John 5:32-35: “There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. Ye sent unto John [meaning John the Baptist], and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light: [which means faith, which means reality] and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.” What season? A couple of weeks, a couple of months, four months, six months? You were willing to rejoice in that light, in that reality, in that faith, and after that, what? What after that? After that you rejected that light and you didn’t care!
2Peter chpt.3, we start reading at verse 3: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts [and that does not mean just pagans], And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, …”. They are willingly ignorant of things of God. They willingly don’t want to know! This is what it means. They will that they will not know. They are willingly ignorant, and they decided not to know, and that’s it.
There is another verse concerning this topic, and you know this verse, too, I’m sure. John 20:24, after the Lord left the disciples, it says: “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.” And I don’t know why he was not with them, maybe he lost his hope but he was not there. Now, when he came (v.25), “The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” I will not believe! I refuse to believe. That, as we know, is not a terrific faith, because you have to see with your own eyes and touch with your own hand, which means your faith is zero. But he decided not to even search for that faith. He walked by his eyesight, and hearing, and touch.
If I look at this world and at the Church, I would be justified to say that I don’t believe half of this Scripture, this Bible, and I don’t believe the Lord is coming, and I could justify it. I could justify many things. But I don’t walk by sight. And if I should justify things by what I see, I should say: “The whole Church will go to hell!” Is that reality? No! So I cannot walk by what I see, or what I hear and then stand up and say: “I will not believe.” With this attitude the Lord would not even begin to give me faith, because I must be willing first to receive faith, and then be willing to walk by it and live by it.
All the other verses, “Walk worthy of the vocation … of the Lord … of God …” etc. (Eph.4:1, Col.1:10, 1Thess.2:12), “Press toward the mark” (Phil.3:14), “Put off the old man … put on the new man.” (Eph.4:22-24), “Be ye doers of the word.” (Jam.1:22) … all these verses signify there must be action on our part. So we learn both what is true faith and we learn that if we don’t act on it, it becomes dead, and brings forth no fruit whatsoever.
Now, the Lord grants us faith which is a reality, as we have said, which is a light and we have that light, we have that faith. And as I said before, we have the freedom not only to accept it, to buy it, or reject it; but once we buy it, we have yet another freedom to use it or not to use it. But if we choose not to use it, not to act on it, then of necessity we are acting on something else, which is not reality! Do you agree? Are you following me?
I will repeat that. The Lord grants us faith which is a light, which is a reality. We have the freedom to accept it, or reject it. Suppose we accept it, we have it; we still have another freedom to act on it or not, reject it, not use it, neglect it, bypass it, put it on the “back burner”… somewhere. But if we do reject it, neglect it, bypass it…, then we of necessity are acting on something else which is not reality! Do you realize this fact? If you don’t act on the reality of God, then you act on everything else which is not real. Do you agree with that? Do you believe that?
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To be continued next week
brother Hanola
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