December 01, 2004

Amazing Grace or Crazy Grace?

Harvest Times features the powerful message that was preached during Day 2 of the 2003 Revival Conference with Rev. Dr. Ulf Ekman.

"For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified."
-Acts 20:27-31

In Acts, the apostle Paul is exhorting the elders from Ephesus. He talks about the whole counsel of God or "sound doctrine" in the end times. As we move into the end times and go out into missions, we have to be strong in the Lord as we do exploits for Him. But, if we're not strong in doctrine and in the Word, we could be lured away, fooled and deceived as Jesus prophesied.

Paul tells the church that he has given the whole counsel of God; he has done what the Lord wants him to do, so he can go on. But Paul also warns that after his departure, other people would come with doctrines and teachings that would lure and draw God's people away from the truth. Instead, these people would draw others to themselves. This deception would come into the church and could potentially destroy the flock. Jesus warned in Matthew 24 that in the end times, many people would be deceived because of false teaching that will slowly creep into the church. So when Jesus says, "Take heed that no man deceives you," He's actually saying that deception is coming. In Galatians, Paul devotes much of his attention in that epistle talking about the gospel that he has been entrusted with because there is only one gospel. There's no other gospel. Whoever comes and changes that gospel, he said, "Let him be cursed."

THE GOSPEL NEVER CHANGES

If you change the gospel, you can't get saved. If the devil can change the Word of God, if he can pervert the Word of God, if he can alter it, the very fabric of our salvation will be lost. If the devil can change or pervert the Word of God, we are desperately doomed.

Some things that God gives us are not supposed to change. The Word of God is settled once and forever. Jesus didn't come back to die for us again and again. He died once for our sins and He is our Savior forever! We need to watch ourselves so that we who have started well will continue to walk with Jesus and not end up on the wayside.

PRESSURE TO CHANGE THE TRUTH

We're living in a time where there will be pressure on the church to change everything. Even today, you can see the worldly influence on the body of Christ. The world pushes and pressures us to change certain things that do not line up with the spirit of this age. But we do not have the spirit of this age. We have the spirit of the coming age -- the Holy Spirit!

Somebody said once, "To escape the error of salvation through works, we have many times fallen into the opposite error of salvation without obedience."

This is an undeniably profound statement. Many times people confuse obedience and the works of the law. They have this idea that because we are saved by grace, we don't need to do anything anymore. It's all God's responsibility now.

We need to preach the whole counsel of God, not just a part of it. If we preach only a part of it, we will have problems. What does it mean when we say we speak revelations? That means, it comes from God; it was not conjured up in human minds. It was given by the Holy Spirit. Paul said in Galatians that, "by revelation, the gospel was given unto me." So that is what revelation is that we should live by that truth and that truth should set us free.

THE NEED FOR OBEDIENCE

The problem is that revelation and doctrine is often kept separate from life. People live a certain way and look at Bible truth another. Their lives do not line up with biblical truth.

If you were to say, "I'm not supposed to do anything because He has done it all. So I live by faith, I live by grace, but I don't need to do anythingS" If you think like that, then you're not reading the Bible right.

It's true that Jesus has done everything required for our salvation. Our salvation has been brought forth through the power of the Holy Spirit; through grace alone and nothing else. Redemption is an act of grace. But though it is an act of grace, it doesn't mean that after salvation, we should live without obedience.

And that's the problem today. We don't want to obey. Fearing that we will fall into the error of salvation through works, we have moved to the other extreme and created a gospel without obedience. Such deception will bring us out of liberty and into bondage.

Moving from freedom into bondage will cause us eventually to lose our salvation. When we move away from freedom, sound doctrine and truth, we'll move into weakness, defeat, darkness and we'll be held captive by the world. If we are in captivity to the world, we cannot do what Jesus has asked us to do. And if we cannot do what Jesus has asked us to do, the world cannot get saved.

So in the end times, deception will increase to try to keep us in captivity, so that we will not do the very things that Jesus has asked us to do, causing us to live in rebellion instead of obedience. And because of this disobedience, people will not be blessed, saved, and set free, because the gospel will not be preached to all the world.

FAITH AND OBEDIENCE ARE JOINED TOGETHER

"Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name" (Rom. 1:5).

Obedience and faith are linked together, but law and grace are opposites. Law and faith are opposites. You may think that obedience sounds legalistic, and say, "I don't want to be legalistic. I want to be free. I want to be free!"

Obedience is not hooked up with works or legalism. Obedience is joined together with faith. It is this obedience that will produce freedom, purity, and truth in your life. To walk in faith or a lifestyle of faith, you must be in obedience to God. This means that we cannot claim a lifestyle of just saying that we accept the grace of God, that we love God, and then fail to act in obedience to His Word. Only when faith is joined together with obedience, will holiness be manifest.

Let's define holiness. Holiness means separation. It's to draw a line between the world and God. Holiness means being taken out of the world and being set apart for God. Holiness doesn't mean you are perfect and complete, never making any mistakes. It means that you are set apart for the Holy Spirit to sanctify, cleanse, strengthen and help you.

Every true Christian loves holiness because there are things in your life that are not the way they really should be. The Bible declares that in Christ we have tremendous freedom. Nonetheless, liberty in Christ does not mean that we are free from Christ changing, correcting, challenging, exhorting, and sometimes even rebuking us.

A HOLY, LOVING GOD CHASTENS US

"But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He [God] for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it"
(Heb. 12:8-11).

We profit from God's chastening. This means that if we want to partake of the real life, which comes from the Holy Spirit (called the life of holiness), then we must expect a chastening process in our lives. At times, we might not like it, but it's for our profit. There are certain things that don't feel good, taste good, or appear good, but they are good. Our loving Father chastens us for real profit, real life, and real holiness to make us more like Jesus.

AMAZING GRACE, NOT CRAZY GRACE

We need to talk about grace. We need to talk about amazing grace, not crazy grace.

What's crazy grace? It's just misusing the grace of God for our own benefit, staying rebellious, under a cover of religion, and doing what we want to do. We can throw away half the Bible that doesn't please us and live in our pleasures, continue in our sins and still confess that we are a believer and that God loves us.

Now, God loves everyone. The Bible said, "For God so loved the world." God loves all humanity. That's why He saved you. He saves sinners. He doesn't just save the righteous. He doesn't save perfect people.

You don't need to be perfect or do a lot of things to get the approval of God. You already have the approval of God through Christ Jesus.

It is up to us to live a life that allows Jesus to shine through us; the life that God expects and will help us to live. This is walking in grace through faith and obedience.

In this way, we will conquer, live in victory, live in holiness, and live differently than the world. We will be more and more like Jesus, and will be the light and the salt in this earth. This is not legalism -- IT'S freedom.

You see, we're above and not beneath, we are the head and not the tail. We're not ashamed of Jesus. And if we walk differently from the world, it's because Jesus wants us to. In turn, He will satisfy us, strengthen us, bless us, and uphold us. He will take care of us and provide for us.

In Titus 2:11, we read about the grace of God, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." That's a wonderful statement. But God's grace is very clear for us to understand.

Firstly, it's a decision from God to put into our account freedom, when we really are slaves. He pronounces us innocent when we really are guilty. It is a word spoken from heaven, to us as sinners, that because of Jesus, we have now been accounted the righteousness of God. We are pardoned. We have been set free from the sentence of guilt and shame.

Secondly, grace is also an enabling ability. Because Paul said, "By the grace of God I've worked more than you all" (1 Cor. 15:10). So it's a strength and a force; it's a power flowing in our lives. This is the message of grace which we need to hear; the grace that we now stand in and that the Bible talks so clearly about. If we interpret that wrongly, it gives us an erroneous license to live a worldly lifestyle.

REAL FREEDOM IN CHRIST

All of us "died" to come alive. You lived in sin and now are dead to your sins. Before you were saved, you were free to do what you wanted in the world because you were still a slave of sin. But now, you've been set free from being a slave to sin. The minute you become free in Christ, you become a slave to righteousness, or as Paul says, "a bondservant of our Lord Jesus Christ."

To some people, freedom means, "I'll do whatever I want, whenever I want and in whatever fashion I want. And if there are any rules, I'll break them because I want to be free." But that's the worldly concept of freedom. Freedom in the Bible doesn't mean that. They misinterpret the term "freedom" for the word "anarchy." Anarchy says, "I will do my thing whenever I want to do it, however I want to do it all the time because I'm free."

Yet, true freedom in the biblical sense means coming into your purpose of existence. It means being tied to your Creator. It means being locked into that which is your godly destiny. Freedom means being put in something larger than yourself. So when you're in Christ Jesus, you are truly free.

Titus 2:11 says: "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." In verse 12, Paul says that the grace of God will teach us that "denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age."

So what will grace do? Grace will not lead you into a false freedom that is nothing but religious rebellion. Grace will not lead you into a legalism that tries to force you into obedience. True grace from God leads you to deny ungodliness, worldly lusts and teaches you to live soberly, righteously and with all godliness.

We must understand grace, obedience, faith, and true freedom, otherwise we will be an easy prey to deception in the end times.

LAWLESSNESS IN THE END TIMES

In Matthew 24, Jesus warned that in the end times, lawlessness will increase. "Nomos" is Greek for law. "Antinomos" is against law or not law, lawless, without law. So "antinomos" means, "I don't want the law." Now, it's true, we are free from the law, but that does not equate to lawlessness.

Lawlessness is a negative term in the Bible. It's actually the strongest term in the Bible that describes sin; it means a conscious effort to change and pervert the laws and principles of God.

Lawlessness says, "I will twist the law of God, and make it into something that fits me. I will change things that God has said. I'll pervert it. I will create a sense of false freedom so that I can continue to be a lover of self, of money, of pleasure, and of the world. I will not abdicate. I will challenge God. And I will change Him."

The spirit of lawlessness will put emphasis on power, miracles, grace, and a form of love, without producing the fruit of the Spirit in the life of believers. It preaches love such that the fear of God disappears, because it will just define love as God accepting anything we do all the time, regardless of wrong or right. Lawlessness is, in essence, cheap grace.

We must understand that God doesn't need us; we need Him. And if we don't change by the power of God, we will forever be without His power, authority and holiness. But if we change, we will be able to come into His presence in holy obedience through the blood of Jesus Christ.

God is preparing us for the end time harvest; for the end time prophetic fulfillment. He is filling us with the whole counsel of God that will empower us to keep the faith, run the race, and fulfill our calling in Him.

Live a life where Christ is in the center. Choose to live under God's amazing grace, not the cheap grace that the world offers, and you will experience many breakthroughs and see entire nations changed under the power of the Almighty God.

Rev. Dr. Ulf Ekman is the Director of the Board for Word of Life Ministries. Together with his wife Birgitta, he travels extensively around the world establishing centers for leadership training.
gid posted at 14:40