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But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. (Acts 10:35) |
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There are two kinds of righteousness mentioned in the Bible. The first kind is actual righteousness of behavior, that is, telling the truth, loyalty to one's family, moral cleanliness, honesty, kindliness, and so forth. |
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God is righteous and He has fellowship with the righteous. Noah was righteous and so God saved him and his family from the flood. |
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The second kind of righteousness mentioned in the Bible is imputed righteousness. God imputes, or ascribes righteousness to those who put their faith in His Son for salvation. |
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The Apostle Paul was a strict Jew, what we would call today an Orthodox. Were Paul living today he would have forelocks and wear black clothes. |
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Somehow God was able to explain to Paul that the laws and statutes of Moses no longer are the basis of righteousness. God is ready to ascribe righteousness to those who, apart from the laws of Judaism, look to Jesus Christ for salvation. |
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We Gentiles have made a tremendous error of interpretation. We have understood Paul to mean God no longer is interested in righteous behavior (telling the truth, loyalty to one's family, honesty, etc.) but ascribes righteousness only on the basis of belief in Christ. |
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By works Paul was referring to circumcision and eating pork. By works we are referring to honesty and moral cleanliness. Because of this enormous misunderstanding, the Christian testimony has been destroyed throughout the world. |
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The Old Testament teaches (in a particular context) that there is no righteous person on earth. Actually many righteous people are listed in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. |
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The Apostle Paul picked this idea from the Old Testament to show that all people must come to Christ for salvation for there is no salvation or eternal righteousness in any other name. This is absolutely true. |
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But we Gentiles have gone on to deduce that righteous behavior is not only relatively unimportant but if emphasized is an affront to God and Christ. |
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Thus, the central purpose of God under the new covenant has been aborted. Instead of Divine grace being the means by which God is able to produce a new, righteous creation in people, grace has become an alternative to righteous behavior. If such were the case the new covenant would be inferior to the old. |
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How many times does Paul in his epistles inform us that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? |
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The truth is, our righteous God will not walk with unrighteous people. God has made a way that the unrighteous may approach Him, and that is through the blood of Jesus. But the purpose is for the unrighteous to turn away from his sin and with the help of God's Spirit begin to live a righteous, holy, obedient life before God. |
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If the individual, having come to God's holy Throne through the blood of Jesus, does not turn from his wicked ways and begin by the grace given to him to grow in righteousness, then he is despising the mercy of God in Christ. He is facing the wrath of the Consuming Fire of Israel. |
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Because God's people are not growing in actual righteousness of behavior, but are counting on ascribed righteousness to save them, the judgment of God is hovering over the Christian nations. The Gentile holocaust is at hand. |
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If you hope to be spared in the evil day that is coming, turn to God; confess your sins and repent of them; humble yourself and ask God to help you deal uprightly with your family, your friends, and all other people with whom you come in contact. Be known as a righteous person and you will bring many with you. |
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God does not change. Christ does not change. The wicked individual, Christian or not, is facing a resurrection of shame and everlasting contempt. But those who turn many to righteousness will shine as the stars forever. |
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Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. (Mark 1:14,15) |
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The Kingdom of God is at hand. The Kingdom of God is coming to the earth. We are to pray that God's kingdom come, that His will be done in earth as it is in Heaven. |
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What is the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is God in Christ in the saints governing and blessing the creation of God. A small part of the Kingdom is here in the living saints. Most of the Kingdom is in Heaven with God. |
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At the present time the Kingdom is being formed in us. When the Lord returns, the Kingdom will return with Him and be established on the earth. |
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There is an inner kingdom and an outer kingdom. The inner kingdom is established as King Self is forced off the throne of our personality and King Jesus takes His place. The outer kingdom will be a revealing of what is being created in us now. |
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The main consideration of the Kingdom of God is the will of God. There is only one legitimate will in the universe. It is the will of God. As long as any creature, angelic or human, has a will separate from the will of God there is rebellion in the creation. |
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First of all, the Lord Jesus deals with our love of the world. He emphasizes to us that we are not of this present world system but belong to Him. Our security and survival are to be found only in Him. |
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Next, King Jesus deals with the sin in our life. He speaks to us of freedom from sin. Our worship and joy are to be found only in Him. |
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What all of this is leading to is the removal of our self-will. We are to hail Jesus as Lord, consenting to be His slaves—yes slaves! You heard me right. |
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Hallgrímur Pétursson of Iceland had it right: "The only free person is the one who is the slave of Jesus Christ." |
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Humanistic idealism will never consent to our being the slave of Christ. For Heaven's sake, get the humanism out of your thinking. You'll never understand God as long as there is one drop of man-centeredness in your mind. The Kingdom of God is on the way and it is not a democracy. Christ sits as absolute monarch and we are happy only when we are obeying Him. |
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The slave of Jesus Christ is gloriously free from the most hideous monster of all—self-will, self-love, self-centeredness, self, self, self! |
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Are you in love with yourself? Are you positive you can stand living with yourself for eternity? |
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We weren't made to be alone but to be part of another. Our significant "other" is Jesus Christ. When your significant other is yourself, you are kind of weird! |
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Do you choose the kingdom of man or the Kingdom of God? I choose the Kingdom of God and I invite you to do the same. When you are my age, you will be deliriously happy you did! |
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When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4) |
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We know that Christ will appear in the clouds and every eye will see Him. |
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Christ is the Servant of the Lord, the Anointed Deliverer who is to come and bring justice to the nations of the earth. |
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What may not always be clear is that the Servant of the Lord includes the Head, Christ Jesus, but also a Body. We capitalize body, not because of any false notion of exaltation but because He—the exalted Head—is in each member of the Body and controls the Body. |
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The Christ who is to come is composed of the great Head and also a Body, the members of the Body of Christ. |
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Many times in the Old Testament we read of the peace and righteousness the saved nations will experience when Christ comes. But why does it state that when He is revealed we will be revealed with Him? |
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It is because in the eternal house of God there are many rooms, many living stones. If this were not to be the case, the Lord would have set up His Kingdom when He was here the first time. He had the power, the legions of warrior angels at His command. As soon as He was raised from the dead, He was invulnerable. |
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Had He set up His Kingdom at that time we would have been spared two thousand years of insanity as the dust of the ground has attempted to shape its own destiny. |
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But the Lord desires to share His inheritance with His brothers, the saints. He is the chief Cornerstone of the living House of God. We also are stones in that temple made without hands. We are growing together into the tabernacle that will come down from the new sky to wipe away the tears of mankind. This is Christ who is to come. |
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His (and our) inheritance comprises the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth. |
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To inherit people on the earth is much more to be desired than a backyard full of diamonds. I'll trade my diamonds for your people! |
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The barren will be fruitful. The witnesses of the Lord, those whom God has called from the foundation of the world and formed patiently throughout their lifetime, will be fruitful beyond comprehension. |
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Abraham is still being fruitful beyond comprehension. Christ is being fruitful beyond comprehension. So is the Apostle Paul. |
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You too, if Christ is being formed in you and you are learning who God is, will be fruitful beyond comprehension. In what manner? The Divine Life that is being created in you as you submit to the dealings of the Lord will transform into the image and likeness of Christ those to whom you minister. They will be your eternal children, your crown of joy and rejoicing when they and you stand before the Lord. |
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The Jews are looking for Messiah to appear. Wait until they find out that a bunch of Jews and Goys are going to appear with Him to govern and bless the peoples of the earth! Oy! |
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I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: (Matthew 3:11) |
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What does it mean to be baptized with fire? |
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The context of the above verse has to do with separating the wheat from the chaff and burning up the chaff with fire. |
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This tells us that the Lord Jesus will baptize His Church not only with the Holy Spirit but also with a fiery judgment that will remove what is not of Kingdom worth. |
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The baptism with fire is taking place today. God's people are full of chaff. It needs to be burned away. |
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Perhaps you have been a Christian for many years. All of a sudden the bad things you have been doing are being revealed. You have considered yourself a strong Christian but now you are seeing that you are a self-willed gossip. You are proud, critical, you lie on occasion, you steal, you become angry and sullen. You never could see this in yourself before but now it is apparent. |
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You are being baptized with fire and the fire is revealing what is in your personality. |
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Don't despair. The Lord still loves you. In fact it is because He loves you that He is showing you all this stuff. As many as He loves, He rebukes and chastens. |
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But wasn't all this taken care of when I got saved? When you received Christ, your past sins indeed were blotted out. But you still have a sinful personality. |
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What are you to do? Do what the Bible says. Confess your sins to the Lord. Ask Him to remove them. He will! Some bondages will flee as soon as they are recognized and confessed. Others take a while because there are a lot of little branches throughout your personality. |
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Remember Israel! God told them to conquer the land. They did this until the going got tough. Then they compromised. |
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Never compromise with sin! Keep telling the Lord about it until He removes it. It is His determined will that you be in this world as He is. Isn't this what the Book says? |
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Do not become moody or introspective just because you have found out you are not perfect and your bad disposition has caused others to stumble. Keep your eyes on Jesus. You are without condemnation as long as you are abiding in Him each day. Satan may accuse you of things you never have done and never intend to do. Shake yourself and keep on after Jesus. |
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We are moving past Pentecost to the feast of Tabernacles, so to speak. The adamic man remains alive until we move past Pentecost. The next move of God deals with who we are. Who we are must be crucified and the new man is to come forth. Part of this process involves the judgment of the sin of the old nature and that is why the baptism with fire. |
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Some may argue that all our sins were removed when we came to Jesus. Right. If this is the case, why are you still practicing the sins of the flesh? |
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If there is no devil in you why are you acting like the devil? |
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Let's get real. The world is waiting to see Jesus in the churches. When the chaff has been removed, they will see Jesus and believe in Him. |
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This is what you want so let God baptize you with fire. |
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Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; (Ephesians 2:15) |
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One of the great confusions of our day has to do with the relationship of Israel to the Church, or the Church to Israel, however you want to look at it. |
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Messianic Jews are going back to the Law and the feast days because they have found evangelical theology to be anemic. And it is! But their solution is not correct. |
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We have Christians saying that the Church replaces Israel in the plan of God. Paul warned this would happen. |
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We have Jewish Christians saying the Jews are saved by keeping the Law of Moses and the Gentiles are saved by grace, meaning the Gentiles couldn't live righteously if they tried so God has to baby them up to Heaven. This is not even close. It would be helpful if someone would read the Bible for a change. |
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We don't want to get spooky about this but Satan is driving a wedge between the Jews and the Christians. Why? It is because the Christian Jews cannot set up the Kingdom of God without the rest of the Christians and the Gentile Christians cannot set up the Kingdom of God apart from the physical land and people of Israel. |
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Satan could not care less about the Church flying off to Heaven. What Satan is worried about is the establishing of God's Kingdom on the earth. |
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The truth is so simple a smart little six-year- old can get it. |
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THERE IS ONLY ONE CHURCH, ONE ISRAEL, ONE NEW MAN, ONE SEED OF ABRAHAM. |
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It is gauche to write in all caps. I understand this. But how else do you yell in print? Paul said there is one new man. Who is this one new man, pray tell? He is Christ and all who are part of Christ. Is it this simple? It is this simple! |
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"But what about—? What about—? What—? What—? What—? But—? But—? But—?" |
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What about the feast days? They are all fulfilled in Christ. What about the Jews? They have to be born again. What about the difference between Israel and the Church? There is no difference between Israel and the Church. |
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Israel is the Church and the Church is Israel. |
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How many olive trees do you want? |
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But what about the physical land and people of Israel? The Bible says God will turn to them in the last days. When He does, they will be born again. |
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But I thought you had to go down to the altar when Billy Graham said so in order to get saved. |
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No, you can get knocked off your camel and see a great light and hear voices. |
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You mean God is God? Something like that. |
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Maybe we should rent an airplane and drag a banner across the sky: THERE IS ONE NEW MAN. GET IT? |
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Do you think it would do any good? |
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Probably not. This is why we are turning to the kids. They can understand that one olive tree is not two olive trees. |
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The children would find the idea of two brides of the Lamb ridiculous. |
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Out of the mouth of babes! |
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And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star. (Revelation 2:26-28) |
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The day star is Venus. Once during World War Two while standing on the deck of an LST just before dawn I saw a bright light rise in the sky. I reported it as a possible distress signal but it turned out to be Venus, the day star. |
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The day star heralds the new day. |
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Both Christ and Lucifer are day stars. Each heralds a new day, the kingdom of love, peace, and joy that is to come to the world. |
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The ever-expanding communication devices of our day are presenting Lucifer's concept of the kingdom, of the new day. The new day is to be one of ungoverned passion, an unending orgy of fleshly lust. The powers of the new day are money and education. The highest good of the new day is the right of every individual to think, speak, and act as he or she pleases. |
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Christ's concept of the kingdom, of the new day, is of righteousness first of all, followed by peace and joy. The power of the new day is the Spirit of God. The highest good of the new day is obedience to the Father. |
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Whoever possesses the winning day star will rule the world. |
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Both Lucifer and Christ seek to dwell in the hearts of people. Lucifer desires to express his frantic obsession with human flesh plus his ungoverned self-will through people. He is doing this today. Imagine—a fallen cherub wanting to dwell in people! |
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Christ desires to express His peace and joy, and especially the Father's righteousness and holiness—and perfect will—through people. He is doing this today. |
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How much better to have a man living in us than a cherub! "But I don't want anybody living in me!" Too late! You were made with a vacuum in you, and if God doesn't live there somebody else will. |
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(I wish these rebellious angels would get off our turf. All they do is mess everything up. Why don't they go back where they came from and flap around up there? We have enough problems down here. It's hard enough to make a living without a pack of demons and angels complicating the situation.) |
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Well, you have your choice. If you listen to Lucifer—and he is on the sitcoms and talk shows every day so you'll get lots of opportunity to hear what he has to say—he will be more than glad to influence and possess you. You will have plenty of excitement. Las Vegas—here I come! |
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How disgusting to be victimized by one's own appetites! |
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If you listen to Christ, and you can hear Him in some of the churches and on a few programs, He will be more than glad to influence and possess you. In fact, the Day Star will rise in your heart announcing the new day of God's Kingdom. |
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You may not have as much fleshly excitement but you will have peace and joy. |
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Satan will lead you straight into the eternal furnace and your smoke will go up forever. Neat huh? |
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Christ will lead you into green pastures and quiet waters, and finally to everlasting joy. Probably a better deal. |
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Both day stars are out there. Take your pick. |
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The only thing at stake is your future! |
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For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: (Hebrews 8:10) |
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The new covenant was predicted in the old. The new covenant applies only to the house of Israel. For us Gentiles to enter the new covenant, the new testament, we have to become part of Israel through marriage to the Lord Jesus Christ. |
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The new covenant is not primarily a covenant of forgiveness but of transformation. |
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The covenant of Moses was a covenant of forgiveness through the blood of animals. The new covenant, while it includes forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ, is distinguished not by forgiveness but by transformation. If any person is in Christ, he or she is a new creation in which all things are of God. This the old covenant can never do. |
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Unfortunately the new covenant is being preached today as a covenant of forgiveness. New-covenant grace is presented as an unconditional amnesty. This hardly is the case. In fact, the reason God gave us the new covenant is that the old covenant was not producing actual righteousness in people. |
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The purpose of the new covenant is to create people who walk in righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God. This the Law of Moses cannot do because it depends on the adamic nature to find the moral strength to live according to the Divine standard. |
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Only God can meet His own standard. Under the new covenant God writes His laws in our mind and heart. Then through the power of God's Spirit we can meet all the expectations of our Father in Heaven. By His grace (and this is what grace truly is—an enabler) we can be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. |
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The interpretation of the new covenant as the Divine apology for the misconduct of God's people, as an alternative to righteous behavior, as an all-inclusive panacea, has wrecked God's intention. |
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Ours is a new day. God is giving us truth like heaped-up granaries. Don't waste any time. Store up the corn of the Word. The hour of the skinny cows will come soon enough. |
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A radical change of your personality for the better is available for the asking. |
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