July’s Message of the Month –”SAXIFRAGE SAINTS!”

Saxifrage Saints!

Matthew 13:31-33, “He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

One can hear most of those who see the above title for the first time exclaim, “What in the world is a sax-uh-frag-e saint? Well, first the word is pronounced sax-si -frij. It is comprised of two Latin words, saxum = rock + frangere, frag = to break, thus rock-breaker. There are some 480 known species that make up this genus of plants. These widely vary from flowering herbs, shrubs, to small trees. Members of the saxifrage family are known for their ability to grow and thrive on exposed rocky crags and in fissures of rocks. They get their name from the manner in which they put their soft rootlets down into the cracks of a rock and eventually break it into pieces. Their actions at first are hidden, imperceptible and seemingly impotent. But because they have one thing that the rock doesn’t have, they are able to impact the hardest of situations. What’s that one thing? LIFE!

Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington has a creative arts magazine entitled, “Saxifrage.” As an explanation of the title they write: “Our name comes from a flower, native to the area, which makes its home upon the rocks. As it grows its roots burrow downward, penetrating the rock and finally splitting it into pieces. Thin and graceful, the Saxifrage continues to inspire new generations of creative Thinkers.”             
It is my firm persuasion that the saints of the Living God, i.e. all the born again of the Church, as rootlets, or extenders of the kingdom of God, needs to recover confidence in being a “saxifrage” people. This means we are designed to be a people who have the liberating life of the Unchanging King and the authority of His Unshakeable Kingdom resident within us and available to be released through us in such silent, secret, and successful ways that we see hearts of stone broken and lasting change occurring one person at a time until the whole earth is filled with the glory of our King!

In the parables of Matthew 13, Jesus is informing and assuring His disciples that as they went into the world with the gospel, success would be theirs in spite of those who would reject the message. In the parable of the wheat and weeds He encourages them by revealing that counterfeit Christians will attempt to ruin the Kingdom, but in spite of their efforts the harvest will be successful. In anticipation of the disciples’ fears that evil men would choke out the kingdom; in anticipation of their feeling overwhelmed at their smallness and the magnitude of the assignment that had been given, Jesus shares the parable of the mustard seed and the leaven in which He reveals the ultimate success of the Kingdom.

The parable of the mustard seed illustrates the extensive, outward, and ultimate success of His kingdom. The parable of the leaven illustrates the intensive, internal, and underlying strength of the kingdom that assures gospel success.
Jesus predicts that in the historical period preceding His return, something exceedingly small, like a mustard seed, will grow to be exceedingly large, like a mustard plant towering above the other herbs of the garden.

There is a Process at Work in the Kingdom of God that Produces an End Product that is Far in Excess of Natural Expectations!

A. The power of the smallest seed should motivate us to attempt great deeds! –

13:31, “….the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

Mustard seed, said to be the smallest of seeds in this parable, is used by Jesus to illustrate the powerful, reproductive potential of the kingdom of God. Mustard seeds, in spite of their diminutive size are pungent, piercing, irritating, and flavor adding.

What did Jesus intend to convey by this parable of the mustard seed? Many agree with Dr. J. Dwight Pentecost and his erroneous dispensational interpretation of the parable as he writes, “The Church Age is characterized by abnormal external growth. That which was to be an herb has become a tree — it has developed into a monstrosity and has become the resting place for metaphorical birds representing the enemies of God’s program.”

How could this be encouraging and motivating to his disciples if what He was telling them was something like this: “Hey guys, this venture of the kingdom of heaven that you are pioneers in is going to wind up a freak, a monstrosity. In the end the devil and his demons will roost and rule over a huge distorted and deceived caricature of my original design.”  Would such a revelation make you want to go out and give your life as a martyr to a cause that is going to ultimately fail in history? No, and this is not what the parable teaches either.

Updating the parable to the day in which you and I live, it goes without saying that we live in times in which the little, the few, the weak, are disparaged. If it isn’t massive in numbers, mighty in influence; if it isn’t big, beautiful (and brawny); if it isn’t large, loud and lauded by the masses — it isn’t considered worthwhile yet, God seems to love small things.

Our world is made up of things so small that naked eyes can’t see them – atoms, molecules, quarks, etc. Jesus specializes in using little and ordinary things to do great and extraordinary things! When Jesus wanted to illustrate the power and growth of the kingdom of God, He used the tiniest of seeds, the mustard seed. It was a woman’s small gift he praised. “And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. [43] And calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury;” (Mark 12:42-43 NASB).  A little boy with a sack lunch of five small loaves and two little fish is used to feed perhaps as many as 15,000 persons! Anyone can feed thousands with plenty of food. Only God can feed them with a boy’s sack lunch. And when He does, He gets the glory. Don’t ever underestimate the power of small things.

Another lesson from the parable of the mustard seed is that “Seed power and growth isn’t equal to the size of the seed.” If you were to be given an oatmeal flake size giant sequoia tree seed, you could never know by initial and outward appearance that you held in your hand something that had the potential to become the largest (over 300 ft tall) and longest living thing (over 3,000 years old) on the earth. The seed of the kingdom of heaven, which seems so insignificant to the world, has the potential to impact the whole world.

Herb Hodges observes that “inside of every seed, there is a Divine secret, a life-germ so small that a microscope cannot detect it. A nearly unlimited dormant power, a nearly infinite Divine possibility, lies sleeping in it. A seed is comparatively small and seemingly insignificant, but it contains a life-germ which gives it limitless potential.  To pursue Christ’s illustration, Jesus Himself was the original seed, and His sowing of Himself resulted in an enlarging harvest, with each “plant” containing the same life-germ and marked by the same potential.  In short, each seed is a modified picture of the Incarnation that rests at the heart of the Christian message and movement.

Because of the latent life potential in the seed, it not too late to start sowing.  Indeed, wasted years do not negate a future crop if you will employ the seed principle today. All past crops may have been lost, but you are still God’s seed (Matthew 13:38) and you may be sown according to His Standard and in pursuit of His Strategy today for a limitless future of productivity. An urn-full of seeds had been in King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings for 3,000 years.  Each seed remained sterile, barren and alone all that time, until Dr. Gordon discovered and opened the tomb in 1922.  Researchers delicately removed the seeds from the urn in a laboratory in England.  Part of the seeds were planted, and when they “fell into the ground and died,” they immediately sprang into life—and their produce is enlarging to this very day!  You see, it is never too late as long as life, time and opportunity remain to “bear much fruit” according to the Standard and by the Strategy of Jesus.”

So what if you seem to have been born on the wrong side of the tracks; so what if you had such a poor and painful childhood; so what if your education isn’t formal and your church is small – the seed of the kingdom message is God-big and God-powerful; so what if your church or business is small – you have the potential to achieve greatness in God’s sight if you know that it all begins with the right kind of seed and the proper use of it.

If you had judged the future of a fledgling little soft drink company, who in its first year managed to sell only 400 bottles, you would probably have been hesitant about investing in it. That small beginning amounted to less than 5 bottles sold in a week. Yet, you would have misjudged the company know today as Coca Cola. Today the success of Coca Cola is hard to dispute. Coke is sold in more than 195 countries and is consumed 773 million times in a single day. Revenues are in the range of 20 billion dollars per year. Small beginnings have great potential don’t they?

Beloved, it’s time we started acting like saxifrage saints and using the mustard seed message and methods of the kingdom to incite others to rebirth and righteousness and others to riot and revenge. (The book of Acts reveals that whenever and wherever the gospel was preached in the First Century, revival or riots was the result) The gospel message’s impact is always far beyond its apparent size and content.

William Wilberforce was called a little shrimp, but this little Englishman, acting as a saxifrage saint almost single-handily stopped the slave trade in England. He wrote: “Things great have small beginnings. Every downpour is just a raindrop; Every fire is just a spark; every harvest is just a seed; every journey is just a step because without that step there will be no journey; without that raindrop there can be no shower; without that seed there can be no harvest.”

The second great encouragement to be a “saxifrage saint” is set forth in the parable of the leaven:

B. The Contact of Living Yeast with Lifeless Flour Brings a Pervasive Impact!

Does the yeast or leaven have any advantage over flour? Yes, but it is not in its massiveness, or origin, or its color, but in its aliveness! Yeast is a living organism.

What’s the meaning of the yeast in the flour? There is a view that says leaven or yeast is always a symbol of evil in the Bible and that Christ was saying that the leaven in his story was false doctrine that would be slipped into the church until it become apostate and evil. Once more we read Dr. J. Dwight Pentecost as he gives the erroneous dispensational interpretation of the parable of the leaven: “The progress of the age is marked, according to this parable, by the ministry of the woman. This evidently refers to the work of a false religious system. The age is marked by the introduction of the leaven. This figure is used in Scripture to portray that which is evil in character. The parable of the leaven reveals that there will rise a religious system that will introduce a corrupting element into Word of God and the doctrine of the person of Christ.”

If leaven is evil then here is what this parable teaches: The kingdom of heaven is like an evil influence which brings the whole world into a state of apostasy. Is Jesus teaching His disciples that things are going from good to bad, to worse and worse? Is He saying that the kingdom is going to be ruined and run over by false teachings? No!

Yeast is not always used in the scriptures as a symbol of sin and evil but of permeation, of penetration, of influence. Yeast is a form of saxifrage, i.e. rock-breakers! In this parable yeast represents the positive, powerful, penetrating influence of the kingdom message as expressed through the lives of the redeemed.

Yeast works it works secretly — It is hidden in the flour. Once inserted it goes to work on the inside and works all the way through causing the flour to become risen dough. Yet, to the uninformed observer, there is no immediate or perceptible change, but transformation has begun. Likewise, when the gospel leaven is inserted into sin-deadened hearts and attended by the energizing power of the Holy Spirit, there is a rising up that begins in secret, but eventually manifests itself in the outward cry of the repentance and faith cries of new born spiritual babes in Christ! 

Yeast works powerfully — Three “satas” of flour is enough to make bread for around 100 persons. For a housewife, in New Testament times, before the days of refrigeration, to bake in these amounts for her household was unthinkable. Just as the grain of mustard seed does, the yeast likewise works in its powerful, penetrating, and spreading nature.

Commentator John Gill confidently asserts that, “The Gospel reaches the conscience, pierces the heart, enlightens the understanding, informs the judgment, raises and sets the affections on right objects, subdues the will, and brings down all towering thoughts, to the obedience of Christ, in particular persons; and has penetrated and made its way, under divine influence, through towns, cities, kingdoms, and nations: also on account of its heating, swelling, and assimilating nature; so the Gospel, where it takes place, warms the affections, causes the heart to burn within, inspires with zeal for God, and Christ, and the Gospel; it swells and fills churches with such as shall be saved, and assimilates the several persons it operates in, makes them like one another, one bread, one body, having like precious faith, knowledge, and experience, though in a different degree.”

Yeast works progressively, pervasively and persistently – It will continue to work “until” the whole is leavened. To again quote commentator John Gill: “Now the Gospel, where it has entrance and takes place, powerfully and effectually, continues to operate more or less, as the leaven in the meal, until the whole man, soul and body, all the faculties of the soul, and members of the body, are influenced by it; and will continue with power and efficacy in the world, and church, until all the elect of God are wrought upon by it, and are brought in.”

UNTIL, is a great, powerful, and hope-energizing word. The people of God should always know that God’s time clock is permanently set on UNTIL.
“Until the whole is leavened” (Matthew 13:33);
“Until His Enemies Become His Footstool–1 Corinthians 15:25, “He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet”;
“Until the Restitution of all Things”– Acts 3:21, “whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things”;
“Until the Church Comes into Full Maturity” – Ephesians 4:11-13;
“Until the Wheat and Tares are Fully Ripened for Harvest” —Mt 13:30, “Let both grow together until the harvest…”
“Until the Fullness of the Gentiles be come in” — Rom 11:25-26a, “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved:

What impact and transformational influence can a little lump yeast inserted into a big bushel of dead flour effect? Let the initial kingdom enterprise of the New Testament illustrate for us. They were just a handful of feeble men and women with a seemingly foolish message. These believers had no educational prestige, no financial backing, no social standing, no numerical size; they owned no buildings, no Bible colleges, or seminaries, yet within the space of a few years that turned the world upside down.

Pay very close attention my fellow believer and co-partner with King Jesus in the Family Firm of Almighty and Sons, when the sons and daughters of the kingdom, with the Word of God in their heart, by the Spirit of God are planted in the midst of a people dead to God, and whose hearts are as hard as rocks, they at first seem to be so “harmless and helpless.” But the little rootlets of the seed or yeast of kingdom life begins to infiltrate, interpenetrate and influence everything they come into contact with, until finally many of the rock-hard hearts are broken and they become “Saxifrage Saints” themselves!

As “Saxifrage Saints” we are to go into all the world and be planted by our King and there declare that those around us can come to experience “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning; that they can put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.”

There is a story in the Bible in 2 Kings 6:15-20 in which the Prophet Elisha’s servant awakens one morning and goes outside only to see several thousand well-armed enemy troops surrounding their little town. Overwhelmed with fear, he cries out to the prophet, “Alas, what shall we do?”

A vast number of American Christians are beginning to feel the same way, especially as they look about at the rising tide of the many enemies of the gospel that are surrounding us on every side – Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Satanism, atheism, humanism, etc. Fear is causing many to cry out, “What shall we do?” When we feel outgunned, outnumbered, and outwitted, whether it be on the political, social, or religious battlefield, and our hearts are filled with the temptation to give in to fear, “Alas, what shall we do?”

Well, instead of crying to be taken off the field and out of this world, we need to get back onto the field and out to the whole world with the whole gospel, which alone is the power of God unto salvation. Also we need to get back into the Scriptures to see what men and women of God did in similar situations.

The strategy for what to do when the enemies of God have surrounded us is set forth clearly and perpetually in the life and ministry of Elisha, the Prophet. Elisha is a type of the Church functioning in full faith assurance and authority as kingdom of heaven ambassadors. All the greatness of God and all of heaven’s angels and assets are available to the Church, when she replaces fear with faith; a runner’s mentality with a rulers; a reliance on Madison Avenue and Hollywood techniques with total dependence on God and His gospel; when she has her fear-blinded eyes opened to the world-discipling opportunities being surrounded is bringing to us! God will do anything for the true Church, the Bride of His Son Jesus, in this great hour of history. We need to be expecting all kinds of fantastic, mind-boggling things as God shows His miraculous power for world harvest.

General Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in Korea in 1950 was surrounded by 10 divisions of Chinese that had been sent to annihilate them. But the Marines smashed seven of the divisions during their retreat to the sea. During that battle, he made the famous quote, “We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.”  When asked by a reporter if they were retreating, He said, “H_____ no! We are just “attacking in a different direction.” Puller’s Marines smashed seven of the divisions during their pull back to the sea. Facing attack from all sides, including two massive enemy attacks on the rear guard, Puller’s direct leadership ensured all casualties were evacuated, all salvageable equipment was brought out, and ensured there was enough time for the column to reach its destination.

This is the attitude the Church of the Living God needs today! Since we refused to take serious Christ’s commission to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, God has virtually surrounded us with the nations – this simplifies things!

So what if the New Age movement is proliferating. So what if the New World Order guys are plotting. So what if Islamic terrorism is on the march! So what if we are surrounded by the forces of evil on all sides. We need the attitude of one of the two men who set out to kill wolves for the bounty that had been placed on them. On their first night out old Jim Bob was awakened by the sounds of snarls and barks. Seeing in the dim camp fire light the red eyes of savage wolves all around them, he punched his buddy and said, “Wake up, Jed, we is rich!

Gary DeMar challenges Christians to be saxifrage saints as he writes, “Christianity has triumphed over idolatry before, and it can do it again. Christianity has brought peace to warring tribes, transformed barbarians into champions of justice and mercy, brigands into servants of the poor, and rapist into defenders of women. ”

Historical Evidence of the Impact of “Saxifrage Saints”

In 1880 there were no churches in Korea. The country was considered by many to be beyond hope of kingdom entry. Now there are 6,000 churches in the city of Seoul alone. Six new churches are being started in South Korea every day.

In 1900 only 50,000 Protestants were counted in Latin America. In 1930 there where 2.5 million, but today it’s estimated that there are more than fifty million. In 1900 there were fewer than 10 million African Christians. Now there are more than 200 million.

When the missionaries were expelled from China in 194950, there were 849,000 Protestant church members. This number was reduced by bloody persecution to an estimated 50,000. These were rounded up by the Communists and placed in one central concentration camp. Fear of an uprising caused them to divide them into small groups and ship “saxifrage saints” into prison camps all over China. The little rock-breakers began their silent but successful work and as a result today it is estimated (only the Lord knows for sure the numbers) that there are somewhere between 100 to 300 million believers in the kingdom of God in China.

Sometime during the year in 1865, a nervous Sunday School teacher walked down a Boston street to a shoe store one day. He had gone to see a dynamic but uneducated young shoe clerk whose ambition it was to make a million dollars selling shoes. The Sunday School teacher nervously hesitated outside, but finally built enough courage to go into the store. He found the young clerk on lunch break in the back of the store; and after stumbling through a greeting and mumbling a few introductory words, he faltered his way through a Gospel witness to the young clerk. The young man was like ripe fruit. He fell to the teacher’s nervous touch, opened his heart to Christ, and was saved that day in the back of that shoe store. Few people ever remember the name of Edward Kimball, the Sunday School teacher; but every studious Christian has heard many, many times of Dwight L. Moody, perhaps the greatest evangelist up to that time in the history of the church. 

You probably have never even heard of Albert McMakin, but he was a saxifrage saint. He didn’t have a whole lot of ability or opportunities to impact the world, but he did. He was a twenty-four year old farmer who had recently come to faith in Christ. He was so full of enthusiasm that he filled a truck with people and took them to a meeting to hear about Jesus. There was a good-looking farmer’s son whom he was especially interested to get to the meeting, but this young man was hard to persuade — he was busy falling in and out of love with different girls, and did not seem to be attracted to Christianity. Eventually, Albert McMakin managed to persuade him to come by asking him to drive the truck. When they arrived, Albert’s guest decided to go in and was ‘spellbound’ and began to have thoughts he had never known before. He went back again and again until one night; he went forward and gave his life to Jesus Christ. That man, the driver of the truck, was Billy Graham, who became the greatest evangelist in the history of the church and has spoken to over 220 million people in his lifetime! That year was 1934. We can not all be like Billy Graham but we can all be like Albert McMakin.

In 1965, God planted a little saxifrage saint on the jobsite in Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama by the name of Billy Story. He was a bi-vocational Presbyterian pastor who was also the superintendent of all the jobs for Triangle Electric Company. On that jobsite was a wicked, wild, and rebellious 19 year old young man, who had broken the hearts of family and friends many times over. Refusing to attend church, God brought church to him almost every workday for nine months, by the witness of the boss – the little preacher. After almost daily insertions of gospel seed and leaven, on October 3, 1966, the life from the seed of the gospel and the transforming effects of gospel leaven broke the hard heart and impregnated that young man with kingdom DNA – that man was me – Wade Trimmer!

Christianity has become the most extensive and universal faith in history. Today there are Christians and organized churches in every inhabited country on the earth. Each day an estimated 78,000 new Christians are added to the kingdom of God around the world each day. 

Much of this growth is hidden from the world. A case in point is made by David Wang of Asian Outreach, as he reports about a village in China of more than 30,000 people that had only a small and struggling church, and were virtually throttled by a communist official from Beijing. But the official developed cancer of the nose and was told the he was beyond the help of medical science. Out of fear of death, he swallowed his pride and asked the leader of the church that he was persecuting to pray to God for him to be healed. He did. The man was completely healed, became a Christian, and the way was opened for a movement of God that sweep the whole village until all 30,000 had professed faith in Christ. The village became know as Jesus Mountain. The official was subsequently jailed but rejoiced for the privilege of suffering for Christ.

I am greatly encouraged. Not by what I see with my eyes, but by what I’m seeing by the eyes of faith from the Word of God. I believe that God is about to visit his people once again with power and glory. I see an army of saxifrage saints, penetrating the hardness of men’s hearts, influencing everything they come in contact with, and they are marching through the land, with deliverance as their song and healing is in their hands. They are filled with everlasting joy and gladness is in their hearts, and multitudes are joining up — and in this army I’ve got a part!

The religious and economic history of England provides a good illustration of the power of gospel seed and leaven. By all descriptions of the period, it was characterized by rampant ungodliness and almost complete disregard for biblical standards in every area of life. J. C. Ryle wrote: “Christianity seemed to lie as one dead . . . There was darkness in high places and darkness in low places — darkness in the court, the camp, the Parliament, and the bar — darkness in country, and darkness in town — darkness among rich and darkness among poor — a gross, thick, religious and moral darkness — a darkness that might be felt.”

The government and the courts were corrupt: open bribery was a continual practice, and the poor were flagrantly oppressed — which is not to say that the poor were any better. Crime was abundant, and the attempt of the authorities to suppress it (by making 160 offenses punishable by death) was to no avail. Whole districts were sunk in abject heathenism, ignorant of the most basic principles of the gospel. And what were the churches doing? Says Ryle: “They existed, but they could hardly be said to have lived. They did nothing; they were sound asleep.” In short, England was well down the road which, for a nation just across –the Channel, climaxed in the orgy of horror known as the French Revolution.

Yet, within a few years, the situation changed entirely. Thousands were converted to vital Christianity; the slave trade was abolished (in a manner vastly different from the Unitarian inspired abolitionist movement in America); widows, orphans and poor were cared for; hospitals were established; missionary and tract societies flourished. What made the difference? God planted some mustard seed believers, who were confident of the power of gospel leaven, in spite of the size of the spiritually lifeless masses that were against them, by the names of George Whitefield, John and Charles Wesley and his companions. These men spearheaded one of the most far-reaching evangelistic movements in history. England heard and believed the gospel of Jesus Christ, and began to obey the laws of God. This flowed out into every aspect of culture including economics and po1itics.

In 1884, H.L. Hastings visited the Fiji Islands. He found there that life was very cheap. In fact, you could buy a human being cheaper than you could a cow. For $7.00 or one musket, you could buy a man. Once purchased, you could work him, whip him, starve him, or eat him according to your preference, and many did the latter. Hastings returned many years later and discovered that you couldn’t but a man for 7 million dollars. Why? Because now, where previously there hadn’t been any, there were 1,200 Christian churches and thousands of converts who had been taught that they had already been bought by the precious blood of the Lamb of God.   

In spite of the plain teaching of scripture, I can anticipate objections that sound like this: “But pastor, can’t you see that things are getting worse and worse and we are losing? Can’t you see that? NO!

The fact that there are 78,000 conversions each day and 16,000 new churches planted each week is proof positive that the gospel is being and will continue to be victorious!

C. H. Spurgeon was no believer in gloom and doom for the world. In the middle of the 19th century, he penned these motivating words: “The fullness of Jesus has not changed, then why are our works so feebly done? Pentecost, is that to be a tradition? The Reformation days, are these to be memories only? I see no reason why we should not have a greater Pentecost than Peter saw, and a Reformation deeper in its foundations, and truer in its upbuildings than all the reforms which Luther or Calvin achieved. We have the same Christ. Our laziness puts off the work of conquest, our selfindulgence procrastinates, our cowardice and want of faith makes us dote upon the millennium instead of hearing the Spirit’s voice today. Happy days would begin from this hour if the Church would but awake and put on her strength, for in her Lord all fullness dwells.

Oh! Spirit of God, bring back thy Church to a belief in the gospel! Then we shall see thy arm made bare, O God, in the eyes of all the people, and the myriads shall be brought to rally around the throne of God and the Lamb. The gospel must succeed; it shall succeed; it cannot be prevented from succeeding; a multitude that no man can number must be saved!”

One of the old hymn writers challenges us to sing and sow the gospel seed in the confidence that “from victory unto victory His army shall He lead `til every foe is vanquished and Christ is Lord in deed.”

Spurgeon would have us remember the power of King Jesus to effect the conversion of sinners: “Do not say of any man that he cannot be saved. Do not say of any district that it is too sunken to be redeemed. Believe in Christ crucified, and preach boldly in His name, and you shall see great things and gladsome things. Do not doubt the ultimate triumph of Christianity. The cross must conquer; it must blossom with a crown commensurate with the person of the Crucified, and the bitterness of His agony. His reward shall parallel His sorrows.  Trust in God, and lift your banner high, and now with psalms and songs advance to battle, for the Lord of Hosts is with us, the Son of the Highest leads our van. Onward with blast of silver trumpet and shout of those who seize the spoil. Let no man’s heart fail him! Christ hath died! Atonement is complete! God is satisfied! Peace is proclaimed! Heaven glitters with proofs of mercy already bestowed upon ten thousand times ten thousand! Hell is trembling, Heaven adoring, earth waiting. Advance, ye saints to certain victory! You shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb!”

With total confidence in the power of the gospel of Christ to save from the gutter-most to the uttermost, and above the voice of spiritual undertakers saying the Church is dead; above the persecutor’s actions, above the apostasy of many, above the sneers of the scientific and intellectual community, above the infidel’s mouth and louder than the skeptics in the pew, I hear the voice of King Jesus saying, “Upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!”

The kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. Multitudes as the sand of the sea in number shall bow in glad submission to the King of Glory. The Lord God omnipotent reigns now! The Church triumphant is alive and well. The Gospel is still the power of God! The Spirit and the gifts are ours! Rise up “saxifrage saints” – It’s harvest time!

We must be a people of faith. And faith is spelled R-I-S-K! We must live by faith in the Word of God and not in what our eyes see on the evening news or read in the newspaper, or in the best-selling books of well-intentioned but demoralizing authors who predict doom and gloom while Christians fly away. “It is not only unwise, but it is wicked to be disheartened because of the external feebleness of the Church, compared with the work she has to do, and the enemies she has encountered. God is her strength, her glory and her hope, and to despair of her is to deny God.” (Thomas V. Moore, A Commentary on Zechariah, p. 77)

It is time to begin to confess faith in Christ and His gospel instead of continually making confessions of fear and the lies of Satan. It is time to stop meeting, eating and retreating. It is time to take the whole gospel to the whole world with the confidence that His kingdom will come more fully as we do.

Below is a good confession – join me in declaring it on a daily basis:

We acknowledge in our hearts and affirm with our lips that the seed of the kingdom sown in faith will triumph over all opposition and transform any condition. We confess that because we have the sources, forces and resources of the kingdom of heaven available to us,. As a result, we expect through our lives and labors to see the kingdom come more fully, the will of God done more freely, and the name of God hallowed more frequently.

We dare to confess that the seed of the kingdom is more than adequate for every need and deed, and that the leaven of gospel truth is more impacting than numbers or nickels.

We believe that if we go on seeking first the kingdom of God, we will not have to worry about food or finances, for all these things will be added to us!

We confess with confidence that we have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God’s dear Son, and are now ambassadors of the King, and co-partners in the Family Business of Kingdom Enterprises Unlimited! As sons in the kingdom, we will talk in terms of the authority and power available to us instead of about the number and nature of those arrayed against us.

We will talk about the reality that kingdom love is greater than all the hate in the world, and that kingdom life is more powerful than death.

We will confess that from a kingdom perspective there’s abundance and not shortages; that the curse is being reversed; that we are victors in Christ and not victims of any circumstances; that we are under kingdom order and prosperity and not under demonic disorder and poverty; that we are blessed and highly favored sons and not cursed and lowly despised slaves.

We will talk from the perspective of viewing the invisible, supernatural dimensions of the kingdom and then move to the visible, natural situation on earth; from the actual and not just the apparent; from the invisible to the visible.
Having received the eternal report from God, we will reject all the evil reports that have their foundation in unbelief and defeat for the gospel of God. 

We will rest on the exhaustless resources of God, and when that seems in doubt, we will reflect upon the excellent record of God in the past.

We will act responsibly upon the exact requirements of God and avoid seeking security at any cost, but will look for opportunities despite what might be lost!

We will Stop Griping over the Giants of Problems We See in God’s Promised Land and Confess that We are Hungry for the Grapes of God’s Promised Provision.

We will daily make whatever changes are needed in the intake of our information in order to change the output of our thinking and talking!

We reject the treason of reason and the commotions of our emotions and give ourselves in whole-hearted devotion to our Commander and Chief – King Jesus!

The Word of God, not the Majority Opinion Report of Men, will be the Source of our Thinking, Speaking, and Acting! 

As a people of a God-given Identity, having a God-ordained Destiny, a God-empowered-Ministry, with a God-assured Victory, we refuse to focus upon the tangible, the temporal, the visible, or the obvious, but instead we will focus upon the person and promises of the God who cannot lie and who does not change.

We will confess publicly that we are a part of the fellowship of the unashamed, a disciple of Jesus Christ. 

We confess that our past is Christ-redeemed, our present is Spirit-directed, and our future is Father God-secured. In Kingdom now, we live in His presence, learn by faith, love by practice, lift by prayer and labor in His power.

We confess that in light of these truths, we won’t give up, back up, let up or hush up, till we have prayed down, preached out, praised up, prophesied of our King and His kingdom and the whole earth is filled with the glory of the Lord!

Little, insignificant-feeling, unrecognized, unheard, “saxifrage saint”, be encouraged because you have what over 5 billion people on alive today do not have – ETERNAL LIFE – the life of the age to come resident in your heart now! Ask the Holy Spirit to allow you to be planted as kingdom mustard seed in the place of his choosing. Ask Him to insert you as “gospel yeast” into a mass of lifeless souls, beginning at your Jerusalem (those nearest you), and Judea, (your neighbors), and Samaria, (those neglected), and to the uttermost parts of the earth (the next and the next, to the ends of the earth UN|IL the end of time!

It’s harvest time!