Brooke Fraser - Shadowfeet

"Shadowfeet"

Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet

Towards home, a land that I've never seen

I am changing; less and less asleep

Made of different stuff than when I began

And I've sensed it all along

Fast approaching is the day

When the world has fallen out from under me

I'll be found in you, still standing

When the sky rolls up and the mountains fall on their knees

When time and space are through

I'll be found in you

There's distraction buzzing in my head

Saying in the shadows it's easier to stay

But I've heard rumours of true reality

Whispers of a well-lit way

You make all things new

When the world has fallen out from under me

I'll be found in you, still standing

Every fear and accusation under my feet

When time and space are through

I'll be found in you

It Is Finished by Leonard Ravenhill

It is Finished
http://www.ravenhill.org/finished.htm
From a Sermon
By Leonard Ravenhill
John 19:30
"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar He said,
'It is finished' and He bowed His head and gave up the ghost."
I said last week that I'd attempt to talk to you on the three most important words, I believe, in history - IT IS FINISHED. This is one of the seven sayings, as we say, of the Lord Jesus on the cross. Just three words - IT IS FINISHED.
The Greatest Words Ever Uttered
By the Greatest Man That Ever Lived.
In these three words I see the consummation of all the Old Testament truth and the germination of all New Testament truth.
I don't believe that ever in history,
anywhere, at any time, by anybody,
were three words more pregnant with meaning
than these three words given by one Man at the end of His life -
It is finished. It is finished.
Now supposing that you were here and I was where you are - How would you start to handle a text like this?
I feel as though I am trying to catch the wind in my arm.
I am trying to pick up the Atlantic Ocean up in a sieve.
How do you deal with it?
Its magnitude staggers me,
Its mystery staggers me,
Its majesty staggers me.
It seems to me that here is a terminus in the life of the Lord Jesus: all the prophesies, all the law, all the prophets, terminate in this saying of the Lord Jesus Christ. And everything from here blossoms out because this is the beginning of it all. Three simple words - it is finished.
I suggest to you in all reverence that these three words terrified hell. IT IS FINISHED!
You see, this English phrase of ours, this little sentence, is not in the Greek at all. And I don't know much about Greek, but I did discover that in the Greek it is just one word: FINISHED!
Matthew 27 says that Jesus cried with a loud voice: "FINISHED!"...And I am sure all hell shook!
You see, this is an arena into which Jesus is moving. You can say the life of Jesus was a three act drama. You get the first years of His life, 30 years in preparation for 3 years.
The first chapter has been written,
The second chapter is now coming to a climax on the cross,
The third chapter is yet to come in all His resurrection splendor.
There is nothing to equal it anywhere.
I get indignant when I hear people say, "What we need to do is study comparative religion." Well, I say again with some heat and some feeling in my spirit, Christianity is not a comparative religion, it's a SUPERLATIVE religion! Because this one saying of Jesus Christ explodes every other religion on God's earth! They are all fakes. They are all useless. This momentous event...
I can see demons peeping out from hell as they see Jesus has gone to the cross.
I can see angels looking over the parapets of heaven,
I can see the Jews and the Romans and the Greeks. They are all at the cross!
The Cross of Jesus...we sing the hymn
"Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land,
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way."
Look, if you put the cross on Palestine, like that, and let the arms go round, you can scoop them round the whole world, because geographically, the cross is almost the center of the world. It is the center of time.
When we shot a rocket, did we change the calendar?
When we invented the atom bomb, did we change the calendar?
Isn't it amazing a little Baby came into the world and He divided time? - He divided men - He divided nations.
People say, "If we have revival we'll all be one." No! If we have revival we will be more divided than ever!
The first thing Jesus did before He could walk or talk was divide men. "Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him."
The last thing He did on the cross was divide men.
In His lifetime He divided men. He went into the Synagogue and there was a division because of Him. Wherever Jesus goes there is division.
And those demons were looking down in terror. Come on, come on, you've forgotten. Think again about the majesty of this event. You know how great it was? One of His other sayings was, "My God, my God why hast Thou forsaken Me?" In a tongue He knew so well, He says, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani." Which we can hardly interpret except: "My God, I am deserted." Everybody deserted Him.
You see, there at that moment when Jesus said: "It is finished," Mercy and Truth met together, Righteousness and Peace kissed each other... and hell went into panic. How do I know? Because the earth was shattered. The whole earth rocked on it's axis. The earth trembled under the impact of the sin that He bore for us. Heaven trembled... I've been to art galleries around the world, you've been in many I guess, you saw some beautiful pictures. But you know, there never was a photo of the cross; it's representations are all imagination. That event was so sacred that, as it were, God took His coat off and hung it over the sun. And there was darkness for three hours. He would not let anybody see His Son become corruption.
Jesus Christ, in the mystery of God's divine grace, was, as Wesley says, God "contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man," in the incarnation. The heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. Yet He clothed Himself in flesh and blood and crept into a woman's womb. How God became man I do not know, but less, less, less do I know HOW DID HE BECOME SIN?
You know the answer? No, you don't. Neither does any living person. Every
man who's honest - take Spurgeon or anybody - the more honest the
man is he, more he says, "I am baffled." As I get older I see more and
more that, "great is the mystery of Godliness." I said to a brother today, "I
feel that in spiritual matters, after 55 years walking with God, I don't have my feet wet, not even the sole underneath, never mind water to the ankles, or the
knees, of the loins."
God has opened His treasure house to us. As I've used the phrase so often before: Do we really explore the possibilities of God?
What's the most exciting thing in your life? Don't answer me, answer straight up to God. Tell Him what is the most exciting thing.
That you become more knowledgeable, make more money, become more fit?
What is the most exciting thing to you?
Is it that day by day you slip in to Him and worship and adore Him?
I was thinking of this great hymn of Wesley today. He is talking about the cross and he says this,
"Would Jesus have the sinner die?
Why hangs He then on yonder tree?
What means that strange expiring cry?
Sinner He prays for you and me,
'Forgive them Father. O forgive.
They know not, that by Me they live.'
Thou loving all atoning Lamb
Thee - by Thy painful agony,
Thy blood, Thy sweat, Thy grief, Thy shame,
Thy cross and passion on the tree,
Thy precious death and life - I pray
Take all, take all my sins away!"
And then, in the rapture of that, Charles Wesley says this (and it's so wonderful. I can see that woman crying at the feet of Jesus, and I can see John Wesley, scholarly, dignified, trailing his academic gown behind him in Oxford University.)
"Oh, let me kiss Thy bleeding feet.
And bathe and wash them with my tears,
The story of Thy love repeat,
In every drooping sinner's ears,
That all mankind with me may prove,
Thy sovereign everlasting love.
Oh, let Thy love my heart constrain."
You see if He works it inward, it's going to work outward somewhere. God only puts up with words so long. A brother said to me during this week, "You know brother, I think we die in areas of our life. We don't die totally to God's Spirit. We die in areas. God gives up on us, in certain areas. He does not tolerate anymore. We said so much, we made our vows, we won't do it, God bypasses us in that area." Hold fast to that that thou hast that no man take thy crown! (Not demons, but that men take thy crown.)
So Charles finishes his hymn by saying this:
"Oh, let Thy love my heart constrain,
Thy Love for every sinner free,
That every fallen soul of man
May taste the grace that found out me,
That all mankind with me may prove,
Thy sovereign, everlasting love."
This, I say, was the most momentous moment in history. Hell had feared this moment for centuries, for millenniums!
Why do you think the devil greased the path of Jesus and tried to make Him
take a short cut to conquer the world?
Why do you think he stirred up enmity among the religious people?
You see, there is one rotten canker that is in so many churches, as well as it was before.
What does it say about Joseph? His brothers sold him. For what? For envy.
What does it says about the Lord Jesus? The priests sold Him for envy. That festering thing in the heart of men and women. They sold Him because of envy. They sold Him because they hated Him. He was only a little baby, less than two years of age, when they had what history calls the Massacre of the Innocents.
I said to you before, I'll say it to you again, whether you love me or hate me for it:
If you've got children you ought to be up an hour before they go to school and
cover those children every day with the blood of Jesus and really lay hold of the
promises. They live in a hell of a world in the day in which we live. If you don't
do it, I'll do it for you. Remember, when Satan thinks there is something going
to happen, he is going to dog that child. I prayed, and I still do, whether you know
or not, I pray for some of our kids, if I am here or not, if Jesus tarries,
they will become some of the leaders half a generation, a decade from now.
God will make them missionaries and evangelists, and teachers, and apostles,
in the last great awakening, (which men are trying to work right up now and you can't
do it.) But He is going to get youngsters and fill them with the Spirit, and teenagers in their early years.
Remember Moses. You know, people say if you are good you do as the government tells you. If you are good, you tell the government to go to hell if they want to go and you obey God. And the father and mother of Moses did not obey the government, they hid their baby when the government said it should be destroyed. He is going to be the law giver, he is going to be one of the greatest men in history, and Satan says NO! The same thing happened in the life of Jesus. Jesus is not two years old and "Herod is troubled and all Jerusalem with him," and they said, "destroy Him." I often think about king Herod - he had more faith than the disciples. Somebody said, "He is going to be a King," and he believed it. Somehow Satan said, "You better believe it, that little fellow is the Son of God with power and authority. He is going to dethrone you and wreck your kingdom." And so just as they tried to destroy Moses at two years of age or under, they tried to destroy Jesus. From the moment He was born to the last thing on the cross.
As I've said so often, I still say to myself - I need to - that even if you've gone to the cross, even if you got on the cross, the old devil comes with subtlety and he says, "Listen, get down from the cross and save yourself. Nobody is living like you. They live it up. They can't tell the difference, except they go to church on Sunday. Other than that, as for prayer and fasting and seeking God and travail... so... Why do you do it? Why don't you get an easier job? Get ten times as much as you get - going round here or going to some fancy church or some other thing." He comes to you in some way. You've decided you were going to live according to the standard of the Lord Jesus and he says, "Well, why don't you pinch it a little bit here, and reduce your convictions there, and not be so stiff right there, and do just a little compromise. Ha, everybody gets away with it."
From His infancy to the cross, the last thing they did, I read in Matthew when He had gone to the cross, they passed by - the scum of the earth passed by - and they wagged their heads and reviled Him. It was nothing unusual to see a man go down the street carrying a cross. It's as common as a boy carrying a baseball bat. "Hey look who is going, do you know who that is?" "So what, they put many a false prophet to death. Only He is a bit more brazen than the others, you know, He preached a sermon He said would shake the world, called the Sermon on the Mount. He has a bit more power but, you know why He does it? You know why He pushes devils around? Because He is the prince of devils, they have to obey Him." Here is the holiest, purest, most spotless man that ever lived. What does the world do?
Blister Him,
Blast Him,
Bruise Him.
They watched a man go down the street. Well, when the high priest went into the holy place, did he go in rags like this? Stained with His own blood?
Had he been up for hours?
Had he been pushed around by a vassal king by the name of Pilot, who said, "Oh, You get over to Herod. You are in his domain." And Herod says, "You get Him back into his territory... I don't want this responsibility?"
You think the high priest could have gone into the holy place with a faded gown that once belonged to a king, and a crown of thorns, and spit on his jaw, and hair pulled from his face, struggling under a load as though he was drunk?
The priest went into the holy place in garments of glory and beauty, the most beautiful garments in the world, all hand sown, meticulous, marvelous. He went with a crown on his head, he went with a breast plate. Beautiful stones.
How did Jesus go? Jesus went there staggering to the cross.
Did He have a stone? A red stone on His breast? no, just His own blood, that's all.
Did He have an immaculate garment threaded? no, a peasant's garment.
Did He have a golden crown with "Holiness unto the Lord"? no, He had a crown of thorns with holiness in His spirit.
Did people stand in awe and say, "The priest has gone in, will he come out?" No. This is what they said as the holiest man that ever lived trudged up that road that they call the "via dolorosa", staggering under a cross, "Ha, ha, He is the Man that talked about being strong and He gave strength to the weak, and eyes to the blind, and He did a lot of things, and look He can't keep up the load." He wasn't sinking under the load of the cross. He was carrying the weight of the sin of the world!
Those poor dumb, blind folks that stood there, the gamblers and the thieves, the lawyers and the doctors and the soldiers had no eyes to see.
The priest went into the holy place with gorgeous diamonds and priceless stones on his breast once a year for one nation - and could be dead and replaced before next year. Here is a man staggering up this road Who is going to take the consummate sin and grief, not of one nation, but of THE WHOLE WORLD!
There is not a computer of computers that can give you the frightful amount of human guilt; it was more than the sands by the sea shore or the stars in heaven. He isn't going to go every year - He is going once into the holy place.
He isn't burdened under a cross of wood - He is carrying the sin of the world which Samson, with all his
strength, could not carry.
He is solving a problem that Solomon, with all his wisdom, could not solve.
Oh, blind idiots looking out of their chariots,
those Romans with their proud garments,
those priests who thought they had an investiture from God,
those merchants who scorned His poverty. God pity them!
He is going to the cross. He hasn't got a dime in His pocket and He put every vein of silver in the world and nugget of gold that is in it. Nobody stood by Him. Not even His disciples. Isn't there a hymn that says:
"The pain in His heart was the hardest to bear,
The heart that was broken for me."?
Again I say, He is not going to repeat the act. He is doing it once and for all. That's what He is doing. See, Jesus is the consummation of everything, every type that is in the Old Testament. You can take the sacrificial type
- He is the red heifer.
- He is the perfect lamb.
- He is the dove whose breast was put in blood and thrown away,
sent out into the air.
But the priest has no sacrifice. It does not cost him a thing - he is using the blood of beasts. This Man is going to enter the holiest place of all in His own blood. Not every year but once forever. The priest that walks into the holy place to the astonishment and amazement of all the people is going to go once and eventually is going to die - but our High Priest is going to live forever.
He is the perfect offering and He is the perfect priest,
He is the perfect prophet and He is the perfect King.
Moses is the greatest prophet, but "a greater than Moses is here". You take the perfection of every one of those characters in the Old Testament and He is the ultimate in perfection.
He has the wisdom of Solomon.
He has the patience of Job,
He has the self-reliance of Nehemiah.
He has the statesmanship of Moses.
He has the courage of Joshua.
He has the broken heart of Jeremiah.
All rolled into one personality. Do you wonder that Satan said, "If you can get that Man out of God's will, if we can push Him out of the main track, we can hold the world captive for millions and millions of millenniums."
Again, going down that road the people mocked Him - that's what the Bible says. "They that passed by reviled Him wagging their heads." What a bunch of dumb, blind, senseless folk. If Caesar comes down the road they bow the knee and say, "Hail, Caesar."
If the priest comes, they stand in awe. But, you see, He not only was, He IS. In this mad, insane, world in which we live, HE STILL IS DISPISED AND REJECTED OF MEN.
As you know, I am not very fond of translations of the New Testament - I like the good old King James. But I love this verse in Phillips's translation. I am going to get it printed as a little card. His translation of Ephesians 1:10 is this: "For God has allowed us to know the secret of His plan. He purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ." I don't care how drunk the nations are with their iniquity today! I don't care that politicians are as hypocritical today as they were in Nixon's day or anybody else's. I don't care how intoxicated men are with iniquity. I don't care that people say we are nearer a blowout in the Middle East at this moment than ever we've been for years. (When they finished the news the other night the newscaster actually said, "Well, that's the end of the bad news for the day." They are not often so honest!) But listen, God has allowed us to know. Come on, lift your chin up however rough the going. God has allowed us to know. We are initiated. We are the believers. We know Him, and He has allowed us to know the secret of His plan, and it's this: "He purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in His Christ."
Could you try and imagine what Jesus was thinking on that road to the cross? I think the earth shook beneath His feet. I say God draped the sun - He would not let anybody see His Son bear the sin. He became sin for us! Remember please, will you? When Jesus utters these three words - It is finished - it is after the three hours of darkness that covered the whole earth. There was a historian in Egypt at the time who wrote this, listen, "In this awful mid-day that has become midnight, either God is suffering or Somebody He loves is suffering." That was a pagan testimony. The whole world shook under the impact. He is not bearing millions or trillions or quadrillions, He is bearing the total sum of human sin. Not only committed sin but depravity as a whole.
They reviled Him, they shook their heads. Verse 41 of that 27th chapter of Matthew says, "Likewise the chief priests." These are the men who know the law and the prophets. These are the men that read Isaiah 35 so many times, "When He comes the eyes of the blind shall be opened." And He did it before them and they still spit on His face, because that's what it says a bit later on.
Oh, you have it rough and I have it rough at times.
Anybody boot your behind and nearly break your spine?
Anybody get a nice mouthful of flem and spit in your eye?
Anybody take your beard and pull the flesh out with it?
Anybody say, "Well, I know you of course, you are devil possessed"?
They mocked Him, they scorned Him, they reviled Him.
The people passing by wagged their heads.
And then the priests mocked Him.
But wait a minute, there were two men beside him crucified, you know what they did? The thieves which were with Him, they cast the same in His teeth. Isn't it amazing that to the very doorstep of hell itself they scorned Him and blasphemed Him? And they were a heartbeat away from eternity. Well, one of the hymns says about this Lord Jesus of ours,
"It is the way the Master went, should not the servant tread it still?"
It is finished. What is finished? Well, alleluia, from one angle this is finished, men aren't going to abuse Him anymore. A hymn writer says,
"The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now,
The royal diadem adorns the mighty Victor's brow."
He is out of the reach of men. They aren't going to push Him around. They aren't going to crucify. They aren't going to nail Him to a tree. How do you know that those thieves that were hailing Him and cursing Him on the tree were not part of the crowd of five thousand He fed. He did not discriminate. He did not say, "Give it to Jews, but not to those, and not to those Greeks, and..." He said, "Feed them!" Well, He throws His mercy over the air, over a hundred nations, a thousand peoples this afternoon.
"Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word.
Fasting alone in the desert,
Think of the pain that He bore,"
Oh, my God, my God. To me it is insufferable that the church has
lived for 2000 years and there is still a person in the world that doesn't hear
the gospel. There are still 1000 tribes that don't have the written Gospel of the
grace of Jesus Christ.Partly our fault. I am glad, I lived in a house where all
was talk about God and missionaries - I prayed for missionaries when
I didn't know if they were missionaries or football players - but I prayed for them.
He said, "It is finished."
What is finished? Man's power over Him.
What is finished? Satan's abuse of Him. Satan's testing of Him.
He started with forty days in the wilderness and He ministered three years. How long did He live before the three years? Thirty years. So He had ten years training for every one year He was going to minister. That's pretty good training, isn't it?
Thirty years of training? But again, He is going to do in this one act what all the "blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain, could give no guilty conscience peace nor wash away one stain, but Christ, the Heavenly Lamb, takes all our sins away." Ten million oxen have been slain. Thousands of sheep, sacrifices have been made, new moons and Sabbaths; people have done all kinds of things, and Jesus ties it all up in one redemptive act: Christ the Heavenly Lamb.
No, He is not going to be tempted anymore now. He is not going to be looking out of His eyes corners as He carries that awesome cross, and carries the sin of the world and thinks, "I can't see Peter around or anyone."
He suffered heartbreak because His disciples were unfaithful.
He suffered heartbreak because the synagogue and the temple rejected Him.
I say they knew the law and the prophets. They heard Isaiah 35 so many times; they dreamed of it, "The highway shall be there and bondages are going to cease, the Romans will lose their power over us. There is going to be no cripple, no lame. He is going to heal and cure and everybody is going to be sanctified." And when they met Him in flesh and blood they didn't even know Him. Do you know why? Because He didn't do it their way - that's why. Because He put new wine in the old wine skins, and they burst.
The last great outpouring - a lot of people say it's here, I don't believe that for a
minute. I believe we have one or two trickles, but surely not an
outpouring. Someone said recently, "Well, if this is the visitation; if there
are fifty million born again people, then why is the nation in this
condition?" Well, the salt has lost its savor. I believe there will be such a
visitation that even the workings of God will become headlines above the
sports headlines, above political headlines, above economic headlines.
There are going to be such manifestations of divine power that God is going to get the glory for His Son.
That's going to shake the world too. It is finished.
When He said, "It is finished," really He is saying, "I don't need this body anymore. I don't need food anymore. I don't need sleep anymore. I am not a human being any more in the sense you know humanity. IT IS FINISHED!" "Men have no power over Me. Satan has no power over Me."
Jesus said, "It is finished." What was finished? Temptation. No more temptation. It has no power over Him. No more dependence on human agencies. He is going to pass into a tunnel. He is going to do what no man in history ever did. This is an unprecedented act. It's an UNREPEATABLE ACT!
I say He is the perfection of the law, He is the perfection of prophets. Take the most beautiful characters in the world and mold them all into one and HE IS EXACTLY THAT! And instead of angels hanging over Him and coming down and slaying people and saying, "BOW DOWN YOU REBELS, THIS IS THE SON OF GOD," people kicked Him, and reviled Him, and they spat on Him. THEY MOCKED HIM. Remember that lovely song that says, "He could have called ten thousand angels?" I like that song.
It is finished. What was finished? The tyranny of the devil. I don't think the church has wakened up to that yet, but it is finished. It is so. I believe that when Jesus cried with a loud voice it echoed down every corridor in hell. IT IS FINISHED!! I can almost hear the demons in hell say, "What? He's broken our power." "You mean that Satan doesn't have...?" "No, no, no. Satan is bound. And not only that, death has lost it's sting." "What?" "Yes, death has lost it's sting. And more than that... 'The vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus his pardon receives.' It doesn't matter if he is going in the Woldorf Astoria this afternoon with somebody else's wife dripping with diamonds. Or if he is a bum down the street. Or he is with the folk that still go naked to the beach every week there in San Diego and defy the police to arrest them. Or whether he is a big ecclesiastical guy standing behind the desk with all his mind loaded with such modernistic ideas. It makes no difference. If he comes to the cross..." Well, we sang about it this afternoon, "That old rugged cross, so despised by the world has a wondrous attraction."
"It is finished." The implication of the Greek word is "This is complete." This is redemption complete. You can't add to it. You can't subtract from it. It doesn't need something the priest says added to it. Jesus made a perfect redemption for men. His blood was shed. It's more than all the blood of beasts. Because again, it says in Hebrews 10:9, "If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works." He not only paid the total sum of human sin, He nailed it to the tree. That's what He did.
It wasn't the Greeks that put Him there, it wasn't the Romans that put Him there - they were all there, I thank God for that.
The Greeks were there, their day was over, they were coming out of their glory, they were fading out. They were the past generation.
The Romans were there, they were the ruling generation at that time.
And who else were there? Well, the black folk were there, a future generation.
So, you see, the past, the present, the future, all were at the cross.
If you lay a cross on the floor it points North, South, East and West. If you stand the cross up it embraces - as Wesley says, "The arms of love that compass me do all mankind embrace." If you stand it up it points to a topless heaven and to a bottomless hell and the arms are outstretched to save.
We are mutilating all the hymns and we mutilated that gorgeous hymn we sing so often, "Beneath the cross of Jesus." A stanza of it says this, listen,
"The darkness of an awful grave
That gapes both deep and wide;"
And there between us stands the cross,
Two arms outstretched to save,
Like a watchman set to guard the way
From that eternal grave."
At the other side of that cross there is an eternal grave, and the only obstruction to that eternal grave is the finished work of the Lord Jesus. You see, it is finished, the law and the prophets they've no... at least the Old Testament economy, as we say, has no power. Sin, if we obey God, has no dominion over us. Death has no dominion over us. The power of Satan has been broken. Heaven has received Him. And the next thing is not only "It is finished," but "He is Risen" which will be superseded with "I will come again."
We shouldn't put our tongue in our cheek and say this in a whisper. We ought to shout this from the house top. To a world that is groping in darkness we ought to proclaim with a trumpet voice, "It is FINISHED,
you can't buy salvation,
you can't crawl on your knees through the holy city,
you can't go on a pilgrimage,
you can't offer your righteousness,
there is nothing you can do, but bow in humility and confess and accept it."
It is finished. This is the language of earth. Why? Because in heaven they never say, "It is finished." Because it is never going to be finished, for all eternity. Oh, redemption is finished, sure enough. All that I said is finished. But you see, this never finishes. We are going to live and reign with Him for ever and ever. And Gabriel isn't going to blow the trumpet one day and say, "Hey, you've been living in this super millennium for four billion trillion years and it's over." NO SIR. I like that part of the Messiah where it goes up and up as they sing "And He shall reign for ever and ever. King of Kings." Nobody wants it to finish in eternity. We are going to be with the eternal Bride Groom. But wait a minute. They never say it in hell either.
There will be people in hell today and people in hell a billion years from now. No messenger will come from another world and say, "It is finished. Your judgment is passed. You've no more suffering for your sin. The wrath of God doesn't abide in you anymore." No. If we are going to escape that eternal judgment, if we are going to enter that eternal rest, it must happen now. Isn't it amazing that people withhold their petty little lives from Him? That they love their sin enough to get the anger and wrath of God? Rather than repent, and believe, and be saved?
Christ's love is, "so amazing and so divine,"
That He bore our sins in His body,
That He took the curse and the wrath of God upon Him.
That He took our sins and His heart was broken that ours might be healed.
He was an outcast that we might be brought in.
He suffered without the gate that we might enter into heaven and said,.
IT IS FINISHED!

A Conversation with John Piper and John MacArthur

David Brainerd

http://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/biobrainerd7.html
Click the link to read his biography.

"It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy without acting all for God. God Himself could not make him happy any other way... There is nothing in the world worth living for but doing good and finishing God's work, doing the work that Christ did. I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing Him, and doing his whole will." ~David Brainerd

"May the Lord of the harvest send forth other laborers into this part of His harvest, that those who sit in darkness may see great light, and that the whole earth may be filled with the knowledge of Himself! Amen."

Are Christian fathers commanded to daily devotions with their children?

Are Christian fathers commanded to daily devotions with their children?

WHOSE SLAVE ARE YOU?

WHOSE SLAVE ARE YOU?

by Ray C. Stedman
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I invite you now to turn to the book of Romans, where we are going to pick up in the middle of Chapter 6. In this chapter we are dealing with a very practical problem, one that every Christian must wrestle with. The problem is stated by the apostle very plainly in the first verse of this chapter: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" This whole sixth chapter deals with what happens when a believer sins. We do not like to think that believers do sin; but, unfortunately, we do.
In Verses 1-14 of Chapter 6, we looked at the answer to this question. Now that you have become a Christian and Christ has entered your life -- you have been joined to him by faith in his work, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by baptism into his death and being made a part of his resurrection -- the question arises: Can you go on living as you once did? Can you continue on in a lifestyle of sin, just as though nothing had really happened to you except that you will go to heaven when you die? Paul's answer is: "Absolutely not!" You cannot do that; if you do, it is proof that you never really participated in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, you are really not a Christian. Anyone who goes on in an unchanged life after having professed that they have come to Christ is simply giving testimony to everyone that he really has not been changed in his heart at all. He belongs to that crowd of people of whom our Lord Jesus himself said, "Many shall come to me in that day and say, 'Lord, Lord, did we not do many mighty works in your name and cast out devils?' And I shall say, 'Depart from me, I never knew you,'" {cf, Matt 7:22-23}.
The apostle is dealing with a very important subject here, one that we need to understand thoroughly. In Verse 14, Paul has just declared, "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." In Verse 15, he raises the question again, but in a slightly different way:
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? {Rom 6:15a NIV}
You can see that is a slightly different question than you have in Verse 1. In Verse 1, the question is: "Can we sin? Can we go on abiding in sin, living in a lifestyle of sin?" Paul's answer is: "Absolutely not! You cannot do it. If there has really been a change in your life, if Christ has entered your heart, there is no way that you can go on absolutely unchanged, justifying the same style of life that you have always had." But now the question is not "can we" but "shall we." Paul is raising the question of whether a Christian ought to choose to sin occasionally because he enjoys the momentary pleasure that sin gives.
That is the situation that every one of us faces from time to time. Sin is fun, isn't it? Sometimes we run up against some especially delicious temptations. At times, we all are confronted with the feeling "Why not give in? After all, I'm not going to hell because of this. My salvation rests on Christ and not on me. And actually, God is not going to reject me because of this, for the Law does not condemn me any longer. I am not under Law. It is love that will discipline me; Law will not condemn me. I can be forgiven; I can be restored -- so why not sin?" I have heard a lot of Christians talk that way, and I have felt the full force of this confrontation in my own experience. Why not give in and enjoy a sin -- we are not under law, but under grace. Do you see the thrust of the apostle's question? It is a very real, very practical one.
In the verses that follow, Paul answers that question. He asks, "Shall we sin?" His answer is: "No. By no means!" If you, as a Christian, go on and sin deliberately, even if it is only occasionally, you must face what sin will do to you. You must face the full results of what will happen when you and I, as believers, choose to do what we know to be wrong, even though we have been set free in Christ and need not do these things.
Paul's answer is three-fold: "Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! First, sin makes you a slave (Verses 16-19). Second, sin will make you ashamed (Verses 20-21). Finally, sin will spread death throughout your whole existence (Verses 22-23). Let's look at the first part of Paul's answer. In Verses 16-19, he tells us that sin will make slaves out of us:
Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey -- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were committed. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to every-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness and holiness. {Rom 6:16-19 NIV}
Paul says he has gone into the common experiences of the world of his day to give us a picture of what humanity is like. He uses the phrase slaves to describe us. In other words, he is dealing here with a very profound psychological fact: human beings are made to be mastered. Somebody has to master us.
Some years ago in Los Angeles I saw a man walking down the street with a sign on his shoulders. The front of it said, "I'M A SLAVE FOR CHRIST." On the back of it, as he passed, you read, "WHOSE SLAVE ARE YOU?" It is a good question because all of us are slaves to one or the other of these two masters -- sin or righteousness. We have no other choices. By the very nature of our humanity, we are made to serve and to be controlled by forces beyond our power.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched the Republican Convention and was struck by the fact that as these people gathered in Kansas City to make a choice, they were aware that they had to decide between two men, Ronald Reagan or President Ford. The whole convention was gathered together for that one purpose -- to make a decision, to make a choice. Everybody there felt that he was free to make the choice he wanted to make, according to what he saw was important or what commitments he had made previously. And yet, as I watched that convention, I was struck by the narrowness of the choice they had. There were only two men to choose from. There could have been -- and probably were -- many there who gladly would have chosen someone other than those two men, but they had no opportunity to do so. There may have been some there who would have chosen me, strange as that may seem. I don't know that there were, but they had no opportunity to do so. You can see what a fantastic loss the Republican Party has suffered because of that. We think we are creatures of sovereign choice, but we are not. Our choices are very narrow, very limited.
The great question is: Who controls the choices that we have to make? Who controls that narrow band? What forces are at work to limit us to such a narrow range throughout our lives? The answer is: It is always something beyond us that controls these choices. God is at work; Satan is at work. We are given very limited ability to choose.
Paul then speaks of these two kinds of slavery: He says that we Christians have been set free from the slavery to sin. Once we had to sin. Before we came to Christ, there was no choice; no matter whether we chose what we thought was good or chose what we thought was wrong, we ended up making a choice that led to evil. There was no other way out. Even the right things we tried to do were tainted with evil, with selfishness. We have seen experiences that confirm this in our own hearts.
Well then, what happens when we sin as believers? Now we are free, and yet we go back and choose to do something that is wrong. We are confronted with this temptation to give way for the moment and indulge ourselves in some sin we want to do. Most of us try to kid ourselves into believing it is not very serious. "It won't hurt us anyway," we reason, so we make the choice.
Paul says, "Let's look at what happens." First of all, don't you know that you have set in operation a basic principle of life? The principle is this: If you yield yourself to sin, you become the slave of sin. Jesus stated this in John 8:34: "Verily, verily, I say unto you [that is a little formula that means he is stating basic, fundamental, absolutely foundational truth], he that commits sin is the slave of sin," {cf, John 8:34 KJV}. Now, what does this mean in practice? A slave, of course, is someone who is not in ultimate control of his own actions, someone who is at the disposal of another person, someone who has to do what that other person says. When we choose to tell a lie, we give one of the clearest evidences of the operation of this principle in our lives. Have you ever noticed what happens when you tell a lie?
A man said to me the other day, "I told what I thought was a little white lie. I thought that would handle the matter. But, you know, I found out that I had to tell 42 other lies -- I counted them -- before I finally woke up to what I was doing and admitted the whole thing and got out from under." You can't tell one lie. You see, you are not in control of the events. You choose to tell one lie, and before you know it, you have to tell another.
The same thing is true with anger. Have you noticed that? You decide you are going to put a little sharpness in your voice when you answer someone. You want to cut him down just a little bit. You don't want it to go too far -- after all, you do like him -- you just want to hurt him a little bit. So you do. What happens? He answers back in kind. So you cut a little deeper, and before you know it, you are embroiled in an argument and a battle that you did not want. It happened because you were a slave to sin. Sin pushed you further than you wanted to go. There was no way you could escape. Secondly, sin not only takes you further than you desire to go, but it also infects others with the same attitude. Did you ever notice that? You wake up in the morning feeling surly and grouchy, and you snap at somebody. Then the other person snaps back, and soon the whole household is reflecting your attitude. You choose to do something a little shady in your business, and soon others begin to do the same thing. So sin begins to spread, like an infection. If you think the Legionnaires' Disease was a killer, you should watch what happens when sin begins to operate. Years ago I heard a little rhyme that said:
I said a very naughty word only the other day.
It was a truly naughty word I had not meant to say.
But then, it was not really lost, when from my lips it flew;
My little brother picked it up, and now he says it, too.
That is the way sin begins to spread. And part of the slavery is that when you yield yourself to something, and do it two or three times before you wake up to what is going on -- it is getting out of control and going beyond what you wanted -- it becomes difficult to begin to change. Something resists every opportunity you take to try to change. It is hard to go back. A habit has begun that is hard to change.
Just as an illustration, somebody said to me the other day, "It's easy to quit smoking; I've done it dozens of times!" What a testimony that is to the power these things have to grip us and to control us. Paul is right, for we become the slaves of that which we obey.
Paul continues in Verses 20-21:
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit [or what fruit] did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? {Rom 6:20-21 NIV}
Each of us can look back in our lives at something we are ashamed of. It leaves a stain in our minds when we think about it. Shame is the awareness of unworthy actions and irreparable damage that we do to others and our painful feeling about it. We have all experienced shame at times. Sin -- no matter what it is or how small it seems -- always leads to shame. The memories of the past are stained and blotted by this sense of shame that we experience. We all know what it is like -- those shameful deeds that we would like to forget, but can't; hurtful words that we wish we had never said; strained relationships that go on for years, so that whenever we meet certain people we feel uncomfortable in their presence.
This is the inevitable fruit of sin, something that Paul reminds us of many times. In Galatians 6:7-8 he says, "Do not be deceived [don't kid yourself]; God is not mocked," {Gal 6:7a RSV}. "For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption;" {Gal 6:8a RSV}. You can't drop the seed of evil into your heart without reaping from it the harvest, the fruit of corruption; "but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life," {Gal 6:8b RSV}. That is exactly what we see here in Romans 6. The third reason why we should not give way to sin is found in Verses 21-23:
Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. {Rom 6:21-23 NIV}
Life and death -- the two results.What is death? When Paul talks about death here, he is not talking about a funeral which comes at the end of your life (though that certainly is what death is). He is talking about something that you experience right now while you are alive. Death is both physical and moral; the one is a picture of the other. Physical death always involves darkness, the end of light and life. It involves limitation, for a corpse is helpless -- what can it do for itself? And it involves, ultimately, corruption -- the corpse begins to stink and smell, it becomes foul and decayed, rottenness sets in.
That is what happens when we sin as believers. These same elements of death are present. There is, first of all, darkness. I can look back in my own life and see how, as a young Christian, there were times when I struggled and struggled to understand passages of Scripture. I couldn't seem to grasp them; they were closed to me. Others understood them and seemed to be rejoicing in them, but I couldn't -- until God, in his mercy, began to deal with me about things that I was doing that I knew were wrong. Finally, God led me to the place where I would be free. I would repent and turn from these things and come into the freedom that God had given me in Christ. Then I would discover that the Scriptures began to open up, and light came into my darkness.
I meet Christians all the time who do not seem to understand many of the truths of the Word of God. I don't know if this is always the explanation, but in many cases it is -- because they are deliberately allowing things in their lives that they know are wrong. They don't realize that these things spread death. Darkness sets in, and they cannot see the light. Paul reminds us in Second Corinthians, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, so that they cannot see the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ," {cf, 2 Cor 4:4}.
Not only does darkness set in when we sin, but there are limitations too. Remember the account in the Old Testament about Moses in the wilderness. He became angry one day when the people tested him and frustrated him. God told him to speak to the rock and it would give water. Instead, in his anger, Moses struck the rock with the rod, {cf, Num 20:8-11}. That was just a little thing, a momentary blowup. For a few seconds, he lost his temper. But God said, "Moses, because you have done this, you will not be able to enter the Promised Land. When the people enter the land, you must stay behind because you have done this thing," {cf, Num 20:12}.
I am not suggesting that there are things that we do that forever limit the opportunities God gives us. But I know that as long as we cling to things that we know are wrong, justifying them in our lives and refusing to enter into the freedom that God gives us, there is a loss of opportunity. That is why many Christians never seem to have occasion to discover the adventure of serving God. They sit with folded arms, watching other people having fun and excitement, while nothing opens for them. Oftentimes it is because of this very thing -- the choices of sin that we make.
Death means a lessening of our experience of freedom and delight in the things of God and an increase in boredom and banality. Sometimes our lives become utterly nauseating to us. Have you ever felt that way? Sometimes your whole Christian experience almost stinks in your own nostrils. That is a sign of the death that sin brings with it. Now, throughout this account, Paul stresses over and over again the words set free. "You have been set free," he says. "You no longer are the slaves of sin. When you came to the Lord Jesus, a change occurred; you have been freed. You are no longer a slave to evil, but a slave to righteousness." Paul says, "Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness and holiness."
Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, all this business of being limited, of experiencing death and shame, is totally unnecessary to a believer. That is the tragedy of sin in a believer's life. We don't have to experience death in our lives; we only have it because we choose to. Therefore, any experience of these things in our lives is something that has come because we have chosen to let it, although we were free to choose otherwise.
A member of our family is currently learning to ride a bicycle. I won't say who it is, but she is learning how to balance herself on the wheels and pedal down the street. And she is doing very well at it. But so far, the only way she has ever found to stop is by running into something. I am constantly picking her up out of bushes and off the sidewalk because the only way she has been able to stop is by running into something. The other day I was helping her, and said, "You don't have to run into things to stop; there is another way to do it. A provision has been made so that you can stop this bicycle without having to run into things." I showed her that all she had to do was to reverse the pedals and the coaster brake would bring her to a stop. I had shown her this before, so when I said that to her, she looked at me and said, "Well, I am sure relieved to know that there's another way to stop." I realized that she didn't need me to tell her that. What she did need was to actually do it when it was time to stop. What good does it do to have a bicycle that has a provision for stopping if you never use it? You might just as well not have it.
The question the apostle raises in this passage is: "What good is it to be set free from sin by Jesus Christ and have every opportunity and every possibility of walking in holiness (wholeness, a whole person, one who has got it all together) and in righteousness (a sense of worth, a sense of security, and assurance that you are loved by God and are valuable to him), if, at the moment of choice, we ignore these things and go right on as though we were slaves to sin?"
As I travel across America, I am often struck by the fact that the various cities into which I come are always cities filled with churches. In almost every corner you can find a church. And those churches are often filled with Christians. It seems as if this country has a fantastic opportunity to see a new quality of life demonstrated -- a quality of life so uniquely different from how the world lives that we ought to have people stopping us on the street to ask, "What goes with you? How come you have such peace in your eyes? How come you have such love in your heart? Why are you so different?" Instead, with our cities filled with churches and our churches filled with people, all the world sees is the same old, tired reactions that they themselves are so familiar with and so tired of.
The challenge of Romans 6 is this: Christ has made you free, free to be a king, free to have a sense of worth, free to be secure in your own personhood, knowing who you are before God. He set you free to be a whole person, so that you are not torn by a dozen different conflicting interests, but, with a single eye, you can live to the glory of God, free from the control or the blame or the censure or the praise of men. You are free at last to respond to the greatest calling that a man can have -- the call to know God, this amazing Being.
That is what this closing verse means. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." Jesus described eternal life in John 17:3: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent," {John 17:3 NIV}. Here we are, called to this kind of living, called to this quality of existence, and yet, because of the foolishness of our hearts and the weakness of our spirits, we choose to give way to these momentary indulgences that lock us into slavery and shame and death.
May God help us to set sin aside and to live as the free men and women God has made us to be. As Paul said in Galatians 5:1: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of bondage," {cf, Gal 5:1 NIV}You have been freed from the slave market; now walk as new men. This is Paul's exhortation to us.
Prayer:
Our Father, we pray that there may be among us today, young and old alike, men and women who will dare to respond to the challenge of your Word, to be what we are capable of being in Christ, who will dare to say, "Yes, by the grace of God, I want to enter into this freedom," who will dare to live according to this and turn away from the subtle, silken claims of evil in our lives, and say "Yes!" to you. We pray that we might manifest this wholeness, this beauty, this reality, this liberty of the children of God. Lord, help us here at Peninsula Bible Church, and those at other churches across this land, to begin to respond to this truth. We pray that this nation, under God, may have a new birth of freedom and that men may come to see the unique quality that Jesus Christ brings into a life. We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.
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Title: Whose Slave are You?
By: Ray C. Stedman
Scripture: Romans 6:15-23
Date: September 5, 1976
Series: From Guilt to Glory -- Explained
Message No: 15
Catalog No: 3515

Social Media and Digital Discernment

Social Media and Digital Discernment
Click the link above

Dominating Powers, Part 1 (1/3/2010)

Dominating Powers, Part 1 (1/3/2010)
Click the link above to read or listen to this message on demons.
It will be a blessing to you.

An Unremarkable Faith

An Unremarkable Faith
Grace To You Blog
Click the link above to read this blog post and be sure to read the comments. There are a lot of people voicing opinions about it.
The blog is referring to the books Crazy Love and Radical and I love both books. I must admit I don't want to move to a 3rd world country but I think there is a middle ground between the unremarkable Christian and the radical Christian and I am moving from unremarkable to somewhere in the middle. It is odd that Chan graduated from MacArthurs University and they are talking about his book, but I must admit, Chan has stepped away from a very successful career that I am not sure God wanted him to leave just yet. I know I was receiving a blessing from his sermons and books
As long as we are in God's will a parking attendant or garbage man can bring Glory to God. I hope I bring God Glory every day even though I am not talented and haven't really found an exciting calling yet.

Reflection Questions 2010

Read this with your Bible open...
1. What was the single best thing that happened this past year?
We spent a lot more time together as a family.
I am moving forward and looking to what lies ahead. Psalm 103:12; Philippians 3:13
2. What was the single most challenging thing that happened?
Misusing the Word of God. Mark 10:2; Matthew 4:1-11; John 8:12-11;  Matthew 15:1-11; Matthew 22:15-23.
3. What was an unexpected joy this past year?
A deeper understanding of the Gospel. Romans 3:22-25
4. What was an unexpected obstacle?
Idolatry, my own and others. Ezekiel 20; 1 John 5:21
5. Pick three words to describe 2010.
Restoring, Revealing, and Relational.
6. What were the best books you read this year?
Crazy Love and The Forgotten God by Francis Chan, Surprised by Grace by Tullian Tchividjian, Radical by David Platt, Permission to Speak Freely by Anne Jackson, Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur and many, many of the classics.
7. With whom were your most valuable relationships?
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit and my family.
8. What was your biggest personal change from January to December of this past year?
Honesty, I've spent my life covering up sins for the sake of others. Now I want to confront my own sin and the sins of others for the sake of myself and others.  1 Timothy 5:20; Proverbs 27: 5-6; Pauls Letter to the Galatians http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Gal/Rebuke-Section
9. In what way did you grow emotionally?
Realizing I don't need self-help or my own plan, I need God's help to carry out HIS plans.
10. In what way(s) did you grow spiritually?
Spent a significant amount of time listening to doctrinally sound Christian podcasts and audiobooks on my ipod. I've learned more about God's Word and Grace this year than all my previous years combined. Greater understanding of what prayer is, what it does, how it affects my relationship with God and others. Luke 18:1; Romans 12:12; Ephesians 6:18; Colossians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; 1 Timothy 2:1
11. In what way(s) did you grow in your relationships with others?
I am being more honest, but not yet honest enough. I have a long way to go. Ephesians 4:15
12. What was the most enjoyable area of managing your home?
Developed a great routine that makes everything much more manageable.
13. What was your most challenging area of home management?
Still too much clutter.
14. What was your single biggest time waster in your life this past year?
Again, for the 2nd year in a row, facebook. Facebook would be great if the virtual relationships would spill over into reality but that didn't happen. Also I spent way to much time on facebook and it became an idol to me.
15. What was the best way you used your time this past year?
Going to the lake with my family, intercessory prayer, listening to sermons on my ipod, being in God's presence.  
16. What was the biggest thing you learned this past year?
Philippians 3:8-11
20. Create a phrase or statement that describes 2010 for year.
Permission to Speak Freely