“Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”” (Mark 2:18). Before I quote Jesus’ answer, we must realize that there had been a history of tradition and laws written by and for the Jews that required them to fast at certain times and for certain reasons. The purpose of fasting had been lost through their tradition and in most cases it was done for the wrong reasons (See Isaiah 58:3-4; Jeremiah 14:11-12; Zechariah 5:4-5; Matthew 6:16-18).
Jesus answers their question with; “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast” (Mark 2:19). The understanding of this is wrapped up in knowing who Jesus is and the value of His presence. John the Baptist knew Jesus as “the Bridegroom” (John 3:29). The Hope of Israel who had been long waited for was finally with them and there was no need to fast in preparation for His coming. Jesus explains that “Days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day” (Mark 2:20). Perhaps we do not realize the days we are in. Jesus is not here as He was with the disciples. The conditions in the church today require us to fast and repent. In this and the next two blogs, I want to challenge you, and the whole church, to carefully think about what damaging impact tradition has had. It falsely makes us feel safe because we are doing what our denomination or ancestors have done for centuries. Another problem with tradition is that it fails to honestly look at Scripture for guidance into what is “truth”. Will YOU?
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Late last night “P” called from Ecuador and spent 30 minutes telling Tim all that God is doing in Quito and beyond. They have started more groups studying Scripture through our tool, God’s Plan for His Church (GPHC). Now all the elders, along with Pastor “L”, at the largest church in Quito have started GPHC. Tim met with them on the last trip to Ecuador. “P” told him he was having a hard time keeping up with all that is happening. They are working on a vision to reach all of South America. Tim also shared with him the vision Randy shared in reaching all of Africa.
God is on the move and we believe He is ushering in the soon return of Jesus. We have the firm conviction that the prophecy of Joel that began the church will also end the church age on earth; “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17). In so many places, the Spirit has been resisted and quenched. But that has never and will never stop God from doing what He has promised. Ecuador is an example of many places where the Spirit is being poured out through deep repentance and a return to Scripture. God will accomplish what He promised and finish His work. The question is; will you and I be those who invite Him to work in this way through us? “The same truth that we apply to individuals applies to churches. Spontaneous expansion begins with individual expression and it should become part of the corporate church expression. If the corporate expression is controlled humanly, there is again a danger of disorder. To deny native leadership and self-government will seem at the moment to be a great help in achieving order, and for the moment it does. In actuality, it represses the instinct for self-propagation and mars the fullness of life as Christ designed it.”
What would have happened if Barnabas and Paul had insisted that Antioch (Pisidia), Iconium, Lystra, and Derby be governed from Jerusalem? It would have stifled the spontaneous expansion of God’s work in its movement westward. The gospel would not have reached Rome from Jerusalem in twenty-five years. Instead, they established elders (leaders) in each city from the converts they discipled in only four to five months (Acts 14). If we were to adopt this biblical method today, the speed of evangelism and church planting would accelerate and the task of preaching the gospel to all people groups (Matthew 24:14; 28:19-20) would quickly be finished. Then the Lord will come for His Bride, the church! Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver If we look back over two thousand years of church history, we can trace periods of spontaneous growth and expansion. “Men received the doctrine of "Salvation" which gave them new hope, and therefore could not refrain from propagating (spreading) it. They were opposed by the religious authority of their day. Then at the risk of life they persisted in expressing this Spirit-given instinct to share a joy in "Salvation", this grace which seeks the salvation of others. They broke away from all the religious orders they knew, and wild expansions were the immediate result. Though the movement was in opposition to the ordered religious life of the country, the spontaneous expression was confined to comparatively few. The great majority desired traditional religious order. In a remarkably short time, the opposers created order, even to the point of division in the church.”
What has happened to our understanding of the power of God in the gospel? Do you allow the religious structure of your culture or tradition to hinder the freedom God gave us in Christ to spread His message? Perhaps we need to go back to the point of our own conversion and allow the Spirit to reignite that original fervor to tell others of what the gospel has done in us. Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver Do you ever compare your circumstances with someone else and silently complain to the Lord? Israel complained openly; “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?” (Ezekiel 18:25). When Jesus was putting Peter through a very personal and difficult exam, Peter said; “Lord, what about this man (referring to John)” (John 21:21). To Peter, it seemed very unfair that John did not receive the same test.
Was it fair that James is killed and Peter is miraculously released from prison (Acts 12:1-11)? If we trace the life of Joseph, we see a man who loved God with devotion and integrity, but was made to endure the most severe punishment imaginable (Genesis 39-41). From God’s point of view, it was further training (discipline) for what still lay ahead. Asaph was “thoroughly disillusioned and cried in his distress: “But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling; my steps had almost slipped…Until I came into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end” (Psalm 73:2, 17). Job’s reactions [to his sufferings] were those of a mature man of God. His intimacy with God enabled him to stand in the evil day. His steadfast loyalty to God silenced Satan in his design to discredit God. Job’s reaction was not that of cold fatalism but of sublime faith. When the challenge came, he had his answer ready.” (1) Stop comparing yourself with others or others with yourself (see 2 Corinthians 10:12). It steals the attention you need on what God is doing in you for His ultimate glory and the blessing of others. (1) J. Oswald Sanders, Enjoying Intimacy with God, Discovery House, 2000, page 99-100. If we take the analogy in Isaiah 64 and Jeremiah 18 that compares us to clay and God to the potter, we must remember, the hand that applies pressure (discipline) works together with the hand that supports. “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” (Isaiah 64:8). This verse puts the potter into a relationship with us as the clay and the potter as a “Father” who has infinite care about what He is making us into.
Sanders gives another view of this relationship; “We must remember that the hand molding the clay is nail-pierced, and that our God’s sovereignty will never clash with His role as Father.”(1) This principle is outlined very clearly in Hebrews 12. “We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (12:9–10). That is an eternal purpose! God never disciplines without having a divine purpose and greater outcome. Our problem is that we have difficulty looking past the discomfort, suffering, or the simple inconvenience of the discipline. “Affluence and comfort often prove to be the foes of faith…unless we are on our guard, they become the chief end of life, and God and His kingdom are gradually relegated to a minor place.”(1) Be careful how you look at God’s discipline. (1) J. Oswald Sanders, Enjoying Intimacy with God, Discovery House, 2000, page 94. “God nowhere undertakes to gratify our every whim and desire – only those [desires] that are according to His will and in our best interests. That is the reason that at times He seems unsympathetic towards something we think is good… When God withholds some desired blessing, it is only because He desires to bestow something He knows is better.”
There is a great need among Christians, particularly in the affluent West, to patiently endure even when we are disappointed. Moses kept going through extreme difficulties because “he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). Spiritual vision is everything! It puts the whole of life into perspective and helps us place value on the things that really count, including our discipline. Tomorrow we will look at God’s discipline in order to understand its value. J. Oswald Sanders, Enjoying Intimacy with God, Discovery House, 2000, page 98. What is the point of going through times when nothings seems to be going right? In the last week I have been talking to several who are experiencing very difficult situations and they feel the storm and darkness is overtaking them. They are like most who go through times like this. They ask, “What is the purpose in this and where is God when I cry out to Him and hear no answer?” Remember Joseph?
J. Oswald Sanders correctly observes; “Land that knows nothing but sunshine becomes a desert. Clouds, storms, and darkness must have their place if there is to be fertility and fruitfulness.” There are times when we have no idea why we are “walking through the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4). David knew this kind of darkness. He says in Psalm 116:3-4; “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.” These conditions are not the end of the story! David continues; “Then I called on the name of the Lord; “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!” I invite you to read the rest of this Psalm. The Bible says of Joseph, “The Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love” (Genesis 39:21). Not only is God helping us to grow spiritually through our trials, He is increasing His praise and we learn to draw closer to Him in the trials. Even if you are not physically delivered from the troubles, turn your disappointment into praise and thanksgiving and watch the darkness and shadows depart. J. Oswald Sanders, Enjoying Intimacy with God, Discovery House, 2000, page 96. “We in our mission efforts see comparatively few signs of a force so mighty and so universal as spontaneous expansion. This in itself is a sufficient proof that our method of mission work is a strong restraining influence rather than freely expanding. We so often ascribe the absence of missionary zeal to the incapacity of our converts, rather than to the restraining influence in ourselves. This is a sufficient proof of our blindness. We pray for manifestations of zeal in our converts, and instinctively shrink from taking steps which will realize this same zeal in ourselves. This tendency is sadder than it is surprising.”
There were times in the Book of Acts when the unsaved could not deny how God spontaneously expanded the church. During one attack on the new Christians (e.g. Jason), they said, “These men…have turned the world upside down and have come here also” (17:6). I sometimes wonder if we are more interested in being acceptable to the world and our surroundings than we are in bringing the gospel message of deliverance from sin to the perishing. Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver “There is always something terrifying in the feeling that we are letting loose a force which we cannot control. When we think of spontaneous expansion of the church as a force, instinctively we begin to be afraid. Whether we consider our doctrine, or our civilization (culture), or our morals, or our organization, in relation to a spontaneous expansion of the church, we are seized with terror; terror lest spontaneous expansion should lead to disorder. We are quite ready to talk of self-supporting, self-extending and self-governing churches in the abstract as ideals, but the moment that we think of ourselves as establishing self-supporting, self-governing churches in the Biblical sense we are met by this fear, a terrible, deadly fear.
Suppose newly planted churches were self-supporting, and depended no longer on our support, where should we be? Suppose self-extension were really self-extension, and we could not control it, what would happen? Suppose they were really self-governing, how would they govern? We instinctively think of something which we cannot control as tending to disorder.” Again, we are faced with a question whether we really trust God the Spirit to do what we cannot; a divine work in new believers that will last and bear much fruit for the Father’s glory. Do we think that the Spirit cannot have access to them as He has with us? We should realize that He may have more access in them than in us because we may be too bound by tradition and not willing to be guided by the Spirit. Let me remind you of what happened six years after the church was formed at Pentecost. Leaders were needed in Jerusalem to govern so that the needs of widows were properly met (Acts 6:1-7). They did not set up a training program or control mechanism. They looked for “men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom” (6:3). This is God’s method and there is no need to be afraid of what He does! Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver |
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