The Word of the LORD for His Church

The Word of The LORD for His Church                                     1-14-2018

Last night at the worship and fellowship meeting of New Beginnings CF during worship Katherine Zent had a word in tongues and Alma Patterson had the interpretation; “For I declare to you My precious ones, you are My alabaster boxes on the earth at this time and as life happens to you and brings forth trials that seem to be episodes of brokenness, I purpose it to bring forth the fragrance of Christ to those around you. Be not dismayed nor despair I am with you doing a good work in you. I love you and I’m with you take heart.”

Also during our worship Katherine had a vision, she saw herself like a softball fastpitch pitcher (with the windup, leap forward and release) that hurls the ball at great speed. The LORD had her pitch three times and each time a ball of light went forth, but she did not know where they were going. As our worship continued and I thought about it I felt the three balls were for the Church, USA and Israel. Jim Cantos pointed out Habakkuk 3:4, “His brightness was like the light; He had rays flashing from His hand, and there His power was hidden.” NKJV

After worship Ben Monson read and commented on John 17, He spoke of glorifying, that it is the act of revealing others’ goodness. Jesus’ prayer about unity, the unity of the GOD Head and the unity of GOD and His people. The main points to me were that our GOD is one GOD and that eternal life is to know the one true GOD and Jesus Christ whom He had sent. Salvation comes through believing and receiving the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as the Lamb of GOD who takes away the sin of the world. But, eternal life is being with the Father and the Son in the Spirit forever knowing them as they know and have always known each other. That we cannot not know GOD in the world, but as believers as we believe that He sent Jesus  the love with which the Father loves Jesus would be in us and Jesus would be in us.

As the meeting was winding down my wife Charlene made the comment that she had recently heard a pastor teaching on the unity of GOD so that contrary to popular teaching the Father did not and could not abandon Jesus on the cross when He became sin for us. The consensus was that we all believed that the Father and Son could not be separated and that while many had taught this separation because of our sin, that Jesus was suffering our punishment, we’ve heard taught that Jesus suffered in hell and was tormented by the devil and demons. IMPOSSIBLE! In the flesh as a man Jesus defeated the devil under direct temptation. Jesus’ true suffering was in the garden as He prayed to His Father, “If this cup could pass from Me, not My will but Yours be done.” As the Son of Man Jesus understood what He was about to endure and He understood that it was the only way to restore humanity to the original sinless eternal relationship we were meant to have with GOD. As the Lamb of GOD He took away our sin but He did not suffer our punishment, with our sin removed no punishment is required. Even under the Law when an animal sacrifice was made to cover the peoples’ sin there was then no punishment required.

We discussed Jesus’ cry on the cross as His body died, “My GOD, My GOD why have You forsaken Me?” In His humanity He felt abandoned at the point of death even though He was the GOD Head incarnate (Colossians 2:9).  Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit could never be separated because they are the One True GOD. In the Psalms and Prophets many cry out to GOD, “How long LORD will You abandon us?” Yet today we know that He never did even though their experience made them believe that He had.

Pastor Chris Leeper said it was possible that this bad teaching could also have come out of Habakkuk 1:13a, “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.” The problem is when we look at the whole verse (this is a problem in the church where people only use the part of the scripture that fits what they are teaching), “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?” then we see that GOD is not turning away from seeing evil or sin, the book of Habakkuk is talking of GOD’s longsuffering to sinners putting off His judgment giving us time to repent, even when it is too late to stop GOD’s judgment for a group or nation it is not too late for an individual to repent and be saved.

Study Habakkuk, John 17, Colossians 1 & 2, 2 Timothy 3, 2 Peter 1 & 2. Remember the Bible was not written in chapters and verses, it is 66 different books written by 40 different men over 1500 to 2000 years. Psalms and Proverbs are the only ones written in their present form but they were not numbered as we have them. GOD gave us His Word because He wants us to learn of Him and to serve Him. While we are to follow Holy Spirit we have the Bible to make sure that we are not following a false spirit, there are several “Christian” churches that have their own doctrine and book that differs from the one GOD gave humanity (Joshua 1:8-9; 2 Timothy 3:10-17; 2 Peter 1:16-2:3; Revelation 1:3).