Isa 29:13 Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as these people draw near me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips me, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the commandments of men.
Fearing God cannot be taught by men. True fear of God comes through encounter. We must encounter God in order to actually fear Him. Dead generation after dead generation have taught this by the commandments, by the traditions of men. One dead generation after another passes on abstracts truths that bears no life. They draw near with their mouths and with their lips they honor God and teach that we should be afraid of Him, but their very traditions are insurmountable barriers. Only the heart that has encountered God can truly know and fear Him. It shapes us and molds us, like the potter molds the clay. The clay cannot gain anything outside of the hand of the potter. How arrogant and utterly foolish are we who think that by mere head knowledge we can come into a right relationship with the Almighty God.
Isaiah finds this out. He finds himself in the presence of God. He is utterly undone. If he had something to cover himself with, he would have covered himself. If he had something to crawl under he would have crawled under it. Yet no, there he stands and his eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, the King of all glory. Notice what happens when he is touched by the coal of fire from the altar and his iniquities are taken away and his sin purged. He no longer has a desire to hide. He cries out “here am I.” What a transformation! Here am I God, here am I. When God called out in the garden, Adam and Eve could say no such thing. Rather, they covered themselves and hid. Now Isaiah can be sent. He “knows,’ God. He has encountered God. He knows what it is to fear God. And that fear promotes within him a reverence and and awe of the Majesty of God and now he can be trusted to go, God could send him.
We must know the fear of God. It is fundamental to our relationship with Him. It is fundamental to our being sent. It is fundamental to representing God here on earth among men. This is who God will send. If you do not fear God by virtue of encounter then you can honor God with your lips all day long, you can try and teach man the fear of God, but your heart will be far from Him. There will be no power in your words, no meaning in your traditions, it will just be the empty sound of the clanging cymbal and a resounding gong. If we shall see a marvelous work in our day, then it must start here. God will cause the wisdom of their wise men to perish. The wisdom that has propped up dead religion shall perish and good riddance to it. For unless this barrier comes down we shall not see, in our day, the marvelous works of God. One must choose whom they will serve. The wisdom of men or the fear of God?
Tomorrows rain shall never come
For this is the eve of the final setting sun
The filth has not, nor shall be washed away
And now the stench of a world that refuses to pray.
This was a vineyard on a very fruitful hill
There should have been good fruit but we took a bitter pill
And wild grapes came forth and refused to now the knee
We rejected the Creator for all that we could see.
And so we drew iniquity with the cords of our own vanity
And now the terror of the Lord and the glory of His Majesty
Causes men to run and hide from the horror of the light
For now they realize that they are creatures of the night.
The children of the day shall take their place atop the mountains
And from those lofty heights there shall flow eternal fountains
And all the nations of the earth shall flow towards these waters
And the praises of our God and King shall rise from sons and daughters.
Cutting the Gordian knot is an ancient story related Gordius to the king of Phyrgia. He is said to have tied his cart to a beam with the most incredibly intricate knot. An oracle proclaimed that the man who could untie this knot would rule all of Asia. Along comes Alexander the great and he is presented with the knot and the story. He studies the knot for a moment, takes out his sword, and with one blow, cuts the knot and releases the cart. And so the phrase has come down through the ages to represent incredibly intricate unsolvable situations. In the end, only drastic and swift action can cut through the maze of intricacies and unsolvable problems.
I would like to suggest that Christendom presents such a situation. It has become a monstrous maze of religion and denominations and hatred and bigotry. Much of the Body of Christ wanders in and has been swallowed up by such a maze. What man, or group of men, could ever solve the problem, could ever extricate the Body of Christ from the maze of Christendom? There is no such solution, only the sword can cut through the Gordian knot of impossibility. Only this time, it will not be an Alexander or an earthly sword, but Christ Himself that shall cut the knot. The knot, in this case, is a man made abomination and only the sword can solve the problem. The knot cannot be undone, it can only be cut asunder. Jesus tells us that He did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Its the sword that frees.
When the sword is applied then the knot is destroyed. The knot is Christendom and it has enveloped the Body of Christ. Cut the knot and the Body is released from its entanglement. There is violence in the cutting no doubt. A mans enemies shall be those of his own household. Jesus did not come to send peace into the world, but rather a sword. The truth divides. A man shall find himself the enemy of his own household, denomination, community, nation and world. He will discover that if he loves any of these things more than he loves Jesus, he is not worthy to know Jesus. He will lose his life. Yet, if he is determined to know Jesus above all these things, he shall find eternal life. When the sword of the Lord is wielded, the simplicity of the truth of God is unleashed. The Body of Christ is free as it wields the sword, it is forever entangled if it attempts to undo the knot.
We are people of the Word, of the Spirit and who have a singular passion and His name is Jesus. We are the way and the faith and we are to be found everywhere, from every culture and from every color and from every background. A carved out people, called out of darkness into His marvelous light. Living a simple life of purity and total dedication to Jesus that cuts across cultural traits and transcends centuries of behaviors, it is the calling of the Spirit. We are sons of daughters brought to glory by the Kings of Kings.
This is what the enemy hates above all. Our calling from God. We, who were not a people, now sons and daughters of God in a mysterious royal priesthood. There are many pretenders. Many are called, few are chosen. Only something original and valuable is ever counterfeited. Satan has done some of his best work in counterfeiting the saints. Yet upon close inspection, his imposters (who do not know they are imposters, the best deception is when the deceived have no idea they are deceived) are lacking in two primary and absolutely vital aspects of genuine Christianity. Passion for Jesus, a grand obsession that eclipses everything else in life, and primarily , the Holy Spirit who gives such a passion.
It is not children that God is looking for, it is sons and daughters. We come as children, we grow into sons and daughters. He is looking for those who go on to maturity. He has no pleasure in those who turn back. No pleasure in those who start out with gladness but have no root and when the sun comes up, when the trials of life come, what little root they have withers in the shallow ground. No pleasure in those who get choked and caught up in the cares of this life and the desire for riches and they are without fruit. Yet there is good ground and God loves it. A ground that was no longer fallow, a ground that had the rocks and the stones and the clods removed. A ground that was tilled. Good servants, good soil, sons and daughters, much fruit.
The days are growing darker brothers and sisters. The great whore church is rising, stocked by the great falling away. The flesh wars against the spirit. The flesh has risen up to dizzying new heights and it is nearing its zenith. The time for all out war against the saints is at hand. We are people of the truth and the truth shall be the primary weapon. First to identify us and then to destroy us. Truth shall be banished and the lie shall be crowned in its place. All shall be made to worship the lie. Only the sons and daughters shall not. They shall never bow down to the gods of this world and the gods of this world are rising. They are corrupting our children and an army shall rise. A generation that shall be without natural affection. They shall be false accusers and fierce with it, totally sold out to their corruptions and they shall despise what is good. They will be proud and boastful and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God and all the time having a warped form of Godliness.
Yet, for the sons and daughters of God, it will be their finest hour. The same Spirit that burned in the hearts of the three Hebrew children burn in ours. We shall never bow down to the gods of this world and we shall experience the presence of God as we have never done before nor any generation that has proceeded us. Jesus shall be with us in the midst of the fire. He shall raise us up to higher ground as the enemy comes in like a flood. His banner shall fly and flutter in the wind of the Spirit over every bloody battle-field around the world and thus His glory shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. All the world shall witness this, the Kingdom of God in operation, so that they are without doubt and without excuse, and then comes the Son of Man in all His glory.
Act 5:41 And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
How far we in Christendom have fallen. Where is the generation that rejoices in being counted worthy to suffer for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? The apostles had just been beaten, and yet they rejoiced. They had just suffered greatly, yet they rejoiced. They could not believe their good fortune that they had been counted worthy. The disciples and the saints were not praying for them not to be beaten. They were not praying for God to minimize or stop their suffering. Rather, we read, that the saints were praying that the apostles would have even more boldness. And when they were praying that prayer, the whole place was shaken and they were all filled afresh.
How do you pray saints? When you or one you know is suffering for the cause of Christ, how do you pray? Do you pray as the saints in the early Church prayed? Are we so westernized and have we suffered so little for the name of Jesus, for so long, that we forget how to effectively pray, to the point that the everything is shaken and we are filled afresh? The Holy Spirit initiates boldness, and when that boldness is acted upon He fills us again…… and again……..and again. When the apostles are dragged in front of the Sanhedrin for violating their previous orders of not mentioning Jesus. Here is their reply. “We ought to obey God, rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree……….and we are His witnesses.” We too, brothers and sisters, are His witnesses, it is our calling, it is why we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Exercise boldness in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and He will continually fill you, even as you rejoice in suffering for His name sake.
1Pe 4:12-14 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: …………….If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
The spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. We are told to rejoice in the midst of fiery trials and be happy if you are slandered for Christ’s sake. Rejoicing and happiness, not exactly a worldly response to trials and mockings. This is the paradoxical world of the Kingdom. This is why the world is turned upside down by the disciples of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. It is in marked contrast to nature to rejoice in the midst of trials. Yet herein lies the power of God that rests upon the saints. It renews yours strength and revitalizes your spirit. Wait upon Him with patience and expectation of deliverance whether in this world or through the next. It is all the same to the saint who has already died to this world.
There is power in the glory of God. When it surrounds us and courses through us then men see the power of God in us. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. This is light shining out of darkness. And not just ordinary light but the light of the glory of God. This glory emanates power. Do you want to walk in the power of God brothers and sisters? Do you want to shake the foundations of hell? Do you want to run and not grow weary, walk and not faint? Do you want to rise up and soar where the eagles soar in the updrafts of His glory? Then you have to spread your wings and catch the rising glory. To “spread your wings,’ is to lift your hands heavenwards and glorify God in the very depths of your situation. It is akin to calling down the glory of God.
The ultimate judgement of God and the ruin of man is when God gives a person or nations up to their own uncleanness that flows from the lusts of their own hearts. They are consumed by their vile affections, so we are told in Romans chapter one. The morning has come for the nations and the day shall have its end. The rising sun of the morning casts a light upon their corruption. It is clearly seen. No longer is it hidden in the shadows. It does not skulk in the dark recesses of the alleyways. Rather, it marches boldly down Main St. It celebrates its sin openly and brazenly and not content with that, compels others to bow before it and acknowledge it as their own.
A disaster, a singular disaster is at the door (Ezek 7:5) and it will effect all of the nations. It is the beginning of the end when this disaster strikes. God will not spare, the nations shall know that He is the God who strikes. Pride budded on the rod and now it has come into full bloom. There is no longer any pretense. God is wholly and fully rejected by the nations. Once they had for a pretense an honor of God but now the halls of their power, their institutions and all their ways have become corrupted. It is one thing to conspire in the shadows, it is quite another to break into open rebellion and raise an angry mocking fist at God. And therefore God will strike, He will rob the rebels of hope and they will be overtaken with fear. Their legs will not work under them for fear and they will not be able to run or stand and fight.
Men have always sought solace in the usual hiding places. They hide within the confines of their own bravery. In their pride they hide. In rebellion and hope for tomorrow they find their last stand,but they cannot stand from the God that can and will strip them of all of these things. They have put much stock in their wealth and their prosperity. They have built castle after castle with them. Yet one by one these castles will fall as the sanctuary of their wealth is taken from them. Up to this point it has been the solid ground upon which they stood, now the very ground beneath them shall give way. In that day it will be better to have “fields of corn rather than mines of gold.” Their gold will be useless to them.
Men seek no messenger to rebuke them of their sin rather they seek council from lying prophets who will tell them what they want to hear, for a price. And these prophets promise them peace but peace shall not come. Men have despised God with rebellion and mixture, mixture being a thing that God despises. Therefore in the coming days of their calamity there shall be no help from God for He is the author of that very calamity and those who speak against it speak against God. The kings of the world shall mourn and its princes shall be dismayed but they will not repent. Rather they shall turn on God’s remnant saints. This singular disaster shall usher in the days of the great tribulation. There shall be no pre-tribulation rapture. They shall make war on the saints and the saints shall be overcome as they fall into their hands (Rev 13:7)
Yet take comfort in this brothers and sisters, the Lord Himself shall be with us in the midst of the fire. Our tormentors shall look and see and know that Christ is in us and with us. The whole world shall look and see that Christ is in us. As we are martyred then we shall be a witness to the whole world. Those who endure to the end shall be saved. The world will witness Christ in us and their guilt shall be sealed. The Kingdom shall be demonstrated to all the world as a witness and then the end shall come (Matt 24:14)
In our childhood many of us roamed through the native woods and seen some old fallen forest tree rotting where it lay. Through the decaying wood, the earthworms and insects burrow, and perhaps the adder has built its nest and raised its poisonous brood, so that we have feared to sit down on the old, putrefying mass, and have thought of it as a type of corruption and decay. That mass of putrefaction may well represent the ruin of our sinful nature. But have we not sometimes seen a little shoot of unsullied whiteness in the early spring growing up through the rotten wood, and rising out of the mass of corruption as undefiled as the sunny wing of a dove, or the gentle hand of a babe, beautiful and pure, and unstained even by the touch of corrupting elements around it, until it has grown into a tree and covered itself with luxurious green , and our hands have plucked from its branches the luscious berries of the summer woods? It was life in the midst of death, purity amid corruption, having no connection whatever with the soil in which it grew and incapable of mixture with its defilement. Precisely so is the life of holiness in the soul (A.B.Simpson)
Can you glimpse into the words of this dear old saint? He is talking about your sanctification. How out of death and corruption rises the holiness of God. The old man is decaying and dying and rotting where it lies as unattended death does. The dying and the death. The dying of the cross was a long business, it was designed to be so by those cruel Romans. They had perfected the art of having nailed a man to a tree but keeping him alive as long as they possibly can. This is the death of the cross. The flesh does not go quietly. It shouts and it screams its protests and we we hear it, dont we saints? We hear our flesh as it wars against our spirit. We long for its death to be done and even then for its body to be laid in the grave. Our spirit is willing and will live forever, but our flesh is weak and knows it already defeated but still it shall not go quietly, but go it shall.
In the natural the sicker someone becomes, the closer to death they get, the less that they can do. They can no longer climb a flight of stairs, no longer walk around the block, can barely bend over and if they sit down they have great difficulty getting back up. Old age and sickness robs the flesh of the strength that it once had. Yet, are you not glad that the Scripture tells us that the outer man may be perishing yet his spirit is being renewed each day. The dying of the flesh has no bearing on the life of the spirit, quite the opposite. Your spiritual tree should be covered with luxurious green. Fruit should hang from every branch. You roots should be fed directly because you abide beside the river. In season, out of season, you are a tree planted by the waters. A tree that grew out of corruption which you threw of daily by means of the cross until you rendered it all but harmless. The old corrupt tree lies formless on the ground. You, dear saint, no matter how old you are, stand tall and strong in the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom you can run and not grew weary, you can walk and not faint and you can rise up with wings as eagles. Rise up today saints, you who have waited upon the Lord.
The church system is antithetical to genuine fellowship. If the leadership is a one man band and only he “ministers” then why would we imagine that they would not reproduce after their own kind? A multitude of starving folks, starving from lack of edification, starving from genuine fellowship centered around a common passion…..Jesus.
Genuine saints are driven in the depths of their spirits to find others who have the same overarching passion as they do. The saint is not looking to “make friends,” like the world, they are seeking the called out ones. When they find them, these folks from a thousand different backgrounds, they find not friends, but genuine brothers and sisters, centered around a common beating heart. It is the heart of our heavenly Father and it beats with the rhythm of the Kingdom. Our hearts beat together as one and the bond is unbreakable.
The reason that we do not have more repentance is that we repent for what we do instead of what we are. Remember, repentance for what you do goes down deep, but repentance for what you are goes deeper ( Tozer) The presence of God, the manifest presence of God is a two-edged sword. In the incalculable light of God our Father, that reflects from the face of Christ our Lord, we see first ourselves and then we see God. We understand just how far removed from the perfection of our creator we are in the light of His glory and grace. We understand all the more the nature of our humanity and it stays with us. David’s eyes were opened by the prophet of God and he is horrified. He understands the depths and the nature of his crimes, yet his heart cry before God is the realization of where those crimes originated from. He knows well, in the light of God, that God requires truth in the inward parts, where the sin originates.
This is why Tozer is saying that repentance for what you are goes deeper than repentance for what you did. Both are required, one is seldom sought. The Catholic goes to confession ever week and confesses the same sin over and over again yet the heart remains the same. Many evangelicals do the same, just in a different format and typically alone. The real work in the heart of a man and a woman lies in the depths of their hearts. Only by coming into the presence of God, before the throne, a way made for us by Jesus Himself, can we ever truly be changed to the depths of our hearts. David acknowledges his transgressions and then says that his sin (singular, meaning the sin nature) is ever before him. If we would diminish the power of the sin nature, we would use the gift of reconciliation, given to us by Jesus and come before the throne in true and deep repentance. We can never leave that place unchanged. He waits for you.
2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
The concentration camp was a proving ground of character. Some……..slithered into a moral swamp. Others…..chiseled themselves a character of finest crystal. We were cut with a sharp instrument. It’s blade bit painfully into our bodies, yet in our souls it found fields to till. We had all become just our bare essence. A man was seen and valued for what he really was (Auschwitz survivor Witold Pilecki, 1945)
God is looking for the bare essence of a man, the bare essence of a woman. God commands light to shine forth from darkness. We are the darkness. In our unbroken state we are covered with this veneers. And the multitude of these thin veneers makes for a formidable barrier that is in opposition to Christ’s work in us.
These veneers are legion and vary from person to person. Pride, arrogance, airs and graces, civility, morality, insecurity, security are but a few. All of it is flesh and when the veneers are burned away we are left with who we truly are. And for the saint who we truly are is so far removed from God that it horrifies us. The light of God shines into the darkness. It breaks us in ways we cannot even begin to imagine. It consumes the darkness in us and fills us with His light. It is this light that shines forth from darkness. It is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The glow from Moses face was the glow of condemnation. The light we find in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ is the transforming light of reconciliation.
It bursts forth from broken earthen vessels. These earthen vessels are the bare essence of men and women. Jesus is truly seen, we are truly witnesses of Him when we, in our broken state, shine forth the light of Christ from hearts that have been renewed and restored to fellowship with the Father. There was nowhere that this more illustrated than on Calvary. The darkest of darkness. As Jesus hung there, even the natural light fled away as the world was consumed by gross darkness. And out of that gross darkness God the Father commanded that light would shine forth. Leaving the empty dark tomb behind, Jesus stepped out into glory. Victory won the day. He arose. We too arise in the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The best of man is still filthy rags to God, but the righteousness of Christ triumphs in the hearts of men over the gross darkness. Men and woman of God are seen for who they truly are, vessels filled with the light of Christ which is the glory of God.
A number of years ago I came across the story of the Decian persecution of Christians while I was doing research for a book I was writing. I did not include this in the book but it is interesting to consider the facts. Decian was the Roman Emperor in 250 ad. He issued an edict that required everyone in the Roman empire to perform a sacrifice. The sacrifice was to be made to the Roman gods, and also included a loyalty oath towards his rule as Emperor. (See above image) The sacrifice had to be carried out before a Roman magistrate who would then sign a certificate which would allow them to carry on with whatever business they were involved with. This certificate would enable them to buy or sell.
The particular region I was studying was Carthage. It was expected that there would be great resistance to this from the Christian community and indeed this was part of the motivation for the decree in the first place. Imprisonment and death were the penalties for those who refused to participate in the sacrifice. The Carthaginian authorities settled on the days that the city was to participate. They were totally taken by surprise by the large numbers of “Christians,’ who rushed to “get their certificate.” They had to extend the time they had allotted for the sacrifices and certificate signing.
Out of the group that refused to be involved in sacrificing to gods, many were martyred, others were imprisoned and still others went into hiding. Interestingly, at the same time as this “empire wide,” persecution, a plague had broken out and was killing up to five thousand Romans per day. This only added to the hatred of Christians as they were deemed to be in some way responsible for this. And so, when this particular persecution ended, there was a great deal of tension between those who had stood their ground for Jesus and those who had capitulated in order to save themselves.
This was not the first time this had happened, nor would it be the last. The Diocletian persecution would be the most intense staring at around 300ad and last for around a decade. Again the spit would happen. A large majority would capitulate and deny the faith, the smaller minority would be killed, imprisoned or flee. When the smoke cleared from this latest persecution, the larger group that had capitulated to the state would be the group favored by Constantine. No surprise that the Emperor would choose the group who he could count on to bow the knee to him and the State. That group were the Catholics. The minority group, the group that had refused to hand over their scriptures to the State and to bow the knee, were known as “Donatists.’ They refused to acknowledge anyone who had capitulated to Rome as a Christian. For this they were hunted down and killed.
I would just like to say that some things never change. There is and always has been a large group, a majority group, within the world that identifies itself as Christian, that will not “stand in the evil day.” It is such an evil day that separates the sheep from the goats. It is the storm that tests the foundations of the house. It is not what a man or woman calls themselves that counts for anything, it is who they actually are. Those who have received the love of the truth, who are genuinely born again, will stand in that day. They will be martyred, they will be imprisoned or they will flee. What they will not do, what they could never do, what they have never done, is to deny their Lord. As it was, so it always shall be until that glorious day when Christ returns.
A Call To The Remnant 