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The Coming Increase of Christ in His House
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way.’”
In the light of God’s great promises, how are we to respond? Since we are anticipating a season in which God will sum up before the nations His ongoing eternal work among men, what is to be our present priority? Of course, the answer is that we must draw close to Him and seek to recognize and understand His sovereign initiatives in our own generation.
What good does it do to speak of God’s activities at the end of this age, if we do not perceive His present work? And of course, we do want Him to arise in fresh ways today. But do we even realize what we are asking for? For example, Isaiah prophesied that the Lord would ride into Egypt on a swift cloud (Isaiah 19). But what would happen when He did so? Many Egyptians would turn against each other causing great national division. Then the economy would turn sour causing many people to become deeply troubled. Finally, the Lord would give to Egypt foolish leadership so that the nation’s problems would be compounded (See vs. 1-15). Does any of this sound familiar?
In our day, many believers have been praying over a number of years that the Lord would arise powerfully in our land. But many have also become discouraged because they expected immediate glorious times with many people being born of the Spirit and many experiencing physical healing. Of course, all of us want to see such a great national spiritual awakening. But the parallels between what Egypt experienced many years ago with what is presently occurring among us are quite amazing. Is it that the Lord heard our prayers and began to arise in our nation in ways few were expecting?
Today, like in ancient Egypt, division runs deep in America. Many are in a rage at those on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Meanwhile, our economy has been badly shaken and our political leadership seems to not understand their great need for humility before God.
So what is happening? God’s relentless agenda is emerging out of Heaven. When Jesus instructed us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come, He was telling us to invite Heaven’s program. And while He has heard our invitation, His response has not been exactly what we expected. But it is the one that Heaven has deemed appropriate. Ultimately, only one agenda will survive human history, and it won’t be ours…and it most certainly won’t be the Islamists, secular humanists, Communists, or the Capitalists. God is arising for the sake of His own name; God’s Kingdom is emerging.
Similarly, when Jesus ministered in Israel two thousand years ago, He wasn’t exactly what people were expecting. Instead of a glorious king, He came as one casting seed into various kinds of ground, declaring that the results would be very mixed. Some people’s hearts were as good fertile ground, while others were as stony or thorny ground. But the seed sown into all the various hearts was the same; it was the gospel of the Kingdom of God. So how is it that such a pure Source and such a powerful message would have such mixed results? Could the condition of the individual people’s hearts make that much of a difference?
Often He would deliver His Word and then conclude with a prophetic declaration that went something like this: “Let hearing occur in those who want to hear.” [9] Then one day after Jesus had told the parable of the sower, some listeners along with the twelve came to Him and asked its meaning (Mark 4:10). Upon seeing their hearts to understand, He told them that the mystery of God’s Kingdom was now given to them.
Why would the Lord open up the mysteries of eternity to these particular people and not to others who had also heard the same parable? Was it that their hearts were good ground? And what was it that revealed their better heart condition? Very simply, they came to Him and asked for insight. For the rest, Jesus said that all things would come in parables.
I used to think that He was referring only to how He would speak to the crowds—that His teaching would be in the form of parables. But that is not exactly what He said. He actually said that all things, i.e., everything in life would come to them in parables.
A parable is simply an illustrative story. And in our day, everybody is confronted from every direction by the various storylines of those with something to sell. The Capitalists have a storyline. The Socialists have a storyline. The promoters of Darwin’s theories have theirs as well. And on it goes. For those who do not know God, all of life is a barrage of stories. But for those who turn to God and ask questions, He offers insights into the mysteries of His Kingdom, truth that will set men free.
In Jesus’ day it was no different. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, the Romans etc., all had their various agendas and promotional stories. When Jesus showed up with His parables, to many people He was just another voice among many with an agenda to promote. So they did not even bother to come to Him and ask for insight.
But He was not just another voice among many. He was the Lord God of Heaven and Earth. And He was announcing the only agenda that had a future, one that would endure beyond the boundaries of time itself.
One unique aspect of Jesus’ stories is that they had a two-fold function—they obscured the truth from some people and illustrated the same truth to others. As a result, a great separation began to occur; Jesus came to cause division (Matthew 10:34-36). In fact, He stated that the reason He spoke to the nation in parables was so that in hearing His message, they would not understand lest they should turn and have their sins forgiven (Mark 4:11-12).
Essentially, His teaching was as a sword that made a separation in the Jewish nation, assuring destruction to many and salvation to others. Many in Israel were choosing a wide road to great loss and others were discovering the narrow road to life. Keep in mind that as many would reap devastation, God’s strategy was that they would come to their senses, cry to Him for mercy, and be saved. In other words, though destruction begins in this life because of the hardness of the human heart, such ruin does not have to be mankind’s eternal destiny. God’s intent is that mercy would triumph over judgment. As a result, many Jews who rejected Christ in His earthly ministry, later realized their great loss, repented, and then received Him in the power of the Holy Spirit causing the Jewish Church to grow by many thousands in the first century.
God’s truth always divides; it separates soul from spirit, and judges the motives of men’s hearts. As a result, people divide from each other because some will hear and respond to His Word while others will not. For them more destruction lies yet in their future.
So here is a question. Was Christ’s intention to obscure the Kingdom from the very people to whom He was sent to reveal it? The answer is—absolutely, if further judgment was what they needed to awaken them.
Thousands of years after God rode into Egypt on a cloud, that nation today continues very divided, its leadership has not turned to the Lord, and its economy remains weak. Yet Isaiah informs us that massive spiritual revival will one day come to Egypt (Isaiah 19:18-25). The only question to consider is how long it will take before the hearts of the Egyptian people become fertile ground for the Word of the Kingdom. How much further pain lies in their future? And who is God sending to sow seed in their midst in our day?
But we need to face the same question as we consider not only our nation, but also the Christian Church here. Can we say that the hearts of God’s people in America are all as good fertile soil for the Word of the Kingdom?
And if not, can it be that the Holy Spirit who has been poured out to reveal Christ as Lord, is presently withholding insight from us because there is so much stony and thorny ground in our midst? And also, how much pain lies in our future until we turn to God with a whole heart?
Jesus then asked His disciples a rather obvious question. Would people buy a lamp in order to stick it under a bushel? Of course not. Yet that is exactly what God was doing. Jesus would proclaim truth, obscure it in a story, and then release hearing in those who had come to the end of their personal road of destruction.[10]
But God was not hiding truth because He wanted to keep the listeners at a distance. It was just the opposite; He wanted Israel to draw near. This truth is confirmed throughout the Law and the Prophets. Again and again, the Lord called His people to come to Him; how often He wanted to gather them together as a hen gathers her chicks, but many simply would not come.
Today it is the same. The whole Earth is coming to a great confrontation with the living God. He is going to sum up what He has been saying for thousands of years. It is crucial that in our generation we turn from our ways and listen for what our part is to be in preparation for those coming days.
Notice Jesus’ next words.
For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.
How He wanted people to hear. How He wanted them to see the foolishness of their ways, and turn to Him and be saved. In fact, He even said that as listeners we could determine the quantity of our hearing. The measure we would use would determine what He would measure back to us (Mark 4:24).
To illustrate this, let us suppose that someone offered to give one hundred dollar bills to all who came to him. All we would have to do is bring whatever container we wanted filled. If someone brought a small drinking glass, he would indeed walk away with more than he had before. But how wise would be the one who brought a dump truck.
God has hidden His Kingdom so that we might turn from our destructions and cry out to Him not halfheartedly but with a wide-open heart. To this generation, I believe the Lord would say, “Let hearing come to those who have ears to hear.”
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