By: J.Farrell Fisher, July 25-28, 2018

In late July, 2018, on television, I heard Jeff Sessions speak about America’s ‘liberals’, addressing them as “supercilious snowflakes”; in other words, ‘temporary voices in crucial times’! And when I heard that I had to think, consider, resolve, for myself, whether many ‘church folk’ today are the same in their divided allegiances as “supercilious snowflakes” professing allegiance in God’s Kingdom as they ‘try to serve both Spirit and ‘flesh’!’

In the ‘world-wide’ Christian communities, without a doubt, one will find the “supercilious snowflakes” or the “set-apart saints of God’s birthing”, ‘supercilious snowflakes” or “sons and daughters of the Eternal Father”; pretenders with divided allegiances know nothing about ‘forsaking all and following Christ’! But there are “solid-rock citizens of God’s Kingdom”! There are “foundation-stones in God’s Holy Temple”! There are “redeemed witnesses of the Lord’s Saving Grace”!

In the modern-day religious world of ‘professing Christianity’ one will be able to discern the differences between ‘presumptuous estimations’ or “Prince of Peace Declarations, revelations, and manifestations”, “partial compromise and commitment or Sold-Out Allegiance”!

Some ‘religious folk’ are good at ‘self-imposed allegiance’ but choose it rather than “Christ in you the hope of glory” willingly yielded daily to His Sovereign Will”! Jeweled flesh is NOT Eternal Presence and Anointing and Empowering of the Holy Spirit!!!

In Luke 16:14-15 Jesus said to the Pharisees, Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard these things, and they despised Jesus. And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but GOD KNOWS YOUR HEARTS. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” And Holy God knows all, sees all, and is able to discern in religious men true devotion or ‘flesh pretence’!

There is an interesting Verse of the Holy Word in Isaiah 26:3 when the prophet spoke, saying, “You (God) will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in you.” But can there be, is there a ‘spirit’ today in many minds AND hearts focused on themselves, “my best”, one’s ‘spiritual determination to live godly’, but ignoring “You MUST be born again”? Dare I tell you that today there IS ‘a spiritual starvation diet’ though ‘devoted’ to “trying” to be acceptable to Holy God, clearly unaware that their old man with its old sin nature was crucified with Christ?

There IS a ‘religious climate’ today where “pretenders” announce their ‘right standing before God’ because “we are fully devoted in our best efforts to honor Him” – “Imitation Allegiance”! – when the Holy Word, through Paul, 2 Corinthians 10:4-6, unveils, not ‘imitation allegiance’ but “Sovereign Birthing”! It says: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing (in a man’s fleshly mind!) that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”

Is ‘punishing all disobedience’ the exposing of every lawless deed that raises itself up in one’s disobedience in order to unveil the love, mercy, and grace of God for the spiritually needed, the ‘sinner’, the alienated and separated from God? Of course it is, but “imitators” sense no need to be “witnesses” to a godless generation, but at ‘peace’ that they are a part of the family of God, so no concern for the ‘imitators’ or deniers of Emmanuel, “God with us”!

Our ‘modern-day’ in American- evangelical circles is often guided by ‘suspicions’ rather than Revelatory Truths! Many in ‘modern-day’ religious circles are focused on idols of self-invention and not the Holy Word of God! Oh, they want to be ‘religious’, but ignore the path and Person of “blood redemption”! Look at many in Israel who ‘heard’ biblical Truth but still lived devoted to idols, sexual immorality, and the shedding of innocent blood! Of course, in America today, aborting babies is reasonable without any spiritual consequences! Really? In fact, Isaiah says, in Isaiah 28:15, Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, IT WILL NOT COME TO US, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

Does that sound like a ‘life testimony’ based on falsehood, on deception, on the excusing of the sin-nature apart from the blood of the Lamb of God? Does that sound like ‘self or flesh vindication’ and an unwillingness to accept the crucifixion of the flesh and old sin-nature, but acceptance or adapting or affirming one’s independence from God, exalting ‘individuality’ as all their life is and will be without any consideration of divine, eternal intent?

You are aware of the multitudinous assumptions, not only of fallen men but even ‘religious devotees’, who create their own ‘canned faiths’, but are void of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope! And just because one ‘attends’ a church and ‘professes’ faith does not mean that they are exemplary ‘unveil-ers’ of Christ’s indwelling presence!

I was awakened more to this ‘message-Truth’ when I came across Winston Churchill’s amazing word when serving as England’s stout leader! He said: “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on,” just being a religious observer apart from ‘You must be born again’!

As I recently opened Isaiah’s prophetic word, in Isaiah 1:2, I was gripped by a convicting passage that I saw relating not only to the nation of Israel but even many ‘church-goers’ across the world! It says: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! FOR THE LORD GOD HAS SPOKEN: ‘I have nourished and brought up children, and they have REBELLED AGAINST Me!”

“Sovereign Birthing” is not for a ‘believer’s desire’ to be religious apart from being ‘atoned for by the blood of the Lamb’, or ‘new-born’ in the sense that the ‘flesh’ has learned how to ‘perform’ religious leanings, or ‘pretending’, ‘imitating’, or at least ‘leaning’ toward Christian ideas! Isaiah continued in Isaiah 1:4 saying, “Alas, sinful nation (which was the majority of Israel, the chosen people of God!), a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! THEY HAVE FORSAKEN THE LORD, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have TURNED AWAY BACKWARD.”

Walter Chantry wrote a little book full of prophetic truth in 1970 entitled “Today’s Gospel – Authentic or Synthetic?” His ‘Introduction’ began, saying, “Evangelicals know that all is not well in their churches and missions. Behind the façade of glowing missionary reports and massive statistics there is a profound awareness that the church has little power in evangelism. While bravely trying to produce an aura of joy and victory among their followers, church leaders are uneasy and deeply dissatisfied with their present experience and the result of their efforts.”

As a disciple, a church, a pastor, a gathering of the “blood-bought”, certainly there IS a calling ‘out of the world’s ways’ but not abandoning them to their ‘lost estate’! True disciples are called to abandon their self-centered, idolatrous ways, and to faithfully yield to the Lord in submission and obedience to His every Word, including “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”Amen?

Is there ‘rebellion’ today in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ or a serious surrender to His calling with the church touching their world with “saving grace”? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in his Volume 19, “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” (p.60) wrote: “The true church consists of men who are called, and faithful, and chosen. They are redeemed from among men, and called out from among their fellows by effectual grace. God the Holy Spirit continues to call out, and bring to the Lord Jesus, those who are chosen of God according to the good pleasure of His will.”

I often have wondered, over my, now, 80 years of life, how Acts 1:8 has become so buried in a ‘believer’s’ (?) mind, since you know, sadly, it’s not in most ‘church’ hearts, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And, sadly, most Christians ‘prove’ their loyalty by church attendance but ignore His “Great Commission”! Are YOU, as a disciple of Christ, the ‘faithful witness’, the ‘ambassador of Christ’, the ‘openers to others’ of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, or do you emit an appearance of only a religious man without identity before God as a faithful sharer of the Truth to your needy friends, family, or a nation’s followers void and empty of Saving Grace and Mercy and Calvary’s love?

Again, Walter Chantry nailed it strong when in his book, (p.11), he wrote about ‘the church’ in our day, and individual Christians, “lowering their estimate of the value of truth.” He stated: “In a large congress on evangelism we could not insist on a truth of God’s Word that would offend ANY brother evangelical. Thus we must find the lowest common denominator to which all born-again Christians hold. The rest of the Bible will be labeled ‘unessential’ for missions. After all, unity (among Christians) is more essential than doctrinal preciseness,” and especially if it means we should be stressing evangelism and witnessing as one of the primary essentials of a “Live” congregation! God, help us!

If YOU did your ‘discipleship’ thesis, what would be your strong points of emphasis, besides one’s fellowship and communion with your Savior and Lord? Would it include “the just living by faith” AND the awareness of those who know nothing of justification, sanctification, and glorification? Come to Romans 1:16-32 – patience, please, as I share these 16 Verses! It says:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For IN IT (the gospel of Christ!) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse; because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

With that sad word of faithless men’s condition, please hear and receive God’s Word of intent for all men “in Christ”! Colossians 1:12-18 illumines our minds and hearts, granting us mercy and grace! Paul said: “giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He (God!) has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom WE HAVE REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. (Is that so one can continue in it without any consequences? GIVE ME A BREAK! HOW UNGODLY IS THAT?)

He (Christ Jesus) is the image (exact likeness and identity) of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation (new creation!). For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. ALL THINGS WERE CREATED THROUGH HIM AND FOR HIM. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (or ‘are held together’).

And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, THAT IN ALL THINGS HE MAY HAVE THE PREEMINENCE.” Do you see yourself as a “new creation” in Christ, having been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb? Are YOU “a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in the light (of His eternal glory)”? Have YOU been delivered from the powers of darkness and then, yes, conveyed into the Kingdom of the Son of God’s love? If Christ Jesus says, “You must be born again,” is that true of you? If it pleased Father-God that “in Christ” all the fullness should dwell, are YOU living in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you see yourself, new-born, having been conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love? And that’s here and now, not in the “sweet by and by”!

“IMITATION ALLEGIANCE OR SOVEREIGN BIRTHING”? Isn’t it true that James was inspired to unveil the sin of partial allegiance or obedience? In James 2:14-17 he wrote: “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

To me, “imitation allegiance” is a half-hearted, compromising, convenient way of declaring ‘salvation in Jesus’ with no evidence of the “new-born life in Christ”! Several things I encourage you to deal with, examining your own mind and heart which God clearly reads:

• TO COMPROMISE THE LORD’S LIFE AND COMMANDS IS TO ACKNOWLEDGE DISOBEDIENCE AND TO STAND UNDER ALMIGHTY GOD’S JUDGMENT! Didn’t Jesus say, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, but you do not do what I say?”
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO ACKNOWLEDGE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF ITS CONSEQUENCES, INCREASING OUR ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE THE GOD OF THE THRONE WHO RULES AND REIGNS IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, AWARE ONE’S OWN CHOICES HAS CONSEQUENCES! “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ but you do not do what I say?”
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO DECAY OBEDIENCE, BRINGING ON THE OPEN DOOR TO THE DETERIORATION OF BIBLICAL MORALITY AND LORDSHIP HONOR! Do you think the Lord Jesus is pleased if, at least, you do half of what He says?
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO INVITE THE ABSENCE OF BLESSING AND ANOINTING, OPENING THE DOOR AGAIN TO “LIVING UNDER THE CURSE”! David came to the spiritual awareness of what betrayal to Holy God could bring! In Psalm 28 he stared spiritual danger in the face, cried out to Holy God, and was delivered! He said: “To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock: Do not be silent to me, lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.

Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands (in surrender?) toward Your holy sanctuary. Do not take me away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors, but evil is in their hearts.

Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors; give them according to the work of their hands; render to them what they deserve.

Because they do not regard the works of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them and not build them up. Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplications! The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;

Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him. The Lord is their strength, and He is the saving refuge of His anointed. Save YOUR PEOPLE, BLESS YOUR INHERITANCE; Shepherd them also, and bear them up forever.”

Reading Spurgeon recently in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons”, (Vol. 19,p.66), Spurgeon wrote and preached, no doubt, about Abram before he became Abraham. He said, God speaking to Abram, “You have left Ur of the Chaldees – the place of open sin; but you have not come to Canaan the holy.” Is that why some “professors of faith” never enter into their Land of Promise because, as Spurgeon said a few sentences later, “They are willing to be saved by the cross of Christ, but they are not willing to take up Christ’s cross, and come right out decidedly upon His side at all times.”

And “compromisers” have not the blessing of perfect peace, abounding joy, intimate fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, but live with ‘religious appreciation’ of “imitation allegiance” but not Heaven’s blessing in and through Christ alone, knowing, yes, “Sovereign Birthing” by the Holy Spirit with “the seed of His eternal Word” blooming in their “new-born” Life in Christ! AMEN?

I’m so impressed with Isaac Watts and George F. Root’s hymn entitled, “There Is a Land of Pure Delight,” – and I believe it’s illumining the “Land of Sovereign Birthing”! It says: “There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; Eternal day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides, And never withering flowers; Death, like a narrow sea, divides This heavenly land from ours.

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green; So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink To cross this narrow sea, And, lingering, shivering, on the brink, And fear to launch away.

Oh, could we make our doubts remove, Those gloomy doubts that rise, And see the Canaan that we love With un-be-clouded eyes!

Could we but climb where Moses stood, And view the landscape o’er, Not Jordan’s stream nor death’s cold flood Should fright us from the shore.” [Dare I tell you? I’m not frightened by ‘death’s cold flood’ because of Christ in me!

By J.Farrell Fisher, June 3-5, 2018

I don’t know how this title question hits you, but I’m convinced large numbers of “religious ‘professors of faith’, pastoral leaders, ‘faithful’ (?) church folk, modern-day teachers, denominational leaders, national ‘religious’ devotees, are going to be absolutely shocked and amazed when, before the eternal throne of glory Jesus sits, then says to them, Matthew 7:21-23,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I NEVER KNEW YOU; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”

Jesus affirmed Himself “Lord” twice through the false professors saying that there are those who know His name without being united in the Spirit of His mission! It’s not simply knowing His name by even affirming His Lordship; many have that record and acknowledgement ‘without submitting to His authority’, allowing Him to do His work in them, or obeying His commands.

In fact, many living in ‘religious fantasy’ rather than “redemption’s reality” are void of the importance of truly ‘taking heed to themselves’, just as Jesus spoke in Luke 21:34-36 when He said them and, yes, TO US: “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For IT WILL COME AS A SNARE ON ALL THOSE WHO DWELL ON THE FACE OF THE WHOLE EARTH. Watch therefore, and pray always, that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Dare I tell you? Believe I will! “Carousing and drunkenness is more than careless indulgence in alcoholic beverages and ‘strong drink’, but even, yes, the ‘indulgence’ in religious activity apart from being “born again”, apart from being vessels of Holy Presence, apart from being instruments of His righteousness, or commissioned under His authority allowing Him to be Himself in you and through you! God isn’t interested in what you do ‘for Him’ but only in what YOU allow Him to be and do in you and through you as, yes, His temple of Holy Presence!

The validation of true disciples is not in what they allow themselves to do ‘for Christ’, but for them daily taking the sentence of death to themselves that give Him the open door to manifest Himself through them! It’s a matter of availability for Him to be Himself through yielded, surrendered, opened doors of the heart for Him to walk in and through! How many have you known who owned pianos but never learned to allow the “Master Pianist” to play through them? True Christians are not defined by what they do for Jesus but by being individuals who allow Him to be Himself in them and through them! True Christianity finds its eternal identity in allowing Jesus’ Resurrected Presence to find ‘open doors’ for His Eternal Presence to be Himself in them and through them as Holy God has found them to be available vessels of His Holy Presence!

Much of supposed Christianity across our world today is ‘pretense’ of the true revelation! Most of the modern Christian world today sees their faith as ‘church membership’ apart from Resurrection Presence and, yes, Christ being Himself through them! What did Paul say in Colossians 1:24-28, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the “mystery” which has been hidden from ages and generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”

Are YOU aware of, yes, “the mystery of the glory” of the church at large, which IS “Christ IN Jew and Gentiles who make themselves available to all Jesus IS and always has been – the Conquering, Victorious, Reigning Lord over sin and death”? In the known world of today how many have you witnessed who truly grasped “Christ in me my hope of glory”?

Our known world is barren of true redemptive faith; it is bewildering by those who challenge them to be free of ‘self’ as Jesus crucified it and therefore gladly and continually rejoicing yielded themselves fully to His Resurrection Presence! Most of the known religious world of today is embittered that God saw them worthy only of crucifixion with Christ! They’ll privately and publicly blaspheme His Holy Name when they learn the Truth of “crucified with Christ”, from the strongest intellectual to the limited mind, from the strongest of human flesh to the weakest physical body trying to be spiritual, from the fleshly proud learning life without God’s Resurrection Presence is nothing more than the ‘stench of death continuing to die’!

Though ‘fallen humanity’ has been deeply wounded and ‘fallen away from God’, the truth of the Word of God is that Holy God reached down, out, and around to the fallen, knocks on their hearts’ doors, unveils the awareness of their need of “new life, new hope, new power, and new purpose”, seriously wounded by their native, fleshly, self-fulfilling natures, but by the grace, mercy, and love of God, through Holy Spirit conviction and by the ‘gift’ of repentance offered as the ‘door opener’ between God and man, and ‘the gift of faith’ gladly given, one grasps the full, true meaning of the work of Christ at Calvary’s Cross, with sinners becoming saints in and through Christ alone! A ‘saint’? One set apart as “His temple pf Holy Presence”!

God isn’t interested in religious or spiritual robots that have no say in a choice or lack of it when it comes to spiritual devotion. Every human life must decide “on their own they choose to serve Me or not – I will not stamp mankind’s devotion to Me unless it is only in and through their response to Christ’s knocking at their heart’s door and the offering by Him of the gift of His shed blood, the blood of the Lamb of God, crucified so that they may desire by Me my offering of grace, mercy, and love through My Son’s finished work at the Cross.”

A few words I’ve written for hopefully greater enlightenment for sinners and the saints. I wrote:

“Though wounded we may have been by our natural, native, fleshly sin, by the grace and mercy of God through the Spirit-conviction and repentance, we receive inheritance of the gifted Presence of Holy God, through Christ’s blood, and now sealed by the Spirit as sons and daughters of God!

Christ in you the hope of glory – what an amazing, eternal reality! Though having strayed and become ‘lost’ on our own ‘self-ordained range,’ God sought us out to bring us to His home through divine ‘heavenly change’.

Christ’s Resurrection Life is man’s eternal hope, but how many do you know who live as if the Savior doesn’t exist? Once again, even often, they will sense “His knock at the door,” but because of unbelief and religious rationalization they will not soar in heavenly places, but sorrow in tears and sadness forever – because they know, “We didn’t answer!”

Some have discovered: “To Be Is To Live For the Purpose and Plan and Power of God”, but never ask about “The Door” to His Holy Presence, and are spiritually illiterate about His “keys to the Kingdom”!

Yet some know of the keys to the Kingdom yet hidden them away in their personal heart-deception, never desiring to take and insert the keys of repentance and faith into His everlasting Kingdom!

But it’s time to awake, time to arise, time to surmise, how to stand up and look into His merciful, gracious, loving eyes, repenting of your sin, resting in His blessing, turning to His promises of one’s eternal residence.”

But does pride, prejudices, or personal persuasion speak to you identifying afresh the reality of sad but certain ‘godless living.’? Or, possibly, is there in YOU the comforting, strengthening, enlightening, assuring Word in you, “Christ in Me, my hope of glory”, authored by the convicting Holy Spirit?

To be “in Christ” is no longer one’s identity in the register of all fallen sinners, blinded mankind, or Satan’s fallen and conquered captives, but one “in Christ” who knows “blood-forgiven,” blessed with repentance and faith as new-born sons and daughters of the eternal family of God, no longer descendants of Satan’s deceitful clan, captured, blinded, and forever ‘perishing’ but never dying family of Satan’s devotees to faithlessness, indifference, and strong unbelief in the eternal purpose of Holy God, yet gloriously Holy Spirit convicted, convinced, and converted into the “new identity” of divine royalty, sons and daughters of God because, soldiers of the Cross, yes, and truly “washed in the blood of the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus, God’s Son” as “new creations” of His “Amazing Grace”!!

It was Robert H. Coleman of Dallas, Texas, who in 1933 had a hymn entitled “O Happy Day” published by the Broadman Press, written by Philip Doddridge and E.F. Rimbault entitled, “O Happy Day”. It says: “O happy day that fixed my choice on You, my Savior and my God!

O happy bond, that seals my vow To Him who merits all my love! Let cheerful anthems fill His house While to that sacred shrine I move.

It’s done; the great transaction’s done! I am my Lord’s, and He is mine; He drew me, and I followed on, Charmed to confess the voice divine.

High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily hear, Till in life’s latest hour I bow, And bless in death a bond so dear.

Happy day, happy day, When Jesus washed my sins away! He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day; Happy day, happy day, When Jesus washed my sins away!”

You need to “get on board”, and never tire as you travel together with Him and His growing ‘family of faith and obedience’, submitted hour by hour, day by day, with the Prince of Peace Presence, with His Kingly Persuasion, and with the Spirit’s Power Anointing, fulfilling your calling as His earthly representative! You no longer are turned to the world’s opinions but to the Savior’s Holy Word, not to self but to the savior, not to appearances but to the reality of His abiding presence in the life of faith He’s chosen to be His earthly Tabernacle!

The Lord Jesus describes the true children of faith when in Matthew 20:25-28 He said: But Jesus called them to Himself and said: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – JUST AS the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

How different from the man-made philosophies of fallen men who ignore the Eternal Presence of the Resurrected, Reigning, Enriching Savior and Lord! In Romans 1:24-25 Paul wrote, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, WHO EXCHANGED THE TRUTH OF GOD FOR THE LIE, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

At the same time consider Hebrews 9:14! “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!”

And upon His discovery and enlightment to the “Amazing Grace”, he wrote to all believers, Colossians 5:13, For you, brethren, have been called to liberty, only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh (which is your old sin nature!), but through love serve one another.”

What a difference between the “old man” and the “new man in Christ”! The “old man”? Barren of divine life and holy presence, bewildered through indifference to the call of God, bitter in the inner man, easily blaspheming the name of Jesus, blind to the Truth, blotted, bonded and enslaved with a dangerous breach from God’s Presence, definitely breached away from Eternal, Abiding Presence as “the chief musician sang in Psalm 60:1-5, O God, You have cast us off; You have broken us down; You have been displeased; Oh, restore us again! You have made the earth tremble; You have broken it; Heal its breaches, for it is shaking. You have shown Your people hard things; You have made us drink the wine of confusion. (Yet) You have given a banner to those who fear You, that it may be displayed because of the truth. That Your beloved may be delivered, save with Your right hand and hear me.” [Do YOU call out to God to hear you because of your passion concern for the “lost” who surround you?].

THIS IS A “NEW DAY” OF DIVINE OPPORTUNITY TO BE “RESTORED”, “RENEWED”, “RE-BORN”, “REGENERATED”, “REDEEMED BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB”, “REFITTED WITH HOLY PRESENCE, HOLY PURPOSE, AND HOLY POWER”! Bow down before Him so He can raise you up, confess so He may cleanse you and wash pure as the blood of the Lamb of God is pure, “RELIGHTENING YOUR MIND AND HEART TO ETERNAL TRUTH”, “RE-EQUIPPING YOU WITH THE CHOSEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TO SEND YOU OUT TO THE NEEDY LIVES SURROUNDING YOU”, AND “CHOOSING TO BE THE DIVINE REPRESENTATIVE OF HOLY PRESENCE”, YES, FOR THE WORLD AROUND YOU TO WITNESS HOW TO EXCHANGE THE LIE OF THEIR LIVES FOR HIS ETERNAL TRUTH , CHRIST JESUS WHO NEVER CHANGES”!! Amen!

IN THE HEART!”

BY:J.FARRELL FISHER, MAY 26,2019

A VERY SIGNIFICANT WORD OF GOD IS FOUND IN 1 SAMUEL 16:7 WHEN THE LORD SAID TO SAMUEL ABOUT ‘MOURNING FOR SAUL’, “LOOK NOT ON HIS COUNTENANCE, OR ON THE HEIGHT OF HIS STATURE; BECAUSE I HAVE REFUSED HIM: FOR THE LORD SEES NOT AS MAN SEES; FOR MAN LOOKS ON THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE, BUT THE LORD LOOKS ON THE HEART.”

WHAT AN AWESOME WORD FROM HOLY GOD! WHY? BECAUSE IT’S TRUE THAT ‘NATURAL MAN, BIRTHED IN ADAM,CHOOSING TO WILLFULLY SIN FLESHLY & IN THE BODY & MIND’, IS BIRTHED WITH THE CHOICE OF YIELDING TO THE ‘FLESH’ OR WILLFULLY SUBMITTING TO HOLY GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS BY, YES, REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK ON CALVARY’S CROSS!

BUT MAN, FALLEN AWAY FROM GOD IN HIS BIRTHED ‘SINFUL NAURE & CHOOSING TO SIN WITHOUT ANY CONCERN OF A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD’, WILL OFTEN CHOOSE ‘RELIGIOUS APPEARANCE’ APART FROM “REDEEMED BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD”, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! “TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART” ARE MEN, EVEN SOME ‘RELIGIOUS MEN’, WHO ‘LIKE’ RELIGIOUS APPEARANCE & WILL WORK FOR IT, BUT THE “HEART” IS TRULY SPIRITUALLY DEAD AND IN NEED OF THE “SECOND BIRTH THAT IS SPIRITUAL”, NOT “BEST-EFFORT RELIGIOUS ATTAINMENTS”!

DO YOU REMEMBER “THE ‘WISDOM’ OF SOLOMON IN PROVERBS 1:22-33? “HOW LONG, YOU SIMPLE ONES, WILL YOU LOVE SIMPLICITY? & THE SCORNERS DELIGHT IN THEIR SCORNING, & FOOLS HATE KNOWLEDGE? TURN YOU AT MY REPROOF;BEHOLD, I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UNTO YOU, I WILL MAKE KNOWN MY WORDS UNTO YOU. BECAUSE I HAVE CALLED, & YOU REFUSED; I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HAND, & NO MAN REGARDED:

BUT YOU HAVE SET AT NAUGHT ALL MY COUNSEL, & WOULD NONE OF MY REPROOF; I ALSO WILL LAUGH AT YOUR CALAMITY; I WILL MOCK WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES; WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES AS DESOLATION, & YOUR DESTRUCTION COMES AS A WHIRLWIND; WHEN DISTRESS & ANGUISH COMES UPON YOU. THEN SHALL THEY CALL UPON ME, BUT I WILL NOT ANSWER; THEY SHALL SEEK ME EARLY, BUT THEY SHALL NOT FIND ME;

FOR THAT THEY HATED KNOWLEDGE, & DID NOT CHOOSE THE FEAR OF THE LORD; THEY WOULD (HAVE) NONE OF MY COUNSEL: THEY DESPISED ALL MY REPROOF. THEREFORE SHALL THEY EAT ‘THE FRUIT OF THEIR OWN WAY, & BE FILLED WITH THEIR OWN DEVICES.’ FOR THE TURNING AWAY OF THE SIMPLE SHALL SLAY THEM, & THE PROSPERITY OF FOOLS SHALL DESTROY THEM. “BUT”,VERSE 33, WHOSO HEARKENS UNTO ME SHALL DWELL SAFELY, & SHALL BE QUIET FROM FEAR OF EVIL.” OH, BUT THE “WISEMAN” WAS NOT THROUGH WITH HIS ‘RECEIVED, ACCEPTED, & WISE WORDS FROM HOLY GOD’!

IN PROVERBS 3:5-12, THE “WISEMAN” WROTE: “TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART; & LEAN NOT TO YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING. IN ALL YOUR WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, & HE SHALL DIRECT YOUR PATHS. BE NOT WISE IN YOUR OWN EYES: FEAR THE LORD, & DEPART FROM EVIL. IT SHALL BE HEALTH TO YOUR NAVEL, & MARROW TO YOUR BONES. HONOR THE LORD WITH YOUR SUBSTANCE, & WITH THE FIRSTFRUITS OF ALL YOUR INCREASE.

SO SHALL YOUR BARNS BE FILLED WITH PLENTY, & YOUR PRESSES SHALL BURST OUT WITH NEW WINE. MY SON, DO NOT DESPISE THE CHASTENING OF THE LORD; NEITHER BE WEARY OF CORRECTION: FOR WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE CORRECTS; EVEN AS A FATHER THE SON IN WHOM HE DELIGHTS.” WHAT AN AWESOME, ENCOURAGING, INSPIRING WORD FROM A TRULY WISE MAN!!

QUESTION! “ARE ‘YOU’ A SEEKER AFTER HOLY GOD”? IT ALWAYS AMAZED ME TO READ THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, OLD TESTAMENT AS WELL AS NEW TESTAMENT, LEARNING THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE HE CAME, THAT GOD THE FATHER “PROMISED” THAT HIS SON, THE LORD JESUS, WOULD COME TO RECONCILE SINFUL MAN TO GOD THE FATHER BY HIS OWN SHED BLOOD ON CALVARY’S CROSS! IN ISAIAH 55:1-7 WE READ,

“HO, EVERY ONE THAT THIRSTS, COME YOU TO THE WATERS (THE ‘WATERS OF THE HOLY WORD OF GOD’?), & HE THAT HAS NO MONEY; COME YOU, BUY, & EAT; YES, COME, BUY WINE (THE ‘WINE OF THE WORD OF GOD’?) & MILK WITHOUT MONEY & WITHOUT PRICE. WHEREFORE DO YOU SPEND MONEY FOR THAT WHICH IS NOT BREAD? & YOUR LABOR FOR THAT WHICH DOES NOT SATISFY?HEARKEN DILIGENTLY UNTO ME, & EAT YOU THAT WHICH IS GOOD, & LET YOUR SOUL DELIGHT ITSELF IN FATNESS.

INCLINE YOUR EAR, & COME UNTO ME; HEAR, & YOU SHALL LIVE; & I WILL MAKE AN EVERLASTING COVENANT WITH YOU, EVEN THE SURE MERCIES OF DAVID. BEHOLD, I HAVE GIVEN HIM FOR A WITNESS TO THE PEOPLE, A LEADER & COMMANDER TO THE PEOPLE. BEHOLD, YOU SHALL CALL A NATION THAT YOU KNOW NOT, & NATIONS THAT KNEW NOT YOU SHALL RUN UNTO YOU BECAUSE OF THE LORD YOUR GOD, & FOR THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL; FOR HE HAS GLORIFIED YOU.

SEEK YOU THE LORD WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND, CALL YOU UPON HIM WHILE HE IS NEAR; LET THE WICKED FORSAKE HIS WAY, & THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN HIS THOUGHTS: & LET HIM RETURN UNTO THE LORD, & HE WILL HAVE MERCY UPON HIM; & TO OUR GOD, FOR HE WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON.”

ON JUNE 12,2019, I WILL CELEBRATE MY 83^RD BIRTHDAY! IT IS AMAZING TO “ME” BECAUSE MY GRANDDAD FISHER & MY DAD, JIM FISHER, BOTH DIED AT 78 YEARS OF AGE! I’M SURELY CONVINCED THAT HOLY GOD HAS EXTENDED MY LIFE, EVEN FOR THE ‘SOVEREIGN PURPOSE’ OF HIGHLIGHTING, & I PRAY, INSPIRING YOU TO “REST” IN THE LORD LIKE “WISE” SOLOMON, “WISE” PROPHETS & TEACHERS & FOLLOWERS OVER THOUSANDS OF YEARS, WHO ‘WAITED’ IN FAITH ON CHRIST’S LITERAL COMING, HIS EARTHLY MINISTRY, & HIS SACRIFICIAL DEATH AS THE TRUE “LAMB OF GOD” SHEDDING HIS OWN BLOOD TO “WASH AWAY SIN & ITS NATURE” ON HIS “CALVARY’S CROSS”!! AND THE EMPTY TOMB PROVES IT! HE AROSE FROM THE DEAD AFTER THREE DAYS, & STILL, THOUSANDS OF YEARS LATER, SAYS, “COME UNTO ME, & I’LL GIVE YOU REST!”

IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL” (P.84), (PUBLISHED IN 1940 BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.), IS A HYMN THAT IS ENTITLED: “REST FOR THE WEARY.” IT SAYS: “IN THE CHRISTIAN’S HOME IN GLORY THERE REMAINS A LAND OF REST; THERE MY SAVIOR’S GONE BEFORE ME, TO FULFILL MY SOUL’S REQUEST.

HE IS FITTING UP MY MANSION, WHICH ETERNALLY SHALL STAND, FOR MY STAY SHALL NOT BE TRANSCIENT, IN THAT HOLY, HAPPY LAND.

PAIN & SICKNESS NE’ER SHALL ENTER, GRIEF NOR WOE MY LOT SHALL SHARE; BUT, IN THAT CELESTIAL CENTER, I A CROWN OF LIFE SHALL WEAR.

DEATH ITSELF SHALL THEN BE VANQUISHED, & IT’S STING SHALL BE WITHDRAWN; SHOUT FOR GLADNESS, O YOU RANSOMED! HAIL WITH JOY THE RISING MORN.

THERE IS REST FOR THE WEARY, THERE IS REST FOR THE WEARY, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF JORDAN, IN THE SWEET FIELDS OF EDEN, THERE IS REST FOR THE WEARY, THERE IS REST FOR YOU; WHERE THE TREE OF LIFE IS BLOOMING, THERE IS REST FOR YOU.”

IN GENESIS 27:41-28:5a, WE READ ABOUT JACOB ESCAPING FROM ESAU WHO HATED JACOB & WANTED TO KILL HIM. SO INTERESTING WHAT ‘SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS’ DOES IN MEN’S HEARTS & MINDS & WILLFUL DISGRACE TO HOLY GOD! FIRST,GENESIS 27:41-46 SAYS, “SO ESAU HATED JACOB BECAUSE OF THE BLESSING WITH WHICH HIS FATHER BLESSED HIM, & ESAU SAID IN HIS HEART, ‘THE DAYS OF MOURNING FOR MY FATHER ARE AT HAND; THEN I WILL KILL MY BROTHER JACOB.

AND THE WORDS OF ESAU HER OLDER SON WERE TOLD TO REBEKAH. SO SHE SENT & CALLED JACOB HER YOUNGER SON, & SAID TO HIM, “SURELY YOUR BROTHER ESAU COMFORTS HIMSELF CONCERNING YOU BY INTENDING TO KILL YOU. NOW THEREFORE, MY SON, OBEY MY VOICE: ARISE, FLEE TO MY BROTHER LABAN IN HARAN. & STAY WITH HIM A FEW DAYS, UNTIL YOUR BROTHER’S FURY TURNS AWAY, UNTIL YOUR BROTHER’S ANGER TURNS AWAY FROM YOU, & HE FORGETS WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO HIM; THEN I WILL SEND & BRING YOU FROM THERE. WHY SHOULD I BE BEREAVED ALSO OF YOU BOTH IN ONE DAY?”

OH, THEN FEAST ON THE FAITH OF ISAAC! GENESIS 28:1-5A: THEN ISAAC CALLED JACOB & BLESSED HIM, & CHARGED HIM, & SAID TO HIM: ‘YOU SHALL NOT TAKE A WIFE FROM THE DAUGHTERS OF CANAAN. ARISE, GO TO PADAN ARAM, TO THE HOUSE OF BETHEL YOUR MOTHER’S FATHER; & TAKE YOURSELF A WIFE FROM THERE OF THE DAUGHTERS OF LABAN YOUR MOTHER’S BROTHER. & MAY GOD ALMIGHTY BLESS YOU, & MAKE YOU FRUITFUL & MULTIPLY YOU, THAT YOU MAY BE AN ASSEMBLY OF PEOPLES; & GIVE YOU THE BLESSING OF ABRAHAM, TO YOU & YOUR DESCENDANTS WITH YOU, THAT YOU MAY INHERIT THE LAND IN WHICH YOU ARE A STRNGER, WHICH GOD GAVE TO ABRAHAM. SO ISAAC SENT JACOB AWAY.”

SECOND,QUESTION! ARE YOU A “DESCENDANT” OF A BLOOD-BOUGHT FAMILY OF FAITH & OBEDIENCE & TRUST IN THE COMMISSIONING & ORDERS & INSTRUCTIONS OF GOD THE FATHER THROUGH HIS HOLY WORD? IN GALATIANS 4:3-20, PAUL IN A LABOR OF LOVE ‘EXPOSED’ COMPROMISE AS AN ENEMY OF GOD WHEN HE SAID OF SOME ‘PROFESSING GALATIANS & EVEN ‘MODERN-DAY’ PRETENDERS,’ “EVEN SO WE, WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN, WERE IN BONDAGE UNDER THE ELEMENTS OF THE WORLD. BUT WHEN THE FULLNESS OF THE TIME HAD COME, GOD SENT FORTH HIS SON, BORN OF A WOMAN, BORN UNDER THE LAW, TO REDEEM THOSE WHO WERE UNDER THE LAW, THAT WE MIGHT RECEIVE THE ADOPTION AS SONS.

AND BECAUSE YOU ARE SONS, GOD HAS SENT FORTH THE SPIRIT OF HIS SON INTO YOU HEARTS, CRYING OUT, ‘ABBA,FATHER’! THEREFORE YOU ARE NO LONGER A SLAVE BUT A SON, & IF A SON, THEN AN HEIR OF GOD THROUGH CHRIST. BUT THEN, INDEED, WHEN YOU DID NOT KNOW GOD, YOU SERVED THOSE BY NATURE WHICH ARE NOT GODS. BUT NOW,AFTER YOU HAVE KNOWN GOD, OR RATHER ARE KNOWN BY GOD, HOW IS IT YOU TURN AGAIN TO THE WEAK & BEGGARLY ELEMENTS, TO WHICH YOU DESIRE AGAIN TO BE IN BONDAGE? YOU OBSERVE DAYS & MONTHS & SEASONS & YEARS. I AM AFRAID FOR YOU, LEST I HAVE LABORED FOR YOU IN VAIN.

BRETHREN, I URGE YOU TO BECOME LIKE ME, FOR I BECAME LIKE YOU. YOU HAVE NOT INJURED ME AT ALL,YOU KNOW THAT BECAUSE OF PHYSICAL INFIRMITY I PREACHED THE GOSPEL TO YOU AT THE FIRST. & MY TRIAL WHICH WAS IN MY FLESH YOU DID NOT DESPISE OR REJECT, BUT YOU RECEIVED ME AS AN ANGEL (OR MESSENGER) OF GOD, EVEN AS CHRIST JESUS. WHAT THEN WAS THE BLESSING YOU ENJOYED? FOR I BEAR YOU WITNESS THAT, IF POSSIBLE, YOU WOULD HAVE PLUCKED OUT YOUR OWN EYES & GIVEN THEM TO ME. HAVE I THEREFORE BECOME YOUR ENEMY BECAUSE I TELL YOU THE TRUTH?

THEY ZEALOUSY COURT YOU, BUT FOR NO GOOD;YES, THEY WANT TO EXCLUDE YOU, THAT YOU MAY BE ZEALOUS FOR THEM. BUT IT IS GOOD TO BE ZEALOUS IN A GOOD THING ALWAYS, & NOT ONLY WHEN I AM PRESENT WITH YOU. MY LITTLE CHILDREN, FOR WHOM I LABOR IN BIRTH AGAIN UNTIL CHRIST IS FORMED IN YOU. I WOULD LIKE TO BE PRESENT WITH YOU NOW & TO CHANGE MY TONE; FOR I HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT YOU.”

THIRD:DARE I SAY IT? BELIEVE I WILL! HAVE YOU EVER HAD ‘DOUBTS’ ABOUT YOURSELF, OR ‘DOUBTS’ ABOUT FAMILY MEMBERS, OR ‘DOUBTS’ ABOUT ‘FRIENDS OF THE FAITH’, OR ‘DOUBTS’ ABOUT A WANDERING, MISGUIDED, WORLDLY INDULGENT TEACHER OR PASTOR? I READ AN ANONYMOUS QUOTE YEARS AGO THAT SAID, “A GREAT MANY PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS READY TO PRAY WHEN THE DEVIL GETS THEM INTO TROUBLE; BUT WHEN THEY GET OUT OF TROUBLE THEY SOON FORGET GOD.” IT WAS E.STANLEY JONES, IN HIS WRITING, “THE WAY”(P.235, ABINGDON PRESS), WHO WROTE: “THE CHRISTIAN UNDER TROUBLE DOESN’T BREAK UP – HE BREAKS OUT.” SO TRUE!

“TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART”? IN ONE OF HIS WRITINGS ENTITLED, “HYMN” (ST.5), HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW WROTE: “O HOLY TRUST! O ENDLESS SENSE OF REST! LIKE THE BELOVED JOHN TO LAY HIS HEAD UPON THE SAVIOR’S BREAST, & THUS TO JOURNEY ON!” HAVE YOU ‘COLLAPSED’ AS A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST? HAVE YOU CRUMBLED? HAVE YOU SETTLED FOR A FAITH THAT TELLS YOU TO TRY YOUR BEST, EVEN IF YOU FAIL 0R FALTER, BUT NEVER TELLS YOU: “FINISHED WITH ‘FLESHLY BEST’ THAT CHRIST JESUS MAY BE MY ALL IN ALL – EVEN EVERY TROUBLING, DISABLING, STRUGGLING, HEART-BREAKING EVENT I MAY FACE?”

“TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART”? MAYBE SO, BUT JOHN KEATS, IN HIS WRITING, “LETTER TO J.H.REYNOLDS” SAID, “THERE IS AN AWFUL WARMTH ABOUT MY HEART LIKE A LOAD OF IMMORTALITY.” FOR SURE, THE HEART OF MAN IS EITHER TAINTED IN SINFUL, SELF-INDULGENCE, OR TRIUMPHANT THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST, HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, & HIS PRESENT REIGN ON THE THRONE OF TRULY REPENTANT, TRULY “BLOOD-BOUGHT SAINTS”, GUIDED & GUARDED BY THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE REDEEMED LIFE “IN CHRIST”!

FOURTH,“TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART?” THAT DESCRIBES ‘PROUD’, ‘SELF-INDULGENT’ ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENDERS’ WHO SEE ‘RELIGION’ AS MEN’S MINDS TRYING HARD TO IMPROVE THEMSELVES RELIGIOUSLY, BUT VOID OF “WASHED IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB”! MAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN “ESTABLISHED RELIGIONS” WORLDWIDE IS WHAT WALTER BAGEHOT SAID YEARS & YEARS AGO, THAT “MAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN ESTABLISHED RELIGIONS WHICH ARE “STREWN WITH CREEDS & INSTITITIONS WHICH WERE INVALUABLE AT FIRST, & DEADLY AFTERWARD.” AGAIN, SO TRUE!

“TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART?” THAT, TO ME, IS ‘ANTSY RELIGIOUS PARTICIPANTS BIRTHING ITCHY MINDS, FLESHLY WILLS, ‘DECENT PERFORMANCES’, BUT IT IS NOT “GRACED LIVING IN DIVINE PRESENCE WITH CHRIST REIGNING IN THEM AS THEIR THRONE OF ETERNAL GLORY!” HOLY GOD HAS NO INTEREST IN RELIGIOUS MEN’S “PRODUCTION” OF ‘AFFILIATED BIRTHING’ BUT NO “TRANSFORMED LIVES” THROUGH FAITH ALONE IN THE “SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST JESUS” THE CRUCIFIED “LAMB OF GOD”!

‘RELIGIOUS GENIUSES’ ARE INNUMERABLE IN THIS DAY OF RELIGIOUS ‘HISTORY’, BUT I WROTE YEARS AGO A WORD THAT CHILLED A GREAT NUMBER, EVEN CHURCH-FOLK WHO RESENTED IT! I SAID: “IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUE BIBLICAL FAITH MEN ESTABLISH RELIGIONS, & ALL OF A SUDDEN REALIZE THEY’VE ENTERED INNUMERABLE GORILLA CAGES!”

FIFTH,IN JAMES 1:26-27 THE BROTHER OF JESUS WROTE: “IF ANY AMONG YOU SEEM TO BE RELIGIOUS, & BRIDLETH NOT HIS TONGUE, BUT DECEIVES HIS OWN HEART, THIS MAN’S RELIGION IS VAIN. PURE RELIGION & UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD AND THE FATHER IS THIS: TO VISIT THE FATHERLESS & WIDOWS IN THEIR AFFLICTION, & TO KEEP HIMSELF UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.”

IT’S MORE THAN ‘NORMAL’, IT’S “ABNORMAL”! “ABNORMAL” WHAT? THAT’S ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENSE’ VOID OF THE “NEW BIRTH, THE NEW HEART, THE CRUCIFIED LIFE MIRACOUSLY RAISED UP “IN CHRIST” BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT”! THAT’S ‘DECEIVED, RELIGIOUS INDIVIDUALS’ WHO CANNOT, WILL NOT ‘UNDECEIVE THEMSELVES’ BECAUSE “GOD SHOULD ACCEPT JUST AS I AM”, WHEN GOD “CRUCIFIED THEM WITH CHRIST” JUST AS THEY WERE OR STILL ARE IN, BECAUSE RELIGIOUS PRETENSE IS AS DEADLY AS ‘BORN IN SIN’!! ACTS 3:19 SAYS, “REPENT YOU, THEREFORE, & BE CONVERTED THAT YOUR SINS MAY BE BLOTTED OUT.” AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN! “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST” “IS” “THE ONLY WAY” YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE IS DONE AWAY WITH! “TRYING NOT TO SIN” IS NOT “TRUSTING IN OUR SAVIOR’S FINISHED WORK AT CALVARY’S CROSS!!!

IRA D.SANKEY & E.PAGE,IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL”, PUBLISHED BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN., IN 1940, P.328, IS A HYMN ENTITLED “TRUSTING JESUS.” IT SAYS: “SIMPLY TRUSTING EVERY DAY, TRUSTING THROUGH A STORMY WAY; EVEN WHEN MY FAITH IS SMALL, TRUSTING JESUS, THAT IS ALL.

BRIGHTLY DOES HIS SPIRIT SHINE INTO THIS POOR HEART OF MINE; WHILE HE LEADS I CANNOT FALL; TRUSTING JESUS THAT IS ALL.

SINGING IF MY WAY IS CLEAR: PRAYING IF THE PATH BE DREAR; IF IN DANGER, FOR HIM CALL; TRUSTING JESUS, THAT IS ALL.

TRUSTING HIM WHILE LIFE SHALL LAST, TRUSTING HIM TILL EARTH IS PAST; TILL WITHIN THE JASPER WALL, TRUSTING JESUS, THAT IA ALL.

TRUSTING AS THE MOMENTS FLY, TRUSTING AS THE DAYS GO BY; TRUSTING HIM WHATE’ER BEFALL, TRUSTING JESUS, THAT IS ALL.”

SIXTH,BUT, GOD CALLED & YOU REFUSED? JESUS KNOCKED, BUT AWARE OF YOUR ‘SUPREME RELIGIOUS DEVOTION’ YOU SAW NO NEED TO OPEN THE DOOR & INVITE HIM IN TO DO ONLY WHAT HE CAN DO? THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTED YOU, BUT YOU CONVINCED YOURSELF “YOU’RE ABLE; TRY YOUR BEST, GUT IT UP, BE STRONG!”, WHEN IN GALATIANS 1:6-10 THE SPIRIT-INSPIRED WORD DECLARES, PAUL THE APOSTLE WRITING: “I MARVEL THAT YOU ARE TURNING AWAY SO SOON FROM HIM WHO CALLED YOU IN THE GRACE OF CHRIST, TO A DIFFERENT GOSPEL, WHICH IS NOT ANOTHER; BUT THERE ARE SOME WHO TROUBLE YOU & WANT TO PERVERT THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST.BUT EVEN IF WE, OR AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN, PREACH ANY OTHER GOSPEL TO YOU THAN WHAT WE PREACHED TO YOU, LET HIM BE ACCURSED. AS WE SAID BEFORE, SO NOW I SAY AGAIN, IF ANYONE PREACHES ANY OTHER GOSPEL TO YOU THAN WHAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED, LET HIM BE ACCURSED. FOR DO I NOW PERSUADE MEN, OR GOD? OR DO I SEEK TO PLEASE MEN? FOR IF I STILL PLEASED MEN, I WOULD NOT BE A BONDSERVANT OF CHRIST.” ARE “YOU” ‘TRYING’ OR “TRUSTING”, ‘ATTEMPTING OR “ATONED FOR”, ‘STRIVING’ OR ACCORDING TO COLOSSIANS 1:11, “STRENGTHENED WITH ALL MIGHT, ACCORDING TO HIS GLORIOUS POWER…”, WHICH MEANS: “WE TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY TO OUSELVES, & ALLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT TO FAITHFULLY “GUIDE US INTO ALL TRUTH”!! AMEN? IN THE OLD “AMERICAN HYMNAL” OF 1933 PUBLISHED IN NASHVILLE, TENN., BY BROADMAN PRESS, IS A SONG ENTITLED “LORD, I AM YOURS, ENTIRELY YOURS.” IT SAYS: “LORD, I AM YOURS, ENTIRELY YOURS, PURCHASED & SAVED BY BLOOD DIVINE; WITH FULL CONSENT YOURS I WOULD BE, & OWN YOUR SOVEREIGN RIGHT IN ME.GRANT ONE POOR SINNER MORE A PLACE AMONG THE CHILDREN OF YOUR GRACE; A WRETCHED SINNER,LOST TO GOD, BUT RANSOMED BY IMMANUEL’S BLOOD.

YOURS WOULD I LIVE, YOURS WOULD I DIE, BE YOURS THRO’ ALL ETERNITY; THE VOW IS PAST BEYOND REPEAL, & NOW I SET THE SOLEMN SEAL.HERE AT THAT CROSS WHERE FLOWS THE BLOOD THAT BOUGHT MY GUILTY SOUL FOR GOD, YOU, MY NEW MASTER, NOW I CALL, & CONSECRATE TO YOU MY ALL!PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSING FLOW; PRAISE HIM ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW; PRAISE HIM ABOVE,YOU HEAVENLY HOST; PRAISE FATHER, SON, & HOLY GHOST.” AMEN?

By: J.Farrell Fisher, Sept.9-10, 2017

In Isaiah 44:8, Holy God said: “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no god,” saying again Verse 8b, “You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides ME? Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

Would you, in your mind, heart, and spirit ever fall into the deception of “many gods”, and that we who are ‘Christians’ should not be concerned ‘who’ anybody else worships? According to the Word of God, 1 Corinthians 10:7, Paul said, “And do not become idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” False gods, idols, mind-made gods of marred men are nothing more than cheap, lifeless imitations of God, if even that, because ONLY GOD REIGNS – but foolish men reject Holy Scripture, reject His purpose in earthly life, and reject His Son, the Reconciler of alienated, separated from God men and women who decide ‘religious activity’ is more important to them than the “Blood Atonement”!!

In 1 Corinthians 2:14 we read, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.” And whether ‘unredeemed’ or a part of the “best effort” of fallen humanity and, maybe, even attempting religious activity, ‘the natural man’, does not receive Truth, but rolls around “behaving like mere men”, which the natural man can get one of those ‘Hollywood – award winning’ medals for ‘cheap imitation’, and Paul says they are ‘behaving like mere men.’

Serving in the flesh “the god of coldness and deadness rather than the God of Heat and Life in the Spirit” is voluntarily and willfully choosing by a stubborn, self-sufficient mind to ignore the grace, mercy, and love of God, upholding, insisting, demanding, ignoring, and I say, ‘yes’, never surrendering one’s God-given right to attend the eternal funeral of one’s own independence, denying the need of the mercy and grace of God for a “new life” He longs to give!

But Galatians 5:24 declares: “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Independent, self-sufficient men and women are what I’ve entitled “godless ‘lapsers’”, accepting less than God promises! That’s ‘lapsing’ from grace and mercy and shutting the door of one’s heart and mind in order to fall away spiritually from “Amazing Grace”! God knocks – they refuse!

In Matthew 16:24 the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Verse 25, For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” To be lost, to be alienated and separated from God, to be a ‘self-promoter’ at the expense of missing out on Christ, to be the most ‘religious’ man in your community apart from the “New Birth” and a personal relationship with the King of kings and Lord of lords, is to willfully choose to be a part of spiritual coldness and deadness and indifference to the “shed blood of the Lamb of God”!

Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest”(p.256), that “it is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence and self-assertiveness, and this is where the battle has to be fought.” That’s: “Who rules? Sovereign God OR my ‘selfish flesh’?” Chambers went on to say:

“It is the things that are right and noble and good from ‘the natural standpoint’ that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Christ’s.”

In Galatians 6:14-15 the Apostle Paul wrote: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” Are YOU “new-born”?

“The ‘god’ of coldness and deadness”? It’s easily bowed to before ‘church-pretenders’ and unbelievers in the world because its instigator is Satan himself who is a ‘master deceiver’ who encourages ‘world opposition’, and then, like meeting Jesus Himself in the Gethsemane garden, he knows YOU have your own ‘garden’, and at stake is your ‘spiritual destiny’ inspired by him, or your ‘spiritual destiny’ designed, declared, and unveiled by Father-God for His Son and the Son’s re-born, regenerated, and released sons and daughters of “Follow Me”! And if the Lord Jesus, yes, suffered in His Garden of Gethsemane, settling His purpose, so you and I will find ourselves in opposition to the very powers of Hell itself – and YOU will have to settle who, yes, gets your heart, mind, and will – your own ‘self’ or a life to the honor of King Jesus!

“The ‘god’ of coldness and deadness” ?– and I say spiritual coldness and spiritual deadness! Dare I tell you that your enemy, Satan, has no desire for you to discover a “fire of God in your bones”! “The god of coldness and deadness” is not interested in seeing any man even turning an ear to the voice or Word of God, but is delighted when he hears that, sadly, there is no fear of God in many lives! So he encourages independent, fleshly walks with no eyes toward God or His Word! His major message to the unbelieving? “Trust yourself – you don’t need God!”

John MacArthur Jr., in his book, “Ashamed of the Gospel”, or sub-titled, “When the Church Becomes Like the World,” wrote: (p.28), having exposed a popular ‘market-driven’ ministry philosophy, said: “It caters to a people whose first love is with themselves and who care not for God – unless they can have Him without disrupting their selfish lifestyles. Promise such people a religion that will allow them to be comfortable in their materialism and self-love, and they will respond in droves.”

And reading recently, again, Chuck Colson’s book, “Burden of Truth,” (p.275), he was writing about “Costly Grace”, sub-titled The Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, saying: “Costly grace led Bonhoeffer to stand against a turncoat church that mixed Nazi doctrine with Christian truth.” But it doesn’t matter if it’s Nazi doctrine or modern-day ‘intellectually elite’s perverted ideas’ (?) who deny the Word or even one’s own parents or family, God’s Eternal Truth still stands – and He bids you “Come to Me, and I will give you rest!”

BUT, ‘the god of coldness and deadness’ still seeks to hold onto what he’s already enslaved! And, are you acquainted with one of his favorite deceptions? “I am seeking to become the ‘best’ version of myself that I dream I may become”! Really? Eternal Truth is the last thing, yes, most Americans want to learn about! Oh, there are those who like the ‘sound’ of the bell of “church attendance”, but to “Take up YOUR cross and follow Me” which Jesus spoke, are words they consider too spiritual, reserved for just a few of the spiritual elite. But no cross, no death, no burial, and then, no resurrection life, hope or power!

Oh, but then in Hebrews 10:14 we read, “For by one offering (that’s Jesus’ death on the Cross!) He has PERFECTED FOREVER those who are being sanctified,” and “sanctified” is a life “set apart” for the glory of Christ alone, one’s Lord, one’s Savior, and the only Master of his/her life!

Dare I ask? Believe I will! Have YOU “in Christ” BEEN PERFECTED FOREVER because YOU no longer look inward into yourself but you “rest” in His finished work at the Cross AND the empty tomb and His ascension, seated at the right hand of God as VICTOR over sin and death and your representative before Holy God? I love Oswald Chambers statement in “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.255), “Identification with the death of Jesus Christ means identification with Him to the death of everything that was never in Him.” Sinless Jesus took your sin and mine, and though He never sinned, He paid full price in our place for the sinful nature and practice of what killed Him!

And Hebrews 10:19 tells us: “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.” And dare I tell you the “pure water” is the water of the Word of God that applies the blood of Christ and washes us clean in the blood of the Lamb of God – Jesus?

Oh, and I do want to scare the Hell out of you! Hebrews 10:26-31 says: Are you ready? Do you have your marking pen out? It says: “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no longer a sacrifice for sins, BUT a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fiery indignation which will devout the adversaries.

Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. OF HOW MUCH WORSE PUNISHMENT, Do you suppose, WILL BE THOUGHT WORTHY WHO HAS TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT THE SON OF GOD, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge (Who?) His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Bu around you are ‘some’ who (Verse 39) “draw back to perdition”, rather than trusting, relying upon, obeying, and day by day, yes, forever, yield to the Savior, or daily bow before the King, and moment by moment walk in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ, fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit to moment by moment guide you in His Truth and expose your enemies!

Do you recall what Christ Jesus said in Matthew 12:25? “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, AND every city or house divided against itself WILL NOT STAND,” and that “STANDING” DIVIDED says to Satan: “My divided, compromising, on-again-off-again ‘romance’ with Jesus is truth – but I hope I don’t get what Jesus says I’m in for!”

Dare I tell you? Believe I will! Only Jesus, only the Christ in you can resist and resist and keep on resisting the powers of darkness because your old ‘flesh’ lives in doubt, defeat, and destruction by a yielded mind and heart to darkness rather than holding on to Eternal Light!

In Luke 11:20 & 23, Jesus said: “But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Verse 23, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”

Are YOU with Jesus or against Him? Are you “kingdom living” or religiously dying? Are you gathering in or are you a stumbling block to those blinded by the world, the flesh, and Satan Himself?

Are YOU extending His kingdom, expressing His love, and proving His power? The ‘church’, the family of God, the assembly of born again believers, the atoned, the anointed, the appointed are men and women, boys and girls, even young children who’ve met the Master and surrendered to His sovereign control and daily take the sentence of death to themselves that Christ’s Resurrection Life may be manifested in and through their mortal flesh!

It’s “Jesus, be Jesus in me”, or it’s “me being me in me” or “Satan being ‘me’ in me,” or “world, school crowd, neighborhood friends, you have your way in me.” Churches aren’t to be on the things you like about it but on the basis of its faithfulness, commitment, and stand for Eternal Truth!

Do you remember Psalm 23:4? “Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me, God, and Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me,” and because YOU DO, Psalm 23:6 says:

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord FOREVER.” Is your room reserved in His eternal house forever? 2 Corinthians 13:5-6 says, Paul the Apostle speaking, “EXAMINE yourselves as to whether YOU are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified (the Apostles who all died for the True Faith!!).”

Look also at Colossians 3:3 where we read about “true believers”: “For you died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” What an amazing, awe-inspiring Word that necessitates taking that sentence of death daily that, yes, His “Resurrection Life” may be manifested IN our mortal flesh! Amen?

OR

THE MIND FULL OF GOD’S MERCY?”

BY:J.FARRELL FISHER, JUNE 6-7, 2019

IT WAS JOHN BUNYAN WHO WROTE YEARS AGO IN HIS “PILGRIM’S PROGRESS”, “AS FOR MY FEEBLE MIND, THAT I WILL LEAVE BEHIND ME, FOR THAT I HAVE NO NEED OF THAT IN THE PLACE WHITHER I GO; NOR IS IT WORTH BESTOWING UPON THE POOREST PILGRIM; WHEREFORE, WHEN I AM GONE, I DESIRE THAT YOU WOULD BURY IT IN A DUNGHILL.” SORRY BUNYAN, BUT YEARS AGO YOU ALIGNED YOURSELF WITH ‘SPIRITUAL STUPIDITY’, NOT WITH SOVEREIGN GRACE & MERCY & LOVE! “THE MIND-FULL-NESS OF MISERY”?

IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS” (PUBLISHED IN 1964 BY FLEMING H.REVELL COM., WESTWOOD, NJ), RICHARD CECIL WROTE THIS: “A PERFECTLY JUST & SOUND MIND IS A RARE & INVALUABLE GIFT. BUT IT IS STILL MORE UNUSUAL TO SEE SUCH A MIND UNBIASED IN ALL ITS ACTINGS. GOD HAS GIVEN THIS SOUNDNESS OF MIND BUT TO FEW: & A VERY SMALL NUMBER OF THESE FEW ESCAPE THE BIAS OF SOME PREDILECTION PERHAPS HABITUALLY OPERATING; & NONE ARE AT ALL TIMES PERFECTLY FREE. AN EXQUISITE WATCH WENT IRREGULARLY, THOUGH NO DEFECT COULD BE DISCOVERED IN IT. AT LAST IT WAS FOUND THAT THE BALANCE WHEEL HAD BEEN NEAR A MAGNET; & HERE WAS ALL THE MISCHIEF. IF THE SOUNDEST MIND BE MAGNETIZED BY ANY PREDILECTION, IT MUST ACT IRREGULARLY.”

‘PREDILECTION PERHAPS HABITUALLY OPERATING’? A ‘GODLESS MIND’ THAT FUNCTIONS ON THE BASIS OF HIS/HER OWN THOUGHTS,WILLS, OR EMOTIONS, IS A TRUE PICTURE OPERATING HABITUALLY ON ‘FLESH’, THE ‘WORLD’S OPINIONS, &, YES, THE SATANIC & DEMONIZED MIND SET’ FULLY OPPOSED TO GOD! BUT J.B.PHILLIPS, IN HIS WRITING ENTITLED “NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTIANITY”, SAID: “THE MODERN INTELLIGENT MIND, WHICH HAS HAD ITS HORIZONS WIDENED IN A DOZEN DIFFERENT WAYS, HAS GOT TO BE SHOCKED AFRESH BY THE AUDACIOUS CENTRAL FACT THAT AS A SOBER MATTER OF HISTORY, GOD BECAME ONE OF US.” BUT MINDS,YES, HELL-BENT BY SATAN, THE PROMOTER OF “HAS GOD REALLY SAID…?”, HAS SAID,BECAUSE SATAN, AS ‘lord’ over the kingdom of darkness, had no desire to honor God’s Word,BUT SOUGHT TO DISTRACT EVERY HUMAN POSSIBLE FROM HEARING THE “GOOD NEWS OF BLOOD-BOUGHT RECONCILIATION THROUGH CHRIST THE LORD, THE VERY EMBODIMENT OF HOLY GOD IN THE NATURAL ESTATE OF LIFE POISONED BY THE ‘FALLING AWAY FROM GOD” STUPIDITY”,& SATAN, A FALLEN WORLD SYSTEM AWAY FROM GOD, & CEMENTED-SELF-SUFFICIENTLY OF GOD, SEEK TO LIVE INDEPENDENTLY OF HIM, NOT EVEN KNOWING THERE IS A ‘DAY OF ACCOUNTABILITY’ WHEN THEY’LL STAND BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF KING JESUS!!

“A MIND OF ONE’S OWN”? OF COURSE, GOD SAID OVER & OVER, “YOU CHOOSE WHOM OR WHAT YOU’LL SERVE!” SO, GODLESS HUMANITY EMERGED, GODLESS SOCIETIES SICKENED WITH THE ‘DISEASE OF SIN’ EMERGED, THE LAWLESS BECAME BLAMELESS, THE ‘RELIGIOUS’ BECAME ‘BRAIN-WASHED’ WITH A MORAL DESERT OF ‘GOD UNDERSTANDS KNOWING WE CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT SIN’, & THE ‘CHURCH-ITES’, THE ‘PRIEST-ITES’, THE HIGHLY EDUCATED IN MANLY FLESHLINESS, COOPERATED TO TRY & BLIND GOD’S “REMNANT” TO THE ETERNAL TRUTH THAT FALLEN MANKIND WAS “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST”, BUT RAISED IN POWER & GLORY TO OFFER THE ETERNAL REALITY OF “CHRIST IN YOU YOUR HOPE OF GLORY.”

“THE MINDFULNESS OF MISERY?” IT WAS WALTER LIPPMANN WHO ONCE SAID, “IN THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS TO INTOLERANCE ARE THE SEEDS OF UNBELIEF.” SEEDS OF UNBELIEF? BUT THEY SOON ERUPT IN SERIOUS OPPOSITION TO HOLY GOD! SEEDS OF UNBELIEF BIRTH RADICAL, YES, CRIMINAL OPPOSITION TO HOLY GOD, ALWAYS BIRTHING THE MINDS OF MISERY BECAUSE IT UNVEILS & EXPOSES THE CORRUPTION OF A CHRIST-LESS CONSCIENCE, SELFISH EMOTIONS, & ‘DRUNKEN’ HABITS THAT ‘BLIND’ ONE TO THE SOBERNESS OF YIELDEDNESS TO GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY, HIS AMAZING LOVE, & HIS ETERNAL GRACE!

“THE MINDFULNESS OF MISERY?” UNBELIEF WAS ‘BIRTHED’ BY SATAN & THE ‘POWERS OF DARKNESS’ TO PROMOTE, BUT DEMOTE MEN, TO SATANIC SUPERFICIAL THINKING THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE AWESOME MIND & HEART OF HOLY GOD. ‘THE MINDFULNESS OF MISERY’? IT’S ONE MAJORING ON HIS/HER INABILITY AS A ‘SUPERFICIAL THINKER’ TO EVEN TRY TO DEAL WITH ETERNALLY BIRTHED, SOVEREIGNLY SUPERINTENDED, GRACIOUSLY TAUGHT BY ANOINTED MEN OF GOD, THE REALITY OF “BLOOD REDEMPTION THEOLOGY” THROUGH THE BIRTH, LIFE, DEATH, RESURRECTION, & PRESENT REIGN OF KING JESUS!

“THE MINDFULNESS OF MISERY?” DENYING GOD’S GRACE & MERCY IS THE ‘PLATFORM’ OF A SELF-GOVERNING CANDIDATE WHO ‘MOCKS’ AT GOD’S ETERNAL TRUTH AS HE/SHE SPOUTS IGNOBLE UNBELIEF! HAVE YOU EVER VIEWED A ‘DESERT’ THAT IS BARREN, A ‘DESERT’ THAT DENIES ‘SOVEREIGNTY’, A ‘DESERT’ THAT SEES ‘TRUE FAITH’ AS A BOARDING ROOM IN HELL, A ‘DESERT’ THAT IS SURELY ‘CRIMINAL’ BECAUSE IT SETTLED IN DEFILED HEARTS & NOT SOVEREIGNLY BLESSED, REPENTANT SINNERS, CONVERTED TO EXTEND GOD’S KINGDOM, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, & PROVE HIS POWER? IN ISAIAH 59:1-10,NOT ONLY ABOUT ISRALEIS WHO LIVED IN DARKNESS, BUT WE READ, YES, ABOUT THE ‘FAITHLESS’, THE SPIRITUALLY INDIFFERENT, THE ‘MIND OF MY OWN PRETENDER’ THAT EVERY THING IS ‘OK’ BECAUSE HE/SHE IS IN CONTROL, & HOLY GOD UNVEILS THAT PERSON OR THAT PEOPLE’S ETERNAL DEATH SENTENCE UNDER SATAN’S CONTROL:

“BEHOLD, THE LORD’S HAND IS NOT SHORTENED THAT IT CANNOT SAVE;NEITHER HIS EAR HEAVY THAT HE CANNOT HEAR: BUT YOUR INIQUITIES HAVE SEPARATED BETWEEN YOU & YOUR GOD, & YOUR SINS HAVE HID HIS FACE FROM YOU, THAT HE WILL NOT HEAR. (WHY?), FOR YOUR HANDS ARE DEFILED WITH BLOOD, & YOUR FINGERS WITH INIQUITY; YOUR LIPS HAVE SPOKEN LIES, YOUR TONGUE HAS MUTTERED PERVERSENESS. NONE CALLS FOR JUSTICE, NOR ANY PLEADS FOR TRUTH: THEY TRUST IN VANITY, & SPEAK LIES; THEY CONCEIVE MISCHIEF, & BRING FORTH INIQUITY. THEY HATCH COCKATRICE’EGGS, & WEAVE THE SPIDER’S WEB; HE THAT EATS OF THEIR EGGS DIES; & THAT WHICH IS CRUSHED BREAKS OUT IN A VIPER (SNAKE).

THEIR WEBS SHALL NOT BECOME GARMENTS, NEITHER SHALL THEY COVER THEMSELVES WITH THEIR WORKS: THEIR WORKS ARE WORKS OF INIQUITY, & THE ACT OF VIOLENCE IS IN THEIR HANDS. THEIR FEET RUN TO EVIL, & THEY MAKE HASTE TO SHED INNOCENT BLOOD (BE SURE & TELL THAT TO THE PARENTS & DOCTORS & HOSPITALS & ADMINISTRATORS WHO ALLOW PRECIOUS BIRTHED BABIES IN THE WOMB OR OUT OF IT TO BE ‘KILLED’! SHAME ON YOU!).

THEIR THOUGHTS ARE THOUGHTS OF INIQUITY; WASTING & DESTRUCTION ARE IN THEIR PATHS. THE WAY OF PEACE THEY KNOW NOT; & THERE IS NO JUDGMENT IN THEIR GOINGS; THEY HAVE MADE THEM CROOKED PATHS: WHOEVER GOES THEREIN SHALL NOT KNOW PEACE. THEREFORE IS JUDGMENT FAR FROM US, NEITHER DOES JUSTICE OVERTAKE US; WE WAIT FOR LIGHT, BUT BEHOLD OBSCURITY; FOR BRIGHTNESS, BUT WE WALK IN DARKNESS. WE GROPE FOR THE WALL LIKE THE BLIND, & WE GROPE AS IF WE HAD NO EYES; WE STUMBLE AT NOON DAY AS IN THE NIGHT;WE ARE IN DESOLATE PLACES AS DEAD MEN.” AND, DEAR FRIEND, THAT’S FOR THE UNBELIEVER, THE ‘PRETENDER’, THE ‘CHURCH FOLK’ WHO’VE NEVER DIED TO ‘SELF’ THAT THE RESURRECTION PRESENCE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED IN & THROUGH THEIR MORTAL BODIES!! NO LONGER PRETENSE – BUT HIS PRESENCE! NO LONGER TRYING – BUT TRUSTING! NO LONGER ‘BEST EFFORT’ – BUT GLADLY ACCEPTING “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST” SO THAT HE’LL KNOW HE WILL BE COMFORTABLE IN A BODILY PRESENCE THAT PLAYS NO ‘RELIGIOUS GAME ON SUNDAYS’ BUT KNOWS HIS ETERNAL, RESURRECTED, SPIRITUAL PRESENCE UNVEILED BY THE INDWELLING HOLY SPIRIT!!!

OH, YES! THERE IS “THE MINDFULNESS OF MISERY”, BUT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN OF A DARKENED LIFE? IT IS “THE MIND FULL OF GOD’S MERCY”!!! PSALM 103:17 DECLARES, “BUT THE MERCY OF THE LORD IS FROM EVERLASTING TO EVERLASTING UPON THEM THAT FEAR HIM, & HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS UNTO CHILDREN’S CHILDREN.” WOW!! JEREMY TAYLOR ONCE WROTE: “MERCY IS LIKE THE RAINBOW, WHICH GOD HAS SET IN THE CLOUDS; IT NEVER SHINES AFTER IT IS NIGHT. –IF WE REFUSE MERCY HERE, WE SHALL HAVE JUSTICE IN ETERNITY.”

HOW CLEAR DO “YOU” FIND TITUS 3:5 AS PAUL ENCOURAGED A SPIRITUAL SON AS WE SHOULD TO EVERYONE AROUND US TODAY! HE SAID: “NOT BY WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH WE HAVE DONE, BUT ACCORDING TO HIS MERCY HE SAVED US, BY THE WASHING OF REGENERATION, & RENEWING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.” THE MIND FULL OF GOD’S MERCY IS AN AMAZED ‘OBSERVER’ WHO WITNESSES CHRIST’S CRUCIFIXION & RECOGNIZES, AS HE SHEDS HIS OWN BLOOD, SEES HIS LIFE OFFERED AS GOD’S MOUNTAINOUS MERCY FOR ALL ‘SINNERS’, & EVEN AS THEY CRUCIFIED HIM, THE LORD, FROM THE PAINFUL CROSS, PRAYED, “FATHER, FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY HAVE NO UNDERSTANDING ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE ALLOWING IN MY SUFFERING, MY SHED BLOOD, & MY DEATH”, BUT HE KNEW, AFTER HIS RESURRECTION, THERE WOULD BE MULTITUDES WHO LEAN NOT TO THEIR OWN UNDERSTANDING, BUT LEAN ON CHRIST’S MERCY!

IN “THE BROADMAN HYMNAL” OF 1940 (PUBLISHED IN NASHVILLE, TENN., BY THE BROADMAN PRESS, (P.112), IS A HYMN BY ISAAC WATTS & R.E.HUDSON ENTITLED “AT THE CROSS.” IT SAYS: “ALAS, & DID MY SAVIOR BLEED, & DID MY SOVEREIGN DIE? WOULD HE DEVOTE THAT SACRED HEAD FOR SUCH A WORM AS I?

WAS IT FOR CRIMES THAT I HAVE DONE, HE GROANED UPON THE TREE? AMAZING PITY! GRACE UNKNOWN! AND LOVE BEYOND DEGREE!

WELL MIGHT THE SUN IN DARKNESS HIDE , & SHUT HIS GLORIES IN, WHEN CJHRIST, THE MIGHTY MAKER DIED, FOR MAN THE CREATURE’S SIN.

BUT DROPS OF GRIEF CAN NEVER REPAY THE DEBT OF LOVE I OWE: HERE, LORD, I GIVE MYSELF AWAY, IT’S ALL THAT I CAN DO!

AT THE CROSS, AT THE CROSS WHERE I FIRST SAW THE LIGHT, & THE BURDEN OF MY HEART ROLLED AWAY, IT WAS THERE BY FAITH I RECEIVED MY SIGHT, & NOW I AM HAPPY ALL THE DAY!”

THIS IS WHY IN HEBREWS 12:28 WE READ, “WHEREFORE WE RECEIVING A KINGDOM WHICH CANNOT BE MOVED, LET US HAVE GRACE, WHEREBY WE MAY SERVE GOD ACCEPTABLY WITH REVERENCE & GODLY FEAR.”

“THE MIND FULL OF GOD’S MERCY”? I THINK THAT WOULD SET ASIDE WHAT ONE BELIEVES ABOUT “A MIND OF ONE’S OWN”, BECAUSE A MIND OF ONE’S OWN IS ‘GRASPING’ & ‘GRIPPING’ & SEEKING TO ‘GOVERN’ ONE’S OWN MIND APART FROM GOD’S INTERFERENCE! THAT’S WHAT PAUL UNDERSTOOD THROUGH, YES, THE ‘TUTORING’ OF THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO “GUIDES US & GOVERNS US IN ALL OF GOD’S HOLY TRUTHS”! IN ROMANS 1:28 HE WROTE ABOUT HIS OWN PEOPLE, THE ISRAELI ‘RELIGIOUS-SPIRITUALLY-ELITE’, AT LEAST IN THEIR OWN MINDS, SAYING OF THEM, “AND EVEN AS THEY DID NOT LIKE TO RETAIN GOD IN THEIR KNOWLEDGE, GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO A REPROBATE MIND, TO DO THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT CONVENIENT,” ADDING IN ROMANS 8:7 THE REALITY OF, “BECAUSE THE CARNAL MIND IS ENMITY AGAINST GOD: FOR IT IS NOT SUBJECT TO THE LAW OF GOD, NEITHER INDEED CAN BE.”

OH, PAUL DIDN’T SLOW DOWN AT ALL! IN EPHESIANS 4:17 HE WROTE: “THEREFORE I SAY TO YOU, TESTIFYING IN THE LORD, THAT YOU HENCEFORTH WALK NOT AS OTHER GENTILES WALK, IN THE VANITY OF THEIR MIND.” IN HIS COLOSSIANS LETTER, CHAPTER 2,VERSE 18, HE SAID: “LET NO MAN BEGUILE YOU OF YOUR REWARD IN A VOLUNTARY HUMILITY & WORSHIPPING OF ANGELS, INTRUDING INTO THOSE THINGS WHICH HE HAS NOT SEEN, VAINLY PUFFED UP BY HIS FLESHLY MIND, VERSE 19, & NOT HOLDING THE “HEAD”, FROM WHICH ALL THE BODY BY JOINTS & BANDS HAVING NOURISHMENT MINISTERED, & KNIT TOGETHER, INCREASES WITH THE (VERY) INCREASE OF GOD (HIMSELF) (IN ONE’S MIND, HEART, & SPIRIT)!!” (I’D ALSO ENCOURAGE YOU TO SPEND SOME GOOD TIME IN PSALM 37,ONE OF THE MOST ENLIGHTENING, CONVICTING, DRAWING PASSAGES OF HOLY SCRIPTURE ABOUT “THE GOOD MAN WHOSE VERY STEPS ARE ORDERED BY THE LORD”!).

APART FROM GOD’S PRESENCE IN A REPENTANT, TRUSTING HEART & MIND, MEN ARE ‘WANDERERS’ IN THE “STRANGE LAND OF GODLESSNESS” WITH “NO SOUNDNESS IN THEIR FLESH”, BUT ONLY “DIS-CHORDS”, “OFF-KEY”, “WILD-TUNES” OF SELF-TRUST THAT WINS SATAN’S ‘HELLISH AWARDS FOR SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTMENT” WHICH IS NOTHING MORE THAN SPIRITUAL STUPIDITY HEIGHTENING THE SINFUL HEART & MIND OF UNBELIEF OF RELIGIOUS PRETENDING! OH, BUT THERE IS FOREVER THE REALITY OF “THE MIND-FULL-NESS OF GOD’S MERCY”!

IN PSALM 103:17 THE PSALMIST ENLIGHTENS ALL WHO NEED TO BE ENLIGHTENED! HE SAID: “BUT THE MERCY OF THE LORD IS FROM EVERLASTING TO EVERLASTING UPON THEM THAT FEAR HIM, & HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS UNTO CHILDREN’S CHILDREN.” SO “AWE-INSPIRING”! WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, IN HIS WRITING, “THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,” (ACT IV, SC.1,L.184), WROTE: “THE QUALITY OF MERCY IS NOT STRAINED, IT DROPS AS THE GENTLE RAIN FROM HEAVEN UPON THE PLACE BENEATH:IT IS TWICE BLEST, IT BLESSES HIM THAT GIVES & HIM THAT TAKES: IT IS MIGHTIEST IN THE MIGHTY: IT BECOMES THE THRONED MONARCH BETTER THAN HIS CROWN…IT IS ENTHRONED IN THE HEARTS OF KNGS, IT IS AN ATTRIBUTE OF GOD HIMSELF.” GREAT WORDS, BUT LIMITING GOD’S MERCY ONLY TO KINGS DOESN’T PRESENT THE REALITY OF UNCHANGING TRUTH – GOD IS MERCIFUL TO ANY MAN WHO NEEDS MERCY & ASKS FOR IT!!

DIDN’T CHARLES WESLEY HAVE A “CHRISTMAS HYMN” IN WHICH HE’D WRITTEN THESE WORDS? “HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING, ‘GLORY TO THE NEW-BORN KING; PEACE ON EARTH, & MERCY MILD, GOD & SINNERS RECONCILED!” HAVE “YOU” BEEN RECONCILED TO GOD?

SEVERAL VITAL,ENLIGHTENING VERSES IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES!

• 2 CORINTHIANS 5:18, “AND ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, WHO HAS RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF BY JESUS CHRIST, & HAS GIVEN TO US THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION.”
• EPHESIANS 2:16, “AND THAT HE (CHRIST JESUS) MIGHT RECONCILE BOTH (JEW & GENTILE) UNTO GOD IN ONE BODY BY THE CROSS, HAVING SLAIN THE ENMITY THEREBY…”
• HEBREWS 2:17, “WHEREFORE IN ALL THINGS IT BEHOOVED HIM TO BE MADE LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN, THAT HE MIGHT BE A MERCIFUL & FAITHFUL HIGH PRIEST IN THINGS PERTAINING TO GOD, TO MAKE RECONCILIATION FOR THE SINS OF THE PEOPLE.” AMEN?

I CLOSE WITH WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S WORDS IN HIS WRITING “THOUGHTS SUGGESTED ON THE BANKS OF THE NITH”:

“SWEET MERCY! TO THE GATES OF HEAVEN THIS MINSTREL LEAD, HIS SINS FORGIVEN; THE RUEFUL CONFLICT, THE HEART RIVEN WITH VAIN ENDEAVOR, & MEMORY OF EARTH’S BITTER LEAVEN EFFACED FOREVER.” AMEN?

EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE, IF YOU ARE “IN CHRIST”, SHOULD BE A DAY OF TRUE WORSHIP, AWESOME PRAISE, & UNCEASING ADORATION FOR THE MERCIFUL SAVIOR, LORD, & LIBERATOR OF FALLEN MANKIND OUT OF ‘DEATH’ INTO “ETERNAL LIFE” BY GOD’S LOVEM HIS SAVING GRACE, & HIS EXTENDED HANDS OF MERCY!

HAVE “YOU” BEEN RECONCILED TO GOD THROUGH CHRIST JESUS, THE REDEEMING “MEDIATOR” BETWEEN GOD & MAN THROUGH HIS “SHED BLOOD” ON CALVARY’S CROSS? I PROMISE YOU, I’M CLOSING THIS MESSAGE WITH ANOTHER OLD HYMN OUT OF THE BROADMAN HYMNAL ENTITLED “WHY DO YOU WAIT?” (P.170). IT SAYS: “WHY DO YOU WAIT, DEAR BROTHER, OH, WHY DO YOU TARRY SO LONG? YOUR SAVIOR IS WAITING TO GIVE YOU A PLACE IN THIS SANCTIFIED THRONG.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE, DEAR BROTHER, TO GAIN BY A FURTHER DELAY? THERE’S NO ONE TO SAVE YOU BUT JESUS, THERE’S NO OTHER WAY BUT HIS WAY.

DO YOU NOT FEEL, DEAR BROTHER, HIS SPIRIT NOW STRIVING WITHIN? OH, WHY NOT ACCEPT HIS SALVATION, & THROW OFF YOUR BURDEN OF SIN.

WHY DO YOU WAIT, DEAR BROTHER? THE HARVEST IS PASSING AWAY; YOUR SAVIOR IS LONGING TO BLESS YOU, THERE’S DANGER &DEATH IN DELAY. WHY NOT? WHY NOT? WHY NOT COME TO JESUS RIGHT NOW?” REPENT BEFORE HOLY GOD, & REACH OUT TO THE VICTORIOUS CHRIST WHO, YES, “WON” OVER SIN & DEATH, & PRESENTLY REIGNS, EVEN AS HE CONTINUALLY KNOCKS AT YOUR HEART’S DOOR,ASKING, “PLEASE, LET ME IN TO BLESS YOU BEYOND ANY MEASURE!!!” AMEN?777777777

By J.Farrell Fisher, March 23-24, 2017

Ravi Zacharias, formerly of India, as he reflected on his past life without Christ, stated: “Life with all its hurts and pains squinted at you, squatted before you, and stared you down daily. This was the street where I grew up.” And, no doubt, in those early days he ‘wondered’: “What is life all about?” Is there today, still, a spirit in fallen men, alienated and separated from God of ‘squinting’, ‘squatting’, or ‘staring you down daily’ with “What is this fleshly, earthly life all about?” Some don’t even ask – they ignore eternal purpose and live in their ‘fleshly indulgence’ acknowledging and bowing before continually their “idols” of self-importance and self-awareness and self-pumping of the fallen sin-nature!

It was Theodore Parker, in his writing “Critical and Miscellaneous Writings: A Discourse of the Transient and Permanent in Christianity” who said: “Silence the voice of Christianity, and the world is well-nigh dumb, for gone is that sweet music which kept in order the rulers of the people, which cheers the poor widow in her lonely toil, and comes like light through the windows of morning to men who sit stooping and feeble, with failing eyes and a hungering heart.”

But before coming to “Wondering? Wandering? Or Willfully Worshipping?”, are you aware of those Francis Thompson wrote about in his writing “The Hound of Heaven”? He wrote: “I fled Him down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.”

But some have “no tears” about God because they are consumed by “me, mine, my way – and your God means nothing to me!” Yes, there are those consumed by “there is no God,” because they live in their cocoon of self-indulgence and are guided and motivated only to be what their minds agree to – and the atheists willfully denounce one’s faith in God as they submerge themselves in a sea of unbelief!

And, of course, there are those “on the edge of belief in God”, but all that they can agree to is, “if there is a God, He’s UNKNOWN – and WE cannot KNOW Him.” How sad is that? At the same time there are those with ‘religious, magical wands that they wave’ convinced they can mentally reject ‘superstitious spirits’ and ward off being confronted by a caring, merciful, loving God!

Have you ever crossed paths with an agnostic?? The Random House Collegiate Dictionary of 1975 defines an agnostic as “a person who holds that the ultimate cause (God) and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or, a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study…”, adding ‘agnosticism’ as “an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge.”

Dare I express eternal truth? I believe I will! Christ Jesus said, John 14:6, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to Father-God except through Me!” And that eternal truth has never changed, regardless of the mindless, heartless denial of His Eternal Life!

“Wondering?” It was Sir Winston Churchill who, in his writing entitled “Information”, said: “Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is.” In Galatians 1:1 Paul describes himself as “an apostle (not from men nor through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father Who raised Christ Jesus from the dead).” And Resurrected King Jesus is still “guiding us into all truth;” YOU don’t have to ‘wonder’! It’s best you bow before Him and worship!

But even the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 53:1, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” He was fully aware, even before Christ was miraculously, supernaturally birthed to Mary, that, Isaiah 53:3, “He(Christ Jesus) is despised and rejected by men,” the prophet seeing Him as “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we (Israel, and even some Americans today!)) hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” Has that changed in the hearts and minds of many who “wonder”?

There IS a strong force called ‘doubt’ that IS a ‘spiritual grave-digger’! Enoch Fitch Burr once said: “In the hands of unbelief half-truths are made to do the work of whole falsehoods. – The sowing of doubts is the sowing of dragon’s teeth, which ere long will sprout up into armed and hostile men,” who choose godlessness as their false armor! I love what Samuel Taylor Coleridge once wrote! “Never be afraid of doubt, if only you have the disposition to believe.” So true! There has never been any person void of questions about his/her doubts or fears – but the battle is: “In what, in who, or why do YOU personally ‘rest in’ God’s revelation rather than fallen mankind’s bankruptcy of the ‘soul-life’ at its best but short of the manifested glory of God in a “blood-bought” heart?”

Faith is not, “it smells good”, but true faith is “looking up to Holy God, looking in to one’s needy heart, and ‘born again’ looking around to a world of “wondering”! A “new-born child of King Jesus” is always baffled by the unbelief of the Creator, Sustainer of all life, and the Savior and Lord over the falseness, futility, and faithlessness of ‘rejecters’ of the King of kings and Lord of lords!

I found Oswald Chambers’ words in his “My Utmost For His Highest” book, (p.128), on target and to the very core and center of a godless man’s need of the Savior! He wrote: “The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship; it establishes a mutual regard for the fact that the basis of life is tragic. Always beware of an estimate of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin.” And the eternal truth of every man birthed into human ‘existence’? “BORN IN SIN, BORN WITH THE NATURE OF THE POWERS OF DARKNESS, BORN WITH THE VOID OF HOLY PRESENCE!” Which is why the Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, King of kings and Lord of lords said: “You MUST BE BORN AGAIN! BORN OF THE SPIRIT! DEAD TO ADAM’S NATURE AND CHARACTER, RAISED IN CHRIST’S ‘NEWNESS’ OF RESURRECTION LIFE, RESURRECTION POWER, AND RESURRECTION HOPE!”

I’m sure this is why Martin Luther, in “Table Talk,” once wrote: “Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a begging.” So true! There ARE “men of Truth”, but also “men of The Lie – ‘One can sin and not die!’” Malachi 2:5-6 speaks of Levi – hear it! God speaking! “My covenant was with him, one of life and peace, and I gave them to him that he might fear Me; So he feared Me and was reverent before My name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and equity, and turned many away from iniquity.” Why? Because “the soul that sins, and keeps on sinning, abides in sin and death,” not liberty and freedom from sin’s controlling, damaging, suffocating, continually blinding of the love, mercy, and grace of God!

Do you think this might be why Paul said of some Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 6:13, “You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.” What is it or Who is it that has your heart, mind, and will? This just may be why David asked in Psalm 15:1-2, “Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill (or divine Presence!)? He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart,” or do you ‘live’ (?), speaking out of both sides of your mouth? A divided heart is not a united heart with Christ! If “God divided the light from the darkness”, in Christ does He still divide? Certainly! There are, will be, times when you are confronted: “My way or His Way, my desires in the flesh or His ultimate intention AND provision in the Spirit?”

What did King Jesus say in Revelation 2:7? “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” Paradise living is, without hesitation, being dead to one’s self but fully “alive” in Christ, yes, “our tree of life”, resting in His inspirational Truth: “In the world you will have trouble, tribulation, trials – but BE OF GOOD CHEER, I HAVE OVERCOME YOUR WORLD!” But how many do you know in their fleshly mental state who “frustrate the grace of God”? Isn’t that why in John 5:38-40 the Lord Jesus said to the unrepentant Jewish ‘followers’ (?), “But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them YOU THINK you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. BUT YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO COME TO ME THAT YOU MAY HAVE LIFE,” because they were bound in their ‘religious pretenses’!!

Do you remember John 10:25-31? It was the time of the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, AND IT WAS WINTER – the Abiding Presence of Jesus among the Jews, but they said in Verse 24, “If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them: “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep HEAR MY VOICE, 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. I and My Father are one.”

Do YOU hear His voice? Are YOU following Jesus wherever He leads? Are YOU “led by the Spirit of God” (?) – Romans 8:14! Do YOU hear God in Christ through His Holy Spirit speaking to YOU, yes, daily, even at times: moment by moment! It was A.W. Tozer, in his book, “The Pursuit of God” (Harrisburg, Penn.:Christian Publications, Inc. 1982, pp.80-82) who wrote:

“The Bible will never be a living Book to us until we are convinced that GOD IS ARTICULATE IN HIS UNIVERSE. To jump from a dead, impersonal world to a dogmatic Bible is too much for most people. They may admit that they “should” accept the Bible as the Word of God, and they may try to think of it as such, but they find it impossible to believe that the words there on the page are actually for them. A man may “say”: “These words are addressed to me,” and yet in his heart not feel and know that they are. He is the victim of a divided psychology. He tries to think of God as mute everywhere else and vocal only in a book…

I believe (Tozer continued) that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. A silent God suddenly begins to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever…

I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is “now speaking”. The prophets habitually said, “Thus says the Lord.” They meant their hearers to understand that God’s speaking is in the continuous present.”

HOW AWESOME IS THAT? AND DO YOU LISTEN TO HIS VOICE IN AND THROUGH HIS HOLY WORD? There was a journey Jesus took, led of the Spirit, that every true disciple of Christ must walk through and learn from. It’s found in John 4:1-4 – don’t miss His message to us today!! Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he (the tempter! The devil!) said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Oh, how thrilling, life-changing, eternally daily reminding us, is John 6:53-58!! Jesus speaks to us now! “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father (now in human flesh!), so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven – not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

Hear me, disciples of Christ Jesus! John 14:16-18, spoken by Jesus, says: “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”

Well then : Who are the true sons and daughters within the Holy Family of God? Are you ready? Examine Romans 8:12-14 the Holy Word declares: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh (Old sin-nature of devilish driven men!), to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

‘Led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God?’ You can tell that I’m a strong fan of A.W.Tozer’s writings! In “Echoes from Eden,” (p.62, Christian Publications, Inc., 1981), Tozer wrote, “Just the words of a Scripture text falling upon a human ear may not mean anything,” saying later: “I believe that God has related these somehow: the voice of conviction in the conscience and the Holy Spirit, the point of contact, witnessing within man’s being. A person has not been illuminated until that voice begins to sound within him…Men and women need to be told that it may be fatal to silence the inner voice. It is always perilous to resist the conscience within, but it may be fatal to silence that voice, to continue to ignore that speaking voice within.” And that voice IS the Holy Spirit!

Are you “an illuminated life” to the voice of Truth, to the tender, yet strongly convicting voice and instruction and guidance by the Holy Spirit? In Chuck Colson’s book entitled “Life Sentence” published by Chosen Books, he introduced Chapter Twenty-two with a statement by Henry Fairlie, Fairlie saying: “It is the characteristic of our age that people want to have God but do not want the devil. People are inventing gods for themselves…their Do-It-Yourself-God-Kits. But they are gods who do not demand much…who [do not] punish, [but] absolve them from conflict and doubt, massage them, pat them on the head, and rather like their [parents, tell them to run along, get stoned if they will, pick marigolds, and love. So easy it is to love! But above all they are gods who will not trouble them with…problems of evil, suffering, and death…The recipes are too easy…Universal harmony has never been offered so cheaply before.”

Do you understand that most Biblical language is unacceptable in the vocabulary of some pastors and a lot of “professing believers” who speak about “joined to Christ” but know nothing about His demands? You are aware that our “so-called ‘Christian nation’ today, governed by ‘voiceless, non-assertive, conscience-less leaders’ are trying to silence God and His Holy Word so the nation can be guided by “men’s best”, asserting “we only want to elevate our nation by man’s best not God’s blessing.” So…we witness the “curse” not the blessing! Fallen men are out to wean our nation from our Lord and Savior’s eternal wisdom and witness. Stand up!

Do YOU ‘wonder, wander, or willfully worship, bow before, surrender to the King of kings and Lord of lords?