EYES TO SEE

HE SAW FARTHER

“And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Luke 9:51

Here is the consciousness which created His far-reaching vision. "It came to pass, when the days were well night come that He should be received up….," (Luke 9:51) He is coming down. He has just turned His back upon the mountain of transfiguration, and has set His face to the valley, and has immediately cast the devil out of a boy, and is still moving down to the valley of darkness. He is moving toward the day in which "He should be received up." Here the declaration is an incidental one, but in the Gospel of John we find how perpetually our Lord looked upon His mission in its entirety. "I came out from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father." (John 16:27-28) He saw THE CROSS, but He saw THE RESURRECTION. He saw the TRAVAIL, and shrank from it, but He saw the TRIUMPH, and hastened to it, we run as Peter and all the rest. He saw the HOSTILITY in Jerusalem, the cruel, brutal hostility. He knew exactly what was awaiting Him, but He saw beyond the HOSTILITY to the CROWNING and the VICTORY, and the POSITION He was to occupy when He was received up. He was going down, but the descent was the preliminary to an ascent. The setting of His face toward the darkness was the lifting of His face toward the light, and although He set His face steadfastly toward Jerusalem, and the sorrow, and the shame, and the pain, and the dying, He set His face toward the victory, and the joy, and the triumph. To Him The Cross Was The Way Of Ascent To The Throne. To Him all the travail that waited for Him was the very process that made possible the triumph upon which His heart was set. From the glorious height of the Transfiguration Mount He had seen the mists as they lay along the valleys through which He must pass—the strange and chilly mists of death; but He had seen them from the height of glory, and they had been purple as the light shone upon them.

And He tells us to pick up our cross and follow. Do we shrink or do we follow. His vision knows what lies beyond the hard times. He knows following Him involves tough issues but He knows where and what follows after. We know not what we face but He does and He walks with us through the valley to the regal activity thereafter and the perfection we make known to the principalities and the powers in the ages to come (eternity) (Eph. 3:10). Only for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. To the rest this is foolishness.

GODS WILL NOT OURS

GOD’S WILL BE DONE - NOT OURS

“And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.” Luke 11:2

When Abraham turned his back upon Ur of the Chaldees, and went out seeking a city, he did not go to seek a heaven beyond the earth. His passion, the passion of all the men of faith, and absolutely the passion of Jesus, WAS NOT THAT MEN SHOULD PASS THROUGH EARTH AND WIN HEAVEN, their great reward or so they think; but that there should be established on the earth the city of God and His will should be ours. The vision which had kept the Hebrews a people through all the processes of their failure was the vision of the ultimate. Read the ancient prophecies carefully, and amid the thunder of denunciation you will constantly hear tones that tell of coming accomplishment in the world, of the day when "the knowledge of the glory of the Lord" (Hab. 2:14) shall fill the earth, "as the waters cover the sea"; of the day when "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain." (Isa. 11:9) All these men had looked toward the building of a CITY. Cities had been built, but the hopes and aspirations of seers and psalmists had never been realized.

Jerusalem as Jesus looked at it was the home of evil things, and yet it was "the city of the great King," (Matt. 5:35) and through it He saw the city of God established, "the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God," (Rev. 21:2) the ultimate accomplishment of that which is in the heart of God, not merely in individual life, but in civic life; the setting up of the Kingdom of God in the world, and seeing that, "He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." This city is what we commonly know as “heaven”--the place where God’s throne is. With the new creation, and sin’s very presence totally banished, God’s dwelling place will descend to the earth and be permanently located there. This is where people get confused as to their destination.

Let us gather up these thoughts. When the time was coming that He should be received up, He steadfastly set His face toward Jerusalem. What Jerusalem? The Jerusalem hostile to Himself, waiting to arrest and murder Him. What Jerusalem? That Jerusalem over which hung the sword of God, upon which the judgment of God must soon fall. What Jerusalem? The Jerusalem beyond all this, that which the hostile and doomed city must yet become in the economy of God, a city established, "the joy of the whole earth," (Psa. 48:2) because the home of "the great King," and the center from which His government was to go forth to the ends of the world. Jesus saw the city, and deliberately set His face toward its hostility, its doom, and its ultimate triumph. He had a vision of the immediate, but He had that more wonderful vision which sees through the immediate to the ultimate. Beyond the gathering storm clouds settling over Himself and the city He saw the morning without clouds, the ultimate and final victory, when the last stone will be brought on to the city of God, and all tribes of the earth will rejoice in the setting up of His government and the accomplishment of His will. He saw through the process of pain to that ultimate for which He taught us to pray, for the day when God's name shall be hallowed, His Kingdom come, His will be done in earth as it is in heaven. (Luke 11:2) And he set his face toward the Jerusalem of hostility, because He saw through it the Jerusalem of ultimate achievement.

The all-consuming purpose of God in creation was to establish a Kingdom ON THE EARTH, not in heaven, in which He could display His glory in the Person of His Son. This display of His glory was to be made to creatures made in His image, and therefore, capable of apprehending, appreciating, and applauding His glory. The unfolding drama of the Bible depicts the movements of God in the accomplishment of that purpose.

SPARE YOURSELF

TEMPTATION OF MYSELF AND PETER AND CHRIST

“But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savor not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” Matt. 16:23

The last Adam (Christ) was tempted and Satan used Peter to accomplish this vocational temptation of Jesus. And I feel as if myself was included in this group as I was used by Satan also. By an infinite mystery God created a New Man in the creation of Jesus.

Through all the years of youth and manhood up to this moment, He had faced all the temptations to which man must be subject, mastering them, being victorious over them: physical, spiritual, and last, the most subtlest of them all, vocational temptation. (Victory of the mission without suffering) (Luke 2:49. Psa. 40:8). He never deviated from the Father's will. (Phil. 2:8). He was following the plan formed before the foundation of the world (Heb. 9:26; 1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8). He told them He must go to Jerusalem and Satan heard those words.

The last breath of the temptation had come to Him when Peter has said, God have mercy on Thee, not this way of the cross! With stern and absolute heroism Jesus has said, "Get thee hence, Satan, thou art an offense to Me." That was the last victory over vocational temptation. He had already heard the method Satan had for Christ and the Kingdom in Matt. 4:8; Luke 4:6. This was the plan of Satan to maintain his control of the world and its residents.

Following then, immediately passing to the mount, His life perfect, complete; every temptation having been met and mastered; the whole citadel of His manhood held through, all the prior period of years, inviolate; He was transfigured before them. And verified by the words of the Father Who was well-pleased with His Son (Matt. 17:5). And as well He said that we should hear Him for He speaks truth concerning life that is eternal in its fabric. His words can transform you to perfection if you believe and listen.

The way of men always use the wide gate, the easy pathway, with no pain or suffering, with no Cross as Satan hoped to have myself, Peter, and Jesus take. This is the way of the flesh and its leadership, the carnal solution to the temptation that we also face and fail to recognize. Therefore the flesh lives on and the spirit remains dead. And if a man wishes to die to this way of life with its shallowness he must follow the lead of the One Who possesses life that is eternal and deep in its makeup. If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it (vss. 24-25).  Drop self and live for Him which is the secret revealed for attainment of real life. Let the Master teach you (John 6:45) as Adam in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8).

Death is here taught by the Master as the pathway to life. The importance of this principle is indicated by the fact that Christ cites it probably more than any other of His teachings. See also Matt. 10:39; 16:24-25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33. In slightly different form, it is also enunciated frequently by Paul (Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; 6:9-10; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 2:5-11; 2 Tim. 2:11-12). It is when a man shuns the cross that he passes out of intimate fellowship and begins the downward course.

When you submit to sin, you become the slave to sin. The demand of sin is death. The only way to escape the hold of sin is through its verdict which is death. Christ showed the pathway to freedom. He took up His cross. It was not by the way of Satan expressed in the words of Peter. But by following the file Leader and His way, the way of death, there is the harvest of freedom after the sowing. Peter was absolutely honest and poured out in the word he spoke to his Lord his own thought and conception of life and the way it should be lived in vs.22. Jesus, in His first declaration, and then in His answer to Peter, which clearly revealed His thought and His conception of life, and what it ought to be. This is a permanent antagonism.

TRAINING CHILDREN

TRAINING CHILDREN

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6

What is that ideal  in the training of the child? That the child shall realize Jesus Christ's estimate of greatness. By realize it I do not mean theoretically merely, but practically. What is Jesus Christ's estimate of greatness? Christ was constantly instructed by His father (John 12:49-50) and this instruction brought life that was eternal in its makeup. He was the apple of His eye and His most beloved Son. That a man is great in proportion as his character is what it ought to be. In the great Manifesto of the King, that wonderful enunciation of the ethic of the Kingdom of God, never a single blessing is pronounced upon having, never a blessing pronounced upon doing. All the blessings are upon being (Matt. 5:3-11). The word "blessed" essentially means "happy or born-again." And the true ideal toward which we are to move, and for which we are to train our children, must be the realization of the character upon which Jesus Christ has set the sevenfold chaplet of His benediction and by which He exhibited while here on earth. These are all fruits of the Spirit and can only be attained that way (Gal. 5:22). That the boy may be a Godly man that the girl may be one of the King's daughters all glorious within, that first, everything after, but that first. To neglect that as the ultimate, to lose sight of that as the goal is to ruin our children by love which is false love, is to harm them by the very method in which we attempt to serve. Love is the fruit of the Spirit and then its component parts are listed in the rest of the verse. The way they go without Christ is in vs. 15, the way of foolishness; it is in the heart until cleansed. Cleansing leads to perfection (Matt. 5:48) and is the characteristic of the Father's children, first seen in Christ.

LUST AND DESIRE ATTAINED IMPROPERLY

LUST AND DESIRE ATTAINED IMPROPERLY

“But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” James 1:14-15

Learning from our parents.

drawn away It is a hunting figure, a figure of a man who is engaged in trapping animals, and the word means seduced from safety into snares.

enticed To do it the wrong way instead of God's way. The next word "enticed" is a fishing figure, and includes the thought of a bait held out. The thought of the word enticed is "seduced by a fancied advantage." Mark the process in your own soul. There is desire in your life. Here is a suggestion that I shall satisfy that desire by being drawn away from the straight line which you see in front of yourself. You am enticed by the bait that offers you immediate realization of the thing you am after. You turn away, mark the word, turn away from the law which is in your conscience of right and wrong, you turn away to satisfy the lust. Lust is right, but the suggestion is that instead of answering the desire of your nature within the realm of God's holy law, you shall attempt to answer it outside. You are enticed. You are drawn away. The desire is right; the peril is that you are asked to satisfy proper desire by breaking law. And sin is lawlessness-abandoning the right way.

When does sin begin? James is careful to tell us. "Then the lust, when it hath conceived." We may translate this word "conceived" sullambano here in order to help us, by a number of words-to clasp, to seize, to arrest, to capture. Here is a desire in my life. It is not sin. Here is temptation luring me from the line of rectitude. That is not sin. The will within me decides that I shall turn from the line of rectitude and take this suggestion and lay hold upon it, seize it, capture it. What then? The act is committed. That is sin. When I seize the bait, the hidden hook seizes me. The hook is not sin. The hook is the penalty, the first pang of hell. The sin is in the deliberate choice of the will and the determined act by which I turn aside to answer, not my desire, but the allurement to the fulfillment of desire in an improper way. When you turn toward evil courses, when you go out upon the highway or into the hidden and secret and shameful place, you are not seeking God, you are turning from Him. In your heart and conscience you know the thing which is right and the thing which is wrong. There is desire within you for vision, light and life in its fullness. Oh for the thrill and throb of a great life. Who does not desire it? Every man does who is physically, mentally and spiritually sound. He desires it. It is the cry of his life after God. But when you turn to the ways of lust and licentiousness you are not answering that cry, you are answering the seduction which suggests that you turn by short and illicit methods to satisfy desire. As Adam and Eve who desired knowledge that was gained improperly. Sin is the answer to the suggestion that I break law to satisfy desire. A man wins when he says, "Desire is perfectly right. It is right that I should desire vision and life at its fullest, but I must find these things along the line of law." But Satan encourages the breaking of the law as he did with Adam and Eve.

A man wins when he says, "Desire is perfectly right. It is right that I should desire vision and life at its fullest, but I must find these things along the line of law." If you listen to the voice of he who tempts and lies  and turn aside, know this, and know it forever—be not deceived, I pray you; "God is not mocked"—(Gal. 6:7) you sin, and you are not seeking God. Listen to me, you are trying to dodge God and get your prize without God, and you cannot do it. Lust, desire is enticed, is drawn away, and if man with the will shall seize upon the bait, then he sins.

PAUL’S AC(CURSING)

PAUL’S AC(CURSING)

“If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.” 1 Cor. 16:22

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” Gal. 1:8-9

Paul said in Gal. 1:8-9 that if anyone has a better Gospel than this, let them be accursed. (Hung on a cross as Jesus Who was accursed) Then see if the Father raises them thereby proving that the law was fulfilled and expiated before God. See expiation in Deut. 21:23

EVERY SEVEN YEARS

EVERY SEVEN YEARS

"It is appointed unto men once to die." Heb. 9:27

We are all reconstructed on the physical side every seven years. The essential personality is not reconstructed, but maintains its individuality through all the processes of reconstruction. I am the man I was seven years ago, and yet there is not a particle of this tabernacle, through the medium of which I speak to you in this article, that would have been here had I been here seven years ago. Waste of tissue and breakdown of the physical is a constant process of remaking. This is one of the issues from the curse and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The mental in man gains breadth and strength and beauty as years pass on. The man who has run out the allotted three score years and ten, or for whom God has lengthened the lease a few years, mentally and spiritually is greater than he has ever been before, but the reconstruction of the physical is not quite so perfect as it used to be, the elasticity is missing, the vision is becoming dim, the new made temple is not quite so fibrous and tough as the old one. Why? I wait for scientific answer, but I wait in vain. No man without revelation has ever been able to tell me why the physical ceases at maturity to reconstruct itself with ever-increasing strength. I will tell you why. Death is the wage of sin. Science will admit that death comes by the breaking of certain laws. Science will use some other word than the word "sin."