We are about halfway through the conference, and already some folks have run out of fuel. Our bodies get tired and our minds get full. I always wonder if one day there will be some sort of spontaneous cerebral explosion, having received so much.
But nevertheless, we press on. We know that the Lord has an amazing and miraculous capacity to do two things for us in these times: first, to refresh us in body and spirit; and second, to give us continued hunger even though we have received so much. How wonderful is His grace toward us.
So let us read some portions of Scripture to begin this morning and ask the Lord to plant them in our hearts. The first is the account of John the Baptist in Luke 3.
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,
and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,
in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,
the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.And he came into all the district around the Jordan,
preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins;
as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight.
Every ravine will be filled,
And every mountain and hill will be brought low;
The crooked will become straight,
And the rough roads smooth;
And all flesh will see the salvation of God.’”So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him,
“You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance;
and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’
for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees;
so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”Now while the people were in a state of expectation,
and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ.
Why are the nations in an uproar,
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand,
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and against His Messiah, saying,
“Let us tear their fetters apart
And cast away their cords from us!”He who sits in the heavens laughs;
The Lord scoffs at them.
Then He will speak to them in His anger
And terrify them in His fury, saying,
“But as for Me, I have installed My King
Upon Zion, My holy mountain.”“I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to Me, ‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
Ask of Me,
And I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron,
You shall shatter them like earthenware.’”
The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John;
since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached,
and everyone is forcing his way into it.
As these men were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John:
“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?
But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing?
Those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ palaces.
But what did you go out to see? A prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and one who is more than a prophet.
This is the one about whom it is written,
‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,
Who will prepare Your way before You.’“Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist;
yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence,
and violent men take it by force.“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Our Father, we come to You today, and we thank You that even now Your kingdom is pressing upon us. We pray that we may be awakened from sleep and rise from the dead, and realize the nearness of the revelation of Your kingdom.
We have already heard so much regarding the fact that the kingdom is really the kingship of Jesus, who is all and everything—the preeminent Ruler over this world, as well as the kingdom of the heavens. We have heard of the conflict involved as this kingdom is ushered inevitably in by Your purpose and plan.
And now we pray, by Your Spirit, that You will help us see our part in this great kingdom coming. Oh, teach us and rehearse to us the gospel of Thy kingdom. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This man came on the scene in the wilderness of Judea, but when he spoke, a voice spoke from heaven and awakened the souls of a multitude of people—from Judea, Jerusalem, Galilee, and along the River Jordan. People came because something happened when that voice began to speak.
The heavens were rent, and the sense of God’s presence came close to the people. As John spoke, they saw clearly things that had been veiled and in shadow before.
These were the people of the kingdom of Israel, but they had lost their king in exile and had come back to be ruled by various puppet kings, and really by the Roman Empire. So the people became hungry—hungry for a king, a Messiah, somebody to deliver them from Rome, as they thought.
But it was not merely a political Messiah for which they were looking. Many were waiting for the consolation of Israel, and this meant much more than some political king taking a throne in Jerusalem and overthrowing the Roman government.
Many devout and holy Jews were waiting for something promised by the prophets to be ushered in: an age of the Spirit upon all those in the kingdom, an age of grace and light, where the glory of God would cover the earth. Oh, how wonderful was the kingdom in their hearts, and so they prayed.
In the days of John the Baptist, Jesus came down to the River Jordan and was baptized. According to the Gospel of Mark, this brings us right back to Isaiah 64. When Jesus came up out of the waters, the heavens were rent—even as in the prayer, “Rend the heavens and come down.”
Jesus appeared, and a voice spoke from heaven, repeating in essence what was said in Psalm 2: “This is My beloved Son. Today I have begotten Thee. I have set My King, installed Him upon Zion.” And He said, “Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance.”
Jesus stepped upon the earth, and a violence began which is still present to this day. Jesus came to take back that which had been stolen.
You remember the story. We all know the gospel. He went into the desert and, there in the wilderness, was tempted. He gained victory over Satan. He bound the strong man and came out of the wilderness to bind and cast out spirits, bringing light where darkness had prevailed.
Everywhere He went, within a radius of hearing His voice, the kingdom was visible because the King was there. People flocked from here and there to hear such precious words—words from heaven. The voice had prepared the way for God to speak through His Son.
Along the way, Jesus began to call disciples into this kingdom. Those who repented and believed began to follow Jesus. As Jesus marched in those early days, laying hold of His kingdom, the disciples stood in the background and observed as Jesus took the forefront in confrontations with the evil one, the religious leaders, and the Roman leaders as well.
He simply said to these people, “Come and follow Me.” But gradually He began to include these disciples as part of the kingdom vessel He was preparing. He said, “Now, if you want to continue to follow Me, you have got to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”
Suddenly the conflict began to be felt by the disciples. They said, “We went to these towns, but they would not receive us. Why would people hate me?” Jesus said, “They do not hate you. It is Me that they are in conflict with. But a disciple is not above his master. It is enough that you be like Me. As they have hated Me, they will hate you as well.”
So these disciples entered into this violence.
John’s sounding of the kingdom and rending the heavens with a voice that was the mouth of the Lord spoke with a violence. If you read, you realize that he did not exactly coddle the people as they came to him. He did not say, “Oh, it is so precious to have you lovely, dirty, rotten sinners here today.”
No, he commanded immediate repentance. He revealed and exposed their sins, because the kingdom is a righteous kingdom. There was violence empowered by God behind every word that shook people into a most violent act, which is repentance and humility, as the kingdom was upon them.
Of course, we know that Jesus went to Calvary. We have heard of this wonderful victory from our dear brother Lance, and how He defeated the enemy, made an open show of principalities, powers, and authorities, and took those who believed in Him out of a domain of darkness and translated them into the kingdom of the beloved Son.
But strange to say, now that Jesus has won the victory and sits at the right hand of God, He is pouring out His Spirit upon these disciples of the kingdom. He is opening the scrolls, determining the end of history even now as we speak. Yet upon this earth, there is still a conflict.
God is using that conflict to perfect a vessel prepared for the coming of the Lord.
It is amazing what Christians are looking forward to: heaven, streets of gold, eating popsicles, worshiping God. But you know, in the early days, before we got all confused by a lot of eschatology and worked out all kinds of strange and difficult programs, people could not wait for the kingdom to come back on earth.
They longed to share in this wonderful kingdom on earth, where our Messiah would rule with a rod of iron and this earth would become what it was meant to be. Men would rule and live as they were meant to live. That is what people were looking for.
If we were better Christians, we would be a little more healthy in our anticipation. I am looking forward to being here on earth where Jesus is King. I know that flies in the face of some theology that has me up in heaven somewhere, hopefully. I do not know all that stuff. I just know I want to be where the Lord is.
He is going to come real soon and reign on this earth. Wow—the earth the way it was meant to be; the kingdom the way it was meant to be: righteousness, holiness, truth, and love. Oh, we look forward to that day.
But right now, the Lord is preparing that kingdom vessel. He comes back to a kingdom. You cannot have a king without “dumbs.” And we are the dumbs. We are the vessel. We are those who follow the King, serve the King, and rule and reign with the King.
The kingdom of God is coming, and very soon this will be the case.
There are two ways of looking at this preparation of the vessel, which is my particular commission to share on. There is the heavenly view, which of course we all love. There is nothing like looking at the preparation of this vessel from the heavenly view, because it is so full of beauty and love.
We love verses such as 1 Thessalonians 5:24:
Faithful is He who calls you,
and He also will bring it to pass.
Or Philippians 1:6:
He who began a good work in you
will complete it against the day of Christ.
Wonderful, wonderful. There are so many beautiful verses. Luke 12:32 says:
Do not fear, little flock,
for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.
Matthew 13:44 says:
The kingdom of heaven is like a man who found a treasure hidden in a field,
and went and hid it;
and for joy over it, sold everything he had to buy that field.
Then we come to understand that we are His treasure. Do you not love to be called somebody’s treasure? Oh, yes, we are His treasure. He loves us. He sees something in us that we obviously cannot see.
Actually, Christ in us, in union with us, is the treasure. But we will not deal with that anymore. Let us just say we are the treasure for now. We might like that better.
We also like, from this aerial heavenly view, the sense of God preparing this vessel. Ephesians 5 says:
Husbands, love your wives,
as Christ also loved the church
and gave Himself up for her,
that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her,
that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory,
having no spot or wrinkle.
We say, “Oh, praise God.” Romans 8:28 reminds us that God works everything together for good because we have been predestined to be conformed to the image of His dear Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined;
and those whom He predestined, He also called;
and those whom He called, He also justified;
and those whom He justified, He also glorified.What then shall we say to these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?
He who did not spare His own Son,
but delivered Him over for us all,
how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
He is preparing this vessel—predestined. We love to go to Zechariah 4:
“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord.
“What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain.”
And there will be shouts of, “Grace, grace,” as the top stone is set.
Boy, what God is going to do. It is wonderful. That is the heavenly perspective.
As soon as we see this preparation from the earthly perspective, the sentiment changes. We discover that there is violence involved in this preparation of the vessel.
We have been told by our Lord, “Come, follow Me.” We got saved and began to follow the Lord. Then He said, “Now, if you want to follow Me, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.” We said, “Amen, Lord,” got baptized, and started marching.
Then we began to discover verses that were not so popular in Christian circles. In 1 Peter 4, we find there is a whole other side to this Christian life.
Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh,
arm yourselves also with the same purpose;
for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed,
but is to glorify God in this name.
For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God;
and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved,
what will become of the godless man and the sinner?
Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God
shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.After you have suffered for a little while,
the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ,
will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
It is for discipline that you endure;
God deals with you as with sons;
for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers,
then you are illegitimate children and not sons.Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them;
shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them,
but He disciplines us for our good,
so that we may share His holiness.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful;
yet to those who have been trained by it,
afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,
and make straight paths for your feet,
so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.
For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth,
much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.
And His voice shook the earth then,
but now He has promised, saying,
“Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.”This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken,
as of created things,
so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken,
let us show grace, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service
with reverence and awe;
for our God is a consuming fire.
And then there is this simple exhortation in 1 Corinthians 16:13:
Be on the alert,
stand firm in the faith,
act like men,
be strong.
I like that: “Act like men.” Sisters, act like men. Be strong. Exhortation.
We say there is a certain violence here. We see that there is a cost, that suffering is involved. Along with Matthew 11 and Luke 16, where we press in with violence, we come to understand from the balance of Scripture that there is this reality.
This is not the fine print that we did not realize when we signed on the dotted line regarding our salvation. This is the reality of God giving us grace and of us pressing on as we are being prepared. “Quit yourselves like men”—that is the way the King James says it. There is certainly nothing fluffy about that.
We discover that we are an army. Let us look at 2 Timothy 2.
You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses,
entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life,
so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.
Also if anyone competes as an athlete,
he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.
The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.
Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
We are in an army. Forget the American dream. We are in an army as disciples of the Lord.
We are in a wrestling match, an athletic competition where serious discipline is necessary. As Paul puts it, “I do not box the air, and I do not run aimlessly.” I have a goal. I have a discipline. I want to gain the mastery, that I may be accepted by the Lord in His glorious kingdom.
We are told to strengthen the hands that are weak and the legs that are limping. This is discipleship.
Actually, from the moment we are born again, there is violence in our life. We do not think of birth as violent because we all see those sweet little cuddly kids, but imagine being the kid. All warm and fuzzy, and the next thing you know, you are out in the light in a cold room. You get slapped by somebody. They cut off your food supply. They wrap you in a bundle so you cannot move. They stick you in a plastic container with your name on it.
When we read of God dealing with and preparing this wonderful vessel of His love, we come to understand that this vessel gets circumcised. This vessel gets pruned. This vessel gets refined in a fire, boiled, slapped on the potter’s wheel, crushed, pinched, and then thrown again.
We are under a yoke. We are olives being pressed. We are grapes being stepped on. We are wheat being threshed. Do all these come to mind?
According to Hebrews, basically everything is going to be shaken out of us so that only our real teeth are left.
We are told to enter the promised land where there are giants. Go get them. Believe. Trust the Lord. Step on the land. Defeat the parasites, and the -ites, and the -ites—all those different tribes. They do not belong there in the kingdom of God. You put them under the feet of the King.
This is our picture of taking full possession. We are in an eagle’s nest, and it is being torn up by Mom. That is our life of preparation.
Many of you used to be in the young people’s group when I was there. I have been coming thirty-six years, I think; for thirty years, I just talked to the young people. So I came up with my own sort of epistle: the first epistle of Dana, chapter 1.
Discipleship comes down to the fact that you are in the car wash. You are going to go all the way through, because what God has begun, He is going to finish.
When you said, “Yes, Lord, I come to You,” He locked that kind of robotic chain behind your wheels, and He is pulling you into the car wash. It may be violent for you. You can turn on the windshield wipers, put down the top, put up the top, roll down the windows, roll them up, put on the brakes, honk your horns, and turn on your lights. You are still going to go through the car wash.
You have started. He will finish. I think you see my case.
This is the gospel. This is our gospel. Although it strikes the church of the American dream—the full-service church—as quite violent.
Jesus called the generation in which He lived a perverse and unbelieving generation, to which we now have to add self-centered, neurotic, antidepressant, health-phobic, and all kinds of other things.
Christians are like a walking advertisement on television for a new drug. They always show a man out paddling with his dog on the lake, and you say, “Oh, I want that drug.”
But they never hear that fast-talking man who gives the warning: you might drop dead, lose your hair, go blind, be unable to hear, start whinnying like a horse, and think your wife is your uncle.
No, no, no. The church just wants the drug. We want the stupor. “Just tranquilize me, please.”
Rick Warren shocked the church world and sold twenty-five million books because the first line of the book shocked the church. What is the first line of his famous book? “It is not about you.”
Everybody said, “What?” And twenty-five million people bought that book to see how what is not about me is about me. Very tricky.
Now, I think we need to explain something here, because there is a misunderstanding in the church today that we need to fully recover: the absolute, comprehensive work of the grace of God.
Grace has been enfeebled over on that one side where we just receive grace. But grace is so powerful in our lives that it evokes a response. It is life, you see. Life responds. We receive; we respond.
The vessel is going to be prepared completely by God. It is not by might nor by power, but by His Spirit. Jesus is the only way the vessel will be prepared. But strangely, Revelation 19 says the bride has prepared herself.
How do you reconcile these two things? It is because by the grace of God we receive all we need, and by the grace of God we respond in obedience in our preparation.
We receive life, as our brother Lance was sharing with us so beautifully the other night. We receive the life of Jesus Christ. It is eternal life. It is life; it is life abounding. As John said, “Of His grace we have all received, and grace upon grace.”
But life’s response should be submission to the authority of the One who gave us life. Life has not taken its full circle if it has just been received and not responded back.
The kingdom involves receiving grace, and the kingdom involves responding by submitting to the One who gave us this wonderful life.
Of course, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. We have not deserved it, nor have we done anything worthy of it. But that love of God, when it comes down into our heart, causes us by the grace of God to accept His discipline as love.
What father worth his salt does not discipline his son? Receive that discipline and stop going on as though you are being mistreated. You are being disciplined by One who really loves you and sees some kind of potential in you that is going to be drawn out through conflict and various things.
By life, we grow. Oh, wonderful growth. We just grow. That is it: life. But the response of the grace of that growing life is a desire to be ordered by the Lord, to know His government, to respond to His government, and even to stand representing His government while here on earth.
There is a bit of violence in binding and loosing upon this earth. Every Sunday, for many of us, we come together, receive the Lord’s table, and know that it is all the Lord. It is His life, His body, His blood, and we are His by grace.
Then we leave the meeting. We leave the table under His throne to serve Him every day of the week.
In 2 Timothy 2:1, Paul writes to Timothy, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Years ago, I was studying this and read some Greek scholars on this matter.
The Greek scholars said this phrase is in the reflexive voice, if you know about these kinds of verbal things. What it really says is, “Strengthen yourself in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
Now, that puts a whole other light on things. Of course, we can only receive His grace, but Paul is saying to Timothy, “Now, Timothy, you have heard my messages time and time and time. You have received and received and received. Freely you have received; now it is time for you to freely give.”
Strengthen yourself in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. What you have heard, pass it on. We can only pass on the things we have received. I am a hopeless debtor to my brother Lance and brother Stephen. Pass it on.
That first picture from Paul is a picture of a marathon race. Paul says, “I have proclaimed the truth to you, and here is the baton. Boom—it is in your hands. Now pass on the things you heard to the next brother, who will pass them on to the next brother.”
You have something freely given: all those notebooks up in your study. It is about time to pass it on.
A soldier has to strengthen himself. At four in the morning, he does not really want to get up, but he must. An athlete has to discipline himself if he wants to make it to the Olympics. The farmer has the violent discipline of waiting.
I was a pastor years ago before the Lord sent me out to pasture. My first pastorate was in a rural community where everybody was a farmer. Boy, I saw the violence of patience.
I went in there with my New York minute, trying to get them to do things, and they would say, “Well now, we are just going to think about it. Maybe after the harvest.” You cannot outwait a farmer. Do not ever try to outwait a farmer. They have been waiting all year, and that is a violent thing.
Paul is telling Timothy, “Timothy, come on. Lay hold of that grace. It is just waiting for you to receive it. Take it now. Take it now. You are growing up. Enough of this welfare program.”
Paul says, “I am in jail now. Do not be ashamed of me. Take what I have shared and share it with others. It is your turn now. Very soon, I will be seeing the Lord.” It is quite a responsibility. There was violence in it, but Timothy accepted that violence.
As far as the preparation of this precious, beloved vessel is concerned, violence is only a sign, really, that the gospel is working. Think about it.
You love 2 Corinthians 5:17, right?
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old things passed away;
behold, new things have come.
Well, the reality of the violence is that He is just stripping away the things that have passed away.
Romans 6:6 says:
Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him,
in order that our body of sin might be done away with,
so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.
That is what the gospel says, and the working out of it does the violent cleaning up. You are crucified with Christ, right? Well, all the things that happen in our lives in preparation are, in part, the shedding off of those things that no longer appeal to us and are no longer part of us.
It seems like violence to us. It is actually all good news. If you see any saint who has been through a lot of this kind of violence that I am talking about—who has stood up, and the Lord has disciplined them and dealt with them—you always find a saint who has found a greater liberty on resurrection ground.
It is not that the Lord has taken us apart. It is that the Lord is reestablishing us.
The violence is really only because of two things when you get right down to it. First, there is a violence to simplification.
We who have been eating at TKGE—you know, in New York we have all these restaurants with just initials—have you been eating at TKGE? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
Oh, very complex proteins in those fruits. You might be over here on the TULIP side talking about how everything is predestined, blah, blah, blah. You may be over there on the other side, and we are all fighting with this very complex thing.
It is a really violent thing when the Lord takes our double-mindedness and strips it down to the mind of Christ.
The second cause of violence is, frankly—and I think we would have to make a case for it—metamorphosis. We are the old caterpillars going to become the butterfly.
The violence in our lives is in direct relationship to the gap between what you are destined to be and where you presently are. The Lord is going to close that gap.
Every bit of it seems like violence to us, although all it really is is changing from glory to glory into the likeness of your Lord. It sounds all fuzzy from the heavenly view, does it not? But from the earthly view, it is a bit violent.
When we look back in Luke 3 and see this matter of making ready the way of the Lord, we see a picture that is obvious and simple for us to understand.
The Lord was to come back on a king’s highway. The king was going to come with men carrying his divan down a king’s highway perfectly constructed, perfect in every way. The king did not walk on rough roads.
The highway has to be prepared. As John was talking, it was very clear that the people of God were the highway. We are under preparation. If we are going to be the way by which the Lord comes back, we have to be prepared.
When you look over the horizon and see a big bulldozer coming, and it says on the side, “Zerubbabel’s Bulldozers,” what does it say there? What is the saying for Zerubbabel’s bulldozers?
“What are you, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain.”
Every mountain and hill of pride will be abased. He is preparing the way of the Lord.
It seems like violence, but it is only a fulfillment of what Paul said: even though we are human, we do not wrestle with human instrumentation. There are divinely powerful forces that can tear down that pride. Anything that vaunts itself up against God is going down with Zerubbabel’s bulldozer.
Then comes a big dump truck from Dead Sea Excavators, because there are a lot of holes. The interesting thing about proud people is that the other side of the coin is that they are insecure. He is going to fill in all those holes.
What does it say on the side of the truck?
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
He starts to fill in all those holes of excuses. Christians have amazing genius when it comes to excuses. “Oh no, Lord, me? Oh please, I could never do that. I could never witness. I would die first.” Okay, die.
“I can do all things through Christ.” “Oh no, no, no, I cannot do it. I stutter. No, no, no, I am just a youth. You cannot ask me. I come from the least of the families in the least of the tribe. You cannot mean me. Who, me? I am just a vinedresser.”
Then the Lion roars and says, “Go.”
There is you and me—oh, I mean Gideon. He is underneath the ground, threshing wheat or barley. God says to him, when he says, “No, no, no, I cannot go. I am the least of the tribe; I am the least of the people”—well, according to what I have been able to figure out in my wonderful time of fellowship and fleshing, the least of the tribes must be the Chinese, because they say no at least six times to anything you ask them.
They are very proud of that heritage. Gideon said, “No, no, no, no, no. What, are You kidding? Manasseh?” God said, “Go in this thy might.”
His might had nothing to do with him. He was a chicken from the word go. But it was the word and promise that God would deliver Israel from the Midianites through him. “Go.” That is a touch of violence, do you not think?
Then, of course, it goes on to say that the rough places have to be smooth. That is why we are in the body of Christ right now: all the corners chipped away until we are that smooth New Jerusalem stone in the New Jerusalem.
The crooked must be made straight. If there is any missing message, to me, in the church today, it is the message of the righteousness that has become ours in Christ.
It is not merely the imputed righteousness of sins forgiven, but the righteous life that confesses, asks forgiveness, makes restitution, and tells your parents when you have done something wrong and are hiding it.
Righteousness is making crooked things right. Oh, what a marvelous revival of righteousness we would have if the church ever took that gospel seriously.
We are saved to be right: right with God and right with our brothers and sisters. No shadow.
But to make the crooked straight—boy, it sounds like a real process. And it is. It is just a picture from Isaiah, spoken by John, which outwardly portrays a very real dealing with our self-life as we find ourselves going to the cross and coming out on the other side as that new creation.
There is a violence there.
Let us look at Luke 17:20-21.
Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming,
He answered them and said,
“The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed;
nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’
for behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
Some translations say, “The kingdom of God is within you.” I simply want to say that, for the prepared vessel, the kingdom of God needs to be both: within you and in our midst—within us as individuals, and in our midst as the corporate vessel.
The Lord brings us into experiences where He deals with that unrenewed mind, because He is going to tear down anything that keeps us from being captive to Christ.
When we first come to the Lord, you realize how violent the life is. Suddenly a word of God comes into your heart that stands against all the appearances, circumstances, and logic of your old brain. The Lord says, “Have faith.” What are you going to do?
Faith is pretty violent sometimes. It is not at all in keeping with the comfort of the old mind. It is interesting that when we come to the Lord, it is almost guaranteed that all our natural wisdom and insight is wrong.
We say yes; the Lord says no. We say, “Let us go”; He says, “Wait.” It really gives us some problems.
When we are young Christians especially, we really love the Lord, so we want to give Him special gifts—gifts we think of, gifts we want to give. Strangely, He only wants the one gift we do not want to give.
My mind was thinking of all kinds of ways that could please God, so I decided, “You know what? I am going to serve God.” I volunteered to serve God in a certain way, and it was a wonderful beginning that went terribly wrong.
No fruit. Hurt feelings. Tempers flaring. “I was just serving God.” But not His way.
Our brother Christian Chen has a classic message. I really need to get it on tape and listen to it weekly. The message is this: the kingdom of God is an upside-down cake.
Our natural man cannot understand how the poor could be rich, the meek could be the inheritors, the least could be the greatest, and the greatest could be the servants of all. He goes through every layer of that upside-down cake.
But that is the kingdom of God. When we enter into it, we discover the whole scene is different from our natural thinking. His ways are so much higher than our ways, and His thoughts so much higher. How could we possibly understand?
Gradually, something happens as we are brought to the wrong again and again, our minds are disciplined, we wait on the Lord, we ask the Lord, and we learn. What happens in this preparation is that we discover the mind of Christ.
Christ actually has an opinion on something, and to discover that is worth more than all of our opinions put together. But that takes a process of violence, would you not admit?
There is violence to the self that has already been crucified anyway, so do not worry about it. But it sure seems violent at the time.
Romans 8:13 says:
If by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body,
you will live.
There is a mortification process going on. Our flesh is held down continually, continually.
The thing about repentance is that it is the last ditch of a proud soul. We will try everything before we just plainly repent. But repentance is the way to life for the soul.
The Lord says to us, “Come to Me here. Put your neck in My yoke and learn from Me.” We say, “Oh, He is so gentle. He is so sweet. Here I go, Lord.” That is the end of your free will.
Everything you think, He says no. Go, wait; left, right. Just picture that conflict: the Lord in one part of the yoke and you in the other one.
Here you are, a one-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound sister who has been bossy all her life. Oh, yes. There in the yoke is Jesus, meek and mild—all-powerful omnipotence, wisdom, and patience. Who is going to win this wrestling match?
When I first started fellowshipping more and more with the Chinese, I was always taken with the sisters because they always smiled and were so submissive. I now realize that is a bit of a dodge.
It is true they are walking five paces behind their men, but it is because they do not want to go where the men want to go.
It does not matter who you are. You can smile and be all meek and gentle. You get in that yoke and your will is broken.
We find that the Spirit of God becomes enmity and starts fighting with us inwardly about things the flesh has known for years: good ideas that go terribly wrong, self-confident assets—especially at work—that are total liabilities in the kingdom of God.
The Spirit starts chafing against it. All of our natural timing is wrong. Have you ever noticed that there is always somebody who asks for a hymn that is completely from the zoo? Or somebody who prays in the midst of a prayer meeting, and you say, “Where did they come from? Did they hear the requests being made? Where did that happen?”
There are people who always have inappropriate ideas, or things that are just not at the right time. Boy, we can sense this battle going on with our flesh that finally gets its own way, eats its quail, and senses death because I got my own way.
The Spirit wins.
We learn that the flesh means nothing. Our plans eventually get narrowed down to, “Lord, what would You have me to do?”
That is a big funnel. We start out with multiple plans. I especially like to be with young people because they have twenty-six plans. “Well, after I become an M.D. and then get my law degree, I am going to do ten years of music at the conservatory.”
Go ahead. By the time you get down to the little pipe at the bottom of the funnel, it becomes, “Lord, what would You have me to do?”
There is a process where the self-life and its alternatives start getting eliminated. My rights and my reasons lose their validity as we hold on to them.
Our great plans reach their goals, and it is all vanity and a chasing after wind. Oh boy, how many people have made plans and then, in the last couple of years, lost everything.
Our worldly development in our jobs, professions, vocations, and everything else becomes less rewarding the more we achieve it. Then we say, “Lord, what would You have me to do?” There is a violence there. Do you see what I am saying?
In body life, what could be more violent than life and love in the body of Christ? I know that 1 Corinthians 13 is read in every wedding. It is the most violent chapter in the Bible.
The patience, the forgiveness, the forbearing, the honoring of somebody beyond yourself—oh my goodness. What a violence we find in the body of Christ.
There is a violence of patience. You sense a real burden from the Lord and speak it, and people say, “What?” “Oh no, the Lord is telling us that we need to do this.” People say, “Oh, well, I do not think so.”
You have to learn how to pray this burden, if it is from the Lord, into realization among the saints.
You know your way is right. One thing we know about most Christians is that they know they are right. But others do not seem to agree. I do not know why that is. “Of course I am right.”
Then maybe you get disciplined. You know that the person disciplining you is wrong, but when you go to the Lord, the Lord says, “He is right.” Now even the Lord is wrong.
Oh, the body of Christ—we learn a lot of lessons. Then there are people in the body of Christ who are the analysts. They always see what is wrong, never realizing that everybody else sees what is wrong with them.
They have these people immediately. They know what is wrong. “Here is what we need to do. I will go talk to that brother.” This person causes more damage, because in the body, you do not walk that way.
In all these things, we learn to serve. We say, “Lord, here I am,” and then the saints say, “Okay,” and choose some other brother to do something that you could do better.
Then they ask you to serve in a way you do not particularly want to serve. But every time you serve that way, it is fruitful—if you can get over your attitude.
You start serving, people realize you are serving, and they take full advantage of it. They let you do all the serving you want without a thank you, until you learn that if you are going to serve, you are going to serve because you love the Lord, not because you are getting feedback.
Oh, the body of Christ—we learn so many lessons. But they are all violent lessons.
Do not forget, when you look at the vessels in the Bible, that these men and women had to be faithful, doing violence to themselves. They are all brothers and sisters of ours in the family of God.
Do you know the brother in the Bible who was asked by God to give up and sacrifice the one he loved the most?
Do you remember the brother who, one day, had men come and ask him for help, and they were the very men who had forsaken him, beaten him, mistreated him, and left him for dead?
How about the sister who had to live in humiliating submission with a godless and foolish man for years, covering and protecting him from his own foolishness?
How about the brother who prayed for those who were stoning him?
Do you know the brother who took second place to a protégé whom he had helped along in matters of spiritual ministry? Even though the other one was younger, less experienced, and had not known the Lord as long, he took first place and this brother took second place.
Do you know the brother who spent twenty years in a fellowship in which all there was was arguing, tension, bitterness, and rivalry—twenty years in the fellowship—until finally one night God wrestled with him and he realized he was the problem for twenty years?
You know that brother.
How about the brother who got down on his knees with a piece of paper in front of him that said, “Give up your kingdom. Give up your city. You are under arrest”? Some guy named Sennacherib was outside with an army so big he could tear apart that whole city, and all he could do was get down on his knees and say, “Lord, look at this.”
How about the brother who was asked by God to go and speak to an assembly that did not hear what he was saying, did not see what he was seeing, and whose hearts were dull and did not love the Lord?
How about the brother who was willing to pour out his heart and lay bare his soul to help people who did not particularly want his help anymore because they thought they had gone beyond him, even though he was their spiritual father?
How about the young man who disqualified himself by unfaithfulness? He began all over again at the bottom, serving yet another servant of God, and learned how to be useful on the long road back.
How about the man who was told to build the house of God because some prophet said, “Do it,” when the law of the land said, “They forbid it”?
Am I speaking about people out of school? Are these not the servants, the vessels of God?
Now, what about us?
I say that we need to develop that kind of heart that proves its love for the Lord and says, “Nothing is going to stop me, Lord—not myself, not my squeamishness, not my weak physical condition.”
Our brother Lance tells that story about C. T. Studd. Actually, he was back in England, not speaking, but after India he came home with a heart problem. He was in his fifties, and he saw a missionary sign that said, “Cannibals want missionaries.”
C. T. went in to see what that was all about. A man was calling people out to Africa, and he went. The doctor said, “You will never make it. Your heart is so bad.” I think it took him six months to get to his final station in the Belgian Congo.
But that man said, “No heart problem, no physical impairment, is going to stop me from obeying my God.” Oh, that God could find servants with such a heart—with a little bit of gumption and a little bit of respect for the Lord, knowing that what He says, He will do.
We are so soft. The Lord tells us the least little thing, inserts the least little bit of discipline, and people leave the church, become numb, get paralyzed, and sit in the back for years rather than let the Lord deal with something so that they could walk in resurrection life.
We hear the voice of the kingdom of God, and its message comes to us and says, “The kingdom of God is upon us.” The only response that is appropriate is to repent.
Every servant of God needs to repent under the one fact alone that this King Himself is waiting to come back. He is so near, and we are so not ready.
Oh, may the Lord lay hold of our hearts.
The whole other part of the violence of the kingdom has to do with what our brother Stephen has been sharing about. The Lord wants people who have gotten past themselves, begun to discover the mind of Christ and His enabling, and can be counted on to stand for the Lord and His testimony in the day of conflict.
Tomorrow night, Lord willing, I want to share an example—an imperfect example in the Bible—of a vessel prepared for the Lord’s coming.
May the Lord deal with our hearts so that His kingdom can come. Do you hear the voice? Will you remain in the shadows? Is it not quite clear what the Lord is up to?
Do not blame other people. Do not blame circumstances. It is the Lord who is shaping us up, bringing us to resurrection ground and the power of the gospel, dealing with things that need to be sloughed off, shaking the shakable.
May the Lord do it for His glory. It is all about Him.
Father, we come to You, and we thank You for Your Son, who went through such violence but, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has now sat down at Your right hand.
Oh, give us this heart. Give us this willingness. Having received grace upon grace upon grace, may we start strengthening ourselves in the provided grace.
O Lord, prepare the vessel for Your coming back and the establishing of Your kingdom on this earth. For this we pray in Jesus’ precious name.