FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
SOME VITAL QUESTIONS CHRISTIANS SHOULD BE ASKING THEMSELVES
“And I say unto you, ASK, and it shall be given you; SEEK, and ye shall find; KNOCK, and it shall be opened unto you. For EVERYONE that asketh receiveth; and HE that seeketh findeth; and to HIM that knocketh it shall be opened.” Luke 11: 9,10, KJV.
In these brief verses alone directly quoting Christ, at least two vital points are made clear:
Jesus Christ’s life on earth was short, a little over half that of David who died at the age 70, the average life span today, But His actual public ministry was even much shorter, only three and a half years. He had to accomplish His earth mission by saying and doing all that had to be done within that very brief period of time, as prophesied in the 70-week time prophecy of Dan. 9:24-27.
Thus every word and deed had a profound meaning and application to His work for the salvation of mankind. Thus, there are certain Biblical truths and things essential to eternal salvation, provided in the comprehensive plan of redemption, that are GIVEN ONLY WHEN they are earnestly, diligently, and persistently (“with importunity”) sought for by the INDIVIDUAL, which are equally open and available to everyone on the same terms.
Christ triple-emphasized this Biblical imperative by using three verbs (action words): Ask, Seek, and Knock; all three are either visible, audible, and palpable or a combination of all three: therefore, are not opaque or vague but clear and obvious. Three in the Bible is a number indicating completeness.
While primarily addressed to Christ’s true disciples on how much they should DESIRE and how to PRAY for the reception of the person, power, authority and specific work of the Holy Spirit, the invisible third Person of the Godhead (verse 3), it secondarily applies to the similar desire for the essential “milk” of the gospel for babes in the truth,”but especially for the “strong meat” truths for those “mature in faith” (Heb. 5:12-14).
These are the special landmark pillar doctrines of the “present, testing, truths” perfectly matched and in harmony with Christ’s closing work in the most holy in the heavenly sanctuary with the ongoing and progressive judgment hour” of earth’s probation, proclaimed by the “three angels’ messages” of Rev. 14—which only the Holy Spirt can teach, burn, and inure INTO the minds and hearts of any and all truth-seekers who “asks, seeks, and knocks,” and seals them intellectually and spiritually.
“Fitted up” by the work of sanctification (purification by overcoming sin through empowering grace), these humble and blest holders of the seal “passport” for eternity, are the end-time, antitypical editions and final additions completing the number of the “faithful few” of the ages who constitute the “bride that had made herself ready for the Bridegroom in the “marriage of the Lamb.”(Rev. 19:7-9; Eph. 5: 25-27; Luke 12:36).
All these basic questions are Christ and gospel-centered, through and through. First, what really is the Gospel and what was it designed to accomplish? Second, What does Jesus Christ the mighty Deliverer and Savior of the world, actually (1) deliver/rescue fallen mortal man while still alive and rational in his sinful nature, on fallen sinful earth, from bondage/slavery to our natural propensities, sinful habits/lifestyle, and ignorance and (2) save the sinner from the deceptions, temptations, and numberless schemes of Satan, the enemy of God and man, “the father of lies and murderer from the beginning” and “prince of this world”?
How does Jesus actually save, equip, and empower us from YIELDING—like Eve, then Adam in Eden did—to deception and temptation, if our first parents in their unfallen, sinless state in perfect Eden fell? How can we, today, with six thousand years of accumulated genetical degeneration and moral pollution of sin and its curse, with its demoralizing effects, internally and environmentally, physically a s spiritually, prevail over all of these?
How, and by what means does He empower us to both NOT YIELD and then TO GAIN mastery over our inherent sinful propensities and senses and successfully RESIST the allurements of “sin, the world, the flesh, and the devil” coming from the seemingly bottomless pit of “unnumbered schemes”—-ranging from the seemingly “simple” and “minor” ones and yet were the ones that started it all, caused the Fall in Eden, bringing on the curse of sin upon man, beast, and the whole earth down through the stream of time of six thousand years to the final fiercest and most powerfully-overwhelming ones Satan has reserved for last (allowed by God) that precede the close of probation?
The prophesied “commandment-keeping remnant of the seed of the woman” who “has the Spirit of prophecy which is the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 12:17; 14:12; 19:10) in the last days who will receive the SEAL (of God’s approval) and HIS NAME (imparted moral character) and NEW JERUSALEM (their final destination and citizenship) WRITTEN IN THEIR FOREHEADS (Rev. 3:12) are all who “endure to the end” and “OVERCOME even as He overcame” (Rev. 3: 21).
These are those who, in “preparing for eternity,” put their heart and soul into studying and understanding the “deep things of God,” especially the depth and magnitude of the CREATOR’S CONDESCENSION in the INCARNATION, when GOD became the first and last (as He is also the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end”) flesh-blood-and-bone GOD-MAN; and WHY this ACT was absolutely necessary for the plan of redemption to succeed.
The better we understand intellectually and spiritually the mystery of the incarnation revealed by apostle Paul as “the mystery of godliness that God was manifest in the flesh,” the clearer will be these pivotal truths in the great controversy and the plan of redemption:
(1) that Christ is not a vicarious nor a corporate but an individualized, personal Savior because man was created a free moral agent, endowed with a will, “the governing power in the nature of man,” to make his own choices willingly and voluntarily and to worship and obey his Creator only according to dictates of conscience, an inalienable right from creation, not only when the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.
(2) Any and all pretenders to be “verily God on earth”
and “vicar of Christ,”‘and not the Holy Spirit, as the Papacy of the Church of Rome and blasphemously claims to be. It has used this “decretal of Rome” to subvert the natural inalienable rights of man, used the state’s power as authority to “enforce her decrees and sustain her institutions,” defining what “heresy” means and metes out its diabolically cruel judgments, anathemas, punishments against all who courageously “contended for the faith once delivered to the saints,” and lost all, including their lives “for Christ and His righteousness’ sake.”
The Antichrist ruled the then known civilized world for over a thousand years, 538-1798 A.D., the Dark Ages, and bitter persecutions , and persecute all dissenters in the kingdoms, nations, governments, churches and individuals for over a thousand years in the Old World, will be easily exposed for its deceptions, abominations, blasphemies as the Antichrist of prophecy.
Here’s simply how: all popes are man who are elected by their papal system from among fellow mortal clergy in their system.
Once crowned Pope he is supposed to be now “God on earth” and the “vicar of Christ,” meaning actually taking the office and authority of Christ the Creator, Redeemer, High Priest, Advocate, and Judge of all the earth. But it was Christ who created heaven and earth, is the Son of God who became the Son of man in the incarnation, was tempted in all points as man is tempted yet without sin, died as the Lamb of God at Calvary as man’s Substitute and Surety, shed His blood for the remission of sins, resurrected the third day and ascended to the Father, promising His disciples that He would “come again”‘with His eternal rewards according to the “works” of man.
Now, pray tell me, how can elected mortal in the Church of Rome taking the title of Pope ever fulfill any one of all these functions of God in the flesh, from creation to redemption to dying the death of a criminal on the cross at Calvary, resurrecting as prophesied on the third day, ascending to heaven in His glorified body as witnessed to by His disciples and promised to return in His second advent as King of kings and Lord of lords “bringing His rewards of eternal life or eternal death to those judged as deserving of either one or the other?
Answer? Absolutely none whatsoever! So who else is the Antichrist and Beast of prophecy, as revealed in the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation and by apostle Paul?
(To be continued). Bless all, NMF
