5-25-2019    Is it I, Lord?  Atonement = Outpouring

Matt. 26:20-23, Mark 14:17-21, Luke 22:13-23, John 13:16-30

In the combined accounts of the “Last Supper” from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all the disciples were at the table with Jesus.   Jesus arose, got a towel and a bowl of water and washed their feet, then all sat again, down at the table.  Note I said “all”.  This included Judas Iscariot.  For after they were again seated at the table, Jesus told His disciples that He would be betrayed.  All asked “Is it I?” (Matt. 26:22).  When Judas asked “Is it I?” Jesus said “You have said.” (Matt.25).  The gospels tell us that this is the point Satan entered Judas and Judas left, leaving the apostles wondering had he gone to buy something for the poor. 

Think for a moment.  The timing of these events imply that Judas partook of the bread (the body of Jesus) but probably left before the cup (the blood of Jesus) was passed around.  We are ALL guilty of the body of Jesus.  That is, we are all the reason He had to go to the cross and die.  However, only those who truly believe partake of the cup, His blood, His life, which gives us eternal life.  Jesus tells His disciples that if they don’t eat His body AND drink His blood, they have no life in them.  But when we do, we live in Him and He in us (John 6:53-56).

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Every person who has ever lived, is living or will yet live is the cause for Jesus to have been crucified.  Everyone is guilty of Jesus having to shed His blood, why Jesus had to go to the cross.  So, being guilty of the blood of Christ, any who ask the question “Is it I, Lord?” the answer is yes.   We all have betrayed Jesus by falling short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

Father gave us His Commandments giving us a yardstick by which we could measure our relationship with Him.  So what are the His Commandments?  He gave Israel ten to be our guide.  What are those ten?  1) no other gods before God, 2) don’t make any graven images, 3) don’t take His name in vain, 4) Remember the Sabbath, 5) honor your (earthly) father and mother, 6) don’t kill, 7) don’t commit adultery, 8) don’t steal, 9) don’t bear false witness, and 10) don’t covet anything that is your neighbor’s (Exod. 20:3-17).

Basically, for us, this translates that we accept the fact that God created ALL things (Gen. 1:1-31).  We believe it with all our heart and live our lives accordingly. 

Graven image is more than just an “idol” of wood or stone.  It includes bowing down and giving our adoration and time to anything other than God.  That is, before giving God time, we devote that time, our possessions or desires like cars, activities, etc., even people (even our spouse), we have put that before God.  Get the picture.  When we put anything before God, it becomes a graven image (or idol) for us – physical or mental.  Again, God doesn’t say we can’t do things, just put Him first in our lives.  It saves us a lot of heartache, down the road, when we remember God and put Him first.  Father asks 10% of our increase (a tithe-Lev. 27:30) of our money, but it also includes our living, things we do, etc.  It is holy to Him.  When we don’t even remember God in our lives, we steal more than just money from Him (Mal.3:8).  Whether we believe it or not, Father is responsible for all the good things we have (Rom 8:28).  He blesses us either to get our attention or reward us for a ‘job well done”.  Reprimand only comes necessary once we become ‘pig-headed’ and don’t listen to God.  Read the whole story of Israel in the Old Testament.  They listened to Go, things went well, they didn’t, they fell into bondage.  Bondage is when someone else rules over us, whether it be another person or a devil.

Father set time aside, after creation, to sit back and enjoy what He had created (Gen. 2:1-3).  So He asks us to set a day aside to relax and bask in Him.  All day?  If that’s what you want, but at least to take part of the day to thank Him for who He is and all that He’s done for us.  Again, He doesn’t deny us time to relax and take it easy.  Believe it or not, He just doesn’t want to be left out (of our lives).  He loves us and He enjoys our companionship.   

He asks us to honor and respect our earthly parents.  You say this is hard.  Mine haven’t been so good or perhaps we say “Gosh!  Old folks just don’t know anything!”  Yet, as long as mom and dad don’t ask us to do anything contrary to God’s law (His Law explains love), we should respect and be obedient to our parents.  They’ve been through more than we have and they are responsible for us.  I realize that our parents, though they should, don’t always have our best interests at heart but God does (Heb. 12:9-10).  My personal feeling is that no one should remain in a truly abusive situation.  But consider, before David became king, he had the opportunity to kill King Saul who was trying to kill him.  But David didn’t.  He realized that even though King Saul did evil, he was still in God’s anointed seat of authority (1 Sam. 24:1-22).  He refused to bring harm to God’s anointed.  It may be tough, but honoring mom and dad should be our goal and as we do, Father blesses us with long life (Eph. 6:1-3).  Of course, parents do have a responsibility to their children (Eph. 6:4).  Consider, that even though mom and/or dad may not know the Lord, because of our faithfulness, they might enter into His salvation.

Don’t kill is pretty obvious, we don’t, for our own desire’s sake, take the life of another.  But Jesus intensifies this one.  Even if we hate a brother, we have killed him (1 John 3:15).  We have killed him in our heart by withholding life-giving sustenance (a chance to walk closer with Jesus) that he may need.

Don’t commit adultery sound clear enough but this is not just committing into a relationship with someone other than our spouse, it also includes fornication (1 Corinth. 6:9-10) which is a sexual relationship between two unmarried people.  How many people in the world today live in “co-habitation”?  Without a commitment, that’s not marriage.  Yes, I understand “common law”, yet it is not the same as marriage.  Common law can be broken at any time.  Marriage is a lifetime commitment (or at least should be).

Does anyone need an explanation on stealing?  If it doesn’t belong to you, leave it alone.  Even ‘borrowing’ without permission is stealing.

Bearing false witness is any lie.  And think about it.  Why does the bible speak ill of ‘gossiping’?  Gossiping is testifying against someone else about that which may or may not even be true.  We don’t spread ‘rumors’ because we want to be ‘part of the crowd’.  That rumor may unduly damage the reputation of another (Psalm 15:2-3, Prov. 16:28, Eph. 4:29).  We may change the truth a bit so as not to hurt another, a ‘white lie’.  That’s OK, right?  If you don’t want to hurt someone, keep the lip the zipped.  An untruth is a lie and a lie is a lie, even if it may be intended for good.  Ever hear of a “white witch”?  She supposedly does things for people’s good, but she still does it with things that are not of God.

When I was young, my mom and her friends had a saying: “He can park his shoes under my bed anytime.”  I kind of knew what it meant but not until later in life, did I realize what it really involved.  Coveting anything that is another’s means to actually desire it.  We want “it”, whatever “it” may be.  Desiring something that belongs to someone else, his TV, his car, his spouse, whatever.  It’s kind of like stealing, isn’t it?  It isn’t ours, but we want it.  Hmmmm.  Coveting leads to theft or worse?  No problem in wanting something “like” what our neighbor has.  We just don’t desire “what” he has.  Oh, do I have to go back and explain ‘shoes under the bed’?  I hope not.

Under the law, all Israel had to worry bout was not “doing” something against the Law.  Today, Jesus has intensified that.  Even if we think it, we’re in trouble.  In his letter to the twelve tribes of Israel, James gives us some insight to how serious God is about sin.  If you will, man can be seduced by evil.  God cannot, nor does God tempt us.  But, we are tempted by those things which remain in our hearts.  When we consider obtaining someone else’s ‘something’  (whatever), we have sinned.  Should we act upon it, that brings forth death (James 1:13-15).  The thought in itself is not sin, but once it becomes a ‘desire’ or maybe even an ‘obsession’, it is a sin. Satan can introduce all sorts of thoughts into our heads, but when we decide to do and/or act on it …..(dum de dum dum [an ominous sound]).  We fall.

Understand, Satan does tempt us, in his attempt to draw us away from God, by planting thoughts and ideas into our minds and our hearts.  When we see that gorgeous ‘babe’ or that handsome ‘hunk’ is one thing.  But when we desire them to park their shoes under our bed, we have considered being with them (in a carnal way).  We have sinned in our hearts. We need to repent.  Should we pursue the fulfillment of that idea and accomplish our intent, we can still repent (truly repent) and be cleansed.  Yet, should we wallow or continue in what we’ve done, that will draw us farther from God and eventually total separation (death), spiritually and literally.  So we follow Peter’s advice: Repent and be converted that our sins may be blotted out (by the blood of Jesus).   Being converted (turning away from that sin) brings us back into ‘right standing with God’ and our relationship with the Lord shall be refreshed (renewed) (Acts 3:19).   

Only those who ask forgiveness and put themselves under that cleansing flood, come back into eternal fellowship with the Father through His Son and into eternal life. 

Our sin(s) can be forgiven.  We have to confess them before Christ, repent (turn from and determine not to do it again) and renouncing what we’ve done, Father will forgive us our sins and put them behind His back (Isa. 38:17).  They’re gone as far as He is concerned.

Now what does all this have to do with the clip I’ve included?

On youtube, I watched the “Atonement Brings the Outpouring”, a Manna Fest episode (964) by Perry Stone.  This ties in with “Is it I, Lord?”.  Once we realize we have sinned, we need to repent.  Through repentance we receive forgives and Father puts us back in right standing (atonement) with Himself.

Perry talks about how true repentance brings about the manifestation of the presence of the Holy Ghost.  He ties it nicely with the Fall festivals of Jewish tradition beginning with Rosh Hoshana and how they relate to the early Christian Church.

It also leads into the fact that Father is readying His people for the Spiritual Explosion which lies just on the horizon. 

Father is preparing His people to carry His Word to the world, and more importantly back into the church (the church HAS gone astray). 

Rosh Hoshana is a time of cleansing and atonement, a repenting of and receiving forgiveness for sins.  This is the cleansing.  Those who are following the Lord’s leading are currently in a seven year period of cleansing and learning – learning how to truly live in Christ Jesus, in God’s love.  They will be going out in the next seven years (the next ‘season’) bringing God’s true love to the church and to all who would receive it, following the example of our Lord Jesus.

There will be a falling away (the church has already been falling away) before the coming (2^nd) of the Lord (2 Thess. 2:1-3).  Look at what’s going on in the church today.  Priests abusing children, pastors and noted preachers falling to sexual immorality, leaders of our churches living lavish lifestyles at the expense of their congregation.  Many may remember the Bakers (Jim & Tammy Fae).  They rationalized that they owned nothing, yet they lived in a very lavish lifestyle at the expense of the church.  Years ago I personally knew a pastor who drove a BMW and wore silk suits to their denomination’s conventions so as to impress the other pastors.  He may not have lived at the level of Jim & Tammy Fae, but the folks in his congregation were low income people.   This pastor just wanted his peers to see him as being very successful.

The church needs shaking up.  It is coming.  The current seven years began in Jan. 2015.  The Spiritual Explosion is coming when this season has ended. 

Is it I Lord?  We all have our part in being guilty, but we don’t have to live in that guilt.

We truly repent our sin, determine not to do it again and start (or return) to living in God’s love.  That means not ‘just’ reading the bible but asking the Holy Spirit to help us to understand it.  He does lead us into all truth (John 16:13).  We have to understand God’s love before we can truly live in it and God’s prime commandment is to ‘love’ Him above all else and our neighbor as ourselves.  Any other commandment is just a continuing explanation of that love.

We all have (and do) fall short of God’s expectations.  But, when we repent, we receive atonement and as Perry Stone shares with us, with that atonement comes an outpouring of the Holy Ghost.  And a fresh outpouring of the Holy Ghost is what we are expecting in the near future (the next season).  A spiritual explosion where the Holy Ghost rises to new levels in our lives!

So, do we ask “Is it I, Lord?” wondering if it is I who has betrayed Him.  Or can we say “It is I, Lord, the one who loves You.”?

Amen