Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Why Do The Nations Rage?

1) Lord, You are God of the heavens;
Lord, You are God of the sea.
We lift our voice up together;
We lift our voice up to Thee.
Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot vain things?
Kings of the earth take their stand.
They’re against the Lord and His King.

2) Stone that the builders rejected,
Now the chief cornerstone.
Rock of offense for the wicked;
The righteous in Him find a home.
All who believe on His name,
Will by no means be put to shame.
Called out of darkness to light;
That we may proclaim His fame.

3) Grant to Your servants all boldness;
Speaking Your word without fear.
By stretching Your hand out to heal now;
Touching the ones who will hear.
Let signs and wonders be done,
In the name of Jesus Your Son
Pour out Your Spirit on us;
Even so, Lord Jesus come!

Listen to the audio

Jesus, You Are Wonderful!

I was lost, I was blind, but to me You inclined.
And Your ear heard my plea, now I live because of Thee.
You have shown me the way, that I must die each day.
Then I will cease from sin, live for God and not for men.

Chorus:
Jesus, You do all things well! Jesus, You are wonderful!
And there is no other name that can save.
Jesus, You’re my righteousness! You have come, now I am blessed!
Every tongue, they will confess, Your great name.

Lord, You came as a man, and they scorned Your great plan.
Still You died on the tree, bore my sins and set me free.
Now Your living in me. You’re my hope and my peace.
And I’m living by faith, as I walk the narrow way.

Listen to the audio

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Trust in the Lord

As simple as that, right?……..or is it? Have faith in God….? How easy it that? It isn’t easy at all if we have not picked up our cross and followed the Lord. Laying down our own life, with all its ambitions, wants and desires to pick up the Lord’s life and to live it as he directs is what is required of us. Desiring the Lord above ALL else.

If the end of the road is you, oh Lord, I will follow it. When it seems that you are not there…when those around me think me a fool…..when no one understands what you are doing in me…I will follow you. You alone have the words of life.

There would be no pain as the pain of not knowing you Oh Lord! You have said any that seek you with their whole heart you will in no wise cast off. John 6:37

The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD
(Lamentations 3:24-26)

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Grace Does Not Mean Perpetural Forgiveness

Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: (Romans 15:8)

Jeremiah made no effort to fulfill the prophecies the Lord gave him. Jeremiah contented himself with bearing witness of the mighty promises of God. Meanwhile he obeyed the Lord in the directions given to him each day. Let us do the same.

On and on goes the list of myths and errors. But the churches will be purified during the age of moral horrors that is approaching. Then the Gospel of the Kingdom will be seen to be a response to the statements of the Hebrew Prophets, not a new religion unrelated to biblical Judaism.

The Definition of Grace

The term "grace" has come to mean the perpetual forgiveness of the sins of the Christian whether or not he or she makes a success of victorious Christian living. We ought to try to do good, but if we are tempted and fall there is no real problem because we are saved by grace and not by works of righteousness we have done.

Let us look at several passages that employ the word "grace" and from them derive a more comprehensive definition.

And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. (Acts 4:33)

Grace as used here means the Presence and blessing of God.

Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. (Acts 11:23)

Grace means the Presence and blessing of God.

Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. (Acts 13:43)

Grace here would mean to continue to trust in Jesus for salvation, according to the doctrine of Paul, rather than in the Law of Moses.

Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands. (Acts 14:3)

Trust in the atonement of Jesus rather than the Law of Moses.

And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. (Acts 14:26)

Presence and blessing of God.

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. (Acts 15:11)

Trust in the Lord Jesus for salvation rather than in the Law of Moses.

And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. (Acts 15:40)

Presence and blessing of God.

And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace: (Acts 18:27)

Trust in the Lord Jesus for salvation rather than in the ministry of John the Baptist.

Another Unscriptural Pursuit:

And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: (Luke 4:9)


The challenging of us to "do great things for God." Nowhere in the Bible are we challenged to do great things for God. This is presumption. It is the challenge to leap from the gable of the Temple. It is soulish ambition in the things of God.

The "faith chapter" of the Scriptures is the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews. There is not one instance of aggressive faith in this chapter. The faith portrayed here is obedience to the revealed Word of God. True faith is a confidence in God's goodness, power, and faithfulness such that we obey implicitly His every command.

There is no evidence whatever in the Book of Jeremiah that Jeremiah challenged God to do exploits. A careful study of the Book will reveal that true faith, the faith by which the people of God of every century have lived, is the faith of obedience to that spoken by the Lord.

When God called Jeremiah in the beginning, Jeremiah protested that he was only a child. After this, God gave Jeremiah an unpopular message, a message that aroused hostility. The concept of an aggressive faith that challenges God to perform some grand idea of the believer is foreign to the Book of Jeremiah.

Today we have thousands of Christians who believe that the role of the churches is to govern secular society and to force unsaved people to behave in a manner acceptable to the Christians. Christians are attempting to impose their will on unbelievers. They will fail and may bring intense persecution on all of us.

The proper role of the Christian in the present hour is to bear witness of the Kingdom of God that is coming to the earth. To attempt to govern now is to move outside of the plan of God for His Church.

In America the churches are demanding that the civil government repent. But God is speaking to the churches to repent.

In some quarters the idea has been expressed that Christians are to use their gifts to set up the Kingdom of God now so that all will be ready for the Lord to return. According to the Scriptures, the present age will grow increasingly worse until the end. Then the angels of God will remove all wickedness and wicked people from His Kingdom. In that hour the saints of God will shine as the sun in their righteousness.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 13:43)

The greatest witness of all time will be given just before the Lord returns. But the Kingdom of God will not be established on the earth before the Lord Jesus returns from Heaven with His saints and holy angels. To teach otherwise is to invite presumption and destruction.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

No suffering?

Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame? (Jeremiah 20:18)

Jeremiah knew of the stern warnings that God issues to those of His elect who continue in sin and rebellion against God. He lived to see the end result of ignoring those warnings. If Jeremiah were alive on earth today he would tell us to pay attention to the words of the Apostle Paul. He would not claim that God loves us so much Paul could not possibly be speaking to God's own people!

Another unscriptural myth:

The concept that the Christian must never suffer. Christ did all the suffering for us. This idea is so obviously unscriptural that it is amazing intelligent believers would accept it as truth. But it is a part of the understanding that to be a Christian requires only that we make the right profession of belief. Once we do that we are saved by grace and no other action is necessary.

Jeremiah indeed would wonder at the notion that God's people are not supposed to suffer. Jeremiah suffered at the hands of his own people because he continually rebuked them for their ungodliness.

Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me. (Jeremiah 15:10)

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail? (Jeremiah 15:18)

Suffering plays an important role in the development of God's rulers. If we suffer we will rule, Paul stresses.

The Apostle Peter claims that suffering is part of the process of making us holy.

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. (I Peter 4:1,2)

To attain the first resurrection from the dead we must share the sufferings of Christ.

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; (Philippians 3:10)

It is through our suffering that the resurrection life of Christ is brought to other people.

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. (II Corinthians 4:10)

Tribulation creates patience in us and teaches us obedience to God. Christ Himself learned obedience through the things He suffered. Paul learned that God's power is perfected as we are weak.

The teaching that Christians are not to suffer but are to be raptured to Heaven before they face Antichrist or the great tribulation is unscriptural. God's way, according to the Scriptures, is to enable us to go through the fire without being burned—like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (I Timothy 6:9,10)

Another incorrect teaching:

A modern doctrine is that Christians are to be rich in this world and they can use "faith" as a tool to acquire riches. But the Lord Jesus refused to turn stone into bread by the word of faith, teaching us we are not to attempt to use miracle-working faith apart from the express will and directions of the Lord. There are higher issues in the Kingdom than our personal desires.

"No person can serve both God and money," the Lord Jesus said. The Scriptures tell of Balaam, Gehazi, Judas, and Ananias and Sapphira. We have been clearly warned by the Apostle Paul to avoid the pursuit of riches.

The Scriptures could not be more clear on this topic, yet the love of money has kept many people from the Kingdom of God, just as it did the rich young ruler.

The new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah has as its goal the creating of righteous people. It says nothing about making them wealthy in the present world.

Christians are to imagine what they want and then speak the creative word that will bring their imagined object or situation into physical existence. The word of the Christian is totally different from the Word of God. God speaks worlds into existence. The believer cannot speak a grain of dust into existence.

But there has been teaching to the contrary!

The current faith-prosperity doctrine in some instances may be framed in harmless exhortations to maintain a positive, cheerful attitude toward God. But in other cases it may result in attempts to manipulate the physical environment by supernatural power. But it is not the supernatural power of God.

It is not God's will that man at his discretion speak words of power, not yet at least. This would put man in control of the physical universe while he still is under bondage to an adamic soul and body. Imaging and speaking creative words are too close to the occult!

We are not to attempt to exercise supernatural faith in this manner. We are to call on the Lord. True faith is demonstrated when we place our trust in the Lord Jesus and ask Him to move on our behalf. There could be instances when the Lord then directs us to act in faith in some manner. But this is true faith, faith in the Lord Jesus, not faith in faith itself. There is a world of difference in these two approaches to miracles.

No part of the new covenant announced by the Prophet Jeremiah includes the idea that people are to have power to get what they desire by speaking creative words.

Bro. Thompson - excerpt from GRACE AND THE NEW COVENANT

Sunday, June 01, 2008

CLEANING HOUSE

CLEANING HOUSE

2Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

The house to be cleaned we are referring to is the kingdom of God, people whose names are in the Book of Life scattered into every nation on earth. Iniquity means violation of the law, illegal use of the law which means illegal use of the Word of God.

The Word of the Lord has come forth for years....PREPARE, PREPARE, PREARE. There have been some dear saints who have been sounding out this message seeking to help people to do that very thing. Dreams and visions have been shared by different ones that have come from the Lord. All of this has been to awaken people out of slumber, out of sleep to the fact something is about to happen and they need to prepare for it. That something is what we have been taking about, THE HARVEST spoken of by Jesus in the 13th chapter of Matthew.

The Lord wants you to see how great this event is, the separation and the clean up work that must and will take place.

Matthew 13:37-41 He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;


The parable of the net- Matthew13:47-50 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

This drawing of every kind and the separation will affect every person on the earth. There will be no house left untouched. It will take peace from the earth. You can also see then how this harvest will bring into fulfillment other scripture such as:

Mathew 24:10-14 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

This scripture underlined about the kingdom preached in all the world will not be as the leaders are saying and doing today. There will be no comparison when Jesus will have brought you up into a relationship as One and cleaned you white ready for the Masters use. This preaching that is to come will be with power and great Glory. Not only to bring the Word of judgment to what is called the church and to bring about the fall of Babylon, but to give all people their last chance to accept Jesus as savior and Lord.

Go out at harvest time when a farmer starts to harvest wheat with a machine called a combine and see the great clean up, separation of the wheat from tares and weeds that have grown along side the wheat. This wheat also has the straw and chaff removed which is like a veil taken off the head.


Spiritually it is a time when you, the wheat, will have reached a place of maturity, when God by Spirit will remove a veil from your eyes to see the Glory of God in a light you have never seen before.

Isaiah 25:6-8 And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.

1John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

The removing of the veil will allow you to see the word of judgment in much greater light and detail. The purpose of this is so that we can examine ourselves by the Word of Truth. Because of the clarity of truths, we will also see wickedness revealed to us as it really is and the manner in which wickedness is preached. The Lord wants to bring us all up into agreement with Him as One.

In the scripture above we have brought to the surface the words, iniquity, tares, and wicked. These people of wickedness and iniquity up to now have been allowed by God to live with the children of the kingdom. He who has let will let until he is taken out of the way. Now the time is almost upon us when he will be separated, no longer allowed (let), to be with the people of God. Jude speaks of these in the following verses.

Jude 1:10-13 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

When these spots are removed it will be easier to work on the white garment to make it spotless and without wrinkle. These spots, (people of iniquity and wickedness), many have crept in unawares and have rose up into high places of leadership. This is why as you prepare your selves in the things of the Lord, it will be important that you read the scriptures for yourself to see whether the things that are spoken line up with the Word.

This great clean up work will not only be the Lord coming forth with His angels to do that which He has promised to do but will also have a clean up work that we will be called on and expected to do as we have the veil removed and see much more clearly how we can work in being a better over comer. It will begin as the Lord has declared in Matthew 13:49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.

There will be some real decisions we will have to make as the Lord calls on us, showing us what to do. Also the word of the day will be ...TO REPENT, CHANGE YOUR WAY OF THINKING. YOU HAVE NOT GONE THIS WAY BEFORE AND THAT WHICH IS BEFORE YOU IS THE AGE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

Everyone from the greatest to the least among us will be called on to throw down at the feet of Jesus every word that we have idolized as truth, that is not. Many of these untruths are stumbling blocks thrown in our path to hinder our walk to Jesus and Jesus' walk to us. We will be called on to make our path straight and level between us and the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are other scriptures we could use to speak to you of this great event that is about to happen and there will be many scriptures that will all at once begin to be fulfilled when the harvest begins.

The Lord spoke to me earlier that He was about to do it. May we all continue reading the scriptures, listening to the Holy Spirit who will teach us as we prepare.

With love, One of the brethren,

Branch