A few weeks ago I was speaking with a regular listener who belongs to a certain denomination. He questioned me concerning the actual date of Christ's birth, which, as I'd pointed out, could not have been at Christmas, but was about April.
According to Scripture, Jesus was the Passover Lamb. The natural types the Spiritual. Lamb's are born in spring, which in Palestine, is in April. Luke's Gospel tells us that Jesus was baptized at the time of his thirtieth birthday. And not in mid-winter.
Because this listener did not 'receive the Word with all readiness of mind, then search the Scripture to confirm what I'd taught', he could not agree. He could not agree with God's unchanging Word, because his absolute is his church. Jesus prayed that we should be one with Him, as He and the Father were one. One in agreement by the common faith, or understanding of His Word.
He's one with his denomination, against the faith of Jesus Christ, because his trust is in the teaching of his church, NOT in God's unchanging Word. But had he agreed with me, he'd still not be one with God by faith, because his trust would be in my teaching. No matter how correct a minister is in his doctrine, UNTIL we take it BACK to the Bible and do what IT says do, we're without faith.
He told me he belongs to a certain faith, implying one of several. Of course there is, was, and can ever be only one faith. And it's common to every Christian. Paul called It 'the mind of Christ' IN you: God's understanding of His unchanging Word. God's not double minded; there can't be one faith for Methodists, one for Islam, one for Catholics and another flavor for somebody else.
Whatever the faith is, there cannot be two Christians is the world preaching contradictory doctrine, because Jesus said emphatically that the Holy Spirit guides into all truth. And He's had 2,000 years to do so. If one chooses to stubbornly support denomination against God's vindicated Word, that's their right. But they've rejected the Holy Spirit.
I inquired why he belonged to his denomination and not some other, or why he wasn't Buddhist or Muslim. He responded that his parents belonged to that certain denomination, and it was the religion of the country of his birth.
That's no reason for belonging to religion. There's no such Bible precedent. Abraham is called the father of faith. His parents were pagans and his country of birth was a pagan country. Salvation's, not in our parents, or country. Every European country is pagan because they rejected God's Reformation. Today Britain, Australia and America are also pagan countries. We must follow Jesus, and Him alone. He is the Word from Genesis to Revelation made flesh. It wasn't your church or some man-made, Bible-denying creed that bled and died on Calvary's cross. It was the Word made flesh.
Our spiritual walk is either by faith or it's in vain. If it's not the one and only faith of Jesus Christ, we have no relationship to God as children. Until we're born-again, God's not our Father, and Jesus is not our Brother. Oneness in the Faith The true Church is the Bride of Christ, united to Him by faith. He calls this Union marriage because we're one in the Spirit as a man and wife are one in the flesh through agreement in their hearts.
How would it be if your husband or wife married you, because your parents lived in the same street, or came from the same country? There'd be no relationship. This is as unsatisfactory a basis for natural marriage as it'd be for the Spiritual marriage. Claiming to be a Christian because we learnt a creed or catechism is like saying we married because we learned to recite the wedding vows. love and the intimacy of oneness has been forsaken for a purely mechanical association with no relationship.
Anyone who is Buddhist, Baptist, or whatever: 'because that's what their parents were' has no relationship with the god they claim to worship. What may have been OK for mum and dad in their day will not work for us in this day. We must establish our own personal, individual walk with God. God is a dispensationalist, and unless we're walking in the Light He is in now, we're impersonating the Light for a day gone by and have no relationship with Him.
Jesus told us to 'Search the Scriptures'. Paul said 'Study to show yourself approved of God'. Too many of us seek to be men-pleasers. Our RELATIONSHIP 'is not at all with God but with our friends in the congregation.
So whatever you do, don't be satisfied with the religion of your parents. And don't rest your eternity on what the preacher says, just because he's behind the pulpit. Prove everything you're going to believe, before you receive it as fact. There's no life in a second-hand religion. Test every Word from Genesis to Revelation. Faith, if it is faith, will run in continuity from Genesis to Revelation.
For example, if God told Moses He's a trinity, then that's what He is, but if He told Moses He is one God and one Lord, He cannot tell another prophet something different. Anyone who says God is after all a trinity, is saying that God lied to Moses and is lying to you. God never changes His mind on His Word. If Peter and Jesus told us to baptize in His Name, then that is the way to be baptized. Anything different did NOT come from God.
I think a lot of us should take greater care of our souls. We wouldn't drive a car if it failed to pass a road worthiness test. Why are we so reckless with our soul, traveling in a religion that fails the Word test?
Let's look at communion. Communion means 'fellowship', it's a two-way conversation or communication in which both parties are in agreement. The two parties are God and you. Not God, you and your parents; God, you and your church; or God, you and your wife. But God and you alone. God and one individual.
He said, ' How can two walk together except they be agreed on the Word?' Before we can commune with God, we must be at one with Him, or in agreement by faith. That's why Jesus instructed us when we pray, to ask 'Thy will be done'
In the Bible, Communion is called the Lord's supper. Yet most churches observe it as His breakfast, or His lunch. Right back in Exodus we find out that the type was observed in the evening time. Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper as a memorial to be observed in the evening time, so did Paul (Mark 14:17; I Corinthians 11:23).
Before we partake of this memorial, we must be in communion, or in agreement with the Word. Jesus said if we don't observe Communion we have no part in Him. And Paul taught that it's death to take it unworthily. Only those who are in the fellowship of the Spirit. Only those who are genuinely born-again are worthy to take the Lord's Supper.
If we go back to Exodus 12(:43-49) where Moses commanded Israel to observe an annual memorial of that first Passover, which was a type of Calvary and our deliverance, He says 'it is a night to be much observed', not a morning. And 'no stranger or uncircumcised male' may keep it, this means only those of the household of faith who are truly born-again may partake of the Lord's Supper.
Israel was to eat the Passover in haste, with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand (Exodus 12:11). They were to be ready for the journey, by which God would lead them to the Promised Land. And those who take the Communion today must be prepared for the journey to the Eternal Land of the Millennium. Yet in a denominational church we'll see children take Communion, men who drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and women with cut hair, painted faces, wearing shorts, jeans, and competing with men in the work-place yet calling themselves Christians and taking Communion.
Paul said, 'He that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's Body. Because of this many are spiritually weak and sickly among you, and many dead while they're alive' (I Corinthians 11:29-30).
The 'Lord's Body', Brother or Sister, is not that broken fragment of unleavened bread, it's the living saints. Christians. Oh yes, it's death not to partake Communion, and it's death to take it unworthily.
The bread and wine are symbols which signify that the partaker is in agreement or one with Christ, Who is the anointed Word. When Moses fed Israel manna in the Wilderness, this natural bread from heaven sustained their mortal lives. When we partake of the Lord's Supper, we signify we are one with Christ, that supernatural Bread from heaven, which if a man partake by faith he'll never die.
This bread is made from wheat, the noblest of the grains, sifted, so that the flour is uniform: symbolizing Jesus Christ, 'the same, yesterday, and today, and forever'. Like Christ, it's unleavened, mixed with water and nothing else. Leaven represents sin. Nothing is added to or taken from the pure wheat.
The bread we prepare for the Lord's Supper is made by holy hands. It's rolled flat and thin, then baked in an oven or over a pan. It is square or rectangular bread, and never round. Only pagans have round bread in their ceremonies. You can find this in your Bibles and in history books, they made cakes to Astarte the Moon Goddess, the Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 7:18; 44:19).
Just as we don't run to the shop and buy a loaf of light bread for Communion, we don't buy a bottle of sherry from the pub, or grape juice from the grocer. Juice sours whereas wine has a spirit which preserves and improves it as it matures. It types the Holy Spirit which is a preserver of the soul. The wine we use for the Lord's Supper is fermented from grapes crushed by holy hands ... or feet. As the spirit in natural wine stimulates man's mortal spirit, the Holy Spirit stimulates our soul by revelation.
Now God is not double-minded, and His Word comes to us through His servants the prophets. The test for a prophet requires his every prophecy will be consistent with the Word of previously vindicated prophets.
Jesus was a prophet. Do you believe that? He was the God-prophet of whom Moses said, 'the Lord thy God will raise up a prophet like unto me'. Paul was also a prophet. Jesus said, 'This is My body, and this is My blood of the New Testament'. In fact the bread was bread, and the wine remained wine. The bread represented his Body, or the Word of God, and the wine represented the Holy Spirit which is the LIFE of Christ, for the life is in the blood and Christians are the blood of Christ by the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Paul taught us that the bread and wine are just that:- bread, and wine. They are not flesh, nor are they blood (which Christians are forbidden to eat). They're symbols we partake in remembrance of what Christ has done for us. This indicates we're one with him; now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Whilst you're welcome to take the letter of the Words Jesus spoke, the letter is death. The letter killeth, but the Spirit gives life through faith or understanding of what Jesus meant! The Life of Christ is in the meaning or logos of the Word.
Baptism, believing, or the Lord's Supper are no different. You can certainly observe them according to the letter, but without faith it's impossible to please God. If we can get to heaven by learning some man-made creed and rehearsing form and ritual then we're back under the LAW, and faith is void. 'Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?' (Galatians 3:2).
The Lord commanded us three observations: Scriptural water baptism by immersion in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, after we have a clear revelation of the true Oneness of the Godhead. Secondly, the Lord's Supper - not His breakfast or His lunch. And finally, foot washing.
Yet few churches today understand the true Oneness of the Godhead; few baptize in the compound-redemptive Name of Lord Jesus Christ. And how many churches observe the Lord's Supper as Jesus taught? Like water baptism they change it to please the congregation. It's become no more than a ritual. And almost no churches observe foot washing today. It would be too humbling for them.
Jesus commanded us to follow His example, and wash the feet of the saints. The saints are the living Body of Christ on earth today. Every genuine Christian is a saint. One cannot be born-again and not be a saint. Concerning widows, Paul said, 'Let no widow be considered for assistance unless she's over sixty years of age, was the wife of one living husband, has raised up his children, shown hospitality to the brethren, relieved brethren in distress, and washed the feet of the saints (John 13:1-17; I Timothy 5:1-10)
Now Sisters who are widows requiring regular assistance from the congregation are not expected to wash the feet of a cadaver from the Middle East to qualify. The saints are the living brethren, in their local Church; those who are baptized into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit.
Christians OBSERVE foot washing. The Brothers wash the feet of the Brothers. On the other side of the curtain or in a different room, the Sisters wash one-another's feet.
Jesus said, 'If you know these things, happy are you if you do them'. But as with everything Jesus said, it's up to us whether we obey, or disobey. Whether we receive His Word by faith, or take the mark of the beast which is reasoning against the revealed Word of God, is a matter of our own free choice.
Whatever It is, Jesus said, those who are truly His sheep will receive and manifest His Word in their lives. For a life lived by the Word is the Word expressed. That, and nothing else is Christ in you. It's the Token, and guarantee of your redemption. radio033.html