What have we done, when we refused to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and refused to listen to Him? Have we rejected the church? Have we rejected Jesus? Have we disbelieved Matthew, Mark and Luke? Or have we rather disbelieved God Himself and His Testimony and made God out to be a liar?
As the apostle John has said:
Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God.[1]
To all who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and listens to Him, have believed God’s testimony when He said, “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”[2]
Since the day of the restoration of this lost law to us, for Peter left it out of the letter, not realizing that the keys to the kingdom of heaven which Jesus gave him in Mt 16:19, lay the command “Listen to Him”. When he left that out of his letter to the church, the keys of the kingdom were lost. For it is the words of Jesus that looses sin, and opens the windows of heaven to bless, and the words of Jesus that binds the broken hearted and heals their wounds. It is the words of Jesus that set captives free and opens even the gates of hell, for in His hands are the keys of Hades and Death.
God in His testimony gave us one decree - “This is my Son”, and one commandment – “Listen to Him”. And God who never changes has said, “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands…”[3] He covenanted to reward those who obeyed and punish those who disobeyed. And this was to Israel who had at least 600 decrees, regulations and commands to follow. Israel who at one stage could muster armies of a million men was reduced to 6000 odd survivors by the time God’s punishments for their disobedience were fully meted out.
If God did that to Israel, what will He do to those who were given only 1 decree and 1 command and still refused to listen and obey, but continued to reject His testimony by making up teachings of their own that go against what Jesus said through their traditions, prayers books and catechisms? They deceived their followers and themselves with what seemed food rather than partaking of the Truly Good. And what will He do to those who have refused to listen to Jesus although they acknowledge that He is the Son of God? Which is the greater insult? To disbelieve God’s testimony totally or to believe God’s testimony about Jesus and then refusing to listen to the Son? The reply of God is truly dreadful, and is full of dread:
“But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit. If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted. If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. And I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied. If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it. As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their fathers' sins they will waste away.”[4]
If that is what and did happen to those who stubbornly refused to obey God who had chosen them, and with whom they had willingly covenanted to serve, what awaits those who have likewise, stubbornly refused to listen to Jesus, whom they have covenanted to serve and in His name have done things that were never on the mind of Jesus? What will happen to those works they have raised up in His name without regard for what He said? Will He wait until the day of judgement or will He raise up His Witness and testify to the truth of His works? And who is the True and Reliable Witness of Jesus Christ here on earth today? It is none other than the Holy Spirit, for Jesus said, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify.”[5]
The Witness from the Father was silenced by men who brought their own teachings to draw men after themselves, like the Nicolaitans, the Balaamites and those who served the false prophetess Jezebel. And since we were unwilling to wait for the Holy Spirit to tell us what is yet to come and make known to us what belonged to Jesus, to remind us of what Jesus said, the Holy Spirit continued His work of conviction in silence - fellowshipping with those who held to the imperial decree and royal command, watching as God always watches and waiting for the day when He would stand up and testify about Jesus and verify the words of Jesus to be true. And so the river will rise, the rain will fall and the wind will blow and all who have not heard the words of Jesus and put them to practice will be swept away, to prove that the words of Jesus are truth. And those who have heard the words of Jesus and put them into practice will be left standing to greet Jesus when He returns.
As the Holy Spirit had not yet spoken on His own, He has yet to testify. He is the last witness whose testimony will refute all who spoke before Him in His name or collaborate those who have spoken and will He now do it, with many words, persuasive words, words filled with human wisdom. So that men like James could say, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.”[6]
But the Father did not tell us to avoid anything but to listen to Jesus. The life that the Father was and had given us was not a life of avoidance but a life of doing things – to fully fill our lives doing what is right so that we have no time to do what is not right.
So will the Holy Spirit testify with words, or as Paul said, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel--not with words of human wisdom.[7] My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.[8]”
I tell you, the Holy Spirit will indeed testify about Jesus on His own and He will also testify about us with whom He has dwelt these 2000 years, so that the Father may judge righteously and Jesus may judge by what He hears. For the silence in heaven is also due to the Just Witness having finished His testimony and the Judge is now listening to the second witness – the Holy Spirit in His testimony.
Since we have rejected the Holy Spirit’s power to testify about Jesus, but have run after political, intellectual and financial powers, mixing the yeast of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians with the bread of the Nicolaitans, Balaamites and Jezebelians – truly a cursed bread; worse than Ezekiel’s bread even if he had used human dung to cook it, so He will use His power to witness for Jesus.
The Holy Spirit who has begun to speak is not here to testify on behalf of the church or the body of Christ, but to testify on behalf of Jesus and to prove, not the works and words of men, but the works and words of Jesus to be true. That the words of Jesus when listened to and practiced to as one would breathe and eat, will impart and preserve life. And so will punish all who have listened to words not belonging to Jesus and taken on practices not done by Jesus. And in the midst of punishing, there is hope yet for repentance. For God is not willing that any should perish but come to repentance. However, proud and foolish men will not repent until the worthlessness of their ways are revealed fully for what they are.
So, as the elect of the Holy Spirit, understand this: we are not commissioned to destroy but to prove that Jesus’ words are true and to be co witnesses with the Holy Spirit that they are so, and even when the Holy Spirit is taken out of the way. That’s right, it is not the Holy Spirit leaving on His own accord, as He was sent by the Father and Jesus. So now, He will soon be taken out of the way as Paul wrote, “For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.”[9]
When that happens, it is the will of the Holy Spirit to leave behind His elect to continue to be witnesses to the truth of the whole word of God. All of which must also be fulfilled just as Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. So we must fulfill the gospels and the revelation. This world will soon come to know the Presence of God by His absence. For they complacently ignored Him when He was here. So they will scream in terror in His absence and they will not understand why. For those who chose not to know and understand God, even when they heard His testimony and the testimony of His Son, will have their understanding torn away by the fears they dread coming on them—and not slowly. We who are left will continue to give out light even when the Spirit of the Light has been taken out like lampstands in the dark, giving enough light for the world to see the terror, but not the answer unless they repent.
So repentance and forgiveness will continue to be preached to the very end. Even on the day of battle, every enemy soldier will be given one last opportunity to repent and live, before the fiery swords that comes out of the mouths of the elect to test their works and reduce them to ashes. For Peter wrote, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
And He who wrote these words has been shown to have forgotten the royal command in his second letter and had failed to stand up against James the younger when he proposed a teaching contrary to Jesus’, has been found short. Do you think, we of the Holy Spirit elect will not be thoroughly judged before we are let loose as His witnesses? So brace yourselves, like men and women who have darkened God’s counsel with words without knowledge, and let God speak to us as He did to Job and be of the spirit and attitude of Job who said, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.[10] My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.[11]”
For we, who have been judged, rebuked, disciplined by the Holy Spirit, can now give freely what we have received, if we receive and give with the attitude of the heart of Job, the champion and elect of God when the devil had roamed the earth and began to accuse God to His face.
Brace yourselves and listen, you who are the body of Christ, the holy temple of the Spirit, the Presence of God.
[1] 1 John 5:5-13
[2] Mt 17:5
[3] Lev 26:3
[4] Lev 26:14-39
[5] Jn 15:26-27
[6] Acts 15:28-29
[7] 1 Cor 1:17
[8] 1 Cor 2:4-5
[9] 2 The 2:7
[10] Job 42:3
[11] Job 42:5-6
