Conferences – Is, Was and Will Be – The Unknown Character of Christ and His Word https://www.iswasandwillbe.com Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty Thu, 04 Sep 2025 01:26:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/cropped-headerlogo-32x32.png Conferences – Is, Was and Will Be – The Unknown Character of Christ and His Word https://www.iswasandwillbe.com 32 32 Our Faith Overcomes the World https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/our-faith-overcomes-the-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=our-faith-overcomes-the-world Sat, 12 Nov 2022 06:54:46 +0000 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=26552

Our Faith Overcomes the World

[Mobile Conference 2022]

[Posted November 12, 2022]

We have all witnessed just how drastically the things one believes affects the way they live their lives. On the eleventh of September in 2001 the ‘faith’ of a few religious fanatics destroyed the world trade towers, struck the Pentagon, and would have struck the capitol if it had not been stopped by the ‘faith’ of a few who gave their lives to stop those hijackers from making their plane fly into the capitol building here in the U.S. That is what was reported, and while there is much speculation about how those events could possibly be allowed to take place, there is no one arguing against the fact that it was all done through the faith of religious zealots whose faith in the doctrines of their God led them to give their lives for that in which they had placed their faith.

Our faith tells us that if we are the Lord’s elect, the mission of saving mankind from himself will be accomplished by “the Lord and His Christ” alone.

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Rev 11:16  And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Rev 11:17  Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
Rev 11:18  And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

He goes as far as telling this about ourselves without Him. This is where we are today:

Isa 59:8  The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
Isa 59:9  Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
Isa 59:10  We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

We live in perilous times, and mankind does not know the way to peace. The Truths of the scripture are as unpopular as they have ever been, and they are becoming even less  popular all by the Lord’s design to try our faith:

Heb 10:35  Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
Heb 10:36  For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
Heb 10:37  For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Heb 10:38  Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
Heb 10:39  But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

While it appears this world is falling apart, and indeed it is, nevertheless “they that be with us are more than they that be with them”.

2Ki 6:15  And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?
2Ki 6:16  And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
2Ki 6:17  And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

Elisha typifies those who are in Christ. He typifies you and me, if indeed we are in Christ and He is dwelling within us. The Egyptian army was just as real as the Syrian army. The fiery furnace and the lion’s den were both very real (Dan 3:17, Dan 6:20). However, the Lord is far more powerful that the armies of Egypt and Syria combined, and He is also able to save us out of our own ‘fiery furnace’ and our own ‘den of lions’ if the Lord gives us the necessary faith to endure these fiery trials.

We are not likely to be surrounded by the armies of Syria, and we are probably not going to be threatened with being literally cast into a fiery furnace or a lion’s den. The Lord has already tailored all the trials we need to fit our modern day lives to show us just what we are of ourselves. After He humbles us and shows us our completely hopeless condition, then He shows us what we are when He is living His life within us.

The Truth is that this entire economy in which we live is designed to try our faith and to make us into ‘the sons of God’:

Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

2Co 4:15  For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

The natural man becomes puffed up with these words, but the new man is humbled because he is given to understand that “all things” is a two-edged sword which includes the trials as well as the blessings of this physical realm:

1Co 3:18  Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
1Co 3:19  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
1Co 3:20  And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.
1Co 3:21  Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
1Co 3:23  And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

A Godly leader is not what the world considers a ‘motivational speaker’ who tells you that by your own will you can do all things you aspire to accomplish if you will just hunker down and dedicate your life to the pursuit of your goals with barely an allusion to the trials of this life. All the writers of scripture demonstrate the same motivational message Christ brought us. That message, unpopular as it is, includes “the world… life… death… things present [and] things to come”. Christ, Paul and Peter, and James all add to what this means for every future ‘manifested son of God’, and they all agree that all who seek to follow in the footsteps of our Lord will have their faith sorely tried.

We just read how Paul assured us that this world, life and death, things present and things to come are all ours. Paul also assures us the reward will far outweigh the sufferings we must endure to attain the promised reward which is not to be expected in this present time:

Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Rom 8:19  For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Rom 8:20  For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
Rom 8:21  Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Rom 8:22  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Rom 8:23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
Rom 8:24  For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
Rom 8:25  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
Rom 8:26  Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Rom 8:27  And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Rom 8:30  Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

According to these words of the holy spirit through the pen of the apostle Paul, if we are the Lord’s elect, then there is no way we can loose this battle:

Rom 8:31  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
Rom 8:32  He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Rom 8:33  Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
Rom 8:34  Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Rom 8:35  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Rom 8:36  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Rom 8:37  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Rom 8:38  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Rom 8:39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Here is how Christ motivated His disciples. It is the exact same message just with other words:

Mat 10:16  Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
Mat 10:17  But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;
Mat 10:18  And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.
Mat 10:19  But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
Mat 10:20  For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
Mat 10:21  And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.
Mat 10:22  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.
Mat 10:23  But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.
Mat 10:24  The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.

Christ is the ultimate motivational speaker and as such He is honest with His disciples and tells them:

Mat 10:25  It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?

Is the pope “hated of all men”? Are the mega-ministers on world-wide satellite TV and radio hated of all men? Are the leaders of the Muslim religion “hated of all men”? The obvious answer is that they are not hated of all men. They all have their detractors, but they also have multitudes who love them and are willing to fight for them. However, there is one group who both Muslims and Christians hate and which neither will tolerate, and that group is the Lord’s “little flock” who don’t just hear and repeat the things Christ says, but they do the things He says we should do, and they are indeed “hated of all men”.

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Luk 6:47  Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
Luk 6:48  He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. [Doing the things Christ taught]
Luk 6:49  But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

Joh 5:18  Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

Christians will repeat Christ’s words… “I say unto you that you love your enemies” and in the same breath they will urge you to go out and kill your fellow man for the love of God and country. Muslims do not hide the fact that they hate those words of Christ. They claim Christ as one of their prophets, but they blatantly place the words of Mohammed above the words of Christ. Their doctrine is the same as the law of Moses… “Love your neighbor, but hate your enemy”, and they simply do not tolerate the doctrine of Christ even being spoken. Both have millions of disciples, and it simply cannot be said by any stretch of the imagination that they are hated of all men. There is no need to stretch the imagination to believe that anyone who thinks that you should love your enemies, break the sabbath day, and claim to be the Son of God, while saying of the established religion of His day was “of your Father the devil”, just might be “hated of all men”.

After telling us we will be hated of all men and warning us that even our fathers and brothers will turn on us, Christ tells us this:

Joh 15:5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Christ told us that He could do nothing of Himself, and He tells us that we can do nothing without Him:

Joh 5:19  Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

Joh 5:30  I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

How was Christ able to endure the sufferings of His cross? He was able to do so because He knew who He was, and He believed His Father’s words. That is what He calls “the work of God”, and that is what He tells us will get us through the death of the cross with Him:

Joh 6:24  When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus.
Joh 6:25  And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither?
Joh 6:26  Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
Joh 6:27  Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
Joh 6:28  Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Joh 6:29  Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

That is why we must stay close to the ‘Vine’ – Christ. Being ‘in Him’ is to “believe on Him”, and believing on Him is “the work of God”. As Paul words it, our faith is “the gift of God” and it is not of ourselves:

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that [faith is] not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9  Not of [our own] works, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

A New Testament doctrine which is little known and is seldom ever taught is that the ‘grace’ by which we are saved “through faith… chastens us to forsake ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live godly lives in this present age”:

Tit 2:11  For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Tit 2:12  Teaching [G3811: paideuo, chastening] us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

The Truth is that our mind learns nothing by simply being told… ‘do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. The Truth is that God has designed that we are given and “experience of evil” to humble us and make us submit to His will in our lives:

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it.

This verse tells us a part of what that “experience of evil” entails:

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

The Lord uses our own backslidings and wickedness to chasten and scourge us:

Jer 2:19  Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.

This chastening from the Lord makes our adversaries think we are cursed by God, but to those who know that grace chastens us to forsake ungodliness, our suffering for Christ is a “evident token… of [our] salvation”:

Php 1:28  And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.
Php 1:29  For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;

Our suffering, whether apparently self-inflicted or from persecution, is “for His sake [and] for His body’s sake, which is the church”:

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:
Col 1:25  Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;
Col 1:26  Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Col 1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

The Greek word translated as ‘hope’ in Colossians 1:27 is:

This word is always translated in the KJV as ‘hope’ except in this one verse where it is used in conjunction with the Greek word translated as ‘faith’ and ‘faithful’:

Heb 10:23  Let us hold fast the profession of our faith [G1680, ‘elpis’, hope] without wavering; (for he is faithful [G4103: ‘pistos’, faith] that promised;)

This verse (Heb 10:23) is the only time this word ‘elpis’ is translated as ‘faith’. Of the 54 entries in the New Testament it is translated as ‘hope’ 53 times:

The Lord’s admonition to us is to ‘Hold fast the profession of our hope, without wavering, because God is faithful who promised’.

The word translated as ‘faithful’ here in Hebrews 10:23 is:

As a matter of interest, I want to point out that this Greek word, G4103, ’pistos’, translated as ‘faithful’ is “from G3982” which is grossly mistranslated as ‘obey’ in the King James, and is much better translated as ‘be persuaded’ in the CLV in this verse of Hebrews 13. I will quote the King James version first and then the CLV:

Heb 13:17  Obey [G3982] them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

The Pope and many Protestant ministers love how the King James translates that verse. However, the CLV is a much better translation of what the holy spirit inspired to be written:

Heb 13:17 Be persuaded [G3982] by your leaders, and be deferring to them, for they are vigilant for the sake of your souls, as having to render an account, that they may be doing this with joy, and not with groaning, for this is disadvantageous for you.

The Greek word in question is:

Here are all those entries so you can decide for yourself which is the best translation:

It is obvious that the English word ‘persuade’ is a much better translation than the word ‘obey’.

Getting back to the Greek word G4103, ‘pistos’ this is the BT+ definition of this word:

Here is where this word first appears in the New Testament:

Mat 24:45  Who then is a faithful [G4103: pistos] and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
Mat 24:46  Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
Mat 24:47  Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.

“He is faithful (G4103, ‘pistos’) that promised” and He will have nothing less than the same fidelity in those He chooses to “make ruler over all His goods”.

Here are the other entries for this word in the New Testament:

The ability to believe “He is faithful that promised” is a gift from God. The Lord tries that gift to strengthen our faith and to help us to endure to the end even when we cannot see how His promises are physically possible.

The Greek noun from which the adjective ‘pistos’ is derived is:

The first entry of this Greek word is the New Testament Is in:

Mat 9:2  And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith [G4102: ‘pistis’] said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.

The Greek adjective, G4103, ‘pistos’, and the Greek noun, G4102, ‘pistis’ both are derived from the Greek verb G3982, ‘peitho’, meaning ‘to persuade’. Our persuasion of the truth of the words of Christ is the gift of ‘pistis’, faith, through which we are all saved:

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Without this gift from God it is impossible to please Him:

Heb 11:6  But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

The opposite of faith is fear and “fear hath torment”:

1Jn 4:18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

We are told that King Saul was tormented from the day that Samuel told him the Lord had taken the kingdom from him and had given it to another man who was better than he:

1Sa 15:26  And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.
1Sa 15:27  And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.
1Sa 15:28  And Samuel said unto him, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.

In the next chapter we are told:

1Sa 16:14  But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
1Sa 16:15  And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth [torments] thee.

When we fear what family and friends, society and men think of us or can do to us, we are sorely lacking in the faith of Jesus Christ, and we are not displaying our love and fear of God, and we will live a life of torment when we do that.

Our lives are all in the Lord’s hands but that does not change the fact that we are all commanded to ask the Lord for both wisdom and faith because they work together to keep us faithful to the end:

Mar 9:23  Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
Mar 9:24  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
Mar 9:25  When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.

Luk 17:5  And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.

It is the faith with which the Lord gifts us that will overcome the adversaries desire to destroy us as he wanted to destroy the apostle Peter:

Luk 22:31  And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
Luk 22:32  But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

The Lord is also our comforter and our advocate to His Father on our behalf:

1Jn 2:1  My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate [G3875: ‘parakletos’, intercessor, consoler, comforter] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

With Christ on our side we need not fear what man can do to us nor that Christ will not plead our case with His Father, who Himself has given us His faith:

1Jn 5:4  For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

This is the faith that will see us through these perilous times in which we live:

2Ti 3:1  This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2Ti 3:2  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
2Ti 3:3  Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
2Ti 3:4  Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
2Ti 3:5  Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

We have been given the faith to believe these comforting words of the spirit:

Rom 8:27  And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Rom 8:30  Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Christ is married to us, and He will cause us to acknowledge our iniquity and He will redeem us (Jer 3:13-14):

Rom 8:31  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
Rom 8:32  He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Rom 8:33  Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
Rom 8:34  Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Rom 8:35  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Rom 8:36  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Rom 8:37  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Rom 8:38  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Rom 8:39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

]]> Do We Have a Trespass Offering? https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/do-we-have-a-trespass-offering/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=do-we-have-a-trespass-offering Sat, 26 Sep 2020 12:57:18 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=21527 Do We Have a Trespass Offering?
[Study Aired at Indianapolis, IN Conference September 27, 2020]

The answer to the above question is, “Yes, we do,” and as with all the other offerings, this offering is also Christ, but not in the sense of the burnt, meat, peace and sin offerings. Christ Himself is all the first four of the five offerings, and in and through Christ we also offer ourselves up with Him as a sweet-smelling savor offering to the Father:

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

2Co 2:15  For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:

If Christ died for our sins, which He certainly did, why is Paul exhorting us to present our bodies a sweet savor living sacrifice to be crucified with Christ?

Here is the answer to that question:

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

In what church at any time have you ever heard a sermon on “that which is behind, [that which is lacking] of the afflictions of Christ”? I am 73 years old and have been in the ‘Bible belt’ of the U.S. most of my life, and I have never heard such a sermon in any of the many churches I have attended over the years.

Why does Paul exhort us to “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice? He does so to “fill up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ.” However, notice why and for whom Paul is filling up in his body those afflictions of Christ which are lacking. He tells us he is doing this “for His body’s sake which is the church.”

Knowing this adds great spiritual weight to these words Christ uttered when He appeared to His disciples in a locked room “the same day” in which He was resurrected from the dead. His appearance with the wounds of His crucifixion scared his disciples to death, so He calmed their fears with these incredibly profound words:

Joh 20:19  Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
Joh 20:20  And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.
Joh 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 

Exactly what had the Father sent Christ to do? The scriptures are very clear what the Father had given Christ to accomplish, and “as [His] Father sent [Him] even so [He] has sent us”:

Joh 3:17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 

How was Christ to accomplish that goal? That question is answered in equally clear words:

Col 1:22  In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

Heb 2:14  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

So, Christ is still in the process, through us, of accomplishing the mission His Father gave Him to accomplish, which is “that the world through Him might be saved”. There is one thing, as we will see, which a spotless, sinless Savior needs for us to be capable of accomplishing that mission to fill up what is behind of His afflictions.

Contrary to what is taught in the churches, Christ did not become a sin offering by being nailed to the cross. He was “made sin” by being “made of a woman, made under the law, made flesh” which flesh is itself “corruption” and which “cannot inherit the kingdom of God”:

Joh 1:14  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Gal 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, [“made sin” 2Co 5:21]

2Co 5:21  For the man who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. (ACV)

Flesh is sinful “corruption”, and Christ was given of His Father to be “made sin” by being “made flesh”, but it was not given Him to “know sin”, as it is given to us as “His body which is the church”. Though we are all “shapen in iniquity, and conceived in sin” (Psa 51:5), Christ still identifies with us to the extent that He says we are Him:

Mat 25:40  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Christ even calls us “Jesus of Nazareth”:

Act 22:8  And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. 

Therefore it is by living His life of dying daily within each of us, that Christ fulfills the trespass offering, even though He Himself “knew no sin” (2Co 5:21).

This is such an important and integral part of the plan of God that there is only one “living sacrifice” of all the sacrifices mentioned in the Old Testament. That one “living sacrifice” is given to “bear the sins of the people with Him”. The Lord has seen fit to give us just one “living sacrifice” in all of the offerings which are listed in the law of Moses, and that one “living sacrifice… with the Lord’s goat… bears upon him all the iniquities of the children of Israel”:

Lev 16:21  And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
Lev 16:22  And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

It is also “for His body’s sake which is the church” that the scapegoat is offered as a living sacrifice:

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:  

Christ’s body is called ‘the church’, and ‘the church’ is also known as “the temple of God”:

1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

In Leviticus 16 Christ is called “the Lord’s goat”, and it is He who is physically crucified as a sin offering for the sins of the people, while we, the scapegoat are offered as a living sacrifice “before the Lord to make an atonement with [Christ, filling up what is behind of His afflictions] and [we are] let… go for a scapegoat into the wilderness”:

Lev 16:9  And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD’S lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
Lev 16:10  But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.

The scapegoat, along with “the Lord’s goat”, bears the sins of the congregation, and the scapegoat is offered along with Christ, “filling up what is behind of His afflictions” on the day of atonement to atone for the sins of the people:

Lev 16:10  But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.

At “this present time”, the blood of Christ is not cleansing the court that is outside the tabernacle or the temple. At this present time, it is only being applied to “His body which is the church. That is the meaning of:

Lev 16:15  Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering [Christ our head], that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:
Lev 16:16  And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.
Lev 16:17  And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel.
Lev 16:18  And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the LORD, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the [Lord’s] goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about.
Lev 16:19  And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.
Lev 16:20  And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, [After the death and resurrection of Christ and His Christ] he shall bring the live goat:
Lev 16:21  And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
Lev 16:22  And the [scape] goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

Lev 16:29  And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you:

That is why we are told in the book of Hebrews:

Heb 13:10  We [the living sacrifice, the scapegoat] have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

This is the reason John, in the book of Revelation, tells us:

Rev 11:1  And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.

Rev 11:2  But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

We are the temple of God, and we are the living scapegoat sacrifice. All of this is what Paul is telling us when He says:

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Then Paul tells us that is what he himself has done in following his own admonition to us, but this time he is inspired to reveal to us the fact that Christ’s afflictions can only be filled up through us, and he tells us what is the significance of us offering our bodies as a living sacrifice to God.

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church: 

What we are being told is that we are this scapegoat, which is the only sacrifice which is “presented alive before the Lord”. What we are also being told is that this “living sacrifice” is not offered until after the tabernacle and the altar have been reconciled to God:

Lev 16:20  And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:

Rom 11:15  For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

2Co 5:19  To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

We are plainly told that we “are the temple of God” and we are very clearly told that in “this present time” (Rom 8:18) we have an altar at which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat, because the Lord has given them all to be ‘carried about with different and strange doctrines and with meats which have not profited them that have been occupied with those strange doctrines’.

Heb 13:9  Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
Heb 13:10  We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.
Heb 13:11  For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
Heb 13:12  Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.

It is only Aaron, an Old Testament type of Christ, our high priest, and His sons who are permitted to eat before the golden altar in the holy place within the tabernacle/temple.

Lev 6:16  And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.

Being the scapegoat, who “with the Lord’s goat” makes an atonement for the people”, we are in the very next verse encouraged to be that “living sacrifice… going unto Him without the camp, with the Lord’s goat…” bearing His reproach, “upon [us]… bearing all the iniquities of the people”:

Heb 13:13  Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

Lev 16:22  And the [scape] goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

I hope this helps you to see how we have a trespass offering. It is through the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from generations… Christ in you the hope of glory, that we are given through Him to become a trespass offering as a scape goat savior, and to fill up Him who fills all in all:

Oba 1:21  And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’S.

Eph 1:22  And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Eph 1:23  Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. 

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

Col 1:26  Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Col 1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Col 1:28  Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:

It is through “Christ in you the hope of glory” that we are this scapegoat, sin offering on behalf of “Him who knew no sin”.

]]> Light from Darkness https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/light-from-darkness/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=light-from-darkness Mon, 12 Feb 2018 07:16:15 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=15618

Audio Links

”Light from Darkness”

December 27, 2017

Since the beginning of all of creation, God the Father has proclaimed and has wanted us to know there is a purpose to the separation of His creation. Indeed, He has started all creation with telling us there are two opposing forces in it.

We often refer to these forces as good and bad, old versus new, day and night, life and death, but the Truth is that they are only seen this way from our perspective. The Lord see things in a whole other light, and He tells us so in scripture.

Our study today is going to cover these “opposing forces”, and we are going to do so from the concept of light and darkness. While this study will briefly scratch the surface of this topic, I hope it can be used as a springboard to open our hearts and minds to who we are to the world, and to each other, now in this age in which we live.

From the beginning

Gen 1:1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Gen 1:4  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5  And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Psa 139:12  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

While these verses may be familiar to us, there is a lot being said “from the beginning” from which we can learn and grow.

As many of you know, I am currently in school and during my studies I have had to take a “physical science” course which covers physics, chemistry and earth sciences.

During the study of this course material, I ventured out to the internet to cover some of the topics that were being talked about in the course, and I realized that science, as a whole, is “discovering” more and more about just how connected we all are versus not being very connected.

If the darkness and light are both alike to the Lord, but physically they are so different, then how should we consider light and darkness? More than that, how should we view all of the categories I mentioned before of good and bad, old and new, life and death?

Before we really get started, I think it is incumbent upon me to say this study is about much more than light and darkness.

Right after being told that the light and darkness are alike to the Lord, we read these miraculous words in the ESV version/translation:

Psa 139:13  For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
Psa 139:14  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
Psa 139:15  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Psa 139:16  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Psa 139:17  How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

It is easy to read these words, as wonderful as they are, and only apply them to ourselves. Obviously, this is David speaking and recording these words, but if I can apply them to myself while they have been written by David, them I can assume, with time, that they apply to all of humanity when they come to read and apply them to themselves the way I am doing now.

If you are wondering why I call them miraculous and wonderful, it is because the Lord knows me, formed me from the womb, and has always known who I am and who I will become. Here I sit blessed, speaking before you all, and the Lord has put us all together.

Now, extend this concept to the whole of humanity, and the miracle of the creation of everyone and everything starts to come to light, pun intended.

It is out of darkness that the Lord calls light, and it all happened by the Lord “speaking” it into existence. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” What powerful words those are!

My question today is, are these words of creation only meant for us? Is the light that comes forth out of darkness only meant for a select few or is it meant for everyone?

In the physical sense, they were meant for all of creation, because all of creation came about because of them. So, why or how are they meant any differently for all of humanity when it comes to our spiritual connection to the creator of the universe and all the things contained in the universe?

Again, this is all about perception. It is also about time and timing. What do I mean?

Psa 18:28 (ESV)  For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness.

Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isa 9:2  The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

Mat 10:27  What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.

Joh 8:12  Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Joh 9:4  I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
Joh 9:5  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Mat 5:14  Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Mat 5:15  Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Mat 5:16  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Jesus said as long as He is in the world He is the light of the world. Then we read in John 9 that we are the light of the world. So, which is it? We know that Jesus is in us, and we are in Him, so it must mean that Jesus is in us, being the light.

Jesus had this to say about who He is:

Joh 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

This verse comes from the following set of verses. Listen to the context of where it is Jesus explains to us who He is. This is from the ESV translation again:

Joh 14:1  “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
Joh 14:2  In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
Joh 14:3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
Joh 14:4  And you know the way to where I am going.”
Joh 14:5  Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Joh 14:6  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Joh 14:7  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip is going to ask Jesus one of the most common questions we all ask ourselves at some point in our lives. Philip says “show us the Father” but in its own way, this is asking for God to show Himself to us.

Joh 14:8  Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
Joh 14:9  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Joh 14:10  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
Joh 14:11  Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
Joh 14:12  “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Here we are then, back to “words”. “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority” is something we all must come to understand because it is the essence of who we are and how it is we are the light of the world.

Being the light of the world, out of where were we pulled? Well, it is out of the darkness of course. If we were pulled out of the darkness, so, too, are others pulled out of the darkness into His marvelous light.

We were pulled out of darkness with those now infamous words, “And God said, Let there be.” And, God said, “Let there be …. Light”.

We read in Genesis 1 how the beginning came to be. Now, let us compare that, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, to how John describes the beginning.

Joh 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2  The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Joh 1:4  In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
Joh 1:5  And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Life, light and the Word. Death cannot comprehend life, but life comes forth from death. The Word of God came to us, so who are the “us” of whom I speak?

Joh 10:34  Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
Joh 10:35  If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
Joh 10:36  Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
Joh 10:37  If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.

It is the Word of God that came to us, in His timing now we are the group called “us”, but in time that group will include everyone.

See, the Word of God is powerful. I submit to you all now that all words are very powerful. “God said” is a very powerful action.

My speaking with you today is done with the use of words, which create in us reactions called thoughts. These thoughts then cause reactions within us which often cause actions to come out of us.

If I say a kind word to you, and you are receptive to this through the filter of your thoughts, then a physical and chemical reaction happens to you. You feel pleasure from these kind words.

Likewise, if I speak hateful or mean words to you, you might become very angry and act out of this anger. Your blood might start “to boil”. Indeed, words are very powerful. They are the tool from which all of creation was made, and they create today still. Words come from thoughts and create thoughts.

Isa 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
Isa 55:9  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The world in which we live has just gone through the Christmas holiday. Just the word “Christmas” is VERY powerful. It causes thoughts, good or bad (from our perspective) to happen within us based on what that means to us.

Likewise, the world in which we all live has many words that cause us to think certain things or to follow certain trains of thoughts. Words literally create all sorts of things WITHIN us, and the Lord is causing it all.

White, black or brown, male or female, smarter or dumber, old or young, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, American, Chinese, European, etc., all cause us to think certain things. These words box us into a certain category of thinking and into a certain way to think.

These groups or categories cause us to label one another as separate from each other instead of the Truth that we are all connected to one another.

It is in the ways that we are alike that create in us a strong connection to one another. The world today uses “diversity” to show why it is we are important, but the most important thing we can be is one with Christ. We need unity in the Oneness that we have with the Lord.

A husband and wife are intimate, therefore they see more similarities than differences in their goals, desires and wants. Parents have children and know that they have come forth from them, therefore an immediate bond is made.

We are gathered here today in meeting of likeminded belief because we have a connection through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we feel and know of the things that are common to us.

This connection happens because we are able to look past the outward appearance of things and realize there is much more to each of us than what can be seen, and the common thread connecting us all is the Lord.

The reason I chose this topic is to talk about how we are not only connected because we “are the light of the world” but because we have all come from the common state and place of darkness.

2Co 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

1Pe 2:9  But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

We have been called out of darkness into light, but is that the only purpose to be called from darkness simply to be in light, or is there something more to this “being the light” thing?

Remember, Jesus walked and talked and ate with sinners and publicans. He was never, while He walked this earth in the flesh, around converted Christians. Yet, He loved them VERY much. He was elevated because He was the Light of the world. He was humbled by it.

He certainly HATED their sin, but He loved them individually. He knew who they would be and did not only see them as they were currently. He knew when He healed the blind and lame or fed the poor and hungry, that they would still get hungry again and would remain spiritually blind – most of them anyway.

Yet, He still stayed around them and walked among them. Why did He do this? Among the reasons He did this we find this explanation:

1Th 5:1  But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
1Th 5:2  For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
1Th 5:3  For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
1Th 5:4  But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
1Th 5:5  Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
1Th 5:6  Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
1Th 5:7  For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
1Th 5:8  But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

We are sober in the Word. We have the armor of God to protect us from the wiles of that old serpent. We must walk our walk as a solider of Jesus Christ, knowing that some with whom we are in contact now will also be called out from darkness NOW, into this marvelous Light in which we now walk. We also know the rest will come into the light later.

We have hope that remains within us. That is what separates “us” from “them”.

We press forward toward the mark of the prize of the high calling in Jesus Christ, forgetting the past and moving forward.

I have often asked, “when is it that you are awake that it is not “today”? It is always “today”, which also happens to be that day of the Lord that the Lord has made.

That is not to say that those in darkness will appreciate that we have this knowledge and simply want to live it themselves. They that are in darkness will not appreciate that we simply want to share this light by being doers of the word and not only hearers.

Joh 3:19  And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

Act 26:15  And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
Act 26:16  But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;
Act 26:17  Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,
Act 26:18  To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

In order to receive forgiveness of sins, one must be turned from darkness to light. How does that happen?

Have you ever walked into a bright room or turned on the bathroom light and immediately knocked your head back while swiftly closing your eyes to the sudden brightness that the light causes to happen to your eyeballs? Yeah, that is what the light does to darkness.

When you are in darkness and it is all you have known, there is no way to compare what light is from darkness. Light is literally not a concept of something that can be understood by those who are in darkness UNTIL light is shown to them.

How does that happen? Well, we are right back to words and specifically the Word of God.

God said, let there be light, and there was light.

Jas 1:22  But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Mat 12:35  A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
Mat 12:36  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
Mat 12:37  For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

1Jn 2:7  (ESV) Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.
1Jn 2:8  At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
1Jn 2:9  Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
1Jn 2:10  Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
1Jn 2:11  But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

What I hope is among the things taken away from this study is that words are very powerful, and words matter. What we do with the words that come forth from our mouth, and also those words which come into our ears, is VERY important.

Heb 4:12  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Heb 4:12 (ESV)  For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

2Co 10:5 (ESV)  We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

2Co 10:7  Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ’s, even so are we Christ’s.

I mentioned earlier that the light will be brought forth from everyone, each in their own timing. What is really profound to me, is that while there is a past we can learn from and a future to look forward to, there is only the present that we live in.

It is always today and it is always the present that we experience. Therefore, we need to realize that we are the light of the world NOW, in this generation in which the Lord has placed us.

We are the light of the world NOW, to our family and friends, peers and colleagues, enemies and fellow soldiers of Christ. Our words must be tempered and obedient to the Word of God so that we can NOW be the sons of God.

We must be as Jesus was and simply speak the Truth of the Word while also realizing that it is not for anyone now but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Mat 15:22  And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
Mat 15:23  But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
Mat 15:24  But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Mat 15:25  Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

However, that doesn’t mean that the rest of humanity is left out.

Mat 15:26  But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.
Mat 15:27  And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
Mat 15:28  Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

We are all living in an age which can be very difficult in which to be the light of the world. However, the Lord is with us, and it does help knowing that whatever it is we must endure, it is all for the benefit of those the Lord has placed in our lives.

Whether those around us know it or not, we are sacrificed for them as lambs to the slaughter, but they, too, are sacrificed for us so that we can live now in Jesus Christ.

Act 8:32  The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:

Rom 11:25  (ESV) Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Rom 11:26  And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
Rom 11:27  “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
Rom 11:28  As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.
Rom 11:29  For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Rom 11:30  For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience,
Rom 11:31  so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.
Rom 11:32  For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
Rom 11:33  Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

]]> Grace and Peace Tour https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/grace-and-peace-tour/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=grace-and-peace-tour Tue, 14 Jun 2016 04:53:47 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=11788

Below are the audio and video files for the recap of the “Grace and Peace Tour” taken by Mike and Sandi in 2016.

Audio Link without discussion – Part 1

Full Video Links with discussion - Part 1

Audio Link without discussion - Part 2

Full Video Links with discussion - Part 2

Audio Link without discussion - Part 3

Full Video Links with discussion - Part 3

Audio Link without discussion - Part 4

Full Video Links with discussion - Part 4

]]> Are You A King? https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/are-you-a-king/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=are-you-a-king Wed, 15 Apr 2015 01:45:32 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=9366

Audio Links

“Are You A King?”

[Trinidad Conference April 2015]

Joh 18:37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

Introduction

Today’s study will continue the theme of last week’s study which was inspired by having my attention brought to the boldness that was in Christ. That boldness was founded on His Rock-solid confidence that He was indeed the Son of God, whom God had sent into this world as a witness against this world.

This talk is also inspired by detractors who have told us: “Jesus never claimed to be a king or the son of God. Even when He was asked, He did not claim to be a king or the Messiah.” More recently other detractors have condemned us for claiming that we are God’s elect.

When you and I simply agree with Christ Himself that we are “Jesus of Nazareth”, that is the equivalent today of Christ claiming that He was and is “the Son of God”. This detractor’s statement was “[neither] Christ nor His disciples ever claimed to be God’s elect, and neither should we.” Here is the reaction this very same spirit has towards you and me when it comes up against those words of the Son of God:

Joh 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

The scriptures tell us that there were, and there still are, two primary sources of this spirit of doubt about who Christ was and who He is to this very day. Here are those two primary sources of doubt. They are exposed for us all to see and to know who they were and who they still are:

Mat 4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
Mat 4:2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
Mat 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

This trial took place immediately after Christ had been confirmed to be the Son of God by the holy spirit itself:

Mat 3:16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
Mat 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

And this is the second source who would have you and me to have serious doubts about who Jesus of Nazareth actually is:

Mat 27:20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.

Mat 27:40 And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.
Mat 27:41 Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,
Mat 27:42 He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
Mat 27:43 He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

That is the two sources of doubt about who Christ is to this very day. It is the Devil himself and his children, the religious authorities of the religions of this world, who say “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.”

So what is the truth? Did Jesus ever claim He was a king? Did his disciples ever claim to be God’s elect? Are you a king? Are you God’s elect? Your answer to those questions today will be your judge in the day of judgment:

Luk 12:8 Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God:
Luk 12:9 But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.

Luk 19:22 And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow:

What Christ Actually Said

Here is what Christ actually said about who He was:

Joh 8:54 Jesus answered, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing: it is my Father that glorifieth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God;
Joh 8:55 and ye have not known him: but I know him; and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be like unto you, a liar: but I know him, and keep his word.
Joh 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad.
Joh 8:57 The Jews therefore said unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
Joh 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was born, I am.
Joh 8:59 They took up stones therefore to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

“It is my Father that glorifies me of whom you say that He is your God.” Christ could not be any clearer than that in proclaiming Himself to be the Son of God. One wonders how it is possible to overlook such clear, plain statements of scripture, until the holy spirit reminds us of this still present Truth:

Rom 11:8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.

“I Am” was the God who spoke to Moses at the burning bush:

Exo 3:14 And God [Christ] said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

This claim was not lost on those Jews to whom Christ was speaking and to whom He speaks through His elect “sons of God” to this very day. That is why:

Joh 8:59 They took up stones therefore to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

Here is what Christ told the man He had healed of blindness from his mother’s womb:

Joh 9:35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and finding him, he said, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Joh 9:36 He answered and said, And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?
Joh 9:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and he it is that speaketh with thee.
Joh 9:38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

To say that Christ did not claim to be a king or the messiah is almost inconsequential in light of these verses where Christ is claiming to be “the Son of God”, and the “I Am” of the Old Testament.

It is ever so easy to make a statement which has absolutely no basis in the scriptures and which actually contradicts what the scriptures teach. Such hasty statements come from failing to consider the sum of God’s Word and from failing to seek a multitude of counselors before making such bold and fallacious statements. We have all been guilty of teaching false doctrines, and I am chief in having made that offense against the words of my own Lord, simply because I had not yet learned these valuable Biblical principles”

Psa 119:160 The sum of thy word is truth; And every one of thy righteous ordinances endureth for ever.

2Pe 1:20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture at all is becoming its own explanation. (CLV)

It behooves us all to get every verse touching any subject firmly in mind before proclaiming our understanding to be Biblical doctrine.

We are told how we are to go about establishing doctrine:

Isa 28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
Isa 28:11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
Isa 28:12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
Isa 28:13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

Can we as individuals use the sum of the scriptures themselves to establish doctrine? Asked in another way, can one person alone be depended upon to tell us what is the sum of God’s word on any particular subject or doctrine? The Biblical answer to that question is an unequivocal No! No one person is ever to be considered to be inerrant in matters of Biblical doctrine. Every word is to “be established… in the mouth of two or three witnesses”, just as scriptures themselves are to be established “line upon line and precept upon precept”, never using a single verse as “it own interpretation”. (2Pe 1:20 [CLV])

All doctrinal questions are answered only with “a multitude of counselors”.

Pro 11:14 Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.

Pro 15:22 Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.

Pro 24:6 For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.

There is a reason why God has written His words in such a “line upon line” manner. Writing his instructions to us in that manner insures that we are required to search diligently and find two or more scriptural witnesses for any Biblical doctrine.

But we do not just naturally seek out the sum of God’s Word, and we certainly do not just naturally humble ourselves and seek a multitude of counselors. Instead this is what happens when, as the Lord has ordained, we first rebel against His commandments to seek the sum of His Word and the counsel of other:

Isa 28:13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

So let’s go to the sum of God words. “line upon line, and precept upon precept to discover whether and by whom…

…Christ Was Proclaimed The Son of God:

…By Angels Before His birth

Biblically who Christ is as a historical figure has never been in question in most Christian professing organizations because of the circumstances surrounding His conception and His birth. Who He was and who He is was announced before He was even conceived:

Luk 1:30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
Luk 1:31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
Luk 1:32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

Luk 1:35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

…By John The Baptist

John the baptist was immensely popular before Christ came on the scene. The fact is, as John himself explained, John was sent by God to prepare the nation of Israel to hear from their own Messiah and Savior:

Joh 1:32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
Joh 1:33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
Joh 1:34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
Joh 1:35 Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples;
Joh 1:36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!

…By His own disciples

Christ had to make it abundantly clear to His own disciples who He was, and His disciples still know who He is:

Mat 14:33 Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.

Peter was speaking for the other disciples when He made this confession:

Mat 16:13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
Mat 16:14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
Mat 16:15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
Mat 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

“The son of God [and] the King of Israel” were, and are, one and the same to Christ’s disciples as Nathaniel makes clear:

Joh 1:49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.

Martha was one of Christ’s disciples, and she had no doubt who Christ was:

Joh 11:27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

…By the Roman centurion and those with him

The Roman centurion who conducted and was the overseer of the crucifixion of Christ, did not doubt who Christ was:

Mat 27:54 Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

…The holy spirit makes clear who Christ is

At the beginning of Christ’s ministry we are told:

Mar 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

At Christ’s baptism by John:

Mat 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

And again at the mount of transfiguration:

Mat 17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

…The spirit realm

The demonic spirit realm, which would have you and I to doubt who we are in Christ, has never had any doubt about who Christ was or who He is to this very day:

Mat 8:28 And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.
Mat 8:29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?

Mar 3:11 And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.

Christ’s doctrine is that He and His Father are one, and He says that we, in Him, are also one:

Joh 17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

James reiterates this fact:

Jas 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

So the scriptures make it very clear who Christ was. Our detractors would probably concede that the scriptures proclaim Christ to be the Son of God. The contention with the “flesh and bones” of Christ today (Eph 5:30), is that ‘Christ Himself never claimed to be a king or to be the Son of God, so we surely ought not to be making any such claims’. So let’s just take the time to put line upon line and precept upon precept and see who…

…Christ actually proclaimed Himself to be:

…To the man who was healed of being blind from his mother’s womb:

Here are Christ’s own words to that man about who He was, and who He still is:

Joh 9:35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Joh 9:36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?
Joh 9:37 And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.
Joh 9:38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

Do not let a lying spirit of doubt tell you that “Christ never claimed to be the Son of God”, because that is obviously a blatant lie.

…Before the multitudes

At the beginning of Christ’s ministry He charged all those He healed and all the devils He cast out of people not to tell others who He was. But toward the end of His ministry, Christ Himself confirmed that He was the Son of God as He taught the multitudes and as He spoke to His disciples. In doing this Christ not only proclaimed Himself to be the Son of God, He went so far as to separate Himself from the multitudes of “those Jews who believed on Him” and from the religious leaders of His day, who He informed directly to their faces that He was the Son of God, and they were “of [their] father the Devil”:

Joh 8:30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Joh 8:33 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
Joh 8:34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Joh 8:35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son [of God] abideth ever.
Joh 8:36 If the Son [of God] therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Joh 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
Joh 8:38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
Joh 8:39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
Joh 8:40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Joh 8:41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Joh 8:42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Joh 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Joh 8:45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

Notice how Christ acknowledges the physical descent of the Jews, while at the very same time denying their spiritual position as the children of Abraham: “I know you are Abraham’s [physical] seed… if you were Abraham’s [spiritual] children, you would do the works of Abraham”.

As a side point, those who would teach us that we should never claim to be the elect sons of God will tell you that you are Christ’s “disciples indeed” as long as you simply ‘agree on the essentials of Christ’s words, show tolerance in the non essentials of Christ’s Words, and just show love in all things’. But that is actually the exact opposite of: ” If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed”. That is, in fact, the very opposite of the Biblical doctrine which states, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”. What, pray tell, can be “non essentials of the doctrine of Christ” if, as the scriptures declare, we are to “live… by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”?

Here we have Christ proclaiming, “I proceeded forth and came from God… I speak that which I have seen with my Father.” Can Christ be any clearer in claiming to be the Son of God before the multitudes and before the religious leaders of His day?

…Before the chief priests and elders

Here is what Christ said of Himself before the chief priest and the elders of Israel, the religious leaders of His day:

Mat 26:59 Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;
Mat 26:60 But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,
Mat 26:61 And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.
Mat 26:62 And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?
Mat 26:63 But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
Mat 26:64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
Mat 26:65 Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.
Mat 26:66 What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.
Mat 26:67 Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,

The Jewish leaders knew and understood that the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of Man and the Son of God were all one and the same person. Jesus knew the Jewish leaders were aware that He claimed to be the Son of God, and He agreed with them when they asked if He was indeed the Son of God. It was His affirming answer, “You have said”, which provoked them to declare, “He is guilty of death”, and the scriptures make that perfectly clear:

Mat 27:43 He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

John chapter 5 clearly proclaims Christ’s position with His Father to the Jewish authorities:

Joh 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
Joh 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
Joh 5:20 For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
Joh 5:21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
Joh 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
Joh 5:23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.
Joh 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

Did Christ claim to be Israel’s Messiah?

Here is Strong’s definition of the word Messiah:
H4899
משׁיח
mâshı̂yach
maw-shee’-akh

From H4886; anointed; usually a consecrated person (as a king, priest, or saint); specifically the Messiah: – anointed, Messiah.

The word ‘Messiah’ is not in the King James Version of the New Testament, but the Greek word ‘Christos’ (‘Christ’) is, and ‘Christos’ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew ‘mashiyach’. Here is Strong’s definition of the Greek word ‘Christos’:
G5547
Χριστός
Christos
khris-tos’
From G5548; anointed, that is, the Messiah, an epithet of Jesus: – Christ.

Is it true that Christ did not claim to be the messiah? Consider these verses:

Mat 16:20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.
Mat 16:21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
Mat 16:22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.
Mat 16:23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

“The Christ” is the Messiah, and Jesus had proclaimed publicly that He was the Messiah before He ever called His first disciple:

Luk 4:16 And [immediately after His baptism by John and His temptation in the wilderness] he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.
Luk 4:17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written,
Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised,
Luk 4:19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
Luk 4:20 And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him.
Luk 4:21 And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.

These words Christ read in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth are taken from Isa 61:1-2. Everyone considered those words to be speaking exclusively of the Messiah of Israel. No one in that synagogue failed to understand that Christ had just proclaimed Himself to be Israel’s Messiah. That is why they asked this question:

Luk 4:22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?

Peter proclaimed Jesus as the Christ:

Mar 8:29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ.

Martha proclaimed Christ to be the Messiah:

Joh 11:27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

This is what Christ told Peter when Peter proclaimed Christ to be Israel’s messiah:

Mat 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Christ told Peter that His Father had shown Peter that Jesus was the ‘Christ’ the ‘Messiah’, the anointed of God.

It is spiritual blindness that tells us that Christ did not claim to be the Messiah, the Savior of Israel.

Christ Was Proclaimed To Be A King

…By the angels

Mat 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
Mat 1:19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.
Mat 1:20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

…By the wise men

Mat 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
Mat 2:2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

The wise men certainly considered Christ to be “the king of the Jews”:

…By Christ Himself

Did He claim to be a king? This question is answered in the verse from which I have taken the title of this study:

Joh 18:37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

“I am a king, to this end was I born…” Yes, Christ claimed to be a king, and anyone who says otherwise simply does not know the Christ of the scriptures.

Matthew, who gives us Christ’s physical lineage from King David, records for us how Christ proclaimed Himself to be a king in so many of His parables:

Mat 18:23 Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.

Christ calls Himself a king in all of these verses:

Mat 22:13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Mat 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

The scriptures, and even the people, proclaimed Christ to be a king at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, just before the fickle multitudes who believed on Him decided they wanted Him crucified:

Mat 21:4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying,
Mat 21:5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.

It is only the spiritually blind who would ever tell you that Christ never claimed to be a king while He was here on this earth.

…By the holy spirit

As we have previously noted, the holy spirit confirmed to Christ who He was at the beginning of His ministry:

Mar 1:9 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.
Mar 1:10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:
Mar 1:11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

What does all of this have to do with us? Are we the sons of God? Are we Kings and priests?

So let’s “try this spirit” (1Jo 4:1) which confronts us and is always telling us we are being presumptuous, blasphemous and arrogant if we claim to be sons of God, His very elect, and kings and priests who will “judge the world”. Do we fear what men think of us or do we believe what the scriptures teach us about who we are in Christ? You and I are facing the very same trial Christ faced when He claimed to be the Son of God, while telling all those who claimed to be Abraham’s children that they were only Abraham’s children outwardly, and that outward pedigree means nothing more than dung to Christ and His Father. You and I must say the same things Christ had to say to those who believe . Things like:

Joh 8:42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

If indeed you and I are “born of the spirit” then we have “proceeded and [are] come forth from God, neither came [of ourselves] but [have been] sent” by Christ to say and do the same things He did and said:

Joh 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Here is what it means to be sent as Christ’s Father sent Him:

1Pe 2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:

We are all called to follow in Christ’s steps. To fail to do so is to deny Him, and to be denied by Him.

Luk 12:9 But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.

Is this a future state of being or are we not presently kings and priest? Kings rule over a kingdom, and priests teach others how to properly approach and worship God. This is not just a future state of being. We are all commanded to be ruling our own “kingdom of God… within [as] the sons of God” here and now in down payment form! Here is what the scriptures teach on this question:

Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

1Jn 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

When are “we… the sons of God”?

1Jn 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

Clearly, the scriptures teach that God’s elect are at this very moment to count themselves spiritually as “the sons of God… kings and priests” expecting that “the world knows us not, because it knew Him not”.

Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Rev 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
Rev 2:27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.

Rev 5:10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

It was interesting to discover that “shall be broken in shivers” is actually in the present tense in the Greek. If we are presently breaking to shivers the nations within us, we will be given power over those nations, and when that is done it will be manifested that it was all a work that God will have worked by His own sovereign will through bringing us into Himself and into His life from among the “dead [who] bury their dead”. It is all accomplished “by the resurrection from the dead… unto obedience of [His] faith” within His Christ who He Himself now calls “Jesus of Nazareth” (Act 22:8).

Rom 1:4 And declared to be the Son of God with power [This includes the Christ of Christ, the “living sacrifice”], according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
Rom 1:5 through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name’s sake;

Rom 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Rom 6:10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Rom 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Col 2:12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

These are not speaking only of the Christ who walked this earth two thousand years ago. These are words which apply to you and to me “through the faith of the operation of God” within those in whom that faith resides and in whom He and His Father have taken up residence.

As we have already demonstrated, we are “the house of God” and as “the house of God” we are, according to 1Pe 4:17, being judged at this very moment. Our concluding verse, which is also in chapter 4:17 of first John, summarizes everything we have learned here today:

1Jn 4:17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

]]> Make Your Calling and Election Sure – Part 2 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/make-your-calling-and-election-sure-part-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-your-calling-and-election-sure-part-2 Fri, 02 Jan 2015 13:16:54 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=8637

Audio Links

Make Your Calling And Election Sure – Part 2

by Mike Vinson

2Pe 1:1  Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2Pe 1:2  Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
2Pe 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2Pe 1:5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
2Pe 1:6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
2Pe 1:7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
2Pe 1:8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
2Pe 1:10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence [G4704, spoudazo] to make your calling and election sure:for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

Introduction

In our concluding study we will take Peter’s admonition step by step and apply it to our walk “to make [our] calling and election sure”. In doing so we will note that these words are addressed only “to them who have obtained like precious faith with us…” and that this “precious faith… grace, and peace” comes only through “the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, [and] through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord”. What that tells us is that “the knowledge of God and Christ are essential to our salvation. We must “know… God and Jesus Christ”:

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

The reason I mention that is for the same reason Peter mentions it. Peter and all of the apostles of Christ were acutely aware of the truth of these words of our Lord:

Mat 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen [to “know… God, and Jesus Christ”.

Peter explains that our grace and peace is multiplied to us “through our knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord”. He tells us that our grace and peace accords with His divine power by which God gives to us “all things that pertain to life and godliness”, and by that gift of “all things that pertain to life and godliness”, we are also given “great and precious promises” which in turn give us access to “the divine nature”, which “divine nature” delivers us from “the corruption that is in [this] world through lust”. It simply is not natural to resist “the corruption that is in the world through lust”

It is our own lust, our own desires, especially our desire to please men rather than God, which robs us of our salvation in this age. The salvation produced by the lake of fire is certain to all men:

Joh 9:22  These words spake his parents [the parents of the man who was born blind, and was healed by Jesus], because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.

1Th 5:9  For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
1Th 5:10  Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

But the great honor of being in the “blessed and holy… first resurrection” is given to very few of mankind. It is given only to those few who are not asleep and slothful, but are awake and diligent, and who endure to the end, the fires of our judgment in this age, while we are yet in these vessels of clay:

1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial [“the seven last plagues”, Rev 15:8] which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed [at the first resurrection, Rev 20:6], ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

It is very instructive for us to know that the word translated as “give diligence” in 2Pe 1:10 is the very same Greek word translated as “study” in this verse of 2 Timothy:

2Ti 2:15  Study [G4704, spoudazo -“give diligence”, 2Pe 1:10] to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2Ti 2:16  But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
2Ti 2:17  And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
2Ti 2:18  Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
2Ti 2:19  Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
2Ti 2:20  But in a great house [“You are the temple of God”, 1Co 3:16] there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.
2Ti 2:21  If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.

Here in 2 Timothy 2 we have another promise. We are told that “if [we] purge [ourselves] from… vessels of… wood and earth… [we] shall be… prepared unto every good work”, which accords with our promise in 2 Peter 2:

2Pe 1:1  Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2Pe 1:2  Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
2Pe 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2Pe 1:5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
2Pe 1:6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
2Pe 1:7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
2Pe 1:8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
2Pe 1:10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence [G4704, spoudazo] to make your calling and election sure:for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

The source of our faith

Peter begins by informing us that his calling and our calling is only exists because we have “obtained like precious faith”. Where do we get this “precious faith”?

Eph 2:4  But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5  Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Eph 2:6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
Eph 2:7  That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Our faith “is a gift of  God”, and it is “not of ourselves”.

Where do we obtain ‘grace’?

2Pe 1:2  Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

We are blessed not only to know that we are given God’s favor, His ‘karis’, His ‘grace’, but we are also blessed to know what being given that favor entails:

Tit 2:11  For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Tit 2:12  Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

The Greek word from which the English word ‘teaching’ comes is ‘paideuo’ and it means ‘to chasten’, as in this verse of scripture:

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth [Greek, paideuo], and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

“Every son” who [God] receives is graced with His chastening and scourging. This places much more meaning upon this statement of scripture:

Rom 5:20  Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

God’s chastening and scourging are given freely, and they will always overpower the pulls of sin and death upon us, simply because God has declared it to be so:

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Again, our grace and our faith, and the peace of mind He has given to us, are all “the gift of God [and] not of ourselves”. They come to us “through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord”.

2Pe 1:2  Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

Everything that pertains to life and godliness comes to us through knowing God and His Son, and through knowing that they have called us to glory and to a life of virtue, and not a life of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness:

2Pe 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

Jud 1:4  For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. [Don’t speak of the fear of God, and never use the word ‘punish’; use much smoother words]

Those who are given to “know God and His Son” will recognize “the voice of a stranger” when they hear a voice that tells us that Biblical commandments and Biblical phrases are much too harsh. For example, the scriptures teach us to use corporal punishment upon our physical children:

Pro 19:18  Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.

Pro 23:13  Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
Pro 23:14  Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

That is God’s own method of operation with mankind:

Psa 89:32  Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.

Whom the Lord loves He chastens and scourges:

Pro 13:24  He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

But this is the spirit God has placed in many of those who have “crept in unawares…”

Isa 30:8  Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
Isa 30:9  That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:
Isa 30:10  Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:

When “Jesus of Nazareth” hears such smooth words, this is what He tells all who come to Him “speak[ing] deceits [and such] smooth things”:

Mar 8:33  But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.
Mar 8:34  And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Mar 8:35  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
Mar 8:36  For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Mar 8:37  Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Mar 8:38  Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

How we are “partakers of the divine nature

I have been asked, “Why would anyone want to reign over others?” The question is posed to suggest that anyone who wants to rule and reign with Christ during the thousand years is a vain sort of person who simply wants to “lord it over the Lord’s flock”. But that is not why Christ wants to reign over this world at all. Christ, and all in whom He dwells, wants to reign over this world for the good they will be given to do at that time. They will rule over all of God’s enemies with a rod of iron, and when their reign is completed, they will be used by God to destroy corruption and death. Those are only few of the “great and precious promises we are given in Christ, and it is “by these” that we are made “partakers of the divine nature”, which always has and always will dominate and rule the carnal, lust-filled and  rebellious mind of the flesh and of the realm of darkness.

2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

It was by “the exceeding great and precious promises” given to Christ that He was able to “despise the shame” of the cross. Christ esteemed the shame of the cross to be nothing compared to the glory into which He knew He would inherit by being faithful to His Father’s plan and His purpose:

Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

If Christ is in us, and if we have “the same mind”, we too, will consider the sufferings of this present life to be unworthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed within us:

Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Rom 8:19  For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

“The creature” means all mankind, and just as you and I have waited for the appearing of Christ in our lives, all mankind is awaiting the resurrection of “the Christ… the Lord and His Christ… His body”. That is “the earnest expectation of the creature”.

Being made “partakers of the divine nature” delivers us from the corruption that is in the world because “All that is in the world”, all the corruption that is in this world, comes through these three types of lust:

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Now we come to a principle that will help to simplify every admonition given in scripture:

2Pe 1:5  And beside this, giving all diligence [Greek G4710, spoude], add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
2Pe 1:6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
2Pe 1:7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
2Pe 1:8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
2Pe 1:10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence [G4704: spoudazo] to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

These words are not suggestions which we can just take or leave. We must add virtue to our faith or our faith is dead faith with no virtuous works. We cannot have virtuous works if we have no knowledge of the mind and commandments of God. When we have the knowledge of God and His Son, we will add temperance and control of the beast which we are to that knowledge because we want to be “as He is”.

Temperance and self-control are the foundation of patience with all mankind who we know are nothing more or less than tools in the hand of a sovereign God. Living a life that truly believes that God is working “all things after the counsel of His own will” gives us the power to be patient with all men, because we know we are really just being patient with what God is working in all men. The patience of Christ in us can produce nothing short of a Godly, Christ-like life which is a life of kindness toward all men and a life filled with the unconditional agape, love which is what Christ is:

1Jn 4:8  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

And we are right back to the fact that love is obedience to the God we call our Lord:

1Jn 5:2  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

It is Christ Himself who poses this question:

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

2 Peter 1:1-10 are “the things which [Christ] says”, via His Father’s spirit, and if we are given to listen diligently to these words, we will “study [Greek: ‘spudazo‘, be diligent] to show ourselves approved unto God…”

2Ti 2:15  Study [Greek: spoudazo, be diligent] to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Here is what Christ tells us about those who are diligent to obey Him and to apply every word of 2 Peter 1:1-10:

Luk 6:47  Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
Luk 6:48  He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
Luk 6:49  But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

Peter repeats the message of the parable of the house built on a rock or on the sand with these words:

2Pe 1:8  For if these things [these sayings of Christ] be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
2Pe 1:10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence [G4704: spoudazo] to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

Conclusion

I will close with a few verses which I hope will give you hope and remind you who you are and therefore remind you how you should “behave yourself in the house of God”:

Ezr 7:23  Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven: for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons?

Heb 12:15  Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
Heb 12:16  Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
Heb 12:17  For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
Heb 12:18  For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
Heb 12:19  And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:
Heb 12:20  (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
Heb 12:21  And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
Heb 12:22  But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
Heb 12:23  To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
Heb 12:24  And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
Heb 12:25  See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
Heb 12:26  Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
Heb 12:27  And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Heb 12:28  Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
Heb 12:29  For our God is a consuming fire.

Jud 1:24  Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
Jud 1:25  To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Who are you, and what is the body of Christ? You and I must know who we are or we cannot make our calling and election sure, and I am telling you that you will be challenged concerning who you are just as the adversary challenged Christ saying “If you be the Son of God…” This is who we all are, if Christ is living His life within us:

1Ti 3:15  But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

]]> Make Your Calling and Election Sure – Part 1 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/make-your-calling-and-election-sure-part-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-your-calling-and-election-sure-part-1 Thu, 01 Jan 2015 14:10:23 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=8636

Audio Links

Make Your Calling And Election Sure – Part 1

by Mike Vinson

2Pe 1:1  Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2Pe 1:2  Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, 
2Pe 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2Pe 1:5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
2Pe 1:6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
2Pe 1:7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
2Pe 1:8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
2Pe 1:10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence [G4704, spoudazo] to make your calling and election sure:for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

Introduction

God has created an adversary to oppose Himself and to oppose His elect. God is good at what He does, so His adversary is the very best adversary that can be imagined. This is what we are told about the adversary with whom we are dealing:

Rev 12:9  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Rev 12:10  And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

The accuser of our brothers accuses them before our God day and night. So our adversary perseveres and is persistent in doing his job. He will not miss an opportunity “day and night” to find any fault in anything we do, and he will convince us to believe his accusations against us before we even hear the matter. He will have us to ignore every admonition we are given to ‘seek a multitude of counselors… go to him, between you and him alone… search out the matter diligently and do not make any conclusions until you have done so’.

Pro 11:14  Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.

Pro 15:22  Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.

Pro 24:6  For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.

All of these admonitions go out the door when we are given over to the mind of the adversary. Our “multitude of counselors” are suddenly transformed into a multitude of deceivers because we have been given over to a lying spirit, which convinces us that people we have known and trusted and who have given us wise admonitions and wise counsel are all being led astray by an evil spirit, and we say “God has appointed me to show all of my counselors their grievous sins, before I have even gone to them to hear why they are acting and teaching as they do”. When this spirit of the adversary has be given dominion over us, that is when we begin to despise these words of our Lord:

Mat 18:15  Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Mat 18:16  But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
Mat 18:17  And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Mat 18:18  Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be [Greek, ‘shall have been’] bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Mat 18:19  Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
Mat 18:20  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

All of this is out the door when our adversary is given to blind us from the protection against his devices which obedience to these words will give us. In the place of that safety we become accusers of our brothers as instruments in the hand of our father the devil, and this is what we do:

Isa 29:21  That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.

‘No good deed goes unpunished’ by our adversary. If we “reprove in the gate” those who need reproof, then the adversary makes certain that our own sinful past will be used to nullify our good reproof in our own gate, and within our own body. That is his job, and he perseveres and persists in doing it.

On the other hand, we are given instructions concerning how we must overcome every effort of the adversary to take us away from the body of Christ and to convince us that we will be of greater service to God if we go out from among those who we ourselves have proven to be the body of Christ:

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
1Jn 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
1Jn 2:18  Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
1Jn 2:19  They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
1Jn 2:20  But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
1Jn 2:21  I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.

“They went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us”, tells us that these are those who refuse to ‘go to their brother, and if that brother does not hear them then they are instructed to take with them another brother or two, and if he refuses to hear them, then tell it to the church’. These are those who will not then “tell it to the church”, and they will not hear the church and will not even contemplate treating a heretic as a heathen man and a publican. They will gladly do just that to those who do seek a multitude of counselors and who obey Matthew 18:15-21, but they will not stand up to those who call Christ “Lord, Lord”, but will not do the things He says to do. “The pride of life”, the inability to confess that pride and destroy it from within, causes them to continue on in their “pride of life”.

“You know all things” means that we are granted to do the things Christ tells us to do. It means that we know that we must never, ever ‘lean to our own understanding’, and we must never ever place ourselves above the body of Christ and our multitude of counselors. I have posed the question on many occasions, “Why do we mention that we are never to lean to our own understanding, and we are to always depend upon our “multitude of counselors” if we are going to give in to a lying spirit which is telling us that the body of Christ, is not worthy of being our multitude of counselors? If the whole body of Christ is saying something we do not believe, is it not possibly time to “make search and ask diligently” concerning the matter that is within our own gates in accord with our Lord’s instructions in Mat 18?”

Deu 13:12  If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,
Deu 13:13  Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;
Deu 13:14  Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;
Deu 13:15  Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.

This is what we must do to “win [our] brother”. Anything short of our Lord’s words amounts to a false doctrine which must be denied by the body of Christ. The body of Christ is “Jesus of Nazareth”, and with “that which every joint supplies” that body is edified and is built up in obedience to what He says:

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Eph 4:16  From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. [obedience, 1Jo 5:2-3].

When a spirit comes to us and tells us that everyone to whom we have deferred as our leaders, and who have proven themselves to be incorruptible in dealing with the doctrine of Christ, has overnight become a liar and a false prophet, then we need to “enquire, and make search” of those we suspect, by “go[ing] to him, between you and him alone”, before drawing any conclusions. We know what the adversary wants to do, and what he really wants is to sow discord among those in the body of Christ, and to accuse our brothers of failing to do what Christ has told us to do. When we fail to do what our Lord has told us to do, we are taken and snared by the devices of the adversary, which we are to be aware of at all times.

2Co 2:11  Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

Satan is a worthy adversary, but you and I can make our calling and election sure by never failing to inquire, making search, and by always finding out the facts before we “go to [our] brother, between [us] and him alone” before we “tell it to the church”.

This is why we are to do so:

Pro 18:13  He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.

First going to a brother or a sister personally and privately deals with the devices of the adversary and helps us to make our calling and election sure. It is not easy to do that, but it is a ‘pill’ which will immunize us from the discord which the adversary so desires to sow among us:

Pro 6:16  These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
Pro 6:17  A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
Pro 6:18  An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
Pro 6:19  A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

“A proud look, a lying tongue, [and] a false witness” are all part of being a lying or simply a deceived instrument of the adversary, who accuses our brothers day and night before our God, and he does that through those who fail to apply our Lord’s words, which keep us from being infected with the diseases of Egypt, which are nothing less than the diseases of Babylon.

Exo 15:26  And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.

We will conclude our study today with a familiar verse of scripture, which, if we give heed to its admonitions, we will go a long way toward “mak[ing our] calling and elections sure”.

Here is what we are plainly advised will help us to “receive a full reward”

2Jn 1:8  Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. [“Make (our) calling and election sure”]
2Jn 1:9  Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
2Jn 1:10  If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
2Jn 1:11  For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

The way we are called to walk is a narrow way which this world cannot receive and will not obey. Those who will not “go to [their] brother between him and [them] alone” before they take with them one or two others, and before telling it to the church, are not bring obedient to Christ, and will not be rewarded with the peace of mind that comes with an obedient spirit. But those who “do the things [Christ] tells us to do” will reap the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and will be given “a full reward”.

Tomorrow we will go step by step into everything which Peter tells us will secure our calling and our election, and, Lord willing, we will be see our Lord just a little bit more clearly and will be transformed into that same image from glory to glory:

2Co 3:18  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit [these very words] of the Lord.

2Pe 1:1  Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2Pe 1:2  Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
2Pe 1:3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2Pe 1:5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
2Pe 1:6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
2Pe 1:7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
2Pe 1:8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his       old sins.
2Pe 1:10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence [G4704, spoudazo] to make your calling and election sure:for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

]]> Subject to vanity, subjected in Hope https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/subject-to-vanity-subjected-in-hope/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=subject-to-vanity-subjected-in-hope Sun, 28 Dec 2014 15:35:12 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=8632

Audio Links

“Subject to vanity, subjected in Hope”

Part 1 and 2

Gainsville, Georgia Conference 2014

December 27th and 28th

 

Often times in our lives we are subjected to many trials and tribulations which seem to overtake us and almost run us “into the ground” so to speak.

That phrase itself, “run us into the ground” speaks about something too heavy for us and that it has the power to kill us / produce death in us.

Ironically enough that is exactly what the trials and tribulations sent to us by the Lord are sent to do. They are sent to cause, all that we know as the old man in us, to be put to death so that the new man can be born again afresh in us.

However, trials and tribulations are not ALL we have been given or have to look forward too or we would all perish almost instantly.

I’ve derived this talk from Roman 8:20 which tells us what we have been given additionally from the Lord, and what we have to look forward to.

Rom 8:20  For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

Rom 8:21  Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

In this study and at the start of this fellowship this week, I am hoping to depart hope to you as it is given and explained to us in scripture.

While the things we go through in this life are certainly grievous as we go through them, they are nothing to be compared to what the Lord has purposed for us after we pass on from this life into the next, but the process starts now.

 

“The firstfruits of the Spirit”

 

I know many of us are familiar with Romans 8 and the verses I have mentioned already, but I thought I would read these verses in another translation to help set the tone for what we are being told we are subject to.

Rom 8:20  (ESV) For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope

Rom 8:21  that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Rom 8:22  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Rom 8:23  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Larry did a few studies recently covering “adoption as sons” and Mike followed that up with covering the “double portion” that we receive.

However, I started thinking about this topic before those studies were done and from a completely different angle than what the Lord gave those guys to present.

The question that ran through my head is, “what is the freedom of the glory of the children of God” scripturally, or “the glorious liberty of the children of God” as the KJV states it.

What is the freedom the children of God know and how is it glorious?

There are many things that can be said about this if I just state what I think this means, but there is a lot more accuracy in my thoughts if I reply solely on what scripture teaches about this glorious liberty.

Of course, this liberty is being compared and contrasted to the “bondage of corruption” and how we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly for the redemption of our bodies.

What then is the glorious liberty of the children of God?

Rom 8:21  BecauseG3754 theG3588 creatureG2937 itselfG848 alsoG2532 shall be deliveredG1659 fromG575 theG3588 bondageG1397 of corruptionG5356 intoG1519 theG3588 gloriousG1391 libertyG1657 of theG3588 childrenG5043 of God.G2316

The word used as glorious in Romans 8 is the Greek word G1391, “doxa” and is used 170 times in the NT according to Strong’s Concordance.

Thayer’s defines it as:

G1391

doxa

Thayer Definition:

1) opinion, judgment, view

2) opinion, estimate, whether good or bad concerning someone

2a) in the NT always a good opinion concerning one, resulting in praise, honour, and glory

3) splendour, brightness

3a) of the moon, sun, stars

3b) magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity, grace

3c) majesty

3c1) a thing belonging to God

3c1) the kingly majesty which belongs to him as supreme ruler, majesty in the sense of the absolute perfection of the deity

3c2) a thing belonging to Christ

3c2a) the kingly majesty of the Messiah

3c2b) the absolutely perfect inward or personal excellency of Christ; the majesty

3c3) of the angels

3c3a) as apparent in their exterior brightness

4) a most glorious condition, most exalted state

4a) of that condition with God the Father in heaven to which Christ was raised after he had achieved his work on earth

4b) the glorious condition of blessedness into which is appointed and promised that true Christians shall enter after their Saviour’s return from heaven

Part of Speech: noun feminine

A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: from the base of G1380

Citing in TDNT: 2:233, 178

However, “doxa” is not the root from which it comes from. The root of “doxa” is

G1380

dokeō

Thayer Definition:

1) to be of opinion, think, suppose

2) to seem, to be accounted, reputed

3) it seems to me

3a) I think, judge: thus in question

3b) it seems good to, pleased me, I determined

Part of Speech: verb

A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: a prolonged form of a primary verb, doko (used only in an alternate in certain tenses; compare the base of G1166) of the same meaning

Citing in TDNT: 2:232, 178

So, if we break this down to the root of what we are being told, then “glorious” would mean “to have a  view of, to be accounted and reputed, to have splendor, majesty and brightness of a ….. JUDGMENT of,” ….. Whatever it is you are describing as being glorious.

In the case of the verses in hand it is a majestic judgment of liberty.

It is incumbent on us then to find out what this majestic judgment of liberty is.

G1657

eleutheria

Total KJV Occurrences: 12

liberty, 11

Rom_8:21 (2), 1Co_10:29, 2Co_3:17, Gal_2:4, Gal_5:1, Gal_5:13 (2), Jam_1:25, Jam_2:12, 1Pe_2:16, 2Pe_2:19

at, 1

1Co_7:39

Here are the other verses listed out which speak about this “liberty” with a few of their surrounding verses to give a little context.

The focus I will have will liberty throughout the rest of this study is to find out just what having liberty in Christ means for us and how that glorious liberty leads us to hope. How does it lead to hope?

I am going to cover the various scriptures mentioned so that we can see how the Holy Spirit inspired various writers to use this word in the NT.

  1. Is liberty in Christ judged?

1Co 10:27  If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.

1Co 10:28  But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof:

1Co 10:29  Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man’s conscience?

1Co 10:30  For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks?

This is the first example where the word liberty is used in the Greek. What we are being told in what we just read is that we have liberty to eat what we desire.

However, if the person who asked us to join them at a feast specifically tells us that what we are eating is sacrificed to an idol, then we are to not eat that which is offered to an idol.

I don’t know about most of you, but I don’t personally know anyone that would say, “eat this or that because I am sacrificing it to an idol”.

However, I do know plenty of folks who would gladly say, “Here, have this piece of cake in honor of me and my birthday.”

Most of the world, including myself at one time, did not see such an act of celebrating a birthday as worshipping an idol, but what bigger idol is there to worship than the idol of the heart called, “self”?

Whether the person celebrating the birthday knows it or not, celebrating their birth over and over is celebrating an idol of the heart and the pride of life which we all have at some point.

For that person’s birthday, we are not to eat the cake if that is the Faith we have been given, because it would harm their conscience when we say we do not keep holidays, yet we eat a piece of “birthday” cake, for example. However, the cake is a piece of cake at the end of the day and is NOTHING in and of itself.

Of course we also know that by not partaking we can easily offend the birthday person, so how can we still know we have liberty in Christ which leads to hope while also knowing that we will undoubtedly offend with our actions?

Well, I will give another easy example of how to illustrate this question with an answer.

One time I was eating an egg from a bowl of colored eggs which obviously had been decorated for Easter. For me and my conscience, the liberty I have in Christ tells me that this was and is just a boiled egg I can feed myself with.

Yet, as soon as someone saw me who KNEW I did not celebrate Easter, saw me eating an “Easter” egg, they immediately asked me how I can eat an “Easter egg” and say I don’t celebrate Easter.

This was not during the celebration of Easter and was just a bowl of extra eggs that had been brought into work. However, I quickly explained to this person, that TO ME, this was a just a boiled egg and had no significance as an Easter egg for me.

However, knowing that the conscience of the person seeing me eat this egg could be caused to stumble, I will forever more abstain from eating colored eggs around that person.

Rom 14:13  Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.

Rom 14:14  I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

Rom 14:15  But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.

Rom 14:16  Let not then your good be evil spoken of:

However, I do not allow my liberty to be judged as evil by acting myself as if it is evil. I simply just do not offend another with what I am permitted to eat by not eating it in their presence.

Paul summed this up by saying, “why should MY LIBERTY be JUDGED by another man’s conscience.” This person has not been given the gift of glorious liberty so they are still under the law they are bound to keep, therefore they cannot understand why I am able to eat what they believe to be an “Easter” egg.

  1. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty

2Co 3:7  But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:

2Co 3:8  How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?

2Co 3:9  For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.

2Co 3:10  For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.

2Co 3:11  For if that which is done away was glorious, MUCH MORE that which remaineth is glorious.

Obviously we see glory being mentioned again, but I also want to point out that we see the ministry of death being written and engraved in stone. These were physical stones, but this also typifies another type of stone. We read this just a few verses above:

2Co 3:2  Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:

2Co 3:3  Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

Verse 3 stated in the CEV translation says:

(CEV)  You are like a letter written by Christ and delivered by us. But you are not written with pen and ink or on tablets made of stone. You are written in our hearts by the Spirit of the living God.

Anyone who has children can understand what I heard told to me once. When you become a parent, it is at that point that you start to live out becoming memories for your children, and you children start to become memories for you.

In other words, you are living NOW what will later become memories for the opposite party involved. This is in the physical sense of children, but this also just as importantly applies to SPIRITUAL children in Christ.

When we are used by the Lord to bring the gospel to a person, we are being used in the same way physical parents are used temporarily in this life to raise their physical children, but this time is only temporary since we are all children of the Lord in our time.

So, how someone sees our walk in the Lord has GREAT significance on what they will remember about Christ being represented by you in their lives. Your conversation will become a memory to them that they can learn from, as well as use for their strength when they need to draw upon that memory later.

Likewise, any negative memories have a critical impact on how Christ is perceived in you as well. That is why it is important to remember that this “proverbial door” swings both ways and what we just read becomes even more important for us to understand.

(CEV)  You are like a letter written by Christ and delivered by us. But you are not written with pen and ink or on tablets made of stone. You are written in our hearts by the Spirit of the living God.

A letter is something that can be read over and over again, so we need to be conscience of what it is which is being written not in ink and pen, but what is being written on the heart.

We all start of naturally with stony hearts, but when the Lord brings the law of Liberty, we are given a heart of flesh. Another way to understand having a heart of flesh is to think about it as living versus being dead (stony heart) and that living heart is living towards the one who gave it life.

Continuing we will see how the Spirit of the Lord is given to us when the vail of the law of Moses is removed from our faces which indicates to us that whatever legalistic teachings we gained while being in Babylon are now being replaced with the glorious law of Liberty in Christ.

2Co 3:12  Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:

2Co 3:13  And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:

2Co 3:14  But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.

2Co 3:15  But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.

2Co 3:16  Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

2Co 3:17  Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

2Co 3:18  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory (G1391) to glory (G1391), even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

What then is the glory that we continually grow into from glory to glory? If we remember back to what this word represents, it is “to have a view of, to be accounted and reputed, to have splendor, majesty and brightness of a ….. JUDGMENT of,” ….. Whatever it is you are describing as being glorious.

What we are being changed into is the image of the JUDGMENT of the Lord. You may be thinking that glory cannot possibly have an implication of judgment, but what have we been discussing so far if it is not the contrast between what it means to be in bondage and what it means to find GLORIOUS liberty in Christ Jesus?

So liberty in Christ can be judged rightly or wrongly depending on the person doing the judging and we have now learned that liberty is where the spirit of the Lord is.

  1. Liberty by the Truth of the gospel

Now, we are going to see that liberty can be directly assaulted by false brethren who come in secretly to SPY on the liberty we have. With that, we will also learn how to combat it.

Gal 2:2  And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation (Glorious or glory used in other places), lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.

Gal 2:3  But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised:

Gal 2:4  And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:

Gal 2:5  To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

The way we combat these false brethren bringing false doctrine is to NOT GIVE PLACE to their doctrine, “no, not for an hour” as Paul proclaims. We do this so the Truth can continue in those who otherwise might be susceptible to these doctrines bring brought to their ear.

Gal 5:1  Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not ENTANGLED AGAIN with the yoke of bondage.

Gal 5:2  Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

Gal 5:3  For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

We must be diligent to stand on the word of God because that is what gives us the glorious Liberty which we need to be pressing onto.

Why is this important to do? Why is this topic even important for us to consider?

The reason I thought this topic might be important is because we all need continual encouragement.

One of the ways we can gain encouragement is to know what we are up against and also to know that we are NOT ALONE in the battles we all face.

We all have various types of trials and tribulations. We have some that overlap in certain respects while other types of trials are custom made for us individually.

One of the illustrations that is being made in these examples of verses speaking about liberty is that they are connected to glory, but GLORY is directly connected to JUDGMENT and I hope that is coming out.

Here is a connecting thought to consider when thinking about being a slave to the flesh, the carnal mind, and being in bondage to the law that works in our members.

Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

1Co 1:27  But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

1Co 1:28  And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

1Co 1:29  That no flesh should glory in his presence.

1Co 1:30  But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

1Co 1:31  That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

When we think about what glorious liberty is and what it is to glory in the Lord, we should be considering that the only way we will get to this “glorious position” of being in liberty, of being in FREEDOM, is THROUGH JUDGMENT.

Why am I mentioning judgment so much and doesn’t it almost seem like a “dirty word” to mention when talking about the HOPE we have because of liberty?

To answer that, we must know what the purpose of judgment is. After all, it must begin at the house and temple of God with His children.

 

“Righteous judgment”

 

There really are only two types of judgment we can judge with. We can judge with righteous judgment that comes from the mind of Christ, and we can judge with unrighteous judgment which comes from the flesh.

When we think about judgment we should always be focused on proper righteous judgment, and that judgment is simply being used to SET THINGS RIGHT.

From the beginning of all of our lives, we are set out on a path that is NOT going to end with the Way to Truth and Life, but to death. The Lord does things to put some on a corrected course.

However, when the Lord gives us His gospel and drags us to Himself, He sets in motion the process of giving us judgment which we can use to set things right.

What are some examples of what I am talking about?

The Lord tells us that we can understand the things happening in the spiritual realm by the things which are visible to us in the physical realm.

Rom 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Rom 1:19  Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

Rom 1:20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Rom 1:21  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

I like to think of a storm as a good example of a lesson the Lord uses to teach us things about what He does in the world of “invisible things” which can be understood by the “things that are made”.

If we use an example of a storm, I want you to imagine a real storm being described, and the various details which we can gain from our physical senses and understandings of a storm, that indeed a storm is about to happen.

We all have trials and understand what that means. So, let’s liken trials to storms in this example.

With storms, we can see and hear them coming. We can smell them in the rain that is coming. Often times, people will tell you they can feel them coming in their arthritic bones and joints.

If it is a particularly powerful storm, there will be damage involved and shelter needed to avoid the brunt of the storms force.

As naturally minded creatures, we know to head for the best cover around just as all natural creatures do.

With all that in mind, let us consider these same examples of things that happen to us physically as also happening to us in the spiritual heavens.

Sometimes we know a storm is coming and sometimes we don’t. We do not need physical trials to say we are having a trial or know what a trial is.

Of course, that isn’t saying physical trials are any less of a trial, but I am saying that there are many more types of trials than those physical trials which affect our flesh.

In fact, we have many trials that have NOTHING to do with us physically, but may very well manifest themselves in the physical.

Many people have financial, emotional, spiritual and mental trials in addition to physical trials and what we often do is take cover from the storm i.e the trial, and rightly so.

We cry out in our distresses for relief, and we find refuge in the Lord.

Ask yourself though, “what is the purpose for a storm?”

Storms bring rain. They block the sun. They are grievous and scary at times. They are loud and thunderous and produce lightning and hail.

Their purpose is to set right things that need to be set right even when they may make NO SENSE at all to us and our natural reasoning. After all, why does the sun need to be blocked out for a time, for example?

Why would the sun need to be blocked out? Why would trees need to be toppled? Why do homes and vehicles, business and livestock need to be pummeled with hail, etc?

How can storms be used to set things right, therefore producing judgment, and is this truly an example of judgment?

The answer to those questions is that the Lord knows why He works all things after the counsel of His own will and we cannot fathom the complexity of the effects that come from the storms He causes both physically and spiritually.

The Lord alone is able to JUDGE when a CORRECTION is needed.

This is exactly the same with the spiritual trials and storms which come to us all. What then does any of this have to do with “glorious liberty” which leads to hope?

How does a storm, whether physical or spiritual LEAD to freedom?

Well, there is a great example of a tremendous storm that was used by the Lord to correct, and therefore judge, all of humanity and lead humanity to Himself.

I, of course, am speaking about the great flood which wiped out most of humanity save a very few. The fact is, death leads to the Lord and death is REQUIRED to bring forth life.

Jesus was and is the perfect example of this and we can see that in the story of the flood and what happened with it.

Gen 6:11  The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

Gen 6:12  And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

Gen 6:13  And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

A few verses later…

Gen 6:16  A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

Gen 6:17  And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

Gen 6:18  But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.

The judgment which was being made on ALL FLESH happened to set right the violence that was being done by those considered “all flesh”.

Noah and his family too were being judged, but the type and shadow of their judgment is that they were given safety, a refuge, shelter from the storm in the form of the ark which the Lord told Noah to prepare.

Just like Noah, we are told as the children of God, to prepare an ark spiritually speaking. However, our spiritual ark is not something that can be seen, but it is an ark that all of humanity will eventually be able to come into.

The ark that saves us is, Jesus Christ the word of God, and the way onto this ark, is through judgment.

The righteous judgment of God is manifest to us in the persecutions and tribulations we endure.

2Th 1:1  Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

2Th 1:2  Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2Th 1:3  We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth;

2Th 1:4  So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:

2Th 1:5  Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

The trials and storms the Lord tells you are coming, the rains which WILL come your way and into your life, are those which you NOW prepare for and for which you PAINFULLY endure as they are upon you.

That is the judgment, the glory, the Lord has given us in His liberty. This glory however is not to be used or thought of as something to be used for an occasion to the flesh and that is what we will cover in part 2.

 

Part 2

 

In part 1 we covered the first 4 verses concerning what the word liberty is told to be in the new testament.

This liberty is what we are told is given to the children of God who are first subject to vanity but are ALSO subjected to hope.

This hope then leads to freedom in Christ. Obviously, all of humanity is subject to vanity, but few are given true relief from ONLY being subjected in this life to vanity.

In part two, we are going to continue to look at what the Lord has inspired to be written so that we can truly glean what it means to be free in Him.

This part of the study is going to start of with helping us understand that being free in Christ does not afford is freedom to do whatever it is WE want to do. After all, we are PRISONERS for Christ Jesus.

Eph 3:1  For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,

Phm 1:9  Yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

  1. Use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh

Gal 5:10  I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.

Gal 5:11  And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.

Gal 5:12  I would they were even cut off which trouble you.

Gal 5:13  For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Gal 5:14  For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Gal 5:15  But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

What could Paul be writing about in reference to not biting and devouring each other? The answer is found in Galatians 5:1 at the beginning of this chapter.

Gal 5:1  Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

So much of our church lives has been focused on “performance religion” i.e. what we can do to gain our salvation, what we do to keep our salvation, to prove our salvation to others, how to stay right with God, etc. and how we look in front of other brethren.

However, all of these are vanity of the flesh and fall under the umbrella of “all that is in the world”.

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

When we, as children of God, try to use scripture to bring others into bondage of what WE THINK scripture teaches versus what scripture itself teaches us, then we will be guilty of biting and devouring one another.

What we are to do, and the only way to make sure we are not biting and devouring each other to bring others back into bondage to what we think is the proper “Christian life”, is to use the spiritual principles of “comparing spiritual with spiritual,” “natural then the spiritual”, “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” to determine what doctrines Jesus gave us to live by.

We do this because we all are in the same war of flesh versus spiritual, and the difference with the children of God and the rest of humanity is that the children of God are commanded to love one another and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

We do that by keeping His commandments, and we can only keep His commandments by His judgment, not our OWN DECIDED judgment, being used on the house of God first.

It first begins at US, but that also means that I cannot have any righteous judgment until I myself have judged myself with that judgment.

However, when a child of God understands these principles, we also know that there are commandments which the Lord tells us to diligently listen to in order to obey His voice.

If we are listening for the voice of the True Shepherd in one another, then we should also be obeying the voice of the Shepherd in one another when doctrinal matters are being considered. This is how we can avoid biting and devouring each other.

Joh 7:24  Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

We do not look on outward appearances in the flesh, the things that happen to someone, the events that unfold in someone’s life, the various trials someone experiences, and then conclude that this person is somehow NOT RIGHT with the Lord.

Likewise, we are commanded not to reverse that thinking and look on the appearance of things and conclude that if someone has great health, lots of money, many friends, etc., that they are someone who is somehow doing what is right in the sight of the Lord.

None of that vain reasoning and thinking LEADS to the hope that we want to be subjected to. Everything I just mentioned has root in being subject to vanity and flesh.

How then do we challenge the vanity we are subject to? We apply the hope which is in us to all situations!

1Pe 3:12  For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

1Pe 3:13  And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?

1Pe 3:14  But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;

1Pe 3:15  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

1Pe 3:16  Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.

Being ready always to give and answer to every man that asks you about the hope in you IS NOT giving the answer YOU personally think is the answer. Those ANSWERS come from the Word of God, the voice of the True Shepherd in YOU. That is how we walk out and live the above verses.

Having a good conversation in Christ brings me to my next usage of the word liberty.

  1. Continue in the perfect law of liberty

Jas 1:21  Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

Jas 1:22  But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Jas 1:23  For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

Jas 1:24  For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

Jas 1:25  But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Jas 1:26  If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

Are we not looking into the law of liberty with this study?

Liberty in Christ Jesus does not restrict us from doing anything, because all things are ours.

However, the Liberty in Christ teaches us to judge ourselves so that we willingly choose (the Lord working it in our lives Php 2:12) to DO that which is EXPEDIENT and not to find out what is PERMISSIABLE so that our flesh can glory in being vain.

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

When we attempt to ignore the warnings of the Lord, that a certain flood will be upon us, for example, and that we must prepare, we are not taking heed to being doers of the Word.

In other words, the Lord tells us that a loving Father chastens His children. He tells us that He will send fiery trials to try us and also what to expect with that.

When these trials and chastisements come upon us, we know it is due to the warnings the Lord has given us that He will discipline us so that we know the way in which we must live out being doers of the Word.

Pro 3:11  My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:

Pro 3:12  For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

1Pe 4:11  If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

We can be glad with exceeding joy, not because we are being chastened, but because the Lord has chosen and caused the fire of His Word to work it’s work in our lives now and not later as it will do for most of mankind.

Sure, it is a long process which lasts our entire lives but it is one which after enduring it, we can move on to the Hope we have longed for while in this life. We will rise and see Him as He is due to having overcome the world the Lord has placed us in, Lord willing.

The wonderful joy we experience in this life by this understanding, knowledge and wisdom, also extends to those whom are placed around us. We do not joy in the evil and sin in the world and within us, but we do joy in knowing that what the Lord has started, He will finish.

In context of what we are speaking about in this study, the Lord has started a work which will reconcile all of humanity with Him through the process of judgment and fire.

1Co 3:14  If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

1Co 3:15  If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

  1. Speak and do as one judged by the law of liberty

Jas 2:10  For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Jas 2:11  For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

Jas 2:12  So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

Jas 2:13  For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

Jas 2:14  What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

Jas 2:15  If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

Jas 2:16  And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Jas 2:17  Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

The way the world sees “the Christ” working in their midst is by seeing the same example in them (the Christ) that Jesus gave to those He was walking and talking with when He was on this earth.

If we understand that God is sovereign and that this process of salvation extends to all of humanity, then we should also look at this plan of God and see those things that are not as if they were already accomplished.

After all, that is how the Lord views His work.

Rom 4:16  Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

Rom 4:17  (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Rom 4:18  Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

We must live out the Faith God the Father has given us by living out the belief that the Lord has given us freedom to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

Notwithstanding, that liberty will also by necessity, bring the trial of persecutions and tribulations so that we are partakers of Christ’s glory.

  1. Don’t use your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness

1Pe 2:11  Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

1Pe 2:12  Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

1Pe 2:13  Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;

1Pe 2:14  Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

1Pe 2:15  For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

1Pe 2:16  As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

1Pe 2:17  Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

The Lord tells us it is His will that we do well, and doing well is living out our daily lives of not caring about what others think about us due to us obeying our Father and Lord.

We do not return evil for evil, but instead, we submit ourselves to the calling the Lord has called us in until, and if, a more expedient way to serve the Lord presents itself.

We do not commit sin simply because we know we are under grace. It would be the easiest thing “in the world” to commit sin and then say the Lord has us covered since we are under grace and grace trumps sin.

However, this entire study is about what the scripture teaches us about that reasoning being the absolute opposite of what the Lord commands us to think.

The glorious liberty of the children of God leads us to hoping that this immense struggle and war we are all in, is for a wonderful plan of God which will free us all from this tabernacles of death we have now.

That is why we do not walk after the flesh and the carnal mind.

  1. Do not promise liberty to others but then serve corruption yourself

2Pe 2:1  But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

2Pe 2:2  And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

2Pe 2:3  And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

2Pe 2:10  But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

A few verses later…

2Pe 2:17  These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

2Pe 2:18  For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

2Pe 2:19  While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

2Pe 2:20  For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

Did you notice that the false prophets and false teachers come in privily (secretly) with false doctrines which deny the Lord.

These are the same false prophets and teachers, whom we call brothers, which we read about earlier who come in to spy this same liberty the children of God have and then presume to offer this liberty to others through false doctrine.

Simply put, these teachers cannot give something to others that they have not been given themselves!

Gal 2:4  And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:

Gal 2:5  To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

If you desire to know if you yourself are guilty of being a false prophet, remember that there is a “test” to know if you are NOW living out this role.

2Co 13:3  Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you.

2Co 13:4  For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.

2Co 13:5  Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

2Co 13:6  But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.

2Co 13:7  Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates.

2Co 13:8  For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.

 

“Conclusion”

 

What we have been thinking on in this study is how those who are the children of God now, those who are referred to as having the first fruits of the Spirit, are groaning for the redemption of their body.

I propose to you that we are a body collectively and NOT individually.

We are one body, with One Lord, One God the Father, having One Baptism, One Faith, One Spirit and One Hope.

Eph 4:1  I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

Eph 4:2  With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

Eph 4:3  Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Eph 4:4  There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

Eph 4:5  One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

Eph 4:6  One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Eph 4:7  But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

What goes along with that is that we as this one body with one Head, should be looking towards the glorious liberty that allows us to obtain to “being one” with all the things just mentioned in that calling we have been called to.

The chastening grace that is given to each of us, by measure, requires that we learn from the measures that each of us collectively have been given.

We learn to accept the disciple given to us by our Father and we also learn to share these experiences with one another so our entire body can benefit from the grace given.

This is how we forbear one another in love with lowliness, meekness and longsuffering.

Rom 8:20  For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

Rom 8:21  Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Let us all be subjected to Hope by being delivered from the corruption that is in us all. We do that by submitting to the commandments of God and by:

  1. Not allowing our liberty to be judged by a corrupt man’s conscience
  2. Turn our minds to the Lord so that we can be one with His Spirit as the Lord wills
  3. Don’t give place to false doctrine in the name of “being free” in the Lord to do whatever we want
  4. Serve one another with the liberty in Christ we receive
  5. Do not forget what manner of man you were and make sure to look toward Jesus in all things so that we can be transformed into His image from glory to glory
  6. Judge yourself knowing the law of liberty with be the judgments uses to weigh your actions against. Show mercy and judge righteous judgment
  7. Do not sin and rely on grace due to the freedom you have in Jesus Christ
  8. Do not preach liberty to others but be a reprobate yourself. Walk the walk and talk the talk praying the Lord will bless you to be able to do so.

I hope this study has been a blessing to you all.

]]> Seven Steps of Salvation https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/seven-steps-of-salvation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seven-steps-of-salvation Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:45:42 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=4109

Seven Steps of Salvation

Conference held December, 2012, Buford GA

Mike Vinson
[Update added February 12, 2016]

God had a plan for all of mankind. God’s plan was complete “before the world began, and it included “all [who are] in Adam”.

1Co 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

The scriptures teach that “[God] has devised means that his banished be not expelled from Him”. What that statement means is that God’s plan for mankind is to bring salvation to all who are in Adam. He reveals to us that He is going to do so by means of three separate resurrections, which are typified in scripture as three separate harvests.

Eph 1:9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Here is verse 10 in the Concordant Literal Version:

Eph 1:10 to have an administration of the complement of the eras, to head up all in the Christ – both that in the heavens and that on the earth.

“In the dispensation of the fulness of times [God will] gather together [harvest] in one all things in the Christ”. God’s plan for all mankind is not a plan which includes only His firstfruit harvest. “Before the world began” God planned for Christ, who God created to be the Creator of all things, and to be the first of His firstfruits harvest.

Col 1:17 And he [Christ] is before all things, and by him all things consist.
Col 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Col 1:19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;

So Christ is not preeminent only in the resurrection from the dead, “He is before all things, and by Him all things consist”. He is in the process of saving “all things” by means of these three harvests we will be studying today.

But Christ is not the only firstfruits in God’s plan. After Christ was gathered to His Father by being the very first person to be resurrected from the dead to life eonian, God will also gather to Himself “they that are Christ’s” firstfruts. That will be the second harvest in God’s three harvests, but it is called the “first resurrection” of those who are “in Christ”. This is what we are told of those who are the first to be resurrected in Christ. As we will see, the barley harvest during the days of unleavened bread, which typifies Christ, and the wheat harvest at the day of Pentecost, are both called a harvest of firstfruits.

Jas 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

So those in this “first resurrection” are the firstfruits of Christ, even though they are resurrected after He is resurrected. But there is one more harvest after the thousand years, and that harvest is the largest harvest of all, because it is the harvest of all men of all time who have ever been “in Adam”. God has devised the means that His banished be not expelled from Him”, and that “means” is this final, third harvest, “the feast of ingathering which is at the end of the year”. In that resurrection, death and the grave will be destroyed, and death will be robbed of every single person it has ever claimed.

Here are all three of these harvests:

1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23 But every man in his own order: [1] Christ the firstfruits; [2] afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24 [3] Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

And this is the fate of death:

1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

“The end”, mentioned in 1Co 15:24, means the end harvest. It means the “harvest at the end of the year”, as is revealed in the three harvests seasons in which are revealed the seven steps to the salvation of “all in Adam”.

So there are actually three separate harvests of God’s ‘field’, which ‘field’ according to our Lord, is the whole world.

Mat 13:38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;

Christ has purchased the whole field, and by means of his three separate harvests and the seven steps which must be fulfilled within those three harvests, he will not lose one single soul who is “in Adam”. Here are the words of what the scriptures call “a wise woman…”

2Sa 14:14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.

That “means” which God has “devised” is revealed to us in seven separate feasts which are all types of the seven steps which all men must take in order to come to Christ and His Father.

Here are those three seasons in which the seven festivals of Israel took place.

Exo 23:14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Exo 23:15 Thou shalt keep [1] the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)
Exo 23:16 [2] And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and [3] the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
Exo 23:17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

Now here are the seven holy days within these three seasons. It is these seven annual holy days which reveal to us the seven steps to the salvation of each and every man whom God will drag to Himself, as well as the seven steps which are being taken by all men in coming to the completion of God’s plan for all men:

Lev 23:4 These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.
Lev 23:5 [1] In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’S passover.
Lev 23:6 [2] And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
Lev 23:7 In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:8 But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:9 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:10 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest:
Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
Lev 23:12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD.
Lev 23:13 And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.
Lev 23:14 And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
Lev 23:15 [3] And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
Lev 23:16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
Lev 23:17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD.
Lev 23:18 And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the LORD, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the LORD.
Lev 23:19 Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings.
Lev 23:20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the LORD for the priest.
Lev 23:21 And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
Lev 23:22 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God.
Lev 23:23 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:24 [4] Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
Lev 23:25 Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Lev 23:26 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:27 [5] Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Lev 23:28 And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.
Lev 23:29 For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people.
Lev 23:30 And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.
Lev 23:31 Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
Lev 23:32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.
Lev 23:33 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:34 [6] Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.
Lev 23:35 On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:36 [7] Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.

Now let’s consider how these feasts of ancient Israel reveal to us God’s plan for the redemption of “all in Adam [including] His banished”.

The first holy day is the passover, which signifies the death of our Lord, “the spotless… lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world”.

The passover took place in the spring of the year.

Joh 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Joh 1:30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.

1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
1Ti 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

1Ti 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially [But “not for ours only” 1Jn 2:2] of those that believe.
1Ti 4:11 These things command and teach.

2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us- ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So God is in the process of bringing “all [who are] in Adam” to himself, and this first feast in the first month in the spring of the year gives us the first step that must be taken to bring about the “means that his banished be not expelled from him”. Christ is our passover who has been offered for our sins, and the very next day begins the feast of unleavened bread, signifying the very next step all who are in Christ must take. We are crucified with Christ, and if indeed we are dying daily with Him we begin immediately to purge out the sins which have leavened our lives.

1Co 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

Indeed Christ was offered upon the day of the passover. Rest assured the priest and the Pharisees did not plan it that way. They were as blind to what they were doing as you and I were to the fact that it was through our sins that our Lord was crucified.

Rom 4:25 Who was delivered for [Greek: dia – through] our offences, and was raised again for [Greek: dia – through] our justification.

1Co 15:3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

It is “on the morrow after the sabbath [that] the priest shall wave” a sheaf of the firstfruits of the barley harvest to be accepted of the Lord.

Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

The fifteenth of Nisan being a holy day is called “a high day”, and it can be any day of the week, but it just happened to be on the weekly sabbath the year that Christ, our passover, was crucified:

Joh 19:31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

So when Christ was raised up “early on the first day of the week”, that just happened to be “the morrow after the sabbath” and He was received of His Father as the wave sheaf of the first fruits of the early barley harvest.

Luk 24:1 Now upon the first day of the week [“the morrow after the sabbath”], very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.
Luk 24:2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.
Luk 24:3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

1Co 15:20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

But while Christ’s own apostles went out and wept bitterly for denying Him when He most needed them, they and we still have to wait for the day of Pentecost, which in Greek means ‘count fifty’ before the holy spirit will come to us and enter into our hearts and form and found the church of Christ and the kingdom of God within us.

Luk 24:49 And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

Act 2:1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Act 2:2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
Act 2:3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
Act 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

This is the day in which we are finally willing to die with Christ because the spirit of God has changed our hearts, and we now become Christ’s firstfruits.

Lev 23:15 [3] And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
Lev 23:16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
Lev 23:17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD.

If we are Christ’s, then we are “a kind of firstfruits” because this feast typifies those who are in that blessed and holy first resurrection, as Christ’s firstfruits. So the feast of Pentecost is also called “the feast of your firstfruits”.

Exo 23:14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Exo 23:15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)
Exo 23:16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
Exo 23:17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

While our Lord was a sin offering “who knew no sin”, the same cannot be said for His firstfruits, who, in Him, become a trespass offering which Christ fulfills only through “them that are Christ’s”. That is how we can be “chief of sinners” and also “fill up in our bodies what is behind of the afflictions of the Christ”. Because Christ fulfills the trespass offering only through us, the Pentecost offering is the only offering offered to God with leaven:

Lev 23:17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD.

2Co 5:21 For the man who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him (ACV)

We become the righteousness of God in him, and we offer our lives as the scapegoat (Lev 16:8-26) and the second bird (Lev 14), as a living sacrifice, “for His body’s sake, which is the church”.

Col 1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church; (ASV)

1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

Pentecost is the second season and the third festival which reveals the process of our salvation. Pentecost is the summer wheat harvest, which comes in fifty days after the Spring barley harvest. Pentecost is the only holy day in the second Summer season. The last four steps in the process of our salvation are all in the third season of the process of our salvation. These last four steps are all in “the seventh month”, and they begin with the festival of trumpets on the first day of the seventh month:

Lev 23:23 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:24 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
Lev 23:25 Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

This is the festival that portrays the judgments of the seven trumpets in the book of Revelation. Here is what happens at the seventh trumpet:

Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Rev 11:16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Rev 11:17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
Rev 11:18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Rev 11:19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

“There were lightnings, and voices, and thundering, and an earthquake, and great hail”, are all Biblical words which are associated with the judgment of the old, first man Adam within us. The ark of His [new] testament is seen within the temple. It is the temple of God which must be cleansed by the fiery judgments of the seven trumpets and the seven plagues of the seventh trumpet. Here is what we are told of God’s temple and that seventh trumpet, which is the seven plagues of the seven angels:

Rev 15:7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

The passover typifies our first coming out of Egypt, followed by the purging out of the leaven of the sins of the giants within our lives, which at this stage are typified by the land which is filled with great giants. This is the days of unleavened bread in the Spring of our walk. This part of the process of our salvation is followed by the Summer feast of Pentecost, when and where we are given God’s spirit and the kingdom of God begins to grow within us, and we begin to be changed inwardly. But the judgment of our flesh is a life-long process which begins in earnest only after Pentecost and after the holy spirit comes into our hearts and begins to cleanse the temple of God within our heavens.

Heb 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.
Heb 9:23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
Heb 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

Christ has entered into the holy place in His temple, “which temple ye are”.

1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

The last of these seven trumpets is the seven last plagues. This is the significance of the feast of trumpets. This is when our souls are most afflicted as our heavenly Father is dragging us to Himself. Judgment must begin at the house of God. It is a fiery purging of anything that can be burned up. Anything that can be burned will be burned up and will be burned out of our lives and out of the temple of God in the heavens of our minds and hearts. It is in this day of fasting that we are denying ourselves, dying to our old man, and coming out of Babylon. We return to the temple of God, and begin rebuilding that temple. But Babylon comes out with us, and the seven plagues of the seven angels has yet to do its work within us.

So we are being judged in this life, and we are “dying daily”. Christ comes to us at Pentecost, but Pentecost continues within us as Christ increases within us. Trumpets continues within as “the house of God” is being judged within us. The day of atonement also continues within us as we endure the fiery trials of a life of “dying daily”.

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

1Pe 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

So it is only after we have been judged that we are able to enter into the temple of God, and come to be at one with our Lord by the covering of our sins. And that is the meaning of the Hebrew root word ‘kawfar’ H3722 which ‘kippur’ H3725 comes from and is translated as ‘atonement’, the day of fasting which is on the tenth day of the seventh month. It is not fifty days from the last feast, nor is it a matter of going from the Summer months to the Fall, as from Pentecost to Trumpets. The day of atonement is but nine days after the the feast of trumpets, which is on the first day of the seventh month. We cannot be given salvation, without first suffering with our Lord. Neither can we be given salvation while still believing salvation can be acquired by virtue of our own works. Those are the lessons of the fifth step towards our salvation. It is a day of fasting and affliction for our souls known as the “day of atonement”.

Lev 23:26 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:27 [5] Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonementH3725: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Lev 23:28 And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonementH3725, to make an atonementH3722 for you before the LORD your God.
Lev 23:29 For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people.
Lev 23:30 And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.
Lev 23:31 Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
Lev 23:32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.

It is only the few chosen whose souls are being afflicted for the sins being committed within the church. Most people who claim the name of Christ are certainly neither resting from their own works, nor afflicting their souls, or being afflicted because of the abominations which are being committed within Jerusalem:

Eze 9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

Here is the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘kawfar’, which is translated as ‘atonement’.

H3722 ka phar kaw-far’ A primitive root; to cover (specifically with bitumen); figuratively to expiate or condone, to placate or cancel: – appease, make (an) atonement, cleanse, disannul, forgive, be merciful, pacify, pardon, to pitch, purge (away), put off, (make) reconcile (- liation).

The “fiery trials” of 1Pe 4:12, and the sighing and crying for all the abominations that be done in the midst of Jerusalem, are one and the same. These are those who are ceasing from their own works and are afflicting their souls on the day of atonement.

Atonement is only five days prior to the feast of tabernacles which begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Like the passover and the days of unleavened bread, these last two feasts are not separated by a single day.

Lev 23:33 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:34 [6] Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.
Lev 23:35 On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:36 [7] Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.

This “feast of tabernacles” is the third and the last of the three harvests of the Lord’s work to bring salvation to all who are in Adam. The “last great day of the feast” is the immediate consequence of living through the feast of tabernacles, which is called the feast of ingathering in the end of the year.

Exo 23:14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Exo 23:15 [1] Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty: )
Exo 23:16 [2] And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and [3] the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
Exo 23:17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

This feast is called the “feast of tabernacles” because Israel dwelt in temporary tabernacles when coming out of Egypt. This is how all who are now being harvested into the kingdom of God view this entire physical life:

Heb 11:9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
Heb 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

1Pe 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

The great purpose of this “last great day” is signified by this event:

Joh 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
Joh 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Joh 7:39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

This feast of tabernacles is the last great harvest of our Lord’s field. It culminates in the last great day when all men who have ever lived “in Adam” will be given “the spirit which they that believe on Him should receive”. It will truly be a “great day” for all of mankind. It will be the consummation of the ages, and will effect the salvation of all of God’s banished. The last great day, is as closely associated with the “little season” which follows the thousand years, as the days of unleavened bread are associated with the feast of the passover. There is not one day between either of these feasts. The “little season… when the thousand years are expired” is distinguished by the rebellion of “the nations in the four quarters of the earth”, who are all destroyed when “fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them”. This is the occasion God is seeking to destroy all flesh and thereby destroy death through the great white throne judgment at the second resurrection of all men of all time in spiritual bodies which will yet need to be purged of the mind of their father the devil, and that is exactly what the lake of fire at ‘the last great day’ will accomplish.

Here is the timeline of the events signified by the feast of tabernacles and the last great day as they are laid out for us in Revelation 20:

Rev 20:1  And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years [tabernacles] are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison [this event precipitates the great white throne judgment which is signified by the last great day],
Rev 20:8  And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
Rev 20:9  And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Rev 20:11  And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

The next chapter tells us of a new heaven and a new earth. The statement “there was no more sea” signifies that there is no more flesh, and consequently “there is no more death”, because ‘the sea’ signifies the sea of flesh, out of which the beast we all are, arises:

 Rev 13:1  And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

Rev 21:1  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

So many supposedly ‘great men of God’ have quoted Act 16:31, at the exclusion of Act 16:32, of which most Christians actually believe, that all one has to do to be saved is to confess the name of Jesus with your mouth and you are ‘a shoe-in’ for the first resurrection.

Act 16:31 And they [Paul and Silas] said [to the Philippians jailer] Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

Believing that lie is the strong delusion which will place the masses of humanity in that second resurrection. The Bible is much more than this one lone sentence, and we must never forget that the Lord has informed us that “the sum of [His] word is Truth” (Psa 119:160). “Believ[ing] on the Lord Jesus Christ” is not something that comes only out of your mouth. It must also come out of your hands, in what you do. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, must also be demonstrated through your spiritual feet, in the way you walk through this life. So we are also given the very next verse:

Act 16:32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.

The truth is known only when we consider “the sum” of the word of God. And our salvation, and the salvation of all of mankind, is known only when we have lived by all seven seals, all of the seven trumpets, all seven vials, and all of the appointed days which are written in God’s book of our life. This is how salvation comes to each of us individually, and this is how salvation will come to all mankind corporately. When God’s plan for mankind is completed, He will be “all in all”.

Here is how Paul sums up these seven steps to salvation within God’s three seasonal harvests:

1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23 But every man in his own order: [1] Christ the firstfruits; [2] afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24 [3] Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
1Co 15:27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. [The Father cannot relinquish “the power of throne” Gen 41:40]
1Co 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

 

]]> All Things Work Together For Good https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/all-things-work-together-for-good/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=all-things-work-together-for-good Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:13:26 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=1349

Indianapolis, IN. Conference Video – November 17-18, 2007

Study Topic: All Things Work Together For Good by Mike Vinson

]]>