1. After the long night... It's Time for the Sonrise!

And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, ...not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof (Romans 13:11-14).

Jesus Christ never intended for His people to be taken by surprise at His coming. He intends for you to be totally aware of the time of His return, so that you would be watching, waiting, and ready when He comes again. Scriptures that refer to His coming again as "a thief in the night" do not refer to the way the Church will experience His return, but to the way the world will see it. The coming of Christ will take the world totally by surprise - but not the Christian. Paul said, "You are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief. You are the children of the light" (I Thessalonians 5:4,5).

"Knowing the time." The children of the light know that the coming of the Lord is very near. We know we live near the end, because God has placed so much evidence and proof in the world events around us - signs that are intended to alert us to the hour and the day in which we are living.

If the Jews of Jesus' day had only known the time of His coming, they would never have rejected Him. They would have received Him.

Actually, the Jews should have been looking for their Messiah to come the very year Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem. If they had been reading their Scriptures and had been properly taught the Word, they would have known exactly when the Messiah was due to appear.

Daniel had revealed that it would be 483 years from the time the commandment went forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of the Messiah the Prince. Since the commandment went forth in 445 B.C., the Jews should have been looking for their Messiah precisely when He arrived 483 years later. Daniel received this prophecy when he had been studying the Word of God. He knew that a dramatic year was arriving. Daniel knew through studying the Scriptures that the 70 years of the Jews' captivity in Babylon were about over, according to the prophecies of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 25:11 said, "They shall serve the king of Babylon for 70 years." After some basic mathematics, Daniel knew the time of Israel's repatriation had come. He started praying and seeking the Lord concerning any special part He had for Daniel in the return of the people to the land.

Because Daniel was familiar with the Scriptures, he was aware of the world events around him. If you're in the Scriptures and studying the Word of God, then you should also be aware of the events that are happening in the world around you. You'll be privileged to know what they really mean!

The problem with the Jews in Christ's day was their lack of knowledge of the Scriptures. When Christ came they weren't expecting Him. They were expecting their King to come with regalia on a white charger or in a great chariot. But the Scriptures had said, "Behold, your King comes to you. But He's lowly, He's riding upon a donkey." (Zechariah 9:9) So, when Christ came riding on a donkey, they turned up their noses .

Today, we see people who are versed in so many areas of understanding, but they're totally oblivious to the fact that we're coming to the end of the line!

There is no reason why any believer should be taken by surprise when Jesus returns. Even as the Word of God gave so many signs and indications concerning His first coming, it also gives us many signs and indications of events that will be a forewarning of His second coming.

When I looked at the paper the other day, six of the seven articles on the front page were of prophetic significance! They were prophesied in the Scriptures as events at the time of the return of Jesus Christ. All around us are signs and indications that the coming of the Lord is at the door.

It's amazing to me that so many Christians are planning their lives as if they'll be here for at least another 20 years. Do I believe the Lord will return within 20 years? You bet your life I do! I don't want to be around 20 years from now, anyway. If what the ecologists say is true, it's going to be a very unpleasant world 20 years from now!

Alerted

A young girl came up to me the other day and showed me her arm. There was a rash all over it. She said, "This is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy! I went to my doctor, and he said that this rash is a result of ultraviolet radiation. He said there are many cases of skin irritation due to ultraviolet radiation, because of the depletion of the ozone in the atmosphere."

If those who have been warning us about the dangers of aerosol propellants are correct and we continue to deplete the ozone blanket, 20 years from now you won't dare walk outside in the sun. If you decide to go to the store, you'll have to travel in a little mobile cubicle with protective shields. (See Revelation 16:8-9)

But you're going to have a hard time propelling that little vehicle because, according to estimates, we'll be out of fossil fuels by then. And the experts haven't developed anything else which is even close to replacing fossil fuels as our major energy source.

According to an interesting book about these crises, scientists fed various factors and data regarding the world, its population, the food supply, the ability to grow food, etc. into a computer. Each time this information was fed into the computer to find out what the world would be like 20 years from now, the computer said, "The world can't last that long... there's not enough fuel to take you there... the ozone will be depleted to the point where life will be totally endangered... the population will be so large that you'll be unable to feed it."

Actually, 15 million people are dying of starvation this year. Two out of three people being born will suffer permanent brain damage from lack of protein in their diets during the developmental years.

There are the exotic super-weapons that are being developed. How much longer can we go until one of these is released by accident or on purpose? The terrorists in Europe are now talking about stealing a nuclear device and using it as their next threat of blackmail.

There are devices that might even be worse than the nuclear weapons. Our forces in Europe have been trained concerning a new nerve gas that has been developed by Russia. We have already received a kit with an anti-toxin for this gas. It contains a spring loaded needle. Hit yourself in any part of your body and the needle will go right through your boots or your clothing and inject this serum into your body. You have fifteen seconds from the time of exposure to the gas to inject the anti-toxin, or you'll be too late. You have ten seconds to analyze and determine whether or not you've been exposed to the gas. If you use the anti-toxin when you haven't actually been exposed to the gas, the anti-toxin will kill you.

What kind of a world are we living in when we have only ten seconds to judge, and if we make a mistake we lose our life? What kind of world will it be 20 years from now? And who wants to try to exist in that kind of world!

When you talk about the coming of the Lord, the world says, "You're a prophet of doom!" If you ask me, a gloomy message is what the ecologists are saying about our future. As I look around the world, I take great comfort in knowing that it won't be long until the Lord comes!

I look around and see the turmoil. I see, as the Scripture says, "the distress of nations with perplexity." The word "perplexity" translated from the Greek actually means "no way out." We don't know what to do! The economic experts are as confused as the public. They don't want to admit it, because they're afraid we'll panic.

The Bible says that the night is far spent and the day is at hand. The night of evil, the night of misery, the night of darkness of man's history is about over!

When I woke up just before dawn this morning, I looked outside. I could see vague outlines. I could make out the nearby trees. It was getting a little light in the eastern sky, just enough to see my way around. I knew that it wouldn't be very long before the sky would be getting brighter and brighter. And then the day would dawn. Now there was a sign and evidence. The faint light in the eastern sky told me that the day was at hand.

When my wife and I were awaiting our first child, we came to the day the doctor said would be the probable date of birth. But our child wasn't born. We waited another day. Still, she wasn't born. We waited a third day, and she wasn't born. I didn't throw down my hat and yell at my wife, "You deceived me! I don't think you're going to have a baby!" No. I still believed that our baby was coming. There were positive signs and evidences. I couldn't tell you the day or the hour. I didn't become an unbeliever just because it didn't happen the day we thought it was going to happen. In fact, with every day that went by we knew that the baby's arrival was more and more imminent.

The Lord must be coming any time now. We know that we're getting closer with each passing day. That's what Paul meant when he said, "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed" (Romans 13:11).

Prepared

Realizing that the Lord's coming is due at any moment, how should we live in these final days of grace? First of all, Paul says that we should cast off the works of darkness. These works are described as rioting, drunkenness, chambering (sexual immorality) and wantonness (sexual immorality with no shame), strife and envying.

Christians living in this polluted world are under tremendous pressure. My mother used to say, "Son, any dead fish can float downstream with the current. It takes a live fish to swim upstream against the current." She said, "You'll be faced with a tide of evil, and the easy thing is to flow with it. But that only proves that you're spiritually dead." She said, "Be alive unto God. Be alive unto Jesus Christ. Dare to go against the tide!" Thank God for mothers who give that kind of advice to their sons.

Every once in a while, I hear my wife quietly sobbing. I go into the room to see what's wrong, and her hands will be over her face. She's a very beautiful and sensitive person. The newspaper will be in front of her. She's so sensitive to people and to suffering that, when she reads some of the things that are happening today, it just tears her up inside. My wife has too much empathy for the tragic victims of this crazy world in which we live. She cries for that little child who's been beaten or cruelly tortured and who doesn't even know why. Sometimes, I have to get up and turn off the television because her reaction is just too great. The stuff that people are doing is just so shocking that a sensitive person is completely torn up by it. It's sad to me that our children, being exposed to it for so long, have somehow built up an immunity to the violence of these days.

In light of these things, how should a Christian then live? "Let us put on the armor of light." The literal phrase in the Greek is "weapons of light."

Did you know that there are weapons of light? Truth is a powerful weapon of light. What a power the man has who uses the weapon of light in a dark and evil world, the man who will not bow his knee to Molech, the god of the flesh, but who stands strong in the face of the corrupt society around him.

Another powerful weapon of light is love. We're to put on love and let God's love fill our hearts and our lives.

What is destroying our whole system? Greed. We want someone else to make the sacrifices. Let someone else quit their driving. I'm not willing to sacrifice. Look at the whole economic upward spiral. Why? Because the laborers are demanding higher wages in order to buy the higher priced goods. The manufacturers are saying, "We've got to put higher prices on the merchandise so we can pay the higher wages." Greed drives inflation even higher.

Where's it going to end? It's almost over! The night is far spent. The glorious day of the Lord is at hand!

Paul next exhorts, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." He is the Light. Oh, that we will walk in His strength, His ability, and His power! It's only through Him that we have any chance at all in this world in which we're living. If you don't appropriate the power and strength of Jesus Christ, you're a goner!

If you believe you're only a product of accidental circumstances, a series of evolutionary changes, then life for you is meaningless. But life is real. Life is earnest. The grave is not the Christian's goal. Dust thou art, to dust returneth was not spoken of your soul!

God has a plan and a purpose for you. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and discover the glorious life that God has for you. Life with meaning, a life of beauty, a life of joy, a life of love, as we walk in the Spirit, and as we, through Him, become a light in this black, darkened world.

Make no provision to fulfill your flesh's desires. Don't give it an opportunity. If you do, it can take over and bring you under its power and control. Knowing the time, it's high time that we wake up. It's almost over. The cry goes forth. "Behold, the bridegroom cometh!" Jesus said, "Be ready!" - for they that were ready went in to the marriage supper! (Matthew 25:6).

 

2. Compared to the Heavens... What is Man?

One of the unfortunate by-products of our urbanized society with its resultant air pollution and bright lights is that we cannot see the heavens very clearly anymore. I think that everyone who lives in an urban area should get away to the desert or mountains two or three times a year to look up and be reminded of the glory of heaven. Unfortunately, we forget about the vastness of the universe when we don't see it fully. We begin to think of this world as being closed-in, but when we look at the heavens, we can realize how great the creation of God is!

The Bible declares that the glory of God is greater than the heavens themselves. The psalmist David said,

O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens... When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? (Psalm 8:1,3-4).

The sun, the work of God's fingers, is 860,000 miles in diameter. It is so large that 1,200,000 Earths our size could be placed in it. Traveling at 11 1/2 miles per second through space, the sun was flung out by God's hand.

Many stars, because of the density of their atoms, weigh much more than the sun. One of the dual stars of Sirius has such a high density, the number of atoms in a given volume, that one cubic inch weighs 1,725 pounds! Imagine what would happen if a rock-sized meteor from Sirius was laying on the ground in your path and you decided to kick it out of the way. Yet, as heavy as that star is, God has also spun it into orbit.

Our sun is one of the billions of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. This galaxy measures about 10,000 light years wide and 100,000 light years long. In other words, if you could travel on a beam of light at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, you could circle the earth 7 1/2 times in just one second. Then, leaving the Earth at this speed, you could sail past the moon in 1 1/4 seconds and past the sun in 7 1/2 minutes. However, it would take you about 4 1/2 years to reach the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. To cross the width of the Milky Way Galaxy would take you 10,000 years and to cross the length would take you 100,000 years. If you then wanted to go to the nearest galaxy, Andromeda, you'd have to travel at the speed of light for 1 1/2 million years!

This vast universe contains billions of galaxies, one of which is the Milky Way Galaxy. In this galaxy there are billions of stars, and one of these stars we called the sun. Revolving around this star are the nine planets of the Solar System, one of which is called Earth. This planet is 7,926.7 miles in diameter at the equator, revolving around the sun at 19 miles per second, rotating on its axis at 1,000 miles per hour, traveling with the sun in its giant orbit at 11 1/2 miles per second, and (as some astronomers theorize) traveling at approximately 179 miles per second with the Milky Way. Imagine, as we just sit here, all these motions are going on!

If you have ever spun a top, you know that it can spin for a long time, but ultimately it slows down and stops. I don't know how the Lord started the planet Earth spinning, but I do know He keeps it spinning - and it's not slowing down! God has ordained it and set it all in motion.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him?

This little planet Earth, as a part of a group of planets revolving around the sun, a part of a galaxy called the Milky Way, which is only one of billions of galaxies, contains billions of living creatures. Among these billions of living creatures is our species called man, of which there are almost four billion.

It must have blown the mind of David when he realized that God's glory is greater than the heavens! He states,

O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who has set thy glory above the heavens.

Then David added, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?"

God is mindful of this little creature called man on this little planet. Earth is in this little Solar System, part of the Milky Way Galaxy, a part of this vast universe, all of which is a work of His fingers. The fact that God is mindful of me just amazes me! The Creator of this universe is conscious and mindful of me, His creation, here on this planet!

"What is man?" First of all, he is body. But the body elements aren't worth very much. With inflation, they are now probably worth about $2.26 in raw chemicals. Earlier, I made reference to the fact that the density of matter is determined by the atoms per unit volume. Our bodies are made up of atoms which have a nucleus of protons and neutrons with tiny electrons whirling around it. If you could stop these electrons from whirling, they would draw into the center of the mass of the nucleus. If all the atoms in your body collapsed like this, you would immediately disappear. There is so much empty space in these atoms that you'd be smaller than a speck of dust; in fact, it would take a microscope to see you. All of us are made up of these blown-up atoms.

However, the Bible teaches that man is more than body. It teaches that man is a soul and a spirit. The body is called a "tent" in the Scriptures, because it is the temporary dwelling place of the spirit. Paul the apostle said,

For we know that if our earthly tent were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (II Corinthians 5:1).

When these tents in which we're now living return to the dust from which they were made, by the grace of God, our spirits move out. God then has another place of habitation for our spirits - not tents but houses.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?

God isn't mindful of me in some abstract way, He's mindful of me in a personal way. He knows when I get up in the morning and go to bed at night. He knows when some sound awakens me in the middle of the night. He who knows my thoughts, and also understands my dusty frame (Psalm 103:14); and yet, knowing my weaknesses and my failings, He still loves me!

Sometimes, Satan lays a trip on us. He tells us that once we have made a mistake or failed, or because we may continually fail, God wants nothing to do with us. Satan would have us believe that God is no longer interested in us. But God knows our frames, that we are but dust. God also knows our hearts, and the real intentions of our hearts and lives.

When you have a little child who is just learning to walk, you let the child grasp on to your fingers and steady him as he walks. Then, when you feel that he's steady enough, you let go of his fingers. The child may really be attempting to take that first step, but he may fall right away, because he isn't coordinated enough to walk yet. When this happens, you don't pick him up and scold him, saying, "You rotten little kid! Why don't you walk?" You don't punish him for falling. You grab him and hold him close. You encourage him, saying, "That's okay, angel. Let's try again." You assure him of your love.

As long as the child is trying, you continue to encourage him and love him. Even though he may fail a hundred times, you don't toss the child out. You don't get rid of him just because he has failed. In the same way, God knows when you're trying; and, if you do fail, God doesn't discard you and say, "Oh, I get so sick of you!" He picks you up and holds you close, then dusts you off and says, "Come on now, let's try again."

On the other hand, you may have a teenager sitting in the room. If you say, "Come over here. I want to show you something," and he replies, "No, I don't want to, and you can't make me," you may want to pop his head off because he's being rebellious. There's a difference of attitude between the baby and the teenager. One is an attitude of weakness: wanting to do something but not being able to, the other is an attitude of rebellion: having the ability to do something and not wanting to. If you want to serve God but lack the ability, don't be afraid that God is going to be angry at you! God loves you! He knows your frame. He knows how uncoordinated you are spiritually. God looks upon us with love because we're His children. As a father pities his child who is learning to walk, so our heavenly Father looks upon us, His children, with pity.

However, if we're in open rebellion against God, saying, "I don't want to do it! I won't do it! You can't make me do it!" He may prove to us that He can make us do it, just as a father may prove to his teenage son that he can make him come across the room.

"What is man?" Generally, man is a rebellious little creature. He's down here on this little planet, shaking his fist at his Creator and saying, "I don't want to follow Your rules! I'll live just as I please! You can't make me live the way You want me to! I'll do what I want!" This is man, a little speck of dust, shaking his dusty fist at the Creator of the universe. How foolish it is to rebel against the Creator!

"What is man that thou art mindful of him?" The question is unanswerable. But God is not only mindful of me, He came to visit me: "And the son of man, that thou visitest him." The Gospel of John begins:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made... He was in the world, and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name... And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,(and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-3,10-12,14).

God's visiting man is a marvelous mystery, but the blindness of man's rebellion is a tragedy. Rebellion will always blind you. It is always folly to be in rebellion against God. Here is little man rebelling against his Creator. His Creator came to visit him, but man didn't even recognize Him. Even though the world was made by Him, the world knew Him not.

Psalm 8 continues in prophecy of Jesus Christ and His visit to Earth.

For Thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet.

In Hebrews 2:8 this Psalm is quoted in reference to Jesus Christ. God has placed all things in subjection unto Jesus Christ, giving Him the authority over all of His created work. However, at the end of this passage the writer of Hebrews declares, "But now we do not yet see all things put under him."

As we look around in the world today, we do not see everything in subjection to Jesus Christ. In fact, we see a world in rebellion against His authority. Even as Christians, our flesh sometimes rebels against Him, but there is coming a day when God shall place all authority in Jesus Christ. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father (Isaiah 45:23; Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10). We do not yet see all things in subjection,

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor (Hebrews 2:9).

May God help us to see beyond the rebellion around us and beyond the rebellion of our own flesh, and may we, this day, see Jesus! May we, this day, crown Him with many crowns, the Lord upon His throne. May we, this day, submit ourselves to His authority and to His will. May we bow our knee to His scepter and worship at His feet. May we enter into the glories of the kingdom of God by submitting ourselves to Jesus Christ, the King. May we see Jesus and, when we do, may we say with David, "O Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! who has set Thy glory above the heaven" (Psalm 8:1).

What is man that God would think of him? Yet He did. What is man that God should redeem him? Yet He has. What is man that God should want him? Yet He does. What is man that God should save him and make him His own throughout eternity? Yet He has!

The question we should be asking is not, "What is man?" but, "What is God?" He is infinite grace, infinite love, infinite goodness.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:11-13).

 

3. Positive Confession

And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him (I John 5:14-15).

The word confidence in the Greek literally means "the boldness of speech." When we talk to the Lord we can be bold! We can be free, open, and honest. If we say something wrong, it doesn't matter. God isn't going to throw it back at us. If we say something foolish, He understands. We can pray with real boldness of speech. Praying with confidence is an exciting thing!

The boldness of speech that we have is in asking. The Scripture has encouraged us to come boldly to the throne of grace that we might receive mercy in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). That is proper and correct. There's nothing wrong with coming to God under pressure. I can't help but feel that maybe God at times has created the pressure just to get us to call on Him! There's nothing wrong with coming to God and asking. In fact, the Lord tells us to. Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you" (Matthew 7:7). Again, Jesus said, "Ask, please ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full" (John 16:24).

When I come to God, I can come boldly. I can ask God for my needs. I don't have to worry that He'll misunderstand me. I don't have to be afraid that He'll be rude or rough with me. I don't have to worry that I might be asking the wrong thing.

We have this confidence in Him, "If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." I'm so glad that qualification is there! I'm glad that this Scripture doesn't say, "Whatever we ask we receive." I'm very grateful that He inserted "according to His will." Had God answered all of my prayers, I wouldn't be here today. I would have destroyed myself a long time ago!

I have prayed for a lot of ridiculous things that would have totally ruined me. "According to His will" keeps a proper perspective between God and me. Any other way would remove the authority of God over my life. It would then mean that I was the master of my fate, the captain of my destiny. My life wouldn't be governed by God; instead, it would be governed by me.

If I can demand that God does anything, if I can lay out demands to which God must acquiesce because I'm demanding it in Jesus' name; or if I can just make positive confessions and start laying claims to things and, by my positive confessions, create situations and things for my life, then God is no longer in control of my life. I take control by the demands that I make upon God and by the confessions I make of these things. And God becomes the magic genie! I rub the lamp and God must come out to follow my orders.

Not so! God is far too loving for that. He loves you too much to let you run your life. When you put the "I" in run, you've got the true picture: you'll ruin your life when you try to run it.

Paul tells us that we don't always know what the will of the Lord is. That's one of our problems in prayer. From past experience, I realize that I made so many mistakes in the analyses of my own needs that if God had answered some of those prayers, it would have been absolutely tragic!

What if I were in control? What if God were acquiescing to every confession that I made? People say, "Be careful not to make a negative confession! What you say is what you get." That's ridiculous!

David said, "I know one day Saul is going to kill me." Don't say that, David! That's negative confession. Now it's going to happen, because what you say is what you get! And now one day Saul is going to kill you. But Saul didn't kill David.

I have a good friend who's been saying for years, "I'll be a monkey's uncle." To my knowledge he hasn't become one yet.

"If I could have things by just making a positive confession." "If God must yield to my demands." Do you see what that immediately does? It elevates me to the position of God and puts God in the subservient position. I'm no longer serving God, but God is serving me and my every whim.

To put God in this kind of position, as Paul declares in Romans 1:21, is to fail to glorify God as God. It doesn't make God "God" anymore but some kind of servant who has to run around and do my will, follow my commands, and fill out my confessions. It puts me in control and God in the servant's seat. To exalt my demands, wishes, and my will above God's will is audacious, perverted, and insane.

Certainly, the greatest prayer any of us can ever pray is, "Not my will, but Thy will be done." That isn't a spiritual cop-out as some people would accuse. It's just glorifying God as God and recognizing that He's a lot smarter than I. I may think that something is best for me, but He knows what's best for me.

Behind every prayer I offer is an understanding with God that if I'm making a stupid request, He should please not honor it or answer it. I want God to do what's best for me or whatever is wisest in each situation. If you accuse me of a spiritual cop-out because I pray "Thy will be done," then you must also accuse Jesus Christ of a spiritual cop-out - because He's the source of the prayer!

"Not my will, but Thy will be done" is the wisest prayer I can offer to God. That's the way I always want it to be. Though I don't always articulate it, that submission to His will is always the background of every prayer I offer to God. "God, this is what I want. This is what I think I need. But, Lord, You know what I need better than I know myself. Your will be done in my life. Your will be done in this illness. Your will be done in this financial problem. Don't listen to me. I'll mess it up worse than it is. You do what is best for me, God."

A person who's afraid to pray "Thy will be done" is a person who doesn't truly understand or know God. If you really know God then you have no problems praying that way at all. Unfortunately, many people have a lot of false concepts of God.

Satan has done a tremendous job of lying about God and His nature. So many people think that God's will is the most terrible thing that could ever happen to them. They think that whatever you don't want to do is just what God will make you do when you say, "Thy will be done." If you say, "I don't want my nose rubbed in the dirt," the first thing that's going to happen is that God will rub your nose in the dirt. Oh, what a blasphemous concept of God to think that He would do some horrible, ugly thing just because you've submitted to His will. God's will for our lives is so glorious and marvelous that I'm afraid to have anything less than God's will for my life!

If God should come to me and say, "Chuck, I've been thinking about you lately. I'd like to do something special for you just to show you how much I love you" - what would I ask Him for? Oh, what will it be? Let's see I might pay off the mortgage on my house. "Lord, what about twenty grand?" No. Before I get that far I'd stop and say, "Lord, just give me whatever You want." You see, I might be thinking of twenty grand, but He might be thinking five hundred thousand! Why should I cut Him short?

God delights in giving good gifts to His children. He's more anxious to give than we are to receive! If you can have the proper concept of God then you can, with confidence, totally cast yourself upon Him and say, "Here I am, God! It's Your problem now! Take care of it. Whatever You want, whatever You wish. My life is Yours. You work out all the details and circumstances. I'm going to relax and let You do it!" You won't be able to believe those things He desires to do for your life - just because He loves you! No way am I afraid to say, "Lord, Thy will be done in this situation." That's all I want.

We must remember that there is a limitation to our asking: "...anything according to His will." The Scripture isn't just a blanket promise. God has put a limitation to our asking - a blessed limitation!

 

4. The Healing Doctrine

Can Healing Be Guaranteed?

Recently a woman, struggling awkwardly with her aluminum crutches, came up to me. An unfortunate victim of multiple sclerosis, she had tear-filled eyes that mirrored the pain in her heart. She asked, "How can I explain to my Christian friends that I still love the Lord and am not hiding sin in my life though I'm crippled like this?" My heart ached for her as I realized that she was one of the thousands of victims of the latest wind of doctrine sweeping across the Church body today - the "Healing" doctrine.

Many evangelists and ministers have begun to proclaim a new doctrine that sounds more as though it came from the pen of Mary Baker Eddy than from the Bible. They're teaching that we must make only positive confessions of faith and should never confess to being sick or feeling ill, because our words are a powerful creative force and we become what we say. Thus, no matter what our sickness, if we make a confession of faith, we will become well. All illness, they assert, is a result of our negative confessions or lack of faith.

Comforters, Old and New.

As with all false teachings, much of what this healing doctrine says is true. Many Christians today are guilty of harboring negative attitudes and defeatist complexes. I cannot deny that many people have been helped and healed by making a positive confession of faith. Yet, to say that it is God's will that none of His children be sick is wrong. And to say that they're sick because of a lack of faith, sin in their lives, or something amiss in their relationship with God is also wrong. I've known too many carnal Christians with marvelous health and too many deeply spiritual Christians with poor health to ever subscribe to such a heresy.

When I see the bad fruit from this doctrine, I can judge it to be false. I feel sorry for the couple who, at the encouragement of a healing evangelist, took their diabetic child off insulin and by faith began claiming his healing. When their child died they were charged with manslaughter, but the evangelist went free.

This doctrine has also led some beautiful saints of God to doubt their salvation because of their cancer. I've seen arthritics lose the joy of Christ because they were told something was lacking in their lives or faith which kept them in that painful condition. Tragically, those who are sick and in need of the greatest encouragement suffer the most from these extremist teachings.

Although in some cases a lack of faith may result in poor health, some of the Christians with the greatest faith and most positive attitudes have suffered physical maladies with no relief. Unquestionably, God does heal people today. Yet not all are healed.

I know of sinners who have received marvelous healings and of true saints who have died of cancer. I don't believe that death from a disease is necessarily a defeat; nor do I believe that if someone had offered the prayer of faith or had held on in faith then death would have been averted. Being a Christian or serving the Lord doesn't provide us with an immunity from sickness, the natural aging process, or death.

Since the time of Job, and perhaps before, men have sought to understand the problem of suffering and sickness and how it relates to our relationship with God. Job's friends, who came to comfort him, may have been gifted in worldly wisdom and philosophy, but they were ignorant of the ways of God. In the end, God rebuked Job's comforters for their counsel without knowledge and declared His anger against them, because what they said about God wasn't true. They had been telling Job that his problems came upon him because of a wrong relationship with God. If Job got right with God then all would be well in his life. But they failed to recognize, as do these modern false comforters, that God often allows suffering to work His purposes in our lives. I agree with Job: "Miserable comforters are ye all!"

It is heartless, unscriptural, and cruel to tell a person with a chronic sickness that he's not right with God, his confession of sickness is wrong, or he lacks faith. A couple whose son died of leukemia was told that if they'd only held on in faith their child would have been healed. They were told that their surrender to God by praying, "Thy will be done" made them responsible for their son's death. Another couple whose child had leukemia was encouraged to make positive confessions. They claimed the healing and refused to acknowledge the child's illness. When their child died they were spiritually destroyed. Some sicknesses persist because of a lack of faith, but not all. Some situations are helped by positive confessions, but not all.

Scriptural Comfort.

In seeking to discover the truth about a doctrine we must turn to the Bible. When attempting to use the Scriptures to prove that God wants all of us to be healed, these false comforters point to III John 1:2; "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." In context this verse is not an expression of God's will for all His saints. Rather, it is John's personal wish for his friend, Gaius.

In Mark 11:22-23 we read,

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea;" and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

This is the basis for teaching the importance of someone making the right confession, with the emphasis on having whatever "he saith."

These questions then arise in my mind: Where does God's will come into the matter? Can I command God to work contrary to His own will? Is the purpose of prayer ever to get my will done? What kind of God would acquiesce to my demands doing for me what is contrary to His own will and what He knows to be bad for me, simply because I'm persistent in my demands?

Still, these modern-day "prophets" would have us feel guilty and accuse us of a lack of faith when we pray, "Thy will be done." But this prayer of commitment - resting my case with God's will - takes much more faith than demanding my own will to be done. If we're wrong in praying "Thy will be done," we're in good company. Jesus prayed it!

When we consider the relationship of our health to our faith, it is enlightening to look at Elisha, that Old Testament prophet of great faith. I don't know any other Old Testament saint who had more miracles of faith surrounding his life. Yet, we read in II Kings 13:14, "Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died." Men of great faith also get sick. Paul wrote to Timothy not to drink water but to use a little wine for his stomach's problem and his constant weakness (I Timothy 5:23). Paul also spoke of Epaphroditus, his brother and companion in the Lord's work, who was so sick he was "nigh unto death" (Philippians 2:27).

Although some of the Gospels speak of occasions where Jesus healed all that were sick, Mark's Gospel speaks of occasions where "many" were healed (Mark 1:32-34; 3:10). The inference is that not all were healed.

Paul's Thorn in the Flesh.

In the history of the Church one of the greatest leaders and men of faith was Paul the apostle. Yet, he testified of his own infirmity, his "thorn in the flesh" (II Corinthians 12:7-10). During his ministry Paul had undergone a "life-after-death" experience. Paul himself says that he wasn't sure if he'd had a vision or if he'd really died. But Paul did know that he was caught up into heaven where he heard things so marvelous that it was unlawful for him to try to relate them in human language. (II Corinthians 12:1-4). As a result of the abundance of revelations, Paul also received a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being exalted above measure.

There is a constant danger for the man who is being used by God to begin to look to himself for the cause of God's blessings in his life. God is the source of every blessing that we receive - not because we're worthy or deserving, or because God can trust us. God bestows upon us such abundant mercy, grace and power only because He is gracious and merciful.

Paul warns everyone, "...not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly" (Romans 12:3). Whenever God begins to use us there's always that tendency to say, "I finally discovered the secret of faith!" (or the secret of commitment, or the secret of positive confession). We're always trying to point back to ourselves rather than to God's abundant overflowing grace.

Pride is a very dangerous trap. In fact, it tops the list of things that God hates (Proverbs 6:16-17). It's also the sin that caused Satan's downfall. Proverbs warns, "Pride goeth before destruction" (Proverbs 16:18a). Spiritual pride is the most damnable of all. "I'm holier than you. That's why God is able to use me. That's why God has touched me and has blessed me. I've done things right. You've done things wrong. That's why you're in the bad shape you're in." That concept is horrible and ugly!

If you receive any blessings from God - good health or a healing - don't look to yourself as the cause. The grace of God is the only cause of blessing. It's not because you believed or trusted. It's because God is gracious. Remember that.

Because of the abundance of revelations in Paul's life God put a thorn in his flesh to keep him from being puffed up. What was Paul's thorn in the flesh? The word "thorn" in the Greek actually means "a stake," a reference to a big tent stake. Don't think of Paul as having a little pesky thorn in his side. He had a tent stake driven in! It wasn't a minor irritation - it was a major disability!

Paul refers to his thorn as a "...messenger of Satan to buffet me." The word "messenger" in Greek is aggelos, which literally means "an angel." Paul had an angel of Satan to buffet him. His thorn in the flesh may have been a very painful eye disease causing his eyes to run continually. There are several allusions to this in the Scriptures (Galatians 4:15; 6:11). But whatever Paul's thorn was, it was an emissary of Satan who was continually buffeting him. And Paul prayed for deliverance.

When Paul's thorn in the flesh originally came, he probably didn't think too much about it. "After all, I can always pray and trust God to heal me." But after he prayed and the problem still hung on, he began to think twice. "Lord. I asked You to heal me. Maybe You didn't understand, Lord. Get rid of this messenger from Satan! Stop him, Lord!" Paul prayed three times. But the weakness continued to persist. After the third prayer Paul received his answer. Was it deliverance from the thorn? No! He got something better. He received God's all-sufficient grace, power, and strength in his life!

God doesn't always give us what we ask. He oftentimes gives us more than what we ask. Many times the things we ask God to remove are the very instruments He uses to accomplish His purposes in our lives. God gave Paul an understanding of the thorn. "Paul, I'm going to allow you to be weak that you might constantly rely upon My strength. I'm going to allow this messenger of Satan to buffet you so that I might bestow upon you My all sufficient grace" (II Corinthians 12:8-9).

As we look at Paul we think, "What a shame. That's tragic. I don't know how you endured that, Paul." We offer our sympathies to Paul for this ugly thorn in the flesh. But Paul answers, "Don't feel sorry for me. I take pleasure and glory in this weakness!"

Sometimes, you feel you've entered into real victory because you've learned to tolerate a condition in your body or in your own life. But God has something better for you. Don't just learn to live with it. Let it become the instrument of God's grace and power in your life. "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities for when I am weak, then am I strong" (II Corinthians 12:10).

Your Thorn.

Maybe today you're plagued by some thorn in your flesh. Maybe today you have comforters, as did Job, who are telling you to stop making negative confessions and to start making positive ones, "then things will be okay."

They say, "If you'll just believe and have enough faith, you'd be healed! Surely there's something wrong with you to be afflicted like this. Confess it to God and forsake your sin!" So you've confessed everything you can think of and you've made your positive confessions of faith - yet the thorn is still there.

Now Satan comes in and says, "God doesn't love you If God loved you, surely you'd be well. If you were in the will of God this wouldn't be happening to you." So you begin to feel guilty, unloved, discouraged, and defeated because you don't know what's wrong. You don't know why the weakness persists.

Listen, God is saying, "Just trust in Me. My grace is sufficient for you, and My strength is made perfect in your weakness. I've got more for you than healing. Receive today My abundant all-sufficient grace."

A Gift Better Than Healing

God's ways are beyond our finding out. We'll never understand why some people are healed and others are not, why some notorious sinners enjoy marvelous health while some sincere Christians suffer from chronic illnesses.

To try to understand these things with our human reasoning places us in dangerous position, as the psalmist discovered in Psalm 73. He speaks about his feet almost slipping because he was tripped up by the health and prosperity of the wicked.

But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious of the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

He began to draw the wrong conclusion: it doesn't pay to serve God.

It wasn't until he began to view these afflictions in the light of eternity that he was once again established. "Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end." He received the assurance that God was indeed holding him, that God would guide him and afterward receive him into glory.

May we, with the psalmist, learn to commit our ways fully to God and stay close to Him. For, if He doesn't heal us, then He'll surely give us His all-sufficient grace to sustain us.

Nevertheless, I am continually with thee; thou hast hold of me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory (Psalm 73:23-24).

 

5. God's Refining Process

Because the Jewish nation had forsaken the covenant of the Lord, walked in its own path, and would not harken to the Lord's voice - God proclaimed, through Jeremiah the prophet, the judgments to come against Judah. Jeremiah then turned to the Gentiles and prophesied the judgments to come against their nations.

Jeremiah 48 tells us that destructions are determined upon the Gentile nation of Moab. Its cities were to be made desolate. Its armies would be slaughtered and destroyed. Verse 11 tells us why:

Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees. and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither had he gone into captivity; therefore, his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.

1. Change

One thing that you must declare concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ: it changes people. What you were before you met Christ is not what you are after you have met Him. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (II Corinthians 5:17).

There is something radically wrong with the person who claims to know Jesus Christ and has not had any changes in his life - who still walks after and according to the things of the flesh and minds the things of the flesh - because Jesus Christ will change your life. You cannot be the same person after you have met Him if you have truly experienced His power in your life.

One of the sad testimonies of the Church is that many of the people who attend church, take the name of Christian, and say their prayers faithfully have never had the change in their lives that Christ effects in a man.

The basic difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the non-Christian is ruled by his flesh and by his fleshly desires. In talking about our pre-Christ experience, Paul the Apostle said:

In times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works among the children of disobedience; among whom also we all had our manner of life in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh (Ephesians 2:2-3).

A person who hasn't met Jesus Christ is a person whose life is dominated by his flesh and fleshly desires. A person who has come to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is a person who knows and acknowledges the supremacy of the Holy Spirit and lives according to the Spirit. The Bible tells us, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Romans 8:14).

It's possible to call Jesus "Lord." It's possible to have all the religious vernacular, go to church, sit and listen to the messages, but never be touched in the deeper area of your life. You may have the head knowledge. You may have the spiritual jargon down pat. But if it hasn't come into the area of your life where it affects your will - your religion is vain.

If you're not being led by the Spirit of God, you're not a son of God. You're still mastered and dominated by your flesh and still living after the flesh. The Bible declares that the mind of the flesh is sin and death, but the mind of the Spirit is life, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 8:6).

You can't go out all week sowing wild oats, then come to church on Sunday and pray that they'll never grow. "Oh, God, kill all the seeds I've sowed this week! Don't let them grow." That can't happen. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). If you're living to the flesh and sowing to the flesh, of the flesh you're going to reap corruption.

Jesus was crucified for making this declaration. He asserted the supremacy of the spiritual over the material. The people couldn't handle it, and they finally put Him to death. Yet it's true. When Jesus Christ comes into your life He changes you from the old flesh-ruled life to the Spirit-ruled life.

Jesus said, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself" (Matthew 16:24). That's the very first step. You've got to deny the old life, the old flesh, the desires of the flesh. Deny "himself" is the very first thing. Many people have come to Jesus Christ in theory, but they haven't yet come to Him in practice. They're saying, "Lord, Lord," but they're not obedient to the will of the Father.

2. Purification

The second thing the Gospel of Jesus Christ does to a person is purification. The Bible says that we are pure even as He is pure (I John 3:3). God is going to work in your life to purify you. God wants to bring you into purity. This purifying work is explained in Jeremiah 48:11, where he is describing the process by which wine is made. Jeremiah said that Moab had been at ease from his youth, had settled on his lees, and had never been poured from vessel to vessel. This was his problem. Moab had never been disturbed.

When they were making wine, the people would pour the juice into a vessel. They would allow it to set in that vessel until it fermented. The sediment, known as lees or dregs, would settle to the bottom of the vessel. Once the dregs settled, they would carefully pour the wine out of that vessel into another vessel, so that the settling process might again take place. As the dregs sank to the bottom, the wine makers would pour the liquid back into another vessel. Back and forth from vessel to vessel, each time being careful not to pour out the dregs. They were coming to a pure, clear product of the vine. This was their method of making excellent wine.

If the people didn't pour the wine from vessel to vessel but allowed it to set too long in the collected dregs, the fermented juice would begin to develop the taste of the dregs. The wine would become bitter. Then it would begin to get the smell of the dregs, a rotten smell. It would also begin to take on the color of the dregs. It's tragic when Christians get settled in the things of the flesh, the flesh walk, the flesh life. At one time in their Christian walks they were shocked that people could do such evil things of the flesh. They'd say, "I would never do that!" After a while, you find them doing the same things and becoming settled in them.

This impurity actually begins to permeate your whole life. Your life begins to be colored by the flesh. Your life begins to smell of the things of the flesh. Your life begins to just taste of the things of the flesh. Rather than bringing spiritual refreshment, all you're talking about is the latest chatter of what's happening here, what's happening there, this new movie, that new fashion. Your mind is caught up in the things of the flesh. In reality, you become no more than a heathen. Jesus said that you shouldn't be taking thought about what to eat, what to drink, or what to wear. He said, "For after all these things do the Gentiles [the heathen] seek" (Matthew 6:31-32).

If your life gets caught up in that trip - what shall we eat, what shall we wear, what new thing to buy, always interested in the adornment of your body, buying clothes and keeping up with the fashions, or always in the eating and drinking crowd, seeking to delight yourself in the fancy foods, a gourmet - you're no better off than the heathen. These things occupy their minds. They live after the flesh.

It's tragic when Christians settle down in these kinds of dregs so much that their lives are colored by it. You can't have a spiritual conversation with them. They're so interested in some new thing they purchased last week - "Wait till you see it!" It's all a flesh trip. Settling in the dregs of the flesh, they are colored, they are scented, they are tasting of the things of the flesh. It is a flesh life, not the life of the Spirit. God wants to purify us. God wants to clean out those dregs. God has something better for you than that empty, fruitless life of the flesh. You need to experience the purifying effect of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

It's tragic that many people who have spent their entire lives in church or under its influence, attending very regularly, are still spiritually "babes in Christ." Paul calls them "carnal" (I Corinthians 3:1-4). They've never developed in their spiritual walk. They've been at ease. They've settled into the dregs. They haven't been poured from vessel to vessel.

3. Deliverance

The third thing the Gospel of Jesus Christ does is deliverance. The power of Jesus Christ can set you free from the power of the flesh. Some of you today have become slaves to your fleshly desires. It's amazing what a strong grip and hold it can get on your life. The very first time you tried it, it was just for a kick. You were just searching for a little diversion.

We have many people in our church who are alcoholics. How little did they realize the power it would get on their lives, the grip it would hold over them. Thank God they know. They know better than to take again that first drink. They've experienced the delivering power of Jesus Christ. Having been delivered from the entanglements of the world, don't be so foolish as to go back and be entangled again with that yoke of bondage.

We have many drug addicts. Maybe the first time they took a pill was to ease the appetite a bit. Maybe it was to alleviate some pain or to calm their nerves. But the drug began to get a hold of them until, finally, they came under the power of that substance, unable to free themselves. They found themselves bound in that drug. How little did so many realize, when they took that first fix, the hell it was leading them into.

They know now. Thank God for the power of Jesus Christ to deliver us from the bondage of corruption in which we found ourselves through our own folly and foolishness. The power of Jesus Christ can and does deliver man from the bondage of sin and death.

Today, maybe you find yourself entangled in a situation where you never thought you'd be. Maybe today you find yourself caught up in an adulterous situation. It started off so innocently, just as a little flirtation. Now, you're all involved. You never intended to be, but you opened the door to the flesh, and it took over. Now that situation is mastering your life. The Gospel of Jesus Christ can set you free. He can deliver you. Maybe you're hooked on drugs, or maybe you can't stop drinking. You've come to the place where you need that shot when you get home in the evening. Then, worse, you need it when you get up in the morning.

Maybe you have been bound by some desire or lust that has overwhelmed you and made you its victim. Moab was in this sad condition, because it had been at ease. Moab never had any problem, never was in captivity, never knew what it was all about. It grew up rather sheltered and protected. It settled into this condition as a result of no waves, no stirring. Moab had never been poured from vessel to vessel.

But, you know, God loves you. If you come to that place in your Christian experience where you start to relax and settle down into the dregs of the flesh, God's love won't allow you to get by with it. God will upset your position. Maybe someone who is very dear to us, someone we've come to rely upon, is suddenly taken away. "Oh, God, why is he gone? What are you doing, Lord?" He's now pouring you from vessel to vessel.

Maybe the boss suddenly says, "Hey, we're going to transfer you to Spokane."

"Spokane?" you say. "I don't know anybody in Spokane! All my friends are here. My children are in school here." A total uprooting - new friends, new associates, new environment, new schools. You cry out, "What are you doing God?" He's causing you to trust and rely upon Him. God is going to strip you of whatever has created your ease. Maybe it's your retirement, maybe it's your possessions, maybe it's your bank account. You've settled at ease in these things, your lees. But God doesn't want you to be dominated by your flesh. God will deliver you from the bondage of corruption.

God uses disturbances. They are the tools of God to bring us to Himself, to take away our trust and our reliance in other things. He doesn't want us to have job security, social security or security in man, government, bank accounts, or ourselves. He wants us to find our total security in Him. And so He pours us from vessel to vessel.

Maybe this knowledge has disturbed some of you. Praise the Lord! You see, He wants to shake you up from that little smugness and ease in the flesh that you've fallen into, the trap of trying to find the answer in the things of the flesh.

We have been created for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11). He can't enjoy us when we smell of the flesh. He can't enjoy us when we taste of the flesh. It is only as we walk in the Spirit, as we live in the Spirit, as we move in the Spirit, that we become what God would have us be - a pure product that He can enjoy.

A Time of Change

You go to work. The foreman walks up to you and says, "I don't know what's wrong, but here's your termination notice." You think, "Termination? What do you mean 'termination'? I've got house payments, car payments, and television payments. What do you mean termination? Oh, God! What are You doing?"

He's got you're attention now. He's pouring you from vessel to vessel. You see, you began to rely on and find security in your job. You were settling down into the dregs. You weren't walking after the Lord. You weren't searching after the Spirit.

God doesn't want you to smell of the flesh. So, God pours you into another vessel. God will not let you get entangled in the things of the flesh. If you start doing it, if you start meddling, if you start giving over to the things of the flesh, your day is coming. God is going to pour you from vessel to vessel to purify you.

And, suddenly, there you are. You're brought into a new relationship with God - being refined and purified through these disturbances that He brings into our lives.

 

6. Keep Yourself in the Love of God

Jude exhorts us: "Keep yourselves in the love of God" (v. 21). This seems like a strange injunction. If you don't read the entire context, you could easily misinterpret it. How can we keep ourselves in the love of God?

Looking back at verse one, however, we find that Jude is writing to those who are "preserved" or kept in Jesus Christ and have been ''sanctified'' and "called" by God. Jude shows throughout this short letter that some have begun in fellowship with God, but have failed to keep themselves in the love of God. Thus, they haven't achieved the full potential of God's plan for their lives. They failed to keep themselves in that place where God could bless them.

Jude writes about the children of Israel who, though delivered out of Egypt, perished in the wilderness (v. 5). They didn't enter into the full blessing God had for them, because they didn't keep themselves in the love of God. Though they had experienced deliverance, they didn't come to the full benefits of God's work in their lives. They failed to keep themselves in the love of God.

Jude also describes certain angels who once were in fellowship with God and abode in His kingdom, but they "kept not their first estate" (v. 6). They didn't keep themselves in the love of God and were cast out of His kingdom. Now they are reserved for the day of judgment.

The people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who lived in that well-watered area of the plain, had many blessings from the hand of God; yet, they certainly didn't appreciate them (v. 7). They didn't keep themselves in the love of God and, thus, failed in their purpose for life.

Jude mentions Cain, who killed his brother; Balaam, who enticed the people of God to sin; and Korah ("Core" in the Greek translation), who rebelled against the authority of God and was destroyed (v. 11). With this background the writer exhorts us, "Keep yourselves in the love of God."

What did he mean by that? First of all, we know what he didn't mean. He didn't mean to keep yourself in such a way as to make God love you. He didn't mean for you to do nice things for God's love. God's love is unsought, undeserved, and unconditional. You cannot get away from the love of God. God loves you just as you are. You may be in the midst of rebellion against God today, but He still loves you. God isn't persuaded to love you because you're an especially good person. The text doesn't mean that - because you cannot put yourself outside of the love of God!

John 3:16 begins, "For God so loved the world" The world that God loved wasn't seeking His love, nor did it deserve His love. Yet God did love it. God didn't impose conditions on the world. He didn't say, "Now, if you fulfill these conditions, I'll love you." God loved the world as it was, in the midst of rebellion against His order and His government. He loves it still.

God, because He loves you, wants to demonstrate that love by bestowing His blessings upon your life. Jude points out three attitudes in verse 11 that can restrict God's blessings. Cain hated his brother. Balaam was mastered by greed, thus he enticed the people of God to sin. Korah was envious, which led to rebellion against the government of God. You may be thinking, "Oh, you're talking about murder, enticing people to sin, and rebellion against God's established order. You're not talking about me." But Jesus in His Great Manifesto said,

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill;... but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment (Matthew 5:21-22).

John stated, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer" (I John 3:15).

Cain killed his brother after coming home from offering a sacrifice to God (Genesis 4:3-8). Cain had just been to church! Yet, his heart was filled with hatred toward Abel and he murdered him. Hatred is not in harmony with love. Keep yourself from hatred.

Balaam enticed the people of God to sin, because he was filled with greed (Numbers 22-24). He desired the rich reward that Balak the king had offered. Though Balaam couldn't curse the people of God, he enticed them into a trap that brought a curse upon them. He did this right after uttering one of the most beautiful prophecies in the Old Testament! It was an anointed, inspired prophecy concerning the people of God. Then Balaam betrayed the people by telling the king how to entice them into sin, so that God's judgment would fall upon them. Greed is out of harmony with the love of God. Keep yourself from greed.

Korah was filled with envy because of Aaron and the appointed priesthood (Numbers 16). Korah was a leader among the people and a leader of a popular movement. He was a minister of God and offered services unto God, and yet he was envious of the high position of others. So whatever he had was taken away from him. Envy is out of harmony with love. Keep yourself from envy.

Keep yourself from hatred, greed, and envy, for these things are out of harmony with love. If these things fill your life, you cannot enjoy the fullness of the benefits that God wants to bestow upon you. Those rich blessings cannot be given to you if these evil things are hindering what God wants to do. Keep yourself in the love of God. This warning is needed, because sometimes we're in danger of losing that first bloom of love. We can lose that first glow of love when Jesus came in to our lives and washed away all our sins. We can lose that feeling of having our hearts aglow with His love and of desiring nothing else but Him - by not keeping ourselves in His love.

Jesus wrote to the church at Ephesus:

I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have something against thee, because thou hast left thy first love" (Revelation 2:2-4).

The first bloom of love had gone! The glow of fresh love wasn't there anymore. Jesus warned them of the inevitable consequences of leaving that first love. He said it would ultimately result in the candlestick's removal from its place - the loss of the consciousness of the presence of Jesus Christ.

If that love of the Lord isn't burning brightly in your heart, one day you'll even lose the consciousness of God's presence. The Bible says, "In thy presence is fullness of joy" (Psalms 16:11). But with the loss of the consciousness of His presence comes the loss of the joy in your life. You wonder, "What's happening to me? Where is the blessing I once knew? Where is the joy I once had?"

Your problem is that you haven't kept yourself in the love of God. You have allowed hatred, greed, or envy to come in. It has robbed you of what God wants to do and what He already has done. Only by keeping yourself in God's love can you blossom into the full potential God has for you - and for which He's drawn you out from the world and the bondage of sin.

Grace doesn't act independently of responses. Though God's grace is extended toward you, you must respond to the grace of God if you're to benefit from that grace. Privilege brings responsibility - and responsibility not acted upon can destroy you.

God's Word is searching your heart right now, and, if you're in His love, then respond to it. Put away all that is contrary to the love of God - any bitterness, any hatred, any impurity - and keep yourself in the love of God!

Q: How can I keep myself in the love of God?

A: Right here surrounding our text Jude gives us three steps for keeping ourselves in the love of God.

1. "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith" (v. 20). As we read this epistle, we realize Jude is talking about faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Savior of the world. In the beginning of the letter he warns about those who will even deny our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 4). So, building up your faith in Jesus Christ is the first and foremost means of keeping yourself in the love of God. Jesus Christ is the foundation upon which we build.

Peter said,

Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church (Matthew 16:16-18).

What is the "rock" that Christ builds His Church upon? The fact that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Savior of the world. This is the foundation upon which to build your faith.

Paul the apostle said, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians 3:11). Build your faith upon this foundational rock of Jesus. For Jesus Christ was with God, He is God, but He became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1-2,14). He went to the cross, carrying upon Himself all our sin and guilt, and He died in our place - but He rose again the third day. He ascended to heaven to the Father where He lives today, making intercession for you and me. This is the foundation. Now build on it in faith!

2. Jude 20 continues, "praying in the Holy Ghost." What does that mean? "Praying in the Holy Ghost" means that your prayers are directed by the Holy Spirit. So many of our prayers are directed by our own needs, by our own intellects, or by our own wishes and desires. Jude is encouraging us to pray in the Holy Ghost.

In Romans 8, Paul talks about one of the weaknesses that we have as Christians:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26).

One of our weaknesses is that we don't always know how to pray. But the Spirit, he said, will make intercession, because He knows what the mind of the Father is, and intercedes according to His will.

How can you pray in the Holy Ghost? You can pray in the Holy Ghost when, out of your deepest being, you can no longer adequately express yourself to God. Savonarola, a 15th century reformer, said, "When prayer reaches its ultimate, words are impossible." You move from the realm of the intellect into the realm of the Spirit, and you let God interpret your prayer. It may come forth in soft weeping or as a groan. Your praying may be totally unintelligible to you, but it is communion with God in the deepest sense. Through it God washes, purifies, and cleanses your soul and keeps you in His love.

Paul declares,

For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also" (I Corinthians 14:14-15).

The obvious reference in praying with the Spirit is when we're praying in an unknown tongue. Such praying in the Holy Spirit keeps us in the love of God.

3. The third way to keep ourselves in the love of God is to look "for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" (v. 21). We keep ourselves in the love of God by looking for the return at any moment of Jesus Christ. The consciousness that Jesus might come today makes me very concerned with what I say, how I preach, and how I relate His truth.

If you're witnessing with the realization that this might be the last opportunity to share Jesus Christ with this person, you'll be very careful about how you witness to him. If you realize this might be your last day to serve the Lord, you'll be careful about how you serve Him. You'll want to do it in such a way that you'll be in full harmony with His love and His Spirit. There's nothing like the expectancy of the return of Jesus Christ to channel the Church into holy, righteous living.

Jesus warns in His Word,

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them" (I Thessalonians 5:3).

Jesus is coming at any moment! "Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time" (Hebrews 9:28). Be looking for the return of your Lord. Don't get caught up in the "Lord delayeth His coming" syndrome. Don't get caught up in the things of the world.

Live in harmony with God's love, so that you can become the full recipient of all the blessings, grace, and goodness that come from walking in fellowship with God and in His love. Having begun in the love of God, don't depart from the love, and thus, miss the full benefits of it. Don't wander in the wilderness when you can be resting in an oasis, enjoying the fullness of God in your life. "Keep yourselves in the love of God."

Jude began his epistle by addressing those who are kept or preserved in Jesus Christ. He ends his epistle by praising, "Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless" (v. 24). The chief injunction of the epistle is: keep yourselves in the love of God.

One day Christ will present you faultless before the presence of God's glory. But you must respond to that grace of God. You must keep yourself in that place where God can bless you and use you. Keep your heart from hatred, greed, and envy - those evils that would choke out God's work in your life. Keep yourself in the love of God - and He will keep you unto that day!

Does God Still Love Me?

A little boy asked his Sunday school teacher, "Does God love bad little boys?"

The teacher answered, "Oh, no. God doesn't love bad little boys - just good little boys."

But this reply is wrong. In fact, it's blasphemous. God loves bad little boys. God loves bad little girls, too. He loves everyone! Somehow, we think, "Well, because I've been bad, God doesn't love me anymore." That's not true! God loves you just as much when you're bad as when you're good - for God's love is unconditional. Though you may have wandered from God, grieved God, or even forgotten God, His love is still reaching out toward you.

So, why does the Scripture say, "Keep yourselves in the love of God"? You must keep yourself in a position of harmony with God's love, so that you can receive and enjoy its full benefits and blessings. Though God loves the world today, much of the world receives no direct benefits of His love. Indirectly, everyone benefits from God's love. For example, everyone enjoys the sunshine - those who love God and those who don't. We love God, but not everyone does. We're in harmony and fellowship with God's love, but others are not.

Today, you may be living beneath the full, rich benefits that God has for your life. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years, as a result of their rebellion against God and the rejection of His love. But the prophet Isaiah tells us, "His hand is stretched out still" (v. 12). They spited the love of God, but "His hand is stretched out still" (v. 17).

Just as the children of Israel, you may have been delivered out of Egypt, but may still be wandering in the wilderness. You haven't entered into the full benefits of God's promises. Though this glorious inheritance is waiting for you, you may still be a spiritual pauper.

The full benefits of God's love cannot be manifested in your life if you're not keeping yourself in the love of God. You dwell in the love of God, but only when you live in harmony with the love of God will you begin to experience the abundant richness and fullness of that love.

 

7. Two False Doctines Shepherding or Dictatorship? and Christian "Possession"

Sound Doctrine

Paul the apostle exhorted both Timothy and Titus about sound doctrine. To Timothy he said:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (II Timothy 4:3,4; see I Timothy 1:10, Titus 1:9;2:1).

What is the only true criterion for sound doctrine? God's written Word. The words of spiritual teachers or "spiritual" experiences must never supersede the Word of God. Paul said,

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:8).

The relating of experiences which are fables can never be the true basis for sound doctrine. The minute that we open the door and begin to teach from experience, we lose authority and introduce confusion. People have a great variety of experiences. If I accept one unscriptural experience as evidence for doctrinal truth, then I am bound to accept all experiences - for each one would have equal authority as a basis for doctrine.

 

7a. "Shepherding"

The doctrine of submission, covering, apostleship, or shepherding (or any of the numerous terms by which it is known) basically teaches that you must submit yourself to an elder or a group of elders within the Body of Christ, oftentimes called "shepherds." You cannot make any major decision without their prior approval.

If you want to buy or sell your house, it's imperative that you first consult your elder. He will tell you whether or not you can buy or sell. The same is true if you want to buy or sell a car or TV, or if you want to change your job. If you want to go on a trip, these shepherds will tell you where you can go, how long you can stay, and when to be back. They seek to exercise complete authority and control over your life.

If you desire to move to another locality, they'll tell you whether or not you may have their blessings and permission. You must submit to the shepherds in all the areas of your life that they deem important and necessary. To refuse to do so is to be marked as a rebel.

The elders have set up an apostleship. The apostle has absolute and complete authority over those under his apostleship. Though he may have "elders" under his apostleship, he has the power to overrule any decision that they make individually or collectively.

On many occasions these shepherds have told a person exactly whom he or she was to marry, how much and when to give, what books to read, and which tapes to listen to. Your elder or shepherd becomes spiritually responsible for your life.

They teach that it is absolutely imperative to obey your elder - even if he is wrong. If you'll submit to and obey him, you'll be all right. What you do will be right, because you've done it in obedience to your elder. He is your covering: responsible to God for you and your actions.

In some areas this doctrine teaches that when you have led someone to Jesus Christ, you automatically become this person's shepherd. Therefore, you're not to witness or lead anybody to Christ until you're spiritually mature enough to shepherd them. Your shepherd will inform you when you have achieved that spiritual maturity. In the meantime, they emphasize that you should wait and get your act together - become perfected yourself. Once you're perfected, then you'll be able to witness.

As a result of this teaching, these elders have sterilized some who were formerly dynamic in their witness for Jesus Christ. Men who had a powerful ministry and were being used of God have been placed on the shelf. Their shepherds told them that they weren't mature enough to minister yet. They ought to stop and get their own marriages together, or get their own lives together, before seeking to serve the Lord in any capacity. I personally know of many who have been neutralized in their effectiveness for Christ as the result of this doctrine.

This shepherding doctrine also teaches that all your tithes belong to your shepherd. He, in turn, pays his tithes to his shepherd, who pays his tithes to his shepherd. It's a neat chain-letter - if you're sitting on top of the pile! Someone asked, "Where did this doctrine originate?" I'm sure it originated in hell, but it came out of Florida from the same group that teaches that Christians can be demon possessed and need exorcism. In some services they passed out Kleenexes so people could regurgitate their demons of gluttony, lust, pride, anger, temper - all works of the flesh that they were calling demons.

Elder's Position

Let's see what God's Word has to say concerning "shepherding" or lordship within the Church. First of all, in his epistle to Philemon, Paul wrote:

Wherefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to order thee into that which is fitting, yet for love's sake, I rather beseech thee" (v. 8,9).

Philemon was Paul's own convert. He owed much to Paul. Yet, Paul didn't seek to exercise his authority over him (concerning the runaway slave Onesimus). Instead, Paul beseeches Philemon through the love of Jesus Christ.

In speaking to the Corinthian church, Paul said,

Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand" (II Corinthians 1:24).

Paul is declaring that he doesn't have and doesn't seek dominion over the faith of the believers.

The apostle Peter wrote to the elders, the "shepherds" who are in some of the churches today seeking to exercise this lordship and authority: "The elders which are among you, I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed." Peter said, "I exhort" - not "I order."

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint (that is, not by forcing them), but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage (the flock of God), but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fades not away. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves to the elder (I Peter 5:1-5).

You say, "There's scriptural support for the doctrine right there!" But notice what Peter says in the rest of the verse: "Yes, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility."

Peter is declaring that the elders aren't to lord over God's heritage. That particular Greek word for "lord" is used elsewhere in the New Testament. It means "to rule over, to bring into subjection or submission." Don't try to bring the flock into submission or subjection to the shepherd.

Priesthood

In Revelation 2, we find Jesus speaking to the Church of Ephesus. He had some heavy things to say about the problems in the church; basically, that they had left their first love. But in verse 6 Jesus had a word of commendation:

"But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate." The word "Nicolaitanes" in the Greek actually speaks of the establishment of a spiritual hierarchy. Nikao: to establish a priesthood over, to conquer. Laos: the laity. The "deeds of the Nicolaitanes" was the establishment of the priesthood over the laity.

Establishing shepherds or elders who lord over the flock of God and make you responsible to them - who seek to take the spiritual responsibility for your actions by telling you what you can and can't do, when you can or can't do it, and have you come to them for guidance and direction - is, in reality, the doctrine of Nicolaitanes. In essence, these shepherds are saying, "You can't go to God for directions. You're not mature enough. You come to me, and I'll tell you what God says." And that is inserting someone between man and God.

Jesus Christ paid a tremendous price to open the door to God for every man. "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy" (Hebrews 4:16). Jesus, as our great High Priest, has entered into heaven for us, making the door open to each of us to have direct entrance to God. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5).

For any other person to take that position or role is scripturally wrong. The doctrine of the Nicolaitanes would put a man between you and God, and that is always wrong. God will deal with you directly, personally, and individually - and wants to deal with you directly, personally, and individually.

God will listen to you just as rapidly as He'll listen to me. God loves you just as much as He loves Billy Graham. He's just as concerned about you as He is anybody else. You have, through Jesus Christ, this glorious access to come directly to God. God will guide you, and God will show you His path and His way.

What Did Jesus Say?

In Mark 10 we find that James and John were seeking to establish something of an eldership:

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come unto him saying, Master we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire. And he said unto them, What would ye that I should do for you? They said unto him, Grant that we may sit, one on thy right hand, the other on thy left hand, in thy glory. But Jesus said unto them, ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared. And when the ten heard it, they began to be much displeased with James and John (Mark 10:35-41).

Jesus called them to him and said, "Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them (that same Greek word as in I Peter 5:3, "to bring into submission, to exercise authority over"); and their great ones exercise authority upon them." Notice what Jesus said in Mark 10:43: "But so shall it not be among you." There is not to be the establishing of authority or the exercising of lordship.

Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your servant: whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:43-45).

Jesus didn't come to be ministered to but, rather, to minister and to give Himself. Thus, He is the True Shepherd. "I am the true shepherd and I give my life for my sheep." The true shepherd is one who gives himself for the flock, not one who is demanding that the flock give themselves to him. He is more interested in feeding the flock than fleecing the flock.

I think the most familiar passage in the Bible, outside of John 3:16, has the answer. David said:

The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul: he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake (Psalm 23:1-3).

If you can have the Lord as your Shepherd, I don't know why you would want to settle for anything less. If David, under the old economy, could have the Lord as his Shepherd, how much more under the new relationship through Jesus Christ can we know and submit ourselves to the authority of God within our lives.

I would urge you to submit yourself to the authority of Jesus Christ. Submit yourself to the authority of God's Word. Realize that you're responsible to God. Every man must give an account of himself unto God (Romans 14:12). Learn to go to God for all your needs, for all your decisions, and for the guidance for your life. God is faithful. He will lead you and guide you.

 

7b. Christian "Possession"

The question has been forced upon us: "Can a born-again Christian be possessed by a demon?" The answer based on the Scriptures and on logic is an unequivocal no!

The proponents of this unscriptural doctrine use such terms as Christians being "invaded by demons" rather than demon possessed. This is nothing more than a word game and a smoke screen to hide the scriptural weakness of their position.

They also present an illogical supposition that demons can invade or control the mind or body but not the spirit. God's Word declares that the body is a temple of the Holy Ghost who is in us. We're told to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are His (I Corinthians 6:19,20). In II Corinthians 6:14-16 the question is asked:

What communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial... And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them.

To say that a Christian's body or mind can be possessed or invaded by demons is to contradict the Word of God and declare a communion of light and darkness, that God and Satan are dwelling together.

The Scriptures also teach us that Christ is seated in the heavenlies, far above all principalities and powers and mights and dominions (Ephesians 1:21,22). These are references to spirit beings - and Christ is far above them. Where am I as a believer? According to Ephesians 2:6, I am seated together with Christ in the heavenlies. As Christians we're in a warfare against these principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12). We need the help of God to stand, for these rulers of the darkness can and do attack us in a variety of ways. But they cannot come in and take control of our lives.

The Scriptures also teach that we are in Christ, and that He is in us (John 14:20). It is Christ in us which is our hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). Christ said concerning Satan, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (John 14:30). If I'm in Christ and Satan has nothing in Him, Satan can have nothing in me - praise the Lord!

We also read in I John 5:18,

We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

What about these experiences of Christians having demons cast out of them? What are the voices that name themselves, the writhing on the floor, and the regurgitation? I don't know. I'm thankful that, since I don't engage in these unscriptural practices, I don't have to explain them.

Some of the names given by these supposed demons which are more popular are lust, hatred, liar gluttony, envy, fear, and jealousy. These things are classified in Galatians 5:19-21 as the works of the flesh. We're told to "put off all these" (Colossians 3:8), or by the Spirit to "mortify the deeds of the body" (Romans 8:13; 6:3-14). Not once are we commanded to have them cast out.

It seems to me that this whole Christian-and-demon trip is a cop-out for the flesh. I would like to find some easy way to get rid of my fleshly nature, and rather than the painful process of crucifixion, I'd just like to have it cast out. It's also a way of escaping the responsibility for my fleshly actions. How can I be blamed if "the devil made me do it"?

There doesn't exist one piece of evidence in the Scriptures that Jesus Christ, His apostles, or the early Church once sought to cast demons of the flesh out of anyone in the Body of Christ. The works of the flesh were recognized, and we're instructed in how to deal with them. Never are we taught that they're to be exorcised.

Even in the supposed cases from the Scriptures which would confirm that demons could inhabit a Christian - such as Ananias and Sapphira, "Why hath Satan filled thine heart" (Acts 5:3), or Simon the sorcerer, "Thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity" (Acts 8:23) - Peter didn't practice exorcism. Instead, there was instant judgment of death in the first case and a call to repentance in the other.

It is sad that many Christians and non-Christians seem to have a greater interest in Satan and being possessed by demons than they do in Christ and being possessed by His Holy Spirit. Those who fall into the practices of exorcism soon seem to be looking for and placing a greater emphasis on the power of Satan to attack than on the power of Christ to keep. Demons become the center of their conversations and teachings rather than Jesus Christ .

We can rejoice in God's Word, "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (I John 4:4). Thanks be to God Who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord! We as Christians are told in James 4:7 to "resist," not "cast out," the devil - and he will flee from us.

Three Things in Common

There are three interesting similarities in these two false doctrines:

1. Both doctrines have really divided the Body of Christ across the United States.

2. They both have sterilizing effects. If you become so involved in casting demons out of yourself, every time you gather together with the local body the whole emphasis is upon demons rather than upon the Lord. Soon, you become so inward that you're no longer effective in your witness for Jesus Christ. You're too preoccupied about some demon activity within your life.

The doctrine of shepherding is also sterilizing in its effects. Since you become spiritually responsible for everyone and anyone you lead to Christ, you shouldn't lead anyone to Christ until you're spiritually mature enough to accept that responsibility.

3. Both false doctrines appeal to people who are seeking to escape the responsibility of their own actions. This is where these doctrines actually have their appeal.

"It wasn't really me! A demon was responsible for that outburst of temper. A demon was responsible for that moment of lustful passion." It's throwing the responsibility for my actions over onto the demons, rather than accepting it as part of my old rotten flesh.

The shepherding doctrine relieves me of the obligation and responsibility of my conduct. "I don't have to be responsible for what I do. The shepherd tells me what to do." Thus, he is the one who is responsible for my actions - whether they're right or wrong, in the will of God or not. And I escape responsibility for my own deeds.

There are many people who don't want to be responsible for the things they do. Both of these false doctrines offer that escape from, and of, responsibility.

 

8. The Rapture!

Death to the Christian is so different than to the non-Christian that it's incorrect even to use the same term. For the Christian death is really a transition.

Paul said, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better" (Philippians 1:21-23). Paul said that we who are in this body do groan, earnestly desiring to be delivered; not that we would be unclothed but that we might be clothed with that body which is from heaven (II Corinthians 5:2).

Speaking to the Thessalonians concerning their loved ones who had already died in Christ, Paul said,

I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as those who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not [precede] them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words (I Thessalonians 4:13-18, emphasis added).

Some people would ridicule the idea or concept of the Rapture of the Church. They declare that the word "rapture" isn't even found in the Bible. It all depends on which Bible you're reading. The phrase "caught up" in I Thessalonians 4:17 is the Greek word harpazo, which actually means "to be snatched away violently." The Latin equivalent of harpazo is the verb rapio, "to take away by force." In the Latin Vulgate, one of the oldest Bibles in existence, the appropriate tense of rapio appears in verse 17. Raptus is the past participle of rapio. Our English words "rapt" and "rapture" stem from this past participle. Although "rapture" isn't in the King James Bible, the basic word does appear in the Latin Vulgate.

What is meant by the Rapture?

The Rapture refers to that event where Jesus Christ snatches His Church out of this world. It shall happen suddenly without any notice. The Rapture of the Church and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ are completely different. At the Rapture Jesus is coming for His saints.

In I Corinthians 15:51-52 Paul said, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will be changed [metamorphosis, a change of body] in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." You won't even realize it's happened until it's all over. Suddenly, you're in the presence of the Lord with all the church!

We the Church will be changed. Paul wrote to the Philippians,

For our [citizenship] is in heaven, from whence we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ: Who will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious [image] (Philippians 3:20-21).

Describing the metamorphosis Paul wrote to Corinth, "For this corruption must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality" (I Corinthians 15:53). At the Second Coming we will return with Jesus Christ. Jude 14 tells us, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints."

When Will the Rapture take place?

Jesus said, "No man knows the day or hour..." For us to presume to declare some date or some hour would be an unscriptural presumption. If we say we know the hour, we're boasting of knowledge superior to Christ's when He was upon the earth.

Although we do not know the exact time of the Rapture, in I Thessalonians 5 Paul said,

But of the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord is coming as a thief in the night. For when they will say, Peace and safety; then comes sudden destruction... But ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief (emphasis added).

The Bible is saying that the Rapture shouldn't come to you as a surprise.

Why Should "That Day" Not Overtake Us as a Thief?

God has given to us the warnings that would precede the coming of Jesus Christ. One of the greatest signs to the world today is the re-establishment of the nation Israel. For years Bible scholars had looked forward to the regathering of the nation Israel based on many Scriptures (including Matthew 24:32), and applying expositional constancy (fig tree or figs in parables symbolize the nation Israel). Skeptics ridiculed this prophecy. Never in history had a nation been born out of the past, but a miracle has taken place and a nation has been reborn. God has reestablished Israel among the family of nations on the earth. God has fulfilled His promise even as He said He would.

Psalm 102:16 declares, "When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory." Because the Lord is building up Zion, the orthodox Jew today is looking for his Messiah. We are too! We're looking forward to this fulfillment of God's promise the coming again of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when its branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, you know that summer is nigh even know that it [My coming] is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" (Matthew 24:32-35).

What "Generation"?

Not the generation Christ was talking to, because they've passed - but the generation that saw the fig tree budding forth. The coming of Jesus Christ is "even at the doors." The rebirth of Israel should be a sign to every child of God!

Jesus said throughout the rest of Matthew 24, "Watch... be ye also ready." That was the constant warning to the Church: watch and be ready. In Luke 21:28 when Jesus was speaking of these same things, using again the parable of the fig tree, He said, "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."

Will the Rapture precede the Great Tribulation?

There are arguments and Scriptures that people can present for pre-, mid-, and post-Tribulation theories. My personal opinion is that Jesus will come before the Great Tribulation to rapture His Church. I don't believe that the Church will go through the Great Tribulation period.

In I Thessalonians 5:9 Paul wrote, "For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul said the same in Romans 5:9 - we've not been appointed to wrath. Jesus, in the whole context of the Tribulation, said, "Pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man" (Luke 21:36). My prayer is that I will be accounted worthy to escape all of these things that are going to come to pass upon the earth.

The Lord divided the Book of Revelation into three sections: "[1] Write the things which thou hast seen, [2] and the things which are, [3] and the things which shall be after these things [meta tauta]" (Revelation 1:19). John, in obedience to the commandment, wrote in chapter I the vision of Christ that he saw on the island of Patmos. In chapters 2 and 3 he wrote of the Church and the message of Jesus to the seven churches. Let's look at two of these messages where Jesus made reference to His coming again.

1. The church of Thyatira had introduced the worship of idols within the church. Jesus said,

I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel... to seduce my servants to commit fornication... I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds (Revelation 2:20-22, emphasis added).

The unrepentant church of Thyatira. which had gone into spiritual "fornication" (idolatry and saint-worship), was to be cast into the Great Tribulation unless, the Lord said, she repented.

2. To the church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3:10 Jesus said, "Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation which is coming to try them who dwell upon the earth." The Rapture can happen at any moment - and it's exciting to realize that as a Christian you may never finish reading this article! After the close of the messages to the churches, Revelation 4:1 begins and ends with the Greek phrase meta tauta. "After these things," John said, "behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was a trumpet saying unto me, Come up hither, and I will show you things which must be after these things [meta tauta]" (emphasis added).

After What "Things"?

Jesus spoke of Church things in chapters 2 and 3. These must be the things that will take place after the Church is taken out of the earth. I believe that 4:1 of the Book of Revelation, is the place of the Rapture of the Church. That "voice" in heaven and "trumpet" are the same as in I Thessalonians 4:16. With the trump of God and the archangel saying, "Come up hither", we the Church will be gathered together with the Lord in the heavens.

What Happens After Revelation 4:1?

John describes the heavenly scene in chapter 4. In chapter 5 he saw the scroll with seven seals in the right hand of Him Who is sitting upon the throne. An angel proclaimed with a loud voice. "Who is worthy to open the scroll, and to loose its seals?" John began to sob convulsively, because no one in heaven or earth nor under the earth was found worthy to even look upon the scroll (Revelation 5:2-4).

Then one of the elders said, "Weep not, behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals." John turned and saw Jesus as a Lamb that had been slain, "and He came forth and He took the scroll out of the right hand of Him Who sat upon the throne." Immediately, they brought forth the "vials full of odors which are the prayers of saints. And they sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open its seals; for Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and people, and tongue, and nation; and made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign with Him upon the earth" (Revelation 5:5-10). Notice the song that is being sung.

Who Can Sing That Song?

It's not the song of Israel and the covenant relationship with God. People from all the families of the earth, not just one family of Abraham, are singing. It's a people who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Only the Church can sing that song.

In Revelation 5:11 after Jesus takes the scroll, John said that innumerable multitudes, "ten thousand times ten thousands" worship the Lamb, declaring His worthiness to receive the honor, and the authority, and the glory. In Revelation 6 Jesus proceeds to loose the seals of the scrolls. With the very first seal there comes forth the white horse rider, "going forth conquering, and to conquer." This, I believe, is the entrance of the Antichrist, because he's followed by wars, death, famine, and desolation. Certainly, the Second Coming of Christ isn't going to be followed by such events, but by the glorious establishment of the Kingdom.

Now, Where's The Church?

Before the Tribulation ever begins the Church is in heaven singing and praising the Lord for His worthiness to take the scroll and loose the seals. The Tribulation doesn't start until the seven seals begin to be broken.

Then Why All The Confusion Concerning Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib, And Post-Trib Rapture?

In Revelation 13:7, reference is made to the beast, "...making war with the saints," and he is given power to overcome them during the middle of the Tribulation period. Jesus in Matthew 24:29-31 said about His Second Coming,

Immediately after the tribulation of those days... they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

By defining "the saints" and "His elect" as being the Church you would have the Church in the Tribulation period. I believe "His elect" is a reference to the nation Israel, if you read it in context.

Christ said, "Pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the Sabbath day" when fleeing out of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:16-20). How many in the Church expect to be in Jerusalem fleeing when the Antichrist sets up his image within the temple? How many of you would be praying, "O God, don't let it be on the Sabbath day"? The Church doesn't keep the Sabbath day; that's God's covenant relationship with Israel. The fact is that Israel is "His elect." He's going to gather them back into their land for the Kingdom Age at His return.

As Paul said in Romans 11:25-26,

...that blindness in part [has] happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

"The saints" of Revelation 13:7 are also the same. They are God's nation Israel which He has now established again in a priority basis upon the earth during this last seven-year Tribulation period.

The mistake and the confusion regarding the Church's place in the last times arise out of a misunderstanding of God's full prophecies concerning the nation Israel. Israel will be going through the Great Tribulation. This will be the time of Jacob's troubles spoken of in Scripture (Jeremiah 30:7). This will be the time when, as even Jesus said, "You will not see Me henceforth, until you shall say, Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord" (Matthew 23:29). After the Great Tribulation period Israel will be saying, "O, blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!" Jesus shall return again with His Church at the Second Coming of Christ.

Zechariah the prophet said, "And one shall say unto him; What are these wounds in your hands? Then He shall answer; Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends" (Zechariah 13:6). Thus, the glorious first recognition of Jesus as Israel's Messiah when He comes the second time with the Church to establish His reign upon the earth.

What Should I Do As A Christian?

In light of the fact that the Lord might come even today, there are certain things we should do. But first, let me tell you what you shouldn't do. Don't quit your job, sell your house, or see how much money you can borrow figuring you won't have to pay it back. Jesus said, "Occupy until I come" (Luke 19:13). He intends for us to go right on in our work.

Jesus said, "Watch" (Matthew 24:42). You should be watching. In Hebrews it says. "And unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time" (Hebrews 9:28). You should be ready. Jesus said, "Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as you think not the Son of man cometh" (Matthew 24:44). Amos cried out, "Prepare to meet thy God" (Amos 4:12). You need to prepare. That preparation is in giving your heart and life to Jesus Christ, receiving His forgiveness and the blotting out of your sins and transgressions. And then wait. James said, "Be patient therefore, brethren, to the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman is waiting be also patient, establish your hearts" (James 5:7-8). II Peter 3:3-4 tells us that in the last days there would be scoffers that would come and say, "Where's the promise of His coming?" But "God is not slack concerning His promises, as some men count slackness; but He is faithful to us" (v. 9).

The Question At This Point Is, "Are You Ready?

Consider the Lord proclaiming today, "This is the end for the church! You have finished your witness. Come home!" Would you be gathered with the church to meet the Lord in the air, or would you be down here scratching your head wondering what's going on?

How much better to go with the Church than to be left behind to face the Tribulation and all the horror coming upon the earth. Why make it tough for yourself when the Lord wants to make it easy on you? Why not just open your heart and life to Jesus Christ now? Why not just receive Him as your Lord and Saviour and, as He said, be ready. What do you need to be ready? Jesus Christ dwelling in your heart and in your life.

What About Those Who Miss?

At times there may be a hesitancy in our hearts concerning the coming of Jesus Christ because of what will happen to our unsaved family members when He returns.

Once we've been caught up, many of our loved ones, who have been hassled by our witness and upset with our testimony, will realize that they've actually missed the opportunity of being raptured with the Church. As a result, they'll become dead serious with God and will choose to be martyred during the Great Tribulation period by refusing to take the mark of the beast. They will choose death in preference to the mark and, thus, will be saved (Revelation 20:4).

In Revelation 7:9-14, John saw in heaven "a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds clothed with white robes" singing of salvation. The elder said to John, "These are they which came up out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (emphasis added). In Revelation 6:9-11 under the fifth seal, these souls martyred during the Tribulation period are waiting for their opportunity to enter the heavenly scene. They are told to wait a little longer until the total number be slain as they were slain.

Being a Tribulation saint is a hard way to come. As Jesus said, "For there will be great tribulation..." such as the world never has seen before or ever will see again (Matt