Leaders and Followers

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
1 Corinthians 3:4-6 NIVUK

The Corinthian church was established by Paul, and then a man called Apollos emerged as a leader, building up the church and continuing his work, but the problem seemed to be one where a particular leader was being followed instead of the message that he was delivering, the Message of the Cross. The central fact that it was all about Christ seemed to have become lost in the “jealousy and quarrelling” that Paul was so upset about. We see from 1 Corinthians 1:12, Peter was added to the leadership list: “Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ””. What were the differences between these men, and why were some Corinthian believers saying they only followed Christ? After all, they all preached the same message as far as we know, but there would have been different personalities involved as well, and different nuances in their delivery. We know about Paul and Peter from their letters and, additionally, with Peter from his mentions in the Gospels, but little is known about Apollos. All we have is a brief cameo in Acts 18:24-25, “Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the Scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. He had been taught the way of the Lord, and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However, he knew only about John’s baptism”. Although Priscilla and Aquila helped him understand the “way of God” more accurately, there is no mention of the Holy Spirit’s presence in his life. However, I think we can take it as read, because of his endorsement by Paul. 

There is always a tendency for some believers to blindly follow a charismatic figure who presents a plausible message that resonates with his or her listeners, and that allegiance can develop into a following, even a separate church. Some people need a relationship with a leader to help them with their own needs, it seems. Such a leader presents them with messages well presented and mostly accurate representations of Scripture, but there is always the danger that some aspects of the Bible can be promoted over others, leading to a lop-sided rather than well-rounded Biblical message. For example, I once knew a pastor who had a particular ministry in evangelism, and messages from the pulpit were often flavoured by his passion for reaching the lost. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but messages are also needed for building up the body of Christ. Paul wrote about the ministry graces in his Ephesian letter, “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11). We used to call these the “Five-Fold Ministries”. Why did the church need these five graces? The next two verses read, “Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ”. Did Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, even have all these five gifts? Doubtful, although God will often bestow an additional gift, or gifts, on someone to meet a particular need. But to build up a church congregation, so that they “measure up to the full and complete standard of Christ”, requires a leadership team representing as many of these ministries as possible. A person sitting in the pew will find that his or her own particular gifting will resonate with one of these grace ministries, perhaps helping them grow in their own ministry.  Apollos, we are told, was an eloquent preacher well versed in Scripture, so, understandably, some people would enjoy sitting under his ministry. However, what upset Paul was that the different followings present in the Corinthian church were leading to divisions fuelled by “jealousy and quarrelling”. Here is a quote from Bibleref.com: “For Paul, the subtle nuances behind these divisions didn’t matter. The problem is that they exist at all. These squabbles are evidence that the Corinthian Christians are behaving like unbelievers, or immature Christians, demanding their own way, rather than as Holy Spirit-empowered believers learning to express God’s sacrificial love to each other“.

We pilgrims, however, know that Jesus Himself is the One we must follow. And as we develop His teachings in our lives, we will start to, more and more, demonstrate the grace and love that He taught, in the way we go about our daily lives. It’s called sanctification, and we sometimes will fail to enjoy the process. We all know, I’m sure, fellow Christians who have left a church because the message being preached makes them feel uncomfortable. They don’t want to hear things that mean their approach to living must change. So what do they do? On some pretext, they will leave that church and find another, one that preaches messages that don’t expose or challenge their weaknesses. But the Holy Spirit within will never give up on us. Jesus said, “But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you”(John 14:26). God wants us to be holy and blameless in His sight (Colossians 1:22) so he will never give up on us, teaching us just what we need when we need it. Believers who migrate from church to church will never find a perfect home, and sooner or later, they will find themselves facing the same old challenges. Quote from David Pawson,  “God is willing to let things happen to us which may be painful, but which will make us more holy as a result. Our character tends to make more progress in the tough times than the good”.

In following a person rather than God Himself, there is always a danger of arriving in a place Paul warned Timothy about. “For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). But we pilgrims desire to be well-rounded children of God, growing in grace day by day. We ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to a church where the leaders are Godly men and women, themselves wholly grounded in God’s truth as contained in His Word. Not for us a path that leads to “myths”. We pray that the church we find ourselves in will also be accountable to other Godly leaders, themselves fully grounded in the ways of God. And in such an environment, we know that we can grow secure in the knowledge that God is truly with us.

Dear Father God. We pray that You lead us into all truth through the power and presence of Your Spirit. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sinful Nature

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?”
1 Corinthians 3:1-3 NLT

We all still have our “sinful nature”, unfortunately. Here is a definition of what this is: “the sinful nature is that aspect in humanity that makes us rebellious against God. When we speak of the sinful nature, we refer to the fact that we have a natural inclination to sin; given the choice to do God’s will or our own, we will naturally choose to do our own thing“. Paul was quite correct when he wrote, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:23). Parents know that a child will be drawn intuitively to sin, in that their behaviour, even when very young, will choose the wrong, sinful response rather than the right, sinless way. David knew that when he wrote Psalm 51, “For I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me” (verse 5). Paul singled out problems experienced by the Corinthian church’s “sinful nature” – jealousy and quarrelling – and he concluded by suggesting they were “living like people of the world”.

Paul wrote about his personal frustration with his tendency to sin, “ …  The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate” (Romans 7:14b-15). He continues, “And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7:18-20). And he concludes in verse 24, “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” And that is Paul, the great Apostle, saying what was on his heart. We pilgrims I’m sure, deep down will tick the same box that Paul did – in the natural, he, us, and the rest of mankind, all have “sinful natures”. 

So where did this “sinful nature” come from? We know from Genesis 1:27 that human beings were made in God’s image. Now, because God is a sinless, perfect Being, sin never originated with Him. How could it? But we can read what happened in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve committed the very first sin, an act of rebellion and disobedience to God. And that has been the root of sin ever since. And in some strange way, the “sinful nature” has been passed on, generation to generation, a seemingly endless and depressing cycle that is impossible to break. Adam and Eve, we are told, brought forth a son called Cain, and he became the very first murderer. So human beings, with only one exception, are sinners, and will continue to be so until the End of the Age. The one exception is Jesus. He came to break this merry-go-round of sin and death, being born to a virgin, thus bypassing Adam’s curse. The sinless God-Man Jesus was able to become sin for all mankind, so that their “sinful natures” could be redeemed forever. 

Jesus said to Nicodemus that humans must be “born again” into a spiritual life worthy, through Jesus, of standing before God wearing His cloak of righteousness. John 3:5-6, “Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life“. Humans have been offered a way out of their sinfulness by believing in Jesus and accepting His substitutionary death in their place, allowing Him to take onto Himself the punishment for their sins. But that isn’t all, Paul wrote, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Divine Exchange – Jesus took on our sin and in exchange He gave us His righteousness. That surely must make all us pilgrims everywhere fall on our knees with grateful, and eternal, thanks, because one day we will experience the reality of what the Apostle John wrote, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). We will be like Jesus on day. This is Good News indeed.

We pilgrims have a “sinful nature“, but we are no longer slaves to it. Jesus has set us free, and one day we will join Him in the place where he is building us a new home. The freedom from sin that we can enjoy now on this earth is the best news this planet has ever seen. Instead of becoming depressed by reading worldly news that is almost all bad, we can open the Book and read eternally good news. Long after all the wars, sickness, and death have disappeared, those believers like us will be enjoying a new life for all eternity, set free forever from the “sinful nature”. 

Father God, at that point of rebirth, our spiritual beings were born. Within us, we have two natures, one of sin and one sinless, but we pray that more and more the sinless being within us, the “new man”, will prevail. Please help us to live Your sinless way, every day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Milk or Solid Food

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?”
1 Corinthians 3:1-3 NLT

In the first verse of 1 Corinthians 3, Paul delivered a mild rebuke to the Corinthian church. We know from the previous chapters in this Epistle that Paul didn’t doubt that the congregation were saved believers in Christ. He wrote, “I always thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts he has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:4). So their salvation wasn’t the issue. But sadly, the believers there were still living in their old worldly ways. They probably attended the Sunday services, behaving as Christians do, singing the hymns, praying the prayers, full of piety and outwardly spiritual, but behaving as they always did, full of worldliness, for the rest of the week. As a new Christian attending my first church business meeting, I was severely shaken by the behaviour of one or two people who had strong feelings about the pastor’s remuneration. All of a sudden, what had been a calm and Godly meeting descended into worldliness with anger, resentment, and even swearing. People whom I had looked up to in the Sunday services were shown in a different light. Paul’s rebuke to worldly Christians in Corinth wasn’t just for a single church. It has emerged in every generation, in every church ever since. We look around our churches and see the outworking of God’s grace flowing so freely, but how we live in the light of that grace on a Monday morning can be something different altogether.

Paul continued to use the analogies of milk and solid food. Babies start their lives being fed with milk, which is a liquid food containing all the nutrients in a readily digestible form by the delicate stomachs of newborn children. But there is a spiritual equivalent. A church I once attended had a Gospel service each Sunday evening, and visiting evangelists supplemented our own preachers in delivering the message of Christ, and Him crucified, to the congregation present. I can remember a child once asking me after one of these meetings if people had to seek salvation and pray the sinner’s prayer every week, referring to one or two individuals who always responded to the altar call after the Gospel message. Sadly, the people concerned needed a weekly dose of the Gospel to feed their souls, spiritual milk still on their menus. Was it that these people had not truly come to a place where they believed in Jesus? Was it because they had not yet received the Holy Spirit? Possibly not, but instead they continued to live in the flesh, meaning that they were living for self and their bodily appetites instead of living in the power God had given to them in the Holy Spirit. The writer to the Hebrews said, “You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right” (Hebrews 5:12-13). 

So what is the “spiritual milk” desired by the believers in Corinth? As the verse in Hebrews records, it is “the basic things about God’s Word”. So the leaders in the Corinthian church had to teach over and over the basics of being saved, how to pray, reading the Bible, and following that with how to apply what they had learnt in their daily lives. Paul writes extensively about this in Ephesians 4. We read, “Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:21-24). Paul continued in the next verse, “So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbours the truth, for we are all parts of the same body”. And then verses 28-30, “If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good, hard work, and then give generously to others in need. Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption”. A good start for any new Christians is to read Ephesians 4 over and over again, until the “milk” it contains becomes a part of their inner beings.

We pilgrims know that we have to feed our souls. Every time I recite the Lord’s Prayer, I thank God for “our daily bread”, thanking Him for the food in my stomach as well as the food in my soul. It is easy to focus on the first but neglect the second. Our human bodies have a built-in mechanism to demand that any pangs of hunger be satisfied, but not so often with our souls. So we build into our daily schedules a routine that we call our “Quiet Time”, where we come into God’s presence with prayer and the reading of His Word. It is in His Word that we find the “solid food” our souls desire. But occasionally we know that sometimes a glass of “milk” can help to bring us back on track when our soul is violated by our sins. God’s grace and His willingness to forgive us for our sins are timeless while we still breathe, but one day our souls will ascend into God’s presence. What do we want Him to see? Something malnourished, still dependent on spiritual milk, or souls built up by a diet of “solid food”? The choice is ours.

Dear Heavenly Father. We thank You for Your grace and love. We look forward to that day when we will share in the Heavenly banquet that Jesus is preparing for us. On our knees today, we confess our sins of worldliness and pray that You will lead us to the spiritual pastures where we can find the solid food we need. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Mind of Christ

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. For, “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.”
1 Corinthians 2:15-16 NLT

The “mind of Christ”? We need to let that thought sink in for a moment. Paul didn’t say that it was he, and him alone, that had the “mind of Christ”. There was a “we” involved, as he wrote to the Corinthian believers. He had just written that spiritual people, believers like him, could “evaluate all things”, and in addition, people who were unbelievers would be unable to evaluate the believers. In other words, the believers had access to the spiritual truths we read about in preceding verses, access denied to unbelievers who had no time for the spiritual world in God’s Kingdom anyway. In the second verse of our text today, Paul quoted from the Greek version of Isaiah 40, from a section entitled “The Lord Has No Equal” in my Bible. Isaiah 40:13 asks the questions, “Who is able to advise the Spirit of the Lord? Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him?” But Paul wrote to the Corinthians that they would know the answers to difficult questions such as these, because they have the “mind of Christ”. 

The passage of Scripture in Isaiah 40 provides a glimpse of how wonderful it is to be able to have access to the “mind of Christ”. We, of course, know that in those pre-incarnation days, while Isaiah was writing, Jesus was still in Heaven with God. And as Isaiah mused in his writings, thinking Holy Spirit-inspired thoughts, he set down a series of questions that are relevant for both believers and unbelievers. Some he answered, but the remainder are left hanging in the air, unable to be answered by mere human beings. Questions such as, “Has the Lord ever needed anyone’s advice? Does he need instruction about what is good? Did someone teach him what is right or show him the path of justice?” (verse 14), or “To whom can you compare God? What image can you find to resemble him?” (verse 18). Then there is “Haven’t you heard? Don’t you understand? Are you deaf to the words of God— the words he gave before the world began? Are you so ignorant?” (verse 21). But the wonderful thing is that believers like us pilgrims filled with the Holy Spirit, know the answers to these questions, because we have “the mind of Christ”.

If we take the first question that I have quoted from Isaiah 40, “Has the Lord ever needed anyone’s advice?”, we know the answer because God is omniscient, meaning that He is all-knowing. So we pilgrims know we only have to go to God for answers to life’s difficult questions, such as what is the purpose of life? We watch the worldly people around us struggling to find an answer to questions such as this, as they thrash around, out of their depth. In answer to other societal challenges and problems, centred on their definition of morality, the politicians try and introduce laws to legislate an answer, helping people to live in the way they think is appropriate. Another topical question is about how gender can be defined, and in response, the secular leaders and other influential people in our society try and introduce a laughably false ideology which proposes that there may be up to a hundred different genders. Really? If only such people had the “mind of Christ” as we do, then they would know the answer. And then we have the question, “To whom can you compare God?”. Our medics will come up with their findings in medicine, our scientists in physics and chemistry. The geologists will refer to their understanding of the world’s origins through rocks and geological strata. The archaeologists will display their fossils and other ancient findings along with their definitions of age, and follow up with conclusions of how they got to where they were found. But none of them can answer Isaiah’s question, because they do not have the “mind of Christ”. 

Jesus said to His disciples that when He had left this world, He would send them an Advocate, a Comforter, Someone who would bring to the disciples’ minds what they had been told. “But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you” (John 14:26). Earlier in this Corinthian journey we read 1 Corinthians 2:10, “But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets“. We must allow this revelation to sink deep within our spirits. Did Paul really mean that through the Holy Spirit we would have access to “God’s deep secrets”? That’s what he said, and he finished this passage with another revelation, that we have the “mind of Christ”. 

Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future” (John 16:13). We Spirit-filled believers are in a powerful position because we can see the world from God’s perspective. We have access to absolute truth in a world that can only expose relative truths, and even then, only in the light of human understanding. As an example, some centuries ago, the general belief was that the world in which we live was flat. If you sailed too near the edge, then you would fall off into some void, never to be seen again. That was regarded as “truth” to the scientists and ordinary people of the day. But today, the old “truth” has been replaced by a new “truth”, that the world is in fact a sphere. When we consider the spiritual realm, though, truth takes on a different meaning. We pilgrims believe that one day, because of our faith, we will be received into our new home in Heaven. To us, that is the truth, revealed in God’s Word. Take, for example, John 3:16, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life”. Jesus said it, and because He spoke no lies, it must be truth, absolute truth. We can’t prove it to the unbelieving sceptics around us, but one day everyone will find out that this is indeed the truth. In His High Priestly prayer, Jesus said, “Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth” (John 17:17). We know of course about what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God“.

But we pilgrims are not followers of satan; instead, we are followers of Jesus, and we have the “mind of Christ”. We have been redeemed from the lies of this age and now can look forward to a time when only truth will prevail. I don’t know about you, dear friends, but sometimes when I see the state of the world around me, I can’t wait!

Dear Heavenly Father. One day, we will realise the fullness of life with You in a place we call Heaven. There will be no wars there between truth and lies, because You are truth, and there will be no sin in Heaven. And so we continue our journeys to glory, step by step, sometimes wearily, but always in the light of Your truth, revealed by the “mind of Christ”. Thank You. Amen.

Spiritual Truths

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.”
1 Corinthians 2:13-15 NLT

Isn’t it amazing that believers, full of the Holy Spirit, have access to “spiritual truths”, but those worldly and unbelieving people around us do not have a clue about anything to do with God’s world. Such a world to them does not exist, because they cannot see it with their eyes or other senses. I read this morning about an astronomical discovery three hundred light-years away, a huge structure largely consisting of hydrogen and solar dust, that had never before been seen. It became news when it was exposed to a special form of light. Well, people in this world are a bit like that spiritually. They had never before seen this structure, so to them it therefore did not exist. Most of the same people have never seen the spirit world where God lives, and so to them it doesn’t exist either. As we pilgrims know, one day if they encounter Jesus, He will open their eyes and they will discover that a different form of Light has exposed a spiritual world far beyond anything they had ever considered before. We human beings are so good at limiting our ability by our world views. And so when we believers talk to unbelievers about spiritual matters, even if they contain “spiritual truths”, they don’t have a clue about what we are talking about. 

Evangelists promote a message of salvation through Jesus, but often this message majors on repentance from sin. That is, of course, correct, because any form of sin is abhorrent in God’s sight, but who wants to have to face into their misdemeanours, the things that they have done wrong? So this can become a hurdle to a sinner’s appreciation of God’s spiritual world. Other evangelistic messages focus on God’s love, and this can draw people towards Jesus. Such a message might even motivate them to attend church and get involved in church activities. But sooner or later, they have to open the door into God’s spiritual world through their repentance and seeking forgiveness for their sins. Otherwise, the “spiritual truths” available to true believers will remain elusive and a mystery, or even as invisible as the cloud of hydrogen so far away. To me, Peter put his finger on the issue about access to the “truths from God’s Spirit” when he preached “ … Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). 

Believers in Jesus will never be able to appreciate the words given to us by the Holy Spirit if we don’t know Him. The Pentecost experience was an amazing demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s power, with its transformative potential in the lives of the believers present. Have we experienced that power? Or have we settled for a stripped-down version where we have capped what the Holy Spirit can do and reveal to us by putting Him in a box of our own making? After all, we perhaps think, we don’t want the Spirit to do anything that we don’t approve of. It might embarrass us. We say to the Holy Spirit, “Just give us the ‘spiritual truths’ we need and no more, thank You”. I think we can agree that such a limitation must impact the revelation of the “truths from God’s Spirit” in our everyday lives. I don’t know about you, my friends, but I want more of God in my life and more of His power, the power that can transform not only me but those around me. And that power is contained in the “spiritual truths” revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.

Human wisdom is totally blind to the things of the Spirit. After all, if we look at things through their eyes, does it not appear foolish to see a new Christian get down on his or her knees before an invisible entity they call “God” and proceed to confess their sins? How foolish does it appear to them to then see the new Christian rise up with a look of joy and relief, even shouting God’s praises, apparently transformed. A human unbeliever, blinded by their feeble wisdom, cannot even start to appreciate the change that has occurred. Paul wrote, “people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it”. That was the situation in his day, and it still applies in 21st-century planet Earth societies. Advances in human knowledge and wisdom alone over the past two thousand years or so have not been able to bridge the gap between the natural and spiritual, and they never will. Confirmed atheists look on and try and explain away the things of God, and the impact that the Holy Spirit has in the lives of us pilgrims, dismissing our belief as being because of a character deficiency that needs a religious prop in the same way as an alcoholic needs a drink. So sad, because we pilgrims know the “spiritual truth”. 

So we pilgrims seek more of the Holy Spirit within us, to reveal more and more of God’s “spiritual truths”. We will never tap into everything about God in this life because He is infinite and eternal. But we pray that we will grow as true believers in Christ, helped by the gentle urgings and whispers of the Holy Spirit within us, revealing the “spiritual truths” we need to help us become more and more like Jesus. 

Dear God. The Holy Spirit within each of us is a force so powerful that no worldly power can ever replace Him. We know that still small voice within that gently leads and guides us more and more, to become the people You would have us be. Thank You for Your grace and love. Amen.

God’s Spirit (2)

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.”
1 Corinthians 2:10-12 NLT

Yesterday I started with a question: in that the Bible is full of references to the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, but His work and presence in believers is often played down or even ignored. Why is that? We then looked at some Scriptures that took us up to that momentous day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came with tongues of fire and the sound of a rushing wind, followed by Peter’s dramatic and hard-hitting sermon that led to 3000 men being saved. In that sermon, we then read that significant verse where Peter explained what was required. Acts 2:37-38, “Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. As we pilgrims know, if we want to be a follower of Jesus, wholeheartedly believing in Him, then two steps need to be taken and a gift from God follows. Peter made this very clear. But this is not totally prescriptive because I always think of the penitent thief on the Cross next to Jesus’, who was not baptised either in water or, apparently, in the Holy Spirit, but he was still promised a new life with Christ. And then we have Romans 10:9-10, where Paul explained, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved“. It would therefore appear that the Holy Spirit will not automatically accompany our salvation. However, God will not withhold His gift of the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks.

What does the Holy Spirit do in each believer? We remember that God is sovereign, and He will give spiritual gifts to us through His Spirit to whom He chooses. The Bible is clear that to receive a spiritual gift, we must first experience a true conversion to become a whole-hearted believer and follower of Jesus. A worldly person will not receive any spiritual gifts, because such a person does not know the gift-Giver, God Himself. But for us pilgrims, believers in Christ, we will each have received at least one spiritual gift. 1 Corinthians 12:7, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other”. We, of course, take note of the purpose of the gift, and that it is not something for our benefit but for the benefit of others. As we read further down in 1 Corinthians 12, we will see some of the gifts that Paul has listed, such as wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues and interpretation. 

So, when do we receive this gift or gifts (some people receive more than one)? Most people apparently believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to us at the point of our salvation. The Holy Spirit provides gifts for us as God chooses. But there are Scriptures such as 1 Timothy 4:14, “Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you”. In this verse, Paul reminded Timothy that there was a time when he was being resourced for ministry, and a further gift was released to him through the laying on of hands by the Elders present. God also encourages us to seek His gifts, because it is through them that the Holy Spirit will enhance God’s work. 1 Corinthians 12:31a, “So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. … “. Yesterday we read what Jesus said about gifts, “ … So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). Paul wrote that we should “earnestly desire” the gifts granted graciously to us by God. There is an old saying, “if we don’t ask, then we won’t get”. But we know that being earnest means that we aren’t making a casual request, soon to be forgotten. 

An excellent example of a Holy Spirit-inspired gift can be found in the account of the healing of the lame beggar. In response to the request for money from the beggar, we read, “But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”” (Acts 3:6). The resulting miracle reverberated around the Temple and the rest of Jerusalem, and led to the severely-threatened Jewish leaders having Peter and John arrested. Another Holy Spirit miracle can be found in Acts 9:17, “So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit”. These weren’t natural events that happened. It was the power of the Holy Spirit doing miraculous works through ordinary men exercising the gifts God had given them. 

A challenging verse can be found in Ephesians 3:20, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think”. Don’t we realise that the Holy Spirit within us is limitless in what He can achieve? Within each believer dwells the Holy Spirit, and from His work in our lives, encouraged and supplemented by the gifts He has granted to us, great things can be accomplished for God. So, what do we think? Coming back to our starting question, why do so many people downplay the potential work of the Holy Spirit in their lives? At least one denomination believes that the gifts of the Holy Spirit died out with the first Apostles, basing this conclusion on the verses at the end of 1 Corinthians 13. Others, particularly of Pentecostal persuasions, believe that the Holy Spirit and His indwelling and gifts are just as available today as they were two thousand years ago. For me personally, I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and I pray earnestly for more of God in my life, His Spirit and all.

Dear Father God. You have graciously granted us many gifts, and they all start with the Holy Spirit. We are so grateful, and we praise and worship You today. Amen.

God’s Spirit (1)

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.”
1 Corinthians 2:10-12 NLT

The Bible is full of references to the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, but His work and presence in believers are often played down or even ignored. Why is that? But before we draw any conclusions, we must look at some Bible verses. The first mention of the Holy Spirit is in Genesis 1:2, “The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters”. The picture here is of a world in chaos, without any sort of structure, but the Holy Spirit was present, perhaps providing an indication that no matter what is going on in the world today, regardless of the chaos and strife, regardless of the ecological concerns, and regardless of any other challenges faced by human beings, He is still present, “hovering” over what is going on. At the other end of the Bible, in the Book of Revelation, the Holy Spirit is not explicitly mentioned, but there are references to the “sevenfold Spirit before His throne” (Revelation 1:5) and in other verses that denote the presence of God’s Spirit. And in between these two Books, the Holy Spirit is mentioned many times, though more so in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was granted to various people for specific tasks, as we read in Exodus 1:3, “I have filled him with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, ability, and expertise in all kinds of crafts”. If we think about this for a moment, the craftsman in question, Bezalel son of Uri, would previously have been a slave in Egypt, working to build the pyramids demanded by the Pharaoh in power at that time. So, where else would he have acquired the skills necessary to make the Tabernacle and all inside, at God’s command, except through the power of God’s Spirit?  We read in the following two verses in Exodus, “He is a master craftsman, expert in working with gold, silver, and bronze. He is skilled in engraving and mounting gemstones and in carving wood. He is a master at every craft!”. What a transformation, from a bricklayer to a goldsmith. And then we read about King Saul in 1 Samuel 19:23, “But on the way to Naioth in Ramah the Spirit of God came even upon Saul, and he, too, began to prophesy all the way to Naioth!”. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was there to resource and bless individuals, and even gave them messages for the people, just as He decided. But the prophet Joel could see something else that was to come and he prophesised about the work of the Holy Spirit in “the day of the Lord” (Joel 1:15 and 2:1), bringing a time of judgement for the wicked and salvation for the repentant as we read in Joel 2:12, “That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning“. And then we read, “Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike” (Joel 2:28-29). The Book of Joel is remarkable in its foretelling of the future.

In the New Testament, something significant was recorded. In Mark 1:9-10, we read, “One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptised him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove”. John saw what was happening and could sense the Holy Spirit’s presence in this God-man before him. In John 14, we see that Jesus started to prepare His disciples for what was soon to come. In John 14:16-17, we read, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognise him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you”. I wonder what the disciples made of this. Could they have started to feel a little excitement building within them? They would have known through their knowledge of the Scriptures about the Holy Spirit and the impact that He had on the saints of old. After all, Jesus’ promise wasn’t a maybe, dependant on other things, because He assured them, “But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you” (John 14:26). In one of His post-resurrection appearances, Jesus said, “ … Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21-22). Of course, the disciples didn’t receive the Holy Spirit at this moment, but it was a reminder to them, a foretelling, of what was to come.

And then there was that momentous day that changed the course of history. Acts 2:1-4, “On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability“. No-one was left out because “everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit”. And we also note that “everyone … began speaking in other languages”. In the commotion Jews present for the Feast of Pentecost came to find out what was going on and we read, “They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other” (Acts 2:12). Peter stepped forward and “shouted to the crowd”, starting with the prophecy from Joel that we read earlier. This in itself was remarkable because Peter wasn’t a Jewish scholar, well-versed in the Hebrew Scriptures. He was a rough and ready fisherman, but with two qualities – he had spent time with Jesus and had just been baptised in the Holy Spirit, who we know would bring to his remembrance what he needed to say.

The Holy Spirit came with an introduction that shook Jerusalem and started Christianity as we know it. And today He still continues His work as he hovers over the earth, ministering to believers everywhere. Can we, pilgrims, feel the presence of God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, within us? Are we tuned into His frequency so that His messages fill our hearts and minds? If not, then we need to get before God and ask. Jesus said, “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). We pilgrims only have to ask our Heavenly Father and He will gladly answer us, graciously gifting us more and more of His Spirit.

Dear Lord God. We thank You for never leaving us as orphans, devoid of Your presence in our lives. We do not worship a distant and uncommunicative God, aloof and inaccessible. We thank You for all that You have done for us and Your work in our lives, transforming us to become more like Jesus. Amen.

God’s Thoughts

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.”
1 Corinthians 2:10-12 NLT

What were “these things” that God revealed “by His Spirit“? To answer that we have to rewind a bit in this letter to the Corinthian church, and we find that Paul was referring to “God’s Secret Plan” (1 Corinthians 2:1) and the “ …  mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began” (1 Corinthians 2:7). 

Paul pointed out that a human being, relying on his or her own wisdom and knowledge, would not understand and appreciate what this secret and mysterious plan of God was. Today, we have so-called wise people who have rejected the things of God and replaced Him with strange, idolatrous ideologies that are at variance with His “secret plan”. Such Godless people cry out, “What do we need a God for – we have all the knowledge and wisdom that we need”. The old Sinatra song “I’ll do it my way” comes to mind. But David had come up against such people in his day, and he wrote Psalm 14. “Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!” (Psalm 14:1). David continues in the next two verses, “The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one!” Paul picked up this theme in Romans 1:18-19, “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them”. In Romans 1:22-23, Paul wrote, “Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools”. What a damning indictment of all those people today who are chasing after strange ideologies that even reject the order God has created, let alone His thoughts, thinking they know better. But as we read in Psalm 2:4, “But the one who rules in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them“. And David finished Psalm 2 with “Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities— for his anger flares up in an instant. But what joy for all who take refuge in him!”.

But we can’t leave the terrible thoughts about what will happen to those people who have rejected God and have instead created ideological alternatives to replace Him. Back to Romans 1:24-27, “So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshipped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved”. In the end, God has said to those “wise” people that their foolish behaviour has consequences, in that He will abandon them to their sinful practices. Genesis 6:3a reveals that God’s patience with errant and evil human beings has a limit, “Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with humans for ever, for they are mortal; …’“. Instead of saying to God “Your will be done”, they will hear Him say, “No – your will be done” and they will sadly end up facing the consequences of their sin.

Back to the thoughts of God. We can’t just sit down and logically think through ourselves, with the limited faculties that we have, about what God might be thinking. Such an approach is arrogant in the extreme. God has put in place a process within which His thoughts will be revealed to His people, believers like you and me, but to everyone else His thoughts will remain a secret. God has revealed His thoughts through his Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. The Members of the Trinity are in constant and intimate communication with each other, and those people who are filled with the Holy Spirit will find that they have access to God’s thoughts as well, as He graciously reveals to them. Paul wrote, “we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us” through “God’s own Spirit”. We mustn’t forget that God desires to communicate with His children. He wants to bridge the gulf between His spiritual world and our natural world. He did that through Jesus, and, as Jesus said to His disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). Jesus ascended into Heaven, mission accomplished, but He left us His Spirit to lead and guide us. Of course, the Holy Spirit will not reveal to us all the thoughts of God at the same time. Such a data download would overwhelm us because God’s knowledge is far beyond, even infinitely beyond, what a human being can accept and understand. So the Holy Spirit gently and kindly reveals to us what God wants us to know with one aim – to help us to become more like His Son, Jesus. 

So do we pilgrims desire to know the thoughts of God? Do we want to know and understand His plans for us? Are we open to hearing the whisperings of the Holy Spirit in our very souls, leading and guiding us in His ways? Of course, we are, and we pray every day for more of His revelation for our lives, plans, with instructions for the day and days ahead. This is the only way to complete our journey to Heaven. Jesus said, “  …  ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”(John 14:6). How do we know the way to the Father? Through Jesus and His Spirit, He reveals to us His secret thoughts, thoughts designed to make us more like Him. 

Heavenly Father. We are indeed a blessed people, given access to Your thoughts. We pray for the ability to receive and understand them clearly day by day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Unimaginable God

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.””
1 Corinthians 2:8-9 NLT

Worldly people, unbelievers in God, have no idea about God and His wisdom. A human being has no natural contact with the spiritual world, a super-natural place which we cannot see, touch, smell, taste or hear using our natural senses. And so anything a human being tries to work out about a mystical and elusive world beyond their senses is bound to fail. But a person rooted in a world driven by their senses bolstered by human reasoning and logic, comes up with a wisdom that falls far short of what God has made available. There is of course nothing wrong with human wisdom when properly utilised. That is why God has created humans with a brain that is amazing in its capabilities, but imaginative scientists and philosophers come up with much that pushes boundaries but inevitably finds limitations. Hardly a day goes past without some new discovery about our natural world, be it an atomic particle, or a new vaccine. Sadly, theories regarding the origins of the universe and the purpose of life itself change regularly and we find that human wisdom is woefully lacking, with significant limitations.

But what about God’s wisdom? Inaccessible although it is to mere unbelieving humans, we pilgrims are allowed a glimpse of the thoughts and plans of God. They are not available to people who fail to recognise Him and believe that He exists. But in those thoughts and plans we find God’s wisdom, and in His Word, the Bible, we find hints, glimpses, advice and assurances about this Heavenly world that we will one day find. Paul quoted a verse from Isaiah 64 in his Corinthian letter, which in the original reads, “For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” (Isaiah 64:4). Paul’s memory came up with slightly different words, but the meaning is much the same. We have a loving Heavenly Father who is working for us and preparing a world, an environment, something and somewhere, but we cannot even start to imagine what it will be like. And even though the prophets of old were given tantalising hints of what was to come, no one can get anywhere near discovering what lies ahead. Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah and even the old Apostle John all had thoughts and visions inspired by the Holy Spirit, but there is a problem. What they “saw” is so far beyond anything seen or imagined that we will find they are not even close to what God has for us in His plans. 

So human wisdom, thoughts, imaginations, and discoveries are silent when it comes to God’s spiritual world. Jesus said to His disciples, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am” (John 14:1-3). We know that one day we will have a home where Jesus lives, because we know and believe that He is alive today, but what form that home will take we don’t know. Our imagination usually starts at the point of human knowledge but then ventures into unknown places. Places that “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined”. The Holy Spirit revealed something to Isaiah about God, ““My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). Human wisdom cannot bring us to the understanding that the Creator God loves His people and that He has prepared the glories of eternity to share with them. Our intellects will try and work it all out, but will come up painfully short. But we cannot trust in what God say He has for us without faith in Him. It is only by having faith in God, by believing the hints, glimpses and prophetic words contained in the Bible, that we will be able to be assured of our destination with our “unimaginable God”. The writer to the Hebrews wrote, “ … it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). 

But can we pilgrims start to feel a little excitement starting to build in our spirits? Are we feeling a little like a small child promised a trip to the seaside, feeling the anticipation starting to appear in our minds, our imaginations? What will the sea and sand be like? Will it be sunny? And so on. And of course we mustn’t forget the cry from the back seat – “are we nearly there yet?” The wise old pastor and expositor, John MacArthur, died recently and he will now be finding out if what he preached was in fact the reality he is now experiencing. Such revelation will also become available to all of us one day. But we pilgrims at least know where we are heading, having been given a glimpse of what is ahead. Pity all those who don’t believe because they are heading for a nasty shock and a future about which they can do nothing. All those poor people who have relied only on their human wisdom and knowledge, and who have rejected the King of Glory.

Dear Heavenly Father. Our human minds can never work out what plans You have for us in the future. But we believe in You and in the Words of Your Son Jesus, with a faith that will never be rocked by world events. We praise and worship You today. Amen.

World Rulers

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord.”
1 Corinthians 2:7-8 NLT

How grateful we must be for God’s Secret Plan, the mystery of God, and the Message of the Cross. Through them all, they all came to fruition on the fateful “Good Friday” when Jesus lost His life in terrible circumstances. Why did God allow it to happen? Because it was all in His plan, established before the foundation of the world, the plan that would lead to “our ultimate glory”. We know that the plan, involving His secret wisdom, would make it possible for our sin to be forgiven by Christ’s death instead of our own and for us to be declared righteous based on Christ’s righteousness and not our own. Paul wrote, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory” (Romans 8:29-30). In fact, the saints in previous generations used to describe what would happen to them after they die, as being “elevated to Glory”, using a definition of Heaven to describe what will happen after they crossed the Great Divide. God’s plan for us wasn’t just about forgiveness of sins, important as that is, but it also involved giving each one of us Jesus’ righteousness and glory. And all planned and kept secret “before the world began”. 

Paul saw the irony of the situation and said that if the “rulers of this world” knew what they were doing, they would not have allowed Jesus to be crucified. The devil thought that by killing the Son of God he would win the final battle in his tussle with the God who evicted him from Heaven. But how wrong he was. He must have heard the times when Jesus predicted His death, with scriptures like John 3:14-15, “And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life“. He must have read Psalm 22:16b, “ … They have pierced my hands and feet”. We know that the devil knew his Bible because he quoted from it during Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. But he of course knew nothing about God’s Secret Plan and the final outcome that would defeat death once and for all. No believer in Jesus, no-one who was a chosen child of God, will ever experience the finality of death at the end of their lives. Instead, as Jesus promised, they will live forever, ruling and reigning with Him.

But who were these “rulers of this world”? They divided into two camps, spiritual and natural, with one being influenced by the other. Paul wrote about the spiritual rulers in Ephesians 6:12, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places“. These were the rulers that Paul warned believers in Ephesus about, and by implication, believers who have lived ever since. As we know from Ephesians 6, Paul used the pieces of armour worn by the Roman soldiers sent to guard him in prison, as a template for the spiritual armour God has supplied for our defence. But these “evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world” were behind the natural rulers, the Roman authorities and the Jewish scribes, lawyers, Pharisees and Sadducees. It is interesting to note that God’s plan was nearly thwarted by the Roman Governor, Pilate, when Jesus was brought before him. He had the power to release Jesus but instead he bottled it because of the baying mob before him. Pilate was in a difficult position and frightened witless by the situation before him. John played down Pilate’s reaction in John 19:8, stripping out the emotion, “When Pilate heard this, he was more frightened than ever”. We know from another Gospel that his wife had warned him not to have anything to do with Jesus’ sentencing, and in John 19:10, we read, ““Why don’t you talk to me?” Pilate demanded. “Don’t you realise that I have the power to release you or crucify you?”” Jesus’ reply convinced him that He was innocent, and Pilate tried to release Him, but to no avail. God’s plan came to fruition and many people present at that time will find themselves having to give an account as to why they demanded the crucifixion of the very One who was sat on the throne before them, the One we know as the Saviour of the World. We don’t have time to review the role of Judas in all this, another pawn in God’s Secret Plan.

What about the “rulers of this world” today?  They are still trying to frustrate the Plan set up by God “before the world began”. Just in the UK, we find legislation passed to murder innocent pre-birth babies in a direct challenge to one of God’s laws. We find legislation passed to approve marriages between people of the same sex, again in contravention of God’s definition and requirements for Holy Matrimony. Do they not understand what they are doing?  God’s Plan has still some way to go because Jesus has not yet returned to rule and reign this world (Revelation 20:4). At this time the devil will be locked away for a thousand years and Jesus will govern this world along with the believers who have prevailed to the end. And at this time the “rulers of this world”, spiritual and natural, will have no say at all. Perfect government with Jesus the King.

So what do we pilgrims think of all this, and how do we live in these dark times, in our sad, mad and bad world? Paul set out our response to our leaders in Romans 13:1-2 and the verses following, “Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished“. Hard as it is for some to accept, there is a Higher Power at work in the world, and in our lives, and we must be obedient to our rulers. We may look on in dismay as they make an absolute hash of government, thrashing around apparently with no idea of what they are doing, lacking any sort of moral compass, and unaware that there is One in Heaven who can give them the correct guidance, if only they asked. But we remember it was God who allowed them to be there. Romans 13:4, “The authorities are God’s servants, sent for your good. But if you are doing wrong, of course you should be afraid, for they have the power to punish you. They are God’s servants, sent for the very purpose of punishing those who do what is wrong“. It is extremely comforting to know that God is still the ultimate King and He is still occupying His throne. 

So we pilgrims pray for our rulers and authorities, for those who govern our lands. We pray for God’s people everywhere, especially those who are being persecuted for their faith. And we pray for ourselves and our families, that we will all be kept safe from the evil one. We remember that we live “under the shadow of [God’s] wings”. There is no better place to be.

Dear Heavenly and Glorious Father. We thank You that You hold the whole world in Your hands, and that nothing happens unless You have allowed it. We pray for opportunities to share Your Plan with those around us so that they too will come to know Jesus, the One crucified. And we praise and worship You today. Amen.