Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

Feb 9 2010

Good News for Paranoid Preachers, Your fears are real!


Below are some of the ways you can loose your salvation if you are a member of “the Lord’s church” (church of Christ). The good news is that there are other ways you and I might not have thought of. This is far from being a complete list. There are some I have missed. But, the scary fact is there are some you haven’t thought of either, so be on guard…
(This list is not in order of priority or popularity. When you think about it, one way is just as worthwhile as another as long as it causes you to be lost.)
1. Failure to use the King James Version of the Bible for readings in worship. (Some more enlightened conservatives use the risky NKJV)
2. Clapping hands in time to music when singing.
3. Clapping hands at any other time in the Sunday assembly. (Any use of human hands in the assembly is suspect except for leading a song when only one hand at a time may be used but only modestly. Preachers may also gesture while preaching using their hands but not to excess, it is too much like the Pentecostals)
4. Singing during the Lord’s Supper. This is strictly forbidden by the silence of Scripture.
5. More than one person leading a song at one time. Only one song leader is approved by Scripture.
6. Serving the Lord’s Supper from the back of the “building”.
7. Serving wine in the cup instead of grape juice.
8. Serving grape juice in the cup instead of wine.
9. Using more than one cup.
10. Using only one cup.
11. Missing participating in the Lord’s Supper on Sunday.
12. Serving the Lord’s Supper on Sunday night. (In some churches, not serving the Lord’s Supper on Sunday night might damn.)
13. Using money given to the church to support orphans.
14. Using money given to the church to support widows.
15. Paying a preacher a salary.  (Paying someone to sweep the building and clean the toilets is approved)
16. Having a preacher who is not married.
17. Having only one elder. (If a church has two and one dies it is better for the church if the surviving elder dies as quickly as possible)
18. Reaffirmation of elders. (It is just as wrong to tell an elder he is doing a good job as to tell one he is not doing a good job)
19. Having a “located” preacher. (Not to be confused by having a loco preacher)
20. Doing anything Baptists might do or have done in the past.
21. Using a musical instrument in Sunday worship. (Using instrumental accompaniment for weddings is authorized provided it is done in a separate structure, divided by a separation of the roof from the part of the building used for the Sunday assembly. (There must be an air space dividing the buildings) It can be done in the part of the building where the kitchen would be if we were going to hell. Recorded music with instruments is slightly more authorized than the actual.)
22. Teaching that churches or the individuals in them are saved if they violate the first 21 items on this list.
23. Women speaking in the assembly will damn the whole congregation. ( To be safe, if an elderly widow should fall she should sing her request for help rather than speak it.)
24. Women are not allowed to pray on Sunday.
25. Women are allowed to pass communion plates and trays only from side to side. (If sitting on the end of the pew and the attendant overlooks that plate or tray a woman should modestly and quietly hold it looking straight ahead until a man notices is was missed. You just can’t be too careful!)
26. Women teaching males over 12, no over 10, no…The elders should decide what age males can be taught by women.( Women being so modest they are confused with Assembly of God , or Church of God women at Sunday lunch is not good so they should wear some make up.)This is not a salvation issue but is important enough to be mentioned.
27. Stained glass windows.
28. A church steeple is authorized if it is noticeably shorter than the shortest denominational steeple in town. Any exception to this puts the whole congregation in danger of hell fire.
29. Publishing a “Statement of Faith”.
30. Teaching that Max Lucado is a Christian.
31. Teaching the “once saved always saved” heresy. (Everyone knows it the absolute right of every faithful member of the Lord’s church to have his soul in constant jeopardy.)
32. Teaching anything that hints of the “supernatural”.
33. Teaching focused on the Holy Spirit. (If God had wanted Christians to know about the Holy Spirit he would have put it in the Bible)
34. Teaching that anyone who has not “obeyed the gospel” is saved. (It is impossible to “obey the gospel” unless one is immersed in water by a church of Christ man who says as he puts the candidate under the water, “for the remission of your sins”. If he fails to say this the person is very likely still lost.)
35. Discontinuing the Sunday night service. ( Everyone knows that all 8 people can be there if they are faithful.)
36. Sending children and grand children to ACU
37 Attending the Tulsa Workshop if you know ahead of time they are going to say anything nice about Christian church people or denominational people. If you are pretty sure this will not happen it is OK to go but do not visit the booths of progressives.
38. Teaching that the churches of Christ started any time other than 33AD.
39  Having a Sunday school.
40. Missing worship services three times in a row if not bedfast.
41. Missing worship services while on family vacation. (The safe thing is to show a bulletin or gospel tract to an elder or the preacher with the churches name on it where you visited)
42. Teaching that anyone in a denomination is saved. (There may be a possibility of some tolerance on this point if an elders daughter marries a Baptist pastor’s son. Something can possibly be worked out with God to make an exception in such hard ship cases)
43. Fellowshipping anyone or any church who fellowships anyone or any church that commits any of the prior 42 sins.
Please note: This is not an exhaustive list. Other church of Christ preachers, elders, and preaching school teachers are able to think of more and I am sure I have overlooked some. If you know of others please comment and tell what they are.
Of all of these damnable things the widely accepted view is that “the instrument” is the most common and easiest way to be lost. Some church of Christ people have guitars or pianos in their homes but why take the risk? It is a slippery slope I fear.
Soundly,
Royce
Dec 28 2009

The Holy Spirit. When, Who, How?


“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (Romans 8:8-10)

Here Paul is contrasting the believer and the unbeliever. The terminology is flesh vs. Spirit, a reoccurring theme in the New Testament.  It is unmistakable, if you do not have the Spirit of God you are not His. If you do have the Spirit of God you have life. There is no life (eternal) without the Spirit of God. Romans 8:11, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 2 Timothy 1:14 all teach the same truth that the Holy Spirit dwells in every believer. How anyone can deny this plain truth is difficult for me to understand.

The question then arises, “When does the Holy Spirit come to dwell in a believer”? Or, “When did the Holy Spirit first indwell believers?” Following are some passages that should point us in the right direction.

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:37-39)

This is a very important text concerning this topic. These truths are readily evident.

  1. The Holy Spirit will be given to those who believe in or upon the Lord Jesus Christ. “Whoever believes in me…” and “those who believed in me were to receive...”
  2. The coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell believers was tied to the glorification of Jesus. “The Spirit had not been given…”, “Jesus was not yet glorified“.

Yet another important passage is also found in John’s gospel.

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:16-18)

That the Holy Spirit would come to be “in” the believer is without question. He who is the “Spirit of Truth” (“I am the way, the Truth…), “will be in you“, “I will come to you“. So Christ himself would live in the believer by means of the Holy Spirit. (“Christ in you the hope of glory”)

The “If” is clearly answered. What about the “When”? Jesus himself said it would not happen until he was glorified (John 7:39). So we ask ourselves “When was Jesus glorified?”. The answer is when He died and was raised from the dead.  (John 12:23, John 13:31)

Jesus’ glorified body was one that was recognizable, it bore the scars of his crucifixion, he ate and drank with his followers, walked with them, and yet could just appear in a closed room at will. He came out of the grave in the same glorified body in which he would ascend to the Father and now sits at this right hand. It is a different body, but a body. And, we who trust him are promised a body like his.

Not many days after his resurrection from the dead John recorded this event.

“Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:21-22)

I can find no reason to believe the disciples did not receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at that moment. If the one who spoke things into existence said “Receive the Holy Spirit” how can I doubt it happened?

Notice also that it was only after the Lord had risen from the dead that the disciples really believed and understood that He was indeed Lord. Peter, who was fearful and denied the Lord was never the same, becoming a fearless preacher of the good news about Jesus and His resurrection.

So, against conventional wisdom and common teaching, I believe those who believed on Jesus were first indwelt after his resurrection and before Pentecost. There is a difference between the Holy Spirit being “in” and “upon” a believer. Jesus said of the events leading up to, and including Pentecost and beyond, these words.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

The purpose of Pentecost was Holy Spirit power for witness, not so believes could be indwelt. He said “You will receive POWER”, that the Holy Spirit would “come upon” them, and they “Will be my witnesses…”. At Pentecost they were “filled” with the Spirit and then were filled again and again after that. In Ephesians, believers, those already indwelt by the Spirit, are commanded to be “filled” with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

Peter himself gives clear testimony as to when he first received the Holy Spirit. First in Acts 11 when he made his defense of baptizing Gentiles he declared:

If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17)

Peter says here that he received the gift of the Holy Spirit, not at Pentecost, not when he was baptized, but when he believed.

Then when Peter was opposing the believing Pharisees who were demanding that Gentile believers be circumcised he said to the elders of the church in Jerusalem these words:

“And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.” (Acts 15:8,9)

Peter was very, very clear. He gave the Gentile believers the Holy Spirit “just as he did to us“, “He made no distinction between us and them“, he treated them all exactly alike, He “cleansed their hearts by faith” and they like Peter received the Holy Spirit when they believed.

I know this goes against the grain of common teaching but it is what it is and I didn’t make it up. Peter should be as good an authority on the matter as you could want.

In some sense the people of God, from time to time had the presence  of God “in them” for purposes of revelation or some other task. Peter gives us  the record of one of those instances in 1 Peter 1 where he recorded:

“Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.  It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. (1 Peter 1:10-12)

It was the “Spirit of Christ” in them who was unfolding revelation about the wonderful grace that would be ours.

The conclusion of this post is that the promised Holy Spirit lives in every person who puts their trust in Jesus and is ready to empower us for witness when we meet the conditions of complete surrender to His will to reach the lost and are willing to wait upon Him in prayer.

“the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” (Colossians 1:26-28)

for Jesus,

Royce

Dec 24 2009

Christmas, The Virgin Birth of Jesus


We have many details in the Bible about the blessed event of Jesus’ birth, many, hundreds of years old. And the details matter. For you see, if we can’t believe the record of Jesus humble birth given in Scripture the whole idea of Christianity falls like a house of cards.

One detail that stands out among the rest is that he was born of a virgin. His mother conceived, carried and delivered a baby and had never had sexual relations with a man. The Holy Spirit of God fertilized an egg in this chosen girl, Mary, and she delivered the Son of God.

He was and is “The Son of God” in the most literal sense it can be stated. He had no human father. As we would say it in today’s vernacular “His birth father was God”. It is this miraculous conception that makes Jesus unique among all humans. Why is it important?

When Adam made the willing choice to disobey God, his rebellion not only put him at odds with God but the whole human race. The final judgment for sin is death. Adams transgression ushered in both physical and spiritual death and every decedent of Adam bears the curse of sin.

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12)

Jesus, with no human father, broke the curse of sin and now the good news follows the above passage saying:

“For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)

Jesus is referred to as the “new Adam”, the representative of those who would be born again, freed from the curse of sin (death) because of his perfect obedience.

Had Jesus had a human father he would have been no more than his peers growing up in Nazareth, and in spite of his best efforts he would have transgressed God’s law, on purpose, as we all do. But, he did not have a human father, his father is God and he alone is sinless, always obedient to God’s demands, and became the perfect, spotless, unblemished, sacrificial lamb who would give himself as payment for the sins of the world.

It is this unique man, Christ Jesus our Lord who alone could say “I am the Resurrection and the Life”. The babe of Bethlehem is now the one who sits at the right hand of the Father, his work done. Sin, death, hell, and the grave are defeated by the once for all time, once for all people offering, of Jesus. His blood is sufficient to make the most wicked pure and to stay the wrath of God against sin.

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Let us never forget he was born to die. Without his death, burial, and resurrection his birth would be meaningless. But God in his providential wisdom made all the pieces fit. Prophecy fulfilled, God’s demand for perfect righteousness fully met, the fury of his wrath against sin fully executed, all culminating in the redemptive work of the babe of Bethlehem.

It is because of this God-man, Jesus Christ our Lord who is called “God with us”, we can confidently proclaim to every listening ear “Merry Christmas” a Saviour was born!

May the joy born of faith in the Christ fill your hearts and overflow into the lives of those you love in these days of family gatherings and celebration of God’s love gift to humanity.

Royce

Dec 2 2009

God is With Us…


God came down, down here where we live, and he is still here. One of the prophetic names of Jesus was Immanuel, “God with us”.

He came to save his people from their sins, Jesus. He is still here, Christ in you the hope of glory.

He said to his friends, “When I go away I will not leave you as orphans” “I will send the Comforter” and he did. For some reason I can’t quite explain I am comforted knowing my wife is in the other end of the house. As in the way a child is comforted by the presence of his mother.

I have, we have, you have, a constant companion who will not ever leave you or forsake you. Oh, you might not know he is near but he is. Run away will you? Even if you hide in hell he is still there.

Embrace him, love him, say something to him….he loves you so.

Christmas is when we celebrate “God with us”. It is when God became one of us to redeem us, to make us his own. Celebrate his presence, be comforted by knowing he is here. Trust him, acknowledge him, walk with him,…he is here.

Royce