Grand Theft Donkey or a Mission From God? – Purity 823

Grand Theft Donkey or a
Mission From God? – Purity 823

Purity 823 08/30/2022  Purity 823 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a fiery sunset over a river pathway
comes to us from an anonymous friend who shared this scene on social media on or
around June 21st, 2021.  The details behind
this scene have been lost to time, or at least from my memory, but the sheer
beauty that was captured demanded to be released from the confines of my phone’s
photo archive. 

But If the photographer would like to share their
identity or the location of their photo, contact me and I will update this post.  Or I will change the photo, and text, if I am
stepping out of bounds again.  

Just like the disciples sent to take a pair of donkeys
for Christ to ride into Jerusalem on I felt the Lord had need of it and will seek
forgiveness from any offended party, if necessary, because I know that because
of God’s grace and my faith in Jesus Christ, I am secure in the forgiveness of
the Lord.  I might offend people but I
know I am “good” with God.  In truth, God
made all things so they sort of belong to Him. 
I’m just trying to use what He made to give Him some glory. 

While I am not necessarily encouraging others to be
reckless by “asking for forgiveness, rather than permission” with a grace
covering, sometimes we have to take risks and be bold rather than cower in fear
of what others may say.  And not for nothing,
Christ didn’t exactly tell the disciples to ask “pretty please with sugar on
top” when they procured those donkeys.

Matthew 21:1-3 (NKJV) says
¹  Now when they drew near
Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two
disciples,
²  saying to them, “Go
into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and
a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me.
³  And if anyone says anything
to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will
send them.”

 

In essence, Christ told the disciples to
“get ‘er done”.  No seeking of permission
here. Not only that, his wording sort of indicates not to take “No” for an
answer. “IF anyone says anything to you… say “the Lord has need of them and
they will immediately send them.”  

Of course, this was the Lord’s will, the
donkeys would be a part of fulfilling an Old Testament prophecy of the
Messiah. 

Matthew
21:4-5 (NKJV)
⁴  All this was done that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying:
⁵  “Tell the daughter
of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, Lowly, and sitting
on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.’ “

So
Jesus knew that nothing would stand in their way, or at least would not
successfully stand in their way.   And although
the disciples may have been doubtful.

Matthew 21:6 (NKJV) tells us
⁶  So the disciples went and
did as Jesus commanded them.

The disciples got it done.  And the rest is Palm Sunday History!

So be bold and courageous!

But also be prepared to discover that we don’t have
the perfect knowledge of Jesus and all the things that we think that would be “good
for God and us!” will probably not fulfill prophecy and may not necessarily be God’s
will.  

You may run into resistance. You may be rejected. You
may fail and be humbled.  

But guess what? You never know until you try. And a
large part of living by faith and walking in the Spirit is in deciding to act
on what we believe to be God’s will for us without being sure.  

When we step out in faith, we may fail or we may
succeed, but we will never know and we never grow unless we try to follow what
we believe to be God’s guidance.   

As someone who has run into a fair amount of “walls”
when I thought I could “see” around the next corner, let me encourage you to “go
for it” or to “do it afraid”, because whether it is the “lady or the tiger” on
the other side of the door of faith that you choose to walk through, it will be
used by God as part of your journey. 

Either we will rejoice of the good things we discover
though our acts of faith, or we will be humbled and reminded of just how much
we don’t know and how much we desperately need the Lord in our life.    

That’s walking in the Spirit! No matter what we
encounter, God is with us and will use our successes or our “trials and errors”
to bring us closer to Him. 

So keep walking and talking with God and follow those
intuitions and promptings to do something you wouldn’t normally think to do.

Yesterday, I had a service call to an older gentleman
who had health problems and had difficulty navigating the stairs to his
upstairs apartment so he threw down his keys. 
When I got inside and asked about the trouble he was having with his
phone service, I got a long list of complaints about his physical well-being.  He seemed like a nice enough guy but when customers
start telling you their life story or problems, you usually want to get about
your business and get out of there and I did.  

But while I was in my van waiting on the phone with
tech support to fix his problems, I got a “feeling” to talk to this man about
the Lord.  And at first I’m like, “Sure…Lord.
That guy? Oh brother…”

But after I finally got his problem fixed and was back
in his apartment to tell him I was done, I looked around and noticed a Bible
and some “Our Daily Bread” devotionals. 
So after I wrapped up my spiel about the phone service being fixed. I mentioned
his Bible and we proceeded to have a conversation about God in which this man
told me even more of his story. 

It turns out this man, “John” was 79 years old and is
a Viet Nam veteran. John had always lived fast. He like to smoke and drink and
actually owned two “hot rods” in his youth. 
But about 16 years ago during a routine check up it was discovered that he
had a tumor in his heart.  His health
problems caused him to “settle down” and downsize.  He sold house and his hot rods and moved to
the more manageable apartment that I found him in.

His tumor was taken care of by surgery but when that
happened, John decided that beyond medical expertise he “needed HELP” because
he knew if he died he wouldn’t be going to a good place.  So he sought the Lord and he found the help
he needed at a nearby church.  

John still smokes but He stopped drinking and now all
his old friends complain that he “found religion” but even though John recently
suffered a stroke and other aches and pains, he testified that he has peace and
because of his turning to God and putting his faith in Jesus Christ, he knows
that he will be with the Lord when he dies and won’t be going to the bad
place.  

So I told John that I don’t normally about God to all
my customers but that when I was sitting in the van the Lord “told” me to talk
to him. And so I encouraged John and told him that even though he is suffering
and alone a lot of the time, that I believed that the Lord sent me to tell him,
that God was with him and he wasn’t alone.  

John thanked me and I wished him a good day.   

And as I walked back to my van, I felt the “Holy Spirit
come over me”  as I was greatly
encouraged by being bold enough to step our in faith and to encourage this man I
never met.

This is walking in the Spirit. We do what the Lord puts
on our hearts even if we its awkward and we aren’t sure of what will
happen.   For every misstep or offense we
may encounter, there will be times like yesterday when we can know that we
stepped into God’s will for our lives, to know Him and to make Him known. 

So be bold. Be courageous. Take what the “Lord has
need of” and bring it to where He tells you to go.   We can always apologize if we get it wrong
but honestly, because of Christ, we are forgiven, so even if we mess up it’s
okay, and amazingly even our blunders will be used to make us rely on Him more and
grow into the people He wants us to be.  So “grab that donkey” and let’s go.

—————————————————————————————————————

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Psalm 145:18 (NKJV)
¹⁸  The LORD is near to all who call upon
Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.

Today’s verse reminds us that the Lord is near to all who call
upon Him and that sincerity matters.  

God knows us. He knows our hearts. He knows our minds.  And He knows who are His children.  

For us in the New Testament era, today’s verse describes our status
as God’s adopted children when we put our faith in Christ. When we call upon
the Lord, and call upon Him in truth, meaning when we sincerely put our faith
and trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, God is not only near to us,
His Holy Spirit – The Holy Spirit – comes to indwell us.  

You can’t get any closer to God than that, right? 

Wrong! You can get closer to God!

Yes, The Holy Spirit is with everyone who puts their faith in
Christ, but we can are brought closer to God when we surrender to His will for
our lives and decide to live for Him. 

If you doubt that, take a look around at the folks who identify
as Christian.  While all of us are in Christ,
some of us have more spiritual maturity than others.  Some call on the Lord all day long, but haven’t
answered the call to follow Him in repentance!

So, let’s be real. Let’s be true and be sure to call on the Lord
to know His presence but to also be true to the call that He puts on our lives
to follow Him.  

______________________________________________________________________

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we continue sharing from Clinton E. Arnold’s
“Powers of Darkness”

As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase Clinton Arnold’s books for your own
private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.

The Recent Work of Walter Wink

Walter
Wink, professor of biblical interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary, is
currently undertaking an extensive analysis of the powers in a projected
trilogy of books. Wink’s study represents the quest of a person intent on
discerning the nature of structural evil in light of the biblical evidence. His
experience of living for a period of time in Latin America and witnessing
extensive social and political oppression appears to have moved him profoundly.
In the process Wink has neither abandoned the modern world view nor adopted a
belief in the real existence of personal evil spirits and angels. Rather, he
endeavors to probe more deeply into the meaning of the spiritual and reaches
the conclusion that principalities and powers are “the inner and outer aspects
of any given manifestation of power.” He continues, “As the inner aspect they
are the spirituality of institutions, the ‘within’ of corporate structures and
systems, the inner essence of outer organizations of power. As the outer aspect
they are political systems, appointed officials, the ‘chair’ of an
organization, laws—in short, all the tangible manifestations which power
takes.”

Wink’s interpretation
of the powers is already wielding significant influence on evangelical
thinkers, especially those working in the area of social ethics. His
thought-provoking and influential work demands a focused critique. I have
provided a substantive response to Wink’s position in another context.¹⁵
I will summarize a few important observations here.

First, as we saw in
chapter thirteen, Wink admits the bias with which he approaches the text. He
concedes he cannot bring himself to believe in the actual existence of evil
spirits. This bias constrains him to find another explanation for the phenomena
that Paul refers to as “principalities and powers.” Discontent with the
inadequacy of the “structures” interpretation to explain the invisible inner
aspect of material reality that is associated with the principalities and
powers, Wink applies the unique understanding of myth as explained by
psychologist Carl Jung to interpret the powers. By doing this he preserves
something uniquely “spiritual” to the powers. He describes the ontological
status of the principalities and powers, not as real angelic or spirit
entities, but as “an inner spirit or driving force that animates, legitimates,
and regulates its physical manifestation in the world.” For Wink the heavenly
powers are not merely human projections of material existence that serve to
validate institutions. They are real and are experienced in the sense that they
are the interiority or the spirituality of earthly institutions, systems and
forces.¹⁷

If I could agree with
Wink at his starting point of denying the real existence of evil spirits, I
would find his explanation to be quite plausible. Since I do believe in the
real existence of this realm, however, I find his explanation of the powers
unnecessary and even erroneous. If the powers are indeed creatures with
intelligence and will, they are not part of myth (in the sense propounded by
Wink). Therefore, it is inappropriate to apply the Jungian psychological
category of myth to interpret their meaning.

Second, Wink has
suggested that Paul himself had already taken key steps toward demythologizing
the language of demons, spirits and devils by interpreting them into the
abstract categories of sin, law, flesh and death. In my analysis of the
language of power in the New Testament, I can see no basis for suggesting that
Paul was intending his readers to understand his references to the powers in a
symbolic sense. When he spoke about the principalities and powers, he was
referring to real, living entities who brought terror and inflicted harm. On
this topic all his readers, regardless of religious affiliation, would have
understood him. Furthermore, if Wink is right, then the church has
misunderstood Paul through the time of the Reformation.

Third, Wink arrives
at his interpretation of the powers partly based on his analysis of the
language of power in the New Testament. Noticing that a word like authority can be used by the same writer
in reference to Satan and also with reference to human authorities, he
concludes that the language of power in the New Testament is imprecise, liquid
and interchangeable. In fact, he later argues that one term can be made to
represent all the uses. In applying these preliminary conclusions to the
powers, Wink sets forth the following thesis: “Unless the context further
specifies (and some do), we are to take the terms for power in their most comprehensive
sense, understanding them to mean both heavenly and earthly, divine and human,
good and evil.” Consequently, as he approaches a text like Colossians 1:16 or 1
Corinthians 2:6–8, he concludes that both the human and demonic are intended.

I am quite uncomfortable
with his treatment of the language of power. His method of analysis sidesteps
the concerns of modern linguistic theory. I believe that he commits a
methodological error known as an “illegitimate totality transfer.” This error
occurs when a total series of relations in which a word is used in the
literature is read into a particular case. Each context must determine which
meaning, among the range of possible meanings, is appropriate to that context.
In other words, if my wife says, “Look at those animals!” on the one hand, she
may be referring to a display of lions in the zoo. On the other hand, she may
be at home looking out the window at a group of rowdy kids across the street.
She could never have both in mind at the same time. In this instance, the same
word is used with reference to two distinct categories of species. I believe a
similar use of language occurs in the New Testament with the words for
principalities and powers.

Wink has not produced
any context that clearly demonstrates that an ancient writer could have in mind
both the human and demonic at the same time when that writer used power
language. On the contrary, contexts outside the New Testament seem plainly
either-or and never both-and. The Jewish intertestamental literature has a
lively concept of the demonic (in the sense of personal spirit-beings) as does
the Hellenistic magical tradition (which Wink neglects).

Fourth, although his
final volume dealing with how to engage the powers has not yet appeared (at the
time of this writing), Wink does provide some insight in his first two volumes
on how Christians should respond to the powers today. He appears to move the
discussion beyond the mere physical response to the powers, which many
interpreters who take a purely “structural” interpretation of the powers
emphasize. Wink suggests that both the outer and inner aspects of the powers
need to be addressed; Christians need to respond to the powers both on a
physical and a spiritual plane. For Wink there is still the need for social struggle
through protest marches and boycotts to engage the powers. Yet at the same
time, Christians need to challenge the “within” of a system or institution. At
this point Wink suggests that Christians pray and exercise faith in God,
trusting him to change the spirituality of the institution. Nevertheless, he
still places a greater emphasis on our physical response to the power
structures. He comments, “It is precisely the outer changes we make that
challenge, lure, and goad the oppressor toward inner change.”^[1]

 

—————————more
tomorrow————————

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