gduncan969

[gduncan969]

Life's Ultimate Choice

“Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?”

‭‭II Kings‬ ‭7‬:‭3‬ ‭NKJV‬���

Jerusalem was under siege by the Assyrian army and the inhabitants were starving to death when Elijah the prophet , announces, “Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: ‘Tomorrow about this time a sesh of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’ ”(II Kings‬ ‭7‬:‭1‬). Is it any wonder that the king's right-hand man responded, "Are you kidding me?" (My paraphrase). At the same time there were four lepers sitting at the city gate even hungrier than those inside it and whose place on the roster for food was at the very bottom. They were now so desperate for food they no longer cared whether they lived or died, they would go to where there was plenty of it and throw themselves on the mercy of their enemies. That's a pretty desperate place to be in but it's one that all of us come to because it is the ultimate choice we all have to make. Put another way, our ultimate choice in life is to "Choose ye now whom ye will serve". The Christian author Norman Grubb goes to great lengths to explain the ONLY choice to that question is God or Satan, there is no independent "Self" that gets to choose the third option of "Neither" because we are conceived in sin and held captive by Satan until we make the only other choice there is---God! There is no other. That may be shattering to our self-confidence but it is nonetheless true.

The well-known Scottish comedian, Bill Connolly, whom I found out was in my class in primary school in Glasgow, has several million fans spread across the globe. He recently announced he is suffering from Parkinson's disease and does not expect to be with us much longer (he is one month older than I) but his comment on his condition is so typical of many armchair philosophers today: "There is no past and and there is no future, there is only now so live for now"! How wise that sounds to some as they thumb their noses at reality and casually live their lives as they think suits them but they cannot see how lost they really are.

The four lepers were forced to make their ultimate choice because it was a life or death decision for them--no "ifs, ands or buts" but God came through for them in grandiose fashion with a whole camp full of all kinds of goodies and He does the same for us through his Son, the Lord Jesus but only when we get serious about whom we will serve. Millions today are like the four lepers, only they don't realize they have leprosy. If there is a God, then they rely on their own goodness to get them past the post and into heaven. Tragically, many sitting in churches are of the same mindset and are about to find out that Satan has already besieged them and is starving them in a spiritual death. We have entered the final stages of human history and Jesus warns us it will be a time of great trial and persecution whether you are pre-, mid-, post- or a-tribulation. Hanging on to him during this time will take all we have and millions are not going to make it because " the love of many will grow cold" (Matthew 24:12). But as Paul says, "We are not of those who shrink back". (Hebrews 10:39).

There has never been a time like this when the whole world seems to be caught up in so much corruption and lawlessness and our focus must be on the furtherance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ both personally, locally, nationally and beyond.

[gduncan969]

I've been thinking about some of the difficult times we go through in life and typically how negatively we view them. None of us want our lives to be full of difficulties but we all recognize they are part of living and so we must learn how to cope with them. Some of us do and some don't, depending on the severity of the difficulty but until we've settled the issue of who's in control of our lives, the difficulties will continue to be a challenge to us and how we react to them.

Paul opens his letter to the Philippian Church to update them on how things eventually turned out with some of the "bad" things that had been happening to him. He doesn't disclose what these "bad things" were, only that they turned out to be good things after all---and that's a message we all need grab hold of in these days of great challenge for so many. The bad things in life that come our way we put down as attacks of the enemy, or as the result of sin in our lives or accidents that happen to us or even bad luck but how do these excuses match up with God's promises to us as His children. What kind of parent do we make Him out be who "knoweth the end from the beginning" but who stands idly by while some dreadful tragedy overtakes us, leaving us devastated with grief and sorrow. How do we reconcile a Father who loves us and gave up His own Son to save us but fails to act on our behalf to keep us safe from harm? The answer to this conumdrum is to note the last part of Philippians 1:5: "have actually turned out for the furtherance of the Gospel". Paul's greatest concern was not for himself but for the Gospel. He recognized that what he had committed to Christ on the road to Damascus--his very life--remained in God's hands and so he was shielded from anything that would harm him because it first had to get past God to get to him. (Remember how unphased he was when the venomous snake bit him on the beach in Malta.). Paul's whole reason for living was for one thing: the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he call us all to be "living sacrifices" to that purpose.

Years ago while living in Calilfornia, our pastor had a married a Vietnamese war widow who struggled a long time with the question "Who killed my first husband? Was it the Vietcong, or the devil, or did God just take him home?" Eventually, the Lord spoke to her to say: "It wasn't the Vietcong, it wasn't the devil and I didn't take him home. HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS!" (And was awarded the Purple Heart). Ask yourself, "What does it mean to commit your life to Christ? Is it any different from the widows's husband? We live not for ourselves but for others, that they might know who we know and turn to Him in complete surrender. What ever life seems to be dragging us through these days, what ever problems we are facing, know that we belong to Him because "it is no longer you who live but Christ lives in you and the life that I now live, I live by faith in Him who saved me." That's the way we are all called to live in Christ--not for ourselves, but for others.

[gduncan969]

Faith does not deny reality.

It sees past it.

There's a lot of misunderstanding today on just what real faith is. This is especially true among the "name-it-and-claim-it" churches who follow the teachings of Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Joel Osteen and many, many others that we can be rich in this world's goods and live good, comfortable lives simply by claiming one or more of God's many promises in the Bible. The teachers of this heresy demonstrate the veracity of their teaching by living the lives of the super-rich with their private mansions on their private estates, their private jets flying from their private airports, all financed by donations from their devoted followers who are desperately trying to crank the prosperity gospel formula to meet their own desperate financial needs. Compare this with Isaiah's description of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ:

“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭53‬:‭1‬-‭9‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Isaiah's description of our Saviour's character is the extreme opposite of what the prosperity message presents. No where in the Bible does it represent that being rich in this world's goods is somehow a mark of God's favor upon us. Indeed, we are warned the riches of this world can be a stumbling block to our walk with the Lord who wants us to be givers, not getters. Paul warns Timothy that these are those who suppose that gain in worldly goods is a mark of godliness. "I will prove to you I have faith by my (material) prosperity", is what they claim and included in that is healing of every disease. My own experience of the prosperity Gospel is from the inside, not the outside. For six months I moved my family from Northern Ontario to Southern California to work for a multi-millionaire businessman who sat on the boards of both Kenneth Hagin (Sr.) and Kenneth Copeland. My job was to "unlock" the gold from a supposed gold mine (I am an analytical chemist) which my employer had invested $five million in but which so far had produced no gold whatsoever. During a lunchtime meeting with Kenneth Hagin, my boss, the mine manager and several others, I turned to Kenneth Hagin and said, "Brother Hagin, everyone keeps confessing that the Lord says there's lots of gold in the mine but no one, including me, can find any and that is not how I understand how the Lord deals with his children." Brother Hagin's response had my employer choking on his soup spoon. "Who prophesied there was gold there?" To which my gobsmacked employer anxiously replied, Brother Hagin, You Did!!! You said there was great wealth in the sand". Hagin's last comment was,"I think it's time someone found out what the Lord meant by great wealth!" My employment there ended exactly six months after it began.

These big name prosperity teachers may have started out on the right track but slowly their focus changed from serving the Lord to serving their ministry in order to keep the cash rolling in. The tragedy is their cash comes out of the pockets of hundreds of thousands of struggling saints all hoping the faith formula will work for them and give a 100-fold return on their investment. Judging by the ones I have met over the years who believe this teaching, it doesn't work. We cannot fake true faith, no matter how many times we confess something to be true or want it to be true. True faith does not deny the physical reality of a problem. I can confess 'til I'm blue in the face that I don't have cancer, that God has healed me because I've asked Him to, but the X-rays, CAT scans, MRI's and PET scans say otherwise and the pain in my body only serves to confirm their findings but what I can say by FAITH is that the life I committed unto Jesus 69 years ago is still in his hands and under his control. I may not understand all that is happening to me these days but I can and will trust Him who has proved His faithfulness to me over and over again. Like Job, I cry out, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Like Peter whom Jesus asked, "Are you going to leave as well?" I say, "To whom shall I go, YOU have the words of eternal life!" In my last blog I said it is through much tribulation that we enter Gods Kingdom and sadly, it is these areas that the prosperity Gospel fails us because it has no answer for unanswered prayers except to keep repeating the mantra that we are healed. True faith sees past the worldly reality to the heavenly reality that reassures us we already have what the world cannot yet see and convicts us of it.

[gduncan969]

Learn to suffer

”.....We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”

‭‭Acts‬ ‭14‬:‭22‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The Scots have been doing a great job these days marketing all kinds of Scottish paraphernalia and trinkets. Scottish Clan Flags are no exception. Even if your last name is Alibaba, there's a Scottish entrepreneur who will come up with a flag for the MacAlibaba clan complete with coat of arms and clan motto on a tartan backdrop of the clan's one-of-a-kind tartan which you can proudly fly from your condo in Acapulco. The photo shows my own clan's flag---Clan Donnachaidh (Gaelic for Duncan)---with its challenging motto, "Disce Pati" meaning "learn to suffer". Now, I've often wondered how the first clan chief (Hamish Donnachaidh??) came up with that one. I suspect he was probably a hen-pecked husband who had suffered his wife's nagging ways over many years! However, the motto does carry great biblical significance which applies to all of us who trust in Jesus.

I've always associated Acts 14:22 with the trials Christians face from "the outside" as they go about their daily lives but events happening in these my final years on this planet have convinced me the tribulations go far deeper into to 'the inside" struggles we are all having in coming to grips with what life throws at us as "we travel this sod". Things can take a turn for the worse suddenly and unexpectedly and we find ourselves, like Job, questioning God, "Why me" and the silence from Heaven can be deafening. So, we start to wonder if He is still listening to our cries, does He still care, have we done something wrong to offend Him? In all of this the devil laughs and God sighs because we fail to understand that what we committed to the Lord all those years ago---our very lives---God still faithfully holds and protects in His love for us and, in fact, it is He who is taking us through this time of tribulation to work in us what only tribulation can work. We best learn to trust Him when He seems to have left us all on our own. How else will we ever know He is trustworthy? The Bible is full of his many promises to us but they remain only as words and a page until we are led into those scary circumstances that have us wailing to him, "Where are you Lord? But after we have come through the other side there is that calm assurance he was there all the time. There's an old chorus that says,

"Make me a vessel of honor for God,

Make me a vessel of honor for God,

Sanctified, holy, that I might be

A vessel of honor for God."

Making vessels is God's business, being yielded clay is ours.

[gduncan969]

More Conspiracy Theories

Isaiah 8: 11 - 15

11 For the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying: 12 “Do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ Concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, Nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. 13 The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread. 14 He will be as a sanctuary, But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense To both the houses of Israel, As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many among them shall stumble; They shall fall and be broken, Be snared and taken.”

My guess is, like me, your reaction whenever you hear the word ‘conspiracy’ is, “Oh no, not another one!” Most of us are fed up to the teeth with all the conspiracy theories that keep popping up to inform us of yet another evil scheme to deceive us, control us, change us, rob us, ruin us and most of all terrify us. Which ones have you been following? The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) and their “New World Order”? The DEI mob (diversity, environment and equity)? The LGBTQ2++ crowd or the gender fluidity fanatics? Perhaps you are more concerned about churches being burned to the ground or Christians getting arrested for silently praying near abortion clinics, or maybe you are more worried about the inexplicable and enormous rise in excess deaths—inexplicable provided you ignore the lock-step rises in COVID vaccine adverse effects such as heart disease. The list is endless and continues to grow but the one thing that has not grown one whit is the number of prosecutions and convictions of those who have already been caught lying to us. In the meantime, our governments continue to insist the vaccine is both necessary and safe, even for babies. If that isn’t enough, gender confusion has become so rampant that 50-year old men are now identifying as 13-year old girls and participating in swim events while sharing the same dressing room as the girls and a trans man recently married a trans woman and the couple have proudly announced the husband is now pregnant??? According to last week’s latest announcement from the US Department of Justice, President Biden will not be prosecuted for his illegal mishandling of top secret documents because he is not mentally competent to stand trial but he supposedly remains mentally competent to remain as the leader of the free world??? On and on it goes into every area of our social lives, our institutions, our workplaces and our governments. What on earth is going on and besides spending our time complaining about the situation, how should we live in this insane world as believers in Jesus Christ?

When all this started ten?, twenty?, fifty?, years ago, I could only laugh at how stupid and unbelievable these conspiracy theories appeared to be to any sane, normal-thinking person but over the last five or so years one after another of these crazy theories has proven to be true (to our governments and institutions). The more this has happened the steeper my anxiety level has risen about what the future holds for my children and grandchildren in a world that has lost all sense of direction as it gets more and more caught up in the insanity of it all. I wanted to find out who to blame for all of this so that I could rise up and at least express my objections but it has become so overwhelming in scale it is now impossible to stay on top of every issue. So, what should we do?

Trust the Lord

The answer is both simple and profound: trust the Lord! But that sounds like one of those trite phrases Christians often use when they have no idea what is going on and have no real desire to get involved. Saying these words is one thing, obeying them is a whole different matter, especially when your kids have lost their jobs for refusing the vaccine, when inflation is killing your mortgage, when the police arrive to arrest you for preventing your 5-year old child from having gender-altering surgery (my native Scotland enacted a bill last year allowing all children over four years old to make their own decisions about their chosen gender, irrespective of their parents’ wishes and this week charges were laid against two parents for preventing their child from having the operation). In the midst of all this insanity, what does it mean to “trust the Lord”?

Isaiah 8: 11 - 15

These five verses tell us much about how to live free in a conspiracy-laden world:

Verse 11 For the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people,

I’m not sure what it means when the Lord speaks to us “with a strong hand” but I can well remember what my own parents did when they wanted me to understand the seriousness of a situation. Usually, their first finger was pointed straight at my nose, reminding me there was a whole hand attached to it that could result in considerable pain should I fail to heed their instructions. The Lord does not want us getting caught up in the fear and anxiety brought about by all the insanity around us. “Stop it!” He is saying to us, “Stop wasting your time worrying about where all this is heading as though somehow I don’t know what I’m doing”.

Verse 12 “Do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ Concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, Nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.”

Get rid of the word “conspiracy” to describe what is going on in the world right now. According to the Oxford Dictionary a conspiracy is “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.” We serve an omniscient God which means there isn’t a plan out there He doesn’t already know about so calling all that is happening a conspiracy means there is somehow a secret plan in place to do harm that He doesn’t know about. On top of that groups like the WEF for one have been neither secretive or (in their minds) harmful. They have been very open with what they intend to do because they believe it is the right thing to do but they are just plain wrong! If you want to know what God thinks about their plans read Psalm 2: 1 - 4:

1 Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision.

Our Heavenly Father is not sitting on his throne biting his fingernails wondering how he is going to defeat all these conspiracies. He’s laughing his head off and the only thing we need dread is Him but in order to dread Him, we must have a firm understanding of just how dreadful He is! In other words, if we are going to live in fear, let it be the fear of God because we already know how much He loves us which is the antidote to how fearful He is.

Verse 13 The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread.

The only person or thing in this world we are called to fear is not the devil, nor any government or opposing army. It is God. A dreadful fear of Him will get us through all that lies ahead because the terror of losing Him will drive us in closer to Him. Thus, as things get crazier and crazier, it may be time to turn off the TV and I-pads and figure out how all this nonsense fits in with His plan.

[gduncan969]

When Does God Heal?

Luke 12: 12 - 14 Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

John 9: 6, 7 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.

“When does God heal?” is not a question asked by most normal people who need healing or a “touch from God” as it is often called. For some, not in the church or perhaps in a church that doesn’t believe that God still heals, the much bigger question is, “Does God still heal today”?

Others, who already know that God still heals today also want an answer to their much bigger question: “Will He heal me or my loved one if I pray and ask Him to?” God’s Healing is a big topic among most Christians these days and there’s no end of books written on the subject about how to receive God’s healing. Some of the answers they give are laughable, some are laudable and some are downright criminal in the way they use the topic to extract donations from the suffering to make themselves rich. Either way, healing is too big a topic for this short blog and there’s too much confusion about what works and what doesn’t work to be dealt with here. However, I believe the answer to the question of “When does God heal?” will shed some light on these bigger, more troublesome, issues and perhaps bring some relief.

All of us have experienced the loss of someone we’ve prayed for to be healed but they weren’t and this has resulted in many forsaking the Lord because He apparently didn’t come through with the answer they were looking for. So, why should we bother about the question of “when does God Heal?” when our hearts are burning for answers as to “why didn’t He?”, a question that is firmly planted in the realm of what do we do about unanswered prayer, a subject that troubles most of us?

The ten lepers

Luke’s Gospel relates the story of ten lepers who encountered Jesus in a certain village and they cried out to Him from afar off. (The law dictated that they must keep their distance from others and warn those who drew close by shouting out “Unclean, unclean”.) Now Jesus had no problem touching lepers to heal them which was forbidden by the law (see Luke 5:12) but in this case he shouts over to them “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” Now, there is no record that the lepers shouted back, “Please Jesus, could you come over and touch us first like you did that other leper and then we will be clean”. He didn’t even say to them, “Be cleansed!” Rather, they simply walked off to show themselves to the priest and “as they went, they were cleansed.” I’m trying to guess what the conversation was between them as they walked away from Jesus, still riddled with leprosy. “What do you think, Joe? Are you feeling anything? Hey, Fred, can you see any change in my skin? What about you Frank, is there any change? When do you think we are going to be healed?

Those kinds of questions would be perfectly normal among the ten of them if they were still wondering if they were healed but they already knew they were! They recognized the only reason Jesus would tell them to go and show themselves to the priests is because he had already healed them and the law required that the priests examine them to confirm what they already had—a healing from leprosy! They weren’t walking away from Jesus FOR a healing but WITH a healing. It didn’t matter whether the healing came when they reached the first bend in the road, or a mile or so further on, when Jesus said go show yourselves to the priests, they knew he HAD healed them, else they wouldn’t have moved an inch. Their faith was not in their eyesight to tell them they were healed, it was in the One who had demonstrated time again he had the power to heal them. We do exactly the same thing when we go to a doctor whom we’ve learned to trust completely and he writes a prescription that he says will absolutely cure our problem. We leave his office thankful that he has healed our disease as we take the prescription to the pharmacy to pick up the pills that will do the trick but it only works that way if we have FAITH in our doctor! As we walk out the office, we feel a great sense of relief that we have in our hand a prescription that will relieve the pain and suffering we are experiencing. If we don’t have faith in the doctor then we are walking away in the HOPE that the pills will work to heal us. In the Kingdom of God, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7) nor by hope because hope is always future. It is faith that brings hope out of our future and into the present: (Hebrews 11:1) “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith says you can have right now what you have been hoping for and have it in a way that you know you’ve got it for real even when you can’t yet see it. Forty five years ago when my son, Rob was still in his pre-teens, his friend came for a visit to see if Rob was available for some outdoor adventures. While he was waiting for Rob in our kitchen, he noticed a memo stuck on our fridge door with a magnet that said, “Thank you Lord for our new trailer” so he stretched his neck to look out the window to see where our new trailer was. Not finding it, he said, “Mrs. Duncan, do you have a new trailer?” to which my wife replied, “Yes”. “Where is it?” he inquired. “It’s not here yet but it’s coming”, she told him. We had prayed for the trailer to have a low-cost visit to our friends in Alberta and we believed the Lord said OK and it came.

John 9: 6, 7 tells how Jesus healed a blind man. Now, you would think that when the man asked Jesus to heal him, Jesus would stick his fingers in the blind man’s eyes and say something like, “Be opened!” but he didn’t. He did the one thing that guaranteed the blind man could NOT possibly see. He made some mud with some spit and some dirt and plastered it into his eyeballs. Can you imagine how the blind man felt? He’d asked Jesus to cure his blindness and in return gets two mud balls plastered into his eye sockets. I could fully understand if he’d said to Jesus, “Jesus, how on earth am I supposed to see with my eyes plastered in mud?” Something else was operating in Jesus’ mind and in the blind man. To get healed, the blind man had to TRUST Jesus and Jesus gave him the opportunity to demonstrate that trust by telling him “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam”. It took FAITH for the blind man to walk (with someone leading him) away from Jesus to the Pool of Siloam and wash the mud off his eyes so he walked away from Jesus to the pool not FOR his healing but WITH his healing! How many of us would have walked away disgusted with the treatment we’d received and complaining bitterly that Jesus didn’t know what he was doing!

Naaman the Leper

2 Kings 5 tells the story of the commander of the Syrian army who had leprosy. Verses 9 - 14 describes how he got healed.

Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.” 11 But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’ 12 Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. 13 And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14 So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

I think we can all relate to Naaman’s reaction. We think we know better than God and we have preconceived opinions on how God heals but God wont fit into the narrow box we want to put Him in. Every healing we’ve looked at above required some action from the seeker before the healing took place. The seeker had to put his trust in the Lord, not his eyes or his brain and receive the healing he was seeking by TRUST (faith) even when there was no outward evidence he was healed. If you’ve been seeking the Lord for a healing, ask Him then trust Him. It may not happen immediately but know that He hears and if you know that He hears you, then you know that you have the petition you have asked of Him (1 John 5:15). After you have exhausted all your efforts to be healed, then stop praying for it and fall in love with Jesus all over again and allow Him to show you out of your renewed relationship with Him how much He loves you then go back to your sickness and see it in through the eyes of faith in Him.

[gduncan969]

He Already Knows

John 4: 29 “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

There are a lot of things in my life, I’d prefer you didn’t know about me because they are just too embarrassing to tell, but to convince you, I’ll give you two of them, one of which I don’t remember because I was just two years old at the time. I was born right in the heart of Scotland’s biggest city, Glasgow, just off its busiest street, Argyle Street, in one of those old, somewhat squalid, gas-lit tenement buildings the city was famous for back in the early 1900's. Seemingly, I’d managed to escape my mother’s watchful eye and wandered out of our first floor apartment, down the stairs, out the building, toddled 50 ft along West Campbell Street and on to Argyle Street where I stood in the middle of the street between the tram-car rails, dressed only in my undershirt! The traffic was stopped in both directions and the people in the street-cars were killing themselves laughing at my plight. Someone ran to inform my mother but she was too embarrassed to come and rescue me so she sent my 11-year-old big sister to fetch me to the applause of the gawkers watching the scene unfold. I’m so glad I don’t remember that one but the other one I want to tell you occurred about forty years later and is seared in my memory. I was the owner/operator of a chemical analysis laboratory in Northern Ontario and was setting up the apparatus to do cyanide analysis in water samples from a local gold mine (cyanide is used to extract the gold from the ore). The apparatus required a vacuum pump to suck air through the sample to remove the cyanide gas formed by adding some acid to the sample. Everything looked great, so I added the acid, turned on the vacuum pump and—nothing! No air bubbles whatsoever! There must be a leak I thought, so in a moment of brilliant inspiration, I pulled the hose off the vacuum pump, stuck it in my mouth and sucked!! Ah, yes, there were the bubbles I was looking for as the cyanide gas entered my lungs. I’ve just killed myself was my first thought! My second thought was, what a stupid idiot I was and the third thought was to ask one of my employees to drive me to the hospital immediately! On the way over to the hospital, I did some quick calculations and figured I would live because the cyanide level in the sample was pretty low but I may still be the only cyanide poisoning victim ever recorded in Ontario. I’ll never forget the poor emergency doctor who treated me while holding the poisoning manual in one hand and the hypodermic in the other. Yes, we are all capable of doing some pretty dumb things and worse still, some pretty nasty things in the course of our lives.

The story of the woman at the well in John 4 tells of an encounter Jesus had with a Samaritan woman who came at midday to draw water from the well and ran into Jesus who was sitting there on his own while his disciples had gone off to town to buy some food. “Give Me a drink.” asks Jesus (verse 7) to which he got the terse response, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” (verse 9) The conversation then unfolded to where Jesus tells the woman to “go fetch your husband” (verse 16). Of course, he knew full well she didn’t have one, having been married five times before and now simply living with number six—a lifestyle that is even more common than marriage in many places today. At that point, the woman begins to sit up and really take note of this stranger who is telling her things he shouldn’t know.

Many sermons have been preached on this incident in the ministry of Jesus and many different conclusions have been drawn as to the interaction between the two but we can all agree that the encounter was no accident (Jesus has never experienced an accident) and through it we get a clearer picture of Jesus as the “living water” within all of us who call upon his name and which “springs up in us into everlasting life” (verse 14) as we drink of it and feed it to those around us. Further clarification of this is given in Matthew 7: 38 - 39 ““He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The Holy Spirit flows into our hearts when we ask Jesus to forgive us and cleanse us of our sins and then He flows out from our hearts (KJV - “belly”) when He baptizes us in his Holy Spirit as He did the hundred and twenty believers in the upper room in Acts 2.

The woman at the well was not too impressed with Jesus’ declaration that he was the source of “living water” and called his bluff to give it to her so that she could stop carting a heavy water-pot back and forth every day. The reason she was there at midday, however, rather than early morning or evening, is very likely so that she could avoid the sneers and comments of the other women who knew full well what kind of woman she was. Also, the reason she was being so snarkey with Jesus was that she knew what most men were like and they were wont to “proposition” a woman for one purpose only—her body. That’s what surprised the disciples when they came back to find him talking to a despised Samaritan woman (verse 27). But verses 17-18 changed everything. Jesus begins to fill in details about her he couldn’t possibly know and we err if we take his statement about her five husbands as being all Jesus spoke to her about her private life. Note what she says to her neighbors back in the village, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (Verse 29). I believe she and Jesus had a long talk about a whole host of struggles she’d had throughout her life and it wasn’t she who raised these issues but the Lord Himself who gently took her back through them to expose them and to heal them. Oh, that others could have that same conversation with Jesus bringing their life experiences and tragedies out into the light of his loving Presence and laying them to rest in his forgiveness and acceptance of us just as we are.

Many years ago, I attended a Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI) meeting to hear a fellow Glaswegian, John Hutchison, give his testimony of how he came to Christ but after he spoke, he began to call out those in his audience who the Lord had indicated to him were suffering from various physical problems in their bodies to come forward to lay hands on them for healing. I had never seen this before so I and five others drove 90 miles the following evening to hear him speak again and once again he did the same thing, only this time I got a moment to speak to one of those he had prayed for, a man in his sixties. I asked him what had happened to him because he was staggering like a drunk man as he was walking out of the building. His response was, “I don’t know what has happened to me but something has because I’ve never felt this way before. I have cancer but I feel different and I can’t understand it”. John became a good friend and mentor to me over the years until he left for Heaven over twenty five years ago but after that second meeting I asked him to come to Kirkland Lake, Ontario, where we lived, and I would organize a dinner meeting for him to share his testimony once more. That happened a couple of months later and out of that meeting was formed the Kirkland Lake Chapter of the FGBMFI. But there’s an added aspect to all of this that has remained with me ever since. Just before John was due to arrive from England and take part in the dinner meeting, I was driving to work one morning with my thoughts on the upcoming meeting when I started to get quite nervous. “What if God reveals something to John about me that I don’t want anyone else to know and he calls me to come forward for prayer? Oh, dear, what would God possibly tell me?” The thought had no sooner entered my head when I heard these quiet, matter-of-fact words, “I’d tell you I love you!” I’m tempted to add the word “Dummy!” to the end of that sentence but He didn’t say it, nevertheless, there were lots of tears that flowed as I completed my journey to work. I have had but one encounter of finding myself in the visible light of God’ Presence and I could only say to him over and over again, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” but he would not depart and stayed there bathing me in a love that was overwhelming in its intensity. I just cried and cried.

All of us have this marvelous ability to bury our hurts deep within ourselves because dealing with them is too painful but that’s exactly why He came—to deliver us from our past, first by exposing it and then taking all the guilt away to begin anew, walking in the light of his love and his acceptance of us just the way we are. What a mighty God we serve! If you’ve never experienced this transition all you need do is ask him to come into your life and take over. Perhaps you are like many others who feel that you are basically a good person who has made mistakes but on balance the good outweighs the bad and that in the end, God is a forgiving God who will turn a blind eye to all your shortcomings. The difficulty with this is that God has no “blind eyes” to turn on us because He is omniscient—all-knowing and there is nothing hidden from His sight. He is a Holy God whose purity is so all-consuming that any sin, no matter how small, stops us from entering His presence. “For our God is a consuming fire” says Hebrews 12:29. He sacrificed His only Son on a Roman cross to open the narrow doorway through which we might humbly stoop and enter into his Kingdom to find life everlasting through the shed blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. So, if he already knows every detail about us, why then should we falter or fear when we humbly ask Him to forgive our sins and take control of our lives. If you haven’t done so, what’s keeping you and don’t forget to tell others what you have done? As a young Christian, I used to think God had a “Secret Service” organization to which I could belong so that I wouldn’t have to tell anyone I was a Christian and thereby avoid being ridiculed. Ultimately, I found out He didn’t have any such organization and that Luke says in Acts 14:22 “..that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” If we let the fear of tribulation stop us then the Lord will let us know that our fear is simply a lack of trust in Him to deliver us and show us marvelous things about ourselves we’ve never even dreamt of.

[gduncan969]

A Christmas Message

John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

I’m not sure who coined the expression “Great things come in small packages”. Perhaps it was someone surprised that the small box their Christmas gift came in was much better than expected but it always reminds me that the greatest gift the world has ever known came in the smallest of packages ever seen over two thousand years ago in the little town of Bethlehem. Every Christmas our thoughts turn to the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the babe lying in a manger in a stable at the back end of a crowded inn in Bethlehem. Despite the attempts by many to banish the scene from public view, we can still gaze upon the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger with Mary and Joseph looking down on Him, the three wise men a little further back presenting their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and behind them, kneeling, the shepherds who had come to worship the new-born King. Completing the familiar picture are the sheep, the cow and the donkey munching on the hay and in the background, a single star surrounded by angels shining brightly over the tranquil scene, telling us of God’s Christmas gift to the world of His only begotten Son, the Savior of all mankind.

God Sent Us Our Savior in a Pretty Small Package That First Christmas?

Luke 2: 7, 12 tells us Jesus was presented to the world wrapped in swaddling clothes. Leaving aside why he came for a moment, how he came still amazes me because if it had been left to me to organize the whole event, I would have done it very differently. Every city in the world would have had the most brilliant fireworks display they’d ever seen, laser beams would have pierced the sky and angels would be seen and heard throughout the whole earth rejoicing in his birth and every tin-pot dictator right up to Caesar himself would have known that God was taking over control of the earth. It was His after all and He created it. In fact, I wouldn’t have bothered sending Him as a tiny babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, I would have skipped that part and moved straight to the heavens being opened wide and Jesus, the conquering hero, coming riding down through the clouds on a white horse accompanied by the heavenly host all decked out in glorious array with trumpets blaring, cymbals crashing and the army of Heaven in full battle gear marching behind Him, ready to do business with sin and Satan. The location for this great event would have been Rome, the seat of world power and the best seats would be reserved for the prime ministers and presidents of all the nations and I would have had Him arrive at midday with full HDTV coverage broadcast around the world.

Thankfully, of course, He came in God’s plan, not mine. He laid aside all His kingliness, all His glory and came as a tiny, vulnerable babe, fragile and totally dependent on others for His survival. What a strange way to introduce the Creator of the universe to the rebellious world He made. John 1:14 says,“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,”. God, the Word, left His place in Heaven to come among us not just as a man but as a tiny newborn baby boy with no power to do anything but eat, sleep, laugh, cry and poop! But it’s even more amazing than that! The package He came in was infinitely smaller than we think and I’ll explain why.

Many years ago I started my own chemical analysis lab and was hired by a greenhouse operator to test the air quality in their greenhouses which were being used to produce tree seedlings for the forestry industry along with tomatoes for the local grocery stores. What a joy it was to work in my shirt sleeves among the growing tomatoes and tree seedlings with the bright sun shining down into the plastic-covered greenhouse in the middle of a Northern Ontario winter with temperatures hovering around a bone-chilling -30C. What truly amazed me was just how tiny the seeds were they planted into little plastic cups filled with no more than a spoonful or so of soil. They were watered and fed, kept warm and the rest was left to nature to take its course. How can a tiny seed much smaller than a grain of rice grow into a 100 ft tall fir tree by doing nothing but feeding and watering it? I watched as after a few days, tiny green shoots started to appear in the little cups and within a few weeks they were sent off to the tree planters who put them in the ground and left them to grow into those mighty spruce and pine forests I drove past on my way home. I never cease to be amazed at how such a tiny, tiny seed, much smaller than a grain of rice, can possibly contain all the genetic material needed to produce such a mighty tree stretching high into the sky, sucking in the carbon dioxide, breathing out the oxygen and providing a place for many a squirrel and bird to nest in. An old chorus we used to sing says: “Oh, I wonder at the wisdom of our God, Oh, I wonder at the wisdom of our God, When I see the tiny lily pushing up the mighty sod, Then I wonder at the wisdom of our God!”

The wonder of the Christmas story is not just that God came to earth as a tiny babe in Bethlehem— fully God and fully man all contained in that tiny babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. How can we possibly fathom the wisdom of our God? But it’s even more wondrous than that! God in all His fulness came to earth not as a tiny babe in a manger in Bethlehem but as a much, much tinier seed in the womb of a woman, Mary, His mother. (Genesis 3:15a) “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed;..”. Like all of us, Jesus’ life on earth began not at his birth in Bethlehem but at His conception! All of us who know the Lord do not look upon a pregnant mother and think that what moves in her womb for nine months becomes a person at birth. Governments may think that, institutions may think that and much of the population may think that but they are wrong! When born, the person that we can all now see has been located on earth for the previous nine months, hiding in the womb while God knitted all the parts together. Mary did not just carry a fetus for nine months but a person who even in His mother’s womb caused another person, His unborn cousin John, to leap in his mother’s womb when the two moms met (Luke 1:41). All that Jesus became as a man following His birth began in his mother’s womb as the tiniest of seeds and only time and circumstances were necessary to reveal all that He would become—the Savior of the world; your Savior; my Savior. Psalm 139: 13 - 16 spells it out for us:

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvellous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skilfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

Truly, the greatest Christmas gift the earth has ever seen came in the smallest package the earth has ever known.

[gduncan969]

What Does God Expect of Us?

Malachi 6: 6 - 8

“6 With what shall I come before the Lord, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?”

I’m finding it very hard to believe what I saw on a video posted by Jesse Watters of Fox News last night. The judge currently hearing the civil case against Donald Trump regarding his supposed tax-avoidance has just posted pictures on the internet showing HIMSELF HALF-NAKED in his bathroom?? NOTE: not pictures of Donald Trump or anyone else but pictures of HIMSELF! Is this for real or is it some kind of “AI” creation meant to destroy the judge’s reputation? I’ve watched Jesse Watters’ show many, many times and I’ve never felt he was being deliberately dishonest in his assessment of current affairs and he generally goes to great lengths to verify what he broadcasts so despite how hard I find it to believe, it very likely is true: the 70+ year-old judge just posted half-naked images of himself on the internet! Wow! The discussion panel on Watters’ program rightly concluded the judge has simply gone insane—there can’t be any other explanation. This is the same judge who, at the start of the trial, appeared laughing and smiling before the court cameras and the world watched as he gleefully opened his notes to begin the trial being prosecuted by an admitted Trump-hater who ran her entire election campaign to become District Attorney on her promise to “get Trump”. Today, the news media announced the results of the Virginia State elections and yet again I am dumbfounded by a story arising from it. The Republicans did not do well but there was one seat they won from the incumbent democrat, a married woman in her late 30's/early 40's (I guess) and they won it by the slimmest of margins. The astounding announcement is that she lost her seat because the Republicans found several pornographic videos of her and her husband having sex together which they posted on line and made available to the public—for a fee! Lost by the slimmest of margins?? Who in their right minds would vote for such a perverted candidate?

Corroding Standards

Over the last few decades, we’ve all seen a serious corrosion of the moral and independence standards of our courts and legal profession but nothing even close to this has ever happened. How should the American people respond to such a disgusting act by a sitting judge? We all agree that our courts and especially our judges should maintain a rigid standard of fairness and strict impartiality, as well as a great deal of decorum. Judges must be free from any outside interference or political influence but these criteria seem to have evaporated in the current woke climate and they’ve been replaced by a political correctness and partisanship that has destroyed our confidence in the system. Once again, we are left crying out, “Lord, what on earth is happening?” It surely doesn’t matter if you hate Donald Trump or love him, no one deserves to be judged by such a perverted judge. We expect far, far more from our legal authorities and I hope I’m correct when I say we generally still get it but my confidence has been seriously shaken these days when I hear that cell phones of two Ottawa police officers called to give evidence in the Truckers Convoy trial currently underway in Ottawa have been “accidently” wiped clean and their contents therefore are not available to the defense team, or the blatant lies that are being proffered by our politicians, presidents and prime ministers who’ve been caught with their hands in the cookie jar; or, the police in the UK arresting for the third time a woman found silently praying near an abortion clinic—after a judge had already thrown out the first two charges. These are just a few of the many instances where we’ve been left utterly disheartened by the corruption that seems to abound all around us. We expect better!

What Does God Expect of Us?

At the heart of the matter is not so much what we expect of others but what does God expects of us? It is not helpful for us to immerse ourselves in the corruption of others and get thoroughly depressed until we have a clear picture of how we stand with the One who counts the most, Jesus Christ. He is the best cure for our depression. Dwelling on all the other stuff that’s going on only leads to discouragement and that’s not where the Lord wants to lead us. So, at a fundamental level, what does God expect of us? Malachi spells it out in the three verses above.

First, He doesn’t need or want our material and intellectual assets. No matter how rich we are or how clever we might think of ourselves, we cannot purchase His favor with either of these even if we were to include offering to sacrifice our nearest and dearest just to prove how serious our allegiance might be. Throughout human history, misguided people have cut themselves, bled themselves, flogged themselves and sacrificed their children all to prove to God how faithful they are to Him. Even the Old Testament Jews perverted the animal sacrifices God ordained as a covering for their sin to a “show of allegiance” to merit His favor. They even tried the trick of using the Ark of God as some kind of talisman that would guarantee victory in their battle against the Philistines (1 Samuel 4) when by their very lifestyles they denied the allegiance to God they claimed to have. Closer to the present, Christians have bankrupted themselves to the prosperity preachers to show God how serious they are in proving themselves worthy of His favor with the added hope of a 100-fold bonus on their investment.

Second, God is not impressed by such a show of allegiance when it stems from a rebellious mind rooted in a corrupted heart. He will never play the role of an Aladdin who answers the call to do our bidding if He’s rubbed the right way. Through all of this He’s calling out to His people, “Choose you now this day whom you will serve..” (Joshua 24:15) because He is fed up with our vacillating performances between living for Him and living for the world.

Third, we have no need to ask Him what we must do to get back on track because He has already made that very plain to us: “..to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God” (verse 8). It would seem that many have no idea what these terms, "do justly, love mercy and walk humbly" mean. We as a race are on a very dangerous precipice and unless our God intervenes, we are about to fall off into the unimaginable Hell Jesus describes in Matthew 24. We’d better be found hanging on tightly to His irrevocable promises for our dear lives if the world continues on its present course. If this blog has scared you, know that if you’ve committed yourself to Him you are safe and your future is secure but remember to keep doing justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with Him.

[gduncan969]

Go and Make Disciples

Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”

Someone pointed out to me recently that the “Great Commission” given to believers by Jesus in Matthew 28:19 is to “go and make disciples…”, not to go and make converts. I admit that the difference between these two had escaped me until now but there is a difference and it’s important. Over the years, all of us who have committed ourselves to Christ have been taught that we have the duty and privilege of leading others who do not know Him to Christ. In my mind that has always meant we are to tell others what God has done for us (our testimony) and ask them if they are willing to confess their sins and ask Jesus to forgive them and come into their hearts as Lord and Saviour. I still believe this is the most common approach that gets people saved and it is the one used all over the world in evangelistic meetings, small groups and one-on-one evangelism. However, while it makes a person a convert it does not necessarily make him or her a disciple! Disciple-making has been largely neglected in the church although you may argue that the weekly services and/or bible studies are the means by which we learn to become disciples but think about it, how many sermons or bible studies have you listened to that taught you how to minister to others and lead them to Christ? How much teaching have you had on the laying on of hands to heal the sick, or to set someone free from demonic oppression? It has always intrigued me that the writer to the Hebrews says "Therefore leaving the (elementary) principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,  Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." (Hebrews 6: 1, 2)

How clued up and familiar are you on these ELEMENTARY topics of the Christian life? This needs to change, especially in the current state of both local and international world affairs. Rest assured, those who make a decision to repent of their sins and turn to Jesus are welcomed with open arms into the Kingdom of God, their names are written down in the Book of Life and their eternal destiny is secured. Where we have fallen down is to assume that now they are saved, we have little or no responsibility to disciple them! In my many years as a Field Representative for Full Gospel Businessmen followed by almost 20 years in pastoral ministry, I’ve seen many people come forward and make a commitment to commit their lives to Jesus Christ but I must confess that in all but a few instances, I have no idea where they are in their Christian walk today. That should not be! Just look at how the newly-birthed church handled the three thousand new converts that the Holy Spirit added to their number in one day (Acts 2: 41 - 47):

41 Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. 42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. 43 Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 44 Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, 45 and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. 46 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

What is a disciple? It shouldn’t be surprising to find that a disciple is one who is disciplined. That’s the difference between a convert and a disciple, and remember, the Lord has commissioned us to make disciples, not converts. Making disciples requires much more involvement from us than making converts and we cannot escape this by saying that once we get them saved, it’s up to Jesus, not us, to do the discipling. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:16 “.. I urge you, imitate me” and in 1 Corinthians 11:1 “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” and in Hebrews 6:12 it says: “.. imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” How can you imitate someone you don’t spend time with? It is true that many churches have programs in place to teach new converts the basics of the faith and various Sunday services and Sunday school programs to teach the more mature converts the deeper things of the faith but discipling someone must be more than passing on information through formal teaching or preaching sessions. It must also include the practical aspects of the faith—getting to know them, help them and encourage them. Jesus’ disciples spent a lot of time with Him seeing how he did things, how He handled people and how He always acted out of love for them. I don’t believe for a moment that when he sent the twelve and then the seventy out to “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons” (Matthew 10:8), they all asked Him: “How do we do that?” He simply said: “Freely you have received, freely give.” They had watched Him do these things and they knew how to perform. Are we willing to be discipled so that we can do the same things and then disciple others? Mind you, that assumes that we are seeing these things in our church gatherings on a regular basis. This will require a commitment of time and resources and a willingness to see others grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s do it—for our families, our friends and our neighbours!

When I say that many churches have programs, these programs are almost entirely devoted to teaching us how to grow in our OWN walk with the Lord Jesus but little to do with how to minster what we have learned to others, particularly as it relates to the baptism in the Holy Spirit which is offered to every believer. It is this baptism by Jesus himself through which we receive the power of the Holy Spirit to make us witnesses to Him “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8). These other programs may be good programs but the danger is that we become like those who are “ever learning but never able to come to the (experiential) knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). We are filled to the brim with head knowledge about what it means to be a Christian but often fail to act like one. We can so easily become like witnesses who spend most of their time sitting outside the courtroom reading up on the latest self-help program or daily news while waiting to be called into court to testify to what we have seen and heard, but never hearing the Lord’s call to us from the moment we received the Spirit’s power. We are either too hard of hearing or too distracted by worldly cares, or perhaps just too unwilling to answer the call!

Making disciples is a long-term process requiring commitment to the task as any godly parent already knows or any loving believer understands. At its simplest, the world is full of only two kinds of people: those who have committed themselves to Christ and whose eternal destiny is life with Christ and those who haven’t whose eternal destiny is hell with Satan. Where are your family, your friends, your neighbors going? “Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.” (Psalm 86:11)

[gduncan969]

The Scourge of Legalism

1 Corinthians 4: 18 - 20 “Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.” (RSV)

Romans 14: 13 “Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. 14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for any one who thinks it unclean. 15 If your brother is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. 16 So do not let your good be spoken of as evil. 17 For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit;”

I have met so many people who were raised in the church and enthusiastically followed the Lord Jesus in their younger years but now want nothing to do with the message of the Gospel because what was once to them “the right way to live” later became a straitjacket of laws to be obeyed and activities to be avoided lest they be accused by their family and fellow believers of wilfully sinning. Failure to meet these “laws” split families and churches right down the middle and the finger-wagging condemnation of their more religious fellow believers caused many to walk away and abandon the faith altogether. My wife remembers well as a teenager sitting in the choir of her local Baptist Church one Sunday morning and having her aunt seated in the row in front turn around and tell her, “I know where you were last night and you should be ashamed to be sitting in the choir this morning!” Her damnable crime: she had attended a party the previous evening run by the youth group at the local Church of Scotland. Perhaps worse still, her own Baptist Church youth group seriously discussed the question: “Can you belong to the Church of Scotland and still be saved?” We were married in that church 58 years ago, just before the minister, who was a godly man, was forced to resign because he was accused of falsifying the financial records and we know several from that church who still refuse to have anything to do with the Gospel. How sad!

The Christian and the Law

Church history is riddled with many similar stories and to its shame it continues to this day. There’s something in our fallen nature that craves power over others because we need it to hide our own failures and an easy way to gain that power is to invent a set of rules and regulations that you have to obey—except if you are the one who makes the rules! That way you can elevate yourself above your peers and show off your faithfulness to the cause by keeping others in line with the latest group-think while condemning those who express a different point of view. Someone once said the perfect church has only one member. The Old Testament of course, is a ready source of do’s and don’t’s that we can hit others with and bring them to heel by accusing them of breaking God’s written laws that must be obeyed. The words of the Bible make a great cudgel to hit others with as you seek relief from your own frustration trying to satisfy its insatiable demands for obedience The tragedy is, however, that no believer in Jesus Christ is called to live according to the law. Paul warns us in Galatians 3: 10 - 13:

For as many as are of the works of the law (i.e. those who demand we follow the law of do’s and don’ts) are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

It couldn’t be clearer that we are NOT required to live by reading all the Bible’s rules and regulations then gritting our teeth in a supreme effort to obey them. We are to walk after the Spirit, not the flesh and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Yet many believers think they have to live in obedience to the law and in the guaranteed frustration that results, they lay their intolerable legal burden on others, usually in self-righteous anger because they know they themselves are failing to obey. These kind of “believers” are typically, angry, intolerant and unloving and this kind of thinking is called legalism and its effect on individuals and congregations continues to be devastating.

The Curse of Legalism

The first experts in this kind of behavior were the pharisees whose descendants are alive and well in many churches today. How many unsaved people and former church-goers today simply shrink back in horror at any mention of accepting Christ as Lord and Savior because their experience of the church and its Christians is one of rigid obedience to a long list of do’s and don’ts. I’ve spoken with mature adults who were talented athletes in their youth but could not pursue their talents because their well-meaning, bible-thumping parents would not permit them, saying all sport was a tool of the devil. It reminds me of a scene from the famous movie, “Chariots of Fire” where the Scottish Olympic gold-medalist, Eric Liddell comes out of church one Sunday morning to a soccer ball bouncing down the hill into his hands, followed by two breathless lads who were chasing it. “Can I have my ball back, sir?”, said one of the Lads. “D’ye no ken whit day this is?” Liddell replied with a smile. “Aye, sir, it’s the Sabbath day”, the lad replied. “Then you shouldna be playin fitba’ on the Sabbath”, he added as he handed back the ball. That scene brought a flood of memories back to me because the Scotland I grew up in locked up all the swing parks, closed all the putting greens, swimming pools, locked up all the stores on Sundays so that people would not be tempted to sin and fail to keep the Sabbath Holy. Boy! how things have swung to the opposite extreme today.

As Christians, we are NOT required to live according to God’s law! I will repeat that: As Christians, we are NOT required to live according to God’s law! That may sound like heresy to many but I can’t emphasize enough that living that way will kill you and possibly kill many of your Christian friends. It has certainly killed some of mine. We are called to live by FAITH, recognizing that Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law as explained in Galatians Chapter 3 . Read through the rest of this chapter starting at verse 1: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you..” and you will see how foolish we are to think that we can ever please God by looking up His law and then trying to apply it to our lives. IT WILL NEVER WORK because Christ has already destroyed the works of the law and called us to walk by FAITH in Him, recognizing He has already dealt with the demands of the law through His shed blood. It’s our faith in Jesus that tells us we are living in a way that pleases Him. Most believers are very familiar with Paul’s agonizing statements from Romans 7, especially verses 19 and 24: “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” (19) and “ “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (24) but they overlook his other statements in verse 6 “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter (of the law).” and they fail to read on into Romans 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death”. We are called to walk in the liberty of the Spirit because through Christ we are dead to the law Old Testament Law of do’s and dont’s (Galatians 5:13).

Self Checkup on How You are Living

If you want to know whether you are following the Law of sin and death or the law of liberty in Christ Jesus, check your reaction to the following situation: You are driving along a highway and just ahead of you, you see a parked car with a police officer holding a radar gun pointed towards you. If your eyes immediately jump to your speedometer and your foot automatically jumps off the accelerator to the brake, you are living in fear of the law because you suspect you are speeding and you don’t want a(nother?) ticket but if you are living your life trusting in Jesus to guide you every moment of every day, you simply carry on driving and wave to the police officer knowing that the Holy Spirit within you told you a few minutes beforehand to lift your foot off the pedal because you are going too fast! What a joy it is to be living in a way that makes us unafraid because we know our faith in Him will keep us obedient to the law that He has delivered us from. I’ll be the first to confess I don’t always live that way but the older I get the more I’m learning to lean on Jesus just as the old song says. That’s the antidote to our tendency towards legalism—reminding ourselves that we are following Him, not His Law. The misery and devastation that legalism continues to cause could all so easily be avoided by simply trusting Him to lead us aright.

Where to Find the Balance

Perhaps this all sounds too easy. It isn’t. For many of today’s church-going generation, it’s been very easy to condemn such old fashioned legalism and religious rigidity and use it as an excuse to live with the “live-and-let-live” approach where anything goes and nothing is sinful if it feels good and doesn’t offend anyone. These are those who find the word “sin” more offensive than any four-letter swear-word and who refuse to deal with its consequences in their lives and in the lives of their fellow church-members. They may belong to “user-friendly” churches who preach a feel-good gospel of “if it ain’t fun, then we’re done!” led by liberal preachers who openly welcome all who will come but never challenge those who are living together without marriage, same-sex couples and others living sinful lives while they themselves fail to practice what they preach. They reinterpret the bible to fit their aberrant lifestyles and the devastating result has been the downfall of so many traditional denominations (Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist and many others) that have split wide open based on their interpretation of what constitutes sin. How tragic! Indeed, the result of all this spreads much further into society than the current state of many churches because it is the Church that has held society together these past two millennia, despite a long history of wars and rumors of wars. Jesus Christ is not coming back for a beat-up, bruised, powerless Bride but for one that is “without spot or blemish” (Ephesians 5:27) and He is coming back—soon! The question we must answer is: will we be part of it or will our lot be with those whom Jesus describes in the last days in Luke 13 and Matthew 24 as those who fall away because their love for Him has grown cold and lifeless? As deception and corruption sweeps across the nations at this time and war breaks out in Israel; as floods surge across many nations and countries; and earthquakes destroy thousands of homes and kill many people, let all of us who claim salvation through Christ alone fall on our knees and cry out to God for the greatest revival the world has ever seen and let it begin in me and you and you.

[gduncan969]

Lessons on an E-Bike

Matthew 7: 13 - 14 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

Last May I reported on the tragic accident that happened to my son-in-law’s mother, Marg Tucker, a missionary with her husband, Tom, in Migori, Kenya. Marg was killed when a transport truck carrying a load of gravel lost its brakes and flipped over on top of their car, killing Marg and injuring Tom who has since fully recovered. The morning following the accident, their son, Jeff, (my son-in-law) awoke from sleep to hear his mother urgently telling him I’m fine but you must tell them to enter by the narrow gate and stay on the narrow path that leads to life because the time is short and many will fail to enter and will be lost forever. Jeff called his dad to tell him what he had heard from his mom and the news had tears flowing down Tom’s cheeks because those two verses from Matthew were the very ones Marg would speak on each time Tom called her up to the pulpit to say a few words to the various churches they visited. These two verses have troubled me over the years because they carry a warning to all believers to stay the course every believer must follow in serving the Lord and the course is not a cake-walk but a marathon. We who have committed our lives to Christ find it so easily to become complacent in our walk with the Lord, so much so that we find ourselves sliding off the steep and narrow path that leads to life back on the to the broad path that leads to Hell. We do not want the responsibility that comes with our salvation and prefer to enjoy ourselves and have fun with the rest of crowd. The word “FUN” lies at the heart of so much church activity these days that we have forgotten why the Lord didn’t take us to Heaven the moment we were saved. We know the price He paid for our salvation and know the promises He has given us but we tend to shy away from the responsibilities that such great love demands of us but knowing God’s Love for us is but one side of the Gospel message. The other side—which we are much less attracted to—is God’s Holiness. His Love warms our hearts and gives us a peace that passes understanding as we rest in Him and watch Him work in us and through us but the moment we get a whiff of His holiness we are terrified! Being terrified of His Holiness was the reaction of the children of Israel at Mount Sinai when they told Moses,

“You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (Exodus 20:19)

It was the reaction of Isaiah when he saw the Lord and declared,

“Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5)

It was the reaction of Peter when he agreed to “let down the net” at Jesus’ word (Luke 5:5) and suddenly found he should have “let down the nets” as Jesus actually commanded because his one net was overflowing with enough fish to almost sink the boat. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Verse 8).

Finally, it was what motivated Paul and his companions to preach the Gospel (2 Corinthians 5:11)

“11 Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.”

He preached the Word not just because he wanted to but because he had to. Jesus “died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.(verse 15). Every believer, including you and me, is named in that one phrase, “Those who live”.

How Terrified of God Are You?”

In this present day and age, there is vastly diminishing room for complacency in our walk with the Lord. As society becomes more and more deceived, more and more corrupt, more and more anti-Christian, it is bringing upon itself the wrath of God which we are beginning to see in weather events, earthquakes, etc., that fill our TV screens. Life for the Christian is becoming more and more challenging and for many, that brings the temptation to ignore the narrow gate and follow the broader path of compromise with the world around us just to keep life comfortable. The COVID pandemic showed us that Governments can shut down churches, close schools, restrict our movement, freeze our bank accounts, censure us as homophobic, transphobic and indoctrinate our children as they please and those Christians who stood up against this have paid a hefty price. They continue to force our compliance with their anti-biblical agendas and many believers are only now beginning to waken up to what lies behind all of this.

The Narrow Gate and the Steep Path

God has given His children precious promises that reassure us that nothing comes our way that doesn’t first have to get past Him. What others do for evil intent against us, God works for good but that only becomes true in our experience as we commit ourselves entirely to Him and His purposes. The passage in Matthew 7 about entering by the narrow gate has never been one of my favorite scriptures because it challenges me to examine my life and consider which path I’m really on. When Jesus describes how it will be at the end of the Age (Matthew 24), He didn’t paint a warm, fuzzy picture full of Joy and gladness. Rather, He describes a time of great trial and tribulation such as has never been seen on earth before, a time when “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.” which will challenge every believer to the core. I find that very frightening—even terrifying, but many fellow believers tell me that we will be “raptured” out of all that before it happens because Jesus is coming back twice, once in the air to collect His Saints and then on the earth, so we don’t have to be overly concerned—no need for any of us to even think about the terror of the Lord at that (or is it this?) time. Unfortunately, the parable Jesus told about the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13: 24 - 30) tells me it is the wicked that are taken out first and again in Luke 17 where Noah and his family remain while the wicked are removed as was Lot and his family (minus his wife) while Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed and removed (verses 26 - 28). Lastly, concerning the two men in one bed, the two women grinding together and the two men in the field, Jesus said one will be taken and one will be left but the disciples’ curiosity led them to ask, “Where Lord?”—where will they be taken?—and Jesus answered, to where the dead bodies are (verse 37) where they will be picked over by the vultures or eagles (birds of prey). The other one of the two will be left on earth which I trust means you and me (verses 34 - 36) with Jesus.

Riding My E-bike

Realizing the enormity of these end times for the believer and Jesus telling us that many will fall away during them, we need a better understanding of the narrow gate and the steep path Jesus spoke of to make sure we are on the right path. Today, I was riding my little E-bike along one of the many trails around my home town of Woodstock, Ontario. Initially, I traveled along a very smooth and wide path of newly laid asphalt just round the corner from my home (the road led to my local Tim Horton’s! I rode my bike with no concern about ruts, bumps or other obstacles getting in my way so the ride was very easy and unthreatening. However, things changed when I hit the forest trail and the path narrowed to less than a foot wide (see pictures). To get on the path I had to carefully steer the bike through a narrow gate and enter the comfortably wide path beyond but this quickly narrowed and I had a very difficult time keeping the small wheels on my E-bike on the path. My entire attention was on avoiding being thrown off the bike whenever I wandered off track and making sure I reached my destination. There was no room for complacency and my full attention was firmly fixed on staying on the narrow pathway ahead.

When I got home, it hit me I had just been taught a lesson about the narrow gate and the steep path to eternal life in Christ. There was no room for error and though my focus was on staying on the path to avoid the ruts, tree-roots and rocks that threatened to upend me, the journey was still enjoyable because I knew who was watching over me and was confident I’d get there without too much bone-rattling bounces. Also, there was no room for baggage hanging off my bike which would not allow me through the gate. Every non-essential had to be left behind for the trip but the reward was the beautiful scenery I was in the middle of and enjoying.

The end times may be the worst times the earth, including us, has ever seen but for all who have put their trust in the Lord Jesus they are the best of times as we experience his faithfulness, his guidance and His awesome, terrifying power to keep us through every trying circumstance. As we continue to place our trust in Him and stay focused on the journey, we will make it through victoriously and hear Him say, “Well done good and faithful servant..” (Matthew 25:21). The bible says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10) but the end is a joyful eternity in His presence.

[gduncan969]

Who's Winning The War?

Psalm 92: 5 - 7 O Lord, how great are Your works! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know, Nor does a fool understand this. When the wicked spring up like grass, And when all the workers of iniquity flourish, It is that they may be destroyed forever.

It’s a bit overwhelming right now, isn’t it? It’s hard to believe we are being forced to deal with questions that are so self-evident to any reasonable-thinking person we wonder why on earth anyone would want to ask them in the first place, let alone discuss them. What is a woman? How many genders are there? What pronouns should we use? Is marriage just between a man and a woman? Can I stop my teenage (and younger) children mutilating their bodies through so-called gender-altering surgery? Can I express my sincerely-held opinions without fear of losing my job, my status and my freedom? Who’s in charge of all this anyway and who voted them in?

Turning on the news these days is a sure-fire recipe for clinical depression. According to the media, we are so far along the pathway to destruction we have passed the point of no-return and it is too late to turn back. If the environment doesn’t kill us the next plague will, if the plague doesn’t kill us the weapons of mass destruction will and if the printing presses don’t stop printing money the economy will and we are all going to die through one or more of starvation, fear, war, global warming and a host of other equally disastrous circumstances. It’s all just a matter of when, not if. No wonder so many are terrified and depressed! There is a cure for this depression but perhaps you have already found your own—you don’t listen to the news anymore! If that is your stand you are holding on to that good old standby, “no news is good news” otherwise known as the “head-in-the-sand” approach. It might relieve your symptoms for a while but it won’t cure the problem of how to survive the next decade (if there is one!)? When it comes to being aware of what’s going on, ignorance is not bliss and the proof for that is found in the many examples in the bible of the “sudden destruction” that fell on people who chose to live in their ignorance. If you want to check me out, start with Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis and move on through Noah and the children of Israel who made it out of Egypt into the desert but never made it out of the desert into the promised land. Then, follow on through the rest of the books ‘til you reach the last one, Revelation. There’s a hefty price to pay for ignorance.

Heed the Warnings

Paul’s warning to all believers in these last days is “when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction (will) come upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.” (1 Thessalonians 5:3) and he also tells us in Ephesians 5:15 “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise..because the days are evil”. That word “circumspectly” means “looking around to discern what is really going on”. Now, no one wants to spend time listening to news media who are doing all they can to hide the blatant corruption, the lying, the hidden agendas and the subterfuge that is going on all around us while they hype up every fear that is gripping us but the corruption has now reached a level that simply cannot be ignored. The fear and frustration produced by this is slowly being replaced with anger, which is a good thing for believers because it drives us to the only solution we have available which is PRAYER, prayer and more prayer, but anger can be a very bad thing among unbelievers who may well go the way of violent protest, mayhem and destruction. What do you think the outcome will be if Donald Trump is indeed found guilty of the multitude of charges against him and is sentenced to jail just as the battle for the next president begins? Will his multiple millions of supporters simply walk away or do something else? How long will Russia and China stand by and watch the western nations destroy themselves with their environmentalism, woke-ism and every other “-ism”—designed only to bring more and more fear into our lives—before they decide we are now too diminished to defend ourselves? Will President Biden and his extended family walk off with their millions of dollars gained through influence-peddling and bribery and will that happen before or after the next world war that is lying at the door? These are very scary questions but they are very much in line with the bible’s description of how it will be before Jesus returns to set up His Kingdom here on earth? What must we do?

It’s OK to Be Angry

It’s OK for Christians to get angry—”Be angry and do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26) the bible tells us. Of itself, anger, like love and hate is neither good nor bad. It all depends on the object of the anger or the love or the hate that determines their benefit. It is good to love righteousness but bad to love sin. It is good to be angry at injustice but bad to be angry with the policeman who ticketed you for speeding. It is good to hate sin but love sinners. Nevertheless, as believers we must guard against anger’s powerful tendency to lead us into sin by deciding to take matters into our own hands and not seek God’s plan and purpose in these situations. The only thing that can halt the moral collapse we are all witnessing in our neighborhoods, our country and the world beyond is a sovereign move of the Holy Spirit to REVIVE the sleeping Church whose mandate from Heaven has always been to spread the Gospel in all its fulness by preaching, teaching, evangelizing, healing and delivering and that’s where our struggle really lies. It’s OK to get angry at these things but our anger must goad us into action but watch out, whatever action we take must be prompted by the Holy Spirit, not our self-righteousness. 1 Corinthians 4:20 says, “For the kingdom of God is not in talk but in power”. We can talk about God all we like but unless we can demonstrate His power, we really have nothing to say! Even the briefest review of revival history shows revivals all begin with a small group of believers, who could no longer stand the decay they saw in themselves and their fellow believers, fell on their knees and started to cry out to God to come and rescue them and their neighborhoods. God’s answer to their prayers was to send the Holy Spirit to light a fire among them like He did on the day of Pentecost and that’s what this end-times generation desperately needs. They were long past the days of simply complaining about how bad things were and talking among themselves about how worse it might get. They had written to their MP’s, voted for the best candidates, attended public meetings, protested about the latest government actions and inactions but none of it was turning the ship of state around in a new, godly direction Their only qualification was an awareness of the dreadful back-slidden state of the local church and its impotence (lack of power) against the deluge of sin consuming the unbelievers around them. We can wonder all we like about how otherwise reasonable people can be so blind to the blatant corruption around them and we can wring our hands in fear of the outcome but all of it is designed to do one thing: bring us to our knees!

God’s Plan

Psalm 92:4 tells us how God plans to let us share in the victory of this war of the ages, “For You, Lord, have made me glad through Your work; I will triumph in the works of Your hands.” Victory for us lies in us doing the works of His hands, not our own works and He reveals what may not have occurred to our foolish, senseless minds that the only reason the wicked schemers of this world are flourishing so successfully these days is so “that they may be destroyed forever”. The last book of the bible tells us who wins this war. This theme of why the wicked prosper further unfolds in the Psalms that follow:

Psalm 94: 3 - 15

3 Lord, how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked triumph? 4 They utter speech, and speak insolent things; All the workers of iniquity boast in themselves. 5 They break in pieces Your people, O Lord, And afflict Your heritage. 6 They slay the widow and the stranger, And murder the fatherless. 7 Yet they say, “The Lord does not see, Nor does the God of Jacob understand.” 8 Understand, you senseless among the people; And you fools, when will you be wise? 9 He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? 10 He who instructs the nations, shall He not correct, He who teaches man knowledge? 11 The Lord knows the thoughts of man, That they are futile. 12 Blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, And teach out of Your law, 13 That You may give him rest from the days of adversity, Until the pit is dug for the wicked. 14 For the Lord will not cast off His people, Nor will He forsake His inheritance. 15 But judgment will return to righteousness, And all the upright in heart will follow it.

What will win in our own minds? Will it be fear or faith? For the Christian, this world may becoming a scary place for all that we hold dear—our families and friends, our jobs and careers, our hopes for the future but that remains true only until we place our trust in the One who “gives us rest from the days of adversity” (verse 13) and from whom we receive instruction. In verse 16, God asks us two questions:

Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?

And the Psalmist gives his answers (Verses 17 - 19):

Unless the Lord had been my help, My soul would soon have settled in silence. If I say, “My foot slips,” Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up. In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul.

For all of us who may be suffering from a “multitude of anxieties” about the changes taking place all around us and are struggling with a sense of hopelessness about the inevitable disasters that lie ahead of us, remember that “God is still on His throne and He will remember His own” as the old song says. Someone once said, “When you are depressed and discouraged about life’s circumstances, look DOWN because you are seated in heavenly places with Him from where you can see the grand picture of God’s plan for the world”. That’s good advice for all of us and will put a smile, not a frown on our faces as we take on the challenge of reaching others with the good news of the Gospel.

[gduncan969]

Words Like 'Like' Have Meaning

The Epoch Times newspaper (August 3 - 9) carried an article by Jeffrey Tucker—(not Susan’s husband of the same name)— bemoaning the ubiquitous use of the word “like” especially among the younger generation. It’s a word they inject into every sentence of every conversation they speak, often more than once per sentence, much to the annoyance of the listener who is trying to understand what they are really saying. He gives an example typical of what we’ve all heard at one time or another:

“I woke up so thirsty so I was like where’s my water? But I looked in the fridge and it was like empty because people drank it up last night. Everyone was like where is the water so I can drink it? So like suddenly it was gone but like no one said anything to me. So I’m like dudes like cut it out with the water thing, cause like without water, we are like dying over here. Whatever, I’m like OK. I’ll turn on the tap and like fill up a glass on my own. I’m sooo thirsty I’ll like do anything literally. I’m just like chugging away and thinking like sheesh omg I’m already like literally better”.

This issue reminds me of several other words that are similarly misused in modern parlance, words like“cool”,“dudes”, “far out” etc., and remember, too, those quintessential Canadian-isms, “Eh” and “You know” that our American neighbors like to draw our attention to. Tucker calls the ‘like’ word “a plague which has become a substitute for the English language itself” So what’s the problem if they sprinkle these words among every sentence, what harm does it do? Those who study such things tell us it reveals something much deeper about us and these words are more than just sentence-fillers to be used while trying to figure out what we really want to say. It’s what their use reveals that should concern us. Words have meaning and the best definition of words I’ve come across is one by Norman Grubb, who writes, “Words are crystallized thoughts”. As a retired chemist who spent many years crystallizing things, the idea that words are what we use to encapsulate and express ourselves from the jumble of thoughts rattling around our brains is just fine with me. We use words to communicate what we are thinking. My old high school English teacher, Frances M. Anderson, a tiny little woman with a stooped back, stiff gait and a first class honours degree from Oxford University held complete sway over our class of 6ft teenage louts, not with an iron fist—her hands were crippled with arthritis —but with her rapier tongue and an infinite store of English words which had the uncanny ability to describe our misbehavior in terms that left us in no doubt as to our guilt. We had a holy fear of that woman who could cut you to pieces with her tongue should you step out of line and it came as no surprise to find out she was the author of Oxford University Press’s “Pocket Dictionary of the English Language”. She gave us the only explanation I’ve ever heard of why people use foul language (swear): “they swear because they don’t know the language well enough to express what they really think”. In other words, people who swear are simply showing their ignorance and in a world now full of F-bombs every time you turn around, that’s a message that needs telling. However, as a Christian I also recognize that foul language can have a demonic source operating behind the ignorance as explained by two now-deceased friends, Rev. George Mackenzie and Rev. Gordon Williams. In describing their conversion experience of coming to faith in Christ they testified to the fact that the moment they committed their lives to Jesus, their foul mouths were immediately cleansed, not because they thought it ungodly to be using foul language and thus decided to stop but simply by the work of the Holy Spirit now dwelling within them. Although they were totally unaware of the change that had taken place the friends they bumped into in the hours afterwards immediately recognized the change and asked what had happened to them. As one friend commented, “What’s happened to you because you used to stop in the middle of a word to swear and you haven’t sworn once today!”

Tucker’s cure for those suffering from the ‘like’ affliction is to read a book, preferably a classic and read it aloud, taking note of the number of times this word appears where it is not necessary and then talk to someone about what you read without using the word ‘like’. Doing this for a few days you will find yourself speaking intelligibly and others will start listening to you again and even regard you as articulate (though some might argue an articulate teenager is an oxymoron). However, no one will do this unless they first understand what lies behind these word afflictions.

Misusing words is revealing

We are living in a culture that is redefining the meaning of words at will. Behind this is a very powerful global effort by the ultra-rich and powerful who have rejected God and the biblical definitions of right and wrong to redefine and control our way of living and they are putting tremendous pressure on the rest of us with the support of governments and media to conform to these radical views on a whole host of fundamental topics. I’m old enough to remember when being gay simply meant being happy and when being cool simply meant you had air conditioning. Keeping up with the latest jargon is simply impossible but much more important is what lies behind these redefined buzz words because there is indeed a method in their madness. ChatGPT informs us that the insertion of the word ‘like’ into every sentence uttered is designed to “express hesitation, convey emotion, or provide emphasis” but in fact it does none of these things. Tucker’s article says “it is deployed as a mark of grave insecurity” meaning that using the word ‘like’ in this manner is an attempt to avoid responsibility for what you are saying. Translating that last sentence into the double-speak of ‘like’ users would go something like: ‘like’ you only think ‘like‘ what you are saying is ‘like’ true but you want the listener to understand that it may not be and you don’t want the listener to hold you responsible if it isn’t because you are afraid of being canceled which may result in the loss of your status, your acceptance, your reputation, your job, etc. The FEAR that lies behind this whole subject arises from the cancel culture that pervades much of our public and even private discourse—”say the wrong thing and we will destroy” you is the mantra of the virulent left and the whole world seems to be bowing down to their woke demands. The increasing result of this grave insecurity is the deafening silence that is the response of most what were once called normal, decent people. These are still there and still form the largest segment of our society but they are far too silent and far too compliant with these new rules of behavior to bring a halt to the nonsense. Fear is a powerful deterrent. Who is willing to lose their job, their position, their status, their freedom by voicing an alternative opinion?

The Christian and the words we use

I predict God’s word, the bible, will soon be banned as hate speech. The process of doing so is well underway and there are many examples of this such as Franklin Graham’s crusade in the UK last year, banned because the bible calls homosexuality sin. Though the courts have ruled in Franklin’s favor, the trend continues on and it won’t be long before Christians will be persecuted and jailed for preaching the bible. A Christian group are now suing the Quebec government who canceled their convention in Montreal because of their biblical stance on abortion. The big question is how will the rest of us Christians react? If the almost completely unopposed closure of churches during the recent pandemic is any example, I fear their will be much more acquiescence than antagonism from the churches which seem to have swallowed the lie that governments and those in authority must be obeyed, no exceptions. This speaks to the great “falling away” that Jesus warned us of in his discourse in Matthew 7: 13 - 23 and Luke 13:24 - 30 dealing with the end times of this present age. Scary though it may be, we cannot ignore Jesus’ words in Luke 21: 25 - 26 “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Even a cursory glance at what’s going on all around the world these days points to the immanence of His coming. The latest buzz-word on climate change from the environmental crowd is “Global Boiling”, a term clearly meant to scare us. Then there’s the“signs in the heavens” such as UFO’s (now called UAP’s because the public were beginning to laugh off UFO’s and they must be kept in a state of fear) and there can be no doubt about the “distress of nations” that is unfolding before us as the threat of war between the great powers has never been greater. The question in many believers’ minds today is: “What does all this mean?” and they are looking for an answer but many run from the biblical answer that Christ is returning soon. Accepting that reality and reading the above verses from Matthew and Luke simply adds to the fear they already have but don’t forget, the fear of Christ’s return is a Godly fear which brings us wisdom so Godly fear is our friend, not our foe because it pushes us to examine the flip side of God’s amazing love for us: His holiness. We serve an awesome God! He is perfect in holiness and fearful to behold. Those who have seen Him in the fulness of His holiness have all had the same reaction as Peter did when his net was bursting with fish on the shores of Galilee: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man”.

What should believer’s do in a world gone crazy?

Jesus goes on to say in Luke 21: 34 - 36 “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Whatever is going on in the world right now it is more and more clearly matching up with how the bible describes “the last days” and when that “Day” (the Day of the Lord) finally arrives it will snap like a bear trap on all of us. No more warnings, no more chances to repent, no more time to clean things up. We can ignore it at our peril and carry on trying to make the best of a bad lot as the world gets more and more complicated and challenging to survive in or, we can do as Jesus says to “watch and pray always” that we might prove ourselves worthy to escape all the dreadful things He tells us will happen in these times. The only way we can ever prove ourselves worthy is to demonstrate in our actions that we trust Him completely, love Him unabashedly and serve Him totally, telling others the good news of His deliverance from our sins. This we cannot do this by remaining fearful of and hidden from all that is happening around us but by taking action in His name. When Jesus says, “Watch and pray that you may be counted worthy..”, what is it He is asking us to do? What are we to watch? How are we to pray? Ephesians 5:15 tells us to “walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise.” 'Circumspectly' literally means “looking around you” and taking note of what you see and if we don’t walk this way we will look like fools when this worldly system comes crashing down and we go down with it. Furthermore, Verse 17 tells us “do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” so we are to walk in a way that makes us fully aware of what is unfolding before us and we are to pray for an understanding of what His will is during these last days. God has no "permissive will"—that’s the will we love to use to excuse our unanswered prayers but it says nothing of God’s will in a matter. He only has His “good and acceptable and perfect will” (Romans 12:2) which He can only reveal to us when we allow the Holy Spirit to transform our natural mind of the flesh to the supernatural mind of the spirit.

An Urgent Message From the Lord

I realize this is not a message that makes us smile and rejoice but it is an urgent message the Lord is giving to His Church in these last days. Some of you reading this will know that my daughter, Susan’s, mother-in-law, Marg Tucker, was tragically killed last May in a horrible vehicle accident in Migori, Kenya where she and her husband are missionaries. Susan and her husband (Jeffrey Tucker—no, not the writer of the article) flew off to Kenya to attend the funeral and be with Jeff’s dad and sister and family. On the morning of the funeral, Jeff, who was due to give a eulogy for his mother, awakened from sleep to hear his mother urgently telling him, “Jeff, you must tell the people they must enter by the narrow gate” (Matthew 7:13). Four thousand people attended the funeral and heard the message. Upon their return from Kenya, Susan asked me to speak at a memorial service for Marg and I asked the Lord what the message should be only to be told Matthew 7:13-14. A week later I watched a video on U-tube titled “Reinhardt Bonnke’s last message to the world”. Those of you who recognize that name will also recognize his ministry of evangelism to Africa where he spoke to crowds of millions (yes millions) of people and saw over 100,000 decisions for Christ in one day. Pastor Bonnke’s text for his last message to the world was Matthew 7:13. I almost fell off my chair but that’s not the end. A week or so later, I decided to watch a video of a Jewish woman’s testimony of how she came to faith in Christ and you can guess what the text of her message was: Matthew 7:13! All that to say I’m absolutely convinced we are in the last days and that the Lord urgently wants us to get the message that we cannot continue to be lazy in our approach to the Gospel or rely on a decision we made 40 or 50 years ago to follow Christ but have done nothing with that decision to follow Him and bear fruit for His Kingdom. He is calling us to lay down our lives for His sake and be willing to accept the consequences of the actions we take for His sake that may well result in our persecution, cancellation or even death. Scary stuff indeed but we must act because “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.” (2 Corinthians 5:11). How well do we know the terror of the Lord?

[gduncan969]

Does God Terrify You?

2 Corinthians 5:11: Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.”

All who have ever heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ know the good news that God loves us and has demonstrated that love by sending Jesus Christ, His Son, to rescue us from the death-sentence we were under because of our sins and that having received him, he is coming again to take us to live with him for eternity.  All He asks of us is that we turn (repent) from our wicked ways and believe on him, meaning we place our trust in him for the rest of our lives.  As believers, we rest in the assurance that we belong to him and trust that he will see us through every situation and circumstance that comes our way.  Sadly, many others reject the Gospel message or at first welcome it but then fall away because their unplowed hearts are full of thorns and stones and have no good soil for the message to take root in and bear fruit.  Throughout the entire bible, God declares the extent of His love for us and we remain eternally grateful for all he has done and is doing in our lives.

“The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell”

So goes the opening line of H. G. Spafford’s famous hymn and amazingly, he tops that in the last verse with one of the most grandiose statements ever written to describe the love of God:

Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry Nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.

Every follower of Jesus Christ knows that God loves them and the more they experience that love the more overwhelming it becomes. “Amazing love! How can it be that Thou my God shouldst die for me?”  But accepting that love demands a response from each of us and it’s what that response should be that is a subject not easily understood by many believers.  Another way of putting it is to ask ourselves, “What does God want my response to be for the free gift of his salvation?”

What is our response?

Obviously, top of the list would be the word: GRATITUDE perhaps followed by love, worship, praise adoration and so on, but God doesn’t want these to be just the feelings we have but the ACTIONS we take that express these feelings. James 2: 18 - 20 explains the difference between feelings and real faith this way:

“But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!  But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?” (AMP)

The Amplified bible also gives a greater insight as to how the demons believe and what a “foolish man” is:

..”The demons also believe [that], and shudder and bristle [in awe-filled terror—they have seen His wrath]! But are you willing to recognize, you foolish [spiritually shallow] person, that faith without [good] works is useless?”

Hmm..!  Maybe it’s time to balance our view of God’s love for us with that other aspect of God’s revealed character: His Holiness!  Whilst his love warms our hearts and fills us with gratitude, praise and worship, his holiness TERRIFIES us and fills us with fear  It makes us dreadfully afraid of Him because “our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29 and Deuteronomy 4:24) but this fear of Him is not our enemy but our friend since it forces us in all our dealings with him to remember just WHO we are dealing with, the “God of gods” and the “King of kings”.  All of us who grew up with godly parents recognize there were always two aspects to godly parenting, one which made their children love them because of all they do for them and one which made them fear them because disobedience carries very unpleasant consequences!   Godly children are filled with love for their parents but are also filled with fear of offending them and it’s that fear that keeps them trying to get it right.  Remember when Jesus used Peter’s boat as a pulpit to preach to the people gathered on the shore (Luke 5: 1 - 10) events unfolded that brought Peter face to face with the Jesus he had never seen before.  Until now, Peter knew Jesus as a prophet of God and a fellow man like himself but he was about to find out that Jesus was also the awesome God he had only heard about and it terrified him.  When Jesus had finished preaching he told Peter, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” (Verse 4).  Peter, the expert fisherman that he was, glibly reminded him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net” (singular).  What a shock he got when he found his net almost breaking with the fish he’d caught but even greater was his reaction when he suddenly realized this Jesus he knew and loved was far more than a good preacher but someone way beyond any good preacher and someone with awesome in power. There were enough fish to fill both boats but just imagine what would have happened had Peter let down the nets!  Peter’s response echoes all who have met God in his holiness (verse 8): When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”   Likewise, the prophet, Isaiah, when he saw the Lord on his throne and the seraphim crying out (Isaiah 6:3) , “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”  Isaiah responded similar to Peter (verse 5): “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”

Encountering God in His Holiness

An encounter with God in His Holiness always brings us to our knees or even make us fall down flat because when the light of his holiness shines upon us it sharply reminds us of the sinners we were and the price that was paid to bring us back to himself.  It is an overwhelming and terrifying experience but a necessary one because it keeps us balanced in the fear of the Lord as well as his love.  

Keeping the balance

These two, the fear and the love of God, must balance our lives.  The fear without the love leads to legalism where everything is done so as not to offend God.  All you have to do is make sure you obey the rules and you will be safe but this makes God a tyrant rather than a savior.  The love without the fear leads to liberalism where anything goes including reinterpreting scripture to suit the culture, a fact which is currently devastating the lives and witness of so many churches today.  God is no big sugar-daddy who in his mercy and love for us overlooks our sin! Christian denominations across the globe are splitting apart over subjects like same-sex marriage, LGBTQ, abortion, etc.  These need no discussion at all because the bible has always been absolutely clear about them and the result is that people are leaving these churches in droves because they have no relevance in the lives of their former adherents.  In the meantime, denomination after denomination is falling apart over these issues while the world looks on in amusement at our squabbling.  The world itself is in great turmoil as wars and rumors of wars, climate events, earthquakes, fires and every form of evil is no longer condemned but encouraged.  

The Time of the End

As these events and so many others unfold, it is becoming clearer and clearer that we have entered the “time of the end” preceding Christ’s return when he will destroy the unrighteous and gather his people to himself.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 24 and Luke 17 that a great many believers will not survive this time because they will join the masses running to and fro looking for an escape from the devastation all around them.  It is a very scary time indeed!  Only those who have entered “by the narrow gate” will make it through.  Jesus was asked in Luke 13: 23 “Lord, are there few who are saved?”  His response should terrify us all (Luke 13: 24 - 30):

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from,’ then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’  But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’  There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out. They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. And indeed there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last.”

This is not a time to sit in comfort while we wait for his return.  It is a time to press in through the narrow gate and make sure that we are truly trusting in Him to see us through this time.  It is also a time to demonstrate our love for him by the same actions he used to demonstrate his love for us—by preaching the Gospel to others in word and deed through signs, wonders and miracles that prove to them he is who he says he is, the savior of the world and we are who we claim to be: his children. If we know the “terror of the Lord” then , like Paul, we will make every effort to persuade men because that is the response he demands from us that shows our gratitude for his great salvation is real.  Gone are the days of asking Jesus into our hearts years ago only to sit back and take our ease as the world falls into the pits of Hell taking multitudes of former believers with it.  It is devastating to think that many (former believers) will seek to enter when it is too late.  It wont matter that ‘We ate and drank in His presence,’  and “prophesied in His name, cast out demons in His name, and did many wonders in His name?” (Matthew 7:22), if we have failed to maintain a walking, talking relationship with him. 

[gduncan969]

Tongues, Interpretation and Prophecy - Clearing Up the Signs

In my previous blog I discussed the current misunderstanding among many Charismatic/Pentecostal believers about who we are addressing when we speak (pray) in tongues.  In those (few??) churches which still encourage the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit as described in 1 Corinthians 12: 1 - 11, the common practice is that during a quiet moment in the service, someone will speak out in tongues (typically mis-characterized as a “message in tongues”) and either they or someone else will give an “interpretation” (not a translation which is different) of the tongue which usually is in the form of a “message from God”—(that is, a prophecy).  The result of uttering a prophecy following someone speaking in a tongue is that the tongue is never gets interpreted and the church never gets to understand what the speaker was praying to God.  I drew attention to the fact that the first time ever believers spoke in tongues (on the Day of Pentecost in Acts Chapter 2), the tongues were interpreted by the unbelievers around them because “every man heard them speak in his own language” and “we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God” (Verses 6 and 11).  In other words, as a result of having just been baptized in the Holy Spirit, they prayed out loud “in the spirit” (which is how Paul describes speaking in tongues) and what they said was praise to God for all His wonderful works!  There was no spoken message from God to the people and it is important to understand this because there’s an even more important aspect to this than simply understanding that speaking in tongues is a form of prayer, not prophecy.

Paul’s Explanation of Why We Should Speak or Pray in Tongues

1 Corinthians 14: 21 - 25

21 In the law it is written: “With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,” says the Lord (see Isaiah 28:11).  22 Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe. 23 Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. 25 And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you.

This is a passage of scripture that’s hard to understand because it seems that Paul, who is speaking about how church services are to be run, appears to contradict himself from one sentence to the next.  In Verse 22 he says tongues and prophecy are signs:

• Tongues are a sign for UNBELIEVERS • Prophecy is a sign for BELIEVERS.

Ok!  There’s nothing confusing here but what does he mean when he says whenever someone in a church service speaks in tongues it is a sign to the unbelievers who may be present and then goes on to say in verse 23 “if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind?”.  Perhaps you are also thinking, “Aren’t tongues also a sign to the believers who recognize that someone is praying in the spirit and there will be an interpretation to follow?”   You would be correct but notice Paul’s intent here is to correct the abuse of tongues in a church where the Corinthian believers had developed the bad habit of just speaking out in their heavenly prayer language all at the same time but nobody gave any interpretation so there was just a cacophony of noise that made no sense to anyone and left both the uninformed and the unbeliever with the impression the whole church had gone mad and was out of its mind.  So, what kind of sign is tongues to the unbeliever?  Indeed, if it is a sign—and it is—it seems to be a sign that shows the whole church has gone insane.  Therefore,  does that mean we should ban speaking in tongues whenever the uninformed or unbeliever is present?  Not so! Paul’s statement about tongues being a sign to the unbeliever is true irrespective of whether just one person speaks with interpretation or the whole church speaks in tongues without it!  To the natural mind, speaking in tongues will always seems crazy and that’s why many in the Church of Jesus Christ want nothing to do with it but if we don’t speak it out in the church, then the uninformed and unbeliever don’t get the sign that God wants them to have!  If you are now even more confused, please bear with me.

The Key to Understanding How God Speaks to Us

The key to the conundrum is found in the first verse (verse 21) from the above quote from scripture:

“With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,”

This comes from the prophet Isaiah so why does Paul pull our attention back to Isaiah 29:11 where the prophet declares how God will speak to the people in a manner they will not understand?  The people he is referring to here are those people who rebel against God or are immature in their approach to him and who try to approach him only through their natural, befoggled minds as described in verses 7 - 8:

7 But they also have erred through wine, And through intoxicating drink are out of the way; The priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink, They are swallowed up by wine, They are out of the way through intoxicating drink; They err in vision, they stumble in judgment. 8 For all tables are full of vomit and filth; No place is clean.

Verse 11 of Isaiah 29 applies to those who are rebels or those who stubbornly refuse to be informed.

The Letter of God’s Word Without the Spirit Is Deadly

John 4:24b says “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” and 2 Corinthians 3:6 tells us that God makes us “sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”.  The Bible is a dangerous book; reading it can kill you as well as save you!  God’s Word without God’s Spirit is deadly poison and this has been proved over and over again in every legalistic believer and legalistic church throughout the world and it has led to a multitude of cults and devastated lives as people gave their all trying to please God but never having had a personal encounter with him. Millions are now held in bondage to the Old Testament law and they live their lives thinking that if they obey what the law says, they will be counted as “good” on judgement day even if they really don’t know who God is. This is salvation by works of the law and it doesn’t work!  They fail to hear God speak to them from Romans 8: 1 - 2 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (the Spirit-led life) has made me free from the law of sin and death (the Old Testament Law). You can memorize every verse in the bible and be able to quote it verbatim but until God REVEALS it to you—makes it come alive as the living word—then what you have is nothing more than words on a page!  There’s every good reason to commit bible verses to memory but until the letter is quickened by the Spirit, the letters ever remain as rules to be obeyed rather than spiritual food to be digested and enjoyed.

In verse 9 the prophet asks four questions, the last two of which are rhetorical:

9 “Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts? 10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little.”

Verse 10 has been preached from many a pulpit as the means by which we grow in our Christian walk.  It isn’t!  Surely all of us are keen to know who God wants to impart his knowledge and understanding to but the answer is NOT to those “just weaned or just drawn from the breast!”—the immature and the childish—hence the reason for the last two question marks!  Neither is it to those who have memorized every verse and studied line after line and precept upon precept but have never experienced any of those “Aha! Moments” that instantly let them know that God was speaking to them through his word.  Fifty years ago when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, the morning after I swore someone re-wrote the bible for me because verses I had never understood suddenly fell into place.  For those immature or rebellious people who approach God only through their natural intellect, the only way for them to try and understand what God is saying is precept upon precept, line upon line, a little here and a little there..” but it never works as the prophet Isaiah describes in verses 11 - 13.

11 For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, 12 To whom He said, “This is the rest with which You may cause the weary to rest,” And, “This is the refreshing”; Yet they would not hear. 13 But the word of the Lord was to them, “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little,” That they might go and fall backward, and be broken And snared and caught.

Once again, Isaiah points out that the “line upon line” approach to understanding what God is saying to us always results in us “falling backward” and being “broken, snared and caught”!  How sad it is that many preach this approach to understanding the bible.  Remember how excited Jesus got in Matthew 16:17 when he told Peter how blessed he was because “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” and then added “upon this rock (of revelation) he would build his Church”.  We grow in maturity in the Kingdom of God through revelation given us by him and all our learning is only as useful as it leads to our revelation of him and his ways.  I read yesterday that the latest George Barna Poll of born-again, evangelical Christians in the USA, conducted last week, shows that 41% of professing evangelicals believe that if a person is generally good, or does enough good things in their life they will earn a place in heaven, a view shared by 77% of Roman Catholics!!  The Church is in deep trouble and many in it fall under Isaiah 29: 14 - 15:

14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men, Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem, 15 Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, It will not come to us, For we have made lies our refuge, And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

The purpose of the “stammering lips and other tongues” is that the rebels and unbelievers who want nothing to do with a supernatural God who, by his Holy Spirit, gifts us with the ability to communicate with him in a language our brains do not understand.  This is why tongues is foolishness to them and that’s what makes it a SIGN TO THE UNBELIEVER.  It’s also why Paul declares “I speak in tongues more than you all”.  Tongues and interpretation is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is only a little below prophecy.  Its operation in the Church presents the message that causes “the weary to rest..” (Hebrews 4:11) BUT THE REBELS CANNOT UNDERSTAND IT and dismiss it because their rebellious hearts don’t want to hear it.

Conclusions

The gift of tongues with interpretation is just as important today as it was in the early Church but, like many other gifts of the Holy Spirit, it has been neglected and misunderstood mostly, I believe, because it is not natural and not desired by the majority of believers.  However, given the current rapid descent of western culture into the worst forms of evil and all manner of corruption among governments, media and institutions, Churches everywhere are under increasing attack from within and without and if the Church is to survive (and it will), it must learn to avail itself of the whole armor of God and be fully aware of what the Spirit is saying to the churches.  May we all be fully engaged and fully equipped soldiers in the army of God prepared to step out in faith believing that he will continue to speak to us through the wonderful gifts of his Holy Spirit.  Maranatha.

[gduncan969]

Taboo Topic #3 - The Gift of Tongues and Interpretation

1 Corinthians 14: 1 - 5 Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification (NKJV).

The subject of “speaking in tongues” remains a controversial one within the Church at large.  On the one side are those who believe the gift of speaking in tongues died out in the very early days of the Church’s existence and is no longer wanted or needed.  On the other side are those who can find no evidence that the gift that was poured out on the disciples in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost (Acts chapter 2) has ever been withheld or withdrawn from the Church and that the same experience—the Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues—is just as available to any believer today who asks for it and those who have asked for it claim they have received it and speak in tongues.  This is no longer a “taboo” topic among most believers today since most have made up their minds one way or another and sit comfortably in their respective stances.  Thus, speaking in tongues is not a taboo topic.  However, within the Pentecostal/ Charismatic churches today there’s a large body  of believers who readily confess to having received the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues but they have long since ceased to “desire spiritual gifts” including speaking in tongues, largely, I believe, through a failure to understand what their purpose is and how speaking in tongues is an essential entrance into the realms of the Spirit.  This failure lies at the root of the glaring absence of any manifestation of the multiple gifts of the Holy Spirit within most Pentecostal/ Charismatic churches today and this is much more a “taboo topic” among believers because it makes us squirm to think that maybe the fault lies within us, rather than within the Church.  If we are being honest we recognize that rather than pointing the finger at others we need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “Is it me, Lord?”.   One way or another, the local churches need to address this topic if they are to meet the challenges of this present age with all its signs of the imminent return of the Lord Jesus and the horrendous devastation that precedes that event.   We cannot continue to preach and teach biblical realities but fail to have these realities demonstrated in our own lives.  We must lead by example.

What is Speaking in Tongues?

The passage from 1 Corinthians 14: 1 - 5 instructs us to “desire spiritual gifts..” as we pursue loving others.  It focuses on the Holy Spirit’s gift to the Church of ”Speaking in Tongues with Interpretation”.  It also tells us that “He who speaks in an unknown tongue does not speak to men but to God.”  I’ve emphasized this phrase because it is essential to our understanding of what speaking in tongues is and is not.  When we speak in tongues—whether privately or in the assembly of believers—what comes out of our mouth is directed to God, not to other believers. The other term we use to describe what speaking to God means is “PRAYER”, so speaking in tongues is first and foremost speaking to God, otherwise known as prayer, albeit in a language that we do not know and have not learned.  Interestingly, this is exactly how the unbelievers described the disciples’ speech on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.  Hearing the unlearned Galilean disciples speak in their own languages, the unbelievers declared (Acts 2: 7 - 11):

“Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?  And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?  Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,  Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,  Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”  

Wow!  The first time anyone spoke in tongues, the interpretation was given by hundreds of unbelievers who understood the various languages that were being spoken.  What these unbelievers heard in their own native languages was the believers speaking TO GOD and praising Him for all the wonderful things He has done.  These were the spiritual prayers of thankfulness and adoration spoken by the believers to God using languages they had not learned and the people around them marveled at the words of praise they spoke.  The disciples words were not being directed TO the people as a word FROM God (which is prophecy), they were speaking TO God (which is prayer) praising Him for all the wonderful works he was doing in their midst and the people around them were amazed because each of them understood what was being uttered in his/her own native tongue.  This is key to understanding the purpose of the gift of tongues and interpretation because there is a great misunderstanding and essentially a great misuse of this gift.  All the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit described in 1 Corinthians 12 are given by the Holy Spirit “to each one for the profit of all” (verse 7)    

When We Speak (Pray) In Tongues It Is Our Spirit, Not Our Mind That Prays

I’ve often been in situations where (English) words failed me.  News of a sudden loss of a loved one, or something so amazing I couldn’t describe it, the result was the same, I’d put my hand over my mouth and gasp something like, “Oh, No!” or, “Wow!”, or, “That can’t be!”  Indeed, the first words out of our mouths when confronted with shocking news is usually, “I can’t believe it!”—we prefer to deny realities we know are true but cannot process through our human intellect.  This is the problem many spirit-baptized Christians cannot get past when dealing with the subject of why they don’t or seldom speak in tongues.  Their natural mind will not allow them to speak the words their spirit wants to pray because it just doesn’t make sense to be uttering sounds they do not understand.  Paul recognized this problem when he said in verse 14 “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.” and so, in verse 15 he concludes: “What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.”  Isn’t it wonderful to know that God has made available to us two ways to pray and sing, one with the natural mind where we get to say all the things we can think of and one with our supernatural spirit where we get to say all the things that our spirit wants to pray that our mind cannot produce because it is “unfruitful” (in neutral) and bear in mind our spirit is one spirit with His Spirit so our spiritual prayers hit the mark every time.  This is a big hurdle for many believers who have never done anything their minds haven’t controlled so they struggle to let go of their intellectual faculties and allow their spirit to pray supernaturally through their natural mouth with their natural voice. This often ends up with them trying to make up words and sounds using the natural mind which only guarantees failure.  To compensate, they reason that such behavior is most unreasonable so why should they pray in tongues when they don’t understand what they are saying or singing and they get no satisfaction from doing so, so they quit. That needn’t be!  Our heavenly Father has no interest in forcing tongues upon us and whether or not we speak in tongues has no bearing on our eternal salvation through Jesus Christ so what’s the answer to our dilemma?  We need to get a handle on what tongues does for both the believer and the Church so that we can welcome the experience rather than struggle with it.  Notice that Paul says three important things about speaking in tongues:

“He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself” (verse 4); “I wish you all spoke with tongues” (verse 5); “ I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all; (Verse 18)

so whatever this tongues thing is, Paul says it builds us up and  recommends it for every believer while boasting he was the champion at it.

How Do You Express Exuberant Joy?

For myself, my struggle with speaking in tongues ended when I turned my attention away from my failed attempts to say something that sounded like tongues and on to the Lord who I clearly recognized wanted to give me this means of praying to Him.  I had received the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the laying on of hands on a Monday evening but did not speak in tongues until the Wednesday evening.  I told the Lord I didn’t care if I sounded like a babbling baby, I was just so glad He wanted this for me and even if I didn’t understand what I was saying, I was going to say it anyway, so I opened my mouth and He filled it with a language I didn’t recognize but nevertheless filled me with joy.  That was 50 years ago and I haven’t stopped since but my understanding of its purpose has grown over the years to where I find myself praying in tongues more often than I pray with my mind, especially in those situations where I am overwhelmed by an awareness of His presence that fills me with joy or underwhelmed by tragic events that bring fear. Mind you, I prefer the former to the latter!  

If you’ve struggled with this topic and perhaps have given up trying then quit trying.  One of my favorite verses in the bible is Hebrews 4:11 “Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” (KJV).  Whatever struggles you may be having with speaking in tongues, just quit trying and get out of God’s way so that He can bring you through into “the glorious liberty of the sons of God” (Romans 8:21).  Hebrews 4:11 could be re-phrased to say, “Let us work hard at not working”!  Speaking in tongues is one of those glorious liberties that allows us to express our highest praise both in word and song to our heavenly Father.

To check up on yourself, imagine your favorite team has just had a “Henderson moment” and scored the winning goal in the last second of the final game and suddenly your team are now the world champions.  Do you quietly sit in your seat and begin to clap gently with great decorum at your team’s victory or do you become like a raving lunatic hugging everyone in sight, jumping up and down and hollering at the pitch of your voice, “We won, we won!”   If you are convinced nothing would ever create such an outburst of exuberant joy in you no matter the circumstance, you may be suffering from a severe case of self-consciousness, which others call shyness.  Either way, both stem from a desire to protect your reputation—how you are viewed by others and these are both rooted in the sin of pride.  Remember what Jesus did with his reputation among the people: (Philippians 2:7) He “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.”  Note that this verse doesn’t say “He HAD no reputation...” but “He MADE Himself of no reputation..”, that is he purposely did things that destroyed any notion He was the Messiah who would free Israel from Rome.  When the crowds were praising Him he told them “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood..” (John 6: 54-56) and remember He was talking to Jews!  No wonder many of them walked away from Him after hearing Him say this.  

The cure for pride is confession and repentance.  God has not chosen the wise and mighty things of this world to put to shame the foolish things (1 Corinthians 1:27), He’s done the exact opposite and He is always looking for those people willing to appear foolish for His name’s sake.  Reluctance to appear foolish in men’s eyes is a great stumbling block to receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues.  If this is what is keeping you from it, then go ahead and make yourself of no reputation.  Ask Him to baptize you right now and open your mouth to let Him fill it.  If God were to give you a revelation of just how much He intensely loves you and proceeded to show you all he has done for you, would you thank Him with a simple “Thank you, Jesus”, or would you lose it in a flood of tears and laughter all mixed together as you recognize what a wonderful Savior He is, so wonderful that words fail you, so you end up babbling like a baby with sounds that don’t make sense while simultaneously releasing a flood of joy and thanksgiving from your heart to Him.  That’s why Jesus baptizes us in the Holy Spirit—to release His power in us as we yield ourselves to His Spirit.  He gives us our spiritual language (which all have who have received His baptism) to allow us to express all the things our spirit wants to say to Him.  Do we always understand the words we are speaking to Him by the spirit?  No, but we always know that what we are saying blesses Him and builds us up.  Though you may not understand what you are saying, you will sense that He is pleased to hear from you.  Over the years I find myself more and more breaking out in my prayer language whenever a victory has been gained or a serious challenge has been met or I’m simply overwhelmed by His presence.  

The Holy Spirit’s Gift of Tongues and Interpretation

Some (but not all by any means) of the spirit-filled churches I have been in over the last few years will have someone speak out in tongues at an appropriate moment in the service and this is followed by a moment of silence after which someone—most often the tongues-speaker him- or herself, brings a message from the Lord—a prophecy.  This is NOT how the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues should operate within the body because there is no interpretation of the tongue that was spoken so no one knows what the speaker prayed.  Since tongues is a form of prayer—and this is how Paul clearly defines it, then the interpretation must surely be directed towards the Lord, not a message from the Lord to the Church.  Some might say the prophecy is more important than the lack of interpretation so what does it matter but this negates what Paul clearly instructs that when tongues are spoken, there should be an interpreter and if no interpreter is present after two or three have spoken, then stop speaking out in tongues (1 Corinthians 14:27).  However, no interpreter is needed if no one is interested in the interpretation.  

Tongues a Sign to Unbelievers

1 Corinthians 14: 20 - 25 Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature.  In the law it is written: “With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,” says the Lord.  Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe.  Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind?  But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you. (NOTE: So, the prophecies get the unbeliever saved but the tongues make him think you are all crazy??  So why are tongues a SIGN to the unbeliever but not prophecy??)

This passage has created a real struggle for many believers including J. B. Philips who authored one of the first modern English translations of the New Testament.  Philips went so far as to change the scripture because he felt that the original scribes had gotten confused, so he put a footnote at the bottom of the page explaining his reasoning.  I will deal with this in a separate blog.

Conclusion

Speaking in tongues should never be seen as a task for the believer but a privilege.  It is not meant to be endured but enjoyed and it is for all believers. Clearly, there are two related aspects to speaking in tongues: one relating to our private prayers to the Lord where our spirit prays in accordance with the Holy Spirit; the other relating to the ministry-gift of speaking in tongues with interpretation when the church is gathered together.  The ministry gift requires the tongue be interpreted (not translated) for the benefit of others so that they can understand what the spirit of the speaker is saying to the Lord.  This is what makes the gift almost as important as prophecy but both prophecy and tongues/interpretation should be tested against scripture before it is accepted.