This thread on twitter is excellent at highlighting the pseudo religion that covid had become. Can we share it with Pastor JD? I think heâd like it for an update
Show me your faith without works and I will show you works by faith!
Good works are necessary because if you donât have, you have bad works.
Like Jesus, good works talk about him.
John 10
25: Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Fatherâs name, they bear witness of me.
My very first post so I hope I do this correctly. This weekâs prophecy update absolutely tugged at my heart so very much, Pastor J.D. The last part especially when you spoke of being so at a loss for words to pray to our Lord. Iâve lost 2 children & I know the heartache you feel, as well. Iâve been in that âfetalâ position, only able to cry out & groan in my spirit. And, yes, God met me there each time & wrapped His loving Arms around me and comforted me. My hope is in Jesus. This world is not my home. And, when we are reunited with our children in our REAL home, Heaven, what a glorious day that shall be!! 
Thank you for your ministry. It blesses me each week.
(Good works are necessary)
Remember the good Samaritan.
John 10
31: Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32: Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
33: The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
34: Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
35: If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
36: Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
37: If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
38: But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
Was told I should repost this, as I edited an original post and it was buried quickly. I donât mind buried quickly. I warn you itâs extremely long.
[Complete EDIT from original posting to take placeholder into the actual response meant.]
This is a SUPER long post. Longest I will ever make and I apologize. Grab a beverage, a big one and perhaps a snack or two. Sandwich perhaps as well.
There are many ways to get to know God. We now have the radio, television, internet, churches, street preaching and most important, the Bible. You donât have to search far for various teachers of the Word.
This being the very first parable Jesus taught is an amazing one. It was taught for spiritual truth in such a way for all to understand. We need to use the 20/20 rule and read 20 verses before and farther ahead to help us understand this parable and there are counter arguments in Hebrews that trip many of us up by the literary sense of it and I will try to explain that from my perspective later. I will also state right now, just because this is how I and others see this parable, doesnât mean you have to agree with me and we can disagree, thatâs fine. The important matter for us is that Jesus died on the cross for us, raised from the dead three days later and overcame the world and ascended to Heaven. He sacrificed Himself for our sins to be wiped away in Godâs eyes. John 15:13 to me, really helps deliver that point along with famous John 3:16.
The main bullet point is the qualifier for salvation is:
- Receive the Word of God
- It goes deep into your heart for growth
- Overtime it produces good fruit
In Matthew 12, we begin to see Jesusâ tone and attitude change with His message. He begins to warn them of judgement for their rejection of the Messiah. This rejection has to come to pass so we, the Gentile may receive what God intended for the Jewish Nation, so we can receive it.
Matthew 13 Parable of the Sower and the seeds.
Christ being the sower, broadcast or throws His truth to the world as a fisherman casting a net into the waters to gather fish. There are four hearerâs hearts that the Word is given to. That is the ground which we read (heart). Something that I am learning even now is that the mention of birds in the bible is a bad scene. Now what I mean is the generic statement of birds. However, when the birds are described by species, it is a good thing.
- Noah and the Doves
- Elijah and the Ravens
- Vultures eating the flesh of dead men (Itâs gross and technically bad, but not in this case)
As seed (word) was thrown (broadcast), and some fell to the wayside and the birds take it and fly away and devour it. This is best explained as: You bring someone to a sermon or teaching and hearing it, youâre all excited and convicted, even for that person you brought. You are thinking, âThis message HAS to have spoken into them!â At the end of the teaching, they look at you and say, âHuh, that was a nice message.â Before the message could sink into their heart, the birds come and devour the Word. Satan takes it before it can take root.
The second being the Word landed on stony earth (hardened/callus hearts). A bitter heart pushing and resisting the Word of God. Thereâs no breaking through, but God finds a way and through a crack in the rocks, the truth begins to grow. Because of the hardness of their heart and shallow earth (once again, heart) it isnât taking root and lay in a deep and fertile foundation of God. So when the world and calamity come and begin knocking you around, the scoffing and mocking, fired from a job, no job, bad marriage, divorce; any hardship comes, as they are growing, they give up and walk away.
Third ground (heart) thorns sprang up and choked the growth. This one talks of the world interfering again but not through hardship, but through trinkets, worldly pleasures of life. These things presented are more important and so the fruit doesnât mature. They seem to be doing good in their walk. Seems to be peace, love, joy and growth in their life, but, the things of the world begin to choke what had taken root and began choking the Word. We all wrestle with this. Itâs kinda like an ADHD for the Gospel. We have to arrest that grabbing of our attention away from the Word and bring it back to where it ought to be.
Now, the good soil (heart). This is an open, prepared for the Word of God, sensitive to the Word, heart. The heart grows with the Word. It continues to read the Word, praise God, it educates itself in the Word, shares the Word, helps others. In so doing, strengthens itself by the Word.
All hearts received the Word but the reception of the Word is the problem. Where are you with Christ? Be encouraged in your walk to call Jesus, âLordâ. That when you call Him Lord, it is because He IS your Lord. You call Him Lord because your decision making paradigm is filtered in the Word of God and the Will of God is sought after.
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You lean on Him
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You rely upon Him to call the shots in your life
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- You no longer call the shots in your life
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You want to do what God wants you to do
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To be lost in Jesus is your desire and it continues to grow in you
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You want Him to be your Lord in:
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- Word
Deed
By you following Him
- Word
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If you read further along, youâll notice the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. This speaks of a great problem we have even seen on this forum. To sum up: You have to let the tares and the wheat grow till itâs time to Harvest. They look the same so plucking the tares out beforehand will result in some wheat being destroyed. Donât want to do that. So to with the church. âWolves in Sheepâs clothingâ ring a bell? These people come in and act like the saved but over time, they bring forth their destruction through false teaching, false doctrine, false gospel, false disciples, false prophets⌠There an explanation that when you rub wheat in your hand, the chaff leaves, just as with tares. You can put it in your mouth and taste a sweetness with wheat but sometimes tares can be poisonous when put in your mouth and itâs bitter. You wait till the crop matures, harvest, and then separate the good crop from the tares and burn the tares. In our case, we may be arrested for doing that, we you just tell them to vacate post haste.
If you read further, you will see the Parable of the Mustard Seed which also illustrates the point of having to be careful of letting the birds (see, bad sign again of generic calling of birds) that rest within your church ready to destroy and devour the sheep and take away the good fruits.
This is where we get to the Salvation issue.
Hebrews 6 is always used to counter the Once Saved Always Saved truth.
While people read this and believe you can lose your salvation, itâs the exact opposite.
People read this and think, âIf I backslide in sin, I lose my salvation.â This isnât want it means. People say this verse admits you can be saved then lose it and once again, this isnât the case. It is regarding their nature.
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They were once enlightened They became aware of the truth. They heard Christ died on the cross and rose from the grave.
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They tasted of the heavenly gift
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- They experienced the emotional feeling, the content of (I cannot pronounce nor spell the word I am wanting to use as it would better describe this and I ask you to forgive me for that) God and His people. They âfeelâ the emotional content of the Church with His people. This doesnât mean they are saved! Being partakers of the Holy Spirit doesnât mean youâre saved. It means they have seen the Holy Spiritâs power at work. They have seen people come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and be saved. They are not saved themself. They heard people respond to the work God does in a personâs life by the Word spoken by us (church). They watch it happen. They witness the event but are not themselves of the event or of us. âThey were among us but not of us.â
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âAnd being not of us, theyâve gone their own way.â
1 John 2 is pretty good with this. -
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- You go to a seminar on Self Defense tactics. You walk out the same as you walked in. Youâre not a Master of Martial Arts
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- You go to a Go-Cart track and race around the track. You are not A.J. Foyt when you leave.
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Look at Matthew 7:21-23 *21 âNot everyone who says to Me, âLord, Lord,â shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, âLord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?â 23 And then I will declare to them, âI never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!â
Just because you cast out demons, prophesy, or heal people doesnât mean youâre saved. This is what Jesus is getting at. If you think about it, in Revelation, John speaks of the Antichrist doing wonders for people. Perhaps heâll heal the sick and prophesy and these will be some wonders that make people believe heâs the Messiah?
These people who believed for awhile (could be 5 minutes, could be 50 years)
- They tasted of the good word of God
- They were touched
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- They Laughed
cried
They saw the power of the Word
- They Laughed
While they may have believed, it didnât grow into faith. You donât get into heaven by believing. You are saved by believing (ABCâs) But you enter Heaven through faith. True biblical belief is when believe takes you to faith in God. We are told Satan and his demons believe in God and even tremble when they hear His name. Just because they believe, they arenât going to Heaven.
And the powers of the age to come. If they fall away
- If they get up and walk out on something, we donât know what
Itâs an open shame to Jesus that He wasnât all that was needed for our sin being paid in full. According to this act of defiance if you will, He did all this for nothing. Thatâs not true though!
Hebrews where we earlier talked, is a letter written to? Hebrews! Hebrews who became followers of Jesus but also Hebrews who used to follow Jesus as Yeshua but, went back to:
- Animal sacrifices
The Law
Legalism
Their original belief system.
Impossible to renew them under repentance means if youâre a believer and heard the truth of Jesus and some time passes (what amount is unimportant), and you decide, âIâm going to leave this as I donât think this is going to save me. Iâll go back to my original law or âHebrewnessâ.â
This means simply if you leave to find salvation outside of Christ, it ainât gonna happen. Does this mean they canât come back to Christ? NO! They can! Of course they can!
**He was the ONLY way to have your sin taken away! he was the ONLY sacrifice! He was the one who came in our stead to do what nothing, or no one else could do.
When you depart from Him, youâre declaring His sacrifice wasnât enough and so you put Him to open shame by going back to the old ways. âI donât trust Him as the sacrifice to handle all this.â
The ones who left, didnât lose their salvation because they NEVER HAD IT!
People think
- âI didnât pray enough today, I lost my salvation!â Thatâs what Godâs grace is for
- âI didnât lead anyone to Christ!â Thatâs what Godâs grace is for
- âI didnât do enough of this or thatâ Thatâs what Godâs grace is for
Have faith in knowing Jesus rules your life. The person who walks out on Jesus doesnât lose their salvation as they never had it. Those that do have salvation are not dragged up to Heaven either. God knows whoâs going to accept and reject long before any of us were born. He knew this when He started creating the Universe.
Once you receive Him then we become sons and daughters of God.
- John 1:12,13 * 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
To believe in Him and continue to believe in Him. This isnât demanded or forced. Itâs a choice of my heart. I choose to believe in Him. Heâs revealed himself to me and no credit goes to me because God already knows how I would receive it and Him. After all, He invented salvation, not me. And he brought forth the offer to me.
For those who believe for awhile (doesnât matter how long or short) or not at all; God knew how they would respond to this offer. He knew they were never in the family of God. He gave them a chance that is never ending and they refuse it. We call them Politicians. No, Iâm kidding. Made that part up. WellâŚno, kidding.
If you lost it, you never had it and if you have it, youâll never lose it.
We are commanded to abide in Him though. Jude 24 / John 15
Abiding is the decision of; âI love Him. I want to love Him more. I want Him to do whatever He wants in my life, so Iâm going to do these things:â
- Read the Word
- Pray
- Worship
- Share the Gospel
- Help others
- Show the world what following Christ is
All along the way Iâm going to keep getting close to Him. Christ gives me the ability to abide in Him, but doesnât violate my will. If He forces us, then thereâs no more relationship.
This concludes my 15 pages of notes and a small understanding that I possess. No one has all the answers and itâs up to us to find the truth through reading the Truth. If you are saved, you are not going to be dumb enough to walk away from it because of whatâs at stake for you in so many ways. If youâre smart to continue your walk, after you have heard, and receive the truth of God through Jesus Christ who died on the cross for you, paid your sin debt with His death, and rose again three days laterâŚand it really resonates within your heart as you are not going to sluff off His sacrifice to you, thinking you can find a better way for saving yourselfâŚthen donât worry about it.
Now if you donât mind, Iâve had two weeks of little to no sleep and I really gotta grab some shuteye. If this doesnât satisfy you, I have nothing more to offer you and if this makes no sense, I still have nothing for you. Be well and enjoy your journey.
For the people that believe they can make the world better:
@4:55:00 in a nut shell. But the end is near and Jesus is going to Rapture us soon.
This video points out the millennium long effort to subvert Godâs plan. Godâs plan includes their destruction as it is written. The 3 factors the Pastor J.D. mentioned in the update are clearly spelled out in the video about the monsterâs plan. And most donât even know.
Remove the media at all costs. And for your childrenâs sake them from it.
The problem is with placing the wise and foolish virgins as the church, i believe this cannot be about the âChurchâ / âBride of Christâ.
Since the oil in the parable stands for the Holy Spirit, and since we are sealed in the church age with the Holy Spirit, we do not need to re-fill again with the Holy Spirit to keep our salvation or to remain saved.
After the rapture it will be very different for the tribulation saints, for those left behind, they will be responsible for maintaining their own faith. (see the oil in the parable)
Only the church is guaranteed eternal security.
After the rapture, the dispensation of grace has gone and now it is the âtime of Jacobs troubleâ the last 7 years of the old testement Daniels 70th week.
Matthew starts with: At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
At what time?
âAt that timeâ refers to earlier references in the Olivet Discourse and points back to Matthew 24:29 which says, â29 âImmediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;the stars will fall from the sky,and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
This indicates that the timing spoken of in the parable is just after the end of the Great Tribulation, when whatâs left of the world awaits the appearance of Messiah, the King.
An other indication this is not about the Church is that the bride is not invited to her own wedding banquet, A bride does not receive an invitation to her own wedding banquet, and certainly would not consider it a blessing to be invited. Rev 19:9 9 Then the angel said to me, âWrite this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!â And he added, âThese are the true words of God.â
The banquet or wedding supper is after the wedding, the wedding already has taken place, in Rev. 19:6-9 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: âHallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
Bravo. Once saved always saved. You can not be plucked from his hand. Period. We are not Calvinist. Works wonât get you to Heaven
Iâve heard the 144,000 are the 12 tribes of Judah. Remember the slaughter of the boys 2 and under killed in Egypt right before the Exodus? To meâŚit makes sense. I heard it years ago by a minister. God bless.
Hello Saved-by-Grace,
The virgins represent the tribulation believers or sometimes called the tribulation saints that are alive at the Lords return they will have to keep themselves filled with the oil the Holy Spirit, during the tribulation, maintaining their salvation.
The wedding banquet is after the wedding of the bride/church and represents the kingdom age, the wedding already has taken place.
Rev. 14:12 and Rev. 16:15 suggest that Tribulation believers will be responsible for maintaining their own salvation. The five virgins who will be denied entrance will have failed to do so.
Watch this by Pastor Farag The Rapture Comes First, 2 Thessalonians 2:3 â June 14th, 2020 - YouTube about that exact verseâŚ
It is my belief Jesus was speaking through time to the believers at that time.
like i wrote in my previous post, at what time?
Matthew starts with: At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
At what time?
âAt that timeâ refers to earlier references in the Olivet Discourse and points back to which says, [Matthew 24:29] â29 âImmediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;the stars will fall from the sky,and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.*
It makes it clear to me, we are speaking about the time of the great tribulation.
A great teaching about this can be found at:
âdepartureâ not a âfalling awayâ⌠See Geneva Bible, 1599 edition
The works that are being spoken about here are works of faith. They are simply proofs of the faith that already exists in the heart of someone who is truly saved. Just a couple of examples: Rahab the Harlot in the book of Exodus was saved by her work of faith. She hid the Israeli spies and helped them escape by letting them down the wall at Jericho before the city was destroyed. Her salvation was not because she made tea and crumpets for the Israeli spies but because she BELIEVED in the God of Israel and as a result, her faith led her to put her life on the line to help Godâs people. Also, consider the Thief that hung on the cross next to our Lord. Jesus said he would be with Him that night in paradise not because he had done any good work. He was nailed to a cross so he was completely unable to do anything. The thief was saved because he expressed FAITH in the Lord when he said âRemember me when you enter into your kingdom.â
âThat if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.â Romans 10:9â10
Thank you, yes i agree, we all see dimly now, but once we meet in the clouds we will know.
1 Corinthians 13:12
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known
May the Lord bless you.
Thatâs certainly the idea(l). :]
Hi Patrick, you were asking @S_julio on his previous post, so i provide the verse he is referring to. Its getting very long and hard to scroll up and down. Misunderstandings can happen.