A Love That Blinds

“The god of this world has blinded unbelieving minds

so that they cannot behold the light of the glorious gospel of Christ.”

2Corinthians 4:4

“Jesus again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world.

He who follows me shall not walk in darkness

 but shall have the light of life.’ ”

John 8:12

You’ve seen them on news programs, wailing before the cameras.  Mothers, whose sons have committed crimes and have been caught red-handed.  They are crying out for justice, telling the world that their sons have always been good boys and that their sons are innocent and are being mistreated.  But the truth is, those mothers did not discipline their boys, and their boys grew up expecting the world to give them whatever they want and to let them have their way, whatever that way is, as their foolish mothers always did.  Those boys were brought up by mothers who loved themselves too much to inconvenience themselves by making their children behave, and now their children love themselves too much to inconvenience themselves by behaving.  And the mothers see no wrong in either themselves or their rotten offspring.  It is easy for Satan to deceive and to use such blind people, and he often does.

There is an old saying, “Love is blind”.  But that saying is true only if you are talking about the kind of love that is in the flesh.  God’s kind of love is not blind at all.  God’s love knows the truth, and it rejoices in the truth it knows.  God’s love knows that every sinner can be changed by God, but before that change takes place, that same love knows who is a sinner that needs changing.  God’s kind of love holds out hope for sinners, but in the meantime, it knows that without Christ Jesus, sinners have no hope.  God’s love doesn’t blind us to the obvious.  On the contrary, it opens our eyes to see everything rightly: first, to see ourselves and others as we really are, and secondly, to see Jesus, who surrendered his life to deliver us from our deadly kind of love.

Our kind of love turns us into blind fools if we follow it long enough.  It is a love that blinds, a love that hates uncomfortable truth.  Nevertheless, to those who are laboring in the bondage of their own kind of love, God offers liberty and light.  Through His Son Jesus, He is freely offering liberty to us all from our flesh’s love of darkness by filling our hearts with the light of His kind of love.

A Godly Father

“Neither shall you bring an abomination into your house,

lest you be a cursed thing like it.

But you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it,

for it is a cursed thing.”

Deuteronomy 7:26

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,

but bring them up in the instruction and admonition of the Lord.”

Ephesians 6:4

God expects us to enforce His order and peace in our area of control, especially in our homes.  When I read this verse from Deuteronomy recently, I was reminded of an event in my childhood that shows how well my father feared God and kept this commandment without respect of persons.

When I was about twelve years old, I walked across town one day to the public library and checked out several books to read.  One of the books I chose was a book on the subject of witchcraft.  It was not that I had a desire to become a wizard; it was just that the subject seemed unusual, and it intrigued me.  Witchcraft was a new subject to me because my life had been surrounded by godly people since my birth.

Now, my father gave us, his children, plenty of liberty, as far as personal choices were concerned.  He was not nosy, and he never examined the titles of the library books we picked out to read.  And so, when I arrived home with my new load of books, I just laid the books down in open view, giving it no thought.  But it just so happened that my father walked by at that moment, and he noticed that I had brought home a book on witchcraft.  Without hesitation or explanation, and without raising his voice, he ordered me to take that book out of his house – immediately.  Now, whenever my father gave an order in our home, there was no back-talk or whining; there was only obedience.  It is possible that I asked him what to do with the witchcraft book, since the library was over a mile away, but if I did ask him what to do with it, he would have just said something like, “I don’t know.  Just get it out of here.”

After walking outside with the unwelcome book and standing there a few minutes, I surrendered to the obvious, and walked back across town to the library to turn the book in, and then made the long trip back home.  Nothing else was ever said about the incident.  My father had made his point, and I had understood it.

You must know this about my father.  He did not feel obligated to send me away with that book because he had read Deuteronomy 7:26 that morning and felt obligated to obey it.  Instead, he was reacting from his heart to seeing such a book in his area of control, and his command seemed, even to me then, natural and right.  Inconvenient, yes; but not harsh and dictatorial.  Without me realizing it, my young heart was being helped by Jesus to understand that my father was motivated by fear of God and that he had commanded me to take that book out of his house because he was righteous.  My heart sensed that my father was only doing the will of God, and I could not feel mistreated.

Some parents fear their children’s displeasure more than they fear God’s, but by doing that, they unwittingly train their children to love themselves and pleasure more than they love God.  I thank God with all my heart that I had a father who loved and feared God more than he loved and feared me!  Godly men bring up their children “in the instruction and admonition of the Lord”, and with the help of such a father’s example, children may learn to live in the instruction and admonition of the Lord, and have a life filled with God’s blessing.

Preaching the Kingdom

“In those days, John the Baptizer appeared,

preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying,

‘Repent!  The kingdom of heaven is at hand!’ ”

Matthew 3:1–2

“Now, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee,

preaching the good news of the kingdom of God and saying,

‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand!

Repent and believe the gospel!’ ”

Mark 1:14–15

From conversations with Preacher Clark, about 1976.

Neither John the Baptist nor Jesus preached the kingdom of God; they only preached about the kingdom.  Of the kingdom of God, both Jesus and John the Baptist said, “It is at hand.”  The kingdom of God, according to Paul, “is righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Ghost” (Rom. 14:17), and that kingdom came to men on the day the holy Ghost came, the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.

Jesus said that the remission of sins which brings us “righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Ghost” had to be preached everywhere, but that it had to start in Jerusalem (Lk. 24:47).  That is where the kingdom of God, the holy Ghost, came and filled about 120 souls who loved Jesus.  Then, the kingdom of God was preached on this earth, and Peter was the one who preached it.

“That It May Be Well With You”

“These are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments

which the Lord your God commanded to teach you,

to do them in the land to which you go to possess it.

Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with you.”

Deuteronomy 6:1, 3

God has never given a commandment for His own benefit.  Every commandment He has ever given to creatures in heaven or on earth has been for their good, and the good of others.  The excerpt from Deuteronomy, above, is part of Moses’ last sermon to Israel before he died.  It is just one instance of Moses’ great effort to persuade Israel to believe that God’s commandments were designed to bring them blessings if they would only keep them.

“With All The Heart”

“An expert in the law put a question to him, testing him, and saying,

‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’

Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 

This is the first and great commandment.”

Matthew 22:35–38

“Unite my heart to fear your name!

I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart,

and I will glorify your name for evermore.”

Psalm 86:11b-12

When we read the Bible’s commandment to love and serve God “with all your heart”, it is easy for us to understand what it means; to wit, we must love and serve God with all our heart, not just a portion of it.  But since that commandment is so simple and easy to understand, why did God’s people in the Old Testament almost never keep it?  Although knowing perfectly well that God must be served with the whole heart, God’s Old Testament people, according to their own scriptures and their own prophets, almost never served God that way.  Have you ever wondered why?

The reason is simple; namely, God’s people did not understand how His command to love Him with all the heart was broken.  In other words, they never understood what it is that makes a soul guilty of loving God with only a portion of the heart.  Moses warned Israel shortly before he died not to add anything, or leave off anything, from the law that God had given them (Dt. 4:2)  Moses knew that loving God with all the heart meant to serve Him as He says to serve Him, adding nothing and omitting nothing from His will.  They did not understand that to add holy days beyond the ones God commanded, or to fail to observe the ones He did, was to fail to love God with the whole heart.   They did not understand that to add sacrifices to those ordained in the law, or to fail to make the sacrifices that the law required, was to fail to love God with the whole heart.

Israel was a pattern for the New Testament people of God, the body of Christ on earth.  And just like Israel, the body of Christ has almost never loved the Lord with their whole heart.  Paul tried to persuade them to.  He labored to convince them that Jesus was sufficient for their salvation.  But the people of God under this covenant of grace, like Israel under the law, have steadfastly been determined to add to the grace of God in Christ, and to leave off some of what is in that grace.

To love God with all your heart means to be completely satisfied with His way, so satisfied that no other way even appeals to you.  And in this covenant, God’s way is in the Spirit!  In this covenant, no one loves God and His Son with all the heart who adds a fleshly, water baptism to Jesus’ baptism of the holy Spirit.  And no one loves God with all the heart who adds a holy day, a Sabbath, to God’s Sabbath of rest that He gives in the Spirit.  And no one loves God with the whole heart who adds special robes for worship to the robes of righteousness with which the Spirit clothes God’s children, or who adds a fleshly communion of grape juice and crackers to the “communion of the holy Ghost”.  This is why Paul, so hurt and grieved, scolded the saints who added fleshly ceremony to the way of the Spirit, and warned them that they were endangering their souls by doing so:

Galatians 3

1. O foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth – before     whose eyes Jesus Christ, crucified, was openly displayed among you?

2. This only would I learn of you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

3. Are you so foolish?  Having begun in the Spirit, are you now perfected by the flesh?

Galatians 5

4. You are severed from Christ, you who are justified by the law!  You have fallen from grace!

5. For by faith in the Spirit, we await the hope of righteousness.

Under the law, the only people who loved God with the whole heart were the ones who trusted His law completely to make them worthy to be saved from the coming wrath of God.    Theirs were the only hearts in Israel that were not divided between faith in God and faith in something else.  And under this covenant of grace, the only people who love God with the whole heart are the ones who trust His Son, by the Spirit, completely to make them worthy to be saved from the coming wrath of God.  Theirs are the only hearts in the body of Christ that are not divided between faith in God and faith in something else.

David was wise to pray that God would unite his heart to love and serve Him only.  May God give us the wisdom to do the same, and be delivered from the temptation to add the rites and traditions of Christianity to the perfect, holy way of the Spirit of Christ. 

Free Indeed

“If, then, the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

John 8:36

Long ago, Jesus taught me to be like him and never put pressure on people to be a part of my ministry if their hearts were not in it.  Consequently, I have never gone out looking for “members”.  Nor do I put pressure on the people whom God did send to be a part of this ministry to stay once they come here.  I have never pursued anyone who chose to leave my congregation.  I thank God for every one He sends to help, and I thank God for every one He takes away.  Every person who is associated with me in my work knows that if he or she chooses to leave, I will not chase after them or try to persuade them to change their minds.  They all know they are perfectly free to do whatever is in their hearts to do.  I would not have it any other way because God will have it no other way.

Decades ago, the Lord told me to offer a “money-back guarantee” to any person who becomes a partner here with me, but who – for any reason whatsoever – afterward regretted supporting this ministry with his tithes and offerings.  God and His ministers are not beggars, for numbers of people or for money, and I have imitated my heavenly Father in making sure that every person working with me is doing so only because they want to.  I make sure they know (1) they are free to leave at any time, and (2) if they want their money back, they can have it.  (For obvious tax reasons, such a refund can only apply to money given within the most recent fiscal year.)

I have kept that promise on several occasions.

The freedom with which the Son makes us free is so real and so all-encompassing that it can be frightening to consider.  God is so much a God of liberty that He will have no unwilling servants.  Of course, there will be dire consequences for unfaithfulness.  We all will most certainly reap what we sow; still, God has determined that we are free to choose not to serve Him if we don’t want to.  He makes real promises, but He does not manipulate; He warns, but He does not threaten; and He pleads, but He does not hound those who turn from Him and go another way.  God’s wayward children may be dearly loved and sorely missed, but when Jesus makes us “free indeed”, part of that extraordinary gift of freedom is the freedom to cease from serving Him if we choose to love the world instead.  Jesus will let us go if we insist on it.  After all, if we are not free to choose disobedience and rebellion, then we are not free to choose love and faithfulness.  If we cannot turn from him and embrace eternal death, then we cannot “drink of the waters of life freely”, either.

God releases His prisoners if they want to escape from Him.  He loves us too much to hold us against our will.  He forces no one to serve Him, and if you feel discontent with Him, He would rather you feel content with someone else than to keep you bound in discontentment to Him.  Only God loves you so much and so purely that He wants you to be free to live the way you really want to.

An Open Life

“You’ve got to have an open life.

You’ve got to have a life open to God and open to the family of God.

There are no secrets with God.”

From a Sermon by Preacher Clark, Early 1974.

Beware the soul that attempts to pressure you not to talk to others about things that really matter to you.  Such pressure comes from an evil heart.  As a pastor, I don’t need or want to know everything the people in my congregation think or do or say, but the man who makes them feel they are being disloyal if they do want to talk to me about something important that has happened or been said is laying a snare for their soul.  And the same thing applies to me.  I am sometimes criticized by those who have fallen away from Christ for how open I am with my congregation.  A backslidden relative wrote me several years ago and began by insisting that her email was only to be between her and me.  But I will never hold anything from the saints here that will benefit them, and her communications with me had value for them, so I shared it.  And I will always to that.  I do not make deals with the devil.  I am God’s servant, not his.

The first thing an abusive husband drills into his wife is the supreme importance of loyalty – to him, not to God and His righteousness!  If he convinces his wife that she is a disloyal, bad person if she ever talks about family matters to anyone outside the family (“family” meaning just him), then he can abuse her without fear of her exposing him.

Search your heart.  Is there someone making you feel that loyalty to him or her means that you cannot talk to others about things he has said or done to you?  If so, you had better wake up before that person’s foul spirit makes you its slave.  Or on the other hand, is there anyone that you are now pressuring to keep silent about what you have said or done to him, or to her?  If so, fall down right now and ask Jesus to forgive you for trying to enslave another person to your will and divide the body of Christ. 

I beg you all to give earnest heed to Preacher Clark’s wisdom!  Do not live in darkness!  Live in the peace of openness among the saints, and stay free and happy!

Now

“Say not, ‘What is the cause that the former days were better than these,’

for you do not enquire wisely concerning this.”

Ecclesiastes 7:10

Now is the best time of your life because now is the only time of your life.  Don’t miss out on your life today, looking backwards or dreaming about the days to come.

So What, If We Know the Truth about Christmas?

We know that nothing but the holy Ghost will change a heart and make a person right with God.  In the meantime, let’s be thankful for the things sinners have that keep them from acting altogether like beasts.  Let them believe that Christmas brings good will and peace to men.  Let them experience the gratification of giving presents.  So what, if we know that Christmas has nothing to do with Christ?  God is using that holiday, and other such things, to encourage sinful people to try to be good and to prevent them from giving expression to the wickedness that is in everyone’s heart who has not been cleansed by Christ.

The truth of the gospel has always been absent from this culture, but the culture’s increasing rejection of such things as Christmas and Easter is resulting in the rise of gross immorality and godlessness.  Men without Christ are better off with Christmas than they are without it.  God uses man’s religions for the good of His people who are still living in this dark world.  He restrains the cruelty of man with those ceremonial things.  To use such things for our good is the work of God, and we should not meddle in it, any more than we should meddle with His work of putting whomever He will into public office.  You do not want to live in a wicked world like this one without the restraining influence of false religion.

God’s wise servants offer His answer – life in the Spirit – to sinners who have begun to feel a hunger for God’s kind of righteousness and are seeking it.  God has not anointed anyone among us to destroy the very things He uses to control the depraved spirits of men.  If we interfere with His work and destroy what He is using for good, we will have only made life in this miserable world unnecessarily more difficult for His people, and for everyone else.

To paraphrase Paul (1Cor. 8:1), “So what if we know the truth about Christmas?  Knowledge will puff a person up!  Only what is done in love will edify.”  It is sad to watch saints who go on a crusade every fall to destroy Christmas, and every spring to destroy Easter, because they know about the pagan origins of those two holidays.  They have become so proud of what they know!  So what if such holidays have pagan origins?  This whole world has pagan origins.  What’s next?  Attack New Year’s Day?  That holiday, too, has pagan origins.  Child of God, back off.  Leave God’s business alone.  He is using all such things for your good.  Let Him do it, and be thankful for them!

Troublesome Saints

Part of a Sermon by Pastor John, February 18, 2012

I want everybody to be here in this Assembly of saints who wants to be here.  But there are some who, if allowed to come, would cause this body unnecessary problems; so, I cannot allow it.  Still, I do not like being in a room with just some of God’s people; I would sincerely love to be with all of them.  And I believe that everybody who has a heart for that to happen is going to see it when it does happen.  Someday, all who truly love peace and seek it will be together with God and His Son, and with every other believer who truly desires peace.

In the meantime, I must remain alert.  Some of God’s people love themselves more than they love others, and because of that, trouble follows them wherever they go.  The sheep of God’s pasture must be protected from such people, and it is the shepherd’s responsibility to do so.

Our Own Kind of Problems

Part of a Sermon by Pastor John, February 18, 2012

After God touched me and gave me a sober, godly mind, I began to notice how that saints who walk in the Spirit were spared a lot of the troubles that the world deals with.  God gives His obedient children a different set of problems to overcome, a different set of trials for their faith.  On the other hand, I also learned that if the minds of God’s people wander from the things of God, they start participating in those troubles of the world.  We want to walk in the Spirit and live above the world’s kind of problems, the way Christ Jesus did.  The world fights over one political or social cause after another, the way the ocean pounds vainly against the shore, changing nothing but making a constant roar.  The warfare of the saints is to overcome evil with good, and through God, the weapons of their warfare are mighty (2Cor. 10:4).

Honoring Jesus as God Does

Part of a Sermon by Pastor John, February 18, 2012

It is an understatement just to say that God has highly exalted His Son.  God has glorified him above the heavens and given him a name above every name!  God has exalted His Son so much that if His Son has baptized you with the life of God, then that’s all the baptism God ever wants you to have, because that is the only baptism that honors His Son.  To honor the Son as God does is to feel that the Son’s kind of circumcision, the invisible circumcision, the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit is so wonderful that you don’t want any other kind of circumcision.    To honor the Son the way God does means that you think that the Son’s kind of communion, fellowship with God, is so wonderful that you don’t want any other kind of communion. To honor the Son the way God does means that you think that the Son’s baptism of your spirit by the holy Ghost is so wonderful that you don’t want any other kind of baptism.  To honor the Son as God does is to know that you do not need a ceremonial “outward expression of an inward experience”, for you become the outward expression of that inner work of God.  When we esteem the Son’s spiritual garments of praise to be so good and holy that we do not need choir robes, we are honoring the Son as God honors him.

Oh, to honor Jesus in a way that pleases the Father!  That is the value of the truth.  The truth enlightens us as to how to honor Jesus as the Father has honored him, the way those without the Spirit cannot do, the way that no Christian ceremony has ever done!  God has visited us and anointed our eyes to see how foolish and vain religious ceremonies are.  At the same time, He has given us great compassion for those who practice them.  When God anoints you to see that water baptism is nothing, with that anointing comes the power to love the people who carry out that ritual the way He loves them.  You cannot love people the way God loves them until you see them the way He sees them.  How vain their efforts to serve Him in the flesh are!  But when you see it, the truth begins to hurt your heart for people the way it hurts the heart of God.

I remember, years ago, when God began to reveal the truth to Brother Jim Gregory, when the eye salve was still wet on his eyes, he began to feel a pain that he had never felt before.  He talked to me about it one evening, and I told him, “Brother Jim, that is ‘the burden of the Lord’.  You’re beginning to feel the way God feels for people.”  Only the knowledge of the truth brings that kind of compassion into the heart.

We were up in Montreal not long ago, visiting a shrine, the largest shrine to St. Joseph in the world, I believe.  It was a huge complex, very impressive.  You had to go up three or four long escalators to get to the sanctuary.  And in the prayer room, they had maybe a thousand little red candles on this side – for five-dollar prayers.  If you couldn’t afford that, they had a thousand or so smaller candles for one-dollar prayers.  Oh, to watch a young mother there, kneeling before that big image of Joseph, lighting a candle, with her child, praying about something; hurting about something!  How that grieved my spirit.  That poor mother was longing for something from Jesus and thinking that’s what she had to do in order to receive it.  She could have stayed home and touched his heart, but she didn’t know it.  She didn’t know Jesus is that good, or that accessible.

Oh, God, what has religious ceremony done to people’s hearts and minds!  I watched her climb up those stairs and reach up into the place where she could get some “holy” water, put it on her forehead, and then light a candle.  And there were others there doing the same thing.

Do we have the faith to leave off ceremony and trust in Jesus as if he really is the only way to eternal life?  We are saved by grace through faith in him!  And not through Joseph, Mary, or any other dead saint.  “There is one mediator between God and men – the man, Christ Jesus.”  And Jesus our Mediator sent us the holy Ghost to take his place.  The pope is not the vicar of Christ; the holy Ghost is the vicar of Christ, and it makes you a vicar of Christ.  Paul said, “We beseech you, in Christ’s stead.”  Paul was a vicar of Christ.  Did not Jesus say, “You’re the light of the world”?

Then, may God help us to shine, and not to charge people five dollars, one dollar – any dollar – to minister to them, but to give them a dollar if they need one.  Just through a life of holiness and faith, we can do our part in this world.  That is being a light in a dark place.  Rejoice in what Jesus has made you!  Be thankful!  You will be undervalued by everybody whose eyes have not been anointed yet, but you are precious to God!  Oh, God!  Save us from the influence of this foolish world, and let us finish our work and do our part.

Staying Excited

Part of a Sermon by Pastor John, February 18, 2012

One of the amazing things about Preacher Clark, the man of God that some of us grew up under, is that he always seemed to realize how valuable he was.  He had a flock of about fifteen or twenty people, and he thought his ministry was the greatest thing on earth.  He never lost sight of the value, the beauty, the holiness of life in the Spirit, and he never lost his joy and excitement about what was coming.  Never.  Anything from God is exciting, and he really had something from God.

May God save us from losing our excitement about what is truly of Him.  May we always be like Preacher Clark and live in excitement for what God can do with us, and for us.  Those who walk in the Spirit know in their hearts that the truth of the gospel of God is constantly molding us so that what comes out of our mouth is from Him and what we do with these bodies is of Him.  That kind of life has an effect; it has an effect on people that we don’t even think about.  Wherever Spirit-filled children of God go, into restaurants, or ball games, or wherever, people feel something good from them.  If we will walk in the Spirit of God, even our children will impress people with a feeling of goodness.  Some of us have had airline stewardesses come up to us and say, “Are they your children?  They are so good!  They’re different.”  That’s valuable, my friends.  It is a good testimony.  And we humbly thank Jesus for it!

“Working You”

Part of a Sermon by Pastor John, February 18, 2012

I got an email from Brother Ron today.  He was excited about Bob and Ellen visiting down there with him.  He’d been telling some of his friends about his visit with us, and they said, “Boy, they’re really working you hard.”  Do you know why they said that?  Because if they were visiting somebody, they would be working them hard.  They would be working them hard to get more members, to get more money, to get more status, to increase the congregation’s status in the community.  I wrote him back and I said, “Working you hard to get you to . . . what?”  He offered to start paying his tithes and offerings the last time I was there, and I said, “No, not yet.  I want you to make sure you know what you are getting into when you get involved in my work.”  So, it’s not money.  As far as I know, there’s nothing for Ron to do here but enjoy it.  His friends obviously do not understand fellowship!

There’s not a single one of Ron’s friends that would fly to Australia to visit a man and his wife because God had opened their minds, as some of us did with Brother Damien and his family, or pay for them twice to fly to the US from over there.  Not a single one of them would do that because that is not how you “work people hard”.  Oh, we worked you hard, didn’t we, Damien?  It is so sad that Christians don’t understand that depth of love and joy for others, and here we are, living in it!  Thanks be to God, we live in it!  And we live in that love and joy and  fellowship, and excitement of seeing God opening up a heart and mind because we rejoice in the truth.  That’s our joy!  That’s our purpose.  I flew to Australia with Gary, Song and Barbara because Damien was me over there.  We had been made one in Christ, and I wanted to go visit me!  Christianity doesn’t have that kind of fellowship.  It doesn’t exist anywhere except in the sweet light of God.

Live The Way You Want To

Part of a Sermon by Pastor John, February 18, 2012

If you people here are not living the way you want to, please leave!  Go somewhere and live the way you really want to live.  If you are not living the way you want to, you obviously need to change something.  If you want to do the will of God and you are not living that way, you need to repent of something and be filled with the Spirit.  If you want to live like the world but you are too ashamed to do it here, you need to repent of wanting to live that way – or leave and go do it!  I believe and preach a gospel that liberates people to live the way they want to!

Many years ago, on a Sunday morning before we left to go to our afternoon prayer meeting down at Grandma’s house, I was listening to a local minister on the radio.  He was talking to his congregation, warning them against living the way they want to.  “You can’t live the way you want to!” he demanded.  “You need to live the way the Bible says!”  And I thought, Those poor people who want to live in sin!  And their pastor isn’t helping them!  If that minister had been of God, he would have told those people that Jesus delivers from sinful desires and replaces those unclean desires with holy desires!  Then they could live the way they wanted to, and it be good!  Instead, he berated them for wanting to sin, and gave them no way out.  People cannot help wanting what they want, and if they are languishing in a life of evil desires, they need to be set free, not condemned for it.

My message is, and always has been, “Be filled with the Spirit and then live the way you want to!”  Are you living the way you want to?  There is no other way to be happy, in Jesus or otherwise, than to live the way you really want to live.  The person to whom God has given the holy Ghost and in whom He has created right desires, can live the way he wants to live, and it will please God!  But if you do not want to live right, then your options are either to seek God for deliverance or leave this congregation and stop tormenting yourself with a pointless act.  Seek God for a desire to live right, or go live the way you really want to!

Thank God, I’m living the way I want to!  I drink all the liquor I want to drink.  I go to Las Vegas and gamble every time I want to.   I commit adultery with all the women I want to.  I tell all the lies I want to tell.  I live the way I want to!  And I praise God the way I want to.  And I love others all I want to.  And I tell all the truth I want to tell.  Jesus came to create holy desires in our hearts and then to give us the power to live the way we want to!  In Christ, we are not doomed to force ourselves to live contrary to what we want; on the contrary, we are liberated to really be ourselves!

Brother Earl Pittman once testified – and it’s a true testimony of all of God’s people – that a long time ago, he wanted to live without sin and he just could not do it.  So, he kept repenting and seeking God until he could do it, until the power of God came in so that he could live the way he wanted to!  That’s my testimony, too.  As a young man, I wanted to truly understand the things of God.  I wanted my words to reflect His wisdom, not my opinions.  That’s what I wanted from my heart, and I sought Him from my heart, and He taught me from His heart so that my words would reflect His heart.  That is the kind of thing Jesus came to do for us, and he did it!  So now, just how do you want to live?  If you want to live a right life, tell Jesus!  He’ll accommodate you.  He’ll make room for you at the table and let you live exactly the way you want to.

Some years ago now, Brother Bob was alone in his peach orchard one day, and he wanted to live right but didn’t know how.  He prayed, “God, there’s got to be more to life than this.”  God made room at the table.  Shortly after Bob prayed that sincere prayer, God sent a sister in the Lord to invite Bob to the supper.  The same thing happened out in San Francisco with Brother Gary, wanting to know the truth.  “God, there’s got to be something better than this.”  And God invited him to the table with a gospel tract that he received in the mail.  Praise God!  Every one of the people in this congregation have had similar feelings at some point in their lives: “God, where is the truth?  Who is right?  I want to live right; I want people in my life that I can trust, people that I can love and they’ll love me back and not do me wrong.”  And over time, God has created this congregation to meet that need, to answer those prayers.  Here we are.  And it has nothing to do with me manipulating you, or you manipulating me; all of that kind of stuff is in the world, not in our heavenly Father’s kingdom.  We do not manipulate each other, we relieve one another; we edify one another; we build up one another; we help one another; we love one another.

Every creature in heaven – the cherubim, the seraphim, the archangels, the angels, the Father and the Son – all of them are just doing what they want to do.  For them, living a life of holiness and goodness is just as natural as can be.  They do not have a “live holy and good program” to go by.  They just do what they want to do, and it is holy and good.  And if the Son of God has made you free, you, too, are doing what you want to do.  Holiness is easy when Jesus creates a desire for it in your heart.  That’s what John meant when he said, “His commandments are not burdensome.”   God’s commandments were not burdensome for John because he wanted to keep them.  Every commandment of God opens up a door so you can live more like you want to, if you want to keep God’s commandments.  But let me tell you, God’s commandments are very burdensome if you do not want to keep them.  If you do not want to know the truth, the truth is a burden, the truth will seem like an attack to those who do not want it.  To them, the truth is bad and is cast aside as irrelevant.  But if you do want it, the truth tastes sweet.  It is a relief.  Oh, what a refreshing it is!  When Jesus said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” this is what he was talking about.  He was promising to re-create us so that we can live the way we want to, and it be good!

God has given us holy desires, and then given us the power to live the way we want to!    That’s really living.  When we are living from our heart, we are living the way we want to.  And when we live the holy life we want to live, there are no regrets.

You Are Not Irrelevant, Part 2

the test of being ignored

Part of a Sermon by Pastor John, February 18, 2012

If you do not have the Spirit, you don’t have any hope.  It does not matter in the least how many ministers pat you on the head, tell you that you are saved, or say that you are one of the best members.  Member of what?  You’re not a member of the body of Christ without the holy Ghost.  And every religious organization that is in the world is trying to make that message seem irrelevant to what’s really happening in your life.

What’s really happening is that everybody who repents really receives the holy Ghost!  But neither men nor Satan want that message to be heard.  That is why they devised their religious organizations – as an alternative to the truth.  What’s really happening is that people are not repenting, and that is why they are not receiving the holy Ghost and being born again!  That’s what’s really happening, and that’s not irrelevant – unless you trust what one of man’s religious institutions tells you.  Everybody needs to know that Paul once said, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.”  And that does not mean that a person has the Spirit of Christ just because some minister told him that he had it.  God alone tells you when you receive His Spirit.  His Spirit bears witness that it has come into your heart because the Spirit is truth!  Paul said, “because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’ ”  That’s not irrelevant.

You mean if I haven’t spoken in tongues I’m not born again?  Yes!  If the holy Ghost hasn’t declared you to be a child of God, who else has authority to tell you that?  I don’t.  The Bible doesn’t.  Angels don’t.  Christian ministers don’t.  Nobody but God has the authority to tell a person he or she is born again!

A Pentecostal Holiness minister, pretty well known in the Pentecostal Holiness faith, was talking to my Father one time about receiving the holy Ghost before being baptized with it.  He was saying that a person receives the Spirit by portions, a little when he “gets saved”, a little more when he “gets sanctified”, and the rest when he receives the holy Ghost.  My father said, “If that’s true, then the holy Ghost comes into a person tail first because he doesn’t speak until the end.”  My father pointed out that “The scripture says, ‘God does not give the Spirit by measure.’”  Still, the respected minister didn’t budge.  He replied that in the process of being born again, that was how it happened.  My friend, no one receives a third of the Spirit when he “gets saved”, and another third of it when he “gets sanctified”, and another third when he receives the holy Ghost baptism.  A person either has the Spirit or he does not, and he does not have it until he is baptized with it and the Spirit speaks in tongues through him. That distinguished Pentecostal Holiness minister was trying to make my father feel irrelevant.

The Dean of the Graduate School of Theology at Oral Roberts University tried to make me feel irrelevant one evening as we sat together in his office, having a private conversation about the new birth.  His position was that people always receive the Spirit before they’re baptized with it.  I said, “Can you think of an example in the Bible of that?  Where did anybody receive God’s Spirit before He baptized them with it?”  He said, “Well, when Philip went up and preached to the Samaritans; it says they received the word of God, and then later on, Peter and John came up, and laid hands on them, and they received the holy Ghost.”  Then I said, “The Bible says that ‘the holy Ghost had come upon none of them’.  It says that Peter and John went and laid hands on them that ‘they might receive the holy Ghost, for as yet it had come upon none of them.’ ”  His reply?  “Well, the Bible just says it that way, but they really already had the Spirit.”  That world-renowned minister was not just trying to make me irrelevant so that he could cling to his own doctrine; he was trying to make the Bible irrelevant!  He was a celebrated leader among God’s people, but to me, he seemed very foolish.  What he said did not change the Bible at all, and as far as the truth was concerned, both he and his doctrine were irrelevant.

May God save us from this world’s efforts to make us feel irrelevant and to make us think that the truth Christ gives is irrelevant.  It is not irrelevant; it’s the saving gospel!  But God’s people have thrown the true gospel behind them, just as God’s people did in the Old Testament.   Yes, this has happened before, and through one of the prophets, God lamented, “Israel has rejected what is good!”

One of the great benefits of learning the Old Testament is that we can see that such a thing has happened before.  The spiritual condition of God’s people really has been this bad before.  God’s people really have been, as a whole, this far from the truth.  It is not a new thing for there to be but a remnant of God’s people who understand and love the truth.  In ancient Israel, matters grew so bad that when anyone dared to repent and walk according to the truth of the law, he became a target, a prey for cruel and proud people who belonged to God (Isa. 59:15).  So it is today.  Unbelievable as it may seem, it happened before, just as it is now, that truth itself perished from the minds of God’s people (Jer. 7:28).  It is nothing new that entire generations of God’s people live in complete ignorance of the truth, or that the truth itself is irrelevant to what they think and say and do.

Nevertheless, the truth is precious, and relevant to our salvation!  And you who know the truth are a chosen and blessed people!  The truth of Jesus Christ is not irrelevant to any man’s soul; it will either damn or justify every person who ever lives.  All people will be judged by the truth, and to understand the truth in this life, and to have it influence your conduct while you live is a gift from God!  Value the truth, and do not be discouraged by what they think or say who are ignorant of it.  Neither the truth nor those who live in it are irrelevant; the truth is the light of Jesus, and those who let it shine through them are shining beacons of love and hope in this very dark world.

You Are Not Irrelevant, Part 1

the test of being ignored

One of Satan’s most effective weapons against those who are walking in the light is to inspire people to ignore them, to try to make them feel inconsequential, unimportant, and irrelevant.  But no one walking in the light of God is irrelevant; they are accomplishing wonderful things even if they don’t know it.  Israel lost its way in the Old Testament when the nations made them feel irrelevant.  They began to think of themselves the way the world thought of them, and began changing how they lived so that the Gentiles would consider them to be worthwhile.  When the Spirit of God fell on Balaam, he said that Israel would “not be reckoned among the nations,” and they never were.  That is why the nation of Israel is only rarely mentioned in ancient heathen documents.

If a person is ignored, he can begin to wonder if he is worth anything, or if he really has a worthwhile purpose in life.  And if being ignored continues a long time for him, the pressure on him to conform and to please those who are ignoring him can become very heavy.  Such a person can forget who he is if he tried to change himself to be what others want him to be, but if he does forget, and if he ceases to be who he really is, he will never be happy, even if others stop ignoring him.

The principal message that God’s people need to hear is the truth about who they are, for they have forgotten.  They have forgotten that they are God’s people because He baptized them with the holy Ghost and they began to speak in tongues, not because they performed a ceremony and joined a church.  God’s people do not know that, and in pursuing church religion instead of life in the Spirit, they are trying to be relevant in a world filled with man’s religions.

The truth about the baptism of the holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues being the new birth is needed.  We have done more to get that truth out than anybody on the earth that I know of.  The book I wrote, Speaking in Tongues at Spirit Baptism, is an important book.  It shows many Old Testament prophecies of that new birth experience, along with New Testament references to it.  We have sent out, in this country and beyond, close to fifty thousand copies by now, including copies to every Pentecostal or Charismatic person or pastor that we were able to find.  And our biggest response has been that we are ignored.  It’s Satan’s old tactic against God’s people, hoping to make us change from following after the Spirit and pursue church religion instead.  But it is not working, and it will not work as long as Jesus continues to keep us encouraged.

Baptism of the Spirit

In Acts 1, Jesus told his disciples, “John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with holy Spirit not many days from now.”  Then, in Acts 2, we find this: “When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all in one accord, in one place.  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven like a violent, rushing wind.”  In other words, when the holy Ghost came, it sounded like a roar.  If the author of Acts had known about trains, he might have said it sounded like a train coming.  That’s how people often describe the noise that tornados make, as trains, powerful and rushing, and that is the sound they heard on Pentecost morning.  That sound “filled the whole house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them divided tongues like fire, and it sat upon each one of them, and they were all filled with holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the spirit moved them to speak.”  In Acts 1, Jesus called that experience the “baptism of the holy Ghost” when he told his disciples that they would receive it.

Of this baptism, Paul later would say, “For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body” and “Do you not know that you are baptized into Christ?” and “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”  So, if what they received on the day of Pentecost was the baptism of the Spirit – and Jesus said it was – and if Paul said the baptism of the Spirit puts us into Christ, then we know what the new birth is: the baptism of the holy Ghost!  Why have God’s people invented doctrines to make people think they are in Christ before they receive it?  I can tell you: they have invented doctrines to make people believe they are right with God before receiving the holy Ghost baptism in order to be accepted as relevant so that they will stop being ignored.

We are “baptized into Christ”!  And we are “baptized into the body of Christ”!  When we receive that baptism, we are born again; when we receive that baptism, we are converted; when we receive that baptism, our sins are washed away; when we receive that baptism, our hearts are circumcised by the Spirit and we become children of God.  To bring God’s people back to this fundamental truth, this long-forgotten resting-place of the soul, is a difficult task, but it is the work that Jesus has given me and my congregation to do.  If we somehow manage to communicate that single truth to God’s people, then the door out of the confusion of Christianity will at last be opened to them.  And if they obey the Father’s call to come out of confusion, they may well suffer the test of being ignored, but they will be too happy and free to care much about it.

Our Standards

Occasionally someone will write, asking us for information on the standards of The Pioneer Tract Society.  Some time ago, in a publication of ours called The Broadcaster, we published some fundamental truths of the gospel which we teach.  Even though we no longer use The Pioneer Tract Society as an organization, the standards have not changed, and for the sake of those who want to know, here again are the fundamental standards by which members of this congregation are expected to live.

PASTOR JOHN’S HOUSE

(Previously, The Pioneer Tract Society)

Rules for Conduct

Pastor John’s house is the meeting place of a group of believers whose purpose is to promote the fellowship of the saints, to the end that we may be a people prepared to meet our Lord Jesus in peace and with joy when he returns from heaven for his own.  Pastor John’s house is not a denomination; nor is it sectarian in any respect.  It is simply a place for saints to gather and work for the edifying of the saints and the promulgation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Saints at Pastor John’s house are expected to live so as to bring honor to God and His Son, Jesus.

The following Rules for Conduct are the minimum required standard for members of the congregation that meets at Pastor John’s house.

1. Members are to be examples of moral purity, faith, and love in Christ.

“Let fornication – indeed, all uncleanness – or covetousness not be mentioned among you, as befits saints” (Eph. 5:3).  “Therefore, beloved, seeing that you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot, and blameless” (2Pet. 3:14).

2. Members are to dress according to holiness.

“According to holiness” means according to what is appropriate to the occasion, in modesty and cleanliness.  In short, saints are to use common sense and be decent.  They are not to use their bodies or their clothing to allure or to arouse the lusts of others.  For women, the Bible is clear that they should adorn themselves, “with modesty and prudence” (1Tim. 2:9).

3. Members are to refrain from gluttony and other excesses.

Jesus warned us that this sin would actually cause some saints to loose their souls.  “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be dulled by dissipation, and drunkenness, and cares of life, and that day come upon you unexpectedly” (Lk. 21:34).

4. No member of this work may use tobacco in any of its various forms.  Neither are they to abuse drugs.

In all things, we are to pursue the exhortation of Paul, who wrote, “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2Cor. 7:1).  Because our bodies are the temple of God, we are to glorify God in our bodies as well as in our spirits (1Cor. 6:19-20), knowing that “if anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him” (1Cor. 3:17).

5. Concerning worldly entanglements, members are not to have any.

Paul the Apostle explained, “No one who goes to war entangles himself in the affairs of this life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier” (2Tim. 2:4).  Whether worldly entertainment, social affairs, or political events, the work of the saints should always have the priority.  While we encourage our members to be aware of situations around them, the task given to us by God requires that our lives be as free as possible from commitments which interfere with accomplishing our purpose.

6. Members are to be good citizens of the country into which they are born, obedient to every law, and doing nothing which would endanger or demean the powers which God has placed over us.

As Peter said, “Be subject, therefore, to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake . . . for such is the will of God” (1Pet. 2:13-15).   The saints’ relationship to the rulers of our country is simply that “First of all, therefore, I exhort that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made . . . for all who are in authority” (1Tim. 2:1-2).  Whether concerning laws, rulers, or the customs of an earthly nation, the people of God should conduct themselves as ambassadors for Christ, with good will toward all men.

7. Every member is required to pay tithes and offerings.

Any child of God who does not render to God their tithes and offerings is a thief, according to God himself: “Will a man rob God?  Yet you have robbed me.  But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’  In the tithe and the offering.”

God has never repealed the tithe and offering system for the support of his earthly ministers.  On the contrary, Christ established it, being “made an eternal high priest ‘after the order of Melchizedek’ ” (Heb. 6:20), who himself received tithes from Abraham (Gen. 14:17-20).  

8. All debts owed by members must be paid, or a sincere effort be made to pay them.

We are exhorted to “owe no one anything, except to love one another” (Rom. 13:8).  Members may borrow money, but must make timely payments on the debt.  It is a reproach to Christ for saints to fail to meet their financial commitments, for he has promised to deliver us from the curse of debt if we will walk uprightly (Dt. 28:12-13).

9. Any member who marries outside the faith of Christ will be immediately expelled.

The commandment that children of God marry only in the Lord is so clear and consistent throughout the Bible, that marrying outside the faith is tantamount to denial of the faith.

10. Also, any member who desires to marry a believer who is not a member here should leave this society and be fully joined to the believer he or she marries.

This society shall not be party to any division between God’s people on any level.  Husbands and wives are, in God’s sight, one flesh.  They should, therefore, have the same love and commitment for this society.  As the prophet asked, “Can two walk together without meeting?” (Amos 3:3). 

11. Every member of the body of Christ everywhere is to be treated with the dignity which is due a child of God.

12. We ask that any believer wishing to become a member of this work for Christ worship with us and live according to these standards for at least six (6) months before asking for membership.

The pressures which attend our particular work for the body of Christ are such that any saint who desires to be a member of the Pioneer Tract Society needs to be associated with us for some time so that he may make that commitment with full knowledge of the costs, as well as the benefits of doing so.  Also, because children may not be able to judge such weighty matters rightly, we ask that anyone requesting membership be of a mature age.  

. . . 

These standards are basic to holiness and are not intended to be exhaustive.  None of these rules will seem distasteful to the soul who is “walking in the Spirit”.  We have only given, in brief and general terms, a description of the kind of life required of those who participate in the holy work entrusted to us.  In matters not covered in this list of standards, we must humbly approach the scriptures in the fear of God and with the help of the Spirit, which alone is able to guide us into all truth.

Now, we will ask Paul to complete this general description of the right life, required of all who hope to enter into eternal life with Christ:

“Now, the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, immorality, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, emulations, angry outbursts, rivalries, disputes, factions, envyings, murders, bouts of drunkenness, revelings, and things like these  (concerning which things, I forewarn you, as I also warned you previously, that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, faith, meekness, self-control.  Against such there is no law. . . .  Now I say, walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out fleshly desire.”

How To Honor God

     Paul’s gospel liberated men to honor the Son as the Father honors him, and to honor the Father as the Son alone had always honored Him.  It is the nature of man to honor God as it pleases rather than the way that pleases God.  It is the nature of God’s true children to do all things as He would have it done.