Who indeed? We humans love to deify men. We love to lift them up and glorify them. Christians in particular love to do this. It is really an abomination to God and shall not be overlooked. Diotrephes is the logical conclusion of the lifting up of men which is why the apostle Paul tackles this issue head on. If we elevate men, men will love it. If we desire to follow men, and we so often do, the very same men will love it. They will, of course, for decorum’s sake, deny any of this. Even as men lift them aloft above their heads, they will feign giving Jesus the glory, but their actions and the actions they allow in others denies this. Paul smashes into this head on in his typical style and no holds barred words. “Neither he who plants is anything, not he who waters, but God who gives the increase,” is everything. We are nothing without God, even that which we have was given to us. What then can we glory in, other than Christ? How could we ever let stand for one minute anyone who would try and raise us up? God forbid.
He who plants and he who waters are one. One Body. One work here on earth. Nothing rises above the spiritual parapet save Jesus Christ. If you look up and see a man, God help that men. If you look up and try to raise up that man to anything other than what He is in Christ, part of the Body, one in nature, then God help you. All of it robs from God who gives the increase. All of it robs from Christ who is preeminent. Its all robbery, its all theft, its all religion. Diotrephes loved the preeminence and allowed himself to be raised up and encouraged others to raise him up. Men like this make themselves indispensable . This means they steer the sheep towards reliance upon them and not the great Shepherd. Do you know anyone like this? Unless we are forever pointing men towards the Word of God and the risen Christ then we are of the priesthood of Diotrephes. Carnal in nature, carnal in spirit and if it remains so, then lost forever. Jesus Christ first, Jesus last and Jesus forever. The old enemy has caught more men in this trap then any other. More seductive than women, more seductive than money, the greatest seducer of all, power and the desire for it and the lust of it, in all its many manifestations.
My uncle was a dispatch rider in the WW2. He was a private. It was a dangerous mission so the High Command were never going to waste men of higher rank in delivering messages. In the scale of things, in the order of importance, the rider was the least important. You could always replace the rider, but motorbikes were hard to come by. What was important was the message. The one giving it and the one receiving it. It is so in the Kingdom. The one delivering it is can be readily replaced. We brothers and sisters should remember that lest we think too much of ourselves. We are simply one. The message is all important. And whether we ride the bike or maintain the bike then that is all well and good, but the message Giver and the recipient of the message is of vital importance. The message is preeminent and Jesus is the message. Jesus is the author, and by His Blood He came to deliver this message Himself. What general or high ranking officials would ever lower themselves by delivering the message themselves? Yet, the greatest communication ever delivered to men had to be delivered by the greatest one that existed, the One who ever existed, God’s only Begotten Son. Remember this with all of your hearts brothers and sisters, some of us plant, some of us water, but God……but God….but God always has and always will, give the increase by the power of the Holy Spirit.
1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Taken from Isa 64:4 we see here repeated the marvel of the prophet as he talks about those who love God and who wait upon Him, and with expectation, rejoice in what is coming through God’s hand. No amount of wisdom or knowledge nor understanding could give anyone even a glimpse of the things that God was preparing for those who loved Him. The Christ Himself was coming! God, in the flesh, was coming to walk this earth among men! He was coming to establish a connection with Father, long since broken by sin. He was coming to defeat hell and death and sin. Who could understand such things before He came? Who could see that He was coming to the whole world? The seed of Abraham would bless all nations. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus……..there is neither Jew nor Greek….. slave nor free…..male nor female …..you are all one in Christ Jesus.” For those who would be born again and baptized into a Christ who would be rejected, tortured, ridiculed and spat on and nailed to a tree
And yet we also see a glorious future revelation. “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” (John 14:2-4) This place, in His Fathers house, that the Lord has prepared for us who know Him, is a place that we know, according to Jesus. And though no eye has seen nor ear heard nor has it entered into the hearts of man, these things which God has prepared for those who love Him, those who know the Lord, know these things by the Spirit of revelation. Upon our hearts are written His law and in the depths of this heart God has revealed these things to us. “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.” (1 Cor 2:10) We “know,’ brothers and sisters, we know. The very same Spirit of God searches the depths of the Father and reveals these things to His own that men outside of the Kingdom know nothing of.
Kingdom knowledge that is but a mystery and foolishness to men, is clear to the saints. We walk in a certainty and an assurance of things to come. We “know,” things,’by the Spirit of God. We recognize other saints by the Spirit of God. He witnesses to our spirits. Men should not be surprised at this. As someone who was born and raised in Scotland, no matter where I am in the world and I hear a Scottish accent, I immediately can identify a fellow countryman. Dear saints, it is so in the Spirit. I speak to a certain man or a woman and I hear the “accent,” of God. I hear the unmistakable language of the Spirit in another though they come from lands far from me yet we both belong to the same Kingdom which has its own language which resonates in the depths of my spirit. An utter joy to hear and recognize another saint. And in this I am not speaking about the gift of tongues. A language of the heart that can only be spoken by those who have “seen,” His glory. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks! We “know,’ things that are not known by natural men, for we are supernatural men and women. Our spiritual eye has seen, and our spiritual ear has heard the glory of God. It has indeed invaded the very depths of who we are. We see Him high and lifted up and the train of His robe fills the temple. We are that temple.
Suppose a company of ugly, unattractive persons lived together in one house. Suppose that they never saw any other man or woman, only themselves, they never saw anyone that was arrayed with the splendors and perfections of physical beauty. They would not be capable of comparing themselves with anything other than themselves, and consequently would not know and not be disappointed at their own ugliness and natural defections. Now, bring them them out of their cells and holes of darkness, where they have been shut up by themselves, and let them see the beauty and attractiveness of others and then, they will be sorry and dejected at the view of their own ugliness.
This is the case, men are marred by sin and are rotten, corrupted and depraved. When they dwell together in the dark they see neither God, nor angels nor saints in their excellent nature and beauty. Therefore they are apt to count their own ugliness and deformity as things of beauty and glory. Now, let such, as I said, see God, see saints, or the beauty of the Holy Spirit and know themselves that they have not any of this, and they cannot but be affected and sorry for their own deformity. (John Bunyan, The excellence of a Broken heart. )
John, very ably speaks, in his analogy, of a broken ugly world marred and deformed by sin. Those so marred rarely have any desire to be around what is beautiful. Think of David as he worshiped God and Saul tries to pin him to that wall with a spear. Saul hated David. He hated David first and foremost because David had God and every time he saw him it was a reminder to Saul that he did not. The saints of God would be hated is they never spoke a word. The beauty in them, that shines upon their face and is displayed by their love and forgiveness, is a terrible reminder to a dark and ugly world that they are dark and ugly. The worlds solution is simply to never be around Gods excellent ones. they must only be around their own.
Then their ugliness and sin is swallowed up by the perpetual darkness of their fellow ugly people. Lest some people make the claim that they are good and not ugly and deformed, God says that all the righteousness of men are like filthy rags before His eyes. The people of the world are ultimately united in their ugliness and their desire to avoid, at all costs, the mirror of truth. To look into this mirror is to see the vileness of the one looking back. The world has its own mirror and it is as deceptive as their blackened hearts. This is why, to genuinely encounter God is to fall down as one who is dead. To cry out “is there mercy for me.” To shout out from the depths of their exposed darkness “what must we do.” To see the ultimate beauty of God in His perfection and glory is to cast His light onto the lying mirror and suddenly we are horrified to see what is looking back.
The mask is ripped away. The fig leave falls to the ground. And there we are, naked before God and we know, no one has to tell us anything. We know of our deformity and ugliness. And now we must be swallowed whole by His majesty and glory. The mountain of our sin and darkness melts like wax in the presence of the Lord. That which was ugly now reflects the beauty of God. That which was deformed now is made whole. From the ashes of our fallen flesh rises the beauty of our risen Lord and He rises up in us. Now the world sees something of His majesty in us and sees their own wickedness reflected back. Only in this state, when a man or woman is confronted with who he or she truly is, and then discovers that there is mercy and grace to be found in the beauty of His holiness, can that man or woman truly be saved. To truly fall and rise again in the newness of birth, the second birth. Those who reject this revelation of who they are, their conscience accuses them, condemn themselves to an eternal life of ugliness.
1Co 2:2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
This is the heartbeat of genuine Christianity. It is so central to who we are that it is forever before us. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. From this flows all things. From the Lord Jesus and His death for us flows life eternal. For us to walk in this life we must walk in Christ with a cross upon our back. Take up your cross daily the Lord commands us, that we might be worthy to be His disciples. Jesus is our singular identity. It is Jesus first and last and in all things. His cross draws us to take up our cross. Without a daily cross, without the breaking process, we are simply not worthy to be called His disciples. Tozer would say “you know one thing about a man carrying a cross our of the city, you knew he wasn’t coming back.” There is no turning back when there is a cross upon your own back. You are dead to this world and the world knows it. The testimony of Christ in you is the cross on your back and the supernatural joy that is in you that you are counted worthy to bear it.
It is not the words that we speak or the way that we speak them, it is the life that we live that is a testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ. No eloquence is required although when the Holy Spirit gets a hold of your tongue it will make William Shakespeare seem like stammering fool. It is our calling to declare the testimony of God and the testimony of God is Christ and Him crucified. It burns at the heart of who we are. It rises up in us and declares Him holy. Again and again and again in our lives we are reminded that we walk under the shadow of the cross. Of the One crucified, of the greatest sacrifice, and we are called to follow in our Lord’s footsteps. Oh how the disciples celebrated after they were scourged. They could not believe that they were counted worthy of entering into His sufferings. Do you see that Spirit today? Paul spoke in weakness and fear and in much trembling. Paul was not afraid to highlight his weaknesses in order to lift up His Lord, because it was all about Jesus, it was all about Him crucified, it was all about lifting Him up, not himself. Oh that we were surrounded by such men today, and yet, tragically it seems that we are surrounded by the opposite.
To be broken and contrite we have to actually be broken. It is not an abstract truth but a living reality. God does the breaking. He fellowships with the lowly and the contrite in high and lofty places. He does indeed love us and He does indeed have a plan for each of His children, His plan is to completely dismantle our lives. To be broken is the only true acceptable sacrifice. We see an example of true brokenness in David in psalm 51. David was perhaps one of the most broken men to have ever walked the earth. And then comes Jesus.
The most anguished cry ever uttered, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” This is the true horror for any saint. David “wakes up,” at the sound of the prophets voice and discovers he is far far away from God. The joy of his salvation was gone. His heart was despoiled, and the Holy Spirit was silent in the depths of His heart. And in the midst of that pressing reality he cries out to God, in the depths of his personal darkness, his hands are raised towards the light, he cries out this great eternal truth ” against thee alone oh God have I sinned.” Broken, humbled and contrite and in the midst of that he finds total restoration. This is what God loves. This is the acceptable sacrifice.
1Co 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
There is a great gulf that exists, a divide that cannot be bridged. Much like the divide between the beggar Lazarus and the unnamed rich man. This divide exists between the those who are genuinely saved, and all the rest of the world. What divides us is not the fact that one set of people will be saved eternally and the other set will perish, although that is certainly true. What truly divide us is fellowship, first and foremost, with God. In verse nine we are told that “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” The saint has an intimate and genuine fellowship with Jesus. And this is primary and it is a calling, we were called into it. This is the gateway into the Body, the Church. All things pass through Jesus. We cannot have spiritual, eternal, edifying fellowship, true fellowship, unless we have fellowship with Jesus. This is the primary reason why there is so little genuine fellowship in Christendom.
Those who have intimate fellowship with Jesus are greatly affected by His suffering, His death and His resurrection. It forms the core of their very being. They see the victory where others see defeat. They see the King high and lifted up because He was lifted up. The Jews were looking for an earthly King who would liberate them from Rome and establish them on this earth in power and glory. The Greeks were looking for a philosopher who by strength of intellect would also rule and dominate. Jesus was utter foolishness to both. God has chosen the things that are despised, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. He hides Himself in the midst of what men consider to be foolishness. He raises up the weak things of this world to confound the wise. Men who are drawn to strength and their own abilities are blind to the God who hides Himself among the broken and the contrite.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus came to call and to heal the broken-hearted. He did not come to the high and the mighty, but rather He came to set at liberty the captive. He came to raise up the pauper and to fellowship with those whom He would deliver. I thank God that we are enriched by the mercies and the grace of God and not the titles and the riches of men. I thank God that the testimony of Jesus is confirmed in His own and that He gives us gifts in order to edify us and establish us in Himself. The greatest gift being that of fellowship with God. The world and the wise may despise us, yet they do not fellowship with God. The mighty and the noble and the wisest of men are but fools to God so therefore God has taken the foolish things of this world and raised them up in Himself. Without education or riches, we, the foolish ones, are recipients of the wisdom of God and the world marvels. We are in Christ, who became for us wisdom from God, and not only wisdom but righteousness and sanctification and redemption and now we glory, not in ourselves, but we glorify the Lord.
Isa 66:12 For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream:
The Lord is coming back for His own. Those who know Jesus are one in Him. And in Christ there is glory. The very glory that He received from His Father, He has given to us. It flows from heaven itself and it carries its glory all the way to the sea, the sea of endless glory, before the throne room of God. My peace I give you says the Lord, not as the world gives peace but as only God can bring peace. Let not your hearts be troubled in a world that is plunging headlong towards judgement. A world that is rising up and shaking two angry fists at God. The heathens rage and the peoples are caught up in vanity. The kings and the rulers of this world set themselves against God and His anointed. Yet even still, let not your hearts be troubled, rather, know that all of this means His return is imminent.
Behold the Lord will come with fire and with chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger and His fury. With a sword in His hand, a sword that He does not wield in vain, He will judge all flesh. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And of His glory there shall be no end. And His majesty shall be as a perpetual sun that never sets. The created sun is but a flickering candle in comparison to His perpetual radiance. And the vastness of the seas, but a single teardrop from the Masters eye. What mind can conceive what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him? For those who loved Him, yet were mocked and ridiculed and rejected and killed by the anger and the rage of a heathen world. Yet they overcame everything that the enemy threw at them by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto death.
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a robe dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his robe and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS (Rev 19-11-16)
Isa 65:17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Imagine, if you will, brothers and sisters, a new heaven and a new earth. Behold all things are new. The old things are remembered no more. A new heavenly Jerusalem from above descends and takes its place in this new world that the Lord has promised. We, the saints, are citizens in training. We shall pass on from this world to the next and and we shall be glad and rejoice. The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard. Before we even ask, the Lord will answer us. He shall be ever before us and there will be no hunger or thirst for He, the Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all things. We know now, in part. We prophesy in part. Yet in the fulfillment of all things that which has been in part shall be done away with.
Then, brothers and sisters, we shall know as we are known. To walk in the fullness of the knowledge of God is to stand with Him face to face. Faith will be made whole and hope shall be fulfilled and we shall dwell forever in the magnificent love of God. We were made new so that we would be able to walk in this world. Every trial, every tribulation, every beat of our broken hearts has a purpose. We are being prepared. This world is our training ground. Do not wonder that you suffer so much dear saint, only know that God is the one preparing you for a world that is so beyond our imaginations that it has not even entered into our minds. Not a single tear you have ever shed has been wasted. When you have been hated for His namesake and loved nevertheless, this is Kingdom training. When you have been despised for following hard after the Lord, this is Kingdom training.
Seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness is the actions of one from another world, a world that was and is and is to come. Trusting in the Lord that He will meet your needs is the actions of citizens of the new world. I will admit that it is hard to walk through a world that you do not belong to. Your heart knows that you do not belong here but the reality of this world that presses upon your five senses is hard to ignore. Train yourself to see the Kingdom reality here and now and walk in it. You are in fact walking in the Kingdom now. The difficulty is that it is so far removed from this world that it seems utterly beyond our ability to truly grasp, yet it is all around us. It is a world that we cannot see but is more real than the one that we can see. The spiritual reality of God is far beyond our physical sight. Yet in this true reality the savagery of this world is tamed in us. The lion indeed lies down with the Lamb. We are the lion tamed.
Isa 64:1 Oh that You would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might shake at thy presence,
This is the cry of the broken hearted. This cry is not made from some comfortable place, it comes from a place of desperation, a place where there is no where left to turn. Disaster is all around and unless God literally splits the skies and shakes the mountains and turns them into rivers of fire then we are done. David knew this desperation. The children of Israel knew this desperation with their backs to the sea and an army that was about to massacre them. This places exists in time and space, it is not from the vain imaginations of men but comes into view when men suddenly realize that without God then all is lost. Oh that Christendom would cry out in such a fashion! Imagine a church on its knees not willing to get up because to get up is to walk on into certain death. We use this Scripture as some kind of beautiful adornment and yet it describes a place of utter desperation and hopelessness.
His presence opens up the skies. It splits them down the middle and brilliants shafts of light come forth and fall upon earth in the fashion of falling lava. The mountains crumble and fall into the sea when God comes forth. The dead spring to life and valleys of dry dead bones rise up and form an army that marches forth. Suddenly with life, suddenly with strength in their bones and suddenly with the breath of God in their lungs. We have fallen in the valley and we are not desperate enough to cry out to God. We have withered away and our dry bleached bones shine in a macabre scene that testifies to our death. Are you desperate church? Are you really? Can you see your own state? God forgive our complacency as the world all around us slips away into an eternal darkness and we are too busy slapping each other on our backs. Religion looks and is quite satisfied with what it sees and will tell you of their works. The broken-hearted saint will cry out ………Oh that the whole world would shake at your presence Lord. That mountains would fall into the sea and those very seas would boil at your glory. Oh that the heavens above would spill open and mighty rivers of Your power would come forth and lift up the hungry and the desperate, and sweep away all Godlessness in Your magnificent justice.
The more we are broken, and by broken I mean having the hardness of our hearts exercised by God Himself, the more we have eyes to see the glory. Many men know about the concept of brokenness in their heads and they often, by their head knowledge, try to break themselves. This is the worse kind of religious man. The man or woman who has glimpsed the perfection of God, like the prophet Isaiah, is crushed by His own unworthiness yet simultaneously swallowed whole by the glory of the Perfect God. It is two sides to the one coin, the unholiness of man and the perfection of God that touches man as by fire. God’s man “sees,” something, the religious man has never seen. We see our own imperfections in the light of His glory and it crushes us. We must be crushed. For what emerges is true fellowship. If it was just dying, many of us would do OK. I’ve never really had any particular desire to live in this world after being saved. I thought these thoughts on dying were virtuous, but in the plain reality of heaven versus earth, it’s only common sense. Yet, “the death of the cross,” is something entirely different. To be scourged and then to kiss the rod. To be beaten and then to bless the hand from whom the injury came.To kiss the hand that wounds us is to kiss the hand of God. To be so totally dismantled that everything you thought about yourself evaporates. He scourges, He breaks, He dismantles. He remakes us so that we can sit down with Him and the lowly and the contrite in high and lofty places. This is the narrow walk and few there are that find it.
Isa 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted.
In all of your afflictions the Lord God stands with you in the midst of them. He is not some high and remote God that cares not for His children, quite the opposite. The Lord our God knows every single hair upon your head. We know that the Lord is aware of every sparrow that falls, wherever it falls around the world, He knows. He knows your sorrows brothers and sisters , He knows. He sees it all and He was a man of sorrows Himself, so well acquainted with them. He has suffered more than we ever shall. He was despised and afflicted and He was rejected by His own. He suffered indignities and He was crushed and broken. And now His presence stands with us in the depths of our heart. The Holy Spirit is a flaming sword that is not wielded in vain. He stands by our side.
If you are caught up in the depths of afflictions today, remember brothers and sisters, who walked this road before you. He is the perfect High Priest because He walked the darkest valley and scaled the highest peaks. He can keep you in the depths and He can hold you when it seems that you may fall. His hand holds back the waters that would engulf you and He stands with you in the fire that you may not be consumed. If you are broken, know that He was broken. If you are suffering greatly remember how He suffered more than any man. He humbles Himself to come to us where we are. He whispers and it is heard above the storm. He holds you and you are held in the great shakings of your life. He does all that and more because He is “afflicted in our afflictions.” He sees the afflictions of His people. It was love that brought forth the Lord from eternity for our sake’s, an it is love that stands with you now, and it is love that will lead you home.
Isa 63:3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.
There comes a time in all our lives when there was no one in all the earth to help us. We are entirely alone and unless the hand of God moves in our favor then there is no hope to be found. Yet Christ alone is mighty in battle. The enemies that surrounded you, the enemies that surround you even now must reckon on the fact that your are His. He alone will deal with all of your enemies. Your ancient enemies in your own life may be anger or hatred and bitterness, long ago passed down from generation to generation. A family and a history of a family raised in chains and kept by cruel taskmasters. Yet Jesus hears the cries of the afflicted. He saw your affliction and He was mighty in battle to help those who will acknowledge their need of Him and who can see their own state.
There is coming a day soon enough when all of the Lord’s enemies shall be dealt with though it may seem that over the centuries they have been forgotten. God brings all things to justice in the end. He is a God of order and of righteousness. He is indeed long suffering with those who despise Him and mock and ridicule Him. It is entirely a blessing that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts. Yet despite all of that, there is a wine-press and the people of this world are indeed the grapes of wrath. Shall we find ourselves trodden underfoot by the King of Kings, or shall we be found at His side in that day? According to the multitude of His loving-kindnesses He should be praised. And of His mercies they are without number. Yet the world has abandoned You and hardened their hearts to Your ways.
Lord look down from heaven and see from Your holy habitation. See now the afflictions of your people and see their heart toward you. They cry out day and night for the day of your return. They long with all of their hearts to see Justice take its rightful place. Their hearts are indeed vexed like righteous Lot as he lived among a vile and unrepentant people. A people who even when blinded by the Angels of the Lord, still attempted to carry out their ever evil thoughts and desires. Are we not like Sodom Lord, are we not worse than Gomorrah? Truth lays trampled in our streets and righteousness has been banished to the alleyways and hidden places. Pride now marches down the main streets of our town and cities with their banners flying high, so proud of their utter rejection of You. Come Lord Jesus come we pray that your name may be lifted up and that all men may know that your are the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and you alone deserve all the glory and praise of men’s hearts.
Isa 62:6 I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, they shall never hold their peace day or night: you that make mention of the LORD, do not keep silent.
God has set among us watchmen. Sentinels if you like. They see what you cannot see. They stand above the city on the rampart. They see the enemy a longs way of and they sound the alarm. They must be men or woman not given to much sleep, a watchmen who would fall asleep on his watch is no good no anybody. A watchman who who refuses to sound the alarm has only two excuses and neither of them are acceptable. He could not see the enemy coming or he was not willing to wake the people. Where have all the watchmen gone? As the greatest darkness the world has ever known approaches the gates of the city, what has become of those who were called to keep watch? The primary duty of any shepherd is to protect the flock. If the wolves are circling then drastic action must be taken.
Oh what useless men who see nothing and say nothing. Men who do not want to be disturbed. Men who want everything to be as it always was and have no spiritual discernment. No one would ever put a hireling on the wall. The men on the wall must have the greatest love for the people within its confines. Imagine the enemy has infiltrated the watchmen on the wall and they who get to keep their position must pay with their silence. What rogues, what scoundrels what utterly useless men are these? Can I put it to you brothers and sisters that in the midst of the great falling away we have been infiltrated. Men and women of God have been instructed to “not keep silent.” We are to give God no rest until the He establishes that what He means to achieve. Is your shepherd a watchman on the wall or a hireling just looking to keep his position?
Those who stand in the evil day may fall in this world but they shall arise in the next. They shall enter through his gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. For they have prepared the way for the people and they have built them up. They have built up the highway of holiness and lifted up a banner for all the world to see. And they are called His Holy people, the redeemed of the Lord and they have lost their former title of forsaken and now they are the sought out ones. Brothers and sisters, we are not ashamed of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation. We shall not keep silent. We will never be ashamed. The righteousness of Christ is revealed in the His chosen vessels, His anointed, His excellent ones. We are that people my fellow saints. Men may try and suppress the truth in unrighteousness yet the wrath of God shall be revealed from heaven and His watchmen shall shout it from highest rampart where flies the banner of Christ, it flutters in the wind of the Holy Spirit.
Isa 62:1………….I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns.
The genuine saint cannot keep silent, they can never rest, day and night the fire of the Lord and His brightness burns inside the depths of him. In Jeremiah 20:9 we hear the prophet cry out “then I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name……………but His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones, I was weary of holding it back and I could not.” In another place the Apostle Paul says “For if I preach the gospel I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me, yes woe is me if I do not preach the gospel……..it would be better for me to die!” Can you see what passion drives these men who are filled with the Holy Spirit? There is a fire in their bones that flows from the furnace that is their broken hearts. Brothers and sisters, do we burn with such intensity? Do we have such a grand obsession that drives us and awakes us with the morning light, and yet still burns long after the sun has gone down?
Brothers and sisters were we not forsaken? Were we not lost and dead in our sins? Yet that which was forsaken is no longer forsaken. The hand of God holds the crown that He shall put upon our heads. We are a royal diadem in the hand of our God. And as the Bridegroom rejoices over the bride so does us our God rejoice over us. He has covered our nakedness with His righteousness, He has surrounded us with His glory and it fills our heart to overflowing, like a mighty waterfall of fire. Fire in the land and glory in the heavens. The earth is covered in His glory like the waters cover the sea. What ocean could contain Him? Is not just one chamber of His heart greater than the whole universe. Just one tear from His eye deeper than the deepest sea?
He heals our wounds, He tenderly touches our weary hearts. He feeds the deepest parts of us and sustains us for the journey. He restores the brokenhearted and gives strength to the weary. He gives us hope when there seems to be no hope. He gives us joy when there is nothing at all to be joyful about. He gives us a garment of praise and takes away a heavy spirit. He bids us to lift up our eyes and see the celestial city, from where our help comes from. Stay the course brothers and sisters. Stand fast in the time of our vexation. Our Lord is coming soon and our journey will be at an end.
Isa 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
This glorious Scripture was fulfilled when Christ stood in the temple and expounded this verse and told the world, that this Scripture was fulfilled in their hearing. The Spirit of the Lord God was upon Jesus. It is He who is anointed to preach the good news to the poor. He may speak through us, but by the power of the Holy Spirit it is Christ Himself that speaks to the poor. Only Jesus can heal the brokenhearted. Only Jesus can proclaim liberty to the captives, and only Jesus can free those captives from their chains and He would do it all through us, the priests of the Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. The dove descended upon the Lord Jesus and we must be immersed in the same Holy Spirit. We rise up in that power. We are a royal priesthood, a Holy Generation. We are the chosen ones of the Lord, royal priests in a royal priesthood.
When they see us brothers and sisters, they must see Jesus. We are a manifestation of Jesus to the world by and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything is done in the name of Jesus because there is no other name under heaven whereby a man can be saved. There is no other name under heaven whereby a man can be freed from His bonds. There is no other name under heaven whereby a man can be healed. There is no other name under heaven whereby the blind eyes are opened and the crushed heart is restored. We saints are clothed in the garments of salvation. We are covered by the robes of righteousness just as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Just as a garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so to the Lord our God causes righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. We are a living demonstration of His righteousness and we can do nothing more than praise Him from the depths of the inexhaustible wells of our salvation. Never forget who you are in HIm brothers and sisters.
Daniel said to me today “I miss you dad.” I knew what he meant. What he meant to say is that “I’m gonna miss you.” You see we are going out of town next week and this is one of the ways that Daniel conveys to you that he loves you. And so when he said that, I put the cups song on in which one of the lines goes “I’m gonna miss you when your gone.” We danced. He twirled, I twirled, we interlocked arms and danced in a circle in a Scottish fashion. And when the dancing was over we hugged. As I walked into the backyard afterwards, with the sun shining warmly thought the Locusts trees, and the birds watching me from their various perches,wondering if I was about to fill their feeder ( I was) my heart warmed to the thoughts of what a privilege it was for me to have Daniel. When we need someone to look after something that is very precious to us, we pick someone we know and love and trust. And as I was thanking God for entrusting me with something that was very precious to Him……I realized that my heart was full.
Daniel is my youngest son who is 29 and has Down Syndrome.
There is so much noise in the average persons life, noise and activity and business. Yet, at the beating heart of who we are, is the still small voice of Jesus, the lover of our soul. I dearly wish that a great hush would fall over the church. That all the noise would simply be replaced by a holy quietness. The musicians would put down their instruments, the talkers would stop talking and there we would remain until the Lord came upon us.
The cry of our hearts should be audible in the congregation. The longing seeking heart should replace the noisy professionals. Just one cry, crying out the name of Jesus with all the longing of a desperate heart would surely bring heaven down to earth. Rain would fall on a dry and dusty land. Our hands would be open to heaven like a chick’s open mouth in anticipation of being fed.
Oh God in heaven come down. We are dying here without your burning love consuming us. We were reborn to be passionate, we were reborn to be lovers, we were reborn with a zeal for you that knows no bounds. We were reborn in your image Lord and we are designed to praise you. Oh that we would have eyes only for you. That we would put aside everything that vies for our attention and love you and come to you and be moved by you and anointed by you and inspired by you and revived by you and refreshed by you and forgiven by you. That we would know the heights of heaven and take some of that glory down into the valley of this world.
Lord help us this day to come to you with an open heart so that we may stand with you under an open heaven. When we close our door to this world and all of its distractions then behold, another door opens. After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven…….and immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne……… and there this cry was heard…..Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. He stands at the door and knocks.
Isa 60:1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
Imagine the overwhelming feelings of liberty and glory the Jewish people felt when they were released from captivity from Babylon to return home after seventy long years. Arise and shine for the light of liberty has risen above you and is calling you home. And the glory of God rests upon you. Now imagine if you will, a people not held captive for seventy years, but the whole world held captive from the day that Adam bit the apple. Thousands of years have past. Heaven itself closed, the way is barred. And onto this stage, from the glories of Heaven, steps Jesus. The light has come!!! The glory of God walks the earth. He proclaims liberty to those held captive all of their lives. The chains that held them are broken. The door that was locked is wide open. The grave has been rendered powerless.
We are that people brothers and sisters. We must arise and shine for the light has come into our lives and has set us free! We must arise and shine for all the world to see. Those who dwell in darkness and in prison, must now see that the glory of the Living God has risen. There may be a great darkness that has settled over this world but the Lord will arise over you and His glory shall be seen upon you. God has glorified the house of His Glory, we are that house. The gates of heaven are continually open to you, they shall not shut day or night. God has made you an eternal excellence, never forget that brothers and sisters, you are His excellent ones despite what that old liar may whisper in your ear. The walls of His temple are salvation and the gates of the temple are praise. We neither need the sun by day nor the moon by night, for He is an everlasting light to us. We walk by the light of the eternal sun. And the power of darkness is eternally undone. Now rise and shine brothers and sisters, for the glory of the Lord s risen and it has risen over you.
A Call To The Remnant 