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CONTEXTUAL TRUTHS The glory of God is related to expositional preaching in the history of many revivals. The respect of context and the progressive unveiling of a passage of scripture, by a Holy Spirit renewed mind, is expositional preaching. It produces the glory. In South America, Africa and the Hebrides it was so. Taking bits of scripture here and there when uninspired can bring quick confusion to a church. We all know: “...Judas hanged himself...” and “... go and do thou likewise.”! The word of Colossians 3: 16 and Ephesians 5: 18, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly...”, and “... go on being filled with the Holy Spirit...” are always in balance when the true grace produces the glory of God in preaching. People who claim things are of the Spirit, when there is no foundation of word, open the way to deception. Jesus was and is full of grace and truth. Truth is one arm looking for another arm: either grace or love or trust. We speak the truth in love. Love rejoices in the truth. As we read scripture we will see this. Reading the context of a text helps us to interpret the scripture correctly, and rightly divide the word of truth. A good example of truth and love is John 13: 25, 26; surely in the matter of tragic truthful disclosure John is receiving the heartbeat of the Master’s love – while leaning his head on his Lord’s breast. A text without a context is a pretext. The survival of a revival for the glory of God is never without the Bible! A systematic reading of the Word produces real fruit in the life of the believer. Check out the beginning and the end of a chapter, a clue will occur to help us see the meaning of the whole chapter. The monks who put in chapter and verse were not always divinely inspired, but mostly it was a job well done. Take Luke 10, a chapter on the glory of mission. See the simple divisions: verses 2 – 24: adventure of mission verses 25 – 37: action of mercy verses 38 – 42: abandonment of meditation. We see simple equations of spiritual worth here: MISSION = MERCY + MEDITATION ADVENTURE  = ABANDONMENT + ACTION Revelation from sitting at His feet has to be added to the compassion of mercy. Loving others without His leading and discernment can lead to disasters (Philippians 1: 9). I know believers who have taken in wayfarers, drug addicts and abusers out of a heart of love, but have been cheated, stolen from and accused. The balance of mercy and meditation will give success. Jesus often withdrew to spend time in the secret place with His Father, His ministry flowed from that. If your Christian life is dull, repetitive and monotonous, have you failed to tap into the abundant God-kind of life Jesus promised? Adventures in the Spirit must join the impetus of love and the intuition of revelation. Some of our adventures may include the rejection of the message (Luke 10: 12 – 16). Continuing with Luke 10, another helpful idea is to ask ourselves questions: 1)  What did it mean to be “before His face” in verse 1 2)  Is there a sense in the last verse that Mary was before His face? 3)  Name the characteristics of mission Jesus style. 4)  Why is it that different cities accept or reject the gospel?      Look up Mark 8: 22 – 26; and Jeremiah 2: 27, 28; Acts 17: 11. 5)  What were the differences of reaction from the priest, levite and samaritan to the half dead man? 6)  Looking at Martha and Mary throughout the gospels, describe their personalties. These two avenues of research make our Bible reading personal and instructive. The problem with daily devotionals is that you can become ministry dependent; we need to grow up and achieve a personal relationship with the word of God. Spoon-fed believers will not mature but remain clones of other men's minds. Dig for yourselves! Get a concordance and buy some decent reference works like Vine's expository of N. T. words. This narrow way will take more time, but over the years produce in you the convictions and zeal necessary for a ministry of the Word. THE SOWER AND THE SEED This key parable focuses on two realities: the state of your heart, and the issue of fruitfulness. The seed of scripture once planted in your spirit is successful against every satanic situation. We can see the truth of the tripartite being of man in this earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Four kinds of soil (or heart) are described:     wayside  rocky  thorny  good ground  INTELLECT EMOTIONS AND WILL BODY SOUL SOUL SPIRIT The intellect, emotions and will make up the SOUL of man. In Mark 4: 21 Jesus mentions the lamp, which in Proverbs 20: 27 is a type of your human spirit. The lamp must enjoy a place of prominence to do its light-sending work. Our spirit must be above our soul and body for the believer to flow in the Holy Spirit. The wicked and those who curse parents have their spirit unable to function according to Proverbs 20: 20 and 24: 20. These people are not even related to the wayside heart because the seed of the word is not even sown! Wayside hearts may include Cain, Esau, Michal and Lot's wife. Satan comes and robs them of the direct command of God. To receive truth in the inward parts takes diligent perseverance. The rocky heart distinguishes itself by having “... no root in themselves” Mark 4: 17. There comes an immediate joy of the knowledge of the truth, but these stumble when persecution arrives. No root can mean four deficiencies: believers do not know who they are in Christ believers do not experience 1 Corinthians 6: 17 believers rely on their mental assent rather than on the Holy Spirit believers who refuse the roots of their faith: Israel. Saul and Absalom are good examples of unbroken men who have no fellowship with God, and are still ruled by the carnal nature. 1 Corinthians 6: 17 means that as believers we have a conscious knowing that we are joined to the risen Christ and seated with Him in heavenly places. Knowing the guidance and instruction of the Holy Spirit also roots us in Him as we obey. It is also worth noting that Israel is the root of the Church (read Romans 11), those with rocky hearts also fail to acknowledge God's special purpose and calling for the nation of Israel, the Jews, and refuse to bless them and pray for them according to God's command (Genesis 12: 1  - 3; Psalm 122: 6 – 8; Isaiah 62: 6, 7, 11, 12; Romans 11). The thorny hearts compromise with the world, tolerate sin, are weighed down with the cares of this life, and therefore, cannot bring fruit to maturity. Anxiety and materialism still hold sway reducing any discipleship to a minimum. Look at 2 Corinthians 6: 16 – 18 and 2 Timothy 3: 1 –  5, these two scriptures spell out separation to discipleship and separation from the religious spirit. The rich young ruler and Solomon come to mind, as does early Jacob who had a contractual relationship with God.  However, if we are going to be good ground, honest and noble, we need to recognize that we all go through these three states of heart. There is a PROCESS to our PROGRESS. To hear, accept and bear fruit is very rarely all at once! We have struggles, battles and times or seasons when the Lordship of Christ fails to be a reality due to our hard hearts. The key has to be getting the SEED SOWN in our new creation spirits. HOW? You ask. Let me offer a few solutions: hear the word of God as you speak it, because this encourages faith. pray in tongues because this makes your spirit sensitive to God's word. praise God by declaring His virtues, because this makes us emotionally free and produces liberty of will and thinking. meditation of the word of God by looking at verses you write out and stick up on your bedroom wall. Enjoying His stillness and presence. listening quietly to worship in Spirit and truth, so we prepare ourselves to hear. by obeying what God is saying to you... particularly in the area of relationships. God opens up realities after reconciliation. Being open to deliverance ministry. We need the seed in a broken and a contrite heart. Noble means repentant (see Luke 8: 15) and the blessing of multiplication will always follow repentance for the glory of God! VISIONS AND DREAMS Never trust them unless you find God's word to substantiate them. The context of the supernatural should be the word of God because miracles are occurences in accordance with a living word. If not, we can doubt their source. Recently a lady came to see me with a perplexing impression of gold and silver threads over her belly. The importance of finding God's word cannot to overestimated as God is bound by His Word. Ecclesiastes 12: 6 and 1 Corinthians 6: 20 brought light, and we saw the negative possibility – death, and the positive - redemption and glory. Prayerful investigation upon these scriptures revealed that jealousy which involves spiritual death was, in fact, hindering her in the manifestations of the Spirit, thereby holding back an opportunity for God's glory. The context of truth brought understanding. Visions and dreams can remain frustratingly ineffective without the Word of God based interpretation. Context of the supernatural should always be the Word. The mind should never be in a state of passivity before a vision, evil spirits take advantage of a passive state. Dreams and visions should bring mental clarity and come without odd or strange atmospheres. They shouldn’t leave you dulled because the genuine quickens our faculties. Now there is a difference between passivity, which is the non-working of a faculty, and of quietness before the Lord. The peace that surpasses all understanding, a gift from the Lord, should be a registration within our spirits. This is a safeguard from deception. If you are uncertain about the source of a vision or dream, pray in the Spirit and the impression will either fade or grow stronger. If it grows stronger and there is also the confirming word of God, then you know that God is speaking. A dream is usually a way of confirmation to us once the Good Shepherd has spoken a living word to our hearts. The context of Joseph’s dream in the gospel was the fulfullment of Old Testament promise “Out of Egypt I called My Son.” (Matthew 2: 13 – 15) CONTEXT IN ESCHATOLOGY The four horses of Revelation 6: 1 – 8 relate to the signs recorded in Matthew 24. Scripture confirms with two or three witnesses, and never says anything of importance only once. We are living in days as Karl Barth said, “... reading the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.” However, we need careful exegesis in the Word to assume the latest news underlines an ancient prophecy. The four galloping horses are types: White   DECEPTION  Matthew 24: 4, 5, 11 Red   WAR   Matthew 24: 6, 7 Black  FAMINE   Matthew 24: 7 Pale   DEATH    Matthew 24: 9 The order in Matthew is very similar. Notice “he who sat on it”, or “the one who sat on it”. Each horse has a rider. The horse is a symbol of what goes on, on the earth, in the flesh realm. The rider represents the evil spirit, that from the heavenly places, controls the event on the earth. Isaiah 24: 21 supports this claim:  “and it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will punish on high the host of exalted ones (demon forces)  and on the earth, the kings of the earth.”      (Emphasis mine) Spirits of evil connect with political and royal leaders. That is why God commands believers FIRST OF ALL to pray for governments. We are not saying, however, that the devil runs the events leading to our Lord's glorious return. Jesus is sovereign Lord, but uses the enemy to fulfill His purposes. The enemy, like the fallen angels in Jude 6, is on a permissive leash. John in Revelation 6: 8 glimpses the unseen realm, where Death and Hades sit on the pale horse, pursuing an agenda of death 40 times more terrible than the 45 million killed in the second world war. That is the literal reading of a quarter of the earth's population! What an awesome context for our lives and prayers in these end-times. We live now in the climax of the ages. The context of what’s the time spiritually has a huge importance. We watch and pray in order to survive, and revive. In the last days some will know the BIBLE and REVIVAL. Is our geography in a town asleep, or where the Holy Spirit is moving? THE TWO TESTAMENTS  Augustine said, “The New is latent in the Old Testament, and the Old is patent in the New”. Or we could say, the Old is truth concealed which is revealed in the New. Today a lack of context has brought confusion. Recently, a man in a congregation could not bring himself to sing a line which spoke of the judgment of God. He went to the elder and he changed it to accommodate this man's mistaken belief that God in the New Testament (N.T.) is only a God of love. The wrath of God in Revelation, however, is much more catastrophic and more universal than the plagues in Egypt! The God of the New is the same God as the God of the Old Testament (O.T.). He did not have a personality change after the Cross. Unchanging, eternal Father cannot lie or camouflage His character like some super-spiritual chameleon. It is our approach to God that has changed from law to grace after Jesus cried out, “It is finished”. Today we need to see how the testaments safeguard one another. A good example of this is seeing O. T. characters as excellent illustrations for certain N.T. principles. Galatians 5: 17 says “... the flesh lusts against the Spirit...”. The battle between the flesh kingdom of Saul and the Spirit kingdom of David comes to mind. Another example was one used by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 4: 21 – 31, where he uses Sarah and Issac, and Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 21: 10 as representing the two covenants. Hagar representing Mount Sinai (the Law), which gives birth to bondage: Ishmael being born of the flesh. Sarah gives birth to Issac who is the child of promise, born under supernatural circumstances, she represents the freedom of faith and grace in the new covenant. Is the Law then bad? If you read Galatians 3: !9 – 25, we get a fuller picture. Truth must be contextual or we get confused by picking up texts here and there, and making the Bible an authority for our own opinions and ideas.  To understand the Bible we must be committed to studying the Word, submit to it, and be committed to carrying out its holy instruction. For this we are dependent upon the Helper: the One called alongside us to guide us into ALL truth (John 14: 16 and 17; John 16: 13). By seeing the stories of the O.T. as deeply relevant to our lives, as we live out the new covenant, we will be encouraged. The God of Jacob smiles on our struggles and trials before we become like Israel, a prophetic father. The key is to persevere and endure through the tests. If we desire wisdom as James admonishes us, should we not go to Proverbs 8 and Job 28? The walk of faith and its pitfalls are portrayed by Abraham. Linking the book of Joshua with Ephesians profits us. May God help us to see none of the Bible is redundant and no word of God is futile, but is strengthened by comparing spiritual with spiritual. The Old and New Testaments are both spiritual, God-breathed out words, and both in the context of one another.  In 1 Corinthians 10: 11 we read, “Now all these happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.” The word “admonition” means to press into the mind a governing thought, so we are warned by it. We today love the promises of God but we also need the balance of the prohibitions. Today we need to paint a gospel of grace on the dark background of coming judgement. The stars of glory and grace shine out of a night sky! The ends of the ages in this verse is a poor translation. Jack Hayford has likened the phrase to, “... we have come within the circle of possibities that have not emerged before.”. This emphasises the need to see our opportunities of grace upon a backdrop of escalating international tensions.  CONTEXT OF A TEXT  A text without a context is a pretext said someone, and we all know the story of Judas' suicide and the word “go and do thou likewise”! Indiscriminate arrangement of texts lead to heresy, a skillful intermingling of truth and error. Systematic reading of the Bible helps to see the context of a truth. Isaiah 30: 21 has been taught as a vital verse on guidance:  “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it” whenever you turn to the right hand  or to the left...” The context, however, is the Jew in the age of the Millennium. We need to see clearly the different dispensations or periods of time when God deals with His children in different ways. How many prosperity teachers are basically lifting passages that are either the Law or the Millennium in their overriding of the context? The dramatic insistence on tithing on Christian T.V. has little to do with Paul's major passages on giving in the N.T.. Read 1 Corinthians 9: 1 – 18; 2 Corinthians 8 and 9; and Philippians 4: 15 – 19. Many problems in the church exist because we do not see context clearly.  The dispensations, which are the seven ages before the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, are briefly: 1. Innocence. Imagine the garden of Eden before the fall of Adam and Eve: total security, no fear or crime or animal savagery, a perfect climate, recognition and unclouded fellowship with God, adventures in the Spirit, total heart satisfaction, no sin. See Genesis 1 and 2. 2. Conscience. Every sin followed the rebellion when Adam sold out to the devil and committed high treason against God. The curses of death and disease entered the human race, and only conscience in the mind of man could work toward God-consciousness. Check Genesis 6: 5; 8: 21. 3. Human government. Two things government must do to achieve fruitfulness in society: they must provide food (Genesis 9: 3) and ensure security (Genesis 9: 6). This period did not last long because Nimrod corrupted it by being against the Lord. Genesis 10: 9 is misleading: “before the Lord” means taking the place of the Lord. Politics continues this evil trend at root, despite many noble and well meaning politicians! 4. Promise. Genesis 12 and the call of Abram is a huge break with the past, because God chooses an Iraqi (in modern terms) to represent His purposes and start the Jewish race. The dispensation of promise is of faith and we today as believers are of the seed of Abraham. The name change from Abram to Abraham is due to the received Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father (Genesis 17: 1 – 5). 5. Law. From Exodus 20 until John 19 the law was God's diagnostic to point out sin, bring about wrath, and the revival of sin (Romans 4: 15; 5: 20; 7: 7 – 9). The broken law brought about the need of prophets. Jesus came to fulfill the Law and only He has succeeded . On the Cross He abolished the double enmity between man and God due to transgressions, sins and iniquity. 6. Grace. Present truth of 2 Peter 1: 12 is the church age of grace. The definition of grace is never the license to do what I want, but the liberty to do what He tells me to do. Grace, through the precious promises, gives us the power to add to our faith the virtue of moral excellence and knowledge and self-control etc. Self control is literally the new creation ruling. 7. Millennium. There is a 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ as Lord from Jerusalem, an enormous spiritual honeymoon for the bride of Christ, before the New Jerusalem, that giant cube of living light we call heaven, comes out of the sky! David Pawson in “When Jesus Returns” deals with the Millennium brilliantly. Here are 20 features of that long awaited and largely misunderstood paradise: 1)  Satan and demons bound: Rev 20: 1 – 3 2)  Satan's followers expelled from the earth: Matthew 13: 41 – 43; 25: 31 – 46 3)  Restoration of Israel: Joel 2: 18, 19, 25 4)  Holy Spirit out-poured on all flesh: Isaiah 32: 15; Joel 2: 28; Ezekiel 39: 29 5)  Knowledge of glory worldwide: Habbakak 2: 14 6)  Universal prosperity: Micah 4:4; Joel 3:18 7)  Dead Sea healed: Ezekiel 47: 8 8)  Total forgetfulness about the past: Isaiah 65: 17 9)  Earth's atmosphere will rejoice: Isaiah 14: 7; 65: 19 10) Ecological harmony: Isaiah 32: 13, 15; 35: 1, 6, 7; Amos 9: 13; Psalm 72: 16; Joel 2: 24 11) Population increase and family life: Ezekiel 36: 38; and Isaiah 65: 23  12) Global peace and family peace: Isaiah 2: 4; Psalm 46: 9; 72: 7 13) No guilt, shame or disappointment: Joel 2: 26, 27 14) Very quick answers to prayer: Isaiah 65: 24 15) No death or sickness: Isaiah 65: 22; Romans 8: 23 16) Visible reign of Jesus as Lord over all: Rev. 11: 15 17) Everything done in the name of Jesus: Micah 4: 5; Zechariah 14: 9 18) Animal harmony: Isaiah 11: 6 – 9 19) Global divine teaching program: Isaiah 2: 2 – 4 20) Restoration of all things – the root meaning here is a born-again universe! Acts 3: 21 If you check these verses you'll see that they belong primarily to the age to  come. Applying them to the church age of grace could be the same folly as prohibiting the eating of a prawn sandwich (shellfish are not kosher under the Law). The difference is that prawns are now allowed: the Acts 10 vision cleansed them – but there is no vision in the Bible to allow the building of the Temple (Ezekial 40 – 48) in this present age of grace. May we respect the context of truth and find our daily bread as relevant to our condition. The Kingdom comes in the Millennium in a much fuller manifestation than now. The idea of christianizing the world before the Lord comes (triumphalism), is a classic example of bringing promises that belong to another dispensation into the age of grace.  TO CONCLUDE Truth is PROGRESSIVE in Scripture and it is CONTEXTUAL. The expositional and exegetical teaching of the word of God will encourage manifestations of His glory. God will do the unusual in our midst when there is a solid foundation. Revelation is never opposed to reason, when reason takes second place and works out the revelation with the logic of a renewed mind. In revivals the systematic reading and preaching the word of God safeguards the supernatural glory of God. Without an appreciation of contextual truth the enemy can substitute false experiences for the true clean glory of God. Glory is always looking for a new home. When Jesus returns the Millennial reign will have a sevenfold glory impact over our age of grace. Isaiah prophesies in chapter 30 verse 26:  “Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun. And the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light   of seven days, in the day that the Lord binds up the bruise of His people and heals the stroke of their wound.” The context is Millennium glory. We praise God for His healing power today, but a deeper deliverance is coming – when Jesus returns we shall be more thoroughly prepared for heaven's New Jerusalem, during the 1000 year kingdom when King Jesus reigns from Jerusalem. We receive foretastes of the glory now, but fulfillment then. Are we being pressurized to receive deep revelations now, when in fact the glories of redemption will also be revealed in the ages to come? There is a pressure on leaders to be always finding fresh oil and revelation. Sadly, this can be a path to deception. Ephesians 2: 7 speak of the unsurpassable riches of His grace (and the resulting glory) to be revealed in Christ Jesus in the Millennium. O what a Saviour-Lord! We need to be proactive in the revelations we have already received in this age of grace, which is soon coming to an end. The Lord give us hope for revelations to come and obedience in the revelations we have received. Hallelujah!  << Previous