Jonah 3:6
"The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes."
Jonah preached judgment to Nineveh. He walked through the streets of that great city yelling,
"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
Notice the simplicity of the message. I see no fancy words, no beautiful imagery, no story, and no love being preached. This is a simple and straighforward message of justice to come.
Notice the Intensity. Jonah spoke openly, boldly, and without fear. This massive city of well over 120,000 people, had a single stranger sound a call throughout the city. This plain message echoed throughout the city and it quickly reached the kings ears within one day’s time.
Notice the response. Upon hearing such news the king responded by moving from his honored position and shedding his glorious garb and a citywide repentance was inaugurated. This is the effect of God’s Word.
When the Word of the Lord is preached clearly and accurately and authoritatively, repentance will follow. The minister of the word, like Jonah, is only meant to open the cage to the lion den and let the power loose. When the straightforward Gospel is preached, with no additives or preservatives, the mightiest man in the city will be stripped of his robe of pride. The simple message trumpeted lifts a woman from her glorious standing in the community, his royal heritage, and her lofty throne in the workcenter, and seats them all in a lowly ash heap.
Notice the Savior. We must not look over the sweetest part of this text. I have a king who arose from His lofty throne in heaven. He removed His robe of righteousness and has placed it upon me. He has covered Himself in the sackcloth of my affliction, my suffering, and my torment due for my sins. He came down from His heavenly throne and took a throne of ashes for me. I was clothed with rags and all my righteous deeds resembled my filthy works. I was seated in the dust that the cursed vipers traverse through. He has made me holy because of His holiness. I wear the King’s robe and I am seated in a Kingly position because of Christ and His kindness to me.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Friday, September 10, 2004
OUT, INTO THE NIGHT
1 Samuel 28:3-25
Thousands and thousands of Philistine soldiers prepare for battle. They march out to Shunem (v.4) to begin the intimidation process, and the attempt to destroy Saul and all of Israel. Saul begins to feel the terror for he is only man, and a man now without the Spirit of the Living God.(v.16) Saul knows full well that the Lord has left him. He no longer gives Saul counsel nor speaks to him in dreams. (v.6) His fault: he failed to humble his heart before God.
Saul finally seeks out a spiritist who is able to bring the supposed "Samuel" back from the dead. Whether this is Samuel or the Devil, God uses this spirit as a mouthpiece for a prophetic statement against Saul. Saul soon finds out he and his sons are soon to die. (13-19) This adds to Saul’s dismay. He is to loose the Kingship, Israel will be defeated and given to the hands of the Philistines, and he and his sons are soon to die. After hearing this depressing, heartbreaking, and fearful news, Saul in his exhausted state, eats a meal prepared by the spiritist and he regains his energy. He and his men proceed out into the night. –"Then they arose and went away that night." (v.25) What a dark ending to the reign of Saul. He and his men go out into the night! This is true spiritual darkness and lostness. Saul’s life was once filled with the enormous presence of God and is now only a voided vacuum, a dark hole needing to be filled.
How many of us Christians energize our physical bodies and then head out into the night without spiritual strength? Do we eat dishes prepared by forces of darkness and journey off thinking we have spiritual nourishment? How many of us turn into Saul on a daily basis and fail to humble ourselves before God and then proceed out into the night? I pity the Saul "Christian". How often do we fear the Philistines and march out looking for answers apart from His WORD? How capable am I Lord to become so callused to your ways? If you request that I be Your means to deal out wrath against Amalek, I will. (v.18) If you demand I heed your voice according to your commands, I will. (v.18) But I cannot will unless You will me to. Will me not to proceed out into the night, like Saul, on the nourishment prepared by Satan. I know You will not tear the kingdom from my hands as you did with Saul. You are able to make me stand whether I leave in the night (God forbid!) on my own strength, or in the daytime, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But my heart wants to choose the latter!! Because the former makes me terrified, as Saul must have been, as he left out into the night to his apparent doom.
Thousands and thousands of Philistine soldiers prepare for battle. They march out to Shunem (v.4) to begin the intimidation process, and the attempt to destroy Saul and all of Israel. Saul begins to feel the terror for he is only man, and a man now without the Spirit of the Living God.(v.16) Saul knows full well that the Lord has left him. He no longer gives Saul counsel nor speaks to him in dreams. (v.6) His fault: he failed to humble his heart before God.
Saul finally seeks out a spiritist who is able to bring the supposed "Samuel" back from the dead. Whether this is Samuel or the Devil, God uses this spirit as a mouthpiece for a prophetic statement against Saul. Saul soon finds out he and his sons are soon to die. (13-19) This adds to Saul’s dismay. He is to loose the Kingship, Israel will be defeated and given to the hands of the Philistines, and he and his sons are soon to die. After hearing this depressing, heartbreaking, and fearful news, Saul in his exhausted state, eats a meal prepared by the spiritist and he regains his energy. He and his men proceed out into the night. –"Then they arose and went away that night." (v.25) What a dark ending to the reign of Saul. He and his men go out into the night! This is true spiritual darkness and lostness. Saul’s life was once filled with the enormous presence of God and is now only a voided vacuum, a dark hole needing to be filled.
How many of us Christians energize our physical bodies and then head out into the night without spiritual strength? Do we eat dishes prepared by forces of darkness and journey off thinking we have spiritual nourishment? How many of us turn into Saul on a daily basis and fail to humble ourselves before God and then proceed out into the night? I pity the Saul "Christian". How often do we fear the Philistines and march out looking for answers apart from His WORD? How capable am I Lord to become so callused to your ways? If you request that I be Your means to deal out wrath against Amalek, I will. (v.18) If you demand I heed your voice according to your commands, I will. (v.18) But I cannot will unless You will me to. Will me not to proceed out into the night, like Saul, on the nourishment prepared by Satan. I know You will not tear the kingdom from my hands as you did with Saul. You are able to make me stand whether I leave in the night (God forbid!) on my own strength, or in the daytime, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But my heart wants to choose the latter!! Because the former makes me terrified, as Saul must have been, as he left out into the night to his apparent doom.
Strange Ground
Exodus 3:5 (ESV)
Then he said, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
Why such respect and reverence for the ground? Because this floor had been treaded upon the bronze feet of the Savior, the Lord God. Whatever God touches is instantly purified and purged of evil. Moses touched the hallowed ground with his bare creaturely feet that he was born with. God wants us to come to him as we are, without anything between Him and us, but with all things God has made, namely Christ in us. He wants direct contact with us. God wants us to touch the holy and experience His holiness. And we can see God as holy through His Word.
I have been on strange ground since I was born of God. Since my new birth, it is hard to find a Christian brother or sister who shares a similar passion for God’s truth. God shows me things that are too sweet to hold in and I need others of a like-mind to express. God reveals to Me His plans, His purposes, His will, His character, His promises, and His character. It is all very sweet to my soul. I am in contact with the Creator but I desire to share this fire that is locked up in my bones. I am not claiming to have a special knowledge, but sometimes it seems that truth is revealed to me from on high. I walk on ground that has been covered for years by a watery and dangerous gospel, which is no gospel at all. But now the watery teachings of "contemporary" services have parted and like Moses (Exodus 14:29), and I walk on strange ground. This is the ground which kings have fallen upon, which Goliath had toppled upon with a sharp stone sunk within his forehead (1 Samuel 17:49). This is the ground on which the false Philistine idol Dagon fell upon (2 Samuel 12:16). This is the ground on which great drops of blood fell from the inflicted wounds of my Savior (Luke 22:44). This ground shows me the revelation of God Himself and His patient dealings with men like me. Despite all that this ground is, it is something that it shouldn’t be, defiled.
Scripture is not the sole determiner of truth anymore, it is experience, or it is a subjectivity that says, "my truth is what is good for me," or simply that there is no truth. This is post-modernism at its best. And it has creeped into the church and into Christian thought. We are afraid to speak of doctrine and theology. We are not allowed to get upon the spiritual mat with a believer and wrestle with truth until someone says, "uncle." We are afraid to divide or be unloving. But I strongly state that there is unity only in truth. We circle the wagons around the centrality of Christ in the Scriptures and we unify under the same doctrines. Experience is so spastic and so inconsistent that we cannot lock arms on the winds of experience. There is unity only in the truth. And Jesus is…the truth…(John 14:6).
I have met a select few who wish to throw their sandals aside and walk on the holiness of God’s Word and who wish to speak openly about doctrines of God and theology. We are harvesters. We should then plow this holy ground with bare-footed feet allowing the richness of the Word to squeeze between our brothers and sisters in Christ and in doing so, we will have contact with our God and with the body of Christ.
Let us not leave the doctrines of the Word to dry upon the ground like Gideon’s fleece (Judges 6:37). We must diligently seek God on this ground all night, like David, if we have to, as if our only son was dying (2 Samuel 12:16). The serpent is sliding across the surface and we must throw our rods down and swallow up the false teachings of the Deceiver (Exodus 4:3). If we neglect the sound teachings of Scripture and of the Christ filled men who have gone before us, we will be casts into a terrifying wilderness with scorpions and a thirsty ground like the Israelites who wandered, looking for that flinty Rock to draw water from (Deuteronomy 8:15). Let us revere God’s Word and teach sound doctrine and be taught. Let us sit down on the ground and receive the 7 loaves and fish to feed the soul. Let us all take the mustard seed and plant it into the ground to spring upward a glorious Christ-like life well grounded in the doctrines of Christ Jesus.
Then he said, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
Why such respect and reverence for the ground? Because this floor had been treaded upon the bronze feet of the Savior, the Lord God. Whatever God touches is instantly purified and purged of evil. Moses touched the hallowed ground with his bare creaturely feet that he was born with. God wants us to come to him as we are, without anything between Him and us, but with all things God has made, namely Christ in us. He wants direct contact with us. God wants us to touch the holy and experience His holiness. And we can see God as holy through His Word.
I have been on strange ground since I was born of God. Since my new birth, it is hard to find a Christian brother or sister who shares a similar passion for God’s truth. God shows me things that are too sweet to hold in and I need others of a like-mind to express. God reveals to Me His plans, His purposes, His will, His character, His promises, and His character. It is all very sweet to my soul. I am in contact with the Creator but I desire to share this fire that is locked up in my bones. I am not claiming to have a special knowledge, but sometimes it seems that truth is revealed to me from on high. I walk on ground that has been covered for years by a watery and dangerous gospel, which is no gospel at all. But now the watery teachings of "contemporary" services have parted and like Moses (Exodus 14:29), and I walk on strange ground. This is the ground which kings have fallen upon, which Goliath had toppled upon with a sharp stone sunk within his forehead (1 Samuel 17:49). This is the ground on which the false Philistine idol Dagon fell upon (2 Samuel 12:16). This is the ground on which great drops of blood fell from the inflicted wounds of my Savior (Luke 22:44). This ground shows me the revelation of God Himself and His patient dealings with men like me. Despite all that this ground is, it is something that it shouldn’t be, defiled.
Scripture is not the sole determiner of truth anymore, it is experience, or it is a subjectivity that says, "my truth is what is good for me," or simply that there is no truth. This is post-modernism at its best. And it has creeped into the church and into Christian thought. We are afraid to speak of doctrine and theology. We are not allowed to get upon the spiritual mat with a believer and wrestle with truth until someone says, "uncle." We are afraid to divide or be unloving. But I strongly state that there is unity only in truth. We circle the wagons around the centrality of Christ in the Scriptures and we unify under the same doctrines. Experience is so spastic and so inconsistent that we cannot lock arms on the winds of experience. There is unity only in the truth. And Jesus is…the truth…(John 14:6).
I have met a select few who wish to throw their sandals aside and walk on the holiness of God’s Word and who wish to speak openly about doctrines of God and theology. We are harvesters. We should then plow this holy ground with bare-footed feet allowing the richness of the Word to squeeze between our brothers and sisters in Christ and in doing so, we will have contact with our God and with the body of Christ.
Let us not leave the doctrines of the Word to dry upon the ground like Gideon’s fleece (Judges 6:37). We must diligently seek God on this ground all night, like David, if we have to, as if our only son was dying (2 Samuel 12:16). The serpent is sliding across the surface and we must throw our rods down and swallow up the false teachings of the Deceiver (Exodus 4:3). If we neglect the sound teachings of Scripture and of the Christ filled men who have gone before us, we will be casts into a terrifying wilderness with scorpions and a thirsty ground like the Israelites who wandered, looking for that flinty Rock to draw water from (Deuteronomy 8:15). Let us revere God’s Word and teach sound doctrine and be taught. Let us sit down on the ground and receive the 7 loaves and fish to feed the soul. Let us all take the mustard seed and plant it into the ground to spring upward a glorious Christ-like life well grounded in the doctrines of Christ Jesus.
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