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A Litany of Admonishments to the Soul. Having gained an understanding of the law of sin and death, as compared to the perfect law of liberty in God's Love, Paul writes with the Sword of the Spirit: "I say then; Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the Spirit, you are not under the law (of condemnation)." (Galatians 5 verse 16 thru 18.) For Yahweh God did not send His Only Begotten Son into the world, to condemn the World, but through Him that the World might be saved, with His Perfect Love offering of His beloved Son, Yeshuah. So with the Lord's authority, let me say this: Live no longer as the ungodly do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their closed minds are full of darkness. They are far away from the Life of God, because they have shut their minds and hardened their hearts against Him. They don't care anymore about right and wrong, and they have given themselves over to immoral ways. Their lives are filled with all kinds of impurity and greed. But that isn't what you were taught when you learned about Christ. Since you have heard all about Him, and have learned the Truth that is in Jesus, then throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, being full of lust and deception. Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes. You must display a new nature, because you are a new person, created in God's likeness, righteous, holy, and true. (See Ephesians 4 verse 17 thru 24. New Living Translation.) But, willful Sin (this body of death as Paul calls it, and a stench in the nostrils of God), if left unattended, will corrupt, will divide, and will keep us as separate individuals and institutional churches, far apart from the present promises of our Lord's Covenant in the power of love, and unity within His sinless Body. So put away all falsehood and "tell your neighbor the truth" because we belong to each other. Don't sin by letting anger gain control over you. Don't let the sun go down, while you are still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil. (Ephesians 4 verse 25 thru 27.) Metaphorically, as the Lord Jesus taught at the last supper within the foot washing of His disciples; we walk in the earth, and our feet get dirty, and sometimes filthy. Even at our supposed very best state, everyone of the saved by Yahweh God's GRACE IN His Son, Jesus Christ, have an absolute dependency upon the Lord Jesus, to cleanse us from the wrong steps we take in this earthly life. Jesus, answering Peter, says: If I wash you not, you have no part with Me. (John 13 verse 8.) The cleansing of the Lord is not a one time thing, for the filth of sin is innate to the flesh of all of mankind. The Lord Jesus, the WORD of His Father Yahweh God, makes provisions in His Communion Table, with His Sanctifying LIFE Blood of the New Covenant, in conjunction with the washing and the renewing of the mind, through God's Holy Spirit flowing in the Water of His Word. Many prodigals, after having been initially made clean, that is, given amnesty or pardon for past sins, are not only tempted through their lustful desires, but also are led away with them, and return again to wallow in the mud and mire of the filth of this life. (See 2nd Peter 2 verse 21 thru 22.) Having been promised liberty, without responsibility to their agreement to God's Blood Covenant, they are again taken captive by the rule of sin, that removes them from their death in Body of Jesus Christ. The greater condemnation will be with the pastors and teachers, who should know the Word of God, but preach their own unbelief, denying the very power of the Holy Life of Jesus Christ, and the Life of the Holy Spirit that is in His Blood. Outside of the will of Yahweh God, a person's self centered choices will only lead to more slavery to self idolatrous Sin. When we come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, then Yahweh God in His righteousness, gives us amnesty or pardons us from all of our past sins, and a ne gives us a new beginning in of His creation. The first Man/Adam's treason against Yahweh God shackles us to sin, but God's second Man with His efficacious sacrifice for the sin of Man/Adam on the cross, secured our release from the shackles of sin and we became new born creations in the order of God's Son Jesus Christ. Being justified freely by His Grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, a mercy seat, through Faith in His Blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are 'past', through the forbearance of God. (See Romans 3 verse 25.) Only in Jesus Christ, through the Righteousness of His Sacrificial Blood, can a person be set free from the tyranny of Sin. We are given a new beginning of Life in Christ, for all sins of the past are obliterate in the propitiating Blood of the Sacrifice of the Last Man Jesus Christ. But be careful! Even though we have been giving a new beginning of Life in Christ Jesus, we are called into the new life in God and are to be responsible for our transgressions from that point on. The Apostle Peter encourages us in the pursuit of the virtues of faith, but then warns of our forgetfulness to the purging of our past sins. For he that lacks these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. (See 2nd Pete 1 verse 4 thru 10.) (Hear Jeremiah 17 verse 5 thru 11.) This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives". "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure; Who can understand it? "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay, is the man who gains riches by unjust means. When his life is half gone, they will desert him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool". (Jeremiah 17 verse 5 thru 11.) No flesh is immune to the deceit of innate sin. Throughout the centuries, sin in all its filthiness and violence, certainly has not disappeared in any of the churches. Even today, we have all witnessed the gross moral failings of Catholic and Protestant spiritual leaders, with the news of their spiritual demise having been painted on television and printed in the newspaper's front page obituaries. Apparently, there is gross ignorance in the churches, concerning the destructive virulent nature of sin. On television, one Catholic commentator speaking out against the Catholic pedophile priests, vehemently exclaimed; “This is not a sin, but a crime!” A crime he says, and not a sin? Sin is not a three letter social enigma with forgettable consequences for humanity, but all manner of sin’s manifestations is a crime against God, and His creation of man, and in God’s righteous justice, it also spells, “D. E. A. T. H.”. Paul wrote: Make no mistake: The spiritual virus of sin and death, did not come from the God of the living, but we have inherited from Adam’s insurrection, the nature of self idolatrous sin, which engenders all manner of corrupt manifestations, within the flesh of every one of Adam’s seed. Individually, we cannot play with our virus of death. We cannot justify ourselves in our sin, nor dismiss it, as if sin's self idolatry does not continue to exist in the fleshly mind of man. For a certainty, this is a continuing symptom of idolatry, ruling in the flesh, and the flesh is contemptuous of God’s rule and His living Word in Christ Jesus. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. (See Isaiah 59 verse 1 thru 18). Active sin remains extremely contagious, and its defilements to yourself, and others are exceedingly devastating, and are diametrically opposed to God's Law of sacrificial Love. Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. (1st Corinthians 3 verse 16 thru 18.) Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification, without which, no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the Grace of God; that no root of bitterness spring up and causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance though he sought for it with tears. (Hebrews 12 verse 14 thru 17.) The natural man, such as Esau, is horribly bent in his immoral foolishness, and can deceive himself with his shedding of tears, but Yahweh God, Who knows the heart of all men, is not moved. God’s love and forgiving Grace towards us sinners is phenomenal. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting Life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3 verse 16 thru 17.) The Father of Lights, has called us out of our darkness of sin and death, and into His glorious Light, so that we would be His lights, shining in the darkness of this world, bearing witness to the Gospel of Yahweh God Almighty's love and grace to all lost men and women. In the building of His House, the Eternal God has consecrated His people, by His Word, to be His holy habitation, where by His Spirit of LIFE would indwell each and every one of us. We are called to be His ambassadors of peace, so that who ever sees us, begins to see and know Him because of our love and devotion to our Savior and Lord Yashua/Jesus; and also to His one Body of believers. In so doing, we also show our love for the lost, who have not seen Him at all. Let us consider this fact a little further. If we, by the GRACE of God are saved from our sin and death, then in this world we are to be the representatives of the Risen Eternal LIVING MAN, Jesus Christ. Now perhaps, the unsaved people who are dead in their own sins, and when they come in contact with the justified people of God's Grace, then they might see the hypocrisy of their own sin and their own vain judgments of death, now perhaps they will see through the dark veil of their hypocrisy, and come into the GRACE of God and find thier Salvation in Christ Jesus. Hence, none of us are better than this world of sin and death, and the Love of Holy, Holy, Holy Yahweh Father God is not in us. Our faith, at best, is dormant, if not dead. (See 1st J ohn 2 verse 15 thru 16.) God's Covenant Grace within the shed Blood of the LIFE of Jesus Christ, is not a license to sin, but is a death sentence for the body of sin, that exist within the human flesh of every repentant believer. Jesus Christ, condemned the sin of man in His own flesh, so that we, who are saved by God's Grace, should not continue to willfully follow the dictates of our self centered flesh. It is impossible for Yahweh God in His holiness to justify sin, but He offers to us remission and liberty from our acknowledged sins, through the Communion shed Blood of His Son. God's grace, in His new Covenant provisions, is sufficient to all, who have faith, and seek to live holy lives, within the sufficiency of God's Covenant WORD. However, it is definitely very foolish, turning away from the free gift of righteousness, and squandering the new birthright that we have been given in Jesus Christ, and thereby testing of the Almighty’s forbearance and Sovereignty: For it is written; Everyone that confesses the Name of the Lord, must depart from wickedness (iniquity). (2nd Timothy 2 verse 19.) Or do you presume upon the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the Truth, but obey unrighteousness: Let indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, be upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. (Romans 2 verse 4 thru 5, and verse 8 thru 9.) Let him that is taught in the Word, communicate unto him that teaches in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6 verse 6 thru 8.) Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1st Corinthians 6 verse 9 thru 10 .) Jesus Christ preaches: When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he finds it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goes he, and takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in, and dwell there. The last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation. (Matthew 12 verse 43 thru 45.) Woe to the rebellious children, says the LORD, that take counsel, but not of Me; and that cover with a covering, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin: (Isaiah 30 verse 1.) Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight! (Isaiah 5 verse 20 thru 21.) Whoever rewards evil for good, Evil will not depart from his house. He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just; both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD. (Proverbs 17 verse 13 thru 15 (NKJV.) For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire. (2nd Peter 2 verse 18 thru 22.) For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. (Jude verse 4.) For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. (Hebrews 6 verse 4 thru 6.) Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven, will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and in Your Name cast out demons, and in Your Name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; (or you were never intimately mine) depart from Me, you who PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' (Matthew 7 verse 21 thru 23 (N.A.S.B.) "Behold, I AM coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to everyone, according to what he has done. I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the Tree of Life, and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. (Revelations 22 verse 12 thru 15 (N.A.S.B.) To be sure, these scripture verses are very strong in their admonishment to any soul: “For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: But all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do". All of these biblical verses, in this portion of the text, are a strong contradiction to all antinomian teachers, who more or less proclaim that you can have your cake and eat it too. That is to say, because of a baptism for sins committed in the past, and with a few incantations to the Lord in times past, we’ve all been saved, and we’re all going to heaven, no matter what we do. After all they say, "God's love is seen as unconditional". But has scripture borne out this humanistic rational of God’s Supreme Love? Let us look again for the absolute clarification of life and death in Jude verse 5: "Therefore I will put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord God Almighty, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not". Let me ask you of your unbelief now: What did the Lord do to them that believed not, and turned the love and grace of God into lasciviousness? Now hear verse 6 of Jude: Paul in his letter of admonishment to the Church at Corinth, speaks of Communion at the Lord's Covenant Table, and uses the same historic imagery as Jude in verse 5, for he warns the church. Moreover brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud, and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual food; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. (1st Corinthian 10 verse 1 thru 5.) The spiritual food that all did eat was the Manna that came down from heaven, and the spiritual drink that all drank of, was the water of Life that flowed from the Rock Himself. When looking at the previous scripture, did you notice that many of those who were baptized into the covenant, and participated in God's sustenance, suffered extreme sanctions for their unbelief. Wherefore, those who think they stand, take heed lest they fall. (1st Corinthians 10 verse 12.) God is Love, and that Love of God is encompassed, with His other supreme attributes as being One, within the infinite essence of His unchangeable Holiness. Therefore, even as God is Love within His Holiness, there is no possibility of any shadow, or form of darkness, being cast from the Spirit of His being, so then also, in Yahweh God's infinite holiness, He is Just, and remains constant and true in His Justice against evil. Perhaps we need to understand that the absolute Holiness of Yahweh God, precludes a human understanding of what is erroneously called God’s unconditional love. Witness the testimony of the Spirit of Scripture, where Satan and the third of the angelic beings were forcibly compelled, by the glorious brightness of God's holiness, to exit from the Presence of God. That being the case, then the infinite holiness of the God of Love, preempted the rebellion of the angelic beings, and expelled them into their own darkness of chaos. And so it is with mankind’s rebellion against the Holy, Holy, Holy Yahweh God of the living. Jesus/Yashua, Yahweh God's Son, did not say in vain, I AM the Way, and the Truth and the Life of man. No one comes to the Father but by Me. The Truth of the Perfect Love of the Father, is in His incarnate Son. God, in the perfection of His Love, is not willing that any man should perish, but come to a new beginning of Covenant Life within His Son. Those souls, who live and walk in the faith of Jesus Christ, will not perish like the worm of the soul of a dead man, but they are alive, even now, in the resurrection of the Beloved, and will behold the face of LIFE Himself. Let us reiterate the TRUTH of Christ Jesus. In following the Lord and the cross, Holy God Almighty, calls for continued repentance, with the denial of our own self idolatrous nature, and then in obedience to the Lord, to also choose to follow His Way of Righteousness that is perfected in our Love of God. The Lord is our Righteousness. However, given our fleshly failures within our self centered lives, God provides the remedy in the New Covenant Blood of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. If we humble ourselves, and confess our sinful failures to the only Mediator, between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, then our confessed sin is consumed away in the fiery presence of God's Spirit of Holiness. But be aware, the cleansing heat may be painfully experienced in the sanctification process. God's Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, is One with the Blood of the Son of Man/Adam, and the Sanctifying Blood of the Spirit is Holy, even as the One Spirit of God is Holy. It is not wise, to go on merrily in our scoffing ignorance, and unbelief in Yahweh God and the Communion Body and Blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. The One Spirit of Yahweh God is One with the poured out Water and Blood of our Living Savior; and our continued unbelief, will thoroughly quench Holy, Holy Holy Yahweh God's Spirit of Holy Truth. And the Lord Jesus, in the Spirit of TRUTH said: Take and Drink all of you: This is My Blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26 verse 26 thru 28.) And they overcame accuser of our brethren by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. (See Revelation 12 verse 9 thru 11.) In our repentance, the Righteous Life giving Blood of Jesus Christ puts to death the unrighteousness of our self serving ways that are ingrained within the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Refer to the vision "Seeing the Sword of the Spirit.) To proceed to the next chapter, please click on Let Us Reason Together. mailto:excellent.valley@verizon.netRobert Glenn Pratten |