Ephesians Lesson 20 of 39 part 6

What is meant by “the glory that should follow”?
 

To find out we need to first turn to Isaiah 28 and look at what Isaiah says in verse 28 but to get the flow we'll look ahead and behind this verse, though I'm perplexed just where to jump in;

Isaiah 28:21-29
“For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act. Now therefore be not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth. Give ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Does the plowman plow all day to sow? does he open and break the clods of his ground? When he has made plain the face thereof, does he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God does instruct him to discretion, and does teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also comes forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”

From here we'll turn to what the Lord says in Mark chapter 16 verse 17, but before we do, do you see the analogy of the farmer or do you see what the Lord is saying here?


Mark 16:15-19
“He said to them, 'Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover'. So then after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, to take His seat on the right hand of God.” 

Here Christ has emphatically declared that His church would perform more and greater things than He Himself has done. For the example He said to go to the nations and proclaim His message of spiritual Redemption to all. It becomes obvious that not every believer would proclaim His message and through it be able to perform such miracles, for any number of limiting reasons. It can only mean that throughout the ages such things will occur. It is no more than an extension and continuation of what Jesus started. They, the early followers were no more than imitators and only after the day of Pentecost when they received the gift of the Holy Spirit's infilling them, would He again have vehicles through which to confirm His message. So what makes the difference between them and us today? Allow me to recommend two totally different points of view. The opinion we are about to advance is based on the difference or contrast between two approaches or attitudes to nature. The one can be described as a general lack of awareness that leads to instinctive action. We could call it an attitude of “instinctive unconsciousness.” The other attitude is developed by a conscious studious manipulation of nature. We will refer to it as the “conscious analytical” or some variation of that. In Isaiah 28 above the instruction comes to the farmer from the Lord this is the “instinctive unconsciousness” by which we write. And the “conscious analytical” is received by attendance of some college or university with religious studies and is mans learned methodology of religion. This methodology is hindered as we've been saying by the spirit of religare, the same familiar spirit which was given Israel and try as the church and man may to be a doer, they cannot manipulate God to perform in the fashion of mans understanding, He is not on display. Besides that when we practice in the same fashion as the early Judaism and even today’s Judaism, the practice of ritualistic sacrifices, the idolatrous religious Sacraments, of mans designed religious performance we become guilty of the cross and blood and are in effect crucifying again the Lord. Just the practice that Paul warns the Galatian-Christians and the Christian-Hebrews of doing. By reverting back to paganism though now disguised or veiled by a more evil heart and it had been before.



For this reason if none other the Lord told the Corinthians through Paul, “to come out from among them,” just as He did Noah, Abram and Israel (2Corinthians 6:11-7:1). This was also the bases of Paul's warnings not to return to that which they or we've come out of, be it religion in denominational-ism, nondenominational-ism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Voodooism or what ever. Once we've turned to the Lord and found Him trustworthy we can not return to the old ways of life because there remains no more sacrifice, though the worlds churches practices such. “IF” we claim to take the name or title of “Christian” we are not our own, any longer, but rather belong to Him who has paid the price of our redemption in FULL. If we put to death the Lord monthly, yearly or what ever our churches custom maybe we are building up wrath within ourselves as a storage capacitor or battery hold a charge until discharged. And believe it or not we are guilty of vial idolatry by so doing. To get a deeper understanding read our study on the “A True an Accurate Meaning of Passover” posted elsewhere in this or our other blog.