The
great Christian apostle Watchman Nee sets before us a marvelously simple
example of what our Christian lives consist of. Let us examine the phrase “In Christ.” Brother Nee illustrates it in the following
manner. Picture yourself as a piece of
paper and Christ Jesus as a book. Now
open the book and stick the piece of paper inside one of its pages and then
closing it. The paper is now in
the book. What ever happens to the book happens to you, because you,
the piece of paper, is in the book!
All things that
happened to Jesus have happened to you!! Let us look at a few.
·
We
were crucified in Christ.
Romans
6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified
with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we
should not serve sin.
Literally our sinful nature has become useless, powerless, and has being rendered permanently unemployed from its old masters Satan and the flesh. It has been dealt a mortal blow by our Lord. As we walk with Christ we will find ourselves sinning less and less. Hallelujah!
·
We died in Christ. A dead man cannot sin!
Hallelujah!
Romans
6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
We have died with Christ! Sin however is not dead to us! We still are very much tempted by it. A dead man however cannot respond to
sin. By the power of God we
progressively and obediently become unresponsive to sin.
Ephesians 2:6
And hath raised us
up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus: We have been raised with Christ once and for
all, into a permanent position that is above every name that is named (the name of disease, the name of all devils, the
name of all circumstances) at the right hand of God. Here
we share coequally in all of God’s inheritance, all of His power, and in all of
His authority. What God gave to Christ He has likewise given to us, because we
are IN
HIM. I encourage you to find out more about the
riches of your spiritual inheritance.
Abraham
· As we continue today with our study of “Walking in the Spirit” let us briefly observe the lives of four men whom God evaluated as men of God. It is important to take heed as to what made them into men of God. These were four men that “walked in the Spirit”. Literally they walked with God. Abraham was called by God to leave his idolatrous homeland at the age of seventy-five. The covenant that God made with Abraham was that through his offspring, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. The predicament at hand however, was that Abraham and his wife Sarah, at the ripe age of seventy-five were still childless! Did God wring Hands laden with anxiety at this apparent impossibility? Not at all! As a matter of fact God forced Abraham to wait another twenty-five till the age of one hundred before He finally fulfilled His promise!
Gen
12:4 ¶ So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with
him: and Abram was seventy and
five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Gen
17:1 ¶ And when Abram was
ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto
him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.
·
As we shall pursue in this lessons and ones that
follow, God works in our lives through our weaknesses, hopelessness, and failures. God knows how thoroughly corrupted by pride,
ego, and selfishness even our best Christian intentions and plans are. If we are to work in the power and glory of
God everything in our lives must be purified.
Everything must be put to death and resurrected through the cross of
Christ. As we shall see, our God can
only raise up the dead. (Corpse
in the Greek). Abraham and Sarah were walking corpses at the time of God’s
visitation to them.
Romans 4:19
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead (Greek word: corpse), when he
was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness(Greek word: corpse) of Sara's womb:
The Lord most effectively moves when our agendas, our plans, and
visions have become literal corpses before Him. This is because only the dead are freed from sin and the
flesh. This is exactly what God needs
to work. Remember, “God’s
greatest manifestation of power transpired on the event of His raising Christ
up from the dead.”
Eph 1:19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead (corpse), and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
Moses
Acts 7:23
And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his
brethren the children of Israel.
Exodus2:11
¶ And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens:
and he spied an Egyptian
smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
12
And
he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and
hid him in the sand.
· Moses, the great deliverer of Israel was commissioned by God to rescue the Jews from the spiteful hand of the Egyptians. However, Moses’ attempts were doomed to fail because he assayed to rescue the Jews outside of God’s timetable, and through the works of his own fleshly agendas. I always tell people that the two most important things in walking victoriously with God are first to obey Him instantly and joyfully. True obedience is obeying God the very time that He speaks to us, not the second. Secondly, we must learn to discern God’s timing. In everything that God performs, there is always a factor of timing. Part of our obedience is to learn not to move ahead, or behind our God.
Acts 7:30
And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness
of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.
Forty years later at the age of eighty, God appears to Moses in a burning bush.
His vision had truly died, his hopes had
been crushed, and old age had set in.
At this precise moment God appears to him. Please observe the Moses whom God can now use! His response to God’s calling is literally, “WHO
ME?” A man or woman of God who
will be powerfully used in this generation must be so lovingly humbled by time,
and the dealing of God’s hand, to illicit this same response. If you don’t know what it is to be put on
the shelf by God for a number of years, your effectiveness for God will be
definitely limited.
Exodus 3:10 Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
11 ¶
And Moses said unto God, Who
am I, that I
should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of
Israel out of Egypt?
Joseph
The account that follows is that of Joseph’s, one
of Israel’s patriarch’s sons, mainly Jacob.
Joseph was raised up by God to protect the developing nation of Israel
and to deliver it from sure death through famine. At the age of seventeen, Joseph receives a dream from the Lord
foretelling of his ministry in saving his brothers from death, thirteen years
later. However at this tender age, the
dream is rehearsed with childish arrogance and presumption, furthering the
bitterness of his already jealous brothers.
The greater our calling, the greater will be the trials of God to
prepare us. This is why we should never
despise the hand of God upon our lives, but always be encouraged. Please be sure that the trials do not come
to us through our disobedience but through our attempts to please God.
Gen
37:2 These are the generations of
Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen
years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with
the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and Joseph
brought unto his father their evil report.
5 ¶ And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
7
For,
behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also
stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance
to my sheaf.
The man Joseph, whom God called through this prophetic dream, was thrown into an Egyptian dungeon immediately after, and suffered immeasurably for thirteen years. Psalms 105 describes for us some of his sufferings. At the age of thirty God miraculously pulls him out of the dungeon, and sets him at the right hand of the Pharaoh, for the fulfillment of all things. If you are to be greatly used by God you will at least experience one dungeon in your life.
Psalm
105:17 He sent a man before them, even
Joseph, who was sold for a servant:
18 Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was
laid in iron:
19 Until the time that his word came: the word
of the LORD tried him.
20 The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler
of the people, and let him go free.
21 He made him lord of his house, and ruler of
all his substance:
Gen
41:46 ¶ And Joseph was
thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph
went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of
Egypt.
David
1
Sam
16:13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his
brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So
Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.
Above, is the
narrative of David, Israel’s greatest king, and one who was also called“ a man
after God’s heart”. In the above verse,
the prophet Samuel anoints David in his youth as future king of Israel, after
God rejects King Saul for his unvarying disobedience. Little would any one know, that after this great call by God,
Saul would plot against, or attempt to assassinate David anywhere between ten
to fifteen times, as recorded in the texts of 1 Samuel 18:9 through 1 Samuel
27:4.
2
Samuel
5:4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign,
and he reigned forty years.
We live today
in a society, and even worse in a church environment that has become ignorant
to the understanding of God’s ways, His requirements for learning to hear and
walk in His Spirit, and His preparation in our lives for the calling and
ministries which He has summoned us to.
It is indispensable for us to comprehend that through the ages God has
not changed His ways, or the laws that govern our relationship to Him. I think that especially in our “Burger
King American Church at Large” we want to create a God who is a miracle
working Santa Claus, and whom we try to coerce into His blessing us. In this deception, we have come to justify
the goal of Christianity as that of our being blessed, our comfort, prosperity
and happiness. We shortchange ourselves
through our superficial thinking, living a nominal Christian life at best. We have little concept of what the cross of
Christ really means, and that it must all to our lives. We will never learn to hear and move in the
Spirit, until we understand what the concept of “dying with Christ in
order to live with Him” really means. As believers, our life comes out of death, power comes out of
weakness, exaltation comes out of being humbled, leadership comes out of
servant hood, ministry out of waiting, and prosperity comes out forsaking
all!
A Fine Wine is not Served Before its Time: There are no substitutes or
shortcuts for the passage of time in the kingdom of God.
Revelation 1:9 I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
One great minister said that it takes God
twenty years to make a preacher.
Abraham had to wait twenty-five years to see God’s accomplishment of the
promise of his son. Moses waited forty
years for God’s fulfillment of Israel’s deliverance to finally transpire. Joseph spent almost thirteen years in most
the most formidable conditions of a dungeon, after his initial dream and
calling from God. David likewise
suffered from countless assassination attempts by Saul after Samuel anointed
him as king over Israel. God uses the
time factor to mold godly character in us. “As a fine wine is not served
before its time,” so it is with truly spiritual man or woman of
God. Today countless ministers are put
in positions of leadership inasmuch as their outward skills or charisma
dictate, when their years of being dealt with by God have been few. They bring their hurts, insecurities, pride,
ego, and control into the pulpit, adversely affecting countless others and
hindering the Holy Spirit. So it is
with today’s popular “seeker sensitive movement!”
To be truly molded after the image of Christ takes years. My brethren, there are no shortcuts, but God
has great plans through it!
1 Tim 3:2A bishop then must be
blameless, the husband of one wife,
vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
6 Not a novice, lest being lifted
up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
·
The Broken Vessel: The Spirit
of God hid deep within the recesses of our hearts can only be manifested by a
loving hand of God who breaks our outward nature. God takes us through humiliating circumstances; He puts our
ministries and finances on the shelf, places our marriage plans on hold,
causing us to be lonely and single for many years, and finally exposes to us
the very depths of our sinfulness. All
of this is aimed by our tenderhearted God to cause our outward nature to break
and the life of the Holy Sprit to come forth.
Let us not forget that the Lord’s main goal is not to make us happy, but
to conform us to the image of His Son and fulfill His eternal counsels through
us. God does want to make us happy and
indeed we will be, if we continue to obey and yield to Him constantly.
Mark 14:3
And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat,
there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very
precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head
In the illustration above, the Lord communicates to us how our outward sinful nature must be broken in order to release the precious anointed ointment of the Lord’s presence into this dying world. Our disobedience can forever destroy this delicate process. God is able, and desires to take us all into a place where our lives are so pliable before Him, that the precious ointment of the Holy Spirit will be released, drawing all men unto Jesus.
The Resurrection Principle The entirety of God’s works goes through a process of death and resurrection. The Lord has numerous reasons for this. It is fundamental for us to understand this principle. Our failure to comprehend it, or our putting down our foot at God when the surgical knife of our Lord’s cross penetrates us, will render our spiritual lives and churches powerless. Without the death of our soul life, there is no resurrection, and without resurrection we cannot walk in the Spirit and power of God.
Hebrews 9:4 Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;
·
Authority and power can only come through death and
resurrection
Aaron was not only Moses elder brother, but also the chief priest over the nation of Israel at the time of its deliverance from the hands of the Egyptians. During their forty-year trek though the Sinai Desert; a major dispute arose among the people as they questioned Aaron’s authority to be priest over them. God quelled the dispute in a most amazing way. He commanded all those contesting Aaron’s authority to bring forth bare rods of almond trees. The Lord caused Aaron’s rod to miraculously bud flowers and blossom, while those of the rebels were left naked. In this, God decisively arbitrated that He had chosen Aaron and had bestowed the spiritual authority to be high priest upon him. This action on the part of God was so eternally significant that God commanded Aaron’s rod to be permanently laid in the Ark of the Covenant as a memorial to all generations.
Num 17:7 And Moses laid up the rods before the LORD in the tabernacle of witness.
8 ¶ And it came
to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the
house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and
yielded almonds.
9
And
Moses brought out all the rods from before the LORD unto all the children of
Israel: and they looked, and took every man his rod.
Flesh cannot touch God and live. This is why God has already passed verdict and condemned our flesh to die. There is no hope for it, is in cancer stricken and it must go. God thusly commands everything in regards to our relationship to Him, to die and be resurrected. Anything that is left of our flesh will only produce death and will hinder God’s work through us. Even our best-intentioned church programs and plans must all be taken through the cross of Christ.
Song
of Solomon 2:15 Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the
vines: for our vines have tender grapes.
My beloved brethren, we have run out of time and space for today. We will continue to cover God’s principle of death and resurrection in our following lesson. I leave you with some of the other items of importance for our next Bible teaching. God bless you and have a great weekend!
·
Walking in the Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and hearing the
voice of God can only effectively occur in the arena of death and resurrection.
Acts 4:33 And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Twenty five times the word resurrection is used from acts
–Rev. Today we hear nothing about it.
·
Christ Jesus can only be manifested in
our lives through the axiom of death and resurrection.
Romans 1:4 And
declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead:
·
A relationship with God can only
effectually develop through this law of death and resurrection.
Romans 6:4
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory( raised up from the corpse through the glory
of the Father) of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life..
·
A victorious Christian life matured
through deliverance, God’s power, and victory, will only transpire through the
principle of death and resurrection.
Eph 1:19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead,
and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
20
Far above all principality, and power,
and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world,
but also in that which is to come: