For, behold, the day comes that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble; and the day that comes shall burn them up, said the LORD of the hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness be born, and in his wings he shall bring saving health; and ye shall go forth and jump like calves of the herd. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, said the LORD of the hosts. (Malachi 4:1-3).

John the Baptist came as a type of Elijah to prepare the way for the ministry of the Lord. In hindsight, we see that he came to herald the end of an era; the Old Testament age had ended. Most of the Jews rejected the ministry of the Lord. They turned on Him. They said, “Crucify Him! Let His blood be upon us and our children.” (Matthew 27:23-25). This is exactly what happened. The Christian church was planted by the Holy Spirit in the ashes of the Jewish rejection of Christ, and the gospel was then offered to the Gentiles. Only in recent years has the nation of Israel come back to the Holy Land, after almost two thousand years of blindness and continued rejection towards the Gospel of Jesus Christ (their Messiah).

The Bible says that Jerusalem will be downtrodden by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luke 21:24). Now, with the Jews back in Jerusalem, it is clear we are approaching the end of the age of the church. Every day that passes comes a little bit closer. We do not know exactly when, but we do know that the Lord is at the door again, and we are waiting for His second coming. This is the hope that all believers have.

The prophet Malachi reported that. Therefore, we now say blessed are the proud and even those that work wickedness are prospered. I did a film on the cocaine traffic, and one scene showed some of the mansions the drug traffickers are living in. School principals and people in the educational system said, “Don’t show that to the kids. If they see those mansions, they are going to want to live like that, and they’ll all want to be drug traffickers!”

We are living in a day and age when the arrogant are called blessed, when the people who can find a way to beat the system, to traffic in drugs, to cheat, lie, or steal to get ahead, are looked at in many quarters with a certain amount of respect. But the Lord says there is a day coming when He is going to act, and the tables are going to turn.

There is a day coming which will be like a furnace, and all the stubble will be burned up. Only the gold, silver, and precious stones will be left. Only that which we have done in obedience to the call of Jesus Christ will have lasting, eternal value. The prophet Malachi says that for those of us who fear His (God’s) name, a new day will dawn, a new age of righteousness. We will go forth on that day, and the wicked will be like ashes under our feet. Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD: and he shall convert the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with destruction (Malachi 4:5-6). This is complete destruction or anathema such as what happened to Jerusalem in AD 70.

Family reconciliation is essential to God’s plan. It’s at the very center of God’s plan for redemption. He bought us with a great price (He gave His life for us), and His plan is to incorporate us into His own family. We are to be a holy (righteous) nation (family) of kings and priests. There are two aspects to family reconciliation; one has to do with the family of God, and the other deals with our physical families and the need for the fathers (here the word for father means “parent” and applies to both father and mother in the family) and their children’s hearts to be turned towards one another. This applies to all of us. There is not one of us who is not either a father or a child. All of us either have children, or we were born into a family some place. It covers all of us.

On another level, this is talking about God the Father reaching out to us and desiring us to return our hearts to Him. Unless we turn our hearts to Him and allow Him to change us from the inside out, we will be caught in the terrible destruction that is coming upon the whole earth at the end of this present age.

You see, that which is not pure, that which is not holy, cannot stand in the presence of the Lord. Throughout the Old Testament, the people believed that if they were to see God, they would die. Several times when the Angel of the Lord appeared to someone they said, “Woe is me, I’m going to die. I’ve seen God.” They knew they could not stand in the presence of God and live. That is why there was a veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple. You could not look right into the presence of God and expect to live.

But with the death of Jesus Christ, that veil was rent through the middle (Luke 23:45). If you study Ezekiel Chapters 40 through 47, you will see that in Ezekiel’s temple there is no veil. The Holy Place and the Holy of Holies are no longer divided. Jesus has opened the way for us to come right into the presence of God the Father. We take it lightly; we take it for granted. Many times we pray, and we say any old thing that pops into our mind. I want this; I want that; so and so bothers me. I have wondered how some of these prayers sound to the ears of God, or if God sometimes is forced to tune us out because we are talking utter nonsense because our hearts are not right before Him, and we have not turned our hearts back to Him (to do what He wants).

I drove past a church the other day and saw a sign: “Talk to God. He will listen.” That sounds nice, doesn’t it? But you know there are lots of people talking to God with very little evidence that God is listening. I believe a more scriptural statement would be: “We need to put all of our attention into listening to God because He has very important things He wants to say to us.”

He wants to talk to us. We have defined prayer as us expressing ourselves to God, us talking to God, when God’s definition of prayer is that He wants to communicate (two way) with us. It’s not just us telling God what to do.

Have you ever spent a couple of hours on your knees telling God how to run His universe? I have spent a lot of time telling God that He ought to do this, and He ought to do that, and I needed this and that, giving Him a whole bunch of orders without realizing who He is and who I am and what a great privilege I have in being able to come before Him. I need to find out what He is trying to say to me. What does He want from me?

But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).

Several times when I have been confused in my life, not knowing the will of God or not being able to get a clear answer, one of the main causes that has blocked my communication with Him has been that God wanted to say something to me, and I just was not listening. He had something important He wanted to say to me, and all I wanted to do was complain about my problems and insist on trying to convince God to implement my will in these matters.

We need to look at things from God’s perspective. Many times, God in His mercy reaches out to us, gives us gifts, grants us favors, and does all kinds of things for us that we do not deserve, starting with His whole plan of redemption. But as we grow and mature in the Lord, He wants to bring us to a point to where the cart and the horse are in the proper order, we realize who He is, and our relationship with Him is not something we take in a superficial, frivolous manner.

What would happen if the phone rang in your house and you were told that the President was expecting you and wished to spend fifteen minutes with you on a certain day and at a certain time? How would you treat that interview? Would you go and talk about the weather, complain about your neighbor and this and that, or would you give it some serious thought so you did not squander your time. Would you respect his time so that after your interview was over, the president’s impression of you would not be: “What a superficial, self-centered,  selfish lout that just walked through my office.”

I think many times we come into the presence of God concerned only with ourselves, concerned only with things that are bothering us, not concerned with what God wants, and not concerned with the needs of those around us. This is the type of situation the prophet Malachi is talking about. He is saying that in order to have the blessing of the Lord and see a day when the proud are not called blessed, when we will see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked and between those who serve God and those who do not, the priorities in our lives must be in order; we must put God first.

In the previous chapter, we dealt with the first beatitude, the poor in spirit, the poor in pride and those who choose to let God deal with (divest them of) their pride. We cannot deal with our own pride. Every time I start thinking I don’t have any pride left in my life, guess what happens? The Lord allows me to go through an experience that reveals to me there is still plenty of pride left. All of us in the natural have pride. Why do we have pride? You see, we are created in the image of God. This means that all the qualities and attributes that God has, we also have the potential to have, but on a much smaller scale. God is sovereign over the universe, and God has allowed each one of us to be sovereign over our tiny will. We can choose to serve God, or we can choose to go our own way, which will ultimately end in bondage to Satan.

God experiences emotions; the Bible contains many references to God’s love, God’s anger, and God’s jealousy when His people stray after someone else or something else. God wishes to place all of these things in their proper perspective. He wishes to change our hearts so His emotions can begin to flow through us. I was reading a quote the other night by Oswald Chambers. He said, “You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear; you have to obey it clear.”

When things are confused, when you don’t know what to do, when you’re not hearing the voice of the Lord clearly, it is impossible from the level of our human thinking to reason our way out of it. The only way out, the only way to regain that intimate communication with God, the only way to regain that total peace and tranquility that comes from being in the will of God, is to begin to obey God. Take steps of obedience. This is the only way to be able to hear from God on a continual basis. If we are not willing to obey God in the small things, we will not hear Him on the big things. If we only consult Him every time there is a major decision, we’ll be one of those people wandering around not knowing what the will of the Lord is and saying, “I can’t hear the voice of God. I’m confused. I’m not sure if what I’m hearing is the still, small voice of God or not.”

God has created each of us with a conscience so we can know if we are pleasing God or not. The more we obey God and respond to what we know is right, the more sensitive our conscience becomes.

Now look at the next beatitude. Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted. The Greek word for mourn, pénthos, is very important. It is the term that was used for mourning the dead. It can also mean a passionate grief that leads to action. Those who mourn are those who die to their own way and live to follow Christ, their master. This leads to some very hard choices. Worldly pursuits that used to provide fleeting pleasures must be renounced. Jesus tells us that No man can serve two masters. Those who truly surrender to God and submit to the authority of Christ will grieve at the status of the world around them. They will renounce ill-gotten gains, as well as the pursuit of worldly power, prestige, and pleasure even if it causes them great grief at the time.

Those who renounce their own way and the ways of the world to take up their cross and follow Christ will be comforted. The Greek word, parakaléo, translated “comforted” has a wide range of meaning. It can mean anything – calling for aid, beseeching God in prayer, being exhorted, being encouraged (or even won over to a given plan), and being comforted in times of sorrow. This is the same root as the word used in the gospel of John for Comforter (Holy Spirit).

When we choose to give up the ways of the world by renouncing everything that belongs to the kingdom of darkness, God responds by giving us the down payment on our inheritance in Christ: He sends us the Comforter. The Holy Spirit will exhort and encourage us in the way of the Lord. He will convince us of the truth.

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things that I have said unto you (John 14:26).

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free (John 8:32).

When the Holy Spirit shines God’s truth into our hearts, a transformation takes place. All darkness, gloom and despair must flee from the light of His presence. Those who are com[1]forted have a heart that has been softened. It’s a heart that is tender. It’s a heart that operates from God’s perspective and feels things the way God feels them because it is a heart filled with His presence. It is a heart that is repentant of the sins of the past and can recognize the consequences of these mistakes. It is a heart that continues to mourn and cry out to God saying, “Lord, change me, I don’t want to be like this anymore,” every time the Holy Spirit brings to light something that needs to be placed on the altar and disposed of.

It is a heart that when it comes in contact with someone else who is hurting, produces tears as it identifies with that person. What if that was me? How would I want to be treated if it were me? What does God want me to do for this person? It’s a heart that begins to feel the same way God is feeling when we come into contact with sin and with its devastation and destruction around us. It is a heart that can begin to implement God’s supreme strategy for victory by loving our enemies, praying for those who persecute us, and overcoming evil with good. It is a heart that understands the strategic importance of “turning the other cheek” and “going the extra mile.”

There is another way to mourn. We can mourn out of bitter[1]ness because we did not get our way. We’ve all seen what happens when a little child doesn’t get his way; he pouts and stamps and begins to cry because his will has been thwarted. That kind of mourning and those kinds of tears are not blessed. It’s the other way around. That’s not what God desires; He desires a heart that is set to follow Him. He wants a heart ready for Him to change, a hard heart that He has softened. He begins to soften our heart when He begins to change our heart, which is what happens when genuine conversion takes place.

Once he has plowed up the hard, fallow ground, He will plant His humility, meekness, tenderness, righteousness, and mercy in our hearts. Like an expert gardener, He will continue to cultivate His good fruit, and at the same time, pull out the weeds by the roots until our hearts are pure. His goal is to form men and women of integrity who will overcome evil with good.

Giving up our own way, and the fleeting pleasures of the world may cause us to mourn, but Jesus promises to comfort us. He will send us the Comforter, His Holy Spirit.

Ye have heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not commit murder, and whosoever shall commit murder shall be guilty of the judgment; but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother out of control shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall insult his brother shall be in danger of the council, but whosoever shall say, Thou art impious, shall be in danger of hell.

Ye have heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you, That whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart (Matthew 5:21, 22, 27, 28).

What is Jesus describing here? He is talking about someone who is no longer thinking in the legalistic terms of the law of God, but who has been softened and is repentant from the heart. To fully understand what Jesus is telling us, we must realize that true repentance goes beyond the letter of the law. It is not just Thou shalt not murder; it’s not just, Thou shalt not commit adultery. God wants to deal with the very seeds and roots of rebellion (going our own way), wrong thoughts, and wrong feelings in our hearts before they ever get manifested into words and deeds.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The meek are those who submit themselves to God. Praüs, the Greek word translated “meek” is a very interesting word. The ancient Greeks used this word to describe their war horses, among other things. The horse was perfectly trained, ready for battle, and would go into battle and trample enemies underfoot. It would participate in the war with the rider; this was called a meek horse. The words meek and praüs are not identical; the translators did the best they could, but the Greek word carries a different range of meaning from ours.

I’ll tell you why the Greeks called their horses praüs, or meek. When the horse got to the level of training where it would obey the master (the rider) no matter what was going on, it could be trusted in the heat of battle not to do something stupid or foolish. Once the rider knew that he could trust the animal, and it would obey him no matter what, he called it a meek horse even though it might be a powerful, thoroughbred stallion, capable of killing enemies in the battle.

This horse has tremendous power, capacity, and ability, but it has given up its own way and is allowing itself to be guided and ordered by the master. That is what the word praüs means; it means submission to the master. It doesn’t mean submission to just anybody. A meek person in the biblical sense of the word is not someone who allows just anybody to tell them what to do. It is not someone who allows everyone to trample over the top of them and just goes with the flow. It is all of our gifts and abilities, everything that God has put into us, under His control and submitted to Him so that even in the worst crisis imaginable, we’re not going to take the bit in our teeth and bolt on our own way. We will continue to go His way under intense pressure, persecution, danger, or need. This is what it means to be meek.

Look what happens to the meek: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. They will receive God’s inheritance. They are the ones who will be placed in charge of God’s creation under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the ones who submit to Him now and allow Him to have His way in everything down to the smallest detail.

There is an interesting passage in the book of Job that people shy away from using because much of it is the advice of Job’s comforters. Why would all of the philosophy and doctrine of Job’s comforters, who were proven wrong in the end, be included right in the Word of God? If you look over what Job’s comforters said, most of it is true. It is hard to disprove anything they said. Their only problem is that they misapplied the truth. They applied it in the wrong way at the wrong time by their human minds.

When men take God’s principles and decide to apply them according to their own wisdom, they fail to provide a blessing. Job’s comforters were not a blessing to Job. His crowning affliction was that he had to listen to them on top of everything else that had happened to him. But I’m not going to preach to you from words of Job’s comforters. God, however, speaks out of the whirlwind in Job Chapter 39.

Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him leap as a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils is formidable. He paws at the earth and rejoices in his strength; he goes forth to meet the armed men. He mocks fear and is not afraid; neither does he turn his face from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, the glittering spear and the shield. He swallows the ground with fierceness and rage; the sound of the shofar does not trouble him; for the blasts of the shofar fill him with courage; he smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the princes and the sound of the battle-cry (Job 39:19-25).

This is God’s description of a “meek” horse. He lives listening for the call of that trumpet. It is his life to go charging into battle, submitted to the master who is on his back. This is what Jesus is talking about when He says: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. He’s talking about people who are waiting for the sound of the trumpet blast, waiting for their orders; they can’t wait to have God send them into the middle of some terrible battle in the most unexpected place. These people have no fear because they are totally submitted to Christ. When we are submitted to Him, God says that perfect love casts out fear, and He is perfect love.

There is no fear (terror) when we are in Him. Let us not confuse this with another type of fear which is the fear of the Lord – this fear is not a terror type of fear, it’s a respect and a fear of being afraid of displeasing Him. If something causes you to fear such that it dominates you and modifies your behavior causing you to respond to circumstances and change your behavior to the point where you are making decisions based on fear, you are not totally submitted to Jesus Christ. You are not operating in a meek attitude of allowing Jesus Christ to be your complete Master and Lord. There may be something that you think you have submitted to God, which maybe really isn’t.

Just a few months ago, when our son was two weeks old, he got very sick and was in intensive care for five days. We were not sure what was going to happen to him. There was a twinge of fear that went through my heart as we were taking our baby to the hospital. Then the thought went through my mind, “Whose baby is this? Is it mine, or is it the Lord’s? Have I totally placed this child in the hands of the Lord? Am I willing for whatever God ordains for the life of this baby, my only son?”

Once I double checked that, once I reaffirmed before the Lord that this was indeed the case, the fear left. Yes, it was a difficult time, and we had to run back and forth between the hospital and home a lot. There were many different things that needed to be done. It was tiring and exhausting, but panic and fear were not there anymore.

Fear can only manipulate and control us and cause us to react when we are not totally surrendered to God. If we are willing to do what He wants, even if we lose everything or they kill us or we go through all the troubles that Job went through, Satan can’t terrorize us with his fears any more.

The book of Job opens with a description of the wonderful relationship that Job had with God and of all the wonderful children, property, and possessions that God had showered upon him. From Satan’s perspective, Job had everything. He complained to God that the only reason Job served God was because God had put a hedge around him and had blessed him abundantly. From God’s perspective, Job lacked at least one very important thing; he still needed to learn a very important lesson. This comes out in chapter 3:

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. I never had prosperity, nor did I secure myself, neither was I at rest; yet trouble came (Job 3:25-26).

God’s peace is not dependent on external circumstances. It is an inner state. Job had to learn to overcome his fear before he could truly become everything God wanted him to be. This is one of the reasons that God removed the hedge of protection around him, allowing Satan to strike. Even though Job was blameless in God’s eyes before, during, and after his experience, God delivered him of all his fears by taking him through the middle of his worst nightmares and bringing him safely out the other side.

When I was kidnapped by the guerrillas and they threatened to kill me, the first couple of times it was, “Oh-oh, they’re going to kill me!” and fear would grip me. But then in prayer before the Lord, I had to resolve: Am I willing to do and say what God wants done or said, even if they torture me, even if they shoot me? If that’s the case, then they can’t terrorize me anymore. It immediately takes away their weapon of fear.

When God talks of delivering us from our fears, I believe that many times the form His deliverance takes is to bring us to the place where we are willing to go forth in His name and face our worst fears because we are in submission to Jesus Christ, and this is all that matters. Then we become like the horse who doesn’t like to stay in the stable.

He doesn’t like to just be eating his corn or hay with an easy life in the stable. He is straining his ear for the call to battle. He mocks fear and is not afraid; neither does he turn his face from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, the glittering spear and the shield. He swallows the ground with fierceness and rage; the sound of the shofar does not trouble him; for the blasts of the shofar fill him with courage; he smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the princes and the sound of the battlecry (Job 39:22-25).

He’s straining his ear; he wants to find out what the commanders are saying because he’s going to follow orders. He can’t wait to get into the thick of it. These are the kind of people that God wants to raise up. These are the kind of people that God wants to bless. He doesn’t want us to be always living in a day when the proud are called blessed. He wants to bless His people and lead them to victory.

Meekness has to do with faith in Jesus Christ, with submitting to Jesus Christ, with obedience to Jesus Christ. Faith and obedience cannot really be separated. When James says that faith without works is dead, he’s not talking about self-works, but of God-ordained works. In other words, if we say that we have faith in God, but we are not doing God’s works, the work that God has called us and empowered us to do, then we are just playing games (James 2:14-26). We won’t be able to stand in a real battle; we’ll be dominated by our fears; our fears will get the better of us. Satan will be able to hem us in, and we will live our lives in a cage of fear that we, ourselves, helped him build.

I’ve had certain birds and little hamsters that had lived for so many generations in a cage that if you take them out of their cage, they just sit there and tremble with fear; they don’t know what to do. They can’t do anything. In fact, I’m told that there are animals that die when you take them out of their cage because their security is gone. Their security is the walls and the bars of their little cage, and they can’t live outside of it.

There are other birds and animals that are so used to being free that if you put them in a cage, they will die. They can’t live cooped up in cage. Which one do you want to be? Do you want to live in a cage and never see the blessing of God and never win a victory over the enemy? Do you really want to live in perpetual fear about what’s going on outside those bars that you have surrounded yourself with, the fears that Satan has used to entrap you?

This spirit can take many forms. It can be fear over what’s going to happen to our kids; it can be fear over what could happen economically if something were to happen to our savings. Some people fear cataclysmic future events. Any area of our existence that is not totally surrendered to the Lordship of Christ is open to attack. I don’t know what your area of fear is, but I do know that if you really want God to deal with it, lay yourself on the altar, and He will.

If you truly wish to submit in all areas to the Lordship and authority of Jesus Christ, He will train you for war so you can win the victory over wrong desires, fears, the world, and our enemy, the devil. Then it can be said of you, like the horse God describes in the book of Job: He has no fear. He’s straining his ears, trying to hear the sound of the trumpet, the sound of the commanders and the battle cry. His hooves (feet) eat up the ground. He can’t get to the battle fast enough when he’s called upon. He wants to be right in the thick of it wherever and when[1]ever God’s moving, helping to defeat whatever stronghold of the enemy that God wants torn down. His only worry or fear is that he continues to hear the voice of the Lord and not lose that intimate heart-to-heart communion with Him.

“Is the Lord calling on me? Does He want me to do something? What could it possibly be?” The minute there is the slightest indication that God wants that person to move, he’s gone. He takes off and goes for it like the horse that obeys even the slightest nudge from its rider.

In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says, Think not that I am come to undo the law or the prophets … What was the law? The written Word of God is what they called the law. They called the Scriptures that they had the “Law and the Prophets.” It was the revealed written Word of God for them. Jesus said, “I didn’t come to undo God’s laws, but to fulfill them.” All of the blood sacrifices, the ceremonial temple laws, were fulfilled in Christ through His death and resurrection, and that is why we don’t have to keep the symbols, types and shadows any more. Now we have the real thing.

There are things written in the books of the Old Testament that the Bible says are to be observed forever and ever: the Ten Commandments and all of God’s principles and precepts that He set forward as His moral law. In the New Covenant, He says He is going to write His laws on the tablets of our hearts and in our minds. He is going to imprint His law into our souls. He is going to give us the ability to think and feel the same way He thinks and feels so we don’t have to get out a great big manual and start looking it up to see if something is right or wrong, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. All we have to do is make sure that our hearts are totally committed to the Lord, and the Lord will be more than happy to let us feel the same way He feels about it. He will then confirm those feelings with both with His written Word and with the testimony of other Christians.

I’ve found myself happily doing the will of the Lord when, all of a sudden, a sickening feeling will come over me, and my intimate communion with the Lord is shaken. I know that something is wrong. I can tell immediately because there is unrest in my heart. Something I did or said to someone else affected my intimate communion with the Lord. The best thing to do at that point is to get down on my knees and spend some time with the Lord. I need to tune out the background noise and the clutter of the things that are going on around me. Then I can allow the Lord to speak to me and put His finger on where I began to deviate from His way. I need to find out where I began to grieve His Holy Spirit and what He wants me to do in order to correct the situation.

Think not that I am come to undo the law or the prophets; I am not come to undo, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law until all is fulfilled.

Whosoever therefore shall undo one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of the heavens (Matthew 5:17-20).

The Pharisees knew many Scriptures by memory. They made great consultations about whether a certain action was against the Scriptures, and they were careful to follow the letter of the law. When Jesus spoke about them, He said, Do what they say, but don’t be like them. When they are talking about the Ten Commandments and these other things, that’s all fine and dandy, but don’t be like them. Why? Because they wanted to take their own human reasoning and understanding and use that to apply God’s principles to their lives. The letter of the law put to death the spirit of the law to the point that when God Himself came to live among them, they were not able to receive Him.

Jesus walked right in their midst, and they did not even recognize Him. They said the mighty works He was doing were done under the power of the Devil, and He was casting out demons under the power of the Beelzebub. Jesus said,

And whosoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age, neither in the age to come (Matthew 12:32).

Why? Because someone can be mistaken and may not realize who Jesus is, but when they start saying that the feats of God are not the deeds of God, that the wonders done by the Spirit of God are the doings of the devil and vice versa, there is nothing more that can be done for them because they reject God with their eyes wide open.

When we are driving down the road, there are highway signs along the way: dangerous curve ahead, slow down – workers on the way, bridge out, speed limit. As you are going down the road, you can decide for yourself. You can say, “I’m smarter than those signs. The bridge isn’t really out. I know it says slow down to 35 miles per hour, but I can still go 65.” When we follow this kind of reasoning, which again has to do with our pride, we take our life into our hands, and not just our own life, but the life of anyone who might be in our car. There have been lots of terrible accidents because people did not pay attention to the signs.

As we are going along the road of life, Jesus Christ Himself, through His Holy Spirit, puts warning signs along the road. He will speak to us; He will witness to us. He’ll say, “Watch it! Start putting on the brakes. You’re coming into a danger zone.” If we still don’t watch it, He’ll send someone to tell us we are skating on thin ice. He’ll warn and warn and warn. If we continue to disregard all of His warnings, there comes a time when we will crash.

In the Old Testament, this is what happened to His people. Moses said,

I call the heavens and the earth to witness today against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed may live, that thou may love the LORD thy God and that thou may hear his voice and that thou may cleave unto him; for he is thy life (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).

When they went God’s way, they were blessed, and when they went their own way, they found danger and difficulties that ended with their beautiful city of Jerusalem being destroyed two times (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).

God is the same yesterday, today and forever. But now, through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can have His presence inside of us. We (in the church age) have a greater opportunity to live according to God’s will than anyone who has gone before us in human history. We have the opportunity to recall those who have gone before us and learn from their mistakes. In Colombia, they have taken cars that are smashed in on all sides and set them up in some of the key intersections to remind people by saying, “See what happened to those people. We don’t want that to happen to us.”

Some of the greatest men of God made some horrible slipups and lost important blessings. King David was a man after God’s own heart, but because of his sin of adultery and murder, the Lord declared that bloodshed would never leave his family; he would experience problems with violence in his family in the future even though he was personally restored. David went through that terrible problem with his son, Absalom. God has allowed these examples to be recorded so we won’t have to experience similar things; we can learn from what happened to other people. If we are willing to be poor in spirit, let God deal with our pride, and mourn our own deeds and our own way, God will send us the Holy Spirit that we might submit ourselves totally to Jesus Christ. If we choose His way, God says the kingdom of the heavens is ours, and we will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. The new birth, birth into the realm of the Spirit, will produce hunger and thirst for righteousness (being filled with the character of God), just like natural babies hunger and thirst for milk. The motivation of the heart changes, and our new nature now hungers and thirsts for righteousness (being and doing what God wants). We must feed our new nature daily by allowing the Holy Spirit to have His way in our lives. This is the requirement for continually being filled to overflowing (baptized) with the presence of God’s Spirit. Those who attempt to live solely on their past experiences with God will stagnate.

In many churches people are introduced to the “baptism” of the Holy Spirit by repeating funny phrases after the teacher. They are told to talk baby talk and just open their mouth and say any strange phrase that pops into their mind. That’s not what the “baptism” is at all. We must allow God to deal with our pride until we mourn the deeds of the old man under the old nature. Those who mourn will be comforted with the genuine Holy Spirit. There must be a genuine seeking after God. We must allow God to break the hardness of our heart. When He changes our heart and gives us His heart, it comes with that hunger and thirst for righteousness and for meekly doing things His way. The person who receives the genuine infilling of the presence of God need not strive after superficial manifestations of spirituality; this person simply begins to bubble over, to overflow with the supernatural presence and love of God. Jesus promises a well of “living water” that will spring up out of our innermost being (John 7:38).

There are counterfeit spiritual experiences in the world. Many try to bypass the only true entrance to the kingdom of God. They refuse to enter at the narrow gate. They refuse to allow God to deal with their pride. They refuse to give up their own way. They want prosperity and blessing, but they refuse to embrace the cross of Christ. These are those who falsely think they have been saved when in reality they are not, those who falsely think that they’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit when they are not. They’ve been filled with some other spirit, some cheap spirit that will neither produce nor satisfy a genuine hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Whole groups of “Christian” people are just playing games with one another. The tragic thing is that the fruit isn’t there. The battle isn’t being won. Their house is built on the sand, and when the storm comes, everything they have placed their trust in will come down with a great crash (Matthew 7:27).

There are large sectors of Christendom where instead of a witness being given for the Lord, the overall testimony has been against the Lord. Lofty ministries have come crashing to the ground. The end result in the eyes of the world has been to give the Lord a black eye. The salt has lost its savor and has been trampled underfoot (Matthew 5:13).

God wants to change this. He wants to give us the victory. He wants us to charge into the battle like the horse described in Job Chapter 39. He doesn’t want us bound by our fears living in a cage that we have made for ourselves. He doesn’t want Satan to hem us in. He wants us to go forth into victory without any fear in our hearts. God says, “He (the meek horse) laughs at fear and strains his ear for the trumpet, for the sound of the commander and the battle cry.” He can’t wait to engage the enemy.

For the idols have spoken vanity and the diviners have seen a lie and have told vain dreams; they comfort in vain; therefore they went their way like sheep; they were humbled because there was no shepherd.

My anger is kindled against the pastors, and I will visit the he goats, for the LORD of the hosts shall visit his flock, the house of Judah, and shall make them as his horse of honour in the battle. Out of him shall come the corner, out of him the stake, out of him the battle bow, out of him also every oppressor.

And they shall be as mighty men, who tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle; and they shall fight because the LORD shall be with them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded (Zechariah 10:2-5).

In Old Testament typology, the horse represents man’s effort or strength. Thus, those who do battle on horseback, trusting in horses instead of the Lord, are put to shame. On the other hand, God promises to make those who submit their gifts, abilities, and strength to Him into His own (corporate) royal horse that He Himself will ride to battle and win the victory.

And I saw the heaven open, and behold a white horse; and he that was seated upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war (Revelation 19:11).

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, we want to be Your royal horse in battle. We want to be meek before you. We want to be like Moses who was willing to listen to you and who was patient with the people around him. He did not assert his own authority, but allowed you to establish his authority as a leader, truly called by Yourself. Lord, we want to win a victory, but first of all Lord, we want to be sure our hearts are as You desire them to be.

Lord, if there is a hard spot in our hearts, we want You to break it up. We want You to come in and plough up the fallow ground. We want You to soften our hearts; to tenderize our hearts. We want You to give us Your heart. Lord, we want to feel the way that You do about the things that are wrong in our lives. We want to feel the way that You do about our gifts and our abilities and all the wonderful things that You have blessed us with. We want to be able to manage these things for You, and for this we need to have Your presence within us.

Lord, we want to examine our hearts before You. Search us, oh God, and if there be any wicked way within us, please cleanse us, Lord. Clean us up. If we are dominated by fear, please help us that we might surrender those areas to You. We ask You to conquer our fear with Your love, that we might go forward with you to the battle, straining our ears for the trumpet sound for our orders. May our thoughts and feelings not be: Oh no, what if God asks me to do something I don’t want to do? What if God were to ask me to go across the world and be a missionary in a country where I don’t want to go? What if God were to ask me to give up my job or to give up my car, or my home? May we not be bound and paralyzed by fear.

Lord, we ask You to change our hearts so our thoughts and our feelings might be totally different and we might be straining, trying to catch the sound of the command[1]ers and the battle cry, straining for the sound of the trumpet from afar. “Could that trumpet call be for me? Could there be a battle that God wants me to engage in some place? How can I get there? How soon can I get there?” May we move on to wherever the action is, to wherever the battle is, straining to hear our orders, ready at any moment, looking to You, Lord Jesus, for even the smallest things like the horse submits to the details and rigors of training so it can face the real battle when it comes.

Lord, help us to look at every little detail as something important that we need to be faithful to You in, so we might not be mediocre Christians, but that we might excel in executing whatever orders You might give us with whatever tiny responsibility You might want us to be faithful in, so You might give us more important things as we mature. May the day come when we can face all of the attacks, even the most powerful attacks that the enemy can mount, and we can look the worst demon in the eye and not feel any fear, but just be listening attentively for Your orders as to what to do and how to put the enemy under our feet. Change our thinking, Lord, change our hearts. Let us think Your thoughts, let us feel Your feelings. Let us go forth in joy and victory to serve You.

Amen.