What About the Church?

The following was given at a meeting in Bogota about ten years ago. I was going to preach on John Chapter 17 and at the last minute a very high ranking Guerrilla leader walked into the auditorium and sat down! So my message changed to: God’s Plan for His Friends.

Every time this place fills up I think we will need a bigger place to hold the meetings. Then the Lord takes some of the people to another place, and we get some of our space back so that we can fill it again. And who would have thought that the messages that leave this place have been heard all over Colombia and Latin America via the radio and people, who have distributed them on cassette and compact disk. This can only happen if there is a concerted effort made by all. This is different from preaching alone before a microphone in a cold sound studio.

When the majority of the audience members are good Christians, people with clean hearts, the Lord can bless us with good messages. Our intention here is not to tie anyone down; we are not trying to form another sect or denomination; we are not trying to control people’s lives in manipulating them by means of their tithes. We only want you to walk circumspect before God and man.

I don’t even think that going to church is an indispensable part of the Christian life, because there have been large portions of history when Christians were not able to congregate. Up until five hundred years ago, we didn’t even have printed Bibles, and the majority of the common people didn’t know how to read.

Today, most of the things that seem central to religion don’t have much in common with the true religion that our Lord taught us. Our Lord taught that real religion is to accompany the widow and the orphan in their afflictions and not let ourselves be tainted by the world (James 1:27).

This means we may have to endure hardships because we will accompany widows and orphans and share what we have with them, to the point that we also feel the hardships that they are experiencing. Why? Because we are helping them to the point that we also start to feel the pinch. This is contrary to greed and avarice. If a small portion of the people, especially the leaders of Colombia’s privileged class, understood what the Bible says about true religion, there would not be so many poor people in need.

To not be contaminated by the world means that we don’t do things the way the world does them. The world is full of corruption and if one has business dealings, has a place of importance, or does anything in this world, unjust and unseemly things may happen. So, real religion in the words of our Lord does not even mention paying tithes, going to church, crying, or screaming. It doesn’t even mention reading the Bible.

True religion, according to the Lord, pertains to a different behavior in the measure of how the heart has been changed. I dare say that the people who read the Bible and go to religious services with their hearts full of corruption, not only find that these things avail them nothing, but could also find that these things put them in a worse condition than if they did nothing. Corruption in the spiritual realm is the worst form of corruption, because the people who say they represent God are in fact doing the opposite.

We know that corruption has permeated our society in economic and political areas, but the corruption that exists in the religious part of our society is more serious and disastrous, because religious people are the ones who are forming the next generation. If these people are teaching things in the name of God and are not clean (even if they are teaching good things), they transmit more of their attitude and corruption than the message that comes out of their mouths. One generation then passes this on to the next, generation after generation.

The same thing can happen to children in schools. They are taught a subject called religion, but most of them don’t even pay attention to what they are being taught if they see that the teacher is a liar and full of greed. So they learn to behave as their teacher behaves, or they reject everything the teacher says. Consequently, either more religious people are formed who are even worse hypocrites, or more rebellious people are formed who don’t want to know anything about God. Good men and women cannot be formed unless there is a cleansing.

A good friend of mine was a sled dog champion in Canada. Some races lasted for as long as eight days in extreme freezing temperatures. Imagine a sled dog race that was fifteen hundred kilometers long. The participants in this sport learned that in order to compete they must have hybrid dogs, so they started mixing up the breeds. Then they learned that to have an extra edge they had to mix in some wolf blood, so they did. The only problem is that wolves by nature are very wild and are not the same as domestic dogs. So in a bad situation, some people found out that they could be attacked and maybe even killed by their own sled dogs.

When I visited my friend, his dogs always seemed tame, even though they were also crossed with wolves, so I really didn’t trust them. One day I asked him, “Why do you have such tame dogs, when others have savage dogs that will even kill their owner?”

He answered me, “Very simple. When a puppy first opens its eyes, what it sees is imprinted onto its personality and spirit. If its mother is a savage wolf, the puppy grows up to become the same by instinct and nature. To avoid this, when the puppies first open their eyes, I take them into the house and have them play with my children, so what is imprinted on my sled dogs is my children. These puppies are tame all their lives and have a different personality than other wild dogs.”

His dogs won the races because they put their whole hearts into pleasing their owner. This was clearly seen in his lead dog (the one that motivated the other dogs) who, when he was old, had a permanent leaning of his head to one side, and his ears pulled back to the same side, because he had spent all his life leaning his head and pulling his ears to that side in order to hear his master’s voice behind him. These dogs, instead of being controlled by harnesses and reins, were controlled only by their master’s voice commands. The master would issue a command, and they would obey whatever it was.

I remember the time I was in Canada, and it was minus thirty degrees. My friend had his fifteen dogs hitched to the sled, and the sled was tied to a water pipe that was staked into the ground and served as a brake. A Colombian friend who was with me had never been in Canada before, so I passed him the camera and told him to get in front of the sled to take our picture when the sled took off.

Who would have imagined what was going to happen next! The traditional Inuit word for the dogs to start racing is mush. Imagine a race where everyone has a whole bunch of sled dogs programmed for this word, and someone carelessly says mush. So my Canadian friend had decided to program his dogs to start on the word okay instead.

My friend did all right and took three pictures and then said, “Okay, Russ, I took the pictures.” Those dogs took off like lightning, bending the three-quarter-inch galvanized water pipe they were tied to like it was butter. They caught my Canadian friend off guard and threw him from the sled into the snow. I was left alone on this sled, not knowing how to control the dogs.

My friend saved the day when he screamed at the top of his lungs for the dogs to veer to one side, and since he was in an agitated state, the dogs obeyed immediately, turning over the sled in the process. I ended up under the sled with one of my boots caught, being dragged around in the snow until I could unhook my boot. Even after my friend had caught up with the dogs and managed to control them, I still had to run as fast as I could to throw myself onto the sled.

This was the experience of a lifetime, but can you imagine God’s problem with us when we won’t obey His commands? And to make matters worse, His commands are voluntary. The people who obey God’s commands are those who want to walk in His ways; they are the ones who don’t want to be free to go their own ways, even though those ways might seem better at times.

Mistakes are not easily pardoned in the freezing temperatures of North America. One mistake can take you far out of your way when you are out with a team of sled dogs. The mistake may seem small, but it can have serious consequences. Just letting your glove fall to the ground could cause your hand to freeze, and you could lose some of your fingers because of the intense cold.

I don’t know if we knew enough or if we just had enough faith in God (probably both), but I realized that I could hold conferences all over Canada and Alaska – and the conferences would be well attended – because few people wanted to go to those freezing locations. We realized that the best time for us to visit was in the winter, and we were always well received.

Also, we had lots of friends all over these places. When our meetings were announced, people would show up from all over and from all denominations, without caring what day of the week it was. It’s not like here in a city of millions where we are lucky if we get a hundred people to show up.

In addition, these people help each other on the road. If someone has car trouble or there is any kind of a situation, nobody drives by without stopping and asking if you need help, because in those temperatures you could die. I didn’t know that it is not customary for people to go out when it goes below minus forty degrees. After minus fifty degrees, the oil in your car even starts to freeze. If one continues in these conditions, the possibility of ending up stranded is very high, and you can’t last long.

They had told me that only true friends would visit in the winter because there is hardly any sunlight due to the earth’s rotation. In summer there is lots of light. I have been there when the sun never sets; it just goes around in the sky but doesn’t go down. In winter, it does the opposite; during that part of the year, the sun never rises. You can drive north until you get to where there are only four to five hours of daylight; you barely see the sun, and then it disappears.

So we went up to where there is no pavement, and after many miles, the road turns into a frozen river (where the ice is a couple yards deep), and then you come to the ocean. We then drove on the ocean until we finally came to the last Inuit village named Tuktoyaktuk, which has a population of about three hundred. We got there and didn’t know why we hadn’t seen anyone else driving on the road, not recognizing the danger we had been in. We learned that the natives only leave their houses if it is a matter of life or death.

An interesting thing we realized is that we had better visibility when we were in total darkness than when we had twilight. This is because the darkness contrasts against the lights of the vehicle, whereas the partial twilight makes the vehicle lights blend in with the twilight to the point of not being able to distinguish between the two.

This is a good lesson: When things are all mixed up, it is more difficult to orient ourselves. It is preferable for things to be very dark or very light so that we have better discernment. But wait till I tell you what happened on my return trip. We left at midnight under a rush as there was a storm brewing. I wanted to get out of there before the blizzard obstructed all passages, and we got stuck. As we left, we passed by the last gas station, which was closed, but since I had driven up there on one tank of gas and I carried two full five-gallon containers with me, I thought it would be enough. But something happened.

When we came out of the blizzard, everything became light, and we drove until dawn started to break into a clear, bright day with no clouds. I said, “Well, we got through the worst. Now we are safe. We left the bad part behind.”

But what I didn’t count on was that as long as we were in the storm, the cloud cover maintained a temperature that didn’t go below minus thirty or thirty-five degrees. Without the cloud cover, the earth loses its heat faster, and the temperature can drop to dangerous levels.

I soon noticed that it was minus sixty-seven degrees. When this happened, the car started consuming double the gasoline. When I realized this, I was almost out of gas. We had the car’s heater on full blast and hadn’t recognized what was happening outside. But praise God, we were able to get to the nearest gas station, safe and sound. In those extreme freezing temperatures, a person is not able to walk even one kilometer without freezing to death. It was so cold that while I was in the restaurant next to the filling station, the hydraulic oil in the power steering froze, and steering the car became difficult for a while.

Through all of this, I realized that there are times when people think that they are all right, but in reality they are not. In this world’s system, which is full of corruption, there is no hope for a true peace. Instead, the world only produces a false peace, causing many to think they are at peace when they really aren’t. I think this is the case for most major cities in the world.

Many people walk the streets up and down and think everything is all right. They think things are getting better, when in reality these people are in grave danger. Why are they in danger? Because sooner or later they will have to give an account for what they are and what they have done. This could happen suddenly, and it will be a surprise to many people.

After filling my car with gas, I continued on my way and ran into a friend who thought no one was going to come see him that winter. I got to his house, and his wood floor was so cold it was steaming. We sat in the dining room on top of the table with our feet up on the chairs because the floor was too cold.

Later, when I set out to visit other friends, I remembered I had to return a cassette to someone who had loaned it to me. I put my hand into my bag to get it, but I cut my finger on the razor blade in my bag. When I got there, they had to bandage my hand. Everything had been going so good that I knew, “God has his hand in this.” So I asked the Lord why I had to put my hand in my bag and get cut like that.

I felt in my spirit the answer, “Because you are not careful. Not only that, but you are walking around in some very dangerous situations as if it were nothing.” So the next time, I made sure to top off the gas tank every time I saw that it was three-quarters full.

I continued my trip and stopped at a hotel because the fog was too thick to drive in. So obeying the voice of the Spirit, I got a hotel room. Everybody had their cars parked there, all with their electrical heaters plugged in, and the motors running. You also need to have synthetic oil and lots of antifreeze in the radiator. I tried shutting off the vehicle and plugging it into the electricity and went and took a bath.

Two hours later, the car would hardly start. I was hesitant to leave it running all night as I had heard you shouldn’t do that, but everyone was doing it. So after starting it and turning it off about three times, I started it again, left it running and went to sleep. When I woke up, someone was shouting, “Fire!”

I went out to see, and it was my car that was on fire. In that cold temperature, the air is denser and fire burns better and faster. We couldn’t put it out. We almost burned down the hotel and everything else. And instead of a car, all we had left were charred remains.

My brother had loaned me this car under many protestations, saying it was the best car he had ever owned. It belonged to my brother and my dad, and it had been difficult to persuade both of them to let me borrow it. Now that it was destroyed, we ended up having to tow it with another car to get it away from the building, and then it exploded twice. I don’t know how we weren’t all killed.

When they evacuated the hotel, there were all these ladies in their nightgowns out in the minus sixty-seven-degree weather, looking for the one responsible for their inconvenience, and I was the one responsible. The fire truck came, but it was too late, and it didn’t do much good anyway as they were having trouble because the water was freezing almost before it could get from the hose to the car.

The most interesting part of that trip was that my message (and I thought it was a beauty) was titled, “The Fire of God.” It’s very easy to preach a good message to everybody, but it is not so easy living the message. The message is not ours, and the Lord will not bless us until we have made the message a part of us, a reality in our own lives. If we are preaching one thing and doing another, we cannot count on the blessing of God. Sadly, this is the case in many places; the message that is preached is not lived.

Well, I had to call and tell my brother and my father what happened to their car. They told me to report it to the insurance company. The car was insured with a company located close to Miami, Florida, where there is never this kind of cold. I had to explain to the insurance lady twice where I was in Tok, Alaska.

After a while, she called me back and asked me where the other car on the insurance policy was, and I said, “In the garage.”

She said, “And where is the garage?”

I said, “The garage is in Bonita Springs, Florida, at my brother’s house on the Gulf Coast of Florida.”

She said, “That’s good. I was afraid you were going to tell me it was in Africa or something.”

The curious thing is that the people in the next hotel room were heading to the same place I was, so they took care of me and got me where I needed to be. When it came time to leave, the insurance company took me at my word, and even though the car was in my brother’s name, they issued the check in my name. I got on a plane and came back to Colombia with the insurance check in my pocket.

My brother was in Puerto Lleras, Meta (Colombia) asking me to meet with Wycliffe Bible Translators. They were selling everything at Lomalinda (in late January of 1996) and leaving the country, and this was our opportunity to buy their farm and some houses. I got there and gave them the check as a down payment on three houses. This is now where we have several radio stations. But in a thousand years, I never would have thought to buy those houses, if I hadn’t had that check in my pocket.

Those houses remained unlived in for several years. They were ransacked and vandalized in the midst of the civil war, and we had no idea why we had them. That is, until one day, I got a phone call from a church in Florida, and they said, “We feel you should have a radio station there in Colombia.” They said it could be a big contribution towards peace in the region where we work. They continued by telling me, “We have this offering we would like to give you to be used towards your radio station.”

It was about two thousand dollars, and I thought, “How are we going to get a radio station for two thousand dollars? Somebody should tell those people that radio stations are very expensive.” But since our policy has always been to honor a giver’s request, we set aside the money and didn’t touch it, waiting to see how we were going to use it for a radio station. Several times I almost called them to see if I could use it for something more urgent, but instead, I left it alone, waiting to see what would happen.

About this time, our long-time friend and fellow missionary Ray Rising was released after being kidnapped. He had been Wycliffe’s radio man at Lomalinda, and he was in agreement with the radio station idea. So, he sent me to some places in Florida where they sell radio equipment. I got there and told them what I needed, and they got me the basics: a transmitter, some antennas, some coax cable, and some other things. They told me, “It costs eight thousand dollars, but since it’s for a good cause and you are nonprofit, our policy is to give a fifty percent discount.”

I sadly told them that when I had the money I would be back. Then the manager whom I had never met before said, “Wait, wait. How much do you have?” When I told him I only had a little over two thousand dollars, he said. “Our company can’t give you any more discounts, but I like you, and I feel in my heart that I should help you out, so I will pay the difference out of my personal account.”

With those words, I was dispatched, and when I returned to Colombia, no one bothered me coming through customs, even though I had all the radio equipment in my suitcases. I had an old stereo and some friends had a recorder. I put all this equipment in my car and headed out to the Llanos (southeastern plains).

When we got to Bonaire (my brother’s farm), we didn’t have a tower, we didn’t have all the stuff we needed, but we did have a flagpole. So I got someone to climb up the flagpole and attach the antenna at the top so we could try out the equipment. We were doing this when a teacher from the town of Puerto Lleras showed up on a bicycle and asked me what we were doing. I said we were just trying out some stuff.

He said, “Looks like a radio transmitter.”

I said, “Yeah, yeah.”

He asked, “Do you have a license?”

I said, “No sir, I don’t have a license. I am only trying out my equipment to see if it got here undamaged.”

So then he floored me with the following words, “I have the license.” He left and started calling his friends.

As it turned out, there had been a scandal in the Pastrana government in the Ministry of Communications, and most of the new radio station licenses were revoked, and they wouldn’t issue them anymore. They had only issued about five or six licenses, one of those being the one given to the Communal Cultural Association, managed by the teachers of Puerto Lleras, Meta. These teachers were in a pinch because the Ministry of Communications had given them a certain time limit to put their station on the air, and they didn’t have any equipment, in spite of having been able to extend the time limit for an extra year.

I got there just in time for them when I started trying out my equipment on the flagpole. So we made a deal, and Marfil Estereo on 88.8 FM was born. As time went on, we acquired more equipment and even a powerful signal that could be heard all over the area.

Our relations and the trust with this group of teachers have broadened with time, despite our different opinions. In all of this, I have found that our differences are not so important as to cause division among us. Any one person or a particular group can be radical in their way of thinking. Ideologically, they can believe that their position is one of superiority, but what defines the situation for me is the attitude of the heart.

When people are not interested in furthering a personal agenda, real success can occur. What do we gain if someone can talk eloquently, but behind that eloquence, they are only seeking personal gain? I prefer to work with someone who, even if I believe them to be wrong in their thinking, shows a sincerity of heart. If I see that they are not taking advantage of the circumstances for personal benefit and are willing to serve others, even if they are faulty in their thinking, I would prefer to work with them. It is preferable to have cobwebs in the head instead of the heart.

I know religious people who seem to have a clear head and have everything in order in their lives. They teach in Bible schools or theological seminaries or elsewhere. The only problem is that some of these people seem to have many cobwebs in their hearts. If the heart is in bad condition, the remedy is much harder. If we are really seeking the truth, we are seeking a cleansing of our hearts.

I have had to change many of my doctrines and personal ideas down through the years and in varying circumstances. I remember times with Zacarías (my recently-renewed friend) years ago when we would sit in Mapiripán and argue politics. Today, we don’t even think about those times, and we can hardly even remember what our differences were.

Now I am not concerned if he has a different opinion from mine, nor is he worried about that either. Why? Because we have forged such a close friendship from the heart to the point that I have no problem putting my life in his hands, nor does he in putting his life in mine. We can trust each other with our eyes shut. That is what God is looking for in each of us. People are looking for the truth, but they don’t know that our Lord is named Truth.

I was invited to debate the president of the Atheist Association. We met in a friend’s office, and many were gathered for this event in what became an atmosphere like before a cock-fight, with each person betting on his rooster to win. They brought me in for the fight, and I was innocent. I had no idea what was going down when they brought in this doctor of atheism, a brother of some high politician. The atheist started out saying, “I am the very antithesis of everything Russ stands for. See what Russ is, and you will see I am everything contrary to what he is.”

So started the debate: Is there a God or isn’t there? I said, “Well, doctor, before we begin, I would like to ask you a question. Do you love the truth? Would you be willing to die for the truth?”

He said, “Of course,

I would.” I said, “Are you sure?”

He said, “My whole life has been devoted to the truth, which is what I am all about.”

So I answered, “Well, doctor, I want to tell you something. You are not my enemy because I serve the Lord Jesus, and He is the Truth in person. If you love the Truth, then you love Him. There is a misunderstanding of terminology, but we are potentially on the same side. We are colleagues.”

The debate ended right there. Afterwards, the atheist told the friend who had set up the debate, “Invite me again sometime. I would like to talk more with Russ.”

Many times, the fights start over something totally unnecessary, but behind it all, I believe what keeps the fight going is not ideology or doctrine, but rather the corruption in human hearts. Corrupt people are pulling for their own side and trying to blame circumstances, other things, or people, and it turns into a vicious circle that only gets worse.

I have been out walking in the jungles, rivers, and towns and have learned some things. First, I made it a point to travel around with lots of people because I thought if we ran into trouble the enemy would respect us more if there were more of us. It is nice to take people with me so they can see things for themselves. However, lately I have been in some circumstances where the orders have been, “Don’t touch Russ, but kill whoever is with him, and that will stop what he is doing.”

So, I got the idea to travel alone, because if I am alone, they won’t kill anyone. I have made about five trips this way to some very turbulent zones where I would never have been able to visit any other way. When I meet anyone, no matter what group they’re from, they can’t believe that I would be out there alone, and when they see that I am, they tend to respect me more. Not only that, but they feel they can open up and tell me things from the heart because they respect me.

On the other hand, if I take another two or three people with me, and the people don’t know who they are, they won’t really open up and tell me what is in their hearts. So going alone is one way to break the ice. It is also the best way.

A few years ago when I started dating my wife, Marina, a pilot friend gave me some very bad advice that almost got me killed. He said, “Look Russ, if you want to save six months of work dating her, to break the ice, all you have to do is put her in the airplane and get into a dangerous situation. When it starts to get very turbulent and the bottom starts to drop out from under her, she will get all scared and grab you, thus avoiding months of work to get to this point.”

But when I tried this with Marina, it didn’t happen like that. I sat her in the airplane, and we headed to Mapiripán. Big clouds loomed over Casibare, so instead of going around them, I remembered what my friend had said and took the plane right into the storm. When it started lightening right in front of our noses, and the plane shook in the extreme turbulence, she didn’t hug me; she went completely crazy. She wanted to get out of there and started fighting me for control of the airplane. When I wouldn’t let her have it, she attacked me physically. I ended up losing in that fight, and I felt like going to find my friend and strangling him for his bum advice that almost got us both killed.

All this is to say the following: There is a way to do things and a way NOT to do things, and only the Lord can show us the way, how to do it and when to do it. By the grace of God, we have been in many tough circumstances and here we are still. The Lord has given us the wisdom not only to survive the circumstances, but also to get through them and make many friends in the process.

At this time, many of the rural areas of Colombia are not in good shape. It is difficult to see who is winning this war, but I know who is definitely losing and that is the poor campesino people in the rural areas. There is a need to extend real friendship to whoever is willing to join us. Where there are people who are clean in the armed forces, who are not seeking their own ends, they should join with us in friendship.

How can we find a solution with a group of people sitting around a table when they are a bunch of hypocrites with grave blemishes on their hearts, and where they say one thing and do another? We can never find a solution that way. For this conflict to be resolved, we must find people with integrity, who are transparent, not seeking their own agenda, and willing to risk their lives for the good of all. These are the people who can truly contribute to a lasting peace.

When I was interviewed by Todelar (a national radio chain), I was asked if I thought Colombia really wanted peace. I told them that it was too broad of a question, but that I thought many Colombians do want peace. I also told them with certainty that any person who participates in corruption is against peace, in spite of what he may say. In my opinion, whatever is said by corrupt persons has no validity.

First, we must heal the problem of corruption, and only afterwards can we talk about peace. It would seem we have a formula: The one we are implementing now is about to destroy the world for everyone. But the Lord wants to change that, and He wants to get us all out of this mess.

We are not so ignorant as to believe that we can sit down with everyone and achieve a real peace. Peace will be achieved person by person, heart by heart, and this is the peace plan that we are trying to implement. It’s reaching people one by one wherever we can find them. A person’s decision to walk in uprightness with a clean heart must begin in their own home and among their circle of friends.

You may find ten policemen in a station where only one or two of them are clean. The remaining eight must decide to either shape up and start working in the same manner as the two clean ones or get rid of them if they want to continue in their corruption. The clean ones don’t have to be the majority. Even with ten percent clean people, you can still have a big effect.

We speak of this group or the other. We speak of the army or the police. Many times we speak of things that certain individuals do within these groups. If at some time people in a certain group no longer seek their own ends, turn toward the truth, and become employed in serving others to the point of risking their own lives, a great difference will be obvious when comparing them to others within the same group who don’t have this same attitude. We have seen it many times.

You can even find this same difference between one church and another. I had the opportunity to visit many Catholic churches with the late Padre García Herreros. I saw Catholic churches that are in much better spiritual condition than some evangelical churches that I know. Why? Because of corruption.

I would rather work with a Catholic priest who has a clean heart than an evangelical pastor whose heart is full of problems and greed. What is better? The better thing (according to the Scriptures), if we want good fruit and a good effect, is that we must have clean hearts and clean minds. But if we can only have one of the two, I prefer the ones with clean hearts, even if they have faulty doctrine and crazy ideas. This is the decision I have made. I have found that people with clean hearts will always be good friends and will always be thinking of others before themselves.

Do you remember the parable Jesus told of an old man who had two sons? The first son said to his father, “Yes father, I will go do your work,” except that he never went and did it.

The other son apparently was more rebellious and said, “No father, I will not go and do your work,” but later he did go and do the work of his father.

And so the Lord asked the question, “Which of these two sons did the will of the father? Was it the one who promised but didn’t go, or the one who refused and did go?”

Today there are many people who don’t know much about God. Earlier I spoke about the president of the Atheist Association who attempted to debate me. As it turned out, some people had come to his home, and in the name of God they had done much damage to him and his family. He had reacted by going to the opposite extreme. But even then, he said he was seeking the truth and was willing to die for the truth. These are the kind of people we need. What purpose can we have with people who merely say, “Yes, I believe in God, I believe in the Bible, I believe all the right doctrine,” and yet live from one lie to the next?

And here we begin our Bible study in John 17, which is the prayer Jesus prayed to His Father, the prayer that He made as High Priest to mediate the new covenant with us. By this, I mean that He came, did what He had to do, and went back to His Father with the purpose of implementing this covenant with us. He has the power and the authority to do it. The only thing lacking is our agreement.

1 Jesus spoke these words and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come; clarify thy Son, that thy Son may also clarify thee,

The problem we have here on earth is that some who say they are God’s people are not operating in a way that clarifies God. It is not clear who God is to them. The world thinks that God is a tyrant, a monster, and everything contrary to who He really is. Or else the world thinks God is a softy who winks at everything wrong they do.

2 as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

If we are going to come to the Lord, the Scripture says that the Father must draw us. And the Father sees the hearts of all people and knows whom He is going to draw and whom He isn’t going to draw. He knows who loves the truth. He knows who loves integrity. I have seen people out in the jungle whose hearts are in a better state – even while participating in what looks like open rebellion – than other people who go to church every Sunday.

3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Note that He doesn’t say that eternal life is our life that goes on forever. Eternal life is another quality of life, and it is a quality of life that we cannot know without knowing the truth in the person of God who is the only truth.

4 I have clarified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou didst give me to do.

5 And now, O Father, clarify thou me with thine own self with that clarity which I had with thee before the world was.

The Lord is not in agreement with this world because the world does things according to the prince of this world. John 8:44 says that Satan, the prince of this world, is a murderer and a liar from the beginning. So, the Lord wants us to know the clarity that was before all this, when everything was good.

6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou didst give me out of the world; thine they were, and thou didst give them me; and they have kept thy word.

The men God gave to the Lord Jesus were not religious and did not run the systems of this world. Some were fishermen. They were not rebellious. They were the ones He chose, the ones He picked up from around there. But of Nathanael, He says in John 1:47, Behold a true Israelite, in whom is no guile! The ones He chose were not hypocrites, and that is what He was looking for.

7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.

8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

9 I pray for them; I do not pray for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me; for they are thine.

The ones who truly belong to the Lord, wherever they are found, love integrity and are not hypocrites. Terminology is not the most important thing to the Lord. Even ideology is not as important as the heart. If there is sincerity in the heart, sincerity to seek the truth, the Lord accepts that person. In the churches, they talk so much about accepting the Lord, and I know we can accept the Lord, but don’t you think it is more important that the Lord accept us?

One day in Canada, I was working on a book that was later published here. I am not sure if it was Rescue Your Family or if it was the last portion of another book. But I was in the mountains of Canada. Lisa, my daughter, was small, and she had the habit of jumping down the stairs two at a time. Why? Because she clung to my hand. As I held her hand, she could do whatever she wanted and not get hurt, because I had a secure hold on her.

One day we were walking, and I didn’t realize I didn’t have a good grip on her; she was only holding onto my finger with her little hand. So when we came to some stairs, she just jumped without thinking about it. She didn’t have enough strength in her hand to hold onto me, so she went tumbling head over heels with me after her. I thought she was going to break her neck because she tumbled over and over, down two flights of stairs, and she fell on her head. But I couldn’t do anything about it. Fortunately, everything turned out all right.

But we can experience similar situations with disastrous results if it is only us clinging to God. But if God is holding onto us, it is going to be all right. We can seek God, and we can give ourselves to God. I am not saying we should not do these things, but we can’t have the same confidence if we are doing these things by ourselves.

Instead, if it is God drawing us, if God is seeking us, if God accepts us, if God is holding onto us, then we are truly secure in His grip. And He is seeking something. He doesn’t choose just anyone. He says he can’t stand hypocrisy; He can’t stand those who are seeking a lie. He wants people of integrity who are seeking the truth wherever they are. When God invites people to the feast, if there are some among them who name the name of God but don’t come, then He will invite those who will come, those that are His out of all walks of life. He can call them wherever they are and use them.

8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

9 I pray for them; I do not pray for the world…

The Lord is not praying that all be well with those who are corrupt in the world, with those who are doing terrible things. He is praying for those who want the truth.

9 …but for those whom thou hast given me; for they are thine.

10 And all my things are thine, and thine are mine; and I have been clarified in them.

The person who truly belongs to the Lord will share what he has wherever the Lord shows him to do so. This is the reason that we don’t ask for tithes and offerings; we are asking that people give themselves totally to the Lord and do what He tells them to do and to give their time and resources wherever the Lord directs.

The Lord never asked people for their money. He did tell the rich young ruler in Luke 18:22 to sell all that thou hast … and follow me. And He said, distribute [it] unto the poor. This is unlike many of today’s preachers who tell people they must give what they have to the church or to the pastor or preacher himself. The Lord wanted the young man, not his wealth. But as long as the young man had his mind on his riches, he couldn’t follow the Lord with freedom. He needed to be free of that.

11 And now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, those whom thou hast given me, keep them in thy name, that they may be one, as we are.

Many of those who name the name of our Lord here on earth are not one, and their testimony is terrible. The fighting and the wars that have been going on down through the ages are quite astonishing. This verse has not been fulfilled yet, but it will be fulfilled.

12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name; those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

13 And now I come to thee; and these things I speak in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

14 I have given them thy word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

I ask you to consider all these people who name the name of the Lord and for whom everything is going well in this world, here in this corrupt system; do you suppose they don’t belong to the Lord? They do not, because those who really are the Lord’s will go against every injustice and every lie that they see all around them (James 4:4).

15 I do not pray that thou should take them out of the world, but that thou should keep them from the evil.

The Lord is not sending us to live in a monastery. He is sending us to be a light here in the middle of much darkness, all the while knowing that many people don’t like the light. But as I have said before, the light is not to blind people so badly that they can’t see anything. The light is to show the way. If we have the light, if we walk in the light, we can be a good example to the rest of the world. Our job is not to judge anyone; our job is to follow the Lord and seek truth and cleanness in our dealings with everyone.

15 I do not pray that thou should take them out of the world, but that thou should keep them from the evil.

16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17 Sanctify them in thy truth; thy word is the truth.

The word sanctify here does not mean “make them perform all sort of religious acts and dress in a religious way.” The phrase sanctify them means “separate them so they can live your truth and not the lie that is so prevalent all around.” To be sanctified means “to be separated and set apart to be used exclusively by the Lord.”

18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified in the truth.

What is the Lord saying here? He separates Himself so that from now on (and He made this prayer almost two thousand years ago) He can live in us so we can walk in truth. This is His purpose. This is why He now has all power and all authority to implement the truth in His life and in ours. If He adjusts us to the truth, we will have cleanness in our hearts and in our minds. And the fruit will be as a result of our lives lived according to His pleasure.

20 Neither do I pray for these alone, but also for those who shall believe in me through their word;

Here he is talking about us.

21 that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

Until now, we haven’t seen this, and this is why the world does not believe. The Lord is talking about something much different from any of the world systems. The Lord is talking about a kingdom of God where there is a people of God that are one. If anyone hurts in any part, we all hurt. If anyone is exalted in any part, we are all exalted. Wherever there is a need, we will give of our meager resources to fill that need. And if we have a need, the Lord will also provide.

How will He provide? Through those who are sensitive to the leading of the Lord. It’s a sharing process, but Paul also said that he who doesn’t work shouldn’t eat, because God knows the heart.

22 And the clarity which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one:

23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

The Lord has given us all the necessary provision, but it will cost us something to receive it. It will cost getting rid of all our corruption. It will cost all our corrupt desires. It will cost all our corrupt thoughts. And if we are not willing to let go of our desires, we can’t receive the provision that He has for us.

24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my clarity, which thou hast given me, for thou hast loved me from before the foundation of the world.

25 O righteous Father, the world has not known thee; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

26 And I have manifested unto them thy name and will manifest it still, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

In the original, the word clarity is used. That clarity is of the life and the love of God. We cannot be one unless we have the life and the nature of God in us, and that is why Jesus came. Until now, the picture of the Lord’s church, the people of God, has been that the husbandman wanted a good harvest. He planted good seed, but his enemy came in the night, planted the tares, and mixed everything up.

His servants asked Him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? And He said, No, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn (Matthew 13:28-30). And this is what many religious groups don’t understand – that the Lord is managing all of this at the end to get rid of the tares, the impure and all the hypocrites from within the true people of God.

The coming events are of such magnitude that only the person who has the life of the Lord in them will have the wisdom, the discernment, and the resources to survive and help others. The world is becoming a more and more dangerous place. Petroleum is running out, and they are fighting over it. Resources are very limited. The economies of the big blocks and international companies are at war. Some companies have gained almost as much power as nations, each one with its own interests and its own corruptions.

But the Lord can take us above all of these circumstances because where our treasure is there also is our heart. If our treasure is in the truth and the things of God, these wars and fighting over the corrupt things of this world won’t interest us. If we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, the Scripture says in Matthew 6:33 that the Lord will add all the things we need. And we won’t have to seek after the things of this world if we are seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Let’s pray.

Lord, we give you thanks for your Word. We ask you, Lord, to give us clarity in our hearts: clarity, transparency, and integrity. We ask, Lord, that we may come out of the world of hypocrisy, out of the corruption of the world to know your grace, your love, and to be able to transmit these to those around us. Amen.

The Plan of God for His Friends – Russell M. Stendal
Original title: “El Plan de Dios para Sus Amigos”
Translated into english by Gloria Stendal.