The Lord has exhorted me to exhort you all to CONTINUE in the word which you have begun in which is able to BOTH make you disciples INDEED (not just in word and tongue) AND make you FREE INDEED. (For whosoever committeth sin is the SERVANT of sin but if the Son shall make you free, you shall be FREE INDEED.) And our beloved brother Paul confirmed this testimony of Christ in Romans 6 that “…sin shall NOT HAVE DOMINION over you: for ye are NOT UNDER THE LAW, but under GRACE!... But God be thanked (Hallelujah), that ye WERE the servants of sin, but ye have OBEYED from the HEART that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made FREE FROM SIN, ye became the servants of righteousness… servants to God, ye have your fruit unto HOLINESS, and the end EVERLASTING LIFE.”

I want to exhort you all to continue in this word AND work of Christ and his Spirit in you. Remember family, the beloved apostle of the Lord exhorted us to “Love not the world, neither the things that are IN the world. If ANY man love the world, the love of the Father is NOT in him…. For all that is in the world, the LUST of the flesh (don’t trust what you FEEL in the world), and the lust of the EYES (don’t trust what you SEE in the world), and the PRIDE of life (don’t trust the POWER and accomplishments in and of this world) is NOT OF THE FATHER, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that DOETH the will of God ABIDETH for EVER.” And our Lord Jesus Christ told us himself that, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that DOETH the WILL OF MY FATHER which is in heaven.” This is not a WORKS based salvation that John and Jesus are speaking of, but rather an OBEDIENCE based salvation which is what ALL the prophets and apostles and our Lord himself spoke of. It is a warning against what James warned about which is being a “FORGETFUL HEARER”… one that “appears” to hear the word of God week after week but in FACT is not actually “receiving with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls”, but rather is coming to just hear. Thus, the word is NOT taking root and bringing forth fruit (much like the seed upon stony ground which appears to spring forth but ultimately has no ROOT and so, by and by is offended at the word… or even like the seed received among thorny ground which appears to receive the seed, but the CARES of THIS LIFE (the world which we are not to love) and the DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES (again, this world, which we are delivered from in Christ – Galatians 1:4) and the LUSTS OF OTHER THINGS (those evil lusts of the world which are NOT of the FATHER or his love) CHOKE that word and it becometh unfruitful (much like the swine that were filled with devils that were driven into the sea were CHOKED and perished)). Again, not works based, but obedience based. For Paul told us that our beloved Lord Jesus Christ was called of God as his very Son to be “…made an high priest… he became the author of ETERNAL SALVATION unto ALL THEM THAT OBEY HIM.” And again, “For ye have OBEYED from the HEART that form of DOCTRINE which was delivered unto you.” Not like the reprobate Cretians who Paul warned Titus of (or like many we still see in America today) that “… profess that they know God, but in WORKS they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work REPROBATE.” No, this is not the eternal salvation that we have been called to. Not one that “appears” only in word and tongue… no our salvation is one of obedience from the heart to TRULY HEAR the word of God which is NOT the forgetful hearer that draws nigh to God with their mouth and shows much love with their lips but their hearts are far from God (which Isaiah prophesied of and Christ verified) but no, our salvation is one that receives the seed into GOOD ground and thus yields GOOD fruit which Paul told us is unto HOLINESS, and James, told us leads to being a DOER of the WORK (not to be confused with our fleshy works of righteousness that the scribes and Pharisees were so well known for… those which were done to be SEEN of MEN… no, I am not talking about these “filthy rags” works of our own righteousness, but I am talking about “THE WORK OF GOD” in and through us).

So how is one whose “heart is deceitful and desperately wicked” to obey God? How can we as Paul said, “obey from the heart”? And what are we to obey? For Christ himself said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” How can such clean things come out of an unclean heart? How can such beautiful, wonderful things of God come from us? Oh, how sad that many of our churches are filled with people that hear the wonderful scriptures and beautiful things like MERCY, KINDNESS, LOVE, SINCERITY, GENTLENESS, JOY, PEACE, CHARITY, etc… and can only hear about these things… but can NEVER seem to find these things as pertaining to the heart. They can create an “appearance” 3 or 4x a week to live these things, but Christ told us to, “Judge not according to the appearance” and Paul affirms that “… all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” For we know that “man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart”! And so what can we do? Do we just surrender to being wicked on the inside but putting on a “fair shew in the flesh” to appear unto others as being holy all the while being corrupt on the inside? Is this the salvation that we are called to? If so, then what things is Paul speaking of when he says that, “… sin shall NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER YOU…” and about having “our fruit unto HOLINESS”. And Peter exhorted us to “love one another with a PURE HEART fervently.” Are these just words? Is this only a script from the scriptures in a part that we must play? Or are these things real? Can these things be lived and experienced?

The key, I believe, is getting back to the simplicity of HEARING what GOD says so that we might OBEY HIM (“not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in SINGLENESS of HEART, FEARING GOD.” – Colossians 3:22). And so it all comes back to the basics. By nature we become children of disobedience. And thus, we become children of wrath. But then, due to the conscience that God gave us (which by nature at first is NOT WICKED, for every good and perfect gift cometh from above) we become DOUBLE MINDED. We have a DIVIDED HEART. (The scriptures speak of both these things). And this is true even so much more if we are exposed to the scriptures and the law of God. For now we are hearing constantly the RIGHT STANDARD of God. The STANDARD of perfection is being declared. But then we look inwardly and realize that that standard is not (naturally, on our own) within us! We try to hide his word in our heart but we find that the heart is divided and see us struggling like Paul testified of in Romans 7 seeking to please God after the inward man but seeking to please ourselves after the outward man. And so what must we do?

Well, I believe the commandment of God is clear to all (or at least should be). Again, we are talking about OBEDIENCE. And we are talking about trying to turn a “wicked heart” into a “pure heart” (which is promised to see God! Hallelujah)! And so what is the first commandment of God to all men? Well it is none other than what Paul preached to the carnal, lost, Gentiles of Athens, “But now commandeth ALL MEN EVERY WHERE to REPENT!” The first step is to REPENT. Actually, interestingly, the natural man, according to the Holy Ghost as revealed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, CANNOT receive the things of the Spirit of God. Now we know that the Spirit of God wants to give us a NEW BIRTH. He wants to give us a NEW NATURE. But we cannot receive anything of him in our nature. It is impossible. That is why if we are in the flesh, we CANNOT please God. Thus, the natural man cannot have the faith of Christ (for that is what pleaseth God). So what can the natural man do?

REPENT!!

That is all that God allows for the natural man to do. Jesus himself had the exact same command for the carnal, ungodly church of the Laodiceans (of which many I am sure were lost and did not even know Christ), he told them to “Be zealous therefore, and repent”! The zeal of repentance! What a wonderful and missing thing in today’s “cool, easygoing, image-based” Christianity. That is why the Bible Baptist Church of Pensacola once had such power because there was “zealous repenting.” This is what James preached hard about in chapter 4 of his letter where he exhorted the wicked adulterous fake Christians that he was preaching to that had friendship with the world and were the enemies of God to “Cleanse your hands ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and WEEP: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. HUMBLE yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another brethren.” This is that GODLY SORROW that Paul spoke of that “leadeth to repentance”! (And that repentance, leadeth unto salvation… again, eternal salvation, which comes from OBEDIENCE).

You see God wants to CLEANSE our HEARTS. He wants to transform our wicked hearts into PURE hearts that “delight to do” the will of our Father (just like Jesus). We are being conformed to the image of Christ so that we will be “LIKE HIM”. Jesus didn’t grudgingly serve his Father; no, that was not the Spirit of Christ, but he delighted to do the will of his Father. This ultimately is the same Spirit that God wants us to be of, but first he must work that GODLY SORROW and brokenness unto REPENTANCE so that our hearts may be made NEW IN HIM.

And I want to get specific here (for so does the Holy Ghost) a main part of that repentance that Paul preached about is turning from their VANITY and IDOLATRY back to the TRUE GOD of heaven and earth. Something to consider is that those Athenians were religious. They had built beautiful temples to worship all their gods in. And their hearts had been lifted up because of all the beauty of the works of their hands and Paul was trying to get them to UNDERSTAND that God is a SPIRIT and he doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands! The church house that we meet in is NOT God’s house… WE are God’s house (Hebrews 3), our BODIES are his TEMPLE (1 Corinthians 6)… If we only meet with God 3 or 4x a week then that is bad news because it means that God is NOT in us. And if he is not IN us, then we have no part with him. God is not worshipped with our hands (although I love to get excited and praise the Lord and lift up my hands to him) for he is a Spirit, and we must worship him in spirit and in truth. And the true Lord, our great God, has NO FELLOWSHIP with this wicked world and its devices. He has NO AGREEMENT with the world’s idolatry. He is LIGHT, and in him is NO DARKNESS at all. And true salvation is a CALL into fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ and with the FATHER himself. And he will NOT have fellowship with this world. I warn you against the spirit of this world, which IS driven by the MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, which is preparing the world-Babylon system to OPENLY WORSHIP THE DEVIL AND THE BEAST (the complete opposite of our Father and Lord Jesus Christ)! And Christ warned us in Revelation that “by thy sorceries were ALL nations DECEIVED.” The Lord hath no part in the sorceries and witchcrafts of Babylon. Beware, for I remember that we all partook of these enchantments when we went to see a “Star Wars” film of which I have repented. Have no fellowship, for God exhorts us to “Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins…” and to “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” Praise our God that he is merciful and longsuffering. So let us heed his call. Let us not linger anymore as Lot and his family (which we know the end of his wife and daughters) but let us be zealous and repent! For to be received by the great Lord Almighty is FAR BETTER than to be received by this world! And to be filled with the Spirit of our Father is FAR BETTER than to be filled with the spirit of this world.

And so thus, the scriptures started to become opened to me. I began to understand this “washing of regeneration” that Paul spoke of to our brother Titus. This washing comes through the water of the word being preached and we responding to the word with GODLY FEAR in sorrow to repentance. The water of God’s word and the tears of our sorrow begin to WASH our hearts. Remember Christ said we must be born again… we must be born of “water” and the Spirit! But first, water! He is not talking about water baptism, for even Peter confirms such in his 1st epistle towards the end of chapter 1 and chapter 3 where he says that we are “born again… by the word of God” and that the baptism is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the ANSWER of a GOOD CONSCIENCE toward God.” As we hear the word of God preached and answer with a good conscience in godly sorrow and repentance toward HIM (which Paul preached everywhere and which MUST come before faith) this cleanses our heart.

However, it was revealed to me that we are not merely washed by WATER ONLY. For Christ himself it is testified of came “not by water only, but by water AND BLOOD.” Remember, when Christ was pierced in his death, not only water came out, but water AND BLOOD. And so we discover the truth that our wicked hearts cannot be cleansed ONLY by hearing the word of God and repenting with sorrow… but must ultimately be cleansed by FAITH in HIS BLOOD! Thank God that Paul testifies to us in Hebrews 9:14, “How much MORE shall the BLOOD of Christ, who through the ETERNAL SPIRIT offered himself without spot to God, purge YOUR CONSCIENCE from dead works to SERVE the living God?” Hallelujah! Our conscience is purged and made new by the blood of Christ. And not only our conscience, but also our HEARTS! Read Hebrews 10:7-25 when you are able, but I will quote just verse 22 for now, “Let us draw near with a TRUE HEART in FULL ASSURANCE of FAITH, having our HEARTS SPRINKLED from an EVIL CONSCIENCE…” You see, our hearts through being washed by water AND blood can be made pure and true. Jesus himself said that “a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” An evil heart of unbelief cannot bring forth the good fruit of holiness unto God. And a good heart (a pure and true heart) cannot bring forth the evil fruit of sin and rebellion against God. In fact, the heart is the ground which receives the good seed of Christ (his word and Spirit) which ultimately grows up into a new man that brings forth the good fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance all of which is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. These things are the “natural” or rather “spiritual” fruits that come by nature of the Spirit of Christ, which can ONLY be planted in a GOOD HEART (the good ground of Luke 8:15 which receives the good seed is said to be “an honest and good heart.”) That is where it all starts!

I fear that many people have been trying over and over to sow the good seed of the gospel of Christ into a dishonest, deceitful and wicked heart. And thus, they can never bring forth the honest fruits of righteousness and true holiness. They can never yield the fruit of the love of the Spirit, which is one of the proofs that we KNOW that we have passed from death unto life! This “unfeigned love of the brethren” which is the love of God dwelling in us is the proof that God dwelleth in us and that we are his. So instead “Christianity” has built a manufactured “appearance” and “form of godliness” and yet we do NOT have, yea rather, it states that we are DENYING “the power thereof.” What is the power? It is Christ (he is the POWER of God and the wisdom of God) and his Spirit and kingdom (which is not just in word only, but in POWER). Oh how we need this power! We need the real power! But God will not give his glory to another. He is a jealous God. And he will not share his glory in a temple of idolatry. We must repent completely of ourselves and our idolatry and turn to HIM and look to HIS SON our Lord Jesus Christ for the blood of sprinkling that can make our hearts CLEAN!

Then and only then, can we receive Christ and believe his gospel. Then and only then will God allow us to receive the gift of the faith of Christ that will be imputed to us for righteousness. Hallelujah! Then and only then, once our heart is made pure and good by repentance through the fear of God in hearing his word can we finally HEAR his gospel and receive his Spirit! Oh, that wonderful holy Spirit of promise! For even the priests were washed with water, sprinkled with blood, and then anointed with pure oil olive! That anointing which we receive is of the pure (holy) Spirit of Jesus Christ himself. It was what was promised to Israel! It was something that would permanently make them God’s people through a NEW and BETTER covenant. And we as Gentiles, by God’s grace (and through Israel’s fall) have been allowed to be grafted in to this marvelous and wonderful NEW TESTAMENT and COVENANT! And the culmination of this new covenant was to be given God’s Spirit. Wow! The same Spirit that Christ Jesus was conceived by has now conceived us! The same Spirit that he was filled with now FILLS US! The same Spirit that he was led and empowered by now leads and empowers us! And the same Spirit that gave him victory over sin and death and quickened him to ETERNAL LIFE will now give us victory over sin and death and raise us to WALK in NEWNESS of life! Not according to the oldness of the letter… but in NEWNESS of spirit… not unto condemnation which killeth (God’s law that condemned us and brought us to the end of ourselves in sorrowful repentance unto him) but unto RIGHTEOUSNESS which giveth life (eternal by the NEW and BETTER testament: Christ’s grace and truth)!

You see, Jesus himself said, “No man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine MUST BE put into new bottles.” How can the new wine of God’s Holy Ghost, be put into our old wicked hearts? It can’t. His Spirit would literally destroy our hearts. In fact, that is what will happen when he returns in the power of holiness to this earth. He will literally destroy the wicked sinners. For the old man cannot receive nor CONTAIN his holiness. That is why the new wine MUST BE put into NEW BOTTLES. He first must make our hearts new, so that he can DWELL IN OUR HEARTS by faith, and that we can be rooted and grounded in LOVE! In order for us to be PRESERVED in CHRIST JESUS, we must have a new heart that can hold his Spirit, so that we can walk in his statutes and his ways unto ALL PLEASING!

Let us hear the prophecy that God gave to Ezekiel of this great new covenant some 500 years or so before Christ came, and tell me that this is not EXACTLY what God has revealed to us THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE NEW TESTAMENT…:

Ezekiel 36:23a “And I will sanctify my great name…” (that is the name above every name: Jesus Christ the Lord); verse 25-27, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from ALL your filthiness, and from ALL your idols, will I cleanse you. A NEW HEART also will I give you, AND a new spirit will I put WITHIN you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put MY SPIRIT within you, and cause you to WALK in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and DO THEM.”

WOW! Hallelujah! Praise our great Lord! It is exactly as he said. First, he washes us by water and blood (clean water)! This works repentance. And then he gives us a NEW HEART (an honest and good heart that can actually receive and believe the good news/gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord)! And then he puts a NEW SPIRIT within us! We are not only born of water, but also of the Spirit. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit! A brand new spirit that can do NO UNRIGHTEOUSNESS and CANNOT COMMIT sin is placed within our new heart! And thus, we can draw near to God in that TRUE HEART with FULL ASSURANCE of faith! That full assurance comes from the Holy Ghost! For it is the Spirit that beareth witness with our spirit that we ARE the children of GOD! And Christ came by water and blood, and it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth, and if we receive this witness of God (which hath testified of his Son) then we have the witness in ourselves which brings that full assurance of the truth and record so that we may KNOW that we have ETERNAL LIFE because we have believed on the name of the Son of God and continue to believe on the name of the Son of God! To whom be glory and power and honour for ever and ever. Amen!