By Pastor Andrew – 4 March 2018

How long will God condone carnality? Answer, till it injures you.
Don’t cut off people’s ears, they need it to hear – Peter and Malchus (king or kingdom representative). You can carry your carnality – knife with you without Jesus complaining, it doesn’t mean He approves (JN. 18:10-11). You get to a point when you are supposed to know better – Paul in 1Cor. 13:11; Eccl. 10:16.
2 extreme cases where God spoke up (Ex. 4:21-25: Num. 22:22-32. Num. 31:8, Josh. 13:22).

We live in the age of prophecies fulfilling, yet we gloss over them, instead of using them as the standard to measure our walk with God. 2Tim. 3:5 is one – people will have a form of godliness. As we long as we are in the latter/perilous times, the spirit will come after anybody that wants to practice Christianity. So first, there is a spirit of “form of godliness” roaming seeking whom it may devour. We need to live with that daily! What’s the meaning of the word “form” and what is the meaning of the word “godliness”? that should help us to pin it down.
Form – mere (not real), semblance – something that resemble something – not the original.

Godliness is reverence, respect, piety towards God, holiness.
A “semblance of holiness” or 90% holiness is not acceptable – because what we call holiness is actually the nature and character of God (Hab. 1:13; Heb. 4: 14-15; 2Cor. 5:21). We are not better than old Israel that God sentenced to captivity for their sins. See His comments against them in Ezek. 36. 1 –

Yahweh
In the ancient world, names communicated something about a person’s character. See Ex. 3:12-14. In Ex. 3:15 Ex. 6:3.
Name discussed (Gen. 11:4 2Sam.7:23 Prov. 22:1). Name is SHEM i.e. fame, glory, reputation, memorial, monument. Strong: An appellation as a mark or memorial of individuality – by implication, honour and authority.
How do we meet His standard to maintain fellowship with Him that will take us to the Promised Land? There’s the crossing of Jordan in front of everyone before you get to the Promised Land. What is Jordan? Understanding this will help us. It means to descend, sink, to subdue, run down, to bring down – all from YARAD the root word for YARDEN which means one going down – descender. See Gen. 11:7; Gen. 26:2; Gen. 18:20-21
Crucified with Christ is total and true Christianity (Gal. 2:20; 1Cor. 2:2; 2Cor. 5:16;)

Character Upgrade
Because we live in Satan’s World
• Eph. 2:1-3
• Ps. 58:3
Those who serve the Lord must not bring in what they have, rather, their character must be suitable for the Lord’s use. This is possible only after you have gone through the process of refinement – character upgrade like Abraham and Moses.
• See Col. 3:10; Rm. 13:14; 1Cor. 13:11; Gal. 3:27; Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3:14

Inside Egypt
The Exodus, note He didn’t tell them they were going to the Promised Land; He said, let my people go that they may worship me” (Ex. 4:5).
And here, the Lord began to lay a condition for heaven: unless you worship God in spirit and in truth (live to please Him John. 4:26) you don’t deserve heaven, the City of God. Also, by this statement God was questioning their knowledge of Him and their faithfulness – consistency. The desert and the hardships would unveil their nature.
You need to understand that the Lord will not use the things of man alone. Your talents or other forms of endowment by themselves are not useful to Him. They can only be useful to Him if He is the one using them – telling you what to do and what not to do. That was the first lesson Moses learnt, in the burning bush episode where the bush was burning but it was not consuming the wood.
God was showing him that He does not need what he has. He had been a general and a state builder in Egypt; these characteristics were of no use to God by themselves. God had to unlearn him – drop the nature of Egypt so that He could fill him with godly qualities needed for the job at hand.
• 2Cor. 4:7
• 2Cor. 3
Our person must have been dealt with by the cross. (Matt. 16:24-28)
(1Pet. 2:21)