Satan

Re your comment:

“Humans do not need Satan in order to do evil.  Humans are by nature vain.  In some ways, humans would behave worse without Satan being here.  Satan’s religion restrains man’s beastly nature with its standards and ceremonial form.”

Do you think that part of Satan “trying to be like God” is his restraining of humanity’s evil on earth?  Does he think to himself, “See, I can make people behave better than they would by nature?”

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Absolutely!  Satan hates disorderly conduct.  He despises harlots and social rejects.  That is why such people loved to be close to Jesus.  They felt that he loved them, while Satan’s ministers treated them with scorn.  He beheld God’s order in heaven, and wanted it.  He did not think it was a bad thing but something to grasp after.

Satan’s ministers promote social order and a certain moral standard among the men it influences, and they always have done so because that is how their father, the devil, feels about things.

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Also, I don’t understand this comment you made: “When the law of Moses ended, Satan was out of a job.”

rjc

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Under the law of Moses, Satan acted as a prosecutor in heaven, and he used the law as the standard by which he could “accuse the brethren”.  The men Jesus condemned as sons of the devil followed his example and used the law to judge others (not themselves), such as the poor woman caught in adultery (Jn. 8:1-11).

When the holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost with a far holier and more perfect standard than the law contained, Satan was left out.  He cannot judge righteous judgment because he cannot have the mind of the Spirit within him.  Therefore, he was no longer of use in heaven and was cast out.

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Revelation Study

Pastor John

Thanks for teaching us Revelation!  🙂   God is not who I thought He was at all.

This class has made me see how much God still loves his people and how thankful we should be for the truth.

Marge

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Jesus’ Coming

Hi there,

I started reading your article on when will Jesus return.  You mention the three signs that Christ spoke of coming to pass first; namely false teachers, wars and rumours of wars, and third famine and other natural disasters.  You glibly carry on to suggest it is laughable to think that Christ will return soon.  Do you watch the news?  have you not seen all these things come to pass.  have you not seen what is going on in the churches?  Or are YOU one of the false teachers.  Please update your article.

Thank you
jenny

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Hi Jenny,

Thanks for your email.   Since at least 1993 (and even earlier) we have been saying via radio and in print that it will be many years until Jesus returns.  The teachers within the religion of “Christianity” have been saying that Jesus could return at any moment.   So I ask you, who has been wrong and who has been telling the truth?

Concerning your statement that the news indicates that Jesus will come back very soon because the signs mentioned are happening…there are other signs and events besides these three.   These are three of the earliest of the signs of the end.  If you read the book of Revelation with careful scrutiny, you will see what they are.  There must also come the rest of the Seven Seals and then the Seven Trumpets (including those mysterious Seven Thunders) before the Lord Jesus comes for his people.  We are not close.  Not yet. 

So I must say that our article is both factual and accurate.  Jesus’ return is probably decades, if not longer, away from coming to pass.  I doubt He will return in my lifetime (I am 55 years old).

We say that Christian ministers who are telling God’s children that “Jesus could come at any moment” are misleading their congregations, albeit ignorantly.  Things ARE speeding up, and time marches on, but at the present time, God’s children don’t need to prepare for Jesus coming as much as they need to prepare for Jesus NOT to come.  Most of God’s saints are ill-equipped in the Spirit to survive what is to come before Jesus returns.  So, if we are going to help God’s children, we need to do it with truth.  And the truth is that Jesus’ coming is still many years away.  There is time to prepare.

blessings to you.
Gary Savelli
www.isaiah58.com

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“Leave This World Behind”

http://www.isaiah58.com/music/slimplayer/indexdarrenprater.html

Hi Pastor John,

For about 3 weeks now I have been listening to Darren’s sampler cd 3 and I can’t seem to get past tract # 3 “Leave the world behind” I have played that song over and over and over, every time I get into the truck. I love how it starts out:
 
“I am not that hard, and I have come so low.”   God is not a hard God!  He is very meek and lowly, and He has made a way for us.  “Speaking to your hearts as you come and go.”   God is always there to guide us and help us and encourage us as we come and go, if we are listening.
 
“My love blows like the wind, as it whispers in your ear…”  How sweet and true that is!  His love is always around us.  If we are looking, his whole creation is screaming out with the love of God.

“Can you hear me say, Oh I want you here?”  If we have been filled with the holy ghost and this truth, that is what we are hearing ” Oh I want you here!”
 
“For I know you feel it tugging, but the world is so unkind.
It will please you for a moment, but then leave you for behind.”  John, everybody wants to be happy.  That is why they do what they do; they think it will make them happy.  Oh, but only “for a moment” will the world make anyone happy.
 
I love this next line:
“The life I have for you is better, the life I give to you.
And you can go much further, but that’s all up to you.”

Wow, the question is, what do we really want?  It’s all here in the spirit, and in the life God has given to us, and we can go as far as we want.  He will take us there, but that is all up to us.  What do we want?  In the end, we all are going to get what we really want.  If we want the things of this world, we can have them, but is will only last for a moment, “then leave us far behind.”
 
“He recreated our hearts, the day we were born.  But if there is unbelief that heart gets torn.
The reason that you live, is just to do my will, so let go of this world and let your heart be still.
Love just what I love and hate what I abhor.  Feel just what I feel, and let me love you more.
Say what I would say and do what I would do, leave the world behind and let your heart be true.”
 
John, this song has be ringing through every fiber in my body, telling me how true and simple serving God really is — if that is what you really want to do.  How hard it is to try and serve Him half-hearted.  Everyone who does that is miserable
 
Stuart

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Hi Stuart.

The lyrics of Darren’s songs are powerful.  Sometimes, the music he writes is so lovely that we miss the words, but when we take the time to hear what the Lord is saying through Darren, it can take your breath away.

jdc

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Wine

did Jesus turn water into real wine or grape juice?

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Real wine.  The guests at the wedding where Jesus made the wine would not have been impressed with grape juice.

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If real wine, what about God telling us not to drink strong drink?

Thank You,

Larry

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Thank you for your question.

It is impossible to prove by the scriptures that drinking wine is sinful.  An excess of anything is sinful, including drinking wine, and that is what the Bible condemns.  Besides Jesus turning the water into wine, we have the example of Paul actually encouraging young Timothy to “drink a little wine” because doing so would help Timothy with his frequent stomach problems (1Tim. 5:23).  Solomon’s wise friend, King Lemuel, advised that wine be given to those who were dying, and also to people who were depressed (Prov. 31:6); at the same time, Lemuel advised that that rulers should stay away from it (31:4).

The idea that Jesus turned water into grape juice comes from over-religious Christians who believe that drinking wine is sinful.  But they know that Jesus was sinless, so surely he could not have made wine — or so they think.

Thanks again for your question.  Feel free to follow up with any others that you may have.

Your servant,

Pastor John

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Speech At Elon

Hey everybody!

There was too much to text last night about the speech given by the Polish Holocaust survivor.  She simply started telling her story of how she grew up as a little girl, and then the changes that took place as the war progressed. There were several things that stood out to me from her talk.

1) How she was forced to learn the German language in school at a very young age.  They wouldn’t speak any other language.  And that Jesus did that to keep her alive.  It was her value, even as a very young girl, during the war.

2) That the Holocaust didn’t happen 1500 years ago, or even 400.  This woman is still alive.  Even though she is old – it happened in our lifetime.

3) She said that at the death camp where she finally ended up, people were nailed to crosses. Whew!  I was thinking of Jesus and what he suffered. And I’m not sure if she was actually put on a cross for awhile, or just threatened with it, because she would lie when translating for the Germans who were in charge of the camp.

4) Her love for America.  Her love of life and liberty.  She described in detail the Americans who took care of her in a hospital when she was taken out of the death camp.  The heart of her message was for people to love America,  and value liberty and life.

When she got to the part where she was describing the kindness of the nurses and soldiers who took care of her in the hospital, I couldn’t help but think of all her words as being to us, God’s people.  Just like the verses from Ezekiel 16, God has taken us out of our own blood, he’s loved us, and fed us.  I feel like her words, her passion, in helping people realize the great value of liberty in this country, was for us!  She was talking about America, but I was feeling – us, the place where God has brought us.  For us to value the great liberty and life we have been given in the Spirit; it is no small thing.  God has given us a precious gift, worthy of our love and our lives.  I pray that God will grant us a part in feeding, nurturing, and loving our precious family as they are liberated from that awful prison that holds them.

Donna

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“Worthy”

Hey,

The kids, especially Hannah, will often sing, “I cry worthy, the lamb of God.”  🙂  She was doing that this morning, and I started singing it with her.  Those feelings flooded me again, like that night at the prayer meeting, and I started crying while I sang.  Hope held my hand and then laid her head on me.  When we were through singing, Hope looked at me and said, “Are we having a meeting?”  I said, “I think so, Baby.”   🙂

It was very sweet.  We just watched the first few minutes of the Revelation class again, with Bro. Gary singing “you can’t do it alone.”  I was crying again! 🙂  That would make a good youtube video.  You can feel the spirit in the room during the song.

Thank you for being there.  I don’t want to do it alone.

Love,
Cris

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Hi Cris,

Little scenes at home such as you experienced with Hope are worth more than all the church religion of earth put together.  Only the blind don’t realize their value.  At home is where children do, or do not, learn love the feelings of God and to trust in Jesus.

Good job!

You are not alone.

jdc

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Weekend

Dear John,

I love the feeling of awe I felt Saturday night and Sunday morning (and still now) as you were teaching and revealing to us what God had shown you. All the hours you invested into our hearts teaching us those wonderful stories of God’s people from Old Testament times really brought out how God sees Christianity/Babylon.

We have all heard how the things in old time were for our learning and God really demonstrated that to us through Ezekiel, Daniel, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joshua and others.  What God tried to get through to Israel is still the same for us: serving and worshiping God any other way than the way He requires is death.  Not worshiping in Spirit and truth is death.  The way Israel worshiped God affected their souls and their relationship with God.  The same is true for us today.  God is opening our eyes to see that Christianity’s (Xty) perverted ways of worship has a death sentence with it.  I feel very loved to have been able to be there to hear with my ears and my heart this weekend.  I pray I never forget the mercy God has shown to us to lead us out of Xty.  And I have had put into my heart a greater compassion on my brothers and sisters who are still inside Xty.  I also understand more fully why God says we should worship Him with fear and trembling.

Thank you for teaching the truth to us and for your love for God and us.

Bess

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Living Things

Hey Brother John:

In John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 4, he didn’t mention seeing any cherubim.  He did see four living things “in the midst of the throne and around the throne”.  Are these the living things that were represented by the two cherubim on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, and the two cherubim that stood beside the Ark in the Temple?

Billy H.

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Hi Billy:

I do not believe that the living things were cherubim, but inasmuch as none of us have been there to asee what John saw, none of us can be experts on the subject, either.

John didn’t know what to call them.  And it is difficult know how to translate the word he used to describe them.  I chose “living things”, instead of “living creatures” or “living beings” in order to communicate some that mystery.  “Living beings” or “living creatures” are acceptable translations, but I wanted to preserve some of John’s awe and wonder at what he saw before God’s throne.

Pastor John

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Revelation and Ahithophel

Hi John,

Thanks again for the great classes this weekend from Revelation. 
 
There were a few standout things – the first was about saying, “I didn’t mean to do that” or “I didn’t know I did that”, etc.  As you said, it’s merely changing the subject.  That will stick with me a lifetime,  I believe.  If I do something that is not right, it’s because that thing was in my heart.  I have a feeling God will give me the opportunities.  I want own up to it and get it right with God, and move ON with God – praying that such a desire is in my heart.  My actions will tell.  That was great. 
 
Another thing was what you said about intimacy/communion with God being a place of “cleansing”.  That was an invitation to go/stay there!
 
And thirdly, was about not blaming anybody for anything. It’s not about them –  It’s about God.  God is behind everything that comes our way.  EVERYTHING.
 
These three things really went deep for me this weekend.
 
BUT… I have to say that in addition to these things –  among the top highlights for me was you telling about the story of Ahithophel and David.  I love it when those stories come to life.   I get a great feeling of gratitude “tickle” me when you take us to those places, and it gets so understandable and real life.  We should be very, very grateful to have access to solid food and anointed teaching…. it’s so rare and valuable.  I feel very blessed to be under and among the people He has joined me to.  I look forward to the final episode!
 
Gary

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