Spiritual Marriage & Divorce
It's really good to be back in Australia, speaking to you live.
For the past month or so, Bible Believer's programs were pre- recorded, as I was ministering in Pakistan and Singapore. On this trip, I was invited to work in Karachi by a Sister I baptized in 1987. She's married with a small son, and they fellowship with a tiny group.
In Karachi most of the Christian groups I worked with meet in what they call awami or community churches. These church buildings are shared. Services are conducted by a different group every night.
It's quite an experience speeding along on the pillion of a 100 cc Honda motor bike, with no light, no rear brakes, loose foot rests, and dodging busses with sirens blaring as they race each other for passengers.
I encountered strenuous opposition from a number of UPC pastors in Karachi, denying the Message of this hour and trying to push their false Oneness doctrine and false water baptism. We should pray for the Work in Pakistan, and bear in mind the powers that be, plan to make World War III, a war between Muslims and Political Zionists.
They're bound to stir-up trouble in Pakistan, as they did over the recent nuclear testing in India, and as they have done in Iraq. A little research in any encyclopaedia will show you that in 1871, a military blue print was prepared for three world wars, and three major revolutions, which Luciferian General Albert Pike considered would bring the age-old conspiracy to its final stage in the 20th century, with all international organizations and groups financed, directed and controlled by Illuminati agents - at the top.
In World War I, Monarchism (thesis) faced Democracy (antithesis), producing Communism and the League of Nations (synthesis). In World War II, Democracy and Communism (thesis) faced Fascism and Nazism (antithesis), resulting in the United Nations (Synthesis). In the Cold War, Capitalism (thesis) faced Communism (antithesis), and the result will be the totalitarian NWO (synthesis).
In the Bible, the NWO is called the Great Tribulation.
World War III is to be fomented by using the differences agents of the Illuminati stir up between Political Zionists, and the leaders of the Moslem world. This war is to be directed in such a manner that Islam and Political Zionism will destroy themselves, while at the same time the remaining nations, once more divided against each other on this issue, will be forced to fight themselves into a state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and economic exhaustion.
So current history which looks episodic is in fact the culminating stages of a very long-term policy moving internationally, but visible only in the long perspective of time. What we think we see is often an illusion intentionally presented. Hegelian dialectics is the process by which conflict creates predetermined history.
Back to Pakistan. If you caught our last program, you'd have heard my friend and Brother-in-Christ, Rashid Gill, whom I regard as the senior pastor in Pakistan. He spoke about the doctrines we taught in the churches in northern Pakistan. Brother Gill's been translating for me for many years and in addition to pastoring his own congregation in Rawalpindi, he travels extensively throughout the Punjab, and supervises the translation and publication of the End-Time Message of Brother Branham.
The saints in Pakistan are really following the revelation of the Word; light years beyond the darkness of our denominational groups in Australia. If you'd like to receive news from Brother Gill, or maybe invite him to speak in your church, I'll put you in touch if you write to the address in the following announcement.
It's Good to be home. If you have any questions, comments or ideas for the program, write me a note or send some e-mail. I replied to over 200 e-mails last week. We have a weekly Newsletter and would be happy to add your e-mail address to the list. I tell you what, the first three letters or e-mails I receive this week, will get a diskette of FAITHNOW, which is a computer slide show, illustrating what Jesus has done and continues to do in our day.
-oOo-
We were born with our soul dead in sins. Without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel - estranged from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:5, 12).
Our soul was subject to the senses of our flesh and mortal spirit that contact this natural world. seduced by worldly pleasures, we were in idolatry, in spiritual fornication with our first husband, the nature of Satan.
In His grace, God provided a way out. It's called "divorce".
Now the natural things of this world type the spiritual. If there were no divorce, there could be no justification by grace through faith, because every one born of woman is born in sin. And before conversion, the most noble of us was living in unholy union with Satan. The worldly nature of the god of this world was ruling over our soul.
Jesus said, "What God has joined together let not man put asunder" (Matthew 19:6). But God did not join our soul together with Satan. Therefore man can break or divorce that spiritual union, just as he can break a natural union, if he finds his wife was in unconfessed fornication before marriage.
Jesus said, "Whosoever puts away his wife, except for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery: and whoever marries she who is put away commits adultery" (Matthew 19:9).
Before the spiritual marriage (or new birth) with our new husband, Christ, we must confess and repent of our previous relationship in spiritual fornication with Satan. The answer of a good conscience toward God, or faith, requires that we take His Name, "Lord Jesus Christ", in Scriptural water baptism, identifying with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. By obedience to this revelation we're justified.
Acts 2:38-39 remits past sins (or spiritual fornication, which is idolatry): "Repent, and be baptized every one of you, in the Name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost or new birth: the spiritual marriage of our soul with the Word. For the promise is unto you, to your children, and to all who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call".
God's Word calls for a total separation, or spiritual divorcement, from unbelief. Our past sins are remitted, and not charged to our account, but against Satan, our "old" man, or first husband.
Do you see the ungodliness of a Talmudic matriarchal society being foisted upon us by front groups like the women's liberation lobby, affirmative action and "equal opportunities"? Oh the blindness of the denominational world church system, which being without faith, is actually denying the only avenue provided for justification. If the husband is not responsible for the actions of his wife, pray tell me how can God remit the past sins of our unregenerated soul, and declare one justified by grace through faith?
God must balance the books! The debt must be paid. When the Word was made flesh, it was a Man. Jesus bore the sins of his wife, the true Church on Calvary. Therefore in the natural, the husband, and not the wife is responsible. And she is to be under his authority.
Fancy permitting women to vote, when they're designed so they can deceive and be deceived. When a woman votes it should be according to her husband's instruction. Sin-loving denominations absolved a husband's responsibility in the natural, making a wife responsible for her own actions. So she can never be justified in the natural, or in the spiritual, and is forever guilty because she's taken the responsibility upon herself. Blind leaders of the blind.
There are three steps or stages of grace through faith. All three are required for spiritual regeneration, or the new birth.
Justification involves "divorcing our former behavior inspired by the old man (who ruled our soul), which was corrupt according to his deceitful lusts". Sanctification requires that we "be renewed in the spirit of our mind." And the baptism of the Holy Ghost, is the new birth, by which we "put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness" (Ephesians 4:22-24).
Justification only separates us from our old nature by placing our past sins on his shoulder. But he's still around, and whilst our soul has heard the Master's call, which is our marriage proposal, we must make ourself ready by learning to serve and please Him. This is called sanctification - separation from the world and our ideas unto His Word, which is His expressed ideas. A woman serves God as she obeys her husband.
Finally comes the baptism with the Holy Ghost when God's holy Fire cleanses our soul, killing our old man, and uniting with us, in an invisible marriage union that no man can put asunder because we're sealed unto the day of our physical redemption at the body change.
Paul said, "It's good for a man to remain a virgin. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband ... And to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord, 'Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife'" (I Corinthians 7:1-2, 10-11).
Our soul departed from or divorced our first husband when we were justified. We had to remain unmarried or be reconciled to our old worldly nature so long as he lived. And Justification is as far as most go who claim to be Christians, or Christ's bride. They remain unmarried, answerable for their spiritual needs, and responsible for their own actions. They keep on repenting, but never come into oneness and under headship to the Word.
Multitudes go back into the world and are lost. Some progress to sanctification or holiness but this is still not under Headship by marriage to Christ, the Word. They can still be lost.
True Justification is the new birth or baptism with the Holy Ghost and Fire (Matthew 3:11) which unites us with our espoused. But we can't marry Christ whilst our former husband is living. We can't just put him away and take another. He must be dead.
"You Jewish brethren should understand how legal claims have power over a person only so long as they're alive!
For instance, a married woman is bound by the law to her husband so long as he lives; but if he dies she's loosed from the laws of marriage. If she married another man while her husband was alive, she'd be called an adulteress: but if her husband dies, she's free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she is married to another man.
Likewise, you've become dead to your old husband, the law, being crucified in Christ's body; that you should be married to Another, even Him Who is raised from the dead, that you should bring forth fruit unto God" (Romans 7:1-4).
Christians are accounted as having been crucified in Christ on Calvary. Being foreknown in the Word which was made flesh, we're also accounted as having died, and therefore beyond the Law. Its ordinances were nailed to Christ's cross and we're dead to the Law (Colossians 2:14).
The same type applies to the part-Word of each of the Seven Church Ages. The part-Word by which God baptized the elect into the Body in ONE Church Age was insufficient to give a new birth in the next Age. Like Israel's manna, it was not to be carried over into a new day. The saints of the Philadelphian Age had to DIE to their old Anglican, Lutheran or Presbyterian husband of part-Word to receive the measure of faith predestinated to the new Age, as the saints of Laodicea had to die to their Baptist, Methodist, Nazarene and Pilgrim Holiness husband of part-Word from the Philadelphian Age. That old husband was dead. They had to be born of the Word for their day, as the saints of this day must bury the old PEntecostal husband to come under preeminence to that which is perfect: Christ - the fullness of the Word.
-oOo-
Minister Frank Dowsett ([email protected]) expressed these thoughts in "The Strategy", (May, 1998, http://users.netcon.net.au/strategy). One gropes with a feeling of sheer frustration these days to find words to describe the stupidity and hypocrisy of the politicians we've elected to be our servants. Yes! We got what we deserved! But the trouble is that our employees won't give us what we really want.
Take for instance, the matter of criminal justice. A national TV Current Affairs programme recently discussed the reintroduction of capital punishment, truth in sentencing and rehabilitation. A poll revealed these astounding results. The first question related to the application of the death sentence for certain forms of murder.
It was reported that of 122,000 calls, 97% voted in favour of the death penalty. The second question related to truth in sentencing. That is, an offender sentenced to 20 years imprisonment must spend the full 20 years in gaol. This question brought a reported 94,000 votes, with 99% voting in favour. Yet politicians tell us that to introduce such measures would be a virtual death sentence to their political careers.
If political parties had the guts to introduce what the majority clearly wish, they'd leave their opposition so far behind in an election, they wouldn't hear the band playing.
What God has to say in these matters is quite irrelevant, or so it seems. Brother Dowsett contends God's Word is quite unequivocal in the application of the death sentence for murder, contrary to the views of the Christian mainstream featured on the programme, and the vast majority of ministers who were not represented.
I don't believe in the death sentence. "The first murder committed was when one brother killed another. God did not take his life and placed a mark on him so nobody else should take his life." That's the Supreme Judge of heaven and earth. If we take a man's life, we take his chance for repentance and eternal Life.
Pastor Dowsett continued - there remains the contentious question of prisoner rehabilitation. The fact is, imprisonment forms no part of Divine Law. The Bible speaks of prison only in respect of non-Israelite practices.
At present, the great majority of convicted offenders are thrown into prisons. Newer offenders are eventually released, more highly trained and committed criminals than they were upon entering, not to mention the moral degradation to which younger men are subject, nor the stigma that follows them for the rest of their lives.
Let's take God's way as our example. Penalties under God's Law are clear. If a person is found guilty of robbery, and the goods are recovered, he's fined twice their value. If they're not recovered, he's fined four times the value of the theft (Exodus 22). He does not go to prison! And the whole fine is paid to the victim, not to the government! If the offender can't pay, he must work for the victim, or his wages are garnisheed until the full sum is paid.
They are not separated from their family, don't have the stigma of being a "jailbird", and remain contributing members of society, paying tax, instead of being supported by everyone else's tax to the tune of $60,000 pa.
This costs society nothing! The entire prison system would become redundant. Instead of rehabilitation under our inadequate system, offenders would attend special lectures and courses in normal educational facilities to develop and retain their own, and family dignity. Rehabilitation would become a relatively minor problem.
When are we going to cast out the airy-fairy benign "Man-uagsairs" attitude to God, and realize that He really does know best? That his methods are beyond anything we, and especially our politicians and theologians could ever imagine. The Psalmist said it all.
"The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. More to be desired than fine gold". We'll never solve our present problems whilst we remain deliberately disobedient to these perfect Laws. radio106.htm
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