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God’s Commandments
Are God’s commandments directed to the individual believer, a particular group of believers, or to the entire Body of Christ. The individual’s response can be very different for each case. The answer is that God’s commandments are always directed to individuals. They may be directed to all the members of a particular group of individuals but always as individuals. The idea is that the weight of responsibility lies with each individual in his own locale and not to any group of believers as a whole.
In particular, the commandment to teach the nations to obey all God’s commandments was directed to each of the Apostles and is directed to each member of the Body of Christ as an individual. Fellow believer, that means you and I are personally responsible to obey this commandment of God as individuals.
Why is this important? It is because a personal responsibility always carries more weight than a group responsibility. God’s people are all sinners and habitually tend to take the easy way out. When a task is assigned to a large group, it is too easy to think in terms of it being a huge task, of which I am responsible for just a tiny part. It is so small a fraction of the total that any neglect on my part would never be noticed. When many think in these terms, the total neglect can be very significant.
God, though, always speaks to His people as individuals and not as a group. He is infinite and is able to provide an infinite amount of attention to each of His followers. He speaks to all (as individuals) in His Great Commission:
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)
God here asks all that believe in Him to spread the good news of His free gift of eternal life to everyone that will listen. The objective is a world that believes in Him and obeys all His Commandments. He specifically says here that all the nations are to be taught to obey all His commandments. This is nothing less than a Christian world!
God, in His infinite patience, waits for a generation to arise that will fully obey these commandments. What does that mean? How can a nation as a nation be taught obedience? It is only by changing its laws to make them conform to God’s Laws. This is just what the Roman Emperor Justinian and his wife, Theodora did during his reign in the sixth century. It is what all God’s people should be doing, as a first priority activity, today. Sadly, it seems to have little or no priority for God’s people at all.
Did God change His mind? No, He never changes His mind. He gave us this command two thousand years ago and is still waiting for us, His so very highly blessed people to obey Him. When? When will we put away all our foolish pursuits and begin to obey our God?
Born Again
Born Again! This expression appears three times in God’s Word:
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. (John 3:1-7)
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:23)
It cannot be literal but what does it mean to be born again? Jesus tells us here that a form of rebirth is required for a person to be able to even see God’s Kingdom. So, God’s Kingdom is invisible to everyone that has not been born again.
The natural birth process brings a new person into the world. It is described as being born of water. The second birth is to be born of the Spirit. It is a spiritual, not a physical, birth. It is the Holy Spirit entering into and residing within the person for the rest of his life.
Dear reader, have you been born again? Does the Third Person of the Godhead reside within you? Are you a member of Gpd’s kingdom? Is serving God the most important thing in your life? Water Baptism is insufficient. If there is any question about this in your mind you need to surrender to God.
Those of you that have truly been born again are now members of God’s force for world reconstruction. God has placed the future of the world in your hands. All unbelievers must be shown that they need to surrender to God, that He is the only future worth having and holding. Your responsibility is nothing less than the conversion of the entire world to this faith.
This may seem like it but is not at all an impossible task. It is accomplished one person at a time. When the new believers become teachers and recruiters of others, the number of teachers increases with each conversion. The result is an increasingly more and more rapid growth. It can result in a Christian world in an amazingly short time.
Take heart dear fellow believer, all is not lost. A Godly world is not necessarily something for the distant future. It could be very near. God’s people are out there and ready to act. Just a few can be the spark that ignites a world-wide forest fire. It could become a fire that consumes the evil and leaves a God-fearing world in its wake.
As the world seems to grow more and more evil, the number that are God’s people grows. They remain silent and wait patiently for that little spark. When it comes the world will change very rapidly. The evil that seems to dominate everything will be swept away and a new Godfearing and God obeying world will be ushered in. Fear not, God is ever and always in total control of all things.
God’s People
Who are God’s people? How are they different from everyone else? What are their responsibilities? God chose a group of people to be His special representatives to the rest of this world. He gave them the gift of eternal life and asks them to accept the responsibility of telling others about this free gift. It is the greatest gift anyone could ever hope to receive but no one accepts it without God’s help. Everyone refuses it because they all are in bondage to Satan and under his control. It is only when God intervenes and gives an individual ears to hear that he is able to hear and respond to His call.
Satan’s bondage is total. Every child born in this world is born in this satanic bondage and remains in it until He or she is born again. What does that mean? Very simply, it is to receive a new Spirit, one that resides within the individual. The born-again person has two spirits within his body. He has the spirit that is he himself, and the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead. When the individual dies, the spirits are released and continue to live.
So, we see that there are two kinds of people in this world, some with two spirits and some with only one. The former never dies but goes to heaven when the body dies. The latter also continues to live but gpes to Hell, a place of continual torment. Everyone is given an opportunity to choose between these two futures. Many through inaction choose the latter and will spend eternity in Hell. Others, with God’s help, choose to believe God and go to heaven where they reside forever.
This is what many of us learned, perhaps at our mother’s knee. Everyone in the world hears and at some point in life either responds or fails to respond to God’s call. Everyone is given an opportunity to choose or refuse the gift of eternal life. God does not enjoy sending people to Hell. He would prefer that all would repent of their sins and spend eternity in Heaven with Him and His Son.
God’s chosen people are also given another gift. They are given the gift of doing work for God, the work of passing the message of God’s free gift to others. It is a gift to them because their natural desire is to serve God and also because they can be a part of making this world a Christian world.
Where, dear reader, are you in this picture? Have you been born-again, born of the Spirit? Will you go to Heaven or to Hell when you die? This is a question everyone should seek to answer as soon as possible for death could be closer than we think.
Is it an important question for you or do you consider it trivial and foolish? If the latter, you are living in jeopardy of a fate far worse than death. If you feel you have considered it and have addressed it to your satisfaction, can you remember when your life changed its direction? A truly born-again person can distinguish a point at which his or her life changed and obeying God became its driving force.
This cannot be merely going forward in response to an altar call. Unless it occurred at a very early age, it would be a memorable life changing experience. It would be a point in time that stands out and divides life into distinct before and after faith in Christ periods.
Have you had such a once-in-a-lifetime experience? Have you been truly born again? If so you are God’s child and will never truly die. You will move from one body to another and continue to live. You will be with Christ and with everyone else that believes in Him, forever and ever and ever.
Obedience
Children must learn to obey their parents at an early age. What sort of world would we have if they never were taught to do so? We cannot survive without the law and order which we begin to learn at an early age and carry into adult life. As adults, our children will teach their children what they learned from us and a way of life is propagated through the generations.
In the past this was the case to a great extent and the character of this nation did not materially change from one generation to the next. Sadly, this is no longer true. Most children go to public schools and are taught by teachers that do not share the faith of their parents. They are taught by college graduates that have been stripped of whatever faith they may have had and are now firm atheists filled with a desire to mold their students into their own godless form.
This subversion of America’s youth has been in process with ever-increasing intensity for more than a century. It has stripped our once God-fearing nation of all but a remnant of it’s previous faith. As a result, America can no longer be considered to be a Christian nation.
In addition, many of the Christians that remain have been led to believe a lie. It says that God has changed His mind and will end the world sooner than He originally planned but will rescue all true believers first. Supposedly, they will be raptured, snatched out of the world before God’s judgment falls upon it. A substantial number of God’s people have been deluded into believing this entirely unbiblical nonsense.
So a great many of God’s people no longer believe what God says in His Word. How is this possible? How could they ever have been led so far astray? It is due to their failure to obey God’s command to study His Word as they should have. They relied on their pastors and failed to study, truly study His Word themselves. They thought they could get by with listening to a sermon once a week and perhaps reading a verse or two once in a while. They preferred to spend the bulk of their idle time playing games or watching godless movies rather than studying and discussing God’s Word together.
So many of God’s people are so biblically ignorant that they were and still are like putty in Satan’s evil hands. They believe Satan instead of God without realizing it. How much longer will they wait for a rapture that will not come? Will most will continue to wait until they lose all faith in God and sink into total atheism?
It would seem that the near future does not hold much hope for a recovery. It may be generations or even centuries before serious hardship, slavery or persecution restores the true faith once again. Could this be the future we have to look forward to? Why is true and lasting obedience so very, very difficult for us? How long will we emulate the history of Ancient Israel over and over again before we learn to fully and truly obey God? Will we ever learn? Will it always be an up and down cycle or will we finally learn and begin to fully and truly obey God?
Recovery
Will there ever be a recovery from the crazy situation we find ourselves enmeshed in today? We are definitely at the end of an age but what comes next? Will God’s people ever give up the foolish notion that God changed His mind and decided to end the world before it has come to its senses. When will they realize they have been following Satan instead of God?
Yes, that is exactly what they have done and are continuing to do. The craziness will not clear up until God’s people get back to obeying God. They believe they are in obedience but have become so weak, so lacking in their understanding of Scripture that they now believe a lie. It is the lie that says God changed His mind! Really? But Cod is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8) and knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). He never needs to and never does change His mind.
God loves His creatures with an infinite love and will not settle for partial obedience from His chosen. They must come to Him whole-heartedly, without any reservations whatever. He looks for obedience to His commandments. His people must obey him in all things. They must obey His command to work to make this world a God-fearing, God-obeying world (Matthew 28:18-20).
When will they wake up and begin to truly obey God? Only after they begin to live as God’s people of the first and second centuries did. These, in obedience to God, lived, as the Apostles taught them, in small communities and diligently studied God’s Word on their own. They did so in small groups almost every day. They didn’t rely on just a Sunday sermon as almost all do today. They valued and treasured God’s Word as a precious commodity and sought to understand it thoroughly and accurately.
Sadly, this spirit of ultimate victory did not continue beyond those early centuries. Why so? It was due to a relaxation of the previous harshness of the Roman emperors. The later rulers recognized its benefits and became friendly to Christianity. They supported rather than opposed to the faith. This friendship of the world was actually a detriment rather than a blessing. A sudden influx of new ‘believers’ weakened rather than strengthened the communities of true believers. What was a solid block of faithful believers became a mixed multitude, some with and some without true faith.
So what can we do today? How do we get God’s people back on track toward true obedience? It would seem that it would require a massive re-education effort. But no! All it requires is repentance, true repentance by a few of God’s people. Some are beginning to realize that they’ve been wrong and the few will rapidly grow into many. It hasn’t begun yet but as the situation worsens it becomes increasingly more likely.
It may not be this year or even this century but an eventual resurgence of the faith is certain. As the world situation worsens, the true faith will grow and eventually be worldwide in scope. Unbelief will be a rarity and perhaps totally absent. Jesus will return to a world that believes in Him. The dead will be raised, some to eternal life and others to eternal punishment. Which, dear reader will be your destination? Is your commitment to Christ a total and truly from your heart commitment?
A New World
This old world has deteriorated very badly and sorely needs renewal. Its people walk about with downcast heads. They know that something is wrong but are not sure what it might be. They see that we have been going downhill for a long time, perhaps a century or more but have no clue as to why. Many think that an end is near. They believe that God will snatch them up to Heaven before things get even worse. Where do such ideas come from? Not from what God said in His Word! The Bible tells us that Jesus will return to a world that believes and worships Him. The source is lack of faith in what Jesus really said:
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)
This passage tells us that we have work to do in this world. Our assignment is to make so many disciples that the nations of the world become Christian nations filled with true believers.
The Christian faith grew most rapidly in the early centuries when there were no churches and no pastors. There were Apostles that taught but God’s people were on their own almost all the time. They taught themselves from God’s Word which they studied in small groups. They overcame incredible opposition from the Roman Emperors but they persisted and grew. In 320 A.D. there were so many Christians that the Emperor Constantine was forced to declare Rome to be a Christian empire. The faith continued to grow in the centuries that followed but never at the rate it did in those early days.
More recently, an evil lie has been spread that says God changed His mind, that He will not wait for His people to obey his commandment. It says that He will end the world before it is truly a Christian world. Really? God changes His mind? He is imperfect? He doesn’t know all things? We can’t really trust Him in everything? If so, we can’t trust Him when He tells us we will live forever in heaven. This is not the same God we believed in all these centuries.
This rumor is false and all that help spread it are doing Satan’s work and not God’s work. It is indeed very sad that so many were so weak that they believed it to begin with. The lie started over a century ago and is still very much alive. Even today, many of God’s elect hold tenaciously to this false, decidedly unchristian faith.
How weak God’s people have become! They believe in such a petty god, one that needs to change his mind and rescind his commandments. But it’s not God that is weak. It is His poor, foolish greatures that are so very, very weak that they could believe such an obviously gross falsehood.
How did this happen? How did God’s people become so weak? Why did they not recognize and react against Satan’s lies? Why did they so gullibly swallow them? It was and still is because they had relied on churches and pastors instead of their own personal study of God’s Word. This neglect rendered them powerless and unable to recognize the lies as lies. Churches can be an asset but, when they replace personal Bible study and discussion, they are a detriment and hurt rather than help.
God is waiting for His people to reject Satan’s lie and regain the faith they once held. The near future is in their hands. As they continue to ignore the wake-up call, the world will become more and more wicked. However, when they decide to end their foolish dreams, it could turn around very rapidly.
When Evil Rules
There is much evil in the world today. God’s people are extremely weak. Many have been deceived into believing that God changed His mind and will end the world before all the nations become godly. What went wrong? How did we get so far off-track? Very simply, God’s people disobeyed God. They were obedient for two or three centuries in the Roman empire but no longer have the strength of faith they had then.
Those early believers could not meet together in any public gathering as we can today. They lived and studied God’s word together in small communities formed by the Apostles. There were no churches with ordained ministers to teach or lead them. They were on their own most of the time. This highly restrictive and oppressive environment, however, produced true faith. It grew to such an extent that in 320 A.D. the Roman Emperor Constantine had to declare Rome to be a Christian Empire.
Sadly, the vital spirit of those early centuries did not continue. Christian Rome was increasingly tolerant toward the faith. The closely knit small groups of believing families became larger groups that were less closely knit. These were led by specially trained men called pastors. Surely, these men were godly and taught well but they relieved the people of the need to study on their own. As a consequence, the faith began to fade. Churches that held regular weekly services were formed and gradually supplanted home Bible study.
The faith continued but as centuries passed it grew increasingly structured. By the 16th century, the rigid Roman Catholic Church dominated the West. It ruled over the religious lives of essentially all believers. It was so strong it was able to put serious dissenters to death. It enforced its version of Christianity with an iron fist, putting objectors to death in an open display of their power.
The invention of the printing press enabled those that resented the oppression of the Catholic hierarchy to voice their opposition, and The Reformation was born. It divided the Christian West into two camps, the Protestants and the Catholics. These fought against each other in the 30 years war that ended in a draw and a sad compromise. It weakened the power of the Catholic Church but left it standing as a continual alternative to the true faith. The inability to unify the West seriously impacted the Protestant’s ability to govern in accordance with God’s Word. The Western World remained divided religiously and could not act as a unit.
The subsequent five centuries saw little growth in the faith and a very significant setback. Satan, seeing the weakness of the Christians had his servant C. I. Scofield write a bible called the Scofield Bible. It was a traditional King James Bible with Scofield’s (Satan’s) notes embedded adjacent to the text. It met with instant popularity in that it made the simple readers believe that with it they were competent theologians. The book swept through the then very weak Christian community very rapidly.
Church pastors that objected and refused to teach from Scofield’s notes were replaced and the poison spread to cover the entire landscape. The world’s Christians and their churches were swallowed up in Satan’s trap. The great majority of the world’s Christians abandoned the true faith and became Dispensationalists. They are waiting, now over 50 years, for a supposedly imminent rapture.
The expectation of a very-soon rapture event is beginning to wane but work on the Great Commission to make the world a Christian world is still at a virtual halt. It will not resume until God’s people set aside their foolish expectations and get back to doing God’s work God’s way.
Evil rules today only because God’s people have been immersed in a foolish dream. When they wake up they will shake off this nonsense and the world will change.
What Next?
The last two years have seen much change in the America we once loved. The duly elected President is not in office. An unelected substitute presides in his place. Evil men rule everywhere and rapidly grow more and more powerful.
The poisonous public school system has grown worse than ever. It’s university-corrupted teachers now demand total control of the students during school hours. They resent and object to parents’ requests for information. They believe the children belong to them during school hours.
The list of issues could go on and on but what is the root issue? What is the underlying cause of it all? Is there a single cause or has the nation just lost it’s mind? No, the problem is that the nation has turned its back on God. A century or two ago Americans that believed, worshipped and obeyed God were a powerful force that led this country. Today many Christians are waiting for God to take them out of the world in an instant of time. They have believed a very subtle and attractive lie and given up their role as the nation’s spiritual leaders.
The lie is that God changed His mind, an utter impossibility! God knows the end from the beginning and never needs to change any of His decisions. God’s people should know this and should have rejected the very idea instantly. The fact that they didn’t do so is an indication of how extremely weak thev have become.
Their weakness dates back five centuries to the Reformation and the 30 years of war between the Protestants and the Catholics. Both sides decided that they had fought long enough and left the Western World half Catholic and half Protestant. It was a sorry compromise. It discouraged and weakened both sides and left the West divided.
The lack of unity wasn’t just: you go your way and I’ll go mine. It left both sides far weaker than they were before. The Catholics compromised and stopped burning objectors at the stake. Their inability to unify at home discouraged the Protestants from ever realizing a unified Christian world. The goal of the Great Commission was weakened, reduced from making a Christian world to making converts.
The initial fervor of the Reformation is long gone and today’s world is divided between Satan’s followers and God’s people, many of whom are waiting for a Rapture event that isn’t coming. They’ve been waiting over a half century now and some must have lost this foolish faith. Many, though, still believe these are the last days and still foolishly wait for a rapture event.
God’s people must stop looking for Jesus’ return and get back to obeying God here and now. There is a world full of unbelievers that need to hear the Gospel message. Jesus will not return until we have completed the task He assigned us:
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Matthew 28:18-20
A Problem with Churches
God’s people have always needed teachers. In the early years of the Roman Empire, the teachers were the Apostles and their helpers. These were far too few to teach every Lord’s Day in all the Christian communities they formed. These communities of Christian families were on their own most of the time. There were elders in each community that studied Scripture and taught on the formal Lord’s Day meetings. These men were also available to answer questions and discuss the sermons during the week.
The teacher-listener relationship was far less formal than it is today. Questions raised by the Sunday sermons would be addressed during the week and all would benefit thereby. The sermons may well have stretched out to become week-long informal discussions.
This was clearly a very different environment from what we see today. God’s people did not rely on professional pastors; they taught themselves from Scripture and from the Apostle’s letters. Each community grew in their knowledge of God’s word and in number as others were influenced and new communities were formed.
This is the only good explanation for the tremendous growth of the Christian faith in those early years. In 320 AD, the Emperor Constantine had no choice but to declare Rome to be a Christian Empire. Indeed, Christ had conquered the world of that day!
The situation in those days was very different from what we see in today’s churches. They fall far short of stimulating the kind of interactive Bible study that took place in those early communities. The typical church-going Christian today does very little Bible study at home. It is typically limited to listening to the Sunday sermon. The growth rate of biblical knowledge was far greater then than it is today.
The presence of and easy access to the inferior churches of today has resulted in the abysmal biblical ignorance that characterizes the current Christian population. The quality of so-called teaching in most of today’s churches is often nothing more than entertainment.
So what can be done to correct the present deficiency? How do we dig out of the mess we’re now immersed in? Very simply, God’s people must obey God’s instructions. We must stop relying on our churches as the sole source of God’s truth. To the extent we can, we must form ourselves into the kind of communities that were responsible for that early explosion of the faith.
The impetus then was oppression from the pagan Roman Empire. Its leaders persecuted God’s people, even fed them to hungry lions in public display. These believers, knowing what was coming after death, sang hymns as the lions were released. What would today’s Christians do in such circumstances? Do they lie in our future? What can we do to check and reverse the current antichristian trend?
As we begin to do so, more and more true believers will find each other and form godly communities in obedience to God. As they grow in number and influence, they will gradually conquer this present evil world. It will become the world to which Jesus will return in triumph as King of kings and Lord of Lords.
It may not happen overnight but it could take far less time than one might think. When new converts become teachers of others, growth is exponential and the entire world can be covered rapidly. It was done before in far worse circumstances and can be repeated today. It will enjoy God’s blessing but it must begin with His people, His true followers. Are you His follower? It can begin with you.
Freedom
America, the land of the free and the home of the brave is no longer free because its people are no longer brave. How did this happen? Why are we less brave than we were a century or two ago? It is because we no longer have the faith we had then. Without faith it is impossible to please God and without pleasing God we cannot remain free. Yes, freedom is a gift God gives to His obedient children and takes away when they disobey. This was the case with Ancient Israel and is the case today here in America. Why so? Is God so mean and strict that He immediately punishes those that disobey. Not at all. He has great patience with us and punishes us because it’s the only language we understand. We are very much like unruly children that only respond to physical discipline.
How did this happen? How did we sink so low? It was a consequence of our extreme laziness and our failure to really study God’s Word. This has made many Christians an easy target for Satan’s lies that appeared in a book that was written over a century ago.
This book is known as the Scofield Bible. It is an ordinary King James Bible with Scofield’s notes embedded within its text. This combination of God’s Word and Scofield’s immediately adjacent explanation was irresistible to Cod’s then extremely weak people. Two or more generations were strongly affected by the lies in this book. They were led away from the true God and drawn to a new god, one that Satan and Scofield gave them.
As a result of a very skillful deception, many of God’s people now actually believe that God revised His plan for this world. They believe He will not wait for a fully Christian world as He promised He would but will instead bring it to an end very soon. This supposed revision of God’s plans of course has seriously impacted the evangelistic efforts of those that believed the lie. They reasoned: What difference would a few souls make when so many will go to Hell regardless of how hard we work?
So Satan looks at all that has transpired since his servant did his evil work and is filled with glee. Well done good and faithful servant he declares. We have succeeded in bringing God’s work to a virtual halt, to a tiny fraction of what it was before. This would have been impossible a century or two earlier but God’s people had grown so weak that Satan’s lies were able to deceive a great many of them.
So here we are a century later and many of God’s people are trapped in a bail-out mentality that many of them still sincerely believe is correct. The Christian world the previous generations worked for so faithfully has long been forgotten. Was all the effort they applied toward making the world a Christian world just a waste? Why did God do this to us? they might ask.
The answer is no, God never needs to and never does change His mind. The problem is not with God but with Scofield. Scofield’s god is not the God of the Bible. It is Satan’s distortion of what God really said. It is past time for God’s people to wake up and see they’ve been following a pied piper that has led them far astray from God’s truth.
Sadly, it appears that this generation will probably not wake up in time to prevent a political takeover of this nation and the entire world as well. A reawakening will come but not in time to prevent a complete collapse of the current governmental system. It does not appear that God’s people will wake up in time to prevent it. They need to feel the pain of God’s judgment before they even begin to see their great error and are driven to repent. Real recovery may be generations away.