Continuing Pastor Herk’s message: The Holy Scriptures of the sovereign Creator God of the Cosmos is the standard that everything and everyone in the Universe is judged by. The Lord Jesus said in John 12:48, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. In John 14:23-24 Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” Instead of debating the devil, we should put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20) and resist him. James 4:6-8confirms, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Satan leaves and God ministers us back into health and wholeness.
The serpent said to the Eve, “You will not surely die.” It’s one thing to question God’s Word, but something totally different to deny God’s Word; deny the truth and accept a lie. John 17:17 says, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” God’s Word is truth. The word “sanctify” is defined as: (1) To cleanse or make holy. (2) To separate, set apart or appoint to a holy, sacred or religious use. (3) To purify; to prepare for divine service, and for partaking of holy things. (4) To separate, ordain and appoint to the work of redemption. (5) To cleanse from corruption; to purify from sin; to make holy be detaching the affections from the world and its defilements, and exalting them to a supreme love to God. (6) To make the means of holiness; to render productive of holiness or piety. (7) To make free from guilt.
You may hear that the Old Testament Law doesn’t apply today, because Jesus has done away with God’s Law. The moral Law of God is just as applicable today as it was when it was given because Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it (Matthew 5:17). “All” ("to cause God's will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God's promises given through the prophets to receive fulfilment") has not been accomplished in God’s plan of Salvation yet. Do not questions God’s motives for His protective boundaries and restrictions for us. Galatians 5:19-21 explains that when you follow the desires of your fallen sinful nature and cross God’s boundaries, “the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery [drug abuse], hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”
James 1:14-15 says, “each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death. Walk in the Spirit, obey the Lord and align your will with the will of God. Sin is a personal and voluntary deviation against God and His Word. You cannot say “No Lord” and mean both words. It is an oxymoron where one word annuls the other. The word “Lord” is defined as: He to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has the power of deciding; master, of the possessor and disposer of a thing, the owner. In scripture, the Supreme Being; Jehovah. The word is applied to Christ. If you say no to Him, then He is not your Lord.
God promised that a spiritual famine for His Holy Word was coming. God said, “Behold, the days are coming”. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 confirms, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” The false Christians will find a church and pastor that will tickle their ears with (not what the Word of God says, but) what they desire to hear, whether accepting what God has forbidden: lust, immorality, infidelity, drug abuse, gender perversion, lying, stealing, hate, evolution or everyone going to heaven. Nominal Christians will turn their ears from the truth and turn their faith unto to lies. Sin is truly the desire to be the boss of our own life, not under the sovereign authority of our Maker. So we ignore God’s principles, standards and commands for lives, and replace with our own definition of “right and wrong”. It happened to Adam and Eve, and it’s been happening ever since, as the sin nature has been passed down from generation to generation.
Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Sin produces spiritual death which breaks our connection with our Father God in Heaven. But 2 Peter 3:9 tells us, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” God made a way for sinners to come out of our spiritual death separation from God, out of eternal wrath and damnation into adoption as a child of God, given citizenship into the kingdom of Heaven, and eternal life with the Lord, while having the wholeness and fullness of life here and now. How? Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Humanity is still trying to cover their sin. Good works and religion will not cover our sins. Rationalizing our sin or minimizing them is no cover either. Yet, Romans 5:8 tells us, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
According to Exodus 26 in the Bible, the Holy of Holies was covered by a veil, and no one was allowed to enter except the High Priest, and even he would only enter once a year on Yom Kippur, to offer the blood of sacrifice and incense. On the Cross in Mark 15:37-38, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” What does this mean? Hebrews 10:19-22explains, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The “born again” Believer has been reconciled to God through the atoning blood of Jesus on the Cross and the indwelling Holy Spirit has transformed their heart, regenerated their spirit and restored eternal spiritual life, that we now have direct access to our Heavenly Father, to His holy praise and glory.
Romans 8:35 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” There is a spiritual famine in our land today, and the devil is work through the sons of perdition to dismantle Christ’s church in the world and the silencing of God’s Word. But, Almighty God’s plan will prevail. The Lord Jesus told us in John 10:27-29 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.”
God is at work constantly in the world and seeking those who will obediently worship Him in spirit and in truth. God is seeking a church that preaches and teaches the truth of His holy Word with no question marks, just exclamation points. The Lord knows who are truly of the Good Shepherd’s flock. Psalm 23:1-4 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
In Christ, Brian
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