Life out of Death

FOREWORD

This work is a sequel to the book “Word to the Church of Jesus Christ^[8]”, published in 2006 by Montreal Remnant Ministries (ISBN 0-978226-0-3), and to the book “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers^[9]” published in 2010 also by Montreal Remnant Ministries (ISBN 978-0-9782276-1-6).

LIFE coming out of DEATH is the very basis of the Word of God from Genesis to the Book of Revelation. This mystery answers the true Salvation of man and the reasons for the Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, Our Saviour and Lord. This mystery is also fulfilled in all the believers, who are willing to follow the Lord in His footsteps (Mt. 16:24-25), to die to their natural life and be resurrected to His Life Eternal, who love His appearing (2Tim. 4:8// 1Pet. 1:7-8) and desire to have the testimony that will overcome Satan and cause him to be cast down from Heaven to the Earth (Rev. 12:9,11-13). These are the few chosen ones from among the many called ones (Mt. 20:16). The called believers are not the same and will not go at the same time to the same place as the chosen ones.

Seven times have I reviewed, refined every word of this book before the Living Christ so that He might burn out all dross (flesh) (Lev. 14:7; 16:19// 2.Ki. 5:10,14// Ps. 12:6// Pr. 24:16// Lk. 17:4) that there should not be anything contrary to His Holiness, Righteousness and Truth. This statement has been taken from the above quoted two books since the Lord led me through the same process also for this book.

May this Light and Truth from the Lord benefit and strengthen all true believers to PRESS toward the prize of their high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14), which means, toward their perfection (Heb. 6:1).

On behalf of the King of kings and Lord of lords:

Brother H a n o l a – servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

It seems that nobody ever reads the Foreword, I thus abridged it to one page and I am coming to you directly with the NAKED TRUTH.

In reality, any potential reader opens the book somewhere in the middle, scans few words on few pages and if he does not find them appealing or corresponding exactly to his personal beliefs and convictions, he closes the book and that is the END of it. You may do the same with this book, if you wish, but the END will not be with this book, rather, it may be with your LIFE! You see, God will not come down to your kitchen to talk to you personally. He has given us His Word and His true servants, and His Word to us is His final Word – He will not speak to us more than what has been already written. Rather, He opens our eyes to His existing Word so we may SEE its reality so devastating to our old natural man, but glorious to our spiritual New Man! Both are realities of His Word and their simple meaning is: UNLESS THE OLD DIES, THE NEW CAN NEVER LIVE!

We live in the last days of this world governed by man and also in the last days of the Church governed by man! The old merry-go-round life of Christians in various church organizations is coming to a sudden crash. The doctrines, teachings and practices of this traditional Christianity have lost their value and also appeal to every believer, who sincerely seeks reality, truth and the life of Christ so he may live His Word and not just read it, listen to it, study it, discuss it or argue about it “for ever”. The Church in general has FAILED! Believers and their leaders in general have FAILED! IS THIS TRUTH SUFFICIENTLY NAKED?

Since His Church has failed in her calling and mission and since the vast majority of her leadership has failed in preparing the Church for her calling and mission as well as for His Coming, the LORD will SPUE HIS CHURCH out of His mouth (Rev. 3:16). Everybody preaches Jn. 3:16, but nobody preaches and explains Rev. 3:16! Why not? Most of the leadership of His Church is carnal and has no spiritual understanding and eyesight whatsoever. Hence, the believers today are “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind and naked” – in spirit! Leaders can preach and teach and bring excellent logical comparisons, requirements or consequences from the Word of God, but they are unable to bring the Life of the Spirit from the dead letters of the Word of God! Hence, they preach DEATH, NOT LIFE. They themselves had not continued to their own spiritual perfection (Heb. 6:1), but kept their natural character and kept educating their old man in the letters of the Scripture. Since they are spiritually dead themselves, they keep preaching to and teaching the “old man” in their congregations, explaining to him the Scriptures, giving him a pep talk, exciting him and seducing him with the promises of God, which were never applicable to him. All God’s promises are applicable to our New Man and not to our old man, old nature!

The NUMBER ONE responsibility of the ministers in His Church has always been to lead and enable the believers to find the narrow way (their cross) where they follow the Lord and not themselves (Mt. 16:24), where their “old man” is dying and the New Man grows up! And THIS IS EXACTLY where the ministers in His Church generally and specifically FAILED AND KEEP FAILING! That’s why there are only FEW souls that find the narrow way and not the whole Church (Mt. 7:14).

There is no other reason for this horrible spiritual state of the believers today and there has never been brought so much shame to the Lord, to His Holiness, Righteousness and Truth and to His Grace through which we all exist.

The horrible state of this world, which is speeding up to hell in front of our eyes is just a mirror of the horrible state of the Church, which failed to stand in the face of evil and deal with it in the Power and Wisdom of the Spirit of Christ. We talk, talk, talk, preach, preach, preach, teach, teach, teach, discuss, argue and explain. Our mouth is “full of the Holy Spirit” and of the Word of God, but our heart is void of Him, of His Life and Love. He exists in us, but we don’t exist in Him! Hence, we are powerless, foolish and miserable religious creatures spiritually totally useless in the hands of Our Almighty God. Are you, readers, surprised, offended or stunned? Maybe you don’t see this at all… or do you?

Unless we are guided to the narrow way by the true ministers in His Church, our old man will never die and our New Man will never grow! Unless we seek and find the narrow way and start to walk on it, our old man will keep living and ruling us.

Unless our “old man” is dead, WE CANNOT DO ANY part of the Word of God, of His Commandments, advices, suggestions, follow any guidance, any instructions, accept any reproof, obey any voice, because our old man hates all these things (Pr. 5:12-14). We cannot trust the Lord, cannot walk by faith, cannot receive answers to our prayers, cannot grow up in spirit into Christ Jesus, cannot be transformed into His Image and thus CANNOT DO THE WILL OF GOD Our Father, which is in Heaven. And if this is so, Our Father cannot accept the “singing of praises and worshipping” by our old man, who cannot know the truth and whose spirit is filthy (Jn. 4:24). Do we see this also?

Unless we wake up, we will keep sleeping. Unless we abandon the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on which we have all been feasting for centuries and thereby increasing our death, we will not be allowed by Our Father, which is in Heaven, to eat from the Tree of Life and thereby increase our Life and overcome death (Gen. 3:22-24).

We are like eaglets that refused to learn to fly. What does “mama eagle” do? She shakes her nest with the eaglets, flutters over the young, spreads her wings under them and bears them on her wings so they would not fall down and be killed (Deut. 32:11). She may do it few times, but if they are not willing or lazy to learn to fly, she will let them fall and be killed. They are useless and will never become eagles. A bundle of feathers that cannot fly is a dead eagle!

This is a call of the Lord JESUS CHRIST to His own Church in these last days before His Coming!

He has been judging, shaking and sifting the “nests” of all those that claim to be born-again Christians and who, even many years after their baptism, cannot “fly”! This He promised to do at this End-time according to His Word (1Pet. 4:17-18// Heb. 12:26-29// Hag. 2:6,7). Why? Because after many years, these multitudes of believers are still hanging tooth-and-nail to the old nest of their natural life scared to death to leave it. The Lord desires to make them true, useful and living – “flying” eagles. Most importantly, the Lord is sanctifying, cleansing and preparing His Own Bride for His Coming as the Bridegroom (Mt. 25:6). Otherwise, He would have no Bride to come to and take with Him! (Mt. 24:40,41; 25:10) The Church of today is anything but His Bride.

In the days of Noah, eight people were taken out of the whole mankind of those days! (Gen. 7:13). Would you like to calculate the ratio of the saved ones to the drowned ones? If the Lord compares His coming to the days of Noah (Mt. 24:37) then guess how many born-again baptized believers will be taken into His “Ark”? Do YOU belong to them? How do you know that you do? Your redemption and baptism are not sufficient to guarantee this! Please, keep reading.

His judging, shaking and sifting has become the most important ministry in His eyes for this End-time. No other ministry has for Him greater importance at this time since it is to prepare His Bride to HIS satisfaction and not according to our dreams – the time is at hand. This is the reason why He has chosen even “this earthen vessel”, among others, to this highly unpleasant, difficult, painful, but highly important task to labor until Christ is formed at least in the believers, whom He foreknew and predestinated (Gal. 4:19// Rom. 8:29). Also, to declare the currently most important spiritual facts that are to be diligently considered, seen and understood, believed and performed for the Lord by all of us, who call ourselves Christians and who hope to enter the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and the ensuing Kingdom of God.

Very few believers have been touched by these most important spiritual facts and have responded in any way. No church leader (pastor, teacher, preacher in the USA) has ever responded to us though we mailed our books to thousands of churches of various denominations in about 70 countries of the world, even to more than 1,400 “Christian” bookstores across the USA. This indicates why the Lord will spue today’s church, represented by the church of the Laodiceans, out of His mouth (Rev. 3:14-22). Here the Lord also gives His reasons and counsels those believers that do not desire such a “glorious destiny”. No pastor or preacher has ever preached THIS Word of God to his congregation explaining to the believers its true meaning and impact on their Christian lives and destiny. You see, he might lose his congregation in no time should he preach such a sermon. Since every pastor is made a watchman unto his sheep, their blood shall be required from his hand! (Ez. 3:17-21)

We are not necessarily talking about a possible loss of salvation of these believers, but we are definitely talking about their missing the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Mt. 25:10-12) as well as their entry and ruling with Christ in the Kingdom of God (Rev. 20:4), which will follow the Marriage Supper, and most importantly, losing their inheritance and status in the Lord (see later)! Christians are not interested in this Word or where they will end up after the Lord spews them out of His mouth and what they will do there! And nobody tells them. You see, they are all taught and believe that after death, they all go straight to Heaven. Really? From what part of the Word of God did they get this myth? They all take one verse from the Scripture where Paul expresses his desire “to depart and be with Christ…” (Phil. 1:23) and they construct from it a color picture of their own future heavenly bliss. It feels good, reassuring, even logical, but what, if it does not apply to them? How true are their personal dreams and beliefs?

I will not go into details of where believers go after their death or translation, when and why. These details are already described on pages 269-273 of “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers^[9]”. They are also shown on the color chart at the end of this quoted book (see Foreword). But I am led to explain three major points showing a gross misrepresentation of the truth of Phil. 1:23, which are as follows.

1) Paul speaks about himself and not about the whole Church. He was an Overcomer while most believers, especially in today’s churches (except the small Remnant), are carnal Christians, just as their leaders are, and the ways to their destinies are quite different. When the Lord declares: “I will spue them out of my mouth”, I honestly cannot see how He will “spue them into Heaven”. Can you? Do sincere Christians and their church leaders see this fact? Or do they believe that “their church” is an exception? On what basis, may I ask? What Scripture would they use as the basis for such a belief? And the Lord said this truth 2,000 years ago!

2) No believer in the New Testament was ever taken or ascended to Heaven where God’s Throne is! (Jn. 3:13) If you want to see where people go in the New Testament after their death, see the Addendum and the color chart at the end of the book “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers^[9]”. God knows why we cannot go to Heaven at this time.

You see, just as our ministers miss Rev. 3:16, so they also miss Rev. 12:7-11! Guess who is in Heaven, in the presence of God? SATAN and his devils! They are in heaven, not in hell! Would you like to “mingle with them and enjoy their presence”? And Satan is accusing us before our God day and night! God will not allow any carnal Christians to come there anyway because they have NO “word of testimony that would overcome Satan”! Only the Manchild has it (Rev. 12:11). The testimony of the Church brings shame to the Lord Jesus Christ and not Glory! Is this picture somewhat different from what you were told to believe?

3) Since the Resurrection of Christ, Paul and all the other Overcomers go to the 3^rd Heaven, which is part of the Heavenlies (and I call it the 2^nd Paradise) where there is the Tree of Life – Christ Himself (Rev. 2:7). God our Father had raised us up in Heavenly places IN Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:5-6). Only the Overcomers, the Very Small Remnant (Is. 1:9), who were growing up into Christ in all things (Eph. 4:15), they are IN Christ Jesus. The rest of believers, who are carnal, are NOT LIVING IN HIM though He dwells in their spirit.

Since the believers in today’s church are mostly carnal (wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked – Rev. 3:17b), the Lord desires to shed light on the carnal believers and their immediate destiny. The spiritual facts concerning carnal believers are the following:

Christ Jesus dwells in the SPIRIT of all true believers by His Holy Spirit, but He is NOT living and ruling the SOUL of carnal believers. Hence, the carnal believers are NOT living in Him by the faith of the Son of God as Apostle Paul was (Gal. 2:20)! They are living by the beliefs of their own selves. That is why they are spiritually wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked and the Lord, Who died for them, will spue them out of His mouth. Please, see, realize and believe that no miserable, poor, blind or naked creature can ever be and live IN the Holy and Perfect Christ!

The above truth also explains why the carnal believers often behave as pagans, or worse than pagans, though they may be born-again in their spirit. Their soul is not born-again and thus it lives the old natural life and not the new life of the Spirit which is the Eternal Life of God.

The Life of God in our SPIRIT is totally different than the natural life in our SOUL. The Life of God in our spirit must SEPARATE US from the natural life in our soul, if we are to be saved and perfected and have a true relationship and fellowship with God and with one another for eternity! To be SEPARATED from the natural life of our soul also means TO DIE TO IT (1Cor. 15:31).

Have you ever heard any preacher preach and explain the truth above? Really? Today’s carnal ministers preach to the natural souls of believers as if they were already renewed by the Spirit of God, separated from their natural life, perfected, living the Life of God and thus able to do what is preached! Today’s ministers say “you are what the Bible says you are” (Joel Osteen, etc.) and they believe this statement also for themselves. Hence, they are “more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37) while they also may be “bewitched fools” (Gal. 3:1). The Bible says this also, does it not? The Bible also says that “you are nothing”! (Gal. 6:3). Do they also believe this Word of God? And if you think you are something, you are already deceived in yourself! So, if we believe such statements made by many carnal ministers, we are ourselves “bewitched fools” rather than “conquerors”. Unfortunately, the ministers themselves are deceived and bewitched since they may be one of “all kinds of believers” described in the Bible. The truth is that…

…YOU ARE WHAT YOUR FRUIT SHOWS AND NOT WHAT YOU CHOOSE FROM THE BIBLE BY YOUR OWN BELIEFS, PREFERENCES OR WISHES (Mt. 7:16-20).

Until your natural life is destroyed and your fruit shows this fact, you remain carnal and repugnant to God, totally unacceptable to Him, unworthy of His Kingdom (2Thes. 1:5), and even unworthy of God, Who has called you unto His Kingdom and Glory (1Thes. 2:12).

Our natural earthly life is spiritual DEATH. It has nothing to do with the LIFE of the resurrected Christ. All pagans and all carnal believers keep living their natural earthly life. Spiritual believers – the Overcomers – live the resurrected Life of Christ and NOT their natural earthly life. They died to their natural earthly life soaked in pride, arrogance, fears, unbelief, unwillingness, laziness, selfishness, self-righteousness, self assurance, foolishness, darkness, irresponsibility, etc. They died to it and are thus eternally separated from it. When the Son of Man died, our sinful natural earthly man, who was put into His soul (He was made sin for us – 2Cor. 5:21), died with Him. After He was resurrected, He lives the Life Eternal and is not subjected to death any more (Rev. 1:18). His Father performed a true miracle not only for His Son, Our Saviour, but also for all of us, who believed and are redeemed in Him.

LIFE CAME OUT OF HIS DEATH. When we “die” to our natural life, out of our DEATH the LIFE of Christ comes forth. The Lord “kills” us, brings us to our grave and then He makes us alive and brings us up! (1Sam. 2:6). This is a true mystery, which we must experience in our earthly existence so that our fruit of the Spirit may grow out of our death (Jn. 12:24-26). This fact is for here and now, not after our physical death or translation from the earth. The law of God, which most Christians do not consider in their earthly lives, but that ultimately determines their destiny, is the following:

He, who will not die, cannot be resurrected! This law, furthermore, means this:

He, who keeps and lives his natural life cannot, at the same time, receive and live the Life Eternal.

The Lord framed this fact into His following Word: “For whosoever will save his (natural) life (refuse to die to it) shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his (natural) life (die to it, be separated from it) for My sake shall find it (My Life Eternal).” (Mt. 16:25)

This Word of God expresses the true Salvation of man as follows: the Life of our New Creation comes from the Death of our Old creation.

Those that were sons of the Devil, become sons of God through the death and resurrection of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ AND through our own death and resurrection. Forgiveness of sins, repentances, prayers, good works and everything else that believers try to do in their earthly life are only as it were “side effects” of our true Salvation.

Believers have been deceived that forgiveness of sins is the salvation of man. NO! Though the Lord died for our sins (1Cor. 15:3), Our salvation is not only that! OUR SALVATION IS THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR OLD CREATION – THE SOURCE OF OUR SINS – through our overcoming-perfection (Rev. 3:5// Heb. 6:1-6, etc.).

Our Lord had the power to forgive our sins even before He died and He demonstrated it clearly (Mt. 9:1-7// Mk. 4:11,12// Lk. 7:44-48). The men, who were healed or whose sins were forgiven them – REMAINED SINFUL!

They were not perfected or turned to the Image of Christ. The true Will and Purpose of God in them, their true Salvation, was not done, not concluded, not completed… possibly, not even started! (Rom. 8:29)

What is in the frame above is probably the most important spiritual fact that very few Christians have realized and seen and understood in spirit. This also shows the most important SNARE of the Devil for all believers. Therefore, this is also the most important spiritual fact of our Christianity which, to my knowledge, has NOT been preached and explained to the believers in any church. Why?

If Satan can deceive the whole world, as he did and still does today (Rev. 12:9// 2Cor. 4:4) and the church is friendly with the world, connected to the world, employs worldly methods, even depends on the world for its very existence, then Satan can deceive the church also. Such churches and believers have been then taken captive by the Devil at his will (2Tim. 2:24-26)! This also means that when “he moves his finger” the church jumps and follows his finger without thinking or asking questions. Believers can’t recover themselves out of his snare by their own means. But God may peradventure lead them to repentance and to the acknowledging of the Truth.

We do realize that forgiveness of sins is a blessing and we must never belittle the forgiveness of sins by the Grace of Our Saviour and Lord in any way (Rom. 4:7,8). But nowhere in the Scripture will you find that forgiveness of sins actually IS OUR SALVATION. Why is it not? It is one thing to confess our sins and be forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness (pertaining to that confessed sin – 1Jn. 1:9). It is an entirely different thing to “walk in the light, as He is in the light and have fellowship with one another” (1Jn. 1:7). This presupposes that we follow the Lord, which is far more than confessing our sins and be forgiven. Here…

we have to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him (Mt. 16:24).

This is overcoming of our selves and not just confessing of our sins. This is dying to our old nature and not just asking the Lord to forgive us our sins… WHILE our old nature keeps living and producing the same or even much worse sins “for ever”!

After 44 years of my ministry to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, and after 44 years of experiencing the life, or rather death, in the Church, His Spirit is permitting me to state the truth, which, in my belief, will shock the whole Church of Jesus Christ. It is the following:

Multitudes of believers in the Church of Jesus Christ DO NOT KNOW what true Salvation really is! What they were saved FROM, what they were saved INTO and HOW, and what, in the eyes of God, they are called TO BE and TO DO during their life on earth and then in the coming Kingdom of God and in Eternity!

I now desire to substantiate this shocking statement from the Scripture and show that we are doing exactly what is not for our true Salvation and we are NOT doing exactly what we are supposed to do for our true Salvation!

Let us first consider THE TRUE WILL OF GOD clearly expressed in His Word as follows:

We all, foreknown by Our Father, are to be conformed to the “Image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29)… changed, transformed, into the same Image! (2Cor. 3:18) Jesus Christ is to be REPRODUCED in our own lives! We are to LIVE HIS ETERNAL LIFE HERE AND NOW and not our natural soulish life.

You say: “Of course, we know that!” I am not asking whether you know that, but do you live that? The reality and tragedy of the Church is that, in general…

CHRISTIANS ARE NOT DOING THIS WILL OF GOD!

This simple answer also explains the miserable state of the Church described by the Lord Himself (Rev. 3:14-22). Are we being changed from our earthly human creature into a heavenly human creature? NO! It is not a change in our body or from a pagan into a Christian. It is the change from a carnal Christian ruled by his natural sinful soul into a spiritual Christian ruled by the Spirit of God!

Have you been changed in your personality, in your character, in your very constitution? Have you become a new, different person from who you were at your baptism? Really? Your baptism has not changed you one bit! If you were baptized, you went into the water a dry old man and you came out a wet old man... your old man did not die in that water! It was only your public proclamation that you were willing to die and be resurrected. But your willingness to die may have never come during your entire Christian life! To this day you may not even know why you were baptized, why nothing changed in your character. In fact, you may be baptized and not be born-again by God’s Spirit! If you consider these things as unrealistic, even impossible, then you have no idea what deceitful forces are influencing your mind and beliefs blocking the way to your own salvation.

You may be living your Christian life and walking by the rule of your reasoning, personal convictions or beliefs based on what others were telling you or how you feel in yourself. You may be trusting yourself or a second-hand knowledge or reasoning of men who themselves may have never known the Lord. You may be too lazy to verify the facts from the Word of God and from your own fruit. If you think, believe and are also satisfied that by attending a “reputable” church, giving generous offerings and enjoying the services, you are acceptable to the Lord, think again. What you will read next is not my personal opinion; it is my personal living experience which the Lord granted to me and can show to any believer with eyes to see and a heart to understand and who truly seeks the truth.

The Lord is now guiding me to describe my personal experiences and my understanding of this entity, which men call “the church”, WHY IT FAILED the Will and Purposes of God in a similar manner that carnal Israel failed His Will and Purposes. Therefore, I will show some general examples of how and why even in the “best” churches or other groups of believers, this WILL OF GOD IS NOT BEING DONE!

1) Firstly – The Pentecostal church which I attended for about 7 years. There I became a Deacon and had some close fellowship with the leadership and many members of the congregation. I was also baptized in that church and received the gifts of the Holy Spirit including tongues, interpretation of tongues, discerning of spirits, wisdom, faith and prophecy (1Cor. 12:8-11). I used all of them except prophesy, which came later on. Pentecostal churches were considered the churches on the “cutting edge of Christianity”, which the Lord later showed me to be a myth. My position, activities and experiences in that church until my departure are all described in our book “Open Letter to His Majesty and Excellency Christ Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the only true God^[10]”, so I will not repeat them here.

The Lord took about two years to begin showing me the congregation and the leadership in their true spiritual conditions. Being 4 years on the Board of Deacons, I also gained the knowledge of how such churches were run by men. I was on a first-name basis with the pastor and all was going quite well… until the Lord began to show pride, self-righteousness, vanity and other “virtues” of flesh first in the leadership and later on also in many other members of the congregation. These things I did not see before.

Finally, and this is probably the most important fact, I began to SEE and understand that all the preaching and ministry were on an intellectual level and thus spiritually dead. No one was “putting on the new man” and changing in spirit, NO ONE! It was an organization run by men, not by the Lord, so no wonder that some years after the Lord took me out, the church “on the cutting edge of Christianity” was sold to Seventh Day Adventists – another “church” run by men. And I have plenty of personal experiences with that “church” also and with some members of it. Nobody knows why that Pentecostal church went “belly up” and why the same happened to another Pentecostal church, which I also attended sporadically since it was close to my home. It was also sold and disappeared. My question is: How can any true church of Jesus Christ go bankrupt and disappear?

2) Secondly – The churches at large which I personally never attended. During my ministry I visited and preached in numerous churches, also home churches, but I was never their member. Also, I viewed many churches on television, remember many congregations, their preachers, pastors, hundreds of services and also many sermons. Many of these “churches” do not exist any more, they also went bankrupt! They brought nothing but shame to the Lord Jesus Christ. They were spiritually dead and none of them could be called “the Body of Christ”. The major reasons are described below.

2a) Sometime in the history, probably nobody knows when, the “church” had evolved into an organizational form and became like unto a “National Theater”. It became a “one man show” with spectators sitting around a stage witnessing what was happening on the stage and listening to that one man (and today even to that one woman) speaking what he prepared for the listeners. I say “spectators and listeners” because that’s what the congregations are doing. They don’t “look at Jesus” (Heb. 12:2), don’t “drink His Word” and don’t have an “ear to hear”; they just look around and listen. They participate in the “service” in occasional singing, common prayer and offering, or laughing at jokes.

2b) No one knows who believes what. How many believed the sermon, how many did not and how many did not care or were confused. No one has a chance to ask any questions or say anything. When the preacher leaves, he may shake hands at the exit door and people may tell him how they enjoyed the sermon. The Lord, of course, doesn’t care whether we enjoyed the sermon or not, but He cares very much whether we had an ear to hear His Truth (Rev. 2:7,11, 17,29 + 3:6,13,22) which alone can transform and liberate our spirit and nothing else (Jn. 8:31,32).

2c) The principles of man’s true salvation are never even mentioned! Everybody assumes that everybody else is already a saint, holy, righteous, prepared for Heaven and for the coming of the Lord. Both speakers and listeners are acting as if they were already saved and so, all that they have to do is “praise the Lord” and wait for their “rapture”. The numerous passages of the Word dealing with OUR sinful and filthy nature, which are so totally devastating to our proud, arrogant, selfish, self-righteous, stubborn, fearful, stupid, religiously educated SELF, are NEVER preached! Why? Because both speakers and listeners in these National Theaters believe that they are already “new creatures in Christ Jesus”! Yet, many of them act much worse than pagans! All you need to do is to insert into their sinful flesh a “needle of truth”… and puss comes out.

2d) Since God’s truth about man’s salvation is almost never preached, the National Theaters become merry-go-rounds of ever increasing intellectual lecturing “how Great is God, how Merciful, how Loving, doing everything what we ask for, healing us, showering us with finances and delivering us from all evil”. And the OLD MAN in the listeners is then “singing to the Lord” accepting everything what was said… because “the preacher knows” and it sounds wonderful. Apparently, the Lord is obliged to do everything what preachers are saying, asking or praying for never mind His Whole Word and not just the one verse preached! Whether the listener is already a NEW MAN or not, nobody knows or cares for. Whether he has the necessary proofs of being a New Man (what fruit of the Spirit he lives and displays, how ripe, how perfected – 1Jn. 4:18) nobody knows or cares for. Whether he is righteous or not (Pr. 15:29 // Ps. 34:17 etc.) nobody knows or cares for. Believers may be very unrighteous while (a unique) righteousness was counted unto them just for believing in the Saviour (Rom. 4:3). Whether they cleaned the filth of their flesh and spirit (2Cor. 7:1) nobody knows or cares for. Whether any believer truly loves the Lord nobody knows or cares for (1Cor. 16:23), etc., etc.

2e) After 10-20-30 years, the congregation spiritually is the same and speakers are the same, if they were not transferred to another National Theater where their lectures will be like new. But no one will be changed in spirit, that is, in his character; the old man will not be put off and the new man put on (Eph. 4:22-24), but otherwise, everybody will be “fine” and waiting for the Lord whether they have any oil in their vessels or not (Mt. 25:1-12). After all, who cares for some oil? Even in the Pentecostal churches nobody knew what it really was, who had it and how much, if any.

3) Thirdly – House churches where I ministered. They are no better than the organized National Theaters. They do not have paid speakers or stages, but have the same sinful human nature that nobody wants to crucify! People do come and listen, they were “fed-up” with their former pastor and his church, but have nothing better to replace it with, so they speculate and seek self-satisfaction elsewhere. They think and believe that because they now gather at a home, they must be spiritual and fully acceptable to the Lord. I weep over them for they are no less proud, arrogant, self-righteous, fearful and foolish than any other similar believers in the National Theaters, but now they are perfect preys for wolfs. Any believer may be deeply deceived whether he sits in a mega-church of 10,000 or at home with 3-4 others. Until 2013, I had not found even one home church anywhere in North America or Europe where I ministered, which would be a true Body of Christ possessing and expressing His Life, or willing to reach that level IN Christ Jesus. But in the Fall of 2013, the Lord granted to me a special joy to minister to one young family with children and their grandparents. They were the first group of 4 adult believers that were actually “drinking the Word” and happy over the Grace and Love of the Lord. I baptized two of their children. There are also few individuals in Canada, USA, Africa and Europe to whom I have been ministering and whose hearts are open and obedient to the Word.

The above testimony shows the tragic picture of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Lord prophesied about it.

The Lord has “marked” His true sheep since not every sheep belongs to Him. The three main marks are these:

a) They follow the Lord because He goes before them (Jn. 10:4// Mt. 16:24). You may follow yourself, if there is no one going before you. Or, you may follow a man that may not follow the Lord. And if you follow any leader, ask him whether he is living the Word of God in Mt. 16:24. And if he believes so, what proofs does he have? Do you know? If he has no proofs, he might as well follow you.

b) They hear the Lord’s voice (Jn. 10:16) since they know His voice in their spirit (Jn. 10:4). The Lord’s voice can only be known and heard by an ear in spirit, not in head.

c) They know the Lord – their Shepherd (Jn. 10:14). Again, they know Him in their spirit, not in their head. They will not hear or follow others because they do not trust them. These are spiritual facts, not just words.

There are very few Christians that I know personally as being changed into Christ’s Image and bringing the fruit of His Spirit as undeniable proofs of their transformation. And none of those that I know is a leader in a church. Not one! The church leaders are usually changed in the volume of their intellectual knowledge, in mastering their sermons to be attractive, interesting, wise and persuasive explaining the Scriptures to fit the logic and their intentions, improving their preaching skills, running their church more wisely or other organizations. But there is usually no change in their spirit. If they began as proud, they usually continued their ministry as more proud (1Cor. 8:1b), if they began as stubborn, selfish, vainglorious, unrighteous or in other “virtues” of their flesh, they usually finished in the same character and with the same “virtues” except that they may have become more unjust, more carnal or more filthy in spirit. You see, there are only two ways to live and change, the right one and the wrong one. If we keep decreasing and He keeps increasing, this is the right way (Jn. 3:30). But many church leaders keep increasing rather than decreasing, and they may be completely unaware of this fact.

We either walk on the narrow way or the broadway, there are no other ways for man to walk on. The narrow way leads to Life Eternal and few find it! The broadway leads to destruction and many walk on it (Mt. 7:13, 14). Is this logical? No. But if we walk on the narrow way, we are acquiring the Life and thus the Character of Christ. We are becoming more humble, more righteous, more holy, and we grow the fruit of the Spirit. If we walk on the broadway, we become more proud, more unrighteous, more unholy, more spiritually foolish and unacceptable to God. This fact is clearly voiced by the Lord Himself at the end of the Bible (Rev. 22:11). Here the Lord is not addressing pagans, but believers. It is hardly necessary to add, that the narrow way is painful while the broadway is comfortable. That explains the numbers of believers that walk on these two roads.

I am sure that nobody has ever guided you to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. (Mt. 6:33) True? Why? Because many leaders do not seek first the Kingdom either and the simple reason is that they themselves do not know where to seek it and how to seek it. Yet, I witnessed in many services how the preachers were screaming at their congregations: “Are you ready for the Kingdom? Are you ready for the rapture?” Yet, they themselves were not ready and were not aware of it.

I would like to ask you two simple questions:

a) Should you truly get to the Kingdom of Heaven, what are you going to do there? Do you know? The Kingdom will begin in few short years from now! Do you possess the required spiritual capacity, authority, wisdom and power to judge righteously the nations and rule them with a rod of iron for 1,000 years? (Rev. 2:26,27; 20:4) Do you really? This is not a sarcastic question, this should wake you up and bring you to reality and to ponder your future life as God planned it for you and you may have no clue what it is.

b) And what are you going to do in Heaven once you get there? Will you sit on a cloud and play a harp for the first one million years? What a miserable existence that would be. And what about the next one million years? The boredom would “kill you”. Seriously, do you know your calling and thus your duties for your eternal life? You will not be there as a pensioner choosing desperately what interesting things you should do. How will you serve God for ever? Any idea? How will you rule any part of His Creation unless you posses the absolutely necessary spiritual intelligence, knowledge and wisdom for such a monumental task? And God has been trying to prepare us for that task NOW during our earthly life, bring us up from a spiritual toddler to a mature son of God, who knows his Father and His plans for His sons. And God is doing it through discipline and instructions and reproofs, which we genuinely hate and resist (Pr. 5:12-14) because of the ignorance, which is in our natural soul. And here I might add a third simple question:

c) Do you know that this work of God and your working out of your own salvation (Phil. 2:12) cannot be done in Heaven? It must be done and finished HERE & NOW, BEFORE you get there! Nobody will enter Heaven without being perfected (holy, righteous, meek, wise, etc.), wholly prepared for that entry! And if we refuse to be prepared during our earthly life, we will be subjected to that necessary process after our physical death and before the Last Judgment. The “post mortem” place for that necessary process is in the Word of God called “the outer darkness or the furnace of fire – there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mt. 8:12 + 13:42,50 + 22:13 + 24:51 + 25:30// Lk. 13:28). Would you prefer this latter process to reach your destiny?

Has any believer noticed these passages in the Word of God and understood who is going there and why? And how long a time shall such poor souls spend there and what will happen to them afterward? Has anybody preached about this and clearly explained these horrible things to his “sheep”? To my knowledge – nobody! I repeat, the Bible was not written for pagans, but for Israel and the Church.

You may live in a deep ignorance of these spiritual facts, but our ignorance will not excuse us from the Purpose of Our Father nor will it change or modify His Purposes in any way. Our only destiny is in the Eternal Purpose of Our Father for every one of us called by Him. The only question is which way we will choose to reach that destiny effectively and wisely! Our choice will depend on the level of our spiritual sensitivity to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, knowledge or ignorance, wisdom or foolishness, intelligence and faith or lack of them, diligence or laziness, fears or decisiveness, determination or carelessness, etc., and the last, but not the least, our ability to ask questions. To illustrate, here is a “stupid” example.

I live in Montreal, Canada, and Ottawa, its Capitol City, is west of it, about 200 km away. Now, if I had a sufficient knowledge and intelligence, I could get there in about 30 minutes by air, or in about 2 hours by car, or in about 4 days by bicycle, or in about 12-15 days walking.

Very loosely speaking, there are at least 25 million alternative routes to reach that City of Ottawa from Montreal. Depending on which “intelligent” direction I would choose, I may have to fly several air routes, cross several oceans, hire camels to cross Gobi or Sahara deserts, use elephants to cross some jungles of India, hire sherpas to cross Himalayas, use some huskies to traverse parts of Antarctica and then after some years end up in the middle of pampas in Argentina, when I might finally decide to ask my first question: “Where am I?… how do I get to Ottawa?” If I would ask this question a local gaucho, who would be just as intelligent as I, he would look at me and say: “Are you a nut?” (of course, in Spanish, which would help me even more).

Now, may I ask you these questions in English: “How many of you, born-again believers, are presently spiritually in the “middle of Argentina”? (and don’t speak Spanish?) Are you there alone or with your whole congregation? Maybe, even with your pastor and bishop? And if so, are you willing to ask the same important question to someone who knows where to find your true destination? But if you are, please, do not ask any local gauchos! You have to learn that even the person who is to answer your questions, must have the necessary level of spiritual intelligence.

Now, it is true that this example may be intellectually stupid and also funny, but its spiritual application is not only true, but absolutely devastating to our spiritual situation and intelligence so that it should transcend any intellectual stupidity of the example. Let’s now return to more serious matters of our spiritual pilgrimage in this world and a mindless roaming in our soulish world (see more on pages 87-90).

A very important fact is to be added to the first paragraph of this point c) and it is the following: Here, we are NOT talking about the catholic purgatory and all the associated strange doctrines about it. In the purgatory, the poor souls are to be cleansed from their “unconfessed sins” and their stay there may be shortened by the Pope (I truly do not know how, even if you pay for it).

In the outer darkness or in the furnace of fire, which are clearly described in the Scripture, the souls are given another chance to overcome their disobedience, laziness, foolishness, ignorance and, finally, obey the Word of God and die to their old natural life and to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (not of sins!), perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2Cor. 7:1).

The fire is not to devour our soul, rather to burn our “flesh” with its filth and evil. These souls and spirits are there without their physical bodies and the “flesh” spoken above is not their body, but it is the sinful-filthy-evil nature of their soul and spirit! Here we are not talking about sins, but about the crucifixion of the flesh, the sinful nature of man. Unless our flesh is crucified, we do not belong to Christ yet (Gal. 5:24) and we are not holy yet. And without holiness, no man shall see God! (Heb. 12:14)

Our spirit governs our soul, and soul governs our body, never vice versa! Sinful and filthy spirit makes sinful and filthy soul and that soul expresses its sinfulness and filthiness through the body and leads it to sin! Our body is neutral and does not sin as such, it is our soul that sins and uses our body to carry out or express its sinful lusts and filthiness.

Disobedience toward the Word of God usually comes from unbelief and it is the greatest infraction of the Law of Salvation of man. All pagans are marching to their eternal damnation because of this one infraction – unbelief with ensuing disobedience. All the people on the face of this earth – except eight (Gen. 7:13) – were drowned because of their unbelief and disobedience! And the Lord reminded them about it when He preached to them after He descended to the Hades (prison) after His crucifixion (1Pet. 3:18-20 + 4:6). And if we, here and now, consider the Word of the Lord comparing His soon coming with the days of Noah where He said: “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be…” (Mt. 24:37-39), we can see the same connection involving the unbelief and disobedience of His people before the Flood, and now also before the coming of the Tribulation, which is typified by the Flood. It is the same unbelief and disobedience toward the Word of God and toward His true servants that will determine, who from the currently living mankind will “drown” during this coming Tribulation and who will not.

And just as there were two kinds of people during the time of Noah who drowned and a third kind that went into the Ark, so it is today. One kind of people was from Cain and his cursed seed representing pagans of today, the second kind was from Seth and his blessed seed representing believers of today who do not believe and obey God, and the third kind were those that believed and obeyed God and were thus considered worthy of God (1Thes. 2:12). The Lord had granted me His Light concerning these facts and it is described in detail in the book “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers^[9]” (pages 233-236), so I will not repeat it here. What I desire to underline is that the unbelief and disobedience in both pagans and believers comes from our flesh and not from the Spirit. The question of our flesh and spirit will be the topic of the next chapters.

I am led to conclude this chapter by a simple yet most profound fact of reality before God and us. It is expressed in one verse (2Cor. 3:6) and it divides the Old and New Testaments. This Word does not deal with pagans, it separates believers into two kinds, those that BELIEVE AND OBEY GOD and thus “walk with God” as Noah did (Gen. 6:9b) and those that DO NOT, which are those that perished in the Flood (they perished physically, not in their soul and spirit – 1Pet. 3:18-20).

I have never met any church minister who would not know this Word of God (2Cor. 3:6) and even be able to quote it by heart. Equally, I have never met any church minister who would be living and practicing this Word in his own “religious life and ministry”. Please, keep reading.

If God has made me a minister of the New Testament, then He could not have made me a minister of the letters! There would have been no need for God to make me a minister of letters. Why? Any man, who can read and has a sufficiently sound mind and logic, can minister letters from any book, including the Bible! Some ministers, like doctors of theology, have more knowledge and logic than others, thus, they minister more death. Please, keep reading.

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God…” (2Tim. 3:16) Even this Word can be quoted by all ministers in the church since they understand it in their understanding, which means, in their mind, which means, in their SOUL. But this Word also means that every letter of every Word of God CONTAINS HIS SPIRIT, Who breathed His Life into those dead letters!

In the beginning, God formed man of the dust of the earth and breathed His Life into the dead man, the first Adam, and he became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Is this not the same thing? The letters in themselves are dead and they need some kind of spirit to bring some kind of life and meaning into them. It then depends on the kind of spirits in the soul of the writer to fill those letters that he writes or dictates to someone else. Otherwise, his writings would be illiterate garbage without any meaning.

Even though there is a spirit in man, it does not have the understanding of God, His Life and Truth. It needs the INSPIRATION of the Almighty to receive such understanding. That is why great men, educated men, knowledgeable men, masters of the letters, graduates of religious schools, who do not have the Spirit of God living in their SOUL, are not always wise and do not understand Judgments of God (Job 32:8,9). They may have a lot of dead knowledge in their soul, but no Life of God.

If you are a minister of the LETTER, you minister your natural SOUL, you minister your FLESH (Rom. 2:28-29). You minister the understanding and the emotions of your soul, the reactions of your soul to those letters. Your natural soul would not see or comprehend or touch the Life that the Spirit “breathed into those letters”. Your natural soul is describing to others the dead Adam! The living Adam could speak for himself and your renewed soul would understand him and extend to the others his own words. (We will return to these facts later on.)

Here I often use an example where I compare a fresh and living food with a pasteurized food, which is dead because the process of pasteurization kills all living enzymes in the food and that very effectively and permanently. It may look the same, taste the same even cost the same, but it is NOT the same. The first one is living and brings to our bodies a living nutrition that it needs for a long and healthy life. The second one is dead; it keeps our body living a life which may be much shorter and unhealthy, open to sicknesses of all kinds.

It is similar with the Word of God, which in itself is living and giving us a spiritual nutrition for a healthy and useful life on earth and then the life eternal in Heaven. The Word of God “pasteurized” through the natural soul of man looks the same, tastes the same, but it is NOT the same, it is DEAD and gives us no spiritual nutrition.

That is the sole reason why today the Church of Jesus Christ is DEAD though it may be even overeducated in the Biblical knowledge. And this is also the sole reason why the Church of Jesus Christ FAILED as it is printed boldly on the very first page of this chapter. Please, keep reading.

The most important part of this whole book and of this chapter, in particular, contains the following truth:

I DO NOT BLAME ANY BELIEVER FOR THIS STATE OF THE CHURCH. I DO NOT BLAME EVEN MOST OF THE LEADERSHIP FOR THE HORRIBLE STATE OF THE CHURCH. I DO NOT BLAME OR JUDGE ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN CAUSING THIS HORRIBLE STATE OF THE CHURCH IGNORANTLY, UNCONSCIOUSLY, BEING UNAWARE OF THE SPIRITUAL REALITY, FACTS AND THE TRUTH.

BUT I DO JUDGE BY SPIRIT THOSE THAT DO IT PURPOSELY OR CONSCIOUSLY OR CONTINUE DESPITE BEING WARNED BY GOD ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. THEY SHALL GIVE ACCOUNT TO GOD AND RECEIVE ACCORDING TO THEIR WICKED WORKS. THEY KEEP REFUSING TO OVERCOME AND CLEANSE THEMSELVES FROM ALL FILTHINESS OF THEIR FLESH AND SPIRIT. WOE TO THEM ALL!

LET THIS TRUTH CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK AND REMAIN IN THE UNDERSTANDING AND CONSCIENCE OF ALL SINCERE READERS. FOR I WAS NOT CALLED TO JUDGE OR BLAME ANY MAN BY MY SOUL, BUT TO SPEAK HIS TRUTH AND PRESENT HIS LIGHT AS IT WAS SOVEREIGNLY GIVEN TO ME BY THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD FROM HIS WRITTEN WORD.

CHAPTER 2

OUR ENEMY #1

Our enemy #1 has been a true mystery to most of the Church, cleverly hiding in our souls. You can find its existence and its hiding place in Rom. 7:21 and I gave it the name – GOOD FLESH! This good flesh is the “good” part of our SELF… while our self is the enemy of God!

GOOD FLESH IS A LAW whereby EVIL is present when we try to do GOOD! This law is completely illogical since evil should be present when we try to do something BAD or EVIL, not something GOOD. True? So, our logic doesn’t lead to the truth of God.

Now, why am I presenting this good flesh as our enemy #1? Because in the true Church of Jesus Christ, no one tries to do anything evil or bad, yet, evil is present there continually! Why? Because GOOD FLESH IS HIDING IN THE SELF OF EVERY BELIEVER, starting from the leadership down to the last member of the congregation sitting in the last pew or chair in the sanctuary! Now, how can this good flesh be so well hidden? Because nobody is noticing it! Nobody in his wildest dreams would imagine or believe that all believers are carrying in their human goodness a reservoir of evil and thus sinfulness, which must also be destroyed before we are made perfect!

Well, we can start with the Lord showing us a minister of a congregation. He preaches or teaches from the Bible and the congregation is listening, even making notes or nodding their heads in approval. Is anything wrong with it? Nothing, you would say. All this activity would be considered desirable and clean in every man’s eyes. True? But is it also how the Lord looks at it? NO!

The first verse in the Word of God which could be linked with this “Law of good flesh” and applies to us all is found in the Book of Proverbs (Pr. 16:2). This Word of God warns us of this law of good flesh saying the following:

“ALL THE WAYS OF A MAN ARE CLEAN IN HIS OWN EYES;” And THEN the Word seems to stop us for a moment and continues declaring the following mystery:

“…BUT the Lord…”

Have we ever paused and considered this BUT in our Christian life and activity? NEVER! The Word continues declaring something of a mystery:

“BUT THE LORD WEIGHETH (discerns, judges, assesses, verifies) THE SPIRITS.”

The Lord always judges and verifies in what spirits we are doing, whatever we are doing on our “clean ways”. In what spirits we are thinking, whatever we are thinking on our “clean ways”. In what spirits we are planning, desiring or intending to do something good on our “clean ways”, in what spirits we are preaching on our “clean ways”. Why do we not care for this Word of God? Because whenever we are trying to do all these good activities, good plans, good intentions, good works – we never care for or discern the spirits in us! But the Lord does!

Though we are born-again by the Holy Spirit we never start living in Him, thinking in Him, acting in Him, speaking in Him, teaching in Him, preaching in Him, walking in Him or doing anything in Him right from our new birthday! True? The vast majority of believers do not start doing anything in Him even until they die! And they never know it! Why? Nobody tells them since nobody seems to know!

Whatsoever we are doing or trying to do, thinking or planning or intending or speaking or preaching or teaching or praying or fasting or giving gifts or doing any works “for the Lord” or for the brethren, and we do it from our GOOD FLESH – EVIL SHALL BE ALWAYS PRESENT! And in the eyes of the Lord, evil is always associated with SINNING! There is a world of difference when we are doing something FOR GOD FROM US or FROM GOD THROUGH US! Is it something from OUR SELF or something from HIS SELF?

GOOD FLESH IS NOT THE HOLY SPIRIT; it is still flesh, sinful and evil though outwardly it may appear good, but evil is ALWAYS with it because it is IN IT!

Can you distinguish your good flesh from the Holy Spirit? Can you distinguish whether your good intentions are from your soul or from His Spirit? Not if you are a carnal believer. Can you also distinguish whether you are carnal or spiritual? If you are carnal, you cannot, it is impossible. Carnal believers do not and cannot see themselves in what spirits they live and act.

Do you believe this? If you do not, it does not change the Law of our good flesh. The Lord wants you to ponder and see and understand and believe the following.

When you witness a person stealing, lying, beating, murdering or bullying someone, drunken, doing immoral things, scolding, cursing, swearing, abusing or robbing anyone, committing perjury, causing damages to persons or to property, witnessing falsely, deceiving, etc., do you not say that the person is doing evil and bad things and is sinning against God? You do say that, and you are right.

When you witness an evangelist, pastor, teacher or preacher to preach from the Bible, do you also say that the person is doing evil or bad things or sinning against God? Never! Why? Because you cannot believe that such a thing is possible. But the Lord says: YES, IT IS. That person may be doing evil inwardly in the spiritual world, not outwardly in the intellectual world of his soul or in the physical world of his body. This evil cannot be seen and distinguished by our natural senses, but only by spiritual senses.

The ministers that may belong to the above paragraph may be just “ordinary carnal believers”, who are spiritually dead, and thus they minister “death” with “their truth”, but not life with God’s truth. They may also be “servants of Satan” transformed to the ministers of righteousness! (2Cor. 11:13-15) Whether they are the first or the second group, they may cause similar damages; they bring death to the children of God. And most of the children of God do not recognize, do not distinguish, do not discern such ministers of death! But if they do not, they themselves are becoming more and more dead desiring “dead spiritual food” and becoming addicted to it. They lose taste for the Life of Christ and with it the desire for the living food. True?

A typical example of this truth is found in the Word of God (Mt. 22:2-8) where a “certain King” (The Father) made a marriage for His Son (Jesus Christ) and sent His servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding – and they would NOT come! They preferred their farm or business to the Wedding of the Son of God. Stupendous! They had no taste for the heavenly food, but rather for the dunghill of their farm. You say, it must take an idiot to refuse to come to the Marriage Supper of the Son of God. Well, you are right! But do you realize that the King sent His servants to call born-again believers? No pagan was ever called and bidden to that Wedding! So, now you might be able to believe that a born-again believer may not only be wicked, but also an idiot.

With pain in my heart I have to say that there are many such believers and there are such ones among them that nobody will help anymore. They received not the love of the truth that they might be (or continue to be) saved after their redemption (Heb. 6:1-6// 2Pet. 2:20-22). God Himself will send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness (2Thes. 2:10-12) and had and kept their evil heart of unbelief (Heb. 3:12).

What is causing believers to fall into condemnation, to even lose their own salvation? THEIR GOOD FLESH! They continue assessing themselves as good and righteous and any “contrary” thought or word from a true servant of God is immediately rejected from their deceived minds. They would never admit that they could be wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Nobody is telling them this truth – yet, the Lord is! – For the past two thousand years! (Rev. 3:17) They keep enlarging their self-deception for many years, so now it is so great that they are unable to believe any truth about themselves! They never strove to find and then enter in at the straight gate and walk on the narrow way. They have been comfortable to walk on the broad way to destruction. And after years, when they finally “woke up” and decided to enter in at the straight gate, they found out that they were NOT ABLE! (Mt. 7:13, 14// Lk. 13:24)

Concerning the carnal ministers, Brother Watchman Nee, a truly great servant of the Lord from China, on page 86 of his book: “The Messenger of the Cross^[1]” says the following:

“In seeking truth, many come with a wrong motive. If they are not seeking to satisfy their own lust for knowing, they are preparing messages (or writing books) to teach others. Their basic motive is to solve mental difficulties and not to cultivate their own spiritual life. Since such is their intention, they feel comforted if they are able, in the end, to understand. For they can now teach others (they believe). Clearly, they are not seeking for spiritual reality.”

And on page 135 of the same book he continues:

“If… we try to edify saints on the strength of our knowledge of the Bible and our excellent speech, in God’s eyes we will be SINNING WHILE PREACHING!

The meaning of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is none other than being active OUTSIDE OF GOD, seeking what is good according to one’s own thought…”

The above is closely connected with our natural life and clearly shows the activities of our “good flesh” and how it sins against God whether we see and believe it or not.

What is the difference between the “carnal ministers” and the “servants of Satan” transformed into ministers of righteousness? The “servants of Satan” purposely and actively derail you from truth into deception; they also satisfy the desires of your natural life thus increasing the spiritual death in you. The “carnal ministers” are in effect doing a similar thing, but are generally unaware that they may be deceiving you with “their truth” as opposed to the Truth of God and thus feeding you with death and not life. Carnality in their souls is the ground from which Satan can work unhindered and undisclosed.

The greatest deception coming from such carnal ministers is the fact that they often preach or teach either an undiluted lie or a truth diluted with lie – partial truth – which is disconnected and isolated from all the other corresponding and interdependent truths in the Scripture about the topic preached. All such corresponding and interdependent truths together give the whole truth about any particular topic and thus also provide the way, how to apply and live that whole truth effectively and successfully in one’s earthly life.

This whole truth then also represents the spiritual reality about any Scriptural topic as it stands before God and as it is understood by God and not by man and his limited logic. A typical brief example is in Mt. 4:6-7. Carnal ministers never seem to consider the fact that every partial truth is always followed by “It is written again…” to make it a whole truth. One such partial truth doctrine is “once saved, forever saved” supported by some “logical” verses from the Bible. YET, the whole truth for this topic incorporates many other truths from the same Bible, which stand in sharp contradiction to this intellectual doctrine thus making it a very dangerous lie. Why? Because, “It is written again…” in Rev. 3:5, Heb. 6:4-6, Jn. 15:6, etc. (see also bottom of p.114)!

Every such intellectual partial truth, though supported by some Bible verses, becomes a “color dream” and a dangerous lie since it is always useless, deeply deceiving and totally ineffective. It cannot change the believer’s spirit and thus transform him into the Image of Christ, which is THE Final Purpose and Will of Our Father (Rom. 8:29). But if any believer believes such “partial truth doctrines” of men, they may change his destiny from Heaven to Hell.

This above truth is confirmed in the mouth of three witnesses, one from China, one from Canada and the third Witness is from Heaven, who speaks through His Word quite clearly. And He also speaks quite clearly through His Apostle Paul.

I do wonder whether there would be a servant of the Lord who would consider himself comparable to or even greater than Apostle Paul. I doubt that; such pride would definitely bring him to shame in front of all his fellow servants and brethren. But Apostle Paul, this great servant of God in the New Testament, admitted to the whole world that there was nothing good dwelling in him, that is, in his flesh! (Rom. 7:18a) I have yet to meet a minister of the Word of God who would freely and in truth admit the same thing. You see, a carnal mind always tries to find something good in our humanity and use it to “serve the Lord” or to help other people.

It will probably never occur to our mind and heart that there is nothing good in us, in our natural being. Neither will it ever occur to our mind or heart that, in fact, in our natural being WE ARE NOTHING (Gal. 6:3). That the only valuable part in us is the Holy Spirit (if we are born-again), what He worked into us and how he renewed us and transformed us! THAT IS ALL! Can you believe it? I’m not asking whether you can imagine it or understand it or admit it. I’m asking whether you can believe it… because God says so!

I tell you a simple truth: I am not sure whether under the current situation and spiritual conditions in His Church, the believers in His Church are willing to even read and consider anything, which is not comfortable to their sinful nature. That includes most of the leadership of the Church, which is proud and inaccessible and does not want to be “bothered” by writings that do not fit their own plans, desires, feelings, reasonings and intentions.

I am not sure whether I will find any person in today’s Church, who will read and believe and understand what the Lord is giving to us in this book. But then, a simple question may be asked: Why then am I even writing this book?

My truthful reply is this: God knows! He Alone knows why He was sending His prophets to His people of Israel speaking unto them His words knowing that they will not listen, and calling unto them knowing that they will not answer! (Jer. 7:24-27) Man would never do such an “illogical” thing, but God is not a man. His thoughts and His ways are much higher than ours (Is. 55:8,9). If only one believer will see and believe and be transformed and become a true Overcomer, and thus a true Bride of Christ and a true son of God (Rev. 21:7), then it was worth writing this book!

CHAPTER 3

OUR SPIRIT AND SOUL

I do not want to repeat the things which are already clearly written in my two previous books “Word to the Church of Jesus Christ” and “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers” unless absolutely necessary. What the Lord desires to show us in this chapter is the following.

Man has one spirit, one soul and one body (1Thes. 5: 23). All three are a natural creation permanently inoculated and penetrated throughout by evil since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, in their natural, corrupted, filthy and sinful state, they must be destroyed as totally unacceptable to Him! All three must be replaced by new spirit, new soul and new body, that is, by a totally new creation. That is accomplished by our death and resurrection. The Lord showed us the way by His Death and Resurrection. Therefore, if we die to our natural life, we are then resurrected INTO Christ and there we become “a new creature, old (natural) things are passed away; behold all (old) things are become new.” (2Cor. 5:17) But THIS will never happen just by believing in Jesus, getting redeemed, getting baptized in water and attending “church services”!

Believers can discern their soul – heart, mind and will, but they cannot discern their spirit, which is also filthy in its natural state (2Cor. 7:1). Our spirit and the Holy Spirit are two different persons, they never mix; they become one wherever the Holy Spirit takes over our spirit

If we refuse to die to our old natural creation, to our old soul and old spirit, we cannot be resurrected and thus be IN Christ as a new creature. In our natural state we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven or the New Jerusalem. Hence, our death and resurrection are not optional but absolutely essential for our salvation and life eternal.

The Word of God speaks about an “old man” and a “new man”. The “old man” is corrupt, unrighteous, filthy and sinful; it has the devil’s nature, which became our nature. The “new man” is created after God in righteousness and true holiness. We are to put off the old man and put on the new man and be renewed in the spirit of our mind (Eph. 4:22-24). So, I repeat: THIS is the salvation of our soul, of our spirit and lastly also of our body. Nothing else!

Most of the believers are not putting off the old man and putting on the new man nor are they led to it by their ministers. After their redemption, they are kept in their deception that they are “fine” and do not have to “move their finger”. “Once saved, forever saved”, they are told by many doctors of theology–turned-ministers, who believe that they themselves live in the new man and understand everything. Such ministers live in dreams and logical understanding of spiritual things, but spiritually they understand nothing! Believers keep living in their old soul and many remain in the danger of losing their salvation (Lk. 13:14// Heb. 6:1-6// 2Pet. 2:20-22// Rev. 3:5, etc). Every believer is the temple of God and if he defiles the temple of God, God shall destroy him! (1Cor. 3:16,17). Are you unable to defile God’s temple?

This above deception is very dangerous as it comes straight from hell and is designed by Satan to turn believers into “zombies”, who would readily receive this comfortable doctrine of men and never strive toward anything. It is far more comfortable and thus preferable to sit in the church or in front of a TV and just listen to such sweet deceptions.

What is even more dangerous is the simple fact that NO BELIEVER WILL PUT OFF HIS OLD MAN AND PUT ON HIS NEW MAN VOLUNTARILY OR OUT OF HIS OWN INITIATIVE! He must usually be “cornered” by the Holy Spirit like a “wild kicking horse”. Then the Spirit must sovereignly show him the naked facts about himself, his behavior, deeds and fruit, what he is in God’s eyes, how deeply he may be deceived, how deeply he may sin against God and what evil he is able to do through his “good flesh”. Honest, sincere and humble believers might admit this fact though they may not fully see, imagine or understand it. Proud believers, many leaders, preachers, teachers, pastors, doctors of theology will never admit it or believe it. Pride veils their spiritual eyes making them blind to these facts so they cannot see themselves!

I wonder which church leader would dare to believe or even publicly declare that he is greater than prophet Isaiah. Do you know one like that? I don’t. But prophet Isaiah was also blind toward himself as a man though he was a mighty prophet of God prophesying quite extensively about Our Lord, His birth, life, sufferings and death, which means, about man’s coming Salvation. But, there was a day when the Lord decided to show Himself to His prophet in a way that would show a deep spiritual fact of man’s future Salvation, which even he did not see or realize.

Since the number of man is six (Rev. 13:18), we should not be surprised that in chapter six of the Book of Isaiah, the Lord showed to His prophet similar scene from Heaven which was shown also to His Apostle John (Rev. 4:8) and showed him also Himself seated on His Throne (Is. 6:1-3). And in this heavenly Vision, Isaiah saw himself and cried: “Woe is me! For I am undone (I am finished!); because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (Is. 6:5) The Lord showed him that though in his spirit he may have been sanctified, holy and a chosen vessel, yet in his soul there was leprosy! His ministry was shaken through that discovery! And if that unexpected shaking and discovery happened to the great prophet Isaiah, then where DO WE stand before God? Are we not all deceived in our pride and vanity?

This need of shaking and crisis is applicable to all people of God since all, small and great, have a degree of leprosy in their souls! And it is absolutely necessary to prepare the “Remnant” – the Bride of Christ – for the coming of Christ and the Kingdom. The Lord will never marry a leprous Bride! True? Really?

Fortunately, the heart of Isaiah was open to God and thus he was not undone, not finished, because the fire from off the altar was applied to his lips and his iniquity was taken away and his sin purged! (Is. 6:6,7) Does this mean that the first five chapters of his Book are not good? Not at all! The Lord kept them as perfect and infallible parts of His Holy Word!

Well, what do these things mean to us today? This tremendously important picture is applicable to the New Testament Church far, far more than to the Old Testament Israel. It shows all believers, including apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers and preachers chosen by the Lord and given to the Church (Eph. 4:11) which may be sanctified and holy in their spirit, that they are yet lepers in their souls! And they minister to a people, which are also lepers in their souls. In order that our iniquity be taken away from us and our sins purged, we must all experience the fire from off the altar of God! I believe that there may not be even one soul in the entire Church of Jesus Christ that is aware of this fact because no one has seen the King, the Lord of hosts as Isaiah or John or Saul of Tarsus had.

Granted, there is no believer in the entire Church that would be like Isaiah, Saul of Tarsus, John, Noah, Abraham or Moses. So I doubt that the Lord will show Himself as He did to those men because of their great and specific calling in the Purposes of God. I have not seen the King, the Lord of hosts either and I may not see Him in that same way as Isaiah, John or Saul of Tarsus did before He comes for me. The point is that the Lord knows I may not have to see Him in that specific way because I believe and see a degree of leprosy in my soul and a need for the fire from off the altar. It is not a shock for me. My iniquity has been taken away and my sin purged in my spirit, but my soul has not been perfected and so I am open to the Lord and to the fire of His altar, which means, to the work of His Cross and my cross (Mt. 16:24). This applies to all believers whether they see and believe in the leprosy of their souls or not. I agree that it is not easy to admit any “leprosy” in our soul.

So, not because I am already perfected, but because I believe and see and am available to the Lord for His continued perfecting work, that I have been called to go to the people that have leprosy and do not believe it, and tell them: “Hear ye indeed, but understand not: and see ye indeed, but perceive not”. And I am to “make their heart fat and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” (Is. 6:9,10) And, Lord, how long? His answer is in Is. 6:11-13. The most important Word touches the Remnant with the holy seed being its substance (Is. 6:13). Maybe your eyes will see what is written there and also perceive what its spiritual meaning for us today truly is.

Another very unusual spiritual fact about our soul, which the Lord desires us to consider, is the following: Our soul may be a genius with university degrees and a high intelligence, capable of creating marvelous engineering projects, sending man to the moon and back safely, creating marvelous artwork, composing symphonies, transplanting hearts, developing all kinds of religions with gods for every taste and desire of man’s mind and heart, etc. Now, our natural soul may also be very foolish, have a limited common sense or be of a low degree of intelligence. Our natural soul may thus be of any kind within these two bordering levels of intelligence. But during all our earthly life, the following unusual, but important fact is also true.

Though our soul could be a true GENIUS in natural earthly life, it could AT THE SAME TIME be a complete FOOL in spiritual life! Why? Because natural world and spiritual world have nothing in common, just as Earth and Heaven have nothing in common. Hence, a natural genius may easily be a spiritual fool (1Cor. 3:18-20// Rom. 1:22, etc.). To put a man on the moon and return him safely back takes a human genius. At the same time, the geniuses in this project could be spiritual fools, if they were not born by God’s Spirit; with the spirit of their mind unrenewed having no knowledge of the spiritual world whatsoever. The same also applies to any “religious geniuses” or even “theological geniuses”, whose mind on this earth is limited within the mental box of their natural head.

So, he that is born-again and is the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is still greater than any “great man” in this world that was never born-again and thus cannot be in the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt. 11:11). This is an example between pagans and born-again believers. But THE SAME applies between spiritual believers and carnal believers.

The soul of carnal believers is not much different – IN GENERAL – from the soul of pagans. They both live by their natural life in this world and have no understanding of the spiritual world. The Lord is clearly distinguishing carnal and spiritual believers in His Word by saying:

“BUT the NATURAL MAN (carnal man, which rules the soul of pagans and carnal believers) receives NOT the things of the Spirit of God, for they are FOOLISHNESS unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is SPIRITUAL (the Spirit of God rules his spirit and soul) judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.” (1Cor. 2:14,15)

One very important fact that we must draw from the above Word of God may also be phrased as follows:

Our natural man cannot trust God, cannot have faith from God since he cannot receive anything from God. He cannot communicate with God in any way, shape or form acceptable to God. He cannot understand anything outside of its own sphere of natural life, and that includes the spiritual world in its entirety with all its spiritual beings, including God.

Therefore, he can only trust in his own senses, in his own beliefs and convictions, he can only trust in himself and in nobody else. He can only produce his own truth and sense of righteousness by which he then judges according to his own standards, which are untrue and unrighteous since he has no way to know the truth and righteousness of God. These are the devastating and crucial limitations of the natural man, which he cannot break from and become free.

Too many Christians keep living in their natural man and his carnality. They substitute their natural understanding for the faith, truth and righteousness of God. These Christians are self-deceived, do not know the Lord and do not live by faith (Hab. 2:4// Rom. 1:17// Gal 3:11// Heb. 10:38).

As a consequence, they have no fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22,23) and live in the ever increasing danger of being taken away from Christ, the true vine, by the Father! (Jn. 15:1,2a,6) No minister seems to register this Word and warn such people about these dangers. But even this Word of God was not written in vain!

Since our natural man could not even bring us to our Redemption, God had to provide us with something that would enable us to do so. And He did!

God had given to all mankind the necessary light-faith showing the Grace of God that brings Salvation, which had appeared to all men on this planet (Tit. 2:11). Man could then use this light-faith to be humbled and then believe and be redeemed (Rom. 10:9,10). Light may be equated with faith and faith with light, since every man that lives without faith lives in darkness. Hence…

our natural, spiritually dead man had nothing to do with our redemption! And as such, he will have nothing to do with our salvation even unto its end, which is the perfection of our soul, which is the end of our faith (1Pet. 1:9), which faith our natural man never had in himself and never even could have had or produced.

Finally, our natural man could never discern and thus judge any spiritual man while our spiritual man can discern and thus judge (assess) any natural man.

Hence, from the very beginning of the fall of mankind, the Devil has been delighted to use our natural man and his humanistic senses and “qualities” for his own purposes and goals and thereby put both Judaism and Christianity upside down thus frustrating the true WILL OF GOD!

No wonder that the Lord Himself doubted whether He will find faith on the earth when He comes again (Lk. 18:8b). His question clearly alludes to the possibility that He may not find true faith at His coming. The simple reason for His question is the great probability that multitudes of Christians will be waiting for His return in their natural, religiously educated man, which doesn’t have true faith. And that is also the explanation of His Word in Rev. 3:16, why He will spue His Church out of His mouth and why His Church is in such a terrible spiritual state. Our natural, religiously educated man cannot produce or build a church of any other kind. In fact, he cannot produce or build any church acceptable to God; he can only destroy what the Spirit started and built.

All “churches” produced by man, organized by man and directed by man have nothing to do with the Church of Jesus Christ, which was started by Him, built by Him and governed by Him. And very few believers are able to see the difference between His true Church, which is not of this world (Jn. 17:14) and all the other imitations made by man, which are of this world.

The differences in the kind of spirits that rule our soul and our spirit form the main basis of all the problems in the Church, of all the divisiveness, enmity, misunderstandings and an absolute lack of effectiveness and unity therein.

Because of the unrenewed soul of the majority of believers, which soul is not governed by the Holy Spirit and had produced no fruit of the Holy Spirit, the CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST HAS FAILED to fulfill her calling by the Lord in the same way as ISRAEL FAILED their calling and purpose for which God called them. Both Israel and the Church have been blind and unable to see and consider the fact that the Lord is only dealing with the Remnant of the Israel-Church – the Overcomers. Is there a believer, who would be truly concerned whether he belongs to the Remnant? Nobody seems to care as if this important fact were not applicable to born-again baptized believers.

In the seven letters to His Church (Rev. chpt. 2 and 3), the Lord is giving promises to the Overcomers only, the rest of the believers are not even mentioned in His letters. In His conclusion, the Lord confirms that it is only the Overcomer that shall inherit all things and God will be his God and he shall be His son: And the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and idolaters and liars shall be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death (Rev. 21:7.8).

Can a born-again baptized believer be fearful? Can he be unbelieving? Can he be abominable or an idolater or a liar? What do you say? Can you judge righteously or even admit this fact as possible?

And how do we view the Judgment Seat of Christ and the fact that WE ALL shall be standing there (individually) and shall be judged by Christ? (Rom. 14:10) What shall our judgment be like? I will give you a small example.

In Canada, there is “Small Claims Court” where ordinary people sue one another with “small claims”. In the Court room, there is only the Plaintiff, the Defendant and the Judge. Both Plaintiff and Defendant may be accompanied by their witnesses, if they have any. No Prosecutor, no Defense lawyers, in fact, no lawyers whatsoever are permitted in the Court room. The Judge asks the Plaintiff to present his/her claim, then he asks the Defendant to present his/her defense and then he may ask any party any questions based on the available documents and facts or lack of them.

The Judge is considering not only the available facts and documents, but is also evaluating the characters of the persons involved in the case, their truthfulness, motifs, true intentions, sincerity, etc. Then the Judge usually renders his or her judgment on the spot or may postpone it for some time, if conditions so require. But the judgment is always final and there is no chance for an appeal. If you have never experienced such a trial, you may have no idea about it, about yourself, your fears, insecurities, unpreparedness, lack of appropriate or convincing answers to possible “awkward” questions from the Judge which may be challenging your defense, lack of awareness of possible additional unexpected accusations from the Plaintiff, etc.

I am not saying that it will be exactly the same when we stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, but it may be very similar. There will be no prosecutor, no defense lawyer, in fact, no lawyers at all, only the Judge –Christ Jesus– and us alone, or a plaintiff, who will have claims against us with possible witnesses on his side. The Judge will have all the necessary documents handy since all our thoughts, intentions, words, deeds, works and unforgiven sins have been recorded, even those that we forgot long time ago. Just as the books will be open at the Last Judgment (Rev. 20:12), so the books will be open here also – except the Book of Life, which will not be opened because this is the Judgment of believers only, who are all written in the Book of Life.

Can you picture yourselves standing in front of this Holy and utterly Righteous Judge, Who knows everything about you, and answering His “awkward” questions? Why did you do this evil?... and that evil? with so much damage (names, dates, places, values of damages recorded in the open books)? Why have you judged unrighteously and deeply wounded this and that brother or sister (names, dates, places, wounds)? And why have you never repented to him or to her? Why have you never repented to Me? And why have you preferred the servants of Satan and rejected the servants that I sent to you (names, dates, places)? And why have you neglected, ignored, despised My Words that I sent to you (dates, Words, messengers, etc.)? I believe that that trial will not be a “picnic”. And we might become speechless just as that man who was caught without the wedding garment and questioned by the King (Mt. 22:11-14). And it was not even the day of his judgment.

You see, it will not be a place of joy and peace where you will be rewarded for your good works. Reread the Word of God (Rom. 14:10) and see that you will be asked exactly the “awkward” questions described above, like: Why have you judged your brother(s) (names, dates, places, judgments)? And why have you ignored your brother and reduced him to nothing (names, dates, places)? And why have you separated yourself from your brethren (dates, names, places)? Do you have truthful answers? Really? I guarantee you that your forehead will be sweating and there will be no smile or joy on your face! And IF you truly desire that such passages in the Lord’s books be wiped out, you will have to repent to the Lord first and THEN ALSO to the brother(s), sister(s) or other persons (names, dates, places) at least those that you remember. Apostle Paul knew the “terror of the Lord” so he persuaded men including brethren (2Cor. 5:7-11).

Furthermore, the Lord says sufficiently clearly that He will not judge us even if any man heard (or read) His words and believed not (Jn. 12:47a). BUT, the word that He has spoken (or is written), that same word will judge us in the last day! (Jn. 12:48b) That means His Word, written or spoken to us, which we had not believed, not received, but rejected, despised and ignored, that same Word will judge us whether it was declared to us by the Lord or by His true servant(s), whom He chose and sent to us.

Have you ever imagined yourself standing before Christ trying to defend yourself and answer truthfully such “awkward” questions? Really? I believe that such a thought never crossed your mind and nobody explained to you or gave you any picture about those court proceedings and possible judgments rendered to each of us. You may be totally unprepared! The Holiness, Righteousness and Principles of God are not annulled or modified by His Mercy or Forgiveness! (Jam. 2:13) Do we understand this statement? The truth is: WE DO NOT! Consider the following.

God, in His Almightiness, could have saved all mankind, forgiven all our sins, renewed us and made us all His sons and daughters WITHOUT SENDING HIS SON TO THE CROSS! Could He have done it? YES!

He could have destroyed Satan any time He wanted and annulled all his wicked works of evil. Mankind did not have to go through 6,000 years of history filled with blood, wars, misery and death. Man did not have to continue these six millennia as a complete spiritual idiot and then face his judgment. So, why God did not do it that way?

Because His ways are NOT our ways, and His thoughts are NOT our thoughts (Is. 55:8,9)! His Principles are NOT our principles, His character is NOT our character and His Purposes and desires are NOT our purposes and desires. That’s why!

God established HIS Principles of creation and of the Salvation of man and NO MAN can change them, modify them, ignore them, bypass them, neglect them or annul them through prayer, fasting, confession or by any other means! There are hundreds of His Principles and none of them was annulled or modified even by the Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Some examples:

a) The soul that sinneth, it shall die (Ez. 18:4b).

b) He that believeth not shall be damned (Mk. 16:16b).

c) He that does not deny himself and takes up his own cross cannot follow the Lord (Mt. 16:24).

d) He that does not abide in Christ shall be cast into the fire and burned (Jn. 15:6).

e) The soul that has no love is nothing (has no value to God – 1Cor. 13:2b).

f) He that loves not the Lord Jesus Christ shall be accursed at His coming (1Cor. 16:22).

g) Every man shall give account of himself to God in all details (Rom. 14:12).

h) No flesh shall be justified by the works of the law (Gal. 2:16b).

i) If a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself (Gal. 6:3).

j) Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Gal. 6:7b)… without exceptions.

k) Without shedding of blood is no remission of sins (Heb. 9:22b).

l) If ye (believers) be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons (Heb. 12:8).

m) Without holiness, no man (no believer) shall see the Lord (Heb. 12:14).

n) He that hears the Word of God and is not doing it, has deceived himself (Jam. 1:22).

o) He that showed no mercy, shall have judgment without mercy (Jam. 2:13).

p) To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin (Jam. 4:17).

q) We must all cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2Cor. 7:1).

r) If we don’t confess our sins (or forgive men their trespasses against us) they won’t be forgiven us either, and we won’t be cleansed from our unrighteousness (1Jn. 1:9// Mt. 6:15).

s) He that loveth not his brother abideth in death, and he that hateth his brother is a murderer and no murderer hath life eternal in him (1Jn. 3: 14b,15).

t) If a man say, I love God, and hateth (and doesn’t talk to) his brother, he is a liar (1Jn. 4:20a).

u) He that will not overcome, I (the Lord) will blot his name out of the Book of Life (Rev. 3:5)!

v) I (the Lord) will spue thee (church of the Laodiceans) out of My mouth because thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked … and you do not even know it (Rev. 3:16b,17b).

w) Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15).

x) He that overcomes (and not he that only believes) shall inherit all things and I will be his God, and he shall be My son (Rev. 21:7).

I could fill further pages with God’s Principles clearly stated in His Word and absolutely unchangeable, which form the Way of our Salvation set up by the Father in Heaven. How do we truly measure up to His Principles? The Lord advices us in His Word saying: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth TAKE HEED lest he fall.” (1Cor. 10: 12) Do we take this heed during our Christian life? or do we always think that we are “fine and cannot fall”?

In my experience every proud believer thinks only the best about himself; he always knows the best, understand everything and can hardly admit that there could be something he does not know. His “knowledge and wisdom” is fixed and there cannot be any alternatives to what he knows or believes. Educated people, including theologians, are seldom open to anything that would add, subtract or otherwise correct or modify their great knowledge, beliefs and convictions. Their mindset is fixed permanently and, being blind, they do not see how it could be unfixed and modified.

The Word of God comes again to resolve the issue, to help and determine the simple truth in saying: “And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth NOTHING yet as he ought to know.” (1Cor. 8:2) Tell this to a proud believer and see how he will respond. In fact, in these last days before the Lord’s coming, people of this world, including believers and highly educated individuals, are slowly losing their mind, even common sense. Apostle Paul declared 2,000 years ago: “the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, Who is the Image of God, should shine unto them” (2Cor. 4:4). This does not apply only to pagans, but also to believers who do not believe the passages of the Word of God, which they do not like or cannot understand, and thus ignore them. If this truth was known 2,000 years ago, how much more applicable it is today just before the End of the world? How many born-again believers truly see and understand the above? And how many believe the above facts or have experienced them in their own Christian life? I do not know.

Who is then the true servant of the Lord useful in His hand and serving Him according to His will? The one whose knowledge and wisdom has not been “cast in concrete”, but to whose soul the Spirit of the Lord has a continual free access to form and mold it, because it is meek, moldable and keeps increasing its true knowledge of truth, and wisdom without ceasing or stopping. If a wise man learns, the more he knows the more he sees and admits how little he knows.

The spiritual powers of darkness and evil do influence our soul through pride, fears, stubbornness, unwillingness, selfishness, self-righteousness and other “virtues” of sinful flesh. They influence our physical world, including the weather (Eph. 2:2), and also our soulish world – our minds with their thoughts, imaginations, plans, reasonings, speculations, beliefs, lusts, etc. They form a barrier for the Holy Spirit to access our soul, influence it, renew it and form it into the Image of Christ’s Soul. And they definitely influence our spiritual world – conscience, intuition (discernment – Mt. 16:2-3) and communion with the Lord or with brethren. We may also say that they influence our spiritual senses making us spiritually blind, deaf (Rev. 2:7,11,17,29 + 3:6,13,22) and insensitive (touch, taste, smell). In other words, we become spiritually dead not sensing the spiritual world at all.

It must be declared and emphasized that no man can help and change anything in this area. Only the Lord can give us the spiritual eyesight, spiritual hearing and spiritual sensitivities (touch, taste, smell). Though we receive all these at our spiritual birth, in most believers they remain dysfunctional since they were seldom or never exercised. Such believers then remain spiritual toddlers unable to eat “strong meat” but keep drinking spiritual “milk” (Heb. 5:12-14) and that irrespective of their physical age or how long they have been attending “their” church or “serving the Lord”. This is definitely a tragedy of believers.

In conclusion, I desire to touch some typical problems of our natural soul as it goes through its transformation from a natural-carnal one to the spiritual one.

Perhaps the best tool that I could use to explain this process is a computer. Every computer is hardware, and if it is to run and do its work properly, it needs software. Without software, every computer is dead! True? Our mind, heart and will are like “hardwares”, they need “softwares” to do their work. The “softwares” in each of these three organs of our soul are spirits! Hence, how these organs function, or do not function, depends on the kind of spirits that “drive them”. They are either from God or from Satan or they are mixed in our own human spirit (1Thes. 5:23). Before the fall of Adam, all spirits in his life were from God. After the fall, they were polluted by the spirits from Satan and ceased to be pure, holy, righteous and wise and became mixed.

MIND – before our redemption, the mind of every one of us was natural-carnal without any exceptions. Our minds were blinded by the god of this world – Satan (2Cor. 4:4). After our redemption and baptism, we were supposed to start the process of renewing the spirit (software) of our natural mind (Eph. 4:23), thus building up our new spiritual mind. Let us repeat and realize that we are not supposed to “change our mind” as the organ of our soul, but to change its software – its spirits – from the filthiness, darkness, stupidity and evil of Satan to the purity, holiness, righteousness and wisdom of God. The goal is the perfect Mind of Christ, which also Apostle Paul claimed to have had (1Cor. 2:16b).

It might be surprising to many believers to learn that there may be a mind, which is much worse than a carnal mind as such, and it is called a reprobate mind. It was not created by Satan, but those believers, who by their own will did not like to retain God in their knowledge, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served creature more than the Creator, these were given over to a reprobate mind by God Himself (Rom. 1:21-28-32)! So, after our redemption, we may get a mind which is much worse than the carnal mind which we all had before our redemption, IF we then disregard God’s Word and keep Him and His Truth out of our knowledge. Only the Lord knows how many believers belong to this damnable category.

Let us realize that the nature of our thoughts, ideas, reasonings, imaginations and even of our common sense depends on the nature of the spirits that “run our mind”. It should explain the situation pretty clearly. Since our mind is run by a “mixture” of spirits, we may sometimes have wise thoughts and sometimes foolish thoughts, a clear mind or a foggy mind, logical reasoning or illogical reasoning, fearful or immoral imaginations or bold or moral imaginations, right solutions or wrong solutions, righteous judgments and unrighteous judgments, etc. Sometimes we are aware of these “products of our mind” and can tell the difference, sometimes we are not aware and cannot tell the difference. Then somebody else has to tell us what was wise and what foolish, what was right and what was wrong, what was righteous and what was unrighteous.

Though the thought of foolishness is sin (Pr. 24:9a), the Lord allows our mind to produce foolish thoughts, which further produce unrighteous judgments or fearful scenarios or wrong decisions or imaginations or other negative effects. Why? We are supposed to learn to live by faith (Hab. 2:4// Rom. 1:17// Gal. 3:11// Heb. 10:38) and not by our thoughts. Only the just–righteous live by faith, others are not righteous yet. Once we are just-righteous, we do not produce unrighteous thoughts, and if by chance they do “appear” in our mind, we do not follow them, but reject them promptly.

Now imagine that there are millions of Christians in the world and every one has a different “mixture” in his/her mind. If this mind then directs our Christianity, our churches, our ministries, what a chaos, what a division, disunity, unrighteousness and thus sinfulness it can produce? Where is the true faith, the ONE FAITH authored by ONE LORD? (Eph. 4:5) NOWHERE! Do we see this great problem?

How many times have you been tortured by your fearful thoughts? Disgusted by your unrighteous judgments? Enraged by your wrong decisions? Embarrassed by your foolish conclusions about yourself or about others? Misled by your stupid assumptions? Sinned by your presumptions? (Ps. 19:13) Trying to understand your errors (Ps. 19:12) and misgivings? Upset for not being able to find good solutions? And so on, and so on? Our mind is a mystery in itself.

HEART – is defined in the Word of God as “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9) I am sure that this definition is “acceptable and welcomed” by all humanitarians and psychologists! And though it is in the Bible, it is hardly preached and explained from any pulpit. Why? Because it does not apply to pagans only, but to all born-again baptized believers including their leaders! If the heart could not be deceitful and desperately wicked, the church today could not be wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked and the Lord would not have to spue it out of His mouth (Rev. 3:16,17). True?

Now, what does our “software” produce in our heart? All emotions, good or bad, that includes love and hatred, all the issues of our life (Pr. 4:23), all likes and dislikes, desires, preferences, lusts, intentions, all thoughts that determine who we are (Pr. 23:7), all judgments and purposes both good and bad, wise and stupid, righteous and unrighteous, all self-deceptions, unbelief (Heb. 3:12), disobedience, laziness, lust for comfort, self-satisfaction, selfishness, and so on.

On the other hand, all the fruit of the Spirit of God is produced in the heart (Gal. 5:22,23). Only our heart understands faith and is able to act upon the faith, not our head. Our redemption starts in our heart and our heart determines whether we shall be baptized and walk toward our salvation and perfection, or not. Our destiny is not in our head but in our heart! Closed heart is a doomed heart! And doomed heart brings us to our doom where we may lose even our redemption and salvation.

Our heart determines with whom we fellowship and speak to and whom we shall abandon and shun. If the heart is “run” by wicked spirits, the above decisions are made with respect to the desires of that heart and not according to the “common sense”, which is in the head. The heart prevails and is able to hate what it loved just a short time ago and reject without any valid reason why it has suddenly stopped loving or appreciating something or somebody. The heart that remained mostly wicked and deceitful even after its redemption, hates pressures, conflicts, problems and suffering of any kind, it hates even the Cross of Christ (Phil. 3:18, 19) never mind its own cross (Mt. 16:24).

We should thus not be surprised that the Lord desires first to get an access to our heart (see also pages B2-B4 in “Truth about Salvation^[13]”). Our salvation starts with our heart and ends with our heart since it starts with our faith and ends with our faith (1Pet. 1:9). This certainly shows the absolutely vital importance of our heart and how the Lord works in it and changes its “mixed & evil spirits” to His Spirit Alone. Also, no other organ of our soul understands and produces love. And if we do not love the Lord, we shall be accursed at His coming (1Cor. 16:22) rather than taken by Him to the Marriage Supper and to the Kingdom of Heaven. This fact alone should make a definite difference in the thoughts and desires of our heart (and mind).

I have to add a very important fact from my ministry and years of experience. A majority of believers cannot recognize what comes from their mind and what comes from their heart! This may lead to great errors since the disunity of our mind and heart is not apparent. We may be convinced about our honorable and righteous intentions and plans in our head and make promises accordingly and not know that the “software” of our heart may be “dead set against it”! What will show this fact is time and also our fruit. We may continue repeating precisely what we promised never to repeat and we either do not see it or are ashamed to admit it. And even if others tell us and we see and admit it, we never dig down and expose the root of it. This means that there is no spiritual change – no change in the “software” of our heart. This then leads to 10-20-30 years of procrastination in our spiritual growth and progress.

WILL – is the Supreme Judge in our soul and EVEN GOD DOES NOT CHANGE ITS DECISIONS! It makes all the decisions required of it by our mind & heart. In difficult cases, our head is sometimes plaintiff and the heart is defendant, or vice versa. And we can be indecisive for a long time. Of course, many times they both agree and then we have no problem making a decision. Even this organ is under “mixed software” which influences the judge to make selfish decisions as much as possible. Therefore, God works in our will so we would be willing to do His pleasure (Phil. 2:13) and not always our own. But the Lord will never change this “software” without our permission and cooperation, which brings us to the precious verse where it is clearly written that we have to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) This means that we are very much involved in whatever work God works in us and our active participation is required by Him, it is not optional.

Now, pride and selfishness are the two most typical, most prominent, most evil and most damaging features of Satan’s character that we had inherited from him. They are so pronounced, even outwardly, that it is rather easy to observe them in people who were not delivered from them. These two always act “hand-in-hand” since pride has built a throne for our self and is also its armor. We cannot be delivered from pride and remain selfish nor can we be delivered from selfishness and remain proud. Our SELF thus becomes our IMAGE and our PRIDE becomes its GLORY. We expect others to bow down to our image, or else, we do not deal with them. Any attempt from anyone to hurt our image or undermine our throne is repelled by our counterattacks and that either openly or sometimes thinly or even thickly veiled, depending on the “Height of our Majesty” and the degree of our spiritual intelligence, if any.

Pride and selfishness simply mean that we do not see and care about anybody else. YET, we consider ourselves humble, considerate, good hearted, loving, knowledgeable, wise, important and seldom appreciated by others as we should be! And this proud and stupid self rules our being as king Nebuchadnezzar ruled Babylon. And NOTHING, no words, no counsels or persuasions, no reasons, no wisdom of others can change this ruling of our proud self until God takes drastic measures and leads us into suffering, pain and also humiliation! He must humiliate us beyond belief making us into “oxen eating grass” for the necessary length of time! Only then are we able to look up and honor the King of Heaven and His ways and Judgments in truth (Dan. 4:24-34). Thus our proud and stupid self, which is the greatest enemy of God, is dethroned and we do not regard it or worship it and our selfishness any longer. This is our true and most important deliverance without which our salvation remains impossible! This simple spiritual fact is not preached to any congregation; on the contrary, believers are deceived that once they believed in Jesus, all is well!

But our belief in Jesus is insufficient as it is written: “He that believeth and is baptized SHALL BE saved” (Mk. 16:16). How does the Spirit interpret His Own Word?

Firstly, it is not written: “He that believeth and is baptized IS saved”. True? WHEN and HOW SHALL that believer be saved is not specified in this Word of God. It must be searched out in other passages of the Word.

Secondly, even the statement “shall be saved” is not unconditional! It is conditioned on a “continued believing” of that believer under all conditions where his faith may be severely tested. For example, the Lord is telling him that “he shall be hated of all men for His Name’s sake…”, etc.

Thirdly, the Lord enlarges and concludes the conditions for being saved far beyond just simple believing and a simple baptism by saying: “…but he that ENDURETH TO THE END SHALL BE saved.” (Mt. 10:22). In other words, he that becomes OVERCOMER shall be saved. The Cross of Jesus does not heal or renew or transform our “old man”, it crucifies him! And we must endure it! Period.

Pastors, preachers, teachers, do not deceive your sheep by your carnal interpretations of the Word of God since you are responsible for their future destiny. Read to them Mk. 16:16 together with Mt. 10:16-22+34-39 and with many other passages of the Word dealing with Overcomers, and then explain to them the true depth of God’s Truth.

CHAPTER 4

OUR WAR AND PEACE

Right at the end of Israel’s exodus from Egypt and from their slavery, and at the beginning of their new destination in the wilderness and their upcoming journey to their Promised Land, the Lord is introduced as a “Man of War”! The Word of God says clearly:

“The LORD is a Man of war: the LORD is His Name.” (Ex. 15:3) Why is He so introduced and why at that specific point of time? You see, the time of WAR began for Israel at that specific point. And to this day, that WAR has not ended for them! What does that mean for Christians today?

The Exodus of Israel from Egypt, from the power of Pharaoh and from their slavery there represents the Exodus of Christians from the power of Satan and from our slavery to him. Israel was never at war with Pharaoh while being slaves in Egypt. Equally, Christians were never at war with Satan while being pagans under his power. The WAR for Israel began after they escaped from their slavery to Pharaoh through the Red Sea. The WAR for Christians began after they escaped from their slavery to Satan through the Blood of Christ – their Redemption (Rom. 10:9,10). The children of Israel found themselves in a wilderness with no food or drink as they were to journey to their Promised Land. Christians have similarly found themselves in a spiritual wilderness of this world with no spiritual food or drink as they are to journey to the Kingdom of Heaven, which is their “Promised Land”.

In the wilderness, Israel was tested as to their faith, love for the Lord, their obedience to the Lord and desire to enter the Promised Land and subdue their enemies – and ISRAEL HAD FAILED!... except Joshua, Caleb and those younger than twenty years (Num. 14:29,30). Why had Israel failed? They did not believe the voice of the Lord through Joshua and Caleb! They refused to go to the Promised Land and occupy it (Num. 14:1-37). Their souls desired eating and drinking and playing. They made themselves corrupted and became rebellious to the Lord, Who brought them out of the land of Egypt (Ex. 32:6-8) that they might enter their Promised Land.

In the spiritual wilderness of this world, Christians are equally tested in their faith, love and obedience to the Lord and desire to enter the coming Marriage Supper of the Lamb and the Kingdom of God, and CHRISTIANS ARE ALSO FAILING!... except the Remnant. They also refuse to go in and have similar stupid excuses before the Lord as Israel had (Mt. 22:2-14). Christians equally desire comfort, love, pleasures, positive experiences, everlasting happiness, prosperity, etc. These seem to be also the only topics of today’s preachers and the only points of interest for the vast majority of Christians. They hate any suffering, conflicts, problems, discomfort, violence, responsibility, diligence, war effort and anything that troubles their poor soul. They desire “heaven on earth” without any conflicts while living in the kingdoms of Satan. Stupendous!

For the sake of our own life and destiny, the Lord Jesus Christ is commanding us to see, believe and consider the above clear comparisons between the children of Israel of the Old Testament and Christians of the New Testament; both the children of God. The Lord also brings before us all these vitally important points. They all touch the human nature, its total depravity, rebellion, evil, stupidity and lust for its own ways and desires and that almost at any cost!

1) This human nature does not change with the change of the testaments! As it was found in the children of Israel, so it is found in Christians! But Christians will be judged more severely than Israel since the Spirit of God dwells in Christians, they knew, or could know, the Lord’s Will personally, but prepared not themselves neither did according to His Will. Whereas the children of Israel could not approach God personally and directly except through their priests and thus could not prepare themselves or know His Will so readily and directly as Christians (Lk. 12:47,48).

2) The Lord speaks clearly to Christians: “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how the Lord, having saved the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, afterwards DESTROYED THEM THAT BELIEVED NOT.” (Jude 5)

Israel believed in God, they were not pagans, but they did not believe what God spoke to them through His servants. Has God changed from the Old to the New Testament? Not at all (Heb. 13:8). If the Lord should say today to the Church:

“I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you should know it, how I, the Lord, having saved Christians out of the power of Satan, afterwards destroyed them that believed not…”, would Christians be surprised at such a Word of God? They would be STUNNED since they do not believe in the Lord as the Scripture says (Jn. 7:38), but have their own false imaginations about the Lord. The heart of unbelief is EVIL and the Lord will not keep such hearts for Himself! The same comparison and warning to Christians is written in the Book of Hebrews (Heb. 3:7-19), read it, believe it and consider it for the sake of your own life and destiny.

3) When we believed in Him and confessed our faith with our mouth (Rom. 10:9), our names were entered not only in the Book of Life, but also on the list of Satan. Every new child of God automatically becomes the object of satanic murdering plots. At that very moment our problems were not resolved – as our pastors tried to tell us – but they started! And after we were baptized in water, we entered the WAR against the powers of evil and darkness outside of us and inside of us! It is a spiritual war. It is not outwardly observable. Only its effects on our soul, on our countenance, on our words and deeds can be observed. This WAR has not ended for any one of us! And there is no discharge from this WAR. If you try to avoid it, weasel out of it, ignore it, you are still in it – and you are overcome and beaten! And if you do not stand up and start fighting your WAR, which the Heavenly Father prepared for you, you will remain overcome and beaten! We all are in this WAR and that whether we fight or don’t fight. The Church history is covered with millions of casualties of Christians beaten to dust because they refused to fight. The Lord opened to every true born-again, baptized believer the way to emerge from this war as a clear victor! But very few take the way the Lord prepared for us.

Whenever you make a spiritual progress and your knowledge of the Lord increases and your faith increases, the powers of evil and darkness take a note of it and will try to pester you and attack you and get back the spiritual territory in your soul, which they lost. So, making spiritual progress and thus being blessed is “dangerous”! The world wars are good examples. Whenever the friendly forces advanced, the enemy tried to counterattack and get back the lost territory. And had the friendly forces acted wishy-washy, taken things lightly, ignored the enemy or tried to weasel out of the battles, the enemy would have succeeded in getting back the lost territories and the direction of the war would have changed dramatically to the enemy’s advantage. The true Christianity is a spiritual picture of physical wars between various empires and powers. Satan still has his kingdoms in this world (Mt. 4:8,9) and he still has his territories in our own soul ruled by his governor – our “old man”, old nature (Eph. 4:22-24) and he will not sit back idly and look as his territories are being destroyed in us. Yet, we live as if Satan did no exist or had no interest in us! Stupendous!

The Lord also gives us vivid examples from His Word to show the reality of this WAR which most of His people, including their leadership, do not see – and do not want to see! Hence, the kingdoms of Satan are preserved; his governor in their soul is not destroyed, his powers stand in the way to the Kingdom of God hindering all believers, which are blind to those powers, deceived and lusting after their comfort and prosperity.

The Lord is giving to us some clear examples:

4) “STRIVE to enter in at the straight gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall NOT BE ABLE.” (Lk. 13:24-28 <<< please, read all verses)

The straight gate is the only entrance to the only narrow way, which is the only way leading to Life Eternal (Mt. 7:13,14). The Lord says – STRIVE or else you will NOT BE ABLE to enter in and then you will be weeping and gnashing your teeth (Lk. 13:28). But to most Christians and their leaders this does not seem to matter. They are all “going to Heaven”… never mind what God Almighty says!

Striving is against the powers of evil, darkness, pride, fears, unrighteousness, selfishness, laziness, unbelief, deception and other powers of our corrupted “old man” in our own soul, which keep us from entering the narrow way to our Life Eternal. Is this too banal a thing to consider?

5) “I PRESS toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.” (Phil. 3:14-19 <<< please, read all verses)

Without PRESSING we will not attain our high calling of God in Christ Jesus. If we are not “thus minded”, we are usually minded to “take it easy”, avoid all conflicts, all pain, all suffering, all pressing and striving and wallow in a sweet deception that we all go to Heaven without moving our finger! We can thus easily become the enemies of the Cross of Christ whose end is destruction!

If we do not press, it may also indicate that we may not even know what our high calling of God in Christ Jesus truly is! We may not appreciate it or value it in any way; we simply throw it away though we may do it in our ignorance. But then we are heading to destruction and not to Heaven. Do believers care for that? I really do not know.

6) “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth VIOLENCE, and the VIOLENT take it by FORCE… and if ye will receive it, this is ELIAS (Elijah), which was for to come.” (Mt. 11:12b-14)

This Word was never explained to me by any pastor in any church in any way, or to anyone else that I know! So, I desire to say the following facts. The Kingdom of Heaven is in true holiness and righteousness and it is thus hated by the powers of evil and darkness, which try to prevent it from replacing the kingdoms of Satan in this world and ruling the world. It suffers violence from these powers of evil and darkness! But, the violent that take it by force are the Overcomers, who war against these powers of evil and darkness within their own souls because that is where the Kingdom of Heaven originally is before it is enforced physically into the world! (Lk. 17:21) If you will not enter the Kingdom by force, you will NOT ENTER IN just because you believed in Jesus! If you will not be violent against all those powers outside and inside of you, which stand in your way to the Kingdom, you will not enter in! You will not “be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which ye also SUFFER” (2Thes. 1:5b) because you may have never suffered for it in any way in the first place!

Since believers always try to avoid violence, they also avoid all suffering. Elias (Elijah) was the mightiest Prophet of God with the power that no other Prophet ever had (including Moses). He was always violent against all the forces of evil and darkness and never tried to “take it easy”, avoid problems, conflicts, suffering, pain, sit in synagogues and listen to Rabbis. That was the true reason why the Lord had used his name in connection with the Kingdom of Heaven and the associated violence. Read 1Kings, chapters 17-22 and 2Kings, chapters 1,2 and 9 and you will know, who Elijah really was and what he went through before he was taken to Heaven alive (2Ki. 2:11).

7) “FIGHT the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal Life, whereunto thou art also called…” (1Tim. 6:12)

In my young years, I was told by my Pentecostal pastors that I already had the Life eternal when I believed in Jesus. Now the Lord through Apostle Paul tells me that I have to FIGHT for it by my faith! Is it not interesting? Well, whom should I believe the Lord or various pastors? What do you believe about it? Who told you what? You may believe that you already have the eternal Life, but do you live it in your own soul? And if you believe you do, may I ask you this simple question: How do you recognize Life Eternal from your own natural life? Can you? Really?

The truth is that every true believer has Life eternal potentially – IN Christ – but it is not handed to his soul to live it without “moving his finger”. He has to fight for it a good fight of faith as the above Word of God clearly tells us.

* * *

In the above examples 4) to 7), the Lord is using words: STRIVE, PRESS, VIOLENCE, FORCE, FIGHT. Are they preached and explained to believers in congregations? NO! NEVER! Why? Well, many ministers try to avoid them like the plague as they produce “negative feelings” and their congregations might leave and not come back! According to them, believers need positive feelings, positive thinking, positive attitudes, peace and prosperity! Right? That this positive thinking and attitudes may come from a sinful and spiritually stupid mind does not seem to matter to them.

In fact, the Lord, Who is my true strength, teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight! (Ps. 144:1) Would you ask Him whether in the New Testament He had by any chance changed and had quit this kind of teaching? Or whether in the New Testament He had taken out of our way all our enemies? Are not the Words of God in Ps. 144:1 and Ex. 15:3 from the Old Testament in a complete harmony with the above Words of God from the New Testament? They all are. The only difference is that in the Old Testament they were fighting physical wars, in the New Testament we are to fight spiritual wars.

While the LORD is a Man of WAR, He is at the same time the Prince of PEACE (Is. 9:6). Hence, He is able to give us His peace in the midst of our war (Jn. 14:27// 2Thes. 3:16) and thus comfort us. And while He is the Prince of Peace to His own people, who love Him and follow Him, He remains the Man of War bringing sword and division to the wicked (Mt. 10:34// Lk. 12:51). Christians may also be wicked and they may not realize that His sword and division is brought also into our soul where the powers of evil and darkness have their territory. They also may not realize that His sword is His Word, which is “quick (living) and powerful and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the DIVISION OF SOUL AND SPIRIT and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12)

If therefore a true servant of God tells you or writes to you a sharp word, IT IS the sword from the Lord and IT IS to show you the powers in your soul and the true thoughts and intents of your heart. And if you do not receive it, you refuse the light and corrections from the Lord (Eph. 4:11-14).

I truly wonder whether you, true believers, who read this chapter on “Our War and Peace”, have started to see that your Salvation IS NOT a battle for your happiness, peace, prosperity, comfort or fulfilment of your personal expectations or dreams in your earthly life, BUT IT IS a battle against the powers of evil and darkness outside and inside of your soul! Can you see and realize that it is the Holy Spirit, Who desires to guide us into our war, battles, conflicts, problems, divisions? And, in the midst of them all, He is also our Comforter? If we live in peace, prosperity and happiness, we do not need any comforter! Nor do we need the Lord! Is this true or not?

And have you never read the Book of Joshua? Have you never realized that the Promised Land was not a Paradise? That they had to fight for every inch of it with their mortal enemies though it was given to them by God Himself? That the very first Person that Joshua saw before he led the children of Israel into any battles was the “Man” with his sword drawn? And that the Man represented the Holy Spirit since the place where Joshua stood was holy? (Jos. 5:13-15) What does this mean to you, Christians? Peace and prosperity? Nay, but after our baptism, we should have seen in our spirit the same “Man”, the Holy Spirit standing with His sword drawn in His hand! He was ready to lead us to our battles as He led Israel. And He is our Comforter and Power as He was for Israel. Are we following Him? NO!

Why are multitudes of Christians constantly miserable and comfortless? Because they seldom come to their Comforter, Who dwells in them! The Lord promised that He will never leave us comfortless – if we fight! (Jn. 14:18) So, we should never ask the Lord where He is in the time of our troubles, pressures, pains, conflict and sufferings because – He is in us – waiting! He cannot be closer to us than being in us.

The Lord said: “IF YE (believers) LOVE ME, keep My commandments.” (Jn. 14:15)

May I ask you a simple question: Do you TRULY love the Lord? And if you truly love Him, how on earth are you going to “keep His Commandments” without starting a war with the Devil? Since the Lord knew that it was impossible, that is why He prayed to His Father to send us a “Comforter”, Who may comfort us in our war against the spirits of our flesh. The Spirit will never help us to fulfill the dreams, lusts, desires, plans, ambitions or other goals of our fleshly “self”. He is always against our flesh (Gal. 5:17).

Have you ever witnessed or experienced on your own skin that every truth may only be established through battles, conflicts, suffering and pain? I am asking you this extremely important question because, again, most of believers are easily deceived in this spiritual fact. How? Most believers and their leaders may be reading the truth (Word of God), preaching the truth, teaching the truth, explaining the truth even sincerely believing the truth, but they may never live the truth in their own life and experience. Listen…

We may read the Bible day and night, teach it, preach it, memorize it, write about it, argue about it, discuss it, even believe it; YET, its Truth is not established by any such activities! Its Truth is established only if we LIVE IT and become the embodiment of that Truth. Then WE ARE THE PROOF OF THAT TRUTH and NOT our intellectual knowledge of it!

And we CANNOT LIVE ANY TRUTH OF GOD without overcoming the hellish powers in our own soul, without denying and dying to our own natural sinful life in our soul, in our character, which is contrary to that truth, opposing that truth! (Mt. 16:24, 25)

Maybe you believe that you are already a “new man”, holy and righteous and the Holy Spirit leads you and guides you into all truth and teaches you all things. Do you TRULY believe such a thing? If so, may I ask you: When was the last time in your remembrance when you refused to defend yourself (your reasons, feelings, beliefs, convictions), rather you denied yourself and had taken up your cross? (Mt. 16:24, 25) Do you remember such a time? Do you really? May I ask you another question: How can you remember such a time when you may not even know what your cross is? And how can you take up your cross when you cannot possibly believe that it is the Holy Spirit – your Comforter – that is leading you to your own cross? Why? Your true and permanent prosperity is BEHIND your own cross, never before! The Holy Spirit – the Comforter - was sent to lead us into all truth (Jn. 16:13). What the Lord says in His Word IS TRUTH and that includes Rom. 8:29// Mt. 16:24,25// Gal. 5:24// 1Jn. 1:1 to 5:21, etc., and that Truth is both sweet and bitter.

Is Christ’s Cross the central Truth of the Redemption-Salvation of mankind? IT IS. Is our cross the central Truth of our personal Salvation-Perfection by following Our Lord (Mt. 16:24,25// Jn. 12:26) and thus becoming Overcomers? IT IS. If so, then why would the Holy Spirit never guide us to this equally important Truth of our cross? Or, is this Word of God not true? I can guarantee you that you will never guide yourself to this truth nor will you ever desire to take up your cross voluntarily! But if we don’t follow Christ, we can’t be turned into His Image (Rom. 8:29), we can’t be perfected in our person, we can’t become Overcomers! And if we do not overcome, we shall inherit NOTHING and GOD WILL NOT BE OUR GOD and we shall not be His sons and daughters! (Rev. 21:7) IS THIS TRUE?

Many ministers tell you that “you are under grace”. Do they mean that you can now cut the above Words of God out of your Bible and burn them because “you are under grace”? What they say is a half-truth – a foxy deception! How about Mt. 10:38? You might be “under grace” and not worthy of Christ! True? Satan also started his deceptions with half-truths (ex. Gen. 3:1,4,5)! These ministers are deceivers; they are also lazy to verify the truth in the Word of God hence they serve Satan and not God.

And when the Holy Spirit is leading you to your cross, are you following Him? NO! Why? Because you do not believe that He is leading you there… and nobody is telling you that! You believe that He is leading you to prosperity, peace, happiness and a successful earthly life! Really?

OUR TRUE PROSPERITY, PEACE, HAPPINESS AND A SUCCESSFUL LIFE ARE FOUND BEHIND OUR CROSS AND NEVER BEFORE IT! SO IS OUR ETERNAL LIFE AND DESTINY WITH GOD FOUND NOT ONLY BEHIND THE CROSS OF CHRIST, BUT ALSO BEHIND OUR CROSS AND NEVER BEFORE IT!

ON HIS CROSS, CHRIST DIED FOR US,

ON OUR CROSS, WE DIE FOR HIM!

Do you understand the line above? Only the Bride of Christ understands it (Rev. 12:11) because She also dies for Him!

The Lord is giving us here an example. A true servant of God tells you some “unpleasant truth”, some harsh words or unexpected statements, something that may either contradict or outrightly offend your beliefs, position or status, it may irritate your soul and pride and upset your understanding, produce negative reaction or even pain in your soul. What do you do? I believe, you never receive such a truth; you automatically reject it, disagree with it and defend yourself by all means; you may not answer, leave in a hurry or counterattack, whichever thought comes to your mind first. You never pause, never consider “that offensive stuff”, you never admit that it might be true either of you or of your situation, deeds, words or that you may just not see it or understand it immediately. And you certainly never ask the Lord to show you whether this is from Him or not.

It may not occur to you that the Lord may have given “that man” to His Church, and thus to you personally, for the perfecting of your soul and spirit and for your edification! (Eph. 4:11,12) The most important task for you in any such situation is to discern, perceive, find out (right there or later) whether “that man” is giving you his own words, harsh word, an unpleasant truth from his own self OR whether he is indeed giving you the word from the Lord, Who had sovereignly called Him as His servant, His instrument and given him to His Church and to you, personally, according to His above Word – for your perfection. Can you make THAT discernment? Never, if your heart is closed and unwilling to seek, search and ask (Mt. 7:7,8). If you ask Him, only then the Lord will answer and give you the necessary light.

The Lord never asks anyone in His Church to approve His servants chosen and called by Him and given to His Church. He has His own sovereign reasons for His calling and does not consult any man or any religious organization or denomination. He called those that He foreknew and predestinated as His servants since they were, in His eyes, sufficiently tested by fire, faithful to the Truth and conformed to the Image of His Son (Rom. 8:29). The Lord asks that His servants be recognized and followed so that the followers would in time also be conformed to the same Word of God. The Holy Spirit, by Whom believers were born-again, had through their new birth given to all believers the needed spiritual senses to recognize His servants and the faith to follow them. Thus, believers will have no excuses before the Judgment Seat of Christ.

WITHOUT HIS CHOSEN SERVANTS, THE CHURCH WOULD NOT EXIST! It could never be made perfect and come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a Perfect Man, unto the measure of the Stature of the Fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Unfortunately, most believers do not use their spiritual senses given to them by the Holy Spirit and thus cannot recognize His chosen servants. They are missing not only their true spiritual education, but also their spiritual growth and progress toward their maturity and perfection. The fulfilment of the Will of God for them must be “postponed” for 10-20-30-40 years or even after their physical death.

The Word in Romans 8:28-39 is being used by many pastors, teachers and preachers to convince their sheep about the “unconditional love of God” and about their myth “once saved for ever saved”. They use all the verses in the above Word to justify their theories, except the most important verse in that passage, namely, verse 36! You see, that passage does not apply to the whole Church or to all believers without exception. It applies to the Overcomers only! It applies to those that “for His sake ARE KILLED all day long and are accounted as sheep for the slaughter… and IN ALL THESE THINGS we are more than conquerors…” (verse 37)!

Are you being “killed daily” you preachers, teachers, pastors, theology doctors and congregations? You may not even understand what this verse really means, then how can you live it and experience it? And if you do not live this Word, how can you apply the other verses of that passage to yourselves? To be “killed daily” means “to die daily” (1Cor. 15: 31b), to be separated daily from our natural, sinful nature and entering into the Life IN Christ. Also, to be separated from all unwilling, unfaithful, proud, arrogant, fearful and wicked brethren (2Thes. 3:2,6,14, etc.). Are you truly doing this? Is Christ your Witness? Really?

And while the Word of God in Rom. 8:38,39 is absolutely true as written, yet it is alone incomplete! Why? That Word speaks only about outward truth! You should add to verse 39 this inward truth: “But OUR SELF IS ABLE to separate us from the love of God; our PRIDE and STUBBORNNESS and SELFISHNESS and STUPIDITY ARE WELL ABLE to bring us to our own condemnation”! Other passages of the Word of God speak about these facts clearly. We simply cannot misinterpret this Word of God so badly that “our own truth” would clearly contradict other passages of the Word of God though it would satisfy our own understanding and logic and flesh! In these verses the Spirit of God speaks through Paul about the “new creatures IN Christ Jesus” (2Cor. 5:17, see also pages 78 bottom to 82), who crucified their flesh and thus belong to God (Gal. 5:24). This is a typical error of doctors of theology who only use their logic, completely miss the truth of God and dangerously deceive the people of God.

IF WE TAKE THE SPIRITUAL FACTS AND TRUTH OUT FROM OUR (LOGICAL) EQUATIONS, ALL OUR RESULTS WILL ALWAYS BE FALSE AND MISLEADING!

I am constrained by the Spirit of the Living God to beseech the ministers of the Word of God to pause, ponder and stop preaching lies thus deceiving His people instead of perfecting them in the knowledge of the Truth. Your “good flesh”, your “religious humanity” and logic are leading you astray from the spiritual Truth of the Word of God and making you “glued” to other passages which are “comfortable and also logical to your flesh”. And thus, you give to the Word of God a false interpretation by separating the text of one passage from another passage of the same Word of God and then mixing it with your logical explanations!

True ministers were given to the Church by the Lord for the perfecting of the saints in spirit not in mental knowledge, not for satisfying the desires, expectations, hopes and dreams of their “good humanistic” soul (Eph. 4:11,12).

So, how do we conclude this chapter? What is its true significance? We will have to return to point 7) on page 59, see and realize, that we do not war with or against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers (Eph. 6:12-18), who want to rob us of our true faith (Heb. 12:2), that is, of our redemption and salvation – perfection IN Christ and thus make us “lunatics and zombies” unable to even take a firm stand against them, who are our mortal enemies! But too many believers prefer to cooperate with them, believe them, fight one another, doubt one another, disobey one another, hate one another, be offended and irritated by one another, resist one another, ignore one another and thus serve Satan’s purposes rather than God’s! They are unwilling to seek and search the truth about any matter that may be controversial among such proud and carnal brethren.

How do you like this conclusion? Do you like it? Do you believe it? Well, I have no need to believe it because I have experienced it for a large part of my ministry! Ninety five percent (if not more) of those believers to whom I was ministering have not only shamefully abandoned me and disappeared behind the horizon, but many of them repaid evil for my good and even initiated diabolical and piggish campaigns against me on the internet. This may sound familiar to many true servants of Christ (Mt. 10:22).

Most of the born-again, baptized believers have never seen, and never desired to see, the depth of depravity of their human nature, their human old soul, their “old man”, his ability and willingness to fight for his sinful life and cooperate with the powers of evil and darkness, which have always been his allies, advisors and supporters. All their Christian life, they were willing to receive blessings and all good things from God while covering the evil and sins in their souls in secrecy playing hypocrites. Many such believers will not yield to the Lord’s hand until He brings them under a scalpel, to an emergency hospital, to a wheelchair, to a tragic situation, to bankruptcy, to a heartbreaking hopelessness, to jail, to a labor or boot camp, to unimaginable horrors – so the “armor” of their old nature would crack!

For many believers, their Christianity has been a religious show where they pretended to be what they were not and were deceiving everybody around them with their “good intentions and works” and other “virtues of their good flesh”. They have performed it either consciously or unconsciously. Be it one way or the other, their unwillingness to change and be delivered from the darkness and evil in their natural life and to grow up in spirit into Christ (Eph. 4:15) has been phenomenal! Their resistance to believe the truth has been even more phenomenal! It seems that each Christian has his own standard of righteousness, own truth, own chosen verse in the Bible upon which he hanged his life and destiny while happily ignoring the rest of the Scripture as if it did not exist! Many times these problems and reactions among various Christians cross the line of human sanity.

Now, it is quite possible that many of such Christians may not have been fully aware of their own heart and their miserable spiritual state, but they all were aware of their thoughts and intentions, their plans and desires and a constant pursuing of their self-satisfaction for which they were quite willing to fight and make a surprisingly great effort. Their war has been to satisfy themselves and not God. If they had to do something truly for God, they quite suddenly turned into lazy, phlegmatic, irresponsible, hypocritical, forgetful creatures with a drastically limited intelligence unwilling and unable to stand on their own feet, to think and make their own effort without tons of instructions. And then they produced long explanations why they could not do anything or resolve any problems (these are my own experiences).

The field of today’s Church is covered with millions of casualties of this spiritual war, which war these believers refused to fight and had done nothing to stand (Eph. 6:13)! And the responsibility falls mostly on their carnal leaders, who may have great zeal in their souls, preach with great emotions and intellectual fervor while in spirit they have been dead. This is a spiritual war and not emotional or intellectual war! Unfortunately, many Christians cannot tell soul from spirit and their own thoughts from true faith.

The Lord had not created us to satisfy us, but that we would satisfy Him! (Rev. 4:11) Once we satisfy Him, we will also become satisfied automatically. Nor has he planted us into a greenhouse to shield us from all possible dangers of hot sun, icy winds, earthquakes, blizzards, tornados, hurricanes, wild animals, sicknesses, plagues and adversities of all kinds and keep us in a perpetual peace, quietness and happiness. And if we try to build a “glass copula” over ourselves, He shatters it. Why? He is using exactly those adversities, storms and dangers to perfect us in our strength, resilience, willingness to fight, to stand for Him and thus show Him that He has not created us in vain! That is why He left us on earth and did not take us to Heaven, but keeps us from evil (Jn. 17:15// Col. 1:10-18). We were created to fight and to work. Heaven will wait. True?

Whenever we attend our church service, we sit in our pew or chair, sing few songs, wait for a sermon, listen to it even making some notes, give our gifts, tithes, offerings and go home. This is NOT the process of man’s salvation. We may return home with more intellectual information about God and His promises to us, about His Son Jesus Christ and His love for us, about the Holy Spirit, about what we must do or must not do in our future activities in order to achieve some of the requirements in the Bible. We may agree with all that was said, even believe it and even try to do it in the following days. We find out one way or another that we cannot do any of it, and so we slowly forget it.

This applies also to many honest and sincere preachers, who preach to others what they themselves cannot do. After some years, the congregation and the leadership have not changed in spirit or in their character or abilities to do what they could not do 10-20-30 or more years ago. They do not know the Lord better or more deeply than years ago, they may only know more ABOUT Him. They do not understand Him better, His ways, His thoughts or plans or purposes (Is. 55:8,9) because, with all their knowledge, they have remained on earth and have not ascended higher to the heavenlies where the Father had put them IN Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6).

A thought is like a vehicle, a boat, an airplane or train that appears in your railway station (brain) and is on stand-by ready to be boarded. I have never met or known a man that would come to a railway station and board a train without knowing where it is going! Have you? It would be insane, would it not? Yet, in the spiritual life, we may do these insane things daily because we “board” almost any thought that comes to our “railway station” just because it appeals to us, is attractive, seems right, has a potential, we like it, etc. So we board it, or a whole series of trains, and look at the scenery as we travel along having no idea where we might end up. Then when we end up exactly where we had no intention to end up or where we hated to end up, it is a sheer misery to try to get back to our “railway station” healthy and without much damage.

Of course, in a real railway station we can consult the time and destination schedule of trains or ask the “train dispatcher”. In spirit, we apparently don’t have such a luxury and so we follow our own “wisdom” and take chances. We never seek and ask the “thought dispatcher” nor do we seek or search the table of destinations. Of course, the “thought dispatcher” and also “producer” is the spirit of our mind and thus the “quality” of our thoughts depends on whether the spirit of our mind has been renewed and to what degree, or not at all (Eph. 4:23).

How do we know whether the spirit of our mind has been renewed and to what degree? We do NOT know. We can only judge or assess it by its fruit. If we have stupid thoughts from the spirit of our flesh and we follow them, board them, sow them, they bring us to the destination of chaos, darkness, futility, stupidity, corruption and damages. If we have wise thoughts from the Spirit of God and we follow them, board them, sow them, they bring us to the destination of light, beauty, usefulness, blessings and life everlasting (Gal. 6:8) even though some suffering or pain may be their “side effect” while following them. This is even logical, is it not? In other words, we may find out things about our mind and soul using God’s principle of sowing and harvest. It is written: “for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Gal. 5:7b). By our harvest we may judge what “seed” we sowed, what “train” we boarded and traveled.

We thus learn the state of our mind, the degree of its renewal and thus the source of our thoughts from the kind of “destinations” which we reach by following (sowing and then reaping) the fruit of those thoughts. This principle also applies to the renewal of our heart and will, our emotions, imaginations, desires, lusts, decisions, etc. Even these are “trains” that can swiftly bring us to strange even dangerous destinations, if we “board them” without verifying them with the “Train Dispatcher”, the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in us and desires to guide us and stop some “trains” from leaving our Central station – our soul. If we do not live in Him (as He lives in us), then He is like unto a “train dispatcher” who is “locked in his office” and has no opportunity in our “railway station” to guide us or advise us. Sometimes some other “passengers” (brethren) who might have their own experiences with some of those “trains” could advise us. But shall we believe them? It seems that we must always learn on our own skin, but the lessons learnt on our own skin, we will never forget.

I have to include here the following important fact. We may have suffered even extensive damages due to sowing our foolishness, yet, IF our heart is open and honest toward God, those damages may become steps to our spiritual progress! Through them God is able to show us our foolishness and its roots and then deliver us from that spirit of foolishness, which always includes the spirit of pride, stubbornness, self-righteousness, bondage, fears, etc. We must realize that what is always involved is a total lack of communications (Heb. 13:16) as well as our inability to ask simple questions (see again pages 21,22 and 91-94) and get advice from people that know or have experiences. IF our heart is not open and not honest toward God, we will never get out of that merry-go-round of our own foolishness and ensuing damages.

The last fact that belongs here is that we learn ONLY through mistakes, our own mistakes or those of others. Therefore, the Lord grants us plentiful opportunities to make mistakes in every area of our life where we have to learn wisdom according to the Lord (Jam. 1:5-8). All believers start from spiritual foolishness, naivety and a zero spiritual intelligence. We will never admit such a shameful fact, but none of us begins from wisdom and perfection. The wise believers are those that LEARN from their mistakes. The stupid ones are those that do NOT LEARN being too proud, too stubborn, too lazy or due to other “virtues” of their flesh. But if our own Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ had to LEARN obedience by the things which He suffered, how much more do WE HAVE TO LEARN? Can you estimate it? Because, after He was thus perfected, He became the Author of Eternal Salvation unto all them that OBEY Him (Heb. 5:8,9), not unto them that just believed in Him, but do not care about His Will, His Commandments or His Word.

CHAPTER 5

OUR DREAMS AND REALITY

From day one of my redemption, I had my dreams about Christianity. They were all false and I had to learn this simple fact through a lot of sufferings and disappointments. The spiritual reality has almost always proved to be different whether it touched God, Christians, pagans… or myself. Yes, I was also “dreaming” about myself and it must have taken the Lord quite a time to finally show me that I was NOT who I thought I was! But when I truly started to see myself, I began to walk into my reality. And this is an excellent place to state the following important truth:

THE GREATEST TRAGEDY OF CHRISTIANS IS THAT THEY ARE NOT WHO THEY THINK AND BELIEVE THEY ARE! AND THIS APPLIES FOR ALL AGES OF CHRISTIANS. THE SIMPLE REASON IS THAT THEY DO NOT SEE THEMSELVES AS THEY REALLY ARE IN THE EYES OF CHRIST! AND WHEN THE LORD STARTS SHOWING THEM THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT THEMSELVES, THEY CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT THEY SEE! THEY ALL BELIEVE THEY ARE RIGHTEOUS AND HOLY AND FULLY ACCEPTABLE TO GOD RIGHT AFTER THEIR REDEMPTION AND BAPTISM BECAUSE THEIR “FAITH, LOVE AND DEVOTION TO JESUS” ARE SINCERE, HONEST AND TRUE – SO THEY BELIEVE.

Your beliefs about your faith, love and devotion to Jesus may be very sincere, honest and true, but there is vastly more to your soul (mind, heart, will) and to your spirit (conscience-perception, intuition-discernment, communion) than just your newly found faith and devotion to the Lord Jesus. The vast territory of our soul and spirit had been a kingdom of Satan all our previous life, and Satan will not start dismantling his kingdom in us just because one day we believed in Another Master and even desire to follow Him. If you believe such a dream, you are in for mighty surprises and disappointments and future revelations about your true soul and spirit and about the true powers therein. Are you ready for your reality? NO, you are not! You see, nobody can prepare you for it just as you cannot prepare yourself for what you are going to dream tomorrow. Your dream comes out of nowhere and without being invited to appear! So it is with all those revelations about your spiritual reality! They all come out of “nowhere”, unexpectedly and without your invitation. The Holy Spirit is not waiting for your invitation or your readiness to present you the “light of your reality” or even the “light of His reality”.

You see, we also dream about the Lord and imagine what He must be from what we read in the Bible. His spiritual reality we do not know either. We will never be “ready and prepared” for His revelations about us or about Himself. And when they do come – we are usually stunned, to say it politely. And not only stunned, but very often offended, confused, angry, disbelieving – this cannot be me! This cannot be the Lord! Well, why not? Where is it written that the revelation about you cannot be true? The LORD knows our heart, we do not! (Jer. 17:9) And unless our eyes are opened by His Spirit, we do not even recognize the Lord though He may be walking with us! (Lk. 24:13-16,31)

If we do not know what is in our heart, then why are we surprised when the Lord shows us things that are therein and we never knew them? Why should we be offended when the Lord starts pulling out of our heart a “foul smelling proud, arrogant, fearful, self-righteous, foolish and sinful creature”, which He hates and will never fellowship with? Should we not rather thank Him for it and kiss His hand? And praise Him for His light and work? What do you think? You see, this is how we ALL have been before and after our redemption and also after our water baptism! For how long after our baptism? I truly do not know for others, I only know it for myself. The pulling out of that horrible, proud, arrogant, sinful creature from our soul is the true process of OUR SALVATION, and we are called to work it out with the Lord with fear and trembling. For it is He, Who works in us that we would be willing to do this “dirty job” with Him as it is His good pleasure. (Phil. 2:12b-13) He primarily died to take out of us THIS CREATURE, THIS ROOT OF OUR EVIL and sinfulness and not just to forgive us our sins!

Have you ever had an opportunity in your Christian life to do this kind of “dirty job” with the Lord? If yes, than this was the beginning of your overcoming and of your own salvation. If not, then this creature has still been living in your soul, whether you are aware of it or not, and your destiny is uncertain, at best. In chapters 2 and 3 of the Book of Revelation, the Lord judges the seven churches of Asia Minor, which represent all the churches to the very end of this Dispensation, to the last days of this world. And in His Judgment, He is giving promises to the Overcomers only (Rev. 2:7,11,17,26; 3:5,12,21), it means, to those only that worked out their salvation as commanded in His Word (Phil. 2:12b-13). The destiny of the other believers non-overcomers must be searched out from other passages of the New Testament.

The Christian that dreams is basically the Christian who is deceived and does not know reality. And one very important part of his overcoming will include his dreams. Dreams about himself, about the Father, about the Son, Our Saviour and Lord, about the Holy Spirit, about the Church, about the brethren, about the Word of God and just about everything touching the spiritual world! He will have to reject all his dreams and imaginations and deceptions and make-believe desires and embrace the reality which is, or will be, shown to him by the Holy Spirit after his baptism… IF his heart is open to Him. IF his heart is not open to the Lord and to His Spirit, he will be spending his Christian life traveling through a “religious Disney world” and his old man will have fun. But at the end of the day, the fun will turn into a nightmare and tragedy. Disney world is a fairytale, but the above fact is not a fairytale by any stretch of imagination. Unfortunately, there are too many born-again Christians who are presently enjoying their “religious Disney world”.

We also dream about prayers. We pray for many things and receive probably few answers and then we say, “Well, the Lord turned away from me”, or “He did not answer my prayers” or something similar. The truth is, the Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayers of the righteous (Pr. 15:29). Three facts are to be mentioned here:

a) It is not just pagans, but also born-again believers that may be proud, arrogant, wicked, unrighteous, abominable and evil (Mt. 7:11), hence, the Lord will hear what they pray, since His Spirit is Omnipresent and Omniscient, but He will not answer them, rather, He resists them (Jam. 4:6// 1Pet. 5:5) with their unacceptable foul smelling spirits.

b) He hears and answers all prayers of the righteous; we should never doubt this fact. In principle, His answer is: yes, no or wait. But we may feel many times that He did not answer our prayers. Some of the main reasons, contrary to our feelings and reasonings, are shown in the next point.

c) We may pray and then not wait for His answer. Also, we may pray without faith, we doubt that He is going to answer or answer positively. Quite frequently the Lord may seem not to answer our prayers because He does not answer them the way we expect or imagine. If this happens, we either “miss” His answer or do not recognize it or do not receive it since it did not meet our expectations or imaginations or our logic. In these cases, we always fail to thank Him for His answer(s) and our prayer life may be affected badly and negatively. We have to learn not only how to pray, but also how to wait and receive His answers. Since we usually do not wait for His answers, He is often answering our prayers in our daily living experiences. Do we see them there? Not many of us do. Most believers would need someone, who can discern and interpret their experiences and draw the right spiritual conclusions.

We may pray for ourselves or for others, very often for the healing of our bodies or of our souls (broken hearts, fearful minds, indecisive wills, insecurity in our soul, lack of faith or wisdom, inabilities to do what we know we should do, etc.) We may also pray for our livelihood, our relationships, our general situation or for various problems in our life or in the life of our brethren or family members. But generally, we have no clue what the Lord must do in order to answer our prayer especially when it involves our free will or the free will of anyone else for whom we pray. We almost never realize that whenever we pray and also pray for others, all of the persons involved in such a prayer may be automatically involved in His answer to our prayer. The Lord may have to ask any of such persons to do something, go somewhere, speak or write something, call somebody, repent or ask someone for forgiveness, etc. All these persons must exercise their free will to any such request of the Lord. You say, the Lord can do anything! True – but He will never do anything against the free will of man, which is one of the very basic Principles of His Creation! Only Satan does not ask your permission and is always willing to violate your free will and force you into his decisions! God never does that.

For example, number of times I initiated prayers for marriages, which were “on the rocks” and we asked the Lord for their recovery and healing. In some cases the Lord answered rather quickly, in other cases it took one or two years, and in some other cases it has not happened to this very day. Why? In one such case, one of the spouses was absolutely unwilling to take the way the Lord established for their recovery and healing. Unwillingness and the associated unbelief bind the hands of the Lord (Mt. 13:58). Therein are usually all the difficulties and time delays in His answers, which we cannot understand. If He allows millions of pagans to perish eternally because of their unbelief and disobedience, then He can certainly allow your proud and disobedient spouse to perish in the same way and for the same reason. Here I must note that the Word of God in Acts 16:31 does not apply to every “house” in Christianity. Apostle Paul assured the jailor specifically about his salvation and those living in his house. Though it is the desire of God to save the whole family, it is not a rule or a law!

Also, the Lord will not answer positively any prayers, which are against His Will or Purpose.

Another kind of dreams is being dreamed by most leaders in the church – pastors, preachers, teachers, elders. I believe the majority of them are honest, sincere and quite knowledgeable. They believe, or at least hope, that their preaching, teaching or counseling will be helpful to their listeners and might resolve some of the problems in their Christian life. Well, it might… or it might not. Nobody knows. But this is not the real problem or any part of their dream.

Their dream is in the simple fact that these ministers do not seem to see, know and realize what their listeners, their sheep, their students, their congregations truly need IN SPIRIT! Such a thought may have never crossed their mind. Why? They may not see or understand any difference between human soul and human spirit and God’s Spirit. And those among them, which are honest and not proud, will admit to it. What is an even deeper truth is that these leaders may not know, not see and not understand whether they themselves have in their own SPIRIT (not in mind) what their listeners so desperately need in their SPIRIT (not in their mind)! Then, what is the result of this dream?

a) After 2,000 years, the churches have become intellectual religious merry-go-rounds where many ministers are feeding themselves on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then they are feeding their listeners with the same fruit. And the result is DEATH! They are continually feeding their congregations with death. There is no Life of Christ in the Church today! After 2,000 years the Church has apparently not discovered that when we feed ourselves or others with the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we CANNOT, at the same time, feed ourselves or others with the fruit of the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:22-24)!

b) After 2,000 years, the Church has not discovered that our biblical knowledge is NOT our salvation, that an increase in our biblical knowledge is NOT an increase in our salvation or in our spiritual growth. The biblical knowledge is an important tool for our salvation, but when it is not used in “working out our own salvation” (Phil. 2:12b), then it becomes useless. The knowledgeable men are able to speak, teach or preach truth, but if they are spiritually dead, they cannot live that truth, thus it remains a dead truth! This also means that today’s congregations are like unto school classes where teachers and professors come and lecture their students increasing their knowledge. When the students leave, they leave with more information in their head, with increased knowledge, but unchanged IN THEIR SPIRIT!

What is worse, they might leave more deceived in themselves than when they came in because they might have received spiritually false information. If they believed it, because it was more palatable or more logical to the expectations of their souls, then it produced more deception, which made them more spiritually dead. And even if they received truth from the Scripture, they might still leave deceived! Why? Neither listeners nor such preachers can see and understand that they cannot DO, cannot LIVE in their natural life the truth that was preached. The Lord spoke in parables because human souls were not able to comprehend or live the spiritual meaning of His words.

The spiritual “new man”, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24) may remain the same “newborn babe” as he was at our redemption, which was his birthday! He has not been fed with the right food and thus did not grow up. We are born-again believers, but we keep living in and feeding our natural soul! We may not care about our “newborn babe from Heaven”!

c) After 2,000 years, the Church has not yet discovered, that the Scripture has not been written for our natural man! This covers not only all pagans, but also all the carnal believers. They cannot receive and understand anything spiritual from the Scripture (1Cor. 2:14).

The Word of God only shows to man the WAY! To pagans, it shows the WAY to Redemption and to believers the WAY to Salvation-Perfection after they were redeemed. The WAY to Redemption has been preached to pagans during evangelistic rallies, but the WAY to Perfection has not been preached and explained to the born-again believers! Preachers are educating their congregations how to be “better Christians” in their natural life, while that natural life should not be further educated, but crucified! (Gal. 5:24)

NO MAN in his natural earthly creation is able to LIVE the Word of God as it is written, whether pagan OR BELIEVER! (Jn. 15:5b) But every natural man in his right mind is able to read, write, ponder, argue, teach, or preach the Word of God. Yet, none of these activities will enable the natural man to live the Word!

d) After 2,000 years, the Church has not yet discovered that there is a vast difference and an unbridgeable abyss between our “old natural creature” and our “new creature in Christ”; between a carnal and spiritual believer! They live different lives! Hence, they behave differently, talk, act and believe differently, desire and understand differently, have different or no visions, different or no obedience to their Father in Heaven and to His Word on earth!

This new creature IN Christ is not interested in logical explanations from the Scripture; he has no taste for any dead food, biblical food “pasteurized” in the minds of men. He desires primarily to know whether what is being taught, preached or done is the true Will of his Heavenly Father or the will or desire of men! This also means, whether that “food” comes from the Holy Spirit or from the natural souls of men! Whether it is living or dead – pasteurized. We have already described at the end of chapter 1 the difference between a fresh and living food and the food pasteurized which is DEAD. All living enzymes in the food were killed – and that very effectively and permanently.

The most dangerous dream that almost the whole Church believes, teaches and preaches is that when we believe in Jesus as Our Saviour and are redeemed, we are unconditionally saved and are automatically IN Christ Jesus and thus a “new creature”! Unfortunately, this is not only a dream, this is a masterpiece of deception from Satan himself! It puts all such believers in the danger zone of losing their salvation! Why is this deception so very easily and vigorously believed?

Our carnal soul lusts for easy and comfortable Christianity. Satan knows it too and it gives him endless opportunities for a wide variety of deceptions. Example: “You believed, are baptized, sit in “your” church, sing (if you like), listen to sermons (if they are interesting), give some offering (if you are expected) and repeat this until you die. And then you go straight to Heaven and the loving Heavenly Father will welcome you with open arms.”

But the moment you die, this dream of your carnal mind will be shattered to dust. And then, when you open your eyes, you may see darkness and what you may hear around you will be weeping and gnashing of teeth – not exactly Heaven (Mt. 8:12/ 22:13/ 24:51/ 25:30). The whole New Testament speaks against such a dream, but not the church leaders.

The Holy Spirit declares clearly: “… IF ANY MAN BE IN Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, ALL things are become new” (2Cor. 5:17).

True? Of course, true! Now, what does this Word of God truly mean? How is it to be interpreted and believed? This is what the Holy Spirit of God says:

● ANY MAN is ANY BELIEVER since ANY PAGAN could never have been IN Christ Jesus! And there are no other kinds of MAN in this Creation!

● “IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST” thus means “IF ANY BELIEVER BE IN CHRIST”. This Word proves that NOT EVERY BELIEVER IS AUTOMATICALLY IN CHRIST JESUS just by believing in Him and being baptized. Carnal believers cannot be IN Christ... though Christ is IN them! Born-again believers are IN Christ POTENTIALLY since our Father has put us into Christ based on His Will, not ours! Similarly, every man born to this planet is POTENTIALLY saved in Christ Jesus whether he accepts it or refuses it.

● The “new creature” is the one where ALL things are new, not just one or two, but ALL.

● Another Word spoken by the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ says clearly: “IF A MAN abide not in Me…” (Jn. 15:6)

This Word again means “IF A BELIEVER abide not in Me…” since A PAGAN could never have been abiding IN Christ in the first place! This is also a proof that believers may lose their salvation by getting out of Christ! If this were impossible (according to many preachers) then this Word of God could not possibly exist! True?

● Another example is the Word in Mt. 16:24:

The words “IF ANY MAN will (decide to) come after Me…” have the identical meaning “IF ANY BELIEVER will (decide to) come after Me…”

This last example will also help us get the necessary further light concerning the fact of “being IN Christ”, following Him or not following Him, abiding in Him or not abiding in Him, finally, losing our salvation or keeping it. In order to see and comprehend this further light, the Spirit of the Lord is showing to us the following spiritual picture.

● NO PAGAN can ever follow or decide to follow the Lord before he becomes a believer and is redeemed. True?

● BELIEVERS may choose and decide to follow Him in their various ways and manners. In Mt. 16:24 the Lord uses the word “IF any believer will…” thus leaving the choice and decision to the free will of every believer. True?

● SPIRITUAL believers have been following the Lord by learning and being willing to keep denying their own selves and taking up their cross in a comparatively timely and continual manner. This means that they keep receiving the truth spoken to them in love and thereby keep growing up into Christ in all things (Eph. 4:15). They seek and love truth more than their own self and its “image”. True?

● CARNAL believers may try to follow Him from time to time in a sporadic manner or they may decide not to follow Him at all after discovering that this walk is “too hard for them” or they are told by their leaders that they are under grace and do not need to take up any cross. Also, they may soon reach their “limit” and stop moving after reaching some level IN Christ. This also means that they may receive some truth here and there whether spoken to them in love or not and thus grow up into Christ a little here and after some time a little there and between such intermittent walking they may have long intermissions… even of several years. They may not seek or love truth because ALL truth, which is new to them, is against their nature, will and desire. True?

● The Word in Eph. 4:15 is another proof that we are NOT IN CHRIST right after our redemption because we have to grow up into Him in all things! Should we be IN Christ right after believing in Him, we would not have to grow up into Him! True? Our position IN Christ is thus determined by our believing and receiving the truth spoken to us in love, not just academically, but in love since love is an important ingredient in our ministry. God is love – 1Jn. 4:8,16, He is not an intellectual professor. It is also determined by denying our selves (thoughts, reasonings, imaginations, desires, convictions, ways, etc.) when they oppose the truth received and by taking up our cross and following the Lord. To be taking up our cross is absolutely vital for our salvation since ALL OUR CARNALITY- FLESH is dying thereon and nowhere else! It is there where we are crucifying our flesh and growing up into His Body. We then fully belong to Christ and are IN Him when we have crucified our flesh (Gal. 5:24).

● There are different positions IN Christ depending on how far we have grown up into Him during our earthly life. Logically, the levels of our being IN Him might range from 0% to 100% and we are always somewhere in between. The spiritual truth is that 0% cannot exist since from our redemption we have already believed the Word of truth, the Gospel of our Salvation and were thus sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise and obtained the earnest inheritance (Eph. 1:13,14). In other words, we have grown up into Christ some initial small measure, which became, as it were, our initial foundation. Then we were supposed to stand on it and grow up further and build on it and mature through faith by going on to perfection (Heb. 6:1-3). This initial foundation is as it were a separation line between spiritual and carnal believers. The spiritual believers through faith and patience inherit the promises, the carnal believers are slothful or fearful and do not follow the spiritual ones, though they are prompted to do so by the Holy Spirit, Who is in them, and also through Apostle Paul in the Word of God (Heb. 6:12). We will reach the 100% level of being IN Him, which means, we will be fully transformed and changed into Christ’s Image, sometime in our eternity.

● We may also lose even our initial measure of being IN Christ, that is, lose our redemption when we “fall away” (Heb. 6:4-6), when we “do not abide in Christ” (Jn. 15:6), when we are again overcome by the world, this end being worse with us than our beginning (before redemption – 2Pet. 2:20-22); when we are not receiving the love of the truth after our redemption so that we might be (continue to be) saved, perfected (2Thes. 2:10-12), when we keep refusing to overcome the evils in us that stand in our way to be changed into the Image of Christ (Rev. 3:5), which is the Final Will of God Our Father (Rom. 8:29), etc.

● There is a difference between “being IN Christ” and “putting ON Christ” (Rom. 13:14// Gal. 3:27). “Putting ON Christ” is identical to “putting on our new man” (Eph. 4:24) which is identical to “putting on kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, forgiving one another, charity, etc.” (Col. 3:12b-14) which is identical to “walking on the narrow way, which leads to life” (Mt. 7:13,14), which is identical to “going on unto perfection” (Heb. 6:1-3), which is identical to our overcoming (Rev. 2:7, 11,17,26 + 3:5,12,21).

Hence, “putting on” is our ACTIVITY directed by the Holy Spirit with our cooperation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12b,13), while “being IN” is our POSITION in Christ with the associated measure of His Holiness, Wisdom, Righteousness, Power, Authority, etc. These are all at the disposal of our New Man IN Christ, but not at the disposal of our soul alone to be used by us as an individual person separate from Christ! In other words, Christ will not give to us His Power, Wisdom, Authority or any other of His virtues so we could handle them apart from Him. No, we have them in Him and through Him only.

If we look at ourselves in THIS Light from the Spirit of God, our beliefs may have to be considerably revised and our possible dreams destroyed. And we should do this, first, for the sake of the Lord so that He would not have died for us in vain; second, for our own good and final destiny; and third, that we would finally stop, or at least limit, continuously grieving the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30). Furthermore, if we work for the Lord, it does not mean that we belong to the Lord or that the Lord knows us! (Mt. 7:22,23)

In conclusion, may I ask the following question: Can the Lord USE anything what we may have done “for Him” if we are not IN Him? The answer is YES, but there is no reward for that person. Just as the Lord may use the “work” of the devils while they are not rewarded for it (we should understand that the Lord is using also devils for our salvation!)

Do you truly appreciate this Light from the Holy Spirit? I do very much, since I did not have it all the time, rather, it has been progressively revealed to me by His Grace as I myself was enabled by Him to receive it. We can only receive His Light and revelations into our “new man”, never to our “old man”. If our “new man” does not grow up (we are not putting him on) and thus does not acquire the necessary spiritual capacity, he cannot receive from the Lord the desirable measure of spiritual light or revelation; then we will depend on those, who can receive. The above is also a proof that I have not written any of these truths out of my head since such things as written above are not “born” in human heads.

CHAPTER 6

OUR BLINDNESS

The most important spiritual senses that we received at our redemption are seeing and hearing. They both are supposed to grow and develop as we are supposed to grow up in our spirit and into Christ. If we are not growing up into Christ in all things (Eph. 4:15) and thus are not exercising these spiritual senses (Heb. 5:12-14), they do not grow either. The result is TRAGIC – we continue in our Christian life as spiritually blind and deaf and we may so continue many years even until our physical death.

Whenever the Lord spoke, He ended His words many times by saying: “He that has an EAR, let him hear” thus indicating that their two physical ears were not sufficient to “hear the spiritual truth” and understand it. They all needed a spiritual ear to hear and understand. This corresponds well with His Word to His prophet Isaiah, whom He sent to tell the people of Israel: “Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.” (Is. 6:8,9)

The same fact is stated in two Gospels, Matthew and Mark, where the Lord was asked by His disciples why He spoke in parables and He answered them with the same Word that was given to Isaiah (Mt. 13:13,14// Mk. 4:11,12). Also, Apostle Paul was asked to explain himself to some Jews while he was a prisoner in Rome. And some believed and some did not and when they agreed not among themselves, they departed. After that, Paul had spoken the same Word as was given to prophet Isaiah (Acts 28:23-26).

From the above we may see and judge that lack of a spiritual ear and eye is always associated with unbelief and that heart is always associated with evil (Heb. 3:12). If we believe only what we can physically see and mentally understand, we put Christianity upside down! Blessed are they that have not seen, yet have believed (Jn. 20:29).

Have you ever tried to show something to a physically blind man? I doubt it since it would be foolish. Have you ever tried to say something or sing some song to a physically deaf man? I doubt it also since it would be equally foolish. Yet, when it comes to spiritual things, we all do it, even though unconsciously. Carnal believers do it all the time. They always try to persuade pagans about “religious” things (I am not saying “spiritual” things) or those of different denominations argue among themselves about their persuasions, convictions and beliefs. Yet, both sides are blind to the real spiritual truth and thus the result of such arguing is zero. And it would not be so bad, if it were zero, but it is worse since it breeds “bad blood”, bad spirit, bad relationships and bad testimonies among believers.

We know that the Lord went around the blind people giving them sight. What many believers may not know or not realize is what the Lord said: “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and THEY WHICH SEE MIGHT BE MADE BLIND.” (Jn. 9:39). This may be a very unexpected Word from Our Lord, but it goes well with His Word given to Isaiah where the Lord says: “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and SHUT THEIR EYES; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” (Is. 6:10).

Do we understand the Word in John 9:39? The first part is not difficult since the Lord was healing the physically blind giving them physical sight. The second part may not be readily understood since it deals with the spiritual sight. The understanding should be clearer when we consider the next two verses where the Lord told the Pharisees: “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say: We see; therefore, your sin remaineth.” (Jn. 9:40,41) We all know that Pharisees were blind and proud and children of hell. Read Matthew, chapter 23 to get a true picture of them. And today there are leaders in the Church, which are the same in their character and spiritual state, which are already condemned to hell and they do not know it and their congregations do not know it either since they are blind also. Spiritually blind or deaf believers keep sinning all their life even though they physically see and hear. Saul of Tarsus was living and acting by his physical eyesight and hearing and mental understanding. He judged everything by outer appearance and thus all his judgments were unrighteous (Jn. 7:24// Is. 11:1-4a). He represents carnal leaders in their extreme. After the Lord appeared to him, he was made physically blind so that he might receive the spiritual sight (Acts 9:8,9,17,18) and later on also his physical sight.

Since we know that Our Lord has created our physical being, He has also created our hearing ear and seeing eye, as it is written: “The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them”. (Pr. 20:12) But the Lord has also made our spiritual ear for hearing and our spiritual eye for seeing the spiritual realities, spiritual beings, spiritual world. We may hear and see with our physical ear and eye and be completely blind spiritually. Why?

Spiritual blindness is the “fruit” of pride. That’s why all proud leaders of Israel (Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Kings, Priests, Judges, false Prophets, etc.), and all proud leaders of the Church (Preachers, Teachers, Pastors, Evangelists, Bishops, Priests, Prophets, etc.) have been spiritually blind. Every spiritually blind person is an easy target for Satan for his myriads of deceptions and traps and pits into which such believers fall and cannot get out of them by their own power and ability. Their pride must first be broken; they must repent and only then receive from the Lord the spiritual eyesight, and also hearing.

Then they become able to see themselves and their spiritual misery and to cry to the Lord for their deliverance. And when the righteous cry, the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles (Ps. 34:17). The same promise applies also to their manifold afflictions (Ps. 34:19). These two Words of the Lord apply to the righteous and NOT to the proud, wicked or evil believers working iniquity, who are all unrighteous! Therefore, if you find yourself in continuous afflictions or troubles, and you have cried and the Lord has not delivered you, it is because you may not be righteous! You should then verify before the Lord your spiritual status and when you start seeing yourself in His Light, repent and cry to Him again, you will surely be delivered.

Spiritually blind believers are blind first to the spiritual state of their own selves and also to their earthly lives. They usually judge themselves by their earthly life – the state of their physical health, earthly possessions, social or leadership status, successes in their religious life, their education, popularity, contacts with important persons, human goodness, willingness to help others, exposure to mass media, titles, prosperity in “every way” and similar conditions. They LIVE in order to DIE. The spiritual believers are DYING in order to LIVE! Do we understand the above paragraph, and especially the last statement? (Mt. 16:25) Do we really?

Since spiritually blind believers are blind to their own selves, they are also blind to their deeds and are thus unaware of their deeds. If they are truly unaware of their deeds, then they must be terribly naïve.

Let me bring you 6,000 years back into the Garden of Eden and show you what the Lord showed me. All believers know the story of the Creation of man and also of his fall into sin. But very few may see more than what is written in the Book of Genesis.

Adam and Eve were sinless and holy and lived their lives by the Spirit of God. They did not know what sin was or what death was. So when God told them that they shall “surely die”, they may not have comprehended the concept of death and their separation from God. They probably had taken that matter rather “lightly”. They were not aware of any other type of existence except their own in Paradise, and that made them unaware of what was duty, obedience, responsibility, danger, lies, hate, deception, lack of things or what the purpose of their existence was. Despite their holiness and sinlessness and Adam’s great intellectual abilities (he single-handedly dressed the huge Garden and named all animals – Gen. 2:15,20) they were spiritually blind and thus terribly naïve! We should know that the spiritually blind and naïve believers are also very foolish, they have no spiritual wisdom. If in this light we read Genesis, chapter 3 and their fall into sin, we should not be surprised how “easy” that fall actually was for them. We should equally not be surprised, why God could not have possibly been satisfied with such a “naïve and foolish son and daughter” having been created into the presence of foxy Satan and evil.

THERE WAS NO OTHER WAY FOR GOD TO MAKE THEM AWARE OF WHAT IS OBEDIENCE, RESPONSIBILITY, DUTY, EVIL, DANGER, SIN, DEATH AND SEPARATION FROM GOD (WHO WAS THEIR VERY LIFE), LACKING THINGS, LEARNING TRUE WISDOM AND TRUE LOVE, LEARNING THE VERY PURPOSE OF THEIR LIFE – EXCEPT – BY ALLOWING THEM TO EAT THE FRUIT FROM THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL!

THEY HAD TO TASTE EVIL AND DARKNESS AND ACQUIRE THE BASIC WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE REALITIES OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. AND THEN THEY WERE TO HATE AND REJECT EVIL AND RETURN BACK TO GOD BY THEIR OWN DESIRE AND LOVE FOR GOD.

AND THEN GOD DIED FOR THEM TO SAVE THEM AND TO SEE WHETHER THEY WILL DIE FOR HIM ALSO. ONLY THOSE THAT DIED FOR HIM WILL HE RECEIVE AS HIS TRUE AND PERFECT SONS AND DAUGHTERS!

Now, let us come back to our blindness and read Genesis 3:6, “And when the woman SAW that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, SHE TOOK of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”

The woman saw something good, pleasant and desirable, so she took it! She asked NO QUESTIONS of anybody! Is this any different today? She had chances to say to Satan: “Now, Mr. Satan, you say that I will surely not die… but God says that I will surely die. So, one of you must be lying. Hence, before I try the fruit, I have to talk to God and verify with Him what is really true.” Since God was probably “not present”, otherwise they would not have dared to eat that fruit in His presence, she could have turned to her husband and ask: “Honey, what do you say about this contradiction? What is your advice?” Since Adam was not deceived (1Tim. 2:14), he could have said to her: “Darling, we should not eat of it, Satan is deceiving us!” But what did he do? He also ate asking NO QUESTIONS of anybody! Was this not outright idiotic? Of course it was! But you see, they did not even know at that time what idiocy really was! We know it today. But what is really so important about this light? Well, I believe that it is this…

AFTER SIX THOUSAND YEARS, NOTHING TRULY CHANGED! THE NAIVETY AND STUPIDITY OF SPIRITUALLY BLIND MEN AND WOMEN CONTINUE! AND THE RESULTS ARE EQUALLY DEVASTATING.

Even today, a spiritually blind and naïve woman will not ask God any questions, if she sees something good or pleasant to the eyes or desirable to make her wise, she will take it. And she would never ask her husband any questions either. This was the start of the SPIRIT OF JEZEBEL, which every woman inherited; it is still in her blood… unless she was delivered from it. She is thus ready to rule her husband asking no questions, expecting him to “eat whatsoever she hands to him” thus disregarding the Word of God establishing the man to be the head of the woman (1Cor. 11:3). Furthermore, Jezebel slew the prophets of God thus showing herself as an evil woman (1Ki. 18:13// 2Ki. 9:7). And today spiritually blind women still teach, preach and seduce God’s servants to “…commit fornication and to eat (spiritual) things sacrificed to idols.” (Rev. 2:20-23)

The spiritually blind and naïve man is also the same as he was in the Garden. He “eats” anything that his wife gives to him without any questions, believes her words, plans, suggestions and never verifies with God whether she is “kidding him”, ruling him, leading him into fornication and foolish schemes, idolatry, dangerous undertakings or even a spiritual suicide. He is too lazy, stupid and careless to even register such unimportant things – in spirit! This is also a proof and an explanation why more and more women are taking over even the ministry from men. Today we have not only many lady-pastors and lady-evangelists, but also lady-apostles equally disregarding the Word of God! (1Cor. 14:34, 35) Satan has no problems reproducing his victory from the Garden! And the Lord is allowing him to continue “this job” which he started in the Garden! Now, there is an interesting exception to this when the Lord established a woman to judge Israel. Her name is Deborah (Judges 4:4) and her position as a prophetess and judge were “legal” and acceptable before the Lord. Prophetess is an acceptable calling for a woman also in the New Testament (1Cor. 11:5). Now, why the Lord at that time chose a woman to judge His people? He could not find a suitable man for that job at that time (very commendable testimony for men).

Speaking in general, the spiritual blindness applies to the whole of mankind since, firstly, we all came from Adam and Eve and, secondly, Satan has been deceiving the whole world (Rev. 12:9// 2Cor. 4:4) and taking believers captive at his will (2Tim. 2:26). While for pagans it’s the “norm”, multitudes of born-again believers prefer to remain naïve and foolish and thus comfortable then to walk on the narrow road, take up their own cross and SEE, HEAR and FIGHT!

So, why do we witness this tragedy of mankind and of the large part of the Israel-Church? Why billions of peoples march to their eternal damnation in the lake of fire? (Rev. 20:15). Many of them may be better humans than believers. And why many believers march to their outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth? And why some of them will also end up in the lake of fire? The answer is very simple:

NOBODY ASKS QUESTIONS! EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYTHING! THAT’S ALL! REASONS? PRIDE, BLINDNESS, NAIVETY, STUPIDITY, DECEPTION, COMFORT, UNBELIEF, TRAGEDY – IN THAT ORDER.

CHAPTER 7

OUR “NEW ISRAEL–CHURCH”

There is a considerable confusion concerning Israel as the chosen nation of God in the Old Testament, the new Israel of the New Testament (so called “Messianic Jews”) and the Church of the New Testament. This confusion is primarily due to the already mentioned unbridgeable gap between the rational and the spiritual understanding of any biblical issue and that includes this important issue, as well.

Very few Christians and even fewer Jews themselves understand that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob WERE NOT JEWS because they were circumcised in flesh! It is true that Abraham and every male child belonging to his house had to be circumcised in the flesh of their foreskin. But this circumcision was only a token of the covenant between God and Abraham (Gen. 17:10-13). It was an OUTWARD CIRCUMCISION AND DID NOT MAKE ANYONE A JEW! Jacob became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel in his twelve sons only after God changed his character – his heart and spirit – and then He changed his name Jacob to ISRAEL (Gen. 32:28). And Jacob called the name of that place Peniel for there he saw God face to face and his life was preserved (Gen. 32:30).

There are three basic reasons why the circumcision in the flesh does not make anyone a Jew:

a) Even strangers, which were not of Abraham’s seed, but were bought with money, had to be circumcised (Gen. 17:12), but they never became Jews by this operation in their flesh.

b) That particular covenant between God and Abraham was in Abraham’s flesh, not in his spirit (Gen. 17:13).

c) GOD says: “For he is NOT A JEW, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the FLESH. BUT HE IS A JEW, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the SPIRIT, and not in the LETTER (=flesh);” (Rom. 2:28,29// Col. 3:10,11).

Considering the above facts, we can now say before the Lord that Abraham, Isaac and Israel became true Jews only when they were circumcised in their hearts – after God changed their spirit, their character through trials of their faith and obedience to Him. Based on this fact, we can now also say before the Lord, that many of the Old Testament Jews were never Jews in the eyes of the Lord though they were all circumcised in their flesh! Why? They were never circumcised in their heart not passing the tests of their faith and obedience toward God. They remained “Jewish” outwardly after their flesh, but not after their spirit.

In fact, the same applies to many Christians, who are born-again and baptized, yet, do not belong to Christ not having crucified their flesh, which means, not having their heart circumcised (Gal. 5:24). But once we have crucified our flesh we become “circumcised in our heart”, we belong to Christ and then we are also “Abraham’s seed” and heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:29). What does it mean to be Abraham’s seed?

I must make here the most shocking statement that you have ever read in your entire christian or jewish lifetime. The truth is the following:

ABRAHAM WAS NOT ONLY THE FIRST JEW FROM AMONG THE GENTILES OF THIS WORLD, BUT ALSO THE VERY FIRST CHRISTIAN**! HE WAS THE FIRST DISCIPLE OF CHRIST STARTING A SPIRITUAL ISRAEL, WHICH THE LORD LATER, AFTER HIS INCARNATION IN BETHLEHEM, RENAMED TO – THE CHURCH!

If you are truly shocked, it is absolutely expected of you! You don’t have to be an orthodox Jew to get a heart attack reading such statements. But I do ask you, please, keep reading (at least to p.102**), things will become quite clear, even logical, if we go on and do not lose our sanity.

You see, if we truly desire to see the light and answer the question of Israel and the Church in truth, we must see and discern the NATURAL–CARNAL from the SPIRITUAL as there is a very basic and HUGE difference between the two… just as there is a HUGE SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCE between the OLD and the NEW TESTAMENT.

First, let me show you that the Lord had a very valid and compelling reason to rename Spiritual Israel to Church. His reason was simple: He foreknew that in the Church, the majority of members in His New Body will be former Gentiles and not former Jews. It was therefore fitting to give His New Body, New Wife a New Name – the Church. Please, keep reading and do not faint.

The Lord Jesus was a different being in the Old Testament than He is in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, He was born a Jew from a Jewish mother and had an earthly body. In the New Testament (which starts after His Resurrection!) He rose from the grave a NEW BEING with a glorified body having Eternal Life, which cannot die any more (Rev. 1:18). What is also very important is this truth:

after His resurrection, Christ is NOT A JEW any more because the whole Old Israel died in Him together with all mankind and Old Creation! In the risen Christ there is a New Creation and there is neither Jew nor Greek nor any other nationality, race or tribe, but all that believed are ONE IN HIM (Gal. 3:28// Col. 3:9-11).

If the Old Testament could have made us perfect new creatures, there would have been no need for any New Testament or of any Church! True? The original Old Israel would have sufficed as a spiritual vessel. The fact that there is a New Testament shows that the Old Testament could not do what only the New Testament could and can do! This also testifies to the most important fact of our Salvation, that CARNALITY could never do what only SPIRITUALITY can! Finally, God will never accept any carnality, only spirituality. Please, keep reading.

Now the Lord desires to tell us the following important spiritual facts concerning Jews and Jewishness:

1 – God is not a Jew, the Son of God (Word – Jn. 1:1) is not a Jew, and the Holy Spirit is not a Jew either.

2 – In the New Testament, a Messianic Jew does not exist! When a Greek (Gentile) believes, he becomes a believer, is redeemed and is no more Greek (Gentile). When a Jew believes, he becomes a believer, is redeemed and IS NO MORE JEW! We cannot mix the old creation with the new one; we cannot mix spiritual reality with carnal understanding. The Lord, before His death, was known to people and to His disciples after His flesh. But after His Resurrection, they did not know Him any more that way, but rather after His Spirit (2Cor. 5:16,17). There is therefore no difference between the Jew and the Gentile AFTER their redemption (Rom. 10:12// Gal. 3:27,28) and Christ is the END of the LAW for righteousness to every one that believed (Rom. 10:4). Do we begin to SEE and understand the above facts? Do we really?

Lest the “Messianic Jews” should be offended, I add the following. Christians should treat the Jews that believed as brethren and thank God for them. The fact that Jewishness with its traditions, feasts, rituals, laws, regulations, etc., is still in their blood and they practice it in their services should not be surprising. They will not see in spirit and become spiritual faster than the Gentiles that were redeemed and became Christians. Gentiles never had in their blood what Jews have had, and to get rid of it takes a lot of time, patience and the Lord’s Love and Grace. Well, it is the same for Christians except that these two groups of people will never understand each other in their unrenewed mind and thus appreciate their particular difficulties and sufferings! It requires spiritual understanding, patience and grace.

3 – It is true that “Salvation is of the Jews” (Jn. 4:22), but few people understand the spiritual background of this Scripture. “Salvation is of the Jews” is true only in the sense that the Saviour, Jesus the Man, was born from the Jewish nation, from a Jewish mother, who gave Him His earthly body, so, in His earthly body He was a Jew (Rom. 9:5). BUT in His Soul and Spirit, He was never Jewish since His Father was Heavenly and not Jewish!

Even considering His body only, the role of Jews in our Salvation ends right there, since after His Resurrection, His Jewish body was dissolved and He ceased to be a Jew also in His new glorified body. When He was executing the Salvation of mankind on His Cross, Jews had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. Christ died being abandoned and rejected by His Jewish nation. He secured the Salvation of men Alone while Jews gave Him away to Romans to be crucified. At that time, Jews were more interested in their earthly kingdom than in the Salvation of Gentiles, even to the point that they would have prevented their Salvation (Mt. 16:21-23), howbeit, without being conscious of it.

4 – The Lord God had chosen Israel to be His people, His nation, though He had chosen the most unbelieving, the most unfaithful and the most rebellious nation on the face of the earth! Now, why did God make such a choice? Had He chosen a meeker, more believing and faithful and obedient nation (maybe, like Slovaks?), He might have never shown to the world our depraved and devilish nature and how He is dealing with it and how He is saving us purely with His Grace and Love and Forgiveness, which we can never deserve or fathom.

But because of this God’s choice, Jews have become self-assured and proud and trusting that they are saved no matter how they live and behave. Wrong! God’s choice of Israel is NOT their Salvation, only Redemption! The Salvation is ONLY when man (Jew or Gentile) by his faith and free will chooses God’s Way of Salvation – through the Saviour – and not when God chooses man for His earthly purposes, who then walks on his own ways and fails God in every way. The Word, which says that “all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. 11:26a) does not mean what Jews would like it to mean. There is another Word of God which says “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6b-8). How should we understand this seeming mystery? Maybe the easiest way is to come to the New Testament and realize that the same “seeming mystery” applies to the Church!

God could have said “The Church are My people and all Church shall be saved”, yet, there also applies the fact that “they are not all Christians that are of Christians” (1Jn. 2:17,19). In other words, not every redeemed and baptized person will be saved, but he that will go on unto perfection (Heb. 6:1-6), that will overcome (Rev. 3:5 + 21:7), that will find the narrow road (Mt. 7:14), that will fight a good fight of faith and lay hold of eternal life (1Tim. 6:12), that will follow Christ (Mt. 16:24-26), that will abide in Christ (Jn. 15:6), etc. And this applies also to Israel. Abraham found and walked on the narrow way, he was denying himself and taking up his cross following the Lord, he fought a good fight of faith and laid hold on eternal life. He fulfilled all the above Words of God.

All the above Words thus apply to ALL BELIEVERS whether they were Gentiles or Jews before their redemption. We should therefore understand Rom. 11:26a as follows: “and all from Israel which, being redeemed, shall overcome, shall be saved.” There is only one rule for all believers whether they were Greeks (Gentiles) or Jews before their redemption. The Lord calls Himself “thy Redeemer” (Is. 54:5 - for the differences between redemption and salvation, see our two books quoted in the Foreword).

Today, there are yet three kinds of peoples on this earth: Jews, Gentiles and the Church of God (Christians), and we should offend none of them (1Cor. 10:32). But after the Last Judgment and in the New Jerusalem, there will only be the saved people written in the Book of Life and nobody else. Yet, there will be TWO kinds of saved people: The Bride of Christ (New Jerusalem – Rev. 21:9b,10) and the nations walking in Her light (Rev. 21:24). The Bride, the Wife of Christ, is perfect; the nations are not perfect! They were hurt by the second death (Rev. 2:11) and thus need healing provided by the leaves of the Tree of Life (Rev. 22:2b).

Another very important fact which is to be SEEN and understood concerning Israel is the following.

Principally, Abraham had NOT started carnal ISRAEL of the OLD Testament; he had started a spiritual ISRAEL! He had not started an earthly Israel, but a heavenly Israel – the future Church of the NEW Testament.

Perhaps the best way to start seeing and understanding these spiritual issues, especially concerning Israel and the Church, is to realize that Israel of the Old Testament was already chosen as the Wife of the Son of God – Jesus Christ, their Maker and Redeemer – since He was already their Husband before He was born in Bethlehem! (Is. 54:5// Col. 1:16-18// Rev. 3:14). The “church” in Col. 1:18 includes the New Spiritual Israel and the Lord continues to be Her Husband enlarging His Wife from among the Gentiles!

ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB–ISRAEL WERE THE TRUE FOREFATHERS OF THE SPIRITUAL ISRAEL, WHICH JESUS CHRIST STARTED TO BUILD AS HIS BODY – HIS WIFE – BEFORE HIS INCARNATION IN BETHLEHEM (Is. 54:5). AND THEN CONTINUED AFTER HIS INCARNATION (Mt. 16:18// Eph. 2:20) ADDING TO IT FROM THE GENTILES (Is. 54:3// Acts 26:16-18).

GOD REJECTED THE OLD CARNAL ISRAEL AND, AFTER REFUSING EVEN HIS SON–THEIR MESSIAH, HE SCATTERED THEM INTO ALL THE WORLD DESTROYING THEM THERE IN THE FIRES OF THE LAST 2,000 YEARS. THEY TOTALLY FAILED TO DO HIS WILL AND HIS PURPOSE IN CHOOSING THEM TO KNOW HIM AND REPRESENT HIM IN THIS WORLD.

HENCE, GOD DESTROYED THE OLD VESSEL, CARNAL ISRAEL, AND SENT HIS OWN SON TO FORM OUT OF THE OLD REJECTED VESSEL A NEW VESSEL BASED ON HIMSELF, WHICH VESSEL WOULD DO HIS WILL AND FULLY SATISFY HIS DESIRE. THE LORD CALLED THIS NEW VESSEL – THE CHURCH.

The Lord started to build this new vessel – the Church taking His Remnant, those that He foreknew and predestinated (Rom. 8:29), from the Israel of the Old Testament! (Is. 1:9// Rom. 9:27-29) Then He added 12 apostles, later another 120 disciples and later another 3,000 Jews on the day of Pentecost. So, the first church was fully “Jewish”! And later on, he sent his apostle Paul to bring in the Gentiles, as well. Hence, we conclude this by the following fact:

THE CHURCH IS THE SPIRITUAL ISRAEL OF THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENT AND ALL SPIRITUAL BELIEVERS FROM GENTILES!

THE OLD CARNAL ISRAEL, WITH ALL ITS JEWISHNESS AND LAWS AND RITUALS, DIED WITH CHRIST FOR EVER TOGETHER WITH ALL THE UNCONVERTED AND UNBELIEVING GENTILES WITH ALL THEIR EVIL, PAGANISM AND WICKEDNESS.

Let us start seeing and realizing that Christ did not begin in Bethlehem, He is Eternal. What does it mean? It means that before His incarnation in Bethlehem and His visible ministry in the New Testament, we might see and understand very little concerning His spiritual works in the Old Testament. So, let us declare the following facts:

1) He was slain and ordained from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8// 1Pet. 1:19,20) and we all were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:3,4). Hence…

2) He started to build His Body – His Wife from the foundation of the world and called it ISRAEL! (Is. 54:5). He did not start building His Body in Mathew 16:18, but in Genesis 12:1-3! He started with Abraham, not with Peter, and continued with Isaac, Jacob-Israel, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, King David, Gideon, all the Prophets and other SPIRITUAL men of Israel.

3) The Heavenly Father brought His firstborn Son Jesus Christ to be killed on the hill of Golgotha so that He might save from the mankind such people, who would believe, live by faith (Hab. 2:4// Rom. 1:17// Gal. 3:11// Heb. 10:38) love and obey Him (1Cor. 16:22). THESE He will perfect and form into His Wife–His Body–New Jerusalem (Eph. 1:22,23// Rev. 21:9-27). But a similar thing happened in the physical world to represent the spiritual world, namely…

4) Father Abraham similarly brought his firstborn son, firstborn by promise not by flesh, to be killed on the hill of Moriah so that Abraham, his son Isaac and all their generations would believe, live by faith, love and obey God and thus accomplish the Will of God. And then there was a woman found called Rebecca, who also by faith came to Isaac and married him becoming his wife. And they had children, Esau and Jacob. The first one was rejected and hated by God and the second one was changed in heart and renamed to Israel and loved by God (Rom. 9:13// Heb. 12:16,17).

Hence, Abraham represented the Heavenly Father, Isaac represented His Son Jesus Christ, Rebecca represented the Church – Wife of Christ – New Jerusalem; Esau represented all those from Israel which were NOT of Israel (Rom. 9:6b); Jacob’s sons (except Joseph) represented the nations that will walk in the light of New Jerusalem (Rev. 21: 24).

To complete the picture of representation in the New Testament also, the following truth applies. Jacob-Israel with Joseph and with all the truly spiritual Israelites and also with all the truly spiritual believers from Gentiles, represent:

– the “small Remnant” of the Israel-Church (Is. 1:9),

– the one undefiled dove (S.Sol. 6:9 + 8:5),

– the few that found and walked on the narrow way (Mt. 7:14),

– the one that shall be taken (Mt. 24:40,41),

– the virgins with oil (Mt. 25:1-12),

– the little flock (Lk. 12: 32),

– those that worked out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12b),

– those that cleansed themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2Cor. 7:1),

– those counted worthy of the Kingdom of God which Kingdom and his righteousness they were seeking and finding (2Thes. 1:5// Mt. 6:33),

– those that, after redemption, continued unto their perfection (Heb. 6:1),

– those that were doing (living) the Word and not only hearing, reading, teaching or preaching it (Jam. 1:22),

– the one that the Lord loved and who kept the Word of His patience (Rev. 3:9-11),

– all Overcomers (Rev. 2:7,11,17,26 + 3:5,12, 21),

– the Manchild (Rev. 12:5), and finally, they represent

– the true Bride, the Lamb’s Wife (Rev. 21:9-21).

Here, the Lord desires to clear long-standing misunderstandings and controversies concerning the following definitions of His Bride from the above list:

4a) The “one” undefiled dove is not one woman; the “one” that shall be taken is not one person, the five wise virgins will not be five women just as the Bride of Christ is not one woman and the Manchild is not one man. All these definitions represent a corporate body of Overcomers, the Remnants from both Old and New Testaments.

Furthermore, the undefiled dove with all the queens and concubines, are all believers. All virgins, whether with or without oil are all believers. The “two” in the field and the “two” grinding at the mill are all believers since they do not know what hour their Lord does come (Mt. 24:42). And just as one virgin (with oil) shall be taken to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and one (without oil) left on earth (Mt. 25:11, 12), so also one man (with oil) in the field shall be taken and the other (without oil) left on earth. Oil represents the fruit of the Spirit and every Overcomer has it. On page 196 of the book “Forbidden Knowledge” by D. A. Miller is a statement saying: “The ‘one taken’ of the Olivet discourse must of necessity be those living on earth who have taken the mark of the beast, as well as those who have refused to believe that Jesus was ever coming back. These will be taken away to judgment”. This is truly an outrageous statement showing the exact OPPOSITE OF THE TRUTH and thus able to deceive multitudes of readers. How is this possible? Theologians and scientific researchers that have no spiritual revelation can never arrive at the inner truth of God by using their logic and academic comparisons (see also page 31).

In the days of Noah (Mt. 24:37), the people that were drowned were believers; Christ would have never preached to pagans after His crucifixion when He went to hell (prison) and preached to those that were disobedient in the days of Noah (1Pet. 3:18-20+4:6). One part of those drowned came from the blessed seed of Seth and the other part from the cursed seed of Cain. But Cain also believed and talked with God face to face (Gen. 4:11-16). Yet, only eight people from all mankind were Overcomers, the rest were NOT! These were the First Remnant (for more details, see pages 234-248 of “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers^[9]”).

In the days of Lot (Lk. 17:28), the people that were destroyed were NOT believers. While the Flood represents the Tribulation, the fires of Sodom and Gomorrah represent the seven vials of the wrath of God (Rev. 16:1-17). Since believers are not appointed unto His wrath (1Thes. 5:9), Lot, his wife and two daughters, though they were wicked and selfish and thus NOT Overcomers, were saved because they were believers, Lot being called “righteous” (2Pet. 2:7,8).

4b) Manchild is not Jesus Christ alone, it is a corporate body of Overcomers Jesus Christ being the firstborn of the Manchild, Who overcame the world (Jn. 16:33). Christ was caught up unto God and to His Throne long before John wrote Rev. 12:5. Also, the “Woman”, the mother of the Manchild, is the Church with the spiritual meaning of Israel-Church described above and misunderstood by believers. She has been travailing in birth since Abraham (her detailed description is beyond the scope of this book).

4c) The Bride, the Lamb’s Wife is NOT the sum of all believers because She is Perfect having the Glory of God (Rev. 21:9-11). The majority of believers are the nations of them that are saved, whether they be from Jews or from Gentiles, that shall walk and live in Her light (Rev. 21:24) They are NOT perfect since they need the leaves of the Tree of Life for their healing (Rev. 22:2b// Rev. 2:11).

5) Now, why are we “Abraham’s seed” when we are Christ’s? (Gal. 3:29) Why not Abel’s seed or Enoch’s seed or Noah’s seed? They also walked by faith (Heb. 11:4,5,7), did they not? The answer is that NO SINFUL MAN on this planet was tested with the kind of faith as Abraham was. And he demonstrated it because Christ, the Son of God, had worked it into him ever since he obeyed His voice and went out not knowing where he was going and until he took the knife to kill Isaac, his only beloved son, on the altar to offer him to God! No man that ever lived exhibited such unfathomable faith and obedience to God, and no man was tempted by God, but Abraham (Gen. 22:1// Jam. 1:13).

When we thus live by faith and obey God, we are “Abraham’s seed” and we belong to Christ – we are true Christians – because Christ did the same thing. Well, I do not believe that we need more facts from the Old or New Testament to be able to declare the following: Every true believer who lived by faith, and not by flesh, belongs to Christ whether he lived in the Old or the New Testament. I know that the disciples were called “Christians” first in Antioch (Acts 11:26b), but a “Christian” is IN FACT anyone who lives by faith whose Author and Finisher is Christ (Heb. 12:2) whether he lives in the Old or New Testament! Christ and His faith is the same in both Testaments. In THIS sense, ABRAHAM was the first JEW and also the first CHRISTIAN**. Now, do you see, admit or even believe this “unbelievable” fact having read the above spiritual truths?

Hence, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob–Israel were the forefathers of the true SPIRITUAL ISRAEL and all their generations were supposed to follow them in faith and obedience to God. But, with most of Israel, it never happened. And every important man of Israel chosen by God for His Purposes was a typical example of these two facts – either he was on the spiritual side or the carnal side of Israel.

Let us briefly consider two well known representatives of these two fundamentally unbridgeable sides of Israel, two Kings of Israel – Saul and David.

King Saul was a carnal king from beginning to end; he never had a heart after the Lord, never changed in his spirit and never satisfied God and His Will. He was proud, arrogant, impatient, self-willed, without faith and lost the anointing, which he received from God at the beginning of his kingship by the hand of Samuel the prophet (1Sam. 15:1). Of course, God knew that Saul will be disobedient to His voice and commandments; yet, He called Samuel to anoint him to show that man may lose God’s anointing, power, authority and even his kingdom due to his disobedience to the Lord.

King David was a spiritual king and the opposite of King Saul. He was a man after the Lord’s heart and was chosen to assume the kingship of Israel after Saul (1Sam. 13:14// Acts 13:21,22). By faith he slew Goliath whom Saul and all his army feared to fight and destroy. And all those years afterward, he learned the most difficult lessons of faith and patience. These two virtues are the most precious and important virtues in all true Overcomers as they are acquired in prolonged sufferings and testing by the Lord and without which no one can serve the Lord truly and efficiently. It is written that Satan shall “wear out the saints of the most High” (Dan. 7:25) especially toward the end of the world. Now, Overcomers shall “wear out Satan through their faith and patience”! That is also how the Lord Jesus overcame Satan, who has no patience and no faith. And that is how David succeeded over Saul learning faith and patience through the things he had to suffer all those forty years. “Forty” is the time of testing.

Read Hebrews chapter 11 and see that all the men of God that served Him in truth and according to His Will, served Him BY FAITH and PATIENCE: By faith Abel, by faith Enoch, by faith Noah, by faith Abraham, by faith Isaac, by faith Jacob, by faith Joseph, by faith Moses, by faith Rahab (the harlot!), by faith Gideon, Barak, Samson, David, Samuel and all the prophets (Heb. 11:4-8,20-23,31,32, etc.). And these all have also learned and exhibited much more than a human patience in their trials and tests by God.

Now, faith cannot be given to and reside in human sinful nature, it can only be given to our new nature, the pure conscience of the New Man (1Tim. 3:9), since faith is a spiritual substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen with physical eyes, but with spiritual eyes (Heb. 11:1).

All these above men of God were supposed to form a spiritual Israel, but the children of the old Israel refused to be formed into spiritual people and live by faith and that is why Israel failed the main Purpose of God for which they were called. Four times the Lord commanded believers saying: “The just shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4// Rom. 1:17// Gal. 3:11// Heb. 10:38). Most of the Church of the New Testament also failed to live by faith starting after the Early Church.

Probably every true born-again Christian knows from the Bible that the Tribulation period of 7 years (Daniel’s 70^th week – Dan. 9:24-27) is also known as Jacob’s trouble (Jer. 30:7). Why not Israel’s trouble? Do we know why? And do we know the difference? And in the same verse, the Lord is promising to Jacob that “…he shall be saved out of it.” In Jer. 30:10, the Lord calls Jacob “His servant, who should not fear”, and in verse 11 the Lord says: “For I am with thee… to SAVE THEE;” The Lord talks here to carnal Israel.

Jacob and his carnal children needed salvation even though they were redeemed by being chosen by God as His people. One part of the process of his salvation is clearly alluded to toward the end of Jer. 30:11 where the Lord promises that He will not make a full end of Jacob, but He will correct him in a (necessary) measure and will not leave him altogether unpunished! The Lord had wounded him grievously and chastised him for the multitude of his iniquities and sins (Jer. 30:14), which were increased. Jacob and his carnal offspring in the Old Testament belonged to the same category as the Christians in the New Testament called “workers of iniquity”, whom the Lord did not know and sent them away to the outer darkness (Mt. 7:21-23 +8:12). These were born-again believers, redeemed but unsaved as yet, not circumcised in their spirit and heart.

The last example concerning the spiritual and carnal Israel may be very well illustrated by the 12 sons of Jacob. They all were carnal – except Joseph! He was spiritual. What was the result? Those “bastardly brothers” of Joseph sold him to be a slave in Egypt. Then in Egypt, he ended up in jail, as Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him. And soon thereafter, the Lord brought him to the throne of Egypt with all his power being only second to that of the Pharaoh. And through him, the Lord saved Israel and Egypt (and possibly the world) from perishing in the ensuing famine… including his “bastardly brothers”! Do we see here the true fruit and consequences of carnality and spirituality? I hope we do. This same fact applies today.

We conclude this paragraph by saying that Jacob and his offspring were CARNAL ISRAEL and were like unto the CARNAL CHURCH in the New Testament. But just as with carnal Christians, the carnal Israel is promised by the Lord that He will restore them and heal them – though not all of them. But the Lord also promised that they shall not be few, they shall not be small (Jer. 30:17,19). And this Remnant, which shall thus become a SPIRITUAL ISRAEL, shall be His people and God shall be their God (verse 22). And then, in the last two verses (Jer. 30:23,24), the fierce anger of the Lord shall fall on the heads of the wicked and shall not return and we shall consider it in the latter days – which is, NOW. And that is exactly what we are doing.

Therefore, if we read the Old Testament with the right spiritual discernment whereby we distinguish the old carnal Israel represented by Jacob from the new spiritual Israel represented by Israel and “his seed”, which is also the seed of Abraham and Isaac (Rom. 4:11-13,16 + 9:6-8// Gal. 3:16// Heb. 2:16), then we will get the true picture and understanding of the TWO ISRAELS existing side by side unto this very day. And this also applies to the TWO CHURCHES existing side by side unto this very day – the carnal and the spiritual.

I would also recommend reading and pondering the whole chapter 11 of the Book of Romans in this light, which the Lord is giving to us in the above paragraphs. This is the only way to correctly understand and see that…

Both the SPIRITUAL ISRAEL and the SPIRITUAL CHURCH ARE MADE ONE! (Eph. 2:14-20).

The carnal Israel of both Testaments and the carnal Church of the New Testament are the redeemed of God, but He had never united them in any sense.

And just as the seed of Jacob, the carnal children of Israel, needed the necessary measure of correction and punishment and chastisement for the multitude of their iniquity and sins (Jer. 30:11,14), so do the carnal believers of the Church of Jesus Christ need the same thing – the workers of iniquity (Mt. 7:21-23), the unprofitable servants (Mt. 25:29,30), the (rebellious) children of the kingdom (Mt. 8:12), believers with no wedding garment (robe of righteousness) (Mt. 22:11-14), the virgins without oil whom the Lord does not know and to whom the door to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and the Kingdom of Heaven is closed (Mt. 25:10-12).

Before we conclude this part of chapter 7, let me say two more important facts about Israel and the true Church as follows:

1) Since the old vessel of the carnal Israel failed its vocation, its calling in the Purposes of the Will of God, the Father sent His Son to form a new vessel which He called the Church – the same people of God called out of mankind as was Israel. The Church has been based on the Rock of the truth that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt. 16:18// 1Cor. 10:1-4).

We may thus say that in the New Testament dispensation, the Church, the new vessel, had replaced Israel, the old vessel. Its original calling and all the Purposes of God and all the Will of God were now transferred to and placed upon the Church, and all the history of Israel must now be, as it were, reproduced and the new vessel reshaped into the Church, in a spiritual way.

Whatever, in the Old Testament Israel, was spiritually acceptable to the Lord was retained and reused in this new vessel – the Church. Every spiritual soul of Israel, dead or alive, was retained and included into the Church. Some fragments from the life of the old Israel were brought into the life of the Church in a spiritual way or as admonitions for Christians (ex: 1Cor. 10:1-33// 1Pet. 2:5,9, etc.).

Perhaps nowhere is this comparison of the old and the new more apparent and more used than in the letter to Hebrews where Apostle Paul warns the Church again not to repeat what God hated and rejected in the old Israel. Now, I believe that Apostle Paul wrote this letter to Hebrews as I see no other man more qualified in spiritual knowledge and wisdom for this huge task. So, not only the spiritual souls from Israel, but also the physical facts of the old Israel that had a spiritual meaning and fulfilment in the Church, had been transferred to the Church. Nothing that was useful in the old vessel was wasted, but every part was reused and reshaped into its spiritual counterpart.

2) The true Israel-Church is a spiritual thing! You can not look at it and see it in any material or intellectual sense. You cannot tell a true believer by outer signs. If a man goes to the building with a cross on the roof or with the Star of David on the front facade, it does not mean that he is a believer. Outwardly, he may be said to be a Christian or a Jew, respectively, but not necessarily a true believer.

Of course, nobody would go to a synagogue and say: “Behold, the Church of Jesus Christ”. You might be stoned. Similarly, no Jew would walk into a church and say “Behold, the Israel of God”. He would be considered a psychiatric case. So, you cannot judge by the people in flesh gathering in some physical buildings. Then, how do we recognize the true Israel–Church? It is Christ and His Life in people that makes them the true Israel–Church. These people could have been Gentiles or Jews before Christ was born in their spirit!

I would like to conclude this point and the whole chapter 7 with a tricky question. We know that the Church is composed only of such believers which were “born-again” by the Holy Spirit. We also know that “Except a man be born-again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3).

May I then ask the following question: Has Israel been “born-again”? Since most, if not all, of the Church may believe that Israel was never born by the Holy Spirit, only the Church, then I have to ask you another question: How is it then that “many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt. 8:11)? How did these three “guys” get into the Kingdom of Heaven not being born by the Spirit of God? Can you answer this? Can you really?

I will leave the true answer to your own research. But your true answer should prove that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-Israel were not only the first true Jews, but also the first true “Christians”, members of the Church of Christ the Lord – and thus not only our own forefathers, but also our BRETHREN! How you are going to prove it, I do not know, but there are few more facts that I desire to bring before you, if for nothing else, than perhaps just to ponder.

a) Abraham had a lunch with God under a tree in front of his tent! (Gen. 18:1-8) Do you know of any born-again Christian in the history of the entire Church of Jesus Christ who had a “lunch with God” in his garden? And that happened before the grand test of faith with Abraham to offer Isaac to God. Would Almighty God come down to the earth and have a lunch with His Friend (Jam. 2:23) who would not even be redeemed and thus born by His Spirit? Really?

b) The house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel were born by God (Is. 46:3)! Anything born by God is born by His Holy Spirit since He is the Life of God and apart from the Holy Spirit, there is no life. God testifies that Israel was redeemed by being born from above in a similar way as New Testament Christians have been.

c) The Lord was Israel’s Husband long before He introduced Himself to the Church as Her Bridegroom (Is. 54:5 // Mt. 25:1-12)! But Israel failed to be a faithful wife to her Maker-Husband. So now, the Lord has been waiting for the Israel-Church as His New Bride and Wife hoping for Her love and faithfulness. Why “hoping”? Well, even at His next (third) coming as the Bridegroom, He will still not know “half of His potential Bride” (Mt. 25:1,2,11, 12)! True?

d) Israel was called to be the light of the Gentiles - the future Christians (Is. 42:6b,7). Israel was promised that “their seed shall inherit Gentiles” (Is. 54:3), which means, gain possession of the future Christian nations. This same promise was fulfilled by the Lord Himself sending Apostle Paul to Gentiles (Acts 26:16-18).

So, how do you view the Old and the New Israel and the Church in this light from the Lord? Can your eye SEE and your heart UNDERSTAND what your physical eye and your natural mind cannot? But the truth of the Lord above does not depend on whether you see and understand it or not. That Truth stands and you may apprehend it only one way – by believing it. And if you believe it without seeing it, you shall be very much blessed (Jn. 20:29).

* * *

I will now conclude this chapter 7 with one absolutely fundamental and extremely important matter. I believe that if you read this chapter with open eyes and an open heart, you must have received at least a contour of a new picture, which you never had before. In this new light you must have seen the spiritual reality of Israel and the Church through the eyes of God. It also must have shown you that there is a definite need to replace what have hitherto been your longstanding understanding, belief and conviction about all the important matters of Israel and the Church according to the doctrines of “clever” men.

Furthermore, and even much more importantly, there is a definite need to replace what have hitherto been your longstanding, perhaps, even “final” understanding, belief or conviction about your standing, status and future destiny in the eyes of God and discard what you were taught or preached to by men who themselves did not see and understand. So, the most important matter for you is this.

When you believed in your heart and confessed your faith as per the Word of God (Rom. 10:9-10), you were redeemed. And when you were also baptized, you were told that you should just praise the Lord and wait for His coming because you are now the member of His Church, which is His Body (Eph. 1:20-23). Considering this Word of God, this is TRUE. Furthermore, as a member of His Church, you were told that you are now also His Bride and Wife and your destiny in Heaven is sure and confirmed. This is NOT TRUE! You never questioned these facts because they are logical and more than acceptable to your soul and alluded to by a number of verses in the Scripture. And the men, who taught you or preached to you these things, may have been very sincere, honest, knowledgeable and renowned preachers. BUT…

Even what seems logical and perfectly acceptable for our soul in the Scripture, may not be the Truth of God at all! Why? Because any verse from the Bible must be confirmed and in a complete harmony with the rest of the Bible wherever the same matter is dealt with. Hence, verses from the Book of Genesis may have their confirmation in the Book of Revelation. Apparently, no preacher is doing this. He may choose 2-3 verses from some letter of Apostle Paul and build on them his doctrine and then he preaches it to others being only led by his logic. His chosen verses may not harmonize with the other Books of the Scripture or may be completely contradictory to them. Hence, what may seem absolutely logical in one Book of the Bible, and he would bet his life on it, may not be true in another Book of the Bible, in fact, it may be completely contradictory to it and make his doctrine false and deceiving. Conclusion?

OUR HUMAN LOGIC HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SPIRITUAL AND LIVING TRUTH OF GOD!

Would you be willing to pause and ponder this simple but extremely important fact? If not, then you might as well give this book to the first beggar on the street as it was a waste of time for you to read it. And if yes, then ponder this:

You may be a born-again baptized Christian, a member of the Church, and NOT be the Bride and Wife of Christ, that is, you may NOT be the New and Holy Jerusalem! You might be one in those multitudes of saved nations who will bring into that Holy City their glory and honour (Rev. 21:26). You could be a king of the earth and bring your own glory into the City. But none of you will have the Glory of God or the light unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal! (Rev. 21:11) You will be allowed into this City because you will not defile anything, you will not work abomination or make any lie, but you will be there chiefly and ONLY because your name has remained written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev. 21:27// Rev. 3:5)! So, you will be an Overcomer (Rev. 21:7), but NOT A PERFECT OVERCOMER. You might get in by the “SKIN OF YOUR TEETH” (1Pet. 4:18), because, should you belong to the very next verse (Rev. 21:8), you would never get into the New Jerusalem, but would end up in the lake of fire and brimstone for ever – just because you never overcame, or rather, refused to overcome, fear or unbelief or lying or idolatry or other such “virtues of your flesh”. Do you SEE this?

Are you now willing to ponder these above “minor issues” in your Christian life? Do you truly believe that Christ would marry a fearful believer? Fear cannot dwell together with faith and love, in fact, perfect love, which the Bride will have for Her Lord, “casteth out fear: because fear has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (1Jn. 4:18). Or would Christ marry a believer that would not believe His Voice, His Word or His true servant? The heart of unbelief is EVIL and, again, we do not talk about pagans, but born-again baptized believers, brethren, who are able to depart from the living God (Heb. 3:12)! Or would Christ marry a liar? Or an idolater? What do you think?

Not only that Christ would never marry such people, but He would never even allow them into the New Jerusalem, but would judge them as worthy of the lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death (Rev. 20:12-15)! You see, they kept refusing to overcome even these above evil things and, so, their names were blotted out of the Book of Life by their Saviour Himself (Rev. 3:5)! True?

How many of you would truly desire to remain proud, inaccessible, fearful, idolaters, liars, workers of iniquity or abomination, self-assured or foolish? Or will you rather come before Christ on your knees and beg Him for His Grace and for your survival? From the very beginning of the world, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN OUR CHOICE… of our own destiny, which will be eternal, it will have no end and it will be impossible to ever change it… see the next chapter.

(Note: To understand the next chapter and the truth that God does not decide our destiny, we must also understand the question of God’s “predestination”. For this truth, please, see our book “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers”, pages 213, 214)

CHAPTER 8

OUR DESTINY

God, Our Creator and Saviour, had NOT decided our destiny! Each man decides his destiny by his own choices and decisions of his own free will!

Since man makes choices and decisions by his free will, God works in man to will and decide to do of His (God’s) good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). But there is also Satan, who works in man by deceiving him and the whole world (Rev. 12:9// 2Cor. 4:4// 2Tim. 2:26) so man will make wrong choices and decisions unaware that they will keep him from his Salvation and will finally destroy him in the lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. 20:14,15).

Though the Grace of God that brings Salvation has appeared to all mankind (Tit. 2:11// Ps. 98:3b) and though this Salvation was freely provided by God to every man on this planet, God has never made His Salvation mandatory for any man! Man has the power to refuse it by his free will, and millions do! Why? Well, it is far beyond the common sense of any sane human being with a healthy brain and logic. Yet the very fact that millions refuse their salvation still stands and it shows the awesome power of Satan’s deceptions that can cost us our lives, not earthly lives, but our ETERNAL lives!

This fact also shows that God had not only created darkness and evil (Is. 45:7), but He created darkness and evil so powerful that man would not be able to free, to extricate himself from it by his own power, own wisdom or own ability (see also p.191 of our book “Mystery of Reality”^[11]). What does that mean? It simply means that for man there is only one way to evade hell, the lake of fire and an everlasting condemnation, and that way is IN his Saviour and not IN man himself!... though he may be a good man. Why?

Man fell into this powerful evil, darkness and condemnation using his natural senses – eyesight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, the desires of his natural heart, understanding of his natural mind and decisions of his natural will. All these senses and abilities of his human soul had been contaminated by that great power of darkness and evil and thus rendered useless for man’s way back to His Creator and Saviour, to his freedom and God’s Life!

Lies have replaced the truths and man IS NOT ABLE to distinguish one from the other. If man does not deny his natural senses and abilities, he will never know the spiritual truths and CANNOT BE SAVED! He cannot be even redeemed and put on the road to his salvation. He is doomed for ever. And even if he becomes redeemed and baptized, he cannot continue on the way to his salvation by his natural senses and abilities which remain useless!

Man must deny his natural senses and abilities (Mt. 16:24) and God must replace them with spiritual senses and abilities. THAT brings the Salvation to man!

Now, we know that there are millions of pagans who refused to abandon their reasoning and thoughts and feelings and desires and imaginations and own convictions. They have no future. But I do not want to devote any time to pagans; I desire to speak to born-again believers.

There are millions of believers who were redeemed and baptized and who never made one step toward their salvation, their perfection, during their lifetime (Heb. 6:1)! They lived a miserable Christian life which benefited neither them nor anyone else around them including their families, who also lived miserable lives. Here, I need to point out the following important facts from my personal experiences:

a) Many believers have done absolutely nothing to find the narrow way (Mt. 7:14), to go on unto their perfection (Heb. 6:1), to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Mt. 6:33) or just to seek truth. On the other hand, many of them have tried “their best” to achieve what they may have seen with more successful believers or what they planned or desired for themselves and their families. Many of them finished their life in a never-ending merry-go-round of “trying their best” and achieving nothing. These believers were governed by their own false sense of justice and righteousness, understanding and feelings, they never received truth brought to them by anyone. All these were in a constant danger of losing their salvation (Rev. 3:5// Heb. 6:4-6). They wasted their entire earthly life as an opportunity from God to seek and find what He provided for them!

b) It took others 10-20-30 years to finally find out that, by themselves, they can achieve nothing. They never used in their lives the Word of the Lord “without me ye can do NOTHING” (Jn. 15:5b). Nor have they ever used another Word of God “I can do ALL things through Christ which strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). Before those 10-20-30 years, they were just “verses in the Bible” that were read, mentally accepted and believed, but never used in their lives. Only six words (in Jn. 15:5b) which, if you did not heed and take seriously, you would waste your entire earthly life as a believer and achieve NOTHING in your spiritual life! They wasted ONLY 10-20-30 or more years of their earthly lives!

c) There were others, who after only few years of unsuccessful “trials” decided in their heart and mind to “allow” the Spirit of God some access to their soul and “some say” in correcting their ways, understanding and decision making. Also, to start showing them some of the spiritual problems in their souls, which they did not want to see or even admit that such may exist in them (it is by no means easy for anyone to even admit their spiritual problems).

And even if they admitted that there might be “some” pride, fear, stubbornness, selfishness, foolishness or other “virtues” of their sinful flesh, it did NOT mean that they immediately desired to be delivered from it. Should the Lord one day open the “window to our soul” and show us that our “soul garden” is actually a jungle, we may be forced to admit it, but then we may close the window and leave the “jungle” untouched for, maybe, even few years. And should the Lord show us again the pride He showed us last year, we might be stunned and say: “Not again?” As if our pride could be wiped out of its existence once and for all in one 3 minute repentance and a few tears.

Now, I wouldn’t say that the believers in this group wasted years of their life, no. They may not have wasted years in the same way the other two groups above have. I say that they not only have found the narrow way, but started to walk on it. Yet, many times it seemed that any turtle on crutches could have passed them by.

d) There have been very few that have not only found the narrow way (Mt. 7:14), but kept going steadily. They have become a true instrument and a blessing in the hand of the Lord, which He could use for His Purposes and pleasure. They already possess the crown of righteousness and do hold it fast that no man takes it from them (Rev. 3:11).

* * *

May I now ask a very simple, but profound question? What is the ONLY FACTOR that creates these four different groups of born-again believers with their different spiritual conditions and destinies? My answer is this:

WILLINGNESS OR UNWILLINGNESS TO BELIEVE AS THE SCRIPTURE HAS SAID DISREGARDING THEIR HUMAN SINFUL SENSES! THAT IS ALL (Jn. 7:38)!

Are we willing or unwilling to pause and consider the origin of our thoughts, beliefs, convictions, plans, intentions, desires, lusts, purposes; to see our own foolishness and misery and stop blaming others for everything? Are we willing to stop being “gods” knowing everything, understanding everything and being blameless in all our life and conduct, infallible in our wisdom so that we don’t have to ask anybody any questions or be accountable for our mistakes and failures? Are we also willing or unwilling (fearful) to speak truth to others? Do we admit that we do not know everything? That we were born with sinfulness and stupidity in our blood and nobody can get it out only God? And that it usually takes years? If God would show us the depth of the depravity of our sinful flesh, we would not survive it! Are we willing to believe this? The depravity of our flesh prevents us from seeing the depravity of our flesh. Please, keep reading.

We distributed our literature to over 70 countries of the world and my ministry was mostly by correspondence. I ministered in person continually only in North America and Central Europe. In other countries of the world, my personal ministry was very sporadic and occasional. The Lord allowed me to meet all kinds of believers and human characters that you can imagine and cannot imagine; from warm and enthusiastic to cold and quite hostile, from sincere and good-hearted to speculative with sneaky hearts, from knowledgeable to naïve, from wise to fools, from humanly humble and good to proud and arrogant and wicked, from open minded to fearful, and many, many others. It was a true challenge to minister to such individual characters “truth in love” rather than “truth in fact” (Eph. 4:15), judging righteous judgments in the Spirit of the Lord and keeping a loving attitude also toward those that were or later became mine enemies (Mt. 5:44// Gal. 4:16) at least inwardly, if not outwardly.

The Lord had also arranged for me pretty difficult and irrational lessons, which otherwise one would never have to learn and experience and suffer. One such unimaginable lesson has been to see and experience the true power of evil and darkness and deceptions on living human beings and their devastating effects. Such men experienced an inexplicable change of their normal human nature with the ensuing inability to even see and understand what came over them.

Human beings ceased to be human beings! I am now talking about believers who might have been born-again and baptized or not, whom I met and talked to or to whom I ministered either for a short time or for many years! I call “human beings” those men that still retain some degree of human dignity, common sense and intelligence. If they had lost these basic human virtues and abilities, many animals pass them by in their intelligence, wisdom, faithfulness or usefulness.

They may read Bibles, pray, even cry on their knees repenting from their sins, fellowship with us and be exposed to the Light and Truth of Christ. And then “one day” something cracked in their soul and Satan got into the “crack”, and they changed beyond recognition, even beyond any logic. They did not want to see me any more without giving any reason! Those that expressed love to me began to hate me repaying evil for my good. They began to hate me without a cause (Jn. 15:25b). Why? I have no clue! You now deal with creatures, which you cannot understand and cannot help in any way. Unless you experienced such cases on your own skin, you will never understand me and never even believe me that such “inhuman” creatures may exist among Christians! But that is not all, the Lord declared from His own mouth that they shall throw you out of the synagogues (churches) and that the time is coming (End-time, which is now) that if someone will kill you, will think that he did a service to God! Now, “to kill you” spiritually means “to separate from you”. Why? Because they have not known the Father nor the Lord (Jn. 16:2,3). They started as human beings, who believed and later ended as “aliens from outer space” without any human dignity or senses.

So, what happened? It was the same thing that happened to Judas Iscariot. When he “purposed in his heart” to betray Jesus, he opened the door to Satan to come into him (Lk. 22:3). And Satan was delighted to come in, claim his soul and change his eternal destiny in one second! And the Lord has NOT offered to him any repentance and forgiveness, rather, he commanded him to DO IT QUICKLY (Jn. 13:27)!

On the other hand, when the Prophet Daniel “purposed in his heart” that he would not defile himself, the Lord’s Spirit enabled him to do that purpose and desire of his heart and made him like none other that stood before king Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 1:8-21). I am adding this opposite example just to show what the “purposing in heart” will result in.

My first question is: What are the real PURPOSES IN YOUR HEART at this time of your earthly life? Do you know your heart? (Jer. 17:9,10) Do you see and understand its purposes and their consequences? Do you realize the dangers to which wrong intentions and purposes in your heart may lead? Do you realize that one day, even without your conscience, when their fruit ripens, they may change your destiny in one second? Without remedy? (Pr. 6:15; 29:1)

My second question is: Is your heart flirting with evil, darkness, unrighteousness even without realizing it? Are you following its deceptions and lures for your comfort and prosperity as bulls follow the fenced path to the abattoir?

If you have no true answers to these two questions, you are in the same danger as Judas Iscariot! His real intentions were not wicked or bad. In his understanding he just desired to give Jesus an opportunity to explain Himself to the religious leaders of his time and once they understood Him, everything would be resolved. Was it bad or sinful? Was it an innocent naivety? From human standpoint, yes, from God’s standpoint he had a wicked heart! He never asked anybody any questions, never verified the consequences of his ideas and plans with other disciples. Are you possibly in the same shoes as Judas? Do you ask questions? Do you ever verify the possible consequences of your heart’s plans and purposes? Or are you also following your desires and plans and purposes as bulls follow blindly the fenced path to the abattoir? I do not ask you sarcastic questions; I am asking you the questions, which from my experience can determine your life and destiny! Are you interested in your life and destiny? If not, then why are you reading this book? This book is not a religious romance; it is a report from YOUR WAR and a prophecy for your DESTINY.

It is clearly not an innocent naivety when, after being exposed sometimes for years, to the Light and Truth of the Almighty God, one turns against Him and opens his heart to Satan. Many preachers may be preaching the Word of God and have a wicked heart! Their outward activity may not indicate the inward state of their heart and they may not know at all how deceitful, above all things, and how desperately wicked their heart may truly be! (Jer. 17:9) Do they sometimes check their heart by its fruit? I sincerely doubt it.

My life experiences with Christians also showed me how ignorant they really are and how lightly they take even the very serious warnings from the Word of God. They are willing to literally gamble with their eternal life, inheritance and destiny just to temporarily satisfy themselves in any particular desire or lust of their soul during their short earthly lives!

Who comes to mind is Esau. He sold his birthright to Jacob for a pottage of lentils (Gen. 25:30-34)! Stupendous! What was then the result of his utmost stupidity? Instead of inheriting the blessings, he was rejected and found no repentance though he sought it carefully with tears (Heb. 12:16, 17)! And after his wicked deed, God hated him (Rom. 9:13// Gen. 27:41). You say: “I am not Esau”. Really? You may be selling not only your birthright, but your own soul for some sandwiches and drinks at a pick-nick somewhere in nature listening to a religious idiot or to a servant of Satan and you have no conscience about it. You have fun, you laugh and are happy and satisfied, but you never verified anything with anybody, you never asked questions, never checked the Word of God whether you are fellowshipping with the Lord or with Satan! And if you continue like that for 3½ years (as Judas) or more, then one day, it will take one second and you will be gone! No man will help you and the Lord might tell you: “I never knew you; depart from Me…” (Mt. 7:23)!

We are quite able to purpose or conceive in our heart anything that may eventually, usually later in our life, cost us our life and we may not care about it. The tragedy is that a deceived man DOESN’T KNOW that he is deceived and his ONLY way out is to believe those that see and know.

Another example which comes to mind is Ananias and Sapphira, his wife. They both “purposed in their heart” to keep back part of the price of the land, which they sold and were supposed to bring the money to the Apostles. It could have taken a short moment of time for their hearts to purpose that stupidity and wickedness. But once they purposed this wicked act in their hearts and agreed on it with one another, it later on took 1 second and they were gone! They both literally dropped dead and were buried for their conspiracy against the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-10).

All these persons quoted above may be the most well known from the Scripture, but the principle they represent is applicable to every believer, who is not walking on the narrow road. And we cannot tell how many believers, which are not named in the Scripture, have become similar victims of their own foolishness, wickedness or plain ignorance and naivety and disregarding the Word of God pointing to these dangers.

I am also aware of people, who believed, were baptized and started to attend a church. After some time, they changed their church for night clubs, started smoking and drinking, doing drugs and immoralities and bringing horrible shame to their Saviour, Who died for them! Their parents or grandparents or church leaders couldn’t handle them being themselves weak in spirit and faith. Also, many Christian couples are being divorced, and that includes leaders in the church! And after their divorce, they keep preaching as if nothing extraordinary happened! And their sons and daughters also “minister” even though I have no idea what.

The destiny of millions of believers is being decided NOW. The Lord is coming at any moment or in a very short time and so is the antichrist. The End of the world is coming and multitudes of Christians are trying to decipher various prophecies from the Bible to prepare themselves and “save their lives”. We know that prophecies can be very interesting, even fascinating and educational, but they may not have any spiritual usefulness or effect. If prophecies should do a spiritual work in us, we must do a lot more than just study signs and seasons, calculate times and dates, decipher hidden messages in the Word of God or in the sky. Pagan scientists and researchers can do it too. And if Christians are doing it, they may not be better prepared for the Coming of the Lord without a spiritual interpretation and application of such prophecies, signs and events. You see, Christians, in general, do not even know how to prepare themselves since our preparation for the Lord’s coming and, indeed, for our eternal existence, is not material or intellectual in increased knowledge, but SPIRITUAL! What does it mean?

A) It means that all carnal believers in today’s churches, non-Overcomers, foolish virgins, and their leaders will face a closed door (Mt. 25:10-12), and should prepare themselves at least for the Tribulation of seven years. Their current color dreams will be shattered to dust and they will finally face reality, and it will not be what they were told in various church auditoria or in myriads of “religious books”.

At this point, the Lord desires to clear the question of the “raptures” of the Church, their number and timing as there is a considerable confusion among believers concerning these important future events.

The door in Mt. 25:10-12 signifies very clearly that there will be two groups of Christians (virgins), the wise with oil that were ready and taken to the Marriage of the Lamb (the Bride), and the foolish with no oil that were facing a closed door and remained on earth. Hence, there are two translations of believers from the earth, the Bride (with oil) and the rest of the Church, as follows below (for important details, please, see the book “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers^[9]”, chapter 8 – As the Days of Noah were, page 219 and on).

a) The FIRST translation is before the antichrist is revealed (2Thes. 2:7,8), which is before the Tribulation period of Daniel’s 70^th week! This is the time when the Lord is coming for His Bride only, which is NOT the Church in general (see again point 4) on p.103 for more details). This will take place when the Bride is ready, and only the Father knows the exact time and no man can calculate it.

There are three important details to be considered for this first translation of believers from the earth as follows:

a1 – “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be” (Mt. 24:37).

Noah and his house, eight persons in total – the First Remnant – were taken before the Flood, more accurately, seven days before the beginning of the Flood (Gen. 7:1,4,10) and the Lord shut him in (Gen. 7:16)! The Bride – the Last Remnant – shall be similarly taken before the Tribulation, represented by the Flood, more accurately, a short time before the beginning of the Tribulation, and the Lord will again shut the door (Mt. 25:10)! The “short time” may be a minimum of 7 days up till a maximum of 7 years, depending on how the “seven days of Gen. 7:10” are interpreted.

a2 – “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now letteth (hindereth) will let (hinder), until he be taken out of the way.” (2Thes. 2:7).

The mystery of iniquity started to work right after the Pentecost. In 70 AD, the Word of the Lord to the Jews saying: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” (Mt. 23:38) was fulfilled. Jerusalem with all that represented Jewish nationhood, politics, religion and economy was destroyed and Jews were scattered to all the world. When Satan saw it and the new Church with its dangers to his worldly kingdoms, he went to establish a “False Church”. It was “born” through a Roman Caesar and is known as Vatican, the “mystery of iniquity” personified since it was all done under a cloak of Christian religion (see chpt. 9, part B).

He who has been letting-hindering is NOT any worldly power, religious power, governments or an angelic power, not even the Holy Spirit per se. It has been the living Bride of Christ, the Remnant, the Overcomers through Whom the Holy Spirit has been hindering the Wicked one from the very beginning. Today this Bride keeps hindering him to be revealed before the Bridegroom comes (2Thes. 2:8). God requires “men who died for Christ and love Him more than their own lives” – His Bride – to overcome Satan and cast him down from Heaven to the earth. Why? They are the only ones that, in addition to the Blood of the Lamb, have also the necessary word of their testimony (Rev. 12:11). Why is that necessary?

God requires two witnesses (Mt. 18:16// 2Cor. 13:1) so that in their mouth every word may be established! One such Witness is the Lord, the Husband, and the other shall be His Wife, Who has the required testimony, and Satan shall be finally judged and thrown down from Heaven. He has been there apparently for millennia tolerated by God and accusing us before God day and night… even before the days of Job (Job 1:6). God could have destroyed him any time He wanted, BUT HE has been waiting patiently for these two Witnesses – do we understand that? NO!

a3 – “… a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion and with Him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s Name written in their foreheads.” (Rev. 14:1).

These are also identified in the church in Philadelphia as Overcomers upon whom the Name of God was written, also the name of New Jerusalem and also the Lord’s Name (Rev. 3:12). The identification of the Bride of Christ cannot be clearer than that. It is also declared that “these are virgins… being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb … and they are without fault before the Throne of God” (Rev. 14:4,5). This is the harvest of the firstfruits (ex. Rom. 16:5// 1Cor. 16:15,16// 1Cor. 15:23 ↔ Gal. 5:24, etc.). Let us also note that here the Lord confirms that the Bride only shall be taken before the Tribulation, which the Lord here calls “the hour of temptation” because She was already tempted and had overcome and kept the Word of His patience (Rev. 3:10).

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b) The SECOND translation is for the Church in general at the last 7^th trump (1Cor. 15:52// Rev. 11:15), which is also likened to a harvest of the earth, the first one being for the Church (Rev. 14:14-16) and the second one for the damned ones (Rev. 14:17-20). The 7^th trump is close to the end of the Tribulation of seven years just before the wrath of God is poured upon the earth in seven vials (Rev. 16:1-17).

There are four important details to be considered for this second translation of believers from the earth:

b1 – Apostle Paul beseeches the brethren in Thessalonica “by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him” that the day of Christ shall NOT come except that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition so that he as God sits in the Temple of God showing himself that he is God (2Thes. 2:2-4).

b2 – “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him” points to the “rapture” of the Church and to His “second coming”, as these expressions are known to believers. But it is NOT “the second coming” since the Lord will not come to the earth, but will only descend to the air where the believers will meet Him (1Thes. 4:17). Also, the Lord has four comings to the earth and they are described in “Word to the Church of Jesus Christ^[8]”, pp. 290,291. His “second coming” was 2,000 years ago!

b3 – this “day of Christ shall NOT come except that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition so that he as God sits in the Temple of God showing himself that he is God.” This clearly puts “the day of Christ” after the middle of the Tribulation period of 7 years, which means, after the beginning of the Great Tribulation of 3½ years! This may well be the time for the opening of the seventh seal and the sounding of the first trumpet (Rev. 8:1,7), but no man knows this timing for sure. Yet, it is quite clear that the 7^th trump and the “rapture” of the Church will take place close toward the end of the Great Tribulation (Rev. 10:7 + 11:15-19)!

b4 – the “day of Christ” comes as a thief with a sudden destruction (1Thes. 5:2,3). It is the day of the Lord, a day of darkness and gloom (Joel 2:1,2,11). But in that day believers should be found blameless (1Cor. 1:8) and the good work of the Lord should be finished in them (Phil. 1:6) so that believers should be sincere and without offence (Phil. 1:10) holding forth the word of life (Phil. 2:16) …otherwise they will not be taken by the Lord!... but shall be cast into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 8:12 + 22:13 + 25:30).

Here I may add that the occupants of the “outer darkness” will be chiefly the carnal children of God and the “workers of iniquity” in general. These are not the “sheep in pews singing, clapping hands or taking a nap”, but chiefly the leaders in Israel and the Church, rabbis, priests, teachers, preachers, pastors, evangelists, elders, prophets, exorcists, etc., who will try to persuade the Lord that in His Name they prophesied, cast out devils and had done many “wonderful works”. And then the Lord will profess to them: “I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” (Mt. 7:21-23// Lk. 13:24-28// Job 31:3 + 34:22// Ps. 5:5 + 28:3 + 36:12 + 53:4 + 64:2-8 + 94:4-8// Pr. 10:29, etc.)

(Many details with Scriptural references concerning the first and second resurrection, also the translations of the saints and the places where they will go and why may be found in our two books quoted in the Foreword.)

B) The magnitude of deception in today’s churches and synagogues is so deep and wide that it is beyond human imagination. The basis of this deep deception is the fact that ALMOST ALL MINISTRY – preaching, teaching, worshipping, governing – has been continually done on an intellectual, logical or academic level, on human reasoning, human understanding, human emotions, human efforts to reach and explain God. Many ministers (today also lady ministers!) speak about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit and His power, yet they themselves have no power of the Holy Spirit whatsoever and cannot exhibit any sign of the Life of Christ. It is all a religious mumbo-jumbo! None of them can cast out devils from any man or stop and command Satan in any way. I have not found the Life of Christ in any church or congregation which I have visited especially during the last 25 years of my ministry. The Lord’s Grace and Forgiveness may be present, but His Life and Authority are definitely not present in His believers.

C) It seems that the basic fact of our destiny has not been registered, understood, apprehended or realized in any way by the vast majority of believers and their leaders during the past centuries. And the chief culprit has been the “False Church” and its evil influence in the religious world. Believers seem to be scared to death to face truth or uninterested to verify their future, their eternal destiny, from the Word of God.

I really do not know what imaginations or understanding believers may have about their future, about the Kingdom of Heaven, the Tribulation or the translation of the saints from earth, about their “post-mortem” existence and the place of it, about their coming judgments by their Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, etc. I really do not know.

So, it may be desirable to at least emphasize that every man born to this planet, good or bad, Christian, Jew or pagan, will be changed into a spiritual being. Everybody will have a spiritual body! So, I repeat this basic fact:

We all will spend eternity in the SPIRITUAL WORLD, either with God or with Satan. Our PHYSICAL beings must be changed into SPIRITUAL beings and that is an absolutely unavoidable part of our destiny – of our SALVATION or of our DAMNATION!

Because EVERYBODY will be resurrected and will receive a spiritual body; they that have done good unto the resurrection of Life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation (Jn. 5:29)!

So, our destiny, and very definitely our road to it, is determined. Our physical death only liberates us from our usually sick and old body; it does not do anything else. In our soul and spirit, we remain the same as we were before our physical death. The spiritual powers that were present in us and may have governed, ruled or otherwise influenced our spirit and soul, remain there and remain the same, they have not departed!

If we were NOT redeemed, but remained pagans before our physical death, our eternal damnation would be sealed and permanent!

If we were redeemed believers and Overcomers, we will be escorted to the 3^rd Heaven (2^nd Paradise) where there is the Tree of Life and where Apostle Paul was also taken and where he still is (2Cor. 12:2-4// Rev. 2:7).

If the Lord comes before our physical death and we are Overcomers, we will be caught up unto God and to His Throne (Rev. 12:5). And if we were born-again believers, but non-Overcomers, we will be carried to hell – Abraham’s bosom (Lk. 16:23) or be cast into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 8:12 + 22:13 + 25:30).

Where will every pagan and every believer go after his physical death, is already discussed and shown in a sufficient detail in our book “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers^[9]” (Addendum + color chart at the end of the book). Who will gain the soul of the believers non-Overcomers permanently, God or Satan, will be yet subjected to the Judgment of the Lord and will still depend on the choice and decision of each such believer pending God’s Judgment! But such believers will have to reach their decision going through a rather painful process for which they will not be prepared in any way during their earthly life.

This is not only my latest book, but may also be my last book, as far as I can see in my spirit. The Lord may be coming so quickly that all our estimates in this respect may be dead wrong. No one knows the day or the hour (Mt. 25:13) and yet, we already know the segment of the time within which He must come. I am not at liberty to publicize the dates or the ways in which the Lord had revealed them to us in our Body of Christ using the heavenly bodies which He created for times and signs (Gen. 1:14). These dates revealed to us point to the beginning of the Tribulation and the revealing of the Wicked one (2Thes. 2:8). They thus also point to the latest date by which the Lord will come for His Bride though He may come at any time prior to that last date without any previous announcement. But these dates are intended for the Bride only. And also, I believe that the Bride will know more precisely the timing (the year, maybe the month and maybe even the week) ahead of His coming by the refined sense of Her pure and loving spirit.

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Since “Vain is the help of man” (Ps. 60:11), I do pray to YOU, My Excellent, Beloved, Gracious and Merciful Lord, that YOU would spare any and every heart which truly desires YOU and was never given a chance, shown the way, never guided to the true pastures and thus could not satisfy YOU and itself thus far. I pray that YOU would grant Your Grace to every such heart and prepare them for Your Glorious Coming (Is. 55:8).

And then there are those, whose hearts are closed being in a grip of the devil though they were attending fellowships and were exposed to your Truth for 10-20-30 or more years and they now truly desire to walk with YOU, yet, find themselves unable to open their hearts and yield their lives to YOU (Lk. 13:24). For all these I pray that YOU would arrange in their lives the necessary storms or adversities sufficient to crack their grip, and to forgive them their laziness, resistance to Your Truth, unbelief, stupidity, pride, arrogance, ignorance of Your Grace and a constant grieving of Your Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30). And that YOU would then enable them to hear Your voice and to open their hearts and yield their lives to YOU (Rev. 3:20). I know they may not deserve this “extra-extended” Grace, but then, none of us ever deserved Your Grace in any way, “short or extended”. In fact, Your Grace toward us never ceases! So I intercede for all such souls as I am not willing that any of them would perish, but that they also should come to repentance and attain to Life Everlasting (2Pet. 3:9// Is. 55:7).

Amen.

CHAPTER 9

OUR DECEPTIONS

The “Amen” on the previous page should indicate the end of the book, hence, chapter 8 was supposed to be the last chapter of this book. Yet, after some time, I am led to add this chapter 9 solely on the basis of what the Lord brought to my hands and attention very recently. I have to admit that some of those things that came to my hands I was not aware of at all. I also have to admit that they were not just “things”, but rather “extremely shocking news” that were truly hard to believe.

It may well be the Will of Our Father in Heaven that He decided to unveil before the End of this world even the most outrageous deceptions that Satan managed to carry out undetected till this very day. He used Christian religion as his cover for his evil plottings, that’s why his cover was so successful for such a long time.

LIES and TRUTH are the two most important FACTS of our earthly existence and eternal destiny. They determine our ETERNAL DEATH or ETERNAL LIFE! SATAN is LIES and DEATH (Jn. 8:44// Heb. 2:14). CHRIST is TRUTH and LIFE (Jn. 14:6) – and we choose (Deut. 30:19)!

When you, therefore, read this book, and particularly this chapter, with the two facts framed above anchored in your conscience, you will find out the following…

Our eternal life or death hangs literally on what we BELIEVE – and on NOTHING ELSE! And that depends entirely on whether what we believe is truth or lies. And that depends entirely on whether we are deceived or not. And that depends entirely on whether we want to know the truth or not. And if we truly want to know truth, we ask questions, we seek and verify. And if we don’t want to know truth or our future, then we do nothing! Is that clear and true? I leave this judgment to you.

When a believer cannot recognize Christ from Satan, it is a true tragedy, is it not? Well, we are going to speak exactly about this tragedy of believers.

Today, having followed the Lord for over 45 years, I can recognize various servants of Satan in the churches, Satan’s lies, deceptions and evil plotting against believers and the naivety of believers with ensuing spiritual damages and tragedies. It seems that the corruption which Satan achieved in the churches was not such a “hard work” for him owing to the totally depraved character of the natural man and the infamous unwillingness of believers to seek truth, fight, press, strive and overcome. The infamous unwillingness to run the race Our Father had set before us (Heb. 12:1) and outrun at least the snails and worms.

But what Satan achieved in the world and among pagans is phenomenal! If I were a pagan, I would have to congratulate Satan for such a phenomenal success. I will briefly describe TWO CASES of the GRAND DECEPTION by which Satan deceived literally billions of people, chiefly believers, around the entire globe for the past centuries.

A) Almost since its inception and Constitution, the United States of America has been considered a “Bastion of Christianity” in this world boldly “exporting Christianity” to the whole world especially in the last 70 years, or so. Every believer, especially in the communist countries of the world, or wherever Christianity was suppressed or persecuted, had his eyes and hopes on the United States.

Little did the billions of people know that this “Bastion of Christianity” was ANYTHING BUT that! That it was actually built on satanic foundations with the help of Satan and demons who were called upon to “bless and use” those foundations and fulfill the dreams and lusts of power hungry and totally deceived men. And these deceived men are called “forefathers” since they were the Presidents and Governors and other Chief men “building” the United States of America with its “temporary” freedoms and prosperity.

One of the best books I had an opportunity to read vividly describing these unbelievable facts based on painstaking research is called “Zenith 2016^[15]” by Thomas Horn, published in 2013 in the United States of America. The facts described in the book are even today standing as monuments and buildings in Washington, DC and as other quiet witnesses of these demonic deceptions, for example, the one dollar bank note, the Seal of the United States and other historical facts, which are well documented or were undusted from old archives.

Satan used a form of Christianity acceptable to him to serve as an effective COVER for his long-term corruption work. What form of Christianity would be “acceptable to him”? Any type of carnal church! It never posed any danger to his kingdoms in this world since every such church is always dead despite a lot of “works” and a “name that it is living”; yet, in the eyes of the Lord, it has always been dead (Rev. 3:1). Already two thousand years ago, the Lord counseled such a church to be watchful and strengthen the things that remain and are also ready to die (Rev. 3:2).

This is precisely what happened to the carnal church in the United States, which from the very beginnings must have been infiltrated with demons and kept carnal though engaged in many “wonderful works”. Even the evangelists, whom this carnal church sent to the world, were all carnal! That’s why they achieved nothing living and acceptable to Christ in the peoples of the world. In the very United States, the church was never living; it has had a form of religion, which all the time remained dead because the nation was built on satanic foundations and not on Christ.

Even today, few people realize that the misery of the church in the Unites States is the prime cause of the current misery of the whole country and its nation and its slow slide into hell. In fact, its misery affects the whole world.

B) Here, I might repeat almost word for word the first paragraph from section A) above, changing only the name of the “United States” into “Vatican”!... plus add few minor corresponding changes.

Every man in this civilization, including pagans, might probably know what Vatican has been since its inception. It has been a “Bastion of Christianity” even more and much earlier than the United States, having tens of millions of members around the world and possessing not only a religious, but also political power and influence, chiefly in Europe. But here, again, Vatican is ANYTHING BUT what its world reputation, portrait and messages to the world indicate. Very few people may see and know the truth about this organization, which was also built on the same satanic foundations, on purposeful lies and deceptions, which have nothing to do with true Christianity.

Again, the best book that came to my hands describing the true facts about Vatican, its popes, its history and destiny, is called “Petrus Romanus^[16]” by Thomas Horn and Chris Putnam, published in 2012 in the United States of America. The history of Vatican and its popes from its beginnings was painstakingly researched and explained in details from the documents still available in archives or elsewhere. The depth of deception and corruption in that organization is unfathomable. Of course, we do not talk about sincere, honest though naïve believers or even many from the clergy, who were also honest and doing good works. We are, again, talking about the leadership! Popes, cardinals, prelates and many priests were not really servants of Christ, but a good number of them were and are servants of Satan. Most of the doctrines coming out of Vatican are totally contrary to the Word of God! These are doctrines of men and devils (see also the book “Roman Catholicism” by Loraine Boettner, published in 1962 in the United States).

I cannot even begin to write things that are absolutely appalling since anything more than few pages would be beyond the scope of this book! I only mention few examples, which should suffice for any honest and sincere man which has common sense and at least a cursory knowledge of the Scriptures. The following examples are loosely gathered from the book “Petrus Romanus^[16]” quoted above and some sentences are quoted verbatim (with ref. page numbers).

b1) Pope Benedict IX (1012-1056) was elected when he was eleven years old. The catholic encyclopedia admits that he was a “disgrace” to the Chair of Peter, which appears to be a colossal understatement as he was reported to have indulged in sorcery and demonolatry as well as being a practicing homosexual who indulged in an occasional fling of bestiality. Various murderous intrigues resulted in his leaving and reclaiming the pontificate three times. Eventually, he tired of papal orgies and decided to marry. He sold his papacy for a couple thousand pounds of gold! Now how about that for the doctrine of apostolic succession (p. 211-212)?

b2) Martin Luther was quickly excommunicated by the papal bull Excurge Domine of June 15, 1520 for simply trying to keep the Church honest, but there is no such document for Mussolini or Hitler, who were murderous dictators. It is a well known fact that during World War II, the Vatican was backing Hitler and Mussolini, the puppets of Satan and their Nazi regimes (p.238). After World War II, the Vatican helped scores of chief SS criminals and murderers to escape from Germany to South America, Argentine, Uruguay, Paraguay, etc., and thus evade justice. Thus the Vatican had become a co-participant in their crimes against humanity!

b3) In 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger issued a secret Vatican edict Crimen Sollicitationis to Catholic bishops instructing them to put the Church’s interests ahead of the multitudes of children which were sexually abused by the Catholic clergy. After he became Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2012), he devised the greatest “pedophile priest cover-up” lying about the very existence of the problem. Instead of investigating and prosecuting the guilty, he moved the priests from one place to another to evade justice (p.238)! In 2011, over eight hundred catholic clergy sexually abused tens of thousands of children in Dutch churches alone. William H. Kennedy, in his book Lucifer’s Lodge, provides a well-documented case that these are not simply sex crimes, rather they are also reflective of cults of ritualistic Satanism within the Church driving the pedophilia (p.239). We know that the rule of lifetime celibacy is the root of all these devilish problems. The Scripture condemns those that “forbid to marry” and calls this practice “doctrines of devils” (1Tim. 4:1-3).

b4) Popes, especially in these modern days, are usually judged by their “humanism” and a “new humility” in not being carried on sedan-chairs on the shoulders of their servants and with the golden tiara on their head. The first such pope was apparently John Paul II (1978-2005) who was even called “people’s pope” by many faithful. But humanism with its deeds is very sinful as it is contrary to the Spirit of God and the Word of God. This same pope proclaimed: “The Pope is considered the man on earth who represents the Son of God, who ‘takes the place’ of the Second Person of the omnipotent God of the Trinity”. This is an unbelievable blasphemy when a sinful man is elevating himself to the level of Omnipotent God! In 2002, Pope John Paul II had a “prayer meeting” with Muslim clerics, Jewish rabbis, Buddhists, Sikhs, Bahais, Hindus, Zoroastrians, voodoo priests and witch doctors (p. 378)! This must have been the most idiotic idea any pope could have ever conceived. Excluding Jewish rabbis, it is like Christ Jesus having a “prayer meeting” with Satan and some of his demons! And if this is not enough, on February 14, 2000, this same pope met Arafat (the chief terrorist in the Middle East) in Rome and signed an agreement with him to encourage relations between the Palestinian Authority and Romanist institutions in Jerusalem thus using PLO to press Israel (p. 383-384).

b5) German bishops own the largest and most profitable publishing houses in Germany called “Weltbuild”. It sells books promoting Satanism, the occult, esoterism, anti-Christian propaganda and its 2,500 pornographic titles include perverse sexual fantasy of every type! It is clear that Rome is making huge profits from sex, Satanist and atheist books (p.307).

b6) Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) was apparently responsible for the death of more Christians than all Roman Caesars combined (p.436)!

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Do we need more examples? Perhaps the fact, that the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the obelisk in the colonnade in front of the Basilica are of the same geometry and construction as that of the Dome of Congress and the obelisk in Washington designed by Freemasons and devoted to Satan and demons. In fact, Washington’s design came from the Vatican, which was built, and “dedicated” to Satan and his demons first. These facts are also described in the above quoted book “Petrus Romanus^[16]” (pages 416-424) and in much more detail in the book “Zenith 2016^[15]” authored by Thomas Horn.

Nobody in this world would have believed that some of the popes, cardinals, prelates or others in Catholic clergy were Freemasons and Satan worshippers and that offerings of the honest faithful were misused as hush money to cover-up and pay off thousands of pedophile priests. One incident I have to mention. When John Paul I was elected the Pope of Rome in August 26, 1978, he was appalled enough to start an investigation of Freemasons and Satan worshippers in the Vatican as well as the rampant financial corruption. He became too dangerous and thus did not last long. He was poisoned in September 1978. I saw him from 5 feet lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica as I happened to be visiting there. He was totally green – poisoned.

Now, we know that Satan can transform himself into “an angel of light” and, therefore, his ministers can also be transformed into ministers of righteousness, false prophets and apostles of Christ… as well as popes, cardinals and many other clergymen and ministers (2Cor, 11:13-15). But can we guess how many thousands of other ministers, pastors, preachers, teachers, priests and also rabbis can be Satan’s servants just as easily as popes and cardinals? If the Spirit of God is not in us guiding us into all truth (Jn. 16:13) and if the Lord will not open our eyes and show us how terribly deeply we may be deceived, than what will happen to us in our future? How can we know?

How can we know who is talking to us? Who are we going to believe and what? If we believe lies, we are deceived; and if we remain deceived until we die, we are damned for eternity!

DO WE BELIEVERS UNDERSTAND ENGLISH? DO WE BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE UNSEEN FORCES IN US AND OUTSIDE OF US THAT ARE ABLE TO DESTROY US IF WE REMAIN NAÏVE FOOLS?

“Be SOBER, be VIGILANT (do not sleep); because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1Pet. 5:8). The devil does NOT walk about pagans whom he already turned into idiots and devoured. He is walking about those believers whom he lost and has not gotten back!

My greatest enemies in this world are believers, not pagans! Believers, whether they might call themselves Christians or Messianic Jews or by any other denominational names! And why is this so? Satan had already managed to turn millions of them into “bewitched fools” (Gal. 3:1) with no common sense. When I speak to them about the basic truths of the Scriptures, they look at me as lunatics unable to talk intelligently or receive anything! If this is not a tragedy of believers, than I don’t know what is.

Furthermore, they are unwilling to face and deal with the specific facts in the Scriptures and compare them with their funny beliefs. It is clear that they do not want to know the truth! And THAT is the end of it!

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I will conclude this final chapter of this book by stating facts which may be obvious to those Christians, who are open and seek, who have eyes to see and a heart to understand. But these facts are not seen, not registered, not understood and not considered by all those others, deceived Christians. Peradventure, the Lord might give eyes to see also to some of these deceived souls.

WE ALL KNOW THAT OUR SAVIOUR AND LORD JESUS CHRIST HAD DEFEATED SATAN COMPLETELY AND ETERNALLY. True? Absolutely!

The question I desire to ask you is this: How did He do it?

“Of course”, you will say, “on the Cross”. TRUE. But I repeat my question: How on the Cross?

“He was made sin for us and died for our sins”, you will say, “and when we believe it, we are redeemed and we do not belong to the devil any more”. TRUE. But may I ask you this question: How can Satan be defeated when there are yet billions of people that belong to him?

“They did not believe”, you will say. TRUE. But I have to ask you another question: Why did they not believe?

“We do not know the reason” you will say. TRUE. So, may I ask you yet another question: Why did you believe?

You will say: “Well…” and you will give your reasons whatever they may be, and they may all be truthful and also Scriptural.

I might ask further questions and fill yet another page or two with questions and answers, and you might give me truthful answers, yet we might still not see and understand HOW THE LORD TRULY DEFEATED SATAN. Moreover, how the true answers to this important question will also involve us! Let us first make the following statement:

Before the Lord defeated Satan by His death on the Cross, He defeated Satan by His life on earth!

In His Life, He defeated Satan first for himself. In his death on the Cross, He defeated Satan first for us! In both cases, Our Lord gave us an example how we must defeat Satan also in our life and in our death – through Christ (Phil. 4:13).

I am asking the Lord to grant us the spiritual eye to see and understand the true implications of this statement upon our own earthly life and our own narrow way. Here, the “Lord” is to be understood as the “Son of man”, which means – a human being – not as the “Son of God”. The Son of God, Who gave Himself up as the Saviour of man before the foundation of the world (Jn. 3:16// Rev. 13:8), became the “Son of man” while He was still in Heaven and before He came down to Bethlehem (Jn. 3:13)! After His incarnation and during His earthly life and ministry, He had done things that no man had ever done, yet, He gave us examples of what every believer should be doing and could be doing through Christ (Phil. 4:13). I will show some of the most important deeds that He performed and how He defeated Satan.

1) By His love He defeated the hate of Satan (Jn. 3:16). He loved the world already as the “Son of man” in Heaven (Jn. 3:13).

2) By His lowliness He defeated the pride of Satan (Mt. 11:29).

3) By His obedience (unto death), He defeated the rebellion of Satan (Phil. 2:8).

4) By His selflessness and self-denial, He defeated the selfishness and possessiveness of Satan (Lk. 9:23).

5) By His light He defeated the darkness of Satan (Jn. 8:12// Mt. 5:14).

6) By becoming weak and defenseless, He defeated the power and might of Satan (Mt. 10:28b// 2Cor. 12:10).

7) By His truth He defeated the lies of Satan (Jn. 14:6// Jn. 8:44).

8) By His wisdom He defeated the stupidity of Satan (1Cor. 2:7,8).

9) By His meekness He defeated the stubbornness of Satan (Mt. 11:29).

10) By His transparency and holiness He defeated the hypocrisy and filthiness of Satan (Mt. 23:13,14,33-35).

11) By His goodness He defeated the evil of Satan (Rom. 12:21).

12) By His death He not only defeated, but destroyed Satan, who had the power of death, which is our last enemy (1Cor. 15:26// Heb. 2:14).

We may take the above points for granted and may not marvel about them at all until the Lord gives us the light that He, a man as we are, whenever tempted could have fallen and could have sinned – just as we do! He was tempted at all points as we are, yet remained without sin (Heb. 4:15). He had to OVERCOME all temptations preserving His holiness and not allow Satan to get into Him even “one atom” of his evil and filth (Jn. 14:30). He overcame as a Son of man – human being – through the same Spirit of God that lived in Him and now lives in us, and NOT as the Son of God. And He overcame because… “though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8). Had He not learned obedience by the things that He suffered, He would have never been made a perfect Author and Finisher of our Salvation!

The Son of God has been eternally perfect. But the Son of Man, Jesus, was not perfect before He learned obedience through things that He had to suffer! Nor can any Christian become perfect without learning obedience by the things that he has to suffer! This includes the vast multitudes of Christians, which REFUSE to learn any obedience of any kind to anybody!

When the Lord told us “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33), He did not mean that now we can sit down into our sofa, relax, read pleasant Christian literature and not move our finger. He meant that we can rejoice because now we can also overcome the world by following in His footsteps! How? I tell you how, by doing exactly the opposite of what we are presently doing, or trying to do, in our earthly Christian life.

I do not know your personal faith, doctrines or convictions, but my very important question for you is this: If you will not follow the Lord, do you have any clue where you will end up in your earthly existence or in your “post-mortem” existence? I believe that no man has any clue.

Now, IF you will follow the Lord, you will have to do exactly the opposite of what you have been doing up till now. You will have to stop defending yourself and start denying yourself. And you will have to stop evading, bypassing or staying away from your cross (problems, conflicts, pain, suffering) and start taking it up daily (Mt. 16:24 // Lk. 9:23)! Is this a WORD OF GOD? Well, if it is, then why do you ignore it? Do they think that Our Perfected Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ said these words just for fun? Don’t we all believe that all His words apply to every one of us? You are not obliged to follow Him since He said: “IF any believer …”

What should be the conclusion to this chapter and to this book? Let us put it into a frame and judge whether it is according to the Word of God or not.

We also must defeat Satan in our own life by our own will and decisions and cooperation with the God of Heaven – in following the 12 points above.

As long as we are defending ourselves, we are defeating ourselves. When we start denying ourselves, we will start defeating Satan.

As long as we evade our cross, we evade the chastening and scourging of the Lord (learning obedience), and are preserving Satan in our soul and spirit. When we start taking up our cross, we will start defeating, destroying and evicting Satan from our soul and spirit. We will also stop being spiritually naïve and dreaming in colors. The Lord will start dealing with us as with His sons and not as with bastards. The God of Heaven will start being our Father (Heb. 12:4-8) and we will start to live for Him and will stop living for and satisfying only ourselves (2Cor. 5:15).

Finally, we will stop asking the Lord for power, rather, we will ask Him to help us to humble ourselves (Mt. 23:12) and become weak and defenseless as lambs (2Cor. 12:9,10). When we become lambs, we will defeat Satan, when we remain proud and powerful lions, we will preserve Satan.

When one of the Elders said to Apostle John: “Behold the LION of the tribe of Judah”, then John beheld and he saw a LAMB – not a lion (Rev. 5:5,6)! He, who has a heart to understand, let him understand.

Amen.

There is much more that could be written and that is important for us to know at this End of times. However, for God, it is not important what we know, but what we are.

Therefore, I feel very strongly that, at this place, we should rather turn to Our Lord and to Our Father in Heaven in a “Prayer of an Open Heart” and present our beings to Him as openly, honestly, sincerely and definitely as we are able in our fragile, imperfect being.

The Lord desires to hear from the readers, who have been touched at least by some parts of this book, who see their need before their Creator and Savior to seek His help, to change their lives or the course of their lives. If they so choose, they may tell Him their own prayer from their own heart or they may just read to Him aloud the “Prayer of an Open Heart” as recorded on the next pages. In either case, He will hear that soul; consider its prayer as a confession, repentance and consent of its free will. The Lord will answer the prayer and grant that soul all the necessary Grace and Power to make that prayer a reality in the life of each such individual believer. This is the PROMISE of the Lord for every such believer, who will solemnly declare this Prayer to His ears from an open heart. To each such heart and soul the Lord promises that HE shall be with him, and keep him safe from all the coming evil from now on until the END and until the NEW BEGINNING.

Note that this page as well as the following “Prayer of an Open Heart” has been reproduced from our book “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers” since the Lord placed it again on my heart to do so. It does not matter how many new facts or spiritual realities we read and learn about. As I pointed out before that an increase in our knowledge is NOT an increase of our salvation, we need a change in our spirit. We need His Life in our spirit and soul and this we can only receive from Him when we approach Our Lord with an open heart (Jn. 5:39,40) and give Him the access to it so that He may do His spiritual work therein.

May the Lord bless you all.

PRAYER OF AN OPEN HEART

To the Saviour, Lord and coming King of all kings CHRIST JESUS and to MY FATHER, which are in Heaven and in Whom I believe, but Whom I do not know in my soul as I desire or as I should.

I am coming to You, My Saviour and Lord just as I am right now... in my thoughts, feelings, understanding, fears, doubts and hopes. I feel I am unable in myself to do anything, to see and understand You, even to see and understand myself, to see the true purpose of my life, my future, my destiny. What I believe right now about myself, about my life, about my future and my destiny, or even about You, may not be so at all; the truth may be different, hidden. I am not even sure whether I can truly open my heart to You and confess to You what I consider and believe to be the truth. So, I am coming to You hoping that You understand, that You know me much better than I know myself. If I believe that You have created me, as I do believe in my heart and mind, then You must know and understand everything about me.

The more I think about You and about myself, the less I am sure about myself, in fact, I am not sure about anything anymore and sometimes I feel I do not know what to believe anymore. At times I am confused and trusting nothing and nobody. At other times I am able to believe and trust anybody, who speaks to me reasonable things, but many times I am unable to see whether he spoke truth or not. I have had hope; hope that some one would show me the truth, the way, the light, the solutions to my problems and give me the desired assurance… but so far, I found no one. So, I am coming to YOU! You are my hope and… as I try to pray and open my heart, I somehow see and believe that there may be no other hope for me, but You.

Yes, I believed in You… but I don’t even know whether I have Your Spirit living in me or not, whether I am truly born-again or not. I do not feel it, I have no assurance. So, I just desire to deny my thoughts, deny my feelings, my hesitations, anything that may hold me from opening my heart to You and come to You… so, I am coming to You on my knees. I repent to You, My Saviour, if I was never on my knees before You until now – just You Alone and me, and asking You for Your forgiveness. I repent to You, My Saviour, if I have never shed a tear before You until now – just before You Alone and me. And even if I have ever shed a tear, I just feel I should be before You more often… much more often, crying in my helplessness… until You would enable me to start seeing You, touching You, feeling You… and to know how You see me, what You see in me, what You truly desire from me, what great future You have truly prepared for me… and somehow show it to me. Thus far, I have had imaginations and beliefs about You and about myself, but no real truthful picture. I never knew Your beliefs about me. I never cared what You have prepared for me and how long You have been actually waiting for me.

I confess that I have never had such an experience of Your Presence in my entire life, I never spoke to You so openly, never dared to open my heart to You, never understood anything… and my beliefs and convictions must have been even laughable for You at times, and I never gave you any chance to say so. I am not sure whether I see, hear and understand in spirit and whether I am even in the right shape to receive such things from You should You offer them to me. But if I am truly blind and ignorant… please, have mercy on me and grant me what I need according to Your Perception and Wisdom and Grace for me. Lord, open my eyes and enable me to see and understand what I have never seen and understood before. May I truly receive from You all that You have for me?... what may be very necessary for me at this very time?... what may affect and even determine my life both now and in my future?... what will determine my destiny? May I even hope to live with You and experience the true Heaven? Really? I have no idea about Heaven… for me it is like a fairytale, and I am free to imagine anything. Religion has not given me any true or realistic picture and any assurances except words and teachings, quoting the Scriptures. I need true assurances from You. Will YOU be so kind and build in me Your true and living assurance? Thank You, Lord.

Whenever I prayed the prayer that You taught us in Your Word (Mt. 6:9), I just mumbled it by heart, mechanically, having no real sense of what I was saying. Can You, please, show me that God of this Universe, the Almighty Creator is really “My Father”? That I am really His child? That I was born of Him into His Family?, and that I can experience it? I know that this is in Your Word, but can this be real? May I ever get a real living sense of this truth into my conscience? He is Your Father… but Mine also? I do not find in myself the strength and the way how I can approach Him… My Father, and talk to Him, even expect Him to answer me back… when I am nothing compared to Him. I was told that these things do not depend on my feelings, understanding or my imaginations. Well, I cannot help myself, Dear Lord, but my feelings are flooding me like a sea wave when I am just about to open my heart and talk to You… or even to My Father.

I was always trying to do “my best”… to live my religion, discuss and even teach my religion to others and that to the best of my ability and understanding. But it has not resolved any of my problems; it has not changed the quality of my life or the life of anybody that I know. It has changed the form of my life, it changed my friends and acquaintances, but it has not brought me any new or better vision for my life and has not provided me with any valuable results. So, I conclude, Lord, that “my best” will never achieve anything, that without You I can do nothing. I do not even possess the assurance that I am able to lay down my life before You and trust You in everything. Can You help me do this? Will You help me to do what You desire from me and what I am unable to do?

Because when You will start doing it in me, I will know that it will be Your hand and this alone will start building in me faith and assurance; this alone will start changing my life and also the life of my family; this alone will resolve my problems which so far have been unsolvable; this alone will cause that I will not only be existing in this world not knowing where I am going and why, but living a true life as You intended for me; then my hope will also be living and real. Do I believe this? Yes, I do!

Thank You, Lord… and thank You, Father very much. May I become acceptable to You and may I begin to please You because You will enable me to be so and to do what I have never done before… this will not be “my best”, but “Your best”. Enable me to come to You more often, to seek You… to experience Your Grace and Love and Goodness and Patience and Power in my own earthly life. Then will I truly know You and trust You and praise You and follow You until we meet. And then You will also present me to Your Father… and My Father in Heaven.

Let it be so, dear Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

N O T E:

Dear reader, do not hesitate to repeat this prayer even more than once should you so feel or desire. Repetition will help you register in your conscience what you are saying to the Almighty God and your Saviour and thus to open your heart more and more until you will reach Him. HE IS LISTENING TO YOU AND WILL ANSWER YOU the way you would be able to perceive immediately or later on.

Read also His Word in Jam. 4:8 and Mt. 18:19 and know assuredly that I fully agree with you as touching the above prayer, so we shall be two before Our Father, which is in Heaven, and He will assuredly do it unto us! This is His Word and Promise and He never fails to do His Word. And I do intercede before the Lord Jesus Christ for each such heart and soul that trusts in His Grace and promise to grant that soul all that it will need both now and in its entire future. Amen.
EPILOGUE

Since this is a sequel to our books “Word to the Church of Jesus Christ^[8^]” and “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers^[9]”, the Lord provided the same closing word also to this book from the brochure of T. Austin-Sparks “The Kingdom that cannot be shaken, Part 4”. Its abridged version is as follows:

Now what was true in him (Apostle Paul), as an individual early in the dispensation, has had to be true and be repeated again and again through the dispensation in instruments, which God has raised up; that is, that there shall be a living voice – not a voice of teaching, a voice just of truth in the technical or academic sense, not just the proclamation of something, but a living embodiment and expression of God’s thought amongst His people. The Word of the Lord to such a vessel at all times will be: “whether they will hear or whether they will forbear” (Ez. 2:5).

It is so easy from time to time to let go, to sag because your message is not wanted and because you see no place for it, no room for it, or because you see almost universal opposition to it; to conclude, or to take the attitude as though you had concluded, that this is not the message for the time, the people are not ready for it, they are not open to it, they will not have it. Whether they will hear or whether they will forbear is the Lord’s word to an instrument, which He raises up for any purpose. That is, although you may be speaking in the wilderness, you have to get on with it; although no one will listen to you, you have got to go on; although you may see no response, but just universal antagonism, you have to go on with your work... “whether they will hear or whether they will forbear”.

Amen.

List of Literature

[1] “The Messenger of the Cross” by Watchman Nee. Published by Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc., 11515 Allecingie Parkway, Richmond, Virginia, 23235 USA. (in English only)

[2] “The Release of the Spirit” by Watchman Nee. Published by Ministry of Life, Box 74, Route 2, Cloverdale, Indiana 46120, USA. (in English only)

[3] “The Battle for Life” by T. Austin-Sparks. Published by Emmanuel Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA (in English only)

[4] “Strong in the Day of Battle” by T. Austin-Sparks. Published by Emmanuel Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA (in English only)

[5] “The Christ, the Antichrist and the Church”, Part 1, by T. Austin-Sparks. Published by The Golden Candlestick Trust, Twello, Holland (in English only)

[6] “Our Warfare” by T. Austin-Sparks. Published by Emmanuel Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA (in English only)

[7] “The Cross and Higher Ground”, Parts 1-4, by T. Austin-Sparks. Published by The Golden Candlestick Trust, Twello, Holland. (in English only)

[8] “Word to the Church of Jesus Christ” by brother Hanola. Published in 2006 by Montreal Remnant Ministries (MRM) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (also in Slovak as „Slovo k Cirkvi Ježiša Krista“)

[9] “The Tragedy and Glory of Believers” by brother Hanola. Published in 2010 by Montreal Remnant Ministries, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (also in Slovak as „Tragédia a Sláva Veriacich.“)

[10] “Open Letter to His Majesty and Excellency Christ Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the only true God” by brother Hanola. Published in 1986 by Montreal Remnant Ministries, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (also in Czech as „Otevřený Dopis Jeho Výsosti a Excelenci, Ježíši Kristu, Králi králů a Pánu pánů, jedinému pravému Bohu”)

[11] “The Mystery of Reality” by brother Hanola. Published in 1995 by Montreal Remnant Ministries, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (also in Slovak as „Tajomstvo Skutočnosti“)

[12] “Seek Ye First the Kingdom” by brother Hanola. Published in 1990 by Montreal Remnant Ministries, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (in English only)

[13] “Truth about Salvation” by brother Hanola. Published in 2003 by Montreal Remnant Ministries, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (in Slovak as „Pravda o Spáse“)

[14] “Príď Kráľovstvo Tvoje” by brother Hanola. Published in 1983 by Montreal Remnant Ministries, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (in Slovak only. English title would be: “Thy Kingdom Come”)

[15] “Zenith 2016” by Thomas Horn. Published in 2013 in United States of America, ISBN 13:9780984825653 (in English only)

[16] “Petrus Romanus” by Thomas Horn & Cris Putnam. Published in 2012 in United States of America, ISBN 13:9780984825615 (in English only)

NOTES

L I F E

D E A T H

CHAPTER 5 – OUR DREAMS AND REALITY 75

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

OUR ENEMY #1

OUR SPIRIT AND SOUL

OUR DREAMS AND REALITY

OUR BLINDNESS

OUR “NEW ISRAEL–CHURCH”

OUR DESTINY

OUR DECEPTIONS