WTFMT #56 28 AUG 18 HGM

WILDERNESS TRUTHS FOR MODERN TIMES-56

TEXT: "He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" (Galatians 3:5)

 

I. DON'T BE PUSHY

 

A. A pushy spirit is sometimes manifested by a preacher ministering the Word. This happens more often in youths than in elders. Many believers minister a pushy spirit instead of "ministering the Spirit" as Paul mentions here in Galatians 3:5.

B. They are wanting to thrust something upon you by force. They cannot rest in the Spirit's work. They want to cram that message, that truth, that word, down your throat with their own fists. "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. (Matthew11:10)

C. Many Believers take this verse and say, "we must be violent, in our Christian walk, kick Satan around, and kick in the doors of heaven. This is so wrong on many levels. God does not want us to take the kingdom of God (not Heaven) through violent forceful means over Satan. Christian violence? But this is not consistent with the Word of God.

D. Believers "minister by the Spirit," not by violence or force. They minister love not violence to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus here is teaching that the Kingdom of God is suffering because of the violent forceful, pushy means His disciples used to lead ones into His kingdom. They are sincerely desirous and anxious that you receive it, and they are furiously attempting to get it in you. But that is not God's way.

E. We need to be as the messengers sent forth bearing the words and ways of God and not our words and ways. "And I sent messengers out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying," (Deuteronomy 2:26) We must come to our brothers and sister in the LORD, our friends, and even our enemies in and with peace, not simply with words of peace which may be covering up a striving heart and ungodly motives.

F. We are not supposed to be like those who say with their mouth, "I forgive," but never have such worthy words in their heart. Don't put up a front. Our forward progression in God will depend upon a "frontless" life. It will do us spiritual harm to live our Christian life with an inward habit of disguise or camouflage. This habit will eventually bring us before God in a disguise. We will wear our disguise when we read the Bible and when we pray.

G. Disguises are fabricated for self-preservation and personal gain. We need to quit catering to our self-life. We need to leave off our disguises and take off our camouflage of religion and let God into our weakness, our ugliness, our short temper, our whatever. His strength and work of grace are waiting and ready for us. We need to let Him provide that which we need.

 

II. PARTING THOUGHTS

 

A. Once we make the discovery of His work of grace the rest, peace, and the ease Jesus speaks of we find, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:29-30) His qualities will begin to become part of our character. They will become our true character without any disguises or camouflage.

B. We will not even have to be antagonistic against the devil. It is very ease and convenient to blame Satan for our short coming and failure to walk in obedience to the LORD. Satan made me think those thoughts, made me say these nasty things to my brother or sister in the LORD, or friends, or even my enemies. Satan made me to become disobedient to the LORD.

C. This type of understanding, in most cases, is simply a cover-up for spiritual weakness and lack of confidence, faith, authority, and power. Satan knows what that type of a person is doing better than the person himself knows. The enemy is not frightened by such threats.

TEACHING VS TRAINING

At the end of the 1960s there was a shift from evangelism to teaching in the church and of course with the increase of Bible teachers we now have more false Bible teachers. Remember a false Bible teacher is still a Bible teacher just like a false prophet is still a prophet only they speak falsely. Today we fill stadiums, coliseums, and arenas with Bible teachers of the day, but to what end? If you wanted to be someone in the church then you had to become a great teacher. Rarely are evangelists mentioned if they are they are mentioned in passing and only about them teaching some new doctrine or fad like the word of faith crowd started by Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland, and their disciples, which destroyed the church. Now please do not get me wrong I have nothing against teaching the word of God after all Jesus is our great teacher and I teach, but it seemed after the west coast Jesus movement fizzled out the church went to teaching to know God instead of a experiential based knowledge. Again teaching is important, but teaching is not training. The present day model of a church service beginning in the early 1970s and still current today in most churches was: three fast ones and a slow one (songs), some announcements, takes up the offering (to the tune of the doxology or some special number), teaching a good sermon from the Scriptures (rarely a message there is a huge difference), an altar call, and then off to the local restaurant for lunch. We find this same format (except for lunch) in churches if they have a mid week service. The focal point of the service is the teaching (should be the LORD), but remember we go to church not to receive a blessing, but be a blessing. I hear many Christian say if I do not go to the mid week service I will not get my fix, my shot in the arm to carry me to Sunday, I just cannot make it. Well this is just wrong thinking church is not about us, but it is about learning something (in the teaching) that we can share with our family, our neighbours, our colleagues at work and tell them about Jesus Christ. This my friend is called evangelism telling people in the world about the good news of the Gospel, telling people about Jesus. But did you know less than 5% of Christians in America in the last 12 months have shared their testimony (how Jesus saved them and cleaned up their life) or even shared the simple salvation message of Jesus Christ and the Gospel? No wonder the church is off her rails the people who are to share the good news of the Gospel are not equipped nor prepared to take the message to their neighbor, even unto the ends of the world, yet churches are full, big mega churches dot the land, Bible Schools are packed with students who want to gain knowledge of God, but are not sure about the experiences of God. Most have never heard of this concept (God working in our lives) while the people of America and the world shuffle further and further into lunacy and craziness. In the Psalms David said, "He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel." (Psalm 103:7) Here God could not reveal or manifest His ways to the Children of Israel only His acts. Apparently there is more than one way for God to express or reveal Himself to us and I am here to tell you teaching only gets us to knowledge about Him, a mental assent that satisfies our curiosity and feelings (usually from what others write), but there is a deeper way God desires to express Himself, a direct revelation of God. As teaching is to support evangelism training supports the revelation of God. What is missing in the church today is training. When was the last time you went to a Sunday or Wednesday service and was trained to do something for the LORD? Trained to share the Scriptures, trained to help someone with a problem in their lives? No teaching is the mode we see today, but teaching is an academic model patterned from secular education where the professor (the pastor in this case) stands up behind the pulpit and delivers a good sermon to make everyone feel good imparting some knowledge. As I said teaching is to support evangelism, but the evangelism piece of ministry has been lost since the early 1970s. Jesus said "go" (or in the Greek "as you are going"), but we stay and encourage others to go. Going seems to be too hard, too uncomfortable, and too dangerous in which they are, but all of that never will change the mind of Jesus for us nor His plan for reaching the world. No I will sit right here in church and hear another sermon from the pastor and gain more knowledge. My friend we will never know anything about God unless we can allow Him to train us because in the training is found the revelation of who God is. A personal knowing of God's nature and character resulting from the training from the hard times and the good times, from the inward reflection and soul searching that is required of God to know Him. I think at this point we need to define two words. The first word is "teach." Teaching (adj) is the act of passing on knowledge, to teach is (v) the action of teaching. Where training (adj) or train (v) is to develop the mind and character of someone. We will never get to God with only teaching (why the church is in trouble) we must be trained in the "ways" of God to be able to understand His "ways" if not we will only know the theoretical aspects of Him and never know His heart. The push is for the knowledge of another man's revelation in books, experiences, and teachings which will never take us to God. Now God's training can be painful as He takes us deeper and deeper into to the wilderness to train us. Even Jesus found this out the hard way. In Matthew we read, "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: 17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:16-17) Even with the Father speaking, the heavens opening up, and the Holy spirit descending that was not enough for Jesus to start His ministry. He (Jesus) had to undergo some training in the wilderness. And I ask you is the servant greater than the Master? Matthew continues, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness . . . . " (Matthew 4:1) so too for our lives. I think we have enough teaching. What will I gain if I hear another sermon on something I have heard many times before? Oh it may have a different approach or a new twist, but the divine thought and expression from the word of God is the same truth and it works this way, but now training will develop us in ways teaching cannot. Training develops our mind (like teaching they are similar), but training develops our character and our soul. Training develops faith, unity, a singleness of purpose in us. When I was in the military in operational units in the US Navy we would train and train and train. And if we got tired of training we would train some more. Training has a critical purpose it develops faith in our equipment. It develops a boldness and assurance in us that words can never touch. How will we know our gas mask works? Well we have to go to the gas chamber, get gassed, put on our gas mask and clear it, then and only then will we know our gas mask works. The same is true with any piece of our equipment. Just teaching will never do it. We can have classes all day on our gas mask, on our weapons, on the enemy from some of the very best instructors in the world, but if there is never any application experience we will never really know if our equipment, our self, and our friends are battle ready. The principle in God as in the military, is training with our equipment develops faith in the equipment and each other. In a company run we run as fast as the slowest man, why? Because this tells everyone in the company if we get dinged in battle no one will be left behind. And if we have no faith in our equipment or each other then we will be defeated in battle. I will let that sink in. No wonder the church is on the run it lacks faith developed from lack of training and lack of relationship. In Proverbs we read, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) Notice this verse did not say, "teach up a child." Why? Teaching only knowledge will not keep them from departing. You know there is a huge difference between teaching a child and training a child. Teaching is the art of passing on knowledge have it be one on one or in a classroom setting. While training is application based, trial and error, hands on learning, how things operate, when enough is really enough when to speak and when not to speak and so much more. Teaching will never provide skills development only training. We talk with our kids and say we are teaching them how to be good little Christians, but in reality they are watching our behavior and our actions to see what we have learned. Only what we have really learned can we pass on to our kids. Sadly too often it is the old, "do not do as I do, but do as I say." If we truly train (not teach) our kids in the way they are to go then it will be a part of their character and nature and my friend it will then be extremely hard for them to depart from the way God has for them to go. There will be a gnawing in their heart that will draw them back again and again. It is not a matter of our teaching or their ability to learn, but did we train our kids through personal example and a Godly life style? Have we developed a faith and a belief in God in them so that no matter what they see or feel their training will hold them in the heat of the battle? Teaching or training it is our choice. The church needs to involve people in the service again and provide some application based hands on knowledge that will develop them is ways where they can come to know God not only through knowledge, but through revelation which is God's measuring stick of man. Written by David Stahl