Many years ago the Holy Spirit showed me two groups of people. There was a river and it had a current , the strongest part being found towards the middle. On either side, dense forest, almost jungle like in its density. There were some who had entered into the river, not up to their ankles or knees or waist, but fully immersed, no longer standing on their own two feet, but being taken down the river by the current. Then I looked and saw there was another group. Headed down the river no doubt, but on dry land on their own two feet hashing and slashing their way in exhausting efforts to beat a path through the dense forest.
The river was God and the Holy Spirit was the current. The forest was this life and the efforts to make forward progress was the flesh. I wonder, are you floating down the river or maybe you are on the banks of the river blasting your way through by your own efforts, thinking those efforts are virtuous. Perhaps even throwing rocks at those who have found the current of God and who never seem to tire? This year, find the river of life and immerse yourself in it and allow yourself to be taken where it will take you.
The man who has passed on into the divine presence is actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. A certain amount of social fellowship will of course be his as he mingles with the religious persons in the regular activities of the church, but true spiritual fellowship will be hard to find. But he should not expect things to be otherwise. After all, he is a stranger and a pilgrim, and the journey he takes is not on his feet but in his heart. He walks with God in the garden of his own soul-and who but God can walk there with him? He is of another spirit from the multitudes that tread the courts of the Lord’s house. He has seen that which they have only heardand he walks among them somewhat as Zacharias walked after his return from the altar when the people whispered ” He has seen a vision.” (Luke1:22) (Tozer)
Tozer rightfully identifies the loneliness of the walk of the saint who has stepped behind the veil so to speak. Certainly it has always been this way. Yet in these days this loneliness the saint feels, this isolation that plagues him can only get worse. For part of this loneliness has always been associated with separation down through corridors of time. In every age every group of saints has faced the challenge of their time and they faced it, for the most part alone or in smaller groups.
Now why do I say that it can only get worse? I believe that it will only get worse because this world is growing darker, darker than it ever has been before. There is coming a time such as has not been before. Before it is all over right will have become wrong, day will have become night and every saint who has walked in the garden of the Lord’s heart will be more isolated that any group of saints ever have been in the past. Can I suggest that when a saint is compelled deeper into the heart of God then that is a deep blessing. Yes in the natural sense of the Body of Christ we yearn for fellowship, deep genuine fellowship. Yet there is a an even more powerful force that grips us. This force lies at the center of who we are. If we were to drill into the center of who we are we would find this here. If we could see with spiritual eyes into the deepest parts of who we are we would see this. What is it? Its a gift that we received upon which everything stands. It is the Truth and our love for it.
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2Th 2:10-12)
It is such a serious thing is it not, the truth? By it we stand or fall. Those who receive the love of the truth are saved, those who do not, perish. Now, if you have received the love of the truth, nothing will compel you to give it up. You have received it as a gift from God Himself and it burns in your bones. This is why there is more loneliness ahead in this world for the saint. For the world and indeed much of Christendom has turned its back on the truth. They are willing to trade the truth for the love of man and the acceptance of the world. We know that perfect love casts out all fear. This love, which we saints have received will do its perfect work. It will keep us in power and give us a mind that is not shaken by circumstances, a heart and a mind that stands upon the unshakable Word of God. Yet not just the Word of God but the dynamic reality of the presence of God.
And that is the separation. Only in like-minded saints can we ever find fellowship. Only that kind of fellowship moving forward will be acceptable. The reality is that there is an ever-widening gap between those who call themselves followers of Jesus and those who, as Tozer would put it, have seen as opposed to heard. On the road to Emmaeus two saints said ““Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” The Holy Spirit opens up the Word to His saints as they encounter the living God in their hearts. He leads them and He guides them and at the bottom of it all is Truth and the saints love for it. What is Truth? Jesus is Truth and in that Truth He give us life and that more abundantly and He shows us the way. If that way leads us down the dark and narrow road of circumstances and loneliness, then that will not stop us from going down that road.
And so the gap indeed widens for the genuine saint who has received the love of the truth. The world and all of its ways have forced itself into Christendom and demands allegiance. Not total allegiance to begin with for that old serpent is far too wise for that. Just a foothold, juts a little foothold that’s all, today, but tomorrow comes the stronghold and then the stronghold becomes the base from which total dominance of all the land becomes a reality. The genuine saint flees away from all of that and will find less and less places of refuge until at last he has no where else to run. Yet the man or the woman of God has found a hiding place that can never be conquered or taken. It is the high tower of the Living God. It is the shadow underneath the wing of the most high. It is the secret garden of the heart of promise given to us. There we walk saints. It is a place where we know. It is common to us. I have met saints from all over the world who ” know,” this place. And my spirit witnesses with theirs and theirs with mine.
Before this dark old world is finished with us saints we will have gathered there as the reality of this present world comes. There are but two worlds, two realities. This world and the Kingdom of God. When the Lord returns, which world will He find us in? Each world is exclusive and demands total loyalty. We are witnessing the stripping away of all of the pretense of this world. There is more stripping to come as the master of this world exposes himself for who and what he is. And antidote to this world and the father of lies is the Truth and our love for it. Let us stand fast in the coming days and follow the passion of our hearts no matter where it leads us.
For those of you who have followed my writings over the years, you will know that I have spoken a lot about the coming of the Lord, the great falling away and the separation of the sheep from the goats. In one shape or fashion I have covered those subjects a lot and of course spoke about the Remnant of God, God’s witness here on the earth being separated by times and circumstances from everything religious.
In this piece I want to speak about the differences within genuine Christianity and the basic theme of this message is to all genuine saints ” seek the Lord while He may be found with your whole heart.” And so, I would like to suggest that there are two broad categories of saints. Now, remember, these are broad categories and within these categories are degrees and measures and overlaps. But for the sake of clarity I want to speak about the two broad categories to bring understanding to who we are as a Body right now and what that means moving forward as the darkness continues to descend and the evil one is mustering all of his forces for his last stand before the Lord comes back.
Andrew Murray writes in “The Two Covenants,”……………..
Not only among the Galatians but throughout the Church there are to be found two classes of Christians. Some are content with the mingled life, half flesh and half spirit, half self-effort and half grace. Others are not content with this but are seeking with their whole heart to know full deliverance from sin and the abiding power for a walk in God’s presence that the New Covenant has brought and can give. May God help us all to be satisfied with nothing less.
Can you see what brother Andrew is saying? He mentions the Galatians who of course had begun in the Spirit but were now attempting to walk out their salvation in the flesh, good works, ordinances , special days and weeks and sabbaths and so on. These were Christians all right, but Christians who had not continued in the Spirit but now walked in the flesh. I want to suggest that a great deal of Christendom is walking in the flesh, trying to figure things out in their own wisdom, falling back upon what they know. If we go back to the father of faith, Abraham, we see an insight into what it means to try to figure things out for yourself. We have Issac and we have Ishmael. One is the child of the flesh the other is the child of the Spirit. One is an attempted answer to the promise figured out by natural means, the other is the answer to the promise delivered by supernatural means. One gives life and birth to a blessing for all the nations, the other is separated and cast out and becomes an enemy to the child of promise. Read the rest of this entry »
Our paradigm is shifting and all the wise men in their own wisdom or the wisdom of old wine still desperately cling to the past. What made sense in the old paradigm makes no sense in the new.
God is doing a work, walls are falling, structures are crumbling and the Kingdoms of men are shaking. This rolling stone of the gospel has gathered much moss and muck over the millennia and has been rolled into the mire of the world and its ways and its systems until it has become unrecognizable.
Now, God is shaking all that can be shaken. All the moss and the muck is being shaken off and only that which is pure shall be left before the shaking has ended. The world and all of its ways are like muck and it gets everywhere. You can’t get near it without eventually being covered by it. Yet, the rivers of life shall wash away the muck or sweep away that which does not stand upon the foundation.
I wrote this poem based on the last thing my sister said on this earth. She was lying on her death bed and holding my mum’s hand. She was unconscious but awoke for a moment and said ” mam,” and then slipped away as my mom held her hand. It’s a profound thing to feel the life of your loved one fade away. This is quite a Scottish poem so my fellow Greenockians will probably understand it better. (Whiskey was the name of our cat growing up and chip was our wee dog)
Take my hand mam
It’s time for me to leave
Why so sad mam
I see those tears upon your sleeve
Don’t cry for me mam
This life has not been good to me
Yet in just a moment’s time
I’ll finally be set free
I remember ally bally
And sitting on your knee
I remember Whiteside’s flowers
And being late for tea
I remember summers long ago
And swimming in the dam
Fires on Kilgreggan’s beach
But most of all my mam
I remember daddy kissing you
Me jumping on his back
I remember wee chip standing there
And whiskey getting whacked
I was young them mam, you know
I could never guess what lay ahead of me
Just as well, don’t you think mam
That the future’s something we cannot see
I lie here now I see your face
My hand in yours a warm embrace
He’s coming now, the Lord for me
And with Him forever I will be
Goodbye mam it’s time to go
I loved you always, this you know
Take my hand and lay it down
For I’ve exchanged it for a crown
Close your eyes and think of me
Tighter mam, now, can you see?
I’m beautiful, He’s made me whole
He’s replaced everything the locusts stole
Mam, we’ll meet again one day
When you come to the end of the narrow way
And together we’ll dance and praise and sing
The glories of our risen King.
A.W.Tozer writes “ Seven things that come to the believers in the fullness of the Spirit.”
1. Knowledge of the actual presence of God. 2. Possession of the true joy of the Holy Spirit. 3. Their words now penetrated and arrested. 4. A clear sense of the reality of all things. 5. Sharp separation between the believer and the world. 6. Their new great delight in prayer. 7. Their new love for the Scriptures of God.
I would like to add a few more of my own. A love of other saints. A love of praise and worship. And so, if we run through this list, what do we find? I would argue that we would find your very average believer in the early church and as it progressed through the centuries less and less so, apart from moments and times of “revival.” I wonder what these old writers that held a high view of the church make of the times in which we now love? Don’t you think they would be beside themselves? Men like Sparks and Ravenhill and A.B.Simpson from the turn of the last century. Lets go through the list and as we do I want you to think how this applies to you personally and to the church where you fellowship. These are my own thoughts on the seven points Tozer raises.
1. A knowledge of the actual presence of God. In other places it is described as the manifest presence of God. It used to be written about a lot but I dont find that anymore. Christendom has been so inundated by soulish activities and music that at least a couple of generations have grown up in Christendom knowing nothing of the manifest presence of God either personally or corporately. They have never felt that holy heaviness come down from heaven and rest like dew upon their heads, quieting them, lowering their heads, raising their hands in surrender and worship, not in response to the words of a ” worship leader,” but in response to the very presence of God that stills their very souls and elevates them to the throne of grace where they can only whisper ” Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty,” lest they take any attention away from a Holy God who has come down to visit. Awe and majesty and reverence accompanied by rivers of tears and a deep, deep inner sense of wholeness and all things being possible.
2. Possession of the true joy of the Holy Spirit. Now this joy is not the joy of the world or as the world knows it. It is very much related to that part of the spirit that is ever connected to the presence of God. The world’s definition of joy is ” a feeling of great pleasure or happiness.” Yet this is not the joy of the saint. The saint’s joy is not rooted in the soulish realm of feelings at all, it is an activity of the spirit which produces joy from our very relationship to the Lord. It is sensed in its greatest depths when, at least as far as the world can see, there is absolutely no reason for pleasure or happiness at all. The essence of the joy of the saint is to know that he is loved and that the Lord is with him in whatever his circumstances are, this produces an inner happiness and contentment when there should be none and it is one of the great strengths of the saints.
3. Their words now penetrated and arrested. In Acts 2 when Peter spoke to the crowd, scripture tells us that the crowd were ” stabbed in their hearts.” The Greek word for this phrase is Katanusso. A similar word is used when Jesus is stabbed with the spear, that word is nusso. Now Katanusso is a much more violent word than nusso. It means agitate, to thoroughly penetrate, to violently pierce. And so the Holy Spirit is showing us that there is greater violence taking place in Acts chapter two than even when the Lord was run through with a spear. The violence was to men’s souls. Their hard hearts were being violently penetrated by the very words spoken under the influence of the Holy Spirit. In Acts chapter two those affected cried out ” what must we do,” yet just a few chapters later when Stephen is speaking with the same power, men were stabbed in the heart but gnashed their teeth and fell upon Stephen and stoned him. In either case, men were not left unmoved by the power of the Spirit speaking though the saints.
4. A clear sense of the reality of all things. To have vision, to have an eternal vision is to have a clear sense of the reality of all things. There is a reality of this world and it is powerful, it presses in on the senses and for those outside of the Spirit of God it is all-consuming. Yet there is a greater reality that lies within the saints. It is the reality of the Kingdom of God and they walk in it. Now these two realities undoubtedly compete and we as saints must be on our guard that we do not let the realities of this world overwhelm us and rob us of the realities of the Kingdom in which we truly walk. This is the battle between spirit and flesh. The clear sense of reality therefore is truly knowing that our time here is short, and knowing that we are on a narrow path that leads us to eternity and actually knowing that this eternity has already begun and we are simply in the corruptible stage and there comes the tie soon where these bodies will be raised in incorruption. When we walk in this reality, the reality of the world loses its power and we begin to see more clearly in the spiritual than we can see in the natural and the spiritual begins to dominate everything that we do.
I wrote this word this morning after being in prayer and hearing the Spirit say ” Keep on walking.” Although I sensed it was to the Body of Christ, I also believe it is for someone specific. Be blessed …..bro Frank
Keep on Walking
Keep on walking
Through the rain and through the snow
Keep on walking
Allow the Lord to show you where to go
Keep on walking
Through the fire and through the flood
Keep on walking
Knowing that you’re covered by His Blood
Keep on walking
When there seems no way ahead
Keep on walking
Though you be lost, know that you are Spirit led
Keep on walking
Though there’s no strength to go on
Keep on walking
Through the darkness till you reach the dawn
Keep on walking
Though every instinct says give up
Keep on walking
Till the darkness ends and you see the sun come up
Keep on walking
Never stop until the very end
Keep on walking
He walks with you, He is your Lord and He’s your friend
Though today you may feel you are alone
Can I tell you from the one upon the throne
Keep on walking for I am right there by your side
I am at the door and I am coming for my Bride
I love you and I know just where you are
I am near though it seems that I am far
You are not alone I am with you all the way
I see you tears and hear your prayers each day
Walk my child come walk with me each day
Open up your heart and I will show the way
Though trials now seem so very hard to bear
Know that I am with you and that I truly care
One day soon you’ll know just as you’re known
And dwell with me eternally before my Holy throne
Do not hide from me, come and keep on talking
Get up once more, set your face, it’s time to keep on walking.
Today there is a great falling away from faith and trust in God. Paul warned about this: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [Christ’s return] shall not come, except there come a falling away first” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).
In the Old Testament, the Lord gives us an example of what happens to those who fall away from faith in God’s power on their behalf. In 2 Chronicles 14, King Asa faced a million-man army of Ethiopians. But the king had great faith: “Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God” (2 Chronicles 14:11).
What happened then? “The Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa” (14:12). What great faith Asa had! For years afterward, “There was no more war unto the five and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa” (15:19). For years, Asa walked in faith before the Lord, and that brought God’s favor to Judah. A great peace fell over the land, and that peace became a witness to the world. Soon hungry people from surrounding nations flooded Judah, because they knew Asa walked with God.
Then, in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, Asa faced another crisis. Israel’s king rose up against Judah, capturing Ramah in an effort to cut off all trade to and from Jerusalem. The plan was to starve Judah into submission. Asa was left completely vulnerable, but this time he didn’t rely on the Lord in his crisis. Instead of praying for God’s direction and counsel, he turned to the king of Syria. In exchange for Syria’s help, Asa opened up Israel’s treasury, emptying it of all the nation’s gold and silver.
And so Judah was delivered from their enemy, but not by the Lord. That glory went to an alien army from Syria—and Judah’s witness to the world of God’s power was gone. A righteous prophet in the land came to Asa with this scathing word: “Thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God . . . For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars” (16:7, 9).
I am convinced many Christians today are troubled for the same reason Asa was. They have war in their souls because they have traded faith for self-reliance. But the fact is, there is no way a follower of Jesus can have faith in any other source and not be troubled. (David Wilkerson)
David Wilkerson goes to the very heart of what Christians in this land struggle with. I have witnessed good people going back and forth on this issue, knowing they should not put their trust in anything else but God, but then something happens, a terrorist attack, a collapse on Wall St and so on and suddenly it is back to trusting in men. We have not been called to be puppets on strings, strings of fear that the enemy can pull anytime he wants to move us or disturb us or motivate us to do his work for him. So often it seems for so many that their lives are like a roller-coaster, each new turn and bend and hill creating another round of screaming and panic.
The days that are coming require the saints to put all of their trust in God. We will not have the luxury of circumstances to get away with having our trust in anything else. Time to get of the roller-coaster of reacting wildly and with fear to every report and every event. We saints have been called to be a light unto the world. Let others lose their heads in fear but let us keep ours in trust and peace. Hold fast brothers and sisters. Rudyard Kipling wrote this poem centuries ago but it highlights many truths that we as saints should live by………….bro Frank
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
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.”
Mat 25:6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
The children of Israel had been given certain promises by God. Of course they were promised the land, the promised land. Yet because of unbelief and disobedience they were forced to wander and die in the wilderness for forty years. So here we have a vivid connection between disbelief and disobedience and the displeasure of God. That particular generation, all who were over 20 years of age, would not enter into that place promised by God. Now God took care of their basic needs, but they would not pass over into the promises nor would they take possession of all that God had for them.
Can I suggest that we are living in such a generation? The signs of the times are all around us. We know that Jesus told us that He would come back for His own. We know that there is a second coming and that Jesus told us about these things in Matt 24 and the parable of the foolish virgins and so on. We are given pointers from Scripture and of course we have the Holy Spirit to lead and to guide us and to show us the times in which we live. Many will casually say that the end is near, that the world is in chaos and without direction and that Jesus must be coming back soon. Yet my question is, does Christendom really believe that?
Jesus is the coming problem. Even now and for a long time, mention the name of Jesus anywhere and people get uncomfortable. You can talk about God and Allah and Yahweh or Jehovah and people are fine, mention Jesus and they start to squirm. Soon religious leaders, seeking a political solution to intractable religious problems will tell us that the three major monotheistic religions share the same founding father, Abraham. They will tell us that these are the roads to heaven, not one, but at least three if not more. People will be able to talk about God but not about Jesus. Anyone who will suggest that Jesus is the only way to heaven, the fundamental tenet of the Christian faith, will be despised. Watch as the major religions of the world come together under the brotherhood of man banner. Even now Babel is being re-built.
It is true that much church activity is thrown back upon a shaky
foundation of psychology and natural talents. It is sad but true that
many a mother-in-law is actually praying that her handsome son-
in-law may be called to preach because “he would have such a
marvelous pulpit presence.”
We live in a day when charm is supposed to cover almost the
entire multitude of sins. Charm has taken a great place in religious
expression. I am convinced that our Lord expects us to be tough
enough and cynical enough to recognize all of this that pleases
the unthinking in our churches: the charm stuff, the stage
presence in the pulpit, the golden qualities of voice….
I feel sorry for the church that decides to call a pastor because
“his personality simply sparkles!” I have watched quite a few of
those sparklers through the years. In reality, as every kid knows
at Fourth of July time, sparklers can be an excitement in the
neighborhood–but only for about one minute! Then you are left
holding a hot stick that quickly cools off in your hand.
Prophetic Preaching
If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other
means than any now being used. If the Church in the second
half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered
in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The
proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the
priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay
and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type
who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to
everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.
Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must
be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God
and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I
pray God there will be not one but many), he will stand in flat
contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds
dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God
and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of
Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken
and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the
souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the
One and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that
breathes with mortal breath.
“Let me point out that the victorious Christian life is not a life absent of any problems or difficulties or failures. Actually, the opposite is true. The victorious Christian life is a day by day or even moment by moment victory over enemies and situations that we confront in the way. That is why the man of God said ” For a just man falleth seven times.” We are some-times given the idea that a ” just man,” never falls at all. Because of that, we face the danger of arrogance.” (A.W.Tozer)
Isn’t that true? To live the victorious Christian life is to live your life day by day and sometimes moment by moment. And in the moment you may not see the victory, and when you’re lying on the ground it may be hard to see the victory. Yet it is grace that picks a man up of the ground and where would any of us be without that grace?
Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; (1Co 1:2-5)
Before Paul goes on in his letter to the Corinthians, a church with many deep-rooted problems, he reminds them of Gods grace and he extends peace unto them. He reminds them of the beauty of Christ and how the Lord has enriched them in an intimate knowledge of Himself. Brothers and sisters, no matter what problems you are facing today, you have been enriched by the Lord, isn’t that true? He has taken you from the gutters of life and has raised you up. Our very lives are in Him and we stand because He stands. We live because He lives. We breathe because He breathed life into us. That is who you are, that is your identity. Nothing can take that away from you.
Are you down today? Have you fallen? Have you blown it? I want you to rejoice in the fact that even although the ” just man falleth seven times,” that the Lord reminded His disciples to forgive ” seventy times seven.” Now if the Lord expected and enabled His disciples to forgive ” seventy times seven,” then how many times shall He forgive you? And so dear saint, mighty man or woman of God, rejoice today in your victorious life. For your life is not measured by the amount of times you did not fall but by the times you were enabled to get up and go on. This is part of the nature of the one who endures and overcomes. There is an enemy who screams in your ears when you fall, and he is screaming ” stay down, your out, your finished, you can never be used again.” And isn’t it true that this voice rarely comes through the people of the world?
The saint’s enemy in these matters is typically someone close who calls upon the name of the Lord. The enemy has many different avenues to try to keep you down saint but the Lord says ” Get up, look up, lift up holy hands.” He says ” lift your eyes up and cast them towards heaven and see where your help comes from. He beckons you to come up. He reaches down His hand to pull you up as opposed to those who would pull you down. So stand up today brothers and sisters if you are down. He raises you up in grace and forgiveness. And those of you who have been down many times will be strengthened by the humility that you learned there. It is better to stand up in the strength of the Lord and walk humbly before men than to present to men an image of one who has never fallen. For one who does that inevitably walks in arrogance.
We have all heard the phrase ” a perfect storm.” Perhaps many of us have seen the movie or read the book “The perfect Storm” where different meteorological events collided causing one huge and rare storm of unusual violence and strength and had catostrophic consequences for those unlucky enough to be caught at sea or live by the coast.
Here are some definitions of the phrase ” perfect storm,” ………..
A.a detrimental or calamitous situation or event arising from the powerful combined effect of a unique set of circumstances:
B.a critical or disastrous situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors.
C.a “perfect storm” is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically. The term is also used to describe an actual phenomenon that happens to occur in such a confluence, resulting in an event of unusual magnitude.
Lets look at some of the words that re-appear in these definitions of a perfect storm. There is combined, combination, concurrence and confluence. So, under normal circumstances any single event, while bad, does not lead to the other set of words used in the definition of a perfect storm which are calamitous, critical, disastrous and unusual magnitude.
Can I suggest to you that the world is facing a perfect storm? Now one could state rightly that there have always been wars and famines and natural disasters. Yet when there is a confluence of events such as we are seeing today, can I suggest that we as Christians get ready for the greatest storm to ever hit mankind in the history of this planet. What are these events that I am speaking of? In the last one hundred years there have been more men,woman and children killed in wars than in all the wars combined since history has been recorded. We saw the unspeakable horrors of Nazi Germany where human being were gassed and shoveled into fires by the millions. We saw even more killed by the horrors of Communism and its phycopathic leader Stalin. Both these regimes were unshamedly Godless. We now see a moral breakdown in society which we have never witnessed in the world before,even all pretense is being thrown of. We have saw starvation on a grand scale with horrific famines. We have witnessed a tsunami which killed 250,000 people, an event never before witnessed in recorded history. We have witnessed massive earthquakes one of which actually moved the whole earth slightly of it axis. In the last hundred years we have seen the birth of the nuclear age with the destruction of two cities in the blink of an eye with just two bombs. Now even that technology is positively primitive in comparison to what we have today.
Now lets combine all of that, and that was only a fraction of events in the last hundred years, with a total vaccuum in leadership around the world today. The statesman cannot be found. All seek after their own. The middle East is in flames and millions upon millions of people are being displaced by crazed bloodthirsty madmen intent on barbarism. We read in the book of Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. We are told that the end of times shall be marked with greatly increased travel and knowledge. Can I suggest that we are living in that age where people now travel freely all over the world and that knowledge has absolutely exploded in the last few decades.
The perfect storm has begun brothers and sisters. The bands of rain are already lashing the world and the cultural winds are beginning to blow with hurricane force. Today, with technology, we are able to see monster hurricanes many many days before they hit land. We can see it coming and those in its path head for safe harbor or if you are on land and in the path of the storm, you begin to stock up provisions and board up your house; you may even evacuate to higher ground if the surge is forecast to be of a certain height that would overwhelm you where you dwell.
Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. (Mat 25:1-4)
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.(Mat 7:24-27)
The preparation that Jesus is talking about, and He is talking about the last days ,is not about storing food and weapons and so on. Its about your vessel being filled with oil so that when the darkness comes just before the coming of Jesus, you will be able to light up the night as a light to the world. The preparation is about obedience to God and walking in His revelation and commands so that your house, your life, your walk is built upon a solid foundation so that when this perfect storm comes and the rain descends and the cultural winds blow with ferocity and evil floods the world, you shall still stand while those without such a foundation are swept away. Lash yourself to Christ and live, stand fast brothers and sisters, come up to higher ground and live.
As I was walking recently, the Holy Spirit spoke some words to me. ” There is nothing more important than the condition of your heart.” It lingered with me for weeks as I pondered those few words. All of my Christian life I have periods where I retreat into myself and kinda shut down, withdraw from the maddening crowd and simply go along on auto pilot.
In Kansas we can go months without rain. The ground gets baked hard in the sweltering heat of summer. If a rain comes it typically does not penetrate the hard ground, instead there is a flash flood. The ground is wet for a very short period of time and then it is as hard as it ever was.
There are periods when it rains every day in the spring. The ground soaks up the rain and then it rains again and again until it is saturated. When the ground is saturated it takes only a slight rain to cause flooding. The creeks and the rivers are swollen and the landscape is in danger of being changed by raging waters.
If my heart is good, if the waters that flow from heaven flow through me, if my heart remains supple and soaked with the dew that falls from heaven, then it takes very little for the glories of heaven to flood forth from me, living waters that refreshes my soul and others. If my heart is hard, it takes a lot of water just to soften me up. Oh that I would learn to remain close to the source of life itself that I might be useful in season and out of season, that I would be a source of life to others.
We are in the midst of a famine. It has been a creeping spiritual famine. The kind of famine where people really don’t realize that they are slowly starving to death. I absolutely believe it is the great falling away. Most people would not be able to stand sound teaching now, they are so far removed from it that it would be foreign to their ears. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. (2 Tim 4:3)
This is an excellent teaching on the state of the church in Britain. I would say that although it looks very different on the outside, the American church is in the exact same state. In fact, many of the points this man raises points to the general state of the church in the West.
The Apostle Paul, referring to the coming evil day, said, “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand”(Ephesians 6:13).”
This is what the Lord has burned into my spirit and bones. The phrase ” stand fast,” is what I have been using to end many of the words the Lord has given me lately. I believe our calling in the last days is to simply stand fast and there will be nothing simple about it. When persecution comes everything will be stripped away, and the process has already begun. It wont be about ministries and reputations and theologies, it will be about loving God and loving His Word and being willing to stand upon it, willing to live it and willing to die for it. When the winds of religious and secular persecution come together, it creates a perfect storm for genuine saints. Who will stand when the only hiding place is Christ and Him alone? I believe many will.
The same Spirit that burned in the heart of Stephen, the apostles and the martyrs down through the ages burns in the heart of every genuine saint. What separates us from the saints of the last two thousand years? Nothing! We are one Body. The only thing that differentiates us from them is circumstances and opportunity. It is not because they were special or we are special it’s because of the Spirit of God and the overcoming Christ. The winds of persecution that are now beginning to blow will fan the flames of the refining fires.
But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. (Mal 3:2-3)
The same Spirit that burned in the hearts of the three Hebrew children burns in the hearts of genuine saints. That Spirit gave those children the courage to say that even if they die in the fire prepared for them they would never bow down to the gods of this world. And who did they meet in the very midst of the fire? Jesus. And what did the world, represented by the king acknowledge when they emerged from the fire? “There is no other God that can deliver after this sort.”
The wheat indeed shall be separated from the tares and that by fire. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (Mat 24:10-14)
God is preparing his witnesses/martyrs so that the world will see and know, and then the end shall come.
The storm is raging all around
You are going to be swept away
Each wave knocks you to the ground
You won’t see the light of another day
In that desperate moment when all is lost
You lash yourself to the mast
If this ship goes down you’re going down
To this ship you have tied yourself fast
Who will you cling to when all is lost
Who is your solid ground
Who sticks closer than a brother to you
When no one else can be found
Who is a Father to the fatherless
Who gladly took your place
Who comforts you when no one’s around
Who has amazing grace?
In Christ our King we stand or fall
To you and I He’s all in all
In every dark and stormy night
He gives us strength to stand and fight
He is the Mast that we tie ourselves to
He is the air that we breathe
He is the ground beneath our feet
He is the Reward we receive
Jesus Christ is the Lord of all
He will catch us when we fall
We rise each day our course is charted
And He will finish what He has started
Take hope my child I stand with you
And I will lead and guide you through
And you shall never be destroyed
In fact in me you’ll be overjoyed
For I make beauty from the ashes
I light the night with lightning flashes
I shake the earth and still the waves
I am your God the one who saves.
A Call To The Remnant 