Darkness as Light
-- Part 3
How many of us were able to lay hold of
God and get an answer to prayer right off When we first
beleived?
And if we found our first prayers unanswered
did we say: well it must not be in prayer. And then we threw
that whole thing aside and looked for God in something else?
I dare say most of us if we have developed a prayer life
have developed it over a long period of time line by line
and here a little and there a little.
Ezekiel 34:1-5 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against
the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus
saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe
be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should
not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye
eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them
that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have
ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was
sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither
have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither
have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with
cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered.
We have been falsely taught that the Old
Testament is the bible of the Jews and the New Testament
is the Bible of the Christians. Elsewhere I have a in depth study on this subject
suffice to say that the word of God is one it is not divided.
So here we have Ezekiel
prophesying against the shepherds. Who were she shepherds
of Israel? Who called themselves shepherds of God’s people?
Who among them had the power to heal the sick/ Who among
them had the power to strengthen the diseased? Who among
the Israelites God’s sheep did they drive out and scatter?
The answer is none this is not a prophesy to Israel as much
as it is a prophesy to the Church where its ministers were
to be as the great shepherd Jesus Christ and instead the
ministers have become hirelings that live for themselves
while they exploit destroy and scatter the people of God
for their own pleasure.
Matthew
11:28-30 Come
unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for
I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto
your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Because to the doctrines and traditions
of men this verse is preached exclusively as a salvation
verse. Because of this, this verse has come to little or
no meaning to the Church because they say they are all saved -- they have accepted God on their own terms,
they have made a decision to be a certain level of Christian. The truth is that we walk in a far greater
darkness in this day than Origen did in his. And we call
the corruption that has been handed down to us the glory
and the light of God. We need to realize that this only
works when none seek after Christ and none seek for the
truth. It only works when we are content to live in the
darkness of those to whom we are discipled to.
And when we reast on our careless leas in Zion we
are doomed to being passed by, by the Lord just like he
has passed by every generation before us.
Matthew
11:28-30 Come
unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for
I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto
your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
The context this passage begins
with John the Baptist’s disciples coming to Christ. John
was in prison, and he knew he was going to die and it appears
that he may have been plagued with some doubts. I have heard
this message preached repeatedly and have repeated the words
of others message on this as well in the past. However I
see something new this morning as I write, that John the
Baptist was not failing in faith, he was victoriously finishing
his course and he attempting to make an orderly transfer
of his remaining disciples over to Christ.
Remember at the beginning of Jesus ministry
that John the Baptist sent John and Andrew to be with Christ
– this is no different. Probably he had only his most ardent
and most faithful disciples left those that had sworn allegiance
to him unto death. And so John sends them to Christ to ask
a question that they would see firsthand the demonstration
and power and hear Christ’s teaching. John wanted his disciples
to be confronted and to know by their own eyes and ears
that Jesus was the Christ. And likewise John wanted his
disciples to come back with an incontrovertible report –
so that he could say: I have run my course, I have built
the way of salvation – if you have heard my words and you
seek to honor me and what God has done you must now go and
become disciples of Christ.
The context of the passage
continues with Jesus chiding the scribes Pharisees and the
priests. Matthew 11:16-19 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like
unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their
fellows,
And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced;
we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they
say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and
they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend
of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her
children.
Jesus is clearly speaking here about sects
of religious leaders cat calling to each other over their
rules and regulations. This thought is brought out in some
other passages.
Matthew
23:4
For they (the Scribes and Pharisees) bind heavy burdens
and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders;
but they themselves will not move them with one of their
fingers.
Luke 11:46
And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade
men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves
touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
Jesus then speaks of entire
cities that rejected His message that He was the Messiah.
Cities in which Jesus said He did His greatest signs and
wonders. Was it the common people that did not believe –
that is doubtful – it was the religious leaders with their
burdensome rules exerting their authority over the locals
that caused the rejection
So
then what is the meaning them of Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my
yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly
in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
It would appear that Jesus here is calling
out to those under the heavy burdens of the scribes the
Pharisees and the lawyers – he’s speaking to practicing
and religious Jews perhaps even the followers of John the
Baptist. If we were to update this to our day we could say
that Jesus is calling to practicing Christians and the religious
of our day he is calling them unto himself. He is calling
them to abandon 1900 years of the doctrines and traditions
of men that put an undo burden on believers. And what is his first call? To come unto me,
all ye that labor and I will give you rest. Labor in what?
All this religious activity, to believe this, to do this,
and to confess this or that.
Take my yoke – my commandments
– my teachings and first and foremost learn of me. And was
does He want you to be introduced to? Being meek and lowly
of heart and in so doing you shall find rest for your souls.
No in all the religious activities that are designed to
keep you struggling and entangled.
This is quite different than what is currently
preached. – In most churches people get saved, people get
filled with the spirit, and then they get taught the doctrines
and traditions of men and get loaded up with things they
need to do. This
is done instead of taking on Christ’s yolk and instead of
coming unto Him and learning of Him.
A major component of the preaching
in our day is “doing.”
I am not ignoring scripture that speaks of us not
only being hearers but doers I am saying that we have a
religious leadership that has lost their way. We have teachers
and preachers that preach 10,000 other gospels because like
us they are also walking in darkness and If their light
is darkness how great is that darkness with they teach others
in the Church?
The first call of all believers
is to come to Jesus. It is not to become a disciple to some
pastor, or church, or denomination or some movement.
At yet ministers by enlarge don’t want you to come
unto Jesus because that takes control from them. Putting believers in the hands of Christ takes
away authority and weightiness from the words they teach,
so from a leadership standpoint that would be undesirable
– its bad for business.
These ministers and ministries
are pro-active they are not meek and lowly of heart because
if they were they would not seek to exert authority of people
as the princes of the gentiles do. They would not be involved in political posturing
to enhance their office their ministry or their denomination.
They would not be demanding money for the building program
or whatever other programs they want the church to fund.
I am hoping that I can pry your eyes open to see that none
of these preachers are wearing to yolk of Christ none have
come unto to Him to learn of Him and none have found rest
for their souls. Instead they are like the troubled seas.
All of these pretend that they
are servants before their congregational audiences but in
reality they follow not the saying of Christ and on a daily
basis. And on a daily basis they do things that Jesus could
not or would not have done.
In ministry of the Church of
this day there is not one righteous no not one and I include
myself in this list. I can no longer posture and deceive my hearers
into believing that I am some how holier than them. Nor
can I preach to the lost and tell that I am holier than
them I am actively seeking a transformation the same transformation
that changed the twelve disciples from being carnal selfish
fleshly men into men of the Spirit. For those who would
say that I doubt my salvation or that I might not at all
be saved. I will tell you that in 1972 I confessed with
my lips that Jesus was the Christ the son of God and asked
him to come into my heart and be Lord of my life – and I
have never looked back on that issue. I am speaking of more
than having a judicial salvation, I am speaking of more
than having the bare minimum requirement to get into heaven
– I want to like Paul to experience the depths the weight
the depth and the width of this great salvation. I want
to walk in the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.
I want to experience what is declared in the end of the
gospel of Mark these signs shall follow them that believe.
I have seen what is out there. I have
read the testimonial books, I have heard the tapes of what
we call the great ones, the spiritual giants of the last
150-200 years, I have searched out revivals in Church history
and the moving of the Spirit and I have read the writings
of the early Church and I judge all of these to have fallen
short of the glory of God. I judge that none of these people,
ministries, or movements came into the Gospel that Christ
and the Apostles once delivered unto the Church.
On what do I base this observation? No church, no ministry, no revival, and no
denomination has ever produced one as Paul the Apostle that
was spoken to from Christ in an audible voice that were
caught up to the throne of God, and hand taught by Christ
the Gospel and that could perform signs and wonders and
say to the church this is the way walk ye in it.
There would be those that argued that
William Brahnam was such a man sent from God and undeniably
God wrought great miracles through him he had supernatural
visions but his understanding of the word of God was very
poor. Those that worked with him in the latter rain limited
the man to minister with his gift rather than teach. After
the revival waned Brahnam declared himself to be Elijah
as many others have done throughout church history. A cult of his followers exist to this day,
and revere him and his voluminous prophecies not unlike
people revere Edgar Cayce and his prophecies.
I repeat all have fallen short – does that
mean that a full restoration of what the early church had
and knew of God is unattainable? No, it means that we have
lost our way. That
we are not doing the same first works of the Church of Ephesus
because we no longer know what those first works were. The Church is not going to be restored because
we can study the Greek and Hebrew text better. The Church
is not going to be restored because we can study the writings
of the Apostolic Fathers, and it is not going to come because
we sit down and read the bible with or without the use of
commentaries.
And even if we were to burn all the writings
of all those before us and limit ourselves to the scripture
along and the Greek and Hebrew that would not guarantee
our restoration. –
though I would say that this step would be a vast improvement
over what we now have. The restoration of the Church is
going to come because of a singleness of vision of the Lord
– Jesus said the kingdom cometh not by observation but by
revelation. And revelation comes out of fellowship with
God. Ever since the church fell away and lost its way, the
Church has tried with the use of the knowledge of Good and
Evil to make a better Gospel
Exodus
21:1-6 Now
these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.
If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve:
and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If
he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he
were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
If his master have given him a wife, and she have
born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall
be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
And if the servant shall
plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children;
I will not go out free:
Then his master shall bring him unto the judges;
he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post;
and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and
he shall serve him for ever.
It took Christ 3 ½ years -- 24 hours a
day and 7 days a week to get the disciples prepared for
his death burial and resurrection.
It took Christ 3 ½ years – 24 hours a day
and 7 days a week to demonstrate to the disciples what a
Spirit-filled believer looks like so that when the Holy
Spirit came upon them for them they could hit the floor
running.
It took Christ 3 ½ years to get the disciples
to go from having evil, envious and covetous eyes of corruption
and walking in darkness to come to a single eye and walk
in the light as he is in the light.
When Christ spoke those words
in Matthew 6:22-24 the disciples
weren’t doing very well. So it should not surprise you that
after a few years that you may still be having trouble with
putting off the body of sin. It should not be of any surprise
to you that when the light of truth shines on you that you
find still have a love for the things of the world even
after 5 or 10 years. It should not surprise you that you
find that you still covet wealth, that you covet being the
greatest, and that you covet being like the princes of world
and exercising authority others even after being a believer
for 5 to 10 years. The disciples wanted these things, they
spoke of these things, and they did things again and again
that demonstrated these deep seated carnal desires. Need
I remind you that they did and said and did all these carnal
things over and over again when Jesus was with them 24 hours
a day and 7 days a week?
The truth is that that we have
a tougher row to hoe – because Christ is not here bodily
and we have neither hear his voice nor at any time seem
his shape.
The
light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be
single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine
eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If
therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness.
We have not been really aware of our spiritual state of being.
Sure we have little indiscretions, we have small outbreaks,
little lesions, and we tell ourselves that none of this
is serious. But the reality of these outbreaks of sin,
of covetousness, and of a love of the things of this world
is that we still have a major infection of sin in our body
soul and spirit that requires hospitalization and major
surgery. Realizing like the disciples that our eye has been
decidedly evil and that our light is darkness is essential,
if we are at all care to recover. And like the disciples
it may take us some time to fully accept Christ’s authoritative
words on this and other subjects.
David said” One thing have I desired of
the Lord and that will I seek after.
– The people of this evil generation can not abide
such sentiment, instead the credo among believers of this
day is: Many things have we desired of the Lord, and all
those thing will we seek after.
The Church has become so earth
bound and so materialistically minded that it is commonly
taught that one’s spirituality can and should be measured
by one’s earthly wealth. We can see this on a daily basis as high-powered ministries are
locked in this never-ending struggle pitting themselves
one against another to see who can amass the most things
of this world and thereby prove that they are the greatest.
How else could you explain Christendom’s fatal obsession
with Christian millionaires, Christian sport stars, Christian
rock stars, Christian film stars, and other men and women
of wealth and power?
1
John 1:5-7 This
then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare
unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at
all. If we say that we have fellowship with him,
and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
By the mere fact that John the Apostle
uses the words: “If we” he is plainly telling us that not
only does this possibility exist, but that he was addressing
believers in his day that were already walking in darkness.
And notice that the “If we” of darkness is written with
equal footing with the “If we “ of light.
In other words John did not minimize or put qualifies
to limit the scope of the “if we” of darkness to a very
select few. And likewise he did not say that the “If we”
of light was the church by enlarge. So that the Apostle
John in taking a neutral stance is stating that in the Church
there are spiritual and carnal believers.
that in the church of his day and ours that there
are those who are walking in the light and those who walking
in darkness. How is this any different than when Christ
spoke of the existence in the church of wheat and the tares.
I cannot over-emphasize that the Apostle
John wrote these words to churches that had been hand taught
by the Apostles. 1900 years later every pastor and every
believer in every church confess that they walk in the light,
and I might add that they also will tell you that they do
not know or ever have met a person that walks in darkness
in the Church.
Is it reasonable to say that
by their combined testimony in our day that the true church
of Jesus Christ is 100% tare free. Are we to boast that
our preaching and teaching is so much better than Christ
and the Apostles, so that we can routinely feel entitled
to do things what Christ and the Apostles could not?
1
John 2:8–9 Again,
a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true
in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the
true light now shineth. He that saith he
is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness
even until now.
1 John 2:11 But he that hateth his brother is in darkness,
and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth,
because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
This is another verse that Christians
routinely pass over because they say I don’t hate,
so therefore
this verse doesn’t apply to me.
The word “Hateth” in the Greek is MISON
it can be translated to hate, or regard
with ill will, it can be translated to abhor or to detest
all of which are strong feelings that most believers even
tainted believers would naturally refrain from, making many
feel very bulletproof concerning this verse. However in
Matthew 6:24 and Luke 14:26 MISON is translated “to regard
with less affection”, “to love less” or “to esteem less.”
I do not believe that John would have selected a
word that 98% of believers could simply bypass. I think
that John was trying to prick the hearts of his hearers
so that 98% that heard the word MISON would have to examine
their hearts
So a better translation of this verse
would read: “He that regards
with less affection, or he that esteems less his brother
is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not wither
he goeth because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.”
We can now see great meaning and
broad reaching consequences in the Apostle John’s words.
When we esteem our brothers and sisters with less affection
we are walking in darkness. And I might note here that this
person who is walking in darkness is blinded and therefore
he knoweth not wither he goeth, nor can he see the damage
he is doing to those whom he treats with less affection
and less esteem.
The
things that we say and do are not static. They are not one-time
events with little of no effect or consequence. Day by day
we are all changing and growing, we are all soft clay and
we are easily affected by many things – if we do not seek
release and forgiveness from the things that would taint
us they become a larger and larger part of our lives. And
over time the prejudices, and corrupt behavior we are imprinted
with from others begins to take a life of it’s own in us.
And if we let this process go on, it will bring us to a
place of absolute defilement of body soul and spirit.
Romans
13 11-12 And
that, knowing the time, that now it
is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is
our salvation nearer than when we believed.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand:
let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
In the Christian mindset of our day in
which we are taught that we have everything there is to
get in God. We are taught that we are seated in the heavenlies
with Christ Jesus, and that the very angels of
God are at our beck and call.
How is it then that in the early
Church were those that were hand taught by Christ and the
Apostles were told by Paul the Apostle that they needed
to awake out of their sleep? How is it that Paul told these
people on one hand that they are seated in heavenly places
with Christ Jesus and almost in the next breath Paul says
to the same people that they need to ”Cast off the works
of darkness?”
1
Peter 1:15-16 But
as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all
manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy;
for I am holy. Peter tells us
that God is pure and holy and that He cannot abide sin.
Notably if there is any lack in the Church to day it is
holiness – I am not speaking of the man inflicted bondage
that parades itself as holiness in certain denominations
– I am speaking of an all encompassing change in our inward
parts, I am speaking of the conversion that took place in
the Apostles sometime after the resurrection.
We
are now going to begin an exploration of the holiness that
God’s seeks. Or the change in our inward parts that was
once considered the central part of salvation and our life
in Christ.
Is then salvation
automatic? Is water baptism automatic? Is the baptism of
the Spirit automatic? Or do we have to do something to take
part in each of these things. I have had something for years
burning in my soul. Something that I have never been able
to express other than saying that: Believers confessing
all the promises in God’s word as our own was wrong. I now
know as I am writing this what is wrong with the modern
confession movement. The
promises and positions that Paul spoke about were not automatic,
then and they were never meant to be understood as being
automatic now. Paul the Apostle never meant for people to
be reciting his words as a confession mantra or praying
his words as an official to God.
The so-called
promises spoken of by Paul have a lot to do with whether
we are walking in the light or walking in darkness. If we
walk in the light we can say what we will and we shall have
it.
But
instead of pressing into God that we might walk in the light
as He is in the light, we have deceived ourselves into believing
that we can walk in darkness blending what we like of this
world with our serving the Lord. And that somehow if we
pray or confess something “in faith,” that somehow God is
blinded by that faith and will have to give in to the lust
of our heart.
No. Paul
said to the church of his day it was asleep and had to cast
off the works of darkness. A fearful question that haunts
in my soul and spirit is How much more arrogant is the church
of this day that proclaims for all to hear it’s righteousness
and holiness and that it is in need of nothing, while sleeping
as a dead man and shrouded within and without with the works
of darkness?
We are familiar with the
term “original sin.” Scripturally that can only be defined as; the
fruit of knowledge of Good and Evil that Adam and Eve partook
of and passed on to the entire race. ”
The unregenerate heart of religious men has been
at work for almost 2500 years reading the Bible and trying
to build coherent arguments as to why God must obey us
The true evil of the Latter Rain Revival
and its corrupt offspring namely the Word of Faith Movement
and the Charismatic movement is that they are seeking to
try bind God with His word in Scripture with a purpose of
their getting God to submit to their every fleshly whim.
How is this any different than when the serpent came quoting
scripture to Christ? Or how is this any different than when the
Pharisees one of the many surrogates of the serpent that
came time after time to try to bind Christ with scripture
and to try to force him into sin? For as truly as Christ
did not bend the knee to serpent when face to face in the
wilderness, and if Christ did not bend the knee when serpent’s
surrogates threatened with death by stoning or by the cross.
Neither shall He be threatened nor bound by these children
of deceit that know not, nor him nor love the truth.
Hear the word of the Lord: God alone
is to be worshipped. God is holy and demands He be worshipped
in Spirit and in truth.