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The History of the De-Emphasis Of The New Birth

Compiled By Robert Wurtz II (used with permission)

Section XII - WITHOUT FAITH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE THE LORD

We walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. When God says we can, we can and we must. Here we read;

And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible
Luke 1:36, 37

Literally the Greek states, no word from God is void of power. This is a powerful truth! When Jesus came walking on the water, all of Peter’s sensibility told him to stay put in the boat. But, with one word from Jesus, “Come!” There was inherent in that word the power to carry out the task. No need to argue about whether one can or cannot obey the Lord; when God speaks we can perform what He asked (para R.B).
The question is, will we believe God or our lying eyes? Truth is not what is perceived by the natural senses- it is what God says. Peter did not lean upon his own understanding, he disregarded the ‘logical’ for the revelation. This can be dangerous also for folk. They are ready to step out when they have not really heard from God. Some may say, “Peter stepped out- so can I!?” Often their plans are contrary to the word of God.
But there is something to be said to returning to a conscious dependency on God to provide for all our need. Many believers have so fortified themselves against any real need for faith in God that God has to orchestrate situations where they have to trust Him by faith. We have become so self-sufficient that we don’t even need to pray before service or anything else for that matter. We have the talent and ability to pull it off- with or without direction from God. So we think.

THE BABY IN THE BASKET

This particular entry finds me at an odd time in my life. A troubling time. It seems I have spent my entire youth raising my kids in the fear and admonishion of the Lord. Yet those days are approaching that I must begin to loose them from my care. It is time to put up or shut up (as they say in our parts). It’s time to either trust God or pack up and go home (wherever that would be).
It’s easy to talk faith with barns of plenty and the family is doing well, sitting at your feet. What about when the storms of life have come and you wake up one day and it seems Hell itself has been unleashed into your life? What about times like Job, when folk are literally standing in line to bring you tragic news? What about then?
Whether you believe it or not there is an enemy that is out to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to destroy you, your friends, and your family. He is not joking and is not flip about it. He is DEAD serious, bent on wickedness hurt, pain, and destruction. He don’t want to merely take their lives and life, he wants to lead them into the paths of eternal damnation. Like Pharoah, he sees the people of God multiplying in the earth and puts a contract out on the little ones. Newborn babes in Christ and our little ones that are vulnerable. As parents and pastors we guard them like a Bangee. But there comes a point when we know the battle is bigger than we could ever be and we must step aside and trust in the Lord with all of our might, having forsaken all that our eyes and ears are saying.

And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.
Exodus 2

Here is a mother who loved her child and did everything she could do in her own ability to preserve the life of this baby. She didn’t want him to be lost. She loved him as a godly mother would. And when she could not longer hide him,.. I see here a picture of a parent coming to the realization that if the child is to live, God must be the Savior. Mom loved this baby, but she could not save him. She had hid him from the enemy. She had protected him from the thief that would come to steal, kill, and destroy. At the end of the day, when all her efforts were winding out and the enemy was closing in, she had to reach up for a hand that was bigger than hers.
Maybe she could hear the footsteps? Perhaps the enemy had taken to going from door to door after the children? Maybe she was shaken by the shouting and screaming of mothers who had their babies ripped from their arms?

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.
Hebrews 11:23

There is a desperation that comes in the heart of a Saint in which faith will arise. Perhaps God quickened some revelation to her heart and in absolute confidence and faith she took hold of some necessary items and prepared an ark for the saving of her house. Moses great great great… grand father Noah did the same thing when He had heard from God as the enemy was closing in on his family.
Maybe you are reading this and you feel the enemy closing in on you to take your family with some ‘thing’ or weapon with which he would snatch them from your arms? Maybe you hear the footsteps and the screams of parents who have watched as their kids backslid into the clutches of a merciless devil. Maybe it is not so serious, maybe you are just riddled with uncertainty about your family, friends, or even your own life. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. Sometimes, like Moses mother and the baby in the basket, we just have to launch them into the hands of God. 

NO WORD FROM GOD IS ‘VOID’ OF POWER

We walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. This is God revealing something about His person to us in such a way that we ’see’ it. We ’see’ something about Him that brings faith. Faith ‘cometh’ by hearing. Maybe it was reading the word or maybe it was listening to a sermon, but in some real way God has spoken to you and it is your responsibility to respond to that revelation. To do so is faith. This is not an intelectual exercise per se, it is the working of the Holy Spirit.’
When God says we can, we can and we must. It is worth repeating. When God ’says’- we can do what He has ’said’. Here we read,

And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible
Luke 1:36, 37

I’m being redundant here, but literally the Greek states, no word from God is without or ‘void’ power. This is a powerful truth! When Jesus came walking on the water, all of Peter’s sensibility told him to stay put in the boat. But, with one word from Jesus, “Come!” There was inherent in that word the power to carry out the task.
The question is, will we believe God or our lying eyes? Truth is not what is perceived it is what God says. Peter did not lean upon his own understanding, he disregarded the ‘logical’ for the revelation. He had placed his life into the hands of the Lord. He saw fit to step out of the situation he was in and into the arms of the Lord. This has an echo of the Leper’s in the Old Testament who reasoned, “Why should we just sit here and die?”
Yet, in the West, many believers have so fortified themselves against any real need for faith in God that God has to orchestrate situations where they have to trust Him by faith. We have become so self-sufficient that we don’t even need to pray before ministering or anything else for that matter. We have the talent and ability to pull it off- with or without direction from God. So we think.
What do we have to give the people from God if we have not received from Him? We serve as a link between time and eternity. it is our priveledge to hear from God and act in faith as a demonstration of the reality of God in the earth. But first, we have to ‘hear’.

‘DIVIDING’ THE WORSHIP

Worldly ambition and Divine direction are not the same thing. Christianity is not a multi-level business opportunity. As believers we should have one ‘ambition’ in life and one alone; to live our lives in perfect harmony with the Divine will of God. If we accomplish His will for our life we have done the most we can possibly do to glorify God. You simply cannot improve upon the perfect will of God (Rev. D.L. Burch).
We often think God needs our talents and abilities and the opposite is true. God has to strip us of our trusting in our own abilities before He can even use us. Imagine how absurd this sounds, Trust in thy ‘God given talents’ and abilities with all thine heart; and lean unto thine gifted understanding…
There are many talented people whose talents have been a snare unto them. The world is loaded with ‘talented’ people. Why have those talents been a snare? Because they use them for self-glorification. This happens in the Church also. Anything you do to be seen of men in a function dedicated to the Lord has divided the worship and usurped His glory. That is one of the most fearful thoughts we could possibly consider.
Ambition, the enemy of God’s will. This is the message behind Ten Shekels and A Shirt (among other things). That God would be a means to some man’s end? God anoint my talents that I may glorify Thee?! They are puffed up and exalt themselves as though talent somehow trumps unction or something. A cursury look at what if often termed as “Christian” music reveals this self-evident reality.
I was recently asked, “What IS ministry?” This can be answered in many ways. But I think we need to first establish this one foundational truth. As did Aaron’s ‘under priests’ (as it were) we also must go into the throne room of grace that we might have something to give to the people from God. The priests had nothing of their own. They owned no property and were totally dependent upon God for everything.
Christ is the only source of spiritual food and we are the mediators of that ‘nourishment’. We are to bring to the needy something we have received from God for their edification. If it does not originate in eternity- it cannot minister. True ministry flows from the heart of God and into our spirit. It flows from our spirit to our hearts in abundance- that we might be filled with the purpose of God, His words, His love, His compassion. We are living expressions of God in the earth. When a person encounters us they are touching eternity. When they hear from us- they should be hearing from eternity. That may sound far-out and outlandish, yet I will ask you, “What do we have to give that we have not received?” Freely we have received- freely give. We have to ‘receive’ before we can give. This is not our talents or natural giftings, it is manna from God.
Ministry is handing the people what God has handed us. We acquire ministry, not in talent or ability, but in our personal time with Him. Often our talents and abilities get in God’s way because we use them to concoct something to feed the people rather than getting something ‘fresh’ from God.
Like the manna in the wilderness, we need a fresh word for those who will hear; but first for ourselves. If we have not been with Him we have nothing to give; no ‘food’ to feed a starving and malnourished people. We must have that radiance of His glory. We must have that costly fragrance of having been with Jesus. We must walk in the anointing that flows from His beard down upon us.
I’m getting long winded here, but Watchman Nee told of how there was a woman that seemed not to do much for the Lord and it seemed reasonable that she should be somewhere in a big city and a big church that could USE her. You need to be ‘USED’ of God he would say. But, in time, when he was older he realized that she was being used of God and did not need to be in a ministry per se, she was mentoring young men in her little town and showing them how to love the Lord and walk with Him.
Like the alabaster box, Judas (the world) and the Disciples (the Church) saw what the woman did as a WASTE. But there is no waste, when we wait upon Him. That is our FIRST job. We serve HIM first and from there we have somewhat to serve others with. This is not laziness, it is a conscious understanding that our first priority is not BUSY-NESS. Little is much when God is in it. God can do more with little when we spend time with Him than He could do with the whole of our lives- busy neglecting Him. It is NOT waste to pour our lives out upon Him. sure some would say it should have been given to the poor or something else; but they don’t understand the POWER and value of coming from His presence with something of REAL substance. It is more than we could ever ‘work’ towards or busy ourselves to.
God wants vessels meet for the Master’s use. This is a vessel empty of self and soulish ambition. This is a person whose whole desire is to please the Lord. And these are the only people qualified to be Christ’s disciples; those willing to utterly deny themselves.

UNWAVERING OBEDIENCE

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God
Matthew 3:3, 4

Our text finds our Lord on a fast of some 40 days in the wilderness. You will recall from the Exodus that Israel had entered the desert hundreds of years before on a quest to become a Kingdom of Priests (Exodus 19). Some years before on the backside of the desert, Moses who had suffered 40 years in exile, met with a history altering encounter. When I reduce the solemn and awesome event to its simplest form, its almost as if the LORD appeared to Moses and said, “Let me introduce Myself, Moses, turn NOT aside after me, and remove the shoes from thy feet.” Unlike the gross gods of the Egyptions and the other nations; many of which were mere expressions of mans unbridled lust, the ONE GOD of the universe had broken the silence and we gain one more of a long series of revelations about the Terrible and Holy nature of God. This, I believe, is a foundational revelation of who God is. It is a ‘beginning’ revelation.
When I was a child my dad had a chair in the living room that was ‘his’ chair. No one was supposed to sit in ‘Dad’s chair’. That chair, in a matter of speaking, was sanctified unto my dad. If dad was late from work and mom cut a slice of meatloaf, placed it on a plate, covered it with foil, and placed it in the oven, that portion of dinner may be said to have been ’sanctified’ unto my Dad. It was set apart for him alone. So also, God wanted a people that were set apart for His name. A people to be an expression of who He is in the earth. A people to ‘interpret’ God to a sinful world. A people to represent Him in the earth, so that if you had seen them you had seen the Father. He wanted a Kingdom of Priests. Here we read; Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: (Exodus 19:5)
When it all boils down, the thing that seperates a Christian from a pagan is that they obey God. I know the details have to be worked out and the process of repentance, justification, regeneration, adoption, glorification, etc.; but the bottom line is, God set apart a people that if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people:. What makes us a ‘peculiar people’ and a ‘holy nation’ (I Peter 2:9)? It is that we ‘obey His voice indeed’.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Evangelism, The Betrayal of the Ages, Theocracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.