July 17, 2006                              God Wants us to Escape Through HIM

What is grace? It's favor, benefit, divine influence upon our heart; consider that means favor of GOD bestowed upon his children. Peace-set at one again, quietness, resting securely in the knowledge that I belong to God, that I am his, and he loves me. I can trust in his love for me to secure me, and guide me and keep me. I can trust his promises. I can stand on them when this world is spinning out of control and all my eyes see is upheaval, and misery, and broken homes, broken lives, broken families, disasters, whatever happens, HE is in control. People try to blame God for the way things are, but remember this: when he made the garden of Eden, it was beautiful, peaceful and perfect. Man was in complete harmony with nature and God. It is when they began to disobey God, to listen to the voice of the enemy of their souls that trouble came. When they disobeyed, they brought sin and death in to the world. That brings the trouble, the division, the war, the hate, the death, and misery we see so prevalent today.

I am supposed to submit myself to the glorious hand of God, seek His face, and let him fill me with his oil so my lamps can be shining brightly. That's what the world needs to see, is hope. Light in the darkness. There are still souls to be won to Jesus Christ or else I believe He would already have come for his own. He's so longsuffering, so patient, so gracious. But that time is nearing an end. God needs a people who won't be shaken by what they see because their eyes are focused singly on Him. People he can take through the storm, that won't fall apart, but will call out to the struggling ones around, and point them to Jesus, point them to the only Hope there is in this world.

When something is multiplied, it will increase. God wants us to be aware that if we know more about Him, if know HIM for ourselves, then our understanding of our position with him, our relation to Him, as his children, that knowledge, that inner knowing who He is and who we are in HIM, will bring assurance to our hearts.

Out of his abundance, delivered to us by his strength and might, he's given us everything we need that pertains to life, to godliness, and holiness. Holiness is simple. It means pure, without mixture. That is what God is. He isn't mixed with any other source. He alone is God. There is no combination of ingredients or sources that make him God. He just IS. We can know what he's made available to us. He wants us to come to this understanding. He's called us to glory and virtue. To honor, and praise. To excellence.

Because he's called us, he wants us to know him, and what he's made available to us. We have to understand we can't get there on our own. We get there by faith in his exceeding great and precious promises. Precious means costly, beloved, honorable. Valuable. He's promised me I can take part, I can fellowship, and partner with HIM because I've escaped, by his power, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his shed blood, the corruption of this world. That word "corruption" means decay, destroy, perish. That is what is happening to this world and everyone in it that doesn't have the life of Christ inside. It's passing away. No matter who you are when you look in the mirror, as time goes by you can see the signs of age. Signs of decay. We are faced with our own mortality. But if we have the life of Christ within us, we have been given eternal life. The corruption is in the world because of the lust for that which is ungodly. There are some things I need to add to my faith.

I am to add knowledge-of who I am in Christ, who He is, and what I possess in Him. I am to have self control-in word, in deed, in behavior. In my thoughts, ways and attitudes. I am to draw strength from the Lord so I can endure and wait patiently for the promise of His coming. Now how do I add godliness? That means holiness, and the only way I can see is to draw closer to him, to fill up on his word, and seek understanding of it, yield to it's government completely, and because His Word is Holy, His Spirit is Holy, if I get full of His Spirit and full of His word, then I'll be full of HIM. There is a fullness of Christ I want to enter into. There's more, brotherly kindness, and love-love one another in the family of GOD.

If I have these things, I won't be barren or unfruitful. Barren as used here, in the original Greek is the word "argos" and it means lazy, useless, idle, slow. To be unfruitful means not reproducing the life of Christ in me. Not letting the Spirit produce what it naturally would if given free reign. You plant seed in your garden, it will grow up and bear what you have sown. If you plant tomatoes, and water them, and take care to keep the weeds from choking them out, you will get tomatoes to eat. If I let the Spirit of God plant the seed of his word in my heart, if my heart is not hard, but broken up and ready to receive the seed, it will take root in my heart, it will grow and it will change me. It will bear the fruit (or evidence) of the Spirit in my life. What are the fruits of the Spirit? Paul listed them in Galatians 5:22-23. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

But look if you lack these things, what is the result? You will fall, he says. How do you make your calling and election sure? And folks, let me tell you, please don't buy into that lie that you have to sin every day, that once you are saved you are always saved. You have only to look to Calvary, look at the pain, the humiliation, the catastrophic suffering Jesus Christ endured, and Hebrews 12 tells us he despised it, but he endured it for us. When you see what Jesus endured, he took the wrath of God against sin on himself, how can you understand that and sin lightly? Or make excuses for sin? You had better understand that- let it get deep in your heart. We had better not think we can take such a precious life as what he offers us and then just keep on living like we want to without loss. The Spirit of God will not stay in a place where he is not welcome. You can't have God and the world too. If you have God, you won’t want the world anymore. As you dive into the waters of his word, and get to know him, the things of this world begin to pale by comparison. Jesus Christ destroyed the works of the devil when he went to Calvary. They don't have legal authority to retain dominion over the Christian. The Bible says you shall know the truth and it shall make you free. It's a disgrace and a slap in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ when people go around professing "I pray, I'm saved," but they live in sin, indulging in unclean habits, watching filth on TV-and that doesn't mean just pornography. Network TV is now almost pornographic. Women wear less and less and men, too, and that is because they are glorying in flesh, in appearances. Possessions. You would be hard pressed to find a program where God's commandments aren't broken minute by minute. Commercials are full of covetousness and sensuality. Homosexuality is the theme of some new shows that come out, presenting it as a normal lifestyle, when in fact it is condemned in the Bible. It is unnatural. Children need mommies and daddies, not confusion. On TV, anything goes. And you-do you name that precious Name of Christ Jesus who suffered so greatly to make a way, but make no effort to get alone with him, when he did so much to make an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, and yet do you make time to sit idle in front of the TV, laughing at the world's jokes, laughing while you watch people trample his word and disregard his commandments and take his name in vain? All the while the world around us and souls that are in dire need of God are perishing and going to hell? Do you waste time watching what gives you pleasure and makes you laugh? But you have no time to sit down with his word, and get alone with him and let him show you who he is? When you get angry do curse words fly out of your mouth and do you catch yourself trying to justify it, well, God will help me, or that's just how I am? God knows my heart. I pray. I'm alright with the big guy. Oh, how it hurts my heart when I hear people talk this way. They don't know him. They've never encountered his holiness, his fear is not in their hearts, or before their eyes. By the knowledge of the holy...

We will all face that command at the judgment. God is not going to ask us to do something he won't give us Holy Ghost power to do. By ourselves we cannot stop sinning. But if he is in us of a truth, we won't be habitually sinning. There will a grief from the heart of God in us that will cause us to cry out to him, to seek his strength, to reject doing that which would bring a reproach on his lovely name. I've heard it said that people who profess Christ, but live ungodly are one of the root causes of atheism.

That is pretty plain. The Spirit of God moved in our service this past Sunday putting out the call for people to return to him, for time is short. I felt his fear stir in my heart and cause me to want to examine ever more closely my own heart. I talked to a lady that was there, that I know is not born again, and asked her what she thought, and I love this woman. She is very near and dear to my heart. She would not look me in the eye, but she said she thought it was alright, and I said "Do you ever think you need to pray?" and she said, "Oh, I pray, a lot." But she only comes to church once every month or two. Then, only on Sunday morning. She doesn't read her Bible. Praying does not save you if you are not keeping His commandments. He said if you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood then you have no life in you. How do you do that, you ask? Well, you sit down with this Book, and an open and hungry heart, and you ask, you seek, you knock. You dig. You do these things for the express purpose of knowing him, learning him, so we can be obedient, and bless his heart, like David said, “thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.” (Psalms 119:11) That's what I do when I sit down here and study, and read, and then examine myself by the standard of what I read in my Father's word. I always come up short of what I read. But I want to know him. I want to know him for myself. Thank God for grace. I never feel like I'm alright or that I've made it or I keep it all. If you think you know it all, you need to let God help you get rid of your pride and open your eyes. But I'm trusting his promise to perfect what concerns me. To make me what I can't be to take me where I can't go. You can't have knowledge of the holy things of God and lightly sin. If you have not been born again, you will not go in. If you have been born again you will not continue in sin.

How can you walk as he walked if you don't read your Bible and seek his face and seek understanding? When you open this precious Book, that was written at the expense of the blood of the saints who wrote it, for the most of them anyway, when you consider the suffering of the Son of God, the love it required on his part to willingly endure that kind of pain, and shame, in the face of that how can people continue in sin? There's a difference if you hate your sin and want free. But I'm talking about those who make excuses for it. Those who don't take time to teach their children right, those who come to church every now and then, who have to get up and go out and smoke before the service is over, or who can't even stay for the whole service. They are unwilling to endure the slightest discomfort to their flesh. I've seen the Lord be moving, and people just get up and walk out because, hey, it's twelve o'clock, and we got plans to go do this, or that. For whatever reason, they left. I don't understand. If you have a job that you have to be there, that is one thing. But any other excuse is not good enough.

I fear for those who know the right way but don't walk in it. I fear for those who sit under the Gospel but don't let it change them. Some make excuses because they had a bad childhood, or got hurt by someone in the church. That's sad and I know God can help those who will come to him, because it's not his fault people sin, it's not his fault people get in their flesh and hurt other people. But it is not an excuse to not do what is right. We are without excuse, people. No other country has been saturated with the Gospel of Jesus Christ as has been America. I fear for those who refuse to let the Word of God in and let it change their lives. I'm hungry to see God move, to see lost souls transformed and translated into the light. We have to examine ourselves. Jesus is coming and this is no time to be playing games. We need to get in, we need to pray and ask God to show us if there are any spots or wrinkles or blemishes on our garments. Don't buy into the lie that just because you are young you have plenty of time to get right with God. There will be a generation of young people left here who have bought that lie of the devil. The spirit of lawlessness is seething and boiling now. You can feel it in the air, restless, ready to burst through and overwhelm everything and everyone and the only thing holding it back is the Holy Ghost of God. When the Bride of Christ is taken out of here, it will flood this earth. If you can’t live for God, now, with the Holy Ghost here, and the church, and preachers who preach truth, how will you stand up for him with the Spirit of Truth gone out of this world? Have you watched the “Left Behind Movies” and bought into the lie that you can live, eat, drink and be merry” now and get saved after the rapture? If you don’t receive the love of the truth now you will believe a lie then.

And what about the Bride? Are you part of Her? His Bride is knowing him, spending time with Him, loving Him. Seeking him. Longing for Him. This world is going to be destroyed, and she knows it. Her hopes are not in this world. Her heart and mind is set on things above where her Beloved dwells.

These are just a few scriptures we should consider and face now. This world is going down fast. Don't go down with it for the sake of pleasing your flesh for a short time and paying for it for all eternity. At the Judgment, God will not cut you slack. God will not give you special sympathy because you had a hard life or were abused. We all have to face the same word and it will not change for anybody. His word is forever settled in heaven. It's holy and pure. If we have a sin problem we need to let God help us deal with it and get it fixed before he comes.

God help us send our sins on before us, to the judgment, (which is the justice of God, the place where sentence is passed on them) In the Greek, this word means a tribunal, for divine law, justice, where accusation, condemnation, damnation is faced for sin. We need to examine ourselves, confess our sins, repent of our sins, and get them under the blood. We must forsake them and turn to God with all our heart. If our sins follow us to the judgment they will seal our fate.

If you habitually break God's commandments, and reject the knowledge in your heart and mind that you are, and continue to do it, you can't say you are born again and on your way to heaven. If you are born again by the Spirit of God, you have been given his Holy Spirit and it will not allow you to remain in sin. You won't want to sin. You will hate sin.

It hurts my heart to see so many people deceived by their sins, asleep, idle and the Lord getting ready to come. The Scripture is the standard. It's not what we think, or feel that matters. It is what HE SAYS that will matter. That is what we will face. I pray we will all take time to confront ourselves, with the unvarnished truth, and go to God for deliverance from ourselves. He loves you and will hear your humble cry.