SOVEREIGN
GRACE LIFE
Lasaro Flores /
E-mail
Address: lasaro@netscape.com
VISIT MY WEB PAGES
|
ALL OF MINISTRIES |
PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN http://lasaroflores.tripod.com/ |
|
MINISTERIO TODO DE GRACIA http://tododegracia.freehomepage.com/ |
VIDA GRACIA SOBERANA http://vidagraciasoberana.bravespages.com/ |
NOTE:
Although I’ll be using articles from various authors, it does not mean
I agree
totally with what they write. But after reading them, I believe some
benefit
can be derived from them with respect to Revival and Spiritual
Awakening.
_________________________________________________________
There is a fourfold
purpose for this
newsletter: It goes out for Revival, for Renewal, for Restoration, and
for
Reformation. Perhaps to some this means the same thing, yet I believe
that
there are four aspects of a Life that experiences the Sovereign Grace
of God
that will be manifested when believers experience these four things in
it. It
is my desire that “the God of all grace”
(1 Peter 5:10) will be pleased to use the articles, not only for
His
awesome Glory, but also to “revive (His) work in the
midst of the
years”
(Habakuk 3:2); and as a result, we should be willing to “endure
all things for the elect’s sakes,
that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with
eternal
glory” (2 Timothy 2:10).
Therefore, pray with
me that God will be pleased to command the clouds to rain again (cp.
Isaiah
5:6), so that “in the wilderness shall
waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground
shall
become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water” (Isaiah
35:6,7), as
the “showers of blessing” descend
when He “causes the shower to come down in his season”
(Ezekiel 34:26). Oh,
how we need to pray like David: “O God,
thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my
flesh
longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see
thy power
and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary” (Psalm
63:1)! We
can be sure that whenever that happens, not only will we be Revived
from our
deadness without Him, but also Renewed in our desires of Him, Restored
in our
fellowship with Him, and Reformed in our walk before Him. Amen!
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
EVIDENCES OF A BACKSLIDDEN CONDITION
From Revival
By Richard Owen Roberts
Backslidden Christians are
evident
everywhere. They are in the churches and out of the churches. They are
in the
pews and in the pulpits. They are on boards and are bored. They are on
committees and teach Sunday School. The backslidden seem to be more
numerous
than the upright and their influence throughout the world vastly more
profound.
While backsliders do not all manifest the same traits, evidences of
their
condition are not difficult to pinpoint. The following characteristics
merit
our serious attention.
6.
When pointed spiritual discussions are an embarrassment, that is
certain
evidence of backsliding. The person on fire for
Jesus
Christ delights in every opportunity to talk about Him. No place seems
inappropriate for vital spiritual conversation. When backsliding
begins, the
church seems like the best place to discuss religious matters. Soon it
seems
altogether inappropriate to speak seriously of spiritual matters in
mixed
company. It isn’t long before free discussion of eternal matters
becomes a
source of acute embarrassment. If anyone takes the liberty of
addressing the
backslider concerning the welfare of his soul on a street corner, in an
airplane or on a commuter train, his temper may flare. For fear of
public
confrontation, the backslider is apt to make fun of a serious-minded
co-worker
who persists in speaking freely of spiritual issues on the job. The
backslider
is apt to go so far as to proclaim vehemently, “There are two things I
never
discuss – religion and politics”. Mark this, if the public discussion
of deeply
important spiritual matters is an embarrassment to you, there can be no
question concerning your backsliding condition. The person whose love
for
Christ is current will delight in every opportunity, public or private,
to hear
Him lifted up with reverence.
(To be continued)
________________________________________________________________________________
“If I shut
up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I
command the locust to devour the land, or ill send pestilence among My
people,
and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and
seek My
face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven,
will
forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2
Chronicles 7:13, 14)
Those
with any interest in revival have no doubt heard, read, prayed, quoted,
and
even perhaps preached upon the above text of Scripture calling upon
God’s
people to return to Him. In my own experiences, I have heard this text
frequently cited as a call to mighty efforts of prayer for revival.
This is all
very well since no revival has taken place without a preceding season
of
tearful prayers on the part of God's people. I am afraid, however that
we often
overlook the fact that prayer is actually the second step
toward gaining
the ear of God; the first, of course, is that God's people humble
themselves.
We
do a great disservice to the cause of Christ if we call God's people to
prayer
without first calling them to lay down their pride. The closest that
prayer and
pride will ever come together is in the dictionary! “Haughty eyes” is
the first
in the list of seven things which are an abomination to the Lord
(Proverbs 6:16
if). The day of the Lord's exaltation is described as a day when “the
proud
look of man will be abased, and the loftiness of man will be humbled”
(Isaiah
2:11, 17). The Lord's Day of Reckoning will be, “against everyone
who is
proud and lofty, and against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be
abased”
(Isaiah 2:12).
In
James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5, we see that God is actually opposed to the
proud. It
is common for many Christians to speak of how Satan is fighting against
the
church today, but many would be shocked to ponder the thought that God
Himself
would actually oppose their efforts if they harbor pride in their
heart. Indeed,
the multiplied sins of God's people caused Him to shut His ears to
their
multiplied prayers (Isaiah 1:15). I fear that even our most
fervent
prayers for revival will be unheard upon high until we are willing to
humble
ourselves and deal with our manifold sins.
“Humbling
Ourselves” –
What Does That Mean?
What
does it actually mean for someone to humble themselves before God?
First, to be
humbled before God involves acknowledging God's holy ways in contrast
to our
sinful ways. Our pride tends to see our own righteousness, our own good
deeds,
our own plans and schemes as things worthy of god-likeness. Humility is
when we
see these things as God Himself sees them, as they truly are —
infinitely ugly
and stained with sin. Jonathan Edwards has said, “It is by (pride) that
the
mind defends itself in other errors, and guards itself against light,
by which
it might be corrected and reclaimed.”
To
humble ourselves is to be awakened from the deception that our
arrogance has
created. A good example of this is the
We
should not rely on public opinion to persuade us of how great we are.
The
Modern
churches compete to be the biggest, the fastest-growing, the most
successful or
the greatest in notoriety. They spare no expense in gathering
statistics,
printing literature, making broadcasts and proclaiming how rich,
wealthy and in
need of nothing they are. Is this the report that Christ would give if
we
sought Him for His perspective? Would He extol our virtues and applaud
our
efforts as loudly as we do ourselves? Or might He be more likely to
uncover the
fact that we are really “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and
naked”?
As we begin to ignore public opinion and turn on the light of God's
word, as we
cease to believe our own self-praises and see what God thinks of us, we
begin
to see what it means to be humbled.
Do We
Really Agree with
God?
Not
only must we come to the place where we recognize that our ways are
wicked in
contrast to God's ways, but, second, to be humbled means to come to a
place
where we stand with God in condemning our wicked ways. When the Bible
speaks of
confessing our sins in 1 John 1:9, the Greek word means “to speak the
same
thing as” or “to agree”. So, when we confess our sins to God, it does
not mean
that we are informing Him of something of which He was not aware. It
means that
we are agreeing with Him on something that He sees quite clearly. He is
fully
cognizant that our sin is indeed sin.
He
sees the sins that are in darkness to us — our pride, our lust, our
rebellion,
our unbelief, our disobedience — as if they were in the noonday sun.
Confession means that we say with God, “These are grievous sins
that
offend Your holiness and caused the suffering and death of Your
precious,
innocent Son.” Unconfessed sin, therefore, can be characterized as a
continuous
dispute with the all-wise God. It says that we know better than the
Holy One as
to what constitutes true holiness.
There
is a spirit of smugness among professing Christians today that must be
cast
out. We have no difficulty in condemning the sins of others, but our
self-righteousness has made us calloused when it comes to heartily
condemning
our own sins. No better illustration could be given than that of King
David in
2 Samuel, chapters 11 & 12. David had wallowed in his adultery,
murder and
spite of God's word for almost a year before God sent Nathan the
prophet to
deal with him.
God
showed David his sin in a parabolic report of a rich man with great
flocks who
stole one, beloved, ewe lamb from a poor man (see 2 Sam. 12:1-4).
David, being
a former shepherd, knew what it was to witness predators trying to take
lambs
from his own flock and he had on several occasions rose up and dealt
death to
the lion or the bear attempting to ravage his lambs. His anger was
aroused and
he bitterly denounced the man and passed a harsh judgment upon him (v. 5).
It
was here that the prophet thundered, “You are the man!” David had
unwittingly
condemned his own transgressions. We, like David, have come to pick and
choose
for God what sins He really does hate. The modern Christian cries, “God
really
hates liberal government, abortion, homosexuality, militant feminism,
etc.”
Indeed, these are abominations to Him; but what would happen if we
turned the
flood-light of God's word upon the modern Christian church?
Political
Action or
Gospel Proclamation?
Do
you get incensed because the liberal government has legislated God out
of its
institutions? You are the man! In the first century, the
government
would allow no god to be worshiped before Caesar. Our Christian
brethren were
thrown to the lions because they refused to renounce their Lord. The
strategy
of the modern, American disciple is to jump into the arena and try to
eat the
lions in the name of Christ.
Few
would argue that our nation's government has become purely pagan. Its
hostility
toward God, its tolerance toward perversion of His holy law and its
legalization of the grossest of abominations are evidence of this. In
the
church, though, the Great Commission has become, “Go therefore and
petition the
government to return to its Christian roots”. As noble and patriotic as
this
sentiment sounds, it is an affront to our calling in Christ. First, our
outrage
at the wickedness of this nation is a testimony to our ignorance. A
simple
understanding of the biblical doctrine of man's total depravity
explains this
condition. Why should we be so shocked and surprised to find godless
pagans
acting like godless pagans? Why should we who have the light of God's
word be
so amazed at the sons of darkness going deeper into darkness?
Second,
the more sensible questions should be, “What has happened to the light?
Has the
salt of the earth lost its savor? Why has the church lost its ability
to turn
the world upside down?” It is interesting to note that when God's
people were
in rebellion against Him, there was one question that no one seemed to
be
asking: “Where is the Lord?” See Jeremiah 2:6-8; even those who knew
the law
did not ask the question, “Where is the Lord?” In our efforts to
reestablish
morality in our government (an effort which has been miserable failure
over the
past three decades), we, too, have missed upon a very important factor:
We
should not be so concerned as to whether God is present in the White
House, the
Congress or the Supreme Court, but whether or not He is present in our
churches.
From a divine perspective, it is reprehensible for professing
Christians to cry
out against God's absence in the institutions of government, while His
holy
presence is not even missed in the church.
Do
you condemn the great holocaust of abortion that pollutes our nation?
The
killing of children is not a new thing; the prophets of the Old
Testament often
thundered against the practice of the Israelites in sacrificing their
children
to the idol Molech (see Leviticus 20:2-5; Jeremiah 32:35; also Ezekiel
16:21;
20:26,31; 23:37). But you are the man! The church today has
ignored the
fact that there are other ways to destroy children. The homes of
professing
Christians in this evil day have become silent in teaching their
children about
the life-giving truths of the gospel. Fathers have relinquished the
stewardship
of teaching their sons and daughters to love the Lord their God with
all their
heart, with all their soul, with all their mind and with all their
strength.
But, in that Day when God calls for an accounting of the wayward
children and
rebellious youth of this generation, He shall not call the biased
media, nor
depraved
Murder of
the Unborn or
the Born-again?
Do
you truly loath the murder of the unborn and are you repulsed by the
flagrant
disregard for human life at abortion clinics? You are the man!
If God
were to carry a placard and protest an “institution of murder”, where
would He
be holding His “sit-in”? Let His word speak for itself: “Everyone
who hates
his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer
has
eternal life abiding in him.” (1 John 3:15, emphasis mine). We seem
to
think that God is more grieved over the slaughter of millions of
fetuses than
He is over the bitterness, the divisions, the unforgiveness, the
factions and
the fighting that goes on in many American churches in this day.
The
unborn are easy to love. They do not openly disagree with you, they do
not say
things to hurt you, they do not exhibit behavior calculated to offend
you, nor
do they display in the church any of the works of the flesh. Let's face
it,
they are totally unlike those irritating people you must face day after
day,
week after week, whom you are forced, by virtue of the fact that Christ
died
for them also, to call “brothers”. Yet, these are the very people that
you are
commanded — commanded, you understand — to love as Christ
loved you.
“If someone says, ‘I love God,' and hat s his brother, he is a liar,
for the
one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God
whom he has
not seen” (1 John 4:20).
Crusading
for a Holy God is one thing; but it is a completely different thing to
be
humbled in the presence of that Holy God. The crusader becomes crushed
and
broken in the sight of His pure holiness. This is best illustrated in
that
classic passage of Isaiah 6. Chapter 5 shows this faithful servant of
the Lord
pronouncing woes upon the rebellious children of
In
the presence of the Holy King, Isaiah saw that it was not just the
people
around him that were unclean; he, too, was in ruin over the pollution
of his
own soul. The missionary fires were revived in him only after a
cleansing coal
from the freshly used altar had touched his lips. May the day be near
when
God's servants see that their own sin is as offensive to God as that of
the
world's, and that God's church ministers once again with a passion born
of
holiness, rather than of self-righteousness.
Our
Humility and God’s
Mercy
The
final principle concerning humility is this: to be humbled means to
present
ourselves to a God who is abundant in grace and mercy. Facing the
ugliness of
our pride, rebellion and unbelief is frowned upon in this culture that
has made
a positive “self-image” an indispensable mark of Christianity.
Brokenness and
humility are seen as setbacks to true spiritual growth rather than
requirements
for it.
But
it is only with the broken and contrite of heart that God has agreed to
dwell
(see Isaiah 57:15 & 66:2), and those He will gladly welcome. We
must repent
of the falsehood that has convinced us that the church only has a few
mistakes
and some lack of commitment to overcome, rather than a multitude of
sins and
trespasses to repent of. Roy Hession gives great encouragement to us in
this
matter:
Some
may be inclined to question whether it is right to call such things as
self-consciousness, reserve, and fear, sins. ‘Call them infirmities,
disabilities, temperamental weaknesses, if you will' some have
said,'but not
sins. To do so would be to get us into bondage. The reverse, however,
is true.
If these things are not sins, then we must put up with them for the
rest of our
lives; there is no deliverance. But if these and other things like them
are
indeed sins, then there is a Fountain for them, and we may experience
cleansing
from them, if we put them immediately under His precious Blood, the
moment we
are conscious of them. And they are sins. Their source is unbelief and
an
inverted form of pride, and they have hindered and hidden Him times
without
number. (The Calvary Road, Christian Literature Crusade, 1988,
p. 29)
Never
is a call to God's people for repentance meant to be an opportunity to
come
before Him for condemnation; it is always a call to receive cleansing
and
restoration. The call to humble ourselves before God is never a call to
crush
the church into impotence, but to resurrect it in power. May this truth
give us
encouragement to seek our Lord with greater fervency for restoration
and
revival.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
INVITATION
TO SALVATION
In order for one to experience Revival, they first need to have
Life,
otherwise they are “dead in trespasses and
sins”
(Ephesians 2:1) and “alienated from the
life of God” (4:18). If you have not been “born again”
(John 3:3,7), then you have not the Life of Christ in
you according to 1 John 4:12 – “He that
hath the Son hath life; and
he that hath not the Son of God hath not life”. If this is true of
you,
then you do not need Revival but Salvation in order to have Life.
You
may obtain this Life in Christ Jesus by believing in Him; for “this is the record, that God hath given to
us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (v.11). At the
moment that a
spiritually dead sinner believes in Him, he “is
passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). Is this true of you at
this very
moment?
If not, then “repent ye, and believe the gospel”
(Mark 1:15). Look only to the Lord
Jesus Christ; for He alone died on
the Cross in order to save sinners and to give them eternal life. The
proof of
this is that He rose from the dead and is ALIVE! By faith alone
trust Him for your salvation, and ‘be persuaded’ that it’s
ALL OF GRACE alone that God will
save you. Amen.
__________________________________________________________________________I
will be sending out this newsletter to as many as I can find e-mail
addresses
to. To each and everyone that receives this newsletter, please do me
the favor
of acknowledging at the above e-mail address that you have received it.
If you
prefer not to continue to receive it, please let me know, and I will
take you
off the mailing list. Thank you.