Who Can Cast Out Demons

Who Can Cast Out Demons

We'll praise Jesus today everyone. The topic that I want to address this morning is who has the power or the authority to cast out demons. A lot of times in our culture, we see the people as in authority to cast out demons as the leaders of a church, a pastor an exorcist, maybe a catholic priest, or men of God who have experience with that, maybe in the Pentecostal church or something like that. But really anyone can cast out demons granted they have faith and they are in right standing with Jesus. You don't have to be an official leader in a church or ordained as a priest or something like that, you just have to have faith in Jesus and be in right standing with him and that is key. There are a lot of people that may have the faith to cast out a demon, or so they believe they have the faith to do that, but they're not in right standing with Jesus and that is very dangerous, because Satan also knows if you are in sin. Not just you know you're in sin but the devil also knows it, and if Satan knows you're on his side and trying to cast him out, that is when people get into a lot of trouble. That is also why a lot of people cannot cast the devil even out of their own self.

We have authority when we are in right standing with Jesus to cast the devil out. We learn this from a young age rebuking Satan in Jesus's name, casting out evil thoughts, taking every thought captive. If it's a thought that we know is demonic, we rebuke the devil in our heart even silently in the name of Jesus, and the devil will flee. But we also learn that we have to do this all the time. You can't just do this at one time when you first become a Christian and never again. Resisting the devil is an everyday sort of thing. Sometimes every minute or every hour or whenever it happens you resist lust, you resist temptation, you resist whatever is coming against you from the evil realm. In that spirit realm you rebuke the devil. And if you are with Jesus, he gives you the power to overcome because he has made us the children of God who have the power in his name to overcome demons. Remember Jesus said all power and all authority is given to him in heaven and in earth. He also gives us power also to overcome if we are in right standing with him. And that is the key. A lot of Christians are not in right standing with God. One example of this of people who believe they had faith is this story in Acts chapter 19, we hear that Paul is going around and doing all these miracles casting out demons and God is working even bizarre miracles through him to where if people even touch rags or napkins or his clothes, they are healed. And I believe there's other people getting jealous about the apostle Paul. And eventually some other Jews try casting out demons in Paul's name, this is what happens in Acts chapter 19. I'm going to start in verse 11.

 11And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:

12So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

13Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.

14And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so.

15And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?

16And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

 The devil beat these guys up. You can't cast out a demon in the name of Jesus or say I rebuke you in the name of Jesus if you're not really on Jesus's side. And this is made clear. It's been made clear throughout time and history. This is not an isolated incidence, guys. There have been other reports within the Christian church that have demonstrated this same problem that if you're not right with God. You can't cast out demons, you can't say I rebuke you in the name of Jesus if you're living a life of sin. The devil knows that you're a hypocrite. The devil can read your thoughts when you're in sin. The devil knows that you're going down a rabbit hole when you're going down a rabbit hole and deviating and the devil will help distract you. So we have to make sure that our hearts are right with God and we have to make sure that we're right with God and that we are able to keep ourselves in check and with self-control, so that then we also can help others.

 There is another story I read years ago that happened in the Christian church, where in the Appalachian Mountains, there were a group of Christians who went up into the mountains to pray for a certain girl who was demon possessed. And these guys were exorcists, or they believed themselves to be. So they wanted to go to the temple and they go cast that demon out. And almost the exact identical same thing happened to Acts chapter 19 when those guys got up there from the church to try to pray for this girl for the demon to leave. And the demon even spoke to these guys and said to them, “You are on our side. You're on our team. What are you doing?” And these guys were so shocked. They weren't able to cast out the demon or do any good for that girl, because all of them were on Satan's side. Many Christians even pastors, leaders of churches, they're all on Satan's side in one way or another. They're not fully committed to Jesus Christ. If we want to be able to take control and overcome in the name of Jesus and cast out the strong man as Jesus said, we first have to bind him. If you have not bound the devil because you're still sinning and letting the devil loose in your soul and in your life, you have no business trying to tell the devil what to do. If the devil has rein on your mouth and your tongue, then how can you possibly then turn and say, “I rebuke you Satan or I cast you out in the name of Jesus”? You have no authority to say anything because the devil knows that you are his child.

 First you must bind the strong man then you can plunder his house just as Jesus said. So work on binding the strong man by overcoming the strong man and by overcoming the strong man by overcoming sin by being able to overcome temptation before it destroys your soul. You can pray and say “Jesus please give me the power to stop sinning, to stop lusting, to stop doing things that are hateful against my fellow brothers and sisters. Give me the power to do what is right and to overcome my sin. Let me get addictions out of my life”. And then when you pray, be serious to overcome sin and temptation first and then the Holy Spirit will come to you, he will make his abode in you. And when the Holy Spirit sets up shop, he will push out the devil and the devil will have no more power, no more dominion, no more area to live inside of you. You don't want your soul to be a house for Satan where the devil is leaving trash everywhere and polluting you, you want to push all that out, make yourself clean for the Holy Spirit to reside in you, that he can clean up your life from inside out. This is what every Christian needs to do. And unless we do this we have no business pretending to be people who can cast out demons or save other people.

 There are a lot of Christians that think that somehow just magically they can preach and make other people good Christians or bring them to a level and a standard higher than they are at. It's impossible to get other Christians to a spiritual level beyond where they are, and it's impossible to get them to a spiritual level beyond where you are. So if you have demons, how are you going to cast out demons from someone else? If you are in sin and lust, how are you going to help anyone else stop lusting? If you have no faith, how are you going to encourage other people to have faith? It's an impossibility. The only way people are going to grow spiritually is if Jesus develops in them, his home, his presence, the presence of the Holy Spirit of God. You have to repent. You have to get on your knees and say, “Lord, I'm a sinner. I've been a hypocrite. I've said things that are blasphemous. I've done things that are horrible, and I confess in your name, Jesus. And I pray that you purge me and purify me of sin and of wickedness. Give me a new heart and let me be useful to the kingdom of God. Let me be a child of God and please help me to overcome, that I can also be an encouragement to the body of Christ.”

 And if you want to be an encouragement, first get yourself in order. Don't be like the Christians who think that they have power and authority from God, but who Satan knows is actually on their side. Are you on the side of the demons? Are you on the side of the devil? Or have you truly been purged purified and made new? Are you wearing your white garments? Are you wearing those wedding robes prepared for the wedding supper of the lamb? Or is the day of God gonna reach you like a thief in the night because you've never really prepared? You're not able to cast out evil, you're not able to overcome thoughts that come against you, you're not able to take every thought captive because you're pushed around by the devil. You allow music into your mind that's ungodly, videos into your mind that are ungodly, all sorts of things that don't come from God and now you’re just distracted by the world. Are you allowing those things to pollute you? Or have you made yourself separate? Have you cut yourself off from the world so that Jesus Christ can lead you and guide you in righteousness?

We want to be able to fight this spiritual battle, we want to be able to worship God in spirit and in truth, and we want our spirit man to be able to resist the devil, because we are with the spirit of God. We want to win this spiritual battle, because we are with the spirit of God. We want to win the spiritual fight. And we are in spiritual combat every single day every hour and every minute. You have a choice today if you will overcome in the name of Jesus and be able to cast out demons, taking every thought captive, or if you will be on the loser side that are on their way to hell. I encourage you to put your faith in Jesus for real. Repent of your sins and allow the Holy Spirit to make his abode in you so that the devil will be pushed out.

 

Use Your Best Judgment and Discernment

 

Use Your Best Judgment and Discernment

We'll praise Jesus today everyone, I just wanted to make a short message here on having good discernment and having good judgment when it comes to being a child of Jesus Christ. Because I think a lot of us imagine that if we're Christians, we will just automatically have good judgment, or that God's just got our back. You know, a lot of people do dangerous things, or they have poor judgment, and God has not had their back. Now I have a few pretty light-hearted examples of this that didn't lead to my death or anything like that obviously, but it did show me in my past as I was developing as a Christian that God does not have my back in poor judgment. And I’ve given these examples before, but they're just two examples that I can think of off the top of my head. I probably have more if I were to think about it. But one example was when I was working in the hotel industry as a maintenance person, and the hotels would often have bedbugs, and we would do bedbug treatment in the hotel rooms. And there's multiple ways that you can do that, guys. You can tent a building and basically you put pesticide and with a tent over the building you basically fumigate, and it kills off all the bugs. You can do what's also called heat treatment. And you bring up the temperature of individual rooms up to about you know 140 to 160 degrees. This is very dangerous. It takes professionals to be able to do that, and if it's done wrong, there are serious consequences. Well, anyways, that's what I was doing as part of my job at the time. I was heat treating rooms, and these particular rooms had they had fire suppression in the rooms, so they're fire sprinklers that you have to have by code by the fire marshal and these had to be dealt with. Well I either cut them off at corners at the time or I didn't think to double check and so these were not all covered. And I remember specifically during that time I prayed, I just prayed to God for success, but I didn't do my part, I didn't follow through with the best judgment of double checking everything to make sure that I had all my bases covered. And one of those things that I didn't was this fire suppression system. So the fire sprinklers were still on, they were not covered and when we went to go do the heat treatment of this room pop the sprinklers went off and the sprinklers ruined this room. It was a big problem. And I remember thinking to myself at the time, man I just prayed, and I asked God to have my back, and my prayer was obviously not answered. That let me know at that time that God wasn’t there for me. God does not have my back if I don't have good judgment and if I'm not doing my part. Now someone could just say well God doesn't exist, or it just happened because, but in reality a lot of things happen because of our poor choices or our poor judgment, call it our poor discretion and not always does God have our back even to the point where people die because of bad discretion they get themselves killed because they make a poor judgment. And these things are very real. There have been times in my life and I'm sure in yours as well. Where you made some kind of poor choice, and maybe you got close to death, but God you know protected you and you saw the hand of God at work. I'm not saying that God doesn't protect us, when we make poor choices, because obviously I’ve seen the hand of God at work and so have you in many cases. For example when I was a teenager I was a reckless driver. I would pass people on double yellows around corners. I would drive on icy roads that were totally iced over. I remember one time as a teenager passing a gas truck or a propane truck around a blind corner on an icy road, and almost slipping off the road in my car into a ravine that was like hundreds of feet down. And thanking the Lord when I got through that I didn't die. But it was basically like suicide. God doesn't always have our back on things like this. People have died for doing things less than I have. And it was just the protection of God. But not everyone is able to come out without being hurt, injured or killed.

 Recently on the news I think within the last couple days there was a case of a police shooting a black woman I believe. And guys I don't know too much about this. I haven't researched very much about it. But someone who watches my videos brought this to my attention and apparently this lady in these police involved shooting, she said to the police officer before she got shot, in the name of Jesus I rebuke you or something like that. I'm paraphrasing but basically, she brought up the name of Jesus and I believe saying I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. Now I don't know exactly in what tone she said that, you know, what tone in her heart, was she mocking? Was she saying that just in a spiteful way? Was she serious? Obviously, she didn't deserve to be shot. I'm not saying that is just. But I'm looking at perspectives like this from a spiritual side, so the question would be, if she was in the protection of God, if she was asking for the Lord's protection, and if she truly was saying in the name of Jesus, I rebuke you, why didn't God protect her from being shot in the head? So these are things that we really need to consider as Christians. Because even though people have prayed for protection, occasionally they still die. And so what we need to realize about life is God doesn't always protect us from a flippant word. You know he doesn't protect us from getting beat up, if we make somebody mad. He doesn't always protect us from a flippant poor choice.

 And obviously you and I, I'm sure have made much worse mistakes than this lady did, she didn't deserve to get shot for what she said it doesn't appear that she was particularly rebellious against police officers, it appears that this particular guy was just extremely violent and had hate in his heart. But spiritually we need to think through if we ourselves are being responsible. Because we could think we're in the right all day long but it doesn't matter if you're in the right all day long you're dead. You know there's been cases where someone has a gun pointed at their face, and they're going to hijack their car, and it would be better for you to just let that person take your car and for you to still be alive, than to think that you're in your right because it's your car after all and to try to drive off and have a bullet through the side of your head. At the end of the day we want to be alive and well and of course right with Jesus and right with our fellow earthlings, we don't want to bullet through our head. We don't want to be dead.

I remember some time ago, there was a biker in my town. And this guy was always for his rights on the road. And this guy occasionally would get belligerent, and he would in the bike lane come out to try to prove that bikes have rights too and they do. There are bike lanes in my area. I'm sure there are bike lanes in your area. But one day when this guy was riding, he was riding a bike lane near Yosemite National Park, to prove a point he pulled out in front of, I believe it was an 18-wheeler, one of those big rigs, to prove that he has rights too. And he was completely in his rights to ride his bicycle the way he did, but that trucker was not able to stop in time or was mad himself and just mauled over that bicycle with his 18-wheeler and killed him. That was the end of his life. So this guy was in his rights, but he was also completely dead. So we have to use good judgment, good discernment, and we need to make sure that we really have Jesus in our hearts. We can't just say things flippantly. We can't take God's name in vain. You know, if someone has a gun pointed at your head, it may not be the right thing for you just to look at them and in one way or another say just anything. You might want to just totally be quiet. And if you're going to rebuke the devil, most of that all happens in your heart, in your mind. You don't even have to say anything to rebuke the devil.

I can rebuke the devil even in my sleep, and in my sleep, with my mouth closed, I can be rebuking the devil. Sometimes I will have those dreams where I can't open my mouth, and I learned that even in those dreams that you can't open your mouth because the devil's trying to suppress you and he's trying to hold your mouth shut, even in those dreams, in your spirit, in the core of your soul, you can rebuke Satan, and he will flee from you. So you have to use discretion, and you have to ask yourself, am I saying these things out of aggression, or am I being cocky? And ask yourself these things, because even if you're in the right, you may still be beat up, you may still be dead on the side of the road. So, as Christians, let us learn to use our best discretion, our best judgment, and realize that this fight we're fighting is spiritual, and if we want to overcome, it has to happen by the Holy Spirit working through us.

So I want this to be an encouragement to you and to others. Don't think that prayer doesn't work. Don't think that rebuking the devil doesn't work, because we do have the power to rebuke Satan in Jesus' name, but we also have to use discretion when not to be antagonizing people. And I'm not saying in this particular case that's what that lady thought she was doing. I'm just saying for you and for me, who are still alive, let us use our best discretion, and let us fight the spiritual fight against evil, and make sure we do it with 100% wisdom. One other example that I have that I’ve given before, just about using wisdom, and not thinking that God always has our back, was this story of when I was also first in my faith and growing with Jesus. I had this bicycle. I believe it was one of those track bikes, so not extremely expensive, but not cheap either. And my car was broken down at the time, so I decided to ride my bicycle to Pep Boys to pick up a part for my car. And so, I rode my bicycle over to the hardware store, and I didn't have a bike lock, so I parked the bike right outside the Pep Boys, and I just prayed, and I said, “Jesus, please don't let anyone steal my bike. Please let it be here when I get back”. And I was serious about my prayer, and at that time, I thought, we'll all have faith that it won't be stolen. Five minutes later, after I'm done checking out in line, I come back outside, and poof, my bike is gone. It was stolen. And I was asking myself, man, I thought you had my back. You know, I thought, I asked Jesus to watch my bike. Jesus did not watch my bicycle. He did not have my back, and that was a foolish decision that lacked judgment and discernment on my part. Now, obviously, these are little mistakes that I’ve made. I'm not trying to equate these with more serious mistakes that others have made, or the evil that people do in the world. But what I'm saying here, guys, is, we need to be responsible in everything in life, and we can't just bring Jesus into it and claim that Jesus is the one who let us get hurt. I can't say that Jesus is the one who stole my bike. We can't bring God into it and act like we don't need to be responsible, and that Jesus just got our back all the time. Make sure you have discernment. Make sure that you're saying what is upright and pure. And ask the Lord to give you even discernment and judgment beyond your years. That way, you don't fall into some kind of trap, and then go down this rabbit hole of starting to lose your faith because you think Jesus isn't with you, or won't protect you, or doesn't answer your prayers. I think a lot of people could lose faith over something like that, because they think, how could someone rebuke the devil, and then God not come to their aid? Well, we don't know the full story, guys. But I do know that if we are truly praying, if our heart is right before Jesus, we will see supernatural things take place. We will see the work of God.

But we need to make sure that we're keeping ourselves in the protection of the Holy Spirit, and never being flippant, not just letting our tongue get the best of us, not trying to antagonize people, not acting like the devil is not a true foe. We need to stay very sober, very vigilant, and diligent on this straight and narrow path with Jesus. Otherwise, Jesus might just come as a thief in the night. And then what will we be able to say? We may not have an opportunity to even know we're going to be shot in the head. We may not even have an opportunity to know that we're going to die in a car accident. It may happen so quickly that you die in your sleep or a brain aneurysm. You won't even have a chance to repent of some sin you did yesterday. So Jesus said, he said that we need to always be watching, be watchful and pray, So that we will not fall into temptation, that we will not be taken. Otherwise, Jesus comes like a thief in the night, and the thief will come to destroy your life. We want to make sure that we're not destroyed, that the day when Jesus comes, that we were watchful and that we don't lose our souls into hell. Make sure you cut off anything that is hindering you. Jesus was serious about sin. He told us that if our arm causes us to sin or our eyes cause us to sin, we should pluck it out or cut it off, get it out of our life. So be serious to get things out of your life that are causing you to lose discernment, causing you to fall into temptation. Get those things out of your life so that you can walk sober and upright and be a real watchman, a watchman over your own life, but also a watchman for other people to warning people to get right with God, because you don't know when you're going to die and meet Jesus. And your neighbor doesn't know when they're going to die and meet Jesus. So let's warn people out of a sincere and loving heart and call people to repent. That's all I have for today, guys.

Christian Church Bible Deception

 We'll praise Jesus today, everyone. Christians in our culture today often idolize the bible and act as though the bible itself were the final authority and the more sure word of God. They act as though if we know the bible in and of itself, we're achieving a higher Christianity. They treat the bible as though if you go to bible college, go to seminary, and if you know the bible and study it more, you're getting closer to God because you're gaining and gleaning more knowledge. Christians like to talk about the Bereans and about how they were more noble. They like to talk about Paul’s letter to timothy, about how the scripture makes you wise for salvation. And they have all these scriptures that they cherry pick to speak about how the bible is the sure word of God and how the bible itself is the rock and our security. And their entire church revolves around the bible. The sermons revolve around the bible. Churches pride themselves in being biblical. And afterwards, they have bible studies. And they are constantly searching the scriptures. Yet most of them are never coming to the knowledge of the truth. Now, I would never want to discourage anyone from reading the bible. I myself have a degree. And I went to college to learn the bible. And although I wasn't fully following Jesus at that point, I wouldn't trade my degree. I wouldn't say that I wish I didn't have it. I'm glad that I learned what I learned. I'm glad that from when I was young, my parents encouraged me to read the bible and read the bible with me.

But the problem is, Christians are not coming to Jesus Christ. They're not eating his flesh and drinking his blood. You know, you could go on the internet and ask ai technology anything that you want about Jesus. And that ai will spit it back to you as quick as you can imagine. And if that ai is not coming to you, you're not going to be able to read the bible. And if that ai was trying to do good, it would only bring what the bible has already said. And you could think that that itself is the word of God. But in reality, it's ai spitting back to you its version or its interpretation of how it has read the scriptures or many other interpretations of men that are on the internet. We don't want to be led by a person or by technology, some pastor, some church doctrine. Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into all truth. You can find that in john chapter 14 through 16. And so we need to understand that all power and authority has been given to Jesus, not the bible, not some man on earth, not just our interpretation, but that all power and authority has been given to Jesus. That's Matthew chapter 28. And we ought to go to Jesus for life, eating his flesh, drinking his blood, learning about his new covenant from him.

What a lot of Christians don't understand is God is alive. Jesus is still working in his people today. And if we have elevated the bible as the final authority. The more sure word of God. Then we have just taken Jesus off of his throne in our own minds, that is. And we've set up the bible in the throne. And now we're worshipping the bible. As if the bible is sitting on the throne. And we're asking ai what these verses mean. We're asking pastors that have their doctorates in theology what the scripture means. We're asking the lexicon. We're studying Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. And trying to figure out from the doctrines of men what the bible means. We are literally worshipping the scriptures. And what Jesus said about this to the pharisees is that they're constantly looking at the bible. They're constantly looking at the bible. They're constantly looking at the bible. They're constantly looking at the bible. They're constantly learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. The bible is not the more sure word. Jesus is called the word of God. You can learn about his name in john chapter 1. He is called the word of God. And throughout the scriptures, we know that Jesus himself is the word, not the bible. And we know that the rock of our salvation is also Jesus Christ. Jesus gives parables about this. And never was he inferring that the bible itself is the rock. Although the words of Jesus, many of them are recorded in the bible, but the rock is Jesus Christ himself. I want to read this parable to you. From Matthew chapter 7 starting in verse 24. Jesus says, ““therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock” was the rock the scriptures? Was it the bible? No. The rock was God's word, Jesus Christ. We have to make sure that we are hearing Jesus' words and then putting them into practice just as Jesus said in this parable.

26“but everyone who hears these sayings of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” 28and so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at his teaching, 29for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Today many Christians are going to the scribes, the pharisees, those who know the bible, and they're acting as though the bible itself were the rock of our salvation. That's why they elevate the bible to Godhood acting as though the bible were on the throne. They worship the bible, they praise the bible, but they don't come to know and obey Jesus. Read the gospels. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Pay attention to what Jesus said. Eat his flesh and drink his blood. Learn to put his words into practice that you can be led by the one who can give you life. Just studying the scripture and knowing the scripture more is not going to give you life. For many years I read the scripture, but I was still living a life of sin. I did not have life because I was feasting on the bible. But I came to know life when I came to know the author of life, when I came to know God's son, Jesus Christ. Jesus lives in my heart. His Holy Spirit speaks to me daily. I'm led by him. I'm corrected by him. He keeps me on the straight and narrow path even when I’m not sure which way to go. Many days I’m not sure which way to go and I just say “lord Jesus, please guide me. I'm not sure if I should go left or right. So guide me in my decision making. Close doors and open doors. Help me to stay on the straight and narrow path that I don't mess anything up. I don't want to get off even a degree to the left or to the right.” And if we're serious to follow the light of the world, then he will guide our feet. He will guide our path. And we also can be a light to others. Jesus said, “you are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.”

 so are we living on the words of Jesus Christ? Are we obeying him? Have we put Jesus in his rightful place, on his throne in our life? Or have we elevated the bible to Godhood as the Christians have? In these modern day churches where they worship people on stage, they worship the prophets. They worship bible studies. They worship music. But they don't really worship Jesus Christ with their life. Are we honoring God? Are we pleasing him? Are we living for the light of the world? Are we lights? Or have we been deceived by the Christian culture? I want to pray for you if you're seeking the truth, if you're a disciple who wants to grow in your faith. “so lord Jesus I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters, that they would truly come to know you as the word of God. I pray that we would truly eat your flesh and drink your blood and have life in you, that we could be partakers of your cup, and that your blood would cover over our sins, that we would be made pure and holy, and that our garments would be made white. I pray that all of our stains would be washed away, that we would be left without pride but with humility and truth and justice and all the attributes, that come from our father in heaven. Make us to be the people you want us to be, so that we will be ready for the return of our lord. In your name I pray lord Jesus, amen.”

What's the HEART of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

 We'll praise Jesus today everyone. It's another hot and muggy day in California. But we're here to praise the Lord and to give Jesus Christ glory that we can be pleasing to God and that other people can come into the household of faith, that people might be saved and not end in hell or destruction or throw their lives away. What I wanted to speak about today is the heart of the Gospel. What is at the very heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Now most of you if you are acquainted with my channel most likely you know the basics of the Gospel of Jesus, that Jesus is the son of God, that He Himself is God, and that He came to this earth to save people from their sins, that He lived on this earth until He was about 33 years old, that He had a ministry an earthly ministry where He had 12 disciples and He walked on this planet for three years with those disciples that He called, and He preached the Gospel of repentance, He talked about the kingdom of God. Jesus wasn't preaching the kingdom of church or the kingdom of the pharisees. He wasn't preaching religion or even 10 commandments. But Jesus was preaching the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. He talked about beyond the 10 commandments that your righteousness has to exceed that of the pharisees. Jesus got down to the very heart of the Gospel and He expanded on that with all of the parables about the kingdom of God. So if you're not sure what Jesus came to this earth for or what the parables He taught were all about, I deeply encourage you to read the Gospels and pay specific attention to what Jesus taught, the sermon on the mount, the beatitudes, all of these things. Pay attention to what Jesus said because this is the core of the Gospel. So read Matthew Mark Luke and John. A lot of bibles have the words of Jesus in red, pay attention to those, read it over and over again. Read it for yourself, read it with your children, and read it with your grandchildren. A lot of Christians get really distracted with other people's version of the Gospel, and some of their versions are better than others, and a lot of people's testimonies. One Christian testimony that is true and valid but that a lot of people get distracted with is the testimony of the apostle Paul. As we know the apostle Paul wrote a lot of the New Testament like Ephesians, Galatians, first and second Thessalonians, first and second Timothy and the apostle Paul speaks a lot of things that are hard to understand and you should know that a lot of people misinterpret Paul and they have a lot of reasons why they dislike him. Paul seems to be in some ways against women, so they think or against marriage after someone is widowed. But it's all people's interpretations of what Paul was saying. And they get so wrapped up in what the apostle Paul says and his version of the Gospel, that then they totally are distracted from the real Gospel and the heart of the Gospel which Jesus taught.

So if you want to be at the heart of the Gospel, get to know what Jesus actually taught, acquaint yourself with His words, read the Gospel teach it to your children pray and ask Jesus to speak His truth into his heart because all authority and all power has been given to Jesus. And if you abide in Him and if you eat His flesh and drink His blood like Jesus commands His disciples to do, then you will start to know what is His heart and the heart of the Gospel He teaches. And you won't be distracted by all these other Christian doctrines such as how you should properly dress to look like a Christian or having the correct lingo or going to bible college, you know basically looking like a modern day pharisee. So we want to steer away from all of the Gospels of men, and the doctrines that men create, and get down to the very heart the very basics of what Jesus taught and then grow in the things that He is teaching. Because if we stay connected to Him and keep our eyes on Him, we're not going to go wrong. But the moment that we try to emulate Paul or peter or Timothy and act like these men even though they were our fellow brothers and laborers in the kingdom of God, then we're bound to get a few degrees off from the truth.

 So the first thing I wanted to speak about here is what the Gospel of Jesus is not. Because a lot of Christians are turning people away from Jesus by a Gospel that appears to be the Lord's. But in some ways, it's off and it's just a big turnoff to people. So what is the kingdom of God not or what is the Gospel of Jesus not. Well, a few things that this is not an exhaustive list but a few things that come to mind, one of them the Gospel of Jesus is not about becoming a monk who just denies yourself. If that were true, then there are a lot of religions of the world that practice self-denial to the extreme. And all of the religions of the world that practice this would be getting to heaven if it were just to deny themselves that led to happiness and everlasting life and the plenty that God desires for His children. But self-denial in itself is not the way to everlasting life of course we have to deny our self, pick up our cross and follow the Lord. But there is a false Gospel that says that you will be at the heart of the Gospel if you simply do things that you just don't want to do. So maybe you have recently bought a house and now you feel condemned, because you're living in that house, and you enjoy it, so you feel condemned because you actually like your living quarters. And the devil basically accuses you and says, “well you're not denying yourself because you're living in a place that you enjoy, therefore you need to sell your house or get out of your apartment, and live on the street, otherwise you're not denying yourself properly. And because you're not denying yourself in this manner, you're not at the heart of Jesus.” And that is just not true. Sometimes Jesus would tell people to leave what they have, sell it and to come follow Him. But other times Jesus would tell them to stay in their own town and to be a witness there. So in each case it is situational what we do and how we live out the Gospel. But at the heart of the Gospel is not self-denial. It's not just becoming a monk. Now don't get me wrong there are some people who don't deny themselves, they want to continue to live a sinful life, and that's not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about thinking that you can get to heaven by self-denial in itself, like how monks think they're going to achieve everlasting life by being able to whip themselves or fast for long periods of time or never have any kind of relationship with people just living in a cave, you know those sorts of things.

Jesus didn't design us as humans just to deny all the pleasures of life. That's not at the very heart of the Gospel. But if your idea of fun is immorality, then also you're going the wrong direction. So as disciples of Jesus, we need to figure out how to deny ourselves in a way that is truly denying the flesh things that are evil, but also accepting the blessings of God, because after all God has given us many blessings and things to enjoy if we truly are in His love and at the heart of His Gospel. He's given us children to enjoy if we are parents. He's given us a spouse to enjoy if we are married. He's given these things because He loves us, and He wants us also to love Him and enjoy the things that He is given. So again, at the heart of the Gospel is not this self-righteous, self-denial that some Christians are preaching.

 Another thing, some people think that at the heart of the Gospel is condemnation. They're convinced that God is just going to slay. He's going to kill all men that are evil and send them to hell. And you have this as an example in the bible even the apostles thought this in Luke chapter 9, you could look at it for yourselves, but it's Luke 9:55 through 56, the disciples were trying to get Jesus ready to go through Samaria into Jerusalem. And Jesus was just going to be passing through the town of Samaria. But as we know Samaritans don't really like Jewish people very much and vice versa as well. So when the Samaritans figured out that the that Jesus was actually going to Jerusalem they reported back to His disciples and they said, “well we don't want your Jesus to come here if he's going to Jerusalem.” And they rejected Jesus because He was going to Jerusalem. And so when the disciples reported back to Jesus, they said, “The Samaritans rejected you they don't want you going there should we send down fire from heaven to destroy them such as Elijah did?” And in response to what the disciples were saying, Jesus said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the son of man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them.”

A lot of times our heart is not close to the Gospel, it's not close to the kingdom of God, because we start going down this road of judgment thinking that God should just kill everyone that's evil. And while there are a lot of evil people that are going to fall under God's judgment, it is not the will of God that anyone goes to hell that anyone perishes, but it is the will of Jesus that men repent of their sins and they don't come under the condemnation of God, but they come under His grace. So rather we ought to be praying for people of this world to repent and to really get to know Jesus because Jesus is love, He is truth, He is not this kind of condemnation where He just wants to kill everyone. Of course, people will be condemned if they stay in their sins and if they continue to rebel against God. But we know as Christians that at the heart of the Gospel is love and righteousness. It's the love of God that wants to save people from their sins so that they can become holy and be in God's presence, not just hoping like how Jonah hoped that Nineveh would just perish. God rebuked the prophet for that because Jonah just wanted the people to die He was upset that God extended them mercy. So if we are going to be God's disciples and at the heart of the Gospel, we need to desperately love the lost world and want them to come to know Jesus because this was Jesus's hope that sinners would come to repentance. God does not love sinfulness. He does not love sinful people. But He does want all people that are sinners to repent and come into the light of the truth. So this is at the heart of the Gospel, guys.

Another deception that I see that people think is the heart of the Gospel when it is not, is that, it's what a lot of the churches are teaching that that somehow God is going to give people freedom in their sins and not of their sins. A lot of churches they have passages posted that say come as you are or we are accepting of all people. They fly the homosexual flag, they're very inclusive acting as if those who commit sin are a race. They don't claim it as sin anymore, and they act as though the heart of the Gospel was to accept sinful people as if they're going to heaven and that God accepts the sinner which is also a false Gospel. There are a lot of Christian churches now that at the heart of their Gospel they're accepting and condoning evil. Because they themselves love evil and they don't want to come into the truth. So we have to get away from that false Gospel that accepts sin and says that we are or God just came to set us free from the condemnation of sin, but that we could basically live in sin ourselves without being condemned.

Okay, another thing that I see that people believe at the heart of the Gospel which is not is the social justice Gospel. There are some groups of people that believe that if we put our faith in Jesus, if we do what's right, then we should be involved in all these social justice projects, and that we should be reinventing what health care looks like, giving money to the poor or getting Donald Trump elected or getting a certain politician elected, and they basically mix this social justice and these political agendas with Christianity. And at the heart of Gospel is not social justice. If that were true, Jesus would have worked to overthrow the Roman government. But Jesus' was not going around trying to overthrow Rome in order to set up the kingdom of God. In fact, when the disciples tried that and they tried to forcibly set up Jesus as king, Jesus quickly ran out of their midst, because He knew their hearts and He took off in the opposite direction. It was not the heart of the Gospel. It was not what Jesus was teaching. And Jesus didn't come to just set people free politically. Now, I know that a lot of people get really heated about that. They're very persuasive. They think that, you know, getting Trump in office or whoever their political candidate is, is the same as the Gospel. But these things are not the truth.

So let's talk about what is really the heart of the Gospel. The heart of the Gospel all comes down to love. Jesus came to this earth because He wanted to save you, He wanted to save me from our sins. At the heart of the Gospel is to save souls from sin and to set them free spiritually, so that they could be liberated from sin. God could not liberate us from sin and let us enter into His holy kingdom unless there was a blood sacrifice. The men of old would sacrifice lambs, they would sacrifice birds, they would have all these sacrifices that ultimately would never be able to perfectly atone for people's sins. And all of these sacrifices pointed to the perfect Passover lamb, which would be Jesus Christ, God's son. And when Jesus came, He died and He shed His blood, that His blood would wash over us, that He could atone or make the payment for our sins, that then He could stand before God with our sins atoned for, that then we could also stand before God if we accept what He has done for us.

So this is at the heart of the Gospel. If we put our faith in Jesus and if we ask His blood to cleanse us, to wash over us, and if we follow Him with our actions, then we will be washed clean. So don't let anyone tell you that His blood won't wash you clean or that you should add something else to this Gospel, such as church attendance or tithing or going on certain trips around the world. Because if you believe in Jesus and ask Him to cleanse you from unrighteousness, you can know that He will wash you clean. The door is open for you for salvation. Those who knock the door will be opened. So knock on the door and ask for salvation, and Jesus will give you the gift of life, the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the Gospel. Jesus saves souls, He gives them peace with God, and He gives us a place to live with God. If we do not accept the offering of God's Son, of what Jesus did on the cross, if we try to enter in by some other way, thinking that religion will save us, that going to Catholic Mass will save us, that paying tithes will save us, then we're missing the point. Because at the heart of the Gospel is to accept what Jesus Christ did and then to fully dedicate ourselves to Him, not to thinking that we're going to be able to be with God because of some just religious practices or joining some cult practice, or doing something of self-denial, like how some cult may tell you that you have to do. Because following Jesus is about hearing from His Holy Spirit and then obeying whatever He puts on your conscience to do.

So guys, this is what I have to speak about today, the heart of the Gospel. I hope that you understand the heart of the Gospel, but again, if you're not clear on what the heart of the Gospel is, the best way to understand it is to pray, to read the Gospels, read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for yourself, and then ask Jesus to guide you, that He would give you the Holy Spirit to teach you and to lead you into all truth, that you wouldn't be deceived by any of the Christian churches today or the people that claim to be brothers or sisters or whatever they claim. Don't be distracted by the world or other Gospels. Listen to what Jesus actually taught and ask Him to continually teach you because He promised you the gift of the Holy Spirit to lead you and to guide you into all truth. Well, this is all I have on that topic for today, guys.

Yes, amen. I pray for those of you that are wanting prayer. “Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord who want to come out of evil and oppression, that want to be set free from all the bonds of sin, addiction, whatever it is that holds them in the world and keeps them under the thumb of Satan. I pray that you set them free, Lord Jesus, in your name and that they can truly have eyes that see and ears to hear and a heart that beats for your kingdom, that they will eat your flesh and drink your blood, Lord, and not be discouraged by Satan that constantly comes against us, always either throwing temptations at us or telling us that we're not worthy. I pray, Lord, that we can overcome in your name and not listen to the accusations of the devil or fall into His temptations, but that we can fix our eyes on you, Lord, and overcome in your name. So I pray for my fellow brethren in your name, Lord Jesus, amen.”

Best Way to Evangelize?

We'll praise Jesus today everyone. I wanted to make a short message here on what the best way to evangelize is. Because there are some Christians that debate this and they talk about ways that we should be evangelizing and they say that if you're not evangelizing like how they are then you're not really doing your job as a Christian. I remember there was a few guys in particular that were part of a street evangelism group, and they tried to make me feel really guilty as they did try to make a lot of other people feel guilty for not doing street evangelism like how they do, because they thought open air preaching and using megaphones and going out with their bibles was the way to do it. But as it ends up that's a huge turnoff to me and to many people and doesn't bring the fruit of righteousness that God requires. However there are times and there are spaces that open air evangelism works well that you can go in a public place and preach Jesus and the Lord blesses that. But it depends what the Holy Spirit is leading you to do and it depends where you are. One of the best ways to evangelize that I have found to spread the love of Jesus around and to preach his message is just with simple t-shirts like the one I'm wearing here. You can read this one, but it just asks a simple question and then asks if you're a friend or a foe. So wearing t-shirts is a really good way to evangelize because you can go into a grocery market, you can go into any store you can continue to buy your food and people will ask you about your shirt, but no one's going to kick you out of the mall for wearing a t-shirt. But if you were to go into the mall or into some kind of a restaurant holding a big flag or banner or you know holding up some kind of steak with a message on it, you'd get the police called on you really quick. So it would not be effective and you wouldn't be able to bring the gospel there. So we have to use different methods for different places, but we cannot condemn people for not doing it our way.

Right now there is a lot of condemnation going around by Christians thinking that if they are not preaching Jesus on the internet on youtube or on Facebook, then they must have fallen away from Jesus, especially if they were at one point on the internet and that's simply just not true. If the Lord leads you to go and evangelize on YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or something like that or X, then go and do that, but don't let the devil condemn you that you're not being the Christian that you should be because you're not posting on the internet. And this is a huge deception guys for Christians that have been on the internet. They start thinking that other Christians have fallen away from God because they're not posting Christian messages on youtube or on Facebook. And it just is not the truth.

 The Lord leads different people different ways. He hasn't called everyone to post on the internet. In fact, some people he calls to go far away from the internet so they don't stumble into pornography or just the social aspect that leads people away from God. The Lord has blessed me with many years of preaching on the internet, and i've found that to truly be a blessing. In some ways, I have stepped back away from the internet. For example, I took comments off of my youtube after about 10 years. People still will ask me why I did that. I was led to take the comments down off of youtube because I had a lot of people that were trying to use my page for their place to disrupt, and they were trolls. They would constantly try to cause problems, constantly pestering, and distracting other brothers and sisters that really did want to find the truth. And I found that it was such a blessing to just completely take down comments after 10 years and not have to deal with that.

You know, 10 years ago or so, when I only had a few videos, I could go back through my videos and I could answer people's questions, and I did a pretty decent job, I thought, keeping up with comments. But then after I had a thousand videos and several thousand videos, it wasn't practical for me to anymore go back to videos that I'd made 10 years ago and try to argue with people. It just wasn't fruitful. So I just ended up taking down all of the comments, and that has been a blessing for me. Now, if you have a youtube or if you have a space where you're preaching the internet and you feel led to engage people on your channel, that may be right for you. That may be a great way to evangelize. During those 10 years that I did have comments, I probably spoke to thousands of people and likely left thousands, if not a million comments on the internet during that time on my own page. And there was a lot of good in it. I believe people were encouraged. But after an extended amount of time, it became too much for me to handle. And there was a lot of drama in the comments and a lot of people just cursing and saying things that are not of the spirit of God.

In each of these ways to evangelize, we have to just be led by the Holy Spirit and ask him, what is the best way to evangelize and to reach people for you, Lord? And each of our situations will be different. The Lord is not going to call everyone to go on the internet. He is not going to call everyone to be a street preacher. He's not going to call everyone to Africa. But he may call you just to your own children. You know what? A big portion of ministry that people look over is their own family. There are a lot of pastors who have mistakenly thinking that a bigger ministry or a bigger way to evangelize is their church. And they spend all this money, all this time, and all these resources on trying to evangelize the lost. And their own children are lost. And their own children see the pastor's hypocrisy. And then their own children are committing suicide. They're on drugs. They're overdosing. They're not living the Christian life. And if the parent, that pastor or that leader in the church, was to just look at their own life and realize the people that God had put in their own life, their own children, they would realize these are the most important people in my life. Your children are in your own household for a minimum of like 18 years. And what are you going to do when you stand before God and he says, you know, your own children didn't even follow me because of you. You were spending so much time thinking you were evangelizing in the church or evangelizing on the street that you lost your own children. That's not going to fly with God.

And a lot of people have made evangelism into something that they think they can appease God with, or they can get bonus points in the heaven, brownie points, or somehow earn their salvation. And that is not how God has created this life. Jesus has created us to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, but to love our neighbor as ourself. And your closest neighbor in proximity to you is going to be likely your wife, your children, your grandma, your grandfather, whoever those people God put in your life. And they should be the first people that you are witnessing to. Evangelizing, loving, telling about God. As the body of Christ, we should have these people first and not think that we're doing God's work by going far out, doing all these things that seem showy to the world, yet not taking care of the things right around us.

Jesus spoke about this when he rebuked the Pharisees. He talked about how the Pharisees would tithe and they would fast. And how they would give alms to the poor and they would do all these things to the extent that they wouldn't even take care of their own parents. In fact, they would say to their own parents, I can't give you any money. I can't help you because what I might have been able to help you with, I have to give to my tithes and my offering and do my church. And so by doing that, they basically made all the commands of God completely worthless. Their religion is totally worthless. We don't want our belief in God to become worthless or just rituals that we go through or thinking that we're buying our way into heaven by doing ministry or doing evangelism. And it seems a lot of people here now, Christians I mean, are led by guilt and not led by love. So they feel guilty because they don't look like the street evangelist, the open air preacher. And they watch these videos on the internet that seem really showy, they go, man, I'm not doing enough for God. If only I could get out there on the street. And so they leave their family, the ministry God has given them. And now they're flying all across the country to go do evangelism. Yet they have left the genuine and real evangelism and outreach of their own family raising their own children, which is so sad.

 Are we as Christians rooted in reality, the reality of Jesus? Or have we traded that reality and the people that are genuine in our life for false realities, for things that seem good and have an outward show? Or are we truly doing the work, the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Are we taking care of our marriage? Are we working on our marriage? Are we teaching our children every day to grow in the love of the Lord? Are we abiding in God's love so that when we wake up in the morning, we can share the love of Jesus? And minister to our own family members? Are we doing that? Or are we just trying to appease a guilty conscience or even a false guilt because we've seen other Christians do things that seem showy and we want to be like them? It's a big problem to be following people, to be following or trying to look like a preacher on the internet, to try to look like somebody else.

God has created you unique. And if you will listen to him and not be like the other Christians who follow after false guilt or someone else's conviction, then the Holy Spirit can lead you specifically in what you need to do. So to answer the question, what is the right way to evangelize? It would be however the Lord leads you. There's no right or wrong way. It's however Jesus leads you. But you can do it wrong if you're falling into this false guilt or being manipulated by people. There's a lot of ministries that are very manipulative guys. One of those are deliverance ministries. They try to get you involved and they prophesy over you. They claim to cast out demons and they do all these things that seem so showy and they will manipulate Christians to no end. I would stay far away from that. Unless God has specifically called you to do a deliverance ministry and to pray for people and to cast out demons, don't be wrapped up in that stuff that seems showy. Otherwise, you're bound for disaster. It would be better that you stayed separate, like John the Baptist was separate, how the disciples had to separate from the crowd, so that then you could be filled with the Holy Spirit and go out with the power of God instead of being manipulated by all of these so-called Christian ministries.

So evangelize, but make sure that you're being led by the Holy Spirit, not some other man, and make sure that you're not trying to just emulate another person who may or may not be filled with the Spirit of God. I hope this message makes sense to someone. I hope that you do evangelize because we want the lost world to come to know Jesus. We want people, people in our family, our friends, our relatives, people on the internet, wherever they are, we want people to come into the kingdom of God and we don't want God's house to be empty. So there is a right place to go out and to preach Jesus. So don't be discouraged from, what kind of evangelism the Lord leads you to, do that. But make sure that it's really led by the Holy Spirit and that Jesus is with you and that you're not doing it out of some false conviction or feeling guilty because you don't look like the street preacher down the road. I hope that makes sense to those of you who are listening and I hope that you go out led by the Holy Spirit to evangelize a lost world.

So “Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters that they will be filled with your Holy Spirit. That they will go out and be a light to the dark world, that they would be an encouragement to family members and friends. And whether it's by good report or bad report, that they would continue to stand in the light of the truth with you, whether they are mocked or hated or shamefully spoken of. We pray that we continue to stand in the light of the truth and that we don't worry what people think about us, but that we concern ourselves with doing, just doing what's right before God. I pray this in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.”

A True Christian Church is Not Like a Club

 

A True Christian Church is Not Like a Club

Hey, praise Jesus today, everyone. I wanted to share a few thoughts that have been on my heart and mind the last couple of days, and maybe this should be three different videos, I'm not sure, but I'm going to just share some of the things that have been on my heart. But the main idea that I wanted to address is why the Christian church should not be or act like a club. Now, of course, the Christian church of today is exactly like a club. If you've ever been part of a club, maybe you've been part of 4-H, or you've done something with animals, or been part of a golf club, a jeep club, some kind of soccer club, if you've been part of any of those organizations, you get accepted in by the leadership, by the president of that club, praise Jesus, everyone. But how clubs work on earth is there is a president, there’s the leadership of the group, and then they accept you in, you pay your dues,  you show up to the annual meetings and the weekly meetings or the monthly, and then you go out and you do things with your club. Now, the Christian church has become a lot like any other club. And they basically have their weekly or their monthly dues, they call that their tithe, they have their president, which is their pastor, they have their set of leadership, which is their elders and deacons. So they basically look exactly like a golf club or a soccer club or a jeep club or any kind of club that you could name on the whole planet or in the United States. So I want to tell you why a true Christian and the true church should never be like an earthly, worldly club.

The reason for that is because the leader of the true church is Jesus Christ. It is God, not a pastor on this earth. See clubs on this earth are run and operated by men and men accept you into their club and then men kick you out of their club. And that is also how churches work today. If you join their club and you give your membership to them, then you've put your allegiance before the man in that church and you're part of that organization, you're paying your tithe to them and they have authority over you. So you have been paying your tithes and your offerings and your dues to this group and they've accepted you and likely they've been telling you that you're once saved, always saved and you're part of the church because you have come into their membership and their leadership. But truth be told, the true church cannot be like a club because God Himself is the leader and God decides who is part of His true church and who is not. No pastor is God. No pastor can decide who is part of God's church and who is not. And that is the end. God is the end of that.

So if a pastor is claiming that you are part of the church because you pay tithe to his church, that is where he is dead wrong. There are a lot of Christians who pay tithe. They go to a church. They're good members of a church. But that does not mean they're accepted into God's spiritual kingdom, His true church. See God's true church is a spiritual club, if you will, and God is the king or He is the president of that club, not a pastor or the leader of some organization. So many churches have went wrong on this because they literally think that they are Jesus, that they are God. That they decide who is part of the church. And who is not. And that's absolutely wrong, guys. The only one who decides if you're part of His body or you're excluded is God Himself. Jesus knows who His body is and who is not. There are some people that are part of the true church, that is, they are part of the body of Christ and they may be attending a church, a localized church body. They may be part of a club. But most of those members if not all of the members of the localized Church bodies across your town or your city or America are all false. They're all apostate. They don't have anything to do with the kingdom of God. How can they possibly think that they are the ones that ordain who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, how people should understand the Bible, and if they're part of the true church or Not? Jesus said that God is seeking worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. And the true church does not worship in the physicality, in the physical things that you can see and hear and understand in the brick and mortar churches.

That is all a deception. There may be some brothers and sisters there that do love the Lord and who are entering into God's eternal kingdom that are part of his true church, but it's also likely that there is not anyone there that belongs to God's true church. Just because the name Christian is on a building doesn't mean that it has anything to do with the Christian church, because the true church is spiritual. The kingdom of God does not come with signs to be observed, such as man observed them, but it is inside of you. It is in your midst. That's what Jesus said. So we have to get away from this idea that we just do church on Sunday, and if we pay tithes and we join this church, then we're part of the church, and we're going to heaven, we're accepted in the God's kingdom. That's absolutely false. Since when did men decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell? It is Jesus who decides your destiny. He decides if you go to heaven and hell, and he knows if you're part of his true church or not. So that's one thing that's been on my mind to share with you.

Another thing that has been on my mind is this whole idea that you have to be educated in order to share anything on the internet, including things about God, as if you have to have went to seminary to speak about God. The truth is, to speak about God and to be genuine about Him, you have had to have an experience with Him. It doesn't matter if you went to seminary. It doesn't matter if you're educated or uneducated. It doesn't matter how good of a speaker you are. After all, I make a lot of blunders, guys. I say things incorrectly. I may put a new conjugation on a verb that you've never heard before or just totally mess up on what I'm saying. But that doesn't mean that I haven't had an experience with God. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't be speaking about Jesus. And you are qualified and should be speaking about Jesus if you love Jesus and if you've had an experience with Him. Maybe you have been delivered from sin. Maybe you've been delivered from a sickness. Maybe you were as the guy that had a legion of demons and Jesus set you free. And then He is telling you to go and share your testimony, the word of God in your town and in your city so people repent. The 12 disciples were ordinary men. People realized that they were not highly educated like the Pharisees, but they had walked with God. They had been with Jesus. And even though they were ordinary Galileans and they probably slurred their speech and they didn't sound as smart as other people because they were ordinary. They had walked with God. They had seen miracles and they had understanding because they had walked with the Spirit that brought life. And so don't let Satan tell you you have no business sharing about Jesus. You're uneducated. You don't know the Bible. You don't even know how to speak English that well. Don't let any of that stuff distract you from preaching Jesus, because at the end of the day, what matters is your relationship to the Lord and if you're doing his will. What Jesus wants from you is to be separate from the world, to be living holy and to be making disciples, even if that's just people in your own household.

So this is something else, guys, that's been on my heart because a lot of people are discouraged. A lot of people are beaten down by the devil. They think, well, I can't talk about God because I don't know as much as the preacher. It doesn't matter if as much as the preacher or if you haven't researched as much as brother so-and-so. What matters is if you're praying, hearing from the Holy Spirit and walking with the Lord. If you know the right thing to do, you better share it with your brother or your sister, someone in your family. Go and tell someone about the gospel because that's what Jesus wants us doing in this life.

So those are two of the things I wanted to share. Let's see what the last one was. Okay, here's the other thing I wanted to share. A lot of people these days are leaving church. There's talk about the church exodus, people leaving the churches, and people are asked why they're leaving church. A lot of the young generation doesn't go to church anymore. They're not evangelical. They're not Protestant. I think maybe 10, 20 years ago, 70, 80 percent of the United States, considered themselves Christian in some shape or fashion. But now if you do some research on the statistics or the demographics of how many people are Christians in America, you might find a number as low as 30 percent, 35 percent of people even claim to be Christian. So why is that? A lot of people, if you ask them why they're leaving the church, they will say because they feel that Christians in church judge them because of their sin, and they don't want to be judged because of their sin. And so that's why they left church, because Christians are judgmental. They're always telling you you're sinning, you're a sinner, you're going to hell. And a lot of the younger generation doesn't want to be told they're going to hell, and that is the reason why they left church.

So is that a good reason to leave church or not? Well, for me, I left church partially, possibly due to the exact opposite reason that most of these younger generation people are leaving. I left church not because people were judging me for sin or because I saw all the hypocrisy, but the reason why I left is because of the sin inside of church, not because people were saying you're a sinner, if you smoke pot or if you do this, you're going to hell. But I left church because I knew that there was a lot of sin in church, that was trying to also convince me that sin was okay. And for my own purification and to keep myself pure, I knew that I had to be separate from certain family members, certain friends, certain areas. Otherwise, I just knew that I was going to fall into sexual temptation, fall into just doing things that were unproductive for the kingdom of God. So that's part of the reason that I left church is because of the sin there. The biggest reason I actually left church, however, is because I had revelation after revelation from Jesus to get out of church because church is as a whorehouse. I had this message in dreams, visions. The Lord spoke this so many times to me that to me, it became redundant enough that I was asking the Lord, why am I still having these dreams that church is like a whorehouse? I think I already know this, but I continually had dreams and visions where Jesus showed me that the Christian church of today is like a whorehouse because as a man who is seeking sexual love goes to a prostitute for love that's not real and he has to pay money for it, His children or people in the world are going to this prostitute church, paying tithe, giving their offering, giving their time for love from this false church that is not genuine. So God wants his true people out of the harlot church system, out of this Babylon system, so they're not falling to prostitution. The church of today is like a prostitute to God. And if you continue to pay tithes to the church, it's like you're giving your money to a prostitute. If you go in and you sleep with a prostitute, does that prostitute really love you? Of course not. She's just fulfilling her duty. And the church today is just fulfilling her duty to have you come and sit in the pews and preach to you, to love you. They're just fulfilling their duties and giving you the desires of your flesh or the sensations that you desire so that you will feel good, and those sensations will be tickled. The same way a prostitute is giving a man those sensations, the same sensations that are sexual perversion and not what his wife would be giving him in the holy matrimony of his own marriage bed. So this is what the Lord showed me over and over and over again, guys.

And it's very important to understand that with Jesus, His true church are spiritual people that come into His spiritual church, that spiritually speaking, eat His flesh and drink His blood, and they're separate from the world. So do we belong to this true church that God has set us apart to be? Are we part of this peculiar people that are different from the world that God Himself has set apart and called His children? Have we been called the body of Christ by the Lord or have we just been called a member of the church because we pay our tithes to an organization as a man paves his dues to a prostitute so that she will sleep with him? This is a very profound and stunning analogy. It was very vulgar to me and visually a scary thing to understand how God sees it when I was first coming out of church. But this is how God sees the whorehouse church of today. If you want to know more about Babylon the Great, the great whore, look what it says, prophetic and Revelation chapter 17 and 18, because that is talking about the Christian church of today. And America is included with that, making herself great, coming out with all these prophets, looking like we're a Christian nation to the rest of the world, but living in complete idolatry and hatred of God, living in sexual sin, living in perversion, but acting like we are not blind, poor, and naked in misery. We need to come out of the harlot church system, wherever we're at, and come into the spiritual kingdom of God that we can eat His flesh, drink His blood, and have everlasting life.

So I hope this message reaches you. I hope this message reaches the ears of someone who needs to hear it. Maybe you're wondering, where do I go? How can I be spiritually fed? I want to be a Christian. I want to be a disciple of Jesus, but where do I start? Well, it doesn't start with the American church. It doesn't start with going to a home church. It doesn't start with getting into a Bible study. It starts on your knees in prayer, saying, “Lord Jesus, please open the ears, my spiritual ears, of my heart so I can hear you. Open my spiritual eyes so I can see you. Manifest yourself to me in a way that makes sense to me and give me a heart that beats so I can hear you, and see you, and feel you, and know that you're real, and be shaped to your image that I may be well-pleasing to you.” You need to come into the fold of God, be accepted into His spiritual kingdom, which is spiritually called the New Jerusalem, or the New Covenant, or the Kingdom of God, or Zion. All of these things are analogies of the New Covenant, which God gave to us. He shed His blood on the cross. He poured out his blood so that you could be cleaned, and  from your sins, if you accept His blood, and that He died on the cross, and that He resurrected in three days, and that if you believe in Him, you will be set free from your sins, and you will have everlasting life. But you have to believe in him with your actions. Not just your belief, not just with your mind, but prove it with your feet. Do you love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and are you entering into His kingdom?

“Lord Jesus, I pray for those who are entering your kingdom. I pray for those who want spiritual ears to hear and eyes to see. I pray that the chains of deception can be broken, that your children may truly hear your voice and be set free from dead religion, from the false whorehouse church, from all the things that appear to be godly, which lead to death in the end. I pray that we can truly hear your voice and live on you, eating your flesh and drinking your blood, how you call us to do, Lord Jesus. So I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters in your name, that they may be led by your Holy Spirit, and not by men who deceive. In your name I pray, amen.”

Dream: What Jesus Physically Looks Like

 

We'll praise Jesus today everyone. Last night I had an interesting dream. In the dream I saw what Jesus physically looked like and in this dream I was also describing what Jesus looked like to someone that could have been an unbeliever or another Christian that didn't know. But it's probably what you would imagine. Jesus looks like a man with medium long brown hair with blue eyes and how I saw Him He was wearing white, like a white robe. I'm sure there's a specific name for it. And a red sash. Either He was barefoot when I've seen Him or with sandals. So pretty traditional guys. But in this dream I was explaining to another person what Jesus physically looks like. And what Jesus showed me later was for us on earth this is not particularly important. It's like how the Apostle Paul speaks about how we see in a dim mirror. We see what Jesus looks like very dim and that's how I also see Jesus in a dream. It's not extremely clear. And to explain this it makes more sense. Have you ever thought of what your mother looks like or what your dad looks like? You probably have a pretty good image of what they look like. But if you've only seen someone a few times or if you have a certain friend that you're with every couple times a year, you have an image in your mind of what they look like. But the more you try to dwell on that physical image of their face, it's kind of fleeting. The image kind of distorts in your mind and it leaves. And you can't get that physical image of what they look like again back into your mind until you physically see them and then you remember. Even our own family members that we see all the time, we have a certain image of what they look like physically, but that image is fleeting until we look at a picture. So the same thing is with Jesus. If you try to imagine His physicality and even more so if it's in a dream, it's like how the Apostle Paul wrote about it's like looking at yourself in a dim mirror. But one day you will be able to see the Lord face to face. And in that day you will be able to see how Jesus Christ looks. You will be able to physically shake His hand and hug Him and walk in the light with Him in His kingdom.

But on this earth it's more important that we learn to worship Jesus and walk with Him in spirit and in truth and learn what He is about spiritually. See people are all about physicality because we're in the physical realm, but God is spirit. So we have to learn how to understand spirit and also relay spirit to other people. We could try to tell people all day about what Jesus physically looks like, His hair, His eyes, His garments, whether he's wearing sandals or not. But it's not going to help people repent and live holy and know the righteousness that God requires unless we preach and tell them what Jesus actually requires. So I want to read to you what Jesus said in regards to physicality and spiritualness in John chapter 4. And this is when He spoke to the lady at the well. And this is the important thing that we learn. So I'm starting in verse 21.

21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.”

Jesus is talking about Himself, that He was Jewish and that God gave Him as the perfect lamb as that Passover lamb to wash over all of our sins.

“23But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

We need to learn out this saying in its entirety. How do we worship God in spirit and in truth? People are often looking for just something physical. They want spiritual gifts to look physical. They want Jesus to be described physically. They want to imagine how Jesus physically sounds. But to understand a spirit is much more complicated because you don't smell a spirit, you don't see a spirit with your physical eyes, nor do you hear a spirit with your physical ears. And some Christians always want to talk about the physical elements of God. But as disciples of Jesus, we have to learn how to worship God in spirit and in truth. And this does not happen or it's not achieved by going to a physical building called a church or just opening the physical Bible. We have to learn how to receive Jesus into our heart and then hear from the Holy Spirit. This happens supernaturally. It's not something that we can make up or we can't just bring the spiritual gifts of God into existence. But what we can do because we are physical and spiritual, and God created us both physical and spiritual is we can pray.

We can with our spirit, we can pray to the Holy Spirit and we can say, “Lord Jesus, please manifest to me and speak to me in a way that my spirit can understand, that I can know your truth in my heart and I can distinguish the truth of your spirit and know how to distinguish that from all the lies of Satan, all the imaginations that I have in my mind, all the things that people say. I want to be able to distinguish the truth of you, Lord Jesus, the truth of your Holy Spirit verse all of the things that are not true that I'm hearing in this world.” And if you can just start praying simple prayers like that and asking the Lord to help you distinguish and understand His voice and His spirit, then He's going to give you that gift of the Holy Spirit. He's going to give you discernment and understanding. And the more you practice what is right, the more He will bestow on you the gift of the Holy Spirit and fill you with His spirit instead of you being filled with worldly information, worldly wisdom and worldly things that are sinful.

So we need to make sure that we learn how to do this, to worship God in spirit and in truth and then be able to be a light to others and describe the God of our worship and how we worship Him in spirit and in truth, because we don't worship Jesus how Catholics do, how they have a little Jesus set up on a pedestal and they're worshiping all these idols of saints, of angels and of little icons of Jesus at their church. We don't do that. We're not into idolatry or how different religions of the world do, how they have little idols and they set up their idols in their living room and they worship these idols. We don't do that. We don't make an image to our God and bow down to that image that is idolatry. And the Lord has called us not to do that, not to make a graven image in His name, not to be bowing down to an image that looks like Jesus. We need to be worshiping God in spirit and in truth.

And the same goes for when we pray. You hear a lot of more charismatic Christians speaking about how they hear God in an audible voice. While it is possible that the Lord speaks to you in an audible voice, we have to learn to hear the Holy Spirit in the spiritual realm. And it's very dangerous to think that you as a Christian will just always be hearing God in an audible voice or waiting to hear God in an audible voice. And the reason for that is there's technology on this earth and demons can also speak audibly. So it's easy for someone to think that they heard something audibly when it's actually just from human technology or it's a demon that's speaking in your ear. So when the Holy Spirit speaks to us and when we've learned to hear His voice and we've learned to worship Him in spirit, a demon can't get down to that level. When we know how to distinguish God's voice from an evil spirit or technology of a human or something just speaking into our ear, then we're not going to be deceived because we know the voice that we hear inside of the bottom of our soul, only Jesus can speak there and we have learned His voice there and we will only communicate in the private secret place with our God there. It's important that we learn to hear Him and worship Him in spirit and in truth. That way we are not deceived. A lot of Christians will be deceived when they're hearing some kind of spirit speak into their ear or technology or thoughts they've heard from other people throughout the day and they perceive it in their ear. We need to make sure that we're hearing the Holy Spirit deeper than this in the very core of our soul and our spirit and knowing the God that we serve in spirit and in truth.

So don't be deceived by physical things, physical manifestations. A lot of Christians are just looking for an outward proof and they think that they're going to make disciples by telling people about all these physical things, the physical church, opening a physical Bible, talking about what Jesus physically looks like, physical manifestations of demons and all these things that seem on earth to be sensational but doesn't bring about righteousness that God requires. We need to start really telling people about the righteousness and holiness God requires. He wants us to really repent of our sin, to put on our white robes, to touch nothing that's unclean and to be serving Him with all of our heart. And unless we're doing that, we're not going to be pleasing to God. So let's learn how to worship God in spirit and in truth and receive Him so that the fruit of the Holy Spirit can be displayed through us and we can be a light to others that when they see us, they can understand how Jesus manifests and dwells through us. We are the physicality of Jesus on earth.

Are we learning to understand how to worship God in spirit and in truth? As for myself, I want to continue to have a prayer life where I learn to hear the Lord's voice, where I grow in the depth of my faith and I'm not deceived by physical things in this world. So I want to pray for those of you that want to see spiritually and hear spiritually and worship God in spirit. “Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters who also are coming out of the world, who also are putting on purity and preparing themselves for the wedding supper of the Lamb. I pray that they can learn to worship in spirit and in truth as all of us that are your children are learning to hear your voice and to understand who you are in spirit. So please grant us ears to hear and eyes to see and grant that we may have wisdom beyond our years and understanding that we may please you and worship you on this earth and that we can manifest the things of your Holy Spirit on this earth so that people can see and give God glory and repent of their sins and come out of the darkness and the demonic things of this world. Let us be separate and touch nothing that is unclean, nothing that is dirty or wicked or impure. Let us be your holy children, sanctified for your purpose, that we can please you, Lord, in our life and bring about the righteousness that God requires. We want people to enter into your kingdom and have everlasting life. We pray this in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.”