The False Watchmen

During my quiet times, the Lord many times speaks a strong word about things that are happening in these troubled times in which we live. I wrestled with Him about posting this, but felt that I was to do it. After all, how can I commit to sharing from my quiet time, yet omit notes from from any given day because the teaching is a strong one. Though this message could be a tough pill to swallow for some, it is nonetheless another facet of the many-faceted diamond that is Truth.

Today's study is in Jeremiah 23. The question to be asked here is to whom is this message directed and what is God saying through it? I believe that this message is a warning to God's people Israel against their "spiritual leaders" who misrepresent Him.

Something I've noticed during my studies of the Scriptures over the years is that God referred to His people as "Jacob" and as "Israel." As you know, the man Israel (meaning "He will rule as God") was called Jacob (meaning to supplant...to displace by force, scheming, strategy, etc) until he had an encounter with God and experienced a life-change. From then on, God referred to Jacob and his descendants as "Israel" when they were walking in obedience (in the spirit) to Him, but He referred to them as "Jacob" when they were walking in disobedience (in the flesh) and in sych with the world. God also referred to His people as "Israel" whenever He prophesied about them as He saw them, in their future redeemed and restored spiritual state...calling things that were not as though they were.

The term "Israel" refers to and always has referred to God's spiritual children who are walking in faith and obedience to His Word. Now it is only those who enter into the redemption and work of the sacrificial atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ (Yeshua ha Mashiach) on the cross at Calvary, who are now included in the spiritual house of Israel. This includes gentiles who in ancient times were not God's people but now, upon their acceptance of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God at Calvary, have been grafted as a wild olive branch into the Olive Tree known as "Israel." On the other hand, those of the Jewish race.. the natural branches, who were originally of the house of Israel...who do not honor the sacrifice by their own Mashiach, have consequentially been broken off... once again to be grafted back in only upon their acceptance of that final Sacrifice offered...One for all. (Ro.2:25-29; 5:12-19; 9:6-8; 11:17-24; Gal.3:26-29)

Now that the spiritual identity of Israel has been Scripturally established, let's move on to our study in Jer. 23, which is is a message for spiritual Israel today, for in verse 20 God tells us that in the last days this message will clearly be understood. Here God is expressing through His prophet, Jeremiah, His severe displeasure at shepherds who are destroying and scattering the flocks they are to tend, and the watchmen (prophets) who, instead of living holy lives and directing God's people in the way of salvation through repentance, were themselves joined to the world and walking in deception. By their fruits they are known...they were preaching a polluted message from polluted hearts. They were speaking a message of peace and safety to an apostate, rebellious people.

Without the shedding of blood there is no remission (forgiveness) of sin (Heb.9:22). The gospel message is about the gift of a blood-sealed covenant between a Holy God and mankind, all of whom have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Ro.8:23). It's about the reconciliation of man to God through the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God (Col.1:19-23).
Until one enters into the redemptive provisions of the covenant and is walking in love, faith, and forgiveness toward others, the more "tangible" blessings can't be realized. Yet, the leaders of many of today's churches preach another gospel.

This chapter of Jeremiah is a picture of the shepherds and prophets in many churches today. Unfortunately, rather than going "into all the world," today's church leaders bring the world into the church, using the world's PR methodologies to do so. As was the case in Israel past, today's "seeker-friendly", ego-centric, prosperity-focused gospel assures lukewarm "believers" that no calamity will come upon them because today God is all about "grace." The lost are assured that God loves them "just the way they are," with little or no emphasis upon walking with God in holiness. New believers are told that all that they have to do is "ask Jesus to come into their heart" and they'll be guaranteed a place in heaven for eternity.

The compromised social gospel of today is strong on reconciliation but is void of the message of repentance, and carries with it no power to convict people of their sin. Unless one is made aware of his/her need for a Redeemer, how can they embrace the message of the cross of Jesus? If they don't embrace the message of the work of the cross, how then can they be saved?

In this scripture God is warning His people not to listen to the words of these prophets because the prophets were speaking out of their own imaginations rather than from the mouth of God, and their words were leading the people into futility. He went on to tell them that any word that He would have His prophets speak to His people would be a word that would turn them back from their evil way and from their evil deeds.

When we hear a message from one who declares that He speaks in the Name of the Lord we must remember that the message of the gospel has been and always will be first and foremost about repentance, reconciliation to God through the cross of Jesus, the Lamb of God, His resurrection and His ongoing work of salvation and transformation within us. In addition, we must make sure that all that is being spoken is in agreement with the Scriptures, because God will never contradict what He's said. And, we must not forget to observe the lives of those who maintain that they speak for God...for it's by their fruit that you will know them.

Focus On the Kingdom

Matt.6:19-34 admonishes us... we who are in covenant with Him... to focus upon things of the Kingdom of God rather than upon things of the earth. When we place our focus on gathering earthly riches in order to secure our needs, it clouds our spiritual perception because it trains our heart to perceive things through the natural realm. This "darkens" our perception of the things of the spirit...especially our concept of God and our devotion to and our dependence upon Him...rendering us unable to receive from God, Who is the Source of our provision. The earthly riches in and of themselves are not evil, it's our unbelief in God's faithfulness to uphold His covenant promises (His Word) to us that's evil.

In verses 22-23 the word for darkness means "opaque." The eye speaks of our spiritual perception. Our spiritual perception must be clear and transparent in order for the Light to enter our heart. If we fix our gaze (focus) mostly upon the ways of the world (shade or darkness) and less upon the ways of the Kingdom of God (Light), we are blinded by the Light...our perception becomes opaque (clouded, foggy) and the the Light can't penetrate our heart, so it continues to operate in unbelief. This gross form of darkness is greater because Light scatters pure darkness, but Light bounces off of fog.

The unregenerate depend on worldly methods to meet their basic needs, for they know no other Source. But God expects faith (trust) from those that call themselves His own; and He promises those of us who seek Him and the spiritual things of His Kingdom first and foremost, that He will supply our every physical need.

As His children, we need to fix our gaze upon the Kingdom of God, learn of Him as we let our thought processes, will, and emotions (aka: heart) become renewed and transformed by His Word, and rest in His ability and willingness to fulfill our every need.

The Armor of God

Today's meditation is on Eph. 6:10-18 (NAS) and begins with an admonishment to us to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. We are to rely on God's strength in the midst of trials. The Word is the source of our faith in God's strength, for it is the revelation of Who He is, His will, His power, and His faithfulness to fulfill His Word.

Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but it is against the spiritual realm that influences the soul of man. God's Word is Spirit and It is Truth; satan and his demons are spirit and lies. Only spirit can battle spirit, and Truth conquers lies as Light conquers darkness.

People play a part in the devil's schemes. He uses people against other people, and he uses people against themselves, especially where there are places in man's wounded heart that harbor pride, jealousy, hatred, etc...all of which lead to the deadly sin of unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness is an affront to the cross of Jesus, Who forgave all mankind for all sin (no matter how horrible the sin), and He did so in the midst of all the pain he was suffering. (Luke 23:34) In order to honor Christ's sacrifice on the cross, a man must apply that atonement to his life through repentance and by receiving forgiveness for his own sins, as well as forgiving others for sinning against him. Jesus tells us that if we won't forgive others, He won't forgive us. (Matt.6:12-15) He also tells us that if we don't forgive from the heart, we will be turned over to the tormentors. (Matt.18:23-35) In other words, when we reject the provision of forgiveness...one of the works of the cross...we can't receive the other works of the cross; ie: peace and healing.

In order to stand in the face of battle, we must put on the full Armor of God...the Word of God, Jesus Christ and all that He is. We were crucified, buried, and resurrected in Him. He is Truth, He is our Righteousness, the Prince of Peace, our Salvation, He's the Author and Finisher of our faith. We've received His Holy Spirit of Promise. We stand complete in Him and He is in us by His Holy Spirit.

Deliverance is the result of a mind that's being renewed by the Word of God. The helmet of salvation protects the mind that agrees with the Truth. Faith in the Truth...the "water" of the Word...extinguishes the flames of deception, while the Truth destroys the lies themselves. With these divinely powerful weapons we can destroy fortresses (strongholds that have been set up in our heart), speculations (wrong thoughts), and every lofty thing (false concepts about God and His Word) raised up against the knowledge of God. We are to take every thought captive (before it comes out of our mouth) to the obedience of Christ. We are to use the Word of God against such things...Truth against the lies of the devil. (2 Cor.10:3-5)

We are to bring all petitions for ourselves and for others before our Father, praying always in the spirit. When we pray the Word of God we are praying in the spirit, because the Word is spirit; and we are praying in Truth, because the Word is Truth. When we pray the Word (in the spirit) we are praying God's Will, so we can firmly stand by faith, persevering in earnest anticipation that whatever we've asked of God He will do. (1John 5:14-15)

The Word-Heart Connection

Still meditating on Matthew 12...this time on vv 24-37. Before proceeding, I believe that it's important to remember that man is a tri-part being consisting of spirit, soul, and body. It's also important to understand the functions of those three parts. The spirit is that part of us that, when "born again," is in contact with God and comprises the "conscience."

The terms soul and heart are used interchangeably throughout Scripture, but to avoid confusion I'll use the term "heart." The heart is the core (center) of man...the seat of his thought processes, his will, and his emotions. In its untransformed state it produces what's referred to in the Scriptures as "works of the flesh" and carnality. It's also important to see the untransformed heart the way God sees it... as "more deceitful than all else.." and "desperately sick." (Jer.17:9, NAS) This is because the untransformed heart has been influenced by the world and wounded by life's circumstances, becoming bitter, unforgiving, hardened and twisted. As we undergo the transformation process, the degree to which the heart is transformed is the degree to which it's in synch with the spirit. We are admonished to be transformed by the renewing of our mind with the Word of God. We are to receive the Mind of Christ, which is filled with the Word of God and faith.

The body is our "earth-suit," if you will. It's our connection with the tangible world and is the servant of the soul. It is the means through which the five physical senses operate. Its outward appearance and activities are what man judges, whereas God looks on the heart.
(I Sam.16:7)

Having said all that, I'll return to the subject at hand. The Pharisees earlier on were accusing Jesus and His disciples of breaking the Sabbath Laws when the disciples got hungry while traveling, and picked some heads of grain to eat; and Jesus had the audacity to heal the sick. In this passage, the Pharisees are livid with Jesus for delivering a demonized man on the Sabbath who was blind and dumb. They accuse Him of using the power of Beelzebul, the ruler of demons, to cast out demons.

In response to the accusations of the Pharisees, Jesus addresses the issues of blasphemy and plundering the house of a strongman. The strongman in this parable is satan and the property is the souls of mankind imprisoned in the kingdom of darkness. Jesus goes on to proclaim that those who are not for Him are against Him, and those who will not gather are responsible for scattering. Though there is more here to discover, I believe He was impressing upon me the concept of the relationship between man's heart and the words we speak.

He begins by speaking about trees and their fruit, which throughout the Scriptures symbolize people and their character, works, and/or words...in this case He's focusing on words. Jesus taught that if a tree was good, its fruit was good and visa versa. In other places He taught that pure water can't come from a corrupt fountain and corrupted water can't come from a pure fountain.

Men with good hearts speak (and believe) that which is good, men with evil hearts speak (and believe) that which is evil. Jesus, being God in a human body, was able to look at the hearts of the Pharisees and judged them evil. He called them vipers, which are the most deadly of snakes, injecting the poison from the fangs in their mouth into their unwitting prey. The Pharisees preyed on the very people they were to oversee and protect, ensnaring them in the traditions of man.

Jesus operated by the Holy Spirit of God, speaking pure Truth and doing good... healing all who were sick and oppressed by the devil. Jesus, the Tree of Life, spoke the Word of Life; the fruit of His ministry was good...the lame walked, the blind saw, the deaf heard, the demon-possessed were delivered. The Pharisees' hearts were jaded and their conscience's seared by their religiosity, pride, jealousy, and hatred, or they would never have attributed the work of God to Beelzebul. Their discernment was clouded and their words reflected the evil in their hearts. They were bad trees.

Jesus went on to teach that we will be judged by every idle word that we speak. Idle in this context means inactive...in other words, faithless. Jesus says that at the judgment we will have to account for every faithless word we speak. Therefore, rather than filling our hearts with worldly entertainment and with worldly news events, it would be a good idea to fill our hearts with the Word of God so that, when we speak, we'll speak faith-filled words that are in agreement with what God says. After all, faith comes by continually hearing the Word of God and learning about Who He is, how He works, and what His Will is. By our faith-filled words that are grounded in Truth and in agreement with God we will be justified, and by our faithless words we will be condemned.

Though in verses 25-26 Jesus is clearly directing His words at the accusations of the Pharisees, in light of verses 33-37 those same verses could be applied to our words. The Word of God is an expression of God's Will. Our thought processes have been trained in worldly concepts, our will has been trained to embrace those concepts, and our emotions have come to enjoy the worldly pleasures associated with those concepts. In order for us to stand in agreement with God, those thought processes must be torn down, removed, and replaced by God's thought processes. The heart must be transformed by the Word of God in order to be in sych with our spirit, which is in agreement with God's Will.

When the heart of the born-again person continues to be filled with more worldly concepts than the Word of God, it produces confusion and double-mindedness; therefore, their "house" is divided and they can not stand. James 1:6-8 tells us that this person is unstable in all their ways and will receive nothing from God. They can't stand in faithful agreement with God's Word because their thought processes are being tossed to and fro; therefore, they are unable to receive anything from God. Such a person is always going to agree with the circumstances surrounding him rather than professing God's ability to deliver him from all affliction. Putting faith in anything other than God and His Word reveals a heart steeped in profound unbelief, and without faith it's impossible to please God.

Earlier in Chapter 10:33 Jesus, the Word that proceeded from the bosom (heart) of the Father (John 1:18), always spoke "what He heard the Father speak,"(John 8:26) and in this verse asserts that whoever contradicts (speaks contrary to) Him before men, He will contradict before the Father. Jesus, the Word, also declares Himself to be the Truth (John 14:6); which means that whoever speaks contrary to Truth speaks from a heart of unbelief and deception, lying against the Truth... and liars cannot enter the Kingdom of God (Rev. 21:8).

Thank God that, for those of us whose hearts are turned toward Him, He will use our words to convict us in order to show us that we are always in need of His mercy and grace. He has provided us with the gift of repentance, so that when we slip up we can be quick to repent, and take it to the cross; for we are all in the midst the transformation process. We must continually allow our hearts to be filled with God's Truth so that when we speak, our words will be full of faithfilled Truth from the Heart of God.

Jesus asks if, when He returns, He will find faith in the earth (Luke 18:8). Will He judge us as good trees, rooted firmly in Truth, with faith-filled hearts speaking in agreement with His Will?

Sign of the Times?

A friend of mine in Kansas City took the picture of Mars in the eastern sky at about 10 pm last night. Thought you might enjoy seeing it.

The Sabbath Rest

As I was studying Matt. 12 today, the Lord showed me some things on several different subjects...the first being the Sabbath rest. The chapter begins with the Pharisees criticizing Jesus and His disciples for picking heads of grain on the Sabbath, and later on accusing Jesus of breaking the Sabbath because He healed someone.

Jesus, as God manifested in flesh, was the Lord of the Sabbath. He reached out with God's love to a lost and dying world. Jesus didn't violate the Sabbath law because love isn't work for God, it's Who He is! Therefore, it's not work for God to heal, deliver, or provide for any other need that presents itself...no matter what day it is. These are ways that God demonstrates His love and compassion for us. He does it for His pleasure and for His glory.

We are told to labor to enter into God's rest. The Sabbath rest is about our trusting God, our Provider, in all things and for all things. Providing food when we're hungry and healing for our body are just two of the ways He provides for us. He uses His people as vessels through which He expresses His love. Obeying God whenever He chooses to use you to bless someone is not sin; nor is receiving God's love for us on any given day sin, whether it's food we're receiving or healing.

What makes the Sabbath a perpetual state of being is that God loves us all of the time, every moment of every day. Every day that we trust in His love and wait in earnest anticipation for that love to manifest...whether it be for a spiritual, soulical, or physical need...we are entering into the Sabbath rest.

Welcome

Studying the Scriptures is one of the most exciting aspects of my relationship with God. I love strolling through the scenes from Genesis to The Revelation, observing and listening as God reveals Who He is, how much He loves mankind and what His will is for us, how He works, what He's done, what He's doing, and what He will do again...for He never changes, nor do His ways.

God's Word is the anchor that keeps us from drifting into the turbulence of the gales of confusion and deception. There are fundamental doctrines and interpretations of Scripture that are central to the Christian faith; yet the Word of God, like a sparkling diamond, has so many shimmering facets of revelation that serve to enrich one's basic faith. My spirit leaps within me when Father reveals a shining facet to me that I haven't heard before; or when he reminds me of a Truth that has been tucked away in my mind, one day to be brought into remembrance in a due season.

I have begun this blog as a journal, of sorts, to record and share some of the nuggets that the Lord has quickened to my spirit during my quiet times. It's an opportunity for sweet fellowship with brothers and sisters in the Lord. Though I do love to do word studies, the primary purpose of this blog is not for theological exegesis, apologetics, or doctrinal debates, so please lay aside the Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and concordances. Rather, as you listen with your spirit, see if the Lord gives you a quickening there. Please feel free to share your thoughts and/or insights on the topics being presented.

The Holy Scriptures are a record of historical events and future events, many of which you can see being repeated in present times; however, their Truths hold spiritual meaning as well, that can be readily applied to our personal journey with God. The Lord Jesus preached in parables to the multitudes in general, but took His disciples aside and revealed to them the Spirit behind the parables. The Lord Jesus Christ (Yeshua ha Mashiach) is the same yesterday, today, and forever; therefore, I believe that He still wants to reveal his secrets to those of us who would draw near.

May the Lord richly bless you and "give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him...that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might." Eph.1:17-19