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Despite the summer being the holiday season here in New Zealand, the last few months have brought opportunities of many kinds, and we have been blessed to see God move.
I have had opportunity to pick up the work on the book on authority. Some people can do their research, complete the book structure, and then begin to write. I find I only get the ideas after I have started! I write myself into a corner and then see that either I must be wrong, or there is a God-solution! Then the revelation comes. It is heady stuff when it happens, and I am learning so much. Here is a sneak preview…
God not only gave man dominion [radah] over the earth, but also commanded them to ‘subdue’ it. The Hebrew word is kabash, which means, er, to ‘subdue’! But it can also mean to ‘bring into bondage’, or even to ‘violate’. It seems to be an even stronger word than radah!
Whatever the precise meaning, the implication is that without man’s authority the world would get out of hand. His control was not only allowed, it was commanded in order that the earth would come into its full potential. In fact the whole phrase is ‘fill the earth and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:28). The Hebrew word for ‘fill’ is translated ‘replenish’ in KJV, which makes sense for renewable resources like plants and animals, but how can we replenish finite elements? The word can even mean to ‘have wholly’, which underlines the already strong commands; or to ‘fulfil’, which makes
more sense in the context. This means that the purpose of our being given dominion is to enable the earth to fulfil its God-given potential.
Man’s authority was therefore an essential and inextricable part of God’s creation of the whole earth, i.e. an earth uncontrolled by man would not fulfil its God-intended destiny! It was given to him during, not after, creation, as part of God’s work of the final day. And then there was evening and there was morning – the sixth day (Genesis 1:31). So man’s dominion is an inherent part of the functioning of the created world. Without it, nature is incomplete.
This is quite a different picture from the one usually painted, that nature is perfect until man touches it and then it turns to custard. Why is it then that this custard scenario is so often the case? Why is it that we are cutting down our forests, plundering our resources, exterminating species, polluting our seas, eroding our soils and warming our globe? We are coming to that!
Perhaps the highlight of the summer was the visit of Reinhard Bonnke, here for just two days, but what days they were! I was blessed to be asked to be his driver, so got to spend more time with him than I otherwise would have. He just seems to grow in stature, in zeal, in vision and in grace. It is a privilege to know him, and impossible to spend any time at all with him without having your own zeal for the lost rekindled, which I know is entirely what he would have wanted!
Filling shoes
I have had several preaching engagements, including a School of Healing at a church camp in the north of the country, where a
number assembled in holiday mood to enjoy a bit of beach, fishing, food and fellowship. But even though the atmosphere was relaxed, the folk sought the Lord, and he moved in healing. Quite a few found their healing, and one or two were delivered too, but there were many others who we longed to see set free from their symptoms but we saw no immediate evidence of the healing that Jesus has already paid for. This is the continual frustration of the healing ministry, and something that we must all come to terms with. We have two possible reactions – to get depressed (and let’s be honest, we all feel like that when nothing appears to happen), and decide that we are not being used by God. This in turn can lead to other wrong conclusions – it is our fault, it is their fault, it is God’s fault. Because we don’t understand, we wait until we ‘feel’ that a person is going to be healed before we begin. Already we are on the downward spiral of doubt, until we stop ministering to the sick altogether, comforting ourselves with the thought that we don’t want to disappoint or hurt already hurting people.
Our other response is to press through our doubts, asking God to show us how we can improve, to be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit, to increase our faith. Once when Reinhard Bonnke had prayed for a line of fifty blind people, just three of them were healed. Afterwards, someone asked him, ‘What about the forty-seven?’ His response was, ‘What about the three?’ This is not being unkind to the forty-seven. They could
