The best kept Secret in the Church

These are very important questions, However I believe that most people who have gone to Church all of their lives do not know the correct answer to either of these questions. Read on and find out if you know the correct answers.

Let us start where mankind started in the Garden of Eden. Adam was created by God after God's own Image, and in His own Likeness, a living reflection of the Divine Nature; God brought forth His own nature in Adam in a finite way.

After God created Adam, the Lord said,

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” Genesis 1:31

This is how Adam started out, but he then broke the only commandment that God had given him, he took of the forbidden fruit that Eve gave him. Eve was deceived Adam was not, he knew it was wrong! This very interestingly was the only commandment that God had given to them up to that time, and they broke it! “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die." Genesis 3:16-17 Notice the reason God gave to them for not eating of the forbidden tree, the tree was forbidden because it would cause them to die to the presence of God's Divine Spirit, it was not a physical death, but a spiritual death, a death from the Divine essence of God's Spirit, and this is exactly what happened to them! In that spiritual death Adam and Eve lost all of the Divine presence and fruit of God's Spirit. From this point on, they were incapable of living in the capacity, nor for the purpose that God intended. God set about to remedy this problem, you see God had enough devils, He wanted more Angels, He created Adam to bring forth a new people with Heavenly, Not Demonic attributes!

Yes, this was Adam's fall, he fell from being a Divine creature, God could no longer say about His creation “behold, it was very good.” Something happened, man had died to the Divine presence of God, he was no longer “like God, nor in God's own likeness, a living, finite reflection of the Divine Nature. This was his fall, and ours as well since we were in Adam as a seed when he fell.

Knowing all of this we can now readily understand what Jesus meant in John 3:3-7

“Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, `You must be born again.”

Jesus said, “We must be born again,” He said this because we had lost the Divine presence and likeness of God in our lives! When Adam partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he went into self will and out of God's will. Self-will is in reality selfishness, God is love. His will is always the will of loving others. This is His very makeup because GOD IS LOVE!

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1John 4:8

Again in John 15:5 Jesus told us a very important secret, He said at the end of that verse

“Apart from Me you can do nothing”

Now do you know why you and I can do nothing apart from Him, it is because only God is love, apart from love we can only fulfill the lust of the flesh, and the selfishness of our fallen nature and thus live in the pride of life.

The necessity of our new birth is found in this, our having died to the Divine presence of God in Adam. We now know what is wrong with the unregenerate man, so it is not difficult to figure out what we need to have fixed in our lives in order to be redeemed. Nothing but the new birth of God's Divine Spirit coming to life in us again as it was in Adam before the fall, can fix our problem.

Now how can this come about? By listening to Jesus in John 3:3-7, but you may say I have believed on Jesus as my Lord and Savior, this is well and good, but did you take the advice He gave in Luke 9:23

"If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”

You see our Savior knows exactly what is wrong with us, and how to fix it! Why did He command us to deny ourselves? It is because every son of Adam is in the service of pride and self, no matter what he is doing, until a humility that comes only from heaven becomes his redeemer. Because every unregenerate son of Adam has life and death in his own choice, not by any natural power of taking that which he wills, but by a full freedom, either of leaving and trusting himself to the redeeming operation of God which is eternal life, or of acting according to his own will and power in flesh and blood, which is eternal death.

The Apostle Paul said –

Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Tim 6:12.

The only one who fights this “good fight” is the one whose strife is with his own self-idolatrous nature, which we have received from Adam. We fight the good fight of faith so that our old nature may be brought to death by the supernatural humility of Christ. Did not Jesus say

"Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart;” Mat. 11:29.

Here Jesus said “Learn of Me, for I am meek, and lowly of heart." What light we have here, for those that love the light! Self is the whole evil of fallen nature; self-denial is our capacity of being saved; humility (Jesus) is our savior. This is truly our fight, that our very life, our (old nature), must be denied, for only then can we learn of Him, and His humility. You must give up all that you are, and all that you have from fallen Adam, for all that you are, and have, from him is that life of flesh and blood which cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

For without a real birth of this Divine love in the essence of your soul, you may know all about the Bible and the Lord, be as learned and polite as you can, but still, your heart is only the fallen heart of Adam, and your knowledge of the kingdom of God will be of the same nature of that which the Pharisees had. For everything is self-love self-seeking, and self-esteem, but that which love does. If love is not the breath of your life, the Spirit that forms and governs everything that proceeds from you, you are truly broken off from the works of God; you are without God, and your name, and nature, and works, can have no other name, or nature, but that which is called pride, wrath, envy, hypocrisy, hatred, revenge, and self-exaltation, under the power of Satan in his kingdom of darkness, regardless of how much you go to Church, and pretend to be Holy.

The soul is only as cleansed from its corruption, purified and delivered from the power of sin, as it has renounced all of its own will, and its own desire, to have nothing, receive nothing, and be nothing, but what the will of God chooses it to be, or have. For without this new birth, which is the same thing as saying, without being Divinely inspired continually, there is no difference between the Christian and the infidel. Whether the uninspired, unregenerate son of Adam is in the Church, or out of the Church, he is still that child of this world, another “fallen Adam,” a mere natural man, to whom the things of the Spirit of God are only foolishness. You must understand and learn this; and when you do you will posses all of the theology that you need to have, and you will have all the benefit of a very profound education. Old Adam with all his ignorance is cast out; and when Christ's humility is received, then you have the very mind of Christ, and the very thing that can bring you forth as a son of God. We must not ever allow self to rise up again, or love worldly things.

Every sin that can be named is centered in self, and we can sin no higher, than we can live to self. For self is the fullness of atheism and idolatry, it is nothing else but the creature broken off from God and Christ; it is the power of Satan living and working in us, and the sad continuance of that first turning from God, which was the whole fall, or spiritual death of our first father, Adam. Remember, nothing can enter into heaven, but this life which is born of, and comes from heaven.

The enemies to man's rising out of the fall of Adam, are many. But the one great enemy is called anti-Christ, which in reality is self-exaltation. This is the Devil's birth, and his power, when his throne is set up in our hearts and we go into self-exaltation; but when self-exaltation ceases, the last enemy will be destroyed, and all that came from the pride and death of Adam will be swallowed up in victory.

For this reason it can also be seen, that there is and can be but one true religion for the fallen soul, and that is, dying to self, to nature and creature; and turning with all the will, and desire of the soul to God. And all of this is done by faith! Sacrifices, offerings, prayers, praises, and ceremonies, without this are only sounding brass, and tinkling cymbals. No, zeal, consisten­cy, warmth, or fervor, in the performance of these religious practices, is a real proof of God in the soul; because nature and self-love can do all of this, without God.

Observe modern religion, where is the proof of 2 Corinthians 5:17.

“Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Most people who profess to being a Christian   Do not possess what they profess!

In most cases it is not their fault, they have been lead into the “Church” by others that do not know or understand the truth of the Christian experience. About now someone might say, this man believes that we can earn our salvation, but, this is silly, what work could a mere fallen mortal do to make him or herself Divine, Holy, or pleasing to God, NOTHING! Salvation is a gift of God not of works. We can no more change our nature from being all selfishness to all love, any more than we can rise and fly by flapping our arms.

God and God alone can put Divine life into us. Today we have fast food, and we think we can have fast conversions. Just a little over a hundred years ago when someone came to the Lord they travailed at the altar, sometimes for hours, this was because they knew that Christians are different from worldly pagan people. This was because of the holy lives and self-sacrificial lives they led. Impenitent sinners knew that they had to forsake this world and the kingdom of self, they knew that Christians were self-sacrificing, and so they would count the cost and spend time on their knees to make sure they had this new life, that in fact they had become “new creatures in Christ” they wouldn't get off of their knees until they had truly believed and forsaken their own self-life. When they rose up from their knees the old things had passed away, and all things had truly become new.

We start out most of the time in a denomination not of our own choosing. Whoever leads us to the Lord, or whatever denomination our parents were in, we become, and that without much thought. The meaning of the word denominational is - “Under the control of a religious denomination.” A denomination is any church organization that holds itself separate from the rest of the Church. This division may be on account of a doctrine, a difference of opinion, or any of many different reasons. The actual meaning of the phrase Denominational principles is A denominational system. - Acceptance or support of such principles or system. - Division into denominations - The meaning of the word “Divisions” is: Being divided. - A difference of opinion; - disagreement - A separation into groups - Or anything that divides; - partitions; boundary - anything separated or distinguished from the whole. (Webster’s College Dictionary)

What does God’s Word have to say on this subject? 1 Corinthians 1:10-14

"Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. "

Please take note of the fact, that this is the first letter to the Corinthian Church. In this letter, in the first chapter, the Apostle Paul addresses the question of divisions (denominations). To God and the Apostle Paul this is a very serious problem! In the fifth chapter of this book 1Corinthians 5:1 the Apostle Paul addresses a different problem

“It is reported commonly [that there is] fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.”

One would think that a problem such as this would be on the top of the list, but to the Lord and the Apostle Paul this problem, however bad, was not as important as the problem of divisions (denominations), for you see the Apostle started off in the first chapter verse ten with the problem of divisions (denominations).

The Apostle Paul orders “That there be no divisions among you.” A denomination is above all things a division of the Church of the living God! Did the Lord think that division was “OK”, No! Divisions (denominations) are a separation of believers, Let the Lord Jesus tell us how the people in the world will recognize His disciples, John 13:35

"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

If honesty prevails we who have ever had anything to do with a denomination will have to admit that love doesn't cross denominational boundaries very well, not the kind of love God expects from us, “oneness” doesn't cross well either! One distinguishing trait of denominations is an attitude of “our doctrines are correct, the other denominations are a little off” etc.

Remember the birthing place of denominations is division, and divisions are caused by men who do not allow the Spirit of the living God to lead them. In other words self-willed people getting their own way in a matter, and not seeking and submitting to the will of God! Christian brothers and sisters, not able to agree on some point of doctrine or something of even less importance. But instead of seeking the Lord and finding His will in the matter, and becoming of one mind, they let the division become so great that they can no longer even fellowship in the same building! All of this has been said to point out how all of this error has come about.

READ your Bible, start with 1John 2:27

“And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”

This is another reason why you need God's Holy Spirit, it is God's Spirit that teaches us about all things.

Let this be my excuse to the learned world, for having nothing to do with any schools of wisdom, but the ones where the one and only lesson is Divine love; and the one and only teacher, is the Spirit of God!

I have taken several quotes from our dear Bro. William Law, and here are a few more . . .

The heart is then only broken and contrite, when all its strongholds are broken down, all false coverings taken off, and it sees, with inwardly opened eyes, everything to be bad, false, and rotten, that can, or does proceed from itself.

Don't die without the Divine life in you, because this is a truth, we are in no hell, but what our own natural strength has awakened; we are bound in no chains, but those of own unbending, hardened spirits; we made ourselves such, by our renouncing with all our strength, all meekness, and subjection to God.

An important piece of advice

This advice comes from the Son of God, our one and only Savior, He said . . .

Luke 13:23-24  "And someone said to Him, "Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?" And He said to them,  "Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able."

 

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