WHY SIT HERE UNTIL WE DIE?

WHY DO WE SIT HERE UNTIL WE DIE?



                Our pastor preached a powerful sermon last night based upon 2Kings chapter 7. The situation is set up in chapter 6 where it tells us that King Ben-hadad of Syria set up a siege around Samaria and they camped around the city until the people were starving to death. Their food supply had dwindled down to donkey’s heads and dove’s dung and people were eating their own children.



                Interestingly enough the king of Samaria blamed the prophet Elisha for their troubles and he made an oath that Elisha’s head would not remain on his body by the end of the day. Then Elisha appeared before the king and said, “Listen to the word of the Lord; thus says the Lord, ‘Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria.”



                But one of the royal officers of the king’s court sneered at Elisha and said:  ”Behold, if Lord should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” and Elisha answered and said, “Behold you will see this with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”



                Now the scene shifts to four Lepers, outcasts of society who were forced to live outside the gates starving to death in the same way as the city people inside the city were starving and one day one of the lepers said: “Why do we sit here until we die?” They knew that if they went into the city they would starve to death and if they stayed outside the city they would still starve to death and so they came up with a plan. They said, “Let’s walk straight into the enemy’s camp. IF they spare us we shall live, but if they kill us we shall but die.” 2 Kings 7:3



                So they walked out to the camp of the great Syrian army and they found it deserted. There was no one there. And it tells us that God had caused the Syrians to hear the sound of chariots and the sound of horses, even the sound of a great army, so that they presumed that Israel had hired the armies of the Hittites and the Egyptians and so the Syrian army fled the camp, leaving all of their provisions, their tents and horses and donkeys and food.



                So the four lepers had a great feast until one said to another: “We are not doing right. Let us go back and tell the king’s household about this.” So they did and the famine was over and so all of the grain and barley and the animals that Syria had previously stolen from Israel was recovered and just as Elisha had said,  a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel and the city was spared. There was food for all.



                Today we live in a Covenant that is infinitely more powerful than the covenant that Elisha operated under. Jesus came to earth and bled and died in order to bring us this covenant… and yet we largely hide in our churches satisfied with donkey’s heads and dove’s dung even as our children are being eaten by the world system. We think we are surrounded by the enemy and indeed the church is shrinking in America, but we hover in our churches afraid to go into the enemy’s camp… afraid to buck the system… afraid to operate in the New Covenant power that Jesus brought to us.



                Having largely failed to live in the powers of the New Covenant, we cling to the old covenant because it seems more tangible. We can keep the old laws and traditions and cling to yesterday. And nowadays we behead the prophets, not with the sword, but simply by ignoring them. We don’t want to go outside the four walls. We don’t want to take the Gospel message to the enemy. We do not want to dress in the full armor of God… to become combat ready. We no longer know how to wield the Sword of the Lord. We are not testing our armor in the heat of battle, but rather displaying it on the mantels as trophies of yesteryear’s battles. We no longer have the faith of our fathers and so we cling to what used to be even as our children lose faith in our ways and seek for answers elsewhere.



                Today, like never before, the church is being surrounded and infiltrated. Our once vibrant and all powerful Gospel is eroding into donkey’s heads and dove’s dung even as we talk about the glory days gone by.



                God has given us time to repent and to turn back to Him. He raided the enemy’s political camp and set them to flight. HE gave us a king who is willing to defend our cause and to lead the charge and yet much of the nation wants to behead him and blame him for all of our troubles.



                America is in a desperate situation and our children are being eaten as a younger generation become dissatisfied to sit in one place until we die. They have heard our messages about the hope and power of the New Covenant, but they are only finding an empty shell and a lot of hyperbole. Our big Christian TV shows have been exposed as corrupted, even as TV preachers fleece the flock with false messages.



                Many are going back to the Old Covenant hoping to find a greater reality there and while it is the truth upon which the New Covenant is built, it is no longer the Covenant that God is supporting. His true power is now being poured out by the Holy Spirit announcing the life, death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is the Gospel of the kingdom which is to be accompanied by the supernatural power of Jesus as He does His work in and through us.



                But we have fallen away from these powers of the age to come simply because they require our death and rebirth in order to be activated. We must fully die to the world and then to live fully by the power of the Holy Spirit and to do the works of Christ in the world. But the message has been eroded and its requirements ignored to the point where we now go back in hopes that maybe the Old Covenant will work for us like the stories we read in the Bible. We forget that these were types and shadows pointing forward to the living realities of a New Covenant. So we fall back to the familiar, the tangible… the works of the Law that we can do.



                Somehow we sense that there is a far greater power out there and so we cry out for it, but we are unwilling to let go of the old in order to embrace the new. We don’t know it, but with our actions and our beliefs we are saying that what Jesus did was not enough… that we must borrow from the Old Covenant to make up for the power and truth that is lacking in the New Covenant.



                Today the prophets are warning us to repent of our dead works. It is time for us to be willing to die in order to plunder the enemy’s camp… to take back what has been stolen from us by the enemy…to overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by the Word of our testimony. We need to remember that the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. We are beheading the prophets with our cold shoulders even as they tell us that there is much provision to do the work of the Lord if we will enter into it.



                Unfortunately the prosperity message has become “Me-centered.” Like the four lepers we are gobbling up the provisions and lavishing them upon ourselves even as the world and even our children perish. There is a famine in the land for the true Word of God. Paul said: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”



                The Gospel, the good news… the New Covenant brought to us by the body and blood of Christ is the power of God unto salvation and yet we cling to the old covenant because we are unwilling to step outside the camp of our old traditions and to discover the power in the blood of Jesus. We don’t want to step fully into the providence of the Holy Spirit because we have sidelined Him and marginalized Him and made Him of non-effect in our religion. We invoke His name but we don’t live by His power. We ignore Pentecost as an oddity rather than being the substance of the New Covenant. We cling to the baptism of John, because we don’t understand the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire that Jesus brought to us. (John 3:11) We invoke the name of Jesus even as we eschew His gifts.



                We have become satisfied with donkey’s heads and dove’s dung and the eating of our children. We fall back to tradition because we have not found the power of the Gospel… but we have not found the power of the Gospel because it only works on a 100% basis. I give my 100% so that God can give me His 100%. Anything short of that and we are trying to operate without batteries… without being plugged in… without being branches on the Vine.



                America needs a kind of revival and reformation that is much deeper than the one being proposed. It is not the mere adding of something to the structure we already have. Reformation represents the building of an entirely new structure. It must be founded upon the New Covenant and it must be worked by desperate lepers that are willing to face death rather than to sit here until we die.



                The life, death and resurrection of Christ… His High Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek and the power of the Holy Spirit that He poured out at Pentecost must be the provision of the final harvest. And with this power we can plunder the enemy’s camp and draw forth a harvest of wheat and barley into the kingdom.



                Jesus brought us a complete New Covenant. It is not like the Old Covenant. We do not gather at the foot of Mt. Sinai.



                “But we have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel.”



                We don’t need a new covenant! We HAVE a new covenant… brought to us by the very Creator of the universe.  He is worthy of our worship because He created us and the covenant that He brought to us by His blood is worthy of our 100%, our utmost faith and practice. Jesus has indeed become our rest for we are now trusting in His power and not our own. This was the message of the Sabbath when it said, “In it though shalt not do any work.” In the old covenant that meant sitting in your tent and not even so much as building a fire to cook your food, but how does this translate into new covenant truth.



                Jesus said, “Come unto Me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am humble in heart and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and My load is light.” Mt. 11:28-30.



                Is your Jesus big enough to give you rest or must you seek for it somewhere else?



                “When He said, “A New Covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” Hebrews 8:13, 9:15.



                “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is not distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus…” Rom. 3:21-24. Do you believe?



                “But before faith came we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:23-26



                “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Rom. 8:14.



                If what Paul is telling us is true then we must by all means possible learn how to live fully in this new covenant that Jesus bought for us by His blood and we must learn to operate in its power. It is no longer about days and weeks and New Moons and Sabbaths or food or drink or any of those things. So we must learn how to live in the living reality of all that those types and shadows pointed to.



                Jesus said that they all pointed to Him. Luke 24:27,44-49. Pentecost is the promise of the Father. It is the New Covenant sent to us in tongues of fire to invade our hearts and empower us to be conformed into the image of Christ and to carry on His work in the world.



                Therefore we should not be wasting time sitting here and waiting to die. It is time to plunder the enemy’s camp and to bring the real Gospel to a dying world.



                Do you really believe that Jesus, as our Creator and redeemer, brought us a new covenant or are we going to fall back and live by the old covenant. Again I say, Choose wisely, for there is no salvation in the Old Covenant and that is why Jesus brought us a New Covenant in His own blood.