Fire On Your Head

I’ve finished reading through the book of Matthew this evening, and coupled with something I read in Spiritual Authority by Watchman Nee, I’ve got something bubbling in me that I wanted to put into a blog before my thoughts went elsewhere.
Please don’t tell me I have too much time on my hands and write way too many entries, because as some who know me are aware, this is kinda like an outlet for me to preach sermon ideas to an audience. Nothing I write is to flex an intelectual muscle, but to put ideas out there publicly for the Body of Christ to be impacted by. As soon as I score some real work, I will have way less time on my hands, so I am gripped with an urgency to post some of the life changing truths I learn or discover, to benefit whoever comes across these entries–because any day now, that ability could change with the change of a schedule. However also, getting a new or used laptop will help to and I would have a lot more freedom to write again without needing to use my parents’ computer.

The text I will base my thoughts for this evening on is Matthew 7:21-23:
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” will enter into the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, drive out demons and perform many miracles?” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers.”

There are many different angles to approach this text from, and there are many different topics that could arise from it. The person who teaches that once you’re saved you can’t lose your salvation has a hard time providing sufficient explanation as to how these men could do things IN Jesus’ name and be cast out of the kingdom, if once you are saved you can’t lose this standing before God. I’ve also heard the viewpoint that teaches God works no special miracles in our day and that miracles ceased after the first century Church. This is mistakenly cited to erroneously say that because the reason they’re cast out of the kingdom is directly tied to doing these miracles. While either of these two topics could necessitate a large blog entry to refute each, the idea that this passage teaches believers don’t work miracles anymore is not exegetically correct, as Jesus states that he never knew them–not “you had no right to do these things”. I realize that the seven sons of Sceva in Acts attempted to cast demons out of people in the name of Jesus who Paul preached, and got their fanny whoopped, but that works against the idea these people are not really in the kingdom. Last time I checked, they aren’t casting demons out of each other at bars and clubs, or strip joints. There’s no reason to believe this is not talking about believers who were at one time rightly related to God.

Which is where I will diverge your attention now to how this relates to why we should have confidence in what Jesus said and did regarding healing, prophesying, and casting out demons.

As Watchman Nee states in his book Spiritual Authority; “In Matthew 7:21-23 we find our Lord reprimanding those who prophesy and cast out demons and do mighty things in His name. Why are they disapproved? Because they make self the starting point; they themselves do things in the name of the Lord. This is the activity of the flesh. Wherefore our Lord pronounces them to be evildoers instead of His laborers. He emphasises that only that person who does the will of His Father shall enter the kingdom of the heavens.”

Contrary to much of what I’ve heard and been taught, and is popularly taught out there on the subject, most view healing as something God will only use you to do if you are in right relationship to Him and haven’t done anything bad that day or else the anointing will have been diminished. But where does the Bible teach that a minister is any more anointed at one moment than another? Romans 12 also says that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. So if God anointed us for a work and His will is to save and heal all who are oppressed, then where do we shun away from the subject other than through our own confidence, lack of it, and feelings and emotions? We screwed up, so we figure God surely won’t use us. But if that’s the case, we’ll never accomplish anything for the kingdom of God. Matthew 7:21-23 shows that there are people doing the miracles and healings and prophesyings, and He will still punish them and they will be cast out of heaven, so obviously the matter is not that you have to be good enough to be used by God. There was a healing revival during the 1940s and 1950s, where many of the men anointed by God who worked mighty miracles and tremendous healings, also fell into sin or ended their ministries early, but this did not nullify what God did through them (it may however be that these miracles were a stronger testimony against them on the day of judgment according to our Scripture).

Now hopefully you’re not reading this articling thinking I’m advocating the idea that you can live in sin and work in powerful anointing. I’m trying to use some examples to show that people living in total sin still operated in the Holy Spirit. Remember, in the beginning of Matthew 10, the Gospel records that Jesus gave the twelve disciples authority over sickness and diseases and to cast out demons. Notice it doesn’t say that Jesus only anointed eleven of them, and skipped Judas and didn’t anoint him. Why is this significant? Because later on when they return rejoicing that demons were subject to them, the Scriptures say all twelve of them came back, not just eleven. Scripture shows, sadly as it is that Judas could still flow in the Spirit and operate in the miraculous just like any other disciple because he was anointed to do so, and the anointing is not based on us being good enough. I will state it and not address it until a later time, but healing is mechanical not relational. Otherwise, nobody would be good enough to be anointed. If it is relational, then how far can you be in sin before the anointing wades? History shows MANY individuals God used powerfully who fell into sin.

So in conclusion for now, take both sides of this coin. First, be confident that YOU can do the awesome deeds the Scriptures say believers are able to (Mark 16:17-18, John 14:12-14) and don’t think God won’t use until __________ (“I’m good enough”, or “I’m perfect”, or other things hindering you from fulfilling the great call of God on your life). However, secondly, don’t believe you can live in sin and operate in these things you’re called to, as one day the healings and the lives you touch will be a testimony against you in the day of judgment.

Stay tuned for more to come.

Click here to find Spiritual Authority and other books by Watchman Nee at Amazon.com

I’m reading through Matthew lately and noticed this chapter and details jumped out at me in such a way that I thought in a non-threatening way, I’d merely post most of the chapter here, and highlight and emphasize things and ask questions about it concerning the topic of, you guess it, healing.

The Man With Leprosy (1-4)
When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Did Jesus turn this man down for healing? Did He say He wasn’t willing?
Did it take a long time to manifest the healing in the man’s body?

The Faith of the Centurion (5-13)
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”
Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.

Did Jesus refuse to heal this man’s servant?
What was Jesus’ response when the man first asked Him to heal his servant?
What did Jesus tell his disciples He hadn’t found much of in Israel, but found in this man?
Did Jesus’ last statement to the centurion indicate how he received his servant’s healing?

Jesus Heals Many (14-17)
When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s motherinlaw lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.
When evening came, many who were demonpossessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.”

Did Jesus wait for Peter’s mother-in-law to ask Him if He would heal her? Or did He have compassion and just DO it?
Does it say Jesus neglected to heal any of the sick and demon-possessed that came to him? Or does the word “all” mean something different than it did back then?

Jesus Calms the Storm (23-27)
Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”
He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

What did Jesus tell his disciples here that they had too little of (I’ll give you a hint, he told the centurion as he had it, so he saw his servant healed)?
With the compassion we’ve seen Jesus have so far in this chapter on every person who’s come to him for healing, judging by the fact that the winds and the waves obey him, don’t you think we can have confidence when we go to Him for healing of our physical infirmities?

The Healing of Two Demonpossessed Men (28-34)
When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demonpossessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”
Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”
He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demonpossessed men. Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.

Did Jesus, who is our example in all things pertaining to spiritual life, pray to the Father for help to drive out the demons, or did He just drive them out?
Did Jesus refuse to heal either of these two men because they’ve reaped what they sown, or because God is trying to teach them a lesson about any sin they could have committed to open themselves up to all these demons?
Did Jesus merely “think” that He’d like it if these demons left, or did He command them (with his mouth) to go?

Some interesting thoughts can come to light by asking ourselves some questions of the text we read, and void ourselves of any pre-understanding we already have before reading the passage.

“Where are the ELIJAHS OF GOD?”-by Leonard Ravenhill

To the question, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” we answer, “Where He has always been – on the throne!” But where are the Elijahs of God? We know Elijah was “a man of like passions as we are,” but alas! we are not men of like prayer as he was. One praying man stands as a majority with God! Today God is bypassing men – not because they are too ignorant, but because they are too self-sufficient. Brethren, our abilities are our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks!

Out of obscurity, Elijah came on to the Old Testament stage, a full-grown man. Queen Jezebel, that daughter of hell, had routed the priests of God and replaced them with groves to false deities. Darkness covered the land and gross darkness the people, and they were drinking iniquity like water. Every day the land, fouled with heathen temples and idolatrous rites, saw smoke curling from a thousand cruel altars.

Elijah lived with God. He thought about the nation’s sin like God; he grieved over sin like God; he spoke against sin like God. He was all passion in his prayers and passionate in his denunciation of evil in the land. He had no smooth preaching. Passion fired his preaching, and his words were on the hearts of men as molten metal on their flesh.

Brethren, if we will do God’s work in God’s way, at God’s time, with God’s power, we shall have God’s blessing and the devil’s curses. When God opens the windows of heaven to bless us, the devil will open the doors of hell to blast us. God’s smile means the devil’s frown! Mere preachers may help anybody and hurt nobody; but prophets will stir everybody and madden somebody. The preacher may go with the crowd; the prophet goes against it. A man freed, fired, and filled with God will be branded unpatriotic because he speaks against his nation’s sins; unkind because his tongue is a two-edged sword; unbalanced because the weight of preaching opinion is against him. Preachers make pulpits famous; prophets make prisons famous. The preacher will be heralded; the prophet hounded.

Ah! brother preachers, we love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs, reformers: our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys, Asburys, etc. We will write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except imitate them. We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch carefully the first drop of our own!

Oh, my ministering brethren! Much of our praying is but giving God advice. Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves or for our denomination. Perish the thought! Our goal must be God alone. It is His honor that is defiled, His blessed Son who is ignored, His laws broken, His name profaned, His book forgotten, His house made a circus of social efforts.

Does God ever need more patience with His people than when they are “praying”? We tell Him what to do and then how to do it. We pass judgments and make appreciations in our prayers. In short, we do everything except pray! No Bible school can teach us this art. What Bible school has “prayer” on its curriculum? The mostimportant thing a man can study is the prayer part of the book. But where is this taught? Let us strip off the last bandage and declare that many of our presidents and teachers do not pray, shed no tears, know no travail. Can they teach what they do not know?

The man who can get believers to praying would, under God, usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known. There is no fault in God. He is able. God “is able to do according to the power that worketh in us.” God’s problem today is not communism, nor yet Romanism, nor liberalism, nor modernism. God’s problem is – dead fundamentalism!

“So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth.” – Rev. 3:16

Sin today is both glamorized and popularized, thrown into the ear by radio, thrown into the eye by television, and splashed on popular magazine covers. Churchgoers, sermon-sick and teaching-tired, leave the meeting as they entered it – visionless and passionless! Oh God, give this perishing generation ten thousand John the Baptists!

Just as Moses could not mistake the sight of the burning bush, so a nation could not mistake the sight of a burning man! God meets fire with fire. John the Baptist was a new man with a new message. As a man accused of murder hears the dread cry of the judge, “Guilty!” and pales at it, so the crowd heard John’s cry, “Repent!” until it rang down the corridors of their minds, stirred memory, bowed the conscience and brought them terror-stricken to repentance and baptism! After Pentecost, the onslaught of Peter, fresh from his fiery baptism of the Spirit, shook the crowd until as one man they cried out: “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Imagine someone telling these sin-stricken men, “Just sign a card! Attend church regularly! Pay your tithes!” No! A thousand times no!

“Oh, my God! If in our cultivated unbelief and our theological twilight and our spiritual powerlessness, we have grieved and are continuing to grieve Thy Holy Spirit, then in mercy spew us out of Thy mouth! If Thou cannot do something with us and through us, then please God, do something without us! Bypass us, and take up a people who have not yet known Thee!”
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[-Extracts from "Why Revival Tarries" by L. Ravenhill].

By A.W. Tozer

All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique – a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam’s proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His lifemotivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, “Come and assert yourself for Christ.” To the egotist it says, “Come and do your boasting in the Lord.” To the thrill-seeker it says, “Come and enjoy the thrill of Christianfellowship.” The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God’s just sentence against him. What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God’s stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul’s day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the worldthrough the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God’s approval. Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth?

Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.

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