The Light Of The Word Of God


Open Your Mind And Your Heart

From Time To Time I Will Post Some Thoughts In This Page, In Hopes That It Will Help Someone And Lead Them To The Light Of The Word Of God. Check Back For Updates"

 


 

                            



 

Can You Believe It

 You know I find it very interesting that there is all kind of Churches in the world today.  There is the Baptist, the Methodist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, and Catholic Church, etc.  And each one teaches something different, yet each one claims to be the truth and nothing but the truth.  The Apostle Paul said in I Cor. 1:10-17  "Now I beseech you (that means, I beg of you, or to ask earnestly) by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you speak the same thing, and that there be no division among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

   Paul went to many cities, and preached in many churches.  Churches that were in the homes, or in the synagogues, but whether the apostles were in a church in Phili, Galatians, Ephesus, or Rome, I ask you, did Paul or any of the apostles bring in a different truth, or a different gospel to each of these churches?  No he did not.  So if Paul did not, and Peter did not, and the rest of the apostles did not bring in another gospel, but they all preached the same thing.  Why do not preachers, preach the same truth that they preached?  Why do we have so many different beliefs, if everyone is preaching the truth, as they claim?

   Gal. 1:6-9 Paul said, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel which is not another, but there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.  But that we or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accused.

   Are there some of us that do not have the unperverted gospel of Christ?  Or do we all believe that we all have the one true gospel of Christ?  Let us reason together:  Did Paul and Peter preach One Lord, one faith and one baptism at one church, and then preach the trinity at another?  Did they preach and teach baptism in Jesus' name at one church, and the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost at another?  No, they did not.  They did not intend to bring confusion and division to the house of God, but there is confusion and division in the churches today.  I Cor. 1:12-13  "Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, or I of Appollos, or I of Christ.  Is Christ divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?  Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?  I think not.

II Peter 3:16  As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the scriptures.  Also verse 17-18  they both (Peter and Paul) received the Holy Ghost the very same way.  Both spoke in tongues.  Paul said,  "I speak in tongues more than ye all."  Do you actually believe that they did not preach this at every church that they went to?  Neither can I believe Peter preaching one gospel at one place, and Paul preaching something different at another.  What kind of mess would that be?  But we have the very same thing today.  Is it not the same Spirit or is it?  Paul said in Gal 1:8-9  "But though we, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you that that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."  Paul wanted us to understand this so he repeated it,  "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.  Verse 10  "For do I now seek the favor of men or of God?  Or do I seek to please men?  For if I yet please men I should not be the servant of Christ.

 

   A preacher cannot please both man and Jesus Christ, like he cannot serve two Gods, the Lord Jesus Christ and Satan.  We do not need men pleasers.  Every denomination has the truth, or so they say, yet they each teach different doctrine, how can that be.  They claim to have the truth, but I ask of you, how many truths are there?

Some people believe, just go to any church on Sunday.  Why should I go to just any church, when even the basic things of the bible are not taught.  One preacher baptizes in the name of Jesus, the next one baptizes in the trinity.  They have never figured out after all these years who the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are.  But the one who teaches Jesus knows who they are.  There is only one that gave his life on the cross of Calvary.  Only one that is coming back for His Church.  "There is no other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ.  Not Mary, not Paul, not Peter, but Jesus.

   One church believes in speaking in other tongues as evidence of having the Holy Ghost, others believe that as soon as you say the sinner’s prayer, "We are born again."  That is not so, let me ask you, How did Peter and Paul know that they had been born again of the water and of the Spirit?  Acts 19 chapter tells us how they knew that John the Baptist' disciples had been born again and Cornelius household, Acts 10 chapter (the Gentiles)

   Every church believes that they have the only access to the truth.  Every soul in those churches, believe that they are saved, and other churches are not.  Tell me, how can they all have the whole truth?  Some of them have a part of the truth, and others don't have any.  Are the preachers only teaching as much as they know, but don't know enough to be preaching?  Were they called by God or did they think that preaching would be a good vocation?  We don't need more preachers.  We need more preachers preaching the truth.  Are they preaching just what they are told that they can preach, like " Don't step on my toes, by coming down to hard."  Just preach "God is Love," that is a safe subject.

Time is running down, we don't need showmanship in the pulpit, we need leadership.  Souls are ignored in the shuffle.  I was sitting in church one day and I heard a sister whisper just enough for me to understand her, when the preacher was reading I Thess. 5:14  "comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient with all men."  She whispered softly, "What about me?"   How many more sitting in churches today fell the same way?  They are concerned about their soul, and they need help, but they are not getting it.  We need preachers that are not ashamed to shed a few tears for the unsaved of this world, instead of taking an ego trip and trying to act so holy.  If a preacher is not called by God to preach his word, then that preacher has no business being in the pulpit.  But I am sorry to say, there are many preaching, that don't know what they are saying.

   The Holy Ghost is needed to preach His word.  A sermon, which anyone can acquire from the internet or through the mail that someone else has prepared for them, but a message is from God.  He has messages, you know.  If you have,  "Eyes that can see, ears that can hear, and a heart that can feel"  A heart of flesh, not of stone.

   Churches may be getting bigger, but not better, for they are just teaching half-truths.  Churches are getting so big they can't hear that little whisper,  "What about me."

   Many preach the Rapture, but do they believe that it is soon to come.  Jesus is coming back.  "Can you believe it?"   Sure, sermons sound good, and everyone can go home feeling good, but messages are from God.  Some toes may get stepped on to be able to save some soul. 

   If the Holy Ghost is leading some preacher, then you can be assured he is preaching the Apostrine, the same teaching that Peter and Paul preached.  It's time preachers got serious about the ministry.  In the days we are living in, is no time for a clown in the pulpit, cracking jokes.  Jesus, is coming back.  No, we don't know the exact day, but he said it in his word, and I believe it.  Can you believe it?  It is time to get our soul saved.  Do you believe it?


# 2

                  “You Must Be Born Again”                           

 

 

 

 

Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. (John 3:7) "Ye must be born again." Listen to those words of our Lord Jesus. "Ye must be born again." Tell it to sinful men as they struggle in their bondage and try to rise to better things. Proclaim the message to those who are proud of their achievements and who trust in their own strength. "Ye must be born again!"

 

Nicodemus, one of Israel's wise elders, was greatly puzzled by our Lord's words about the New Birth. When Jesus set before him the necessity of this experience, Nicodemus asked, "How can these things be?" This is a question many have asked, but there is a mystery concerning the New Birth which finite minds cannot solve. There are some things which men obtain only by the obedience of faith.

 

Jesus acknowledged the mystery of the New Birth when he described it to Nicodemus: "The wind blows where it will, and you hear its sound, but you cannot tell from where it comes or where it is going. So is every one that is born of the Spirit" (Jn.3:8).

 

 

When Were The Disciples Born Again?

 

Reader, do you know when Jesus’ disciples received an experience such as Jesus described to Nicodemus? At no time during  Jesus’ earthly ministry did his disciples receive such an experience. Then, when did they receive it? Keep his words "the wind blows where it will" in mind as you read from Acts 2:3-4: "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." This experience which the disciples received on Pentecost morning fulfills the description

 

of the New Birth which Jesus gave to Nicodemus. Evidently, the disciples were born again in the second chapter of Acts. When Jesus spoke of the sound of the wind accompanying every new birth experience, he was obviously not discussing weather

 

conditions with Nicodemus. As he was wont to do, Jesus was explaining a spiritual truth by using a familiar earthly phenomenon (in this case, the blowing of the wind). In reminding Nicodemus that winds produce discern able sounds, Jesus was saying that "every one who is born of the Spirit" is moved by the Spirit to speak in tongues when it happens.

 

In this covenant, especially, we live by the Word of God, not by the word of man. Man's own "sound", his own confession of faith, bears no weight in heaven; men can be wrong. It is only the witness of the Spirit which is always true. As his disciple John pointed out, "It is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth" (1Jn.5:6b). Paul expressed the

 

same truth in these words: "The Spirit itself bears witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom.8:16). Please notice that both apostles emphasize the necessity of the Spirit's testimony (speaking in tongues) as the divinely appointed sign that we have indeed received the Spirit of God. It is God's peculiar way of declaring one to be His child. It is the voice of "Him that speaketh from heaven", Whom we must not refuse (Heb.12:25). It is the sound of the ever-moving wind of God.

 

No man knows another's heart; therefore, the testimony of God's Spirit is the only reliable testimony of true repentance. Listen to Peter's words in Acts: "Men and brethren . . . God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the gospel and believe. And God, Who knows the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the holy Ghost, even as He did unto us" (Acts 15:7-8). And how did Peter and his Jewish companions know that Cornelius and his household had repented and received the holy Ghost? "They heard them speak with tongues and magnify God."

 

Speaking in tongues when we receive the holy Ghost also makes it possible for unbelievers to know who has received God's Spirit. Many claim to be of God and to be in possession of His Spirit; therefore, "tongues are for a sign," Paul affirmed, "to them that believe not" (1Cor. 14:22). How the love of God is revealed in this! He desires those outside His kingdom to be able to find it!

 

At the last supper, Jesus described the spiritual condition of those who followed him but had not yet received the Spirit: "A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And you now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again [in spirit, at Pentecost], and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you" (Jn.16: 21-22). By comparing his disciples' spiritual condition that night with a woman agonizing with the pangs of childbirth, Jesus was saying that the time for their New Birth was near. The disciples had been conceived by the Word of God which Jesus had sown

 

into their hearts, and now they were nearing the hour of their spiritual birth at Pentecost. They were no longer of the world (Jn.17:14); at the same time, however, they were not yet "in Christ" (Jn 17:21). They were "clean" under the Law Jn.15:3), but they were not sanctified (Jn.17:17,19). As much as their lives had been changed by Jesus, their greatest transformation was yet to come.

 

 

Conception Is Not Birth

 

Nature itself teaches us that no birth can occur without a seed first being sown. This is true whether one is speaking naturally or spiritually. Nowhere, even in the kingdom of God, is there a birth without the sowing of a seed. Spiritually, "the seed is the Word of God" (Lk.8: 11). One must receive this Seed in order for the process of New Birth to begin. In addition to this universal truth, nature also teaches us that relatively few of the seeds sown will produce life, and that even fewer will mature and bear fruit. According to Jesus, only a small portion of the seeds of the kingdom of God which are sown into human hearts actually sprout, or produce righteousness in the life. Sometimes, he said, when one hears the Word (Seed) and receives it, "the wicked one catches away that which was sown in his heart" (Mt.13:19). The Word of God was sown

 

into the hearts of many thousands during Jesus' earthly ministry, yet only about 120 followers continued in his Word and were born again at the first outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

 

Many ministers mistake the receiving of the Seed to be the New Birth. They think that receiving the Word of God and repenting of sin is the same as being born again. But cessation from evil - good as that is - is not the New Birth. Repentance neither atones for nor washes away sins; sins are washed away only by the Spirit, when it baptizes us into the body of Christ (1Cor.12:13; Acts 22:16). Only by entering into Christ do we become new, spiritually clean creatures.

 

The Samaritans, for one example, gladly received the Word that Philip preached (Acts 8:5-8); still, the washing away of their sins was not accomplished until later, after news of Philip's preaching reached Jerusalem: "Now when the apostles

 

which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might receive the holy Ghost. (For as yet it had fallen upon none of them. . . .) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the holy Ghost" (Acts 8:14-17).So, as the Samaritans' experience demonstrates, being convicted of sin and turning from it is only the first step toward the

 

New Birth. Tragically, many fail to continue in the Word after being convicted by it. Consequently, they never receive the baptism of the holy Ghost; they are never born again. Such people, and there are millions of them in Christianity around the world, must be warned that incomplete surrender is no better than none at all. God gives His Spirit only to those who obey

 

Him (Acts 5:32); therefore, our first priority must be to know God's will and to do it - not only to receive the baptism of Christ, but to obtain the promised salvation at the end of the way. "Let no man deceive you by any means", my friend; no one will be saved without receiving the holy Ghost and obeying it (1Pet.3:21; Mk.16:16; Rom.8:14). Regardless of anyone's standing among religious men, he has no part in the kingdom of God without His Spirit.

 

 

Spiritual Harlotry

 

I do not diminish the importance of conviction (conception) - who could be born without it? - but we must understand its purpose. Being conceived is good, but it can only be appreciated by those who are born. And how much better than the conception is the birth of a child! This is God's heart, but it is not the heart of one who has the spirit of a harlot. She dreads the thought of bearing a child, though she earns her living by performing the act which should produce the conception of one - just as multitudes of Christian ministers hate the thought of anyone being baptized with the holy Ghost and speaking in tongues, though they earn their living by "preaching the Word" - the religious act which should lead sinners to the holy Ghost life. Such men love to see the Word convict and change a sinful life; they rejoice when many respond to their

 

"altar call"; they study; they build; they give; they pray; they cross land and sea to make converts; but all their religious activity is no more in God's sight than the cheap perfume of a streetwalker plying her ungodly trade if the result is not life in the Spirit! The act of sowing the seed is there, but to what end?

 

In spite of the claims of Christians, the way of Christ Jesus found in the New Testament is not the beginning of Christianity; rather, it is the way of life which Christianity has historically opposed with all its worldly power; and it will continue to oppose that true faith until that Whore and her "daughters" are destroyed. Yes, the great Whore in John's

 

Revelation is Christianity (Catholicism), and the harlots to whom she gave birth are the faiths (Protestants) which departed from her. Christianity is that religion which worships the Lord Jesus, but not in spirit and in truth. It arose as a religion after the days of the apostles, and it corrupted the right ways of God. It is a religion which to this day rewards men for sowing the Seed, even as its carnal forms of worship and UN ordained doctrines abort the very spiritual life which hat Seed produces.

 

Yes, by leading sinners convicted by the Word to do religious works and to believe doctrines which are not of God, Christian ministers abort the good work which their own seeds may have started! By resisting the truth and power of the Spirit, ministers themselves turn what should have been a wonderful gift of God, the sowing of the Seed of Christ, into a vain religious enterprise. It is true that God has blessed some Christians with wonderful spiritual blessings, but every holy gift with which God blesses those who remain in Christianity is destined to wither, because the spirit of Christianity is the spirit of death. God has precious children now who are anointed but who have not obeyed His call to "Come out from among them." Watch them. In time their gifts will wither. Christianity  will drain the life out of their work.

 

 

Who Has Repented?

 

When a truly hungry soul hears the Word of God, a wonderful change begins to take place, a change wrought by the love and power of God. As one begins to feel the life of the Spirit, his countenance and behavior is altered. And if he continues in the Word, not allowing the wicked one to steal the Seed from his heart, the day will come when the Lord will baptize him with the holy Spirit. He will come out of the womb, to be numbered among the saints! Jesus encouraged us not to doubt this when he said, "Every one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness shall be filled"!

 

The experience of New Birth is sometimes illustrated by the process by which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. First, there is the worm, hairy and ugly, crawling in the dust. Then one day that worm wraps itself in a cocoon. There it remains for a time, and then, on a warm day, that cocoon bursts asunder and a beautiful butterfly emerges, no more to crawl as a worm in the dust, but to ride upon the wind and to nestle in the hearts of flowers. A sinner, convicted of his sin by the Word of

 

God, wraps himself in the cocoon of God's love and protection. His changing, developing life becomes a mystery to those on the outside. Old companions call him strange. But when the Spirit of God enters, he becomes a son of God, born to rise to heavenly places in Christ.

 

Jesus said, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" (Lk.13:3). No one who believes the truth will deny this. All who do not repent will surely perish. On the other hand, what is promised to all who do repent? "Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the holy Ghost'" (Acts 2:38). Despite these words, multitudes claim that they have repented and been baptized in the name of Jesus, but they have not received the baptism of the holy Spirit. How is that possible? If one can repent, yet not receive the holy Spirit (contrary to the Word by Peter), then one can refuse to repent, yet be saved in the end (contrary to the Word by Jesus). If God's Word in Luke 13:3 to all who do not repent stands sure, then God's Word in Acts 2:38 to all who do repent stands sure.

 

Every one who repents will receive the holy Ghost, God's promise of eternal life. Every one who does not repent will not receive the holy Ghost and will not be saved in the end. That is the simple truth, my friend; and the truth is destined to prevail over all the doctrines of man, regardless of how many of us may give to those doctrines a hearty "Amen".