INDEX TO VOLUME 3(2)
16 . The Sabbath’s rest in Christ.
17. Why be anxious ?
18. The Armour of God.
19. How you should deal with God’s promises.
20. A Second Grace.
21. The strongholds of the Enemy.
22. Great sins vs Small sins.
23. For He performs what is appointed for me.
16. The Sabbath’s rest in Christ
We are going to speak in this Part 3 about the Sabbath’s rest because this rest in Jashuah is your legal right. We are also going to talk about it in Part 2 because it is the right of God that you keep His Sabbath. The rest of the Sabbath is a sign between God and man (Ezekiel 20:12). The observance of the Sabbath is a requirement of God because it gives Him glory when man enters His rest. On the other hand, it is the privilege of the believer to rest in Christ in their body, soul and spirit. If we think for a moment of the current conditions in the world and especially in our country, then there is no more rest. There is no rest of shocking news. There is not even a small relief, as was the case in Ezra 9: 8-9. Now Jashuah invites us and says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light”. (Matt. 11: 28-30).
My prayer is now that you will discover that there is a “place of rest” with Jashuah. Hear the words of this song:
” There is a place of quiet rest,
Near to the heart of God,
A place where sin can not molest,
Near to the heart of God”.
The second verse says:
” There is a place where sorrows cease,
Near to the heart of God,
Where burdens flee and joys increase,
Near the heart of God”.
The third version says:
” There is a place of comfort so sweet,
Near to the heart of God,
A place where we our Saviour meet,
Near to the heart of God”.
The other verses I am not going to quote but it all says that there is a place near to the heart of God, where Jashuah comes to reveal Himself to us in all that He is, also in His rest and peace. But don’t miss the important truth: “near to the heart of God”.
I wonder if we can ever realise how vast the volumes of information are that our brain had to absorb everyday over the past 10 years? And if we have to compare it to what our parents and grandparents had to absorb in their times? Our poor ears! And what about our brain and memory? All day long, someone puts a Whatsapp under your nose with some joke or serious news. Solomon said, “The ear never gets enough of hearing” (Ecclesiastes 1: 8). Yes, that word is not alive in me, for my ear had heard enough, except the words my Father spoke to me. I never get enough of that.
Wonderful rest in Christ is waiting for you. He invites you to come to Him in your tired and burdened state and receive His rest. It is your privilege and not your right. However, in Christ, this privilege has become your right, your legal right. For that reason, when you enjoy this glorious rest, you will find it hard to believe that it is your right. The rest He offers you is linked to His yoke that you must take on. To do this you must first throw off your own yoke. He says: “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” So, actually, you should cast your yoke on Him. In order to do this you must come to Him. It sounds so easy when you say you’re going to Him with all your burdens and you cast it on Him. But in John 5: 40 He says, “But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life”. People go to other people with their problems, they go to a minister or to a church or even to the Bible (Verse 39-40). All right and well, but have you ever gone to Jashuah?
We are now back at Matthew 11: 28-30. It says that we must take His yoke upon us and learn from Him. What should we learn? We must learn to be gentle and lowly (meek and humble) in heart. Without it you will never be able to enter His rest. You will never be able to carry His soft and light yoke. You will always carry a heavy yoke unless you share His gentleness and humility. You will now really have to pray to the Father for meekness and humility in your heart. This can only be done by the Holy Spirit. You can’t turn it on yourself. So ask Him for it. If you are constantly upset about someone else’s actions and you can’t get rid of it, you will never get rest. Humility is another characteristic of Jashuah that you will receive from Him. If you don’t, you won’t be able to rest. What is the opposite of humility? It is pride and exuberance. If you condemn other people, you think you are better than them. Even if you just criticize them, it is pride and therefore the opposite of humility. The Bible says that God gives grace to the humble (James 4: 6). “ But He gives more grace; therefore He says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”.
If you succeed in entering into God’s rest through God’s grace, you will find that you are resting in Him from all your works. It is important that you read the following Scripture prayerfully in Hebrews 4: 1-11: “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said:
“So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ”
although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”
Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying through David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:
“Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.”
For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience”.
In the above passage, He speaks of the rest of our works as God rested from His works on the 7th day. It speaks of “stopping your efforts to please Yahweh through works.” It also speaks of you, as a believer, resting that the Father has accomplished all your works for you and that He did the works that Jashuah did. Read Isaiah 26:12: “Lord, You will establish peace for us, For You have also done all our works in us” Eph 2: 10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”. Everything you do and are going to do was planned by God. He planned your whole life. But all this according to your willingness to do His will.
17. Why be anxious?
Where we live today in this beautiful country of South Africa, there are many reasons for concern, yes, concern every moment of the day and night! I don’t need to give you a list of things you can worry about today, you can give it to me. And maybe you have a much longer list than I have. Through the Father’s grace, I have an opportunity every morning to cast everything that troubles me onto Jashuah. It is what He advises us to do, moreover, He commands us to do so. Doesn’t He say in Psalm 55 verse 23: “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved”? Yes, He says it in so many places in Scripture (1 Pet 5: 7).
In Philippians 4: 6-7 there is a wonderful promise and also command: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jashuah”. Listen carefully: He says that the peace of God, not the peace of this world (John 14:27), thus not peace that can be offered by money or human security systems or insurance policies or major investments. Nor the peace that you can have because people, especially political leaders, have made great promises to you. All those forms of human and carnal assurances and things on which you rely on, which is not Christ, will perish. Therefore, Scripture says in Jeremiah 17 verse 5-7: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from Yahweh. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose hope is Yahweh.”. Note that He refers to trust twice. First, He says that “blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh” and then He says “whose hope is Yahweh.” There is a hope and confidence in Yahweh that is an ordinary human trust in Yahweh, and that is a very good thing to have. But then there comes a day when you realize that there needs to be a greater confidence deep within yourself. You desire the same confidence and hope that Jashuah had in His Father. You desire His trust to work in you. And that is what it means when He says blessed is the man whose trust is Yahweh. Pray for this because there will be a day when you will feel that your ordinary human trust will let you down and you will desire that the unwavering and unshakeable trust of Jashuah will work in you and flow through you.
Have you ever experienced that, although you have so many promises from God for your protection and provision, you still need a greater and stronger confidence in your spirit and soul? There is a faith in Christ, to which Paul refers in 1 Timothy 1: 14. This is the faith that works through grace and not your mere fleshly human faith in God. It is that faith you need in order to deliver you from fear. It is that trust that will deliver you from all the anxieties by which one can be troubled. In that day, you realize that if God “…did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). Read this Scripture and meditate on it before your Father. Ask Him to make it alive in your spirit and soul and you will never worry again.
If you also realize that Elohim (your God and Father) has planned your whole life (Ps 139: 16), even in the finest details, because he doesn’t consider anything slight or to little (Job 36: 5), and if you also realize that His whole planning is for your good (Jer. 29:11), and that everything that happens to you works for you for the good, because you love Him and because you are called to His purpose (Rom 8:28), you can’t help but to be grateful in all things (1 Thess 5:18) and, without fear and torment, to meet every day knowing that he who touches you touches the apple of His eye (Zech. 2: 8), and that your name is inscribed on His palm (Isaiah 49:16). For this reason no evil will come to you. If you believe these things, why worry? Pray your Father now that He will make these words alive in your heart, and that it will bear fruit in the darkest times that come over this world.
18. The Armour of God
In Part 2 Chapter 15, I wrote about: “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10: 3-6). This is following the Word in Ephesians 6 from verse 10 to verse 20, which deals with the “Full Armour of God”. In my personal life, this armour has become so important that I can no longer enter a single day without confirming to my Father that I am clothed with the full armour. I declare to Him that I have clothed myself with every part of this armour. I declare that I have girded my loins with the belt of truth (verse 14) and that Jashuah is the truth (John 14: 6). I declare that I have on my feet the shoes for the willingness of the gospel of peace (Verse 15). I declare that I have the breastplate of righteousness (verse 14), Christ as my righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30). I take the shield of faith again (Verse 16), and specifically the faith that is in Jashuah (2 Tim 1:13), the faith that works through love (Rom 5: 5), the love He through the Holy Spirit poured out in our hearts. Then again I declare that I have accepted and put on the “helmet of salvation” (Verse 17) so that every enemy can be cast down, and every pretension raised against the knowledge of God (Elohim) be destroyed while we take every thought captive to obedience to Christ (2 Cor 10: 3-6). Then I also take up the “sword of the Spirit”, that is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17); and Christ is the Word of God who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1: 1-5). With Him as the sword, I conquer all the enemies, while praying at every opportunity in the Spirit for all the saints all over the earth, and also for myself, that when I open my mouth, I boldly make known the mysteries of Christ (Verses 18-19).
Romans 13 verse 12 says: “the night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light”. If He then says in verse 14, “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jashuah Messiah, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh” it means that you must clothe yourself with Jashuah as your full armour, because He is every part of that armour! The Apostle Paul refers to himself and his ministry in 2 Corinthians 6: 7: “in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left”. And then in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 3 he says: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.”(Verses 3-6).
The armour is not only important to you, but also to your Father in Heaven and His Son, sitting at His right hand. Considering that every part of that armour is Jashuah Messiah for us, Scripture in Colossians 3 has confirmed to us: “Christ all and in all”. If we also realize that the purpose of this armour is to bring us to the point where our obedience is complete, we realize how important it is to God our Father. If you can not pray now, earnestly pray when it is more convenient to you that our Lord Jashuah Messiah will make this matter so important to you that you will earnestly pray to Him every day that He will give you grace to fully wear the armour of God. Also pray that He will reveal to you all the strongholds of the enemy, all the ramparts from which he shoots you so that you can bring them down in the Name of Jashuah (2 Cor 10: 3-6).
19. How you should deal with God’s promises.
PART 3 contains many promises through which the Father wants you to experience His goodness and love for you. He says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34: 8). This in itself is already a great promise: He promises you that you will taste His goodness in every situation. What a promise!
However, it is very important that you remember how to deal with the Father’s promises. You will need to constantly remind Him of it (Isa. 62: 6-7). We will have to pay close attention to this because it affects prayer and fellowship with the Father as well as with His Son. And you will soon find that your spiritual life does not rise high above your prayer life. It is actually one thing. If you try to be spiritual without an accompanying deep and intimate prayer fellowship with the Father and His Son, you will be nothing but a hypocritical Pharisee. If your child is the most wonderful child with an incorruptible life but yet does not spend time with you as his father or mother, will it not make you unhappy? Would you not rather have your child love you and want to be with you, than constantly running away from you to be with his friends? When you see that your child loves you and wants to make you truly happy, even if he / she is full of mistakes and weaknesses, does that not make you happy? But if your child constantly pretends to be a flawless child, who in no way wants to make you unhappy but you know that the child actually loves his / her friends more and does not really love you, then would you not rather prefer the aforementioned case?
If, in your imperfect state, you take time to sit before the Father, even if you are working or driving your car, and allow the Holy Spirit to fill you with His love, and then remind the Father of all His promises that He has made to you, you will then deal with His promises in the right way. After all, this is what He expects of you!!
20. A Second Grace.
We were recently in a meeting where the Word went out that the Father wants to give us a second grace. This follows 2 Cor 1: 15: “And in this confidence I intended to come to you before, that you might have a second benefit.”
When the apostle Paul wanted to go to the Corinthian church in order for them to receive a “second benefit,” did that mean that the grace they had already received was not sufficient? No! God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12: 9).
No, the great truth is that Christ came from the Father and John refers to Him in the gospel of John as “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Then he also goes on to say: “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace” (verse 16). There is therefore an abundance of grace in Christ from which we have the privilege of receiving ever as much as we desire and pray for. The second grace that Paul refers to is therefore not another extra grace that God gives us, but it is an extra opportunity to receive that grace. We so easily forget about His covenant of grace and we go back to our old way of life to try to please Him through our own works. We so easily forget to get up in the morning and declare anew that we are deeply dependent on His grace. We so easily forget that His strength is fulfilled in weakness (2 Cor 12: 8-10), and then we become enemies of weakness—we refuse to be weak or appear weak before men. We so want to win the argument with someone. That mistrust in ourselves, about which we have written so many times, is so quickly replaced by a confidence in ourselves. The danger here, too, is that even though we trust in Him, we do so with a trust that springs from my flesh. Do you remember the Word that said (Jer 17: 7): “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in Yahweh”? So if you trust in God with a trust that springs from your flesh, you need to receive a second grace, or rather a second opportunity to receive His grace. Also, if you have begun to rely on your flesh, and have begun to trust in yourself, you need to receive a second grace all the more. Just think for a moment how good our God and Father is. Just think how great His lovingkindness is that He wants to reveal to us through His Son in this day, by saying to you: My child, you have again forgotten My covenant of grace and peace (Isa. 54:10), which I made with you through the blood of My Son, Yashuah Messiah. I come today and give you another opportunity to meditate on My grace anew, to thank Me for it anew, and to seize My grace anew. What a wonderful God and Father, what a wonderful Yashuah! Could we ever ascertain His goodness and comprehend His grace and love? Lately I have had such a serious desire to know the length and breadth and the height and the depth of Christ’s love, along with all the saints, including you. The passage of Scripture in which Paul expresses this desire for the church of the Ephesians, in Ephesians 3: 14-21, you must read again and then pray it with all your heart before the face of your Father.
21. The strongholds of the Enemy.
You probably still remember chapter 18 in connection with “The armor of God”? This chapter deals with the “Strongholds of the enemy” of which Paul speaks very clearly in Ephesians 6: 10-20, as well as in 2 Corinthians 10: 3-6: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled”. When you desire with all your heart to be one of the people God seeks on this earth, namely, people who worship Him in Spirit and in truth (John 4:23), that which I wrote about in chapter 21 of part 2, you will very soon begin to search for the strongholds of the enemy in your life. That is, of course, if you realize that it is those same strongholds that prevent you from becoming a true worshiper. The strongholds and defenses of the enemy are aimed at your knowledge of Yashuah. Go and read the passage again in 2 Corinthians 10 verses 4 to 5. The word knowledge in the original language very clearly indicates that it is not a mental knowledge that Scripture speaks of but an experiential knowledge namely to experience Him in your spirit. Therefore, to experience Christ in your spirit and become acquainted with Him personally. This is the knowledge that Paul refers to in Philippians 3: 8-11. And it comes at a price to know Christ in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. We would like to know Christ and also the power of His resurrection, but are we so willing to have fellowship with His suffering? Are you willing to be persecuted by the people as He was persecuted? Are you willing to be ostracized by society and humiliated, accused of things you were not guilty of? To be hated and rejected by mankind and denounced as a heretic, sect and cult? Unfortunately, you cannot separate these sufferings of Christ from “knowing Him and the power of His resurrection.” This is one package. This is one path!
This morning I was sitting here in front of my window in my study looking for a booklet I had bought years ago and had very rarely read. Suddenly this booklet “The Calvary Road” came up in my heart. I just opened it at random and came across a chapter about “Cups running over”. Here the author, Roy Hession, says that your cup cannot overflow if you do not have the peace of God in your heart. He expresses this even more strongly by saying “if the peace of God does not reign in your heart as Colossians 3 verse 15 says, you will not receive the abundance of the Spirit. He says that this word “peace” is something like the referee at a football match. As soon as a mistake is made on the field, the referee blows his whistle. When we lose our peace, it is the whistle that God blows to say that a mistake has been made. Maybe then we should first confess to someone else or maybe just to God. And maybe you still feel that it was the other person’s fault, but however it may be, if you have lost your peace, it is a very clear sign that you are also at fault. We do not lose our peace when someone else makes mistakes, only when we transgress. It may lie in our response to the other person’s sin, and only once we are willing to be cleansed of it the peace of God will be restored to our hearts. Oh, what simple and searching thing is this referee of the peace of God? And how wonderful is it to be ruled by the peace of God – that is when the peace of God reigns in your heart? Because the peace of God is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, it is none other than the Holy Spirit who rules in your heart. Previous selfish ways in which you did things, things that you never used to be bothered about, are now shown to you by the “referee” when he is blowing His “whistle”. Things like being bossy and grumbling about things that do not suit you, a don’t-care attitude, spiritual superiority, yes even the slightest thing are now pointed out as sin by this “whistle that blows”. That is of course only if we are willing to be controlled every day by this “referee’s whistle” of the peace of God. Every day we will have to open ourselves up to God to be continually cleansed by the blood of His Son from all that displeases Him so that we can walk the path of brokenness like never before. But in that brokenness in which you now walk, Yashuah will continually reveal and manifest Himself.
Here I must first say something about the “speck and the plank”. Matt 7: 3-5: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Yashuah wants to explain something through this “speck and the plank” (Luke 6: 41-42). It is simply to tell you that your brother’s “speck of a sin” can become a “plank of a sin” for you. For example: Someone wronged you by talking badly about you and now a bitterness developed in your heart towards that person. The evil he spoke about you is certainly a sin but the bitterness in your heart towards him, which is nothing but lovelessness, is a greater sin. This of course if you want to make one sin bigger than the other one.
Many of us have ignored and despised this referee with his whistle and that is why the whistle of the referee has become silent and it is no longer strange for us to lose our peace somewhere during every day. Some of us no longer know what it is like to have the peace of God in our hearts. Have you ever experienced that peace of your Father’s? Have you ever felt how it transcends all understanding (Phil 4: 7)? One day after another passes and we never again feel the need for a deep cleansing by the blood of Yashuah. There will have to be a great hunger in our hearts so that our love relationship and fellowship with Him can be restored after the blood of Yashuah has cleansed us. We have accepted so many things in our lives, carnal things that are nothing but sin. You will ask if flesh is sin then? You might argue that the flesh is really only human weaknesses and not necessarily sin. If the flesh is not sin, the blood of Yashuah’s cross can never deal with it, and therefore you will never be able to be saved from it. Then we will be stuck with the flesh until we take our last steps here on this earth. Anything that disturbs the peace of God is sin! And you will need to take it up with Him yourself. If you are one of Yahshua’s sheep, you’ll know His voice! (John 10) Go and ask Him if what I am writing to you today is true or not.
22. “Great sins” vs “Small sins”.
In recent years we have all surely been in company where great sins have been compared to small sins. How wrong is such a view? There is one great sin for which man will never be forgiven and that is the sin against the Holy Spirit, the so-called unforgivable sin (Matt 12:32). The “mother” of all sins is the sin of unbelief (John 16: 9; Rom 14:23), and for this God forgives us manifold. From this sin all sins are born, great and small. When we begin to compare our sins, there is usually – not always – a deep-seated self righteousness for claiming that “my sin is not as great as yours”. I heard only yesterday how a woman tried to prove to her friend that her daughter’s – her “little darling’s” – offense was not as big as her friend’s daughter’s. We want as much as the Pharisee to say that he is thankful that he is not like the tax collector (Luke 18: 9-14). Scripture calls the Pharisees “hypocrites” (Matt. 23: 13-14). All of us have sinned and therefore we cannot be saved (Rom 3: 23-24). When we are saved it is very clearly not by any good works that we have done, but purely by the grace of God. However, the way we deal with the grace of God is very important. Everyone should ask themselves the question: how do I work with the grace of God? In the letter to Titus we read that the saving grace of God appeared to all people (Titus 2:11). The apostle Paul says that the grace of God toward him was not in vain (1 Cor 15:10; 2 Cor 6: 1). You can therefore despise or disdain the grace of God so that it has been given to you in vain. You can also fail to give and show mercy to others – people who have sinned against you – and because you are not willing to give mercy to others, you cannot receive it either. By now you probably already know the reason why you sometimes cannot receive anything from God? It’s clearly because you are not willing to give it to others first. “Give and it will be given to you,” says Scripture in Luke 6:38. Do you still remember that in one of the passages it was written that God cannot put something in a “closed hand”? Therefore, when you open your hand to give to someone else, it is also open to receive something from God. So if you are not willing to give grace, God cannot give it to you either. Just as Scripture is very clear about forgiveness: you cannot receive it from God unless you are willing to forgive your debtors (Mark 11: 24-26; James 2:13; Matt 18: 21-35).
I’ve been sitting in numerous gatherings lately where the topic of “gay” people was discussed and then it was generally seen as a bigger sin than all the other sins. Now read the first chapter of Romans, and when you have finished reading it, read it prayerfully for a second time and then pay special attention to the last verses (Verses 28-32), where a large number of sins are mentioned, which is generally “more acceptable” to people than the sins referred to in verses 26-27, that are referring to Gays. If you read in 1 Timothy 3: 1-15 as well as in Titus 1: 15-16 then you realize that there are far stricter qualifications that apply, or rather that should apply, in the Christian churches with regard to predecessors – these are pastors, elders, deacons. If the “mother sin” of all sins is unbelief according to John 16: 8-11 and Rom 14:23, then a man who does not believe God’s Word should not be allowed to teach the Word of God in a Christian church. Did I just throw a stone in the bush? You can probably call it that if you want, but I want to say that it is a great truth that should not be overlooked. So if anyone does not believe that he was crucified with Christ, and that he no longer lives but that Christ lives in him, he certainly does not believe the Scriptures! And if he believes only the passage about us dying with Christ but not the passage about His resurrection life that has become ours, he is unbelieving. And if he believes all the above things but does not live them, he is the person of whom James 2: 14-26 says that “faith without works is dead”. Such a man should also not be a predecessor in a Christian church. If you ask Christian predecessors today if they believe the Word, they will definitely answer “Yes”. If you ask them whether they are doing the works that befit that belief, or whether they are living what they believe, many of them will not be able to answer “yes” honestly. With God it is important that we will also do the Word we hear (Luke 6: 46-49). He says that it is not the hearers of the Word who are justified by God but the doers (James 1:22). There are millions around the globe who hear the words of God but the question is whether they are doers of that Word.
We must clearly distinguish between sins that are committed in weakness and those that are done willfully. The Scripture says very clearly in Hebrews that for the sins committed willfully, no more sacrifice remains (Hebrews 10:26). In the Old Testament there were sacrifices for sin committed in weakness (Num 15: 27-28) as well as those that were done willfully. In the New Testament, one sacrifice was brought by Yashuah Messiah as the Lamb of God, and the sacrifice was sufficient for the sin of man (Heb 10:14). And yet, as already mentioned above, that sacrifice does not apply to those who willfully or intentionally sin. So as long as you willingly, and therefore willfully, continue to live in sin, you must not make the mistake of thinking that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, through His blood, cleanses you from that sin. If you proclaim this and live like that until the end of your path here on earth, you can certainly not claim to enter into the eternal glory of God. You will first have to come to a realization of sin through the Holy Spirit that convicts you of that sin (John 16: 8-9). You will then have to confess this sin (1 John 1: 9). Once you have confessed the sin, you have the promise of God that He will also forgive it and cleanse you from it as we read above in 1 John 1: 9.
It is therefore a characteristic of those who have come to the realization of sin and confessed it before God, that such a person also feels to bring the sin to the light and to make restitution to those against whom he has sinned. To bring your sin to light (1 John 1: 7) means first to bring it to Yahweh. He is the Light of the world (John 1: 4). People who do not truly want to do the will of God do not come to the light. Read John 3: 18-21. To come to the light also means to go to fellow believers and ask them to agree with you before God that he will deliver you from that sin. Fellow believers are also the light of the world in Christ, as we read in Ephesians 5: 8 and in Matt 5:14. In some cases you will find salvation if you only bring it to your heavenly Father and on the basis of Yahshua’s work on the cross, ask Him to deliver you from it. I have already referred in a previous section to the man who belonged to a Christian church – I do not know if he is still alive today – who stole tools from the place where we worked. When I, as a young man and Christian, admonished him about it, he said that it is not he who commits sin but the sin that dwells in him. This he justified by Scripture in Romans 7: 16-17, which indeed says that. If I knew at that time what the Scriptures really said in Romans 7, I could have taught him the truth. The truth is: if you have truly repented to the Lord, and confessed that you are a sinner and that you have committed the “mother sin” of all sin, namely unbelief, a cry will go out from you to God, as Paul refers to in the last verses of chapter 7, namely: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7: 24-25). But if you confess that you have accepted Christ as your Saviour and you declare that He has forgiven your sins, and you continue to live in your sin without it bothering or accusing you in any way, then a true repentance have not yet taken place with you, otherwise why doesn’t the Holy Spirit convince you of this sin? Why doesn’t the Holy Spirit convince you of the need to be freed from these sins? Why doesn’t the Holy Spirit awaken your spirit to call on Yahweh to deliver you from the body of this death and sin? Why can you continue to commit the sin, whatever sin it may be as referred to in Romans 1, whether it is, as many Christians refer to it, a great or small sin.
I referred in another chapter to the fact that the stumbling block, or the stronghold of the enemy in your spiritual life, from which the enemy shoots at you with his arrows so that you are unwilling to sit in the presence of your Father in fellowship with him for long periods, is nothing but the slightest sin in your life. The “long periods” I am referring to are not the times you sit and do Bible study and write in your diary, no, I am referring specifically to the times you do nothing but just sit in His presence and fellowship with Him and experience Him as a person, to ponder His love, grace and lovingkindness and to lose yourself in His presence so that His Spirit flows into your spirit. Also, I mentioned in that chapter that this was the reason why Adam and Eve, after the fall, could no longer be bold in the presence of God, who often came to walk with them in the stillness of the evening breeze. Read Gen 3: 6-19. When they sinned, they fled from His presence. You should definitely read it in Genesis! The Pharisees, of whom Yashuah said that Satan is their father (John 8: 43-44), have been through many scripture studies for years and yet, as the Scripture says, never came to the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 3: 7) . Yashuah is the truth (John 14: 6). Thus, through their study of Scripture, they never got to know Yashuah, or the Father, personally. So you cannot tell me that you spend many hours in Bible study and it is therefore proof that you have the boldness to be in the presence of God. Bible students from different religious groups (groups you definitely disagree with) spend many hours researching Scripture. At the end of the days, Yashuah may say to them, “Depart from me, you cursed of My Father, I have never known you!” Did not Yashua say that they are examining the Scriptures because they believe that they have eternal life in them, and that it is precisely the Scriptures that refer them to Him, but yet they do not want to come to Him to have eternal life? (John 5: 39-40).
We live in days, at the end of the ages, in which a particularly auspicious time has arrived. This is the time to which Zechariah 13 refers: “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness” (verse 1). In this prophetic Word there is a promise of a great work of cleansing that our Father will do from Heaven through the blood of His Son. You and I should not let this auspicious time pass us by. There is a Word that warns me personally: Luke 19:44 “… because you did not know the time of your visitation”.
23. For He performs what is appointed for me.
Yesterday morning I opened two different Bibles in the same place, namely Job 23: 13-14. It has brought a wonderful consolation to my heart, especially now that so many things are happening in our country that are disrupting everything that was precious and valuable to us: white farmers’ farms are being taken away from them without compensation while there is a huge unemployment rate in the country is among all races. Large masses are now living off theft because there is no other way for them to obtain food and living supplies. People of all races are being killed on a large scale. The white farmers in particular are targets of farm attacks and genocides. No one is sure of his life in this country anymore and that is why many are emigrating, yes, literally thousands are leaving to find refuge in other countries. But we feel that we were placed here by the Living God with a purpose, and even though our ancestors moved here from Europe centuries ago because they had to flee for the sake of their faith in Yashuah Messiah, we cannot just now move again to another country unless our loving Father leads us by His Holy Spirit. That is why we do not condemn those who emigrate whom the Holy Spirit leads in this way, because Yahweh then has a specific purpose with them there in those other lands. Therefore, if He does not lead us by His Spirit to move to other countries, we will continue to live here in South Africa even if we have to perish here, as Paul said: “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14: 8).
But let me get to the word of comfort: Yahweh has planned our whole life path and He calls it His “eternal intention”. If you realize with clarity that every day has been planned for you by Him, yes, in the finest detail He has planned it, and if you still have the revelation of His word in Jeremiah 29 which says: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer 29:11), then it comforts you. Then He adds another promise that He will listen to us in the day when we pray (Verses 12-14). If you have the certainty that the living God, who created this whole expanse by just one word, still supports and maintains it daily to the finest detail, how can you fear? And if you also know that He loves you because you belong to Him, how can you fear? If He has said to you 365 times in the Bible, “Do not be afraid,” how can you still be afraid? If He told you that the one who touches you touches the apple of His eye (Zech. 2: 8), how can you still fear? (Heb 13: 6). How can you flee from South Africa because you have become afraid of this place, and because you fear for your life here? Again, I want to say that those who are led by the Spirit of God to emigrate are a very different matter from those who flee from here for fear of their lives and the robbery of their possessions. Did our Huguenot ancestors not also lose their farms and properties in France and other parts of Europe? Yes, they arrived in South Africa with nothing. Does the Word not say in Hebrews that they gladly accepted the robbery of their possessions because they had a better and lasting possession in the heavens? (Heb 10:34). You will tell me that times have changed. Yes, times have changed, and people have changed and so has Christianity, but Yashuah Messiah remains the same forever! (Heb 13: 8).
But the big question is, are you willing that God will perform what He has appointed for you? Now you might argue that if He has decided to accomplish certain things in your life, He will do so regardless of whether you are willing or unwilling. This would mean that you do not have a free will but that you are like a robot controlled by God. No, you are not an unwilling robot but a willing one. If the life of Christ flows through you and you are controlled and guided by His Spirit, you do it willingly. So he has a plan for your life and for every sincere believer. Is it one of your greatest desires in your life, to do His will? “And Israel would have none of Me,” says Yahweh in (Ps 81:11). May He never say that about you and me! May he never say of us, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37). Yes, He will perform what is appointed for you (Job 23:14) but then you must be willing to do so.
Now comes another important Word and that is that Yahweh knew in advance whether you were going to be willing or not, and according to that He chose you and determined the whole plan for your life. Read 1 Peter 1: 2. This plan for your life can be a plan of glory or perdition. Now you must first read Romans 9: 22-24 and notice that some people are prepared for perdition and others for God’s glory. There are Bible teachers who have been arguing about this topic for years, and it is about whether human free will plays a role in this election. I am part of the believers who believe that your free will plays a role. More than once I have mentioned in writings that God does want to save all people (1 Tim 2: 4) but that not all people want to be saved. Although everyone certainly wants to go to heaven, not everyone wants to do the will of God. Although many listen to His Word, it is not the hearers of the Word who are justified by God but the doers (James 1: 22-25). If you are now one of those who hear the Word of the Lord and want to do it, you will soon realize that He is on His way to His glory with you. You will soon experience that He interferes with you and that Christ is the way of life (John 14: 6). You will also discover that He is working in you to will stronger than ever before (Phil 2:13). You will find that He has thoughts that He thinks towards you, thoughts of peace and not of evil (Jer 29:11) and that all things work together for your good, as Romans 8:28 says. Also that He called you to His purpose (Verse 28) a purpose that involves only good things, even if sometimes it does not seem like good things. Now go and read the following Scriptures concerning your Father’s purpose for you (Ephesians 1: 4-5), and all the good things to which He has predestined you (2 Thessalonians 2:13), and begin to praise and thank Him for all the good things that He has reserved for you, hidden as a treasure in the heavens (1 Pet 1: 3-9).
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, He says in 2 Corinthians 4: 7. Even if you are not the most attractive person on the outside, even if you are not particularly rich or wise or noble, as 1 Corinthians 1: 26-31 says, He has enriched you in every way (1 Cor 1: 4-9), and has given you wisdom that is not of this world (1 Cor 1: 18-29). He has blessed you with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1: 3). Thank Him for that and start enjoying this wealth that money cannot buy.