A Little Chat

In Parting, Let’s Have

A Little Chat

Roger and Eileen Himes

www.ThePracticalGospel.com

As I’ve re-read these 40 days, and have edited them, actually what I’ve discovered is most of these 40 days have been like a chat. By this I mean it’s just a heart to heart talk, like we were sitting together, having a drink and just personally connecting. It has been as Paul says, “fellowship in the gospel” (Phil 1:5).

There will be ONE new thought here, but most things will be said in a different way. You’ve gotten enough gospel truth in the past 40 days. So let’s just summarize and re-examine things. I’ve been writing, teaching, counseling, and sharing these things again and again the past 20 years. Most of my writing has been in the form of Gospel Snapshots, which I encourage you to read on our website, or as shorter booklets.

Experiencing the Gospel of Peace is about relationships with God, ourselves and others, and Women, Called to be Fathers of the Gospel, were specialty books. This is my first attempt to ‘bring it all together.’

In the gospel, God blesses us in spite of us, not because of us! full of blessings and curses. In the New Covenant, the curses have been done away with and we are only left with the blessings. Is it any wonder Paul calls it a BETTER New Covenant? Man was a party to the Old Covenant. In the New he is a beneficiary, not a party. Any lawyer will tell you being a beneficiary is better.

God’s wisdom is about our PERSON, — evolving into our POSITION in Christ. Man’s wisdom is about our PERFORMANCE for Christ. This is another truth that is very hard for man’s wisdom to wrap itself around. Man’s wisdom can’t seem to grasp how our person is different from our performance. In man’s wisdom, one equals the other.

Man’s wisdom is based in laws. God’s wisdom is based in love. Man’s wisdom is founded in principles. God’s wisdom is revelation of a Person. Man’s wisdom is buried in sin, and tries to dig itself out by means of the flesh responding in self righteousness. God’s wisdom is founded on his imparted righteousness through grace. His only ‘condition’ for this is we must believe it and receive it (Mk 1:15, Rom 5:17).

Thus, man’s wisdom and God’s wisdom are mutually exclusive. Man’s wisdom applies to the world. God’s wisdom applies to his earthly and eternal kingdoms. The two cannot be integrated. They are different paradigms and dimensions.

Also, don’t apply Old Testament ways to New Testament reality. Remember Jesus says you can’t pour new wine into old bottles. Paul says the New is a new ‘dispensation.’ In many ways he shows that the Old is ‘darkness’ if it is made part of the New. Satan resides in darkness. Paul says living by the Old Testament results in a curse (Gal 3:10). The curse was totally done away with at the cross, but apparently this is a new curse, as pertaining to gospel truth. Many live in this curse.

Trying to live in God’s Kingdom, by means of man’s wisdom makes us ‘enemies in our minds’ toward God (Col 1:21). We are at ‘enmity’ with God because his mind is focused in one direction, while ours is focused in another direction. Remember, if someone describes an elephant to you while they are looking at his front end, and you are looking at his back end, you will be very confused. If they’re looking at his big ears, long trunk, and funny mouth, while you are looking at his huge buttocks, huge thighs and tiny tail, you are not going to understand anything. So it is with God’s wisdom and man’s wisdom. So it is with gospel truth.

You must remember that when Jesus said, “Repent and believe the gospel,” he might just as well have said, “Repent and believe gobbledegook.” NO one had a clue what the gospel was, so God had to tell them. The gospel is God’s invention. Man’s mind could never have conceived the gospel. Because the gospel is God’s invention, HE must reveal it to us, or we’ll never see it. This is the mystery of the gospel. But God will reveal the mystery to anyone — who has an open heart to receive it.

Man’s wisdom says there is enmity with God. In God’s wisdom we see there is none. It did exist. It was created in the Garden of Eden, by means of human sin. It was erased at the cross, by means of Jesus becoming sin.

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I guess the greatest thought I can leave you with, which is also an early thought in A 40 Day Gospel Fast is this: be separated unto the gospel as Paul says he was. Continue in it, as Paul did. Keep yourself in it, as Paul did. Let it be the essence of your whole life and ministry, as Paul did. Keep it guarded and protected, as Paul did. To mix or marry it with anything else is to lose it. Even what you have is taken away. The gospel SEED we receive must be pure. It can’t be mixed with weeds.

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Being pure is being single-minded. We must be single minded in the gospel if we are going to see the PERSON of God that his gospel reveals. To be double-minded, — living by two covenants, by grace and law, by knowledge and life, or by principles and a Person, — is to be unstable in all our ways.

Any counselor can tell you how many unstable Christians there are. In fact, 90% of the people in mental lock-up wards claim to be Christian. The other 10% probably are; they just don’t believe they are.

If you live between two opposing, equally powerful forces, it can drive you crazy. It’s like the immovable object meeting the irresistible force. This is how many Christians feel who are not single-minded. They are not pure in heart. They cannot see God accurately. He is only a blur. Separation theology says he is just ‘up there somewhere.’

They are like Jesus story of the man whose eyes he healed, but after the first healing he only saw men ‘as trees walking.’ He couldn't see clearly. He was still partially blind. This is how Christians live their lives if they don’t ONLY see gospel truth.

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Now let’s see something new. BEWARE! This may be troubling to you. It was to me at first. But seeing this really turned some lights on for me. This thought is foundational to many things said these 40 days. So, think about it and pray about it.

Man’s wisdom says that Satan is the counterpart to Jesus. We see the big cosmos universe as a display of God vs. Satan. Most Christians believe Jesus is coming back again to fight Satan in the Battle of Armageddon. To me, this is religious fiction, not gospel reality. Lucifer, a/k/a Satan, was never the brother of Jesus. He was only an angel, and a pride-filled fallen angel. In the Garden he took on the form of a snake, and he infected US with HIS sin: pride. This is where self sufficiency and self righteousness were born — living in the flesh.

He had some form of access to heaven until the cross, and then Jesus saw him fall ‘like lightning from heaven.’ This means Father kicked him out on his butt! To believe Jesus is going to return to fight Satan again can actually destroy the revelation of gospel truth. What was the cross about? Living in God’s wisdom, we see it is not Satan who is the counterpart to Jesus. Instead it is Moses. We give Satan far too much credit! Gospel truth shoots the prince of the power of the air out of the sky!

“The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Hebrews 3 says Jesus had more glory than Moses — in that he who BUILDS the house has more honor than the itself. We are told Moses was faithful in his house as a Servant, but Christ is faithful in his house as a SON — “whose house WE are!” As great as Moses is, there is no comparison between his ministry, and that of Jesus Christ. ‘The two glories’ of II Corinthians 3 shows us the first has NO glory compared to the second.

It is said, by the tradition of 10,000 instructors in Christ, that Jesus contrasted himself to Satan. They rely on John 10:10: “The thief comes not but for to steal, to kill and to destroy. But I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” But have you ever noticed that Satan is not mentioned in John 10,— or in John 9? Preachers, with the wisdom of man, merely assume the thief is Satan. This is logical human wisdom. After all, Satan DOES come to steal, kill and destroy. Everything he does is evil and against us. But the wisdom of God shows us something very different: in John 10, Jesus did not contrast himself to Satan, but to MOSES!

Satan is not mentioned in John 9 or 10, but Moses is talked about in John 9. And in John 10:8 Jesus ties it together by saying, “ALL who EVER came before me are thieves and robbers.” First of all, this must be more than just Satan, even if it includes him, because Jesus is talking in the plural, not the singular. You see, as great as Moses was, he is included in this statement Jesus makes. Jesus called him a thief and a robber!

Moses’ job was to define The Tree of Knowledge: man’s wisdom. Satan told Eve the tree would make HER wise. The law was given to clarify The Tree of Knowledge of (1) what is good, and (2) what is bad. As great as Moses was, he presented US with A TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE GOAL: obedience to divine law. In this sense, he was a thief!

What did Moses rob from us? He robbed us of mental health and emotional stability. He robbed us of faith and confidence before God. He made us double-minded: constantly assessing good vs. bad. He robbed us from being single-minded and seeing God. He left what Paul calls the ministry of condemnation and death (II Cor 3:6, 9). Moses’ ministry was responsible for giving us MAN’S wisdom, and BLINDING us to gospel truth (II Cor 3:14-15). Living by the flesh rather than the Spirit, is to live by the law of Moses, rather than the gospel of Jesus. This is why I’ve talked so much about living by principles, as taught by 10,000 instructors, opposed to living in the Person of God as revealed by fathers of the gospel. One is The Tree of Knowledge, and the other is The Tree of Life.

It goes back to Moses vs. Jesus. This is NOT just an academic Bible lesson. Seeing this helps unlock the gospel’s mystery and truth.

We must get out from under the ways of Moses and his law, by trying to live them in self righteousness (Phil 3:9, Rom 10:3). Christ is the end of the law (the reign of Moses) — for righteousness to everyone who believes (Rom 10:4). If we do not come out from under this, we’ll always live by it (Rom 10:5). This is living a life based on principles.

Paul says NO one could ever live this way (Rom 3:10). Acts 15:10 says NONE of the forefathers could live under the ways of Moses. James 2:10 says if we try, and fail in ONE point, we’re guilty of the whole curse of the law. Paul says this in reverse, and says if we try to live by only ONE point in the law, we have backslidden from the gospel of grace and Christ profits us NOTHING (Gal 5:2-4).

Yet, the same pride Satan infected Adam and Eve with still infects us today. Living by law we cry out, “I can do it, Lord!” — “Watch me, God!” Our pride, founded in man’s wisdom, is our downfall. It is the fall of man today. It keeps us from seeing the gospel: the wisdom of God. This is living in the ministry of Moses, not in Christ’s gospel!

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When Satan tempted Jesus, he didn’t tempt him to break the law, or to sin. He tempted Jesus with self-righteousness. He tempted Jesus with doing good works. Jesus wasn’t tempted with sex, drugs, booze or porn. He was tempted with SELF. He was faced with it, but didn’t give into it. His temptation was, “IF you are the Son of God, prove it!” In effect, Jesus’ response was, “I won’t — because I AM!”

It’s the same temptation Eve was faced with, but she fell. And it’s the same temptation we face right now today.

Satan wants us bound to Moses’ law, — or even just ONE law, according to Paul, — because he knows it produces self-righteousness and spiritual death. Thus I call it ‘Satan’s Sandbox,’ — IF we use it in any way to relate to God by means of our obedience and our performance. It’s living by principles, and these dominate the kingdom of self. This is our greatest temptation! It causes ‘a zeal for God,’ but no gospel revelation (Rom 10:1). It causes us to perform for God: “Watch me, Lord!”

A zeal for God produces healing rooms, warfare conferences, faith preaching, end time fascination, and sin focus. It produces altar calls and revivals. Revivals are mostly only needed because of all the BAD seed from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge that instructors plant into people each week. Once the revival’s over, they go back and get more bad seed planted into them, to get prepared for the next revival. This is WITCHCRAFT that Paul talks about in Galatians 3: beginning in the Spirit, we end up living in the flesh under Moses’ law.

SEE THE DIFFERENCE CLEARLY:

Man’s wisdom is born at The Tree of Knowledge. It is born in pride of self betterment and achievement. It is focused on good and bad, later defined by the law. This is double mindedness. It exists in a lack of faith in the finished work of Christ, looking for Jesus to come back and battle Satan. Here, “When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith?” NO!

God’s wisdom is born at The Tree of Life. It is born in righteousness that is imparted by God in grace. It is born in childlike humility that submits to it, and receives it. It is single-mindedness: focused on the finished work of the cross of Jesus Christ. Here, will the Son of Man find faith? YES!

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If God ever heals us when we think we deserve it, we’ll be in worse shape than before he healed us. I think this is the main reason we don’t see more healings than we do in the body of Christ. We Christians could not handle it. Self righteousness is like a cancer that eats away at us, and we often don’t even know it.

Plus, if God doesn’t heal us — especially if someone else we know does get healed — then a root of bitterness grows in us. These roots are especially hard to weed out. And this is especially true if we’re obedient — if we did what an instructor in Christ said to do, only it didn’t bring the result we expected.

Instructors in Christ preach man’s wisdom. Fathers of the gospel preach God’s wisdom. Paul says, “We speak wisdom (gospel truth) among them who are perfect” (I Cor 2:6). Who is it who has ears to hear God’s wisdom? It is those who know they are perfect in Christ because of his finished work. This is something you can’t know living by obeying principles. It has nothing to do with our PERFORMANCE, but with our POSITION in Christ.

This only makes sense, by means of God’s wisdom, to those who know they are perfect and godly in Jesus. Anything else is man’s wisdom that leads to confusion in double-mindedness, and self righteousness.

THE TOWER OF BABEL VS. THE CROSS OF CHRIST. One way I view the Christian life is centered around The Tower of Babel vs. The Cross of Christ. Man’s wisdom constructs for us The Tower of Babel. The gospel constructs belief, faith and trust in the finished work of Christ.

This finishes our little ‘fireside chat.’ I thought I’d close by reasoning this out with you, and showing you how Satan uses one of his greatest ploys in blinding our minds to the glorious gospel of Christ:

— Satan wants you to believe the contest is: Jesus vs. himself, but the works of Satan have been totally destroyed, if you live gospel truth.

— Jesus wants you to see the real contest: himself vs. Moses.

The thread of this has been woven through these entire 40 days, because this is the issue. This is the warfare, which we’ve seen many ways, some of which are as follows:
— self vs. Christ,
— the wisdom of man vs. the wisdom of God,
— law vs. grace,
— human performance vs. personal spiritual position,
— principles vs. the gospel,
— Moses vs. Jesus.

If you truly see this, The Gospel Road becomes a downhill leisurely walk, the road being paved with grace and truth. “My way is easy, and my burden is light.”