The Great Falling Away and Our Great Hope (4)

 

 

“Behold, a king will reign righteously and princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind and a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry country, like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land” (Isaiah 32:1 – 2).

 

This passage reminds us that our calling in Christ is to be a place of refuge for others, a shelter from the storms of life. The Living Water of Christ is to flow from the depths of our being out to those around us (John 7:27 – 39) and we are to bear fruit for the healing of the peoples (Rev. 22:1 – 2). Rather than being overcome by evil, in Christ we overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). We are to “bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom. 12:14).

 

We are to love our enemies and pray for those who oppose us, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:43 – 48). Remembering that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood,” nor are the “weapons of our warfare of the flesh” (2 Cor. 10:4).

 

If we become entangled as participants in the conflicts of the world, if the source of our life is rooted in the agendas of the world, the powers of the world, the values of the world, then we will have little in Christ to share with the people of the world; the water that flows from us will be polluted.

 

We must see ourselves as strangers and pilgrims, as citizens of heaven, resisting the pressure from without and within the professing church to identify with the world system (Hebrews 11:8 – 16; 1 Pt. 2:11). We are called to bring others with us on our journey to the City of Christ, the City of Light, the City where the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the only Light and where we are the Temple of God.

 

Are we standing with the Jesus who says, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36)?

 

Or have we abandoned Jesus Christ and do we now identify with earthly powers who have deceived us and many of our leaders into prostituting the Bible for their own ends? Have we given ourselves to earthly powers who use Scriptural language (but not the Biblical teaching of Jesus Christ) to utter prayers of hatred and destruction?

 

This does not mean that we ignore the people of the world, on the contrary, it means that we love them and share Jesus with them, it means that we seek to show them the Way of the Lamb, it means that we give our lives for the people of the world just as Jesus gave His life for us…even when we were His enemies (Romans 5:1 – 11). It also means that we are willing to be “considered as sheep to be slaughtered” (Rom. 8:36).

 

Wherever we are, we are to be the Presence of Jesus Christ, shelters from the storm, places of refuge, Living Water in a parched land. In Christ, we are to offer peace, hope, love, grace, mercy, and healing. To do this we must abide in the Vine and allow the Vine to live His Life in us and through us (John 15:1 – 5). To do this, we offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1 – 2; John 17:17 – 19).

 

What color is the water which people drink from us? Is it red or blue or purple? Is it green, the color of American money? Is it red, white, and blue?

 

Or is it “clear and bright as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1)?

 

 

 

 

The Great Falling Away and Our Great Hope (3)

 

 

While on the one hand we cannot deny the darkness around us, darkness must not define us nor mold us in any fashion, for we have a high calling in Jesus Christ to be the Light of the world, calling others out of darkness into Jesus Christ. Yes, we ought to be aware of the inexplicable evil propagating itself, embedding itself in the United States (and the world) and sadly in the professing church, but we should be careful not to be obsessed by it – otherwise it will poison our souls. This can be a challenge, let us not minimize the challenge.

 

I am reminded of Betsy ten Boom, who saw her imprisonment in a concentration camp, with her sister Corrie, as an opportunity to demonstrate the love of Jesus to the brutal and hateful guards. Her words to Corrie are woven into my soul, “If they can be taught to hate, then they can be taught to love.”

 

Over the years I have found two passages in Isaiah especially helpful in remembering our calling in Christ, Isaiah 60:1 – 3 and 32:1 – 2. Let’s ponder the first of these now, and we’ll return to the other in our next reflection, the Lord willing.

 

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear to you.”

 

A tsunami of darkness is an opportunity for the Light of Christ to shine upon, within, and through His People. It is an opportunity for us to be who we truly are in Christ, to be beacons for the people of the world, to bear witness to our Lord Jesus Christ. As the storms of hatred, violence, and deceit beat upon houses build on sand, we offer a refuge to those around us, for our lives on built on the Rock who is Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus says that we are to “prove faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10). We learn to overcome Satan, “the great dragon” (Rev. 12:9), “by the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of our testimony, not loving our lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11).

 

We maintain the testimony of Jesus Christ, not the message of the Imperial Cult in the image of Revelation chapters 17 and 18, not the message of a promiscuous religious system which foolishly thinks it can partner with the Beast (Rev. 17:16); our hearts and minds and souls belong to Jesus and only to Jesus and we follow the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev. 14:1 – 5).

 

Let us recall what Paul wrote to Timothy in the midst of a hostile culture, a culture of violence and idolatry:

 

“The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:24 – 26).

 

Titus is charged by Paul with teaching his people “to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men” (Titus 3:2).

 

To the Philippians Paul writes, “Let your gentle spirit be known to all men” (Phil. 4:5).

 

Is it not strange, very strange, that so many pastors and “Christian” leaders are selling their people into the hands of those who propagate violence, fear, intimidation, and war?

 

What kind of shepherd allows his (or her) flock to drink from a polluted well? From a river of toxins? What shall we say of shepherds who lead their flocks to feeding and water troughs of death?

 

All the more reason to remember who we are in Christ, and who He is in us. All the more reason to encourage one another in the Narrow Way which is Jesus. All the more reason to live lives separated unto God for the sake of others. All the more reason to lay down our lives for others (John 15:12 – 13; 1 John 3:16).

 

The creation is groaning and travailing for the unveiling of the sons and daughters of the Living God, knowing that as we come into our inheritance in Christ, that it will be set free from the bondage of death and corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:12 – 25).

 

This is not a time to be fearful, but to rejoice. This is not a time to withdraw from others, but to touch them, by the grace of God, with the love of Jesus. This is not the time to revert to the weapons and ways of the world, but to overcome as the Lamb has overcome, by laying our lives down for Christ and others.

 

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21).

 

This was written to disciples in the city of Rome. We, in America, need to hear it today.

 

Even though we are as lambs led to the slaughter, we overwhelmingly conquer! (Romans 8:31 – 39). What a high calling and privilege to know Jesus Christ in the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His sufferings! (Phil. 1:10).

 

Let me tell you a little something to keep in mind, those who lose their lives for Jesus Christ are the ones who will find Jesus waiting for them…not sitting…but standing…standing to receive them into His glory! (Acts 7:56).

 

Jesus Christ stands up for those who stand up for Him.

 

Are you hiding, sitting, or standing?

 

 

 

 

Revelation - Letter to a Friend (8)

 

“It [Revelation] is John’s readers’ concrete, day-to-day world seen in heavenly and eschatological perspective. As such its function…is to counter the Roman imperial view of the world, which was the dominant ideological perception of their situation that John’s readers naturally tended to share. Revelation counters that false view of reality by opening the world to divine transcendence.” (The Theology of the Book of Revelation, Richard Bauckham, page 8, italics mine).

 

What is our current “imperial view of the world” in the United States?

 

Are we willing, in Christ, to look in the mirror? Are we willing to consider Babylon of the Bible, of Revelation chapters 17 and 18?

 

Are we willing to take a good look at the beasts of Daniel and Revelation?

 

Are we willing to “see” the world as God sees the world, are we willing to see the world through the images that God gives us in Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation?

 

“Seeing” can be difficult when we are comfortable, as Bauckham writes concerning the churches of Revelation, “Many were affluent and compromising with the oppressive system” (page 15).

 

Many churches today are doing more than compromising with the imperial worldview, they are stridently promoting it and attacking those who question their promiscuity. They are assisting the Imperial Cult in its assimilation of so-called Christianity, they are placing themselves and their people in the service of the very Beast who is attempting to destroy the image of the Lamb on the Cross by turning it into the image of another beast who kills, devours, and destroys. Let us make no mistake, the cult has many forms, and it adopts those forms as a chameleon changes colors – some forms practice overt destruction, other forms are covert – they range across the political, national, economic, social, and theological spectrum – only Jesus, only Jesus, protects us…and we are to follow only Him, the Lamb of God.

 

When the gods of war assimilate the Word of God into their propaganda, when they do just what Satan did with Jesus in the Wilderness by quoting Scripture, if we do not know the Word of God as Jesus did, if we do not know who we are in Christ just as Jesus knew who He was (and is) in the Father, then we will partake of the table of demons and drink their cup (1 Cor. 10:21). Then we will deny the Lord who purchased us.

 

Let us be faithful to the Lamb even unto death, let us overcome by His blood and the Word of our testimony, which is Jesus.

 

How can we deny our dear God, who loved us even when we were His enemies (Rom. 5:1 – 11)? How can we trade our inheritance in Him for an imperial cult?

 

“For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

 

 

The Great Falling Away And Our Great Hope (2)

 

The great falling away and our great hope (2)

 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).

 

“But the wisdom from above [which is Jesus, Col. 2:2-3; 1 Cor. 1:30 -31] is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:17 – 18).

 

It is an evil thing when political movements and governments adopt the language of the Bible to propagate their agendas. It is from the abyss of the pit when they ensnare the souls of men in this language, when they deceive those who should know better, when they turn the hearts of those who profess to follow Jesus into their own messengers of hate and destruction. And what can we say when those who are charged with pastoring Christ’s sheep, instead lead them into the darkness of this present evil age?

 

Those who follow the Lamb are not called to kill; they are called to die. We are called, just as the Lamb, to overcome through laying down our lives for others, through offering ourselves to God for the life of others on the altar of the Cross, always the Cross.

 

When we violate this holy Nature which has been placed within us in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we repudiate Him, we reject our Great High Priest, we trample the Cross and our calling, we reject the Way of the Father (which is Jesus Christ) for the poisonous ways of the pit, we exchange the air of the heavenly for the noxious fumes of hell.

 

I suppose there are no words for all this, it is too incredible, but there are the images of Revelation, the images of the unthinkable, the indescribable – these images from hell ought to be worth thousands of warnings. Yet, when we lose our ear to hear the Spirit, we also lose our sight, our center of gravity in Christ, and we can no longer think or see clearly.

 

And no wonder, for not having “received the love of the truth…God sends upon us a deluding influence so that we will believe what is false, so that we may be judged who do not believe the truth but take pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thess. 2:10 – 12).

 

“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:21).

 

We think we can, otherwise we would not see the wholesale adoption and endorsement of political, social, national, and military evil by much of the professing church that we see.

 

We, who are called to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29; 12:1 – 2), are now being transformed into the image of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

 

How ironic that the image of gold of Daniel 3 has reappeared in our own time. At least in Daniel 3 there were those who were found faithful. What about today?

 

What about me?

 

What about you?

Revelation - Letter to a Friend (7)

 

 

“John’s work is a prophetic apocalypse in that it communicates a disclosure of a transcendent perspective on this world. It is prophetic in the way it discloses a concrete historical situation…enabling them [the readers] to discern the divine purpose…”

 

“The effect of John’s visions, one might say, is to expand his readers’ world, both spatially (into heaven) and temporally (into the eschatological future), or, to put it another way, to open their world to divine transcendence. It is not that the here-and-now are left behind in an escape into heaven or the eschatological future, but that the here-and-now look quite different when they are opened to transcendence.” (The Theology of the Book of Revelation, Richard Bauckham, Cambridge University Press, pages 7 – 8, italics mine).

 

Paul writes, “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal…for we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 4:18; 5:7).

 

Faith is the conviction, the evidence, “of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).

 

Noah was warned by God of “things not seen” (Heb. 11:7).

 

The Scriptures, in Christ, teach us to see the invisible.

 

Contrast this way of viewing life with popular “Christian” teaching on the world, the church, and prophecy, with the way the popular church teaches Revelation. Popular Christian teaching focuses on what we can see. It would have us give our hearts to politics, to worldviews, to nationalism, to military power, to economic prosperity. Popular “Christian” teaching would have us view the world in terms of conservatives, liberals, moderates, progressives. This teaching would have us view the world in terms of national borders in place of the Kingdom of God in Christ. It would have us view the church in terms of “bigger is better,” “comfort is better,” “prosperity is better.” 

Popular Chrisitan teaching in America would have us reject the people of nations who have come within our borders, rather than share the Gospel with them, rather than serve them, we will reject them and send them to uncertainty, poverty, homelessness, sickness, and death.

 

Even though Revelation clearly teaches that the Lamb and His followers conquer by dying, popular Christian teaching would have us conquer by missiles, bombs, bullets, civic violence, legal intimidation.

 

O my friends, Revelation promises us a new way, in Christ, of seeing the world as it really is, and frankly seeing the apostate church for what it really is, a Whore riding on the Beast (Revelation 17). It also confronts us with Revelation Chapter 18, who are we really? Can we bear to look in the mirror?

 

Can we hear the cry, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues!” (Rev. 18:4; see also 2 Cor. 6:14 – 7:1).  

 

 

 

The Great Falling Away and Our Great Hope (1)

 

 

“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron…” (1 Timothy 4:1 – 2).

 

“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant…unloving…without self-control, brutal…reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…Avoid such men as these.” (2 Timothy 3:1 – 5).

 

“Let no man deceive you, for [the Day of the Lord] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction…” (2 Thess. 2:3).

 

What does a “falling away” look like? I suppose it has many expressions, many flavors, some perhaps obvious, many – the most dangerous – not easily discerned. I write “not easily discerned,” yet they can be discerned, for it always comes down to the Person of Jesus Christ. Is the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ the message? Are we called to follow Him as He is, consistent with the Scriptures, or are we called to follow images of Him created in our own image?

 

Perhaps I have waited too long to write about this. For sure we are over the tipping point, at least in America we are. We have passed the point of no return, as in Jeremiah’s day. We have rushed past it, bursting through the barriers of morality, compassion, sympathy, and the Gospel, trampling on the good in Christ, the beautiful in Christ, the truth in Christ. While I avoid the terms liberal and conservative and moderate for many good reasons, I will write that these “movements” and ideologies whether political, social, or theological are all destructive and that you and I are called to follow Jesus, and only Jesus. All of these ideologies strip away the image of God within us, the image of God restored within us in Christ, and would make us enemies of one another.

 

Let me share something with you, if a man or woman or young person truly comes to know Jesus, encounters Jesus, and follows Jesus; if a person spends his days and nights with Jesus, that person (let us hope) will only desire Jesus and learn to see all other movements and ideologies as whores seeking to seduce him or her away from Jesus (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3; Ezekiel Chapter 23).

 

Let me tell you something else, those who enter that glorious City, our home, the true and heavenly Jerusalem, which is the Mother of ALL the Faithful (for God only has One People and they are not based on race but found in Christ, the Seed of Abraham; Gal. 3:16; 4:21 – 31) are going to see Jesus and the Father and God is going to overwhelm them in His love and care. They are also going to be overwhelmed in love, with love, for one another – the prayer of Jesus in John 17 will be fully fulfilled in heaven and on earth.

 

And so I ask you, why not live in Jesus now? Why not live in His love now? Why allow ourselves to be seduced and deluded into hatred for others? Why engage in vitriol? Why partake of demonic anger when “righteousness is sown in peace” (James 3:13 – 18)?

 

As Nero and the Imperial Cult lead us into the abyss of hell and death and destruction, why do we not flee to the Ark of Jesus Christ? Why do we not implore those we love to come to Jesus, live in Jesus, live for Jesus?

 

Pastors, let us remember that cowards are the first ones mentioned in Revelation 21:8. Cowards are not those who do not believe the Word of God, they are those who know the Word of God and are afraid to proclaim it, afraid to call their people to Jesus, to live as citizens of heaven. Cowards are those who sell themselves and their people to the Beast, the Whore, and the present evil age. The shepherds of the Good Shepherd lay down their lives, including their economic lives, for the Master’s sheep.

 

Our hope is Jesus and only Jesus, and we are to go “outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:13). Make no mistake, whatever “movement” we may be in, does not want Jesus and His Cross, for it is offensive, it is foolishness, and it brings to an end ego, pride, and boasting. Jesus and the Cross will have no image but Himself in our hearts and minds and souls.

 

The early Christians were not persecuted so much because they worshipped Jesus, they were persecuted because they would not worship the Emperor alongside Jesus, they would not buy into the Imperial Cult. The same cannot be said of us today.

 

To be continued….

The Shovel and the Sacrifice

 

 

“The day’s work had ended; the tools were being counted, as usual. As the [work] party was about to be dismissed, the Japanese guard shouted that a shovel was missing. He insisted that someone had stolen it to sell to the Thais. Striding up and down before the men, he ranted and denounced them for their wickedness, and most unforgivable of all their ingratitude to the Emperor. As he raved, he worked himself up into a paranoid fury. Screaming in broken English, he demanded that the guilty one step forward to take his punishment. No one moved; the guard’s rage reached new heights of violence.

 

“All die! All die!” he shrieked.

 

“To show that he meant what he said, he cocked his rifle, put it to his shoulder and looked down the sights, ready to fire at the first man at the end of them.

 

“At that moment the Argyll stepped forward, stood stiffly to attention, and said calmly, ‘I did it.’

 

“The guard unleashed all his whipped-up hate; he kicked the helpless prisoner and beat him with his fists. Still the Argyll stood rigidly to attention, with the blood streaming down his face. His silence goaded the guard to an excess of rage. Seizing his rifle by the barrel, he lifted it high over his head and, with a final howl, brought it down on the skull of the Argyll, who sank limply to the ground and did not move…

 

“The men of the work detail picked up their comrade’s body, shouldered their tools and marched back to camp. When the tools were counted again at the guard-house no shovel was missing.”

 

Ernest Gordon continues with this story about an Aussie private who was caught outside the prison camp trying to get medicine from the Thais for his sick friends, he was sentenced to death.

 

“On the morning of his execution he marched cheerfully between his guards to the parade-ground. The Japanese were out in full force to observe the scene. The Aussie was permitted to have his commanding officer and a chaplain in attendance as witnesses. The party came to a halt. The CO and the chaplain were waved to one side, and the Aussie was left standing alone. Calmly, he surveyed his executioners. He knelt down and drew a small copy of the New Testament from a pocket of his ragged shorts. Unhurriedly, his lips moving but no sound coming from them, he read a passage to himself…

 

“He finished reading, returned the New Testament to his pocket, looked up, and saw the distressed face of his chaplain. He smiled, waved to him, and called out, ‘Cheer up, Padre, it isn’t as bad as all that. I’ll be all right.’

 

“He nodded to his executioner as a sign that he was ready.”

 

From To End All Wars, by Ernest Gordon, pages 101 – 103.

 

What does Good Friday look like in our lives?

 

In our lives as the professing church?

 

John 15:12 – 13; 1 John 3:16; Mark 8:34 – 38.