Brown's Daily Word 4-8-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord; it is Friday and Sunday is coming. It is going to be one of the ten best days of April. The fields and the lawns are rapidly getting greener. A profusion of daffodils and tulips are popping up all around us. The birds are singing ever so sweetly, praising the Lord God , the maker of heaven and earth. Those who live in the area, please join us for our weekly TV outreach this evening at 7 PM on Time Warner channel 4.
` As part of my Lenten devotions I have been listening to Handel's Messiah. I never get tired of listening to "Messiah". From the very beginning our Lord God knew what he was doing. We only get three chapters into the Bible before we are given a prophecy of what God was going to do. The plan was that Jesus would crush the devil and destroy his work (Genesis 3:15). The entire Old Testament rings with the excitement of the coming Messiah and God’s ultimate plan for the world. Peter wrote about Christ: “He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake” (1 Peter 1:20). The book of Revelation describes Jesus as, “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of what God had in mind, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). In the end Jesus Christ will reign and we will reign with him. He will overcome the world and reconcile everything to himself. God reveals his ultimate plan for us in the scripture that says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6-7). That is a wonderful end to a wonderful story.
I love to read John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress". There is a a fascinating part in the epic drama where Interpreter leads Christian into a place where there is a perplexing sight. He sees a fire burning beside a wall. It continues to burn under extraordinary circumstances. There is someone standing beside the fire who is continually throwing water on the fire in an attempt to extinguish it. But instead of the fire going out, it only burns brighter and hotter. Then Interpreter takes him behind the wall and shows him what he could not see before. Behind the wall is another man who is continually feeding the fire with oil. Christian cannot understand the whole thing until Interpreter explains to him that the man putting water on the fire represents the devil. He is always trying to dampen and extinguish the work of God in the world. But what he and the others on that side of the wall cannot see is the man on the other side of the wall who represents Christ. He is continually fueling the fire with the oil of his Spirit, and the devil can never put it out.
The meaning is clear. Those of us on this side of the wall only see the discouraging signs of what the evil one is doing to extinguish the work of God in the world. What we do not see with our natural eyes is that Christ is stoking the fire of God and causing it to burn hotter and brighter in spite of all the enemy is trying to do.
God knows exactly what he is doing, and no one can put out the fire that God has begun in the world. He begins with things that look like nothing; things that seem to be easily defeated by the devil. The Bible says, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Corinthians 1:27). The more the devil tries to put out the fire of God, the more he is frustrated by what he is trying to do.
It is written in Philippians 2, “Jesus. . . Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11). In the end, every knee will bow — the knees of those who despised him, rejected him, and ignored him, along with those who loved and served him. Let us bow the knee now in love and obedience, or we will bow the knee later in fear and subjugation, those are the choices. In the end, every knee will bow. In the book of Revelation, John described his appearance when Christ returns, “His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (Revelation 1:14-16).
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

In Christ,
Brown