Richard Baxter, 1615-1691
This is from the blog Exploring God’s Library:
Light from Old Times by J.C. Ryle
From: A Revival Resource Center
Richard Baxter – “Prayer Makes History”:
Many within the Church today feel as if they are drowning in a river of empty words and hollow promises. Demoralized by superficial religion, their hungry hearts are crying out, “Where is the REAL Church, mighty in truth and power?” There are many who can give us a moving definition of revival, but where are the MEN who can move the Church with a demonstration of revival? As the late Leonard Ravenhill once said, “We can all make the menu, but we can’t make the meal.” Proverbs 27:7 tells us that, “To the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.” Sadly, multitudes of hungry and disillusioned souls are seeking the bitter bread of a godliness that denies power, or a form of power that denies godliness. Oh, how we need the REALITY of revival, a revival that will restore the Church to Her former apostolic beauty of PURITY and POWER. Nothing less than this REALITY will prepare us to face a dying world and the coming King.
The prince of Puritan pastors, Richard Baxter was an instrument in such a revival. Mr. Baxter possessed that rare combination of a prophet’s fiery zeal and a pastor’s tender care. In the year of 1647 Baxter was resettled in his old church at Kidderminster. It was here that he sparked and nurtured a mighty revival. When Baxter arrived at Kidderminster it had a population of about 3000 weavers who were reckless, ungodly and content to remain that way. By the end of Baxter’s stay, the entire community was miraculously transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Dr. Bates reported that “The place before his coming was like a piece of dry and barren earth; but by the blessing of heaven upon his labor, the face of paradise appeared there. The bad were changed to good and the good to better.” During this season of revival the church at Kidderminster became so full that five new galleries had to be built to seat the hungry crowds. Mr. Baxter himself writes, “As you passed along the streets on the Sabbath morning, you might hear a hundred households singing psalms at their family worship. In a word, when I came to Kidderminster, there was only about one family in a whole street that worshipped God and called upon His name. When I left, there were some streets where not a family did not do so.” Kidderminster became a “colony of heaven” in the days of Richard Baxter.
With tireless zeal, Baxter fanned the flames of revival with the MIRACLE of passionate preaching. Many believe that Baxter was one of the most powerful preachers that ever addressed an English congregation. He was an intense and forceful preacher, he believed that, “If hard hearts were to be broken, it was not stroking but striking that must do it.” He purposed to always, “Preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” His sermons were a combination of cutting and piercing words and a gentle and loving spirit. Baxter consistently spoke like one who had been face to face with Jesus. He drew others to Heaven through his preaching because he had touched Heaven through his praying. In Baxter’s classic book The Reformed Pastor, he reminds us that the pulpit is only a reflection of the closet. He writes, “When your minds are in holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of it. They will be able to feel when you have been much with God; that which is most on your heart, will be most in their ears.”
Even after Mr. Baxter had delivered his very soul through preaching, he still felt that his work was but half done. He knew that the preaching of the Word must be accompanied by the personal and individual touch of a pastor. “He arranged that every family in his parish should come to his house, one by one…then he took each member apart and urgently, tenderly besought him to make an immediate decision for Christ. Seldom did a family leave Baxter’s door without tears.”
J. C. Ryle esteemed Baxter as one of the most successful pastors to ever live. He writes, “While some ministers were wrangling about the divine right of Episcopacy or Presbytery, or splitting hairs about reprobation and free-will, Baxter was always visiting from house to house and beseeching men for Christ’s sake, to be reconciled to God… While others were entangling themselves in politics, and ‘burying their dead’ amidst the potsherds of the earth, Baxter was living a crucified life and daily preaching the Gospel.” Because of Mr. Baxter’s great success among his people he soon became a shepherd of shepherds. Addressing his fellow ministers, Baxter writes, “We must feel toward our people as a father toward his children; yea, the most tender love of a mother must not surpass ours. We must even travail in birth, till Christ be formed in them. They should see that we care for no outward thing, neither liberty, nor honor, nor life, in comparison to their salvation… When the people see that you truly love them, they will hear anything from you…Oh therefore, see that you feel a tender love for your people in your hearts, and let them perceive it in your speech and conduct. Let them see that you spend and are spent for their sakes.”
Mr. Baxter’s passion for souls even reached beyond the shores of England. He hoped to one day see the formation of a college and training center, where ministers could be prepared to “Undertake the conversion of some of the vast nations of infidels… with the plain and pure gospel.” It should not surprise us therefore, that he greatly admired John Eliot, the famous pioneer missionary to the Indians of New England. Such apostolic vision and missionary zeal was very rare among many in the Church in the 17th century, even during the Golden Age of great Puritan preachers.
The pack mules of revival are always the humble and persistent prayers of the saints. The Kidderminster awakening was certainty no exception. It was the grace-empowered prayers of Baxter and a handful of people that prepared the way for revival. Fits of epilepsy, tumors and sins of every kind vanished in answer to the prayers of Baxter’s congregation. Hour after hour they poured out their hearts with fervent prayer and fasting during this revival season. Armed with the weapon of PRAYER, Baxter destroyed demonic strongholds and reduced mighty magistrates to tears. With a broken heart and callused knees, Mr. Baxter overcame every obstacle. By fervent prayer, he overcame poor health, slander, rejection, division and even the Great Ejection of 1662. Richard Baxter considered prayer the first and last thing necessary to be a successful pastor and revivalist. He writes, “Above all be much in secret prayer and meditation. By this you will fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifice: remember you cannot decline and neglect your duty to your own hurt alone, many will be losers by it as well as you.”
In light of all the revival promises of the Scriptures, can we truly hope to see revival without such prayer? We need pastors who will not only talk about revival, but who will travail for revival. Today the Church has everything from men’s meetings to miracle meetings, but we still don’t have revival. Mere meetings and conferences will never be able to substitute for the power and authority of a true shepherd’s prayers. “Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, ‘Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: why should they say among the people, Where is their God?’” (Joel 2:17). I fear that many pastors are naively expecting a move of God while neglecting the means of God. The Father longs to visit us. “He will come to us like the RAIN, like the latter and former RAIN to the earth.” (Hosea 6:3). Yet, like Elijah, we will have to pray and pray again, before the first rain clouds of true revival are seen. Dear pastors, “ASK the Lord for RAIN in the time of the latter rain.” (Zechariah 10:1).
References Used:
The Autobiography of Richard Baxter
The Great Ejection of 1662
Prayer
Intercession
This is from LOVE TRUTH BLOG:
Psalm 1 contrasts the way of the righteous and the wicked. The righteous one is “blessed” and “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (Psa. 1:1, 3a).1 The blessed prosper in all that they do (Psa. 1:3b-4), whereas the wicked are “like chaff that the wind drives away” (Psa. 1:4). They ultimately fail. “The wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous” (Psa. 1:5)
We are also told that the one who is blessed “walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers” (Psa. 1:1). Here the action words “walk,” “stand” and “sit” indicate the conformity to evil ways.
To walk with wicked, stand with the sinners, and sit with the scoffers “show three aspects, indeed three degrees, of departure from God, by portraying conformity to this world at three different levels: accepting its advice, being party to its ways, and adopting the most fatal of its attitudes — for the scoffers, if not the most scandalous of sinners, are the farthest from repentance (Prov. 3:34).”2
The journey from the presence of God then begins with embracing bad advice from the wicked. The fallen then stand up and defend the way of the wicked. Things get topsy-turvy. God and people of God are actually made out to be the morally defective ones. All this gets them a place at the table of the scoffers. Incorrigible and arrogant the scoffer despises instruction from the Lord (Prov. 15:12; 21:24). Nevertheless, there is an expiration date for fallen people. “The way of the wicked will perish” (Psa. 1:6).
Now, the blessed man’s “delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psa. 1:2). Our condition of being blessed begins in the position of receiving. It is the pleasure of studying and contemplating the truths of the Scriptures that we come to be blessed. Similarly, the prophet Jeremiah says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jer. 17:7-8). The person who trusts or depends upon the divine source of life enters into that state of being blessed. This too is being in a place of receiving God’s grace. Like a stream providing a dependable supply of water, God is the source of eternal life. Just as a fruit tree planted in a well-watered garden and properly tended over will produce a harvest in due season, the Heavenly Father looks after His own children, who are being daily transformed into people of godly perfection well-suited to dwell in the glorious world to come.
To walk with wicked, stand with sinners, and sit with scoffers signify the departure from a right relationship with God. Reuniting with God goes in the opposite direction. Christians are taught that they sit in the heavenlies, and the fact that they are seated in the heavenlies is foundational to their walk with God and their stand against the powers of darkness.
Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians tells us: “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:4-6). The apostle also states that “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Christians are then beckoned to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Eph. 4:1). Moreover, the apostle calls the Christian to: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm” (Eph. 6:11-13).
Watchman Nee in Sit, Stand, Walk observes that “of all Paul’s epistles, it is Ephesians that we find the highest spiritual truths concerning the Christian life.”3 He then points out “in the first section of the letter we note the word sit (2:6), which is the key to that section and the secret of a true Christian experience. God has made us to sit with Christ in the heavenly places, and every Christian must begin his spiritual life from that place of rest. In the second part we select the word walk (4:1) as expressive of our life in the world, which is the subject. We are challenged there to display in our Christian walk conduct that is in keeping with our high calling. And finally, in the third part we find the key to our attitude towards the enemy contained in the one word stand (6:11), expressive of our place of triumph at the end.”4 Elsewhere Nee indicates that “no Christian can hope to enter the warfare of the ages without learning to rest in Christ and in what he has done, and then, through the strength of the Holy Spirit within, to follow him in a practical, holy life here on earth. If he is deficient in either of these he will find all the talk about spiritual warfare remains only talk; he will never know its reality.”5
The journey away from the presence of the Lord starts with walking in the counsel of the wicked, standing with the sinners, and sitting as a scoffer of the teachings of the Lord. What a joy is it to realize that our return to Eden begins at a place of rest. God takes us out of this world dominated by sin and seats us in the heavenly places. All this happens by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It is from this place of rest that we can begin our walk with the Lord, doing all the good things that the God created us to do from the very beginning. It is because we are secured in the heavenlies that we have access to all that is needed to stand against the powers of darkness that wage war against God and the people of God. We are like trees planted by trees of water. Always bearing fruit in due season.
— WGN
Thoughts On That Judgment Day
Malachi 3: 16-18: “Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”
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Reckless Abandon
The Day of the Lord
The Days of Vengeance
“To be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal and abstinent, and lastly, to be magnanimous and brave; so to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave; and it usually happens to the appointment, and as it were retributive justice, of the Deity, that that people which cannot govern themselves, and moderate their passions, but crouch under the slavery of their lusts, should be delivered up to the sway of those whom they abhor, and made to submit to an involuntary servitude.”
–John Milton, Second Defense of the English People
Proverbs 14: 34: “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”
Defensio Secunda
This is from Oluwadunni’s Blog:
The Christian faith is fraught with many questions and arguments relating to doctrine, one of which is the seeming conflict between the Old Testament and New Testament, especially pertaining to the character of God. Many think the God of the Old Testament is angry and fearful while the God of the New Testament is loving and merciful, which begs the question, “So did God change?”
In an attempt to resolve this argument, there is a school of believers that posit that some authors of the Old Testament did not have a complete revelation of God, thus they sometimes failed to present a correct image of God, filling in the blanks with their own ideas. The teaching is often characterized by negating Old Testament passages that attribute inflicting death, plagues or some adverse circumstance to God.
This teaching, though well-intentioned, finds no support in Scripture and is flawed for reasons I will outline below.
The Old Testament Is Inspired Too
The major flaw of this line of thought is that it forgets that the Holy Spirit is ultimately the author of the Bible, and thus negates and assaults the doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy of the Word of God. This doctrine teaches that the Bible was totally inspired by God through the Holy Spirit working in human beings, and is consequently inerrant, that is, true and trustworthy. This doctrine finds support in two main passages:
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” – 2 Timothy 3:16
“for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” – 2 Peter 1:21
“All Scripture”, that is the Old Testament and the New Testament, (and in fact, when that letter was written, the Old Testament was the only part of Scripture in existence), was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Every word that was written was intended to be there by the Holy Spirit who superintended the process. If Scripture expressly records that “the Lord killed him”, as in the story of Er & Onan, or God shut someone’s womb, as in the story of Hannah, then we must take these words as inspired by the Holy Spirit. Consequently, to argue that the author was wrong to say that God shut Hannah’s womb or killed Uzzah for touching the ark, as God could not truly have been responsible for those acts, is to cast doubt on the divine authority and veracity of God’s Word. The implication is that the process of writing Scripture was tainted by man’s inclinations and limitations, thus exposing Scripture to errancy. If Scripture is truly inspired by the Holy Spirit who is perfect, shouldn’t the Holy Spirit be able to ensure that the authors only recorded what was true, free of error and portrayed the correct image of God? Undoubtedly, the human aspect of the writing of the Bible means that the styles, personality and cultural influences of each author seeped into the text (and same is true for the New Testament); however, I believe God, in His Sovereignty, did not allow this taint the truthfulness and reliability of His Inspired Word. Moreover, this school of thought opens the door for all kinds of subjective interpretations as one is forced to wonder what parts of the Old Testament correctly portray God and what parts do not, ultimately leading to cherry-picking.
A common rebuttal is that the people of the Old Testament did not truly know or understand God, neither did they have the full picture of Him, as the image of God is fully revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ, hence Old Testament authors inadvertently portrayed a distorted image of God. This is not altogether correct. Here, it is important to distinguish between the sacred writers of the Old Testament and the people of Israel. The people of Israel were constantly rebellious and unfaithful, and did not know or understand God’s character. Right from when God delivered them from Egypt, and led them into the Promised Land, till the lifetime of Jesus, they were a stiff-necked people whose eyes were blind and hearts were hard. For example, in Numbers 14:3, the children of Israel murmured against God saying, “Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”, depicting a lack of knowledge of God’s faithfulness and goodness. Similarly, God, through the prophet Jeremiah, said concerning them, “For my people are foolish, they have not known Me….” (Jeremiah 4:22). Jesus himself gave the same report about the Jews saying, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29)
However, among these people, God revealed himself to some select few, upon whom was His Spirit. These were priests, judges, kings, prophets – people who had faith in God and were commended for it as shown in Hebrews 11:39, some of whom are the inspired writers of Old Testament books. Through his prophets, He issued messages to the rebellious and disobedient people of Israel that they may know Him, however they did not heed their words. So, although the children of Israel did not know God, did not obey Him nor listen to His messages issued through His prophets, the inspired authors were people of faith who knew God, to the extent that He spoke to them and revealed Himself and His will to them. Of Moses, God Himself said, “I speak to Him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; and He sees the form of the Lord.” (Numbers 12:8; see also Exodus 33:11; Deut. 34:10). In fact, the psalmist says, “He made known His ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel” (Psalm 103:7); the Israelites merely saw God’s powerful miracles, but to Moses, He revealed His character. Isaiah had such a powerful vision of the Lord that he became aware of his sinfulness (Isaiah 6:1-5). Ezekiel had several visions of God that could barely be put into words. And although, David did not traditionally appear to be a prophet, the New Testament affirms in several passages that many of his psalms were prophetic.
How then could these saints of old go beyond the revelations of God shown to them and include their own notions about God, bearing in mind that their prophecies were often given in first-person as God Himself speaking? No, the Bible does not say so, Jesus did not say so, the apostles never taught so, and it is presumptuous to say so. In essence, although the OT revelations are fragmentary, the Old Testament authors portrayed God as He revealed Himself to them, within the confines of human language, exactly as inspired by the Spirit, and these portrayals are true and do not contradict the image of God that Christ presents – because Christ is present, though veiled, in the Old Testament.
It is unarguable that, in Christ, God reveals Himself in his fulness. The Apostle John writes, “And the Word became 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…. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. (John 1:14, 18) The writer of Hebrews also says: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…” (Hebrews 1:1-2). To borrow the words of Jamieson Fausset Brown, “In Christ, the revelation of God is full, not in shifting hues of separated color, but Himself the pure light, uniting in His one person the whole spectrum.”
Thus, one of the things Christ did here on earth was manifest the character of God to mankind. A.W Tozer puts it this way: “Christ walked with men on earth that He might show them what God is like and make known the true nature of God to a race that had wrong ideas about Him.” Did these wrong ideas emanate from Old Testament teachings about God’s character? No, because the inspired Word produces no wrong ideas about God. The wrong ideas the people of Israel (and humanity) had about the character of God was because of their lack of knowledge and understanding about God, ultimately traceable to the sin-nature that is alienated from God. Heb. 1:1-2 evidently tells us that God spoke through the prophets first, the same prophets that the people of Israel did not listen to, same prophets they murdered (Luke 11:47-49). The purpose of Jesus’s coming was to embody and fulfill the prophecies, not to negate them.
If we deeply study the teachings and life of Jesus, we will find that He never invalidated what was written in the Old Testament about God’s character nor did He depict a different character from what was written about God in the OT; what He did was reveal that character and establish God’s perfect standards of righteousness and holiness, revealing the inadequacy and imperfection of the permissive and provisional Law given by Moses under the old covenant, in making a man pleasing to God.
Who Defines Good and Evil?
Another flaw in this teaching is its subjection of the Uncreated God to human and simplistic notions of good and evil. In its human understanding, it says, “killing is evil; God is good and does no evil; therefore, God did not kill”, failing to understand that what constitutes evil is not just the act, but the intent, the disposition behind the act, and that God transcends our own fallible views of what is good and evil. Aren’t there unbelievers who think, “How could God give up His Son to die? That’s evil.” Yet as believers we understand that God gave us His son and Jesus offered up Himself because He loved us (John 3:16, Romans 5:8) This shows us that what humans consider to be evil and what God considers to be evil are not the same. Yet, God remains the epitome of all moral excellence.
Rather than refuse to confront seemingly uncomfortable and unsettling portrayals of God in the Old Testament by presuming the writer was mistaken, we must take the written Word as it is and ask ourselves, “The Bible records that God did this and this, why did He act that way and what does this tell me about the nature of God?”
In every passage where it is recorded that God killed persons or sent a plague or delivered the Israelites into the hands of their enemies, it was preceded by a narration of the people’s iniquity and sinfulness. We see statements saying their acts “displeased the Lord” (See Gen. 38:10, Numbers 11:1, 1 Chron. 21:7) or was “evil in His sight” (Gen. 6:5, Num. 32:13, Judges 2:11). And so, we see God’s righteous judgment against sin/evil, and not an evil or malicious God going on a killing spree out of hatred for man or for morbid pleasure. We see an absolutely holy, just and perfect God who detests sin and must deal with sin decisively, because sin corrupts, pollutes and degrades His creation. God’s wrath stems from His holiness and His desire to preserve the spiritual wellbeing of His creation. This was why none of the people who rebelled against God in the wilderness made it to the Promised Land; only their children “who had no knowledge of good and evil” did (See Num. 32:13, Deut. 1:35-39). It was to preserve the moral health of His chosen ones in the “good land” they were about to possess. God’s holiness and righteous judgment, therefore, does not negate His goodness and love. The wrath of God does not reflect poorly on His loving nature. Is he truly a good and loving God if he allows sin and its evil consequences persist?
A correct understanding of these Old Testament passages actually enables us new creatures in Christ appreciate the redemptive and saving work of Jesus. It is that very wrath we see in the OT that Jesus saved us from. Just like the people of Israel, we had the sinful nature and were ‘children of wrath’ (Eph. 2:3) By the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lord laid on Him all our sins and the wrath of God was satisfied (Isaiah 53), ushering us into the dispensation of grace where forgiveness is available for all. And for everyone who believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have right standing with God and are saved from the wrath of God stored up on the Day of his righteous judgment upon the children of disobedience (Rom 2:5, Eph. 5:6). This is the true basis for our unshaking assertion that God will not kill or inflict calamity on anyone because their sins have been paid for by Jesus Christ; God has poured out mercy and grace upon humanity through Jesus Christ, and is patiently calling on mankind to be reconciled to Him (2 Corinthians 5:19). These passages also give us an in-depth understanding of how much God hates sin, that we may walk in a manner pleasing to him. This was the emphasis of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 – “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” After an exposition of the presence of Christ in the Old Testament, Paul cited examples of the Israelites’ sin from Exodus & Numbers, affirming the authority of Old Testament Scripture; if the writer was incorrect to attribute the punishment the Israelites suffered for their sin to God, the Holy Spirit would have moved Paul to say so. But he says, “But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness”, confirming that they were judged by God for their sin.
Apart from God’s holiness, the Old Testament also establishes God’s sovereignty. God is the Source of all life and can determine when life begins and ends (See Psalm 90:3) So, when you say Hannah was wrong when she prayed, “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up” (1 Sam. 2:6), you focus on a myopic view of God’s goodness and lose sight of a precious truth: God is sovereign and all-powerful. God Himself had said earlier through Moses, “Now see that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.” (Deut. 32:39). Jesus teaches this same truth about the Father: “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5)
It is important to note that the aforementioned passages refer to physical life. People have defended this teaching with John 10:10 saying, “It is the Devil that kills, steals and destroys; Jesus only gives life.” And to that, I pose this question: “when God told Adam and Eve that they would die if they eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, did they die physically?” They suffered spiritual death, and Jesus died and was raised to life that we may enjoy spiritual/eternal life; this is what He meant when He said “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” And for everyone who believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are quickened and made spiritually alive with Christ (Eph. 2:5). John 10:10 must first be understood in the spiritual sense: Satan seeks the separation of man from God so he brought about spiritual death, he stole man’s authority and power, but Jesus has destroyed his works. Undoubtedly, Satan, being the evil being he is, also wreaks havoc by causing physical death and all kinds of calamity, but God is ultimately in control of all life. That was why God could expressly command Satan not to take Job’s life (Job 1:12)
Conclusion: There Is No Conflict
So how do we reconcile the revelation of God in the Old and New Testament? Well, the error is in thinking that there is a conflict, that the Old Testament only portrays God as a God of anger and judgment, while it was first in the New Testament, through Jesus Christ, that we come to know God as a God of mercy and grace. Before time even began, God has been and will always be merciful and good. The Old Testament narrates many instances where God withheld his anger and showed forgiveness (Exodus 32:14, 2 Sam. 24:16, 1 Kings 21:29, Jonah 3:10), and contains symbols of God’s mercy that would later be fully fulfilled in Jesus Christ. For example, after exacting judgment on Adam and Eve for disobedience, God made garments for them and clothed them (Genesis 3:21); also, when venomous snakes bit the Israelites due to their rebellion, the Lord instructed Moses to make a bronze snake and hang it on a pole, so that whomever is bitten can look to it and live (Numbers 21:8-9). Here are some OT verses that speak of God’s mercy and grace:
“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin…”– Exodus 34:6-7
“But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” – Psalm 86:15
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” – Psalm 103:8-10
“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” – Micah 7:18-19
“Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” – Lamentations 3:22-23
“So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.” – Joel 2:13
In Jesus Christ, we see all these Scriptures fulfilled. We see the actualization of God’s mercy, goodness and love towards humanity.
And here are New Testament verses that speak of God’s justice and judgment, apart from those earlier cited.
“Therefore, consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness…” – Romans 11:22
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…” – 2 Corinthians 5:11
“For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” – Hebrews 10:30-31
It is evident that God is portrayed as kind, loving, gracious and merciful, alongside the portrayals of His holiness, righteousness and justice in both the Old and New Testament. He is revealed as truly in the Old Testament as He is in the New Testament; both unify to reveal God and His Son, Jesus Christ, in fullness.
We must be careful not to have a one-sided view of God that fits our own mold of what He should be. As believers, we study the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, and we do this without sitting in judgment over what has been written or objecting to what we erroneously and fearfully think paints God in a bad light. He does not need you to make him look good; He is good in Himself. The Bible reveals many attributes of God and they are not inconsistent with each other at all. As Tozer writes, “Between His attributes, no contradiction can exist. He need not suspend one to exercise another, for in Him all attributes are one.”
I implore us to take time to study all the Scriptures stated here, even as we maintain an open, humble and teachable spirit. The Holy Spirit will help us understand His Word and guide us into all truth. Amen.
*All A.W. Tozer quotes are from his book The Knowledge of the Holy.
The Man Christ Jesus
Enoch: The Seventh from Adam
Time, Timelessness and Jesus Christ
This is from the blog My Dreams and Visions:
I’ve seen this vision for a while now so I am going to post it. Imagine, if you will, a church building that had been destroyed and this will show what I saw in the vision. The church lay in ruins, no roof overhead, walls crumbled, but some pews remained intact. I saw people there and at first glance one would want to commend them for their faithfulness. However, what i saw next changed my perspective. I saw a cloud moving away from the destroyed church building. There were a few, and let me reemphasize, a few saw the cloud and left while the majority stayed in the destroyed church building, I saw nothing else around, i.e., new church buildings. It was just the people who had chosen to follow the cloud wherever it was leading. The Israelites followed the cloud. When it moved, they moved. When it rested, they rested. Like the church building in my vision those refusing to follow the cloud would be left basically in the desert to fend for themselves. Following the cloud is imperative in these last days as we are headed into uncharted territory. Those in the destroyed church building, although the cloud was no longer there, stayed because it was a place they were familiar with. The cloud represents a walk of faith, a giving up the familiar and yielding to the unfamiliar. To not follow the cloud, is to be in rebellion, face famine of hearing God’s Word, His presence.
This vision started when I heard the Lord speak to my spirit saying the cloud is moving.
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John 3: 8: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Romans 8: 14: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
II Corinthians 3: 6: “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
Following The Cloud
This is from the blog Faith and Fasting:
As with so many dreams, this one didn’t make any sense initially. And while I’ve come to a general conclusion, admittedly, I still don’t know where to specifically aim its application. But, it seems broader than my life, has a feel of being large, so I am compelled to share it with the people of God.
Saturday, May 16: I was shown a complex, flat or two-dimensional, metallic sculpture of many small faces shaped together in a way so as to form one large head. I was told, “look at the ‘death faces’.” Then, I noticed a skull laying sideways in the neck of the sculpture.
Let’s take this dream apart piece by piece: A sculpture is man-made. Metal is formed from material out of the ground. A head symbolizes authority. Many faces means many people. A skull represents death.
That the voice in the dream told me to look at the “death faces”, plural, seems to indicate this group is destructive in God’s eyes. A sideways (dead) skull appearing at the neck of the sculpture symbolizes the saying “cut off at the neck”, which is another representation of overall death.
Putting all of this together, I would say the dream was symbolically demonstrating this message:
A man-made, destructive earthly body comprised of many heads is in process, or will be, of being cut off at the neck (ending).
Watching and waiting for the full meaning to become clear. My suspicion is it applies to some sort of influencing organization, perhaps even a terrorist group, or possibly some evil governing body, that will be cut off from power or authority.
Will you pray with me over this one?
Lord, we praise and honor You, our all-wise God! We surrender to You today and every day, and ask for Your precious Holy Spirit to fill and guide us. Father, whatever this dream means, we ask Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven! So, if You are tearing down an earthly source of power that has served up death and destruction, then we agree with You and pray together for it to come to fruition. We give You all the glory. Thank You for Jesus, for always being our Savior and Deliverer. Bless Your Holy name forever. Amen.
Crazy George Soros
Antifa is real. David Harris Jr. with Sebastian Gorka
This is from the blog Daily Meditation:
Jude 1:12: “These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.”
Water in spiritual parlance refers to the life of God.
Moses while speaking of the future to the children of Israel (Deuteronomy 32:1-2), said may his teachings drop as the rain. The word of God and water (in a spiritual sense) has been closely associated.
The purification of the bride of Christ, according to the teachings of Paul, is done by the washing of water via the word (Ephesians 5:25-27).
Blessings and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit have also been associated with water in the word of God, both being an extended and intensive expression of the life of God. The rivers of living water illustrates the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-38) and the well of living water like the one Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman about (John 4:10. 13-14), is about the life of God in people.
Paul said let your words be seasoned with salt, ministering grace to the hearers (Ephesians 4:29). The life of God and his grace are alike. If they are not one and the same thing. I see the former as the potential energy and the later the kinetic energy, the former the raw material while the latter is the product. Jesus was said, in the bible, to be “full of grace and truth” and, “in Him was life” (John 1:4, 14, 17).
Peter said ministering to others is about being a conduit of the grace of God, the blessing of God, whether in spiritual or physical form (1Peter 4:9-10).
Therefore to be a cloud without water, as the accusation of Jude against some people goes, is to be bereft of spiritual value maybe because your attention is on accomplishing some other things rather than being a blessing. You may want to be make money for yourself, or achieve a name for yourself, or have gotten swallowed up by fleshly drives.
A cloud without water is a contradiction. This is a person who, like a cloud, is in an elevated position. He is so positioned that people look up to him for spiritual value but they meet nothing but frustration and retrogression.
Jesus cursed a tree because he expected a “blessing” from it and he got nothing (Mark 11:12-14). A cloud without water is all sound but no anointing, no fire from the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4).
Don’t be a cloud without water.
The number one thing to do is to value the presence of God. There, one on one with him, you soak in his rains as it falls on you so that you are full of water to rain on others (Hosea 6:3).
The king’s spokesman must hear, from the king before speaking for him. The task of speaking for God is so solemn that a declaration of woe is made upon anyone who says, “Thus says the Lord,” when God has not spoken (Ezekiel 13:1-3).
Since Jesus is full of grace and truth, it means that there is no grace (divine ability) anywhere else apart from in full fellowship with Him through the Holy Spirit. And any attempt to proclaim truth without Christ first expressing it (also by fellowship and sometimes hardship) in you, it is merely expressing an opinion.
Since truth makes free, therefore its expression is more than being articulate (and that is good [Proverbs 16:21]). You must have been actively engaging truth the person, to communicate truth in your message.
What I am saying is that you may say the right things (any parrot can do that) but you cannot communicate the truth that make people free without being in active fellowship with the truth. The quantity of time some pastors spend in the presence of God in prayer is so pitifully small. That is because being a pastor is just something they do and not who they are, therefore, they are pastors made in the church organization not made from the heaven.
They become a disappointment both to themselves and to the people they are meant to serve. They fall into depression, they burnout, and they mess around because they tried to output what they can’t. They are clouds without water. They want to give spiritual nourishment when they neglect the Father of spirits.
Sometimes some of these clouds have water to give but the volume of water is not more than a splatter, more a nuisance than a blessing. They move the people momentarily but there is no lasting impact for God. Not for lack of sincerity on their part, it is lack of familiarity with the ways of God which they can only learn when living your life from the presence of God.
These set of people suffer from underdeveloped capacity, they spend scanty time in the presence of God and therefore have scanty rain to give the people.
Moses was described as a person who knew the way of God (Psalm 103:7). God used him to sustain a nation in the wilderness. He had enough spiritual clout to command the deliverance of nation. But everything started from the presence of God (Exodus 3:1-5) and he continued in that form throughout his lifetime. Moses was one to spend extended periods of time with God.
His value for the presence of God borders on obsession. Moses was not moved in his resolve even when it was suggested that, not the Lord, but an angel would lead the children of Israel (Exodus 32:31-35, 33:12-16). He refused to settle for the second best. Is there such hunger in you that says, “for the presence of God I will give it all it takes?” For Moses God himself could not stand in his way. He’ll rather die than not see light, the light in his presence.
Many want to begin to show people the way when they have not experience the light of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ (2Corinthians 4:5-7). Moses said to God, “Show me your glory.” You can only lead the people of God to glorious place when you have experienced God’s glory in the place of seeking.
God rebuked certain prophets in the book of Jeremiah, saying they prophesied but not according to him and have led the people astray (Jeremiah 23:16-23). But the solution was simple: God said if they had taken the pain to find out what He has to say then they would truly speak for him. And not be clouds without water.
Dreams from the LORD 2011-2020
22 May 2020
Last night I had a dream about Barack Obama. It was a long dream. We were both in the same house. He was acting very strange. The Lord showed me that Obama was very wicked. Obama tried to talk to me, but I avoided him like the plague. Then Obama became afraid of me. This other guy showed up in the room and told me that Obama knew my name.
Acts 19:15: “And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?”
Be Known by Hell – Leonard Ravenhill
The Gates of Hell
Paga (Intercession)
ObamaGate
The Death of Hillary Clinton
Prophetic Dream: Kim Clement
Prophetic Dream of Obama Scheme Against Trump
Turkish News Report on Adrenochrome
Execution of SEAL Team 6
