The One-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed-In-All-Things

          Congratulations.  You’ve just built a new deck in your backyard.  The wood is firm underneath your feet and you are looking forward to many relaxing hours spent on your new deck enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

          Unfortunately for you, you’ve built your deck in a hostile environment.  From the moment you’ve driven the last nail hostile forces will relentlessly assault your deck until the wood becomes so rotted that it will no longer support the weight of your body.  The only way to save your deck is through constant vigilance.  You need to paint some sort of a waterproof barrier over the wood and you need to renew that waterproofing on a regular basis.

          Our ability to hold on to God’s truth is a lot like that deck.  The deck is assaulted by rain, dew, snow, and sleet.  The world around us assaults God’s truth with a constant drizzle of contrary ideas.  If we let these ideas through they begin to rot the truth within us.  This doesn’t result in the immediate destruction of the idea; like a piece of wood exposed to the elements the rot can make quite a bit of progress before it is noticeable.

          I wonder if there is any plank in the deck of God’s truth that has experienced as much rot as the idea of the lordship of Jesus Christ.  To give just one example, if you examine the statistics for divorce and adultery you find virtually no difference between evangelical Christians and non-Christians in our culture.  The only possible explanation for this is that Christians have allowed themselves to be so influenced by the culture that they have allowed commandments to somehow be moved into the category of suggestions.

          One of the main satanic strategies in the spiritual war being waged against our culture is to create the idea that there is no such thing as absolute truth.  And if there is no such thing as absolute truth there can be no absolute standards, no one can ever judge anyone else’s conduct, and ultimately, there can be no commandments, only suggestions.  There are two things you can do to protect your own soul from this assault.  The first is to limit the amount of time you spend being exposed to worldly culture (this includes books, movies, radio, TV, and the internet).  The second is to expand the amount of time you spend in the Christian disciplines of Bible reading, prayer, the reading of Christian books, the reading of Brother Mark’s Spiritual Diary, and meeting with other Christians for joint edification. 

          In an effort to protect us from the influence of the world and to renew our minds to the truth of the lordship of Christ, I am paraphrasing lord as “the One-who-must-be-obeyed-in-all-things” in my expanded paraphrase. 

          As a church, if we want to cure the rot in the church and begin to influence the world once again, we are going to have to return to the preaching of hellfire and damnation.  We are going to have to preach in such a way that a sinner listening to the sermon can actually visualize himself standing in front of the throne of God, hearing the sentence of doom being pronounced upon him, and actually be able to feel the angelic beings grab him and drag him to the edge of the cliff from which he will be thrown into the lake of fire.  If you find this kind of preaching repellent, if the very idea offends you, it’s just another indication of the drizzle of worldly thinking rotting the wood of God’s truth in your brain.

          Guess which Biblical figure had to most to say about hell, and used the most graphic language in describing the sufferings of hell?  One of those fiery Old Testament prophets, right?  Wrong.  The most graphic, horrifying warnings about hell come from the lips of the lamb of God, Jesus Christ.  (Matthew 5:21-10; 10:28; 22:33.  Mark 9:42-48, and please note that while verses 44 and 46 may not have been in the original manuscripts, verse 48 most certainly was!)  Not only did Christ have quite a bit to say about hell, He told us exactly how the Holy Spirit would bring a person to salvation under most circumstances.  Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.  (John 16:7-11)

          I’d like to close with a personal challenge.  Many years ago, as I was praying for people in Muslim countries who have no opportunity to hear the gospel, I found myself praying that God would appear to them in dreams and visions and tell them the truth.  Months later I began to hear stories of Christian agencies being contacted by people living in Muslim countries who had experienced dreams and visions of a man telling them about Jesus Christ.  They were contacting the Christian agencies to ask for more information about Jesus.  This process continues to this day.  Obviously the Holy Spirit had influenced me to pray this way and no, I don’t think all this happened just because of my prayers.  I’m sure there were many others.

          Recently I’ve had a sense that I need to start praying that people in our culture will start to react to the deaths of friends and loved ones by becoming obsessively concerned about their own eternal destiny.  That the thought would come to them that they need to find out for sure, beyond any shadow of a doubt, what they need to do to make heaven and miss hell.  And that this concern would be so strong that they would seek out advice from other people until they meet a Christian who can tell them how to be saved.

In addition to praying that prayer for the general population, I have felt led to pray that judges and lawyers would start having vivid dreams of their own damnation, so that they would actually wake up screaming as they begin to fall into the flames after the angels hurl them off the cliff.  And that they would continue to have these dreams until they find someone who will tell them how to be saved.  We get so obsessed by who has the power to appoint judges in this country when what we ought to be obsessed with is who has the power to pray for the judges after they are appointed.  Lastly, I am praying that if the judges and lawyers approach any so-called Christian clergy persons who do not believe in hell and tell them about their dreams and visions that the unbelieving clergy persons will begin to have the same nightmares until they repent and believe in the gospel. 

          As you sense the leading of the One-who-must-be-obeyed-in-all-things, would you join me in this new adventure in prayer?      

2 Corinthians 3:12-18

It is the hope vision that we have in our hearts[1] of the fulfillment of this new blood covenant at the resurrection that enables us to continue to courageously preach this gospel while disregarding the both the unimaginable suffering we have already endured and the future consequences that we know are coming as a result of our faithfulness to the message.

This hope vision of God’s coming blessings to us is a basic part of new blood covenant living.  We can’t see it yet with our physical eyes – we see it only through the eyes of faith.[2]

Our lives are lived with enduring faith as we eagerly focus on the marvelous blessing to come.[3]

Our hope vision is peering down the scope with the laser sight fixed on what will happen to us at the second coming.[4]

We are hoping for righteousness within and without.  Complete freedom from indwelling sin while living under the direct, righteous rule of Jesus Christ the king.[5]

And we are hoping for our transformation into the final resurrection glory that will be ours as sons of the living God.[6]

So you can understand how I able to continue to preach in spite of the ongoing threat of persecution and further suffering.  Beloved, the price of persecution, no matter how horrific is seems right now, is insignificant compared to the glory that will be lavished upon us.[7]

When it comes to the glory of this new blood covenant we can’t be like Moses and you can’t be like the Israelites who asked Moses to put a veil over his face so that they couldn’t see the glory of God that was reflected there.  They were uncomfortable looking at that lesser glory.

You can turn away from an uncomfortable truth (or a vision of the glory of God that makes you realize your own sinful insignificance), but if you do, you harden your heart and mind.  That’s what the Israelites did in the time of Moses.  They asked Moses to wear a veil on his face when what they were really doing was putting a veil over the eyes of their own hearts.  This veil remains over the hearts of unbelieving Jews to this day, making it impossible for them to see the revelation of Christ in the Old Testament.  It is only when they yield to the Spirit that the veil is lifted and they are able to understand that everything that Moses wrote was designed to prepare the way for, and ultimately to reveal the glory of Jesus Christ.[8]

So, to sum up, the new blood covenant is a spiritual covenant that comes to us from a God who is a living Spirit.  It’s not written on stone tablets, it’s inscribed on your hearts.  This process of whereby the Holy Spirit takes the words of God and makes them a permanent part of the fabric of your innermost being releases a power that sets you free from the bondage and domination of sin.

This transformation is an ongoing process.  We reject the veil and dare to look with the eyes of faith at the very glory of God.  We see that glory in whatever way it pleases the Spirit to reveal it.  He shows it to us through the Scriptures, in times of worship, and in direct revelation to our hearts.  Make no mistake about it:  what happened to Moses physically can and should happen to us spiritually.  We have access to a greater glory than the glory Moses saw.  We don’t see that glory with perfect clarity in this life[9], but as we allow the Spirit to reveal it to us we are transformed step by step and we become more and more like Jesus.

 

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[1] Faith is the assurance of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1).  But what is hope, where does it come from, and how do we get it?  In Eph. 1:18 Paul prays that “the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling.”  Before we can exercise mountain moving faith (which requires the supernatural enabling of the Holy Spirit) we must first receive from the Holy Spirit a supernatural revelation in our hearts (spirits) of that which God is calling us to believe.  This vision in the heart is what faith latches on to and believes.  So we paraphrase the word hope as “hope vision in the heart.”  The cross references embedded in the text above highlight some of the details of that hope.

[2] “For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen in not hope.”  Rom. 8:24

[3] “With perseverance we eagerly wait for it.”  Rom. 8:25

[4] “Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  1 Peter 1:13

[5] “For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.”  Gal. 5:5  Note that the hope is “through the Spirit by faith.”

[6] ” Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.  We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”  1 John 3:2  If you connect this verse with the description of the resurrected Christ in Revelation 1 it becomes one of the most amazing promises in the Bible.

[7] “For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  Rom. 8:18  See Romans 8:23 for another example of how the focus of our hope really in in our coming resurrection.

[8] Verses 14-16 all together.  It seemed easier to do it this way than to break them up into three paragraphs.

[9] “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”  1 Cor. 13:12

2 Corinthians 3:1-11

Now I suppose some of my critics in Corinth will start accusing me of bragging at this point.  I am well aware of the kind of people who come to visit the churches I have planted and try to turn them against me.  So what do you think?  Should I get some sort of a letter from some prominent Christian leaders endorsing my ministry?

Dear friends, the only letter of endorsement I need is . . . you!  The letter I am referring to is not something you put down on paper with a pen – it is a matter of the heart!

The old blood-covenant[1] was written on tablets of stone, but the new blood-covenant is written on human hearts.

 

It’s not just information, it’s living, breathing truth that comes to reside in your hearts and carries with it the power to set you free![2]

Surely you remember how the power of the Holy Spirit[3] impacted you as I preached and taught you the things of Christ.[4]

I am not ashamed to tell you that I am very, very confident in the way that God ministers through me in Christ.

Don’t misunderstand me.  If it was just a matter of me using my natural gifts, I wouldn’t have any confidence at all.  But I cannot and will not deny the reality of the way God ministers through me.

It is because God ministers through us that we are able to be useful in ministering the new blood-covenant, which is a blood-covenant of the spirit and not of the letter of the law.  And thank God that this is so, because, as you well know, the letter of the law, in and of itself, brings death.  It is only the new blood-covenant of the spirit that brings life.

Consider these two blood-covenants.  The first blood-covenant was the law of God carved into stone tablets.  The law, apart from grace, brings nothing but condemnation and death.  When this blood-covenant was made, it was accompanied by the blinding light of the glory of God.  When Moses was up on the mountain receiving the covenant the glory of God transformed him in such a way that his very face became so alight with the glory of God that the Israelites could hardly bear to look at him.

And that was just one manifestation of the glory of God in the giving of that covenant.  The Israelites were camped at the base of Mt. Sinai.  God descended upon the mountain in the form of fire amidst thunder and lightning.  When He spoke to Moses the Israelites could actually hear His voice like thunder.  The people were so terrified that they asked God not to speak to them directly, but only through Moses.  Moses went up the mountain into this visible, audible manifestation of the glory of God.  It was during this time on the mountain that he became so transformed that his face literally shone with the glory of God when he came back down.[5]

 

If the glory of that lesser blood-covenant had such a transforming impact of the body of Moses, making his face shine with the glory of God, consider how the glory of this second, more spiritual blood-covenant can have an even greater impact in transforming your inner man!

It just stands to reason that if the original blood-covenant, which resulted in bringing condemnation to the human race, was inaugurated with such a manifestation of God’s glory, that the second blood-covenant, which makes us righteous, should be accompanied by an even great manifestation of God’s glory.

That overwhelming display of God’s glory in the first blood-covenant has been eclipsed, as it were, by the far great manifestation of God’s glory in the new blood-covenant.

It just makes sense.  If the first blood-covenant, a temporary measure, was inaugurated with such an overwhelming manifestation, then the new, permanent blood-covenant must have an even more impressive and transformative manifestation of God’s glorious, omnipotent grace!

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[1] A word covenant is one of the most challenging words to translate or paraphrase for the modern reader.  The word in the Greek actually comes from the root word “to cut.”  Covenants were always accompanied by the shedding of the blood of an animal.  Instead of using modern terminology, “we signed a contract,” you could use the phrase “we cut a covenant.”  As the knife cut the animal its blood flowed.  The ultimate significance of the covenant was that the persons making the agreement were saying, “if I do not keep this agreement, may I die like t this animal.”  It was not unusual when cutting a covenant to literally cut one or more animals in half and for the person or persons making the promises to walk between the half, actually walking in the blood, and signifying their desire that they should be torn to pieces if they ever failed to keep the promise.  In Genesis 15 Abraham cut the animals in half, but it was God Himself, appearing as light and heat, who walked between the split bodies of the animals to signify His absolute commitment in His promise to give Abraham the promised land.  Because blood was such a significant part of a covenant I will paraphrase “covenant” as “blood-covenant” to help bring this home to the modern reader.

[2] “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  John 8:32

[3] “And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”  1 Corinthians 2:4

[4] “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”  Luke 24:32

[5] See Exodus 19:16-20; 20:18-21; 24:12-18; 34:29-35.