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This is from the blog Words from the Crucible:
Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.
Genesis 21:9
A most notable characteristic that distinguishes the children of the flesh from those of God’s Spirit is the mocking spirit by which they operate.
These children after the flesh, whose eyes are full of scorn, walk about freely in the household of faith quite unnoticed. They are given to much commentary concerning the things which they see, hear, and think; at best feigning humility, hungry for argument; hearing many things and being understanding in few; hating reproach, scoffing without reason at those who have wise counsel; witnessing to the words of others falsely, so that they may steer men into the same bitterness by which they themselves walk.
But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit.
Jude 1:18-19
For as it was with Isaac and the son of the slave woman, so it is today.
But those who, like Sarah, have been blessed to carry the Son of Promise, and bear out His fruit of their womb, are able to discern the subtlety of that scorning which is seen in the posture of the fleshly children; and are sorely grieved by their presence, and become filled with a righteous anger that such are able to continue in their mocking ways among God’s flock.
I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers, nor did I exult. Because of Your hand upon me I sat alone, for You filled me with indignation.
Jeremiah 15:17
These walking mockeries of God’s children make sport of the righteous in their conversation, not fearing the Lord in their houses; and they make much outward fellowship among God’s people with the laughter of self-assurance, seeking always to be at ease in Zion. Alas for their souls! Unless they are struck with the true fear of the glorious God before the end, how great will be their final fall! For it is better to dwell more often in the house of mourning, and to quiet one’s soul before He who searches it, than to always break bread presumptuously, chattering on in the house of gladness, giving no thought to the day of judgement.
“These are ones who cause divisions,” the apostle says. For even if they are outwardly guilty of only a little of this mockery of the way of God’s Spirit, and even if they are not set above many brethren, nor so grievously ravage the church as those described in Jude’s letter; it is still the same spirit (or spiritual posture) of mocking by which they walk. Even if they are not purposefully and consciously undermining the harmony of the body of Christ; these still are a blemish at its love feasts, waterless clouds, and raging waves of the sea, driven about by fierce winds.
For they love what benefits of the Lord’s table might numb their soul to His Spirit’s conviction of their depraved nature, and also what comradery of the brethren might justify them in the sight of certain men whom they perceive to be leaders. But because it is all a self-deception and a ruse, they indeed cause divisions by the very nature of their presence; since, being devoid of the Spirit, they cannot harmonize with those whose walk with Christ happens to challenge them, and so the flow of the Spirit is impeded by this dead wood that has fallen into the river.
Hence, brothers become divided over them unknowingly, and cease to work together in what the Lord is truly concerned with. Time is thrown into the void, and many a spiritual life is exasperated by the casting of pearls before the swine. Ever do they learn in order to keep up in the natural eyes of men, yet never do they come to a true knowledge of the truth. Ever do they hurl foolish and unlearned questions at those in God’s house whom they secretly despise, and ever is the proverb fulfilled in them, “A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain.” (Prov.14:6) For their wells are broken, and their soil salted.
In short, these sons of the slave woman are a mockery of the sons of the free simply by what they are.
Therefore, let the members of Christ see it fit to cease their worldly entreatment of the carnal; for such entreatment will not win such men over to Christ Himself. But the turning of them over to the world which they still love, which world is the mirror of all hypocrites, might bring even some of these to repentance.
The accommodating of Ishmael is not the mission of the church. He is rather to be repented of; so that perhaps God may later work salvation for him, and the church will also be blessed, and freed of his leaven. May we come to discernment! Without discernment there is no dividing between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit; and if division is not made between the workers of both, it will drive a wedge between the brothers of the latter. Because of this, even many a true son after the Promise is caught in the ways of the spirit of mockery, and are thereby driven to many unnecessary divisions.
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
Psalm 1:1
Shiloh
Enmity: True Christians versus False Christians
This is from the blog A Word in Season:
“What he needs is not increased spiritual teaching but an obedient heart which is willing to yield his life to the Holy Spirit and go the way of the cross according to the Spirit’s command. Increased spiritual teaching will only strengthen his carnality and serve to deceive him into conceiving himself as spiritual”
–Watchman Nee
King John of England signing the Magna Carta at Runnymede, 15 June 1215
This is from the blog Richard’s Watch:
In the UK an individual has rights laid down since Magna Carta.
This is particularly important when a crime is committed or suspected of being committed. As under the rights laid down from Magna Carta onwards, someone in the UK is deemed innocent until proven guilty. If you are accused of a crime, the onus is on the State to prove your guilt.
The writ of Habeus Corpus prevents the State from imprisoning you without evidence of a crime.
Under the European legal system, they never had a Magna Carta of their own and as such they work under a different assumption than we do, in that you are guilty unless you can prove your innocence.
Thus, the State has the legal authority to imprison you whilst they find the evidence and formulate the case to convict you. The onus is on you to prove your innocence as there is no automatic assumption in law of your innocence.
Under UK law you have a right, as laid down under Magna Carta to have a trial by your peers, in Europe your trial will be heard by a panel of judges. It may not seem like much of a difference but it is crucial in ensuring impartiality in the legal system. To prevent abuse by the State jailing people purely for political reasons. We do not have a history of such things in the UK, continental Europe however does.
The main difference between the two systems can be summed up quite simply.
In the UK you can live your life, free of intrusion by the State as long as what you are doing isn’t illegal, in Europe you can do the same but only as long as what you are doing is enshrined in law as being legal.
This is why we Brits look at the Germans and find it peculiar that they follow rules to the letter. They have to, as their legal system tells them what behaviours and actions are allowed in law whereas ours tells us what isn’t allowed. That is such a fundamental difference to your ability to think and act freely and to go about your business without intrusion by the State because if there is nothing in law to say you cannot do something, then by default, here in the UK it is legal.
This is primarily why German society is far more ordered and regimented than here in the UK but that orderliness comes at a cost. As the State controls the people, whereas here the people (supposedly) control the State. They are supposed to work for us and not the other way around, although many in Parliament since the Brexit vote have seemingly been influenced by the European way of thinking somewhat.
This fundamental difference in law is why every Englishman has by law been deemed a free man since birth, that is our birthright and it is why I want to leave the EU. As slowly but surely, our legal system is being overridden by the prescriptive ideas of European legal thought and the rights enshrined by Magna Carta, the worlds first ever declaration of the inalienable rights of the individual over the Institutions of State are being undermined.
That alone is reason to leave the EU and when you hear people claiming that the EU protects their Human Rights, ask them how it is protecting their rights of liberty as laid down 800 years ago at Runnymede on the banks of the River Thames?
As this seemingly obscure document signed by King John in 1215 is absolutely fundamental in ensuring your freedom and liberty that the US Constitution borrowed huge parts of it to ensure that America and Americans would have the same when they created ‘the land of the free.’
Please share this post as it is crucial in explaining what we could lose under the EU and it is worth fighting for with every fibre of your being.
On the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta
John Milton: Writer and Revolutionary
A Revolutionary People at War
Right Wing Institute
Spiritual Nature of Brexit vs. EU
This is from the blog Words from the Crucible:
And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven. And whatever you may loose on the earth shall be, having been loosed in Heaven.
Matthew 16:16-19 (LITV)
This scripture gives us an insight into the mystery of God’s intercession through His people on behalf of His people.
The “binding” and “loosing” which the church is here expected to do is that which accords with the will of heaven – for otherwise it would not be reflected in heaven, as is here described. And don’t we pray, after all, for God’s will to be done on earth as it is done in heaven, and not the other way around? Therefore the church binds and looses according to God’s will, or it truly binds and looses nothing. For it is no single man except THE LAMB who is worthy to loose the seals that are bound; and the saints pray in accordance with HIS Spirit unto that end.
And by this we know the wicked church of man, along with its shepherds: that they themselves suppose to bind and to loose, but against the commandment of God; and therefore in heaven it is not reflected. For as Peter wrote, the cleverly devised myths of the false shepherds come not by the decree of God as given in His more sure Word of prophecy – which many of us are so fortunate to hold in our hands, and unto which we would do well to take heed (2Pet 1:16-21). Therefore, those unrepentant idol shepherds of men risk being bound in chains under gloomy darkness, as exemplified by their once heavenly predecessors, and having an eternal hell loosed upon them thereafter (Jude 1:6-8).
For this intercessory mandate is not a permitting of men to autonomously decree and declare that even good things occur by the hand of God as they see fit, nor some manner of test to see what the church will do with the keys. Rather, it is a call for the members of Christ to intercede for the things of the kingdom of heaven in accordance with the already decreed and declared will of God.
But what is that decree of God? Who has fully known the mind of the Lord? And let no man say, “I have the mind of Christ.”
For what do the scriptures declare?
“WE have the mind of Christ.”
Yet who is this “we”?
Paul made the above statement while explaining how the things of God are truly known only by the Spirit of God; and immediately after describes those who are not spiritual, who are not ready to rightly hear the deeper things of God due to their carnality. Concerning these he remarks:
And, brothers, I was not able to speak to you as to spiritual ones, but as to fleshly ones, as to babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, and not food, for you were not then able, but neither now are you yet able.
For you are yet fleshly. For where among you is jealousy, and strife, and divisions, are you not fleshly and walk according to man?
For when one may say, “Truly I am of Paul,” and another, “I of Apollos;” are you not fleshly? What then is Paul? And what Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, and to each as the Lord gave?
1 Corinthians 3:1-5 (LITV)
The striving after ministries of good repute and the dependence upon other men of the faith to define our own faith, doctrine and practice on our behalf, are the sure signs of a carnal people. Even the apostle Paul permitted no man to regard his own faithful reputation in their consideration of the very word that he himself preached, saying, “but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Gal 1:9)
The discernment of spirits is the province of the Spirit of God alone; and unless each one submits to the tryings, searchings, and purgings of the Spirit, there shall be no “we” that can attain to any measure of knowing the mind of Christ, so as to bind and loose on earth what is to be bound and loosed in heaven. For that mind is the mind of He who searches hearts, “and He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Rom 8:27)
It is HE who fully knows the will of God, and to that end the Spirit is given. It is in the groanings of the Spirit of God that each member of Christ’s body begins to move according to the mind of Christ: even as God in Christ was incarnate in human flesh, always being about the Father. Whatever part of the body is out of harmony with CHRIST THE HEAD by His Spirit alone, is a disharmony in the body of Christ. Nothing brings the members of His body outside of His harmony more than when they subtly join themselves unto another.
This is how the Spirit of God views the condition of those who do so:
…being puffed up by the mind of his flesh without a cause, and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body having been supplied through the joints and bands, and having been joined together, will grow with the growth of God.
Colossians 2:18-19
The ministrations of the body of Christ on earth are to be born of the very will of God, according to whose will the Spirit of Christ intercedes on our behalf, groaning unutterably within us. No effectual intercession can take place in the body of Christ without the discernment of spirits through Him. When discernment dies in the church, the church can no longer partake in much of the Spirit who intercedes according to the will of God. For they defy His will in their lack of discernment.
The spirit of a thing is known only by the anointing [Gk. christos] of the only-begotten [Gk. monogenes = “one-of-a-kind,” “unique”] Son of God. And antichrist is that which is another anointing; of which there are many. [Gk. anti = “instead of”]
Therefore John writes for us,
Young ones, it is a last hour, and as you heard that the antichrist [Gk. antichristos] is coming, even now many antichrists have risen up, from which you know that it is a last hour.
They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they were of us, they would have remained with us; but they left so that it might be revealed that they all are not of us.
1 John 2:18-19 (LITV)
Take note first of the word “us”. This is the same collective “we” of which we already saw that Paul speaks, who, together as the body of Christ, know the mind of Christ according to His work in each member. It is those who depart from the one anointing of the one Good Shepherd who “went out from us”. It is those who take a postion of supposedly greater anointing unto themselves, cautioning no man against esteeming their reputation in the church, who reveal themselves to be “not of us”.
Among these are ones who say of themselves, “touch not the Lord’s anointed,” although Jesus is the Anointed One of God. Also they are raised up above the flock of Christ as “shepherds” and “pastors,” wielding an organizational authority, as though God recognizes anything less than a living body. Jude calls such men “shepherds feeding themselves”.
They deny the correcting and unifying word of the apostle, they silence the warnings and discernments of the prophet, they despise with great jealousy the outward call of the evangelist, and they steal unto themselves the role of all teachers, seldom allowing others to teach. In all this, they profane the calling of the true pastor, which is one who humbly serves in the body by helping to care largely for the earthly needs of its members. Thus, they destroy the fivefold ministry in the church by denying the unique intercessory roles of each, thereby compromising their own, if they are even truly called to it.
John continues,
And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I did not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because every lie is not of the truth.
1 John 2:20-21 (LITV)
“And you know all things” – This is the beloved apostle’s encouragement to a body of believers who were solid in their discernment and rejection of other anointings. This is the compliment given not to great and clever minds, but to children of God who “by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.” (Heb 5:14) These ones see how the embracing of another anointing is a denial of the Son, and cannot abide the leaven of those who do so.
John continues a little further in his letter,
And the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone teach you. But as His anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and as He taught you, abide in Him.
1 John 1:27 (LITV)
How viscerally do the false shepherds react to this scripture whenever they are opposed with it! How greatly do they minimize its plain teaching! Any man who is uncomfortable with these words is untrustworthy in the ministry of the word, for he does not really trust that God can build HIS own church. It is only the unfiltered anointing of Christ Himself upon His body which produces a true harmony, and a harmony in the truth, unto the good pleasure of God. Only by HIS Lordship alone can the body of Christ “know what is the hope to which HE has called you, what are the riches of HIS glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of HIS power toward us who believe, according to the working of HIS great might…” (Eph 1:18-19)
This brings us back to the theme of our study: intercession. Those who fall under HIS anointing are able, according to the measuring of grace unto each, to discover the substance of His calling upon their lives; so that they, in whatever capacity He has gifted them, may through obedience in the Spirit be found partaking in HIS intercession on behalf of the saints, according to the ministrations of God operating in them.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
1 Corinthians 12:4-7 (ESV)
One of the great lies surrounding this matter in our day is that God may give a stone when His children ask for bread. Truly the worst that the children will receive is discipline. The insincere indeed have reason to so fear; but they do not care. The devil has created such a grotesque smokescreen of demonic and false manifestations, that now many of the true children fear what only the bastards should. The adversary has done this because he knows what is coming. The children who fled the fall of man’s church are restoring the altar of the Lord in their own hearts, calling upon the God who answers by fire. Let us lay hold of the immense promise of Christ to His own, an access to heaven of which the dry bones of this blind dead world cannot conceive: “Seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened to you.”
It is the operation of the Holy Spirit in the secret places of our hearts, through our seeking of no anointing except the Son of God, then flowing out unto the good of the whole body, which brings us to participate in the sufferings and joys of He who is the Head of all that He calls His own. And this we long for if we seek His face.
The LORD is my Shepherd,
I shall not want.
When the members of Christ covet and follow after the anointings of men and the visions of people puffed up in their own imaginations, who also knowingly pose foolish and unlearned questions to those who challenge their fables, the jealously of God is kindled; for it is not they who have the right to bind and loose, nor to open and shut, but it is HE. Let them be found repentant, and enter by the only Door of the sheep, lest they be cast out with the hirelings, the thieves, and the robbers of God’s glory.
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, write: “These things says the Holy One, the True One, the One having the key of David, the One opening, and no one shuts; and shuts, and no one opens:
I know your works. Behold, I have given a door being opened before you, and no one is able to shut it, for you have a little power and have kept My word, and have not denied My name. Behold, I give out of the synagogue of Satan those saying themselves to be Jews, and they are not, but they lie. Behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they shall know that I loved you.
Revelation 3:7-9 (LITV)
The church fulfills her calling when she at last allows Christ Himself to be her kinsman redeemer.
Little children, guard yourselves from idols. Amen.
1 John 5:21
“Jacob Wrestling with the Angel” by Alexander Louis Leloir, 1865.
“Jacob will remain Jacob until he is broken.”
–Brian Troxel
The above quote by Brian Troxel is from the blog A Word in Season. Bread cannot feed the multitude until it is broken. Our lives will never bring forth much fruit unless our lives are broken of self will. We need to take up our cross daily, die to self and let the Lord have His way with us. The Lord’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Not my will, but thine be done.
Matthew 16: 24: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
“The warrior of God is not the man of muscle and a strong jaw, but the man of un-utterable weakness, the man who knows he has not any power; Jacob is no longer strong in himself, he is strong only in God, his life is no longer marked by striving, but by reliance on God. You cannot imitate reliance on God.”
–Oswald Chambers
Broken Bread and Poured-Out Wine
The Man Christ Jesus
Jacob Meeting God by Leonard Ravenhill
Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel
Broken Bread and Poured Out Wine (Paul Balius)
This is from the blog Return, Revive, Repair, Restore
While reading “The Workman of God“, by Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest), in the chapter entitled “The Worker Among the Two-Faced“, I came across a passage which I believe needs to be prayerfully considered, by all who serve Jesus Christ, in Gospel ministry. In the passage, King David and Nathan the prophet are being used to reveal the often easy to hide hypocrisy, which can grow in the heart of those who truly love the Lord.
“Let us go back to the incident recorded in II Samuel 12. For subtlety, for amazing insight and sublime courage, Nathan is unequaled…
…Would to God there were more preachers and Christian workers after the stamp of Nathan. David did not even begin to realize, after a year of the grossest and most dastardly hypocrisy, that Nathan was brandishing the sword straight into his own conscience, and only when David had made his answer and Nathan heaved out strong denunciations of God and thrust the sword straight home with, “Thou art the man,” did David say, “I have sinned against the LORD.” There was no bungling about Nathan’s work.
If you want to know how it was possible for a mighty man of God like David to have sinned the most wicked sin possible–I do not refer to adultery or to murder, but to something infinitely worse, a deep, subtle, inward hypocrisy, tremendous and profound; David lived with it for a year and administered justice while all the time he was a “whited sepulcher”–you must first allow God to examine deep down into the possibilities of your own nature.”
This passage caused me great pause.
How often do we in the pursuit of our calling, begin to compromise, concerning the time we set apart for seeking the face of God? Usually this pursuit is justified by how much work we have to do, as ministers. Yet even as we justify the compromise, almost apologetically with an “I know I need to spend more time with the Lord” statement, we really have little intention of changing course or stepping off the merry-go-round. Why?
David’s calling as king, laid upon him responsibility and a persona–it provided him with ego stroking that little by little replaced his desire for God and his desire to follow hard after Him.
Let’s be honest, as ministers we must be careful of the same pitfall. We are called to the ministry of the word and prayer, but if that is erroneously founded upon study and intellectual recall, we minister from an emptying well. It is often true in our ministry context, that if we don’t get it done no one else will; but to live by that is to walk in pride. We need to re-frame our efforts for the kingdom of God with “Lord Jesus is this what you want me to do?” Then wait for His reply and obey His leading.
David’s pride was stoked by unbridled passion, not tempered or led by the Holy Spirit, for a long time before his fall. This lead to little compromises in carnality, which began to wither his resolve. Those little carnal compromises appear in our lives, when we are not finding the continual fullness of the Holy Spirit, because we are ministering out of experience, rather than the present leading and power of God. As a result of our living and ministering on “auto pilot”, we lose spiritual stamina, strength and resolve.
When this occurs we think we are dealing with our troubles, like the spiritually mature, who soldier on. The truth is, we are not dealing with them at all; except with carnal and worldly activities and distractions (ministry might be one as well).
As David fit this pattern, we can very easily as well. Have you ever read of the Ephesian Church in Revelation 2:1-8? Once more let’s visit Chamber’s work.
“Mark how Nathan came to David. “And the LORD sent Nathan to David.” Be sure, before you face a hypocrite, a two-faced soul, that God has sent you… to use all the subtlety you have from your own heart. Any worker who has stood before God’s all-searching eyes for five minutes is not staggered at David’s fall. Any heart-sin recorded is possible for any human heart, and why I say that the worker among the two-faced (one given to secret hypocrisy) will find the hardest work is that he has to get his wisdom and subtlety not only from God on High, but from a strange, mighty probing of His own nature.
In addition, Chamber’s writes…
Worker for God, before you go among the infirm, the sick, the subtle, the hypocrite, let God deal with you. A child cannot wield the sword of the Spirit; it must be wielded by one fed on strong meat, one who has been deeply dealt with and examined by God’s Spirit, in whom the last springs and possibilities of iniquity and wrong in his own nature have been disclosed to him, that he might understand the marvel of God’s grace.
Considering Chamber’s last comments. How often do we minister on Christ’s behalf with sanctified motive and sincere love of the brethren–thinking as we minister along the line of “God is moving for sure”, only to see a limited and disappointing result?
It is true this can be attributed to callousness, immaturity or spiritual insensitivity, in the persons being ministered to, but it is also possible the fault may lie with us. Would we not serve Him more effectively, by seeking the Lord to search our own hearts?
The New Testament reveals that the servants of Christ, who were fully set apart for God, refused to pick up worldliness and denied themselves as a rule, were not only happy in Christ in the most dire places, but powerfully effective in turning the world upside down.
Come to think of it, around the world, where the ministers of Christ do the same, they minister in miraculous power, persevere in difficulty and are making disciples in the direst places. Perhaps it is time for the servants of the Lord in America to confess, we like David are not only prone to harboring hypocrisy, through justifying compromise, but may be in the midst of it right now.
Dear friends, I point no finger at you, but confess, I have, at times fallen prey to this carnal pattern. If you have not, pray for me, that I would follow the pathway of Nathan, rather than David. May God bless you as consider this writing.
