"The Character of God in the Midst of Crisis" | POWER HOUR | Ep.128

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Music] oh good afternoon par our family from around the world i'm slightly stunned there because we did a three oh there he is his face is back dad you had me panicked there that it was just sarah jade and i would have to look so i have the delight that is sarah jane sir jenny and i look like we're wearing the same colors today that's your colors today it's freezing and dad you're with us good to have you here good to be with you good good and how are you all doing good very well yes apart from cold like we said um but very well planning a an 18th birthday party for lockdown at the moment for next week so lots of orders going don't tell sophie and she could be watching so don't say anything or ask me anything i can't say but lots of orders from various places in the country uh online because you just can't do it any other way and even wrapping paper and birthday cards i think you know normally you can just nip out and get one from a card shop there are no card shops open there's only supermarket cards and they're not very good usually sorry supermarkets but yeah so enjoying the planning and the fun of all of that yeah a lot locked down birthdays are a little bit grim but after yesterday's blowing up of my light bulb i was you know i was recording a preach yesterday so it wasn't a live preacher i was recording it for a conference because most of the preaching i do now is is pre-recorded so they play it in their various conferences whoever asks me and i mean i could feel the glory of god and the whole electrics surged now that has happened to me before and the light bulb completely split however david went to get a replacement light bulb this morning and he has got one that's a color changing light bulb light bulb that changes color and so it's the light bulb comes with a remote control i've never seen anything like and so he's he's like oh it'll look great on the red setting i'm like i do not want a red light glow coming from my office this is not appropriate not any red so your office looks a bit dark behind you this morning i thought i've had to turn it off in case i look like a dodgy red glow they're all the rage those bulbs that change color and yeah the teens love them apparently pink room yellow room purple room yeah honestly that wouldn't be fun to try out you should have had it on and we could have changed the colors this morning that would have been fun flashing like a disco like it actually has a flashing mode on it i'm saying today but why would i want a flashing mode light bulb would that not give everybody some kind of heading anyway and then the other thing i was remembering dad do you remember uh this from my childhood we were saying the boy my boys are bored and the the home learning whatever it is home education is just honestly they're not learning anything apart from what we decide to teach them because the school stuff is just rehashing work worksheets you know it's not new learning and so we were saying boys you need a hobby and you know what shocked me they're like what's a hobby like is so completely alien to this generation you know they're gamers but the thought of you know collecting something you know i mean when did you laugh here a young person talking about having a collection apart from um a collection of xbox games and dad i don't know whether any of you still are collectors out there let us know in the comments if you collect anything but as a child do you remember dad i used to have and this is a confession a shell collection you did you had a very good one and hundreds and hundreds of shells that mom and i would go and remember we had a congregation member who would bring us crates of satsumas or apples for christmas big big boxes and i would take the boxes and the dips that the apples came in and i would put all the shells in the little dips and label them all and i had a box of buy valves and a box of gastropods so i could still break the bivalves and the gastropod shells so when i'm you know like saying this to my boys they're like what what you know what is this strange thing called a hobby or a collection when did you keep them all within your bedroom no i don't know where they all went dad where did they go we spent hours on it ears on it um i i think you've got them moves in moves um yeah they were not you lose them john by accident did you listen it was quite an amazing collection really because i remember visiting a lady out in spain and she was a professional collector and exhibitor of shells and she had a whole room in her villa there of very nice glass cases in which these shells from around the globe were all exhibited and properly labeled yes that was lovely you guys are hilarious somebody collects frogs what and somebody collects nutcrackers that's amazing the christmas things christmas nutcrackers are not practiced for christmas the soldier things or the the actual not crackers somebody comments love it i used to collect stamps i used to have books of stamps remember when that was a thing yes yes in the comments would be very impressed oh rebecca king you win i collect friends oh that's a good one well there we go the the younger generation are missing out massively on all of this uh uh collection of stuff uh at the moment we have rubik's cube wars because i got peter a rubik's cube to try to get him off tech for christmas and he has it set up in his room and his little brother sneaks in mixes it up and then backs out again and they really got really cross with each other about this wretched rubik's cube uh but peter has discovered uh an online web some website thing where he can take a photograph of the rubik's cube and they will tell you how to move it to put it back together and i thought child was a genius i thought the child peter had suddenly figured out how to fix it after samuel messes it up no not a hobby an internet cheat and i'm like oh that's not fair i can remember getting that in my first year at high school and there was a sheet produced by the math department on how to get your rubik's cube completed it was a like a mass equation i used it to teach maths and how much joy did you get when you could get like the top line of all the right colors you know that spent yeah we spent days i know mommy how fast can i fix it so i can get back to my gaming i mean the reality isn't it dad you need to come back grind and beat them at chess all right yeah i'll play them both together i did actually go online and and um look at chess clocks they are not that expensive expensive now so that that increases the speed of the game you know you set minutes or hours that you're going to play with in advance together john do you mean that you're gonna have two chess boards with two games running like the math dude i could do that with these two oh wow that is very good i mean if you play for your county you're good so um yes so i quite like dad to come around and beat them just to kind of keep them uh focused on [Laughter] good for your brain chest right let's do so let's do something spiritual so we are going to talk about aspects of the character of god the nature of god that we think are really important for you to know in the midst of crisis because of course god is like a multi-faceted diamond so many different amazing things about his personality but there are some things that uh really you need to be anchored in and we're gonna do our best to rattle through someone of course dad wants to be controversial around issues of god's severity uh but maybe not in the way you think but we'll come to that but jane and i actually interestingly have the same thought and so we're going to start with that i really believe we need to sit in the truth of god being the alpha and the omega and that we love when god is alpha we're like yay god begin it begin it begin it i'm gonna birth i'm going to establish i'm going to be a pioneer i'm going to be a radical cutting-edge human being god we're going to begin some amazing things together and we love all that get up and go and vow voom of the spirit of god where you feel the wind in his wings but god equally can i say god equally and necessarily is also the omega and we think that beginning is highly successful and we think that ending is a sign of desperate failure and we have got to do a change of mindset there that god is as blessed in his beginning of something as he is as blessed in his ending of something that god it's not a beginning with it and end and god is not an end without a new beginning and so sometimes you know our friendships our our ministry relationships our work uh uh you know have got to come to an end there are things that must be blessed by god in their endings and i think we've now got to say god can you bless this ending rather than feel that this ending is somehow a sign of my failure or a failure relationally that god sometimes only allies things for a season or a short time that he may bless you in endings and that god says it is important that you come in to the rhythm of understanding me as alpha and omega that it is necessary that some things will cease to exist and that what you are living now god will tell a story over it now let me explain what i mean by that do you remember sarah in the old testament sarah as an abraham's wife mom to isaac sarah is not really painted in the old testament as glorious i mean she's really not you know she is very unpleasant in her management of hagar she is laughing at the wrong places in the wrong ways over promises of god you would not read her in the old testament and go she's a figure i want to follow and yet at the end god retells her story and so sarah you read love in the hall of faith which is hebrews 11. written about only as righteous and so it stuns me but you can go through something right now that looks like it might be a messy end but god says i will spin this i mean he spins the story of sarah i will spin this situation to be told as something of blessing yeah and so i feel like the lord is saying see the endings as blessing and see the endings as a story i will tell and i will spin it says god to be a blessing and not a wounding god the alpha and omega do you guys want to comment on that that's so good because i think that whole perspective in hebrews 11 11 on sarah she was a woman who held the promise of god and she held on to faith despite all of what you just said emma that there's this sense of the eternal god that is the god of the beginning and the ending the eternal god that has that perspective of being consistent and never changing looks our lives as a story as a whole even in the day-to-day and that's mind-blowing isn't it it's like we are so focused on what we're going through the challenges that we're going through the day-to-day the weeks the months even the short years but god is saying i'm looking at your life i'm looking at the whole story and i'm looking at what will be remembered even in the day today and so for me it's that well we need to come back step back and say lord you are the eternal consistent god who never changes you are the one who stays the same forever and you know malachi 3 6 is probably not that often quoted as much as hebrews 13 8 you know i'm the god the same yesterday today forever jesus christ but malachi 3 6 for i the lord do not change i don't change i'm the same in the beginning and the ending and the same all through your life and all through eternity so i feel like we have to almost like in this moment as we go through crisis increasingly we have to step back and go well god give me the eternal perspective for the day-to-day because you're telling a story of my life that i haven't seen yet yes is it i actually think in all of this we can learn from god's storytelling somebody in the comments doesn't like the word spin god spins things now i can understand that that's a very uh political a politicalized politicalized word we think of spin doctors and yes god does bring good from it but he does decide to tell better stories about us than is actually our reality you know so i think we have to bear that in mind what i am going through god will tell in a better way can i tell you the story you tell yourself is vitally important and i remember when david and i were were homeless remember that on my youtube remember it very well and with the three children oh how long ago was that um seven eight years ago and we were living in our friend's attic and all we owned was in storage and i mean it was it was not brilliant uh but actually there was a sense of we're going to choose the story that we tell ourselves we're going to choose the story that we say tell our children because i actually think we could have gone in there and said isn't this awful you know we've got this gap in our housing we're questioning the goodness of god we could have done it like that but actually we chose to spin it or tell the story of god rightly ending something and us being on an adventure with god and you can be in the biggest crisis of your life you can be in the biggest pain of your life and you can choose to go into this place of depression and pain over endings or you can choose a god story and you can say in this ending there is blessing because god is an omega god and in this pain i choose to say i'm going to learn the lessons love the adventure hold hands with those to the left and the right of me and say that we are in the ride of our lives for the future of his glory and his fame and you can spin or tell the god story as opposed to rehash the story of a fragile fallen broken world and so i feel like when we're dealing with crisis and we're dealing with a world in pain and we're dealing with mental health crisis right now in this kind of epidemic way we have got to learn to spin the story for the glory of god and when i think about being on an adventure and when i think that i'm being stretched and i'm growing and when i understand the blessing of the omega closing of god i navigate that emotionally in a much much more robust way and so what i would say to you is are you a god-like storyteller or are you a human frail storyteller are you the god storyteller like he was with sarah or are you storytelling yourself into victim mentality and brokenness and i think as we are thinking about the character of god as you've outlined that there emma um one of the things we know about god one of his attributes is his wisdom and that means that god always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals for each of his children and so when we think about the beginning and the ending and our lives in between they are not a model as far as god is concerned they are not a messy uh interaction of different events that happens unpleasant some unpleasant the wisdom of god means that he always chooses the best goals and he always chooses the best means to arrive at those goals and i think that's the confidence that we can have and that our faith in god's wisdom is is it it encourages us to to believe in his sovereignty and to believe that he overrules our lives and he is in control of our lives and all that is going on around us yeah yes god god is more of an orchestrator than i think we give him credit for yes yeah do you not think you think sorry sergey no go jonko oh god is the is the master a conductor the par excellence conductor who is able to weave the different uh notes that the events in our life make as it were and weave them together in a beautiful uh concerto and symphony yes and he has that overall control and ability to do that so at the end of our lives when we reach the the conclusion of our lives the america the the beginning and the end then we will be able to say yes god worked all things together for good to those who loved god that would be an amazing testimony when god unravels from his perspective the map of our life which he planned in his wisdom for us we will see that he has done all things well i think he knows exactly how i how we learn the best he knows the trial he knows the discipline he knows even the wound that will shape me the fastest he knows which rebuke to bring and which sort of affliction to allow me to walk through that will shape me the fastest for his glory that my afflictions i've got to think through as an adventure into my future i have to learn how to to hold my own mindset as the mind of christ knowing that this that i walk is ultimately constructed in a way that i can work with the pain and learn from the testing um absolutely yeah i i think god allows the pain to come so that we do turn towards him and we cry out for him if everything is going hunky-dory in our lives we then tend wrongly and sinfully um to think well you know we can just leave god there to one side for the moment but it's when we are in pain we turn to god and we call out to him and maybe we ask at times why is this happening and god where have you been to allow this to happen and and in fact pain draws our hearts towards him in a way that often prosperity yes the sergeant add to that and then i'm gonna okay yeah i i feel like as i'm as i'm hearing you both and thinking and pondering this i think we sometimes individually get stuck in the thought that god is a micro manager of our lives now he is he is interested in the detail of our lives but as you said john there he has this greater picture he has this bigger perspective and i think that when we are in stories like like you shared emma your homeless period that we call it in your life or the the even the homeless period of the ministry when we didn't have a building for two years or whatever it was we we choose to believe the bigger story that god has got this arc of story for our lives individually and together and this sense of for me right now that god is really underlining and i think there's a as a perspective here that we need to all get in john 1 when god said in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god he was with god in the beginning this word and god together in the beginning and so the alpha if you will word of god the beginning word of god over my life over your life over our lives not just individually but together has god's story in it for the greater story of the world coming back to him and you know it it's kind of one of those things i don't know however you think about the galaxies in space and the eternal kind of space out there it might be mind-blowing but i think we have to kind of get this sense of my life is important your life is important but actually the the the main thing the main act is is the the whole world coming to know the glory and the knowledge of the glory of god and the end story of the kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our lord and of his christ and yet your life my life is important in that story but we are part of that story we are not those who have been forgotten or left to get on with it no all of our pain all of our challenge all of our stretching like sarah had in those years and years and years when she didn't have a child and cried out to god what did god do remarkable things because she held on to the faith even when she lost it for moments and i think we need to ask god give me your story of my life perspective in the greater story um he's not a micro manager he's not looking in those details that we think and we criticize ourselves for and we put ourselves in a victim place for i don't believe let me push some other concepts of pain because really we came to this today because of this mental health crisis and let me weave to there and then dad you can come in with your thoughts on severity i think jesus is obviously the ultimate symbol of love and favor and redemption jesus is the embodiment of god's mercy the mercy of god in flesh and so god in the life of jesus is really pulling on some old testament concepts look i'm slow to anger so here is jesus to provide mercy my anger lasts for a moment but my favor lasts for a lifetime and so god's preference is that his anger is always temporary he is his preference is that his loyal love is eternal his preference is that he is good to his children his preference is for resolutions his preference is i will only occasionally be angry but when i am it will be used to push you back into my favor i am not angry in an uncontrolled way but i am angry and a disciplining god that i may navigate you back into my favor now i think we need to know that because i think that is what is happening in the earth realm today i'm gonna prophesy about what i think is happening in the nations god is a god of judgment and of anger but it is purposeful now he is a good good father yes but his goodness allows his anger to come forth as a purposeful movement so you and i get back into favor god's anger is not just hanging out there in some terrifying way but god moves with anger and judgment on our planet in our planet so that we will not miss out on the favor of god now let me ask you this question how does god show that he's angry how does god show that he is angry what is the one repetitive measure in scripture particularly the old testament that god chooses to use to show his anger in other words what is the agent of god's anger let me answer the question god allows oppressive rulers to lead nations over and over and over he sends romans babylonians assyrians persians you name it he enables leaders to be agents of his anger now that is shocking isn't it he allows dodgy leaders as agents of his anger now stay with me because this is really intense stuff because he trains his remnant always in the midst of it all through there in the old testament the nations get invaded they get punished by bad leadership and god's anger can always be measured by what sort of government he allows to be in par in your nation it is always to birth a better church so we learn in that that if i rage against the government i'm probably not thinking right i have to ask first god you have put in a government and often governments are vehicles of your anger how do i grow into maturity because you have allowed them to be present you have allowed them to produce an oppressive atmosphere in my land you have allowed me to feel like i'm under persecution god how do i grow and not miss the training that your anger brings that produces growth in your people and i think we are in danger of losing that prayer god grow me into maturity in oppression god grow me into maturity in trial god grow me into maturity in pandemics that hurt god grow me into maturity in repressive oppressive leadership that i don't like and we have stopped praying that and turn to be a critical people of leadership and we have missed the very point of how god's anger works and we rage against governments rather than say god you show your anger by putting governments in place that i don't like if i rage against the government it's a rage against you and when you put a government in place that doesn't suit me my prayers should be how do i grow to maturity [Music] and so god worsens the oppression and god worsens situations and nations until he gets the result he wants think plagues of egypt and so the best way that we can learn knowing this of god in this crisis in in repressive regimes is to say god i thank you that you always produce a remnant in crisis and i want part of it and if i want to be part of the remnant and you want to be part of the remnant you better stop criticizing your government and you better start to say in the oppression and then the display of how god shows anger god grow me up but dad god is not severe can you unpack that thought uh yes i i i think i want to tag something onto to what what you've just been been sharing him and that i think paul in romans 1 uh gives us an an a further outlook on the on the anger of god there and how it is revealed and the anger of god is revealed often in in in two different ways and i can put it like this um you you know if you're boiling a saucepan full of milk on the hob um you know uh you you you can you could say oh i'll go away and do something else it's not gonna boil over yet you know and then sometimes it has but you know what it is to simmer something and sometimes the bible talks about god's anger as simmering it's always there it's continuous then there are other occasions when the the pop boils and boils over and god's anger is like that and there is this explosion of his anger and ultimately that comes in his judgment at the end of time but i think paul in romans 1 is saying the example of the simmering consistent anger of god with our cultures at this time is seen that he takes the breaks of sin in that culture and lets us suffer the consequences of it and so i think that a lot that's going on in our world today is not just something a specific thing that god has sent on the world to judge it but it is rather a previous judgment that he made perhaps quite some considerable time ago and we are living out the consequences of that when he withdrew his goodness from our uh from our culture and he let us suffer the consequences of our rejection of him and are turning away from him and i think all the the selfishness and the abuse of the of of uh climate and the world in which we live all comes because of that and of course what you're talking about in romans one is that repetitive phrase i don't have my bible open in front of me but the repetitive phrase in romans 1 that that that says this god gave them over to their success and and in romans 1 i can't remember the number of times it's in romans 1 but it's in there a few times god gave them over to their sin and that moment when god says look i i'm going to give you over to your your sin now some people are saying in the comments ah i'm a bit confused god is as this is the problem of a generation who have only been taught one side of the nature of god and so when you're only taught one side of the nature of god that in some way goodness is is saccharine or syrupy sweet you have no ability then to work with these other scriptures of god who is angry and on occasions but god whose anger is purposeful to bring about favor and a remnant that is pure and spotless so don't don't think of god's anger as being dictatorial or unpleasant god's anger is always purposeful and i think in this what we have lost is a sense of his holiness that that he is so pure and so holy he simply does not tolerate mass levels of sin yes so dad you had a comment on severity because you can see in the comments some people going oh you know but i thought you know god has just god is love god and love god is love yes but deal with the word severity is god severe okay okay okay um i i don't think that the bible takes uh the severity of god and puts it in his attributes as one of the consistent characteristics of god and i mean by that that that his severity is not something that is carried through continuously in his actions for example we call god wise well that doesn't mean that sometimes he's wise and then when he's not being wise he's being foolish it doesn't mean when we say that god is good we mean that he is he carries his goodness continuously through his actions we are not saying that well oh he's good today but sometimes he's bad on other days yes okay so when we call him severe we are saying that when he is not being severe the bible is teaching because we're saying severity is not an attribute so it's not continuously carried forward in his actions when he is not being severe he is being gentle yes and so severity and gentleness are placed side by side now two biblical passages to back this up luke chapter 12 you remember in luke 12 jesus tells a story about several of his servants who knew their master's will and some who didn't know and what happens the the master to cut the story short uh eventually comes back and he responds differently to the different servants and in verse 47 the servant who knew the master's will and does not get ready for his return and does not do what the master wants jesus says will be beaten with many blows or some versions say will receive a severe beating now i know that is a picture of the final judgment but jesus continues in verse 48 but the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows from everyone who has been given much will be demanded and from the one who has been entrusted with much much more will be asked so there is a severe beating and there is a beating of few blows there is a severity of judgment and the severity is in proportion here's the important thing the severity of judgment is in proportion to the rebelliousness and the sin that has been committed severity does not mark or characterize god's behavior all the time but only occasionally in response to particular attitudes and to particular behaviors second passage is romans chapter 11 and verses 19 to 22nd and there's this whole discussion that paul is involved in uh in romans 11 about the jewish branches and they have been broken off from the vine so that we could be grafted in and the picture of being grafted into the covenant that god made um with abraham and to the promises and the blessings of that that covenant but the jews were broken off because of their unbelief we are included because of our belief and our faith yeah okay for god did not spare the natural branches that is the jewish people who did not believe in jesus and then paul says but he will not spare you either in verse 22. consider therefore in the light that god will not spare you either if you don't believe paul then says consider therefore the kindness and the severity or the sternness as the niv translates it of god and that word translated severity austen uh uh severity and sternness paul is saying to gentile christians to non-jews now he is saying hey there wake up i want you to look at god's kindness and i want you to look at his severity as well don't just major on the one to the exclusion of the other you need to have in balance both the kindness in the inclusion of non-jewish people into the family of god and the severity that he displays when there is unbelief and so paul continues in 22 severity to those who fell that is the broken off branches because of unbelief but god's kindness is provided and shown to those who continue to believe who keep trusting who keep faith in him and if they do not persist in unbelief they will be grafted in and god is able to graft them in again so two important things here and then the finish with this little bit severity is contrasted with kindness so that we can see clearly that sometimes god acts with one and sometimes he acts with the other in other words severity is one expression of god's justice and his wisdom and his goodness what i was saying a few moments ago and sometimes it is appropriate for him to act in severity in goodness and in justice and in wisdom towards us and you've been making that point emma with some of the difficulties and the pain that comes in our life and then sometimes it's appropriate that he then acts with kindness now remember this matter of the severity of god and the kindness and the gentleness of god is put in in the manner of a command that paul says here consider it note it severity really matters we should think about the severity of god it should be part of our thinking come on and it should be part of the way we look sometimes at our own lives and we see maybe the severity of god's blessing you you go to his letter to the corinthians and there had obviously been a problem in the corinthian church and it was the problem that people were dying and people were getting seriously sick and it was getting to the proportion that it seems that they then wrote to paul and they said this is happening on such a huge scale amongst our churches in corinth surely god must be doing something here for it to have this effect and paul then goes on to tell them it's because of their abuse at the lord's supper at communion but can we just pause there that the well because there's several things we need to to pick up on from that and what i love is what you're saying i must live with the understanding of the severity and the kindness of god now i almost want to pause right now and fall to my knees and repent because we we want the kindness of god only we want the blessing of god only we want the ease of god we want the mercy of god and we actually though we don't want to say it want to rip out of scripture those things that we don't like that talk about i must live in the tandem of his severity and his kindness and therefore i don't pray my trials away i don't pray sometimes my punishments are away i don't pray my course corrections away i don't demand that god just takes me into a green field i pray very very very very differently knowing that i must live in the tension of his severity and his kindness and my prayers don't become become much less about god rescue me and they become much more about what am i learning today now what shocks me in that dad in the corinthians passage is that they were abusing communion not fencing it abusing the lord's supper because of course the the rules around the fencing of communion are very clear in scripture and some denominations are incredibly robust at the fencing of communion but they all got sick because they were taking communion or the lord's supper in the wrong way and what fascinates me is how many of them would have seen that link and and i think we got to be much more intelligent in i'm in a trial i'm in a course correction god i have got to ask you more intelligent questions about what you are doing in my life because a whole church couldn't understand the connection of sickness and the um and the and the severity of god in a lying what happened because of the the ruining of the lord can i tie that again into the character of god that we're talking about let me give you the passage passages first corinthians 11 29 and 30 and these christians who were suddenly ill and weak and actually dying because in corinth they believed in the sovereignty of god they knew something as huge as this that god must be in it in some way and so paul was able to explain and uh and he agreed with them he agreed with them now let me give you another example from the bible this is not these are not individual examples that we have in in the old testament second samuel 21 you remember king david there had been famine in the land for three years and it says that david sought the face of the lord why because david believed in the sovereignty of god he knew that something as huge as this could not have taken god by surprise oh come on and that god must have had a reason for it and therefore you know he went back to god and then the answer came god said that there is blood guilt on saul and his house because he put the gibeonites to death so in the both those cases god had exercised a severity of judgment in particularly uh particular cases that could be identified now what fascinates me there is and sorry sorry to comment after this we'll come back to you sergey what fascinates me in that is how much our modern culture would blame a demon [Music] he would be very very quick to blame a demon when when a pandemic happens rather than saying it's so massive this is exactly what you said the corinthian church said this sickness is so massive god will not be surprised by it what why is he uh in it and why has it come according to god and not according to satan these are massively rich theological understandings sir jane it's it's so good and it's uh so thought provoking isn't it for us as the church and that sense of how do we respond in our day-to-day lives and how do we respond as those who are the body of christ and what actually has gripped me even today looking at the characteristics of god in my own personal study was ezekiel 36 where god said you know i have been concerned for my holy name and this sense of as you're saying john in the the taking of communion as we're saying as jesus said to the servant that knew the will of the master that we are those who are supposed to know god and know how to respond to god and know how to get on our faces before the lord have not and we have profaned his name and it goes on to say in ezekiel 36 that he um he was so concerned for his holy name that he had to act that he had to do something so uh contrary to his nature that is the consistent nature of god and he had to be severe to bring that course correction and so as you you're both saying this repeated history of the people of god going through trial going through difficulty because god is concerned for his holiness and the way that we the people that know him actually respond and speak his name and how we come before him and how we speak about him to the names and we get so concerned about individual leaders of nations we've got so off track it actually grieves the father you know you can feel the grief of god it's like people of mine will you pay attention to me and you can i can feel it in my spirit you know that drawing us back to say what is the most important thing the most important thing is actually the holiness of god versus the holiness of a national leader and it's actually what happens in the process of us living our lives day-to-day as modern christians on how we respond to what's going on in the world and i think we do have to repent emma for critical spirits and for that sense of well yes it was a demon actually no it was you and it's god you know and remember the parable that jesus told about the wheat and the tears growing together in this in the same field and you know and they come to him this is terrible tragedy that happens that there's these tears growing in the field and they said jesus shall we go and pull them up you know and we as the church have been good at tear pulling and jesus says to jesus says to he said you do not do that that is not your job it's the job of the angels and you do not do it now they will do it at the end of the age and the church come on the church has gone after individual tear pulling and i have great admiration for bonhoeffer during the second world war and uh i can just say that great admiration for the man have enjoyed his writings and his whole concept of cheap grace is is is profound but bonhoeffer at the end of his life towards him before he was executed on order from hitler directly himself went after hitler as one tear and he was wrong we have to be very careful of going after one leader and think that everything will be better if we get rid of that one tear the reason why jesus says you don't pull up the tear because if you pull up the tear you dislodge the root system in the field and you may dis dislodge the wheat and you will cause chaos in the field in the soil i the security that we have because that's a boom right there dad what you've just said just quoting straight from one parable we've all read you know a hundred times we've got to trust in that in the severity and the judgment of god on those terrors at the judgment seat that god makes the wrong things right now you and i demand it immediately we do and of course you know if you could go back and you could kill one person who would you do my voice of that conversation who would i assassinate if i could decide everybody answers hitler to that question and yet that sends a guy i will deal with it vengeance is mine now why are we on this today because i want to give context to this we know that scripture says that in latter days there is more shaking to come than we have had in 2020 and will have in 2021 we know in some way that we are in the dress rehearsal right now for what is down the line you and i know that matthew uh 24 is that talks about wars and rumors of wars and famines and droits and catastrophe upon catastrophe we know concepts of a joel 2 army that comes maraudingly you know and destroys everything so if you know that there is tumultuousness in latter days if you know that actually i may not just have it easy all the days of my life you must therefore we must apply ourselves to the breadth of understanding of the nature and the character of god so i do not fall apart when he is severe that my mental health i i have to say you know i worked in pharmaceuticals and sold i think i sold every antidepressant on the market my specialist area psychiatric uh medication i love all the psychiatric medication conversations i worked with loads of different psychiatrists and so i know that there clearly there is mental health issues can i say this i think some of our mental health issues in the body of christ are internal distressed based on the fact that we don't understand god and therefore we're not anchored enough to navigate the season and that actually there are some mental health issues yes that need medicine and yes need healing but there are some mental health crisis that we are having that will resolve themselves by understanding some of the things that we have talked about today that actually god is in the nation's causing some pressure to grow a remnant and so i embrace that rather than let it completely undermine my mental capacity and that's really where we wanted to get over over time i'm i'm a little bit surprised that so many people asked what is the fencing of communion but you know what i know we're over time it's a long time since i heard anybody fence communion biblically to the point where lots of people don't know isn't that surprising can we just say before because i don't want to spend a whole session on the fencing of communion there is a there is a truth in scripture that you cannot take communion unless you're in right standing with god and if you take communion not in right standing with god you keep judgment on your head so when we talk about fencing communion it used to be some of you maybe still go to churches where they will say at the communion time uh anybody who is not in right standing with god does not know jesus let the cup and the bread pass okay oh david's got the scripture and uh you know so you don't take it or you hate judging on your head and that is what we call the fencing and usually there would be uh somebody saying you know you fence it you protect it really fence it like uh walls of god of protection around communion and um uh the sense of uh letting people out of the building uh rather than be in the place where communion is happening if they're not in right sunning and dad i know we're way over time you used to use the removal of communion as church discipline for people have uh being in repetitive sin yes yes yep yep yep yes they they could if they so wanted they could still remain seated or uh with them because they they were still some of them uh they hadn't rejected faith necessarily but they were not to uh to partake of the bread and the wine yeah yeah yeah i think we lost a whole honor for what communion is and the fact that actually we can take it so frivolously that we end up with judgment in our lives well there's a lot there's a whole other thought so much in a power arm okay be blessed over your weekend look forward to seeing you i think um oh dad you're back on on tuesday and uh we will see weekends bye bye bye [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Global Prophetic Alliance-Glasgow Prophetic Centre

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Length: 63min 56sec (3836 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021