PRECEPTS FOR LIFE
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Precept Ministries International
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The following is an actual transcript of the PRECEPTS FOR LIFE Broadcast. For the purpose of filling transcript requests quickly, they have received only light editing. If you have questions concerning the material covered in this broadcast, Kay has published a number of books explaining the Scripture in depth. These books may be ordered by contacting the telephone number or address printed above.
SERIES: NWC 03 Judgment Seat Of Christ
TITLE: Program 1 – NWC 03 Judgment Seat Of Christ, Part 1
FRIDAY (1/8/10)
OPEN
What is your ambition, Precious One? What is the driving force of your life? What do you want to be? What do you want to do? If it‟s anything less than to be pleasing to Him no matter the cost, Precious One, you are going to be so sorry. You are going to be so sorry. And do you know why? You‟re going to be so sorry because someday you‟re going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ.
PART ONE
If you and I are going to be alive with His life, if you and I are going to be prepared for such a time as this then you and I must live at the cross. The cross, the cross is the epicenter of all of Christianity. Everything centers around the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to give His life a ransom for many and when He came He made this statement. “If any man is going to come after Me let him,” what, “deny himself take up his cross and,” what,
“follow Me. He that will lose his life for My sake and the gospel‟s shall find it but he that saves his life will lose it.”
Now when we look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and 5 and by the way as I told you before there‟s a group of Lord books out there. Lord books where you go through particular topics like Lord, Is It Warfare?
Teach Me To Stand, Lord, I Need Grace To Make It Today, everything that the Bible teaches about grace or Lord, I Want To Know You, a study on the names of God. There‟s the newest one is Lord, Give Me a Heart For You which is on 2 Corinthians. And in this book Paul bears his soul like he doesn‟t in any other epistle. You see him.
You see his vulnerability. You see that he has conflicts without and he has fears within. And yet you see him standing fast. You see him in this letter defending his ministry and we‟re going to see it a little bit in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. But his whole point to us in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 which I said is like the epicenter of that chapter it‟s found in verse 12.
So let‟s look at it again. In verse 12 and I‟m going to go back to verse 10. “Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.”
In other words he‟s saying that you and I are to live in such a way that we reflect the cross and all that it implies so that reflecting the cross we can reflect the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Christ. So he says, “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus‟ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So death works,” where, death works, “in us and,” what, “life in you.”
So let‟s say it. Let‟s personalize it, all right. Death in me so that there‟s what? Life in you. And that‟s what the cross is all about. Jesus died so that you and I might have life. There was no other way for man ever to gain eternal life except through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All right now, I took you from that passage to Esther and I want you to go to the book of Esther again because I didn‟t make my point well and I want to make my point but I had run out of time. And I want us to go to Esther chapter 4 and I want you to see this principle lived out in Esther who had come to the
kingdom for such a time as this.
Who was alive for such a time as this. And you remember that the Jews were going to be put to death. Every last Jew in this kingdom, in this Persian kingdom, was going to be put to death. All right, now, we know that because God is a covenant keeping God that would not happen and Mordecai knew that if Esther did not do her job that deliverance would come from another quarter but if Esther, now listen carefully.
If Esther did not do her job, if Esther was not willing to go into the king and make known this plot and petition the king then Mordecai says help will come from another place. Look at verse 13 of Esther chapter 4. “Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, „
Do not imagine that you in the king‟s palace,” you, Jewess, in the king‟s palace, you, wife, of the king, do not imagine that you in the king‟s palace, “can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place….” And that‟s because the Jews are God‟s elect nation.
And that‟s because God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and it is an everlasting covenant and it will never be revoked and it doesn‟t matter what any theologian says, if you read the Word of God it becomes very clear if you let scripture interpret scripture. God‟s covenants and gifts and promises are irrevocable. Now that gives you assurance because when He promises you salvation then you can know that He‟s going to deliver salvation. That if He genuinely saves you then when you die you are absent from the body and you are present with the Lord. That‟s called eternal security.
All right now, in verse 14 he says Jews deliverance and relief, “will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father‟s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this? Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai.” Esther had to make a decision and that was, was Esther going to remain silent or was she going to put her life on the line? Because if she went to make an appearance before the king without being bidden that king because he had supreme authority could put her to death immediately. Never hear why she
appeared. So Esther turns around and this is what she says.
She says in verse 16, “Go, and assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink these three days, or night and I and my maidens will also fast in the same way. And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law;” and catch it, “if I,” what, “perish, I perish.” Give me another word for perish. If I heh, what? If I die then I‟m going to die. So what do we see? We see that she was alive for such a time as this to deny herself and in an essence, in picture form, take up her cross and follow God. It was going to be death in her so that it could be what?
Life in the others. So she was willing to die to spare her people, to spare her nation.
All right now, she goes in to the king. You know the story or if you don‟t know the story it‟s an awesome account to read. But she goes in to the king, the king says what do you want? He sees her standing in the court yard. She gets all dressed up. All right, fit to kill. All right or fit to seduce. Whatever you want to say but anyway the king says come on in. And he says what do you want? Ask me and I‟ll give you up to half my kingdom. And she says I just want you to come to dinner and I want you to bring Haman to dinner.
Now Haman is the one that‟s got this plot to kill these Jews. So when they find out that Haman‟s going to dinner then Haman builds this gallows and Haman is going to hang Mordecai on these gallows because he hates that Jew because listen. That is a Jew that does not compromise his covenant, his religion, his faith and he will not bow down to Haman. So Haman builds this gallows. Well, they go to this banquet and to make a long story short Esther reveals to the king Haman‟s plot. And when he (Kay means she) reveals to the king, Haman‟s plot and this is what I want you to see. He (Kay means she) reveals this and so then the king says Okay take Haman and hang him on the gallows that he just built. Now there‟s a picture here and the picture is this. The picture is that the devil holds over us our lives. He threatens us and anytime they want to get somebody to do anything or to reveal something they begin to torture them and when they can‟t torture them enough then
they threaten them with death.
Now if we understand that death works in me so that life works in you and that I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live then it doesn‟t matter if you threaten me with death if I understand that absent from the body, what?
Present with the Lord. It‟s far better to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. So what happens is this and this is the principle I want you to get and I want you to understand. That when you live a crucified life, when you follow Jesus, when you deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him then the enemy has no hold on you whatsoever. He has no emotional hold or any threat that can keep you from serving Jesus Christ. Why? Because you are what heh! You are what? Dead. Death in you so life in others. So listen.
When you live this crucified life, when you live at the epicenter of Christianity which is the cross of Jesus Christ, when you do that, Beloved, then the devil is hung on his own gallows. I want you to see that. You‟re hanging the devil on his own gallows because he, listen. As long as you live at the cross, as long as you live at the cross the devil cannot touch you in anyway. He cannot touch you in anyway. Why? If he threatens to take your life it doesn‟t matter. You‟re already what? Heh!
You‟re already dead and you know that if anything happens to you that you are absent from the body and present with the Lord.
PART TWO
Let‟s go back to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 16. He says, “Therefore we do not lose heart….” Now remember verse 1 of chapter 4, “…we do not lose heart.” All right? Because we have a ministry. Verse 16, “…we do not lose heart, for though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction….” This is what I want you to see. Whatever comes your way, whatever comes your way.
Whatever God permits to come into your life it is filtered through fingers of love. It is momentary and in the weight and in the light of eternity it is light. It is a momentary light affliction.
And so he says that momentary
light affliction would not be permitted in your life by a sovereign God who does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth it would not be permitted in your life, Precious One, if it was going to harm you. But it is producing for you an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. And listen, it is an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison if you live and stay at that cross and live in such a way that it is death in you and life in others.
So he says, (2 COR.4:18) “while we look,” now this is what he‟s saying. He‟s saying your living on earth but you are heavenly minded. And I don‟t like that saying you‟re so heavenly minded, you‟re no earthly good. Listen. You can‟t be so heavenly minded you‟re no earthly good because when your heavenly minded in the right sense and in the biblical sense then you are fit for earth and everything that comes your way.
So he says that, “while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are,” what, “temporal….” When Jan was teaching us about handling a crisis one of the things that she pointed out from 1 Peter is this. That it is for a season. Every trial, every affliction, every crisis has a beginning and it has an end and God holds the key to locks and unlocks that crisis because He‟s sovereign and you can trust Him. All right? He says, “…the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 COR.5:1, 2) “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house….” I‟m living in something that is temporary. I had a friend and she was just darling. And she went to Washington, D.C. and she ministered to Senate wives and things like that and God just used her. But she would always say, “When you look at me, please look at me in my resurrection body.” She says, “I am about five foot nine and I am a willowy blond.” All right? And so we have this earthly tent. But this earthly tent is going to be torn down. It is appointed unto man what? Once to die and after that the judgment. So he says our, “…earthly tent which is our house,” if it‟s, “torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house
we groan….” Like it was shown.
We look in the mirror and sometimes we groan. All right? We put our hands around our waist and sometimes we groan or we have an ache or we have a pain and we groan. “…longing to be clothed on with our dwelling from heaven.” Now I‟m afraid that that is not the attitude of many people in the church. But listen, this is the heart of a man, a man whose heart beats with the heart of God. Because for this man to live is Christ and to die is what? Gain.
And because this man is living at the cross then if he lives or dies it doesn‟t matter. If I live or die my only cry will be Jesus in me, praise the Lord. And so he says I‟m longing to get rid of this body so that I can be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. (2 COR.5:3) “inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked.” Now what he‟s saying is this. Listen. When you die you‟re going to get a brand new body. I used to think that we‟d just flop around in heaven like this just as an angel or a spirit because I did not know the Word of God. I went to church. I had a religion but I didn‟t have a relationship.
Excuse me, but the Word was so boring. It was so boring. I couldn‟t understand it because what was over my face? There was a veil over my face and I couldn‟t see. All right now, he says verse 4, “For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by,” what, “by life.” All right, so it‟s death in me but what? Life in you and when I live that I want you to know that I am going to have death that is swallowed up by life. He says, (V. 5) “Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God,” here we go, all right, “who gave us,” His what? The Spirit as a,” what, “as a pledge.” In other words the Holy Spirit and we‟ll look at this later but the Holy Spirit is your ticket to heaven. Your Holy Spirit is the guarantee that when you die you are going to be absent from the body and you are going to be present with the Lord. So the Holy Spirit, have you got it?
The Holy Spirit is your ticket to heaven. You‟re guaranteed that you‟re going to get a brand new body. All right now, verse 6, “Therefore,” do you see the therefore? You
gotta find out what the therefore is there for.
So remember we do our three dots over the therefore. “Therefore,” since I‟m going to get a brand new body, since this mortals going to put on immortality, since this mortal‟s going to be swallowed up by life, “Therefore, being always of good courage,” always of good courage, “and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord…” and then he says this in parenthesis, all right.
He says, “…knowing that when we are at home in the body we‟re absent from the Lord…” and then he says, “for we walk by faith, and not by sight.” In other words we haven‟t seen it. We haven‟t seen our new bodies. The only person or persons that saw somebody in a resurrected state after being dead, a resurrected state.
A resurrected state never to die again are those disciples and followers of Jesus Christ who saw Him after He was raised from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15 tells you about that and you can look at it later. So he says in verse 8, he says, “We knowing that when we‟re at home in the body we‟re absent from the Lord,” verse 8, “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and at home with the Lord.” Now I want to ask you a question. Are you living that way?
Are you so in tune with the Lord? Is your heart so in tune with God‟s heart? Do they beat as one? Do they beat as one so that you rather be with Christ than you would be alive here on earth? That‟s what Paul said. I want to tell you something. I cannot say that. I cannot say that. I am begging God, I am begging God. “God, there‟s so much work. You have to do in me.
And I don‟t want to be ashamed when I see You and I have so much to learn and so much to put into practice. I‟m not everything that I need to be.” I‟m not everything that I want to be but I can tell you with every fiber of my being I want to be what He wants me to be. I want to be 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 9.
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