Commentary on "Out of the Fire"--The Glory of One Soul Saved!

By David Hobbs

Psalm 49:8—The ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough

I always knew it was great to be saved, and salvation showed that God had personal care over my soul. But I never realized how much was involved until years later writing it down in my book Out of the Fire. Delving back into it has opened up the whole, wonderful world of all that happened that I never realized. One thing that really stands out is the chapter “Song in a Thunderstorm” (page 262). It was the watershed moment on my spiritual journey.
What is a watershed?
In the mountains, everything is sloped up or down. Other than that, it can all look pretty much the same. But there is this thing called a “watershed.” A watershed is an area, and it can be quite large (probably 1/3 of the United States lies within the watershed of the Mississippi River!). Within this area--though there are hills and valleys, ridges and ravines-- everything flows down to the river that drains the watershed. No matter where you start within the watershed, if you flow downhill you will end up at the mouth of the river. There is an inexorable pull that takes everything to the same place.
Yet while up in the highlands it is possible to cross over into a different watershed that will take you to a totally different destination. Sometimes in the highlands, just crossing a slight ridge is enough to rewrite the story of your destination!

As humans living here on the earth, we are born into a watershed that will take us eventually and inevitably to the river of death and then on into the netherworld of destruction and eternal damnation. No matter how well we do in life—the riches we amass, the honor we receive, the power we exercise—there is no escaping the pull of the earthly watershed we are in. It will take us--along with everyone else who may not do so well in life, even to the beggar in the river bottoms--to that same river of death and the same eternal destiny. “[I]t is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment…" (Heb. 9:27 NKJV). "For in Your sight no one living is righteous " (Psalm 143:2 NKJV).” That’s the teaching of the Bible.
But in Christ there is another watershed! That’s the Good News! And it’s possible to cross over to it, that which will take us to a totally different destination—eternal life with Christ!
On that fateful trip on I-5 from Redding to Yreka that spring afternoon in 1974, I was traveling up the Sacramento River watershed that eventually drains the whole northern part of California’s Central Valley into San Francisco Bay. But as I traveled up the river valley to Dunsmuir, up the mountain to the town of Mt. Shasta, and then over to Weed, I crossed over to the Klamath River drainage that bisects 100 miles of mountains before flowing into the Pacific Ocean just south of Oregon.
But that was only a picture of the real “crossing over” that was going on. In that fateful crash of lightning in the heart of the storm that illuminated my whole life and its total failure, a song burst forth spontaneously from my lips, a gospel song I had never sung before. As I belted it out with inexplicable fervor, I crossed over spiritually into another watershed, a watershed that would take me only a week later to meeting born-again Mike Harris and into his orb: first bunking alongside him, then hearing his testimony, listening to his tapes, getting a Bible, praying, seeing the miracles… a whole cycle that led to my salvation by the end of the summer and a new life in Christ.
Though I wouldn’t get saved for another couple of months, that trip was the watershed moment of my life. As I came down out of the mountains to the high desert around Gazelle, the clouds of the storm broke, the sun came out, and I’m sure the angels were blowing the trumpets of God, ushering me into the new, heavenly watershed that would leave death and destruction far behind. Now in this new watershed, I would shortly “come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” I would “come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.” I would “come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel" [back in the earthly watershed] (Heb. 12:22-24).
What a wonderful process God used to save me! That’s why I had to write this book. But I’m convinced God uses similarly wonderful processes to save everyone He has saved. If you are saved, meditate on the process of your own salvation. Ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate it for you. It will give you a whole new appreciation for God’s love for you and all He was willing to do to effect your salvation. It starts at the cross, where God abandoned His own beloved Son Jesus so He would never have to abandon us; where He let Jesus “by the grace of God … taste death for everyone" (Heb.2:9), so we would never have to die. But then it culminates in the wonderful process He used to draw you to Himself, which is utterly unique for every person.
If you are not yet saved, ask God to effect your salvation in the way He has chosen for you. Commit yourself to Him through the process by
2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding—
3 indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God (Prov. 2:2-5).




Me at "The Log Pile of Salvation"

Walking in the Spirit Part 2--Why Is It Critical to Walk in the Spirit?

By David Hobbs
Gal. 5:16 [NKJV]--Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Part 1 dealt with one of the key reasons we need to learn to walk in the Spirit: because “that’s the only way we’re going to defeat the devil and turn the kingdoms of this world into the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ.” It won’t be “by our own good ideas! Not by human effort! Not by organizational skills and charismatic giftings. It will only be by the power of God working through millions of Christians as they walk ‘in the Spirit!’” (Pardon me for quoting myself, but I was on a roll!)
The second reason we need to learn to walk in the Spirit is in the Scripture above—walking in the Spirit is the only way to effectively deal with our sin nature. When I am in the Spirit, sin has no attraction to me, hence no hold over me. As long as I can stay in the Spirit, I am free from sin. When we are walking in the Spirit, it is as if we were transported to the heavenly realms out of the earthly ones. Therefore things of the earth lose their glamour and appeal. Just like the song lyrics say, “And the things on earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
Sin is a lie anyway. You never really get what it promises. It’s always some sort of “bait and switch” routine orchestrated by the devil’s helpers to get us to fall. But when we’re in the Spirit, we can see through the schemes and sin looks incredibly tawdry and cheap.
Therefore, since the Bible says it and my own experience has confirmed it, why do pastors spend so much time preaching Christian morality? Shouldn’t we rather be teaching our people how to walk in the Spirit? That will deal with the sin problem better than multitudinous sermons on morality. Yet I’ve never heard that preached in all the churches I have visited coast-to-coast. But I have heard sermon after sermon on morality: "you should be a better person;" "you should be more thankful," "you should not get angry," "you should not steal from your employer or cheat on your spouse." It’s like the Old Testament all over again where the Law of Moses was preached in every Synagogue service for a thousand and a half years [Acts 15:21—“For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath”]. To what effect? All the law did was show us our sin, every week show us what we couldn’t do [Rom. 3:20—“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin”].
Here's some more of what the Bible has to say about the law and the Spirit.

Heb. 7:19--for the law made nothing perfect…
Rom. 8:3-4-- For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Gal. 5:18--But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

So I ask again, Why is Christian morality preached over and over, while living in the Spirit, being led of the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit are rarely mentioned from our pulpits; let alone is instruction given on how to do it?

God Encounter Retreat

By David Hobbs

I know this is supposed to be part 2 of “Walking in the Spirit,” but I’ve got to tell about a God Encounter Retreat I went on this weekend. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. My spiritual life has been dry, with a lot of warfare going on. In fact, I’ve been feeling banged up, like my armor had a lot of painful dents in it.
At the retreat, the first day was slow, as you’d expect. To encounter God and come into His presence, you’ve got to first deal with all the things that keep you apart from Him in the first place: sin, accusations of the enemy, lies we’ve been believing about ourselves or God, hurts and sorrows we're nurturing—all the junk that builds up from living in this world.
Even so, at the end of the first day, I didn’t know if I was ever going to meet with God. I remember being alone the first night after the meetings and ministry times and thinking to myself “I hope this works.” Something had come up at the last minute that threatened to keep my wife from coming. I recognized it as being a clever maneuver by the enemy and practically forced her to come in spite of it—I pulled rank on her. Now if it didn’t work out, if God didn’t meet with her... I would be in trouble!
I needn’t have worried. God met me before breakfast the second day, then again in ministry time later in the morning. I was praying, kneeling at my seat. Somebody threw a prayer shawl over my head (I can’t go into the details of what happened lest it ruin the experience for others still to come), and I found myself in heaven. Well, it was like this: from the waist up I was in heaven, from the waist down my legs and feet were still hanging out of the clouds in the earthly realm. I say I was in heaven. Yet I didn’t have any visions of heaven. I didn’t see God. I didn’t hear the melodious voices on angels. But I knew I was in heaven nonetheless. I was in heaven with Him. (If you have trouble with this, what do you do with Col. 3:1-3 that says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places at the right hand of God? I was only experiencing the reality of what the Bible teaches.)
For years I and my whole church have been looking forward to revival. In fact all my Christian life I have been looking forward to revival, having been born into the Kingdom at the tail end of the Jesus’ People Revival, seeing a lot and yet hearing stories of even greater things that happened before I’d gotten saved. In addition, we know our area has been chosen for powerful revival, and for years God has sent prophet after prophet to confirm that and add details, each of which seems more fantastic than the last: people getting healed as they walk onto the property, fire trucks circling the sanctuary looking for the source of the flames leaping from the top of the building, an "impact zone” within a radius of 100 miles around the church, a cancer-free zone, and on and on. Yet revival tarries. We pray, “How long O Lord? How long?”
I have found for myself, when I start getting into the “how long?” mode in my prayers, that it’s time to get back into the presence of Jesus, because nothing is greater than that. Now all of a sudden I was in His presence: I was in heaven with Him and nothing could draw me away! I feel sorry for those who would choose even the most powerful manifestation of revival over being in the presence of Jesus, because they still don’t get it. “In His presence,” the Bible says, “is fullness of joy. At His right hand are pleasures forever more.” And the song says, “In Your presence Lord is all I truly need.”
The devil beats me up a lot with accusations of what I like more than being in the presence of God. “You’d rather sit and write on your computer than pray,” he thunders, “you’d rather make love to your wife, eat a big steak dinner, take a nice nap—all kinds of things you prefer instead of being with the one you call your Savior!” Yet now, under this prayer shawl, locked in with Jesus in heaven, I realized there really was nothing back on earth I wanted: not the greatest revival, not a million people clamoring for my latest book, not the imploring faces of family and friends begging me to return. “If anybody wants me back, they’ll have to grab my dangling legs and pull me out of here,” I thought, “because there is no way I am ever voluntarily leaving this place!” All the filthy accusations of the devil were revealed to be the lies they were. I was not Lot’s wife. I wasn’t attracted to anything back on the earth: not my precious wife; not all my friends; not my 401K; not the work I love to do. When you’re with Jesus, nothing else matters!
Then why am I even back writing this? How do you know I am? Maybe I’m sending it from heaven via angelic messenger, huh? No but seriously I am back. Because even Jesus had to leave heaven and come to earth to do the Father’s will, though I’m sure He felt the same way about coming to this dark, cruel, morally polluted planet. But there were souls that needed to be saved, work that needed to be done. In fact, the earth itself needed to be reclaimed for the Kingdom of heaven: cleansed, refurbished, and restored to its original brilliance!
I visited a different church recently. The pastor was teaching on the end times. At one point he actually said to the congregation, “Your hope is in the rapture.” That set my mind spinning! But actually I find this is common among Christians. They’re hoping for the rapture to whisk them out of this world of woe and translate them to heaven forever. But if our hope is in anything other than Jesus, we are sadly deceived and out of sync with heaven. Friends, our hope is not in the rapture; it is not in a revival that’s going to come and fulfill all our unsatisfied longings. We are waiting for Jesus, and trying to grab whatever few moments with Him we can as we go through life’s journey. Seek His presence! Ask Him to let you come in and be with Him for awhile. Whatever it takes, get into the presence of Jesus. Then write and tell me if I’m wrong.