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Thought for Today 2004. 08-31 Who is a Baptist? From a sermon by Preacher Clark in Louisville, KY, on May 29, 1973. Taken from Old Meetings Reel 3, CD 11a, Track 10 Many thousands of people claim to be Baptists. They have invented congregations, called them "Baptist" churches, joined those churches, allowed themselves to be baptized in water by their minister, and then believe that doing all those things qualifies them to be called "Baptist". This is obviously not true. But who, then, really is a Baptist? In other words, whom does God consider to be a Baptist? In 1973, at Brother Delbert Maupin’s New Covenant Mission in Louisville, Preacher Clark revealed who it is that qualifies to bear the name of "Baptist". In his sermon that day, Preacher Clark said, "A Baptist is not somebody who has been baptized; it’s somebody who does the baptizing. The Bible doesn’t call the followers of John the Baptist, "Baptist people". It calls John himself the ‘Baptist’, or "John the Baptizer". In the Bible, we learn that Peter was a Baptist; Paul was a Baptist; Jesus was a Baptist; and John was a Baptist. John was a baptizer with water, and Jesus was a baptizer with spirit. And if you’ll pay the price and get anointed by God, you’ll be a Baptist." Paul and Peter were anointed by God to baptize people with the holy Ghost; that is what made them baptists, along with Jesus. Unless God anoints you to baptize people, you cannot be a Baptist. You can say that you are, and others can tell you that you are a Baptist, but only what God says is true. And with Him, the word "baptist" means "baptizer"; nothing more and nothing less. Thought for Today 2004. 08-30 True Doctrine From a sermon by Preacher Clark at Grandma's House, early 1970's. Taken from Old Meetings Reel 3, CD 9b My father used to tell us that the only preaching a man needs to do is to explain what he is doing. That is true because if the works that a man is doing are ordained of God, they will have to be explained. If a man has not been sent by God to do anything, he has nothing to explain. He can only repeat what he has been taught to say. True doctrine is just an explanation of what God is doing, and if a man is indeed working for God, he teaches God's doctrine when he explains himself. On the other hand, if he is self-ordained, or if his ordination is only of men or their organizations, he cannot teach true doctrine because God is the only source of truth. In that Sunday afternoon sermon from long ago, the Preacher's exact words were, "All the doctrine you need is to tell what God's done for you. All the doctrine Jesus had was explaining what he was doing." But then, he proceeded to add this challenging sentence for the few people gathered in that little farmhouse: "Some of us don't do enough to have any doctrine." Are you living in such a manner that you find it necessary at times to explain yourself to others? If we follow Jesus, we will find that people around us will become curious, and some will be sincere enough about their own life to ask us about ours. Knowing this would happen, Peter told the saints, "Sanctify the Lord in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man who asks you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear " (1Pet. 3:15). Your response to questions about your life in Christ is your doctrine. You don't have to know the Bible in order to proclaim true doctrine; you only need genuine experiences with God. If your experience is truly of God, then it will be in harmony with what is in the Bible because it is an experience with the God of the Bible. True doctrine is not philosophy; it is not theory; it is not systematic theology; it is simply the explanation of a walk with God. And if the source of your experience is Jesus, then your confession of that holy experience can only be true. Peter wrote to the believers of the Roman provinces of Asia Minor, "We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2Pet. 1:16). And when he and John were commanded by the authorities in Jerusalem never again to preach in Jesus' name, they answered, "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard " (Acts 4:20). Their testimony was their doctrine, and the rulers of Israel complained that these humble disciples had "turned the world upside down" with it! Yes, God will, as it seems, "turn our world upside down" with His love, and when He does, then we realize for the first time that our lives are right side up! My father also used to teach us that if God's children would talk of nothing except their experiences with Christ, they would be united. It is because they speak things they have been taught to speak by Christian ministers and the world that they are divided. We all, every single one of us, desperately need experiences with God. But beyond even that, we need to trust God's wisdom in giving us those experiences. We have a great need to love what God has done to us, so much so that we cannot drift away from that holy influence. Then, others will ask us a reason for the hope in our lives, and what we will tell them will be the truth, and only the truth, because we are only confessing the work of God, who cannot lie. It is true that God's children sometimes misunderstand what God has done for them. The best example available is this generation's explanation of their first experience with being touched by God's Spirit and being brought under conviction for sins. Christian ministers have persuaded this generation of God's children to call that precious experience "getting saved". And, as children ignorant of the Scriptures, they do this, in all sincerity and humility, thinking that it pleases God. But if they would only tell of what God did to their hearts, if they would speak only of the wonderful, new feelings and thoughts God created in them when He touched them, they would find that they all "speak the same thing, and . . . be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1Cor. 1:10). For us who believe to confess Christ is the only way we will ever "be made perfect in one", but confessing what we have only been told is Christ serves the purpose of that wicked one, heaven's outcast who envies every good thing we have from our heavenly Father. What God does to us will always unite us; what men, or Satan, add to those sacred experiences will always divide us. I used to say it this way: Once God has touched someone's heart, if men will leave him alone, God will perfect him. His word will not "return to Him void". When God starts something, He will finish it-unless men hinder His work with their own ideas about God. May God help each one of us to get out of His way when He begins His sacred work in another person's life. Whatever our experience has been with Jesus is perfect because he is perfect. If we learn to testify only to what he has done, and not add words that we have been told to add to it, then our doctrine will always be true. An added benefit to learning to so that is that we will also be able to discern the truth that others tell because of their own experiences with God. That communion in spirit is called "fellowship in the light", and for the saints to share in that blessing glorifies God as nothing else in this life quite can do. Thought for Today 2004. 08-24 Emotionalism We who praise God in the dance, with uplifted hands, with shouts of glory, and the like, are often accused of "emotionalism", of being carried away in our own emotions as we worship the Creator. I beg to differ. The joy of the holy Ghost is not human emotion. God filling up your body with His love so that you laugh, or cry, or shout praises to God, or roll across the floor, is not human emotion. The power of the holy Ghost to humble us to bow or fall prostrate before our Maker is not emotionalism. The fear of God that makes a person cease from sin is not emotionalism; it is the very beginning of eternal wisdom. To be moved by the holy Ghost to speak in tongues is not emotionalism; it is not of man at all. I never did any of those things when I was in sin, and I had lots of emotion. Those who sit by and wonder at such worship are the ones bound by emotionalism. Doubt, fear, and unbelief are very human feelings that prevent the soul from being blessed with God’s Spirit. Pride will cause a man to refuse to humble himself before the Lord, to kneel, to cry out for mercy, to confess sin. THAT is emotionalism, and it is of the flesh. When God’s people are rejoicing in Spirit, they are not being overwhelmed with human emotions; rather, they are being overwhelmed with feelings emanating out of the heart of God. It is God’s Spirit upon them, and with it come God’s feelings, God’s thoughts, God’s way of living, and God’s power over sickness and sin. My brothers and sisters, we should not be intimidated by accusations of "emotionalism" to draw back from being blessed by God; on the contrary, we should by all means press on toward even greater blessings, even to "visions and revelations of the Lord." Let the world call it what the world thinks it is; that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what it really is. And what it really is, is God’s mercy and love being poured out into our souls; it is fellowship in spirit with the Creator. My earnest prayer is that we may find such favor in His eyes that He makes our streams of joy and gladness to become rivers. Let Him be praised! Thought for Today 2004. 08-18 Offend The meaning of words often changes, so when we are reading Bibles produced in previous generations, we must be careful to know what certain words meant to the people who translated those Bibles before we can understand what they were trying to tell us. The word “offend”, for one example, is very often used today to mean “to hurt the feelings of”, but in the Bible, the word “offend” only rarely meant that. When Jesus or one of the apostles used the word “offend”, they most often meant “to cause to sin”, or “to lead astray”. In Matthew 18:6, Jesus warned that there will be dire consequences for anyone who led one of God’s children astray, or “offended” them. In fact, the Lord said it would be better for such a man to have a stone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than to suffer what God will do to him if he offended, or misled, one of God’s little children. The “little ones” who belong to Jesus are they who have just recently been born again. If a person is new to the faith, he can be eighty years old and yet be a “little one” to Jesus, and his heavenly Father loves him dearly. It is extremely important that we say and do nothing that causes one of God’s children to go the wrong way. The man who does so makes himself a target of God’s fiery indignation. Paul, filled with the fear of God, said that if eating meat offended one of God’s children, he would never eat meat again as long as the world stood (1Cor. 8:13). He told the saints at Rome, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak” (14:21). Jesus promised that before he returns for his bride, he will cleanse God’s earthly family of every person and of every thing that causes the children of God to go astray. He said, “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 13:41-42). This purging of the congregation of the saints from ungodly influences will result in them at last being perfected and prepared for the return of Jesus. The Lord pointed this out by saying, “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” We who believe in Jesus are not now prepared for the return of the Lord. We are divided from each other by Christian sects and confused by Christian teachers; our garments have been spotted by participation in Christian worship; we have been intimidated by Christian tradition; we have been submissive to Christianity’s claim of spiritual authority over us. But God loves, and will rescue His children. We have been “offended” by Christian ministers, being led into ways of worship and faith that are foreign to God’s will, but God has promised to raise up pastors after His own heart to feed His family with knowledge of the truth, and all who truly desire the truth shall be set free. The truth is God’s cure for lies that offend, or lead astray, His children. False doctrines and vain traditions lead people astray, but the truth edifies, nurtures, and guides. May you never be led astray by men who are trained to look righteous but who have not heard from Jesus. Something Else The word “offend”, then, basically means to turn someone away out of the path of righteousness, but there is an odd twist to this story. There is something other than ungodly doctrine and tradition that can “offend” people. That something else is the Truth. Not only can false doctrine turn people away from God but the truth can do so, too. A hypocrite has secret sin, and he will refuse to confess that the truth is the truth so that he can continue to appear to be righteous. When God sends a man to preach His truth, some of God’s own children, seeking to hide their sin, will reject it as false in order to maintain their own ways. When Jesus came, he himself was an offence to some of God’s people, and we know that he never sinned. Moved by the Spirit, Isaiah prophesied, “He shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence . . . .” (8:14). The light Jesus brought into this world was so great that God’s people who inwardly loved unrighteousness rejected his message and turned even farther away from God. Jesus knew this, and at one point, he said to his followers, “Blessed are they who are not offended in me” (Mt. 11:6). Nothing can offend the man who loves God’s Law (Ps. 119:165). But any righteous thing has the potential of “offending” a stubborn child of God, sending him deeper into the dark if they condemn the light. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be manifest that they are wrought in God” (Jn. 3:19-21). Paul prophesied of a time when many among the saints would not tolerate a man who told the truth, hiring ministers to teach them what they wanted to hear instead (2Tim. 4:3). The truth “offends” these children of God because it calls them to repentance and obedience to the will of God. But when they “turn away their ears from the truth”, they are cursed by God to sink deeper into the abyss of religious fables (2Tim. 4:4). May God give us salt within ourselves so that we can rejoice when God speaks. It is a fearful thought, to think of hearing a word from the Lord and rejecting it. May you never be “offended” by what you hear from the Lord. Fear It also happens that some will quench the Spirit and drift away from holiness in order to avoid persecution for the name of Christ (Mt. 13:21). The word “offended” applies to these less courageous children of God, too. For fear of men, all of Jesus’ disciples were “offended” the night of his arrest (Mk. 14:27), “and they all forsook him and fled” (Mk. 14:50). But no such failure in faith need to be unforgivable or permanent, and after the disciples were baptized with the holy Ghost in Acts 2, all of them stood fast in the faith even though they faced enormous opposition. God will give us courage to shine in this dark world, as they did, if we ask Him. Nothing can by any means “offend” those whose minds are stayed on God. Thought for Today 2004. 08-09 Everybody? The apostle John wrote, "He who is commits sin is of the devil" (1Jn. 3:8). This is true. Whoever lives in sin is, as John said, "of the devil". This is also discouraging because if everybody must sin every day, as many Christian ministers teach, then everybody is of the devil, including John. In consideration of that shocking statement, a question forces itself upon me; to wit, if everybody on earth is of the devil, then who is of God? Was John writing to angels or to dead saints when, in this same epistle, he penned these words: "You are of God, little children . "? (1Jn. 4:4). Whoever was being addressed in this epistle must have been not sinning because, according to John, everyone is sinning is of the devil. But if everyone on earth is sinning, as Christian ministers teach, then John couldn’t have been writing to anyone still here. Isn’t it obvious that ministers who teach that everybody must sin every day are just plain wrong? After all, John also wrote these words (4:6): "WE are of God; he that is of God hears us. He who is not of God [that is, he who is living in sin] does not hear us." John claimed he was "of God"; that is, he was not sinning every day. Those to whom he was writing were also "of God"; they were not in bondage to sin, either. They were freed from the domination of sin, as John was, and they also had fellowship in sinlessness with God. Please note that John also taught (very bluntly) in this letter that if we say we have fellowship with Christ and, at the same time, continue to live in sin as we did before we confessed him, we are liars (1Jn. 1:6). John makes it clear, when all he wrote is taken into account, that he is among people who are no longer "of the devil" because they no longer live in sin. This is the truth of the gospel of Christ, and I believe that any minister who teaches otherwise is "of the devil" because his doctrine persuades men to trust in the power of sin instead of trusting in the power of God to deliver us from it. Thought for Today 2004. 08-03 Making the Word of God of None Effect "Thus you have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." Matthew 15:6 Jesus said that the Pharisees and elders of Israel had made the word of God "of none effect" by their traditions. This is what Christianity has done with its traditions. Israel’s elders were trusted by the children of God to know what they were talking about, but they did not. The children of God in this New Testament have trusted Christian leaders to know what they are talking about, but they do not. I do not make that statement with any ill-will or sarcasm. I only say it because it must be said. It is a fact that it is exceedingly difficult for our heavenly Father to communicate to His people because so often they base their judgments on standards set by Christian leaders, and Christian standards, doctrinal and otherwise, are contrary to the truth of Christ. For some examples, it is because of the instruction of Christian ministers that God’s children join Christian churches, submit to water baptism, participate in "communion" rituals, and claim to be saved already. These and other standards that ministers have taught them, provide God’s people with inaccurate standards for determining the verity of what they hear. How can the Father reach them with greater light, when they judge His messengers by standards that did not come from Him? Christian standards very often "make of none effect" loving words sent from God to His people. For another example, the words of Jesus and the apostles concerning the superior power, wisdom, and goodness of the Father over the Son are made of none effect by the Christian doctrine of the "holy Trinity". Jesus said, "The Father is greater than I" (Jn. 14:28). Who can take those words seriously if he has been taught that the Father and the Son are "co-eternal" and "co-equal" in power and authority, as the doctrine of the Trinity holds? Jesus confessed that the Father knew things that he did not know (e.g. Mk. 13:33), but the doctrine of the Trinity denies that, teaching basically that the Father is the Son. How can the Son not know all that the Father knows if the Son is, in fact, the Father? Jesus rebuked a rich young ruler for addressing him as "good master", saying that "there is only One who is good, and that is God" (Lk. 18:18-19). But who can believe Jesus really meant those words if he thinks that Jesus is really the God he was talking about? Paul taught that the Son will submit himself to the Father at the end of this age (1Cor. 15:27-28), but who can really believe that if he has been taught that the Son is a part of a three-in-one God? How is Jesus going to submit himself to himself? or submit one part of himself to the other two parts of himself? We are told that God heard Jesus’ prayers because Jesus feared Him and that Jesus tearfully offered earnest prayer to God because he knew that God was able to save him from death (Heb. 5:7). Was the author of Hebrews just kidding? Or was Jesus weeping and crying out in prayer to himself? The doctrine of the Trinity would have us to answer, "Yes". There are hundreds of similar related Scriptures in the Bible concerning the Father and the Son whose meaning is easily understood–unless one has been taught the Trinitarian faith. That doctrine makes of none effect words of God that come from His wisest servants and are recorded in the Bible. Whenever that doctrine is taken into the heart as the standard by which to judge matters, as it often does, God’s messengers look foolish, and Trinitarian ministers look wise. The Psalmist asked the question, "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" That is what has happened to the foundations of the faith of Christ. Satan has stolen from the hearts of multiplied millions the sure foundations of the New Testament that Paul and others laid, "Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone." Over many centuries, Satan developed complex and appealing Christian traditions and doctrines, persuaded nations to receive them as gospel, thus effectively "destroying" the foundations that the Lord originally gave to his people. The principal work of the congregation that meets at my house is to clean off the foundations of the faith and, so, help God’s children rediscover them. For many centuries now, layer upon layer of vain Christian tradition has been laid upon the foundations of the gospel of Christ until those foundations now are covered with a thick layer of cliches, rituals, and doctrines that were never of God and must be removed for the sake of the saints. Unfortunately, when those of us who see the truth start doing that, God’s precious children often become frightened of us and speak out against the work. They have been taught to fear men like me and to think that we are their enemies. That is painful for us, but our love for our brothers and sisters who have been duped by Satan into thinking that Christianity is of God keeps us encouraged. The light of our loving heavenly Father will join us together perfectly in faith and practice. It will make us of one mind and heart; it will heal us of every division, no matter how great or small it is; it will create in you the same love for me that it has created in me for you. The effect of the Word of God, when it is received, is perfect peace and perfect harmony. My precious fellow believers, we are divided from each other only because the word of our God has been made of none of effect by the religion of Christianity. Somebody’s faith in Christian tradition is making the word of God of none effect and is keeping the children of God divided. Could it be yours? Thought for Today 2004. 08-02 A Sin to Refuse Jesus laid down his life so that we could receive the baptism of God’s Spirit. Because of that alone, it is sin for anyone to refuse it. Thought for Today 2004. 07-27 Voting From an audio message sent from Preacher Clark to the saints in Louisville, KY., in the spring of 1972 (Track 9 of CD 13 Reel #4) Voting is a lot like religious ceremonies; it is what men do when they haven’t heard from God. A marriage ceremony, for example, is performed to make it appear that God is joining two people together; but, whether or not God really has joined those two people together is an entirely different issue. He may have, or He may not have; the ceremony is irrelevant to the truth in either case. All ceremonies are earthly substitutes for a real connection with Jesus. Voting is one way that men make decisions when they have not heard from God as to what to believe, or what things to do next, or who should be leader. It is of the world, and obedient and wise children of God have no more part with voting than they do with performing ceremonies. Preacher Clark said to the saints in Louisville, "God forbid that we should ever vote on anything. Anytime you vote, it shows you have lost direction." For believers, "losing direction" means losing contact with God. Those who have "lost their direction" usually become entangled in the affairs of this world, political, ceremonial, and otherwise. It means that they, like pathetic King Saul of old, can no longer reach God and, so, have turned to other means of finding answers. King Saul began his career by cleansing the land of witchcraft, but when he lost his direction, he found himself pleading with a witch for help. If we lose our direction, we, too, may well find ourselves going places we never thought we would go and doing things we never dreamed we would do. The holy Ghost was sent from our heavenly Father to guide us. It is our compass; it gives us our direction. It enables us to commune intimately with our Creator, and it is of the very highest importance that we do that. As Preacher Clark said to the saints in a sermon on May 29, 1972, "You had better be on speaking terms with God." If we are not, we have no direction at all, and the vain methods that men employ to find answers will then begin to attract our longing hearts toward death. Pray "with the understanding" and pray "with the Spirit"; be on speaking terms with God. If we do that, then the direction we will receive from God will be the one we want; it will be the way toward eternal rest with Him. Thought for Today 2004. 07-26 Your Greatest Trouble The greatest trouble you will ever cause yourself will come from loving someone more than that person loves God or from trusting someone more than that person trusts God. If you keep God first in all things, and if you will judge people according to their faith and fellowship with Jesus, you will be saved from a hundred heartaches and long years of regret and loss. David didn’t want his dear son Solomon to suffer because of this kind of error, and so he gave this advice to him: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Good advice for us all. Thought for Today 2004. 07-22 Two Choices From Pastor John’s Old Testament class: "Lessons from Isaiah", No. 4 "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword." (Isa. 1:19-20) What Isaiah said to God’s Old Testament people here was not new to them. Moses had said it before (Dt. 30:19-20), as well as Joshua (Josh. 24), and as had done every other man and woman whom God had anointed to speak to His people. Isaiah’s message is also consonant with the apostles’ message to the New Testament saints. For example, Paul wrote to believers in Rome (Rom. 8:13): "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." The saints of God have always had two choices: obedience or disobedience. It is a life or death choice because doing the will of God is required for anyone who hopes to be saved in the end. Consider the following scriptures that show the need to do the will of God: Mk. 3:31-25 Jesus considers only those who do the will of God to be his family. Mt. 7:21 Jesus will not permit anyone to enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he does the will of God while he lives on earth. Jn. 7:16-17 Those who sincerely desire do God’s will are rewarded with a sense of who is telling God’s truth and who is not. God is very pleased to show such people His mysteries (Eph. 1:9). It is unwise not to take advantage of this golden opportunity to find God’s will for our lives instead of living in sin (Eph. 5:16-17). Jn. 5:30 A person’s judgment of anything, whether of individuals or circumstances, is made clear and true only as he is seeking to do God’s will. Only those who sincerely prefer the will of God above their own can judge anything rightly. Rom. 12:1-2 To do God’s will means to offer your body to Him as a sacrifice, and those who do this are the ones who are made able to distinguish what is right from what is wrong. Rom. 6:12-26 To offer to God your body as a sacrifice means to yield to His control the individual members of your body: your hands, your feet, your eyes, your tongue–every single member. If a person does that, God will both cause him to know what to do and will help him do it (Phip. 2:13). By His Spirit, God will enable him to understand and to do His will perfectly (Heb. 13:20-21). Heb. 8:10 It is as if God writes out His will in big letters on the hearts of those who truly desire to do it. That is how plainly they are made to understand what He wants them to do. 1Thess. 4:3 Pursuing the will of God leads naturally to being sanctified by the holy Ghost, for that is an essential part of His will for people. Rom. 8:26-27 Once the holy Ghost comes within a person, it will pray through him according to the will of God, even if he himself does not know what to pray for. Heb. 10:36 Doing the will of God will not always produce for us immediate results of peace and rest. Sometimes, our Father asks us to patiently continue to do His will until the promises come (Rom. 2:6-11). Even if we must go through very difficult times, it is best to continue doing what God wants us to do (1Pet. 4:19), for this world of trouble and sorrows will be destroyed by our Father (2Pet. 3:10-14), while everyone who does the will of God will live forever in peace and joy (1Jn. 2:17). Eph. 1:5 Those who do the will of God understand that He planned eternal blessings for them before He created the earth they live on. 1Thess. 5:18 For this reason, those living in the will of God feel thankful at all times, knowing that all things concerning them are being designed by their heavenly Father for their good (Rom. 8:28). 1Cor. 10:13 They know that their Father will not put them in situations that are too difficult, and that it is His purpose to deliver them from this present, evil world (Gal. 1:4). This is the very reason that Jesus suffered and died, so that everyone could be set free from this world’s pressures to do evil and could do the will of God instead (1Pet. 4:2). 1Pet. 2:13-15 Those who do the will of God have no problem humbling themselves to authority because they see both earthly authorities and spiritual authorities as having been placed there by God for their protection and blessing. Jn. 8:44 When God’s children choose not to do His will, and yet they continue to maintain an appearance of righteousness, they become "children of the devil" instead of children of God, for that is what the devil did. He tries to look good, but he is no longer truly good. The devil did not love the truth God taught him; he loved himself more. Maintaining an appearance of righteousness without really doing the will of God is not the will of God, and if we do the devil’s will instead of God’s, then we will share in the devil’s coming judgment. Jn. 6:38-40 Nothing would please God more than for every person who believes in Jesus to do His will and be saved in the end. He will not willingly disinherit any of His children (2Pet. 3:9). Salvation Is Only For the Righteous It is abundantly clear that doing the will of God is the only way to escape the coming wrath and Judgment of God. Those who teach that one need only believe that Jesus is Lord, and that there is no need for obedient works, are dangerously mistaken. The following are some notable scriptures in the writings of the apostles, showing that Isaiah was speaking the word of God when he told Israel that God’s promise of salvation to His people is conditional upon their righteous conduct: Matthew 7:21 Only those who do the will of God’s will be saved in the end. Matthew 24:9-13 Faithfulness to God is required for those who would be saved from the coming wrath of God. Matthew 25:14-30 These verses show plainly that no one will be saved without doing good deeds. Romans 2:5-11 These verses also show this, using different words. Romans 11:17-24 Paul invites the attention of the saints to the spiritual blindness of Israel as evidence of the awful judgment of God upon those who refuse to submit to God’s righteousness. This is an excellent warning to believers against becoming proud of the calling and blessings of God. 1Corinthians 9:24-27 Paul says that if he fails to submit himself to the gospel that he preaches, he himself will be cast out by God. 1Corinthians 10:1-12 Paul cautions against becoming slack or proud, pointing to ancient Israel as an example of the wrath of God against His own people who are stubbornly disobedient. 1Corinthians 15:1-2 The gospel will save only those who both believe and obey it. Without works that please God, no man will be saved; simply believing is insufficient (Jas. 2:14-26). Galatians 5:1-5 To depart from simple faith in Christ to the use of religious symbols and ceremony is to endanger the soul. Hebrews 3:6 - 4:2, 11 The saints are warned to fear God, lest they become complacent concerning doing the will of God, as the Israelites in the wilderness did. 2Pet. 2:1-18 Peter describes "cursed children" of God; that is, those who have pursued professional religious careers instead of following the call of the Spirit. Jude 3-13, 16-19 Jude describes these unstable, wandering souls as being "twice dead".They were once delivered from sin, but now they have been overcome by sin again. 2Pet. 2:19-22 Peter teaches us that it is better never to have been washed from sin than to return to sin after we have been washed from it. Sinners who never knew Christ will receive more mercy on the day of Judgment than will those children of God who once knew Christ and then turned again to the filth of the world. With no exceptions, whenever the scriptures describe the Final Judgment, we are told that all people will be judged according to their deeds. The Bible never wavers from its position that our behavior will determine where we spend eternity. Jesus’ easily understood words (Jn. 5:28-29) concerning the coming Judgment are never contradicted by any man truly sent from God: "Marvel not at this. For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear [the Son of man’s] voice and shall come forth, those who have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." Amen. And may God help us to do His will while we live.
Thought for Today 2004. 07-21
"If You Are No Good . . ."
From a sermon by Preacher Clark in a Sunday afternoon prayer meeting at Aunt Leatha's house, June 1, 1980 "If you're no good where you are, you'll be no good where you go." There are few good reasons for leaving one congregation to join one self with another. Most commonly, people join a new congregation because t hey have not gotten along very well with the former one. But as the preach er said, "If you're no good where you are, you'll be no good where you go." You can flee from a congregation, but you cannot escape from a contentiou s, self-willed spirit if you carry it around with you! The best reason for leaving one congregation for another is to outg row that congregation in spirit. This happens when a person is sincere, wa lks in the Spirit, and trusts God to guide him. There is not one congregat ion in all of Christianity that a sincere child of God will not outgrow if he persists in faith and believes what the Spirit tells him. Eventually, e very child of God who continues to grow in grace will outgrow everything th at Christianity has to offer and will leave it. When people leave one congregation for another, they usually leave because of trouble and often cannot feel the love of God when they think of their former fellow worshipers. But whenever a child of God outgrows a co ngregation and moves on in the light of Christ, he finds that he loves the members of his former congregation far more intensely that he did when he w as among them. If we really outgrow a congregation, we have become more li ke Jesus, who loves more than mortal man can love. Yes, "If you're no good where you are, you'll be no good where you go." But if you are good where you are, then you'll be better in the place where you are going. Thought for Today 2004. 07-20 The Attitude of a Servant From a testimony by Sister Tammy, and from Sister Amy's dream. Developing the attitude of a servant is the key to overcoming problems that overwhelm many souls. A person with an humble attitude is never provoked to retaliate for a wrong done to him because he never sees himself as that important. He never pushes to gets his way, and he is easily entreated. He does not strive for attention or praise; he is content to occupy his own place in God's kingdom. He does not envy others, and he loves peace. He is happy in Jesus because simply belonging to Jesus satisfies him. There is no strife among saints who have developed the attitude of a servant. After much observation, I have concluded that what I have recently heard is correct: If you do not develop the attitude of a servant, you will become the servant of an attitude. Thought for Today 2004. 07-06 "Which No Man Can Gainsay" From a sermon by Preacher Clark on May 29, 1973. You may already know that Preacher Clark taught, as he did that day long ago that nobody can get his name into God’s Book of Life. But what struck me this time when he made that statement was what he added to it. "You might ask," he said in his sermon, ‘Can I repent and pray and get my name in the Book of Life?’ No! No! Nobody can get his name in the Book of Life." I had heard that comment many times before, but this time he added this pearl of wisdom: "Even if someone did [get his name written in the Book of Life], it wouldn’t do him any good. Every soul that will be saved at the end already has it there, because ‘Whosoever’s name was not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from the foundation of the world was cast into the Lake of Fire.’" What is revealed in this latter part is not obvious at first. It is not so much a revelation of truth as it is a revelation of the result of believing the truth. As the Preacher pointed out, the apostle John clearly stated in the book of Revelation that the only people who would be saved in the end were those whose names were found in the Lamb’s Book of Life "from the foundation of the world." Trusting that truth with all his heart, Preacher Clark was actually lifted above merely arguing the point. From his heart arose the additional, illuminating comment that it would be pointless for anyone to have his name added to God’s Book of life now because only those whose names were there from the beginning will be saved in the end. This comment showed me that God’s truth had lifted the man above quarreling about whether a name could be added to the Book. Let men be right who say that their names can be added to God’s Book; it won’t save them even if it they can. The names had to be there from the beginning. There simply is no argument against that wisdom. When truth is revealed from heaven and is taken into the heart, it begins a creation process, reforming the soul of man into the image of Christ. If our hearts receive the word of God, the power of God begins to heal and restore lost feelings, create in us new thoughts, and direct our deeds toward righteousness, peace, and joy. When that happens, we often find ourselves speaking wisdom that is not our own. It is the "wisdom that no man can gainsay", said Jesus. This comment from preacher Clark was an example of such wisdom. Such things are said only by those whose hearts are completely in the hands of God, whose minds are functioning as they should, in the peace and wisdom of Christ. Such people have received the wisdom of God as a welcome conqueror, and God’s wisdom has taken their spirits beyond the ordinary realm of men on earth. There is no argument against such peace; it is beyond the spirits of contention and strife. The eventual effect of believing the truth is that we ourselves become the truth, and from the richness and beauty of the wisdom of Christ in our own souls, we then offer to others thoughts that are not our own and render to contentious men such wisdom that, as the Master said, "men are not able to gainsay."
Thought for Today 2004. 07-05 The Most Essential Thing We will not be saved without God. Paul said that before we came to Christ Jesus, we were "without God and without hope in the world." To be without God is to be without hope. Contact with God is absolutely essential for anyone who would be saved. How do we have contact with God? He is in heaven, and we are on earth. Paul taught that we have access to God by the Spirit (Eph. 2:18). To be without the holy Ghost is to be without God. Paul made this point clear when he bluntly wrote, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. 8). We must repent and receive the Spirit of God in order to be saved in the end because we must have God in order to be saved in the end. Having God in out hearts is the most essential of all that is required of those who would be saved, and anyone who refuses the holy Ghost has refused Him. Thought for Today 2004. 06-12 The Church? From information gathered while doing research on the making of the King James Version of the Bible In the year 1604, King James assented to the suggestion of a Puritan named John Reynolds and ordered the production of a new translation of the Bible, a translation that would become known as the King James Version of the Bible. Shortly afterward, to the scholars who would make that translation, King James issued sixteen specific commandments concerning the work they would be doing, some of which commandments limited the scholars’ liberty in translation. These commandments were titled "The Rules to be Observed in Translation", and they are preserved to this day in the University Library in Cambridge. The king’s First Rule demanded that the Translators use as a basis for their translation the "Bishop’s Bible", the Bible ordinarily used at that time by the Bishops of the Church of England (who were much opposed to the faith of "Puritans"). He added that the Bishop’s Bible should be "as little altered as the truth will permit." In other words, the truth of the original Hebrew or Greek texts was to take precedence over even the Bishop’s Bible. This was a very good guideline for the king to give to the translators. The king’s Second Rule was that the Translators were forbidden in their new translation to change the names of the prophets and holy men and women, as found in earlier English translations. This, I suppose, was to help facilitate a smooth transition from the older versions of the Bible to this new one. This, too, can be seen as a good commandment to give. The Third Rule seems at first blush to be similar to the second one, but its purpose was as evil as anything ever need be in order to wreak havoc on the people of God by legitimizing the power of evil men over them. The people who were mockingly called "Puritans", and others who were persecuted by churchmen of both the Catholic Church and the Church of England, had by this time in history grown to include believers who were also brilliant scholars. Some of these devout men dared to attempt something that had been forbidden; to wit, to translate the Bible into languages that ordinary men and women could read. The Pope had forbidden this, and a few of the men who dared to disobey him and translate the Bible into languages that people could understand had paid the ultimate penalty for their noble efforts. The most famous of these martyrs was a man named William Tyndall, who, having been betrayed by a man he befriended, was captured, condemned by a church court, very cruelly tortured to death, and cast into the flames. All this, principally because he dared to produce a Bible that English people could read in their own language. The Hated Word Such men as Tyndall found a certain word in the Bibles of the Catholic Church and the Church of England to be so repugnant to the Spirit, so contrary to the true faith, and stemming from unjust claims of spiritual authority, and so reminiscent of cruel horrors perpetrated upon thousands of innocent, godly souls, that they refused to use it in their translations in reference to the people of God. The repugnant, unscriptural word? The word, "church". The Greek word for "church" (kuriakon), is never used by the original authors of the Bible. It’s meaning was simple a building used for religious purposes, and it was borrowed from the heathen world and introduced to believers by the early "church fathers" of Christianity. Any religious building, including an Islamic mosque, is a "church". Knowing this, Martin Luther used the word "church" in his translation of the Bible as it was supposed to be used: in reference to heathen temples, or in one place, to the temple of the Jews in Jerusalem. Kuriakon, the Greek word for "church", was never used by the apostles who originally wrote the New Testament scriptures because that word signified a religious building, and they had no such buildings; they met in houses. The reason men like Tyndall rejected the word "church" as a reference to God’s people is that by the 17th century, the word "church" was so associated with the Catholic faith that those who wanted to serve God rightly wanted to distance themselves from that abomination. They wanted nothing to do with "the Church". They despised it. They wanted Christ. The King’s Power Base Some of the Translators of the King James Version had "Puritan" leanings, and their sincere distaste for the word "church" presented a problem to King James. His power base was the Church of England, a church that differed only in details with the Catholic Church. King Henry the Eighth had invented that church and separated from Catholicism only decades earlier (in 1534), not out of any doctrinal or ceremonial disagreement with the Pope but simply because the Pope refused to give him a divorce from Catharine of Aragon. The Church of England, then, was from its inception a thoroughly earthly institution, as the Catholic Church is. Its Bishops threatened, plundered, cruelly tortured and executed both good and evil people, without seeing the difference, just as the Pope’s servants had been doing for a thousand years or more, and for many of the same reasons. The religion known as the "church" was feared as the very embodiment of Satanic wickedness by those who suffered at its hands. The Puritans, and others, wanted no part of the "church" because they knew that Jesus had no part in it. It was not of God; the "church" was not a holy institution. When King Henry the Eighth invented his new church, the Church of England, he made himself (and all future kings) head of that church. (It still is that way in England). For King James, then, the church was an indispensable pillar of his government, and the Bishops of the church could make life unbearable for him, and possibly even bring an end to his reign if he provoked them beyond a certain limit. These Bishops had been content with their "Bishop’s Bible"; they were not the ones to push for a new translation. That idea, as mentioned previously, had been the suggestion of the Puritan-minded scholar whose comrades had no use for the Catholic-invented, non-Biblical word, "church". It was, in part, to placate these Bishops that King James commanded the Translators of the new Bible to mistranslate the word the apostles used for God’s people, the Greek word ekklesia. The crafty King James needed the Bishops’ co-operation in order to maintain control of English society, the same way Catholic Bishops had always been the instruments of the Pope in other nations. He could not afford to alienate them. If the word "church" was omitted from his new translation, as the Puritan faction wanted, the king’s Bishops might feel threatened, and the stability of his kingdom would be weakened. The Most Important Thing To King James, it was relatively unimportant that his Bishops had cruelly and unjustly arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and slain many a righteous soul, as well as deserving criminals. (That was, after all, what the church had always done.) The security of his person and his administration was, to him, a far more important matter. Many hundreds, even thousands, of righteous Protestants had been driven from their homes in England by the heavy hand of the Bishops of the Church of England, and those suffering, innocent souls were forced to sojourn as strangers among other nations. Desperate and hated, some of them eventually founded colonies far from the world dominated by the church, in the distant wilderness of a New World just discovered across the Atlantic Ocean, taking their soon-to-be outlawed Geneva Bible with them. Nevertheless, to the king, the security of his kingdom was the most important thing. He had to have the support of the church and its Bishops. So, the king gave his Translators these contradictory commandments: They were to translate faithfully the original languages for his new translation of the Bible, even if it differed a little from the Bishops’ Bible, but they were forbidden to faithfully translate the word used by the apostles when it came to their word for God’s "called out ones", the congregation of the Lord. In his new translation, the king felt that he must keep the "church" at all costs, even if it meant misleading the people who would be learning from the new, officially sanctioned Bible. Everything This understanding about the word "church" is personally grievous to me. It isn’t like other things that I have learned about the way of Jesus. It sickens me to think that everything I have ever thought, and everything I have ever said and written using the word "church" has been wrong. In my frustration the last few days since I learned this, I said, "It is as if we can’t even speak about our Lord Jesus without using the language that Satan invented for it!" God, deliver us! Is there anything about God’s people that has not been tampered with by the cunning craftiness of Satan? Is that liar, that thief, anywhere absent? I think not, except under the shadow of the holy Spirit of our God. What I have found is that, in large measure, my critics have been right all along; Christianity IS the true "church". And they have been right when they condemned me by saying that Satan has been inspiring much of my writings, my thoughts, my words, for I found that he really has polluted my earnest labor for the children of God. Through my heartfelt attachment to the word "church", his poisonous influence has been here in my heart, where I hoped it was not. But Jesus is still helping me, still showing me
Thought for Today 2004. 06-01 Death Does Not Sanctify From counsel Preacher Clark gave to Brother Earl Pittman, late 1960's. Years ago, a young Brother Earl was testifying to his grandmother of the wonderful life he had found in Christ, the sanctifying baptism of the holy Ghost and the glorious truths that the Spirit teaches. Being a devout Baptist (as Brother Earl had been before he learned the truth), she dismissed his testimony, much to the young man’s sorrow. She believed that everyone had to sin every day and that she would be able to live without sin only after the resurrection. Earl tried, to no avail, to persuade his beloved grandmother to consider the light he had been given by God and to be a partaker of the power of God’s holy Spirit. "Well, Granny, " Earl sincerely asked, "When do you think you will be sanctified?" "After death", came the response. What could Earl do? She was set in her ways and was determined to wait for death to come set her free from sin. Many are like Brother Earl’s misguided grandmother. They have been taught by Christian ministers that they have no choice but to sin every day and that they must wait for death to sanctify them so that they can live without sin. It is evil to teach such doctrines, but that fact had never stopped foolish men from proclaiming such blasphemy; nor has it ever prevented multitudes from approving of and supporting them in their foolishness (2Pet 2:1-2). When a saddened Brother Earl took the report of this tragic conversation to his pastor, Preacher Clark, the wise elder comforted Earl, and then added a pearl of wisdom to the young man’s treasures. He reminded him that according to the Bible, death is an "enemy" (1Cor. 15:26). "I wouldn’t wait for an enemy to sanctify me, Earl", he said. "I’d trust Jesus to do that." It was an important point, well made. Did Jesus suffer and die to leave us in the hands of an enemy? Does Jesus’ sacrifice avail us nothing in this life so that, regardless of what he accomplished, we must still plod along in bondage to the power of darkness? Hardly. He came that we "might have life, and have it more abundantly" (Jn. 10:10). The life Jesus suffered for us to possess is sinless life; it is holy, and it is eternal. Jesus is our friend. You can trust him to make you holy now, in this life. And when he does that, you will find yourself living the kind of life that Brother Earl’s grandmother was told to expect only after death had come and claimed her. Is there anyone of you who really thinks that death, when it came for her, made that poor stubborn woman holy? My dear reader, don’t be a fool. If you refuse Jesus’ power in this life, you need not expect death to bring to you what you have refused from the Lord while you lived. Listen to the wisdom of this old camp-meeting song from days long past: Finding Glory All Along the Way
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Thought for Today 2004. 05-31 Nobody but Friends From a message from Preacher Clark to the congregation in Louisville, recorded by Earl Pittman in Henderson, NC, in the spring of 1972. Some years ago, certain saints who lived in Louisville would send questions to Preacher Clark so that he would record the answers on Brother Earl’s reel-to-reel recorder and then mail those answers back to the congregation in Louisville. When the recording arrived, those who were interested would gather and listen to his answers. The question asked, and then answered, in this part of the conversation that Brother Earl recorded on his reel-to-reel for the saints in Louisville was, "Who will be judged worthy of the eternal kingdom of God in the final judgment?" Or to put it another way, "What must we do to be saved?" There are, as you know, many things mentioned in the Bible concerning God’s requirements for those who hope to be saved in the end. Rather than re-hash the long list of specific requirements, however, Preacher Clark chose simply to describe the nature of the people who will be granted the salvation of the Lord. He said: "None of your enemies will be there. Nor any of your enemies’ enemies. Are we our enemies’ enemies? If so, we won’t be there. Nobody’s enemies will be there. Only friends." He then continued to give a testimony concerning the word of God that had recently come to him while he was in prayer. He said that the Lord told him, "Everybody you meet, you need to give them something. It can be anything: money, directions to where they are going, a smile, a wave . . . . but something." In other words, a truly godly attitude makes you a friend to everyone. And friends are the only people who will be saved in the end. No one’s enemy will be saved. To make the matter clearer, Preacher Clark continued to define who are your enemies. "Your enemies", he said, "are they who want to see you lost, and who rejoice if you fail [to obey God] or are overcome by a fault." He then recalled a time when a false report went through Henderson that he had been killed. "One group of saints wept and another group rejoiced. All of them Pentecostals." Those who wept were those who knew God; those who rejoiced that he had died did not have the love of God in them. The Enemy In the Bible, the devil is sometimes referred to as "The Enemy", and that is an excellent description of his character. Through pride, envy, and rebellion, he became the "number one" enemy of everything that is good, both in heaven and on earth. He will not be there among the eternally blessed because he is no friend to anyone, though he tries to disguise his nature with an appearance of righteousness. For all his efforts, however, the effect of every word that comes from his mouth is sin and death upon those who believe what he says, just as purity and peace is the effect upon those who believe the word of God. Everything the Enemy does, even the deed that appears to be good, will prove to be evil, just as everything God does will prove to be holy. Perfect Jesus exhorted us to be perfect, just as our heavenly Father is perfect (Mt. 6:5:43-48). Our Father blesses everyone on earth, to one degree or another, and "sends rain on the just and the unjust". Every morning, God greets every waking person with His love and with a new, golden opportunity for His mercies. God is everyone’s greatest friend, and only those who are like Him will be saved in the end. None but those with God’s Spirit of true friendship will be allowed to live in that new earth "wherein dwelleth righteousness". That is the message of the gospel, and it is a deadly sin not to believe it.
Thought for Today 2004. 05-30 What You Can Do The apostle James wrote, "If a man knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." We may not be able to do some things, as I said in yesterday’s TFT, but there is plenty that we can do. And if we can do something that is good in God’s sight, then we must do it; otherwise, we have sinned. We can pray; we can have faith; we can do good to others, even if others do evil to us; we can speak the truth in love; we can testify concerning the goodness of God; we can keep all of God’s commandments every day. Of all the things that we can do in Christ, none of it is difficult. John wrote, "His commandments are not grievous" because he knew that it is the nature of every person born of the Spirt of God to live a godly life. It does not strain a sanctified soul to live a sanctified life. God’s commandments are not difficult to keep for a person who truly loves God. When Jesus said, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light", he was describing a righteous man’s attitude toward God’s commandments. And wise Solomon was right to say that "the way of the transgressor is hard." The world would have us think that living in sin is easy, and living a righteous life is hard, but the world has always been backward in its thoughts about God and always will be. Just believe Jesus, and do what you can do.
Thought for Today 2004. 05-29 What You Cannot Do It makes life easier to live if we admit to ourselves that there are some things we just cannot do. God does not expect us to do some things; He knows that we cannot do those things; and He will not hold us accountable for not doing them. There are some very good things that we would like to see accomplished, but we cannot do them. There are people, precious to our hearts, that we would love to see blessed and happy in Jesus, but we cannot make it happen. There are certain situations in life that we would like to change, but we cannot change them. There are people who have died that we would like to raise up again, but we cannot raise them up. We are limited in power and in wisdom, and those limitations are placed upon us by God Himself. There are things we cannot do because it is not given to us to do them. One of the hallmarks of an over-religious spirit is that it makes us feel guilty for things that are beyond our control. An over-religious spirit condemns people for not doing the very things that they cannot do, and it is never satisfied with any effort that sincere people make. Jesus, on the other hand, can be completely satisfied with us and never condemns us for not doing what is beyond our power to do. I know that Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me". Much has been made of that verse by certain people. But there were many things that Paul could not do. He could not persuade the Jews that Jesus was their Messiah, even though he wanted that so much that he was willing even to surrender his own soul for them if God would have allowed it (Rom. 9:1-3). Concerning the unbelieving Jews, Paul wrote, "I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart." But there was nothing Paul could do about that. When Paul’s friend Epaphroditus was gravely ill, Paul could not heal him, though he had healed others, but God had mercy on Epaphroditus by allowing him to recover (Phip. 2:25-27). Paul sometimes wanted to travel to certain places, but was not able to go (1Thess. 2:18). Paul said that he "could do all things in Christ", but he expected us to understand that he could only do those things in Christ that were appointed for him to do by God. Paul had no power whatsoever to do anything other than what God anointed him to do. There were also things that Jesus could not do, and he said so. When one young man wanted Jesus to command his brother to divide their father’s inheritance with him, Jesus said, "Who made me a judge in those matters?" In another place, we are told that Jesus "could do no mighty miracles" because of the unbelief of the people in that town. And finally, we should remember that Jesus plainly said, "Of myself, I can do nothing." Never forget that Jesus wept in deep grief for the stubbornness of Jerusalem. He knew what was coming for the Jews and the holy city, but he could do nothing about it. It was also impossible for Jesus to give the holy Ghost to anyone, even his own disciples, while he was on earth because he had to die and ascend into heaven in order for it the holy Ghost baptism to be made available to men. He just could not do it. During the time my wise father was dying, I had begun to suffer with a heavy condemnation because the people in a Bible class I was teaching were failing to grasp the truth to which I was trying to lead them. Unknown to me, I had begun to "beat myself up", as the saying goes. A few days before my father went to be with Jesus, I visited him in his hospital room. He was, in those final days, only partially alert. Still, the holy Ghost was living in him, and as my father lay there, from his lips came words to great comfort to me that I knew were from the Lord, for I had not told my father how I was feeling. Only Jesus knew. The weight of self-condemnation was immediately taken off my shoulders, and I stood there amazed at the grace of God. He had used a man to be my pastor just as effectively as in the days when that man was in full health. Jesus’ message to me that day was, in sum, "There are some things that you cannot do, and I still love you." That is how I know it is true.
Thought for Today 2004. 05-22 "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." From a conversation in my office yesterday, with a group of saints. Some unknown moment in eternity past, Satan coveted the glory that was God’s, the glory that all of God’s creatures gave to their Creator. He devised a brilliant scheme to obtain some of that glory and grasped after what was not his. Somehow, he persuaded a third of the angels in heaven to honor him as they did God, and in great wrath, God cast them all out of His presence. Jesus said that he witnessed the event. He saw Satan "fall as lightning" from heaven. What a horrifying picture! How must it have felt for Satan to be cast out, for all eternity, from his beautiful, blessed home! Damned before the time of damnation! Judged before Judgment Day to be worthy of eternal death. Now, he is a bitter, lost, and desperate spirit, wandering about on the earth, "seeking whom he may devour". Even in his fallen state, however, Satan’s desire did not change. He still envies the glory of God and strives to share in it. He still craves God’s glory, and he envies those who partake of the glory of God, in this case saints on earth who are filled with the Spirit of true holiness. But the Devil is cursed never again to feel the blessed holy Spirit or to know its peace and majesty. He is cursed to want what he can never have. Satan is attracted to the congregation where God is blessing most. That glory reminds him of his former heavenly home, from which he was forever expelled by the power of God. He remembers God’s glory, and to share in it was his original desire. As we spoke of these things, it came to me that the people who refuse to repent and come to Jesus will also spend eternity wanting something they can never have. In the Lake of Fire, they will want to see, but "they shall never see light." They will want to move, but they shall be "bound hand and foot". They will want relief from the agony, but "the fire is not quenched" and "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever." They will want to repent, but it will be too late. In short, they will be cursed by God to an eternity of wanting what they can never have. Just like Satan. Salvation is just the opposite. It is complete peace. It is the complete absence of want. God will so fill those whom He saves with goodness that it will be impossible for the feeling of want to exist. We will be given a world in which "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Rev. 21:4). Those who will be saved will be so blessed that they will never again feel the feeling of "wanting". There will be nothing else to want. David felt this. He wrote, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." He knew how fully God could satisfy a soul. In another Psalm he wrote, "No good thing will the Lord withhold from them that walk uprightly." One of the most loving prayers that one can pray for another is that prayed by David for the righteous in Psalm 20: "The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble . . . and give thee the desires of thy heart." If God fulfills all the desires of your heart, there is nothing left for you to want. "Wanting" is a part of this wearisome, wicked world. It is part of God’s curse on sinful humanity. There is so much want in this world that even wise Solomon said it could not be measured. But "want" will not exist in the world that will be given to God’s faithful children. If the Lord is your shepherd, my dear friend, be patient. The time is coming when you shall not want. Thought for Today 2004. 05-18 If God’s blessings don’t make you both happy and humble, expect Him to curse you. He may love you enough to do just that.
Thought for Today 2004. 05-17 Two Witnesses "At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death. But at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death." Deut. 17:6 From conversations with Preacher Clark in the late 1970's. According to God’s Law for Israel, two witnesses were required in order to convict a man of a capital offense (Dt. 17:6). Later, both Jesus (Mt. 18:16) and Paul (2Cor. 13:1 and 1Tim. 5:19) reaffirmed this principal of requiring two witnesses for confirmation of the most important matters in the body of Christ. Take the time to read those three verses to which I just referred, and you may begin to feel how critical it is for the congregation that it follow this guiding principal. Without it, lawlessness and strife will spring up and divide the saints. The importance of this principal for the development of a healthy congregation can hardly be overstated. This is best understood by paying heed to Jesus’ use of it in John 8:17-18: "It is also written in your Law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bears witness of myself, and the Father that sent me bears witness of me." Why did Jesus say this? He only said what his Father bid him to say. Why this statement, then, from God? Men everywhere bear witness of themselves, that they are right with God or that they are sent from God to minister, but where is the second witness, the most important one, the witness of God? John once wrote, "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater" (1Jn. 5:9). Jesus knew this. He knew how important it is to have God’s witness for anything. Jesus, naturally, had his own witness; all men do. He bore witness of himself, that he was the Messiah of Israel, the Anointed One upon whom man’s eternal hope depends. But more importantly, he had the Father’s testimony: a voice that spoke from heaven when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, as well as at other times. The voice of God testified to men who the Son was, and the voice of the Son testified of the Father to man; these were the two witnesses. In Jesus’ ministry, there was an earthly witness, his, and a heavenly one, God’s. By his example, Jesus showed us that in this New Covenant, as in the Old, there must be two witnesses for any important congregation matter to be confirmed. The most important matter for the congregation, of course, is the new birth. When is a person born again? When are sins washed away? According to Christian tradition, it is when men claim that it happens, or when they are told by others to say so. According to God, it is when His Spirit enters into and speaks through a person. When a person receives the baptism of the holy Ghost and begins to speak in tongues, you hear two witnesses: the Spirit’s voice and man’s voice working together to glorify God. In a parable concerning the new birth, Jesus compared the holy Ghost speaking through a person (God’s witness) with the wind "blowing wherever it will, and you hear the sound thereof" (Jn. 3:8). Paul described the holy Ghost speaking through a person as the cry of an newly born infant, "crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ " (Rom. 8:15). The apostle John said that this speaking in tongues is the Spirit of God "confessing that Christ has come in the flesh" (1Jn. 4:2). And, I might add, John warned us that the Spirit of God speaking when it comes into a person’s heart is the distinguishing mark of the real Spirit of God and that this standard should be used to judge whether or not the real Spirit of God has been received by anyone (1Jn. 4:1-3). However the experience is described, the point is that unless you have receive the holy Ghost baptism, with the testimony of the Spirit speaking, you have not received the real Spirit of God and are not born again, no matter how many earthlings tell you differently. If you could persuade all the approximately six billion people on this dying earth to agree that you are born again, it would still be only one witness: the earthly one. But one witness will not stand up in God’s court. Your new birth must be confirmed by two witnesses. Yours Should Be the Second One Actually, man should not be first to bear witness of himself. We should never claim to be right with God before God bears witness that it is so. He does not follow us; He demands that we follow Him. Jesus indicated to his disciples that this was the right order when he said to them, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness . . ." (Jn. 15:26-27a). The holy Ghost first; man second. That is God’s order. Wait There are many who claim to be members of the family of God, but what witness do they have of God? Paul said, "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body" (1Cor. 12:13). There are multitudes who claim to be ordained of God to minister in the name of Jesus, but what witness has God given of their claim? Jesus predicted the rise of false apostles claiming to come in his name (Mt. 24:4-5), and Paul and John saw the Lord’s prediction begin to come true (2Cor. 11:13; 1Jn. 4:1 and 2:19). Two witnesses. Remember it. Men are born with their witness, their own tongue, but child of God, always wait for the second witness before you believe any man’s testimony. Young sister in Christ, do not marry that young man until your heavenly Father bears witness that he is washed in the blood. Do not trust the Christian minister who approves of that marriage. The lovely ceremony that he will conduct is just another form of an earthly witness. It carries no weight in heaven, and it grieves the heart of saints who know the truth. Wait on God! Wait for His witness in all things. Nothing is sure until God’s witness is given. Men claim much, but only God’s voice can be trusted.
Thought for Today 2004. 05-14 Two Unities ". . . till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God . . ." The children of God are divided among the different sects of Christianity. Some support Church of God doctrine; some support Assembly of God doctrine; others, the Apostolic sect’s doctrine; others, Catholic doctrine; others, Baptist doctrine, and so forth. The list of differing, conflicting doctrines that God’s children endorse is extremely long. How far-off seems the "unity in the faith" to which Paul hoped the saints of God would come. It seems like dream almost lost to memory. The divisions of faith among God’s people are many, and the differences between those many doctrines are enormous. It appears hopeless that the body of Christ will ever be united and "see eye to eye" concerning the truth of Christ, but that unity will be realized. At some point in the future, God will unite His people in the faith. God can do it. It may take much suffering, great persecution, and earth-shattering catastrophes, but it will be accomplished. In the meantime, until God does cleanse the body of Christ of its ignorance and self-will, we are all commanded to partake of another kind of holy unity: "the unity of the Spirit". You can feel it whenever you meet someone who truly believes in Christ. The Spirit of God bears witness with your spirit that you have met someone who belongs in the family. The love you feel for such a person, the kinship of hope, is a spiritual unity that transcends all doctrinal differences. We need not "speak the same thing" in order to experience that unity; it is a unity of faith in the same God, a harmony that is there, no matter what one has been taught. Paul exhorted the saints in Ephesus to "endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit" until "we all come in the unity of the faith" (Eph. 4:3, 13). If we only allow ourselves to feel and show love toward those who are taught the same doctrine that we have been taught, we are very far from the heart of God. He loves all His children, and is not willing that any of them be lonely or lost. His feelings of kinship with all His children must become ours. We may not be able to teach the brothers and sisters we meet the wonderful truth that Jesus has taught us, but we can love them with the same love with which Jesus has loved us. We may not agree with their words, but we can be happy for everything that God has done for them. Their doctrine may be wrong, and we may not want to hear it, but their experiences with Jesus are always perfect, and we should encourage them to talk about them. The best, if not only way to love most of God’s people is simply to let them talk about what God has done in their lives. With many of His own children, God only has "the unity of the Spirit". They do not know His voice; they do not understand His word. They do know, however, how it feels for the holy Ghost to fall upon them, and that is the only kind of fellowship that their heavenly Father has with them. That may be the only kind of fellowship we can have with them, too, but if that is all they can bear, then let us give it to them with all our hearts. That is what God does, and so, that is what we must do. Jesus said that he only did what he saw the Father do (Jn. 5:19), and that is our example.
Thought for Today 2004. 05-13 Two Simple Commandments "Cease to do evil; learn to do well." Isaiah 1:16b-17a From these few words God said through Isaiah, and from what He did not say, we can learn valuable spiritual lessons. There is a reason that God did not say, "Learn to cease from evil, and do well." Do you see the difference between what God said and what He did not say? God commanded us to do what He knew we could do (if we want to do what is right), and He refrained from commanding us to do the impossible. "Ceasing from sin" can be done right now, immediately, and is done immediately by everyone who is sincere in faith and repentance. Sin is not something that one has to learn to stop doing; a sinner can cease from sin this moment if he hears the word of God and believes it. That is why God commanded the sinners from among His people to "cease from sin!" He knew they could quit sinning if they wanted to. When God commands a man to stop doing evil, He is revealing to that man that he has the power to do it. The next part of God’s command was "Learn to do well." This teaches us that godly living must be learned, and that is why it is so important that young believers be taught the truth of Christ instead of doctrines voted on by some Christian sect. Nobody knows God when he or she is first born of the Spirit. The Spirit enters into us so that we can come to know God, not because we already know Him. It enters into our hearts to guide us into all truth, not to reward us for our knowledge of the truth. New believers must grow in the knowledge of God, and they will grow in that knowledge if they are taught the truth; otherwise, they will only grow in the knowledge of the leaders of that particular sect. So, the words of God through Isaiah reveal two simple truths. First, when a person hears God’s word and believes it, he can cease from sin immediately. "Ceasing from sin" is what true repentance is, and that is what God commands all sinners everywhere to do (Acts 17:30). Secondly, righteousness must be learned. The knowledge of what is good and what is evil is attained to only by those who have matured in Christ (Heb. 5:13-14). New converts to Christ know only to a small extent what is good and what is evil because they do not yet know their heavenly Father. In sum, these are the two simple commandments God gave us through Isaiah: 1. If you are doing evil, stop doing it–now! Don’t make excuses. You can quit doing evil any time you want to. 2. If you would live righteously, you will have to make an effort to learn how, and you will have to pray for wisdom. Nobody starts out with the knowledge of God. These are the commandments of God. Do not trust any man or any spirit that tells you that you cannot keep them both, with joy.
Thought for Today 2004. 05-10 Matthew 16:13-19, Part Three "The Gates of Hell" ". . . upon this rock I will build my congregation, and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." When there are legal matters to pursue, civil or criminal trials, lawsuits, or other such matters, we in this country usually must go to a courthouse. That is where "court" is held, for it is there that judges and juries hear cases brought before them and make legal judgments. Ancient Israel, along with other ancient cultures, most often held their court proceedings at the gates of their cities. At the gate of a city, the elders of that city would gather and deal with legal issues. They would hear complaints of one citizen against another and make decisions that required wisdom and discernment, and their judgments held legal and moral weight. For this reason, only the most experienced and knowledgeable elders sat at the gate of the city, and it was considered an honor to be counted among them. Suffering Job wept when he remembered bygone days when he sat among the judges in the gate of his city and was honored even by judges older than he. His decisions were so full of wisdom and righteousness that after he spoke, no one else had anything to say. Even the princes, Job remembered, would keep silent after he had rendered his judgment in a matter. But there were also dishonest judges who sat in some gates. There is an abundance of evidence in the Old Testament that princes and elders who sat in some city gates were not always dispensers of justice and that the system was sometimes used by wicked men to accomplish cruel designs. Such men hated godly elders who could not be bought, judges who rebuked evil-doers in the gates. Wrote Amos, "they abhor him that speaketh uprightly" (Amos 5:10). When the Israelites had turned from the Law, God’s prophets called upon them to repent, and part of that repentance demanded by God was that Israel had to re-establish justice in their gates (Amos 5:15). The Gates, Not Hell Itself It is a popular phrase among ignorant and superstitious people to say that "demons of Hell" have done this or that evil thing. But there are no demons from Hell. Demons are on earth and have never been to Hell. In fact, there are no people from Hell, either. Everybody who is condemned by God and cast into Hell stays in there. This is what makes Jesus’ reference to "the Gates of Hell" significant. Jesus said in Matthew 16 that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against the congregation that is in fellowship with God. He did not say "Hell shall not prevail against it", but "the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." Hell can prevail against nothing; it is irrelevant to life on earth because it has no influence here among the living. Gates to Hell. There are places among men through which many are led cheerfully into Hell. These are highly esteemed places where respected leaders pronounce weighty judgments that are wrong, and where the laws of God are misapplied and misinterpreted. The Gates of Hell are the places where lies are told as if they were from God. They are places to which people go who want to know God, but who are instead directed by the elders of those gates away from the light of God and toward the very Hell they are seeking to avoid. The "Gates of Hell" are "Gates to Hell". These "Gates to Hell" are Christian churches, where people gather to hear men proclaim the truths of God, but their words are not of God. Today, the greatest stumbling block to people who are searching for God is the religion of Christianity, with its pretty buildings, its lofty creeds, its pompous titles, and its dazzling ceremonies. When one has been persuaded by the elders of any Christian sect to enter into that sect, when anyone becomes a member of any sect in the religion of Christianity, he has entered into one of the Gates of Hell. The gate into Catholicism is one of the "Gates of Hell". The gate into Methodism is another, and the gate leading into Pentecostalism is still another. There are many such Christian gates, and none of them is a gate to heaven. They all are gates into Hell. There are many unacceptable methods of serving God, many false doctrines, many man-made organizations that call themselves churches. That is why Jesus spoke of "gates" of Hell instead of only one "gate" of Hell. Unity in the Gates The ministers who sit in Christianity’s gates cannot agree with each other concerning the laws of God. They make different judgments and interpret the words of Jesus in different ways. That is why they sit in different gates. They teach doctrines contrary to each other. Some feel that some truth can be found at virtually all the gates of Christianity, while others teach that theirs is the only gate of right judgment and teaching. Some perform ceremonies that others do not recognize as legitimate. Catholic elders, for example, would judge a Pentecostal minister as unqualified to sit in their gates and teach their people. Christians have historically held to many different traditions, and have at times fought and killed one another over their traditions and doctrines. The only thing that unites all the judges in all of Christianity’s gates is their opposition to the truth of Christ. They cannot agree among themselves as to what is right, but they all agree that the Truth we preach is not from God. Even if they all gather together in opposition to the congregation that hears the Word of God, however, they cannot prevail! Jesus said so. Solomon said, "though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished." The meaning of these words is that it makes no difference to God what men say about anything, or how many men say it. If everybody on earth joined hands and voted to believe a particular doctrine, that unity would not make that doctrine true. If at the gates of every Christian sect on earth, all the judges somehow managed to agree that the experience of speaking in tongues no longer exists, God would not be intimidated or confused. As He said to me during one frightening visitation some years ago, "What difference does it make what men say about anything? Am I confused by your delusions?" What Do You Say? What God says brings to nothing everything said by anybody else. God said through Paul that we become members of the body of Christ by being baptized by the holy Ghost. The judges sitting in the Gates of Hell say that you can become a member of the family of God by joining one of their Christian churches. What do you say? And Jesus said that when a person receives the holy Ghost, the voice of the Spirit is always heard. Most of the elders sitting in the Gates of Hell say that the Spirit does not speak (in tongues) through people any more when it comes in. What do you say? Jesus said, "He who shall endure to the end shall be saved." Many of the "wise men" sitting in the Gates of Hell claim they are already saved, and they tell people who come to their gates that if they will just perform a certain ceremony, then they will be already saved, too. What do you say? Paul said that in Christ, there are no longer any Sabbaths, nor any other holy days. Judges sitting in the Gates of Hell teach that Sunday, or sometimes Saturday, is a holy day, along with others. What do you say? Jesus and Paul taught that the communion of the saints is spiritual. The elders who sit in the Gates of Hell say that if they give you a little piece of bread and a little wine, then you are holding communion with the God of heaven and earth. What do you say? Before you answer, let me remind you that it doesn’t make any difference what we say about anything unless God has sent you to say it. We do not have authority in ourselves to say anything. That is what makes it a sin for Christianity’s teachers, those who sit in high seats at the Gates of Hell, to speak the things they speak. It is a sin for Christian ministers to stand before congregations and deliver sermons that God has not sent them to deliver. They have no authority from God to speak who have not heard the voice of Jesus. And that is, in the final analysis, the very thing that makes Christian churches the Gates of Hell. Christian ministers have been ordained by men to minister, not by God. They cannot judge rightly because they have not been judged by God. They cannot speak the truth because they have not been spoken to by the Spirit. If they spoke the truth, they would be demoted and refused a seat among the honored elders at one of the Gates of Hell, and they know it. They teach what they have been trained by others to teach, and they are all wrong. The Gates of Hell have an impressive look. They carry much weight among men. The best way for the few who love the truth to deal with such an impressive-looking opponent is not to look at him at all. The safest way to deal with Christianity is to ignore it and to "look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." The congregation that is impressed with Jesus and loves what comes from God cannot be overwhelmed by anything, even the highly esteemed Gates of Hell. Jesus said "that which is highly esteemed by men is abomination in the sight of God." What impresses me is not the exalted claims of highly esteemed ministers sitting at the gates of Christianity, but the unshakable Word of God. The Gates of Hell, crowded with "wise and prudent" men as they may be, cannot prevail against God’s family when that family believes and is nurtured by the Word of God.
Thought for Today 2004. 05-04 In My Name When asked in secret by the three disciples closest to him what would be the sign that the end of time was approaching, Jesus replied, "Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, ‘I am Christ’, and shall deceive many" (Mt. 24:4-5). This warning of many coming in his name was the first thing Jesus said to look for, when asked of the signs of the end. The word "Christ" means "anointed by God", and the claim to be anointed by God to speak for Christ is exactly what we see in the religion of Christianity. Ministers of every doctrinal persuasion claim to be anointed and ordained by God to proclaim their doctrines, even though their doctrines differ greatly from each other. Has God anointed and sent men to teach conflicting doctrines about Him? Impossible! At the most, only one of Christianity’s hundreds of churches can be the right one, proclaiming the true gospel; in truth, none of them are. The phrase that Christ Jesus used, "in my name", means "Christian". When you hear someone claim to be a Christian, he is coming to you in the name of Christ. There are many such people, and the number is constantly growing. If you take no heed to this warning from Jesus to be wary of the spirit of "Christ"-ianity, you are already a victim of the deception that Jesus said would be so cleverly designed and disguised that "if it were possible, the very elect would be deceived."
Thought for Today 2004. 04-30 Glorified Bodies From a sermon at Grandma’s farmhouse by Preacher Clark in mid-May, 1975. Glorified bodies will never die, never grow old, never feel pain, never be diseased, never feel tired, never hunger or thirst, or suffer from heat or cold. One who attains to the salvation of God and receives a glorified body will always be strong and healthy and full of life. Who in his right mind would not want such a wondrous gift from God? Yet billions of people today are living as though this offer from God in Christ Jesus does not matter to them at all. Glorified bodies are the "mansions" that Jesus said are in his Father’s house (Jn. 14: 2). These mansions that Jesus has prepared for us are not fancy dwellings of brick or stone. They are our eternal, bright bodies, made of a spiritual substance not known to man. Paul called those glorified bodies "houses not made with hands", adding that they are in heaven waiting for those to whom they are promised (2Cor. 5:1-4). Our natural bodies are locked into their shape and size. Jesus said that no man has in himself the power to change his height or to change one of the hairs of his head from black to white. Neither can any man, under his own power, vanish and re-appear in another place. These mortal bodies are bound by time and space. Apparently, however, such is not the case with spiritual bodies. Angels, for example, have the power to appear to men and then disappear as they go about their appointed duties of ministering to the saints on earth. A glorified body, however, is more than merely a spiritual body, such as the angels have. A glorified body is the kind of body Jesus has now. It is the kind of body that is promised to the children of God who are faithful to Him until the end of the way (Phip. 3:21). A glorified body is the kind of spiritual body that is given to those who once had a corruptible, physical body. Glorification of the body is a changing of the natural body into a spiritual body by covering it with the glory of God. Angels have never had but one kind of body; therefore, we cannot call their bodies "glorified". Their bodies have never been elevated from a lower level to where they are now. But Jesus spent time in a natural, fleshly body. After his death and burial, he was raised up by the power of God from the grave, taken into heaven, and his resurrected, fleshly body was "glorified". His body of flesh was elevated by the power of God to an eternal, glorious, heavenly level of existence. From the information given in the Bible, it appears that Jesus’ glorified body isn’t bound to a certain shape and size as earthly, natural bodies are. Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus in such a bright form that Paul could not even look up at him (Acts 26:13-14). Jesus appeared before the throne of God the Father in the form of a lamb that had been slaughtered (Rev. 5:6). When he returns to earth, Jesus will show himself to the people alive at that time in the human form that he took while here on earth, complete with nail-scarred hands (Rev. 1:7; Zech. 13:6). And the glorified Jesus showed himself to John in his glorified form, radiant in glory and covered with beauty and grace (Rev. 1:13-16). John described the sight: "And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and with a golden sash across his chest. And his head and his hairs were like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire. And his feet were like unto burnished bronze, as if burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he held in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword. And his face was as the sun shining in his strength." Paul said that we have known Christ after the flesh (2Cor. 5:16); that is, men knew Jesus when he had natural body. Men once knew him as a Jew, as one born under the Law, as one born in Bethlehem and reared in Nazareth. He could be seen and touched, spoken to and heard from, fed and helped, or abused and killed. Paul then went on to say that those who know Jesus now must know him as he is, not as he was. We no longer can know Jesus "after the flesh", but only in spirit. He can no longer be helped or hurt. He can no longer be confined. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, whose eyes behold every good and evil thing. He is sitting at the right hand of the Father, and he is near the bedside of a suffering child. He is the king of angels who keeps the universe intact by his will and power. Rulers and nations of earth are raised up and cast down by his power. "All power in heaven and earth", Jesus said, "is given unto me." If we hope to reign with Jesus in a glorified body like the one he has, then we must live as he lived while in the flesh. He showed us the way, and, through him, we know the wonderful results of obedience. Multitudes claim to want to live forever, but if our heart’s desire truly is to live forever with Jesus the Lord, then we will live righteously while we live here on earth. There is no other road that will take us into the presence of God, and every sincere heart understands that. If we really desire glorified bodies that can never know pain or disappointment, our works demonstrate it. We ask God for a glorified body by living a clean and holy life, as Jesus did. We seek for an eternal home by keeping God’s commandments. We knock on the door that leads to eternal peace with God with our deeds. Paul wrote that it is "by patient continuance in well doing" that we "seek for glory, and honor, and immortality" (Rom. 2:7), and it is in this vein that Jesus warned us that "In your patience possess ye your souls." Patiently continue to do good, and one day we will meet in a land of no sorrow, in ageless bodies that never will know sorrow.
Thought for Today 2004. 04-29 Yielding to the Spirit From a testimony by Sister Amy Pittman at Pastor John’s House, 4-28-04. When the time comes for God’s children to die, it will not be a giving in to death; it will be a giving in to Jesus. It will not be as if God’s frightened children have been desperately running from death but were finally caught by it, conquered, and killed. It will be a surrendering to the loving arms of Jesus. In the way of righteousness, we are told, "There is no death" (Prov. 12:28). And Jesus promised that those who believe in him will never die (Jn. 11:26). The death of one of God’s saints is precious in His sight (Ps. 116:15), most likely because it is just another example of one of His children trusting and obeying Him. Dying, for a saint of God, is another way of yielding to the Spirit. When you lift your hands and praise God, you are yielding to the Spirit. When you let your tongue be used by God to sing or to speak in tongues, you are yielding to the Spirit. When you choose to do good instead of evil, you are yielding to the Spirit. When you deny yourself and help another to bear a heavy burden, you are yielding to the Spirit. When you roll across the floor under the power of God, or dance before the Lord with all your might, or even when you are healed, you are yielding to the Spirit. Dying, for an humble, obedient child of God, will only be another way of yielding to the Spirit. When you yield to God now, while you are living, you are preparing to yield to God later, when you die.
Thought for Today 2004. 04-26 Digging Up Evil From a conversation with Sister Natalie Embry. Solomon said, "An evil man diggeth up evil with his lips." That is, an evil person speaks of errors in our past that Jesus has washed away from our souls and from our heavenly record in God’s Book. In a conversation not long ago, Sister Natalie told me, "People can dig up that old girl, but they can’t give her life. I’m alive forevermore!" How good was that comment to my heart! If we all will think like Sister Natalie, nothing that is brought up from our sinful past will discourage us. Paul said, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature". Paul considered the person he once was to be a dead man, and himself now to be a new man, given a new start in life by Jesus. For sure, people brought up the sins that Paul once committed, but they had no power to make him live that way again. Remember this lesson, my dear friend. People may talk about the life you once lived, but they have no power to make you live that way again. In Christ, you–the person Jesus has made you–are alive forevermore! Many who knew you while you were in sin will not be content to let that old person rest in peace in God’s graveyard. They will keep trying to dig up with their tongues that old man. But no matter what they say, they cannot make that dead man live again. So ignore them, and be encouraged in the Christ who has set you free. When they surrender to his love, they will be glad you stayed happy. Jesus has promised you eternal life on a new earth, where there will be no evil people digging with their tongues among the tombs for a person who no more exists.
Thought for Today 2004. 04-25 Under a Spell An ancient Greek philosopher once said, "Whatever deceives bewitches." This is a true statement. All lies originally sprang from an evil spirit named Lucifer, and whenever we believe a lie, we are brought under the power of the evil spirit from which that lie came. Receiving a lie into your heart is tantamount to having a "spell" cast over your life. Some lies are greater than others, of course, and so, they will have a greater influence on those who believe them, but all lies have at least some power to influence thoughts and direct choices. Lies bring into bondage those who believe them. This is why Jesus promised that the truth, not the new birth, would set us free. People are born of the Spirit of God because they believe in Jesus and repent, not because they know God or know the truth of the gospel. People from many Christian doctrinal persuasions may be washed from their sins by receiving the holy Ghost. People in all kinds of Christian sects have received the holy Ghost baptism when they repented of their sins in the name of Jesus. In spite of that fact, many of these same precious children of God somehow assume that they received the holy Ghost because of the particular sect to which they belong. That can’t possibly be case. If that were true, only the people of that sect would receive the Spirit. Some Baptists have received the holy Ghost baptism, as well as some Lutherans, some Catholics, and some others, besides traditional Pentecostal sects. Isn’t it obvious, then, that those humble Baptists did not receive the holy Ghost because they believed Baptist doctrine, and that those humble Catholics did not receive the holy Ghost because they believed Catholic doctrines? No, they received the holy Ghost because they sought and obeyed Jesus, and if they continue to obey him, Jesus will guide them into truth that will lead them out of both those sects as well as out of the religion of Christianity itself. We receive the holy Ghost through faith, my dear friend, not through knowledge. Most of God’s children on earth are not free today because they do not yet know the truth, and they will never know it if they demand that whatever God shows them must fit into the confines of what they already believe is true. He does not want to be, but our heavenly Father is a mystery to most of His own children. He wants to be close to us and wants us to be close to one another. Neither of these two things will ever come to pass, however, unless we all abandon Christianity so that we can know Christ. We are divided because of the doctrines of Christianity that we have received. We will be united only when we escape the white-washed walls of the Christian religion and learn to be taught by the Spirit. "Whatever deceives bewitches", yes. But "the truth shall make you free." Which way will you go today? The divisive way of Christianity or the healing, uniting way of the Spirit of Christ?
Thought for Today 2004. 04-21 On the Nature Of a True Pastor This is Part Two of a Broadcaster, a newsletter written after the death of our Pastor, George C. Clark, on April 20th, 1989. Part One is the Thought For Today for 4-20. Because they are within the walls of Christianity, most of God’s sheep are right now wandering, as it were, on the hills, having no true shepherd. From place to place they go, looking for something they can’t express, but what it really is, is a home, with a shepherd to whom they really belong, who really loves and cares for them as his own. Christianity’s system of hiring and firing ministers, and shuffling them around, cannot provide this love. "He that is an hireling," said Jesus, "and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep" (Jn. 10:12-13). In the mid 1950's, there was a very violent strike at the cotton mill in my hometown of Henderson, NC. I can remember as a child watching Walter Cronkite reporting it on the CBS Evening News. Because many people were out of work at that time, they didn’t have much to give by way of tithe and offering. I later heard that some Christian pastors had left town because contributions were so few. I do not say that those ministers left town because they were evil. I say they left town because they were hired, and the pay was not good enough. Being a pastor was what they DID; it was not what they WERE. It was their job, not their life. "Ye are in our hearts", wrote Paul to the saints at Corinth, "to die and to live with you." "The good shepherd", said Jesus, "giveth his life for the sheep." A pastor from God could never desert his flock because they could not pay him enough money. He would get a job and stay with his sheep before he would move away, looking for more money, if God has really brought the two together, pastor and congregation. The "hireling system" of Christianity knows nothing of this depth of love and commitment. You know as well as I, that a larger congregation that pays more money is what really inspires many a Christian minister to leave one congregation and go somewhere else. It happens often, and it happens because in Christianity ministers are hired to take care of a flock. The sheep are not really his from God. I have seen the evil of the hireling system. I have seen young saints forsaken by the man who led them to Christ because he heard the "call" to a more attractive or higher paying ministerial position. I have hurt for those young saints. They knew in their hearts that something was wrong with this. How could their shepherd simply leave them? Something in their hearts told them it was wrong, but what could they do? Adding to the confusion is that sometimes these same young believers are appointed to a committee responsible for choosing their next pastor! Talk about utter confusion! How can young, confused, and hurting, lambs be expected to plumb the depths of spiritual mysteries and chose a man who is able to lead them in righteousness? In other words, the sheep are called upon to discern who is more discerning than they are. And, as I said before, if a congregation is wise enough to be able to select its own pastor, it doesn’t need one. Because the hireling system is so ingrained into the Christian system, and because God’s people are so entangled with Christianity, God’s people can hardly believe that any other way will work. This is not a new problem. Old Testament Israel also considered God’s way of government unreliable. They preferred a system like that of other nations who did not know God; they wanted a human king (1Sam. 8). They demanded something dependable, constant, and organized, as if God was not dependable, constant, and organized! The prophet Samuel begged them to desist from their demand for a king, and when they would not, he wept and prayed to the Lord. The Lord wondered why Samuel was grieved. "They have not rejected thee", the Lord told Samuel, "but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them." Samuel’s position as God’s prophet was secure; it was God who was being fired. The body of Christ has done the same thing. It has fired God and adopted the ways of Christianity instead. Israel rejected God by rejecting His way of raising up leaders for his people, and the body of Christ has rejected God by doing the same. Preposterous, do you say? I say take a look around you. Look at the hundreds, even thousands, of Christian sects that God’s people have joined, large and small, which call themselves after the name of Christ, who died to make us one, and then tell me that God’s way has not been forsaken by the body of Christ. Tell me God’s heart is not broken. Take a good, long look at the mass confusion that God’s children are a part of, and then tell me that God planned this confusion, that Jesus suffered and died so that we could be the divided, hurting people that we are. We’ve grown accustomed to the plague. In the main, confusion reigns in the spirits of God’s sheep. They don't know where to go. They don’t even know (they’re not told) that such a reality as having a pastor for life, given by God, exists. And, despite their hunger, it is virtually impossible for them to believe that such a thing could even exist. There are sheep wandering from one dry place to another in this part of the world, sheep that Jesus used me to bring to him. I have known for years that I am their pastor, but they do not know it. In time, I pray, they will realize it, but until they do, I suffer with them through their wandering from one "high place" to another. And all the while, green pastures await them at home, the same green pastures which Israel, in her desire to be like those without the truth, forsook. George Clark wasn't elected to his post. He was appointed to it by God. And the Lord sent him sheep, for whom he was responsible to God until death. Even as he lay dying, his flock would come to him for strength, and because he was a pastor, even in death he did not disappoint them. Because he was given to us by God, God continued to honor Himself by enabling His servant to minister to us until the end. And now, the mantle has fallen upon me. I know my sheep, and I know that someday I will give account to the One to whom they really belong. I pray that I may do so with joy, not with grief, but time alone will tell. On the night of our Passover prayer meeting (see the TFT for 4-20), brother Glen Bartow remarked, "How few people in all the history of the family of God, as we know it, have really experienced what we have had, in really having a pastor from God. And now, we are experiencing something even more rare, perhaps, than that: the transfer of authority over the flock from one man of God to another." Yes, Glen, ours has truly been a sacred experience, a mystery of faith and love. I ask you, our fellow servants and friends, to pray for us, and for all saints, that we might know Him, and grow in all goodness, being full of the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ the Lord.
Thought for Today 2004. 04-20 On the Death Of a True Pastor Monday afternoon, April 17, 1989, my brother called to tell me that our father had taken a turn for the worse, and when I arrived in our hometown later that evening, it was clear that he had done so. I knew that, in all likelihood, there would be a funeral within a few days. Still, in his extreme weakness, the presence of the anointing of God was so rich that it captivated the saints who visited him. One elderly saint told of his visit. "When I had been there a while", he said, "I asked Preacher Clark if he wanted me to leave now, and he shook his head, ‘No’. So, I sat down again, and the love of God came into that room so strong that I could not move. I was paralyzed by the love of God." Tuesday evening, brothers Earl Pittman, Jim Gregory, Sammy Puckett, and I gathered in my father’s little room and experienced a heavy, settling measure of the Spirit of God. We spoke of things pertaining to the Kingdom of God as my father lay on his bed listening. When I remember those sacred scenes, I remember the room as having a sweet glow, and I feel again the great joy with which God was carrying us through what would otherwise have been an unbearable experience. I am still in awe of God’s power to comfort, even to encourage hearts that are laboring most heavily with sorrow and despair. I felt as if I were being borne up in the arms of Jesus, where there is no despair, no frustrations, and no complaints. There is only faith, and deep, deep joy. Weeks before my father’s leaving us, as it was apparent that the time was drawing near, I had feelings of despair. "O God," I thought, "what a grievous loss to the congregation this will be! How can I ever possibly communicate to people what we all will be losing? So few really appreciate the depth of his wisdom in Christ, the depth of his love for people, the child-likeness of his soaring faith, the gifts of healing, miracles, prophecy, tongues and interpretation, discerning of spirits, which have manifested themselves through him for the congregation’s sake for so long? O God, who will ever know who this man is, or what he meant to the congregation as a whole?" There was such a frustration and fear in my heart. My mind was worried. Who would ever know, or care? I cannot tell when those heavy feelings left, precisely. All I can tell you is that sometime during the next several weeks, my heart was filled with a faith I’d never known. It was, and I’ll say it again, as if I were being carried, spiritually picked up and carried, far above the shadows of this world’s sorrow, far beyond the reach of Solomon’s "vexation of spirit." I was lost in the love of God, unable to fret about tomorrow, for joy that I was in Christ today. Life is bright, above the shadows. There is no death, above the shadows. From the heart’s store of treasured thoughts, an old song comes to mind just now. Some of the words are these: Lift me up above the shadows, for the storms are raging high! Lift me up, my blessed Savior, let me to thy bosom fly. There no evil thing can touch me, over on the shining side.Lift me up above the shadows, let me ever more abide! Lift me up above the shadows, out of sorrow, into joy! Lift me up above my grief, Lord, give me gold for my alloy. Then, when death must claim my spirit and the storms of life are past, Lift me up above the shadows, till in heaven I stand at last. Wednesday, the 19th of April, a dear Sister Mary, herself young but soon to die, called my wife Barbara, asking what was going on with my father. "He’s been on my mind all day," she said. Also, she had just been made aware of the fact that the Passover would begin at sundown that day, and she felt very impressed that this Passover would hold special meaning for Preacher Clark. It would be his own personal "passing over" into the presence of Jesus. That evening, our little congregation gathered for a prayer meeting, where, I must say, the grace of God was upon me in a mighty way, and I exhorted the assembly with a boldness of faith and joy only God can give. After this, however, a strange and wonderful thing happened. I discerned as we sat there, hearing testimonies and a few songs, that the Lord was finished with this meeting, yet not nearly enough time had passed for us to have had a regular meeting. I sat there, waiting on the Lord, wanting to know what to do, but not knowing. Sister Betty Pittman then sang a song she sings so well, "Going Home". And when she had finished, the Spirit of the Lord let me know exactly why I had felt that the meeting was over that night. I addressed the congregation. "We do not do well to sit here," I said, "while my father [our pastor] lies over there at the nursing home alone. He needs us over there more than we need each other here." My brother and Sister Betty, both nurses, went ahead of us, and when the congregation arrived, my father had been placed in a recliner, very weak, but aware that we had come. We took him into the dining area, where we sang for him, and without having to say it, we knew what we were really doing there: with thankfulness to God for having been nurtured in the way of Jesus by him, we were relinquishing him now to God. Yes, there were tears. His dear sister, Aunt "Onie" sat by his side, holding his hand, weeping, touched with the sanctity of the work God was doing before our eyes. We sang again the song, "Going Home", and my heart melted with grief that the time had come. Earlier in the week, my father, languishing and tired of this life, had shaken his head slowly and said to me, "If it was just over." I had told him then, "It won't be long", and those words seemed to have comforted him. Now, the time had actually come, and if the grace of God had not been so abundantly poured out upon us, we would have been swallowed up with grief. As it was, we felt a wholeness, the completion of a matter. As Aunt Onie said, smiling through her tear-stained eyes as she left, "Everything’s alright. It’s finished." After everyone had gone home, and my father was helped into his bed for what would be the last time, I decided that I should stay with him that night. My father did not like to be alone, and I felt impressed to spend this Passover night with him. That is one decision I will never regret. I held his listless hand much of the night, doing what I could to let him know that he was not alone now, until at last I fell asleep in my chair. And when, about 6 a.m., a nurse woke me to let me know there had been a definite change in his breathing and heartbeat, I knew it was time. First, I went to phone my brother, who had been working all night in the emergency room of the local hospital, and then I went to my father’s bedside and took his withered hand into my own. "Well, daddy", I said, "It looks as if today’s going to be your graduation day. I believe you’ll be going home to be with Jesus today." Despite saying this, I didn’t know how quickly he would be gone. By 8:30, it would be over. I called some of the congregation, some relatives, and of course Barbara, my wife, who was still at our home, over two hours away in Lexington, N.C. She woke the children and dressed quickly, but wasn’t able to make the trip in time to be with him when the angels came. Those who were there witnessed the peace and power of the scene. Uncle Joe, whose only pastor in his 73 years had been Preacher Clark, was there. Brother Earl and his wife Betty, both of whom had been led to Jesus by him, were there, and a few others. As I sat beside him, I gently rubbed his tired hand and said, "Daddy, these old hands are growing cold and dark. You can look for the angels at any time now." The minutes passed, and as his breathing became more erratic and his blood-pressure dropped, I thought of how much he must surely be wanting it all to be finished, and of how the flesh, even at this point, was still warring against the spirit. "Isn’t it something," I whispered in his ear, "how this old flesh just doesn’t want to give up?" His little, affirmative nod to this comment was the last response he showed to anything except for opening his eyes to look for Brother Earl to come in the door a few minutes later. Just minutes before he peacefully fell asleep in Jesus, my brother sat on the bed and held one hand, while I held his other one, and we sang one of the old songs, "Heaven Holds All to Me." Some of the words are: Out on the hills of that wonderful country, happy, contented, and free, Loved ones are waiting and watching my coming. Heaven holds all to me. I thought of my mother and grandmother, both of whom I had stood beside as they, too, had peacefully fallen asleep. Now, my father was yielding, after 88 healthy years, as they had yielded, to the gentle arms of Jesus. How many times he had mentioned saints of years long past, whom he had known as a young minister early in the is century. I can see him now, with a far away look in his eyes, talking of them. "Just think", I can hear him say, "whole congregations I've pastored, and every one of them gone on!" Now, as we watched him breathe his last, long breaths, we knew he could be counted in that number. One of the very most meaningful truths which my father taught those who listened to him was that being a pastor was exactly that: BEING a pastor. Being a pastor is not something one DOES; rather, it is something one IS, if indeed one is a pastor anointed by God. The present system in Christianity of selecting or voting on pastors is anti-Christ in its very nature. If a congregation or board of deacons or elders were wise enough to chose for themselves a pastor, they wouldn’t need one. By his Spirit, God gives certain pastors to certain people, and it is a life-time responsibility. George Clark was our pastor until the moment he left this earth. Without even trying, and to the end, he was still instructing us in the way of the Lord, still disciplining us to trust in His mercy, still teaching us, by example, that God is faithful. If a man is a pastor sent by God, he cannot retire, any more than Israel’s High Priest could retire. A pastor is a gift from God, not to be refused if one would grow in the grace and knowledge of God.
Thought for Today 2004. 04-06 Righteousness God is a righteous God (Ex. 9:7), and because God is eternal, righteousness is eternal (Isa. 51:6, 8). There is no such thing as "death" for a righteous life (Prov. 12:10). Every act God performs is a righteous act (1Sam. 12:7), and the Law that came from Him to Israel was a righteous Law (Dt. 4:8). The righteousness of God is fully revealed in the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:17). The measure of true righteousness is Jesus himself; he is the standard by which all claims of righteousness are to be measured. Those who are truly righteous live the kind of life that Jesus lived (1Jn. 3:7). As there are degrees of wickedness, so there are degrees of righteousness (Ezek. 16:52). In other words, some people are more like God than others. The young shepherd David was more righteous than Israel’s King Saul (1Sam. 24:17); Tamar was more righteous than Judah (Gen. 38:26); King Ish-bosheth was more righteous than the two soldiers who assassinated him (1Sam. 4:11); and Abner and Amasa were more righteous than Joab (1Kgs. 2:32. Unlike unrighteousness, which harms people, righteousness helps and blesses them (Job 35:8). The Character of the Righteous Those who are godly ("like God") are righteous, as He is, and God loves them (Ps. 146:8; 11:7; 33:5; 45:7). Among the many Biblical characters whom the Creator loved because they were righteous are: Abel (Mt. 23:35), Noah (Gen. 7:1), John the Baptist’s parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth (Lk. 1:6), Daniel and Job (Ezek. 14:14), and of course, Jesus, God’s beloved Son (1Jn. 2:1). If all people had been righteous, as these people were, God would never have given a Law to Moses (1Tim. 1:9), nor would He have sent Jesus to suffer for sins (Lk. 5:32). Both the Law and Jesus were sent to men because of their wickedness. God’s righteousness, once attained to, results in quietness and eternal assurance (Isa. 32:!7). It gives great peace (Ps. 85:10) and creates within a man such godly qualities as mercifulness and generosity (Ps. 37:21; Prov. 21:26; 29:7), which a man will then receive from God for himself (Hos. 10:12). It fills a man with compassion for the poor (Dt. 24:13), gives him zeal and saves him from laziness (Prov. 15:19), and makes him bold as a lion for what is right in the sight of God (Prov. 28:1). He is willing and able to judge people and events when it is needed (Ezek. 23:45). When wicked men are in control of the saints, wrong judgments are made, and the wisdom of the righteous is ignored (Hab. 1:4). Before Jesus returns to take up his bride to meet the Father, he will purge the body of Christ of such ungodly leaders, and the judgments of the righteous will be made known to God’s family (Mt. 23:40-43). Then, every situation and person in the body of Christ will be seen and judged through holy eyes. Righteous judgment is judgment that is without any respect of persons (Lev. 19:15). Righteousness within a man makes him despise any lie (Prov. 13:5). It makes all his thoughts right (Prov. 12:5), and since he has right thoughts, his words are guided by sound wisdom (Ps. 37:30; Prov. 10:11-21). This is the way Jesus commanded his followers to judge all matters (Jn. 7:24), but Christianity got in the way. Righteousness can be hidden by those who have received it (Ps. 40:10), but it is important that the righteous continue in righteousness and not hide it because of fear of man. Righteousness can be spoken, by both God (Isa. 45:19) or by people who are like God (Ps. 52:3; 71:15). When God anoints a man declare His gospel and that man does so faithfully, righteousness is what he will preach (Ps. 40:9 |