This is a portion of chapter 15 of my book The Fall of Christendom…….
The living Jesus empowers us to die. The cross is the symbol of sacrifice and death. To live for Him is to die to ourselves and the world. In the Spiritual we came, we died and we rose again as a new creature in Christ. As we move towards and become like Jesus, we die to ourselves. And so there is an important intertwining of dying to ourselves and living the resurrected life. It is the heads and the tails of the same coin. If you focus on just one aspect to the detriment of the other, you will become imbalanced in your walk. We surely must pick up our cross daily it is important to realize that this will produce an abundant spiritual life in Christ and while you may die to the flesh internally, the world should see your joy expressed externally and wonder and marvel how such a thing could be. This is pleasing to God.
The proof of our new life, our resurrection from the dead, our authentic faith is not a large house or a $2000 suit or a prosperous life in this world, these things prove nothing in the Spiritual. The proof of our faith is how we react to carrying our cross. In the midst of death to ourselves does the love of Jesus pour forth? Do we minister to others when we ourselves are in the midst of trial and testingโs? Have we found the secret of being content in every situation? The cross does not lie. There is no hypocrisy on the cross. Tozer said that you knew one thing about a man carrying a cross out of the city, you knew he was not coming back. The cross signifies death to self and death to the world. Itโs only by taking up our cross that we can crucify the flesh. The flesh wars against the Spirit. The flesh must die, it dies only upon the cross, it thrives on indulgence.
The walk of the cross is a lonely walk. Yet in every generation, across denominational lines, brothers and sisters will be called out. They will know each other when they meet. They will be people who have rejected the โnorm.โ They will be a people who are seeking a deeper walk with Jesus. While the crowd run after the latest craze and those that tickle their ears, these people will find themselves on an ancient narrow path. This path begins at Calvary and ends at the throne. It is a very difficult and lonely path but all the saints who have come before you have walked this very path. Be encouraged today saints, God has seen and sees the afflictions of His people. He has not left us as orphans, we have the Holy Spirit who can take us to a place that Jesus has prepared for us. He is our high tower and the righteous can run into it and are safe. There is a place beneath His wings that is ours. He has given us wings in the Spiritual so that we can fly to this place. And in this prepared place we can discover joy where there should be no joy. We can discover peace where there should be no peace. We can discover love where hate should be. We can be fed although a famine has overtaken the land. He is our fountain in a land that is dry and dusty, in a land where there is no water.
As the spiritual famine deepens, as the drought begins to change the landscape, as the counterfeit increases daily, the Lord knows how to feed His children. As the storm that rages then the Lord says to His children โI am the eye of the storm, do not be afraid of it, walk into the heart of it and find peace at the center it, I am the Lord of all storms and I stand in the midst of them and beckon unto my own to come unto me and take my hand and I will lead you through and you will not be overcome or destroyed.โ We praise the Lord today that He sees all things and He knows all things and to those who have taken up their cross and walk the narrow path He is their strength and their comfort and sustainer.
As an immigrant to America I have many thoughts about what is going on in the country right now. I hear reports, mostly unsubstantiated, of people being abused because they are different in some way. This does not represent the America I know. It hurts for me to think that the foreign press would pick up on these stories and give the world the wrong impression of American people.
I have traveled a lot and met people from all over the world. I can say from my experience that the American people are the most friendliest and welcoming people in the whole world. They have loons on the far right and the far left just like everyone else but a handful of anecdotal stories in no way represents the heart of America and who they are. Your average American is warm and friendly and generous to all people.
I hear a lot about tolerance, yet the irony is that those who constantly speak of tolerance tend to be the most intolerant people you will ever meet. They are only tolerant to those of a similar view. If they meet someone of the opposite view, watch the venom pour forth. This dividing of the people for political purposes is evil. I think of the 49 people killed in a nightclub recently by a terrorist . That story became a gay story when the real story was that 49 Americans were killed.
Why is it always a gay story or a black story or a white story? In a mad effort to be inclusive, the politicians who push such an agenda have managed to make this country more divided that it has been since the time of the civil rights. By focusing on the rights of a tiny minority of people such as gay people and transgenders (perhaps 3.5% combined) the President( President Obama) has driven a huge wedge between the folks. There is no tolerance for anyone who disagrees with their agenda.
The truth is I can completely disagree with the notion that people are born gay and still be tolerant and inclusive. I can think that there should be stronger border control and not be a racist or a xenophobe. Those who do not allow for this thought are truly the folks who are dividing this country. The true reason for Brexit and the recent election results in America is that regular folk are pushing back against the powers that be, who spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on a tiny minority of people to the exclusion of the majority. And it is not just the exclusion, it’s the demonizing of that mostly silent majority. They are considered to be toothless morons because they disagree on issues of morality and economics.
Where will all this lead? I have no idea. I am cynical of people in general. Our younger generation was supposed to the most inclusive generation ever, yet we see by their reaction to the election that this inclusiveness and tolerance is nothing but a thin veneer. Underneath that thin veneer lies the ugliness that has haunted mankind from the beginning. They hate people they do not know or understand and would like to destroy them.
Outside of Jesus Christ, people, no matter what generation they belong to are as flawed as they have ever been. We live in a modern world surrounded by technology and comfort in the West. Yet we still hate as we have always hated We still divide along lines, does not really matter what the lines are, all that matters to the enemy of our souls is that we do divide and hate one another and seek to destroy one another. The utopian dreamers and liberal thinkers are just as full of hate for those they do not understand and with those with whom they disagree with.
As a young man growing up in poverty in a housing scheme in Scotland, I hated the middle class and the upper class. The region that I came from was known as the “Red Clyde.” The shipyards that dominated my town and many towns in Scotland were full of socialists and Communists. This was my heart as a young man. Come the revolution I would have manned the guillotine and gladly pulled the lever, over and over again. I longed for the revolution.
I finally got my revolution. I personally met the most radical revolutionary ever to walk the earth. I met Jesus. He upended everything I thought I knew. He invaded my very DNA. He took all of the hate and all of the jealousies and all of the insecurities I had and he dismantled them piece by piece often with me kicking and screaming. I learned not to judge ” groups,” but to encounter individuals. I encountered true love and the enormous power of it. I learned that it rested in truth, that truth and love were one and the same thing and If I could learn to speak the truth in love then I could become an agent of incredible change, one person at a time.
And so my appeal today is that we saints on earth be radical lovers who speak the truth without fear or favor, in love. If God so loved the world, and He did, that He sent His only Son to die for that World then we as saints must be radical lovers of every man and every woman no matter their background or how they perceive themselves. The greatest dividers are always those who seek power, no matter if they are wonderful orators or speak brutally and bluntly.
In this time of disunity and hatred and division, let the true lovers of all men and all women step forward as representatives and ambassadors of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Love people as you find them saints and speak the truth in love. The true revolt in men and women is the revolt against the schemes of the enemy. Let us be revolutionaries for the cause of Christ. No man or woman can fill the void that is in the hearts of those on the left or on the right, only in the radical center of God’s will is there wholeness and fullness of Joy as opposed to the schemes of men which is full of bitterness and division.
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 »
The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better…
That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.
We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, or the world of sports, or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.
Man can stand on the top of Everest and see the curvature of the earth and gasp. Men can stand on the moon, look back at the beauty of the earth and gasp. But the man who can stand upon the horizon of eternity and glimpse the majesty and immensityย of God, his gasp is the sound of him being ruined for this life.ย
Is evangelicalism the newest form of “Religion”? Perhaps its always been a religion? Or perhaps it morphed into religion? Whatever the case, it is clear that it is truly a sub-culture. Genuine Christianity has always been a counter-culture. Right from the beginning, those who had encountered God were radically transformed. What they had may not have been perfect, but they were never accused of looking like the world. The world knew who they were, they always knew who they were. They were a ” peculiar,” people. They were out of step with the world. They ran counter to the culture.ย
He was gazing at the God that they did not even know. He proclaimed that he saw the Glory of God and that his eyes had seen the King of Glory, Jesus, standing at the right hand of God. And with this, they finally killed him, not being able to stand it any longer.
When your faced with a God that does not serve you. When you are robbed, beaten, cheated, taken advantage of. When someone close to you dies, a loved one is murdered, will you turn your back on God?Jesus did not stack up against Barabbas. Barabbas was a rebel against Rome. Jesus was silent on Rome. The crowd methodically rejected a captive and scourged Jesus until finally it came to the truth of the matter and it proclaimed ” We have no king but Caesar.” Shocking, isn’t it? But what about you? Can you truly say ” I have no King but Jesus?” Or are you too looking for someone to sort out the world?” Read the rest of this entry »
There is a great multitude today who are desperately hungry and thirsty. All over the world the people dwell in great darkness and the darkness increases every day. Hell has opened its vaults and is beginning to spew out evil with increasing speed and urgency because it knows its time is short. There is desperate darkness coming and it is coming at us with alarming speed. Yet, as in the time of Noah, the world is ignorant of the impending disaster about to befall it. Like the children of Israel when Jesus says ” O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to her, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!”
Where is the treasures of your peace brothers and sisters? Do you walk with a singleness of mind and a purity of heart, a heart that only ever seeks after the Lord our God? Do we shine and glow in the presence of God like the pure gold Solomon’s shields? Or , if men were to look a little closer at us would they discover that it is not gold at all but merely Rehoboam’s brass, a pale and worthless imitation?
You see, true freedom has nothing to do with anything political. Many Christians are confused with the notions of freedom and have their political freedoms all mixed up with the freedom that was gained for them on Calvary. Jesus is our victory, in Jesus our Lord we find true Freedom. The Scriptures say that He who the Son sets free is free indeed. This majestic freedom rises high above all earthly gained freedom. If men could attainย freedom by their own effortsย then Christ died in vain.Read the rest of this entry »
It is my considered opinion that under the present circumstances we do not want revival at all. A widespread revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover in a hundred years. Read the rest of this entry »
You must become temporary residents or travelers in this world.
We have put our roots down in a world that we are only passing
through, to the point that the culture has overtaken faith. 1 Peter 2:11.
Peter tells us to be aliens to this world and to abstain from fleshly
desires that war against us. What are these things that war against
us? The very culture of self that we live in today – from sexual
perversion to self-centered greed, to theย attitude that we deserve
anything we want. This culture has brought down basic values and
destroyed the family in this nation. Just like Lot in Sodom, we have
grown so comfortable with the life it provides us we don’t even care
about the sin around us. We have adjusted our religion to fit the
culture. ย We are at a point where nothing shocks us anymore, but
as long as we can keep our comforts it’s OK. ย We love this world
and the things it affords us so much, we have missed the narrow
path and are trying to turn a deaf ear to the warnings of God for us to repent.
Faith is of two kinds: nominal and real. The nominal faith is the faith that accepts what it is told and can quote text after text to prove it. It’s amazing how nominal faith and nominal belief can weave these texts into garments, cloaks and curtains for the Church. Read the rest of this entry »
Men are so determined to do it themselves that when a man is saved, that is not the end. He now has to be broken, he has to know that everyone of his efforts will lead to nothing but defeat. It may take one year, it may take fifty years, but every genuine follower of Christ will be broken and when the brokenness comes and total surrender comes, then, and only then do they realize that it is all God and none of them. We are the recipients of mercy and grace, not of wages. Read the rest of this entry »
As many of you may know, “The Christian Children’s fund,” has just changed its name and taken the “Christian,” out of it. In the coming days and years, the name of Jesus will become more and more offensive as the enemy begins his concerted attack against the King of Kings. Read the rest of this entry »
The moments I have spent in your sanctuary, rob me of all of my words and render them all meaningless. I feel heavenly words in all of me, not just in my brain and in my mouth, but in my very essence. Who and what you are is in my very DNA in your presence, and every particle of me glows with who you are in your presence , and I know that I cannot dwell there for I would that I would never leave that place. And so that I can go on living I must only dwell there for a moment, but oh what a glorious moment, these moments are my very life. Read the rest of this entry »
A Call To The Remnant 