Category Archives: Spiritual Warfare

We are hearing again of beheadings. Here’s another:

A group of Muslims asked [a certain priest] to share his views on Christ and Muhammad.  [The priest], fully aware that ‘showing disrespect for the Prophet’ was a capital offense, declined. But when the Muslims persisted, promising to protect him, he told them that Muhammad was one of the false prophets foretold by Jesus, and a man whose marital activity had rendered him a moral reprobate.  His questioners, deeply offended, reported him after all, and [the priest], holding to his statements, was beheaded.

You are wondering where this happened, thinking that you must have missed this one in the midst of the recent reports of beheadings in France by followers of Muhammad. But no, this happened in Andalusia (present-day Spain and Portugal) during the Islamic reign of Abd al-Rahman II (832-852). The priest’s name was Perfectus. Conflicting accounts of Muhammad’s “immoral marital activities” may be found readily enough online. But speaking against that along with calling Muhammad a false prophet cost Perfectus his head. Found guilty of blasphemy against the Prophet, he was executed in 850, beginning a time called the al-Andalus “epoch of the martyrs” during which many others, both men and women, were executed for standing true to their Christian convictions.

When news of Islamic persecutions and beheadings began making news two or three decades ago I thought this was a new thing being carried out by Islamic “radicals” with a political and moral agenda. They hated (justifiably I felt) the corruptions coming into their society from the western world, and they were seeking to deal with it.

My view—that this was a new thing—was a very ignorant one, but typical, I would say, of myopic western thinking. For one thing, and maybe I am speaking more for myself than others, what we in the West know of history is enough to have us sent to the back corner of the schoolroom with the dunce hat on our head. Further to that, though, we Christians in the West are inclined to view world events from the very short-sighted perspective of our own day. Our eschatology—our understanding of the end-times—is seen through the lens of present-day events that we are sure will bring upon us the fulfillment of prophecy—great shakings, upheaval, devastation. However, not too many years ago I made an eye-opening discovery upon reading Ted Byfield’s twelve-volume history The Christians, lent to me by a friend. Let me tell you, there’s a lot of devastation and upheaval behind us. And a lot of blood. In some of the things you read of back in the Dark Ages, “blood to the horse bridles” is not necessarily a metaphor. Yet we tend to view the four horsemen of the Apocalypse as something to be fulfilled in the future. With emphasis on the word fulfilled that is no doubt is true, but these horsemen have been riding throughout the earth for a long, long time. In past centuries there have been invading conquerors and war and famine and pestilence so severe, so overwhelming, so devastating, that with blood flowing like water, and corpses piled high on every hand, those left living were sure it was the end of the world.

Along with this history lesson, I learned also from Byfield’s The Christians (the source of my quote about Perfectus) that the Islamic jihad we hear about so often now goes back a long way too.

Islamic jihad

Jihad is an Arabic word simply meaning “struggle,” but which in the Qur’an is used with reference to the Islamic holy war with its objective of bringing all the world into submission. That is the meaning of Islam—“submission to the will of  God.” Its fundamental tenet is “There is only one God, and Muhammad is his prophet.” All the world is to submit to that. Muhammad the founder of Islam was born in Mecca about 570 and died in 632. In 610 he claimed that the angel Gabriel appeared to him in a cave near Mecca and began reciting to him messages purportedly from Allah. Many such appearances throughout the course of his life resulted in the Qur’an. During the 150 years following his death the sword of Islam brought into submission a vast area of the known world, most of which by that time was “Christian,” at least in name. More than half of what was known as Christendom was conquered—all of Arabia and Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), Palestine, north Africa and then Spain. The Muslims moved swiftly across Mediterranean north Africa conquering all before them from east to west till they reached the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, where their leader charged his horse into the foaming surf brandishing his sword and crying Allahu-Akbar—God is great. He shouted into the wind that only the ocean stopped him from going further.

Further, of course, would be North America, where on September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists resumed this man’s quest, and the twin towers of the World Trade Centre came down. Hearing the news, many Muslims throughout the world shouted Allahu-Akbar, rejoicing in their victory toward the goal of Islam. It is with this continuing goal in mind that we in the West began hearing the threat, “We are coming—soon—to a neighbourhood near you.”

Islam appeared unstoppable back in the Dark Ages. They had such easy successes that they felt invincible; surely Allah was with them. From North Africa they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in 711 into what is present-day Spain, and within a few years were largely in control of the Iberian Peninsula. From there they looked north beyond the Pyrenees into Europe. There they were stopped in their tracks. Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) stopped the Muslim invasion of Europe at the battle of Tours in southern France in 732, a victory that determined the course of western civilization.

My personal conviction is that God allowed the Muslims to conquer most of Christendom back then because it had fallen into great apostasy. I am not alone in my conviction; here is a quote from The Pilgrim Church by E.H. Broadbent: “Mohammedanism was a judgement on idolatry, whether pagan or Christian.” Indeed, true Christianity was then for the most part unrecognizable in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. The “Christians” were continually fighting with one another—not just with words, with weapons. Rome and Constantinople (now Istanbul) were chronically at war; all their resources were exhausted in their conflicts with one another. As a result they were easy prey for their new enemy. And Rome and  Constantinople were just the two major players; there was infighting among countless other factions. I noticed over and over in Byfield’s history that the writers attributed Islamic victories to the fact that the armies of “Christian” states and kingdoms were perpetually at one another’s throats.

…Hello? Is it any wonder that Islam, according to several online sources, is the fastest growing religion in our day? Is not Christianity in a state of apostasy in our day as well? Are not we Christians hopelessly divided one from another? Apparently there are something like 30,000 registered denominations in the western world alone. What a grief that is. And we wonder why we are so weak in the face of the foe. It appears that “divide and conquer” is a tactic our Adversary the Devil continues to use very successfully. Not that we in our day resort to the sword like our primitive forebears, of course. We are more civilized now.

“Christian” jihad

Finally the 11^th–century Christians did unite to deal with Islam. Warring factions forgot their differences under a new banner—the Crusades. The first of the Crusaders left Europe for Palestine in 1096 to “liberate” Jerusalem from the Muslims who held it, knowing of course that there was much spoil to be gained in the bargain. After a three-year journey and a five-week siege they sacked Jerusalem in 1099 and literally annihilated its population of Muslims and Jews, holding Jerusalem till 1187 when Saladin retook Jerusalem. It is all a sad and sickening story drenched in blood. I felt deeply ashamed to read that “Christians” had done such a thing. In fact I couldn’t continue reading that volume. I had to set it aside. But as Byfield himself states in his preface, the Crusades were not unprovoked—a teaching much in vogue these days; we’re taught now  that malevolent Christian forces entered Palestine bent on regaining Jerusalem even if it meant destroying innocent peace-loving Muslims. Not so. The Crusades were provoked by the earlier Islamic invasions.

That does not by any stretch justify the Crusades—a “Christian” kind of jihad. The Crusader’s sword bathed Palestine in Muslim blood, and Jewish blood as well, all in the name of Jesus Christ, supposedly. No wonder His Name is blasphemed among those peoples to this day. Jews and Muslims have never forgotten this. In fact I saw in one news report an ISIS leader labelling the western powers they are fighting against “Crusaders.”

They are certain they are just in doing so; they are echoing Saladin when they do so. In regaining Jerusalem from the Crusaders, Saladin was embracing the updated definition of jihad—just war, coined that by a contemporary, Islamic legal scholar al-Sulami in his work The Book of Holy War.

The “Christian” Crusaders—from the Latin crux, cross—they too had proclaimed themselves just in going forth under the banner of the cross to liberate Palestine from the Muslims.

What a grief of heart it all is.

The only just jihad

What kind of beast it is that rages about devouring men and women and beheading innocent children I know not, but I know its origin. This also I know. This beast cannot be stopped by all the military might of the world. It cannot be defeated by carnal weapons of any kind. The only One capable of permanently stopping such a beast is…  a Lamb.

These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is King of kings and Lord of lords, and they who are with Him are called and chosen and faithful (Rev. 17:14).

Ultimately only one Warrior is able to defeat Islam—the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Lamb of God, leading His armies clothed in white who go forth under His banner with His secret weapon—the Cross. As someone has said, when the Devil finally brought onto the field the greatest weapon in his arsenal—death—the Lord met him with His—dying. Do we know this, dear brothers and sisters? Then let us take up our own cross and join Him in that dying. Let us be numbered among those who are with Him, so that our world may come to know fully the outcome of that Great Battle, and share in its spoils. Who are those who are with Him? The called, and chosen, and faithful. The first two we leave to Him. The third is our part.

Let us be faithful, then, even though—it is with a great cry of sorrow on my heart that am writing this, as there was on the heart of the man of God who, having been part of a great move of the Spirit himself, wrote toward the end of his life—“It seems that no revival or move of the Spirit ever has or ever will accomplish the Herculean task of breaking the denominational hold” (G.W. North, 1913-2003). This breaks my heart. Especially the words ever will. Because prophetic Scripture reveals an army of faithful soldiers who are one with one another and with their leader the Lamb of God; they are going forth together with Him to certain victory. Let us be in that army brothers and sisters. Now. Let us not be intimidated by past failure. Let it not discourage us. Let us who love the Lamb of God and His cause hear Him sounding the Trumpet of war and, with broken yet valiant heart forsaking all—including the denominationalism that divides us one from another—put on the armour of light and take up our cross and go forth under His banner certain of victory and singing His song. His war is the only just jihad, the only just war. His objective is world conquest. Victory is certain.

Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.
His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself.
He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.
Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. (Rev. 19:11-16 NKJV)

There it is, brothers and sisters, fellow soldiers in Christ. In righteousness He judges and makes war. This has absolutely nothing whatever to do with spilling by sword or bullet or bomb the blood of human beings for whom Christ died. He rides forth with His armies to deal finally and forever with all evil, not with carnal weaponry, not with earthly weaponry, but “with the sword of His mouth.” And so, surely we know that those who fight with carnal weaponry have no part in His war. That is not how He accomplished the triumph of Calvary. He triumphed over all evil… at Calvary. Now He rides forth in a robe dipped in blood—His own. What a dread thought. He goes forth with the armies of Heaven to wreak upon an unbelieving world the victory and judgment of Calvary. He is making wondrous incursions among His former enemies these days; we hear more and more, and it is wonderful to hear, that many from Islamic countries are turning from darkness to light and are joining the Lamb in His just jihad even though it cost them all to do so—family and friends, living and live itself. Does this not provoke you and I to jealousy and inspire us to do the same? Let’s go forth to the battle singing the victory song. We will yet be able to sing this song right through to the end, yes, even the third verse of it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2kbZQtYUzw

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!

Refrain
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.

At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.

Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never ‘gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.

Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
Blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.
Glory, laud and honor unto Christ the King,
This through countless ages men and angels sing.

 

 

 

Facebook Friends of Biblebase host Ron Bailey posted this a few days ago:

“Enter not into the path of the wicked,
And walk not in the way of evil men. Avoid it,
pass not by it;
Turn from it,
and pass on.”(Prov. 4:14–15 ASV)

“Yield not to temptation
For yielding is sin…”

Verses from Proverbs, lines from an old hymn, these complementing each other. Do you make the connection? There is a difference between temptation and entering into temptation. To come across the pathway of the wicked and feel an attraction is not sin; to turn into that pathway is a different matter. It is not sin to be tempted. It is sin to enter into temptation.

Later that same day I came across something in F.B. Meyer’s devotional Our Daily Homily. He was talking about Jesus’ parable of the types of ground that receive seed, enlarging particularly on the thorny ground. This is what he said:

“And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Mk. 4:19).

There is enough nutriment in the land for the thorns alone or for the wheat alone, but not for both; and so there is a brief struggle for mastery, in which the sturdy weed prevails against the slender wheat, and chokes it. Nourishment which should go to its support is drained away from it; and though it does not actually expire, it leads a struggling existence, and becomes unfruitful. What are these weeds? For the poor man—Cares: The Greek word for care is Division. Cares divide our heart, and distract it in many different directions…. What shall the poor man do to prevent the Word from becoming unfruitful? He must take his cares to his Father, and by one act deposit them in His safe-keeping.

And thereafter, as a care tries to break in on the peace of his heart, he must treat it as a positive temptation, handing it over to God.

Positive—he means no doubt about it, this is a temptation disguised as a responsibility.

That arrested me, particularly because of the earlier reading on Friends of Biblebase.

The deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things are more easily recognized as temptations to be resisted. What about the cares of this world? “What shall the poor man do to prevent the Word from becoming unfruitful?”

“He must take his cares to his Father, and by one act deposit them in His safe-keeping.”

That is a reference to a passage in 1 Peter:

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1Pe 5:6,7 KJV)

Various commentators and other translations show that the more accurate translation of verse 7 is, “Having cast [once for all the whole of your care] upon Him, for He careth for you (1 Pt. 5:6,7).

Peter is saying that this is to be something done once, and once-for-all. The idea is of unburdening ourselves and loading on Him the whole of our cares—once-for-all. Any attempt of any care to re-impose itself upon us must be recognized for what it is—a temptation. A temptation which is not to be entered into, but resisted, put in its place.

It’s very interesting and comforting that the word “careth” in “He careth for you” is a verb from the same root as the noun “care” used earlier in the sentence—having cast all your care on Him—where it means, anxious care, care that divides and distracts the heart. If, then, we take that same meaning forward into the phrase “He careth for you,” construing it positively now, we understand our dear Lord is, well, not really “distracted” with our care, but totally concerned and preoccupied with it, giving it His undivided attention, considering it His own, and therefore His own responsibility. There is no way He is going to neglect it or let it fall to the ground.

So let us lay it to heart. Let us recognize care for what it is—a thorny weed determined to choke out the growing Word of God in our lives. Let us not yield to the temptation to give it room. Let us not solace it once again, nor feed on it, worrying it as a dog a bone. Let us not converse with it in our minds, let us not give it the time of day. Let us not enter into temptation. Let us resist it. It is in safe caring hands. Let us, then, be encouraged to continue care-less!

I wanted to call this blog entry Sola Vitae, but changed my mind because I didn’t want to appear to be “putting on airs.” I don’t know Latin. Nevertheless, the idea for that title did seem to come to me by inspiration, and if you’ll follow along with me here, you’ll see why.

During the Reformation someone came up with the Latin phrase sola scriptura—Scripture alone—to proclaim the rule that is to govern all points of doctrine and practice for the Christian. The canon of Scripture, as it is called, is to be the determining rule for establishing Christian doctrine and practice. I myself am of this persuasion, as is the Bible. “All scripture,” saith the Bible, “is given by inspiration of God [is God-breathed] and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim 3:16,17). The implication of course is that what is not God-breathed is not to be used for doctrine and practice.

When Paul wrote this to Timothy, it was the Old Testament scriptures he had in mind, scriptures Timothy had been taught from his childhood, scriptures that were “able to make [him] wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus,” as Paul has just said in the previous verse. Yet even as Paul wrote this to Timothy, he was adding another writing to writings that were becoming recognized as divinely-inspired scriptures (2 Pt 3:16), documents that would accompany the Old Testament scriptures and eventually complete what we now know as the canon, the rule, of Scripture. The 39 books of the Old Testament were recognized as the canon of Scripture in the days of Jesus and earlier. The 27 books of the New Testament were recognized as the complete canon of Scripture at least as early as the second century. Other writings of the day, while they may have been interesting or informative one way or another, were recognized as not having the same divinely inspired and authoritative stamp.

Our English word canon is from the Greek kanon, which Strong’s defines simply as rule. That, in turn, is derived from the Hebrew kaneh, which in the Old Testament is often translated reed. We find it in Ezekiel  40:3 where in prophetic vision he sees a man in white linen with the appearance of bronze. He is about to show Ezekiel a temple. The man has “a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed…” In the New Testament Paul uses kanon three times in 2 Corinthians 10:13-16 referring to the limits of the area God had measured out for him in which to proclaim the Gospel. Paul was not free to preach wherever he wanted; he had to stay within those limits. In fact, even within those limits he could not go wherever he liked, he had to abide in the steps God had set before him.

Paul uses this word in a different context in Galatians, and this will lead us into the meaning of the title I coined for this blog entry (which about doubles my Latin vocabulary):               

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature [or, creation]. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. (Gal. 6:14-16)

It’s the phrase, “walk according to this rule” that we want to look at more closely. The word walk in Scripture is usually peripateo, which means something like “to walk around.” Peri: around, as in looking around with a periscope. Patio: something you walk around on. When Paul says “walk in the Spirit,” it’s the word peripateo that he uses (Gal 5:16). Walk around in the Spirit: everything you do, everywhere you go, walk in the Spirit.

Amen. Yet, that is not the word Paul uses here; it is stoicheo he uses here, which means “to keep in step, to walk in rank.” The thought is of ordered steps. This is the word Paul uses when he speaks of those who, whether circumcised or uncircumcised, “walk (stoicheo) in the steps [footsteps, or tracks] of that faith of our father Abraham…” (Rom. 4:12). So we see the idea there—walking in someone else’s tracks, ordered steps. Luke uses it in Act 21:24, where James is exhorting Paul to purify himself prior to keeping a vow, thus demonstrating that the rumors that were going around about him—that he was teaching Jews living among the Gentiles to “forsake Moses” and didn’t need to circumcise their sons or keep the Jewish customs—James urges Paul to show the Jews here in Jerusalem that all this is false, but rather, Paul, “thou walkest orderly, and keepest the law.” Some teach that Paul really messed up here, but God had His own way of rescuing him out of it before it involved animal sacrifice; and in any case this would have accorded with Paul’s own desire to be “all things to all men.”

 Unto the Jew I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under law as under law, that I might gain them that are under the law… (1 Cor. 9:19-22)

This rule

But back to the Galatians passage. What rule does Paul have in mind by this rule?  

He has just said, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule (Gk. kanon)…” This, then, is the rule he is referring to—the canon, the rule, of the new creation, of new creation life, by which those in Christ are graced to order their steps.

Let’s back up a little further. “For, in Christ Jesus…” What is that for there for? What does he mean by for? It follows immediately upon this:

 But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom [or, by which] the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For, in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

In other words, those in the world are either of the circumcision or the uncircumcision. But Paul in the crucified Christ is now dead to the world, and the world is dead to him, the world with its rules has no claim on him anymore. As he says in another place, “if ye died with Christ unto the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances…?” (Col. 2:20). Those in the world are either Jews or Gentiles, either circumcised or uncircumcised; now in the risen and glorified Christ, Paul is a new creation who walks according to a different rule, the rule of the new creation.

The whole epistle to the Galatian churches is Paul’s outcry against certain teachers who were trying to persuade new Gentile believers that in addition to faith in Christ they were required to keep the Old Covenant law, all of which was summed up in the one word, circumcision. Definitely not, said Paul. Not anymore. In Christ Jesus it is no more a matter of the rule of Moses that Israel was once required to keep, nor of any other rule by which Gentiles—the uncircumcised—were themselves restrained from walking after the natural inclination of the heart of fallen man. Rather, all those in Christ whether Jew or Gentile, are now a new creation, and the new creation man walks by a different rule, the rule of new creation life—the New Covenant law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is a law not of restraint, but of liberty. No, not the liberty of “doing your own thing.” On the contrary, it is walking in the ordered steps—the stoicheo—of a much higher and far more beautiful law. In Christ Jesus life is a rule. The life of the new creation man is a canon, a rule. How wondrous is that!

I said at the start that sola scriptura is a rule that I espouse. I am in fellowship with others who do the same and determine not to move a hair’s breadth from this rule. We are zealous for this, passionate about it. But oh, brothers and sisters, oh that we had the same zeal, the same passion, the same dedication, to sola vitae—life alone—the same determination to walk in the liberating confines of the steps of the rule, the canon, of new creation life. Upon these Paul pronounces a benediction.

As many as walk according to this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

I’ve been wanting to share with you further about those two entries from F.B. Meyer’s Our Daily Walk that I wrote about last time. They both centred on the raising of Lazarus, and Martha’s faith. To refresh your memory here are extracts:

From the January 12^th entry:

THIS CROWNING miracle of our Lord’s life is generally described as the Raising of Lazarus. I am not sure that it might not with equal truth be called the Awakening of Martha, for it is certain that the Lord lifted this soul, whom we have been wont to count prosaic and matter-of-fact, to a most remarkable elevation of faith and hope, as they stood together in the shadow of a great sorrow.

In common with the majority of religious people, Martha believed in a general resurrection at some still future date, but she had not realised that God lives in the present tense, that the Eternal is here and now, and that faith must learn to reckon on God’s I AM. We are always putting the manifestation of the Divine in the far past, or the far future. The heaven is high above the earth on which we stand; only at the horizon, behind us and before us, do heaven and earth touch. We all need to learn the lesson that here, in the prosaic commonplaces of life, Jesus Christ is the present and immediate answer to every need.

Christ always needed faith in some one, as the fulcrum on which to rest the lever of His mighty power, and He found it in Martha. What can He not do, even here and now, in the hearts of those who are slow to believe, and those who are dead in trespasses and sins? Believest thou this?

From the April 19^th entry:

This chapter might be more truly known as “The Raising of Martha,” for our Lord enabled her, matter-of-fact and practical as she was, to realize that He was the Resurrection and the Life. He insisted that her faith was an essential condition in the raising of her brother to life. The emphasis is on the word “thou” (Jn11:40). Our Lord always needs the co-operating faith of some true heart to be with Him when He works a miracle, and He chose the least likely of the two sisters to supply the pivot on which He could rest the lever of His Divine help. As she withdrew her objection to the removal of the stone, her faith suddenly became capable of claiming the greatest of Christ’s miracles.

You see that the entries are strikingly similar; what is more striking is the way I discovered the similarity. It was as a matter of course that I read the first one on January 12. I “happened upon” the second one when, having closed the book after reading the first one, and, still thinking on what I had just read, I absent-mindedly ran my thumb across the page ends and opened the book again. Lo and behold: the April 19^th entry. I began reading, and… this is more than a coincidence! Suddenly I realized my Lord was speaking to me. And I knew what He was speaking to me about.

This is what He was, and still is, speaking to me about.

F.B. Meyer says rightly that “our Lord always needs the co-operating faith of some true heart to be with Him when He works a miracle…” Of course He is able to do whatever He wants, but it is not His desire to grant or impart anything to anyone arbitrarily; he desires our consent, our cooperation, our fellowship, in all He says and does. And so Meyer says that the story of the awakening of Lazarus from sleep could well be called the awakening of Martha. For Christ awakened Martha from her sleepy faith in the last-day resurrection to the living faith that “the resurrection and the life” was standing right before her eyes. “Believest thou this?” He asked.  “Yea Lord,” she responded, “I believe that Thou art the Christ which should come into the world.” Perhaps she did not fully comprehend what He had just said to her, but she believed in Him.

The raising of Lazarus was truly a manifestation of great power; as Meyer has said, it was perhaps the greatest work of power that Jesus ever did while on earth. Let me tell you of another resurrection which is by far the greater miracle. In his epistle to the Ephesians Paul says that God displayed the exceeding greatness of His power when He raised up Jesus from the dead. How much power was that? I think it was all of it, if that can be said. But I’ve left out some words here. Let’s fill them in. In Ephesians Paul prays that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, to the intent that we may know:

          1) the hope of His calling;

          2) the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints;

          3) the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe…

          There. The words I left out. Paul declares that the same power by which God raised Christ from the dead is the power that works in us who believe. And so here we have our Lord seeking to awaken faith in you and me as He did with Martha of old. Do we believe this? The power of God toward us who believe is according to the working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies… and we will just stop midstream in the rushing current of this sentence to quote Bible scholar F.F. Bruce on the passage:

                    The third thing which the apostle desires his readers to know is the power of God. But when he thinks of the power of God, he presses all the terms for power in his vocabulary into service in order to convey something of its all-surpassing character… . He piles synonym on synonym as he describes how God’s ‘power’ (dynamis) operates according to the inworking (energeia) of the strength (kratos) of His might (ischys)… . (F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Ephesians)

That same power—yes, the same power that God wrought when He raised Christ from the dead—is working, is at work, in us who believe. This is why F.B. Meyer’s words laid hold of me. Here they are again:

               Christ always needed faith in some one, as the fulcrum on which to rest the lever of His mighty power, and He found it in Martha. What can He not do, even here and now, in the hearts of those who are slow to believe, and those who are dead in trespasses and sins? Believest thou this?

What is He able to do in the hearts of those dead in trespasses and sins? Let us not be slow to believe. He is able to quicken them together with Christ so that they are no longer dead in trespasses and sins, but alive unto God. This—the miracle of regeneration—is the very resurrection life of Jesus Christ Himself in those who believe in Him and have received His Spirit. Indeed, this is the greatest of all miracles, and comes to the one whose heart is prepared by faith.

And this is just the beginning of a life that has no end. To be born from above by the Spirit of God means the beginning of a new life on resurrection ground, a step-by-step walk in which God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or even think according to this power working in us (Eph. 3:20). We are empowered to walk with Christ “in newness of life,” His own resurrection life, completely free from sin (Rom. 6:4).

Believest thou this? (Believe is the verb; faith is the noun.) I want to emphasize that word because when the regenerating Spirit comes in Christ’s baptism—baptism in Holy Spirit—faith must continually reach out and apprehend the implications of this baptism. It is possible to be baptized in Holy Spirit and still lack knowledge as to what this baptism includes. It is possible even when the knowledge comes by revelation, to still lack faith to receive it. “Know ye not…” Paul asked the Romans. (Is it not likely that the Holy Spirit had you and me in mind when Paul was inspired to write that?)  “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?”

What kind of death is that? Death to sin. “In that He died, He died unto sin once…”

“…But in that He liveth He liveth unto God” (Rom. 6:10).

Wonderful for Him, you say. But the whole purpose of the Christ, to the glory of God, is that this might be wonderful in you and me as well. And He has the provision and power to make it so. Paul continues that we who are in Christ are to account ourselves dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God. “Likewise,” he says, “reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:11).

You say you are in Christ but this is not true of you, your experience is just the opposite, and you are still waiting for God to do this in you? But have you seen this, have you received the revelation? If so, are you sure your problem is not one of unbelief? For this is true of those in Christ.

“Now, if we died with Christ, we believe (there’s that word again) that we shall also live with him…” (Rom. 8:8).

We, like Martha

The point I am making is that we, like Martha before she was awakened to faith, are prone to put this life some distance into the future when a mighty move of the Spirit shall  take place, and then we shall begin to walk in this beautiful resurrection life. God has grace, the provision for those who hear and believe, to begin walking in it now. Jesus continues to say, “I am the resurrection and the life.” I realize that we may not hear this livingly merely by reading it in our Bible. Let us open our hearts then, willing to receive. When Christ by His Spirit speaks the living word to us, “the word of His grace,” let us be ready to embrace, to believe that word, in spite of present experience. When revelation comes our part is to believe on the basis of the word of God—not our experience.

Sometimes you may find yourself in a vein of revelation and it is wonderful. But I find often that revelation comes with the sudden flash of illumination, the “quickening ray” from the eye of the Lord that Wesley described:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

We know the wonder, the ecstasy, the rapture, of revelation, that it opens the mind to truth we did not know existed. And we rejoice in it. Yet revelation can be devastating. Have you had that experience? Revelation, when received, breaks up the long-set concrete of darkness in the mind, it looses the bonds and hindrances of the flesh—self pity, moroseness, defeatedness, doubt, congenital unbelief, “nature’s night,” as Wesley called it. “For ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord…”

When are we light in the Lord? Now, says the apostle.  

          Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light (Eph. 5:14)

Let us awaken, then, and be loosed from our bonds and our grave clothes!  

          Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city… Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion (Isa. 52:1,2).

“Arise, and sit down…” For God has “raised us up together, and seated us together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus…” (Eph. 2:6). Believest thou this?

Let us cooperate with God, then. When the word of His grace comes to us, however it comes, as devastating as it may be, as impossible as it may be, let the response of our heart be, Amen. I receive this, I believe you. Your word works effectually in the one who believes. And the bonds of darkness, of death, fall off; we rise to walk with Christ in newness of life.  Amen.

I have a hard copy of a devotional by F.B. Meyer called Our Daily Walk, which I “happened upon” in a Mennonite second-hand store some time ago. I’m sorry to say it continued to lay neglected in a cardboard box in my study for a long while. But this year, casting about for a new devotional to go through, I was reminded of this book after a recommendation of F.B. Meyer’s writings on Ron Bailey’s blog (which you may enjoy at http://biblebase.com/a-the-baptist/). So I retrieved the book from its box and have been greatly appreciating it. It looks like I have discovered F.B. Meyer.

This morning I was quite struck with the January 12th entry. After I closed the book, still thinking, I ran my thumb over it, and opened it again. It was the April 19th entry.  Are you trying to say something to me, Lord?

Here are three excerpts:

“We are always putting the manifestation of the Divine in the far past, or the far future… Jesus Christ is the present and immediate answer to every need.”

“Christ always needed faith in some one, as the fulcrum on which to rest the lever of His mighty power…”

“In many cases those who have received life from Christ are still bound about with grave-clothes…”

Here are the two entries copied from Precept Austin: https://www.preceptaustin.org/our_daily_walk_by_f_b_meyer_-_jan

January 12

CHRIST’S TEACHING ABOUT RESURRECTION

“Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto Him, Yea, Lord!”– Jn 11:25-27.

THIS CROWNING miracle of our Lord’s life is generally described as the Raising of Lazarus. I am not sure that it might not with equal truth be called the Awakening of Martha, for it is certain that the Lord lifted this soul, whom we have been wont to count prosaic and matter-of-fact, to a most remarkable elevation of faith and hope, as they stood together in the shadow of a great sorrow.

In common with the majority of religious people, Martha believed in a general resurrection at some still future date, but she had not realised that God lives in the present tense, that the Eternal is here and now, and that faith must learn to reckon on God’s I AM. We are always putting the manifestation of the Divine in the far past, or the far future. The heaven is high above the earth on which we stand; only at the horizon, behind us and before us, do heaven and earth touch. We all need to learn the lesson that here, in the prosaic commonplaces of life, Jesus Christ is the present and immediate answer to every need.

Christ’s teaching about Resurrection differs widely from immortality. Plato believed in the immortality of the soul, but had no conception of resurrection. Resurrection is the reunion of the soul with the body, when it shall be raised in a form identical with, though different from, the body laid in the grave, as the sheaf of corn is identical with, though different from, the seed-corn cast into the soil amid the tears of autumn.

Martha could hardly understand all these marvellous disclosures, but she answered Yea to them, on the ground of what she knew Christ to be. He at least was the Messiah, and whatsoever He said, it must be so. So it is that we may still accept much, that we cannot understand, on the bare word of Jesus.

Christ always needed faith in some one, as the fulcrum on which to rest the lever of His mighty power, and He found it in Martha. What can He not do, even here and now, in the hearts of those who are slow to believe, and those who are dead in trespasses and sins? Believest thou this?

PRAYER

O God of Life and Love, Thou hast filled our hearts with joy unspeakable. We thank Thee that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, and that those who believe in Him shall never die. He lives, and they live, and we live! We thank Thee, we praise Thee, we bless Thee. AMEN.

April 19

LOVE’S CONFIDENCE!

“His sisters sent unto Him saying, Lord, behold he whom Thou lovest is sick.”– Jn11:3.

THE LAPSE of years made it possible for the Apostle to draw aside the veil which curtained the happy friendship and fellowship of Christ in the home at Bethany. It was the one green oasis in the rugged wilderness through which He passed to the Cross!

There were diversities in that home, Martha, practical, energetic, and thoughtful for all that could affect the comfort of those she loved and served; Mary, gifted with spiritual insight and tender sympathy; Lazarus, probably a man of few words, quiet and unobtrusive, but Jesus loved each one (Jn11:5).

The sisters never doubted that Christ would speed at all hazards to save Lazarus after the breathless messenger had brought the tidings of his sickness. Anything less than infinite Love would have rushed instantly to the relief of those troubled hearts; Divine Love alone could hold back the impetuosity of the Saviour’s tender heart until the Angel of Pain had finished her work. He wanted to teach His disciples never-to-be-forgotten lessons, and also He was eager for the spiritual growth of the faith of the sisters.

This chapter might be more truly known as “The Raising of Martha,” for our Lord enabled her, matter-of-fact and practical as she was, to realize that He was the Resurrection and the Life. He insisted that her faith was an essential condition in the raising of her brother to life. The emphasis is on the word “thou” (Jn11:40). Our Lord always needs the co-operating faith of some true heart to be with Him when He works a miracle, and He chose the least likely of the two sisters to supply the pivot on which He could rest the lever of His Divine help. As she withdrew her objection to the removal of the stone, her faith suddenly became capable of claiming the greatest of Christ’s miracles.

He calls to us also to help our brethren. In many cases those who have received life from Christ are still bound about with grave-clothes, old habits and evil associations cling to them and impede their progress, and He bids us “Loose him and let him go.” He asks for our co-operation in the emancipation of those who have been held fast in the power of the Evil One.

PRAYER

O God, we rejoice that we can turn to Thee in the midst of great anxiety, and commit all our troubles to Thy sure help. As Thou art with us in the sunlight, be Thou with us in the cloud. Sustain us by Thy near presence and let the comforts which are in Jesus Christ fill our hearts with peace. AMEN. m