The Broken Spokes of the Wheel and the Soul Salvation Single Barrel Shotgun

It’s over twenty years ago since I first heard these recorded words from an overseas Bible teacher, “God’s truth is held in tension.  All the things in the word of God are given to us in balancing factors, always … spirit and truth.”  He said, “All truth, you dry up – all spirit, you blow up … spirit and truth, you grow up.”  He called it “the balancing factor in God” and stressed that if you are in any group or church and you begin to see only one truth expressed everywhere, then also begin to suspect over-emphasis, out of balance … take caution.  In other words, don’t reject what you’re hearing, just know that God has a fuller picture for you than the one presented there.

His counsel then was, dig deeper into God in prayer, check things out in the Scriptures, ask more learned and experienced Christians for their wisdom and guidance.  In addition he further warned, “We must give the truth in healthy proportion.”  I was later to learn by experience the truth of this man’s teaching. For too many years I heard too many things being preached that were not in healthy proportion or balance.  As a result the people became stale, they expressed little joy, they didn’t talk about the goodness of Jesus … basically it felt like they were selling their doctrines, driving them down our throat … indoctrination rather than sound, healthy, liberating doctrinal teaching.

How grateful I am that God brought this man’s warnings to mind and used them as a catalyst to me seeking Him more for the fullness of truth in the doctrines taught; then later, leave the group.  I don’t know to what level God may take any one of us to in our walk with Him, but I do know it will not be too deep if we ignore seeking Him on an individual basis for “the whole counsel of God” Acts 20:27.  I suggest our search will have to be on an individual basis because given the state of Christendom around the world it appears that we cannot rely on the leadership of our churches and fellowships to ever do so.  I believe that’s because they are afraid of what they will encounter and it will cause too many problems.

In his teaching, the Bible teacher likened the whole counsel of God to a wheel.  Jesus is the central part or hub of the wheel and the spokes of the wheel are the doctrines … the problem being there are too many short spokes from the hub that are not attached to the rim.  Result?  Too many flat spots – a dysfunctional wheel.  In thinking about this, the spokes of salvation, repentance, baptism, the fruit of the Holy Spirit and tithing, from the hub, are still attached to a few rims, but broken off or shortened from the rims, are the spokes of baptism into the Holy Spirit, the revelation/inspiration/demonstration gifts of the Holy Spirit, the anointings of the Holy Spirit and warring in the Holy Spirit.

In likening churches around the world to a wheel it’s not difficult to understand why many of them have gradually but surely slowed down to the point of collapse since the passing of the original wheelwrights (apostles).  Like all good craftsmen, these men learned their craft from the original Manufacturer and so grand a Teacher was He that they saw no need ever to stray from His blueprint or to reinvent!  They left the blueprint exactly as they learned it, for others following them to pick up and learn from.  But as is so typical anywhere in the world of manufacturing today, doctoring blueprints is the name of the game in the church too … cutting corners, short-changing or dealing unfairly – and even cheating.    

The other day a Christian man asked me for my viewpoint on a couple of biblical matters and it would have been very easy to respond with a Scripture or two, making them fit his theological viewpoint perfectly.  But I was reluctant to give the Scriptures without balancing them with a couple of others that did not fit his theological viewpoint.  Such a practice is not one that guarantees a continuing relationship or even respect, perhaps, but it is always the right thing to do regardless of cost.  To me, balancing factors are most important based on what we read from James 3:1  “….let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.”

Speaking of balancing factors, the Bible teacher gave what I have found over the years to be a most helpful formula: Some people want to give a doctrine no place; others want to give it the place.  We plead that we give any doctrine a place.  Sad it is that leaders won’t take that advice.  Too many of them are afraid to do so because they know people will get offended with what they hear, then leave.  So be it.  Jesus said, “….Feed my lambs…tend my sheep.” John 21:15-16.  For the most part it’s not happening.  The church has a lot unhealthy lambs and sick sheep in its midst that have never known what it’s like to feed on a healthy spiritual meal.  Spiritual starvation is so commonplace the people don’t know that they don’t know.

It has been a regular prayer of mine for some years now to ask God to show me what is on His heart about the true church versus the compromising and the false church.  In recent weeks He has been drawing my attention to the doctrine of Salvation and I’m beginning to see, not the whole counsel, but certainly a greater counsel of God in it.  I am likening what He’s showing to that of a single barrel shotgun versus a double barrel shotgun and I’m astounded!  Among its numerous meanings ‘Salvation’ means: deliverance, help, save, saved, saving, welfare, rescue, restored, health, healing.  Glorious, all of it! … even if it only ever gets fired from a soul salvation single barrel shotgun, which is all we get from most churches.   

But it doesn’t!  Spiritually speaking, God fires Salvation from a double barrel shot gun!  In other words, all those same meanings come out of the other barrel too in the form of body salvation – physical healing – the healing of physical sicknesses, afflictions and diseases.  This is just one example of how God’s blueprint has been doctored – a broken spoke causing a flat spot in the wheel.  Jesus and the wheelwrights (apostles) and others ministered both soul and physical healing.  Everywhere you look in the Gospels and New Testament, there it is … “healed” used over 40 times in the physical sense, “and He healed him” “she was healed” “and He healed them” “and He healed them all” “and they were healed.”  

Not only that, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest physical healing was granted before spiritual healing.  In other words, if the Bible is to give any indication, it looks like God sometimes prefers to pull that trigger first!  Anecdotally I can speak to that, (see my About page), that’s how God first made Himself real to me and no doubt, has made Himself real to multitudes of people.  So wonderful is the divine healing experience, none of us would argue against God pulling that second trigger – immediately!  Based on the many physical healing experiences I’ve had, it has never been difficult to proclaim Jesus as the Healer, but I now see I’ve been using a soul Salvation single barrel shotgun.

It is only in recent months that I am now seeing that physical healing is part of the Salvation deal … the Atonement – the divine exchange.  Psalm 103:3 “Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases.”  Now, I have not sited that Scripture as a proof text for healing, but rather as a proof text for the Salvation double barrel shotgun.  I’m not going to mention any further healing Scriptures, I am encouraging you as a reader of this post to dig deep and seek God about it yourself.  You see, most Christians, including myself have always said, “I believe God can heal,” but few are there who’ve always said, “I believe God will heal.”

The biggest problem with, “I believe God can heal” is; when we pray for someone, we finish with, what I now also see are faith-destroying words, “If it be Thy will, Lord.” Only one man ever said that to Jesus, and He set him straight on the matter immediately … as well as heal him on the spot!  When I went out on the streets and prayed for the sick, I thank the Lord for His faith to answer the prayer.  Based on my faulty understanding of the Atonement, if He’d have left that up to me most of them may well have remained sick!  Yes, I had done studies on divine physical healing and I had heard the truth of what I’m writing here, but for whatever reason, the reality of it all did not sink to the level it now has.

Then to make matters worse later, I listened to too many men equipped only with soul Salvation single barrel shotguns.  This is just one more reason for why I’m forever encouraging born again Christians on this blog to seek out God for yourself on all matters – don’t leave it solely to your leader/s to feed you.  If you do your spiritual growth and maturity will remain stunted.  It is not enough simply to know about the Atonement and all its aspects; the Lord God wants to make it true in our personal experience.  Whilst the spokes of the Holy Spirit and His physical healing have been broken off from religious man’s wheel (church) they remain fixed to the wheel of God.

Somebody says, “But I know of lots of people who got prayed for physical healing and they’re still sick and others have died.”  True, so do I.  What we may not know is; what sort of Salvation shotgun did they get hit with … was it from the single barrel or the double barrel?  Also, what sort of physical healing were they expecting from the shotgun … the instant, miraculous kind or the My-word-says-it-believe-it-anyway kind?  Both are divine, but so often we’ve never given God the opportunity for us to experience the latter, because when we didn’t get it immediately we listened to Satan’s lie which then gave him the legal right to move in and steal it from us.  I hate to think how often I’ve done that.

The Bible declares, “….faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” Romans 10:17 – it is not hearing by the word of the devil!  But I can tell you the reason my healing for some aches and pains has been too slow in coming to pass is because I’ve been doing some wrong listening.  Now I’m doing some right listening and have repented of my unbelief and replanted those seeds of faith … and I water those seeds day and night not by asking for physical healing, but thanking God for hearing my prayer and for His answering it.  It’s coming.  

Still got confusions?  That’s understandable.  They come from the broken spokes of the wheel and the soul Salvation single barrel shotgun … not from God.  I’ll have more to say about this on another post. Here is that post: Divine Physical Healing “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” Mark 11:24. “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise” Hebrews 10:35-36.