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Faith

The Grace of God


Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.  But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being  fell  upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.  All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. Is. 53:4-6 NASB                     http://www.blueletterbible.org

I first learned of the time gap between the 1st and 2nd verses of Genesis 1 from a Messianic Jew, a former Rabi from Israel.  He was from the “School of the Prophets” group.  They delved deep into the mysteries of the Scriptures.  They knew of the “Bible Code” long before it was a popular topic.  They knew things about the Bible that even other Rabin did not know.  And that takes me back to the gap between the 1st and 2nd verse in Genesis 1.  Proving that fact is not the purpose of this writing, but you can get a decent understanding of that gap here:   http://custance.org/Library/Volume6/Part_III/Introduction.html.

The whole point of my bringing this up is to tell you that a many events occurred between those two verses.  One of those things was the Wars of the Angels in Heaven.  Two thirds of the Angels of God rebelled against God.  Very long story short, they lost the war.  Their leader, Lucifer, was cast out of Heaven. Lucifer is known by many names, but Satan is the name we know him by.  As a noun, Satan means “Adversary, enemy, etc”, as a verb, it is “Accuser”.

Satan knows what his future will bring.  He knows his day s are numbered.  Because he has been disconnected from God his mind is given completely over to sin and evil. He has become incapable of any holy thought, act of righteousness, or discernment.  Satan believes he stands a chance of winning the final battle.

In between the Angelic Wars and now, Satan managed to talk Human Souls into joining him in eternal damnation.  Satan is the one who kills, steals and destroys.  Satan will tempt you.  That is half of what this post is about.  The other half is dedicated to the Grace of God.

Satan the Tempter:

Satan will tempt you using the word of God.

Jesus had been in the wilderness for 40 days.  He was hungry, thirsty, and exhausted.  “Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.” Luke 4:2

And he (Satan) brought him (Jesus) to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:  For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:  And in [their] hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.  

Satan, as the destroyer knew that, if he could get Jesus to succumb to temptation, then the show was over for all of us.  He, knowing what his fate is, wants company in his misery.  Jesus was weakened by his trials in the desert.  If he could get Jesus to fail, there would be no hope for the redemption of mankind to God.  There is a reason it is called Temptation.  If it were easy to say ‘No’, it wouldn’t really be tempting, would it?

Jesus, as tired and hungry as he was, did the one thing he could do and not blow it.  He answered Satan with the Word of God.  He didn’t reason, justify, waffle, bargain, or debate.  He fell back to a position that shows the authority of the scriptures when they are used properly.

And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Luke 4:12

Satan Will Tempt You Over What God Actually Said

Here is where we learn to know AND understand the words of God.  Horrible things have been done on this planet simply because people do not know and understand what God said and meant.  Jesus never subjugated women, yet many faiths treat women like second class citizens.  Many people think the Bible actually said, “God helps those that help themselves.”  Misunderstanding the intent of the Word, or blatantly not knowing it will lead you into a world of deep doo-doo.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?  And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:  But of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.  Gen 3:1-3 KJV

Here, Satan used doubt as a tool to get Eve to wonder if what she thought she heard was actually what she heard.  In response, Eve not only used God’s word to argue with Satan, but added to what God said.  Probably to underscore her point.    Satan’s goal is, and always has been to separate us from God.  Have you ever told someone something that someone else said to you, and the person you said it to said, “REALLY?, He said that?”  Because you might be wrong, you begin to entertain the idea that you might be wrong.  Maybe you misunderstood what was said, or what that someone meant to convey by saying it.  When doubt clouds your judgement between right and wrong, you have opened your armor against temptation.  Once you are vulnerable, it is easier to tempt you.  The lesson here is to what God said and what He MEANT when He said it, and what you should do in the light of it being said.

KNOW THE WORD INSIDE AND OUT!

SATAN THE ACCUSER

Along with being the adversary, Satan loves to accuse us.  If he can make a case against you, then he thinks he wins.  The case doesn’t even have to be true, as Satan is not acquainted with the truth.  It just has to be convincing.

SATAN WILL ACCUSE YOU TO GOD.

In the book of Job, we see that Satan was in the throne room of God.  Satan waited in line so he can accuse someone to God.  In this case, God, knowing what Satan was up to, offered Job as an example of one of his children.  Immediately, Satan accused Job to God and said that if God hadn’t shown Job such favor, Job would just abandon his faith, and curse God to God’s face.

Satan will go to the Living God and accuse you every time you trip up.  He gets his kicks doing this.  He believes that he is rubbing God’s children’s failures in God’s face.

SATAN WILL ACCUSE GOD TO YOU

Sometime we mess up.  We sin.  And when we do, our conscience starts eating at us.  We pray and confess our sin, and repent of it.  But Satan will come along in an effort to rob you of your joy,  and tell you, “God is mad at you for what you did.  What a loser you are to God.  You blew it with the Big Guy this time.”  Satan will rob you of your joy if you give him one second to make his case to you.   There is a way to deal with this, and I will show you in a minute.

SATAN WILL ACCUSE YOU TO YOURSELF

When we mess up, and we know we have messed up, Satan loves to accuse you to yourself so that you will forget to go to God for confession and repentance and forgiveness.  He wants to distract you, so you will be too confused and full of self loathing to do the right thing.  He may say things like,  “You know what it says in the Book, “The wages of sin is death.”, you might as well give up.  You will never be good enough for God.  You can’t go ten minutes with out tripping up.  Man, you call yourself a Christian.”  If he can get your eyes off the redemptive work of Jesus, he can bring you down to a pit of misery and personal hell.  If you stay there, you may eventually lose your faith altogether.  This is the goal of Satan as the accuser.  To separate you from God.

WHAT GOD HAS TO SAY ABOUT YOU

THE ASSURANCE OF GOD’S GRACE

You have the assurance of God’s Grace when you repent.  You have this assurance because you have accepted that Jesus died on the cross in your place for all your sin, past present and future.  You are saved because of His death and resurrection.  When Jesus died on the cross, the eternal covenant was sealed.  Satan was defeated, and lost the right to call Earth his home, and human souls his own.  Jesus took the keys of hell away from Satan for all eternity.

     For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;  whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;  for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.  Romans 3 :23-26 NASB

When you go to God, you have the assurance that God will blot out your transgressions for the sake of the blood of Christ that covers you, and makes you God’s own beloved child.

“I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.”  Isaiah 43:25

Because of this great gift of God’s grace, through Jesus Christ you can say:

“I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”  Isaiah 61:10  NASB

GOD CHOOSES TO FORGET YOUR TRANSGRESSION

Because of your faith in Jesus Christ, and because you turned to God, confessed your sin, repented of it in your heart, and laid it at His feet, you can say:  “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12 NASB

Hanging on to your unconfessed sin will only weaken your faith, and open a door for the tempter to come in and twist your heart even more.  You have a loving God who is ever ready, and joyfully willing to forgive you.  You are His own precious one of you have accepted the free gift offered through Jesus Christ.  There is no other place to go to know real redemption and forgiveness of sin.  Unconfessed sin is a stumbling block to your growth in the Lord.

Have no fear.  Come to His throne with thanks giving and know he will forgive you.  You will leave the Throne Room knowing you are forgiven.  Be sure and leave that burden at his feet.  He will remove it from before Himself, and not count it as transgression against him.  You are free of this.

“Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in unchanging love.  He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins Into the depths of the sea.”  Micah 7: 18-19 NASB

His desire is that you remain His child.  Because of the blood of Christ, you are saved.  When he sees you, he sees the mark of Jesus on you, and he declares his everlasting love for you.

“Lo, for my own welfare I had great bitterness; It is You who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness, For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.”  “For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.”  Isaiah 38:17-18 NASB

HERE’S WHY

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”  John 3:16-18 NASB

Satan thought he could take all of Humanity with him when he tempted Adam and Eve.  Like I said, he was deluded because he was incapable of reasoning out that he was evil and defeated.  The contract was that a perfect human had to be sacrificed, voluntarily, for the sake of all mankind.  There were no perfect humans on earth.  None.  But God foresaw all this from the beginning, and became human.  He came here in the form of Jesus.  The rightful heir to the throne, and a rightful rabbi of the house of Levi.  Jesus was on record of being a priest-king. And he lived without sin among us.  He came here that we will have life.  He came here for the express purpose of being that sacrifice that would satisfy all of Heavenly law.  He became the fulfillment of the law, when he died on the cross, and rose himself up again, by his own authority.  He did this to prove He has the right to be called the Son of God.

“God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  II Corinthians 5:21 NASB

Satan has no hold over you.  He has no power over you, unless you give it to him.  You are the precious child of God.  Nothing can remove you from God once you are His child.  You become His child when you believe with all your heart that Jesus IS the Son of God, died for your sins, and rose again on the 3rd day.

Satan will try to tempt you, deceive you and accuse you in order that you may stumble.  Satan will tempt you with things you like.  Satan will tempt you with things that God means to give you anyway.  When Satan tried to tempt Jesus to bow before him, so that all the kingdoms of the earth could be His, Satan was trying to tempt Jesus with what God was going to give Him any way.

By the Authority given to Jesus, you are saved if you believe.  You are safe from temptation if you know the word for what it actually says and actually means.  By the authority given to you by Jesus Christ, you are Christs representative while you still live.  Go boldly before the throne and be free of the things that encumber you.  What Satan tries to take your joy away, do what the angels did, and say, “The Lord Rebuke You”.

Satan has no power over you at all, unless you give him YOUR power.

Go, and sin no more.

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Faith

The Ethics of Hell


[NOTE: I have kept a copy of this article preserved and encrypted in the event that it is somehow altered by a person or persons other than me.]

“Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. “Ecc 3:16 -17

THE SETTING:

Ray Charles can see that the Government of the United States has abandoned all that is holy, moral, legal and right. Oftentimes, I stand in stupefied wonder that “We the People” have let this happen.

The condition we are in today didn’t happen overnight, either. I remember vividly, in the 1960’s, when God was being kicked out of school. Today, there is a concerted and overt effort to remove Christianity from the common arena.

What dumbfounds me is that:

A: What passes for a representative republic openly demonstrates, with great pride, every effort it can to destroy all that was considered good, all that was considered right, all that is constitutional, all references to the Living God, and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

B: What passes for government today openly calls Christians, and tea party members “terrorists” while giving a free pass to the people who want to kill us.

And

C: We are tolerating this behavior.

MY REACTION

I have no doubt you are aware of the same things I am.  This has been a real struggle for me. I was raised in the South where being an American is just as important as being a Christian. In fact, a lack of patriotism usually meant that your neighbors will question your salvation.

I was raised to believe that we are a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. That the Constitution IS the baseline by which all laws are measured, and no law will exist that takes away from the constitution, in any form, shape or deed.

I was raised to believe it is honorable to die for your country, that the flag will not be desecrated under ANY circumstances, and that this nation exists because of the Living God.

Now that we have kicked God out of our lives, our nation has fallen to a very dark place.

So, my gut reaction is to be angry at the Government. My gut reaction, my real heartfelt reaction, is to take matters in my own hands. That is my gut reaction. I have this reaction because, in the 1980’s I swore an oath that includes this phrase:

“I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.” 

That oath keep crashing against the shores of my conscience, and I am overwhelmed with the desire to keep that oath.

There’s just one problem with that…..

THE ETHICS OF HELL

“The thief (Lucifer, Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus) came that they (you and me) may have life and have it abundantly.” Joh 10:10

This part took me a while to see.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am very patriotic, that I am very willing to risk my life for my oath, that I have been harboring deep hatred and resentment in both the government for all of its blatant display of corruption, and a nation that tolerates it.

But I took my anger to God.

And I prayed.

And prayed.

All this time, God listened to me rant and rave. My anger had been kindled, I wanted to pour out MY wrath on these people.

This is when God reminded me of the ethics of hell.

The enemy of God doesn’t care where fear, anger, confusion, distrust, and treachery comes from, AS LONG AS IT IS THERE. I might feel perfectly righteous being angry, but my anger tempts me to run into sin, and not wait on the Lord. No other patriot would blame me for my feelings, either.

This scripture came to my mind: “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” Pro 25:28

Anyone of us can justify our patriotism. We can even look down our noses at anyone who doesn’t feel the same hatred and indignation of our corrupted government.

God showed me that my anger is misdirected and I was sinning in my heart by the things I imagined should be done to fix our government.

The ethics of hell means that you will be tempted to sin, and you will be able to justify it in ways that hardly anyone else could condemn.

My willingness to lose self control opened a chink in my armor. My anger was not God’s anger. My desires for action were not Gods desires for me. And no matter how well I could justify my attitude, all I did was open a door that allowed the enemy to breach the walls of my heart. And thoughts of evil piled on top of thoughts of evil, until all I became was an animal waiting to be unleashed to his prey.

Satan does not care how much you read the bible, pray, sing in the choir, as long as you are willing to be angry and sin. As long as you give harbor to fear and confusion, as long as you take your eyes off Christ, and look at the waves you are walking on.

Satan is the author of confusion. Satan speaks death in to everything he touches. Satan divides. Satan destroys. And he is especially happy when he can distract Christians away from God. Satan knows that if we ever stop being willing to sin, if we ever approach God and confirm God’s will on our lives, and if we ever remember that our first call is Love, then Satan loses this skirmish.

MY RESPONSE

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isa 1:18

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”. – Rom 12:17 – 21

After praying, and God pointing out that my fleshly response will not please Him, I asked, “Then what should I do?”

God laid it on my heart that my anger does not serve the kingdom. That taking matters in my own hands is not the will of God. God reminded me of my calling, and the fundamentals of all of our calling. Those of us who seek the Lord with all our hearts, who know that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, and have accepted that free gift of salvation, know deep down that God’s ways are not our ways.

It is the ethics of Hell that demands you take matters in to your own hands. It is the Ethics of Heaven that reminds us:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Eph 6:12

In God’s army, our battles always begins on our knees before Him. We are to listen to Him, and obey whatever he leads us to do, no matter how contrary it may be to our human reasoning. The mightiest weapons we have in God’s army is prayer and praise.

God reminded me of the battle in II Chronicles 20 (A good read), where the battle was not won with swords, but with praise. This is where we become the most effective in the service of God’s army. Praise and prayer will bring the changes we need in our nation. Unrighteous anger just adds to the overwhelming noise that exists on this planet. But prayer and praise are inhabited by the Living God.

Knowing this, then, here is what I did.

I prayed for the Salvation of Obama. I prayed to God, and the more I prayed, the more it made sense to love my enemy. I prayed for the House and the Senate, as well as the Judiciary. I prayed that the Spirit of God descend on them, and everyone in Washington D.C. that they will be convicted of their sin and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That the powers that be have the courage to face the consequences of their actions, and to confess to the Lord, who will be faithful to forgive them.

I prayed this prayer, and it was one of the hardest things to do to say that I genuinely love Obama and care about his eternal soul.

It is not my place to attack anyone in the government. Not even in my prayers. As a warrior of God’s army, my battle begins with me getting out of the way of the will of God, and praying for my enemies in a way that is pleasing to God.

It is the will of God that no man should perish.

But for the most part, I needed help from the Holy Spirit to teach me how to pray for people that I so sincerely despise. It is written:

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Rom 8:26

and

“For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.” 1Co 5:12-13a

Do I want my sense of vengeance, or do I want revival in the land? I want revival.

Revival will begin when I pray that God forgive my attitude, and when I ask God to fill me with HIS desire for our nation. If we pray for the tyrants who rule over us, we will see a revival in our nation. But this revival must first begin when we, as warriors to God, start the battle on our knees.

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