There is a great gulf between our perception of provision and what we think of when think of work. The Lord makes provision for His children. Does He have expectations? Yes. Yet, the context of duty must be in light of a proper understanding of His provision. As in all things, the Lord is interested in why we do a thing rather than what we do. Two identical actions, with different motivations, can be to one a blessing and light, and to another a curse and darkness. Let me try and illustrate.
I grew up in what is known as a tenement. It was a large Victorian stone building. My American friends would call it an apartment building or block but to me that seems much to modern a name for something rather dark and foreboding as a tenement building. Thick damp stone walls. Big families crammed into tiny one or two bedroom apartments, some only having one room, we would call that a “single end.” They were cold and drafty and full of mice, often times there would be mushrooms growing out of the walls. Outside toilets meant “pots,” under the bed. Old metal baths pulled out on a Sunday night for bathing. Now, that was when I grew up, imagine what it was like one hundred and fifty years before that?
Imagine living like that for generations and then making your way across a vast ocean and finding yourself in the new world. Now imagine that you find out that you can get 160 acres, for free! You could homestead. The deal you would make is that you would work the land. You would cut down trees, remove stumps, remove all stones,till the land, plant the seed, tend the fields, bring in the harvest. Store the harvest and sell what you could in town after having made provision for your family.
If that was me in those days, you would wonder what that singing was, even when the weather was terrible. It would be me, as I chopped down tree and dug up stumps. It would be me as I tilled the land. And every day I would be in wonder of how I came upon such good fortune. I would remember where I came from often. I would remember that I had been delivered from drudgery and poverty. My work would be a joy as I kept in mind where I came from. In that sense it would not be work at all, it would all be provision.
Now consider the lazy un-thankful man. Would you hear him singing in the field? Would he be angrily carrying out his “work?” Would he be constantly complaining about the nature of his work, the weather and his aching bones? In all, the homestead act in America would offer 500 million acres of land. Only 80 million acres were ever taken and of those who did take it, in many areas the failure rate was as high as 60% Now of course there would be multiple factors in the failures, but in the end it was, for many, simply too hard.
The saints of God do not fail. They know where they came from and they never forget. They know they were dead in their sins. They know they were bound and captive to them. They know that countless generations before them died in their sin. They know they have been delivered. They know how good their God is. And so, even on the hardest days, through the toughest trials, it’s all provision for the saint. He has been given this new life and no matter what, he knows it. None of it is “work,’ to the saint, rather it is a labor of love. Your life itself is a labor of love as unto God, your redeemer.
What spirit do you have saint? Is your life a labor of love? Even when it rains, even when it snows, even when the stumps are refusing to yield as you labor to remove them? It is good to remind ourselves often of just what we were delivered from and who delivered us and gave us what we have now. Glory to God in the highest. He gives good things to His children and He knows how to train them and raise them for His will and His own good pleasure. Everything becomes a good thing when we see that it is all God’s provision.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.(Joh 1:1-5)
All praise to God, the Word was made flesh. The love of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God, the mercy of God, the glory of God, the plan of God, the long suffering of God. All of this and much more manifested in the Word made flesh. The very representation of the God-head, manifested in the Son of God and walking among us. God commanded that light would shine out of darkness, and so into the darkness of our world stepped the Word of God made flesh, Jesus. Life, overcoming death. In death He would bring forth life. Out of the darkness of Calvary, the greatest darkness ever known, shone the greatest light ever known. The culmination of the sin of man was overcome by the one without sin.
This great light than shone out of the darkness of Calvary is the life of men. Men may be dead in their sin but the light that shines in the darkness brings life to those who are dead. This is the work of the Lord and it is a marvel to behold. In Him is life and those who know Him walk in the newness of that life and it dwells within them. This light beckons to those who are dead in the darkness of their sin to come to Him and let His light shine upon them. Man will do one of two things, he will run to it or he will run from it. Those who run to it are consumed by it. It overwhelms them and transforms them and fills them with unspeakable glory. They have penetrated and have been penetrated by impenetrable light. The glory of God and the redemption of man, purified as His own special people.
As Jesus faced down Satan in the desert he told that old liar that “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Every word brothers and sisters that proceeds forth from the mouth of God. Man needs bread to live, he has to eat otherwise he will slowly starve to death. What a ghastly sight it is to see someone in the latter stages of starvation. They lose all of their characteristics and begin to resemble one another as they waste away and gauntness takes over. As we sit in our pews week after week, no one dares disturb the sound of silence.
Despite the richness of our gifts and our callings, despite our ability to give and receive words of knowledge, to hear heavenly songs sung in a heavenly language, to hear prophecy’s and exhortations that can speak directly into the heart of what we are going through in the moment, we dare not disturb this established silence.Have we made a neon god? Do we sit in pews and worship a god of our own making? A god that has to dim the lights and break out the ice making machine to create an “atmosphere,” that was long ago lost to slick professional worship teams and men with programs.Listen brothers and sisters, if entertainment brought them in, only entertainment will keep them. Yet how long before they grow weary of the entertainment? Where do they go after the dimmed lights and the religious concerts fail to move them and the smoke dissipates?
If we could see with spiritual eyes as we sat in our pews and looked around, would we see well fed people living on the fat of a land flowing with milk and honey, living abundantly in the life of Christ, edified and well fed? Or rather would we see a people gaunt with hunger, starving for the Spiritual edification that the Lord Himself provided for us. He promised us that He would not leave us as orphans but send the Holy Spirit to lead and to guide us. What happens when the Holy Spirit is silenced and men have decided that they know best?
Mar 7:9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
Is this what we have done brothers and sisters? No longer can we have the Lord speak to us how He pleases in the midst of the congregation. We have rejected these gifts so that the traditions of men may be kept and we now must not disturb the sound of silence, that silence being the words and the wisdom of man. And in the midst of that darkness we sit, only ever wondering what the power of God truly looks like, and the smoke slowly drifts away.
Would to God that we would raise up a battalion of wet eyed intercessors for this hour of unprecedented grief and spiritual peril. …Denominational segregation must go;barriers must be eliminated and group prayer meetings formed. This is the crisis hour of the Church as well as the world. We must obey the Bible command to fast and pray..If we face up to our calamity of this hour, we shall get our faces down into the dust to cry “Arm of the Lord, awake and put on strength.” Out of those protracted prayer times would come a people glowing and growing, plus a whole new crop of last-day prophets. Let’s make no mistake, they will come (Ravenhill-Meat for Men)
Now consider this brothers and sisters. Ravenhill wrote that over sixty years ago. Has anything changed? No! It is much much worse. If we were not desperate then, how about now? Let me tell you what else has not changed. Denominational barriers must come down. The whole world is ablaze and the members of the Body of Christ is fragmented. And before you write to me and complain that the mystical Body of Christ is one, let me save you the time, don’t. They are scattered to the wind of denominations and non denominations. How can we raise up a battalion? How can we raise up an army?
If you have five different churches on your street or one hundred different churches in your town, and your town is going to hell and its children are being swallowed up by a Satanic flood why have you not banded together to pull them from the fury?. Why are you not crying out to God together in holy desperation! Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD (Joel 1:14) It is our singular lack of unity that greatly strengthens the arm of Satan in his divisive purposes. We talk about a divided society. Are they not merely a reflection of the Church? As goes the Church, so goes the world.
Pastors and leaders are to blame. There, I said it. The sheep are scattered. And while they wander the hills without effective leadership (yes, we are all led by the Holy Spirit) their leaders are worrying about how to get warm bodies back into the churches. They are worried about the divisions in society and the great cracks that are appearing , and they see the very same cracks ion their own congregations. That is because Pastor, your church is no different than the world. You go as the world goes. It is all upside down. Do you even have a solemn prayer meeting once a week? And I am not talking about praying for Aunt Flo’s big toe. I am talking about crying out to God with tears and prayers and fastings for the state of the world, the state of your community, the state of your “own,” church.
Do not be surprised dear Pastor when you begin to lose those who fear God the most. Those who can no longer stomach the lukewarmness. Those who would rather stumble into a desert and cry out to God for life itself than to be back in Egypt in slavery. It is not too late although the hour is late. Will you repent Christian leaders? Will you call solemn assemblies? Fasting and prayer meetings? Will you step off your platform and give it back to Jesus? Its not too late but the darkness comes. Its not too late but even now the gross darkness licks around your feet. Will you cry out to God in heaven who dwells in impenetrable light that He may rend the heavens and come down? What is stopping you? You know in your heart that there will be an accounting. God save us from this day and from this hour.
“As soon as they had come to land they saw a fire of coals there, and fish on it, and bread.” (John 21:9)
All night long the disciples had fished and had caught nothing, yet one word from the lord and the nets were full. Notice that when Peter jumped overboard and swam ashore, there was already fish cooking on a fire of coals and there was bread. There was food that Jesus had prepared. The food Peter was about to eat was not from his own catch. Even his own catch had been enabled by the Lord. In every way we are reliant and can depend upon the Lord.
Remember when the disciples were rowing across the waters in the midst of a great storm and were getting nowhere? They were exhausted and frightened. Then Jesus comes walking on the water through the storm and enters their boat and suddenly they were at the other side. As soon as Jesus entered the situation all their striving ceased. Have you found such rest in Jesus? Do you get caught up with this life and its constant demands? It’s exhausting isn’t it?
To be content with where you are is not to be passive at all. One can work as unto the Lord but still have the focus on Jesus. When we are close to Jesus everything becomes sanctified. Even if all my hard work does not produce the results I was looking for, there is still fish cooking on a fire of coals and bread from heaven to eat. To walk in a place such as this is to walk in a sanctified place breathing rarefied air.
In God there is peace. Shall we not invite Him in to our boat today? Simplify your life today and simply follow His instructions. By doing this, by seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. If we learn to be content with a fire of coals, some fish and some bread, then the Lord can safely fill our nets. Be at peace in Him, let Jesus be the delight of your heart and all these things shall be added unto you.
2Sa 12:10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
King David is in a very bad situation. He has committed adultery with Bathsheba, he tried to cover his tracks when she got pregnant, but a foreign convert , Uriah the Hittite , the husband of Bathsheba was more honorable that David. Therefore David’s attempts to cover up his adultery was foiled so David had him killed. This is such a low state for the man after God’s own heart. And after Nathan the prophet comes to David and exposes him, God speaks. God speaks brothers and sisters, one should be very afraid when God speaks, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. And here is the charge that God levels against David, His beloved. ” You have despised me.”
Now this word despised in the Hebrew is ” baw-zaw,” meaning to disesteem, to think lightly off. It is the same word used in Gen 25:34 to describe Esau’s selling of his birthright for some bread and some soup. Can you imagine selling your birthright just simply to satisfy your immediate needs? Can you imagine that food on the table would be thought more highly of than the Living God and the birthright that He has given to us? And yet, do we not live in a day and age where our immediate needs, meaning the basic needs of this world and our day-to-day living are thought more highly of than God?
Are we not encouraged to live our best lives now? Have we not allowed our desires and hungers to be elevated above our love and desire for God? And are we not blind to it, so terribly blind to it? If David needed a prophet to reveal his wickedness, and this a man after God’s own heart, beloved of God, are we so proud as to think that we would not need this level of rebuke?
Christendom today has despised God in the fullest sense of that word. They are as blind to their sin as David was to his. And unless they hear God directly and acknowledge and repent of their sin as David did, they will be hopelessly lost to, and be entangled by the cares of this world. I praise God that He never leaves us without a witness, whether it is one crying in the wilderness or a remnant that refuses to bow the knee to the gods of this world. God will have a spotless bride, He will raise up a generation that will follow Him and Him alone.
Rom 4:18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
In this particular case we see that Abraham and his wife are well beyond the age of bearing a child. Sarah’s womb was dead, it could carry no life. And so in life we oftentimes run into situations that defies hope, that stands diametrically opposed to hope. All the evidence of the rational world and the finest expert opinions dash any worldly hope upon the rocks of hopelessness and despair. Yet brothers and sisters, it is a glorious thing to remember that our hope is not the hope of the world. Our hope is founded upon our God and His word, His promises. His word is not broken, His promises cannot be broken. And it is this hope that is a wellspring of joy and peace and love and a sound mind.
Abraham, the father of faith believed God that life would spring forth from death. Now from the first promise until the fulfillment it took 25 years. Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when Issac was conceived. This defied all the evidence of the rational world. In the world Abraham would have had no hope. In the world we too would have no hope, yet praise God we may be in the world but not off it. We walk according to the Spirit of God, we stand upon the Word of God. we believe in the promises of God and we walk in the Kingdom of God. This kingdom is and always has been a place of miracles and a wellspring of hope.
The birth of Issac is the birth of a nation. It is this line that would give us Jesus, the seed that would bless all the nations of the world. It sprang forth from the impossible which is the realm of the miraculous. This realm has a throne and upon that throne sits our heavenly Father. Can hope come forth from hopelessness? Yes indeed. Just as Jesus came forth from His heavenly realm and stepped into our world, then sight can come forth from blindness, joy can come forth from despair and Lazarus can come forth from the grave. Jesus is my blessed hope, all other ground in sinking sand.
2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
It’s a terrible thing to be held captive by our own thoughts. How exhausting it can be when we allow them to consume and overwhelm us? They can begin to eat away at us. They can even rob us of sleep and leave us tired and weary and walking the floor at night. I thank the Lord that He freed us and gave us the ability to take every thought into captivity and focus on Him. If a specific situation or trial has taken hold of your mind today, know that there is a way of escape, you are no longer slaves to the flesh but bond-servants, willing servants to the Lord of power.
If you have been set free by the Lord then you are free indeed. You now have the power to take those thoughts captive, they must bow to the Spirit of God in you. By an act of your will, take your eyes off of that situation today and turn them to Jesus and draw close to Him and peace will flood your soul. “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke on you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)
Commit your heart to trust in Him today. Determine in your heart that you will no longer walk in fear. Give it to the Lord of hosts, let Him take the burden. He will take it if you will give it to Him. Your situation may not change but your attitude in the midst of it will. It will give you clarity of thought and the ability to focus and speak to the Lord. As your mind is drawn away from the pressing situation and the darkness of it, and you are drawn to the light of your Lord who loves you so much and is jealous for your thoughts, His light will begin to fill you. God bless you this day as you begin the task of taking your thoughts captive.
As long as the Church had remained separate it had been a powerful witness for Christ in the world and was constantly drawing converts into its holy fellowship. When, however, already weakened by the adoption of human rule in place of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it was suddenly brought into partnership with the state, it became itself defiled and debased. Very soon the clergy were competing for lucrative positions and for power as shamelessly as the court officials, while in congregations where a godless element predominated the material advantages of a profession of Christianity changed the purity of the persecuted churches into worldliness. The church was thus powerless to stem the downward course of the civilized world into corruption. (E.H.Broadbent- The pilgrim Church pg 46)
Broadbent is speaking of what happened when the church was swallowed up by the Roman empire in the times of Constantine. There was a purity in the persecuted church, the persecution itself kept them close to God and dependent upon Him, but when the persecution stopped and they now found themselves in the ranks of the rich and the powerful, in very short order it was totally corrupt. The western Roman empire did not survive very long after it co-opted the church. The deeper principal at play here was separation from the world enhances purity in the Church. It does this because when we are clearly separate from the world we incur the wrath of the world. We are, so to speak, the conscience of the world. The world should be able to look at us and see something very different from itself. When it does, it brings about conviction of sin and hatred from the world because of that. Yet Jesus had already told us that if the world hated Him it would certainly hate us. And so, hatred leads to persecution and along with persecution, the Church is purified as it suffers for the cause of Christ. A unique anointing rests upon us when we are fulfilling our role in this world. But in the west at least, we have wanted that anointing without any willingness to suffer or to be the conscience of the world, to be a counter-culture rather than to be a sub-culture.
Indeed, the vast majority of what passes for the church now is seeker friendly to one degree or another. We do our best to be just like the world so that we shall not offend it in any way. We become like social workers in our desire to befriend the world. In multiple denominations now it has went far beyond that, embracing as normal, the sins that have taken society by the throat and are tearing it apart. Divorce, homosexuality, living with one another and pre-marital sex have been embraced by many. We are no longer the conscience of the world but have become part of the instruments of searing their conscience. Our own worldliness has led to the darkness that is plunging the world headlong into hell. The good news is that there are some issues that are really black and white for any genuine saint. Homosexuality would be one of them. No genuine Christian could embrace this lifestyle choice and because of that we shall undoubtedly find ourselves once again the conscience of the world. This of course will lead to persecution which will lead to the particular anointing that rests upon the church when it is persecuted for the sake of Truth, for the sake of Jesus.
We shall once again be a powerful witness in the world, albeit a much smaller group than what professes to be Christian. But it will still be a powerful group of countless millions of saints. The remnant saints of God shall be compelled, because of their love for the truth and for Jesus, to come out of the world and the worldly church. We shall regain again the mantle of the Church, we shall know this because the world will hate us just like it hated our Lord. We servants are not greater than our Master, if the world hated Him it will hate us. If He suffered their wrath then so shall we. If it is His will that we shall suffer then we shall be anointed. This is, in fact, what you were called to do, because: The Messiah also suffered for you and left an example for you to follow in his steps (1 Pet 2:21)
In Galatians we see an encounter between Paul and Peter at Antioch. It has to be remembered that the initial Church was all Jewish. And even at that time the Jewish teachings and traditions were well over a thousand years old. Imagine for a moment, a thousand years of history, teachings and interpretations and ritual. You were special, Gods own called out people and everyone else were Gentiles, apart from God.
In Acts 10 we see that Peter encounters God in a vision on a rooftop. A sheet comes down with every kind of unclean animal that Jewish people were forbidden to eat and God tells Peter to rise and kill and eat. Now, this would be something like Abraham being told to take his son up the hill and burn him to death. How could this be God? This is the mental and emotional anguish that Peter must have wrestled with as he defies God three times, three times brothers and sisters. At that very moment, the servant of Cornelius the Gentile arrives. The answer to Peter’s vision just knocked on his door. How would you like a question to God to be answered so quickly? And we know what happens next, he goes to Cornelius’s house and witnesses the Holy Spirit come down on that household just as it had come down on them at Pentecost.
Now back to the Galatians. We see that Peter and others including Barnabas were taken up with hypocrisy. The revelation had been given by God Himself about the Gentiles yet Peter and the others were still afraid of those who came down from Jerusalem and insisted that the Gentiles must be like them if they were to be part of the Body of Christ. Thank the Lord that Paul, quite apart from any leadership in Jerusalem, had been taught himself by vision and revelation about the nature of the Body of Christ and so he withstood Peter and the leadership of Jerusalem and insisted that they were being hypocrites by insisting that the Gentiles must live like Jews in order to be part of the Body of Christ, they were adding to the Gospel and Paul would have none of it.
Now, before you are too hard on those early believers who were Jewish by birth, I want you to consider how your own common experience may clash with simple truth. If Peter was so bold and conflicted as to say ” not so, Lord,” ( and this is an impossible phrase is it not, how can He be the Lord of our life and we say no to Him) three times then could this not happen to you? Now what is the simple truth that I am talking about that the vast majority of Christendom say ” not so Lord?” Here it is. Read the rest of this entry »
This emerging true Church will finally grow sick of the hype and the banal predictability of a merely phraseological Christianity. It will seek the deeper reality of faith and relationship, counting the cost and increasingly taking on the visage of pilgrim, stranger and sojourner in the earth. Those that remain in conventional church situations, either impervious to the need or unwilling to pay the price, will settle under a deception of religious unreality, condemning as heretics and agitators those who cannot abide the same. Centrifugal forces will polarize Christendom ultimately toward two camps – persecuted or persecutors – reminiscent of the opposition of the Reformation churches to the Anabaptists of the 16th century! Finally, impending unity will drive the religio-political kind to fury against that minority of the Spirit which will not subscribe to their ecumenical designs.
So once again, and finally, a man will find his enemies to be those of his own household; yet, one’s love for his enemies in response to opposition and persecution will be the distinguishing mark of this consummating, remnant-martyr Church. Such a response will be the possibility of those whose conscious, determined preparation and sanctification begins now.
The light of His countenance in such a separated people will be the very factor that brings upon them, as it did Stephen, the retribution and assault of those who hate the light and prefer darkness – from without but more so from within the church. Radical apostolicity or apostasy will prove the only options during this polarization in the end-times. Neutrality or middle-of-the-road alternatives will be waste and void. We will be, finally and at last, compelled to be saints, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, in an age when the only other option is to wear the mark of the Beast.”
A lot of people probably read some of the writings on this website and
wonder, “Where is all this headed? What is the goal?” A glib answer might
be- “We want to get back to real ‘New Testament’ Christianity.” But what
exactly does that look like?
Here is a recording from our prayer meeting on Tuesday, the 6th of October. My good friend and brother, Pastor Brian Long led out with a message that is powerful and profound. This is truly a message to God’s Remnant people. Brian will be speaking at the Sermonindex revival conference in Dallas which is coming up on the 19-21st October.The Land is is ruins, weep all ye people! You can go to about minute 7 and bypass the music and opening prayer and go straight to the message.
And so I was like a pioneer back in the wagon trail days. I had started a journey, which by the way typically started at a town in Missouri called, of all names, Independence. I traveled through different rugged States, overcame deserts and rivers and mountains which were called anger and fears and lusts and insecurity, and I finally came to a vast ocean. I found many camps there, all up and down the coast. Different camps of Christianity. They had all found their way here because they had followed trails. And yet their destiny lay beyond the horizon of this sea called “Dependence.” Read the rest of this entry »
They have drunk of the water that flows from the Sanctuary of God, from the Well of Life, and from this have obtained a heart that cannot be comprehended by human mind or understanding. They have found that God helped them to bear the cross and they have overcome the bitterness of death. The fire of God burned in them. Their tabernacle was not here on the earth but was pitched in Eternity, and they had foundation and certainty for their faith. Their faith blossomed as a lily, their faithfulness as a rose, thir piety and uprightness as flowers of God’s planting.
God Himself is an encounter. A heart that has not been enraptured by love, is a heart that has not had an encounter with the Living God. Revival is encounter!Read the rest of this entry »
Saints, the Spirit of the Lord has departed from the Established church. It now has a distressing spirit from the Lord. It is run through with many fears, it staggers to and fro. It runs to the left and to the right. It has run to a prosperity Gospel, a Gospel of health and wealth, name it and claim , word of faith movement, in a desperate attempt to move in faith and the things of God. It has also run to the politicians, to Washington, to the halls of earthly power because it has no heavenly power. They have also run to legalism and the confines of the Law and it has brought them to a place of self-loathing. They seek to gain peace for their souls, but it cannot be found, they are distressed.
And I saw out of this dark angry ocean, a mighty rock that rose up with it’s summit towering high above the black clouds that overhung the stormy sea. And all around the base of this great rock I saw a vast platform. Onto this platform, I saw with delight a number of the poor struggling, drowning wretches continually climbing out of the angry ocean. And I saw that a few of those who were already safe on the platform were helping the poor creatures still in the angry waters to reach the place of safety.
A Call To The Remnant 