Luke 4:17-21: Jesus opened the book and read from Isaiah(61): "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." This Blog is about the Spiritual Life of Jesus Christ in us who believe on Him and applying this existence to our physical world. The Gospel is found 1 Corinthians 15:1-4KJV
Equipping godly women with perverted lies and the doctrine of demons.
I want to focus on the following article Britney posted, title: ” 13 Overused Bible Verses that don’t mean what you think they do.”
Brittany Ann Equipping godly Women. 2,108 followers. A heavily MONETIZED Website full of deception. Making Merchandise of you. 2 Peter 2:3 KJB:
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.
Background: This woman – Brittney Ann – of Equipping Godly Women Blog Podcast is a very dangerous false teacher promoting another Gospel supporting Catholic Doctrine and Francis Chan. Works based Salvation. I will let you dear Saint judge her works accordingly.
Judge this study of her works based Vatican gospel of salvation for yourself dear Saint.
God does have a sense of humor because she tells us – correctly that we are not commanded to NOT JUDGE – but rather are to judge error and sin when we see it. Although she uses a perverted Bible translation which does not say what
This is just the beginning of her depraved teaching. Of course like all modern false teachers she uses the perverted Bible translations and even exceeds those boundaries to go far beyond doctrine in her ramblings of vain imaginations from a carnal mind.
“I can do all things through him who gives me strength.” – Philippians 4:13
This well-known verse has inspired and encouraged millions of people to try hard, keep going, and accomplish their goals.
Unfortunately, the apostle Paul wasn’t making the claim that Christians can achieve any goal we set our minds to (like finishing a marathon, finding a job, or sticking to our diets). Rather, he was stating that he could endure any hardship or persecution for the sake of the gospel.
It’s not about accomplishing good things. It’s about enduring bad things.
WRONG! For the following:
The King James Bible writes:
Philippians 4:13
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
King James Version (KJV)
In the context of chapter 4 Paul is telling us that it is through Jesus Christ we are able to accomplish ALL in our Christian walk in the GOOD as well as the BAD times. I guess this woman forgot the read the entire Chapter. Shame on her for using scripture that leaves out Jesus Christ.
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” – Matthew 7:1-2
While this verse seems very straightforward, again, we have to read it in context.
Jesus wasn’t telling his followers they should never judge. Rather, he was warning them to be careful when and if they chose to judge, as they would be judged by the same standard.
This is why, just a few verses later, Jesus instructs his listeners: “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Similarly, there are many, many other verses in the Bible that tell believers to judge wisely.
I heard a fantastic analogy a few years ago. The preacher of the church we were attending at the time made a very strong (and animated, lol) case that we NEED to tell our friends and family when they are messing up.
It’s like watching someone run straight for a cliff. If you really care about the person, do you just sit back and bite your tongue? Do you say, “Well, I wouldn’t do it, but it’s not my job to judge?” Do you say, “Well, I know it’s wrong for me, but they should be allowed to decide what’s right for them?”
NO! You stop them! You shout: “STOP!! YOU’RE HEADED FOR A CLIFF!!! WATCH OUT!!!”
Can you even imagine watching your friend heading into obvious danger and just sitting by, not saying something to warn them? What kind of friend would you be?
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” –Ephesians 2:8-9
Many people believe Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches that we are saved by faith alone.
Yet, the only verse in the Bible that contains the phrase “faith alone” specifically says that we are not saved by faith alone.
James 2:24 says, “You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.”
In Ephesians 2:8-9, Paul isn’t saying that our works don’t matter for our salvation at all. When read within the context of the chapter, we see that Paul is saying we can’t earn our salvation through the good works that we do.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11
Jeremiah 29:11 is such an uplifting, encouraging verse! It’s no wonder you often see it on Christian mugs, tote bags, t-shirts, and more.
The only problem? It wasn’t written to us as Christians today.
In this passage, God is speaking specifically to the Southern Israelite kingdom of Judah. God is warning them that they will be be conquered by the Babylonians because of their great sin, while reassuring them that He will ultimately redeem and restore them.
God does not promise Christians peace and prosperity today. In fact, Jesus tells us, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33).
This is what this scripture says, Do you see a problem here with what this reprobate in the faith woman is teaching?
Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
King James Version (KJV)
This scripture is written to Israel and to the Christians in the AGE OF GRACE ALL SCRIPTURE IS PROFITABLE FOR DOCTRINE See my study DOCTRINE.
We know the Hyper-Dispensationalists have poisoned scripture and too many Christians into believing we can’t use the Old Testament. I had a Christian woman crying out for help because her hyper-dispensationalist husband told her to cut out and remove the Old Testament. This scripture secures our promises in the age of GRACE see this correlate perfectly with PAULINE EPISTLE and tell me if this applies.
Philippians 4:7
“And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” – John 14:14
When taken out of context, this verse seems to clearly state that God will give us everything we pray for. (Wouldn’t that be nice!)
Unfortunately, when we read it in the context of the chapter, we can see that this isn’t what Jesus is talking about at all.
In this passage, Jesus is telling his disciples that those who believe in Him (not just anyone) will do great miracles.
The key to this verse is in the phrase “in my name.”
Jesus isn’t promising to give us everything we ask for in prayer. Rather, he was promising the disciples that, if they would align themselves to God’s will, God would allow them to perform incredible miracles.
WRONG! For the following:
The King James Bible writes:
John 14:14
“If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”
King James Version (KJV)
No this scripture is telling The disciples they will perform miracles AND is the Kingdom GOSPEL which will be fulfilled in the coming Kingdom when Jesus Christ will reign and we with him. In this dispensation we who are Spiritual will know that ANY THING relates to OUR NEED and not carnal desires.
Philippians 4:19
“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
“Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” – 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
Many Christians wrongly rip these verses out of context to “prove” that women can’t be involved in ministry. And yet, we must remember that Paul was writing to a very specific people at a very specific point in history.
Elsewhere in the Bible, we see plenty of examples of amazing women involved in Christian ministry.
For example, the Bible holds Abigail, Rahab, Esther, Ruth, Judith, and Mary in high regard for the roles that they played in salvation history. The Bible tells us that women were the first ones to announce Jesus’s resurrection.
The Bible tells us that Moses’s sister, Miriam, was a prophetess (Exodus 15:20), Deborah was a prophet and judge who lead Israel (Judges 4:4), and Phoebe was a deaconess (Romans 16:1–2).
Whatever the women in Corinth were up to, the Bible certainly does not teach that all women must be silent.
WRONG! Women can teach their children and in study groups but not PREACH and take authority in the assembly:
The King James Bible writes:
1 Corinthians 14:34
“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.”
King James Version (KJV)
1 Corinthians 14:35
“And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”
King James Version (KJV)
Study on why women are not to usurp the authority of a man in the assembly of believers, they are however allowed and do assist in preaching the gospel and teaching but not as the head authority.
“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” –Exodus 20:7 (ESV)
While it is accurate to say that the command to “not take the name of the LORD your God in vain” means we shouldn’t use God’s name as a curse word, this verse means a lot more than just that.
It also means that we must be extremely careful not to carelessly throw around the phrase “God told me” or “Jesus says,” putting words in God’s mouth that He never said.
We must never use God’s name as a weapon to justify our own misguided beliefs and opinions.
WRONG! For the following:
The King James Bible writes:
Exodus 20:7
“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” – Matthew 18:20
While many people think Matthew 18:20 means that God is more likely to hear (and answer) our prayers if we get multiple people to pray with us, this isn’t what this verse is saying at all.
This portion of Scripture isn’t talking about the effectiveness of prayer, but of church discipline.
In those days, the law said: “One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses” (Deut. 19:15).
In this passage, God is saying that He would be with the people in their efforts toward reconciliation, not that their prayer would be more powerful the more people they got to pray.
WRONG! For the following:
The King James Bible writes:
Matthew 18:20
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
King James Version (KJV)
This scripture does NOT say God would be with people in their efforts toward reconciliation. This woman is adding words to scripture.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” –Matthew 5:38-40
Unfortunately, many have used Jesus’s command to “turn the other cheek” to say that Christians should be doormats, allowing others to mistreat them. Thankfully, this is not the case.
It is wise and biblical to set Christian boundaries with toxic family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.
In this dispensation of the AGE OF GRACE we are not under the LAW and WORKS. We have these scriptures to show us exactly the pattern that will be followed by those inhabitants of the Kingdom who will be ruled by Jesus Christ with a rod of iron as we the Saints reign with him.
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” – 1 Corinthians 10:13
You may have heard the phrase “God will never give you more than you can handle.” Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.
While 1 Corinthians 10:13 does promise us we won’t be tempted beyond what we can bear, this verse isn’t talking about the general hardships, grief, and suffering people often apply it to.
In fact, the apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:8, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.”
God does give us more than we can handle… so that we can learn to rely on Him.
WRONG! For the following:
The King James Bible writes:
1 Corinthians 10:13
“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”
“But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.” -1 Timothy 6:9-10
It is a theme in modern Christianity to have discomfort with money because of a misunderstanding over this verse. The evil is not money itself; this verse describes an individual who “longs” for this money and “loves” it, speaking of a heart condition that puts money before God.
When we create a false idol out of money, whether we have that extra cash or not, it will cause “many sorrows.”
WRONG! For the following:
The King James Bible writes:
1 Timothy 6:10
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
King James Version (KJV)
Money is THE ROOT CAUSE OF THIS – it is NOT LOVE…BUT IT’S LOVING THAT OBJECT WHICH CAUSES SUCH DESTRUCTION IN THE LIVES OF SO MANY.
Do a study on the meaning of the pronoun “OF”. Which in this case is a part of, consisting of the root. Love is NOT the problem here. It is MONEY.
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” – James 5:16
Righteousness does not mean perfection in the sense of a person without any temptation, who shows up to church every Sunday and never forgets to bless their food before they eat it. Rather, righteousness is a state of the soul after one has repented and chosen to follow Jesus.
Therefore, a righteous person’s prayers are powerful and effective because they are in a state of rightness with God through the blood of Jesus and live a life focused on His will for themselves and whomever they are praying for.
“So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” – Luke 2:6-7
An “inn” within Jerusalem’s culture of the time was a guest space and often an upper room of a typical village home. Not a bed and breakfast.
The home’s main living area would have a small, clean space dug out for the family donkey or livestock. Reading the passage through an understanding of the place’s culture and time, one would not even consider a pregnant woman, especially a descendant of David, to be turned away. Within the culture, turning away a guest would have brought disgrace upon the household and the entire town.
Instead, this describes a packed house where the hostess made a place for an honored guest with the means left to them. It is still a humble beginning for the newborn Christ but not a story of a hard-hearted innkeeper.
WRONG! For the following:
The King James Bible writes:
Luke 2:7
“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”
King James Version (KJV)
No further comment but I PRAY YOU CAN SEE HOW THIS WOMAN TRIES TO SAY WHAT THE SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY. SHE HAS NO IDEA OF ALLOWING SCRIPTURE TO SPEAK FOR ITSELF AND STOP ADDING CARNAL KNOWLEDGE.
Part II
The wolf packed conference
Encouraging Advice From Christian Leaders You Trust
Get hard-earned, “been there, done that” advice for the topics that matter most to you.
I urge the reader to test the spirits and be a good Berean to compare these false teachers with the DOCTRINE OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE. THE FINAL AUTHORITY OF GOD’S WORD.
AGAIN, I URGE THE READER TO STUDY MY DOCTRINE STUDY.
As a busy working mom of 3 elementary and middle school-aged children (and one puppy who needs constant attention), I KNOW how difficult it can be to find the time, energy, and motivation to make your faith the priority you know you should.
BUT I also believe that God put you here for a reason, and He has an exciting adventure and purpose for you that only you can live out. And I want to help you make that happen.
That’s why I created Equipping Godly Women. To give you the community support, knowledge, advice, and practical baby steps you need to be the AMAZING Christian woman God created you to be — without all the guilt and overwhelm.
To date, I’ve helped thousands of women all over the globe create a faith and family they LOVE. (It’s what I do and I love it!) Now, I want to help you as well!
Who Are You Amir Tsarfati? Original post 6/4/2018 These things speak,and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Titus 2: 15 . KJV This Blog is written in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:2-3 KJV and 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV Note: I love Israel and the Jews. I am a born-again Christian who truly believes the Jews are God’s chosen people and abhor replacement theology. For the past year I’ve been closely following Amir TSARFATI on his BEHOLD ISRAEL YouTube channel. I don’t use Facebook, was basically thrown off about 8 years ago for posting content that spread hate (simply posted photos of Islamic thugs murdering innocent civilians) . I also don’t use Twitter. Left after 10 years, nearly 10,000 followers, when new rules blocked my 1st amendment rights of free speech. I’ve been extremely impressed with Amir TSARFATI. I’ve been thrilled by his ministry. He shares my conservative views, especially achieving peace through stre
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/ Now The End Begins CHRISLAM CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress Published 44 mins ago on September 17, 2022 By Geoffrey Grider NOW THE END BEGINS SHARE: With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion. It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified, with the approval at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions , of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE. Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ, His Name appears nowhere
Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
10 Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.
11 Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?
***************
Luke 22:36
King James Version
36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
2 Timothy 2:4
“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”
************
Acts 23:11
King James Version
11 And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Acts 25:10
King James Version
10 Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest.
Background to Acts 25:10
The Bible records that the apostle Paul was in Rome twice, both times as a prisoner, during his thirty-five year public ministry. His appearance in the city of Rome occurs during his fourth and his fifth missionary journeys.
Paul’s first visit to Rome is initiated when he is arrested at Jerusalem’s temple in late spring of 58 A.D. His arrest occurs when several Jews, who hate him and the gospel message, falsely accuse him of defiling the temple and teaching others to disobey God.
. . . the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up all the multitude; and they laid their hands on him, Crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place; and furthermore, he has also brought Greeks into the temple, and has defiled this holy place” (Acts 21:27 – 28).
Soldiers of Rome stationed in Jerusalem, alerted of a riot, rush to the scene and arrest Paul as several Jews were in the act of beating him to death (Acts 21:30 – 33). Believing he is the cause of the uproar in Jerusalem, they take the apostle, under armed guard, to the city of Caesarea where his case can be heard by governor appointed by Rome (Acts 23:23 – 24).
Because he is a citizen of Rome (see Acts 22:25 – 28), Paul is afforded the right to have the case against him heard before an official of the Empire.
After languishing in a Caesarea prison for more than two years, the apostle has an initial hearing before Governor Festus (Acts 25:1 – 12). Unwilling to go back to Jerusalem to have his case fully heard before his accusers, Paul requests that the charges against him be brought before Emperor Nero in Rome. He is then taken as a prisoner to the Empire’s capital city and, after a trip full of trials and troubles, finally arrives there in late winter of 61 A.D.
Paul’s imprisonment in Rome during the next two years is surprisingly fruitful, as he writes four of his fourteen epistles (Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians and Philemon). He is ultimately acquitted of all the charges against him and is freed in 63 A.D. In regard to the timing of his imprisonment in the city of seven hills, an excellent treatise on his life and journeys states the following.
“Apostle Paul was at Rome precisely at that time when the Palatine was the most conspicuous spot on the earth, not merely for crime, but for splendor and power. This was the center of all the movements of the Empire.
“Here were heard the causes of all Roman citizens who had appealed to Caesar. Hence were issued the orders to the governors of provinces, and to the legions on the frontier” (Life and Epistles of Paul by Conybeare and Howson).
Paul’s fifth and final missionary journey begins when he is set free in Rome. He immediately travels to the island of Crete, then Nicopolis, then makes his promised journey to Spain (Romans 15:24, 28) and likely to Britain.
Paul is once again a prisoner in Rome in 67 A.D. Tradition states that he is martyred through being beheaded (a method of execution allowed citizens of the Empire) in the spring of 68. Concerning the date of his death, Conybeare and Howson state the following.
“We are led to fix the last year of Nero (Emperor in Rome) as that of Paul’s martyrdom. And this is the very year assigned to it by Jerome, and the next to that assigned by Eusebius, the two earliest writers who mention the date of his death at all” (ibid.).
Who Are You Amir Tsarfati? Original post 6/4/2018 These things speak,and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Titus 2: 15 . KJV This Blog is written in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:2-3 KJV and 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV Note: I love Israel and the Jews. I am a born-again Christian who truly believes the Jews are God’s chosen people and abhor replacement theology. For the past year I’ve been closely following Amir TSARFATI on his BEHOLD ISRAEL YouTube channel. I don’t use Facebook, was basically thrown off about 8 years ago for posting content that spread hate (simply posted photos of Islamic thugs murdering innocent civilians) . I also don’t use Twitter. Left after 10 years, nearly 10,000 followers, when new rules blocked my 1st amendment rights of free speech. I’ve been extremely impressed with Amir TSARFATI. I’ve been thrilled by his ministry. He shares my conservative views, especially achieving peace through stre
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/ Now The End Begins CHRISLAM CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress Published 44 mins ago on September 17, 2022 By Geoffrey Grider NOW THE END BEGINS SHARE: With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion. It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified, with the approval at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions , of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE. Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ, His Name appears nowhere
Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
The Shock and Awe of Paul’s Sermon in the book of Hebrews
Why Paul wrote Hebrews:
To show us Jesus Christ and Who We Are in Him.
THE SHOCK
JESUS IS GOD WALKING AS A MAN – but not a human – and we have a direct exclusive relationship with him. Jesus Christ is NOT the second Person of the Trinity. He is the FULLNESS of the GODHEAD BODILY. He is GOD. When you see me you see the Father. John 14:9 KJB. Before Abraham was I AM. John 8:53 KJB.
See study notes below.
This book is addressed to the Pilgrims, the Sojourners of this earth who are the Church, the Called-Out Children of God – the Ones who are the Called Out (from among them.) The Church
Oxford English Dictionary page 1280:
Literally: One from the other side (of the river) {I looked over the River Jordan. My own words.}ThePasserover – The Immigrant. ABRAM The IMMIGRANT Abram The Hebrew. Genesis 14:13 KJB. Whose dependents will be innumerable.
Genesis 12:1 Get thee out of thy country from thy kindred.
Come out from among them.
The Church – The called out.
Abraham the Father of us all… Romans 4:16, Galatians 6:16, 4:16.
Why did Paul use Hebrews and not the 12 Tribes like James and like he did throughout his epistles?
Brief introduction:
So the whole purpose of this letter was to encourage Jewish believers and those Jews who were in the church but were not yet saved to resist the pressure to return to Temple worship and animal sacrifices, and instead remain faithful to Christ.
However, Let us FOCUS on the Main Audience: THE HEBREWS as in the PILGRIMS the outcasts who do not fit. The entire unity of those who are The Called Out, The Set Apart, The ones who are in the covenant of Abraham and grafted into that covenant.
That is us dear Saint. I pray the Lord opens your eyes.
See his exact wording: 1:1-3:
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
Paul was given the mystery of the Age of Grace – The Dispensation of Grace – The Church – to bring in the Gentiles into one with Israel – fulfill the covenant God made with Abraham. See Notes below. Understanding the Covenant of Abraham*
Today, the Lord has placed it on my heart to go further into this and go into the sentence structure and how this hides truth to those who are lost of course, but sadly to the Christian who does not study. See my Study on how to study God’s word and understanding that the word STUDY = WORK. Hence why we are commanded to STUDY to show ourselves approved unto God. 2 Timothy 2:15 KJB.
The most compound – complex sentence structures confounding lazy Christians don’t study is what Paul writes in Hebrews Chapter 6 verses 1 through 6 and learning the Context of Hebrews Chapter 10 verses 26, 27.
Compound-complex sentences
When a sentence has two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause, that sentence is a compound-complex sentence. These are long sentences that communicate a significant amount of information. The clauses don’t need to be in any specific order; as long as you’ve got at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause, you’ve got a compound-complex sentence.
The Covenant of Abraham
Galatians 3:28
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
King James Version (KJV)
Romans 2:29 KJV –
But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
The Shock and Awe of Paul’s Sermon in the book of Hebrews
The Book of Hebrews stands next to the Book of Revelation as the most misunderstood, misused and misquoted book of the New Testament.
What is so baffling is how successful the Devil’s hand has been through the Laodicean church’s mishandling of Hebrews and the coup de grace to the feeble minded was the Hyper-Dispensationalists simply removing Hebrews from the Church all together.
Yes, overall between the New Apostoglic Reformation, Evangelical Emergent Church’s Dominion theology, the books of Revelation and Hebrews have been rendered irrelevant.
Preface: I beseech (plea with) the reader to persevere through this study with your King James Bible. I pray the Lord allows this work to encourage and equip the Saints in these last moments of this realm.
Essential background information and study links to have a deeper understanding of this study:
Dispensations are essential to rightly divide the word of truth 2 Timothy 2:15 KJB, however, the hyper-dispensationalists have thrown the baby out with the bath water and have essentially crippled the baby Christians knowledge and experience in God’s word.
My first major clue was why so many of the new age so-called perverted Bible-toting false teachers were stating that Paul never wrote this book, even though the early church and King James has listed Paul as author of this wonderful book for centuries.
Why? We must ask Why to reveal the greater importance of the Book to the Body of Christ
Evangelist Robert Breaker almost had it right when he declared Paul wrote Hebrews but falls off the cliff when he foolishly declared that Paul wrote it in 2 parts: 1 when he was first saved and writes as in the Kingdom Dispensation and the end after 65 AD before he was martyred because we clearly see scripture applicable to the age of GRACE. He also terribly interprets Hebrews 10:26 believing this scripture means one can lose their salvation – (bolstering his belief this part of Hebrews is written to Jews only).
Let me first begin by I will be providing a preponderance of evidence, undeniable proof that the King James Translators were correct in that Paul wrote Hebrews:
Paul ends this letter with GRACE (doesn’t sound like the law to me)
Paul throughout Hebrews is hammering home the idea that the old covenant was inadequate and we have a new covenant. This is the theme throughout all of his other epistles.
Paul’s centerpiece is all about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. All of his epistles have this at the focus.
The Godhead is made clear up front in Hebrews Chapters 1 and 7 and in a shocking way that would have shocked and shaken the Jewish Christians and onlookers to the core. Paul was the only apostle who explained the Godhead. See Romans 1:20, Colossians 2:8, 9, and Acts 17:29. I will discuss more in detail further in this study.
Peter referred to Paul’s Epistles as written to the same audience 2 Peter 3:16 KJB
Paul refers to Timothy in Hebrews as in his other Epistles – and as we know, even writing two epistles exclusively to Timothy
The Rapture – Gathering Together – Assembling together Hebrews 10:25 – 2 Thessalonians 2:1,2 KJB G1997.
Hebrews ends with the word GRACE be with you all, Amen. Paul uses this conclusion in most of his Epistles.
Run the Race Hebrews 12, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Galatians 5:7, 2 Timothy 4:7 KJB.
Jesus is the Creator of all things, the express image of the Godhead. Hebrews 1:2,3, Colossians 1:16,2:9 KJB, Acts 17:29, Romans 1:20.
Paul tells his readers to pray for spiritual leaders outside their church. Romans 13, Hebrews 13 KJB.
Now may the God of Peace. Hebrews 13:20 Paul mirrors this phrase in almost all of his other epistles. You should no longer be drinking milk but be mature, leaders. Hebrews 5:12, 1 Corinthians 3:2 KJB.
Submit to those in authority. Romans 13, Hebrews 13. Suffer for and serve Jesus, Hebrews 11:25, 2 Corinthians 11:23, Philippians 1:29 KJB and throughout Pauls other Epistles. Note Peter only used this phrase once but Paul uses it extensively.
Don’t be discouraged when God corrects you. Hebrews 12, Romans 15 KJB.
Why is this important? Paul was given the mystery of the Age of Grace – The Dispensation of Grace – The Church – to bring in the Gentiles into one with Israel – fulfill the covenant God made with Abraham. See Notes below. Understanding the Covenant of Abraham*
The follow-on reason modern perverse scholars are terrified of Paul being the author is shown by the Robert Breaker video because Hebrews was written well after Paul had written his other epistles, in fact in the time frame of or near his final imprisonment in Rome in 65 AD.
They are not stupid. They know that Paul has been called to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. The Gospel NOT being the Kingdom Gospel of faith and the law, but rather the GOSPEL OF GRACE 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 KJB.
Acts 22:21 gnaws away at their conscience. They know what Acts 28 says. They of course are hammered in their consciences to what Galatians 2:9 KJB says, what Ephesians 3:7-9 KJB says, they know Romans is addressed to mostly the saved Jews living in Rome that are definitely considered Christians, they know 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 KJV Paul makes it clear there are the separate JEWS who will eventually be called in as the Remnant and he uses the words Jews exclusively throughout his Epistles when addressing the Jews.
The solution? Do as the Vatican has done from the 15th century, change what the scriptures say and remove authorship. See the lies of the devil in the Comma Johnnine which falsely claims John did not write parts of 1 John. Mind you all the modern perverted Bible scholars that stand against the authenticity of the King James Bible claim this. Another example is Mark 16:19-20 controversy which is another lie that this was added and not written by Mark.
This is how many of the mainstream Evangelicals view the book of Hebrews which is correct in part but completely misses the mark in the end:
Purpose of Writing: The late Dr. Walter Martin, founder of the Christian Research Institute and writer of the best-selling book Kingdom of the Cults, quipped in his usual tongue-in-cheek manner that the Book of Hebrews was written by a Hebrew to other Hebrews telling the Hebrews to stop acting like Hebrews. In truth, many of the early Jewish believers were slipping back into the rites and rituals of Judaism in order to escape the mounting persecution. This letter, then, is an exhortation for those persecuted believers to continue in the grace of Jesus Christ. Got Questions quote:
I will only be highlighting the major highlights of Hebrews and not doing a commentary of the entire book, verse by verse. If you’re interested, I recommend two books I read as part of my study for this Blog – video available on Kindle reader.
The first shock in opening Hebrews is THE GODHEAD and NOT The Trinity. Trinitarians and Jews run away from Psalm 110 and it keeps them awake at night.
Here the former Jews who are now NEW CREATURES in Christ are faced with the SHOCK that Jesus Christ is GOD and is the PERSON 1 PERSON who is GOD … This is the Godhead dear Saint. NOT 3 Gods, NOT 3 Persons. But one God who is Jesus Christ as the only PERSON – BODY.
In the same manner that the pagan Trinity concept – theory wrongly taught as biblical doctrine
The Godhead is made clear up front in Hebrews Chapters 1, 3, and 7 and in a shocking way that would have shocked and shaken the Jewish Christians and onlookers to the core. Paul was the only apostle who explained the Godhead. See Romans 1:20, Colossians 2:8, 9, and Acts 17:29.
Godhead Hebrews 1:3: Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the world of his power when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the Right hand of the Majesty on high.
Trinitarians love to jump up and shout: Look God (the Father) is a PERSON separate from the person of Jesus Christ. Their foolish, carnal mind is enmity against God. Verse 3 is saying that His (God – The Father) VISIBLE IMAGE IS JESUS CHRIST. This harmonizes perfectly with Colossians 1:15, 16, 2:8,9 KJB.
Verse 4 of Hebrews Chapter One:
Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
The Jehovah’s Witness and Trinitarians alike take this scripture among other and misunderstand its meaning
Note:
The Jehovah’s Witness understanding is based upon their doctrine of the Son of God having been created by Jehovah God as his first created creature. They say the first thing Jehovah created was the Archangel, Michael, who also has the name, the Word of God. This Archangel then created all the other angels, this universe, this planet and all life on it, with Jehovah’s enabling. He later became the man, Jesus Christ. It is Michael the Archangel who will return in the future, they claim.
We need to focus on the word “made”. First for background in context we must understand the Godhead is not 3 persons but rather one person, body image being Jesus Christ who is composed of 3 parts, Body, Soul, Spirit we are the same created in His image Genesis 1:26. In His (Jesus Christ see Colossians 1:16 created all things) likeness (BODY = face, hands, feet) after His likeness (essence 3 parts: body, soul, spirit see 1 Thessalonians 5:23 KJB).
Next we must understand the word “made” in the context of this scripture.
Made Strongs G1096 means to come to pass, be accomplished, be shown. Also see the Oxford English Dictionary page 1689: consummate, accomplished, composed of…
Paul then goes into Psalms 110. This is the scripture that keeps Trinitarians and Jews awake at night:
Time to talk about Melchizedek, Chapters 3 and 7 of Hebrews – Especially after I researched two books that leant a great deal of insight as to why Paul goes into Melchizedek
Paul is getting really real here. He is in our face after the shock of telling us there is only one GOD and He is Jesus Christ in the Flesh. He connects the dots and gives us an actual real deal account of Abraham meeting the KING the High Priest who is our Savior and He is really REAL.
BAPTISM
See my Study on Baptism in the Age of GRACE
Paul is telling us: Baptism – you know what it means, time to move on to other things.
Note: I did not go into Hebrews 6:4-10 in my study above that is used by some false teachers to say we could lose our salvation. Again, this is NOT what is being said here in verses 4 through 10. What Paul is talking about is the word: “Impossible”. It is impossible for someone who is saved, truly saved to walk away from their salvation. Who Paul is addressing is the fakes, the pretenders. See my Blog study above and harmonize this with Romans Chapter 1:18-20 and 1 John 2:19 KJB.
The Abrahamic Covenant is an unconditional covenant. The actual covenant is found in Genesis 12:1–3. The ceremony recorded in Genesis 15 indicates the unconditional nature of the covenant. When a covenant was dependent upon both parties keeping commitments, then both parties would pass between the pieces of animals. In Genesis 15, God alone moves between the halves of the animals. Abraham was in a deep sleep. God’s solitary action indicates that the covenant is principally His promise. He binds Himself to the covenant.
Later, God gave Abraham the rite of circumcision as the specific sign of the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 17:9–14). All males in Abraham’s line were to be circumcised and thus carry with them a lifelong mark in their flesh that they were part of God’s physical blessing in the world. Any descendant of Abraham who refused circumcision was declaring himself to be outside of God’s covenant; this explains why God was angry with Moses when Moses failed to circumcise his son (Exodus 4:24–26).
God determined to call out a special people for Himself, and through that special people He would bless the whole world. The Lord tells Abram,
“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2–3).
Based on this promise, God later changed Abram’s name from Abram (“high father”) to Abraham (“father of a multitude”) in Genesis 17:5. As we’ve seen, the Abrahamic Covenant is unconditional. It should also be taken literally. There is no need to spiritualize the promise to Abraham. God’s promises to Abraham’s descendants will be fulfilled literally.
The Abrahamic Covenant included the promise of land (Genesis 12:1). It was a specific land, an actual property, with dimensions specified in Genesis 15:18–21. In Genesis 13:15, God gives Abraham all the land that he can see, and the gift is declared to be “forever.” God was not going to renege on His promise. The territory given as part of the Abrahamic Covenant is expanded in Deuteronomy 30:1–10, often called the Palestinian Covenant.
Centuries after Abraham died, the children of Israel took possession of the land under Joshua’s leadership (Joshua 21:43). At no point in history, though, has Israel controlled all of the land God had specified. There remains, therefore, a final fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant that will see Israel occupying their God-given homeland to the fullest extent. The fulfillment will be more than a matter of geography; it will also be a time of holiness and restoration (see Ezekiel 20:40–44 and 36:1—37:28).
The Abrahamic Covenant also promised many descendants (Genesis 12:2). God promised that the number of Abraham’s children would rival that of “the dust of the earth” (Genesis 15:16). Nations and kings would proceed from him (Genesis 17:6). It is significant that the promise was given to an aged, childless couple. But Abraham “did not waver through unbelief” (Romans 4:20), and his wife Sarah “considered him faithful who had made the promise” (Hebrews 11:11). Abraham was justified by his faith (Genesis 15:6), and he and his wife welcomed Isaac, the son of promise, into their home when they were 100 and 90 years old, respectively (Genesis 21:5).
God reiterates the Abrahamic Covenant to Isaac and to his son Jacob, whose name God changes to Israel. The great nation is eventually established in the land where Abraham had dwelled. King David, one of Abraham’s many descendants, is given the Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7:12–16), promising a “son of David” who would one day rule over the Jewish nation—and all nations—from Jerusalem. Many other Old Testament prophecies point to the blessed, future fulfillment of that promise (e.g., Isaiah 11; Micah 4; Zechariah 8).
The Abrahamic Covenant also included a promise of blessing and redemption (Genesis 12:3). All the earth would be blessed through Abraham. This promise finds its fulfillment in the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–34; cf. Luke 22:20), which was ratified by Jesus Christ, the son of Abraham and Redeemer who will one day “restore everything” (Acts 3:21). END QUOTE
I will continue where Matt Slick leaves off in that in the Dispensation of Grace, Paul tells us that we have been adapted into the promises of Abraham.
Let’s read and connect all the dots.Romans 2:25-29; 3:26-31;4:16;5:1,2, 9-12; 6:6,7,8:1-25;11:17-24; Galatians Chapters 3, 4, and 5. Read specifically Galatians 4:26; King James Bible
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Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
Spoiler ALERT. Forthcoming study of the BOOK of HEBREWS, The Shock and Awe of Paul the Apostle
I will be providing a preponderance of evidence, undeniable proof that the King James Translators were correct in that Paul did in fact write the Book of Hebrews and it is directed to the NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST THERE IS NEITHER JEW NOR GENTILE. And yes, although addressing the struggling Jewish Christians who were wavering in their faith and struggles with the Judaizers and Jews alike, we ARE ONE IN CHRIST.
Evangelist Robert Breaker almost had it right when he declared Paul wrote Hebrews but falls off the cliff when he foolishly declared that Paul wrote it in 2 parts: 1 when he was first saved and writes as in the Kingdom Dispensation and the end after 65 AD before he was martyred because we clearly see scripture applicable to the age of GRACE. He also terribly interprets Hebrews 10:25.
The Shock and the Awe of the Book of Hebrews. Paul Epistle to The Pilgrims, the Sojourners of this earth who are the Church, the Called Out Children of God – the Ones who are the Called Out (from among them.) The Church
Oxford English Dictionary page 1280:
Literally: One from the other side (of the river) {I looked over the River Jordan. My own words.}ThePasserover – The Immigrant. ABRRAM The IMMIGRANT Abram The Hebrew. Genesis 14:13 KJB. Whose dependents will be innumerable.
Genesis 12:1 Get thee out of thy country from thy kindred.
Come out from among them.
The Church – The called out.
Abraham the Father of us all… Romans 4:16, Galatians 6:16, 4:16.
Why did Paul use Hebrews and not the 12 Tribes like James and like he did throughout his epistles.
haunted me from childhood, the scripture the false shepherds have used is Hebrews 10:25 and in the following in verse 26.
Do not forsake the assembly. For IF we sin willfully.
NOT FORSAKING THE ASSEMBLY:
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
What Paul is saying in verses 23 through 25 is simply this: Warning: Do not DISPUTE our Blessed Hope of Redemption, (as some of you have done) the Gathering Together with the Saints in the RAPTURE. But encourage and proclaim to others in the Body and challenge the Body of Christ that that day (The Rapture) is soon approaching.
The Rapture in which we will be GATHERED TOGETHER WITH CHRIST. This is our promise, and this is our FAITH – Our Confident Expectation. Hold Fast to this.
Let’s break it down.
Also see Notes below from Peter Ditzel on Hebrews 10:25 being the “sacred cow” of the clergy.
We understand that in Hebrews Chapter 10 verses 1 through 25.
Begin with verse 23 “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
Paul is speaking about “personal adherence, practicing and holding fast to the profession of our faith (OUR SUPREME CONFIDENT EXPECTATION-ANTICIPATION of our PROMISED SOON COMING RAPTURE) because he says they see THE DAY APPROACHING.
PROFESSION: Latin professare, from professus “avowed,” literally “having declared publicly,” past participle of Latin profiteri “declare openly, testify voluntarily, acknowledge, make public statement of,”
This is NOT corporate but rather an INDIVIDUAL responsibility to declare corporately.
of our FAITH – IN CONTEXT = In the CONFIDENT EXPECTATION
expectation (n.)
1530s, “state or condition of waiting or awaiting with confident anticipation,”
of what God has faithfully promised.
Then before telling us what we are to declare openly with confident expectation of what God has faithfully promised, Paul inserts in verse 24:
“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:”
Consider and “urge and challenge” one another unto love and to good works (not works unto righteousness – Romans 4:6, Titus 3:5 KJV, but rather works unto our rewards and good testimony before man Titus 3:8, 14 KJV.
Of and FOR WHAT?
verse 25: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together , as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
[purpose], Middle English sake “strife, discord, enmity, dispute; legal dispute; blame, sin, guilt;” from Old English sacu “a cause at law, crime, dispute,
OUR SOON COMING REDEMPTION OF being Gathered Together With Christ
verse
assembly (n.)
c. 1300, “a gathering of persons, a group gathered for some purpose,” from Old French asemblee, assemblee “assembly, gathering; union, marriage,” noun use of fem. past participle of assembler “to assemble” (see assemble).
If you take the time to actually study this scripture you can that Paul is talking about the individual believer’s personal – individual relationship in coming into assembly with Jesus Christ in the context of THE GATHERING SNATCHING UP GATHERING UP of the Believers in the Rapture.
GATHERING TOGETHER UNTO HIM G1997 = ASSEMBLING OF OURSELVES TOGETHER
Why did the King James Translators use Assemble instead of Gathering together?
(11c.), from Latin assimulare “to make like, liken, compare; copy, imitate;
We see the continuing with Hebrews 10:25…”as the manner of some is: but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. But some have disputed
Sinning Willfully
sin: in the context of this scripture Paul is referring to walking away from the faith, deliberately knowing the truth.
Romans 1:28 sheds the best light on what is happening here.
People know intuitively by their spirit that there is a God but they have rejected the knowledge of this truth.
willfully:
willfully (adv.)also wilfully, late Old English wilfullice “of one’s own free will, voluntarily;” see willful + -ly (2). Mid-14c. as “deliberately, knowingly.”
“obstinate, unreasonable,” from will (n.) + -ful. From late 14c. as “eager” (to do something). Mid-14
Verse 26: 26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
knowledge = G1922 Epignonsis: knowledge of the divine.
Compare Hebrews 10:26 with Romans 1:28
In the context of verse 26 we’ve already see Paul is both warning the fakes and reminding the saved Christian Jews who are struggling with the Law and the walk of faith being our sole justification.
Paul is addressing the entire audience. Some of these act like, talk like and pretend to be followers of Jesus Christ. They now must decide – without doubt – that they know in whom they believe and accept the astounding faith of standing before God as righteous through Jesus Christ.
When we compare scripture with scripture we understand clearly in
Romans Chapter 1.
Strong’s #1922: epignosis
knowledge of the truth, G1922 = Become fully acquainted with, perceive
Romans 1:28 King James Bible:
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
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:
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.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Hebrews 10:25 is NOT talking about those who are already saved. This is not referring to a Christian who has made a mistake and sinned. This harmonizes perfectly with
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 KJV and Ephesians 2:8,9 KJV and especially with Ephesians 1:13, 2 Corinthians 1:21,22.
But it does harmonize perfectly with Romans 1 King James Bible. Other scriptures are 1 John 2:19 King James Bible among others.
ANY ONE WHO DENIES ETERNALLY SECURITY DENY THE FINISHED WORK OF THE CROSS AND ARE IN FACT PREACHING ANOTHER GOSPEL. READ AND HEED:
BEWARE Galatians 1:8,9 King James Bible:
Galatians 1:8-9King James Version
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
Notes
See detailed study by Peter Ditzel titled Hebrews 10:25, “What are we NOT to forsake?”
In our immediate context of Hebrews 10:26, we see that many in the Hebrew-Christian community were still looking to the Old Testament sacrificial system (Hebrews 10:1-4) with its burnt offerings (Hebrews 10:6, 8), Temple work (Hebrews 10:19, 20), priesthood (Hebrews 10:21), and the Law of Moses (Hebrews 10:28). Obviously, many in the Hebrew-Christian community were still looking back to the Old Testament system and not depending on the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. As stated in the opening paragraph, the writer is not addressing individuals but a larger group of people with a mix of believers and non-believers. Some who had received the knowledge of the truth of the complete sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ had not yet fully trusted in it and were dabbling with returning to the Old Testament sacrificial system.
We cannot assert that Hebrews 10:26 is written only to those who are saved. After all, how could they be saved if they are looking back to the old sacrificial system? But, without knowing exactly who is and is not trusting in Christ, the writer of Hebrews would generically address everyone and give the proper warning that if you go on sinning willfully (i.e., abandon the truth found in Christ and his sacrifice), then there will be no sacrifice for sins because Jesus’ sacrifice is the only one that can take away sin (Hebrews 10:4, 12-18). That is why in verse 18 it says, “Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.” He is telling us that when someone is forgiven, there’s no longer a need for another offering as in the Old Testament type offerings. To reject Christ’s sacrifice is to go on sinning willfully by remaining in the Old Testament sacrificial system. For those who do that, there is no longer sacrifice remaining for sin because for them Christ is not a sacrifice.
Therefore, when the writer said in Hebrews 10:26, “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,” he is talking about those who had received the knowledge of the truth but were rejecting it–not that they were saved and lost their salvation. To receive the knowledge of the truth does not mean they are saved. It means they received the knowledge of the truth of who Jesus was and what he did as well as the truth that “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4), and that God does not take pleasure in “whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sins” (Hebrews 10:6). The writer wants them to trust in the only sacrifice for sins, which is Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and not return to the old sacrificial system.
Who Are You Amir Tsarfati? Original post 6/4/2018 These things speak,and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Titus 2: 15 . KJV This Blog is written in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:2-3 KJV and 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV Note: I love Israel and the Jews. I am a born-again Christian who truly believes the Jews are God’s chosen people and abhor replacement theology. For the past year I’ve been closely following Amir TSARFATI on his BEHOLD ISRAEL YouTube channel. I don’t use Facebook, was basically thrown off about 8 years ago for posting content that spread hate (simply posted photos of Islamic thugs murdering innocent civilians) . I also don’t use Twitter. Left after 10 years, nearly 10,000 followers, when new rules blocked my 1st amendment rights of free speech. I’ve been extremely impressed with Amir TSARFATI. I’ve been thrilled by his ministry. He shares my conservative views, especially achieving peace through stre
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/ Now The End Begins CHRISLAM CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress Published 44 mins ago on September 17, 2022 By Geoffrey Grider NOW THE END BEGINS SHARE: With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion. It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified, with the approval at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions , of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE. Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ, His Name appears nowhere
Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
In these final moments of this age before the end which will bring our soon coming Rapture of the Church of Philadelphia, The Church of Laodicea waxes more and more apostate being drawn by their itching ears into fables of following the reprobate pastors reading and preaching from perverted Bible translations and not teaching but even teaching against the PreTribulation Rapture. The Holy Spirit has given me the unction to call them out and to warn them that they are forsaking their own mercy as in the days of Jonah as in the days of Noah and Lot. They will get what they are asking for.
Jonah 2:8
“They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.”
King James Version (KJV)
Hebrews 3:18
“And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?”
King James Version (KJV)
Hebrews 3:19
“So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.”
Who Are You Amir Tsarfati? Original post 6/4/2018 These things speak,and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Titus 2: 15 . KJV This Blog is written in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:2-3 KJV and 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV Note: I love Israel and the Jews. I am a born-again Christian who truly believes the Jews are God’s chosen people and abhor replacement theology. For the past year I’ve been closely following Amir TSARFATI on his BEHOLD ISRAEL YouTube channel. I don’t use Facebook, was basically thrown off about 8 years ago for posting content that spread hate (simply posted photos of Islamic thugs murdering innocent civilians) . I also don’t use Twitter. Left after 10 years, nearly 10,000 followers, when new rules blocked my 1st amendment rights of free speech. I’ve been extremely impressed with Amir TSARFATI. I’ve been thrilled by his ministry. He shares my conservative views, especially achieving peace through stre
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/ Now The End Begins CHRISLAM CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress Published 44 mins ago on September 17, 2022 By Geoffrey Grider NOW THE END BEGINS SHARE: With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion. It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified, with the approval at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions , of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE. Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ, His Name appears nowhere
Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
“That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.”
King James Version (KJV)
Mark 4:11
“And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:”
King James Version (KJV)
God’s paradoxical nature conceals His secrets to the lost world and hides his children by His word.
par·a·dox·i·cal
Adjective
seemingly absurd or self-contradictory:
1 Corinthians 2:14
King James Version
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 1:27King James Version
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;
Jesus spoke in parables. He was asked often by both his apostles and followers as well as the Jewish Leaders who hated him for the reason. Matthew 13:35 and Mark 4:11 are the major clues as to why.
Jesus used Parables to reveal mysteries (the things of God hidden to the lost world) to his own, and to conceal the kingdom mysteries to the lost world.
A Parable in the context of a figure of speech is synonymous with a Paradox.
Let’s join our Lord as he looks down and laughs at the heathen. Psalm 2:4 KJB. How many times have you heard an Atheist or Agnostic or the fake Christian say, “How can I believe the Bible? It is full of contradictions.” And to tell the truth, it is in their eyes. However, to the saved children of the Living God, we are not asleep as the world but awake and sober and we understand. Praise God forever Amen! Hallelujah! Maranatha! Even So, Come, Lord Jesus. Amen!
Let’s study the meaning of the Paradox:
See my previous studies on how there are NEVER contradictions in the Bible
A paradox [is] a statement that seems absurd or self-contradictory but… turns out to be true.” A paradox consists of two truths that, when laid side by side, appear to contradict. However, upon further reflection, they prove to be compatible. “While real contradictions are impossible to reconcile, paradoxes are merely difficult to reconcile.”
“The Christian faith is full of paradoxes primarily because the Christian faith is rooted in divine mysteries. Paradox is the language of mystery – the best way to speak of divine mysteries.” – Richard J. Vincent
The Oxford English Compact Dictionary page 2072:
How the Saint sees the Paradox:
A statement or proposition which on the face of it seems self-contradictory, absurd, or at variance with common sense though on investigation or when explained, it may be proved to be well founded or (according to some) essentially true.
How the world sees and defines a paradox:
Applied to a proposition or statement that is actually self-contradictory or contradictory to reason or ascertained truth. And so essentially absurd or false.
Contrary to received opinion or expectation. A statement or tenet contrary to received opinion or belief. Often with the implication that it is marvelous or incredible. Sometimes with unfavorable connotation as being discordant with what is held to be established truth, and hence absurd or fantastic with sometimes the connotation as a correction of vulgar error. 1581 Marbeck Notes 791 Paradox is a strange sentence contrary to the opinion of the most part. 1656: Hobbes Liberty Necessity, chance. The Bishop often speaks of Paradoxes with such scorn or detestation that a simple reader would take a paradox either for felony or some other heinous crime, whereas perhaps a more judicious reader knows that a paradox is an opinion not yet generally received. 1697 Burgersdiclus Logic: A Paradox is said to be a problem true against the common opinion such as that viz the earth moves which though it be true, yet may it be so against the common opinion and therefore a Paradox. A conceit contrary to opinion but not to reason. A paralogism is contrary to reason. Hypomone. A conclusion contrary to what the audience has been led up to expect.
Quantum mechanics works extremely well to describe the behavior of tiny objects, such as atoms or particles of light (photons). But that behavior is … very odd.
In many cases, quantum theory doesn’t give definite answers to questions such as “where is this particle right now?” Instead, it only provides probabilities for where the particle might be found when it is observed.
For Niels Bohr, one of the founders of the theory a century ago, that’s not because we lack information, but because physical properties like “position” don’t actually exist until they are measured.
And what’s more, because some properties of a particle can’t be perfectly observed simultaneously—such as position and velocity—they can’t be real simultaneously.
No less a figure than Albert Einstein found this idea untenable. In a 1935 article with fellow theorists Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, he argued there must be more to reality than what quantum mechanics could describe.
The Key to major paradoxical scripture.
We are Dead. We are Alive.
We must understand that to live we must die. We must know we are dead and hid.
Colossians 3:3 KJV
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
John 12:24
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
King James Version (KJV)
John 10:10
King James Version
10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Romans 6:11
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Galatians 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.”
parable (n.)
from Latin parabola “comparison,” from Greek parabolē “a comparison, parable,” literally “a throwing beside,” hence “a juxtaposition,” from para- “alongside”
jux·ta·po·si·tion
the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect:
Literary device that implies comparison or contrast
Juxtaposition is a literary device that implies comparison or contrast. juxtaposition by placing two entities side by side to create dramatic or ironic contrast. Juxtaposition is a form of implied comparison in that there is no overt comparison or inference on the part of the writer.
*gwele-
*gwelə-, also *gwel-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to throw, reach,” with extended sense “to pierce.”
An oxymoron is a figure of speech, usually one or two words, in which seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side.
Examples: Bittersweet, Old News, A Lead Balloon, etc.
This contradiction is also known as a paradox. Writers and poets have used it for centuries as a literary device to describe life’s inherent conflicts and incongruities. In speech, oxymorons can lend a sense of humor, irony, or sarcasm.
Who Are You Amir Tsarfati? Original post 6/4/2018 These things speak,and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Titus 2: 15 . KJV This Blog is written in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:2-3 KJV and 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV Note: I love Israel and the Jews. I am a born-again Christian who truly believes the Jews are God’s chosen people and abhor replacement theology. For the past year I’ve been closely following Amir TSARFATI on his BEHOLD ISRAEL YouTube channel. I don’t use Facebook, was basically thrown off about 8 years ago for posting content that spread hate (simply posted photos of Islamic thugs murdering innocent civilians) . I also don’t use Twitter. Left after 10 years, nearly 10,000 followers, when new rules blocked my 1st amendment rights of free speech. I’ve been extremely impressed with Amir TSARFATI. I’ve been thrilled by his ministry. He shares my conservative views, especially achieving peace through stre
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/ Now The End Begins CHRISLAM CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress Published 44 mins ago on September 17, 2022 By Geoffrey Grider NOW THE END BEGINS SHARE: With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion. It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified, with the approval at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions , of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE. Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ, His Name appears nowhere
Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”
King James Version (KJV)
You can tell a lot about a man by his prayers.
Amir Tsarfati is at it again. His never ceasing sensationalizing…
sensationalizing (present participle)
(especially of a newspaper) present information about (something) in a way that provokes public interest and excitement, at the expense of accuracy:
On the surface for the unlearned, non Bible reading misguided Christian, Amir’s latest serious prayer request looks entirely legitimate and biblical. I urge the reader to gain insight into the background of this man before making a comment. Amir proves here that he’s a political opportunist, A Zionist using feeble minded Christians for their pocketbooks and their political influence into the Christian Zionist movement to prop up the Israeli Government under the Zionist Right Wing. It can’t be put in more simple terms.
Let’s examine his prayer request with his background in mind and with the commentary of Jewish Christians and the Orthodox Jews who are under the persecution of the Zionists.
Finally let’s examine his prayer request in biblical terms.
Question? Should not our prayers be in accordance with God’s will? Isn’t the final curtain of this age ready to drop and Israel to go into the time of Jacob’s Trouble? Shouldn’t we be praying for God’s Awill to be executed soon and that we Saints Go Home and ISRAEL BE SAVED in accordance with Paul’s prayer?
See what Israel be saved and why I pray like Paul prayed and not
for the peace of Jerusalem which is the Messianic age and not of this age.
The absolute pure evidence of those who seek God’s will and pray in accordance with God’s word will speak God’s word when praying.
The following – epiphany – struck me quite strongly this morning regarding prayer for modern day Jews – regardless of their location. I feel a strong unction to clarify in reference to a Blog I recently completed titled, “
The Biblical Evidence of Why I don’t pray for the Peace of Jerusalem #EndTimes
Psalm 122:6 KJV referring to the present “spiritual kingdom Galatians 4:26KJV and
the future “physical ‘millennial’ kingdom” Revelation 20:4 and 21 KJV
Psalm 122:6 KJV referring to the present “spiritual kingdom Galatians 4:26KJV and the future “physical ‘millennial’ kingdom” Revelation 20 KJV and 21 KJV. See Dr. Woods’ extensive work on the Davidic Covenant and Davidic Throne incl de jure vs de facto, The Coming Kingdom. Also see Clarence Larkin’s work titled Dispensational Truth in notes below as well as his study in link
What I’m about to write now is serious and must be taken as
such. Israel is experiencing a Coup Attempt led by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his gang of ex generals. This is something that was in the making for a few years now and the judicial reform was just the excuse. We have videos of zoom calls from over two ago where they already talked about this. The Israeli government and parliament in the next 48 hours will either show that our democracy is stronger that (sic) this or maybe this is the end of it. While the internal political chaos intensifies the enemies from outside are preparing themselves for the right moment to attack. Israel is at the most dangerous situation since it was established in 1948. The next three days are critical for Israel, pray that the worst does not happen and we are attacked from several fronts at the same time.
Note: We are in the last few on the Jewish Calendar known as “Between the Straits” a period of mourning commemorating the destruction of the first and second Jewish temples. ” End Quote
Now I ask all the mature Saints who are well aware of the WOLF Amir Tsarfati and his agenda. First read this post I recently blogged from a Jewish Journalist in Israel:
Messianic-minded Jews like Itamar Ben-Gvir find little love even among Israel’s rabbinic establishment. Photo: David Cohen/Flash90
Benjamin Netanyahu’s firm right-wing majority coalition is unlikely to be taken down by a left-wing “resistance” (which some would call an attempted coup). It’s about the most homogenous government Israel’s ever had from a political and ideological perspective, with few chinks in its armor.
But it could fall apart from within.
And this will have everything to do with the disparate biblical viewpoints of the religious parties in the coalition’s ranks.
Ultra-Orthodox parties have reportedly asked Benny Gantz and his National Unity party to join Netanyahu’s coalition to provide “balance.”
What do they mean by “balance”?
This highlights an important phenomenon in Israeli politics:
Ultra-Orthodox parties are largely focused on their particular stream of Judaism and bolstering their particular religious community. So long as the government they’re a part of, and they’ll join either left- or right-wing governments, provides the money they request for their yeshivas and maintains the status quo of rabbinical oversight, they’ll be loyal coalition partners.
Religious Zionist parties have a more “prophetic” outlook. They’re on a mission. And many of their proposed policies are geared toward advancing the “redemption” of Israel as a whole. For this reason, the Religious Zionists are often referred to in Israeli media as “messianic” – and not in a complimentary way – because they are working toward the “messianic age.”
Ultra-Orthodox officials oppose this approach, believing that God alone will bring about the messianic age without human involvement. And so they are just as likely as the left to see Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Religious Zionism party as radical extremists who have no place governing a modern Jewish state.
They’d rather align with progressive elements like Gantz who will give the ultra-Orthodox their little corner of the country, than
partner with messianic-minded “fools” who think we are living in the end times, and are trying to enact government policy based on that belief.
It’s hidden behind the scenes, but this biblical rift is at the heart of the internal divisions that pose the biggest threat to the stability of Netanyahu’s government.
You’ll appreciate that it’s difficult for non-Jews to understand the difference. Both practice a Judaism that rejected Yeshua and was built instead on rabbinic principles. Jews are familiar with these principles but they cloud /obscure both biblical directions and their messianic fulfilment in Yeshua. The term “messianic” is being abused in the same way “born again” was when we heard of the likes of born-again golfers. Using messianic to refer to anything other than the Messiah could be regarded as taking the name of the Lord in vain.
It may be time for Messianic Jews to agree with the Ultra-Orthodox the correct application of the term messianic to prevent Religious Zionists misusing it. Messiah is a person, He is Immanuel, God with us. The messianic age is the one where we experience His personal rule. “And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.” Isaiah 59:20. Israel needs to be open to this Messiah.
Who Are You Amir Tsarfati? Original post 6/4/2018 These things speak,and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Titus 2: 15 . KJV This Blog is written in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:2-3 KJV and 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV Note: I love Israel and the Jews. I am a born-again Christian who truly believes the Jews are God’s chosen people and abhor replacement theology. For the past year I’ve been closely following Amir TSARFATI on his BEHOLD ISRAEL YouTube channel. I don’t use Facebook, was basically thrown off about 8 years ago for posting content that spread hate (simply posted photos of Islamic thugs murdering innocent civilians) . I also don’t use Twitter. Left after 10 years, nearly 10,000 followers, when new rules blocked my 1st amendment rights of free speech. I’ve been extremely impressed with Amir TSARFATI. I’ve been thrilled by his ministry. He shares my conservative views, especially achieving peace through stre
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/ Now The End Begins CHRISLAM CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress Published 44 mins ago on September 17, 2022 By Geoffrey Grider NOW THE END BEGINS SHARE: With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion. It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified, with the approval at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions , of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE. Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ, His Name appears nowhere
Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.”
King James Version (KJV)
2 Corinthians 11:14
“And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”
King James Version (KJV)
This work, more than any other I’ve worked on, is a culmination of over 15 years of work coming to fruition. I beseech the reader to study the many links here that directly address the problem of getting involved in this dialectic.
*
be·seech
[bəˈsēCH]VERB
LITERARY
ask (someone) urgently and fervently to do something; implore; entreat:
“they beseeched him to stay” · ““You have got to believe me,” Gloria beseeched him” · “they earnestly beseeched his forgiveness” · “a beseeching gaze”
SIMILAR: implore beg entreat importune exhort petition call on supplicate adjure crave prig impetrate
p
lead with
appeal to
ask urgently
pray to
appeal for
obsecrate
obtest
Sound of Freedom – The Dialectic Tsunami – The Christian Quandary
“Dialectics” is a term used to describe a method of philosophical argument that involves some sort of contradictory process between opposing sides.
quan·da·ry
a state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation:
The world and MOST Christians are NOT LOOKING UP for their blessed Hope of Redemption and the Second Coming of Jesus when we come back and REIGN WITH HIM. WHY DO YOU THINK MORE AND MORE MOCK AND SCOFFERS are coming out of the wood work against the PRE TRIBULATION RAPTURE. How many of the interviews I will discuss with you talk about THIS.S
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
King James Version (KJV)
2 Timothy 2:4
“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”
King James Version (KJV)
2 Timothy 2:5
“And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.”
Disclaimer: I strongly urge my readers to watch the movie “The Sound of Freedom.” It is a gripping, powerful, moving top notch film that is very compelling. I honestly had the front of shirt wet from tears. I have no doubt God was directly involved in using these men and women to liberate hundreds of enslaved children. More importantly I am certain, and I pray this movie start a “movement” bring awareness to more to combat and save the innocent.
I in no way wish to take away the good that came out of all the hard work here.
Angel Studio CEO Neil Harmon. The very gifted actor who
portrayed the heroic Tim Ballard, Jim Caviezel. The amazing
director Alejandro Monteverde, Actor producer, Eduardo
Verastegui.
My heartfelt desire as inspired by the Holy Spirit is to warn Christians not to be deceived by a powerful tool of Satan in driving them into another Gospel of the SOCIAL GOSPEL ECUMENISM, DOMINION THEOLOGY as part of the NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION.
Child Exploitation, Slavery, suffering of the innocent, Abortion and all EVIL has NEVER ended, and it never end in this world. It does not matter how much money and political influence and Christian MOVEMENTS and prayers are offered… This rotten corrupt world will not end until JESUS CHRIST RETURNS and destroys this world and establishes HIS KINGDOM.
All of the commentaries and interviews by the personalities I mentioned NEVER MENTION the truth. They continually offer the advice of GET INVOLVED MAKE THE CHANGES. START A MOVEMENT.
Tim Ballard said in one of the interviews I have listed here that the Atlantic Slave Trade ended with the civil war thanks to Harriot Tubman’s book – Uncle Tom’s Cabin – influencing Abraham Lincoln and the nation. Slave trade changed its modus operandi and even Ballard admitted, it’s now more in numbers than the Atlantic Slave trade ever was.
Yes, we Christians are to be involved in doing our part to speak out against sin and preaching and teaching the GOSPEL of GRACE – SALVATION IS JESUS CHRIST CAME, DIED ON THE CROSS FOR OUR SINS ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES, HE WAS BURIED, AND HE ROSE AGAIN ON THE THIRD DAY ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 KJB.
We are not to entangle ourselves with this garbage of this fallen world. WAKE UP CHRISTIAN. The Devil is the prince of this world.John 14:30 KJB. He is the god of this world. 2 Corinthians 4:4 KJB. This is his system. He laughs at man saying we have to change this evil by our works. He laughs when he sees these apostate wolves these teachers telling us we must change and build God’s kingdom and bring about God’s perfect justice on this earth to change the wrongs of this world. I urge you to study my Blogs on this in notes below. Tim Keller was the King Daddy of Social Justice Gospel. He is now in Hell.
DOCUMENTATION OF USING WORKS BASED ECUMENICAL SOCIAL GOSPEL:
When they make this a God movement without solid applicable scripture in the context of this dispensation it becomes godly works… A FORM OF GODLINESS YET DENING THE POWER.
2 Timothy 3:5-7
King James Version
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Let’s Look at the Film Interviews which give us a great insight:
I have watched hours of video interviews with the following: Angel Studio CEO Neil Harmon. The very gifted actor who portrayed the heroic Tim Ballard, Jim Caviezel, The amazing director Alejandro Monteverde, Actor producer, Eduardo Verastegui. The interviewers, supporters, commenters were big names like Mel Gibson and Elon Musk. The list also included mainstream personalities like Steve Bannon, Jordan Peterson, Prager U, Tony Robbins, CBN, TBN, Dr. Steve Turley, and TimCast IRL. The ultimate was watching Former President Donald Trump interview and promote the movie in a private screening.
Actor, producer, and Catholic activist Eduardo Verástegui, who is considering running for president of Mexico, said in a July 5 video that the National Action Party (PAN), traditionally identified as a pro-life, pro-family conservative party, “is dead.”
U.S. moviegoers may recognize Verástegui as the producer of “Bella,” “Little Boy,” and the recent box office success “The Sound of Freedom.”
In a statement last month to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Verástegui asked for prayers to discern whether or not to run for president and explained some of the reasons that would drive him to make this decision, which included the sad state of Mexico and the hope for meaningful change.
Here are a sample of interviews if you’re interested:
Jordan Peterson the philosopher, the psychologist, the professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of the multi-million copy bestseller 12 Rules for Life:
In interview with both Tim Ballard and Jim Caviezel is an perfect example of Philosophy – RELIGOUS Activity Piety
Cain and Abel
Cain and Able, the two pathways to adaptation
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I’m I’m gonna walk you through what I know about how people turn into the sort of pedophile that
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you find so you and everyone else I suppose or virtually everyone else finds so mysterious
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so I’m going to refer first to the story of Cain and Abel because it actually puts its finger on
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the process in a stunning manner so what happens in that story is that two different Pathways to
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adaptation are detailed out and they become the Cardinal Pathways of adaptation that characterize
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the whole human race immersed as it is from that point onward in history instead of in the Garden
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of Eden and one is the pathway of Cain and the other is the pathway of Abel now Abel makes high
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quality sacrifices he’s all in right he puts himself on the line and he does the real thing
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and as a consequence God finds God uh finds he finds favor with God and His sacrifices
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are rewarded he does well and everyone loves him and he thrives and Cain his sacrifices are
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not of the same quality he tries to cut the corners and to and to pull the wool over his
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eyes and and God’s eyes and everyone else’s eyes and as a consequence his sacrifices are rejected
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and instead of clueing the hell in and waking up and taking responsibility for his failure
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he decides that he’s going to call out God for creating a cosmos that’s cosmically unfair and
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unjust and the evidence for that is Kane’s failure and Abel’s success and so he has a
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little chat with God and he basically calls him out and says you know I’m breaking myself in half here and nothing’s going my way and Abel gets everything he wants and you know
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how dare you make a cosmos so radically unjust and improper and why don’t you just straighten
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yourself out and God says if you did well you would be rewarded for it and you should
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look to yourself and then he says something even worse and this is very subtle because
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um it’s complicated to understand it unless you look at multiple translations or potentially the
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original Hebrew which I can’t read but I read the multiple translations God says to Cain
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the spirit of sin crouches at your doorstep like a sexually aroused predatory animal
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and you have invited it in to have its way with…” End Quote
This is the perfect example of how misguided and clueless Jordan Peterson is regarding the Word of God. Firstly, this is NOT what Cain says and why Cain sinned. The sin of Cain, what Jude 1:11 refers to as the way of Cain is that Cain rejects God’s directives and chooses to worship God in his own way. He invents his own religion. That bloody disgusting slaughtered innocent lamb on the altar is repulsive to Cain, he tells God that his beautiful clean fruit and vegetables are a better sacrifice and more pleasing. When God rejects Cain’s sacrifice, Cain is enraged and hatred for Abel turns to murder.
The great irony here is that Jordan Peterson has found his own religion his own vain imagination which is enmity against God, his vain philosophical religious and pious acts of holy yet denying the power of God the cross of Jesus Christ..
In the middle of his interview Jordan Peterson gives an add to the Catholic Mystics and Contemplative prayer and bible study. Honestly, does Jordan Peterson know Jesus Christ? No! He is using this to garner traffic to his channel and business.
Disclaimer: The highly contentious nonbiblical mess that Conservative Christans got entangled with was the disgusting QAnon mess. Steve Bannon is not a man of God and is again here promoting and pumping politics as the cure all to our depravity. The issue of the Luciferian Elite drinking children’s blood – adrenochrome, ambrosia, is not the subject of this Blog and Video. Organ harvesting and the global sexual trade is real and there is no question to the GOOD that Sound of Freedom strives to instill in viewers to start a movement to end this is very honorable and great.
The Bible does not merely offer suggestions or perspectives—it provides the absolute truth by which all else must be measured. For believers, there is no middle ground where political issues are not also biblical issues.
Many would like to say that there are certain political issues that the Scripture does not address directly. However, on these significant concerns, where the Word of God has provided clear instruction, there is no room for deviation. The Bible is not a buffet where one can select the palatable parts and disregard the rest. As true followers of Christ, our duty is to accept the entirety of God’s Word and live by it, even when it contradicts contemporary societal norms or political ideologies.
From the word of God to our ears, from our ears to the inner man, from the inner man outward to the edifying of the Body of Christ and onward to lost souls needing the message of His amazing grace– Praise God for His mercy, so thankful for His faithfulness! Amen, hallelujah! Brother Andrew, I wonder if perhaps you could (or are lead to) expand/expound specifically this study into the wickedness, depravity and fleshly nature of the NAR/word-faith movement. You touched on it briefly and I’m thankful, however, I have the unction from the Spirit that there is a deep connection to “pharmakia”… I am increasingly aware of how most Christians who believe that the “great commission” is for us today, and many who don’t but are attending apostate 501(c)3 buildings, are consumed, immersed in running to doctors and worrying about whether they have insurance, etc, etc…. Praying for healing, meanwhile taking handfuls of pharma drugs, and/or handfuls of supplements, trying to preserve the dying flesh. Even declaring that it’s the devil robbing them of life and health, rather than having peace and contentment, knowing that the flesh cannot be saved, but as Christians we have the hope of the resurrection… There’s a balance between keeping our focus on feeding the inner man and simply being sensible about caring for the flesh.
Amen! Praise God! God bless you Sister… Thank you… Sister Sharon, I read and re-read your comment and was overwhelmed by the powerful confirmation our Lord brings to his children in The Body of Christ. While completing this study I have been compelled to address the issues that stem from those CINOs Christian in Name Only who live, work, and function by doing great works for God – yet living completely in their own self styled self righteous pious works to BUILD the Kingdom. Interesting you add pharmakia. Agree with your assessment 100%. I came out of the NAR Kingdom Building trap. Do you know that within the 5 homes surrounding a home of a certain neighborhood – of which I am not at liberty to reveal – there are 3 households on heavy medication to COPE with LIFE, and all 3 of these households are devout Christians. Thank you for the inspiration and glory to God for the confirmation to begin this next work.
Who Are You Amir Tsarfati? Original post 6/4/2018 These things speak,and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Titus 2: 15 . KJV This Blog is written in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:2-3 KJV and 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV Note: I love Israel and the Jews. I am a born-again Christian who truly believes the Jews are God’s chosen people and abhor replacement theology. For the past year I’ve been closely following Amir TSARFATI on his BEHOLD ISRAEL YouTube channel. I don’t use Facebook, was basically thrown off about 8 years ago for posting content that spread hate (simply posted photos of Islamic thugs murdering innocent civilians) . I also don’t use Twitter. Left after 10 years, nearly 10,000 followers, when new rules blocked my 1st amendment rights of free speech. I’ve been extremely impressed with Amir TSARFATI. I’ve been thrilled by his ministry. He shares my conservative views, especially achieving peace through stre
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/ Now The End Begins CHRISLAM CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress Published 44 mins ago on September 17, 2022 By Geoffrey Grider NOW THE END BEGINS SHARE: With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion. It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified, with the approval at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions , of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE. Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ, His Name appears nowhere
Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
While meditating and writing Part I – I was frankly overwhelmed with our LIVES HID with Christ and had accepted the word DEAD as a given – an acceptable understanding that dead means dead.
However, during the middle of the night I awoke and had a compelling unction to do a part 2 and focus on the importance of the necessity of understanding DEATH in the context of Colossians 3:3 and describe What this looks like in our daily lives.
Background Scriptures:
Philippians 3:10
“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;”
King James Version (KJV)
Philippians 3:11,12,20,21 KJV
11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Strongs G599 apothnesko to die; G575 apo of separation; G2348 thnesko to die, be dead. G2288: thanatos: THAT SEPARATION OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY by which the life on earth is ended; G3498: nekros: DESTITUTE OF A LIFE; INACTIVE deceased, departed;
Oxford English Dictionary page 652: Literally and in senses directly connected said of things THAT HAVE BEEN ALIVE. That has ceased to live; deprived of life in that state in which the vital functions and powers have come to an end. And are incapable of being restored. Specifically used of that which has died of ITSELF instead of being killed. As good as dead in respect to something insensible to of things, practices, FEELINGS. Deprived of; void of life wanting some vital or characteristic physical qualities; Jude 12, (twice dead – second death = the lost) Romans 5:15, (First death to all creation) Ephesians 2:5 (Dead in Sins) vs Romans 6:2 (Dead to Sin)
Middle English bireven, from Old English bereafian “to deprive of, take away by violence, seize, rob,” from be- + reafian “rob, plunder,” from Proto-Germanic *raubōjanan, from PIE *runp- “to break” (see corrupt (adj.)). A common Germanic formation; compare Old Frisian biravia “despoil, rob, deprive (someone of something),” Old Saxon biroban, Dutch berooven, Old High German biroubon, German berauben, Gothic biraubon.
We see and we must apprehend (grasp, capture and thoroughly understand) that to die we must go to the cross and to go to the cross is by faith and in continual living IN the Word of God which splits SOUL from SPIRIT.
Hebrews 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.”
King James Version (KJV)
QuoteS from Watchman Nee’s Spiritual Man:
THE NECESSITY FOR DEATH To the degree that a believer is enlightened by the Holy Spirit into apprehending something of the pitiful condition of being fleshly, to that extent will his struggle with the flesh be intensified; and more often will be manifested his failures. In defeat he will be shown more of the sin and frailty of his flesh in order that he may be aroused to an increased indignation at himself and an ardent determination to contend with the sin of his flesh. Such a chain reaction may extend protractedly until at last, through experiencing the deeper work of the cross, he is delivered. That the Holy Spirit should lead us in just this way is truly fraught with meaning. Before the cross can do its deeper work there must be an adequate preparation.
Struggle and failure supply just that. Apropos the believer’s experience, although he may agree mentally with God’s estimate of the flesh that it is corrupted to the core and irredeemable, he nevertheless may lack that clear spiritual insight which accurately appreciates the defilement and corruptness of the flesh. He may suppose what God says to be true. But though the believer still would never say so, he still tries to tinker with his flesh. Many believers, ignorant of the salvation of God, attempt to conquer the flesh by battling it. They hold that victory depends upon the measure of power they have. These therefore earnestly anticipate God will grant them increased spiritual power to enable them to subdue their flesh.
This battle normally extends over a long period, marked by more defeats than victories, until finally it seems complete victory over the flesh is unrealizable. During this time the believer continues on the one hand to wage war and on the other to try improving or disciplining his flesh. He prays, he searches the Bible, he sets up many rules (“do not handle, do not taste, do not touch”) in the vain hope of subduing and taming the flesh. He unwittingly tumbles into the trap of treating the evil of the flesh as due to the lack of rules, education and civilization. If only he could give his flesh some spiritual training, thinks he, he will be freed from its trouble. He does not comprehend that such treatment is useless (Col. 2.21-23).
Because of the Christian’s confusion in apparently desiring the destruction of the flesh while concurrently trying to refine it, the Holy Spirit must allow him to strive, to be defeated, and then to suffer under self-accusation. Only after he has had this experience over and over again will the believer realize that the flesh is irredeemable and his method futile. He then will search out another kind of salvation. Thus he now has come to appreciate in his experience what before he merely came to know in his mind. If a child of God faithfully and honestly believes in God and sincerely entreats the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s holiness to him so that he may know his flesh in that light, the Spirit certainly will do so.
Henceforth he may perhaps be spared many sufferings. But such believers are few. Most trust in their own method, assuming that they are not that bad after all. In order to correct this incorrect assumption, the Holy Spirit patiently leads believers into experiencing little by little the futility of their own devices. We have observed that we cannot yield to the flesh; nor can we repair, regulate, or educate it, because none of our methods can ever alter in the slightest the nature of the flesh.
What then can be done? The flesh must die. This is God’s way. Not through any other avenue but death is it to be. We would prefer to tame the flesh by striving, by changing it, by exercising the will, or by innumerable other means; but God’s prescription is death.
If the flesh is dead, are not all problems automatically solved? The flesh is not to be conquered; it is to die. This is most reasonable when considered in relation to how we became flesh in the first place: “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” We became flesh by being born of it. Now the exit simply follows the entrance. The way of possessing is the way of losing. Since we became flesh by being born of the flesh, it naturally follows that we shall be freed from it if the flesh dies. Crucifixion is the one and only way. “For he who has died is freed from sin” (Rom. 6.7). Anything less than death is insufficient. Death is the only salvation. The flesh is most defiled (2 Peter 2.10-22); God accordingly does not attempt to change it. There is no method of deliverance other than to put it to death. Even the precious blood of the Lord Jesus cannot cleanse the flesh. We find in the Bible how His blood washes our sin but never washes our flesh. It must be crucified (Gal. 5.24). The Holy Spirit can not reform the flesh; therefore He will not dwell in the midst of sinful flesh. His abiding in the believer is not for the purpose of improving, but for warring against, the flesh (Gal 5.17). “It (the holy anointing oil which is a type of the Holy Spirit) shall not be poured upon the bodies of ordinary men” (Ex. 30.32). If such be the case, how absurd for us frequently to pray that the Lord will make us good and loving so that we may serve Him! How vain is that hope which aims at a holy position some day wherein we may be daily with the Lord and are able to glorify Him in all things! Indeed, we should never attempt to repair the flesh in order to make it cooperate with the Spirit of God. The flesh is ordained to death. Only by consigning the flesh to the cross may we be liberated from being enslaved permanently by it.
THE DELIVERANCE OF THE CROSS Upon reciting many deeds of the flesh in his Galatian letter, the Apostle Paul then points out that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5.24). Here is deliverance. Is it not strange that what concerns the believer vastly differs from what concerns God? The former is concerned with “the works of the flesh” (Gal. 5.19), that is, with the varying sins of the flesh. He is occupied with today’s anger, tomorrow’s jealousy, or the day after tomorrow’s strife. The believer mourns over a particular sin and longs for victory over it. Yet all these sins are but fruits from the same tree. While plucking one fruit (actually one cannot pick off any), out crops another. One after another they grow, giving him no chance for victory. On the other hand God is concerned not with the works of the flesh but with “the flesh” itself (Gal. 5.24).
Had the tree been put to death, would there be any need to fear lest it bear fruit? The believer busily makes plans to handle sins: which are the fruits, while forgetting to deal with the flesh itself: which is the root. No wonder that before he can clear up one sin, another has burst forth. We must therefore deal today with the source of sin. Babes in Christ need to appropriate the deeper meaning of the cross, for they are still carnal. The aim of God is to crucify the believer’s old man with Christ with the result that they who belong to Christ “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Bear in mind that it is the flesh together with its powerful passions and desires that has been crucified. As the sinner was regenerated and redeemed from his sins through the cross, so now the carnal babe in Christ must be delivered from the rule of the flesh by the same cross so that he can walk according to the Spirit and no longer according to the flesh.
Thereafter it will not be long before he becomes a spiritual Christian. Here we find the contrast between the fall of man and the operation of the cross. The salvation provided by the latter is just the remedy for the former. How fitting indeed they are to each other. Firstly, Christ died on the cross for the sinner to remit his sin. A holy God could now righteously forgive him. But secondly, the sinner as well died on the cross with Christ so that he might not be controlled any longer by his flesh. Only this can enable man’s spirit to regain its proper rule, make the body its outward servant and the soul its intermediary. In this way the spirit, the soul, and the body are restored to their original position before the fall.
If we are ignorant of the meaning of the death herein described we shall not be delivered. May the Holy Spirit be our Revealer. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus” refers to every believer in the Lord. All who have believed Him and are born anew belong to Him. The deciding factor is whether one has been related to Christ in life, not how spiritual one is or what work he does for the Lord nor whether he has been freed from sin, has overcome the passions and desires of his flesh, and is now wholly sanctified. In other words, the question can only be: has one been regenerated or not? Has one believed in the Lord Jesus as his Savior or not? If he has, no matter what his current spiritual state may be: in victory or in defeat: he “has crucified the flesh.” The issue before us is not a moral one, nor is it a matter of spiritual life, knowledge, or work.
It simply is whether he is the Lord’s. If so, then he already has crucified the flesh on the cross. The meaning clearly is not that of going to crucify, or of in the process of crucifying, but has crucified.
It may be helpful to be more explicit here. We have indicated that the crucifixion of the flesh is not dependent upon experiences, however different they may be; rather is it contingent upon the fact of God’s finished work. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus”: the weak as well as the strong: “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” You say you still sin, but God says you have been crucified on the cross. You say your temper persists, but God’s answer is that you have been crucified. You say your lusts remain very potent, but again God replies that your flesh has been crucified on the cross. For the moment will you please not look at your experience, but just hearken to what God says to you. If you do not listen to His Word and instead look daily upon your situation, you will never enter into the reality of your flesh having been crucified on the cross. Disregard your feelings and experience.
God pronounces your flesh crucified; it therefore has been crucified. Simply respond to God’s Word and you shall have experience. When God tells you that “your flesh has been crucified” you should answer with “Amen, indeed my flesh has been crucified.” In thus acting upon His Word you shall see your flesh is dead indeed.
The believers at Corinth had indulged in sins of fornication, jealousies, contentions, party spirit, lawsuits and many others. They were plainly carnal. True, they were “babes in Christ”; nevertheless they were of Christ. Can it actually be said that these carnal believers had had their flesh crucified on the cross? The answer undeniably is yes; even these had had their flesh crucified. How is this so? We should realize that the Bible never tells us to have ourselves crucified; it informs us only that we “were crucified.”
We should understand that we are not to be crucified individually but that we have been crucified together with Christ (Gal. 2.20; Rom. 6.6). If it is a crucifixion together then the occasion when the Lord Jesus was Himself crucified is that moment when our flesh too was crucified. Furthermore, the co-crucifixion is not inflicted on us personally since it was the Lord Jesus who took us to the cross at His crucifixion. Wherefore God considers our flesh as crucified already. To Him it is an accomplished fact. Whatever may be our personal experiences God declares that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.”
In order to possess such death we must not give too large a place to discovering how or to noticing our experience; we should instead believe God’s Word. “God says my flesh has been crucified so I believe it is crucified. I acknowledge that what God says is true.” By responding in this fashion we shall soon encounter the reality of it. If we look at God’s fact first our experience will follow next. From God’s perspective these Corinthians did have their flesh crucified on the cross with the Lord Jesus; but from their point of view they certainly did not have such an experience personally. Perhaps this was due to their not knowing God’s fact. Hence the first step towards deliverance is to treat the flesh according to God’s viewpoint. And what is that? It is not in trying to crucify the flesh but in acknowledging that it has been crucified, not in walking according to our sight but according to our faith in the Word of God. If we are well established on this point of acknowledging the flesh as already crucified, then we shall be able to proceed in dealing with the flesh experimentally. If we waver over this fact, the possibility of our definitely possessing it will escape us. In order to experience co-crucifixion we first must set aside our current situation and simply trust the Word of God.
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND EXPERIENCE “While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions . . . were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are . . . dead. . .” (Rom. 7.5-6). Because of this the flesh has no rule over us any further. We have believed and acknowledged that our flesh has been crucified on the cross. Now: not before: we can turn our attention to the matter of experience. Though we presently stress experience, we nevertheless firmly hold to the fact of our crucifixion with Christ. What God has done for us and what we experience of God’s completed work, though distinguishable, are inseparable. God has done what He could do. The question next is, what attitude do we assume towards His finished work? Not just in name but in actuality has He crucified our flesh on the cross. If we believe and if we exercise our will to choose what God has accomplished for us, it will become our life experience. We are not asked to do anything because God has done it all. We are not required to crucify our flesh for God has crucified it on the cross. Do you believe this is true? Do you desire to possess it in your life? If we believe and if we desire then we shall cooperate with the Holy Spirit in obtaining rich experience. Colossians 3.5 implores us to “put to death therefore what is earthly in you.” This is the path towards experience. The “therefore” indicates the consequence of what precedes it in verse 3; namely, “you have died.”
The “you have died” is what God has achieved for us. Because “you have died,” therefore “put to death what is earthly in you.” The first mention of death here is our factual position in Christ; the second, our actual experience.
The failure of believers today can be traced to a failure to see the relationship between these two deaths. Some have attempted to put their flesh to naught for they lay stress only upon the death experience.
Their flesh consequently grows livelier with each dealing! Others have acknowledged the truth that their flesh in fact was crucified with Christ on the cross; yet they do not seek the practical reality of it. Neither of these can ever appropriate experimentally the crucifixion of the flesh. If we desire to put our members to death we first must have a ground for such action; otherwise we merely rely upon our strength.
No degree of zeal can ever bring the desired experience to us. Moreover, if we only know our flesh has been crucified with Christ but are not exercised to have His accomplished work carried out in us, our knowledge too will be unavailing. A putting to naught requires a knowing first of an identification in His death; knowing our identification, we must exercise the putting to death. These two must go together. We are deceiving ourselves should we be satisfied with just perceiving the fact of identification, thinking we are now spiritual because the flesh has been destroyed; on the other hand, it is an equal deception if in putting to naught the wicked deeds of the flesh we over-emphasize them and fail to take a death attitude towards the flesh. Should we forget that the flesh is dead we shall never be able to lay anything to rest. The “put to death” is contingent upon the “you have died.”
This putting to death means bringing the death of the Lord Jesus to bear upon all the deeds of the flesh. The crucifixion of the Lord is a most authoritative one for it puts away everything it encounters. Since we are united with Him in His crucifixion we can apply His death to any member which is tempted to lust and immediately put it to nought. Our union with Christ in His death signifies that it is an accomplished fact in our spirits.
What a believer must do now is to bring this sure death out of his spirit and apply it to his members each time his wicked lusts may be aroused.
Such spiritual death is not a once for all proposition. Whenever the believer is not watchful or loses his faith, the flesh will certainly go on a rampage. If he desires to be conformed completely to the Lord’s death, he must unceasingly put to nought the deeds of his members so that what is real in the spirit may be executed in the body. But whence comes the power to so apply the crucifixion of the Lord to our members? It is “by the Spirit,” insists Paul, that “you put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8.13),
To put away these deeds the believer must rely upon the Holy Spirit to translate his co-crucifixion with Christ into personal experience. He must believe that the Holy Spirit will administer the death of the cross on whatever needs to die.
In view of the fact that the believer’s flesh was crucified with Christ on the cross, he does not need today to be crucified once again. All which is required is to apply, by the Holy Spirit, the accomplished death of the Lord Jesus for him on the cross to any particular wicked deed of the body which now tries to rise up. It will then be put aside by the power of the Lord’s death. The wicked works of the flesh may spring up at any time and at any place; accordingly, unless the child of God by the Holy Spirit continually turns to account that power of the holy death of our Lord Jesus, he will not be able to triumph. But if in this way he lays the deeds of the body to rest, the Holy Spirit Who indwells him will ultimately realize God’s purpose of putting the body of sin out of a job (Rom. 6.6).
By thus appropriating the cross the babe in Christ will be liberated from the power of the flesh and will be united with the Lord Jesus in resurrection life. Henceforth the Christian should “walk by the Spirit” and should “not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal. 5.16). We always should remember that however deeply our Lord’s cross may penetrate into our lives we cannot expect to avoid further agitations of the wicked deeds of our members without constant vigilance.
Whenever one of God’s own fails to follow the Holy Spirit he immediately reverts to following the flesh. God unveils to us the reality of our flesh through His Apostle Paul’s delineation of the Christian’s self in Romans 7 from verse 5 onward. The moment the Christian ceases to heed the Holy Spirit he instantly fits into the carnal life pattern described here. Some assume that because Romans 7 stands between Chapters 6 and 8 the activity of the flesh will become past history as soon as the believer has passed through it and entered into the life of the Spirit in Romans 8. In actuality Chapters 7 and 8 run concurrently.
Whenever a believer does not walk by the Spirit as in Romans 8 he is immediately engulfed in the experience of Romans 7. “So then I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (7.25). You will notice that Paul concludes his description of his experience given before this verse 25 by using the phrase “so then.”
He encounters incessant defeat up through verse 24; only in verse 25 does he enter into victory: “Thanks be unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (v.25a). Upon gaining victory over constant defeat we read Paul saying: “I of myself serve the law of God with my mind.” Here he is telling us that his new life desires what God desires. That, however, is not the whole story; for Paul immediately continues by declaring: “but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” And this we find him saying just after his victory of verse 25a. The obvious inference is that no matter how much his inner mind may serve God’s law, his flesh always serves sin’s law. However much he may be delivered from the flesh it remains unchanged and continues to serve sin’s law (v.25), because the flesh is forever the flesh. Our life in the Holy Spirit may be deepened, but this will not alter the nature of the flesh or prevent it from serving the law of sin. If we therefore desire to be led of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8.14) and freed from the oppression of the flesh, we must put to death the wicked deeds of the body and walk according to the Holy Spirit.
GOD’S VIEW OF THE FLESH We Christians need to be reminded once again of God’s judgment upon the flesh. “The flesh,” says the Lord Jesus, “is of no avail” (John 6.63). Whether it be the sin of the flesh or the righteousness of the flesh, it is futile. That which is born of the flesh, whatever it may be, is flesh, and can never be “unfleshed.” Whether it be the flesh in the pulpit, the flesh in the audience, the flesh in prayers, the flesh in consecration, the flesh in reading the Bible, the flesh in singing hymns, or the flesh in doing good: none of these, asserts God, can avail. However much believers may lust in the flesh, God declares it all to be unprofitable; for neither does the flesh profit the spiritual life nor can it fulfill the righteousness of God. Let us now note a few observations concerning the flesh which the Lord through the Apostle Paul makes in the letter to the Romans. (1) “To set the mind on the flesh is death” (8.6). According to God’s view there is spiritual death in the flesh. The only escape is to commit the flesh to the cross. Regardless how competent it is to do good or to plan and plot so as to draw down the approval of men, God has pronounced upon the flesh simply one judgment: death. (2) “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God” (8.7). The flesh is opposed to God. Not the slightest chance is there of peaceful co-existence. This holds true in regard not only to the sins which issue from the flesh but also to its noblest thoughts and actions. Obviously defiling sins are hostile to God, but let us observe that righteous acts can be done independently of God as well. (3) “It does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot” (8.7). The better the flesh works the farther away it is from God. How many of the “good” people are willing to believe in the Lord Jesus?
Their self-righteousness is not righteousness at all; it is actually unrighteousness. None can ever obey all the teaching of the Holy Bible. Whether a person is good or bad, one thing is certain: he does not submit to God’s law.
In being bad he transgresses the law; in being good he establishes another righteousness outside of Christ and thus misses the purpose of the law (“through the law comes knowledge of sin” 3.20). (4) “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (8.8). This is the final verdict. Regardless how good a man may be, if the doing is out from himself it cannot please God. God is pleased with His Son alone; aside from Him and His work no man nor work can delight God. What is performed by the flesh may seem to be quite good; nevertheless, because it derives from self and is done in natural strength it cannot satisfy God.
Man may devise many ways to do good, to improve, and to advance, but these are carnal and cannot please Him. This is not only true of the unregenerate; it is likewise true of the regenerated person. However commendable and effective should anything be that is done in his own strength the believer fails to draw down upon himself the approval of God. God’s pleasure or displeasure is not founded upon the principle of good and evil. Rather, God traces the source of all things.
An action may be quite correct, yet God inquires, what is its origin? From these Scripture references we can begin to appreciate how vain and futile are the efforts of the flesh. A believer who is shown precisely God’s estimation of it will not blunder easily. As human beings we distinguish between good works and evil works; God on the other hand goes behind and makes a distinction as to the source of every work. The most excellent deed of the flesh brings down upon it the same displeasure of God as would the most defiled and wicked work, for they all are of the flesh.
Just as God hates unrighteousness, so He abhors self-righteousness. The good acts done naturally without the necessity of regeneration or union with Christ or dependence upon the Holy Spirit are no less carnal before God than are immorality, impurity, licentiousness, etc. However beautiful man’s activities may be, if they do not spring from a complete trust in the Holy Spirit they are carnal and are therefore rejected by God. God opposes, rejects and hates everything belonging to the flesh: regardless of outward appearances and regardless whether done by a sinner or a saint. His verdict is: the flesh must die.
THE BELIEVER’S EXPERIENCE But how can a believer see what God has seen? God is so adamant against the flesh and its every activity; yet the believer appears to reject only its bad features while clinging affectionately to the flesh itself. He does not reject categorically the whole thing: he instead continues to do many things in the flesh: he even assumes a self-confident and proud attitude about it as though he were now rich with God’s grace and qualified to perform righteously. The believer literally is making use of his flesh. Because of such self-deceit the Spirit of God must lead him over the most shameful path in order to make him know his flesh and attain God’s view. God allows that soul to fall, to weaken, and even to sin, that he may understand whether or not any good resides in the flesh. This usually happens to the one who thinks he is progressing spiritually.
The Lord tries him in order that he may know himself. Often the Lord so reveals His holiness to such a one that the believer cannot but judge his flesh as defiled. Sometimes He permits Satan to attack him so that, out of his suffering, he may perceive himself. It is altogether a most difficult lesson, and is not learned within a day or night. Only after many years does one gradually come to realize how untrustworthy is his flesh. There is uncleanness even in his best effort. God consequently lets him experience Romans 7 deeply until he is ready to acknowledge with Paul: “I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh” (v.18). How hard to learn to say this genuinely! If it were not for countless experiences of painful defeat the believer would continue to trust himself and consider himself able. Those hundreds and thousands of defeats bring him to concede that all selfrighteousness is totally undependable, that no good abides in his flesh. Such dealing, however, does not terminate here. Self-judgment must continue. For whenever a Christian ceases to judge himself by failing to treat the flesh as useless and utterly detestable but assuming instead even a slightly self-flattering and vainglorious attitude, then God is compelled to run him again through fire in order to consume the dregs. How few are they who humble themselves and acknowledge their uncleanness! Unless such a state is realized God will not withdraw His dealings. Since a believer cannot be freed from the influence of the flesh for a moment, he should never cease exercising the heart to judge himself; otherwise he will step once more into the boasting of the flesh. Many suppose the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin pertains just to the people of the world, for does He not convict them of their sins into believing the Lord Jesus? But Christians ought to know that such operation of the Holy Spirit is as important in the saints as it is in the sinners. Out of necessity He must convict the saints of their sins, not merely once or twice but daily and incessantly. May we more and more experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit so that our flesh can be put under judgment unceasingly and never be able to reign. May we not lose, even for a moment, the true picture of our flesh and God’s estimation of it. Let us never believe in ourselves and never trust our flesh again, as though it could ever please God. Let us always trust the Holy Spirit and at no time yield the slightest place to self. If ever there was one in the world who could boast of his flesh that person must be Paul, for as to righteousness under the law he was blameless. And if any could boast of his flesh following regeneration, it certainly must be Paul again because he has become an apostle who has seen the risen Lord with his own eyes and who is used greatly by the Lord. But Paul dare not boast, for he knows his flesh. His Romans 7 experience enables him to realize fully who he is. God already has opened his eyes to see via his experience that there dwells in his flesh no good, only sin. The self-righteousness of which he boasted in the past he now knows to be refuse and sin. He has learned and learned well this lesson; hence be dare not trust the flesh again. But with this lesson he does not in any wise cease. No, Paul continues to learn. And so the Apostle declares that he can “put no confidence in the flesh. Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If any other man thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more” (Phil. 3.3-4).
Despite the many reasons he can marshal for trusting his flesh (vv. 5-6), Paul realizes how God regards it and well understands how absolutely undependable and untrustworthy it is. If we continue reading Philippians 3 we shall discover how humble Paul is with respect to trusting in himself: “not having a righteousness of my own” (v.9): “that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (v.11) : “not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (v.12). Should a believer aspire to attain spiritual maturity he must preserve forever that attitude which the Apostle Paul maintained throughout his spiritual walk; namely, “not that I have already attained.” The Christian dare not entertain the slightest selfconfidence, self-satisfaction or self-joy, as though he could trust his flesh. If the children of God honestly strive for the life more abundant and are ready to accept God’s assessment of the flesh, they will not esteem themselves stronger and better than others, notwithstanding their extensive spiritual progress. They will not utter such words as “I of course am different from the others.” If these believers are disposed to let the Holy Spirit reveal to them God’s holiness and their corruption and do not fear to be shown too clearly, then hopefully they will come to perceive by the Spirit their corruption at an earlier time, with perhaps a consequent lessening of the painful experience of defeat. How lamentable it is, though, that even when one’s intention may not be to trust the flesh, there may yet lurk beneath the surface some little impurity, for such a one still thinks he has some strength. In view of this, God must permit him to encounter diverse defeats in order to eliminate even that little confidence in himself. THE CROSS AND THE DEEPER WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Because the flesh is grossly deceitful, the believer requires the cross and the Holy Spirit. Once having discerned how his flesh stands before God, he must experience each moment the deeper work of the cross through the Holy Spirit. Just as a Christian must be delivered from the sin of the flesh through the cross, so he must now be delivered from the righteousness of the flesh by the same cross. And just as by walking in the Holy Spirit the Christian will not follow the flesh unto sin, so too by walking in the Holy Spirit he will not follow the flesh unto self-righteousness. As a fact outside the believer the cross has been accomplished perfectly and entirely: to deepen it is not possible. As a process within the believer the cross is experienced in an ever deepening way: the Holy Spirit will teach and apply the principle of the cross in point after point. If one is faithful and obedient he will be led into continually deeper experiences of what the cross has indeed accomplished for him. The cross objectively is a finished absolute fact to which nothing can be added; but subjectively it is an unending progressive experience that can be realized in an ever more penetrating way. The reader by this time should know something more of the all-inclusive character of his having been crucified with the Lord Jesus on the cross; for only on this basis can the Holy Spirit work. The Spirit has no instrument other than that cross.
The believer by now should have a fresh understanding of Galatians 5.24. It is not “its passions and desires” alone which have been crucified; the flesh itself, including all its righteousnesses as well as its power to do righteously, has been crucified on the cross. The cross is where both passions and desires and the spring of those passions and desires are crucified, however admirable they may be. Except as one sees this and is ready to deny all his flesh, bad or good, can he in fact walk after the Holy Spirit, be pleasing to God, and live a genuinely spiritual life. Such readiness must not be lacking on his part, for though the cross as an accomplished fact is complete in itself its realization in a person’s life is measured by his knowledge and readiness and faith. Suppose the child of God refuses to deny the good of his flesh. What will be his experience? His flesh may appear to be extremely clever and powerful in undertaking many activities. But however good or strong, the flesh can never answer to God’s demands. Hence when God actually summons him to prepare to go to Calvary and suffer, the Christian soon discovers his only response is to shrink back and to become as weak as water. Why did the disciples fail so miserably in the Garden of Gethsemane? Because “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26.41). Weakness here causes failure there. The flesh can only display its apparently excellent power in matters which suit its taste. That is the reason the flesh draws back at God’s call. Its death is therefore essential, else God’s will can never be done. Whatever has the intent and desire to develop ourselves that we may be seen and admired by others belongs to the flesh. There is natural good as well as natural bad in this flesh. John 1.13 informs us of “the will of the flesh.” The flesh can will and decide and plan to execute good in order to receive God’s favor. But it still belongs to human flesh and hence must go to the cross. Colossians 2.18 speaks of “the mind of his flesh” (Darby). The self-confidence of a Christian is nothing but trusting in his wisdom, thinking he knows every teaching of the Scriptures and how to serve God. And 2 Corinthians 1.12 mentions the “wisdom” of the flesh. It is highly dangerous to receive the truths of the Bible with human wisdom, for this is a hidden and subtle method which invariably causes a believer to perfect with his flesh the work of the Holy Spirit. A very precious truth may be stored securely in the memory; however, it is merely in the mind of the flesh! The Spirit alone can quicken, the flesh profits nothing. Unless all truths are enlivened continually by the Lord, they profit neither ourselves nor others. We are not discussing sin here but the inevitable consequence of the natural life in man. Whatever is natural is not spiritual. We must not only deny our righteousness but also our wisdom. This too must be nailed to the cross. Colossians 2.23 speaks of a “worship” or “devotion” of the flesh. This is “worship” according to our opinion. Each method we devise to stir, seek, and acquire a sense of devotion is worship in the flesh. It is neither worship according to the teaching of Scripture nor worship under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Hence the possibility of walking by the flesh always exists; whether in the matter of worship, or in Christian work, or in Biblical knowledge, or in saving souls. The Bible frequently mentions the “life” of the flesh. Unless this is yielded to the cross it lives within the saint just as much as in the sinner.
The only difference is that in the saint there is spiritual opposition to it. But the possibility remains for him to take that life and draw upon it. The life of the flesh may help him to serve God, to meditate upon truth, to consecrate himself to the Lord. It may motivate him to perform many good acts. Yes, the Christian can take his natural life as true life in such a way as to make him feel he is serving the will of God. We must understand that within man two different life principles exist. Many of us live a mixed life, obeying one and then the other of these two different principles. Sometimes we entirely depend on the Spirit’s energy; at other times we mix in our own strength. Nothing seems to be stable and steadfast. “Do I make my plans like a worldly man, ready to say Yes and No at once?” (2 Cor.1.17) A characteristic of the flesh is its fickleness: it alternates between Yes and No and vice versa. But the will of God is: “Walk not according to the flesh (not even for a moment) but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8.4).
We ought to accept God’s will. “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ” (Col. 2.11). We should be willing to allow the cross, like a knife in circumcision, to cut off completely everything which pertains to the flesh. Such incision must be deep and clean so that nothing of the flesh is left concealed or can remain. The cross and the curse are inextricable (Gal. 3.13). When we consign our flesh to the cross we hand it over to the curse, acknowledging that in the flesh abides no good thing and that it deserves nothing but the curse of God. Without this heart attitude it is exceedingly difficult for us to accept the circumcision of the flesh. Every affection, desire, thought, knowledge, intent, worship and work of the flesh must go to the cross. To be crucified with Christ means to accept the curse our Lord accepted. It was not a glorious moment for Christ to be crucified on Calvary (Heb. 12.2). His being hanged on the tree meant His being accursed of God (Deut. 21.23). Consequently, for the flesh to be crucified with the Lord simply implies being accursed with the Lord. As we must receive the finished work of Christ on the cross, so must we enter into the fellowship of the cross. The believer needs to acknowledge that his flesh deserves nothing else than the curse of death. His practical fellowship with the cross begins after he sees the flesh as God sees it. Before the Holy Spirit can take full charge over a person there first must be the complete committal of his flesh to the cross. Let us pray that we may know what the flesh exactly is and how it must be crucified. Brethren, we are not humble enough to accept willingly the cross of Christ! We refuse to concede we are so helpless, useless, and utterly corrupt that we deserve nothing but death. What is lacking today is not a better living but a better dying! We need to die a good death, a thorough death. We have talked enough about life, power, holiness, righteousness; let us now take a look at death! Oh that the Holy Spirit would penetrate our flesh deeply by the cross of Christ that it might become a valid experience in our life! If we die correctly we shall live correctly. If we are united with Him in a death like His we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. May we ask the Lord to open our eyes to behold the absolute imperative of death. Are you prepared for this? Are you willing to let the Lord point out your weaknesses? Are you ready to be crucified openly outside the gate? Will you let the Spirit of the cross work within you? Oh, may we know more of His death! May we completely die! We should be clear that the death of the cross is continuous in its operation.
We can never enter upon a resurrection stage which leaves death entirely out, for the experience of resurrection is measured by the experience of death. A peril among those who pursue the ascension life is that they forget the categorical necessity of continuously putting to nought the flesh. They forsake the position of death and proceed to resurrection. This results in either treating lightly as of no serious hazard to their spiritual growth the works of the flesh, or in spiritualizing them, that is, assuming the things of the flesh to be of the spirit. How essential to see that death is the foundation for everything. You may proceed to build but you should never destroy the foundation. The so-called risen and ascended realm will be unreal if the death of the flesh is not maintained continuously. Let us not be deceived into thinking we are so spiritually advanced that the flesh has no more power to entice us. This is merely the enemy’s attempt to remove us from the basis of the cross in order to render us outwardly spiritual but inwardly carnal. Many such prayers as: “I thank you Lord, for I am no longer such and such but am now so and so” are simply echoes of the unacceptable prayer recorded in Luke 18.11-12.
We are most susceptible to deception by the flesh when we are on the verge of being delivered from it. We must abide constantly in the Lord’s death. Our security is in the Holy Spirit. The safe way lies in our readiness to be taught, fearful lest we yield any ground to the flesh. We must submit ourselves cheerfully to Christ and trust the Holy Spirit to apply the dying of Jesus to us that the life of Jesus may be exhibited. Just as formerly we were filled with the flesh, so now we shall be filled with the Holy Spirit. When He is in complete control He will overthrow the power of the flesh and manifest Christ as our life. We shall be able then to say that the “life I now live in the flesh is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Yet the foundation of that life is and always will be that “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2.20)! If we live by faith and obedience we can expect the Spirit to do a most holy and wonderful work in us. “If we live by the Spirit”: this is our faith, for we believe that the Holy Spirit abides in us; then “let us also walk by the Spirit”: this is our obedience (Gal. 5.25). We ought to believe simply and restfully that our Lord has given us His Spirit, now abiding in us. Believe in His gift and trust that the Holy Spirit indwells you. Take this as the secret of Christ’s life in you: His Spirit dwells in your innermost spirit. Meditate on it, believe in it, and remember it until this glorious truth produces within you a holy fear and wonderment that the Holy Spirit indeed abides in you! Now learn to follow His leading. Such guidance emerges not from the mind or thoughts; it is something of life. We must yield to God and let His Spirit govern everything. He will manifest the Lord Jesus in our life because this is His task.
without them, they can scarcely move a step. A very common expression of a soulish walk manifests itself in the will: that power of self-assertion. Through it believers who live in the soul make self the center of every thought, word and action. They want to know for their satisfaction, feel for their enjoyment, labor according to their plan. The hub of their life is self and the ultimate aim is to glorify themselves. Previously we learned that the term “soul” in the Bible is translated also as “living creature” or “animal.” It simply connotes “the animal life.” This should help to indicate to us how soul power expresses itself. The most appropriate phrase which can be selected to describe the life and work of soulish believers is “animal activities” or “animal aliveness”: much planning, numerous activities, confused thinking, and mixed emotions: the whole being, both within and without, in agitation and turmoil. When emotion is activated the rest of the being naturally follows suit. But if emotion is depressed or sensation has cooled somewhat, the mind will remain excited in its own right. The walk of a carnal Christian is characterized by perpetual movement: if not physical activity, then mental or emotional liveliness. Such a walk is bristling with “animal aliveness”; it is far from communicating the life of the spirit. We may summarize by saying that the tendency of the fallen soul is to set believers to walking by their natural power, to serve God with their strength and according to their ideas, to covet physical sensation in knowing the Lord or experiencing the Lord’s presence, and to understand the Word of God by the power of their minds. Unless a Christian has received from God a view of his natural self, he unquestionably shall serve God in the energy of his created life. This inflicts great damage upon his spiritual life and results in his bearing little if any true spiritual fruit. Believers must be shown by the Holy Spirit the shamefulness of performing spiritual work with creaturely power. Just as we consider it disgraceful for an ambitious child to flatter himself, so similarly God regards our “animal activity” in spiritual service to be a disgrace. May we be rich in the experience of repenting in dust and ashes instead of striving for the first place before men.
CHAPTER 4: THE CROSS AND THE SOUL THE CALL OF THE CROSS On at least four separate occasions and recorded in the four Gospels the Lord Jesus called His disciples to deny their soul life, deliver it to death, and then to follow Him. The Lord fully recognizes that this is the sine qua non for any believer who desires to follow Him and to be perfect like Him in serving men and in obeying God. The Lord Jesus mentions soul life in all these calls, yet He places a different emphasis upon each. Since soul life can express itself in various ways, the Lord stresses a different aspect each time. Anyone who would be a disciple of the Lord must give close attention to what He has said. He is summoning men to commit their natural life to the cross. THE CROSS AND SOULICAL AFFECTION “He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. He who finds his (soul) life will lose it, and he who loses his (soul) life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10.38-39). These verses beckon us to relinquish our soul life and hand it over to the cross for the Lord’s sake. The Lord Jesus explains how a man’s foes shall be those of his household; how the son, for the sake of the Lord, shall be torn away from his father, the daughter from her mother, the daughter-in-law from her mother-in-law. This constitutes a cross and the cross denotes being crucified. It is our natural inclination to cherish our beloved ones. We are happy to listen to them and willing to respond to their bidding. But the Lord Jesus calls us to not rebel against God because of our beloved ones. When the desire of God and the desire of man are in conflict, we must for the Lord’s sake take up our cross by committing our soulical affection to death, even though the person we love is dear to us, and even though under ordinary circumstances we would be most reluctant to hurt him.
The Lord Jesus beckons us in this way so that we may be purified from our natural love. It is for this reason that He therefore declares that the one “who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (v.37). “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his 27). Now Matthew shows us in the matter of affection how believers ought to choose loving the Lord first rather than one’s family; while Luke signifies what attitude must be maintained towards the love which arises from our soul life: we ought to hate it. Strictly speaking, we are not to love just because the objects of our affection are those whom we would naturally love. Dear and near as parents, brothers, sisters, wives and children are to us, they are listed among the forbidden. Such human love flows from soul life which will cling to its heart desires and will call for love in return. The Lord maintains that such soul life needs to be delivered to death. Though we do not now see Him, He wants us to love Him. He desires us to deny our natural love. He wishes to rid us of our natural love towards others so that we will not love with our own love. Of course He wills that we should love others, but not with our natural soulical affection. If we love, let it be for the sake of the Lord and not for their sake. A new relationship comes to us in the Lord. We should receive from Him His love so that we may love others. In a word, our love must be governed by the Lord. Should He desire us to, we must love even our enemies: if He does not ask us to, we cannot love even the dearest of our household. He does not want our heart to be attached anywhere because He wants us to serve Him freely. This new love relationship being the case, the soul life must be denied. That is a cross. In so obeying Christ as to disregard his natural affection, a believer’s natural love suffers intensely. Such sorrow and pain becomes a practical cross to him.
Deep are the heart wounds and many are the tears when one has to forfeit the one he loves. These inflict intense sufferings upon our lives. How very loathe the soul is to yield up its beloved for the Lord’s sake! But through this very action is the soul delivered to death; yea, it even becomes willing to die; and thus the believer is liberated from the power of the soul. Upon losing its natural affection on the cross the soul cedes ground to the Holy Spirit that He may shed abroad in the believer’s heart the love of God, and enable him to love in God and with the love of God. Let it be observed that, humanly speaking, this expression of the soul is quite legitimate, for it is most natural and is not defiled as is sin. Is not the love we have mentioned shared by all men? What illegitimacy can there be in loving those of one’s family? Hence we know that our Lord is summoning us to overcome the natural, even to denying man’s legal right . . . for the sake of God. God wants us to love Him more than our Isaac. It is true that this soul life is given by the Creator; nevertheless, He desires us not to be governed by that life principle. People of the world cannot understand why; only the believer who is losing himself gradually into the life of God can comprehend its meaning. Who can appreciate God’s asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac whom God Himself had first given? Those who apprehend God’s heart make no attempt to cling to God-imparted gifts; rather do they desire to rest in God, the Giver of all gifts. God wills for us to be attached to nothing aside from Him, whether it be man or a thing or even something conferred on us by Himself. Many Christians are quite disposed to leave Ur of the Chaldees, but few there be who can see the need to sacrifice on Mount Moriah what God has given. This is one of the penetrating lessons of faith and relates to our being united with God. He requires His children to forsake everything that they may be wholly His. They must not only rid themselves of whatever they know to be harmful but also yield to the cross whatever is humanly legitimate: such as affection: in order that they may be entirely under the authority of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord’s demand is most meaningful, for is it not true that human affection is tremendously uncontrollable? Without consigning it to the cross and losing it, affection can become a formidable obstacle to spiritual life. Human feelings change as the world changes. Their easy excitement can occasion a saint to lose his spiritual balance. Their constant disturbance can affect a believer’s peace in his spirit. Do not sorrows, moanings, sighs and tears usually result from hurt feelings? If the Lord is not pre-eminent in our affections He can hardly be Lord in other respects. This is a test of spirituality and a measure of its degree. We must accordingly hate our soul life and refuse its affections to have free rein. The Lord’s demand differs completely from our natural desire. What was previously loved shall now be hated; and even the organ which generates love, our soul life, must be abhorred as well. Such is the spiritual way. If we verily bear the cross we shall be neither controlled nor influenced by soulical affection but shall be fit to love in the power of the Holy Spirit. Even so did the Lord Jesus love His family while on earth.
THE CROSS AND THE SOUL’S LOVE OF THE WORLD Once again our Lord speaks: “Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17.32-33). Although these are by now familiar words to the reader, we must note the Lord here lays stress upon selfdenial in relation to the things of this world. How irksome it seems for believers to have their hearts detached from earthly possessions. We need to follow our Lord’s admonition to remember Lot’s wife, for she was one who did not forget her possessions even in a time of the greatest peril. She was not guilty of having retraced a single step towards Sodom. All she did was look back. But how revealing was that backward glance! Does it not speak volumes concerning the condition of her heart? It is possible for a believer outwardly to forsake the world and leave everything behind and yet inwardly cling to those very elements he had forsaken for the Lord’s sake. It does not require a consecrated person to return to the world or to repossess what he had forsaken in the world to indicate that the soul life is still active. If he but casts one longing glance it is sufficient to disclose to us that he does not truly recognize where the world stands in relation to the cross. When the soul life is genuinely crushed nothing of this world can again move a believer’s heart. Soul life is worldly; hence it is attached to the things of the world. Only after one is actually willing to offer his soul life to death will he be fit to follow the “Sermon on the Mount” without flinching. Though in that “sermon” we do not find the Lord Jesus mentioning the work of the cross, we nonetheless know for certain that unless one experiences identification with Christ in death: not merely having died to sin but having died to the self life as well: he attempts in vain to keep our Lord’s teachings enunciated on the Mount. He may appear to be following these instructions, but his heart is not one with his appearance. Only a Christian who has yielded his soul life can spontaneously and unpretentiously give away his cloak when he has been sued for his coat. He whose self life has been sacrificed to death is cut loose from the things of the world. Gaining spiritual life is conditional on suffering loss.
We cannot measure our lives in terms of “gain”; they must be measured in terms of “loss.” Our real capacity lies not in how much we retain but in how much has been poured out. Those who can afford to lose the most are those who have the most to give. The power of love is attested by love’s sacrifice. If our hearts are not separated from love of the world, our soul life has yet to go through the cross. “And you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property” (Heb. 10.34). The believers referred to in this passage did not simply endure but even joyfully accepted the plundering of their goods. This is the work of the cross. The attitude of saints towards their possessions most assuredly signifies whether they continue to preserve their self life or whether they have consigned it to death. If we desire to tread a pure spiritual path we must allow God to so operate in us that our hearts can be severed from everything pertaining to the world and be totally released from the intent of Lot’s wife. This is the prerequisite for experiencing perfect life in Christ. We can despise all the things in the world only after the Holy Spirit has shown the reality of heaven and its perfect life. Matters below and matters above defy comparison. The experience of the Apostle in Philippians 3 begins with esteeming everything as loss and proceeds to suffering the loss of all things. Therein does the Apostle come to know Christ and the power of His resurrection. Such is the perfect way. Often we are unconscious how powerful our self is until tested in regard to material matters. At times it seems we require more grace to lose our wealth than to lose our life! Earthly things truly represent an acid test for soul life. God’s children who indulge in eating and drinking and in ease and comfort need a deeper cutting away of the cross to free their spirit from the bondage and influence of the soul and to be free to live in God. Any who still hanker after the things of the world have yet to learn how to lose their soul life through the deep penetration of the cross. THE CROSS AND SOUL POWER In the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus touches upon soul life once more. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (12.24-25). He subsequently gives the explanation with these words: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (v.32). John 12 records the most prosperous moment in our Lord’s life. Lazarus had been raised from the dead and many Jews believed in Him. Triumphantly He entered into Jerusalem and was acclaimed by the populace. Even Gentiles sought to see Him. From the human viewpoint Calvary would now seem to be quite unnecessary, for could He not easily attract all men to Himself without going to the cross? But He knew better.
Although his work appeared to be prosperous, He realized He could not grant life to men without His going to death. Calvary was the only way of salvation. If He died, He would draw all men to Himself and could indeed give life to all. In John 12 the Lord explicitly describes the operation of the cross. He compares Himself to a grain of wheat. If it does not fall into the earth and die it remains alone. But if He be crucified and die, He shall impart life to many. The one condition is death. No death, no fruit. No other way is there to bear fruit than through death. Our purpose, however, is not simply to learn about the Lord Jesus. We wish beyond this to draw particular attention to its relationship to our soul life. The Lord applies the grain of wheat to Himself in verse 24, but in verse 25 He implies that every one of His disciples must follow in His footsteps. He pictures the grain as representing their self life. Just as a grain is unable to bear fruit unless it dies, so there can be no spiritual fruit until the natural life has been broken through death. Here he emphasizes the matter of fruitfulness. While the soul life does possess tremendous power it nevertheless cannot fulfill the work of fruit-bearing. All the energies generated in the soul including talent, gift, knowledge and wisdom, cannot enable believers to bear spiritual fruit. If the Lord Jesus must die to bear fruit so also must His disciples die in order to produce fruit. The Lord regards soulish power as of no help to God in His work of fruit-bearing. The greatest peril for us in Christian service is to lean upon our selves and to draw upon our soul power: upon our talent, gift, knowledge, magnetism, eloquence or cleverness. The experience of countless spiritual believers confirms that unless our soulishness is definitely delivered to death and its life at all times inhibited from operating, it will be most active in service. If this is true of them, then how can those who are unwilling to yield up, or unwatchful in denying, their soul life prevent the intrusion of that life? Everything pertaining to our natural life must be handed over to death so that in no sense may we depend upon any of it but be willing instead to be led through death’s darkness of no support, no sensation, no sight, no understanding, and silently trust God Himself to work until we emerge on the other side of resurrection to possess a more glorious life. “He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Our soul is not annihilated; rather, by passing through death it affords God an opportunity to communicate His life to us. Not to lose the soul life in death shall mean great loss for the believer; but in losing it he will save it for eternity.
Do not misunderstand this verse as signifying the inactivity of our mind and talent. The Lord clearly asserts that in losing our soul life we will keep it unto eternal life. Just as “the sinful body might be destroyed” (Rom. 6.6) does not mean the destruction of the hands, feet, ears and eyes of the human body, so too the committal of the soul life to death must not be construed as connoting the negation or destruction of any of its functions. Even though the body of sin has been destroyed, we still yield our “members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 6.13); just so, when natural life is sacrificed to death, we shall find renewal, revival and restraint of the Holy Spirit in all the faculties of our soul. It cannot therefore imply that henceforth we become wood and stone without feeling, thought or will because we must not or cannot use any of the parts of the soul. Every part of the body as well as every organ of the soul still exists and is meant to be fully engaged; only now they are being renewed, revived and restrained by the Holy Spirit. The point at issue is whether the soul’s faculties are to be regulated by our natural life or by the supernatural life which indwells our spirit. These faculties remain as usual. What is unusual now is that the power which formerly activated them has been put to death; the Holy Spirit has made God’s supernatural power their life.
CHAPTER 5: SPIRITUAL BELIEVERS AND THE SOUL THE DIVIDING OF SPIRIT AND SOUL Our Lengthy Discussion as to the difference between spirit and soul and their respective operations has been to lead us to this present point. For a believer who strives after God the element to be apprehensive about is the inordinate activity of the soul beyond the measure set by God. The soul has been in ascendancy for such long duration that in the matter of consecration it even presumes to take upon itself the task of realizing that act to God’s satisfaction. Many Christians are unaware how drastically the cross must work so that ultimately their natural power for living may be denied. They do not know the reality of the indwelling Holy Spirit nor that His authority must extend to gathering under His control the thoughts, desires and feelings of the entire being. Without their having an inner appreciation of this, the Holy Spirit is unable to accomplish everything He wishes to do. The greatest temptation for an earnest and zealous saint is to engage his own strength in God’s service rather than to wait humbly for the Holy Spirit to will and to perform. The call of the cross of the Lord Jesus is to beckon us to hate our natural life, to seek opportunity to lose, not to keep, it. Our Lord wants us to sacrifice self and be yielded wholly to the working of His Spirit. If we are to experience afresh His true life in the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we must be willing to present to death every opinion, labor and thought of the soul life.
The Lord additionally touches upon the issue of our hating or loving our self life. The soul is invariably “self-loving.” Unless from the very depth of our heart we abhor our natural life, we shall not be able to walk genuinely by the Holy Spirit. Do we not realize that the basic condition for a spiritual walk is to fear our self and its wisdom and to rely absolutely upon the Spirit? This war between the soul and the spirit is waged secretly but interminably within God’s children. The soul seeks to retain its authority and move independently, while the spirit strives to possess and master everything for the maintenance of God’s authority. Before the spirit achieves its ascendancy the soul has tended to take the lead in all regards. Should a believer allow self to be the master while expecting the Holy Spirit to help and to bless him in his work, he undoubtedly will fail to produce spiritual fruit. Christians cannot anticipate a walk and work pleasing to God if they have not crushed their soul life by persistently denying its authority and unconditionally laying it in the dust. Except all power, impatience, and activity of the natural life are deliberately and one by one delivered to the cross and a ceaseless vigil is maintained, it will seize every chance to revive itself. The reason for so many defeats in the spiritual realm is because this sector of the soul has not been dealt with drastically. If soul life is not stripped away through death but is allowed to mingle with the spirit, believers shall continue in defeat. If our walk does not exclusively express God’s power it shall soon be vanquished by man’s wisdom and opinion.
THE SOUL UNDER THE SPIRIT’S CONTROL Very early in this volume we likened our whole being: spirit, soul, and body: to the ancient Jewish temple of God’s habitation. God dwells in the Holy of Holies. A curtain separates it from the Holy Place. This curtain seems to enclose God’s glory and presence within the Holy of Holies, barring His glory from the Holy Place. Men of that time therefore can only know the things outside the curtain in the Holy Place. Apart from faith they in their outward life cannot sense the presence of God. This curtain, however, only exists temporarily. At the appointed hour, when the flesh of our Lord Jesus (which is the reality of the curtain, Heb. 10.20) was crucified on the cross, the curtain was rent from top to bottom. What separated the Holiest and the Holy Place was removed. God’s aim was not to dwell permanently just in the Holy of Holies. Quite the contrary. He desired to extend His presence to the Holy Place too. He was merely waiting for the cross to complete its work, for it is the cross alone which can rend the curtain and permit God’s glory to shine out from the Holiest Place. God today would have His own enjoy such a temple experience in their spirit and soul: if only the cross is allowed to perfect its work in them. As they ungrudgingly obey the Holy Spirit the communion between the Holy and the Holiest grows deeper day by day until they experience a great change. It is the cross which effects the rending of the curtain; that is, the cross so functions in the life of the believer that he has a rent-curtain experience between his spirit and soul. His natural life renounces its independence and waits upon the spirit life for direction and supply. The curtain was torn in two, “from top to bottom” (Mark 15.38).
This has to be God’s doing, not man’s. When the work of the cross is finished God tears the curtain. This cannot be achieved either by our labors or by our strength, not even by our entreaty. The moment the cross accomplishes its task at that moment is the curtain rent. Let us therefore renew our consecration and offer ourselves to God without reservation. Let us be willing to have our soul life committed to death in order that the Lord Who dwells in the Holiest may finish His work. If he observes that the cross has wrought thoroughly enough in us the Lord shall indeed integrate the Holiest and the Holy within us just as He centuries ago rent the curtain by His might so that His Holy Spirit might flow out from His glorious body. Thus shall the glory in the shelter of the Most High overwhelm our daily sensuous life. All our walk and work in the Holy Place shall be sanctified in the glory of the Holiest. Like our spirit is, so shall our soul too be indwelt and regulated by the Holy Spirit of God. Our mind, emotion and will shall be filled by Him.
What we have maintained by faith in the spirit we now also know and experience in the soul, nothing lacking and nothing lost. What a blessed life is this! “And the glory of the Lord filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house” (2 Chron. 7.1-2).
However lovely our activities of priestly service may have seemed in the Holy Place, they all shall cease in the glorious light of God. Henceforth His glory governs everything.
No more is animal activity adored. This brings us to the other, and equally significant, aspect of the dividing of spirit and soul. Insofar as the soul’s influence and control of the spirit is concerned, the work of the cross is to effect the division of the two; but insofar as the spirit’s filling and reigning is concerned, the cross works towards the surrender of the soul’s independence so that it may be reconciled completely to the spirit. Believers should seek to experience oneness of spirit and soul.
Were we to allow the cross and the Holy Spirit to operate thoroughly in us we would discover that what the soul has relinquished is scarcely a fraction of what it ultimately gains: the dead has now come into fruition, the lost is now kept for eternal life. When our soul is brought under the reins of the spirit it undergoes an immense change.
Beforehand it seems to be useless and lost to God because it is employed for self and often moves independently; afterwards God gains our soul, though to man it may appear to be crushed. We become as “those who have faith and keep their souls” (Heb. 10.39). This is much more profound than what we commonly term “saved,” because it points especially to life. Since we have learned not to walk by sensation and sight, we are now able to save our life by faith into serving and glorifying God. “Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1.21). As God’s Word is implanted we receive its new nature into us and are thus enabled to bear fruit. We obtain the life of the Word from the Word of life. Although the organs of the soul still remain, these organs no longer function through its power; rather, they operate by the power of God’s Word. This is “the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1.9). Human nerves are rather sensitive and are easily stirred by outside stimuli. Words, manners, environments and feelings greatly affect us. Our mind engages in so many thoughts, plans and imaginations that it is a world of confusion. Our will is agitated to perform many acts according to our sundry delights. None of the organs of our soul can bring us into peace. Singly or collectively, they disturb, they confuse, they shift us around. But when our soul is in the spirit’s hand we can be released from such disturbances.
The Lord Jesus implores us: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11.29). If we are favorably inclined to yield to the Lord, to take up His yoke, and to follow Him, our soul shall not be aroused inordinately. If we learn of Him by seeing how He, when despised by men, continued to follow God’s will and not His Own, our soul shall return to tranquility.
The reason for our hurt feelings lies in the fact that we are not amenable to being treated as our Lord was and are loathe to submit ourselves to the will and ordering of God. Were we to deliver our natural energies to death and capitulate entirely to the Lord, our soul, though so nervously sensitive, would rest in the Lord and not misunderstand Him.
The soul which comes under the Holy Spirit’s authority is a restful one. Once we busily planned, today we calmly trust the Lord. Once we were flushed with anxieties, today we are like a child quieted at its mother’s breast. Once we entertained many thoughts and ambitions, today we consider God’s will best and rest ourselves in Him. In obeying the Lord wholly, we rejoice in heart fully. With complete consecration comes perfect peace. “As bondmen of Christ doing the will of God from the soul” (Eph. 6.6 Darby). We do not rely upon the soul to execute God’s will, rather we perform His will from the soul, that is, with our whole heart. The soul which once rebelled against God’s desire is now perfectly committed to Him through the operation of the cross. That which carried out its own will, or tried to do God’s will by its own idea, is now of one heart with God in all things. A soul under the rule of the Holy Spirit never worries for itself. “Do not be anxious about your life (original, soul)” (Matt. 6.25).
We now seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness because we believe God will supply our daily need. Once touched by the cross through the Holy Spirit, the soul no longer is able to be anxious about itself. While self-consciousness is the soul’s prime expression, yet believers actually lose their self in God; hence they can trust God utterly. Every work of the soul, including self-love, self-seeking and self-pride, have been so eliminated that believers are no longer selfcentered. Because the cross has done its task we do not busily plan any more for ourselves. Instead of suffering anxiety we can restfully seek God’s kingdom and righteousness.
We know if we care for God’s cares that God will take care of our cares. Once we wondered at miracles, now we live by the God of miracles and know in experience how God provides every need. This all flows naturally since God’s power is backing us. The cares of this life emerge as very small items indeed along our daily path. “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4.19). Many people know God as the Creator but not as Father; believers, though, should experience Him not only as Father but also as Creator. As the latter God reveals to us His power. By this we will understand and acknowledge that the whole universe is in fact in His hand. Formerly it was hard for us to believe the idea that things in the world could not move against His will; but now we know that every element in the universe: be it human, natural, or supernatural: is under His careful scrutiny and clever ordering.
We now acknowledge that all things come to us either through His order or by His permission. A soul governed by the Holy Spirit is a trusting one. Our soul ought to desire the Lord as well as to trust Him. “My soul clings to thee” (Ps. 63.8). No more do we dare be independent of God nor do we dare serve the Lord according to the idea of the soul. Rather, we today follow Him with fear and trembling and trail after Him closely. Our soul genuinely clings to the Lord. No more is there independent action, but instead a full surrender to Him. And this is not by compulsion; we do it gladly.
What we henceforth hate is our life; what we wholly love is the Lord. Such persons cannot but utter the cry of Mary: “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1.46). No longer is there self-importance, either in public or in private. These believers recognize and admit their incompetency and only wish to exalt the Lord with humbleness of heart. They will not steal the Lord’s glory any further but magnify Him in their souls. For if the Lord is not magnified in the soul, nowhere else is He magnified either. Only such as these count not their life (original, soul) of any value (Acts 20.24) and can lay down their lives (original, souls) for the brethren (1 John 3.16). Unless self-love is abandoned the believer shall forever shrink back when called actually to take up the cross for Christ. He who lives a martyr’s life and is willing to nail his self to the cross is able as well to die a martyr’s death if ever the need should arise.
He can lay down his life for his brother if occasion demands it because in ordinary days he has denied himself continuously and has not sought his own right or comfort but has poured out his soul for the brethren. True love towards the Lord and the brethren arises out of no love for self. He “loved me” and “gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2.20). Love flows from the denial of the self life. Blood-shedding is the source of blessing. Such a life is in truth one of prosperity, as is written: “thy soul prospers” (3 John 2 Darby). This prosperity originates not with what self has gained but with what self has denied. A soul lost is not a life lost, for the soul is lost in God. Soul life is selfish and therefore binds us. But the soul renounced shall abide in the boundlessness of God’s life. This is liberty, this is prosperity
. The more we lose the more we gain. Our possessions are not measured by how much we receive but by how much we give. How fruitful is this life! To forsake the soul life, however, is not as easy as deliverance from sin. Since it is our life, the choice is ours to make daily not to live by it but by the life of God. The cross needs to be borne faithfully and to be borne increasingly faithfully. Let us gaze upon our Lord Jesus Who “endured the cross, despising the shame”: “Consider him . . . , that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls” (Heb. 12.2-3 ASV). The race set before us is none other than that of His despising the shame and enduring His cross. “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name l” (Ps. 103.1)
THE FUNCTION OF EMOTION Our emotion emits joy, happiness, cheerfulness, excitement, elation, stimulation, despondency, sorrow, grief, melancholy, misery, moaning, dejection, confusion, anxiety, zeal, coldness, affection, aspiration, covetousness, compassion, kindness, preference, interest, expectation, pride, fear, remorse, hate, et al. The mind is the organ of our thinking and reasoning and the will, of our choices and decisions. Aside from our thought and intent and their related works, all other operations issue from emotion. Our thousand and one diverse feelings manifest its function. Feeling comprises such a vast area of our existence that most carnal Christians belong to the emotional type. Man’s sensational life is most comprehensive, hence highly complicated; to help believers understand it, we can gather all its various expressions into the three groups of (1) affection, (2) desire, and (3) feeling. These groups cover the three aspects of the function of emotion. Should a saint overcome all three, he is well on the way to entering upon a pure spiritual path. To be sure, man’s emotion is nothing but the manifold feelings he naturally has. He may be loving or hateful, joyful or sorrowful, excited or dejected, interested or uninterested, yet all are but the ways he feels. Should we take the trouble to observe ourselves we will easily perceive how changeful are our feelings. Few matters in the world are as changeable as emotion. We can be one way one minute and feel quite opposite the next. Emotion changes as feeling changes, and how rapidly the latter can change. He therefore who lives by emotion lives without principle. The emotion of man often displays a reactionary motion: a time of activity in one direction will sometimes produce an opposite reaction. For example, unspeakable sorrow usually follows upon hilarious joy, great depression after high excitement, deep withdrawal after burning fervor.
Even in the matter of love, it may commence as such but due to some emotional alteration it may end up with a hatred whose intensity far exceeds the earlier love. A BELIEVER’S EMOTIONAL LIFE The more one probes the workings of an emotional life the more he will be convinced of its vacillation and undependability. No one should wonder that a child of God who walks by emotion rather than by spirit usually comports himself in a wavelike fashion. He bemoans his existence because it is so unstable. Sometimes he appears to live in the third heaven transcending everything, while at other times he plunges to the low level of an ordinary man. His experience is replete with ups and downs. It does not require an enormous circumstance to change him, for he is unable to withstand even the tiniest mishap. Such phenomena exist because a person is controlled by feeling and not by spirit. Since the dominant impulse in his walk continues to be emotion, it not having yet been delivered to the cross, his spirit will receive no strengthening of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore this one’s spirit is weak, helpless to subdue emotion and through it to govern the whole man. If, however, by the power of the Holy Spirit he has his emotional life crucified and accepts the Holy Spirit as the Lord over all things, he most assuredly can avoid this kind of alternating existence. Emotion may be denominated the most formidable enemy to the life of a spiritual Christian.
We know a child of God ought to walk by the spirit. To walk this way he needs to observe every direction given by his inner man. We know also, however, that these senses of the spirit are delicate as well as keen. Unless the child of God waits quietly and attentively to receive and discern the revelation in his intuition, he never can secure the guidance of his spirit. Consequently, the total silence of emotion is an indispensable condition to walking by the spirit. How often its small and delicate motion is disturbed and overpowered by the roaring of one’s emotion. On no account can we attribute any fault to the smallness of the spirit’s voice, for we have been endowed with the spiritual capacity to be able to hear it. No, it is entirely the mixing in of other voices that causes the Christian to miss the spirit’s voice. But for that person who will maintain his emotion in silence, the voice of intuition can be detected easily. The upsurge and decline of feeling may not only disqualify a believer from walking in the spirit but may also directly cause him to walk in the flesh. If he cannot follow the spirit he will naturally follow the flesh. Because he is unfit to obtain the guidance of his spirit, he invariably turns to his emotional impulse. Be it therefore recognized that when the spirit ceases to lead, emotion will do so. During such a period the believer will interpret emotional impulses to be motions of inspiration. An emotional Christian can be compared to a pond of sand and mud: as long as no one disturbs the water the pond looks clear and clean; but let it be agitated a moment and its true muddy character appears.
THE PROPER USE OF EMOTION If God’s children permit the cross to operate deeply upon their emotion they shall find afterwards that it no longer obstructs, but rather cooperates with, their spirit. The cross has dealt with the natural life in the emotion, has renewed it, and has made it a channel for the spirit. A spiritual man we have said before is not a spirit, but neither is he a person devoid of emotion; on the contrary, the spiritual man will use his feeling to express the divine life in him. Before it is touched by God emotion follows its own whim. And hence it habitually fails to be an instrument of the spirit. But once it is purified it can serve as the means of the spirit’s expression. The inner man needs emotion to express its life: it needs emotion to declare its love and its sympathy towards man’s suffering: and it also needs emotion to make man sense the movement of its intuition. Spiritual sensing is usually made known through the feeling of a quiet and pliable emotion. If emotion is pliably subject to the spirit the latter, through the emotion, will love or hate exactly as God wishes. Some Christians, upon discerning the truth of not living by feeling, mistake spiritual life as one without it. They accordingly try to destroy it and to render themselves as insensate as wood and stone. Because of their ignorance of the meaning of the death of the cross, they do not understand what is meant by handing over one’s emotion to death and living by the spirit.
We do not say that, in order to be spiritual, a Christian must become exceedingly hard and void of affection like inanimate objects: as though the term spiritual man means for him to be emptied of feeling. Quite the contrary. The most tender, merciful, loving, and sympathetic of persons is a spiritual man. To be entirely spiritual by delivering his emotion to the cross does not denote that henceforth he is stripped of his feeling. We have observed numerous spiritual saints and have noticed that their love is greater than that of others, which demonstrates that a spiritual man is not without emotion and additionally that it differs from that of the ordinary man. In committing our soul to the cross we must remember that what is lost is the soul life, not its function.
Were its function nailed to the cross we then could no longer think, choose, or feel. We must therefore remember this basic fact: to lose soul life means to doggedly, resolutely, and continuously deny the natural power and to walk exclusively by the power of God; it means to live no longer after self and its desires but to submit unexceptionally to the will of God. Moreover, the cross and resurrection are two inseparable facts: “for if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom. 6.5 ASV).
The death of the cross does not connote annihilation; hence the emotion, mind and will of the soul are not extinguished upon passing through the cross. They only relinquish their natural life in the death of the Lord and are raised again in His resurrection life. Such death and resurrection cause the various operating organs of the soul to lose their life, to be renewed, and to be used by the Lord. Consequently a spiritual man is not emotionally deprived; rather, his emotion is the most perfect and the most noble, as though newly created out of God’s hand.
In short, if anyone has trouble here, the trouble lies with his theory and not with his experience, for the latter will bear out the truth.
Emotion must go through the cross (Matt. 10.38-39) in order to destroy its fiery nature, with its confusion, and to subject it totally to the spirit. The cross aims to accord the spirit authority to rule over every activity of emotion.
Who Are You Amir Tsarfati? Original post 6/4/2018 These things speak,and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Titus 2: 15 . KJV This Blog is written in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:2-3 KJV and 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV Note: I love Israel and the Jews. I am a born-again Christian who truly believes the Jews are God’s chosen people and abhor replacement theology. For the past year I’ve been closely following Amir TSARFATI on his BEHOLD ISRAEL YouTube channel. I don’t use Facebook, was basically thrown off about 8 years ago for posting content that spread hate (simply posted photos of Islamic thugs murdering innocent civilians) . I also don’t use Twitter. Left after 10 years, nearly 10,000 followers, when new rules blocked my 1st amendment rights of free speech. I’ve been extremely impressed with Amir TSARFATI. I’ve been thrilled by his ministry. He shares my conservative views, especially achieving peace through stre
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/ Now The End Begins CHRISLAM CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress Published 44 mins ago on September 17, 2022 By Geoffrey Grider NOW THE END BEGINS SHARE: With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion. It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified, with the approval at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions , of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE. Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ, His Name appears nowhere
Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, References: a. Dr. Gene Kim video serving God https://youtu.be/LV6j0rB0yos See his comments to Andrew Sheets b. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on Trinity c. Dr. Gene Kim Teaching video on 501c3 conspiracy I earnestly pray you receive this opportunity to correct your errant ways. You are a gifted and brilliant young man. Most of your teaching is rock solid. But these glaring issues addressed below must be addressed. BBC International Dear Dr. Eugene Kim, Thank you Sir for responding to my comment (reference a) It’s obvious by your response you haven’t read the blog I sent you about why Brick and Mortar Buildings called churches are not biblical. Most of what you sent me in your response by way of your video teaching is addressed in the blog. As far as using Romans 13:1-7 to defend 501C3 and your building – I address below. After careful consideration – I have to write this as a testimony as a witness submitted as Ambassador for The
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You’ll appreciate that it’s difficult for non-Jews to understand the difference. Both practice a Judaism that rejected Yeshua and was built instead on rabbinic principles. Jews are familiar with these principles but they cloud /obscure both biblical directions and their messianic fulfilment in Yeshua. The term “messianic” is being abused in the same way “born again” was when we heard of the likes of born-again golfers. Using messianic to refer to anything other than the Messiah could be regarded as taking the name of the Lord in vain.
It may be time for Messianic Jews to agree with the Ultra-Orthodox the correct application of the term messianic to prevent Religious Zionists misusing it. Messiah is a person, He is Immanuel, God with us. The messianic age is the one where we experience His personal rule. “And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.” Isaiah 59:20. Israel needs to be open to this Messiah.