31.03.2006
Introduction
Many people in the church today feel cut off from God. They may not come straight out with this, but the way they pray/speak etc. shows it. Some (see study 4) neglect of the name “Jesus”, others speak of “God” in a depersonalising way avoidong “Father”. A final group love the name “Jesus” but seem to have forgotten he has a Father. All these are symptoms of a heart distance from God. The one symptom that concerns us tonight is the fear of authority figures in the church- pastors fear elders, people are intimidated by pastors etc.(JY P. A. example)
This fear contradicts the access of approach we have to God in Christ, Ephesians 2:18 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Psalm 9:10 10 Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
[Psalm 91:14 14 “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.]
Psalm 27:7-10 [7 Hear my voice when I call, O Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. 8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Saviour.]10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
A Serious Heart Condition
If there is serious confusion in the church about who God is, this reflects confusion about who we are. There is a lack of depth of meditation on the Word, a true hunger to delve into the Word, resulting in a failure to receive a revelation by the Spirit of who the Triune God is. [This has brought about an inability by people to know who to call on in the Godhead and a consequent fear of man.] We are in a time like that spoken of by Amos, Amos 8:11 11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.” The only solution to this confusion is a heart revelation of God by his Word.
[2 Timothy 3:16,17 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.]
Hebrews 4:12 12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
If Christians are confused about their own hearts reading the scripture will have little impact. I used to quote Jeremiah 17:9 “9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” to try and explain what was wrong with beleivers.
I recognise now that this is a wrong use of scripture. God has actually given us a heart transplant. Ezekiel 36:26 26” I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”. Our real problem is not that we need a new heart but that our hearts are deceived.
Hebrews 3:12,13 12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
It is impossible to have Jeremiah’s deceitful heart and Ezekiel’s soft heart at the same time, but we can have a “hardening” of our hearts. When believers see God the Father in the image of their own hardened heart they will avoid the scriptures because they feel it will be painful and unfruitful. This is a confusion, God the Father is not hardened towards us but close to us all,
[Ephesians 2:18 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.]
Ephesians 4:6 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Acts 17:28 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
There is an intimate relationship between us and our creator but people still feel forsaken. (Charles Slack, “God hates them” comment.) The origin of this forsakenness can be traced back to the beginning.
The Punishing God
The clearest early example of believing that God is a harsh punishing God is Cain. After Cain murdered Abel God sentenced him to be driven from the land,
Genesis 4:10-12 10 The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”
Cain enters into trauma, Genesis 4:13 13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear.”
He was not the first one to experience banishment from God’s presence, Adam and Eve had the terrifying experience of being driven out of the safety of Eden.
Genesis 3:23,24 [So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.]
Cain had heard this story from his parents, and he inherited his father’s fear of what it meant to be away from God’s presence and to work the soil fruitlessly. This fear was passed on to Cain and it terrorises him because he does not see God’s discipline as correction but only as punishment.
In spite of all God’s exhortations for people to acknowledge their sin and to receive His mercy, people still do not do so. They are unable to because through Adam they believe Satan.
Genesis 5:3 tells us 3 “Adam …had a son in his own likeness, in his own image”
All of Adam’s children are in his likeness. Adam hid in shame and guilt fearing a judgemental, vindictive and punishing God. This father image actually belongs to the devil.
Jesus said to the Pharisees, John 8:44 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
It is not only the Pharisees however who are of the devil.Matthew 13:24,26,38,39 24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil….
When the devil spoke to Adam and Eve he sowed lies into them, these lies germinate as the children of Satan’s promise. The children of the devil are the descendants of the promise he made to Adam and Eve. This is all of us before we were born anew (Eph 2:1- 3).
A Multitude of fathers – no true Father
What was the basic promise Satan made to Adam and Eve?
Genesis 3:4 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The basic lie Adam, Eve and all their offspring have accepted is that God-given deprivation from God is bad for you, it is, or leads to, a judgement. Adam did not believe God’s Word that forsaking the tree of knowledge would be life – giving. This fear of deprivation as a judgement means we allow others to control us.
The serpent led Adam to doubt that he was already like his Father. It seemed to mean nothing to him that he stood at the head of the human race and would be, like God, the father of all humanity. Adam had every comfort and blessing in the material and relational world, the one thing he was lacking was the capacity to be a father to himself. The Satanic lie was that he could beget himself in his own image. Adam substituted God’s Fathering/Fatherly presence in the authority of his Word for his own knowledge of good and evil. Adam was trying to create his own self-image.
The attempt to create our self-image is what is driving popular culture and many contemporary forms of the Church. Instead of taking on the image of the Son of God, services, programmes etc. are conformed to a Yuppie, baby –boomer, Gen – X or whatever image.
Self-propagation is at the heart of evil desire. James warns us,
James 1:13-15 13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Having abandoned their heavenly Father people must look for earthly fathers that fit their image of what a perfect father would be like FOR THEM. People crave spiritual fathers but they never find them. This is the tyranny of idolatry. the second commandment warns us,
Exodus 20:4 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
Idolatry is always promiscuous because in the sphere of idolatry you will never find a perfect father image. In the idol – world, “Fatherhood” is always in the plural. This is part of the judgment of God in idolatry.
1 Corinthians 8:5,6 (NIV) 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
Humanity is locked into a tyranny of seeking to satisfy a multitude of authorities upon whom their status and security depends [– this is pride]. Pastors are trying to satisfy the elders, employees try to please employers, congregations are bound to pleasing strong charismatic pastors etc. When men fear the punishment of other men they have forgotten our brotherhood in Christ (Matt 23:8), give humans the authority of the Father and live in constant threat of forsakenness.
Jesus and the Seal of God
The New Testament contains many assurances God will never forsake us.
[John 6:39 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
John 10:28,29 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.]
John 6:37 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
Jesus’ assurance,“I will never drive away”, is the direct opposite to what happened to Adam, Eve and Cain in Genesis Chapters 3 and 4.
God will never remove his seal of approval from his children.
Ephesians 4:30 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
[2 Corinthians 1:22 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.]
Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6:35 but human voices keep telling us that we are hungry and thirsty and that in order to get closer to God we have to buy CDs, attend seminars, read books etc. All this does is set up a vicious cycle.
People place conditions on others to satisfy their hunger and thirst e.g. God will not bless you unless….whereas God gives us an unconditional commitment that He is the all sufficient One. There is a terrible human fear of coming into a place of exclusion, a situation of deprivation, either material or spiritual, if we do not do what others tell us.
This present arrangement of running here and there for spiritual fulfillment is part of a judgement of God on affluent western nations, all of which are in spiritual decline. If a nation does not take care of the physical and material needs of the poor, God will give it over to spiritual poverty, out of that an industry is formed where advertising creates the market it pretends to satisfy.
John 6:26 26 “Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.”
The people seemed to be following Jesus, but in their hearts they wanted their physical deprivation satisfied rather seeking spiritual nourishment.
1 Peter 4:17 17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
There is a judgment today in the house of God but people are not responding to it as a righteous judgment designed to purify the saints. (They are like Adam and Cain, who refused to recognise the justice of God.) Instead of going to the Lord to ask what is wrong, the Church responds with more programmes which keep the people hungry and returning for ever more programmes etc. – it is like “empty calories”, going to McDonalds and feeling hungry afterwards because your true nutritional needs are not satisfied.
The church seems to have a pre- resurrection level of faith.
John 6:5 5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
The Church is asking, “What program, books, CDs etc shall be buy in order to keep the people coming and satisfy them”.
What God gives, he gives freely,
[John 6:33 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”]
Jesus commanded Matthew 10:8 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Things have changed. “How it must hurt the Lord to to see evangelists more concerned about record, tape and book sales than reaching lost humanity. What small fortunes are being made through the promotion and sale of religious merchandise in church circles. We have done far more than commercialize Christmas – we have commercialized the very Godhead!…We freely receive; we expensively sell.” (David Wilkerson)
After feeding the multitude Jesus warned,
John 6:27 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
What sort of Father do we believe in?
Luke 11:11-13 11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
The Father gives the Holy Spirit freely, but the evidence of spiritual deprivation in the church suggests leads people to think he is worse than earthly fathers.
It does not have to be like this -
Acts 9:31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
No matter what the elders think, no matter what the pastor, people, boss etc thinks, if we are walking in the fear of the Lord rather than the fear of human authorities, we will have the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
This is what Jesus promised,
John 14:18 18 I will not leave you as orphans (NKJV ‘comfortless’); I will come to you.
To be comfortless is to experience oneself fatherless or to be without a master. This was the problem of Adam , Cain and the many Christians.
It was not how Jesus experienced the Father,
John 1:32- 34 -32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.”
John had been told that the Holy Spirit would descend and remain on Jesus. Therefore if the Holy Spirit remains on (seals) Jesus, he was not left comfortless, desolate or forsaken.
Peter makes the same point about the continuous divine favour on Jesus in terms of anointing,
Acts 10:38 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
The anointing was with Jesus which means that God is with Him. The anointing of the Spirit occupies in him the place is normally given by men to the authority of the human conscience or heart.
Signs, wonders and miracles are a consequence of the presence of God with Jesus, not the primary actuality of the presence . We need to pay attention to Jesus as the anointed one rather than to signs that may or may not be evidences of God’s presence. The anointing meant to Jesus that he was loved by the Father,
[Ephesians 1:5,6 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.]
Luke 3:22 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Living in the anointing of the Father’s pleasure (the Spirit) meant Jesus would not accept glory or teaching or testimony (John 5:34) from men. [John 6:15 (NIV) 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.] Neither would Jesus teach himself about the things of God because He exclusively kept God as His Father.
Deliverance from Father- Idolatry
We have in us the same anointing that Jesus had,
[1 John 2:20 (NIV)20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.]
1 John 2:27 (NIV) 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
This anointing is the presence of the Spirit of Fatherly favour that was on Jesus.
[Romans 8:16 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.] Galatians 4:6 6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
When Christians allow men to teach them about the things of God they revert to the problem of multiple fathers and idolatry. Men in authority will always fail those “under them” and confuse lead the submissive to confuse this with a “severe” image of the Fatherhood of God. Caught in a vicious circle and may never mature (ex’s. Logos Foundation etc.)
Like Cain, David felt his punishment (for murder and adultery) was too great to bear. Therefore he prays.
Psalm 51:11 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
[Unlike Adam, Eve and Cain, David confessed his sin and accepted God’s correction in the death of his child.] Over the years Christians have preached, prayed and sung this part of the psalm. But we are not in David’s position. This was true under the Old Covenant but is not the same now under the New Covenant. The Holy Spirit of promise (Acts 2:33; Eph 1:13) conveys the permanence of our salvation.
When as his children we are judged by God our Father (a revelation David could not have), this is not an act of exclusion from his presence (wrath) but a participation in his life. We cannot discern this by how we feel God is feeling about us. It is not about our relationship with ourselves. The anointing that remains in us depends solely on our relationship with Jesus, he is the sole object of faith.
John 3: 36 34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”
The Cross of the Father’s Favour
All this sounds good and well, but there is something missing. Between the Father revelation in the baptism and ministry of Jesus and where we are today is the experience of the cross. The background to the words about “the beloved son” that Jesus hears at his baptism is Genesis 22- the sacrifice of Isaac. This story has caused endless discussion amongst Jewish writers. Could the child of promise be sacrificed?
Genesis 22:1,2 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
The first temptation which would have assailed Abraham’s conscience when he was commanded to sacrifice his son was that God was punishing him by taking away Isaac and that He would not fulfil the promise. Nevertheless he believed.
According to the writer of Hebrews, Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac because he believed in the resurrection.
Hebrews 11:17-19 17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Many Christians seem unable to sacrifice the child of promise e.g. their ministry, because they do not believe in the resurrection power of God. When a threatening authority figure approaches in a judgemental manner (police car starts to follow you, pastor/elder wants to talk to you) the natural response of the human conscience is to think “what have I done wrong?” instead of asking “What is God’s better purpose in this?”.
This principle of losing to gain is throughout scripture, Hebrews 11:35 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection
The sacrifice of Isaac is a type of the cross. By common use we have forgotten how shocking the cross is.
1 Corinthians 1:23 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
Because the guilty person internally regulates themselves according to the testimony of their own heart or conscience, under fear of deprivation they ask “What have I done wrong?” Jesus however was eternally regulated by the Spirit (John 3:34), this kept him in communion with the Father and without any anticipation of wrath. Therefore Jesus asks on the cross, “Why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). His conscience is clear, his heart is completely flesh (Ezek 36:26) he is not deceived by the sin of the world. For that reason the Holy Spirit always remained upon him.
Being baptised in the Holy Spirit means not being in the condition of wrath. Jesus testimony is true, there is no reason in him for the Father to forsake him.
Judgment on the conscience of a confessing sinner can be propitiated, but there is a situation where God must forsake a sinner, denying sin cannot be atoned for. There is no possible deliverance from the wrath of God where sin is denied.
John 15:6 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
Adam could not cope, Cain’s punishment was more than he could bear, but there is an authenticity in Jesus’ cry, “Why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) that is in no other human experience- even in the fires of hell (in the condition of the lost).
God mitigated the pain of exclusion for Adam and Eve by giving them skins as a covering, and he soothed Cain’s fear by putting on him a mark of protection. These things conveyed something of his fatherly care. The Father was able to do this because he was always looking towards the cross, Romans 3:25 (NIV) 25 God presented him (Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
But the Father did not mitigate the pain for Jesus. When Jesus was on the cross he endured the fullness of the wrath of God and in that fullness there is no remnant of the image of God as Father. Whereas Adam, Eve and Cain thought they endured the fullness of God’s wrath, Jesus actually did. The human heart hardened by the deceitfulness of sin thinks God is a hardened, heartless Father..
Romans 2:4-54 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? 5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
Jesus never believed such hard things about his Father, so after enduring our deprivation he necessarily entered into the fullness of the divine comfort – the Fathering of the resurrection (Rom 1:4; Acts 13:33).
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (NIV) 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
If church authorities know of these things and find someone in sin, they will approach him/her with contrition about their own sinfulness and with humility, compassion and a will to restore. Instead of judgment and fear, there would be love and repentance. People need to know that propitiation i.e. F/fatherly pleasure is not to be sought in ministry/tithing/submission etc. but only in Christ.
Two Images of the Church
The Godhead and the Church are being united into one building with Jesus as the cornerstone.
Ephesians 2:18-22 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. 19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
The building God is bringing together is not cold or judgemental but a warm and welcome abode. Our real problem is not whether people can punish us in the church (or outside) – but can we bear the punishment if it is the will of God? The concept of being forsaken by God is that God’s punishment will be unbearable. This is the deception, but it is one that has to be faced many times over. ((His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) John 9:22cf. John 7:13)
What sort of a Father- image is the church often portraying?
In a passage about God’s wrath, Paul describes the terrible state of Gentile behaviour,
Romans 1:29-31 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Tragically, these things, which are signs of being under the wrath of God, can actually be found in the Church. This means (God forbid!) the church is often presenting an image of God as a wrathful Father instead of imaging a merciful Father.
Only when we escape the fear Cain inherited from his fallen father, can we abide in Jesus’ love instead of abiding in the opinions of the people .
A Decision to be Made by Many
God told Saul to totally destroy the Amalekites, out of fear of the people he transgressed the commandment of the Lord and obeyed their voice by keeping the best animals (1 Sam 15:24). Yet when the prophet Samuel arrived Saul said,
1 Samuel 15:13 13 “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.”
Through fear of being deposed from their position many in the church have eventually come to believe their own lies. The real question is, can we bear the punishment of exclusion from a position of favour in the church (and the world) if this is the will of God i.e. the Father? The answer is in Jesus.