Not my will

When I stopped playing football at nineteen, people said to me, ‘Christians can play football!’ And I had no argument with that. But the Lord said to me, ‘You won’t!’ That was a command to me and if I did not obey that command, I could not fulfill my predestination. I could not be saved from my fallen state.

When you think about it, there are not many universal commands for Christians apart from those regarding the fundamentals of the Christian life.  A command is always directed to the empowerment of your priesthood so that you can do the works ordained for you.  He has made us a kingdom of priests to His God and Father, and the evidence of our priesthood is the white robes that are spoken of in the book of Revelation; it is the righteousness of faith and  the authority of our sonship to do the works ordained for us. Rev 7:9-14.

Jesus said, ‘You did not choose Me; I chose [or elected] you and I ordained you that you would go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit would remain’. Joh 15:16. If you do the works of your priesthood, your works will remain and your sonship will be revealed. But the definition of your priesthood, or your sonship, might be contrary to what you think.

After I became a Christian at 17 years of age, I bumped into an old friend when I was about 21. He said, ‘You are not the same person that I knew’. He was not being poetic; he was being quite literal.  I was different. I had become a student of the Scriptures. At school, I was not interested in anything academic, although I was an inveterate reader. I went through school with diplomatic immunity because I was an athlete. But all that changed when the Lord laid hold of me and said, ‘That’s not you. This is you! ’ I had a command laid on me.  I grew up in a world where I had absolute freedom to do anything I wanted, anywhere, anytime. My values and the values of those around me were completely consistent. I didn’t have to be obedient. But when I became a Christian, my values were totally over against the command that God was giving me.

If the Lord gives a command, we must not think that we have the prerogative to choose to do otherwise.  We would be in big strife, because the only prerogative we have is to say, ‘Yes’. This is because the ‘works’ that He requires of you are written in His book. He will also give you the capacity and a rich abundance of grace to enable you to fulfill those works, if you will stop being disobedient to the command of the Father concerning you.

He is laying a command on each of us. Jesus said, ‘The things that the Father commands Me, these I do.’ ‘I do nothing of My own initiative.’ Joh 12:49. If you are wrestling with obedience, you have not yet resolved the question of your own priesthood. You are still wrestling with the issues of self-revelation, self-appreciation, self-promotion and self-definition.

Obeying a command

We need to change our thinking about what a priest is. The apostle Peter called all followers of Jesus Christ, a royal priesthood. 1 Pe 2:9. When we serve as priests before God, we are performing the specific ‘works’ which He has ordained for each of us to do. Eph 2:10.  The word of our priesthood comes to every man and woman in the form of a command.  Jesus said, ‘As the Father commanded Me so I do.’ Joh 10:18. Joh 14:31.

When obedience to His command becomes the mode of our life, we find that we will serve in a way that is contrary to our will. It won’t be the thing that we would necessarily choose to do. But although we are unwilling, we will still obey. The apostle Paul was commanded by God to be a preacher and teacher of the gospel. He told the Corinthians that he had been entrusted to a stewardship against his will. He said, ‘Necessity has been laid upon me’.   1Co 9:16-17.

Of course, we all want to be willing but we may get to a stage where we cannot be willing. Jesus said of Paul, ‘He is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.’ Act 9:15-16.  It was non-negotiable. The job and the suffering went hand in hand.  Jesus was saying in effect, ‘You will do that, or you cannot be saved!’ Paul wrote of ‘the fellowship of His sufferings’ in his letter to the Phillipians.

‘Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.’ Phil 3:8-11

Receiving a command

I have been thinking a great deal about our priesthood as believers. What is warring against your priesthood and what is stopping me from doing the works ordained for me? Do we demand the right of sonship, or are we demanding the right of aberration in the form of self-determination? Jesus said, ‘As the Father sent Me so I send you’. Joh 20:21. How was Jesus sent by the Father? He gave Jesus a command. ‘As the Father commanded Me so I do.’ Joh 10:18. Joh 14:31. We also must be willing to receive a command if we want to do the works of our priesthood and obtain our inheritance as a son of God.

But, of course, these are fighting words in society today. Nobody wants to receive a command! The church of Jesus Christ will be called ‘a cult’ if it takes its stand on this fundamental of our faith. The way that God reveals priesthood to any individual, the way a person’s work comes to them, is by command. Joh 15:14. Luk 17:10. And this is the way that we begin to inherit our sonship.

Jesus kept processing the Father’s ‘command’ right up to the garden of Gethsemane. He said to His disciples, ‘“My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death”. And falling on His face, He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will”.’ Mat 26:38-39.

Inheriting our sonship

Whenever I see the word ‘inheritance’ used in the Scripture, I immediately register that an inheritance belongs to a son, the firstborn son. Mat 21:38. Eph 5:5. And ‘son’ means male or female, of course.  I am referring to those who are the sons or children of God. It is ironic that the New Testament writers use the word teknon meaning children and hweeos meaning son, almost interchangeably. They are not being gender specific. So when I say ‘son’, I mean all of us.  A woman can talk about her sonship as easily as a man.

I believe that priesthood is the first step to inheriting our sonship. The apostle Peter called the church of Jesus Christ a holy nation and a royal priesthood. 1 Pe 2:9. To put it simply, we serve as priests by doing the ‘good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them’. Eph 2:10. Our heavenly Father wants to give us everything that we need for the work of our priesthood. He wants to give us spiritual gifts. He wants to equip and empower us.  Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, ‘God is able to make all grace abound to you that always having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good work’. 2 Cor 9:8.

The good ‘work’ referred to in this verse is the word ergon. Of course, we recognise that Ergon is the name of a major power distributor in this country. Obviously, this organization has taken its name from the literal Greek meaning of the word. Ergon means ‘work’, ‘labour’ or ‘deed’ in the Scripture. When we read ‘good deeds’, it sounds like moral conduct. But we shouldn’t read it that way. ‘Good works’ are actually the expression or work of your sonship; they are the works that you were ordained to do.

The works of our priesthood

There is a generation of young people graduating from our schools today who have been taught differently to those who finished five years’ ago.  These children have been taught that they have rights and they have been empowered. On the one hand, I will put up my hand and say absolutely they have rights. We all have rights! But as Christians, we only have the rights associated with our priesthood. When we do the works that were foreordained, our rights and our freedom are assured and we are preserved. Jesus said, ‘You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain’. Joh 15:16.

To do anything other than the works that have been ordained for us is to not be fully you and to not be fully me.  Our children are now being predisposed to not receive their predestination because they are being taught in the school system that they have the right of self-determination. I take issue on that point with anybody who is a Christian. You and I have no right of self-determination; we only have the right of pre-determination.   A generation of young people has been exposed to a most wicked doctrine. They have been told that they can do what they want! And they cannot!

When Jesus said, ‘Depart from Me I never knew you’, I believe He was building  on the eschatological statement in the book of Revelation which says that the books were opened and people were judged according to the things written in those books, according to their works. You and I will be judged by the works that we do. Mat 7:23. Rev 20:12.  I am not talking about having to work hard for our salvation or ‘dead works’. I agree with the arguments of the Reformers. But I equally agree with the book of James which says, ‘You do well if you have faith’. The apostle goes on to say, ‘Was not Abraham justified by his works when he offered up Isaac?’ Abraham’s offering represented the works of faith, the works which had been ordained for him. Jas 2:21-24.

The war against our predestination

I have had one of those ‘little foxes’ weeks. It says in Song of Solomon Chapter 2 verse 15, ‘The little foxes spoil the vine.’ It’s been a ‘stone in the shoe’ week for me where I couldn’t get my mind off something because it was so irritating. But whenever I have a week like that, it draws me to a lot of meditation, a lot of jotting, thinking and appraising things.

There are many things – day to day, week to week – that war against our predestination.  But mostly the real war will not be the things that come against us. They will be the responses we make to those things. I felt the Lord impressed two things on me through the week. Firstly, ‘Don’t war in the flesh’ and secondly, ‘Touch nothing unclean’. 2Co 10:3. 2 Co 6:17.

The Scripture says, ‘He who is clean only needs his feet washed’. John 13:10. And I felt I needed a good foot-washing this week. Sometimes things that are unclean encroach upon us. They are not major, but they are imposing, threatening.  As I sat in church on Sunday, I felt like the Lord was using a scrubbing brush over my dusty feet. As I listened to the various ones minister His word, I just sat there soaking it up. The Lord was giving me a good scrub-up, neither saying, ‘Well done’ or ‘Not well done’. He was just saying, ‘Sit here and I am going to wash you’. And that, of course, is how Jesus is preparing the church as His Bride; He will sanctify her, ‘having cleansed her by the washing of water by the word’. Eph 5:26.

There is nothing that we have done that we cannot be washed clean from; unless of course, we make a bad response to the things that we have done or have been done to us. That is warring in the flesh.  When I hear a complaint against myself, I go to prayer. I ask the Lord, ‘Is this so?’ If it is true, it can only help me to process my sin. And if the accusation is wrong, it can’t hurt me. The only thing that can hurt me is a bad response. The Scripture says, ‘Keep your heart with all diligence’. Prov 4:23.

The problem with many of us is that we keep plummeting into the flesh when things don’t go well. Somebody says something and we get offended. We are not cohesive in our marriages. Our children aren’t coping, so we’re frazzled. We don’t cope with our work. We’re not sure what to do. And so we plummet into the flesh. We get angry, bitter and frustrated: we turn on each other. Like a family which tears itself to pieces, the church can be its own worst enemy.  As Paul said in his letter to the Galatians, if we bite and devour one another, will we not be consumed by one another? Gal 5:15.

Called according to His purpose

I am a bit melancholic by disposition and got very pensive through the week; not depressed but just very thoughtful and meditative. A number of things have caught my attention in the media recently. One of them impacted me remarkably. The actor Peter Falk died. We have a common surname and he was born about the same time as my father, who died in 1979. And it just occurred to me that my father’s generation is now dying. Then I read that the comedian, Jerry Lewis, had to cancel his shows in Sydney because he was completely fatigued – he is 85 years’ old. Anyway, without dragging more names into it, there was a whole list of people who were either fatiguing or dying. Then I thought about all the little babies being born in our church.  And I considered the predestinations of them all; those whose lives were ending and those whose lives were just beginning.

I believe we each have a predestination to walk.  We read in the book of Job and in the Psalms that our days are numbered, our tears are in a bottle, and they are all written in His book. Job 14:5. Psa 56:8. Psa 139:16.   Not just our name, not just our works, but all our pain and agony are recorded in His book. Here is the irony. Your tears weren’t predestined; they were foreknown. Your name was not firstly foreknown, it was predestined. See the difference? When you are suffering, you are suffering not because God ordained you to suffer, but He foreknew it. And He makes all things work together for good to them who love Him and who are ‘called according to His purpose’. Or we might say, ‘according to the predestination that He has ordained’. Rom 8:28.

Mockers invalidate the word of God

The Bible says that in the last days ‘mockers will come with their mocking’.

’Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water.’  2Pet 3:3-5.

The one thing I am always looking for as a shepherd in the Lord’s fold, as an overseer in His house, and as a minister of the gospel, is mockers; because mockers are not believers.

‘In the last days mockers will come with their mocking, saying that all things continue as they have from the beginning of creation.’ Now, what would that mean for us? You and I could easily drop into this mocking position at any point of time, although we may not use those exact words. However, our sentiment would be the same; there is nothing new and there is nothing different.

If I were to be a mocker as the Scripture defines it, and say to you, ‘There is nothing new since the beginning of creation’, I would invalidate the word of God which has been written since the beginning of creation! But that is what many people are actually saying when they claim that there is nothing new to be added to the message preached. It would mean, for example, that if you were a Reformer, that the Holy Spirit has said nothing since the Reformation! And if you were a Pentecostal, it would mean that there is nothing that the Lord has said since the baptism of the Holy Spirit! That would be your endpoint. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth. I don’t think we’re there yet. Do you?

The continuity of the word of God

I have been thinking about the continuity of the word of God. Jesus said that we would prove to be His disciples if we abided or continued in His word.

We read in the Gospel of John, ‘If you abide in Me, and My words abide [or continue] in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.’  John 15:7-8.

Previously, John the Baptist said concerning Jesus, ‘A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven’. John 3:27.  Likewise, Jesus told His disciples,  ‘You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain [or continue].’ John 15:16. The word ‘appointed’ in this verse can equally be translated as ‘laid down’ to you. Jesus said of Himself, ‘Greater love has no man than this that He lay down His life for his friends’. John 15:13. This terminology, kind of gets interpreted as, ‘I will take a bullet for you’.  Do you know what I mean? ‘I will give my house for you’ or ‘I will give my life for your life’. But that is not firstly what it means. As Jesus ministered, He constantly laid down God’s word to those who were with Him. It was a message of their individual sonship. If we are going to continue in God’s word, then we have to receive the word that is laid down to us. And it is laid down to us firstly by the foolishness of the message preached. 1Co 1:21.

 

David Falk

Hearing from God

I read recently in the newspaper that Jesus and Mary Magdalene currently reside in Kingaroy! Unfortunately, the general response to an outrageous claim like this, is that anybody who hears from the Lord must be deluded, a cult leader or a nut. I cannot possibly agree with that conclusion because it would defy most of Scripture.

Jesus said, ‘I have many things to say to you but you can’t hear them yet [so see you later!]‘. John 16:12. Isn’t that what He did? He said, ‘I’m going to be with the Father’. ‘When the Paraclete [the Holy Spirit] comes, He will lead you into all truth. ‘ John 15:26.

Now, do we hear from God or not? Of course we do! If we are born again, the very means by which you and I hear from God is by the voice of the Holy Spirit. 2Pet 1:21. But that’s not to say that some people don’t hear from the Lord Jesus personally in the flesh. I have not. But the apostle Paul did and others have. Act 9:4. I don’t have a problem with all of that. The answer is simple; we test every ‘ word from God’ by the Scriptures. Do you know that it is the work of overseers to try apostles? 2Co 11:13. Any man claiming to be an apostle, can’t just march through the door and take control of a church. It is the role of the elders and overseers in each place to try apostles, but not to take rank over them if they do prove to have an authority grace.

David Falk