Bringing Forth Iron
Conclusion
In part one of this message, we
saw that when God calls us to be a Christian, He is in fact calling us to a
life of suffering and self-denial, so that His life can grow in us and
eventually be manifested through us. We also saw that because the apostle Paul
knew this, the need for suffering was an integral part of
his preaching and teaching. Indeed, he had some harsh words for those who claim
to be Christians, but who refuse to take up their cross on a daily basis.
Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk
according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told
you, and now tell you even weeping, {that they are} enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction,
whose god is {their} appetite, and {whose} glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.
Philippians 3:17‑19 (NAS)
Paul said those who refuse to live
a life of self denial are "enemies
of the cross of Christ" and their end will be destruction. That is, eternal destruction. Notice carefully
what makes a person an enemy of the cross. He didn't say they were murderers or
drunkards or rapists or gamblers or drug addicts. Nor did he say they were
gossipers or backbiters or envious. He said they were people who "set
their minds on earthly things". They were people who followed their own
appetites.
All that's necessary for Christians to become enemies of the
cross—and by extension an enemy of Jesus—is that we keep our minds on earthly
things and pursue our own appetites. This is why Jesus warned us not to try and
save our lives. This is why Paul said
those who are "carnally minded" and who live "according to the
flesh" will die.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live
according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is
life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not
subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please
God...Therefore, brethren, we are debtors‑‑not to the flesh, to live
according to the flesh. For if you
live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to
death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Romans 8:5‑8 & 12-3 (NKJ)
Following our appetites, setting
our minds on earthly things, being carnally minded, or living according to the
flesh, is evil because it blocks
God's life from coming forth in us. This is why God hates our life; this is why
He wants to nail it to the cross; and this is why suffering is so necessary.
Only through suffering can we be conformed to the image of Jesus.
Of course, suffering is a
universal condition of mankind. All people suffer in this life. Suffering in
and of itself is not necessarily profitable. The thing that determines whether
or not suffering will profit us spiritually is whether or not we are
"exercised" by it.
The writer of Hebrews warns us not
to "despise" the correction and the punishment of God, for it comes
to make us "partakers of his holiness". We should expect to receive
chastening and scourging from the
Father's hand. (Heb. 12:5-6) To be
scourged means to receive severe
punishment—and this is exactly the kind of correction most of us need to break
our stubborn, rebellious wills.
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much
rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily
for a few days chastened us after
their own pleasure; but he for our
profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no
chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Hebrews 9‑11
If we voluntarily endure
suffering, if we willingly submit to the chastening and scourging
of God, our suffering will "profit" us spiritually. But if we moan
and complain about it and resist it, we will defeat the purpose of God in our
lives. Instead of conforming us to the image of the Son, it will harden us and
make us bitter.
We also said there is a remnant of
believers today who understand this truth, and they are trying as best they can
to take up their cross and deny themselves daily. As the result, they are not
in danger of accepting a gospel that tells them they do not have to suffer.
However, we face other dangers—and
one of them is the danger of being conformed to the wrong image of Jesus as a result of listening to ministers who
continually focus on the love of God because they have an aversion to iron. These brethren never teach about spiritual
iron and they never mention the fact that God wants to bring that iron forth in
us. Nor do they tell us that if we want to rule with Messiah in the next age,
we must have that iron.
They don't realize they are
presenting an unbalanced image of
Jesus to us—and that an unbalanced image of Jesus is a false image. They don't realize that a constant emphasis on love
will never produce iron in us, and
that it will in fact produce a strong aversion to it. Those who over-emphasize
love are quick to point us to passages which support their view. They say,
didn't Paul tell us to speak the truth "in love" (Eph. 4:15)? Didn't
he say we should walk "with all humility and gentleness, [and] with
patience, showing forbearance to one another in love" (Eph. 4:2 NAS)?
Didn't he tell us to "walk in love" (Eph. 5:2)? And didn't he say we
should "increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all
men" (I. Thess. 3:12)?
Yes he did—and we should already
be walking in that love and manifesting it to those around us. The problem is,
that's not the whole story. The apostles also possessed and manifested spiritual
iron. Since this fact is so often overlooked, we would like to look at some
examples of that iron in action.
Consider the sarcasm of the
apostle James, as he rebukes those in the congregations whose faith has
produced no works. He says: “Thou
believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and
tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?”
(James 2:19-20)
The term “O vain man” is
equivalent to “fool”. So under the unction of the Holy Spirit, James told these
people in a sarcastic manner that their faith was no better than the faith of
demons, and then he called them fools for believing they could have faith
without works. Can we agree that when James called his fellow believers fools
he was manifesting God’s nature? Or was he just in the flesh?
Listen to the harshness of the
apostle Peter, as he describes false teachers: “But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed,
speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in
their own corruption”. (II. Peter
2:12) In modern terms, Peter is calling these people irrational animals who
were born to be caught and destroyed. Can we accept that when Peter said what
he did, he was manifesting God’s character? Or was he was in the flesh?
Can you picture yourself talking
this way about today's false
teachers? Can you imagine yourself telling other Christians that someone like
Benny Hinn is just an animal who was born to be destroyed?
Listen to the rudeness of Stephen,
as he stands before the recognized religious authority of that hour and says: “You stiff necked people, uncircumcised in
heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit...Which of the prophets did
not your fathers persecute?” (Acts
7:51-52)
Telling the leaders of Israel they
were "uncircumcised in heart and ears" and that they do "always
resist the Holy Spirit" was a monumental insult to them. It was the same
as telling them they were heathens in God's eyes. It was like saying they were
not even saved. Can we agree that when Stephen said those things he was
manifesting God’s nature? Or did he just lose his temper?
How about you? Could you stand before any of today's deluded
religious leaders and say what Stephen said? Could you stand before the Kenneth
Copelands or the Joel Osteens of this world and tell them they are
uncircumcised in heart and ears, and that they do always resist the (true) Holy
Spirit?
Listen to the rudeness of Paul,
when talking about Jewish believers who were demanding that Gentile believers
be circumcised. He is so frustrated and upset (in the Spirit) at what these
people are doing he says: "But I,
brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the
stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. Would that those who are
troubling you would even mutilate themselves". (Gal. 5:11‑12 NAS)
He said he wished these Judaizers
from Jerusalem would emasculate themselves! Now I ask you: can you reconcile
these words of Paul with the other things he said about love? Can you reconcile
these words with the "charity" he describes in First Corinthians
chapter thirteen?
Can you agree that when Paul said
he wished some of his fellow Jews would castrate
themselves he was manifesting God’s nature? Can you accept that he was
being led by the Holy Spirit to talk that way? Or do you think Paul was in the
flesh when he said these things?
What about you? Do you believe God
would ever ask you to say something like that about someone?
And if He did, could you do it? If your answer is “No”, then maybe your view of
God's nature is a little lopsided. Maybe you are walking under the influence of
the Dragon.
Consider how rude it was for Jesus
to tell the religious leaders of Israel that they were a “brood of vipers” (Matt. 2:34)
and “hypocrites” (Matt. 5:7). Consider how harsh it was
for Him to look at Peter and say: “...Get
thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence
unto me...” (Matt. 16:23).
Do we realize that statement must
have wrecked Peter that night? Peter loved Jesus. When Jesus said He was going
to be rejected and killed by the leaders of Israel, Peter thought he was
showing the Lord his love and devotion by telling Him He must never let such a
horrible thing happen. The problem was, Peter's emotions were not under the government
of the Holy Spirit, so Satan was able to use them to get Peter to go against
the perfect will of the Father for Jesus—which was that He die on the Cross.
What about you? Do you think the
Spirit of God could ever lead you to
look at someone who loves you, someone who is trying to protect you, but who is
(without knowing it) interfering with God's perfect will for your life, and
say: "Get thee behind me Satan; thou art an offence to me"?
Consider the sarcasm Jesus
exhibits in another place, as He attacks the self-righteousness of the
Pharisees. He says: “...They that are
whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance”. (Mark 2:17) You can almost picture Him holding up fingers with the
quotation marks around “righteous” as He spoke to them, yet He was manifesting
the nature of God.
Consider how harsh the apostle
Peter must have seemed to those who watched in horror, as God wielded His rod
of iron through him to slay a man and wife who were part of the Jerusalem
church. (Acts 5:1-10) Ananias and
Sapphira were not drunkards or murderers or extortioners or drug addicts. All
they did was lie to the apostles about the actual price they got for some land
they sold. But God slew them for that sin—and Peter was the vessel He moved through to execute that judgment.
How could Peter bear to do such a
thing to Ananias and Sapphira? He could be used of God this way because he was
letting the Holy Spirit conform him to the true
image of Christ—the image that is able to manifest both the love and the iron of God.
How about you, brother? How about
you, sister? Could God ever use you
in such a way? Could He ever lead you to announce the death of someone you
know, of someone you love, of someone who's been a part of your fellowship, who
has committed a sin that doesn't seem that wicked?
Consider how rude Paul must have
seemed to those who watched him publicly rebuke Peter for his hypocrisy.
When Peter came to Antioch, I
opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong....When I saw
that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all,
"You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it,
then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
Galatians 2:11&14 NIV
We'll never see anything like this
among today's religious leaders because they see themselves as a special class
of people—like doctors and lawyers—who are exalted above the common man. They will argue among
themselves and talk about each other among themselves, but they will never
argue with each other in front of you.
They will never talk about eachother in
front of me because their first allegiance is not to God or His truth—it's
to that exalted class of people called "the clergy". They will always
try to protect themselves and their fellow religious leaders.
Paul was not this kind of man. His
first allegiance was to Jesus Christ and His truth—and that allegiance produced
spiritual iron in him. That iron sprang into action when he saw how Peter's
hypocrisy was affecting everyone, and realized that it had the potential to
cause them to accept the false gospel the Judaizers had brought from Jerusalem.
It was the iron in Paul that caused him to confront and rebuke Peter right
there in front of everyone
Moreover, it was that same iron
that would later cause him to write the following words to Timothy, his son in
Christ: "Them that sin rebuke before all,
that others also may fear." (I.
Tim. 5:20)
Take a fresh look at the Old
Testament prophets. Consider carefully the things God said and did through these
men. Then think about how they would be judged by today’s Christians. Most of
us would view them as divisive, rude, obnoxious, and lacking in love. Indeed,
if they walked into our fellowships today they would very likely be cast out
and labeled unchristian.
Throughout the Scripture, God's
servants have, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, used sarcasm, irony,
ridicule and harshness as they spoke (or wrote) the messages of the Holy
Spirit. They have confronted and exposed the sin of both the people and the
leaders of Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church. Much of their
ministry was negative and divisive, and they
have often been used by God to pronounce devastating judgment on His own
people. They were in fact, revealing God's iron.
We are not saying that we should
express ourselves this way all the time. There is a time for iron and there is
a time for love. Indeed, there are opportunities each day to demonstrate the
love of God to others. What we are doing is highlighting the fact that when it
comes to manifesting God’s character—which is
the image of the Son—there is more to it than being kind to everyone. Certainly
no one can accuse Jesus, Stephen, Paul, Peter and James of being unkind or of
lacking God's love! These men possessed and shared the love of God with those
around them every day. But they also had iron
worked into their personalities. And because they did, they could say and do
things that today’s Christians can’t relate to or even comprehend.
God wants to bring spiritual iron
forth in us because it takes iron to live a life of self denial and self
discipline. It takes iron to war against Satan, and sin, and self will until we
have achieved complete victory over them.
He also wants to bring iron forth
in us because without it, we will never be able to rule with Him in the next
age. Yet another reason He wants us to have iron is because in the not to
distant future, He's going to pour His wrath out on secular and religious
Babylon.
And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in
heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation,
and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God: For true and righteous
are his judgments: for he hath judged
the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants
at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia...
Revelation 19:1‑3a
When God begins to pour out His
wrath, entire nations are going to be obliterated. Millions and millions of
people are going to die. John said when this happens, those who are "in
heaven" will rejoice. This is more than just a reference to those who have
died physically and are now in the spirit realm. It's also talking about those who are alive and are seated with Christ
in heavenly places. It's talking about believers who are not minding earthly
things. It's talking about believers who are walking in the spirit.
These believers will be able to
say "Alleluia" when they see God pour out His wrath because they will
possess the same kind of spiritual
iron He has. They will be able to say "Alleluia" because they will
have been conformed to the true image
of the Son and they will be one with
God.
How much spiritual iron have we
allowed God to work in our lives? Would we have enough to rejoice if God's wrath were poured out tomorrow and our nation was
destroyed by nuclear terrorist attacks? Could we say "Alleluia" with
those who dwell in heaven? Could we be on God's side and say "true and
righteous are His judgments?"
And what if we had to watch that
wrath come upon those we love: upon our wife or husband, or our children, or
our parents, or our close friends. Would we still be on God's side? Would we be
able to say "true and righteous are His judgments" with those in
heaven?
Sometimes I wonder just how many
of us will even be able to recognize Jesus when He returns. How many of us
realize He’s not coming back as a babe in a manger, or a gentle shepherd, or a
suffering Lamb? How many of us realize He isn’t coming back to reconcile and
save people, but rather, to take
vengeance and destroy those who hate Him and who kill His faithful saints?
Jesus Christ is coming back as a king—and He's not going to put up with any more rebellion from anyone,
anywhere on this planet, anymore. Those of us who are used to doing our own
thing or getting our own way are in for a rude awakening; for when Messiah
returns, He will crush the rebellion of Christians
just as surely as He will crush the rebellion of the nations!
So you see, this matter of
bringing forth iron is extremely important. If we don't have the iron, we can
end up an enemy of the cross, and as a result, be eternally destroyed. If we don't have the iron, we will not be
able to rule with Messiah when He returns. If we don't have the iron, we could
find ourselves on the wrong side of the battle on the Day of the Lord.
Therefore, we need to examine
ourselves and make sure we have not come under the influence of the one who
hates and fears the iron of God.
Selah.
Update On The
Virtual Fellowship Hall
We have decided to open
the room on Saturday evenings at 7:30 pm. (EST), beginning on October 6th. We will try to
be led by the Spirit regarding when to close it. Once again, this will be a
locked room. You will have to type in the password before you can enter.
We decided to make it a locked room because we want this to be a time of true
fellowship and spiritual edification, not one of debate and confusion. There
are a lot of "religious" people roaming around PalTalk who love to
debate and argue about religious issues. The password, and also more details
and instructions about downloading and running the PalTalk program, are
included on the insert of this newsletter.
|
Dan Mace/Zion’s Trumpet RR3
Box 985 Mifflintown,
PA. 17059 717-436-8773 www.zionstrumpetministries.com |