Changed from Glory to Glory E-Book

Rev. Robert A. Tucker

• Herausgeber: Zion Christian Publishers
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Rev. Tucker has written a study of the neglected, but greatly needed, subject of repentance. Often repentance is only considered to be necessary at the initial salvation experience. However, Rev. Tucker shows that if Christians are to mature into the full purpose of God for their lives, they must allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to them areas that need changing and respond to His leading. This work of the Holy Spirit will transform the people of God so that they are able to enter into the wonderful liberty and joy of being the ones who have been transformed into His image!

Leseprobe

CHANGED

from

GLORY

to

GLORY

The Gift of Repentance

BY

ROBERT A. TUCKER

Copyright © 1994 by Robert A. Tucker

Zion Christian Publishers

7436 Starville Rd.

Marine City, MI 48039

United States of America

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews.

Published as an e-book on September 2013

in the United States of America

E-book ISBN 1-59665-126-1 

COVER DESIGN

Pastor Joseph Cilluffo

EDITING

Pastor Paul & Elizabeth Caram

Mary Humphreys

Leslie Sigsby

Tamara Webb

LAYOUT

Jessica Sparger

Robert Tucker, Jr.

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

II Corinthians 3:18 R.V.

1

TIME FOR REVIVAL — TIME FOR REPENTANCE

When I was seven years old, my father graduated from Bible school.  We returned to our hometown and my father set up a tent for gospel meetings.  The memories are still quite vivid—there was the smell of fresh sawdust lingering in the hot, humid air of an August evening, the wooden folding chairs that can entangle a little boy if he sits on them the wrong way, and the gospel music being played on the organ.  Excitable expectation filled the place!  But the most memorable detail was the result of the preaching.  The message was repentance.  The conviction of the Holy Spirit intensified as the meeting progressed.  The fear of the Lord filled the hearts of the people.

Today in many places, tent meetings may seem like an archaic idea that has long since lost its usefulness.  Perhaps in the minds of many people, the message of repentance appears just as outdated, irrelevant, and unimportant, but can we really afford to hide away in the attic this essential, foundational truth?

John the Baptist came to prepare people’s hearts for the coming of the Lord Jesus.  John’s voice resounded in the wilderness:

“Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt. 3:2).

When Jesus came on the scene, His message was the same (Mt. 4:17).  On the day of Pentecost, when the church had its beginning, Peter preached repentance resulting in three thousand people turning to the Lord (Acts 2:37-38).  The Apostle Paul too, often spoke on the subject of repentance in his teaching and preaching.

CONFORMED TO HIS IMAGE

Paul declared the purpose of God in Romans 8:29:

“For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

How is the work of being conformed to the image of Jesus accomplished in us in a practical way?  This transformation takes place as we allow God to bring us to repentance and a conversion comes into our lives.  When we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the penalty of our sin is instantaneously erased.  However, God concerns Himself with more than the penalty of our sin.  He also purposes that our sin nature be put to death, transforming us into the nature and image of Jesus by a continual process.  In II Corinthians 3:18, Paul speaks of a process of being transformed as we behold the Lord:

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

This process goes hand in hand with the gift of repentance, as we shall see later.  If we refuse God’s gracious working in our lives through repentance, we will disqualify ourselves from being conformed to His image, and our own ways will lead us to disaster.  The prophet Ezekiel delivers this identical message to God’s people:

“Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin” (Ezek. 18:30).

Revival is desperately needed throughout the earth today.  However, if revival is to have any lasting results, repentance must be a major foundation stone.  Joel chapter one illustrates the terrible condition of God’s people as the prophet pleads for everyone to call upon the Lord.  Because of the frightful judgments that were coming, Joel cries,

“Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God” (Joel 1:13).

Later in chapter two he invokes,

“Spare Thy people, O Lord” (Joel 2:17).

In the remainder of chapter two, Joel prophesies of a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Yet, this revival is preceded by sincere repentance.  This pattern is also seen in the great revivals under several kings of Judah.  Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah experienced a wonderful revival and the blessing of the Lord after a time of repentance and putting things right with God.  How essential it is that the spirit of repentance prepares the world for revival!

The last-day church needs the power and presence of God known by the early church.  God intends for the church in the end of this age to be filled with His power and His glory.  Instead of the church moving forth in God’s purposes, we often see something else at work.  Jesus said,

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Mt. 24:12).

This verse could be translated this way:  “And because lawlessness shall multiply, the love and zeal for the Lord shall cool down like blowing over a spoonful of hot soup to cool it down.”  Many are not running hard after the Lord and have lost that burning desire to do the will of God.  Such a condition exists because people are not being set free from the iniquities in their lives.  Jesus paid the price that we can be free from all our iniquities (Tit. 2:14).  This freedom comes as the gift of repentance works in us.

In a similar day of decline and rebellion, the prophet Joel spoke of God’s judgments upon His people in Joel chapter 1.  Hordes of insects devoured the increase of the land.  The fruit trees and crops of the field were withered.  Their whole economy was greatly depleted.  Enemies swarmed and surrounded God’s people.  Misery replaced the blessings they had once known when they had walked in God’s ways.  Are not similar judgments of God in the land today as God pleads for His people to return to Him?  Recent devastation by floods, hurricanes and earthquakes causes us to know that God is seeking to attract our attention!  In Isaiah 42:24-25, God says,

“Who gave Jacob for spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the Lord, He against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in His ways, neither were they obedient unto His law.  Therefore He hath poured upon him the fury of His anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.”

Is not the church today in a similar situation?  Christians are experiencing problems that are a result of forsaking God’s ways.  However, the prophet Joel gives us hope!

“Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil... Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?” (Joel 2:12,13,17).

In the midst of this blowing of the trumpet and calling for repentance, God began to show what He would do for them if they would repent:

“Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for He hath given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.  And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.  And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, My great army which I sent among you.  And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and My people shall never be ashamed.  And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:23-28).

This promise of restoration and blessing remains for the church today if we will fulfill the same conditions of repentance, and turn to the Lord in the areas of our lives in which we are contrary to Him.  There must be a revival of the gift of repentance if we are to experience the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh.

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

FEASTS OF ISRAEL SHOW GOD’S PURPOSE

Now is the time for the message of repentance to come to the forefront in the church.  In studying the seven major feasts of Israel from Leviticus chapter 23, one can see God’s order and purpose for the church.  These feasts are as follows:  Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles.

The first four feasts are celebrated in the spring, at the beginning of the religious new year.  As one studies the origin of these feasts in the book of Exodus, it becomes evident that they portray God’s purposes that were to follow in the Early Church.  Moreover, these feasts are types of personal experiences that God wants to lead us through.  For example, consider the Feast of Passover:

“For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7).

Here Paul clearly opens up the thought that Jesus’ death at Calvary was literally the fulfillment of the Feast of Passover.  In John 1:29, He is described as the Lamb of God:

“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

Clearly, John recognized Jesus as the Passover Lamb that was to be sacrificed for the nation of Israel.  Christ’s death at Calvary is the fulfillment of the Feast of Passover.  Bringing that into our personal experience, Passover speaks of the salvation that is provided for us through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Feast of Pentecost was instituted at Mount Sinai fifty days after Israel passed through the Red Sea.  There on Mount Sinai, God spoke to the nation of Israel.  He gave them His basic laws.  His original intention was that Israel would always respond to His voice.  However, we find that the people refused to hear God’s voice (Deut. 5:22-27).  God then gave Israel multitudes of laws to direct them because they refused to hear His voice and enter into a closer, more personal relationship with Him.

Fifty days after Jesus was resurrected from the dead, the disciples were gathered in an upper room.  The Holy Spirit was poured out upon them and they were all baptized in the Holy Ghost, evidenced by speaking in other tongues.  God's purpose was to write His laws upon the fleshly tables of their hearts, to have His children respond to His voice (Ezek. 36:27, Heb. 3:7-10).

Again, bringing the concept of the Feast of Pentecost into our own experience, God wants to baptize each believer into the Holy Spirit.  He wants to teach us to be sensitive to hear His voice, to respond to Him, and to obey His laws.