PERILOUS TIMES!

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” 2 Timothy 3:1 (KJV)
The Bible gives us many signs by which we can tell that the Coming of Jesus is ‘Near, even at the door’. We will look at some of them in other Slideshows, but perhaps one of the most visible is found in man himself!There has been given to us a character profile whereby we can KNOW where we are in history. You can find it in 2 Timothy 3:1-7
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” 2 Timothy 3:1 (KJV)
The last days will be perilous times. No other place in the Bible is the word "perilous" used. Perilous: very dangerous: involving exposure to very great danger. Any way you look at it, the end times will be bad! BUT WHY?

1) … lovers of their own selves,
Have you noticed the shift in focus in these last decades? Where formerly a man was admired as he sacrificed for family; country; God. But now a man boasts of ‘Doing His Own Thing”, and people do not question it. Abandoning others so one can ‘Live His Own Life’ is the ‘IN’ thing!
And what about all the emphasis on ‘Self Gratification & Self Esteem ? ‘Treat yourself: You deserve it!’ “Pamper yourself!”
Where in the not too distant past, people lived worked and co-operated for the sake of their extended families; these days see even teens wanting their “Own Apartments” so they can ‘do as they please.’

2) Covetous !
People now want and want and want, even when they can't afford to have. Even what they have no right to have!

Never before in history have people been more caught up with ‘things’ and the latest gadgetry. Never before has credit been so available but still the cry is More! More! More!

3) Boasters !

Dictionary: to praise yourself, or speak arrogantly about things you possess or have achieved.
Just listen to people talk about themselves! We even have countless Talk-Shows for this purpose.

4) Proud !You may recall that it was pride that led to the fall of Lucifer out of heaven. Pride and Self-exaltation made a demon out of the brightest angel! The Bible teaches that the proud and arrogant will not be in heaven. Think about it, if God allowed anyone in heaven that fit the descriptions of this text, He would have to apologize to Lucifer and invite him back into heaven. People are so prideful, even those that claim to be “saved”!
Lucifer stated "I will" five times, in his proud boast about how he would take the place of God and overthrow the heavenly host of angels.
…”I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Isa 14:13-15

5) Blasphemers !
The Bible states that a blasphemer is a person that claim themselves to be God or to assume His authority. There are groups that claim that man, over a process of time, can be god. Think about that! God has placed his signature on all of creation. He has created something from nothing. No man or devil can do this!
A Blasphemer is also one who denies God or insults Him. In our age we are seeing such Heaven-daring rudeness to God as even criminals of the past would have feared to speak or do. And most people laugh at it!



6) Disobedient to Parents!
In the past people still very much respected their parents. Today we see even small children screaming “I Hate You!” at their parent when they have been denied some small indulgence.
Children will tell the parent what they are going to do, like it or not! They have become manipulative of the parents for their own selfish desires. “As for my people, children are their oppressors…” Isaiah 3:12

7) Unthankful!
Dictionary: without feelings of gratitude. People are not thankful. They believe that the world owes them a living whether they earn it or not.
Parents have taught their children to expect gifts just because of what day it is - and the attitude is that this is their right!
They also have no sense of the debt they owe to their Creator and Redeemer!

8) Unholy !
The Bible states that we are to be holy because God is Holy. The character of God is that He cannot tolerate SIN. Yet we as a people of God tolerate sin in our body on a continual basis. We explain it away by saying, “Surely God.........” (Before we finish the statement.... that is blasphemy). We cannot begin to imagine what God would allow in our body. We cannot begin to imagine how God thinks! We must take heed to His Word!
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isa 55:9

9) Without natural affection!
Jude 10 refers to such a person as a "Brute Beast", then continues to say "Woe unto them for they have gone the way of Cain". Cain murdered his brother Able because Able tried to warn him not to sin! Selfishness is the root of this lack of love.
Natural affection is the love that God placed within our being to have for one another. We are now living in a time where a child growing in its mother’s womb is worth only the amount of money required to abort it. God wants us to love one another!
10) Trucebreakers -
Breaking agreements and promises whenever it is convenient to do so.

11) False Accusers -
to charge somebody falsely who is not guilty of crime or what we accuse them of.

12) Incontinent -
unrestrained and uncontrolled, primarily lacking restraint in sexual matters. Not only is this rampant in the world today but even amongst professing Christians and mostly people ignore it.
13) Fierce -
showing aggression or anger. More and more people are impatient and quick to wrath than ever before. People will blow you away for cutting them off in traffic.

14) Despisers of those that are good-
I remember when good and well doing was admired and promoted on movies and in books. Today the character shown as ‘good’ in a story is usually ridiculed or played down while the wicked are held up as being ‘realistic’.
Many a young person does wickedly merely so his friends won’t call him a sissy or a ‘goody-goody’. Time after time on TV and even cartoons we see the studious and hard-working set out as ‘geeks’ or misfits and the sexually pure are mocked as ‘not with it’ or ‘prudes’.

Even those who want to uphold right will usually say, “well everyone has their own opinions. This is what is right for me!” Rarely do we hear: “This is WRONG!” and almost never: “This is SIN!”

15) Traitors -
Those who betray the trust of others, and behave in a disloyal or treacherous manner

16) Heady -
impetuous: impulsive and rash in behavior; “If it feels good- Do it!”
17) High-minded -
To inflate ones-self with self-conceit, to be lifted up with pride. To think oneself highly important.

18) Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God!
There has not been any other time in these past two thousand years, since this book of Timothy has been written, that people love their pleasures and entertainment more than they do today. Certainly they love pleasure more than they love God! Even their ‘worship’ of God centers on indulgence, church suppers, and entertainment.
When on every side we hear the chants: "true knowledge places man above all law;" that "whatever is, is right;" that "God doth not condemn;" and that "all sins which are committed are innocent."
When the people are thus led to believe that desire is the highest law, that liberty is license, and that man is accountable only to himself, who can wonder that corruption and depravity teem on every hand?
Multitudes are eagerly accepting teachings that leave them at liberty to obey the promptings of the carnal heart. The reins of self-control are laid upon the neck of lust, the powers of mind and soul are made subject to the animal nature, and Satan exultingly sweeps into his net thousands who profess to be followers of Christ.

These - the teachings of SPIRITUALISM - Are even heard in our pulpits today! And they are called ‘LOVE’ by the deluded.

19) Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof!
Of all this amazing prophecy, this item is perhaps the greatest sign of our times!

Never has religion been so widely accepted among the worldly minded – and never before has so much worldliness been accepted and welcomed into the church!
In the past, ‘getting religion’ was associated with repenting and turning from at least the grosser sins. Now it means socializing and indulgence, entertainment and anything goes.
But if you start to talk of the POWER of the Lord to free the life from SIN! People turn away. If you have a problem You will be advised to go to counselors, self-help seminars, therapy groups. The POWER of God is pushed aside and Humanism stands in its place. The first question is not ‘What is Truth?’ but ‘What organization or group do you belong to?’

THE OLD TESTAMENT WARNED OF OUR DAY ALSO:
“There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.
There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men". Proverbs 30:11-14
TRULY PERILOUS TIMES ARE HERE !
What are we advised to do when we see these things?
"From such turn away."
What are we to turn to?
"I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Revelation 3:18-20

TURN TO JESUS! TURN TO HIS WORD – FIND THE POWER!

THE LAST NIGHT ON EARTH

One of the most dramatic verses in the Bible has been translated by Dr. Moffett in these words: "Evil on evil says the Lord, the Eternal ... it is coming, the hour is striking, and striking at you, the hour and the end. Your doom has come." Ezekiel 7:5-7.
Based on this startling text, our attention is drawn to the most solemn message ever heard by human ears. It is a warning to each person alive on this planet today, because every individual must pass through their last night on earth. What will it be like to begin living that final 24 hours of time?
Perhaps you've heard about the city of Pompeii which nestled in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius in old Italy long ago. In A.D. 79 that mountain simply exploded with volcanic fury and millions of tons of molten lava came pouring down upon Pompeii to completely inundate it, wiping out all its inhabitants. A friend of mine has walked over the hardened ash and pumice which still covers the excavated ruins of that ancient city. He described the contorted postures of the victims whose forms have been perfectly pre-served by molding the space occupied by their decayed bodies.
I've often thought, "If the stones of the street could speak, what a story they would have to tell about that last night on earth for Pompeii." The whole thing seems to come up before me as I think about it right now. The experience of an entire city full of people, overtaken without warning and thrust into eternity, whether they were ready or not. What will it be like when you and I face that same experience? Will it find us clinging to the same old sins that many of them were obviously committing as they were swept away by the sudden deluge of death?
Doubtless, many in Pompeii heard that initial explosion and had time to look up to see the terrifying wall of lava just before it engulfed them. We know nothing about their thoughts, but the graphic physical positions of their bodies reveal that sin had become a science, and few, if any, were thinking of death or the hereafter.
I wonder what Paul must have felt when he preached his gospel of grace to the inhabitants of Pompeii. Surely in his ranging over the chief cities of the Roman Empire he would have visited that center of vice and evil repute. But it is highly unlikely that the apostle received any favorable hearing from the dwellers in that seaport sin-city. Perhaps they expelled him out of hand, and Paul had to shake the dust from his feet as he departed.
It was from Pompeii that General Titus had drawn many of his soldiers for his infamous assault on Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Perhaps it was one of the citizens of Pompeii who threw the flaming torch which burned the magnificent temple to its foundations.
But now those veterans of foreign wars have returned to their home place to live out their years of retirement in unrestrained indulgence. Slowly the cup of iniquity fills to the very brim, and on a night of unusual revelry and drunkenness, the angel of death flies low over the streets of Pompeii. It is not hard to imagine how the final call of God was extended to every man, woman, and child on that last night. Before the angel of mercy folded its wings, the Holy Spirit pleaded at the door of each heart. Long after the music and dancing had ended, people tossed on their beds, wrestling with the powerful convictions of conscience, but one by one, those tender impressions were suppressed and denied. The voice of the Spirit was drowned out by the fleshly clamor for more excitement and sin. The fate of Pompeii was sealed.
Lingering Over the Call
The Bible gives us another striking illustration of the last night on earth in the book of Genesis. A city was to be wiped out of existence because of its total abandonment to the perversions of iniquity. On the eve of its destruction, Lot made a final visit to his daughters and their Sodomite husbands who had made their home in the midst of the doomed city. But his urgent pleas were ridiculed as groundless fears. The Bible records that "he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law." Genesis 19:14. They actually laughed at the old man as he wept over their unconcern. How different it would have been had they known that it was indeed a judgment message from God. Eagerly they would have responded and hastened out of Sodom had they truly believed that it was their last night on earth.
But they didn't know, and they didn't believe. Most of us will never recognize when that fatal moment approaches in our own lives. Many are snatched by sudden accident and death without a second's notice, much less a 24-hour alert. But suppose you did know that you had exactly two months, or two weeks, or two days. I've heard people say, "Oh, if I had that knowledge ahead of time, I could easily give up all my bad habits and make my decision to follow Christ fully." Of course, but the truth is that none of us are privy to that information, and for many who are reading these lines, that last night is much nearer than we can think or imagine.
How very clever Satan is in exploiting this personal area of the unknown in each one of us. He well recognizes that procrastination is his most effective weapon in causing people to be lost. The longer the decision is postponed, the easier it is to wait a little longer, until finally the putting off process turns into a lethal addiction. The will waxes weaker and weaker as delay saps the initiative and makes it less and less likely that the individual will act before it is too late.
The Bible has some very sobering things to say about this subject of lingering over the call of God. When Paul reasoned with Felix about righteousness and judgment, we are told that the governor trembled and promised to call for Paul when he had a more "convenient season." That better time never came, and as far as we know, Felix went down into a Christless grave at the end of his life. King Agrippa was also deeply convicted as he listened to Paul's testimony about Christ. He cried out, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Acts 26:28. What a tragedy that, with all the trembling and conviction, neither of those Roman rulers actually moved to obey what they knew to be right. "Almost" is not enough.
It is sometimes the case that individuals are faced with choices that must be made within a few minutes which will affect the entire future direction of their lives. In these rare instances (and perhaps they are not as rare as we think) that golden moment of opportunity flashes into focus, remains only a few precious moments, and then disappears forever. It seems patently true that Felix and Agrippa faced the most significant and favorable opportunity to choose life over death, and they blew it. They waited too long, and their conviction faded and disappeared.
Men and women do the same thing today. They wait for more convenient circumstances - a different job, retirement, or financial security. They make promises to themselves and others that they will surrender to Christ and obey the truth just as soon as the time is right. Somebody else - Satan - hears those promises and he immediately begins to manipulate events that will make that right moment impossible. Those people keep waiting and waiting and waiting, and many of them will be waiting when the water turns to blood and probation's door has closed on the human race. No wonder the Bible declares that "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." 2 Corinthians 6:2.
When the flood came and the door of the ark closed, it did not matter how near or how far a person happened to be at that moment. Those who were one foot out-side that door were just as lost as those who were miles away. After 120 years of pleading, the Spirit of God was withdrawn from the earth, the hand of God closed the door, and the fate of a world was fixed and settled. Does that have anything to do with what is happening to the progeny of those eight ark survivors today? Indeed, it does. Because Jesus said, "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matthew 24:37.
Christ was referring to the end-time in which we now live. He said, "So shall it be." Are there similarities with the antediluvian culture and lifestyle? We are told that "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Genesis 6:5. Does that appraisal of man before the flood match the perverted picture of Noah's modern descendants?
For the answer to that question consult your morning newspaper and the local TV guide. Iniquity is rampant. Crime is out of control. Terrorists strike in unexpected places. No one would question that evil imagination marks the present age with its harvest of violence and lawlessness.
Is there also evidence that the Holy Spirit is striving with human hearts and confronting multitudes with their final invitation of mercy? As an evangelist, I can bear witness that there is a present raging controversy revolving around every living soul. Some who are reading these words are on the verge of making a decision that can mean life or death, and you need to go ahead with God. At the same time, Satan plays upon your ungrounded fears to try to hold you back from an all-out commitment. You are being tempted, like Felix, to wait for a more convenient season, but such will never come. To linger now is to become a part of the vast majority who were destroyed in the flood and who represent those who will be unprepared when Jesus comes again.
The Red Sea Place
Think for a moment what would have happened at the Red Sea if the people had hesitated to go forward at the command of God! Suppose the leaders had pressed for a committee meeting to discuss the radical option of marching the entire encampment into an apparent death trap. The truth is that there was only time for action. Delay of any kind would have brought the pursuing Egyptian army upon them, and they would have been on their way back to the land of bondage in chains.
What does this experience have to teach us? It has much to say to those who have recently broken free from the slavery of sin. This parallels the escape from Egypt. And the Red Sea experience symbolizes baptism for the newborn Christian. How do we know that? In 1 Corinthians 10:2, we read that "they were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." God set before them that golden opportunity which we talked about earlier and which may appear only once in a lifetime. The decision made within the next five minutes would settle their destiny for years to come. This was it. Either trust God and obey His command to step into that restless sea, or run the risk of capture by the enemy.
Have you come to that Red Sea place in your life? I've observed thousands struggle with that step of total surrender in baptism. It signifies a complete yielding of the entire life and a willingness to move forward in obedience - regardless of the consequences. It is not an easy decision to make. I know one lady whose baptism was set three different times, and she failed to show up at any of them. Her faith was not strong enough to take that final step which would place her wholly in the family of God. You can imagine the result of her procrastination. She was finally overtaken by the enemy, drawn back into smoking, and was soon back in total bondage of the flesh.
I'm just glad that somebody at the head of the line had strong faith when Moses gave the orders to go forward into the sea, and just as surely as the waters parted under their feet, so will the forbidding circumstances disappear as God's people today move forward in obedience to Him. It is interesting to note that the next move was up to the people in the days of Moses, and the same is true for those who have departed from spiritual bondage. God cannot and will not make the decision for us, but as soon as we take the first step in obedience, He fills us with the power to overcome every obstacle.
Some might object that I am pressing too hard upon those who are lingering in the twilight zone of indecision. You may get offended by my strong urging for you to act quickly to follow Jesus. But please remember that I am addressing those who may be living their last night on earth. I do not believe it is possible to obey God too quickly, and somehow I don't think anyone will ever chide me in heaven because I made the call to them clear, concise, and urgent. I'm very much in earnest about it because I have seen the results of waiting too long.
I could fill this book with emotional stories of those who postponed surrender until their hearts were cold and unresponsive. Further, I could give names and places where nightly attendees of the crusade meetings were taken in a moment by sudden accident or death. Time after time I have made calls for decision, not realizing that there were people in the audience listening to their last invitation to be saved.
Why So Few?
But why is it that such a comparative few respond to those calls for surrender? Why should anyone need to be begged to enter the glorious salvation of our Lord? I want to answer those questions in such a way that you will never forget it. Even Jesus confirmed that only a few would be willing to follow the narrow road to heaven. Most would choose the broad road of death where the great majority would be traveling.
Then we have that shocking statement by the Master to which we have already referred: "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matthew 24:37. How many were saved in those days from the global disaster? Only eight had the faith in God's word to be shut in that monstrosity of a boat. They were the only survivors. Will there be any kind of proportionate number spared "in the days of the Son of man"? All agree that this is talking about the end of the world and the coming of Jesus.
I've heard the statement, "Oh, if I had lived in those days, I would have gone into the ark with faithful Noah." How easy it is to say what we would have done under certain conditions of the past. Others have talked about the noble martyrs who died for their faith during the Dark Ages and have stated with great assurance that they would have gladly laid down their lives for the truth's sake also.
Now it may be true that some would have died for their faith, but few have any conception of what it meant to stand for Christ during those terrible days. Those brave men and women who were burned at the stake, thrown to the wild animals, or tortured in medieval dungeons could have saved their lives by a simple motion of the hand. In most cases they were offered amnesty and immediate freedom if they signaled their willingness to renounce their faith. So the choice was very clear as they watched the dry faggots being heaped around them. They could suffocate in the midst of the punishing smoke and flame or else walk back into the comfort of home and family. Untold millions chose the heroic but horrible living death rather than deny their Saviour.
How many Christians of your acquaintance have that kind of self-sacrificing faith and love? Which ones would have followed the martyrs to the stake or the arena? Some might, had they lived in those days. But of one thing we can be certain: Only those who would rather die right now than to break God's holy law would have proved loyal to Him during those years of severe persecution.
Unfortunately, we live in an easy, permissive age where self-denial is decidedly out of fashion. Truth has become very negotiable in the relaxed ecumenical climate of contemporary religion. Pluralism has become so acceptable that membership applicants are given a wide range of what they may believe or not believe. Very few, if any, issues of doctrine are considered important enough to even contend for, much less die for. There are notable exceptions, of course, but these are often found outside the comfortable contours of the so-called Christian West.
The Man Who Gave All
For example, every time I listen to people make excuses for not going all the way with Jesus, I think of Saddiq. It was on December 25, 1955, that I responded to the furious pounding on my door in Lahore, Pakistan. A typically dressed Moslem villager rushed past me into the house, crying out: "Baptize me quickly! Baptize me now!" After calming down somewhat, the man began to pour forth an amazing story. His name was Saddiq and he lived in the tribal areas of the Khyber Pass near the Afghan border where there was little or no government control. Moslem law was invested in each man who possessed a knife, an ax, or a gun.
Saddiq had a good job and a wonderful family, and he was also a faithful Moslem who prayed five times a day toward Mecca. But recently he had started listening to an evangelist friend of mine who was holding a tent meeting in the area. Every evening on the way home from work Saddiq would stand outside in the shadows absorbing the thrilling truths of the gospel. He dared not go inside for fear of being killed as an infidel, and when the altar calls were made, Saddiq could only commit himself in his heart to follow Jesus.
Later, he confided to his wife that he was going to become a Christian. The following day he returned from work to find his house empty. His father-in-law had taken everything and everyone from the home. He was never to see his wife and children again. A few days later, he was fired from his job, as relatives intervened against him. Then, he was waylaid by members of his own family and beaten almost to death. Fleeing for his life, Saddiq had come to the teeming city of Lahore and sought out someone who could help him finish the journey from Islam to Christianity. I was happy to oblige. We filled the baptistry and buried that courageous man with his Lord on that Christmas afternoon.
I saw the scars on Saddiq's body as he came up out of the water - marks of devotion and sacrifice that he will carry for the rest of his life. He will also be a refugee and fugitive from the wrath of his own relatives for as long as he lives. Anyone who finds him will count it a duty to kill him.
I think often of Saddiq when I'm holding an evangelistic series, and most of the audience have been convicted by the same truths that my brother Saddiq learned outside the tent so long ago. But all do not respond in the same way he did. None of them face the lifelong loss of children, the constant threat of death, or the extreme physical persecution that will follow Saddiq the rest of his days on earth. A few, though, are being tested by the possible loss of a few dollars and perhaps even a few friends. They hold back and complain of the hardship and sacrifice involved in making the decision for baptism. The truth is that we don't know what real self-denial and sacrifice are. Unless we are ready to give our lives for the truth's sake, we are not worthy of the kingdom of heaven.
Sometimes we hear fervent saints declare, "If I had lived in the days of Jesus, I would have been one of His followers." But do we know what was involved in such an open alignment with Jesus of Nazareth? Regardless of their status, people were cast out of the synagogue immediately. This meant they were boycotted in their business, disinherited from their families, and considered to be dead by all their friends. Would some indeed have made that choice if they had lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago? Yes, but only the ones who would rather die than sin in their current situation would have stepped out to follow the lowly Nazarene then.
And would it be the same for the days of Noah? We've already learned that only eight were willing to risk the censure and ridicule of being a member of Noah's boat church. How many modern saints would have dared take a public stand for the outrageous project of building a huge ship on the side of a dry hill? Probably no other religious group in world history has endured more negative publicity than Noah and his family.
Noah's Last Sermon
It has always been fascinating to me that Noah probably hired helpers to construct the ark, and they perished later on because they rejected the very means of salvation in which they invested much of their lives. And these were the people who had the greatest reason for believing that a flood was coming. Day after day, they listened to the earnest message of the old patriarch as he pleaded with relatives and friends to avail themselves of this way of escape. The Bible calls Noah "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5) which indicates that he might have spent more time calling for decisions than driving nails into the ark.
How can we explain the amazing resistance to the powerful, Spirit-filled appeals of Noah and his sons? It seems almost a classic example of majority influence. The dread of being different has driven many sincere people to reject, out of hand, the appeal of conscience and sound judgment. It happened in Noah's day, and it still happens today. Prejudice and emotion, once aroused, has a greater influence on decision than all the logical truth in the world. None of the antediluvians could deny the persuasive evidence of those animals marching two by two and seven by seven into the completed ark, but the jeering multitude reminded them of the cost of non-conformity. They dared not be different and show any support for the unpopular little group of religious standouts.
I've tried to imagine the dynamics of that last appeal Noah made to the crowd of curious onlookers. The sounds of construction have ceased, and the tools have been put out of sight. The animals are all safely on board, and Noah's family has finished transferring all their possessions into the massive. Of all the sermons which have ever been preached in the history of man, this is the one I would have preferred to hear. The drama of this moment was captured by our Lord Jesus when He said, "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
Another last call - another final sermon, if you please - will be given to the doomed inhabitants of this equally wicked age. This time the destruction will not be by water but by fire. Yet, there is a terrible parallel between the urgent message of Noah and that of the faithful who will give the loud warning cry that the world is about to be destroyed again.
Jesus described the indifference with which that message will be received. "They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all." Luke 17:27. What a commentary on the paralyzing effect of sin! People continue, business as usual, while the last moments of probation slip away.
Has any other preacher operated under the emotional stress that constrained Noah that day? He was fully aware that in a few moments the door behind him would close forever on any hope of salvation for the human race. Only the words of this final sermon could make a difference for any living soul. The Scriptures indicate that Christ by the Holy Spirit was preaching through Noah to the spirits of those sin-bound people (1 Peter 3:18-20).
I'm sure there were tears in Noah's voice and on his cheeks as he pleaded with them to join him in the ark. Many in the audience were lifelong neighbors, and perhaps Noah even called them by name as he pressed his appeal for decision. A solemn conviction held the crowd motion-less as the old man paused to wipe his eyes. Then, there was a restless stirring as some began to edge forward as though they would join the little group, but they were instantly drawn back by the hands of relatives or friends.
I cannot enter fully into Noah's feelings as he turned to join his family in the ark for the last time, but I have a strong kinship with him in that lonely last call he extended to the crowd. I've felt it every time I close a crusade and give the final invitation. I always personally know individuals in that audience who are fighting the Spirit of God. They believe the truth, tremble with conviction, and are almost persuaded to come forward. That's the way it must have been with Noah as he turned to beseech just one more time. But finally he had to bring the meeting to a close and walk, weeping, through the open door. And suddenly that door began to move on its hinges, and within seconds it had swung shut with a solid thud.
There were nervous cries from some as the door closed, and then, a babble of excited conversation. "My, have you ever heard anything like that in your life?" one voice came out above the others. "Do you think he really could be correct about a flood?" asked another. But, then, there was sharp dissent, and some were pointing to the cloudless sky to loudly affirm what had been heard repeatedly since the ark project began, "It never has rained, and these people are wild fanatics to believe such foolishness."
For two or three days apprehension continued to grip the community, especially as they passed the tightly closed ark each morning on their way to work. But by mid-week it seemed obvious to all that Noah's prediction had been totally wrong, and even those who had been stirred deeply with conviction were embarrassed by their former concern. To cover their chagrin, some of them began to make mocking comments to anyone who would listen. By the seventh day not one sympathetic sentiment was to be found favoring the cloistered family.
And then it happened! Clouds seemed to appear out of nowhere, and drops of rain began to spatter against the hungry earth. Screams and cries rent the air as men, women, and children fled toward any shelter available. But then the water was pouring in torrents from the heavens, and out of huge cavernous cracks in the ground. Those who were able to struggle to higher levels were quickly overwhelmed and dragged to their deaths, while the great cypress ark floated gently and safely on the rising waves.
"As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man." A few faithful ones, counted as fools and fanatics, but courageous enough to follow unpopular truth and proclaim a special warning that the end is near, will be saved. Have you heard it? Do you grasp the lesson our Lord was teaching in the Noah sermon? "As it was ... so shall it be." No ifs or ands or buts - "So shall it be." The last night on earth will come for everyone when the heavens split wide open, and the glorious retinue of angels provide a dazzling freeway of splendor for the King of kings and Lord of lords. It will be unexpected, and it will be too late for those who waited till the door of mercy closed.
Gambling For Time
Just as the probation of the antediluvian world ended seven days before the flood, so the probation of the planet will close seven plagues before Jesus appears. During those desolating, end-time seven last plagues, the Bible says no one can enter the temple in heaven (Revelation 15:8). There will be no intercessor for the human race. The great edict will have gone forth, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still ... and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly." Revelation 22:11, 12.
Millions are waiting in the vain hope that some special event will signal that they can quickly make the necessary preparation to meet the returning Lord. Like Felix, they intend to take advantage of that "more convenient season." And while they linger, their hearts grow harder and their wills more indecisive. They lose the precious ability to judge their own need, or discern the panoramic signs of the end.
During the excavation of the ruins of Pompeii, they found the skeleton remains of a woman who was apparently running from the fiery river of lava that was pouring down the side of Mt. Vesuvius. Clutched in her bony, skeletal hands were two jeweled earrings. It was not hard to figure out exactly what had transpired in the experience of that woman. It was obvious that she had been alerted to the approaching destruction and had dashed back in the house to save the baubles in her hands. But the delay made it impossible to outrun the stream of death, and she was overtaken and buried under the lava.
Let me ask you a question. What was wrong with that woman? Where did she make her big mistake? The answer is easy. She thought she had more time than she really had. That is the same mistake that the majority of human beings are making today as the holocaust of destruction approaches. There is not an unbaptized, uncommitted individual in the world who is not making that mistake. They want to be saved and intend to do it some-day, but they calculate that there is still plenty of time.
Are you one who has been postponing the day of decision, that unreserved surrender of your will? Please let me address you for a moment. There is a small chance that you may be right and that you will have another opportunity - but it is only a chance! There is another chance that you are dead wrong. You are gambling over the salvation of your soul. You are playing a deadly game of Russian roulette over eternal life. Every day that passes, the stakes go higher and higher, and your chances of winning become less and less. The cards are stacked against you. Why gamble that you will have another chance in the future? You don't have to gamble. You have a chance right now.
The door of the ark is still open, and it's only a step inside. Why not settle the uncertainty this very moment? Surrender your will and say Yes to the loving Saviour, who longs to give you His peace and assurance.

BLESSED ARE THE POOR

Possibly, one of the most complicated things is our way of speaking. Our languages were born from a confusion. It was part of God’s design in an effort to overcome sin to confuse the tongues. If there is something complicated today it is grammar. But in God there is nothing complicated.
All that is of God is simple in its nature. But we live in a complicated world, and even more complicated because our essence is pride and selfishness. So to understand truth, is a very difficult issue today.
But for God, truth is very simple, and Scriptures define truth in such a different manner, because Truth in Scriptures, and in the universe, is a person. But for us, Truth is something of a conceptual nature. Plato has really hurt us! He placed us in the world of the ‘ideas’, but God works in the realm of realities, facts.
God works in the experience. He doesn’t work in a conceptual manner. The Holy Writings are the acts of God and He explains with acts, but we explain with abstract facts. The very same subject of Truth is complicated in our grammar. We say that truth is an abstract subject.
Something abstract is something you cannot grasp; something that you cannot see; something that you cannot feel; something that is of an ethereal nature—almost nothing. In the Scriptures, Truth is what is of a most concrete nature, but our grammar says truth is an abstract subject.
Love is an abstract verb, and righteousness is an abstract noun. All what really IS, is abstract according to our grammar—but not according to the Holy Scriptures. God’s Love is the most concrete thing. It’s His Son, and that is why He says that God is Love. There can’t be anything more concrete or real than this. There is no abstract theme in Him; there is no ‘idea’ in Him. He is and He said, "I am!" "I am the ‘I am’."
For us, that is still abstract, because our mind is abstract, our mind is Greek. And the Old Testament was written with that Hebrew mentality. In the Old Testament, we don’t find theologians. We don’t find philosophers in the Old Testament. Philosophers came from Greece.
From the Hebrew, we have the Prophets. The philosophers and the theologians developed their knowledge with the premise of the human mind, and all human minds are leprous minds, because all human minds are sick. Every human mind is full of sin and of pride.
But God’s Knowledge is not born in you and it’s not born in me. The Knowledge of God is born in Him and maintains itself in Him—lives in Him and He transmits that Knowledge through the prophets. He has to use our complicated knowledge but with a great problem because each human being has a conflict between what he thinks and what he feels; between what he believes and what he really is.
But in God we don’t find this dichotomy—what He thinks is what He is. What He believes is what He lives and what He speaks is what He does. Between what He says and what He does, there is no difference. That’s why the Hebrew word ‘dabar’, is the word chosen for ‘word’. It means not an idea, not an abstraction, it means an act—something that happens—news—Good News.
But our mind does not perceive that. We speak and what we speak is in contrast with what we are and what we are is so different from what is Truth. God in His mercy has purposed Himself to make that a living reality in us; something whole—the Truth within us and the way He does that is simply through His Word. Only through His Word. "Say the Word", said the Roman Centurion, and he was not a theologian and he did not know of the prophets but he had perceived in Jesus that He was the Truth and he told Jesus, "Say the word and my servant will be healed."
The Centurion had trust in truth—the Hebrews had lost their trust in truth. They had the book, they had the concepts, they had the Old Testament, they had tradition but they did not know the Truth because the Truth is His Word and His Word is Him.
The Lord Jesus said, "What is Truth?" "I am." "I am." And Pilate and the Jews were just scared. They didn’t understand. Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" and Jesus answered him but Pilate never understood—because the Lord is Truth even if He does not speak it. But we are truth when we speak it but Jesus is Truth without speaking.
We believe that the vehicle of truth is our tongue, but the vehicle of truth in Christ was His being, His character, His essence—His Truth. And He said it, "I am the Way; I am Life and I am Truth, I am the Door, I am the Light—I Am."
Before Lazarus’ tomb, the Lord told Martha and Mary, "I am the Resurrection," but they were already influenced by the common Greek and for Mary and Martha resurrection was a doctrine. It was an idea. For them it wasn’t Him. The Lord Jesus has said, "This is not a matter of death." It was not an issue of death and not even the disciples understood.
Four days had passed since he had died, but for Jesus that was not death—for Jesus he was just sleeping. But we cannot understand that because we have a complicated mind, an abstract mind. The Lord Jesus said, "Lazarus come up, wake up, come out!" He is resurrection; He is the Truth; He is Life; now—always! Have we received Him?
What a difference it makes to really receive Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. He came to His own and they analyzed Him through concepts, and they rationalized Him, but they did not experience Him. They applied His ideas and they applied His theology in order to identify Him but their feelings, contrary to their concepts, their selfishness and their pride, contrary to prophecy did not permit them to perceive the simple Truth.
And that process that is a spiritualist process is what Satan has developed with intellectualism and today it is even more refined than ever. And possibly we, unconscious of that fact, live that intellectual experience. But our Lord Jesus, Who is the same yesterday, the same today, the same tomorrow and forever—the One Who never changes—the immutable One, He will always be the same—the great ‘I Am’.
How different righteousness by faith from the lips of Christ—very different from righteousness by faith from Paul’s pen, because Paul was influenced by Plato and Aristotle—his culture was from Aristotle—he lived in the Greek world. He was influenced by the Hellenistic mind thought. Alexandria had an impact in his values and in his culture.
But Jesus’ values are very simple values—easy to follow—authentic values—the Truth. He said something that is so beautiful, and is so simple, and at the same time is so deep. We discuss so much who is going to be saved, and we study so much how to be saved. Jesus said as soon as He sat down, when He gave the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Of whom is the Kingdom of Heaven?" He said it, "The kingdom of God is of the poor in spirit."
"Of theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven—of the poor in spirit".
Is it simple? Do we understand it? "Blessed are the poor in spirit".
When we speak of poverty, it’s something horrible. Who wants to be poor? No-one wants to be poor. All the cultures strive to be rich. But Jesus said, "Happy are the poor. The poor!
"Because the poor in spirit—of them is the Kingdom of Heaven."
The 144,000—poor in spirit. Really poor in spirit. More than poor—pauperism in the spirit. So poor that there is nothing in them, nothing worthy, nothing! Nothing in which to place their knowledge; nothing from which to hang their wisdom; with no pretension. So poor that they are empty, they are completely void and there is nothing in them.
Isaiah came to this experience. "Woe to me! Woe to me! Because in me there is only filthy rags!" when he saw the Lord. He saw the Lord; and he saw Him in the same way that we can see Him. He did not perceive Him in his sensorial capacity; he did not see Him with his eyes—he saw Him through faith.
God always reveals Himself; He has always revealed Himself; to us He has revealed Himself. He has revealed Himself to you each time that the Holy Spirit moves in your conscience. He is revealing Himself, He manifests Himself and His only purpose is to convict me of sin. He knows that in order to convince me of sin, He has to be able to make my life void that I might experience that I am poor. That in my spirit, that in my flesh, that in my knowledge, and in my wisdom, and in my theory and everything that is mine that I am poor. And I should be made completely void but human beings complicate it. We reject that.
There are many ways in which we reject that. There are many ways to reject Him. Sometimes in the way we deal with each other at home we are rejecting that experience; but we don’t perceive it. But He is present and He is telling me, "Be poor! Be poor of spirit—with your wife—with your children—be poor. So that you might be in the kingdom. So that you might experience the kingdom." But we reject.
But we have the Truth here [in the head] and we believe we have the Truth in the mind and we are exclusive with Truth. The Jews were exclusive with their truth and they came to believe that all the rest were out of the Remnant. But the Canaanite woman was more willing and she experiences becoming void because of God. But the disciples did not understand. The disciples told Jesus, "Send her away, Send her away! She bothers us!"
The Lord Jesus, He was trying, He was educating, and He was redeeming His disciples from all types of religious bigotry and exclusiveness. But they were not poor. They were not poor. They thought that they were rich; That Jesus was only for them; that truth was only for them and how much did the Lord struggle to empty Peter of himself, and make them all depositories of His Spirit—rich in the Spirit of God but poor and totally emptied of themselves.
Do we understand it? It’s as simple as that. The most simple One, the most sincere, was Jesus Christ. But we still believe that Jesus is our example. Is that true? We still believe that Jesus is our example.
The Protestant world believes that Jesus is only our substitute, but in reality, He is not even our substitute. The substitute for the Protestant world is the arrogance of their pride. That’s their substitute. That’s the substitute of this world and whoever has that substitute has already transgressed the First Commandment, because the First Commandment implies the death to self.
How will they accept Jesus as their example? And in reality, what has happened with us because we in our concepts, He can be the example; in our ideas, He can be the example and in our theology, He can be our example. But in our reality, my selfishness is my example; my self is my example—that is the great dichotomy created by Satan. And Brethren, Satan is the creator of making truth spiritualistic. Not only the Body and the Soul but Truth itself. We accept it as a theory; we accept it as an idea, as a theology. But in our reality, in our bodies, it never is, and with our tongue we express it but with our spirit we deny it. That is spiritualistic truth and Satan is an expert in spiritualism.
Satan’s technique for sin is to separate, to disintegrate, and to break apart; that is Satan’s technique. He began using that technique in the Garden of Eden and he will not change it. When God created us, the crown of creation, He created us whole. He created us one, even as He is One. There is no separation between what He feels and what He thinks. There is no separation. But for us these are two different things. We feel one thing; we think another thing. That is the work of Satan; that is not the work of God.
The work of redemption is that the very same thought that is in the Lord, is the same thought that is within us. The same feelings that are in God may be the same mind that is in us. That the same love in Him may be in us, because He is One and He will never be dual. He will always be One, the whole One, He who is complete, where there is no shadow of variance.
We behold in Scriptures the same way that He treated Nicodemus, the same dealing with Mary Magdalene, the same way He treated the big people, the same way He dealt with the small insignificant people—the same. The same hope for Nicodemus, the same hope He gave Mary Magdalene, the same hope. He was the Door; He was Life for every human being.
There’s no indifference in Him, that’s why He said, "I am the Truth. I am the Life. I am the Way". But people still today have not understood that. I hope that we might perceive it, in that very simple language of Jesus.
The disciples had a problem; possibly the same problem that we have today. The disciples had a problem, but very easy to solve for Jesus. For Jesus, it was very easy to solve it. But for us to solve a problem is something very complicated. For us to solve the problem of our families, it’s a very complicated problem. And the conclusion to which we arrive in order to solve the family problem is divorce. That’s our solution.
But for Jesus, separation was not the solution. Rupture was not the solution. And much less when I say, "I love you"—less. Because we say, "I love you" and then we divorce, because we do not know Him.
When Adam and Eve separated themselves from Him, when Adam and Eve broke apart from God, He did not separate them. Notice how He solved the problem—so simple the solution: "I will die for you, so that you might not be separated from Me. So that you might not be apart from Me. I will die for you. I will empty myself for you, because of you, for your family, for this human race."
What a simple way of solving things—without lawyers; without courtrooms; without a judgment. "I will come down, because I love you and I forgive you and I place in the deep sea your sins. I am your substitute so that I might come to be your example, so that you might also learn to die to yourself, to deny yourself, to be poor in spirit."
So simple a plan; if we experience it, there is the essence of God’s simplicity. It can’t be explained but you can experience it. Nicodemus, the wise man, he couldn’t understand it and he was a wise man, he was a professor and he was an expert, more than any of us, in Hebrew, in Hebrew thought, but he had not experienced it.
The Lord told something very interesting to Nicodemus. The Lord told him, "If you want to see the Kingdom of Heaven." See—not to posses—only to see—not to posses. To the poor in spirit, the Lord told them, "Yours IS the Kingdom of Heaven. You are the heirs", to the poor in spirit. But to Nicodemus, who was not yet poor in spirit, He only told him that he had to be born again in order to see. At what distance would he see it?
But the disciples, to the disciples He said something even more concrete—much more concrete. Matthew 18:1, 2 & 3, and see the way in which Jesus explained things. He would explain things with acts. He explained the Kingdom of Heaven with the grain of wheat; with the man who went to sow; with a very simple act; with something with which they were very familiar. "The kingdom of God is like the sower who went out to plant."
But here we find some rich disciples, full of themselves, anxious for a high place, anxious to have a position. From where had they come from? From where had they come from? They were coming from a level where it was impossible to reach any position, but in this human rupture and this spiritualistic disintegration in which we participate, when they saw Jesus, they became great. They desired to have power. They wished to have authority and to have a great position. Amongst themselves they began to discuss who was the greatest. Rich! They were rich! Rich in themselves. They did not know the nature of the kingdom.
They had renounced, they had renounced—they renounced things, but to leave things—to renounce things, is the easiest thing. But to renounce our own self, that’s something different. Leave the boat. Leave the employment. That’s easy. To leave our self—that is redemption. That is to become poor in spirit—poor of ourselves, poor in our essence, come to the conclusion that my moral essence is only leprosy, filthy rags—that is very difficult to our complicated, spiritualistic mind.
The enemy has given us a false value and we believe in that false value. And the more we believe in ourselves the more difficult it is to trust in Jesus’ word. "If anyone wants to follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me."
How simple Christ’s formula for salvation. There is no complicated word in that. There’s no technical term. We don’t need a dictionary for that, because our Lord is very simple and Truth is very simple.
Let us hear what it says here: Matthew chapter 18. "At the same time came the disciples to Jesus saying, ‘who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’"
For the disciples it was already a familiar term, ‘the kingdom of heaven’. From the same moment that Jesus was baptized He announced the kingdom of heaven. So up to this moment the kingdom of heaven was a familiar term. So they asked Him, with their human values, ‘who will be the greatest in heaven?’
The greatness of this is the answer of Jesus, and the simplicity of this, the truth in this, is Jesus’ answer to them. It was not a philosophical answer. It was not a theological answer and it was not an ideological answer. It was not an abstract answer, it was a very concrete answer.
"And Jesus called a little child"; called a little child. What a way to answer.
A tremendous problem—"Who is the greatest among us, Jesus?" He could not hurt them. It wasn’t His plan to offend them. It was not His plan to make them feel inferior. His plan was to redeem them. His plan was to restore them. His plan was to show them the kingdom. Let them participate the kingdom without offending them, without hurting them, without breaking their values—just reaching them in the most special manner so that they could perceive the kingdom. And at the same time they could experience their shame and they could experience their leprosy—experience their leprosy with a redemptive motive, because we can show someone else their leprosy with the motive of putting him down and not of redeeming him. With religion it is so easy to show who is more.
"And Jesus called a little child and set him in the midst of them."
A child; what did the disciples do with the children? "They bother us! Get out!" They would reject the children.
Oh, But Jesus did not despise the children. Jesus was not bothered by the children. They were an object of redemption and He said of the children, "Of theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Jesus said of us, the adults, the kingdom of heaven does not belong to us. It isn’t ours because we are complicated, but children are simple. Oh the children! But adults, we don’t trust; we are suspicious of each other; we approach each other in a defensive manner; but children—they trust; they give themselves; they are open—completely—they still are one, notwithstanding the fact of sin and our fallen condition. What an agent God has given to us that even in children you still can perceive that innocence and purity.
And He put the child in the midst of them, and then He spoke. Hear what He said: "Amen" that’s the word translated for ‘verily’. It’s the word for truth. It’s the word for assurance; certainty; what is reality; what is authentic; what really is; without any abstraction.
"Verily I say unto you except ye be converted." The Hebrew word ‘chou’[sp] is to become—it is an act, it is a reality; if you do not become. And the Lord, understanding by inspiration the conflict in the language, the Lord added another verb in order to compliment the first verb so that we might understand that the experience of salvation is an act. It’s not a declaration; it is not a forensic act; it’s not an idea; it’s an act. It’s an event; it’s an experience—in us; in the disciples; and in anyone. And if that doesn’t happen, we will never see the kingdom of heaven.
If you do not convert–and He adds, "and become" and it’s from the verb ‘be’, ‘being’. Very interesting—first the action—then the state of being. First the action—if you are not converted and then ‘be’ and that’s an inflection of the verb ‘to be’ and the verb ‘to be’ is God’s verb and fortunately in our human grammars, that is still that way.
God in His mercy has permitted something with the verb ‘to be’ because that verb does not indicate action. The verb ‘to be’ implies nature, our constitution, a state of being; it’s a state of being. Our Lord Jesus used the most simple language and He used the act of a child because the child was a child and was in the condition of a child. The child was a child. But we are adults and adults are incredulous, they have unbelief and adults—we suspect, and we have a defensive attitude because we are filled with ourselves.
"Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore…"
And this indefinite pronoun ‘Whosoever’, is a very common pronoun in Jesus’ usage. Whoever! That pronoun has nothing exclusive about it—anyone—with which condition? That empties himself. Whoever descends—who descends his spirit—whoever descends. Whoever comes down. In whatever circumstance—in whatever circumstance—in every circumstance!
My loved ones, in the context of sin, God’s guidance is for us to descend—is to come low. But in the realm of sin, the direction of spiritualism is to exalt and lift up ourselves; is to go up—is to be up. But in God’s direction is to go down.
Oh if Adam had humbled himself before Eve, he would not have accused her. He would not have justified himself. He would not have invented the religion of self-justification. But Adam was not empty, he was already full of himself and instead of recognizing his leprosy, he accused the leprosy in her. And that is our problem. He became an adult. He stopped being a child.
Verse 4 "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
Do we want to be the greatest? Do we want to be the greatest—you and I need to become children through God’s grace. Will we permit this to the Lord? The kingdom is yours—is ours. We shall be of the 144,000 if we permit this.
May God Bless you!

A LITTLE CHILDREN

In Sin we want to have Dominion.
In our Sinful State—we desire to have Power. Not only do we desire—but we exercise it.
In Sin, Power is not only a desire—but Sin and Power are almost synonyms.
Who doesn’t desire Power?
Satan desired Power—possibly even before he sinned. And simultaneous with his rupture from the Lord, he desired to have a Dominion.
He wanted Power—and we are not an exception. The struggles that we have are struggles for Power.
Even as Independents—and within the family we want to exercise Power. And we have Bible texts for that—we have Bible texts to support any type of deviation. David had it—and modern human beings also have Bible texts.
"And towards your husband shall be your desire, and he shall rule over thee."
We have Bible texts.
There is a Bible text in Scripture that I would like to understand. I don’t understand it. I have to receive it by Faith. All of God’s Word is received by Faith. All of God’s true knowledge is received by Faith. There is no knowledge of God that is received in a rational way. Because all of God’s knowledge is given through revelation because God knows that He needs to teach me that nothing is mine. Nothing is mine! Everything comes from Him. And Scriptures claim that the only Wise One is God. I am not wise. He is the Wise. How difficult it is to admit it. How difficult—especially for adults.
We believe that we know. We believe that we have. We know that we have power. But how difficult it is for God to teach us that.
And here there is a Bible text that I place before you as a homework, as I have for a homework for myself. My reason does not understand it. My mental capacity is not able to grasp it, but I have to come in faith. You’ll find it in Psalm 8.
"O Lord, our Lord."
For me it is very beautiful how David starts off. David is in complete recognition of God. He recognizes the Lord and the only great theme for him is the Lord.
"O Lord, our Lord. How excellent is Thy name in all the earth. Who has set Thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. . ."
And of sucklings!
"Hast Thou ordained strength."
The strength—and the Power—in the little babies. I don’t understand it.
In Goliath I see power. In David there was power. The adults are the ones that have power. In developed and mature men we find power. The rich have power. Those that have some type of recognition are the ones that have power.
But God says, "Out of the mouth of babes hast Thou ordained strength." I don’t understand it. I don’t know if you understand it.
But in matter of salvation we don’t have to understand this—we have to experience it—as a fact. And these acts, if they don’t come through the path of reason, if they don’t come through that mental laboratory of ours—for us they are not truth.
But thanks be to God that scriptures are not given in a laboratory way. They are not of a sensorial nature—they are given through revelation. And our Lord Jesus said in Matthew chapter 11. Listen to what Matthew 11 says—we know it by heart—we know it as a Bible text—we have done exegesis on it—but we don’t have the experience. Verse 25:
"At that time Jesus answered and said I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."
The Lord is pleased in revealing Himself to children. That is His pleasure. Why?
And today this manifestation has been destroyed. Today children are Satan’s objectives, because the old people—we are already possessed by him. So now his objective is reaching and taking control of the children.
Heaven has given us a science of education and you know that heaven’s science of education is a redemptive science, because for Jesus, to educate is to redeem. To educate is to restore. To educate is NOT to inform—to be informed. Anyone can be informed, but to be redeemed, heaven says that the science of education is the science of redemption.
And many of us have failed in that area. We have informed our children but they have not been restored. We have given them a secular education. They have degrees. They have obtained power. They have dominion. They have received recognition. But they haven’t been redeemed and God wants to redeem the children. He has purposed Himself to redeeming the children.
To Nicodemus the Lord said: "If thou wantest to see—ye have to be born again."
And to the disciples He said: "If you want to enter in." What is more, to see or to enter in? What is more? What do you prefer—to see—or to get inside? It is more to be able to get in, and we that are curious, we want to go in.
And to the disciples He said: "If you want to enter into the kingdom of heaven, you have to be converted and become as children."
But these children—to these children—God did not tell them that they would see, the Lord did not tell them that they would enter—the Lord said: "of theirs IS—of them IS—the kingdom of heaven."
How did Jesus teach? Different from how we teach. How did Jesus teach? With acts—He was very objective—and with the most simple—simple way. And He took a child—not like this child here—this child has a difference with the children of Jesus’ time and age, because, in Jesus’ time, children were more innocent than these children. 2,000 years ago—can you imagine a child of 2,000 years ago? It is kind of difficult to imagine it.
Can you imagine a baby in David’s time and age? 3,000 years ago—the days of King David—a child—a baby—it is difficult to fathom it.
But 2,000 years ago—children, without sugar. A child today without sugar? Without a genetic trail of sugar consumption? A child without Television? It’s a strange child. A child without internet? A child without pornography? What kind of child? What kind of children? Oh how much the Lord wishes that our children could be raised up like that!
But we today—these children—to these children—we put them the movie of Goliath and we place before them the movie of Goliath and we do not know that that Goliath is just an actor—he is not real—he is not real. And we destroy the children with that Goliath.
And then we present to them a David, who is also an actor and they pay him to be an actor, but he is not real. Which is the real David? That is the one I must discover in the scriptures and show those children the power of David—the dependence of David—David’s trust, his certainty, and the knowledge he had in the God of Israel.
These children without movies can come to know David’s God. But we have lost that reality, and we teach them about Goliath with the movie and possibly, I myself as a Dad represent this Goliath in stead of showing them David. What a dichotomy! And how we destroy the power and the strength that there is in a child that God would like to use to finish this work at this time and age.
There is a characteristic that children have—when a child is born—how much does he know? How much does he know? Nothing! That’s where his power lies—the power of God—not the power of earth. He doesn’t know anything.
When a baby is born how much can he do? How much can he do? Nothing! He can’t do anything. That is where the source of power is according to God, not according to our secular world. Because we can, we know, we are wise—"without Me—ye can do nothing." How difficult it is to experience for the adults—but for children that is easy.
When a child is born how much does he have? How much does a child have when he is born? Nothing! He can’t do anything; he doesn’t know anything; and he doesn’t have anything—nothing. And for us—nothing—is nothing and no one wants to be nothing.
We want to be Somebody.
Why did Jesus say, of the child is the kingdom of heaven and not to hinder them?
But we as adults what do we do is to hinder their entrance in. Even though we are religious—let’s not speak about secular parents. We have hindered their entrance. The disciples were a hindrance. And we hinder from our own children, entering into the kingdom of heaven. This culture has denied children entry into the kingdom of heaven.
But how different is God’s conception of life, because what He conceives—because the conceptions that we have performed should be a conception in the Spirit of the eternal Father. But we have lost that reality and that is where our degeneration and depravity begins. When God said that we should multiply—when He said that we should multiply—He was the One that gave that order—He was the One that said that we should fill the earth. He said that to Adam and Eve and He said it in an imperative language. He said it as a supplication, as an order. But when He said that we should multiply ourselves, He did not order us just to multiply the biological factories. That is the work of spiritualism. Spiritualism has made us to multiply just in a biological fashion. That physiologically we reproduce; but not to reproduce in the image of God. What had to be multiplied was God’s image. But we have multiplied just the cells—without the Spirit.
Oh, Elizabeth and Zachariah, they multiplied the Image of God—from the womb—through the Spirit, because in them—scripture says of them that both were righteous—that both of them were righteous. Not before the temple—not before men—not in the synagogue—not in the liturgy—not in the Reformed—not with the Independents—but before God. And He is the One who gives witness that both were righteous and without fault—and without fault!—before the Law—the Torah—and the Law of the Lord.
And what were the results? Oh my beloved, when Zachariah and Elizabeth conceived, were they breathing? Were thy breathing? No they weren’t breathing. When God formed Adam and Eve—He breathed—what was it that He breathed? His character—His being—what He is in His essence and the result was, in this body of cells—in this human form, what He made out of dust—what He breathed in was His Spirit and character. The reality—what is concrete in God. Then He told Adam and Eve—and He has told us—multiply God’s image.
Let us fill our house with God’s image. And God knows that in children, He has to begin. And Ellen White, she says, that higher education are the first years of life. But in the secular world, superior and higher education is post-graduate studies. And we believe in post-graduate studies, but God knows that higher education begins in the womb. There is power in that! A mind that is completely blank, that is void. A mind that is empty, empty of this secular knowledge; empty of these sensorial conceptions; empty of all these philosophies; that it might be filled only of God’s knowledge.
But we have failed in that. Mary did not fail in that. Elizabeth did not fail in that. Hannah did not fail in that. And we have a job, and you know that most of us lost that first birth.
I lost that first birth, but God in His mercy permits us to be born again. And each human being within this simple context can be born two times. The first birth—we lost it. And God has forgiven us. We were ignorant—and God forgives sins of ignorance. And He gives us the opportunity He gave Nicodemus—to be born again. Every human being—has the opportunity of being again a child. Every human being. We—with seventy years of age; with eighty years of age; with fifty years of age or thirty—we can become as children again. And receive the strength, the strength of babies as Psalm 8 says.
There is a characteristic in children, where lies the strength, the power, the dominion, the authority—the authority of God, the divine power.
Oh beloved brethren, Satan wants God’s power without God’s character. He desires power, and human beings in sin, we want power—all types of power—even intellectual power and mental power, even Biblical power. But God’s power has only one foundation—His character. These children, who are born for the first time and the children that are born a second time—that power is their’s; it is implicit in the new birth. It will not be ours—it will always be of Him. And we claim that His things are ours. But the scriptures teach—and you have observed it—that these children are born and they don’t have anything; they don’t posses anything; they don’t know anything; and they can’t do anything.
Have you been present at the birth of a child? Or have you been present at the birth of a horse? Have you seen the difference? How long does it take for the colt to start walking and prancing around? Almost immediately. And why does it happen like that with a human child? The Creator knows why—every child—every child—needs two images of God that might be one. They are made into a help-meet for him. In support—made into security for him.
Not so with the colt, or the calf, or with any other animal. But these children are born for communion. These children are born for dependence. These children are born in faith. These children need a Mom and a Dad—they need. They are born in necessity, they are born dependent and never can they lose that—because when they lose that dependence—they have become adults and they need to be born again.
The Bible says in 1st Corinthians, in 1st Corinthians Paul says something. Let’s see if we admit this. Verse 2 of 1st Corinthians chapter 8; "And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know."
In our fallen condition it is very difficult to admit this, which is the problem of husbands and wives. She knows! She knows—and she knows that she knows. And she manifests that she knows. But then she has an encounter with another one that also knows that he knows. And he knows that he knows. And when two wise are confronted, how difficult it is to agree! We know too much.
But children don’t know anything and our Lord, He can write—He can write in the mind of a child all what is His. He can write His Law; He can write His moral values; He can write His name. Oh my beloved, the 144,000 are 144,000 children. Because they have permitted God as Revelation 14:1 says—they have permitted the Lord to write in their frontal lobes—write in their mind—the character of the Father and the character of the Lamb and that’s why they are 144,000—they permitted the heavenly Father to write and all the preconceived things that they have—they have placed them aside so that He could write the image of God in them.
Of the children is the kingdom of heaven. But children in my judgment and you can test it—every child in this fallen world is born in faith. Every child is born in faith. But as adults we loose faith and the characteristic of adults is loosing their faith. And the more we grow we have greater unbelief. And the more we grow, the more suspicious we are. The more we grow, the more we suspect of others.
But children don’t. Children are not suspicious. If they were suspicious, those children would not permit themselves to be abused. But today Satan has permitted that parents, the very same parents and relatives abuse children. And today that is a daily fact in all this fallen world, because the child is born in faith. He trusts. He trusts in Dad; he trusts in Mom; he trusts in his uncle and his aunt—he trusts—so he gives himself and we have lost the capacity of trust—in God’s Word; in our Lord; in His counsel; in His Law; in His Grace and in His Spirit.
But adults—we have faith—we have a lot of faith. We are monsters in faith—but in false faith. We are monsters in false faith—because we trust—we trust tremendously—we trust in ourselves. We have trust—in our selfishness—in our pride and in our wisdom and in our analysis and comprehension. We are monsters of comprehension—in our selfishness.
That is why Jesus said adults will not enter but children will enter. And if you want to see the kingdom of heaven, you have to be born again. And Nicodemus—at our height, at our level, in relationship with our culture—all of us are PhDs compared to Nicodemus. Because what we know now, Nicodemus not even imagined it. What did Nicodemus know about cell-phones? Nothing! Nothing! But we are PhDs in comparison with Nicodemus. And the Lord told Nicodemus, "You are a teacher in Israel."
Notice how the Lord—in every man’s sphere—approaches in order to save him. He does not offend him in order to create resentment. He offends him in order to redeem him. God’s wounds are for salvation. And Nicodemus understood and he experienced it. Nicodemus was a doctor—in his sphere he was the professor—he was a wise man and he knew that he knew. But he came to Jesus, and he came to Jesus led by the Holy Spirit. He did not come in another way—he came led by the Spirit. And you know that the Holy Spirit does not manifest partiality. He moves all of us; He reproves all of us; He convicts all of us. If we accept Him, He will convince us.
He will convince us in our homes, where lies our family problems. He will convict us and He will convince me that the problem is not in her. The Holy Spirit never comes to me to convince me that the other one is sinful. The Holy Spirit will always come upon me, to convince me, that I am the problem and not that she is the problem.
And if I have trust I will trust in Him. And in order to trust in Him, I have to be as a child. Have you seen children? Children when they feel, when they perceive that they are going to be without communion, that father is going to separate from them, that mother is going to go away from them, they experience something and they don’t want to be separated. He doesn’t want to break the relationship—because children are born in faith, and in communion. They want to belong to Daddy, and to their Mom, they want to be there. And when a child perceives that; when a child perceives that Mom is going to go away he starts to experience fear. And he has this fear; he doesn’t want to separate himself. The child grasps and he grabs his Mom’s skirt—he has faith—he trusts—he needs communion. He is born in communion. But what do we do? In Latin countries, we tell children, "Children, don’t cry! Be a Macho. Don’t cry." And we use a deceptive technique. We take him to the back room, and we put him some toys, and we turn on the television, and we put a movie. And now we even give him a cell phone and give him a computer and internet and we entertain him. And then, when we have him entertained, we tip-toe outside.
We are very intelligent and we destroy thus their faith. And we destroy their communion. And we destroy their trust. And we are criminals! Destroying children. Oh my beloved, when has the Eternal Father separated Himself from us?
At what age did you separate your children from you? At what age were you as a child separated from your parents? At what age did the yellow bus come? At what age—and we were separated. And in that moment, when the yellow bus comes for the first time, what is the children’s reaction? They cry! They reject! They don’t want to be separated. They were born in faith, in trust, in dependence—but we separate them.
At seven years of age, at eight years of age, father comes home, or the mother comes home, and the child does not greet Dad, and he does not greet Mom. He doesn’t know who Mom is. He doesn’t really know who Dad is. But he knows about movies and he knows what is on television. He knows who is the actor, he knows who is the great sports man. And he knows very well the basketball player. But he doesn’t know his papa, and he doesn’t know his momma. The child has been trained to love things. And we change his values; we change his values from trust a person, from trusting in father, from trusting in mother, to place his trust on television; to place his trust on toys. Oh, loved ones, what a crime!
Children are born in faith. Jesus was born in faith. And Mary—never separated herself from Him. John the Baptist was born in faith and Elizabeth never left him. Together as one without rupture, without separation.
But today we separate, because we need to have and having is more important than these children. For us, having is more than faith. And that’s why we—faith in God’s Word, faith in God, that’s an idea—something abstract. Something somewhere up in the air. Our monstrous faith is in what we have; in what we possess; and our values, are about having things. We cannot live without having and each day the more ‘adult’ we become; we want to have more things. And the more we want to have things—the less we are; the less we are.
In order to be—we don’t need to have anything. And these children are born, without having things. And they are born without a desire of having things. But we teach them to have things.
Paul said; "We bring nothing to this world when we are born." Nothing! What did you bring when you were born? What did you bring? Nothing!
And when we die—how much do we take? Nevertheless we place our faith in what we have. And God has desired that we loose faith in what we have and that we might place faith in He who made heaven and earth. Because He wants to found His fortress in children—in children.
If you do not become—and are converted—as one of these—I assure you, verily, unto you—unto you Peter, unto you John, to Matthew, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
What a simple lesson. What a simple lesson! But we don’t understand it. Our mind is so complex, our knowledge is so structured, and our wisdom is so abundant, that we don’t understand what doesn’t require even a dictionary. When our Lord Jesus was very objective, and when He saw the desire for power; the desire of greatness; when He saw that those disciples were already structured with the mind-set of the synagogue and the Pharisees. They wanted to be the wisest. They wanted to be the great ones.
The Lord simply looked for a child, a child of 2,000 years ago, and he placed him in the midst of them.
I can imagine the disciples—"What does Jesus pretend to do with this?"
If you are not converted and become as one of these—ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever humbleth himself as a child shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever trusts, as a child trusts, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Because of them—theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
My beloved brethren, the Holy Spirit wants us to be born again. As Nicodemus—and that we might be born into communion with Him; into dependence on Him; in the certainty of falling into His arms. And just as these children give themselves, just as this little girl gives herself, and comes, and remains here, and obeys, in the same way God desires that your life—that my life—that our lives, may remain, may begin, may be surrendered, may trust, and may wait and may rest, in His arms. In His power.
Then His kingdom will be ours. All what is His, will be ours. Because He is ours. Jesus said, "Our Heavenly Father"—"Our Father"—He is your Father!
Oh beloved, we are orphans. We are orphans. May God permit us to be children in Him.
AMEN

WHO IS MAN?

How do we know?
We know as the enemy knows.
But we don’t know as Jesus knew.
The Knowledge of Jesus is different from the knowledge of Satan and he has taught us to know as he knows. But we need to know as Jesus knew.
There is something that Jesus knows and it’s in His heart, it’s in His mind, it’s in His feelings and it’s in His work. What He knows and what He is, is only one thing.
What does He know about you? He knows something about you; He knows something about us that He will never loose—He will never loose. That’s why He came to this earth, because He knows who you are. But we—what we should most know is who is my neighbor? That is what we should most know.
A husband—who he should most know, is about his wife, but that is what we less know. We know her as the enemy knows her, but not as Jesus knows us.
What does Jesus know about you that we have forgotten? Then our knowledge only reaches the world of ideas. Satan’s knowledge is a knowledge of ideas. And Satan knows in that realm, who are you. But that is not True Knowledge; that is a false knowledge because True Knowledge has to be real. It has to be authentic and it has to be one—it’s a Knowledge that is integrated.
God knows that a child is the image of God. God knows and He knows that from the child, the image of God is the Kingdom of Heaven. But Satan doesn’t know that. Satan has the idea; he knows that human beings are in the image of God, but the way he deals with them is Satanic. The way he deals with them is unto perdition and the way he deals with them is criminal.
But the way Jesus treats us is redemptive; is in Hope; is in Love; is of Faith, because He knows who is mankind and He knows it in reality. When He approaches man, He approaches to God’s image. He does not approach a sinner; He approaches to God’s image. He cannot think that he is going to be lost. He is hope and salvation for him because He knows who is man.
Do we know who is man? The only thing we can do with humanity, if we know mankind as Jesus knows us is to justify him. But the work that Satan does least is to justify, because he has the idea—as an idea he knows—he has the information—possibly more than you or I have—but he has lost reality and he has divorced the idea of reality. That has happened with us—that is what we know and that is why we sing but what we sing is only an idea.
There is a hymn in Spanish that says; "I left it all". It’s an old hymn; "I left it all". It’s a beautiful song; it’s a beautiful idea; it is beautiful as liturgy and if we play it on the piano it reaches our senses; but it’s not real. We haven’t left anything! We continue in our selves. We continue in our selfishness. We haven’t left anything—but we sing it—that’s how Satan sings too. He sings ideas; he sings concepts; and he knows concepts. He knows Bible texts and he knows this is truth—but as a theory, not as a living thing.
Jesus handles these things as truth. He came to give us life. He came to give life unto the children and He told them that theirs was the Kingdom of Heaven. But Satan knows that they are God’s image but his purpose is to destroy that.
Spiritualism–terrible how spiritualism is! And that is the common denominator of all of our thoughts. We can think it. We can even feel it. We can theorize about it. We can be philosophical about it and we can make a theology out of it. But we cannot make it Truth; because Truth is what is and in order for it to be, not only does it have to exist—besides existing—it has to be pure. If it isn’t pure it isn’t real, because what isn’t pure is false. And if my idea is only an idea but it is not real, in the way we deal with others, then it is false.
What did Jesus say about the children? Psalm 8:2: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength."
And here David is beholding the heavens and when he beholds the heavens, and he beholds the moon and he looks at the stars, in a very personal language. David is not speaking theory; David spoke in a personal language; "Your hands! Your hands!" for David, God was real. "Your hands—made the moon and made the stars; made the heavens—Your hands!" David’s language is person to person.
For David, the Creator was the eternal ‘Thou Art’. He was the eternal ‘I Am’. And when he beholds the heavens and the stars, the question that arises is, Who is Man? What is man? Who am I? Who is my neighbor? Who is my wife? Who is my son? And he finds an answer—a little lower than the angels—a little lower than angels. A child—a little lower than an angel. And then he says; the crown—a child is God’s crown. "And Thou hast crowned him with glory."
Thou hast crowned him with glory—and what is glory? Character—the moral essence—the same essence of God. The essence of God is the essence of mankind and that’s why, for Jesus here on earth, the most solemn attitude—His most solemn moment was when He approached man. He could not manipulate him; He could not submit him; He could not force him. He could only love him. He could only serve him. What’s more, his values—He respected the person’s values. Our Lord Jesus knew that man is God’s image—crowned with glory—full of light—because he was the work of His hands.
Do we know that? Are we aware of that? The way we treat ourselves is what defines it. And in Scriptures we don’t find definitions. Greeks gave definitions. Greeks are experts in giving definitions. But in the Old Testament, definitions are acts—the acts of God. He defines—gives a definition—with acts, with His work. He doesn’t give definitions as ideas—He defines with acts.
And for Jesus, the way you deal with others, the way He approached us, is what speaks about who is man. Who is mankind for God? His image and likeness—and He knows what He did when He made mankind and has crowned him with glory and honor.
There is something very interesting, not only interesting but important; the inspired counsel says that God created the human mind and it responds to all the faculties of God’s mind. I can’t think it—it is very difficult for me to think it—to consider that our mind is designed as the divine mind. And that the Lord through the Gospel, through His word, through His redemptive method, what He is doing is associating, relating, having communion, constantly, so that our mind might respond to the divine mind. That is the work of the Gospel—of the true Gospel and very vital in this association of minds the experience of faith, because we now in faith need to accept—we need to experience—we need the act that each human being is crowned with glory—crowned with the character of God and full of honor.
We have lost that—as a concept we have lost it. In school they taught me that man is an animal. That’s what they taught me. In elementary school, in high school, in college, I was taught that man is an animal. Once I took a class of zoology at college level and there they taught me that man is an animal, an arthropod, vertebrate, is a mammal, and bi-pedal, stands on two legs. That’s what science taught me. That’s what reason teaches.
And when I learned that, how do I treat my fellow man? And when we marry, with whom do we marry? With an animal, and animals growl at each other; they scratch each other; and they destroy each other.
Not so with the image of God. The image of God—you can only love. God’s image—God can only justify it. God’s image—He can only sanctify it. And in order to achieve it, heaven itself—the Lord Himself—He divested Himself; He emptied Himself; and He Himself descended and was incarnated among us. And He takes our condition upon Himself because His purpose is to reach God’s image and He has to finish in death—in the death of the cross. The most terrible death, in order to restore the child, mankind, the adult, the human being—because He knows who is man.
Do we know it? Or have we lost that? Satan has not lost it totally. He has the idea. He knows the texts—he knows the Bible texts but he has lost the reality of it. Have we lost that reality? We have to recuperate it—we have to recuperate it by faith. By faith it is easy to recuperate it.
My feelings say that he is stupid; my theory says that he is the image of God. That is the science of spiritualism; to break apart; to separate; to disintegrate. At the knowledge level he is a philosopher—Satan is a philosopher, he is a theologian and he knows how to disintegrate faith; and he has disintegrated faith and works. In the Old Testament that is not disintegrated: the verb ‘to hear’ that Moses used so much, that is a verb of salvation. The verb ‘hearing’ in the Hebrew semantic is an integrated verb. The Lord has done marvelous things with us because hearing in the Old Testament is the same verb used for obeying.
It is the same verb. He who hears—obeys. When you hear the car honking, what do you do? Do you obey? And how long do you take to obey? Almost instantaneously; Because we were created as an integrated being and our nervous system corresponds to the faculties of the divine mind and that mind heaven is constantly associating with and that Satan is constantly separating but that God is always trying to integrate.
And the mystery of that integration is by the Word. The instrument that God has in order to integrate us in Him, so that our mind might become His mind, is His Word. It’s a mystery—His Word—it’s a reality—His Word. Paul said, "All scripture is inspired by God."
This is not paper! Satan has made it just paper. But this is not paper. We carry the paper around but we don’t keep the Word. The Word is not white and black; the Word is not letters; the Word is Him! And when God incarnates Himself in His Word it is through His Spirit. And that same Spirit, that same Lord, who inspired the scriptures, is the same Lord who made your life and my life. And when He made our ear, He made our ear in such a way that to hear is to obey.
So; we receive the sensorial impression. We hear the horn honking, and the body is able to perceive, transmit and interpret that message. You perceive it; it is transmitted; it arrives to the mind; it is interpreted; the mind does hermeneutics; and then through another pathway of nervous communication—the motor system—then the order is sent. The human body, created in God’s image: faith; love; righteousness is a fact; is a reality; is something concrete. It happens in the being and heaven constantly in our fallen condition is constantly associating that with us so that it might be a reality and not just a declaration.
Oh, but Satan is a great philosopher and theologian, and he has been able to disintegrate scriptures and God’s plan. And we have fallen into that knowledge and that trap because we at intellectual levels, we know that it’s the image of God. But in reality we call him stupid.
Sometimes, anytime, have you ever felt that someone was foolish? Have you ever felt that? Jesus never felt that! And He placed that in the sixth commandment: "thou heard that is was said ‘thou shalt not kill’—the sermon on the mount—you have heard that it was said of them of old times, Matthew 5:21—oh the comprehension that God has of His law! For Jesus, His law is not a Roman law, but for us westerners, the Law is a Roman concept. That is how we still deal with scriptures. But for Jesus, His Law is not a Roman concept. For Jesus, the Law—He was the Law and He is Love.
That is something very different and that’s why God says in Matthew 5:21, 22: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:" and then tooth by tooth and eye by eye—in the Roman Law: "But I say unto you, That whosoever" Whosoever! Anyone! "who is angry"
Have we become angered? Have we been angry? Against the image of God? Have we been angry against a child? We shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, because he who is angry against his brother, is a criminal in God’s law, because he is the image of God. He is not an animal. He is not a thing. He is not a concept—he is a reality. And to the image of God, the image of God only deserves that God’s Son empty Himself of being what He is and that that may not rise up to His head what He was before creation but that He might descend and He become nothing and He might become one with us and that He might take upon Himself our fallen condition and that He might finish upon the cross.
He knows who is a child. Do we know that? Who is a child? Do we know who is our neighbor? Do we know who is our wife? How do we know it? As the devil knows it—or as Jesus knows it? That’s the great difference.
The knowledge of God is not a theory; it’s not information; God’s knowledge is a participation—is completely different to the way in which we have been educated. Because we sit down in school—ten years; fifteen years; twenty years; even thirty years and all that we receive is information—but not Life.
But when God gives knowledge, He gives Life. When God gives Knowledge, He is the One who is giving Himself—He is the One who offers Himself and we must receive Him. And that’s why in scripture to know—is to enter in—so intimately—in such an intimate manner that what is mine, He takes it—and what is His—I receive it.
I give Him all my filthiness, and I give Him my pride, and I give Him my self-sufficiency, and He gives me what He is. He gives it. Because knowing God is to participate of Him and He compared it beautifully—"He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood", and we understand very little of those two verbs because in Jesus’ semantics, just as Jesus gave them of the bread. They didn’t know Him, but as they broke the bread and as they drank the wine, the Lord Jesus was telling them that during three years He had participated them of His glory, of His Character; of His weight, of His consistency in life, of His being.
To Know God is to participate in Him and whosoever participates of Him, the concept of the image of God, the idea of the image of God becomes a reality—something that he lives. And the way we relate and deal with others comes to be just as He dealt with us. That is a reality. The rest is falsehood and is spiritualism. The enemy has made this into a conception—into an idea—he’s the image of God—he’s the image of God and once in a while I am angered against the image of God. Have we been angry against the image of God?
Matthew 5:22: "But I say unto you, whosoever is angry with his brother .. shall be in danger of the judgment:" Is this literature? Is this theology? Philosophy? Is it a concept? Or is it a reality? How do we assume it? Do we assume it as Satan does? Or do we assume it as Jesus does.
And then the Lord adds, because He wanted to explain it well, "and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."
The law of the Lord is not Roman law. It’s not a commandment, it is not a command—it is integrated in His life and in the life of your neighbor and the life of the image of God. And the fact of only thinking it, the fact of only considering it, destroys me. And what I should think about my neighbor and I should believe about my neighbor, and I should know about my neighbor is that he is the image of God.
Jesus—Jesus; the greatness of Jesus; He never under valuated us—never! He cannot conceive to under valuate what He created. He cannot reject what He has done. But human beings in sin, in our spiritualistic condition, we devaluate and we reject man. We take away his value.
Not even from Satan has God taken away from him his value. Because in the book of Job they talked; and how did they talk? Were they angry? Was the Lord angry with Satan? They had a dialogue—they shared. I don’t understand that. I receive it by faith. I have to receive it by faith because if I start reasoning it, I’ll become a devil myself. But it is revealed—they talked—and how did they talk? He even gave him permission. He even gave him permission.
God knew that Job, created a little less than angels, was crowned by the glory of God. And by the grace of God, he was capable of resisting anything coming from Satan. I don’t understand it, but I receive it by faith. And the Lord told him, "Try him. Test him. But don’t touch his life."
In what type of language? In what way? Oh my beloved, when we do not agree, do we get angry? Because the other one doesn’t believe as I believe? And then maybe we think, he’s a fool. And in our thought we are killing the image of God.
Who is man? Do we know who he is? Do we know who is a child? Or have we lost that knowledge. What is it that we must most know? What should we most know? Whom should we most understand? Humanity—because we live with humanity; we eat with human beings; we work with human beings; and without human beings we can’t do anything. You sell something and you buy something and in this world, what can we do without buying and selling? And in order for you to buy, you have to find someone; and in order to sell, you have to find someone.
How do we know human beings? As a client? Or as the image of God. How do we know him?
The science of anthropology is a new science. Human beings were first concerned about chemistry or physics, all that was material—all that was ‘things’. We have forgotten about who is man. And we are victims of that secular knowledge. And when man began to study man, then they came to the conclusion that we are sons of the gorillas.
But scriptures say that man—in chapter one—in the first chapter—that you and I are the image of God. And that between us—between us—there is no dominion, amongst us. And between us, there is no authority. It is so solemn, the image of God is so solemn that the only thing there can be between a human being and a fellow human being is the only thing there is between our Creator and us—Love and Faith. That’s the only thing according to Creation—that’s the only thing. According to redemption—that’s the only thing.
There isn’t power over between husband and wife. There is no dominion between husband and wife. The relationship between husbands and wives is a relationship in God’s image.
And the Lord says that every human being is a gift–it’s a gift. What God did with Adam was to give him a gift. Eve was a gift, in the same way as Jesus is a gift for us. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish but have eternal life."
What is the value that a human being has? Even in his fallen condition—what is his value? The same value of the Son of God was given to us—was given to us. He came as an intercessor. He put Himself as a bridge. He placed Himself in our position. He does not concede to under valuate us.
It is so easy for us to devaluate a human being—so easily that we do it! And we destroy the sixth commandment; but he that destroys the sixth commandment—destroys the whole law.
Jesus explained it even further and He spoke about liturgy and we are children of liturgy. And He spoke about the Sabbath—if you bring your offering to the altar—if we bring an offering to the altar. Oh my beloved ones, which is the first offering we must bring. The way we deal with our fellow man—that is the first offering. Because that was the offering He gave us. But we have changed that offering for coins; for papers. And we do it with good motivation.
But if we bring that offering, the offering of paper, and while I bring that paper offering, then I remember that my brother—my brother—has something against me. Not that I have something against him, because what I have against someone else the Holy Spirit convicts me constantly. But the Lord Jesus placed these things on a level that is totally alterocentric. If I remember, if I consider, if I think that some human being, who is being indifferent towards me, that there is a cold atmosphere between the two of us. He avoids me.
Have we experienced that? Yes, we experience it. Sometimes it is even with our wife. Sometimes it is in the family that I experience that something is not quite right. There is a cold atmosphere but I go to the temple to offer myself to God. Oh my beloved, in God’s law that is not letters, that is life, that is love, that is His character—between me and him there can’t be coldness. There can’t be indifference. There can’t be barriers. The only thing that should be between us is love—even towards our enemy. Love thy enemy, that is the law of the Lord, because our enemy is the image of God.
The knowledge of Jesus is very different from Satan’s knowledge. Which is our knowledge? "And this is life eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." That is the true knowledge, to know Him. Because knowing Him, is to restore my relationship to humanity in God’s image.
To know Him is to participate of His image and likeness. And in creation there is a chain that can’t be broken between what He did; between what He is; and between what you are; and between what my neighbor is; and what natural law is. That’s why Jesus said that if we do not forgive—He does not forgive. Because it is a chain—it is a chain of the integration of creation. But that chain was broken by sin, but that chain is restored in the redemption process.
There are two creations; the first creation and the second creation. The same Author of the first creation is the same Author of the second. And the purpose of the first creation is the same purpose of the second creation. The restoration of God’s image—not as an idea—as a reality. And the evidence of this fact is the way we treat each other.
How do we receive each other? Because Jesus said, in Matthew 18:5 Jesus said, "And whosoever". Once again this pronoun that is so wide—it is not exclusive.
"And whosoever shall receive one such little child in My name Receiveth Me."
For me this is not theology. For me this is not philosophy. For me this is a reality. It is not a declaration, it is a fact. And it has happened in me by God’s grace because He is associating through the gospel, by the work of the Holy Spirit, by the work of the new creation, through His Word—He is associating my mind with His mind.
Oh, if there is a solemn thought, it’s the thought that God, when He came to this earth, not only did He identify Himself with us, because it is easy to identify yourself with. Nowadays in the United States you have to identify yourself. Before you didn’t have to do it. You have to show a picture—your ID—before you didn’t have to do that. To identify ourselves is easy. But Jesus did not just identify Himself with us—He went beyond—because He is a reality. The concept is identity, but the reality is to assume our identity. He assumed our identity. He became one with us. And He said whatever you do to one of these little ones, you have done it unto Me. To Me!
The indifference that I have with my fellowman, the way I feel with my fellow man. The judgment that I make of ‘foolish’, ‘stupid’, that I do in my thoughts, I am doing it to Him! To Him. And that is killing, and that is breaking the law, the law of the Lord, that is perfect and that converts the soul.
Oh my brethren, this gospel is so beautiful! But it is beautiful when you live it. And you can live it, in every encounter with a human being. And you can value; and you can dignify; and you can uplift. I can descend and I can go down, and I can empty myself, and I become totally void, as a child—as a child, in order to dignify and uplift my fellow man, because he is the image of God. And through the image of God, God’s relationship with her, after sin, was in blood and we understand very little about this.
For heaven—in order for heaven to be able to reach me—had to spill blood. It’s the price of blood. Oh my beloved, heaven desires–He wants us to have encounters in that manner, that we might participate each other in that way. Then by faith in God’s grace, we will become children: "and of them is the kingdom of heaven".
May God bless us and keep us!