Labor Pains

The Parable:

The two mamas were sharing stories—and what is the most deeply embedded story in each of their minds?  The birth of their babies!  Every birth mother knows there’s no comparison to it in pain, anticipation, trauma and drama.  One of the mothers said, “The pain was so bad, I couldn’t take it anymore!!”  “Yeah,” said the other, “I didn’t even get a break between contractions for hours!  There’s no words for the seemingly endless agony with my firstborn.  But my second one was so different; at least I had 30 seconds in between contractions to catch my breath.”

“Well, when I was at that point of agony that I couldn’t handle, the nurse got hysterical to find the doctor, because the baby was peeking through!”

The Discussion:

Do you feel like your life is like the final stages of labor?  It might feel like a hopeless and endless barrage of pain and trial, but God actually has good news for you.  He likens the work of sanctification to a woman in labor.  And if you’re in a place of desperate pain, at the end of your rope, going insane with emotional and even physical agony, then take heart!  You’re at the point of giving birth!  God knows what it is.  Maybe it’s the ultimate birth of entering the glory of heaven; maybe it’s a major breakthrough in sanctification; maybe it’s a big life change that God wants you to be ready to enter.  Whatever the case, God is a God of truth.  The baby is coming, and its entrance will mean the sudden end of your unbearable agony.

Micah 4:10: “Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country; you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.”

Jeremiah 4:31: “I hear a cry like a woman in labor,

a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—

the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath,

stretching out her hands:

‘Woe is me,

for my soul faints before the murderers!’”

Isaiah 42:14-17: “For a long time I have held my peace;

I have kept still and restrained myself;now I will cry out like a woman in labor;I will gasp and pant.15I will lay waste mountains and hills,and dry up all their vegetation;I will turn the rivers into islands,and dry up the pools.16And I will lead the blindin a way that they do not know,in paths that they have not knownI will guide them.I will turn the darkness before them into light,the rough places into level ground.These are the things I do,and I do not forsake them.17They are turned back and utterly put to shame,who trust in carved idols,who say to metal images,“You are our gods.”

Aged Wine

The Parable:

Connoisseurs of wine prefer what is very old, very aged, very fermented—not to mention a certain selection of grapes.  God is a connoisseur.  His wine has been fermenting for 6,000 years…

The Discussion:

There are bowls of fermented wine in heaven from the winepress of the wrath of God.

Revelation 15:7: “And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever.”

Revelation 19:11-16: “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”

After this meditation, I immediately thought of Jesus’ words, "No one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good" (Luke 5:37-39). So what is the wine that has been fermenting in the New Covenant of new wineskins? Jesus himself defined the wine at the Last Supper: "And likewise [he took] the cup after they had eaten, saying, 'This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.'" The blood that saves and cleanses those who put their hope in Jesus Christ is the same blood that has been fermenting in the wrath that is stored up against all wickedness for the day of wrath. How much stronger and more potent is that wrath now that it has fermented for so long! And how much stronger and more powerful is that blood as we drink it at the marriage supper, that we might be drunk and fully satisfied in the goodness of the wine of Jesus Christ!  For Ephesians 5:18 says, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." At the end of the age, the perfectly fermented wine will be ready to be poured out upon the Earth in wrath and poured into His elect Bride in power and consummation of our marriage with the Lamb!  Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!

Mark 14:25: “Truly I say to you that never will I drink of the fruit of the vine again, until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.”

The Beam of Light

The Parable:

The cavern was so dark you could practically feel it.  Not a shadow could be seen through the blackness, but Faith could see a beam of light filtering down far in front of her.  It appeared to be breaking through a hole or crack in the top of the cave.  She began to feel her way along the wall toward the light.  It grew brighter and brighter, as the sun was clearly directly overhead.  As she entered the light, its warm rays flowed over her like a waterfall.  She covered her eyes with her hand, for the light was overwhelming in contrast to the darkness in which she had been engulfed.  She began climbing the wall for a way through the hole.  The sunlight seemed to pull her upward.  Once she had reached the top and poked her head through the hole, it was like entering heaven.  Oh the contrast!  From darkness everywhere, with a beam of light offering a way out--to light everywhere and no darkness!  It was clear from the beauty of nature around her that the light meant life.  Not a thing grew in that cavern.  It was cold, hard, rocky, and dead—except where the light met its floor through the hole; there, it was alive!

The Discussion:

John 12:46: “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.”

John 8:12: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

Jesus is as the beam of light, and the dark, sin-filled world is like the cavern.  If we depart from Jesus, we plunge ourselves into a blackness of blindness and death.  We are cast into “outer darkness” as Jesus described it (Matthew 25:30).  The further from the light we venture, the blacker our way becomes.  The light pierces through Jesus Christ, the only gateway into heaven.  He is like a window that breaks into the cavern of darkness our sin has created.  Our only way into the glorious light of God and His holiness and beauty is through the window of Jesus.  The light is a narrow shaft with one entrance.  We cannot presume to find our own ways into the Kingdom of Light.  We must pursue the one place where it enters our darkness.  We must seek the Lord while He may be found, even while it is still day.  When the sun sets, the light stops shining through.  We must reach the window of heaven before the setting of grace!  Jesus said, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:4-5).

The Final Purim

The Parable:

Roya saw that there were two groups of people, and she was in one of them.  It was a time of war, but not a traditional war; it was a religious war, and it was a time of great culmination for the church of Jesus Christ.  It was a time of evangelism explosion!  One group was what Roya perceived to be perhaps Islamic or some sort of radical religion. The other group represented Christians. The Christians had the sense that they needed to act fast to try to convert the other group.  Roya and her Christian friends had the confidence that God was going to work.  Some people were very afraid to expose themselves as Christians or were pretending to be Christians but were not.  For some reason, Roya was able to perceive who were the imposters.  The Christians knew from God’s Word that those who were not wholeheartedly sold out to Him would completely succumb to the sinful tendencies of their hearts.  “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of Redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).  Roya’s mother was with her, and she was extremely afraid of sharing the gospel because it was dangerous.  The Christians knew that those who were not for them were also murderous.  Roya told her mom, “Remember God’s Word, and fear the Lord!  You have to confess that fear to God and get rid of it or else it will completely consume you.”

There were people who were converted to Christ, and Roya knew what was going to happen to them.  She thought back on a time when she was holding one of these elect ones named Abel as a baby because she was related to him by adoption, and while she was holding him, he was attacked by a dagger on the upper shoulder but survived.  The memory moved her deeply, as a mother would feel if she saw her baby being attacked.  But Roya had a peace knowing that what was happening was completely all planned out by God.  She knew that now that he was a grown man, it was his destiny to be murdered by the sword.  The day of war had come, when the evil forces were going to charge the people of God in Esther style—the way Haman in the book of Esther in the Bible had ordained a day to completely annihilate the Jews.  Yet, God was greater than the plan of the wicked then, and Roya and her fellow Christians knew that He was going to do the same thing again: turn the tables on the wicked.  Roya went to Abel and encouraged him, reminding him that his martyrdom was God's plan and to be courageous.

The time came that all the Christians were all anticipating--a time when they knew that God's enemies were going to be let loose on the Christians. There were some people that came in with swords and daggers and ran through two people at once, one of whom was Abel.  Roya had to witness it.  She had a broken weapon in her hand and began doing hand-to-hand combat with one of them.  (She had grabbed the weapon off the enemy.)  The person she was fighting with was so incredibly murderous that even after she had stabbed him multiple times, he was still coming at her.  He seemed to have a supernatural vengeance that kept him alive.  But she cared more for his soul than her own safety, because even as she was fighting him in self defense, she was witnessing to the man and pleading with him to come to Christ before he died.

Later that day, she began witnessing to a boy.  He embraced the gospel wholeheartedly.  She told him that he had to take on a certain Jewish name that was given to him but that he could also keep his other name.  There were significant meanings to both names.

In all the events of the fateful day, Roya was completely at peace and had the sense that it was just all a script that was being played out and that she had nothing to fear.  Even though she knew that the enemies of God were dangerous and were going to kill some people, she also knew that God was going to turn the tables and be victorious.

The Discussion:

Apocalypse is a misunderstood word.  It does not mean “the end of the world” by definition.  It means, “An uncovering.”  Romans 8:19: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”  In Esther’s day, it felt like the end of the world for her people the Jews.  But it was the true definition of the Apocalypse—the revealing of God’s power in His people, the overturning of evil’s best day.  God’s people are even now waiting for the revealing of Jesus’ best-laid plans for His church—ultimately, the revealing of Jesus Christ Himself in the clouds with power and great glory!  But it’s an unwrapping of a present that we seek.  It starts with the glory Jesus will send to His people in the undoing of evil’s best-laid plans, when the glory of Jesus Christ is manifest on His Kingdom warriors to bring in the harvest of souls saved up for the end of the age.  Oh what a day!  Those warriors know who they are.  They are chomping at the bit, longing for the command and authority and endowment of their King, their Captain, their Savior, their glory, their hope, their never-ending reward.  They have been preparing for the day of apocalypse.  They have been in God’s training camp, for He will not allow any of His people to straddle the fence.  The Day of the Lord is a day of revealing sides.  No one will be allowed left in the lukewarm camp.  There is no middle ground.  People will instantly scurry to where they find it most comfortable.  If they have already been dancing with the world, they will look to the world’s savior—the antichrist and the powers of darkness—to escape the great destruction that looms over them as war and chaos ensue.  If they have wholeheartedly turned their back on sin and the world and have embraced Jesus Christ as both their savior and Lord, longing for nothing more than His appearing, then they will run to Him on His great and glorious Day.  They will seek Him and find in Him all their purpose and strength.  They will perform all that He commands of them—they will act in His play, doing what He has written in His script before the foundation of the world.  If that means giving their bodies to be martyred, then so be it.  If that means fighting for truth, then so be it.  If that means evangelizing the great harvest ready to be reaped, then so be it!  And with joy will all God’s army go forth on this great day of His battle!  When Satan thinks that he has reached the culmination of all his well-laid plans to conquer and overcome the earth, to snuff out all the remnant of Jesus, to destroy the light, to convert and control the heathen, and to make the earth the abode of his unhindered reign, then will the great tables of God’s providence overturn his schemes!  Then, will the light rise up in the power of Jesus Christ that He purchased for His church, His bride, when He shed his blood and conquered the grave!  Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever!  Jesus shall reign where’er the sun!

“No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand”

 (Keith Getty and Stuart Townend: “In Christ Alone”).

Those who come to faith in Christ in the final harvest will be transformed by a new birth—and thereby given a new name; yet, they will keep their old name, for the man God created them to be will remain—being sanctified in Christ Jesus.

Church of God, be awake and alert, “your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for whom he may devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9).  Do not use the enemy’s weapons to try to fight him.  It’s easy to use the fleshly responses, verbal argumentation, and frustration to lunge at our enemy, but his weapons are broken and useless to us.  Only the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God can overcome our enemy.  Otherwise, he will just keep coming at us.  When we resist him, we must resist with the armor our Captain, Jesus Christ, has given us.  Then, he will flee.  God is good, though.  Even when we fail by taking up the wrong arms, God still works by His Spirit in us, giving us a heart of love for our enemy.  God will overcome our frailty and our failings.  He is faithful when we are faithless, for He cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13).

Church of God, let us continue to ground ourselves in the Word and truth and presence of Christ Jesus so that we are ready for all He commands of us in every and any circumstance.  When the final Purim comes, let us be useful vessels for the Master to plunder our enemy.

Moulting

The Parable:

The long-haired, jet-black dog started moulting!  Yes, you heard me right.  I was stunned too.  Dogs moult?  Well, this one does.  What is moulting, you ask.  It’s when an animal loses its outer skin.  And?  Well, that’s it.  End of story.  The dog moulted—and I think we can assume it attained another fur; what color?  Well, let’s leave that to the imagination.  I like to assume white.

“She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table’” (Matthew 15:27).

“Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” (Revelation 22:15).

“Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil…” (Philippians 3:2).

The dogs are certainly descriptive in Scripture of those who are evil—that is, those who have hearts of sin, who do not fear God, who are not led by the Spirit of God, who have not been born again of water and the Spirit, who have not taken upon them the blood covering of Jesus Christ, their Messiah.  These dogs are covered in darkness—hence the jet-black hair of the dog in our parable.  They are incapable of doing that which pleases God.

As it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

-Romans 3:10-18

Why did the dog moult in our parable?  The dog, representative of sinful man in his sinful nature apart from the grace of Jesus Christ, is not in his natural self capable of moulting.  Dogs don’t moult in nature.  They do shed—just as the sinful man will always shed the evil that is in his heart—for from the depths of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34).  Yet, though dogs don’t moult, they can be acted upon.  He who created them can change them.  Yes, God, the creator of man, who has justly acted upon mankind in their sin to give them the inheritance of their wickedness and has prevented them from shedding that sin—or rather—removing it from themselves of their own free will, has acted upon mankind by sending His only begotten Son, Jesus, to redeem man and enable him to be born again a new creature.  This new creature is not the dog in its innate nature.  It is an entirely new being.  Not only is the corrupt flesh moulted from off him, but the very inward parts have been changed so that he does not desire the wretchedness of a dog.  A dog returns to its vomit (2 Peter 2:12), but the redeemed man desires nothing of sin.  No measure of desire on man’s part will change his nature, yet the power of God is capable of all things!

“So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:16).

“[Jesus said], ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.’ And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God’” (Mark 10:25-27).

What then shall we do?  If we find ourselves more similar to the dog with the black hair than the moulted animal, what shall we do?  The Apostle Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:38-39).

The Lord never turns away an act of true repentance and faith, and though He will immediately act upon such penitent dogs with the power to moult and with a heart that now despises the darkness of sin and loves the light of God’s holiness, that moulting process will take time.  Yes, the inward spirit has been changed, but the outward skin of sinful flesh remains and will slowly moult off the redeemed saints until they have been fully purified and given the new skin of Jesus’ radiant righteousness.

“No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14).