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Water baptism is only an outward action of what has taken place already in the heart, just as a wedding is a ceremony representing something that has taken place in the heart of two people. The wedding doesn’t make two people fall in love. It is just an outward and public sealing of what has already transpired in the hearts of two people. That is all water baptism is. If you are water baptized and have never “repented” and will not allow Jesus to confront your sin and wash you, then all water baptism has done to you is get you wet. Water baptism symbolizes being dead to sins, no longer living your sinful, fleshly life and walking in the spirit of God as He leads and controls you. As a result of being “dead to sin” you are now raised into righteousness and eternal life. Again, if you have not repented and live out the decision to be washed in the water of the word by Jesus Christ, you have no part with him and all baptism did for you was get you wet. It profited nothing if you do not allow the work of the Holy Spirit to rebuke, reprove and convince you of your sin unto righteousness. That is the job and purpose of the Holy Spirit and He uses the word of God, people, teaching and other various methods to do this. To resists this reproving, rebuking and conviction of sin is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, which is an unpardonable sin that will never be forgiven you, either in this world or the next. To blaspheme the Holy Sprit literally mean to throw it back in the face of the Holy Spirit and we do this through denial, justification, rationalization, explaining, giving our intent, blaming others or just avoiding or ignoring the conviction or dealings of the Holy Spirit. That sin will never be forgiven you either in this world or the next as the bible states, so the above tactics as a result of a heart condition that prefers darkness have some pretty serious eternal consequences. Please remember this the next time you become defensive. I don’t know about you, but that is a pretty weighty word right out of the bible. I pray we all have Peter’s attitude where he stated “not just my feet then, but all of me”. Peter was ready, willing and able to strip and let Jesus wash every part of Him. Just as Jesus’ washing of the disciple’s feet was symbolic of Him washing us in the water of the word in order to be born again as the two scriptures above reference each other, so is baptism symbolic of something that has already taken place in our hearts. The act of baptism does not save you. The willingness of your heart to be changed, repent of your sins and formed into the image of Christ does and Peter was willing to bare it all to be cleansed. Are you?
Unless a man is born of water and of the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom (or experience the kingdom of heaven, see God working or hear God talking to him). If you ever wonder why you never hear from God and others do, this should be your first area in examining your heart. Are you willing to be rebuked, reproved or convicted of your sin and have the Holy Spirit expose the true condition of your heart or do you deny, justify, explain, give your intent, blame someone else, as Adam did, or enter into any other way of not accepting responsibility for your sin? Do you love darkness more than light and will not come to the light so that your deeds can be reproved that they were wrought in darkness as the book of John 3:19-21 states “And this is the condemnation (or why God’s judgment is brought on us) that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light (they prefer darkness), because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light (and those that shine the light on the condition of their heart), neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved (or discovered is the literal translation). But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they were wrought in God. Why don’t some false converts or who believe themselves to be “born again” want to read their bible and make excuses for not doing so? Because the word of God is light, convicting and a two edged sword that is sharp and it divides asunder the things of the spirit and the flesh. Those that love darkness or prefer it will not want to read their bible and will make excuses for not doing so; not enough time, too tired, don’t understand it, etc. Yet they will find time to eat, shower, watch their favorite smutty TV show and feed the things of their flesh, but they will not feed their spirit the food it needs to grow and produce godly fruit. As I say, garbage in, garbage out. Not reading your bible and making excuses for it is a sign or fruit that you prefer darkness rather than light and won’t come to that light. Try the fruits because that is how you will know them. This is a fruit and it reveals the heart condition of many who claim to be “born again” and are deceived. The book of Romans, that everyone loves to quote as proving they have eternal security, only claims eternal security about those who walk according to the spirit and do not walk in the lusts of the flesh. Condemnation does come upon those that love that darkness more than light and cover up their sin with denial, excuses, rationalization, explanations, giving their intent, blaming others for what they do or entering into any other form of avoidance in examining their hearts. If you hate the person who has removed the cloak to uncover your sin and condition of your heart, as Jesus did in His earthly ministry, you are definitely not a candidate for eternal security, salvation or having any part with Jesus. This is a fruit and not a good one. Jesus said that He was hated without a cause because He removed the cloak that covered men’s sins and exposed the condition of their hearts. If it is the work of the Holy Spirit, it will be about the condition of your heart, not external things, and if you choose to view yourself as “good” when your deeds and heart condition are brought to light, you’ll be turned away, just as the rich young ruler was.
Some background on the rich young ruler. He truly believed in his heart that he was something that he wasn’t. He was deceived and the bible states that our hearts are deceptive above all things. It literally means, when translated from the Hebrew, that our own hearts will deceive us. Your own heart is lying to you, folks and my own heart is lying to me and wants me to be deceived, thinking I am something I am not. Unless you let Jesus expose to you that you are not who you think you are and let Him change that, you have no part with Him. The rich young ruler came to Christ asking Him, “Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus asked him, “Why do you call me good? Only God is good.” This rich young ruler knew the scriptures and by calling Jesus good, he was calling Him God and Jesus was just validating this belief in this man. Okay, now that it is established that this rich young ruler believes that Jesus is God, as many of our false, unsaved converts do, Jesus asks him what the scriptures say, knowing that the man is very well versed in the scriptures. Are our false, unsaved converts even well versed in the scriptures? You can even be well versed in scripture and still not be born again or saved, quite frankly, as was the case with this ruler. This well versed scripture quoting ruler replied to Jesus’ question by stating that the scriptures said we are to love the Lord thy God will all thy heart, mind and soul and they neighbor as thyself. Jesus told him that he had been accurate in his answer in what it took to be “saved”. The young ruler asked Jesus what more he needed to do because he had kept all the commandments in loving God with everything he had and loving his neighbor as himself. This young man thought he had met all the requirements of being saved and inheriting the kingdom of God, but knew he lacked “something”. Jesus told him to sell all that he had, give to the poor, pick up and cross and follow Him. The rich young ruler could not do that. He knew Jesus was God and acknowledged that. He thought he was meeting all the requirements to inherit the kingdom of God, just as our false converts do, and thought he was something he wasn’t. In order to prove to the young man what the true condition of his heart was, Jesus told him to sell all he had, give to the poor and follow him. The reason why this young man couldn’t do it was because he did not love the Lord his God with his whole heart, mind and soul and his neighbor as himself as he thought he did. Otherwise, he would have been able to sell all he had, give to the poor and follow Jesus, whom he confessed as God. Jesus confronted his false beliefs about himself by giving him something to do, which he couldn’t. This exposed the true condition of his heart because the young ruler was not who he thought he was and he went away sad. In our churches today, we would have led this guy in a prayer and pronounced him “saved or born again”, telling him he was eternally secure as he marched off to hell in his false beliefs. We wouldn’t expose or confront the true condition of his heart, exposing its deception because we wouldn’t want to offend him and we would want to feel good about leading someone to Christ. We’d want his tithes and offerings to support “God’s work” of leading more souls down the primrose path to hell and deception. God forgive us for all the people going to hell because of our false demonic doctrines that require no repentance or confrontation of sin and the true discernment of the condition of men’s hearts. God forgive us for the “Grace is a license to sin, once saved always saved” doctrine that tickles ears and lulls men into eternal damnation and spiritual slumber Grace is not the license to sin. It is the power of God given to you to not sin, which an unbeliever does not have. Once you are saved and have the spirit of God living in you, you now have access to the abundant life that gives you power and victory over sin. If we are not even remotely willing to have our sin dealt with, or the condition of our heart exposed by the Holy Spirit, you cannot even enter into the kingdom of God to have access to this power. What is the point, you don’t want it anyway, so God will not waste His time giving you something you don’t even want. Only those that want it and will respond to it, get it! Therefore, if you do not allow Jesus to wash you, you have no part with Him. No part means NO PART! How much clearer can that be? Once you are willing to repent and be washed, then can you be “born again” of the spirit, but the willingness to be water washed and have your heart condition exposed comes before being spirit filled or born of the spirit. You don’t even get the power of the spirit if you are not willing to be washed first, which is why the rich young ruler did not follow Jesus and inherit the kingdom of heaven. He didn’t meet the requirements of being “spirit filled” or born of the spirit. These are the requirements to being “born again” or saved. Not church attendance, an alter call, being water baptized in whatever method by whatever words. If you do not want to change, have your sin and heart condition exposed and will not pick up your cross and follow Jesus, you have no part with Him and that includes the spirit and kingdom of heaven. That is why all prophets and alter calls should begin with a strong message of repentance, just as Jesus and John the Baptist started their ministries with. Repent and be saved has not changed. Without repentance, there is no salvation. God counts you as righteous as long as you are making the trip. As a Christian, you will sin, but you keep allowing God to deal with your sin as He washes you in the water of the word in your Christian walk and you start to experience victory over sin. Someone who loves darkness more than light will not do this. They keep pulling that cloak over their sin and crucify those that pull it off. At the least, they will be like the rich young ruler who walks away from God and eternal security “sad”. If you love darkness more than light, God will give you want you want and that is outer darkness, as far away from light and God as you can get, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. If you cannot even give up your defensiveness, pleasures of this life, etc, how will you ever be able to give up your head for Christ in martyrdom? If you cannot give up the easy things, how can you give up the hard? What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Life is short, eternity is forever! We live in the last days, folks and you must come into this reality. We need to reach the lost sheep in the house and preach the real gospel to those who believe they are saved and eternally secure as they march off to hell in their deception. This will require the prophetic voice in these end times who have discernment and love God more than what man thinks. These are the people who truly love you and look out for your eternal destiny. They will count persecution and betrayal by those who claim to love them as jewels in their eternal crown that they will cast at Jesus feet.
I have only expounded on the first two scriptures God gave me for this teaching. We’ll see where the Holy Spirit goes with this. It does lift up Jesus and confesses Jesus as Lord. Thus, it is of God. Try it by scriptures as God uses His word to shine light on the true condition of our hearts. He wishes that none should perish and in order to keep you from eternal damnation, or from His judgment in having your name removed from the book of life, He will use His word to show you your need for a savior when you do not believe you need one because you think you already have something you don’t.
We need to preach Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. In churches today, we preach him as the way and the only way to get to heaven and we leave it at that. We do not preach Him as the Truth. To reject the Truth that Jesus brings into your life to wash and cleanse you is to reject Jesus. This is who He is, not what He does. The Truth is the water of the word. To reject the word or sword of the spirit is to reject Christ and bring God’s judgment upon you. The bible speaks in a parable about the master of a vineyard that came upon a tree that bore no fruit. The master told the care taker to cut it down. The care taker begged the master to give it more time for him to dig around it, fertilize it and water it. This is symbolic of Jesus digging around us and fertilizing us with teaching and watering us with the Truth. If we do not produce any fruit after all the Truth and teaching God has brought into our lives, the master (God the Father) comes along and tells the care taker (prophetic person) to cut it down and cast it into the fire so that it does not burden the ground any more. All unproductive trees or vines in the scriptures are cut down and thrown into the fire, or have God bring eternal damnation and judgment upon them. This is symbolic of those who do not allow themselves to be washed and if you do not allow (by an act of your will) Jesus to wash you, you have no part with Him. Judgment starts in the house of the Lord and Jesus will do this in His church before God judges the world. Guess what. It is starting in his house. God is not faithful or righteous unless He warns you first so if these teachings and warning are starting to come out by various prophetic sources. He best see some fruit on your tree the next time He comes for a visit. Do not miss the hour of your visitation. He is coming to inspect your fruit and it is dangerous if He doesn’t see some growth. Revelations states that you can have your name removed from the Lamb’s book of Life. Rev. 3:1-6 “I know thy works, that thou hast a name (claiming to be a Christian that is born again) that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I WILL NOT BLOT OUT HIS NAME OUT OF THE BOOK OF LIFE but will confess his name before my Father, and before His angels. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Rev. 20: 15 states the eternal destiny of those whose names were not found in the Lambs book of Life. “AND WHOSOEVER WAS NOT FOUND WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE WAS CAST INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE”. So let me ask you, are you really eternally secure or is the bible lying? Have you been feed a false doctrine of demons, even unintentionally by well meaning men, whose fruit has produced a form of godliness that denies the power thereof? The false gospel being preached today has never and will never produced God fearing, truly righteous, sin hating spirit led Christians. It only produces lukewarm, wordly living and loving deceived people who walk in the lusts of the flesh, desiring to have their ears tickled to make them feel good about themselves, who prefer darkness over light. They march off in life allowing their own hearts to deceive them into thinking they are something they are not as their eternal destiny in a lake of fire awaits them. How can we sit by silently and not expose this by pulling them out of the fire hating their very garments that are spotted by the flesh. If you are a lover of pleasure and darkness more than a lover of God and believe that you can be worldly and love the things of this world, your heart is deceiving you. If you do not love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates, you should question who your father really is, who you serve and re-examine what the bible has to say about your eternal destiny and stop believing the false theologies, doctrines and gospels being preached in our pulpits today.
Grace is not the license to sin. It is the power of God given to you not to, which an unbeliever does not possess and this is where we experience Jesus as The Life. If you do not even possess it, you are probably an unbeliever and both need to go right back to allowing ourselves to be washed or we have no part with Him. If a man says that he has no sin through his various forms of denial, rationalization, explanations, excuses, blaming other etc., the bible says that he is a liar and the Truth (Jesus or Holy Spirit) is not in him and he deceives HIMSELF. The only one who is deceived is you if you pull the cloak back over your sin through defensiveness. God isn’t deceived and the one God uses to do the exposing is not deceived. You are the one deceived and you are doing this to yourself. That is a fruit to look for in someone who claims to be saved or born again. If the Truth were in him, he wouldn’t have a need to lie about his sin and cover the condition of his heart. He’d fear God and want his heart exposed so that he could be changed and healed. Denial, rationalization, justification, explanations, blaming others and avoidance of having your sin and heart condition exposed are all behaviors or fruit of someone who doesn’t have the Spirit of Truth in him. That is why Jesus never defended Himself, even when falsely accused. Lovers of the Truth do not have that need and fear God and know how deceptive their own hearts can be. They’ll look at and examine what is being said and take it to God in order to be cleansed and changed. If it isn’t true, so what? As long as God knows the truth about them, what does it matter what others think? Being defensive only accomplishes the exact opposite of what you are trying to do anyway. It only convinces the other person they are right. Defensiveness is only for an unsaved person’s benefit that allows them to continue seeing themselves as something they are not when the cloak is removed. It is a result of our own hearts wanting to deceive us into believing we are something we are not. That is another fruit of an unsaved person – defensiveness - which allows them to remain in darkness and sin. That is why Adam was kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Not because he ate an apple but because of how he responded to God when his sin was exposed. Adam blamed God and the woman God gave him. Eve blamed the serpent and so on and so on. No one took personal responsibility for their actions, repented and confessed after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Once they knew right from wrong, rather than eating from the Tree of Life, they tried to cover their sin with the fig leaves of denial. What is our reaction when our sinful hearts are exposed? Defensiveness and cover up or do we run to Jesus, who is the Tree of Life and get the abundant life, power and forgiveness we need when our sinful nature is revealed. Do we submit to Him and allow ourselves to be washed in order to have all parts with Him. The very Pharisees who crucified Christ believed that they were children of God and something they were not. Their own hearts deceived them because they wanted to be deceived. You can’t be deceived unless you want to be.
John 8:47 states that “He that is of God heareth God’s word: ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God”. Satan is called a liar and the father of lies in the bible and if you choose to lie and believe lies and deceive your own self, it is pretty clear to me who your father is.
John 8: 32 says “ye shall know the Truth (Jesus) and the Truth shall make you free”. Jesus exposes your sinful heart condition in order to set you free from your sin, wash and cleanse you and have your bear fruit. John 8:36 says “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”. Satan brings you into bondage and sin and enslaves you in it and if you choose to remain in darkness about it, you are the servant of it. John 8:34 says “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin”. That is who you serve, not Jesus.
Romans 8 that everyone loves to quote about having eternal security is really about trying the fruit. The people who are truly saved will walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit and they, therefore, receive no condemnation. That word “condemnation” literally translated means “God’s judgment” which the bible states does start in the house of the Lord for those claiming to be Christians. Romans 8:3 states that God condemned sin in the flesh. Romans 8 tries the fruit again of those who are saved and those who are not. Romans 8:5 states: For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. (This is fruit trying here.) 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, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But the truly saved…… But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led and controlled by the Spirit of God and not by the lusts of the flesh, they shall be called the Sons of God. Romans 8 that everyone quotes to deceive their own hearts into believing that they are eternally secure is really about trying the fruit of those who are truly saved and those who are not. The very scripture we use to convince us we are “in and safe”, God uses to condemn and judge us and try our fruits. Let’s stop taking scripture out of context and using it to tickle our ears, pat our flesh and make us feel good about ourselves and our eternity because we choose to allow our own hearts to deceive us into thinking we are something we are not as we march off to a lake of fire.
If you want true revival, true born again saints and the true power of the living God in our world, ministries and churches, start preaching about repentance, the fires of hell, deliverance of sin, denying self, taking up your cross and coming to the light. Start preaching Jesus as THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE and there is no real salvation without knowing Him as all three, not just as the Way. Jesus is also the Truth and the Life and to reject those is to reject Christ. To neglect preaching Him as all three is to neglect the whole gospel of Christ and the power of salvation. Simply put, Jesus cannot be Savior if Jesus isn’t Lord. No one calls Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit speaking through him. Let’s not blaspheme the Holy Spirit by throwing this teaching into the face of the Holy Spirit. It will never be forgiven you either in this world or the next and there will come a fearful looking for the judgment of God. Don’t let your own heart deceive you!
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Joanne Armstrong
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Floresville, TX 78114
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