What did Jesus mean when He was on the cross and He said it is finished?

If Moses or Joshua by The Ten Commandments and by the law could have given the children of Israel true rest and finished salvation, then God would not afterward have spoken of another DAY which brings perfect rest and salvation through the SON. (Hebrews 3-4) 

 BUT there remains a rest for the true people of God and this has been spoken of thoroughly throughout prophecy. This is the finished rest: Whoever enters into a relationship with Jesus Christ the Son of God, has himself also ceased from dead works and come into the true works of faith that God gives each of His children to preform! 

Have you come into a relationship with the Living God through HIS Son Jesus Christ?

Passionate Faith Gone Wrong

 Often Christians are passionate about the wrong things, they condemn others based on their false convictions, poor theology, misinterpretations of what faith really is, and their own restrictive convictions. Avoid being this sort of judgmental and legalistic Christian. These sorts of Christians have no reward from God for their sort of sacrifice. God will reject their sacrifice just as He rejected Kane and his sacrifice.   If you get to know Jesus, you will know the truth and you will not condemn innocent people, but rather you will learn to condemn what is evil and stand up for what is true. These sorts of people GOD honors and all Heaven rejoices for and champions! 

Was the Apostle Paul Saved by Grace but Practicing Sin?

There is this idea in the church culture that people are saved by saying a prayer, and that prayer of salvation saves them no matter what they do. And a lot of the preachers in church, they expand on this deception by reading the words of the Apostle Paul, namely in Romans 7. And the idea is that no one actually is without sin on this earth. Everyone goes on sinning. Yet, if we put our faith in Jesus, then His blood washes over us no matter what we do.

Oftentimes, the pastors will say, “We work at perfection, but we’re never perfect.” But the thing is, guys, they use the words of the Apostle Paul and all of these different passages to actually justify sins that all of us need to truly repent of. Now, what I want to do today is show you the verses that the pastors are using in Romans chapter 7 and then show what the Apostle Paul is actually saying. Because this whole thing about once saved always saved and the words of the Apostle Paul — it’s just so blown out of proportion by the Christian church that people aren’t even receiving the true gospel anymore of repentance and having works of righteousness.

And a lot of Christians have completely confused works of righteousness with works of the law, to the degree that they will say if you think that you have works of righteousness, you’re not saved, because anyone who thinks that they’re being saved by their works is going the salvation-by-works gospel and not by grace. And so they act as though a Christian will not have works of righteousness or they can’t. And they call all their deeds filthy, because they misunderstand what the Apostle Paul was writing when he’s speaking against works of the law for salvation. But there’s a big difference.

So I want to read to you what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 7. I’m going to start in verse 14. “For we know that the law is spiritual.” When we’re speaking about the law here, we’re speaking about the law of Moses, not the laws of the Americans or any other culture, but we’re speaking about the law of Moses. That was those 613 laws in the Torah. “So, we know the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do. If then I do what I will not to do, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells. For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good, I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now, if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”

So what is the Apostle Paul saying here? Is he actually saying that he himself is a hypocrite, and that he’s teaching people to be holy and pure and to not cheat on their wives, to abstain from lust — but is the Apostle Paul really looking at pornography, cheating on his wife, having murderous thoughts? Is he really saying that? Or how is he using himself in this context? Because a lot of the Christian pastors from the pulpits will teach that the Apostle Paul is basically just sharing the same struggle that we all share. All men are looking at pornography. Everyone is cheating on their spouse. Everyone has evil intentions. And then the pastor will say, “But that’s okay because we’re saved by the blood of Jesus.”

Do you see how they have misinterpreted this? When we use a pronoun — I, we, they — it’s not always including us, or it’s not always including you. For example, if I said, “When you climb El Capitan, make sure you bring enough carabiners,” do I actually expect that you, the listener, are climbing El Capitan? Well, probably not. Maybe you have climbed El Capitan, but most likely you haven’t. And when I say “you,” I don’t mean you directly, but I am referring to anyone. Anyone who climbs El Capitan, if they’re going to achieve all 32 pitches, they need to bring enough gear to make the whole ascent.

So likewise, when the Apostle Paul is speaking about himself in this context, he is not saying, “Guys, I am committing atrocities. I’m cheating on my wife. I’m looking at pornography. I’m doing all these evil things, but just know I’m saved by the blood of Jesus.” That absolutely is not his point. But he’s using the first person to apply to any man who is living in the lusts of the flesh and agrees that what the Bible says is true. You agree with your mind that you should stop sinning, but you just can’t. You can’t give up those cigarettes. You can’t give up alcohol. You can’t give up looking at porn. You can’t get sin out of your heart. But you know it’s wrong. There is a disconnect between the spirit — that is our spiritual inward man — and the flesh. That is why every day we can wake up and say, “I want to do good. I want to do good for God.” But then when the crossroads come, we choose evil every time.

That doesn’t mean that Paul is doing this right here in this context. But he’s including himself in that: any man can fall into that category if they’re living according to the flesh and not according to the spirit. So here is the issue, guys. When the Christians read this passage, Romans chapter 7, they’re using it as a proof text to prove that all men have to live according to the flesh, and that as long as you are on this earth, you will be sinning. And they say, “Well, that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Even the Apostle Paul was sinful and he was double-minded and he was a hypocrite.” This is not the point that the Apostle Paul was making.

Now, the conclusion to chapter 7 has to conclude with chapter 8. And if you don’t read chapter 8, you’re missing the whole context of what the Apostle Paul was trying to relay to his listeners, which is: you cannot please God by being a double-minded man, thinking in your mind you want to please God, but then in your heart pleasing the flesh.

And so the solution is not keeping the law according to how a man can try to agree with the law of Moses. See, no one’s going to be made pure by circumcision. No one’s going to be made pure by trying to go to church on Saturday to fulfill the Sabbath law. No one is going to be made pure by not mixing certain fabrics and making sure they keep dietary laws from the Old Testament. No one is going to achieve salvation by the works of the law. That’s the law of Moses, the law of God that was given to Moses for the nation of Israel.

But how is mankind then perfected? Well, this is Paul’s conclusion in chapter 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Now, all the pastors point this out all the time, so I’m not sure why they don’t point this out for Romans. Whenever there is a “therefore,” you have to ask yourself: what is the “therefore” there for? The “therefore” is the conclusion to chapter 7, and you have to read chapter 8 to conclude what the Apostle Paul is saying. That’s what the “therefore” is there for. “So therefore there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

This is the crux of it. If you’re living according to the flesh, you’re of the flesh. But if you live according to the Spirit, then you belong to the Holy Spirit. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin.” Again, the law of Moses couldn’t make people stop sinning. It was weak through the flesh. It actually just brought out the fact that all of us can never keep God’s perfect law. And so that is when Jesus comes on the scene and destroys flesh with His own body being crucified.

“So He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Okay, here again you see demonstrated that the Apostle Paul is not putting himself in the category of not pleasing God. Paul knows full well that you can’t be a hypocrite and say with your mouth that you want to keep the laws of God, but with your heart live in the flesh. The Apostle Paul is practicing righteousness, and he is encouraging people not to think they’re saved by keeping the 613 laws of Torah or Jewish principles, but that they would receive Jesus Christ. This is his whole point of the argument here. You can’t be justified by works of the law, but you will be justified if you put your faith in Jesus and truly repent of your sins and live according to the Spirit, and no longer according to the lusts of your flesh, which includes true repentance.

“So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

So there we have it. If we want to please God, we have to receive what Jesus did on the cross. But we also then have to take up our own cross and live according to the Holy Spirit. All of those who live by the Spirit belong to the Spirit, and they are the children of God. But if you don’t have the Holy Spirit in you, then you’re not of the child of God or the kingdom of God. So if you want to be part of the kingdom of God, it’s not about trying to keep Jewish traditions or Jewish laws or keeping the Torah, but it’s about receiving Jesus, then truly repenting of your sins so that the Holy Spirit can come into your heart, and then you can live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh.

I want to pray for those of you that want to come into the household of faith. Or maybe you’re someone who has backslid and you want to come back to Jesus. Maybe you’re wondering, “Is there hope for me? Is there hope for my salvation?” Maybe you’re thinking that you have messed up too much and now all you hear is condemnation in your ears, but you know you want to get back to Jesus. And so I want to pray for you, that you can cast out your demons in Jesus’s name, that you can be filled with the Spirit of life, and that you can live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh.

So Lord Jesus, I pray for those who have an ear to hear. I pray for the one today who is listening to this message and that wants Your Holy Spirit in their heart to cleanse them from unrighteousness, to purge them from every evil desire. I pray that evil spirits would be cast out in Your name, that we can just speak against everything that is evil and leave it in the dirt, leave it in the dust behind, that we can walk forward in the newness of life with true repentance and true righteousness. I pray that someone today can receive Your message of salvation and put their hope in You and cast out the serpent, cast out Satan, to come into the newness of life. And I pray, Lord, that we would just constantly be filled with Your presence so that the devil would not be able to keep coming through the door and entering. But we want to shut the door to the devil and lock the door to the devil and be filled with Your presence so that no one and nothing else can fill us but Your Spirit and Your truth and Your life.

We want to eat Your flesh and drink Your blood and be nourished by You every single day, having the oil of Your Spirit in us. And we pray to endure with You to the very end. In Your name I pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Why You Shouldn't Serve the god of This World!

Well, praise Jesus everyone. I just have a short message that is on my heart that I want to share. I would like you to imagine something with me, if you will.

Imagine that god called you to be a movie actor and god told you to go into Hollywood and to get famous. And so with all of your might, you went to Hollywood. You did everything you needed to do to become famous. And through your career, you became popular, more famous. You acted in movies. A lot of people looked up to you. They even worshiped you.

Now imagine with me that at some point during your career of movie acting, you start to get dementia. You start to lose your mind. Maybe it's Alzheimer's or something like that. And then you pray and you say, “god, please help me keep my mind. Help me be able to memorize my lines so that I can continue to be in Hollywood and continue to be famous.” But you hear no answer. And so you pray to your god again and no answer. And then you realize your god rejected you. How would that make you feel?

Again, take this example with me. Imagine that god calls you to be a musician. And so with all of your heart, you pursue being a musician, and you compose and you become a famous composer, maybe like Mozart or Beethoven or someone like that. And then you start to lose your hearing and you go deaf. And then you go and you pray and you say, “god, please give me my hearing back so that I can compose music and write more music for you and compel more people into this kingdom.” And you hear that god has rejected you. And because you have failed as a musician, because you lost your ears, you are no longer needed. You are no longer accepted. And you have no value to god.

Imagine with me again. Your god calls you to be a famous athlete, maybe a snowboarder, maybe a BMX or downhill mountain biker, and you put all your effort forward to go full throttle with your sport. And as you get famous in your sport, you get hundreds of thousands of views, millions of views on YouTube. Everyone loves you. Everyone shares your videos. They think you're crazy because you have so much passion for your sport like no one else does. Then imagine you break your neck. Imagine you get injured and you no longer can do your sport. And so then you pray to your god, and you hear nothing from your god. And you say, “god, help me. Let me be able to walk on my legs again. Let me be able to use my arms again. Let me be able to use my muscles again.” And your god says, “No, I have rejected you. You are trash to me. You're no longer valuable to me because you cannot do your duty which I called you to do.” Imagine that.

That is exactly what the god of this world does to us. If we serve Satan and Satan calls us into whatever lust we wanted to give our life to—whether that was a hobby, whether that was music, whatever we used our talent for, but not for the kingdom of heaven, but for the kingdom of Satan—eventually when we lose that skill, because all of us one day will lose our talent, so whatever our ability is, our physical strength, one day that will be lost because all of us are physical beings on this earth. And when that is lost, we no longer have any value to Satan. That is why you see people only for a time climb the ladder and only for a time are popular, and then Satan ends their life. He reaps their souls and he takes them straight to hell. That is the god of this world.

Praise Jesus everyone that we as Christians do not serve Satan. We don't serve the god of this world or the principalities of the air. We serve a God who loves and cares for us because he made us. And just as God is Father, Son, and Spirit, he created us in his image to have a physicality. We have a physical body. So we are like God in that we are three in one. We have a spirit. We have a mind. And we have physical flesh. But all of us—our mind, our body, our spirit—we have to put in submission to the one true God.

And instead of buying Satan's lie that we can follow our lust and dedicate everything to our lust, instead we need to cast our crown before the one true living God and say, “Lord, use me for your heavenly purpose that has value beyond this earth.” And that way when you get old and your physical muscles can no longer climb the mountain or ride in the halfpipe on your skateboard or your mountain bike, then you will still have value because God cherishes you because He made you. Satan did not make you. The devil did not create you. We have a creator in heaven and we were created in God's image.

We're not monkeys. We're not cats. We're not the creation of the earth. Animals belong to the earth and their spirit belongs to this earth. When an animal dies, its flesh rots in the ground and its spirit belongs to the earth. But when a human dies, our flesh goes into the grave, but our spirit goes to be with the Spirit of God. That is if we had our faith in Jesus and if we dedicated our spirit to the Spirit of life.

Sadly, most people are dedicating their life to Satan, and they will be rejected by Satan in the end because Satan hates you. He hates me. He hates people that worship him. It doesn't matter how loyal you are to Satan. It doesn't matter how good-looking you are. It doesn't matter how much you shed innocent blood for Satan. He will continue to hate you no matter how evil or how good you are. It is difficult to serve a god that hates your guts.

So why would we serve Satan? One day we will lose our physical capability. We will not be able to rely on the arm of our flesh. And at that moment, if we were not serving God, we will realize that our God despised us and hated us and rejected us long ago. And we have no hope. The sons and the daughters of this world have no hope. They put their hope in the arm of the flesh, they put their hope in their sports, their education. They put their hope in physical money, in the banks. They put their hope in their family that can't save them in the end either. All of their hopes are in things that are vanishing, like vapor. They put their hope in chasing after a rainbow, and they never get there. All the hopes of this world are vanishing.

But guess what? We know the end of the story if we've read the Bible. We know that our God wins. We know Jehovah God wins. We know that the serpent may bruise our heel, but we crush his head. That is, if we're with Jesus. Jesus crushes the head of the serpent. In the end, Jesus wins. The devil doesn't win, but he will take many Christians to hell who had their faith in the arm of the flesh, who trusted in their own riches, who trusted in their own might, who are trying to pull themselves up by the laces of their own bootstraps.

Is our trust really in Jesus, or have we put our trust in the arm of the flesh? I hope this message can encourage someone to not serve the god of the world, but put their faith in the God of the universe—the God that created you, me, and every single person; who created us in his image; and who loves us unconditionally because we are his most cherished creation. Satan didn't create you. Satan didn't create me. Evolution didn't create us. We're not here by chance. We have a creator who created us and who loves us and will love us even to the end.

But we do have to trust him and obey him. Cast our crowns before him. And everything we do, we have to do for the glory of God. It reminds me of that parable of the men that were given talents. And the one that was given more talents, he gained even more talents with that. But the one fellow who only had one talent, he thought he would play it safe. And he took his one talent and he buried it in the ground. And he said, “I'm going to play it safe.” And when my master returns, I will just give this one talent back to him. But when the master came and asked for the talent, this lazy servant had nothing to give except the one talent back. And the master said, “Take from what is his and give it to the one that has 10 talents and cast him out into outer darkness where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

We cannot play it safe. God hasn’t called us to just hide our talents and use it for our own ability but rather to call people into the marvelous light. Remember the Great Commission, which sometimes is referred to as the Great Commission is to call all people, nations, and tongues to put their faith in Jesus Christ.

We want people to follow Jesus because all power and all authority has been given to him. Therefore, we want to go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus says—not the way of church, not the way of Christian Bible study or Christian religion or their tradition. A lot of Christians are following the way of their fathers that never heard from Jesus. They’re following their traditions. But we want to teach people to trust and obey Jesus so that they will have life, that more may hear the master’s voice, be his sheep, and enter into his kingdom.

In this world, everyone thinks it’s cool to be a wolf. They look down on sheep. But little do they know that the wolf—the leader of the wolves, the pack leader—hates them just as much as he hates the sheep. He hates the wolf, and he takes both sheep and wolves to hell that will follow him.

Follow the one that loves you and cares for your soul. Follow the one who we already know wins in the end. His name is Jesus. He loves you. He cares for you. And if you have a desire to go the right direction, then pray to Jesus. Ask him to cleanse you from unrighteousness. Ask him to help you repent of your sins, that you can confess your sins and do a 180 and then follow him with all of your heart.

So I want to pray for those of you that want an ear to hear and eyes to see so that we won’t be deceived by Satan, the god of this world, who only “loves" people—“loves” people—as long as they look like they're doing good for him.

So Lord Jesus, I pray for those who have an ear to hear and eyes to see today. I pray for someone who may hear this message and wants to get rid of their demons, who wants to cast evil out of their life, who wants to bind Satan as the strong man and be able to attack and take back what is theirs—taking back our faith, taking back our relationship with you, taking back a sound mind, taking back our peace, all of the things that Satan steals when we give our life over to the bondage of sin.

I pray that someone hearing this message today could renounce evil, could renounce their addictions, could renounce sin and come into your marvelous light. I pray for those that want an ear to hear, that want eyes to see, that want restoration with you, Lord Jesus. I pray that you can come and touch their heart, purify them from unrighteousness, and lead them and guide them into everlasting life. I pray that we can hear your voice, be your sheep, and that we would eat your flesh and drink your blood and not be a part of the harlot church system or dead religion or things that draw our hearts away from your kingdom. I pray this in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

YES, the Christian Church is Full of Hypocrites

There's no doubt in my mind that if I lived during the same time as the Apostle Paul or Timothy or Silas or any of these early apostles that were in the church, if I lived during that same time and was an acquaintance or a friend of Paul or Timothy or Barnabas, if I also had written letters, people would be reading those today. And although they actually don't have my same spirit—that is, the Spirit of God in me working—they would agree with those letters. They would try to align them with their theology.

But guess what, guys? I didn’t live 2,000 years ago. I’m still alive today, and I am preaching the gospel of Jesus today. And this is what I can say: the majority of people that think that they are for Paul and for his letters and for all the Old Testament prophets, they’re actually in stark contradiction to them. The only reason they uphold them is because they would be called a heretic by their church. If they were actually fighting against Paul or Timothy or any of these books of the Bible, they’d be called a heretic. They wouldn’t have a job.

So the best these people can do—when I say these people, I mean Christians, theologians, pastors in the church today—the very best they can do is pretend that they agree with Paul and with Timothy and with the books of the New Testament and with the prophets of the Old Testament. And when they come across those pages that they don’t agree with, they leave those pages out or they interpret them in such a way that they totally twist it to mean something it never meant.

Now, here is the great thing: because I am alive today, I can stand up for the true gospel of Jesus. I can say that the church of today is not preaching the same gospel as the Apostle Paul. They are not in the same truth or in the same Spirit as the holy prophets. They are not in the same Spirit of Jesus. They are in rebellion. They are the Laodicean church. They’re the lukewarm church.

If the prophets were alive today, they would hate them. They would slander them. They likely would have them thrown in prison. They would beat them the same way that their fathers beat them in the times of old. These people that have already passed away in faith can no longer stand up for themselves because they are dead. They’re gone, and their soul is in heaven with Jesus—thank goodness.

But for those of us who are still alive and remain, it is our duty to preach righteousness—not in the twisted way pretending that we are friends with the apostles and with the holy prophets, but it is our duty to stand with Jesus even in opposition. And so today I am telling you that the American church and the churches at large are against the prophets. They would kill them today if they walked into their church, or at least have them thrown out. They are against the New Testament. They are against the words of Jesus.

And all of the apostles, all of the brothers and sisters who really love Jesus—the church of today flat out rejects for their doctrines, for their doctrines of demons. The old church, that is, those that really were Christ's body, those who were doing His work—work such as the Apostle Paul and Barnabas and Titus—these guys really loved the Lord with all of their heart. They weren’t telling people that it’s “once saved, always saved” or “believe in John MacArthur” or “just believe in John Calvin.” They weren’t teaching this Calvinistic theology. They weren’t teaching that.

Now, you could twist Paul’s theology to try to come up with some kind of Calvinistic theology or some kind of predestination theology, but that is not the true gospel, guys. Jesus called us to really repent of our sins, and that unless we endured with Him, taking up our cross and following Him to the end of our life, we would not inherit everlasting life. We wouldn’t be worthy of Him and His calling.

So many Christians today are promoting the Bible. They worship the Bible. They worship the old church fathers as if they agree with them. But they are in stark contradiction to everyone who really loved Jesus and who was dedicated to the Way. These people persecute the Way in the same way that the Pharisees and the Sadducees did, in the same way that every wicked person who hated God did. And the Christians today are no different. They are Pharisees. They are lukewarm. They are Laodicean, and they have blood on their hands because they say that they believe and accept the testimony of Jesus. They say that they’re friends with the prophets, but in reality they hate them every bit as much as the Pharisees and the religious Jews hated Jesus and all of the original disciples. They have blood on their hands.

How about you? Do you really love Jesus? Are you dedicated to Jesus Christ in the true gospel? Or have you sold out to the marketable gospel—the gospel that makes money for Americans? The gospel that makes people look good, that sounds good, that’s socially acceptable. The gospel that says, “Once saved, always saved, brother, God just pinned it all up on the cross when Jesus died. Now you don’t have to do anything but lust. Now you don’t have to do anything but look at porn and you’ll go to heaven.” Brother, have you bought into that gospel?

Too many Christians are completely deceived. They’re listening to every spirit. They have convinced themselves that they’re like Bereans, that they’re more noble, seeking the truth because they read the Bible. I want to read to you what Jesus said about those who read the Bible thinking that they’re more biblical. This is what Jesus said in John chapter 5 to the Pharisees who also read the Bible:

“And ye have not His word abiding in you; for whom He hath sent Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and they are they that testify of Me. And you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

So are we coming to Jesus, or are we acting like the pursuit of finding God is actually righteous? Are we pretending that this pursuit of becoming a good Christian is righteous in and of itself? Even New Age people believe that. They act like they are these pilgrims looking for truth and that we should deify the pursuit of truth. That’s not the truth. The pursuit of truth is not the truth. Jesus is the Truth. We know who the Truth is. Jesus Himself is the Truth. He’s the Life and He’s the Way. And unless you follow Him—unless you actually follow Him—you don’t have life in you. Unless you bear your cross daily, deny yourself, and go after Him, you do not have life.

Stop believing the apostate Babylon church. Come out of her. Be separate. Touch not what is unclean. Allow Jesus to come into your life and purge you from sin. Purge you from all the evil that you put into your mind through music and movies and sermons, Bible study that wasn’t of God, men’s ideas. Be purged of all of that junk. Be purged of the dung and come to follow Jesus and obey Him. Store His words up in your heart. Meditate on Jesus’s words. Read the gospel and then live like you mean it—that you will obey Jesus with every last breath you have, with all your energy, all your passion, all your devotion. Give it to Jesus.

But if you don’t have life in Him, if you’re not practicing obedience, how do you think that you as a lukewarm Laodicean Christian will be able to stand before God and say, “Let me in, Jesus. I preach sermons. I listen to sermons”? How do you feel entitled to go to heaven if you are not fully dedicated to the Way such as the Apostle Paul was, and Peter, and Timothy, and all of these people that were dedicated to the gospel and gave their life for it? How do you feel so entitled that you’re safe and secure and going to heaven and your name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life when you have never even heard that your name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life? How are you so sure that you’re safe and secure going to heaven? It’s probably because you believed your pastor’s lies, your church doctrine, maybe your parents who tried to assure you of their religion. But did you really hear it from Jesus? Do you know that your name is in the registry of heaven? Is your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life? Do you know Jesus? And more importantly, do you know that Jesus knows you and approves of the life that you are living today?

Should a Dedicated Christian Preach CHURCH?

 I am a dedicated Christian, or rather a disciple who obeys Jesus. I am dedicated to obey the Lord every single day. And I choose to daily pick up my cross and live by the words of Jesus. I’ve read the New Testament many times. I know the words of Jesus and, the best I possibly can, I put the words of Jesus Christ into action in my life.

I also want to see other people repent, turn from their sin, turn from doing what they know is wrong, and do what is right. I want to see marriages that flourish and are healed. I want to see spouses who really love one another and who raise their family, who teach their children to obey God. I want to see communities changed. And like you, I want to see more people come into the household of faith.

But there is something that is different about me, and that is although I am a Christian, although my loyalty is to Jesus, I cannot in good conscience preach church. I can’t tell people that a revival is happening in church. I cannot go and tell people, “Find a good gathering of Christians and get in there.” Why is that? Why don’t I tell people, like everyone else, to go find a support group, to go find other Christians?

That is because the Christian church of today is the Babylon church system. The devil has infiltrated it. The devil is inside the church. And my testimony is that when I put my faith fully in Jesus, He called me out of the church that I was in. And He told me that the church system was as a prostitute or a harlot, as a whorehouse. Because as men go to a prostitute for sex, and it’s not true love, the world is going to church not to really find the truth, not to really repent and follow Jesus, but for sensuality.

And today the Babylon church, or Babylon the Great, the great harlot, is deceiving the whole world. Babylon the Great, or the church Babylon system, is the wide path to hell. It’s the wide path to destruction. And many Christians are on this path. Many Christians preach, “Go to church, find a gathering, find a good church, don’t give up the fellowship.”

But I preach Jesus Christ—that He died, He resurrected. But more than that, you have to personally know Him, hear His voice, and follow Him. And you can’t touch things that are unclean. The Babylon church system is unclean. And those that sleep in her bed are defiled.

I had a dream last night that I saw someone and their family that I knew, someone in the community. I did not know that they were Christians, but in my dream, they had gone to church only because it was the time that they would have pictures taken of their family, and then those pictures would go into the church directory. The only reason why they wanted their pictures taken is so that then when others would see their picture in the church directory, they would recognize their face and say, “Oh, they’re good churchgoing people. I’ll support their business.”

The church runs just as a business. The church plays the prostitute. They’re about their own business, their own kingdom. But if we really love Jesus, we will be separate. We will not touch what is unclean. We will stop going into the prostitute house, and we will start holding Jesus’ hand and revealing the wickedness of the Babylon church system.

So my question for you today is: Do you see it? Do you see the hypocrisy in church, or are you deceived by Babylon the Great like the majority of the Christians? Or have you been so turned off by church, like much of the world, that you have rejected Jesus because of the hypocrisy of Babylon the Great?

I want to encourage you today to come into the hands of Jesus. He loves you. He cares for you. But He also calls us to touch nothing that is unclean. If we choose to receive Him and push off the world and come out of the world, He will cleanse us from our unrighteousness. He will purge us. He will put on our new robes. He will give us a new mind and a new heart. And then we have to go with Him and endure with Him through trials, tribulations, even to the very end of our life—even if no one else goes with us.

I’m sure that I look silly making this message. I’m sure there are people who will disagree. But I don’t care. It is my goal to please Jesus and to honor Him and to please Him to the very end of my life.

Howard Pittman's testimony

 In a near-death experience this is what God told Howard Pitman, verbatim, although he was a good Baptist preacher and teacher with many Christian works: 

"Your faith is dead

your works are in vain

 the life that you lived and offered to Me as a life of Christian service is an Abomination that I rejected in the Pharisee 

What made you think I would accept it from a Laodicean type Christian?

 Infact, untold millions are living the same kind of life that you live and they stand in danger of my Everlasting Wrath"  - The Living God 

The unsettling truth about Christianity

 I would hope that everyone in our government would become Christians. I would hope that everyone would be a supporter of pro-life and against abortion. I would hope that everyone would be against illegal immigration and against drugs and alcohol and sex outside of marriage, fornication, and adultery. All of these principles I wish the whole world was for.

However, just because you are a Christian patriot or you are a Christian activist or you believe in the principles of Christianity is not in and of itself enough to enter into the kingdom of God. Remember that Jesus Himself said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of God, but those that do the will of my Father in heaven."

We need to make sure that we have a very intimate and real relationship with Jesus such as Steven did, such as even the apostle Paul did who previously was killing Christians. We need to make sure that we have received the Spirit of truth and that we are doing exactly what the Spirit of truth is calling us to do. Too many Christians are serving God their way and they appear godly before men, but they're not fruitful for the kingdom of God.

This is very sad because there are very, very good men. Men that are doing wonderful things. And I would hope that there are more good men and more good women. But being good in and of itself does not bring about the righteousness that God wants for us. The way to everlasting life is already known. It is already been made. And that way is through Jesus.

But we can't just believe in the cross. All of us as Christians know that Jesus died. He resurrected. He made the way for us through His blood on the cross. But the portion of the gospel that is not being taught or followed rather in church is that we also have to bear our cross. Whoever does not bear their cross is not worthy of the kingdom of God. They're not worthy of Jesus because they're not proving their salvation by what they do. They have no fruit to prove their repentance.

Too many Christians think everything was pinned on the cross. They think they're entitled to go to heaven because they said a prayer in the past and now they're just going to heaven. Without a daily relationship with Jesus, we are not eating His flesh nor drinking His blood. We're not living on the daily.

Make sure that you have a real relationship with Jesus. Make sure that you have really repented of your sins because without righteousness and without this daily bread from God, you certainly aren't entering into heaven. Even if you're a Christian activist, even if you're going to church, paying tithes, doing all these good things in the world, you need Jesus.

Jesus is the way to everlasting life. You need to profess Him as your Lord, your King, your Savior, your God. You need to say, "Lord Jesus, open my eyes to see you. Open my ears to hear you. I profess you as my Savior." And then you need to hold on to Him and obey everything He tells you to do. You cannot serve God your way. Too many Christians are serving God their own way. They're bringing their own sacrifice to God. It's called the Cain sacrifice.

But how do we sacrifice like Abel? How do we bring the sacrifice that God accepts, not the sacrifice that we bring to God that He rejects? Remember that Cain also brought a sacrifice, but God rejected that. We want to bring the sacrifice to God that is well pleasing to Him. And we know that comes by obeying the words of Jesus.

Are you today obeying the words of Jesus? Are you a fruitful son or daughter who is in connection to God through the Son? Or do you just feel entitled to go to heaven? Believe that you're going to heaven because you have good deeds, because you speak a lot about God, because you read the Bible, you lead Bible study, you go to church. Do you feel like you're going to heaven because of your deeds?

Or are you entering into the kingdom of God because you're holding Jesus's hand and he is leading you there? Make sure you're not deceived by Christian patriotism or by Christian activism or by just being a good Christian that goes to church. Make sure that you really repent, that you receive Jesus as your Lord, your King, your God, and that you're led by His Holy Spirit. Unless you're eating Jesus's flesh and drinking His blood, you have no life.

Combating Trite and Cliche Christianity

 Combating Trite and Cliche Christianity

Well, praise Jesus. Today, everyone, I wanted to make a video on this topic about combating against trite Christianity and cliché Christianity.

Because Christianity, for many people, has become just a religion. It's become very fake. It's all about church, all about the book, all about tithing, all about things that do not have life in it. But genuine Christianity is all about Jesus, the living God, and a working relationship with Him.

Now, there are some sayings that go around in the Christian church that are just very cliché, very trite. And I often hear Christians saying these sayings, and it just makes me sad, because these Christians may have a good heart, they may want to know the truth, but they're very deceived by dead religion, and they're stunted in their faith.

I want to read to you just a few of these clichés you've probably heard in church, and then I want to talk about one of them in particular. One of the clichés that you hear Christians saying is: “God won't give you more than you can handle.” Have you heard that one? It's just kind of a trite saying. It's kind of this saying that everyone has heard in church, and it doesn't really mean anything to anyone anymore.

Or how about: “Everything happens in God's kingdom for a reason”? Or how about: “Just have faith, brother, just have faith”? Or how about this one: “Love the sinner but hate the sin”? That's how it goes.

Okay, so how about: “Well, God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.” That's one of those clichés that you hear the pastor say and then the congregation echo. The pastor says: “God is good,” and then the congregation says: “All the time. All the time, God is good.” Well, of course, He is. But what does that mean to us?

How about this one: “When God closes a door, He opens a window”?

But here is the one that I want to talk about. Here's a cliché that I heard someone say the other day, and that is: “We just got to continue to be faithful.” I've heard a lot of Christians say that: “We just have to continue to be faithful.” Praise Jesus, everyone.

This statement begs: what do we think that it means to be faithful? What does it mean to be faithful or to have faith? Does faith just mean that you are faithful to your religion, that you're faithful to your way of life, that you're faithful to the Bible? What does it mean to have faith?

To a lot of my ancestors, to be faithful just meant to keep up your church faithfully, to read the Bible faithfully. When my mom was a little girl, my grandpa told my mom—actually he made her promise—that she would read the Bible faithfully every day, because to my grandparents, faith meant reading the Bible religiously, memorizing Bible verses.

I remember when my grandpa would come over—before we would get up from the table, whether it was breakfast or dinner—we had to quote a Bible verse. And if you couldn’t quote a Bible verse, you couldn't get up from breakfast or dinner. You just had to quote that verse before you got up. So we would always try to find verses in the Bible that were short, like “Jesus wept,” or something like that, because it was just something to check off the list, to get done. But that, to people in my family, was equated with faith.

A few things that make up a false faith are a faith in church attendance—thinking that you're faithful because you go to church, thinking that you're faithful because you read the Bible, thinking that you're faithful because you tithe, or thinking that you're faithful because you regularly donate to your community or go on mission trips or something like that.

But I want to talk about what true faith is. What does it mean to actually be faithful? And if we say we just got to continue to be faithful, what does that actually mean?

I want to read to you what Jesus said about this in Matthew chapter 24, because it means something very particular to be one of God's faithful ones. This is titled “The Faithful Servant and the Evil Servant.” So, let's figure out what they're doing to be faithful or evil.

“Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season?” That's interesting, because that means that if we are faithful, we are communing with God. You can't be receiving food unless you're eating food. And we know that that spiritual food is the bread of life which comes down from heaven. Jesus claimed to be that bread of life.

He is our communion. That's why we eat Jesus's flesh and drink His blood. Communion is not the holy Eucharist eaten in the Catholic church. And it's not that bread and grape juice that you have once a month in the Baptist church. But real communion is hearing from God in your soul. Remember that Jesus said: “Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

So, number one: if you are God's faithful son or daughter, you're communing with Jesus, you've received His Holy Spirit, and you're not just living on bread and wine, but you're living on Jesus's body. You're eating His flesh, you're drinking His blood because you hear His voice and you're putting into practice the things that He tells you to obey.

And if you're doing that, if you're eating Jesus's flesh and drinking His blood, then you are also doing something. You are telling others, or you're feeding others. You're telling others the things that Jesus has told you, because you love your neighbor as you love yourself. That's why Jesus says to give them food in due season.

The day in which we're living, very, very few Christians are bringing sinners to repentance. They're bringing sinners to church, and they're gladly telling those sinners that everyone is a sinner. And they're right—everyone in their church is a sinner. But where they go wrong is telling sinners that they don't have to repent. If sinners remain sinners, and they're just faithful to their church to continue to sin, then no one is eating Jesus's flesh, no one is drinking His blood, no one is being nourished, and no one is hearing those words of life that will bring them into the new covenant.

So first, if we are faithful, we need to be eating Jesus's flesh. And then we need to be preaching the gospel, calling others to repent, calling others to the holy life that they may also repent of their sins and also be in communion with God.

What Jesus says about that servant is: “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.” But as we know, when Jesus comes, will He find faith on the earth? Very few people will be doing what He called, because they are part of this false faithfulness—this really trite and cliché faithfulness that just says: “Just go to church, brother. Just pay your tithe, brother. Just read the Bible, brother.” But it's a very trite, fake Christianity, and we don't want to fall into that.

“Assuredly I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods.” But then, on the other hand, what does Jesus say to the trite or the cliché Christian—the one who is not really abiding in His love, the one who is not eating His flesh, drinking His blood, or calling others to repent?

“But if that evil servant says in his heart: ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

So those that do good in the eyes of God and have genuine faith—they are greatly rewarded. But those that do evil, that are sinful in the eyes of God—they are not rewarded. They're cut in two and they're assigned their portion with the hypocrites.

There is a false gospel going on in the church right now that says: “All of us are sinners, and God just loves everyone the same, and He will just allow everyone into heaven.” This is a false doctrine, guys. Why do we think hell even exists if everyone goes to heaven?

Christians will have another cliché saying. They will say: “Well, hell was created for those demons and for Satan. It wasn't created for humans.” Well, that is true. But why do humans end up in hell? It is because so many, even Christians, have chosen to reject salvation by living trite and godless lives. They love darkness more than the truth because their deeds are evil. They refuse to repent. They refuse to call other Christians to repentance. And instead, they are drawing them into this dead, trite religion.

We need to call people out of this trite and dead, cliché religion and call people to really commune with God so that they can be alive—that they can also eat Jesus's flesh, drink His blood, and be part of the new covenant. You need to be part of the new covenant if you want new life.

Remember that Jesus calls us to be a new creation—that the old would be put in the grave, that the old man would be killed, put to death, and that the new man, the spiritual man, would come to life.

If we allow the Spirit to come to life in us, then He will lead us into everlasting life. We won't be trite Christians or cliché, but we will be living on that bread of life, and we'll also be encouraging fellow brothers and sisters with the words that we have heard when we are in prayer.

Have you been in prayer? Have you been listening to the Holy Spirit? Have you been putting the words of Jesus into action in your life? Or do you only have these trite sayings: “God won't give you more than you can handle. Everything happens for a reason. Just have faith. We got to continue to be faithful, brother.”

Are these the false cliché sayings that are coming off of your tongue as a Christian? Or do you have the real sayings of Jesus in your heart because you have been in prayer and you yourself have been in communion with God?

I want to pray for those of you that want communion with God and that want to repent of your sins and live in the newness of life.

“ Lord Jesus, I pray for my brothers and sisters who want genuine faith, who want to be separate from the world of perversion, hatred of God, every kind of corruption and wickedness. I pray that they would just come out of what is evil and do what is good, that You would save their souls, that they would come out of the smoke of the burning fire, and that they would come into the newness of life, and that You would save them from the flames.

I pray that someone listening today could give their life to You, that they would really repent of their sins and learn to hear Your voice and eat Your flesh and drink Your blood and come into the new covenant. The new covenant, Lord, we know is what saves us. It is Your blood, what You have done for us on the cross.

And we want to accept You, Lord Jesus, as our Lord and our Savior. And we want to follow You wherever You lead us. So I pray for those that are listening today, that someone may give their life to You and repent from dead religion and cliché Christianity and really follow You with all of their heart.

In Your name I pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.”

What is a good church?

 A church is only as good as the people that are there. If you want to be good you have to be obedient to Jesus Christ and abide in His love.  None of us are good on our own. But if we repent and receive the Holy Spirit, which comes from the Father, He will refine us and make us please to GOD!

Be sure your sin will find you out

 You can be sure that your sin will find you out sooner or later. Pray that it finds you out sooner so that you can reconcile with God before you end up dead.

You need more than a good name in the community: here is why

 

Jesus Should be Guiding You NOT Others

 

End Times Warning to Prepare

  I dreamed last night of the devil's persecution of Christians and many people turning away and of liars rising who spoke strongly against the truth of Jesus Christ, causing virtually everyone to fall away from the true faith. I saw a prominent Jew in this vision who was leading in this rebellion. I also saw waters polluted, bad fish and companies who were intentionally poisoning food and people becoming sick. But we know all these things are already happening in the world. Will we as the body of Christ take a stand for the truth even if persecution rises against us? Will we stand with Jesus? Will we love Him with all of our heart and let out light shine for Him? Or will our hearts fail for fear of the things coming upon this Earth?  Will our hearts become become cold and without direction, believing the sent out agents of Satan? 

Repentance is not just baptism and rebaptism

 Repentance is not Just Baptism and Re-baptism

I wanted to share just a short message about baptism and true repentance and what it means and what it doesn't. When I was a youth pastor, I used to bring groups of kids up to camp, and I remember that some of the same kids would make the same decisions to follow Jesus and repent every year, and then they'd fall back into the same sins, and then the next year do it all over again until all of the church staff, all of the youth leaders realized that probably these kids aren't serious. And of course, as these kids then grew to adulthood, nothing changed; it was still the same cycle.

What happens is you get a conviction, praise Jesus everyone, and at camp you hear the preacher, or you go to big church, and you're convicted, and the pastor gives the altar call, so you go to the front, you get prayed for, and you say, "Lord, I confess my sins," and someone should come pray with, and the pastors surround you, they pray for you, and you feel really good at that camp, at that moment up on the mountain, you feel great. But then you go back down the hill, and then life happens, you go back to sin, you feel guilty, and so what do you do? The very next year you go to camp again, you hear the preacher, and you feel conviction again, so you go back up to the altar, and you repent again, and you ask Jesus into your heart. Now I see this same cycle not just with junior high or high school students, but I now see it with adults, and somehow they're trying to appease conscience before God by baptism and rebaptism, repentance and re-repentance, but the thing is they're still stuck in this cycle of sinning. Then after they sin, they feel guilty, so they say, "What do I do? I'll find someone to pray for me, I'll find someone to cast out my demons, I'll find someone to rebaptize me," and so they go and find a preacher to preach at them, to cast out their demons, to pray with them, to rebaptize them, and they're just like that junior high kid that I took to camp many years ago. As soon as they go through the ritual of the rebaptism and the re-repentance, they feel good about themselves, and they relapse a day later, and the cycle begins over again.

Jesus did not come to die on the cross, to resurrect in three days, to only set you free to go right back into the sin cycle. Remember how Jesus talked about how a dog goes back to the vomit, a sinner goes back to his sin like a dog goes back to the vomit, and Jesus said, "Whoever sins is a slave of sin, but whoever is set free is set free indeed." And the Son of God came to set sinners free from sin so they would not keep on breaking the law of God and then falling into sin and feeling guilty and then doing it all over again. Of course, none of us are perfect; we read in John 3 about how the condemnation isn't that we weren't perfect, but that people love darkness more than the light of the truth because their deeds were evil. So we can't just say to ourselves, “well, we're going to repent one time, and then we're going to be forever perfect, so we never have to confess”; that's not what I'm saying. But when we are serious to follow Jesus, the Son of God starts setting us free from these sins, some of the very obvious sins first, like a profane tongue, slander, you know, gossip, hatred of others, lustful thoughts, pornography, all these sorts of sins that haunt men and women, we are set free of those, and then those other sins that we didn't even know about, the Lord starts to convict us of those things, relationships, things that we were doing throughout our day that were unfruitful, and as we continue to walk with the Lord, he purges us and purifies us and cleanses us from unrighteousness, and he renews our mind and restores our conscience.

But what if you are like the Christian who I knew in junior high who continues to go to camp to feel convicted, to repent, and go right back to it? What if you're like the Christian who continues to think that you have to be rebaptized in different water by a different person to baptize you in order to feel spiritual? Then you have a problem because you're putting your faith in something that's not real. You keep on thinking you're going to jumpstart true faith by just getting baptized again, by going to another confession again, by going to another altar again, but you're still falling into sin. It reminds me also of the parable that Jesus taught about the person going to war, that king who has to decide if he has enough to wage war against another king, or does he first go and try to see if he can make peace, and every single person has to find in themselves if they really want to walk with Jesus and count the cost, or if they're not going to count the cost of discipleship.

Do you have in you what it takes to really repent and desire righteousness? I hope that for you repentance is real because for too many people it just ends up being this cycle of feeling guilty, so they repent, and they go right back to sin, but Jesus has promised a better way of setting you free so that you can be free from this indeed, and that you can go and tell other people that you have been set free from your demons, just as Jesus set people free of their demons in his day, he will also set you free if you're serious. So we want to pray for those of you that are serious that want to be set free. If you haven't ever been baptized, I do encourage you to be baptized, but being baptized over and over again is not the solution for you to make up your mind to be holy and pure. You have to set in your heart just to do it, set in your heart to follow Jesus, and then start getting those things that you know are sinful out of your life that you can live in holiness. 

So I want to pray for those of you that don't want to be stuck in the sin cycle anymore, but that want to be set free in Jesus's name and choose to walk forward with him, not as those that walk in darkness, but those that walk in the light. So “Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters who want genuine repentance, that have tried to repent before, but who have continued to fall into the world, who have backslid. I pray that you would pick them up, that you would save them from their sins, that you would cleanse them from unrighteousness, and that they could enter back into your kingdom, that you would purify their heart and their mind, and they would walk in the newness of life, and that you would purge them and purify them and continue to cleanse them from unrighteousness, that they can walk with their new robes, ready for the marriage supper of the lamb, that they can be ready for you, and not like those who don't have on their robes or who you turn away at the door because they never got ready. So I pray for my fellow brethren who desire righteousness, and I pray that more people come into the household of faith in your name. I pray, Lord Jesus, amen.”

It's all about making up your mind, guys. It's incredible what the mind can do to convince yourself that you can't repent. People will say, "Well, I have a demon, so I can't repent." They will say, "Well, I have family members that cause me to sin, and I can't leave them." And so your mind can easily do these gymnastics to make you think that it's impossible to repent, but for those of us that have faith, we put our faith in the Lord, and what's impossible for us is possible with God, and if you believe that God can do anything, then you can believe that he can set you free from sin. If you believe that he resurrected a man from the grave, and that he was resurrected on the third day by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that he gave the disciples the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, if you believe all these things, surely you have faith enough to believe he can set you free from your demons, your lust, whatever it is that haunts you, he can set you free if you have faith to believe. But if you're like those that have no faith, remember in the Gospels we heard that those places that disbelieved in Jesus, Jesus could do no mighty work there, he could do no miracles in those towns because of people's lack of faith. If you lack faith, you're not going to see miracles, you're not going to see God's work in your life. If you start believing the devil that your demons are stronger than God, and your demons are going to take you to hell, and that you're worthless, then you're not going to be able to walk in the light, but if you believe Jesus cares for your soul, and he loves you, if you believe the gospel message, then you can hold fast to your faith in Jesus, and you can overcome sin because Jesus has already made the way through his death and his resurrection, called the atonement, he's already made the way for us to be sanctified.

But you have to choose to make up your mind, be like that king who makes up his mind to come against the other king and go to battle, start waging war, start feeding your spirit and not your flesh. Too many people think, "Why is my flesh winning?" And all they've fed all day is their flesh, day after day, so no wonder why your flesh is winning when you haven't prayed, when you haven't given yourself to Jesus. No wonder your flesh wins every day, every day is because the man that you feed is the one that's going to win. So are you feeding your flesh, are you feeding your spirit, are you speaking the words of life because the words of life are in you, or are you speaking in the tongue of Satan, cursing? It's crazy how Christians profess Jesus, but their tongue is brackish, their tongue is salt water, yet they think it's also pure water. They speak all sorts of blasphemies against God, they're always cursing, every cuss word comes out of their mouth, yet they think that they're Christians. This should not be named in the kingdom of God. If you put your faith in Jesus, he cleans up your mouth, he cleans up your mind, he gives you new thoughts, your thoughts are on the kingdom of God, they're not in the gutter, you're not contemplating the next dirty joke or how you're going to abuse someone or think evil of someone. Love is righteous, pure, holy.

So we need to focus on the things that are good, and as we focus on the kingdom of God and him cleansing us, he will make us that man or that new woman that he wants us to be.

Yes, to believe is to truly obey. A lot of Christians say, "Well, look at John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth," and they think believeth just means that you believe something about Jesus without any true obedience, but it's clear that faith without obedience is a dead sort of faith. The devil also believes that way about God, he believes God exists, he believes Jesus died and resurrected, that doesn't mean the devil's going to heaven, and neither are those that follow after God only with their lips but not with their actions. Faith without works is truly dead.

I see your comment there about should you wait on the Lord to be baptized or go to a church to be baptized. I can't really give you any guidance there because if you believe that Jesus resurrected from the dead and believe that the Holy Spirit is real and that he blesses people with the gift of the Holy Spirit, you have to also have faith that the spirit of life will guide you in the right direction. So I can't tell you go here or there to be baptized, but if you do believe in Jesus, you need to just pray to him and say, "Lord Jesus, please give me the guidance of where to go to be baptized," and if you have faith in Jesus, then you'll have faith to also believe he will send you the right direction for baptism. But I can't guide you in where to go, but pray and seek the Lord because I know Jesus is the good shepherd, he is our guide, and he will lead you in the right direction. He's the light to our path.

Yes, people get really hung up on that, they say, "Where do I go to be baptized?" And they have no faith that God could even send them someone or somewhere to go to be baptized. But we believe that Jesus resurrected from the dead and he worked all these wondrous miracles, if we believe that he is and he's done all these things, then surely we can believe he can send us water and someone to baptize us, so put your faith in him, wait upon him, and he will guide your path.

I see one of your comments there that you're finding it hard to follow God and repent. If you haven't totally counted the cost, Satan will play a lot of mind games with you, he will start saying it's too hard to repent, it's impossible to repent, you will have no life, you'll have no joy if you truly do it, and you'll be caught in the middle. It's like how James says you'll be tossed to and fro by the waves of the sea and by the wind. So if you're on the fence about it, you have to make up your mind to follow Jesus and stop being pushed back and forth because what's happening is you're listening to your flesh, and your flesh is saying one thing, and then you listen to your spirit, you're listening to the spirit of life speaking to your spirit, and then you want to repent, and then it's too hard because you listen to your flesh. You're going to have to stop riding the fence and make up your mind if you will follow the spirit of life or the spirit of the world.

But it's a strong deception in the world, people are very convinced that they're not going to die, they're very convinced that the pleasures of the world will give them gratification, they're very convinced that man's way will make them happy. And look around, war is pending, people are almost 100% spiritually dead, the world is now plagued with all sorts of problems, all the food, all the rivers, everything's contaminated. Yet people still want to think, "Oh, nothing's happening, the world will go on as it always went on, we are content, we're happy without God." And hordes of people are going every which way, totally content with being a spiritual zombie. It's very dead, it's very spiritually dead in the world, and it's very sad because the world is on its way to hell, and they think that they don't need God, and the Christians aren't being the preservative that they need to be. The Christians are all so self-focused on their church, on doing their ministries, that they're not taking the time to help out Jesus in saving souls while their churches are doing their Sunday meetings and their Sunday brunch and drinking their coffee. Jesus is out there on the streets, calling people to repent, and blood, sweat, and tears with him, while the Christians are so self-seeking and self-centered and supportive of what they're doing, they leave Jesus all by himself. And so if we love the Lord our God, we should be salt and light, we should be doing the Lord's work, we should be calling others to repentance because God is not going to spare those Christians who just think they're going to get into heaven without doing his work. Too many Christians feel entitled, they feel like they are going to heaven because they prayed a prayer years ago, they go to church, they pay tithe, they haven't committed adultery, they've been married for 36 years, so God must let them into heaven, they're very content, and it's sad to see a world that is very content and Christians who are very content in their pollution.

We're here to be the salt and light, to call people to repent, to tell them that they're on their way to hell, and I hope that some people listening today will hear this message, and they will give their life to Jesus, and that they also will become salt and light, but you need to make up your mind, truly make up your mind if you will come out of the world because when you're in the world, you can't see clearly, sin blinds you, all the lusts of the world blind you, but when you come into the kingdom of God, and he gives you a new heart and a new mind and new eyes and ears.

Like I have some bad reception here, I think we can end this live stream here, but I hope this message stirs in someone the desire to repent, to get to know Jesus truly as Lord, to come out of dead religion, and to put their faith in the living God and be saved in these last days that we're living in.

 

Is their oil in your lamp?

  Is There Oil in Your Lamp?

Well, praise Jesus today everyone. The message that the Holy Spirit continues to put on my heart is the message of having oil in our lamps.

Not everyone has oil in their lamps. Certainly, people that are not Christian don't have any oil, because the oil represents the Holy Spirit. When we repent of our sins, we are baptized in water, and then we wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit baptizes us, He fills us with His purpose, with His joy, and the things of our old life, the old man, goes into the grave. We put to death the old, and then He restores our mind. He makes our conscience soft to the truth. We hate what is evil, we hate sin, and we learn to practice righteousness. And as we walk in the right direction, the Lord gives us provision. He gives us that oil.

Now, there's no way to achieve oil in your lamp by any other means than having a prayer life and living on the Word of God—that is Jesus Christ, His words. A lot of Christians are deceived into thinking that they have the bread of life because they read the Bible. But remember, the Pharisees read the Bible, and they didn't care about the Word of Life. They didn't care about the Word of God at all. And a lot of Christians, they feast on the Bible, they have prayer meetings, but none of it is legitimate because they're not eating and drinking Jesus. They're not in communion with Him. They haven't even repented of their sins, let alone come into communion with God, where they have oil coming into their lamp.

What would it matter if you went camping in the wilderness and you didn't have a light? You didn't bring matches, you didn't bring what you needed for warmth. You wouldn't really be able to sustain yourself for long. And how much more in this world will we not be able to sustain or make it if we don't have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

You can't be guided along through this life by churches, by Bible study, by mentors of the world, because what Jesus promised is that indwelling—that oil that comes from the Holy Spirit. Now, when Jesus gives His parables, He talks about this, about the five wise and the five foolish. And why this continues to come back to my mind, guys, is because so many Christians don't realize that they are Christians without a light. They're spiritually dead. They have no joy. They're not extending the love of Jesus to others. They're all about themselves.

Most people have sold out to the marketplace. They've sold out to the pleasures of life. The things of this life choke them out. They're choked out by riches and by pleasure, but they are not living for the Kingdom of God and the purpose of obeying Jesus.

So, when the midnight hour strikes, they will realize, when they hear the trumpet call, that they had lamps, but their lamps were not trimmed. They had no oil in their lamp. And that will be a big problem, because you can think everything is good and fine, and you could decorate your lamp on the outside, and you could get away for a long time making the pastor believe or your family believe that you know a lot because you have Bible verses memorized and because you have the speech of a Christian. But as soon as the midnight hour strikes and the Master calls people to the wedding, you'll be stumbling. You won't be able to find your way, because then you will realize that you have a lamp, but it's useless because you have no oil.

Such are Christians that have a sort of faith. They have the appearance of godliness, but they have no oil in their lamp. This is a scary thing, because too many people will have a horrible wake-up when they realize they have nothing guiding them. Their pastor can no longer guide them, their family can't guide them, and they've never learned to be guided along by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus promises the Holy Spirit as the one who will lead us into all truth and guide us. He doesn't promise us a brother or a sister to lead us or guide us into all truth. He doesn't even promise the Scriptures to lead us. But if you look at John 14–16, the gift is the Holy Spirit—that we would be baptized in the Holy Spirit and then have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. And then, as the Holy Spirit is dwelling in us, teaching us His thoughts—the thoughts of God—we would grow in Him and be guided along and have life, because Jesus is in us.

But what I see is a lot of Christians that can point fingers, guys. They can point fingers at all these people that are rioting. They can point fingers at lesbians and homosexuals and the transgender. And all those things are evil and corrupt and part of the antichrist. But these same Christians that are against the riots, they're against all these things—they're going the same place as where all the evildoers are going, because they don't have oil in their lamp.

Not only do the atheists end in hell, and those that are in blatant rebellion end in hell, but those that have no oil in their lamp. Remember that those Christians that had no oil in their lamp were turned around, and the door was shut in their face, and they were told, "Go away, I don't know you." God tells them, "You who commit iniquity, I don't know you."

We need to make sure that we're not just playing religion, keeping up church attendance. We need to leave all that with the old life of death. We need to put that in the ground, along with baptism. So when you get baptized, all the sins of your past life, it's as if you're leaving that in the grave. You need to leave dead religion there as well, and then put on true faith, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and all the prophets and all the apostles had to put on true faith. They didn't put on religion, they didn't put on church attendance. They had to put on righteousness by actually walking with Jesus in obedience.

And so the question is: Do we have oil, or are we going to the same place the rest of the world is? I don't want to be in that boat—the boat of religion going to hell. I was, and Jesus woke me up to the truth. Be separate, and then preach the gospel free of charge, which is now what I'm doing. I live for Jesus with all my heart. I don't have a pastor as my boss or a church as my leadership, but I follow Jesus as my Lord and my Master, and I live to please Him. And because I want to please Him, I warn others who will listen of the dangers of being lukewarm—about what it means to really follow Jesus—and also the reward, that if we put our faith in the Lord, He will bless us. And we will never feel that we did the wrong thing in the end. If we put our faith in the Lord, we won't be disappointed.

So, let's make sure we have oil in our lamp by having a prayer life, by asking Jesus to give us His heart and His mind—to weep where He weeps, to mourn where He mourns, but also to rejoice where He rejoices.

So I want to pray for those of you that want the baptism of the Holy Spirit and that want the Holy Spirit to guide you. He loves you and cares about you, but you need to dedicate yourself to Him—to be led by Jesus. Put yourself at the feet of Jesus so that He Himself may guide you and lead you. And don't be led along by other people’s opinions or what they're saying.

“Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters who want to know the truth, that want oil in their lamp. I pray that more children may be added to the number of true faith, that they would be part of Your body, that You would lead them and guide them, that they would come out of the world of darkness and sin and dead religion, and they would come into Your truth—to love You and obey You and to be separate from everything that's ungodly.

Help us to see Your plan for our life, and that we could walk the straight and narrow road and not be sucked into all of the things of this world—drugs and alcohol and marijuana and lust, greed.

I know a lot of men are just destroyed by the devil, by their own lusts, by pornography and all these wicked things. I pray that You would call more people into Your body, that they would be part of the children of faith, that You would collect them and keep them from the wolves and from danger, and that they would also be able to stand up and preach the gospel and live the gospel, and that more people would see the light of the truth in this dark generation that we live in.”

The Cain Sacrifice Christians Offer

 The Cain Sacrifice Christians Offer 

Well, praise Jesus today. It's a blessing to freely speak about the things that Jesus has for us to speak about.

One of those things that's been on my heart, besides the five foolish and the five wise virgins, is Cain's offering. It's interesting because not just Abel offered an offering — Cain also offered an offering. You have to think: who are the sorts of people now that offer God an offering? They're the sorts of people that are religious or they believe in God. They want to please God. You wouldn't give God an offering if you didn't believe in Him. Atheists aren't bringing God an offering. Non-believers, agnostics — they're not bringing God an offering. The people that are bringing their offerings to God are people that are doing so because they want to please, or appease, or get something from God, or find something like that, right?

So, the sorts of Christians that we have to have in our mind — that are even bringing an offering to God — most likely are part of the body of Christ, or at very least, they're people that are trying to be in God's favor. They're not people in active rebellion.

Cain was one of those. He wanted, at least to some degree, to please God. Else, he wouldn't have even tried to bring some of the fruits of his field to God in the first place. If he was so rebellious in the first stages of his life, he would have just said, "Forget it. I don't want to be anything like my brother Abel. Abel can bring a lamb if he wants. He can sacrifice that to God. But forget it, I just want to be in rebellion against God." There’s a lot of people like that. They will never bring any sort of offering to God. At the very least, Cain was in the place that he wanted to offer something to God. And I say that tongue-in-cheek.

But today, we have a lot of Christians that bring a Cain offering to God. What do I mean by that? They are genuinely offering things. They want to be on God's good side. But at the end of the day, God will reject their offering, and He will reject them.

Remember: God loved Abel. He loved his offering. But He hated Cain. He despised Cain's offering. And He gave Cain the choice to repent, and Cain didn’t repent. What was God's word to Cain? It was: "Sin is knocking on your door and its desire is for you, Cain, but you must overcome it. And if you don't overcome it, there is the devil crouching at your door." So, God warned Cain. You can read about this. And Cain became so jealous because his brother found favor in the eyes of God — both with his attitude and what he brought, his offering or his sacrifice. Cain just became so mad.

Theologians talk about this, and they can't figure out why God loved Abel and his offering, but despised Cain. They think, "Well, I don't know. Maybe God just didn’t like the fruit of the ground, but He really liked a lamb."

But there are two things going on. One is our attitude — the way we approach God. But the second is what we’re actually bringing to God. I want to explain that a bit further, because obviously, your heart attitude — whatever you bring — has to be right before God. Clearly, Cain didn’t have a heart attitude that was acceptable to God. Cain was jealous, and he brought his offering to God out of jealousy.

But the more profound thing is, besides the fact that Cain just had a really bad attitude, what he was bringing to God was not what God required. The service that Cain wanted to offer to God was not what God asked. He was pleased with Abel’s sacrifice. Abel’s sacrifice represented a lamb, and it was kind of prophetic, as Jesus became the perfect Lamb of God, who sacrificed for us. But what Cain brought was the fruits of the ground — maybe vegetables. He brought something from what he was harvesting, and he thought that would please God. Now, I'm sure there was more communication between God and Cain and Abel than what you read in the Bible. But what Cain brought, we know God rejected. He rejected it because of Cain’s attitude, and He also rejected it because it’s not what He required. Maybe if Cain also brought one of the firstborn lambs with a good attitude, he would also be accepted.

Now, where this makes a connection with today is: a lot of Christians are sacrificing things for God. Their sacrifices are legitimate, as far as it is — it’s a real sacrifice. Some Christians are sacrificing a whole lot of their time. They're sacrificing more than 10%. They give money and time to their church, to missionary trips. And they’re genuinely sacrificing things.

But the offerings that they’re bringing to God, and the services that they’re bringing to God, are not the services that God wants or desires. So God will reject them. Because these Christians, like Cain, are trying to serve God the way that they want to serve God. How many Christians are like that? They say, "God, I will serve you, but I will serve you my way. I want to become a missionary. I want to become a pastor. I want to become a man who makes a lot of money and then donates my money to your kingdom." They think because they have money, or power, or influence, that God has to accept their services. That God will just hire them to serve Him their way.

You can’t demand how you will serve God. Even in this world, you can’t do that. Think: if you're in some kind of a service — if you deal in customer service — you have to bring the service that your customers want. And if you don’t bring the service that your customers want, they’re going to fire you right away. If you are bad at whatever service you bring, they will fire you, and they will find the person who is less expensive and offers a more quality product. People in the world — they know this.

It wouldn’t be any different or a lesser standard with God. If you come before God and you say, "Hey, these are the things that I have to offer you, God. I know that you haven’t required this, but I just really want to serve you in this manner," you’re in big trouble, because you are serving God in the way you want to serve Him.

I have some examples of this, but it’s individual to each person. One example of this is: I had a grandfather — who was my mother’s dad — and he was a man who our whole family looked up to. He was a missionary to Africa. For years, he was a missionary there. But at the end of his life, it became very clear that all these offerings — all this time and devotion that he had to God — was actually serving God his way. At the end of his life, it was clear that he was in rebellion against God. He didn’t really have the love of Jesus in his heart, which was really sad for all of us to see.

Many Christians are like this. They want to serve God their way — being a missionary of their choice or serving God their way in their business — but they never seek of the Lord the path that He would have for them. They don’t have a word from God. It's sufficient enough for these Christians to be guided by their pastor and their Bible and their wise counselors in church. But they've never got approval upon their life or their path by God. If we want to be approved by God, we have to ask Him and say, "Lord, what is an offering that I can bring to You? How can I bear good fruit for You? Because I know that without You I can do nothing." If we're disconnected from the vine, we can do nothing. Without Jesus, we can do nothing. There's nothing that we can do for God by the arm of the flesh where He's going to say, "Enter into My kingdom, thank you so much for serving Me your way."

And almost every Christian that I see today, guys, is serving God their way. They're Christians in church that have their little ministries, they pay their 10%, they have all their little good-to-do things in the community, and they serve God their way. And they're completely fruitless. They only talk about God as long as it surrounds their church atmosphere. They don't have a new tongue. They're not baptized in the Holy Spirit. They're not filled with the love of God. They're only filled with love for people like themselves in their own little community. They only love their church religion.

But if we really have the love of Jesus in us, we're part of a new creation, a new kingdom. We're changed. It's Jesus' truth that's on our tongue, and we set fires everywhere because the fire of the Holy Ghost is in us. But that is not what's happening in the church. That's not what's happening with these Christians today. Oh no, they are serving God the way they want to.

And this is a huge problem because even though they have a nice and polished lamp, they have no oil in their lamp. They believe they have the Holy Spirit. They can fool the pastor. They can fool the other leaders in the church. They can fool you as a Christian. But when the midnight hour strikes, it will be made evident to all that they have no oil in their lamp. They have never heard from the Holy Spirit. They've just heard from their little “w” word of God — their Bible.

But if we want to be genuine, if we want to have the love of Jesus in us, we need to come into the faith the same way all the patriarchs did, the same way all of the prophets did, the same way all of the disciples did — which was walking by faith, and then receiving the truth that we can be led along by the oil of the Holy Spirit.

You can't make up the oil of the Holy Spirit. You can't go to church and receive the oil. You can't just read the Bible and receive the oil. You have to go to the One that can give you the oil, which is the Holy Spirit. You say, "Lord Jesus, please give me some of Your oil. Please fill me with Your oil." And you humble yourself before God. You can't get that from your pastor. You can't get that from seminary or Bible college. You have to wait on the Lord, wait for His baptism. And then when He fills you and gives you a new tongue and a new heart, a new mind, eyes to see, and ears to hear, then you can be led along by His Spirit.

But sadly, most Christians are led along by other Christians. They're in the echo chamber. They hear what Christians say and they echo that. But they're not led along by the Holy Spirit. They are exactly like the five foolish virgins. They're spiritually sleeping. And by the time they wake up, it's going to be far too late. And all along they've been giving these sacrifices that everyone says, "Praise the Lord! I'm so thankful that brother so-and-so offers his time, he offers his money, he offers all these things." But they are Cain-sacrificing. They're sacrificing exactly like brother Cain, who God rejected.

Remember, Cain and his offering both were rejected by God. God hated it. And we don't want to be those Christians that are Cain-offering Christians. We want to be like Abel — that even if we die giving our offering to God because people hate us, that we are accepted into the kingdom. And even if our blood cries out from the dirt, that we are accepted into the kingdom of God because we lived righteously, and we offered from the bottom of our heart an offering that was well-pleasing to our Father in heaven.

Do we love Jesus? Do we love Him as Abel loved his Father? Do we love Him as Abraham loved his Father, as Moses loved God? Do we love Him as Peter loved Him and all of these people who desperately wanted others to love God? Or are we just Cain-Christians, Cain-offering Christians?

Think about it, because so many people are sacrificing. There are people that are persecuted for their faith. Christians aren't the only ones that are persecuted. Muslims are persecuted. People that are Catholic — of every religion of the world, they're all persecuted if they are persistent in their faith. But just because you're persecuted, and you have an offering, and you have a sacrifice, does not mean that God will approve of you. Will God approve of your service? Will He approve of what you're offering Him? Or will it all be vanity? Will it all be vanity?

I want to pray for those of you that want to receive the oil of the Holy Spirit, and for those of you that want an offering more than the Cain offering, that you want to have an offering like Abel's — bringing the firstborn lamb, bringing the truth from your heart before the Lord and saying, "Lord, restore my heart. Restore the truth of Jesus Christ into my heart." Because that's who should be in your heart.

“Lord Jesus, I pray for my brothers and sisters in the Lord, that You may renew their faith. If they've had faith, that You would restore their faith. If You have been in their heart before, that what they offer from the bottom of their heart would be a true sacrifice of love and purity, and that You would accept them. I pray that no longer would we offer You a Cain sacrifice of bitterness and of things that You have not required. We pray that we will not sacrifice things that bring a detriment to ourselves or to our family. We know far too many Christians sacrifice things that damage even their own children in the name of God. But we pray that the offering and the sacrifice we bring before You, Lord, will be pleasing to You, and that more people will come into Your kingdom with a sacrifice of holiness that will come up as a beautiful incense before God — that God will accept. We pray this in Your name, Lord Jesus, and for many more people to come into the household of faith. In Your name, Lord Jesus, Amen.”

How Close Are You to the Kingdom of God?

Well, praise Jesus this afternoon everyone. I had a few thoughts that I thought I would mention on the go here about our Christian walk with Jesus. And that thought was how Jesus would tell people when they were close to the kingdom of God. He would mention that to them. He would say, "You aren't far from the kingdom of God." Now, there were other people that would potentially believe themselves to be close, but Jesus would show them just how far they were from the kingdom of God. And oftentimes we don't even know how far away we are from the kingdom of God. For example, remember the rich young ruler? The rich young ruler thought he was close to the kingdom of God because he had kept the Ten Commandments.

And I know there's likely a lot of you that think you're close to God because you keep the Ten Commandments, or bring that to modern day: you go to church, you read the Bible, you're not having sex out of marriage, you're not going to rave parties or kickbacks, you're overall just a good moral person. Now, I know a lot of good moral people that are extremely far away from the kingdom of God. There's a lot of good people in society, you know, that would literally lay down their life for you. I've had a few managers in the world who were not Christians whatsoever. They were the kinds of guys that would drop the F-bomb, they would curse God, but they were good people. They bent over backwards for me. They gave me money when I needed money. They're the sorts of people that would let you live at their house if you needed it. They take care of the poor. But these same people, they mock God and they hate God. They're just good people in the culture.

So when people would encounter Jesus for the first time … they stood in the kingdom of God because they thought themselves to be a good person according to their own goodness, their own morality. So maybe, like the rich young ruler, you have kept the commandments and you think you're a good person. Or maybe you, I don't know, you do good things and you feel good about yourself. And I'm not saying that everyone is just bad people. There are really good people out there, but as far as the kingdom of God, they are not good. They're not good in the eyes of Jesus. In other words, they're good in the culture, but they're not making it into heaven.

And this is the category that most Christians fall into and most people in general. The majority of people are not of God. Now, I don't know what percent of people are good. People say likely we're in the mountain communities. I would say 80–90% of people are pretty responsible, and you have a few people that are not responsible—you just wouldn't want your kids to be around them—but for the most part, in the mountain communities where I live, people are decently moral. They're taking care of people. They go to church, or they're religious to some extent. But I come across a lot of these people, and I can tell they're very, very far from the kingdom of God. And so my warning to you is not just to think that you're a good person because the standard of morality in our culture is based upon how good you are in your community. But that is not what the basis of salvation is.

The basis of salvation is how you're doing with Jesus. And because most people have thrown Jesus out the door, they're not going to heaven. And that's a scary thing. I know these people that help me—like managers, co-workers, mentors—that have helped me in life, and a lot of them are very good people. They bend over backwards for me or for you, but at the same time, they're far from the kingdom of God. Why is that? Well, you can't be cursing God and making it into the kingdom of heaven. You can't have a perverted tongue, speaking things that are sexual jokes, the F-bomb, mocking God, and making it into His kingdom. It doesn't matter how many good things you do in your community; you're not going to be able to buy your way into heaven. And that is really sad to me—that there are really good people that will help me, they will help you. But at the same time, they missed the Jesus of the great commandment, which is to love your neighbor as yourself, but they didn't love the Lord their God with all of their heart. Or they never met Jesus to the extent that they knew what it meant to love Him.

Because I believe some people, they think that they're serving God. That rich young ruler, he really believed that he was serving God by keeping the big ten. But at the end of the day, he couldn't follow Jesus, and he went away from Jesus sad because he knew that what Jesus required, he could not keep. He couldn't sell his possessions, give it to the poor, and follow after the Lord. And how many of us are in the same boat as the people in the culture that are good in the eyes of men, but they're not good in the eyes of God? How many of us are good businessmen, or we're the sorts of people that do unto others, we're looked up to, but also at the same time, we're not cutting it?

Jesus would not say to us, "You're close to the kingdom of God." Now, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God because the moment we die, it's not going to matter if our mom or our dad thought we were good. It's not going to matter if our community—even the community of believers—thought we were a good person.

If your life is not clean, the devil's going to take you to hell. And Jesus is going to say, like He says to so many people, "Away from me, you who commit iniquity. I don't know you." And Jesus won’t just be saying that to people who are atheists. You know, atheists aren't casting out demons. Atheists aren't running churches.

But the ones that Jesus says, "Away from me, you who commit iniquity," are the people that were casting out demons and prophesying in the name of Jesus and singing Christian hymns and giving sermons. That’s what Jesus said—not with those exact words, of course—but He said that they were the people that were trying to cast out demons and trying to prophesy.

So this means us, guys. Jesus isn't talking about people far out in the world, but He's talking to your face. He's talking to me. So how can we be the sorts of people that when we stand before Jesus, He doesn't say, "Away from me, you who commit sin," but He can say, "You're close to the kingdom of God." And that when we're to the very end of our life, He can say, "Enter into my presence because you got to know me and you did my will. You are my son, or you're my daughter." That's what we want to hear.

Now, one thing that I find crazy, guys, is the fact that so many Christians have a perverted tongue. They think they're making it into heaven. They listen to perverted music that mocks God, and they think that they're getting into heaven. Music is a really funny thing, guys, because music keeps you in the past. If you remember when you were in high school, you probably remember all of the songs that you used to listen to. I remember the songs I used to listen to. Maybe it was Eminem if you grew up in the '90s. I listened to all this music just like you did. And if that music plays on the radio, I have to quickly get out of there because it reminds me of the past.

And I see a lot of Christians who are listening to music from their past, and they're not maturing in their faith because the old habits are holding on. It's killing them because instead of going forward with Jesus and singing the song of the redeemed, they're still singing old songs from Blink 182 and Eminem and just wicked music.

So if we want to grow, to sing the song of the redeemed and be pleasing to Jesus, then we have to get that old junk, that old trash, that old dung out of our life. And too many Christians are holding on to old music that's not letting them move forward in their faith. They have a perverted tongue. They're going to ungodly movies. They're listening to ungodly music. And for some reason, they have the audacity to think that when they die, they're going to hear those words, "Well done, my faithful servant." It's not going to happen.

Jesus would quickly tell people when they were far away from the kingdom of God. Remember Peter, His own disciple, He said, "Get behind me, Satan." He called him Satan. So you're not going to be any better than Peter if you're cursing God or doubting or hating God's children. You have to have faith with the works of righteousness, and you have to have a pure tongue, a pure mind, childlike faith. And you have to be developing with Jesus. And if you're not, you're going to be cut off.

I don't know how many Christians think themselves to be godly, but they're watching TV, they're always looking at pornography, they're living like total hypocrites. God's going to cast out those people that are not serious and not holy and pure. And sadly, too many of them are good men and good women. And it makes me sad that a lot of my mentors and a lot of these people that are good people are well on their way to hell because they are far from the kingdom of God.

How do you know if a pastor or how do you know if a preacher or a Christian is close to God? Well, this is the way you know, guys. If you hear someone speak that has truly been at the feet of Jesus, by the time you leave that person, you want to do nothing less than to fall on your face and repent of your sins and get to know Jesus for real. That’s how you know. But you know you're listening to the wrong preacher if you get done listening to that sermon and all you want to do is go and read your Bible. All you want to do is go listen to more Hillsong music. All you want to do is listen to another sermon.

Following Jesus has nothing to do with listening to sermons, listening to a bunch of preachers. You have to bear good fruit. And if you want to know if you or someone else is truly a child of God, ask yourself: after you're done speaking with them, are you falling on your face before Jesus because you're just so amped up to repent of your sin? You're so encouraged to fall on your face before the Lord because you want to get a better relationship with Jesus? You're just so motivated to get sin out of your life and to meet Jesus that you fall straight on your face.

That is what I want to do as a Christian. I want to encourage people—not to be going to church, not to be going to another video on YouTube or some other place—I want to cause people, by the fire of my devotion to Jesus, to go fall on their face before the Lord and repent of their sins and then start walking in genuine faith.

Following Jesus isn’t about getting into church or just hearing another motivational speech. It’s about really dedicating your entire life to the Lord. And if we become those sorts of people, then we bear much fruit—not like the three soils that didn’t produce, but like the fourth soil that produced. Some will produce tenfold, some twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundredfold. We want to produce for the Lord so we don’t get cut off. And because we love Him, we want to produce.

And so this is what's been on my heart, guys. If we want to grow in the kingdom of God with Jesus, we have to clean up our tongue. We need to get filthy music, filthy movies, filthy people out of our lives. We need to get serious about bearing good fruit and teaching our children, teaching our neighbor—whoever's around us. We need to be inspiring them to do the same. It's not about religion. It's not about going to church. It's not about Bible study. It's about holiness. It's about complete devotion to the Lord.

Are you a child of God? Are you devoted to the Lord Jesus—not with just your tongue, but with your actions? Because there's a big difference there. There's a lot of Christians that can preach Jesus with their tongue, but they're not preaching Him with their life.

We need to be the sorts of people that our heart, our tongue, our mind, our body—all of that—is aligned with the Holy Spirit, proving that we are the disciples of Jesus by our love.

So I want to pray for those of you that want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that want to overcome sin and truly follow Jesus with all of your heart.

“Lord Jesus, I pray for those who are my brothers and sisters that are, that are just bearing the burdens of sin, that want to throw sin off. I pray for them, Lord, that they can be added to your flock — your small flock, your little flock.

I pray that they could become a peculiar people, set apart for, um, for the journey with you — set apart for you, Lord. And I pray that you would take them with your staff and pull them out of the mire and save them as your sheep, and dust them off and clean them — purify them, purge them — and put them on the straight and narrow path, that they may endure with you and make it to the very end, that they may have eternal life.

I pray that more people will be added to your flock, to your people. I pray this in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.”