Ruminant Covenant - Adaptability

For life, natural disasters, Y2K and beyond

10 November 1999

Rule 10. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:10-13)

This, the end of the law portion of the spiritual rest passage which begins in Hebrews Chapter 3, is where we will begin this weeks message. Notice in our Rule of Adaptability, that in order to become free you must have wagered and lost everything. Now you are truly free or so goes the song. To move on beyond this '70's song, I believe that it was originally written by a man and Bobbie McGee was the "chick" he was traveling with, but I may be wrong on that count. I really don't think it is important other than to make us think about what have I risked in following Jesus Christ. If I have risked nothing or very little, have I really gained the "Kingdom of God" or am I just following the flow of a religious river.

There is a saying in modern evangelicalism that says, "Let go and let God!" Sounds good doesn't it. In fact however, it is right in union with our songs hippie era mentality, much more than is first apparent. I think the hippies had a saying that went something like, "Turn in, turn on and drop out." Catch the passive nature of both sayings. Just a couple of joints of Mary Jane and we could start to really get high (on Jesus?) or be President.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship talks a great deal about cheap grace. "Let go and let God" is a cheap grace term. To become a true disciple of Christ one must experience "costly grace" to risk everything in obedience to the high calling of Jesus Christ, to use the Biblical concept. It is only through that risk, that obedience in our faith, or costly diligence can we begin to understand what the writer of Hebrews is meaning in this passage of rest. The first fruits of which we should see in the temporal here and now. This present reality.

Going back again to that groovy, be cool period of our twentieth century, the reason so few Christian are truly at peace, or at rest, is because of our addictions. The two more prominent are our addiction to ourselves and to our culture. Both are sin, both keep us from truly experiencing the freedom that God gives to his ruminant covenant children in response to their obedience. You have not because you walk not. Let me stress, this is not a salvational issue, and it is not a holiness or legalist issue as evangelicals generally define them. To illustrate let us use a portion of Bonhoeffer's biography from Microsoft's Encarta:

"An outspoken opponent of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime on their rise to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer joined the Confessing Church, which resisted the Nazi attempt to impose anti-Semitism on the church and society. Leaving Berlin in protest, he spent two years (1933-35) as pastor of German-speaking congregations in London. Called back to Germany in 1935, Bonhoeffer became director of a seminary of the Confessing Church at Finkenwald, Pomerania. This illegal enterprise was eventually closed by the Gestapo; after the start of World War II, Bonhoeffer joined in the political resistance to Hitler that led to his imprisonment in April 1943 in Berlin and his death by hanging at the Nazi concentration camp at Flossenberg on April 9, 1945."

In this excerpt there is nothing about we don't smoke and we don't chew and we don't go with girls that do. There is nothing about seed faith, giving to get, or any happy times with Jesus. We see tough, really tough decisions that require obedience to God. Through the marriage with the Word of God, the leading of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the confessing church. We are beyond walking with God to the point of, "God if you are not walking with me every second in this situation, I will expire." The promise of the word of God is, "He is, and we won't, unless it is His will."

Back again to addictions. It is amazing just how little it really takes for us to exhibit our sinfulness and ability to be like Peter and deny the Lord, when the circumstances seem to move against us and we are outside our comfort zones. That is why God sent Jesus, to remove that iniquity from us and to make us holy, by His righteousness, I am justified by His grace, in propitiatory covenant with God's the Fathers requirement for holiness and justice. I am saved by God's mercy alone. From there I am to move on however into this world to proclaim this gospel and to make disciples. But can we truly make disciples who are aware of costly grace, if we do not at least take a look at western evolutionary culture. We are very much a product of its intellectual elitism and materialism and we must begin to ask God to remove some of our blindness to its influences?

Does our formal educational system, whether it be secular or sacred help us to learn to think, or to discern, to take risks, or is it to develop followers willing to live in harmony with its cultural and evolutionary presuppositions? To what extent is our urban culture a higher calling, or is it a means of security to protect us from the judgements of God's law in the area of common grace (creation)? Can true Biblical Christianity exist in a man centered culture, without proposing and acting to create a God centered alternative and have followers willing to undergo, the costly refining process in order to get a true vision of the eternal Jerusalem, the city of peace and rest?

The United States is now the world's only superpower. All nations, all peoples and individuals are trying to emulate to some extent, our dreams of material security. The writer of Hebrews makes it clear that this security, is not Biblical rest, but truly a form of spiritual disobedience. Disobedience that makes us move, faster and faster in ever tightening circles until at last our bearings give out and we collapse under the friction of satanic inspired burn out. The true church is called to confess the true rest that is found by faith alone, by grace alone, because of Jesus Christ alone. That is the gospel that leads to eternal rest and by our obedience into temporal rest. It is not a passive work, but a costly work of diligence that costs us, His disciples, our entire self. The surface may outwardly look as "letting go and let God". But the price and the work required by waiting on God to fulfill his potential for us is what is lacking in the church today as we run head long toward this new millennium. Obedience requires us to say, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus, for if you are not with me every second in this situation, I will expire." For through that obedience we may say:

At the Lamb's high feast we sing, Praise to our victorious King,
Who hath washed us in the tide, Flowing from his pierced side;
Praise we him whose love divine, Gives his sacred Blood for wine,
Gives his Body for the feast, Christ the victim, Christ the priest.

Where the Paschal Blood is poured, Death's dark angel sheathes his sword;
Israel's host triumphant go, Through the waves that drown the foe.
Praise we Christ, whose Blood washed, Paschal victim, Paschal bread;
With sincerity and love, Eat we manna from above.

Mighty victim from the sky, Hell's fierce powers beneath thee lie,
Thou hast conquered in the fight, Thou has brought us life and light;
Now no more can death appall, Now no more the grave enthrall;
Thou hast opened paradise, And in thee thy saints shall rise.

Paschal triumph Paschal joy, Sin alone can thee destroy;
From sin's power do thou set free, Souls newborn, O lord in thee.
Hymns of glory, songs of praise, Father unto thee we raise;
Risen Lord, all praise to thee With the spirit ever be. Amen.

Based on the Latin, translated Robert Campbell, (1814--1868)

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Our present need allows us to enter into the first fruits of eternal rest and freedom in the present natural now. This is not a power resident in ourselves, or in our culture which we naturally look to for such fulfillment, but comes alone from the Paschal Lamb of God as the chosen of His ruminant covenant. Amen.

PRAYER PLANTS

Nothing has yet happened with my mother's situation, I wanted to go this week to see what I can do, or to make me feel better, or what ever,but I do not have a peace about going now. This is a small step of faith on my part, only knowing the whole thing is truly in the Lord's hands. Just pray that her passing be with the Lord's timing and not with input from me or anyone else. I would like to see the Lord do somethings before that time, but that may just be my perception of the situation.

I have a better view this week than last, through the fog of God's grace. To that extent, the Lord willing, I would like to go to Russia to help in the church planting mission of my good friends Chris and Katherine Knox. The scheduled departure date is March 20th and I would like to spend more time in Russia and Europe doing some evangelistic work with churches over there. PREFER is the only ministry that I am aware of, that has creation based business management programs that can be adapted from those requiring beginning entrepreneurial prompting through training top level corporate executives, as well as doctrinally sound gospel messages. I am not a revivalist in any sense of the matter, but I strongly believe in the doing work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:2-5) Please pray for God's provision in this endeavor. Any financial or other contributions and ideas should be earmarked, "Old goat tour, 2000" or similar nonsense.

I haven't heard anything on the particular ship I mentioned last week. I am really not that concerned with that at this time. This relates to the whole above message. I know how to do this in my flesh or in the natural. One thing I have realized recently is that Y2K is really in a technical sense the end of a millennium and not the beginning. That is contrary to current hype, but I'm sure that towards the end of 2000 there will be marketing emphasizing that Y2K1 is really the new beginning. This leads to the conclusion on my part that our God is really not a God of endings, even though he is the God of the beginning and the end. The gospel is about new birth, restoration and the everlasting renaissance and as such 2001 would be a better year to start a trip round the world. The whole concept however is this, to walk in the rest that this message discusses, I must walk in obedience and diligence to God's timing. That means to "wait on the Lord" as the Bible indicates so clearly. That is in the context of what I said the most difficult thing for western man to do (and I consider myself to be chief a expositor in the understanding of the want it now method).