Hello Mr. Vinson,

I’ve written to you a few times, and I’ve read much of the material on the website and watched all the videos and listened to many of the audios. I believe what is taught by you because I look up most of the Biblical references as I go along, and it really all comes together and just makes sense. I left the United Church of God over a year ago after only a short stay. Just couldn’t stay among them because somehow my wife and I knew something just was not right. Same thing happened with the Calvinist belief, although it wasn’t called that specifically. It was referred to as Sovereign Grace instead, but it was EXACTLY the same thing. Southern Baptist, Unity, Independent Baptist, Holiness, Pentecostal, … Mormon was what I was raised from seven years of age till I was sixteen.

What I’m getting at is that both my wife and I believe that God has finally led us here to the truth. I’m so thankful and at the same time I know I’m still as carnal as I ever was. I have no doubt that God’s spirit has been working with me from time to time, and has shown me enough to keep me wanting more. But I know Christ is NOT in me. It frightens me that at my age I’m still as carnal minded and lustful of flesh as I was years ago. I still have the same weaknesses, the same lustful thoughts and feelings, the same problems with my flesh as I ever did. The things I though I had repented of are right back in control of me again.

I’ve come to trust you, Mr. Vinson, so if there is ANYTHING you can say of any advise you can offer that can bring me closer to Christ and to repentance and obedience, please take a few minutes of your very limited time as write me. I realize just by the enormity of your website, and from all I’ve heard you say and the schedule you keep, that you are a very busy man. I don’t want to take you away from that. It’s just that I need a hand in this. I don’t trust many people at all. I do trust you.

Thanks for your time. Take care and God be with you always.

T_____

Hi T____,

Thank you for your questions and for your encouraging words.

I am so thankful that God is giving you the eyes to see and the ears to hear the things of the spirit. We certainly were not permitted to see these things in the old WCG. Everything God has promised us was all materialized away in that daughter of Babylon. Of course it is the same in all of her daughters.

Let me tell you that I identify with every word in your letter. I, too, struggled for many long years with the unconquerable beast within:

Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who [is] like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

Like you, I realized that I was fighting a losing battle. I wanted to do what I knew I should, but I just could not. There is a reason for this long drawn-out part of our lives. That reason is that we must come to see and to know deep down in the very marrow of our bones and in the very throne of our hearts that the flesh is helpless to conquer or make war with the beast who is sitting on the throne where Christ belongs in His own temple.

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.

Who among us has not “defiled God’s temple?” The sooner we are destroyed, the sooner Christ will have His proper place on His own rightful throne in our lives. However, destroying the beast is a long drawn-out affair, which in my own case took about fifty years. I was reared in a very religious church-going home. I went to church every Sunday and every Wednesday night for many years. Then I went to a church college that my family considered a cult, and was a dedicated member of that church for many years. But the “beast which came up out of the earth having two horns like a lamb” still was speaking like a dragon. It seemed that I was helpless to make war with him, and in actual practice I was doing nothing more than worshiping the image of the beast which came up out of the sea. I was still, like you say you, too, are doing, worshiping and serving my flesh.

That is what Joseph’s 13 years in servitude to the powers of Egypt represent. I am here to tell you that one day you will be taken out of the prison of Egypt and placed on Egypt’s throne. When that day comes, you will be telling Potifar and the keeper of the prison where to go and what to do. They will still be there but they will then become your servants, and you will be their ruler.

Rom 6:14 …Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Grace, of course, chastens and scourges us to “forsake ungodliness and to live godly lives in this present world.”

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

Now that chastening is what we are warned of in these above verses of God’s word:

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;

Like the apostle Paul himself, who was fighting against the very God he thought he was serving, we, too, must be struck down before we will ever come to see just how despicable our own righteousness is in the nostrils of God. Paul’s blindness typifies our own blindness to just how little we actually know of our God. We think we know Him, when we don’t know Him at all. When we finally do come to know Him, we become like Him:

2Co 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [freedom from the servitude and slavery to sin].
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 of the Lord.

This “changing into the same image” is the “conforming to His image,” which we must all experience before we truly know Him.

As we come to know Him, we die to the flesh. As we die He (Christ) grows within us. But you say you are at that point where you feel that you are not growing at all. Well, to be honest with you, you may not be growing in Christ yet.

God may still be showing you, as He has shown me, that I was of myself powerless to overcome my flesh and its beastly desires and self-centeredness. As much as I could see the problem, I could not overcome my fleshly desires. Time after time after time, I would succumb to my flesh. It was both humiliating, and it was disastrous. It was God, in His mercy who literally crushed me to powder and brought me to financial ruin, to the point of being homeless with a family of a wife and five children.

That was what it took for me. That was when I finally saw myself as not only blind, like the apostle Paul, but I was also as crippled as the man who was crippled from his mother’s womb. I was a spiritual leper and an adulterous woman who deserved stoning. It was in this state of total prostration before God that I, like Joseph in the prison of Egypt, cried out to God and was in His sovereign mercy miraculously given strength that had simply not been there heretofore.

I wish there was an easier way. I wish I could tell you that I just prayed the sinner’s prayer and started tithing and was given total power over the beast and his image and his number and his name. But it did not happen that way.

I had to live and experience the sayings of the prophecy of this book (the Bible) and experience God’s wrath on my ungodliness and unrighteousness, while I was doing those things I knew I was not to be doing. When I was given the strength to rule sin, then God’s wrath subsided, and I had a peace of mind I had never known before in my entire life. It was a miracle just as dramatic to me as Paul being struck down on the road to Damascus.

After years of losing every battle that I ever tried to fight, it seemed that now, after I had literally given up on myself, out of a clear blue sky, God had given me strength to resist sin and to say, “No, with Christ in me, I will never again return to that vomit I had wallowed in for so many long years having to obey my Egyptian taskmasters.”

It seemed like it was overnight that I had been set on the throne of Egypt. Potifar and my former jailer were now my servants, and when I told them to leave me alone, they bowed before me and said, “Yes, my lord.”

Joseph did not seek to kill his former oppressors. He recognized that it was all of God. But as with His brothers, he never cozied up to his former oppressors. He was now their ruler and for their own good, Joseph did not let them forget that he was now in the driver’s seat. But realize that Joseph was only 17 when he was sold into Egypt:

Gen 37:2 These [are] the generations of Jacob. Joseph, [being] seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad [was] with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.

It was immediately after “bringing his father the evil report” of his brothers, that they stripped him of his coat of many colors and sold him into Egypt. So you see, we are made aware of our election before we are ever sold into Egypt to serve taskmasters we know we are not supposed to be serving.

However, we are helpless to do anything about this situation, even though we have been told that we are going to see our brothers bow down and worship at our feet.

How long are God’s elect in this position of total helplessness being forced against their will to serve Egyptian taskmasters? In this typical story of God’s elect, Joseph was there for thirteen long years:

Gen 41:45(a) And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt.
Gen 41:46 And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt.

This is all type and symbol. I do not believe that the apostle Paul was anywhere near 50 years of age before he was brought to his knees as I was. I certainly hope and pray that you do not have to go through the fire that it took for me. But if it takes that and ten times more, my prayer is simply, “Don’t take thy holy spirit away from me.”

Psa 51:11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

David is God’s elect only in type and shadow. But this should be the prayer of every one of God’s elect who know that it is only those who “endure to the end who shall be saved.”

We are not without assurances that God will see us through all of these trials. We simply have to be patient and accept His timing in our lives.

You say of yourself:

“I know Christ is NOT in me. It frightens me that at my age I’m still as carnal minded and lustful of flesh as I was years ago. I still have the same weaknesses, the same lustful thoughts and feelings, the same problems with my flesh as I ever did. The things I though I had repented of are right back in control of me again.”

Well, I was past fifty before God even began to open my eyes to the truth which I now see. I was past fifty before I was finally so crushed and humiliated that I was even in a position to begin to see just how desperate my plight was. So, take it from one who has been there, the helplessness you now feel will only serve to bring you to the point of desperation which is necessary to endure before you can be given a new heart which will cringe at the very thought of ever again succumbing to the “weaknesses, lustful thoughts and feelings, and problems, with your flesh” which are even now your Egyptian taskmasters.

That day will surely come, and you will be the master of sin in your life, but it will not be with ease, and it will be in God’s time.

Your ability to recognize this as a battle and your willingness to confess and to fight this battle, indicate that God is dealing with you and that He is humbling you to be made aware of just how worthless you are of yourself. Only when every ounce of pride has been burned out of you will you ever be of any value to your heavenly Father.

At present you have not yet been given the spiritual vision to see your helpless condition just to let you twist in the wind. God will continue to humble you until you are capable of being conformed to the image of His Son. While you may not see it now, you are coming to see your weakness for one reason only. That reason is so that you can be made strong. God uses weak people to confound the strong. He uses the foolish to confound the wise. So when you come to recognize just how weak and foolish you are, then you will be closer to God than you have ever been in your life.

Beg God for His mercy. He is a sovereign God, but He will not use any who are proud. Humble yourself before him and cry out for His mercy.

Isa 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth [is] my footstool: where [is] the house that ye build unto me? and where [is] the place of my rest?
Isa 66:2 For all those [things] hath mine hand made, and all those [things] have been, saith the LORD: but to this [man] will I look, [even] to [him that is] poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

The answer to the question posted in verse one is in the last part of verse two. God wants to take up His habitation in you. He will not be denied. Don’t listen to the beast who believes the dragon. You will become the master of both. Potifar and the jailer are both within us all. But they are there to become our servants, not our masters.

Paul, after confessing to how life is in the flesh said…

Rom 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

He does not say that he remained in the flesh and remained a slave to the flesh as so many try to make chapter seven say. Instead Paul says this:

Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Paul goes on to tell us:

Rom 8:1 [There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Beg God for “the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” The person who is closest to Christ is the person who most realizes his need for Christ to live His life within him. Repeat this Truth all day every day because this is the Truth:

Phi 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

God will not let you down. He will, in His time, bring you to where you can say with Paul and with me:

Rom 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

I hope this all has been of some encouragement to you. Be patient. I cannot overemphasize this verse of God’s word:

Luk 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.

God is love, and He wants to give us the kingdom:

Luk 12:32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

You will be heard if you cry out to Him. I am praying for God’s mercy upon you.

Mike

Mr. Vinson,

Thank you for your reply and the encouraging words enclosed in it. Quite honestly, I was overcome with emotion when I read what you had written to me, and I had to regain my composure several times before I could even complete reading it. I’ve told my wife several times over the past few months that I felt as close to you as I have any friend, and yet I’ve never met you. I feel even closer now that we have corresponded. I feel like there is someone who knows what they’re talking about and have been where I am now. That helps more than I can express. I don’t feel alone in this now. I have a friend who truly understands. Thank you for that.

You made a great point in the fact that we are utterly and completely powerless to not only be unable to overcome what we are and what we do, but we can’t even make a dent in it. As I said before, I’ve been involved in “church” since the age of seven. Twenty-one years ago I was in the most broken condition of my life, and I begged Jesus Christ to come and live in my heart. Things got better and I believe He did help me through some difficult times then and at times over the years since then.

But I relate so much to the Israelites who turned to Him over and over, only to turn away from Him again and again. I’ve been studying the Old Testament and learning more about what happened in those times, and I can see me in so much of what I am learning. Why God has not just let me go and given up on me is more than I can believe sometimes. His patience and longsuffering is beyond my carnal ability to understand.

I hope that before I leave this body that I can have just a small fraction of the love that He has. My wife is continually reminding me to look at where I am compared to where I have been, but it doesn’t mean much when compared to where I would like to be as far as spiritual growth. I can’t hardly stand what I am at times. To see what you are and yet not be able to change it is hard for a stubborn hard-head like me. I hate that I’m that way because I see what it’s done to me and those who have cared about me over the years.

I recall you saying in one of the videos that no matter how stubborn and tough we are, we can’t handle what God can dish out. It just may take a little longer. I wish I knew how to humble myself better so that it wouldn’t take any longer that it has to. I can only hope His grace, His chastising and scourging will continue.

A year ago I’d thought myself insane to say that. Thanks to Him working through you I can say it sincerely. No matter what happens, I’m very grateful to have more knowledge and understanding than I did. Thank you for all the effort, long hours, time away from your family, and just plain old hard work that you have done to provide spiritually starving people like myself with some much needed nourishment.

The first thing I ever read that you wrote was the article “Rightly Dividing the Word; A Principle Only the Apostles Understood”. I was so impressed by what I was reading and learning that it had my attention like nothing I had ever read before. That was in September of 05′. I read it, and then read it again. I was blown away by the truths that I had just not seen in all the times I had read over the verses in the Bible and never had seen what you so clearly pointed out in that article. So I read it again. This “context, context, context” baloney crashed and burned right then as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve been studying and listening and watching the videos etc. ever since. And while I know God has allowed me to learn the truths and much of the mystery of His Word, I still know deep inside that I’m not converted. But, because of your experience and your sharing it with me, I have more hope now of a change and a new man that before. I know that no matter what, God’s will will be done.

I encourage you to stick with what you know is right and don’t be pulled aside by the “grievous wolves” that are certain to be among the flock. This may prove to be one of the biggest tests of faith to the doctrine of Jesus Christ that you’ll ever face.

Thank you again for being so understanding and encouraging. I believe that I have a friend in Mike Vinson like few will ever have. I hope we can meet someday face to face, but if not I feel we know one another in fellowship. You take care, and God be with you always.

T____