The Clear Air of the Heavenly Tabernacle

“How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked…” -Psm. 1.1a

“You shall charge the sons of Israel, that they bring you clear oil of beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn continually.” -Ex. 27.20

It is one thing to declare in a church meeting that the Lord has become our Counselor. It is quite another thing to dwell in the clear air of His heavenly sanctuary, and to surrender our lives- lock, stock, and barrel- to the counsel He gives us in real life. Are we naive enough to believe that walking in the counsel of the wicked is limited to practicing Satanism, engaging in prostitution and drug activity, or giving ourselves to some other blatantly dark thing?

What if I told you that we can be just as duped into walking in the counsel of the wicked by things that seem good or religious? What if I told you that being swallowed up in a hundred “decent family movies” can be just as detrimental to your heart as viewing a movie that has all kinds of moral compromise? What if I told you that you can sing on a worship team, listen to Christian radio, even ‘pastor’ a Church, and still be totally devoid of the counsel of God?

If we are not pressing past the voices that surround us, and into the vital counsel of God Himself, then we are completely vulnerable candidates for walking in the counsel of the wicked. We may speak religiously, but we will not be free from the spirit of this age which rules the hearts of men, binding them in lust, fear, intimidation, anxiety, and self-centeredness. The nature and condition of a man’s life when he is not in a religious meeting is the statement of where he really is in God.

The seven-branched Levitical “lampstand” in the tabernacle of Moses was fueled by “clear oil of beaten olives for the light.” At the command of the Lord, the oil which fed the flame was to be clear, beaten from olives, “to make a lamp burn continually.” The Lord has always desired that His people, who are typified by a “lampstand” in the Revelation to John, would bear a flame of fullness that was fit to burn continually. 

Instead, we have settled for soulish outbursts of religiosity once or twice a week in services, but have been unwilling to go through the heat and pounding that the Levitical lampstand was required to endure for its formation. Only a rightly fashioned lampstand that is fed by clear oil can bear the seven-fold flame that the Lord has desired it to burn with.

We have wanted lives that we can control, that we can own, that never discomfort or challenge us with unpredictable counsel from the Ancient of Days. We participate in a measure of Christian devotion, knowing full well that if we were to surrender to the Lord unreservedly, we would likely be shaken from our stationary spirituality, and called into a more dangerous and risky love than we have ever before known. 

We have not been willing for Him to surprise us, to consecrate us, to immerse us in His heart and His ways. We have desired a partial involvement, a limited relationship, and it is something that falls short of covenantal glory. Hence, our flame sputters and fluctuates. It’s choppy, sporadic, and usually dim. We have willingly allowed a tainted oil to go through the lampstand for the feeding of the flame, but the Lord will have no such thing. He requires a clear oil, the oil which He Himself provides, rather than something lesser that we have received from men, or something that we have worked up by our own wisdom. Truthfully, dear saint, what oil are you receiving?

Again, I inquire: We may declare the Lord our Counselor in a church meeting, but who’s counsel are we actually walking in? The bad fruit of wicked counsel is a life of religious striving, moral compromise, mistrust and suspicion, fear, anxiety, and self-absorption. To breathe in the clear air of the Heavenly sanctuary, to break into open communion with the God of Life, is to receive the clear oil into our souls, and to dwell in the counsel of the Almighty.

When we sink our lives into His counsel, we hear the clear word of His astonishing love for us. We hear the clear testimony of His Son. We hear the clear statement of the judgment to come. He reveals Himself to us, and we are rooted and grounded in love, and brought into an awareness of the gravity and seriousness of His eternal purposes. Only this kind of profound union with the Lord can charge a steady and full flame in the house of God, and He would have it no other way. For if He Himself is the Smith of the lampstand, and the Producer of the oil, and the Giver of the flame, then not only does He have vessels and servants, He has co-laborers and friends. He has sons and daughters. “… a bride adorned for the Bridegroom.” (Rev. 21.2b)

Receiving tainted oil, which is allowing the aura and essence of the world to influence our minds and hearts, is the ominous gate to walking in the counsel of the wicked. It results in something less than true communion with God, however innocent that counsel may appear. But to break out of the cobwebs of worldly influence and thought, and into the clear air of God’s holy house, is to be immersed in the counsel of the Lord, which is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 14.17b)

We’ve got to be fiercely desirous of the clear air, saints. The media, Hollywood, and often our co-workers, relatives and neighbors, are wanting to drag us down into the various pits where they have resolved to remain, and which rob them of the Life that His counsel offers us. Don’t be duped by a smile, by wealth, or by a confident attitude. If they are not receiving the “clear oil” of God, they are walking in the counsel of the wicked, and if you don’t break out of the pit you will not have Life sufficient to overcome the lies yourself, much less to provide a gate of deliverance for them. We’ve got to “delight in the law of the Lord,” and give our lives in the place of prayer, worship and fasting, lest we find our “lampstands” filled with tainted oil, and our flames sputtering and fading in the winds of this age.

God is not a God of confusion and disarray. He is sounder and more stable than the foundations of the earth, unchanging and eternal, and He lives in the clear air of Heaven. He has always desired a people who would dwell there with Him, and if you have repented and believed the Gospel of God, you have been raised up into His house through the work of His Son. It’s time to cast the murky oil to the side, be it moral compromise, or simply giving our time and energies to too many seemingly good things, while neglecting the place of face to face counsel from Him. 

The hour is here for an ultimate consecration of our hearts to the Lord, and the invitation He is giving us is glorious beyond description. “Now is the day of salvation” from all that has hindered us from the full experience of the clear oil of His Spirit. Isn’t this what you long for? He has made His own “righteousness, peace, and joy” available to us in a radical way through His Son.

And what is the glory that lights upon the believer who breaks out of wicked counsel and into the clear air of the heavenly Tabernacle?

“He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,

Which yields its fruit in its season

And its leaf does not wither;

And in whatever he does, he prospers.” –Psm. 1.3

Hallelujah.

The Gate of the LORD

“This is the gate of the LORD

through which the righteous may enter.

I will give you thanks, for you answered me;

you have become my salvation.

The stone the builders rejected 

has become the capstone;

the LORD has done this,

and it is marvelous in our eyes.

This is the day the LORD has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.” -Psm. 118.20-24

We would do well to commence each day with the vision that this psalm sets forth. It is so charged with the goodness of God that one can hardly finish it without breaking into praise and thanksgiving. It would be good to devote a few months to plumbing its depths, but for brevity’s sake, let us behold a few strokes on this remarkable canvas.

What is “the gate of the LORD?” We know not whether this refers to a literal entrance in the heavens, or if it is a symbol for the place of vital access to the living God, but we know one thing from verse 20. Whatever that gate is, “the righteous may enter” through it. Did you know that if you are “the righteous” before God, you “may enter” “the gate of the LORD?” Have you considered the reality of what this implies, as something greater and other than a nominal involvement in Christianity?

The implication established is that if the gate is “the gate of the LORD,” then He Himself is the One to be discovered and encountered upon entering through the doorway. Is there any other gate which holds this kind of significance? I may enter every great gate in the nations of the earth; gates that lead to awesome treasures; gates that give me access to Kings and potentates; gates that lead into the most stunning and beautiful gardens or museums. But if I fail to enter this gate I have lost everything. 

If I am permitted to enter this gate, “the gate of the LORD,” I have no need to enter another, however royal or privileged it may appear. If God Himself has justified you, and called you righteous, who can prevent you from entering His gate? Can demons and wicked rulers? Can intimidating friends or cantankerous relatives? Can evil dictators? Is there anyone who can prevent you from entering the gate of the Lord if the One who owns the gate has Himself invited you to come in?

The psalmist breaks into thanksgiving in verse 21, “for you answered me; you have become my salvation.” Whoever this psalmist is, it appears that the prophetic Spirit has fallen upon him, for the whole psalm bears the delivery and nature of a holy, futuristic seer. Indeed, a handful of his statements were quoted in the New Testament in direct reference to Christ Himself. Could it be that the psalmist had entered into a vision of the Messiah, and the “gate” that His life embodies for Israel and the nations?

The psalmists would’ve prayed with the prophetic disposition; that is to say, they would’ve carried a cry that Judah as a nation would come into the righteousness and reality of priestly obedience and God-consciousness. Could it be that in their cries for Judah’s spiritual revival and deliverance the psalmist was granted a vision of the One who would “take away the sin of the world?” It is worth considering.

After declaring, “you have become my salvation,” he breaks into this prophetic statement in vv. 22-23:

“The stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone;

the LORD has done this, 

and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Jesus quotes this passage about Himself in Matthew 21, and we are familiar with it for that reason. But have we become too familiar with it, and lost thereby the majesty of what this means? Is it still “marvelous in our eyes?”

I wonder if we, who possess the manifested history of the Messiah’s life, death, and resurrection, are rejoicing in His day as deeply as was this psalmist, who only had a cloudy vision and a moderate understanding of what he was seeing. So profound was his cry for Israel’s spiritual deliverance that this vision caused him to break into thanksgiving and rejoicing. He has seen the gate and the capstone, and was finally assured that one day his cries would be answered in a final and permanent way. The Man who was coming would be the final and decisive address of God Himself, who has spoken through His Son “in these last days.” (Heb. 1)

What the psalmist saw cloudily and in part, the apostles beheld open-faced in the Son of God. What he heard through the muffled inner-ears of prophetic intuition, the apostles listened to at length and with great clarity. What he felt inwardly by the moving of the Spirit, the apostles touched with their hands and embraced in warm experience. 

Have we rejoiced in the great day of the “stone the builders rejected?” He has become the capstone which seals the love of God for us. He has become the gate through which we are declared righteous and by which we enter into a living communion with the Father of lights, the Ancient of Days, the Everlasting One. Remarkable Man! The gate! The capstone! Jesus the Messiah!

The LORD Himself “made” the day of His coming. O, how staggering and shocking is His great love, that He would make a day to come for us, though we have done nothing to deserve Him! No wonder the psalmist broke out into rejoicing, though he was only seeing in part. Where would we be if this day had never come?

“THIS is the day that the LORD has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Put off your gloomy mask, dear saint. It is not befitting the glory of the children of God. The “gate of the LORD” is wide open. Rejoice today in the finished work of the Son of God.

The Waters of Nourishment

“By the river on its bank, on one side and one the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.” -Ezekiel 47.12

In this little portion from one of Ezekiel’s many remarkable visions, a picture is painted that invites us into a mode of being which we scarcely see in our day, but which, I am convinced, will become more common as the end of the age draws to a close. The prophet is taken into a visionary experience wherein he sees water flowing from underneath the Temple of the Lord. The “man” whom the Lord had sent to escort him around leads him into the waters, which go from ankle deep, to knee deep, then to the loins. He is then taken deeper, into moving waters “that could not be forded.” (v. 5)

When he is taken back to the bank, he sees ”all kinds of trees,” and the picture is somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Eden. The trees are “for food,” and “their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail.” These trees, which in Ezekiel’s vision have been nourished by the very waters which flow out from the Throne of God, bear a supernatural kind of productivity and longevity. They have eternal quality, bearing fruit “every month because their water flows from the sanctuary.” Every believer wonders how he can bear more fruit for God, and ministries of all sorts are often concocted in hopes of filling the void that the lack of fruit produces. But the true fruit can only be borne through those whose waters flow from the heavenly sanctuary of God. The fruit of those who draw from the life-giving waters of the Lord will be “food” for those who are suffering from spiritual famine. Those who know little of God’s love and righteousness will feed off of the fruit from those saints who have ceased drinking from the polluted wells of worldliness and religion, transcended the bondage of self-consciousness, and entered joyfully into the deep waters which flow from the Throne of majesty. 

The distinctive element of their leaves is one of healing. Though mankind has been racked with sickness and grimness, the leaves on the trees, which are the most natural part of a tree in bloom, constitute the release of a holy healing for the nations. Is the life issuing out from you a life that brings healing, or are you spreading gossip, complaining, and unbelief? If we are not bringing healing, it can only be for the fact that we have settled with drinking the murkier waters. The clear, teeming, life-filled waters of God will cause even our “leaves”, or the common places of our lives, to bring healing to bear upon Israel and the nations. If we are drawing from the nourishment of those living waters, we will be as the Son of God during His earthly pilgrimage. 

“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” -Acts 10.38

The waters of God are freely accessible to you, saints. Let him who would drink come. 

The Moabite Church

“For because of your trust in your own achievements and treasures, even you yourself will be captured; and Chemosh will go off into exile together with his priests and princes.” -Jer. 48.7

The Moabites were a people who lived in what we now know as Jordan, mostly making their abode along the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. Their kingdom was often in conflict with Israel, and the God of Israel had a long-standing controversy with them. The prophets testify to this controversy.

Moab, as it is addressed in the prophets, presents the picture of a people poisoned by the spirit of pride, independence, and arrogance. This oracle from the prophet Jeremiah gives them an undesirable promise, that because of their pride and self-sufficiency, they will be captured and even their priests and princes, along with their god Chemosh, will go off into exile. This is to say that even their most ‘divine’ authorities and royal potentates would be of no aid to them in the day of the Lord’s judgment.

One of the characteristics that marks Moab is that as a people, she has been casual and laid back to the point of neglecting the truth of her condition, and the reality of God Himself. Listen to this description the Lord gives of Moab:

“Moab has been at ease since his youth; he has also been undisturbed, like wine on its dregs, and he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, nor has he gone into exile. Therefore he retains his flavor, and his aroma has not changed.” (v. 11)

We may have commended Moab for its uniqueness and self-expression, for maintaining its distinctive cultural and religious qualities in the midst of changing times. But the Lord saw Moab as arrogant, non-pliable, and resistant toward Him. He saw them as vessels that had “not been emptied,” and though their “aroma has not changed,” the prophet indicates that the Lord is not pleased with the spiritual “smell” that Moab gives off. Hear the words of J.A. Thompson on this:

Moab is here compared with wine which has been allowed to settle down with its dregs and sediment to age and mature and improve its flavor. It had settled quietly on its lees and had never been disturbed by being poured from vessel to vessel. The picture is one of complacency. But this would soon change.

(J.A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah: NICOT; Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI: 1980, p. 705)

The Lord would not continue to endure the presence of Moab’s complacency, and the trust in her own achievements that she feverishly held onto would soon be toppled by the work of His hand.

“‘Therefore behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will send to him those who tip vessels, and they will tip him over, and they will empty his vessels and shatter his jars.’” (v. 12)

Can it be said that much of the Church is living on Moabite grounds? Trusting in our own achievements, proud and self-sufficient, vessels that have yet to be tipped over and emptied of the wine of this age?

What aroma are we releasing into the atmosphere? Forget the way you look in ministry or at some religious meeting. What about the aroma you release in your home… in the work place… in your neighborhood… at the grocery store, etc.? Are we filling the air with our religious opinions? Are we lacking a true expression of the love of God? Are we grumpy and crotchety when the sanctuary lights aren’t shining on us? Are we loose on sin, flatterers of men, or timid weaklings? Are we swept up by the same waves of entertainment, media, and fashion that move and jerk the undiscerning hearts of those who are walking in darkness?

How much of our upbringing and culture that is not of the flavor and aroma of God’s kingdom still lingers in our lives, and what excuses have we secretly made to permit that kind of a mixture? How often are we quenching the Spirit of God and going into modes of speech and conduct that are in keeping with attitudes which our culture may have always accepted and sanctioned, but that the Lord is not in harmony with?

“For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” -2 Cor. 2.15

Are we functioning as vessels that have not been emptied, that are still filled with the wine of this age? Are we willing daily to be tipped over, emptied entirely, and filled with the Spirit of God Himself? I am convinced that the Church is in a mostly ‘Moabite’ condition, and before the final day comes when the rebellious ‘jars’ are tipped over and shattered, we need to tip over our vessels without reservation, that God may fill us with His own love and purity.

The Lord will only fill those vessels which have been tipped over willingly. The ones that remain upright, recalcitrant and resistant toward His heart and call, will in the last day be tipped against their wills, and shattered by His hand.

We need to be tipped and emptied of the wine of this age, that we may taste of the powers of the age to come. Having been filled with the Spirit of life, we will live and speak as vessels that have been fit to set forth the Son of God to Israel and the nations.

“Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.” -Is. 52.11b

The Mentality of False Sons

“For this is a rebellious people, false sons,

Sons who refuse to listen

To the instruction of the Lord;

Who say to the seers, ‘You must not see visions’;

And to the prophets, ‘You must not prophesy to us what is right,

Speak to us pleasant words, prophesy illusions.

Get out of the way, turn aside from the path,

Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.’” -Is. 30.9-11

When Isaiah prophesied to Judah hundreds of years before the Son of God was born in Bethlehem, there was a large portion of the society which was content and comfortable with a false view of the Lord, and was willing to live in a lie. They sought to pressure God’s true prophet into a kind of proclamation that would titillate their ears and flow in steady stream with their unconsecrated lifestyles. They were not inclined to hearing any kind of a word which would jostle or jolt their ideas of God, or their self-made versions of what He desired for their lives. Hear this from Keil & Delitzsch’s commentary on Isaiah:

They forbid the prophets of Jehovah to prophesy straight or true things (things not agreeable to their own wishes), but would rather hear smooth, insinuating, and flattering things, even illusions or deceits. Their desire was to be entertained and lauded, not repelled and instructed.

… Thus do they fall out with Jehovah, and the bearers of His word.

As the years go by, a trembling grows in my soul for the Church, particularly those who name themselves as Christians in the western world. As another mega-church springs up, replete with exquisite programs and entertaining services, sermons on financial success and all manners of recreational possibilities, another questionable sign emerges. So scarcely do we hear a true word issuing from these congregations, and we ought to be concerned for the tens of thousands of souls who only know this kind of an experience of “church.” There are various expressions of “church” promulgated, from mega-ministries to house churches, but the passion for smooth words is no less alive in our day than it was in Isaiah’s. The question is as fitting now as ever, “Where are the prophets of God, and where are the saints who are willing to hear their words, respond to the call of the Lord they set forth, and live in the light of eternity from that foundational place?”

The mentality of false sons, or as the Hebrew indicates, “lying sons,” is to shirk and evade a word of requirement, and to express a desire for “pleasant words,” “smooth things,” which the prophet defines as “illusions.”  If an illusion is anything, it’s the antithesis or the direct opposite of that which pertains to reality as God Himself sees it. To circumvent the direct truth of the word of the Lord is to be submerged in the quicksands of illusion and deceit. There is only one reality to the Living God. It is His kingdom and rule, the heavenly citadel of righteousness, peace, and joy, which He has desired to share with Israel and the nations, but which has mostly been rejected by the sons of men. The nations have succumbed to deception and planted their roots in illusions. We desperately need a revelation of reality as God Himself sees it, that our lives may come into conformity with what He has always desired.

Are we leaving room for illusions and deceit in our lives, being unwilling to hear from the prophet that “which is right,” that which is authentically ”about the Holy One of Israel”? If the false prophets of Judah spoke about a version of Yahweh’s goodness, but did not set Him forth as He is and were unwilling to call Judah to her prophetic and priestly privilege and responsibility; and if this dilution and cheapening of God’s reality was defined by the prophet as a lie and an illusion, how far are we from the apostasy which plagued them? Are we seeking after “smooth words” which leave us in control of our lives, or are we willing to hear from “the Holy One of Israel” no matter what kind of shaking that brings? 

He is absolutely trustworthy saints, and His shakings are for our eternal good. Let us not be given over to illusions and lies. Let us cry out for the reality of God, and the reality that a true word from Him brings to our lives. The only alternative in the last analysis is to “fall out with Jehovah,” though He has desired to give us life forevermore.

Psalm 126 pt. 1: “A Song”

 

“When the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion,

We were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter

And our tongue with joyful shouting;

Then they said among the nations,

‘The Lord has done great things for them.’

The Lord has done great things for us;

We are glad.” (v. 1-3)

Charles Spurgeon noted that Psalm 126 is broken up into three portions, and we will take the next three days to delve into them:

“a song” (vv. 1-3)

“a prayer” (v.4)

“a promise” (vv. 5-6)

It’s a remarkable Psalm with a true prophetic anointing, an eschatological vision, and very present implications for us as believers. I want to peer into this deep well to see what waters we might gather up, that we may drink deeply of the glorious mercy of God.

The first portion, “a song” (1-3), gives us an awesome picture of Israel at the end of the age, after the smoke of Jacob’s trouble has dissipated. The heightened intensity of their last-days’ salvation experience is such that they describe themselves as “those who dream.” By this time they have passed through such trial, breaking, and devastation, that all of the self-reliance and boasting has been wrung out of their souls. Ezekiel 37 notes that the whole house of Israel will despairingly declare, “Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.” (Ez. 37.11) That day will be so dark for the world, and for Israel in this regard, that they will consider themselves “completely cut off.” It will be a day of dual extremes. The nations will have never known such darkness and despair. You could combine the wars, natural catastrophes, and governmental shakings of history, and they would still fail to meet the profoundly dark nature of that final day of distress. 

But as the darkness will be more extreme than history has ever known, so shall the glorious inbreaking of God’s Kingly return, when the remnant of Israel (those who have survived and found grace in the wilderness) shall hear the heavenly ram’s horn blowing in the distance. They will find themselves, after being stretched thin by the trial of that day, looking upon the One they have pierced, and the waves of God’s mercy and salvation will move through them like an uncontainable tide. Seeing the light and glory of God like never before, they will be “like those who dream.” 

I have seen actors awarded with an Oscar who completely lost it emotionally and fell apart before millions of people, having been overwhelmed at the grandeur of the moment. I’ve seen them weep copious tears, tremble and gasp, and lose all of their intelligible qualities, and its all over a little hunk of metal, and the fleeting applause of colleagues. Even with such a temporal reward, we see the gleam in their eyes, and in many ways they have become “like those who dream.” But not in the Psalm 126 sense. Hear Hans Joachim-Kraus on this:

“At the very beginning of the psalm the faith of the community spreads the wings of its thoughts in a bold flight into the future, and looks into the smiling fields of blissful hope as through a widely opened gate.” 

(Hans Joachim Kraus, PSALMS; Fortress Press) 

The description given here of eschatological Israel makes an Oscar, an MVP award, or a job promotion look like a used tissue in the bottom of a trash can. Israel, when she is saved as a nation at the end of the age, will be so overwhelmed with the majesty of God, the depth of His mercy, and the kindness of His heart, that they will be surrounded on every side with surprise, astonishment and awe, and their national response will be that of intensely mourning their own history of ignorance and rebellion toward Him. Out of the Lord’s radical release of mercy and cleansing, and out from the place of mourning and shame, they will break into such a profound experience of grace that as a nation they will emerge, “a kingdom of priests” and a “light to the world.”

They will go, in one fell swoop, from being a nation mostly made up of apostates, to immediately being a purged and consecrated nation, fulfilling once and for all the Lord’s eternal intention for their existence. The experience is so sudden that the prophet Isaiah, in seeing visions of the same events, was compelled to cry out, “Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in a day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons.” (Is. 66.8)

They will hear Yahweh singing over them with joy, and they will be quieted and stilled by His love (Zeph. 3.14-17). The whole earth will reverberate with the testimony of Jesus over them, and they will experience, for the first time on a national level, unveiled communion with the Messiah whom they had pierced, but whose Blood has effected their saving by that very piercing. O the joy of that day! No wonder they can only describe themselves as “those who dream.”

Out of that glorious place they are thus described:     

 

“Then our mouth was filled with laughter

And our tongue with joyful shouting;

Then they said among the nations,

‘The Lord has done great things for them.’

The Lord has done great things for us;

We are glad.” (vv. 2-3)

Such is the nature of the glorious salvation that we have been grafted into through the Man Christ Jesus. Are we living a hum-drum life, or are we “like those who dream”? The Holy Spirit has been given, “that our joy may be full.”  Look upon the future salvation of Israel, saints. The same inward reality has been opened up to us by the Blood of the Lamb, and we need not live lackluster, earthy lives. The glory of communion has been given once and for all in the cross. Turn heavenward then, dear soul. You may yet hear Him singing over you, and your life and heart will be quieted by His love.

 

Mercy: The Mainstay of Sonship

 

 

“The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against Him…” -Dan. 9.9

The mercifulness of God is so contrary to the revenge-driven nature of humanity, that if we see Him rightly in light of the Gospel message, we are overcome by His kindness and shocked to the core with how delightful He is. We ought to be suspicious of a brand of Christianity which is so solemn that it removes us from the joy of His salvation, puts us under the weight of religious performance, causing our souls to be continually downcast. There is a valid place for the burden of the Lord, and for weeping after His great intentions, but the mainstay of sonship, the foundation of our union with Him must always be found in a vital and active union with the God who is merciful.

Eugene Peterson has written:

“If we get our information from the biblical material there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life.” 

 There is something dubious about a version of the faith which lacks the spontaneous joy that results from the reality of salvational experience. If we are gripped with a burden in prayer, it is meant to be unburdened right there, in the place of intercession. The burdens are not to be carried in a public way, or placed on the shoulders of other saints. There may be times when the Lord calls you to communicate that burden as the prophets of old, but if you carry it in such a way that the Lord has not intended, you will convey something in the name of God that is not marked with the Spirit of God. If the Lord gave it to you in the place of prayer, enjoin your soul with His until the burden lifts and you have done your part as His co-laborer. 

The Church is in a radically anemic place, and while much of the lack can be traced back to a casual, irreverent corporate disposition, the great source of our malnourishment is that we are not rightly receiving His good mercy and holy affection. We chase after things, or the preservation of our reputations, or religious and ministerial status improvements, because we have not adequately received and delighted in the God who is merciful.

Consider these words from the great Puritan writer, Richard Sibbes (1577-1635):

Among the things that are to be taken heed of, there is among ordinary Christians a bold usurpation of censure towards others, not considering their temptations.

… we should not smite one another by hasty censures…

… Christ, for the good aims He sees in us, overlooks any ill in them, so far as not to lay it to our charge. Men must not be too curious in prying into the weaknesses of others. We should labour rather to see what they have that is for eternity, to incline our heart to love them, than into that weakness which the Spirit of God will in time consume, to estrange us. Some think it strength of grace to endure nothing in the weaker, whereas the strongest are readiest to bear with the infirmities of the weak.

… The Holy Ghost is content to dwell in smoky, offensive souls. Oh, that that Spirit would breathe into our spirits the same merciful disposition!

(The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes; Banner of Truth Trust: Carlisle, PA; pp. 32-33)

When we lose touch with the merciful nature of God and His kindness, immediately we become that brand of saint which finds strength, albeit a false strength, in searching out the shortcomings of others. The evidence that our smiting of “one another by hasty censures” is not prompted by the Lord is shown in the fact that rather than giving ourselves to secret intercession on the behalf of the weak ones, we harbor thoughts of superiority against them. If we are more apt to speak negatively about them, or to think ourselves superior to them, rather than to give ourselves to merciful prayer on their behalf, we can be sure that we are operating under the influence of darkness.

Yet if the “Holy Ghost is content to dwell in smoky, offensive souls,” and if “the Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against Him,” far be it from us to reject a brother in his struggle and inconsistency! 

Has your experience of “faith” driven you into a continually solemn place, where there is no longer any “dancing, leaping, or daring?” Is the garden of your life overgrown with the weeds of criticism, superiority, and the continual examination of others? Dear saint, He did not save you to induct you into a life of lackluster seriousness, and depressive discipleship. His desire at the time of your salvation, and His desire today, is that “your joy may be full.” (Jn. 15.11b)

Delight in His goodness then, weary soul! Bask in His mercies, for they have been extended to you, and are intensely available to all who would call on the name of the Lord.

 

Peccator Justus! Thoughts from the Final Words of Karl Barth

Peccator Justus!

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” -1 Tim. 1.15

The phrase “peccator justus” is Latin for, “justified sinner.” I am not a Latin expert, or anything close to one actually, but the two words are reverberating through my mind and heart as I type today. Here is the reason why:

On December 9th, 1968 a man named Karl Barth- a Swiss/German theologian- was working on writing a lecture. Barth was probably the most well-known theologian of the 20th century. He was a controversial man, who was known to challenge the categories of both Liberal and Evangelical theologians, and to shake the dusty definitions of God that had crippled the world of theology. He resisted the Nazi Regime’s falsely concocted version of Scripture and Church, personally mailing his statement to Hitler himself, for which reason he lost his esteemed position as a professor in Germany at the University of Bonn. The beloved Evangelical scholar F.F. Bruce noted that Barth’s 1919 commentary on Romans fell “like a bombshell on the theologians’ playground, and we are still feeling its reverberations today.”

He challenged the entire landscape of 20th century theology, jolting systems of thought and calling scholars and pastors to let God be God over their labors and studies. He said that we needed to recover the “Godness of God,” and to hear Paul’s spirit beneath the surface of the NT texts. He hand-wrote over 20,000 pages of theology over the course of 50-plus years in theological work. I may not agree with all of his theological conclusions, nor all of the decisions he made over the course of many years in pastoral ministry, theological labors, and authorship. But I really appreciate the man, and so much of what the Lord brought to the Church through him. The fruit of his labors goes on in the lives of many believers who have never heard his name and who are not likely to ever read one of his books.

Back to December 9th of ‘68. Barth was 82 year of age, and by this time he “spoke of his death remarkably often and even wanted to talk about the details of his funeral.” Being the thinker, theologian, and pastor that he was, Barth had reflected on the reality of death and eternity very long and very hard for many decades. When he visited the U.S. in 1962, he was put on the cover of TIME magazine in painted form, standing in front of Jesus’ empty tomb with his own words as a banner above: “The goal of the human life is not death, but resurrection.”

Now he was aged, and even seemed to sense that his days were drawing to a close. In some of his last letters written, he made these awesome statements:

Looking back, I have no serious complaints about anyone or anything: except my own failures today, yesterday, the day before yesterday and the day before that- I mean my failures in real gratitude. Perhaps I still have bitter days ahead, and certainly my death will come sooner or later. One thing remains, for me to remember and impress upon myself…. ‘Do not forget the good that He has done!’

… How do I know whether I shall die easily or with difficulty? I only know that my dying, too, is part of my life… And then- this is the destination, the limit and the goal for all of us- I shall no longer ‘be’, but I shall be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, in and with my whole ‘being,’ with all the real good and the real evil that I have thought, said and done, with all the bitterness that I have suffered and all the beauty that I have enjoyed. There I shall only be able to stand as the failure that I doubtless was in all things, but… by virtue of His promise, as a peccator justus. And as that I shall be able to stand. Then… in the light of grace, all that is now dark will become very clear.

It’s remarkable how tender and sensitive to mercy a man becomes when he is on the edge of eternity. All of a sudden, the grudges we have held, the suspicions we have harbored, the fears which have ruled us, the possessions we’ve coveted, and the self-righteousness we’ve carried, all become utter vanity before the reality of standing face to face with the God of all creation. Before the Light of His unveiled glory, every one of us have marks of the intensest soul-stains, and we realize that all of our boasting has no merit whatsoever- all of our religious and social facades are exposed for the falsities that they are, and we are moved to cry out for the reality of mercy.

Barth was interrupted from writing his lecture by the phone calls of two friends. One of them, a man named Eduard Thurneysen, had “remained faithful to him over sixty years. They talked about the gloomy world situation. Then Barth said, ‘But keep your chin up! Never mind! He will reign!‘”

These would become his last recorded words.

“… Barth did not go back to his draft which he had left in the middle of a sentence, but put it aside until the next day. However, he did not live that long. He died peacefully some time in the middle of the night. He lay there as though asleep, with his hands gently folded from his evening prayers. So his wife found him the next morning, while in the background a record was playing the Mozart with which she had wanted to waken him.”

Interestingly enough, before he breathed his last “he had been writing a few sentences of the draft for his lecture in which he was saying that in the church it is always important to listen to the Fathers who have gone before in the faith. For ‘God is not a God of the dead but of the living. In him they all live.’”

If we would walk with a greater consciousness of the fragility and preciousness of life, and the reality of death, we would become in a more concentrated manner, a people of mercy. We all fall under the category of ‘peccator.’ We have sinned, and worse, our souls actually consist of the substance of iniquity and wickedness. Sin is not only a litany of things we’ve committed, it’s a part of our very fiber and nature as humans. Yet death approaches for each one of us, and immediately following the breathing of our last breath, we encounter the One Who made heaven and earth. As Barth said, “I only know that my dying, too, is part of my life…” The only hope that any of us have is in the cross of Jesus Christ. Only He has the power to yank us from the category of sinner (peccator), and to place us within the glorious family of those who have been justified and transformed by the power of His indestructible life (peccator justus)!

When Christ has transformed our hearts, we can face the adversities of life, and the shakings and tumblings of the Kingdoms of this world in the same vein that Barth encouraged:

“… keep your chin up! Never mind! He will reign!“

He will reign, saints, and no matter what befalls the nations in these last days, however dim your vision is at present, there is a vital and eternal hope for those who have repented and believed the Son of God. He will reign, and the proof is in your own justification before the throne of God. Rejoice, then, in so great a salvation! Let your heart send streams of enraptured gratitude to the Savior!

There will come a day when the saints will inherit the manifested reality of resurrected and glorified bodies. The propensity for sin, the pulls of temptation, the stubborn presence of pride and self-consciousness, fatigue and sickness will once and for all be removed from our experience. Our fallibility and dim sights will be totally submerged in the Light of His wonderful perfections. Glorious day! 

Until then, we turn to Him day by day, that His likeness and glory might rise in our present experience. We’ve been justified by the power of a Blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel. We have a radically opened access to righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. One day, our justification before God will be manifested in full, but until that day dawns, let us receive the Spirit of Holiness in increasing measure. Let us go from glory to glory and from faith to faith, hastening the day of His return, and letting our newfound light shine before men. As A.W. Tozer once stated:

What God is seeking is a people in the earth who will trust him now as completely as they know they must at the final day.

“… keep your chin up! Never mind! He will reign!“

Peccator justus!

(All Barth quotes taken from Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, Eberhard Busch; Fortress Press, 1975, pp. 497-499; Tozer quote from an audio message)

Spirit Words

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” -Jn. 6.63

In comparison with the nature of preaching in centuries past, I would say that truly anointed proclamation is at an all-time low. Many fellowships have little value for true preaching and teaching, and the saints as a whole have mostly lost touch with the preciousness of speech to one another. New movements arise, encouraging more entertaining modes of proclamation, and the Church is inundated with programs, pre-packaged sermon illustrations, and a host of mere opinions. Scarcely do we hear a true voice which quickens the heart of the Church, creating and effecting, through grace-charged proclamation, a fuller vision of Jesus Christ.

Consider this story from David Ravenhill:

“Some of you are familiar with one of the great revivals: the revival in the Hebrides. Back in the late 1940s-early 1950s, this little group of islands experienced a powerful move of the Spirit of God, one of the purest revivals that we have seen, at least in my generation. Seventy-five percent of the people who were saved were converted outside the walls of the church.

In other words, God came down and saturated the community with His presence. People were up all night getting right with God. People would walk on the road and come under conviction of sin and fall down at the side of the road, repenting of their sin. They weren’t exposed to any preaching, just the Spirit of God that suddenly invaded the area. The revival was preceded by the earnest praying of several young men as well as two elderly women. Their cry was that God ‘would rend the heavens and come down.’

The people reported that five years after that revival you could count on one hand the number of people who had drifted away from God. Bars closed down; saloons closed down; dance halls closed down. The entire community was changed as a result of that revival.

One man whom God greatly used was a Presbyterian minister by the name of Duncan Campbell. Duncan Campbell was the key figure really. One night he had a dream, and in this dream he was walking into one of the small towns on the islands. As he approached the town, he noticed that there was a large crowd of people listening to somebody preaching the Word of God. As he got closer, he could hear the Word of God being proclaimed, but he didn’t recognize the preacher. After a while it dawned on him that this was no ordinary preacher; this was the devil.

Finally the crowd dispersed, and in his dream he went up to the devil and said, ‘You’re the devil, aren’t you?’

‘Yes I am,’ he replied.

Duncan Campbell then asked, ‘Why are you preaching the gospel? Why are you preaching the Word of God?’

And the devil responded, saying, ‘Duncan Campbell, don’t you know that the greatest weapon I have is the preaching of the Word of God without the anointing of the Spirit? You see, the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.’ (Surviving the Anointing, pp.70-71; Destiny Image, 2007)

In the first months of the Hebrides Revival there was little preaching, but the Lord eventually raised Campbell up (among others) to proclaim the Word with a true anointing, and many communities were transformed by the power of the Gospel.

The gift of proclamation has been given to every saint on one level or another, for we all have the capacity to speak. Some will preach in larger settings, some will not. But we all have a calling to bear witness to the lost, and to speak the truth to one another in love. The question is not, “Where shall I speak,” or “What shall I speak,” but “How shall I speak?” We need a recovery of a true value for gift of speech. Jesus’ words were spirit and life, which is something far beyond soulish talk, or religious opinion. Dear saint, what is the substance of your speaking? I’m not asking if all of your conversation is religious or biblical. I’m asking what your source is. Is it you? your spiritual opinions? your personal paradigms?

Or is it “spirit and life?” The future of those listening to you may well depend on the answer to these questions.

“Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God…” -1 Pet. 4.11a

The Quieted Soul: Impressions from Psalm 131

 

“O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; 

Nor do I involve myself in great matters,

Or in things too difficult for me.

Surely I have composed and quieted my soul…” -Ps. 131.1-2a

In our society, which moves at breakneck speed in a multitude of directions and pursuits, there is a remarkable temptation to involve our minds and hearts with matters too great and difficult for us. It is a rare thing to run into souls who have learned the art of quieting the soul before God.

In the world, men make success, promotion and knowledge the aim of all things, and if you would advance in those realms you’ve got to be a “go-getter,” an active mind, an ambitious, almost machinic person. Promotion and advancement have got to mean more to you than truth, family, and life itself, and you must be willing to climb the ladder of success by walking over the backs of others.

In the Church, the same kind of wisdom often festers and spreads. If we are not pursuing the same toys and statuses that the world pursues, we are often trampling our own souls with religious pursuits, ministerial striving, or other “Kingdom matters” which are too difficult for us. We ought never to engage our hearts in matters which remove us from a vital communion with Him, even if they are topics or ministries that appear valid and noteworthy. It is one thing to wrestle with a matter the Lord Himself sets before you, and to go along the trying pilgrimage hand in hand with the Great Shepherd. In those cases, there will be trial, stretching, and enlargement, but the whole journey will be marked by His nearness.

It is quite another thing to take up matters prematurely, and engage in thoughts and situations that the Lord never called us to touch. Are you being overwhelmed by fast-moving thoughts and anxieties? Are you looking in a multitude of directions to find the answers to the matters of life and spirituality? The Psalmist gives us the key to eternal liberty from the powers that influence us negatively. “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul…”

Thank God that Moses waited on the back side of the desert until the bush was inflamed. 

Thank God that David received the word of the prophet Nathan, and waited in repentance until the heavenly “hyssop” cleaned his soul.

Thank God that Simeon was waiting for the true consolation of Israel, and was not satisfied with anything less than the appearance of the Son of God Himself.

Thank God that John the Baptist didn’t try to move into public ministry prematurely, and that he was willing to quiet his soul in the wilderness until the day of his showing forth.

Thank God that Jesus shot down the attempts of Satan to stir his humanity in the wilderness, overlooked the desires of His kinsmen to appoint Him King before the proper time, and pressed through the piercing pain of Gethsemane and Calvary for the “joy set before Him.”

Thank God that the 120 quieted their souls in the upper room, rather than raising funds for a new building and starting a campaign for Christianity.

What would have happened if all of these saints had chosen expedience over obedience? What would have happened if they would have looked to the world for help, or listened to the multitudinous streams of opinion and thought in their day? The revelation of God has broken into history upon the shoulders of weak men and women who have quieted their souls enough to hear what God Himself is speaking. The Lord chooses to reveal Himself by those means alone, and the fact that we have busied our minds and hearts rather than quieting our souls before Him is the primary reason our cities have seen so little of Him. 

Jesus’ soul was quieted in the secret place, where He listened intently to the Voice of His Father. Because of this, He had an inward stillness and clarity in the home of Jairus, though his daughter had died, and  He was surrounded by relatives whose emotions were in earthquake-mode. He brought a whole new reality into the midst of the instability of that home, and resurrection glory resulted.

The Lord means for His own people to manifest the same stillness and authority in these last days, and it’s only by quieting our souls and hearing the Voice of the Lord that we have the capacity for that kind of an expression. We have a calling to come into the holy place of stillness and communion, that our children may see His wonders, and that Israel and the nations would see in the Church “the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Only a people which has “composed and quieted” its soul will have the love and authority to speak to a bewildered nation:

“O Israel, hope in the Lord,

From this time forth and forever.” (v. 3)

Have you quieted your soul today, dear saint? If you have not consciously quieted your soul, it will immediately be swept up in the tide of this age. You can be assured that the thoughts and fears and confusions which plague the nations will soon enwrap your soul, for it is only in the conscious decision to quiet your soul that you are enabled to hear the Voice of the Lord. Lay down that which is too great and difficult for your soul. “Be still,” and know that He is God. There is a wisdom, peace, and grace which rests on the quieted soul, and you have unobstructed access to this blessed reality through the Blood of Jesus Christ. You need only to compose and quiet your soul before Him.

Then, as a precious 80-year old intercessor once charged me in regard to coming into the holy place, “You have to enter!”

The community of saints which comes into this kind of soul-quietude before God will become a resounding voice in the cities of the earth, whose words are as His, “spirit and life.” (Jn. 6.63b) Remarkably, the souls who have quieted their hearts are the same ones permitted and privileged to speak in the time of their showing forth. Those who have consciously quieted their own souls are the ones to hear His voice, thereby becoming more than an echo of other men. 

The Lord is wanting to form a holy community in the earth, who can with one voice proclaim, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’” (Mt. 3.3)

For this, His voice must increase, and the activity of my soul and the varying voices in the world must decrease.

The quieting of the soul is not for the timid, dainty and cowardly. It is not simply a syrupy sweet journey through flat plains, highlighted by cloudless skies and warm breezes. It requires an inward violence to shut the gate against the hustle and bustle of this age and the distractions and pressures which will invariably strike our hearts when we set out to seek His face. We’ve got to come boldly, making every effort to enter His rest, and to quiet our souls before the Throne. John the Immerser “took it by force” (Mt. 11.12) in the wilderness, and so must we. Shut out the other voices, saints. If it requires shutting off the computer, unplugging the television, and taking the phone off of the hook, let it be done. Let your soul be composed and quieted before the Lord. There you will hear His voice, and Christ will be all in all to your soul. 

Isn’t this what your spirit cries out for, after all?

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