BASIC SPIRITUAL FACTS

EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY – TATRY 2015

 

                                                                                Page

Part  1   – INTRODUCTION                                            2

Part  2a – Christ and man                                             5

Part  2b – Satan and man                                             6

Part  3   – Redemption and its Consequences                 8

Part  4   – Spiritual Facts of Redemption                        11

Part  5   – The Purpose of Redemption                           14

Part  6   – The Extent of Christ’s Redemption                 17

Part  7   – Beginning of Salvation – spiritual sight           22

Part  8   – Continuation of Salvation – heart                   25

Part  9   – Deciding for the Salvation                             28

Part 10  – Life, Death and Salvation                               35

Part 11  – Some facts of spiritual work                          39

Part 12  – Grace–Truth–Light-Faith-Life                          62

                   Perfection of the saints                                           85

                   Be Perfect                                                             94

Addendum – What happened between verse 1 and 2

                    of the Book of Genesis, chapter 1              107

 

 

Brother Hanola

The servant of Jesus Christ – The King of kings

 

 

 

In our Christian life, theory is brilliant, practice is miserable! Our desires are brilliant, the reality is miserable! Is it possible that, some day we will live that brilliant theory? That our brilliant desires will come true? The Lord says:  YES... if you will follow Me.                                                                                      

Part 1 – INTRODUCTION

This Mission and this fellowship before the Living Christ Jesus should be comparable to the “invasion in Normandy” in the Second World War, which was the beginning of the end of the Nazi empire of evil. It took less than a year to get from Normandy to Berlin, to de­stroy the German army and the Nazi empire of evil. Our “invasion” should similarly de­stroy the spiritual kingdom of Satan in our soul with all its powers of darkness and evil. And if you think, or, perhaps, do not even believe that your soul is similarly occupied by powers of darkness and evil, which must be destroyed by force through our decisions and the power of the Holy Spirit, then all your future hangs in a balance. This fellowship will thus be similar to the beginning of the end of the kingdom and power of Satan in our soul. It will also be the beginning or continuation of our change into the Bride of Christ and of our preparation for the Coming of Christ the King for His Bride. Whether it will happen like that or not will not depend on the Lord, nor on Satan, but ON US – in what spiritual state is our heart, what does it desire, how it hungers after freedom, peace, joy, after the final victory, after the Light and Truth of Christ and after His Coming. How desperately are we waiting for the coming Kingdom of Heaven, our New Life in It and our ruling with Christ. How definitely are we decided in our heart to finally get rid of the slavery to the powers of darkness and evil, fear and death and their continual effect upon our life and destiny. This Living Christ desires that His future Bride would see this Light and Vision prepared for Her by Her Bridegroom at this time. That She would not only begin to ponder the Light, but She would receive it, believe it and understand in Her heart that this is the Will and the Plan of Her Bridegroom for Her, which He wants to accomplish in Her, that is, in us, so that by Her own will She will either start or keep marching toward the Kingdom as the time is very short. We will also find out during this fellowship that “nominal or casual” Christianity has thus far brought us nowhere and will bring us nowhere and we will HAVE TO face reality, which the Lord will be giving to us, if we want to survive or be protected from what is coming upon the whole world.

The letter to Ephesians by Apostle Paul is probably the deepest and most outstanding document which was ever written by man on this planet. There is nothing deeper, more splendid, more astonishing, more essential or more remarkable for the Church of Christ, than this letter and its contents, excepting the Light and Truth expressed in the Gospel by Jesus Christ Himself. The Holy Spirit granted to Paul the freedom to dip into such spirit­ual trea­sures which he sent to that church because their situation demanded it. They were hungry and thirsty and perceived their needs in the fight against the powers of darkness and evil. The traditional religion failed and there was a great need of spiritual food. Hence, for them it was truly the question of life or death. This is also our situation. That’s why the Lord Christ Jesus sent to them the spiritual munitions and food so that they would be able not only to defend themselves, but to prevail and overcome the powers of evil and dark­ness inside as well as outside of themselves. And the munitions and food was that LIGHT, which shines on us also today and shows us clearly what we are to do to take a firm stand on our spiritual feet and remain standing during the coming flood of the powers of dark­ness and evil and thereby fulfill the Word of Our Saviour and King where He pro­mised, that “the gates of hell shall NOT prevail over us” (Mt. 16:18).

Spiritual food is vitally important for our spiritual existence, growth, health, work and for our spiritual fight. In every military campaign, food was always a strategic material and the enemy always tried to sabotage not only the supplies of ammunition but also the supplies of food to the front line. An army may be armed with the most modern weapons, but if it has no food, it will perish and lose the war. The same is happening in our spiritual war with Satan and his powers of darkness and evil where the church is lamentable not only as a consequence of her pride, blindness, faithlessness and lukewarmness, but has no appropriate or required food. Today, there is a great scarcity of a good and nutritious spiritual food, hence, Christians are dragging themselves through their earthly spi­rit­­ual life hungry and thirsty and pose for Satan no danger whatsoever! Spiritual weapons and mu­ni­tions are just as important and needful as spiritual food. In spiritual fights, the WORD of God is not only a high quality food, but it is equally the best ammunition that we can possibly have. Today, the Lord desires to arm us, feed us and give us drink in His Word and Life. Our mouth should speak mercifully and peacefully with our true friends and brethren, but with our enemies, a sharp double-edged sword should come out of our mouth (Rev. 1:16/ 2:16/ 19:15) because we do not live in Heaven and do not meet God’s angels, rather we live in the kingdoms of Satan and meet his angels and powers and thus we must discern them one from the other and deal with them accordingly.

The Lord’s Glory and Honor are intimately connected with the spiritual conditions in His Church, therefore, His desire and goal is to have His Church well fed, healthy, flourishing, strong and able to stand face-to-face against His enemy. We do not fight FOR the victory, we fight IN the victory! The victory has been ours and it was won by Our Lord, and we stand and must stand and fight for maintaining His and our victory and for the Testimony which we have in Him and about Him, that HE IS the Victor, the King of kings and Lord of lords (1Tim. 6:15,16). The ministry of Apostle Paul was mainly in “building” His Body and that chiefly in ministering a healthy and rich spiritual nutrition for the Church of Christ. That’s why Paul’s ministry was attacked, criticized, set for destruction, traduced by the pow­ers of darkness and evil on every side, accompanied by misrepresentations of reality, defama­tions, lies and bad reputations on every side. That’s why my own ministry is also attacked, defamed and surrounded by bad reputation for the same reason, which for me is a very good sign. When the people of Christ are victorious, the devil is furious, but he has no chances.

The Lord does not always give us what we want, but always what we need in His eyes for our earthly life mainly in the spiritual realm. He is giving us as much as we are able spirit­ually to receive, to drink, eat and digest so it would benefit and strengthen our spiritual life. So it would not be just another pile of information, which would wear us out even more than we were before and strengthen our death! In other words, the measure of free­dom for any servant of the Lord and the scope of ministering the Light of the Lord depend entirely on the capacity of the recipients (Jn. 16:12). I could not declare any Purpose of the Lord to any fellowship, where the people are not prepared for that Purpose not only to see it, but also to understand it, receive it and be willing also to do it. The Lord limits the Light to be revealed or granted according to the shortage of the spiritual life in the recipients (Heb. 5:11-14). In any case, it is desirable to start to open the way into our soul, chiefly heart, so that the Life of Christ from our spirit might start flowing therein washing all filth, darkness, sinfulness and evil out of there, whether we are aware of them or not. What the Lord has prepared for us today is for us a very great privilege as it will enable us to parti­cipate in His Plan of the End of the world and of the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven where we will play an important role.

Any gathering of Christians gathered before the Lord in His Name (that is, for His sake and not only for their own sake) always receives from the Lord all that they are prepared for and how much they are enabled to receive. And it is not only the measure of contents or volume, what is possible to give, but it is also the measure of quality, the kind, cha­rac­ter and the depth of the Light and Truth. It is written: “Depth calleth after depth” (Ps. 42:8), which may also be translated as „Depth desires depth“. After all, it is also logical. Those that started to attend university will never desire to again learn alphabet, or math additions/subtractions/multiplications, but will rather devote them­selves to far greater depths and heights of knowledge and wisdom in medicine, engineering or sciences.

During our Mission and fellowship in 2013, the Lord had graciously granted to us the basis of Salvation – what Salvation really is, what we are saved from and what we are saved into. We have about 17 sound recordings from this fellowship and thus enough Light for our meditations and for refreshing of our memory.

The task of this Mission and fellowship before the Lord is to receive His Light and Life ex­plai­ning HOW WE ARE SAVED, which is the most important and most practical part of our Salvation. It is not enough just to understand and believe this part, but with the Holy Spirit to learn to do it, apply it, live it in our earthly life so that we would really reach our Salvation-Perfection, overcome and win it and thus become sons and daughters of Our Heavenly Father (Rev. 21:7). We cannot fight for the Lord or for ourselves any fights, nor can we do any spiritual work for the Lord until we have sufficiently overcome within our­selves. Until He has done a sufficient work in our souls and spirits, whereby we got rid of our “old man“ with his pride, selfishness, stubbornness, hypocrisy, anxiety, worries, faith­less­ness, uncertainty, fears, self-righteousness, etc. Until we grew up into Christ, which is to say, until we dwell in Christ (Jn. 15:4,5).

There is another fact which definitely belongs to this Introduction. Our Lord Jesus Christ is encouraging us to consider this fact rather seriously, to understand it and endeavor to perceive it in our whole being, chiefly in our heart and consciousness since His Light which He is going to give us will also head toward the fulfilment of this fact. The fact is simple, but it includes in itself the whole old Creation of God, this whole Universe includ­ing us as well. In His Death, the Lord Jesus Christ CLOSED THE DOOR TO THE OLD CREATION! The whole old Creation died in Him and perished! This fact was already realized in the spiritual world; in the physical and soulish world it is nearing its End. Our future step from this phy­sical world is into the spiritual world and it might take place anytime! Nowhere is it written that the Lord cannot come before the end of 2015, or during the year 2016. And this our future step will be from this world directly into the Kingdom of God, provided that we are worthy of that Kingdom (2Thes. 1:5,11). Provided that we have been seeking it according to the Word of Christ (Mt. 6:33) and that we have also found it in ourselves, or that we are at least on the road of seeking and finding it because the Lord brings to this road all beginners. Provided that we have sufficient oil in our vessels (souls) or we are at least on the road of buying the oil and thus the door to the Kingdom will be open to us (Mt. 25:10-13). Provided that we are not lazy and lukewarm, but willing to be even violent against all the powers that stand in our way to the Kingdom and which the Lord will be show­ing to us because this Kingdom is being taken by violence (Mt. 11:12). The Lord will judge-assess every one of us according to when and how He brought us onto this narrow road, what time we yet have at our disposal before His Coming and what was His calling upon our life. Hence, His requirements for every one of us will be different. For example, what He will require from me, He will not require from anyone of you here (Lk. 23:42.43).

Our Lord Christ Jesus assures us that every one of us, who in truth desires in his heart to be with Him in the Kingdom, He will enable him for his entry IF he will declare his desire and ask Him for His help and Grace. The door will be shut only after those that were ready will enter the Marriage Supper with Him (Mt. 25:10). If, therefore, anyone finds himself behind a shut door and the Lord tells him, that He does not know him, it will not be the Lord’s fault, but his own. Today, every one of us without exception has a true opportunity to know the Lord, if you have never known Him thus far, and have the door to the Kingdom open. It is sufficient to believe it and confess this faith and desire by our tongue – as we have done in confessing Our Saviour at our Redemption (Rom. 10:9,10).

As you can see, the continuation in our Salvation also depends not only on our faith, but also on our work, that is, we must begin to move our tongue! You see, the Lord needs our consent at every important or initial step and at every work, which He desires to do in us (Lk. 22:42). Hence, God also works in our will so we would be willing to do His Pleas­ure which, in this case, is not only our redemption, but also the continuation in our salvation and our entry into His Kingdom (Phil. 2:13). If we are willing to do this, then we give Him our consent with our tongue. In this case, it should, of course, be also our good pleasure and not only His Pleasure for us to enter His Kingdom. Hence, our consent to Our Saviour should be very spontaneous.

Here I must point out one important Word of God, which says: “No man can come to Me, except the Father, which has sent Me, draw him…” (Jn. 6:44). I cannot draw you to the Lord either, nor to His Kingdom, only the Heavenly Father can. I can only give you the Light about these things, which the Lord had given me and which you should consider in your heart and conscience. Then you should make decisions in your own soul and con­fess them to the Lord by your own tongue. Based on these confessions the Father will draw you to Christ and to the Kingdom of Heaven because the Father foreknew your deci­sions (Rom. 8:29). The Lord promises: “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” (Jn. 6:37). This is all, and I believe that it is sufficient for the Introduction

 

Thank you Our Beloved Lord for Your Great Grace and Love for us, for which we want to thank you from all our heart. Enable us to hear, see, perceive and absorb Your Light and Truth You are about to give us, to receive them into our heart. With our own tongue we confess to You that we desire to receive them into our life. We are giving You the consent of our free will that You should work into our spirit and soul this Truth and Light so that we might thereby become Your Bride and wait for Your Coming with assurance, love and joy in our heart. AMEN. (all the present said Amen)

 

Part 2a – Christ and man

What is the difference between Christ and the other mankind? There exists a great simila­ri­ty, but also a great difference here and we must know where that similarity begins and where it ends, and what that great difference actually is.

Christ is similar to man in that He is constituted on the same principles. He is a Man, a human being where the composition of His humanity is the same as in any other man. He had to become a man in order to be able to save man! He is spirit, soul and body as we are. His body is as our body and in its form or appearance there is no difference. He has a soul as we have a soul, it is able to feel, love, hate, ponder, make choices and decisions. His soul was always sinless even though it was able to sin just as Adam’s soul was before his fall. Our soul is sinful since our birthday. He has a spirit just as we have a spirit, which has conscience (perception), intuition (discernment) and communication. In these things He is very similar to us, we can also say, that He is a “similar vessel” as any other man. But here it is where the similarity ends and an enormous difference begins. What is that enormous difference?

That enormous difference is in the inner man. Therefore, it is not in the vessel as such, but WHAT IS IN THE VESSEL, WHAT GOVERNS, WHAT MOVES THE VESSEL, BY WHAT THAT VESSEL LIVES. Our human vessel is moved and governed and it lives the life, which we also call “FLESH”. It is a principle, power, something nonmaterial in us, which is very strong, and in the fallen creation it is evil, which is the basis of sinfulness, that is, the flesh. In Christ’s vessel this never existed! Hence, we have similar vessels with Christ, but the life, power by which that Christ’s vessel lives is absolutely different because it belongs to a totally different creation. Between Christ and us there is an unbridgeable abyss as touching this dominant power, this governing nature of life through which our similar vessels live, by which they are governed. Our vessel is called “old creation” and it is ruled by our “old man”. Christ’s vessel was also an “old creation”, it became a “New Creation” only after His Resurrection. However, His old as well as New vessel were always governed, ruled by His “New Man”. This New Man represents New Humanity, which is totally dif­fer­ent from our own, OLD humanity; it has a different life, different qualities, different virtues, different moral values and with our own OLD humanity it has nothing in common.

One of the greatest problems of believers is to see, realize and thus understand that, firstly, the Holy Spirit is in a continuous opposition to Satan. The Spirit is continuously bring­ing to the foreground the Person of Jesus Christ in order to occupy our attention with His Personality thereby bringing to us the future picture of us ourselves so we could see ourselves in the Light of God which Light Satan always tries to cover. Secondly, He is bring­ing to us the Light in order to see, realize and thus to understand that enormous difference between what we are in ourselves, what is Christ in Himself, and also, what we are in Him, what change do we need to bridge that abyss. And thirdly, that believers would begin to see, believe and understand in their spirit even that almost unimaginable fact that, according to the Holy Word of God: MAN AND GOD ARE MADE ONE IN CHRIST! (Jn. 17:21) THIS IS THE GREATEST HEAVENLY FACT THAT MAY EVER EXIST!

That NEW HUMANITY is in Christ and it shall be in us as God’s Humanity sitting on the Throne of God and serving God in Christ’s Name and in His Will govern that New Heaven and New Earth, that New Universe, which will be created by God, because the old Heaven and old Earth will pass away and shall not be found (Rev. 21:1). This should be our VISION about our true Salvation and true future, which is very hard to imagine in our limited head. The Lord can put THIS LIGHT only to our conscience and from there it can pene­tra­te into our heart. That’s why the believers with closed hearts do not seek truth, nor do they value it. These three above mentioned facts as well as that Vision of our future, they shall never see in their life, therefore, they shall not believe or realize them either and their true future and destiny will be very questionable. The closed heart leads to destruct­ion! Therefore, it is absolutely desirable and vitally important to keep our heart open to the Lord and to His Light and Life. This alone will determine our future and our destiny.

 

Part 2b – Satan and man

God had not created Satan, God had created a beautiful, wise, sinless and perfect angelic being, which He named Lucifer. In the Word of God he is described as „The King of Tyrus ... full of wisdom and perfect in his beauty” (Ez. 28:12). It is written in the following verses how he was in Eden, the garden of God because God gave to Lucifer such a high posi­tion in His Kingdom and in the whole of His Creation, which none of the angelic beings had. He was an anointed Cherub, which covers... he was established on the Holy Mount of God where he was walked among the stones of fire. HE WAS PERFECT in his ways since the day when he was created… UNTIL AN INIQUITY WAS FOUND IN HIM! (Ez. 28:13-15) Until he sinned for the first time, when his heart was elevated because of his beauty and he corrupted his wisdom because of his splendor. Then it is written about multitudes of his in­iquities, unrighteousnesses and finally about his infamous end (Ez. 28:16-19). Prophet Isaiah also writes about it where he names this cherub Lucifer and describes his fall from the high heavenly position into the very depth of hell and the bottomless pit (Is. 14:12-15).

Why do I actually write this part, which seemingly has nothing to do with our Salvation? Well, this part is so important and has so much to do with our fall and Salvation that we possibly cannot even imagine and apply to ourselves. It will explain to us not only the fact that God had not created Satan, but that Lucifer, that exceptionally wise and beautiful and perfect cherub honored with that high position in the Creation of God BECAME SATAN BY HIS OWN WILL! It was the first sinless being in the whole Creation of God, which opened itself to EVIL and slowly descended into it. Sin had not existed until that time and nobody even knew what it was.

So, what is it that the Lord desires that we see, understand and take into consideration upon ourselves and our Salvation? The case of Lucifer is giving us a stunning light for our understanding of God and His view upon us and our Salvation. It provides us with the basic explanation why God established THE WAY of our Salvation as He did, and not an­other way which would have been “more acceptable, more pleasant, less painful…”, and what reasons He had for it. This case shows us unimaginably attractive, alluring power and danger, which EVIL contains in itself and these features of evil affect every man every day since Adam and Eve. As soon as man touches EVIL and “opens to it the door to his soul”, he is LOST! Evil will seize him and will never let him go again, hence, such a man becomes totally defenseless against that evil. This is the case of Lucifer – and this is also the case of Adam. In fact, Lucifer was comparable to the first Adam except that he did not have a physical body from the “dust of the earth”, rather, he had a spiritual body as all the other angels.

Lucifer was comparable even with Christ – the Son of God Himself – in his beauty, wisdom and perfection. And in his position and authority before God, he was only “one degree” lower than Christ (I believe). And that became the very “seed” of his jealousy against the Son of God and the beginning of his end. His fall into evil was possible because, though he had a sinless spirit at his creation, his sinless spirit had nothing to do with the Spirit of Christ. The second and basic reason for his fall was that Lucifer was created by God, but the Son of God was never created! What significance does this have?

The significance of this spiritual fact is fundamental and decisive and it DETERMINES THE WAY FOR OUR SALVATION! It also determines the REASONS why that road of Salva­tion is exactly as it is and not other. Everything that is created by God is subjected to the temptations from the powers of darkness and evil and thus it has in itself abilities to sin! Hence, the perfect Lucifer was also able to sin and he sinned! The first Adam as well as the last Adam – Jesus – were able to sin and thus become slaves to evil and to Satan, the representative of evil, who himself became slave to evil after being created as Lucifer, who sinned and fell and became Satan. God created EVIL and DARKNESS for His Own Reasons (Is. 45:7), so that He could try His created beings because no created being is immune against evil and thus against the danger of sinning and death. Only God Himself, the Creator of evil, cannot be tempted by evil (Jam. 1:13). As well, no one born of God can be tempted and then sin (1Jn. 3:9). Hence, here is that fund­amental and decisive fact, which DETERMINES THE WAY FOR OUR SALVATION and that fact is as follows:

1) We, created human beings, once we fell into sin through the first Adam, cannot stop sinning and thus be saved in our earthly (natural) creation! Therefore we had to be BORN AGAIN and this our “New Man” in whom we were “born-again” cannot be tempted and thus cannot sin, because he is BORN OF GOD! (Jn. 1:13).

2) Therefore, if we refuse to “put off that old man” (Eph. 4:22) and to “put on that New sin­less man” (Eph. 4:24) then WE CANNOT BE SAVED EVEN IF WE BELIEVED IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! Our Salvation exists only in our New Man, which was born into our spirit from where he is to govern and direct our soul, which will then govern and direct our new spiritual body. This is our perfection as the fruit of our overcoming and this is the only way we become true sons of God (Rev. 21:7). There exist some passages in the Word of God where it may seem that man can only “call on the Name of the Lord” and he will be saved (Lk. 23:42,43/ Acts 2:21/ Rom. 10:13). Yet, nowhere in these passages is it written when and how shall such people be saved, because “saved” in these and similar passages means “redeemed”, not “perfected”! Whosoever, even just in despair, will call on the Name of the Lord may be redeemed and his name written into the Book of Life, but he cannot be perfected. Therefore, the meaning of the word “saved” here is “redeemed” and it applies in other passages of the Bible as well (ex. Rom. 10:9,10/ Mk. 16:16, etc.).

This Part 2b is thus very important since it shows us clearly that the true Salvation, which is the perfecting of a redeemed sinner, is based not only on the forgiveness of sins, but on the CHANGE of his being from the one created by God to the one born of God. It means, on the change from a being which could yet sin anytime in eternity, as Lucifer did, to a being which could never ever sin again and thus God would have no future problems with such a being for ever and ever!

Part 3 – Redemption and its Consequences

I will now speak ONLY about born-again believers. Until now, a vast majority of Christians does not know and does not understand not only the difference between the Redemption and Salvation, but does not understand, does not “see” even the Redemption Itself. I‘ve sufficiently described in my books the differences between the Redemption and Salva­tion; hence, I will not repeat these again. Rather, I will now focus on what the Lord desires to give us by His Spirit concerning the Redemption alone and its consequences in every redeemed believer.

In the first place, I have to declare the fundamental fact of the Redemption, which is also applicable to the Salvation of man. After his redemption, every believer keeps living in his “old man“, his natural being. His spirit, soul and body were not changed in any substantial manner, nor were they renewed in the Holy Spirit. That believer was “born-again”, which means, he received into his spirit a “New Spiritual Man” which was never before in him, and into his heart he received the earnest of the Spirit by which God as it were “sealed us” (2Cor. 1:22 + see Part 4-First fact). That fundamental fact is that all God’s pro­mises from the entire Scripture apply ONLY to that New Spiritual Man! Because all promises of God are YES and AMEN. In Christ, there was always only YES (2Cor. 1:19-22). Hence, outside of Christ, no promise of God is applicable! That’s why, especially at the beginning of our road to Salvation, it could have seemed as if God was not always with us and did not give us what we wanted, because He did not deal with our old man as He deals with our New Man. After all, our Redemption does not start with our being born-again, rather, it starts with our believing in our heart that God raised up Jesus Christ from the dead and confessing this faith with our mouth (Rom. 10:9,10). Only then God bestowed upon us righteousness, wrote our name into the Book of Life and gave us the earnest of His Spirit into our heart by which we were sealed (Eph. 1:13-14). Then it was necessary to re­pent and be baptized. Then God gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), Who brought us the birth of the New Man into our spirit. This was the real “day of our Re­demp­tion” (Eph. 4:30) because without the Holy Spirit the Redemption does not exist.

The Redemption could be compared to a housewife, which goes to a market to buy staples like meat or vegetables to prepare a lunch. Those food items are not a lunch! And if she brings home some potatoes and raw meat, these are not a lunch either. That raw potato and raw meat are a potential lunch. They need to be cleaned, baked, cooked, fried, etc. They need CLEANING and FIRE. When we are redeemed we are like that raw potato and raw meat, which need CLEANING and FIRE in order to become something useful, eatable, to bring nutrition and life to us or to someone else. The Redemption can also be compared to a rich Prince who went to a slave market and bought a slave. That slave changed his master, but the new Master does not want just to bring him to his farmhouse that he may work there, but he wants to bring him to His own house so that that slave would become His brother! Such a thing has never happened in the history of mankind that a Prince, who bought a slave at a slave market would like to make him His brother – a family member! True? But THIS IS God’s Redemption of man and His Purpose. That’s why we, as former slaves of Satan, experi­en­ce things which never happened to any other slaves!

The Redemption is only the beginning of Salvation! The Redemption provides us with an “open door to our Salvation”. Furthermore, the Redemption is not a beginning of “heaven on earth”, nor is it the end of our problems, conflicts and suffering, nor is it a guarantee of our future salvation and perfection, nor of our entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, nor into the Heaven itself. But it is the beginning of our war with hell through our faith. By faith we have begun the salvation of our soul (Eph. 2:8), by faith we must also finish it (1Pet. 1:9). These spiritual facts are NEVER preached, taught nor explained in any way because the Church and her leaders in general do not even perceive them; hence, they do not even believe them though they are clearly written in the Word of God Almighty! THIS IS THE TRAGEDY OF THE WHOLE CHURCH OF THIS DAY... and believers remain deceived.

There comes time in the life of every redeemed believer when he does not know, where he is and what is happening to him. His Christian life goes through complications, perplex­i­ties, problems, uncertainties, unexplained or worrisome even illogical events. What he begins to find in the system of Christianity does not bring any peace, any love, any happi­ness, any understanding, any satisfaction to his soul, any fulfilment of his desires, any solution to his problems; rather exactly the opposite, it brings disillusionment, suffering, misunderstanding and disappointments in many directions, which bring him into a chaos, fear, worries, dissatisfaction, even into indecision of what to do. The Christian life ceases to be a simple, straightforward, casual even easygoing life, in other words, a “heaven on earth”, which we expected. Nothing seem to be clear as we thought or imagined. What does all this mean and why is it happening?   

Because in us, there now lives a New Man – NEW PERSON, which was never in us before and which is COMPLETELY AND RADICALLY different, than are we! So, now we have to get into the NEW MIND of that New Person, whose mind is also totally and radically different from our mind, which we now have to abandon and escape from it. It should be consi­der­ed alright if we start “losing our mind to get the mind of that New Person”! (1Cor. 2:16/ Phil. 2:5). Should we start losing our mind without any other purpose, it would bring us into a psychiatric hospital. But should we start „losing it” in order to gain a mind of an un­ima­ginably higher quality, capacity, unimaginably broader and deeper wisdom and view, a mind which understands heavenly and eternal things, it would take us out of the psy­chiat­­ric existence of this earthly life and bring us into Heaven. Therefore, that redeemed believer, which desires to remain at all costs in his natural, old mind and refuses to step out toward his perfection (Heb. 6:1), is by his Saviour and Lord compared to a fool, who will never leave his foolishness; also to a dog, which keeps returning to his vomit; even to a sow which, after being washed, desires to return to her pit and wallow in the mire (Pr. 26:11/ 2Pet. 2:21, 22). Do we see this? Do we believe this? Do we?

The more „brothers and sisters” come to our Christian life, the more it becomes complica­ted so that many times we cease to understand our own selves and what do we actually want in that Christian life. All kinds of contradictory elements, adverse and different soul­ish convictions, ambitions and desires are growing instead of diminishing and we may not know what we are and how to get out of it. Our tendency at such times is to become inde­pendent in order to get out of that “mess” and difficulties and to live a peaceful, private, exclusive and separate life, where no one will affect us negatively, or direct us, oppress us according to his personal convictions or ambitions. It seems to be a soulish fight which grows in time and becomes even stronger and this merry-go-round never stops and never solves any personal problems. What may be tragic is that when someone finally decides to “jump off” such merry-go-round and does not find his personal, separated and peaceful life, usually jumps on a different merry-go-round, which might fulfill the desires of his op­pressed soul more, but it might be far more dangerous spiritually. On that new merry-go-round man may become more deceived than on that former one and he may even lose his salvation! The devil always waits for such “jumpers” as they are for him inviting victims, like sheep, which leave their sheepfold and they begin to seek new pastures on their own. They never knew the Lord and thus they could not follow Him. The devil always tries to put into our soul emotions, perceptions, thoughts, imaginations and any other indications that God is, in fact, against us, that He has a controversy with us, that because of our sins and transgressions and weaknesses and shortcomings He somehow cannot love us or answer our prayers or take care of us. Using many such fallacies and stupidities the devil desires to rob us of our peace, increase the pressures upon us, which may eventually seduce us and lead us away from God and we will start seeking “more peaceful places” without stresses… wherever the wind will “blow us”.

On the other hand, if these deceptions of the devil do not work, he has at his disposal the whole mountain of other deceptions. The best is always an opposing deception. If it is dif­fi­cult for you to believe that God does not love you, that He has things against you, con­flicts with you, etc., then the devil will lead you to believe fairytales about God’s “infinite and unconditional love for you”, how much God really loves you as you are! That it is suf­ficient to whisper to your Heavenly Father about your great love and devotion for Him and everything is resolved... even without regard for the Word of God, which means, without regard how you live, what deeds you do, how you ignore or break the Word of God left and right, how you do not respect and comply with His Commandments (Jn. 14:21, etc), etc. De­ceived believer DOES NOT KNOW that he is deceived, thus he walks in his Christian life as a lunatic and believes every “fool”, who flatters him and speaks to him things which the believer personally likes… though they may be deep lies and stupidities.

These above paragraphs are realities for every spiritually starting believer, especially the one, who is serious with Christ. Who has no interest just to somehow “slip into Heaven” or to have Christ only as a “fire exit” when something starts to burn in the house. We all know that every child in a certain age has to contract certain “children’s sick­nesses" and when it reaches 13 years, which is also known as the “teenager’s age”, that child “enters a tunnel” and will not emerge out of it until he is 19 years of age. True? We all can remember this since no one is an exception. We should, therefore, not be surprised when we find out that something similar is taking place also in our spiritual development. Even here, we pass through our “spiritual children’s sicknesses” and then we enter a “spiritual tunnel” where we see nothing, neither ourselves nor the Lord. This is happening irres­pec­ti­ve of our physical age! Here we have plenty of time to dream about a better life, a Heaven, an ideal Christianity, even about an ideal earthly life. We have here enough time to overcome all kinds of smaller or greater disappointments, unimaginable and illogical situations, “heart attacks”, intellectual or emotional shocks, etc. We also may wonder about such facts, that other brethren do not behave toward us as we expect or as they should and that, in fact, they have the same opinions about us that neither we are behaving toward them as we should.

I personally can testify from my 45 years of ministry to the Church that even some of my close brethren were going through that “tunnel” approximately 20-30 years or even more and it took me quite a time to begin to notice that fact and that they started to look to me as “hope­less cases”. The clearest proof of this fact came when I began to see them as “coming out from the tunnel” – and that not by my endeavor! Suddenly, they started to be “different people” and with the old ones, whom I knew so well, they began to lose any association! A Miracle! Since that time, I did not dare to consider any believer as a “hope­less case”. And I would counsel the same thing to others, who may have similar cases because the Lord is not following our logical judgments. And what the Lord has prepared for them, also for their “post-mortem” development, which is clearly beyond our imagina­tion. The spiritual lesson is that the judgments and imaginations of our human mind about any other person are altogether unrighteous, inaccurate, unjustifiable and totally unsa­tis­fac­tory as the basis for their future. And this is true also touching our husband, wife, children, siblings and a host of brethren and friends. Only the Lord can see their truthful future. Let us see that the greatest problems of any man are not being resolved by words, or by discussions, or preaching, but by tears (Mt. 8:12/ 22:13).

 

Part 4 – Spiritual Facts of Redemption

The life of faith, the life with God IS NOT easy, nor simple, nor predictable, nor logical, nor does it satisfy our soul according to our desires and imaginations! Here, the Lord de­sires to show us His spiritual Light, which is to accompany us from the very beginning of our redemption until the very end of our salvation – into our perfection and entry into Heaven. The Light is supposed to be for us as it were “the only bridge” into our Perfection.

The first fact of this Light is that at our new birth, it was NOT our old human spirit, which was as it were “quickened” by God’s Spirit. In such case we would have never been a NEW CREATION and never had a NEW PERSON in our personality. This testifies to the fact that God never planned in any way to repair, improve or quicken our natural creation, but to exchange it for a new one! Another proof of this is the Word of God, which tells us to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and (our) spirit, perfecting our ho­li­ness in the fear of God” (2Cor. 7:1). Hence, our human spirit is yet filthy even after our new birth, which is to say, he is not new, but also needs to be cleansed and preserved as blameless unto the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1Thes. 5:23).

The second fact of this Light must become for us perfectly clear, and that is, that every true born-again believer at his redemption becomes in his personal nature ANOTHER MAN than he was before! NOW HE IS A DOUBLE PERSONALITY. His old personality remains a MAN OF SOUL, and his NEW PERSONALITY, which before never existed in him, is a MAN OF SPIRIT, which in the Scripture is also called the INNER MAN or NEW MAN. The Spirit of God, Who entered into our old man and at our redemption brought us the New Man as a gift from Our Heavenly Father… that Spirit and that New Man came from a totally different world. They are of a completely different order, character and mentality. They see things and judge things completely differently from the way we see and judge things. This should not be incomprehensible, after all – the Holy Spirit IS GOD, and that NEW MAN IN US IS FROM HEAVEN. He comes from God; hence, He has NOTHING IN COMMON with our old earthly man. He is neither our new body, nor our new soul, nor our new spirit, which is to say, He is not our new vessel, but He is a NEW CONTENT of our existing vessel. He is the NEW LIFE, by which our existing vessel may live or should live or will fully live in our eter­nity. In this sense we shall be changed to the Image of Christ since He is also a similar vessel with the very SAME LIFE IN HIS VESSEL (Part 2a, Para. 3)

As an example, I can give King Saul, who was told: “And the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee and thou shalt … prophecy, and shalt be changed into a different man.” (1Sam. 10:6) He received a new content into his existing vessel. Unfortunately, with Saul it did not last long because the Spirit of the Lord shortly thereafter left him and an evil spirit came upon him. But I am showing this man only as an example. The fact is, that the Spirit of the Lord and that New Man of ours, who is coming into us through a new birth, is changing us into a “double personality”, and into a “different man” – AND THIS BEGINS ALL OUR PROBLEMS! Since our redemption, we now have inside of us two powerful personali­ties, which are constantly AGAINST ONE ANOTHER, they fight one another, they can never unite or reach any kind of compromise! (Gal. 5:17)

Life experiences of such a redeemed man are totally devastating in his own soul. Sooner or later we will begin to detect and experience the fact, that we are taking part and being involved in the destruction of our own self! In the destruction, devastation and ruin of our own old life! Have we thus far not noticed that devastation of our mind, heart and will, which are the experiences of every true Christian on the narrow road? Such experiences and what is actually happening to him or with him are totally inexplicable. He just cannot under­stand them nor can he explain them in any way. Many times he simply has no clue what is happening to him! Many times he does what he knows he should not do, and does not do what he knows he should do. True? Why? Well, sometimes it is sufficient to read the Word of God in Romans 7:15-21, because Apostle Paul was experiencing the very same thing… and God permitted him to publish it in His Word.

And this new birth in the spirit of a redeemed man constitutes much more than just that quoted above. His new birth creates not only his personal chaos and devastating experi­en­ces, but it also creates new conflicts among Christians, which they never had before their redemption! Perhaps, the best example is the church in Corinth: divisions, toiling, lawsuits against one another, inability to walk one with another, sins of the worst moral character, misunderstandings, troubles of all kinds, and what else? And these were the born-again Christians, which knew nothing about the narrow road. How many of such Corinthian churches exist also today? And what is the explanation of such “un-Christian” fact?

If the Spirit of God was truly introduced into the life of our old earthly man and brought us the seed of our New Heavenly Man, He automatically causes a conflict with every­thing in us what belongs to the old life. This is His basic task, otherwise, He could never transform us into the Image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). And if we are not prepared, or at least willing, to leave, abandon, give up the territory of our natural earthly life, lose our old life for His sake (Mt. 16:25), then our problems, conflicts, hardships, disappointments and failures will never cease. And if this process and our unwillingness or faithlessness to overcome will con­tinue and will have no end, then we might also lose our life eternal (Rev. 3:5). Let us re­member dentists, surgeons and the like, whom we all “love“, but without which we may not be all here healthy and alive. Even if I see a surgeon with scalpel in his hand as he is looking down on me, yet, I trust him and I am giving myself into his hands let him do with me what he considers necessary in order to save my life! Well, isn’t the Lord Jesus Christ also looking down on me with a “scalpel” in His hand? And isn’t He also desiring to save my life eternal? Then, why am I not giving myself into His hands to do with me what He considers as necessary to do? He is, after all, my own Creator and Saviour.

That new birth also explains the opposition of believers less spiritual against those that are more spiritually mature. It is not pleasant to write about some facts, but we must look “straight into their eyes”. If we truly walk with the Spirit of God, there will be very many Christians which will not only “not understand” us, but they will understand us WRONGLY! Not only they could not walk with us, but they are convinced that WE are wrong! Then we will be meeting what also Apostle Paul was meeting wherever he ministered – disrepute (2Cor. 6:1-8-10). And this conflict between the less and the greater matured believers is a consequence of the fact that the Spirit of God Himself demands from us an unconditional, uncompromising devotion to His Purpose and Goal, also our faithfulness and cooperation. When He is not getting these from us, contentions, fights and conflicts continue. And wher­e­ver the life of Christians is marked by such conflicts, fights and contentions, it points to a significant EVIL in their own life and disobedience toward the Word of God. In my be­lief, it is almost impossible for the less spiritual believers to understand or even believe those more spiritually matured ones, and that chiefly due to their pride, stubbornness and a closed heart.

The best proofs of the above paragraph are my personal experiences how my brethren in Christ showed me a “double honor” for my ministry of many years and the work in the Word of God and in teaching (1Tim. 5:17). I really do not desire to express myself badly, yet, for the sake of truth and this Light by which the Lord illumines the whole Church, I must at least indicate that I did not know that this “double honor“ will include also “spit­ting, ignoring, pi... even poo...“ on me, using bad names and bad language of all sorts, reward­ing evil for my good, kicking me away as a dog, separating themselves from me or ignoring me in a piggish manner without any explanation or reasons, hating me without a cause (Jn. 15:25) and similar goodies. Well, had I foreknown this, I would have been well satisfied with a “single honor” instead of a “double honor”.

What is here for me the most precious and also the most joyful fact is, that “My High­ness” was in no way touched or offended over these manifestations of “love and honor”, nor do I have in my heart any bitterness, hatred or unwillingness to forgive and receive these same people and embrace them again (as before) at the very first sign of their repent­an­ce and remorse. THIS IS MY VICTORY! Unfortunately, this above paragraph describes also the state of today’s Christianity. And I am not surprised since many individual Christians and pastors, preachers, bishops even cardinals are the same and lead their sheep in the same way. The most recent case is from a Pentecostal pastor Stanislaw Gawel from Žilina, the chairman of the organization “Friends of Israel” to whom I sent in April 2015 a Judg­ment of the Lord concerning the speakers at their Conference in Žilina in August 2013. The Judgment, the description of the Conference as well as a “piggish response” from pastor Gawel are all available for reading. Also available is my letter dated May 30, 2015 to the bishop of the Apostolic Church in Slovakia Jan Lacho with all the documents attached, which illuminate this case of coarse Blasphemy against Christ Jesus! Also my second letter dated July 18, 2015, response of bishop Lacho dated July 25, 2015 and my response from July 31, 2015 to his response. All documents are available to anyone, who desires to read and see, what the Lord shows today about the worldwide church of the End of his world, because that church is ripe for Christ to spue her out of His mouth (Rev. 3:16,17). This picture includes Christians with their leaders in every worldly religious organization, which remain carnal and lukewarm, are not overcoming, not winning.

One of the main factors of our problems and hardships lies also in that we continuously trying to bring our earthly mentality and life into Heaven and bring Heaven down into our earthly mentality and life! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE! Heaven is far above us not only in space and distance, but in nature, character, morality, in the manner of thinking and judging of things. We ignore and refuse the ways of the Lord and want Him to walk on our ways and bless our ways. We also ignore or refuse His Purposes and thoughts and beg Him to bless our purposes and to follow the thoughts of our earthly mind. We simply pray for that which suits us and is logical to us, but these are all “selfish prayers”. We do not pray for what suits Him, His Purposes, His Goals, or what is spiritually logical for Him and thus spiritually beneficial also for us.

Hence, the Lord does not bring Heaven down to earth and into our life in the ways, which we prefer and understand. On the contrary, He calls us away from the earth into Heaven, where Our Heavenly Father had already seated us together with Christ (Eph. 2:4-6)! By His Spirit He is seeking how to reform us, reorganize, change, perfect us according to His Pat­tern in Heaven in order that we would be suitable and worthy to enter in. Well, but this is exactly that process of devastation, shaking, breaking, destruction, ruin, separation, mor­ti­fication, crucifixion and change of our natural sinful being in which He is achieving His Purpose and Goal. And we, in our natural life, are unable to comprehend what is He actu­ally doing, what does He want, how does He sees it, think and act. He lives morally, men­t­ally and also spiritually in a totally different world than we are. And though we, after a time, grow up spiritually a little bit more and start to see that we are higher than just in a kindergarten, we are yet standing against astonishing things, which are absolutely beyond our comprehension, understanding or whatever ability to handle them or solve them. This is like if someone from the primary school would come to a university and would like to see and understand what is being taught and designed there. Perhaps, this example de­scribes the reality the best.

 

Part 5 – The Purpose of Redemption

Redemption has NOTHING TO DO with the forgiveness of sins or with the actual Sal­va­tion of man! It is clearly written in the Word of God, which is the basis of Redemption (Rom. 10:9,10) that the redeemed person SHALL BE SAVED. How and when he/she shall be saved is not mentioned in any way.

Redemption is an ELECTION (ecclesia-church) of people, which believed in their heart from among those that didn’t believe or believed only mentally in the head. And to those that believed in heart, confessed that faith with their tongue and repented was given that heavenly instrument: “New Man of Spirit“, which in principle is a “copy of that Man on the Throne of Heaven” through which – and only through which – they may be saved. And from those that believed in their heart were selected those, which are willing to start the road to Salvation. THAT IS ALL! Many of those that believed will remain on this starting point of Salvation until their physical death and will never be willing to step on that road – this is the Tragedy of Believers! Because REDEMPTION IS NOT SALVATION!

God in His Word speaks to all such elected believers that the Man on the Heavenly Throne is the beginning of a new order of man, new mankind; He is like a “model, representative” to whose Image the Spirit of God MUST change us (Rom. 8:29), if we desire to ever live with God in Heaven. Because Jesus Christ is the only Man, Who was always doing and keep doing perfectly the Will of God the Father and is perfectly satisfying Him for ever and ever. THIS IS THE SALVATION-PERFECTION OF THE EARTHLY MAN, WHICH SATISFIES GOD AND NOTHING ELSE. What does not satisfy God will never be received into His Pre­sen­ce. Let us remember Jeremiah and how the Lord sent him to the house of a potter where he could see how the potter made the first vessel and that vessel became marred in his hands. Therefore, he made another vessel from the first one. Then the Lord speaks to Jeremiah concerning Israel (Jer. 18:1-13), but that picture from the house of the potter points to much more than just Israel. That first marred vessel represents the first Adam, who was formed to the Image of God (Gen. 1:26), but he sinned, fell, therefore, whatever is like that first vessel is marred and to God unacceptable. Therefore, the potter (God-Creator) made another vessel – New Man – Christ, which was perfect and to whose Image we all must be spiritually recreated (Rom. 8:29), otherwise we wil not get into the House of God! Therefore also whatever ministry, which does not change our image into the Image of Christ is false and is not the ministry to God (see also 1Cor. 15:45-49). The goal of Re­demption is to open the road to Salvation to every man on this earth, which has not only seen the grace of God which brings Salvation (Tit. 2:11-15), but has also believed and re­ceiv­ed it into his heart. Israel was also “elected” nation set for Salvation, which was Re­deem­ed in the eyes of God, but it was not yet saved (Deut. 30:1-20). Even to this elect­ed and redeemed nation God gave a choice saying: “See that I set before you this day LIFE and good, and DEATH and evil” (Deut. 30:15). And in verse 19, He gives an im­portant advice: “…therefore, choose life that thou and thy seed may live.” In the same way, God gives the same choice and same advice to the redeemed believer in the New Testament that he should seek and choose the narrow road, which leads to LIFE and that he should not walk on the broad way, which leads to DEATH and destruction (Mt. 7:13,14). Is that true?

The Goal of Salvation is that we should be growing, strengthened and perfected in our inner–new man, which was given to us at our Redemption as a gift from Heaven and for whom Apostle Paul also prayed (Eph. 3:16,17). This inner-new man lives the same life as the Man on the Throne – Christ. That life is far from the reach of our physical and soulish senses; it is beyond the reach of our self-will, thoughts, emotions, imaginations even of our understanding. Here we should start believing and understanding why God expects from us only to SUCCUMB TO HIM AND BELIEVE HIM. Because unbelief is a basic and the worst sin that can exist as it makes God a liar. It is very difficult and many times impossi­ble to eliminate this deep sin, which can be hidden and concealed deeply in the heart of man, which does not believe the Truth of God’s Word in his heart, which Word God seal­ed into the Blood of His only begotten Son.

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Concerning the Purpose of Redemption, which is the Title of this Part 5, we must add some very important spiritual facts and consider their impact on our own person.

There is a great difference between “sin” and “sins”. Sins, as acts of evil, may be forgiven us, but sin, as the root of evil, CANNOT BE FORGIVEN! This root of evil in our being is our EGO, our FLESH and that cannot be forgiven – that must be destroyed! Until sin in us is destroyed, it will continually produce in us and through us our sins – for ever and ever! Christ had not only drank the cup of sins and iniquities, which the whole mankind commit­ted during its earthly life (Lk. 22:42), but moreover HE WAS MADE SIN for our sake so that we could become the Righteousness of God in Christ (2Cor. 5:21). Therefore, regarding the two above quoted spiritual facts, there are two main reasons why we may not be spiritual­ly growing, why we are not being perfected, why we may be praying for years, yet, no spiritual change takes place in us, rather, we remain carnal-fleshly believers. There are two reasons for it:

(a) We do not see ourselves, our root of sinfulness – our whole ego-flesh,

(b) We do not see our many sins, nor are we aware of them, since we walk and live in our flesh. That’s why we do not perceive anything spiritual including the real reasons why we actually com­mit­ted those sins.

After some time when the Lord shows us our sins and we are willing to confess them and repent of them, He forgives us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness caused by those sins (1Jn. 1:9). BUT in the root of sinfulness of our spirit – in our flesh – no other change took place! Even if we try to stand against that root of our sinfulness and desire “to do some­thing”, refine our souls or learn so we would not continue committing the same sins and iniquities on and on in our future, we will fail and achieve nothing. The Lord knows it, yet, He will allow us to continue because we need those failures! Because through these manifold trials and failures we will start seeing that this is not the way, we will start see­ing our impotence, emptiness and inability of our soul. The Lord is achieving this through many problems and conflicts, which He creates and puts into our ways for that very pur­pose – that we would see and know ourselves. Therefore, thank God for problems! The true servant of God is not really distressed when he sees believers sinning, but when he sees their attitudes and reactions to their sins and stupidity, how they try to defend them­selves, reason, talk around or excuse themselves just to preserve their “image” not reali­zing that they are thereby preserving their root of sinfulness, their sinful flesh. While we live in a spiritual darkness, we do not realize any sin we commit and thus we live peace­ful­ly. When the Light comes from the Lord our “peaceful life” ends.

Why even our most sincere efforts and prayers fail? After Redemption, many believers try to put their “new will” against sins not realizing that “sin” is a “law” (Rom. 7:23-25) where­as our will is not a law. Therefore, the law of sin al­ways prevails over all our efforts even the prayers of our will, desires of our heart, the thoughts and imaginations of our mind. The failures come because the law can only be stopped or eliminated by another law, which is stronger and more effective. The solution is to set the law of sin against the law of the Spirit of Life, which is in Christ, which is the only law liberating us from the law of sin and death! (Rom. 8:1,2) Nothing else helps! Learning righteousness is the same as learn­­ing the Judgments of God, since the Judgments of God point to the righteousness of God.

We are getting into Christ and our root of evil and sinfulness is being destroyed only by the JUDGMENTS of God. The Judgment of God is His Light-Truth in which we can see ourselves such as we are in His eyes. When we receive and believe that Light-Truth, it is able to LIBERATE US FROM THE LAW OF SIN, from the root of sinfulness, from our flesh (Jn. 8:32). That which the study of the Bible or preaching of the Gospel cannot stop – can be stopped by the Judgment of God. Only the Judgment of God is able to stop sin! When­ever we think of the Judgment of God, we think of punishment. But the reverse is truth be­cause the Judgment of God is God’s Grace, Mercifulness and a Compassion towards us giving us the opportunity to see and be liberated. The same can be said about the Cross of Christ and of our cross as well since cross is also the Judgment of God and not punish­ment. The Life Eternal springs from the Cross – not from the forgiveness of sins. When God is forgiving our sins, it does not mean, that He is simultaneously giving to us our Life Eternal.

Whenever sin and wickedness became the problems of man, God reacted with Judgment, which stopped the sin, cleansed the man and corrected the situation (ex. Noah & Flood). The Light of God burns, it cleans through burning, our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). The New Jerusalem is from a transparent gold and precious stones because it was cleaned by fire. We might also say that this City is „fireproof“. All sacrifices of the Old Testament represent the Cross, and no sacrifice was done without fire. Without fire, God could not receive us. The Judgment of God – the Cross – brings us to the point when there will be nothing remaining in us what could oppose God, what could yet be capable to sin against Him. Under the intensive and radiant Light of God, we lose all our power and the abilities of our natural being. There does not exist a natural man, which would be able to survive the Light of God. The whole Truth is clear in His Light and nothing remains cover­ed. Hence whenever God speaks (His Word is Light), we are finished, and if we would by chance re­main alive, then we had heard only doctrines. Because if we are truly enlightened, we lose the ability to do, what we were doing in the past. The Light of His Judgment is able to break what we were unable to break during many years of our Christian life. “When we are judg­ed (enlightened by His Light) then we are humbled by the Lord, so we would not be con­dem­ned with the world” (1Cor. 11:32). If we keep receiving the Light-Judgment we are being saved-perfected. If we refuse the Light-Judgment we shall be disciplined-hum­bled in the future because it is impossible to escape the Judgment of God.

 

Part 6 – The Extent of Christ’s Redemption

When we speak about the scope of Christ’s Redemption, we are going very, very, very far, wide and deep beyond the matter of human sin. His Redemption actually touches the whole Creation “for through Him are all things created, which are in Heaven and on earth, things seen and unseen, whether they be thrones, whether  … powers, all is created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things and all things consist through Him.” (Col. 1:16,17). The fall of man, which Satan caused includes the whole Universe, not only Adam, therefore it elevates Christ’s Redemption far above the narrow limit of human race and human sin and brings it into the most distant borders of Universe. This Redemption thus touches the whole Creation and not only all things, but touches the whole system and its configuration because the whole Universe was, and still is, influenced and infiltrated by the powers of darkness and evil. Hence, the work of Jesus Christ and His Personality touches a stunning range of things and matters, which we cannot even imagine (see also the Addendum).

A)  The Redemption of the Universe begins with redeeming the SPIRIT OF MAN. This can be compared to the resurrection where our spirit with believing and confessing of our faith (Rom. 10:9,10), as it were, rose from the dead. Where Death ruled, a new Life began, new creation from the Spirit of God. This restoration, this birth of a new Life in our spirit took place in a moment. It was not a gradual process, but a momentary act of the Spirit. As Adam did not begin to live gradually, but in that moment when God breathed into his nostrils a breath of life (Gen. 2:7), so our New Man began to live as soon as he was born from the Spirit of God. We are not being born physically in a gradual manner either; it is an act, which lasts a short moment.

B) The Redemption of the Universe ends with saving the SOUL OF MAN, that is to say, with the perfection of man. Why do I relate the Universe with the soul of man? Because man is not only the center–heart of the Creation, but the Creation has its center–heart in man! If the Universe and everything in it was created by Christ and IN CHRIST, and if man is a member of His Body, he lives in Christ, then the Universe has its center also in that man, which lives in Christ. If the Lord were not resurrected, the whole Universe would have been shattered to dust and would have lost all meaning for its exist­ence, which it has in Christ only (Eph. 1:10)! At His death on the Cross, the whole earth was already submerged into darkness as the Sun, which represents Christ, refused to shine (Lk. 23:44,45). Similarly, the whole Universe, that Magnificent Creation of God, has been in a continuous yearning waiting also for our “resurrection“ – for the manifestation of the sons of God – when it shall be delivered from the slavery and corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole Creation groans and travails in pain together until now (Rom. 8:19-22).

I do remind you at this point that the Salvation of our soul is neither a resurrection of our soul nor a birth of our soul as it is the case with our spirit, where it is a one-time act. With our soul, it is a continuous process to conquer the territory of our soul. It is a conflict, war, capture of the territory of Satan’s kingdom, its destruction and ejection from our soul and its replacement by the Kingdom of God – by our will and faith through Christ! If the kingdom of Satan would not exist in people, then it would not exist in the world either, because Satan would have no one through whom he could establish it and through whom to rule there. He is ruling in his kingdoms on earth through people. He had no kingdoms on earth before Adam and Eve! It is a similar fact as described in Revelation 12:9-12. The reasons for this war are the following:

The human NATURAL MIND, as a part of the natural soul, works AGAINST God, not always consciously, but at all times (Rom. 8:7) until it is renewed in its spirit by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:23). In other words, our natural mind serves Satan... even if it occasionally reads the Bible.

The human NATURAL HEART, as a part of the natural soul, works AGAINST God (Jer. 17:9, 10), not always consciously, but any time its desires, interests, emotions and intentions are set face-to-face with God’s Will, they are mostly unveiled as non-parallel, even contra­dictory and hostile toward the Will of God. Man may be conscious of this only when the Lord shows him this fact. This means that our heart serves Satan... even if it occasion­ally shows human compassion, goodness, even willingness to help, etc.

The human NATURAL WILL, as a part of the natural soul, works AGAINST God, therefore, God has to work in us so we would be willing to do is Will, His pleasure (Phil. 2:13). The more we walk with God, the more we discover how is our will in opposition to His Will and what power we have to expend in order to overcome the powers in our will, which resist God, resist also our coming to Him or obtaining from Him anything. This means that our natural will serves Satan... even if we occasionally decide for truth, for right­eousness, for goodness, etc.

Our natural soul thus represents a realm of antagonism and an active opposition to God whether it is in pagan or in already redeemed believer. That realm is a kingdom of Satan. Of course, the degree of its antagonism and opposition to God is decreasing as we conti­nue following Christ (Mt. 16:24). Our soul is in alliance with the powers of evil and dark­ness, hence, its salvation is an uninterrupted and progressive process... and we are not eager to get into it! My experiences with some Christians are very unnatural. At times, I have to “shout” to get their active attention so they would wake up from their soulish lethargy, would start registering and receiving and would be willing even to ponder their dealing with the truth, which was declared and which the powers in their soul have “no intention to consider”! Why? Because the truth from the Lord usually unveils our stupidity, pride, fear, insecurity, hypocrisy and unwillingness to seek truth, seek the Lord, seek the Kingdom and His righteousness! Some believers would, perhaps, be willing to debate the truth even whole days, but if that truth and that righteousness should start renewing the spirit of their mind, they would resist that like the devil resists the Cross! That might unveil their nakedness and shame. This process thus requires from us not only our willingness, but also perseverance and patience since in our patience we are to possess our souls (Lk. 21:19).

The Redemption of our soul has much in common with the Redemption of the Universe also in the fact, that today the whole Universe, including Heaven itself, has been polluted and influ­en­c­­ed by the powers of evil, by the prince of the power of the air, by the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience toward God, by the rulers of the darkness of this world and by the principalities in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:2+6:12/ Rev. 12:7, etc.). This Universe is in fact in bondage through the natural unborn-again soul of man! Because man became an instrument of Satan through which he created on earth his kingdoms of evil and darkness. Hence, this same Redemption by Christ is waiting also for this Universe and for Heaven and our earth. And just as these powers of evil and darkness are being thrown out from our soul and the kingdoms of Satan are being destroyed, they shall in the same way be thrown out of the Universe and finally also from Heaven (Rev. 12:7-9) and from the earth (Rev. 20:3+20:7-10). Because, if the Kingdom of God will not be established in our SOUL, it will not be possible to establish it in the Universe, in the heavenlies and on the earth because God would have no one through whom to establish it. This universal Redemption will thus come only if we, like Christ, will win over Satan, over that Dragon, and that by the Blood of Christ and by the word of our testimony and by not loving our natural old life even unto the death (Rev. 12:11).

What is that TESTIMONY, which we have to have and which God Our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ expect from us and build in us? It is NOT that we believed in the Saviour and were born-again and baptized and even written into the Book of Life. That testimony IS that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is seated on the Throne of Heaven, on the right hand of His Majesty God the Father; that He has all the power in Heaven and on earth, over the hell and over the death (Mt. 28:18/ Rev. 1:18), which power is in His resurrected and Eternal Life; that by this New Life He destroyed Death and him that had power over death, that is, Satan (Heb. 2:14), and that He destroyed all his works (1Jn. 3:8). THIS IS the testimony that we have to have not because we read it somewhere or heard about it, but because we LIVE THIS TESTIMONY IN OUR SOUL AND SPIRIT! Our present life reflects the Life of Christ and is just as immortal; it destroyed the works of the devil just the same way and has all power in Heaven and on earth even over the powers of evil and darkness. THIS TESTIMONY will destroy the Devil, his kingdoms and powers and works. On the basis of THIS TESTIMONY will Satan be thrown down from Heaven to the earth.

The first thing in the deliverance of an already redeemed soul is its deliverance from the alliance with the powers of evil and darkness. And this is exactly the target of all attacks and deceptions of Satan. We can best discover this when we start truly move toward the Lord Jesus Christ. We will then start to feel and experience the counter pressures and powers which we never experienced before in our life. When we thus see a believer, who is oppressed by such powers and is unable to do even what he knows in himself that he should do, then his deliverance can never come in the way of logical explanations, argu­men­tations, discussions, persuasions or quarrelling, nor through other expressions of our mind. It is the Life of Christ, which is in the SPIRIT of man that must come with a helping hand. Can you imagine that you are drowning in the sea and nearby there is a boat from which you are offered a lifebelt? Would you ignore that boat and not even look that way? Really? You don’t believe that yourselves. When you are “drowning” in the spirits of evil and darkness in your soul (pride, fears, selfishness, indecisiveness, self-righteousness, laziness, foolishness, naivety, short temper, lust after comfort, after prosperity, unwilling­ness, unbelief, pressures of emotions, etc, etc.) and in your spirit, the Lord would like to “hand you a lifebelt”, why would you ignore it? Why not even look at Him? (Heb. 12:2) Your spirit has liberty from Christ, but your soul does not have liberty because Satan rules it through the above named spirits in brackets. If you will not allow your born-again spirit to stand against those spiritual powers of evil and darkness in your soul, you will never be delivered. And this is the denial of your redemption! These lines are not here just to be read and discussed, but to bring them into your daily life. No brother or sister will help you in any way, your victory must come from your own spirit and from the will of your own soul! NO BELIEVER CAN WIN A VICTORY FOR YOU! Begin to notice your spirit and to open to him your soul, because nobody can win for you though somebody could help you at least temporarily to bind those spirits of evil and darkness in your soul by the authority which he has from Christ in his born-again soul (Mt. 16:19+18:18). Or he can cast an evil spirit out of your soul, but NOBODY can cast out of you your character! Not even God!

The knowledge about our Redemption and Salvation through Christ is important as Light without which we would be in darkness and in darkness no decisions can be made and no­thing can be done. But even if we have the Light and know and see what we should do, our soul does not have to have any willingness for it, or ability or power. So, here we have again the same important point and that is that all power and ability to do the Light of the Word is in the Holy Spirit, Who is in our spirit and does not have to be in our soul as yet! Hence, the growth and perfecting of man is marked by bringing his old life and the disabi­lities of his natural soul into submission, subjection to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must through our spirit start to rule our soul!... without pardon, without excuses, with­out explanations, without argumentations. Otherwise we remain in perpetual troubles and slavery to Satan.

The state of this world and of this Universe can never be changed by man, who is situated in it. Various national and international movements for the change of the course of this world and of this Universe always failed (wars, debates, conferences, organizations for uniting the nations, etc.) Similarly, ecumenism and all the “social Gospels” failed and shall fail together with the whole humanism as a redemptive power of mankind for the good of man. This effort has always failed and will keep failing. The only way for the change of the state and course of this world and of this Universe is for those that are situated outside of it by the way of a new birth and regeneration in their spirit and soul. Who possess in themselves a superior spiritual position and thus authority over the powers of darkness and evil, they can change the state and course of this world. What is coming upon this world in the physical sense as the end of the world is absolutely in agreement with this spiritual principle. How? Those, who have the authority to change the state and course of this world and of this Universe are those, which are outside of it, as it is already declared above, so these must be taken out of it not to be in any physical contact with it. Only then can the course-judgment of this old creation proceed. For this end, there will be two short “breaks” in the course-judgment of this world and Universe before the end of the world.

The first break will be the ascension of the Bride of Christ and that before the beginning of the seven years Tribulation Period. This first break will firstly permit all those that are anointed and governed by the Holy Spirit (Overcomers, Bride of Christ) to be lifted from this earth and from this Universe, that is, from this physical Creation conta­mi­na­ted with evil and darkness, from this territory governed by Satan, and taken OUT of it. The Redemption of the Universe demands this process that in a specific point of time to­wards the end of its existence, the redeemed man would be taken out of it so that the evil and unrighteousness in the Universe and Satan, the originator of that evil, may be judged by that man and by Christ, and thereby bring into the Universe “all righteousness” (Mt. 3:15), that is, full satisfaction to God the Father. This first break will also permit Satan to begin the seven years Tribulation Period under the rule of antichrist. Satan and his angels are at that time still in Heaven and still influence these heavenly realms with their dark­ness and evil. But then, Satan and his angels are cast down to the earth and that because of the Blood of the Lamb and of the testimony of the Bride of Christ (Rev. 12:7-12/ Mt. 18:16/ 2Cor. 13:1). After Satan is cast down to the earth, he takes the full power which God will give him, to continue 42 months (3½ years of the Great Tribulation) as God’s instrument for the destruction of the world (Rev. 13:5-7).

The second break will be before the end of the Great Tribulation and it will be the ascension of the others from the Church, which were not taken during the Coming of the Bridegroom, but they were blessed and worthy of the First Resurrection (Rev. 20:6). This will give the opportunity for God to pour His great wrath on the world and destroy it by fire (Rev. 16:1-21). This represents the “cleansing of the Universe” from evil and darkness and from the rule of these powers of evil and darkness. By this fire God prepares condi­tions for the 1,000 year’s Kingdom of Heaven on earth in which truth and justice will rule. After this Kingdom on earth, God will create a New Heaven and New Earth, that is, a New Universe in which truth, justice and Life will rule for ever and ever (Rev. 21:1,2). Hence, the Re­demption–Renewal of the Universe rests not only in Christ and His work of Redemp­tion, but also in the redeemed man, which by his own will allowed himself to be formed into the Image of Christ (Rom. 8:29) and lives in Him as a member of His Body for ever and ever and has all the authority over hell and all the powers of darkness and evil.

Our New spiritual man was created in liberty of the Spirit of God because wherever there is the Spirit of God, there is liberty (2Cor. 3:17). If, therefore, the Spirit of God is not in our soul, does not have access to it, cannot influence it, does not govern it in any way, then our soul cannot be free, but remains in the slavery to the powers of darkness and evil. Hence, if we do not overpower these obstacles in our soul, do not open the “door” to our spirit where Christ dwells by His Spirit and from where He knocks on the heart of our soul (Rev. 3:20), then we will never be liberated during all our earthly life. And we will never be able to do what we know we should do. All our life we will remain unuseful to the Lord, without oil, which also means, without love and faith and our entry into the Kingdom will remain questionable because we will have nothing to do there and will not be worthy of it. Also, we will contribute nothing to the liberation and cleansing of the Universe, of that Magnificent and Majestic Creation of God. As long as we prefer a spiritual slavery and misery on this poor and cursed earth and caring just for own selves, then we cannot possibly know neither Christ, nor the devil and cannot be useful to Christ in any way.

On the basis of the above Light of God, let us consider the baptism by water more deep­ly. Few Christians have any notion what their baptism really meant before God, before Christ Jesus, the Son of God and why they had to be baptized at all. I myself had a rather limited understanding and notion about my baptism, which were growing only gradually and were gaining wider and deeper meaning. We could write a lot about this important act of Christ­ianity. I desire to turn to one Word of God, which was never preached to us, nor was it ever explained in any way because, apparently, nobody had a vision reaching beyond the meaning of the letters of this Word. When the Lord was coming for His baptism, John the Baptist objected to it (Mt. 3:13,14). The Lord, of course, understood him very well, but John did not understand what a tremendous event was about to take place. The Lord told him: “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness“ (Mt. 3:15). It should be quite clear that no one can interpret these words of the Lord to mean that when He stepped down into the water of Jordan, He thereby fulfilled “all right­eousness”. The Lord was speaking here about something far more important, far greater and much, much more far-reaching.

When this Universe, this present Creation of God, fell under the wrath of God, under His Judgment due to the evil, sin, unrighteousness and death, which corrupted and defaced this Creation, God rejected it and He demands an absolute righteousness. God will never abandon or modify His demand for an absolute, universal righteousness, holiness and purity of His Creation. Man, of course, was never able of such a deed. Therefore, had God not planned the Redemption, the Renewal of His Creation, then man together with the whole Universe would have had to perish, be totally destroyed, exterminated from his existence being absolutely unable to satisfy the demands of God for an absolute right­eous­ness and holiness of His Creation. (Note: This is in all likelihood represented by what hap­pened between the first and the second verse of Genesis, chpt. 1) In other words, a righteous Creation, righteous man and righteous and pure Universe must be produced to satisfy “all righteousness” demanded by God. Thus the Lord had THIS in His under­stand­ing and vision when He was stepping down to the water of Jordan, and not only to die for a sinful man. This old Creation corrupted and defaced by evil, sin and unrighteousness must be exchanged for a New Creation, New Heaven, New Earth, New Universe where righteousness will rule. Because He, that sat on the Throne said: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:1,5). The Baptism of Christ was thus a “Cosmic Baptism”, point­ing to His “Cosmic Death” on the Cross, which resulted in the change of the Universe from the old one to a New One. And the born-again man has his important role in this affair according to his high calling of God in Christ Jesus. That’s why Apostle Paul was press­ing for that high prize and important accountability before God (Phil. 3:14).

This is at least the most important part of the LIGHT about the scope of Christ’s Redemp­tion, about His Personal Majesty and Power, about His Will and Purpose which are, always were and always will be in harmony with the Will and Purpose of God the Father. And alongside all this, He is meek and lowly in heart (Mt. 11:29) and this Majestic Personality of the King of Universe lives in our spirit!... and we hardly know Him! This Majestic King of the Universe gave us His Life; and now, when He wants us to give Him our life, we hesita­te or even refuse! THIS IS OUR TRAGEDY! And because we hardly know Him, we hardly know our own selves! We know our soul only to the degree to which we are self-conscious and thus we also know to the same degree our character. But we do not know WHY we are as we are, why we believe as we believe, why we act as we act, what powers govern our soul and direct it, what powers formed our character, our nature, our habits and all what we have “in our blood”. Why do we not know it? Because we are deceived! In fact, we can never know ourselves in truth until the Lord gives us His Light in which we would be able to see ourselves. Here we are coming to another Part of the Earthly and Heaven­ly Spiritual Facts.

 

Part 7 – Beginning of Salvation – spiritual sight

Our first step in our Salvation is to be willing to see what God wants to show us.

One may be a pastor, preacher, prophet or other servant of God and yet be totally spirit­ual­ly blind! How do we know it? The Lord shows it to us clearly in His Word (Is. 6:1-5), where the Lord deals with man, not with a prophet. Isaiah was one of the major prophets in the Old Testament and yet did not see himself until he saw the Lord. Until we see the Lord with our spiritual sight, we will not see ourselves either. We will not see that our lips are unclean, that they are covered with iniquity and sin and need to be cleansed. That’s why the words also which are coming out of them (which were not given to the prophet  by the Holy Spirit) are dirty with iniquity, unrighteousness and sin. And the people, who hear those words are just as blind and deaf and understand nothing and are unclean, they are, so to speak, – lepers (Is. 6:9).

The Lord is here speaking not only about the Old Testament prophet and about Israel, but also about His New Testament servants and about the Church. And secondly, the Lord here reminds Isaiah about the King Uzziah, which started well, served the Lord and pro­spered. But after time, he left the way of obedience and started on the way of pride and of self-satisfaction and became a leper (2Chr. 26:1-5,16-21). The Lord also showed that the sons of Israel, which condemned Uzziah and judged him for his sins and pride and disobe­dience, were not better themselves, than their King. From this Light of the Lord we can see that the very same facts and principles apply also in the spiritual world of the New Testament. Hence, it is not only the world and the rulers of this world, but the Church and the governing functionaries in the Church as well, which are “lepers” before the Lord and they do not see it though they are clean, reputable and well respected. And this applies also to all believers and definitely to all pagans, which is to say, to all mankind.

Without the spiritual sight and ability to discern and comprehend, man cannot even start his way of Salvation. God does not desire blind sons and daughters, nor deaf ones, nor without understanding, nor yet sons and daughters as lepers. God desires people, which will bring satisfaction to His Heart. All such are called the “Remnant – Overcomers – Con­que­­rors” and those are very few. Is this not a terrible revelation? And this is not all, as there are many believers, which do NOT WANT to have the spiritual sight, they lust after the evidence of facts, which are tangible. Even the Kingdom of Heaven they desire to assess by their senses of physical sight, hearing, touch, taste even smell. And when that does not work, they are brought into a crisis. Wherever there are tangible things and proofs, there will always be multitudes of people. The devil is also capable to gather multi­tudes by imitating the work of the Holy Spirit in the realm of visible “proofs” (miraculous healings, falling of people under laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, uncontrollable laughter, unfounded testimonies of naïve people, emotional effusions, etc.) People are so naïve, receptive and accessible to fables, inclined to believe “men of God” (today even “women of God”) that they pack the whole stadiums and support their “grandiose plans” with bundles of monies though they have not the slightest clue or proof, where those finances will end up. Is this not a great tragedy of believers?

And what did that leprosy represent? Man blessed by the Lord, walking in the Light of the Lord, knowing the favor of the Lord… and in his heart that deeply rooted thing ready to stand up and turn those Lord’s blessings to its own account, to make for itself a name, gain a position, chance to elevate, dignify itself, gain power, glory, influence, repu­tation. This is leprosy! What is then the thing, which is an abomination to God? It is that self­ish­ness, egoism and leprosy, which are in all of us. The Lord blesses… and in the secret cham­ber of our heart we become “a personality” because the Lord blessed something. We do not see that His blessing came to us through His Grace and Mercy, but we start both to think and to believe secretly that something must be in us, which explains it, which de­serves it. It must be our ability, cleverness, wisdom or skill and we start to speak and tes­ti­fy about our successes. There is that germ, that embryo, that virus of leprosy, of power, of self-sufficiency, of asserting ourselves. Leprosy is the root of our self, of our ego, of our selfishness and stubbornness, which hardens our soul instead of making it softer. Here also rests the danger of blessings and prosperity. It is thus necessary for us to be cruci­fied in the very center of our blessings and thus avoid the danger of the spiritual leprosy. In order for us to ever achieve this, we must see the Lord and His Holiness. In the light of His Holiness we will be able to see clearly also the leprosy where we would never expect it – in ourselves and in others around us including the multitudes of Christians, of course.

What was the main reason for such a revelation and the need for such experience through which Isaiah had to go? The Lord was not surprised by Isaiah’s answer and His Word for Israel He had prepared. God knows the heart of man and He knew very well that Israel, His people, did not want to see the reality! They had their own visions and ideas and they were not prepared or willing at all to see what God wanted to show them. And by the way, the Church is not better in any way! Therefore, God pronounced His Judgment over His people and it was a terrible Judgment since He took away from them the ability to see and hear and understand! Is it not a terrible Judgment? (Is. 6:10) If the people of Israel and of today’s Church would want to see reality, they would behave dif­fer­ently, they would take completely different attitudes. They would be free of the powers of prejudices, of all suspicions, all criticism, all logical conclusions and they would start to seek truth indeed. They would be free to ask questions, examine the Scripture, search, ob­serve, seek, inquire, consult and not be as corpses taken out of coffins. They would stop arguing and stubbornly defending their prejudices and persuasions, chiefly those that never had any foundation, justification or substantiation. In other words, they would start showing clear signs of hunger and desire after truth and would have no fears to carefully investigate even details of specific problems. They would be willing to receive truth even if it would differ from their present personal persuasions, personal understandings, personal comprehension especially should these prove contradictory to the Word of God.

Our judgment is always determined by our heart. If it continues in not wanting, after time it loses the capacity for wanting. If it does not want to see, after time it loses the capacity for seeing. If it does not want to hear, after time it loses the capacity for hearing. When we continue sowing the seed of unwillingness, we will reap the harvest of inability (Lk. 13:24). One of the important effects in ministering the revelations of God is to uncover the actual tendencies (willingness/unwillingness) of people towards their own judgments. Many time it may come to light that such ministry causes some believers to harden rather than get softer. The simplest way of seeing may be confirmed or witnessed on the basis of the fact that the character of man shows itself only in problems. If, therefore, you would like to know someone in a deeper way, what is in him, prepare problems for him and you’ll see what in normal situation you would never see. In this Part 7, we, however, talk about spiritual sight, which gives us incomparably wider, higher and deeper fields of vision and perception where man can perceive the spirit of another man even without the need to discuss or argue about anything, or to solve problems.

But the price for seeing and for revelations is very great. The purpose of the ministry of revelations is to show, bring to the surface what God sees in the hearts of men and that is many times not received in a good spirit or it may never be received. Sometimes the whole multitudes of Christians make it clear to me that what I am giving to them, they do not want either now or in the future and have no intention to even talk about it. It is very simple for them to be deceived and seduced from the way of understanding and faith by every little thing or foolishness. God’s servant has no choice since he has no power or authority to change man, or his character, or his faith, or his persuasions and desires, in fact, not even his destiny. I personally do not mind, because the Lord, Who called me to this ministry, knows all about it – and He has not changed my ministry in any way.

The ability to see is the birth right of every child of God. Let us not think that we have to live our Christian life long years, receive a mountain of teachings and reach a certain point or position in our spiritual evolution in order to start seeing. No. This spiritual sight is part of the birth of our New Man. The Lord answered Nicodemus: „Unless a man is born again, he cannot see...” (Jn. 3:3). He, in fact, told him: „When you are born again, you will see” and that immediately. Apostle Paul was sent to the Gentiles to “open their spirit­ual eyes” (Acts 26:16-18). Their physical eyes were open and saw, but the spiritual ones were closed. He was to open their spiritual eyes immediately after their redemption, not after 20 years. We all have had this spiritual sight since our redemption, except that we did not use it and nobody was leading us to it! The Life in the Holy Spirit is the Life of a con­tinual enlarging, improving and sharpening of our spiritual sight and our vision. When even after years we do not see in spirit or we only see as a one month old baby, then we have to return where we left the Holy Spirit and went our own way!

We must also begin to SEE and understand that the New Testament is also known as the “Dispensation of Grace”. Dispensation means: (1) Granting of grace to those that believe, receive their Saviour and bring fruit, and (2) Granting of reprieve in the execution of the death penalty and condemnation to all the rest, which is to those, that do not receive grace now nor will they be willing to receive it in the future. The Lord foreknows it; therefore, He will not deal with such any more.

This Dispensation, this New Testament in the Blood of Christ (1Cor. 11:25) begins with an AXE (Mt. 3:10). The Church in Slovakia calls me “brother axe”. In the Scripture, people are compared to trees. Therefore, before Christ died and the New Testament began, John the Baptist clearly declared that the coming Grace will be applicable only for those, that will receive it and bring fruit. The rest will be cut off-damned and thrown to the fire! Since tree represents man then the axe also must represent a man (or a heavenly being) and thus the fact that the church calls me “brother axe” is for me a true privilege since the church does not even realize the truth, which it says about me and my calling with which the Lord called me for His Church. The “first axe” was, in fact, John the Baptist. The Word (Mt. 3:10) applies to every man, mainly to all pagans. Since Christ is the end of the law (Rom. 10:4), whosoever will not receive His Grace, including Christians, will remain under the law and its condemnation because the law does not recognize grace.

When we look at another Word of the Lord (Jn. 15:1,2) we will find out that the “axe” is here also the Heavenly Father, Who is the Husbandman in the vineyard, where the vine is Christ. He is cutting off the branches, which are not bringing any fruit! Here we are not talking about pagans since no pagan could ever be a branch in Christ. In verse 5, the Lord speaks clearly: “He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing.” In verse 6, the Lord adds: “If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” This verse applies only to those Christ­ians that refused to overcome their old man, which are not connected to Christ and thus cannot produce any fruit of the Holy Spirit. This sets a fact that whosoever does not receive the Lord’s Grace and remains either pagan or a carnal believer, cannot produce any fruit of the Spirit. The Christians whose hearts do not have a meek spirit within are equally unable to receive Grace from anyone; for such hearts grace is a degrading matter. A humble, meek spirit is the opposite of pride, so that proud Christians cannot produce any fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22,23). However, our Salvation, our merit to be considered worthy to enter the Kingdom and the New Jerusalem, our destiny and Life Eternal depend on our FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD, which is also represented by the oil in the vessels (souls) of the virgins (Mt. 25:3-10).

If we in truth desire to step into our Salvation process, it is necessary to truthfully ask the Lord to forgive us our foolishness and self-love and earthliness and carnality right from the time of our Redemption and to enable us to start seeing in spirit. So that we would see Him and in His Light also ourselves, and not only how miserable we may be today, but how majestic we will be after our perfection. So we would want to see what work the Lord has to do in us and how we ought to cooperate with Him on our Salvation (Phil. 2:12) to become acceptable to Our Father in Heaven. So we would also want to see and indeed WILL SEE and UNDERSTAND that Christ had not paid for our Redemption with gold and silver, but with His Life (1Pet. 1:18,19). Jesus Christ INVESTED HIS LIFE INTO US and we, that truly received Him, are now to invest our life into Him – into His Body.

 

Part 8 – Continuation of Salvation – heart

 

Our second step into our Salvation is to start opening our heart to the Lord.

Our heart is the most important organ in our SOUL where our Redemption begins and our Salvation ends. The most important organ in our BODY is, however, our tongue! Because what our tongue speaks brings to us salvation or damnation, justification or condemnation and life or death! (Rom. 10:10/ Mt. 12:37/ Pr. 18:21) While man looks at the external appear­ance and judges thereby, the Lord looks at the heart and judges according to it (1Sam. 16:7). The Lord counsels us to keep our heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life (Pr. 4:23). The Lord also describes our heart saying: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). This dia­gnosis is valid also at our Redemption. Despite this tragic evaluation, the next important fact about our heart is that only the heart can receive faith from the Lord and that from our conscience, which is the organ of our SPIRIT (see Truth about Salvation, diagrams). Only the heart can understand that faith, can keep it in our soul and compel our will to de­cide to do that faith. Based on the above facts, it may be easy to imagine that the greatest spiritual fights are taking place precisely in the heart. Finally, even the renewal of the spirit of our mind (Eph. 4:23) and the work of the Spirit of God in our will (Phil. 2:13) could not be successfully performed without the heart. Thus, the faith in the heart is needful for the working out of our salvation in our entire soul... with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12b).

We can thus say that the heart stands in the foreground of the Salvation of man and with­out it, and without our tongue, man cannot be saved and that despite the unfavorable dia­gnosis in Jeremiah 17:9. Though this Word of God is truthful and applies to the heart of every man, this fact is not the most important. The most important fact is whether that heart is open to the Lord or closed. Closed heart is a doomed heart because the Lord has no access into it (Rev. 3:20), hence, He cannot work in it, give to it new faith, which we absolutely need for our Salvation. After our Redemption and mainly after our baptism, Sa­tan uses every means how to close our heart for the reception of any further faith and for the work of God’s Spirit in it, and how to keep it closed. He knows very well that the Sal­vation of our entire being depends on our heart. In addition, he will try to engage our head into our Christian life, which incessantly gathers in itself mental knowledge and we think that the more we know the more we are saved and the more we are acceptable to the Lord. This, of course, is a lie, a great deception from the devil and almost all the Church fell victim to it. Hence, thanks to this deception, almost all the Church lives its Christianity in the head and not in the heart.

In order to really see the importance of an open heart, let us now consider the question of circumcision. Circumcision had, and has, for Jews an immense significance. It was the sign of their national unity, national existence and of the fact, that they belong into the people of God according to the covenant which God gave to Abraham (Acts 7:8). If anyone did not have this sign on his body, he was completely outside of the Promises and the Covenant of God and he was not allowed to take part even in the feast of Pesach (Easter). Hence, without circumcision, Jewry would not exist. In the Old Testament every­thing existed physically, but at the same time, it had a spiritual meaning in the New Tes­tament. The physical circumcision of a Jew represented the physical baptism of a Christian in water. Both were acts which lasted but a moment. But the physical circumcision of a Jew at the same time represented a spiritual circumcision of the heart of a Christian even though the spiritual circumcision is not an act, which lasts a moment, but it is a process, that lasts our whole earthly life. The spiritual circumcision of a Christian represents the crucifixion of his sinful flesh. Thus the Jew, who was not circumcised physically, had no part on the Promises and the Covenant of God, which means, he did not belong to God. The same with the Christian, who was not circumcised spiritually, crucified in his sinful flesh, does not belong to Christ (Gal. 5:24).

We must be “circumcised” in our heart, our feelings, our emotions, our uncontrollable de­sires, our apprehensions, in our fears, indecisiveness, etc. There are too many Christians, which in their Christian life are totally controlled by their soulish feelings, emotional incli­nations, fears, worries, uncertainty, etc. For them it is bondage and they cannot get out of it, therefore, they suffer under the influence of these soulish powers and are their victims.

We must be circumcised in our mind, our intellect, reasonings, assessments, explaining, arguments, discussions, etc. Difficulties and problems with many Christians are precise­ly in that all Christianity they have in their heads where their stubbornness, mental skillful­ness, intellectual dominance, argumentative temperament and other mental factors dwell as well. Their head stands in the way of their heart to open and receive the Lord’s Light and Truth. Their selfishness has various forms: self-expressing, self-assurance about their knowledge, self-liking, self-captivation, self-regret, self-consciousness, self-satis­­faction, self-love, self-elevation, etc. Without an open heart, even the mind cannot renew itself because, even for this work, faith is necessary and the mind does not understand faith and does not receive it.

When we mentioned Nicodemus, it is necessary to mention that he, in fact, represented certain “fullness” of a man and of his status in the religious category. He had fullness of knowledge, a high governmental status over Jews, authority, he was a very influential person and highly respected among Pharisees. Thus, he did not need anything more except the Kingdom, which according to the Messiah was supposed to come. In my belief, this was also the main reason why Nicodemus came to see the Messiah. And this Messiah tells him: “All this you must abandon and begin anew as a newborn baby! If, therefore, you are worried about the Kingdom then know, that nothing from what you have and who you are can you bring into the Kingdom.” For Nicodemus that must have been a total shock. And it must be for us as well, if we had no knowledge about it thus far. Because we also, every one of us, had to, or must now begin from ZERO! Even in this earthly creation, we all started from zero at our birthday. The Kingdom is not the question of eating and drink­ing, but of righteousness, piece and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). It is the quest­ion of the measure, or the fullness of our spirituality… and we, at our born-again ex­pe­rience were starting with a very small measure of spirituality. Our position, status in the Kingdom depends absolutely on our KNOWLEDGE OF THE LORD, which at our redemp­tion was ZERO. And if our knowledge of the Lord is not increasing THROUGH OUR HEART, then we remain at that ZERO even to the end of our earthly life. Therefore, we must re­peat that a closed heart is a doomed heart.

Finally, we have to be circumcised in our will that stands in the way to many Christians. They are clenched as to a trap and are unable to free themselves. But they are always ready to support their positions by passages from the Scripture, which suit them and defend themselves by the Word of God (which is sin against Christ, Who is the WORD and thus they use Christ to cover and defend their sinfulness and stupidity). They do this to preserve their “image” and that their self-will would prevail. In all their decisions they focus on self-defense and self-preservation and are not interested in the purposes of the Lord. Their ministry is a ministry of death and not of the Life of Christ.

Our will has another important function which can be compared to a sentry at the gate to a castle, which decides what can enter the castle and what cannot. Similarly, what can get out of the castle and what cannot (we can receive truth or we cannot, we can speak truth or we cannot). Our will received from God has such an important position and authority and power that even God will not oppose the decisions of our will, but will accept them. That’s why in the book “Life out of Death” I write that our destiny and the way to it is not determined by God, but by our own will, our own decisions; also by the deeds of our faith, which we received from its Author and Finisher – Jesus (Heb. 12:2) and not by the “faith”, which we ourselves “fabricated” in our head. The Lord requires that we should be free people always ready to receive and rightly react to a new Light from Him. If His Light requires new adjustments, steps, sometimes revolutionary steps, we must be so free in the Lord as to readily receive and do them. Our spiritual progress may be suddenly interrupted, even stopped, we may come to the end behind which there is no continuation if there would exist an issue between the Holy Spirit and us, where He has something against us which is unresolved or we may be unwilling to continue with Him.

From the above facts it should be clear to us that our Salvation is something much more than just forgiveness of our sins and an escape from hell; that the Salvation is the basis of something far greater, monumental, majestic, enormously priceless, in fact, absolutely unimaginable to any man. That’s why to obtain this Salvation is not just a question of our desires and prayers but of something far more important – of our willingness to give for our Salvation everything old what we hold onto and what will have no value in our future life anyway. Though what I write in the above paragraph is truth and it is also very nice, it is almost impossible to practice it mainly at the beginning of our spiritual walk. Our practice and life experiences may be totally opposite espe­cial­ly touching the bolded sen­ten­ce above. Whenever someone tells us “truth to our eyes” and thereby he “accuses us” from some­thing, at least according to our impression, we may be shocked and begin to defend our­selves vehemently! We thus practice our old, mental, carnal and, in the eyes of the Lord, unacceptable approach to the progress of our Salvation and perfection, we walk exactly AGAINST the Word of God (Mt. 16:24). Instead of pausing and starting to see and perceive from what source the whole thing comes forth, is it from God or is it not, what is its purpose… we immediately begin to defend ourselves ignoring our cross that it stands at our side and “smiles at us”.

Not every Christian is the same, many are inclined to accept things, to agree, give con­sent, take a passive attitude even where they disagree inside of their soul, or where it is necessary or desirable to declare, to vindicate truth, to stand on own feet, etc. They try desperately to avoid conflicts, problems, difficulties just to retain peace, to look good and remain in the favor of every believer. Others are engaging with vigor in endless debates, questioning, doubting, arguing and discussing going around things in endless circles ana­ly­zing other human beings and their deeds. They are able to speak without any pause, heckle and interrupt others and not register what others are telling them. As well, they often begin to answer before the others stopped talking. For all such creatures, the Word in Proverbs 29:20 or 26:12 applies. As soon as the devil finds out that he can keep us in this circle, he will support us and rush us around like those horses in a circus so that we would keep running and never get further that the line from which we started. In this case the Lord will not seal our mouth with tape, rather, He will wait when and whether at all we will notice, that our “radio keeps playing”?

If these two above mentioned ways are our “Christianity”, then we can revel in it even 50 years of our Christian life and achieve nothing valuable either for the Lord or for us or yet for anyone else.

The principles and comparisons of the physical and spiritual circumcision in the New Testa­ment can be found in the following passages of the Word of God: Rom. 2:28,29/ Rom. 4:9-11/ 1Cor. 7:19/ Gal. 5:6/ Gal. 6:15/ Col. 2:11,12.

 

Part 9 – Deciding for the Salvation

Our third step into the Salvation is to make a definite decision to give our old life to the Lord, so He could change us to His Image, which is the Will of Our Father.

Giving our old life to the Lord begins by OPENING OUR HEART to Him! The door to our heart is also the door to our soul and our old life exists in our soul. Therefore, if the Lord has no access into our heart, He has no access into our soul and He can do absolutely NOTHING with out old life. We can pray as much as we want, read the Scripture as much as we want, read books or testimonies of other servants of the Lord, we can have the most sincere and honest desires and goals, when our Creator and Saviour is not in our heart, then absolutely NOTHING will take place there – no spiritual change. Our Salvation-Perfection can be expressed in one word – CHANGE. It is a CHANGE of our being from an old-earthly one to a new-heavenly one. Without this change of our being, God will not re­ceive us to Himself as it would not be possible for Him to have with us any fellowship, not now and definitely not for the eternity. Therefore, any believer, who is not willing to be changed according to the Will of God, cannot be saved! The Church of Christ absolutely does not realize this simple, but most important fact! That’s why this basic and absolutely vital Truth was never preached and never will be. This is Satan’s success.

Our Salvation is free – if we receive it into our soul! It is something new, sinless, heaven­ly, that is to enter into our soul and replace there something old, sinful, earthly. It is, as it were, “heavenly furniture”, which is being moved into our soul as the old “earthly furni­tu­re” is being thrown out of our soul. For that new furniture we pay with our old furniture. Therefore, if for any man his old furniture is more valuable than the new one, then the man can never be saved! In many places the Scripture stresses and encourages us with declarations like: Be strong! Be persistent! Be steadfast! Be effective! Continue, do not stop!... and the like. What does it mean? What does it suggest? Why does the Scripture deem it necessary to underline for us such things from its beginning to its end? Because the tendency, inclination, natural trend of all things, including all human beings in this old creation and in this kingdom of Satan, acts exactly in the opposite direction. It wants to turn us back, pull us back, keep us where we are, keep us from progressing and reaching our goals and that by any available means, even by such we never dreamed about or can never imagine or realize.

There are innumerable things, which always try to have upon us this influence and we are almost never conscious of their existence and disastrous activity. There is always some­thing that will attract us and demand our attention and that precisely at the time when we are about to make some spiritual step, when we are to spiritually progress or to achieve spiritual success, whenever we desire to come to the Lord, etc. If we pause and let that thing get our attention and allow that thing to make us busy, then we will stop to continue and remain standing, or maybe we even return back! It is so simple and so natural that we do not even notice it. Every power in this Universe will stand in your way because the powers of darkness and evil operate in the whole Universe (see Part 5). Satan has numer­ous means for disturbing you. Examples?

Satan’s tactics against the Purposes of God is to bring God’s people into indecisiveness, un­cer­tainty, vagueness, then take away their courage and any spontaneous initiation and then keep them in that situation as long as possible by any available means. This way can Satan paralyze even those, which have an honest desire to go with the Lord and in their heart want the best for the Lord, but which to this time have not made that most import­ant decision – give their life to the Lord and begin to move in His direction. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold not hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm (undecided), and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee our of My mouth.” (Rev 3:15-17). If God will spue any believers out of His mouth, you may be sure that they missed God’s Purpose and only God knows where they will end up. To be lukewarm means to be undecided, neither here, nor there, neither to the left, nor to the right, neither forward, nor backward. We have made no definite decisions, not even those, which we know in ourselves we should have done and that our destiny depends on those decisions. We are in the position of paralysis and Satan will keep us there as long as we will allow him because it is not easy to get out of such a position. We have to liter­al­ly “flip out” and say in ourselves “to hell with these things – I go to the Lord even if there were an earthquake! Period. And I will not go away until He shows me His Grace by coming to me. Because it is not His obligation to come to me and listen to me and even answer me – it is His Grace! All my Salvation is His Grace and not His obligation” (Eph. 2:8). God owes us NOTHING, He only gave us precious promises, for example, when we draw nigh to Him, He will draw nigh to us (Jam. 4:8), which also means, that the initiative should be on our side and not on His! He does not need Salvation, we need it!

A brief but important conclusion to this Part can be found in Israel of the Old Testament after their deliverance from Egypt. Because of their unbelief, indecisiveness, uncer­tain­­ty and lukewarmness, all from Israel older than 20 years were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years until they dropped dead to the ground. After their escape from Egypt (from power of Satan), they could have entered the Promised Land in about 9-11 days, but they never entered in. We have also escaped from the power of Satan and are walking in the spiritual wilderness of this world, some of us few years, some others 20-30-40 years. Shall we also enter our Promised Land – the Kingdom of Heaven – or shall we also drop dead in this wilderness and will never enter the Kingdom? This does not depend on the Lord, this explicitly depends on us! If we do not believe the Light, which the Lord is giving us, or even if we believe but then we are indecisive what to do with the Light, if we will not make any definite decisions in our heart, then we will be as Israel, which was also lukewarm. The 40 years’ history of their journey in the wilderness was a life of unbelief, indecisiveness, uncertainty, unstableness, perpetual murmuring, complaining, dissatis­fac­tion and perpetual variableness. The Christian, who cannot discern his spirit from his soul and thus his situation on this field is like unto Israel in the wilderness.

This indecisiveness can be compared to a man who ate some poison and is hospitalized. Doctor prescribed him a medicine and the nurse brought it in a small glass bottle, put it on his bedside table and gave him instructions how to use it. The man does not have to take the bottle and throw it to the ground in order that he may die. He will die even when he will ignore the bottle! And it will be just a question of a short time. If, therefore, we remain where we are and ignore what alone can help us, we will end up in a cemetery! And it will also be just a question of a short time.

Why does the Lord leave His people on a physical or spiritual wilderness after He takes it from the power of Satan? Because wilderness is a perfect place for sifting His people and also for the growing and strengthening of the spirit of those believers, which take God and His Word seriously. Also, for learning to discern their spirit from soul and for walking in the spirit and not only in the soul. Here, our soul suffers, is afflicted, not satisfied because in wilderness it has nothing to do, it does not feel appreciated or even considered useful by others. In wilderness, there is nothing to do, you cannot plow, sow, reap or build houses, we only sit under a piece of canvas, which is called tent, and we are discovering that everything around is uncertain, vague, hopeless, harsh and nothing could be planned or have hope for a better tomorrow and where death is always nearby. It is thus a realm where we can discover rather quickly whether we live in our soul or in the Spirit of God. The only opportunity, which we have in wilderness as an alternative to a premature death is to stand up and go, and go, and go and continue in going – by faith and hope – until we arrive at “the river Jordan”. Israel perished in wilderness because it refused to walk in faith and hope. Israel was not only in wilderness, but wilderness was in Israel! Do we as Christians also have wilderness in ourselves? As long as we will have it in ourselves or keep it there, we will be approaching our grave and not the Kingdom of Heaven. Do we see this? Really? From these pages it might appear that our greatest enemy may be our laziness! We may not even care whether we will live until tomorrow morning or not. After all, a slothful man is someone who is lazy even to eat; he rather keeps his hand in his bosom, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again (Pr. 19:24).

Our dreams, desires, imaginations, even our prayers alone will not bring us into the King­dom of Heaven. For that we need a spiritual strength, perseverance, steadfastness, invin­ci­bility, stability, fearlessness, faith in the Lord, which is spiritual and not mental, which means, it has power and strength we can stand on in any circumstances. Nowhere has the Lord said that he, who will be doing a lot of religious works, will be saved, but He says: “And ye shall be hated of all men for My Name’s sake; but he that endures to the end shall be saved” (Mt. 10:22)! The Lord puts a tremendous importance upon the quest­ions of perseverance, steadfastness, stability and strength of the spirit; and we get such a spirit in “wilderness”. Of course, here we talk about spiritual wilderness, which we can have also at home, in office, at worksite, also in our own self or anywhere else.

If after years of walking, there is yet no CHANGE in the character of Christians, nor is in them an increased measure of the Life of Christ, of His Character and Personality, then such ones are walking in their wilderness in circles and they will never get to the Promis­ed Land. No work of the Spirit of God is seen in them and if, once in a blue moon, a sign of life appears in them, it is like unto a canary bird that would fly into their wilderness, would make a peep and fly away. If we do not change in our wilderness, we will never change. What is very important is the fact that we will not be in this wilderness for ever, but only until the Lord will call us out (S.Sol. 3:6+8:5) because we have found Him (S.Sol. 3:6+8:5) and He achieved in us His Purpose. And this length of time is for each of us different. Be­cause that wilderness will be around us or in us only until it is exchanged for the Kingdom of Heaven, which we are seeking, and also finding (Mt. 6:33).

Just as Israel was to walk across the wilderness in the way, which God outlined and which was leading into the Promised Land, so we ought to walk across our wilderness in the way that was also outlined by God and which leads into the Kingdom of Heaven. Apostle Paul compares this way to a running track. During running, no runner looks at the tribune, how are the people dressed, whether they are looking at him or waving or smiling. Every true runner looks at the track ahead of him and on the finish line – which in our case is Christ, because HE IS our objective, goal, destination – in Him we are to finish our run since in Him we are new creations (Heb. 12:1,2/ 2Cor. 5:17). For Israel, there was no other way into the Promised Land and their last step was to cross the river Jordan, which represents the death of our natural man. The Ark of the Covenant rested on the bottom of river Jordan to­gether with the priests, which were holding it on their shoulders (Jos. 3:17). For the Church, there is no other way to the Kingdom either, and the last step is to cross spiritual Jordan, which also represents the death of our natural, old, sinful man. He, in fact, died al­ready with Christ when the “Ark of the Covenant” – Christ – was on the bottom of hell and death after His Crucifixion.

 

Before our entry into the Kingdom, we all, which will inherit it, shall be changed. What is corrupted and mortal will be made incorruptible and immortal (1Cor. 15:50-54). Here we speak about the BODY, not about the soul or spirit, which are already immortal. Verses 51-54 are applicable first of all to the Bride since She enters the Kingdom of God as the first at the Coming of the Bridegroom-Christ to the marriage supper of the Lamb. This will take place anytime BEFORE the seven years‘ Tribulation Period. At the Coming of Christ, His Bride shall receive a NEW IMMORTAL BODY, as also He, the Bridegroom, received at His Resurrection.

 

All those raptured at the last (seventh) trump, it means, before the end of the Great Tri­bu­lation and before the pouring out of the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth (Rev. 16:1-21), will also enter the same Kingdom of God. There will also be those which survive the seven years of the Great Tribulation or they will be born in the Kingdom. This King­dom will not be a “heaven on earth”, but a government, rule of righteousness and truth and of an iron rod upon all (natural) inhabitants of the Kingdom. After 1,000 years, the people living in the Presence of Christ the King Personally, will again be deceived and will follow Satan and not Christ!, so that they could fight against the saints in Jerusalem (Rev. 20:7-10). This is an unbelievable and a totally unimaginable fact, which shows an absolute depravity of the natural human character and an absolute impossibility to correct it and to clean it from evil.

 

We started this Part with the title: Our third step into the Salvation is to make a definite decision to give our old life to the Lord, so that He could change us into His Image, which is the Will of Our Father in Heaven. This title is very nice and brief and this step seems to be rather simple. However, I am sure that even after reading the Part 9 to this very line, we do not necessarily know how to give our life to Christ and we still may not be “ready to move”! Our natural tendency is to open to Him our heart a little bit when He desires to bless us, but not to allow Him to do in it anything! This is the truth whether you believe it or not. There are two reasons for it and they are pretty simple. Firstly, even in our most honest intention to give our life to the Lord, there stands in our way our head with pride, foolish thoughts, imaginations, doubts, stubbornness, fears, selfishness, etc. Secondly, even in our earthly existence, we give our life and the whole future only to the person, whom we truly love. In general, it is known as “marriage” and it is usually sealed only on the basis of something, which is generally known as “love”, which again is something that nobody understands anyway. Therefore, if our love for the Lord is smaller than a “mustard seed”, then we will never truthfully give Him our life because it is impossible! Period. This is as if a woman should give her all life to a man, whom she never saw, never touched, knows him only from reading his book and whom she actually does not love as she should or would like to. She might have the same feelings before her wedding as some of you here may have right now.

We do not see marriage as Our Creator does. The first fact is that without love mar­riage does not exist! The second fact is that the true intention of our earthly marriage is to re­present our Heavenly Marriage with the Lord! The third fact is that we probably do not even remember what we promised to each other in front of the altar or at the City Hall. The fourth fact is that love is a dream, and marriage is alarm-clock. The fifth fact is that marriage is a union of two persons, which are “giving” themselves to one another until they will die; yet, none of them had realized, was aware, conscious or had any clue about it. Neither were we conscious or aware of the fact that right after signing the documents in the church or at the City Hall, we stepped out into an absolutely unknown future – two ab­solutely unmergeable, incompatible beings! What had merged these unmergeable be­ings and what was keeping them together? The power of their first love… and when that one started to diminish or “cool off” it was the power of the Holy Spirit, because God esta­blish­ed marriage and NOT man. Hence, God was accompanying us and strengthening us where our human weaknesses and love were failing.

 

The sixth fact is that to give our life to the Lord is for us EXACTLY THE SAME THING! We also are giving our lives to one another until we shall live, which is, for ever! The seventh fact is that the earthly husband and wife are not becoming one spirit, but one body (Eph. 5:25-33) while the Heavenly Husband and Wife are not becoming one body (they already are one Body today), but they become ONE SPIRIT so They both may live ONE LIFE! The eight’s fact is that as the believer is giving his life to Christ, so Christ is giving His Life to the believer. This is the Principle of the Heavenly Marriage. The Lord Christ Jesus had esta­blish­ed a “marriage covenant” already with Israel. It is called “The Old Testament”, which Israel, through their unfaithfulness, annulled, ignored, though Christ was their true Husband! (Jer. 31:31­-­33) The New Testament is the New Marriage Covenant between Christ and the Church. The New Testament is founded on the Blood of the Husband (Mt. 26:28/ Mk. 14:24/ Lk. 22:20/ 1Cor. 11:25). And the New Marriage Covenant is founded on the Love of the Husband (Eph. 5:25). Maybe, this is why the Lord asks the unusual quest­ion whether He will find faith, which means, faithfulness in His Church when He comes to the earth? (Lk. 18:8b) Because with Israel He had bad experiences! Unfor­tu­nately, He will find faith-faithfulness only in the Remnant, not in the whole Church.

 

Just as the husband is the head of the wife, so is Christ the Head of the Church-Wife and He is also Her Saviour (Eph. 5:23). And as the Church is subjected to Christ with Her life, so should wives be also subjected to their husbands in all things, which means, with their lives (Eph. 5:24). And husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved His Wife-Church and gave Himself for Her (Eph. 5:25,33). I must underline here that if any husband does not belong to verse 25, nor 33a, then his wife does not belong to verse 24b! Because should the wife abandon unconditionally all her life and give it to her husband, live one life with him and for him and be subjected to him, then the husband must be WORTHY of that unconditional abandonment, submission, faith and trust of his wife. If Christ would not love us as He does, then He could not expect or demand from us our absolute aban­don­ment and submission to Him or our absolute trust for eternity.

 

The Lord knocks on our heart, if we hear His voice and open, He will come to us and will sup with us, and we with Him (Rev. 3:20). What does it mean “to sup with Him”? It means two things:  a) We will be able to “eat” His Word, which represents His Body (Jn. 1:1,14), which represents bread (Mt. 26:26), and “drink“ His Spirit, which represents His Blood (Mt. 26:26). The Body and the Blood are here, of course, symbolic (Jn. 6:51-56). After His Re­sur­rec­tion, Christ had a glorified body and had no blood (Lk. 24:39). Why? Because He poured His soul unto death (Is. 53:12) and the life of the soul is in the blood (Lev. 17:14). Thus He poured His Blood unto the death, which means, He separated Himself from His Blood, which was soaked with the sins and iniquities of the whole world (when He drank the cup – Lk. 22:42).But when we “eat” His Word-Body and “drink” His Spirit-Blood, then we are uniting ourselves with Him because we are becoming what we eat and drink! “The Lord’s Supper” symbolizes this physically where we break bread-Body and drink wine-Blood. “Supper” is always the last meal of our earthly day; hence, even here the “supper” means the last meal of our earthly life, which we will ever need for our Life eter­nal! Other meals we will not need any more.         

                    b) “Supper” has a great importance also in that there is a great dif­fer­ence in hearing the Word and eating the Word! The same great difference is in hearing the Spirit and drinking the Spirit! Even the most delicious and good food and drink are to no use, if we only view them, smell them or touch them with our fingers, but we never eat them or drink them. Besides, we cannot digest or assimilate them outside of our body. Christ IN MY HEART enables me to digest, assimilate what I eat and drink from Him into my whole soul, into heart, mind and will. Christ, Who has no access to my heart cannot enable me this digestion or assimilation! Therefore, if I “eat and drink Christ”, I assimilate Him into my soul, and then I will think as Christ, express myself as Christ, behave as Christ, live and decide as Christ, it will only be the question of time. If you then have not started to think, express yourself, behave, live and decide as Christ then He cannot be in your heart!

Our heart will thus be recreated and enabled to do His Word, which says: “Thou shalt love The Lord Thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself” (Lk. 10:27b). These are the most important Commandments in the whole Bible and the whole Law and the Prophets hang on them (Mt. 22:40). Though we are yet unable to do this Word as it is re­quired or as we would wish in our own souls, but already today we can give our life to Christ, such as we are! We do not have to worry, how we are going to love God with all our being. His Life assimilated into our soul will enable our heart to love God naturally and spontaneously without our speculations on how to do it. I believe Christ will receive your life as it is irrespective of the level of your present love, faith, fruits, wisdom or abi­li­ties! The proof of my faith is His Word, where one father brought his devil possessed son be­fore Jesus, Who told the father: “...all things are possible to him that believeth.” Then the father cried out with tears in his eyes: “Lord I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” (Mk. 9:17-24). The father of that young son admitted that he was not sure about his faith and begged the Lord to help him in his unbelief. The Lord accepted his cry and helped him! Do the same, you that are not sure about your love for Christ and ask the Lord to help you in your unlove. He will receive your life such as it is and will help you in your unlove. This is very important! We must realize here that our whole future life depends on this, because...

AFTER OUR REDEMPTION, THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP FOR OUR SALVATION AND LIFE ETERNAL! Because, if we will not give our old life to the Lord, will not open the door to our heart, we cannot be saved! If you are not prepared to do this step then I must ask you one simple, but vitally important question: What alternative do you have for your future? Because this step must be one day (or one night) taken by every Christian, who desires that his name would not be blotted out of the Book of Life! (Rev. 3:5). Pagans will not be damned because they were “bad people”, but because the Lord could not change anyone of them to His Image, because they never believed in Him and never opened their hearts to Him. And without this change they cannot possibly get the Life eternal, be saved and enter into the kingdom of Heaven. And this applies also to the carnal Christians, which do not open their heart to Him and do not love Him either. Regarding loving the Lord, He inspired Apostle Paul to write a very serious Word saying: “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha (damned, accursed, doomed at His Coming)” (1Cor. 16:22). Is this serious? Really? Who will care for this? Very, very, very few!

Hence, the same two alternatives, two ways, two offers stand before us, which God had already given to Israel saying: “See, I have set before thee this day LIFE AND GOOD, and DEATH AND EVIL” (Deut. 30:15,19). But even here the Lord gives us a pre­cious promise so that we could love Him and do the right choice for our life. The Lord God says: “And the Lord Thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord Thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live” (Deut. 30:6).

These facts of the Scripture were never preached nor will they ever be preached, taught, explained. Why? Because Satan knows that when we believed and are baptized, he has not lost us yet! But when we gave our life to Christ and His Life begins to pour into our being and rule our soul, Satan’s chances are ZERO and time works for us and against him! And this is the last thing what Satan wants Christians to learn and know.

We do praise You, Our Creator and Saviour and coming Bridegroom and the King of kings, because we have learned and now know this wondrous news from You.

We are, therefore, opening our heart that it might sincerely confess to You that we truthfully give to You our life and we believe that You will receive our life as it is today. That You might enter into our heart and open to us Your Heart so that we might also enter into Your Heart. And all that agree with this prayer and are giving their life to Christ will say: AMEN. (all present said Amen  + + + +)

 

Part 10 – Life, Death and Salvation

 

We shall start seeing and understanding the question of Life, Death and Salvation only when we start seeing and understanding the fact, that the Salvation is a transition of man from the physical world into the spiritual world, from the physical existence into the spirit­ual existence and that of every man, believer or pagan. The whole Salvation is spiritual, the whole Life is spiritual, the whole Death is spiritual. Our being does not have to feel in its soul or have any sensation whether it is in the process of Salvation or not, whether it spiritually lives or is spiritually dead, it does not even have to understand what is happen­ing to it. This can only be felt or sensed by our spirit. Hence, if we do not sense our spirit in any way, then we do not sense our Salvation either, nor anything what the Spirit of the Lord might be doing, how is He guiding us. Then our spiritual growth and thus progress in our Salvation may only be judged by us by our fruit visible to our soul.

 

In order for us to begin to spiritually sense, see and understand this basic question of our existence, we must begin from Adam and Eve. Furthermore, we must see clearly and under­stand the fact, that death is separation and not the end of existence! Hence, I can live in my body and soul and have my life full of joy, happiness, riches and prosperity, and at the same time be spiritually dead (1Tim. 5:5,6), which means, be separated from God, Who is our Life. Just the same, I can have my life in body and soul full of problems, hard­ships, suffering, pain even live in poverty and be spiritually alive, because I live the Life from God through the Spirit of God (to whatever degree)! Hence, the form, situation or the conditions of my earthly life may not indicate whether I am spiritually living or dead. My physical state, however, may be an indicator of my spiritual state! Though my spirit and my body are from two totally different worlds and thus they have nothing in common with one another, yet, the Lord may use my body for the Salvation of my spirit and soul. For many believers with a hard, proud, selfish, stubborn or naïve soul, the Lord must re­peatedly use either an ambulance, a scalpel or loneliness, wilderness and pain, hopeless situ­a­tions, etc., because such a soul cannot be corrected by words (Pr. 29:19 + 30:12).

 

The Lord is primarily interested in the state of our spirit, not in the state of our physical body because He will have a fellowship with our spirit and never with our physical body, which we will lose anyway and will receive a new, spiritual body. That’s why He uses our physical body to cleanse and change our spirit to His Image. The Lord knows well that the state of our spirit has a definitive influence upon our body. Therefore, the Lord never heal­ed physical body alone without touching our spirit. When they brought before Jesus the man sick of the palsy and lying on his bed, He did not tell him that He will heal his body, but first He told him: “Son, be of good cheer, THY SINS be forgiven thee.” Only then He told him: “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house” (Mt. 9:2-7). So, his physical state was governed by his sins, which means, by the state of his spirit. His body reacted to his spirit. “Paralyzed spirit” causes “paralyzed body“. A similar case hap­pened with the man, who was paralyzed for 38 years. His case is described in John 5:5-14 and we will say more about it later. The Lord Jesus is warning him not to sin lest some­thing worse should happen to him (Jn. 5:14). If sick or disabled persons would focus before the Lord on their spirit and asked Him to heal their spirit, their physical healing would, according to my faith, come much faster.

 

When Adam in the Garden of Eden believed Satan and disobeyed the Commandment of God, he sinned and in that moment he was separated from God – he spiritually died – lost the Life of God though he kept living in his body and soul; his created, natural, human life remained with him! Every man, starting from Adam, was separated from God and in his created nature remains separated and thus remains in spiritual death. Spiritual separation – death – is the result of sin. Therefore, life and death are always related to our human spirit. Our spiritual death is the separation of our human spirit from God. Our physical death is the separation of our human body from this physical creation and that as a consequence of the separation of our soul from our body. Our soulish death is the sepa­ra­tion of our soul from God. In case of pagans, it is due to the death of their spirit; in case of carnal believers, the Life of God has no access to their soul because they do not want God in their heart. God upholds human soul in its natural life in every man (Ps. 66: 8,9a). However, when human soul already lives the Life of God, it is a different case; such soul is already saved and cannot die anymore. When the soul is not saved as yet (in carnal believers), it is yet able to bring us back into the loss of redemption and death by committing the sin unto death (Mt. 12:31,32/ 1Jn. 5:16), or by a continual refusal to over­come their flesh (Rev. 3:5).

 

The majority of Christians is almost never aware of their spiritual life, spiritual death or of their salvation. It is chiefly the case of carnal believers, where their flesh prevents them from such awareness though Christ lives in their spirit by His Spirit. They are not aware of the spirit in any form and thus they have no attitude to any spirit. Such cannot even wor­ship God since "God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:24) God does not receive any other worship. When we pray in other tongues, our human spirit prays and our soul may not understand any of it. But we may pray in our spirit and understand it as well (1Cor. 14:14,15). And just as the first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam, which is Christ, was made a quickening spirit (1Cor. 15:45)… a life giving spirit.

 

When the first Adam was separated from God, he died spiritually. He neither perceived nor has he understood this spiritual separation, spiritual death. Furthermore, all of the astonish­ing abilities and powers of his human soul, which God put into his soul at his creation, were after his separation from God also separated from Adam’s perception and utilization. They became latent, hidden and no man was allowed to use these powers and abilities in his earthly life. Human soul also “died” and lost its obedience to God, its Crea­tor and therefore it lost also the right to these astonishing, almost supernatural, powers and abilities, which could only be used by the soul obedient to God. After our salvation, our soul will be able to do the same supernatural deeds through Christ (Phil. 4:13) and will never need those soulish powers and abilities, which became corrupted and sinful in Adam and therefore, forbidden to him by God.

What is the significance of the above paragraph for us? Enormous! It contains two compo­nents and we will explain them in the Light of the Lord separately as follows.

(a) The first fact is that Adam had no conscience of this spiritual death – spiritual separation from God. Equally, no man has such conscience, pagan or believer. However, this doesn‘t mean that it will remain so for every man. Pagans will gain this conscience after their physical death; to the believers it may happen that this conscience may “wake up” for a short time and its horrors will rest upon such soul. What does it mean? This un-conscience or “sleep” of the conscience towards this spiritual death is a marvelous Grace of God. Why? Because SPIRITUAL DEATH IS HELL! If you do want to see, expe­ri­ence or under­stand hell and the spiritual death in their depth and reality, it only needs that you “wake up” to it!... open to it your conscience.

Hell already has a permanent existence in every pagan, in his state, character, position, but he has no conscience of it while he lives on this earth. It is enough for such a man to “wake up” from this state OUTSIDE OF CHRIST to find out what HELL AND DEATH actually are in their reality! This happens to the man after his physical death, if not sooner.

When the Lord Jesus Christ hanged upon His Cross, He died spiritually before He died phy­sically! His crucifixion has NOTHING to do with His spiritual death! His greatest suffer­ing was not the Cross, but the CUP, which He had to drink! That “cup” contained all the spiritual filth, all dung, which mankind committed during its whole existence! And this filth temporarily became the filling of His clean and Holy Vessel exchanging the clean and Holy Life of the Holy Spirit (see Part 2a). No wonder that three times Jesus asked His Father to remove that cup from Him (Lk. 22:42). Hence, when the Lord died, He poured His Soul (His Blood) unto death and with it He poured out also the filling of that cup, all our dung. Jesus fully felt and tasted in His conscience the spiritual death – the separation from His Father – when in a terrific pain and suffering He cried: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mt. 27:46). He experienced the real hell on His Own skin and in His Own Soul in all its horror (2Cor. 5:21/ Lk. 22:42). And for a brief time He was held in the claws of DEATH where the bodily death has, in fact, no consequence, no influence, no effect, no significance or importance. Death is in its essence a spiritual thing and has to do only with man’s spirit. If the Lord does not come on time, we all shall know and expe­rience bodily death, which means, we shall die and be buried. But in that same moment, we will not have to taste the real spiritual death and the hell associated with it. Why? Because the Salvation by the Lord includes in itself also the salvation from this horrible conscience and experience of hell and death.

Conscience is a part of our spirit (see “Truth about Salvation”). During our salvation our filthy spirit is cleansed and we, being in Christ as a new creation, are joined with Christ into one spirit (1Cor. 6:17). We are not joined with Him during His death on the Cross, but after His Resurrection, in His New Life where there is no place either for death or for hell in any form. But those believers, which had not overcome and thus are not in Christ and are not joined with Him into one spirit, they will not escape the experience of that unimaginably horrible spiritual death and hell. Furthermore, these may also be hurt by the second death, which mans, by that spiritual death (Rev. 2:11).

The Lord thus saved us from death, which is something far deeper and horrible than just sin. His Salvation reaches literally to the bottom of hell and death. Hell and death are one and the same. Wake up to the spiritual death, and you are in hell! I believe that even Lazarus, when he died bodily, did not experience the conscience of the spiritual death and hell and he did not experience it even when the Lord raised him from the dead. The Lord said: “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep” (Jn. 11:11). Was there not a danger that when he “wakes up” also in his spirit and thus in his conscience, that he will experience the conscience of the spiritual death and hell? May be it would have happened if someone else had woke him up, but the Lord Jesus woke him up outside of that danger. This also proves to us that when the Lord “wakes us up”, we will have nothing to worry about because this waking up is unto Glory and Life Eternal and Freedom and joy in Heaven and not unto condemnation to damnation and curse. It is to experience Life and Happiness and not death and hell.

          (b) The second fact is that we have and live the life of our soul even if our spirit is dead and separated form God. This life we live as NATURAL people and though it may be wonderful, it is still lived outside of God. And as such, it never crosses from the realm of this world into the realm of the spiritual world; hence, it cannot cross from one kingdom (of Satan) into another kingdom (of God). This natural life of ours thus NEVER CROSSES FROM DEATH INTO LIFE! Why? Because at our Redemption and during our Salvation, we are getting the foundation of a totally different life, the Life Eternal, the Life of God, which we are supposed to start living and which has NOTHING to do with our present life. The old natural life we will loose anyway, and the Lord gives us a clear picture of it in His Word (Mt. 16:25).

This old natural life of ours, however, has in itself those astonish­ing abilities and powers, which were given to the first Adam and which he used and which, after his sin and fall, were forbidden him to use and “hidden” in his conscience. Let us not be surprised then, when Satan tries to get somehow to these powers and supernatural abilities, which he could use for his “spectacular” goals. His main goal is to gain control over these superna­tu­ral powers in human soul and thereby also over the man. And this effort of his is not demonstrated only in Christianity. Babylonians, Arabs, Buddhists, Taoists and Hindus have all tried in their own ways to liberate these powers, which we have, as it were, “inherited” from Adam. It may suffice to mention just some segments of these attempts and ways, for example: hypnotism (started by Mesmer in 1778), clairvoyance, telepathy, psycholo­gi­cal and parapsychological research, black magic, witchcraft, seercraft, power of selfruling (ex. Indian fakirs, people on Pacific island walking barefoot on red-hot stones, etc.) If we could release these “divine powers” in man, we all could become “gods” just as Satan told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:5 – see also “Latent power of the soul” by W. Nee, pages 21-27)

Mainly today, before the end of the world, these supernatural powers of the soul stand against the powers of the Spirit of God. Here is, and shall be, the main battlefield and Satan will use these powers as a substitute for God’s Gospel and Its Power. False christs and false prophets will rise (in fact, they have already risen), people who, despite God’s ban will seek and use these powers of their souls and shall show great signs and wonders by which they shall deceive everyone, who is not elect and guided by the Lord (Mt. 24:24). Satan will try to substitute Christ’s Salvation in His Blood by psychic powers. These are so dangerous and hellish that they will cover all nations and will bring the whole world into chaos. And these powers are especially excited where large crowds gather (here belong also the so called “mega-churches” with numerous congregations).

Important notes:

·        Many preachers are not aware that they may be using their own psychic power to con­vince believers. They may think or even believe that they have a spiritual power, but it may be just their own soulish power to gain people on their side. Many preachers have be­come experts in using psychology to manipulate people. It thus needs to be discerned in meetings whether they be psychic-soulish powers, or spiritual powers. When the work is done by the Holy Spirit, man needs almost nothing to do of himself. When the work is done by a soulish power, man usually uses methods as weeping, shouting, jumping, banging on the pulpit with fist, endless singing of the same choruses, running up & down the stage, talking of many touching stories, using Bible verses for own convictions, etc.

·        It is rather simple, and among the leadership of the churches quite frequent, that even at praying or teaching or preaching they use their psychic powers and not the Holy Spirit. By outer appearance you may be praying for someone, even honestly praying, but in real­ity you may be oppressing, dejecting, afflicting and making weary the person by your psychic soulish power! It may be a prayer of death and not of life and may not prosper anyone (Jn. 6:63). The power of the Holy Spirit is outside of our control, but the psychic po­wers we may control and we may be aware of this. Only the Holy Spirit is the Bearer of the Life Eternal, therefore, whatever is happening without the Holy Spirit, there is always death, fatigue, vexation, gloom, boredom and hopelessness.

·        Satan always fabricates, designs, forges in human soul phenomena and emotions, which are similar to the work of the Holy Spirit. Thereby he may cause man to experience or get impressions of a false repentance, false regeneration, false renewal, false joy and laughter, false love, false gifts of the Holy Spirit and other similar false imitations of expe­riences from the Holy Spirit, but the true fruit of the Spirit he cannot imitate! (Mt. 7:16-20)

·        Towards the end of the world, Satan will use man as his main instrument against God’s plans. The Holy Spirit is God’s miracle-working Instrument. But human natural soul will be Satan’s miracle-working instrument falsifying also the manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

·        The Holy Spirit never speaks against the Scripture, but He retains the right to interpret the Scripture differently from our human interpretations, translations, phrases, express­ions and explanations of the Scripture. He also retains the right to step over and ignore our forms and systems of doctrines, which we created from the Scripture. It is a generally known fact that today almost everything religious and evangelistic is based on the Script­ure, yet, the vast majority of all that is in a terrible conflict and brings to believers chaos and death and not the Life of God.

 

Part 11 – Some facts of spiritual work

 

a) The Spirit of God brought to us and inserted into our spirit the foundation for a new heavenly life, but what works against this new heavenly life, and that in every direction, is our old life and the whole hell. Our old mentality is in a continual conflict with our New mentality. The only way and condition how that New life in our spirit can grow is when death works in the old life and keeps destroying it. How can a believer find out whether this is taking place in him?

The more we come to the Lord with an open heart and have a fellowship with Him, the more we are becoming spiritually sensitive and also experience more agony when we do deeds in the realm of our old life. If we continue arguing as we always argued before, if we react to things as we always reacted before, if we are not able to pause or be quiet, to stop defending our image, stubbornly insist on our convictions, if we heckle others and do not let them even to answer what they are saying to us, etc., then we start, or should start to sense that we are yet in the realm of our old life or we, from time to time, or quite often fall into it. What is our reaction? Either we suppress these unpleasant feelings and a possible agony and try to forget these affairs, or, if we truly take it seriously with the Lord, we will try to “do something”. We will pay more attention in the future, change our attitudes and behavior, or with all our intelligence we will try to see and understand, what the Lord actually wants. Maybe we will even turn to Him with a plea to show us what we should do. And the Lord shows us nothing! In fact, He may leave us in our unpleasant feelings and agony even a longer time because it is precisely that agony, which our spirit and soul experience and literally need! Through it our spirit shall come to a spiritual knowledge and growth, to a spiritual change. That spiritual change will bring the change of our character and it shall bring an automatic change in our behavior, speaking, acting, pausing, not insisting, not persuading, not arguing, not anxious, not frustrated, not angry. The Lord is not achieving this by our simple prayer nor by any one-shot act nor yet by our honest effort to “pay more attention the next time” so we can make our behavior better. He can only achieve it through a process of dying of our old character through agony. Because… WE CANNOT CHANGE OURSELVES even by the most honest prayer or effort.

So, the answer of the Lord is – hold on, don’t lose your hope or faith, trust that I know what I am doing, how I am doing, why I am doing and when I will finish, you do not know it… and I, in fact, cannot explain it to you in mental words. The Lord may also allow that we would keep wallowing in the dung of our old man, that we would at times, or quite often, fall into our old man and become frustrated, disgusted, stand vis-à-vis hopeless­ness, even unbelief and mistrust toward the Lord, Who created us and saved us! We are able to be­come, at least temporarily, like “pagans”, which also do not believe and do not trust God! For each of us it may take a different length of time as well as the degree of agony before we come to ourselves. We “wake up” and begin to see clearly in our spirit, what kind of unbelievers and mistrustful we actually were, even fools towards our Creator and Savior! We then find out that, in fact, it is absolutely, downright and a hundred percent illogical and idiotic for us not to trust, not to believe and not to give ourselves into the hands of HIM, Who created us and saved us from evil and eternal death! True?

b) But after some needful time interval, the unbelief, mistrust, stubbornness, even that agony, afflictions and sorrows, chaos and lack of comprehension disappear without any of our actions or endeavors, and we somehow suddenly and unexpectedly find ourselves in a sphere of peace and rest. We may not be quite sure that we now see more than before. We certainly do not see what we wanted to see and do not understand what we wanted to understand in our head, yet, we are absolutely sure that the stress and agony passed away as we are now able to feel it and perceive it. We begin to perceive without any reasons that now we have something new in us, what was never there before and have more of it, a new understanding, fuller knowledge, not mental, technical knowledge, but a new knowledge and comprehension from the Lord and in our spirit. Our spirit grew up, it is stronger, larger, richer… and we do not know HOW. And we SOMEHOW got to know the Lord Jesus into a greater depth and beauty and holiness and righteousness of His Cha­rac­ter, of His Mind and Heart… and we again do not know HOW!

Not to trust such a Divine Personality anytime in the future is now appearing to us not only as totally absurd and stupid, but absolutely impossible. Is this not a progress and a growth of our New Man and New Life? IT DEFINITELY IS. The personality of our spirit has grown. And we have not come to it by mental explanations or discussions or reading the Bible or even by our prayers that the Lord should liberate us from this agony. We have attained to it precisely by that agony of our unbelief, mistrust and stupidity, which the Lord allowed and designed by His Wisdom and Grace. Our fingers or our head did not play any role in this affair.

 

There are many believers who for many years were toiling as children of God before they finally arrived at some peace and rest, which resides in a simple trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Their previous Christian life was for them a disappointment, a “roller-coaster” and they could not get to peace and satisfaction though they were redeemed for many years. Such believers always had to fight for something, though they might have not known for what, they were always burdened, dissatisfied, stressful, nervous, mistrusting, fearful, sus­picious, unstable in all their flesh. They were not even sure whether their Christian life can be successful, whether their redemption was really true or just a delusion. Their souls could not find peace and satisfaction because they never knew the mystery where the true satisfaction really spring from. The spring of peace and satisfaction resides in our sa­tisfaction with the Lord Jesus Christ, NOT in satisfaction with what we are, what we have achieved, what we have, how we see ourselves, our weaknesses, shortcomings, sinfulness or our “hopelessness”. Self-examination never leads us to a success and satisfaction; on the contrary, it leads us to greater problems.

 

c) Very important feature, attribute of this growth, enlargement and strengthening of our spirit is that we don’t have the awareness about this change when it is happen­ing in us. That spiritual growth and enlargement is coming ever so gently, quietly, imperceptibly that we do not even perceive that we are being transferred, moved, relocated from some­thing old to something totally new, which then becomes for us a “normal spiritual state”. In this new spiritual position or state in us, there is nothing abnormal, questionable or sus­pi­cious. It has come into our spirit ever so softly and gently though a great change has happened, which we could have never done in our life by any means.

Though we may not understand our spiritual growth or see it with our eyes, never­the­less, the Lord desires to give us His Light also in this affair, as follows. The whole growth of our spirit results in a larger spiritual knowledge, discernment and wisdom, in other words, in the growth of our spiritual life. We do not have to understand even what that spiritual knowledge actually is and how we are gaining it. The Holy Spirit will not sit with us in a school-desk and will not begin to “teach us”, nor dictate to us His instructions, nor give us His intellectual explanations, nor compare them with logical conclusions, nor yet will He do anything what is normally being done when we desire to increase our knowledge of some­thing. On the contrary, the Holy Spirit is doing something what we would never imagine as necessary for the increase of our knowledge. He never works along the way of reason­ing and intellectual understanding – never! He always works along the way of revelation into our spirit from where the light gets into our soul, to the heart, which is able to under­stand that revealed light… though our head does not understand it at all. After all, THIS IS that right way of Salvation – by revelations and faith – never by intellect.

 

In these paragraphs I am everywhere touching our spirit, as if I would ignore our soul or consider it bad, unuseful, as if the spiritual man would be the one who “crucified” his soul. To many Christians, the questions of the spirit and soul may not be clear at all. Hence, I remind everyone: There is nothing bad or wrongful for us to have our soul, after all, with­out our soul we would not exist! It is very bad and wrong to try and “crucify the old soul” or to get rid of it in some way. We not only need our soul, but it’s precisely our SOUL, that must be SAVED! I AM MY SOUL! Ultimately, our soul and spirit are eternal – they cannot be destroyed nor crucified. The basis of Salvation is thus not in the destruction of the soul, but HOW TO CLEANSE THE SOUL (mind – heart – will) AND GET IT UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT – THIS IS THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL!

 

Let us return to the spirit. The Holy Spirit is guiding us into living circumstances and expe­rie­nces, and that not only pleasant ones, but chiefly unpleasant ones, problematic, even painful, through which we will start to realize spiritual things and facts (wisdom, righteousness, truth, light, evil, good) in our SPIRIT! Every circumstance, every event, every problem, every conflict has its roots in the spiritual world and NOT in our phy­sical world! In other words, the Holy Spirit will start showing us the spiritual world, which our SOUL does not understand, but OUR SPIRIT DOES UNDERSTAND. It also means that the Holy Spirit does not teach our soul (head, heart, will), but He teaches our spirit, which thereby gains experiences and knowledge in our earthly life. THIS knowledge then makes us a spiritual believer, spiritual person. We are not getting perfected through our head since it has to be perfected itself!

 

A spiritual person is a man, who possesses certain qualities in his human spirit. There lives inside of him a New Person, different person, which lives by the energy and Life of the Spirit and not by the energy and life of the soul. I repeat, our spirit is outside of our physical and soulish senses and understanding! He has knowledge that our soul does not have and even cannot have from the beginning. He understands the spiritual things, he under­stands not only the intellectual, but also the spiritual foundation and meaning of the Script­ure, because now he is through his new spiritual knowledge joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he, that is joined to the Lord is ONE SPIRIT (1Cor. 6:17). The Lord Himself has the same spiritual knowledge and thus we know one another and understand one another.  Only then I can truly love Christ because I cannot love somebody, whom I do not know. Thus, I can also love the believers in whom I can touch and have fellowship with the Holy Spirit. With others, I can only have a social contact.

 

d) The value of our ministry to the Lord, if we have or do any ministry, is always depend­ent on the measure of our spirituality. If a believer has no spiritual life, no spiritual know­ledge, then he has no ministry since to minister to the Lord (His Church) by our soul into which the Spirit of God has no access is unacceptable and to the Lord without any value. There exists an enormous difference between the natural power-strength and the spiritual power-strength, between the power of our natural will and that inner power of our spirit. The first is cold, barren, sterile and it can only bring an infection even disaster into every­thing that it touches. The spiritual power has in itself softness and tenderness and, what is the most important, life, and that despite its being much stronger, stable, firmer; it also attracts trust and a definite sense that one can rely on it.

Christians in general are rather unspiritual though many of them are conservative when it comes to the principles of faith and doctrines. There however exists an enormous differ­ence between those that are conservative in the principles of faith and doctrines, and those, which are spiritual. Intensive conflicts have been noticed between these two camps of believers. Why? There are rather few that understand the fact that a believer may have healthy and reasonable opinions, he may be meticulous, even an orthodox in his faith and teachings, but simultaneously he may be very unspiritual. Why? Well, his reasonable opinions, doctrines, faith and teachings emanate from his soul and not from his spirit. Such a Christian is then soulish-carnal and not spiritual, he walks on the broad way where the spiritual life, the Life Eternal, is not being received. The spiritual Christians walk on the narrow way, where the Life Eternal is being received. These are only individuals (they are only few) and not multitudes (Mt. 7:13,14). Every one, who walks on this narrow way walks there for himself and not for others. On this way our soul is becoming spiritual – governed by the Spirit of God through our spirit.

In one of this articles, Austin Sparks admitted that for long years he yearned by all his be­ing to meet someone, who already walked on this narrow way and learn from him every­thing what he wanted to know and understand so that he might lean on that person. How­ever, God purposely caused that such a “crutch” he would never find. The reason? We have in ourselves a great inclination to lean on other people so that they might take us and lead us by our hands as little children are led, and receive nothing from the Lord at first hand! However, our Life in the Spirit must flow and develop from the “first hand”… THIS IS ORIGINALITY! This does not mean that we cannot seek and get advice from those that already walked with the Lord in that realm, but not for the purpose that we might copy everything from them, walk behind them in comfort and avoid any overcoming in our own soul. This is as if someone would walk against a blizzard and we would walk behind his back, out of wind. It can also be said that we are “walking on crutches” because those against whom we are leaning are for us as crutches. Even after many years, we cannot stand on our feet or walk on our own feet, and when someone puts us on our feet, we make few steps and down we fall again. And this is how it may continue for us all our earthly life, if we do not wake up and realize it and make a decision to start standing and walking on our own feet. The Lord is enabling us to stand and walk on our own feet.

The majority of our Christianity is, in folk’s words, “from second hand”. Almost nothing is for us original, received directly from the Lord into our spirit and heart, something that we received from Him after long hours of meditation before Him, after “toiling, sweating and tears” of our soul. After travail and seeking truth and righteousness before the Lord or to­gether with Him. Therefore, whatever we in our Christianity have is “not ne­cessarily our own”, but we obtained it from someone else, somewhere else. We might have obtained it from individuals or in seminaries, theological faculties or by reading piles of books. We ob­tained and believed what others believe and what they also obtained from others. It would not be such a tragic problem if it were a pure truth and pure faith, but what we obtained and believed we NEVER verified whether it was so, whether it agreed with the Scripture, whether the Lord is satisfied with it. We do not even have our own experiences on our own skin. Hence, we might be carrying with us a “suitcase” full of things, which are not ours! When, sometime in the past, I was asked at one airport whether I packed my suit­case myself, I was first surprised until I realized that should it be packed by someone else that person could have packed there a bomb, which could explode at some height and my life and the lives of my fellow travelers were in danger. (Lockerbie!) Precisely this same thing is happening in the spiritual world where the “suitcase” is my soul and there might be stored “spiritual bombs” in it, which threaten not only my life, but also the lives of my fe­llow believers since at some “height”, under some conditions, they might “explode”.

What are those “spiritual bombs”? Every lie, every unrighteousness, every evil, every ini­quity is an individual bomb, which is “ticking” in our soul, which means, it is timed, it (the sin) will one day “explode” (will find us out – Num. 32:23) and we have no idea about it what­so­ever! Well, is this a pleasant situation? And the reason is simple – we have not packed our suitcase ourselves! When Pilate entered the judgment hall and asked Jesus: “Art Thou the King of the Jews?” The Lord Jesus answered him: “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of Me?” (Jn. 18:33,34). Didn’t the Lord touch here the very CORE of this thing? Even Pilate did not “pack his suitcase”, but received every­thing what others packed into it. And on the basis of those false declarations and lies and accusations and the other filth what the enemies of Christ packed into his suitcase, he did not set Christ free, though he had authority for it and also the moral right, but he extra­dited Christ for crucifixion! Today, the very same thing is happening in the Church! When you ask something someone from a congregation or even from the leadership, he will de­nounce you without blinking his eye and that on the basis of what he heard about you from others without verifying the truth or seeking righteousness! This means, that many of today’s believers together with their leaders are Pilates of the New Testament! Then, why are we surprised that the Church is in such a horrible state? The Lord desires that at least we ourselves would not be Pilates, but would in all circumstances judge righteously and according to the truth (Ps. 15:1-5).

Today’s Christianity brings to the Lord shame, reproach and refusal of His Truth and His Right­eousness. It is a sheer organized “religion”, has no Life of Christ within. Only the Life of Christ can test and verify, what is in our “suitcase”, what is our behavior, morals, speech, appearance, influence upon others, kindness, courtesy, honesty, openness, or the lack of these things and virtues, lack of truth and righteousness, etc. This kind of Life we cannot buy in Christian bookstores, nor in church buildings, this Life cannot be procured in markets for a cheap price or from other vendors, nor is it as a “raincoat”, which we put on only when it rains. This Life is formed, wrought, beaten, worked out, modeled even with fire in the souls of those that have IT. The knowledge of the Lord from “first hand”, from the ORIGINAL, has an unspeakably great value and preciousness. After all, the Lord tells us clearly: “Prove all things” (1Thes. 5:21).

 

e) All our training, education, teaching, exercise, disciplining, guidance, etc., what comes from the hand of the Lord is of a spiritual nature and takes place on the spiritual field. It is being done for one and the most important purpose – to change us into spiritually living, spiritually effective and spiritually wise believers. This is the only effectiveness which has a value and a purpose with the Lord. We can study from morning to evening, attain to a pile of academic degrees, read a pile of books, we can also work as bees and not have in our soul the Life of Christ and thus no fruit of His Spirit, which means, no oil (Mt. 25:8-12). Only our spiritual effectiveness, walking with God, knowledge of the Lord are the only values which count before God, which bring usefulness, results and fruit... all the rest leads to a spiritual cemetery.

The most precious values in our Christian life are our life’s tests, difficulties, periods of our sufferings, afflictions, anxieties, inabilities, weaknesses, lack of understanding, etc., etc., through which the Lord led us. Where He “ignored” our prayers, requests, desires, where against our will and desire He kept us in wilderness. He did not even give us any job, He “tied us” to either an idleness or to what we did not like or did not want to do at all. He may have also allowed some sickness or injury to “fall on us from the blue”, etc. These are the most precious tests in all our history – had we only known it and understood it! The fact that the Lord in these periods of time had not implemented our plans and visions, “heard not our prayers”, but led us through difficult times of either idleness or too much work, or trials, afflictions, tribulations, whether physical or soulish, has a tremendous sig­nificance, tremendous value! This, however, we absolutely did NOT see and did NOT un­de­r­stand… unless we had already passed through such tests of the Lord before and seen and experienced their spiritual significance, their fruit and effect upon our personality.

 

Therefore, when something befalls us like unpredictable suffering, something unpleasant, unexpected or incomprehensible problems or obstacles on our way, uncommonly burden­some tests of our soul or body, even “hopeless” situations, anything what we would never expect, what we cannot understand – it is necessary to endure, hold on to the trust in the Lord and the faith that HE KNOWS what He is doing, even why He is doing it. We do not know it. HE IS NOT IN OUR HANDS – WE ARE IN HIS HANDS. He has not left us at the mercy of circumstances, but knows about every little thing of our life physical, soulish and spiritual. We will be later on very thankful to Him even for all these things. We will not be impatient, or murmur at the Lord, or have long controversies with Him, or be even angry at Him, or complain to Him: “I sit here, do nothing, my life is passing away under my nose”. In our future we will stop considering these incidents and experiences as of no value, our idleness as wasting of time, nor will we have an attitude: “I will be glad when this is finally behind me”. On the contrary, we will be able to start to see and un­der­stand in our spirit that this is the time for our growing and perfecting of our spirit accord­ing to the Will of God Almighty and in His Way, not according to our will and in our way. THIS IS OUR SALVATION and our way to perfection. This growing and developing of our spirit is the most important thing for our future life, for our future as such and for our ministry to the Lord. We will never have a greater value before the Lord than the measure of our spirituality, our spiritual life and knowledge. And this is also the measure of the Personality of Christ in our person (Eph. 4:13). And these facts stated above are only as it were “matters on the surface”, to the depth we will go later.

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f) Believers often claim that their motives, intentions, plans and deeds are, according to their best conscience and consciousness, all right, honest, truthful and are designated for the vineyard of the Lord. But few can see and righteously judge, assess what is in their background, from where do they spring; because few can see and righteously judge in what spirit those motives, intention, plans and deeds were started and done (Pr. 16:2/ Rom. 7:2). We will never be able to see ourselves throughout, that’s why we can never with certainty speak about the goodness or cleanliness of our motives. The life in our soul is such a mixture that we never know whether we stand in it on a safe ground. Our soul is more than able to guide us into deceptions of all sorts and forms. Whenever we live only in the sphere of our soulish life and try to implement it and develop it, we are developing some­thing which is able to lead us into the greatest confusions, disharmonies, controver­sies, mixtures and sinfulness. This is also the reason why the Church got into such chaos and tragedy where also an idea was born that when you give yourself to the Lord, He will take you and use you. It suffices to “sanctify” our being to the Lord and go and serve Him with our “sanctified old man”. This is a total and absolute lunacy and is totally against the Word of God. The result is that there are multitudes of people in the vineyard of the Lord and in the churches around the world, which “serve” Him in the energy of their flesh, in emotions of the flesh, in thinking, substantiating, persuading and reasoning of their flesh. Try to meet them, stand in their opposition or disappoint them and you will meet EVIL, you will taste something very evil, you will face a warmongering spirit, a deep division, back­sli­ding, disinterest, scattering, accusing, arrogance and sometimes even an open en­mity (Gal. 4:16).

Do we see what a disaster and devastation can the devil create in the organization, which is called “the Church” because people with the best intentions and most clean motives “serve the Lord” with all their intelligence, their power, their reasoning and understanding and with their emotions? To this day they have not discovered that God closed the door to the old creation! That Christ through His Death destroyed the whole old creation! That our greatest need is to be delivered from our own selves and INTO Christ. They will speak and preach about Christ, but live outside of Him. The Lord said: “to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My Word” (Is. 66:2). To which man will He look? To him that always believes and says: “I am right, I know everything, nobody has to tell me anything“?, or to him that says: “I can be wrong as perhaps never before, there is nothing wrong, no injustice, no sin, no iniquity, which I in my self would not be able to do whenever Christ shows me, that I stand outside of Him”. And how do we know that we are of a contrite spirit when we may not know our spirit at all? And when were we the last time “trembling” at the Word of God, if ever? And when do we apply the Word of God to ourselves and use It as a mirror in which we may see ourselves through the eye of God?

We take the Bible as a textbook, a book, which in many places may be interesting and in many other places may be totally incomprehensible or even boring, tiresome. This is how our head looks at the Bible. However, the Bible is the WORD OF GOD and IT IS NOT A BOOK; IT IS A PERSON (Jn. 1:1). Therefore, when we have the Bible on our side, we have on our side the PERSON OF CHRIST, which cannot be on our side physically, but is there by His Spirit. For those that do not or cannot perceive the Spirit, He is on our side also “on the paper“. When your fiancée from America sends you a letter to Europe, she is on your side “on the paper”. When you read her letter, you imagine her, you feel her presence, you don’t read her letter as a newspaper. Whenever we realize that the Creator of Heaven and Earth even Our Own Creator and Savior stands on our side and speaks to us PERSONALLY, we would never read the Bible – HIS WORD – as a newspaper, we would read it with fear and trembling.

 

g) The parables, as parts of the Word, were spoken by the Lord that He might give us marvelous spiritual truths, which we may understand mentally in a limited way, but their spiritual depth, width and height we could never see until the Lord should open to us the Scripture in order for us to see and understand it spiritually (Mt. 13:13/ Lk. 24:16,31,32). Here I de­­sire to quote a specific Parable, which has a wide significance for us especially in this time of the end of the world. It is the Parable about the mustard seed (Mt. 13:31,32) and of its significance for us. In its natural creation, the mustard seed will never grow up into a tree since in its nature, it is not a tree. It can only become a tree when man takes it into his hand and he himself cultivates and develops it. By using artificial means, man is able to make big what, according to the nature, is small. Such an artificial enlargement represents the work of man and not of the Lord through the nature.

 

Here, the Lord prophesies that such processes will be taking place in the future even until the end of the age. Man will take into his hand the things of the Kingdom of Heaven and will make them something big, much bigger than they are in their nature. This also means that in the future, an artificial and abnormal development and growth of the very Christia­ni­ty will come where it will become a “big tree” and every kind of birds will have nests in its branches. Do you know how many kinds of strange “birds” we could find today in Christ­ianity, which call themselves Christians though they are not and never have been? The Christianity, as we know it today, covers almost anything what you can imagine. And the Lord Jesus pointed to the fact that it is evil and the work of evil. Birds always repre­sent something evil in the Scripture. A good example of this Parable are also today’s, so called, “mega-churches” where tens of thousands of believers gather together in various big halls or even at stadiums, where there is plenty of strange birds (evil spirits) and what is taking place there is nothing good. This never was and never will be the Body of Christ nor any part of It!

 

h) The spiritual service to the Lord doesn’t include in itself only our earthly world and life, but, if it should have any success, it must also include our spiritual world and life. I repeat the sentence from point e), namely: Every circumstance, every event, every problem, every conflict has its roots in the spiritual world and NOT in our phy­sical world! Therefore, if we ignore the spiritual world and the spiritual life in the believer, we will never be able to help him in his problems, the Holy Spirit will not show us the way, nor will He enable us to resolve the problem. Here, I must also point to the fact that a great and ge­neral pro­blem in the Church and among believers is the existence of so called “intellectualism”. It is something that expresses the “wisdom of this world”, natural mind, natural reasoning and perception, natural thinking even persuasion that man is able to re­solve life’s pro­blems of believers by intellectual ways. Is this truly a real danger in today’s Church? Today, you can find this everywhere and the religious press is full of great efforts to resolve the problems of Christianity by human intellect, research, arguments, dis­cuss­ions, debates, ecumenism, theses, conferences, Christian philosophy, etc. This human effort is now expected to resolve spiritual problems! And not only that, but it should also bring human souls to their Salvation! There has never existed a bigger lie, deception and illusion than this! What intellect is able to build, intellect is also able to destroy.

 

There are too many of those that teach and preach with their natural abilities and on the basis of their metal understanding. But living proofs of that preached truth are not visible even in their own lives or in the lives of those that listen to them. On the contrary, there is a clearly visible difference between what they say, teach and preach and what they are in themselves, in their character. Many of such teachers and preachers desire to care for the “vineyards” of others, but their own vineyards are jungles. The ministry is not what we speak, but what we ARE! Otherwise, it is a pure hypocrisy though they might not be aware of it in themselves. The Lord Jesus hated hypocrisy and He judged hypocrites with serious consequences (Mt. chpt. 23). Too much of mental knowledge and emotions fogs up the spirit and keeps the heart closed. Quite often, believers in congregations or at other meetings get almost nothing into their spirit because they judge by their heads, principles or persuasions, prejudices or personal partiality or they are slaves of the religious system, which brought them up and now holds them tight in its grip. Spiritual counseling, directing or leading of believers with their manifold problems according to the Scripture exists only very sporadically where in the mouth (spirit) of two-three witnesses, every word could be established (2Cor. 13:1). “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Mt. 12:37). In His Body the Lord established also so called “joints”, which are dedicated to provide and cover all the needs of the body so it can grow and educate itself in love (Eph. 4:16). This includes the pastors, which are to oversee their flocks, not to rule over them or direct them according to their own plans and desires, but to be for them an example according to the Word of God (1Pet. 5:2,3).

And not only intellectualism, but “emotionalism” is also extensively used in the ministry to the Lord. At how many so called “services” powers of emotions are being used to stir hu­man emotions, to rouse or even whip up either a great joy or sorrow and compassion in the believers “playing on violin”, or the need to help, to do something, aid financially, etc. Such carnal leaders work on believers until they make many time even hysteric promises, pledges and decisions. If you are able to do this skillfully and persuasively, you will gain not only your own congregation, but maybe other flocks of naïve Christians. To the Lord, however, these are repulsive, absolutely unacceptable and useless kinds of “ministry”. If we truly want to know what the true and pure Christianity really is, then the answer is simple: It is CHRIST and all that is in Him, and NOTHING what is not in Him!                                                                          

 

i) The life of a true Christian begins with a miracle – a new birth from Heaven – and it continues on the basis of this miracle. Under the government of the Holy Spirit, we are not allowed to continue in our natural course. We are always “redirected” to the super­­natural course! And we are being persistently shown that this supernatural course we can not possibly attain by what is in us, by our means, which are all natural. Because “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:6). Furthermore, we which were born of Heaven were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but OF GOD (Jn. 1:13). Until what time will many reli­gious lead­ers remain blind towards these clear facts of the Word of God and until what time will they keep trying to do the impossible through their natural abilities and means and lead also other believers towards this lunacy?

 

Apostle Paul was in the church in Corinth two years and he taught them probably daily. Then he left and wrote his first letter to them after five years. Hence, after seven years they were supposed to at least emerge from their “early spiritual childhood”. Is it normal that a seven years old boy would still appear as a little baby and even have such rea­son­ing? Many, very many religious leaders are to this day like spiritual babies even having such spiritual reasoning, but they are playing religious and cause great spiritual damages in the whole Church. And they are not even aware that the Lord Jesus Christ – the Head of the Church – will judge and reward them for it since they damage and injure His Body  (Mt. 16:22-27). Many do it out of ignorance, but many are like Alexander before whom be­lievers should be attentive since these are doing evil with full conscience arrogantly refus­ing the words of Truth (2Tim. 4:14-15). We are in a school under the hand of God where we learn not ABOUT Christ, but “That I may know HIM (Personally) and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death” (Phil. 3:10). I have not yet met even one Christian, including myself, who would have graduated from that school. And those, about whom I know that they keep sitting behind these school-desks, I can count on the fingers of my two hands! The Lord is my Witness.

j) The prophetic ministry always included the most important point for the people of God: “Know the Lord”, since those, which dwelt in Jerusalem and their leaders did not know the Lord, nor did they perceive the voices of the prophets, which were read every Sabbath! (Acts 13:27) Are we able to perceive the truthful picture of this Word of God? Israel and their leaders did not know the Lord nor did they perceive the voices of the prophets, which were read every Sabbath, which means, about 1,600 times from the Birth of the Lord until His crucifixion. THIS IS THE SITUATION OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD. Take a believer sitting in the church for 33 years and hearing the same sermon 1,600 times; if he would still not have any idea what it says, would he not be considered a total lunatic? Do you really think that the situation today is any better? That the Lord will be blessing such people and impatiently waiting for their rapture to the Kingdom? How many believers are considering themselves wise, powerful or rich? The Lord tells them this: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; But let him that glories, glory in this that he understandeth ME and KNOWETH ME…” (Jer. 9:23,24a). So, let us not glory that we have a mountain of information about Christ and can talk ABOUT Him long hours while we do not know His Personality at all.

 

Therefore, the Lord is not in haste to satisfy us, appease us, lull us or meet us in our situations and prayers and supplications, but He says “Wait…”, or He will say nothing and does not even give us any further explanation! This might be a rather hard test for our heartbroken soul. This might often bring us to a point where we are ready to give up this road, abandon everything and even start questioning our relationship with the Lord and His relationship with us! We may even begin to doubt our redemption, salvation and the whole Christianity!!! Why does the Lord allow this? Well, if we would only know! What the Lord follows with such an exhaustive process, by refusing our requests and petitions and expectations and hope, also by stretching the time into long delays, is but one thing – to dee­pen our faith and with it our KNOWLEDGE OF HIS PERSON. To gain what the immense part of His people Israel never had, and what today an immense part of His Church also does no have! When we do not know Him, He does not know us. And when we will stand behind the closed door and call His Name: “Lord, Lord, open to us”, He will tell us, the born-again Christians: “Verily I say unto you, I know you not” (Mt. 25:10-12).

 

k) “And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years” (Jn. 5:1-5-9). He perfectly represented the people of Israel, which did not believe, mur­mur­ed, was unwilling to enter the Promised Land and that’s why they were wandering in the wilderness for 38 years; and after 40 years they died there (Num. 14:29-34). Why? Their natu­ral selfish life influenced them and governed them all that time. They never looked at and judged any­thing in the light as to how it serves God and satisfies His Purposes. They looked at and judged everything as to how it influenced THEM. All their murmuring, com­plaining and rebellion existed because THEY did not get what THEY wanted. And it was never the same what GOD wanted. They were terribly egocentric and their selfish life was their “bed” on which they were lying for 38 years as spiritual cripples. They were never able or willing to stand up on their own feet and walk with God toward HIS Purposes for them.

 

And today’s Church is exactly the same. In the spiritual wilderness of this world there exist millions of Christians, which are the same spiritual cripples. They also cannot stand on their feet nor can other people put them on their feet. When you try to lift them up, they make two-three steps and down they fall again like rotten pears. There are whole multitudes of them. And you can spend all your life trying to put them on their feet. What is it that eats out of them their own life and abilities? What is making them such helpless cripples that they cannot even stand up on their own feet? It is their egocentrism, it is selfishness, which always wants to boast about, elevate itself over others, praise itself and not allow anybody to act against it, to somehow humiliate it or dissatisfy it, hence, it was the peak of carnality. The spiritual Christians walking on the narrow road were liberated from their selfishness and carnality in all its forms; they were put on their feet by Jesus Christ and walk in His strength on His ways. Hence, I really do not know whether Christians realize the significance of this miracle of the Lord when He healed the cripple. Whether they see that the Lord did not do it just “by accident”, but that thereby He indicated that by His Death and Resurrection He will create a New Spiritual Israel, which will stand on its own feet and walk with God and that the old cripple will cease to exist. The same thing applies to the cripple in the Church.

l) In the Old Testament, from all the nations of the world, God chose one man – Abram – and put him as it were into the center of those nations. From his seed, He established a nation in the very center of all the other nations, a completely different nation, and estab­lished him on the Divine spiritual principles. All the other nations were gathered around it to look at it and become aware of the fact, that the only true and living God is with them wherever His people came. In fact, they had this knowledge even before His people came (read Jos. 2:1-24 what Rahab, the harlot said and did!). The calling of Israel was to repre­sent God, have witness of Him in themselves and show Him to the world. We know that Israel totally failed in this calling.

In the New Testament, God also chose one man – Jesus – and gave Him the Name “Emanuel-God with us” (Mt. 1:23), so He could be the Head of the Body, which will grow from the seed of Abraham and which He will call “Church”. The calling of the Church was to be a living Body of Christ and to “preach the Kingdom of God to the whole world for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come” (Mt. 24:14). The Church totally failed in her calling as well. The evangelists preached the Gospel of Redemp­tion, that’s why whole multitudes of pagans became believers. But they never preach­ed the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, nor did they lead these new believers to first seek the Kingdom and His Righteousness (Mt. 6:33). Therefore, nobody was seeking it and finding it and thus walking to their perfection. Therefore, none of them will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Here I am led to enlighten the question of the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, so we would begin to see and be also willing to finally seek the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness in our soul, so that we could enforce it on the earth when that time comes. We know that the world are the kingdoms of Satan on the earth and that Satan had offer­ed his kingdoms to Jesus when he was tempting Him (Mt. 4:8-10). From where had Satan ob­tained those earthly kingdoms and their glory? FROM MAN! Because man has Satan’s kingdom in his soul and man enforces THIS kingdom on the earth – that’s why Satan has them. If man would find the Kingdom of God in himself and would begin to enforce it on the earth, Satan would have no kingdoms here! That’s why Satan also keeps Christians from seeking FIRST the kingdom of God and His Righteousness! This endangers his king­doms of this world very much.

Why then Israel and the Church failed? I am showing the main soulish causes in point m) below. The most basic cause or reason, even the cause for those soulish causes, was their dead spirit. They had no spiritual eyesight, no vision, no view into the future. We are able to go only that far where our vision, our view into the future, brings us. And when we have none, we do not move, we only mill about in circles. We are very predisposed towards fini­te­ness, meaninglessness, vanities and are able to ignore our stunningly high calling in Christ, where we are taking part in the Greatest Purposes of God in all the ages of His Creation. How we all need the prayer of Paul that God of Our Lord Jesus Christ “may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling…” (Eph. 1:17,18). This gives the vision, view into the future. Do be­lievers see the Lord? Do they meet Him? And when they gather together, do other people say: “The Lord is among them”? I have very contrary living experiences.

m) The justification of our existence is work, effort, exertion, fight with the nature, fight with the Devil. We were born to work, make effort, fight (Gen. 3:19/ Eph. 6:12). According to this Principle of God, nothing was supposed to be cheap, easy or simple because God established the value of everything. This definitely goes against every tendency of human nature, which wants everything cheap, easy, comfortable and simple, so it would not pay any price for anything, it would escape the work, suffering and would get everything free of charge. But God established a law that whatever is from Him, whether in His creation or Grace, has a price tag on it and it is expensive, it is endlessly precious and valuable and worthy of our afflictions and work and trouble, even of our life. What we gain easily and cheaply, we usually do not love. That’s why our soul must be liberated, saved from lightheartedness, negligence, indifference, carelessness, complacency, frivolity, stinginess and misery, so it can wake up and start to realize that here is something, which is infinite­ly precious, price­less, a treasure beyond imagination.

Everything what touches our Salvation is infinitely precious and priceless. It is thus a true tragedy when believers do not value their Salvation, nor their Christian life. “… we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). It is also clearly written: “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt. 18:3). To change and become as little children demands suffering, afflictions, overcoming of all evil, cleansing of all filth which, during the years of our “maturing”, we have gathered into our soul… and which the children do not have. Hence, suffering, afflictions are connected with something valuable, and this is especially true when it comes to the spiritual things. God allows or even causes suffering, persecutions, harassments, testing to see whether our heart is for God, or there is just an empty hollow, or whether there are only earthly worries. God has to expose everything what is not real, and He must test everything that it may show its reality. It is very easy to “disappear from the horizon” when the things or situations are becoming too severe, complicated, problematic, unpleasant, dangerous. How often we do pray that the Lord would protect us from difficulties and troubles and inconveniences and storms! But the Lord does not even answer many such prayers. He is not protecting us from such things, is not building a glasshouse over us! Then, what is He doing? He has designed those storms, difficulties, troubles and problems, He is designing the measure of those storms and thunderbolts for us personally so they may devastate, blow away, destroy, end everything what is in us unacceptable so He may see whether there is a heart in us for Him or whether our “Christian life” is only a “show” seen outwardly with an emptiness inwardly. Therefore, the Lord showed that there exists a true Israel and a false one as well, that there is a true Church and a false one as well. Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Galatia: “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. 4:19 + 2Tim. 4:16 – all have abandoned me).

n) In the Scripture, believers are encouraged and guided to “unity” because only in unity, there is power. Every kingdom, organization or a house, which is divided against itself, will fall, it cannot stand, it is only the question of time (Mt. 12:25/ Mk. 3:25). Our body is an organism, living organism, and every part of it is connected to the nerve system, which functions from the head, where it has its headquarters and a directing base. In the Body of Christ, this nerve system is the Holy Spirit, which “feels” every cell of His Body, under­stands its situation and needs and leads it into the right direction and the right activity. This unity of the members of His Body about which the Scripture speaks is possible to attain ONLY when the members of His Body react positively, are responsible and obey every sign, every guidance of the Holy Spirit according to the Will of the Head – Christ. We say that this is impossible or unreachable. THE Lord says that this unity we can easily observe on our own body, which He created, so this unity is possible!

When our head commands our hand to pick up a pen and start writing what the head will dictate, no hand starts to speculate whether it is able to do it, whether it has time to do it now, nor will it start arguing with the head, nor will be too lazy to move, pick up the pen and wait for the dictation. True? This is the true Unity in the Spirit of God. But why our hand does not rebel against the head? Because it does not have its own will, which would be different than the will of our head. Our being, body, soul and spirit, has ONE LIFE and ONE WILL. That’s why we have no such problems in our body, which Christ has in His Body! The Church is His Body and He is Its Head (Eph. 1:22,23). This is the theory! The practice is that every believer has his own will and it is mostly AGAINST the Will of the Head! Could we at least for a moment imagine that every organ of our body, external and internal, would have its own will and our head would have to accept the decisions of the free will of every organ of our body in the same way that the Lord accepts the decisions of our free will? Our hand could thus say: I am not taking any pen and will not write any­thing, I have other work now. And our lungs could say: Next week, we are stopping to breath; we need to do maintenance. And the left leg could say: I am not continuing to walk with the right leg, it has offended me! Well, would we not get completely crazy in few minutes, if not seconds? Maybe now we will be able to understand Christ, what pro­blems He has with His Church, it means, with His Body (Rom. 12:4,5/ 1Cor. 12:12-27). Well, where are all these problems resolved effectively and permanently? On Calvary!... where our will is being subdued to the Will of Christ.

Today’s world and our flesh in all its forms and expressions make our spiritual unity abso­lut­ely impossible. Christians are affected in their judgments, criteria, concepts, compari­sons, methods, means, motives of their thinking, imaginations, humanistic persua­sions, in their logical conclusions, etc. Hence, they are affected and influenced by the “spirit of the world”, by “Adamic nature”. And in such situations the true spiritual union is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. The true Union of the Spirit has its birth on Calvary. The work of separation is, and shall be, done in us personally, in our houses, in our local churches and in Christ­ianity in general. Everything will be sifted as the Lord sifted the House of Israel (Amos 9:9) and every house, which remains divided – shall fall. Our “unity” is thus not our choice for without it we shall fall. How do we during our Christian life plan to fulfill the Word of God according to which we should be of one faith, one mind, one love? (Rom. 12:16/ 2Cor. 13:11/ Phil. 1:27 + 2:2/ 1Pet. 3:8) For that task, we must be of one Spirit. This is one of the basic signs of the Bride of Christ. The Bridegroom and the Bride will be of One Spirit, thus of one love and one mind. How do we stand on this field? Without an open heart, we can­not do any Word of God no matter how much biblical knowledge we may have!

o) You do not rebuke or chasten your son because his crying or pain brings you pleasure. Rebuke or chastening is a part of upbringing, discipline and it never is, or should never be something like angry vengeance, judgment, sanction, revenge or something similar. The Lord did not chastise Israel in the wilderness. Jesus was not chastised in the wild­er­ness. Even you are not chastised in the wilderness. Chastisement, as a part of upbringing and discipline, is on a much higher level than a punishment because the object, goal of chast­ise­ment and discipline is a moral fullness, experience, capacity and our ability to eternally live with God Almighty.

Even today, the Lord teaches us through temptations and seductions from the devil him­self; trough his pressures, wiles and tricks He is teaching us the way of life. We learn the mysteries of the way of spiritual life so He could establish us as servants to His people in all questions of His Life against which the Devil fights so furiously and tries to quench It. The Lord Jesus was also tempted in the wilderness and the three main temptations are de­scribed in Matthew 4:1-10. These were not just ordinary temptations, but they went to the core of Jesus’ spirit, soul and conscience and were extremely dangerous as touching their consequences for Jesus, for us and for our Salvation! Satan tried to get Jesus by the same weapons and tricks by which he also got the first Adam (and Eve) and thus he certainly hoped that he can get Jesus as well. Man cannot put himself into the situation of Jesus and into the depth of Satan’s temptations. The second temptation is in verses 5-7 where Satan tries to take the ground from under the feet of Jesus by citing the Word of God and basing his trick upon It. The Lord’s answer was unequivocal and for us it means that we should NEVER doubt the faithfulness of God and “experiment” with God in this way. Why?

It seems that we can never get beyond the possibilities where we will never question the faithfulness of God! This means that from time to time all the evidence about His faithful­ness, presence, about fulfilling His promises, being aware of our precarious or dangerous situation, about His willingness to help when we ask Him and hope in it, that all such evi­dence suddenly DISAPPEARS and the Lord also “disappears from the horizon”! Everything in the area of our human consciousness, in the comprehension of our soul in ourselves also DISAPPEARS. Even the understanding and consciousness of others around us through whom we might get some trust, self-confidence, assurance, be strengthened, upheld, pro­tected, sustained… this also DISAPPEARS and we feel like left in a wilderness… alone… as a pole in a fence! We know that wilderness is a desert, dry, barren and desolate place where death is never too far. And when we go through such experiences of a wilder­ness, there is never too far even asking ourselves, or complain to others, about the faithfulness of God! To begin to have doubts, suspicions, uncertainty even anger or bitterness towards God, Who suddenly “does not hear, does not see, does not care about my situation, my life”. Which God abandoned me and does not care how it will be with me and where will I end up. How extremely difficult it is for our humanity to remain standing on faith, which we had during the “good old days before wilderness”, or turn to the Word of God (Hab. 3:17,18) and quote it with confidence and joy.

We all know quite well that to trust God and stand on His faithfulness is simple and easy when everything goes “smoothly”, when we have no problems, difficulties or have in our situation nothing to worry about. However, whenever our situation suddenly changes, our confidence may “evaporate” quite easily. The Almighty, All-knowing and Graceful God ceases to be worthy of our confidence! Such a thought may not get into our head, but such a situation may happen in our soul. What is almost unbelievable is how Our Lord reacts to that. You see, He is in no way surprised by our loss of confidence in Him. He was expecting it! And when on top of that we start sinning through stupid thoughts (Pr. 24:9), stupid words (Mt. 12:35-37) or stupid decisions, He is not alarmed. On the contrary, He PREFERS that we would SIN and later see our sins and do repentances and are changed in our spirit, than if we would not sin and remain persuaded in ourselves that we are right­eous, clean, spotless and do not need in ourselves any change! This way we come to a spiritual state where our confidence in the Lord becomes permanent and unshakeable whether we have any problems or do not have, whether we have difficulties and pains or do not have, whether we are exposed to unrighteousness or not, whether our emotions and desires are satisfied or they are not, whether some calamity happened to us or did not happen to us, whether we gained what we wanted or did not gain, whether we are disappointed or are rejoicing, etc. Because WE NOW KNOW AND EXPERIENCED THAT WHEN THE LORD DOES NOT ALLOW SOMETHING TO HAPPEN TO US, THEN IT CAN NEVER HAPPEN TO US! AND WHEN HE ALLOWS IT, THEN IT IS ONLY AND ABSOLUTELY FOR OUR GOOD (Rim. 8:28)... even if it does not appear that way.

p) Let us pay attention when the Word of God gets into the hands of the Devil as he can easily sway us onto the ways, which lead to destruction. Faith never experiments with God, nor with the questions whether God is with us! To pray for or request from the Lord certain assurance while we are children or youth is one thing. But to test God or doubt His faithfulness by those to whom He already gave assurances saying: “…lo, I am always with you even unto the end of the world” (Mt. 28:20b) is a totally different thing. Then who are those that will receive from God their inheritance? They are those, who believe God even though there is a wilderness all around. Man does not have to go far in order to find wild­erness, you can find it at home, in your job, in your personal life, even in your own selves. And it may be just there where you will be tempted to do something by which you will be able to “prove” God. Be very attentive and cautious! Your life may hang on that moment, on the manner in which you act at that time, on the words, which you are saying. And it seems that many accepted devil’s offer and preferred doubts and unbelief and they rather take from the forbidden fruit. They succumbed to his pressures to receive his attraction, charm, glamour, seduction, delight, temptation, lies, deceptions even to fear him in a bad sense, to manifest their admiration of him, to consider him someone important, power­­ful. When we are cleansed vessels containing Truth and faithfulness to God in all circumstan­ces, then we have in ourselves power and authority over the Devil and we can tell him very clearly: “Get thee hence, Satan” (Mt. 4:10a). And he must go! Because “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Pr. 18:21) and in the authority, which that tongue expresses.

r) There exists a system of teaching which makes the process of Salvation mechanical and automatic. You are saved and shall be automatically glorified; you will find yourselves perfect at the end of your earthly life. This, of course, is a farce which leaves out all the work of God and our cooperation with Him in faith (Phil. 2:12). This is as if we would tell the Lord: Well, I believe that God has truth and I give myself to God and receive all His Will and Purposes. And now, Lord, I am sitting down here and You do it all for me! Of course, nothing will happen. There is a great difference between teaching and instructions in the Scripture. Teaching has no demands on us, it does not require from us anything except to listen and learn. Instructions, on the other hand, have demands on us, they always require from us action and many believers hate them (Pr. 12:1)! They usually go against our nature and our will because we normally never wish or desire to make any effort to cooperate with God in the area of our spiritual perfecting or in gaining wisdom through instructions which we usually also despise (Pr. 1:7).

Preachers know the Scripture; they can quote many verses from the Scripture by heart. When others quote the Scripture, they can finish the verses for them; hence, they are fa­mi­liar with the Scripture. However, spiritually, many of them are dead, inaccessible to the Light of the Lord, because they do not follow, do not do those instructions and their carnal knowledge of the Scripture are a wall against His Light and their spiritual perfecting.

The Church is the stage on which God works out this drama in front of the principalities and powers in this Universe and WE are a vitally important part of this drama! The aim and the conclusion of this drama are no smaller than that God would be lawfully esta­blish­ed and justified outside of any accusations and suspicions, and that Satan would be in the mouth of two witnesses judged and destroyed on the battlefield of OUR FAITH and testi­mo­nies! It is im­poss­ible for our proud brains to understand that in this Universe, there may exist such un­imaginable problems, questions and legal matters related to and con­nect­ed with the test­ing of OUR FAITH. When finally the mutual faith of the God’s elect, that is the Remnant, shall be perfected and declared, Satan’s kingdom will disintegrate into dust and it shall not exist any more! Only then shall come the Salvation and strength and the King­dom of Our God and the power of His Christ (Rev. 12:10). The testimony of CHRIST Alone will NOT BE SUFFICIENT; God the Father needs TWO WITNESSES (Mt. 18:16/ 2Cor. 13:1). The second witness acceptable to God will be THE BRIDE OF CHRIST!

This faith we can only gain by learning to walk in the Spirit of God. And this is learning of everything again and again on a completely different road. It is learning to walk as we never walked before, never passed this road before and we absolutely do not know it. We are in it simply as children which learn to walk. We are falling here and there and we often quit. But no child will ever give up waking just because it falls after every few steps, nor will it aban­don this amusement and say: This is surely impossible, far beyond the limit of human ability, it is apparently someone’s fantastic idea this matter of walking. I quit, I will never again try it again; this simply does not work. Oh NO, every normal child will stand up and will continue in walking and falling learning this strange thing, which is for that child so new. When we are born-again, our walking in the Spirit is the same, and it is the same to the end of our earthly life! In our earthly life we will, in fact, never come to the point where we will walk with the Spirit perfectly. Why? Just a small pride, some self-assurance, some self-righteousness – and down we fall as a bag of potatoes. Hence, walk­ing with the Holy Spirit is for us a totally new world. But only this way we are being changed and becoming worthy of God and of the Kingdom of Heaven (Rev. 3:10), which is coming to this world very soon (in few years).

I will include here a fitting Word of God which says: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Lk. 21:34-36). Nothing will be done for us automatically, and if we remain deceived by many of our leaders, we will end up in the horrors, which are coming upon this world and we will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and will not be worthy of God’s Presence. Do we believe that? Are we then willing to walk by this faith and bring its fruit?

We can also ask some believer this question: How far do you want to walk according to your mind and its logical reasoning? If you are a person, who wants from the Holy Spirit an explanation for every problem, which you are facing, and before you will decide to continue, then you belong to the family of Hagar, which was according to the flesh and in the slavery of it. Does this mean that during walking with the Spirit we have no expla­na­tions, we are always in a fog, we never see anything and we are always uncertain? NO, abso­lutely NOT. Spiritual interpretations and explanations are very different from natural, logi­cal, rational explanations. We may come to a perfect peace of our heart concerning the things of the Lord without necessarily His coming and explaining to us every little problem and every difficulty. We know when our heart is satisfied, without worries, with­out fears, because the thing is explained to us internally, in the sphere of our spirit. But if we try to explain to someone that he may understand what we see, what came to us, where we go, why, and what is the basis of our assurance, then we will find out that we are unable to express it with any logical words and we will be in a dilemma how to explain that thing.

If someone would have stood on the road from Haran and saw the caravan of Abraham leaving the City and would have asked Abraham: “Where are you going?” He would have to answer truthfully: “I don’t know” (Heb. 11:8). And how long will you be there? “I don’t know”. And what will you do there? “I don’t know”. Who will wait for you there? “I don’t know”. How long will you stay there? “I don’t know”. Will you ever come back? “I don’t know”. Abraham, do you know anything at all? “Yes, I do know, God is sending me – and I trust Him”. Do you call THIS “logic”? Or a “rational explanation”? This is either a pure lunacy or it is a pure faith! And we are the seed of Abraham! (Gal. 3:29) And not only that, but the Lord Christ Himself had not put on the nature of angels, but He put on the seed of Abraham! (Heb. 2:16), so He would walk on the same way as Abraham, because Abraham walked fundamentally according to the guidance of the Spirit of God. Our head clearly does not play any role here. We must receive the Light from the Lord and in that Light we shall see and understand things by our conscience and by our heart (see also the point below).

s) The spiritual explanation is a totally different kind of matter. It does not begin in our brain and substantiation. Then what is the function of our brain and substantiation and why had the Lord given to us our brain and the ability to substantiate? Had He not given to us this ability for that purpose? Is our walking in the Spirit destroying our brain and a logical substantiation? Definitely NOT! If you are not a spiritual man and the Holy Spirit cannot freely work in you, then all the things that I am saying here are for you hope­less, illogical things, a fantasy and a total nonsense. If you are a spiritual man walking through spiritual experiences with the Spirit of God, then all the things that I am saying here should come to you as a great help! How is that help coming to you? Well, it is not coming FROM your brain as a source or a spring, but it is coming THROUGH your brain and also THROUGH it’s abilities of substantiation and logical deducing or conclusions! You are not receiving that help through substantiating, reasoning or logical speculations, BUT through your spirit, your conscience and heart, through the school of your experiences with the Spirit of God and with His ways – and THIS bypasses the head! When you are in this school as an intelligent person, then you are not losing your intelligence, however, your brain with its abilities is becoming as it were a CHANNEL-CABLE-WIRE for the Spirit. We are yet here on the earth as human beings using our brain and its abilities for our earthly life. But when we are a double personality, then we must have a double intelli­gence and double under­­standing! Otherwise, our walking with the Spirit would bring us to a psychiatric hospital! True? In other words, here we are dealing with TWO intelli­gences at once, with our natural, which was created in our soul, and with our spiritual, which we received from Heaven and which was born into our spirit! The spiritual man recognizes both, the natural man can recognize only his own natural, earthly one; about the spiritual one he has no clue. (ex.: gravitational force is “nothing”, Job. 26:7)

t) When we talk about walking in the Spirit, many people find in their souls FEAR because they lose solid ground under their feet, they lose solid points as foundations for their soul­ish and physical senses. Anything spiritual seems to them as “walking on water”, it does not have logic! Our Lord, Man from flesh and bones, walked on the water so He may show to us, firstly, His pure faith by which He was always walking. For His disciples in the boat, it was a panoramatic picture of faith, not in theory, but in action. Secondly, He gave us an example that what is for us impossible and illogical, is possible and logical for everyone, who believes… even for Peter, who also walked on the water – man from flesh and bones! (Mt. 14:29) He believed, though only for few seconds. Walking on water repre­sents walking by spiritual faith-trust, where we also lose logical explanations and where all our natural senses, including logic, are principally against it. Our fear, however, is not only due to „walking on water”, we have it also because of personal reasons. For example, fear will close our mouth and bind our tongue so we will not be able to speak truth! What will people think about us when we should speak truth? And how will they react when we should tell them truth into their face? Maybe they will jump on us as bears or we might also get a slap on our face. In such case, however, we base our salvation on the thoughts and emo­tions of other people, true? Isn’t that fear from the devil a stupid thing? We also fear to speak the truth about which we know that it could be very useful under the circumstances as no one else might know it, only us. If, therefore, we do not declare it, we will not move from that dead point. We fear that the truth will not be received by the others positively, in a good spirit, in “love”.

Fear comes from the Devil and not from the Lord “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, of a sound mind” (2Tim. 1:7). There are very few Christians, which use these three spirits from God in their lives. There are few of them because few Christians know what is love, and whether they love their neighbors or only their own selves. What governs in the Church is self-love and it limits or even excludes true love to­ward others; such love can never be perfected. Because “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear; because fear hath torment” (1Jn. 4:18). The believers, which suffer from fear, should turn to the Lord with a sincere request for help because Satan always tries to bring us into the slavery of fear and then keep us there as long as it is possible. The work of Satan is fear, which is lack of freedom and it is a wall on our way to salvation and perfection and to Our Heavenly Father. Further important Light of the Lord about fear is shown in Part 12, point 10.

There are also many believers, which feel in themselves that they have no capacity, or very limited capacity, that is, they have so called “inferiority complex”. They somehow set­tled the question that they were born “small” and will always remain small and insigni­fi­cant. They do not mean much and never will mean much, nor do they believe that there is a hope for them to get ahead or be considered in the future as “somebody”. They do not realize that the spiritual capacity may have nothing to do with the natural capacity. On the other hand, there are those that have strong natural abilities of mind, controlling of others, directing organizations, etc. We call them “decisive, purposeful people with personalities and abilities”. However, let us look at the Lord and not only on the people. In God’s eyes the values are only the spiritual values and a spiritual value does not begin by what we are able to do, or what we know; it begins by what WE ARE! And this is shown only when we are in the “fire”, whatever the “fire” may mean in our case. “Fire”, and the alternative word may be “test”, will uncover us, expose us WHAT WE ARE, what exists in us in reality, what lives in us and governs us… and it may be a surprise to us.

What is exactly the focal point of every “test”, every “fire”, of every piece of our suffering? Faith! We will devote more time to faith in Part 12, point 7. What is necessary to add is the fact, which should be obvious and clear, but which we realize only rarely. Everything what Satan brought into this Universe must be brought out and destroyed by the Church! And the most prominent point, where Satan marked the greatest success and through which he conducted all his operations of evil and deception, was, and still is, UNBELIEF! It is rooted in every descendant of Adam and Eve. Unbelief as such is actually inability to trust God. When it is written: “And they overcame him by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Rev. 12:11), these are the Overcomers from the Church, which will overcome Satan and all his hordes of evil and darkness by the testi­mo­ny of their faith and experiences. This is not a religious phraseology, it is the POSITION OF AUTHORITY, which they gained and occupy in order to do the Will of their Heavenly Father.

u) I want here to give the Light of the Lord on two important verses of the Word of God, namely:

          u1) “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12b). It might seem logical from this verse that we have to “work” and “tremble” at the same time. Our logic, however, does not apply in many places of the Word of God. When we con­sider also the next verse: “For it is GOD which WORKETH in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13) we will find out that we “work out” our salvation by making decisions by our free will – we are willing – to do the Will of God. He reveals to us His Will in various situations and conditions of our earthly life and we, by our tongue, are giving Him our consent to do His work. Fear and trembling should be with us and also in us when we hesitate and speculate whether we should do that revealed Will of God at all, or not at all. Because he, who would consciously not want to do it, should tremble at the conse­quen­ces of his decision.

 

Before God performs in us any work necessary for our salvation, He will show it to us and then He wait for the consent of our free will. Because according to God’s Wisdom and the Principles of the Creation of man, God accept the decisions of our free will and He follows them. Thus man is the “mastermind” of his salvation and of his destiny and not God, Who secured the Salvation of man, but man has the choice and the power of deciding which way he will go and whether he will obey God, or not. The clearest example here is Our Lord, Who did not desire to drink the cup, which the Father prepared for Him and revealed it to Him in the Garden of Gethsemane before His crucifixion. Three times the Son pleaded with His Father to remove the cup from Him, if it was possible at all as it was full of horrors for which Jesus was not prepared and which we cannot even imagine. Finally, the Lord spoke the most important word in the whole Bible: “NEVERTHELESS, not My Will, but Thine be done”! This was the absolutely necessary consent of Jesus’ free Will, which the Father needed to conclude the Salvation of man successfully (Lk. 22:42). This is also the overcoming of oneself, which applies to us as well, and gives the right meaning to the word “working out of our salvation”.

          u2) “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mt. 16:24b). To deny oneself means not to impose anything, not to oppose, not to argue, quarrel, dispute, not to assert or promote oneself, or own mind, or under­­standing, or own beliefs or persuasions. The Word of God is not giving us any right to impose, intrude these things unto others. To deny one­self also means to deny our own thoughts, imaginations, opinions, persuasions, under­stand­ing, reasonings, attitudes and everything what does not agree with the Scripture and what is in the Scripture clearly written black on white! If there is anything written in the Scripture what I should do and I do not do it, then I don’t have to be a born-again Christ­ian in order to understand it also logically and not argue that I do not have to do it. In such cases even our logic applies even though for spiritual things it is limited. Our logic does not have to apply in the cases, where we compel, oppose, argue, quarrel, force­fully assert ourselves, our attitudes, opinions, understanding or our persuasions about the truths, which may be written in the Scripture,  but we are not living them in our own life, they are not visible or apparent in our own personality. Here we need a spiritual discernment.

How can we deny ourselves? First, we must be willing – see point u1) – and also able to PAUSE AND ADMIT that we do not always have truth, but other persons may have truth, and we may not even know that other truth. When we are able to admit such an “out­rage­ous thing for our image”, only then we have hope for a spiritual success and for following the Lord according to His Word.

 

There is another part in that Word of God – taking up OUR CROSS about which the church and their leaders want to hear nothing – though it is the Word of God! Why we need our cross? The Cross of Christ is not sufficient? NO, it is NOT! Otherwise, our cross would not be stated in the Scripture so CLEARLY. It is not sufficient just to deny our self even to admit that our belief and thoughts and opinions and persuasions were not right. They were given into our mind and heart by spirits of darkness and evil, which were not of God! While we may deny our bad beliefs, even bad persuasions and admit that they were not right, but the SPIRITS, which gave them to us, REMAINED IN US and they shall continue in their “work” and give us other foolishness, other false beliefs and persuasions into our mind and heart until they are de­stroyed – ON OUR CROSS! Because, if we do not deny our selves, then we have no reason to take up our cross. Our cross thus has to destroy everything what we denied as un­truths, as lies, as evil or as unwise and incorrect things. It must destroy all the spirits, which inspired into us all those untruths, lies, evil and unwise and incorrect things and these spirits are hiding in our soul.  

 

That this verse is vitally important (though it is never preached and explained) is indicated also by the next verse: “For whosoever will save his life (will not deny it) shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life (will deny it) for My sake, shall find it” (Mt. 16: 25). When be­lievers lose their old life, but the new one will they not find, then what (spiritual) life will they live after death? Do you know?

 

v) I desire to give more than just hope to every believer, which lives in fear or in the infe­riority complex or in any other spirits, which come from Satan and not from God. All our fear, worries, even the inferiority complex are present in our old creation, which has no value either for God or for any man. If the SPIRIT OF GOD TRULY LIVES IN US, THEN HE IS in us the foundation for all possibilities, which we did not even dream about and which we may today consider as unattainable, as “walking on water” or as an unrealistic dream. But the Lord is more than able to make out of each of us not only a successful believer, but a victor over Satan and over all the powers of evil and darkness in this entire Uni­verse. The only ones, who stand in the way of the Lord towards this astonishing success a towards Lord’s great joy and satisfaction are WE OURSELVES! WE OURSELVES – our natural being with its fastidiousness, sheepishness, anxiety, unbelief, worries, uneasiness, inferiority complex, etc. So – we are the limiting factor for the Lord. We stand in His way in manifold manners, and all those “tests by fire”, in fact, remove US from His ways! They remove the fastidiousness, sheepishness, anxiety, unbelief, worries, uneasiness, inferio­ri­ty complex and substitute them with peace, faith, trust, courage, vision… and thereby they free the way for the Lord so He may do in us and also outside of us what He needs to do for our spiritual growth and change.

 

Maybe the most eloquent Word of God, which touches precisely this fact of reality is found in Psalm 46:10, where the Lord gives us only one brief, but important instruction, saying: “Be still (calm down, be quiet, stop it), and know that I Am God:” Here, the Lord is in­vit­ing us to find out in our own selves, to have our own proof, that HE IS TRULY GOD AL­MIGHTY and He is showing us how can we get to this knowledge and proof. It is possible by obeying His command “Be still…”, be quiet, calm down, stop talking, stop carrying and worrying, stop speculating… and this is not simple at all!

 

Let us look at two practical examples in the real life of His people.

 

v1) Victory at Jericho. When its stately walls fell down onto the ground by them­selves, that was a valid proof that God is truly GOD. But this did not happen just auto­mati­cally without Israel being prepared for a very strict test of quietness and trust. Joshua com­mand­ed people and said: “Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you Shout! Then shall ye shout” (Jos. 6:10). This means that all Israel was supposed to walk around Jericho for seven days in an absolute quietness – WITHOUT ONE WORD! Even without whisp­ering among themselves. It is quite obvious from the above, that “be quiet” did not mean to be passive, paralyzed or idle. On the contrary, their quietness was a part of their active faith and obedience to God. They could only talk when they were returning from the walls into their tents, and in the morning when they were getting up and went back to the walls. As soon as they were assembled at the walls and began to walk, an absolute quietness dominated the scene! And if they looked up the walls, on top of them, no doubt, were many inhabitants of Jericho standing and watching that unusual “specta­cle” down there. And if they were mocking them or throwing things down at them, the Israelites were tempted and desired to comment all this at least by whispering some­thing to the neighbor. But even this was not allowed! They no doubt felt emotions, which must have compelled them to say something, anything, maybe just to cheer up their souls so they could continue in their obedience to be absolutely quiet. But even this was forbidden. God’s power does not manifest itself when we make a lot of noise, and this applies also to the so called services. Any rattle, comments or whispering would have dispersed their spiritual concentration and damaged their attention and focus, which they had to maintain to fulfill their God given task. They could start shouting only when Joshua gave them sign. Then they began to shout and blow trumpets – and the walls of Jericho fell down! When we talk much or pray much, the Lord waits and does nothing. The Lord starts to work only when we become quiet and obey Him, are focused on Him, have faith and trust in our souls that He is able to do what we cannot possibly do.

 

          v2) Feeding of 5,000 people. This was equally impossible situation, which none of the people present was able to resolve. The Lord resolved it by commanding that the people would sit on the grass. And when the people obeyed and sat on the grass, the Lord bless­ed five loafs of bread and two fishes and began to give to His disciples and they started to hand out this food to those that were sitting on the grass (Jn. 6:9-11). It is evident that everyone was sitting as there is no mention that some would not be sitting, since they might have not received the food. The point here is that this miracle also took place only after all people obeyed and sat down on the grass waiting! This was a similar condition for the believing people through which, when they obeyed, they received a proof that Jesus Christ is GOD. Hence, they similarly had to obey to “be quiet… do not leave, do not specu­la­te, just sit on the grass and wait!” They had nothing else to do. Therefore, if we obey and with trust turn to the Lord, He will show us His Power. “Be quiet” here means “sit on the grass” though in this case, people could speak; they were not commanded to be quiet as at Jericho.

 

x) Does it not seem to you that after the years of your Christianity you have accomp­lish­ed nothing special or particular? Does it not seem that you are always the same, with the same problems and difficulties, with the same unfulfilled desires, unanswered prayers, etc? This semblance may be quite realistic. Thus, many Christians may unconsciously live in impatience, even in hopelessness, since they may have the sense that this process of Salva­tion, perfecting and the final victory lasts the “whole eternity”! Everything is drag­ging on as a snail and it has no end. Why is it so? Why can’t we walk by “leaps & bounds” and every month celebrate some great victory? Well, the Lord has for that a compelling reason and it is, I believe, sufficiently clearly shown in the Second Book of Moses (Ex. 23:29-33). Those pagan nations in the Promised Land represent the powers of darkness and evil in our soul since the Promised Land for Israel represents the Kingdom of Heaven for Christians, and it is in our soul (Lk. 17:21). The Lord did not allow Israel to expel all those nations and get rid of them somehow, before Israel became sufficiently strong and able to occupy all that territory of the Promised Land after their eradication. The same applies to us, as well. Our success and progress depends entirely on our spiritual capacity to occupy the territories of our soul from which we expelled and eradicated those powers of darkness and evil. That’s why our victory is progressive and depends on the progress­ive growth and development of our spirit.

 

The above applies similarly to the fact that in our human character, we want everything to be done “now and in a single stroke” and any prolonged process of spiritual growth is almost always highly discouraging and a great deterrent for our flesh. It is almost like to sit in the garden and watch how fast our newly planted spruce tree is growing. Well, it does grow, but to watch it, doesn’t work. Hence, our spiritual growth needs perseverance, stable and unbroken devotion, as if something always had to be done. This is able at the very least to dis­courage, sicken all lazy and comfortable believers or even bring them to a lunatic asylum, as it somehow seems that there is always far more before us than behind us. Even this is painful for our poor old soul. The fact is, and we have to submit to it and believe it, that the Lord will never give us any opportunity or excuse to be able to say one day: Well, everything is already finished, we can sit down and put our feet on the table. No, no, no. In fact, the more we approach the Coming of the Lord, the more it will seem to us that, as yet, almost nothing has been done in comparison with what must yet be done. This, of course, will not be painful nor dissuasive for the believers, which truly gave their lives to Christ and where their laziness, comfort, selfishness and self-analysis were crucified and destroyed.

 

y) There is yet another important fact, which is not realized by many Christians including its great significance. When Christ was resurrected, He DID NOT HAVE BLOOD, only flesh and bones (Lk. 24:39), but blood He did not have since He “poured His soul unto death“ (Is. 53:12 – life of natural soul in is blood – Num. 17:14/ Deut. 12:23). The same will happen to us. In Christ, our blood was similarly poured out unto death as His Blood was because when He died, we all died in Him (2Cor. 5:14). What is the impact of this fact? Enormous! You see, it is the power of the Cross and of our Salvation. We may also popularly say that after His death on the Cross, Jesus Christ took His Blood, which contained all the evil, all sins and iniquities of all mankind, since “He was made sin” (2Cor. 5:21) in drinking the cup, which the Father prepared for Him (Lk. 22:42). He also took all our blood and when He descended to Hell to preach to the spirits in the prison (1Pet. 3:19), He, as it were, put all that blood on Satan’s table and said: Here, this is your work and thus belongs to you; you may drink it all and keep it in yourself for ever and ever! Because when we are IN Christ, Satan has no ground of activity in our life. The Blood of Christ destroyed all the works of Satan and also of all that belong to Satan. Moreover, all our sinfulness, weakness and inability as well as all evil and its “virtues” exist only in our blood! Hence, when we have no blood any more, Satan has NOTHING in us!... as he had NOTHING in Christ (Jn. 14:30). And this fact will be shown clearly at the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Bride.

z) In the last point, we shall devote our time to a very practical and simultaneously a very important thing in our Christian life. This thing is a cause of many spiritual tragedies not only in the life of individuals, but the whole nations. Example? This thing was also the cause of the tragedy of Israel at Kadesh-Barnea when they came to the border of the Pro­mised Land, but they refused to enter into it. Without any pardon, they were turned back to the wilderness where they were wandering for 40 years and there they also perished (Num. 32:8-13). Another example was before the crucifixion of Christ when He wept over Jerusalem and sentenced Israel to a 2,000 years long exile when He said: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Mt. 23:37,38). Two thousand years was Israel scatter­ed into all the world where it was hated, persecuted, massacred and lived in a constant fear. What was the cause of these two national tragedies? UNBELIEF! When and why do we not believe? Firstly, when we don‘t see, we are blind OR don‘t want to see; when we don‘t hear, we are deaf OR don‘t want to hear, we don‘t understand anything because our heart is closed OR we don’t want to understand! We are spiritually limited having a margi­nal spiritual capacity. While we are children, it is logical, when we lived years of Christian life, it is not logical. What is the worst, we do not want to increase that spiritual capacity, we do not want to learn!... we are lazy or paralyzed or nobody is leading us to it.

Why do we send our children to schools? Are they going there to rest or learn the things that they already know for long time and which are for them very easy and simple? Do they come home and say: Well, the whole week I did not learn anything new, I knew everything and it was so easy that I was just drawing pictures into my notebook. I doubt that they are going to school for that. Even in mental education, there exists a rule or an unwritten law, which will always demand from us what is above our existing knowledge and abilities to know or solve. In other words, we learn what we do not know and cannot solve, what we never knew to solve before. And when we do not learn it, we cannot progress, but must even repeat the same class until we learn it. True?

Learning may also be compared to gaining LIGHT in which we are able to start see­ing new things and their solutions, which we did not see before. The majority of students are also lazy to learn, few go to school to learn something new. And it is precisely the same in the spiritual sphere. Almost nobody is going to the church to learn new spiritual things; rather, he is going there to rest, perhaps even to take a nap. I do not want to scare you or discourage you from spiritual study, but the requirements upon us will grow. Our capa­city to understand what the Lord is doing with us or where He is leading us, may be very limited. That is also the reason for our limited capacity to believe, trust or to execute our faith. Though our spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak (Mt. 26:41b).

However, the Lord’s Purpose for us is to increase our spiritual capacity, spiritual light, spi­rit­ual understanding, and it is not always easy. Nevertheless, what is important is that the increasing of our spiritual capacity is also the solution of many of our problems, and often it is the only way in which our problems may be resolved! Hence, if anything “unpleasant” happens to you, you throw up your hands and say: Not again? Well yes, it’s time to go to school and learn this lecture, which the Lord wanted to teach us for the past maybe even several years, and could not. He is trying again because He has tremendous patience and mercy with us. Perhaps, we shall learn it now? Otherwise, that problem will never be solved. And sometimes it actually may need only 2-3 extra “grams” of willingness from our side to pause… and admit that, in fact, it is a trifle and no rocket science. And from that time, this lecture will not have to appear in our life any more. We will enjoy peace.

 

Part 12 – Grace–Truth–Light-Faith-Life

 

1) The Grace of God is what God gives to us and what we absolutely do not deserve! When Our Lord began His ministry on earth, He read the text from Isaiah and the last row of that text says: “To preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Lk. 4:16-19) In the ori­ginal Scripture, the word “acceptable” is identical with the word “grace”. This statement of the Lord can thus be also read: “To preach the year of the Grace of the Lord”. Of course, the “year” here means “age, dispensation” and that from the Birth of the Lord in Bethlehem until the Last Judgment. Hence, the AGE OF GRACE includes the 1,000 years of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. We should be enormously thankful that we were born and live in this age of Grace; we should enormously value this Grace in our heart, never ignore it, refuse it, gamble with it, rape it with out attitudes, pride, negligence, arrogance, foolishness, stubbornness. Our pride alone is sufficient for us to refuse the Grace and thereby lose it! This is a fact with all pagans and with many proud believers just as well. After all, there are many ways on which our heart may get into conditions and situations, which can close the door to God’s Grace and we can lose it!

A clear example of this is the reaction of Jews to Jesus when He was speaking to them about the Grace of God shown to the widow from Sidon and to Naaman, the Syrian. These were not Jews and had nothing in common with Israel and thus could not “boast with the rights of Israel” and expect from God any “privileges”. However, God sovereignly saved their lives and healed Naaman from leprosy and thereby showed to Israel that He can give Grace to whomsoever He wants and whenever He wants. And Jews got at that so furious that they wanted to kill Jesus (Lk. 4:25-29)! It could have been their pride, stubbornness, rebellion of their hearts, heart injury, offense towards God or their utmost selfishness that stood in their way to recognize the Grace of God and receive It.

Let us return to Isaiah for a moment to whom the Word of God was given, which Word the Lord Jesus Himself read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Lk. 4:18,19). This means, the beginning of the Dispensation of Grace. At the time of this prophecy, Isaiah probably believed, that he spoke this above himself because God gave that Word to him, He sent him with that Word, and thus he probably never in­clu­ded in this Word the future Messiah. The Lord Jesus knew into what world He came and where people are in the conditions about which He speaks in that Word – they are exiles from their Father’s house, they are in bondage and captivity, in prison, their eyes were blinded by Satan and they are wounded, oppressed, in a lamentable state, in a very se­ri­ous situ­ation – and they don’t even know about it! They are not aware of it! Furthermore, the Lord did not tell them just this good news, but He said to them another shock: “TODAY is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Lk. 4:21)! This was a triumphant arrival of God’s GRACE to the earth for all people! The Lord does not speak here just to Israel, or to the Church, but about the Grace for every man! That’s why the Jews in the synagogue, which were first rejoicing aver His gracious words then became furious when He spoke to them about the Grace shown outside of Israel, to the widow of Sarepta and Naaman the Syrian. In their great pride, these Jews were making claims to God’s Grace being furious  when God healed “dirty” pagans and not them! Here Israel showed that deep root of evil, which was in them and still is, even their abominable hearts that were ready not only to refuse this Messenger of Grace toward them, but also to kill Him! That’s why Israel also killed their own Messiah and the Giver of Grace. I believe that a normal man cannot even imagine such an inhuman filthiness! The Parable in Matthew 21:33-44 is similar in prin­ciple. And in the verses 37-39, the Lord prophesies how Israel will deal with Him Himself.

If we, therefore, think even for a moment that God owes us anything, or He is obliged to give us anything, or do for us anything just because we are Israel, then we are on a very dangerous ground. If this is our case, there will soon appear difficulties, frictions and pro­blems, which we never expected and which will not disappear through any prayer. On the contrary, they will get worse and we will not even know why. But when we remain on the foundation of Grace, we remain in harmony with the Lord “For by GRACE are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). Truly I do wonder whether even the simple fact that “God… holdeth our soul in life…” (Ps. 66:9) is not a clear Grace of God? And He holds our soul even when we do not deserve it at all and are “not worthy” to continue in our earthly life. Therefore, Grace is not granted to them, which need it, but to them that are convinced that they need it!

The Grace of God is, of course, mostly shown in the New Testament. One of the known examples is in Matthew 22:1-14. Here God is inviting born-again, baptized believers to the feast prepared for His Son. He sent out His servants with the invitations to them that were invited, that the feast is ready… and NOBODY came! Everybody had excuses and enormously stupid excuses at that! (Somebody had to go and see the land that he bought before; well, only a fool would buy land which he never saw in his life, etc.) An import­ant point here is that God the Father KNEW that the invited guests will not come! God has foreknowledge of things and events as He is not limited by time; for Him the past or the future do not exist (Rom. 8:29). However, here God did not act on the basis of His fore­know­ledge, but send out the invitations anyway… despite His foreknowledge! God could have said: To hell with these ungrateful and arrogant bastards for I know that they will refuse and will not come. NO! God gave to them the same opportunity and privilege and invited them. Is this not a pure Grace?

And not only Grace, but also Wisdom. One of the fundamental Principles of God and of His Grace is that whatsoever He may foreknow, who will refuse what, who will not receive but will ignore, even here He will keep the door to every such opportunity wide open! Thus He always takes the positive way of Grace and Hope and never the negative way of judg­ment and condemnation. This way the grace of God actually retains and delays the Judgment of God until man himself will finally deal with that matter and come to his own free and final decision. God always acts in Grace to give to every man opportunities to react and take his position. God thus shows not only His Grace, but also His Wisdom since by doing this He removes all possibilities where man’s destiny, destruction or sentence in his judgment might be ascribed to His guilt. It will never be possible for any man judged by God to say: You never gave me a chance, never any opportunities, the door was never open to me, never was a way given to me. NO! If anyone will miss what God prepared for him or even called him to it, or invited him, that will be solely and entirely the guilt of that man.

If any man will not answer God’s request, entreaty, invitation, appeal or ignores His Word, whether he be pagan or born-again and baptized believer, it always means that that man has no respect for God, does not consider His Personality worthy of any honor, recog­nition or even worthy to take into consideration! The consequences are devastating and abso­lut­e­ly unimaginable.

Not every believer has an appetite for the things of God – but THIS IS the decisive factor whether he will enter into the Kingdom of God or not. “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness…” (Mt. 5:6). To refuse His invitation means not only that we are not interested in God, in His righteousness and affairs, but we don‘t desire any fellowship neither with Him, nor with His people. This is also the test whether we are in­deed the children of the Kingdom or not. We move in this world and must live with various people where there is no deep, essential or lasting unity, harmony, agreement, cohesion, connec­tion, trust, friendship, etc., because we belong to two different worlds. But with people that are faithful to God and His Word, with the Bride of Christ, it is something completely different; with them we are at home, we are one family. This unity is not something we decide that we will have, it is something that simply happen to us without our conscious effort. No one has to explain it to us or to lead us to it. We are led to it by the Holy Spirit automatic­ally, sovereignly, quietly, without great “ecumenical deba­tes”, with­out human efforts. The unity with Christ does not lie on the foundation of truth, or teaching, or doctrines nor on the principles of faith… it lies on the foundation of the LIFE of Christ, which Life is eter­nal and which is lived also by God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and us! If we, therefore, failed somewhere to start or continue in gaining the Image of Christ in our being, then there must be in us some barrier, obstacle and we should uncover that barrier or obstacle and search out what it is and where it is. It could be unbelief of any kind. Every piece of unbelief means that we stand on our ground and not on the ground of Christ. I believe that this we have also experienced in our earthly life, except that, maybe, we did not realize it as clearly as today.

In the above stated example (Mt. 22:1-14), there is also another point of disappointment, which we have to take into consideration. God comes to us with His Grace and invites us, and invites us, and invites us – for more than 2,000 years – and a question comes up here: Who will respond? Who will react? Who will receive His invitation? Because this Word of God describes the case and the situation of very many Christians. They are totally indi­ffer­ent, disinterested, carefree, easygoing toward all such things – toward God, toward His feast, toward His people! His invitation doesn’t touch them at all; it has no value for them, no appeal, no meaning. They have no comprehension, no sense, no feeling, no con­science nor any intelligence that in front of them there they have either a very important duty, an obligation or they are in danger of losing something enormously priceless even vitally im­portant. And THAT IS THEIR JUDGMENT, that is their condemnation, that is their destruct­ion, that is their destiny!

The fact standing before God’s Court does not say that they COULD NOT come, but that they DID NOT WANT to come! They did not even want to know what there will be in the King­dom, how they could serve the Lord there. No, they decided in themselves that they will not want to know. God knows our heart, but this is not even the question that we are in our heart like that, but that we with our free will take the position: “I am not interested in that, I do not want it, I will not go that way…” THIS is always the basis for condemn­ation, and that, without pardon. When you desire to go somewhere else than to the King­dom – then go there! God’s offer may escape us, may be lost, may be put far beyond our reach. God called the Jewish nation to the Kingdom of His Son – and they started to de­vise excuses because they were not interested. Just look at them! During these 2,000 years on earth, they were vagabonds, hated, persecuted, blinded, murdered, without any king­dom or home! They lost the Kingdom of Heaven! (Mt. 8:11,12)

 

2) How do we want to be prepared for the Lord and the Kingdom of God? And how do we want to enter into it? Answer: By our meekness! Example? Gideon. When the Lord was pre­­­paring him for his “military campaign” against the enemies of Israel, his first statement was: “I am the least in my father’s house” (Judg. 6:15b). In other words: “I am not worthy of such a high calling, I am not able of such a great task”. This honest ad­mission about his personal unworthiness from his pure heart was the key for his calling by the Lord where he gained one of the most astonishing military victories, which the “least son in his father’s house”, the son of the least potential could have ever gained in the world history of wars. Gideon began with 32,000 men, these were reduced to 10,000 and finally to 300 men. With these 300 men “armed” with lamps and trumpets, he defeated the fully armed armies of Midianites and Amalekites, which were as grasshoppers for multitude (Judg. 7:1-12). God will never call us and make us victors or useful for His Purposes until He finds in our heart a conviction about our personal unworthiness. While we have in our heart a conviction about our personal value, importance, ability, superiority, all this a fruit of pride, then we are for the Lord useless! The Lord is able to discern a pretended, false meekness from a true and pure conscience of our own unworthiness.

 

How long does it really take for a Christian to learn this lession? Let us never have even a thought or persuasion that we have in ourselves some merit, worthiness before the Lord, which others should discern, recognize and appreciate. Or, that we would be given prefe­rence, advantage or favor to be positioned into a higher status where we would attain to the appropriate recognition, so our value and importance would be noticed and taken into the consideration. Many Christians compare themselves with others, they feel superior or more educated in the Scripture, more qualified to teach or judge matters or affairs, to have a greater right to hold positions of responsibility than others. Whether it be so or not, those that will be called by the Lord to responsible tasks, to victories and thus also to the Kingdom are, and shall be, those, which in their own eyes are convinced that in them­selves they are unprofitable and unworthy in their own conscience (Is. 66:2/ Lk. 17:10).

Another key for our calling by the Lord is so called “secret judgment”, which the Lord is do­­ing for the purpose of sifting of His servants. The Lord usually stirs up difficulties, prob­lems, conflicts, creates “unsolvable” situations, brings us to things and solutions infinitely difficult and that in various situations at home, in office, market, workplace, wherever the Lord placed us. And then His eyes focused on us to see what will happen. While in these places everything goes easily and smoothly, the Lord is not getting decisive answers for His plans and purposes with us. Why? Because anyone could go and be useful when he has no problems or difficulties. The Lord must have such, whom He observed “in secret”, took into consideration his character and reactions during such “secret tests” of conflicts, problems, difficulties, in a secret judgment of their deeds and results. Whenever we go in the morning to our work, wherever our workplace may be, we may find difficulties of our tasks, we may meet people that are unpleasant, unskillful, clumsy, awkward, proud, arro­gant, untrustworthy or unbelieving… and God may definitely have His fingers in it. His eye may be upon us. God has a desire in His heart to find a useful instrument with respect to the spiritual situation of His people. He will not pull us out of those difficult situations or complicated tasks and will not put into our hands any responsibility or tasks for His work until He approved us by His “secret cadre judgment” (Gal. 1:10/ Job 2:10).

 

The angel told Gideon: “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor” (Judg. 6:12). This was surely in the direct opposition to what Gideon said and believed in his own heart (Judg. 6:15b). That’s why the statement of the angel DID NOT MEAN for Gideon to be out in the field leading a great army to a war! In the eyes of God it meant a spiritual and moral triumph and valor in His secret testing and judging of Gideon.

 

3) From the above paragraphs we may see or feel that the Lord never looks upon us and never judges us according to our outer appearance, how man looks on and judges, but according to our inside. The Lord looks at our heart (1Sam. 16:7) and judges its thoughts and intentions (Heb. 4:12). The most important thing in our heart that the Lord seeks and focuses on is TRUTH. The Lord declared about Himself: “I am the truth” (Jn. 14:6), thus, the Truth is a Person. Our Heavenly Father desires to have people, which will be the participants of God‘s Character, God’s Nature. Our Father is concentrating on His main Purpose and Goal that what is true in Him and in His Son, would be true in His children. All untruth is to God ugliness, obscenity, evil, therefore, all liars are by God destined to the lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. 21:8). It is also written that nothing and nobody will enter into the New Jerusalem, who produces lies, falsehood and deception (Rev. 22:14,15).

 

“Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts:” (Ps. 51:6). This was declared by King David because his sin of fornication was a sin of blood-guiltiness and thus it was a sin unto death where no grace existed at that time, but it was punished by death. Hence, David begs God for his life, for a new heart, a new spirit and for the continuation of God’s Presence in himself (Ps. 51:9-14). When King David begged God for a new heart and a new spirit, how much more we should beg the Lord for a new heart and a new spirit? (see also Acts 13:22) At our redemption we received neither a new heart nor was our spirit cleansed. We received a “new spiritual man into our old spirit”. The process of Salvation brings to us a new and clean heart and a new and clean spirit (2Cor. 7:1), it is not our redemption. Only then we will be able to say that in us there is no deception, falsehood, lies, mock­ery, pretense, hypocrisy, unrighteous judgments, that we don’t walk as if there was every­thing alright while nothing is alright, that we do not sit at meetings and pray while our inward part are not truthful before God. Any religion, which creates only the outer appear­ance of man and covers his inward life by rituals, ceremonies or a religious “show”, is false, there is no truth in it, and for the Lord it is absolutely unacceptable and vain.

Therefore, God has to break, destroy, dig deep in order to get to the roots and bring us up from our self-deception and the darkness of our soul. If we have any illusions about our­selves, they will all disappear when God is finished with His work in us. If we are governed by any deceptions and lies about ourselves, our position and status, about our work, all this will disappear when God is finished with His work in us. Our Inner Spiritual Man will re­volt more and more against our own falsehood and darkness, which covers frauds and lies. Any false statements will hit us hard and we will know that we did not speak truth! It is stunning and also frightful to fall into the hands of the Holy Spirit. David also declared: “Through Thy precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way” (Ps. 119:104). We must be, or become, great lovers of Truth because this love will accom­pany us even to the marrow of our life in ourselves, so we would not be deceiving our own selves or anybody else. We should always see, know and understand before God what exactly He thinks about us and how He is judging-assessing us and others. This way, we will always see and know where we stand in His Light. This love of the Truth will accompany us into our life at home, in our social life, in the life of our employment and in all our Christian life on earth.

God says to Abraham: “…walk before Me and be thou perfect” (Gen. 17:1b), do not walk before a human “model”, which tries to walk by his comprehension, do not follow his arguments, reasoning, thinking, convictions, ponderings, explanations, his beliefs – NO… walk before Me. We must get this Word into our heart and spirit and deep into our inner-spiritual man because this is deeper than our moral standards, deeper than our intellect, deeper than our reasoning, understanding, imaginations even our deepest convictions. We cannot arrive at God’s criteria, God’s standards by any of our senses or abilities. Were we ever able to arrive at God’s standards by our senses and abilities, by our intellect, then it would not have been necessary for Jesus Christ to send us His Spirit and declare: “…when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth:” (Jn. 16: 13). During our walking toward our perfection, it is very useful to keep in mind also the Word of God found in Ecclesiastes 7:16, which says: “Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise; why shouldest thou destroy thyself?”

 

4) Nobody is able to make people see in spirit. I was discovering it more and more as I was continuing in ministering the Light of the Lord to the Church. Many times it was clear to me that words alone were not sufficient and the need to see was most desirable. To see the spiritual things of the Word of God is for our natural mind absolutely impossible! For a natural mind they are, in fact, foolishness and it is precisely this natural mind that creat­es chaos whenever it comes into the things of God. That’s why there exists this great chaos in today’s Church because natural mind comes to speculate about the things of God. After a certain time I stopped trying to do what I could not do anyway when I discovered that it is SOLELY the Holy Spirit, Who is able to open our spiritual eyes so they may see and we may understand (Lk. 24:31,45).

 

One of the main reasons for the chaos among Christians and in the Church is the fact that after their redemption when believers were born-again by the Holy Spirit, they, without any problems, continued using their natural mind for the interpretation of God’s truths. This created an endless chain of Biblical schools, seminars and other religious institutions, every one teaching something different and explaining the Word of God according to their mentality, understanding and purposes. This has brought an absolute catastrophe into the Christianity of the New Testament. And this is precisely what Satan wanted and achieved. Because today you cannot possibly talk about any unity in the Christianity. And every house, which is divided, will fall! The unity cannot be achieved by any human effort.

In general, a great majority of Christians up till now have NO VISION from the Lord! They have no uni­fied foresight, a view into the future, no picture, no imagination or even anticipation about any­thing spiritual, in fact, they don’t even know what that vision really is. Because they have no vision, they have no spiritual fellowship, since VISION is FELLOWSHIP of the mystery, which is hidden in God. And all God’s children should have ONE VISION. Well, and what is that fellowship, which is hidden in God? Is it somehow mentioned in the Scripture? Well, yes…

 

“That, which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes (mainly John, Paul and Peter), which we have looked upon, and our hands have hand­­led, of the WORD OF LIFE; (for the LIFE was manifested and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father and was ma­nifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have FELLOWSHIP with us; and truly OUR FELLOWSHIP IS WITH THE FATHER, AND WITH HIS SON JESUS CHRIST” (1Jn. 1:1-3). This means that...

 

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE MYSTERY HIDDEN IN GOD IS THE FELLOWSHIP OF LIFE. It is NOT the fellowship of Truth, but the fellowship of Life. It is extremely important for us to clearly discern this fact and understand it. If we had a fellowship of truth, we might dis­cover rather quickly that Satan is able to attack it. But the fellowship of the Life of the Son, Satan cannot attack, he cannot even come near it! The LIFE, which the Son of God JESUS CHRIST as a MAN lives together with His Father, is the same LIFE, which we also live and we should live it NOW, here on earth, and also in eternity!

 

This is the miracle of our new birth, spiritual birth, since this birth is not only our own birth, but it is also the new birth of Christ, as it is also written: “Thou Art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee” (Acts 13:33b/ Mk. 1:10,11). His baptism meant His decision to die on the Cross and execute our Salvation. And at His resurrection, Christ became a New Man. Therefore, it is not only our personal new birth, but at the same time, it is the birth of Christ in Whom we are united, made ONE. This is the Fellowship of the Mystery. It is also necessary to say that this Life of our new birth is not only our own personal life, which we possess for ourselves, it is the Life which we share with Christ and with the others, which are in Christ. Hence, egoism-selfishness is finished, since we cannot live this Life eternal outside of the Body of Christ. Even this is the Fellowship of the Mystery.

 

5) The oil of anointing (Ex. 30:22-33) is in the eyes of God something extremely sacred, solemn and untouchable and everything which this oil touches is also sacred and untouch­able. Wherever this oil is located, it makes everything sacred for God and it speaks about the Presence of God at that location, or on that thing, or on that person. Whosoever does not respect or honour, deals with it carelessly, sloppily or disrespectfully calls upon him­self God’s Judgment even curse. God rebuked kings and warned them saying: “Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm” (Ps. 105:14,15). In the Old Testa­ment, this oil was real physical oil. In the New Testament, it represents the Holy Spirit and also the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22,23). The Lord said clearly: “Wherefore by their fruit ye shall know them” (Mt. 7:20). In other words: “By their anointing you shall know them”.

 

In general, the Christians today cannot distinguish, who has the anointing of God and who has it not, nor for what purpose or ministry the particular person has it. If a believer has no sense in himself that his life after his spiritual birth has “acquired a new signifi­can­ce”, that his life has now a “new purpose and goal”, then there can be something very quest­ion­able in his new spiritual birth, because that birth is in unity with Christ. Without anoint­ing there is no calling, and without calling there is no ministry! Our anointing will thus bring us into the Purpose-Predestination of God (Rom. 8:28), it will give us the goal into our future life where, in the first place, we will start changing ourselves in our character. And then the Lord will start changing of others – through us! If, therefore, after our mini­stry, nobody changed in his personality, even this brings questions into the spiritual birth of those believers present. I personally met many Christians with whom I would question whether they were born-again or not, since I couldn’t touch the Spirit of Christ in them.

 

Our relationships, fellowships, social contacts and friendships suffer precisely due to the fact that we do not discern and thus do not value the anointing of God, which means, the Presence of the Holy Spirit in the SOUL of other believers and maybe not even in our own soul. The anointing separated not only our spirit, but also our soul for the service to God. The fruit of the Spirit is yielded from our spirit, but it shows itself in our soul and through our soul. Many believers may have their life bound, even under curse, not free, not bless­ed. It will not be liberated into the Life of the Holy Spirit until their relationship and fellow­ship with other children of God are not cleansed and corrected according to the righteous­ness and Will of God. While we have in our heart bitterness, anger, grudge, hostility, arro­gance toward the anointed servants of God, or we ignore them, separate ourselves from them, etc., we will remain under curse and will not be able to move with our life even one step. This also applies to our attitude and relationship with the Word of God, which is just as Holy, Sanctified and Untouchable in the eyes of God. Believers are not supposed to “play” with the Word of God, misuse it for their own purposes or dishonor it in whatever manner. Believers often “play” with the Bible and are discrediting the Word of God with their sinful mind, speculations, twisting the Word so it may serve their intentions, etc. They choose from it only what suits them personally and the rest they ignore. This is sin!

 

Furthermore, any gathering of believers, who gather with honest and open hearts in order to worship God, give thanks to God for His Grace, Goodness and Salvation, to further know God and His Word, is also holy and sanctified and precious in the eyes of God. We should not participate in such gatherings without reverence, seriousness, dignity, without the fear before the Holy God. In other words, many Christians must yet learn how to behave in the House of God because the Holy Spirit is Present there! That is to say, that gathering is also, as it were, “anointed” by the Presence of the Holy Spirit. The ministry, which is done in the Holy Spirit, that is, under anointing, is similarly sanctified, holy and venerable.

 

Let us not forget that the oil of anointing had also the “aroma” of a holy oil, “sweet smell” and wherever this anointing rested upon, there was the “aroma of Christ”. The Presence of the Holy Spirit always made al things beautiful, lovely and cause also the change of the environment from heavy to light and peaceful and pleasant. His Presence always brings un­selfishness, self-sacrifice and a true compassion with sufferings, soft and merciful heart, sensitive toward sorrows and worries of others, which may try and it “doesn’t go” as they expect or desire according to their imaginations, beliefs or convictions. After all, the most im­­portant herb used for the oil of anointing was myrrh (Ex. 30:23). It was also one of the gifts to Jesus at His Birth representing and pointing to His future sufferings (Mt. 2:11). We know that Christ suffered for others, therefore, when God gives us anointing, it is also manifest in that we “suffer” for others even though we may not do it physically on a cross, but we have compassion in our soul and try to help in whatever way the Holy Spirit and His anointing upon us may lead us. I also suffer when I see my inability to help, which stems either from the lack of the needed gift of the Spirit (1Cor. 12:1-11), or from the lack of faith, or from the lack of knowledge of God’s Will concerning the other person and his situation. That is to say, the Holy Spirit is not leading me to the step, which at times I would desire in my soul, because I am not called for that. On the other hand, because I always try to assess the spiritual state of the other person, I am not so much grieved in myself whenever I know that this “works together for good” to that person and the only factor here may be time and patience.

 

Our brother Peter is a good example here. Peter lives under the Grace of God though he may not agree with it, or he may not be conscious of it. The Lord’s intention is to bring him to His Kingdom through a wheelchair. How long he might yet have to sit in it, none of us knows it, though according to me, it does not depend on the Lord, but on Peter. Maybe that without that wheelchair, Peter might never get into the Kingdom, which is not my logic, but a spiritual perception, vision from the Lord. Because, according to the Lord, it is his spirit, which cannot stand and walk on his own feet. The Lord always looks at the spirit since the Lord’s problem is always our spirit and never our body (Mt. 9:2-8). The problems of our spirit enlarge and increase the problems of our soul! Instead of our clean spirit helping to clean our filthy soul (2Cor. 7:1) from its flesh and sinfulness, the spirit, being filthy himself, keeps increasing the filthiness of our soul… and our body suffers. And when our body suffers, then our soul suffers also.

 

The Lord allowed Satan to touch the body of Job (1:12). Similarly, He allowed the body of Peter to be stricken with illnesses, but for different purposes because Peter caused it all himself. The Lord is not responsible for Peter’s state of health, Peter himself is. Here the comparison between Job and Peter ends regarding the Purpose of the Lord, but it does not end regarding that process. Just as Job went through an agony in his heart and mind and had many questions, so also Peter had and still has in his head and heart many quest­ions being despondent. Each such heart knows its own history, how deep it went into depress­ion, gloominess, dejection, sorrows, desolation, perhaps even hopelessness questioning God’s Wisdom, Faithfulness even Love. Despite that, Job did not sin against God, nor charged God foolishly apportioning blame to Him (Job 1:22). The Lord showed to me that Peter sinned against God speaking blasphemies and blaming Him for the state of his health. His heart stepped down from the foundation of grace and started to have demands on God and expectations as if God were responsible for his state of health, or as if God had some duties toward Peter. Therefore, God has no problems with his body, but with his spirit and soul!

The Lord waits and keeps giving him Grace through oppor­tu­ni­ties in order to cleanse his spirit and soul through his wheelchair. Should he not sin against God, maybe, he would not have been in the wheelchair any more, but would run on his own feet. In Part 5 we were speaking about the Light of the Lord, which we need quite desperately so that we could see ourselves, how the Lord sees us and what we need in His eyes. The Lord had given to Peter His Light at least in principle, not in details. When Peter receives that Light about himself, will believe it, will follow the Goodness of the Lord which will bring him to his repentance (Rom. 2:4), and when he will do that repentance from his heart, the Lord will heal Peter and that wheelchair will lose its significance. If Peter will not receive that Light and will not repent to the Lord, nor to his wife, nor to his son in front of whom he spoke those blasphemies against God, then he will never be healed, but will be damned without pardon, because Peter would thus lose any respect and honour toward the Almighty God! His words and deeds do not show any sign that the Holy Spirit would dwell in him. He should pray Psalm 51:10-12 (“Create in me a clean heart...“, etc.)

The cripple from Matthew 9:2 must have been twisted, hardened and stiff and I judge that such must have been also the picture of his spirit. Because, for example, pride, stubb­orn­ness, unwillingness, selfishness, indignation, anger, obstinacy, judging others, etc., could have formed his spirit and soul into such hardened and stiff form. And this forming was done through the sins which he was committing through those evil spirits. When his sins were forgiven him they lost their strength and power, his soul and spirit, as it were, “woke up”, became soft and with them also his body. Hence, that person was crippled primarily in his spirit and soul and not in his body. And when they told him they were going to bring him before Jesus to heal him, the spirit and soul of that person could have received such a “jolt” of faith, hope and expected grace and healing that the Goodness of God could have brought him to a quick and deep repentance (Rom. 2:1-11). When they finally laid him down before Jesus, his sins could have really been forgiven him. Till the Goodness of God opens our eyes and brings us to repentance, may take several years. Repentance and for­giveness of sins may take several minutes.

 

The whole multitudes of Christians should be in wheelchairs, not because they can’t walk on their own feet, but they do not have even the slightest interest to walk with the Spirit of God, to seek the Kingdom of Heaven and thereby to change in their own spirit and character, and then get into that Kingdom of Heaven. Hence, the Lord has to put us into unpleasant, even painful situations and conditions in order to achieve in us what He wants and what we, in fact, also want – but without wheelchair! Wheelchair thus may be a very useful and blessed instrument, just as a bed in hospital or some “hopeless situation“, etc. These are all very precious things when they are supposed to bring us into the Kingdom, or “at least” to the Salvation of our soul. When the Apostles were strengthening the new disciples, they were encouraging them to continue in the faith and also they were telling them: “…we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22b).

 

Only Overcomers will enter into the Kingdom of God. Every Overcomer must have anoint­ing from God without which he could not overcome. The Bride of Christ without the anoint­ing by the Holy Spirit, that is, without the holy oil, does not exist! We know that for the virgins without oil, the entry door to the Kingdom was closed and the Lord told them that He does not know them (Mt. 25:8-12).

 

6) Not all believers in these days just before the end of the world have the necessary measure of preparedness for the Coming of the Lord. It is only the so called “Remnant” from the Church, which are, or are becoming, ready for His Coming. The Lord’s heart is focused on this Remnant, which, in fact, represents His Bride. These people are for Him a precious and peculiar treasure, an extraordinary, personal, confidential and also intimate vessel – not because the Lord had in his heart any intention that they should be separated from the others, but because the others were not willing to pay the required price for their change into a New Man, Overcomer, the Bride.

 

It is noteworthy that in the Old Testament, the “Remnant” of 7,000, which did not kneeled down before Baal was not mentioned and the Lord did not bring it into the light until Elijah appeared on the scene (Rom. 11:2-5/ 1Ki. 19:18). Here, the Lord commands Elijah to return to the wilderness of Damascus and anoint Elisha for a prophet in his stead. Hence, these from the Remnant were brought into the light at the same time when Elisha was brought to the light. This gives us the key to the understanding of the character of these people. An outstanding and extraordinary characteristic of the life and ministry of Elisha was LIFE, more precisely, the resurrection LIFE. Elisha represented the power of life that was victor­­ious over death.

 

When we come to the New Testament, John the Baptist filled with the Holy Spirit from his birthday, came in the spirit and power of Elisha (Elias) in order to make the people ready for the Lord (Lk. 1:15,17). John’s life and ministry of preaching were focused on trans­fer­ring everything to Christ. And when that transfer was made, they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit descended upon them (Acts 19:1-7). Later on, Apostle Paul apparently discerned in them a lack of life and power, that is, the signs of the Presence of the Holy Spirit were missing; that’s why he asked them about their baptism.

 

The Remnant, people prepared for the Lord, came into the light with Elisha, which means, the sign of the people prepared for the Lord is the government of the Holy Spirit in their soul and the power of resurrection. This represents comparatively hard life for our flesh. Many may pray for the fullness of the Spirit, for the power of the Spirit, for the guidance of the Spirit, but the Spirit-governed life, which never went through the depth of the cross destroying their natural power and natural wisdom, does not exist. There is no place in us for two governments – our own and that of the Holy Spirit, that is, for both at the same time. And when we say that we are His instruments, the fact is that He may use us, but our position and conscience will be rather like spectators, than instruments. We do not have to have a conscience at all that He is using us. When we speak of the sign of the re­surrection life, the power of His Life in us must be visible and well-established by our very own personality and her history, that power must be manifested in us. Our continuous ex­perience will be the situations where it will be abundantly clear that to speak demands the Holy Spirit, to work demands the Holy Spirit, to do anything for the Lord demands the Holy Spirit – and NOTHING FROM US. Even the humanly best, most honest, most faith­ful believers were ruined by their own pride, conceit, vanity or self-promotion in their earthly life and especially in their work for the Lord. There was always found in them some com­promise, agreement with things, which were essentially bad or which came from evil.

 

What is Baalism? Baalism is a link with what is satanic; even in our unrenewed nature, there is a link with what is satanic. Satan comes to Christians through the link of pride. What was actually the sin of Baal? What was his crime? He received glory and fame from God’s things. That’s it. Personal gain from God’s things… because he loved reward, some­thing for himself from God's things, if not something material, tangible, then at least some name, reputation, admiration. He thereby satisfied his pride and built his image. Is among us anyone, who would say that nothing like that is in me and never was? Those that were, or still are, used by the Lord know very well that to be used by the Lord is at the same time a dangerous thing. The sphere of great God’s blessings is at the same time the sphere of the greatest dangers for those blessed ones because the hazard of a concealed pride and self-exalt­ation is lurking at them from every side. Despite these dangers, the mini­stry of the Remnant must continue. These instruments of the Lord will be similar to John the Baptist in the power of Elijah. John the Baptist went to the prison and there he was beheaded. His life had to depart in order to get place to the coming Christ and the New Resurrected Life. This, of course, is a parable and we must understand the spiritual truth, where our old man must also be “beheaded” and our old life must similarly depart in order to get place to the New Resurrection Life.

 

7) The hardest thing in the world is – FAITH! The whole Christianity rests on this one word! Faith is the new beginning where man is born-again into a new life and he is written into the Book of Life. By faith man continues in the whole process of the salvation of his soul. The salvation of our soul is the end of our faith (1Pet. 1:9). Faith is the key to every­thing in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and with Our Heavenly Father. Every­thing in our Christian life is the question of our faith and it is also the focal point of our spi­ritual war. All our Christianity turns on faith and our destiny, our future life with God or our future death without God, depends on faith. Immediately after our redemption, we all are called to a life of faith, hence, we should “look into the eyes” of this fact in detail right from the beginning. We must definitely deal with the question of faith as there is no step or phase or aspect in the life of a child of God from the very beginning to the very end, which would not be the matter of faith! It will thus help us to a great extend, if we now look to the eyes of this fact, receive the fact with all importance and will not try to evade it or put it somewhere on a shelf to gather dust there.

 

What is the key for understanding faith? Where does it come from, how it gets into our soul so we could use it there for our salvation and fellowship with God? Well, firstly: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). We may add here that the things unseen are eternal (2Cor. 4:18). Its Author and Finisher is Jesus Christ (Heb. 12:2). Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit at our redemption (1Cor. 12:7-9) and it should also become a fruit of the Holy Spirit in our spirit during the process of our salvation, if we continue toward our perfection (Heb. 6:1/Gal. 5:22,23). Faith is spiritual and that’s why we cannot possibly “fabricate” it in our soul or understand it by our intellect. Faith can only be received and understood by our heart. Man that has his heart closed can be neither redeemed nor saved since his closed heart is doomed! Hence, by faith we are redeemed (Rom. 10:10) and by faith we are also saved (Eph. 2:8).

 

Faith is first deposited into our spirit (conscience) by the Spirit of God and from there it gets into our soul – specifically into our heart (see “Truth about Salvation” and diagrams). The key to the understanding of its transfer from our spirit into our heart is absolutely dependent on the Word of God, because, the WORD OF GOD IS PIERCING EVEN TO THE DIVIDING ASUNDER OF SOUL AND SPIRIT (Heb. 4:12b)! What does that mean? Here it is a matter of CONQUERING OUR SOUL FROM OUR SPIRIT – AND THIS IS THE SALVATION OF OUR SOUL! We are not saved by our head, intellect, discussions, debates, reasoning or expla­nations, speculations or even teachings; but by our heart and faith! Therefore, a closed heart leads to destruction and its owner is doomed. Intellectual activities are not in themselves bad or totally unuseful so we would not go into other extreme. But they are only a step to a spiritual growth and change and to the final victory. For if we would stay only with them, we would arrive nowhere except to our death. The question is whether we are able to discern our heart from our mind, what comes out of our heart and what from our mind. If we cannot discern our heart from our mind, we have a problem and need help from the Lord. We can only discern our heart where it knows itself, for example, its bitterness (Pr. 14:10), because bitterness does not dwell in the head.

 

 

Faith is power, therefore, to him that believes everything is possible! (Mk. 9:23/ Lk. 17:6) It has power with God, over Satan and devils, and has power over the world (1Jn. 5:4). Our faith may vary, be weakened and it may fall “to the bottom” when it is not used for the Lord’s Purposes. At such times, we ourselves are “at the bottom”, secretive and, as it were, locked into ourselves, unable of anything. Our war of faith rages precisely in the area of the Lord’s Purposes, Intentions and Desires on one hand, and our purposes, in­ten­t­ions and desires on the other hand. If we would have only the Lord’s Purposes and Inten­tions in our soul, and these would have precedence and would rule us, we would live in peace and in victory every minute of our earthly life. Therefore, even in this war it is quite clear that the most difficult thing in our life is to get our ego, that is, our own self, out of the way. Because, our ego always fabricates and speculates and combines and imagines that the Lord must act exactly as our stupid mind expects, as it considers things logic­ally, as if the Lord would be limited by lour logic. After all, this also explains why the Lord chose faith as the instrument of our Salvation and not our brain and logic!

Faith usually operates and acts quietly, almost imperceptibly, without any great roaring power or thunder & lightning and it is almost impossible to uncover how the Lord answers faith. This also applies to the fact where the Lord protected and preserved His Church from being destroyed for all those centuries when great powers of evil and darkness tried to destroy and annihilate everything that He built in this world. And we do not even know how the Lord did it and when. Hence, even if we are in a “hopeless” situation expecting the Lord to do some exceptionally miraculous thing, it may never happen. But what the Lord has in His intention and plan, it will happen… if we believe Him and will act according to that faith. The Lord always has wiser plans, then we have and also wiser ways how to implement those plans. Hence, even if our faith comes from Him and shows the light about a certain fact, that does not mean that we know how that faith ought to be realized and when. And this also applies to His Word. When the Lord says: “Ask and ye shall receive” (Mt. 7:7 + 21:22, etc.), yet, nowhere in the Scripture will you find the answer “how will you receive and when will you receive”! True? But you will receive… when you ask in faith.

Relative to the above facts, we can also say that faith is, at the same time, the point of the greatest weakness in human nature, and we will find that out sooner or later. Because the strength of faith in God’s Nature and weakness of faith in our human nature cannot coexist in a real unity, they exist in contradictions and are one against the other. Faith is also a mystery, which we cannot discover by any mental instrument or understand it. We can only keep the mystery of faith in our spirit and specifically in our clean con­science (1Tim. 3:8,9). Though our heart is able to receive faith and also understand it, but it may not always understand its mystery.

Another problem that concerns us and our faith is a simple yet important fact that we are UNABLE to believe what we do not see, feel, touch or do not understand. True? Is here a solution? There is, otherwise we would not be here today and you could never read these lines. After all, this is the main problem of the whole Church, not only our personal problem. Hence, it is highly desirable that the Lord would give us His Light in solving this problem as well.

I repeat: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence (proof) of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). This is very nice, but what shall we do with it when we are UNABLE to “believe this faith”? Faith is also light in which we see, what physically we cannot see and in which we hope for that, which according to our logic may be absolutely hopeless!  The Lord gives us faith with every problem when we look at HIM and not at the problem! From our conscience, faith gets into our heart – provided that it is open and also WILLING to receive it and believe it. The basic fact to which I am now coming is that Our Lord does not wait for our ABILITY to believe, only for our WILLINGNESS to believe! Con­se­quently, HE–GOD works in our being so that we would BE WILLING to do His Pleasure (Phil. 2:13), that is, His Will, because His Pleasure is a part of His Will. Without faith, we can­not do His Pleasure under any circumstances. That’s why He is working in us, so that we would be, firstly, willing to receive into our heart His Faith, which contains in itself His Will and Pleasure, And secondly, believe it and BE WILLING to do that faith. As soon as He finds in our heart willingness, then GOD provides the necessary ABILITY in us to do that faith! I hope that all of us know that without faith we cannot please God. And he that is coming to God must believe that God is. And not only that, but that GOD IS A REWARDER of them that diligently seek Him! (Heb. 11:6)

We were always willing to live our life according to our desires, expectations and pleasure. God never forbade to us our pleasures, nor has He considered all of them sinful. But God has to work in us so that we would be willing to do ALSO His Pleasure, because for that purpose we were created – for His Pleasure and not only for ours! (Rev. 4:11) God’s main Pleasure is that we would be saved, perfected, His sons and daughters, and live with Him for ever in an unimaginable bliss, joy, happiness, peace, without fear, without stresses and problems. Is this a bad Pleasure? Is this also our pleasure?

 

8) Every believer wants to be blessed by the Lord and some believers want to be even used as instruments in His hands. God may bless us and even use us as His instruments, but at the same time He may have no pleasure or delight in us (Heb. 11:6). If God blesses us in something or allows us to serve Him in something, it is always owing to His Grace, but it does not mean that He must have pleasure or delight in us. Sometimes even in His true servant, there may be some reservation, complain, doubt, uncertainty regarding the Lord, which then stands in the way of His pleasure or delight in such servant. So, there exists something much greater and more important than God’s blessing or our service to the Lord – it is His pleasure, delight, gracefulness and joy in us alone! And this factor of pleasure, delight, gracefulness and joy is the question of our faith. Because that Word of God does not say that “without faith it is impossible to get blessings from the Lord or to do some work for the Lord”, but it says that “without faith we cannot please God or cause Him a true pleasure, delight, joy”. After all, the Lord is using also devils to do His Will because He has “the keys” (power) of death and the Hades (Rev. 1:18). But He will never have any plea­sure or delight in devils.

 

Faith is also a very important basis for the fruit of the Spirit as well as for all the virtues of God. Love rests on faith. We will never love a person, whom we do not believe. Joy rests on faith. We know how miserable we may be when we lose our faith or begin to have doubts and questions. We are truly happy and joyful only when our faith is clear, living and strong. Peace rests on faith. Where there is no faith, there is no peace, serenity or calmness. Meekness rests on faith. The opposite of meekness is the desire to compel our things and convictions, to assert our own selves, do all things from ourselves, hold tooth and-nail onto our reasons, defend ourselves, etc. True faith undermines all these selfish deeds and acts. Patience rests on faith. These two spiritual virtues are, in fact, connected and go hand-in-hand in the Word of God as well as the other spiritual virtues – hope, per­se­verance, kindness, goodness, etc. All God’s virtues rest on the basis of faith  (1Thes. 1:3/ 2Thes. 1:4/ 1Tim. 6: 11/ 2Tim. 3:10/ Tit. 2:2/ Heb. 6:12/ Jam. 1:3/ 2Pet. 1:5-8/ Rev. 2:19 + 13:10).

 

Faith is the center of gravity, the focal point, the essence of the very Character of God Almighty. Faith and Light are, in effect, the same, it is possible to put equal sign between them since we also know that GOD IS LIGHT and there is no darkness in Him (1Jn. 1:5). On the basis of the above, we may also say that GOD IS FAITH since, in addition to light, faith is also reality and truth. Therefore, a weakness or lack of spiritual faith may be inter­preted not only as doubting God, but also as disrespecting His Character, as an invitation to mistrusting and even defaming God’s Character. “Yea, hath God said…?” (Gen. 3:1) We do not necessarily sin against God by a direct opposition to His Word, but we may be very arrogant and defame His Character by stupid questions! Actually we may not even speak out these questions before other persons, it is sufficient when we ask them in our own heart. And this is, in fact, rather simple because we always want in our heart, even unconsciously want, the faith to be something else than faith trying to substitute it by something, anything, what our physical or soulish senses can easily identify, register, under­stand. But the faith, which the Holy Spirit gives to the conscience of our spirit, will always remain the same faith and nothing will change it! Our senses are unable to change our conscience and thus also faith, which is in it. And our conscience cannot be bribed or by­passed, nor can we negotiate with it.

 

Sometimes the Lord gives us faith, which He foreknows that we are unable to do even if we wanted. Our task then is to see and come to the same conclusion and start with the Lord a process where He would enable us to do that newly given faith by deepening our initial, partial or outright inadequate faith. Almost nobody in Christianity is doing this that I know and I myself was not doing it in this way. When I saw before me a task, which was somehow “impossible” and no “normal man” would undertake such a thing, I was seeking in myself something, some faith, which would assure me that if the Lord of Heaven and Earth wants something like that, then a way and power must exist how to reach that goal irrespective of my logic, imaginations or worries. Typical example of the above was my fight with the Canadian Embassy in Prague and with the representatives of the Liberal Go­vernment in Canada to get to Canada the persons of Jiří and Marta Žoha and this despite the stupidity of Jiří Žoha at the Embassy during his interview where they refused their visas unconditionally. I believe that nobody would have done what I did. But I won and they came. That they returned home to the Czech Republic prematurely and also returned to Satan and started to reward my good with their evil, this is not my problem; this is the matter of their wicked hearts.

 

It is truly a difficult thing for us to continually believe God, not because of what He can do or is willing to do, but because of WHO HE IS. Such faith is testing us on every side and this applies especially during the first number of years of our walk with God. God’s post­ponements, interruptions or delays of things, slowness of actions, seeming con­tra­dict­ions, inconsistencies, discrepancies, opposites, disagreements with things, paradoxes, and do­zens of other things, which “do not sit with us or overwhelmingly bypass our logic and under­standing”, are just few examples. The question is: What shall we do with it? Well, we know that GOD IS, but IS HE truly what He says about Himself that HE IS and as we understand it? Or HE IS NOT what we always tried to understand? Many of our inter­pret­a­tions of His answers to our payers or acts, our arguments or conclusions about things and happenings were steeply different from what we believed that HE IS and what we should believe. Do we always and truly believe that GOD KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING? And this question we can, of course, transfer into the spiritual sphere of our life. Examples?

 

There exist many things in our spiritual life, growth and perfecting process into the Image of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which should have been removed by the Lord, sometimes even removed a long time ago, even according to our logic! However, to this day the Lord has not removed them – including the matters of our character! If it would be possible at all, our best desire might be that God would make us absolutely sinless right now – but God will never do it! Why not? Because His aim is not that we should stop sinning! Is it logical for us? NO. But according to God, IT IS! You see, He deals with us in the matters of our will and faith and willingness, in the matters of changing and transforming our character to His Image since THIS is the Final Aim of God Our Father (Rom. 8:29). The end of our sin­ning will come automatically with it. And there are assuredly many other things, which we would desire God to do for us – but He does not do them! God has His Own logical rea­sons for it. He focuses on and is faithful primarily to His Own Purposes and Aims and HE IS very consistent in reaching them not only for His Own satisfaction, but also for our own good and glory with Him for ever and ever. Should God make us sinless right now, then our will and faith would become paralyzed, they would stop growing and deve­lop­ing! Our character would stop changing! Every one of us may always have in his soul some “elephants”, which are standing there and do not move and we either do not mind, or do not know what to do with them. It may be pride, worries, greed, uncertainty, in­de­ci­sion, selfish­ness, fear, self-righteousness, impatience, rebellion, laziness, anxiety, disin­te­rest, un­willingness, you name it. Yet, the Lord will not even touch any of the “elephants” while we do not mind them or while we do not know what to do with them. This is precisely the problem in our soul, which the Lord purposely retains there and which WE must resolve and overcome with HIS Wis­dom and power. In other words, our faith and will must grow and become strengthened sufficiently in their activities, so that WE could move and remove those “elephants”… even one by one. This is the way of our perfecting, which means, of our salvation – THROUGH our sinning and falls and repentances!

 

A thick book could be written about Abraham. The most important and most essential fact from his Christian life of faith was that God seldom showed to him what He was doing or why He was doing it. He gave him tasks and promises, which were either illogical, or paradox­ical or he never saw their fulfilment. It is written that though he (and others) died in faith, he had not received the promises of God and thus the fruit of his faith (Heb. 11: 13,39,40). We definitely do not have even a clue about such faith. Therefore, it is written: “they, which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham… and are blessed with faithful Abraham”, they belong to Christ, which were born of His endeavor and labor and are heirs according to the Promise of God (Gal. 3:7,9,29). Christ’s endeavor, sufferings and labor were also the mater of Christ’s Faith and Will. On the basis of His unwavering Faith and Will, it was prophesied that “He shall see His seed… He shall see the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied” (Is. 53:10,11) “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31). AND GOD IS WITH US!... only we are not always with Him... but the Holy Spirit is working on it. OUR TASK IS TO BELIEVE AND TRUST!

 

9) Our SOUL has a self-conscious life. In our soul, we are conscious of our own selves, of others and of everything that is in this world. Our SPIRIT has a God-conscious life. We can be conscious of God and have a communication with Him only in and by our spirit and by nothing else! Without faith, which is a spiritual substance, we cannot even come to God (Heb. 11:6). Our BODY has a world-conscious life. This si clear. Self-conscious life is the only life that pagans have and live. This life, unfortunately, predominates in carnal Christ­ians since their God-conscious life is rather scant, sometimes even zero.

 

After its redemption, our soul is FORCED to choose from two ways: (1) the way to its DEATH and an eternal damnation, or (2) the way to LIFE eternal, blessed in the Presence of Our Creator, Saviour and Lord and of Our Heavenly Father, Who “designed” our Salv­ation in His Own Heart. There exist no other ways, no other destinies for any man! The Lord is not forcing us to go the way of Salvation, but He is giving us a very clear choice in­cluding the consequences of that choice (Deut. 30:15-20/ Mt. 7:13,14). We are to take the way to the Life eternal after our water baptism, however, few believers start on this way after their baptism. There even exist believers, which will never start walking on this way because nobody tells them, nobody guides them that way or they are not willing to walk that way and lose their old sinful life. However, they thus lose their only chance for their Salvation. As I wrote above, our Salvation is enormously priceless thing, which cost the Son of God His Life. And this Salvation has a price tag also for us, its price is the loss of our old sinful and rotten life, in other words – either we take it or leave it. And here, almost all church leaders are guilty for deceiving believers, whether consciously or uncon­sciously, and will be held responsible at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Rom. 14:10).

 

For those that started to walk on this way of life or are preparing to start, it is desirable to receive the Light of the Lord regarding His ways, which He designed for us and the three of them are the following:

 

          a) The way of Vision. On page 49, Paragraph 4, I wrote: We are able to go only that far where our vision, our view into the future, brings us. And when we have no vision, we do not move, we only mill about in circles. Vision is also the question of our spiritual eyesight. A spiritually blind man cannot walk on the way of Salvation as he sees nothing, and no man can make decisions in dark­ness.

 

The basic Will of Our Heavenly Father is stated in Rom. 8:28,29. His Purpose is de­scrib­­ed in verse 28, and His Purpose is explained in verse 29. It is clear from verse 28 that God foreknew, who will truly love Him and He called those according to His Purpose. Further­more, He granted to them the privilege that everything what will happen in their life will be for their good! Hence, basically, nothing bad or evil can ever happen to them. Every such believer was literally born into the Purpose of God, which Purpose existed for him be­fore the foundation of the world! And this believer is supposed to start seeing this Purpose of God for him as soon as he opens his spiritual eyes. He thereby will start getting a Vision, which will keep guiding him to the fulfilment of the Will of God thereby increasing also the Glory of God. Everything we do, we should do for the Glory of Christ and of Our Heavenly Father. Whatever we do, which does not bring Glory to God, in fact, in may even bring shame to God, we should stop doing as soon as it is shown to us and we see it.

 

There exist a great difference between “our intentions for God” and the “Intention of God for us”. This is the basis for all our actions and Christian life and, thus, this should be re­membered especially by the leaders in the churches, which may often mix up these two kinds of intentions and thereby cause spiritual damages and bring shame to Christ and the Heavenly Father. Let all spiritual leaders realize that THEY are responsible for everything that takes place in the churches and not those that sit in the pews or on chairs. The Pur­po­ses or Intentions of God for us existed before our existence. Every believer, which was born-again and received the gift of the Holy Spirit into his spirit had his place in the Pur­poses of God and had his calling in Christ designated. Nobody came to “nothing”, nobody remained “unemployed”, on the contrary, everybody was called and, after his bapt­ism in water, should have been watchful and find out his calling in Christ. And when he will start to see that calling, he should be not only superficially interested in it, but to “press” to­ward that calling as there is nothing more valuable in this earthly life that he can have. Here, God is giving him an opportunity to serve Him according to His Purpose (Phil. 3: 14,15) and to serve Him successfully – to satisfy His Own Father in Heaven, God Almighty!

 

No believer, which was called and started to see and believe his calling, his VISION from God, inclu­ding the great men of God, which are described in the Scripture in detail, is able to deliver himself from his own efforts through which he will want to fulfill his calling, his VISION, and thus serve God. But God has to first prepare us for His Purpose, His calling, His Vision for us according to His Wisdom and Will, which stand in an opposition to our “wisdom and will” and to show us clearly that without Him we will really do NOTHING! The re­sult is that everybody will begin to "plow” that field of God’s Purpose by his own plow and begins to lose lots of time – 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years – or he may never stop his “plowing”.

 

Abraham himself “lost” a number of years because he wanted to “help God” with Isaac, the son of the Promise, when he was not coming for a long time. And not only that he “lost” a number of years, but at the same time he “helped God to create” all the problems with Moslems ever since Ishmael was born until now when Mos­lems are killing Christians and Jews just because they are not Moslems. Moses “lost” 40 years because he first had to go to a wilderness where he had to “lose” everything what he gained in Egypt. He could not serve God with what he gained in Egypt. Joseph “lost” a good number of years as well when he tried to do the Vision from God in his own power and “wisdom” that proved to be foolishness. A younger brother should not boast about to his older brothers that they shall bow down to him together with their father and mother (Gen. 37:10). Had he dealt with them wisely, his brothers would not have thrown him into a pit and sold him to merchants from Egypt. And in Egypt, he would have not ended up in jail for some years had he not been similarly naïve, etc. But apparently, even Joseph needed those years in jail.

 

An important point is that the word “lost” I purposely put in quotes since those years were not really “lost”, but every such servant of God needed to experience them so God could change him in his character and inabilities to render God service, which He had prepared for them before their birthday. Therefore, if there is somebody among us, who “lost” 10-20-30 years, that is not the end of his service to God IF that believer learned something during that time and started to see his Vision through spiritual eyes. I also know brethren, which started to “see” after 10-20-30 or even more years! Hence, our VISION waits for every one of us and the Lord is giving to us innumerable opportunities to start seeing it and follow it in whatever state of our Christian life we are.

 

We need at this place to realize yet one more important fact. Everything what we gained, lived through and experienced in our past life IS NOT lost, wasted, purposeless, nor is the time lost. If we have not seen it until now, we will see it in the future that the Lord was al­ways able to work in our "“unplowed field” even when we were not conscious of it in any way. And from that work He achieved special, unusual, even peculiar values, which we have never seen or understood. This was possible for Him based on His foreknowledge, what we will need in our future and from what past we could derive lessons, which would strengthen our faith and determination to go on – on a new way. I do not want to say that the above applies to every believer, but rather to those, which were foreknown by God and thus foreordained for His Purposes.

 

We all know, that the youth between 13 and 19 year of age, so called, “teenagers” must go through a “tunnel” where they know everything, where nobody has anything to tell them, inclu­­ding their parents, which also do not understand them, and thus they live a “carefree life in the darkness of the tunnel”. And when they are finally coming out of it, they are unable to believe what kind of life of reality and responsibility they are facing. Well, does the Lord know about it? I personally believe that He purposely arranged it that way since a 13 year old boy could not understand the world and life anyway, and carry responsi­bi­lity, which his parents carry for him. That’s why they are living in that tunnel those six years or so that they may be shielded from the world and its responsi­bi­lities. So, why should we be shocked if something similar would be happening also in the spirit­ual age? There exist also “spiritual teenagers”, which may be 50-60 years of age physical­ly, which believed in the Lord, were baptized, are conscious of being Christians and thus different from their pagan friends. They may also try not to do evil or sin against God and resist temptations as best as they can. But so far, they do not feel or understand any res­pon­sibility for their new faith or relationship with Christ or their new brethren because these respon­si­bilities are carried for them by Christ. But they are not aware that what will follow will not be an “easy life” as they will have to learn responsibilities and facts of their spirit­­ual life as the Spirit will lead them. Are we able to see this? This is also a fact, which the Lord established in His Creation according to His Mind and Will and he has reasons for it, which we cannot understand until He reveals them unto us. I must note here that to be a “spiritual teenager” in an advanced physical age is like to be a mother in an advanced physical age. It is not an end of the world, but the life conditions in an advanced age are different and definitely harder, than in young age, which the Lord chose for our believing and redemp­t­ion and baptism… as it is the same for a young woman to be a mother.

 

          b) The way of Wisdom. When we find the way of wisdom, we find the way to our salv­ation and deliverance. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…” (Ps. 111:10) and it also is the beginning of knowledge (Pr. 1:7). The “beginning” also means the “first part”, which means that the FEAR of the Lord is as it were the “foundation” upon which we may build and continue in knowledge and wisdom. From our beginnings the Lord is generously giving to us opportunities, where we can verify our wisdom or the lack of it. The word “opportunities” should be basically understood in the following sense.

 

The Lord never compels us to choose His Way without simultaneously giving to us alter­na­tives and possibilities, which for us are far more bearable, tolerable, acceptable, attractive even “wiser” according to our judgment. He gives to us various situations and other ways in order to find out our judgments of His Will and His Ways. He may put in front of us an opportunity, which, at the same time, may be a test of our fear of Him, our commitment, devotion, sincerity, integrity, of the relationship of our heart toward Him, etc. Of course, the Lord knows why we always choose for us the most attractive and promising opportuni­ties and we always judge them according to their usefulness for us personally and for our pur­poses or aims of our heart. Our purposes always depend on our plans, ambitions and on our understanding of the way, which we choose. Here the Lord is never as a “scientist sitting in a laboratory” waiting for the result of the test. He foreknows how the test will go and does not have to wait for the result. The Lord is doing this “testing” with tenderness and love toward us so He might show us later on and we might judge ourselves, whether our decision was wise or foolish. And we learn thereby. This is a practical acquisition of wisdom from the Lord in His Way even though we may not choose His Way. Wisdom is mentioned in the Scripture in many places, but we always talk about God’s Wisdom and not human wisdom. Hence, “If any of you lack (God’s) wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him” (Jam. 1:5). Which way and how it will be given him is not specified in this Word of God as it always depends on the spiritual state of that believer, but it shall be given him.

 

          c) The way of Spiritual Strength. The history of Israel and the Philistines is so well known that it is not necessary to write about it. However, it may be necessary to ask the questions, which to this day have no reliable or truthful answers. For example, why is it that Israel was always in a certain danger from the side of the Philistines? They always were a source of annoyances and vexation and threats and a mockery of Israel ever since they existed though they in themselves never meant anything special. Today, the situa­tion is almost the same except that they are not called Philistines, but Palestinians. There is no greater thorn in the side of Israel than Palestinians. Then why the weaknesses and the deplorable state of Israel were always shown in the presence of Philistines? The Lord always has someone through whom the specific unhealthy situations are revealed, and later on the Lord adds also the reasons for that unhealthy state, which causes weaknesses and inabilities. The Philistines were also called the “uncircumcised Philistines”. David used the same phrase when he called Goliath the “uncircumcised Philistine” (1Sam. 17:36).

 

All this are known things, but what is “unknown” or unrecognized as the result of Israel’s ina­bi­lity to stand face-to-face with Philistines, overcome them, get rid of them, is the fact that Israel was very similar to the Philistines! How? As the Philistines were uncircumcised in body, so ISRAEL WAS UNCIRCUMCISED IN HEART (Rom. 2:24-29). Hence, the Philistines could mock and defame Israel’s God, and Israel could do nothing about it!

 

Unfortunately, similar situation is also in the Church and in the whole Christianity, which is also uncircumcised in heart and has in itself a worldly spirit. That’s why the world is also uncovering weaknesses and inabilities in the Church, defames her God and is mocking her saying: You do not signify anything and you cannot be taken seriously. The world laughs at the Church and Christians, which carry in themselves the same worldly spirit, which the pagans in the world also carry. This also shows that the “salvation” of these Christians is not worth much because their salvation is not able to do anything, it has no power. And the world is similarly the greatest thorn in the side of the Church since her beginning.

 

This is also an appropriate place to mention that those great men of God mentioned in point a) “lost” their years precisely because of the need to be “circumcised in heart” and thereby “lose” their sinful humanity, inabilities, weaknesses, spiritual stupidity and their worldly qualities in order to gain spiritual power and wisdom needed to render acceptable service to God, Who called them. I will take Moses as perhaps the most typical example. A great majority of believers know his history so I will not repeat it here. I will state only two basic acts.

 

Moses, as supposed son of Pharaoh, gained in Egypt great knowledge, worldly wisdom, skills and glory; everybody was bowing down to him because he was a “son of Pharaoh” and thus had great privileges. For God, however, he was totally useless! When God called him for His Purpose to deliver His people from Egypt, He first led him out into wilderness and there he was tending sheep – 40 years he was tending sheep! What a shock and change for a Prince of Egypt – from the palace of Pharaoh into wilderness to tend sheep! After 40 years, Moses brought his flock to the mountain of God called Horeb, where he saw a bush burning with fire, but the bush was not touched by the fire, not consumed, not burned (Ex. 3:1-6). Why a burning bush? Our God, Who is also a consuming fire (Heb. 12: 29) wanted to show Moses, and to all of us in the New testament, that Moses needed to “burn” for 40 years in that wilderness so that the fire would burn out of him EVERYTHING what he gained in Egypt! Only then he became an instrument acceptable to God to bring His people out of Egypt. This was an enormously great task for which he had to be totally cleansed and open to the Lord for His instructions. When the Lord brings us to the wilder­ness, our soul also “burns” because it loses what it formerly considered valuable and use­ful and pleasant, and it is not getting what it would truly want and what it would desire! Our soul is “melted down by fire”, yet, it is not burned and consumed by the fire, but it will emerge out of it as seven times purified silver, which is the cleanness of the Word of God (Ps. 12:6)!

 

10) FEAR is one of the most effective weapons of Satan! Every man lives in some kind of fear. Every Christian lives in some kind of fear, the question is, in what kind of fear and how deep and powerful fear he lives. Also, whether that fear governs his Christian life and keeps him in a paralysis or whether it has a frequent or just an occasional influence upon his life and deeds. On one side, it is a great evil if we have fear. On the other side, it is the same great evil, if we don’t have fear! How can we explain this? What fear we are talking about here? There are two types of fear, one comes from evil and causes evil, ruin, paralysis, death. The other fear brings blessings, wisdom, knowledge, joy and life. Let us look closer at these two types of fears and understand what they mean for us, what they cause and how to deal with them.

 

On one side, it is a great evil to have fear, which brings inability, paralysis, suffer­­ing, affliction, anger, torment, illness and finally death. This fear comes from the devil and its task is to keep us from our salvation at all costs; so believers, after their redemption, remain, or are kept, in the state of weakness, indecision, lukewarmness, even satisfaction with their paralyzed state, inability to make decisions or take definite and positive steps toward the Lord so He might deliver them from this devilish spirit of fear.

 

On the other hand, it is equally great evil not to have fear! Both sides cause the same evil and thus they are judged in the Word of God and believers are warned about these two spiritual states. Our inability to discern these two types of fear is also the root of fail­ure and idleness on our way of salvation. What does it mean in our Christian life “not to have fear”? Why is it considered as evil, even a great evil?

 

Not to have fear here means “not to fear God“, not to have fear of His Word, Command­ments, Judgments, His Ways or His Will (Rom. 3:10-18/ 2Cor. 7:1/ Eph. 5:21 / Phil. 2:12/ Acts 2:43/ 1Thes. 5:23, etc.). On the other hand, fear before the Lord means a recognition and appre­ciation of His Glory, His Majesty, His Holiness, His Truthfulness, His Grace, His Power, His Judgments, etc. Hence, if we “do not fear God”, then we acknowledge nothing from the above and do not recognize any Glory, Majesty, Holiness, Truthfulness, Grace or other Virtues, which He has not only in Himself, but also toward us. The main characteris­tic of this fear of the Lord is humility, meekness, softness, willingness to learn, gentle­ness, forbearance, mercy and, of course, wisdom and knowledge – at least, their begin­nings. The fear of the Lord is the be­ginning of wisdom and knowledge (Ps. 111:10/ Pr. 1:7). There is therefore a very important task in our life, which is to discern and understand what kind of fear or uncertainty exists in us and influences us and why. 

 

Whenever we fear the devil and listen to his reasons, warnings, threats, deceptions or temptations or lies regarding the consequences of our planned actions or desires, we live and walk in evil and are sinning, even though unconsciously. Why? Because we may be unaware that all such thoughts of fear, devil’s reasons, warnings, threats, lies, etc., are not only false, they are total stupidities, which have no basis, they are his fabrications. And when we receive and allow ourselves to be led by such stupid thoughts, then we sin. “The thought of foolishness is sin;” (Pr. 24:9) whether we have that thought in us or we receive it from others, believe it and follow it. This fact of the devil’s fear is actually only the first point of his goal. The second goal is to dishonor God because God is and should be honored in His believers. When believers are fearful, do not live by the Spirit of God, they dishonor God. Furthermore, a fearful believer cannot even love God because in true love, there is no fear.

 

We may define fear also as distrust, suspiciousness, lack of faith or love. The true love casts out of our soul all fear (1Jn. 4:18). Furthermore, love also means trust. We cannot love anyone in whom we have no trust, suspicion and in whom we have no basic or at least a sufficient faith. We cannot tell anybody: I love you, but I don’t trust you. Equally, we cannot say: I love the Lord, but I do not entirely trust Him, I am not completely sure about Him, I fear that this or that He will not do for me, will not hear me; I have great worries that that this or that will never happen, I fear whether I will be able to do what He wants, I do not even have assurance about my future, I do not know how everything will turn out…. Fear is the opposite of trust and certainty! When we trust, then we do not fear (Is. 12:2/ Ps. 27:1). When Adam fell into sin, he began to fear and began to live in fear. We inherited this fear and it became a part of our character. Often it is quite recognizable when some people are fearful since their childhood. I also believe that there exist spirits of fear, whom Satan sends out to come “upon us” and bring us into fear. Such spirits then “double” our fear, which we already may have in our character. The good news is that all these “external” spirits of fear may be cast out of us and it may take but a moment. But our character cannot be cast out of us, therefore, its change and cleansing takes much longer time.

 

Whenever we, therefore, find out or see that fear stands in our way to do something, say something, go somewhere, etc., it should immediately be presented before the Lord, con­fess to Him and ask Him to strengthen us in spirit, or deliver us from it. He may also show us clearly that the fear has no justification, no meaning and no logic except to hold us for fools. The Lord always knows what should be done and we must trust Him. We may also find out from time to time or even see that we are ignoring or violating His Word, and that without any qualms of our conscience, or we behave haughtily, arrogantly towards the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We may also be in situations where we walk by our pride and have no fear from the rebukes of the Holy Spirit. Here, we should come before the Lord and repent to Him from the evil that we have no fear before Him. The Lord will then show to us both kinds of fear, and He will put us into the right relationship with the first as well as the second type of fear.

 

11) The Life Eternal begins by Spiritual Growth and ends by Glory. Here, the Lord is giving us Light which will explain and make more understandable how the Life Eternal act­ually comes to us, or better said, into us, why it does not begin with Glory, but with Spirit­ual Growth and what stands in the way of that Life and our Glory. We must return to one basic and, at the same time, a shocking fact of the Word of God, which Word we mention­ed in Part 9 (Rev. 3:16). But now, we will look at it entirely from the Lord’s viewpoint. He can see the spiritual background and can give us His explanation, which has for us a vitally import­ant meaning.

 

a) The question of the Spiritual Growth begins with the children of Adam where Cain was after the flesh, carnal, and Abel was after the Spirit, spiritual. The carnal was against the spiritual so much that he killed him and thus the spiritual had no opportunities for a spiritual growth. This double trend continues from the begin­ning of man­kind even unto the end of this world! God then continues with Abraham in whose life God con­ti­nues with those two different trends, the way of flesh and of Spirit, the carnal way and spiritual way. Abraham had two sons, one from the handmaid Hagar, the other from the freewoman – his wife Sarah. The one from the bondmaid was born after the flesh, the one from the freewoman after the Promise of God. These two sons represent the two covenants, one is from the Mount Sinai, which begets children into bondage, this is Hagar and answers to the present Jerusalem and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem, which is above is free (in heavens) and is the mother of us all. But we, brethren (writes Paul) are as Isaac, the children of the Promise (Gal. 4:22-26,28).

 

“But as then he that was born after the flesh (Ishmael) persecuted him that was born after the Spirit (Isaac), even so it is now. Nevertheless, what sayeth the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman” (Gal. 4:29,30). Another Word of God that harmonizes with this fact clearly says: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:6). Two absolutely different and opposing cate­gories of people between which there is no unity of any kind, not even a friendly relationship. It had ever existed and never will! This, of course, can be best seen in the Church.

 

We can clearly see from the above that between the carnal and the spiritual there has always existed an irreconcilable conflict and that throughout the history of mankind until now, and it includes Israel and the Church! And this is not just a conflict between a Jew and a Christian, but it is right inside the Church (Rom. 8:7/ 1Cor. 3:3/ 2Cor. 10:3-5,18). The Lord’s con­clusion to this whole matter IS NOT any reconciliation, dispute settlement or anything similar, but IT IS separation, expulsion! “...Cast out the bondwoman and her son…” After all, I can mention here also Lot, who was also carnal and did not last long with Abraham, but he separated himself from him and ended up in Sodom! However, the Lord had mercy on him because of the prayers and intercessions of Abraham and that’s why He saved him from Sodom, even with his daughters.

 

Now we can return to the Book of Revelation and use this Light to illuminate the con­clu­sion of the Lord for the carnal Church “…I will spue thee out of My mouth…” (Rev. 3: 16-18) This means that the Lord is, in effect, saying to this Church the following: “You are neither wholly outside, nor wholly inside, neither hot, nor cold. If you would be wholly inside, I could yet evangelize you and save you (dispose of your flesh, sinfulness and carnality). However, because with time you have come and hardened into this stony and immovable po­sition of your carnal mind and life, My Purpose for you is impossible to carry out. You are blind, wretched, miserable, regrettable, poor and naked. And even this you are un­will­ing to see and admit in truth and in your heart! Therefore, you are in a hopeless situation and I cannot evangelize you or save you, I can do with you NOTHING… but to spue you out of My mouth!” This is the Lord’s conclusion to this whole matter!

 

Nevertheless, even to this church the Lord says: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My Throne…” (Rev. 3:21a). Those that will start denying their carnality and take up their cross and follow Christ (Mt. 16:24), will become Overcomers and spiritual and the Bride of Christ. They will become a part of the Manchild, which will be raptured to the Throne of Christ (Rev. 12:5), which is the Bride’s departure from the earth. Thereby the promise of the Lord in Rev. 3:21 shall be fulfilled. The carnal church will flee to wilder­ness on the earth (see Rev. chpt. 12). Is it not apparent for any normally thinking believer that the organized, systemized and worldly Christianity is losing its place with God? God is se­parating Himself from it and seeks in that multitude of believers what answers to His Goal, to His Purpose in His Son – spiritual fellowship changed to the Image of His Son Jesus Christ. God is joined with Isaac, not with Ishmael.

 

If pagans received Christ as their Saviour, but remained carnal believers, then God is join­ed with such people as with Ishmael, which came from Abraham, but was uncircumcised, that is, unelected. With the spiritual believers (circumcised in heart) God is joined as with Isaac, which is already elected. Finally, carnal and spiritual believers will not be able to co­­exist endlessly, for ever and ever, but will be separated from one another for ever and ever. That time is coming very quickly. The Lord said clearly: “The Son of Man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity (the carnal ones). And shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Mt. 13:41-43). Do we have ears to hear? This Word applies not only to all pagans, but also to all carnal believers, which call Jesus Christ “the Lord“. For the Lord, such be­lie­vers are an offense and the workers of iniquity, whether they see it or not, whether they believe it or not (Mt. 7:21-23). The Lord will deal with them as with the workers of iniquity.

 

In his letters, Apostle Paul clearly indicated that there existed only a very small part of the Church, Overcomers, those spiritual ones, and if you are one of them then you will lose great multitudes of carnal believers. You will lose their fellowship, their affections, their friend­ship. They will be cut off from you since God would have to put them aside, separate them. Paul saw already with Galatians that, should they truly return to their carnal basis (to the law), they will have to be put aside and cut off as well, since they will then fall away from the Grace and will be separated from Christ, and THAT IS the loss of Salvation (Gal. 5:4). Apostle John says: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1Jn. 2:19). The Lord Jesus Christ is cutting off those that do not walk with Him in order to make place for those that do walk with Him. The Lord makes space for spiritual growth by cutting off those carnal believers, which are in the way wherever they are and what­ever they are. Sometimes we, the spiritual ones, may feel that we are just like a small em­bryo of spiritual life in the sea of carnality, but the Lord is making space for an enlarge­ment and expansion of this embryo in us (Is. chpt. 54). Elijah was also in a situation where he felt that he was the only one from the whole Israel that remained faithful to God. But God told him that He had other seven thousands, which remained faithful to Him (1Ki. 19:14,18). How many faithful ones God has today? Only He knows.

 

b) The question of Glory. If we want to see at least a part of the Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and also our present or future Glory, then it is suitable to go to the Gospel of John. Jesus called John “the beloved” because John also loved Jesus and thus their love was mutual and that from the very beginning. And it is quite possible that precisely because of that love, John had a much more intimate relationship also to the Glory of Jesus and saw how His deeds were based on His Glory and also brought Glory to Him and to His Father. If we read few chap­ters from the Gospel of John, we shall see the following events of the Glory of Jesus where He miraculously resolved absolutely hopeless situations and turned them into blessings.

 

John, chapter 2 – wedding in Cana of Galilee, hopeless situation. Chapter 3 – Nicodemus seeks his way to the Kingdom, hopeless situation. Chapter 4 – woman at the well desiring “His water”; followed by healing of the prince, both situations totally hopeless. Chapter 5 – healing of the cripple, who was waiting for 38 years to be healed, totally hopeless situa­tion. Chapter 6 – feeding of the 5,000, totally impossible and hopeless situation. Chapter 9 – heal­ing of the blind that was born blind, absolutely impossible and hopeless situation. Chapter 11 – raising Lazarus from the dead, totally impossible and hopeless situation. It is needful to mention here that in at least some of the above examples, the Lord purposely acted so that the situations that occurred would be totally impossible and hopeless and thus His Glory the greatest (Jn. 11:1-6). By these deeds the Lord wanted to show His Glory and all those deeds He also performed for the Glory of His Father in Heaven. At the same time, He showed that WITH HIM nothing is impossible, hopeless for anyone, who believ­es, even for him, who confesses to Him that his faith is not sufficient and asks the Lord to help him in his weak faith (Mk. 9:24).

 

Regarding our Glory, the Lord said clearly: “He, that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto My Father” (Jn. 14:12). These Words of the Lord seem to be unbelievable. How should we understand them? Well, firstly, the deeds, which the Lord Jesus did, He did in this physical world since He lived in the Old Testament. We live in the New Testament and thus we should do these deeds primarily in the spiritual world, though some of them we may still do in the physical world. Today, I also “raise the dead”, not bodily, but spiritually dead and am giving to them the spiritual Life, which I have from Christ. I also minister “His water”, which means, living water, which is His Word in His Spirit. When believers drink it, they will not be thirsty any more. As well, we feed thousands of people with the “bread from Heaven”, which is our literature, which we write, print and send free of charge from what we have in our “basket” – those “five loaves of bread and two fishes”, that is, those five salaries and two pensions. We “break those loaves” and give them to all the world and feed thousands of the hungry ones – freely, not expecting from anybody even words of thanks (few were giving thanks even to the Lord). We do it for the Glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ and also of Our Heavenly Father… and we do not even know how. These are all miracles. But therein is also our Glory, which ends our Salvation in our entering into Life Eter­nal and filling up our whole beings by Life Eternal.

 

12) Our Perfection. This is the last point of our present fellowship before Our God and with Our God, of our present message from the Holy Spirit, of our great blessing and an enormous pri­vilege to be participants and objects of this precious Word and Light from the Throne of God.

 

For the presentation of this particular point 12), the Lord led me to chapters VII. and X. of my book “The Mystery of Reality”, which describe the issues of perfecting of believers in sufficient details. I took from there the most basic and important excerpts and present them in an abridged form for each above chapter extra. We shall thus repeat some basic facts, which is the purpose of the Lord for refreshing of our memory and deepening of our understanding and conscience about our perfection.

 

 

Chapter VII – THE PERFECTING OF SAINTS

In Matthew 5:48 the Lord says: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.” I would like to put to you a simple question: Do you know to whom the Lord speaks here? The Lord speaks here neither to Israel, nor to the Church. Here the Lord speaks solely to His disciples and not to the multitudes! What is the differ­ence between disciples and multitudes?

The saved ones are divided into four groups: 1) Multitudes, 2) Disciples, 3) Servants and 4) The Beloved John. The division starts with multitudes, which no man can number and ends with one man, John. From the multitudes disciples are coming out, from the disciples servants are coming out, which from the very beginning were twelve, and from the twelve apostles comes out John, who was the beloved of the Lord. Number four is related to the earthly creation of God. We have four cardinal directions: north, south, east and west. Four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. Four parts of the day: morning, noon, eve­ning and night. Four corners of the earth, four winds of the earth (Rev. 7:1) and also four Gospels. Hence, number four is related to the creation of God which is earthly and which is about to become Heavenly.

Apostles represent the servants of God given by the Lord to His Church (Eph. 4:11,12): “And He gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”

Disciples are those that continue in His Word (Jn. 8:31), in which He says: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (Jn. 8:32). The multitudes will not know the truth and will not be delivered or made free, but the disciples will. From among the disciples the Lord is choosing those that desire to serve Him and His Church and He gave them to us as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Not every dis­ciple was given to the Church to minister Christ. I am speaking here only about the true servants called by God and not about those, which may have graduated from seminaries and gained theological degrees. And from among these true servants the Lord calls such, that love Him from their whole heart, and the representative of these is John the Beloved.

This is furthermore shown quite clearly and proven in the Song of Solomon 6:8: “There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother; she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.”

Virgins without number are the multitudes. Concubines are the disciples. The queens are the servants of God and the dove is John the Beloved, that is, the Bride of Christ. This is the beauty of the Word of God and this is the Mystery of Reality related to the perfecting of saints. And we are only starting, because the above has a relationship and impact on the reality of the perfecting of saints.

Just as there are four groups among believers, and four Gospels, similarly there exist four different depths of love and four different degrees of perfection. And I can before the Lord declare very clearly and openly that His Love for a sinner or for a believer, which has just believed – that Love is very different from the Love for His disciples; and again, that Love is very different from His Love for His true servants; and His Love for His true servants is yet different from His Love for John the Beloved – His Bride! There are different depths of love. And for these dif­ferent depths of love, there exist different depths and requirements for the perfection of saints. What the Lord requires, demands, expects, desires from John the Beloved, He does not require from His apostles, prophets, pastors or teachers. And what He requires from these He does not require from His disciples; and what He requires from His disciples He does not require from the multitudes.

 

Let us read some parts from the Book of Psalms. I am sure that many Christians know that Psalms came out of David’s heart, which was pulling him to the Lord and that’s why the Lord considered his heart as perfect. It is possible that not all Psalms that follow will relate to the perfection or to the process how the Lord is perfecting His saints. But these verses were not given to me to speculate over, but that I would “drink” them because they, even at this time, have something beautiful to give us.

 

“I will praise Thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all Thy mar­ve­l­­ous works. I will be glad and rejoice in Thee, I will sing praise to Thy Name, O Thou most high” (Ps. 9:1,2). No man can praise the Lord in this manner, if his heart was not already reformed, changed, if it was not perfected to some degree.

 

Psalm 12:6: “The Words of the LORD are pure Words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”

 

Psalm 18:32: “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way per­fect.”

 

Psalm 19:7-14: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimo­ny of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right re­joicing the heart; the Commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever; the Judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is any servant warned; and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can un­derstand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults. Keep back Thy servant also from presumptions sins; let them not have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer.”

This is a beautiful passage of the Word of God, where man speaks to God! Where God decided to use this testimony of man, David, into His Word because it is truthful and brings Glory to God.

 

Psalm 25:9: “The meek will He guide in judgment; and the meek will He teach His way.” In verse 14 we will also learn to whom the Lord reveals His secrets: “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant.”

 

Psalm 145:3: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable.”

 

Psalm 145:8-12: “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His works. All Thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord, and Thy saints shall bless Thee. They shall speak of the Glory of Thy Kingdom, and talk of Thy power. To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious Majesty of His King­dom.”

 

Psalm 145:16-21: “Thou openeth Thine hand and satisfieth the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and Holy in all His works. The Lord is nigh unto all of them that call upon Him, of all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him; He also will hear their cry and will save them. The Lord preserveth all them that love Him, but all the wicked will He destroy. My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord; and let all flesh (humans) bless His Holy Name for ever and for ever.”

 

Let us return for a while to Psalm 138:8a: “The Lord will perfect that which concern­eth me;” We could ask: How will He do it?” In Psalm 139:23-24, David cries: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

 

Let us now look closer at the perfection of man. The first man, whom the Lord declared per­fect, was Noah. We should understand why. Genesis 6:9 says: “These are the gene­ra­tions of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” Noah was called perfect “in his generations” and we can find his per­fection in verse 22: “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.” THIS was Noah’s perfection, in his faith and the deeds of his faith. How deep­ly Noah loved God is another question, but Noah did all what God commanded him, which certainly points also to his trust in and obedience to God. To that depth and to that measure he was judged by God as perfect.

 

Another man, who was judged as perfect was Job. The Book of Job 1:1 says: “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright…” And in verse 8: “And the Lord said unto Satan: Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?” The same is repeated in chapter 2 and verse 3.

 

Nobody else in the Scripture is specifically called perfect, though there existed more per­fect people. But if we, who are a part of the Church, are commanded by the Lord to be perfect, then He must have done something similar to Abraham, who was the beginning of Israel and of the Church. We are being called the seed of Abraham since everyone, who lives by faith, is the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:29). Well, it is so. Christ, before His incar­na­tion, appeared unto Abraham and commanded him to be perfect saying: “And when Abra­m was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him: I Am the Al­mighty God; walk before Me and be thou perfect” (Gen. 17:1). This is the very first time that God had ever introduced Himself to any human creature as “Almighty God“ and commanded that creature to be perfect!

 

The Lord commands Israel to be perfect (Deut. 18:13). It is so called “song of Moses” in which the Spirit of God through Moses speaks to Israel: “Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God.” And in verse 15: “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Pro­­phet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken.” Of course, this Prophet is Christ. Here, the Lord prophesies about Himself and commands Israel to be perfect.

 

The Church is also commanded to be perfect where Apostle Paul speaks to the church in Corinth: “Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you” (2Cor. 13:11)

For believers to be perfect is not an alternative of their free will, but it is a commandment! When Paul speaks to the church in Corinth “be perfect”, he speaks to the multitudes, to the virgins without number and tells them to be perfect – but NOT AS THE FATHER, which is in Heaven! Here is the difference in the degree of perfection, which the Lord demands from the church in Corinth as opposed to what He demands from His disciples or servants or from His Bride.

 

Paul also says: “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of Glory. Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wis­dom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Whereunto I also labor striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily” (Col. 1:27-29).

 

We can read in Gal. 4:19: “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” If Christ is formed in anybody, it means, that that man is get­ting perfected! 2Tim. 3:16-17: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is pro­fitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous­ness. That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

 

Let us notice that this perfecting talks about deeds. Here we can see the difference where a man may be educated by useful learning, may be corrected, may be perfected and tho­roughly furnished unto all “good works”… and in the meantime, he may not love the Lord as Apostle John did!

 

In Col. 4:12 we read: “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and com­plete in all the Will of God.” He labors in prayers, maybe even in intercessions, so that they might become perfect and remain perfect fulfilling the Will of God in every­thing. In 1Thes. 3:10 we read: “Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith.”

Above, Paul tells the believers about the perfecting of their faith. It is a spiritual work – to pray exceedingly, fight in prayers in the Spirit, which means, to labor in the Spirit on be­half of someone else. This is the way in which the perfection of saints comes. We know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17). Hence, preach­ing, teaching, talk, discussion, sharing with one another is important since faith usually comes through such forms of ministry, when we talk about the Word of God. But it is through prayer, through the work in spirit that the individual is then brought to perfection so that the faith, which he received through such preaching, teaching, discussion, sharing, may not only stand, but be strengthened and perfected so the believer may use it. And by using it, the believer keeps receiving Life and that Life is equal to perfection because the Life of Christ contains perfection. It thus brings perfection to those that are receiving it. 

 

I have a question for you: When the Lord Jesus was born, was He perfect? Yes or no? The reality is that the Lord Jesus was born IMPERFECT! He was made imperfect! I want to repeat this to the whole Church: The Lord Jesus Christ was made imperfect for our sake! In the same way as He was made sin for our sake, so He could save us (2Cor. 5:21). And equally I say, that Jesus Christ was for our sake made imperfect, so that He might learn obedience and thus be made perfect through suffering: “For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto Glory, to MAKE the Captain of their Salvation PERFECT through sufferings” (Heb. 2:10). It is further written: “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience* by the things which He suffered. And being made PERFECT (through sufferings), He became the Author of eternal Salvation unto all them that obey Him” (Heb. 5:8,9) (*God-the-Son did not have to learn obedience, but the Son of Man had to!)

If, therefore, the Son of Man was made sin for our sake so that He might save us, and we are saved and enjoy our salvation, then it is one of the greatest teachings and truths of Christianity! And when He was similarly made imperfect for our sake, then the question of perfection and of the perfecting of the believers is not any less important for the believers than the question of their own salvation! Matthew 5:48 was never preached, nobody preached about the perfecting of believers because it simply goes far beyond our imagina­tion and all our reasonings and if it brought anything into our hearts, then it was fear and chaos and not faith and Life.

Let us return for a while to Heb. 5:9: “…and being made PERFECT, He became the Author of eternal Salvation unto all them that…” …believe in the Lord? That read about Him? That hear about Him but otherwise do not obey Him? What words are used there? “…that OBEY Him”. Even our first repentance at our redemption was the deed of our obedience towards Christ and towards His Word. No wonder that after we were redeemed, Paul continues in Heb. 6:1 saying: “Let us continue unto perfection”. This is another Com­mand­ment of the Holy Spirit for all those believers, which were already redeemed by obey­ing the appeal of the Word for repentance. The same Spirit is now commanding them: “Continue unto per­fection". Because SOME KIND OF PERFECTION IS DEMAND­ED FROM EVERY BELIEVER!... and this perfection, or the degree of the demanded per­fect­ion, depends on our heart. Every believer stops somewhere and where he stops is not determined by the Lord, it is determined by the heart of that believer.

We cannot make ourselves perfect as we are not capable of doing it. We must cooperate with God, Who makes us perfect, and we should not be surprised by it. Heb. 13:20-21 says: “Now the God of peace… (we continue in verse 21)… make you perfect in every good work to do His Will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to Whom be Glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Paul prays to the God of peace to make Jews perfect in every good work. Hence, we speak here about the perfection related to the “work” for the Lord; we do not speak here about any higher perfection.

The next revelation, which the Lord is granting to us, is the following. When we talk about the perfecting of the saints, what are we, in fact, talking about? The Lord says: “The per­fecting of a saint means the perfecting of his fruit." The fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance (Gal. 5:22, 23). The greatest of these is love and, naturally, who else should speak about love than John the Beloved? It is written in 1Jn. 4:6: “We are of God; he that knoweth God hear­eth us; he that is not of God heareth us not. Hereby we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

 

1Jn. 4:12,13: “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.”

 

1Jn. 4:16,17a: “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect…”

 

We begin with love that may be clean and acceptable for the Lord just as the love of our children is acceptable for us. But there exist various kinds of love and also various depths or levels of love. Even the love with which we start to love the Lord must be perfected since every first fruit of every tree, when it began to form, is not very acceptable. The fruit must first ripen, must be perfected so we would be fully satisfied with it, so it would be sweet, tasty, juicy, delicious. Our love must be similarly perfected. And when our love is perfected, then we are like unto David, who wrote the Book of Psalms and who, in the Old Testament, was Beloved with God and thus a kind of reflection of John the Beloved in the New Testament. And when we love God, we are where He is, we dwell in Him.

 

John 12:26a: “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be;” John 19:25,26a: “Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Mag­da­le­ne. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved…” Disciple whom He loved, John the Beloved stood by the Cross of Jesus. Where the Lord was, there was John! And where were the others? They disappeared and were nowhere. Do you see why is John Beloved? Where is the Lord, there is John. We also know well that during the Last Supper when the Lord said: “… one of you shall betray Me”, everyone around was astounded and everyone turned to John because he was lean­ing against Jesus’ bosom (Jn. 13:21,23). Well, there is John, leaning against Jesus’ bosom.

 

The love of the Lord to John cannot be compared to His love to anyone else, because this love was deep as also John’s love to the Lord was deep, and that was shown in his life and deeds. John was devoted to the Lord in every respect. No wonder that the Lord showed Himself to him again at the end of history of writing the Bible and gave him the privilege to write the Book of Revelation! In fact, the Lord showed John Himself, the Father and the things in Heaven. And John was the only one from among the apostles, who was not mur­der­ed but died with a natural death. Deep love calls for a deep love! Psalm 42:7 says: “Deep calleth unto deep…” Shallow love does not need deep love, shallow patience does not need deep patience, shallow joy does not need deep joy and shallow faith never calls after deep faith. These are also the Mysteries of Reality.

 

1Ki. 11:4: “For it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God as was the heart of David his father.” Verse 6: “And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father.” This evidently tells us that not only was David perfect towards the Lord in his heart and fully de­vot­ed to Him, but it also tells us that the love and obedience towards the Lord is not INHERITED!

 

Jam. 2:22: “Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” Faith which is not perfected through deeds or works can never bring de­light to the Lord since it can never bring forth fruit because deeds are the fruit of faith. Our faith, especially from the beginning, may be a very small, bitter and unsavory fruit be­fore it is perfected. It was assuredly the fruit of faith which was perfected in Abraham, who was called a “man of faith”.

 

Patience also has to be perfected. Jam. 1:4: “But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” And patience is being develop­ed through the testing of our faith. It is also one of the ways in which the Lord is perfect­ing the saints. Verse 2: "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temp­tations.” (ha,ha,ha) We NEVER count it for joy, rather, we count it for a disaster, misery, horrible thing. We should take it for joy knowing that the testing of our faith works out our patience! Temptation is not sin! Even the Lord was tempted in all things as we are, yet He was without sin (Heb. 4:15). Sin begins in our yielding to the temptation. But resisting the temptation is the test of our faith and works out patience – and it can then manifest itself by its perfect fruit. Hence, temptation is also the manner by which we are perfected.

 

Holiness must also be perfected. 2Cor. 7:1: “Dearly beloved, let us cleanse our­sel­v­es from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

 

Meekness, gentleness and goodness must also be perfected. James 3:2: “For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man…” For me it means meekness, gentleness and goodness, and if these be in us and are being perfected, they make us unable to be arrogant and thus offend anyone – except the “old man”. According to James, these fruits are making us perfect. Perfecting of fruits is also noted in Luke 8:14 where the Lord says: “And that (seed) which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard (the word) go forth and are chocked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” In other words, they bring their fruit into perfection.

 

Let us now read some verses regarding a perfect man. In Luke 6:40 the Lord says: “The disciple is not above his master (this means above Christ Himself), but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.” Here the Lord does not speak about multitudes at all, He starts with disciples because only those that continue in His Word have a chance to end in the perfection similar to His Own Perfection.

 

Rom. 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His Purpose.” These are not those, who love to work for God, but those, who love God. Verse 29a: “For whom He did fore­know, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of His Son…” So, here we have it again: the disciple who becomes perfect shall be like Christ. (Do you truly want to be perfect as Christ is?)

 

2Cor. 3:18: “But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the Glory of the Lord, are (progressively) changed into the same Image from glory to Glory (from smaller glory to greater glory, even His Glory), even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

 

Col. 3:10: “And have put on the New Man, which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of Him that created him”… and that is Christ.

 

1Cor. 2:6a: “Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect.” May I ask Paul at this place: Where are those perfect? To this day I have not met anybody perfect, including myself, so Paul must have been quite “fortunate” when he met perfect ones. Well, what kind of perfection are we talking about here? According to my belief, they are perfect in hearing and applying that wisdom. This type of perfection is perhaps in other be­lievers of the church in Corinth as well as among the babies. In other words, the Lord judges our heart and its ability to follow Him in the degree corresponding to its perfection. When we just started to walk with the Lord and “directed” or set our heart to follow Him, that heart, being yet far from holiness and wisdom and perfection, is nevertheless judged by the Lord as “perfect”. The reason is that it cannot presently perform any better or do anything more than what it is doing thus far.

 

Phil. 3:15: “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in any­­thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Neverthe­less, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing." What does Paul mean by saying: “as many as be perfect…”? It is ap­parent that he speaks about a partial perfection of heart and mind, which is devoted to walk by the same rule, to follow the same thing and continue in the same ministry. Be­cause in verse 12, Paul testifies: “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect…” Hence, if Paul declares that he himself is not yet perfect, then no one can declare about oneself the opposite. And truly cannot be perfect before we meet Christ personally. My heart is telling me that this is impossible.

 

So, are we finally perfect, or not? We are “perfect” in the same sense as we are spiritually living, as we are saved, as we are glorified and as we have already ascended and sat in the heavenly places. This is the Word of God in Ephesians 2:6, in that same sense we are already perfect. Hence, where we are now heading is the place where we already ARE! I am walking toward my own perfection, I know where my perfection is and my steps are di­rected towards it. And the same situation is also with you except that you may not yet see it or be aware of it.

 

I would now like to close this topic with the Word to Philippians 3:14: “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” What does this Word “I press” actually mean? When we are getting together, as we are, in fact, doing right now, it is actually that “pressing, toiling, progressing” toward the said goal as well. You may not be aware of it but we are right now also doing an important spiritual work in our soul and spirit.

 

Here I must say something more about this verse of the Scripture. That high calling of God in Christ Jesus is my perfection! Hence, I am pressing toward my own perfection since only through it I can satisfy God. And I am not pressing just to the perfection, which is for the multitudes, but for that, which the Lord specifically showed to me personally. And I will not be satisfied with anything less or lower than with my personal high calling of God in Christ Jesus, which was revealed to me by His Spirit. I am not sure whether many, very many Christians know at all about their calling, which means, about their own perfection in Christ, or whether they are even interested in it. I can tell you one thing. I am pressing, toiling toward this perfection because my heart is pulling me there and not because some­body told me that I should be interested in it. Because, if somebody has to tell you that you should press toward your perfection and then, perhaps, even “rent a bulldozer” to help push you there, you will never get there. Do you hear me? If somebody has to tell you where you should aim to go and then even disclose to you what is your calling, and thus, your perfection, then you must keep coming to the Lord and ask Him (since nobody knows it). Therefore, your calling and thus your perfection depends on your heart. Your heart will tell you whether you belong or do not belong to multitudes, or whether you have been chosen from the multitudes to be disciples, or servants, or the Bride of Christ. Do you truly see and know where you belong?

 

I believe that we all present here may belong to disciples because we “continue in His Word”; how we continue, that may only be judged by the Lord. However, we may have at least decided it in our hearts and they are inclined to continue in His Word. This is a matter between the Lord and your heart, even the matter, whether your heart and your perfect­ion is called higher than that for disciples. If you do not know this yourselves, you must ask the Lord and receive from Him the necessary Light regarding this matter. The beauty of the Lord and of His Grace is also demonstrated in that not everybody from the multitudes is “pushed” to become a disciple, or apostle, or prophet, or John the Beloved, but that decision is left to his own heart. The Lord does not force anybody. The Lord gave His Commandments and the greatest from them all is this: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” (Mk. 12:30). However, the Lord knows who will do it and who will not and why. Because even this Commandment is not the matter of our ability, but of our willingness, and that is the matter of our love. Because we are usually willing to do only that, what we love. So, “we have to love what we are to love”.

 

However, many times we may not even be aware where we are standing. Every believer should come to the Lord and ask His Light and Grace saying: Where am I with my heart, My Lord? Because where is my heart, there is also my perfection and my high calling of God in You. Therefore, I am asking You, Lord, illuminate my heart so I may see myself, and if necessary, “create in me a new heart and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10). Do you think that the Lord will not answer?

I pray to the Lord for this Light...

“Lord, I thank you for this revelation and for this Light, for Your Grace and for this Part of You Yourself, because Your living Words may be equated with You Yourself. And this is the Truth, which You are granting to us regarding the perfecting of the saints. How it is done, why it is done, with whom it is done, to what degree it is done and all the other things. Even all this above stated is in Your Holy Word, Lord, and it is perfect and it is beautiful.

And thus I pray, Lord, that we all would know our high calling so it would not be a quest­ion of an outward pressing only because it is so written, but because we are so guided by our heart and Your Word would only confirm what our hearts already know.  

This is my plea for all believers, Lord, because this Truth is related to everyone whom You saved and who will be perfected, because You are Perfect and You are worthy of an un­bounded praise. We praise You, Lord, according to Your Greatness and Your Beauty and according to Your Perfection. AMEN.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter X. – BE PERFECT

In this message I am turning to all those, which are now, or possibly will soon be, true dis­ciples of Christ. First, I would like to say a prayer:

„I would like to ask You. Lord, that this Great Reality, which You are granting to us today, would be given out in Your Spirit and received in the hearts, which are open, through the same Spirit of God. That this Great Reality would bring forth fruit, that it would be living and a blessing and benefit for our spirit, soul and body as well as an encouragement to continue and be willing to go on, penetrate further on. Because what You are now grant­ing to us is something that the heart of man cannot possibly imagine, absorb and under­stand. We thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your Grace and Love for us. We thank Our Father for His Magnificent Plan of Salvation and for the Magnificent Finale of Salvation, which we are going to touch in this part of the message, which You are granting to us. We thank You, Lord, and we pray in Your Beautiful Name. AMEN.  

Because of those, which do no know me, I must say that I am not any evangelist, nor any preacher of the Scripture, not even a pastor or teacher in the standard sense of these words and functions and offices. My ministry is not oriented either toward pagans or the multitudes of believers. The multitudes NEVER cared for the Word of God or for God Him­self. They never had “ears to hear”, never understood anything and it was not even given to them to understand. Why? Because of their heart! The Lord never spoke to them in any other way except in parables (Mt. 13:1-3,10-15,34). On the other hand, the disciples are all those that continue in His Word, are getting to know the Truth and that Truth is making them free (Jn. 8:31,32). They continue not only in reading His Word, hearing His Word and stud­ying His Word, meditating about His Word, but also continue walking, working and living in His Word, and to such the Lord speaks directly... and to such the Lord is lead­ing also me to speak directly. He is leading me to minister to such believers the Light and Life of Christ, which I have myself and live in my own life. Also to minister my testimonies about the perfection, which the Lord builds in me patiently and which I live in my own life. This is my calling and this is what I do in the power of the Holy Spirit and with joy.

With respect to this calling, I am now turning to these true disciples and share with them the following matters and facts. Every true disciple is called to the highest perfect­ion, which exists, which is the perfection of Our Father in Heaven, even though few dis­ci­ples will attain to it. Why? Well, I will now share with you the Reality in this matter, which the Lord is gracefully granting to us and his Reality and Truth are the following:

          1) The precise meaning of the Word of God (Mt. 5:48) is this: “Be ye therefore perfect (in your personal eternal existence, in your personal life eternal), even as your Father, which is in Heaven, is perfect (in His Personal Eternal Existence, in His Per­son­al Life Eternal)”. This is to say that NO MAN WILL EVER BE IDENTICAL WITH GOD IN HIS PERFECTION, but he will be conformed to God’s Perfection as he will be conformed to the Image of Christ and His Perfection (Rom. 8:29).       

 

          2) Perfection is the mater of our choice, our decision – and our choice, our decision is the matter of our seeing, understanding and obeying the Reality of the Word of God! Many disciples do not see the Word of God, and even if they see it, they do not have to necessarily obey it.

 

          3) Perfection is not the mater of our faith – but of our love! Hence, our choice does not happen through our faith, but through our love! Even in our earthly life, we may only be perfected in such things, which we love, or love to do. Many disciples fail right here because they DON’T LOVE the Lord. And, naturally, all believers in the “multitudes” are failing right here as well, because they do not even know the Lord never mind loving Him.

 

All disciples should read again and realize the Word of God declared in 2Pet. 1:1-11. Here, I quote from verse 4: “Whereby are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature having es­cap­ed the corruption that is in the world through lust.” From this Word of God it is clear that to all of us were promised POSSIBILITIES – OPPORTUNITIES to become par­tak­ers-companions in God’s Nature-Character, in other words, have a share in the Person­ality of God and not only to remain a “saved man, which escaped from hell”! Also, notice that it is not written “that by these ye SHALL become partakers”, but it is written “that by these ye MIGHT be partakers”. In verses 5 to 10, concrete deeds or means are named by which “participation” in God’s Nature is attained. Finally in verse 11, a “gate of Glory” will wait for all these “participants in God’s Nature”. This verse says: “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

 

All of us, who are gathered here together, who yearn after perfection, who also belong to the Word in 1Pet. 1:2, notice and understand the following three facts:

 

          a) We all have been CHOSEN-ELECTED according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, Who knew about our love before we existed and on that basis He called us accord­ing to His Purpose (Rom. 8:28,29).

 

          b) On the basis of His election, we all have been SANCTIFIED by the Spirit of God to OBEDIENCE – first to learn obedience as Jesus Christ Himself learned it (Heb. 5:8), and then demonstrate that obedience toward the Spirit and toward the Word of God as Jesus Christ also demonstrated it (Phil. 2:7,8). AND…

 

          c) On the basis of His Sanctification, we all have been PERFECTED! When we realize on what basis and for what purpose we have been chosen and sanctified, we now can turn to Hebrews 10:14. It is a very little known verse about which I did not speak in any relationship. That verse says: “For by one offering He (Christ) hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” The Lord has PERFECTED FOR EVER all those, which have been chosen and SANCTIFIED. And the degree of this perfection depends on the degree of our obedience, and the degree of our obedience depends on the intensity of our love toward the Lord. Later on, I will show a very important fact, namely, that our true love for the Lord determines our true desire for our own perfection!

 

The desire of the heart is determined by the love therein because the heart yearns only for that, what it loves! Love for the Lord in our heart originates or is being gained through knowing the Lord. In order that you would love anything you first have to see it and know it. The knowledge of the Lord is received or gained through the Reality of His Word. HE IS the Word (Jn. 1:1) and its Reality is given or gained by obedience to the Word! I don‘t just speak about reading the Word. There were times when we were glad when we read at least one chapter from the Scripture, and it was good, it was a beginning. However, now we are closing this message, we do not begin, we close, this is the FINALE. Hence, the Re­ality of the Word is gained through obedience to the Word. That’s why also the Word declared a while ago ends with “obedience”. And this is also the reason why in the Church there exist those four groups, that fourfold spectrum. These groups differ in obedience to the Word, hence, they differ in the Reality of the Word, hence, they differ in their know­led­ge of the Lord, hence they differ in their love for the Lord and hence they also differ in their desire for perfection. This is a chain, which we cannot break. I could quote here many more arguments from the Scripture, but at this point it would not be beneficial for anybody. Instead, I am led to show several examples, which should speak loudly to every­ ­one, who has “ears to hear”.

 

From the beginning of the existence of the Mission “Montreal Remnant Ministries” (MRM), the Lord allowed us to touch a part of His Body, which means, part of His Church in many (70) countries of the world beginning with Canada, USA, some countries in South America and Africa and Europe, even in the Middle East, in India, Nepal, Pakistan, in the faraway Australia and New Zealand. We sent there thousands and thousands of books in English (also in Slovak language in Slovakia, Czech Republic and Australia). The results, which the Lord showed us were pathetic, which means, for weeping. The part of the Church which we touched in Canada, USA as well as in the majority of the countries of Europe and in Africa were shown as completely spiritually DEAD! Canada, USA and Australia are, per­haps, the largest spiritual cemeteries of this civilized world. There was no answer from almost anyone in the Spirit, only a deep quietness. We received only one response with thanks from the Evangelistic Association of Billy Graham in the USA. And if any answers came our way, they were all full of poison and arrogance and an unbelievable darkness; the veritable “valley of the bones” (Ez. 37:1-14). Wherever you have bones, you have cemetery. Yet, there were countries where the apearance of the Bride of Christ was flound in few individual believers and they have been apparently willing to keep grow­ing and keep being perfected, namely, in Nigeria (Africa), Canada (North America) and in Slovakia (Europe).

 

I do not want to say by the above paragraph that there are no other individuals or house groups, which live in a fellowship with the Spirit of God or behave like the Bride of Christ. I am only saying that the part of the Church and those thousands of believers, chiefly the leaders with whom we came in touch showed themselves to be totally spiritually dead. I believe that for many sincere believers this may be quite shocking even startling because they might believe that North America is the most blessed part of the world and that the Church in North America must be the most living with all those evangelization efforts and tongue-speaking and prophesying congregations. However, we do not talk here about reli­gious activities or various outer forms of religious life, we talk about the spiritual Life in Christ and thus about a spiritual cemetery.

 

Let us look at two other examples. The Lord Himself led us to distribute our book “Open Letter” to two congregations, namely, in the Apostolic Church in Verdun and the Pente­cost­al Church in Lasalle, both in the Province of Quebec, Canada. In both these congrega­tions the Word of God was preached, the Lord was praised with music and singing. Every Sunday there were given a number of prophecies in the Apostolic Church and a tongue-speaking was quite evident in the Pen­te­costal Church. Both congregations appeared so living, so exemplary and nice – until the Lord showed their true character in their spirit; in their disobedience toward His Own Word and in their hatred toward their own brethren; until the Lord unveiled their death and darkness (1Jn. 2:9, 3:14, etc.). How did the Lord do it?

 

After our book was given to some people which were coming out of the Apostolic Church, the opposition of the enemy was quite visible in their attitudes, in an unbelievable fear of their leaders as well as in the behavior of some of the “worshippers”. Few weeks later, one of the members of this congregation testified that the leaders asked the congregation that all copies of our book “Open Letter” be brought to the church to be burned or other­wise destroyed! Well, so much for the “brotherly love, goodness, meekness, understand­ing or learning obedience”. We, which were in that same congregation praising God and where the Lord gave me personally several prophecies given from the pulpit, have sud­denly become hated enemies just because we dared to speak and prophecy to them also the bitter truth (Gal. 4:16). A little later after the distribution, one of the elders of that con­gregation was ready to sue me in the court (undoubtedly according to 1Cor. 6:4-6). Why? In my book I described one proud and arrogant elder of that congregation and this first elder assumed that it was about him.

 

Regarding the Pentecostal Church, where I also served God for few years and was in the Board of Deacons, the Lord arranged it so that we became ready for the distribu­tion on the Sunday when the congregation celebrated their 60th anniversary. Furthermore, the Lord arranged it so that all exits from the building were under repairs!... except the one where we were standing. When the congregation and their leaders saw us from inside the church, chaos began. Some people came out, took the book and even greeted us, well, we knew one another for years. Others just passed by. One devil possessed black woman took the book and before our eyes she tore it in half. This was the proof that she was devil possessed because a woman in her old age could never do such a thing by her own power. One young and arrogant pastor came out of the church infuriated demanding to know who we were and how do we dare to give out books to “his” congregation. The lead­ers inside were disoriented, full of fear. Among the participants of the celebration inside the church, there were also two former pastors with their wives, which traveled for the celebration from other places.

 

Finally, it must have been the current senior pastor of the congregation, which apparently could not handle his own fear and anger any longer and so he called Police! When the two policemen came, they behaved toward us much better than our “Pentecostal brethren“. I am truly wondering whether those Pharisees realized at that time that the Lord had made a “panoramic video recording” of that described scene, recording not only their shame­­ful deeds, but also their thoughts and He will project that film to the whole world when they will stand before His Judgment Seat! (Rom. 14:10) Well, even had we been “bad“, no true Christian should have resisted us! (Mt. 5:39). Even had we become their “enemies“ for speaking truth (Gal. 4:16), every true Christian should have loved us and blessed us (Mt. 5:44). The fact that the OPPOSITE of the Word of God happened to us testifies of a simple reality, that none of those who behaved toward us so shamefully, especially the leaders, is obedient toward the Word of God! And if they do not obey the very same Word, which they dare to preach, then they have no clue about the Reality of the Word. Consequently, they have no true knowledge of the Lord Personally and thus no true love for Him. This also implies that they have no true desire for their own perfection, nor any ministry, which the Lord would call them to do.

 

Are these two examples not sufficiently clear for all simple and faithful brethren?

 

Today the Lord desires to give us another example of what He arranged. When the police­men and most of the people from the church left, the Spirit of Christ led my wife and me INSIDE of that Pentecostal Church. We came to our two former pastors and their wives, we embraced them and greeted them with a true love and joy! When the current pastor, who apparently called the Police, saw it, he became absolutely stunned and speechless! Later on when we were already at home, the Lord showed me how I had on that Sunday in the Pentecostal Church unknowingly fulfilled the Word of God (Mt. 5:44) by embracing my former pastor showing him my true love though he, in his spirit and soul, became my “enemy”! This is the true Spirit of Christ and also the true fruit of His Spirit (Mt. 7:16-20). Well, is not the above example also clear for all simple and faithful brethren?

 

I would like to emphasize at this place another specific fact and truth. In Mt. 5:21-47, the Lord as it were changes the Old Testament into the New Testament repeating (several times): “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time…” – and then saying: “But I say unto you…” The Lord changes the “old man” into a “New Man”, He changes the old nature into a new (Divine) Nature! No wonder that the Lord closes this change by His Commandment in verse 48: “Be ye THEREFORE perfect…”

 

And furthermore, IF I DO any of the Lord’s Commandments, which precede verse 48 – IN THEM I AM PERFECT! If I go 2 miles for someone, who is forcing me to go 1 mile (friends do not force) – I thereby show my love for this not too friendly person and also for the Lord. Do not imagine, however, that you are able to do some of these Commandments without your “old man” being broken and crushed, without your old nature being destroy­ed. The “old man”, old nature CANNOT DO any part of the Word of God, much less these unbelievable Commandments from Mathew 5:21-48. Therefore, if a Pentecostal pastor calls Police on his brother, which is only standing on the walkway offering a free Christian literature, then it is needful to ask at least one basic question: Is this the Spirit of Christ, or is it the spirit of Satan in that pastor? And if Pentecostal pastors have in themselves the spirit of Satan, then whom are they serving? Christ or Satan? This also applies to pastor Stanislaw Gawel in Žilina, Slovakia (see the note in the second paragraph below).

 

What else should I say? Are we, the disciples of Jesus Christ, able to formulate some con­clusions to the above examples? Are we able to determine our own spiritual state, our own spiritual walk, our own love for the Lord, our own true desire for our perfection? Or, perhaps, we have not even been thinking about it until today? I will not blame for it any­one – this declaration of the Lord in Mt. 5:48 is the most shocking declaration in the entire Bible. And as far as I know, I have never heard anybody preach this Word, or explain it or even mention it, though it is also a Word of God.

 

Had we by any chance ever thought, or very likely even believed, that we are pretty good Christ­­ians and stand firmly and securely on our feet, we should think about it again (1Cor. 10:12). For, if we do not know the Reality of the Word of God, then most assuredly we do not know the reality about our own selves, how Christ sees us in the Light of His Word! If you have not been before the Lord for some time in a repentance spirit for your own self, it cannot harm you if you do it, even though it might seem to you that there is nothing wrong with you. Do it according to your faith and the voice of your conscience. For the Lord is exactly at this time making it possible for you to read living testimonies about the nightmarish spiritual situations of too many of His disciples and servants, let alone multi­tud­es of believers. (Note: The most recent case is with, so called, pastor Gawel in Žilina, Slovakia, the organizer of the conferences of “Friends of Israel”. The case was to be con­si­dered and resolved by the bishop of the Apostolic Church in Slovakia, Jan Lacho. This is a too broad topic for this elaborate of basics and this case is also so spiritually piggish that I do not want to describe it here. The necessary documents (in Slovak language) are, how­ever, at the disposal to anyone, who is interested in the “spiritual reality” of the Church in Slovakia of these days. Every such interested party would much more readily understand the Word of God in Revelation 3:16 where the Lord says in His Own Words that He will “spue this church of the end times from His mouth”.)

 

Let us now look at some examples regarding the degrees of perfection. I quote Heb. 13: 20a,21: “Now the God of peace… make you perfect in every good work to do His Will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to Whom be Glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Notice that the degree of perfection re­lates here to “every good work” and not to the Perfection of the Heavenly Father. Maybe the Spirit of God, Who inspired apostle Paul foreknew that these Jews will at least in their hearts desire to do for God good works. There definitely exist many servants and disciples of the Lord, and maybe some even from among the multitudes, which, similarly as the above mentioned Jews, desire in their hearts to do a good work for the Lord. There is no­thing wrong with that. But there is the degree of their perfection – IF they allow the Spirit of God to do in them “that which is wellpleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ”. So, as we can see, the desire alone, even in this lower degree of perfection, is not suffi­cient. The work of the Holy Spirit must always be present, always and for all the degrees of perfection!

We can now take another example from the Church at Corinth, which abounded with flesh (lust, sensuality, court cases, etc.) Their flesh was present mainly in their mind, in insuffi­cient understanding, in fleshly lusts which caused many disputes and controversies and sinning among them. No wonder that apostle Paul, toward the end of his second letter warns and advices them: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2Cor. 13:5). In verse 9, he prays for their perfection and in verse 11 he continues: “Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.” The Spirit of God through Paul wishes and advices them that they would at least de­sire the degree of perfection regarding the unity of their mind, which perfection brings comfort and also peace. This is far more than just wish, this is a prayer. Paul is not telling them to be perfect as their Heavenly Father is. This “unity of mind” presupposes the work of the Holy Spirit in the renewal of their mind (Eph. 4:23). Thusly renewed mind is then able to focus on God and trust God in everything instead of being always occupied by flesh, which was the main problem of the believers in Corinth. We also know that God grants His perfect peace to such minds, which are stayed, focused on Him because they trust in Him (Is. 26:3).

Today the Lord is granting us the Reality of the full spectrum of Perfection from the lowest levels and limited forms of perfection to the highest Perfection of Our Heavenly Father. It is also very similar to the Magnificent Salvation by Christ, which He is offered to all man­kind as it is with the Magnificent Perfection, which He is offering to all believers. We know that not every pagan’s heart finds its faith for Christ and desires His Salvation. Many of them will perish even though the Lord saved the whole world and offered His Salvation to all mankind. Similarly, not every heart from among the believers finds love for Christ and desires His Perfection!

 

(One word of comment: We know that in every big house, estate or palace there is a good number of servants, like, doormen, gardeners, chambermaids, cooks, helpers, guards, secretaries, accountants, etc. There are also the sons and daughters of the owner just as the owner himself, landlord, nobleman or prince and his wife. It is the same in the King­dom of God. He who has an understanding heart, let him understand.)

 

*        *       *

Many believers claim that they were called by God because God used them. I thus turn to all those that believe to be true servants of God since God is USING them. The revelation, which the Lord graciously granted me concerning this question is the following:

          (1) If God uses you – that DOES NOT MEAN automatically that you are servants of God, or disciples, or that God works out in you His delight, or that He is perfecting you.

          (2) If you are Bible experts in its doctrines, or you are preaching them, teaching them, printing them, distributing them – that DOES NOT MEAN automatically that you are servants of God, or disciples, or that God works out in you His delight, or that He is per­fect­ing you.

          (3) If you are connected with religious activities, attending services in churches or house meetings, fellowships, congregations, Bible study groups, seminars or theological fa­culties, if you give gifts, offerings or tithes, if you spend time in prayers and even if God answers some of them – that DOES NOT MEAN automatically that you are servants of God or disciples, or that God works out in you His delight, or that He is per­fect­ing you.

          (4) If you do visitations in hospitals, in prisons, in homes for the elderly, in orphan­ages, if you are involved in social work doing a lot of good – that DOES NOT MEAN auto­ma­t­ically that you are servants of God, or disciples, or that God works out in you His de­light, or that He is per­fect­ing you.

These are surprising answers. Why is it so? There are two segments of answers:

To point (1) – God uses any part of His Creation for His Purposes whether it is a dead part or a living part. He uses the “nature”, animals, people as well as spiritual beings. He uses His angels. He may use the Devil and his angels. The most typical example in using ani­mals is the donkey of Balaam (Num. 22:23-31), which God USED to speak to the foolish prophet of God with a human voice. An obvious question comes up: Was that donkey a servant of God? Certainly not, it was only His istrument.

Another typical example is in 1Sam. 16:14-23 and also in 18:10 where God is sending an evil spirit to trouble King Saul. Was that evil spirit a “servant of God“? Of course, not! He was an instrument of God. Hence, should God send us somewhere, it does not mean that we are His apostles; and if He uses us for something, it does not mean that we are His ser­vants. It is quite possible that we would be just His instruments.

We may conclude from the above that all true servants of God are, at the same time, His instruments, His vessels. But not all His instruments or vessels are automatically His ser­vants or disciples!

To points (2), (3) and (4) – If we are not His true servants, we are yet able to do all those activities noted in the above three points BUT with a basic difference: We are not helping anybody or perfecting anybody in spirit!

 

Let us now consider the Word of God in 1Cor. 12:28-31 and Eph. 4:11-13. There it is writ­ten that God gave some servants (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers) “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ. Till we all come in 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.”

 

But what have many “servants” of God done to the Church? They could not perfect any saints because they themselves were never getting perfected. Instead of their calling, they “perfected deceptions” in the saints and plunged them into ever deeper darkness and crumbled their already weak faith thus separating one saint from another into their vari­ous religious organizations, denominations and sects! Quite often they filled the saints with condemnable doctrines so instead of gaining the knowledge of the Son of God, they gained the knowledge of human commandments. Many of these “servants” may have been originally called by God and given to the Church according to Eph. 4:11. but they may have simply failed and instead of bringing the Church “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the full­ness of Christ”, they had brought the Church into a misery! Lucifer was an “anointed Cherub, perfect in all his ways since he was created” (Ez. 28:14,15) – and later on, he FELL and became SATAN. How? Maybe, some church lead­er would have an answer?

 

There were also many “servants” of God, which “gave themselves to the Church without God knowing about it”. The majority of these contemporary “servants” are pastors, pro­phets, bishops and evangelists in skirts. I always thought that witches had on their heads hats with high spikes, mixing a terribly smelling greenish-gray boiling stuff adding to it va­rious weird and repulsive ingredients. But not so. In these days, many witches sit high on stages or in main seats of religious auditoria, sometimes wearing clerical collars and are reading the Scripture or they preach and bless their congregations! They rebel against the same Word of God, which they try to preach (1Cor. 14:34-35); and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (1Sam. 15:23). This is a VERY SERIOUS WORD!

 

Let us rather turn now to the true servants and consider together the fact that the fruit of a true servant of Christ must always harmonize with Eph. 4:12-16: “perfecting the saints, bringing them to the knowledge of the Son of God”. But, in order for that servant to perfect the saints, build them in truth, bring them to the one faith and One Lord (Eph. 4:5), strive to form Christ in them (Gal. 4:19) so he can then present them perfect in Christ Jesus (Col. 1:28) – the servant HIMSELF must first reach a sufficient perfection and must continue in his own perfecting process. The servants, which never found and thus never walked the ways of the Lord, whose ways are all perfect (2Sam. 22:31a) and whose ways are leading to perfection – such servants could not lead any other people on these ways and thus toward their own perfection!

 

The Church of Jesus Christ did not have to fail in the evangelistic efforts, in growing in numbers or in reducing the poverty, social injustices, etc. The Church of Jesus Christ fail­ed, and failed totally, in the quality, obedience to the Lord, in their love for the Lord and in their desire after His Perfection! And the result of this colossal failure is a colossal spi­ri­tual misery of the Church. What I must add here is the fact that the masses of believers will indeed not be responsible for this failure, this misery, on the contrary, the responsi­bi­­lity will be borne by their leaders, servants, which God gave to His Church or who gave them­selves to the Church or were given to the Church by their organization. All these shall be held accountable and will be judged accordingly! (Lk. 12:47,48) The shepherds are the main reason for this failure and spiritual misery of the Church,  not the sheep.

 

May I now ask all the servants of God this question: “Do you truly desire to come to the knowledge of the Son of God? Do you truly desire to be perfected, even perfected as Your Heavenly Father is perfect? Do you truly desire this? Do you truly desire to fulfill even this part of the Word of God?” IF yes, then the Lord must change not only your present doctrines, beliefs and deeds, but He must change yourselves, your life, your own soul and own spirit.

 

Doctrines, even the correct doctrines, do not perfect anybody! Our faith or our deeds do not perfect anybody. The Judgments of God do not perfect us, just as God’s Law cannot perfect us (Heb. 7:19). Should God use us even right here and now as His instrument, that would never perfect us in any way or any measure. All our above mentioned religious or social activities will never make us perfect! If we pray for help and the Lord answers, or if we, for example, read Psalms in time of difficulties or sorrows and help arrives from them one way or an­other, or the Lord may answer directly and we are helped – even by such actions we are never transformed in our spirit, hence, not being perfected. The fact that the Lord keeps us in His Grace (or under His Grace) or even uses us as His instruments, grants us His blessings or helps us in innumerable occasions during our earthly life, whe­ther we pray or not, that does not mean that His Spirit is simultaneously transforming us and thus per­fect­ing us in any way!

 

The ONLY THING that can transform us and thus perfect us is THE LIFE OF CHRIST! As our old life in us is (slowly) being destroyed in that we deny ourselves, take our cross and follow Christ daily (Mt. 16:24; Lk. 9:23). Hence, as we die to ourselves daily (1Cor. 15:31) so His Spirit (progressively) grants to us the Life of Christ! Only this is the transformation! Only this is the perfecting of His servants and His saints! Only this is taking part in God’s Nature and Character, and nothing else. Do you desire your perfection? There are only few that I know about, who desire it. But the beauty of the Life of Christ even in such hearts is normally hidden and no one can see it except those that live by the same Life, that are being filled with all the fulness of God! Can a man be filled with the fulness of God? Well, read Ephesians 3:19 and you will know. The fulness of God includes His Light, Glory, His Holiness, Righteousness, His Truth, Love, Grace, His Virtues, His Perfection. Praise the Lord!

 

*        *        *

I would now like to show you the Bride, the Wife of Christ, Her that is perfected according to the Will and Pleasure of the Father and the Son. I am now giving you something living what I received directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. I will also give you a plenty of quotes and plenty of references because it is necessary, but I am giving to you something living from Christ Himself because the Bride and Wife of Christ is Someone enormously precious, unusually unique Who is living the Life of Christ.

She is the Dove (Song of Sol. 6:9). She is the Overcomer of Philadelphia (Rev. 3:12). She is the “Manchild” that is taken directly to the Throne of God (Rev. 12:5). She IS the Holy City of New Jerusalem descending from Heaven from God (Rev. 21:9-10).

I was brought to realize that at the time of the New (Third) Creation, which is described in chapter 21 of the Book of Revelation, the number “seven“ does not appear any more. It represents a “temporary” spiritual perfection where God is, as it were, “added” to His Crea­tion. God as the Highest is number one, but God as Creator  is number three: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (in Genesis 1:26 God says: “Let us make man...”). Hence, God the Creator (3) plus the number of His Creation (4) is equal to seven (7). Similarly, God as the Highest (1) plus the number of a sinful man (6) is also equal seven (7). God is like “added” to His Creation. Therefore, starting from chapter 21 of the Book of Revelation, number “seven” does not appear any more. Everywhere, there is number “twelve” (12), which is the “eternal” spiritual perfection. In other words, God is here, as it were, “multi­plied" or united with His Creation, that is, 3x4=12. The equation 1+6=7 does not apply any more since God never unites with a sinful man. How God “unites” with the Bride and Wife of Christ is shown quite clearly in the Book of Revelation, and here I have five points:

          (1) She (the Bride) is now completely perfected having (owing) the Glory of God (Rev. 21:11), having the LORD GOD Almighty and the Lamb, Who is CHRIST, WHO ARE the Temple in Her (Rev. 21:22), and having their Thrones, which are now also in Her (Rev. 22:3);

          (2) She is now perfectly separated, which means, sanctified, from all evil and dark­ness by a perfect wall, which is 144 cubits = 12x12 (Rev 21:17-27);

          (3) She is now perfectly governed by the Perfect Election of God (12 gates with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, those elected – Rev. 21:12);

          (4) She is now perfectly governed and founded on the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Word (12 foundations with the names of the twelve Apostles – Rev. 21:14) I would like to mention at this place that these foundations were also garnished with twelve manner of precious stones (Rev. 21:19,20 / 1Cor. 3:12,13);

          (5) She is now perfectly Holy, perfectly Righteous, perfectly Truthful and also 1,000 times governed by eternal perfection in every way and direction (12,000 furlongs by Rev. 21:16 = 1,000x12 furlongs in width, length and height; Eph. 3:18 + 5:27).

 

The work of God and our own cooperation with Him in fear and trembling has been con­clu­ded (Phil. 2:12,13). All the fruit has been perfected. There is nothing left that needs to be finished or perfected. All the work of the Holy Spirit in cooperation with us has been con­cluded and finished! (Rev. 21:6).

The last truth and revelation, which I would like to share with you is the following:

I remember quite well my starting Christian years, what was preached to us, what we were taught and what we believed. For us, the “Pentecostals”, the majority of it was won­der­ful. With all that speaking in tongues and prophesying, we all believed that we were the “peak of Christianity”. We were also asked to imagine ourselves “walking on those golden streets of New Jerusalem” being dressed in white, happy, singing and praising the Lord. We tried to imagine such a picture and it caused that at least some of us became happy singing to the Lord. At that time though, none of us knew the spiritual Reality, so none of us realized that it will be just the Overcomers that will be “walking on those gold­en streets”. Also, we were not able to imagine that not all Pentecostals were perfect Over­comers. Maybe not all Catholics, but Pentecostals… such an imagination were for us abso­lut­ely impossible.

The truth, however, is again very simple and I want all true servants and disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ to consider this truth in their heart, mind and spirit as follows.

6) Please, read again chapters 2. and 3. of the Book of Revelation and realize that the Lord promises something only “TO HIM THAT OVERCOMES”! We, who are here, already know this truth for some time, but not everybody knows this truth. Let us not forget that we are recording this for the believers, which are outside of this Mission.

The Lord commands “repentance” to all the churches except Smyrna, which is the suffer­ing church and to which the Crown of Life is promised (Rev 2:10), and Philadelphia, which is the loving church and which the Crown of Life already has (Rev. 3:11). Despite this fact, these believers must also overcome and be perfected in order to get the promises of the Lord. Finally, Rev. 21:7 repeats again that only “he that overcomes will inherit all things” promised by the Lord. Those that will not overcome, the fearful, unbelieving, the abomin­able, all liars, etc., will inherit nothing! They will receive their part in the lake, which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death (Rev. 21:8 + Rev. 20:14-15).

7) I repeat again and not only to the disciples and the servants of the Lord, but to the whole Church, concerning the rapture of the Church and the destiny of those that believed but did not overcome. The truth, as I see it through the Spirit of God and as I believe, is the following:

             a) The Church in general will be raptured at the END of the Tribulation Period, which means, at the last, seventh trumpet (1Cor. 15:50-54/ Rev. 11:15+18) just before the wrath of God, represented by the seven vials, is poured on the earth (Rev. 16:1). This rapture of the Church is also called the “first resurrection“ and “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power” (Rev. 20:6).

             b) But not the whole Church will be resurrected and raptured even at this seventh trumpet in order to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and rule with Christ and this despite the Word in 1Cor. 15:51, where it says: “…but we shall all be changed”. But here the word “all” means “all those that overcame, and are transformed and carry His Heavenly Image”, which is clear from verses 48 and 49.

Among those not taken, not raptured, will also be such as, for example, the non-overcom­ers from the church of Smyrna, which will be hurt by the second death (Rev. 2:11). In general, these not taken will also be those not prepared (Mt. 25:10-12). Included are also all those disciples and servants of Christ, which have not overcome, did not open their heart to the Lord (Rev. 3:5,20) and who thus never knew the Lord, and He never knew them (Mt. 7:21-23). All such workers of iniquity „children of the Kingdom” (workers of iniquity), who were supposed to enter in „shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of the teeth” (Mt. 8:12). All the unprofitable servants shall follow them (Mt. 25: 30). None of those shall take part in the first resurrection because they “lived not again until the thousand years were finished” (Rev. 20:5). That does NOT mean that they must be swallowed up by the second death; they might be hurt by it, but they will escape it if their names are yet found in the Book of Life (Rev. 20:5,11-15).

Before I conclude this point, I must state a fact, which all those deceived preachers, pastors, prophets, bishops and other leaders in the Church should realize and believe. In this point, we do not speak about pagans, but about born-again Christians, baptized or not baptized. And there are many disciples and servants in the Church, many preachers and pastors and evangelists, and prophets, and bishops, and teachers and leaders in the Church, which „shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 8:12). THEY WILL REMAIN UNDER THE GRACE OF CHRIST since they have not lost their lives as yet, either were already swallowed by the second death, but Christ keeps giving them OPPORTUNITIES – chances, which is GRACE. So that they might wake up from their pride and arrogance and stupidity and humble themselves before Him and open their hearts to Him and receive HIS GRACE UNDER WHICH THEY ARE, BUT WHICH IS NOT IN THEM! Because GOD RESISTS THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE UNTO THE HUMBLE (Jam. 4:6b). That’s why that CROSS from Matthew 16:24 will NOT BYPASS THEM!... though they ignore it and try to bypass it. They do not want to hear about it and never preach it or explain it to any believer. They will be judged for that!

          8) I now turn only to the Overcomers, to their calling and destiny. In Part 7, we already spoke the four groups in the Church, about the four-part spectrum in the Church. The same structure applies also to the Book of Revelation in which the Overcomers from the seven churches form the same four-part spectrum.

Let us look again at the Song of Solomon 6:8-9: “There are threescore queens, and four­score concubines, and virgins without number. My Dove, My undefiled is but One; She is the only One of her mother (the Church), She is the choice One of her that bare Her (the Church). The daughters saw Her, and blessed Her; yea, the queens and concubines, and they praised Her.”

Today, I praise God with an immense praise! His promise in 1Cor. 2:9 is truthful and it un­covers itself in its impalpable width, depth and height. I note this verse as it is written: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” What a marvelous and extremely precious truth that is.

For a long time I already know that I SHALL NOT walk on that golden street in New Jeru­salem! I shall not drink from the water of Life! I shall not eat from the tree of Life! I shall not even enter into the gates of this City! And if you are shocked, then greatly praise the Lord, because so was I shocked when I saw the truth for the first time. So, you should be shocked just as well. All of you, the true servants of Christ, who love the Lord from all your heart and from all your mind, from all your soul and from all your strength, who love the Lord Jesus Christ more, than anyone else, than anything else, than your own selves – NEITHER WILL YOU be walking on the golden street of New Jerusalem, in the Light and Glory of this Marvelous City of New Jerusalem! Why? Because WE – THE BRIDE & WIFE OF CHRIST - ARE THAT CITY! (Rev. 21:9b,10)

We are that golden street, which is the way of truth (Jn. 14:3,4,6). We are the wall, which sanctifies in us everything for God (Song of Sol. 8:10/ Jn. 17:19/ 1Cor. 6:11/ Heb. 2:11). We are the gates, which is the door to the Kingdom (Jn. 10:9). We are the tree of Life because our tongue now speaks Truth and Life (Pr. 11:30, 15:4/ Jer. 17:7,8/ Rev. 22:2/ Jn. 6:63). We are the pure river of water of Life because that river now flows from our spirit (Jn. 7:38/ Rev. 22:2). We are all this because now we are ONE with Our Father and with Christ bearing His Perfect Image (Jn. 17:21/ Rom. 8:29). The nations, which will walk in the light of it (Rev. 21:24), are NOT PERFECT! They are not One with God because they need heal­ing from the “leaves” of the Bride & Wife of Christ (Rev. 22:2b). He who needs healing is not perfect.

It is impossible for us to imagine this miracle in our earthly existence, but we are spiritually that City and that City is described in the Book of Revelation, chapter 20 and 21. This is WHAT WE ARE! And if you reread those chapters 20 and 21 twelve times, maybe, you will begin to receive from the Lord grains of Reality, which are absolutely outside of all our imaginations, of all our reasonings and of all our perceptions.

And I am going to continue because I have not finished.

A question may be asked: Who are then the nations, which are saved and shall walk in the light of that City? (Rev. 21:24). I believe that no theologian can decipher these great mysteries, only a child of God can, and he, who truly loves the Lord. I was always taught before that I belonged to them and will be walking with them, but it is not so. So, who are those nations that will “walk” on the golden street in the light of the Bride & Wife of Christ (Rev. 21:24)?

These nations include three kinds of saved people, namely (Song of Solomon 6:8):

          a) the threescore queens

          b) the fourscore concubines, and         

c) the virgins without number

The word “kings of the earth” (Rev. 21:24) includes queens, who were legitimate wives of kings, and concubines (in polygamous societies), which were also like wives of kings, but had a lower status than queens (Abraham had one wife and one concubine, Jacob had two wives and two concubines, Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, etc). All those included in the “kings of the earth” bring their glory into the City (Rev. 21:24b)

d) the Dove (Song of Solomon 6:9), Who became ONE with Christ and God. She IS the City of New Jerusalem and as such, She has the Glory of God (Rev. 21:11a). She is the ONLY ONE from Her mother (Church). She is also the ONLY ONE, Who carries three names: The Name of God, the Name of Christ and the Name of the City of New Jerusalem (Zj. 3:12)! HALLELUJAH!

Furthermore, She was made a pillar (figuratively) in the Temple of God a She will never go out (of God) no more (Rev. 3:12). At the same time, God the Father and Christ ARE Her Temple! (Rev. 21:22). If, therefore, God the Father and Christ are Her Temple, and She is the pillar of that Temple and will go out no more, then it is clear that God the Father and Christ and the Bride-Wife have been UNITED INTO ONE! I immensely praise God... really im­men­sely... that I caught as it were a glimpse of this amazing, stunning, wondrous Mystery, not in my brain, but in my heart.

The Lord Jesus Christ – AS A MAN – said: “I and My Father are One” (Jn. 10:30), and that’s why they considered Him a blasphemer worthy to be stoned, because in the eyes of the Jews, which were around Him, He was but a man, who was making Himself God (Jn. 10:33).

I myself have never said such a thing, nevertheless, many have accused me that I am “playing God“, that “I am making myself a judge over the Church”, that I am “proud and arrogant”, that I am “flying too high” and I don’t know what else. The majority of these were too emotional and zealous believers with a sharp mind – Christian “lawyers, scribes and Pharisees”. Should I care what people think or say about me, I would have never written anything, I would have never ministered the Truth of God to anybody.

But I do care for those few, who read with their hearts and in simple faith; for those that have eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand. I am not writing only about my­self, but about all of you, who are, or will be, the New Jerusalem, the true Bride & Wife of Christ. I am saying this for your sake: “We and Christ are One; We and the Father are One; We – People – and God Almighty are ONE!” Who will understand this apart from you? I do not know. But this is the Finale. For if the Lord is changing me into His Image according to His Word (Rom. 8:29), then I will be able to say the same: “I and my Father are One, I and Christ are One”. This does NOT mean IDENTICAL, but of ONE SPIRIT AND ONE LIFE. And this is how it will be because the WORD OF GOD confirms it in the mouth of Jesus Christ, and also how it is described in the Book of Revelation!

Isn’t this Truth Glorious? Isn’t it worthy of all our present petty sufferings, of all our pride, fear, darkness, stupidity and stubbornness? Isn’t it worthy that we would fall to our knees and repent to Our Great God? Isn’t it worthy for us to give Him really everything that we have and all that we are? Because He is giving to us everything that He has and all that He is. Isn’t it worthy that we would praise Him for ever? And to those that are perhaps still asking: “Well, so what is then the Church? Is the Church not one?” Yes. The Church is the Body of Christ and His Fullness (Eph. 1:22,23). This is the Word of God and no one will change it.

But I will conclude by this: The Church is the New Jerusalem, which is the Bride & Wife of Christ – PLUS the queens, PLUS the concubines, PLUS the virgins without number, which are the nations walking in the light and within that New Jerusalem! This is the Mystery of the Church and this is also the Mystery of our Destiny.

 

“I praise You, Oh, Lord Jesus Christ and God Almighty. I give You unbounded praises from my whole heart, from my whole mind, from my whole soul and from my all strength. I praise You and thank You for this Glorious Truth, which was a Mystery for all of us – but now it has become a Magnificent Reality. AMEN.

 

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Addendum – What happened between verse 1 and 2 of the Book of Genesis

 

This Addendum was originally in Part 6 – The Extent of Christ’s Redemption (page 17). Since its content does not have a direct influence on the subject of this fellowship, which is: “HOW are we saved”, I placed this topic at the end of this elaborate for those, which are interested in enlarging their knowledge and in this kind of study of the Bible. 

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In order for us to have at least a basic concept about the God’s Creation in general and about its Redemption by Christ, we need to know at least the following. There are three bi­­blical Beginnings and three God’s Creations. The First Beginning does not include any Creation. The Second Beginning include the First Creation. The Third Beginning includes the Second (present) Creation. And the Third (future) Creation does not have its own par­ti­cular Beginning. It is, therefore, important NOT to equate (identify) the numbers of the Beginnings with the numbers of the Creations. God’s Beginnings and Creations are the following:

1) “In the beginning was the Word (The Son of God as the member of the Holy Trinity – 1Jn. 5:7,8) and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God.” (Jn. 1:1,2)

THIS IS THE FIRST BEGINNING. At that time, there did not exist any God’s Creation, which would be recorded as God’s Creation though it is written that everything was (later) created by Him – by the Word (Jn. 1:3), what I call below in point 2) as the First Creation. However angels might have already existed in some form before this First Beginning. Let us under­stand that GOD HAS NO BEGINNING... NOR END! Hence, Jesus Christ has no begin­ning as the Son of God either, but He has a beginning as the WORD and as MAN. Because at the time of this First Beginning, it was decided in the Judgments of God that the WORD will create the whole Creation, which we perceive today and know as Universe including the heavenlies and the earth and all the living creatures on the earth. Later (in the Third Begin­ning – see point 3), the WORD will become flesh-man and will dwell among men (Jn. 1:14), which men did not exist in the First and Second Beginning! On the basis of this foreknowledge of God, the WORD will redeem and renew everything what Satan de­stroy­ed after the Third Beginning, which means the Second Creation.

The Third Beginning includes in itself the Salvation of man provided by the death and re­sur­rection of the WORD, where the WORD received the name Jesus=Emmanuel, which means “God with us” (Mt. 1:20-25). In the First and Second Beginnings, this Name did not exist. It is the same with the Name Christ, which means, the Anointed One. This Name of Jesus did not exist either.

This Salvation of man was accomplished only once, in this Third Beginning and thus in the Second Creation and never before. Nor will it ever be repeated (see below point 3). That because man was created in the Image of God only once, and was created from the dust of the earth. Therefore, any living creatures outside of the earth (extraterrestrial) may only be spiritual and not from the „dust of the earth“.

2) “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” (Gen. 1:1)

THIS IS THE SECOND BEGINNING, which will take place after God (as the Three Persons) decided to create heaven and earth and the whole Universe through the WORD (Col. 1:16,17). This was the First Creation of haven and earth. It is more than probable that this First creation God gave to an „autonomy“ or self-government to someone, who in this po­sition of responsibility totally failed. It is again more than probable that it could have been Lucifer, who was tested by God before he became Satan, the enemy of God. Therefore, it is again more than probable that during the Lucifer’s rulership, evil must have “ripened” in him be­cause at some point of time a terrible catastrophe must have happened on the earth and the Judgment of God must have covered the whole earth and all life upon the earth, which was created after this Second Beginning. When evil accomplished its work in Lucifer and turned him into Satan, the whole First Creation was deceived through him, mis­used and defiled throughout by evil. There are two justifiable reasons for it from the Word of God, namely:

          a) Already during the Second Beginning and the First Creation of heaven and earth, Satan must have become a “fallen angel”, the Prince of earth, who caused the earth to tremble and the kingdoms were shaken, who made the world into a wilderness and destroyed the cities thereof and did not open the house of his prisoners (Is. 14:16,17), who destroyed his land and slain his people (Is. 14:20). The then living creatures did not have to be created to the Image of God though they had to have a free will, as we have today, by which they could have stood against God and be disobedient to Him being deceived or seduced by the Devil (similarly as before the Flood). Therefore, God deter­mined as His Purpose the destruction of the entire earth and His hand was stretched over all the nations according to His Judgment (Is. 14:26,27).

          b) Whenever God created anything, it was never „without form, void or covered by darkness“, as it is clearly seen from the facts of Creation in the following point 3. On the contrary, everything was good because whatever God created (Genesis, chapter 1) He Himself confirmed that it was “very good”. Hence, between the first and second verse of Genesis, chapter 1, to us unimaginable catastrophes must have taken place about which we have no detail information from the Scripture except what is stated above. We do not even know how long that period lasted and what specific catastrophes or destructions were happening. For some reason, God allowed Satan to destroy the First Creation as He must have already planned a Second Creation with a man, who would be created in His Image and should have dominion over that Second Creation (Gen. 1:26). In this light, point 3. is then comprehensible, even the fact, that the Spirit of God started immediately His task of renewal for a new Beginning. This has been His task even today in this Third Beginning – in our Second Creation – which is also being defiled and destroyed by Satan the second time. (Let us not mix up the Beginnings with Creations! In this point 2, we are in the Second Beginning and the First Creation and man does not exist as yet.)

3) “And the earth was (remained) without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Gen. 1:2)

THIS IS THE THIRD BEGINNING, and the Second Creation. Then God restored, renewed the earth and heaven and everything new He created pure and good and righteous as it is described in Genesis, chapter 1, including the man, whom He created in His Image. The whole First Creation from the Second Beginning was replaced by this new Second Creation after the Third Begin­ning. And other things and living creatures were again created for the future Christ and by Christ! (Col. 1:16) All the subsequent deeds and activities of God were leading to the preparation of what was supposed to be the Kingdom of God. The main purpose of the Kingdom of God was to be the revelation of God to man in His spiritual, moral and right­eous Character. Then the Purpose of God was to rescue, deliver all the true saints from the darkness and power of Satan and relocate them into that Kingdom of the Son of His Love (Col. 1:13).

Satan, as a “fallen angel”, already existed from the previous First Creation and since his rulership in the First Creation did not fulfill any of his desires, he certainly wanted to make up for it in this Second Creation. That’s why he wanted to prevent also this Purpose of God and the Kingdom of the Son of His Love. And God, according to His foreknow­ledge and the Mystery of His Will, allowed Satan to deceive and destroy man as a son of God and make him “his son” and slave (he stole man from God through deception). And since then, he has been destroying also this Second Creation trying to preserve on earth his kingdoms of darkness and evil. Satan has so defiled this Second Creation that even Heaven itself has to be newly created just as the earth (Rev. 21:1). This will be the THIRD and the final Creation, which will never pass away, never end and never be defiled again. It will be the Kingdom of God where righteousness and holiness will rule for ever and ever and where Satan and his hordes and all those that did not believe will be condemned, separated from God and cast into the lake of fire and brimstone for ever and ever (Rev. 20:10,14,15).

Concerning point 3), it is needful to notice and realize how God started to renew the old de­­stroyed (First) Creation and how He started that new (Second) Creation. This process of of the work of God is described in chapter 1 of Genesis and its basic SPIRITUAL signifi­cance may be expressed in the following two points:

          a) God started with the work of SEPARATION. He started to separate what was filthy, sinful and evil, unacceptable and unsatisfactory to Him, from what He planned for the new Third Creation, which was to represent the future Kingdom of God. There would rule truth, righteousness, holiness and Life, which will satisfy God for ever and ever. Every such separation has its spiritual significance, which for us is essential.

 

First, God separated light from darkness and thereby He also separated day from night, where light represents God and everything that comes from God because in God, there is no darkness (1Jn. 1:5). Then He separated the waters, which were under the firm­ament from the waters, which were above the firmament. The waters under the firmament provide man with food and the waters above the firmament, which were the waters of the Judg­ment of God – were the waters of the Flood falling to the earth 40 days and 40 nights (Gen. 7:11,12). Then He separated the dry ground from the sea, where the dry ground spirit­ual­­ly represents the Body of Christ without which the life of man or any other living thing could not exist. The sea represents the sinful mankind and everything, which in the future will be rejected by God as unacceptable, judged and condemned for ever and ever. In the last, Third Creation, which is only coming, there will be a New Earth and New Heaven, but the sea will be no more (Rev. 21:1). And finally, God separated Heaven from the Earth where Haven repre­sents spiritual creation and earth represents earthly-carnal creation.

 

God separated everything what was the past from what has become the future; what was darkness and death from what has become light and life; what was filthy, sinful and corrupted from what has become clean, sinless and unspoiled. THIS SAME separa­tion God did also with man where his old creation – darkness, sinfulness and death sepa­rated him from his new creation – light, sinlessness and life, which he received from the Holy Spirit being born again by Him and renewed. These two creations have nothing to do with one another and there is nowhere any connection between them. In every born-again child of God, there is an incorruptible Life of Christ and this Life is eternally separated from the corrupted old life of that man.

 

b) God continued with the work of REVIVAL of the old dead creation. The Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Light and Life, began to move upon the face of the waters and of the darkness and through Him the WORD, the future CHRIST, began to create a new life on the earth. Ultimately, The Life of the Spirit of God becomes the Character of the Kingdom of God, which is not an organization somewhere on earth, but it is an organism in which our beings have their Life Eternal. An organism is always a product of life, its order and system is spontaneous and living. He who truly lives in the Spirit of God knows where the old creation ends and where the new one starts, he knows it at every time and at all circumstances. He who does not live in the Spirit of God has no clue about these things.

 

This Kingdom of God, this New Third Creation, this New Life from the Spirit of God begins in our spirit, but thus far it is NOT in our soul! AND THIS IS OUR WHOLE PROBLEM!  Our soul is the battleground where we either win the battle and attain to the Life Eternal, and God will be our God and we will be His sons and daughters... or we lose the battle and forfeit the Life Eternal with our salvation and heritage in God (Rev 21:7 + 3:5).

 

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER AND OF OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST FOR EVER AND FOR EVER. AMEN.

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