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For Those Seeking The Truth
& Dynamic Living Christ is Victor |
July/August 2008
Volume 21, Number 4
“From Bondage to Sonship”
"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans: 8: 15)
What is the Spirit that we have received? Is it the Spirit of adoption or the spirit of bondage? The Spirit of bondage is trying to recapture people. Paul is fighting to release these people from their bondage. Somehow, we like some bondage. Somewhere some bondage takes hold of us. Bondage of fear is a very common thing and our fertile imaginations multiply our fears. So we keep on imagining things-- things which do not exist. That is the spirit of bondage. The Spirit of adoption makes us to focus on the throne. We are told that we are 'joint-heirs' with Christ. The Spirit bears witness that we are joint-heirs with Christ. This Spirit of adoption makes us cry, "Abba, Father".
"And he
went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were
possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba Father, all things
are possible unto thee; take away this from me: nevertheless not what I will,
but what thou wilt." (Mark: 14:35,36) This was in
the
We are very busy with our own work and have no real burden for the world around us. Our Lord Jesus could have been very busy with His service. Organizational work has this great danger. It depends upon your work, so you have to work harder and it is not God at work. This is human regeneration; it has no "Abba, Father" in it. It has no cross, and no blood drops as great sweat drops. No, it is a physical exertion and zeal. Is that what we see? Are those the steps what Jesus teaches us? The burden for souls, the burden for the sins of others is what you should have. If that cry "Abba, Father" goes away, I can tell you that there is a big vacuum, and anything can come into that vacuum. Your thoughts, fears, evil inclinations and lusts, those old habits of speaking lies and half-truths will flood your heart.
But what is the
spirit which Jesus gives His children? He says, "I have brought you out of
bondage. So your spirit of bondage is gone. Now you have the spirit of
adoption. We are not a recent Fellowship, we began 65 years ago. By now
according to ordinary circumstances we should have been confirmed in the spirit
of adoption. Are we firm, fixed, founded and confirmed in the spirit of
adoption? Let us be honest. What is this? Is there not the cry, "Abba,
Father" in our hearts? What kind of spirit has taken hold of us? The
spirit of the world is at enmity with God. It makes you think, "How can I
get rich quickly?" Where is
The spirit of
truth is the spirit of God and the spirit of adoption is the package of
the spirit of truth. It is terrible if you do not want to face the truth. Truth
does not spare anybody. But is truth good for you? To know the truth, you
should undergo some tests and the truth is not palatable to anybody. I have
always proclaimed in various nations that unless a Fellowship has revival
ever so frequently, at least every five or ten years, that Fellowship will
become dead. In ten years little children become teenagers, and if they do
not know revival, if they do not walk in the truth, they have no chance. The
fifteen-year-old teenager becomes a new entrant into the job market. When
he enters the job market, and money comes into his pocket, he never learnt how
to put first the
Charles Finney spoke of a businessman. He would come from his business and immediately he would enter into the Spirit of prayer of the prayer meeting. Mr. Finney said, "This man is such a busy man and has got such responsibility. But how does he maintain the Spirit of prayer?" He happened to be the guest in his house and so one night, when Finney's child needed milk or something, he came down from his bedroom at about three in the morning and he found this man lost in prayer and waiting on God. He said, "Now I know the secret, how this man has this Spirit of prayer." The man said, "The only way in which I can keep in close communion with God is to rise in the middle of the night, to spend time with God." You know the discipline that it takes.
You can understand that such people have the cry Abba Father. They may be in the world but not of the world; the world never seems to get into them. The Lord Jesus said this twice that, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." That gives me a knockout blow. We have been talking about perfection; there is no use talking in the air: "Be ye perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect."
We are really like immature little children when it comes to any crunch or crisis. We just speak what we like, give vent to our fears and we just say, 'I want my will'. That is not the Spirit of adoption, that is not the Spirit of truth. The Spirit of adoption makes you cry, "Thy will and not my will." It may be hard and it may be wearisome; it may even kill you. But the Spirit of adoption gives you a firm entrenchment in the will of God, an unbending commitment to the will of God.
God has got a fixed deposit for us. What is that? Heirs to God! Are we running to get it? Have we got the Spirit of adoption? The Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of His Son is sent into us crying Abba, Father. Is that cry coming out of us? When you have that cry, all other cries and compulsions are excluded, because you are a son and your place is with Jesus. Your cry becomes the cry of the heart of Jesus. After so many years of Christian living, where is our maturity? After receiving so much light, we ought to be walking in the heavenlies, walking with God. May God help us!
-Joshua Daniel
“Reality Check”
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
“Hindrances to Revival”
A revival may cease, when the Church, in anyway, grieve the Holy Spirit, when they do not feel their dependence on the Spirit. Whenever Christians get strong in their own strength, God curses their blessings. In many instances Christians sin against their mercies, because they get lifted up with their success, and take the credit to themselves, and do not give to God all the glory. As he says, "If ye will not hear and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my Name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart." (Malachi 2:2) There has been a great deal of this in this country, undoubtedly. I have seen many things that looked like it, in the papers, where there seemed a disposition in men to take credit for success in promoting revivals. There is doubtless a great temptation to this, and it requires the utmost watchfulness, on the part of ministers and churches, to guard against it, and not grieve the Spirit away by vain-glorying in men.
The Spirit is grieved by saying or publishing things that are calculated to undervalue the work of God. When a blessed work of God is spoken lightly of, not rendering to God the glory due to His Name, the Spirit, is grieved.
A revival may be expected to cease, when Christians lose the spirit of brotherly love. Jesus Christ will not continue with people in a revival any longer than they continue in the exercise of brotherly love. When Christians are in the Spirit of revival, they feel this love, and then you will hear them call each other brother and sister affectionately. But when they begin to get cold, they lose this warmth and glow of affection for one another, and then this calling brother and sister will seem silly and contemptible and they will leave it off. In some churches they never call each other so, but where there is revival, Christians naturally do it. I never saw a revival and probably there never was one, in which they did not do it. But as soon as this begins to cease, the Spirit of God is grieved, and departs from among them.
A revival will decline and cease, unless Christians are frequently convicted, and humbled and broken down before God and reconverted. This is something which many do not understand, when we talk about the Christian's being re-converted. But the fact is that in a revival the Christian's heart is liable to get crusted over, and lose its exquisite relish for divine things; his action and prevalence in prayer abates, and then he must be converted over again.
Revivals decline, commonly, because it is found impossible to make the church feel their guilt and their dependence, so as to break down before God. It is important that ministers should understand this, and learn how to break down themselves when they need it, or else Christians will soon become mechanical in their work, and lose their fervor and their power of prevailing with God. This was the process through which Peter passed, when he had denied the Saviour, and by which breaking down the Lord prepared him for the great work on the day of Pentecost. I was surprised, a few years since, to find that the phrase "breaking down" was a stumbling block to certain ministers and professors of religion. I am confident that until some of them know what it is to be "broken down," they will never do much more for the cause of revival.
A revival cannot continue when Christians do not practise self-denial. When the church have enjoyed a revival and begin to grow fat upon it, and run into self-indulgence, the revival will soon cease. Unless they sympathize with the Son of God, who gave up all to save sinners; unless they are willing to give up their luxuries, and their ease, and lay themselves out in the work, they need not expect the Spirit of God to be poured out upon them. This is undoubtedly one of the principal causes of personal declension. Let Christians in a revival BEWARE, when they first find an inclination creeping upon them, to shrink from self-denial, and to give in to one form of self-indulgence after another. It is the device of Satan, to bait them off from the work of God, and make them dull and gross, and lazy, and fearful, and useless, and sensual, and drive away the Spirit and destroy the revival.
-Charles G. Finney
“Jesus Died For All!”
There was once a big turntable bridge, which spanned a large river. During most of the day, the bridge sat with the length running up and down the river parallel with the banks allowing ships to pass freely on both sides of the bridge. But, at certain times of the day, a certain train would come along and the bridge would be turned sideways across the river allowing the train to cross.
A switchman sat in a small shack on one side of the river, where he operated the controls to turn the bridge and lock it into place when the train crossed. One evening, when the switchman was waiting for the last train of the day to come, he looked off into the distance, through the dimming twilight, and caught sight of the train's light. He stepped to the controls and waited until the train was at a prescribed distance when he was to turn the bridge. He turned the bridge into position, but to his horror, he found that the locking control didn't work. If the bridge was not locked securely into position, it would wobble back and forth at the ends when the train came to it, causing the train to jump the track and go crashing into the river. This would be a passenger train with many people aboard.
He left the shack with the bridge turned across the river, and hummed to the other side of the river, where there was a lever, which he could use to operate the lock manually. He could hear the rumble of the train now, and leaned backwards to apply his weight to it, locking the bridge. Many lives depended upon this man's strength.
Then, coming across the bridge from the other direction, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. "Daddy, where are you?" His four-year-old son was crossing the bridge to look for him. His first instinct was to cry out to the child. "Run! Run'" But the train was too close. The tiny feet would never make it across the bridge in time. The man almost left the lever to run and snatch up his son and carry him to safety, but he realized he could not get back to the lever in time. Either the people on the train, or his son, must die. He took just a moment to make his decision. The train sped swiftly and safely on its way, and no one on board was even aware of the tiny, broken body thrown mercilessly into the river by the rushing train. Nor were they aware of the pitiful figure of a sobbing man, still clinging tightly to the locking lever long after the train had passed. They didn't see-him walking home more slowly than he had ever walked to tell his wife how he had sacrificed their son.
Now, if you can comprehend the emotions, which went through this man's heart, you can begin to understand the feelings of our Heavenly Father, when He sacrificed His Son to bridge the gap between us, and eternal life. Can there be any wonder that he caused the earth to tremble and the skies to darken when His Son died? And how does it feel when we speed along life without giving a thought to what was done for us through Jesus Christ?
When was the last time you thanked Him for the sacrifice of His dear Son?
“GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!”
There was an old man at our church who had loved God all of his life. The man, John, walked around saying "God is Good". He said it all the time, whenever and wherever he was. When John got married he said, "God is Good".
When John lost his job he said, "God is Good".
When John's father died he said, "God is Good".
When John's wallet got stolen he said, "God is Good".
Well, you get the idea, no matter what John did, or what happened to him, we would always hear him say, "God is Good".
A few months ago, John was diagnosed with cancer. The disease had spread rapidly and he was told by his doctor he'd have only a few weeks to live. Still, even on his death bed, John could be heard by everyone in the hospital repeating his famous line, "God is Good".
Our pastor Charles was John's best friend. Charles went everyday to visit John in the hospital. And every night before Charles left John would tell him, "God is Good".
Finally after weeks of watching his best friend get worse and worse from his terminal disease, Charles just could not stand it any longer and asked John, "John, you are my best friend and I love you. I love the Lord as much as you do, too. I have heard you saying 'God is Good' all through your life. Through the good times, maybe I can understand you saying how good God is. Maybe even through the hard times, to help yourself cope. But now, laying here on your death bed, how can you be so optimistic? How can you say God is good every day when you know he is letting you die?"
John just looked at Charles and smiled.
"Dear friend, don't you see all of those times I was saying God was Good, it was my way of praising him in the little way I could. And look what my reward is for remaining faithful, I am dying. You say God is letting me die as if that is a bad thing. Charles, have you forgotten that is our goal. To live our life for Him, and join him one day in heaven. See, GOD IS GOOD! He has finally called me home and in a few hours I will be with Him. I can't imagine anything greater than that."
John died that night in his sleep. Charles stood up and said only two things at John' s funeral: "I will miss my friend John but I know I will see him again one day soon, and GOD IS GOOD."
-Selected
This
newsletter is produced six times per year by the Laymen’s Evangelical
Fellowship International. It is printed and distributed in the
This Fellowship is an inter-denominational missionary and
prayer group working for revival in churches and amongst students in several
countries. We invite every layperson to become God’s ally in changing his
or her corner of the world. We train people in evangelistic work and to be
self-supporting missionaries.
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