"THE TRUTH IS..."
There is no Kingdom of Heaven for any of us apart from God's Grace, gifted to us through our faith in the whole and undiluted Gospel of Jesus Christ. When one preaches - or receives - any other Gospel, he has lost his way. He has been deceived by the flatterer, he has been duped by the liar, he has accepted filtered truths and abandoned truths and he has become a victim instead of an overcomer... God is a jealous God. He paid a great price to prepare our way into His Kingdom and He will not overlook a cavalier return to the world. On a more positive note, we are all tempted to sail the high seas at times, and like any loving Father who sees His happy child run blindly down a dock, God reaches out to call us back to Himself. Unlike earthly fathers, however, He will not intrude in our free will. If we choose to board a sailing ship in the midst of a thunderstorm, or run into the street at rush hour, God will not stop us. It saddens Him to see us pull free of Him but He will not interfere with our choices. The Christian culture that once flourished in America's towns and cities has become the culture of Sodom. And there are many more grave indictments against us: we've killed 50 million babies for convenience sake - loving the god of self more than the Creator of all life. His Commandments warn us: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "Thou shalt not kill." Yet the orders to increase the killings have already been given, and there is much much more we have tolerated and continue to tolerate without a whimper or a lifting of the eyes to Heaven... Oh, the blood on our appeasing hands, the guilt upon our appeasing backs, the sighs of our surrender to a world's defiance against our God... When the world draws us to forbidden orchards, we lose our spiritual connection with the Father who cannot and will not dwell with those who feed at the pigs' trough. He will however welcome us home again as the repentant prodigal when we abandon the pig stys of this world and return to the forgiving arms of the Father. We need to remember that our free will was given to allow independent reasoning. It was given in love to allow us to choose - to make quality decisions that will make a difference. Consequently, we can choose to follow man or we can choose to follow Christ. The world may, in satanic hatred of us, kill the body because of our choices, but they cannot touch the soul that belongs to God. Let us therefore keep focused on the living, cleansing, redemptive Word that feeds the soul with the goodness of the sure mercies of God. When we receive the whole Word, we gain the whole Christ whose light fills the hearts and lives of those accepted into the Beloved... The Gospel of Jesus Christ begins with His baptism and His led-of-the-Spirit climb into the wilderness. There he would be emptied of the humanity that tempted him, and there He would submit the humanity that remained to the Word and will of the Father. There, in the shadows of the desolations to come, he would be tempted by the devil. It is a rule of the God of the Kingdom of Heaven - all who are called into the service of the Kingdom are tested and, the greater the call the greater the test will be. It is not the same as the examination of a nominee to the American Supreme Court. God's court is just. It does not compromise. In the Spirit of His Holiness the court of the Kingdom will not give a free pass to glib verbiage or insulated attempts at coverup. In God's courtroom the untarnished truth will be heard. The judge rejects all bribes and all excuses, and He does not legislate palliative policies to placate the guilty. God has already submitted, both orally and written, the Law of the Kingdom, and all who reject the Law will be rejected. It was at the end of the forty days and nights of prayer and fasting, when Jesus became aware of a gnawing hunger, that Satan moved in for the kill... "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread" (Matthew 4:3) It was a snarling reproach, "If you are the Son of God..." It was the tempter's challenge, "Should the heir of the Kingdom go hungry?" It was a sure trap..."It's dark of night, you're alone in the wilderness and you're hungry. Mmmm, wouldn't that bread taste good?" Satan didn't actually say all these things but he implied every word. We can rejoice forever that Jesus did not shake the Kingdom in His temptation. He shook the world and hell instead... "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Jesus carried with Him at all times the sharpest weapon known to Heaven and Earth - the Word of God. "It is written..." means, "It is settled." What is written is law. What was spoken by the prophets will come to pass. Men seek to change the Word but God seeks to change the man. God's Word will bless and it will curse, depending on which side of the law you are on. God's Word will welcome you into the Kingdom of Heaven or it will escort you into hell. Jesus was reminding Satan of the awesome power of that Word when He said, "It is written..." As for the rest, Jesus was quoting Moses from Deuteronomy 8:3. Having led the children of Israel through the wilderness for forty years, Moses was reminding the new generation of Israelites, those that would take the Promised Land, that they must remember to observe and obey all the laws God had set down before them, and he was reminding them of the blessings, the manna, the clothes that never wore out, the victories over their enemies that came out against them, and the provisions of all their needs. Man must not make the bread more important than the giver of the bread. God was there first - before the bread. He is the source of all food and all provisions. If we live by the Word of God, in the faith of God, then God will replenish the oil and the meal for the bread, or He will send the bread already made, or He will multiply the loaves for feeding the thousands... In John 4:32, meeting with the woman at the well in Samaria, the Disciples of Jesus implored him to eat. Jesus, having won the heart and mind of the woman, waiting for her to bring the towns' people to hear him, said to the bread pushers: "I have meat to eat that you know not of," meaning his meat was to do the will of the Father. It is in our obedience to the Father, even if our tummies are growling, that His Kingdom comes, and His will is done... Satan was sorely wounded by Jesus' rebuttal. Still, he took Jesus into the Holy City and set him on a pinnacle of the temple. There he said to Jesus: "If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down, for it is written, 'He shall give his angels charge concerning you: and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest at anytime you dash your foot against a stone.' (Psalm 91:11)" Reading Psalm 91:11 will show how Satan twisted the Word to give it a different meaning. It was an effort to trick the sinless Jesus into sinning by presuming God would surely save him "at anytime." It was the same "play-on-words" trick he used against Eve in the Garden. Jesus replied: "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." Again, Jesus quotes Moses from Deuteronomy 6:16, when he instructed the Israelites: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God, as you tempted him in Massah (Meribah - meaning "chiding")." Moses called the rock that gave them water, Meribah, "because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, 'Is the Lord among us, or not?' " (Exodus 17:7). Man is forbidden to test God or to question His power, His authority or His Word, "(For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against you, and destroy you from off the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 6:15). Satan trembled...but... Again, the devil took Jesus up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And he said to him: "All these things will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me." In our human reasoning, some of us think this would have been a good time for Jesus to laugh out loud. That is because we react in the flesh and not in the Spirit. It is not easy at times to lean into the Spirit a bit heavier than we lean into the flesh. Jesus didn't laugh at Satan's pathetic offer. He looked instead into the future, as prophesied in the Garden and by the prophets of God, and He saw Satan's head (power and authority) and all his co-horts crushed at Calvary. Jesus saw Armageddon where Satan will be put into chains and cast into the bottomless pit. He saw the eternal abandonment of Satan as he was thrown into the lake of fire at the end of the Millennium and the beginning of Eternity. At one time, in the beginning of all Creation, Satan - known then as Lucifer - had been the highest archangel and the beloved cherub of Heaven. That was before he rebelled against God and drew one third of Heaven's angels to rebel with him. Because of Satan, these mighty angels of God fell from their holy posts and were lost. Even then, God in His love and long-suffering for His creation, gave them time and space to repent but they did not. Hell was therefore created to hold these enemies of the throne in fair and just punishment forever. Originally, hell was not created for the man who was made in the image of God. However, it was the fall of man, his rebellion against God that made the sin of man a partner with Satan's sin. Therefore, men who choose the world of Satan will inherit Satan's punishment... Again, Jesus shook hell and earth - He quoted the First Commandment in His rebuke: "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.' " Then the devil left Him and angels came and ministered unto Him. The Word does not say, but perhaps they brought pleasant bread and water with them. Perhaps they wrapped Him in warm spiritual blankets to ward off the cold desert night. And no doubt they blessed Him with praise and worship for His resistance to the tempter. Today, with all humility and urgency, I want to encourage you. Don't even think to shake the Kingdom of Heaven. God will shake the Kingdom in His own way and in His own time. And fear not - He WILL shake it. We must shake the world of the serpent instead, turn it upside down, turn it inside out, expose its deadly potion, then crush that serpent under our own Heaven-shod and righteous feet. The battle lines have been drawn. The enemy is vicious, and we have run out of time to prepare further. What we have accomplished in our preparedness for this day will prove to be our weapons of warfare and our help to others. What we have left undone will remain undone. The war, declared in the Garden, preached by Enoch and confirmed by history, is raging. Satan observes you and me in the same way he observed Jesus in the wilderness. It is therefore imperative that we take up the sword of the Word and the shield of faith and remember to always, always, let the Holy Spirit lead the charge... Jesus set an example for all generations, but especially for today. And as it was with Jesus, so it is with you and me if God's Word is in us, even in our mouths. "It is written..." - a powerful Word to remember. Speak it to the straying, the lukewarm, the backslidden and the prodigal. Speak it even to the unbeliever. Speak it whether they receive it or not. Our job is to speak it. Our job is to warn them. Speak it into the night of terror - and like Satan, the giants of terror will tremble and flee... Joan Krempel
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