way in which perpetual motion machines (those which supposedly run forever without any energy from outside) have been shown to be impossible through the application of scientific laws.
This is precisely what we have demonstrated in this paper. We have presented four scientific laws about information.10 From these we can generate comprehensive conclusions about God, the origin of life, and humanity. With the help of laws of information we have been able to refute all of the following:
• The purely materialistic approach in the natural sciences.
• All current notions of evolution (chemical, biological).
• Materialism (e.g. man as purely matter plus energy).
• The big bang as the cause of this universe.
• Atheism.
Acknowledgments
I thank Bob Compton, Jorge Fernandez, Harvey Nimmo, and Carl Wieland for their helpful comments and the discussion of various ideas related to the manuscript.

Related Articles
• Information, science and biology
• Inheritance of biological information—part I: the nature of inheritance and of information
• Inheritance of biological information—part II: redefining the ‘information challenge’
• Inheritance of biological information—part III: control of information transfer and change
• Clearly Perceived
• Information Theory—part 1: overview of key ideas
• Information Theory—part 2: weaknesses in current conceptual frameworks
• Information Theory—part 3: introduction to Coded Information Systems
• Information Theory—part 4: fundamental theorems of Coded Information Systems Theory
Further Reading
• Scientific laws of information and their implications—part 1
• Information Theory Questions and Answers
Related Media
• Information - where does it come from?
References
1 Gitt, W., Information: the third fundamental quantity, Siemens Review 56:2–7, Nov/Dec 1989. _________, Neues Maß zum Vergleich hoher Speicherdichten. Jahresbericht 1997 der Physikalisch-Technischen Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig, p. 280, März 1997_________, In the Beginning was Information. 3rd English ed., 2001, Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung Bielefeld. _________, Am Anfang war die Information, 3. überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage 2002, Hänssler-Verlag, Holzgerlingen. Return to text.
1 Romans 1:20 (NIV) states: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Return to text.
1 This does not even consider the question of the creation of the individual atoms but merely their arrangement into DNA, which does not spontaneously happen from physics and chemistry. Further, any random sequence of nucleotides will not do. Highly specified sequences of nucleotides are required, with complexity beyond an engineer’s comprehension. In living things it happens via programmed machinery. To synthesize them in the laboratory requires the application of energy plus intelligence plus knowledge plus wisdom plus physical resources. Return to text.
2 That which we cannot conclude from any natural law is revealed to us by God Himself. The Almighty One who made and created all this is God the Son, who at the proper time came in the flesh as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Colossians 1:16–17 says of Him: “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Return to text.
3 Living organisms have the ability to communicate with each other. Bees use a special dance to inform their fellows that they have found a new source of food. They have neither invented the code system nor have they produced information creatively. They use a code system that their creator has installed in them. In this sense, the sender-bees are comparable with a Mars robot that has made a chemical analysis of Mars rocks and transmitted the data back to Earth. The robot was created by someone who thought up the code system and developed the program. Although the robot sends new information from Mars, it has nonetheless not produced creative information. And since the robot is not the source of the information, it does not need a non-material component. Return to text.
4 The evolution paradigm is regarded as a universal principle. Hoimar von Ditfurth has formulated it thus: “The principle of development not only holds for life on earth; it extends much further. It is quite clearly the most widely valid principle imaginable, because it encompasses the entire universe … All of reality around us is characterised by a history of self-development. Biological evolution is only part of this universal process.” (Wir sind nicht nur von dieser Welt, München, p. 22 1984). This evolutionary paradigm forms a chain in which each link is indispensable: big bang—cosmological evolution—geological evolution—biological evolution. A break in the chain means that the structure will collapse. Inference no. 6 means that the first link in the chain is already broken. And we may state it thus: a big bang that gives rise to information and life is scientifically unrealistic. Return to text.
5 Küppers, B.-O., Leben = Physik Chemie? (Life = Physics Chemistry?) Piper-Verlag, München, Zürich, 2. Auflage, 1990. Return to text.
6 This can be viewed as an imperfect analogy of reproduction. One organism “programs” matter to generate another program-bearing creature capable of doing the same. No intelligent intervention is involved. But here, too, one cannot trace it back indefinitely. In reproduction we see no information created, but we see information frequently lost through genetic mistakes (mutation). Hence the original information had to arise through the application of intelligence (mind). This is consistent with God programming the first creatures of any particular kind, including building in the capacity to vary within limits. Return to text.
7 Batten, D., Catchpoole, D., Sarfati, J. and Wieland, C., The Creation Answers Book, Creation Ministries International, p. 142, 2006. Batten, Catchpoole and Sarfati are Ph.D. scientists, and Wieland has a medical degree. All are actively involved with writing and speaking on Bible/science topics. Return to text.
1 Gitt, W., Scientific laws of information and their implications—part 1, Journal of Creation 23(2):96–102, 2009. Return to text.

Acknowledgments
I thank Bob Compton, Jorge Fernandez, Harvey Nimmo, and Carl Wieland for their helpful comments and the discussion of various ideas related to the manuscript.

Related Articles
• Information, science and biology
• Inheritance of biological information—part I: the nature of inheritance and of information
• Inheritance of biological information—part II: redefining the ‘information challenge’
• Inheritance of biological information—part III: control of information transfer and change
• Clearly Perceived
• Information Theory—part 1: overview of key ideas
• Information Theory—part 2: weaknesses in current conceptual frameworks
• Information Theory—part 3: introduction to Coded Information Systems
• Information Theory—part 4: fundamental theorems of Coded Information Systems Theory
Further Reading
• Information Theory Questions and Answers
• Implications of the scientific laws of information—part 2
Related Media
• Information - where does it come from?
References
1 Gitt, W., In the Beginning was Information, 3rd English ed., Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung, Bielefeld, Germany, 2001. Gitt, W., Am Anfang war die Information, 3. überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, Hänssler Verlag, Holzgerlingen, 2002. Return to text.
1 Gitt, ref. 1, pp. 47–49. Return to text.
2 Gitt, ref. 1, pp. 128–131. Return to text.
3 Eigen, M., Selforganization of matter and the evolution of biological macromolecules, Naturwissenschaften 58:465–523. Return to text.
1 Williams, A., Inheritance of biological information part I: the nature of inheritance an of information, Journal of Creation (TJ) 19(2):29–35, 2005. Williams, A., Inheritance of biological information part II: redefining the ‘information challenge’, Journal of Creation (TJ) 19(2):36–41, 2005. Return to text.
1 Wiener, N., Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Hermann et Cie, The Technology Press, Paris, 1948. Return to text.
1 Energy can exist in various forms (e.g. mechanical, electrical, magnetic, thermal). These are, however, equivalent to each other and are thus expressible in the same units (e.g. Joules). Return to text.
2 Gitt, ref. 1b, pp. 170–180. Return to text.
3 Gitt, ref. 1b, pp. 131–150. Return to text.
4 We abbreviate the individual laws of nature about information to SLI. Return to text.
5 Information can direct, steer, control and optimize the running of material processes. These processes are carried out by programs that are freely thought out and designed. They are not based on physical or chemical correlations between matter and information. In contrast, there is a definite chemical correlation between hydrogen and oxygen that under certain circumstances will combine to produce water. Return to text.
6 “Will” here does not mean a decision that a computer makes following a particular algorithm; rather; it signifies a personified will that is able to reach a free and arbitrary decision that cannot be predicted in advance. Return to text.
7 By contrast, the triplet code carried on DNA can easily be shown to meet the criterion of being freely chosen in the sense of being arbitrary. In other words, there is no physical/chemical reason why the biomachinery of cells has to assign to the triplet GAC, for instance, the meaning of the amino acid “leucine”. In fact, in some yeast species it is translated as “serine”? This underscores the point—since the code is not the inevitable outcome of the physics and chemistry of the system, it was at some prior time freely chosen. Return to text.
1 Intelligent Source always refers to an individual who is equipped with a will and consciousness. It is not in contradiction to SLI-4c if the author of the information cannot always be specifically identified, but, rather, sometimes only identified generally, as in the following examples: texts in Egyptian Pharaoh’s tombs (Egyptians), historical documents (unknown author), secret radio messages (the military), computer viruses in the internet (criminals), graffiti (graffiti artists), information in biological systems (creator). Return to text.
1 Gitt, ref. 1b, pp. 311–313. Return to text.

Weeping between the porch and the altar-Leonard Ravenhill

Sat, 18 Oct 2014 15:31:52 -0500

Powerful Message from Leonard Ravenhill
I'm not really going to preach a sermon this morning, but I want to have a launching pad...
Joel 1:13 "Gird yourselves, and lament ye priests, howl ye ministers of the altar. Come, lay all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God. For the meat offering and the drink offering is witholden from the house of your God. Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly."
And then to verse 17 of the next chapter, "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them. Wherefore should they say among the people, Where is your God?" READ MORE HERE:

http://www.ravenhill.org/weeping1.htm

COPYRIGHT/REPRODUCTION LIMITATIONS: This data file is the sole property of Leonard Ravenhill. It may not be altered or edited in any way. It may be reproduced only in its entirety for circulation as "freeware," without charge. All reproductions of this data file must contain the copyright notice (i.e., "Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill."). This data file may not be used without the permission of Leonard Ravenhill for resale or the enhancement of any other product sold. This includes all of its content with the exception of a few brief quotations. Please give the following source credit: Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/

God's Call To Repentance By Oswald J. Smith

Fri, 3 Oct 2014 10:18:19 -0500

Text Sermons : Classic Christian Writings : God's Call To Repentance By Oswald J. Smith

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Men have forgotten God. Sin flourishes on every side. The pulpit fails to grip. Nothing less than an outpouring of the Holy Spirit can meet the situation.

How may we secure such an outpouring of the Spirit? By prayer! True--and the first thing we must do is we must deal with sin. Unless sin is put away we can pray until doomsday, and revival will never come.

"Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear" (Isa. 59:2).

Let us look at Joel. It is a call to repentance. God wants to pour His blessings upon His people, but sin has withheld the blessing.

"Saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil. Who knoweth if He will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him?" (Joel 2:12-14).

Sin must be confessed and put away. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me" (Psalm 66:18). Let God search your heart and reveal the hindrance. I do not know what your sin is. You know and God knows. It may be you will have to forsake some cherished idol. It may be you will have to make restitution. Perhaps you are withholding your tithes from the Lord...It all lies between you and God. You may as well stop your praying and rise from your knees until you have dealt with it.

Let the Priests of the Lord Weep

Now notice Joel 2:15-17. After sin has been confessed and forsaken the prophet calls for a prayer meeting. "Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people, sanctify the congregation; assemble the elders, gather the children... Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?"

Christian, are you praying? Do you plead with God for your city? Are you beseeching Him night and day for an outpouring of His Spirit? Now is the hour to pray! If God stirs up hearts to pray for revival, it is a sure sign that He wants to send one. "There shall be showers of blessing" (Ezek. 34:26). His promises never fail.

Now notice Joel 2:18: "THEN!" After they had forsaken their sin and cried unto God in prayer, "Then will the Lord be jealous for His land, and pity His people." The answer is not long in coming once the conditions have been met. "And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit."

God is waiting for us. Are we going to keep Him waiting?

Milton Green Videos

Sun, 28 Sep 2014 17:06:52 -0500

Video Sermons : Milton Green :

Milton Green ( - )
Watch video sermons by the speaker Milton Green in youtube format.
Some of his main Biblical burdens was to teach the whole counsel of God and to share how to be free from sin and carnality in Christian life. He clearly showed through his teachings on to recognize and have victory through Jesus Christ over the powers of darkness.

In The Word #3 by Milton Green

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In The Word #4 by Milton Green

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In The Word #5 by Milton Green

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In The Word #6 by Milton Green

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In The Word #7 by Milton Green

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In The Word #8 by Milton Green

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In The Word #9 by Milton Green

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Personal Testimony - Part 1 by Milton Green

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Personal Testimony - Part 2 by Milton Green

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Personal Testimony - Part 3 by Milton Green

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Personal Testimony - Part 4 by Milton Green

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The Church Today Asleep & In Bondage #1 by Milton Green

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The Church Today Asleep & In Bondage #2 by Milton Green

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The Church Today Asleep & In Bondage #3 by Milton Green

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The Church Today Asleep & In Bondage #4 by Milton Green

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Is Marriage Biblically Sanctioned After Divorce?

Sun, 28 Sep 2014 16:40:25 -0500

What really is the historic and Biblical perspective on divorce?

Is Marriage Biblically Sanctioned After Divorce?

Divorce is perhaps the most painful wound a family can experience. After the initial trauma, its scars run deep and wide. Many have friends who have gone through a divorce, even while in their twenties or thirties.
The question for examination at present is whether remarriage to another person is biblically permissible after divorce, while the former spouse is living. After surveying the question from historical and biblical perspectives, pastoral implications will be explored.

CLICK ON LINK TO READ:
http://www.anabaptistfaith.com/e-literature10.php?recordID=10079

Art Katz Videos

Sun, 28 Sep 2014 16:16:03 -0500

Video Sermons : Art Katz :

Art Katz (1929 2007)
Watch video sermons by the speaker Art Katz in youtube format. He was radically converted by reading the New Testament. God used him to have a powerful prophetic insight into the end-times and the coming suffering of the jewish people before the great accepting of Jesus as Messiah. His eschatological insight is a very needful truth to be realized in the body of Christ.
Art was a prophetic voice insofar as he called his listeners to purposes in God that would affect both time and eternity, purposes that had to do with the glory of God in the Church. Frequently, his messages called the Church to an awareness of the Last Days [End-times] in such a way that made that time seem imminent and at the door.

And They Crucified Him by Art Katz

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Anotich, Apostolic, Sending And Setting by Art Katz

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Art Katz Testimony by Ark Katz

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Art's Testimony by Art Katz - Part 1

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Art's Testimony by Art Katz - Part 2

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Art's Testimony by Art Katz - Part 3

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Art's Testimony by Art Katz - Part 4

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Art's Testimony by Art Katz - Part 5

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Audio Sermon: A Bride Adorned for the Bridegroom by Art Katz

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Audio Sermon: One Thing You Lack by Art Katz

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Book Recommendations by Art Katz

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DVD - 23: Timeless Interview by Art Katz (High Quality)

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DVD 02 - Jewish Unbelief by Art Katz

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DVD 03 - Israel, The Suffering Servant by Art Katz

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DVD 05 - Gethsemane by Art Katz

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The Backwoods Preacher: Autobiography of Peter Cartwright

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 09:40:59 -0500

FREE Kindle,eBook, PDF, Read-online, & Text Copies from

https://archive.org/details/backwoods00cartrich

The backwoods preacher; being the autobiography of Peter Cartwright, an American Methodist travelling preacher

Click on link above to Download
Revival Preacher of the 19th Century
Reviews of this book:
“Beside from the fact that this is free), this book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in early Methodist or frontier religion and/or life on the frontier. Spanning more than 50 years of ministry in the first half of the 19th century, Peter Cartwright's autobiography provides a colorful, though sometimes biased, look at early Methodism. Descriptions of campmeetings, conversions, encounters with "rowdies", and worship practices abound. Cartwright's ministry covered Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Illinois. Local preacher, circuit rider, and district superintendent, Cartwright was a leading figure in the Methodist Episcopal Church. In Illinois he was also a politician, and the only man to have defeated Abraham Lincoln in an election. Cartwright provides insight (and opinions) into other denominations as well as social issues of the day, such as slavery and dissolution of the Union.

Edited by the late Charles L. Wallis, a notable Methodist clergyman and prolific author/editor, there is also a brief biographical/historical sketch and information from Cartwright's later ministry.”

“A Religious Flame That Spread All Over Kentucky”: Peter Cartwright Brings Evangelical Christianity to the West, 1801–04
In the decades following the Revolution, a vast variety of choices appeared on the American religious landscape as an antiauthoritarian climate encouraged the formation of new democratic religious sects. The Baptists and Methodists were most adept in preaching to the new populist audience during these years of camp meeting revivalism. Peter Cartwright greatly contributed to the Methodists’ success at introducing evangelical Protestantism to the new settlements of the West. Born in Virginia in 1785 and raised in Kentucky, Cartwright served as an itinerant minister bringing his version of enthusiastic religion to Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio. This account of his conversion in the camp meeting of 1801 and his later career as a circuit rider comes from his autobiography, which was published in 1856.

Source: Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, The Backwoods Preacher, edited by W. P. Strickland (New York: Carlton Porter, 1856), 30–31, 34–38, 45–52

HOW TO OVERCOME THE TEMPTER

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 09:15:56 -0500

From http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=category&cid=44

Text Sermons : Watchman Nee : HOW TO OVERCOME THE TEMPTER

Open as PDF

IV. HOW TO OVERCOME THE TEMPTER

"He who overcomes will inherit these things" (Rev. 21:7).
A. Knowing That It Is Not We Who
Are Fighting against the Devil, but God

The devil is in the supernatural realm, while we are in the natural realm. Furthermore, we are not warring against flesh and blood but against him who holds the authorities of darkness. For a person in the natural realm to war against spiritual forces in the supernatural realm means certain defeat. Hence, our warfare must be one in which we ask God to fight for us. We must take God's almighty strength as our strength. Every time there is a battle, we must acknowledge that this is a battle between God and the devil. We are merely choosing with our will God's victory and opposing Satan's interest. If we do this, God's supernatural, almighty strength will storm Satan, and Satan's defeat will be sure. Romans 16:20 says, "Now the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly." Satan is under the Lord Jesus' feet. If we are joined to the Lord, Satan will be under our feet also. It is not we who are crushing Satan under our feet; it is the God of peace who will crush Satan under our feet.

B. Always Hiding
under the Precious Blood of Jesus
to Be Saved from Condemnation

What the devil is afraid of the most is the Lord's blood. By shedding His blood, the Lord crushed the head of the devil. The word "crushed" is the proper meaning of the word "bruised" in Genesis 3:15. If the saints continually trust in the precious blood of the Lord and take the stand of Romans 6:11, the devil will be defeated. "And they overcame him [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 12:11). All of our victories come because of the Lord's blood. Believers are often attacked and accused by Satan because they have given ground to sin, and this has afforded the enemy the opportunity to accuse them. The basis of Satan's attack on us is our sin. We should always take the attitude that sin has no dominion over us. But this alone will not stop the enemy's accusations nor his attacks after the accusations, for subconsciously we continue to leave ground for him. We must continuously hide under the precious blood so that we will not be attacked. It is true that we have sinned, but the blood has redeemed us from sins! Thank the Lord; His blood not only saves us but enables us to be forever victorious in our Christian life.

C. If We Have the Digested Word of God,
We Will Overcome

"The word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one" (1 John 2:14). God's Word is His word in the Bible. If we keep God's word in our hearts, when accidents occur or dangers come, the Holy Spirit will cause us to remember one or a few verses of Scripture. These words of Scripture will then become our hiding place. If we hide behind these words and believe in the power of these words, the enemy will not be able to do anything. The Scriptures which the Holy Spirit brings to mind will increase our strength and boldness. Every word of God is powerful, living, and operative. If we have God's word dwelling in and filling our hearts, Satan will suffer loss and be defeated.

D. We Must Withstand Him by Exercising Our Will

We have a will within us. This will is like our rudder. If we exercise our will to tell Satan, "I will not allow you to come into my heart; I will not give you this right," surely Satan will retreat from us. However, we must insure that our will is indeed set in this way! If not, the result will be the opposite. On the one hand, we have to obey God, and on the other hand, we have to withstand the devil; then the devil will flee from us (James 4:7). For example, if a hawker comes to sell you merchandise and you are determined in your will that you will not buy, your resistance will naturally cause him to go away. But if you bargain with him, you will surely end up buying his merchandise. Many Christians today do not have a resolute will in resisting the devil. They bargain with him, and of course, the devil ends up selling his cargo. When we withstand the devil, we must exercise our faith (1 Pet. 5:9) and speak to Satan with God's power: "In the name of the Lord Jesus who has overcome you, I resist you." After doing this, we must exercise our faith; reckon that since we have resisted the devil, God, based on His word, will drive him away; and praise God for it. Satan has fled, and we should be more than conquerors through the Lord who loves us. When Satan tempted the Lord, He did not leave him any ground; He resisted and rebuked him immediately (Matt. 16:23). We should be as alive in our awareness as the Lord was, and our word of resistance should be as firm as His.

E. Calling On God Immediately
without Consulting the Devil

"Michael,...when he contended with the devil,...said, The Lord rebuke you" (Jude 9). Many believers are not able to call on God to rebuke Satan the moment he acts. On the contrary, they listen to the devil concerning his designs. By then it is too difficult to resist him any further. The moment Satan opens his mouth, we must call on God to rebuke him, so that he cannot even finish his sentence. We must also believe that God will rebuke him immediately and that Satan will no longer trouble us, despite his putting up a fierce front when he is rebuked. A certain believer once said, "To me, we should allow Satan to finish what he has to say, so that we will know what to answer him." Wrong! We do not have to answer Satan. We should stop him from speaking to us. Otherwise, we will be like Eve, who listened to Satan's words and answered him, with the result being many vexations and sin. Do not worry that you may lose your friendship with Satan. Do not worry that you may be too cruel to him. When he comes, ask the Lord to rebuke him. In this way, we will always be victorious in the Lord.

F. Not Giving Ground to Satan
Even in the Smallest Things

Many times we are careful to guard against Satan's stratagems in the great things, yet we are often not watchful in the small things. As a result, we often fail and fall into the devil's deception through one thought or one word. Those who are faithful in small things are faithful in great things. We must be careful not to "give place to the devil" (Eph. 4:27). "Give no opportunity to the opposer for reproach" (1 Tim. 5:14). If Satan does not have a "factory," he will not be able to manufacture sin. If we leave some ground for him in our heart, even if only a small patch, he will use it to create sin. We should not neglect the small things just because they are small. We must realize that Satan is able to invade our whole being through these small things. What is it to give place to the devil? It is to have (1) unrighteousness, (2) sin, and (3) the fear of him in our hearts. It means that we do not have an active will to resist him. On the contrary, we are afraid of provoking him through our resistance. If this ground is not taken from him, the enemy will never be driven away. This reminds me of a story. A certain traveler set up his tent in the desert. A mule, which was outside freezing, asked the man to allow its head to come inside the tent. After a while, it asked him to allow its neck to come inside the tent. After a while, it asked him to allow its two feet to come in as well. Soon, its whole body was inside the tent, and the traveler had no place to stand. Now the mule would not leave, and eventually, the traveler had to leave the tent with the mule inside. Today's Christians are careless about the little things. As a result, this little leaven leavens the whole lump. The devil will try to gain an inch in order to gain a foot. We must trust in the Lord's power to destroy the devil's "factory" within us.

G. Maintaining a Love for Men

"But whom you forgive anything, I also forgive;...that we may not be taken advantage of by Satan" (2 Cor. 2:10-11). A heart that does not love men nor forgive men will give place to the devil. An unforgiving spirit opens the door to the work of the devil. If the believers were more aware of the things in the spiritual realm, they would stop being unloving and unforgiving. All the opposition and persecution seems to come from men, but actually, every heartbreaking word, every misunderstanding, and every humiliation is motivated by the evil spirits behind the scenes. We are not warring against flesh and blood but against the evil spirits. Hence, no matter what comes our way, we should ask the Lord to rebuke Satan and to destroy his work. If we love others and forgive them, we will be more than conquerors.

H. Being Particularly Careful with Our Words

"But let your word be, Yes, yes; No, no; for anything more than these is of the evil one" (Matt. 5:37). The devil does not want man's word to be "Yes, yes" or "No, no." He wants man's yes to appear as no and his no to appear as yes. I heard one zealous believer once say, "I do not seem to be able to control my mind. Sometimes unconsciously, I make yes as no and no as yes. Even when I make up my mind, I cannot free myself of this." Before a person believes in the Lord, his mind is blinded by the devil (2 Cor. 4:4), but after he believes, the Holy Spirit enters into his spirit and enlightens him. Then gradually (for no man can understand all the truth the moment he believes) He removes the veils from his mind, causing such a one to submit to the Holy Spirit and to consecrate himself. In this way, his mind is renewed and transformed (Rom. 12:2). After the old man is put off, the spirit of his mind is renewed (Eph. 4:22-23). As a result, he can speak what he intends to speak; his yes will be yes, and his no will be no. Although the believers possess a wonderful life, in their minds there are always unclean thoughts and rebellious intentions against the truth. This is due to the evil spirits, who inject evil thoughts into the believers' minds and cause them to lodge there. Sometimes, they try to confuse the believers' minds and disable their reasonings. As a result, the believers do not say what they intend to say; their yes becomes a no, and their no becomes a yes. This sickness can only be removed by prayer and by the Holy Spirit taking over the whole being. We know that if anyone does not stumble in word, this one is a perfect man.

I. Being Especially Watchful
When Contacting Others

"Looking to yourself lest you also be tempted" (Gal. 6:1). It is easy to lead others to the right path. But it is difficult to lead others to the right path without deviating in one's own thoughts, words, and conduct. Many believers desire to lead others, only to find that they are being led by others. Although they may be leading others, they themselves are led into others' sins. Hence, the workers should carefully look everywhere for Satan's deceptions, for there is not a day when we can say that we are in a position free from danger.

J. Always Declaring That the Enemy Is under Us

"I have given you the authority to tread...over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you" (Luke 10:19). All the enemy has is "power," but what we have is "authority." Although our individual "power" is not that great, we have received "authority" from the Lord to suppress the enemy. We do not have to compete with him in "power"; we need only to give him the command with our "authority." "Power" cannot prevail against "authority"! Therefore, we should first join ourselves to the Lord's death and secure this authority. We should then exercise our faith to use this authority moment by moment to overcome and subdue all the powers of darkness. If we do this, we will overcome regardless of the circumstances.

Watchman Nee (1903 - 1972)
Read freely text sermons and articles by the speaker Watchman Nee in text and pdf format. Was a church leader and Christian teacher who worked in China during the first half of the 20th century. In 1922, he initiated church meetings in Fuzhou that may be considered the beginning of the local churches. During his 30 years of ministry, Nee published many books expounding the Bible, including The Normal Christian Life and The Normal Christian Church Life. He established churches throughout China and held many conferences to train Bible students and church workers.
Following the Communist Revolution, Nee was persecuted for his faith. He spent the last 20 years of his life in prison. Nee was honored by Christianity Today magazine as one of The 100 Most Influential Christians of the Twentieth Century.

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Reading Room from Scroll Publishing

Wed, 3 Sep 2014 11:02:25 -0500

Thought Provoking Articles
from Scroll Publishing

“Here you will find a collection of thought-provoking or devotional articles written by some of our friends, or by various Christians throughout history. So pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and enjoy the insights of these fellow pilgrims.” CLICK ON LINK BELOW

http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/readingroom.html

Note: Inclusion of an article on this page doesn’t mean that we necessarily endorse everything the author has to say. Likewise, inclusion of an article doesn’t mean that the author necessarily agrees with everything we publish.

TRUTH IN HEART

Sun, 10 Nov 2013 10:01:34 -0600

Great resource from http://truthinheart.com
TRUTH IN HEART  PRESENTS

A Spiritual, Philosophical, and Theological Library
with a focus on Revival and Reformation.
Featuring the Works of Charles G. Finney and Asa Mahan.
First Presidents of Oberlin College.

Special Collections:

Charles G. Finney | Asa Mahan | John Wesley | Aaron M. Hills
John Fletcher | Jonathan Edwards | John Bunyan | John Foxe
Alfred Edersheim | George Whitefield | James Arminius
Andrew Murray | Henry Clay Trumbull
ENTIRE CHURCH FATHERS
Main Topics:

Holiness | Atonement | Doctrine | Preaching | Prayer | Philosophy | Child Training | Various Topics | Printed Tracts | Biographies | Reference
Early Oberlin College Pictures

CHARLES G. FINNEY'S ENTIRE WORKS
ABOUT FINNEY AND HIS WORKS:
Theology Works | Over 400 Sermons | Books of Sermons | Works on Preaching | Letters | Biographical Works
Theological:
SKELETONS OF A COURSE OF THEOLOGICAL LECTURES. Finney's first Lectures On Theology. 1857 Ed.
LECTURES ON SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. 1000 page unabridged final London Ed.
LECTURES ON SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. Abridged and edited 1851 edition by Fairchild in 1878.
LECTURES ON THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. Unpublished Introductory Theology Lectures from the 1860's and 1870's.
LECTURES ON PASTORAL THEOLOGY. Unpublished lectures from the 1860's and 1870's.
LECTURES ON REVIVALS OF RELIGION. "This book, first published in 1835, has an important place not only in American religious history but in American social and intellectual history as well. Its importance to religious history has two dimensions. In the realm of theology it clearly marks the end of two centuries of Calvinism and the acceptance of pietistic evangelicalism as the predominant faith of the nation. In the realm of applied religion, as a textbook on how to promote revivals of religion, this book is the perennial classic to which all succeeding generations of revivalists have turned for authority and inspiration." W. G. McLoughlin. 1960.
ON REVIVALS OF RELIGION. Series of outlined Lectures delivered to senior ministerial students, 1874.
THE CHARACTER, CLAIMS AND PRACTICAL WORKINGS OF FREEMASONRY . 1869.
Lists of Sermons:
COMPLETE LIST OF 379 SERMONS IN SCRIPTURAL ORDER.
FINNEY'S SERMONS FROM THE OBERLIN EVANGELIST IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. 261 Sermons from 1839-1862.
THE PENNY PULPIT. 46 Sermons from 1850-1851 while Finney was in England.
TOPICAL LISTING OF SERMONS
Books of Sermons:
HOW TO PRAY TO GOD.
HOW TO EXPERIENCE THE HIGHER LIFE.
KNOWING AND LOVING GOD.
THE DREADFUL RESULTS OF SIN.
THE LOVE OF GOD FOR A SINNING WORLD.
THE RIGHT WAY TO 'TRAIN UP A CHILD.'
SERMONS ON IMPORTANT SUBJECTS.
LECTURES TO PROFESSING CHRISTIANS.
SERMONS ON GOSPEL THEMES.
THE WAY OF SALVATION.
SERMONS FROM THE PENNY PULPIT. Sermons preached in England of 1850-51.
POWER FROM ON HIGH. [entire text] 1860's; or In separate chapters
THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST, Second half of Asa Mahan's book.
Works on Preaching:
LECTURES ON PASTORAL THEOLOGY. Lectures from the 1860's and 1870's.
REVIVAL FIRE. Finney's letters about the early Revivals.
TAKE HEED TO THYSELF.
THE CHURCH SHOULD SEEK MORE EMINENT PIETY IN THE MINISTRY.
WISDOM IN WINNING SOULS.
PREACHING SO AS TO CONVERT NOBODY.
ON REVIVALS OF RELIGION.
Letters from Finney:
7 LETTERS TO PARENTS; AND TEN SERMONS RELATING TO CHILDREN.
4 LETTERS ON RESOLUTIONS, DRESS, IMPULSES, AND HEALTH, etc. In 1845.
REVIEW OF JENNINGS HEALTH CLASSIC MEDICAL REFORM
Biographies of Finney:

PICTURE OF MR. & MRS. FINNEY | PICTURE OF BRAODWAY TABERNACLE, In New York
PICTURES OF FINNEY'S BIRTHPLACE (Online only)
CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF CHARLES G. FINNEY, By Rick Friedrich.
LIFE OF CHARLES G. FINNEY, By Aaron Merritt Hills (his student; and a Revivalist) 1902.
CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY MEMORIAL ADDRESS, (Given by his oldest grandson in 1908.) DELIVERED AT THE DEDICATION OF THE FINNEY MEMORIAL CHAPEL. Donated by his son.
SOME INTERVIEWS WITH CHARLES G. FINNEY By William C. Cochran (grandson), '69. From The Oberlin Alumni Magazine.
FINNEY AND HIS CHILDREN. By Frances J. Horsford '91. From The Oberlin Alumni Magazine.
MEMORIAL ADDRESS: ON THE LIFE AND INFLUENCE OF PRESIDENT CHARLES G. FINNEY. By The Rev. James Brand, D. D, 1892.
MEMORIAL ADDRESS: ON CERTAIN ELEMENTS OF PRESIDENT FINNEY'S POWER AS A PREACHER. By Professor John M. Ellis, 1892.
OBERLINIANA: A JUBILEE VOLUME OF SEMI-HISTORICAL ANECDOTES CONNECTED WITH THE PAST AND PRESENT OF OBERLIN COLLEGE. 1833-1883. By A. L. SHUMWAY, '82, and C. De W. BROWER, '83.
A REMINISCENCE. By Prof. GEO. S. ORMSBY. 1912.
REMINISCENCES OF REV. CHARLES G. FINNEY. SPEECHES AND SKETCHES AT THE GATHERING OF HIS FRIENDS AND PUPILS, IN OBERLIN, JULY 28TH, 1876.
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PRESIDENT FINNEY. By Celia Rrosella Ladd. 1875
CHARLES G. FINNEY AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. The very edited first and long standing edition (mis-named autobiography).
CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY. By G. Frederick Wright, D. D., LL. D. (student and Prof. of Oberlin)
THE "OBERLIN LYNCHING" OF 1840.

ASA MAHAN'S WORKS  (First President of Oberlin. C.)  Autobiography, Intellectual, Moral, and Spiritual. One of the most important Americans.  Out of Darkness Into Light. Mahan's Spiritual life before and after the Baptism.  Baptism of the Holy Ghost. A doctrinal presentation (no tongues).  Misunderstood Texts. Expounding anti-holiness proof-texts (clearest on Rom. 7).  Christian Perfection. Liberty without Perfectionism.  Teachings of the Spirit. Mahan's biographer says this is one of his most important Sermons.  Divine Life and International Expository of Scriptural Holiness. Mahan edited this almost 4000 page periodical from 1878-89.  Experience of President Mahan. In a letter to his wife.  The True Believer: Gospel Plan. | The Believers Confidence | Taking Thought of the Morrow.  Brotherly Love. Real Christian brotherhood; even when tested.  Principles of Church Discipline  The Sufferings of Christ. Did Christ suffer in his Infinite Nature?  Solomon's Song. Critique of common interpretations; a backslider's poem.  Mental Philosophy. High School condensation of Intellectual Philosophy, with additions.  Science of Moral Philosophy. (incomplete).  Intellectual Philosophy. Very sharp analysis of human mind. (incomplete)  Logic. Very independent; points out serious errors in majority texts. (incomplete)  A Critical History of Philosophy. Vol. I. & II. Most profound work on the subject.  A Critical History of the Late American War. See how Mahan almost prevented the deaths of half a million people!  Natural Theology. God the Infinite and Perfect seen in Creation. (incomplete)  The Phenomena of Spiritism. Expositing Modern Mysteries. (Unedited)  Modern Mysteries. Above work with much more. (Unedited)  Exposition of Romans IX; Election and the Influence of the Holy Spirit.  Doctrine of the Will. Greatest challenge to Edwards on the Will.  
JOHN WESLEY'S WORKS (146)  141 Sermons | Wesley's Journal  Wesley's Notes on: The Old Testament | Matthew | Acts | New Testament   Scriptural Christianity. | The Almost Christian. | Justification By Faith. | Salvation By Faith. A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.    AARON MERRITT HILLS  Life of Charles G. Finney. Former student of Finney, and Holiness University president.  Homiletics and Pastoral Theology. From the Aged Pastor and longtime professor. [incomplete]  Food For Lambs. or, Leading Children to Christ. A Series of Lessons Illustrated by Stories and Incidents, For the Use of Parents and Teachers in Bringing Children to Jesus, And Preparing Them for Church Membership.  Fundamental Christian Theology chpt. 1 | Post-Milleniannal Advent | Baptism: Mode and Infant.  The Tongues Movement. Short historical account.  Prayer for Forgiveness and for Sanctification    JOHN FLETCHER'S WORKS (10)  (One of the most important early Methodists)  Fletcher's Works | Biography | The Death of The Rev. John Fletcher. By John Wesley  
 JONATHAN EDWARDS WORKS (126)   Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God.
First Great Awakening sermon. Biographical Works: Edwards' Testimony | Diary | Memoirs 1-10 | Memoirs 16-15 | Revival Accounts | Resolutions | Young Converts  Theological Works: Work of God | Will | History of Redemption | Grace | Religious Affections | Trinity | Divinity of Christ | Communion | True Virtue | End for Creation | Mind | Judging Experiences | Types of the Messiah | Evidences of Christianity | Mysteries of Scripture | Christian Cautions | Notes on the Bible 94 Sermons: Pastoral, Doctrinal, Occasional, and Judgment, Charity. Also, the works of his son, President Jonathan Edwards Jr.    JOHN BUNYAN WORKS (73)  Sermons, Allegories, Poetry, Miscellaneous works about Bunyan  In Chronological Order:  A Timeline Chronicling the Life of John Bunyan
A Few Sighs From Hell | | The Doctrine of the Law and Grace Unfolded | | I Will Pray With the Spirit and With the Understanding Also- | | The Holy City | | The Resurrection of the Dead, and Eternal Judgment | | Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners | | Christian Behavior | | Reprobation Asserted | | The Strait Gate | | The Pilgrim's Progress | | The Pilgrim's Progress, Part Two | | A Treatise of the Fear of God | | The Life and Death of Mr. Badman | | Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ | | The Holy War | | The Greatness of the Soul | | Seasonable Counsel | | The Barren Fig Tree | | The Water of Life | | John Bunyan's Last Sermon | | The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate | | The Jerusalem Sinner Saved | | An Exposition on the First Ten Chapters of Genesis | | Of Antichrist and His Ruin | | Christ a Complete Saviour | | The Saints' Knowledge of Christ's Love | | A Discourse of the House of the Forest of Lebanon | | The Acceptable Sacrifice | | The Heavenly Footman | | A Relation of My Imprisonment | | Justification by an Imputed Righteousness | | A Discourse Upon the Pharisee and the Publican | | Saved by Grace | | One Thing Is Needful | | Ebal and Gerizzim | | A Book For Boys and Girls | | Prison Meditations | | The Warrant for John Bunyan's Arrest | | Mr. John Bunyan's Dying Sayings | | A Memoir On John Bunyan | | Spurgeon on Bunyan Added works: Memoir of John Bunyan, Offer. | | A Continuation of Mr. Bunyan's Life. | | The Strggler. | | A Map Showing the Order and Causes of Salvation and Damnation. | | A Caution to Stir Up to Watch Against Sin. | | Sending Forth His Second Part of The Pilgrim. | | A Case of Conscience Resolved. | | A Defence of the Doctrine of Justification. | | A Holy Life. | | A Vindication of Gospel Truths. | | An Exhortation to Peace and Unity. | | Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. | | Differences in Judgment About Water Baptism. | | Instruction for the Ignorant. | | Israel's Hope Encouraged. | | Light for Them that Sit in Darkness. | | Of the Trinity and a Christian. | | Paul's Departure and Crown. | | Peaceable Principles and True. | | Questions About the Nature of the Sabbath. | | Solomon's Temple Spiritualized. | | Some Gospel Truths Opened. | | The Barren Fig Tree. | | The Desire of the Righteous Granted. | | The Fear of God. | | The Greatness of the Soul. | | The House of God. | | The Saint's Privilege and Profit. | | The Terms of Communion and Fellowship. | | The Water of Life. | | Touching Prayer. | | Scriptural Poems.  
 JOHN FOXE  Sketch of his Life | Foxes Book of Martyrs   ALFRED EDERSHIEM  Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah | Sketches of Jewish Social Life | The Temple   GEORGE WHITEFIELD  59 Sermons. | George Whitefield and Wesleyan Perfectionism  On the Death of The Rev. Mr. George Whitefield,
By John Wesley    JAMES ARMINIUS  WORKS: Volume I. | Volume II. | Volume III. | Analysis of the Ninth Chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.   ANDREW MURRAY  With Christ in the School of Prayer | The New Life | The True Vine | Intercession | Like Christ  The Two Covenants and the Second Blessing | The School of Obedience | The Deeper Christian Life | Absolute Surrender | The Lord's Table  Working for God! | Divine Healing | The Missionary Problem Is A Personal Problem | The Power of Persevering Prayer    HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL  Teaching and Teachers or The Sunday-School Teacher's Teaching Work and The Other Work of the Sunday-School Teacher | Border Lines in the Field of Doubtful Practices | Individual Work for Individuals    BIOGRAPHIES  David Brainerd | John Bunyan | Jonathan Edwards | Charles G. Finney | John Fletcher | John Fox | Madame Guyon (1647-1717) | John Wesley | Asa Mahan | John Wesley | George Whitefield 

  AUTHORS ON HOLINESS  How the Experience the Higher Life. By Charles G. Finney.  Heart Talks On Holiness. By S. L. Brengle.  The Holiness Acceptable to God. By Dr. John Morgan of Oberlin College; Close Rev. to Finney.  Entire Sanctification. By Adam Clarke. A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. By William Law, M.A.  Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. By Hannah Whitall Smith. Revival Addresses. By R. A Torrey.  The Revival We Need. By Oswald J. Smith. Forward by Jonathan Goforth.  The Kind of Revival We Need. By C. H. Spurgeon.  The Doctrine of Repentance. By Thomas Watson 1668    18 WORKS ON THE ATONEMENT  Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation: James B. Walker, 1855.  On The Atonement. By the Rev. Charles G. Finney, 1856.  Be Ye Reconciled to God. By P.P. Waldenstrom.  The Atonement: The Significance and Necessity of Jesus' Death. By The Rev. Albert Barnes, 1858.  Essay on The Scripture Doctrine of Atonement: Showing its Nature, Its Necessity, and its Extent. By Caleb Burge, 1822.  Christ, The Only Sacrifice: or The Atonement in its Relations to God and Man. By The Rev. Nathan S. S. Beeman, D.D., 1844.  Two Discourses on The Atonement. By Moses Stuart 1824.  The Atonement. By The Rev. John Morgan D.D. Oberlin, Ohio, Oct. 1877.  The Extent of The Atonement in its Relation to God and the Universe. By the Rev. Thomas W. Jenkyn, D. D., 1859.  A Debate on The Doctrine of Atonement. Between The Rev. Joel Hume And The Rev. Benoni Stinson, 1863.  The Governmental Theory of the Atonement. By John Miley, D.D., 1813-1895, from Chapter 8 of his work, "The Atonement in Christ", originally published in 1881  The Necessity of Atonement and the Consistency Between That and Free Grace in Forgiveness. In Three Sermons. By Jonathan Edwards Jr., D.D. Excursus on the Atonement. By Henry Cowles (Editor of the Oberlin Evangelist and close friend of Finney). Sketch of the History of the Grotian Theory of the Atonement. By Frank H. Foster (Prof. of Oberlin) Anselm and the Doctrine of the Atonement. By Basil W. Miller.  The Sufferings of Christ. By Mahan. Did Christ suffer in his Infinite Nature? A review of Griffin's book below.  The Sufferings of Christ. By George Griffin. Revealing the real feelings of God. 1852.  Different Species of Justice. By Nathan W. Taylor.   AUTHORS ON DOCTRINE On the Incarnation. Classic work on Christ by Athanasius (295-373 AD.)  The History of the Doctrine of Original Sin.  The Scriptural Doctrine of Endless Retribution Candidly Presented, And the Doctrine of Universal Salvation Shown to be Unphilosophical, Unscriptural and False. By Josiah Hopkins.  A Discourse on The Freedom of the Will: By Ransom Dunn, 1850.  Adam Clarke, On Chapter 9 of Romans.  On Apostasy and Saints' Perseverance. By Henry Cowles. (Editor of the Oberlin Evangelist and close friend of Finney).  The Revelation of John. Detailed Commentary. By Henry Cowles.  The Millenium. By Henry Cowles.  On the Theory that "Day," in Prophesy, means "Year." A critique. By Henry Cowles.  The Premillennial Advent Doctrine. A critique. By Henry Cowles.  Letters on Baptism: Prominent Baptist president changes views.   AUTHORS ON PREACHING TOPICS   Practical Psychology. By L. B. Williams.  The Preachers Attitude Towards The Critical Study of The Bible. By Floyd W. Nease.  Preachers Must Have Time To Think. By J. B. Chapman.  The Preacher's Voice. By W. W. Myers.  Sermon Outlines. By Basil Miller. 
 AUTHORS ON PRAYER How to Pray to God. By Charles G. Finney. 25 Sermon Collection. The Spirit Of Prayer. By William Law, M.A. By E. M. Bounds: Power Through Prayer. | The Necessity of Prayer. | Possibilities of Prayer.   AUTHORS ON PHILOSOPHY  Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation: James B. Walker; Truly an apologetic classic on God's wonderful plan.  Do you live in Contradiction? Our apologetics booklet showing need of Christ in various ways.  Simplicity of Moral Action. The will is not divided or forced.  Logical Fallacies. Right thinking affects character.  The American Idea of Religious Freedom. Church and State in the United States - 1888 by Philip Schaff. Mental Philosophy. By Thomas Upham. (Incomplete) See Asa Mahan's books under his collection for more volumes.   AUTHORS ON CHILD TRAINING The Right Way to 'Train up a Child.' By Finney, Mahan, Wesley, Edwards, and Whitefield. The Training of Children. By William Booth. Food for Lambs A Book For Boys and Girls "Train up a Child..." A Sermon for the times. By Dr. Isaac Jennings M. D. 1853.   VARIOUS AUTHORS AND SUBJECTS  Prejudice. The most seriously overlooked sin. APOSTOLIC FATHERS:  Clement of Rome | Mathetes | Polycarp | Ignatius | Barnabas | Papias | Justin Martyr | Irenaeus  Come-outism and Come-outers. (should we come out churches that support sin?) By William Goodell 1848.  Gift of the Holy Ghost: Dr. John Morgan; one of the first and best on the subject (close friend of Finney.)  The Higher Through the Old Fashion Gospel. Discover the mystery of the Higher life behind the Atonement in Romans 8:32.  Oppression Through Ignorance. By Rick Friedrich  The Spirit of Love. By William Law, M.A..  The Practice of the Presence of God. By Brother Lawrence.  Exactly what our Savior taught about Sin. By M. L. Dye. (Online only) Lectures on the Moral Government of God. By Nathaniel W. Taylar, D. D., 1859.  A Substitute for Holiness, or Antinomianism Revived. The Theology of the So-called Plymouth Brethren Examined and Refuted. By Daniel Steele, S. T. D. Are Men Born Sinners? The Myth of Original Sin. By A. T. Overstreet. (Online only) The Imitation of Christ. By Thomas Ã Kempis.   Apostolic Exhortation. By C. H. Spurgeon.  Christ Is All. By C. H. Spurgeon.  Ten Shekels and a Shirt. Modern classic by Paris Reidhead.  Poems  Wait! A timely poem on patience.  Hawaii's Great Awakening: 1835-1840, The Marks of Revival.  Confessions of Augustine     REFERENCE WORKS  Henry Cowles Commentaries | Adam Clarke on Romans 9 | American Standard Version | King James Bible Text  Topical Textbook | Eaton's Bible Dictionary | Bible Names  History of The Church. By Philip Schaff.  

 
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Apostolic Conversion by Art Katz

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 22:45:16 -0500

Apostolic Conversion
by Art Katz

Pretext or Reality?
This is the verbatim transcript of a message given in 1993 to an American congregation of a spiritually impressive kind. That is to say, that it had all the appearances of a committed body, serious in the Lord, and whose lively worship seemed to testify of its abounding health. Nevertheless, after two nights of meetings, I felt, as the speaker, an increasing sense of despair that not much had been transacted and that if the Lord did not radically intervene there would be little point in continuing.

This message was given on the third night, having spent the day in fasting and earnest intercessory prayer. With hardly a single exception, the entire congregation went down on their faces at its conclusion in a depth of groaning and intensive seeking of the Lord.

The word is like an arrow to the heart of the need of the church world-wide especially in its seeming ’success’ and how much more in its static predictability. May it affect you as a reader as it did those who heard and received it as the Lord’s word.
Tonight I believe that the Lord’s heart is on the subject of conversion. I’m very fond of saying, “Many saved, few converted,” and I’ve come to a realisation after two nights, that to continue along the lines that we have been speaking would be vain unless there has in fact been a radical crossing to the other side. I can’t think of a greater cruelty or delusion than to speak about apostolic things when we are spiritually incapacitated or incapable of walking them out, especially when something foundational to our relationship with God has not yet been effected. The apostolic things that pertain to His glory can only find fulfilment in a people who are utterly abandoned to God. If we embrace only the vocabulary of apostalicity, we engage the cruellest of all deceptions. Let’s talk about anything else, and use any other kind of language, but let’s not embrace this language unless we have an intent to fulfil it. Somehow we need to pause in the course of what is being unfolded in these days and raise the question of the authenticity of our own conversion. Can you understand that it is possible somehow to be saved and even born again of the Spirit - even be filled with the Spirit - and yet not be converted in the sense of an utterness toward God that apostolic reality requires?

Seeing that we are focusing on Paul, I want to read an account of his conversion from Acts, Chapter 9. It is remarkable to note that in the book of Acts there are three expressions or recordings of that conversion. Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to suggest that the apostolic life that followed was altogether proportionate to the kind of commencement or beginning that it had from the first. Or to put it in another way, maybe we can’t exceed or go beyond what is the point of our beginning. Some of us may need a day of new beginnings or a beginning that has never in fact been made; which if it is in fact not made, would condemn us to being fixed at a certain level of Christian response beneath what the Lord himself intensely intends and desires.

I’m going to ask that we stand and ask the Lord’s blessing before we read the Scriptures. I don’t know where that thought came from, but somewhere in the course of the day I just had a sense of us standing to pray and I just want to invite you to call on the Lord even now. No lengthy prayer from one saint, but just a brief inviting of God to pull out the stops, to ask Him for something of an extraordinary kind. I’m always believing the Lord for something like that, an impetus like that in your spirit, so just sound out from where you are standing and then I’ll conclude in prayer and then we’ll get into the word for tonight.
So then, first reading from Acts 9…

“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? And he said, Who are thou Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus who thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the ****s. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord what would thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul rose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananaias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananaias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, arise, and go to the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth. And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananaias coming in, and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight. Then Ananaias answered, Lord I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” [Acts 9:1-16]

Thank you precious God, for the light that shone upon an enemy and deeply converted him, my God, from the murderer to the chief apostle of the Church. What a work, my God, that comes down from heaven in the moment that you appoint, even in all our opposition. We pray that tonight’s speaking, my God, might be for us who have not yet fallen to the earth and who are still proceeding from our seeing, and not yet from yours - that we might be brought down in order that we may be brought up, and that we might learn what great things we must suffer for your name’s sake, whom you will bring before Gentiles and kings - and especially in these last days, before the house of Israel. Come and speak to us out of this text, my God. We thank you and praise you for the privilege of a word about it that might be for us the event of it, in Jesus’ holy Name, Amen.

So, as I’ve already said, the inception of the apostolic life greatly determines its end. Many of us are malfunctioning, not walking in fullness, because of inadequate beginnings. I can go off on a long dissertation about the inadequacy of our contemporary gospel, of it being more of a kind of formula for salvation than it is an induction into the most holy faith, and how the pagans in Thessalonica who heard an apostolic proclamation of that gospel were saved “from their idols to serve the living God, and to wait for His son who comes from heaven and who will save them in the day of His wrath.” (1 Thess. 1:9). Evidently, they heard a much fuller and more powerful presentation of the gospel than most of us, and therefore, right from the instant of their conversion, a quality of things was released that made that church distinctive. Indeed, they reflect their beginning and we reflect ours.

But praise God that if our beginnings have been faulty and inadequate, if our poverty of beginning has affected our subsequent walk, then there are ways in which God can give us a new beginning.

I see in this a kind of parallel with Israel and the great ‘crossing over’ that they were required to make with Joshua. There is a Jordan, which means literally, “a descent into death.” And this crossing leaves behind those who stumbled about in the religious wasteland for forty years where many cadavers had been left behind who did not have the fullness of heart of a Caleb or Joshua (Caleb means “Whole-hearted”). Only two out of an entire generation had the privilege of being welcomed into the land of promise and participating in the taking of the land. We stand at this kind of crossroad today. It is time to cross over, and this sense of crossing has been heavy on my heart in all the days I have been here and even the days that immediately proceeded my coming to you.

But do you know that not all of the house of Israel crossed, but that a portion of the tribes of Gad, Manasseh and Reuben chose to remain on the other side? They remained because the ground there was lush, and the grasses were high and they were cattle breeders, who obviously recognised something of immediate value. They were unwilling for that risk of a faith in what might be found on the other side. They pleaded with Moses and got what they wanted, and they were allowed to remain on the wrong side of the Jordan and have been subsequently lost to the whole history of Israel. The only melancholy reminder we have of the tribe of Gad, who chose the wrong side, are the Gadarenes of the New Testament time who raised pigs and were unwilling, even at that later time, for a deliverer to come because it proved expensive for their flesh. They much preferred to sustain their herds, rather than welcome Him who casting those same herds into the sea delivers from demon spirits!

What a commentary on the consequences of an unwillingness to cross over, of a languishing on the wrong side. I think that the reason is always the same - because it is conducive to the ‘flesh,’ because back there we have an assurance to things that pertain to ‘herds’ (i.e., our immediate self-interest).

So there is now, as then, a real necessity for “crossing over,” lest our own carcasses be found on the wrong side, or that we degenerate into the melancholy that became true for the tribes of Gad and Manasseh, who refused to go over but remained fixed for their “cattle’s sake!” We just reviewed what the land of the Gadarenes had become by the time of Jesus, centuries later; they are lost even now to any kind of historical remembrance, let alone value.

Consequently, the conversion of Paul, and our conversion, is critical. It begins with the phrase, “As he journeyed…” I think there is more hope for an enemy of God journeying in full sincerity, even in his error, than for those who purport to be the friends of God and have long since ceased journeying and are just kind of ‘treading water’ or occupying some kind of safe place. There is more hope to convert an enemy who is in motion, however grievous his error (and the error is a consequence, even, of an intensity for God, however misconceived), than there is for those of us who are safely ensconced in correct credos and doctrines but are not moving at all!

So, there is something in my spirit that rises up in the words we read, “But as he journeyed…” You wonder if there would have been a conversion if Saul would have been content to rest on his lees and to be satisfied with the conventional categories of orthodoxy that satisfied most of his contemporaries. “But as he journeyed, suddenly there came a light from heaven,” and I’m wondering if journeying is a condition of that light for us as well? Is it that when the Lord sees a questing there is more hope of our being arrested by the light of God than if we are merely treading water, satisfied with the spiritual status quo of our lives? But until that light shines, until something comes down to us from above, we are fixed in the place where we are. Everything is from the great, sovereign hand of God. Whose eye “roves to and fro over the face of the earth, seeking that one whose heart is perfect toward Him.” If that were not so, I would not be speaking to you now. I would not be in the faith but would have been a dead man a long time ago. But even as an atheist, and as an enemy of God, “pouring out threats and murder” against the Church thirty-seven years ago in the same kind of vehemence and opposition as Saul, I was arrested. (See Art’s “Odyssey of a Modern Jew,” the testimonial book of his own conversion). Probably for the same kinds of reasons that even in my error, even in my opposition to the Church and the faith, unable to mouth the name of Jesus, except as a blasphemy and a curse, God saw a heart that was desiring truth, that was willing to be on the way, ‘journeying.’ I think this is a disposition pleasing to God, even after one’s initial encounter with God!

I love the way the Lord encountered Saul, who fell to the earth and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul. Saul, why persecuteth thou Me?” I think that if we are examining the anatomy of conversion, of what it is that must be radically turned, it is this fatal error, if it is allowed final expression, will ultimately result in the persecution of God and the Church. And what is this error? It is this - putting our ‘thou’ before God’s ‘Me.’ “Why persecuteth thou Me?” Why do you celebrate, and put your self-interest, however religious and sanctified you think it is, before Me? Here is where I have to trust the Holy Ghost to take that simple thing that lies too deep for words, and reveal the crux of the matter. We are not converted until His ‘Me’ is before our ‘thou.’ That is the fatal mishap, we go through an entire lifetime with our ‘thou’ preceding His ‘Me,’ even religiously. Something needs to be wrenched about, radically altered and corrected; the one thing must be before the other - His ‘Me’ before our ‘thou.’ If that does not take place, be assured that in one form or the other, we are persecuting God; we are opposing God even while we purport to be labouring and serving in His interest! Isn’t that exactly the picture of Saul? Note that here is not some calculated atheist, indifferent to God, but here was a man zealous for God. The error that led to the persecution of God’s own people, and God Himself in His people, was committed by a religious man in error whose ‘thou’, however well meaning, was yet before God’s ‘Me.’
How does it stand with you tonight? If that basic and fatal error is possible for a man of religious zeal, who, with every right intention, sought to serve God and to seek out opportunities to round up heretics and bring them back to Jerusalem, how much more then are we capable of exactly the same fatal error? Why we put our ‘thou’ before His ‘Me’ is the nub of the matter, so long as we have made ourselves central and prior to Him. That, I think, is essentially characteristic of the Church today, even in its best ‘charismatic’ form. It is still our ‘thou’, it is still, “How are we affected?” That stubborn, spiritually egocentric attitude, however unconscious and expressed, can only be dislodged by profound conversion. For this in fact is what conversion is.

We can be saved; we can be filled with the Spirit; and yet, this central thing can remain unattended until a light shines down upon us from heaven and brings us down to the earth. Have we not, even in these two nights, integrated His word into the existing categories by which we affirm ourselves, misappropriating the very thing intended by God to unseat and even to devastate us?

I’ll say it again. How many of us, in the hearing of the word on these very nights, have taken that word in through the prism of our own subjectivity and fitted it into the existing construct of our life, our categories, and found a way in which the Word would be amenable to our view of ourselves, of our spirituality, of our call? In a word, what are we doing, even unconsciously, is elevating ourselves above the Word, and ourselves determining how it is to be fitted comfortably into the categories that we approve. Instead of allowing the Word to devastate and demolish our categories, we stand or sit above it as arbiters, carefully moulding it so that it can neatly be taken in and even acknowledged and celebrated as the Word of God, applauding the speaker for having brought it, thinking we have done God’s service!

Can you see why we need to be converted? This egocentrism is unspeakably deep, and ironically, deepest in the religious and spiritual realm. What greater affront to God, what greater expression of putting our ‘thou’ before His ‘Me’ than the way in which we even hear and conditionally receive the Word? It is an entirely unconscious process, and we have been doing it for years, thereby missing the value and intent of the God who gave it!

I have to say that last night after the service I left depressed. I felt dejected. My spirit had sunk, I was slumping. I felt a tremendous exhaustion, a tiredness not only of body, but of soul. The word was good - the word was precious in God’s intention, but somehow by the time it had been transmuted to the hearer, the way in which the hearer had received it and even responded or did not respond was already showing that our ‘thou’ was before His ‘Me’. That is why the Lord is saying tonight, “Halt - I’ll go no further! I’m not going to share the holy things of the apostolic faith with a people who are going to take it, internalise it, and so construe it as to fit into their existing mindsets. By so doing, they somehow find a way to exalt what the word is intending to devastate.”

In effect, we set ourselves above His Word, determining to what degree we allow it credence and acceptance. We determine to what degree we intend practically to internalise and implement it.
Do you realise that this is almost continually going on? Ours is a holy God. He’s pouring His heart out to us and there we are, consciously or unconsciously calculating to what degree we are going to realistically receive such a word with the intent of doing it!

I think in this one thing I have described the essential malaise of the Church, why It is so stale, why It is not going from faith to faith and from glory to glory, why its services are replete with “sermons” rather than the word of God, which by its very nature demands response and change and is the purpose for which the Word is given. We are not hearing with the intent of doing. We are hearing with the intent of approving the Word as biblical and enjoying it.

Can you see that we bring a whole kind of mindset that stymies the very preciousness of the Word and intent of God?
FOR IF WE WILL NOT BE CHANGED BY THE WORD, BY WHAT ELSE SHALL WE BE CHANGED? But are we receiving it in an open and naked way and letting it have its full work? Are we willing to say, “Lord, let be unto me according to Thy word?” I don’t know what the consequences will be - it may mean the eradication of my home and lifestyle, of my whole mode of being, or the loss of that for which I have laboured so long that is not intrinsically wrong in itself. But until we come to the place where our heart says continually, in the hearing of the Word, “Let it be unto me,” we no longer hear the Word as God’s; it can no longer perform the work of God. It becomes merely a ‘sermon’ that we approve or dismiss.

What did it take for Mary to say, “Let be unto me according to Thy word?” It meant nothing less than receiving a pregnancy that could not be explained, and that to a pious, self-righteous generation totally prepared to stone to death on the doorstep of her father’s house that woman who had an inexplicable pregnancy. To this day, the Talmud, the writing of the rabbis, makes shaded allusion to Mary’s pregnancy as having come from a Roman soldier. How else shall inexplicable pregnancies be understood? And when Mary said, “Let be unto me according to Thy word,” she meant, “I am willing to bear the full consequence of receiving this word, even if it shall mean my death in disgrace although I am in fact a virgin in Israel.”
I’ll tell you, when God shall find a heart like that, there is no limit to the extent of the divine work that can then have its inception. When I think of the potential in this room for the works of God in these last days, not only in this community but beyond it, in a world that is rocked and wracked by violence and filth and muck and perversion and corruption of every kind, waiting for those who will come to it, being sent by God, I sense the frustration of God, who cannot even perform it until a people will first receive His Word inthat same virginal disposition of spirit, willing for its full consequence, whatever that consequence might be! “Let it be unto me according to Thy Word.”

You’ll save yourself much unnecessary aggravation wondering what the outworking of that word will be in its particular application, if you have reconciled within yourself that it will inevitably lead to the place of death. And once you’ve made that reckoning, what difference by what form it comes - stoning at the doorstep of your father’s house, disgrace, rejection of men, hostility, misunderstanding, catcalls, or shrieks or reproach - these kinds of things with moral and physical hazards of all kinds? God is yet waiting, and has never had any other inception for His works than one who will say, “Let it be unto me according to Thy Word!”
Let us note Saul’s answer when he was confronted by the Jesus who said, “Saul, you celebrated and elevated your ‘thou’ before my “Me?” From it came that one great apostolic statement that underlines the whole of the great career that would follow, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?” I want to say that every invoking of the word “Lord” without also following it with the balance of Paul’s statement, is playing with a holy thing, even a taking of the name of the Lord in vain.

I want to ask you dear ones…When was the moment that you transacted with God something of the utterness with which Paul commenced his apostolic walk? That one question subsumes and includes every and all other questions, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?” No ifs, no ands, no buts. No stipulations, no conditions, no guarantees, no requests - even for illumination, understanding, or explanation. If the Lord is Lord, we have but one posture only, to be down on the earth before Him, with this one cry resonating throughout the balance of our natural lives, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?” We say it once, but we live forever in the resonance of that question or we do not live apostolically at all. And that is not one of the least of the reasons why we are hearing tonight what we are hearing. I came with a briefcase full of many choice messages, but I’m not at liberty to cite or to employ any one of them, however much I would delight in the promulgation of the precious, holy seed that God has given me. But my every speaking, my every service, like yours, needs again and again to be conducted in the resonance of that one question only, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?”

How many apostolic careers are in abeyance tonight? How many prophets are there in this room? How many evangelists and teachers and pastors? How many women of travail and intercession, how many callings of God hanging and waiting for the one question God yet waits to hear - a word that has never been sounded in His hearing with every stop removed and with all qualifications forsaken? It is the statement of utter, apostolic abandon. And until the Lord hears it, He is not going to tell you what to do.

That there are things to do is beyond question; but they can only be performed in the power given to those to whom they can be entrusted. “The Spirit is given without measure” to the sons who have no purpose in themselves and no life for themselves, but who live by one question only, which indeed is living! “Lord, what would You have for me to do?” Anything less is deprivation. Anything less is conditional and inadequate. It is being seized with fears and doubts and vacillations and all those things that cripple and compromise and show us up. There is a release only when we have come finally to that place where with full integrity we say and put before God that thing for which He waits, that thing which He cannot command or compel, but must be utterly and freely and totally given. And no matter what we intone, He’s not Lord until it has been given.

“Lord, what would You have for me to do?” I think that the answer is eternally the same, though the form of the fulfilment of it may vary - “I will show him how great thing he must suffer for my name’s sake.” No wonder we don’t ask the question.

How wisely we intuit what the necessary answer must be. But I’ll tell you dear saints, if you don’t know it, that for every suffering that comes as the consequences of obedience to the Lord is a glory unspeakable, is reward eternal, is a joy even in the midst of the suffering and pain and distress and misunderstanding of men and the reproach that follows an obedience to a God who would have us do.

We need to ask ourselves, has there ever been a point, in the whole of our Christian life, where each of us has asked God, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?” - with full intention, not in just giving answer to something that would be spoken in that moment, but living continually in the light of that question ever after?

THERE WILL BE NO APOSTOLIC CHURCH UNTIL THAT QUESTION IS BOTH ASKED, AND CONSISTENTLY MAINTAINED.

“Well Art, you don’t understand, I’m a professional, I’m a doctor, I’m not some off-the-wall “Jesus freak” like Saul. He didn’t have much to lose. You have to realise that I have a family and professional responsibilities.”

Saul was the prized student of the Rabbi Gamaliel, and if there is any man who committed religious suicide by the raising of that question and forfeiting an entire career that would have won him a celebration to this day in Jewish orthodoxy, it was Saul. But he forfeited all that, and counted it as dung, as we know, by raising the only question, the right question, that any creature can raise before its Creator, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?” Whatever the consequences, whatever the loss, You are Lord, and if You are not the Lord of that question, then anything I would presume to speak in that name is a mockery and a travesty and a religious exercise that even at best falls short of the glory of God!

The irony is, and mark my words, if you continue in such an exercise, in the last days you’ll find yourself, not among the persecuted, but among the persecutors! Centrifugal force continues to work, ever bringing us into the one orbit or the other - into that which is apostolic or that which is finally apostate! “For the love of many shall grow cold,” and the last days shall be marked by the great apostasy and falling away of many who could not bring themselves to follow the Lord withersoever He would lead them, but who found themselves in a vortex of a kind less than that which is apostolic and themselves offended by those who are apostolic and ironically opposing and persecuting them! This is the end of those whose ‘thou’ is yet before His ‘Me.’

We must not ask, with Saul, “Who art thou, Lord?” and receive the answer, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.”

Do we really know Him until we do? Lord, give me grace, I don’t know how to say this, I have been trying to say it for two nights,. “Who art thou Lord?” Even the revelation of You as Lord so much waits on our ‘pulling out the stops’, that You are not going to squander and give us such treasure of the revelation of the knowledge of Yourself in truth until You see a people of truth willing to serve You in truth, but who are presently labouring with a truncated and inadequate understanding of God. If we really recognise it, we would see it crippling our spiritual life; we cannot rise above our inadequate vision of Jesus that we have subjectively internalised for our own purpose. We need to ask, really and truly,

“Lord who art Thou?”

I have myself been guilty of mouthing that word glibly in a facile way. Who hasn’t? But I have to acknowledge in the light that is shining down on us from above tonight - I really don’t know as I ought to know! ‘Who art Thou?” The answer is, “I AM. IAM THAT I AM THAT I AM. I will be who I will be. I am Jesus. I’m not your ‘buddy boy’ and I am not the one to help you along the way and patch up your marriage, though I do all those things. I am above your need. I AM JESUS.” Unless that revelation comes, and comes when our faces are upon the ground, what kind of apostolic service can we perform? For it cannot exceed, but must necessarily reflect whatever our knowledge of God in truth is. Is that not why we ourselves are victims of inadequate ministries? Is not that why we have been invited to “accept the Lord” and repeat a prayer? Praise God for the measure in which He honours that, but look now how stultified our lives have been, banging around, divorced and remarried, doing the kinds of things that reflect not having a true beginning from the first. We never knew Him as we ought, and yet we are ‘singing His praises,’ or think we are! And the powers of darkness, brooding over us, relish the continuation of just this kind of thing that causes them no perturbance at all! There is nothing here that alarms them. Go ahead, continue your round of services; continue your programs. It in no way jeopardises the kingdom of darkness, because you cannot rise above and exceed your inadequate knowledge of God. Even the use of His name is a kind of ‘nomenclature,’ a formula, a shallowness that does not invoke much.

Only that one who is deeply converted, that one who has gone down on his face and must be raised up from it as blind, who can see no man and must be lead away as a child, is the one with the potential to threaten the kingdom of darkness! And how many of us want to be so led away by the hand? Here was Saul, the prize student of the Rabbi Gamaliel, he who could quote you yards of scripture with rabbinical interpretation, lying utterly blind, utterly devastated by the word that came to him in the voice that called him by name. And when he arose, he could not see because of that light and had to be led away, and he saw no man. And I don’t think he ever saw men in the way we see, evoking in us fear and intimidation and compromise. The fear of man is so powerful, so repressive an element in our Christian living because we have never gone down and been brought up in blindness by that light that never again permits us to see man, even ourselves in our own humanity.

Now I want to tell you the last and cruellest of our deceptions - it is our concern to be understood and to be perceived in the way we would like men to acknowledge us spiritually. And until we are blind to men, even to the ‘spiritual man’ that we think ourselves to be or who we desire to be known as, we cannot serve God apostolically . We must come to such a selflessness, such a mindlessness about this last man, this last cruel deceiver, who, after we have given up every other form, yet retains this kind of power by which we are traduced and compromised; the necessity to be understood by men in the way that we would wish ourselves to be seen and to be approved! We need to come to place where we see no man, even our own man, even our own seeing!

That is why Paul could say, “Follow me as I follow Christ,” without an iota of arrogance or audacity. Is it not we who think that he is arrogant because we project upon him the ego in which we still live, not having fallen on our face upon the ground upon which he had fallen, and been blinded by the light of God, which blinded him? You project on him your own idea of “man” and assume that he must mean by that some kind of egotistic statement because you cannot understand a man who sees no man, and in which the element of self is therefore not a factor. He does not have to be recognised, he can be despised, he can be cast out, he can be the offscouring of the world, without so much as blinking at it, for he sees no man. The light that has come down has blinded him once and for all to that last crippling seeing, even the seeing of ourselves that makes us spiritually self-conscious and therefore compromised.

“And he, trembling in astonishment asked, Lord, what would You have for me to do?” I’m a little suspicious, even to give an invitation tonight, and have you say now, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?” Of course you’ll say it, but you will leave unchanged because it must be said “with astonishment and trembling.” God forbid that we should make of this the last and worst and cruellest of deceptions in an altar call that we can glibly fulfil. Aren’t we doing that already, with our so called ‘repentance’s and confessions’ and other kinds of statement that are just a little too easy for us to pronounce? You’ll know it is authentic when you die a thousand deaths in making it. Beware of anything that is fascicle, that is easy, that is glib, however correct. The cruellest delusion is to find ourselves in a lie about the very thing that is correct. It is with an utterness of astonishment and trembling that we need to say, “Lord, what would You have me to do?”

And you can know that if you will say that tonight, the God who inspired this word also will hear your word, and take you at that word. Your life will be changed, from this night and from that speaking. Things will be released that have been held in abeyance, waiting for the pronouncement that must come from you, but may rightly come only if it is true and not just a religious reflex, but made with astonishment and with trembling. This is the point of “crossing.”

Many of us have said, “Lord, what would You have me to do?” but only in a particular moment of distress or need. But who of us asked it foundationally in a once and for all way, in utter abandonment of something never again to be taken back? Once you say this, the words are irretrievable. Something has been registered and recorded in the annals of heaven and has been heard in the hearing of witnesses and before the principalities and powers of the air. It is once and for all! It requires an utterness that nothing in this world has prepared us to perform.
This is the world of relativism; this is the world of “Easy come, easy go.” This is the world of “maybe,” “I guess,” and “I suppose.” This is the world that shuns and despises the absoluteness of God, and therefore cannot meet Him on that ground. To meet Him on this ground, with that absoluteness, with ‘all the stops pulled out’, is once and for all to be brought out of that relativistic world of compromise into the ‘absoluteness’ of the kingdom of heaven!

That is the reason I’m fasting today as well as praying. I know there is something of a transaction that can be performed tonight with astonishment and with trembling that will shake the earth, that will release in the earth such things that will take eternity of eternities to celebrate. This is the kind of thing that is beyond any man to perform. This thing itself must be given by God, but it must be spoken by men who are willing to ‘go down.’ Be assured, you will never come up again in the same way. TO LIVE A WHOLE LIFE CONTINUALLY REITERATING THAT QUESTION IS CONVERSION.

What is your condition tonight? What is your status? Are you just ‘saved’ - or are you converted? The moment God, Who has waited so long, hears your response, He will answer, “Arise and go, and it will be told you what you must do.” But before it is told you, before there is an explanation, before there is any assurance, arise and go. That rising is in the strength and power of the resurrection life itself! That coming up from that death into that which you have gone, like one struck dead from that light, is not you pulling yourself together, it is the force of the life of the Lord Himself. For the rising and the going is a call to things beyond any capacity in yourself to perform and to do. It is entirely a resurrection requirement! That is what makes apostolic doing a glory, and that is why Paul himself, the Chief of the apostles, was the one who most frequently punctuated his prayers with the cry, “Lord, who is sufficient for these things?” As I say this, I know that I am looking out on a congregation of very sufficient human beings, very skilled, very capable, very well ordered lives, who could make a very impressive show of things. But God is calling you, dear saints, to a dimension of service beyond any capacity in yourself to perform, and says, “Arise and go.” And when He says, “Arise,” it is not just an invitation, but an impartation of life, waiting for the one who has forfeited any hope in himself in any possibility of serving God on the basis of his own ability.

I’ve seen grown men tremble and weep when they heard this astonishing word. They were sailing along marvellously, serving God with adroitness and ability when they heard a word like this that cut like sword through their hearts and brought them down as dead men, trembling on the ground. Later, when they were physically lifted up and seated in a chair in astonishment, with hands clapped over their mouths, each one would say to me, “But Art, I have been encouraged in the Church to perform on the basis of my Ph.D. and my expertise, and I have been solicited to serve and do things on that level, and have until now succeeded marvellously.”

But now something has come clear beyond any capacity in the individual; there is no rising, no walking away except in the power of that indestructible life that raised Jesus from the dead, and will raise us also who are willing to be struck dead, brought down into that earth and entirely blinded to the thing that we perceive as capable and celebrated as correct. Must we, like Saul, wait for someone to lay hands on us to confer to us our seeing and an understanding as it is only mediated through a lowly member of the body of Christ?

How classic this conversion is; its every element so formed in heaven, its wisdom so eternal that this great Saul, this giant in himself, was so reduced by the light that had fallen from heaven, greater than the noonday sun, that he was taken like a child by the hand in total helplessness and dependency lying as one dead. Blind for three days and nights, neither eating or drinking, he reviewed his entire ‘charismatic’ understanding. All of the principles of the faith, all of his ‘New Testament’ understanding, the Lord totally put to death. For if he was to be God’s gift to the Church, it had to be by an understanding conferred by God and is received by the laying on of hands by the simplest of the saints, Ananias. In the total dependency to which God brought him, Saul was grateful that there was an obedient servant, who, however great his personal fear, obeyed God and came, laying his hands on Saul, that he might see. God had to teach this apostle, the Chief apostle to the Church, the genius and mystery of the Body of Christ from the very inception of his whole apostolic walk, a lesson that many of us have never yet understood and have not yet seen, though employing its terminology! It must be conferred by revelation to those who would otherwise be blind to it.

However much we mouth the particulars of the ‘Body of Christ,’ (as if a new fad or a new vogue and a new vocabulary with which we can play and express ourselves), if it has not come to us by revelation, it has not come to us. Maybe that is why we are in our current condition. It is only ‘terminology,’ and awaits a receiving of something utterly humiliating that can only come to us through the operation of the lowly Body, or it will not come at all.

This “Arise and go,” saints, that will come for some of us in this hour, need not mean that any factor of our life is in any way outwardly changed. You will still go to work tomorrow, you will still come home to your same house. In fact, nothing of our circumstances will in any way be externally altered, and yet, at the same time, profoundly, everything will be altered. This “Arise and go” sets in motion the whole heavenly dynamic by which in one day that to which we will return may not always be there.

So it is not for you to posture and for you to deliberate what you need to do once you have made this response. Having made it, the arising and going, having been set by God, will have its own logic, its own unfolding. “It shall be told thee what thou must do.” Like Abraham, you will hear, “Get thee out into the land that I will show you.” There is always a future dimension that requires this trembling and cleaving to the God who will show us what is required the next day, even the next moment. That is not the way we have been groomed by our society to live. We want to know; we want to have assurance; we want to have a firm grasp on what we are doing and why we are doing it and what will be the consequences of our doing. But God says, “I will show you what you must do.”

And I’ll tell you, for men who hear the kind of word that the Lord is pleased to give me, it is a “will show you” even for the very next sentence! It is the very next word. I don’t know what follows this one. “Where do I go from hear Lord?” Your notes are not going to be your dependency. There is a necessary cleaving to what is given moment by moment by the God who has called us, and calls us into an utterness of dependency upon Him that violates every strength and confidence in which the world would have us to be established. It is a pilgrim way and you’ll never get used to it.

Yesterday’s success will not suffice today. Now, the consequences are even greater; life and death are at stake, eternity is in the balance, and who is sufficient for this kind of speaking? Once you arise and go, that is, begin to speak, it will be told thee. But you need to live with the tension of it, just as Abraham did, as every true saint who has ever responded to such a call, because there are things you must do. Thing that no one else can, that no one else is intended to do. It is explicit; it is appointed; there is a must that is for you. And God is bound up for the revelation, for the releasing of it, until He has heard your, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?”
“It shall be told thee,” God says, “when you’ll tell Me that you are willing to put your ‘thou’ beneath My ‘Me’ once and for all.” Now your purpose and calling can be revealed; now it can be released. And it will not be what you thought it would be, but what the Lord has intended it to be and will now show you. It is here where God makes the apostolic appointment, the eternally significant purpose for our being. This is the antidote to religious boredom and is the highly serious faith that persuades even our own children.

Do you know what the measure of having come to apostolic verity is? It is that we are able even to persuade our own children of the truth and seriousness of that which we are about. These children have the uncommon facility for sensing just how earnest their parents are together with other adults. They are asking themselves, “How much does this also make a requirement of me, though I am young? Is it something to which they (the adults) subscribe, because they like that kind of thing?”
We will know that we have arrived at apostolic verity and reality corporately, when we will have persuaded our own children! And the fact that we haven’t, as yet, has had a toll beyond anything that we can conceive. Our present satisfaction and willingness to abide in something less than the sacrificial intention of God has come about because we have languished in and have loved the wrong side because its grasses are flourishing that feed our flesh. This has cost the kingdom of God incalculably in virtually every home.
Until we have come to this, have not our best religious efforts been a ‘persecuting of the saints,’ by means of lulling them into a lesser place, even ironically in the name of that which is apostolic and prophetic? Jesus said to Saul, “In that you have persecuted the Church, you have persecuted Me.” Are we not guilty of persecuting the Church if we are measuring out to it something less than that which is heavenly? Is it not a depriving of the saints in encouraging then to equate doctrinal correctness and the verbalising of truth as being truth itself? Is it not fancying that we ourselves are there, while all the while we have not yet entered the land of promise, let alone taken its cities? Are we still not on the wilderness side? Have we not persecuted the Church, short-changed it, and liberally gilded our acts with words “apostolic” and “prophetic,” though we have condemned our hearers to languishing on the wrong side without even the awareness that that is their condition?
So Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man. He never again saw men or feared men, but found that key to apostolic boldness and uncompromising audacity that regards God Himself only. From this time forward, everything is for the Lord’s sake and not for one’s own. You’ll find that in Paul’s writings. You never hear any reference to, “for my sake.” There is no “my.” It is for their sake and the Lord’s sake. And what kind of Church would we have today if men of this kind were our ministers? Until we have such men, we are suffering a kind of deprivation that is tantamount to persecution, and those who have been its ministers need to recognise this and fall before the Lord.

So then, the one who persecuted the Body, failing to recognise its Head, receives sight, receives apostolic seeing, through the laying on of hands by its simplest member. From the very first, the Chief apostle was instructed about his dependency upon the Body and what the genius of that organism is - that alone is glory to God. And unless we ourselves lie blind, “neither eating nor drinking for three days,” (i.e., putting aside even our traditional categories) we shall not see, but be condemned to employ the terminology of the Body of Christ while living effectually independent of it, yet all the while lauding it, thinking that we are doing God’s service!

“and immediately he arose and there fell from his eyes as it had been scales.” I trust this is happening now.

“And straight away he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the son of God.” And straight away, equally, he opened himself to the opposition and persecution of men who have a particular vitriolic hatred for that which is apostolically authentic. Who cannot abide is challenging reality!
“Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live! And they cried out and cast off their clothes and through dust into the air.” What is there about a converted man that makes the powers of darkness so fulminate and foam and rage that men are besides themselves with a fury, and filled by the spirit of it, and cannot abide that ‘such a man’ live?

What a man - what a heavenly man! What a servant to the Church, for the Church’s sake and for the Lord’s sake! It is this kind of selflessness that labours day and night and brings the whole counsel of God without fear that it will be understood, accepted, or rejected, or cause offence. Such a man does not anticipate the consequences for himself, because he lives in the resonance of one great statement, continually, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?”

Let’s bow before Paul’s God at this hour, who is the I AM and JESUS still. Many are called, but few are chosen, he tells us. Remember; Many saved, but few converted. Conversion is to the uttermost, or it is not conversion. It is an utterness to God by the Spirit, that the world cannot abide and will forever oppose, even unto death. But the works that such a man will do are eternal in their consequence.

So, in the name of Jesus, and as the minister of this word, I call upon you to respond with fear and trembling and astonishment to the God whose light has shone round about you. Bring down to earth every lesser thing, however correct, however applauded by men, however much it delights your own soul, that He might raise you up for the works that you must do when you arise and go in the power of the life given you once you have gone down into the death of everything less. Let Him hear you from that place one statement only, “Lord, what would You have for me to do?”

I think the Lord is being literal; He means that explicit statement; He means a real coming down. Don’t deceive yourself that you can make a private, silent, seated transaction saying, “The Lord understands” and is accepting. It is just that kind of thing that has kept us from apostolic truth, reality, authority, and power. No respectable, private, polite transaction on your terms. One transaction only, on His terms, with an utterness that requires even your bodily coming down, and these explicit words spoken - “Lord, what would You have for me to do?”

http://artkatzministries.org
Art Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929 of Jewish parents. Raised through the depression years and turbulence of World War II, and inducted into Marxist and existentialist ideologies, as well as merchant marine and military experiences, Art was brought to a final moral crisis as a high school teacher—able to raise, but not able to answer the groaning perplexities of the modern age.
During a leave of absence and on a hitch-hiking odyssey through Europe and the Middle East, the cynical and unbelieving atheist, vehement anti-religionist and anti-Christian was radically apprehended by a God who was actively seeking him. The actual journal of that experience, Ben Israel – Odyssey of a Modern Jew, recounts his quest for the true meaning to life, which climaxed significantly and symbolically in Jerusalem.
Art attended Santa Monica City College, UCLA, and the University of California at Berkeley, earning Bachelor and Masters degrees in history, as well as a Masters degree in theology at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN.   With his speaking ministry spanning nearly forty years, Art sought to bring the radical relevance of the Bible’s message to contemporary societies, both secular and religious. With several of his books translated into major foreign languages, Art traveled frequently and widely as a conference speaker and prophetic voice for the church until his death in 2007. Art is survived by Inger, his wife of 41 years, their 3 children and 6 grandchildren.
The powerful theme that remained constant throughout Art’s many years of ministry was unquestionably the centrality of the Cross of Christ. It permeated his words with such an authority and anointing that one could honestly say he preached “nothing but Christ and Him crucified” – even though the subject matter may not have made any reference to the Cross at all. This may have been Art’s greatest gift to the Church, namely, his refusal to know anything but a crucified Christ. It is no coincidence that the message most listened to and considered the best from Art’s quiver is entitled “And They Crucified Him”   Art portrayed a knowledge of God that few in contemporary times have fathomed or understood. Whether the subject was the future, necessary death and resurrection of the nation Israel, or Paul’s teaching on widows and slaves in the congregation, Art strived to represent “God as He in fact is, and not as we think Him to be.”
Art was a man who knew the ‘terror of sin’ and could therefore persuade others in the light of his experiential knowledge of God. It was a knowledge of God that did not come cheaply, but was gained in his devotional times with the Lord in the early hours of the day, in his daily prayer times with fellow believers at the Ben Israel Fellowship, in the knit and grit of living in community, in the writings of other believers, and in his close association with believers the world over.
Art was a prophetic voice insofar as he called his listeners to purposes in God that would affect both time and eternity, purposes that had to do with the glory of God in the Church.   Frequently, his messages called the Church to an awareness of the Last Days [End-times] in such a way that made that time seem imminent and at the door. Some called him a forerunner in the sense of a man who cleared the way for others, and who could therefore call back and encourage them onward to the high call of God in Christ Jesus. Though a man of flesh and blood, like us all, Art walked that ‘high road,’ and one frequently caught a whiff of the fragrance of God, that can only emanate out of that place in God.
Art had the highest regard for the written Word of God; he was eminently the man of the Word. Because of that, he had an equal regard for words in general – not least the preached word, and abhorred the light use of words, either from the pulpit or in small-talk. Consequently, his preached word, which is the distinguishing characteristic of a true prophet, bore a grace and power to penetrate the hearts of his listeners in ways that frequently brought true conviction and a new, more authentic way of seeing and understanding God.      We pray you be blessed by Art’s ministry, who though he is no longer with us here on earth, he yet still speaks.
Please do not hesitate to contact us.

An Apostolic Manifesto by Art Katz

Wed, 23 Oct 2013 09:41:34 -0500

An Apostolic Manifesto
In this late hour, the church needs to consider something that would constitute a plumb line from heaven, to which we should align ourselves. I believe there is an apostolic distinctive that identifies the true church and makes of it what has always been its characteristic from the beginning and is now in process of being restored. No man can give a definitive and comprehensive summation of the whole genius of the word apostolic and of such a church, but let this be a broad guideline and statement, so that it might enter our contemplation and change our conduct.

This outline will mean ultimate requirement for the church. If apprehended correctly, it will put us in a place of ultimate opposition, requiring ultimate sacrifice, because it has ultimate purpose in God. We will surely not attain to the reality that makes the church the church, except by a conscious and willful choosing of these things. However strange and ambiguous some of the statements will be, may the spirit and essence of these truths go into our hearts and find their way into our understanding.

For a long time, there has been disquiet in my soul over the use of charismatic gifts in our churches. We have looked to the gifts to “renew” our denominations, or to uplift the saints, as if this is an accessory to our religious self-interest. There has certainly been much abuse and misuse, and we have therefore entirely missed the profound intention of God in the giving of His Spirit. I began to contemplate the context in which God intends the operation of the gifts of the Spirit, and from that first thought came this statement on the genius of an apostolic church.

The gifts and operation of the Spirit have got to be seen in the context of an apocalyptic and eschatological faith. By this, I mean a radical anticipation of an end, a consummation and a conclusion of the age, the coming of a King, the establishment of a Kingdom here on earth from a literal Jerusalem. Any body of believers that has laid hold of this faith, the only valid faith, will be marked by the powers of darkness as a body to be feared, resisted, and opposed. The powers will see them as a threat to their whole prevailing religious establishment and will ventilate their anger and spite against such a body. The operation and benefit of the Spirit, His instruction and guidance, will be a critical factor for a body that is experiencing opposition from these powers of darkness. They are compelled to take notice of any body that consciously and willfully understands, and takes to themselves, the purposes of God by which the age is to be concluded. This is a church that has moved past a mere succession of Sunday services or a Christianity that has to do with their own blessing and the benefit they receive. They consciously seek to be a body in which the ultimate and eternal purposes of God are to be fulfilled. This conscious seeing instantly marks them as a body to be opposed. This kind of opposition requires the wisdom and direction of God, which is given through the operation of His Spirit through gifts.

Such a body will find itself at odds with the world. It will be a sore thumb; it will be a band of pilgrims and sojourners in the earth who are remarkably free from the blandishments, the seductions, and the inducements that are increasingly powerful in the world. They are in the world, but not of the world. They see the world for what it is: a system that is powerfully against the life of men, and that makes of men objects only of merchandise and commerce. The apostolic body touches the world only as it must, and that faintly and with reservation. It sees the world in its systems, with its false values, and it consciously repudiates them and does not lend itself to them. Therefore, to whatever degree that such a body is free from the influence of the world and its false values, it is already a harbinger and statement of a “Kingdom come.” It is already a foretaste and foreshadowing of the great freedom that will be in the world when the King Himself reigns, where all that is false will be brought to naught. To whatever degree the church enjoys that freedom now, it is capable of setting free those who are presently ensnared and enslaved by that system. It is able to emancipate and deliver the world’s deceived victims, not just by its proclamation, though that is very important, but by its demonstration, by what it is in itself. Men ought to be aghast by such a body of believers, even more so by a corporate entity. Abiding in that remarkable freedom from the world, its values and all that is false, is a freeing experience for those who will stumble upon it, because it reveals another alternative.
This reality cannot be obtained except in and through a body. The powers of the world—its darkness, wiles, and subtleties—require the entire body to be alert; they require the strength that comes from the prayer and counsel of those of a like mind who are joined in an endeavor of this kind. Such an integration of life will be profoundly resisted by the powers of darkness, but these same powers can only be defeated by another wisdom, a people who are free from their influence, and who recognize how nefarious and sinister the powers of the air are. That kind of walk cannot be obtained by individuals, independent of a body of like-minded saints who are willfully joined in such an undertaking. It is clear that this requires more than Sunday services and midweek Bible studies. We will need a frequency of fellowship, a going “from house to house daily breaking bread” (Acts 2:46). We will need the counsel of others, and to be in the place where sin is recognized at its very inception because of the proximity to each other. It can only be a reality where there is an interaction and frequency of relationship and communion because you are joined with a conscious purpose.

It will not win the esteem of men, but we will not be “known” by the powers of darkness unless we refuse the esteem of men. The powers will know when that choice is made: “Jesus, we know and Paul, we know, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15). If we refuse this direction and call, we condemn ourselves to merely playing out our Christianity harmlessly and irrelevantly to the cosmic drama in which the church is set. That drama is the awareness that we are moving toward a climax that is at the door; a conclusion is imminent and a consummation is at hand. We know when we have entered into that true awareness when we no longer contemplate our retirement plans. We will no longer look upon our existence here as the ‘best of all possible worlds,’ and whatever is wrong will be rectified over a course of time. We will also know because the powers of darkness, who know that their time is short, will be all the more vehement and vicious in their opposition to those who have this kind of awareness. If we have no awareness of the end, then our present living is nullified and becomes a humdrum monotony without significance. This is what distinguishes a true, apostolic body. An apostolic body is a sending body, because it has the only reality that God will entrust to be sent. It has something to communicate out of its own corporate life. Only then can the laying on of hands be performed in something that is more than ceremonial or “biblical” obligation. In sending, the sent ones take with them the dimension of that reality and authority.

The gifts of the Spirit are therefore an urgent provision in the midst of a sea of active hostility against them; the church’s task is urgent and invites rejection from the world. The issue of authenticity and reality that the powers of darkness alone are required to acknowledge is the issue of the truth of our consecration. When it is only a shallow series of mindless altar calls and a few crocodile tears, they yawn in our face. They know when a consecration has been made where the life is laid down ultimately and totally before God. Such a people are living consciously and sacrificially as being the appointed salvific agents of God toward the people Israel.

This is intrinsic to apostolic comprehension of what the church is. The church that fits the description I have given will itself comprehend and recognize its calling toward the restoration of Israel in her last days’ tribulation. It will certainly dismiss any thought that it is going to be raptured away at the time when its presence is most radically required, for its presence means salvation for Jews in their soon-coming “time of Jacob’s trouble.” This is not an appendage for the church; it is central and primary to the church’s own consideration of itself and what its purposes are in God.

Knowing that there will be such a demand will also require a sacrificial lifestyle. Israel’s restoration is the issue of the King and His Kingdom. God is not restoring them because they deserve a homeland after long centuries in the Diaspora, but their restoration is the coming of the King so that “law might go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord out of a Jerusalem” (Isa. 2:3), a redeemed and restored nation. That is why the powers of darkness will be in such a fit and frenzy of opposition to anything that pertains to Jewish rescue, salvation, and redemption in the last days. The issue of Jewish restoration is the issue of the Kingdom of God, and the powers of darkness are the false usurping rulers of this world and do not want to relinquish and forsake that usurping activity, which they have enjoyed in an unchecked and uncontested way since ages millennia. It is the coming of the King as the One seated on the throne of David in the holy hill of Zion, with the redeemed and restored Israel that marks their end. We need to know this final drama, or we will not understand the frenzy and the rage that will be poured out upon Jews in the last days. The powers of darkness, in their corrupt and perverse wisdom, recognize that the only way to avert the threat of to their false rule is by annihilating the Jews, whose return would terminate them.

The “time of Jacob’s trouble” that concludes the age and brings Israel’s King and His rule over the nations will be a time of sifting and chastening. The church must recognize and accept the ultimate requirements of such a task and willfully adopt the coming times as central or primary to its whole purpose for being. We must consciously be aware and take hold of these tasks for ourselves, willfully. You do not come to this through osmosis. We need to recognize what these last days mean as they pertain to the people of Israel, as well as the role and function of the church toward this people. In fact, the eternal destiny of men is determined by what we will do with the “least of these My brethren” (Mt. 25:40). The Jew will be “least” in those days. The most celebrated and prosperous of Jews, who are currently riding the crest of the world’s wave, will find themselves with only a shirt on their backs and cast out into the nations in the most desolate and deprived condition.

We have to lay hold of this prophetic understanding and then determine that we choose to be a factor in their deliverance in that time. That one choice, that one conscious deliberation, that one taking of that mandate to ourselves, has the potential to transfigure the church. Every aspect of the faith is brought into a new kind of perception, a depth of awareness, and a new reality, once this central key is fitted into the church’s consciousness as the primary purpose for its being. Anything that has to do with any subtlety of any anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic residue, of which we think we might be free, will be flushed to the surface. There is a flushing out, a depth and intensity of the work of God in the sanctification of the body. In Ezekiel 20, God tells Israel, “I will meet with you in the wilderness of the nations, face to face. And there you will come into the bond of My covenant and under the rod of My authority.”

Something happens to a remnant of Jews in the last days’ final sifting that is the factor by which they return to Zion as the “redeemed of the Lord,” with everlasting joy upon their heads and mourning and sighing fleeing away. There will be no return at all unless there is a church in the earth that already anticipates this and is preparing itself to be the salvific agent of God for this distressed people in a soon-coming time; for when it comes, it will come suddenly. This perspective needs to be central to our whole purpose and being. Therefore, we need the strategic direction of God, which is obtained through the operation of the Spirit through trusted members in the body, whose prophecies are not some kind of soulish exercise or drawing of attention to themselves, but a trusted expression of God’s wisdom and will in a critical moment of decision. Can you see what we have been trafficking in? We are not even clear whether a prophecy that we are hearing is of the Spirit or of man. That kind of dubious, hazy condition can no longer be tolerated in an hour that has come, where there is a deep seriousness of God in the church. For our purpose and call, we need to hear from God in critical moments through a word of prophecy, a tongue, an interpretation, or a word of wisdom. We need the operation of the gifts of the Spirit now, in the context that God has always intended. The church that obtains this hearing from God is the church that has consciously come to this serious place in Him, whose members have been tested and know each other, so that when a word comes forth, they know that it is not of man but of God.

It is no accident that such a fellowship’s prayer and worship reflects the truth of this reality, because prayer and worship are not luxuries, but spiritual weapons. They are no more relevant or real than we ourselves are, no more significant than the truth of what we are in ourselves and before God. It is not a technique or methodology that is required, but an expression of a worship that issues from the experience of God’s redemptive power in our lives, for we are in something earnest together. We are not ashamed to be dealt with, and when we receive such dealings from a brother or a sister, we are going to give expression in joy to the release and freedom that comes from the sanctifying work that has waited for this condition to be obtained. God will not meet us on our terms; He will not play our games. He waits for that which is true, real, and earnest, that which acknowledges sin, corruption, and need. Only then can we experience the grace of God. Our prayer is relative to the reality to which we have come, and that kind of prayer is powerful and moves heaven. It has moved out of a casual, conglomeration of saints, whose essential focus is on themselves, and whose spiritual egocentricity has never been broken. We can bring ego-centrism into the church as profoundly as we knew it in the world. All we have done is shifted the object. In the world, it was carnal pleasure and delight and material things. In the church, it is still ego and self: “How did you enjoy the meeting? What did you think of the speaker?” That self-focus is an inveterate power that can only be broken when we ourselves are not the center of our own concern and preoccupation, but God and His purposes in the context that I am setting forth and calling apostolic.

This is not a naïve body, because it knows that the church is a place of suffering before it is a place of glory. Suffering is intrinsic to this kind of relationship. It is not because we intend to molest each other or constitute a threat or an annoyance. It is the very nature of things, because the members of the body are in differing places of maturity and background. The thing that distinguishes the church I am describing is that it is willing for such a suffering. A body of this kind is eternity-conscious. Its conduct in this present moment is set in eternity, knowing that there is an issue of eternal judgment and eternal reward. It is very much aware that the Lord is coming, who will bring His rewards with Him and give to every man according to his work. It knows that it is living in the anticipation of eternity. The thing that will shame and goad them is the knowledge that they do not want to suffer an eternal chagrin and disappointment that they have lived beneath the glory of God and have chosen a mode of Christian life and experience that is comfortable and does not threaten or test.

Such a true church’s intercession, such as prayer and worship, is authentic because it is a statement of the truth of its own life together. That kind of reality and that kind of life together not only affects the worship of such a body, but it also affects their discernment. Their discernment is much more acute, more able to sift and separate the kinds of things that beguile and trap Christians of a shallower kind. It discerns and recognizes the whole issue of the dark powers of the air and the necessity to wrestle against them. Wrestling is ultimate confrontation, and ultimate consecration alone defeats these powers. It is not merely the activity of individual saints, but a church that recognizes the configuration of powers that are above them and will do battle in the realm of spirit in a depth of prayer that is relative to its own reality.
The character of this body is tempered, disciplined, and sacrificial. It is authentically submitted to authority resident in the body, which is identified by the anointing and call and not by ecclesiastical office, whether humanly or religiously obtained by credentials. The issue of authority is recognition, and the submission to such is critical to the whole character of a body of that kind. If we continue to be autonomous, self-willed individualities that will come on Sunday but make our own decisions, plans, and programs and not even notify or ask, then the power of darkness do not take us seriously. They know when we are submitted to the Lord. If that submission is only superficial, if we have insulated ourselves from it, if there is something in us that does not want to come under an authority because we see its defect, then that body lacks the apostolic character that commands the respect and acknowledgment of the powers of darkness. We have got to take the risk of submission to authorities whose lives may well be lacking in one aspect or another. They will always continue to lack, except they be with us in the reality of a body, because the sheep as well as the shepherds are ministered to in the church. We have no excuse to withhold our submission to the authority that God has invested in the body through men.
The true test of whether we have come to the reality to which God is calling us is the attitude of our own children toward it. Do the kids themselves sense that what we are about as adults is worthy not only of their attention, but also of their participation? Or are they only holding on to our skirts out of a necessity that we require of them? Have we come to a place where the reality that we have generated has consistently impressed them as being worthy of their own participation, and that it is not just an adult culture that we enjoy at their expense? For the lack of this reality, it has become all too easy to create children’s programs and various other alternatives, in the hope of holding them in some kind of relationship, because the reality that God intended that would have brought their participation has not been provided; we have been unwilling for the totality of the consecration that such a body requires. Our children are showing us, in their displeasure and irritation, that we have not met God’s measure and have no intention of doing so. They recognize, respect, and reflect the reality and urgency of the participation of the family in the endeavors to which they have given themselves.
If we make a determination of the kind we have been suggesting, then we will most likely experience a stripping of one kind or another. We come into a heavenly reality that knows the rewards that make our present losses momentary and light. God will allow us to be tested in the area of possessions, reputation, and other ways in which we can find ourselves stripped.
The church is in the process of being restored to that environment that was at the first, which means that our Bible studies will no longer be an interesting use of Scripture for the delight and enjoyment of insight to revelatory things that come from it. They should be set in the context of urgency, as if they are epistles written for us, for we are living on the sharp edge of extremity in facing the last days’ encounters and confrontations that the church knew in its first days. Bible study as a harmless mid-week occupation is the measure to which we have moved from the apostolic context and into something of a much lesser kind. When we will come back again to the realities that the church knew at the first, then the Word of God will have cogency, power, penetration, and urgency that it does not presently have in our lives. We will have moved from Bible study to instruction in the way of God and His purposes. Everything stated here is an issue of our choice.

The body I am describing is a body that strives for the eternal reward and crown, and does not consider martyrdom a dreaded thing, but a privilege. If this age does not end in the reality of martyrdom, we of all men are the most deceived of all men. The anticipation of martyrdom is not some far-fetched, romantic contemplation, but a realistic apprehension of what will likely be the consequence of this kind of consecration in the last days. The whole lifestyle of such a body is an outworking of this mindset. This kind of body must be truly set apart from the world in a radical way and maintain its consecration daily. It must be in a conscious continuum with the apostolic past. It must believe that there is a cloud of invisible witnesses over it, those who have suffered opposition even unto death for that which was not a reward in their own life, and who are not yet complete without us. This is definitive, apostolic thinking, understanding, believing and expecting!

http://artkatzministries.org
Art Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929 of Jewish parents. Raised through the depression years and turbulence of World War II, and inducted into Marxist and existentialist ideologies, as well as merchant marine and military experiences, Art was brought to a final moral crisis as a high school teacher—able to raise, but not able to answer the groaning perplexities of the modern age.
During a leave of absence and on a hitch-hiking odyssey through Europe and the Middle East, the cynical and unbelieving atheist, vehement anti-religionist and anti-Christian was radically apprehended by a God who was actively seeking him. The actual journal of that experience, Ben Israel – Odyssey of a Modern Jew, recounts his quest for the true meaning to life, which climaxed significantly and symbolically in Jerusalem.
Art attended Santa Monica City College, UCLA, and the University of California at Berkeley, earning Bachelor and Masters degrees in history, as well as a Masters degree in theology at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN.   With his speaking ministry spanning nearly forty years, Art sought to bring the radical relevance of the Bible’s message to contemporary societies, both secular and religious. With several of his books translated into major foreign languages, Art traveled frequently and widely as a conference speaker and prophetic voice for the church until his death in 2007. Art is survived by Inger, his wife of 41 years, their 3 children and 6 grandchildren.
The powerful theme that remained constant throughout Art’s many years of ministry was unquestionably the centrality of the Cross of Christ. It permeated his words with such an authority and anointing that one could honestly say he preached “nothing but Christ and Him crucified” – even though the subject matter may not have made any reference to the Cross at all. This may have been Art’s greatest gift to the Church, namely, his refusal to know anything but a crucified Christ. It is no coincidence that the message most listened to and considered the best from Art’s quiver is entitled “And They Crucified Him”   Art portrayed a knowledge of God that few in contemporary times have fathomed or understood. Whether the subject was the future, necessary death and resurrection of the nation Israel, or Paul’s teaching on widows and slaves in the congregation, Art strived to represent “God as He in fact is, and not as we think Him to be.”
Art was a man who knew the ‘terror of sin’ and could therefore persuade others in the light of his experiential knowledge of God. It was a knowledge of God that did not come cheaply, but was gained in his devotional times with the Lord in the early hours of the day, in his daily prayer times with fellow believers at the Ben Israel Fellowship, in the knit and grit of living in community, in the writings of other believers, and in his close association with believers the world over.
Art was a prophetic voice insofar as he called his listeners to purposes in God that would affect both time and eternity, purposes that had to do with the glory of God in the Church.   Frequently, his messages called the Church to an awareness of the Last Days [End-times] in such a way that made that time seem imminent and at the door. Some called him a forerunner in the sense of a man who cleared the way for others, and who could therefore call back and encourage them onward to the high call of God in Christ Jesus. Though a man of flesh and blood, like us all, Art walked that ‘high road,’ and one frequently caught a whiff of the fragrance of God, that can only emanate out of that place in God.
Art had the highest regard for the written Word of God; he was eminently the man of the Word. Because of that, he had an equal regard for words in general – not least the preached word, and abhorred the light use of words, either from the pulpit or in small-talk. Consequently, his preached word, which is the distinguishing characteristic of a true prophet, bore a grace and power to penetrate the hearts of his listeners in ways that frequently brought true conviction and a new, more authentic way of seeing and understanding God.      We pray you be blessed by Art’s ministry, who though he is no longer with us here on earth, he yet still speaks.
Please do not hesitate to contact us.

What the Bible Says about Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage

Sat, 28 Sep 2013 10:08:23 -0500

Read this book Online FREE! Click on Link below
The church is not free from people with marriage problems. Whatever the cause -- whether the problems come because church members are living too close to the world or because people with a heritage of the world are coming to Jesus -- the reality remains: the church today must know what it believes about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. We are faced increasingly with people having marriage problems and entanglements.
The church, unfortunately, has not been united in its message to those in troubled marriages. Some religious people have adopted the world's solutions. Others have tried to take a commonsense approach. And still others have tried to stand with one leg on God's Word and the other on human solutions. What IS the proper approach? Where are the answers to these problems?
Click on this Link to read this book Online FREE!
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE
By John Coblentz
Also for more resources, e-books, articles from:

http://www.marriagedivorce.com/index.php

Biographies of Revivalists-15th Century to 20th Century

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:32:22 -0500

Awake and Go! Biographies by David Smithers
http://www.watchword.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=47

 15th Century Revivalist
Girolamo Savonarola
17th Century Revivalist
Richard Baxter  George Fox  Phillip Jacob Spencer
The Moravian Revival in Germany (1727)
Count Zinzendorf
1st Great Awakening (1730s-1740’s)
David Brainerd  Gilbert Tennent  John Wesley
The Evangelical Revival in Britain ( 1738-1790s)
William Bramwell  John Oxtoby  John Smith  John Wesley
2nd Great Awakening (1790-1845)
James Caughey  Christmas Evans  Charles G. Finney  Edward D. Griffin  Edward Payson  John Wesley Redfield
The Kilsyth Revival in Scotland (1839 -1842)
Andrew Bonar  William C. Burns  Robert Murray M'Cheyne  Alexander Moody Stuart
3rd Great Awakening (1857 – 1860)
William Booth  E.M. Bounds  Sarah A. Cooke  Andrew Murray  John Wesley Redfield  C. H. Spurgeon  Uncle John Vassar  J.H. Weber
Revivals in the Confederate Army (1861-1865)
Stonewall Jackson  E.M. Bounds   The Global Revival of the 20th Century (1904 – 1910)
Jonathan Goforth  Mordecai Ham  John Hyde  Pandita Ramabai  Evan Roberts  
Irish Revivalist of the 20th Century
William P. Nicholson  
The Great Chinese Revival (1925 – 1937)
James O. Fraiser  John Sung

JOHN WESLEY - Revivalist!

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:16:47 -0500

John Wesley
Written by David Smithers

On March 9th, 1791, when John Wesley was carried to his grave, he left behind him a good library of books, a well-worn clergyman's gown, and a much abused reputation. But also, an England moved to the very depths and a Church thrilled through and through with an awakened spiritual life. John Wesley was a man who truly possessed both apostolic vision and gifts, but most importantly he was a man who lived in view of eternity. "Consumed by the thought of the shortness of time, the great work to be done, and the need for haste in doing it, on he marched, preaching, pleading, warning and guiding . . ."

John Wesley was a man mighty in faith and prayer. Time and again people possessed with devils were brought to him and in answer to prayer the demons were cast out. Not only were evil spirits cast out, but the sick were healed as well. As Wesley preached, the power of God often came upon his listeners, and hundreds would fall under the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, in answer, to prayer their souls and bodies were healed. A physician became offended at the cries of many who fell under the power of God. He attended Wesley's meeting and a lady he knew fell under the power. "Great drops of sweat ran down her face, and all her bones shook. But when both her soul and body were healed in a moment he acknowledged the finger of God." On another occasion when Wesley was traveling the preaching circuit, his horse suddenly became lame. With no one near to offer help, he stopped and prayed. "Immediately the horse's lameness was gone."

Wesley pleaded with men to repent and by faith make peace with God or suffer in an everlasting hell. People who had entertained false hopes of salvation had their religious masks torn away by his plain preaching. Wesley believed that those who failed to warn the sinner and backslider, themselves stood under the judgement of Christ. He was determined to declare the whole counsel of God, offering the love of God in Christ and giving warning of the dreadful consequences of rejecting the gospel. Wesley wrote, "Before I can preach love and grace, I must preach sin, law and judgement."

John Wesley, as well as the other early Methodist preachers, was both a bold advocate and a living example of sanctification. Wesley preached with unceasing zeal that complete holiness was the primary fruit of a vibrant faith in Christ. Counseling another minister, Wesley wrote, ". . .till you press believers to expect full salvation from sin, you must not look for any revival."

If John Wesley were to make an anonymous visit to the Methodists of today, it is doubtful whether many of it's churches would welcome him. They would most likely resent his fervent zeal and enthusiasm. When he was eighty-three he made a note that he was regretful that he could not write more than fifteen hours a day without hurting his eyes. Wesley faithfully preached almost up to the very day he died. Truly his vigor and zeal in old age were the reward of his faithful stewardship of time. He seemed to consider every thought, word and deed in light of eternity.

"Amid all his arduous labors, his innumerable engagements, his coming and going, Wesley lived a hidden life of intimacy with God. When worn out with overwork he often found new strength in answer to prayer." It was Wesley's strict habit to daily spend one hour in prayer in the morning, and then another hour in the evening. John Wesley shook the world by his preaching because he first shook heaven and hell with his praying. His preaching had a sense of eternal urgency because he had touched eternity on his knees.

from: http://watchword.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=47

Holiness – The High Calling of God in Christ Jesus

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:30:55 -0500

By Art Katz
Today’s selection from Charles Spurgeon’s devotional Faith’s Checkbook (July 24) smote me in my inner man. It is entitled ‘Perfect Purity’ and is a quote from Revelation 3:5 ‘He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment.’ And then his statement is:
Warrior of the cross, fight on! Never rest till thy victory is complete; for thine eternal reward will prove worthy of a life of warfare [struggles]. See, here is perfect calling, purity for thee! A few in Sardis kept their garments undefiled, and their recompense is to be spotless. Perfect holiness is the prize of our calling; let us not miss it.

I have never heard anyone else equate perfect holiness as being the mark of the high calling of God. Usually ‘high calling’ would be some final and ultimate expression of ministry in the bringing of the Word, but in Spurgeon’s view, which we need to soberly consider, the issue of high calling is the issue of holiness. ‘Perfect holiness’ sounds like a redundancy; if it is not perfect it is not holy. If there is any imperfection, holiness is invalidated. That is just the nature of it. To be holy implies something perfect, and that is why it is a struggle to obtain this completion, this perfection.
Spurgeon continues:
See, here is joy! Thou shalt wear holiday robes, such as men put on at wedding feasts; thou shalt be clothed with gladness, and be made bright with rejoicing. Painful struggles shall end in peace of conscience and joy in the Lord.

Do you notice the adjectives he uses: joy, gladness, bright with rejoicing, peace of conscience and joy in the Lord? I wonder if he was even conscious of what he was composing, but he touched on all the inexorable signs of holiness, namely, joy, perfect peace of conscience, rejoicing and gladness of heart. In other words, something accompanies this condition of heart when it is finally attested and attained in the life of a believer.
Let’s take joy. The attempt charismatically to obtain joy through feigned and manipulative means is the cheap effort to obtain what can only be obtained through holiness. When your mind, your heart, your thoughts, your dispositions and your motives are righteous, you have come to a certain place by the sanctifying work of God where the joy and the peace of the Lord set in. It is a remarkable state of being, and this is what I believe Spurgeon is getting at here. This is not euphoric writing or Spurgeon taking his literary liberties; he is one of a smaller company of souls who have known this and who can therefore write out of the reality of his own life.
Maybe he had the advantage of being saved at the age of fifteen. He did not have to overcome years of dissolute living, in sex and drugs and alcohol; he came virtually as an unblemished young man, and yet, he was still convicted deeply of sin. His whole Christian life had brought him to a place where he could make a statement like that. He is making a case for the issue of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus as being the issue of perfect holiness. For when it will come, here will be the signs:
He says here is joy. Something happens when there is the joy of the Lord. You have overcome and come to a place of union with the Lord Himself where you can be ‘clothed with gladness.’ None of those nagging things that cloud our joy or rob our gladness will be there to function. They will have been taken care of in the process of the struggle of overcoming. The mind battles, the questionable motives, the evidences that we are not in the right place will be gone. We will be able to say, in some measure, with Jesus, “The prince of this world has come but he finds nothing in me.” There is nothing that he can single out, a habit, a disposition of heart or mind or spirit that is critical, or jealous or envious or fretful or anxious. When we attain to that, there is a joy, a tremendous peace and a gladness, and we shall be made bright with rejoicing.
He speaks of vessels of brightness – a continual brightness where there is no sullenness or moodiness. ‘…and be made bright with rejoicing. Painful struggles shall end…’ because the purpose of the painful struggle was your sanctification. The struggle is between the flesh and Spirit, but the contest is now over, the Spirit has prevailed, the Lord has given you a white garment. ‘The painful struggle shall end in peace of conscience.’ Paul speaks of having a conscience undefiled before God and before men. When you’ve covered both those bases, there is no other base to consider. If your conscience is clear and free between men and God, there is no issue with God and no issue with men; you are walking with impeccable righteousness. Then the struggle has ended. And there WILL be a struggle until you come to that end, but only if you are serious about this. If you are not serious about this, and in fact, you find it normative to be moody and sullen, or live on the periphery of Christian life as an inactive participant, then there will be no struggle for you. It is only a struggle for those who want a garment, who want to be at the wedding. They want to be a privileged guest; they want to enjoy a conscience free and clear from all blemishes and from inward conflict of motive and from all self-seeking. They have walked this out with God; they have fought this out; the Lord has allowed the enemy to play upon the flesh, but they are fighting that problem through; they are not making their peace with it; they are not compromising and learning to live with it; they are fighting the good fight because they are concerned to attain to that place in the Lord of triumphant victory; they are willing for the pain of the struggle. But it ends in peace of conscience and the joy of the Lord. Can you imagine a church like that? Imagine its witness both to the Jewish community and to the Greek. Just the presence of such a people will be validated by the brightness out of which the testimony comes.
See, here is victory! Thou shalt have thy triumph. Palm, and crown, and white robes shall be thy recompense; thou shalt be treated as a conqueror, and owned as such by the Lord Himself. See, here is priestly array! Thou shalt stand before the Lord in such raiment as the sons of Aaron wore; thou shalt offer the sacrifices of thanksgiving and draw near unto the Lord with incense of praise.

I think it came up once in the class that the Levites are okay for the outer court. They can toss the sacrifice and hack the animals and deal with the public. But only the Zadok priesthood can minister unto the Lord in the holy place. The others are okay for the outer court, but the Zadokite priests, those who have kept their garments so to speak are the ones that shall draw near to the Lord.
Who would not fight for a Lord who gives such large honors to the very least of His faithful servants?

Now this is an interesting thing: ‘Least of His faithful servants.’ Here is a challenge that is put before the whole welter of the entire body of Christ. No man is excluded in the possibility of the Zadokite priestliness because of lack of right upbringing or unhappy circumstances of life or lack of character or lack of parentage or heredity or environment. There is no excuse. Any believer can obtain to this if he is willing for the struggle. So Spurgeon concludes:
Who would not fight for a Lord who gives such large honors? Who would not be clothed in a fool’s coat for Christ’s sake, seeing He will robe us with glory?

Spurgeon is saying that if you are going to take this seriously, you are going to be looked upon as a fool. You are making yourself a candidate not only of the opposition of the powers of darkness, but even for the ridicule of the saints who are content with something much less. Such will always find ways to flaunt and to taunt. If you are willing presently to put on the fool’s garment, you will be ultimately and eternally robed with glory.

FROM: http://artkatzministries.org/

Born From Above

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:16:17 -0500

Born From Above
by Art Katz
http://artkatzministries.org

I am reading an entry by Oswald Chambers about the birth of Christ:
His birth in history. “Therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” [That is the angel's announcement to Mary.] Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not evolve out of history; He came into history from the outside. Jesus Christ is not the best human being; He is a Being who cannot be accounted for by the human race at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate, God coming into human flesh, coming into it from outside. His life is the Highest and Holiest entering in at the lowliest door. Our Lord’s birth was an advent.
He (Jesus) was born in a stable, and it is a debatable question to ask if He will come and have an advent in any person, except in that same way. He will not enter through any other door but the lowliest door, coming in as the Highest. So if we try to open a door to Him from the level of our own superiority or self-esteem, as if we deserve a visitation, He simply will not come. He will only come into a stable, the lowliest place. His advent is a paradigm and a pattern. It is a statement, not just once but always. For every advent of Christ, every birthing, the Highest has got to come into the lowliest, and not just at the commencement of our spiritual life, but at every event and occasion of our spiritual life. If He is to be a participant and bring the Highest, we have got to open to Him the lowliest.
I love the way Chambers writes; leave it to him to strike that great note: “His life is the Highest and the Holiest entering in at the lowliest door.” He will never enter into a proud place. His birth was remarkable-there was no room for Him at the inn, so they had to employ the expediency of a stable. Then He was laid in a manger. I do not know how many years I went on hearing that as a kid, and then even as a believer, not knowing what a manger was. A manger is a feeding trough for animals. The place where the animals slobbered over their food is where He was laid. It is exquisite if you can see it from the point of view of God’s design and the expression, not only of His wisdom, but necessarily of His nature. This is not expediency for the lack of something better; this was God’s divine intention from eternity, that His advent would come in such a way, in such lowliness, or it could not come at all. We need to continually be reminded that if we are not experiencing the Highest, then we are not providing the lowliest.
Chambers goes on to ask,
“Have I allowed my personal human life to become a ‘Bethlehem’ for the Son of God? I cannot enter into the realm of the Kingdom of God unless I am born from above by a birth totally unlike natural birth. ‘Ye must be born again.’ This is not a command; it is a foundation fact. The characteristic of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that Christ is formed in me. Immediately when Christ is formed in me, His nature begins to work through me. God manifest in the flesh: that is what is made profoundly possible for you and me by the Redemption.”
Compare this to the more mainline evangelism, which is more a decisional Christianity. The preacher makes an altar call, the person comes forward, makes a confession, recites a prayer, and he commences his Christian life. It is a good question whether an actual birth has taken place if it is initiated by man, however well-meaning his intention, however moved he is by the message, however much he now desires to be a Christian or to forsake sin. Can man initiate that birth that has got to be wholly given of God? It is clear that there are untold numbers, maybe millions of people, who have entered Christianity decisionally; it was their decision, but it was not His birthing. It is good to be reminded that this birthing is from above, and we cannot commence this life and obtain this nature, except that it is actually birthed in us. We need to insist upon this divine prerogative, and look for that, and believe for that, and wait for that, and trust in that, and not religiously process people into a kind of evangelical Christianity by virtue of their decision.
I am taking note of Chambers’ conclusion here. If that birthing has taken place and is the birthing of the nature of God, the divine nature into an earthly vessel, the incarnation again, then there should be evidence. Such a phenomenon cannot take place without there being some expression, some outworking of that new nature, that divine thing. If one of these decisional Christians has gone on now for 10, 15, 20 or more years and is not showing evidence of the divine nature, notwithstanding the ongoing struggle between flesh and spirit, we need to ask if indeed the new nature has been imparted. If there is no evidence of a new nature, then it is not too extreme to raise the question of whether there has been a new birth. We should even encourage the one who is not evidencing that nature, and is acting contrary to it, to put that question to the Lord: Have I really ever been born from above? If not, Lord, I implore You that that birth might come.
from:http://artkatzministries.org/articles/born-from-above/

Heavenly Worship by Charles H. Spurgeon

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:30:35 -0500

Heavenly Worship
"And I looked and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from Heaven, as the voice of many waters and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voices of harpers harping with their harps. And they sung as it were a new song before the Throne and before the four beasts and the elders and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth." Revelation 14:1-3.
THE scene of this marvelous and magnificent vision is laid upon Mount Sion by which we are to understand, not Mount Sion upon earth but Mount Sion which is above, "Jerusalem, the mother of us all." To the Hebrew mind Mount Sion was a type of Heaven and very justly so. Among all the mountains of the earth none was to be found so famous as Sion. It was there that Patriarch Abraham drew his knife to slay his son. It was there, too, in commemoration of that great triumph of faith, Solomon built a majestic temple, "beautiful for situation and the joy of the whole earth." That Mount Sion was the center of all the devotions of the Jews
"Up to her courts, with joys unknown, The sacred tribes repaired."
Between the wings of the cherubim Jehovah dwelt. On the one altar there all the sacrifices were offered to high Heaven. They loved Mount Sion and often did they sing, when they drew near to her, in their annual pilgrimages, "How amiable are your tabernacles O Lord God of Hosts, my King and my God!" Sion is now desolate. She has been ravished by the enemy, she has been utterly destroyed her veil has been rent asunder and the virgin daughter of Sion is now sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But nevertheless, to the Jewish mind it must ever, in its ancient state, remain the best and sweetest type of Heaven.
John, therefore, when he saw this sight might have said, "I looked and, lo, a Lamb stood in Heaven and with Him an hundred and forty and four thousand having His Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from Heaven, as the voice of many waters and as the voice of a great thunder and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. And they sung as it were a new song before the Throne and before the four beasts and the elders and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth."
This morning I shall endeavor to show you, first of all, the object of Heavenly worship the Lamb in the midst of the Throne. In the next place we shall look at the worshippers themselves and note their manner and their character. In the third place we shall listen to hear their song, for we may almost hear it. It is like "the noise of many waters and like great thunder." And then we shall close by noting that it is a new song which they sing and by endeavoring to mention one or two reasons why it must necessarily be so.
I. In the first place, then, we wish to take a view of THE OBJECT OF HEAVENLY WORSHIP.
The divine John was privileged to look within the gates of pearl. And on turning round to tell us what he saw observe how he begins he says not, "I saw streets of gold or walls of Jasper." He says not, "I saw crowns, marked their luster and saw the wearers." That he shall notice afterwards. But he begins by saying, "I looked and, lo, a Lamb!" This teaches us that the very first and chief object of attraction in the Heavenly state is "the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world."
Nothing else attracted the Apostle's attention so much as the Person of that Divine Being, who is the Lord God, our most blessed Redeemer "I looked and, lo, a Lamb!" Beloved, if we were allowed to look within the veil which parts us from the world of spirits, we should see, first of all, the Person of our Lord Jesus. If now we could go where the immortal spirits "day without night circle the Throne rejoicing," we should see each of them with their faces turned in one direction. And if we should step up to one of the blessed spirits and say, "O bright immortal, why are your eyes fixed? What is it that absorbs you quite and wraps you up in vision?"
He, without deigning to give an answer, would simply point to the center of the sacred circle and lo, we should see a Lamb in the midst of the Throne. They have not yet ceased to admire His beauty and marvel at His wonders and adore His Person
"Amidst a thousand harps and songs, Jesus, our God, exalted reigns."
He is the theme of song and the subject of observation of all the glorified spirits and of all the angels in Paradise. "I looked and, lo, a Lamb!" Christian, here is joy for you. You have looked and you have seen the Lamb.
Through the tearful eyes you have seen the Lamb taking away your sins. Rejoice, then. In a little while, when your eyes shall have been wiped of tears, you will see the same Lamb exalted on His Throne. It is the joy of the heart to hold daily fellowship and communion with Jesus. You shall have the same joy in Heaven. "There shall you see Him as He is and you shall be like He is." You shall enjoy the constant vision of His presence and you shall dwell with Him forever. "I looked and, lo, a Lamb!" Why, that Lamb is Heaven itself, for as good Rutherford says, "Heaven and Christ are the same things. To be with Christ is to be in Heaven and to be in Heaven is to be with Christ."
And he very sweetly says in one of his letters, wrapped up in love to Christ "Oh! my Lord Christ, if I could be in Heaven without You, it would be a Hell. And if I could be in Hell and have You still, it would be a Heaven to me, for You are all the Heaven I want." It is true, is it not Christian? Does not your soul say so?
"Not all the harps above Could make a Heavenly place, Should Christ His residence remove, Or but conceal His face."
All you need to make you blessed, supremely blessed, is "to be with Christ, which is far better."
And now observe the figure under which Christ is represented in Heaven. I looked and, lo, a Lamb," Now, you know Jesus, in Scripture, is often represented as a lion He is so to His enemies for He devours them and tears them to pieces. "Beware, you that forget God, lest He tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver." But in Heaven He is in the midst of His friends and therefore He
"Looks like a lamb that has been slain, And wears His priesthood still."
Why should Christ in Heaven choose to appear under the figure of a lamb and not in some other of His glorious characters? We reply because it was as a lamb that Jesus fought and conquered and therefore as a lamb He appears in Heaven. I have read of certain military commanders, when they were conquerors, that on the anniversary of their victory they would never wear anything but the garment in which they fought. On that memorable day they say, "No, take away the robes. I will wear the garment which has been embroidered with the saber-cut and garnished with the shot that has riddled it. I will wear no other garb but that in which I fought and conquered." It seems as if the same feeling possessed the breast of Christ. "As a Lamb," says He," I died and worsted Hell. As a Lamb I have redeemed My people and therefore as a Lamb I will appear in Paradise."
But perhaps there is another reason. It is to encourage us to come to Him in prayer. Ah, Believer, we need not be afraid to come to Christ for He is a Lamb. To a Lion-Christ we need fear to come but the Lamb-Christ? Oh, little children, were you ever afraid of lambs? Oh, children of the living God, should you ever fail to tell your griefs and sorrows into the breast of one who is a Lamb? Ah, let us come boldly to the Throne of Heavenly Grace, seeing a Lamb sits upon it.
One of the things which tend very much to spoil our Prayer Meetings is the fact that our Brethren do not pray boldly. They would practice reverence, as truly they ought but they should remember that the highest reverence is consistent with true familiarity. No man was more reverent than Luther. No man more fully carried out the passage, "He talked with his Maker as a man talks with his friend." We may be as reverent as the angels and yet we may be as familiar as children in Christ Jesus. Now, our friends, when they pray, very frequently say the same thing every time. They are Dissenters. They cannot bear the Prayer Book. They think that forms of prayer are bad but they always use their own form of prayer notwithstanding, as much as if they were to say that the bishop's form would not do but their own they must always use.
But a form of prayer being wrong is as much wrong when I make it as when the bishop makes it. I am as much out of order in using what I compose myself continually and constantly, as I am when I am using one that has been composed for me. Perhaps far more so, as it is not likely to be one-half so good. If our friends, however, would lay aside the form into which they grow and break up the stereotyped plates with which they print their prayers so often, they might come boldly to the Throne of God and need never fear to do so. For He whom they address is represented in Heaven under the figure of a Lamb to teach us to come close to Him and tell Him all our wants believing that He will not disdain to hear them.
And you will further notice that this Lamb is said to stand. Standing is the posture of triumph. The Father said to Christ, "Sit You on My Throne, till I make Your enemies Your footstool." It is done. They are His footstool and here He is said to stand erect, like a victor over all His enemies. Many a time the Savior knelt in prayer. Once He hung upon the Cross. But when the great scene of our text shall be fully worked out He shall stand erect, as more than conqueror, through His own majestic might. "I looked and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion." Oh, if we could rend the veil if now we were privileged to see within it there is no sight would so enthrall us as the simple sight of the Lamb in the midst of the Throne.
My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, would it not be all the sight you would ever wish to see if you could once behold Him whom your soul loves? Would it not be a Heaven to you if it were carried out in your experience "Mine eye shall see Him and not another"? Would you want anything else to make you happy but continually to see Him? Can you not say with the poet
"Millions of years my wondering eyes Shall over my Savior's beauty rove, And endless ages I'll adore The wonders of His love"?
And if a single glimpse of Him on earth affords you profound delight, it must be, indeed, a very sea of bliss and an abyss of Paradise without a bottom or a shore to see Him as He is to be lost in His splendors, as the stars are lost in the sunlight and to hold fellowship with Him, as did John the Beloved, when he leaned his head upon His bosom. And this shall be your lot, to see the Lamb in the midst of the Throne.
II. The second point is, THE WORSHIPPERS, WHO ARE THEY? Turn to the text and you will note, first of all, their numbers "I looked and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand." This is a certain number representing an uncertain I mean uncertain to us, though not uncertain to God. It is a vast number, representing that "multitude which no man can number," who shall stand before the Throne of God.
Now here is something not very pleasant to my friend Bigot yonder. Note the number of those who are to be saved.
They are said to be a great number, even a "hundred forty and four thousand," which is but a unit emblematic of the vast innumerable multitude who are to be gathered home. Why, my Friend, there are not so many as that belonging to your Church. You believe that none will be saved but those who hear your minister and believe your creed. I do not think you could find one hundred and forty-four thousand anywhere. You will have to enlarge your heart. I think you must take in a few more and not be so inclined to shut out the Lord's people because you cannot agree with them.
I do abhor from my heart that continual whining of some men about their own little Church as the "remnant" the "few that are to be saved." They are always dwelling upon strait gates and narrow ways and upon what they conceive to be a truth that but few shall enter Heaven. Why, my Friends, I believe there will be more in Heaven than in Hell. If you ask me why I think so, I answer, because Christ, in everything, is to "have the pre-eminence." I cannot conceive how He could have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions of Satan than in Paradise. Moreover, it is said there is to be a multitude that no man can number in Heaven.
I have never read that there is to be a multitude that no man can number in Hell. But I rejoice to know that the souls of all infants as soon as they die, speed their way to Paradise. Think what a multitude there is of them! And then there are the just and the redeemed of all nations and kindreds up till now. And there are better times coming, when the religion of Christ shall be universal. When He shall reign from pole to pole with illimitable sway. When kingdoms shall bow before Him and nations be born in a day. And in the thousand years of the great millennial state there will be enough saved to make up all the deficiencies of the thousands of years that have gone before.
Christ shall have the pre-eminence at last. His train shall be far larger than that which shall attend the chariots of the grim monarch of Hell. Christ shall be Master everywhere and His praise sounded in every land. One hundred and fortyfour thousand were observed, the types and representatives of a far larger number who are ultimately to be saved. But notice, while the number is very large, how very certain it is.
By turning over the leaves of your Bible to a previous chapter of this book, you will see that at the 4th verse it is written that one hundred and forty-four thousand were sealed and now we find there are one hundred and forty-four thousand saved. Not 143,999 or 144,001 but exactly the number that are sealed. Now my Friends may not like what I am going to say, but if they do not like it, their quarrel is with God's Bible, not with me. There will be just as many in Heaven as are sealed by God just as many as Christ did purchase with His blood. All of them and no more and no less.
There will be just as many there as were quickened to life by the Holy Spirit and were, "born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God." "Ah," some say, "there is that abominable doctrine of election." Exactly so, if it is abominable. But you will never be able to cut it out of the Bible. You may hate it and gnash and grind your teeth against it. But, remember, we can trace the pedigree of this doctrine, even apart from Scripture, to the time of the Apostles. Church of England ministers and members you have no right to differ from me on the doctrine of election if you are what you profess by your own Articles.
You who love the old Puritans, you have no right to quarrel with me, for where will you find a Puritan who was not a strong Calvinist? You who love the fathers, you cannot differ from me. What say you of Augustine? Was he not, in his day, called a great and mighty teacher of grace? And I even turn to Roman Catholics and, with all the errors of their system, I remind them that even in their body have been found those who have held that doctrine and, though long persecuted for it, have never been expelled from the church. I refer to the Jansenists.
But, above all, I challenge every man who reads his Bible to say that that doctrine is not there. What says the 9th chapter of Romans? "The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calls. It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.,"
And then it goes on to say to the carping objector "No but, O man, who are you that reply against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" But enough on this subject.
One hundred and forty-four thousand, we say, is a certain number made to represent the certainty of the salvation of all God's elect people. Now, some say that this doctrine has a tendency to discourage men from coming to Christ. Well, you say so but I have never seen it and blessed be God I have never proved it so. I have preached this doctrine ever since I began to preach but I can say this you shall not (and I am now become a fool in glorying) you shall not find among those who have not preached the doctrine, one who has been the instrument of turning more harlots, more drunkards and more sinners of every class, from the error of their ways, than I have, by the simple preaching of the doctrine of free grace. And, while this has been so, I hold that no argument can be brought to prove that it has a tendency to discourage sinners, or bolster them up in sin.
We hold, as the Bible says, that all the elect and those only, shall be saved but we hold that all who repent are elect, that all who believe are elect and that all who go to Christ are elect. So that if any of you have in your heart a desire after Heaven and after Christ. If you carry out that desire in sincere and earnest prayer and are born again, you may as certainly conclude your election as you can conclude that you are alive. You must have been chosen of God before the foundation of the world, or you would never have done any of these things, seeing they are the fruits of election.
But why should it keep anyone from going to Christ? "Because," says one "if I go to Christ I may not be elect." No, Sir, if you go, you prove that you are elect. "But," says another, "I am afraid to go, in case I should not be elect." Say as an old woman once said, "If there were only three persons elected, I would try to be one of them and since He said, "He that believes shall be saved," I would challenge God on His promise and try if He would break it." No, come to Christ. And if you do so, beyond a doubt you are God's elect from the foundation of the world and therefore this grace has been given to you.
But why should it discourage you? Suppose there are a number of sick folk here and a large hospital has been built. There is put up over the door, "All persons who come shall be taken in." At the same time it is known that there is a person inside the hospital who is so wise that he knows all who will come and has written down the names of all who will come in a book, so that, when they come, those who open the doors will only say, "How marvelously wise our Master was to know the names of those who would come." Is there anything dispiriting in that? You would go and you would have all the more confidence in that man's wisdom because he was able to know before they came that they were going!
"Ah, but," you say, "it was ordained that some should come." Well, to give you another illustration. Suppose there is a rule that there always must be a thousand persons, or a very large number in the hospital. You say, "When I go perhaps they will take me in and perhaps they will not." "But," says someone, "there is a rule that there must be a thousand in somehow or other they must make up that number of beds and have that number of patients in the hospital."
You say, "Then why should not I be among the thousand? And have not I the encouragement that whosoever goes shall not be cast out? And have I not again the encouragement that if they will not go, they must be fetched in somehow or other? For the number must be made up, so it is determined and so it is decreed."
You would therefore have a double encouragement, instead of half a one and you would go with confidence and say, "They must take me in, because they say they will take all in that come. And on the other hand, they must take me in, because they must have a certain number that number is not made up and why should not I be one?" Oh, never doubt about election! Believe in Christ and then rejoice in election. Do not fret about it till you have believed in Christ. "I looked and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand." And who were these people, "having His Father's name written in their foreheads?" Not Bs for "Baptists." Not Ws for "Wesleyans."
Not Es for "Established Church." They had their Father's name and nobody else's. What a deal of fuss is made on earth about our distinctions! We think such a deal about belonging to this denomination and the other. Why, if you were to go to Heaven's gates and ask if they had any Baptists there, the angel would only look at you and not answer you. If you were to ask if they had any Wesleyans, or members of the Established Church, he would say, "Nothing of the sort."
But if you were to ask him whether they had any Christians there, "Yes," he would say, "an abundance of them they are all one now all called by one name. The old brand has been obliterated and now they have not the name of this man or the other, they have the name of God, even their Father, stamped on their brow." Learn, then, dear Friends, whatever the connection to which you belong, to be charitable to your Brethren and kind to them, seeing that, after all, the name you now hold here will be forgotten in Heaven and only your Father's name will be there known.

One more remark here and we will turn from the worshippers to listen to their song. It is said of all these worshippers that they learned the song before they went there. At the end of the third verse it is said, "No man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth." Brethren, we must begin Heaven's song here below or else we shall never sing it above. The choristers of Heaven have all had rehearsals upon earth before they sing in that orchestra. You think that, die when you may, you will go to Heaven, without being prepared? No, Sir, Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people and unless you are "made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," you can never stand there among them.
If you were in Heaven without a new heart and a right spirit, you would be glad enough to get out of it, for Heaven, unless a man is Heavenly himself, would be worse than Hell. A man who is unrenewed and unregenerate going to Heaven would be miserable there. There would be a song he could not join in it. There would be a constant hallelujah but he would not know a note. And besides, he would be in the presence of the Almighty, even in the presence of the God he hates and how could he be happy there? No, Sirs. You must learn the song of Paradise here, or else you can never sing it. You must learn to sing
"Jesus, I love Your charming name, 'tis music to my ears."
You must learn to feel that "sweeter sounds than music knows mingle in your Savior's name," or else you can never chant the hallelujahs of the blessed before the Throne of the great "I AM." Take that thought, whatever else you forget. Treasure it up in your memory and ask grace of God that you may here be taught to sing the Heavenly song, that afterwards in the land of the hereafter, in the home of the beatified, you may continually chant the high praises of Him that loved you.
III. And now we come to the third and most interesting point, namely, THE LISTENING TO THEIR SONG. "I heard a voice from Heaven, as the voice of many waters and as the voice of a great thunder. And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps" singing how loud and yet how sweet!
First, then, singing how loud! It is said to be "like the voice of many waters." Have you ever heard the sea roar and the fullness thereof? Have you ever walked by the seaside when the waves were singing and when every little pebble stone did turn chorister to make up music to the Lord God of Hosts? And have you ever in time of storm beheld the sea, with its hundred hands, clapping them in gladsome adoration of the Most High? Have you ever heard the sea roar out His praise, when the winds were holding carnival perhaps singing the dirge of mariners, wrecked far out on the stormy deep but far more likely exalting God with their hoarse voice and praising Him who makes a thousand fleets sweep over them in safety and writes His furrows on their own youthful brow?
Have you ever heard the rumbling and booming of the ocean on the shore when it has been lashed into fury and has been driven upon the cliffs? If you have, you have a faint idea of the melody of Heaven. It was "as the voice of many waters." But do not suppose that it is the whole of the idea. It is not the voice of one ocean but the voice of many that is needed to give you an idea of the melodies of Heaven. You are to suppose ocean piled upon ocean, sea upon sea the Pacific piled upon the Atlantic, the Arctic upon that, the Antarctic higher still and so ocean upon ocean, all lashed to fury and all sounding with a mighty voice the praise of God. Such is the singing of Heaven.
Or if the illustration fails to strike, take another. We have mentioned here two or three times the mighty falls of Niagara. They can be heard at a tremendous distance, so awful is their sound. Now, suppose waterfalls dashing upon waterfalls, cataracts upon cataracts, Niagara upon Niagara, each of them sounding forth their mighty voices and you have got some idea of the singing of Paradise. "I heard a voice like the voice of many waters." Can you not hear it? Ah, if our ears were opened we might almost catch the song.
I have thought sometimes that the voice of the Aeolian harp, when it has swollen out grandly, was almost like an echo of the songs of those who sing before the Throne. On the summer eve when the wind has come in gentle zephyrs through the forest, you might almost think it was the floating of some stray notes that had lost their way among the harps of Heaven and come down to us, to give us some faint foretaste of that song which hymns out in mighty peals before the Throne of the Most High.
But why so loud? The answer is because there are so many there to sing. Nothing is more grand than the singing of multitudes. Many have been the persons who have told me that they could but weep when they heard you sing in this assembly, so mighty seemed the sound when all the people sang"Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
And, indeed, there is something very grand in the singing of multitudes. I remember hearing 12,000 sing on one occasion in the open air. Some of our friends were then present when we concluded our service with that glorious hallelujah. Have you ever forgotten it? It was indeed a mighty sound. It seemed to make Heaven itself ring again.
Think, then, what must be the voice of those who stand on the boundless plains of Heaven and with all their might shout, "Glory and honor and power and dominion unto Him that sits on the Throne and to the Lamb forever and ever." One reason, however, why the song is so loud is a very simple one, namely, because all those who are there think themselves bound to sing the loudest of all. You know our favorite hymn
"Then loudest of the crowd I'll sing, While heaven's resounding mansions ring With shouts of sovereign grace."
And every saint will join that sonnet and each one lift up his heart to God! Then how mighty must be the strain of praise that will rise up to the Throne of the glorious God our Father!
But note next, while it was a loud voice, how sweet it was. Noise is not music. There may be "a voice like many waters" and yet no music. It was sweet as well as loud. For John says, "I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps." Perhaps the sweetest of all instruments is the harp. There are others which give forth sounds more grand and noble but the harp is the sweetest of all instruments. I have sometimes sat to hear a skillful harpist till I could say, "I could sit and hear myself away," while with skillful fingers he touched the chords gently and brought forth strains of melody which flowed like liquid silver, or like sounding honey into one's soul. Sweet, sweet beyond sweetness. Words can scarcely tell how sweet the melody.
Such is the music of Heaven. No jarring notes there. No discord but all one glorious harmonious song. You will not be there, Formalist, to spoil the tune. Nor you, Hypocrite, to mar the melody. There will be all those there whose hearts are right with God and therefore the strain will be one great harmonious whole, without a discord. Truly do we sing
"No groans to mingle with the songs That warble from immortal tongues."
And there will be no discord of any other sort to spoil the melody of those before the Throne. Oh, my beloved Hearers, that we might all be there! Lift us up, you cherubs! Stretch your wings and bear us up where the sonnets fill the air. But if you must not, let us wait our time
"A few more rolling suns at most, Will land us on fair Canaan's coast,"
and then we shall help to make the song, which now we can scarcely conceive but which yet we desire to join.
IV. We now close with a remark upon the last point WHY IS THE SONG SAID TO BE A NEW SONG?
But one remark here. It will be a new song because the saints were never in such a position before as they will be when they sing this new song. They are in Heaven now but the scene of our text is something more than Heaven. It refers to the time when all the chosen race shall meet around the Throne, when the last battle shall have been fought and the last warrior shall have gained his crown. It is not now that they are thus singing but it is in the glorious time to come, when all the hundred and forty and four thousand or rather, the number typified by that number will be all safely housed and all secure.
I can conceive the period. Time was eternity now reigns. The voice of God exclaims, "Are my Beloved all safe?" The angel flies through Paradise and returns with this message, "Yes, they are." "Is Fearful safe? Is Feeble-Mind safe? Is Ready-to-Halt safe? Is Despondency safe?" "Yes, O King, they are," says he. "Shut the gates," says the Almighty, "they have been open night and day, shut them now." THEN, when all of them shall be there, then will be the time when the shout shall be louder than many waters and the song shall begin which will never end!
There is a story told in the history of brave Oliver Cromwell which I use here to illustrate this new song. Cromwell and his Ironsides, before they went to battle, bowed the knee in prayer and asked for God's help. Then, with their Bibles in their breasts and their swords in their hands a strange and unjustifiable mixture but which their ignorance must excuse they cried, "The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge." And rushing to battle they sang
"O Lord our God, arise and Your enemies scattered be, And let all those that do You hate Before Your presence flee."
They had to fight up hill for a long time but at last the enemy fled. The Ironsides were about to pursue them and win the booty, when the stern harsh voice of Cromwell was heard "Halt! Halt! Now the victory is won, before you rush to the spoil return thanks to God." And they sang some such song as this "Sing unto the Lord, for He has gotten us the victory! Sing unto the Lord." It was said to have been one of the most majestic sights in that strange, yet good man's history. (I say that word without blushing, for good he was). For a time the hills seemed to leap, while the vast multitude, turning from the slain, still stained with blood, lifted up their hearts to God. We say, again, it was a strange sight, yet a glad one.
But how great shall be that sight when Christ shall be seen as a conqueror and when all His warriors, fighting side by side with Him, shall see the dragon beaten in pieces beneath their feet? Lo, their enemies are fled. They were driven like thin clouds before a Biscay gale. They are all gone, death is vanquished, Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire and here stands the King Himself, crowned with many crowns the Victor of the victors. And in the moment of exaltation the Redeemer will say, "Come let us sing unto the Lord." And then, louder than the shout of many waters, they shall sing, "Hallelujah! the Lord God Omnipotent reigns."
And that will be the full carrying out of the great scene! My feeble words cannot depict it. I send you away with this simple question, "Shall you be there to see the conqueror crowned?" Have you "a good hope through grace" that you shall? If so, be glad. If not, go to your houses, fall on your knees and pray to God to save you from that terrible place which must certainly be your portion, instead of that great Heaven of which I preach, unless you turn to God with fill purpose of heart.
— by Charles H. Spurgeon
from

The Gift of Prophetic Insight by A. W. Tozer

Fri, 3 May 2013 10:32:54 -0500

The Gift of Prophetic Insight by A. W. Tozer
Excerpted from Of God and Men
A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times.
What God says to His church at any given period depends altogether upon her moral and spiritual condition and upon the spiritual need of the hour. Religious leaders who continue mechanically to expound the Scriptures without regard to the current religious situation are no better than the scribes and lawyers of Jesus' day who faithfully parroted the Law without the remotest notion of what was going on around them spiritually. They fed the same diet to all and seemed wholly unaware that there was such a thing as meat in due season. The prophets never made that mistake nor wasted their efforts in that manner. They invariably spoke to the condition of the people of their times.
Today we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers with a gift of prophecy. The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits. It is not ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God's position, and to tell us what is actually going on.
There has probably never been another time in the history of the world when so many people knew so much about religious happenings as they do today. The newspapers are eager to print religious news; the secular news magazines devote several pages of each issue to the doings of the church and the synagogue; a number of press associations gather church news and make it available to the religious journals at a small cost. Even the hiring of professional publicity men to plug one or another preacher or religious movement is no longer uncommon; the mails are stuffed with circulars and "releases," while radio and television join to tell the listening public what religious people are doing throughout the world.
Greater publicity for religion may be well and I have no fault to find with it. Surely religion should be the most newsworthy thing on earth, and there may be some small encouragement in the thought that vast numbers of persons want to read about it. What disturbs me is that amidst all the religious hubbub hardly a voice is raised to tell us what God thinks about the whole thing.
Where is the man who can see through the ticker tape and confetti to discover which way the parade is headed, why it started in the first place and, particularly, who is riding up front in the seat of honor?
Not the fact that the churches are unusually active these days, not what religious people are doing, should engage our attention, but why these things are so. The big question is Why? And no one seems to have an answer for it. Not only is there no answer, but scarcely is there anyone to ask the question. It just never occurs to us that such a question remains to be asked. Christian people continue to gossip religious shoptalk with scarcely as much as a puzzled look. The soundness of current Christianity is assumed by the religious masses as was the soundness of Judaism when Christ appeared. People know they are seeing certain activity, but just what it means they do not know, nor have they the faintest idea of where God is or what relation He has toward the whole thing.
What is needed desperately today is prophetic insight. Scholars can interpret the past; it takes prophets to interpret the present. Learning will enable a man to pass judgment on our yesterdays, but it requires a gift of clear seeing to pass sentence on our own day. One hundred years from now historians will know what was taking place religiously in this year of our Lord; but that will be too late for us. We should know right now.
If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.
Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.
We need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the church, and it is my belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy.

THE SCHOOL OF CHRIST By T. Austin Sparks

Fri, 3 May 2013 10:25:29 -0500

THE SCHOOL OF CHRIST By T. Austin Sparks
THE LIGHT OF LIFE Chapter Five
THE PLACE OF THE SHEKINAH GLORY

Looking backward at that tabernacle or that temple of old where the Shekinah glory was found, we mark that that light, that glory which linked heaven and earth like a ladder, had its expression in the Most Holy Place. You know that in the Holy of Holies, everything was curtained around and over, excluding every bit of natural light, so that the place, entered into apart from the Shekinah, would have been black darkness, without light at all; but entered into while the glory rested upon it, it was all light, it was all Divine light, heavenly light, the light of God.
And that Most Holy Place sets forth the inner life of the Lord Jesus, His spirit where God is found, the light from heaven, the light of what God is in Him. His spirit is the Most Holy Place, in the holy House of God, and it was there, in that Most Holy Place where the light of the glory was, that God said He would commune with His people through their representative. "I will commune with you above the mercy seat between the cherubim" (Exodus 25:22).
The place of communion-"I will commune." What a lovely word", commune." There is nothing hard, nothing terrible, nothing fearful about that. "I will commune with you." It is the place where God speaks; in the communion God speaks, makes Himself known. It is the place of speaking. It is called the place of the oracle, the place of the speaking; and that is the Propitiatory, the Mercy Seat, and that is all the Lord Jesus. He, we are told, has been set forth by God to be a propitiatory (Rom 3:25), and in Him God communes with His people. In Him God speaks to and with His people.
But the underlining must be of those words "in Him", for there is no communion with God, no communion of God, no speaking to be heard, no meeting at all, save in Christ. That would be a place of death and destruction for the natural man; hence the terrible warnings given about coming into that place without the right equipment, that symbolic equipment which spoke of the natural man having been altogether covered and another heavenly Man having enfolded him as with heavenly robes, the robes of righteousness. Only so dare he enter into that place: otherwise it was "lest he die ..."
If you want to know exactly how that works out, come over to the New Testament and take up the story of the journey of Saul of Tarsus to Damascus. He says, "At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun ... And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying unto me ... Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"
Then you will remember how they lifted him up and led him into the city, because he was without sight. By the mercy of God, he was without sight only for three days and three nights. God commissioned Ananias to go and visit that blinded man, and say to him, "Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way which thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mayest receive thy sight."
Saul of Tarsus would otherwise have been a blind man to the end of his life. That is the effect of a natural man encountering the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is destruction. There is no place for the natural man in the presence of that light; it would be death. But in John 8 we have those words, "the light of life", over against the darkness of death. Well, in Jesus Christ the natural man is regarded as having been entirely put away. There is no place for him there.

The Great Awakening

Fri, 3 May 2013 10:16:35 -0500

The Great Awakening
The eighteenth century opened for England in deep spiritual gloom. The Puritan fire was almost extinct, and a cold Deism, that hardly troubled to disguise itself, reigned in the Church. A gross darkness covered the people. The court was foul. Vice walked naked and unashamed. In the high circles of Government bribery had become a fine art. It was a day of cynical time servers. In many parts of the country the people had relapsed into simple barbarism. England, indeed, was not far from the abyss when she was suddenly rescued, uplifted, and launched upon a career of glorious victory and expansion by the Great Evangelical Awakening. In the judgment of even the rationalist historian she was saved and, as it were, reborn by this great movement of the Divine Spirit.
It was in Oxford University that the new life first appeared, but if we search deeply we shall find its hidden spring in the heart of a praying mother. In truth, revival is largely the story of praying mothers. Susannah Wesley, wife of the Rector of Epworth, is one of the great women of the Church, and her devoted indomitable spirit had deep and abiding influence upon the founder of Methodism. In 1730 we find John Wesley the leader of a little band of earnest young men who gave themselves to prayer, the Bible, and works of charity. Men called them in derision the Holy Club, Bible moths, then, observing that they were very exact and methodical in their habits, dubbed them Methodists.
Wesley himself was yet a seeker, and weary years passed before he found the peace of God. The real beginning of days came for him on May 24th, 1738, when he went, rather reluctantly, to a little company of Christians gathered in Aldersgate Street. One of the brethren read Luther' s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans, and, as he listened, he found himself strangely stirred. The Spirit of Christ, like a fragrant wind, breathed through his being. He ceased from weary, hopeless struggling, and cast himself, as a little child, upon the arms of Jesus. Then John Wesley knew the deep unutterable peace of God.
He at once began to preach with whole-hearted conviction, expounding the great master-texts of the Gospel, making Christ the Alpha and Omega of every discourse. But the more earnestly he preached, the more firmly were the churches closed against him. Often, when he descended the pulpit stairs, an irate clergyman would meet him with the words, "Sir, you cannot preach here again." But the common people heard him gladly, and gradually there gathered about him a band of men whose hearts God had touched. They formed themselves into little companies for prayer and conference, making a chapel in Fetter Lane their headquarters. Increasing opposition drove them, with intense earnestness, to the Throne of Grace, and then, in the wonderful providence of God, drove them out into the fields.
In this great emancipation George Whitefield led the way. The son of an innkeeper, he was drawn into the godly fellowship of the Holy Club by the influence of Charles Wesley, and when he began to preach, a great gift of eloquence was revealed in him. Soon the complaint was rife that he was driving people mad, and the churches began to close upon him also. One day, as he declared the Gospel in a building filled to the uttermost, he cast his eyes outside and saw a thousand yearning and disappointed faces. The thought seized him, Why not go out and preach in the open? But this was a thing unheard of. When he consulted his brethren they condemned it as a fanatical notion.
While thus exercised, he went to Bristol, and preached with such fervency that, in a fortnight, every church in the place shut its doors against him, in emphatic protest. There remained the prison. He preached to the poor prisoners the Gospel which the Church refused. But soon that door, too, was closed by order of the Mayor. Thousands were hungering for the bread of life, but neither in church nor in prison was there room for Whitefield to dispense it. He now recognised the clear hand of God. Turning from these barred doors he saw, far out in the fields, the beckoning hand of the Master who had found his pulpit on the green hillsides of Galilee. He obeyed.
Near Bristol was a wild region known as Kings-wood, once a royal chase, but now a miner's country, without a church, inhabited by a rough and lawless people. Driven from Bristol, Whitefield went .out to this neglected spot. On Saturday afternoon, February 17th, 1739 (is it not the supreme date of that century?) he took his stand on a little green hill and began to preach the Gospel. In vast amazement some 200 colliers gathered about him. Such a sight had never been seen. A minister, a minister in gown and bands, preaching on a hillside!
As he continued, day after day, his audience soon grew to twenty thousand, who pressed upon him eagerly to hear the Word of Life. They filled the hedges. They climbed the trees. Nature itself seemed hushed to hear. A sweet summer stillness prevailed. The sun shone from a blue sky, and the strong, clear voice of the young man, eloquent with the very love of God, reached to the utmost bounds of the great assembly. Then Whitefield saw a moving sight.
He saw white channels forming in the black faces of the miners. The whole multitude was drenched in penitential tears. Ere he ended black faces were washed white, and black hearts, too! He at once wrote to Wesley in London:
"Come, the fire is kindled in the country." The summons was obeyed, and when John Wesley came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. Whitefield, called to other parts, left him to continue the work, and Wesley entered upon his great career as a field preacher, that career which may be studied in his diary. Henceforth the world was his parish. As he passed from place to place, the fire of God followed him; yet it travelled to the remotest parts of the country, and, crossing the sea, quickened the life of the Universal Church.

from: http://www.theoldtimegospel.org/revival/rev_mess06.html

Bearing Fruit

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:33:37 -0500

BEARING FRUIT
by David Wilkerson

There is a portion of Scripture that convicts me deeply. Jesus
said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every
branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every
branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more
fruit. . . If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and
is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and
they are burned" (John 15:2, 6).

I have read and re-read these powerful words of Christ, and I cannot
escape their convicting power. The Holy Spirit has impressed upon
me the importance of understanding these words, "My Father is
the husbandman . . . every branch in me that beareth not fruit he
taketh away."

This matter of Christians bearing fruit is not optional with God. He
watches over His vine and all the engrafted branches with great
jealousy and concern, patiently waiting for the branches to bring
forth fruit. He stands beside it with pruning knife in hand, lovingly
watching for the slightest evidence of corruption, blight or disease
which could hinder growth. God expects fruit from every branch.
Without fruit, it is impossible to honor and glorify Him or be a true
disciple of Christ. Jesus said: "Herein is my Father glorified, that
ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples" (John 15:8).

Bearing fruit has everything to do with pleasing God-fulfilling our
mission in Christ- and with having our prayers and petitions
answered. Jesus said, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen
you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and
that your fruit should remain; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the
Father in my name, he may give it you" (verse 16).

Actually, bearing fruit concerns what we are becoming, rather than
simply what we are doing. I am bearing fruit when there is nothing
hindering the flow of the life of Christ into me. That is what Jesus
meant when He said, "Now ye are clean through the word which I
have spoken unto you" (John 15:3). He is saying, "Because you
believed My word-trembling over it, letting it reveal every hidden
secret, bringing to light every dark thing, allowing the Word of God
to purge you-the hindrances are all gone!"

-Source-

http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/22427

© 2013 World Challenge - a registered trademark of David Wilkerson

ANABAPTISM AND THE NEW BIRTH

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:01:09 -0500

ANABAPTISM AND THE NEW BIRTH
Click here for Books and CDs about the Anabaptists.

During the 1500s, fiery groups of Christians in continental Europe set Europe aflame with their quest to restore apostolic Christianity. These Christians—known as Anabaptists—truly were one of the most remarkable movements in all of church history. Historians often refer to the Anabaptists as the “third wing of the Reformation,” the first two wings being the Lutheran and Reformed. Others call the Anabaptist movement the “radical Reformation.” That’s because the Anabaptists recognized that any restoration of primitive Christianity must entail a radical transformation of lives.

Out of all of the restoration movements of the past five hundred years, the Anabaptists probably came the closest to recapturing the primitive Christian ethos of the “two kingdoms.” That is, they fully realized that Christians cannot serve two masters. We cannot be embroiled in the political and military affairs of this world and think we can still be fully committed to Christ. Nor can we be entangled in building commercial empires and still be seeking His kingdom first. His kingdom is not of this world, and when we live by the teachings of Christ, we will be noticeably different from the world around us—just as were the early Christians.

Interestingly, of the three wings of the Reformation, the Anabaptists were generally the furthest removed from the intellectual centers of their day. Although the Anabaptists could count a number of university-educated men among their leaders, most of their teachers lacked any such education. However, even though there were no early church scholars among them, the majority of their beliefs were the same as those of the early Christians—particularly in matters of lifestyle.

What was their secret? Their secret is that they tried to follow the literal words of Scripture. The fact that the Bible-minded Anabaptists came to so many of the same conclusions as did the early Christians is one of the strongest corroborations we have that early Christianity was Biblically sound. Actually, about the only areas where the Anabaptists taught differently than the early church is where they failed to take New Testament Scriptures literally. Some of the conclusions the Anabaptists came to were considered extremely revolutionary and radical by most professing Christians of their day—Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed alike. For example, the Anabaptists taught that the church should be separate from the state. Ever since the time of Constantine, the church and state had been married to each other, and practically nobody in the sixteenth century the propriety of this. The entire structure of medieval society rested on the union of church and state. Luther initially talked about church and state being separate, but he backed off of this position when he saw it was unacceptable to the governing authorities.

Therefore, most people thought that the Anabaptist teachings would lead to anarchy. As a result, Anabaptists were outlawed in virtually every country of Europe. As one of them lamented, “A true teacher who preaches the Word of the Lord without blame is not permitted at the present time, as far as our knowledge goes, to dwell in any kingdom, country, or city under heaven, if he be known.”1

Within a few years, most of the original Anabaptist leaders had been arrested and executed. Anabaptists became a hunted group, moving from place to place and meeting in forests and other secret hideaways. Yet they were tireless evangelists and they grew rapidly. The secret of their strength was that most of them loved their Lord with all of their heart, mind, and soul.

Parallels Between The Anabaptists And The Early Christians

To a large degree, Anabaptists rejected the things of the world, and they lived as citizens of a heavenly kingdom—just as had the early Christians. The rest of the church hated them because of this. Unlike Luther, who disparaged the Gospel of Matthew, the Anabaptists took the teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount quite seriously and literally. They stressed that a reborn Christian must live by those teachings.

Although most churches care for the needy today, this wasn't the case at the time of the Reformation. As a result, the Anabaptists stood in stark contrast to the Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic churches in their brotherly care for one another. The Anabaptists declared to these other churches:

“This mercy, love, and community we teach and practice, and have taught and practiced these seventeen years. God be thanked forever that although our property has to a great extent been taken away from us and is still daily taken, and many a righteous father and mother are put to the sword or fire, and although we are not allowed the free enjoyment of our homes as is manifest ... yet none of those who have joined us nor any of their orphaned children have been forced to beg. If this is not Christian practice, then we might as well abandon the whole Gospel of our Lord. ...

“Is it not sad and intolerable hypocrisy that these poor people [the Lutherans] boast of having the Word of God, of being the true, Christian church, never remembering that they have entirely lost their sign of true Christianity? Although many of them have plenty of everything, go about in silk and velvet, gold and silver, and in all manner of pomp and splendor, ... they allow many of their own poor and afflicted members to ask for alms. [They force] the poor, the hungry, the suffering, the elderly, the lame, the blind, and the sick to beg for bread at their doors.

“Oh preachers, dear preachers, where is the power of the Gospel you preach? ... Where are the fruits of the Spirit you have received?”2

Like the early Christians, the Anabaptists also preached the message of the cross. “If the Head had to suffer such torture, anguish, misery, and pain, how shall His servants, children, and members expect peace and freedom as to their flesh?”3 they asked. At the same time, although they were cruelly hunted down, tortured and executed, they refused to fight back or retaliate against their persecutors.

One of the most touching examples of their unselfish love for others is that of Dirk Willems. Fleeing from the Catholic authorities who had come to arrest him, Willems dashed across a frozen lake and made it safely to the other side. Glancing back as he ran up the banks of the shore, Willems noticed that the deputy pursuing him had fallen through the ice and was about to drown. Although he now could have escaped with ease, Willems turned back and pulled the drowning deputy to safety. Unmoved by this unselfish act of love, the officer in charge ordered the deputy to arrest Willems. As a result, Willems was arrested, imprisoned, and eventually burned alive.

Again, like the early Christians, the Anabaptists refused to use the sword on behalf of their country, either for protection or for executing criminals.4 In obedience to Jesus' words, they refused to take oaths.5 Rather than preaching a gospel of health and wealth, they stressed simplicity of living. In fact, because of persecution, most of them lived in dire poverty.

Although “salvation by faith alone” was the slogan of the Reformation, the Anabaptists taught that obedience was also essential for salvation. However, they didn't teach that salvation is earned by accumulating good works, and they rejected all of the ritual works of self-justification taught by Roman Catholics. They stressed the fact that salvation is a gift from God; yet, they also taught that it is a conditional gift, which can be taken away from the disobedient.

Actually, their doctrine of salvation was very similar to that of the early church. Yet because they taught that obedience is necessary for salvation, the Lutherans and Reformed Christians called them “heaven-stormers.”6At a time when others were emphasizing Augustine's teachings, the Anabaptists completely rejected the doctrine of predestination. They taught instead that salvation was open to everyone, and that everyone chooses for himself either to accept or to reject God's gracious provisions for salvation.

Click here for Books and CDs about the Anabaptists.
LEONHARD DAX (“HUTTERIAN” ANABAPTIST, MID 1500S)
One does not need to cross the ocean to see heathenism, because whoever forsakes God’s demands and orders is already in heathenism. Heathenism has covered all the earth. But whoever wants to forsake heathenism can do so easily, only through true repentance and through the new birth, and the renewing accomplished through the Spirit. This is how one “comes out of heathenism.” In other words, this is the beginning and entrance into Christianity, when:
one forsakes all unrighteousness
forsakes the devil and his company
surrenders to God
builds a covenant with Him
in all diligence guards himself from all unrighteousness
surrenders to making himself common with all the children of God, where one can serve God in a right way.
That is how the Holy Spirit has appointed it to be in His church.
DIRK PHILIPS (DUTCH ANABAPTIST, MID 1500S)
Therefore, I was compelled out of Christian love to warn you of all such false Christians and messengers of Satan, and through God’s grace to write you a little about the new birth and the new creature, and then to show how not everyone who boasts of the new birth and chatters much about the new creature is therefore a new person who is born out of God. But whoever has become a partaker of:
the divine character
the being of Jesus Christ
the power and character of the Holy Spirit
and who conforming himself to the image of Jesus Christ in all submission, obedience, and righteousness serves God—in summary, one who is a right-believing Christian—is a new person and a new creature in Christ Jesus. 2 Pe. 1:4; He. 3:14; 1 Jn. 4:13 Therefore, it is necessary to consider how the new birth takes place, from whence it comes, through what it happens, how powerful it is, and what fruit it produces ….
I say thus in conclusion: The born-again children of God and new creatures in Christ Jesus are those who are born the second time out of God the heavenly Father through Christ Jesus, and are renewed and sanctified through the Holy Spirit. They have become participants of God’s nature, of the being of Jesus Christ, and of the character of the Holy Spirit. Jn. 1:12; 1 Pe. 1:23; 2 Pe. 1:4; He. 3:14
They are those who have died to sin and still daily die more and more, and experience righteous living. They never boast in themselves, but only in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to them and they to the world. Ga. 6:14 They walk, in true faith, according to the teachings of Christ and follow in his footsteps. 1 Pe. 2:21 They know no one according to the flesh. 2 Co. 5:16 Neither do they have an appetite for what is human, but for what is divine. Ma. 16:23. In summary, these are righteous and do righteousness just as God out of whom they are born is righteous; these are minded like Christ Jesus and are motivated by the Holy Spirit. 1 Jn. 2:29; Ph. 2:5 Ro. 8:14
Where this takes place, there one sees the kingdom of God; (Jn. 3:3) there one comes into the kingdom of heaven; there is a new creature in Christ Jesus. Ga. 6:15
PETER RIEDEMANN (SILESIAN (POLISH)-BORN HUTTERIAN ANABAPTIST, MID 1500S)
Since we are born of God in the spiritual way of Christ—and not in the human way of Adam—we must carefully consider how the birth of Christ took place. It occurred, as already noted, in faith and through the working of the Holy Spirit. Lu. 1:26-38 Whoever wishes to have Christ’s nature and character must also be born of God. 1 Pe. 1:3-5 That person must, with Christ, be God’s child. Ro. 8:14-16 This is what Peter says with the words, “You have been born anew, not of mortal but of immortal seed, and this seed is the word of truth.” 1 Pe. 1:3-5
Here is how this birth takes place:
If the Word is heard and believed, then faith is sealed with the power of God, with his Holy Spirit. Ep. 1:12-14 The Spirit immediately makes the person new (Ro. 12:2) since that person has been dead in sin, (Ep. 2:1-10) restoring to life the one who stands before God in righteousness. That person has been made into a new creature, (2 Co. 5:17) a new person after God’s likeness, (Ge. 1:27) and has become renewed in this likeness. Ep. 4:20-32; Co. 3:1-11 Whoever is born in this way should receive baptism as a bath of rebirth. Ti. 3:1-7 This signifies being inscribed in the covenant of the grace and knowledge of God. Je. 31:33-34
THOMAS VON IMBROICH (GERMAN ANABAPTIST, MID 1500S)
Yes, they must be reborn, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, namely, the living Word of God (which remains eternally). 1 Pe. 1, Jn. 3
Those who are thus born of this spiritual “seed of Abraham” will bring forth spiritual fruits; that is, all kinds of kindness, righteous deeds, and truth. They are obedient to their Father; they keep the commandments and follow His precepts. Ep. 5; Jn. 10, 14, 15; Is. 55 They abandon ungodly living (Ro. 12) and are not conformed to the world. They seek the things that are above, where Christ is, and not those things that are on the earth. They kill and crucify the sinful “I wants” of their flesh (Co. 3) and follow in the footsteps of Jesus (their predecessor) in grief, needs, and persecution, and are obedient to Him unto death. Ga. 3; 1 Pe. 2; He. 11 We therefore say that those who are thus driven by the Spirit of God are the spiritual descendents of Abraham and are children of God. Ro. 4, 8
Thus, all the Scriptures cited above testify that no one is born of God who does not have such faith and has not received the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our inheritance. Ep. 1 Hans de Ries (Dutch “Mennonite,” early 1600s)
The new birth is an act of God effected in the soul of the truly repentant, a restoring of the image of God in man, a renewing of the mind and heart, an enlightening of reason through an acknowledgment of the truth. This new birth brings with it a transformation of the will, of the fleshly desires and lust. It is a sincere putting to death of all evil within, a killing of the old man with his desires and life of sin and rebellion.
At the same time the new birth brings an awakening of new life in God, in true goodness, righteousness, and holiness. It is a taking away of the heart of stone with its pride, ignorance, blindness, sin, and sinful lusts, and an unmerited granting of the promised fleshly heart filled with the law of God, light, wisdom, understanding, virtue, and holy desires. This new birth comes from God through Christ. It is worked in us by the Holy Spirit with his fire and power, not by something we creatures do by natural means. This is how the regenerate person testifies whether he is born the second time or not.
By means of the new birth, we become children of God, spiritual-minded, righteous, and holy. We believe and teach that this new birth is necessary for salvation according to the words of Christ: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” and again, "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."
HENRY FUNCK (“MENNONITE,” MID-1700S)
When a sinner becomes alarmed at the awful and threatening sound of the gospel—so that his hard heart begins to break, and melt into contrition—then the word of the Spirit is ready to enter into the heart and give instructions how the sinner must amend his life, abstain from sin, and repent like those of Ninevah in Jonah 3. He must come with true repentance and humbleness of mind, in fasting and prayer, and with the prodigal son return, saying, “I have sinned against heaven and before thee!” Lu. 15:18 With Peter, he must acknowledge his sins … go out and weep bitterly. Mt. 26:75 And with those who were pricked in their heart at Jerusalem, cry, “Men and Brethren, what shall we do?” To these Peter answered, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Ac. 2:37-38
Now when man is brought to see and acknowledge his natural evil state by the word of God—which is spirit and life!—he is then rightly drawn to God, by God. He will then find in himself a living faith, newness of life, and regeneration. Jn. 3:8 So is every one that is born of the Spirit. And as the Apostle Peter writes in his first Epistle (1:3): Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Also, James 1:18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
When man, by the word of the Spirit, is remanufactured—born again—then will be fulfilled in him what the Lord spoke by the prophet Ezekiel (36:25-27), as mentioned above. For man will then be cleansed from all his filthiness and idols, by the sprinkling of clean water upon him, in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. For the word of the Spirit teaches him that all impurity and unholiness must be done away and renounced. A new heart and a new spirit is now given him, and the heart of stone is removed by the Spirit, and a heart of flesh given him. And by the Spirit, such men will be made that will walk in the commandments of the Lord and keep his judgments. And when man is thus renewed by the Spirit, he is a partaker of spiritual baptism. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Ti. 3:5-6
Thus is man remanufactured and born again of God, by the sowing of His word; and by the sprinkling and pouring out the Word, and water of the Spirit, he will be washed and cleansed from all uncleanness; and by faith in Jesus Christ be made a child of God, and a partaker of His spiritual gifts!
DAVID BEILER (“AMISH” BISHOP, MID 1800S)
According to the witness of the prophets, the new birth is a work of God within man; man is illuminated and anointed from above through God’s grace; so that he can recognize his great poverty, sinful manner, nature, and character; so that he comes to be spiritually poor. Mt. 5:3 This continues until he confesses that nothing good dwells in his flesh (Ro. 7:18) and he very much deserves the eternal punishment and pain due to his fleshly living.
When a person is stirred and broken in his heart in this way, an earnest and true repentance will undoubtedly follow. He will be completely shaken and moved, so that he speaks from an overflowing heart and mouth: “Lord have patience with me and I will pay Thee all;” (Mt. 18:26) or have patience with me a poor sinner, I want to mend my ways. Then it may happen as Christ teaches us: “The master of the servant had compassion and released him and also forgave him his debt.” Mt. 18:27; Lk. 18:13 When we observe carefully how merciful God is towards us poor sinners and we turn to Him with a heart of faith, then God for Christ’s sake will forgive everything and release us (we might well say) from the bands in which Satan has bound us for a long time. Lu. 13:16; 8:27
The new birth is to be understood as Paul says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; the old has passed away, and behold, all things have become new. All this is of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ and has given to us the ministry that preaches reconciliation. For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and has committed unto us the Word of reconciliation.” 2 Co. 5:17-19 James says: “Of His own will He has begotten us through the Word of Truth, so that we become first fruits of His creatures.” Ja. 1:18 And Peter: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Pe. 1:3-9 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 1 Co. 12:13
I believe Paul speaks here in the same manner as Christ spoke to Nicodemus. We must be born of God if we want to overcome the world and ourselves through the grace of God, because we are too weak without God’s help and support. When we are born of God, we receive the greatest and most precious promise of obtaining a godly nature. When we have a godly manner and nature, we have the same inclination as He who said, “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” Jn. 6:38 Therefore all newborn Christians must be so inclined that they follow the command of Jesus Christ with full obedience. Not only say that we accept His teachings, but to believe with the whole heart that Jesus Christ is the eternal wisdom of God in whom dwells all the fullness of the deity bodily (Co. 2:9) and He is the likeness of the invisible God. We have to receive Him in faith, that God made Him to be our wisdom, righteousness, healing, and redemption, as it is written: “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
We must acknowledge Him and that all good accomplished in and through us is of God’s grace. In the same way, the new birth or rebirth within man is a work of God. Through illumination from above, we come to recognize our fallen nature and that in our natural state we are alienated from the life which is of God (Ep. 4:18) and the natural man comprehends nothing of the Spirit of God. To him it is foolishness and he cannot understand it because it must be spiritually discerned. 1 Co. 2:14
… Whatever is born within us of the good Spirit is godly or heavenly; for as the seed is, so is the fruit. The naturally good seed produces, with God’s blessing, good fruit. This is true for the spiritual as well. That which comes from God leads to God.
When we are renewed and converted through the power of the Spirit—from Adam into Christ, from the fleshly into the spiritual, from the earthly into the heavenly, so that we overcome all fleshly lusts and desires which rage within us and tempt us to sin—then we have experienced the work of the new birth. The old Adamic man of sin must be brought into obedience to Christ, through the Spirit of His power. 2 Co. 10:5 This is the denying of which Christ speaks, “If any man will follow after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever loves his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel, shall find it.” Mk. 8:34-35
“Do not be amazed that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.” Jn. 3:7 We must understand from the words of Christ that there is no promise of salvation outside of the new birth, because He says, “Ye must be born again.”
When we look at our condition from our youth, what was the first fruit we produced? Was it not the first fruits of disobedience against the command and will of our parents? Self-will shows up early in youth. We can see this is true in our children. And disobedience is often the beginning of many more sins and leads to destruction ….
I believe there are people who put much trust into outward ceremonies, like baptism and the Lord’s supper; but these do not bring salvation according to the words of Christ, apart from change of heart and belief that Jesus Christ came to save sinners: not those who continue in sin, but the burdened who are concerned about their salvation. He is the wellspring of life! Ps. 36:9 Pr. 13:14
... We cannot speak or teach others with spiritual power about the new birth, its function and fruit, without first having experienced it ourselves and thereby reached a true conversion and change of heart. We must have buried the old man of sin and be resurrected with Christ to a new life; so that we truly can say with Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Ga. 2:20
Click here for Books and CDs about the Anabaptists.

“Leonard Ravenhill” Full Interview

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:59:40 -0500

This is the full interview with Leonard Ravenhill. He was a great man of prayer and even more importantly, a man who knew God. He devoted his whole life to being intimate with God and trying to bring others to the same. He prayed for Revival, looked for Revival and longed for Revival. He was a prophet to the Church of his time.  Leonard Ravenhill  By David Bercot  Leonard Ravenhill was one of Britain’s foremost outdoor evangelists of the 20th century. God used him to help bring thousands of people to Christ throughout Britain. Unlike the case with many of todays evangelists, the conversions that Leonard helped to bring about were generally lasting conversions. Thats because he did not water down the Gospel when he preached it. Later in life, Leonard and his family moved to the United States, where he worked with Bethany House Publishers. In the 1980s, Leonard and his family moved to a home near Lindale, Texas, a short distance from Last Days Ministries. Leonard regularly taught classes at Last Days Ministries, and he was a mentor to the late Keith Green.  A. W. Tozer, who was a friend of Leonard, said this about Leonard: To such men as this the church owes a debt too heavy to pay. The curious thing is that she seldom tries to pay him while he lives. Rather, the next generation builds his sepulcher and writes his biography—as if instinctively and awkwardly to discharge an obligation the previous generation to a large extent ignored.  Those who know Leonard Ravenhill will recognize in him the religious specialist, the man sent from God not to carry on the conventional work of the church, but to beard the priests of Baal on their own mountain-top, to shame the careless priest at the altar, to face the false prophet and to warn the people who are being led astray by him.  Such a man as this is not an easy companion. He is not the professional evangelist who leaves the wrought-up meeting as soon as it is over to hurry to the most expensive restaurant to feast and crack jokes with his retainers. Such evangelists will find this man something of an embarrassment, for he cannot turn off the burden of the Holy Ghost as one would turn off a faucet. He insists upon being a Christian all the time, everywhere. And again, that marks him out as different.  I first met Leonard in 1989, when he was eighty-two years old and in frail health. At first glance, I would not have thought that God could still use this fragile, white-haired man. He walked slowly and unsteadily, and he sometimes needed help to get up and down from his chair. Yet, as soon as he opened his mouth, I immediately realized that my initial impression was wrong. At eighty-two, Leonard still spoke with fire and conviction, and it felt like his eyes were piercing right through to my soul.  By David Bercot
http://www.scrollpublishing.com

Are We Longing for Repentance? by Leonard Ravenhill

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:59:30 -0500

A Sanctified Spirit

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:40:53 -0500

A Sanctified Spirit
A.B. Simpson (1843 - 1919)
Simpson is the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance Movement that began in Canada with a desire to promote missions and global evangelism. He was used powerfully of the Lord to unify many brothers and sisters in a common purpose of fulfilling the great commission.

A.W. Tozer joined with the Missionary Alliance denomination because of the teachings of A.B. Simpson and specific his writings on holiness: "A Larger Christian Life." He wrote many hymns and added a great emphasis on the person of Jesus Christ in church-life.

Having seen the source and meaning of sanctification, let us next trace its sphere and extent. “I pray God to sanctify you through and through” is the meaning of this verse. And then Paul specifies the threefold division of our human nature, the spirit, aine Trinity has its counterpart in human nature, at least in some feeble measure. Man has been called a trichotomy or a triplex nature, and there seems good ground to claim that this division is recognized in the Scriptures. In the original account of man’s creation the body is first distinctly mentioned—”the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground.” Then we have the soul and spirit clearly distinguished in the words which follow, “God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul.” We have first the breath of spirit of the Almighty imparted into man’s higher being and then the physical principle constituting him a living soul.

Again in the account of our Lord’s child we have the same division. “The child grew,” His physical life; “waxed strong in spirit,” His spiritual; “filled with wisdom,” His intellectual or soul life. Again in I Cor. 2, the apostle Paul very clearly distinguishes between the soul and the spirit in man. The psychical man, that is, the soul man, he tells us, “receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned, but he that is spiritual discerneth all things.” The psychical man, therefore, is the man of the soul, the spiritual man is the man of quickened spirit. It will be noticed that in this passage he begins with the spirit and gradually descends to the soul and body as the subjects of sanctification. This is quite instructive and significant.

The other day in speaking to our builders, they remarked, “We always work from the top story downward and end with the basement, and so we never go back over our finished work, or need to soil the floors that have been cleansed and completed.” And so in God’s great house, He works from the top downward. So it is in the growth of the tree. Let it add a thousand layers, you will find that not one is laid on from the outside but each of them has a separate growth from the innermost pith of the tree. The tree’s life is from within, outward. So in the tabernacle, the great symbol of spiritual truth, in the account given us in the book of Exodus, we find Jehovah beginning in the Holy of Holies in the Ark of the Covenant, and traveling outward until He has traversed the sanctuary with all its sacred vessels, and reached the external court, with its laver and altar of sacrifice.

Beautiful type of the work of sanctifying grace; the holy Shekinah of the divine spirit and the indwelling Christ in the innermost chamber of the spirit, and spreading their heavenly life and influence abroad through every part until they penetrate every faculty of the soul and every organ of the physical being with their transforming and consecrating power.

I. WHAT IS THE SPIRIT?

In a word it may be said that it is the divine element in man, or perhaps more correctly, that which is cognizant of God. It is not the intellectual or mental or aesthetic or sensational part of man but the spiritual, the higher nature, that which recognizes and holds converse with the heavenly and divine.

It is that in us which knows God, which directly and immediately is conscious of the divine presence and can hold fellowship with Him, hearing His voice, beholding His glory, receiving intuitively the impression of His touch and the conviction of His will, understanding and worshipping His character and attributes, speaking to Him in the spirit and language of prayer and praise and heavenly communion. It is, also, directly conscious of the other world of evil spirits, and knows the touch of the enemy as well as the voice of the Shepherd.

The spirit is that which recognizes the difference between right and wrong, which loves the right and thinks, discerns, chooses in harmony with righteousness. It is the moral element in human nature. It is the region in which conscience speaks and reigns. It is the seat of righteousness and purity and sanctity, it is that which resembles God, the new man created in righteousness and true holiness after His image. Every one must be conscious of such an element in his being and feel that it is essentially different from the mere faculties of the understanding or the feelings of the heart.

The spirit is that which chooses, purposes, determines and thus practically decides the whole question of our action and obedience. In short, it is the region of the will, that mightiest impulse of human nature, that almost divine prerogative which God has shared with man, His child, that very helm of life on whose decision hang the whole issues of character and destiny. What a momentous force it is, and how essential that it be wholly sanctified. As it is, or is not, sanctified, the life is one of obedience or disobedience, and when the will is right, and the choice is fixed, and the eye is single, God recognizes the heart as true and pure. “If there be a willing mind it is accepted according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not.”

The spirit is that which trusts. Confidence is one of its attributes and exercises. It is the filial quality in the child of God which looks in the Father’s face without a cloud, which lies upon His bosom without a fear and puts its hand in His with the abandonment of childlike simplicity.

The spirit is that which loves God. It is not now the human emotional love of which we speak, for that belongs to the lower nature of the soul and may be most fully developed in one whose spirit is still dead to God in trespasses and sins; but it is that divine love which is the direct gift of the Holy Spirit and the true spring of all holiness and obedience. It is nothing less than the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and its appropriate sphere is the human heart.

The spirit is that which glorifies God, which makes His will and honor its supreme aim and loses itself in His glory. The very conception of such an aim is foreign to the human mind and can be only received by a spirit which has been born again and created in the divine image.

The spirit is that which enjoys God, which hungers for His presence and fellowship and finds its nourishment, its portion, its satisfaction, its inheritance in Himself as its all and in all.
This wonderful element of our human nature is subject to all the sensibilities and susceptibilities which we find in a coarser form in our physical life. There are spiritual senses and organs just as real and intense as those of our physical frame. We find them distinctly recognized in the Scriptures. There is the sense of spiritual hearing, “He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches,” “Blessed are your ears, for they hear,” “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.” There is the sense of vision, “Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty and the land that is very far off,” “Looking unto Jesus,” “Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord,” “Having eyes they see not,” “He hath sent me to open the blind eyes and turn them from darkness unto light and the power of Satan unto God.” There is the sense of spiritual touch, “That I may apprehend, (or, grasp with my hand) that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus,” “Who touched me,” “As many as touched him were made perfectly whole.” There is the sense of taste, “He that eateth me shall live by me,” “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good,” “He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” There is the sense of smell. Very definitely is it referred to in the 11th of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him and shall make him of quick smell in the fear of the Lord.” The spirit is a real subsistence, and when separated from the body after death, it will have the same consciousness as when in life, and perhaps intense powers of feeling, action and enjoyment.

Such is a brief view of this supreme endowment of our humanity, this upper chamber of the house of God, this higher nature received from our Creator, and lost, or, at least, degraded, defiled and buried through our sin and fall.

II. WHAT IS IT FOR THE SPIRIT TO BE SANCTIFIED?

It is indispensable, first of all, that it be quickened into life. Naturally it is dead, and the work of regeneration quickens it into vitality as a new-born life, breathed, given from heaven as unto us in the first creation, as from the very lips of God. So, in one sense, the unregenerate soul is not spiritually alive. Its faculties are alive, its animal life is active, but its spiritual vitality is suspended. It is true there is a kind of spiritual life in the corpse that is buried in yonder tomb, given over to the horrible forms of life which prey upon it. And so the spirit of the ungodly is alive, but it is possessed with the demon spirits of evil, and alive unto sin and Satan, as the regenerate soul is alive unto God.

But now what is a sanctified spirit?

1. It is a spirit separated.

Have you ever looked upon the dark, cold ground in early spring, through which if you drew your hand, it would chill and defile your fingers and perhaps it was mixed with the manure of the barnyard and the crawling earth worms that burrowed in it? Yet, have you never seen, growing out of that dark soil, a little plant or flower, with roots white as the driven snow, and leaf as delicate and petals as pure as a baby’s dimpled cheek, separated by its own nature and purity from the dirty soil that was all around it and could not even stain it? So the spirit born of God is separated in its own divine nature from its own self and the sinful heart, and the very first step of sanctification is to recognize this separation and count ourselves no longer the same person, but partakers of the divine nature and alive unto God as those who have been raised from the dead. And as such we are to separate our spirit from all that is not of God; not only from sin but from the world and from self and our whole old natural life. All our spiritual instincts, senses and organs are to be separated from evil and intuitively to turn away from even the touch and approach of temptation. We are to refuse to hear with our inward ear the stranger’s voice, to see with the spirit’s eye the fascinating vision of temptation, to touch in spiritual contact any unclean thing, to taste even the forbidden joy, and by the quick sense of smell at once recognize and turn from the unwholesome atmosphere, and as evil of any kind is revealed to the spirit, it is to renounce it and to ask God to separate it from it and to put the gulf of His presence between the soul and the sin.

And it must be separated ever from the spirits of others, and, indeed, from any human spirit that could control it apart from the will of God. All the aspects of the spirit which we have already referred to must be separated. The higher consciousness that knows God must be separated from all other gods but Him. The moral senses that know right must separate from all wrong. The will must be separated from the choice or inclination of all but His will. The power of trust must be voluntarily separated from every thought of unbelief or distrust. The power to love must be wholly separated from forbidden love. The aim and motive must be separated from all that is not for His glory, the source of its pleasure must be purified and the spirit separated from all joy that is not in harmony with the joy of the Lord. Beloved, is your spirit thus separated, cleansed, and detached from everything that could defile or distract you from the will of God and life of holiness?

2. A sanctified spirit is a dedicated spirit.

Its powers of apprehension are dedicated to know God and to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. His Word is the object of its deepest study and meditation, and His attributes and His glory the theme of its most delightful contemplation. To know God and to be filled with His Spirit and to be ever in His presence is its highest aim. Its will is dedicated to God. It chooses Him deliberately as its portion and its sovereign Lord, and delights to abandon itself to His entire possession and to His perfect will. It is this element of a single heart and a supreme choice of God which constitutes what the Scriptures call a perfect heart, and which they affirm of many a Christian whose steps were not always perfect. Every moral sense in the sanctified spirit is dedicated to God. It chooses His standards of right and wrong and desires above all things to bear His image and be conformed to His nature.

Its power of trusting is dedicated. It is determined to trust God under any circumstances and in spite of all feelings, as an act of will that chooses to believe His Word notwithstanding every discouragement and temptation. A spirit that thus chooses God will be sustained by the very faith of God Himself imparted to it.

Its love is dedicated and its power of loving. It chooses to love God supremely and to love all as God would have us to love, regarding every human being in the light of God and His will, and adjusting itself to every relationship in such a manner as to please God. It is dedicated to the glory of God. It accepts this and not the applause of men nor its own pleasing as the true end and purpose of life and lays itself a living sacrifice on His altar.

And, further, it is dedicated to enjoy God. It chooses Him as its portion, its happiness, all and in all, and consents to find all its satisfaction in Him and Him alone, whether it be in the loss of every other channel of happiness or by His filling all the springs of life with Himself.

A dedicated spirit is thus wholly given to God, to know Him, to choose His will, to resemble His character, to trust His Word, to love Him supremely, to glorify Him only, to enjoy Him wholly and to belong to Him utterly, unreservedly, and forever. All its senses, susceptibilities and capacities are dedicated to Him. It yields itself to Him to be made by Him all that He would have it to be and to have His perfect will wrought out by it forever. It chooses to hear only what He would speak, to see only what He would have it behold, to touch only at His bidding and to use every power and capability in and for Him only. It regards itself henceforth as His property, subject to His disposal and existing for His great purpose regarding it. It is consecrated not so much to the works, or truth, or the cause, or the church as to the Lord. And this is done gladly, freely, without fear or reservation, but as a great privilege and honor to be permitted thus to belong to so great and good a Master, and have Him undertake so uncongenial a task as our sanctification and exaltation.

This dedication of our spirit can be made in the very first moment of consecration and before we have a single conscious experience or feeling answering to the dedication we make. As empty vessels, as bare possibilities with nothing in us yet but the entire consent of our will to be all that the Lord would have us, we yield ourselves to God according to His will.

This act of dedication should be made once for all, and then recognized as done and as including every subsequent act which we may ever renew as we receive more light in detail respecting His will concerning us.

It is possible for us, once for all and not knowing perhaps one thousandth part of all that it means, to give ourselves to God for all that He understands it to mean, and to know henceforth that we are utterly and eternally the Lord’s as certainly as we shall know that we are the Lord’s after we have been a million years in glory.

And yet, after this one comprehensive act of dedication it is quite proper for us, as new light comes to us and we become conscious of new powers or possibilities we can lay at Hits feet, to say our glad “yes” to His claim as often as it is renewed. Yet this is only the working out in detail of the all-inclusive consecration that we made at first.

Beloved, have you thus dedicated yourself and your spirit to God, and will you henceforth dare to reckon yourself all the Lord’s, and as each new chamber of your higher nature opens to your consciousness, will you gladly put the key of it in His gracious hand and recognize him as its Owner and Guest?

3. The sanctified spirit is a spirit filled with the presence and the Spirit of the Lord.

What it gives to him is only a possibility. It is His presence that makes it a reality. Even when dedicated it is but a vessel, empty and meet for the Master’s use. It is He who fills it and pours it out for the supply of the needs of others or to satisfy the desire of his own heart. Even the consecration which we make to God, the very act of dedication itself, has to be made perfect by His grace. We cannot even yield ourselves to Him in a manner that is without imperfection, but we can choose to be His, and then He will come into our dedicated will and make the living sacrifice worthy of His holy altar.

We can lie down upon that altar in full surrender and then He, the great Burnt-Offering, will lie down by our side and offer Himself in us to God as a sacrifice of sweet-smelling savor. This was, really, the meaning of the Burnt-Offering of old. The offerer did not offer himself, but touched the spotless lamb and it became the perfect offering. So with our hand upon the head of Christ, our consecration is accepted in Him, and He comes into our will and our spirit, and so unites Himself with us that the sacrifice is acceptable and complete.

And so, again, our knowledge of God and fellowship with Him are dependent upon His own grace to be made effectual. We dedicate our spirit to God, and then He reveals Himself to us, opening the eyes of our understanding, showing us the person of Christ, unfolding His truth to our spiritual apprehension, and making us to see light in His own light.

It is wonderful how the untutored mind will thus often, in a short time, by the simple touch of the Holy Spirit, be filled with the most profound and scriptural teaching of God and the plan of salvation through Christ. We once knew a poor girl, saved from a life of infamy and but little educated, in a few days rise to the most extraordinary acquaintance with the Scriptures and the whole plan of redemption through the simple anointing of the Holy Spirit. We simply give to Him our spirit that it may know Him and He fills it with His light and revelation.

So, again, we choose to be transformed to His image, but we cannot create that image by our own morality or struggles after righteousness. We must be created anew in His likeness by His own Spirit, and stamped with His resemblance by His heavenly seal impressed directly upon our heart from His hand. And thus He does become to us our holiness, for Christ is made unto us our sanctification, and we are made the righteousness of God in Him. We turn from the sin, choose to be holy, and God fills our proffered hand with His own spotless righteousness.

So, again, our faith is but the filling of His Spirit and the imparting of the faith of God. We choose to trust and He makes that choice good by enabling us to believe, and to continue in the faith grounded and settled, and so living by the faith of the Son of God. Our love is but a purpose on our part, the power is His; for when we choose to love He sheds abroad that love within us and imparts to us His own Spirit and nature which is love. All our struggles will not work up one throb of genuine love to God, but He will breathe His own perfect love into any heart that chooses to make Him the one object of affection. We cannot love our enemies but we can choose to love them, and God will make us to love them. Often have we known consecrated characters placed in circumstances where they were obliged to come in contact with uncongenial companions whom they could not love; but, choosing at His bidding to act in the spirit of love, God has so inbreathed His very heart, that without a struggle they could adjust themselves to this relationship and meet the uncongenial associate, or even enemy, with quietness, and even tenderness, and a holy desire for his highest good.

So, again, it is with His joy in us. And so, likewise, the power to glorify Him is nothing more nor less than simply this, to let God Himself be manifested in us and so glorify Himself, as others see Him reflected through us. Sanctification is thus God’s own life in the spirit that is yielded up to Him to be His dwelling place and the instrument of His power and will. So also of our spiritual senses of which we have spoken. They are sanctified when they become the organs of God’s operation, when our spiritual ear is quickened by His Spirit, our spiritual eyes opened by His touch, our spiritual taste, and touch, and smell, made alive by His own quickening life within us.

Now, beloved, have you ever learned this wonderful secret of regenerated spirit and God’s Spirit, the Guest and Occupant of that consecrated abode? Shall we illustrate this somewhat lofty conception by a simple illustration? Here is a common leather case which represents the body. Within it is a silver casket, which stands for the soul. We touch a spring and it opens and discloses an exquisite golden locket, which we shall consider as the symbol of the spirit or higher nature, and within that golden locket is a place all set with precious gems for a single picture.

Is it empty in your spirit or is it filled with some other face, or is it dedicated to and occupied by your blessed Lord? Is it His shrine and His home and has He accepted it and made it the seat of His glorious abode and throne of His blessed kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost? Or are there some who read these lines who have not yet even learned the meaning of their own spirit and do not know whether it has yet been quickened from the dead and prepared to be the seat of Christ’s indwelling? All that they know of life consists in the physical organism, their mental faculties and their human affections. They have a keen, quick, human life, all aglow with emotion and mental activity, but the spirit, alas, alas! is so dead and cold that it has not even caught the grasp of these higher thoughts that we have been contemplating.

Ah, beloved! there is one world that you have not yet entered, and that is the eternal world to which you are hastening. The life you are living can never introduce you to the sphere of heavenly beings, for “flesh and blood cannot inherit eternal life, nor corruption incorruption.” Your physical life will wither like the flowers of summer, your mental endowments will rise to the highest human rank, but will not touch the joy of that celestial realm. You must have another nature before you can enter the kingdom of heaven. “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Just suppose for a moment a man going to a great musical festival in Germany. He enters the great Concert Hall but he does not know a single word of the language spoken nor has the faintest germ of musical taste. To him the words are unmeaning gutterals, and the notes a jargon of confusing noises. He could understand a problem in mathematics, he could discourse with them with eloquence in English on questions of politics or philosophy, but he is out of place, he does not possess the key to their society or enjoyment.

And so let us suppose the highest intellect of earth entering the society of heaven. To him their songs and joys would all seem as incomprehensible as the conversation of a cultivated home circle would be to the little dog that sits at their feet or the canary that sings in the window. It belongs to a different race and cannot touch their world. Nor could such a man have one point of contact with these heavenly beings. It would be another world, a world unknown, a world as barren as a wilderness; and from its scenes he would be glad to haste to find some congenial fellowship. He cannot reach its range because it is a spiritual race of beings, and he has but an intellectual nature. And, on the other hand, they would save as little interest in him as his range is infinitely below theirs.

We can imagine the porter of yonder gates asking him what he knows, and he begins to tell them about the lore of classical culture, the mythologies of Greece or the monuments of Egypt. The angel smiles with pity and answers, “Why, these splendid memories of which you speak are not worthy of comparison with the world in which we dwell. The grandest temple of Egypt would not make a pedestal for one of the stairs of heaven.” Perhaps he tells them of astronomy, the distance or magnitude of the stars. “Why,” the angel answers, “we have no need of these dim and distant calculations here. There is not one of yonder worlds we have not visited and we could tell you ten thousand times more of its mysteries than you have ever dreamed of, but the glories of these cannot be compared with the glory of Him who sits upon the throne, whom you have not eyes to see, or the sweetness of these redemption songs which you cannot even hear because you have not ears to hear. One thrill of the rapture we feel you cannot ever know because your heart has not been quickened in one heavenly chord. You do not belong here. You live in the lower realm of mind alone, but this is the Home of God and those who have received His nature, His Spirit, and are admitted as His children to dwell in His presence and share His infinite and everlasting joy.

Beloved, this is the high calling which is given to every one of Adam’s race who has heard the gospel. You may become a son of God, you may receive a new spirit which can know and enjoy Him, and that spirit can be so sanctified, so cleansed, so enlarged, so filled with Himself, as to be able to reach the highest sublimity of His grace and glory and joy. Will you separate it from all that defiles and dwarfs it? Will you dedicate it to Him to be exalted to its highest possible destiny and will, henceforth receive Him to be its life and purity, its satisfaction, its nature, and its ALL and in ALL?

These four short lines of simple poetry express the depth and height of holiness, namely, as a great need and an infinite supply for that need in God. Beloved, shall they express, henceforth, your emptiness and your divine filling?

In the heart of man—
A cry;
In the heart of God—
Supply.

Early Christian Church Meetings

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:33:18 -0500

http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=26947

From the Early Christian Dictionary

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. Acts 2:42

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:25

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20

God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence of all them that are about him. Psalm 89:7

Christians meeting together in a small boat in times of persecution

Remember the day of judgment, night and day. You shall seek out every day the faces of the saints, either by word examining them, and going to exhort them, and meditating how to save a soul by the word, or by your hands you shall labor for the redemption of your sins. Barnabas (A.D. 70-130) ch.19

And seek out day by day the faces of the saints, in order that you may rest upon their words. Didache (A.D. 80-140) ch. 4

But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one who is at odds with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: "In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations." Didache (A.D. 80-140) ch. 14

Watch for your life's sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed; but be ready, for you know not the hour in which our Lord will come. But come together often, seeking the things which are befitting to your souls: for the whole time of your faith will not profit you, if you are not made perfect in the last time. Didache (A.D. 80-140) ch. 16

For, if the prayer of one and another has so great force, how much more that of the bishop and of the whole Church. Whosoever therefore comes not to the congregation, he does thereby show his pride and has separated himself; for it is written, "God resists the proud." Let us therefore be careful not to resist the bishop, that by our submission we may give ourselves to God. Ignatius: to the Ephesians (A.D. 35-105) ch.5

Do your diligence therefore to meet together more frequently for thanksgiving to God and for His glory. For when you meet together frequently, the powers of Satan are cast down; and his mischief comes to naught in the concord of your faith. Ignatius: to the Ephesians (A.D. 35-105) ch. 12

Assemble yourselves together in common, every one of you severally, man by man, in grace, in one faith and one Jesus Christ, who after the flesh was of David's race, who is Son of Man and Son of God, to the end that you may obey the bishop and presbytery without distraction of mind; breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die but live for ever in Jesus Christ. Ignatius: to the Ephesians (A.D. 35-105) ch. 20

And attempt not to think anything right for yourselves apart from others: but let there be one prayer in common, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy unblameable, which is Jesus Christ, than whom there is nothing better. Ignatius: to the Magnesians (A.D. 35-105) ch.7

Let meetings be held more frequently. Seek out all men by name. Ignatius: to Polycarp (A.D. 35-105) ch.4

Toil together one with another, struggle together, run together, suffer together, lie down together, rise up together, as God's stewards and assessors and ministers. Ignatius: to Polycarp (A.D. 35-105) ch. 6

And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration. Justin Martyr (A.D. 160) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.1 pg.186

Rusticus the prefect said, “Where do you assemble?” Justin said, “Where each one chooses and can: for do you fancy that we all meet in the very same place? Not so; because the God of the Christians is not circumscribed by place; but being invisible, fills heaven and earth, and everywhere is worshipped and glorified by the faithful.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Tell me where you assemble, or into what place do you collect your followers?” Justin said, “I live above one Martinus, at the Timiotinian Bath; and during the whole time (and I am now living in Rome for the second time) I am unaware of any other meeting than his. And if any one wished to come to me, I communicated to him the doctrines of truth.” Rusticus said, “Are you not, then, a Christian?” Justin said, “Yes, I am a Christian.” Justin Martyr (A.D. 160) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.1 pg. 295

We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This violence God delights in. We pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consummation. We assemble to read our sacred writings, if any peculiarity of the times makes either forewarning or reminiscence needful… In the same place also exhortations are made, rebukes and sacred censures are administered. Tertullian (A.D. 198) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.3 pg.46

The Pilgrim's Progress

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:28:45 -0500

FROM: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bunyan/pilgrim
FREE
Author:
Bunyan, John (1628-1688)
Description:
Pilgrim's Progress is a great work of Christian literature. Originally composed in the 17th century, this spiritual allegory has entertained and delighted innumerous readers for over 300 years. Part I tells of "Christian" and his journey to "Celestial City;" Part II tells of the journey of Christian's wife Christiana and their children to Celestial City. The two parts work together as a unified whole, which describes and depicts the believer's life and struggles. Indeed, given the easy style of the book, readers of all ages can understand the spiritual significance of the depictions in the story. However, Pilgrim's Progress does not simply instruct readers with spiritual allegories; it entertains them as well, through Bunyan's creative story telling. Enjoyable and spiritually instructive, Pilgrim's Progress is highly recommended

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The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:22:56 -0500

__ This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org

This great Christian classic unfolds the theme of Christ our Life. Nee reveals the secret of spiritual strength and vitality that should be the normal experience of every Christian. His fresh spiritual insights on the cross and resurrection of Christ have proven a blessing to many.
Book Description
The Normal Christian Life describes Christian faith and God's purposes for believers in clear, simple terms.

Title: The Normal Christian Life
Creator(s): Nee, Watchman (1903-1972)
Rights: Copyright Angus Kinnear 1961. Used by permission of Kingsway
Publications, Eastbourne, England.
LC Call no: BV4501.2
LC Subjects:

Practical theology

__________________________________________________________________

The Normal Christian Life

Watchman Nee

"It is no longer I . . . but Christ"

Copyright Angus Kinnear 1961. Used by permission of Kingsway Publications,
Eastbourne, England.
__________________________________________________________________

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The author of these studies, Mr. Watchman Nee (Nee To-sheng) of
Foochow, a true bondservant of Jesus Christ, placed a great many of us
in his debt when, on a visit to Europe in 1938 and 1939, he set forth
so lucidly in his ministry to many groups of young workers and others
the foundation principles of the Christian life and walk.

Several of the addresses forming the material from which this book has
been compiled have already been published independently and have been
the means of blessing to many. Others, covering similar but wider
ground, have existed for long in manuscript or note form. It is with
the conviction that their message merits a wider circulation at the
present time that I have undertaken the editing of the available
material to form this larger book.

Being deprived of personal contact or communication with the author, I
have myself to take full responsibility for the work of editing. This
has involved the bringing together of matter from a number of sources
to form a logical sequence within the framework provided by two of the
original series of studies. Due to the wide variety of this material,
including verbatim records of spoken English addresses, private notes
of Bible readings and personal conversations, and a few translations
from the Chinese, liberties, perforce, have had to be taken with the
literary arrangement--not, of course, with the doctrine--making the
hand of the editor more evident than I would have wished. But the
privilege of close personal contact with Mr. Nee during 1938, and the
help and criticism of others who enjoyed his ministry or who have
worked with him, and who knew him better than I, have combined, in the
few places where interpretation was necessary, to make faithfulness to
his thought the more certain.

Work on this book has been a searching experience. It goes out now with
the prayer that its strong emphasis upon the greatness of Christ and
upon the finality and sufficiency of His work may be used of God to
bring His children to a place of greater spiritual effectiveness and
thus of increasing value to Him.

Angus I. Kinnear

Bangalore, India

1957
__________________________________________________________________

PREFACE TO THE BRITISH EDITION

A new edition has made possible further revision and occasional slight
expansion of the text with the aid of fresh source material. An index
is now provided.

The reader is again reminded that the author's message in this
collected form had its origin as spoken ministry. It is therefore not
wholly systematic. On none of the subjects dealt with is it to be
regarded as exhaustive. It should be approached prayerfully--not as a
treatise, but as a living message to the heart.

Angus I. Kinnear

1958
__________________________________________________________________

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Blood of Christ
Chapter 2: The Cross of Christ
Chapter 3: The Path of Progress: Knowing
Chapter 4: The Path of Progress: Reckoning
Chapter 5: The Divide of the Cross
Chapter 6: The Path of Progress: Presenting Ourselves to God
Chapter 7: The Eternal Purpose
Chapter 8: The Holy Spirit
Chapter 9: The Meaning and Value of Romans Seven
Chapter 10: The Path of Progress: Walking in the Spirit
Chapter 11: One Body in Christ
Chapter 12: The Cross and the Soul Life
Chapter 13: The Path of Progress: Bearing the Cross
Chapter 14: The Goal of the Gospel

Scripture quotations are from the Revised Version unless otherwise
indicated.
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 1: The Blood of Christ

What is the normal Christian life? We do well at the outset to ponder
this question. The object of these studies is to show that it is
something very different from the life of the average Christian. Indeed
a consideration of the written Word of God--of the Sermon on the Mount
for example--should lead us to ask whether such a life has ever in fact
been lived upon the earth, save only by the Son of God Himself. But in
that last saving clause lies immediately the answer to our question.

The Apostle Paul gives us his own definition of the Christian life in
Galatians 2:20. It is "no longer I, but Christ". Here he is not stating
something special or peculiar--a high level of Christianity. He is, we
believe, presenting God's normal for a Christian, which can be
summarized in the words: I live no longer, but Christ lives His life in
me.

God makes it quite clear in His Word that He has only one answer to
every human need--His Son, Jesus Christ. In all His dealings with us He
works by taking us out of the way and substituting Christ in our place.
The Son of God died instead of us for our forgiveness: He lives instead
of us for our deliverance. So we can speak of two substitutions--a
Substitute on the Cross who secures our forgiveness and a Substitute
within who secures our victory. It will help us greatly, and save us
from much confusion, if we keep constantly before us this fact, that
God will answer all our questions in one way only, namely, by showing
us more of His Son.
__________________________________________________________________

Our Dual Problem: Sins and Sin

We shall take now as a starting-point for our study of the normal
Christian life that great exposition of it which we find in the first
eight chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, and we shall approach our
subject from a practical and experimental point of view. It will be
helpful first of all to point out a natural division of this section of
Romans into two, and to note certain striking differences in the
subject-matter of its two parts.

The first eight chapters of Romans form a self-contained unit. The
four-and-a-half chapters from 1:1 to 5:11 form the first half of this
unit and the three-and-a-half chapters from 5:12 to 8:39 the second
half. A careful reading will show us that the subject-matter of the two
halves is not the same. For example, in the argument of the first
section we find the plural word sins' given prominence. In the second
section, however, this changed, for while the word sins' hardly occurs
once, the singular word sin' is used again and again and is the subject
mainly dealt with. Why is this?

It is because in the first section it is a question of the sins I have
committed before God, which are many and can be enumerated, whereas in
the second it is a question of sin as a principle working in me. No
matter how many sins I commit, it is always the one sin principle that
leads to them. I need forgiveness for my sins, but I need also
deliverance from the power of sin. The former touches my conscience,
the latter my life. I may receive forgiveness for all my sins, but
because of my sin I have, even then, no abiding peace of mind.

When God's light first shines into my heart my one cry is for
forgiveness, for I realize I have committed sins before Him; but when
once I have received forgiveness of sins I make a new discovery,
namely, the discovery of sin, and I realize not only that I have
committed sins before God but that there is something wrong within. I
discover that I have the nature of a sinner. There is an inward
inclination to sin, a power within that draws to sin. When that power
breaks out I commit sins. I may seek and receive forgiveness, but then
I sin once more. So life goes on in a vicious circle of sinning and
being forgiven and then sinning again. I appreciate the blessed fact of
God's forgiveness, but I want something more than that: I want
deliverance. I need forgiveness for what I have done, but I need also
deliverance from what I am.
__________________________________________________________________

God's Dual Remedy: The Blood and the Cross

Thus in the first eight chapters of Romans two aspects of salvation are
presented to us: firstly, the forgiveness of our sins, and secondly,
our deliverance from sin. But now, in keeping with this fact, we must
notice a further difference.

In the first part of Romans 1 to 8, we twice have reference to the
Blood of the Lord Jesus, in chapter 3:25 and in chapter 5:9. In the
second, a new idea is introduced in chapter 6:6, where we are said to
have been "crucified" with Christ. The argument of the first part
gathers round that aspect of the work of the Lord Jesus which is
represented by the Blood' shed for our justification through "the
remission of sins". This terminology is however not carried on into the
second section, where the argument centers now in the aspect of His
work represented by the Cross', that is to say, by our union with
Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. This distinction is a
valuable one. We shall see that the Blood deals with what we have done,
whereas the Cross deals with what we are. The Blood disposes of our
sins, while the Cross strikes at the root of our capacity for sin. The
latter aspect will be the subject of our consideration in later
chapters.
__________________________________________________________________

The Problem Of Our Sins

We begin, then, with the precious Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and
its value to us in dealing with our sins and justifying us in the sight
of God. This is set forth for us in the following passages:

"All have sinned" (Romans 3:23). "God commendeth his own love toward
us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more
then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from the
wrath of God through him" (Romans 5:8, 9). "Being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set
forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood, to shew his
righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime,
in the forbearance of God; for the shewing, I say, of his righteousness
at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the
justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:24-26).

We shall have reason at a later stage in our study to look closely at
the real nature of the fall and the way of recovery. At this point we
will just remind ourselves that when sin came in it found expression in
an act of disobedience to God (Romans 5:19). Now we must remember that
whenever this occurs the thing that immediately follows is guilt.

Sin enters as disobedience, to create first of all a separation between
God and man whereby man is put away from God. God can no longer have
fellowship with him, for there is something now which hinders, and it
is that which is known throughout Scripture as sin'. Thus it is first
of all God who says, "They are all under sin" (Romans 3:9). Then,
secondly, that sin in man, which henceforth constitutes a barrier to
his fellowship with God, gives rise in him to a sense of guilt--of
estrangement from God. Here it is man himself who, with the help of his
awakened conscience, says, "I have sinned" (Luke 15:18). Nor is this
all, for sin also provides Satan with his ground of accusation before
God, while our sense of guilt gives him his ground of accusation in our
hearts; so that, thirdly, it is the accuser of the brethren' (Rev.
12:10) who now says, You have sinned'.

To redeem us, therefore, and to bring us back to the purpose of God,
the Lord Jesus had to do something about these three questions of sin
and of guilt and of Satan's charge against us. Our sins had first to be
dealt with, and this was effected by the precious Blood of Christ. Our
guilt has to be dealt with and our guilty conscience set at rest by
showing us the value of that Blood. And finally the attack of the enemy
has to be met and his accusations answered. In the Scriptures the Blood
of Christ is shown to operate effectually in these three ways, Godward,
manward and Satanward.

There is thus an absolute need for us to appropriate these values of
the Blood if we are to go on. This is a first essential. We must have a
basic knowledge of the fact of the death of the Lord Jesus as our
Substitute upon the Cross, and a clear apprehension of the efficacy of
His Blood for our sins, for without this we cannot be said to have
started upon our road. Let us look then at these three matters more
closely.
__________________________________________________________________

The Blood Is Primarily For God

The Blood is for atonement and has to do first with our standing before
God. We need forgiveness for the sins we have committed, lest we come
under judgment; and they are forgiven, not because God overlooks what
we have done but because He sees the Blood. The Blood is therefore not
primarily for us but for God. If I want to understand the value of the
Blood I must accept God's valuation of it, and if I do not know
something of the value set upon the Blood by God I shall never know
what its value is for me. It is only as the estimate that God puts upon
the Blood of Christ is made known to me by His Holy Spirit that I come
into the good of it myself and find how precious indeed the Blood is to
me. But the first aspect of it is Godward. Throughout the Old and New
Testaments the word blood' is used in connection with the idea of
atonement, I think over a hundred times, and throughout it is something
for God.

In the Old Testament calendar there is one day that has a great bearing
on the matter of our sins and that day is the Day of Atonement. Nothing
explains this question of sins so clearly as the description of that
day. In Leviticus 16 we find that on the Day of Atonement the blood was
taken from the sin offering and brought into the Most Holy Place and
there sprinkled before the Lord seven times. We must be very clear
about this. On that day the sin offering was offered publicly in the
court of the tabernacle. Everything was there in full view and could be
seen by all. But the Lord commanded that no man should enter the
tabernacle itself except the high priest. It was he alone who took the
blood and, going into the Most Holy Place, sprinkled it there to make
atonement before the Lord. Why? Because the high priest was a type of
the Lord Jesus in His redemptive work (Hebrews 9:12), and so, in
figure, he was the one who did the work. None but he could even draw
near to enter in. Moreover, connected with his going in there was but
one act, namely, the presenting of the blood to God as something He had
accepted, something in which He could find satisfaction. It was a
transaction between the high priest and God in the Sanctuary, away from
the eyes of the men who were to benefit by it. The Lord required that.
The Blood is therefore in the first place for Him.

Earlier even than this there is described in Exodus 12:13 the shedding
of the blood of the passover lamb in Egypt for Israel's redemption.
This is again, I think, one of the best types in the Old Testament of
our redemption. The blood was put on the lintel and on the door-posts,
whereas the meat, the flesh of the lamb, was eaten inside the house;
and God said: "When I see the blood, I will pass over you". Here we
have another illustration of the fact that the blood was not meant to
be presented to man but to God, for the blood was put on the lintel and
on the door-posts, where those feasting inside the house would not see
it.
__________________________________________________________________

God Is Satisfied

It is God's holiness, God's righteousness, which demands that a sinless
life should be given for man. There is life in the Blood, and that
Blood has to be poured out for me, for my sins. God is the One who
requires it to be so. God is the One who demands that the Blood be
presented, in order to satisfy His own righteousness, and it is He who
says: When I see the blood', I will pass over you.' The Blood of Christ
wholly satisfies God.

Now I desire to say a word at this point to my younger brethren in the
Lord, for it is here that we often get into difficulties. As
unbelievers we may have been wholly untroubled by our conscience until
the Word of God began to arouse us. Our conscience was dead, and those
with dead consciences are certainly of no use to God. But later, when
we believed, our awakened conscience may have become acutely sensitive,
and this can constitute a real problem to us. The sense of sin and
guilt can become so great, so terrible, as almost to cripple us by
causing us to lose sight of the true effectiveness of the Blood. It
seems to us that our sins are so real, and some particular sin may
trouble us so many times, that we come to the point where to us our
sins loom larger than the Blood of Christ.

Now the whole trouble with us is that we are trying to sense it; we are
trying to feel its value and to estimate subjectively what the Blood is
for us. We cannot do it; it does not work that way. The Blood is first
for God to see. We then have to accept God's valuation of it. In doing
so we shall find our valuation. If instead we try to come to a
valuation by way of our feelings we get nothing; we remain in darkness.
No, it is a matter of faith in God's Word. We have to believe that the
Blood is precious to God because He says it is so (1 Peter 1:18, 19).
If God can accept the Blood as a payment for our sins and as the price
of our redemption, then we can rest assured that the debt has been
paid. If God is satisfied with the Blood, then the Blood must be
acceptable. Our valuation of it is only according to His
valuation--neither more nor less. It cannot, of course, be more, but it
must not be less. Let us remember that He is holy and He is righteous,
and that a holy and righteous God has the right to say that the Blood
is acceptable in His eyes and has fully satisfied Him.
__________________________________________________________________

The Blood And The Believer's Access

The Blood has satisfied God; it must satisfy us also. It has therefore
a second value that is manward in the cleansing of our conscience. When
we come to the Epistle to the Hebrews we find that the Blood does this.
We are to have "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Hebrews
10:22).

This is most important. Look carefully at what it says. The writer does
not tell us that the Blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses our hearts, and
then stop there in his statement. We are wrong to connect the heart
with the Blood in quite that way. It may show a misunderstanding of the
sphere in which the Blood operates to pray, Lord, cleanse my heart from
sin by Thy Blood'. The heart, God says, is "desperately sick" (Jeremiah
17:9), and He must do something more fundamental than cleanse it: He
must give us a new one.

We do not wash and iron clothing that we are going to throw away. As we
shall shortly see, the flesh' is too bad to be cleansed; it must be
crucified. The work of God within us must be something wholly new. "A
new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you"
(Ezekiel 36:26).

No, I do not find it stated that the Blood cleanses our hearts. Its
work is not subjective in that way, but wholly objective, before God.
True, the cleansing work of the Blood is seen here in Hebrews 10 to
have reference to the heart, but it is in relation to the conscience.
"Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience". What then is the
meaning of this?

It means that there was something intervening between myself and God,
as a result of which I had an evil conscience whenever I sought to
approach Him. It was constantly reminding me of the barrier that stood
between myself and Him. But now, through the operation of the precious
Blood, something new has been effected before God which has removed
that barrier, and God has made that fact known to me in His Word. When
that has been believed in and accepted, my conscience is at once
cleared and my sense of guilt removed, and I have no more an evil
conscience toward God.

Every one of us knows what a precious thing it is to have a conscience
void of offense in our dealings with God. A heart of faith and a
conscience clear of any and every accusation are both equally essential
to us, since they are interdependent. As soon as we find our conscience
is uneasy our faith leaks away and immediately we find we cannot face
God. In order therefore to keep going on with God we must know the
up-to-date value of the Blood. God keeps short accounts, and we are
made nigh by the Blood every day, every hour and every minute. It never
loses its efficacy as our ground of access if we will but lay hold upon
it. When we enter the most Holy Place, on what ground dare we enter but
by the Blood?

But I want to ask myself, am I really seeking the way into the Presence
of God by the Blood or by something else? What do I mean when I say, by
the Blood'? I mean simply that I recognize my sins, that I confess that
I have need of cleansing and of atonement, and that I come to God on
the basis of the finished work of the Lord Jesus. I approach God
through His merit alone, and never on the basis of my attainment;
never, for example, on the ground that I have been extra kind or
patient today, or that I have done something for the Lord this morning.
I have to come by way of the Blood every time. The temptation to so
many of us when we try to approach God is to think that because God has
been dealing with us--because He has been taking steps to bring us into
something more of Himself and has been teaching us deeper lessons of
the Cross--He has thereby set before us new standards, and that only by
attaining to these can we have a clear conscience before Him. No! A
clear conscience is never based upon our attainment; it can only be
based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His Blood.

I may be mistaken, but I feel very strongly that some of us are
thinking in terms such as these: Today I have been a little more
careful; today I have been doing a little better; this morning I have
been reading the Word of God in a warmer way, so today I can pray
better!' Or again, Today I have had a little difficulty with the
family; I began the day feeling very gloomy and moody; I am not feeling
too bright now; it seems that there must be something wrong; therefore
I cannot approach God.'

What, after all, is your basis of approach to God? Do you come to Him
on the uncertain ground of your feeling, the feeling that you may have
achieved something for God today? Or is your approach based on
something far more secure, namely, the fact that the Blood has been
shed, and that God looks on that Blood and is satisfied? Of course,
were it conceivably possible for the Blood to suffer any change, the
basis of your approach to God might be less trustworthy. But the Blood
has never changed and never will. Your approach to God is therefore
always in boldness; and that boldness is yours through the Blood and
never through your personal attainment. Whatever be your measure of
attainment today or yesterday or the day before, as soon as you make a
conscious move into the Most Holy Place, immediately you have to take
your stand upon the safe and only ground of the shed Blood. Whether you
have had a good day or a bad day, whether you have consciously sinned
or not, your basis of approach is always the same--the Blood of Christ.
That is the ground upon which you may enter, and there is no other.

As with many other stages of our Christian experience, this matter of
access to God has two phases, an initial and a progressive one. The
former is presented to us in Ephesians 2 and the latter in Hebrews 10.
Initially, our standing with God was secured by the Blood, for we are
"made nigh in the blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:13). But thereafter our
ground of continual access is still by the Blood, for the apostle
exhorts us: "Having therefore... boldness to enter into the holy place
by the blood of Jesus... let us draw near" (Heb. 10:19, 22). To begin
with I was made nigh by the Blood, and to continue in that new
relationship I come through the Blood every time. It is not that I was
saved on one basis and that I now maintain my fellowship on another.
You say, 'That is very simple; it is the A.B.C. of the Gospel.' Yes,
but the trouble with many of us is that we have moved away from the
A.B.C. We have thought we had progressed and so could dispense with it,
but we can never do so. No, my initial approach to God is by the Blood,
and every time I come before Him it is the same. Right to the end it
will always and only be on the ground of the Blood.

This does not mean at all that we should live a careless life, for we
shall shortly study another aspect of the death of Christ which shows
us that anything but that is contemplated. But for the present let us
be satisfied with the Blood, that it is there and that it is enough.

We may be weak, but looking at our weakness will never make us strong.
No trying to feel bad and doing penance will help us to be even a
little holier. There is no help there, so let us be bold in our
approach because of the Blood: Lord, I do not know fully what the value
of the Blood is, but I know that the Blood has satisfied Thee; so the
Blood is enough for me, and it is my only plea. I see now that whether
I have really progressed, whether I have really attained to something
or not, is not the point. Whenever I come before Thee, it is always on
the ground of the precious Blood. Then our conscience is really clear
before God. No conscience could ever be clear apart from the Blood. It
is the Blood that gives us boldness.

"No more conscience of sins": these are tremendous words of Hebrews
10:2. We are cleansed from every sin; and we may truly echo the words
of Paul: "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin"
(Romans 4:8).
__________________________________________________________________

Overcoming The Accuser

In view of what we have said we can now turn to face the enemy, for
there is a further aspect of the Blood which is Satanward. Satan's most
strategic activity in this day is as the accuser of the brethren (Rev.
12:10) and it is as this that our Lord confronts him with His special
ministry as High Priest "through his own blood" (Hebrews 9:12).

How then does the Blood operate against Satan? It does so by putting
God on the side of man against him. The Fall brought something into man
which gave Satan a footing within him, with the result that God was
compelled to withdraw Himself. Man is now outside the garden--beyond
reach of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)--because he is inwardly
estranged from God. Because of what man has done, there is something in
him which, until it is removed, renders God morally unable to defend
him. But the Blood removes that barrier and restores man to God and God
to man. Man is in favour now, and because God is on his side he can
face Satan without fear.

You remember that verse in John's first Epistle--and this is the
translation of it I like best: "The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us
from every sin" [1] It is not exactly "all sin" in the general sense,
but every sin, every item. What does it mean? Oh, it is a marvelous
thing! God is the light, and as we walk in the light with Him
everything is exposed and open to that light, so that God can see it
all--and yet the Blood is able to cleanse from every sin. What a
cleansing! It is not that I have not a profound knowledge of myself,
nor that God has not a perfect knowledge of me. It is not that I try to
hide something nor that God tries to overlook something. No, it is that
He is in the light and I too am in the light, and that there the
precious Blood cleanses me from every sin. The Blood is enough for
that!

Some of us, oppressed by our own weakness, may at times have been
tempted to think that there are sins which are almost unforgivable. Let
us remember the word: "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us
from every sin." Big sins, small sins, sins which may be very black and
sins which appear to be not so black, sins which I think can be
forgiven and sins which seem unforgivable, yes, all sins, conscious or
unconscious, remembered or forgotten, are included in those words:
"every sin". "The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin",
and it does so because in the first place it satisfies God.

Since God, seeing all our sins in the light, can forgive them on the
basis of the Blood, what ground of accusation has Satan? Satan may
accuse us before Him, but, "If God is for us, who is against us?"
(Romans 8:31). God points him to the Blood of His dear Son. It is the
sufficient answer against which Satan has no appeal. "Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who
is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather,
that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us" (Romans 8:33, 34).

So here again our need is to recognize the absolute sufficiency of the
precious Blood. "Christ having come a high priest... through his own
blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained
eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:11, 12). He was Redeemer once. He has
been High Priest and Advocate for nearly two thousand years. He stands
there in the presence of God, and "he is the propitiation for our sins"
(1 John 2:1, 2). Note the words of Hebrews 9:14: "How much more shall
the blood of Christ..." They underline the sufficiency of His ministry.
It is enough for God.

What then of our attitude to Satan? This is important, for he accuses
us not only before God but in our own conscience also. You have sinned,
and you keep on sinning. You are weak, and God can have nothing more to
do with you.' This is his argument. And our temptation is to look
within and in self-defense to try to find in ourselves, in our feelings
or our behavior, some ground for believing that Satan is wrong.
Alternatively we are tempted to admit our helplessness and, going to
the other extreme, to yield to depression and despair. Thus accusation
becomes one of the greatest and most effective of Satan's weapons. He
points to our sins and seeks to charge us with them before God, and if
we accept his accusations we go down immediately.

Now the reason why we so readily accept his accusations is that we are
still hoping to have some righteousness of our own. The ground of our
expectation is wrong. Satan has succeeded in making us look in the
wrong direction. Thereby he wins his point, rendering us ineffective.
But if we have learned to put no confidence in the flesh, we shall not
wonder if we sin, for the very nature of the flesh is to sin. Do you
understand what I mean? It is because we have not come to appreciate
our true nature and to see how helpless we are that we still have some
expectation in ourselves, with the result that, when Satan comes along
and accuses us, we go down under it.

God is well able to deal with our sins; but He cannot deal with a man
under accusation, because such a man is not trusting in the Blood. The
Blood speaks in his favour, but his is listening instead to Satan.
Christ is our Advocate but we, the accused, side with the accuser. We
have not recognized that we are unworthy of anything but death; that,
as we shall shortly see, we are only fit to be crucified anyway. We
have not recognized that it is God alone that can answer the accuser,
and that in the precious Blood He has already done so.

Our salvation lies in looking away to the Lord Jesus and in seeing that
the Blood of the Lamb has met the whole situation created by our sins
and has answered it. That is the sure foundation on which we stand.
Never should we try to answer Satan with our good conduct but always
with the Blood. Yes, we are sinful, but, praise God! the Blood cleanses
us from every sin. God looks upon the Blood whereby His Son has met the
charge, and Satan has no more ground of attack. Our faith in the
precious Blood and our refusal to be moved from that position can alone
silence his charges and put him to flight (Romans 8:33, 34); and so it
will be, right on to the end (Revelation 12:11). Oh, what an
emancipation it would be if we saw more of the value of God's eyes of
the precious Blood of His dear Son!
__________________________________________________________________

[1] 1 John 1:7: Marginal reading of New Translation by J.N. Darby
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 2: The Cross of Christ

We have seen that Romans 1 to 8 falls into two sections, in the first
of which we are shown that the Blood deals with what we have done,
while in the second we shall see that the Cross [2] deals with what we
are. We need the Blood for forgiveness; we need also the Cross for
deliverance. We have dealt briefly above with the first of these two
and we shall move on now to the second; but before we do so we will
look for a moment at a few more features of this passage which serve to
emphasize the difference in subject matter and argument between the two
halves.
__________________________________________________________________

Some Further Distinctions

Two aspects of the resurrection are mentioned in the two sections, in
chapters 4 and 6. In Romans 4:25 the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is
mentioned in relation to our justification: "Jesus our Lord... was
delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification."
Here the matter in view is that of our standing before God. But in
Romans 6:4 the resurrection is spoken of as imparting to us new life
with a view to a holy walk: "That like as Christ was raised from the
dead... so we also might walk in newness of life." Here the matter
before us is behaviour.

Again, peace is spoken of in both sections, in the fifth and eighth
chapters. Romans 5 tells of peace with God which is the effect of
justification by faith in His Blood: "Being therefore justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (5:1 mg.)
This means that, now that I have forgiveness of sins, God will no
longer be a cause of dread and trouble to me. I who was an enemy to God
have been "reconciled... through the death of his Son" (5:10). I very
soon find, however, that I am going to be a great cause of trouble to
myself. There is still unrest within, for within me there is something
that draws me to sin. There is peace with God, but there is no peace
with myself. There is in fact civil war in my own heart. This condition
is well depicted in Romans 7 where the flesh and the spirit are seen to
be in deadly conflict within me. But from this the argument leads in
chapter 8 to the inward peace of a walk in the Spirit. "The mind of the
flesh is death", because it "is enmity against God", "but the mind of
the spirit is life and peace" (Romans 8:6, 7).

Looking further still we find that the first half of the section deals
generally speaking with the question of justification (see, for
example, Romans 3:24-26; 4:5, 25), while the second half has as its
main topic the corresponding question of sanctification (see Rom. 6:19,
22). When we know the precious truth of justification by faith we still
know only half of the story. We still have only solved the problem of
our standing before God. As we go on, God has something more to offer
us, namely, the solution of the problem of our conduct, and the
development of thought in these chapters serves to emphasize this. In
each case the second step follows from the first, and if we know only
the first then we are still leading a sub-normal Christian life. How
then can we live a normal Christian life? How do we enter in? Well, of
course, initially we must have forgiveness of sins, we must have
justification, we must have peace with God: these are our indispensable
foundation. But with that basis truly established through our first act
of faith in Christ, it is yet clear from the above that we must move on
to something more.

So we see that objectively the Blood deals with our sins. The Lord
Jesus has borne them on the Cross for us as our Substitute and has
thereby obtained for us forgiveness, justification and reconciliation.
But we must now go a step further in the plan of God to understand how
He deals with the sin principle in us. The Blood can wash away my sins,
but it cannot wash away my old man'. It needs the Cross to crucify me.
The Blood deals with the sins, but the Cross must deal with the sinner.

You will scarcely find the word sinner' in the first four chapters of
Romans. This is because there the sinner himself is not mainly in view,
but rather the sins he has committed. The word sinner' first comes into
prominence only in chapter 5, and it is important to notice how the
sinner is there introduced. In that chapter a sinner is said to be a
sinner because he is born a sinner; not because he has committed sins.
The distinction is important. It is true that often when a Gospel
worker wants to convince a man in the street that he is a sinner, he
will use the favourite verse Romans 3:23, where it says that "all have
sinned"; but this use of the verse is not strictly justified by the
Scriptures. Those who so use it are in danger of arguing the wrong way
round, for the teaching of Romans is not that we are sinners because we
commit sins, but that we sin because we are sinners. We are sinners by
constitution rather than by action. As Romans 5:19 expresses it:
"Through the one man's disobedience the many were made (or
constituted') sinners".

How were we constituted sinners? By Adam's disobedience. We do not
become sinners by what we have done but because of what Adam has done
and has become. I speak English, but I am not thereby constituted an
Englishman. I am in fact a Chinese. So chapter 3 draws our attention to
what we have done--"all have sinned"--but it is not because we have
done it that we become sinners.

I once asked a class of children. Who is a sinner?' and their immediate
reply was, One who sins'. Yes, one who sins is a sinner, but the fact
that he sins is merely the evidence that he is already a sinner; it is
not the cause. One who sins is a sinner, but it is equally true that
one who does not sin, if he is of Adam's race, is a sinner too, and in
need of redemption. Do you follow me? There are bad sinners and there
are good sinners, there are moral sinners and there are corrupt
sinners, but they are all alike sinners. We sometimes think that if
only we had not done certain things all would be well; but the trouble
lies far deeper than in what we do: it lies in what we are. A Chinese
may be born in America and be unable to speak Chinese at all, but he is
a Chinese for all that, because he was born a Chinese. It is birth that
counts. So I am a sinner not of my behaviour but of my heredity, my
parentage. I am not a sinner because I sin, but I sin because I come of
the wrong stock. I sin because I am a sinner.

We are apt to think that what we have done is very bad, but that we
ourselves are not so bad. God is taking pains to show us that we
ourselves are wrong, fundamentally wrong. The root trouble is the
sinner; he must be dealt with. Our sins are dealt with by the Blood,
but we ourselves are dealt with by the Cross. The Blood procures our
pardon for what we have done; the Cross procures our deliverance from
what we are.
__________________________________________________________________

Man's State By Nature

We come therefore to Romans 5:12-21. In this great passage, grace is
brought into contrast with sin and the obedience of Christ is set
against the disobedience of Adam. It is placed at the beginning of the
second section of (Romans 5:12 to 8:39) with which we shall now be
particularly concerned, and its argument leads to a conclusion which
lies at the foundation of our further meditations. What is that
conclusion? It is found in verse 19 already quoted: "For as through the
one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the
obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous." Here the Spirit
of God is seeking to show us first what we are, and then how we came to
be what we are.

At the beginning of our Christian life we are concerned with our doing,
not with our being; we are distressed rather by what we have done than
by what we are. We think that if only we could rectify certain things
we should be good Christians, and we set out therefore to change our
actions. But the result is not what we expected. We discover to our
dismay that it is something more than just a case of trouble on the
outside--that there is in fact more serious trouble on the inside. We
try to please the Lord, but find something within that does not want to
please Him. We try to be humble, but there is something in our very
being that refuses to be humble. We try to be loving, but inside we
feel most unloving. We smile and try to look very gracious, but
inwardly we feel decidedly ungracious. The more we try to rectify
matters on the outside the more we realize how deep-seated the trouble
is within. Then we come to the Lord and say, Lord, I see it now! Not
only what I have done is wrong; I am wrong.'

The conclusion of Romans 5:19 is beginning to dawn upon us. We are
sinners. We are members of a race of people who are constitutionally
other than what God intended them to be. By the Fall a fundamental
change took place in the character of Adam whereby he became a sinner,
one constitutionally unable to please God; and the family likeness
which we all share is no merely superficial one but extends to our
inward character also. We have been "constituted sinners". How did this
come about? "By the disobedience of one", says Paul. Let me try to
illustrate this.

My name is Nee. It is a fairly common Chinese name. How did I come by
it? I did not choose it. I did not go through the list of possible
Chinese names and select this one. That my name is Nee is in fact not
my doing at all, and, moreover, nothing I can do can alter it. I am a
Nee because my father was a Nee, and my father was a Nee because my
grandfather was a Nee. If I act like a Nee I am a Nee, and if I act
unlike a Nee I am still a Nee. If I become President of the Chinese
Republic I am a Nee, or if I become a beggar in the street I am still a
Nee. Nothing I do or refrain from doing will make me other than a Nee.

We are sinners not because of ourselves but because of Adam. It is not
because I individually have sinned that I am a sinner but because I was
in Adam when he sinned. Because by birth I come of Adam, therefore I am
a part of him. What is more, I can do nothing to alter this. I cannot
by improving my behaviour make myself other than a part of Adam and so
a sinner.

In China I was once talking in this strain and remarked, We have all
sinned in Adam'. A man said, I don't understand', so I sought to
explain it in this way. All Chinese trace their descent from Huang-ti',
I said. Over four thousand years ago he had a war with Si-iu. His enemy
was very strong, but nevertheless Huang-ti overcame and slew him. After
this Huang-ti founded the Chinese nation. Four thousand years ago
therefore our nation was founded by Huang-ti. Now what would have
happened if Huang-ti had not killed his enemy, but had been himself
killed instead? Where would you be now?' There would be no me at all',
he answered. Oh, no! Huang-ti can die his death and you can live your
life.' Impossible!' he cried, If he had died, then I could never have
lived, for I have derived my life from him.'

Do you see the oneness of human life? Our life comes from Adam. If your
great-grandfather had died at the age of three, where would you be? You
would have died in him! Your experience is bound up with his. Now in
just the same way the experience of every one of us is bound up with
that of Adam. None can say, I have not been in Eden' for potentially we
all were there when Adam yielded to the serpent's words. So we are all
involved in Adam's sin, and by being born "in Adam" we receive from him
all that he became as a result of his sin--that is to say, the
Adam-nature which is the nature of a sinner. We derive our existence
from him, and because his life became a sinful life, a sinful nature,
therefore the nature which we derive from him is also sinful. So, as we
have said, the trouble is in our heredity, not in our behaviour. Unless
we can change our parentage there is no deliverance for us.

But it is in this very direction that we shall find the solution of our
problem, for that is exactly how God has dealt with the situation.
__________________________________________________________________

As In Adam So In Christ

In Romans 5:12 to 21 we are not only told something about Adam; we are
told also something about the Lord Jesus. "As through the one man's
disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience
of the one shall the many be made righteous." In Adam we receive
everything that is of Adam; in Christ we receive everything that is of
Christ.

The terms in Adam' and in Christ' are too little understood by
Christians, and, at the risk of repetition, I wish again to emphasize
by means of an illustration the hereditary and racial significance of
the term in Christ'. This illustration is to be found in the letter to
the Hebrews. Do you remember that in the earlier part of the letter the
writer is trying to show that Melchizedek is greater than Levi? You
recall that the point to be proved is that the priesthood of Christ is
greater than the priesthood of Aaron who was of the tribe of Levi. Now
in order to prove that, he has first to prove that the priesthood of
Melchizedek is greater than the priesthood of Levi, for the simple
reason that the priesthood of Christ is "after the order of
Melchizedek" (Heb. 7:14-17), while that of Aaron is, of course, after
the order of Levi. If the writer can demonstrate to us that Melchizedek
is greater than Levi, then he has made his point. That is the issue,
and he proves it in a remarkable way.

He tells us in Hebrews chapter 7 that one day Abraham, returning from
the battle of the kings (Genesis 14), offered a tithe of his spoils to
Melchizedek and received from him a blessing. Inasmuch as Abraham did
so, Levi is therefore of less account than Melchizedek. Why? Because
the fact that Abraham offered tithes to Melchizedek. But if that is
true, then Jacob also in Abraham' offered to Melchizedek, which in turn
means that Levi in Abraham' offered to Melchizedek. It is evident that
the lesser offers to the greater (Hebrews 7:7). So Levi is less in
standing than Melchizedek, and therefore the priesthood of Aaron is
inferior to that of the Lord Jesus. Levi at the time of the battle of
the kings was not yet even thought of. Yet he was "in the loins of his
father" Abraham, and, "so to say, through Abraham", he offered (Hebrews
7:9, 10).

Now this is the exact meaning of in Christ'. Abraham, as the head of
the family of faith, includes the whole family in himself. When he
offered to Melchizedek, the whole family offered in him to Melchizedek.
They did not offer separately as individuals, but they were in him, and
therefore in making his offering he included with himself all his seed.

So we are presented with a new possibility. In Adam all was lost.
Through the disobedience of one man we were all constituted sinners. By
him sin entered and death through sin, and throughout the race sin has
reigned unto death from that day on. But now a ray of light is cast
upon the scene. Through the obedience of Another we may be constituted
righteous. Where sin abounded grace did much more abound, and as sin
reigned unto death, even so may grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:19-21). Our despair is
in Adam; our hope is in Christ.
__________________________________________________________________

The Divine Way of Deliverance

God clearly intends that this consideration should lead to our
practical deliverance from sin. Paul makes this quite plain when he
opens chapter 6 of his letter with the question: "Shall we continue in
sin?" His whole being recoils at the very suggestion. "God forbid!", he
exclaims. How could a holy God be satisfied to have unholy,
sin-fettered children? And so "how shall we any longer live therein?"
(Romans 6:1, 2). God has surely therefore made adequate provision that
we should be set free from sin's dominion.

But here is our problem. We were born sinners; how then can we cut off
our sinful heredity? Seeing that we were born in Adam, how can we get
out of Adam? Let me say at once, the Blood cannot take us out of Adam.
There is only one way. Since we came in by birth we must go out by
death. To do away with our sinfulness we must do away with our life.
Bondage to sin came by birth; deliverance from sin comes by death--and
it is just this way of escape that God has provided. Death is the
secret of emancipation. "We... died to sin" (Romans 6:2).

But how can we die? Some of us have tried very hard to get rid of this
sinful life, but we have found it most tenacious. What is the way out?
It is not by trying to kill ourselves, but by recognizing that God has
dealt with us in Christ. This is summed up in the apostle's next
statement: "All we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized
into his death" (Romans 6:3).

But if God has dealt with us in Christ Jesus' then we have got to be in
Him for this to become effective, and that now seems just as big a
problem. How are we to get into' Christ? Here again God comes to our
help. We have in fact no way of getting in, but, what is more
important, we need not try to get in, for we are in. What we could not
do for ourselves God has done for us. He has put us into Christ. Let me
remind you of I Corinthians 1:30. I think that is one of the best
verses of the whole New Testament: Ye are in Christ'. How? "Of him
(that is, of God') are ye in Christ." Praise God! it is not left to us
either to devise a way of entry or to work it out. We need not plan how
to get in. God has planned it; and He has not only planned it but He
has also performed it. Of him are ye in Christ Jesus'. We are in;
therefore we need not try to get in. It is a Divine act, and it is
accomplished.

Now if this is true, certain things follow. In the illustration from
Hebrews 7 which we considered above we saw that in Abraham' all
Israel--and therefore Levi who was not yet born--offered tithes to
Melchizedek. They did not offer separately and individually, but they
were in Abraham when he offered, and his offering included all his
seed. This, then, is a true figure of ourselves as in Christ'. When the
Lord Jesus was on the Cross all of us died--not individually, for we
had not yet been born--but, being in Him, we died in Him. "One died for
all, therefore all died" (2 Cor. 5:14). When He was crucified all of us
were crucified.

Many a time when preaching in the villages of China one has to use very
simple illustrations for deep Divine truth. I remember once I took up a
small book and put a piece of paper into it, and I said to those very
simple ones, Now look carefully. I take a piece of paper. It has an
identity of its own, quite separate from this book. Having no special
purpose for it at the moment I put it into the book. Now I do something
with the book. I post it to Shanghai. I do not post the paper, but the
paper has been put into the book. Then where is the paper? Can the book
go to Shanghai and the paper remain here? Can the paper have a separate
destiny from the book? No! Where the book goes the paper goes. If I
drop the book in the river the paper goes too, and if I quickly take it
out again I recover the paper also. Whatever experience the book goes
through the paper goes through with it, for it is in the book.'

"Of him are ye in Christ Jesus." The Lord God Himself has put us in
Christ, and in His dealing with Christ God has dealt with the whole
race. Our destiny is bound up with His. What He has gone through we
have gone through, for to be in Christ' is to have been identified with
Him in both His death and resurrection. He was crucified: then what
about us? Must we ask God to crucify us? Never! When Christ was
crucified we were crucified; and His crucifixion is past, therefore
ours cannot be future. I challenge you to find one text in the New
Testament telling us that our crucifixion is in the future. All the
references to it are in the Greek aorist, which is the once-for-all'
tense, the eternally past' tense. (See: Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20;
5:24; 6:14). And just as no man could ever commit suicide by
crucifixion, for it were a physical impossibility to do so, so also, in
spiritual terms, God does not require us to crucify ourselves. We were
crucified when He was crucified, for God put us there in Him. That we
have died in Christ is not merely a doctrinal position, it is an
eternal fact.
__________________________________________________________________

His Death and Resurrection Representative and Inclusive

The Lord Jesus, when He died on the Cross, shed His Blood, thus giving
His sinless life to atone for our sin and to satisfy the righteousness
and holiness of God. To do so was the prerogative of the Son of God
alone. No man could have a share in that. The Scripture has never told
us that we shed our blood with Christ. In His atoning work before God
He acted alone; no other could have a part. But the Lord did not die
only to shed His Blood: He died that we might die. He died as our
Representative. In His death He included you and me.

We often use the terms substitution' and identification' to describe
these two aspects of the death of Christ. Now many a time the use of
the word identification' is good. But identification would suggest that
the thing begins from our side: that I try to identify myself with the
Lord. I agree that the word is true, but it should be used later on. It
is better to begin with the fact that the Lord included me in His
death. It is the inclusive' death of the Lord which puts me in a
position to identify myself, not that I identify myself in order to be
included. It is God's inclusion of me in Christ that matters. It is
something God has done. For that reason those two New Testament words
"in Christ" are always very dear to my heart.

The death of the Lord Jesus is inclusive. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus is alike inclusive. We have looked at the first chapter of I
Corinthians to establish the fact that we are "in Christ Jesus". Now we
will go to the end of the same letter to see something more of what
this means. In I Corinthians 15:45, 47 two remarkable names or titles
are used of the Lord Jesus. He is spoken of there as "the last Adam"
and He is spoken of too as "the second man". Scripture does not refer
to Him as the second Adam but as "the last Adam"; nor does it refer to
Him as the last Man, but as "the second man". The distinction is to be
noted, for it enshrines a truth of great value.

As the last Adam, Christ is the sum total of humanity; as the second
Man He is the Head of a new race. So we have here two unions, the one
relating to His death and the other to His resurrection. In the first
place His union with the race as "the last Adam" began historically at
Bethlehem and ended at the cross and the tomb. In it He gathered up
into Himself all that was in Adam and took it to judgment and death. In
the second place our union with Him as "the second man" begins in
resurrection and ends in eternity--which is to say, it never ends--for,
having in His death done away with the first man in whom God's purpose
was frustrated, He rose again as Head of a new race of men, in whom
that purpose shall be fully realized.

When therefore the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, He was
crucified as the last Adam. All that was in the first Adam was gathered
up and done away in Him. We were included there. As the last Adam He
wiped out the old race; as the second Man He brings in the new race. It
is in His resurrection that He stands forth as the second Man, and
there too we are included. "For if we have become united with him by
the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his
resurrection" (Romans 6:5). We died in Him as the last Adam; we live in
Him as the second Man. The Cross is thus the power of God which
translates us from Adam to Christ.
__________________________________________________________________

[2] Note - The author uses the Cross' here and throughout these studies
in a special sense. Most readers will be familiar with the current use
of the expression the Cross' to signify, firstly, the entire redemptive
work accomplished historically in the death, burial, resurrection and
ascension of the Lord Jesus Himself (Phil. 2:8, 9), and secondly, in a
wider sense, the union of believers with Him therein through grace
(Rom. 6:4; Eph. 2:5, 6). Clearly in that use of the term the operation
of the Blood' in relation to forgiveness of sins (as dealt with in
Chapter 1 of this book) is, from God's viewpoint, included (with all
that follows in these studies) as a part of the work of the Cross. In
this and the following chapters, however, the author is compelled, for
lack of an alternative term, to use the Cross' in a more particular and
limited doctrinal sense in order to draw a helpful distinction, namely,
that between substitution and identification, as being, from the human
angle, two separate aspects of the doctrine of redemption. Thus the
name of the whole is of necessity used for one of its parts. The reader
should bear this in mind in what follows.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 3: The Path of Progress: Knowing

Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the
resurrection. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old
things are passed away; behold they are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). The
Cross terminates the first creation, and out of death there is brought
a new creation in Christ, the second Man. If we are in Adam' all that
is in Adam necessarily devolves upon us; it becomes ours involuntarily,
for we have to do nothing to get it. There is no need to make up our
minds to lose our temper or to commit some other sin; it comes to us
freely and despite ourselves. In a similar way, if we are in Christ'
all that is in Christ comes to us by free grace, without effort on our
part but on the ground of simple faith.

But to say that all we need comes to us in Christ by free grace, though
true enough, may seem unpractical. How does it work out in practice?
How does it become real in our experience?

As we study chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Romans we shall discover that the
conditions of living the normal Christian life are fourfold. They are:
(a) Knowing, (b) Reckoning, (c) Presenting ourselves to God, and (d)
Walking in the Spirit, and they are set forth in that order. If we
would live that life we shall have to take all four of these steps; not
one nor two nor three, but all four. As we study each of them we shall
trust the Lord by His Holy Spirit to illumine our understanding; and we
shall seek His help now to take the first big step forward.
__________________________________________________________________

Our Death With Christ A Historic Fact

Romans 6:1-11 is the passage before us now. In these verses it is made
clear that the death of the Lord Jesus is representative and inclusive.
In His death we all died. None of us can progress spiritually without
seeing this. Just as we cannot have justification if we have not seen
Him bearing our sins on the Cross, so we cannot have sanctification if
we have not seen Him bearing us on the Cross. Not only have our sins
been laid on Him but we ourselves have been put into Him.

How did you receive forgiveness? You realized that the Lord Jesus died
as your Substitute and bore your sins upon Himself, and that His Blood
was shed to cleanse away your defilement. When you saw your sins all
taken away on the Cross what did you do? Did you say, Lord Jesus,
please come and die for my sins'? No, you did not pray at all; you only
thanked the Lord You did not beseech Him to come and die for you, for
you realized that He had already done it.

But what is true of your forgiveness is also true of your deliverance.
The work is done. There is no need to pray but only to praise. God has
put us all in Christ, so that when Christ was crucified we were
crucified also. Thus there is no need to pray: I am a very wicked
person; Lord, please crucify me'. That is all wrong. You did not pray
about your sins; why pray now about yourself? Your sins were dealt with
by His Blood, and you were dealt with by His Cross. It is an
accomplished fact. All that is left for you to do is to praise the Lord
that when Christ died you died also; you died in Him. Praise Him for it
and live in the light of it. "Then believed they his words: they sang
his praise" (Psalm 106:12).

Do you believe in the death of Christ? Of course you do. Well, the same
Scripture that says He died for us says also that we died with Him.
Look at it again: "Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). That is the first
statement, and that is clear enough; but is this any less clear? "Our
old man was crucified with him" (Romans 6:6). "We died with Christ"
(Romans 6:8).

When are we crucified with Him? What is the date of our old man's
crucifixion? Is it tomorrow? Yesterday? Today? In order to answer this
it may help us if for a moment I turn Paul's statement round and say,
Christ was crucified with (i.e. at the same time as) our old man'. Some
of you came here in twos. You traveled to this place together. You
might say, My friend came here with me', but you might just as truly
say, I came here with my friend'. Had one of you come three days ago
and the other only today you could not possibly say that; but having
come together you can make either statement with equal truth, because
both are statements of fact. So also in historic fact we can say,
reverently but with equal accuracy, I was crucified when Christ was
crucified' or Christ was crucified when I was crucified', for they are
not two historical events, but one. My crucifixion was "with him". [3]
Has Christ been crucified? Then can I be otherwise? And if He was
crucified nearly two thousand years ago, and I with Him, can my
crucifixion be said to take place tomorrow? Can His be past and mine be
present or future? Praise the Lord, when He died in my stead, but He
bore me with Him to the Cross, so that when He died I died. And if I
believe in the death of the Lord Jesus, then I can believe in my own
death just as surely as I believe in His.

Why do you believe that the Lord Jesus died? What is your ground for
that belief? Is it that you feel He has died? No, you have never felt
it. You believe it because the Word of God tells you so. When the Lord
was crucified, two thieves were crucified at the same time. You do not
doubt that they were crucified with Him, either, because the Scripture
says so quite plainly.

You believe in the death of the Lord Jesus and you believe in the death
of the thieves with Him. Now what about your own death? Your
crucifixion is more intimate than theirs. They were crucified at the
same time as the Lord but on different crosses, whereas you were
crucified on the self same cross as He, for you were in Him when He
died. How can you know? You can know for the one sufficient reason that
God has said so. It does not depend on your feelings. If you feel that
Christ has died, He has died; and if you do not feel that he died, He
has died. If you feel that you have died, you have died; and if you do
not feel that you have died, you have nevertheless just as surely died.
These are Divine facts. That Christ has died is a fact, that the two
thieves have died is a fact, and that you have died is a fact also. Let
me tell you, You have died! You are done with! You are ruled out! The
self you loathe is on the Cross in Christ. And "he that is dead is
freed from sin" (Romans 6:7, A.V.). This is the Gospel for Christians.

Our crucifixion can never be made effective by will or by effort, but
only by accepting what the Lord Jesus did on the Cross. Our eyes must
be opened to see the finished work of Calvary. Some of you, prior to
your salvation, may have tried to save yourselves. You read the Bible,
prayed, went to Church, gave alms. Then one day your eyes were opened
and you saw that a full salvation had already been provided for you on
the Cross. You just accepted that and thanked God, and peace and joy
flowed into your heart. Now salvation and sanctification are on exactly
the same basis. You receive deliverance from sin in the same way as you
receive forgiveness of sins.

For God's way of deliverance is altogether different from man's way.
Man's way is to try to suppress sin by seeking to overcome it; God's
way is to remove the sinner. Many Christians mourn over their weakness,
thinking that if only they were stronger all would be well. The idea
that, because failure to lead a holy life is due to our impotence,
something more is therefore demanded of us, leads naturally to this
false conception of the way of deliverance. If we are preoccupied with
the power of sin and with our inability to meet it, then we naturally
conclude that to gain the victory over sin we must have more power. If
only I were stronger', we say, I could overcome my violent outbursts of
temper', and so we plead with the Lord to strengthen us that we may
exercise more self-control.

But this is altogether wrong; this is not Christianity. God's means of
delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but
by making us weaker and weaker. That is surely rather a peculiar way of
victory, you say; but it is the Divine way. God sets us free from the
dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying
him; not by helping him to do anything but by removing him from the
scene of action.

For years, maybe, you have tried fruitlessly to exercise control over
yourself, and perhaps this is still your experience; but when once you
see the truth you will recognize that you are indeed powerless to do
anything, but that in setting you aside altogether God has done it all.
Such a revelation brings human self-effort to an end.
__________________________________________________________________

[3] The expression "with him" in Romans 6:6 carries of course a
doctrinal as well as historical, or temporal sense. It is only in the
historical sense that the statement is reversible. W.N.
__________________________________________________________________

The First Step: "Knowing This..."

The normal Christian life must begin with a very definite knowing',
which is not just knowing something about the truth nor understanding
some important doctrine. It is not intellectual knowledge at all, but
an opening of the eyes of the heart to see what we have in Christ.

How do you know your sins are forgiven? Is it because your pastor told
you so? No, you just know it. If I ask you how you know, you simply
answer, I know it!' Such knowledge comes by Divine revelation. It comes
from the Lord Himself. Of course the fact of forgiveness of sins is in
the Bible, but for the written Word of God to become a living Word from
God to you He had to give you "a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of him" (Eph. 1:17). What you needed was to know Christ in
that way, and it is always so. So there comes a time, in regard to any
new apprehension of Christ, when you know it in your own heart, you
see' it in your spirit. A light has shined into your inner being and
you are wholly persuaded of the fact. What is true of the forgiveness
of your sins is no less true of your deliverance from sin. When once
the light of God dawns upon your heart you see yourself in Christ. It
is not now because someone has told you, and not merely because Romans
6 says so. It is something more even than that. You know it because God
has revealed it to you by His Spirit. You may not feel it; you may not
understand it; but you know it, for you have seen it. Once you have
seen yourself in Christ, nothing can shake your assurance of that
blessed fact.

If you ask a number of believers who have entered upon the normal
Christian life how they came by their experience, some will say in this
way and some will say in that. Each stresses his own particular way of
entering in and produces Scripture to support his experience; and
unhappily many Christians are using their special experiences and their
special scriptures to fight other Christians. The fact of the matter is
that, while Christians may enter into the deeper life by different
ways, we need not regard the experiences or doctrines they stress as
mutually exclusive, but rather complementary. One thing is certain,
that any true experience of value in the sight of God must have been
reached by way of a new discovery of the meaning of the Person and work
of the Lord Jesus. That is a crucial test and a safe one.

And here in our passage Paul makes everything depend upon such a
discovery. "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that
the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in
bondage to sin" (Romans 6:6).
__________________________________________________________________

Divine Revelation Essential To Knowledge

So our first step is to seek from God a knowledge that comes by
revelation--a revelation, that is to say, not of ourselves but of the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. When Hudson
Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, entered into the
normal Christian life it was thus that he did so. You remember how he
tells of his long-standing problem of how to live in Christ', how to
draw the sap out of the Vine into himself. For he knew that he must
have the life of Christ flowing out through him and yet felt that he
had not got it, and he saw clearly enough that his need was to be found
in Christ. I knew', he said, writing to his sister from Chinkiang in
1869, that if only I could abide in Christ, all would be well, but I
could not.'

The more he tried to get in the more he found himself slipping out, so
to speak, until one day light dawned, revelation came and he saw. Here,
I feel, is the secret: not asking how I am to get sap out of the Vine
into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine--the root, stem,
branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed.'

Then, in words of a friend that had helped him: I have not got to make
myself a branch. The Lord Jesus tells me I am a branch. I am part of
Him and I have just to believe it and act upon it. I have seen it long
enough in the Bible, but I believe it now as a living reality.'

It was as though something which had indeed been true all the time had
now suddenly become true in a new way to him personally, and he writes
to his sister again: I do not know how far I may be able to make myself
intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or
wonderful--and yet, all is new! In a word, "whereas once I was blind,
now I see"... I am dead and buried with Christ--aye, and risen too and
ascended... God reckons me so, and tells me to reckon myself so. He
knows best... Oh, the joy of seeing this truth--I do pray that the eyes
of your understanding may be enlightened, that you may know and enjoy
the riches freely given us in Christ.' [4]

Oh, it is a great thing to see that we are in Christ! Think of the
bewilderment of trying to get into a room in which you already are!
Think of the absurdity of asking to be put in! If we recognize the fact
that we are in, we make no effort to enter. If we had more revelation
we should have fewer prayers and more praises. Much of our praying for
ourselves is just because we are blind to what God has done.

I remember one day in Shanghai I was talking with a brother who was
very exercised concerning his spiritual state. He said, So many are
living beautiful, saintly lives. I am ashamed of myself. I call myself
a Christian and yet when I compare myself with others I feel I am not
one at all. I want to know this crucified life, this resurrection life,
but I do not know it and see no way of getting there.' Another brother
was with us, and the two of us had been talking for two hours or so,
trying to get the man to see that he could not have anything apart from
Christ, but without success. Said our friend, the best thing a man can
do is to pray.' But if God has already given you everything, what do
you need to pray for?' we asked. He hasn't', the man replied, for I am
still losing my temper, still failing constantly; so I must pray more.'
Well', we said, do you get what you pray for?' I am sorry to say that I
do not get anything', he replied. We tried to point out that, just as
he had done nothing for his justification, so he need do nothing for
his sanctification.

Just then a third brother, much used of the Lord, came in and joined
us. There was a thermos flask on the table, and this brother picked it
up and said, What is this?' A thermos flask.' Well, you just imagine
for a moment that this thermos flask can pray, and that it starts
praying something like this: "Lord, I want very much to be a thermos
flask. Wilt Thou make me to be a thermos flask? Lord, give me grace to
become a thermos flask. Do please make me one!" What will you say?' I
do not think even a thermos flask would be so silly,' our friend
replied. It would be nonsense to pray like that; it is a thermos
flask!' Then my brother said, You are doing the same thing. God in
times past has already included you in Christ. When He died, you died;
when He lived, you lived. Now today you cannot say, "I want to die; I
want to be crucified; I want to have resurrection life." The Lord
simply looks at you and says, "You are dead! You have new life!" All
your praying is just as absurd as that of the thermos flask. You do not
need to pray to the Lord for anything; you merely need your eyes opened
to see that He has done it all.'

That is the point. We need not work to die, we need not wait to die, we
are dead. We only need to recognize what the Lord has already done and
to praise Him for it. Light dawned for that man. With tears in his eyes
he said, Lord, I praise Thee that Thou hast already included me in
Christ. All that is His is mine!' Revelation had come and faith had
something to lay hold of; and if you could have met that brother later
on, what a change you would have found!
__________________________________________________________________

[4] The quotations are from Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission
by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Chapter 12, The Exchanged Life'. The
whole passage should be read.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________

The Cross Goes To The Root Of Our Problem

Let me remind you again of the fundamental nature of that which the
Lord has done on the Cross. I feel I cannot press this point too much
for we must see it. Suppose, for the sake of illustration, that the
government of your country should wish to deal drastically with the
question of strong drink and should decide that the whole country was
to go dry', how could the decision be carried into effect? How could we
help? If we were to search every shop and house throughout the land and
smash all the bottles of wine or beer or brandy we came across, would
that meet the case? Surely not. We might thereby rid the land of every
drop of alcoholic liquor it contains, but behind those bottles of
strong drink are the factories that produce them, and if we only deal
with the bottles and leave the factories untouched, production will
still continue and there is no permanent solution of the problem. The
drink-producing factories, the breweries and distilleries throughout
the land, must be closed down if the drink question is to be
permanently settled.

We are the factory; our actions are the products. The Blood of the Lord
Jesus dealt with the question of the products, namely, our sins. So the
question of what we have done is settled, but would God have stopped
there? What about the question of what we are? Our sins were produced
by us. They have been dealt with, but how are we going to be dealt
with? Do you believe the Lord would cleanse away all our sins and then
leave us to get rid of the sin-producing factory? Do you believe He
would put away the goods produced but leave us to deal with the source
of production?

To ask this question is but to answer it. Of course He has not done
half the work and left the other half undone. No, He has done away with
the goods and also made a clean sweep of the factory that produces the
goods.

The finished work of Christ really has gone to the root of our problem
and dealt with it. There are no half measures with God. "Knowing this,"
says Paul, "That our old man was crucified with him, that the body of
sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to
sin" (Rom. 6:6). "Knowing this"! Yes, but do you know it? "Or are ye
ignorant?" (Rom. 6:3). May the Lord graciously open our eyes.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 4: The Path of Progress: Reckoning

We now come to a matter on which there has been some confusion of
thought among the Lord's children. It concerns what follows this
knowledge. Note again first of all the wording of Romans 6:6: "Knowing
this, that our old man was crucified with Him". The tense of the verb
is most precious for it puts the event right back there in the past. It
is final, once-for-all. The thing has been done and cannot be undone.
Our old man has been crucified once and for ever, and he can never be
un-crucified. This is what we need to know.

Then, when we know this, what follows? Look again at our passage. The
next command is in verse 11: "Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be
dead unto sin". This, clearly, is the natural sequel to verse 6. Read
them together: Knowing that our old man was crucified, ... reckon ye
yourselves to be dead'. That is the order. When we know that our old
man has been crucified with Christ, then the next step is to reckon it
so.

Unfortunately, in presenting the truth of our union with Christ the
emphasis has too often been placed upon this second matter of reckoning
ourselves to be dead, as though that were the starting point, whereas
it should rather be upon knowing ourselves to be dead. God's Word makes
it clear that knowing' is to precede reckoning'. "Knowing this...
reckon." The sequence is most important. Our reckoning must be based on
knowledge of divinely revealed fact, for otherwise faith has no
foundation on which to rest. When we know, then we reckon
spontaneously.

So in teaching this matter we should not over-emphasize reckoning.
People are always trying to reckon without knowing. They have not first
had a Spirit-given revelation of the fact; yet they try to reckon and
soon they get into all sorts of difficulties. When temptation comes
they begin to reckon furiously: I am dead; I am dead; I am dead!' but
in the very act of reckoning they lose their temper. Then they say, It
doesn't work. Romans 6:11 is no good.' And we have to admit that verse
11 is no good without verse 6. So it comes to this, that unless we know
for a fact that we are dead with Christ, the more we reckon the more
intense will the struggle become, and the issue will be sure defeat.

For years after my conversion I had been taught to reckon. I reckoned
from 1920 until 1927. The more I reckoned that I was dead to sin, the
more alive I clearly was. I simply could not believe myself dead and I
could not produce the death. Whenever I sought help from others I was
told to read Romans 6:11, and the more I read Romans 6:11 and tried to
reckon, the further away death was: I could not get at it. I fully
appreciated the teaching that I must reckon, but I could not make out
why nothing resulted from it. I have to confess that for months I was
troubled. I said to the Lord, If this is not clear, if I cannot be
brought to see this which is so very fundamental, I will cease to do
anything. I will not preach any more; I will not go out to serve Thee
any more; I want first of all to get thoroughly clear here.' For months
I was seeking, and at times I fasted, but nothing came through.

I remember one morning--that morning was a real morning and one I can
never forget--I was upstairs sitting at my desk reading the Word and
praying, and I said, Lord, open my eyes!' And then in a flash I saw it.
I saw my oneness with Christ. I saw that I was in Him, and that when He
died I died. I saw that the question of my death was a matter of the
past and not of the future, and that I was just as truly dead as He was
because I was in Him when He died. The whole thing had dawned upon me.
I was carried away with such joy at this great discovery that I jumped
from my chair and cried, Praise the Lord, I am dead!' I ran downstairs
and met one of the brothers helping in the kitchen and I laid hold of
him. Brother', I said, do you know that I have died?' I must admit he
looked puzzled. What do you mean?' he said, so I went on: Do you not
know that Christ has died? Do you not know that I died with Him? Do you
not know that my death is no less truly a fact than His?' Oh it was so
real to me! I longed to go through the streets of Shanghai shouting the
news of my discovery. From that day to this I have never for one moment
doubted the finality of that word: "I have been crucified with Christ".

I do not mean to say that we need not work that out. Yes, there is an
outworking of the death which we are going to see presently, but this,
first of all, is the basis of it. I have been crucified: it has been
done.

What, then, is the secret of reckoning? To put it in one word, it is
revelation. We need revelation from God Himself (Matt. 16:17; Eph.
1:17, 18). We need to have our eyes opened to the fact of our union
with Christ, and that is something more than knowing it as a doctrine.
Such revelation is no vague, indefinite thing. Most of us can remember
the day when we saw clearly that Christ died for us, and we ought to be
equally clear as to the time when we saw that we died with Christ. It
should be nothing hazy, but very definite, for it is with this as basis
that we shall go on. It is not that I reckon myself to be dead, and
therefore I will be dead. It is that, because I am dead--because I see
now what God has done with me in Christ--therefore I reckon myself to
be dead. That is the right kind of reckoning. It is not reckoning
toward death but from death.
__________________________________________________________________

The Second Step: "Even So Reckon..."

What does reckoning mean? Reckoning' in Greek means doing accounts
book-keeping. Accounting is the only thing in the world we human beings
can do correctly. An artist paints a landscape. Can he do it with
perfect accuracy? Can the historian vouch for the absolute accuracy of
any record, or the map-maker for the perfect correctness of any map?
They can make, at best, fair approximations. Even in everyday speech,
when we try to tell some incident with the best intention to be honest
and truthful, we cannot speak with complete accuracy. It is mostly a
case of exaggeration or understatement, of one word too much or too
little. What then can a man do that is utterly reliable? Arithmetic!
There is no scope for error there. One chair plus one chair equals two
chairs. That is true in London and it is true in Cape Town. If you
travel west to New York or east to Singapore it is still the same. All
the world over and for all time, one plus one equals two. One plus one
is two in heaven and earth and hell.

Why does God say we are to reckon ourselves dead? Because we are dead.
Let us keep to the analogy of accounting. Suppose I have fifteen
shillings in my pocket, what do I enter in my account-book? Can I enter
fourteen shillings and sixpence or fifteen shillings and sixpence? No,
I must enter in my account-book that which is in fact in my pocket.
Accounting is the reckoning of facts, not fancies. Even so, it is
because I am really dead that God tells me to account it so. God could
not ask me to put down in my account-book what was not true. He could
not ask me to reckon that I am dead if I am still alive. For such
mental gymnastics the word reckoning' would be inappropriate; we might
rather speak of mis-reckoning'!

Reckoning is not a form of make-believe. It does not mean that, having
found that I have only twelve shillings in my pocket, I hope that by
entering fifteen shillings incorrectly in my account-book such
reckoning' will somehow remedy the deficiency. It won't. If I have only
twelve shillings, yet try to reckon to myself: I have fifteen
shillings; I have fifteen shillings; I have fifteen shillings', do you
think that the mental effort involved will in any way affect the sum
that is in my pocket? Not a bit of it! Reckoning will not make twelve
shillings into fifteen shillings, nor will it make what is untrue true.
But if, on the other hand, it is a fact that I have fifteen shillings
in my pocket, then with great ease and assurance I can enter fifteen
shillings in my account-book. God tells us to reckon ourselves dead,
not that by the process of reckoning we may become dead, but because we
are dead. He never told us to reckon what was not a fact.

Having said, then, that revelation leads spontaneously to reckoning, we
must not lose sight of the fact that we are presented with a command:
"Reckon ye..." There is a definite attitude to be taken. God asks us to
do the account; to put down I have died' and then to abide by it. Why?
Because it is a fact. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, I was there
in Him. Therefore I reckon it to be true. I reckon and declare that I
have died in Him. Paul said, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto
sin, but alive unto God." How is this possible? "In Christ Jesus."
Never forget that it is always and only true in Christ. If you look at
yourself you will think death is not there, but it is a question of
faith not in yourself but in Him. You look to the Lord, and know what
He has done. Lord, I believe in Thee. I reckon upon the fact in Thee.'
Stand there all the day.
__________________________________________________________________

The Reckoning Of Faith

The first four-and-a-half chapters of Romans speak of faith and faith
and faith. We are justified by faith in Him (Rom. 3:28; 5:1).
Righteousness, the forgiveness of our sins, and peace with God are all
ours by faith, and without faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ
none can possess them. But in the second section of Romans we do not
find the same repeated mention of faith, and it might at first appear
that the emphasis is therefore different. It is not really so, however,
for where the words faith' and believe' drop out the work reckon' takes
their place. Reckoning and faith are here practically the same thing.

What is faith? Faith is my acceptance of God's fact. It always has its
foundations in the past. What relates to the future is hope rather than
faith, although faith often has its object or goal in the future, as in
Hebrews 11. Perhaps for this reason the word chosen here is reckon'. It
is a word that relates only to the past--to what we look back to as
settled, and not forward to as yet to be. This is the kind of faith
described in Mark 11:24: "All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for,
believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them." The
statement there is that, if you believe that you already have received
your requests (that is, of course, in Christ), then you shall have
them'. To believe that you may get something, or that you can get it,
or even that you will get it, is not faith in the sense meant here.
This is faith--to believe that you have already got it. Only that which
relates to the past is faith in this sense. Those who say God can' or
God may' or God must' or God will' do not necessarily believe at all.
Faith always says, God has done it'.

When, therefore, do I have faith in regard to my crucifixion? Not when
I say God can, or will, or must crucify me, but when with joy I say,
Praise God, in Christ I am crucified!'

In Romans 3 we see the Lord Jesus bearing our sins and dying as our
Substitute that we might be forgiven. In Romans 6 we see ourselves
included in the death whereby He secured our deliverance. When the
first fact was revealed to us we believed on Him for our justification.
God tells us to reckon upon the second fact for our deliverance. So
that, for practical purposes, reckoning' in the second section of
Romans takes the place of faith' in the first section. The emphasis is
not different. The normal Christian life is lived progressively, as it
is entered initially, by faith in Divine fact: in Christ and His Cross.
__________________________________________________________________

Temptation And Failure, The Challenge To Faith

For us, then, the two greatest facts in history are these: that all our
sins are dealt with by the Blood, and that we ourselves are dealt with
by the Cross. But what now of the matter of temptation? What is to be
our attitude when, after we have seen and believed these facts, we
discover the old desires rising up again? Worse still, what if we fall
once more into known sin? What if we lose our temper, or worse? Is the
whole position set forth above proved thereby to be false?

Now remember, one of the Devil's main objects is always to make us
doubt the Divine facts. (Compare Gen. 3:4) After we have seen, by
revelation of the Spirit of God, that we are indeed dead with Christ,
and have reckoned it so, he will come and say: There is something
moving inside. What about it? Can you call this death?' When that
happens, what will be our answer? The crucial test is just here. Are
you going to believe the tangible facts of the natural realm which are
clearly before your eyes, or the intangible facts of the spiritual
realm which are neither seen nor scientifically proved?

Now we must be careful. It is important for us to recall again what are
facts stated in God's Word for faith to lay hold of and what are not.
How does God state that deliverance is effected? Well, in the first
place, we are not told that sin as a principle in us is rooted out or
removed. To reckon on that will be to miscalculate altogether and find
ourselves in the false position of the man we considered earlier, who
tried to put down the twelve shillings in his pocket as fifteen
shillings in his account-book. No, sin is not eradicated. It is very
much there, and, given the opportunity, will overpower us and cause us
to commit sins again, whether consciously or unconsciously. That is why
we shall always need to know the operation of the precious Blood.

But whereas we know that, in dealing with sins committed, God's method
is direct, to blot them out of remembrance by means of the Blood, when
we come to the principle of sin and the matter of deliverance from its
power, we find instead that God deals with this indirectly. He does not
remove the sin but the sinner. Our old man was crucified with Him, and
because of this the body, which before had been a vehicle of sin, is
unemployed (Romans 6:6). [5] Sin, the old master, is still about, but
the slave who served him has been put to death and so is out of reach
and his members are unemployed. The gambler's hand is unemployed, the
swearer's tongue is unemployed, and these members are now available to
be used instead "as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Romans
6:13).

Thus we can say that deliverance from sin' is a more scriptural idea
than victory over sin'. The expressions "freed from sin" and "dead unto
sin" in Romans 6:7 and 11 imply deliverance from a power that is still
very present and very real--not from something that no longer exists.
Sin is still there, but we are knowing deliverance from its power in
increasing measure day by day.

This deliverance is so real that John can boldly write: "Whosoever is
begotten of God doeth no sin... he cannot sin" (1 John 3:9), which is,
however, a statement that, wrongly understood, may easily mislead us.
By it John is not telling us that sin is now no longer in our history
and that we shall not again commit sin. He is saying that to sin is not
in the nature of that which is born of God. The life of Christ has been
planted in us by new birth and its nature is not to commit sin. But
there is a great difference between the nature and the history of a
thing, and there is a great difference between the nature of the life
within us and our history. To illustrate this (though the illustration
is an inadequate one) we might say that wood cannot' sink, for it is
not its nature to do so; but of course in history it will do so if a
hand hold it under water. The history is a fact, just as sins in our
history are historic facts; but the nature is a fact also, and so is
the new nature that we have received in Christ. What is in Christ'
cannot sin; what is in Adam can sin and will do so whenever Satan is
given a chance to exert his power.

So it is a question of our choice of which facts we will count upon and
live by: the tangible facts of daily experience or the mightier fact
that we are now in Christ'. The power of His resurrection is on our
side, and the whole might of God is at work in our salvation (Rom.
1:16), but the matter still rests upon our making real in history what
is true in Divine fact.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things
not seen" (Heb. 11:1), and "the things which are not seen are eternal"
(2 Cor. 4:18). I think we all know that Hebrews 11:1 is the only
definition of faith in the New Testament, or indeed in the Scriptures.
It is important that we should really understand that definition. You
are familiar with the common English translation of these words,
describing faith as "the substance of things hoped for" (A.V.).
However, the word in the Greek has in it the sense of an action and not
just of some thing, a substance', and I confess I have personally spent
a number of years trying to find a correct word to translate this. But
the New Translation of J.N. Darby is especially good in regard to this
word: "Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for". That is much
better. It implies the making of them real in experience.

How do we substantiate' something? We are doing so every day. We cannot
live in the world without doing so. Do you know the difference between
substance and substantiating'? A substance is an object, something
before me. Substantiating' means that I have a certain power or faculty
that makes that substance to be real to me. Let us take a simple
illustration. By means of our senses we can take things of the world of
nature and transfer them into our consciousness so that we can
appreciate them. Sight and hearing, for example, are two of my
faculties which substantiate to me the world of light and sound. We
have colours: red, yellow, green, blue, violet; and these colours are
real things. But if I shut my eyes, then to me the colour is no longer
real; it is simply nothing-- to me. It is not only that the colour is
there, but I have the power to substantiate' it. I have the power to
make that colour true to me and to give it reality in my consciousness.
That is the meaning of substantiating'.

If I am blind I cannot distinguish colour, or if I lack the faculty of
hearing I cannot enjoy music. Yet music and colour are in fact real
things, and their reality is unaffected by whether or not I am able to
appreciate them. Now we are considering here the things which, though
they are not seen, are eternal and therefore real. Of course we cannot
substantiate Divine things with any of our natural senses; but there is
one faculty which can substantiate the "things hoped for", the things
of Christ, and that is faith. Faith makes the real things to become
real in my experience. Faith substantiates' to me the things of Christ.
Hundreds of thousands of people are reading Romans 6:6: "Our old man
was crucified with him". To faith it is true; to doubt, or to mere
mental assent apart from spiritual illumination, it is not true.

Let us remember again that we are dealing here not with promises but
with facts. The promises of God are revealed to us by His Spirit that
we may lay hold of them; but facts are facts and they remain facts
whether we believe them or not. If we do not believe the facts of the
Cross they still remain as real as ever, but they are valueless to us.
It does not need faith to make these things real in themselves, but
faith can substantiate' them and make them real in our experience.

Whatever contradicts the truth of God's Word we are to regard as the
Devil's lie, not because it may not be in itself a very real fact to
our senses but because God has stated a greater fact before which the
other must eventually yield. I once had an experience which (though not
applicable in detail to the present matter) illustrates this principle.
Some years ago I was ill. For six nights I had high fever and could
find no sleep. Then at length God gave me from the Scripture a personal
word of healing, and because of this I expected all symptoms of
sickness to vanish at once. Instead of that, not a wink of sleep could
I get, and I was not only sleepless but more restless than ever. My
temperature rose higher, my pulse beat faster and my head ached more
severely than before. The enemy asked, Where is God's promise? Where is
your faith? What about all your prayers?' So I was tempted to thrash
the whole matter out in prayer again, but was rebuked, and this
Scripture came to mind: "Thy word is truth" (John 17:17). If God' Word
is truth, I thought, then what are these symptoms? They must all be
lies! So I declared to the enemy, This sleeplessness is a lie, this
headache is a lie, this fever is a lie, this high pulse is a lie. In
view of what God has said to me, all these symptoms of sickness are
just your lies, and God's Word to me is truth.' In five minutes I was
asleep, and I awoke the following morning perfectly well.

Now of course in a particular personal matter such as the above it
might be quite possible for me to deceive myself as to what God had
said, but of the fact of the Cross there can never be any such
question. We must believe God, no matter how convincing Satan's
arguments appear.

A skillful liar lies not only in word but in gesture and deed; he can
as easily pass a bad coin as tell an untruth. The Devil is a skillful
liar, and we cannot expect him to stop at words in his lying. He will
resort to lying signs and feelings and experiences in his attempts to
shake us from our faith in God's Word. Let me make it clear that I do
not deny the reality of the flesh'. Indeed we shall have a good deal
more to say about this further on in our study. But I am speaking here
of our being moved from a revealed position in Christ. As soon as we
have accepted our death with Christ as a fact, Satan will do his best
to demonstrate convincingly by the evidence of our day-to-day
experience that we are not dead at all but very much alive. So we must
choose. Will we believe Satan's lie or God's truth? Are we going to be
governed by appearances or by what God says?

I am Mr. Nee. I know that I am Mr. Nee. It is a fact upon which I can
confidently count. It is of course possible that I might lose my memory
and forget that I am Mr. Nee, or I might dream that I am some other
person. But whether I feel like it or not, when I am sleeping I am Mr.
Nee and when I am awake I am Mr. Nee; when I remember it I am Mr. Nee
and when I forget it I am still Mr. Nee.

Now of course, were I to pretend to be someone else, things would be
much more difficult. If I were to try and pose as Miss K. I should have
to keep saying to myself all the time, You are Miss K.; now be sure to
remember that you are Miss K.,' and despite much reckoning the
likelihood would be that when I was off my guard and someone called,
Mr. Nee!' I should be caught out and should answer to my own name. Fact
would triumph over fiction, and all my reckoning would break down at
that crucial moment. But I am Mr. Nee and therefore I have no
difficulty whatever in reckoning myself to be Mr. Nee. It is a fact
which nothing I experience or fail to experience can alter.

So also, whether I feel it or not, I am dead with Christ. How can I be
sure? Because Christ has died; and since "one died for all, therefore
all died" (2 Cor. 5:14). Whether my experience proves it or seems to
disprove it, the fact remains unchanged. While I stand upon that fact
Satan cannot prevail against me. Remember that his attack is always
upon our assurance. If he can get us to doubt God's Word, then his
object is secured and he has us in his power; but if we rest unshaken
in the assurance of God's stated fact, assured that He cannot do
injustice to His work or His Word, then it does not matter what tactics
Satan adopts, we can well afford to laugh at him. If anyone should try
to persuade me that I am not Mr. Nee, I could well afford to do the
same.

"We walk by faith, not by appearance" (2 Cor. 5:7, mg). You probably
know the illustration of Fact, Faith and Experience walking along the
top of a wall. Fact walked steadily on, turning neither to right nor
left and never looking behind. Faith followed and all went well so long
as he kept his eyes focused upon Fact; but as soon as he became
concerned about Experience and turned to see how he was getting on, he
lost his balance and tumbled off the wall, and poor old Experience fell
down after him.

All temptation is primarily to look within; to take our eyes off the
Lord and to take account of appearances. Faith is always meeting a
mountain, a mountain of evidence that seems to contradict God's Word, a
mountain of apparent contradiction in the realm of tangible fact--of
failures in deed, as well as in the realm of feeling and
suggestion--and either faith or the mountain has to go. They cannot
both stand. but the trouble is that many a time the mountain stays and
faith goes. That must not be. If we resort to our senses to discover
the truth, we shall find Satan's lies are often enough true to our
experience; but if we refuse to accept as binding anything that
contradicts God's Word and maintain an attitude of faith in Him alone,
we shall find instead that Satan's lies begin to dissolve and that our
experience is coming progressively to tally with that Word.

It is our occupation with Christ that has this result, for it means
that He becomes progressively real to us on concrete issues. In a given
situation we see Him as real holiness, real resurrection life--for us.
What we see in Him objectively now operates in us subjectively--but
really --to manifest Him in us in that situation. That is the mark of
maturity. That is what Paul means by his words to the Galatians: "I am
again in travail until Christ be formed in you" (4:19). Faith is
substantiating' God's facts; and faith is always the substantiating' of
eternal fact--of something eternally true.
__________________________________________________________________

[5] The verb katargeo translated destroyed' in Romans 6:6 (A.V.) does
not mean annihilated', but put out of operation', made ineffective'. It
is from the Creek root argos, inactive', not working', unprofitable',
which is the word translated idle' in Matthew 20:3, 6 of the unemployed
laborers in the market place.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________

Abiding In Him

Now although we have already spent long on this matter, there is a
further thing that may help to make it clearer to us. the Scriptures
declare that we are "dead indeed", but nowhere do they say that we are
dead in ourselves. We shall look in vain to find death within; that is
just the place where it is not to be found. We are dead not in
ourselves but in Christ. We were crucified with Him because we were in
Him.

We are familiar with the words of the Lord Jesus, "Abide in me, and I
in you" (John 15:4). Let us consider them for a moment. First they
remind us once again that we have never to struggle to get into Christ.
We are not told to get there, for we are told to stay there where we
have been placed. It was God's own act that put us in Christ, and we
are to abide in Him.

But further, this verse lays down for us a Divine principle, which is
that God has done the work in Christ and not in us as individuals. The
all-inclusive death and the all-inclusive resurrection of God's Son
were accomplished fully and finally apart from us in the first place.
It is the history of Christ which is to become the experience apart
from Him. The Scriptures tell us that we were crucified "with Him",
that we were quickened, raised, and set by God in the heavenlies "in
Him", and that we are complete "in Him" (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 2:5, 6; Col.
2:10). It is not just something that is still to be effected in us
(though it is that, of course). It is something that has already been
effected, in association with Him.

In the Scriptures we find that no Christian experience exists as such.
What God has done in His gracious purpose is to include us in Christ.
In dealing with Christ God has dealt with the Christian; in dealing
with the Head He has dealt with all the members. It is altogether wrong
for us to think that we can experience anything of the spiritual life
in ourselves merely, and apart from Him. God does not intend that we
should acquire something exclusively personal in our experience, and He
is not willing to effect anything like that for you and me. All the
spiritual experience of the Christian is already true in Christ. It has
already been experienced by Christ. What we call our' experience is
only our entering into His history and His experience.

It would be odd if one branch of a vine tried to bear grapes with a
reddish skin, and another branch tried to bear grapes with a green
skin, and yet another branch grapes with a very dark purple skin, each
branch trying to produce something of its own without reference to the
vine. It is impossible, unthinkable. The character of the branches is
determined by the vine. Yet certain Christians are seeking experiences
as experiences. They think of crucifixion as something, of
resurrections as something, of ascension as something, and they never
stop to think that the whole is related to a Person. No, only as the
Lord opens our eyes to see the Person do we have any true experience.
Every true spiritual experience means that we have discovered a certain
fact in Christ and have entered into that; anything that is not from
Him in this way is an experience that is going to evaporate very soon.
I have discovered that in Christ; then, Praise the Lord, it is mine! I
possess it, Lord, because it is in Thee.' Oh it is a great thing to
know the facts of Christ as the foundation for our experience.

So God's basic principle in leading us on experimentally is not to give
us something. It is not to bring us through something, and as a result
to put something into us which we can call our experience'. It is not
that God effects something within us so that we can say, I died with
Christ last March' or I was raised from the dead on January 1st, 1937,'
or even, Last Wednesday I asked for a definite experience and I have
got it'. No, that is not the way. I do not seek experiences in
themselves as in this present year of grace. Time must not be allowed
to dominate my thinking here.

Then, some will say, what about the crises so many of us have passed
through? True, some of us have passed through real crises in our lives.
For instance George Muller could say, bowing himself down to the
ground, There was a day when George Muller died'. How about that? Well,
I am not questioning the reality of the spiritual experiences we go
through nor the importance of crises to which God brings us in our walk
with Him; indeed, I have already stressed the need for us to be quite
as definite ourselves about such crisis in our own lives. But the point
is that God does not give individuals individual experiences. All that
they have is only an entering into what God has already done. It is the
realizing' in time of eternal things. The history of Christ becomes our
experience and our spiritual history; we do not have a separate history
from His. The entire work regarding us is not done in us here but in
Christ. He does no separate work in individuals apart from what He has
done there. Even eternal life is not given to us as individuals: the
life is in the Son, and "he that hath the Son hath the life". God has
done all in His Son, and He has included us in Him; we are incorporated
into Christ.

Now the point of all this is that there is a very real practical value
in the stand of faith that says, God has put me in Christ, and
therefore all that is true of Him is true of me. I will abide in Him.'
Satan is always trying to get us out, to keep us out, to convince us
that we are out, and by temptations, failures, suffering, trial, to
make us feel acutely that we are outside of Christ. Our first thought
is that, if we were in Christ, we should not be in this state, and
therefore, judging by the feelings we now have, we must be out of Him;
and so we begin to pray, Lord, put me into Christ'. No! God's
injunction is to "abide" in Christ, and that is the way of deliverance.
But how is it so? Because it opens the way for God to take a hand in
our lives and to work the thing out in us. It makes room for the
operation of His superior power--the power of resurrection (Rom. 6:4,
9, 10)--so that the facts of Christ do progressively become the facts
of our daily experience, and where before "sin reigned" (Rom. 5:21) we
make now the joyful discovery that we are truly "no longer... in
bondage to sin" (Rom. 6:6).

As we stand steadfastly on the ground of what Christ is, we find that
all that is true of Him is becoming experimentally true in us. If
instead we come onto the ground of what we are in ourselves we will
find that all that is true of the old nature remains true of us. If we
get there in faith we have everything; if we return back here we find
nothing. So often we go to the wrong place to find the death of self.
It is in Christ. We have only to look within to find we are very much
alive to sin; but when we look over there to the Lord, God sees to it
that death works here but that "newness of life" is ours also. We are
"alive unto God" (Rom. 6:4, 11).

"Abide in me, and I in you." This is a double sentence: a command
coupled with a promise. That is to say, there is an objective and a
subjective side to God's working, and the subjective side depends upon
the objective; the "I in you" is the outcome of our abiding in Him. We
need to guard against being over-anxious about the subjective side of
things, and so becoming turned in upon ourselves. We need to dwell upon
the objective--"abide in me"--and to let God take care of the
subjective. And this He has undertaken to do.

I have illustrated this from the electric light. You are in a room and
it is growing dark. You would like to have the light on in order to
read. There is a reading-lamp on the table beside you. What do you do?
Do you watch it intently to see if the light will come on? Do you take
a cloth and polish the bulb? No, you get up and cross over to the other
side of the room where the switch is on the wall and you turn the
current on. You turn your attention to the source of power and when you
have taken the necessary action there the light comes on here.

So in our walk with the Lord our attention must be fixed on Christ.
"Abide in me, and I in you" is the Divine order. Faith in the objective
facts make those facts true subjectively. As the apostle Paul puts it,
"We all... beholding... the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the
same image" (2 Cor. 3:18 mg.). The same principle holds good in the
matter of fruitfulness of life: "He that abideth in me, and I in him,
the same beareth much fruit" (John 15:5). We do not try to produce
fruit or concentrate upon the fruit produced. Our business is to look
away to Him. As we do so He undertakes to fulfill His Word in us.

How do we abide? Of God are ye in Christ Jesus.' It was the work of God
to put you there and He has done it. Now stay there! Do not be moved
back onto your own ground. Never look at yourself as though you were
not in Christ. Look at Christ and see yourself in Him. Abide in Him.
Rest in the fact that God has put you in His Son, and live in the
expectation that He will complete His work in you. It is for Him to
make good the glorious promise that "sin shall not have dominion over
you" (Rom. 6:14).
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Chapter 5: The Divide of the Cross

The kingdom of this world is not this kingdom of God. God had in His
heart a world-system - a universe of His creating--which should be
headed up in Christ His Son (Col. 1:16, 17). But Satan, working through
man's flesh, has set up instead a rival system known in Scripture as
"this world"--a system in which we are involved and which he himself
dominates. He has in fact become "the prince of this world" (John
12:31).
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Two Creations

Thus, in Satan's hands, the first creation has become the old creation,
and God's primary concern is now no longer with that but with a second
and new creation. He is bringing in a new creation, a new kingdom and a
new world, and nothing of the old creation, the old kingdom or the old
world can be transferred to the new. It is a question now of these two
rival realms, and of which realm we belong to.

The apostle Paul, of course, leaves us in no doubt as to which of these
two realms is now in fact ours. He tells us that God, in redemption,
"delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the
kingdom of the Son of his love" (Col. 1:12, 13).

But in order to bring us into His new kingdom, God must do something
new in us. He must make of us new creatures. Unless we are created anew
we can never fit into the new realm. "That which is born of the flesh
is flesh"; and, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;
neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (John 3:6; 1 Cor. 15:50).
However educated, however cultured, however improved it be, flesh is
still flesh. Our fitness for the new kingdom is determined by the
creation to which we belong. Do we belong to the old creation or the
new? Are we born of the flesh or of the Spirit? Our ultimate
suitability for the new realm hinges on the question of origin. The
question is not good' or bad?' but flesh or Spirit?' "That which is
born of the flesh is flesh", and it will never be anything else. That
which is of the old creation can never pass over into the new.

Once we really understand what God is seeking, namely, something
altogether new for Himself, then we shall see clearly that we can never
bring any contribution from the old realm into that new thing. God
wanted to have us for Himself, but He could not bring us as we were
into that which He had purposed; so He first did away with us by the
Cross of Christ, and then by resurrection provided a new life for us.
"If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature (mg. there is a new
creation'): the old things are passed away; behold, they are become
new" (2 Cor. 5:17). Being now new creatures with a new nature and a new
set of faculties, we can enter the new kingdom and the new world.

The Cross was the means God used to bring to an end the old things' by
setting aside altogether our old man', and the resurrection was the
means He employed to impart to us all that was necessary for our life
in that new world. "We were buried therefore with him through baptism
into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life" (Rom.
6:4).

The greatest negative in the universe is the Cross, for with it God
wiped out everything that was not of Himself: the greatest positive in
the universe is the resurrection, for through it God brought into being
all He will have in the new sphere. So the resurrection stands at the
threshold of the new creation. It is a blessed thing to see that the
Cross ends all that belongs to the first regime, and that the
resurrection introduces all that pertains to the second. Everything
that had its beginning before resurrection must be wiped out.
Resurrection is God's new starting-point.

We have now two worlds before us, the old and the new. In the old,
Satan has absolute dominion. You may be a good man in the old creation,
but as long as you belong to the old you are under sentence of death,
because nothing of the old can go over to the new. The Cross is God's
declaration that all that is of the old creation must die. Nothing of
the first Adam can pass beyond the Cross; it all ends there. The sooner
we see that, the better, for it is by the Cross that God has made a way
of escape for us from that old creation. God gathered up in the Person
of His Son all that was of Adam and crucified Him; so in Him all that
was of Adam was done away. Then God made, as it were, a proclamation
throughout the universe saying: Through the Cross I have set aside all
that is not of Me; you who belong to the old creation are all included
in that; you too have been crucified with Christ!' None of us can
escape that verdict.

This brings us to the subject of baptism. "Are ye ignorant that all we
who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We
were buried therefore with him through baptism into death" (Rom. 6:3,
4). What is the significance of these words?

Baptism in Scripture is associated with salvation. "He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). We cannot speak
scripturally of baptismal regeneration' but we may speak of baptismal
salvation'. What is salvation? It relates not to our sins nor to the
power of sin, but to the cosmos or world-system. We are involved in
Satan's world-system. To be saved is to make our exit from his
world-system into God's

In the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, says Paul, "the world hath been
crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14). This is the
figure developed by Peter when he writes of the eight souls who were
"saved through water" (1 Peter 3:20). Entering into the ark, Noah and
those with him stepped by faith out of that old corrupt world into a
new one. It was not so much that they were personally not drowned, but
that they were out of that corrupt system. That is salvation.

Then Peter goes on: "Which also after a true likeness (mg. in the
antitype') doth now save you, even baptism" (verse 21). In other words,
by that aspect of the Cross which is figured in baptism you are
delivered from this present evil world, and, by your baptism in water,
you confirm this. It is baptism "into his death", ending one creation;
but it is also baptism "into Christ Jesus", having in view a new one
(Rom. 6:3). You go down into the water and your world, in figure, goes
down with you. you come up in Christ, but your world is drowned.

"Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved", said Paul at
Philippi, and "spake the word of the Lord" to the jailer and his
household. And he "was baptized, he and all his, immediately" (Acts
16:31-34). In doing so, he and those with him testified before God, His
people and the spiritual powers that they were indeed saved from a
world under judgment. As a result, we read, they rejoiced greatly,
"having believed in God".

Thus it is clear that baptism is no mere question of a cup of water,
nor of a baptistry of water. It is a tremendous thing, relating as it
does both to the death and to the resurrection of our Lord; and having
in view two worlds. Anyone who has worked in a pagan country knows what
tremendous issues are raised by baptism.
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Burial Means An End

Peter goes on now to describe baptism in the passage just quoted as
"the answer of a good conscience toward God" (1 Peter 3:21 A.V.). Now
we cannot answer without being spoken to . If God had said nothing we
should have no need to answer. But He has spoken; He has spoken to us
by the Cross. By it He has told of His judgment of us, of the world, of
the old creation and of the old kingdom. The Cross is not only Christ's
personally--an individual' Cross. It is an all inclusive Cross, a
corporate' Cross, a Cross that includes you and me. God has put us all
into His Son, and crucified us in Him. In the last Adam He has wiped
out all that was of the first Adam.

Now what is my answer to God's verdict on the old creation? I answer by
asking for baptism. Why? In Romans 6:4 Paul explains that baptism means
burial: "We were buried therefore with him through baptism". Baptism is
of course connected with both death and resurrection, though in itself
it is neither death nor resurrection: it is burial. But who qualifies
for burial? Only the dead! So if I ask for baptism I proclaim myself
dead and fit only for the grave.

Alas, some have been taught to look on burial as a means to death; they
try to die by getting themselves buried! Let me say emphatically that,
unless our eyes have been opened by God to see that we have died in
Christ and been buried with Him, we have no right to be baptized. The
reason we step down into the water is that we have recognized that in
God's sight we have already died. It is to that that we testify. God's
question is clear and simple. Christ has died, and I have included you
there. Now, what are you going to say to that?' What is my answer?
Lord, I believe You have done the crucifying. I say Yes to the death
and to the burial to which You have committed me.' He has consigned me
to death and the grave; by my request for baptism I give public assent
to that fact.

In China a woman lost her husband, but, becoming deranged by her loss,
she flatly refused to have him buried. Day after day for a fortnight he
lay in the house. No', she said, he is not dead; I talk with him every
night.' She was unwilling to have him buried because, poor woman, she
did not believe him to be dead. When are we willing to bury our dear
ones? Only when we are absolutely sure that they have passed away.
While there is the tiniest hope that they are alive we will never bury
them. So when will I ask for baptism? When I see that God's way is
perfect and that I deserved to die, and when I truly believe that God
has already crucified me. Once I am fully persuaded that, before God, I
am quite dead, then I apply for baptism. I say, Praise God, I am dead!
Lord, You have slain me; now get me buried!'

In China we have two emergency Services, a Red Cross' and a Blue Cross'
The first deals with those who are wounded in battle but are still
alive, to bring them succour and healing; the second deals with those
who are already dead in famine, flood or war, to give them burial.
God's dealings with us in the Cross of Christ are more drastic than
those of the Red Cross'. He does not set out to patch up the old
creation. By Him even the still living are condemned to death and to
burial, that they may be raised again to new life. God has done the
work of crucifixion so that now we are counted among the dead; but we
must accept this and submit to the work of the Blue Cross', by sealing
that death with burial'.

There is an old world and a new world, and between the two there is a
tomb. God has already crucified me, but I must consent to be consigned
to the tomb. My baptism confirms God's sentence, passed upon me in the
Cross of His Son. It affirms that I am cut off from the old world and
belong now to the new. So baptism is no small thing. It means for me a
definite conscious break with the old way of life. This is the meaning
of Romans 6:2: "We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live
therein?" Paul says, in effect, If you would continue in the old world,
why be baptized? You should never have been baptized if you meant to
live on in the old realm'. When once we see this, we clear the ground
for the new creation by our assent to the burial of the old.

In Romans 6:5, still writing to those who "were baptized" (verse 3),
Paul speaks of our being "united with him by the likeness of his
death". For by baptism we acknowledge in a figure that God has wrought
an intimate union between ourselves and Christ in this matter of death
and resurrection. One day I was seeking to emphasize this truth to a
Christian brother. We happened to be drinking tea together, so I took a
lump of sugar and stirred it into my tea. A couple of minutes later I
asked, Can you tell me where the sugar is now, and where the tea?' No',
he said, you have put them together and the one has become lost in the
other; they cannot now be separated.' It was a simple illustration, but
it helped him to see the intimacy and the finality of our union with
Christ in death. It is God that has put us there, and God's acts cannot
be reversed.

What, in fact does this union imply? The real meaning behind baptism is
that in the Cross we were baptized' into the historic death of Christ,
so that His death became ours. Our death and His became then so closely
identified that it is impossible to divide between them. It is to this
historic baptism'--this God-wrought union with Him--that we assent when
we go down into the water. Our public testimony in baptism today is our
admission that the death of Christ two thousand years ago was a mighty
all-inclusive death, mighty enough and all-inclusive enough to carry
away in it and bring to an end everything in us that is not of God.
__________________________________________________________________

Resurrection Unto Newness Of Life

"If we have become united with him by the likeness of his death, we
shall be also be the likeness of his resurrection (Rom. 6:5).

Now with resurrection the figure is different because something new is
introduced. I am "baptized into his death", but I do not enter in quite
the same way into His resurrection, for, Praise the Lord! His
resurrection enters into me, imparting to me a new life. In the death
of the Lord the emphasis is solely upon I in Christ'. With the
resurrection, while the same thing is true, there is now a new emphasis
upon Christ in me'. How is it possible for Christ to communicate His
resurrection life to me? How do I receive this new life? Paul suggests,
I think, a very good illustration with these very same words: "united
with him". For the word united' (A.V. planted together') may carry in
the Greek the sense of grafted' [6] and it gives us a very beautiful
picture of the life of Christ which is imparted to us through
resurrection.

In Fukien I once visited a man who owned an orchard of long-ien [7]
trees. He had three or four acres of land and about three hundred fruit
trees. I inquired if his trees had been grafted or if they were of the
original native stock. Do you think', he replied, that I would waste my
land growing ungrafted trees? What value could I ever expect from the
old stock?

So I asked him to explain the process of grafting, which he gladly did.
When a tree has grown to a certain height', he said, I lop off the top
and graft on to it.' Pointing to a special tree he asked, Do you see
that tree? I call it the father tree, because all the grafts for the
other trees are taken from that one. If the other trees were just left
to follow the course of nature, their fruit would be only about the
size of a raspberry, and would consist mainly of thick skin and seeds.
This tree, from which the grafts for all the others are taken, bears a
luscious fruit the size of a plum, with very thin skin and a tiny seed;
and of course all the grafted trees bear fruit like it.' How does it
happen?' I asked. I simply take a little of the nature of the one tree
and transfer it to the other', he explained. I make a cleavage in the
poor tree and insert a slip from the good one. Then I bind it up and
leave it to grow.' But how can it grow?' I asked. I don't know', he
said, but it does grow.'

Then he showed me a tree bearing miserably poor fruit from the old
stock below the graft, and rich juicy fruit from the new stock above
the graft. I have left the old shoots with their useless fruit on them
to show the difference', he said. From it you can understand the value
of grafting. You can appreciate, can you not, why I grow only grafted
trees?'

How can one tree bear the fruit of another? How can a poor tree bear
good fruit? Only by grafting. Only by our implanting into it the life
of a good tree. But if a man can graft a branch of one tree into
another, cannot God take of the life of His Son and, so to speak, graft
it into us?

A Chinese woman burned her arm badly and was taken to hospital. In
order to prevent serious contracture due to scarring it was found
necessary to graft some new skin over the injured area, but the doctor
attempted in vain to graft a piece of the woman's own skin onto the
arm. Owing to her age and ill-nourishment the skin graft was too poor
and would not take'. Then a foreign nurse offered a piece of skin and
the operation was carried out successfully. The new skin knit with the
old, and the woman left the hospital with her arm perfectly healed; but
there remained a patch of white foreign skin on her yellow arm to tell
the tale of the past. You ask how the skin of another grew on that
woman's arm? I do not know how it grew, but I know that it did grow.

If an earthly surgeon can take a piece of skin from one human body and
graft it on another, [8] cannot the Divine Surgeon implant the life of
His Son into me? I do not know how it is done. "The wind bloweth where
it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence
it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the
Spirit" (John 3:8). We cannot tell how God has done His work in us, but
it is done. We can do nothing and need do nothing to bring it about,
for by the resurrection God has already done it.

God has done everything. There is only one fruitful life in the world
and that has been grafted into millions of other lives. We call this
the new birth'. New birth is the reception of a life which I did not
possess before. It is not that my natural life has been changed at all;
it is that another life, a life altogether new, altogether Divine, has
become my life.

God has cut off the old creation by the Cross of His Son in order to
bring in a new creation in Christ by resurrection. He has shut the door
to that old kingdom of darkness and translated me into the kingdom of
His dear Son. My glorying is in the fact that it has been done--that,
through the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ , that old world has " been
crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14). My baptism
is my public testimony to that fact. By it, as by my oral witness, my
"confession is made unto salvation" (Romans 10:10).
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[6] Greek sumphtuos planted or grown along with', united with'. The
word is used in the sense of grafted' in Classical Greek. in the
delightful illustration which follows, the analogy of grafting should
perhaps not be pressed too closely, for it is not quite safe to imply,
without some qualification, that Christ is grafted into the old stock.
But what parable can adequately describe the miracle of the new
creation?-- Ed.

[7] long-ien (Euphoria longana) is a tree native to China. Its fruit
resembles an apricot in size and has a round central stone, a dry,
light brown, papery skin and a delicious white, grape-like pulp. It is
eaten either fresh or dried, and is prized by the Chinese both for its
flavour and for its food value.--Ed.

[8] Whatever question medical men may raise as to the account of this
unusual incident, the statement which follows is not open to
challenge.--Ed.
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Chapter 6: The Path of Progress: Presenting Ourselves to God

Our study has now brought us to the point where we are able to consider
the true nature of consecration. We have before us the second half of
Romans 6 from verse 12 to the end. In Romans 6:12, 13 we read: "Let not
sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts
thereof: neither present your members unto sin as instruments of
unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the
dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." The
operative word here is "present" and this occurs five times, in verses
13, 16 and 19. [9]

Many have taken this word "present" to imply consecration without
looking carefully into its content. Of course that is what it does
mean, but not in the sense in which we so often understand it. It is
not the consecration of our old man' with his instincts and
resources--our natural wisdom, strength and other gifts--to the Lord
for Him to use.

This will be at once clear from verse 13. Note there the clause "as
alive from the dead". Paul says: "Present yourselves unto God, as alive
from the dead". This defines for us the point at which consecration
begins. For what is here referred to is not the consecration of
anything belonging to the old creation, but only of that which has
passed through death to resurrection. The presenting' spoken of is the
outcome of my knowing my old man to be crucified. Knowing, reckoning,
presenting to God: that is the Divine order.

When I really know I am crucified with Him, then spontaneously I reckon
myself dead (verses 6 and 11); and when I know that I am raised with
Him from the dead, then likewise I reckon myself "alive unto God in
Christ Jesus" (verses 9 and 11), for both the death and the
resurrection side of the Cross are to be accepted by faith. When this
point is reached, giving myself to Him follows. In resurrection He is
the source of my life--indeed He is my life; so I cannot but present
everything to Him, for all is His, not mine. But without passing
through death I have nothing to consecrate, nor is there anything God
can accept, for He has condemned all that is of the old creation to the
Cross. Death has cut off all that cannot be consecrated to Him, and
resurrection alone has made consecration possible. Presenting myself to
God means that henceforth I consider my whole life as now belonging to
the Lord.
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The Third Step: "Present Yourselves..."

Let us observe that this presenting' relates to the members of my
body--that body which, as we said earlier, is now unemployed in respect
to sin. "Present yourselves... and your members", says Paul, and again:
"Present your members" (Romans 6:13, 19). God requires of me that I now
regard all my members, all my faculties, as belonging wholly to Him.

It is a great thing when I discover I am no longer my own but His. If
the ten shillings in my pocket belong to me, then I have full authority
over them. But if they belong to another who has committed them to me
in trust, then I cannot buy what I please with them, and I dare not
lose them. Real Christian life begins with knowing this. How many of us
know that, because Christ is risen, we are therefore alive "unto God"
and not unto ourselves? How many of us dare not use our time or money
or talents as we would, because we realize they are the Lord's not
ours? How many of us have such a strong sense that we belong to Another
that we dare not squander a shilling of our money, or an hour of our
time, or any of our mental or physical powers?

On one occasion a Chinese brother was traveling by train and found
himself in a carriage together with three non-Christians who wished to
play cards in order to while away the time. Lacking a fourth to
complete the game, they invited this brother to join them. I am sorry
to disappoint you', he said, but I cannot join your game for I have not
brought my hands with me.' Whatever do you mean?' they asked in blank
astonishment. This pair of hands does not belong to me', he said, and
then there followed the explanation of the transfer of ownership that
had taken place in his life. That brother regarded the members of his
body as belonging entirely to the Lord. That is true holiness.

Paul says, "Present your members as servants to righteousness unto
sanctification (A.V. holiness')" (Romans 6:19). Make it a definite act.
"Present yourselves to God."
__________________________________________________________________

Separated Unto The Lord

What is holiness? Many people think we become holy by the eradication
of something evil within. No, we become holy by being separated unto
God. In Old Testament times, it was when a man was chosen by God to be
altogether His that he was publicly anointed with oil and was then said
to be sanctified'. Thereafter he was regarded as set apart to God. In
the same manner even animals or material things--a lamb, or the gold of
the temple--could be sanctified, not by the eradication of anything
evil in them, but by being thus reserved exclusively to the Lord.
"Holiness' in the Hebrew sense meant something thus set apart, and all
true holiness is holiness "to the Lord" (Exodus 28:36). I give myself
over wholly to Christ: that is holiness.

Presenting myself to God implies a recognition that I am altogether
His. This giving of myself is a definite thing, just as definite as
reckoning. There must be a day in my life when I pass out of my own
hands into His, and from that day forward I belong to Him and no longer
to myself. That does not mean that I consecrate myself to be a preacher
or a missionary. Alas, many people are missionaries not because they
have truly consecrated themselves to God but because, in the sense of
which we are speaking, they have not consecrated themselves to Him.
They have consecrated' (as they would put it) something altogether
different, namely, their own uncrucified natural faculties to the doing
of His work; but that is not true consecration. Then to what are we to
be consecrated? Not to Christian work, but to the will of God to be and
do whatever He wants.

David had many mighty men. Some were generals and others were
gatekeepers, according as the king assigned them their task. We must be
willing to be either generals or gatekeepers, allotted to our parts
just as God wills and not as we choose. If you are a Christian, then
God has marked out a pathway for you--a course' as Paul calls it in 2
Timothy 4:7. Not only Paul's path but the path of every Christian has
been clearly marked out by God, and it is of supreme importance that
each one should know and walk in the God-appointed course. Lord, I give
myself to Thee with this desire alone, to know and walk in the path
Thou hast ordained.' That is true giving. If at the close of a life we
can say with Paul: "I have finished my course", then we are blessed
indeed. There is nothing more tragic than to come to the end of life
and know we have been on the wrong course. We have only one life to
live down here and we are free to do as we please with it, but if we
seek our own pleasure our life will never glorify God. A devoted
Christian once said in my hearing, I want nothing for myself; I want
everything for God.' Do you want anything apart from God, or does all
your desire center in His will? Can you truly say that the will of God
is "good and acceptable and perfect" to you? (Romans 12:2)

For it is our wills that are in question here. That strong
self-assertive will of mine must go to the Cross, and I must give
myself over wholly to the Lord. We cannot expect a tailor to make us a
coat if we do not give him any cloth, nor a builder to build us a house
if we let him have no building material; and in just the same way we
cannot expect the Lord to live out His life in us if we do not give Him
our lives in which to live. Without reservations, without controversy,
we must give ourselves to Him to do as He pleases with us. "Present
yourselves unto God" (Romans 6:13).
__________________________________________________________________

Servant Or Slave?

If we give ourselves unreservedly to God, many adjustments may have to
be made: in family, or business, or church relationships, or in the
matter of our personal views. God will not let anything of ourselves
remain. His finger will touch, point by point, everything that is not
of Him, and He will say: This must go'. Are you willing? It is foolish
to resist God, and always wise to submit to Him. We admit that many of
us still have controversies with the Lord. He wants something, while we
want something else. Many things we dare not look into, dare not pray
about, dare not even think about, lest we lose our peace. We can evade
the issue in that way, but to do so will bring us out of the will of
God. It is always an easy matter to get out of His will, but it is a
blessed thing just to hand ourselves over to Him and let Him have His
way with us.

How good it is to have the consciousness that we belong to the Lord and
are not our own! There is nothing more precious in the world. It is
that which brings the awareness of His continual presence, and the
reason is obvious. I must first have the sense of God's possession of
me before I can have the sense of His presence with me. When once His
ownership is established, then I dare do nothing in my own interests,
for I am His exclusive property. "Know ye not, that to whom ye present
yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye
obey?" (Romans 6:16). The word here rendered servant' really signifies
a bondservant, a slave. This word is used several times in the second
half of Romans 6. What is the difference between a servant and a slave?
A servant may serve another, but the ownership does not pass to that
other. If he likes his master he can serve him, but if he does not like
him he can give in his notice and seek another master. Not so is it
with the slave. He is not only the servant of another but he is the
possession of another. How did I become the slave of the Lord? On His
part He bought me, and on my part I presented myself to Him. By right
of redemption I am God's property, but if I would be His slave I must
willingly give myself to Him, for He will never compel me to do so.

The trouble with many Christians today is that they have an
insufficient idea of what God is asking of them. How glibly they say:
Lord, I am willing for anything.' Do you know that God is asking of you
your very life? There are cherished ideals, strong wills, precious
relationships, much-loved work, that will have to go; so do not give
yourself to God unless you mean it. God will take you seriously, even
if you did not mean it seriously.

When the Galilian boy brought his bread to the Lord, what did the Lord
do with it? He broke it. God will always break what is offered to Him.
He breaks what He takes, but after breaking it He blesses and uses it
to meet the needs of others. After you give yourself to the Lord, He
begins to break what was offered to Him. Everything seems to go wrong,
and you protest and find fault with the ways of God. But to stay there
is to be no more than just a broken vessel--no good for the world
because you have gone too far for the world to use you, and no good for
God either because you have not gone far enough for Him to use you. You
are out of gear with the world, and you have a controversy with God.
This is the tragedy of many a Christian.

My giving of myself to the Lord must be an initial fundamental act.
Then day by day I must go on giving to Him, not finding fault with His
use of me but accepting with praise even what the flesh revolts
against.

I am the Lord's and now no longer reckon myself to be my own but
acknowledge in everything His ownership and authority. That is the
attitude God requires, and to maintain it is true consecration. I do
not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher; I consecrate
myself to God to do His will where I am, be it in school, office or
kitchen, counting whatever He ordains for me to be the very best, for
nothing but good can come to those who are wholly His.

May we always be possessed by the consciousness that we are not our
own.
__________________________________________________________________

[9] Note.--Two Greek verbs paristano and paristemi are translated in
these verses by present' in the R.V. where the A.V. has yield'.
Paristemi occurs frequently with this meaning, e.g. in Rom. 12:1; 2
Cor. 11:2; Col. 1:22, 28, and in Luke 2:22 where it is used of the
presenting of the infant Jesus to God in the Temple. Both words have an
active sense for which the R.V. translation present' is greatly to be
preferred. Yield' contains a passive idea of surrender' that has
coloured much evangelical thought, but which is not in keeping with the
context here in Romans.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 7: The Eternal Purpose

We have spoken of the need of revelation, of faith and of consecration,
if we are to live the normal Christian life. But unless we see the end
God has in view we shall never clearly understand why these steps are
necessary to lead us to that end. Before therefore we consider further
the question of inward experience, let us first look at the great
Divine goal before us.

What is God's purpose in creation and what is His purpose in
redemption? It may be summed up in two phrases, one from each of our
two sections of Romans. It is: "The glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and
"The glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:21).

In Romans 3:23 we read: "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory
of God". God's purpose for man was glory, but sin thwarted that purpose
by causing man to miss God's glory. When we think of sin we
instinctively think of the judgment it brings; we invariably associate
it with condemnation and hell. Man's thought is always of the
punishment that will come to him if he sins, but God's thought is
always of the glory man will miss if he sins. The result of sin is that
we forfeit God's glory: the result of redemption is that we are
qualified again for glory. God's purpose in redemption is glory, glory,
glory.
__________________________________________________________________

Firstborn Among Many Brethren

This consideration takes us forward into Romans chapter 8 where the
topic is developed in verses 16 to 18 and again in verses 29 and 30.
Paul says: "We are children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs
of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him,
that we may be also glorified with him. For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed to us" (Romans 8:16-18); and again: "Whom
he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his
Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom he
foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also
justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified" (Romans 8:29,
30). What was God's objective? It was that His Son Jesus Christ might
be the firstborn among many brethren, all of whom should be conformed
to His image. How did God realize that objective? "Whom he justified,
them he also glorified." God's purpose, then, in creation and
redemption was to make Christ the firstborn Son among many glorified
sons. That may perhaps at first convey very little to many of us, but
let us look into it more carefully.

In John 1:14 we are told that the Lord Jesus was God's only begotten
Son: "the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his
glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father)". That He was
God's only begotten Son signifies that God had no other Son but this
one. He was with the Father from all eternity. But, we are told, God
was not satisfied that Christ should remain the only begotten Son; He
wanted also to make Him His first begotten. How could an only begotten
Son become a first begotten? The answer is simple: by the Father having
more children. If you have but one son then his is the only begotten,
but if thereafter you have other children then the only begotten
becomes the first begotten.

The Divine purpose in creation and redemption was that God should have
many children. He wanted us, and could not be satisfied without us.
Some time ago I called to see Mr. George Cutting, the writer of the
well-known tract Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment. When I was ushered
into the presence of this old saint of ninety-three years, he took my
hand in his and in a quiet, deliberate way he said: Brother, do you
know, I cannot do without Him? And do you know, He cannot do without
me?' Though I was with him for over an hour, his great age and physical
frailty made any sustained conversation impossible. But what remains in
my memory of that interview was his frequent repetition of these two
questions: Brother, do you know, I cannot do without Him? And do you
know, He cannot do without me?'

In reading the story of the prodigal son most people are impressed with
all the troubles the prodigal meets; they are occupied in thinking what
a bad time he is having. But that is not the point of the parable. "My
son... was lost, and is found"--there is the heart of the story. It is
not a question of what the son suffers but of what the Father loses. He
is the sufferer; He is the loser. A sheep is lost: whose is the loss?
The shepherd's. A coin is lost: whose is the loss? The woman's. A son
is lost: whose is the loss? The Father's. That is the lesson of Luke
chapter 15.

The Lord Jesus was the only begotten Son, and as the only begotten He
had no brothers. But the Father sent the Son in order that the only
begotten might also be the first begotten, and the beloved Son have
many brethren. There you have the whole story of the Incarnation and
the Cross; and there you have at the last the purpose of God fulfilled
in His "bringing many sons unto glory" (Heb. 2:10).

In Romans 8:29 we read of "many brethren"; in Hebrews 2:10 of "many
sons". From the point of view of the Lord Jesus it is "brethren"; from
the point of view of God the Father it is "sons". Both words in this
context convey the idea of maturity. God is seeking full-grown sons;
but He does not stop even there. For He does not want His sons to live
in a barn or a garage or a field; He wants them in His home; He wants
them to share His glory. That is the explanation of Romans 8:30: "Whom
he justified, them he also glorified." Sonship--the full expression of
His Son--is God's goal in the many sons. How could He bring that about?
By justifying them and then by glorifying them. In His dealings with
them God will never stop short of that goal. He set Himself to have
sons, and to have those sons, mature and responsible, with Him in
glory. He made provision for the whole of Heaven to be peopled with
glorified sons. That was His purpose in redemption.
__________________________________________________________________

The Grain Of Wheat

But how could God's only begotten Son become His first begotten? The
method is explained in John 12:24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by
itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit." Who was that
grain? It was the Lord Jesus. In the whole universe God had only one
grain of wheat'; He had no second grain. God put His one grain of wheat
into the ground and it died, and in resurrection the only begotten
grain became the first begotten grain, and from the one grain there
have sprung many grains.

In respect of His divinity the Lord Jesus remains uniquely "the only
begotten Son of God". Yet there is a sense in which, from the
resurrection onward through all eternity, He is also the first
begotten, and His life from that time is found in many brethren. For we
who are born of the Spirit are made thereby "partakers of the divine
nature" (2 Peter 1:4), though not, mark you, as of ourselves but only,
as we shall see in a moment, in dependence upon God and by virtue of
our being in Christ'. We have "received the spirit of adoption, whereby
we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are children of God" (Rom. 8:5, 16). It was by way of
the Incarnation and the Cross that the Lord Jesus made this possible.
Therein was the Father-heart of God satisfied, for in the Son's
obedience unto death the Father has secured His many sons.

The first and the twentieth chapters of John are in this respect most
precious. In the beginning of his Gospel John tells us that Jesus was
"the only begotten from the Father". At the end of his Gospel he tells
us how, after the Lord Jesus died and rose again, He said to Mary
Magdalene, "Go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my
Father and your Father, and my God and your God" (John 20:17). Hitherto
in this Gospel the Lord had spoken often of "the Father" or of "my
Father". Now, in resurrection, He add, "...and your Father". It is the
eldest Son, the first begotten, speaking. By His death and resurrection
many brethren have been brought into God's family, and so, in the same
verse He uses this very name for them: "My brethren". "He is not
ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:11).
__________________________________________________________________

The Choice That Confronted Adam

God planted a great number of trees in the garden of Eden, but "in the
midst of the garden"--that is, in a place of special prominence--He
planted two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. Adam was created innocent; he had no knowledge of good
and evil. Think of a grown man, say thirty years old, who has no sense
of right or wrong, no power to differentiate between the two! Would you
not say such a man was undeveloped? Well, that is exactly what Adam
was. And God brings him into the garden and says to him, in effect, Now
the garden is full of trees, full of fruits, and of the fruit of every
tree you may eat freely. But in the very midst of the garden is one
tree called "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"; you must not
eat of that, for in the day that you do so you will surely die. But
remember, the name of the other tree close by is Life.' What, then, is
the meaning of these two trees? Adam was, so to speak, created morally
neutral--neither sinful nor holy, but innocent--and God put those two
trees there so that he might exercise free choice. He could choose the
tree of life, or he could choose the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil.

Now the knowledge of good and evil, though forbidden to Adam, is not
wrong in itself. Without it however Adam is in a sense limited in that
he cannot decide for himself on moral issues. Judgment of right and
wrong resides not in him but in God, and Adam's only course when faced
with any question is to refer it to Jehovah God. Thus you have a life
in the garden which is totally dependent on God. These two trees, then,
typify two deep principles; they represent two planes of life, the
Divine and the human. The "tree of life" is God Himself, for God is
life. He is the highest form of life, and He is also the source and
goal of life. And the fruit: what is that? It is our Lord Jesus Christ.
You cannot eat the tree but you can eat the fruit. No one is able to
receive God as God, but we can receive the Lord Jesus. The fruit is the
edible part, the receivable part of the tree. So--may I say it
reverently?--the Lord Jesus is really God in a receivable form. God in
Christ we can receive.

If Adam should take of the tree of life, he would partake of the life
of God and thus become a son' of God, in the sense of having in him a
life that derived from God. There you would have God's life in union
with man: a race of men having the life of God in them and living in
constant dependence upon God for that life. If on the other hand Adam
should turn the other way and take the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, then he would develop his own manhood along
natural lines apart from God. Reaching a peak of attainment as a
self-sufficient being, he would have the power in himself to form
independent judgment, but he would have no life from God.

So this was the alternative that lay before him. Choosing the way of
the Spirit, the way of obedience, he could become a son' of God, living
in dependence upon God for his life; or, taking the natural course, he
could put the finishing touch to himself, as it were, by becoming a
self-dependent being, judging and acting apart from God. The history of
humanity is the outcome of the choice he made.
__________________________________________________________________

Adam's Choice The Reason For The Cross

Adam chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and thereby took
up independent ground. In doing so he became (as man is now in his own
eyes) a fully developed' man. He could command a knowledge; he could
decide for himself; he could go on or stop. From then on he was "wise"
(Genesis 3:6). But the consequence for his was death rather than life,
because the choice he had made involved complicity with Satan and
brought him therefore under the judgment of God. That is why access to
the tree of life had thereafter to be forbidden to him.

Two planes of life had been set before Adam: that of Divine life in
dependence upon God, and that of human life with its independent'
resources. Adam's choice of the latter was sin, because thereby he
allied himself with Satan to thwart the eternal purpose of God. He did
so by choosing to develop his manhood--to become perhaps a very fine
man, even by his standards a perfect' man--apart from God. But the end
was death, because he had not in him the Divine life necessary to
realize God's purpose in his being, but had chosen to become instead an
independent' agent of the Enemy. Thus in Adam we all become sinners,
equally dominated by Satan, equally subject to the law of sin and
death, and equally deserving of the wrath of God.

From this we see the Divine reason for the death and resurrection of
the Lord Jesus. We see too the Divine reason for true consecration--for
reckoning ourselves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God in Christ
Jesus, and for presenting ourselves unto Him as alive from the dead. We
must all go to the Cross, because what is in us by nature is a
self-life, subject to the law of sin. Adam chose a self-life rather
than a Divine life; so God had to gather up all that was in Adam and do
away with it. Our old man' has been crucified. God has put us all in
Christ and crucified Him as the last Adam, and thus all that is of Adam
has passed away.

Then Christ arose in new form; with a body still, but in the Spirit',
no longer in the flesh'. "The last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (1
Cor. 15:45). The Lord Jesus now has a resurrected body, a spiritual
body, a glorious body, and since He is no longer in the flesh He can
now be received by all. "He that eateth me, he also shall live because
of me", said Jesus (John 6:57). The Jews revolted at the thought of
eating His flesh and drinking His blood, but of course they could not
receive Him then because He was still literally in the flesh. Now that
He is in the Spirit every one of us can receive Him, and it is by
partaking of His resurrection life that we are constituted children of
God. "As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become
children of God... which were born... of God." (John 1:12, 13).

God is not out to reform our life. It is not His thought to bring it to
a certain stage of refinement, for it is on a totally wrong plane. On
that plane He cannot now bring man to glory. He must have a new man;
one born anew, born of God. Regeneration and justification go together.
__________________________________________________________________

He That Hath The Son Hath The Life

There are various planes of life. Human life lies between the life of
the lower animals and the life of God. We cannot bridge the gulf that
divides us from the plane above or the plane below, and the distance
that separates us from the life of God is vastly greater than that
which separates us from the life of the lower animals.

In China one day I called on a Christian leader who was sick in bed,
and whom, for the sake of this story, I shall call Mr. Wong' (though
that was not his real name). He was a very learned man, a Doctor of
Philosophy, and one esteemed throughout the whole of China for his high
moral principles, and he had long been engaged in Christian work. But
he did not believe in the need for regeneration; he only proclaimed a
social gospel.

When I called on Mr. Wong his pet dog was by his bedside, and after
speaking with him of the things of God and of the nature of His work in
us, I pointed to the dog and inquired his name. He told me he was
called Fido. Is Fido his Christian name or his surname?' I asked (using
the common Chinese terms for personal name' and family name'). Oh, that
is just his name', he said. Do you mean that is just his Christian
name? Can I call him Fido Wong?' I continued. Certainly not!' came the
emphatic reply. But he lives in your family', I protested, Why don't
you call him Fido Wong?' Then, indicating his two daughters, I asked
Are your daughters not called Miss Wong?' Yes!' Well then, why cannot I
call your dog Master Wong?' The Doctor laughed, and I went on: Do you
see what I am getting at? Your daughters were born into your family and
they bear your name because you have communicated your life to them.
Your dog may be an intelligent dog, a well-behaved dog, and altogether
a most remarkable dog; but the question is not, Is he a good or a bad
dog? It is merely, Is he a dog? He does not need to be bad to be
disqualified from being a member of your family; he only needs to be a
dog. The same principle applies to you in your relationship to God. The
question is not whether you are a bad man or a good man, more or less,
but simply, Are you a man? If your life is on a lower plane than that
of God's life, then you cannot belong to the Divine family. Throughout
your life your aim in preaching has been to turn bad men into good men;
but men as such, whether good or bad, can have no vital relationship
with God. Our only hope as men is to receive the Son of God, and when
we do so His life in us will constitute us sons of God.' The Doctor saw
the truth, and that day he became a member of God's family by receiving
the Son of God into his heart.

What we today possess in Christ is more than Adam lost. Adam was only a
developed man. He remained on that plane, and never possessed the life
of God. But we who receive the Son of God not only receive the
forgiveness of sins; we receive also the Divine life which was
represented in the garden by the tree of life. By the new birth we
receive something Adam never had; we possess what he missed.
__________________________________________________________________

They Are All Of One

God wants sons who shall be joint-heirs with Christ in glory. That is
His goal; but how can He bring that about? Turn now to Hebrews 2:10 and
11: "It became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and
they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not
ashamed to call them brethren."

There are two parties mentioned here, namely, "many sons" and "the
author of their salvation", or, in different terms, "he that
sanctifieth" and "they that are sanctified". But these two parties are
said to be "all of one". The Lord Jesus as Man derived His life from
God, and (in another sense, but just as truly) we derive our new life
from God. He was "begotten... of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 1:20 mg.),
and we were "born of... the spirit", "born... of God" (John 3:5; 1:13).
So, God says, we are all of One. "Of" in the Greek means "out of". The
first begotten Son and the many sons are all (though in different
senses) "out of" the one Source of life. Do you realize that we have
the same life today that God has? The life which He has in Heaven is
the life which He has imparted to us here on the earth. That is the
precious "gift of God" (Rom. 6:23). It is for that reason that we can
live a life of holiness, for it is not our own life that has been
changed, but the life of God that has been imparted to us.

Do you notice that, in this consideration of the eternal purpose, the
whole question of sin ultimately goes out? It no longer has a place.
Sin came in with Adam, and even when it has been dealt with, as it has
to be, we are only brought back to the point where Adam was. But in
relating us again to the Divine purpose--in, as it were, restoring to
us access to the tree of life--redemption has given us far more than
Adam ever had. It has made us partakers of the very life of God
Himself.
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 8: The Holy Spirit

We have spoken of the eternal purpose of God as the motive and
explanation of all His dealings with us. Now, before we return to our
study of the phases of Christian experience as set forth in Romans, we
must digress yet again in order to consider something which lies at the
heart of all our experience as the vitalizing power of effective life
and service. I refer to the personal presence and ministry of the Holy
Spirit of God.

And here, too, let us take as our starting-point two verses from
Romans, one from each of our sections. "The love of God hath been shed
abroad in our hearts through the Holy Ghost which was given unto us"
(Romans 5:5). "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
his" (Romans 8:9).

God does not give His gifts at random, nor dispense them in any
arbitrary fashion. They are given freely to all, but they are given on
a definite basis. God has truly "blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3), but if
those blessings which are ours in Christ are to become ours in
experience, we must know on what ground we can appropriate them.

In considering the gift of the Holy Spirit it is helpful to think of
this in two aspects, as the Spirit outpoured and the Spirit indwelling,
and our purpose now is to understand on what basis this twofold gift of
the Holy Spirit becomes ours. I have no doubt that we are right in
distinguishing thus between the outward and the inward manifestations
of His working, and that as we go on we shall find the distinction
helpful. Moreover, when we compare them, we cannot but come to the
conclusion that the inward activity of the Holy Spirit is the more
precious. But to say this is not for one moment to imply that His
outward activity is not also precious, for God only gives good gifts to
His children. Unfortunately we are apt to esteem our privileges lightly
because of their sheer abundance. The Old Testament saints, who were
not as favoured as we are, could appreciate more readily than we do the
preciousness of this gift of the outpoured Spirit. In their day it was
a gift given only to the select few--chiefly to priests, judges, kings
and prophets--whereas now it is the portion of every child of God.
Think! we who are mere nonentities can have the same Spirit resting
upon us as rested upon Moses the friend of God, upon David the beloved
king, and upon Elijah the mighty prophet. By receiving the gift of the
outpoured Holy Spirit we join the ranks of God's chosen servants of the
Old Testament dispensation. Once we see the value of this gift of God,
and realize too our deep need of it, we shall immediately ask, How can
I receive the Holy Spirit in this way to equip me with spiritual gifts
and to empower me for service? Upon what basis has the Spirit been
given?
__________________________________________________________________

The Spirit Outpoured

Let us turn first to Acts chapter 2 verses 32 to 36: "(32) This Jesus
did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses. (33) Being therefore by
the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the
promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath poured forth this, which ye see and
hear. (34) For David ascended not into the heavens: but he saith
himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, (35)
Till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet.(36) Let all the
house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God hath made him both
Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified."

Let us for the moment set verses 34 and 35 aside and consider verses 33
and 36 together. The former are a quotation from the 110th Psalm and
are really a parenthesis, so we shall get the force of Peter's argument
better if we ignore them for the time being. In verse 33 Peter states
that the Lord Jesus was exalted "at the right hand of God" (mg.). What
was the result? He "received of the Father the promise of the Holy
Ghost". And what followed? Pentecost! The result of His exaltation
was--"this, which ye see and hear".

What, then, was the basis upon which the Spirit was first given to the
Lord Jesus to be poured out upon His people? It was His exaltation to
Heaven. This passage makes it absolutely clear that the Holy Spirit was
poured out because the Lord Jesus was exalted. The outpouring of the
Spirit has no relation to your merits or mine, but only to the merits
of the Lord Jesus. The question of what we are does not come into
consideration at all here, but only what He is. He is glorified;
therefore the Spirit is poured out.

Because the Lord Jesus died on the Cross, I have received forgiveness
of sins; because the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, I have received new
life; because the Lord Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of the
Father, I have received the outpoured Spirit. All is because of Him;
nothing is because of me. Remission of sins is not based on human
merit, but on the Lord's crucifixion; regeneration is not based on
human merit, but on the Lord's resurrection; and the enduement with the
Holy Spirit is not based on human merit, but on the Lord's exaltation.
The Holy Spirit has not been poured out on you or me to prove how great
we are, but to prove the greatness of the Son of God.

Now look at verse 36. There is a word here which demands our careful
attention: the word therefore'. How is this word generally used? Not to
introduce a statement, but to follow a statement that has already been
made. Its use always implies that something has been mentioned before.
Now what has preceded this particular therefore'? With what is it
connected? It cannot reasonably be connected with either verse 34 or
verse 35, but it quite obviously relates back to verse 33. Peter has
just referred to the outpouring of the Spirit upon the disciples "which
ye see and hear", and he says: "Let all the house of Israel therefore
know assuredly, that God hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus
whom ye crucified". Peter says, in effect, to his audience: This
outpouring of the Spirit, which you have witnessed with your own eyes
and ears, proves that Jesus of Nazareth whom ye crucified is now both
Lord and Christ'. The Holy Spirit was poured out on earth to prove what
had taken place in Heaven--the exaltation of Jesus of Nazareth to the
right hand of God. The purpose of Pentecost is to prove the Lordship of
Jesus Christ.

There was a young man named Joseph, who was dearly loved of his father.
One day news reached the father of the death of his son, and for years
Jacob lamented Joseph's loss. But Joseph was not in the grave; he was
in a place of glory and power. After Jacob had been mourning the death
of his son for years, it was suddenly reported to him that Joseph was
alive and in a high position in Egypt. At first Jacob could not take it
in. It was too good to be true. But ultimately he was persuaded that
the story of Joseph's exaltation was really a fact. How did he come to
believe in it? He went out, and saw the chariots that Joseph had sent
from Egypt.

What do the chariots represent here? They surely typify here the Holy
Spirit, sent both to be the evidence that God's Son is in glory and to
convey us there. How do we know that Jesus of Nazareth, who was
crucified by wicked men nearly two thousand years ago, did not just die
a martyr's death but is at the Father's right hand in glory? How can we
know for a surety that He is Lord of lords and King of kings? We can
know it beyond dispute because He has poured out His Spirit upon us.
Hallelujah! Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Christ! Jesus of Nazareth is both
Lord and Christ!

The exaltation of the Lord Jesus is the basis on which the Spirit has
been given. Is it possible then that the Lord has been glorified and
you have not received the Spirit? On what basis did you receive
forgiveness of sins? Was it because you prayed so earnestly, or because
you read your Bible from cover to cover, or because of your regular
attendance at Church? Was it because of your merits at all? No! A
thousand times, No! On what ground then were your sins forgiven? "Apart
from shedding of blood there is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22). The sole
ground of forgiveness is the shedding of blood; and since the precious
Blood has been shed, your sins have been forgiven.

Now the principle on which we receive the enduement of the Holy Spirit
is the very same as that on which we receive forgiveness of sins. The
Lord has been crucified, therefore our sins have been forgiven; the
Lord has been glorified, therefore the Spirit has been poured out upon
us. Is it possible that the Son of God shed His Blood and that your
sins, dear child of God, have not been forgiven? Never! Then is it
possible that the Son of God has been glorified and you have not
received the Spirit? Never!

Some of you may say: I agree with all this, but I have no experience of
it. Am I to sit down smugly and say I have everything, when I know
perfectly well I have nothing? No, we must never rest content with
objective facts alone. We need subjective experience also; but that
experience will only come as we rest upon Divine facts. God's facts are
the basis of our experience.

Let us go back again to the question of justification. How were you
justified? Not by doing anything at all, but by accepting the fact that
the Lord had done everything. Enduement with the Holy Spirit becomes
yours in exactly the same way as justification, not by your doing
anything yourself, but by your putting your faith in what the Lord has
already done.

If we lack the experience, we must ask God for a revelation of the
eternal fact of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the gift of the
exalted Lord to His Church. Once we see that, effort will cease, and
prayer will give place to praise. It was a revelation of what the Lord
had done for the world that brought to an end our efforts to secure
forgiveness of sins, and it is a revelation of what the Lord has done
for His Church that will bring to an end our efforts to secure the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. We work because we have not seen the work
of Christ. But when once we have seen that, faith will spring up in our
hearts, and as we believe, experience will follow.

Some time ago a young man, who had only been a Christian for five weeks
and who had formerly been violently opposed to the gospel, attended a
series of meetings which I was addressing in Shanghai. At the close of
one in which I was speaking along the above lines, he went home and
began to pray earnestly, Lord, I do want the power of the Holy Spirit.
Seeing Thou hast now been glorified, wilt Thou not now pour out Thy
Spirit upon me?' Then he corrected himself: Oh no, Lord, that's all
wrong!' and began to pray again: Lord Jesus, we are in a
life-partnership, Thou and I, and the Father has promised us two
things--glory for Thee, and the Spirit for me. Thou, Lord, hast
received the glory; therefore it is unthinkable that I have not
received the Spirit. Lord, I praise Thee! Thou hast already received
the glory, and I have already received the Spirit.' From that day the
power of the Spirit was consciously upon him.
__________________________________________________________________

Faith Is Again The Key

As for forgiveness, so equally for the coming upon us of the Holy
Spirit, the whole question is one of faith. As soon as we see the Lord
Jesus on the Cross, we know our sins are forgiven; and as soon as we
see the Lord Jesus on the Throne, we know the Holy Spirit has been
poured out upon us. The basis upon which we receive the enduement of
the Holy Spirit is not our praying and fasting and waiting, but the
exaltation of Christ. Those who emphasize tarrying and hold tarrying
meetings' only mislead us, for the gift is not for the favoured few'
but for all, because it is not given on the ground of what we are at
all, but of what Christ is. The Spirit has been poured out to prove His
goodness and greatness, not ours. Christ has been crucified, therefore
we have been forgiven: Christ has been glorified, therefore we have
been endued with power from on high. It is all because of Him.

Suppose an unbeliever expresses the desire to be saved, and you explain
to him the way of salvation and pray with him. Suppose then he prays
after this fashion: Lord Jesus, I believe Thou hast died for me, and
that Thou canst blot out all my sins. I truly believe Thou wilt forgive
me.' Have you any confidence that that man is saved? When will you rest
assured that he has really been born again? Not when he prays: Lord, I
believe Thou wilt forgive my sins', but when he says: Lord, I praise
Thee that Thou hast forgiven my sins. Thou hast died for me; therefore
my sins are blotted out' You believe a person is saved when prayer
turns to praise--when he ceases to ask the Lord to forgive him, but
praises Him that He has already done so because the Blood of the Lamb
has already been shed.

In the same way, you can pray and wait for years and never experience
the Spirit's power; but when you cease to plead with the Lord to pour
out His Spirit upon you, and when instead you trustfully praise Him
that the Spirit has been poured out because the Lord Jesus has been
glorified, you will find that your problem is solved. Praise God! no
single child of His need agonize, nor even wait, for the Spirit to be
given. Jesus is not going to be made Lord; He is Lord. Therefore I am
not going to receive the Spirit; I have received the Spirit. It is all
a question of the faith which comes by revelation. When our eyes are
opened to see that the Spirit has already been poured out because Jesus
has already been glorified, then prayer turns to praise in our hearts.

All spiritual blessings are given on a definite basis. God's gifts are
freely given, but there are conditions which must be fulfilled on our
part before the reception of them is possible. There is a passage in
God's Word which makes the conditions of the outpoured Spirit perfectly
clear: "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of
Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost. For to you is the promise, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our
God shall call unto him" (Acts 2:38, 39).

Four things are mentioned in this passage: Repentance, Baptism,
Forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit. The first two are conditions, the
second two are gifts. What are the conditions to be fulfilled if we are
to have forgiveness of sins? According to the Word they are two:
repentance and baptism.

The first condition is repentance, which means a change of mind.
Formerly I thought sin a pleasant thing, but now I have changed my mind
about it; formerly I thought the world an attractive place, but now I
know better; formerly I regarded it a miserable business to be a
Christian, but now I think differently. Once I thought certain things
delightful, now I think them vile; once I thought other things utterly
worthless, now I think them most precious. That is a change of mind,
and that is repentance. No life can be truly changed apart from such a
change of mind.

The second condition is baptism. Baptism is an outward expression of an
inward faith. When in my heart I truly believe that I have died with
Christ, have been buried and have risen with Him, then I ask for
baptism. I thereby declare publicly what I believe privately. Baptism
is faith in action.

Here then are two divinely appointed conditions of
forgiveness--repentance, and faith publicly expressed. Have you
repented? Have you testified publicly to your union with your Lord?
Then have you received remission of sins and the gift of the Holy
Ghost? You say you have only received the first gift, not the second.
But, my friend, God offered you two things if you fulfilled two
conditions! Why have you only taken one? What are you doing about the
second?

Suppose I went into a book-shop, selected a two-volume book, priced at
ten shillings, and, having put down a ten-shilling note, walked out of
the shop, carelessly leaving one volume on the counter. When I reached
home and discovered the oversight, what do you think I should do? I
should go straight back to the shop to get the forgotten book, but I
should not dream of paying anything for it. I should simply explain to
the shopkeeper that both volumes were duly paid for, and ask him if he
would therefore kindly let me have the second one; and without any
further payment I should march happily out of the shop with my
possession under my arm. Would you not do the same under the same
circumstances?

But you are under the same circumstances. If you have fulfilled the
conditions you are entitled to two gifts, not just one. You have
already taken the one; why not just come and take the other now? Say to
the Lord, Lord, I have complied with the conditions for receiving
remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost, but I have foolishly
only taken the former. Now I have come back to take the gift of the
Holy Ghost, and I praise Thee for it.'
__________________________________________________________________

The Diversity Of The Experience

But you ask: How shall I know that the Holy Spirit is come upon me?' I
cannot tell how you will know, but you will know. No description has
been given us of the personal sensations and emotions of the disciples
at Pentecost. We do not know exactly how they felt, but we do know that
their feelings and behaviour were somewhat abnormal, because people
seeing them said they were intoxicated. When the Holy Spirit falls upon
God's people there will be some things which the world cannot account
for. There will be supernatural accompaniments of some kind, though it
be no more than an overwhelming sense of the Divine Presence. We cannot
and we must not stipulate what particular form such outward expressions
will take in any given case, but one thing is sure, that each one upon
whom the Spirit of God falls will know it.

When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost there was
something quite extraordinary about their behaviour, and Peter offered
an explanation from God's Word to all who witnessed it. This, in
substance, is what he said: When the Holy Spirit falls upon believers,
some will prophesy, some will dream dreams, and others will see
visions. This is what God has stated through the prophet Joel.' But did
Peter prophesy? Well, hardly in the sense in which Joel meant it. Did
the hundred and twenty prophesy or see visions? We are not told that
they did. Did they dream dreams? How could they, for were they not all
wide awake? Well then, what did Peter mean by using a quotation that
seems scarcely to fit the case at all? In the passage quoted (Joel
2:28, 29), prophesy, dreams and visions are said to accompany the
outpouring of the Spirit, yet these evidences were apparently lacking
at Pentecost.

On the other hand, Joel's prophecy said not a word about "a sound as of
the rushing of a mighty wind", nor about "tongues parting asunder like
as of fire" as accompaniments of the Spirit's outpouring; yet these
were manifest in that upper room. And where in Joel do we find mention
of speaking in other tongues? And yet the disciples at Pentecost did
so.

What did Peter mean? Imagine him quoting God's Word to show that the
experience of Pentecost was the outpouring of the Spirit spoken of by
Joel, without a single one of the evidences mentioned by Joel being
found at Pentecost. What the Book mentioned the disciples lacked, and
what the disciples had the Book did not mention! It looks as though
Peter's quotation of the Book disproves his point rather than proving
it. What is the explanation of this mystery?

Let us recall that Peter was himself speaking under the control of the
Holy Spirit. The Book of the Acts was written by the Spirit's
inspiration, and not one word was spoken at random. There is no misfit,
but a perfect harmony. Note carefully that Peter did not say: What you
see and hear fulfills what was spoken by the prophet Joel'. What he
said was: "This is that which hath been spoken by the prophet Joel"
(Acts 2:16). It was not a case of fulfillment, but of an experience of
the same order. "This is that" means that this which you see and hear
is of the same order as that which is foretold'. When it is a case of
fulfillment, each experience is reduplicated and prophecy is prophecy,
dreams are dreams, and visions are visions; but when Peter says "This
is that", it is not a question of the one being a replica of the other,
but of the one belonging to the same category as the other. "This"
amounts to the same thing as "that"; "this" is the equivalent of
"that"; "this is that". What is being emphasized by the Holy Spirit
through Peter is the diversity of the experience. The outward evidences
may be many and varied, and we have to admit that occasionally they are
strange; but the Spirit is one, and He is Lord. (See Corinthians
12:4-6).

What happened to R.A. Torrey when the Holy Spirit came upon him after
he had been a minister for years? Let him tell it in his own words: I
recall the exact spot where I was kneeling in prayer in my study... It
was very quiet moment, one of the most quiet moments I ever knew...
Then God simply said to me, not in any audible voice, but in my heart.
"It's yours. Now go and preach." He had already said it to me in His
Word in 1 John 5:14, 15; but I did not then know my Bible as I know it
now, and God had pity on my ignorance and said it directly to my
soul... I went and preached, and I have been a new minister from that
day to this... Some time after this experience (I do not recall just
how long after), while sitting in my room one day... suddenly... I
found myself shouting (I was not brought up to shout and I am not of a
shouting temperament, but I shouted like the loudest shouting
Methodist), "Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God", and I could not
stop. ... But that was not when I was baptized with the Holy Spirit. I
was baptized with the Holy Spirit when I took Him by simple faith in
The Word of God.' [10]

The outward manifestations in Torrey's case were not the same as those
described by Joel or by Peter, but "this is that". It is not a
facsimile, yet it is the same thing.

And how did D.L. Moody feel and act when the Spirit came upon him?

I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well,
one day, in the city of New York--oh, what a day!--I cannot describe
it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to
name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen
years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such
an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I
went preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present
any new truths; and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be
placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should
give me all the world - it would be as the small dust of the balance.'
[11]

The outward manifestation that accompanied Moody's experience did not
tally exactly with Joel's description, or Peter's, or Torrey's, but who
could doubt that "this" which Moody experienced was "that" experienced
by the disciples at Pentecost? It was not the same in manifestation,
but it was the very same in essence.

And what was the experience of the great Charles Finney when the power
of the Holy Ghost came upon him?

I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost without any expectation
of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any
such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the
thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended
upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me body and soul. No
words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart.
I wept aloud with joy and love.' [12]

Finney's experience was not a duplicate of Pentecost, nor of Torrey's
experience, nor of Moody's; but "this" certainly was "that".

When the Holy Spirit is poured out upon God's people their experiences
will differ widely. Some will receive new vision, others will know a
new liberty in soul-winning, others will proclaim the Word of God with
power, and yet others will be filled with heavenly joy or overflowing
praise. "This... and this... and this... is that!" Let us praise the
Lord for every new experience that relates to the exaltation of Christ
and of which it can truly be said that "this" is an evidence of "that".
There is nothing stereotyped about God's dealings with His children.
Therefore we must not by our prejudices and preconceptions make a
water-tight compartment for the working of His Spirit, either in our
own lives or in the lives of others. This applies equally to those who
require some particular manifestation (such as speaking with tongues')
as evidence that the spirit has come upon them and to those who deny
that any manifestation is given at all. We must leave God free to work
as He wills, and to give what evidence He pleases of the work He does.
He is Lord, and it is not for us to legislate for Him.

Let us rejoice that Jesus is on the throne, and let us praise Him that,
since He has been glorified, the Spirit has been poured out upon us
all. As we accept the Divine fact in all the simplicity of faith, we
shall know it with such assurance in our own experience that we shall
dare to proclaim with confidence--"This is that!"
__________________________________________________________________

[10] The Holy Spirit, who He is and what He does, by R.A. Torrey, D.D.,
pp. 198-9.

[11] The Life of Dwight L. Moody, by his son, W.R. Moody, p. 149.

[12] Autobiography of Charles E. Finney, chapter 2.
__________________________________________________________________

The Spirit Indwelling

We move on now to the second aspect of the gift of the Holy Spirit,
which, as we shall see in our next chapter, is more particularly the
subject of Romans 8. It is that which we have spoken of as the Spirit
indwelling. "If so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you..."
(Romans 8:9). As with the Spirit outpoured, so with the Spirit
indwelling, if we are to know in experience that which is ours in fact,
our first need is of Divine revelation. When we see Christ as Lord
objectively--that is, as exalted to the throne in Heaven--then we shall
experience the power of the Spirit upon us. When we see Christ as Lord
subjectively--that is, as effective Ruler within our lives--then we
shall know the power of the Spirit within us.

A revelation of the indwelling Spirit was the remedy Paul offered the
Corinthian Christians for their unspirituality. It is important to note
that the Christians in Corinth had become preoccupied with the visible
signs of the Holy Spirit's outpouring and were making much of tongues'
and miracles, while at the same time their lives were full of
contradictions and were a reproach to the Lord's Name. They had quite
evidently received the Holy Spirit and yet they remained spiritually
immature; and the remedy God offered them for this is the remedy He
offers His Church today for the same complaint.

In his letter to them Paul wrote: "Know ye not that ye are a temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16).
For others he prayed for enlightenment of heart, "...that ye may know"
(Ephesians 1:18). A knowledge of Divine facts was the need of the
Christians then, and it is no less the need of Christians today. We
need the opening of the eyes of our understanding' that we may know
that God Himself through the Holy Spirit has taken up His abode in our
hearts. God is present in the person of the Spirit, and Christ is
present in the person of the Spirit too. Thus if the Holy Spirit dwells
in our hearts we have the Father and the Son dwelling within. That is
no mere theory or doctrine, but a blessed reality. We may perhaps have
realized that the Spirit is actually within our hearts, but have we
realized that He is a Person? Have we understood that to have the
Spirit within us it to have the living God within?

To many Christians the Holy Spirit is quite unreal. They regard Him as
a mere influence--and influence for good, no doubt, but just an
influence for all that. In their thinking, conscience and the Spirit
are more or less identified as some thing' within them that brings them
to book when they are bad and tries to show them how to be good. The
trouble with the Corinthian Christians was not that they lacked the
indwelling Spirit but that they lacked the knowledge of His presence.
They failed to realize the greatness of the One who had come to make
His abode in their hearts; so Paul wrote to them: "Know ye not that ye
are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" Yes,
that was the remedy for their unspirituality--just to know who He
really was who dwelt within.
__________________________________________________________________

The Treasure In The Vessel

Do you know, my friends, that the Spirit within you is very God? Oh
that our eyes were opened to see the greatness of God's gift! Oh that
we might realize the vastness of the resources secreted in our own
hearts! I could shout with joy as I think, The Spirit who dwells within
me is no mere influence, but a living Person; He is very God. The
infinite God is within my heart!' I am at a loss to convey to you the
blessedness of this discovery, that the Holy Spirit dwelling within my
heart is a Person. I can only repeat: He is a Person!' and repeat it
again: He is a Person!' and repeat it yet again: He is a Person!' Oh,
my friends, I would fain repeat it to you a hundred times--The Spirit
of God within me is a Person! I am only an earthen vessel, but in that
earthen vessel I carry a treasure of unspeakable worth, even the Lord
of glory.

All the worry and fret of God's children would end if their eyes were
opened to see the greatness of the treasure hid in their hearts. Do you
know, there are resources enough in your own heart to meet the demand
of every circumstance in which you will ever find yourself? Do you know
there is power enough there to move the city in which you live? Do you
know there is power enough to shake the universe? Let me tell you once
more--I say it with the utmost reverence: You who have been born again
of the Spirit of God--you carry God in your heart!

All the flippancy of the children of God would cease too if they
realized the greatness of the treasure deposited within them. If you
have only ten shillings in your pocket you can march gaily along the
street, talking lightly as you go, and swinging your stick in the air.
It matters little if you lose your money, for there is not much at
stake. But if you carry a thousand pounds in your pocket, the position
is vastly different, and your whole demeanour will be different too.
There will be great gladness in your heart, but no careless jaunting
along the road; and once in a while you will slacken your pace and,
slipping your hand into your pocket, you will quietly finger your
treasure again, and then with joyful solemnity continue on your way.

In Old Testament times there were hundreds of tents in the camp of
Israel, but there was one tent quite different from all the rest. In
the common tents you could do just as you pleased--eat or fast, work or
rest, be joyful or sober, noisy or silent. But that other tent was a
tent that commanded reverence and awe. You might move in and out of the
common tents talking noisily and laughing gaily, but as soon as you
neared that special tent you instinctively walked more quietly, and
when you stood right before it you bowed your head in solemn silence.
No one could touch it with impunity. If man or beast dared to do so,
death was the sure penalty. What was so very special about it? It was
the temple of the living God. There was little unusual about the tent
itself, for it was outwardly of very ordinary material, but the great
God had chosen to make it His abode.

Do you realize what happened at your conversion? God came into your
heart and made it His temple. In Old Testament days God dwelt in a
temple made of stone; today He dwells in a temple composed of living
believers. When we really see that God has made our hearts His dwelling
place, what a deep reverence will come over our lives! All lightness,
all frivolity will end, and all self-pleasing too, when we know that we
are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells within us. Has
it really come to you that wherever you go you carry with you the Holy
Spirit of God? You do not just carry your Bible with you, or even much
good teaching about God, but God Himself.

The reason why many Christians do not experience the power of the
Spirit, though He actually dwells in their hearts, is that they lack
reverence. And they lack reverence because they have not had their eyes
opened to the fact of His presence. The fact is there, but they have
not seen it. Why is it that some Christians are living victorious lives
while others live in a state of constant defeat? The difference is not
accounted for by the presence or absence of the Spirit (for He dwells
in the heart of every child of God) but by this, that some recognize
His indwelling and others do not. True revelation of the fact of the
Spirit's indwelling will revolutionize the life of any Christian.
__________________________________________________________________

The Absolute Lordship Of Christ

"Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in
you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were
bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body" (1 Cor. 6:19,
20).

This verse now takes us a stage further, for, when once we have made
the discovery of the fact that we are the dwelling place of God, then a
full surrender of ourselves to God must follow. When we see that we are
the temple of God we shall immediately recognize that we are not our
own. Consecration will follow revelation. The difference between
victorious Christians and defeated ones is not that some have the
Spirit while others have not, but that some know His indwelling and
others do not, and that consequently some recognize the Divine
ownership of their lives while others are still their own masters.

Revelation is the first step to holiness, and consecration is the
second. A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our
conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the
absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ. There may be a practical issue
raised by God to test the reality of our consecration, but whether that
be so or not, there must be a day when, without reservation, we
surrender everything to Him--ourselves, our families, our possessions,
our business and our time. All we are and have becomes His, to be held
henceforth entirely at His disposal. From that day we are no longer our
own masters, but only stewards. Not until the Lordship of Jesus Christ
is a settled thing in our hearts can the Spirit really operate
effectively in us. He cannot direct our lives effectually until all
control of them is committed to Him. If we do not give Him absolute
authority in our lives, He can be present, but He cannot be powerful.
The power of the Spirit is stayed.

Are you living for the Lord or for yourself? Perhaps that is too
general a question, so let me be more specific. Is there anything God
is asking of you that you are withholding from Him? Is there any point
of contention between you and Him? Not till every controversy is
settled and the Holy Spirit is given full sway can He reproduce the
life of Christ in the heart of any believer.

An American friend, now with the Lord, whose name we will call Paul,
cherished the hope from his early youth that one day he would be called
Dr. Paul'. When he was quite a little chap he began to dream of the day
when he would enter the university, and he imagined himself first
studying for his M.A. degree and then for his Ph.D. Then at length the
glad day would arrive when all would greet him as Dr. Paul'.

The Lord saved him and called him to preach, and before long he became
pastor of a large congregation. By that time he had his degree and was
studying for his doctorate, but, despite splendid progress in his
studies and a good measure of success as a pastor, he was a very
dissatisfied man. He was a Christian, but his life was not Christ-like;
he had the Spirit of God within him, but he did not enjoy the Spirit's
presence or experience His power. He thought to himself, I am a
preacher of the Gospel and the pastor of a church. I tell my people
they should love the Word of God, but I do not really love it myself. I
exhort them to pray, but I myself have little inclination to pray. I
tell them to live a holy life, but my own life is not holy. I warn them
not to love the world, and, though outwardly I shun it, yet in my heart
I myself still love it dearly.' In his distress he cried to the Lord to
cause him to know the power of the indwelling Spirit, but though he
prayed and prayed for months, no answer came. Then he fasted and
besought the Lord to show him any hindrance there might be in his life.
That answer was not long in coming, and it was this: I long that you
should know the power of My Spirit, but your heart is set on something
that I do not wish you to have. You have yielded to me all but one
thing, and that one thing you are holding to yourself--your Ph.D.'
Well, to you or me it might be of little consequence whether we were
addressed as plain Mr. Paul' or as Dr. Paul', but to him it was his
very life. He had dreamed of it from childhood and labored for it all
through his youth, and now the thing he prized above all was almost
within his grasp. In two short months it would be his.

So he reasoned with the Lord in this wise: Is there any harm for me to
be a Doctor of Philosophy? Will it not bring much more glory to Thy
Name to have a Dr. Paul preaching the Gospel than a plain Mr. Paul?'
But God does not change His mind, and all Mr. Paul's sound reasoning
did not alter the Lord's word to him. Every time he prayed about the
matter he got the same answer. Then, reasoning having failed, he
resorted to bargaining with the Lord. He promised to go here or there,
to do this or that, if only the Lord would allow him to have his
doctor's degree; but still the Lord did not change His mind. And all
the while Mr. Paul was becoming more and more hungry to know the
fullness of the Spirit. This state of affairs continued to within two
days of his final examination.

It was Saturday, and Mr. Paul settled down to prepare his sermon for
the following day, but, study as he would, he could get no message. The
ambition of a lifetime was just within reach of realization, but God
made it clear that he must choose between the power he could sway
through a doctor's degree and the power of God's Spirit swaying his
life. That evening he yielded. Lord', he said, I am willing to be plain
Mr. Paul all my days, but I want to know the power of the Holy Ghost in
my life.'

He rose from his knees and wrote a letter to his examiners, asking to
be excused from the examination on the Monday, and giving his reason.
Then he retired, very happy, but not conscious of any unusual
experience. Next morning he told his congregation that for the first
time in six years he had no sermon to preach, and explained how it came
about. The Lord blessed that testimony more abundantly than any of his
well-prepared sermons, and from that time God blessed and owned him in
an altogether new way. From that day he knew separation from the world,
no longer as an outward thing but as a deep inward reality, and in
daily experience he knew the blessedness of the Spirit's presence and
power.

God is waiting for a settlement of all our controversies with Him. With
Mr. Paul it was a question of his doctor's degree, but with us it may
be something quite different. Our absolute surrender of ourselves to
the Lord generally hinges upon some one particular thing, and God is
after that one thing. He must have it, for He must have our all. I was
greatly impressed by something a great national leader wrote in his
autobiography: I want nothing for myself; I want everything for my
country.' If a man can be willing that his country should have
everything and he himself nothing, cannot we say to our God: Lord, I
want nothing for myself; I want all for Thee. I will what Thou willest,
and I want to have nothing outside Thy will.' Not until we take the
place of a servant can He take His place as Lord. He is not calling us
to devote ourselves to His cause: He is asking us to yield ourselves to
His will. Are you willing for anything He wills?

Another friend of mine, like my friend Mr. Paul, had a controversy with
the Lord. before his conversion he fell in love, and as soon as he was
saved he sought to win the one he loved to the Lord, but she would have
nothing to do with spiritual things. the Lord made it clear to him that
his relations with that girl must be broken off, but he was deeply
devoted to her, so he evaded the issue and continued to serve the Lord
and to win souls for Him. But he became conscious of his need for
holiness, and that consciousness marked the beginning of dark days for
him. He asked for the Spirit's fullness that he might have power to
live a holy life, but the Lord seemed continually to ignore his
request.

One morning he had to preach in another city and he spoke from Psalm
73:25: "Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth
that I desire beside thee." On his return home he went to a prayer
meeting, and there a sister read out the very same verse from which,
unknown to her, he had just preached, and followed it with the
question: Can we truly say: "There is none upon earth that I desire
beside thee"?' There was power in that word. It struck right home to
his heart and he had to admit to himself that he could not truthfully
say that he desired no one in Heaven or earth apart from his Lord. He
saw, there and then, that for him everything hinged upon his
willingness to give up the girl he loved.

For some it might not have involved much, but for him it was
everything. So he began to reason with the Lord: Lord I will go to
Tibet and work for Thee there if I may marry that girl'. But the Lord
seemed to care a great deal more about his relationship with that girl
than about his going to Tibet, and no amount of reasoning on his part
availed to effect any change of emphasis on the part of the Lord. The
controversy went on for several months, and when again the young man
pleaded for the fullness of the Spirit, the Lord still pointed to the
same thing. But that day the Lord triumphed, and that young man looked
up to Him and said: Lord, I can truly say now, "Whom have I in heaven
but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee".' And
that was the beginning of a new life for him.

A forgiven sinner is quite different from an ordinary sinner, and a
consecrated Christian is quite different from an ordinary Christian.
May the Lord bring us to a definite issue regarding the question of His
Lordship. If we do yield wholly to Him and claim the power of the
indwelling Spirit, we need wait for no special feelings or supernatural
manifestations, but can simply look up and praise Him that something
has already happened. We can confidently thank Him that the glory of
God has already filled His temple. "Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" "Know ye not that
your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have
from God?"
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 9: The Meaning and Value of Romans Seven

We must return now to our study of Romans. We broke off at the end of
chapter 6 in order to consider two related subjects, namely, God's
eternal purpose, which is the motive and goal of our walk with Him, and
the Holy Spirit, who supplies the power and resource to bring us to
that goal. We come now to Romans 7, a chapter which many have felt to
be almost superfluous. Perhaps indeed it would be so if Christians
really saw that the old creation has been ruled out by the Cross of
Christ, and an entirely new creation brought in by His resurrection. If
we have come to the point where we really know' that, and reckon' on
that, and present ourselves' on the basis of that, then perhaps we have
no need of Romans 7.

Others have felt that the chapter is in the wrong place. They would
have put it between the fifth and sixth chapters. After chapter 6 all
is so perfect, so straightforward; and then comes breakdown and the
cry, "O wretched man that I am!" Could anything be more of an
anticlimax? And so some have argued that Paul is speaking here of his
unregenerate experience. Well, we must admit that some of what he
describes here is not a Christian experience, but none the less many
Christians do experience it. What then is the teaching of this chapter?

Romans 6 deals with freedom from sin. Romans 7 deals with freedom from
the Law. In chapter 6 Paul has told us how we could be delivered from
sin, and we concluded that this was all that was required. Chapter 7
now teaches that deliverance from sin is not enough, but that we also
need to know deliverance from the Law. If we are not fully emancipated
from the Law we can never know full emancipation from sin. But what is
the difference between deliverance from sin and deliverance from the
Law? We all see the value of the former, but where is the need for the
latter? Well, to appreciate this we must first understand what the Law
is and what it does.
__________________________________________________________________

The Flesh And Man's Breakdown

Romans 7 has a new lesson to teach us. It is found in the discovery
that I am "in the flesh" (Rom. 7:5), that "I am carnal" (7:18). This
goes beyond the question of sin, for it relates also the matter of
pleasing God. We are dealing here not with sin in its forms but with
man in his carnal state. The latter includes the former but it takes us
a stage further, for it leads to the discovery that in this realm too
we are totally impotent, and that "they that are in the flesh cannot
please God" (Rom. 8:8). How then is this discovery made? It is made
with the help of the Law.

Now let us retrace our steps for a minute and attempt to describe what
is probably the experience of many. Many a Christian is truly saved and
yet bound by sin. It is not that he is necessarily living under the
power of sin all the time, but that there are certain particular sins
hampering him continually so that he hears the full Gospel message,
that the Lord Jesus not only died to cleanse away our sins, but that
when He died He included us sinners in His death; so that not only were
our sins dealt with, but we ourselves were dealt with too. The man's
eyes are opened and he knows he has been crucified with Christ. Two
things follow that revelation. In the first place he reckons that he
has died and risen with the Lord, and in the second place, recognizing
the Lord's claim upon him, he presents himself to God as alive from the
dead. He sees that he has no more right over himself. This is the
commencement of a beautiful Christian life, full of praise to the Lord.

But then he begins to reason as follows: I have died with Christ and am
raised with Him, and I have given myself over to Him for ever; now I
must do something for Him, since He has done so much for me. I want to
please Him and do His will.' So, after the step of consecration, he
seeks to discover the will of God, and sets out to obey Him. Then he
makes a strange discovery. He thought he could do the will of God and
he thought he loved it, but gradually he finds he does not always like
it. At times he even finds a distinct reluctance to do it, and often
when he tries to do it he finds he cannot. Then he begins to question
his experience. He asks himself: Did I really know? Yes! Did I really
reckon? Yes! Did I really give myself to Him? Yes! Have I taken back my
consecration? No! Then whatever is the matter now?' The more this man
tries to do the will of God the more he fails. Ultimately he comes to
the conclusion that he never really loved God's will at all, so he
prays for the desire and the power to do it. He confesses his
disobedience and promises never to disobey again. But he has barely got
up from his knees before he has fallen once more; before he reaches the
point of victory he is conscious of defeat. Then he says to himself:
Perhaps my last decision was not definite enough. This time I will be
absolutely definite.' So he brings all his will-power to bear on the
situation, only to find greater defeat than ever awaiting him the next
time a choice has to be made. Then at last he echoes the words of Paul:
"For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing:
for to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not.
For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not,
that I practice" (Rom. 7:18, 19).
__________________________________________________________________

What The Law Teaches

Many Christians are suddenly launched into the experience of Romans 7
and they do not know why. They fancy Romans 6 is quite enough. Having
grasped that, they think there can be no more question of failure, and
then to their utmost surprise they suddenly find themselves in Romans
7. What is the explanation?

First let us be quite clear that the death with Christ described in
Romans 6 is fully adequate to cover all our need. It is the explanation
of that death, with all that follows from it, that is incomplete in
chapter 6. We are as yet still in ignorance of the truth set forth in
chapter 7. Romans 7 is given to us to explain and make real the
statement in Romans 6:14, that: "Sin shall not have dominion over you:
for ye are not under law, but under grace." The trouble is that we do
not yet know deliverance from law. What, then, is the meaning of law?

Grace means that God does something for me; law means that I do
something for God. God has certain holy and righteous demands which He
places upon me: that is law. Now if law means that God requires
something of me for their fulfillment, then deliverance from law means
that He no longer requires that from me, but Himself provides it. Law
implies that God requires me to do something for Him; deliverance from
law implies that He exempts me from doing it, and that in grace He does
it Himself. I (where I' is the carnal' man of ch. 7:14) need do nothing
for God: that is deliverance from law. The trouble in Romans 7 is that
man in the flesh tried to do something for God. As soon as you try to
please God in that way, then you place yourself under law, and the
experience of Romans 7 begins to be yours.

As we seek to understand this, let it be settled at the outset that the
fault does not lie with the Law. Paul says, "the law is holy, and the
commandment holy, and righteous, and good" (Rom. 7:12). No, there is
nothing wrong with the Law, but there is something decidedly wrong with
me. The demands of the Law are righteous, but the person upon whom the
demands are made is unrighteous. The trouble is not that the Law's
demands are unjust, but that I am unable to meet them. It may be all
right for the Government to require payment of 100 shillings but it
will be all wrong if I have only ten shillings with which to meet the
demand!

I am a man "sold under sin" (Rom. 7:14). Sin has dominion over me. As
long as you leave me alone I seem to be rather a fine type of man. It
is when you ask me to do something that my sinfulness comes to light.

If you have a very clumsy servant and he just sits still and does
nothing, then his clumsiness does not appear. If he does nothing all
day he will be of little use to you, it is true, but at least he will
do no damage that way. But if you say to him: Now come along, don't
idle away your time; get up and do something', then immediately the
trouble begins. He knocks the chair over as he gets up, stumbles over a
footstool a few paces further on, then smashes some precious dish as
soon as he handles it. If you make no demands upon him his clumsiness
is never noticed, but as soon as you ask him to do anything his
awkwardness is seen at once. The demands were all right, but the man
was all wrong. He was as clumsy a man when he was sitting still as when
he was working, but it was your demands that made manifest the
clumsiness that was all the time in his make-up, whether he was active
or inactive.

We are all sinners by nature. If God asks nothing of us, all seems to
go well, but as soon as He demands something of us the occasion is
provided for a grand display of our sinfulness. The Law makes our
weakness manifest. While you let me sit still I appear to be all right,
but when you ask me to do anything I am sure to spoil that thing, and
if you trust me with a second thing I will as surely spoil it too. When
a holy law is applied to a sinful man, then his sinfulness comes out in
full display.

God knows who I am; He knows that from head to foot I am full of sin;
He knows that I am weakness incarnate; that I can do nothing. The
trouble is that I do not know it. I admit that all men are sinners and
that therefore I am a sinner; but I imagine that I am not such a
hopeless sinner as some. God must bring us all to the place where we
see that we are utterly weak and helpless. While we say so, we do not
wholly believe it, and God has to do something to convince us of the
fact. Had it not been for the Law we should never have known how weak
we are. Paul had reached that point. He makes this clear when he says
in Romans 7:7: "I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had
not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet".
Whatever might be his experience with the rest of the Law, it was the
tenth commandment, which literally translated is: "Thou shalt not
desire..." that found him out. There his total failure and incapacity
stared him in the face!

The more we try to keep the Law the more our weakness is manifest and
the deeper we get into Romans 7, until it is clearly demonstrated to us
that we are hopelessly weak. God knew it all along but we did not, and
so God had to bring us through painful experiences to a recognition of
the fact. We need to have our weakness proved to ourselves beyond
dispute. That is why God gave us the Law.

So we can say, reverently, that God never gave us the Law to keep; He
gave us the Law to break! He well knew that we could not keep it. We
are so bad that He asks no favour and makes no demands. Never has any
man succeeded in making himself acceptable to God by means of the Law.
Nowhere in the New Testament are men of faith told that they are to
keep the Law; but it does say that the Law was given so that there
should be transgression. "The law came in... that the trespass might
abound" (Rom. 5:20). The Law was given to make us law-breakers! No
doubt I am a sinner in Adam; "Howbeit, I had not know sin, except
through the law: ...for apart from the law sin is dead... but when the
commandment came, sin revived, and I died" (Rom. 7:7-9). The Law is
that which exposes our true nature. Alas, we are so conceited, and
think ourselves so strong, that God has to give us something to test us
and prove how weak we are. At last we see it and confess: I am a sinner
through and through, and I can of myself do nothing whatever to please
God.'

No, the Law was not given in the expectation that we would keep it. It
was given in the full knowledge that we would break it; and when we
have broken it so completely that we are convinced of our utter need,
then the Law has served its purpose. It has been our schoolmaster to
bring us to Christ, that He Himself may fulfill it in us (Gal. 3:24).
__________________________________________________________________

Christ The End Of The Law

In Romans 6 we saw how God delivered us from sin; in Romans 7 we see
how He delivers us from the Law. In chapter 6 we were shown the way of
deliverance from sin in the picture of a master and his slave; in
chapter 7 we are shown the way of deliverance from the Law in the
picture of two husbands and a wife. The relation between sin and the
sinner is that of master to slave; the relation between the Law and the
sinner is that of husband to wife.

Notice first that in the picture in Romans 7:1-4 by which Paul
illustrates our deliverance from the Law there is only one woman, while
there are two husbands. The woman is in a very difficult position, for
she can only be wife of one of the two, and unfortunately she is
married to the less desirable one. Let us make no mistake, the man to
whom she is married is a good man; but the trouble lies here, that the
husband and wife are totally unsuited to one another. He is a most
particular man, accurate to a degree; she on the other hand is
decidedly easy-going. With him all is definite and precise; with her
all is vague and haphazard. He wants everything just so, while she
accepts things as they come. How could there be happiness in such a
home?

And then that husband is so exacting! He is always making demands on
his wife. And yet one cannot find fault with him, for as a husband he
has a right to expect something of her; and besides, all his demands
are perfectly legitimate. There is nothing wrong with the man and
nothing wrong with his demands; the trouble is that he has the wrong
kind of wife to carry them out. The two cannot get on at all; theirs
are utterly incompatible natures. Thus the poor woman is in great
distress. She is fully aware that she often makes mistakes, but living
with such a husband it seems as though everything she says and does is
wrong! What hope is there for her? If only she were married to that
other Man all would be well. He is no less exacting than her husband,
but He also helps much. She would fain marry Him, but her husband is
still alive. What can she do? She is "bound by law to the husband" and
unless he dies she cannot legitimately marry that other Man.

This picture is not drawn by me but by the apostle Paul. The first
husband is the Law; the second husband is Christ; and you are the
woman. The Law requires much, but offers no help in the carrying out of
its requirements. The Lord Jesus requires just as much, yea more (Matt.
5:21-48) but what He requires from us He Himself carries out in us. The
Law makes demands and leaves us helpless to fulfill them; Christ makes
demands, but He Himself fulfills in us the very demands He makes.
Little wonder that the woman desires to be freed from the first husband
that she may marry that other Man! But her only hope of release is
through the death of her first husband, and he holds on to life most
tenaciously. Indeed there is not the least prospect of his passing
away. "Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished (Matt.
5:18).

The Law is going to continue for all eternity. If the Law will never
pass away, then how can I ever be united to Christ? How can I marry a
second husband if my first husband simply refuses to die? There is one
way out. If he will not die, I can die, and if I die the marriage
relationship is dissolved. And that is exactly God's way of deliverance
from the Law. The most important point to note in this section of
Romans 7 is the transition from verse 3 to verse 4. Verses 1 to 3 show
that the husband should die, but in verse 4 we see that in fact it is
the woman who dies. The Law does not pass away. God's righteous demands
remain for ever, and if I live I must meet those demands; but if I die
the Law has lost its claim upon me. It cannot follow me beyond the
grave.

Exactly the same principle operates in our deliverance from the Law as
in our deliverance from sin. When I have died my old master, Sin, still
continues to live, but his power over his slave extends as far as the
grave and no further. He could ask me to do a hundred and one things
when I was alive, but when I am dead he calls on me in vain. I am for
ever freed from his tyranny. So it is with regard to the Law. While the
woman lives she is bound to her husband, but with her death the
marriage bond is dissolved and she is "discharged from the law of her
husband". The Law may still make demands, but for me its power to
enforce them is ended.

Now the vital question arises: How do I die?' And the preciousness of
our Lord's work comes in just here: "Ye also were made dead to the law
through the body of Christ" (Rom. 7:4). When Christ died His body was
broken, and since God placed me in Him (1 Cor. 1:30), I have been
broken too. When He was crucified, I was crucified with Him.

An Old Testament illustration may help to make this clear. It was the
veil of testimony that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy
Place, and upon it were embroidered cherubim (Exod. 26:31; 2 Chron.
3:14) whose faces, by analogy from Ezekiel 1:10 and 10:14, included
that of a man as representing the human head of the whole natural
creation (Psalm 8:4-8). In Old Testament days God dwelt within the veil
and man without. Man could look upon the veil, but not within it. That
veil symbolized our Lord's flesh, His body (Heb. 10:20). So in the
Gospels men could only look upon the outward form of our Lord; they
could not, save by Divine revelation (Matt. 16:16, 17), see the God who
dwelt within. But when the Lord Jesus died, the veil of the temple was
rent from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51) as by the hand of God, so that
man could gaze right into the Most Holy Place. Since the death of the
Lord Jesus, God is no longer veiled but seeks to reveal Himself (1 Cor.
2:7-10).

But when the veil was rent asunder, what happened to the cherubim? God
rent only the veil, it is true, but the cherubim were there in the veil
and were one with it, for they were embroidered upon it. It was
impossible to rend the veil and preserve them whole. When the veil was
rent the cherubim were rent with it. And, in the sight of God, when the
Lord Jesus died the whole living creation died too.

"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the
body of Christ." That woman's husband may be very well and strong, but
if she dies he may make as many demands upon her as he likes; it will
not affect her in the slightest. Death has set her free from all her
husband's claims. We were in the Lord Jesus when He died, and that
inclusive death of His has for ever freed us from the Law. But our Lord
did not remain in the grave. On the third day He rose again; and since
we are still in Him we are risen too. The body of the Lord Jesus speaks
not only of His death but of His resurrection, for His resurrection was
a bodily resurrection. Thus "through the body of Christ" we are not
only "dead to the law' but alive unto God.

God's purpose in uniting us to Christ was not merely negative; it was
gloriously positive--"that ye should be joined to another" (Rom. 7:4).
Death has dissolved the old marriage relationship, so that the woman,
driven to despair by the constant demands of her former husband, who
never lifted a little finger to help her carry them out, is now set
free to marry the other Man, who with every demand He makes becomes in
her the power for its fulfillment.

And what is the issue of this new union? "That we might bring forth
fruit unto God" (Rom. 7:4). By the body of Christ that foolish, sinful
woman has died, but being united to Him in death she is united to Him
in resurrection also, and in the power of resurrection life she brings
forth fruit unto God. The risen life of the Lord in her empowers her
for all the demands God's holiness makes upon her. The Law of God is
not annulled; it is perfectly fulfilled, for the risen Lord now lives
out His life in her, and His life is always well-pleasing to the
Father.

What happens when a woman marries? She no longer bears her own name but
that of her husband; and she shares not his name only but his
possessions too. So it is when we are joined to Christ. When we belong
to Him, all that is His becomes ours, and with His infinite resources
at our disposal we are well able to meet all His demands.
__________________________________________________________________

Our End Is God's Beginning

Now that we have settled the doctrinal side of the question we must
come down to practical issues, staying a little longer with the
negative aspect and keeping the positive for our next chapter. What
does it mean in everyday life to be delivered from the Law? At the risk
of a little overstatement, I reply, "It means that from henceforth I am
going to do nothing whatever for God: I am never again going to try to
please Him." What a doctrine!' you exclaim. What awful heresy! You
cannot possibly mean that!'

But remember, if I try to please God in the flesh', then immediately I
place myself under the Law. I broke the Law; the Law pronounced the
death sentence; the sentence was executed, and now by death I--the
carnal I' (Rom. 7:14)--have been set free from all its claims. There is
still a Law of God, and now there is in fact a "new commandment" that
is infinitely more exacting than the old, but, Praise God! its demands
are being met, for it is Christ who now fulfills them; it is Christ who
works in me what is well-pleasing to God. "I came... to fulfill {the
law}" were His words (Matt. 5:17). Thus Paul, from the ground of
resurrection, can say: "Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work,
for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12, 13).

It is God that worketh in you. Deliverance from law does not mean that
we are free from doing the will of God. It certainly does not mean that
we are going to be lawless. Very much the reverse! What it does mean
however is that we are free from doing that will as of ourselves. Being
fully persuaded that we cannot do it, we cease trying to please God
from the ground of the old man. Having at last reached the point of
utter despair in ourselves so that we cease even to try, we put our
trust in the Lord to manifest His resurrection life in us.

Let me illustrate by what I have seen in my own country. In China some
bearers can carry a load of salt weighing 120 kilos, some even 250
kilos. Now along comes a man who can carry only 120 kilos, and here is
a load of 250 kilos. He knows perfectly well he cannot carry it, and if
he is wise he will say: I won't touch it!' But the temptation to try is
ingrained in human nature, so although he cannot possibly carry it he
still tries. As a youngster I used to amuse myself watching ten or
twenty of these fellows come along and try, though every one of them
knew he could not possibly manage it. In the end he must give up and
make way for the man who could.

The sooner we too give up trying the better, for if we monopolize the
task, then there is no room for the Holy Spirit. But if we say: I'll
not do it; I'll trust Thee to do it for me', then we shall find that a
Power stronger than ourselves is carrying us through.

In 1923 I met a famous Canadian evangelist. I had said in an address
something along the above lines, and as we walked back to his home
afterwards he remarked: The note of Romans 7 is seldom sounded
nowadays; it is good to hear it again. The day I was delivered from the
Law was a day of Heaven on earth. After being a Christian for years I
was still trying my best to please God, but the more I tried the more I
failed. I regarded God as the greatest Demander in the universe, but I
found myself impotent to fulfill the least of His demands. Suddenly one
day, as I read Romans 7, light dawned and I saw that I had not only
been delivered from sin but from the Law as well. In my amazement I
jumped up and said: "Lord, are you really making no demands on me? Then
I need do nothing more for You!"

God's requirements have not altered, but we are not the ones to meet
them. Praise God, He is the Lawgiver on the Throne, and He is the
Lawkeeper in my heart. He who gave the Law, Himself keeps it. He makes
the demands, but He also meets them. My friend could well jump up and
shout when he found he had nothing to do, and all who make a like
discovery can do the same. As long as we are trying to do anything, He
can do nothing. It is because of our trying that we fail and fail and
fail. God wants to demonstrate to us that we can do nothing at all, and
until that is fully recognized our disappointments and disillusionments
will never cease.

A brother who was trying to struggle into victory remarked to me, I do
not know why I am so weak.' The trouble with you', I said, is that you
are weak enough not to do the will of God, but you are not weak enough
to keep out of things altogether. You are still not weak enough. When
you are reduced to utter weakness and are persuaded that you can do
nothing whatever, then God will do everything.' We all need to come to
the point where we say: Lord, I am unable to do anything for Thee, but
I trust Thee to do everything in me.'

I was once staying in a place in China with some twenty other brothers.
There was inadequate provision for bathing in the home where we stayed,
so we went for a daily plunge in the river. On one occasion a brother
had cramp in one leg, and I suddenly saw he was sinking fast, so I
motioned to another brother, who was an expert swimmer, to hasten to
his rescue. But to my astonishment he made no move. So I grew desperate
and called out: Don't you see the man is drowning?' and the other
brothers, about as agitated as I was, shouted vigorously too. But our
good swimmer still did not move. Calm and collected, he remained just
where he was, apparently postponing the unwelcome task. Meantime the
voice of the poor drowning brother grew fainter and his efforts
feebler. In my heart I said: I hate that man! Think of his letting a
brother drown before his very eyes and not going to the rescue!'

But when the man was actually sinking, with a few swift strokes the
swimmer was at his side, and both were safely ashore. When I got an
opportunity I aired my views. I have never seen any Christian who loved
his life quite as much as you do', I said. Think of the distress you
would have saved that brother if you had considered yourself a little
less and him a little more.' But the swimmer knew his business better
than I did. Had I gone earlier', he said, he would have clutched me so
fast that both of us would have gone under. A drowning man cannot be
saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest
effort to save himself.'

Do you see it? When we give up the case, then God will take it up. He
is waiting until we are at an end of our resources and can do nothing
more for ourselves. God has condemned all that is of the old creation
and consigned it to the Cross. The flesh profiteth nothing! If we try
to do anything in the flesh we are virtually repudiating the Cross of
Christ. God has declared us to be fit only for death. When we truly
believe that, then we confirm God's verdict by giving up all our
fleshly efforts to please Him. Our every effort to do His will is a
denial of His declaration in the Cross of our utter worthlessness. Our
continued efforts are a misunderstanding on the one hand of God's
demands and on the other hand of the source of supply.

We see the Law and we think that we must meet its demands, but we need
to remember that, though the Law in itself is all right, it will be all
wrong if it is applied to the wrong person. The "wretched man" of
Romans 7 tried to meet the demands of God's law himself, and that was
the cause of his trouble. The repeated use of the little word I' in
this chapter gives the clue to the failure. "The good which I would I
do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practice" (Rom. 7:19).
There was a fundamental misconception in this man's mind. He thought
God was asking him to keep the Law, so of course he was trying to keep
it. But God was requiring no such thing of him. What was the result?
Far from doing what pleased God, he found himself doing what displeased
Him. In his very efforts to do the will of God he did exactly the
opposite of what he knew to be His will.
__________________________________________________________________

I Thank God!

Romans 6 deals with "the body of sin", Romans 7 with "the body of this
death" (6:6; 7:24). In chapter 6 the whole question before us is sin;
in chapter 7 the whole question before us is death. What is the
difference between the body of sin and the body of death? In regard to
sin (that is, to whatever displeases God) I have a body of sin--a body,
that is to say, which is actively engaged in sin. But in regard to the
Law of God (that is, to that which expresses the will of God) I have a
body of death. My activity in regard to sin makes my body a body of
sin; my failure in regard to all that is wicked, worldly and Satanic I
am, in my nature, wholly positive; but in regard to all that pertains
to holiness and Heaven and God I am wholly negative.

Have you discovered the truth of that in your life? It is no good
merely to discover it in Romans 6 and 7. Have you discovered that you
carry the encumbrance of a lifeless body in regard to God's will? You
have no difficulty in speaking about wordly matters, but when you try
to speak for the Lord you are tongue-tied; when you try to pray you
feel sleepy; when you try to do something for the Lord you feel unwell.
You can do anything but that which is related to God's will. There is
something in this body that does not harmonize with the will of God.

What does death mean? We may illustrate from a well-known verse in the
first letter to the Corinthians: "For this cause many among you are
weak and sickly, and not a few sleep" (1 Corinthians 11:30). Death is
weakness produced to its extremity - weakness, sickness, death. Death
means utter weakness; it means you are weak to such a point that you
can become no weaker. That I have a body of death in relation to God's
will means that I am so weak in regard to serving God, so utterly weak,
that I am reduced to a point of dire helplessness. "O wretched man that
I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?" cried Paul,
and it is good when anyone cries out as he did. There is nothing more
musical in the ears of the Lord. This cry is the most spiritual and the
most scriptural cry a man can utter. He only utters it when he knows he
can do nothing, and gives up making any further resolutions. Up to this
point, every time he failed he made a new resolution and doubled and
redoubled his will-power. At last he discovers there is no use in his
making up his mind any more, and he cries out in desperation: "O
wretched man that I am !" Like a man who suddenly awakes to find
himself in a burning building, his cry is now for help, for he has come
to the point where he despairs of himself.

Have you despaired of yourself, or do you hope that if you read and
pray more you will be a better Christian? Bible-reading and prayer are
not wrong, and God forbid that we should suggest that they are, but it
is wrong to trust even in them for victory. Our help is in Him who is
the object of that reading and prayer. Our trust must be in Christ
alone. Happily the "wretched man" does not merely deplore his
wretchedness; he asks a fine question, namely: "Who shall deliver me?"
"Who?" Hitherto he has looked for some thing; now his hope is in a
Person. Hitherto he has looked within for a solution to his problem;
now he looks beyond himself for a Savior. He no longer puts forth
self-effort; all his expectation is now in Another.

How did we obtain forgiveness of sins? Was it by reading, praying,
almsgiving, and so on? No, we looked to the Cross, believing in what
the Lord Jesus had done; and deliverance from sin becomes ours on
exactly the same principle, nor is it otherwise with the question of
pleasing God. In the matter of forgiveness we look to Him on the Cross;
in the matter of deliverance from sin and of doing the will of God we
look to Him in our hearts. For the one we depend on what He has done;
for the other we depend on what He will do in us; but in regard to
both, our dependence is on Him alone. He is the One who does it all.

At the time when the Epistle to the Romans was written a murderer was
punished in a peculiar and terrible manner. The dead body of the one
murdered was tied to the living body of the murderer, head to head,
hand to hand, foot to foot, and the living one was bound to the dead
one till death. The murderer could go where he pleased, but wherever he
went he had to carry the corpse of that murdered man with him. Could
punishment be more appalling? Yet this is the illustration Paul now
uses. It is as though he were bound to a dead body and unable to get
free. Wherever he goes he is hampered by this terrible burden. At last
he can bear it no longer and cries: "O wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me...?" And then, in a flash of illumination, his cry of
despair changes to a song of praise. He has found the answer to his
question. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7:25).

We know that justification is ours through the Lord Jesus and requires
no work on our part, but we think sanctification is dependent on our
own efforts. We know we can receive forgiveness only by entire reliance
on the Lord; yet we believe we can obtain deliverance by doing
something ourselves. We fear that if we do nothing, nothing will
happen. After salvation the old habit of doing' reasserts itself and we
begin our old self-efforts again. Then God's word comes afresh to us:
"It is finished" (John 19:30). He has done everything on the Cross for
our forgiveness and He will do everything in us for our deliverance. In
both cases He is the doer. "It is God that worketh in you."

The first words of the delivered man are very precious--"I thank God".
If someone gives you a cup of water you thank the person who gave it,
not someone else. Why did Paul say "Thank God"? Because God was the One
who did everything. Had it been Paul who did it, he would have said,
"Thank Paul". But he saw that Paul was a "wretched man" and that God
alone could meet his need; so he said, "Thank God". God wants to do
all, for He must have all the glory. If we do some of the work, then we
will get some of the glory; but God must have it all Himself, so He
does all the work from beginning to end.

What we have said in this chapter might seem negative and unpractical
if we were to stop at this point, as though the Christian life were a
matter of sitting still and waiting for something to happen. Of course
it is very far from being so. All who truly live it know it to be a
matter of very positive and active faith in Christ and in an altogether
new principle of life--the law of the Spirit of life. We are now going
to look at the effects in us of this new life principle.
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 10: The Path of Progress: Walking In The Spirit

Coming now to Romans 8 we may first summarize the argument of our
second section of the letter from chapter 5:12 to chapter 8:39 in two
phrases, each containing a contrast and each marking an aspect of
Christian experience. The are: Romans 5:12 to 6:23: In Adam' and in
Christ'. Romans 7:1 to 8:39: In the flesh' and in the Spirit'.

We need to understand the relationship of these four things. The former
two are objective' and set forth our position, firstly as we were by
nature and secondly as we now are by faith in the redemptive work of
Christ. The latter two are subjective' and relate to our walk as a
matter of practical experience. Scripture makes it clear that the first
two give us only a part of the picture and that the second two are
required to complete it. We think it enough to be "in Christ", but we
learn now that we must also walk "in the Spirit" (Rom. 8:9). The
frequent occurrence of "the Spirit" in the early part of Romans 8
serves to emphasize this further important lesson of the Christian
life.
__________________________________________________________________

The Flesh And The Spirit

The flesh is linked with Adam; the Spirit with Christ. Leaving aside
now as settled the question of whether we are in Adam or in Christ, we
must ask ourselves: Am I living in the flesh or in the Spirit?

To live in the flesh is to do something out from' [13] myself as in
Adam. It is to derive strength from the old natural source of life that
I inherited from him, so that I enjoy in experience all Adam's very
complete provision for sinning which all of us have found so effective.
Now the same is true of what is in Christ. To enjoy in experience what
is true of me as in Him, I must learn what it is to walk in the Spirit.
It is a historic fact that in Christ my old man was crucified, and it
is a present fact that I am blessed "with every spiritual blessing in
the heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1:3); but if I do not live in the
Spirit, then my life may be quite a contradiction of the fact that I am
in Christ, for what is true of me in Him is not expressed in me. I may
recognize that I am in Christ, but I may also have to face the fact
that my old temper is very much in evidence.

What is the trouble? It is that I am holding the truth merely
objectively, whereas what is true objectively must be made true
subjectively; and that is brought about as I live in the Spirit.

Not only am I in Christ, but Christ is in me. And just as physically a
man cannot live and work in water but only in air, so spiritually
Christ dwells and manifests Himself not in flesh' but in spirit'.
Therefore if I live "after the flesh" I find that what is mine in
Christ is, so to say, held in suspense in me. Though in fact I am in
Christ, yet if I live in the flesh--that is, in my own strength and
under my own direction--then in experience I find to my dismay that it
is what is in Adam that manifests itself in me. If I would know in
experience all that is in Christ, then I must learn to live in the
Spirit.

Living in the Spirit means that I trust the Holy Spirit to do in me
what I cannot do myself. This life is completely different from the
life I would naturally live of myself. Each time I am faced with a new
demand from the Lord, I look to Him to do in me what He requires of me.
It is not a case of trying but of trusting; not of struggling but of
resting in Him. If I have a hasty temper, impure thoughts, a quick
tongue or a critical spirit, I shall not set out with a determined
effort to change myself, but, reckoning myself dead in Christ to these
things, I shall look to the Spirit of God to produce in me the needed
purity or humility or meekness. This is what it means to "stand still,
and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you" (Exod.
14:13).

Some of you have no doubt had an experience something like the
following. You have been asked to go and see a friend, and you knew the
friend was not very friendly, but you trusted the Lord to see you
through. You told Him before you set out that in yourself you could not
but fail, and you asked Him for all that was needed. Then, to your
surprise, you did not feel at all irritated, though your friend was far
from gracious. On your return you thought over the experience and
marveled that you kept so calm, and you wondered if you would be just
as calm next time. You were amazed at yourself and sought an
explanation. This is the explanation: the Holy Spirit carried you
through.

Unfortunately we only have this kind of experience once in while, but
it should be a constant experience. When the Holy Spirit takes things
in hand there is no need for strain on our part. It is not a case of
clenching our teeth and thinking that thus we have controlled ourselves
beautifully and have had a glorious victory. No, where there is a real
victory there is no fleshly effort. We are gloriously carried through
by the Lord.

The object of temptation is always to get us to do something. During
the first three months of the Japanese war in China we lost a great
many tanks and so were unable to deal with the Japanese tanks, until
the following scheme was devised. A single shot would be fired at a
Japanese tank by one of our snipers in ambush. After a considerable
lapse of time the first shot would be followed by a second; then, after
a further silence, by another shot; until the tank driver, eager to
locate the source of the disturbance, would pop his head out to look
around. The next shot, carefully aimed, would put an end to him.

As long as he remained under cover he was perfectly safe. The whole
scheme was devised to bring him out into the open. In the same way,
Satan's temptations are not primarily to make us do something
particularly sinful, but merely to cause us to act in our own energy;
and as soon as we step out of our hiding-place to do something on that
basis, he has gained the victory over us. If we do not move, if we do
not come out of the cover of Christ into the realm of the flesh, then
he cannot get us.

The Divine way of victory does not permit of our doing anything at
all--anything, that is to say, outside of Christ. This is because as
soon as we move we run into danger, for our natural inclinations take
us in the wrong direction. Where, then, are we to look for help? Turn
now to Galatians 5:17: "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the
Spirit against the flesh". In other words, the flesh does not fight
against us but against the Holy Spirit, "for these are contrary the one
to the other", and it is He, not we, who meets and deals with the
flesh. What is the result? "That ye may not do the things that ye
would."

I think we have often understood that last clause of this verse in a
wrong sense. Let us consider what it means. What would we do'
naturally? We would move off on some course of action dictated by our
own instincts and apart from the will of God. The effect then of our
refusal to act out from ourselves is that the Holy Spirit is free to
meet and deal with the flesh in us, with the result that we shall not
do what we naturally would do; that is, we shall not act according to
our natural inclinations; we shall not go off on a course and plan of
our own: but shall find instead our satisfaction in His perfect plan.
Hence we have the principle: "Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not
fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). If we live in the Spirit,
if we walk by faith in the risen Christ, we can truly stand aside'
while the Spirit gains new victories over the flesh every day. He has
been given to us to take charge of this business. Our victory lies in
hiding in Christ, and in counting in simple trust upon His Holy Spirit
to overcome in us our fleshly lusts with His own new desires. The Cross
has been given to procure salvation for us; the Spirit has been given
to produce salvation in us. Christ risen and ascended is the basis of
our salvation; Christ in our hearts by the Spirit is its power.
__________________________________________________________________

[13] The author has in mind the Greek preposition ek, the sense of
which is not easily conveyed by any single English word.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________

Christ Our Life

"I thank God through Jesus Christ"! That exclamation of Paul's is
fundamentally the same as his other words in Galatians 2:20 which we
have taken as the key to our study: "I live; and yet no longer I, but
Christ". We saw how prominent is the word I' throughout his argument in
Romans 7, culminating in the agonized cry: "O wretched man that I am!"
Then follows the shout of deliverance: "Thank God... Jesus Christ"! and
it is clear that the discovery Paul has made is this, that the life we
live is the life of Christ alone. We think of the Christian life as a
changed life', a substituted life', and Christ is our Substitute
within. "I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." This
life is not something which we ourselves have to produce. It is
Christ's own life reproduced in us.

How many Christians believe in reproduction' in this sense, as
something more than regeneration? Regeneration means that the life of
Christ is planted in us by the Holy Spirit at our new birth.
Reproduction' goes further: it means that new life grows and becomes
manifest progressively in us, until the very likeness of Christ begins
to be reproduced in our lives. That is what Paul means when he speaks
of his travail for the Galatians "until Christ be formed in you" (Gal.
4:19).

Let me illustrate with another story. I once arrived in America in the
home of a saved couple who requested me to pray for them. I inquired
the case of their trouble. Oh, Mr. Nee, we have been in a bad way
lately', they confessed. We are so easily irritated by the children,
and during the past few weeks we have both lost our tempers several
times a day. We are really dishonoring the Lord. Will you ask Him to
give us patience?' That is the one thing I cannot do', I said. What do
you mean?' they asked. I mean that one thing is certain', I answered,
and that is that God is not going to answer your prayer.' At that they
said in amazement, Do you mean to tell us we have gone so far that God
is not willing to hear us when we ask Him to make us patient?' No, I do
not mean quite that, but I would like to ask you if you have ever
prayed in this respect. You have. But did God answer? No! Do you know
why? Because you have no need of patience.' Then the eyes of the wife
blazed up. She said, What do you mean? We do not need patience, and yet
we get irritated the whole day long! What do you mean?' It is not
patience you have need of', I answered, it is Christ.'

God will not give me humility or patience or holiness or love as
separate gifts of His grace. He is not a retailer dispensing grace to
us in doses, measuring out some patience to the impatient, some love to
the unloving, some meekness to the proud, in quantities that we take
and work on as kind of capital. He has given only one gift to meet all
our need--His Son Christ Jesus, and as I look to Him to live out His
life in me, He will be humble and patient and loving and everything
else I need--in my stead. Remember the word in the first Epistle of
John: "God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He
that hath the Son hath the life; and he that hath not the Son of God
hath not the life" (1 John 5:11, 12). The life of God is not given us
as a separate item; the life of God is given us in the Son. It is
"eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). Our relationship
to the Son is our relationship to the life.

It is a blessed thing to discover the difference between Christian
graces and Christ: to know the difference between meekness and Christ,
between patience and Christ, between love and Christ. Remember again
what is said in 1 Corinthians 1:30: "Christ Jesus... was made unto us
wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption."
The common conception of sanctification is that every item of the life
should be holy; but that is not holiness, it is the fruit of holiness.
Holiness is Christ. It is the Lord Jesus being made over to us to be
that. So you can put in anything there: love, humility, power,
self-control. Today there is a call for patience: He is our patience!
Tomorrow the call may be for purity: He is our purity! He is the answer
to every need. That is why Paul speaks of "the fruit of the Spirit" as
one (Gal. 5:22) and not of fruits' as separate items. God has given us
His Holy Spirit, and when love is needed the fruit of the Spirit is
love; when joy is needed the fruit of the Spirit is joy. It is always
true. It does not matter what your personal deficiency, or whether it
is a hundred and one different things, God has one sufficient
answer--His Son Jesus Christ, and He is the answer to every human need.

How can we know more of Christ in this way? Only by way of an
increasing awareness of need. Some are afraid to discover deficiency in
themselves and so they never grow. Growth in grace is the only sense in
which we can grow, and grace, we have said, is God doing something for
us. We all have the same Christ dwelling within, but revelation of some
new need will lead us spontaneously to trust Him to live out His life
in us in that particular. Greater capacity means greater enjoyment of
God's supply. Another letting go, a fresh trusting in Christ, and
another stretch of land is conquered. Christ my life' is the secret of
enlargement.

We have spoken of trying and trusting, and the difference between the
two. Believe me, it is the difference between Heaven and hell. It is
not something just to be talked over as a good thought; it is stark
reality. Lord, I cannot do it, therefore I will no longer try to do
it.' This is the point where most of us fail. Lord, I cannot; therefore
I will take my hands off; from now on I trust Thee for that.' I refuse
to act; I depend on Him to act and then I enter fully and joyfully into
the action He initiates. It is not passivity; it is a most active life,
trusting the Lord like that; drawing life from Him, taking Him to be my
very life, letting Him out His life in me.
__________________________________________________________________

The Law Of This Spirit Of Life

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made free from the law of
sin and death" (Rom. 8:1, 2, A.V.).

It is in chapter 8 that Paul presents to us in detail the positive side
of life in the Spirit. "There is therefore now no condemnation", he
begins, and this statement may at first seem out of place here. Surely
condemnation was met by the Blood through which we found peace with God
and salvation from wrath (Rom. 5:1, 9). But there are two kinds of
condemnation, namely, that before God and that before myself (just as
earlier we saw there are two kinds of peace) and the second may at
times seem to us even more awful than the first. When I see that the
Blood of Christ has satisfied God, then I know my sins are forgiven,
and there is for me no more condemnation before God. Yet I may still be
knowing defeat, and the sense of inward condemnation on this account
may be very real, as Romans 7 shows. But if I have learned to live by
Christ as my life, then I have learned the secret of victory, and,
praise God! "there is therefore now no condemnation". "The mind of the
spirit is life and peace" (Rom. 8:6), and this becomes my experience as
I learn to walk in the Spirit. With peace in my heart I have no time to
feel condemned, but only to praise Him who leads me on from victory to
victory.

But what lay behind my sense of condemnation? Was it not the experience
of defeat and the sense of helplessness to do anything about it? Before
I saw that Christ is my life, I labored under a constant sense of
handicap; limitation dogged my steps; I felt disabled at every turn. I
was always crying out: I cannot do this! I cannot do that!' Try as I
would, I found that I "cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8). But there is no I
cannot' in Christ. Now it is: "I can do all things in him that
strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13).

How can Paul be so daring? On what ground does he declare that he is
now free from limitation and "can do all things"? Here is his answer:
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from
the law of sin and of death" (Rom. 8:2). Why is there no more
condemnation? "For ...": there is a reason for it; there is something
definite to account for it. The reason is that there is a law called
"the law of the Spirit of life" and it has proved stronger than another
law called the law of sin and death". What are these laws? How do they
operate? And what is the difference between sin and the law of sin, and
between death and the law of death?

First let us ask ourselves, What is a law? Well, strictly speaking, a
law is a generalization examined until it is proved that there is no
exception. We might define it more simply as something which happens
over and over again. Each time the thing happens it happens in the same
way. We can illustrate this both from statutory and from natural law.
For example, in this land, if I drive a car on the right hand side of
the road the traffic police will stop me. Why? Because it is against
the law of the land. If you do it you will be stopped too. Why? For the
same reason that I would be stopped: it is against the law and the law
makes no exceptions. It is something which happens repeatedly and
unfailingly. Or again, we all know what is meant by gravity. If I drop
my handkerchief in London it falls to the ground. That is the effect of
gravity. But the same is true if I drop it in New York or Hong Kong. No
matter where I let it go, gravity operates, and it always produces the
same results. Whenever the same conditions prevail the same effects are
seen. There is thus a law' of gravity.

Now what of the law of sin and death? If someone passes an unkind
remark about me, at once something goes wrong inside me. That is not
law; that is sin. But if, when different people pass unkind remarks,
the same something' goes wrong inside, then I discern a law within--a
law of sin. Like the law of gravity, it is something constant. It
always works the same way. And so too with the law of death. Death, we
have said, is weakness produced to its limit. Weakness is I cannot'.
Now if when I try to please God in this particular matter I find I
cannot, and if when I try to please Him in that other thing I again
find I cannot, then I discern a law at work. There is not only sin in
me but a law of sin; there is not only death in me but a law of death.

Then again, not only is gravity a law in the sense that it is constant,
admitting of no exception, but, unlike the rule of the road, it is a
natural' law and not the subject of discussion and decision but of
discovery. The law is there, and the handkerchief naturally' drops by
itself without any help from me. And the "law" discovered by the man in
Romans 7:23 is just like that. It is a law of sin and of death, opposed
to that which is good, and crippling the man's will to do good. He
naturally' sins according to the "law of sin" in his members. He wills
to be different, but that law in him is relentless and no human will
can resist it. So this brings me to the question, How can I be set free
from the law of sin an death? I need deliverance from sin, and still
more do I need deliverance from death, but most of all I need
deliverance from the law of sin and of death. How can I be delivered
from the constant repetition of weakness and failure? In order to
answer this question let us follow out our two illustrations further.

One of our great burdens in China used to be the likin tax, a law which
none could escape, originating in the Ch'in Dynasty and operating right
down to our own day. It was an inland tax on the transit of goods,
applied throughout the empire and having numerous barriers for
collection, and officers enjoying very large powers. The result was
that the charge on goods passing through several provinces might become
very heavy indeed. But a few years ago a second law came into operation
which set aside the likin law. Can you imagine the feelings of relief
in those who had suffered under the old law? Now there was no need to
think or hope or pray; the new law was already there and had delivered
us from the old law. No longer was there need to think beforehand what
one would say if one met a likin officer tomorrow!

And as with the law of the land, so it is with natural law. How can the
law of gravity be annulled? With regard to my handkerchief that law is
at work clearly enough, pulling it down, but I have only to place my
hand under the handkerchief and it does not drop. Why? The law is still
there. I do not deal with the law of gravity; in fact I cannot deal
with the law of gravity. Then why does my handkerchief not fall to the
ground? Because there is a power keeping it from doing so. The law is
there, but another law superior to it is in operation to overcome it,
namely the law of life. Gravity can do its utmost but the handkerchief
will not drop, because another law is working against the law of
gravity to maintain it there. We have all seen the tree which was once
a small seed fallen between the slabs of a paving, and which has grown
until heavy stone blocks have been lifted by the power of the life
within it. That is what we mean by the triumph of one law over another.

In just such a manner God delivers us from one law by introducing
another law. The law of sin and death is there all the time, but God
has put another law into operation - the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus, and that law is strong enough to deliver us from the law
of sin and death. You see, it is a law of life in Christ Jesus--the
resurrection life that in Him has met death in all its forms and
triumphed over it (Eph. 1:19, 20). The Lord Jesus dwells in our hearts
in the person of His Holy Spirit, and if we let Him have a clear way
and commit ourselves to Him we shall find that He will keep us from the
old law. We shall learn what it is to be kept, not by our own power,
but "by the power of God" (1 Peter 1:5).
__________________________________________________________________

The Manifestation Of The Law Of Life

Let us seek to make this practical. We touched earlier on the matter of
our will in relation to the things of God. Even older Christians do not
realize how great a part will-power plays in their lives. That was part
of Paul's trouble in Romans 7. His will was good, but all his actions
contradicted it, and however much he made up his mind and set himself
to please God, it led him only into worse darkness. I would do good',
but "I am carnal, sold under sin". That is the point. Like a car
without petrol, that has to be pushed and that stops as soon as it is
left alone, many Christians endeavour to drive themselves by
will-power, and then think the Christian life a most exhausting and
bitter one. Some even force themselves to say Hallelujah!' because
others do it, while admitting there is no meaning in it to them. They
force themselves to be what they are not, and it is worse than trying
to make water run up-hill. For after all, the very highest point the
will can reach is that of willingness (Matt. 26:41).

If we have to exert so much effort in our Christian living, it simply
says that we are not really like that at all. We don't need to force
ourselves to speak our native language. In fact we only have to exert
will-power in order to do things we do not do naturally. We may do them
for a time, but the law of sin and death wins in the end. We may be
able to say: To will is present with me, and I perform that which is
good for two weeks', but eventually we shall have to confess: How to
perform it I know not'. No, what I already am I do not long to be. If I
"would" it is because I am not.

You ask, Why do men use will-power to try to please God? There may be
two reasons. They may of course never have experienced the new birth,
in which case they have no new life to draw upon; or they may have been
born again and the life be there, but they have not learned to trust in
that life. It is this lack of understanding that results in habitual
failure and sinning, bringing them to the place where they almost cease
to believe in the possibility of anything better.

But because we have not believed fully, that does not mean that the
feeble life we intermittently experience is all God has given us.
Romans 6:23 states that "the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord", and now in Romans 8:2 we read that "the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" has come to our aid. So Romans 8:2
speaks not of a new gift but of the life already referred to in Romans
6:23. In other words, it is a new revelation of what we already have. I
feel I cannot emphasize this too much. It is not something fresh from
God's hand, but a new unveiling of what He has already given. It is a
new discovery of a work already done in Christ, for the words "made me
free" are in the past tense. If I really see this and put my faith in
Him, there is no absolute necessity for Romans 7 to be repeated in
me--either the experience or the conduct, and certainly not the
tremendous display of will-power.

If we will let go our own wills and trust Him, we shall not fall to the
ground and break, but we shall fall into a different law, the law of
the Spirit of life. For He has given us not only life but a law of
life. And just as the law of gravity is a natural law and not the
result of human legislation, so the law of life is a natural' law,
similar in principle to the law that keeps our heart beating or that
controls the movement of our eyelids. There is no need for us to think
about our eyes, or to decide that we must blink every so often to keep
them cleansed; and still less do we bring our will to bear upon our
heart. Indeed to do so might rather harm than help it. No, so long as
it has life it works spontaneously. Our wills only interfere with the
law of life. I discovered that fact once in the following way.

I used to suffer from sleeplessness. Once after several sleepless
nights, when I had prayed much about it and exhausted all my resources,
I confessed at length to God that the fault must lie with me and asked
to be shown where. I said to God: I demand an explanation'. He answer
was: Believe in nature's laws'. Sleep is as much a law as hunger is,
and I realized that though I had never thought of worrying whether I
would get hungry or not, I had been worrying about sleeping. I had been
trying to help nature, and that is the chief trouble with most
sufferers from sleeplessness. But now I trusted not only God but God's
law of nature, and slept well.

Should we not read the Bible? Of course we should or our spiritual life
will suffer. But that should not mean forcing ourselves to read. There
is a new law in us which gives us a hunger for it. Then half an hour
can be more profitable than five hours of forced reading. And it is the
same with giving, with preaching, with testimony. Forced preaching is
apt to result in preaching a warm gospel with a cold heart, and we all
know what men mean by cold charity'.

If we will let ourselves live in the new law we shall be less conscious
of the old law. It is still there, but it is no longer governing and we
are no longer in its grip. That is why the Lord says in Matthew 6:
"Behold the birds... Consider the lilies". If we could ask the birds
whether they were not afraid of the law of gravity, how would they
reply? They would say: We never heard the name of Newton. We know
nothing about his law. We fly because it is the law of our life to
fly.' Not only is there in them a life with the power of flight, but
that life has a law which enables these living creatures quite
spontaneously and consistently to overcome the law of gravity. Yet
gravity remains. If you get up early one morning when the cold is
intense and the snow thick on the ground, and there is a dead sparrow
in the courtyard, you are reminded at once of the persistence of that
law. But while birds live they overcome it, and the life within them is
what dominates their consciousness.

God has been truly gracious to us. He has given us this new law of the
Spirit, and for us to fly' is no longer a question of our will but of
His life. Have you noticed what a trial it is to make an impatient
Christian patient? To require patience of him is enough to make him ill
with depression. But God has never told us to force ourselves to be
what we are not naturally: to try by taking thought to add to our
spiritual stature. Worrying may possibly decrease a man's height, but
it certainly never added anything to it. "Be not anxious", are His
words. "Consider the lilies, ... they grow." He is directing our
attention to the new law of life in us. Oh, for a new appreciation of
the life that is ours!

What a precious discovery this is! It can make altogether new men of
us, for it operates in the smallest things as well as in the bigger
ones. It checks us when, for example, we put out a hand to look at a
book in someone else's room, reminding us that we have not asked
permission and have no right to do so. We cannot, the Holy Spirit tells
us, encroach thus upon the rights of others.

Once I was talking to a Christian friend and he turned to me and said:
Do you know, I believe that if anyone is willing to live by the law of
the Spirit of life, such a man will become truly refined.' What do you
mean?' I asked. He replied: That law has the power to make a man a
perfect gentleman. Some scornfully say: "you can't blame those people
for the way they act; they are just country folk and have no
educational advantages". But the real question is, Have they the life
of the Lord within? For I tell you, that life can say to them: "Your
voice is too loud", or, "That laughter was not right", or, "Your motive
in passing that remark was wrong." In a thousand details the Spirit of
life can tell them how to act, so producing in them a true refinement.
There is no such inherent power in education.' And yet my friend was
himself an educationalist!

But it is true. Take the example of talkativeness. Are you a person of
too many words? When you stay with people, do you say to yourself: What
shall I do? I am a Christian; but if I am to glorify the name of the
Lord, I simple must not talk so much. So today let me be extra careful
to hold myself in check.'? And for an hour or two you succeed--until on
some pretext you loose control and, before you know where you are, find
yourself once again in difficulty with your garrulous tongue. Yes, let
us be fully assured that the will is useless here. For me to exhort you
to exercise your will in this matter would be but to offer you the vain
religion of the world, not the life in Christ Jesus. For consider
again: a talkative person remains just that, though he keep silent all
day, for there is a natural' law of talkativeness governing him (or
her!), just as a peach tree is a peach tree whether or not it bears
peaches. But as Christians we discover a new law in us, the law of the
spirit of life, which transcends all else and which has already
delivered us from the law' of our talkativeness. If, believing the
Lord's Word, we yield ourselves to that new law, it will tell us when
we should stop talking--or not start!--and it will empower us to do so.
On that basis you can go to your friend's house for two or three hours,
or stay for two or three days, and experience no difficulty. On your
return you will just thank God for His new law of life.

It is this spontaneous life that is the Christian life. It manifests
itself in love for the unlovely--for the brother whom on natural
grounds we would not like and certainly could not love. It works on the
basis of what the Lord sees of possibility in that brother. Lord, You
see he is lovable and You love him. Love him, now, through me!' And it
manifests itself in reality of life--in a true genuineness of moral
character. There is too much hypocrisy in the lives of Christians, too
much play-acting. Nothing takes away from the effectiveness of
Christian witness as does a pretense of something that is not really
there, for the man in the street unfailingly penetrates such a disguise
in the end and finds us out for what we are. Yes, pretense gives way to
reality when we trust the law of life.
__________________________________________________________________

The Fourth Step: "Walk... After The Spirit"

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,
God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an
offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the
law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3).

Every careful reader of these two verses will see that there are two
things presented here. They are, firstly, what the Lord Jesus has done
for us, and secondly, what the Holy Spirit will do in us. "The flesh"
is "weak"; consequently the ordinance of the law cannot be fulfilled in
us "after the flesh". (Remember, it is again here a question not of
salvation but of pleasing God.) Now, because of our inability God took
two steps. In the first place, He intervened to deal with the heart of
our problem. He sent His Son in the flesh, who died for sin and in
doing so "condemned sin in the flesh". That is to say, He took to death
representatively all that belonged to the old creation in us, whether
we speak of it as our old man', the flesh', or the carnal I'. Thus God
struck at the very root of our trouble by removing the fundamental
ground of our weakness. This was the first step.

But still "the ordinance of the law" remained to be fulfilled "in us".
How could this be done? It required God's further provision of the
indwelling Holy Spirit. It is He who is sent to take care of the inward
side of this thing, and He is able to do so, we are told, as we
"walk... after the Spirit".

What does it mean to walk after the Spirit? It means two things.
Firstly, it is not a work; it is a walk. Praise God, the burdensome and
fruitless effort I involved myself in when I sought in the flesh' to
please God gives place to a blessed and restful dependence on "his
working, which worketh in me mightily" (Col. 1:29). That is why Paul
contrasts the "works" of the flesh with the "fruit" of the Spirit (Gal.
5:19, 22).

Then secondly, to "walk after" implies subjection. Walking after the
flesh means that I yield to the dictates of the flesh, and the
following verses in Romans 8:5-8 make clear where that leads me. It
only brings me into conflict with God. To walk after the Spirit is to
be subject to the Spirit. There is one thing that the man who walks
after the Spirit cannot do, and that is be independent of Him. I must
be subject to the Holy Spirit. The initiative of my life must be with
Him. Only as I yield myself to obey Him shall I find the "law of the
Spirit of life" in full operation and the "ordinance of the law" (all
that I have been trying to do to please God) being fulfilled--no longer
by me but in me. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are
sons of God" (Rom. 8:14).

We are all familiar with the words of the benediction in 2 Corinthians
13:14: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and
the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all". The love of God is
the source of all spiritual blessing; the grace of the Lord Jesus has
made it possible for that spiritual wealth to become ours; and the
communion of the Holy Ghost is the means whereby it is imparted to us.
Love is something hidden in the heart of God; grace is that love
expressed and made available in the Son; communion is the importation
of that grace by the Spirit. What the Father has devised concerning us
the Son has accomplished for us, and now the Holy Spirit communicates
it to us. When therefore we discover something fresh that the Lord
Jesus has procured for us in His Cross, let us, for its realization,
look in the direction that God has indicated, and, by our steadfast
attitude of subjection and obedience to the Holy Spirit, keep wide open
the way for Him to impart it to us. That is His ministry. He has come
for that very purpose--that He may make real in us all that is ours in
Christ.

We have learned in China that, when leading a soul to Christ, we must
be very thorough, for there is no certainty when he will again have the
help of other Christians. We always seek to make it clear to a new
believer that, when he has asked the Lord to forgive his sins and to
come into his life, his heart has become the residence of a living
Person. The Holy Spirit of God is now within him, to open to him the
Scriptures that he may find Christ there, to direct his prayer, to
govern his life, and to reproduce in him the character of his Lord.

I went, late one summer, for a prolonged period of rest to a
hill-resort where accommodation was difficult to obtain, and while
there it was necessary for me to sleep in one house and take my meals
in another, the latter being the home of a mechanic and his wife. For
the first two weeks of my visit, apart from asking a blessing at each
meal, I said nothing to my hosts about the Gospel; and then one day my
opportunity came to tell them about the Lord Jesus. They were ready to
listen and to come to Him in simple faith for the forgiveness of their
sins. They were born again, and a new light and joy came into their
lives, for theirs was a real conversion. I took care to make clear to
them what had happened, and then, as the weather turned colder, the
time came for me to leave them and return to Shanghai.

During the cold winter months the man was in the habit of drinking wine
with his meals, and he was apt to do so to excess. After my departure,
with the return of the cold weather, the wine appeared on the table
again, and that day, as he had become accustomed to do, the husband
bowed his head to return thanks for the meal--but no words would come.
After one or two vain attempts he turned to his wife. What is wrong?'
he asked. Why cannot we pray today? Fetch the Bible and see what it has
to say about wine drinking.' I had left a copy of the Scriptures with
them, but though the wife could read she was ignorant of the Word, and
she turned the pages in vain seeking for light on the subject. They did
not know how to consult God's Book and it was impossible to consult
God's messenger, for I was many miles away and it might be months
before they could see me. Just drink your wine', said his wife. We'll
refer the matter to brother Nee at the first opportunity.' But still
the man found he just could not return thanks to the Lord for that
wine. Take it away!' he said at length; and when she had done so,
together they asked a blessing on their meal.

When eventually the man was able to visit Shanghai he told me the
story. Using an expression familiar in Chinese: Brother Nee', he said,
Resident Boss [14] wouldn't let me have that drink!' Very good,
brother', I said. You always listen to Resident Boss!'

Many of us know that Christ is our life. We believe that the Spirit of
God is resident in us, but this fact has little effect upon our
behaviour. The question is, do we know Him as a living Person, and do
we know Him as Boss'?
__________________________________________________________________

[14] Resident Boss'--The author's own rendering of li-mien tang-chia
tih.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 11: One Body in Christ

Before we pass on to our last important subject we will review some of
the ground we have covered and summarize the steps taken. We have
sought to make things simple, and to explain clearly some of the
experiences which Christians commonly pass through. But it is clear
that the new discoveries that we make as we walk with the Lord are
many, and we must be careful to avoid the temptation to over-simplify
the work of God. To do so may lead us into serious confusion.

There are children of God who believe that all our salvation, in which
they would include the matter of leading a holy life, lies in an
appreciation of the value of the precious Blood. They rightly emphasize
the importance of keeping short accounts with God over known specific
sins, and the continual efficacy of the Blood to deal with sins
committed, but they think of the Blood as doing everything. They
believe in a holiness which in fact means only separation of the man
from his past; that, through the up-to-date blotting out of what he has
done on the ground of the shed Blood, God separates a man out of the
world to be His, and that is holiness; and they stop there. Thus they
stop short of God's basic demands, and so of the full provision He has
made. I think we have by now seen clearly the inadequacy of this.

Then there are those who go further and see that God has included them
in the death of His Son on the Cross, in order to deliver them from sin
and the Law by dealing with the old man. These are they who really
exercise faith in the Lord, for they glory in Christ Jesus and have
ceased to put confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3). In them God has a
clear foundation on which to build. And from this as starting-point,
many have gone further still and recognized that consecration (using
that word in the right sense) means giving themselves without reserve
into His hands and following Him. All these are first steps, and
starting from them we have already touched upon other phases of
experience set before us by God and enjoyed by many. It is always
essential for us to remember that, while each of them is a precious
fragment of truth, no single one of them is by itself the whole of
truth. All come to us as the fruit of the work of Christ on the Cross,
and we cannot afford to ignore any.
__________________________________________________________________

A Gate And A Path

Recognizing a number of such phases in the life and experience of a
believer, we note now a further fact, namely that, though these phases
do not necessarily occur always in a fixed and precise order, they seem
to be marked by certain recurring steps or features. What are these
steps? First there is revelation. As we have seen, this always precedes
faith and experience. Through His Word God opens our eyes to the truth
of some fact concerning His Son, and then only, as in Faith we accept
that fact for ourselves, does it become actual as experience in our
lives. Thus we have:
1. Revelation (Objective).
2. Experience (Subjective).

Then further, we note that such experience usually takes the two-fold
form of a crisis leading to a continuous process. It is most helpful to
think of this in terms of John Bunyan's wicket gate' through which
Christian entered upon a narrow path'. Our Lord Jesus spoke of such a
gate and a path leading unto life (Matt. 7:14), and experience accords
with this. So now we have:
1. Revelation.
2. Experience:
1. A Wicket gate (Crisis)
2. A narrow path (Process)

Now let us take some of the subjects we have been dealing with and see
how this helps us to understand them. We will take first our
justification and new birth. This begins with a revelation of the Lord
Jesus in His atoning work for our sins on the Cross; there follows the
crisis of repentance and faith (the wicket gate), whereby we are
initially "made nigh" to God (Eph. 2:13); and this leads us into a walk
of maintained fellowship with Him (the narrow path), for which the
ground of our day-to-day access is still the precious Blood (Heb.
10:29, 22). When we come to deliverance from sin, we again have three
steps: the Holy Spirit's work of revelation, or knowing' (Rom. 6:6);
the crisis of faith, or reckoning' (Rom. 6:11); and the continuing
process of consecration, or presenting ourselves' to God (Rom. 6:13) on
the basis of a walk in newness of life. Consider next the gift of the
Holy Spirit. This too begins with a new seeing' of the Lord Jesus as
exalted to the throne, which issues in the dual experience of the
Spirit outpoured and the Spirit indwelling. Going a stage further, to
the matter of pleasing God, we find again the need for spiritual
illumination, that we may see the values of the Cross in regard to the
flesh'--the entire self-life of man. Our acceptance of this by faith
leads at once to a wicket gate' experience (Rom. 7:25), in which we
initially cease from doing' and accept by faith the mighty working of
the life of Christ to satisfy God's practical demands in us. This in
turn leads us into the narrow path' of a walk in obedience to the
Spirit (Rom. 8:4).

The picture is not identical in each case, and we must beware of
forcing any rigid pattern upon the Holy Spirit's working; but perhaps
any new experience will come to us more or less on these lines. There
will certainly always be first an opening of our eyes to some new
aspect of Christ and His finished work, and then faith will open a gate
into a pathway. Remember, too, that our division of Christian
experience into various subjects: justification, new birth, the gift of
the spirit, deliverance, sanctification, etc., is for our clearer
understanding only. It does not mean that these stages must or will
always follow one another in a certain prescribed order. In fact, if a
full presentation of Christ and His Cross is made to us at the very
outset, we may well step into a great deal of experience from the first
day of our Christian life, even though the full explanation of much of
it may follow later. Would that all Gospel preaching were of such a
kind!

One thing is certain, that revelation will always precede faith. When
we see something that God has done in Christ our natural response is:
Thank you, Lord !' and faith follows spontaneously. Revelation is
always the work of the Holy Spirit, who is given to come along-side
and, by opening the Scriptures to us, to guide us into all the truth
(John 16:13). Count upon Him, for He is here for that very thing; and
when such difficulties as lack of understanding or lack of faith
confront you, address those difficulties directly to the Lord: Lord,
open my eyes. Lord, make this new thing clear to me. Lord, help Thou my
unbelief!' He will not fail you.
__________________________________________________________________

The Fourfold Work Of Christ In His Cross

We are now in a position to go a step further still and to consider how
great a range is compassed by the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. In
the light of Christian experience and for the purpose of analysis, it
may help us if we recognize four aspects of God's redemptive work. But
in doing so it is essential to keep in mind that the Cross of Christ is
one Divine work--not many. Once in Judaea two thousand years ago the
Lord Jesus died and rose again, and He is now "by the right hand of God
exalted" (Acts 2:33). The work is finished and need never be repeated,
nor can it be added to.

Of the four aspects of the Cross which we shall now mention, we have
already dealt with three in some detail. The last will be considered in
the two succeeding chapters of our study. They may be briefly
summarized as follows:
1. The Blood of Christ to deal with sins and guilt.
2. The Cross of Christ to deal with sin, the flesh and the natural
man.
3. The Life of Christ made available to indwell, re-create and empower
man.
4. The Working of Death in the natural man that that indwelling Life
may be progressively manifest.

The first two of these aspects are remedial. They relate to the undoing
of the work of the Devil and the undoing of the sin of man. The last
two are not remedial but positive, and relate more directly to the
securing of the purpose of God. The first two are concerned with
recovering what Adam lost by the Fall; the last two are concerned with
bringing us into, and bringing into us, something that Adam never had.
Thus we see that the achievement of the Lord Jesus in His death and
resurrection comprises both a work which provided for the redemption of
man and a work which made possible the realization of the purpose of
God.

We have dealt at some length in earlier chapters with the two aspects
of His death represented by the Blood for sins and guilt and the Cross
for sin and the flesh. In our discussion of the eternal purpose we have
also looked briefly at the third aspect--that represented by Christ as
the grain of wheat--and in our last chapter, in our consideration of
Christ as our life, we have seen something of its practical outworking.
Before, however, we pass on to the fourth aspect, which I shall call
bearing the cross', we must say a little more about this third side,
namely, the release of the life of Christ in resurrection for man's
indwelling and empowering for service.

We have spoken already of the purpose of God in creation and have said
that it embraced far more than Adam ever came to enjoy. What was that
purpose? God wanted to have a race of men whose members were gifted
with a spirit whereby communion would be possible with Himself, who is
Spirit. That race, possessing God's own life, was to co-operate in
securing His purposed end by defeating every possible uprising of the
enemy and undoing his evil works. That was the great plan. How will it
now be effected? The answer is again to be found in the death of the
Lord Jesus. It is a mighty death. It is something positive and
purposive, going far beyond the recovery of a lost position; for by it,
not only are sin and the old man dealt with and their effects annulled,
but something more, something infinitely greater is introduced.
__________________________________________________________________

The Love Of Christ

Now we must have before us two passages of the Word, one from Genesis 2
and one from Ephesians 5, which are of great importance in this
connection.

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he
slept; and he took one of his ribs, which the Lord God had taken from
the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man
said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be
called Woman (Heb. ishshah), because she was taken out of Man (Heb.
ish)" (Gen. 2:21-23).

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and
gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it
by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church
to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such
thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27).

In Ephesians 5 we have the only chapter in the Bible which explains the
passage in Genesis 2. What we have presented to us in Ephesians is
indeed very remarkable, if we reflect upon it. I refer to what is
contained in those words: "Christ... loved the church". There is
something most precious here.

We have been taught to think of ourselves as sinners needing
redemption. For generations that has been instilled into us, and we
praise the Lord for that as our beginning; but it is not what God has
in view as His end. God speaks here rather of "a glorious church, not
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but... holy and without
blemish". All too often we have thought of the Church as being merely
so many saved sinners'. It is that; but we have made the terms almost
equal to one another, as though it were only that, which is not the
case. Saved sinners--with that thought you have the whole background of
sin and the Fall; but in God's sight the Church is a Divine creation in
His Son. The one is largely individual, the other corporate. With the
one the view is negative, belonging to the past; with the other it is
positive, looking forward. The "eternal purpose" is something in the
mind of God from eternity concerning His Son, and it has as its
objective that the Son should have a Body to express His life. Viewed
from that standpoint--from the standpoint of the heart of God--the
Church is something which is beyond sin and has never been touched by
sin.

So we have an aspect of the death of the Lord Jesus in Ephesians which
we do not have so clearly in other places. In Romans things are viewed
from the standpoint of fallen man, and beginning with Christ died for
sinners, enemies, the ungodly' (Rom. 5) we are led progressively to
"the love of Christ" (Rom. 8:35). In Ephesians, on the other hand, the
standpoint is that of God "before the foundation of the world" (Eph.
1:4), and the heart of the gospel is: "Christ... loved the church, and
gave himself up for it" (Eph. 5:25). Thus, in Romans it is "we sinned",
and the message is of God's love for sinners (Rom. 5:8); whereas in
Ephesians it is "Christ loved", and the love here is the love of
husband for wife. That kind of love has fundamentally nothing to do
with sin as such. What is in view in this passage is not atonement for
sin but the creation of the Church, for which end it is said that He
"gave himself".

There is thus an aspect of the death of the Lord Jesus which is
altogether positive and a matter particularly of love to His Church,
where the question of sin and sinners does not directly appear. To
bring this fact home Paul takes that incident in Genesis 2 as
illustration. Now this is one of the marvelous things in the Word, and
if our eyes have been opened to see it we will certainly worship.

From Genesis 3 onwards, from the coats of skins' to Abel's sacrifice,
and on from there through the whole Old Testament, there are numerous
types which set forth the death of the Lord Jesus as an atonement for
sin; yet the apostle does not appeal here to any of those types of His
death, but to this one in Genesis 2. Note that; and then recall that it
was not until Genesis 3 that sin came in. There is one type of the
death of Christ in the Old Testament which has nothing to do with sin,
for it is not subsequent to the Fall but prior to it, and that type is
here in Genesis 2. Let us look at it for a moment.

Could we say that Adam was put to sleep because Eve had committed a
serious sin? Is that what we have here? Certainly not, for Eve was not
yet even created. There were as yet no moral issues involved and no
problems at all. No, Adam was put to sleep for the express purpose that
something might be taken out of him to be made into someone else. His
sleep was not for her sin but for her existence. That is what is taught
in these verses. This experience of Adam had as its object the creation
of Eve, as something determined in the Divine counsels. God wanted an
ishshah. He put the man (ish) to sleep, took a rib from his side and
made it into ishshah, a woman, and brought her to the man. That is the
picture which God is giving us. It foreshadows an aspect of the death
of the Lord Jesus that is not primarily for atonement, but answerable
to the sleep of Adam in this chapter.

God forbid that I should suggest that the Lord Jesus did not die for
purposes of atonement. Praise God, He did. We must remember that today
we are in fact in Ephesians 5 and not in Genesis 2. Ephesians was
written after the Fall, to men who had suffered from its effects, and
in it we have not only the purpose in Creation but also the scars of
the Fall --or there would need to be no mention of "spot or wrinkle".
Because we are still on the earth and the Fall is a historic fact,
cleansing' is needed.

But we must always view redemption as an interruption, an emergence'
measure, made necessary by a catastrophic break in the straight line of
the purpose of God. Redemption is big enough, wonderful enough, to
occupy a very large place in our vision, but God is saying that we
should not make redemption to be everything, as though man were created
to be redeemed. The Fall is indeed a tragic dip downwards in that line
of purpose, and the atonement a blessed recovery whereby our sins are
blotted out and we are restored; but when it is accomplished there yet
remains a work to be done to bring us into possession of that which
Adam never possessed, and to give God that which His heart desires. For
God has never forsaken the purpose which is represented by that
straight line. Adam was never in possession of the life of God as
presented in the tree of life. But because of the one work of the Lord
Jesus in His death and resurrection (and we must emphasize again that
it is all one work) His life was released to become ours by faith, and
we have received more than Adam ever possessed. The very purpose of God
is brought within reach of fulfillment by our receiving Christ as our
life.

Adam was put to sleep. We remember that it is said of believers that
they fall asleep, rather than that they die. Why? Because whenever
death is mentioned sin is there in the background. In Genesis 3 sin
entered into the world and death through sin, but Adam's sleep preceded
that. So the type of the Lord Jesus here is not like other types on the
Old Testament. In relation to sin and atonement there is a lamb or a
bullock slain; but here Adam was not slain, but only put to sleep to
awake again. Thus he prefigures a death that is not on account of sin,
but that has in view increase in resurrection. Then too we must note
that Eve was not created as a separate entity by a separate creation,
parallel to that of Adam. Adam slept, and Eve was created out of Adam.
That is God's method with the Church. God's second Man' has awakened
from His sleep' and His Church is created in Him and of Him, to draw
her life from Him and to display that resurrection life.

God has a Son who is known to be the only begotten, and God is seeking
that the only begotten Son should have brethren. From the position of
only begotten He will become the first begotten, and instead of the Son
alone God will have many sons. One grain of wheat has died and many
grains will spring up. The first grain was once the only grain; now it
is changed to be the first grain of many. The Lord Jesus laid down His
life, and that life emerged in many lives. These are the Biblical
figures we have used hitherto in our study to express this truth. Now,
in the figure just considered, the singular takes the place of the
plural. The outcome of the Cross is a single person: a Bride for the
Son. Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for it.
__________________________________________________________________

One Living Sacrifice

We have said that there is an aspect of the death of Christ presented
to us in Ephesians 5 which is to some extent different from that which
we have been studying in Romans. Yet in fact this aspect is the very
end to which our study of Romans has been moving, and it is into this
that the letter is leading us as we shall now see, for redemption leads
us back into God's original line of purpose.

In chapter 8 Paul speaks to us of Christ as the firstborn Son among
many Spirit-led "sons of God" (Rom. 8:14). "For whom he foreknew, he
also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he
might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom he foreordained,
them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and
whom he justified, them he also glorified" (Rom. 8:29, 30). Here
justification is seen to lead on to glory, a glory that is expressed
not in one or more individuals but in a plurality: in many who manifest
the image of One. And this object of our redemption is further set
forth, as we have seen, in "the love of Christ" for His own, which is
the subject of the last verses of the chapter (8:35-39). But what is
implicit here in chapter 8 becomes explicit as we move over into
chapter 12, the subject of which is the Body of Christ.

After the first eight chapters of Romans, which we have been studying,
there follows a parenthesis in which God's sovereign dealings with
Israel are taken up and dealt with, before the theme of the first
chapters is resumed. Thus, for our present purpose, the argument of
chapter 12 follows that of chapter 8 and not of chapter 11. We might
very simply summarize these chapters thus: Our sins are forgiven (ch.
5), we are dead with Christ (ch. 6), we are by nature utterly helpless
(ch. 7), therefore we rely upon the indwelling Spirit (ch. 8). After
this, and as a consequence of it: "We... are one body in Christ" (ch.
12). It is as though this were the logical outcome of all that has gone
before, and the thing to which it has all been leading.

Romans 12 and the following chapter contain some very practical
instructions for our life and walk. These are introduced with an
emphasis once again on consecration. In chapter 6:13 Paul has said:
"Present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God". But now in chapter 12:1 the
emphasis is a little different: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by
the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service". This new appeal
for consecration is made to us as "brethren", linking us in thought to
the "many brethren" of chapter 8:29. It is a call to us for a united
step of faith, the presenting of our bodies as one "living sacrifice"
unto God.

This is something that goes beyond the merely individual, for it
implies contribution to a whole. The presenting' is personal but the
sacrifice is corporate; it is one sacrifice. Intelligent service to God
is one service. We need never feel our contribution is not needed, for
if it contributes to the service, God is satisfied. And it is through
this kind of service that we prove "what is the good and acceptable and
perfect will of God" (ch. 12:2), or, in other words, realize God's
eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. So Paul's appeal "to every man that is
among you" (12:3) is in the light of this new Divine fact, that "we,
who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of
another" (12:5), and it is on this basis that the practical
instructions follow.

The vessel through which the Lord Jesus can reveal Himself in this
generation is not the individual but the Body. "God hath dealt to each
man a measure of faith" (12:3), but alone in isolation man can never
fulfill God's purpose. It requires a complete Body to attain to the
stature of Christ and to display His glory. Oh that we might really see
this!

So Romans 12:3-6 draws from the figure of the human body the lesson of
our inter-dependence. Individual Christians are not the Body but are
members of the Body, and in a human body "all the members have not the
same office". The ear must not imagine itself to be an eye. No amount
of prayer will give sight to the ear--but the whole body can see
through the eye. So (speaking figuratively) I may have only the gift of
hearing, but I can see through others who have the gift of sight; or,
perhaps I can walk but cannot work, so I receive help from the hands.
An all-too-common attitude to the things of the Lord is that, What I
know, I know; and what I don't know, I don't know, and can do quite
well without.' But in Christ, the things we do not know others do, and
we may know them and enter into the enjoyment of them through others.

Let me stress that this is not just a comfortable thought. It is a
vital factor in the life of God's people. We cannot get along without
one another. That is why fellowship in prayer is so important. Prayer
together brings in the help of the Body, as must be clear from Matthew
18:19, 20. Trusting the Lord by myself may not be enough. I must trust
Him with others. I must learn to pray "Our Father..." on the basis of
oneness with the Body, for without the help of the Body I cannot get
through. In the sphere of service this is even more apparent. Alone I
cannot serve the Lord effectively, and He will spare no pains to teach
me this. He will bring things to an end, allowing doors to close and
leaving me ineffectively knocking my head against a blank wall until I
realize that I need the help of the Body as well as of the Lord. For
the life of Christ is the life of the Body, and His gifts are given to
us for work that builds up the Body.

The Body is not an illustration but a fact. The Bible does not just say
that the Church is like a body, but that it is the Body of Christ. "We,
who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of
another." All the members together are one Body, for all share His
life--as though He were Himself distributed among His members. I was
once with a group of Chinese believers who found it very hard to
understand how the Body could be one when they were all separate
individual men and women who made it up. One Sunday I was about to
break the bread at the Lord's table and I asked them to look very
carefully at the loaf before I broke it. Then, after it had been
distributed and eaten, I pointed out that though it was inside all of
them it was still one loaf--not many. The loaf was divided, but Christ
is not divided even in the sense in which that loaf was. He is still
one Spirit in us, and we are all one in Him.

This is the very opposite of man's condition by nature. In Adam I have
the life of Adam, but that is essentially individual. There is no
union, no fellowship in sin, but only self-interest and distrust of
others. As I go on with the Lord I soon discover, not only that the
problem of sin and of my natural strength has to be dealt with, but
that there is also a further problem created by my individual' life,
the life that is sufficient in itself and does not recognize its need
for and union in the Body. I may have got over the problems of sin and
the flesh, and yet still be a confirmed individualist. I want holiness
and victory and fruitfulness for myself personally and apart, albeit
from the purest motives. but such an attitude ignores the Body, and so
cannot provide God with satisfaction. he must deal with me therefore in
this matter also, or I shall remain in conflict with His ends. God does
not blame me for being an individual, but for my individualism. His
greatest problem is not the outward divisions and denominations that
divide His Church but our own individualistic hearts.

Yes, the Cross must do its work here, reminding me that in Christ I
have died to that old life of independence which I inherited from Adam,
and that in resurrection I have become not just an individual believer
in Christ but a member of His Body. There is a vast difference between
the two. When I see this, I shall at once have done with independence
and shall seek fellowship. The life of Christ in me will gravitate to
the life of Christ in others. I can no longer take an individual line.
Jealousy will go. Competition will go. Private work will go. My
interests, my ambitions, my preferences, all will go. It will no longer
matter which of us does the work. All that will matter will be that the
Body grows.

I said: When I see this...' That is the great need: to see the Body of
Christ as another great Divine fact; to have it break in upon our
spirits by heavenly revelation that "we, who are many, are one body in
Christ". Only the Holy Spirit can bring this home to us in all its
meaning, but when He does it will revolutionize our life and work.
__________________________________________________________________

More Than Conquerors Through Him

We only see history back to the Fall. God sees it from the beginning.
There was something in God's mind before the Fall, and in the ages to
come that thing is to be fully realized. God knew all about sin and
redemption; yet in His great purpose for the Church set forth in
Genesis 2 there is no view of sin. It is as though (to speak in finite
terms) He leaps in thought right over the whole story of redemption and
sees the Church in future eternity, having a ministry and a (future)
history which is altogether apart from sin and wholly of God. It is the
Body of Christ in glory, expressing nothing of fallen man but only that
which is the image of the glorified Son of man. This is the Church that
has satisfied God's heart and has attained dominion.

In Ephesians 5 we stand within the history of redemption, and yet
through grace we still have this eternal purpose of God in view as
expressed in the statement that He will present unto himself a glorious
Church'. But now we note that the water of life and the cleansing Word
are needed to prepare the Church (now marred by the Fall) for
presentation to Christ in glory. For now there are defects to be
remedied and wounds to be healed. And yet how precious is the promise
and how gracious are the words used of her: "not having spot"--the
scars of sin, whose very history is now forgotten; "or wrinkle"--the
marks of age and of time lost, for all is now made up and all is new;
and "without blemish"--so that Satan or demons or men can find no
ground for blame in her.

This is where we are now. The age is closing, and Satan's power is
greater than ever. Our warfare is with angels and principalities and
powers (Rom. 8:38; Eph. 6:12) who are set to withstand and destroy the
work of God in us by laying many things to the charge of God's elect.
Alone we could never be their match, but what we alone cannot do the
Church can. Sin, self-reliance and individualism were Satan's
master-strokes at the heart of God's purpose in man, and in the Cross
God has undone them. As we put our faith in what He has done--in "God
that justifieth" and in "Christ Jesus that died" (Rom. 8:33, 34)--we
present a front against which the very gates of Hades shall not
prevail. We, His Church, are "more than conquerors through him that
loved us" (Rom. 8:37).
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 12: The Cross and the Soul Life

God has made full provision for our redemption in the Cross of Christ,
but He has not stopped there. In that Cross He has also made secure
beyond possibility of failure that eternal plan which Paul speaks of as
having been from all the ages "hid in God who created all things". That
plan He has now proclaimed "to the intent that now unto the
principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made
known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the
eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph.
3:9-11).

We have said that the work of the Cross has two consequences which bear
directly upon the realizing of that purpose in us. On the one hand it
has issued in the release of His life that it may find expression in us
through the indwelling Spirit. On the other hand it has made possible
what we speak of as bearing the cross'; that is, our co-operation in
the daily inworking of His death whereby way is made in us for the
manifestation of that new life, through the bringing of the natural
man' progressively into his right place of subjection to the Holy
Spirit. Clearly these are the positive and the negative sides of one
thing. Equally clearly we are now touching more particularly on the
matter of progress in a life lived for God. Hitherto in dealing with
the Christian life we have placed our main emphasis upon the crisis by
which it is entered. Now our concern is more definitely with the walk
of the disciple, having especially in view his training as a servant of
God. It is of him that the Lord Jesus said: "Whosoever doth not bear
his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27).

So we come to a consideration of the natural man and the bearing of the
cross'. To understand this we must, at the risk of being tedious, go
back once more to Genesis and consider what it was that God sought to
have in man at the beginning and how His purpose was frustrated. In
this way we shall be able to grasp the principles by which we can come
again to live in line with that purpose.
__________________________________________________________________

The True Nature Of The Fall

If we have even a little revelation of the plan of God we shall always
think much of the word man'. We shall say with the Psalmist, "What is
man, that thou art mindful of him?" The Bible makes it clear that what
God desires above all things is a man--a man who will be after His own
heart.

So God created a man. In Genesis 2:7 we learn that Adam was created a
living soul, with a spirit inside to commune with God and with a body
outside to have contact with the material world. (Such New Testament
verses as 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12 confirm this threefold
character of man's being.) With his spirit Adam was in touch with the
spiritual world of God; with his body he was in touch with the physical
world of material things. He gathered up these two sides of God's
creative act into himself to become a personality, an entity living in
the world, moving by itself and having powers of free choice. Viewed
thus as a whole, he was found to be a self-conscious and
self-expressing being, "a living soul".

We saw earlier that Adam was created perfect--by which we mean that he
was without imperfections because created by God--but that he was not
yet perfected. He needed a finishing touch somewhere. God had not yet
done all that He intended to do in Adam. There was more in view, but it
was as yet in abeyance. God was moving towards the fulfillment of His
purpose in creating man, a purpose which went beyond man himself, for
it had in view the securing to God of all His rights in the universe
through man's instrumentality. But how could man be instrumental in
this? Only by a co-operation that sprang from living union with God.
God was seeking to have not merely a race of men of one blood upon the
earth, but a race which had, in addition, His life resident within its
members. Such a race will eventually compass the downfall of Satan and
bring to fulfillment all that God has set His heart upon. It is that
that was in view with the creation of man.

Then again, we saw that Adam was created neutral. He had a spirit which
enabled him to hold communion with God; but as man he was not yet, so
to speak, finally orientated; he had powers of choice and he could, if
he liked, turn the opposite way. God's goal in man was sonship', or, in
other words, the expression of His life in human beings. That Divine
life was represented in the garden by the tree of life, bearing a fruit
that could be accepted, received, taken in. If Adam, created neutral,
were voluntarily to turn that way and, choosing dependence upon God,
were to receive of the tree of life (representing God's own life), God
would then have that life in union with men; He would have realized
sonship'. But if instead Adam should turn to the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, he would as a result be free' to develop himself on
his own lines apart from God. Because, however, this latter choice
involved complicity with Satan, Adam would thereby put beyond his reach
the attaining of his God-appointed goal.
__________________________________________________________________

The Root Question: The Human Soul

Now we know the course that Adam chose. Standing between the two trees,
he yielded to Satan and took of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
This determined the lines of his development. From then on he could
command a knowledge; he knew'. But--and here we come to the point--the
fruit of the tree of knowledge made the first man over-developed in his
soul. The emotion was touched, because the fruit was pleasant to the
eyes, making him desire'; the mind with its reasoning power was
developed, for he was made wise'; and the will was strengthened, so
that in future he could always decide which way he would go. The whole
fruit ministered to the expansion and full development of the soul, so
that not only was the man a living soul, but from henceforth man will
live by the soul. It is not merely that man has a soul, but that from
that day on the soul, with its independent powers of free choice, takes
the place of the spirit as the animating power of man.

We have to distinguish here between two things, for the difference is
most important. God does not mind--in fact He intends--that we should
have a soul such as He gave to Adam. But what God has set Himself to do
is to reverse something. There is something in man today which is not
just the fact of having a soul, but which constitutes a living by the
soul. It was this that Satan brought about in the Fall. He trapped man
into taking a course by which he could develop his soul so as to derive
his very life from it.

We must however be careful. To remedy this does not mean that we are
going to cross out the soul altogether. You cannot do that. When today
the Cross is really working in us, we do not become inert, insensate,
characterless. No, we still possess a soul, and whenever we receive
something from God the soul will still be used in relation to it, as an
instrument, a faculty, in a true subjection to Him. But the point is,
Are we keeping within God's appointed limit--within the bounds set by
Him in the Garden at the beginning--with regard to the soul, or are we
getting outside those bounds?

What God is now doing is the pruning work of the vinedresser. In our
souls there is an uncontrolled development, an untimely growth, that
has to be checked and dealt with. God must cut that off. So now there
are two things before us to which our eyes must be opened. On the one
hand God is seeking to bring us to the place where we live by the life
of His Son. On the other hand He is doing a direct work in our hearts
to undo that other natural resource that is the result of the fruit of
knowledge. Every day we are learning these two lessons: a rising up of
the life of this One, and a checking and a handing over to death of
that other soul-life. These two processes go on all the time, for God
is seeking the fully developed life of His Son in us in order to
manifest Himself, and to that end He is bringing us back, as to our
soul, to Adam's starting-point. So Paul says: "We which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may
be manifested in our mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 4:11).

What does this mean? It simply means that I will not take any action
without relying on God. I will find no sufficiency in myself. I will
not take any step just because I have the power to do so. Even though I
have that inherited power within me, I will not use it; I will put no
reliance in myself. By taking the fruit, Adam became possessed of an
inherent power to act, but a power which played right into Satan's
hands. You lose that power to act when you come to know the Lord. The
Lord cuts it off and you find you can no longer act on your own
initiative. You have to live by the life of Another; you have to draw
everything from Him.

Oh, friends, I think we all know ourselves in measure, but many a time
we do not truly tremble at ourselves. We may, in a manner of courtesy
to God, say: If the Lord does not want it, I cannot do it', but in
reality our subconscious thought is that really we can do it quite well
ourselves, even if God does not ask us to do it nor empower us for it.
Too often we have been caused to act, to think, to decide, to have
power, apart from Him. Many of us Christians today are men with
over-developed souls. We have grown too big in ourselves. We have
become big-souled'. When we are in that condition, the life of the Son
of God in us is confined and almost crowded out of action.
__________________________________________________________________

Natural Energy In The Work Of God

The power, the energy of the soul is present with us all. Those who
have been taught by the Lord repudiate that principle as a life
principle; they refuse to live by it; they will not let it reign, nor
allow it to be the power-spring of the work of God. But those who have
not been taught of God rely upon it; they utilize it; they think it is
the power.

Let us take first an obvious illustration of this. Far too many of us
in the past have reasoned as follows. Here is a delightfully
good-natured man, with a clear brain, splendid managing powers and
sound judgment. In our hearts we say, If that man could be a Christian,
what an asset he would be to the Church! If only he were the Lord's,
what a lot it would mean to His cause!'

But think for a moment. Where did that man's good nature come from?
Whence are those splendid managing powers and that good judgment? Not
form new birth, for he is not yet born again. We know we have all been
born of the flesh; therefore we need a new birth. But the Lord Jesus
had something to say about this in John 3:6: "That which is born of the
flesh is flesh". Everything which comes not by new birth but by natural
birth is flesh and will only bring glory to man, not God. That
statement is not very palatable, but it is true.

We have spoken of soul-power or natural energy. What is this natural
energy? It is simply what I can do, what I am of myself, what I have
inherited of natural gifts and resources. We are none of us without the
power of the soul, and our first need is to recognize it for what it
is.

Take for example the human mind. I may have by nature a keen mind.
Before my new birth I had it naturally, as something developed from my
natural birth. But the trouble arises here. I become converted, I am
born anew, a deep work is effected in my spirit, and essential union
with God that has been set up in my spirit, but at the same time I
carry over with me something which I derive from my natural birth. Now
what am I going to do about it?

The natural tendency is this. Formerly I used to use my mind to pore
over history, over business, over chemistry, over questions of the
world, or literature, or poetry. I used my keen mind to get the best
out of those studies. But now my desire has been changed, so henceforth
I employ the same mind in the things of God. I have therefore changed
my subject of interest, but I have not changed my method of working.
That is the whole point. My interests have been utterly changed (praise
God for that!), but now I utilize the same power to study Corinthians
and Ephesians that I used before to pursue history and geography. But
that power is not of God; and God will not allow that. The trouble with
so many of us is that we have changed the channel into which our
energies are directed, but we have not changed the source of those
energies.

You will find there are many such things which we carry over into the
service of God. Consider the matter of eloquence. There are some men
who are born orators; they can present a case very convincingly indeed.
Then they become converted, and, without asking ourselves where they
really stand in relation to spiritual things, we put them on the
platform and make preachers of them. We encourage them to use their
natural powers for preaching, and again it is a change of subject but
the same power. We forget that, in the matter of our resource for
handling the things of God, it is a question not of comparative value
but of origin--of where the resource springs from. It is not so much a
matter of what we are doing, but of what powers we are employing to do
it. We think too little of the source of our energy and too much of the
end to which it is directed, forgetting that with God the end never
justifies the means.

The following hypothetical case will help us to test the truth of our
argument. Mr. A. is a very good speaker: he can talk fluently and most
convincingly on any subject, but in practical things he is a very bad
manager. Mr. B., on the other hand, is a poor speaker: he cannot
express himself clearly but wanders all round his subject, never coming
to a point; yet on the other hand he is a splendid manager, most
competent in all matters of business. Both these men get converted, and
both become earnest Christians. Let us suppose now that I call on them
both and ask them to speak at a convention, and that both accept.

Now what will happen? I have asked the self-same thing of both men, but
who do you think will pray the harder? Certainly Mr. B. Why? Because he
is no speaker. In the matter of eloquence he has no resources of his
own to depend upon. He will pray: Lord, if you do not give me power for
this, I cannot do it'. Of course Mr. A. will pray too, but maybe not in
the same way as Mr. B. because he has something of natural resource
upon which to rely.

Now let us suppose that, instead of asking them to speak, I ask them
both to take charge of the practical side of affairs at the convention.
What will happen? The position will be exactly reversed. Now it will be
Mr. A.s turn to pray hard, for he knows full well that he has no
organizing ability. Mr. B. of course will pray too, but perhaps without
quite the same urgency, for though he knows his need of the Lord he is
not nearly so conscious of his need in business matters as is Mr. A.

Do you see the difference between natural and spiritual gifts? Anything
we can do without prayer and without an utter dependence upon God must
come from that spring of natural life, and is suspect. We must see this
clearly. Of course it is not true that those only are suited for a
particular work who lack the natural gift for it. The point is that,
whether naturally gifted or not, they must know the touch of the Cross
in death upon all that is of nature, and their complete dependence upon
the God of resurrection. All too readily do we envy our neighbor who
has some outstanding natural gift, and fail to realize that our own
possession of it, apart from such a working of the Cross, may easily
prove a barrier to the very thing that God is seeking to manifest in
us.

Shortly after my conversion I went out preaching in the villages. I had
had a good education and was well versed in the Scriptures, so I
considered myself thoroughly capable of instructing the village folk,
among whom were quite a number of illiterate women. But after several
visits I discovered that, despite their illiteracy, those women hand an
intimate knowledge of the Lord. I knew the Book they haltingly read;
they knew the One of whom the Book spoke. I had much in the flesh; they
had much in the Spirit. How many Christian teachers today are teaching
others as I was then, very largely in the strength of their carnal
equipment!

Once I met a young brother--young, that is to say, in years, but who
had learned a good deal of the Lord. The Lord had brought him through
much tribulation to gain that knowledge of Himself. As I was talking to
him I said, Brother, what has the Lord really been teaching you these
days?' He said, Only one thing: that I can do nothing apart from him.'
Do you really mean', I said, that you can do nothing?' Well, no', he
replied. I can do many things! In fact that has been just my trouble.
Oh, you know, I have always been so confident in myself. I know I am
well able to do lots of things.' So I asked, What then do you mean when
you say you can do nothing apart from Him?' He answered, The Lord has
shown me that I can do anything, but that He has said, "Apart from me
ye can do nothing". So it comes to this, that everything I have done
and can do apart from Him is nothing!'

We have to come to that valuation. I do not mean to say we cannot do a
lot of things, for we can. We can take meetings, and build churches, we
can go to the ends of the earth and found missions, and we can seem to
bear fruit; but remember that the Lord's word is: "Every plant which my
heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up" (Matt. 15:13). God is
the only legitimate Originator in the universe (Gen. 1:1). Anything
that you plan and set on foot has its origin in the flesh, and it will
never reach the realm of the Spirit however earnestly you seek God's
blessing on it. It may last for years, and then you may think you will
adjust here and improve there and maybe bring it on a better plane, but
it cannot be done.

Origin determines destination, and what was "of the flesh" originally
will never be made spiritual by any amount of improvement'. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and it will never be otherwise. Anything
for which we are sufficient in ourselves is nothing' in God's estimate,
and we have to accept His estimate and write it down as nothing. "The
flesh profiteth nothing." It is only what comes from above that will
abide.

We cannot see this simply by being told it. God must teach us what is
meant, by putting His finger on something which He sees and saying:
This is natural; this has its source in the old creation; this cannot
abide.' Until He does so, we may agree in principle but we can never
really see it. We may assent to, and even enjoy, the teaching, but we
shall never truly loathe ourselves.

But there will come a day when God opens our eyes. Facing a particular
issue we shall have to say, as by revelation: It is unclean, it is
impure; Lord, I see it!' The word purity' is a blessed word. I always
associate it with the Spirit. Purity means something altogether of the
Spirit. Impurity means mixture. When God opens our eyes to see that the
natural life is something He can never use in His work, then we find we
do not enjoy the doctrine any longer. Rather we loathe ourselves for
the impurity that is in us; but when that point is reached, God begins
His work of deliverance. We are going on shortly to look at the
provision He has made for that deliverance, but we must stay for a
little longer with this matter of revelation.
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The Light Of God And Knowledge

Of course, if one does not set out to serve the Lord whole-heartedly,
one does not feel the necessity for light. It is only when one has been
apprehended by God, and seeks to go forward with Him, that one finds
how necessary light is. There is a fundamental need of light in order
for us to know the mind of God; to know what is of the spirit and what
is of the soul; to know what is Divine and what is merely of man; to
discern what is truly heavenly and what is only earthly; to understand
the difference between things which are spiritual and things which are
carnal; to know whether God is really leading us or whether we are
walking by our feelings, senses or imaginations. It is when we have
reached a position where we would like to follow God fully that we find
light to be the most necessary thing in the Christian life.

In my conversations with younger brothers and sisters one question
comes up again and again. It is: How can I know that I am walking in
the Spirit? How do I distinguish which prompting within me is from the
Holy Spirit and which is from myself? It seems that all are alike in
this; but some have gone further. They are trying to look within, to
differentiate, to discriminate to analyze, and in doing so are bringing
themselves into deeper bondage. Now this is a situation which is really
dangerous to Christian life, for inward knowledge will never be reached
along the barren path of self-analysis.

We are never told in the Word of God to examine our inward condition.
[15] That way ends only to uncertainty, vacillation and despair. Of
course we have to have self-knowledge. We have to know what is going on
within. We do not want to live in a fool's paradise; to have gone
altogether wrong and yet not know we have gone wrong; to have a spartan
will and yet think we are pursuing the will of God. But such
self-knowledge does not come by our turning within; by our analyzing
our feelings and motives and everything that is going on inside, and
then trying to pronounce whether we are walking in the flesh or in the
Spirit.

There are several passages in the Psalms which illumine this subject.
The first is in Psalm 36:9: "In thy light shall we see light". I think
that is one of the best verses in the old Testament. There are two
lights there. There is "thy light", and then, when we have come into
that light, we shall "see light".

Now those two lights are different. We might say that the first is
objective and the second subjective. The first light is the light which
belongs to God but is shed upon us; the second is the knowledge
imparted by that light. "In thy light shall we see light": we shall
know something; we shall be clear about something; we shall see. No
turning within, no introspective self-examination will ever bring us to
that clear place. No, it is when there is light coming from God that we
see.

I think it is so simple. If we want to satisfy ourselves that our face
is clean, what do we do? Do we feel it carefully all over with our
hands? No, of course not. We find a mirror and we bring it to the
light. In that light everything becomes clear. No sight ever came by
feeling or analyzing. Sight only comes by the light of God coming in;
and when once it has come, there is no longer need to ask if a thing is
right or wrong. We know.

You remember again how in Psalm 139:23 the writer says: "Search me, O
God, and know my heart". You realize, do you not, what it means to say
Search me'? It certainly does not mean that I search myself. Search me'
means You search me!' That is the way of illumination. It is for God to
come in and search; it is not for me to search. Of course that will
never mean that I may go blindly on, careless of my true condition.
That is not the point. The point is that however much my
self-examination may reveal in me that needs putting right, such
searching never really gets below the surface. My true knowledge of
self comes not from my searching myself but from God searching me.

But, you ask, what does it mean in practice for us to come into the
light? How does it work? How do we see light in His light? Here again
the Psalmist comes to our help. "The entrance of Thy words giveth
light; it giveth understanding unto the simple" (Psalm 119:130 A.V.).
In spiritual things we are all simple'. We are dependent upon God to
give us understanding, and especially is this so in the matter of our
own true nature. And it is here that the Word of God operates. In the
New Testament the passage which states this most clearly is in the
Epistle to the Hebrews: "The word of God is living, and active, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of
soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the
thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not
manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and laid open before
the eyes of him with whom we have to do" (Heb. 4:12, 13). Yes, it is
the Word of God, the penetrating Scripture of Truth, that settles our
questions. It is that which discerns our motives and defines for us
their true source in soul or spirit.

With this I think we can pass on from the doctrinal to the practical
side of things. Many of us, I am sure, are living quite honestly before
God. We have been making progress, and we do not know of anything much
wrong with us. Then one day, as we go on, we meet with a fulfillment of
that word: "The entrance of Thy words giveth light". Some servant of
God has been used by Him to confront us with His living Word, and that
Word has made an entrance into us. Or perhaps we ourselves have been
waiting before God and, whether from our memory of Scripture or from
the page itself, His Word has come to us in power. Then it is we see
something which we have never seen before. We are convicted. We know
where we are wrong, and we look up and confess: Lord, I see it. There
is impurity there. There is mixture. How blind I was! Just fancy that
for so many years I have been wrong there and have never known it!'
Light comes in and we see light. The light of God brings us to see the
light concerning ourselves, and it is an abiding principle that every
knowledge of self comes to us in that way.

It may not always be the Scriptures. Some of us have known saints who
really knew the Lord, and through praying with them or talking with
them, in the light of God radiating from them, we have seen something
which we never saw before. I have met one such, who is now with the
Lord, and I always think of her as a lighted' Christian. If I did but
walk into her room, I was brought immediately to a sense of God. In
those days I was very young and had been converted about two years, and
I had lots of plans, lots of beautiful thoughts, lots of schemes for
the Lord to sanction, a hundred and one things which I thought would be
marvelous if they were all brought to fruition. With all these things I
came to her to try to persuade her; to tell her that this or that was
the thing to do.

Before I could open my mouth she would just say a few words in quite an
ordinary way. Light dawned! It simply put me to shame. My doing' was
all so natural, so full of man. Something happened. I was brought to a
place where I could say: Lord, my mind is set only in creaturely
activities, but here is someone who is not out for them at all'. She
had but one motive, one desire, and that was for God. Written in the
front of her Bible were these words: Lord, I want nothing for myself',
Yes, she lived for God alone, and where that is the case you will find
that such a one is bathed in light, and that that light illuminates
others. That is real witness. [16] Light has one law: it shines
wherever it is admitted. That is the only requirement. We may shut it
out of ourselves; it fears nothing else. If we throw ourselves open to
God, He will reveal. The trouble comes when we have closed areas,
locked and barred places in our hearts, where we think with pride that
we are right. Our defeat lies then not only in our being wrong but in
our not knowing that we are wrong. Wrong may be a question of natural
strength; ignorance of it is a question of light. You can see the
natural strength in some but they cannot see it themselves. Oh, we need
to be sincere and humble, and to open ourselves before God! Those who
are open can see. God is light, and we cannot live in His light and be
without understanding. Let us say again with the Psalmist: "O send out
Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me" (Psalm 43:3).

We praise God that sin is being brought to the notice of Christians
today more than hitherto. In many places the eyes of Christians have
been opened to see that victory over sins, as items, is important in
Christian life, and in consequence many are walking closer to the Lord
in seeking deliverance and victory over them. Praise the Lord for any
movement toward Himself, any movement back to real holiness unto God!
But that is not enough. There is one thing that must be touched, and
that is the very life of the man, not merely his sins. The question of
the personality of the man, of his soul-power, is the heart of the
matter. To make the question of sins to be everything is still to be on
the surface. Holiness, if you only regard sins, is still something on
the outside, still superficial. You have not yet got to the root of the
evil.

Adam did not let sin into the world by committing murder. That came
later. Adam let in sin by choosing to have his soul developed to a
place where he cold go on by himself apart from God. When, therefore,
God secures a race of men who will be to His glory, and who will be His
instrument to accomplish His purpose in the universe, they will be a
people whose life--yea, whose very breath--is dependent upon Him. He
will be the "tree of life" to them.

What I feel more and more the need of in myself, and what I feel that
we all as the Lord's children need to seek from God, is a real
revelation of ourselves. I repeat that I do not mean we should be for
ever looking in on ourselves and asking: Now, is this soul or is it
spirit?' That will never get us anywhere; it is darkness. No, Scripture
shows us how the saints were brought to self-knowledge. It was always
by light from God, and that light is God Himself. Isaiah, Ezekiel,
Daniel, Peter, Paul, John, all came to a knowledge of themselves
because the Lord flashed Himself upon them, and that flash brought
revelation and conviction. (Isa. 6:5; Ezek. 1:28; Dan. 10:8; Luke
22:61, 62; Acts 9:3-5; Rev. 1:17).

We can never know the hatefulness of sin and the hatefulness of
ourselves unless there is that flash of God upon us. I speak not of a
sensation but of an inward revelation of the Lord Himself through His
Word. It does for us what doctrine alone can never do.

Christ is our light. He is the living Word, and when we read the
Scriptures that life in Him brings revelation. "The life was the light
of men" (John 1:4). Such illumination may not come to us all at once,
but gradually; but it will be more and more clear and searching, until
we see ourselves in the light of God and all our self-confidence is
gone. For light is the purest thing in the world. It cleanses. It
sterilizes. It kills what should not be there. In its radiance the
dividing asunder of joints and marrow' becomes to us a fact and no mere
teaching. We know fear and trembling as we recognize the corruption of
man's nature, the hatefulness of our own selves, and the real threat to
the work of God of our unrestrained soul-life and energy. As never
before, we know how much of us needs God's drastic dealing if He is to
use us, and we know that, apart from Him, as servants of God we are
finished.

But here the Cross, in its widest meaning, will come to our help again,
and we shall seek now to examine an aspect of its work which meets and
deals with our problem of the human soul. For only a thorough
understanding of the Cross can bring us to that place of dependence
which the Lord Jesus Himself voluntarily took when He said: "I can of
myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous;
because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me"
(John 5:30).
__________________________________________________________________

[15] The two apparent exceptions to this are found in 1 Corinthians
11:28, 31 and 2 Corinthians 13:5. But the former passage calls upon us
to discern ourselves as to whether we recognize the Lord's body or not,
and this is in particular connection with the Lord's table. It is not
concerned with self-knowledge as such. The strong command of Paul in
the latter passage is to examine ourselves as to whether or not we are
"in the faith". It is a question of the existence or otherwise in us of
a fundamental faith; of whether, in fact, we are Christians. This is in
no way related to our daily walk in the Spirit, or to
self-knowledge.--W.N.

[16] This is one of several references by the author to the late Miss
Maragaret E. Barber of Pagoda Anchorage, Foochow. See also pp. 95-6,
239, 256-7, 266-7.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 13: The Path of Progress: Bearing the Cross

In our previous chapter we have touched several times upon the matter
of service for the Lord. As we come now to look at the provision that
God has made to meet the problem created by the soul-life of man, it
will be helpful if we approach that problem by considering first the
principles which govern our work for Him and from which no one who
tries to serve Him may deviate. The basis of our salvation, as we well
know, is the fact of our Lord's death and resurrection; but the
conditions of our service are no less definite. Just as the fact of the
death and resurrection of the Lord is the ground of our acceptance with
God, so the principle of death and resurrection is the basis of our
life and service for Him.
__________________________________________________________________

The Basis Of All True Ministry

No one can be a true servant of God without knowing the principle of
death and the principle of resurrection. Even the Lord Jesus Himself
served on that basis. You will find in Matthew 3 that, before His
public ministry ever began, our Lord was baptized. He was baptized not
because He had any sin, or anything which needed cleansing. No, we know
the meaning of baptism: it is a figure of death and resurrection. The
ministry of the Lord did not begin until He was on that ground. After
He had been baptized and had voluntarily taken the ground of death and
resurrection, the Holy Spirit came upon Him, and then He ministered.

What does this teach us? Our Lord was a sinless Man. None but He has
trodden this earth and known no sin. Yet as Man He had a separate
personality from His Father. Now we must tread very carefully when we
touch our Lord; but remember His words: "I seek not mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me". What does this mean? It certainly does
not mean that the Lord had no will of His own. He had a will, as His
own words show. As Son of man He had a will, but He did not do it; He
came to do the will of the Father. So this is the point. That thing in
Him which is in distinction from the Father is the human soul, which He
assumed when He was "found in fashion as a man". Being a perfect Man
our Lord had a soul, and of course a body, just as you and I have a
soul and a body, and it was possible for Him to act from the soul--that
is, from Himself.

You remember that immediately after the Lord's baptism, and before His
public ministry began, Satan came and tempted Him. He tempted Him to
satisfy His essential needs by turning stones to bread; to secure
immediate respect for His ministry by appearing miraculously in the
temple court; to assume without delay the world dominion destined for
Him; and you are inclined to wonder why he tempted Him to do such
strange things. He might rather, you feel, have tempted Him to sin in a
more thoroughgoing way. But he did not; he knew better. He only said:
"If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread".
What did it mean? The implication was this: If You are the Son of God
You must do something to prove it. Here is a challenge. Some will
certainly raise a question as to whether Your claim is real or not. Why
do You not settle the matter finally now by coming out and proving it?'

The whole subtle object of Satan was to get the Lord to act for
Himself--that is, from the soul--and, by the stand He took, the Lord
Jesus absolutely repudiated such action. In Adam, man had acted from
himself apart from God; that was the whole tragedy of the garden. Now
in a similar situation the Son of man takes another ground. Later He
defines it as His basic life-principle--and I like the word in the
Greek: "The Son can do nothing out from himself" (John 5:19). That
total denial of the soul-life was to govern all His ministry.

So we can safely say that all the work which the Lord Jesus did on
earth, prior to His actual death on the cross, was done with the
principle of death on the cross, and resurrection as basis, even though
as an actual event Calvary still lay in the future. Everything He did
was on that ground. But if this is so--if the Son of man has to go
through death and resurrection (in figure and in principle) in order to
work, can we do otherwise? Surely no servant of the Lord can serve Him
without himself knowing the working of that principle in his life. It
is of course out of the question. The Lord made this very clear to His
disciples when He left them. He had died and He was risen, and He told
them to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit to come upon them. Now what is
this power of the Holy Spirit, this "power from on high" of which He
spoke? It is nothing less than the virtue of His death, resurrection
and ascension. To use another figure, the Holy Spirit is the Vessel in
whom all the values of the death, resurrection and exaltation of the
Lord are deposited, that they may be brought to us. He is the one who
contains' those values and mediates them to men. That is the reason why
the Spirit could not be given before the Lord had been glorified. Then
only could He rest upon men and women that they might witness; and
without the values of the death and resurrection of Christ no such
witness is possible.

If we turn to the Old Testament we find the same thing is there. I
would refer you to a familiar passage in the seventeenth chapter of
Numbers. The matter of Aaron's ministry has been contested. There is a
question among the people as to whether Aaron is truly the chosen of
God. They have entertained a suspicion, and have said in effect:
Whether that man is ordained of God or not, we do not know!' and so God
sets out to prove who is His servant and who is not. How does He do so?
Twelve dead rods are put before the Lord in the sanctuary over against
the testimony, and they are there for a night. Then, in the morning,
the Lord indicates His chosen minister by the rod which buds, blossoms
and bears fruit.

We all know the meaning of that. The budding rod speaks of
resurrection. It is death and resurrection that marks God-recognized
ministry. Without that you have nothing. The budding of Aaron's rod
proved him to be on a true basis, and God will only recognize as His
ministers those who have come through death to resurrection ground.

We have seen that the death of the Lord works in different ways and has
different aspects. We know how His death has worked in regard to the
forgiveness of our sins. We all know that our forgiveness is based upon
the shed Blood, and that without the shedding of Blood there is no
remission. Then we have come further and in Romans 6 have seen how
death works to meet the power of sin. We have learned that our old man
has been crucified in order that henceforth we should not serve sin,
and we have praised the Lord that here too His death has worked for our
deliverance. Further on still the question of human self-will arises,
and the need for consecration is apparent; and we find death working
that way to bring about in us a willingness to let go our own wills and
obey the Lord. That indeed constitutes a starting point for our
ministry, but still it does not touch the core of the question. There
may still be the lack of knowledge of what is meant by the soul.

Then another phase is presented to us in Romans 7 where the question of
holiness of life is in view--a living, personal holiness. There you
find a true man of God trying to please God in righteousness, and he
comes under the law and the law finds him out. He is trying to please
God by using his own carnal power, and the Cross has to bring him to
the place where he says, I cannot do it. I cannot satisfy God with my
powers; I can only trust the Holy Spirit to do that in me.' I believe
some of us have passed through deep waters to learn this, and to
discover the value of the death of the Lord working in this way.

Now mark you, there is still a great difference between "the flesh", as
spoken of in Romans 7 in relation to holiness of life, and the working
of the natural energies of the soul-life in the service of the Lord.
With all the above being known--and known in experience--there still
remains this one sphere more which the death of the Lord must enter
before we are actually of use to Him in service. Even with all these
experiences we are still unsafe for Him to use until this further thing
is effected in us. How many of God's servants are used by Him, as we
say in China, to build twelve feet of wall, only, when they have done
so, to undo it all by themselves pulling down fifteen feet! We are used
in a sense, but at the same time we destroy our own work, and sometimes
that of others also, because of there being somewhere something undealt
with by the Cross.

Now we have to see how the Lord has set out to deal with the soul, and
then more particularly how this touches the question of our service for
Him.
__________________________________________________________________

The Subjective Working Of The Cross

We must keep before us now four passages from the Gospels. They are:
Matthew 10:34-39; Mark 8:32-35; Luke 17:32-34; and John 12:24-26. These
four passages have something in common. In each you have the Lord
Himself speaking to us concerning the soul-activity of man, and in each
a different aspect or manifestation of the soul-life is touched upon.
In these verses He makes it very plain that the soul of man can be
dealt with in one way and in one way only, and that is by our bearing
the cross daily and following Him.

As we have just seen, the soul-life or natural life that is here in
view is something further than what we have in those passages which are
concerned with the old man or the flesh. We have sought to make quite
clear that, in respect of our old man, God emphasizes the thing He has
done once for all in crucifying us with Christ on the Cross. We have
seen that three times in the Epistle to the Galatians the crucifying'
aspect of the Cross is referred to as a thing accomplished; and in
Romans 6:6 we have the clear statement that "our old man was
crucified", which, if the tense of the word means anything, we might
well paraphrase: Our old man has been finally and for ever crucified'.
It is something done, to be apprehended by Divine revelation and then
appropriated by faith.

But there is a further aspect of the Cross, namely that implied in the
expression bearing his cross daily', which is before us now. The Cross
has borne me; now I must bear it; and this bearing of the Cross is an
inward thing. It is this that we mean when we speak of the subjective
working of the Cross'. Moreover it is a daily process; it is a step by
step following after Him. It is this which is now brought before us in
relation to the soul, and let us note that the emphasis here is not
quite the same as with the old man. We do not have here the
crucifixion' of the soul itself, in the sense that our natural gifts
and faculties, our personality and our individuality, are to be put
away altogether. Were it so it could hardly be said of us, as it is in
Hebrews 10:39, that we are to "have faith unto the saving of the soul".
(Compare 1 Peter 1:9; Luke 21:19.) No, we do not lose our souls in this
sense, for to do so would be to lose our individual existence
completely. The soul is still there with its natural endowments, but
the Cross is brought to bear upon it to bring those natural endowments
into death--to put the mark of His death upon them--and thereafter, as
God may please, to give them back to us in resurrection.

It is in this sense that Paul, writing to the Philippians, expresses
the desire "that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and
the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death"
(Phil. 3:10). The mark of death is upon the soul all the time to bring
it to the place where it is always subordinate to the Spirit and never
independently asserts itself. Only the Cross, working in such a way,
could make a man of the calibre of Paul, and with the natural resources
hinted at in Philippians 3, so distrust his own natural strength that
he could write to the Corinthians: "I determined not to know anything
among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my
preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the
wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Cor. 2:2, 5).

The soul is the seat of the affections, and what a great part of our
decisions and actions is influenced by these! There is nothing
deliberately sinful about them, mind you, but it is simply that there
is something in us which can go out in natural affection to another
person and which as a result can influence wrongly our whole course of
action. So in the first of the four passages before us the Lord has to
say: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me;
and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
And he that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy
of me" (Matt. 10:37, 38). You note that to follow the Lord in the way
of the Cross is set before us as His normal, His only way for us. What
immediately follows? "He that findeth his soul shall lose it; and he
that loseth his soul for my sake shall find it" (Matt. 10:39, mg.).

The secret danger lies in that subtle working of the affections to turn
us away from the pathway of God; and the key to the matter is the soul.
The Cross has to deal with that. I have to "lose" my soul in the sense
in which the Lord meant those words, and which we are seeking here to
explain.

Some of us know well what it means to lose our soul. We can no longer
fulfill its desire; we cannot give in to it; we cannot gratify it: that
is the loss' of the soul. We are going through a painful process to
discourage what the soul is asking for. And many a time we have to
confess that it is not any definite sin that is keeping us from
following the Lord to the end. We are held up because of some secret
love somewhere, some perfectly natural affection diverting our course.
Yes, affection plays a great part in our lives, and the Cross has to
come in there and do its work.

Then we pass to the reference in Mark chapter 8. I think that is a most
important passage. Our Lord had just taught His disciples at Caesarea
Philippi that He was going to suffer death at the hands of the elders
of the Jews, and then Peter, with all his love for his Master, came up
and rebuked Him and said to Him: Lord, do not do it; pity Thyself: this
shall never come to Thee!' Out of his love for the Lord he appealed to
Him to spare Himself; and the Lord rebuked Peter, as He would rebuke
Satan, for caring for the things of men and not the things of God. And
then to all present the word was spoken once more: "If any man would
come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
me. For whosoever will save his soul shall lose it; and whosoever shall
lose his soul for my sake and the gospel's shall save it" (Mark 8:34,
35, mg.).

The whole question at issue is again that of the soul, and here it is
particularly of the soul's desire for self-preservation. There is that
subtle working of the soul which says, If I could be allowed to live I
would do anything, be willing for anything; but I must be kept alive!'
There you have the soul almost crying out for help. Going to the Cross,
being crucified--oh that is really too much! Have mercy on yourself;
pity yourself! Do you mean to say you are going against yourself and
going with God?' Some of us know well that in order to go on with God
we have many a time to go against the voice of the soul- our own or
other people's--and to let the Cross come in to silence that appeal for
self-preservation.

Am I afraid of the will of God? The dear saint whom I have already
mentioned as having had such an influence upon the course of my life,
many times asked me the question: Do you like the will of God?' It is a
tremendous question. She did not ask, Do you do the will of God?' she
always asked, Do you like the will of God?' That question cuts deeper
than anything else. I remember once she was having a controversy with
the Lord over a certain matter. She knew what the Lord wanted, and in
her heart she wanted it too. But is was difficult, and I heard her pray
like this: Lord, I confess I don't like it, but please do not give in
to me. Just wait, Lord--and I will give in to Thee.' She did not want
the Lord to yield to her and to reduce His demands upon her. She wanted
nothing but to please Him.

Many a time we have to come to the place where we are willing to let go
things we think to be good and precious--yes, and even, it may be, the
very things of God themselves--that His will may be done. Peter's
concern was for his Lord and was dictated by his natural love for Him.
We might feel that Peter had a marvelous love for his Lord, sufficient
even for him to dare to rebuke Him. Only a strong love could bring one
to attempt that! Yes, but when there is purity of spirit without that
mixture of soul, you will not be led into Peter's mistake. You will
recognize the will of God and you will find that that is what your
heart delights in alone. You will no longer even shed a tear in
sympathy with the flesh. Yes, the Cross cuts deeply, and we see here
once more how utterly it has to deal with the soul.

Once again the Lord Jesus deals with the matter of the soul in Luke
chapter 17, and now it is in relation to His return. Speaking of "the
day that the Son of man is revealed", He draws a parallel between that
day and "the day that Lot went out from Sodom" (verses 29, 30). A
little later He speaks of the rapture' in the twice repeated words:
"One shall be taken, and the other shall be left" (verses 34, 35). But
between His reference to the calling of Lot out of Sodom and this
allusion to the rapture, the Lord says these remarkable words: "In that
day, he which shall be on the housetop, and his goods in the house, let
him not go down to take them away: and let him that is in the field
likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife" (verses 31, 32).
Remember Lot's wife! Why? because "whosoever shall seek to gain his
soul shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his soul shall save it
alive" (verse 33, mg.).

If I mistake not, this is the one passage in the New Testament that
tells of our reaction to the rapture call. We may have thought that
when the Son of man comes we shall be taken up automatically, as it
were, because of what we read in 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52: "We shall all
be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trump..." Well, however we reconcile the two passages, this one in
Luke's Gospel should at least make us pause and reflect; for the
emphasis is here very strongly upon one being taken and the other left.
It is a matter of our reaction to the call to go, and on the basis of
this a most urgent appeal is made to us to be ready (compare Matt.
24:42).

There is surely a reason for this. Clearly that call is not going to
produce a miraculous last-minute change in us out of all relation to
our previous walk with the Lord. No, in that moment we shall discover
our heart's real treasure. If it is the Lord Himself, then there will
be no backward look. A backward glance decides everything. It is so
easy to become more attached to the gifts of God than to the Giver--and
even, I should add, to the work of God than to God Himself.

Let me illustrate. At the present time [17] I am writing a book. I have
finished eight chapters and I have another nine to write, about which I
am very seriously exercised before the Lord. But if the call to come up
hither' should come and my reaction were to be What about my book?' the
answer might well be, All right, stay down and finish it!' That
precious thing which we are doing downstairs in the house' can be
enough to pin us down, a peg that holds us to earth.

It is all a question of our living by the soul or by the spirit. Here
in this passage in Luke, we have depicted the soul-life in its
engagement with the things of the earth--and mark you, not sinful
things either. The Lord only mentioned marrying, planting, eating,
selling--all perfectly legitimate activities with which there is
nothing essentially wrong. But it is occupation with them, so that your
heart goes out to them, that is enough to pin you down. The way out of
that danger is by the losing of the soul. This is beautifully
illustrated in the action of Peter when he recognized the risen Lord
Jesus by the lake-side. Though with the others he had returned to his
former employment, there was now no thought of the ship, nor even of
the net full of fishes so miraculously provided. When he heard John's
cry of recognition: "it is the Lord", we read that "he cast himself
into the sea".

That is true detachment. The question at issue is always, Where is my
heart? The cross has to work in us a true spiritual detachment from
anything and anyone outside of the Lord Himself.

But, even here, we are as yet only dealing with the more outward
aspects of the soul's activity. The soul giving rein to its affections,
the soul asserting itself and trying to manipulate things, the soul
becoming preoccupied with things, the soul becoming preoccupied with
things on the earth: these are still small things, and do not yet touch
the real heart of the matter. There is something which is deeper yet,
and which I will try now to explain.
__________________________________________________________________

[17] 1938.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________

The Cross And Fruitfulness

Let us read again John 12:24, 25. "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by
itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his
life (Greek soul', as in the above passages) loseth it; and he that
hateth his life (soul') in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."

Here we have the inward working of the Cross of which we have been
speaking--the losing of the soul--linked with and likened to that
aspect of the death of the Lord Jesus Himself which we have already
seen depicted in the grain of wheat, namely, His death with a view to
increase. The end in view is fruitfulness. There is a grain of wheat
with life in it, but "it abideth alone". It has the power to impart its
life to others; but to do so it must go down into death.

Now we know the way the Lord Jesus took. He passed into death, and, as
we saw earlier, His life emerged in many lives. The Son died, and came
forth as the first of "many sons". He let go His life that we might
receive it. It is in this aspect of His death that we are called to
die. It is here that He makes clear the value of conformity to His
death, which is that we lose our own natural life, our soul, in order
that we may become life-imparters, sharing thereafter with others the
new life of God which is in us. This is the secret of ministry, the
path of real fruitfulness to God. As Paul says: "We which live are
always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of
Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in
us, but life in you" (2 Cor. 4:11, 12).

We are coming to our point. There is new life in us, if we have
received Christ. We all have that precious possession, the treasure in
the vessel. Praise the Lord for the reality of His life within us! But
why is there so little expression of that life? Why is there an abiding
alone'? Why is it not overflowing and imparting life to others? Why is
it scarcely making itself apparent even in our own lives? The reason
why there is so little sign of life where life is present is that the
soul in us is enveloping and confining that life (as the husk envelopes
the grain of wheat) so that it cannot find outlet. We are living in the
soul; we are working and serving in our own natural strength; we are
not drawing from God. It is the soul that stands in the way of the
springing up of life. Lose it; for that way lies fullness.
__________________________________________________________________

A Dark Night--A Resurrection Morn

So we come back to the almond rod, which was brought into the sanctuary
for a night--a dark night in which there was nothing to be seen--and
then in the morning it budded. There you have set forth the death and
resurrection, the life yielded up and the life fained, and there you
have the ministry attested. But how does this work out in practice? How
do I recognize that God is dealing with me in this way?

First we must be clear about one thing: the soul with its fund of
natural energy and resource will continue with us until our death. Till
then there will be an unending day-by-day need for the Cross to operate
in us, dredging deeply that well-spring of nature. This is the
life-long condition of service that is laid down in the words: "Let him
deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Mark 8:34). We
never get past that. He who evades it "is not worthy of me" (Matt.
10:38); he "cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27). Death and resurrection
must remain an abiding principle of our lives for the losing of the
soul and the uprising of the Spirit.

Yet here too there may be a crisis that, once reached and passed, can
transform our whole life and service for God. It is a wicket gate by
which we may enter upon an entirely new pathway. Such a crisis occurred
in the life of Jacob at Peniel. It was the natural man' in Jacob that
was seeking to serve God and to attain His end. Jacob knew well that
God had said: "The elder shall serve the younger", but he was trying to
compass that end through his own ingenuity and resource. God had to
cripple that strength of nature in Jacob, and that He did when He
touched the sinew of Jacob's thigh. Jacob continued to walk thereafter,
but he continued to be lame. He was a different Jacob, as his change of
name implies. He had his feet and he could use them, but the strength
had been touched, and he limped from an injury from which he would
never quite recover.

God must bring us to a point--I cannot tell you how it will be, but He
will do it--where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural
power is touched and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare
trust ourselves. He has had to deal with some of us very harshly, and
take us through difficult and painful ways, in order to get us there.
At length there comes a time when we no longer like' to do Christian
work--indeed we almost dread to do things in the Lord's Name. But then
at last it is that He can begin to use us.

I can tell you this, that for a year after I was converted I had a lust
to preach. It was impossible to stay silent. It was as though there was
something moving within me that drove me forward, and I had to keep
going. Preaching had become my very life. The Lord may graciously allow
you to go on a long while like that--and not only so but with a fair
measure of blessing--until one day that natural force impelling you is
touched, and from then on you no longer do it because you want to do it
but because the Lord wants it. Before that experience you preached for
the sake of satisfaction you got from serving God in that way; and yet
sometimes the Lord could not move you to do one thing that He wanted
done. You were living by the natural life, and that life varies a good
deal. It is the slave of your temperament. When emotionally you are set
on His way you go ahead at full speed, but when your emotions are
directed the other way you are reluctant to move at all, even when duty
calls. You are not pliable in the Lord's hands. He has therefore to
weaken that strength of preference, of like and dislike, in you, until
you will do a thing because He wants it and not because you like it.
You may enjoy it or you may not, but you will do it just the same. It
is not that you can derive a certain satisfaction from preaching or
from doing this or that work for God, and therefore you do it. No, you
do it now because it is the will of God, and regardless of whether or
not it gives you conscious joy. The true joy you know in doing His will
lies deeper than your variable emotions.

God is bringing you to the place where He has but to express a wish and
you respond instantly. That is the spirit of the Servant (Psalm 40:7,
8), but such a spirit does not come naturally to any of us. It comes
only when our soul, the seat of our natural energy and will and
affections, has known the touch of the Cross. Yet such a servant-spirit
is what He seeks and will have in us all. The way to it may be a
painful, long-drawn-out process with some of us, or it may be just one
stroke; but God has His ways and we must have regard to them.

Every true servant of God must know at some time that disabling from
which he can never recover; he can never be quite the same again. There
must be that established in you which means that from henceforth you
will really fear yourself. You will fear to do anything out from'
yourself, for, like Jacob, you know what kind of sovereign dealing you
will incur if you do it; you know what a bad time you will have in your
own heart before the Lord if you move out on the impulse of your soul.
You have known something of the chastening hand of a loving God upon
you, a God who "dealeth with you as with sons" (Heb. 12:7). The Spirit
Himself bears witness in your spirit to that relationship, and to the
inheritance and glory that are ours "if so be that we suffer with him"
(Rom. 8:16, 17); and your response to the Father of our spirits' is:
"Abba, Father".

But when this is really established in you, you have come to a new
place which we speak of as resurrection ground'. Death in principle may
have had to be wrought out to a crisis in your natural life, but when
it has, then you find God releases you into resurrection. You discover
that what you have lost is coming back--though not as before. The
principle of life is at work in you now--something that empowers and
strengthens you, something that animates you, giving you life. From
henceforth what you have lost will be brought back - but now under
discipline, under control.

Let me make this quite clear again. If we want to be spiritual people,
there is no need for us to amputate our hands or feet; we can still
have our body. In the same way we can have our soul, with the full use
of its faculties; and yet the soul is not now our life-spring. We are
no longer living in it, we are no longer drawing from it and living by
it; we use it. When the body becomes our life we live like beasts. When
the soul becomes our life we live as rebels and fugitives from God
--gifted, cultured, educated, no doubt, but alienated from the life of
God. But when we come to live our life in the Spirit and by the Spirit,
though we still use our soul faculties just as we do our physical
faculties, they are now the servants of the Spirit; and when we have
reached that point God can really use us.

But the difficulty with many of us is that dark night. The Lord
graciously laid me aside once in my life for a number of months and put
me, spiritually, into utter darkness. It was almost as though He had
forsaken me--almost as though nothing was going on and I had really
come to the end of everything. And then by degrees He brought things
back again. The temptation is always to try to help God by taking
things back ourselves; but remember, there must be a full night in the
sanctuary--a full night in darkness. It cannot be hurried; He knows
what He is doing.

We would like to have death and resurrection put together within one
hour of each other. We cannot face the thought that God will keep us
aside for so long a time; we cannot bear to wait. And I cannot tell you
how long He will take, but in principle I think it is quite safe to say
this, that there will be a definite period when He will keep you there.
It will seem as though nothing is happening; everything you valued is
slipping from your grasp. There confronts you a blank wall with no door
in it. Seemingly everyone else is being blessed and used, while you
yourself have been passed by and are losing out. Lie quiet. All is in
darkness, but it is only for a night. It must indeed be a full night,
but that is all. Afterwards you will find that everything is given back
to you in glorious resurrection; and nothing can measure the difference
between what was before and what now is!

I was sitting one day at supper with a young brother to whom the Lord
had been speaking on this very question of our natural energy. He said
to me, It is a blessed thing when you know the Lord has met you and
touched you in that fundamental way, and that disabling touch has been
received.' There was a plate of biscuits between us on the table, and I
picked one up and broke it in half as though to eat it. Then, fitting
the two pieces together again carefully, I said, It looks all right,
but it is never quite the same again, is it? When once your back is
broken, you will yield ever after to the slightest touch from God.'

That is it. The Lord knows what He is doing with His own, and He has
left no aspect of our need unmet in His Cross, that the glory of the
Son may be manifested in the sons. Disciples who have gone this way
can, I believe, truly echo the words of the apostle Paul, who could
claim to serve God "in my spirit in the gospel of his Son" (Rom. 1:9).
They have learned, as he had, the secret of such a ministry: "We...
worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no
confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3).

Few can have led a more active life than Paul's. To the Romans he puts
it on record that he has preached the Gospel from Jerusalem to
Illyricum (Rom. 15:19) and that he is ready now to go on to Rome (1:10)
and thence, if possible, to Spain (15:24, 28). Yet in all this service,
embracing as it does the whole Mediterranean world, his heart is set on
one object only--the uplifting of the One who has made it all possible.
"I have therefore my glorying in Christ Jesus in things pertaining to
God. For I will not dare to speak of any things save those which Christ
wrought through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and
deed" (Rom. 15:17, 18). That is spiritual service.

May God make each one of us, as truly as he was, "a bondservant of
Jesus Christ".
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 14: The Goal of the Gospel

For our final chapter we will take as our starting-point an incident in
the Gospels that occurs under the very shadow of the Cross--an incident
that, in its details, is at once historic and prophetic.

"And while he was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat
at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster cruse of ointment of
spikenard very costly; and she brake the cruse, and poured it over his
head... Jesus said... Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever the gospel
shall be preached throughout the whole world, that also which this
woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her" (Mark 14:3,
6, 9).

Thus the Lord ordained that the story of Mary anointing Him with that
costly ointment should always accompany the story of the Gospel; that
what Mary has done should always be coupled with what the Lord has
done. That is His own statement. What does He intend that we should
understand by it?

I think we all know the story of Mary's action well. From the details
given in John chapter 12, where the incident follows not long after her
brother's restoration to life, we may gather that the family was not a
specially wealthy one. The sisters had to work in the house themselves,
for we are told that at this feast "Martha also served" (John 12:2 and
compare Luke 10:40). [18] No doubt every penny mattered to them. Yet
one of those sisters, Mary, having among her treasures an alabaster
cruse containing three hundred pence' worth of ointment, expended the
whole thing on the Lord. Human reasoning said this was really too much;
it was giving the Lord more than His due. That is why Judas took the
lead, and the other disciples supported him, in voicing a general
complaint that Mary's action was a wasteful one.
__________________________________________________________________

Waste

"But there were some that had indignation among themselves, saying, To
what purpose hath this waste of the ointment been made? For this
ointment might have been sold for above three hundred pence and given
to the poor. And they murmured against her" (Mark 14:4, 5). These words
bring us to what I believe the Lord would have us consider finally
together, namely, that which is signified by the little word "waste".

What is waste? Waste means, among other things, giving more than is
necessary. If a shilling will do and you give a point, it is a waste.
If two ounces will do and you give a kilogram, it is a waste. If three
days will suffice to finish a task well enough and you lavish five days
or a week on it, it is a waste. Waste means that you give something too
much for something too little. If someone is receiving more than he is
considered to be worth, then that is waste.

But remember, we are dealing here with something which the Lord said
had to go out with the Gospel, wherever that Gospel should be carried.
Why? Because He intends that the preaching of the Gospel should issue
in something along the very lines of the action of Mary here, namely,
that people should come to Him and waste themselves on Him. This is the
result that He is seeking.

We must look at this question of wasting on the Lord from two angles:
that of Judas (John 12:4-6) and that of the other disciples (Matt.
26:8, 9); and for our present purpose we will run together the parallel
accounts.

All the twelve thought is a waste. To Judas of course, who had never
called Jesus Lord', everything that was poured out upon Him was waste.
Not only was ointment waste; even water would have been waste. Here
Judas stands for the world. In the world's estimation the service of
the Lord, and our giving ourselves to Him for such service, is sheer
waste. He has never been loved, never had a place in the hearts of the
world, so any giving to Him is a waste. Many say: Such-and-such a man
could make good in the world if only he were not a Christian!' Because
a man has some natural talent or other asset in the world's eyes, they
count such people are really too good for the Lord. What waste of a
useful life!' they say.

Let me give a personal instance. In 1929 I returned from Shanghai to my
home town of Foochow. One day I was walking along the street with a
stick, very weak and in broken health, and I met one of my old college
professors. He took me into a teashop where we sat down. He looked at
me from head to foot and from foot to head, and then he said: Now look
here; during your college days we thought a good deal of you and we had
hopes that you would achieve something great. Do you mean to tell me
that this is what you are?' Looking at me with penetrating eyes, he
asked that very pointed question. I must confess that, on hearing it,
my first desire was to break down and weep. My career, my health,
everything had gone, and here was my old professor who taught me law in
the school, asking me: Are you still in this condition, with no
success, no progress, nothing to show?'

But the very next moment--and I have to admit that in all my life it
was the first time--I really knew what it meant to have the "spirit of
glory" resting upon me. The thought of being able to pour our my life
for my Lord flooded my soul with glory. Nothing short of the Spirit of
glory was on me then. I could look up and without a reservation say:
Lord, I praise Thee! This is the best thing possible; it is the right
course that I have chosen!' To my professor it seemed a total waste to
serve the Lord; but that is what the Gospel is for--to bring us to a
true estimate of His worth.

Judas felt it a waste. We could manage better with the money by using
it in some other way. There are plenty of poor people. Why not rather
give it for charity, do some social service for their uplift, help the
poor in some practical way? Why pour it out at the feet of Jesus?' (See
John 12:4-6.) That is always the way the world reasons. Can you not do
something better with yourself than this? It is going a bit too far to
give yourself altogether to the Lord!'

But if the Lord is worthy, then how can it be a waste? He is worthy to
be so served. He is worthy for me to be His prisoner. He is worthy for
me just to live for Him. He is worthy! What the world says about this
does not matter. The Lord says: Do not trouble her'. So let us not be
troubled. Men may say what they like, but we can stand on this ground,
that the Lord said: It is a good work. Every true work is not done on
the poor; every true work is done to Me'. When once our eyes have been
opened to the real worth of our Lord Jesus, nothing is too good for
Him.

But I do not want to dwell too much on Judas. Let us go on to see what
was the attitude of the other disciples, because their reaction affects
us even more than does his. We do not greatly mind what the world is
saying; we can stand that, but we do very much mind what other
Christians are saying who ought to understand. And yet we find that
they said the same thing as Judas; and they not only said it but they
were very upset, very indignant about it. "When the disciples saw it,
they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this
ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor" (Matt.
26:8, 9).

Of course we know that the attitude of mind is all too common among
Christians which says, Get all you can for as little as possible'. That
however is not what is in view here, but something deeper. Let me
illustrate. Has someone been telling you that you are wasting your life
be sitting still and not doing much? They say, Here are people who
ought to get out into this or that kind of work. They could be used to
help this or that group of people. Why are they not more active?'-- and
in saying so, their whole idea is use. Everything ought to be used to
the full in ways they understand.

There are those who have been very concerned with some dear servants of
the Lord on this very ground, that they are apparently not doing
enough. They could do so much more, they think, if they could secure an
entry somewhere and enjoy a greater acceptance and prominence in
certain circles. They could then be used in a far greater way. I have
spoken already of a sister whom I knew for a long time and who, I
think, is the one by whom I have been helped most. She was used of the
Lord in a very real way during those years when I was associated with
her, though to some of us at the time this was not so apparent. The one
concern in my heart was this: She is not used!' Constantly I said to
myself, Why does she not get out and take some meetings, go somewhere,
do something? It is a waste for her to be living in that small village
with nothing happening!' Sometimes, when I went to see her, I almost
shouted at her. I said, No one knows the Lord as you do. You know the
Book in a most living way. Do you not see the need around? Why don't
you do something? It is a waste of time, a waste of energy, a waste of
money, a waste of everything, just sitting here and doing nothing!'

But no, brethren, that is not the first thing with the Lord. He wants
you and me to be used, certainly. God forbid that I should preach
inactivity or seek to justify a complacent attitude to the world's
need. As Jesus Himself says here, "the gospel shall be preached
throughout the whole world". But the question is one of emphasis.
Looking back today, I realize how greatly the Lord was in fact using
that dear sister to speak to a number of us who, as young men, were at
that time in His training school for this very work of the Gospel. I
cannot thank God enough for her.

What, then, is the secret? Clearly it is this, that in approving Mary's
action at Bethany, the Lord Jesus was laying down one thing as a basis
of all service: that you pour out all you have, your very self, unto
Him; and if that should be all He allows you to do, that is enough. It
is not first of all a question of whether the poor' have been helped or
not. The first question is: Has the Lord been satisfied?

There is many a meeting we might address, many a convention at which we
might minister, many a Gospel campaign in which we might have a share.
It is not that we are unable to do it. We could labor and be used to
the full; but the Lord is not so concerned about our ceaseless
occupation in work for Him. That is not His first object. The service
of the Lord is not to be measured by tangible results. No, my friends,
the Lord's first concern is with our position at His feet and our
anointing of His head. Whatever we have as an alabaster box': the most
precious thing, the thing dearest in the world to us--yes, let me say
it, the outflow from us of a life that is produced by the very Cross
itself--we give that all up to the Lord. To some, even of those who
should understand, it seems a waste; but that is what He seeks above
all. Often enough the giving to Him will be in tireless service, but He
reserves to Himself the right to suspend the service for a time in
order to discover to us whether it is that or Himself that holds us.
__________________________________________________________________

Ministering To His Pleasure

"Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached... that also which this woman
hath done shall be spoken of" (Mark 14:9).

Why did the Lord say this? Because the Gospel is meant to produce this.
It is what the Gospel is for. The Gospel is not just to satisfy
sinners. Praise the Lord, sinners will be satisfied! but their
satisfaction is, we may say, a blessed by-product of the Gospel and not
its primary aim. The Gospel is preached in the first place so that the
Lord may be satisfied.

I am afraid we lay too much emphasis on the good of sinners and we have
not sufficiently appreciated what the Lord has in view as His goal. We
have been thinking how the sinner will fare if there is no Gospel, but
that is not the main consideration. Yes, Praise God! the sinner has his
part. God meets his need and showers him with blessings; but that is
not the most important thing. The first thing is this, that everything
should be to the satisfaction of the Son of God. It is only when He is
satisfied that we shall be satisfied and the sinner will be satisfied.
I have never met a soul who has set out to satisfy the Lord and has not
been satisfied himself. It is impossible. Our satisfaction comes
unfailingly when we satisfy Him first.

But we have to remember this, that He will never be satisfied without
our wasting' ourselves upon Him. Have you ever given too much to the
Lord? May I tell you something? One lesson some of us have come to
learn is this, that in Divine service the principle of waste is the
principle of power. The principle which determines usefulness is the
very principle of scattering. Real usefulness in the hand of God is
measured in terms of waste'. The more you think you can do, and the
more you employ your gifts up to the very limit (and some even go over
the limit!) in order to do it, the more you find that you are applying
the principle of the world and not of the Lord. God's ways with us are
all designed to establish in us this other principle, namely, that our
work for Him springs out of our ministering to Him. I do not mean that
we are going to do nothing; but the first thing for us must be the Lord
Himself, not His work.

But we must come down to very practical issues. You say: I have given
up a position; I have given up a ministry; I have foregone certain
attractive possibilities of a bright future, in order to go on with the
Lord in this way. Now I try to serve Him. Sometimes it seems that the
Lord hears me, and sometimes He keeps me waiting for a definite answer.
Sometimes He uses me, but sometimes it seems that He passes my by.
Then, when this is so, I compare myself with that other fellow who is
in a certain big system. He too had a bright future, but he has never
given it up. He continues on and he serves the Lord. He sees souls
saved and the Lord blesses his ministry. He is successful--I do not
mean materially, but spiritually--and I sometimes think he looks more
like a Christian than I do, so happy, so satisfied. After all, what do
I get out of this? He has a good time; I have all the bad time. He has
never gone this way, and yet he has much that Christians today regard
as spiritual prosperity, while I have all sorts of complications coming
to me. What is the meaning of it all? Am I wasting my life? Have I
really given too much?'

So there is your problem. You feel that were you to follow in that
other brother's steps--were you, shall we say, to consecrate yourself
enough for the blessing but not enough for the trouble, enough for the
Lord to use you but not enough for Him to shut you up--all would be
perfectly all right. But would it? You know perfectly well that it
would not.

Takes your eyes off that other man! Look at your Lord, and ask yourself
again what it is that He values most highly. The principle of waste is
the principle that He would have govern us. She is doing this for Me.'
Real satisfaction is brought to the heart of the Son of God only when
we are really, as people would think, wasting' ourselves upon Him. It
seems as though we are giving too much and getting nothing--and that is
the secret of pleasing God.

Oh, friends, what are we after? Are we after use' as those disciples
were? They wanted to make every penny of those three hundred pence go
to its full length. The whole question was one of obvious usefulness'
to God in terms that could be measured and put on record. The Lord
waits to hear us say: Lord, I do not mind about that. If I can only
please Thee, it is enough'.
__________________________________________________________________

Anointing Him Beforehand

"Let her alone; why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on me.
For ye have the poor always with you, and whensoever ye will ye can do
them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she
hath anointed my body aforehand for the burying" (Mark 14:6-8).

In these verses the Lord Jesus introduces a time-factor with the word
beforehand', and this is something of which we can have a new
application today, for it is as important to us now as it was to her
then. We all know that in the age to come we shall be called to a
greater work--not to inactivity. "Well done, good and faithful servant:
thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many
things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Matthew 25:21; and
compare Matthew 24:47 and Luke 19:17). Yes, there will be a greater
work; for the work of God's house will go on, just as in the story the
care of the poor went on. The poor would always be with them, but they
could not always have Him. There was something, represented by this
pouring out of the ointment, which Mary had to do beforehand or she
would have no later opportunity. I believe that in that day we shall
all love Him as we have never done now, but yet that it will be most
blessed for those who have poured out their all upon the Lord today.
When we see Him face to face I trust that we shall all break and pour
out everything for Him. But today--what are we doing today?

Several days after Mary broke the alabaster box and poured the ointment
on Jesus' head, there were some women who went early in the morning to
anoint the body of the Lord. Did they do it? Did they succeed in their
purpose on that first day of the week? No, there was only one soul who
succeeded in anointing the Lord, and it was Mary, who anointed Him
before hand. The others never did it, for He had risen. Now I suggest
that in just such a way the matter of time may be important to us also,
and that the whole question for us is : What am I doing to the Lord
today?

Have our eyes been opened to see the preciousness of the One whom we
are serving? Have we come to see that nothing less than the dearest,
the costliest, the most precious, is fit for Him? Have we come to see
that working for the poor, working for the benefit of the world,
working for the souls of men and for the eternal good of the
sinner--all these so necessary and valuable things--are right only if
they are in their place? In themselves, as things apart, they are as
nothing compared with work that is done to the Lord.

The Lord has to open our eyes to His worth. If there is in the world
some precious art treasure, and I pay the high price asked for it, be
it one thousand, ten thousand, or even a million pounds, dare anyone
say it is a waste? The idea of waste only comes into our Christianity
when we underestimate the worth of our Lord. The whole question is: How
precious is He to us now? If we do not think much of Him, then of
course to give Him anything at all, however small, will seem to us a
wicked waste. But when He is really precious to our soul, nothing will
be too good, nothing too costly for Him; everything we have, our
dearest, our most priceless treasure, we shall pour out upon Him, and
we shall not count it a shame to have done so.

Of Mary the Lord said: "She hath done what she could". What does that
mean? It means that she had given up her all. She had kept nothing in
reserve for a future day. She had lavished on Him all she had; and yet
on the resurrection morning she had no reason to regret her
extravagance. And the Lord will not be satisfied with anything less
from us than that we too should have done what we could'. By this,
remember, I do not mean the expenditure of our effort and energy in
trying to do something for Him, for that is not the point here. What
the Lord Jesus looks for in us is a life laid at His feet--and that in
view of His death and burial and of a future day. His burial was
already in view that day in the home in Bethany. Today it is His
crowning that is in view--when He shall be acclaimed in glory as the
Anointed One, the Christ of God. Yes, then we shall pour out our all
upon Him! But it is a precious thing--indeed it is a far more precious
thing to Him--that we should anoint Him now, not with any material oil
but with something costly, something from our hearts.

That which is merely external and superficial has no place here. It has
already been dealt with by the Cross, and we have given our consent to
God's judgment upon it and learnt to know in experience its cutting
off. What God is demanding of us now is represented by that flask of
alabaster: something mined from the depths, something turned and chased
and wrought upon, something that, because it is so truly of the Lord,
we cherish as Mary cherished that flask--and we would not, we dare not
break it. It comes now from the heart, from the very depth of our
being; and we come to the Lord with that, and we break it and pour it
out and say: Lord, here it is. It is all Yours, because You are
worthy!'--and the Lord has got what He desired. May He receive such an
anointing from us today.
__________________________________________________________________

Fragrance

"And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment" (John 12:3).
By the breaking of that flask and the anointing of the Lord Jesus, the
house was pervaded with the sweetest fragrance. Everyone could smell it
and none could be unaware of it. What is the significance of this?

Whenever you meet someone who has really suffered--someone who has gone
through experiences with the Lord that have brought limitation, and
who, instead of trying to break free in order to be used', has been
willing to be imprisoned by Him and has thus learned to find
satisfaction in the Lord and nowhere else--then immediately you become
aware of something. Immediately your spiritual senses detect a sweet
savour of Christ. Something has been crushed, something has been broken
in that life, and so you smell the odor. The odor that filled the house
that day in Bethany still fills the Church today; Mary's fragrance
never passes. It needed but one stroke to break the flask for the Lord,
but that breaking and the fragrance of that anointing abides.

We are speaking here of what we are; not of what we do or what we
preach. Perhaps you may have been asking the Lord for a long time that
He will be pleased to use you in such a way as to impart impressions of
Himself to others. That prayer is not exactly for the gift of preaching
or teaching. It is rather that you might be able, in your touch with
others, to impart God, the presence of God, the sense of God. Dear
friends, you cannot produce such impressions of God upon others without
the breaking of everything, even your most precious possessions, at the
feet of the Lord Jesus.

But if once that point is reached, you may or may not seem to be much
used in an outward way, but God will begin to use you to create a
hunger in others. People will scent Christ in you. The least saint in
the Body will detect that. He will sense that here is one who has gone
with the Lord, one who has suffered, one who has not moved freely,
independently, but who has known what it is to let go everything to
Him. That kind of life creates impressions, and impressions create
hunger, and hunger provokes men to go on seeking until they are brought
by Divine revelation into fullness of life in Christ.

God does not set us here first of all to preach or to do work for Him.
The first thing for which He sets us here is to create in others a
hunger for Himself. That is, after all, what prepares the soil for the
preaching.

If you set a delicious cake in front of two men who have just had a
heavy meal, what will be their reaction? They will talk about it,
admire its appearance, discuss the recipe, argue about the cost--do
everything in fact but eat it! But if they are truly hungry it will not
be very long before that cake is gone. And so it is with the things of
the Spirit. No true work will ever begin in a life without first of all
a sense of need being created. But how can this be done? We cannot
inject spiritual appetite by force into others; we cannot compel people
to be hungry. Hunger has to be created, and it can be created in others
only by those who carry with them the impressions of God.

I always like to think of the words of that "great woman" of Shunem.
Speaking of the prophet, whom she had observed but whom she did not
know well, she said: "Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man
of God, which passeth by us continually" (2 Kings 4:9). It was not what
Elisha said or did that conveyed that impression, but what he was. By
his merely passing by she could detect something; she could see. What
are people sensing about us? We may leave many kinds of impressions: we
may leave the impression that we are clever, that we are gifted, that
we are this or that or the other. But no: the impression left by Elisha
was an impression of God Himself.

This matter of our impact upon others turns upon one thing, and that is
the working of the Cross in us with regard to the pleasure of the heart
of God. It demands that I seek His pleasure, that I seek to satisfy Him
only, and that I do not mind how much it costs me to do so. The sister
of whom I have spoken came once into a situation that was very
difficult for her: I mean, it was costing her everything. I was with
her at the time, and together we knelt down and prayed with wet eyes.
Looking up she said: Lord, I am willing to break my heart in order that
I may satisfy Thy heart!' To talk thus of heart-break might with many
of us be merely romantic sentiment, but in the particular situation in
which she was, it meant to her just that.

There must be something--a willingness to yield, a breaking and a
pouring out of everything to Him--which gives release to that fragrance
of Christ and produces in other lives an awareness of need, drawing
them out and on to know the Lord. This is what I feel to be the heart
of everything. The Gospel has as its one object the producing in us
sinners of a condition that will satisfy the heart of our God. In order
that He may have that, we come to Him with all we have, all we are--
yes, even the most cherished things in our spiritual experience--and we
make known to Him: Lord, I am willing to let go all of this for You:
not just for Your work, not for Your children, not for anything else,
but for Yourself!'

Oh, to be wasted! It is a blessed thing to be wasted for the Lord. So
many who have been prominent in the Christian world know nothing of
this. Many of us have been used to the full--have been used, I would
say, too much--but we do not know what it means to be wasted on God. We
like to be always on the go': the Lord would sometimes prefer to have
us in prison. We think in terms of apostolic journeys: God dares to put
his greatest ambassadors in chains.

"But thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ,
and maketh manifest through us the savour of his knowledge in every
place" (2 Cor. 2:14).

"And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment (John 12:3).

The Lord grant us grace that we may learn how to please Him. When, like
Paul, we make this our supreme aim (2 Cor. 5:9), the Gospel will have
achieved its end.
__________________________________________________________________

[18] The author here takes the fairly common view that the "house of
Simon the leper" was the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Simon
presumably also being a relative of the two sisters.--Ed.
__________________________________________________________________

Indexes
__________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

Genesis

[1]1:1 [2]2 [3]2 [4]2 [5]2 [6]2 [7]2 [8]2 [9]2:7
[10]2:21-23 [11]3 [12]3 [13]3 [14]3:4 [15]3:6 [16]14

Exodus

[17]12:13 [18]14:13 [19]26:31 [20]28:36

Leviticus

[21]16

Numbers

[22]17

2 Kings

[23]4:9

2 Chronicles

[24]3:14

Psalms

[25]8:4-8 [26]36:9 [27]40:7-8 [28]43:3 [29]73:25 [30]106:12
[31]110 [32]119:130 [33]139:23

Isaiah

[34]6:5

Jeremiah

[35]17:9

Ezekiel

[36]1:10 [37]1:28 [38]10:14 [39]36:26

Daniel

[40]10:8

Joel

[41]2:28-29

Matthew

[42]1:20 [43]3 [44]5:17 [45]5:18 [46]5:21-48 [47]6
[48]7:14 [49]10:34-39 [50]10:37-38 [51]10:38 [52]10:39
[53]15:13 [54]16:16-17 [55]16:17 [56]18:19-20 [57]20:3
[58]20:6 [59]24:42 [60]24:47 [61]25:21 [62]26:8-9
[63]26:8-9 [64]26:41 [65]27:51

Mark

[66]8 [67]8:32-35 [68]8:34 [69]8:34-35 [70]11:24 [71]14:3
[72]14:4-5 [73]14:6 [74]14:6-8 [75]14:9 [76]14:9 [77]16:16

Luke

[78]2:22 [79]10:40 [80]14:27 [81]14:27 [82]15 [83]15:18
[84]17 [85]17:29-30 [86]17:31-32 [87]17:32-34 [88]17:33
[89]17:34-35 [90]19:17 [91]21:19 [92]22:61-62

John

[93]1:4 [94]1:12-13 [95]1:13 [96]1:14 [97]3:5 [98]3:6
[99]3:6 [100]3:8 [101]5:19 [102]5:30 [103]6:57 [104]12
[105]12:2 [106]12:3 [107]12:3 [108]12:4-6 [109]12:4-6
[110]12:24 [111]12:24-25 [112]12:24-26 [113]12:31 [114]15:4
[115]15:5 [116]16:13 [117]17:17 [118]19:30 [119]20:17

Acts

[120]2:16 [121]2:32-36 [122]2:33 [123]2:33 [124]2:33
[125]2:33 [126]2:34 [127]2:34-35 [128]2:35 [129]2:36
[130]2:36 [131]2:38-39 [132]9:3-5 [133]16:31-34

Romans

[134]1 [135]1 [136]1:1-5:11 [137]1:9 [138]1:10 [139]1:16
[140]3 [141]3 [142]3:9 [143]3:23 [144]3:23 [145]3:23
[146]3:23 [147]3:23 [148]3:24-26 [149]3:24-26 [150]3:25
[151]3:28 [152]4 [153]4:5 [154]4:8 [155]4:25 [156]4:25
[157]5 [158]5 [159]5 [160]5 [161]5:1 [162]5:1 [163]5:1
[164]5:5 [165]5:8 [166]5:8 [167]5:8-9 [168]5:9 [169]5:9
[170]5:10 [171]5:12-21 [172]5:12-21 [173]5:12-6:23
[174]5:12-8:39 [175]5:12-8:39 [176]5:12-8:39 [177]5:19
[178]5:19 [179]5:19 [180]5:19 [181]5:19-21 [182]5:20
[183]5:21 [184]6 [185]6 [186]6 [187]6 [188]6 [189]6
[190]6 [191]6 [192]6 [193]6 [194]6 [195]6 [196]6 [197]6
[198]6 [199]6 [200]6 [201]6 [202]6 [203]6:1-2 [204]6:1-11
[205]6:2 [206]6:2 [207]6:3 [208]6:3 [209]6:3 [210]6:3
[211]6:3-4 [212]6:4 [213]6:4 [214]6:4 [215]6:4 [216]6:4
[217]6:4 [218]6:5 [219]6:5 [220]6:5 [221]6:6 [222]6:6
[223]6:6 [224]6:6 [225]6:6 [226]6:6 [227]6:6 [228]6:6
[229]6:6 [230]6:6 [231]6:6 [232]6:6 [233]6:6 [234]6:6
[235]6:6 [236]6:6 [237]6:6 [238]6:6 [239]6:7 [240]6:7
[241]6:8 [242]6:9 [243]6:9 [244]6:10 [245]6:11 [246]6:11
[247]6:11 [248]6:11 [249]6:11 [250]6:11 [251]6:11 [252]6:11
[253]6:11 [254]6:11 [255]6:12-13 [256]6:12-23 [257]6:13
[258]6:13 [259]6:13 [260]6:13 [261]6:13 [262]6:13 [263]6:13
[264]6:14 [265]6:14 [266]6:16 [267]6:16 [268]6:19 [269]6:19
[270]6:19 [271]6:19 [272]6:22 [273]6:23 [274]6:23 [275]6:23
[276]6:23 [277]7 [278]7 [279]7 [280]7 [281]7 [282]7
[283]7 [284]7 [285]7 [286]7 [287]7 [288]7 [289]7 [290]7
[291]7 [292]7 [293]7 [294]7 [295]7 [296]7 [297]7 [298]7
[299]7 [300]7 [301]7 [302]7 [303]7 [304]7 [305]7
[306]7:1-3 [307]7:1-4 [308]7:1-8:39 [309]7:3-4 [310]7:4
[311]7:4 [312]7:4 [313]7:4 [314]7:5 [315]7:7 [316]7:7-9
[317]7:12 [318]7:14 [319]7:14 [320]7:14 [321]7:18
[322]7:18-19 [323]7:19 [324]7:23 [325]7:24 [326]7:25
[327]7:25 [328]8 [329]8 [330]8 [331]8 [332]8 [333]8
[334]8 [335]8 [336]8 [337]8 [338]8:1-2 [339]8:2 [340]8:2
[341]8:2 [342]8:3 [343]8:4 [344]8:5 [345]8:5-8 [346]8:6
[347]8:6-7 [348]8:8 [349]8:8 [350]8:9 [351]8:9 [352]8:9
[353]8:14 [354]8:14 [355]8:16 [356]8:16-17 [357]8:16-18
[358]8:16-18 [359]8:21 [360]8:29 [361]8:29 [362]8:29-30
[363]8:29-30 [364]8:29-30 [365]8:30 [366]8:31 [367]8:33-34
[368]8:33-34 [369]8:33-34 [370]8:35 [371]8:35-39 [372]8:37
[373]8:38 [374]10:10 [375]11 [376]12 [377]12 [378]12
[379]12 [380]12:1 [381]12:1 [382]12:2 [383]12:2 [384]12:3
[385]12:3 [386]12:3-6 [387]12:5 [388]15:17-18 [389]15:19
[390]15:24 [391]15:28

1 Corinthians

[392]1:30 [393]1:30 [394]1:30 [395]2:2 [396]2:5 [397]2:7-10
[398]3:16 [399]6:19-20 [400]11:28 [401]11:30 [402]11:31
[403]12:4-6 [404]15:45 [405]15:45 [406]15:47 [407]15:50
[408]15:51-52

2 Corinthians

[409]2:14 [410]3:18 [411]4:11 [412]4:11-12 [413]4:18
[414]5:7 [415]5:9 [416]5:14 [417]5:14 [418]5:17 [419]5:17
[420]11:2 [421]13:5 [422]13:14

Galatians

[423]2:20 [424]2:20 [425]2:20 [426]3:24 [427]4:19 [428]4:19
[429]5:16 [430]5:17 [431]5:19 [432]5:22 [433]5:22 [434]5:24
[435]6:14 [436]6:14 [437]6:14

Ephesians

[438]1:3 [439]1:3 [440]1:4 [441]1:17 [442]1:17-18 [443]1:18
[444]1:19-20 [445]2 [446]2:5-6 [447]2:5-6 [448]2:13
[449]2:13 [450]3:9-11 [451]5 [452]5 [453]5 [454]5 [455]5
[456]5:25 [457]5:25-27 [458]6:12

Philippians

[459]2:8-9 [460]2:12-13 [461]3 [462]3:3 [463]3:3 [464]3:10
[465]4:13

Colossians

[466]1:12-13 [467]1:16-17 [468]1:22 [469]1:28 [470]1:29
[471]2:10

1 Thessalonians

[472]5:23

2 Timothy

[473]4:7

Hebrews

[474]2:10 [475]2:10 [476]2:10-11 [477]2:11 [478]4:12
[479]4:12-13 [480]7 [481]7 [482]7:7 [483]7:9-10
[484]7:14-17 [485]9:11-12 [486]9:12 [487]9:12 [488]9:14
[489]9:22 [490]10 [491]10 [492]10:2 [493]10:19 [494]10:20
[495]10:22 [496]10:22 [497]10:22 [498]10:29 [499]10:39
[500]11 [501]11:1 [502]11:1 [503]12:7

1 Peter

[504]1:5 [505]1:9 [506]1:18-19 [507]3:20 [508]3:21 [509]3:21

2 Peter

[510]1:4

1 John

[511]1:7 [512]2:1-2 [513]3:9 [514]5:11-12 [515]5:14-15

Revelation

[516]1:17 [517]12:10 [518]12:10 [519]12:11
__________________________________________________________________

This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
generated on demand from ThML source.

True Fellowship Art Katz-Book Sample

Wed, 6 Mar 2013 09:56:13 -0600

True Fellowship -Book Sample- purchase at www.artkatzministries.org
By: Arthur Katz
Foreword to True Fellowship
We have sought to recapture the principal elements of the spirit and life of those two great words, "True Fellowship." Surely the world is dying for the lack of that divine reality. This treatise is not an exhaustive attempt to define that reality, but allows the reader an induction into the constituent elements of what God is after in the life of His Church not least being the fulfillment of His eternal purposes through this very same Church.
Little or nothing is mentioned on Church structure or government. Others have written more than adequately on such subjects. But few have attempted to probe and explore Paul's words "To Him be the glory in the Church." We trust that a measure of that glory is communicated through this modest attempt at examining how that glory is revealed and expressed in the Church.
The material for each chapter was compiled and edited from Art's spoken messages on this theme given at different times and places over the last twenty-five years. Special thanks to Jeannie Clink for her needful help and careful editing skills in the final proofing.
Simon Hensman Laporte, MN USA
Preface to True Fellowship It says in Psalm 133,
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edges of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, coming down upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing life forever.
This is something much more than coming together for meetings. Dwelling together is a daily relationship; it is an integration of life. It is the awareness of our imperfections and struggles in the faith; yet we do not give up, we do not run, and we do not turn our backs. We dwell together in unity, and it is right there that God has commanded the blessing and nowhere else. After twenty-eight years of community life, I know that this is not some easy or cheap thing to obtain. There is a suffering that is intrinsic to dwelling and makes dwelling possible; it is called the Cross.
I am fond of saying that every issue, in the last analysis, is the issue of the Cross as the experience of suffering. Humiliation is a suffering, and when God called us to establish a community, I knew that I knew
that I knew, "You have had it, Katz. This is going to be for you humiliation and suffering. You are going to be found out. You are not going to be a charismatic speaker who flits from one meeting to another. You are going to be living intimately and intensively with other people on a daily basis in which your defects, your shortcomings, your sins and your failures will and must be revealed." And out of that, the possibility of a reality is able to come forth that can best be described as "true fellowship."
May these pages communicate to the reader something of that reality, and particularly the glory of that reality. And may we, with the apostle Paul, be able to say in our deepest hearts, "Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end" (Ephesians 3:21 KJV).
Art Katz Laporte, MN USA
Introduction to True Fellowship
From the inception of my salvation, and into the first four or five years of it, I intuited that something was wrong in contemporary church life. Where was the power of God? Where was the glory and the apostolic reality? Where was the "Kingdom come"? Why could we not say in our generation as the saints of old said in theirs, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!"? Why are we trying to induce people to "accept Jesus" on the basis of the benefit that will come to them for accepting Him? Why were we not speaking to them in terms of repentance in the light of a soon-coming Kingdom? Could it be that there was no actual "Kingdom at hand" that would give us the authority to press that issue? By what means, therefore, do we obtain both the "Kingdom at hand" and the authority?
The Lord's reply was to bring us to Minnesota, to a property that had previously been a Boy's Camp. When I stepped over the link chain that hung across the entrance to the property, the Lord spoke four things into my spirit: "Dominion. End-time teaching center. Community. Refuge." It was the beginning of a revelation of His Kingdom that had its outworking in hardship, anguish of soul, and the terrible disappointments and frustrations that can only come to us in true church experience. I marvel at the naiveté of Christians who think that church is a place where they are somehow going to be mollified or 'blessed' in a coddling kind of a way. They do not know that it is the very place in which God, in His wisdom, has reserved His most exquisite forms of suffering in order to bring us more rightly into the knowledge of Him and His purposes. That has been my experience, and I would not trade it for anything!
Paul tells us in his first letter to Timothy 3:15 that the church is the "pillar and ground of the truth" (KJV). To think that we can come to this character with others, corporately, on the basis of a Sunday service and midweek Bible study is already a deception; to come to this reality is going to take everything. It is going to take a people who recognize that church is not established for our enjoyment, but for His glory, and that it is an all-consuming, total requirement for which our jobs and careers are but secondary enablements. It behooves us, therefore, to come to this corporate life and character described by Paul.
We all suffer from an inadequate view of the Church. We have allowed the world to relegate us, as the Church, to some kind of Sunday afterthought, a kind of Christian cultural requirement that somehow serves the purposes of those who can obtain some benefit from it. The world does not see us as any more important than many other institutions that serve the purposes of men. We need, however, to have our understanding opened to an apostolic way of considering what the Church is according to God's intention.
It would not be unfair to say that the Church of today is essentially an aggregate of individualities; we sit alongside each other, but we are not yet "together" in the biblical sense of that word. We do not yet constitute that wholeness or completeness. We do not yet reflect the genius that is in the Godhead itself, where the Son does everything for the Father, likewise the Spirit for the Son, and the three are One. When we come to that kind of corporateness, the principalities and powers of the air will know it; but God first needs to reveal to us how deep-seated our individualism, self-will and rebellion are.
The powers of the world are increasing, captivating the souls of men, rooting them in time, and blocking from their consideration the things that are eternal. We cannot come to freedom from this evil influence by ourselves alone. Separation from the world is so painful, and those evil powers are so pervasive and strong.
And it is only through the support, the encouragement, the prayer, the wisdom, the counsel of others and the atmosphere that we generate together as the community of God's people that we can live and maintain that freedom without again being sucked back into the power of the world. Community or life together is one of God's main provisions to resist and to overcome those powers. The sons and daughters of God are those who overcome the world, the flesh and the devil, and there is no place more conducive for being or becoming this kind of people except in such an intensive community setting.
There is not a living soul whose life is, or will be, totally free from deception. Our lives need to be submitted to the examination of God through the brethren in Christ. It is a painful revelation, but rather that pain now than the unspeakable pain of learning at the Judgment Seat of Christ that we were living a delusion. We may have thought ourselves to be spiritual, while all along we were far removed from authenticity and reality. The Lord is not going to indulge our romantic or wistful view of what we think true spirituality is. His gracious provision, therefore, is community life in which the true condition of our heart, and the things that would not otherwise have been understood, have the greatest possibility of being revealed to us!
The quality of our fellowship with the Lord vertically cannot be any better or more authentic than our fellowship with the saints horizontally. We cannot have the one independent of the other, and we cannot have the one out of proportion to the other. How many of us think that we can, and love to be solitary and isolated saints, having some kind of imagined and euphoric relationship with God privately, but hardly having any patience at all for the saints who are His Body? How can we cherish the Head more than the Body, and how can we honor the Head outside of the Body? The Lord has fixed it like that-the vertical and the horizontal beams of the Cross-and the one is in exact proportion to the other. It saves us from exactly that soulish thing we would love to indulge, namely, isolation, separateness and privatistic living. God has called us to fellowship, and we are not going to see resurrection power and authority if we are not related in the Body authentically. God will not let us 'get by' with a supposed and imaginary vertical relationship with the Resurrected and Ascended One independent of an actual and existential one horizontally in His Body.
This requires something more than Sunday services. The Church needs to consider becoming a community in the sense of a closely-knit integration of life together in an intensive way. If it exceeds the numbers by which true relationship is feasible, then it cannot, in my opinion, attain to this reality. A generalized congregation of three hundred, five hundred or a thousand cannot effect what I am suggesting. Sadly, large church numbers are the great emphasis today, and constitute, therefore, a moving away from God's very provision for our sanity as well as the greater glory, namely, of being "witnesses unto Him."
As the conditions of the world become more extreme, people are going to be forced to choose more radically for or against God. We are in that painful interim between a conventional Christendom and the apostolic entity that God is wanting established again. And as we shall see, it is only the Church as an authentic, apostolic presence in the earth that can possibly fulfill its eternal purpose of making known the manifold wisdom of God to the principalities and powers of the air (Ephesians 3:9-11).
Chapter 1 - The Body of Christ
The Body of Christ is an eternal masterpiece, and I do not think we have sufficiently appreciated God's intention for it. We do not show the respect and esteem that the Body deserves. We seem rather to look at each other inadequately. This must have something to do, in part, with our inability to discern the Body, where there is a kind of matter-of-fact, lackadaisical attitude of disrespect. We do not esteem Christ in His people nor do we esteem the variety of God's people with all of their inherent differences. We are selective, and are more responsive and partial to those who are like ourselves. We miss seeing, therefore, the fullness of Christ in His Body.
It requires a revelation, and here again, we stand in danger of taking something very holy and making it a commonplace. We can glibly speak the phrase "The Body of Christ," but does that mean we have a true understanding of it? For me, the revelation of the Body came out of the struggle with my own wife in trying to reconcile the Jew and the Gentile, male and female. There are multitudes of contradictions represented right there, but the glory of God is most revealed in the taking of two antithetical persons and making of them 'one new man.' It is in the antagonism, the friction, and the issues of reconciliation that one begins to glimpse something of the genius of what the Body is as a living organism. God desires that we become 'one' as the Son and the Father are one even in, and especially in, all of the diversity and differences.
There is even a colossal friction between the different, legitimate callings within the Body of Christ, for example, the teacher and the prophet. A teacher sees things as "line upon line and precept upon precept." He is very fastidious about the word of the Scriptures and rightly so but a prophet operates in a different way. He will employ the Scriptures, but sometimes he will go beyond its literal meaning, or seize on something as obscure as a ketchup label! This offends the teacher's soul to the same degree that the prophetic soul is offended by what he perceives as the teacher's narrower vision. God Himself has established these differences, knowing that there is going to be an inherent tension or antagonism.
And so, if God will not do anything outside His Body, in any nation, in the concluding of His Last Days' purposes, then we need to have a greater respect and esteem for this phenomenon of the Body of Christ. It is not to be mistaken for the institutional use of that word, or even in charismatic and evangelical churches where an institutional mentality and mindset often prevail. On account of the casual manner of our language and the lack of discerning the Body, we even talk now about unity in the Body of Christ as meaning some kind of ecumenical coming together of Catholics and Protestants, or different denominations coming to some common organizational agreement. I do not have a word sufficient to describe that distortion. It is certainly a caricature of the divine intention, and it stems from the error of mindlessly using the phrase "the Body of Christ." The Body is a living organism in the intention of God, sacred and holy, and only in that form does it have a life that flows out from the Head to which it is joined. Such an authentic Body, unobtrusive and unrecognized by the world, has always been, and will always be, an object of collision and opposition to that which is institutional.
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12).
It is little wonder that the institutional Church, by whatever name it is called, does not respond hospitably to God-sent apostles and prophets. Institutions demand that you go through a credentializing process through the attending of schools and seminaries. You are labeled "evangelist," "pastor" or "teacher," and get fitted into the institutional framework, but that does not mean God recognizes or authenticates your service for Him. The true Body of Christ will recognize and receive what is organically fitted for itself and will reject the thing that is organically alien. The opposite is equally true; the institutional thing cannot accommodate and receive the organic thing for they are diametrically opposed.
The purposes of God that pertain to His Coming, His Kingdom and His eternal glory will only be performed through His Body, and yet this organic entity, by its very nature, requires such a painful process in attaining the fulness that God is wanting.
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Eph. 4:13-16).
Verse 15 begins with the phrase, "speaking the truth in love," which, in the Body, is an absolute necessity, but it can be avoided in any fellowship that is not the Body, but rather, an institutional formality. You can go to meetings in such a fellowship for a lifetime and never once be required, or be given opportunity, to speak the truth in love; but once you come into the Body, then it becomes virtually a daily necessity. The process of being edified and built up comes by what we ourselves provide in the working of every part, causing growth for the building up of itself. To build up means to bring about the actual formation and the coming into being. The supply comes from the Head to whom we are joined, but how does it find its working? There is no problem from the Head, but as liberal as the Head is in wanting to impart life to the Body, this life can be stopped up, coagulated and blocked.
We are more restricted and minimal with each other than we think. Our time, our attention, our interests, our gifts and our finances are measured out in 'spoonfuls.' What the Lord is looking for and that fills the house with the fragrance of Christ is a lavish overflow of the Body, because we esteem the Head to which it is joined, as being one Divine organism. I am always asking people, "To what expression of the Body are you joined?" This is different from asking, "What church do you attend?" The church you attend may be the place of your ministry and service as a mission field. We may sit in a church building, but if it is not an expression
of the Body, then we are losing the flow of life from the Head to which only a Body is joined. And we cannot, therefore, build ourselves up by that love and life and by what "every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part."
I am suggesting a prescription that is totally opposed to passivity. In the conventional situation, we sit inactive, and only punctuate the proceedings now and then by our "amens" or "hallelujahs." In the Body, however, this posture is altogether unacceptable. "When you assemble," Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:26, "each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation." That is how the life of the Body is expressed to the Body. But where are we ever encouraged to "each one having"? Rather, we have been compelled to a passivity, and to looking up to trained men to conduct the service. Furthermore, we are only too willing to pay the cost of it that we might be absolved from the spiritual responsibility of having to share a hymn, a psalm, a tongue, an interpretation, a prophecy, a revelation or a teaching! The Body is therefore emaciated, being inadequately fed. We cannot grow, and we are therefore limp, disjointed and anemic. We are left weakened if this life-giving provision does not come out of, and into, our midst. There can be no excuse to justify our inactivity and passivity. When we come together, we should have prepared ourselves already in the place of prayer, fully expecting that God is going to quicken and bring something through us.
When Paul came back a year or two later to those places where he had established churches, he had only to appoint elders. It was not some capricious choice but a recognition of the ones whom God had already promoted. He saw the maturity that was already evidenced in certain men. He saw those who had risen to assume responsibility so as to oversee and shepherd others, and he laid hands on them and prayed for them before the Body, and, by that act, he recognized and established them as elders. The expression of the Body in those localities grew and matured during Paul's absence because each one had a psalm, a teaching, etc.
The Unity of the Body
"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!" (Psalm 133:1).
Unity is not cheap, nor is it something we can ordain, enforce or establish politically. Once it is obtained and maintained, we need to jealously guard it. The word dwell indicates something more than a transient moment; it is a consistent thing that requires remarkable investment to obtain.
It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edges of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, coming down upon the mountains of Zion; for there the LORD commanded the blessing-life forever (verses 2-3).
This anointing is not the statement of our individual virtuosity or singular callings, but what we enjoy because of our relationship together that comes down on the head of Aaron and his beard. But if we are individualistically-minded, especially about our own calling, gift and ministry, we will hold the view that anointing is relative to our gift. I am utterly assured that the anointing of God, which is the life of God and the power of God, is the issue of our relatedness to the Body that dwells together in unity. It was true at the first and it will be true again at the last.
And with great power the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all (Acts 4:33).
The abundant grace was the presence of God's Spirit, because there was an "all-ness." They were a people tempered together. This is more than merely being alongside of each other; there was a oneness that was more than congeniality. It results from the ability to suffer each other in our failures, infirmities, weaknesses and humiliations. It is nurtured in an environment that is loving and that allows for failure and error and does not condemn. It sees the weakness and the demerit of the brother and speaks to Christ about him in prayer. God reserves His anointing for the expression of a people who dwell together in unity. He has commanded His blessing in that place and in no other.
They would not have had enough power to inflate a balloon let alone penetrate the same Jewish community that had so recently crucified Christ if they were not dwelling together in unity. This unity will not come to us except we break through the stifling structures that have been historically ours, predicated upon customary Sunday service and mid-week Bible studies. There has got to be a breaking through into the dimension of the Life of God, both together, and on a daily or frequent basis. Nothing else will achieve that dwelling together in unity. To come to this unity is not some ecumenical design that is going to be established on a platform by the religious skill of men, but by those who are willing to pay the price for it in the necessary suffering that alone obtains it. This is not an option or an alternative, but the definitive desire of God from the first, for all generations and especially the last.
Chapter 2 - The Mystery of the Church
Paul's letter to the Ephesians has a very distinctive content. There are concepts and views expressed in it of such a lofty and ultimate kind that our tendency is to allow its statements to pass over our heads. They seem to create a kind of misty aura of high-sounding things that seem to us impractical and unobtainable. There is, however, something that needs to come into our perception of the grand essence of what Paul is saying if we are to be an apostolic presence in the earth, which is to say, true church. If we do not sense the ultimacy of the things that pertain to God's eternal purposes here, then we are rendered inert in time; we will fall short of the glory of God.
In chapter 3, Paul talks about the mystery of the Church. And we can go no further unless we have a proper attitude toward the mysteries of God-a sense of reverence and appreciation for them and a desire that they be unveiled and revealed-because that revelation changes everything. God is jealous over His own mysteries, and He is not going to allow them to be mishandled, trifled with or rudely examined by those who do not have a right disposition of spirit for them. Paul is not interested in promulgating a mystery in order that we should have our curiosity gratified, but in order that the mystery might be administered and effectually fulfilled through the Church. With the revelation of the mysteries, there is a requirement to embrace and experience them, or we will be unfitted to be the Church in its full apostolic constituency. And it is only as an apostolic Church that we can fulfill these mysteries. Mysteries are reserved for holy apostles and prophets; they must come to us through them; then the teachers can follow in order to sift and refine and show the application.
...which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. To me, the very least of all saints...(verses 5-8a).
This is Paul as he really saw himself, and because he saw himself as the least, he was therefore given the most. To Paul it was given the stewardship of the mysteries of God. God will not give mysteries to self-assertive and ambitious people who would use them for the advancement of their own careers and the recognition of men. This is the Paul who saw himself as the least of all saints-not just then, but throughout his entire apostolic career. The test of the maturity of a believer is that the more deeply he understands God's way and is brought through humility into the reality of His mysteries and call, the more he is aware of his nothingness.
One Body
The "body" mentioned in verse 6 is the already existing body of Jewish believers who never left the faith, who recognized and received the Messiah and who received the Holy Spirit that was promised them. The mystery, however, is that Gentiles can now be fellow heirs with them and fellow partakers with them in Messiah Jesus through the gospel. The biblical faith of the God of Jacob, which is the inheritance of the Jews, has now been made available to Gentiles. In other words, Gentiles 'stumbled' into the Hebraic faith, and in fact, it is even a mystery that God welcomed them in! To be apprehended by, and brought into, an understanding of this mystery is calculated to change us-otherwise we will be brazen and arrogant: "Our Christianity." We have been allowed into something that has its roots in the God of Israel, and that goes back to the very inception of His redemptive history.
Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both into one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity (Eph. 2:12-16).
Gentiles, who were once without God and without hope in the world, have been brought, by the blood of the Messiah Jesus, into 'the commonwealth of Israel' where Jews in times past counted it unclean even to enter
into a Gentile home. Paul reiterates this same mystery in Colossians 1:25-27,
Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
There is no contradiction between these two texts. Gentiles are brought into the commonwealth of Israel, into their hopes and promises into Christ Himself. That is how we were brought in. It is the same mystery expressed in yet another way. In the past, believing Jews were in that Life, and now Gentiles are brought also into that same reality. This is not a cultural call to some "Judaistic" thing, but the Life of God in Messiah, in which Jewish believers and Gentiles are joined and made one new man. This is the faith to which we are called.
In other words, God has brought Gentiles into the Hebraic root, a root that is in God and in the life sap of God through the blood of the Messiah Jesus! Gentiles, up to the time of Christ, had been outside and excluded from the faith with few exceptions. Together with the believing remnant of Jews of every generation, God is making of us one new man, and that is the genius of what we call the Church. Here we have the very essence of the wisdom of God. God is demonstrating to the powers of the air that not only can Jews and Gentiles sit alongside each other, but also that they have come to a place where they have equally transcended what is both Jewish and Gentile, and constitute now a new reality. It would be a reality never before seen, and that could only be established by the power of Messiah and His life. This is beyond what the world knows 'unity' to mean. The world is satisfied with "ecumenical" unity, some kind of religious-political thing where we agree to respect each other's differences. God is, however, after something more glorious and which requires His power to establish, for which He has poured out His blood and given His Spirit. Two diverse and contrary entities becoming one new man is that glory.
It is the same mystery as the mystery of marriage, in which God is not calling us to compatibility, but to become one new creature in Christ together. Needless to say, it is a painful process, but it is a process that reveals God's glory, because His interest is to bring about in us much more than the success of our natural compatibility. The issue is the revelation of His glory. The mystery is union, and union that is only made possible in the life of God in Christ. The letter to the Colossians stresses the life and Ephesians speaks of the covenants and promises, but it is not God in opposition to Himself. We need to apprehend the spectacular genius of the Church, and that it itself is a mystery for these very reasons. And it is only the Cross the supreme demonstration of God's wisdom that makes that glory a possibility. It is the only place by which we can bring to death the things that keep us from becoming one.
The oneness that Jesus spoke about in His high priestly prayer, "That they may be one even as we are one," is of a different kind altogether than what is generally labeled as the "unity of the Body of Christ." True union is not a humanistic 'getting along,' but the same kind of oneness that characterizes and describes the Godhead Themselves: Father, Son and Holy Spirit deferring one to another in a precious quality of submitting relationship that make them One. When the Church will exhibit that oneness, though they are different, being Jew and Gentile and historically always at enmity with each other, then the principalities and powers of the air will be defeated by the very reality of it. That is one of the reasons we need to pray for that remnant of Jews to be grafted back into their own root and back into the Church, in order that this mystery might be completed.
The Eternal Purpose of the Church
Paul is now going to reveal the heart of the mystery of the Church and its purpose for being, particularly in relation to the principalities and powers of the air. It is the same mystery as the mystery of Israel spoken of in Romans 11, insofar as the fulfillment of the one is also the fulfillment of the other.
To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:8-10).
There is nothing in the world that can fit us to understand this. In fact, everything in the world is calculated to keep us from understanding it. God's wisdom is at odds with every assumed rational, sane and conventional
understanding of life, its purpose and its meaning. Unless we understand this reality, we do not understand the purpose of the Church, and we will therefore condemn the Church to some kind of Sunday addendum, some kind of institutional function that has for its purposes "us" rather than Him. That is a fatal mistake. We are not true church until this mystery comes into the central place of our consideration. We are too rooted in the immediate, rooted in our needs and in the visible and temporal. God intends for us to have a view of the unseen that alone is calculated to free us from the bondage of narrow self-interest. This is God's genius and wisdom. He did not give us His eternal purposes because He wants to 'get fancy.' He knew that if we were not occupied with something that is beyond this age, we would become so rooted in this age that we would be null and void to address this present age.
God's eternal purposes can only be performed through the Church, a demonstration of a certain magnitude that is not primarily for the benefit of mankind as an evangelistic witness to the nations. This is beyond that and more ultimate than that, even though mankind will be instructed by this demonstration. It is cosmic, beyond the earth, and occupies all the ages to come. God is delighted by it; it is something that He wants, and He has created all things in order that this should take place. It has absolutely nothing to do with our success or our well being, with our enjoyment or any of those things with which we are so occupied. It is totally irrelevant to the practicalities of our daily life, and yet our daily life will suffer in exact proportion to our indifference to the eternal purposes of God. Is that not why we have insoluble problems in our daily life? Is that not why we are sickly? We are suffused and suffocated and taken up with myopic concentration upon ourselves. We like to feel our spiritual pulse and the programmatic activity of the congregation all centered in an egocentric Christendom.
We will never be saved from sins, lusts and the distractions of the world unless our souls are preeminently occupied with God's purposes for our salvation. The only thing calculated to liberate us is to be taken up with the eternal purposes of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing else has the power to counter the powers of the world and the things that are secular, mundane, and that clutch at us even things that have a seeming legitimacy. Good, respectable, conventional and legitimate things can occupy us as much as, or more than, the more blatant orgies of materialism.
To take this seriously will alert the principalities and powers that we have now become something formidable, and that they need to regard us with a certain tremor of apprehension and fear. Let them see a people who are earnest for the eternal purposes of God and there will be a war being waged in the heavenlies that we will feel and encounter. At the same time, that very opposition is part of God's strategy to prepare us for our participation in His millennial rule.
The Manifold Wisdom of God
There is a hint here of a primeval, cosmic struggle or conflict between light and the powers of darkness, preceding even the creation of the world. It is a struggle between two value systems, namely, the gods of this world and the God of creation. We are entering the last of this struggle, and the sparks will fly fiercely right until the last resolution. It is so enormous in God's sight that He did not think it too extravagant to create all things in order that this drama could be played out. The world was created in order that it might support an entity called the Church that would bring this conflict to its final conclusion by something that it alone can demonstrate, namely, the manifold wisdom of God. The Church has languished for millennia long without an understanding of this, and has therefore been the victim of these very powers of the air instead of being God's answer to defeat them.
This manifold wisdom of God is not to be demonstrated to the world, but to the invisible spirit realm of the principalities and powers of the air. In other words, this mystery has nothing to do with anything that we can recognize as being valid or important for the Church, nor has it anything to do with benefit that the world will receive by our believing. Rather, it has only to do with something that pleases God-a calculated demonstration of His wisdom to an invisible angelic order, and it must be made exclusively through the Church. It is totally other than anything that we might have taken for ourselves as the purpose for the Church's being. God does not tell us why He wants this demonstration, but it is important to Him, and therefore we need to heed it. If we think that God owes us an explanation, then we need to radically examine the roots of our conversion.
The phrase "all things" that He created includes the cosmos, the planets and their cycles, an earth that would be life sustaining, whole species of beings, economies, civilizations and a whole supportive structure. And out of it all, one thing should rise up that could not have risen without all that supportive structure and
that one thing was so important in God's sight that it was worth it all-and that one thing is the Church!
To Him be Glory in the Church
We have been brainwashed, and have consciously or unconsciously accepted the world's definition of Church. The government gives their tax-deductible status to us because they want us to agree that the Church is only a humanly defined institution serving human need. That mindset is an absolutely perverse definition of what the Church is. Serving human need is incidental. The Church's whole purpose is to serve divine need and to glorify God, and there is no other agency given in the earth whereby that glory is to be obtained other than through the Church:
To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen (Eph. 3:21).
Any church that has lost the sense of the meaning of that word "glory" has voided itself as church. If the purpose of the Church is that He might be glorified throughout all generations forever and ever, and we ourselves have lost the sense of what glory is, then what are we about? Glory is not some fanciful word. God intended His glory to be normative, and there was to be a radiance of this glory that was to permeate His creation. The world has no inkling what glory is. They are certainly the victims of its absence, and God has so calculated it that the Church is the only means by which His glory is to find entry into the earth and be made known. A church that has already opted for programs and for things that will serve the needs of men has, by that very means, disqualified itself from being the agency through which His purposes can be fulfilled. If we miss that God's purpose for the Church, we have missed everything; we condemn ourselves to being only institutional and accommodating to men and their human need. We miss their greatest need, namely, to make the glory of God known.
The whole of our modern Christianity is more or less predicated upon the needs of men, rather than the glory of God, but we shall never come to kingdom righteousness so long as our need is the predicate of our lives and the hub and pivot around which all things turn. We will never come to sanity and wholeness, nor will we ever come to the end of all our deliverance and inner-healing ministries. Our real sickness is our self-centeredness. To come into the eternal purposes of God will ruin us for church programs and the multitude of things we think we need in order to satisfy the saints. The present day proliferation of programs is a statement that the Church has lost this apostolic view, and like the world, it has got to provide services and benefits to hold the attention of its congregations. We must not allow the world to define the Church for us and allow them to fit us into their box as a kind of amenity, a little religious and spiritual service that is offered on Sunday. We are not jealous enough for the perfect and have not recognized that the good is as much an enemy of the perfect as evil. We are, therefore, ameliorating the needs that are about us and think that that is the purpose for which we are called. We have not understood that the central and foundational calling as the Church is "Unto Him."
Saved for His Purposes
This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord (verse 11).
What expression of the Body can there be that does not make as its first priority the taking to itself of God's eternal purposes? A church that does not live for the eternal purposes of God is not living. Is it not little more than a succession of mere services? It has lost, or never had, this vital perspective as the reason for its being, and we are not truly saved until we have been fully apprehended by the purposes for our salvation. We are in an unbroken continuum with those who have embraced the purposes of God and for which reason they were hacked to death, sacrificed and cut up, murdered and butchered in a kind of satanic fury that seeks to nullify this ultimate intention of God through the Church. That is why there are so few who want to hear the call of God, because God calls us to His purposes and not to our own. We will no longer have an ear for the "faith-prosperity" message when once we are taken up with the purposes of God and the things that redound to His satisfaction. It will be a foul thing in our nostrils to "have faith" for a Cadillac or a healing. Is the whole purpose for the glory of the faith that we rub a genie lamp and exercise a principle that will redound in a Cadillac? What a travesty and heresy! It is itself a statement of judgment on a church that has fallen asleep and has lost sight of, or never had, an apostolic and ultimate purpose. And into that vacuum have come other equally infantile and deceptive things.
What is the wisdom of God?
The wisdom of this world is predicated on self-interest, namely, "What is in it for me? What benefit do I gain by believing?" God is wanting another wisdom to defeat that wisdom, namely, a people who will give their lives for something that has no immediate or practical relevance or consequence for themselves. It is a demonstration of another wisdom that is heavenly. It powerfully frees that person from self-interest. It gives him a motive for being and for doing in things that are outside himself. The world's system does not believe you can do it. They want to bring you into their vortex and have you march to their beat, "You have got to take care of number one. Be practical! After all, what about your responsibility? What about your children? Why leave your profession and thrust your family into insecurity and risk because you think God is calling you? If you do not take care of yourself, then who will? Self-preservation is the law of life. Creation will tell you that. Don't get absurd about it, and radical, and consider your life as nothing. Do what is required to preserve it, to advance it and to promote it. And in the last analysis, if you have to use a shady thing or two, or even employ a threat, or an inducement, or an enticement, or an encouragement for promotion, or the use of intimidation, well, that is the way the world goes." That is the voice of conventional wisdom-and the voice of the world. It is a wisdom that makes mankind to fall in line and do their bidding and worship them as false gods.
Whatever the manifold wisdom of God is, we know this much, it will be contrary in every point and particular to the wisdom of the gods of this world. It is another wisdom, a heavenly wisdom, and when the Church can demonstrate it, the powers of the air, who have kept nations and races of men in bondage and subjection to false values, are finished. Where there is a church that can see through them and live independently of them and demonstrate true values, then those powers have no further influence whatsoever. Unless we break through to an understanding of this, our spiritual life will be stifled and church will be nothing more than a succession of services, and we will not be part of the fulfillment of the mystery. We have to decide whether we will be part of this or not. We do not have to be, and unhappily, if we are not, we will be in something that is called "Christian" but it will likely be apostate.
The Principalities and Powers of the Air
There is an invisible realm over the nations and over every locality, occupied by an order of fallen, rebellious angels, who have influenced, and continue to influence, the course of history in nations, races and men. The horrors that are taking place worldwide have their source and origin in the influence that is being exerted through men on the earth by these powers. Mankind is unaware that they are being played upon, and through intimidation, threat, ambition, lust and fear are being enslaved and moved about by these powers.
These angelic powers were created by God, and for God, in order that they might administer His creation in a way that would be conducive to God's purpose in man's coming to the knowledge of Him. They were created to preserve a certain structure to God's creation in order that man might seek and find Him. In their rebellion, however, they are usurping the role and office that was given them, and are turning the attention of men away from God. When this administrative order fell, it took on the spirit of Satan who said, "I will rise above the Most High." This is the ultimate egotism. Not content to serve the purposes of God administratively, they have used that place to win the allegiance, loyalty, devotion and worship of men unto themselves. They are, however, fallen and defeated powers, yet they can still influence, corrupt and adversely affect entire societies, communities and nations; they operate through the institutions of religion, commerce, politics and culture the most powerful being religion.
This is foundational to the true apostolic consciousness of the Church and its purpose, and we condemn ourselves to futility if we do not recognize that we "wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and rulers of this world's darkness" (Eph. 6:12). We wrestle. This is a collective and corporate requirement of a church that has come to that place of true "corporateness." That is why Satan would much rather see us doing all of our good deeds and individual activities, to keep us from obtaining the place by which we can come to such a composite character together.
The Two Wisdoms
We have got to see what our life in Christ means as the Church, and understand that we are called by God to a cosmic and final struggle in a battle with the powers of darkness over the whole issue of which wisdom will prevail over God's creation. Wisdom does not mean what we would ordinarily think it to mean. It is not wise sayings, but more like value systems. The wisdom of the gods of this world is a system predicated on force, violence, threat, fear, ambition, lust, intimidation and the terror of men to preserve themselves, and to make their own survival the first law of life. Their system is the unchallenged premise by which the world lives its life, namely, the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure, and makes that the foremost purpose of its
being. The ability to lay down one's life and not to consider that one's life is dear to oneself is the wisdom of God. This wisdom is predicated on weakness and foolishness. The one wisdom lives for itself, its own preservation and its own advantages, while God's wisdom lives for another. The wisdom of the Son of God is selfless; He never initiated anything for Himself, but lived entirely for the gratification of His Father.
This is contrary to human nature and how we think man has to live. Everything that is resolved through violence is the wisdom of this world. That is the way the world has lived its life throughout history. God's wisdom is to relinquish, to give up, to yield and to believe that there is something greater than death and, by that, overcome the fear of death. God's wisdom is of another kind that is centered in the Cross of Christ Jesus, namely, to serve and glorify Him, and if that does not bring us suffering, nothing else will. We will know that we have aligned ourselves with God when we constitute a threat to the realm of spirit powers that brood over us. The overcomers at the end of the age are not those who attain to a painless, pleasant life; they are those who do not "love their lives, even unto death" (Rev. 12:11).
This is the wisdom that the world cannot bear. The only one who can live like that truly is one who does not think that this life is the whole story. There is an eternity, and it is the true appreciation of that fact that enables us to be fearless in this life. If we suffer the loss of our life, we are fully persuaded that it is not mere happenstance or accident, but ordained of God, and that there will be a reward for that sacrifice and suffering. We are living and moving by another wisdom.
Defeating the Powers
The presence of a people in any locality, who are free from the influence of the powers, will break up the whole alignment of the powers of darkness that brood over that community, and thereby release its captives. When we are ourselves insecure, fearful, guarding our lives jealously, afraid to take the risks of faith and playing it safe, then the powers of the air are not required to acknowledge us at all. They are not impressed with our rallies, our music and our noise. They are only impressed with the same thing they saw both in Jesus and in Paul, namely, apostolic authenticity, the reality of God Himself. This is the only thing they are required to recognize-the thing that is of God and like God-as authentic as He Himself is, which is another synonym for apostolic. God is wanting authenticity in His people. He is wanting heavenliness, truth, unfeigned love and all the realities that are so painful to obtain. We have all been the products of a flaky and devious civilization that majors on appearances and outward things. Where they see the truth of God in the life of His people, they will retreat. They know whom to fear and whom to acknowledge.
The powers are not defeated by turning up the amplifiers in our worship or by shouting them down. It is not noise that impresses them, but character. It is the truth of life where we really live, not the brave show that we put on when we think we have it all together, but what is true of us through and through. They have got to see in our conduct and character the visible evidence of our freedom from the influence of their wisdom. They have got to see that we are unafraid and cannot be intimidated, and that we can say with Jesus when Pontius Pilate said to Him:
"Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?"
With a perfect peace, Jesus replied, "You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above" (John 19:10b-11a).
The wisdom of God was superbly demonstrated at the Cross of Calvary when the supreme Son of God relinquished the right to His own life and gave it up by the Eternal Spirit, the Spirit of sacrifice, without spot and without blemish unto God. He offered Himself up without complaint and without answering His critics back. He was a Lamb who went silently to the slaughter. He was even goaded by His own people to come down from the Cross before they would believe Him. He suffered that anguish for others while at the same time hearing their taunts and mocks. If there was anything in Him that had to do with self-justification and self-vindication, it would have risen up then, "You dumb idiots! I am doing this for you! Don't you understand?" But instead He says, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." Another wisdom was expressed contrary to the logic that the moment would have justified.
It was at the Cross that two systems of wisdom collided. Jesus fully absorbed the fury of the powers of darkness that wanted to destroy Him, thus obliterating the threat that He represented to their kingdom.
When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him (Col. 2:15).
By demonstrating the superior wisdom of God, Jesus disarmed and brought a foundational and devastating setback to the principalities and powers at the Cross. The powers of the air exhibited their wisdom-threat,
intimidation, the use of force and violence-in order to get Him to react in kind, and to rail against those who were railing against Him. Jesus consistently demonstrated something unto death by bearing the worst that they could inflict. Wisdom is not something that is necessarily vocally exhibited; it has got to be demonstrated in life. Ultimate malignity met ultimate magnanimity-the ultimate graciousness of God, the forbearance of God, the humility of God and the forgiveness of God. Meekness triumphed over viciousness, and it is the same demonstration that will make God eternally joyous, but this time through the Church, for which reason He has "created all things" (Eph. 3:9).
The powers thought that they had won because they had brought Him into death, but Jesus bore that death in a way that revealed the wisdom of God and it is that which defeats them. If force cannot compel a man to react in kind, what else can they use? If they cannot manipulate you to be like them to protect your carnal and bodily life and cry out and compromise and do anything to stay alive then they have no more power over you. If you are willing to die in your integrity in the faith and count it even as a privilege, what more can they do to defeat you? You have defeated them because the worst that they can do has come upon you and you have stood and remained faithful to God and exhibited the character of God in your suffering.
If the princes of this world had only known, "they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2:8). They did not realize that by imposing their full wisdom, which is predicated upon force and destruction, they were releasing a resurrection and a life that would billow out over mankind throughout all generations, and would bring the final triumph of God and the raising of the dead. It set in motion the very things that would establish His throne, in the very city where He was put to death. Through His death and out of His rent side would be birthed a predominantly Gentile Church. The Spirit would be poured out from the Throne of God that would give an enablement and a power to fulfill its mandate and commission of ushering in His own millennial glory and Kingdom upon the throne of David. The powers suffered a severe setback with the crucifixion of Jesus when He made an open spoil of them and took the keys of death and of Hell. He disarmed them, but He did not inflict the final defeat. Their final defeat remains to be fulfilled by the Church in the mystery of God.
A Corporate Demonstration
We are coming to the end of the age, and the magnitude of this eternal purpose and this demonstration is of such a kind that individual saints will not make it without one another. It is the Church in its entirety, because the Church is the Church only in its corporate make-up, that is to say, in all of the diversity of what constitutes it, otherwise it is not the Church. We are in something together, both the minister and the housewife, and we need to be consciously aware of that, and to prepare ourselves for the final conclusion of this mystery. It requires an entire people freed from the influence of the principalities and the powers of the air. It requires a people who are not insecure, not fearful and not living for themselves. It requires a people who are gloriously freed from mammon and who are indifferent to shopping malls. They can have their car crunched in an accident and walk away smiling. They can suffer affliction and inexplicable things without coming undone. They can receive the stripping of their earthly goods with joy, knowing that they "have in heaven a better and more enduring substance" (Heb. 10:34).
In fact, the only people who can fulfill this mystery are those who would be "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb. 11:13). They have risen above and beyond their national culture. They are not fearful, but gloriously free from intimidation and threat. They know that their security is not from the Government or their employer, but from God. If that source should dry up, then the Lord has alternative sources. If it pleases Him not to provide for them, then they will prefer to die in faith rather than that they should subsist and prolong their bodily life by initiating some course of action out of themselves.
A church that can defeat the powers by the demonstration of the wisdom of God is likely to replace these powers in the governmental sphere in the heavenlies over the earth when the Lord establishes His millennial rule (one thousand year reign). It is the fulfillment of the Church's call to rule and reign with Him from heavenly places. In 1 Cor. 6, Paul encountered two believers in Corinth who were going to a worldly court of law to resolve a difference between them. Paul was flabbergasted, and asked them (paraphrased): "What are you doing going to a worldly court to resolve a dispute between yourselves as believers? Don't you know that you are called to rule over angels and nations? You are called to bring judgment and wisdom over nations. That is what you are being groomed for." He was astonished that they did not understand that.
Elsewhere in the Scriptures we read of the reward that the Lord gives to faithful stewards. Some will rule over two cities, some over five and some will rule over ten-not in this life, but in the millennial age to come. We have not sufficiently considered that millennial future, and our lives are suffering for the lack of that
consideration. God's intention that we take eternal consideration into our present now. The Millennium is not some airy, abstract phrase, but the advent and establishment of God's eternal rule on the earth. It is a Theocratic Kingdom administered through glorified saints in the heavenlies, overcomers in this life, who will have different places in the rule of God, and the reward of God, according to their fruitfulness in this life. Once this life is finished, those issues are decided. It is not an immoral thing to be jealous for eternal distinction and reward; it is something that ought to be in our present consciousness, the absence of which condemns our lives to being merely predictable and ordinary. Do we have works that will survive the fire that are not hay, wood and stubble, but gold, silver and precious stones? Are we laying up treasure in heaven? Are we heavenly-minded? Are we eternally minded? Are we millennially minded?
To have this kind of mindset is to 'march by another beat' that no one else hears; we will have a motive that no one else can see. In fact, we have come to a new kind of contempt for the things that are visible, temporal and seen, and we are becoming more like Paul and enjoying and contemplating the things that are invisible and eternal. We are seeing by the eye of the Spirit the eternal weight of glory that makes the things in this life momentary, and our sufferings as "light affliction." Paul saw the things that were invisible and did not focus on the things that were visible, the things that we love to let our eyes dwell upon. If we are going to have any sense of the things that are eternal, it is only in proportion to our contemplation of, and our seeing, the things that are invisible. That means dumping the mail-order catalogs, pulling the plugs out of television sets, and averting our eyes from attractive men and women, or even yourself. If we are at ease in this life, then we are, as it were, outside the faith. If this world, its wisdom, its morality, its perversions and its corruption do not daily chafe us, then the world is too much with us. We need to be chafed, as righteous Lot was, and constantly praying, "Come, Lord Jesus!"
zing, is blessed and honored of God? Likewise, it is perhaps wise to also consider whether any message, however correct, is indeed the word of God, especially if it was humanly contrived to avoid the very humiliation which I am suggesting is at the heart of the gospel as "event." If preaching Christ is more than the message about Him, but is rather, the showing forth of Him, then the God who sends may yet be waiting for suitable candidates for His sending. The issue is the issue of the Cross, and one might rightly suspect that it will not come to men with full conviction, except through the lips of those who know the Cross in their own experience, and are willing to suffer the humiliation of it again and again in the very foolishness of their speaking. If our speaking is not foolishness, then it is not a true speaking. It may amuse men, it may even inform and inspire, but it will never be an event.
Our own generation, like that of the Corinthians to whom Paul wrote, bears a greater affinity for sophistication and self-adulation than the God who made Himself of no reputation. A true preaching requirement, rightly considered, would be for us to think often of our wretchedness, that we may only have contempt for ourselves and our ability. To preach truly is not the issue of skill or learned technique, but a divine mystery. The very word "preaching" is derived from the Latin word praedikare, which means "to make known." As I have said, it was at the Cross that an uninitiated centurion, dulled by participation in much murder and violence, was compelled to proclaim, "Truly, this was the Son of God." Whenever Christ's humiliation is explicated in the foolishness of preaching, He is again revealed and set forth to be the Savior. For just as God gives grace to the humble, so also does He, who is full of grace and truth, have opportunity to intersect time and eternity,
heaven and earth, in the moment of authentic meekness when a preacher ceases from himself.
A familiar illustration of this cruciform life is to be found in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians where he exclaims:
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified (Chap. 1:1-2).
For all of Paul's erudition and religious knowledge, that kind of self-imposed limitation required a painful determination. The trouble is that we k now so much, and so much that we know wants to find expression. It requires therefore a determination to put away what is so accessible and available to our preaching.
True Preaching Waits on True Sending
Everything rests on the preacher being sent. This means that the community sending him is of one mind with him. They necessarily share the same mentality and Cross-centeredness or God would not say, "Set apart for Me," except that the man was already separated and could be sent by the laying on of hands by people of like mind, heart and spirit. The man sent is being sent in place of Christ, and those who are hearing him are hearing exactly what they would have heard had Christ Himself come in person to them. To be sent is much more than being commissioned; it is rather to be sent in place of another and the Other is Christ Himself, and it is through those who are sent that the people hear Christ's voice and speech.
But what does it say? "THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART"-that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, "WHOSOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him; "WHOEVER WILL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED." How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GLAD TIDINGS OF GOOD THINGS!" However, they did not all heed the glad tidings for Isaiah says, "LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:8-17).
The reducing of this to a formula, putting before the hearer and particularly the Jew some kind of 'easy-believism,' characterizes, in fact, most of modern day evangelism, and has left many outside the Kingdom. The hearers recite a "repeat after me" prayer and miss the whole profound point. There is a certain kind of hearing that is required for a certain kind of believing; and that requires, therefore, a certain kind of preaching a certain kind of word. Paul is actually citing from the Book of Isaiah where the prophet says,
How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, "Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7).
This verse is, however, preceded by something remarkable in verse 6,
Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore in that day I am the one who is speaking, "Here I am."
The word announce is better understood as meaning pronounce or proclaim. It is not merely an announcement or verbalization, but a word that constitutes an event when it is sounded. Announcement does not quite get at the distinctive of true preaching. True proclamation is more than informative; it is a creative 'rhema' and breath of God, in the hearing of which an event occurs faith is established where there was none before.
God is not telling us to propound the faith to others in a systematic way by which their logic can be satisfied, so they can be won over by some kind of invincible logic of statements. He says rather that the key to their believing, and their calling on the name of the Lord, is the hearing of a particular word, namely, the word of Christ Himself. The feet of those who bear good news are called lovely or blessed because, "I am the one who is speaking, 'Here I am.'" The One who is speaking through those whose feet bear the good tidings is not the earthen vessel on that mount, but the One who possesses that life and is speaking through the earthen vessel. It is actually Christ's own word. They hear the voice of God, and His word is as creative as it was in
the beginning when He spoke, and it was.
The voice, the speaking, the content, and the words that constitute the creative event that establishes faith to believe, enabling the hostile and resistant to call on His name, is actually His voice, His speaking and His words. We might believe it could come through some giants of the faith like Paul, but can we believe the phenomenon will come through ourselves? Or that God would have the possession of us, who are the sons and daughters of resurrection, so much that we might say with absolute certitude, "It is He who is speaking, here He is."? We are not just talking about effecting individual salvation however great that is, but the whole consummation of the age waits upon a restoration of a remnant from the people Israel, who have been historically and adamantly opposed to this very gospel, and who are the enemies of the gospel to this day "for our sake." How shall they believe in what they have so long rejected? God says through Paul that they shall hear a word of a particular kind.
Unless they hear Him, Christ's message and voice, they will not believe the truths of His death and resurrection. If you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, and God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved, but how shall they believe on Him unless they believe that He was raised from the dead? And how shall they believe that He was raised from the dead except that the evidence of the resurrection is in the words, the demeanor, the voice, the disposition and the constitution of the man who stands before them, whose feet are blessed on the holy mountain of God, and who shows forth, as a son of the resurrection, the truth of the resurrection, whose words are resurrection words of creative power that the hearers can believe? That is the issue of the salvation of the unsaved, and particularly of the Jew in the Last Days. It is ourselves and what we present to them that has the potential to bring about their salvation.
Resurrection Life
The issue of the resurrection is inextricably linked to the authenticity of Jesus' Lordship in the believer's life.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself to becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed upon Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:8-11).
The resurrection of Jesus is the exaltation of the One who experienced an ultimate humiliation unto death. His Lordship consists of His being exalted above every name, and that is what is conferred upon Him, through His resurrection, for His obedience unto death, even the death of the Cross. That is why "whosoever shall believe that Jesus is Lord and that God has raised Him from the dead shall be saved." Those are the two principal doctrines, and they are inextricably joined together. If there was no resurrection, then there is no Lordship.
In seeing, therefore, the resurrection of Christ, and hearing the voice of the resurrected Christ in the messenger, the unbeliever, who has had no preparation for this encounter, is faced with the end of his lordship over his own life. It is the end of his bank account, his business mergers and of what he is going to do-all that is finished. All of that pseudo stuff is ended when Jesus becomes Lord and says, "Now you'll do My bidding." The reason why people are offended at God, who would otherwise enjoy God as God, is that they do not like the Lord part. It is the lordship that catches them in the throat, and especially my Jewish people, because they like to be lords of their own lives. To acknowledge that Jesus is Lord requires the power that raised Him from the dead.
To hear and see, therefore, a messenger who speaks Christ's words is to hear and see evidence that Christ is resurrected. The messenger must himself be a son of the resurrection, or he would not be a "witness unto Him," which is to say, he is not yet authentically joined with Him. The fellowship out of which he comes must be a fellowship of a resurrected people who live in the power and the reality of resurrection, or there is no sending that results in a 'sent one.' The whole issue is the truth of resurrection as it is experientially known by a people in the earth, or both Jew and Gentile remain locked in their unbelief. Nothing else will free them.
To believe the resurrection is to believe that Jesus is Lord. To believe that Jesus is Lord is to believe the resurrection. To believe at all is a miracle that takes place by the operation of God through the speaking and hearing of one who is sent, who brings the glad tidings, that those who hear it might believe and call upon the name of the Lord. That is more than just giving God a little honorific acknowledgment. It means the surrender of the independent life to the totality of God's authority once and for all. That is full salvation, and anything
less and other than that is poor facsimile.
Why does God bless the feet of those who not only bring good news and pronounce peace, but whose word actually constitutes peace and establishes salvation, and who says to Zion, "Your God reigns"? It is because the one who is bringing the good news is the one in whom God reigns in fact. Though the one who is hearing him cannot articulate what he is sensing, the truth of the lordship in the man who is speaking is evident. There is a God who reigns, and the truth of His reigning as Lord is demonstrated in the posture, the voice, the face, the demeanor and the character of the one who brings the glad tidings. The messenger is everything. He is a sent one. He needs to be more than a well-meaning evangelical Christian or a charismatic cream puff. He has got to be a piece of the resurrection himself.
God will not give His glory to another, except when it is exclusively Himself being expressed by the preacher, and that is why we do not see that glory, because not many of us are willing to live on that razor's edge. We are not so much concerned with the glory of God as avoiding the embarrassment of failure. That is why we have so little resurrection event in our weekly pulpit preaching. That is why true preaching is different and other than conventional preaching. Conventional preaching can never be an event in God. It does not raise the dead. As someone has said, and I believe it out of my own experience: "Every true preaching is a raising again of the dead." We need to have an enhanced appreciation for what resurrection means as a "God-event" in the word that is spoken in resurrection power. We will never be a mouth for that if we are trying to preserve our reputation, or if we are afraid ourselves to experience death. What if the word fails? What if, having trusted God absolutely, and not leaning on our own resources, He does not come through? What if we are left with our face sticking out, and instead of a powerful resurrection word, there is just a little beep and it falls to the ground with a thud? Then what? We have bowed to those fears, and that is why we do not see the glory of God.
Who is the only one qualified to preach a word like that? The man who does not want to preach, the man who wants to run the other way, the Jonah who wants to escape the call of God. The man, however, who loves to talk, loves to be public and enjoys being seen and heard, need not think that a word like this will ever be emitted from his mouth. The man who sighs and groans when he gets up to the pulpit, and would rather that the floor open up and swallow him, who does not want to be there, who feels terribly uncomfortable and who knows that he is not going to be understood, is the man out of whose mouth the word of true preaching is most likely to come.
purchase at www.artkatzministries.org

The Anatomy of Deception by Art Katz- Book Sample

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 12:14:37 -0600

Book Sample of The Anatomy of Deception by Art Katz

In an age of darkness and seduction, and with “signs and wonders”
becoming more and more prevalent, the ability to discern between those
that are false and lying and those that are true is of paramount importance.

Available at http://www.artkatzministries.org/online_bookstore/books/

Introduction
Chapter 1 - The Cry for Reality
Chapter 2 - Holiness or Blessing
Chapter 3 - True Church
Chapter 4 - Hosea: A Word to the Church
Chapter 5 - Ananias, Sapphira, and Truth

The Anatomy of Deception: Introduction

I once had the opportunity, by the Lord’s providence, to be invited to speak at a “Jesus Rally” in Winnipeg, Canada. An earlier experience some years before at the first of the Jesus Rallies was enough for me. I vowed then to never again be a part of the outdoor, carnival-like atmosphere of men and women in shorts stuffing potato chips in their mouths, while hearing what ostensibly purported to be serious words of God from the platform. The whole atmosphere chilled my soul. But when this invitation came from Winnipeg, I felt that it was God, despite my determination, and I went.

I was not supposed to be a speaker at the general sessions, but as is the format, the morning sessions were given over to the denominational and non-denominational charismatic groups. I was invited to be the speaker at the Baptist charismatic group. How could I refuse so novel an invitation as that? And indeed, those speakings were blessed. On the night of the general meeting, I found myself sitting on the platform, where an internationally known speaker was the message bearer for that session. While everyone entered into the general merriment, I sat there like a glum lump. I was agonizing and mortified at some of the statements that were coming forth.   The whole prevailing atmosphere in which the audience was receiving those words reinforced my impression that the whole thing was ‘hokey.’ I know of no other word for it. There was a sense of artificiality, of things synthetic and feigned, having the appearance of things real, but being somehow false, although real words and meaningful terms were employed such as phrases out of Scripture that spoke of the unity of the Body.

There were prophecies being uttered that night from a certain assemblage of men who ostensibly had the gift of prophecy. They would write their prophecies out on yellow legal pads and give them to an overseer who would then call the men to the microphone at the appropriate moment to speak them. The terrible sense of unreality was all the more pronounced because the whole thing was couched in things that were very real. By the end of the night, my spirit was such that I could not wait to leave the platform. Unfortunately, I had been assigned to bring the benediction at the end of the night. I could not, however, lend myself to the things that had been taking place, which would then identify me with it. So I went over to tug the sleeve of the man who was presiding over the platform and ask to be excused from the obligation of bringing the prayer of benediction. But before I could get to him, he announced my name; so I came to the podium in that terrible agony and frustration. All I could do was ask the people to stand up, take off their sunbonnets and visors, come to a posture of respect before God and to sing with me the Lord’s prayer. And that was how the night ended. As I was leaving the platform, a layman who was in charge of arranging the sessions asked if I would be available for the general session the following morning. At first I abruptly said, “No!” But then I said to him, “Okay, but only if the Lord gives me something specific.”

The next morning we drove to an open park where the rally was being conducted and where I was to be the morning speaker in the Baptist section. I discussed with my colleagues whether I ought not indeed take advantage of the invitation that had been given me and speak a word distinct and different from the kinds of things that had been promulgated. We prayed together because I did not want to fall into that role of always having to bring an ungainly word. Without making any haste to get there, and in fact, hoping that we would be too late, we parked the car and walked to the platform where the public meeting was taking place at the very moment when it was time for the speaker to be announced. They had already assigned another speaker in my absence, but when the man saw me coming up the steps to the platform, he immediately called to me and I was rushed to the microphone.

I started with something like, “Is there something grievously wrong with me that prevents me from entering into the spirit of general merriment that has prevailed in these meetings?” I went on to read in the Scriptures where Moses was coming down Mount Sinai with the tablets of the law only to hear a noise, which was not the noise of battle or the noise of victory, but the noise of singing. I went on to say that I had the impression it was this kind of noise that characterized the previous night, and it had much to do with that earlier event of men and women, too impatient to wait for Moses to come down from the Mount with the true thing. Instead, they simulated something like it—a golden calf, a substitute—and danced and pranced around it.

Can you imagine how these words were going forth? Even as I had been walking up to the platform, I heard one of the so-called prophecies in which the speaker was saying, “I, the Lord, have been with you this weekend; I have given you my Spirit and I am going to do this and I am going to do that. . .” But for me it was leaden and without life, and so I said, “It seems that my condition is so bad that I have no witness to the authenticity of these prophecies, and I wonder indeed whether it is not some kind of idiosyncratic thing, where I am some kind of character who always seems to find a negative thing. But if my condition is somehow an expression of the heartbeat of God, we might well ask whether functions such as this are not some kind of massive deception into which we have been inducted unwarily. Just because the sermons have been rich and suggestive, and we have been impressed with the three or four thousand people who have gathered here, and our hearts have panted after true unity in the Body of Christ, we need to consider whether we have been too quick and willing to call this “unity” when, in fact, it is not. As we explore that, maybe we need also to ask about the validity of the whole charismatic phenomenon, whether we in fact have an authentic baptism in the Holy Spirit, and indeed whether we have been born again of the Spirit. Or have we been, from beginning to end, inducted into one of the most colossal deceptions that has ever been perpetrated in the religious world and all history?”

Those were the kinds of questions that I raised, and then invited as many as would, to come to the session where I was to speak on the spirit of truth. There was a cry from my heart for something authentic to take place, that we should not settle for and be satisfied with a plastic counterfeit kind of charismatica, when the cry of God is for authenticity in the earth. Plastic is not a comely substance anyway, but a plastic Kingdom is a tragedy of such proportions that I could break down and weep. For the Kingdom of God to be plastic, subject to pressures and influences to accommodate and suit the needs of men, is inconceivable. We need to be alerted to the kinds of end-time deceptions that will come in the spirit of antichrist (“instead of” or “appearing as Christ”). This booklet is intended to examine the spirit or anatomy of deception, of the things that are plastic, false, artificial, synthetic, imitative, counterfeit, spurious, feigned and pretended.

Chapter 1 - The Cry for Reality

There is a ‘Kingdom of reality’ that needs to be demonstrated by God’s people. And if we need to be anything as the Church, it is foremost to be eminently real, eminently loving, eminently living in the truth, speaking the truth, walking in the truth, doing the truth, being true. It is much more than merely “being correct,” or scripturally and doctrinally sound. It is something that should be suffused right into the marrow and the knit of our makeup. It needs to be in our eyes, in our speech, in the inflection of our voice, our posture and our talk.
God has triggered something in my heart to raise the questions of authenticity before the Body of Christ. Are we willing for authenticity’s sake and for truth’s sake not to grasp at the first straw that floats our way, and which seems to present the possibility of solving our problems? Are we willing to refrain from simulating something out of our own humanity that has the appearance of love, but is not? I want that which comes down from above, however long I have got to bear the terrible agony and reputation of ‘lovelessness.’ I do not want a saccharine counterfeit. Authentic things do not come cheap. They never have. It is we, as believers, who have been inducted into the spirit of glib, unctuous and facile kinds of doings.
We are quick to reconcile that which is not reconciled in God, and thereby suffer the surfacing again and again of problems, issues, and habits that will neither dissolve nor go away. We want a pseudo-resurrection without the ignominy and pain of the Cross. But it is only out of the ultimate agony and devastation of the Cross that ultimate glory comes. Are we lovers of the Cross? Do we love the splinters and the blood and the gore? Do we recognize that there is a cross for us to bear, and it is to this suffering that we are called, and that the resolution of the issue will not be far from us if we seek the things that are authentic and true? Do we have the discernment to distinguish the authentic from the counterfeit? Are we so habituated to success, and so desirous of seeing some visible effect of power that we are not too discriminating so long as we ‘get it,’ somehow? We want the excitement; we want the titillation; we want the appearance of power; we want to succeed, because the possibility of failure is a form of death we are not willing to bear, thus avoiding the Cross. We ought rather to ask ourselves what is success as God defines it?

Nazi Germany put great emphasis on demonstrations of a very impressive kind, such as their meetings at Nuremburg with marches and torchlight ceremonies, almost like pagan practices, that filled the void in German life with emotion and intensity. It was an answer to a need for fulfillment, excitement and engagement. If we do not have a valid apostolic reality in our spiritual life, that void will be filled by other contenders who are only awaiting their opportunity. If we move into the realm of what is false, synthetic, humanly contrived and not the operation of the Spirit, we can move very easily from the charismatic to the demonic. We cannot tell the difference between the hunger for God and the hunger for experience. If we have a real hunger for God, we do not have to go to places where ‘signs and wonders’ abound. Last Days’ deceptions are related to an inadequate view of God by which we interpret the ‘blessing’ or seeming power as being the evidence of God as we know Him, but the true knowledge of God would have made no room for that kind of understanding, or even the desire for these phenomena in the form in which they have been manifested.

The pattern of Acts, chapter 13, shows a very different context: the demonstration of power as the provision of God to demonstrate the authority of His messengers when they were opposed by powers of darkness in the fulfillment of their mission, as opposed to the ‘power’ demonstrated in auditoriums to Christians who are looking for excitement, or help for their own bodies. This apostolic model is the one that we more rightly ought to look for and expect, indeed, will be the only one effective in the Last Days’ final confrontation with those same powers.

Right Perception of God
The apprehension of God is very much affected by how we perceive Him, and therein lies the problem. We bring a distortion out of our own subjectivity and out of our own twist. We see God through a prism of our own being. There are some people who see God as some kind of a lackey or errand boy, who provides the convenience of meetings for this kind of entertainment and so-called ‘blessing.’
With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure. . . (Psalms 18:26).
To perceive God rightly requires something from us. If we have any kind of controversy with God, the problem is not God, but ourselves; we are projecting something onto Him and becoming guilty of Israel’s sin. The thing that we need is to be transformed into His image, not to project our image onto Him. He is not a convenience for us. He is God. He is the Creator. He is the Almighty. I think those words have lost their cogency. Maybe we have said them too often. They have become a catechism or an invocation of a mechanical kind. Unless we know Him in the place that is too deep for words, then we do not really know Him. Until there is a gasp and a splutter, until we find ourselves prostrate and stretched out as dead, do we really know Him? How many of us will go through an entire Christian lifetime without that knowledge and still be perfectly content, and think that we know Him, and that we can communicate Him?

Manifestation phenomena are already perplexing the Church, with many asking, “Is it God?”

People seem to receive benefit; they are delivered from hang-ups and depression; marriages are reconciled; people are restored to the faith. There is much evidence of ‘good’ things, but when the Last Days’ deceptions come, of which we have been warned, will they not come with ‘good’ things? Can we tell the difference between the true and the false, especially when we want so much to be blessed and to have an experience and be relieved of our hang-ups and depressions? How discriminating are we about the source from which the ‘blessing’ comes? How do we tell whether something is of God, or a contrary spirit who is able to lift the depression that he may well have inflicted in the first place? Here is the key: our authentic knowledge of God, not as we thought Him to be, but as He, in fact, is.

Deception is a deception when it contains elements that are dubious and suspicious, and at the same time there seems to be apparent blessing. Who has the acumen and the discernment to see through it except a people of priestly stature whose discernment has been increased by the exercise of it? And who can discern between good and evil, between the profane and the holy? If blessings, so called, can succeed in bringing the Church to viewing benefit as the criterion by which something is judged to be of God, we may well have been brought to the very ground of deception itself. There is something more important than benefits, something more important than being released from depression; it is the holiness of God, it is His name, it is His honor, it is He Himself. Receiving benefit of a dubious kind is too high a price to pay if it is going to throw any shadow upon His great Name. We have lost everything for the sake of benefit when the desire for benefit is, in itself, suspect.

We are not in a position to categorically condemn as deception the ostensible benefits to which many testify. God is always free to bless whom He will bless. But if the enemy can succeed in bringing the Church to viewing benefit as the determinant by which something is judged to be of God, we may well have been brought to the very ground of deception itself. So for myself, I would choose to keep my distance from such phenomena, trusting that whatever I might be missing is not greater than what I am protecting and cherishing, and that the Lord is not offended by a carefulness that would rather err in a jealousy for His holiness than to risk subverting what has already been given as pure and true.
It is remarkable that, though we are explicitly warned about end-time lying signs and wonders (2 Thess. 2:9; Matthew 24:24), we somehow imagine that it is future, and mindlessly trust ourselves in our greed for experiences, empowerments, or releases, to dubious personalities who have caught the public fancy in incredible overnight popularity. I profoundly respect God’ s use of the weak and the foolish thing, but I cannot, for that reason, endorse what is garish, cheap and coarse as being that weak and foolish thing of which Paul speaks. “Holiness unto the Lord” is still the standard of God’s House, even when it is unspectacular and unassuming in the eyes of the world, and even in our own eyes.
Waiting is a priestly function, and we need to wait to see if our spirits are hospitable to what is being mediated from church platforms. Is it compatible with our already existing knowledge of God? If it is not compatible, they can stand on their heads, run all over the platform, and every other kind of madness. We are not to mindlessly give ourselves to it at all. Our integrity in God needs to be guarded, and we should not allow ourselves to be influenced, taken up and affected by the current trends, or else we will never have anything significant to give
The teaching of the Scripture is to seek out, through the word and prayer, the root of the problems that come up in life. One will usually find that unacknowledged disobediences are at the root of them, and the correction is accomplished primarily through that part of the Body to whom one is accountable and authentically joined.

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Eph. 4:15 -16).
Revelation 12:11 tells us that “They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” What has come to us in our relationship with God, our personal history of the knowledge of God, has come through obedience and the reproaches that accompany obedience, and the sufferings that come with following the Lord. It did not come cheap. That knowledge is precious and dear. We need to make it the index of all other knowledge, and if present phenomena are not compatible with what we already know, and have tested, as being the knowledge of God as God, then we need to hold at arm’s length that which purports to be from God, even if it is a ‘blessing’ to others.

I have found safety in aligning new phenomena with what already is my knowledge of the holiness of God through my forty-year walk. I am jealous over that inward deposit, that residue of the knowledge of God that is beyond words; it cannot be articulated, but I know it to be there, and it is in the innermost place of my being. Everything has to be tested against that. If present phenomena are not consonant with what I already know to be the holiness of God, then I am alerted, and cannot indiscriminately receive what others seem to be applauding. This has been a life-saving provision for me, and it ought to be so for all believers.

It was not too long ago, in a church where I was speaking, that in a moment of time the thought came to me that one does not have to be a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness, or subscribe to some cult to be deceived. One can subscribe to correct Christian orthodoxy and be as effectually deceived in the correctness of that credal statement as if they were embracing false doctrine. And in fact, that kind of deception is the most devious and most powerful of all, because you think you are correct.

There is a desperate need in the Church to know God in truth. He is waiting to be sought, and He distinguishes that people, that generation that will ascend the holy hill of Zion, in Psalm 24, as those with ‘clean hands and a pure heart,’ who have not given their soul to vanity by running to Toronto and other places, as those who will ascend the holy hill and throw the bolt that opens the gate so that the King of Glory might come in. He says, “This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Thy face―even Jacob” (Psalms 24:6). You do not have to go to Toronto to seek Him; He is right where you are. Be ruthless against yourself in finding time, in sending the kids out, in getting out of the way those clamoring legitimate things that are always clawing at you. Lock yourself in a room, throw the key away. Do something, but seek God and be found of Him. His promise is that if we will seek for Me with all our heart and all our soul, we shall be found of Me.

It is a critical hour for the Church. Deception is rampant. My Jewish people are perishing. Where is that witness that moves them to jealousy? The Jews are everywhere about us, totally unimpressed and untouched with our best Charismatic demonstration. The Church needs to come into a place that is holy, holy, holy, where they know God as He is, and not just as they think Him to be. Only out of that place are we then able to make Him known.

About Art Katz

Art Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929 of Jewish parents. Raised through the depression years and turbulence of World War II, and inducted into Marxist and existentialist ideologies, as well as merchant marine and military experiences, Art was brought to a final moral crisis as a high school teacher—able to raise, but not able to answer the groaning perplexities of the modern age.
During a leave of absence and on a hitch-hiking odyssey through Europe and the Middle East, the cynical and unbelieving atheist, vehement anti-religionist and anti-Christian was radically apprehended by a God who was actively seeking him. The actual journal of that experience, Ben Israel – Odyssey of a Modern Jew, recounts his quest for the true meaning to life, which climaxed significantly and symbolically in Jerusalem.
Art attended Santa Monica City College, UCLA, and the University of California at Berkeley, earning Bachelor and Masters degrees in history, as well as a Masters degree in theology at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN.   With his speaking ministry spanning nearly forty years, Art sought to bring the radical relevance of the Bible’s message to contemporary societies, both secular and religious. With several of his books translated into major foreign languages, Art traveled frequently and widely as a conference speaker and prophetic voice for the church until his death in 2007. Art is survived by Inger, his wife of 41 years, their 3 children and 6 grandchildren.
The powerful theme that remained constant throughout Art’s many years of ministry was unquestionably the centrality of the Cross of Christ. It permeated his words with such an authority and anointing that one could honestly say he preached “nothing but Christ and Him crucified” – even though the subject matter may not have made any reference to the Cross at all. This may have been Art’s greatest gift to the Church, namely, his refusal to know anything but a crucified Christ. It is no coincidence that the message most listened to and considered the best from Art’s quiver is entitled “And They Crucified Him” – (See audio message: K-156 or click here)   Art portrayed a knowledge of God that few in contemporary times have fathomed or understood. Whether the subject was the future, necessary death and resurrection of the nation Israel, or Paul’s teaching on widows and slaves in the congregation, Art strived to represent “God as He in fact is, and not as we think Him to be.”
Art was a man who knew the ‘terror of sin’ and could therefore persuade others in the light of his experiential knowledge of God. It was a knowledge of God that did not come cheaply, but was gained in his devotional times with the Lord in the early hours of the day, in his daily prayer times with fellow believers at the Ben Israel Fellowship, in the knit and grit of living in community, in the writings of other believers, and in his close association with believers the world over.
Art was a prophetic voice insofar as he called his listeners to purposes in God that would affect both time and eternity, purposes that had to do with the glory of God in the Church.   Frequently, his messages called the Church to an awareness of the Last Days [End-times] in such a way that made that time seem imminent and at the door. Some called him a forerunner in the sense of a man who cleared the way for others, and who could therefore call back and encourage them onward to the high call of God in Christ Jesus. Though a man of flesh and blood, like us all, Art walked that ‘high road,’ and one frequently caught a whiff of the fragrance of God, that can only emanate out of that place in God.
Art had the highest regard for the written Word of God; he was eminently the man of the Word. Because of that, he had an equal regard for words in general – not least the preached word, and abhorred the light use of words, either from the pulpit or in small-talk. Consequently, his preached word, which is the distinguishing characteristic of a true prophet, bore a grace and power to penetrate the hearts of his listeners in ways that frequently brought true conviction and a new, more authentic way of seeing and understanding God.      We pray you be blessed by Art’s ministry, who though he is no longer with us here on earth, he yet still speaks.

Having a Humble Opinion of Self- Thomas A Kempis 14th Century

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 11:32:44 -0600

Having a Humble Opinion of Self

EVERY man naturally desires knowledge1; but what good is knowledge without fear of God? Indeed a humble rustic who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars.2 He who knows himself well becomes mean in his own eyes and is not happy when praised by men.

If I knew all things in the world and had not charity, what would it profit me before God Who will judge me by my deeds?

Shun too great a desire for knowledge, for in it there is much fretting and delusion. Intellectuals like to appear learned and to be called wise. Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise.

Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a good life eases the mind and a clean conscience inspires great trust in God.

The more you know and the better you understand, the more severely will you be judged, unless your life is also the more holy. Do not be proud, therefore, because of your learning or skill. Rather, fear because of the talent given you. If you think you know many things and understand them well

4 enough, realize at the same time that there is much you do not know. Hence, do not affect wisdom, but admit your ignorance. Why prefer yourself to anyone else when many are more learned, more cultured than you?

If you wish to learn and appreciate something worth while, then love to be unknown and considered as nothing. Truly to know and despise self is the best and most perfect counsel. To think of oneself as nothing, and always to think well and highly of others is the best and most perfect wisdom. Wherefore, if you see another sin openly or commit a serious crime, do not consider yourself better, for you do not know how long you can remain in good estate. All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself.

The Third Chapter

The Doctrine of Truth

HAPPY is he to whom truth manifests itself, not in signs and words that fade, but as it actually is. Our opinions, our senses often deceive us and we discern very little.

What good is much discussion of involved and obscure matters when our ignorance of them will not be held against us on Judgment Day? Neglect of things which are profitable and necessary and

5 undue concern with those which are irrelevant and harmful, are great folly.

We have eyes and do not see.

What, therefore, have we to do with questions of philosophy? He to whom the Eternal Word speaks is free from theorizing. For from this Word are all things and of Him all things speak -- the Beginning Who also speaks to us. Without this Word no man understands or judges aright. He to whom it becomes everything, who traces all things to it and who sees all things in it, may ease his heart and remain at peace with God.

O God, You Who are the truth, make me one with You in love everlasting. I am often wearied by the many things I hear and read, but in You is all that I long for. Let the learned be still, let all creatures be silent before You; You alone speak to me.

The more recollected a man is, and the more simple of heart he becomes, the easier he understands sublime things, for he receives the light of knowledge from above. The pure, simple, and steadfast spirit is not distracted by many labors, for he does them all for the honor of God. And since he enjoys interior peace he seeks no selfish end in anything. What, indeed, gives more trouble and affliction than uncontrolled desires of the heart?

A good and devout man arranges in his mind the things he has to do, not according to the whims of evil inclination but according to the dictates of

6 right reason. Who is forced to struggle more than he who tries to master himself? This ought to be our purpose, then: to conquer self, to become stronger each day, to advance in virtue.

Every perfection in this life has some imperfection mixed with it and no learning of ours is without some darkness. Humble knowledge of self is a surer path to God than the ardent pursuit of learning. Not that learning is to be considered evil, or knowledge, which is good in itself and so ordained by God; but a clean conscience and virtuous life ought always to be preferred. Many often err and accomplish little or nothing because they try to become learned rather than to live well.

If men used as much care in uprooting vices and implanting virtues as they do in discussing problems, there would not be so much evil and scandal in the world, or such laxity in religious organizations. On the day of judgment, surely, we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken but how well we have lived.

Tell me, where now are all the masters and teachers whom you knew so well in life and who were famous for

7 their learning? Others have already taken their places and I know not whether they ever think of their predecessors. During life they seemed to be something; now they are seldom remembered. How quickly the glory of the world passes away! If only their lives had kept pace with their learning, then their study and reading would have been worth while.

How many there are who perish because of vain worldly knowledge and too little care for serving God. They became vain in their own conceits because they chose to be great rather than humble.

He is truly great who has great charity. He is truly great who is little in his own eyes and makes nothing of the highest honor. He is truly wise who looks upon all earthly things as folly that he may gain Christ. He who does God's will and renounces his own is truly very learned.

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1 Aristotle, Metaphysics, i. 1.
2 Augustine, Confessions V. 4.

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This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College.

HOLINESS IS NOT LEGALISM- A SERMON BY JOHN WESLEY

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 11:32:35 -0600

HOLINESS IS NOT LEGALISM.
A sermon by John Wesley
Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." Nothing under heaven can be more sure than this; "for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." And "though heaven and earth pass away, yet His word shall not pass away." As well therefore might God fall from heaven, as His Word fall to the ground. (Heb. 12:14; Mic. 4:4; Matt. 5:18).
No one who is not saved from sin here can be saved from hell hereafter. No one can see the kingdom of God above, unless the kingdom of God be in him below. Whoever will reign with Christ in heaven, must have Christ reigning in him on earth. And yet as sure as this is, and as clearly as it is taught in every part of the Holy Scripture, among all the truths of God, there is probably none which is less received by men.
Yes, professing Christians invariably invent one way or another to get to heaven without holiness. In the place of holiness, some have substituted penance, pilgrimages, and praying to saints and angels. Thousand of professing Christians have no doubt but that, by a diligent use of these things—without any holiness at all—they shall see the Lord in glory.
However, Protestants will not be satisfied in that manner. They are convinced that whoever leans on such things leans on the staff of a broken reed. Yet, thousands of such Protestants also think that they too will see God without holiness. How? Why, by doing no harm, generally doing good, going to church, and receiving the sacraments. And many thousands are content with this, believing they are on the high road to heaven. Yet, that is not much better than the hopes of the first group.
However, other Protestants recognize that such nominal Christianity is not sufficient. They correctly say that such a religion does not stand on the right foundation. However, they go on to say that Christ has already accomplished and suffered everything for us. They say that His righteousness is imputed to us; therefore, we need none of our own. Since there is so much righteousness and holiness in Him, there needs to be none in us. In fact, they claim, that to think we have any holiness, or to desire to seek any holiness, is to renounce Christ. That from the beginning to the end of salvation, all is in Christ, nothing is in man. And that those who teach otherwise are preachers of legalism, and know nothing of the gospel.
What evasion! What has Satan done? He has persuaded the very men who receive it to "turn the grace of God into licentiousness" (Jude 4). This is indeed a blow at the root, the root of all holiness, all true religion. The whole design of Christ's death was "to destroy the works of the devil" (I John 3:8). But now this is overthrown in one stroke.
THE FRUITS OF CHEAP GRACE
For wherever this doctrine of easy grace is received, it leaves no place for holiness. It forbids all such exhortations as might excite a desire for holiness. Nay, it makes men afraid of personal holiness, afraid of cherishing any thought of it. For they fear that any step toward holiness might be a denial of the faith, and a rejection of Christ and His righteousness. So that, instead of being "zealous for good works," good works are a stench to their nostrils. In short, they are infinitely more afraid of the works of God, that the works of the devil.
Here is Satan's masterpiece! We are to believe that men are holy, without a grain of holiness in them! Holy in Christ, however unholy in themselves. They are supposedly in Christ, although they have not one jot of the mind that was in Christ. They are "complete in Him," although they are as proud, as vain, as covetous, and as lustful as ever. They think they can continue in unrighteousness because Christ has "fulfilled all righteousness."
O ye simple one, do not be deceived. For as surely as the Lord lives, "neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." "Such" indeed "were some of you. But you are washed, but you are sanctified," as well as "justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:9-11). You are really changed! You are not only accounted as righteous, you are made righteous.
The inward power of the Spirit has made you free—really, actually free—from the law or power "of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2). This is liberty, true gospel liberty, experienced by every true believer. This is not freedom from the law of God, or the works of God, but from the law of sin and the works of the devil. See that you stand fast in this real, not imaginary, liberty. Take heed that you "be not entangled again," by means of these vain boasters, "in the yoke of" that vile "bondage of sin," from which you have cleanly escaped. (Gal. 5:1).
I testify unto you, that if you still continue in sin, Christ shall profit you nothing. That Christ is no Savior to you, unless He saves you from your sins. And that unless it purifies your heart, faith shall profit you nothing. Oh, when will you understand, that to oppose either inward or outward holiness, under color of exalting Christ, is directly to act the part of Judas, to "betray the Son of man with a kiss?"
What? Make Christ destroy His own kingdom? Set Christ against holiness? Talk of Christ as saving His people in their sins? It is no better than to say, He saves them from the guilt, but not from the power, of sin. Will you make the righteousness of Christ a cover for the unrighteousness of man? So that by this means, "the unrighteous" of every kind "shall inherit the kingdom of God!" Stop! Consider! What are you doing? Who has corrupted you from the simplicity of Christ, from the purity of the gospel?
You did know, "He that believeth is born of God: And whosoever is born of God sinneth not" (1 John 3:9). O come back to the true, the pure, the old gospel! That which you received in the beginning. Come back to Christ, who died to make you a holy people, "zealous for good works" (Tit. 2:14). "Remember from whence you are fallen, and repent, and do the first works" (Rev. 2:5). For "wilt thou know, O vain," O empty "man, that faith without works is dead" (Jas. 2:17)?
Do not stupidly and senselessly call holiness legalism—a silly, meaningless word. Be not afraid of being under the law of God. Rather, fear being under "the law of sin" (Rom. 7:23). Love the strictest preaching best. That which most searches the heart, and shows you wherein you are unlike Christ. That which presses you most to love Him with all your heart, and serve Him with all your strength.
Permit me to warn you of another silly, meaningless phrase: Do not say: "I can do nothing." If so, then you know nothing of Christ. Then you have no faith. For if you have faith, if you believe, then you "can do all things through Christ who strengthens you" (Phil. 4:13). You can love Him and keep His commandments; and to you His "commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3). Grievous to them that believe? Far from it! They are the joy of your heart.
Show then your love for Christ by keeping His commandments, by blamelessly walking in all His ordinances. Honor Christ by obeying Him with all your might, by serving Him with all your strength. Glorify Christ by imitating Christ in all things, by walking as He walked. Trust in Christ to live and reign in your heart. Have confidence in Christ that He will fulfill in you all his great and precious promises. That He will work in you all the good pleasure of His goodness, and all the work of faith with power. Cleave to Christ, until His blood has cleansed you from all pride, all anger, all evil desire. Let Christ do all. Let Him who has done all for you, do all in you.
Exalt Christ as a Prince to give repentance. A Savior both to give remission of sins, and to create in you a new heart, to renew a right spirit within you. This is the gospel, the pure, genuine gospel; glad tidings of great salvation. Not the new, but the old—the everlasting gospel.
***************
John Wesley England 18th century

'CORRIE TEN BOOM AND THE RAPTURE'.

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 11:09:08 -0600

'CORRIE TEN BOOM AND THE RAPTURE'.
- (This is from a letter Corrie wrote in 1974)
- Miss Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch survivor of the Nazi Concentration Camps. Her family had hidden Jews during the German occupation of Holland. For this they had been captured and sent off. Corrie was the only one to come out alive. Corrie was just one of the many evangelical Christians sent to concentration camps during the World War II. Her life hung in the balance during an ordeal that went on for years. But God was with her. Her faith was preserved in and through those terrible trials. She lived to testify all over the world of how God kept her in, through, and out of that time of tribulation. Corrie and her sister Betsy made this wonderful discovery.
"There is no pit so deep  that the Presence of God is not there with us".
Corrie was finally released because of a typographical error.  For this slip-up to occur in the highly efficient Gestapo was surely a miracle.  The definitive book that tells her story is called, 'The Hiding Place'.  It is available on http://www.amazon.com/The-Hiding-Place-Corrie-Boom/dp/0800794052/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361640149&sr=8-1&keywords=corrie+ten+boom&tag=yjtv-20
Here is her story on Wikipedia.
*Also, the Wikipedia article reprinted below after the
By Corrie ten Boom
- (This is from a letter Corrie wrote in 1974)

"The world is deathly ill. It is dying. The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers.

Christians are ambassadors for Christ. They are representatives from Heaven to this dying world. And because of our presence here, things will change.
My sister, Betsy, and I were in the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck because we committed the crime of loving Jews. Seven hundred of us from Holland, France, Russia, Poland and Belgium were herded into a room built for two hundred. As far as I knew, Betsy and I were the only two representatives of Heaven in that room.
We may have been the Lord's only representatives in that place of hatred, yet because of our presence there, things changed. Jesus said, "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We too, are to be overcomers – bringing the light of Jesus into a world filled with darkness and hate.
Sometimes I get frightened as I read the Bible, and as I look in this world and see all of the tribulation and persecution promised by the Bible coming true. Now I can tell you, though, if you too are afraid, that I have just read the last pages. I can now come to shouting "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" for I have found where it is written that Jesus said,
"He that overcometh shall inherit all things:
and I will be His God,
and he shall be My son."
This is the future and hope of this world. Not that the world will survive – but that we shall be overcomers in the midst of a dying world.

Betsy and I, in the concentration camp, prayed that God would heal Betsy who was so weak and sick.
 "Yes, the Lord will heal me,", Betsy said with confidence.  She died the next day and I could not understand it. They laid her thin body on the concrete floor along with all the other corpses of the women who died that day.
It was hard for me to understand, to believe that God had a purpose for all that. Yet because of Betsy's death, today I am traveling all over the world telling people about Jesus.
There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution.
In China, the Christians were told, "Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated – raptured." Then came a terrible persecution. Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly,

"We have failed.
We should have made the people strong for persecution,
rather than telling them Jesus would come first.
Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution,
how to stand when the tribulation comes,
– to stand and not faint."

I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation. There is no way to escape it.
We are next.
Since I have already gone through prison for Jesus' sake, and since I met the Bishop in China, now every time I read a good Bible text I think, "Hey, I can use that in the time of tribulation." Then I write it down and learn it by heart.
When I was in the concentration camp, a camp where only twenty percent of the women came out alive, we tried to cheer each other up by saying, "Nothing could be any worse than today." But we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse that I had committed to memory gave me great hope and joy.
"If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye;
for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you;
on their part evil is spoken of,
but on your part He is glorified."
(I Peter 3:14)

I found myself saying, "Hallelujah!
Because I am suffering, Jesus is glorified!"
In America, the churches sing, "Let the congregation escape tribulation", but in China and Africa the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred thousand Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners. Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation.
Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into power. The first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to come to the police station to register. When they arrived they were arrested and that same night they were executed. The next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the Christians in the district were being systematically murdered.
The fourth day I was to speak in a little church. The people came, but they were filled with fear and tension. All during the service they were looking at each other, their eyes asking, "Will this one I am sitting beside be the next one killed? Will I be the next one?"
The room was hot and stuffy with insects that came through the screenless windows and swirled around the naked bulbs over the bare wooden benches. I told them a story out of my childhood.
"When I was a little girl, " I said, "I went to my father and said,  "Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."  "Tell me," said Father,  "When you take a train trip to Amsterdam,  when do I give you the money for the ticket?  Three weeks before?"
"No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train."
"That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's strength.  Our Father in Heaven knows when you will need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ.  He will supply all you need – just in time…"
My African friends were nodding and smiling.  Suddenly a spirit of joy descended upon that church and the people began singing,
" In the sweet, by and by,
we shall meet on that beautiful shore."

Later that week, half the congregation of that church was executed.
I heard later that the other half was killed some months ago.
But I must tell you something. I was so happy that the Lord used me to encourage these people, for unlike many of their leaders, I had the word of God. I had been to the Bible and discovered that Jesus said He had not only overcome the world, but to all those who remained faithful to the end, He would give a crown of life.
How can we get ready for the persecution?
First we need to feed on the Word of God, digest it, make it a part of our being. This will mean disciplined Bible study each day as we not only memorize long passages of scripture, but put the principles to work in our lives.
Next we need to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Not just the Jesus of yesterday, the Jesus of History,  but the life-changing Jesus of today who is still alive  and sitting at the right hand of God.
We must be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is no optional command of the Bible, it is absolutely necessary. Those earthly disciples could never have stood up under the persecution of the Jews and Romans had they not waited for Pentecost. Each of us needs our own personal Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We will never be able to stand in the tribulation without it.
In the coming persecution we must be ready to help each other and encourage each other.  But we must not wait until the tribulation comes before starting.  The fruit of the Spirit should be the dominant force of every Christian's life.
Many are fearful of the coming tribulation, they want to run. I, too, am a little bit afraid when I think that after all my eighty years, including the horrible Nazi concentration camp, that I might have to go through the tribulation also.  But then I read the Bible and I am glad.
When I am weak, then I shall be strong, the Bible says. Betsy and I were prisoners for the Lord, we were so weak, but we got power because the Holy Spirit was on us. That mighty inner strengthening of the Holy Spirit helped us through. No, you will not be strong in yourself when the tribulation comes. Rather, you will be strong in the power of Him who will not forsake you. For seventy-six years I have known the Lord Jesus and not once has He ever left me, or let me down.
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him", (Job 13:15)
for I know that to all who overcome,
He shall give the crown of life.
Hallelujah!"
- Corrie Ten Boom - 1974
Corrie ten Boom
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Corrie ten Boom
Born
Cornelia ten Boom
15 April 1892
Amsterdam
Died
15 April 1983 (aged 91)
Placentia, California
Occupation
Writer, clocksmith
Religion
Christianity
Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom (Amsterdam, The Netherlands April 15, 1892 – Placentia, California, April 15, 1983) was a Dutch Christian. Along with her father and other family members, Corrie helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II and wrote her most famous book The Hiding Place about the ordeal.
Corrie grew up in Haarlem, Holland and was the youngest of four children, born to her parents, Casper ten Boom (1859- 1945), and Cornelia (died 1921 of a cerebral haemorrhage).
She had two other sisters, Betsie (died 1944 in Ravensbruck of anemia), who is mentioned frequently as a main character and Nollie (died 1953). Willem Ten Boom, her only brother, was born in 1887 and died in 1947 of spinal tuberculosis and was also a main character in "The Hiding Place" as well.
Corrie ten Boom's three aunts, Tante Bep who died in the early 1920s of tuberculosis, Tante Jans, who died in the mid-1920s of diabetes and Tante Anna who took care of all three of her sisters was the last to die in the early 1930s. All were timeless characters in Corrie's life as well. Living with her family for most of her life, many a time they were mentioned in various chapters of the book.
Her family was arrested due to an informant in 1944, and her father died 10 days later at Scheveningen prison. A sister, brother and nephew were released, but Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where Betsie died.
Corrie wrote many books and spoke frequently in the post-war years about her experiences. She also aided Holocaust survivors in the Netherlands. Her autobiography was later adapted as a film of the same name in 1975 and starred Jeannette Clift as Corrie.
•
World War II
In 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Among their restrictions was banning a club which Corrie had run for young girls.[1] In 1942, Corrie and her family had become very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees. They rescued many Jews from the Nazi SS.
They had long been involved in charitable work, and Corrie had worked with disabled children. They believed the Jews are God's chosen people.[1] They provided kosher food for the Jewish refugees who stayed with them and honored the Jewish Sabbath.[2]
Harboring refugees
In May 1942, a well-dressed woman came to the ten Boom door with a suitcase in hand. She told the ten Booms that she was a Jew and that her husband had been arrested several months before, and her son had gone into hiding. As Occupation authorities had recently visited her, she was afraid to return home. Having heard that the ten Booms had helped their Jewish neighbors, the Weils, she asked if she might stay with the family. Corrie ten Boom's father readily agreed. A devoted reader of the Old Testament, Casper ten Boom believed Jews are the chosen. He told the woman, "In this household, God's people are always welcome."[1]
Thus the ten Booms began "the hiding place", or "de schuilplaats", as it was known in Dutch (also known as "de Béjé", pronounced in Dutch as 'bayay', an abbreviation of the name of the street the house was in, the Barteljorisstraat). Corrie and sister Betsie began taking in refugees, some of whom were Jews, others members of the resistance movement who were sought by the Gestapo and its Dutch counterpart. While they had extra rooms in the house, food was scarce for everyone due to wartime shortages. Every non-Jewish Dutch person had received a ration card which was required to obtain weekly coupons to buy food.
Thanks to her charitable work, Corrie knew many people in Haarlem, and remembered a couple who had a disabled daughter. For about twenty years, Corrie had run a special church service program for such children. The father was a civil servant who by then was in charge of the local ration-card office. She went to his house one evening, and he seemed to know why. When he asked how many ration cards she needed, "I opened my mouth to say, 'Five,'" Ten Boom wrote in The Hiding Place. "But the number that unexpectedly and astonishingly came out instead was: 'One hundred.'"[1] He gave them to her, and she provided them to every Jew that she met.
Secret room
Because of the number of people using their house, the ten Booms built a secret room in case a raid took place. They decided to build it in Corrie's bedroom, as it was in the highest part of the house. This would give people trying to hide the most time to avoid detection (as a search would start on the ground floor). A member of the Dutch resistance designed the hidden room behind a false wall. Gradually, family and supporters brought bricks and other building supplies into the house by hiding them in briefcases and rolled-up newspapers. When finished, the secret room was about 30 inches (76 cm) deep or 2 and a half ft; the size of a medium wardrobe. A ventilation system allowed for breathing. To enter the secret room, a person had to open a sliding panel in the plastered brick wall under a bottom bookshelf and crawl in on hands and knees. In addition, the family installed an electric buzzer for warning in a raid. When the Nazis raided the ten Boom house in 1944, six people used the hiding place to evade detection.
Arrest and detention
On February 28, 1944, with the help of a Dutch informant, the Nazis learned of the work the ten Booms were doing and arrested the entire ten Boom family at around 12:30 p.m. The family was sent first to Scheveningen prison where their elderly father died ten days after his arrest. While there, Corrie's sister Nollie, brother Willem, and nephew Peter were all released. Later, Corrie and sister Betsie were sent to the Vught political concentration camp, and finally to the Ravensbrück death camp in Germany. Betsie died there on December 16, 1944. Before she died, she told Corrie, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."[1]
Betsie ten Boom
Betsie was Corrie's loving, spiritual, kind-hearted, forgiving sister, who stood by Corrie throughout all of their hardships. Her prayers allowed Corrie to humble herself and say, "Lord pay attention to her prayers." Betsie was a thin, sickly woman with a firm foundation of God. She constantly was thankful for what she had. She thanked God in the concentration camp for fleas![3] This was because the infestation kept the guards out of the prisoners' quarters, so they were able to keep a contraband Bible and conduct group religious studies.
Corrie's release
Corrie was released on December 28, 1944. In the movie The Hiding Place, Corrie narrates the section on her release from camp, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error. The women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release. She said, "God does not have problems. Only plans."[1] The Jews whom the ten Booms had been hiding at the time of their arrests remained undiscovered and all but one, an old woman named Mary, survived.
Post-war
After the war, Corrie returned to the Netherlands to set up rehabilitation centers. The refuge houses consisted of concentration camp survivors and sheltered the jobless Dutch who previously collaborated with Germans during the occupation. She returned to Germany in 1946, and traveled the world as a public speaker, appearing in over sixty countries, during which time she wrote many books.
Corrie told the story of her family and their work during World War II in her best selling book, The Hiding Place (1971), which was made into a film by World Wide Pictures in 1975.
Life after the war
After the war, she traveled to 60 different countries, preaching, and through her, many people became Christians. In 1977, Corrie, then 85 years old, moved to Placentia, California. In 1978, she suffered two strokes, the first rendering her unable to speak, and the second resulting in paralysis. She lived as an invalid for the remaining five years of her life, dying on her 91st birthday (April 15, 1983) following a third stroke.
Honors
• Israel honored ten Boom by naming her Righteous Among the Nations.
• Corrie was knighted by the Queen of the Netherlands in recognition of her work during the war.
• The Ten Boom Museum in Haarlem is dedicated to her and her family for their work.
• The King's College in New York City named a new women's house in her honor.
Religious views
Her teaching focused on the Christian Gospel, with emphasis on forgiveness. In her book Tramp for the Lord (1974), she tells the story of an encounter while she was teaching in Germany in 1947. She was approached by a former Ravensbrück camp guard, who had been known as one of the most cruel. She was reluctant to forgive him, but prayed that she would be able to. Corrie wrote,
"For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then."
She also wrote (in the same passage) that in her post-war experience with other victims of Nazi brutality, it was those who were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives. She appeared on many Christian television programs discussing her ordeal during the Holocaust, and the concepts of forgiveness and God's love. She rejected the doctrine that some asserted, of Pre-Tribulation Rapture, and wrote that it was without Biblical foundation. She believed that such a doctrine left the Christian Church ill-prepared in times of great persecution, such as in China under Mao Zedong. One of Corrie and Betsie's favorite sayings was, "There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still."
Books
• A Prisoner And yet (1945)
• Amazing Love (1953)
• Not Good If Detached (1957)
• Common Sense Not Needed (1957)
• Plenty For Everyone (1967)
• Marching Orders For The End Battle (1969)
• Defeated Enemies (1970)
• The Hiding Place, with John & Elizabeth Sherrill (1971)
• Tramp For The Lord, with Jamie Buckingham (1974)
• Prison Letters (1975)
• In My Father's House, with C.C. Carlson (1976)
• Corrie's Christmas Memories (1976)
• Each New Day (1977)
• Prayers And Promises For Every Day (1977)
• He Cares He Comforts (1977)
• He Sets The Captives Free (1977)
• Father Ten Boom: God's Man (1978)
• A Tramp Finds A Home (1978)
• Don't Wrestle Just Nestle (1978)
• This Day Is The Lords (1979)
• Clippings From My Notebook (1982)
• Not I But Christ (1983)
• Reflections Of God's Glory (1999)
• Messages Of God's Abundance (2002)
• I Stand At The Door And Knock (2008)
References
1. ^ a b c d e f Corrie ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill (1971). "The Hiding Place" . Guideposts Associates. ISBN 0-912376-01-5.
1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A622388
1. ^ Ten Boom, Corrie. The Hiding Place. Page 210: Chosen. pp. 272. ISBN 0800794052.
Further reading
• The Corrie Ten Boom Story: Turning Point by David Mainse (1976)
• My Years With Corrie by Ellen de Kroon 1978
• Corrie: The Lives She Touched by Joan Windmill Brown 1979
• The Secret Room: The Story Of Corrie Ten Boom 1981
• Corrie Ten Boom: The Heroine Of Haarlem by Sam Wellman 1984
• Corrie Ten Boom Speaks To Prisoners by Chaplain Ray 1985
• The Five Silent Years Of Corrie Ten Boom by Pamela Rosewell Moore 1986
• Corrie Ten Boom: Her Life, Her Faith by Carole C. Carlson 1986
• The Life Of Corrie Ten Boom by Kiersti Hoff Baez 1989
• Corrie Ten Boom by Kathleen White 1991
• Corrie Ten Boom: Paint The Prisons White by Jill Briscoe 1991
• Corrie Ten Boom: Heroes Of The Faith by Halcyon Beckhouse 1992
• Return To The Hiding Place by Hans Poley 1993
• Corrie Ten Boom: The Watchmakers Daughter by Jean Watson 1994
• Corrie Ten Boom: Faith In Dark Places by Sue Shaw 1996
• Corrie Ten Boom: Anywhere He Leads Me by Judith Couchman 1997
• Corrie Ten Boom: Keeper Of Angels Den by Janet & Geoff Benge 1998
• Corrie Ten Boom: Shinning In The Darkness by Renee Meloche & Bryan Pollard 2002
• Life Lessons From The Hiding Place: Discovering The Heart Of Corrie Ten Boom by Pamela Rosewell Moore 2004
• Corrie Ten Boom: Heroes Of The Faith by Sam Wellman 2004
• A Visit To The Hiding Place: The Life Changing Experiences of Corrie Ten Boom by Emily S. Smith
• Corrie Ten Boom: Are All The Watches Safe by Catherine McKenzie 2006
• Corrie Ten Boom (Chronicles Of Faith) by Kjersti Hoff Baez 2008
External links
• Corrie ten Boom museum
• Holocaust Rescuers Bibliography
• Corrie ten Boom at Find a Grave
• "Corrie ten Boom" , U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
• "Corrie ten Boom" , Haarlem Shuffle
• Corrie ten Boom - a Dutch Savior
• The Hiding Place DVD: a remastered DVD including many of her testimonies
• Corrie ten Boom Live
• Corrie ten Boom, Interfaith Hero , Read The Spirit.com
• Al Hartley, The Hiding Place
• Elizabeth Burdick, No Pit So Deep: the life and witness of Corrie ten Boom , play, Passion Players

KNOWING GOD'S WILL By Winkie Pratney

Sun, 6 Jan 2013 09:00:08 -0600

KNOWING GOD'S WILL
By Winkie Pratney
http://www.lastdaysministries.org/Groups/1000087738/Last_Days_Ministries/Articles/By_Winkie_Pratney/Knowing_Gods_Will/Knowing_Gods_Will.aspx
"How can I know the will of God?" If you haven't asked this question openly or secretly you are probably not a Christian.

Walk through the halls of time and you will see the men of God who changed history. Look at them carefully. They were not special men. You will not often find the naturally gifted among their ranks. But all had one thing in common - they knew and did the will of God in their generation, and God did a work through them to shape the course of history. Those that God used in the past were just ordinary people with an extraordinary Master. They were not all champions of great faith, but little people who saw their own need, and put their small faith in a great God. The driving force in their lives was the sure conviction that God had called them to His work - and that as long as they were faithful to that call, He would work with them and through them against impossible odds to victory. They KNEW His will! Living in His purpose, they could be natural and let Him be supernatural.

Scripture Is a record of common people who found the will of God. Jacob met an angel Joseph with his multi-colored coat had a dream. Paul saw a blinding light. Samuel heard a voice. John had a vision. God is wholly involved with us as human beings! He spoke to men then, and He has not changed. At every point of history, He waits to show the way.

God is looking for willing hearts - those who whole-heartedly decide to do the will of God. (II Chron.16:9) You can know God's will! God has no favorites. You do not have to be special, but you have to be available. You do not have to be clever, but you must be willing to learn from Him. You do not have to be talented, but you must be willing to obey whatever He commands. You do not have to possess much, but you must give everything you have.

Has the "will of God" been a mystery to you? Have you longed to know what He wants for you, but somehow never found the way? Then read on. If you will faithfully apply these Biblical principles of guidance to your life, you can know the voice of God and do His will as surely as any man or woman of God that ever lived.
GOAL AND PLAN
God's will for your life is a GOAL, not a blue-print. His one ultimate goal, or purpose, is for you to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus. God's goal NEVER changes. A goal is the point you are trying to get to - it sets your direction. While on your way to this ultimate goal, you will encounter many smaller goals and purposes along the way.

Guidance is a lifelong process. God will reveal goals, help you reach them, then set new, higher ones. Therefore, knowing God's will for your life is a continued discovery of the present most effective plan to help you eventually reach (through a series of sub-stages) His ultimate goal for you. Should you miss God and make a wrong decision at one of these sub-stages, all is not lost However, many times there are consequences to pay. Sometimes you may miss an opportunity that may never again come your way... and many times good years that belong to God are simply wasted. But the moment our self-dependence or mistakes are confessed to God, and His pardon obtained, He will take you where you are at and work with you, daily pointing out the best course to take in order for you to reach His ultimate goal for you - to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus.
CONDITIONS
You cannot expect to hear from God until you are fulfilling these essential conditions for knowing His will. Check your life against these before you ask for guidance:

1. A DESIRE TO KNOW AND DO ALL THE WILL OF GOD. Don't ASK for guidance unless you are prepared to ACT on it! God is always willing to make His purpose known. If you "cannot" find an answer, it may be that you have some secret reservation in your heart. God will not show you His will if you are merely considering doing it. Unless you are prepared to trust His wisdom and love, and DO what He shows you, don't ask Him. Many say they can't get God's guidance, when they really mean they wish He would show them an easier way. God promises to show us only if we are ready to act on His revelation. (John 7:17)

2. BE A LOVE-SLAVE. God guides the meek, or those with yielded wills. If we have unyielded rights or stubborn wills, we cannot expect His guidance. A love-slave lives to serve, not be served. He owns nothing of power, possessions, or personal rights. He has no plans of his own that are not subject to the command of his Master. God does not guide those who want to run their own life. He only guides those who admit their need of His direction and rely on His wisdom. (Matt. 10:24,37-39; Phil.2:58; Psalm 25:9)

3. A WILLINGNESS TO BE COUNTED A FOOL. Doing God's will often conflicts with what's going on in our surrounding selfish world. Some Christians don't really do anything for the Lord, excusing themselves by saying they are "not sure of God's will." We need not always expect a voice from the sky when the path of service is clear. God gave us common sense, and He expects us to use it. Most of the time, His will makes sense to our reason and intelligence. God's will is usually an area of general direction, within which He leaves us relatively free to work for Him. (Proverbs 6:20-22,11:3) However, sometimes His direction cuts across all human reason, and even goes totally contrary to it! When the inner voice of God speaks clearly, obedience may be counted as madness in the eyes of the world. But if you are willing to be God's fool, then you will see His power. (Matt.11:25; Acts26:24-25; Mark 3:21; 1 Cor. 3:18-20)

4. A CLEAN CONSCIENCE FROM THE PAST. Guidance will always be hindered or misunderstood if there are still sinful things in your life that God has urged you to get right. How can He show you more if you have not obeyed the things He has already shown you?(Luke16:10) Every time you kneel to pray, the finger of His Spirit will point back to that thing He wants you to get right. A clear conscience is absolutely essential for distinguishing between the voice of God and the voice of the enemy. Unconfessed sin is a prime reason why many do not know God's will. It is the "pure in heart" who will see Him. (Matt. 5:8,23-24; Psalm 24:3-6)

5. REGULAR TIME OF PRAYER AND READING THE WORD OF GOD. God's will is expressly revealed in His Word. It is indeed a foolish and inexcusable thing to neglect the Scriptures if you have access to them. Bible study shows us what God expects in daily living. No guidance will ever go against Scriptural principle. Prayer teaches us by experience what the presence of God is like, and how His voice sounds. Many do not recognize the call of God simply because they have never taken the time to really talk with Him long enough to know what He is like. It is not enough to know about Him - you must know HIM! (Proverbs 6:23; Isaiah 58:9-11; John 17:3)
METHODS
God speaks and has spoken in many different ways. Guidance breaks down into three basic categories - personal, corporeal, and supernatural. Study the following examples in Scripture.
I. PERSONAL (Individual Direct Guidance)
1. THE WORD OF GOD - The Holy Scriptures, the foundation of all guidance.

A. Regular Bible Reading - The "jigsaw" principle. You fill in a portion of a "puzzle" each time you read a section of the Bible. A key piece fitted in will suddenly reveal a whole picture.

B. Open Page Method - Definitely not to be abused! Ask God in faith to guide you to the right Scripture for your need. Open the Bible, trusting Him to speak to you from it.

C. Mental Suggestion - In prayer God will sometimes bring to mind a verse, a chapter, or a book of the Bible. Turn to the place and begin to read until God speaks to you.

D. Recalled Memory Verse - Often, during a time of temptation or difficulty, God will bring to your mind a verse of Scripture that will give clear instruction. It is to your benefit to know and memorize parts of the Word of God. (Psalm 119:9-11,15-16, 33-35, 65-68, 97-l05; Proverbs 2:1-20, 3:1-6, 4:1-13; II Tim.3:14-17)

2. THE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT - An inner voice known by all true children of God.

The Holy Spirit is able to "check" you inside as to whether or not something is of God. You must NEVER act on a doubtful impression, especially if it is accompanied by haste. God leads, not pushes! Rushed urgings are usually of the enemy. There is never a feeling of worry or fear with the voice of the Good Shepherd. His Voice is gentle, familiar-sounding, loving, and leaves you with a sense of spiritual uplift and rejoicing, never fright (John10:3-5,14-16,27-28) Test all of your spiritual leadings by the Word of God, especially whenever you feel a sense of uneasiness or fear. (Rom. 8:14-16; John 14:16-17; 1 John 2:27, 4:1-3,13; Col.1:9-11)

3. WAITING ON GOD - Listening to Him in prayer and getting to know His voice.

God has three answers in guidance - (1)"Yes" (2) "No" and (3) "Wait". We cannot have a demanding attitude towards God. Sometimes there must be delays. Our lives are bound up with others, and many times God has to wait until they are ready (or until we are), before giving us the go-ahead. "Wait" is the most difficult of all answers, but sometimes it's the most necessary. Here is the test of a love-slave.(Psalm 62:1,5, 33:20, 25:5, 27:14, 40:1, 130:5, 37:7; Isaiah 40:31, 49:23; Hosea 12:6; 1 Chron.28:9)
II. CORPOREAL (Other Christians)
Although God greatly desires to speak to each of us personally, He also likes to use other members of the Body of Christ to pass on needed pieces of the "puzzle" to us. This helps teach us gratitude for His work in the lives of others, and the needed lesson that none of us are a law or light to ourselves. We can learn a lot from other Christians, although in the end, we are responsible to no one but Him.

1. GODLY MEN AND WOMEN - The advice of experienced Christians sought as confirmation.

Counsel from those who are known to have a pure and trustworthy walk with God is often of great value when seeking further light on some major decision. This counsel should be more in the area of principles, not pronouncements. Carefully concerned and loving suggestions aren't necessarily final or direct statements from the Lord. True godly counsel will of course always line up with the Word of God and Scriptural principles.(Proverbs 15:22, 12:15, 13:10, 11:14, 24:6; 1 Thess.2:11-15)

2. GOD'S SERVANTS IN THE MINISTRY - Preaching under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes God will use a message or sermon anointed by the Holy Spirit to bring needed light when you are facing a difficult decision. Perhaps the word you need to help give you direction is waiting for you at the next meeting! (Exodus 4:10-12; 1 Samuel 3:10-21, Isaiah 6:8-9; Rom.10:14-15; I Cor. 2:1-2; 1 Pet. 4:11)

3. THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT - In line with previous leadings from the Lord and the Word of God.

Scripture records incidents where God has confirmed direction through such gifts in His Body as prophesy, words of knowledge, and words of wisdom. Study their function in Scripture. Such words are simply spiritual parallels to individual godly counsel and preached messages, and should not be looked on with more authority than any of the other means the Lord chooses to use. Never act solely on a "word" given to you by another.

Remember, the key is individual responsibility for our own actions, and it is you that must make the final decision, and not someone else for you. (Rom. 12:6-8; I Cor. 12:1-12, 27-31, 14:12,26-33,39-40; Eph. 4:8-11; II Tim.1:6)
III. SUPERNATURAL
The instances of "supernatural" guidance, or special Divine Intervention in our lives are more rarely recorded. These cases are rare, but not because there are only a few who ever reach the "exalted height" of such direct contact. In fact, God may sometimes choose to act in this way because those on the receiving end are so spiritually insensitive and dull that they might otherwise never hear or understand! Although it is not wise to generalize principles from such occasional interventions, it is certainly clear through Scripture and history that men and women have received authentic direction from such Divine channels of contact

1. THE AUDIBLE VOICE OF GOD. God can and has spoken to people audibly. I know a very trustworthy person who became a Christian as a result of God answering his prayer for help in this way. He described the voice like this: "Like everyone I had ever loved in my life all rolled up into one, like someone I had known all my life, yet I knew I had never met" As in the case of Saul and the crowd that witnessed the Lord's baptism, it is apparently a real sound and not just a mental impression. Examples: Samuel (I Samuel 3:1-10); Elijah (I Kings19:9-13); Saul (Acts 9:1-7); the Lord Jesus and the multitude (John 12:2730).

2. VISIONS AND DREAMS. The early Church gave much more attention to this subject than do most Christians today. A dream is like a spiritual TV commercial - short, easy to understand, and given at the time when our whole attention is undistracted. Visions, on the other hand, are superimposed over the normal visual reality around us, and do not have to happen when we are asleep. If you believe that God may be trying to speak to you in this way, prayerfully consider the details of your dream or vision, remembering that they may represent symbols or principles - not necessarily absolutes. And finally, talk it over with a trusted and mature friend in Christ. Both dreams and visions, when inspired by the Holy Spirit, can be powerful means by which God speaks to His people. Examples: Peter (Acts10:9-16); Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-8); Daniel (Daniel 8:1-27, 7:1-28,10:1-9); John (Rev. 1-20); Elihu (Job 33:14-18); Joseph (Matt. 1:19-21).

3. VISITATION. It appears that angels in Scripture do not "guide" in the same way as the Holy Spirit Himself does, but they have been sent to warn believers of danger, as well as provide for their physical needs and safety. They also have made significant announcements, as in the case of Mary. Many believers throughout history have had authentic vision or visitations - and many numbers of Christians have seen either Jesus or ministering angels at their deathbeds. Examples: Abraham (Genesis 18:1-33); Moses (Exodus33:19-23); Joshua (Joshua 5:13-15); Jacob (Genesis 32:24-30); Manoah (Judges 13:2-23); Zacherias(Luke 1:8-20); Mary (Luke 1:26-38).

A WORDOF WARNING before we leave this area. Young Christians can easily become fascinated with the "special cases," and exalt these above the more simple and ordinary daily ways God uses to speak to us. To deliberately seek or glorify any form of guidance Is an outright invitation to spiritual deception, We are not to seek or specify how God should speak, but only seek Him in any way that He wishes to make Himself known. And as previously mentioned, for God to have to use such methods is no guarantee at all of our superior spiritually - it may instead be an indication of spiritual Immaturity.
STEPS
The following method of receiving guidance combines most guidance principles into three basic steps:

1. GIVE UP YOUR OWN DESIRES. Take your own desires to God in prayer and place them aside for the Lord to crucify. In prayer, give your desires to Him, and ask Him to give you His desires. Tell Him that you are willing to "die" to the things you want most to do, in order to do the things He has for you.

2. RESIST THE DEVIL. Be on guard against the tactics of the enemy, and the temptations that may come your way. Each child of God has been given power over sin through Christ. Standing in His authority, drive back the enemy's voice. As Jesus did in the wilderness, you can quote an appropriate Scripture, and like the thrust of a sword, it will force the enemy to retreat. Do it simply and clearly, trusting that the power of Christ will back you up. (Proverbs 18:10; Eph.1:17-23; James 4:5-10; I John 3:78; I Pet.5:6-9)

3. LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF GOD.

The Lord wants to speak to you - He doesn't want to hide or make you play guessing games. If you have fulfilled His conditions, the lines of communication between you are open. Ask God to show you, in faith, expecting Him to answer. Look for an immediate, definite impression. Do what He tells you to do. If nothing comes immediately - thank God for His answer of "wait". Be faithful to what the Lord has shown you, and patient as you wait for further guidance. If you are being tempted, cry out to the Lord, for it is through Him that you will find your strength to stand firm in righteousness.
YOUR MOVE
Ahead of you is a generation that desperately needs a voice of authority. Men are tired of the constant failure of human wisdom - what they need most of all is to hear from Heaven. Can you be His vessel to proclaim "Thus saith the Lord!" to a lost and dying world? Dare YOU be guided by God? Will you accept the challenge to hear HIs voice and do His will?

Winkie Pratney, 3/20/2012

How Not to Pray by Zac Poonen: (God-Centered Praying)

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 13:32:25 -0600

Text Sermons : Zac Poonen : (God-Centered Praying) 1. How Not to Pray

Zac Poonen ( - Present)
Read freely text sermons and articles by the speaker Zac Poonen in text and pdf format. God called brother Zac Poonen to a new work early on in his Christian experience. The movement is now called Christian Fellowship Churches where the New Covenant of New Testament Christianity is clearly preached. http://www.cfcindia.com/web/mainpages/home_page.php

Brother Zac Poonen has written 25 books most of them being on the deeper Christian life. Many of these have been translated into a number of languages and have been circulated widely around the world. He clearly and passionately shares the narrow way of Christian discipleship that is neglected by so many modern preachers.

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"When you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him.

Pray, then, in this way: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions" (Matt. 6:5-15).

This is the only prayer that Jesus ever taught His disciples. It must certainly be profitable for us then to understand it properly.

Jesus said that whenever we pray we were to pray in this way (v.9). That doesn't mean that we have to repeat this prayer each time we pray. But it does mean that all our praying should follow this pattern.

There's no harm in praying this prayer if we mean every sentence of it. But that's not easy, as we shall soon see.

Before Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He first taught them how NOT to pray.

Not As The Hypocrites

The first thing that Jesus said in relation to how NOT to pray was that we were not to pray as the hypocrites do (v.5,6).

As you read through the gospels you find that Jesus had a lot to say about hypocrisy. He condemned the Pharisees in no uncertain terms, because they were hypocrites. The Pharisees had many good points about them. They prayed every day. They fasted twice every week. They tithed not only their money, but the dill and cummin that grew in their kitchen garden as well. They were extremely careful in following the little details of what they understood to be the laws of God. Externally they were very moral and upright. They would never miss a Sabbath service in the synagogue. They were deeply taught in the Scriptures. Yet Jesus condemned them because what they did was primarily in order to obtain honour from their fellow men. "They loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God" (Jn. 12:43).

The descendants of the Pharisees - those who love the praise of their leaders and other men, more than the praise of God - now live in the midst of every church and fellowship in the world.

The word "hypocrite" comes from a Greek word which means an actor. Think of a man who acts as John the Baptist in a Hollywood movie. In real life he may be a drunkard and a debaucher, having divorced two or three wives. But in the movie, he plays his part as a holy prophet of God. That's what a hypocrite is - one who acts a part before men, but who is actually something quite different in real life.

A hypocrite may act his part as a wholehearted Christian before other believers. But if you saw the way he treated his wife at home, or how he deals with people in his office, you'd find he's a different person altogether. Why? He is not acting there. At home and at work he is the person that he really is. He is a religious man, not a spiritual man.

An actor wants his audience to appreciate how he acts. So does every hypocrite. So did the Pharisees in the first century; and so do the Pharisees in the twentieth century. Whatever they do, even if it be a sacred activity such as praying, they want to be appreciated by men. They may pray beautifully - but it is for people to notice them.

If we are honest, we will have to confess that many a time, we have all prayed as hypocrites - more conscious that people were listening to us, than God. Maybe we need to confess to the Lord that when we pray in public we don't pray in the same way as we do when we're alone. Perhaps we use flowery or fervent language in our public prayer to impress people. Jesus warned us to beware of praying like that, for that type of prayer doesn't reach God at all.

If we want to be delivered from hypocrisy, whether in our preaching, or our living, or our praying, we need to ask God to give us such a fear of Him that we care more for His praise than for the praise of men. Until we learn to fear God aright, we shall continue to be actors playing our part before men, in every area of our lives.

Jesus condemned hypocrisy more than any other sin.

Not Giving False Impressions

The first sin that we read of in the early church was hypocrisy. In Acts 5, you read of Ananias and Sapphira.

What was their sin?

Was it that they didn't bring all the money which they got from the sale of their property and give it to God? No. That was not their sin. If you sell your property for 100,000 rupees and decide to give only 50,000 rupees to God, that is not a sin. If you decide to give nothing to God that is not a sin either. That is really your own business as to how much you give to Him. God loves a cheerful giver; and if you don't give cheerfully, you might as well give nothing. He doesn't need your money. He has more than enough of silver and gold!

Why then did Ananias and Sapphira die? The reason was this: Ananias pretended that what he was laying at the apostles' feet was the whole of the sale-money. With a holy, pious look on his face, Ananias looked just as consecrated as the others. He was an actor, a hypocrite.

But Peter was a man of God and he wasn't fooled. God gave him discernment to see through the hollowness of Ananias' consecration. And he said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?" (Acts 5:3).

What lie did Ananias say? He hadn't opened his mouth.

What does it mean to tell a lie? It means to give a false impression; and you can give a false impression without even opening your mouth.

That's what Ananias did. He wanted to get the acclaim of others that he was also a wholehearted disciple. But he was not. He had kept something back for himself. Now, as I said, that was not a sin. If only he had said, "Brother Peter, I have sold my land. But I don't feel I should give all the sale proceeds to God, like the others are doing. Here is a part of the money" - if he had said that, he would not have died. That would have been honesty, and God would have appreciated it.

But he pretended. That was his sin and that's why he died. A little later his wife came in and she acted her part beautifully too! She also pretended that she was giving everything. And she died as well.

That hypocrisy was like a little leaven that had got into the early church; and God knew that if it wasn't taken out immediately, the whole church would soon be corrupted. That's why He slew them at once.

If you don't beware of hypocrisy in every area of your life, you will never be able to overcome hypocrisy in your prayer-life. If you pray in order that other people may appreciate you, then Jesus says, "You've already got your reward" (Matt. 6:2). Your desire then is not that God should be glorified through your prayer but that other people should know how well you can pray. Then you'll get that reward.

But that's all you'll get. That's what you wanted, and that's what you'll get.

This is a principle in the Christian life that we get what we long for in the depths of our hearts, and not what we ask for with our lips. Seek and you will find what you are really seeking for!

When we stand at the judgment seat of Christ, we will stand stripped of all our outward veneer. There we shall be seen no longer as actors but as we really are. That's why the Bible says that we have to be careful how we walk today, lest we stand there stripped, naked and ashamed one day.

1 John 2:28 reads, "Now little children abide in Christ so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink away." The people who are going to be ashamed in that day are those who lived their life on earth as actors.

I'm speaking now to believers. To whom was the "sermon on the mount" preached? If you'll turn to Matthew 5:1-2, you'll find that Jesus spoke those words to His disciples. It was to His disciples that He said, "Beware of practising your righteousness before men" (Matt. 6:1). It was to his disciples that he said, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy." (Luke 12:1).

Walking In The Light

The Bible says in 1 John 1:7 that we cannot have fellowship with God if we do not walk in the light. If we walk in the light we certainly can't hide anything, for the light exposes everything. The man who walks in darkness is the one who has something to hide in his life. If we walk in the light, our life is an open book. We can then invite people to examine our private life, our account books and everything. There is nothing we want to hide. It doesn't mean that we're perfect. No, it only means that we are honest.

The first thing that God requires from all of us is honesty - absolute honesty. If we are willing to be honest first, many of our other problems will be solved very quickly. We will progress in leaps and bounds in our spiritual life if we live by this fundamental rule of honesty before God and men.

But you'll find that this is a battle. You may say, "I'm really going to take that exhortation seriously. I'm going to be honest from now on." But you'll find before the week is out that you're tempted to be an actor again, and to seek for the praise of men rather than the praise of God. So you have to determine to fight that battle and win.

It is a great grief to God that there are so many Christians today who have been born again for twenty, thirty or forty years, but who haven't progressed spiritually because they have not learned this fundamental lesson of being honest. We can't progress if there is hypocrisy in our life. Our prayers will not be heard. We can have all-night prayer meetings; but we are wasting our time. Our prayers will not be heard if we do not get rid of hypocrisy first.

We must recognize that our true spiritual worth is what we are before God and nothing more than that. Our spiritual state is not determined by our knowledge of the Bible, nor by how much we pray, nor by how many meetings we attend, nor by what the elders or others in the church think of us. On the contrary, ask yourself, "What does God, Who can see into every area of my life, think of me?" The answer to that is the real measure of how spiritual you are. We need to remind ourselves of this daily, or else we may find ourselves becoming actors again.

I love those words that Jesus said about Nathaniel, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile" (John 1:47). If Jesus could say that about you and me, that would be a greater commendation that almost anything else. Nathaniel was not perfect. He was imperfect. But he was honest about his imperfections. He didn't pretend to be something that he wasn't. That's where he was different from Ananias and Sapphira.

Not With Meaningless Repetition

A second thing that Jesus warned us against was the use of meaningless repetition in prayer, as the Gentiles do when they pray.

It is not the number of words that we use that God sees as much as the longings of our heart. Real prayer is the longing of the heart. That longing is what ascends to God and gets an answer.

Repetition of words is all right, if you mean what you say. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed three times using the same words (Mt. 26:44). But His words were not empty repetition. Each time He prayed, the words came with a burden from His heart. You can pray with the same words ten times a day, and God will hear you, if you pray sincerely from your heart each time.

Christians are guilty of telling more lies to God on Sundays than on any other day. You know why? Because it is on Sundays that they sing so many hymns - such as, "All to Jesus I surrender", "Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold", etc.,

You may sing those words because they're in the hymnbook. But you don't mean them. And you don't realize that you're speaking directly to God when you sing such hymns. Maybe you are more conscious of the tune than of the words. That's when you tell lies to God.

Jesus said that we would have to give an account to God in the day of judgment for every careless word that we spoke (Mt. 12.36) It's because we live in a generation of Christians who do not fear God that such warnings of our Lord are not taken seriously.

Vain repetition is the mark of the heathen who come into God's presence carelessly and say things that they don't mean. That should never be found in our praying or our singing.

Not Trusting In Long Prayers

Jesus also said that the heathen thought that they would be heard because of their many words.

Some believers feel that if they have an all-night prayer meeting, God is bound to answer them, just because they prayed for so long. That type of praying is characteristic of the heathen.

You remember the time on Mount Carmel when Elijah stood on one side and 450 prophets of the heathen God, Baal, stood on the other side and they both tried to bring fire down from heaven to find out who was the true God. The prophets of Baal had a long prayer meeting. They prayed and prayed and prayed; and then they jumped and danced and shouted. But there was no fire. God saw their hearts and He wasn't impressed by their emotional outbursts or their noise (1 Kings 18:20-29).

There are Christians who pray like that too! They think God will hear them because of all their emotion and their shouting.

And then Elijah prayed. His prayer was over in less than a minute but it brought the fire. That's the test - not whether you pray for a minute or all night, but whether God answers or not!

"Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart" (1Sam. 16:7).

"The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much" (James 5:16). James goes on to refer to Elijah's example there. Elijah's prayer was answered, not because he shouted for so many hours but because he was a righteous man. It's the life behind the prayer that makes the prayer effective. Let's never forget that.

These are some of the fundamental lessons that Jesus taught His disciples, before He taught them how they should pray. We can never learn to pray aright if we don't first learn how not to pray.

Let me add one last word here, lest I be misunderstood.

Having an all-night prayer meeting is certainly not wrong. Jesus Himself prayed all night on one occasion (Lk. 6:12). What Jesus condemned was not much praying, but trusting in many words. There is a lot of difference between many words and much praying. If our praying is only many words then it is a waste of time. Jesus could spend a whole night in prayer effectively because His heart was right and He had a God-given burden.

However, it's not the length of time spent in prayer that determines whether God answers or not. It's the life of the man who prays that determines that.

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