Things Revealed

This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse.

Matthew 12:30 (The Message)

On this issue, there are no shades of gray. We are either with Jesus or against him. Whether overturning tables in the temple, speaking to the woman at the well or warning that “anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me” cannot be his disciple, the choice is always the same. Joshua put it this way: "Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve..."

We tend to forget how significant this choice is. And we can barely comprehend all the life-changing ramifications of choosing Christ. But Jesus knows every one of them, including this one: He knows that not everyone will embrace the choice you’ve made. In fact, many will hate it. And they will hate you for making it. Because for those who are perishing, for those who reject Christ, we are the scent of death. Even if you don't say a word about whom you have chosen, some will be repulsed by you. Somehow, they will know, and they will leave you wondering why they don't like you.

Peter explained it this way: “you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do — living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.” To your friends, your coworkers, even to members of your own family, you are no longer the same. Now, by the choice you've made, something about your life makes them uncomfortable. It's this: You have become the very presence of God in their lives—a living epistle—and the Holy Spirit in you brings conviction like a two edged sword, piercing their hearts and exposing the choices they have made.

We may think you we can work out our differences with those who continue to follow the ways of the world. That maybe, by compromising with them on some things, by keeping our faith to ourselves, by biting our tongue when we ought to speak out, our relationships won't change and our old friends won’t be offended. It would seem, however, that no such compromise is possible. Jesus so much as told us so with this parable:

Suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

We are in a battle to the death. Everything is at stake. And it is the Prince of Peace who will have his way and who is dictating the terms of engagement. We are called to be holy as Christ is holy. We are called to be pure. And we are called to follow Christ wherever he leads, to surrender only to Him. Compromise with God's enemies—even with those who don't realize they oppose Him—compromises us. Jesus demands everything. Compromise means Jesus gets something less than everything, while the enemy gets something in us, something to leverage and use to separate us from God's loving embrace. Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy our relationship with Christ. Jesus comes that we may have eternal life by being crucified with him.

Such is the cosmic battle for our hearts and souls, a paradox with eternal consequences: Our enemy wants us dead. So too does Jesus, only he wants us to willingly pick up our cross and lay down our old lives that we might find new life in Him. That is what it means to be on the side of Jesus, to be for Him.

Let the world think it strange that we no longer plunge into the same old flood of dissipation, let the abuse come and let us celebrate that we have been changed into His likeness enough to offend anyone!

Paul says we are the aroma of Christ to those who are being saved and the scent of death to those who are perishing.

Either way, we carry a fragrant offering to those around us.

If they don't know that it's Christ in us, the hope of glory, we owe it to them to say so.

Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. "Go, look over the land," he said, "especially Jericho."

Joshua 2:1

Sound familiar? It was for Joshua. He had been there before. Last time, he was one of the men sent into the land by Moses. This time, he was the one doing the sending. This time, he was leader of all Israel.

We first hear about Joshua in Exodus when Moses told him, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands." It’s a battle that clearly shows how God moves in the spirit and in the natural all at once. Moses, Aaron and Hur stood on the top of the hill while Joshua led the physical battle against the Amelikites. “As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amelikites were winning.” It goes on to say that Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ hands till sunset, until Joshua overcame the Amelikites with the sword.

As the leaders of Israel warred in the spirit with uplifted arms, Joshua led on the battlefield to defeat the Amelikites here on earth. It was one of many lessons Joshua learned about spiritual warfare and the unstoppable power of God.

When Moses went up the Mountain of God to receive the Ten Commandments, it was Joshua alone who accompanied him (at least part of the way). When Moses met with God in the Tent of Meeting and then returned to the camp, his face radiant with God's glory, Joshua “did not leave the tent.” Instead, he basked in the afterglow of His presence, trusting that he too would be changed by just being where God had been.

It was by his zeal for God and his faithfulness that Joshua became the spiritual leader the Lord chose to complete the work Moses had begun. Joshua had been transformed by his encounters with God: He had witnessed God’s miraculous deliverance from Egypt; experienced God’s victory over the Amelikites; and saw something others didn’t see when he was one of the twelve sent to explore the promised land: he saw the inheritance of his people and the invisible hand of God at work.

That’s often the way it is. Some people have eyes to see, some don’t. Some people see first, others follow. Some people never see, or worse, see and pretend they didn’t. The battle over spiritual truth—what God has actually said and revealed to us—has been raging since Adam and Eve set foot in the Garden. Jesus tells us, "he who is not with me is against me," and the Apostle Paul reminds us that this battle is not against flesh and blood, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

To be prepared for this struggle, we need to be able to see into the heavenly realms—to see by the spirit.

God puts people in our lives to teach us how to apprehend such things and how to grasp spiritual truths. We don’t automatically get it by being born again. But as we grow in the Word, as we desire to know God more, we begin to get revelation and we begin to see that which is unseen.

It was Joshua and Caleb who brought back the good report after they explored the land. They knew God showed it to them, not to scare them, but to excite them about this new beginning and the victory that he was about to hand them. The other ten, however, saw only inevitable defeat, and shared their view with all Israel. In spite of what they had seen when they were delivered from Egypt, their understanding of God had not been affected. They still only saw with natural eyes. They did not understand divine power. They did not comprehend the promises of God and that he would overcome all obstacles to fulfill them. And they refused to see with spiritual eyes, a choice for which they paid dearly. Only Joshua and Caleb were spared.

Forty years after trekking through the desert for the sins of his people, Joshua was right back where Moses had been when he sent the twelve to spy out the land. The moment was very familiar to him. But his experience with God and with Moses had taught Joshua to think like a man of God and to lead accordingly.

Forty years earlier, at God’s direction, Moses had sent twelve into the land. There was no need for a jury of twelve this time, because the verdict was still the same: the promised land is Israel’s. So only two were sent in to spy out the land. Two who were zealous for God—two a lot like Caleb and Joshua himself—who had spiritual eyes to see and reported back with total confidence, "The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us."

Joshua did something else because of what he had learned through Moses: he sent the two “secretly” into the land. Why? Because after Moses sent out the twelve, he received their report in the presence of assembly. When all Israel heard how the ten were melting in fear, their faith evaporated and they rebelled against Moses and Aaron and what God was doing. Joshua had learned the hard way that not all men have the same level of faith or the same understanding of spiritual matters. This time, there would be no such rebellion. The two would report back to Joshua first so he could consider their words before sharing them with the assembly.

Joshua learned from his experience and from the men of God that had been placed in his life. He learned how to lead while being led by the spirit. By running after God, Joshua learned to walk in the spirit.

So must we, for we are also a spiritual people.

There are people all around us still waiting to be led into the promised land. The Holy Spirit is showing them to us. Many have been wandering the desert for a very long time. It’s time to lead them out of the wilderness. It’s time for us to be as "strong and courageous" as Joshua and to step out in faith. God will lead us and give us the words and the authority necessary to accomplish the challenge before us.

He always has.

And He always will.

Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.

Isaiah 59:15

Although Isaiah was talking about ancient Israel, what he said could apply to America today. In fact, it could apply to most western nations. Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life,” but his place in our culture has been challenged for the past 50 years, and public references to him are the exception rather than the rule. Our culture's twisted view seems to be that if Jesus is the way, he's the wrong way. Oddly, one of the remaining places where limited references to God are acceptable is the courtroom. Witnesses still must swear to tell the truth while laying hands on the Bible. Yet if a potential witness was asked if he really believed what the Bible said—if he believed in angels and demons, heaven and hell, gifts of the spirit, in healing and speaking in tongues—his credibility would be in shambles before he uttered a single word under oath.

Because in these days, Truth is no where to be found.

In Moses' time, the Lord moved in profound sea-parting and earth-shaking ways. There were plagues. There were signs and wonders. There was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. God’s fingerprints were everywhere and it didn’t require great discernment or wisdom to see what he was doing. Yet even in those miraculous times, the people of Israel grumbled and complained and fell into sin as soon as Moses took a little too long to return from the Mountain of God. The Lord saw the gold calf they had created while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments and told him, your people have become “corrupt.”

Becoming corrupt about the things of God is man’s natural tendency. In science, it’s called “entropy”—the process of degradation or trending toward disorder. In man, it’s called sin. And the environment in which sin flourishes is one where man and the culture in which he lives forget about God.

So God told Moses to teach the Israelites about God’s laws and decrees and to “be careful to obey” them. But it was more than a warning. It was an exhortation to remember:

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6: 1-12

Moses finished by admonishing God’s people to “be careful that you do not forget the Lord.” But in spite of the warning, they forgot anyway. Again and again, bringing God’s wrath and discipline upon them, causing them to be dragged into captivity and to live, to this very day, in constant struggle in the land God gave them, rather than in the peace he promised (a promise which will yet be fulfilled).

Are we living in peace? Are we remembering Jesus and being careful not to forget the Lord? Is our culture honoring him in any way? or are we squirming uncomfortably to avoid any quote, parable or reference to him out of fear of offending or being politically incorrect? Think about it: we live in times fraught with danger on every front: Nuclear weapons are being developed by outlaw nations. Pornography, always just a click away, is one of the biggest businesses on the planet, supported by the slave trade of women and children. Terrorism is a global problem that strikes locally and randomly. The world economy teeters on the brink of collapse. There’s supposed global warming, cooling relations with Russia and the disaster du jour on the front page of any newspaper you see. And we are busy trying to forget God, and worse ,trying to prohibit references to him in public and by people in government.

The Apostle Peter knew how important it was to remember God. He called on believers to “participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world” or they would become "ineffective and unproductive" in their knowledge of God. In fact, he says such people are nearsighted and blind, “having forgotten" that they have been cleansed from their past sins and having forgotten that "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." 2 Peter 1:3

He then says “I will always remind you of these things” and that “it’s right to refresh your memory” and that “I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.” Not satisfied that his point had been made, Peter begins chapter 3 of 2 Peter by saying this: “Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as a reminder to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.” Why? Because the world is constantly reminding and overstimulating us about the pleasures of corrupt thinking and living, enticing us to go the way of the world and embrace sin wholeheartedly. Peter, however, wants us to be on our guard so that we “may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from [our] secure position.” 2 Peter 3:17

We live in a time of lawlessness, of false teachings without end, of moral relativism and the embracing of all sorts of sin under the rationalization of tolerance, and in a time when man’s systems and creations are being shaken to their foundations. The people of Israel did not remember God less than 40 days after he parted the Red Sea and delivered them from Egypt. How in this world of more subtle moves of God can we remember him?

By making our “calling and election sure.”

We need to know who we are. We need to constantly remember that we have been empowered by God. Chosen by him. We need to know we are God’s heirs. That we are his children. Individually called. That we have repented and have been redeemed. That we are transformed, renewed, born again, spirit filled, and are overcomers who are able to take a stand for God. That we are different than the world, aliens, pilgrims and sojourners whose home is in heaven and who have received the promise of salvation and eternal life. That we are Ambassadors of Christ, salt and light in a land of darkness, a land corrupted by the ruler of the kingdom of the air. And we need to remember it by being in the word, by talking about God with our children, by talking about him when we sit at home and when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up. By encouraging and reminding ourselves and by encouraging and reminding each other daily about who God is and what he has done.

If we don’t remember daily, moment by moment, making our election sure and being effective and productive in our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are destined to fall. There’s a tidal wave of temptation, sin, fear and false teaching trying to sweep us up in its destructive power, and resisting its force is exhausting and futile, unless we stand in the power of our God. We cannot do that unless we remember what Jesus Christ has done in us and the power he has made available to us by the Spirit of truth. Paul exhorted us this way:

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:12-18

Only those who truly know God know that he hears their prayers. Only those dwell in God's word can remember daily that he is with them. Only believers who are armed (in the spirit) and dangerous (wielding the sword of the spirit) can withstand the pounding surf of dissipation that wants to drown us in sin. And only those who constantly remember what Jesus has done, can do and is doing, will stand firm. There just is no other way to persevere.

Because “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”