Fire On Your Head

^“If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Dan 3:17-18, ESV)

I initially wanted to write this article and name it after the life of Daniel, until I realized the major example I want to focus on in the third chapter doesn’t even involve him or mention him at all. I want to glean from some examples found in the third chapter, and challenge each of us to be ‘fireproof’ (yes I am a Pillar fan).

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were ‘fireproof’ because of their resoluteness not to bow to anything other than the God of heaven. Malachi 3:2-3 mentions how in the day of the Lord’s appearing, He comes like a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap–and that his ministers are purified like gold.

The reason these three Hebrew men could withstand this earthly fire is because they were made fireproof by heavenly fire, for God makes his ministers a flame of fire (Ps 104:4). These men were of a pure spirit that even the worldly king’s fire couldn’t harm. Just like if you take gold and purify it by fire, different impurities come to the surface, and the gold itself is made purer–likewise these men, in their devotion to God and not bowing to the idol of their age they were confronted with, were made resistant to the flame they were subjected to for their obedience and devotion to the God of heaven.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28-29).

The fire of this world can’t touch you when you’ve been purged by the fire of God.

Those very people trying to punish them through fire died while Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego withstood the flames and another angelic presence was seen in the flames with the young men. The soldiers who carried the bodies of the three Hebrew men died themselves in the process. What a severe reaction the king had that these young men would dare not bow down to a statue made in his honor–he had the fire heated up 7 times more than normal, and the men who carried their bodies into it died in the process. This fire was a fire of distinction and distinguishing–the pure withstood it while the wicked in heart perished in it. The tares were separated from the wheat and burned up. The dross disappeared while the gold, silver and that which is precious purified, and the Lord of hosts magnified in the sight of all.

There’s many things going on in our contemporary culture, where to take the stand of righteousness makes us look like we’re the foolish ones, and ending our lives or political careers–if even just in the area of reputation. It’s much easier to go with the flow, but the flow itself is perishable and when the flame of the fire of God touches it, it burns up like chaff.

Make no mistake, it was the king who called for the furnace to be the method of death for anybody unwilling to bow to his image, but what the enemy meant for evil, the Lord turned and made work out for His own purposes of exalting the men who remained faithful and loyal to Him despite the threat of earthly death put upon them, and was Himself glorified ultimately. These men knew the God, Who after taking one’s life, had the power to cast their body and soul into hell (Luke 12:4-5). They feared the right King. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego could remain fireproof and imperishable in the midst of this fire, because they’d pledged themselves to the kingdom made of imperishable substance. These men refused to bow to the rulers and authorities.

Can that be said of us in our age? Many ministries boast of their ‘relevancy’, and bow down to kiss the king of Babylon’s ring, but that which is relevant to this age may not necessarily be relevant in the unshakable kingdom. Too many believers are capable of wasting their political vote for parties that will kill the unborn, because they have better financial policies than the party that won’t. The decisions that pertain to the imperishable realm are overlooked for concerns about this perishable realm. Many build their lives and their ministries with wood, hay and straw, which will all perish when touched by the fire of His presence. What are YOU building with?

Wood, hay and straw are substance that grows or is found above the ground and visible in the sight of all. Gold, silver, and precious stones are beneath the surface, and aren’t visible–they are buried and hidden and require seeking. These three Hebrew men were made valuable, precious, and fireproof by their time in the presence of His fire, in their secret place–unseen by men. That is why they could face the threat of death with such confidence because they were made strong in private. Wood, hay and straw on the one hand all burn in such fire, as we happened with the king’s soldiers.

Friend, bow not! Don’t be afraid of them who can harm your body but can’t touch your inner man. Fear HIM who has power to throw both body and soul into hell. Bow the knee to the King of kings worthy of your praise and adoration. The closer we get to HIS fire, His presence presence, the more the impurities will leave from us, and though grueling as this process is, it’s more preferable than anything earthly kings can do to us! The fire in this furnace was not the flames started by a man, but the fiery presence of God, which is why the soldiers were but chaff and burned up in it as they attempted to dispose of the bodies of the men who wouldn’t bow to earthly kings. However, because the three who pledged their allegiance to the King of all kings DID bow the knee before Him, they withstood.

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, though it is tested so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you.“ (1 Peter 1:6-7,22-25 )

Please check out these related articles for further meditations on the fire of God:

All Consuming Fire,   No Perishing Point

“Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man….” -Is. 6.5a

There is a place of crisis to which every saint must come, for there is an inherent humanism in all men and women, and even after conversion to Christ there lingers a dualistic nature. We have tasted of the Divine nature, but we have yet to come into the fullness of Jesus Christ, and unless we see the Lord high and lifted up, and come into a conscious awareness of our own “dustness” in light of God’s own “Godness,” we will lack the ultimate kind of surrender that alone makes the Christian a voice in his generation.

Oswald Chambers reached a great crisis in his mid to late 20’s, after having followed the Lord since his childhood. It was the same brand as Isaiah’s experience, and as excruciating as it was, it pressed him into an encounter with God that refined and authenticated his life. It is the nature of prophetic refinement, and a man comes out transfigured on the other end. But without passing through like seasons with the Lord, there will be something plastic about our profession and living. Listen to Chambers’ experience, and ask yourself, “Have I passed through these kinds of seasons with my Lord?”

“After I was born again as a lad I enjoyed the presence of Jesus Christ wonderfully, but years passed before I gave myself up thoroughly to His work. I was in Dunoon College as tutor of Philosophy when Dr. F.B. Meyer came and spoke about the Holy Spirit. I determined to have all that was going, and went to my room and asked God simply and definitely for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whatever that meant.

From that day on for four years, nothing but the overruling grace of God and the kindness of friends kept me out of an asylum. God used me during those years for the conversion of souls, but I had no conscious communion with Him. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence, and the sense of depravity, the vileness and bad-motiveness of my nature was terrific.”

…. He became aware of an abhorrent dualism in his personality. The sham and hypocrisy he detested in others had a foothold in his own heart. He could proclaim that God must be given glory for all his good works, but he enjoyed the praise of men. While many people in Dunoon thought he was a near-perfect saint, he knew the truth about himself. Within him lurked a frightening pride that was beyond his power to conquer.

…. He realized as he had never believed possible what the disposition of sin in him could do.

…. A poem written in September (1901) concluded with this stanza:

O Lord Jesus, hear my crying
For a consecrated life,
For I bite the dust in trying
For release from this dark strife.

Oswald was living dangerously close to the edge of a complete breakdown.

Here he was, a tutor and respected gentleman among students and professors. He was considered a remarkable young man of God, head and shoulders above his pupils in maturity and depth. Yet his heart was crying out for a union with God that transcended all the external good that he was being commended for. He had come to realize that there was a terrible duplicity in his nature, that his propensity for sin, though no one would have expected it of him, was as despicable as that of any man. His soul was crying out in a great and prolonged ache, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man….”

Have we been brought to this place?

All of a sudden, though he had not fallen in gross obvious sin, though virtually nothing had changed in terms of his own moral standing, he felt that though men were impressed with him, his overall life was a sham and a contradiction. He was not entirely surrendered to the Lord in all the nooks and crannies of thought and life, and he came to a place of despair in yearning for the reality of God. He was not convinced that he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and all the good deeds and Biblical thoughts had taken him as far as they could. His soul was aching for a greater union with God, one that would make his life true in public places and in secret places; a union that would mark him out as a man of love and joy and reverence and humility in all settings, not merely when the eyes of men were on him. His religious reputation was at stake, but the praises of men had turned to ashes in his mouth. He desperately needed the Spirit of God, and he wasn’t willing to play the game any longer. He goes on to tell the story, and what transpired is awesome to consider:

I see now that God was taking me by the light of the Holy Spirit and His Word through every ramification of my being. The last three months of those years things reached a climax, I was getting very desperate. I knew no one who had what I wanted; in fact I did not know what I did want. But I knew that if what I had was all the Christianity there was, the thing was a fraud.

…. those of you who know the experience, know very well how God brings one to the point of utter despair, and I got to the place where I did not care whether everyone knew how bad I was, I cared for nothing on earth, saving to get out of my present condition.

At a little meeting held during a League of Prayer mission in Dunoon, a well-known lady was asked to take the after meeting. She did not speak, but set us to prayer, and then sang, ‘Touch me again, Lord.’ I felt nothing, but I knew emphatically my time had come, and I rose to my feet.

I had no vision of God, only a sheer dogged determination to take God at His word and to prove this thing for myself, and I stood up and said so. That was bad enough but what followed was ten times worse. After I had sat down the lady worker, who knew me well, said: ‘That is very good of our brother, he has spoken like that as an example to the rest of you.’

I got up again and said: ‘I got up for no one’s sake, I got up for my own sake; either Christianity is a downright fraud, or I have not got hold of the right end of the stick.’ And then and there I claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit in dogged committal to Luke 11.13.

And what was Oswald’s testimony when he broke out of this season and was immersed in the Holy Spirit?

“Glory be to God, the last aching abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God. Love is the beginning, love is the middle and love is the end. After He comes in, all you see is ‘Jesus only, Jesus ever.’ When you know what God has done for you, the power and the tyranny of sin is gone and the radiant, unspeakable emancipation of the indwelling Christ has come.”

Finally (after 4 years of inward agony), the long night was over and peace had come. The citadel of his heart had fallen, not to a conquering Christ, but to the gentle knocking of a wounded hand. In a new and powerful way, at the age of twenty-seven, the story of Oswald Chambers’ life had just begun.

(Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God, David McCasland; OCPA, Grand Rapids; pp. 73-86)

All of this transpired many years after Chambers first came to the Lord, and just as Isaiah cried out and was cleansed with fire and commissioned, Oswald would spend the rest of his days living a newly charged life. At the time of his death, his life was called by friends “the greatest demonstration we had ever seen of the Sermon on the Mount fleshed out.” To this day, his devotional can be found in the homes of believers all over the world, and the prophetic nature of his words are reaping the fruits of Christ in thousands of hearts, day after day.

What if he had settled for a decent Christian reputation? What if he had been content with the secret mixture? What if he had ignored his duplicity, and failed to cry out for the Holy Spirit? Would any of us even know of Oswald Chambers? And what about you, dear saint? Have you seen the Lord high and lifted up? Have you cried out from that place of desperation? Are you keeping entire segments of your life away from the reach of consecration and faith? One of my mentors used to say, “Unless you’ve cried out about being a man, you’ve not cried out.” In other words, it’s one thing to know conviction in a moment of failure. It’s another thing to cry out, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man….”

It’s from that dark night of revelation that Oswald emerged as a true servant, immersed in the life and power of God. And the verse that initially provoked his soul applies to each of us as well:

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” -Lk. 11.13

No man can bring you to this place, friend. You must face the Lord in the secret place. What men have thought of your personality and spirituality matters not. God Himself is on the Throne, and He waits in kind seriousness for you to come. He will uncover and reveal your soul, purge and refine your motives, stretch and test your heart, and from that place of wrestling with God alone, He will fill you with His own Spirit, and cause you to arise, a son or daughter of the Mighty One. You will declare His great love and holiness, “Jesus only, Jesus ever,” and you will lead many sons to glory.

“For God so loved the world (kosmos), that He gave His only begotten Son….” -Jn. 3.16

There is a high and glorious note in the Gospel that we don’t often hear sounded in modern preaching, and in many ways, it has lessened the majesty of our understanding of salvation. In the minds of many, Christianity is summed up in this way-

I prayed and prayer and got saved, now I’m going to heaven, and God is going to make my life more and more successful, while I do my best to follow His will.

There is a much grander picture in view when we see the Gospel for what it truly is, and it has everything to do with the glory of God, and virtually nothing to do with my personal success- at least not in the sense that is declared these days.

The Greek word for “world” in John 3.16 is kosmos, which refers to the entire created order, the heavens and the earth, the universe, and all that it contains. For years, when I heard “world” I thought only of humanity, for we often refer to the human race as “the world.” The Scriptures themselves refer to the human race as “the world” on many occasions, perhaps even in this text. Yet and still, the Biblical picture of restoration refers to the whole created order, and all of creation groans for its fulfillment.

Of course, His desire is for a nation of priests, and they will not be made up of trees and mountains, birds and fish, or even angels and apocalyptic creatures. The rest of John 3.16 shows us that the most crucial aspect of God’s salvific work is the redemption of human beings, the holy adoption of sons and daughters. But our lack of a vision of the glory of God, our meager understanding of the Scriptures, and our individualistic society all combine to reduce the Gospel to something that is all about us.

The Scriptures testify to something much more than “Your Best Life Now.” They tell of the glory of the eternal God, His activity in history, His dealings with Israel, the sending and glorification of His Son, and His remarkable intentions to renovate the entire created order by the word of His power.

The apostolic understanding of salvation is so much more profound than my personal justification, though that itself will be enough to strike wonder in our hearts for all eternity. The apostolic understanding of salvation is of the entire universe being wrenched loose from the grip of the “prince of this world,” relieved of the terrible weight of sin, the whole earth refined with fire and made new, and the triune God fully present, fully revealed, and fully reigning over all things. The issue is not first about our personal redemption, but about the glorification of God in and through the true knowledge of His Son. Paul uses language that we might consider less appealing than what is commonly preached these days, but in reality, it’s glory is greater than the humanistic mixtures we often hear.

He stated that we Gentiles, who were like wild olives, “were grafted in among them [Israel] and became partaker[s] with them of the rich root of the olive tree.” (Rom. 11.17) Personally, I’ve never heard a call to the lost which invited them to be “grafted in.” Grafted in? To the human ear it sounds inglorious, and if our Christianity is a humanistic mixture, we will have no part of this kind of Gospel. But if we hear the Gospel of God, which is a magnificent invitation into something so much bigger and so charged with largesse, we come humbly and thankfully in repentance and faith, and God works salvation in our innermost parts.

When a person is truly born from above by the power of God’s grace, there is this abiding sense that they have received mercy, and an overwhelming awareness that they have been brought into something so much more significant than their individual dreams and ambitions. If we haven’t got this Kingdom view, our Christianity becomes something self-focused, and fruitless cycles ensue. We end up performing religiously, living self-consciously, and falling into the most despicable kind of self-absorption, even while we employ spiritual terms and ideas.

We need this “world/kosmos” view to be ever held before our hearts, that we would not be as distracted with pursuing our “best life now,” but rather the glorification of Jesus Christ. Hear Chambers on this:

It is a travesty to say that Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to redeem the whole world, and place it unimpaired and rehabilitated before the throne of God. The fact that Redemption can be experienced by us is an illustration of the power of the reality of Redemption, but that is not the end of Redemption. If God were human, how sick to the heart and weary He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation, for our sanctification. We tax His energies from morning till night for things for ourselves….When we touch the bedrock of the reality of the Gospel of God, we shall never bother God any further with little personal plaints.

The one passion of Paul’s life was to proclaim the Gospel of God. He welcomed heartbreaks, disillusionments, tribulation, for one reason only, because these things kept him in unmoved devotion to the Gospel of God.

(Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest; Feb. 1 entry, The Call of God)

When we have an individualistic Gospel, we remove the foundation and bedrock of the faith. We actually take away the wonder of our own personal redemption when that personal redemption becomes our primary focus. If the Gospel is all about me, it must be a quite shallow thing. But if it has to do with the glory of the Ancient of Days, His eternal purposes for Israel and the Church, and His remarkable and sweeping vision for the whole created order, then I am being caught in the wind of the wonder of it all. Then it becomes so much more significant: This majestic God, who is so high and lifted up, has condescended so low into the earth, to “create in me a clean heart.”

Now then, being grafted in carries a whole new weight and beauty. Now my personal redemption evokes a remarkable kind of worshipful gratitude, and awe-full trembling. This is not about me finding success in religion, it is about me finding God Himself, and being wholly satisfied in Him, no matter what comes in blessing or suffering.

I have become a recipient of heavenly mercy, and the God who has created and sustained the entire universe, and who will one day renovate it all and abide in Jerusalem, is also the One who listens when I cry out to Him. He is also the One who cleanses and forgives me when I confess my sin. He is also the One who has promised to send His Spirit to me, to lead and guide me into all truth. He is also the One who gives all good gifts. Now John 3.16 becomes something more than a verse I memorized as a child. It is a staggering word that rocks my categories and catapults me into the worship of the only One who is worthy to open the heavenly scroll! May we never reduce it to something less or other.

“For God so loved the kosmos, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

“Oh the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His was past finding out. For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” (Rom. 11.33, 36)

“How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!” Song of Solomon 4:10b

“And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephesians 5:2

We began in our previous article with this verse from the Song of Solomon to establish our premise for these series of articles on the love of God flowing through the believer.  The context surrounding that verse establishes that the Bridegroom, Christ, is speaking to His Bride, the Church stating we have ‘captivated His heart’ (verse 9).  Our worship and adoration–and just simply our obedience to come follow Him and be in awe and reverent fear of Him–does something in his heart.  He gets some type of satisfaction from our worshipful, fasted lifestyles that He doesn’t get in another way.

We also began in the last post to elaborate on the fact the wine speaks of the best this life has to offer and not sinful or guilty pleasures.   Since most oftentimes wine is associated with the Holy Spirit, we’re then assuming that the Spirit being poured out is a good thing, BUT a foundational starting point for this love walk we’re going on.  So allow me to show you another part of this journey, of just what happens when the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

^“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,  giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:17-21, emphasis mine)

As we established in our previous article by looking at 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 to show that the gifts of the Spirit are foundational–but love is the more excellent, and the greater way–then it makes sense also that one of the evidences of a born again believer truly being filled with the Holy Spirit, is going to be love.  If we are operating in all manner of gifts of the Spirit, but have not love, then it is pointless and we are nothing (see 1 Cor 13:1-2).  If we are constantly, and regularly being filled with the Holy Spirit on an ongoing basis, then it won’t just be evidenced by speaking in tongues, prophecies, psalms, hymns and so on, but we will also be submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Dare I say it: the REAL evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit, is love for one another–not at the expense of the gifts such as tongues, but on top of it, including the gifts.  How do I know this?  Well, I could post too large a list of Scriptures dealing with commandments to love, but let me focus on a few things that tie into our Bridal paradigm specifically, and the direction I’m going in with this series of articles:

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19-20, emphasis mine)

We must remember a few things about the Apostle John: he had a revelation of the love of God which obviously would affect his perspective.  He referred to himself in his gospel account as the one Jesus loved.  In the end of that Gospel, he said that if all the works Jesus did were recorded, the world would not be able to contain the books (John 21:25).  Therefore, what we have written in our Scripture canon does not contain any wasted pages.  All of it is divinely arranged to be there for a reason.  John lived to be a ripe old age and it’s commonly held by many that he wrote this and his other two epistles towards the very end of his life, even after he wrote The Revelation he received while exiled on the island of Patmos.  It is for this reason then, we can reasonably interpret the book of Revelation through the lens of the LOVE of God he had, and when one does, we see the matter of the coming of the Lord in a whole different light than just stuff that belongs in Left Behind fiction books–but one of a marriage finally coming to realization. The book is a revelation of the Bridegroom–lovesick for His Bride–coming back to finally marry her.  John had that revelation, but I digress a little from where I’m going with this.

If John took the time to write these 5 chapters, then this stuff MUST be some of the most important things he felt worth sharing with the recipient of this letter, and the Church.   Therefore, if at the ripe old age of 90 or maybe even 100 this was what he had to say after decades of intimate relationship with The Bridegroom–after decades of public ministry– then it’s wise of us to take seriously, and meditate and ponder things from his perspective.   We need the perspective of the one who knew his identity in the Bride of Christ, and knew himself as the one Jesus loved.

How do I know this whole “wine of the Spirit and being filled, speaking to one another, and submitting to one another” thing ties into this whole Bridal paradigm?  Because the rest of the chapter goes on to say so:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Eph 5:22-24)

Sometimes I really hate the chapter breaks and title headers the publishers of our Bible translations put in there, because the original manuscripts were not broken down into chapters and verses, and certainly didn’t have subject headings like most of our Bibles say.  I’m only mentioning that because even though they’re helpful for finding specific passages and parables, when reading they sometimes inadvertently give the reader the impression new topics are starting.  However, this is a part of the same flow of thought the author had.  Jesus taught in complete subjects, even if the English Standard Version I’m reading this from breaks things down into seemingly different topics, when the apostles and epistle writers wrote in entire concepts.  Let’s keep reading:

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” (Eph. 5:25-33, emphasis mine)

Remember, we love God because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and Christ has sought out His Bride since before the foundation of the world.  He is talking here of presenting His Bride to Himself at the marriage of the Lamb.  Christ cherishes the Church.  She’s His own Body.  He nourishes her.  Christ ‘left’ His Father, in the eternal heavenly realm, to come down to our earth that He may gather His Bride to bring her where He Himself is.  He cried out on the cross “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46) as he bore the sin of His Bride so as to make her pure and spotless before God.  As Jesus was feeling that weight of sin, He was experiencing separation from God for the only time in all of eternity. It was at this time that 2 Corinthians 5:21 occurred, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Now, if we have truly been born from above, and filled with the Holy Spirit, we’re going to respect Christ the way the wife is to respect her husband.  So if we respect Christ, out of the response we have towards Him as he loves us, then we will not do anything to hurt His Bride that we’re apart of.  We will lay our life down for one another.  We will speak encouragement, not gossip.  We will submit to one another, preferring the other as better than ourselves.

Let’s submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, for He finds that to be better than wine.

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

By Robert Gladstone

Reading Philippians this morning, one thing Paul says really jumped out at me.  “For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus” (2:21).

So, what are the interests of Christ Jesus?  The context explains clearly. His interests are people.  God’s burning concern, and the concern of His imprisoned apostle, is the well-being of His family – both as individuals and as a community.  Read the whole chapter carefully.  It’s all about people getting along, caring for each other more than themselves, serving the purposes of the gospel.

Paul’s spirituality was not some abstract mysticism.  It was essentially people.  For him, the second great commandment was the natural outflow of the first.

Notice how he exhorts a somewhat divided church to take Christ’s attitude and example.  Philippians 2, one of the most powerful passages in all of Scripture, sets them forth for us:  Jesus did not insist on His own greatness.  Rather, He emptied Himself of His inherent, heavenly status and lowered Himself to the place of total abasement.  All of this, for people.

Jesus Christ did not become a slave and die to establish Christian religion.  He did not suffer affliction for buildings and ministry programs.  He did not submit to shame and torture to exalt celebrity-styled ministries. Jesus died for people! He died to create born again, whole, supernatural individuals who together make up the family He always dreamed of.

Paul pleaded with the Philippians to have this same attitude toward one another.  How can we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” in any other way but to pour our lives out for those around us?  Paul told them, in so many words, “I gave my whole life away.  I have given up my own dreams and ambitions (Phil 3).  I suffer immensely even in prison… all for you to prosper in Christ.  And, greatest of ironies, in this do I find my own deepest joy!  In fact, I’m sharing this joy of mine with you so you will have it!  Would you do the same for one another?  This would make my joy complete, and yours too!”

Paul bemoaned the lack of ministers in his day that had this kind of attitude.  “They seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.”  There were few gospel ministers he could entrust with the care of his churches.  Too many wanted to use the churches for their own well-being, rather than to be used for the churches’ well-being.

It’s sadly similar today.  We live in a culture – including a religious culture – that promotes individualism and self-centered happiness as the goal of life.  But God calls us to break the mold.  Let’s embrace Christ’s interests.  Let’s lay our lives down for people.  Let’s make it our ambition to use our time, energy, and gifts to make the lives of those around us better in Christ.

That is Christ’s own heart and happiness – people, the Family of God.  Listen again to the words of the great hymn…

“Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, all who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine.”

Bob Gladstone is director, and professor of practical theology at the FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina.  To visit his blog go to HeavenRules.org.

To hear messages of his at last year’s Fire For Life Summer School, in the Netherlands, click on this link.

“How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!” (Song of Solomon 4:10b)

“And I will show you a still more excellent way.” (1 Corinthians 12:31b)

In the opening of the Song of Solomon—my favorite book in the Old Testament—the Shulammite shepherdess states of her lover that his love is better than wine (SoS 1:2).  Then, midway through the song when he speaks of what fascinates him about her, we’re told the same thing.  This writer believes the Song of Solomon is to be interpreted as a representation of the Bridegroom’s love towards the Church, His Bride.  We know that Jesus is better than anything in this world, and the obvious interpretation of that phrase would lead the believer to say “of course it is!” and agree.

Therefore, if He is saying of her that her love is better than wine, then we can automatically rule out that He’d be saying her love is better than any sin since he lived a sinless life and died to save us from our sins, and would not have engaged in any carnal pleasure that he’d compare her love with.

No, she finds His love to even be better than the good pleasures of this life, even things that aren’t inherently sinful or wrong and He finds her affection and devotion to Him better than wine–He finds our love towards Him to be more intoxicating than wine, for Scripture says God desires obedience, and loyalty more than sacrifice (Hos 6:6).  If the believer in Christ would get a revelation that they are the apple of God’s eye, and that your love back to Him blows Him away–I’m convinced it would change and sustain us in deeper ways in life and ministry.  So what is the significance of this?

The Love of God as a Motivation for Service and Operation of the Spiritual Gifts

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit…To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” 1 Corinthians 12:4,7

In this first entry in our study, we’re going to start by looking at the work of the Holy Spirit involved in our motivation, but in the next study, hopefully we’re going to focus on the role of the Holy Spirit getting us there to maturity in the Love walk.

Oftentimes in the Old Testament, wine is used symbolically to represent the Holy Spirit.  The oft-quoted Ephesians 5:17-21 is not saying the Holy Spirit IS wine or that being filled with Him is like being drunk, but instead when we’re filled we won’t act drunk, but we’ll do the things listed such as “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.“  We’re going to spend more time on this passage in a later part of this study.

In chapter 12 of First Corinthians, Paul goes into significant detail about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and their operation.  There’s been much debate within the Body of Christ about their use, their importance, which ones are significant, and so on and that’s not the direction I’m going in with this post because there’s other articles on this site that deal with that more effectively.  We’re beginning today with the premise that functioning in the gifts of the Spirit is the norm for the contemporary Church, and that they are exactly what a gift is–something GIVEN to us freely without earning it.  Paul states at the end of this chapter, I will show you a still more excellent way. (v.31)

A more excellent way than what?

The answer is in verse 11: All these [gifts] are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” Most in the Church emphasize chapters 12 and 14 but skip chapter 13–the “love chapter.”  Then others, fearing misuse of the spiritual enablements, over-emphasize chapter 13 to the exclusion of the other two chapters surrounding it.  Both are necessary, for Paul said “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.“ (v.1-2)

The lesser is included by the greater, but not diminished by it.  The lesser in this case is that the gifts are distributed as the Spirit wills, and the greater work is love.  But, I repeat: the greater doesn’t nullify or do away with the lesser. For example, it is out of love that you will most effectively minister in the spiritual gifts. Maturing into love doesn’t mean you no longer need the gifts.  On the contrary!  Paul didn’t say “instead I will show you a more excellent way“, but he says AND.  The two go together, and the fact he goes into talking about love, is building on the foundation [of the basic use of the gifts], not replacing it.

^“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (v. 11-12)

When we are children in the Lord, it is necessary for the Holy Spirit to distribute the gifts in our lives and in the members of the Body of Christ as He sees fit.  When children are little, there is more supervision needed in their lives, even of some good and ’safe’ gifts they’ve been given.  Maybe, as an example, they are given a computer and hooked up to the internet, but the parents will still put limitations on it such as time allowed, and filter what sites they visit.  But as time goes on and the child matures and is more disciplined and knows how to manage his time well, he proves to be faithful with what he’s been entrusted with, and gradually needs less and less supervision.

But not only that, now the child becomes a fully mature adult, and knows how to use the internet for profitable purposes and no longer uses it just to play video games.  He starts an online business, and donates a large portion of his profits to those in need in other places in the world.  He hears of problems people are going through, and writes e-mails to encourage them.  Now motivated by maturity and love, he knows how to do things without being instructed or given suggestion.  His relationship with his parents has not changed in the fact he’s still their son and they his parents–but he has changed his childish ways and no longer needs the same type of involvement of monitoring his activity online.  Now, he’s grown and is in a relationship with his parents of a more mature nature.  He can be depended on to make right decisions because he is no longer a five year old child.

I realize this example is far from perfect, but I wish to draw the point that the gifts of the Spirit are basic at the fundamental and foundational level–not the “be all and end all” or the telltale sign of spiritual maturity–but the opposite: they’re just a beginning and we’re to move on in maturity from there.  The entire book of Corinthians shows that flawed, imperfect and even selfish people DO still operate in the things the Spirit has enabled them to, but does not signify that they are mature or walking in love toward one another.

So back to the Song of Solomon for a moment: the shepherdess is saying His [Christ's] love is more excellent than the wine–good and noble things, even though they may be Holy Spirit inspired.  If you are being filled with the Holy Spirit–as our familiar passage in Ephesians 5 says–you won’t just be speaking and making melody in your heart, but you will also be “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (v.21).  What is submission more than merely preferring the other person more than yourself, out of the agape love poured out in your heart the more you continually receive infilling of the wine of the Holy Spirit?

Now “your love is better than wine” and “I will show you a more excellent way” both have more significant and impacting meaning to me than they did before the Lord showed me this stuff I’m sharing with you now.

For more on this until I post the next part of our study, it would probably be of benefit to the reader to check a previous post of mine birthed out of meditating on the Song of Solomon, titled Behold, I Stand At The Door and Knock.  I was merely beginning to unpack in that post some of the stuff God has since been impacting me with.

Editor’s note:   Britt Williams is the pastor of Consuming Fire Fellowship, in Woodville Mississippi. The following article is something I came across on Facebook when several of my contacts posted this article on their profiles.  I was challenged and convicted by many of the points, and though we don’t agree with every point or feel that some of the ministry methods the author engages in are of our personal preference or style, we did feel enough in common with this article to share with our readers to be given a challenging perspective on the role of conviction.  Any comments and thoughts are welcome.  And we hope and believe it will be of benefit to you as you read.

In this article, we revisit an often overlooked and forgotten fundamental of gospel preaching; the convicting power of God, an essential component in the experience of conversion. Conviction is that divine power that convinces and draws the sinner to Jesus. Thus, unless men are convicted and convinced of their awful sinfulness before a holy God they will never come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
-John 6:44

Jesus presents us with an absolute, the theological implications thereof, are often overlooked/neglected in this hour of seeker-sensitive, easy-believism. Sadly, the tendency today is to overlook, redefine, or ignore altogether the necessity of conviction in the new birth experience. If we fail to understand the dynamics of the gospel, and conviction in particular, we are ill prepared to be a witness for Jesus. Now, if conviction is absolutely essential in the conversion of souls, then we must desire to see lost sinners come under conviction, yes? This being true, let us consider what the Bible tells us about true Holy Ghost conviction.

I. FIRST, HOW MIGHT WE DEFINE CONVICTION?

John 6:44a No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…

Now, we’ve heard this term “conviction” many times before, but what does it actually mean? According to Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, “conviction” can be described as…

The act of compelling one to admit the truth of a charge; the act of convincing of sinfulness; the state of being convinced; the state of being sensible or aware of guilt. By conviction, a sinner is brought to repentance.

Thus, conviction is the experience of the sinner being awakened to the sinfulness, the penalty, and the only remedy of his sin. There is perhaps nothing in the human experience more disturbing, unsettling, and gut wrenching than Holy Ghost conviction. If it were not for its glorious end, it would be accurate to call conviction awful and terrible torment of the mind and soul. And remember, we, above all, must desire/have this happen to those we hope to win to Jesus.

II. AS I MENTIONED, CONVICTION IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY FOR CONVERSION.

John 6:44a No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…

Our text irrefutably teaches the absolute: no man will come to Jesus apart from God’s convicting power. Now, contrary to popular thought, fallen humanity has no innate interest in God, but rather, is predisposed to evade and hate Him. And thus, there has never been even one man who sought God of his own accord: not because we can’t, but we won’t.

Psalm 10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

I heard a preacher say, “the increased popularity of the occult proves men are spiritually hungry, searching for a God they don’t know.” Such a statement presupposes three unscriptural and illogical concepts:

a. Sinners can seek God apart from God.

Romans 3:11 …there is none that seeketh after God.

b. Sinners can sincerely seek God and not find Him.

Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

c. Sinners are completely oblivious to God, His nature, and His law.

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse…

Such unscriptural notions reveal how little we understand about the gospel and the new birth. No, men infatuated with the devil may mean many things, but certainly not that they are hungry for God. The Bible teaches that sinners, by their sins, are utterly alienated from God. This separation is not merely a difference of opinion, or a philosophical misunderstanding. No, the sinner has willfully set himself against God: his ultimate enemy. The sinner is a rebel against God, His authority, His law, His gospel, and His Son. Sinners are willfully separated from God and have chosen to remain in a hostile position of opposition toward Him.

Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

We no longer believe this, the sinner is somehow, unconsciously seen as some kind of victim. And this one truth alone necessitates the utter need for the prevenient grace of conviction: they will never come, except the Father draw. Thus, as our text teaches, without conviction, no sinner will ever seek God.

III. THERE ARE THREE ESSENTIALS IN HOLY GHOST CONVICTION.

John 16:8 And when he is come, he will reprove (convict) the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment…

There can be no Holy Ghost conviction apart from the reproof regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment. And perhaps there are no three topics more rejected in the professing church, and more hated in the world. Should we wonder why there is so little Holy Ghost conviction? Yes, the gospel preacher’s message, if anointed and led by the Spirit of God, will emphasize reproof. And his rebuke will concentrate on the sinner’s sin, his lack of righteousness, and the judgment he will soon face. Now, the world and religious hypocrites hate such preaching, accusing it to be, “judgmental/offensive/counterproductive.” Over the years, the professing church, carnal, backslid, and seeking the approval of man, has been seduced by such reasoning. Above all, they seek to avoid the preachy image, bending over backwards to be non-offensive and make the sinner feel comfortable. There is an obvious denial of Biblical conviction. That leads me to our next point…

IV. THE CATALYSTS FOR CONVICTION.

Romans 10:14 …how shall they hear without a preacher?

Without a true Gospel preacher there can be no Holy Ghost conviction to draw the sinner. Gospel preaching is God’s ordained means to communicate the gospel. And as we pointed out, his message, for the most part, will be a message of reproof: declaring the law to expose sin, lifting up Jesus to define righteousness, and boldly warning of the great and terrible day of God’s judgment. If we don’t get back to preaching the fundamental gospel message, men will never truly be drawn to Jesus. There can never be Holy Ghost conviction without Holy Ghost preaching (not Holy Ghost singing, not even Holy Ghost living alone). No, the human vessel, consecrated wholly to God, filled with God’s Spirit, declaring God’s Word is essential to God’s method of drawing.

John 12:32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

Yet, the modern church, Biblically illiterate and carnally motivated, has thought to promote the gospel like a bargain rummage sale. They say, “if we are prosperous, joyful, blessed, folks will come to get what we have.” Indeed, they may, but this is not the right motivation (see John 6). Or, they reason, “if they see miracles, they will believe the gospel.” They apparently forget that Jesus, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, renounced such thinking…

Luke 16:31 …if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Others say, “If they just see Jesus in us they’ll come knocking at our door.” But the Bible says…

Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

In light of the absolute stated in Isaiah 53 how can this be? No, as the Bible teaches, we must first GO, before they will ever be under conviction and then COME.

VI. THE NATURE OF THE CONVICTION EXPERIENCE.

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…

As we’ve mentioned, conviction is synonymous with reproof for sin, which produces a crisis. Holy confrontation always draws a line, gives an ultimatum, and forces a moral choice.

Hebrews 12:11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous…

Conviction literally compels lost sinners to do what they would never do themselves. To consider what they would never consider otherwise: look at the Greek word translated draw in John 6:44…

Draw: {Greek} hel-koo’-o, Literally or figuratively to drag.

It is a crisis, not a circus: serious, grave, and sober. A man diagnosed with cancer has some hard decisions to make, nevertheless, they are necessary. Likewise, the man under the eternal sentence of divine conviction realizes his latter end. It is no laughing matter. Conviction is, above all, loving, compassionate, and merciful beyond human comprehension: but to the unregenerate it seems tormenting. It is an affront to the sensibilities, a slap in the face of fallen human pride, and an offensive and brutal attack on sinful self-worth. And it will only lift when the sinner either repents or resists to the point of grieving God’s Spirit.

VI. FINALLY, THE DIFFERENT RESPONSES TO CONVICTION.

John 7:12, 41, 43 And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people…Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? So there was a division among the people because of him.

Conviction brings men face to face with the Biblical Jesus, and then they must make a gut-wrenching choice. They must either believe the gospel and therefore forfeit their own life to gain Christ, or reject Christ, so as to justify their sin. There is no middle ground, conviction either breaks a man or hardens him. For those who resist conviction reactions can run from insanity to violent persecution, but react, all men do.

May God help us to get out of the way and allow God’s Spirit to drag sinners to Jesus.

“Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” -Rev. 19.10b

I am gripped by these statements from Eberhard Busch, regarding Karl Barth’s views on preaching:

From early on one of the elemental convictions of the theologian Karl Barth was that the same God who had spoken clearly the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures speaks also to us today. Therefore he formulated as a basic principle to be heeded precisely: ‘Preaching aims at the people of a specific time to tell them that their lives have their basis and hope in Jesus Christ’ (Homiletics, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Donald E. Daniels [Louisville: WJK Press, 1991], p. 89).

And even more: it is the task of preaching to state clearly that God himself makes himself heard in the contemporary situation.

…. The danger would then be too great that the preacher would play the role himself as the intermediary between God and humans or that the congregation would be kept busy with merely human opinions. According to Barth, the question is much more whether with the whole congregation the preachers also hear and pay attention to what God says- not only said, but says. Barth learned from the Reformers that the sermon…. is to correspond to the prophetic office of Jesus Christ.

However, according to him, this concept can also be said the other way around: The congregation hears God’s word only when it listens to the word of God, who has already spoken according to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures. God has spoken not merely once, but rather once for all.

(The Word in this World: Two Sermons by Karl Barth, Ed. by Kurt I. Johanson, Regent College Publishing; 2007, pp. 7-8)

To what degree can our modern preaching and living be found in direct correspondence “to the prophetic office of Jesus Christ?”

The above quote was given in a little booklet that contained two sermons from Karl Barth. The first, delivered in 1912, was a message regarding the sinking of the Titanic, which was obviously weighing heavily on Barth’s mind.

The second was delivered in 1934, two days after The Confessing Church challenged the Nazi system, and two days prior to Barth being fired from his professor position and shipped out of the country.

Suffice it to say, delivering the present testimony of Jesus Christ can have historic effects, but it will also be costly, and we need to settle it in our hearts that this is the way of the Kingdom.

I’m convinced that most of our modern preaching, witnessing and writing is having little effect on the hearers, and scant impact on society, because we are rarely speaking from the prophetic office of Jesus Christ; which is to say, we are busying souls with “merely human opinions,” rather than leading them in listening in a lively way “to the word of God, who has already spoken according to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures.”

Who is bearing the word of the Lord for this hour, saints? The Church has a calling, and preachers all the more so, to be so immersed in the Spirit of God, and so enwrapped by the revelation of God through the Scriptures, that we would have the prophetic grace to discern the times and seasons in our generation, and to set forth the word of Jesus Christ as superior to all other voices and vantage points. Who is hearing His word, much less setting it forth?

Failing here, we fail in the most simplistic and central of callings; namely, bearing witness to the present testimony of the Son of God. What are His thoughts in this hour, after all?

At 9-11, men thundered out whiplash responses of judgment, and others offered a humanistic comfort. But where was the prophetic office of Jesus Christ expressed through the Church? As smoky, bloody, and horrific as that day was, were we as the Church fit to set Him forth in the midst of it? Or was the Lord absent on that gut-wrenching day, with no desire to speak to our nation?

What of the moral condition of our country? What of the rise of Islam within our own borders? What of the multitudinous issues and plights that flood the airwaves? I’m not suggesting a meticulous, anxiety stricken pursuit of understanding every detail in this hour. I’m asking, who is bearing the word of the Lord? Who is abiding in the continuum of Biblical thinking that can only be given when we’ve entered into the prophetic office of Jesus Christ? What is He saying, saints? Have we really got a jealousy for the hearing and knowing of His great heart? If we’ve given ourselves to lesser voices, it is only because we have not been willing to step into the great calling to set Him forth, and that is a calling, in the first and last analysis, that can only be carried out through those who have been redeemed. The platform of a conversation with your co-worker is just as crucial as the platform of an internationally recognized preacher. But what’s being given on Christian T.V.? And what’s being given to our co-workers and neighbors? Are we bearing the very testimony of Jesus Christ, or are we playing paper-rock-scissors with opinions and hypotheses? Failing to hear and deliver His own word, we fail to live as the Church.

We’ve got to go back to the place of prayer and worship, and the place of a radical study and meditation upon the Scriptures. We have a mandate to set Him forth, but to settle for human opinion regarding Him, or regarding the events in our generations, is to drop the ball entirely. He is jealous to raise up a nation of priests, those whose hearts are utterly before Him, loyal to His own perspective, and willing to set Him forth as He is, no matter what consequences will result.

Lord, take the weak souls that we are, and consume us with the fire and truth of Your great heart. Let us hear Your voice in this wilderness, and privilege us to set forth Your mercies and judgments in this pivotal hour. Amen.

“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.” -Ps. 51.1

The man who comes to the truest consciousness of his own depravity will be the one to cry out from the deepest place for a total cleansing from God. David the King and psalmist of Judah, after a massive moral collapse, was faced with the word of the prophet Nathan, and the depth of conviction was such that it resulted in a cry for mercy that brought down a speedy answer from heaven. Isn’t the grit of David remarkable? Isn’t it noteworthy how he responds and returns so wholeheartedly?

We tend to fall into one of two traps when our faults are pointed out. On the one hand, we are overcome with embarrassment and shame, and go through extended cycles of remorse and condemnation, wondering how sorry we must feel before the Lord will actually extend mercy to us. On the other hand, we stick our chests out in denial or defense, accusing the bringer of the word of some fault of his own in hopes of shirking our own responsibility before God.

David had a remarkable gift. He had a positive audacity, a repentant grit, and I’m convinced that it had to do with his own deep-seated consciousness that as a man, he could produce nothing without heavenly aid.

Spurgeon writes of David in this event:

My revolts, my excesses, are all recorded against me; but, Lord erase the lines. Draw thy pen through the register. Obliterate the record, though now it seems engraven in the rock for ever; many strokes of thy mercy may be needed, to cut out the deep inscription, but then thou hast a multitude of mercies, and therefore, I beseech thee, erase my sins.

…. The hypocrite is content if his garments be washed; but the true suppliant cries, “wash me.” The careless soul is content with a nominal cleansing, but the truly-awakened conscience desires a real and practical washing, and that of a most complete and efficient kind. “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.”

(Charles Spurgeon, A Treasury of David; on Ch. 51, p. 450; Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1881)

David was deceived and in grave error in the committing of particular sins, and there was a haze over his heart. The prophet came and seared the veil with a burning sword, declaring “You are the man!” (2 Sam. 12)

David heard the convicting word about his sins, but he heard something further and deeper than that. We could say that in his inner-ear he heard the prophet declare, “You are man.” In other words, not only are you the one who has committed offenses against God, but you are dust, your life is a vapor, and unless you cry out from that place, you may have your reputation restored among men, but you will not know the joy of My salvation.

Rather than tucking tail and running in light of this revelation, he faced the One he had sinned against. “Against You and You only have I sinned…” Rather than looking for prosperity in his political career or hoping for a restored reputation, he cried out for a cleansing of the deepest kind.

The guilt is intolerable; it must not only be softened and diminished but must be eliminated completely: blotted out, washed away, made to disappear from the sight of God. The petitioner knows “that the removal of this intolerable thing cannot be his own work but only God’s: a divine blotting out, cleansing, and washing away…” (K. Barth, CD 4/1, 579)

(PSALMS 1-59: A Continental Commentary, Hans Joachim-Kraus; Fortress Press, p. 502)

David was not content with a surface brushing. He cried out for a new heart, his spirit had been broken, and he knew that from that place of true contrition, God would not despise Him.

David experienced the Gospel before the apostles ever declared it. David experienced the cross before it had been preached. His was not a desire to have embarrassment removed or his name held high, it was a gut-cry for redemption, and he knew that he would be met with mercy in that cry, for the God to whom he turned is the One who desires ultimate restoration.

One of my friends once said, “If you haven’t cried out about being a man, you’ve yet to cry out.”

May we come into this Davidic grit, this grace to turn quickly to the God of mercy, to lean entirely into His heart, and to be transformed and made true “in the innermost parts.”

By Jerry Bolton

Recently on Facebook, I posted a video of Dr. John Piper responding to the question “How should Christian friends respond to a friend who has entered a homosexual relationship and moved to a church that accepts it?”. During the discussion that followed, I realized there’s something much deeper at stake, namely, “How should Christian friends respond to a friend who claims to know and follow Christ but has made a truce with their sin?“. Ultimately, “Holy Ostracism” isn’t about homosexuality in particular, it’s about any mode of sin that we might make habit and be unrepentant of.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 ESV
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people– not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler–not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

The answer? It depends on the person, and what they claim. In both cases, we love them.

If they don’t claim to be a Christian – to know and follow Jesus – we love them. In this case, loving them means that we (among other things) seek to propose (not impose) the Gospel; that God became Man, lived a perfect life, and was crucified by his enemies to save and deliver and redeem them… and arose again 3 days later to prove all of the above.

If they claim to be a Christian – to know and follow Jesus – we love them. In this case, loving them means that we do many things (worship together, “do life” together, bear each other’s burdens, serve Christ together, etc). It also means that, rather than sharing the Gospel with them, we hold them accountable to their claim OF it.

What does this accountability look like? Well, obviously, it’s rooted in relationship. If someone claims Christ and avoids his body (the Church), that’s a separate problem (equally grievous, but separate). So, assuming they’re in relationship with other believers – in this case, you – what does holding them accountable look like?

Simply, it looks like loving them enough to challenge them, question them, confront them, and rebuke them for their sin. Always gently, always in love, always with Truth (ie. the Word of God), always patiently and helpfully. It also looks like committing what Piper calls “holy ostracism” eventually.

Titus 3:10-11 ESV
As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

Holy ostracism is something that, prayerfully, we do when someone refuses to deal with their sin (or acknowledge it as such despite the clear teaching of Scripture). It’s not something that happens overnight, it happens in response to a pattern of stubborn and selfish love for sin – a love for sin that eclipses love for Saviour and His Name & Glory. It looks like a severance of relationship because it is – it sounds like this: “We can’t be friends anymore until you either stop claiming to be a Christian, or repent and begin the process of making war with the sin you prize.”

Quite frankly, I have some friends who – because of the way they live – need to stop claiming they know and follow Jesus. They are hypocrites to the n’th degree and, much more than that, their “peace” and “truce” with their sin declares to the world that the Saviour doesn’t save. For this reason and others, “ostracism” is what scripture prescribes for that kind of circumstance.

Of course, I also have many other friends who claim to know and follow Jesus and their lives show it. Not in perfection, but in constantly moving forward and dealing with their sinfulness.

2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 ESV
If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

If someone habitually and stubbornly refuses to deal with – for example – their pride (aka self-idolatry), they need to be held accountable and consider how, and IF, that is acceptable for a follower of Jesus. We present them with loving rebuke and correction – as brothers, not enemies – and if they consistently refuse to see the problem or to move forward against it, we break fellowship (and lovingly give them the ultimatum above). The rebuke is always loving, always geared toward restoration and reconciliation with God.

To refuse to help others in this way (I believe) weakens churches, weakens believers, and gives plenty of weight to outsiders’ charges of meaningful hypocrisy amongst Christians. There is nothing to be gained by refusing to break fellowship with the unrepentant, and much to be gained from “handing them over to Satan”.

1 Timothy 1:18-20 ESV
This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Obviously, one must be in a place in this person’s life to know about their habits and their patterns of living – this of course means that to be in a position to do ‘holy ostracism’, you must be in a place from which to ostracize. Of course, this is complicated by the way that things like Facebook and Twitter make friends who, in past ages, would have been more “stranger” and “acquaintance” than “friend” something much more. From the wonders of social networking, people’s lives are on display, and their attitudes and sinfulness with it. We don’t have to look far anymore to see “friends” who are pregnant (or have impregnated) outside of wedlock, or living with someone they’re not married to, or carrying on with a lifestyle of drunkenness and debauchery… all while claiming to be “Christian”. The trick with this is that although we might have the data, we don’t have the relationship and thus, holy ostracism’s goal (restoration to God) is unattainable in such loose contexts – not to mention we aren’t close enough to them to know if they’re dealing with their sin, repentant and putting themselves under spiritual discipline. It is this which leads me to believe that holy ostracism is something reserved for honest-to-goodness real life contexts where not only will it actually have meaning, but where its purpose can actually be worked out through the division of relationship. This hints at something at the heart – holy ostracism isn’t something done entirely for the sake of the person being ostracized. Why? Simply because holy ostracism isn’t always helpful for the person being ostracized. If it were, we could say that was the reason behind it. Really though, doing ‘holy ostracism’ is about God – it is always helpful for the name of Christ and for the collective integrity of those who claim His Name.

Matthew 18:15-17 ESV
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

We don’t cut off lightly, but we must do it when someone claims to follow Jesus but lives habitually in a “backslidden” state of habitually not battling the flesh, not battling pride, not battling selfishness, not battling their natural, sinful impulses. Believers are marked by war – against sin, against self, against the flesh, against pride, against lust, against everything that arrays itself against our God and Saviour. Those who claim to believe but live in contradiction need to be confronted with the witness their life gives and called to repentance – and if they refuse to agree with God and turn from their wicked ways – they need to either stop claiming to believe, or they need to be subjected to holy ostracism.

Jerry Bolton’s personal blog Resonance of Reforming can be found at http://www.jerrybolton.com