NO SUBSTITUTE

NO SUBSTITUTE

Mark 1v7: And this was his message: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptise you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit."

There comes a time, for all of us, when Jesus removes the the very person we have looked to and imitated in order to continue to follow Jesus, in order that He 

might ensure that we are only FOLLOWING JESUS ALONE. Sometimes it may not even be a removal of that person or leader from our lives, but simply a removal of the IMPACT that the person has in our lives. This is done, not only for the sake of the Christian themselves, lest they begin to make that person an idol, but also for the sake of the leader who has had any influence over them, in order to hide pride from that leader.

In the scripture above, John the Baptist realised that such a time had come upon him, and instead of fighting against it, realised what was going on and realised that his importance to others needed to diminish in order to ensure that Jesus' importance to others was what remained paramount: John 3v30: "He must become greater; I must become less." He also needed to make it clear that what Jesus could do, he himself couldn't do: ...'I baptise you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.' And furthermore, that who he was, was nothing compared to Jesus and also that HIS SERVICE, was nothing compared to Jesus': '...the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and unite'. John didn't just ASSUME that people would be able to tell, but made it clear to people by CLEAR COMPARISON. Paul the Apostle also did this, boasting about his weaknesses, trials and hardships and even ripping apart his clothing once to show people that he wasn't God, but rather very very human, just like themselves.

We as the Church must continually realise and remind ourselves that, while God's men in our lives and His leaders are a blessing and while we should honour them in a Godly manner, they are still and only JUST MEN, with no power, goodness or influence except for what the master gives them in order to serve Him for a time (and nothing good comes from themselves without the grace given to them and without the Spirit Himself working in and through them). Those ministers and leaders themselves must continually remind themselves of this fact as well, and never ASSUME THAT THEY ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEY ARE. Jesus came to set an example for men, and that is that they should SERVE ONE ANOTHER (e.g: 'the Son of man came not to be served but to serve and give His life a ransom for many'). Paul himself professed that he was a BONDSERVANT of Christ, and that it was only by the power of God that he was of any good effect to people at all. God never wants His Church to laud men, to make them the centre of our affection and our attention and to begin to follow them in such a way as to begin to ignore the only King, Lord and Saviour there is. If ANYTHING at all good comes from His people and His ministers IT IS BECAUSE OF HIS GOODNESS ALONE.

God also was the one to remove John, allowing him to be imprisoned and beheaded. Because of this, no one in the Church now gives too much focus and attention to the life of John, and no one has made a religion out of him, because all the attention and focus went on to the person of Jesus Christ, just as it should have. If ever we as individuals, or the Church as a whole starts to follow too closely or pay too much attention to one man, Jesus will make sure that He deals with such a situation accordingly. This teaches us all to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, and to know that while we all have a role to play, that role needs to be whatever Jesus wants it to be, and the time period it lasts for is also just as long as He has set it; no shorter and no longer. If we all accept this, then Jesus will always be the centre of our love and the centre of our attention, and we will all be kept from idolatry and from unnecessary dejection and despondency, knowing that our Lord is in control of all things.

WHEN THE LORD TELLS YOU TO GO...

'In about 931 BC, the nation of Israel split into two separate kingdoms. For 120 years, under the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, a united Israel had grown steadily in wealth, power and glory. After the 

death of King Solomon, however, economic and political factors led to the collapse of the unified kingdom, and two separate kingdoms were formed. Rehoboam, Solomon's son, became the king of the southern kingdom, which was called Judah and included Jerusalem and God's Temple. Jeroboam I, who was not of the kingly line of David, became the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel. To help solidify his position in the northern kingdom, King Jeroboam instituted his own system of worship by setting up two idolatrous shrines with golden calf images! (See 1 Kings 12.) One shrine was established at Dan, in the far north of the kingdom, and the other was strategically located at Bethel, on the border with the southern kingdom of Judah. People in the northern kingdom, traveling south to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, would possibly be tempted to stop off at Bethel and try out the new form of "worship." In addition, since God's true priests served at the Temple in Jerusalem and lived in Judah, Jeroboam made up his own priesthood from among his own people. These illegitimate "priests" were not from the tribe of Levi. And King Jeroboam declared his own religious feast day. Because of all this evil activity, Jeroboam I is known in sacred Scripture as "the king who caused Israel to sin" (1 Kings 14:16 and 15:30,34).' -http://www.growingchristians.org/dfgc/tale.htm

Because of what King Jeroboam did, the Lord sent a prophet from Judah to Bethel to speak out against the altar (the false system of worship), but the King didn't listen and so God judged him. Although the prophet prayed for the King, and he was healed, the King didn't change the false system of worship, or listen to God. The prophet who had spoken against him had been told by God to not return from Bethel by the way that he had come, but to take a different route and to not stop. Even when the King wanted him to stay, he refused:

v7: 'The king said to the man of God, "Come home with me and have something to eat, and I will give you a gift." But the man of God answered the king, "Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here. For I was commanded by the word of the LORD: 'You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came. So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.'

However, he was soon tested again in this regard, and the next time it didn't go so well. When he was returning on his journey, he was met by an old prophet, who, seemingly being deceived or a deceiver himself, told the other prophet to come home and eat with him (in the place of Bethel and the false system of worship) because he said that an angel had appeared to him and told him that the other prophet was to come home with him to eat bread and drink water (he was lying). At first, the other prophet held firm, knowing what the Lord had told him to do: ..."I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread or drink water with you in this place. I have been told by the word of the LORD: 'You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.'" But when the old prophet told him about the angel (although he was lying), the other prophet believed him, and went home with him. It was then that, although the old prophet was deceptive, that same old prophet received the true word of God, and told the other prophet that: ...'You have defied the word of the LORD and have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you. You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink.' Sadly and indeed tragically, the old prophet pronounced the judgment of the LORD against the other prophet, and on his way home he was attacked and killed by a lion (1 Kings 13v26).

As we know, all stories in the Old Testament are given for our admonishment: 1 Cor 10v11: 'These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.' As such, this story stands as a vital lesson for us when we come to realise (and the LORD specifically reveals it to us) that the place we are worshipping in, has actually given itself over to being a place of false and corrupted worship. We are living in a time when Churches are slowly but surely giving themselves over to practices of worship that, although they try to pass them off as God-honouring, they are in fact systems dominated by men and their ways. God had shown the younger prophet very clearly that the worship in Bethel was VERY WRONG, so, he was to speak out against it, declare the judgment of the LORD concerning it, and LEAVE, and NOT STOP TILL HE WAS COMPLETELY OUT OF IT (not even going out the way he had come, which is also an important lesson for us). Now, at first he was very intent on obeying the LORD, knowing clearly what he had been instructed, and yet, because of an older, deceived and deceiving prophet, he TURNED ASIDE from obeying the EXACT will of God, to only obey a VERSION of it (which in reality is just complete disobedience). Again, there is a very real possibility that we will do the same thing today, in that, while the LORD may reveal to us very clearly that a Church's worship is wrong, and while we may know that the LORD wants us out of there, we will instead reason with ourselves that there is still some good left there (e.g. The older prophet being a type of the Pastor or other leaders in a Church), that there is still some good fellowship there (i.e 'eat bread and drink water') or still something for us to feed on there, and we will reason with ourselves that the older prophet, or again, 'older leader or Pastor' still has good revelation to give us (notice from this story that whether there is still good revelation in a place of false worship or not, the LORD has still told us to go), and still knows best when he says that we should stay. However, if we stay, we do exactly the same thing as the younger prophet, and we disobey what we know the LORD has told us, and this is a VERY SERIOUS MATTER, so serious in fact that we are in danger of being judged by the LORD because of it (because we are responsible for the revelation given to us). So no matter what seems to be beneficial about any Church or place or system of worship, if God has TOLD YOU TO LEAVE AND TO NOT HANG AROUND, make very sure you do exactly that, and not some version of that, and do it as quickly as you can. God will look after you and direct you after you go and after you are obedient to Him, but let Him provide the food that He knows you need. Seek first HIS KINGDOM and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, and all THE NEEDFUL things will be provided for you. 

WISE OR INSTINCTUAL?

If we do not know the Word of God and know it well, we are fooling ourselves if we don't think the world, man and the enemy will chip away at our walk with God until, it not only is a shadow of what it should be, but SOMETHING ENTIRELY UNLIKE what it IS. If we do not know the Word, we run the risk of one day being like the Israelites who were convinced they were worshiping G

od, while worshipping the image of an animal. We think it absolutely crazy that the Israelites worshipped an animal, how stupid could they be? we think. But it is much easier than we think. If we don't know the Word, our Christianity won't be about Spirit and Truth, but about what we FEEL, or, to put it another way, what our INSTINCTS TELL US. Animals are, for the most part anyway, purely instinctual creatures, and that is what we will become if we put away sound doctrine and a sincere and continued effort to know our Lord according to the truth and revelation found in His Word. Without truth, we will begin to conform to a world that is led by whatever feels good, a world that prides itself on instinct, and that unwittingly worships itself and an image of itself, while ignoring the love and commands of an almighty God.

Much of the Western Church today has tried to take on an image of the world and the world's culture in order to make Christ attractive, and so has unwittingly started to worship by the alter of their own feelings and instincts, and listen to those things, instead of submitting everything to the rule and guidance of the Word. This has resulted in unevenness in doctrines, in men going after every wind of teaching and every kind of teacher; being blown back and forth until they are so jaded and confused that they simply switch off and revert to remaining at the little they already know, in order to not completely shipwreck their faith, instead of being spurred to to maturity and a greater love and knowledge of the Lord. Instead of becoming teachers, many are still needing to be taught the fundamentals of the faith and this is a dangerous place to be, for if you always stay at the place of needing to be taught the fundamentals, false teachers may, sooner or later, have you question the very fundamentals that are crucial to our faith in Jesus alone.

Much worse however, is the silence that now exists in the Church over these things, as though a tiredness and resignation exists over the battle that is coming against our faith and now we ignore the admonition in Jude to 'contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.' And, as the Church sits silently by, slowly but surely, not only the world, but this nation of Australian is changing, what governments believe is changing, and, if the salt loses its saltiness, how will it gain it back again? If the Church does not keep what saltiness it still has, we are in danger of losing our 'Christian' nation, or, at least what is left of its Christianity. Correct and thorough knowledge of doctrine is not only the heart and soul of a healthy individual, but also a healthy Church and a healthy nation. Never underestimate the value and effect that one Christian has, so be encouraged; KEEP CONTENDING.

Matt 5v13: "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.'

Heb 12v5-14: In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Jude 1v3: Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Matt 24v24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Heb 13v9: Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.

Eph 4v14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

2 Tim 2v15: Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

ERASING A FUNDAMENTAL ERROR

There is great error in saying that Old Testament saints were justified by the law. No man could ever be justified by that law, but even before the cross, men were justified by faith, and the promise of the sacrifice to come, just like Abraham: Rom 4v9: '...We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness.' The passage goes on to say that whether men were or weren't circumcised, they were all only justified by faith: 'It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring- not only those who are of the law but also to this who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations. He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.'

So you say, 'so what? what's your point?' The point is that this fundamental truth strikes at the very heart of the error that many Christians believe about God in our world today. It is a common belief in the Church today that says the God of the Old Testament was a God of law and wrath, whilst the God of the new testament is a God of goodness and grace. While more elements of either grace or wrath may have been seen from one testament to the next, this in no ways is grounds to say that our God completely changed and completely changed His ways (remember that God gave the law in order to show us our abundant need for Christ!). The same God that poured out wrath in the Old Testament, was the same God that poured out wrath upon Jesus Christ on the cross, when He became our substitute, and was the same God that spoke through Paul saying that the 'wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man'. The same God that showed great mercy and grace time and time again to the Israelites of old, showed great mercy and grace time and time again to the New Testament saints, this is especially seen in most of the letters Paul wrote to them and in the letters to the Churches in Revelation. 

The same God that revealed Himself as 'merciful and compassionate' in the Old Testament when the law was given, revealed Himself as merciful and compassionate in the New when Jesus pardoned the adulterous woman (and He pardoned her BEFORE THE CROSS TOO!). Justification has always been by faith, the only difference was that in the old testament it was through the PROMISE OF THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH, whereas in the New it was by the FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE OF JUSTIFICATION. 

Once this truth is settled, evangelism becomes its most effective because both grace and consequence/wrath is revealed, our relationship with God becomes healthy because we realise the way our God relates to us and the way He speaks, exhorts, blesses and judges the world. Once this truth is settled, all other scriptures can be taken in their right context and understood in their right place.

GRACE VS. SOVEREIGNTY; A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS

Sometimes we as Christians get ourselves so worked up trying to understand how grace and choice or choice and sovereignty work together, that we miss the point of why the Lord has kept such a thing a mystery. One of the whole points of the mystery is the fact that the only way for the Lord to test if our love is true, is to leave us with the knowledge that choice is in our control. At the same tim

e however, the Lord also leaves us with the definite knowledge that He is sovereign- giving us the peace to know that whatever happens, He is in control, and that all His ends and goals are good and right. BOTH these truths produce specific fruit in our lives, specifically, both motivation to relationship and righteousness (choice) and also peace, security and hope (sovereignty). To only believe one or the other, or believe one is more dominant than the other, is to rob ourselves of fruit the Lord intended to build us up in our faith, to keep us on the right path and to draw us closer to Himself.

If we, as finite beings, were to understand the connection between choice and sovereignty, both choice and sovereignty would lose their meanings and we would become mere robots, not human beings that Jesus has redeemed. Jesus is both the AUTHOR and FINISHER of our faith, and therefore we must let the master builder build according to His plan and His rules. Part of that plan and those rules include giving us revelation and exhortation regarding both choice and sovereignty (the Bible). The comfort and fruit of believing and acting on both are VITAL in our lives, and therefore the intent of both truths is that we hold them as EQUALLY relevant in our lives and in our doctrine of the King. Choice and sovereignty are a gloriously divine paradox that is answered uniquely and utterly in Jesus Christ. While we must be content to only 'know in part' for now (for that, as has been mentioned, is one of the whole points of both truths), then we shall know 'face to face', we shall know the whole truth and the 'why' behind it all. There is a reason why we are to 'know in part' now, and if we attempt to know more than was intended for us, we only harm ourselves and others in their faith and love of Jesus Christ.

WHAT KIND OF WORSHIP DOES GOD DESIRE?

Genesis 1v2: Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Psalm 46v10: "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

1 Kings 19v11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.'

If we look at these passages very simply, it becomes clear that God usually avoids the spectacular atmosphere for the quiet and still one. In the first scripture, the Spirit hovered over waters which were surrounded by an earth that was formless and empty. In the second, God tells His people to be still and just 'know' that He is God. In the third, God reveals that He does not reside even in the monumental and spectacular- although He may work such things, He reveals to Elijah that RELATIONSHIP with Him exists in a communication with Him which is very normal, very humble (ie Elijah hiding his head in his cloak), and usually quite private.

We as a people have begun to misunderstand the relationship and worship that He desires. This is seen when we look at the beginning of human history. Ironically, while the earth was formless and empty, the Spirit resided over it, however, when the garden came, and the TEMPTATION to the FLESH came, and when men had fallen to that temptation, they were driven from the presence of the Spirit. This was to show us that while God gives us all things to richly enjoy (1 Tim 6:17), men must at the same time flee those things that exist in the world which cause great temptation to our flesh. Even though Adam walked with God in the cool of the morning, the tree that existed was still a temptation to him. How could this be? How could the very presence, power and person of God be, not only with him and evident to him, but talking with him, and he still fall? The answer lies in realising, one, the power of the enemy to realise our weakness for being enamoured and deceived by the physical and the sensational (Gen 3v6: When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. + Gen 3:5 ...'you will be like God, knowing good and evil'), and two, the fact that, while the garden was a perfect garden and a perfect atmosphere, still Adam and Eve weren't satisfied with it, and desired more in the fruit of tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As soon as we as a Church begin to focus on the material and physical in our worship, where and when do we stop? Is one big screen tv enough? Are two smoke machines good enough? Are three fluorescent light displays going to do it? Unfortunately, because we are are still very weak, and we all, like Paul, are the 'chief of sinners,' nothing physical will ever be enough, if we give in to the lust of our eyes, that lust is never satisfied, and we will become more and more distracted from the Spirit and from the relationship of faith that God desires for us (2 Cor 5v7: 'We walk by faith, not by sight'). Like Adam and Eve, we'll go from a worship of God that can still be spiritual while enjoying those things God has given us, to a worship which tries to be spiritual AND fleshly (Adam and Eve eating the fruit), and obviously this can't be; instead of enhancing our relationship with God, it will hinder it. 


Furthermore, extending the irony, we see that it was not until Adam and Eve were driven from the garden that they ended up walking truly and consistently with God by faith. Remember, pain had entered the world at this point, as had the need to work, but still they followed God uprightly till they died. This shows us that while we as a Church may want the ideal atmosphere for worship, and while we may want the most ideal humanistic doctrines to bring us continual ease and comfort, these are not the will of God for us. One day men will be brought back into the ideal and perfect state with God and a perfect worship of Him, but for now, God has allowed hardship, pain and a less than spectacular physical setting for worship, whether in Churches or in our own day to day lives, because God desires that our relationship with Him be from the inside out, and that our relationship with Him be according to a simple communication and a faith walk with Him, not about what we see with our physical eye (1 John 2:16). The physical eye was what first got us in deep trouble with God, and so God didn't want that to happen again while on earth, so He kicked us out of a place which would still be tempting to us because of the weakness of our flesh. We then, as a Church, must learn from this and keep ourselves from creating a garden to surround our worship. If we do, we will tempt ourselves to think that ultimately we know better than God about what is good for worship (ie 'knowing good and evil'), and it will cause, not only great distraction for us, but also sin, grief and pain, and rather than grow our relationship with God, it will hinder it.

SHINING WHEN JESUS IS HIDDEN

Acts 1v8: 'But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.'

It seems contradictory to be told to be Jesus' witnesses when He has been taken from our sight, and the sight of all mankind. As Jesus showed though, it doesn't matter whether He is on earth or not, there will still be those that question, even in the face of the miraculous. For this reason, although witness is both in word and deed, in order to effectively witness, we must always rely on, and trust in, the work of the Spirit, not the evidence or fruit that we watch for or think exists because of what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears. Evidence may or may not exist straight away, or in time, but nevertheless, the Word tells us that there is not 10 days till the harvest, but the harvest is right now, the Spirit is always effective, no matter how weak or ineffectual we think we are. The Word is powerful and living and sharper than any two edged sword, and so is any witness with that Word.

Often discouragement comes in our witnessing because we don't have Jesus by our sides, visibly encouraging or instructing us. It also comes in times when we don't even feel we have that kind of encouragement spiritually speaking. There comes no great illuminations from the Word, no word of encouragement from others, in fact, no support seems to come from anywhere, and yet we still hear Him speak to us in His Word, 'you will be my witnesses'. We are told to shine our light. We don't need a massive strategy for that, we simply must just 'shine our light;' shine truth, shine good works, shine life. Let deeds reveal truth, and truth deeds, and let the Holy Spirit reveal Jesus, and do the work which, whether evident or hidden, is definitely and powerfully going on.