The term ‘self-will run riot’ is a very well known phrase used by Alcoholics Anonymous to describe those newcomers to their fellowship who insist on doing it their way.  Bethesda experienced this phenomenon last week, and had to invite one client to leave because of it.

The previous week we had seen this young man make a tearful cry to God as he handed over his will and his life to Him.  There was no doubt a deep conversion took place within this man’s heart and he fell in love with The Word.  However, he then fell prey to a very common and attractive misconception: ‘Everything is alright now that everything is alright’.  With us for three weeks, drug-free for three weeks, and seeing things totally differently now, he was actually on the brink of asking “what was all the fuss about?”

He had resigned from his job to come into rehab, ignoring the fact that he was about to be dismissed for drug abuse in the work place.  He had agreed to come to us for a period of three months, simply to shut up everyone around him and to impress his former bosses so that there might be a door back into employment at some point.  He then received a visit from his wife and children and, within a day, he was manipulating her thinking in order to achieve a goal he had kept secret - that of leaving prematurely.
Families of active addicts might recognise this as a typically addictive master-plan of manipulation.  He came for the wrong reasons, he stayed for the wrong reasons and he was trying to get his wife to suggest that he should leave, once again for the wrong reasons.

Early recovery must be defined as: ‘struggling to do the right things for the right reasons’.  Our client wanted to do the right things, but for the wrong reasons.  He wanted to go home now that he was drug-free, and provide for his family. Admirable, but he was doing it out of a sense of guilt and obligation.  The will of the self is such a powerful governor.  It governs the desires and the decisions and blocks out the true light.  The desire to do the right things was there, yet void of the willingness to undergo any struggle.  The wife’s heart sank back into that pit of despair when the decision was made for him to leave.  Self-will run riot.

We do celebrate that this guy made a commitment to God, albeit flawed at this stage.  The celebration is more rooted in the truth that God has actually made a commitment to this man too, and future glories will be rooted in God’s will, not man’s.  Following his conversion our client was expressing the desire for baptism, but it did not feel right to baptise him until he had counted the cost and gained an understanding of what baptism is all about.

This brings me to the closing question of last week’s newsletter: why was Jesus baptised?  The two most popular replies whenever this question is asked are: ‘To set us an example’ and ‘to fulfil the law’.  Should we seek baptism in order to follow Jesus’ example, then there is a terrible danger that self-will is still running riot, but in a religious way.  Should we say amen to Jesus being baptised to fulfil the law, then we have to be able to pin down exactly which law.

If His baptism fulfilled the law, why did He continue to shed His Blood?  The law Jesus fulfilled at His baptism was Exodus 29:4.  In Exodus 25 God instructs, in specific detail, how He wants The Ark of The Covenant built.  In Exodus 26, God instructs, in specific detail, how He wants The Tabernacle built.  In Exodus 27, God instructs, in specific detail, how He wants The Altar built.  In Exodus 28, God instructs, in specific detail, how He wants the High Priest to be dressed.  In all this God is meticulously and intricately specific; He misses out nothing, and what He says is Law.

In Exodus 29 God instructs, in specific detail, how He wants the High Priest to approach God.  The very last thing the High Priest did before he put on the robes of office – that of intercession with God for the sins of the people – is seen in verse 4: “Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, wash them with water”.  Not until they were washed with water did God permit them to receive Robes of Office.  When Jesus was baptised, The Holy Spirit came upon Him - He then went into ministry for the first time.

Self-will running riot will not tolerate the preparation for ministry, because it means one has to look at one’s own sin and that’s a struggle.  Lord, have mercy on us.