Hi Mike W,
You said:
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So if a
true born again believer gets confused by false
teaching he is still saved by his faith.
2Timothy
2:13 If we believe not, yet he abideth
faithful: he cannot deny himself. For a
believer to "believe not" or possibly go back to the
law, Christ has already sealed him and he cannot
lose it.
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I agree with you about the Holy
Spirit sealing us after we believe as our down
payment of more to come and you quoted this
scripture in 2 Timothy 2: 13 but here it is with
the preceding verse which kind of changes the
nature of your verse a little to saying that if we
fall from belief it is not His fault and He
remained faithful to do His part because He will
never go back on what He promises but we can still
get out of it from our side of the deal because if
we deny Him He will deny us. So don’t deny Him.
2 Timothy 2:
12.
If we suffer, we shall also reign with him:
if we
deny him, he also will deny us:
13. If we
believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot
deny himself.
In other words it is saying WE can
deny Him but He cannot deny Himself. This to me is
not saying that we can deny Him and still be
saved, but rather that if we become lost again by
denying Him it was not because He failed His part
but we failed to stay in faith in Him.
Jesus rewards the Philadelphia
Church with the rapture for NOT denying Him or His
name. Other churches did deny Him and His name and
I think that is because of wrong doctrines on this
very issue and I think what it costs them is
missing the rapture. (They can still be saved yet
so as by fire of the tribulation.) I think these
messages to the seven churches are all for today
and all seven are on earth right now and the
message is get in to the Philadelphia church now
before it is too late and you miss the rapture and
have to go through the tribulation. Look at the
messages to the churches in Revelation and see how
many times Jesus brings up DOCTRINES that are
wrong as what He has against them.
It comes down to how willing we are
to go to Jesus directly via the Holy Spirit and be
taught by Him and not be subject to the slight of
men who deceive with every wind of doctrine. If we
will submit to Jesus our whole life and become His
disciple and continue in His word then we will
know the truth and that truth will make us free.
But if we will not submit our self to Jesus then
He says we cannot be His disciple. If we are not
His disciple then we are subject to wrong teaching
including the false teaching that we are to TRY to
keep the law. By trying to keep the Law that
person is denying Jesus’ name which means “Jehovah
My Savior” because they are saying that Jesus
didn’t do enough so they are helping Him save
them. (Paul uses in Romans 10 the ludicrous
example of any of us trying to go up to heaven and
help Jesus come down to become a man and die for
us or the other end of it go down into hell and
help Jesus rise from the dead, as if we can do any
of that, it is the same as us trying to help Him
make us righteous.) And so in trying to keep the
Law they do not really believe on Him and His
finished work. They are on their own then. Jesus
likened this to a man laying his own foundation
and building a tower on it and advised all who are
attempting this to count the cost to see if their
tower can be finished. In other words can that man
reach heaven with his tower? Just as the tower of
Babel was man’s attempt to reach heaven apart from
God’s way, so a man who attempts to be righteous
apart from God’s way will fail and all who behold
it will begin to mock him after the rapture and he
has been left behind. Jesus never likened
believing in Him to building a tower and never
said we are to count the cost of believing in Him
but rather the cost of NOT believing in Him. His
advice of counting the cost is to those who will
“follow” (multitudes were and still do) Him but
will not forsake all and take up their cross and
become His disciple. Many “Christians” are doing
this very thing today. They want Jesus’ benefits
but are not willing to give up their own life
because they don’t believe that this is necessary
to be saved. But I believe it is because only by
becoming Jesus’ disciple that someone will learn
the truth that sets us free. Peter says that
salvation is through the knowledge of Him, and
elsewhere it says whom to KNOW is life eternal.
Many pastors and teachers have never given up
their own lives for Jesus and therefore do not
know this truth and they are blind leaders of the
blind. So Jesus is saying if you are trying to
keep the Law, count the cost of failing and see
that you cannot do it and now be willing to let ME
do it for you! Stop building a tower that is
doomed to failure and mocking of all who see you
left behind. They will mock and will be very hard
on left behind Christians who did this. Get into
the Philadelphia Church now!
What I have received, I did by
revelation and not by study. This following truth
was given me by God and I will share it but I
cannot make someone see it if they are not able.
But I will ask you this question:
When did Moses describe the
righteousness which is of the Law? According to
this passage:
Romans 10:
4. For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
every one that believeth.
5. For
Moses describeth the righteousness which is of
the law, That
the man which doeth those things shall live by
them.
Sometime in the Old Testament,
Moses did something that describes what trying to
be righteous by keeping the Law looks like. Can
you think of what Moses did that is like trying to
be righteous through the Law? It goes on to say
that line again that we also saw in Galatians
about the man which does those things shall live
in them. In other words whoever tries to keep the
law will live or obtain however much “life” he can
get by how well he keeps the Law. God must now
judge him based on his own performance instead of
Jesus’ performance. It’s either/or. Do you want
Jesus’ performance to stand in for you? Then rest
in the promise and do not seek to perform the
works of the Law yourself any longer.
God gave me an example of a pinch
hitter in baseball. Jesus batted for us so instead
of us trying to get a “hit” and God demands a
“home-run” we can rest in what Jesus already did
for us and God laid our “strikeouts” on Him and He
paid for them all and we can have God write in the
“scorecard” next to our name the “HOMERUN” that
Jesus got in our place if we just put down the bat
and stop swinging for the fences only to keep
striking out. Trust in God’s promise to credit us
with Jesus’ score and don’t go up to the plate
anymore but have a seat in the dugout and let
Jesus’ homerun be credited to you. If you insist
on getting into the batters’ box yourself and
trying to hit a homerun yourself then when you
strikeout God has to erase Jesus’ homerun from
your scorecard and put your strikeouts back in and
you are on your own.
I have answered the question about
Moses before but it was a while ago so this time I
think I will leave it unanswered and see if anyone
is interested and I’d be interested in what
answers might be given to this question. What do
you all think?