SERMONS - BIBLE TEACHING - SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY - REVELATION
His Will
November 5, 2023
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who were called into his family by his mercy and grace, humble yourselves into the understanding of where your salvation comes from. It's in Jesus, you say, and rightfully so, it is. But by whose will did you obtain it, or were called into it? Is it primarily and firstly by your will, or the will of God? Who called and loved you first? By the will of God - he called you first, because he loved you first. And that is why you also called upon his name, as you answered the call of the Lord Jesus. So, as you have him and if you have him, please do not attribute it to your will and claim that he is just your personal God, but rather understand first that you are his child. Ownership is such that first and mainly he owns you, not just that you own him. Understand that the involvement of your will in your salvation is that by faith and his grace you are now willing to turn over your will to him; you repented, and you let his will, with entrance of the Holy Ghost, abide and work in you. He opened your heart and entered. This work was done by the will and works of God. And this is therefore now a continuous work of faith in you. Keep it.
It takes faith to trust and to turn a will over to somebody else. And he - the Holy Spirit - does the rest of the work in you.
…no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
By trusting and believing in the Lord, Christ Jesus, you are surrendering your will to God, because that is his will, that you believe on his Son. And so, you are elected by the Father, justified in Christ Jesus, and sanctified through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit initiates your belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. They all do work in you. We are in the closed realm of the Holy Trinity! By the Father, in his Christ, and through the Holy Spirit.
Surrender to Jesus; believe on him as your Lord and Son of the living God who died for your sins so that you may live; call upon the name of the Lord Jesus!
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge:
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Fools despise instructions, they despise God's way, and they despise acknowledging God. They are rebellious. It is not that they just don't know; they do not want to know. They deny God. They use their free will, which God gave them, to deny him, the giver of their will, the giver of all things. And they say, How is it my own will if I have to obey his will? I am MYSELF; I can do whatever I want! Ah, my friends, but there is only one righteous will, and that's God's will. He gave free will to us, to be in perfect communion with him, willingly. If we take what was given in the first place by him (he is the giver of all, isn't he?), if we take the free will only for ourselves and to ourselves and disconnect it from him, we are destined to die spiritually. Because life is only in communion with God, in his presence. And he cannot have anything in his everlasting presence that is contrary to him, contrary to his holiness. There are no two holy wills, but one. God's will lives forever, and the others die. Everlasting life is in him, and only in him. He is the way, the truth, and the life. Again, your only good will is to willingly give up your will for his, and you shall enter into a perfect communion with God as sons of God. You become one in him, not equal to God, but in his body, the body of Christ.
So, what is your good will? In the end, it is to be in his will. That is where everlasting life is.
His ultimate will is that all would be saved. Do not use your "free" will to oppose that merciful will of his, who wills that all men be saved. But rather come unto the knowledge of the truth of God in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
The will of the Father is to be known by his Son, Christ Jesus, and to follow him. Other wills that are opposed to this will of the Father, are rebellions against God. Rebellion is compared to witchcraft, as recognizing other spiritual authorities contrary to God the Spirit.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
Do not think that so-called atheists are not spiritual. Their Mother Earth - what or who is she? A goddess, served and worshiped by many. She is like a spirit over the earth for those who call upon her name. Will she come when called? Is she real? I am for clean water and clean air, but turning it into a god? Men are spiritual, and so they worship in truth or in error, in the spirit of truth or in the spirit of error. They either worship the true God or some false gods. Some even worship the true God by his name but in their own imaginary ways, not according to the scripture of truth, the Bible. He is the Word, that is his name. Following him means to not reject the word of God, any of his truths, and be not offended by those truths, which are written in the word of God, our Bible. Do your ways, your understandings, and your will agree with the will of God, the word of God, and his truths?
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Brothers and sisters, do not be confused, and those who are called, do not be deceived; there is a wide way to destruction and a narrow way unto life everlasting.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Do not be offended by what our Lord Jesus calls the narrow way. Rather, meditate on it. Why is it narrow? Because it is a singular way - his way, the way. But how many mercies and blessings are laid out for you on the way to him? Thousands? Yes, countless. So, be comforted by that thought.
Do not be offended by his sayings; in the flesh., they may be hard to understand, but in the Spirit, they are light and life. And to whom shall you go? He has the words of eternal life.
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
And there are so many wide ways taught and practiced in churches today that it should make a true believer mourn. And many are being deceived, and the wicked ways are being promoted in daylight with the banners on church buildings.
Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life:
But you, the true believer, have patience and keep the faith.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
"I have kept the faith", Paul says. He kept it; praise the Lord. And Paul says, "I have," three times. Is it selfish "I"? No. It is his "I", but in the Lord's will.
This is not to say he kept it by the works of his flesh, but being in the Spirit, he kept it in heavenly places because the fight is up there. And you also keep the side of the Lord, after the Spirit kind, in Christ Jesus.
My brothers and sisters, keep the faith, that wonderful gift, that holy covenant, "amanah", that agreement with and by the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus, as by his grace through faith you were given it. Are you weak in the flesh, but keep after the Holy Spirit, and such he will strengthen you? Or, you think you are strong in your own spirit, deceiving yourself and telling yourself that you don't have to keep after God; you proudly are your own? Or that God is just this add-on to your being, sort of a great hobby? This is the spirit of error, and even the spirit of rebellion. You are either in agreement with God or in disagreement; you are either in his will or against his will; you are either beholding his face or turning away. You are either with him or without him. In heaven, it is not only being with him as a part of his heavenly assembly. Not only. Not only will you worship him before the throne of God, though that you will also do; not only being with him, (though isn't that lovely already!), but you shall also be in him, in his body, the body of Christ. We shall be like him (1 John 3:2).
Receive him into his will, being adapted as a good son.
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
To himself, it says. TO HIMSELF. And according to the good pleasure of his will. Oh, meditate on it. It is first about him and his will, and your will follows his, voluntarily, if you are his. Follow me, he says. And if it is so that you are adapted into his will to follow him, it is only as a good son. Not being independent of God, with your own so-called goodness, of which there is no goodness apart from God. Even that goodness that you seem to have on your own, comes from God, but you just do not thank him for it. Every good thing is from God.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
But there are two kinds of people. Those after the flesh and those after the Spirit of God. Those who just mind themselves and do for themselves apart from God, and those who are of the mind of Christ and follow him.
Those who just mind themselves, in their pride, tell themselves that it is their doing, their own and for their own self. And instead of thanking God and worshiping the merciful God, they "worship" themselves, telling themselves how good they are, in good or in evil. Because of their own will, they justify even bad as good, for they take it as being good for them.
But those after the Spirit and after the will of God are those who even struggling with their old flesh habits, pray to the Father, in the name of his Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit, to overcome their carnal ways and to follow his holy will, in thanksgiving and praising God for his mercies and blessings. What is it like to follow him? It is to have him in your "sight", not as he would be on the street to touch his garment, but to have him in your mind and on your mind - in your "mind sight". This is a spiritual seeing and spiritual "labor". Not a work of the flesh - making your brain faint for Jesus. But voluntarily, like a good son, not just a servant, your will is following after his will, which is to abide with you and in you, and you in him. Do not resist that will! Even after the sin, in the garden, the Lord God called unto Adam, Where are you? God called first. And for you also, his will is to "find" you. We say: Seek after God! But who told us that first? God did. He told us to seek him, and we answered. We agreed; thank God. And we find him in his anointed, Christ, the Son of the living God, our Lord Jesus, our Savior. And he is the only true Savior, and there is no other. And we call upon his name continually.
And if we profess to know him, we worship him continually, we pray continually, we trust him continually, and we thank him always.
When you pray to him, it is because he prayed for you first. He loved you first. You are returning to him what he did for you already. In thanksgiving, you speak the same, being in his will and abiding in holy agreement with him.
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Christ be in you, the hope of glory.
-By Lubomir
The Gift of God
November 12, 2023
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
My hearers, what is this gift of God, and how did one obtain it?
It may seem to you that you picked that gift, that you just decided that it was good for you, that you liked its appearance and good sayings about it, that you listened to its invitation to take that gift of salvation and made it your own, by your own free will.
But take heed in not seeing it just that way, that it was your own free will, and that God was just passively waiting for you to make that decision on your own, based on your own free will. Let me quote C. H. Spurgeon on so-called free will:
"Free will I have often heard of, but I have never seen it.
I have met with will, and plenty of it, but it has either been led captive by sin or held in blessed bonds of grace."
C. H. Spurgeon
There are two wills. Will to sin or will to turn to God. The will to turn to God is of God, not of man's will.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
You are born ("born again") not of your own free will but of the will of God.
So you can be captive by the will as of a sinful man or led by the will of a righteous God. Be thankful for his will and his love to show mercy upon your soul and to free you from that captivity of your sinful flesh. Out of a sleep, he awakened you, as you were dead, spiritually. He opened your heart unto his righteousness, and you believed unto salvation.
You believed because he opened your heart to receive him. It was his work in you, all work of God.
God himself brought it to you - that gift of salvation. Not only that he brought it to you at that appointed time, but he also prepared that gift from the foundation of the world, put your name on it, brought it to you, and prepared your heart to receive it. He opened your heart to receive it, as you were only dead, spiritually dead, but by God's grace, not of yourself, you obtained that gift, your salvation. By the work of the Holy Spirit, of his own will, he performed it as it was predestined from the foundation of the world. And your heart was regenerated to receive that gift of God, your salvation. Blessed be the God of mercies and grace.
in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Why is it this way that salvation is of God, the work of God, by the will of God, and not of the will of man? Is it fair? It is not fair to exclude completely the free will of man, some say. Not fair? Is the Almighty not fair? Would you like to give yourself some credit? That would not be full grace, would it. You may have believed unto salvation, yes, but it is according to God's will and the work of him in you, which initiates the faith in him. You cannot obtain it any other way. For by grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
He makes you, by opening your heart to him, hear and listen to his divine voice, because he knew you before you knew him. And then you follow him, being led by the Holy Spirit.
Why teach this? Because it is from the scripture of truth and it gives full thanks to God, always.
But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
O Father, we always thank you for the gift of salvation and for our Savior, the Lord Christ Jesus.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Christ be in you, the hope of glory.
-By Lubomir
He Shall Be In You
November 19, 2023
If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Brothers and sisters, so many things are to be said in the light of these verses of John 14:15-21, the word of God, from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Firstly, our Lord Jesus says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)
In here, he is not saying that if you keep working on the list of his commandments, that automatically means that you love him. No, but look at it this way: Let's say you love your country, but you don’t love its ways of governing. Well, then, you are not submitting to it fully. For better or worse, isn't that implying that you don’t love it fully? In a similar way, how can you say that you love Jesus, but his ways - well, not so? What, let's plan to do them in heaven? Is he not your Lord now? And why do you call him the Lord and not even attempt to do the things that he says (Luke 6:46)? I tell you something: it may be because you are not after the Spirit of God. Examine yourself; is he in you? Because if he is in you, he will keep performing his works in you, which works are not of this world.
Having Jesus truly in your heart and loving him means to love his sayings (he is the Word).
His name is the Word.
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
1 John 5:7(*AKJV)
Secondly, our Lord says that he will "pray the Father." (John 14:16)
Behold, the Blessed Hope is praying for you. Yes, for you. For you, if you love him and keep his commandments. What does it mean to keep his commandments? It is to have a righteous zeal for his ways, not just hot or sweet lips on Sundays. It means that you keep his ways in your heart and on your mind. Will you just keep it locked in the dungeon of your heart and perhaps let it go out some Sundays? Or not even to open your iron door to him? Maybe only the barred window of that iron door, to let some light in on Sunday? Christ, the Lord Jesus, and his ways are not just to be locked in the closet of a heavenly room you think he prepared for you and are waiting for you. No, not only on Sundays, but have the mind of Christ continually. May the Father of glory give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (apostle Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1:17).
O Lord Jesus, praying to the Father for you:
I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
Our Lord, full of grace and long-suffering faithfulness.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Thirdly, our Lord Jesus says that the Father "shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth" (John 14:16).
Brothers and sisters in Christ, hear the Lord saying, Comforter, the Spirit of truth. Yes, of the truth, helper in knowledge and understanding of the word of God, who abides with us and in us, teaching us all things (1 John 2:27). Having this Spirit of truth, we can even discern and distinguish, the truths of the gospel and of the whole Bible from the errors of men's teachings. This is if we listen to him with a clean heart and in the right spirit (Psalm 51:10), not in the spirit of pride and worldly wisdom, which cannot receive the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). Today, this one unifying Spirit of truth is divided into many "truths" of the gospel and biblical teachings, which some call brotherly "opinions." Do you see it? How many biblical "truths" are out there? As many as a number of denominations? Lament! Even more. So the truth (so logically) demands that if these denominations are not in full agreement, they are all in error, or at the best, only one is in the truth, in the Spirit of truth, a full truth. See that? If not in full truth, then in error. These errors operate under many spirits of error. There is only one Spirit of truth given to us by God, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
The Lord Jesus also calls the Spirit of truth "another" Comforter. Why, another?
In Greek translation, the word used here means not only comforter but also advocate, one who pleads another's cause before a judge. This advocate is our Lord Jesus. As John the Apostle writes:
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
Brothers and sisters, we have, in this sense, two comforters in our trials and tribulations. One is our beloved Lord Jesus, the intercessor (mediator), pleading for the pardon of our sins, and another is our holy helper, the Spirit of truth. Two, we can look at it as the witnesses on our behalf, one sitting at the right hand of the Father, Christ Jesus the Lord, and another in us, performing the workings of sanctification and teaching us all things. So we can also proclaim the gospel of our salvation to all: to those "fatherless" - those without the spiritual Father; and to those "widows" - those without the husband, Christ Jesus. May we abide in him, and he in us. Amen.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
Fourthly, in the second half of verse 21 (John 14:21) the Lord says, "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."
God's continuous manifestation in a believer is through the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit. But the manifestation mentioned in verse 21 is in the person of Jesus to every believer, revealed by the Father and administered by the Holy Spirit in you.
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Brothers and sisters. What is made manifest to the saints? Christ in you, the hope of glory. Amen, amen.
Christ be in you, the hope of glory.
-By Lubomir
*This verse is missing in some bible translations.
Meaning of the word Comforter in John 14:15
Judging
November 26, 2023
For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
Brethren judging brethren has become, in these days, such a misunderstood issue. It is being said by some that judging is not Christian-like, and some even say that it is from the devil. True Christian love is just singing hymns to each other, says another. That too, but if and when a sister in Christ, actually without pre-judging, is just trying to correct whom she perceives as a brother in Christ, to turn him from his wicked ways, she is labeled as harsh and worse, being, in a weird reverse, corrected by the one she is correcting. What nonsense! We will see what the Bible says about who you - brethren, can and who you shouldn't judge.
Before that, I will say this: some of this so-called no judging whatsoever is in the line of denying the ways of God, and especially of a correcting Father (Hebrews 12:8). Some like to portray him much as a God of wrath, conveniently (with the idea, Do not judge us, Father), and Jesus as God of all love (with the idea, Take us as we are and leave us as we are, God). But what does the Bible say? Is it not the Lord Jesus in Revelation 19:11-16 bringing judgment and wrath to smite the nations? And is it not the Father in John 3:16- a loving God, who gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life?
O Father, loving Father. O God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, loving, justifying, and sanctifying his children, one God of unmeasurable goodness and grace.
We love him, because he first loved us.
So our loving God is also a correcting God, and these are mutually inclusive, as Hebrews 12:8 explicitly states. Without chastisement, you are not his sons. Take heed to hear it and believe it. Because without being his sons, you would be heading somewhere you may not want to be. May God grant you the spirit of wisdom in your knowledge of him and in your understanding of his ways of righteousness.
So, brothers and sisters in Christ, whom can you judge and whom not? What says the scripture? In 1 Corinthians 5:3, Paul says, "For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed." "I have judged already," Paul declares, and "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," and "with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ," he adds.
The Apostle Paul is judging here this one person among the assembly of the church in Corinth because of this man's wicked ways. Is he, Paul, harsh here? I do not think you will insist on it if you meet him in heaven. And it is not just a mild correction; rather, he is judging very strongly (1 Corinthians 5:5) in this particular case. Is this always necessary? Of course not. There are different measures to be employed, from a mild correction to strong rebuke, even judging. But this is hardly, if at all, practiced in the churches today. But it was then. And there, Paul is purging the wickedness out of the church, the body of Christ. In verse 12, Paul poses questions and gives answers in verse 13:
For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
You are allowed to correct, if needed, and even judge those within (within the church). This is in love of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ. (For edification, not for a personal vendetta or to see yourself in a better light than others, being a hypocrite - Matthew 7:1-5.) But those without (without the church - unbelievers) God judges. Amen.
Christ be in you, the hope of glory.
-By Lubomir