What
Generates Your Life?
MF Blume
February
18, 2001 pm
1
Peter 2:9 But ye
are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a
peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath
called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Matthew 3:7-11
But
when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he
said unto them, O
generation of vipers,
who hath warned you
to flee from the wrath to come? Bring
forth therefore fruits
meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have
Abraham
to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to
raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the
axe is laid unto
the root of the trees:
therefore every tree
which
bringeth not forth good fruit
is hewn down, and cast into
the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that
cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to
bear:
he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
Jesus
spoke to the same Pharisees.
Matthew
23:33 Ye
serpents, ye generation
of vipers,
how can ye escape the
damnation of hell?
John 8:32-34 And
ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They
answered
him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how
sayest
thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
John 8:37-44 I
know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my
word
hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my Father:
and
ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said
unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If
ye were
Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
But now ye
seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard
of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said
they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even
God.
Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I
proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he
sent
me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my
word. Ye
are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father
ye will do.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not
in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie,
he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
A generator produces a generation.
-
The generation from an electric generator is
electricity.
-
A generation is that which is generated.
John the Baptist spoke to the Pharisees and said
they were a
generation
of vipers.
-
Their lives were generated by serpents.
-
They did things that we would call a
generation... their sins and their
evils.
The opposite of that is the
chosen generation called
the
Church.
-
What generates your life?
Notice that John spoke of the aspects of trees as
he spoke to the
generation
of vipers.
-
Of course this goes back to the two trees.
-
The serpent urged the woman to eat of the
forbidden tree.
-
Her life became a generation of that tree.
-
John the Baptist said that the
fruit is
what God is concerned
with.
-
The axe is laid to the root of the tree.
-
God is going right back to the beginning where
the tree of the
knowledge
of good and evil generated sin in the life of Adam and Eve.
-
Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is
hewn down.
-
Trees generate fruit in the branches
-
What generates your life?
-
What fruit is coming forth from your life?
When God called Moses in the wilderness, notice
the details.
Exodus
3:3-5 And Moses said,
I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not
burnt.
And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him
out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here
am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy
feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Moses was in that desert for 40 years.
-
Forty is the number of one generation.
-
You could say that the death of his fleshly
ways ceased that day.
-
A generation ended.
-
His flesh generated actionsin his life.
-
He came to the place where God could have His
way in Moses now.
For example:
Exodus
4:10 And Moses said
unto the LORD, O my Lord, I
am not eloquent,
neither heretofore,
nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech,
and
of a slow tongue.
However we read the following:
Acts
7:22 And
Moses was learned
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,
and was
mighty in words
and in deeds.
Why did he say he was not eloquent, and then we
read in Acts that he
was
mighty in words?
-
Does the bible contradict itself?
-
No.
-
Moses used to be eloquent, having learned all
the education that Egypt
provided.
-
But that was flesh generating that ability.
-
Egypt's schools taught how to let flesh
generate your life.
-
And when Moses tried to defeat Egypt using
fleshly energy, he killed
one
Egyptian and had to flee for his life when Pharaoh heard about it.
-
That is all that Moses flesh generated for
Moses.
However, that "generation" died.
-
God could now generate Moses.
-
Moses was not a stutterer.
-
He simply abandoned fleshly skillfulness.
-
It cannot bless anybody.
-
Flesh gets in the way of God's desire to
generate His power through
your
life.
-
What generates your life?
-
Do you do more evil than good?
All of the carnality that Moses acquired in Egypt
was stripped away
from
him.
-
Moses entered a sort of Holiest of Holies.
-
You cannot enter this realm with God until
your generation of flesh is
removed and gone.
-
Passing forty years through the wilderness to
see Moses so changed that
he abandoned fleshly generation, represents the period you need to
experience
that removes fleshly generating in your life.
Joshua was with the Hebrews as they were ready to
conquer Canaan.
-
But the people doubted that they could conquer
the giants in Canaan.
-
Joshua felt they could, for he knew that God
was with them.
-
But the doubters outnumbered the people of
faith.
Forty years passed, and these doubters died.
-
Just like Moses, the forty year period saw the
generation of flesh die
away.
-
In Moses' case it was his fleshly skill gained
from Egyptian education
-
In Joshua's case, it was the actual older
generation of people.
-
But the message was the same in both cases.
-
A GENERATION OF FLESHLINESS PASSED AWAY.
Joshua 5:13-15 And it came to pass,
when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and,
behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his
hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or
for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of
the
LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did
worship,
and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? And the captain
of the LORD'S host said unto Joshua, Loose
thy shoe from off thy foot;
for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.
Where did we read of removing one's shoes before?
-
Moses was told the same thing after 40 years.
-
And now Joshua, after forty years, and the
removal of the generation of
flesh, hears the same command.
-
Joshua saw the Jordan river rip open, as if it
were the veil before the
holiest of holies in the tabernacle, that ripped open when Jesus died,
and he entered the promised land.
-
The fleshly generation was gone.
-
He entered holy ground.
The removal of shoes speaks of cessation from
walking your own way and
the beginning of walking the way that God wants us to walk.
When Moses saw the burning
bush, he saw a representation of something.
-
A network of branches on fire.
-
God was in the midst.
-
The branches were not being consumed.
-
Fleshliness was burned away, so to speak, and
all that remained was
that
which could not be burned.
In Revelation chapter 1, John also saw Christ in
the midst of a set of
burning branches.
-
And the Lord within the branches appeared as
gold and brass.
-
The metal man.
-
You cannot burn gold and brass.
-
And when we get to the fullness of the stature
of Christ, there will be
no fleshliness that will have to burned away in His fire.
-
His fire burns away fleshliness.
-
Let the Holy Ghost burn away all the
fleshliness.
-
If flesh is generating your lives, then al of
that will be burned.
When there is grudges in christians' lives towards
other christians,
until
they cannot talk to one another, all of that is generation of flesh and
the serpent.
-
God cannot use a christian with that kind of
generation in the lives.
-
Christians watching soap operas with
homosexuals and adultery and
fornication
are generating trash in their lives.
-
They are plugged into the generator of sin and
fleshliness.
-
Christians so concerned over fashion are
generating that which God's
glory
will burn away.
-
The sad thing is that some believers generate
nothing but fleshliness,
and they will burn away with the generation in their lives.
Joshua threatened an angel, due to his boldness
and courage, having
seen
the last of the generation of doubters die away in the wilderness.
-
He did not initially know that it was an
angel, but his boldness was
evident.
John saw the churches like branches stemmed from
Jesus.
The
Life of Jesus was the LIGHT OF MEN.
-
Jesus
is in the midst of the candlesticks.
-
He
is the vine and we are the branches.
-
The
fruit we produce is LIGHT.
-
And
this light is the LIFE.
-
It
is the TREE OF LIFE!
The
fruit of LIFE is the LIGHT OF MEN.
John
15:1-5 I
am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me
that
beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean
through
the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As
the
branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no
more
can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He
that
abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for
without
me ye can do nothing.
God
wants to use us in this dark world.
-
He
wants to generate LIGHT through our lives.
-
He
is the tree of life.
-
We
are His branches.
-
But
what generates our lives?
-
What
comes from our lives?
-
What
is pumping its life through us and producing
what works?
Jesus
wants to pump His life through a like sap through
a branch.
-
And
the fruit that will result is LIGHT.
But
the generation of flesh has to be removed from
working in our lives.
-
I
do enjoy so much hearing a saint of God testify
in Church in the power of the Holy Ghost.
-
But
there's nothing more boring than a 15 minute
testimony that is in the flesh.
-
Flesh
it blesses nobody.
Most
of the Christian denominational world is simply
a generation of flesh.
Let us allow the Lord to
burn His
light through
our lives and to generate the light of life.
-
Ask
God to cleanse you from your carnality and the
grudges and hatreds you may have in your hearts.
-
Repentance
is so vital if you wish to produce fruit
of light in your lives.
-
John
the Baptist demanded fruits that suited true
repentance.
-
What
is that fruit?
-
LIGHT!
Treat
people the way Jesus did.
Jesus spoke of a master
who demanded
the equivalent
of millions of dollars from a poor man.
-
The
man realized he could not pay it and would be
taken to prison and his wife and children sold.
-
He
begged the master to forgive him.
-
The
master had pity and forgave the man.
The
man then confronted a neighbour who owed him
only twenty dollars.
-
Not
being able to receive the payment, he had the
man thrown in prison.
-
When
the master discovered what was done, he was
wroth and demanded the forgiven man once again pay the millions.
-
And
he was thrown in prison until he could pay the
millions.
-
That
is a never-ending prison term.
Jesus
forgave us of an entire "generation" of sin.
-
He
made us new creatures, it was such a perfect work!
-
But
if we are genuinely wronged by a brother or sister,
and we refuse to forgive that one, then the Lord will revoke His
forgiveness
and it will damn our souls!
Is
your life a life of unforgiveness, and anger and
bitterness over past troubles?
-
You
refuse to let go of the genuine wrongs done against
you?
-
Its
not a matter of whether or not those wrongs were
genuine.
-
So
what if they were?
-
The
devil is one who generates the pride that accompanies
the soul who refuses to forgive.
-
You
are not God.
-
But
you act like you are God when you demand everyone
treat you right.
-
And
Satan is the one who exalted himself to be as
God.
What
generates your life?
-
Clear
your life of sin and carnality and such things.
-
Become
a true branch that shines forth a generation
of God's light.
Egypt
is often compared to the world from which we
are saved.
-
However,
the Hebrews there in slavery were already
God's people.
-
They
were bound, though.
-
Today
many of God's people are just as bound in being
a generation of the devil.
-
They
make the bricks and actually add to the kingdom
of the world rather than the kingdom of God.
-
They
commit too many works of the flesh.
-
Hatred,
jealousy.
-
Bitterness.
-
And
someone who is a branch burning with the fire
of God's light needs to go and bring them out, so they can do what God
called them to do.
-
We
must manifest Christ in our lives.
You
are called to a ministry of some kind.
-
What
is generating your life?
-
Are
doing anything for God?
God
did not call you to church attendance, and nothing
more.
-
Let
your light shine!
-
God
wants to use you in the gifts of the Spirit!
-
All
of you!
(We will continue this thought in the
following
sermons.)