Come And Do As The Lord Asks

Luke 7:6 - "And when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof . . For I also am a man set under authority . . I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it."  Jesus could have said to the centurion, "My servants are just as good," but Jesus didn't talk like that to people. Jesus was impressed by this man, not just because he had authority but because of the faith and confidence he had.  Jesus knew that this authority didn't come by birth or was purchased somewhere or found by chance.  "Coming, doing, going. " Isn't that what our life is about?  We come into this world, then we go sooner or later, and in between is the doing part. Sometimes we disengage ourselves, we get into neutral and don't do anything, but if we do that we are just wasting time.

This chapter starts off with a call that every one of us receives. If Jesus was here in person, He would be glad to look at every person in this shed and say, "Everyone has responded to my invitation to come." It is different when we come into this life.  No one asks us if we are ready for it or where we want to be, but coming into the family of God, we have input.  We have to decide whether we will come.  We read the word, "Come" many times in Isaiah, and also in Hebrews 4 it speaks of the wonderful opportunity we have to come boldly to the throne of grace.  In the same book, it speaks about coming into the holiest of all, because we received a call from God, "Come."  At first, this invitation may not seem suitable to us.  But when God calls, He gives us an open door and if we come when He calls, not when it pleases us, then we have wonderful liberty. 

I thought about Esther.  At that time, if you went too close to the king without being invited, it was the end of your life.  You would be trespassing.  So it is if you go past a palace or a house, no matter how big or small, if you are not invited in but you go in there, you make yourself a trespasser and have no liberty.  But if you walked past a palace and the king said, "Come in; I will show you around," it doesn't matter where you come from, it is a liberty you would not get any other way.  An invitation to come in opens up so much which would be closed otherwise.  If we respond, then we can get to know the King of kings, and He can get to know us.

The time comes when He says, "What if you go and tell people about this wonderful place? I want you to try and get other people interested so I can invite them, and not only to invite them but to see them respond."  When He tells you to go, you have authority and can say, "The King sent me; I am not on my own." And another thing, you have your testimony and can say, "I have been there, I have seen part of it; I like it and want to be nowhere else except in His presence."  I don't know most of you but I presume that all of you came gladly to this convention.  It is only for a limited time and maybe you are a bit like Peter, thinking, "It is good to be here. Can't we stretch it out a bit more?"  It is a good feeling but Jesus didn't take the bait and say, "Yes, why not?"

I appreciate Peter's life very much, especially the way he started to walk with Jesus and how he learned.  Then you have the two letters he wrote at the end of his life and you see what wonderful changes took place in his life. But at this time he was listening to his emotions, a little bit selfish and forgetting about the other people down the mountain.  It seems that Peter and the other two didn't do so well at that wonderful place.  Luke 9:32 - "But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep."  So, when Peter said, "Let us make three tabernacles," he didn't know what he was saying, and we are not always sure of what we are saying.

Some years ago, I remember a Bible study about the time Peter denied Jesus.  The more I listened to what was said, the sorrier I felt for Peter and was glad he wasn't there because he got one knock after another.  Afterwards, I made a suggestion that we should speak about ten good things in the life of Peter, not about the time Peter denied the Lord.  It wouldn't be very hard to find ten experiences where Peter made up for denying his Lord, for speaking before thinking and not knowing what he was saying.  "Master, it is good for us to be here."  Most likely, Peter didn't think all the way through and we sometimes make that mistake.  How would they build three tabernacles up there?  Maybe that is how we feel, but let us remember there is more to do than feeding our souls and getting reassured. God has another work; there are more people in this world than you and I, and who knows which one God wants to invite as soon as you get home?  Luke 8:27 - "There met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs."  This man was known as Legion and his past life was not a very nice one.  Some people tried to help him but nothing was strong enough to hold him.  He was possessed by all those devils.  Then the time came when Jesus came into his life and changed his life in a wonderful way.  It is not hard to enter into the feeling of that man afterwards, when he wanted to just stay with Jesus. Vs 38:  "Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee."  "Go, talk to your people and show them the wonderful change that has taken place in your life." 

This man, Legion, lived amongst the tombs, running around with no clothes.  Then the people found him sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.  It is a nice combination.  Do you ever bump into people who try to tell you that what you wear is not important, that it is what is in the heart that is important?  This man could have said, "I have joy in my heart, I have a song of thankfulness on my lips, who bothers about clothing?"  Well, this little part of this verse should be sufficient to silence every thought along the line of whether the outside matters at all.  He was clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus, feeling comfortable now and Jesus was feeling comfortable with the way Legion was clothed.  The way people dress shows the way they think.  There is some connection; do you dress to conceal or to reveal?  It is one or the other.

This man was clothed and in his right mind.  He wanted to be with Jesus, comfortable now amongst people and continuing with Jesus. Then Jesus said, "Go back to your people and show them by your life. If anyone is interested enough, they will ask you."  Like Peter said, just be ready to give an answer.  Don't go back and start preaching at them, but give an answer about the love and joy that has come into your life.  Show them first, then if somebody asks, you can tell them.  That is the right way.  Legion showed the whole city what Jesus had done for him and when Jesus came back there, the people gladly received Him.  It was a wonderful mission he was able to work just because he was willing to let Jesus come into his life, and to do what Jesus said, to go with a living testimony. 

We read of other people whom Jesus helped and He asked them to keep it quiet.  Now, how does that work?  To one person, He says, "Go and show what has been done."  To another He says, "Keep it quiet." Well, there might be things we don't understand but we can rest assured that whatever Jesus asks is always within the reach of possibility, not too hard and always the right thing.  It was just a test for each one and tests are different.  For some it is a battle to get up and say a few words.  For others, they have to be tested to see if they can keep quiet for some time.  It is individual.  So, every one of us have the same authority when we go out, but we might have a little different job to do whereby we can be a help to the Gospel story.

Most of you would say, "Coming here for four days doesn't make such a drastic change, like the life of Legion." You might look four days older, but who is going to notice that?  I hardly know any of you, or where you live or anything about your neighbors.  But when you left four days ago to come here, your neighbor may have watched you go or did you go and sign off, tell them you were going? Someone could have watched your life and said, "There they go again, like last year."  You came here and some of those who prepared here said, "Here they come again." Then in a few hours they will say, "There they go again," and your neighbors will say, "Here they come again."  Maybe there are some who might say, "They are back again, so in the next few weeks we can count on an invitation to a meeting." 

You know, if we do things year after year, people notice.  You might think, "I have invited them time after time, so now I have given up on them." But what about this wonderful change that took place in the life of Legion?  Do you have enough faith to believe that the same way God was working in your life long before you responded to the invitation, He can also bring about a wonderful change in the life of your neighbor?  Don't give up, just keep on.  Changes are necessary, but it is also wonderful to have certain things in life that don't change.  If it means you invite them, don't change it. God might work a change in that person and they might come this time.

John 9:1 - "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth."  This was a blind man but that didn't stop him from getting in touch with Jesus, just as the legion of devils could not stop that man responding to the invitation of Jesus. Vs 6: "And he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam."  The blind man was obedient and this was a miracle in his life.  He could see. I think that, after he realized he could see, he would be heading straight back to Jesus. But before he got there, he ran into some of his neighbors.  Vs 8: "Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he."  He was not afraid of his past and he was not afraid of his present, either.  We never can predict how people are going to respond or react, and we don't just pick the ones where the chances are fairly high and say that all the others are lost anyway. 

Sometimes we are surprised by the responses we get from people.  We had Gospel meetings three years ago in a restaurant.  We didn't need more than ten chairs, and we got a room in a hotel with a sliding door between us and the restaurant. On the first night, we said, "We will have to sing softly so we don't upset the other people."  We didn't want to sound too religious to the people on the other side of the door who were drinking at the bar. It would not mix well, so we sang softly. The next week I was there a little early and the boss said, "Are you going to sing nicely, like you did last week?"  They enjoyed it!  We think we know how people are going to react and we jump to conclusions too quickly sometimes. Creation is a wonderful testimony of the power and wisdom of God.  I got thinking about a plant God created before anything else, something that grows and has a flower and seed in itself.  It is what sheep and kangaroos and cows eat: grass. Not just Kikuyu; I came up with 5 or 6 different grasses I could identify and then I asked Mr. Google and he told me there are no less than 10,000 types of grass in the world.  Going for walks in the mornings at preps, I saw grass everywhere and a basic instinct awoke in me to take some back and show how beautiful grass could be. So, I took a bunch of grass flowers back to preps and the reactions were different again. One was, "Wonderful flower arrangement!"  Not long after, someone else came along and said, "Have you been collecting weeds again?"

So, don't give up because you don't get the reaction you wish for. Just keep on and don't lose the focus of what God has created, because that is going to lead you further and take your thoughts towards the things God has prepared for all eternity.  The grass, herbs, trees and people will all come and go and God has planned it that way, but His plan doesn't stop there. He has something planned that goes on for ever and ever.  Isn't it a wonderful privilege to be able to work together with Him, to have a little part in helping somebody that might be blind to the way of God and blind to their own needs? You can be an instrument to help that person if you are just willing to go at the time Jesus tells you and to do what He tells you to do. 

Sometimes it is hard to get us excited about things, but once we have made up our minds we think we can do twice as much as others.  Maybe it is well meaning and we want to show how much this means to us, so we do more than we are asked.  Matthew 21:2 - "Go into the village . . ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them, and straightway he will send them."  These disciples were told what to do and what to say, and they did no more and no less.  I thought of the danger of two people saying between themselves, "A donkey for Jesus is not good enough; after all He is the King of kings and Lord of Lords and we want to be identified with Him. He must have a horse at least, or a chariot. We will do more than He asks."  But Jesus would have to say, "That doesn't line up with my faith or with God's plans," because God had already spoken about this time years before, through the prophets.

Had they changed that a little bit, it is like the thought that it doesn't matter what we look like on the outside.  That is a danger we have to be careful of, not to try and improve on things.  If they had changed things, Jesus would have had to find somebody else to go and bring the colt.  If they had changed what God had spoken so long ago, it would have opened a door for anybody to say, "If God wasn't able to fulfill that part of His promise, what about the other parts?" Little changes . . but at the end you have nothing left of what God has planned. 

I had another experience that describes the need of sticking to what He tells you.  Don't try to do better or be more efficient, just stick to what He tells you. Twenty years ago I was at convention preparations and one of my nephews, about 15 years old, wanted to come and spend time with us.  I was in the north of Germany and he was in the south, so I talked to his Dad and we agreed that he would come on a certain train and I would get on at a certain station and we would travel the last part together.  The express train came in and I got on at the front and walked through the whole train but did not find anybody who looked like my nephew.  So, I went to my destination and rang my brother to tell him I couldn't find my nephew. He said, "I told him, if he gets off at the station you are waiting on, you can take another train that will cost a few bob less."  But he didn't tell my nephew to get off at the front of the train; he got off at the back of the train, so we didn't see each other.  There was much confusion because they tried to save a little bit, but it made it more expensive.

When the Spirit says, "Come," drop everything because it is going to be a blessing and it can also give certain liberties which we would never get in any other way. Then, when the Lord tells you to go don't be afraid, because He gives us His authority. Just do what He asks, no more and no less, and He will give you the blessing. ~ ~ ~

 H. ROTHMUND - 2015 - Come and do as the Lord asks - 2nd Maroota, Australia