Epistles of John

The Baby

2008-10-22T06:20:00.001-07:00

A very common saying is " throwing the baby a way with the bath water. This came to my mind when I was reading a religious magazine article about excesses of the charismatic renewal. For the most part I agreed with the writer about the strange and unbiblical teachings that developed since the beginning of the charismatic renewal. It caused many believers to desire and experience many strange manifestations of the so called presence of God. A prime example was the the Laughing revival in Toronto. However when the writer declared that the absence of reference to the day of Pentecost after Acts 2 in the New Testament was an indication that God did not want us to experience any manifestations I did feel that many so called good evangelical Christians are throwing the baby away with the dirty bath water. The baby in this case are the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The result is a great lack of Spiritual power in the Christian Church mission. It is a proven fact today that those people who are experiencing and practicing the gifts of the Holy Spirit have far more result from their mission work than those who are negative about the charismatic renewal. This is not so strange , considering the statement of Jesus in His last words of Acts 1:8." you shall receive power". All the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit which are listed in 1Cor.12
are manifestations given by God to help us to be more spiritual and stronger Christians. It causes us to have more impact on the unbelieving world. Including the much maligned gift of tongues..
To look at this another way, We all realize that Prayer is absolute necessary for our spiritual well being,which is required for being a good witness. Well , the Bible declares that we actually do not know how to pray but that the Holy Spirit can make intercession for us in our prayers . Crying Abbah Father with sounds we cannot produce.The divine gift of Healing's also can have a powerful effect on the unbelieving world.
We should never forget that our Father God wants us to eagerly desire spiritual gifts.[1Cor.14:1] I hope to you all are just eagerly doing that!
Johannes G Weiss

The Bogeyman

2008-10-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

Originally Sent: 9/29/2008 by Johannes G. Weiss

                                                      The Bogeyman

        Webster’s Dictionary defines “bogeyman” as an imaginary monstrous figure to threatening children.
I am using this word, because many people seem to see Satan as the bogeyman who threatens God's children. For sure however, he is real and the Bible shows us that he wants to do us harm [1 Peter 5:8].
The Bible also shows us that there is no need for God's children to have a fear for Satan. We need to know our enemy but not fear him.
        In Luke 12:4 Jesus is telling us rather to fear Him, who after He kills has the power to cast into Hell.
And of course He is talking about our Father God, whom we should fear. If you have fear for the devil you should take a good look at some Bible verses.
        The first one is short and somewhat hidden and therefore seems insignificant. But it is of great importance! John 14:30: "The Prince of this world is coming and has nothing in me."
Here Jesus is dismissing concern for what Satan can do when he comes. "He has nothing in me."
God's secret revealed here is that when we are covered by the blood of Jesus, Satan has no ground to hinder us. This idea should give us encouragement. God's admonition is: "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness [Eph.5:11].
        Someone has said that you cannot prevent the devil to fly over your head. But you certainly can prevent him to make a nest in your hair!
        Then James 4:8 is God's instruction how to deal with the evil one. It should give us great comfort:
"DRAW NIGH UNTO GOD, RESIST THE DEVIL AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU." It seems to me that the evil one has absolutely no chance to bother us when we obey our Lord's instruction.
When the Bible shows occasions that the devil was bothering God's children, it always indicates that God had to allow it. There is an outstanding story about that in both the Old and New Testament. The book of Job shows clearly that the devil is in submission to our Father God. Jesus reveals in Luke 22:31 that Satan desired to sift Peter like wheat. Jesus prayed that Peter's faith would not fail and that in the end, it would strengthen the brethren. When our Father God allows Satan to bother us, He always works it out for our good! [Romans 8:28]
        Most of us confess to the absolute power of our God. And we believers in Jesus Christ are God's children. Therefore, should we not assume that our powerful heavenly Father will protect us from the evil one? There is no need to worry about attacks from bogeyman!
        The Bible expresses our need to have confidence in our loving Heavenly Father several times.
Romans 8:31 states; "What shall we say then to these things, if God be for us, who can be against us?" Then continuing in verse 38 and 39, it is listing 10 occasions to point out that nothing can separate us from the Love of God.   Are you persuaded of that?
        For certain, it is not the bogeyman we should fear. We should focus our attention on ourselves. God and the Devil are not the only spiritual forces in the universe. God has created us also with a Spirit.
Watchman Nee with his book, "The Latent Power of the Soul," has opened my eyes to the fact that originally we had spiritual power for the good. But after the disobedience of Adam and Eve, this power went latent. However it can become active and working for the good through the Second Adam, Jesus Christ. When we get born again, all things become new and we get a new nature. Hallelujah!
        If we are tempted to sin, we should not conform to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind; then we will prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God [Romans 12:2]. When we do fail sometimes we can only blame ourselves. Most of our temptations are coming from our own mind.
God mentions temptations as "common to man" [1Cor.10:13] and He is giving us the promise, that He will not suffer [allow] us to be tempted above that we are able to stand. But He will with the temptation also make a way of escape! This should comfort us a great deal.
        So if we fall for the temptation, it is entirely our own fault. But our loving Heavenly Father has an antidote for our guilt. Through Jesus our Lord, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" [1 John 1:9] God is so Good! Amen.

The good Samaritan

2008-09-21T16:45:00.001-07:00

This parable from Jesus is found in Luke 10:29-37. It was the answer of Jesus to a question from a lawyer who wanted to justify himself. The question was, "who is my neighbor " T
The question it self is very legitimate, because we can understand that God is not just talking about the people who are living next door.
In the light of the fact that daily there are so many urgent needs presented to us, we need to make choices as to whom we apply our aid. All of us have limited recourses and abilities. Other than prayer, we can not attend to the sufferings of the whole world. Therefore it is good to know from God which neighbor we should help.
From this parable we can deduct that our God will place the needed help cases on our pathway.
And it might be even people we do not like much! There was a great dislike between the Jews and the Samaritans! Jesus showed also that being a member of the clergy does make you necessary more spiritual.
Besides answering the question who our neighbor is, the parable also paints a picture of Jesus Himself. He is the good Samaritan. He was also rejected and despised.
The traveler was probably a backslider, because he was traveling in the wrong direction. Not going up to Zion, the city God, but returning to Jericho, the easy place of entry into the Promised Land.
I am assuming here that you have heard that the journey of God's chosen people to the promised land is a picture of our Christian life.
When we are going the wrong way, Our merciful God does many things to prevent us from backsliding and going into perdition. In this case, the highway robbers got to the traveler. The good Samaritan [Jesus]
was the only one who had compassion and took the wounded traveler back to the inn [church]. This after
applying wine [God's Word] and oil [the Holy Spirit]. Before He left, He paid a down payment for the cost and promised to return to pay in full.
Hallelujah! Jesus is coming back and will pay in full for our complete restoration !
Let us praise and worship Him!
Johannes G Weiss

Whom Do You Call Stupid

2008-08-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

Before I was baptized with the Holy Spirit in 1970 , I was reading the story of the plagues in Egypt and the demise of pharaoh [Exodus7 till Exodus 14], I thought that pharaoh was very stupid.
After all, even though he had experienced the miracles and having seen the power of the Lord with the Israelites, he still wanted to pursue them through the Red Sea. Did he never get the Lord's message to let them go ?
Now however, I am reminded how stupid I have been myself, not perceiving a clear message from the Lord about my overeating. This is what happened ;
Clazina my departed wife, who always took excellent care of me, made me daily a good lunch in a brown paper bag, which I took to work every morning. I would eat it around noon, but then walk to the closest fried chicken place to get a 2 piece snack. Of course I did not tell Clazina about this because I knew she would disapprove strongly.
So this went on for quite some time and I grew slowly fatter. One day, the chicken place had a good low priced special on a 4 piece meal and I could not resist [unbiblical according to 1Cor.10:13]
I took the box with chicken to a nearby park and sat down at a bench with a table.
Amazingly, as soon as I placed the box with chicken on the table, a strong small tornado[whirlwind] lifted my box up in the air and it went over the tree tops. ! Then it fell down about 50 meters away on the paved road.
I went to pick up the broken box and cleaned up the spilled out pieces of chicken and still ate them !
Obviously I did not get the Lord's message that I should not be eating so much. This to my shame and own hurt, because I became grossly over weight and now suffer from high blood pressure and diabetes
The Lord has forgiven me because I did repent and in His mercy He still let me become eighty years 0ld. I have learned my lesson, not to be too hasty to think someone else stupid. We might be prone ourselves to make the same mistakes.From the elderly bridge playing people I have learned to say however; " we elderly do not make stupid mistakes any longer. We only have some senior moments "
Yours truly, Johannes G Weiss

Coersion

2008-08-22T06:02:00.000-07:00

A different look at coercion:

Thinking about the controversial subject of men's free will, the word coercion came to me. When I learned English, I perceived that the general connotation is very negative.
Looking now in the Webster dictionary, I found that this not necessarily always true. Because Webster states as explanation number 1 ;" to restrain or dominate by nullifying individual will ". However the second and third explanation are mentioning the use of force and threat. No wonder that the English speaking people do not like to be coerced this way and the connotation is as something undesirable and bad.

If we take Webster's first definition of restraining and dominating, could we not use this concept in relation to the acts of God in our lives ? Do we not need to be restrained and dominated by our God ?

As for me, I certainly have the need in my life for God's restraint and domination in my life! And I believe that it is very biblical. Our sovereign God can and does use any method of His choice to bring us to repentance!
Where does this leave us as far as our so called free will? Some time ago I wrote an article and made the statement that may be men's free will is a misnomer. I pointed out that even in our decision making our Lord is involved. The surprising statement of Jesus in John 15:16, that He has chosen us and we did not choose Him, did make me look into the doctrine of our free choice.

I found out from Bible research that God indeed wants us to make choices. Joshua 24:15 is the clearest verse. It says " choose you this day whom you will serve "
Praise His Holy Name ! God also let David chose which of the 3 options to punishment he would prefer.

However John 15;16 and other Bible verses indicate that the Lord is directly involved when we have to make choices. Even to the point, so that we chose what He wants us to chose!
I really wonder how it is possible that we still remain responsible for our own choice. However this is absolutely also a biblical fact ! It seems that Our Lord is unfair, however I know that this is not true because our God is always just and fair. the Bible indicates this and we must accept and believe God's Word.

From Bible stories like the one in 2 Chron.22:23, where it states that the Lord did send a lying spirit, we can deduct that the Lord does coerce. Also other stories like the refusals of Pharaoh in Exodus 9 is telling us that God hardened Pharaoh's heart many times! and Pharaoh was still sinning! There is no doubt however that we remain responsible for our choices.

We must understand that our God is all knowing and may be He coerces people who are already bent on sinning and have an evil heart. Considering all this, we can understand that we only have a limited free will and that the Lord is involved in everything we chose.The Lord is conducting us continuously. We can trust Him that all things work for the good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.

I am glad that our Lord restrains and dominates me. But I pray that I will grow more in the likeness of Jesus so that I will always obey Him out of my love for Him. How about you ? Johannes G Weiss

Intolerant Christianity?

2008-08-01T06:45:00.001-07:00

The word tolerance and the practice of it is very popular today. It is so called very" political correct " And under this concept every thing goes. They even tolerate homosexual pastors in our churches and legalize abortion. ! The word tolerance as such is not in the Bible. However, Romans 2:4 and 3:29 is telling us that our God has "forbearance". The word tolerance is widely used in the mechanical sense, indicating then a clearance between parts and usually moving parts. Like a roller bearing forinstance.If there is no sufficient tolerance in between the rollers, and also too much clearance, either way friction will produce heat which will destroy the bearing.In addition for a right operation Lubricant {oil} is often needed.
We can use these mechanical facts also in our Christian lives as applying to our human relationships with others. The Bible does teach us to forbear one another.[Eph, 4:2]. The lack of Christian forbearance [tolerance] and also too much of it will cause lots of friction. Heat in the form of human anger will destroy many relationships.I believe that love is the required lubricant, taking the place of oil, in order to have good relationships.
While evangelizing, I often run into unbelievers who are accusing Christians of being intolerant. They often ha.ve heard about the claim of Jesus in the Bible, that He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father,but by me."[John14:6]this seem to be a stumbling stone for many unbelievers. Recently, a relative of me said to me, "I believe in Jesus but this Scriptures is wrong, Jesus never could have said this"
He was taught that when you read the Bible, you have to judge what is right and what is wrong. Because the Bible is written by humans and there are wrong things in it . This kind of thinking is very displeasing to Father God because He inspired the writers of His Word and there are no mistakes !
Lately I heard another argument. Quoting Mark 10:5 to prove that sometimes the Bible is wrong. Jesus says that because the hardness of our hearts Moses instituted a letter of divorce, but in the beginning it was not so.So his conclusion was that Deut.24:1 was wrong !
Instead of mistakes in the Bible this scripture to me show the great tolerance of our God ! He is the ultimate example of Mercy and Grace !
The word "longsuffering" is mainly used in the Bible and also the word "forbearance". It shows that these are the character traits of our God.
Psalm 86;15 sums it all up "But thou oh Lord art a God,full of compassion and gracious, Long suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth ".
An example of His tolerance we find in 2 Kings 5:19. When the Prophet Elisha allows Naaman to bow down with his king in the temple of Rimmon. He said "go in peace ". I find it also remarkable that Ruth who was a Moabite woman, was uses by God to produce David and Jesus in the family line. ![Ruth 4:22]
There are many more scriptures showing the great forbearance of our heavenly Father. Jesus, on the cross praying, "Father forgive them , for they do not know what they do ". This is an ultimate example of His great mercy and forbearance. How can the world say that our God and our Faith is intolerant ?
God states in 2 Peter 3:9 " the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count it slackness; but is LONGSUFFERING to us-ward.
Nor willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He is postponing His return and His final judgement of this sinful world, in order to give more souls a chance in Gal. 5:22 to repent.
Many times, when I observe the terrible sins being committed by the human race, I think , that I would wipe them all out at once. Of course this shows a lack of forbearance in me. Forbearance is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Thus as Christians, we should have it also. Please pray for me that I may be more like Jesus in kindness and longsuffering.
Are you may be one of them for whom Jesus is waiting to repent? Please do not postpone it, the Lord is coming soon !.
Johannes Weiss

OUR FATHER

2008-07-29T08:45:00.001-07:00

It is the idea of God Himself to picture himself as a Father. This may be because all of us have a earthly father and can understand the implications of this relationship.
I believe that therefore Jesus started the prayer HE is teaching us with "Our Father"
It is also very significant that it starts with the word "OUR'. And the idea of "our" is also repeated throughout the rest of the prayer. There it is mentioning "us
instead of "me'. This in order to let us realize that we all, as believers are included as children of our Father. God is not only my God but "Ours'
Sometimes I seem to be inclined to personolize God for myself, but the Holy Spirit always corrects me. I believe it is good to think of yourself as a child of God. However, we must realize that we are one of many others.
The prayer continues to indicate who and where our Father is. 'Who art in Heaven" and then it expresses our desire that His name will be Hallowed. This means that we want that His name is always honored and glorified.
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. We are in a way saying that we know that His Kingdom and His wiil is not yet realized here on earth. But that we want it to come. as it is promised during the 1000 year reign of our Lord Jesus. Now His will is done abolutely by His Angels in Heaven, since he has trown Lucifer and His rebelious Angels out.
"Give us this day our daily bread". This is the only simple request for our physical needs. Quite different from so many of our human prayers which are filled with
"Lord give me,give me, give me! This day and daily shows that it is needed to pray every day for this. One day at the time.The Next sentance continues with the word "and". It showes me also that here our daily bread is connected to our forgiveness. "and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors". This is such an important issue that In Mathew 6:14 and 15, on the end of the prayer, Jesus emphasizes this again. The quality of the forgiving we do is also in focus ,because sometimes we think that we forgave but it is not completely done in our Spirit.
"And lead us not into temptation". This seems to be in contradiction with James 1:13. There God stated that He tempts no one ! However, from other scriptures
[1 Cor.10:9/14]we know that temptation come either from our own lusts or from the Evil One. God does test us sometimes and the Bible uses the word tempt in place of test. I believe that this request of "lead us not into temptation" could be rephrased by saying" Lord do not allow the evil one to lead us into sin"Ti idea is inforced by the follwing,'but deliver us from evil."Some translation say "from the evil one"
" For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever " Here we are expressing our desire and admittance that those 3 things are God's possesions and rights. they are mentiones in others parts of God's Word. Rev. 4 says Glory ,Honor and Power. AMEN!
iT IS VERY MUCH NEEDED THAT WE PRAY THIS PRAYER EVERY DAY! ANS ALSO USE IT AS A PATTERN FOR OUR OTHER PRAYERS.
Johannes G Weiss

RECONCILIATION, THE HEART OF GOD

2008-07-21T05:35:00.001-07:00

When I read God's Word, the Bible, I get a picture of our Father God as a loving Father who is always seeking reconciliation with us, His creation. The story of the prodigal son is a good example of our relationship with our Father God.[Luke 15:20]
The message of God through the Bible is actually very simple and can be called “the gospel of good news”. It is apparent that God created us to have fellowship with Him and bring Him glory,honor and power.[Rev.4:11]. It seems clear that he wants to receive this for now on a volunteer basis.
Even His angels had the ability to make a choice, either to follow Lucifer in His rebellion or keep serving God. [Isa. 14:12] When He created us humans, He also gave us a choice. Either to obey or disobey Him. And of course we all know that Adam and Eve did not obey God's demand not to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.[Gen2:17]
Our Father God does not want us like robots, without our own will and choice. As proof of our responding love for Him He is asking for obedience.[John15:14]. Because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the human race was and is alienated from God. Basically, all disobedience to God is ca
lled “sin”, which separates us=2
0from fellowship with our Father God. It is the sin of disobedience which separates the human race from fellowship with our creator. However, from the beginning of His creation God made a plan of reconciliation,which is already revealed in Rev. 3:15.
God's method of reconciliation is through His son Jesus Christ, whom He did send to earth in Human form to teach us and to suffer for our sins by death on the Cross. This in order so that we might believe in Him and be restored as children of God and have fellowship with Him for eternity
.[John3:16].
It seems impossible to shake of our sinful nature,because we are all born in sin. But when we accept Jesus and His suffering for our sins, a miracle happens. We become creatures who are born again with a new natur e and over whom sin does not have dominion any longer.[Rom.6:14 and 22].
God does this through the power of the Holy Spirit, whom He did send after Jesus went to heaven.
The Holy Spirit is also the one who brings us to repentance. He is God and His working agent here on earth. .He probably made you read this article, in order to understand the simple Gospel of Good News. . After we come to repentance, we as believers in Jesus Christ want to obey His commands. Then we will know that He created us to bring Him glory and Honor
One o
f the best ways to do that according to Jesus is to bear much fruit.[John15:8] Fruit bearing means multiplication of believers through being a witness.
Already in the beginning of His short ministry He refers to the Promise of the Father, which is the out poring of the Holy Spirit[John7:37/39]. He gave us as His disciples the great commission to make more disciples and baptize them.[Math.28:18/20 and Mark16:15/18].
Jesus did use His last words here on earth to tell us about receiving the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. This in order to an effective witness in all the world.
So here we have the simple gospel of Jesus Christ.. Did you repent from your sin and are you forgiven through the Blood of Jesus Christ? Do you read the Bible regularly? Are you a believer and bearing fruit so that others will believe ?
I Pray that you can answer these most important questions with a resounding “ Yes Lord “

Johannes G Weiss

News Tidbit

2006-04-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends. The end of my stay in California is in sight and I have a feeling that I might never be back here , I am kind of melancholic because California is such a beautiful state and I made several friends here . The lord has laid it on my heart to move closer to my Children and Grandchildren in the Eastern part of our country. Therefore On May 5 I hope to start driving back to Cincinnati and then to Virginia. My son Johan lives in Harrisonburg and most likely I will live close by there. Tonight he had a prayer request for some friends whom I also know. Chris and Phillip . She is pregnant and they have detected a heart abnormality in the baby boy. He might also have other problems. They are conducting more test right now. Please pray for that couple and their unborn baby.
I most likely will not send you any more E mails until I get to Cincinatti with my daughter Judy there. Hopefully , by May 10. Please pray also for me, it is a long drive . Greetings in Jesus's precious name Johannes

Presumption

2006-04-28T21:43:00.000-07:00

PRESUMPTUOUS.

PRESUMPTUOUS is an interesting word, which is used only twice in the KJ Bible. [Pslm 19:13 and 2Peter2:10] It comes from the verb to presume and in that form it appears 3 more times, Deut18:20, Es7:5 and Numb 14:14 . PRESUMPTUOUSLY is used 6 more times and I would encourage you to use a Young's or a Strong's dictionary to look them all up. Because , it seems that our Heavenly Father does not like it and is warning strongly against it .
The Webster dictionary seems to say that it is not always bad to presume something, although it can be. My own definition would be :
Acting on or saying things on the basis of our own conclusions, which are not always correct.
In Pslm.19 verse 13 King David, a man after God's own heart prays " Keep Thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me, then I shall be upright and shall be innocent of the great transgression" The Lord is pointing out here some very important things and we should take a close look at this .
First of all , the multiple word sins is used and talked about as them . This indicates to me that presumptuous sins can be the cause and the root of many sins, Secondly , notice that it can have dominion over us . Thirdly, it is saying then that we can not be upright, unless we are free from presumptuous sins, which is the cause of great transgressions.
In 2 Peter2:10 our Lord sheds some more light upon presumptuous sins. Talking about the " unjust ' in verse 9, God says in verse 10 " But chiefly them walking after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities."
Notice here that it has to do with walking after[or in] the flesh. And not walking in the Spirit as we are told to do . When I combine lust and uncleanness in my mind, I think of wrong and bad sexual behavior. Then it gives a picture of selfwilled [selfish] peoples who are very rebellious, despise government and badmouth dignities. It is certainly a clear picture of what is going on now in these last days !
You might think that these presumptuous sins only concern bad and unbelieving people. But notice that David a man honored by God prayed for this type of sins .I have concluded that God's Warning against Presumptuous sins is very much directed to people who think themselves to be very spiritual. For instance one like myself. Specially people who have been given the gift of prophecy .
Because it is very easy to be deceived in thinking that you always know what God is saying and know what He want you to say . But pride and your own heart is deceiving you .
In Deut.18:20 and 22 the Lord speaks about presumptuous prophets and warns the people against them. Even to day Prophets remain prone to speaking in the flesh and therefore we must judge their prophecies. It is clear that God hates presumptuous sins because they are rooted in pride and cause many other kinds of sin.The unbeliever commits this sin when he concludes that there is no God. God calls the fools .Pslm. 11;11
The believers are also prone to commit this sin because of our pride and the tendency to feel that we are better and more advanced than others
To have the Fear of the Lord and the practice of humility is a strong antidote for presumptuous sin and let us pray the prayer of King David often,
'Lord keep this servant from presumptuous sins " Amen !

TENACITY

2006-04-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

TENACITY
Although this word tenacity is not in the King James Bible, it describes the concept of steadfastness. One of Webster's definitions is : "not easily pulled apart"
God's Word makes it very clear that God himself has this attribute in the greatest way and likes to see it also in His children. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to encourage you to develop and show this character trait.
Another English word, which appears only one time in the KJ. New Testament is "perseverance". Eph. 6:18 talks about persistent prayer with supplication [humbleness]. Overall, this subject of tenacity is used many times in the Bible. Under different words, like Steadfastness, stand or hold fast, endure, continue, etc.
I want to focus in on the concept of enduring because it is mentioned so many times and links tenacity with suffering and hardship. Webster states the following definition;
" To remain firm under suffering, hardship and misfortune, without yielding " .
There is no doubt about the fact that Christians also have to suffer in this world and Philippians 1: 29 states, "For unto you it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake" " is given " sounds to me that it is considered to be a privilege to suffer.
To live the Christian live is not a bed of roses. Our heavenly Father will chastise us in order that we will grow more into the likeness of His son Jesus Christ.[ Hebr. 12:5-11}, verse 7 states that God expects us to endure. When we follow a desire that God planted in our Hearts, but experience suffering, most of the times God is testing and developing our tenacity. He wants us to have some starch.
However when we follow our own desire without consulting Him, we also will surely suffer tribulations. It then means that the Lord is trying to stop us. In that case our so called tenacity is actually sinful stubbornness and the result will be extended tribulations.
So if you do experience sufferings, tribulations and chastisements or hardships, ask your self and God if you are following your own fleshly desires, which are not given by God. The required action then is to stop at once. But if your hearts desires are Godly and given to you by God, no matter how much and what kind of hardship and sufferings you endure, obey 1Cor. 15:58. " Be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.For as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord"
Mathew 24:13 says" But he that endures until the end shall be saved." Beloved, the end is getting close. And 2Tim. 4:5 says "but watch thou in all things, endure afflictions , do the work of an evangelist, make full prove of thy ministry". I close with James 5:11 ".Behold we count them happy which endure ".
Johannes G. Weiss

Baptism of the Holy Spirit

2006-03-17T08:46:00.000-08:00

The baptism with the Holy Spirit

Acts 17:11 in the NIV Bible tells us how to be of a more noble character in God's sight. If that is a desire of our heart we should examine the scriptures daily in order to determine what we hear is true and according to God's Word .
I am inviting you all here to do this with me again on the most important subject of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit.
This occurrence which was going to happen was so important to Jesus that He spent His last words on earth to tell us about it.[Acts 1:8] Naming this happening "the baptism with the Holy Spirit " in Acts 1:4/5, He actually repeated the words of John the Baptist, which we can find in 3 Gospels.[Math 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16] He already had told us in Luke 24:29 that He was going to send that which the Father had promised.
Does the baptism with the Holy Spirit pertain to the salvation of a person?
Definitely not! Clearly Jesus said it would give the believing Apostles power to be witnesses for him in the whole world. The message was directed to the Apostles He had chosen already.[Acts 1:3]. They were already born again believers and even had received the Holy Spirit when Jesus had breathed on them.[John 20:22] I believe that Jesus breathed on them to confirm the beginning of the New Covenant, which had started when He had shed His Blood on Calvary. 1Cor 11:25].There needed to be a transition because they were saved under the old covenant.
We must understand that there are at least two dimensions of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus speaking about The Holy Spirit said in John 14:17 " for He lives WITH you but shall be IN you." The parable of the 10 virgins also indicate that there are two dimensions or volumes of the Holy Spirit. Enough to make it until eternal live with Jesus on the end or not enough and insufficient to endure until the end.
I understand from this that when you are born again through the work of the Holy Spirit, He comes to live WITH you. But when you are baptized with the holy spirit He will be living IN you and empower you to be an effective witness.
To be an effective witness also entails that we will be able to live a more Godly life,
The world must see that our witnessing is backed up by our own lives. They must see Christ in us ! We must practice what we preach. This becomes possible through the Baptism with the Holy Spirit who will sanctify us.The Baptism with the Holy Spirit is truly a life changing experience! The 120 believers, who were obedient to Jesus command to wait for it in Jerusalem, are the best proof of this. They reached the then know world with the gospel in an amazing short time. From a cowering bunch of people they turned into convincing witnesses
almost at once !
I can testify to the same experience. Although I was born again when I was 14 years old, during world war 2, in Holland, I was only a nominal bench warming Christian until 1970 when I and my whole family were baptized with the Holy Spirit.It changed our lives entirely and we became effective witnesses in the utter most part of the world. The Holy Spirit gave use amazing power to evangelize and the Lord established many churches in the remote areas of the Philippines. They are bearing more fruit even today, as the Lord allowed me to observe during my last trip there in 2005. Praise God !
Jesus also referred to the baptism with the Holy Spirit as " the promise of the Father" Probably indicating Joel 2:28. He had also mentioned the promise in Luke 24:49.
We should ask ourselves and other Christians also, have you received the Holy Spirit? Some 19 years after the day of Pentecost, Paul did ask that question in Ephesus to some disciples he had met there.[Acts 19:2] It is a very important question.
If the answer is negative or I do not know, You must conclude that The baptism with the Holy Spirit has not happened to you as yet. Because if it did happen, you will know it. Because it does change your entire life! Are you a believer in Jesus Christ ? Then He wants you to obey him and wait for the promise of the Father. Acts 8 is definite proof that you can be a believer for a while and not have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. The Samaritans believed in Jesus and were water baptized but had to wait till Peter and John came from Jerusalem later on. Any way the 120 followers of Jesus had to wait also for a while. So did the disciples in Ephesus
The sad case is that today there are thousands and thousands of believers who never have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and either think that they are, or do not feel a need for it .Some of them confuse the salvation experience with the Holy Spirit baptism. Others feel not worthy of it. What is required to receive it ? Jesus said " come unto me if you are thirsty" So you only need to believe and be thirsty enough to ask for it.[Jon 7:37/39] That is a prayer request The Lord certainly will answer according to 1John 5 verse 14 and 15.
"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His Will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us-whatever we ask, we know that we have what we ask of Him "
Yours truly, In Christ Johannes

PS. If any one wants to more details what happened to the Weiss family when we were baptized with the Holy Spirit, Let me know and I will send you my complete testimony.
.

Prophecy for the Body of Christ

2005-09-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

Behold my children: Be much aware that you are living in the last days. And remember the man warnings that deception will be rampant during that time.

If I do not cut the days short, even some of my very elect will be deceived.

The main problem is that you always are looking for comfort. However it is in the days of your great discomfort that I can work my best changes in you.

My desire is to change you into the likeness of Jesus Christ more and more, every day. And therefore I am bringing suffering and discomfort on you.

Be not discouraged, but endure until the end.

Thus says the Lord.

God's Secret Agent

2005-08-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

God's Secret Agent
This is how I perceive the Holy Spirit, the third person of our triune God.
I came to feel that way when the Holy Spirit talked to me in 1970, after I started to addressing and worshipping Him. It was a rebuke, telling me not to continue to do that.
God was displeased with it, although my motivation and heart was Godly.
When researching the subject, I found that not a single person in the New Testament ever directed himself to the Holy Spirit. Neither in worship or prayer.
Studying the Lords introduction of the Holy Spirit , recorded in John 16:7 till 16, I concluded the Holy Spirit is the Lord's working agent in the entire world and that He wanted to stay in the background Himself. Only revealing all things about Jesus, who had been given all authority by His Father. Jesus called Him the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter and Counselor.
Now every time when I hear my fellow Christians addressing and inviting the Holy Spirit to come, it is as if I hear Him shouting " Do not you know that I am with you or in you all the time and that I am permeating the whole earth ? In the unbelieving world , I am convicting of sin and revealing righteousness and judgement to others "
God is very displeased with this apparently unawareness of His omni presence.by His children. The Holy Spirit as a part of God and sovereign, being everywhere. It does not behoove us to invite Him or tell Him that He is welcome. He even goes to places where He is not welcome. !
Jesus declared that specially in believers He is present all the time either with them or inside of them. [John 14:17] There are several scriptures telling us of His presence . Saying that He never leaves us or forsakes us and that He wants us to have communion with him all the time, 24 hours a day. [ 1 Thes. 5:17 ] .The bodies do His followers are His temple [1 Cor.6:19 ]
If you are one of the many Christians who are worshiping and inviting the Holy Spirit, Please consider this writing as a message from the Lord and cease addressing the Holy Spirit.
His and your servant , Johannes Weiss

Trust and Obey

2005-07-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Trust and obey
Searching for a bible verse, which mentions both words, I found it only in one verse.Isa. 50:10..Although there are numerous verses talking about trusting or obeying seperate. But some are implying both concepts.[1Tim, 4:10]. Isai.50:10 is a very informative verse with a hidden promise.."who is that among you that feared the Lord, that obeyed the voice of His Servant, that walketh in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God."This form of the LOrd's question is actually implying that if you do trust and obey Him , you will never walk in darknes and remain with Him, having light allt he time..
Many other verses confirm this promise. Exodus 19:5
is telling us that if we obey the Lord , we will be His peculiar people ! The word peculiar seems to have a negative meaning nowadays.. Webster says it means "strange queer or od. However in the biblical KJ language , it means to be different and set aside from worldly people and called " saints " See also 1 Pet.2:9, we sing this verse all the time ! I would encourage you to look up all the verses which te are telling us the benefits of trusting and obeying ,
During my ministry in the Philippines, the Lord instructed me to put great emphasisontheIlacanoword :"panactulnoc" [obedience]. And I quoted John 14:15 almost everytime I preached.
"if you love me you obey my comandments" And Jessus promised us in John 15:10 that when we obey His comandment, we will abide in His love. This is one of the best comforting promises to me .
In some of my former articles I did already explain that the concept of trusti s rooted in Faith.If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, you also trust in Him.
Even in our common daily language we say sometimes
"i have faith in so and so" ,meaning that we trust him or her.Trust is the greatest proof of honor you can give to your Lord. This is why Jesus said that unless we become like litle children, we can not enter the Kingdom of God. This is a strong warning that we must have trust in Him.
Do we realy obey and trust the Lord while we are saying that we love Him? The love chapter of 1 Cor.13 {NIV] tells us in verse 7 that love always trusts !
I do not think that an exolanation of the concept of obedience is needful.Most all people know what it means. Jamres 1:22 states that we should be doeres of the Word and not hearers only.. And so deceiving ourselves.This entails the concept of biblical obedience.. However , today there seems to be many who are " decieving themselves "
I pray and hope that this article will help you not to be one of them ! And that you want to trust and obey our precious Lord
His and your servant, Johannes Weiss.

Seven Principles of New Testament Giving

2005-06-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Johannes Weiss:
Seven Principles of New Testament Giving

Love is the essence of our Christian Faith. Love is a manifestation. It must be demonstrated in order to exist. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” (John 3:16) Therefore, giving is the primary expression and manifestation of love. God’s word says, “He who loves has fulfilled the commandments (law). All the Lord’s commands are summed up in, “Love your neighbor as your self.” (Rom. 13:8-10) In this light we have to see the whole subject of giving.
Jesus requires under the New Covenant that if we love God and are born again, that we give our all as a reasonable service. (Rom. 12:1-3) Here, we arrive at principle number one.

1. Give your all to the Lord.
Defining the word “giving” in its totality, including all kinds of giving, you must be willing to offer 100%! As a Christian, your whole life belongs to Christ, including all your possessions, your wife and family, etc… “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you preent your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”(Romans 12:1)

2. Give as your heart directs you.
Talking about the financial aspect of giving, God’s word says, “Let every man give according as he purposeth iin his heart.”(2corinthians 9:6-12) This bives us the foundation for understanding the Lord’s will for our financial giving. This entails acting not upon the set rule of Old Testament tithing, but rather, obedience to the urging of the Spirit within the heart of each believer. This will likely result in greater generosity in giving than mere tithing. As it says in verses 6 and 7, “Now this I say, ‘He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly. And he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”
Now, some Biblical interpreters claim that this passage in 2 Corinthians is only speaking of special monetary gifts which were separate from the regular tithe. However, it is clear that such interpreters are wrong and that this passage actually rejects completely the Old Testament legalistic view of tithing.

3. Give Willingly
In this same passage, we arecommanded to give “not grudgingly or of necessity or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”(2 Cor.9:7) Now, this could go with giving 10% if this is what your heart directs you to do. Make sure, however, that it is not misdguided teaching which compels you.
“Giving until it hurts” has become a popular refrain with many Bible teachers. Now, if this means that you, with a cheerful and glad heart, are denying yourself something in order to be able to give, this the Lord would love, because it would be following Christ’s example. “though He was rich, yet for your sake he became poor that you, through his poverty might become rich.”(2 Cor.8:9) What great need ther is today for Christians to live less sumptuous and more austere lives in order to bring the Gospel of Jesus!

4. Give Generously
Another aspect of Christian giving is generosity. There are tow main scriptures in which the Lord encourages us to be generous in our giving:
“Now this I say, ‘He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly. And he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”(2 Corinthians 9:6)

“Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again”(Luke 6:38)

These exhortations are by no means an encouragement to give in order to get. This “give to get” teaching is very popular today, but it is also very un-biblical as it caters to our greed. They have a nice slogan for it and it sounds very spiritual. “Seed-faith giving”, it is usually called, but it is still very ungodly. The only right motive for giving is Love –Self-Denying Love!!!

5. Give Regularly and Proportionately
“Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of every week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God has prospered him.” (1 Corinthians 16:1-2)
Now, giving a set percentage is not what the Lord is thinking of here. Why not? He is looking at how much self-sacrifice is involved. How much did it cut into your basic needs? If the IRS realized that in order to have fairness of burden, they need to have different brackets (percentages) for rich and poor, how much more is our heavenly father looking for fairness of burden?

6. Give without “tooting your horn” about it.
“He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.”(Romans 12:8) Some other translators use, “without ostentation” (display). How different from the teaching in most modern churches. The use of pledges, envelopes, and bookkeeping systems seems to run counter to what the Lord Jesus taught us in Matthwe 6:3, “Let never your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” “But we need tax receipts,” you say. Do you, really?

7. Give out of what you have and not out of what you do not have.
The Scriptures teach that “…the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.”(2 Corinthians 8:12) Therefore, avoid any kind of pledge drive or those incentives to give money called “faith promises.” You can not and should not try to make deals with the Lord, setting conditions that when he is going to give you extra, then you will give it back to Him. It is subtle, but shouldn’t we rather focus upon faithfulness to Him with what finances we already have, rather than ask him to somehow bless us with an unexpected extra sum of money (which costs us nothing in terms of labor or finances) which we will then turn over to him?

The Precious Gift of Tongues

2005-06-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

In 1 Cor. Chapter 12, our Lord lists nine gifts of the Spirit. In v.1 He starts out saying that "He does not want us to be ignorant about the Spiritual Gifts". Yet among the Bible-believing Christians there is a great amount of ignorance and misunderstanding about the gifts. Especially concerning the gift of Tongues.

Although this teaching will focus on the Tongues, for completeness sake and the context I am listing the 9 gifts here:
1. Word of Wisdom
2. Word of Knowledge
3. Faith.
4. Working of Miracles.
5. Gifts of Healing
6. Prophecy.
7. Discerning of Spirits
8. Civerse or different kinds of Tongues
9. Interpreting of Tongues

It is a sad farct that this precious gift of Tongues is so controversial and seems to create a lot of strife. So, therefore let us take a close look at what God's Word reveals about this. If we truly love God , his desire should be our command.
His desire is that not be ignorant aobut this!!! In obedience, meditate over this teaching and then bring it into practise.

THE DIFFERENT VIEW POINTS
To start out, we should mention that a sincere and ragher large group of Christians are "against" speaking in tongues. Some want to forbid its practise in the church altogether. Their reasons, which I have heard, are as follows:
"It is too emotional and pentecostal"
"It causes strife in the Body"
"The Apostle Paul rebukes the Corinthian church for it"
"It was only for then, in the beginning of the Church"
"It creates two classes of Christians, one claiming to be more spiritual than the other."

In the face of the clear teaching in god's Word, you wonder why this is. I believe I know the answer: Satan understands the tremendous benefits for the believer who exercises this gift.
Therefore he does his utmost to bring it into disrepute! And when believers refect the Lord's gift, it is like a slap in the Lord's face! He also counterfeits this gift often times with great success. Imagine your father or best freind offering you a gift and you rejecting it!

There are several scriptures these believers need to absorb:
1 Cor. 14: 1 "Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy"
v. 4 "he who speaks in tongues edifies himself..."
v.5 "I wish you all spoke with tongues..."
v.14 "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays..."
v.18 "I thank my God that I sprak with tongues more than all of you"
v.37-38 "If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual let him acknowledge that the thing I write are the commands of God."

if these Christians love the Lord, I really do not need to add any further rebuke.

But then, there are many Christians who say that they are not against this gift of tongues, but they believe it is not for them and therefore the Lord does not give it to them. However, many times you can detect an antipathy toward this gift in their spirit. The defense they have and quickly brien out is 1 Cor.12:30, Paul's question, "...do all speak in tongues?" Obviously this has to be answered with "No." Not all Christians do. However, to then draw the conclusion from this that the Lord is telling us that this gift is not for everyone is very wrong.
If this were true, then the Lord is contradicting Himself in 1 Cor. 14:5 "I wish you all speak in tongues." He was simply just pointing out that not all do. And I believe he was talking about the special kind of tongues which is equal to prophecy and has to be followed by interpretation. This is clear from the context with the rest of the question, "do all interpret?"
However, the non-tongue-speaker will usually quickly refer to 1 Cor. 12:25 as context that it brings a schism in the Body! All the while, they do not realize that, as an excuse for their unwillingness, they accuse the Lord of having an ingerior gift, or having refused to give them the gift of tongues.

For those who earnestly desire spiritual gifts, including tongues, this teaching is for the purpose to help them to receivethis precious gift. The situation is not helped much by those who do exercize it themselves, but tell those who don't that it is alright not to have it. Many tongues-speakers seem to have the need to be tolerant with this and therefore teach that it is alright with the Lord not to desire the gift of tongues! Most of the time, this is caused by a misunderstanding of 1 Cor. 12:30, "do all speak with tongues?"

Another reason is that many do not discern that there are "diverse or different types of tongues", and that Paul referred in his question, "Do all...", to the specific kind of tongues which has to be followed by interpretation, in the corporate meeting. The result is that today we have many so called "spiritual" worship leaders who are not able to use the gift of tongues. This is the case, while the Scriptures tell us to sing and pray in tongues (1 cor. 14:15). Therefore we can say, the blind are trying to lead the blind! 1 Cor. 14:5 DOES say this: "I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied, for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless he indeed interprets, that the church may receive edification".

In this sentence, in addition to the expressed wish of the Lord, that we speak with tongues, IN NO WAY takes away from that the Lord WISHES tongues! It only makes clear that tongues are on par with prophecy when followed by interpretation!
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THE DIVERSE OR DIFFERENT TYPES OF TONGUES

it is essential that we do understand that the gift of tongues is "diverse", or "of different kinds". It is the only gift listed like that. Notice though that when Paul speaks about the gifts the word diversicy is used several times in 1 Cor. 12.

In a way, you could say that the gift of tongues consists out of several gifts connected to "strange tongues" (not your own language). If you do not discern this, you will have a problem understanding "do all speak in tongues", and "he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God", or "I thank God I speak with tongues more than you all, yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my underatanding".

These Scriptures have to be seen in the light that there are at least 3 different types of tongue gifts. Studying God's Word, we can readily observe 3 different kinds:

1) In Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, the gift of tongues is used to clear the barrier of foreign languages, to let the foreigners understand the words spoken by the first apostles. It oculd be still in operation today. I have heard some testimonies to that end, but also heard stories about missionaries who refused to learn foreign languages and fell flat on their faces. They were too zealous for this particular kind of tongues and presumptuous and therefore failed.

2) the gift of tongues being exercised as a prophetic message to the believers, which must be followed by the gift of interpretation. (1 Cor. 14:13, 14:5)
Then it is on par and equal to the gift of prophecy (v.5)

3) when Paul states in verse 18 his thanks to God for his gift of tongues, he is referring to the kind he is using in his praise and worship. We must conclude that because he adds, "I would rather speak with understanding in church..."

then there are several exortations to pray, sing and worship in tongues, which is called "speaking to God, not to men".

So here we have already 3 different kinds of tongues. Extinctly different from each other that you could say they are 3 different gifts. We must consider that in order to clearly understand what he is trying to tell us.

When Paul states the question, "do all speak in tongues?" He is definitely talking about the tongues being used as prophecy. Not all are used by the Lord in that way. The statement "I wish you all spoke in tongues" pertains clearly to the tongues used for prayer, worship and praise. Keep in mind that the Lord never contradicts Himself!
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THE USE OF TONGUES IN PRAYER, PRAISE, AND WORSHIP

The tongues which are for everyt believer is the one used for prayer. Praise and worship, becasue that is what the Lord desires from every believer. We must worship Him in Spirit and Truth. God found it necessary to record Paul's statement in 1 Cor. 14:37, "The things I write are the Commands of God". He apparently foresaw that some people would not be able ot accept what Paul is saying. In 1 Cor. 14:15, Paul's admonition to us is "I will pray with the Spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the Spirit and also with the understanding." this conclusion he gives after he explains the difference between the Prophetic tongues and the private worship tongues. This admonition to use tongues for worship and prayer is also given in several other scriptures.

Col. 3:16 to worship with "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs"

Eph. 5:19 to be filled with the Spirit, also then using tongues in spiritual songs.

Jude 21 is speaking about building ourselves up in our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.

Although these 3 Scriptures do not specifically mention tongues, it is implied.
_____________________________

FOR ALL BELIEVERS

Does the Lord want the gift of tongues for all believers? The answer is a qualified YES! Qualified because there is definite proof in God's Word for it.

Let us consider the following:
A. Acts 2:1, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. These all consisted of about 120 followers of Jesus as mentioned in Acts 1:15. Now think about this! Anytime when you have 120 believers together there are all kinds of people among them. They range from babes in Christ to well-matured followers. Assuredly there wer some still struggling with old sins and bad habits. This is likely since Jesus ministered only of 3 years and many could have been very recent converts. Yet, amazingbly, the Lord chooses to baptize them All with the Holy Spirit and give them all the gift of Tongues! He did not determine that some of the 120 were not worthy to receive the GIFT.

This idea should be of tremendous encouragement to those who are seeking for this gift. It was to me a vital discovery that it is not a matter of worthiness.

When I was seeking, some 30 year ago, I was still smoking. I thought that it kept me from receiving, gut the Lord sent me a man who told me that His father was actually smoking when he got baptized with the Holy Spirit. It opened my eyes to the Lord's attitude. Shorltly after I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues, the Lord helped me to quit smoking. If you wait until you are worthy enough, you might never receive! You may be one of thowe who does desire, but is not receiving because deep in your heart you feel unworthy?
"Come unto me and drink!" cried Jesus in John 7:37

B. The fact that He gave all 120 believers the gift of tongues is right in line with His Word. 1 Cor. 14:5 states "I wish yo all spoke with tongues", etc...
Although prophecy is greater unless you follow with interpretation, it does not diminsth the fact that IT IS THE LORD'S WISH FOR ALL!!!
___________________________________________
RECEIVING THE GIFT

The only qualification there is for receiving the Batism with the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues is to be a Bible-believing, born-again Christian, who is THIRSTY.
How do you receive it? By Faith, just like yo received your salvation with eternal life. James 1:7 states theat yo cannot receive anything from the Lord without faith. You have veceived a measure of faith, so put it ot work! John 7:37 tells us that Jesus stood up and cried out, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believes, as the Scriptures has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water"
We can grasp the importance of this statement by the fact that the Lord wanted to make sure that we undeerstand what he was talking about. In the following verse (39), He gives a full explanation of what He meant to say: "but this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believeing in Him ould receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, becasue Jesus was not yet glorified."

After Jesus went to Heaven and was glorified, it happened on the day of Pentecost. Remarkable, he is comparing the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with drinking Living water, and the tongues following with rivers of this water flowing out of us! And the thirsty believer is invited to come and drink.

Therefore, the question is, "Are you thirsty?" Then go to Jesus and receive. It is as simple as that.

____________________________________________

1 Cor. 14:4 says, "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue, edifies himself, but he that prophecies edifies the church. What does edifying yourself mean? It means buliding yourself up in faith and holiness. Do we need that? You better believe it! Edifying yourself, or building yourself up is a necessary requirement for every believer. Jude 20 exhorts us to do it and at the same time linke it with "praying in the Holy Ghost", that is, with tongues.

When Paul compares edifying the church with edifying yourself, he certainly is not putting the last down! every one of us needs edification!
_________________________________

In opposition to some pentecostal denominations who hold to the doctrine that speaking in tongues is THE EVIDENCE of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, I am convinced that you can receive the baptism and not speak in tongues. Apparently, some believers have, but it is not the Lord's DESIRE! It is because of some blockage in the Spirit of the receiver that the tongues do not occur. The Lord in His great mercy, still baptizes them!

Now to call tongues "The (authoritative) Evidence" of the baptism is going way beyond scripture.

Acts 10:46 seems to be their only justification for this stand. It says that when them of the circumcision (Jewish) believed that the Holy ghost had been poured out on the gentiles in the gathering at cornelius' house becasue they heard them speak with tongues. Now this is the ONLY DIRECT INDICATION THAT THEY TOOK THAT AS EVIDENCE!!!

THE EVIDENCE??

The word evidence itself is not a Biblical word. It comes from the English law system. The big drawback of using such a word is that there are two kinds of evidence! True and False evidence. Therefore, using such a word in a statement of doctrine does not render any help in evaluation! Inaddition, this doc trine at the same time renounces all the believers who believe themselves that they did receive the baptism without the tongues and therefore do not exercise the tongues.

Certainly it is wrong to call it the evidence. This is what really causes schism in the body. Satan is capable of counterfeiting all the gifts of the Spirit and seems to concentrate specially on tongues. I believe it is so because he realizes the great importance of this gift. The result is, there are many false tongues-speakers.

The disreptation these false tongues-speakers being casuse great harm to the Body of Christ.
======================

IT IS NOT TOO LATE!

for those who believe and know that they are baptized with the Holy Spirit but cannot sprak with tongues, the best advise is to overcome whatever the hindrance was and is. Go to Jesus with a repenting heart and receive by BEGINNING. By Faith, the Spiirt then will give you utterance. Scripture reveals that you have to begin. Acts 2:4. As long as you do not open your mouth using your tongue by faith, the Spirit does not give you the utterance! The Just shall live by faith, so why do you not begin?
===================

Much ignorance on the baptism with the Holy Spirit has been caused by the church's neglect to teach. Many believers are asking, "but did I not have the Spirit when I got saved?" Of course you had the Spirit! The Word says that you can not even come to Jesus unless the Father draw you. And from the momrent you are born again, the Spirit will abide with you. BUT IT TAKES AN ADDITIONAL STEP OF FAITH and obedience to RECEIVE THE BAPTISM! AND THEN THE SPIRIT WILL BE IN YOU!! (Jn. 14:17)
It is clear that there are at least two "volumes" of the Holy Spirit. Enough and Not Enough!
In the Parable of the 10 virgins, 5 of them had enough oil (Holy Spirit) to the end, but the other 5 didn't have enough. Would you like to be like one of his 120 followers? Obey his command, come to the pentecostal upper room and receive the Loving Waters, and have it flow out of you?

I pray your answer be "YES LORD".
====================

Faith

2005-06-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

God's Word tells us that the "the just" shall live by faith. [Rom.1:17]and Hab.2:4. But we must know, who are the just. According to Rom.10:9/10 we are justified when we believe with our heart that Jesus is Lord and confess it with our mouth. Do you qualify under this condition? Then the next question is ; what is faith?
Also on this, The Lord gives us a clear definition."Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen".[Heb.11:1]. The NIV translate it like this : Faith is being sure of things hoped for and certain of what we do not see"
The next thing that we as believers need to know is, how do we obtain this faith? Well our Lord tells the brethren that He has given each one the measure of faith.[Rom.12:3] In addition Rom.10:17 says;
'faith cometh by hearing and hearing the Word of God". Therefore we should realize that we can not work up faith by ourselves.It has to come from God.
Faith is an absolute nessecity for a Christian. Heb.11;6 tells us
that without faith it is impossible to please God. Do you want to please God?. I sure hope so ! We have to use our measure of faith knowing that God has given it to us. If you feel weak in your faith, you can ask the Lord to increase it. The father of the demoniac son and the Apostles did ask for an increased Faith. And the Lord Honored it .
Also, we should exersize our measure of faith so that it can grow and get stronger. It will atrophy if we do not exersize it.When the apostles did ask Jesus how to do the works of God, Jesus answer was; ' This is the work of God , that you believe in Him who He has send".[John6:28]. It is our fundamental duty to exersize our faith
daily.We can not receive anything from the Lord without faith.[James1:6/7]
Jesus told us to have faith in God. All major bible translations say faith IN God because the Greek grammar requires the Greek Word pivstin to be translated as IN when it points to a subject. Other wise it can be translated as OF. This according to Greek language scholars.
However, some welknown radio and TV evangelists seem to have different bibles and teach that we should have the faith OF God. Then they base a whole false doctrine on this mysterious force called faith , which even God had to have in order to create every thing. They ignore the fact that God is all powerfull and sovereign and is the GIVER of faith.He does not need faith Himself !But they insist that when we do have this mysterious faith OF God, we can do much what God is doing ! The result of this teaching is that our God is brought down to the human level and mens capacity is glorified. It hurts the idea that God is all powerfull and completely sovereign. He is the GIVER OF FAITH and does not need it Himself !
God list faith in Gal.5:22 as part of the 7 fruits of the Spirit, but also as one of the 9 gifts of the Spirit in 1Cor.12:9.
I gather from this that as a fruit it starts small and must grow in maturity over time. There is no thing like instant fruit ! As a gift of faith, He is indicating that He make spurts of extra faith available when needed sometimes when He wants to use believers for a miracle.
To end this meditation on faith, remember and make sure to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the Law, but that which is through the Faith of Christ, the righteous which is of God by faith.[Phil.3:9]
Therefore being justified by Faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That you may have this peace in abundance is my prayer. Johannes Weiss

The Lord's Day of Rest

2005-06-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

Usually when I feel the need to write about a Christian subject, it is because of something which happened and did stir me. So here is the story behind this article;

There was a wonderful Godly congregation of believers in a small town.They were interdominational and blessed with nice roomy facilites. They had a great zeal for worldwide evangelisme .Their young Godly pastor led them in very nice Praise and worship services.He loved His Lord very much and was totally inclined to obey His WorD
Ofcourse , when a church is doing so good , it becomes a primary target for Satan.
I can imagine that Satan had a conference in His realm and did ask , " how can we best break this congregation up " ? The demons decided to do it in this case through the confrontational doctrine of Sabbath keeping ! They managed to convince the pastor, through books and other people, that we have to honor and use Saturday as the Lord's Day, rather than Sundays. He proposed to change the Worship services to Saturday... It is not hard to imagine what happened next. !
A division among the people develloped quickly. The leadership of it was a relative elder. They had several meetings, but the issue could not be resolved . So our Pastor resigned and now the former pastor and the opposition elder are accusing each other of causing all the damage to the church.
Although I do not know what exactly happened in their meetings,
but the young Pastor started this controversy and was used by Satan to break up this church. !
It is my prayer that this article will prevent many more schismes Satan is planning.

First of all we should know that the beginning of the naming of days can not be percisely determined. Some believe it occured around the tower of Babel time, because that they were aware of seven of our nine heavenly bodies, the Sun ,moon, and the 5 other planets. Later on, a little before Christ The Roman empire started using Latin names for the 7 days.They got intermingled with Saxon and Nordic Heathen concepts.
This is hat develloped;Sunday-Sun,Monday-Moon,Tuesday-Tewe's day a Norse female deity.Wednessday-Wooden's Day , Teutonoc theology. It was before called Mercury"s Day fomw hich comes Mecredi. Thursday-Thors Day the God of lightning .Friday= Frigg.s Day, a rotund Germanic female deity. It used to be Venus day [Vendredi]. Saturday-Saturn.

The Jewish people go as far back to the days off MOses and the giving of the Law. Before this the entire world had gone thouhg great periods of spiritual darkness. [Noa's flood and the tower of Babel]. Most likely no days were known.
In addition to this, I do not believe, on the basis of the Genesis creation account, that the Lord is talking about our 24 hour day periods. ! Because during the first 3 days, there was not even a Sun and Moon, which sets our 24 hour day.!
Even if they picked the correct so called 7th day,there is the fact that God,s Word tells us that He turned back the Sun at least 2 times! ONe time 10 degrees on the Sundial and during another occation , He lenghted the day with at least half ! [2Kings20-:11 and Joshua 10:13-15].

I point this all out to make sure that you understand that it is impossible to know for sure which day was the original day the Lord our God rested. ! So how foolish it is to fight and debate about "what is the 7 th day ?
One thing we should know . It is very importand to God that we keep one day as rest and Holy. And here we give the devil a foothold. Since Constantine, around 300 ad, the world system gave its approval to Sunday keeping as the day of rest. But most people had no concept about our Lord,s desire to keep it Holy. It detoriated almost at once in a day of leasure and pleasure. And even today, many church going Christians spent most of the Sundays on their own pleasure. In Isaiah 58:13, God list several things not to do on the Sabbath." Not doing our own pleasures and going our own ways. Not even speaking our own words ! How much watered down is our Sunday rest today ! This is still a great failure of the Church to day !

Apperently , Our Lord saw this controversy coming and put in His New Testament some warnings, not to judge one another concerning, food, drink and keeping of holy days and Sabbaths.Romans 14:5-10 tells us clearly that people can esteem different days of the week and in Col.2:16 It says "Let no man judge you in meat or drinkor in respect of any Holy day orof the new moon festival, or of the Sabbath days ! Legalisme was allready a problem in the New Testament Church. Some wanted to keep the circumcision and the Sabbath keeping .

Does all this mean that the Lord did not leave us any indication as to what day the early church used ? Ofcourse not. To let us know, which day became the Lords,s day of rest, when they were meeting and breaking bread together, He mentioned the first day of the week.[Acts 20:7] Also, the collection of the Saints listed in 1Cor.16:2, was ordered on the first day of the Week ! The Lord does not tell us some things for nothing !
When Paul uses the Synagoge on the Sabbath,it is every time, in order to find converts. In my opnion, based on all of this, the early church felt a great need to set them self apart from Judaisme and choose the the first day as celebration of the Lord,s resurruction. And because it is God,s Word, it shows His approval of it .In 1Tim.4: God tells us that all things which He created, are good by our prayers and Praise . Praise His Holy name for our Sunday !

Do you love our Lord? Than please Him with a day of rest and devotion and do not use it to split any part of the Body of Christ .
Your servant in Christ, Johannes Weiss

The precious promises of our Lord.

2005-06-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

The devotional booklet "our daily bread", has as title for the devotion of May 25,'frustrating promises". It starts with the question,
"do any bible promises frustrate you?"
I must admit that in the past I was many times frustrated and probably, there are many Christians today who are frustrated,asking themselves, "why don't I have what want? I believe that our main problem is the fact that we do not ask according to God's will and are ignoring the conditions for the fulfillment of the promises.
In the first place, most promises are for " the righteous man"
Therefore we must know what it means to be a righteous man.
According to the New Covenant, a Righteous person is some one, who is washed clean from his sin by the blood of Jesus, confessing by faith that Jesus died and has risen as our Lord and Savior. James 2:20 tells us also that our faith has to be a living faith , manifested by good works.
Psalm 37 has indeed many precious promises, however it gives us also 17 conditions and instructions how to be doing "good works" .
I will list them here verse by verse:
verse 1 "Fret not thy self"[also in verses 7 and 8]
verse 3 "Trust in the Lord and do good"[also verse 5]
verse 4 "delight thyself in the Lord "
verse 5 "commit thine way into the Lord"
verse 7 "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him"
verse 8 "cease from anger and forsake wrath"
verse 9 "The meek shall inherit the earth "
verse 21"the righteous show mercy and give"
verse 23 "A good man"
verse 26 "He is ever merciful and lendeth"
verse 27 "Depart from evil"
verse 30 "Their mouth speaks wisdom,his tongue talketh of judgment"
verse 31 "The law of his God is in his heart"
verse 34 "Wait on the Lord and keep His Way"
I count 17 conditions for the promises of psalm 37. They form the Lord's definition of a righteous person and " good works "
In verse 39 He again tells us that it is for " the righteous'
When we do not see the promises of the Lord happening in our lives, we should examine and asking ourselves, "where do I fall short and how can it be corrected? If you know the answer, ask the LORD for Help in this matter.That is certainly a prayer according to His will and He will answer that. [1John 5:14]
Your and Christ+'s servant, Johannes Weiss
verse 27 "depart from evil

Safely Home

2005-05-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

Mr. Weiss is safely home. He has been very busy in ministry stateside in California, where he has been living for some months now, between his travels.

Thanks to all who have read this and who care for Mr. Weiss.

Trip to Philippines

2005-01-22T07:38:00.000-08:00

This is Lew. I'm writing to ask all to pray for the Philippine trip this coming February. It's exciting for Johannes to have the opportunity to visit some of the many churches that were planted during his 12 years there in the 80's/90's.

Suffering

2005-01-14T16:50:00.000-08:00

The Word of God tells us a lot about this subject. Specially in the

first letter of Peter chapter 2 till 5 we can find the clear teaching that we

as christians are "called to suffer" [1 Peter2:21 ]. It speaks of two kinds

of suffering. First: the suffering for Christ sake, meaning persecution and

reproach, because of our Faith in Christ. Second: the suffering because of our

sins and the need for correction. Sickness is a major part of this second kind

of suffering, although sin is not always the cause of our sickness.

The book of Job makes that very clear. Job was not stricken because

he had sinned, but because God wanted to proof his loyalty and righteousness

and altowed Satan to put sickness on Job. The bible calls suffering for well

doing "better"than suffering for evil doing. [1 Peter3:17]. This implies that

all suffering is good for us.

We are admonished in 1 Peter4:15 not to suffer for being an evil

doer and called happy when we are reproached for the name of Christ. [ 1

Peter4:14 ] We are also told that afflictions are common to all brethern worldwide

and that after you have suffered II a while", God will establish us firm and

strong". (1 Peter 5:9 and10]

That sickness is a major part of our afflictions and suffering is an

undenialble fact. Paul mentions this kind of suffering in Col.1:24, where he

is speaking of 11 the afflictions of Christ in my flesh". Most likely, he was

speaking of the thorn in his flesh which was given to him.[2Cor,12:7]. We

should realize the our Father God chastises His sons every time there is a need

for it. [Hebr. 12:7]. His purpose is to purify us and make us more Christlike.

And many times He seems to use sicknesses and finances as His major tools to

accomplish this. In Hebrews 12:11 He makes the statement that "it seems

grieveous" but then assures us that afterwards it will yield "the peacable fruit of

rightenouss". Therefore in a sense, this kind of suffering can also be

considered for" Christ sake and His Glory"

Jesus learned obedience by suffereing according to Hebrews 5:18. How

much more are we in need to learn this obedience . Although many of our

sicknesses are self induced by mistreating our bodies, however for christians it is

still our Lord at work to purify us. When Satan is used, he has to be allowed

by our Father God to afflict us . We are encouraged to endure, even to be

happy and rejoycing when we are suffering, much against our human nature. However

it seems that the Lord allows us "to sorrow" about sickness.[Phil.2:27]. But

we should remain steadfast by believing in our Fathers everlasting Mercy.

We know that all things work for the good of those who love God and

are called according to His purpose. [Romans 8:28]. Know also that if we

suffer we shall also reign with him.[2Tim.2:12]

Yours truly in Christ, Johannes G Weiss

=======

Hearing God's Word

2005-01-14T16:49:00.000-08:00

The biblical word hearing does not mean hearing with your

phycical ears only. Allthough , it is an important part of hearing Gods Word. The

concept, which is involved includes much more than just physical hearing. That is

already evident from the meaning of the original Hebrew Word in the Bible.

Most of the time the Hebrew word SHAMA is used. According to Hebrew scholars,

that word SHAMA implies much more than just physical hearing.

First of all it implies hearing with intelligent understanding

and an obedient heart. This with a willingnes to tell, publish, call together

when we discern what God is saying .

Reading this explanation made me realize how much we fall short on this, most

of the time when we hear/read Gods Word . Do we lack a spiritual ear most of

the time ?

How does God voice comes to us ?

Primarly through the Bible. Either by hearing some one reading it to us, or

reading it ourselves. The Bible itself speaks more often about hearing,

because in ancient time not many people could read. but today we have the

privilege that most of us can read.

In the old days, the priest had to read the word to the congregation in order

for them the hear Gods Word .

Since we have this privelege to be literate, we should use it

to the utmost.

Because it is my opinion that it enhances the chance that we really " SHAMA

" the Word.

And it eliminates the chance that there is some human distortion through

the person who reads it to you .

Besides the Bible, there are two more ways the Lords voice can be

heard by His people directly and personally. Through His still, small Voice

and through visions and dreams. His still , small voice can be heard some

times when our spiritual ear is inclined and the vision and dreams are promised

to us. Specially in these last days in which we live. [Joel 2-28].

To hear His still, small voice, it is needed that we are filled

with the Holy Spirit and are inclining our "pricked up" ears. Vision and

dreams usually occur when we are asleep and our intelligence does not interfere

with the Lords doings.

From the bible we can tell that God some times even speaks to heathens, but

most of the time you have to be a believer in order to perceive His Voice.

He choose Moses, from all the Israelites, to speak to directly,

the people were sore afraid to hear God speak directly. Do you want to hear the

Lord directly and personally? Or are you afraid also ?. He wants to

communicate with you but His main way is through the Bible. If you think that you heard

a personal word from Him , make sure it is in line with His word. If it is

not in line with His written Word, it is not from Him but from the flesh or the

Evil One.

His Word tell us that Jesus is the Living Word and that He

alone will bring true live. Let us therefore dilegently SHAMA His Word and Live !

Amen !

Johannes G. Weiss

New Testament Giving

2005-01-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

Most evangelicals seem to agree that we are not any longer under

the Law of sin and death, called the Mosaic Law. However, many are quick to

bring out that tithing was instituted way before the Law was given and that it was

already practiced by Abraham. However In the light of what the New Testament

teaches on giving, is this a valuable argument to keep teaching to tithe ? I

do not think so !

The second argument, tithing teachers bring up is that Jesus and

the disciples were most likely tithing and that Jesus was teaching to do so.

The first part is probably correct, but to imply that Jesus is teaching us to

tithe is spurious. When Jesus was rebuking the Pharisee in Matthew 23-23 and

Luke 11-42, He added that they "ought " to do that because the Mosaic Law was

still in force. They were still under the old Law. He had not shed his blood yet

to seal the New Covenant. In Luke 18-12 He rebukes the selfrighteousness of

the praying Pharisee for claiming to tithe. Therefore the gospels can not be

used for defending tithing teaching.

Ever since the Reformation, evangelicals have been teaching to

tithe, but it is very obvious that the blessing of the Lord does not rest upon

this teaching. Throughout history and now after almost 500 years of this

teaching, the average giving of the believer is less then 2 %. The Lord is closing

the ears of his children and the teachers words are as "falling to the ground"

It is high time that we wake up to this fact !

The Lord is giving us very clear instructions in the New

Testament. First: He expect us to give our all. Willingly, cheerfully and as a

reasonable service. Realizing that everything we have belongs to him. Romans11-36

states: "For of Him and through Him and to Him are ALL THINGS". And Romans 12:

1-3 is beseeching us to give our entire selves as a living sacrifice. He also

expect to get interest from the talents he has given us as stewards.

Second: 2 Cor. 9:7 gives us the basic principle as how to give.

"So let EACH ONE GIVE AS HE PURPOSES IN HIS HEART, not grudgingly or of

necessity. for God loves a cheerful giver " Verse 6 explains that we need to give

bountifully in order to have the beautiful promise of verse 8 "And God is able to

make ALL grace abound towards you, that you ALWAYS having ALL sufficiency in

ALL THINGS, may have an abundance for every good work " The whole of 2 Cor.

chapter 9 are the instructions on giving. While chapter 8 tells us that He

expects us to give out of what we have and not from what we do not have. ( not even

presumptuous "faith promises")

Third: Then in first Cor.16:1-3 we are instructed to give regularly and

proportionately. "The first day of the week" and ''as he may prosper" Now

proportionality does not mean a set percentage for every one. It means in proportion to

the burden it puts on you. This principle is even practiced by the not so

kindhearted IRS. They have a lower rate for poor people than the richer ones. A

set rate for everyone would be actually out of proportion. Fourth: Malachi 3-10

mentions "God's storehouse". The original Hebrew word used is " owtsar ",

which is translated as depository or treasury. Of course He is speaking

allecorical. Malachi is the only place where this Hebrew word is used. The question

arises, what is the storehouse of God ? The best biblical answer is; the place

from which our Father pours out his blessings upon his children. Where does He

live ? In His temple! Who are his temple? The bodies of his children, the

believers, who make up the Church the Body of Christ. To claim that our group or

organization is the only or best store house really shows a great lack of

understanding what the real church actually is. It is the worldwide Universal Church

of Christ and His Body. The local church or organization should be apart of

this, but sadly enough that is not always the case. Fifth: Since everything we

are and have came from God and belongs to Him and is going to Him, we have to

make sure that we Love him with all our hearts, soul and mind. And as such

live our lives for Him and in obedience to him. (Rom.11:-6) Hereby returning His

talent with interest. That way we can and must look upon the needed

expenditures for our selves and our family, which He entrusted to us, as expenditures

for the Lords Kingdom. Of course we need to guard against ungodly sumptuousness.

Most scriptures quoted here are related to practical money giving, but are

also including the principle of 100% giving. Having pointed out all this, I must

say that it is possible that the Lord directs your heart to give 10 % in the

church offering. Make sure you obey. But most likely he will ask you for much

more since He always seems to use finances as a test of our faith and

obedience .

In His service, Johannes G. Weiss

Father Knows Best

2005-01-14T16:44:00.000-08:00

This concept is entirely based on TRUST. And Trust is the ultimate
form of honoring someone. It is a necessary ingredient in the love
relationship between father and child. God's Word speaks a lot about this Trust and
requires it in our relationship with Him. Because, He is our Heavenly Father. The
main reason why Jesus used little children as example in Math. 18:3, is the
fact that a little child has a complete trust in his parents and totally relies
on them. He said " unless you be converted and become as little children, you
shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven ". A normal child does never have fear or
worry about his/her needs, but assumes naturally that all needs will be
supplied.

The trouble with us so called grownups is, that we think most of
the time, we are capable to figure out what we need and what we can do to bring
it about . I come to the conclusion and are convicted myself by it, that most
of us acknowledge "Father knows best " with our mind and lips, but in our
hearts and our spirit we do not believe it and therefore do not act according to
it. This hurt our heavenly Father very much and He expresses His dislike for
it several times in His Word to us. Therefore, there is a great need for us to
repent of this mistrust and change ways.

One of tHis most searing indictments of our hypocrisy in this
matter is found in Ezekiel 29:13. " And they come unto thee [Ezekiel], as the
people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear My Words. But
they will not do them, for with their mouth they show much love, BUT THEIR
HEART GOETH AFTER THEIR COVETOUSNESS". Ezekiel describes us rather well !
Covetousness seems to be our big problem. Isaiah 28;13 gives another reason why we
honor Him with our lips without obeying Him. " Wherefore the Lord said. For as
much as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor
me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is
taught by the precepts of men." I myself also has been taught wrongly that one
should not fear the Lord but that it only means that we should be in awe about
Him !

Indeed many of our prayers are expressing our concern over the
lack of things, which we supposed to be needing. Other prayers are often asking
the Lord to fix our problems the way we think that they should be fixed. God's
Word telling us that His ways are higher than our ways seem to have very
little effect on our thinking ! Many of the Lord's beautiful promises are
connected to our trust in Him. PS 84:5 sums it all up" Oh Lord of Hosts, Blessed is
the man that trusted in thee ". It would be a very good thing if we all study
Gods Word, specially concerning our trust in Him.

We are created to give Him Honor, TRUST is one of the highest
ways of doing this. We can worship and praise Him no better than to Trust Him and
while doing this let the Holy Spirit convict our hearts by the words of
proverbs 3:3. " Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and lean not unto thine own
understanding " Prov, 16:9 is a serious reminder to us that regardless our
scheming. The Lord is the one who decides. "A man's heart deviseth his ways: but
the Lord directs his steps ". Do we really love and trust our Heavenly Father?
Do we really know that ALL Things work together for good to them that Love
God, who are called according to His purpose?{Romans 8:28} Even when disaster
strikes? "The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants: and NONE of THEM that
TRUST in Him shall be desolate" Ps 34:22. LOrd help me to put my complete Trust in
You by knowing that You my Heavenly Father always know best . AMEN.

Johannes G Weiss

The Fear of God

2005-01-14T16:37:00.001-08:00

The common meaning of the word fear is being afraid of something. But right
from the start we must understand that we as God's children should have a
trusting and loving relationship with our Heavenly Father and have no fear for him.
There are therefore 2 kinds of fear. The ordinary fleshly kind, which our
creator has build into us for our self preservation and the biblical fear of God.
The first kind works mainly through our adrenaline system and can be either
good or bad depending on what we are afraid for and how we react to it. The
Godly fear is commanded by many scriptures of God in His Word. I will quote here
just a few; Deut.1 0: 1 2 "and now Israel, what does the Lord thy God require
of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him
and to serve Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul " This connects
fear with the Lord's first commandment Pslm 33:8 says; "Let all the earth fear
the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him" . Here we
see that godly fear also means to be in awe and have reverence for the Lord. The
New Testament also tells us in several places to have the fear of God. Eph.
4: 1 " let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His
Rest, any of you seem to come short of it. The context of this verse we find
in the end of chapter 3. It shows that that this fear is the fear for loosing
our salvation. Another difference between the human kind of fear and the Godly
kind is, that we have to learn to obtain the fear of God, and we have to
learn it through hearing God's Words. The remarkable verse of Deut.4: 10 tells us
that. "Gather me the people together and I will make them hear My Words, that
they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the the earth
and that they may teach their children" The fear of God has several promised
benefits connected to it: It prolongs our days, Prov.10:27. We will have
endurance,lsai.12:14. It is connected to divine guidance and peace, Pslm 25:12 and
it is a condition for acceptance by God, Acts10:35. God's mercy is connected
to it, Luke 1:50 And it gives you light in the darkness,lsai. 50:10. It is
also, both the beginning of wisdom,Pslm111:10 and wisdom itself,Job 28:28 . The
way I see how the fear of God works in providing all those benefits is; it keeps
you from yielding to many temptations and foolish ungodly decisions. The fear
for the consequences of your willful sin can keep you out of a lot of
trouble.
And I must say that this knowledge came through my personal experiences. Many
times the Lord has provided a way to escape the temptation through the fear
for the consequences. Confirming 1 Cor.10:13.

A verse that at first look seem to be a contradiction to The Lords
Will, to have the fear of God Is: 1 John 4:18. " There is no fear in Love; but
perfect Love casteth out fear: because fear has torment. He that feareth is
not made perfect in Love". However, as I came to understand this verse; God is
saying, if you were perfect in Love, fear would not be needed. The Holy Spirit
did ask me " Which one of you is perfect in Love? ". I had to admit that Jesus
is the only one who was and is PERFECT IN LOVE.

Another verse in the New Testament which speaks against fear is 2
Tim.1:7. " For God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love
and of a sound mind " From the context we can conclude the the Lord is
speaking here of not being afraid or timid concerning our gifts and the gospel. He
was warning Timothy not to be ashamed in verse 8.
The fear of God is closely connected to the Love of God. Because He
chastises us as His sons in His great Love. Therefore we need to have both the
Love of God and the fear of God manifested in our lives.
AMEN

In Christ,
Yours and His servant Johannes G Weiss Sincerely
yours in Christ

Once Saved Always Saved?

2005-01-14T16:37:00.000-08:00

There are numerous warnings to believers in God's Word, which are
talking about the possibility to fall away from the Faith. It is therefore very
dangerous and arrogant to believe that once your are saved, the Lord will
always keep your salvation regardless what you do.
It is true, and I have experienced it myself, that the Lord is His
great mercy will do a lot to prevent you from falling in perdition and turning
away from eternal life with Him. However, there will come a time that He will
give up on you if and when you keep persisting in not to follow Him any
longer.

At that time, the Bible states that there is then no longer a cure
for your condition. " If you have trampled under foot the Son of God, [Hebr.
10:29] and are "crucifying Jesus afresh,putting Him to an open shame"[Hebr.
6:6]. Verse 4 says, then it is impossible to be restored . Ofcourse nothing is
impossible to God, but He let us know that there is a time in which He let us go
into damnation and hell.

Throughout the New Testament there are many references to the fact
that we can backslide and fall away from the Faith . It is a very clever trick
from Satan to use God's Word about our security in Christ in order to make us
believe that it is unconditional and that we can not loose our salvation.

It may be that this wrong believe is caused by misunderstanding the
New Covenant. A Covenant involves two parties. the New Covenant which is
sealed by the blood of Jesus involves the Triune God and the believer. It is the
believer who can and does break the Covenant sometimes. God however is always
faithful.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom [Pslm111:10]] It sure
looks like that those people who believe in the false doctrine of " once saved
always saved " do not have sufficient fear of God. They seem to lack the most
common sense and wisdom. Hebrew10:31 warns us that it is a fearful thing to fall
into the Hands of the Living God. If you are a believer and in the hands of
God, are you sufficient fearful?

TAKE heed, LEST THY FALL! [1Cor.10:12]

Thy Loving Kindness

2005-01-14T16:34:00.000-08:00

The Bible, God's Word mentions His Loving Kindness some 30 times. No wonder
that when our family was Baptized with the Holy Spirit in 1970, this particular
expression became very significant to us. We started singing from scripture
and specially sung Psalm 63-3/4: " because Thy Loving Kindness is better than
live, my lips shall praise Thee. Thus will I bless Thee. While I live I will
lift up my hands in Thy name". Ofcourse, you can not sing this without lifting
up your hands. However at first we did not lift our hands up very high visable.
Many newcomers like us were fllying them " half mast". But later on we
started to lift our hands as high as possible, even waving them to the Lord.!
Freedom in the Spirit was released ! Kindness and to be kind is certainly of divine
origin. Webster defines it as "being disposed to be helpful and solicitous"
Indeed the Lord's Loving Kindness is definite connected to His deeds of help and
His concern for our well being. It is good to proclaim and tell about the
Loving Kindness of the Lord, which you yourself do experience. Because Isaiah 63-
7 says" I will mention the Loving Kindness of the Lord" And on the end of the
verse" according to the multitudes of His Loving Kindnesses". Psalm 25-6 is
also speaking of His Loving Kindnesses. Notice that it is mentioned in plural
form here. This means that Loving Kindness is not only the attitude of the Lord
but also HIs Kind deeds. Because someones attitude is not expressed in plural
form. King David cries out in dispair, apparently sick and depressed. Psalm
88-11 "Shall Thy Loving Kindness be declared in the grave ? Or Thy Faithfuness
in destruction "? Thus he is pleading to be healed and able to continue to
declare the Lord's Loving Kindness. What also deserves notice is that God's word
mentions twice His Loving Kindness in the morning. Psalm 92-8 and Psalm 143-8.
: "to shew forth Thy Loving Kindness in the morning and Thy Faithfulness
every night." " Cause me to hear Thy Loving Kindness in the morning: for in Thee
do I trust. " Is it not wonderfull to start your day with God's Loving Kindness
? If we do that, an other verse connects it to all day and the night. Psalm
42-8 says " Yet the Lord will command His Loving Kindness in the day time and
in the night " His song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life
". What a blessing it is to wake up sometimes during the night with a song and
a prayer unto the Lord in your mind ! Several other verses are connecting
Loving Kindness to our human lives. Starting to tell us that we need redemption
and contuing to tell us that it draws us resuting in His salvation through
Jesus. Finishing with our complete preservation . Psalm 103-4 It redeems our lives
from destruction. Jerimia 31-3 speaks of it as " drawing us" Psalm 17- 7 Is
telling us about salvation through HIs Right Hand ! Psalm 40-1 Is speaking
about our preservation.
I am ending this devotion with
my biblical reason for E mailing it to you all : Psalm 40-10 I have not hid
Thy rigtheousnous within my heart.1 have declared Thy Faithfulness and Thy
Salvation: I have not concealed THY LOVING KINDNES and Thy Truth from the great
Congregation .Yours in Christ.

Johannes G Weiss. PS . If you were blessed by this, Please send it on to
others .

Surely Goodness and Mercy

2005-01-14T16:32:00.000-08:00

In 1970, a team of Asbury college students, who were touched by
the Holy Spirit, visited a church on the Southern border of Georgia. That church
was set on fire by the Holy Spirit also and in turn did send a team of young
people to our church in Orlando Florida. The same Holy Spirit Fire came down
upon our church and our entire family of 5 was greatly effected by it.

The Lord gave me a special promise scripture for my family to
remember always. It was from Psalms 23 verse 6 " Surely Goodness and Mercy shall
follow me ALL the days of our lives: and I will dwell in the House of the Lord
forever" We have been singing it ever since and we truly have experienced the
reality of it.

The Lord"s Goodness and Mercy has become daily very real to us.
However, we had to discover that the Lord has a different and better idea of
what His Goodness and Mercy is for us. It can and does sometimes include some
very unpleasant and hard things for us. Like Accidents, disasters, sickness and
sufferings.

At first I did not understand this and I had to learn the hard
way that " His Ways our higher than our ways" { Isa. 55:9 }. But then slowly we
learned to trust Him and believe that " ALL THINGS work together for the good
to them that love God, to them who are called according to His
purpose"{Rom.8:28}.

Our 4 children are married and gone now. My wife of 54 years and
I are close to entering the House of the Lord forever. Praise His Holy Name!
Gratitude and Praise overflows our hearts. We are still making that melody in
our hearts and devotions. Because our Lord is faithful and is doing what He has
promised. So must we !
AMEN
Johannes and
Clazina Weiss
11/8/2oo3

The Sovereignty of God

2005-01-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

THE SOVEREIGNITY OF GOD
" Know therefore this day and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord is
God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath: there is none else". (Deut
4:39] This is just one the many scriptures in which the Lord is telling us that He
is totally sovereign and completly in charge and control of everything that
is happening on this planet and in all of His creation. In Deut.32:39 God
declares "see now that I even I am He and there is no god with me : I kill and I
make alive ; I wound and I heal, neither is there any that can deliver out of
my hand" From this and several other verses like Isaia 45:7, we can get the
sure impression that our God wants us to know that He is doing it all. From
beginning to end, the bible is full of verses which are speaking of the Lords total
power and sovereignity. Therefore it is hard to understand why so many
believers keep denying the Lord's doings in their lives! One of the reasons seems to
be the wrong application of the Mens free will doctrine. It is true that the
Lord has given menkind the opportunity to choose (Josh.24:l5 and
Deut.30:19].To choose Him and choose between right and wrong. However the word also makes
clear that with this opportunity to choose, He stil remains in charge and
control. Many times the word shows that He keeps pulling the strings so to speak.
He does it in al kinds and different ways. It is good to look up some of these
scriptures: His eyes upon them(Ezra 5:5] Sending an evil
spirit(Judg.9:23]Harden their hearts or spirits Exod.14:4 and Deut2:30] Stirring them
up{Cyprus](lchr.5:26 and 2chr.36:22] Turning kings hearts (prov.21:l]. Specially the
remarkable story in 1King22:22/23 and 2Chron.18:2!/22, is lifting up part of the
veil hiding to us what is going on in the Lord's spiritual realm. It does show
clearly that He even uses evil Spirits some times to accomplish His will with
men although He gave them power to choose. The term mens free will seems to be a
misnomer in the light of these revelations from the Lord. Although He said
"choose you this day", many times He seems to steer and direct our wills and
actions. However He does it in a way so that we humans remain accountable and
responsible for our deeds. The parable of the potter and the clay (Jer.18:6 and
Rom.9:15/22) makes it very clear that He does what He wills and we cannot say
"why hast thou made me thus?" Verse 16 of Romans 9 sums it all up. Speaking of
us humans, He says "So it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth.
but of God that sheweth mercy" . As far as Satan is concerned and his power
over humans, we must realize that Satan is completely subject to God's will. He
can do only what our Heavenly Father allows him to do . The two prime
examples of this are found in the book of Job and in the saying of Jesus concerning
Peter(luke22;3l]. In both cases Satan had to get permission to do harm. God's
Word assures us that we the righteous, are in the Lord's hands(Ecl.9:l].
Although we must see to it that Satan does not have anything in us.(John14-30] The
only way for us to be in that state is to be washed clean of sin by the blood
of Jesus.
Therefore it is of primary importance that we believe and ask the Lord for
forgiveness all the time. Only then Satan has "nothing in us "
As far as our salvation is concerned, the doctrine of predestination is very
difficult to understand and seems to bring a lot of controversy. The most
important thing for us to know and remember: it is the ultimate desire of our
heavenly Father that all of menkind will be saved. There are several indications
of that in God's Word. For instance, the word WHOSOEVER in John 3:16 indicates
that Christ died for everybody. But there are conditions attached to our
salvation. The first one: we have to believe in Jesus. Many people are not willing
to fulfil the conditions and therefore were not, and are not going to be
saved. In that sense God has not chosen them.The Lord is the one who does the
choosing. There are many scriptures indicating this. One of the most well known,
declared by Jesus himself in John 15:16" you have not chosen me, but I have
chosen you." But we, as being chosen have to respond to His Love and believe in
Him. In the light of us having a choice, the biblical doctrine of
pre-destination is hard to understand with our carnal mind. However we are not required to
understand it, only to believe and accept it. Eph.1:4/12 is very clear, it even
states that before the foundation of the earth was laid, our Father has
chosen us. The total foreknowledge of God is impossible for us to grasp. It has to
do with God's timelesness. In His spiritual realm there is no time. Meaning no
past, present or future as we know it. This is an impossible concept to our
human mind and causes many useless debates. But we must believe and accept
God's Word. It will stand forever !
AMEN !

Hanna's Prayer

2005-01-14T16:26:00.001-08:00

I want to share with you one of the most remarkable prayers in the
Old testament. A prayer of thanks giving and praise by the mother of Samuel,
through which the Lord gives a detailed revelation of Himself. A barren woman
named Hannah, had received an answer to her prayer for a child and pours her
heart out in 10 short verses[ 1 Sam 2:1/10} The remarkable part is that the Lord
uses her prayer to reveal a great deal of His being to us. He did this by
putting it in His Word.

It establishes without any doubt His total sovereignty, autonomy and
power over His creation. A Message we are in need to hear very much today.
Because so much false teaching on our authority, healing and prosperity has
eroded our believe in God's complete Sovereignty. I will attempt to give Hanna's
prayer here in a free translation in order to make it clear what God is saying
about Himself :

Verse 1. She start her prayer with acknowledging God and giving Him
credit for lifting up her strength and opening her mouth. Verse 2. Testifying
that God is the only true God and establishing His Holiness and Steadfastness.
Verse 3. Warning against pride and arrogance. God knows all and He is the one
who decides and judges. Verse 4. He humbles the might and strong but helps the
stumbling weak. Verse 5. The rich well fed become poor and in want, but the
hungry poor are fed by God. The barren women become fruitful but the fruitful
women with several children will become weak and depressed. Verse 6. The Lord
kills and gives live. Verse 7. The Lord makes some men poor and others rich. He
lifts some up and cut others down. Verse 8. God raises the poor out of the ash
heap and gives them places of honor. He will have them inherit thrones in
Heaven with the noble. He is in complete control of the earth {pillars] and is the
creator of all. Verse 9. God will protect and guide the feet of His Saints
but the wicked will be silenced and perishing in darkness. No one will prevail
by his own strength. Verse 10. God will break his adversaries into pieces,
thundering against them from heaven. He will judge all people on the earth. Gives
strength to his King [Jesus] and exalt the power of His ANOINTED ONE [Jesus] .
Hallelujah ! For the Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be
glad and give the glory unto Him!
10/22/03 Johannes G Weiss

Prophecy

2005-01-14T16:26:00.000-08:00

Prophecy is a gift from God and according to GOd's Word, Prophecy has a three
fold purpose.
1Cor.14-3." But he who prophecies speaks edification, exhortation and comfort
to men," Prophets are so important to God that He gives Prophets to the
church, together with Apostles, Evangelists and Pastors and Teachers [1cor.12:28]
and Eph.4:11. It is not hard to understand why, when we look at the deeper
meaning of these 3 purposes. Edification; literately building up in Holiness.
Exhortation; means giving strong advise or warning, urge strongly, incite or
encourage. Comfort; to console, reduce grief with the purpose to encourage.
Halleluhja, what a great need there is for these 3 purposes of Prophecy today!
Remarkable, although the Lord Himself appoints prophets in the Body of Christ, He
encourages every believer to qualify for the job by learning! First of all He
tells us that He wants us ALL to Prophecy {1 Cor.14:1/5} . Then In 1
Cor.14:30/31 He tells that we can all Prophecy one by one so that we may learn! This to
the extend of the fact that the "regular" prophets have to give the new
learners a chance to learn! The concept of learning involves making mistakes at
first. My conclusion therefore is, that we should not judge the beginning prophets
too harshly for some mistakes, although verse 29 tells us to judge prophecy.
Harshly judging and condemning has been part of the reasons why there are so
few saints who attempt to prophecy. The Evil One is trying with great success
to prevent prophesying. Corrupting it and making the people afraid to learn it.
How sad this is! Our Lord must abhor this! Some preachers are saying that
actually their preaching is prophesying. Although I do admit that preaching the
Word has to involve also the 3 purposes for prophecy, I find the context of
what the Lord is saying in 1Cor. 1 2 and 14 about prophecy, not in line with the
concept of preaching. What the Word says about preaching is different.
Personally I have noticed that beginning prophets[including myself] sometimes did
start of in the Spirit speaking for God but then going astray by adding something
in !'the flesh." A gentle correction by other mature saints is in place. We
have to judge Prophecy but not prevent or stop it. 1John 4:1 says that we have
to test the Spirits, whether they are of God." Because many false prophets
have gone out into the world" New Testament teaching about prophecy does not
tell us to stone the false prophets to death if their predictions do not come
true. I believe that is because since Jesus went to heaven, we are living in the
age of Grace until He comes back to judge us. It aiso seems that New Testament
prophecy is not so much about telling the future as the old prophets often
did. He is giving the new prophets Grace for a chance to learn The Lord has
given us a plumbline to judge by. The plumbline is God's Word itself as recorded
in the bible. If It edifies, exhorts and comforts and is in line with the
bible, you may assume that it is from God. Thirteen years ago when we returned from
the Philippines I received a prophecy for the church and I spoke it out in a
congregation. Ever since then I felt that the lord wanted me to repeat it to
as many believers as possible. So here follows a part of the prophecy I did
give: My children, you are living in the last days. And today, the deception I am
warning for in My Word, is taking place worldwide. My sheep are being led
astray by much false teaching. If it were possible the very elect will be
deceived, unless I cut the days short. I want to give you a straight plumbline, to
measure all the teachings of today by. Does what you hear center in on Me and My
Word and thus give Me Glory and Pleasure says the Lord? Or is the teaching
and doctrine centered and focused on man and his comfort? Apply this plumbline
says the Lord. Then You will not be deceived and then you shall endure until
the end. THUS SAYS THE LORD. So let us not despise prophesyings, but let us test
all things and hold fast what is good.[ 1Thes.5:20/21 ]
Christ's Servant and yours, Johannes G. Weiss

Lenten Meditation

2005-01-14T16:22:00.000-08:00

When our beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ cried out in agony on the cross, He used His Heavenly Prayer language, which was not understood by the onlookers. However, it was interpreted by the Holy Spirit in God's Word.

He cried out "Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachtani ? that is to say: My God, MY God, why hast thou forsaken me ? {Math.27:46} Although Jesus had foreknowledge of many things, His Father God had spared Him the foreknowledge of the awesome fact that He had to be forsaken temporarily.

Father God has used and is still using the picture of the human father/son relationship, so that we can have a more clear understanding what the Father went through, by not answering His beloved Son at this time . There has not been any moment in the worlds history in which both our heavenly Father and Son has suffered more intense, than at that moment of Jesus's cry.

Can we really fathom the ultimate suffering of both our Father and His Son at this moment when the temporarily separation occurred ? It should fill us with awe and sorrow. But at the same time with joy, knowing that it happened for us and our sins. Gratitude is flooding our Hearts for this token of His tremendous Love for us !

THANK YOU LORD !

11/14/03 Johannes G Weiss

POST SCRIPT :
I do have a son also and I can not even bear the thought that if he were to be tortured and cruelly killed, I would not even answer his cry although I had the power and ability to come to his rescue. How amazing and awsome the Love of our heavenly Father was and is manifested !And also the Love of Jesus for us, that He was willing to undergo all this suffering. JW

Faithful Women

2005-01-14T16:01:00.000-08:00

The first question needing an answer is; faithful to what? The
most complete answer seems to be, faithful to the Word of God, in which He
tells us what His intended role for women is. The part I want to cover here is
the womens role in the work of God.

There are and have been many faithful Godly women in Gods
Work. Praise God ! The Bible is filled with stories of women who were used by God
in a great way. They were and are obedient to the Lords calling, and those
from the past received a prominent place in Gods Word. Most of them living now
will receive their reward at the coming of Jesus. To mention a few from the
past, in the Old Testament, Debora, Ruth and Esther come to my mind. While in the
New Testament, connected to the birth of Jesus, Elizabeth, Mary and Anna are
prominent. In 2nd Timothy, Lois and Eunice are standing out and in Romans 16
Paul has a whole list of virtuous women who were helpful to him.

To find the Lords intention for creating women, we have to go
back to the beginning. In Genesis 2-18 it tells us that God decided to make a
help meet for Adam, "because it is not good that man should be alone".
Therefore it is biblical to say that womens primary purpose was to be a help meet to
men. As result of the fall I believe, that God ordained women to bear children
and bear them in sorrow and pain. We can conclude from this, that a womans
additional purpose is to bear children. God added " you desire shall be for your
husband And he shall rule over you. [Gen.3~ 16] .

The best biblical picture of a virtuous woman can be found in
Proverbs 31, which list her role as house wife and help meet to her husband.
It is safe to say, that mostly Gods Word pictures the woman as wife and mother.
Therefore we have to ask our selves, what about unmarried and childless
women? One thing is for sure, we should not judge them as cursed by God. They could
be in that situation because of several different reasons in which the Lord
has His Hand. By the Lords great Mercy, there is also a great Godly purpose to
be found for the unmarried and the childless. Those roles can be varied from
case to case, but still comply with the idea that she is a help meet to
mankind.

In the family setting, the Bible tells us clearly that the
wife should be subject to her husband. He is the head of the house as Christ is
the Head of the church. As far as a womans role in the church is concerned, 1
Tim.2~9/12 is an important decisive scripture." I do not permit a woman to
teach or to have authority over a man, but be in silence." This is strong direct
language that hardly can be misunderstood. However, those in opposition
still manage to
reason it away with man made hermeneutics. It is becoming more and
more political incorrect to obey what it really says. The practical outworking
of this ruling is, that there can not be a woman with leadership authority in
the church and this is the reason one canot find any women elders in the New
testament .

Those disobedient people, who are still ordaining women
elders, are claiming Romans 16-7 as proof that Junia was an Apostle among the
Apostles. However, in most all trust worthy translations, it says only that
Adronicus and Junia were well regarded among the Apostles. ! Actually It is not
even sure that Junia was a female, but if she was, most likely the wife of
Adronicus. One must be very desperate to claim this as reason to disobey 1 Tim 2.

It is true however that husband and wife teams are mentioned
some times, with the woman ministering under the authority of her husband.
That could be done today , but one has to view this case by case for being
correct, because it is being mis-used also. Disobedience to Gods Word is increasing
rapidly in these last days. Mainly because of our modern culture and the
thinking that some of Gods Word does not always apply to us today. Disobedience
has eroded the true faith in our churches to the point that some now are even
ordaining homo sexuals ! Yes, a woman can and should do vital important
mininstry in the church, but NEVER should take a position as a leader with authority
over men.
Very remarkable, that God gives the reason for His
ruling in 1 Tim. 2. He does not do that very often! However in verse 13 He
explains why. He apperently found an explanation necessary. "for Adam was first
formed, then Eve:. Verse 14: "And Adam was not deceived but the woman being
deceived was in transgression" Some people feel that God is being unfair and holding
on to an old grudge. But remember, He is our sovereign God and His ways are
higher than our ways ! A virtuous woman who submits herself to God and her
husband is truly being and going to be blessed by God. I can testifY to that
because of my own faithful wife for 54 years. Praise the Lord Oh my Soul. ! Amen

Johannes G Weiss

S1NCERELY , IN CHRIST, JOHANNES G. WEISS

Our Biblical Sanctification

2005-01-14T15:55:00.001-08:00

God's Word mentions the words sanctification, sanctified and
sanctify many times. In the Old Testament more than 100 times and in the New
Testament more than 30 times. Jesus himself mentions it 4 times. Three times in his
prayer for us in John chapter 17. Therefore there is no doubt that the Lord want
us to know and understand this doctrine of sanctifIcation. I am sure that
Satan recognizes the importance of this doctrine. Because He seems to exhort a
lot of effort in order to distort it and make it in~effective to the believer .

I am refering here to the wrong doctrine of ENTIRE sanctification,
which some denominations and evangelical Christians seem to hold. They add the
word ENTIRE on the basis of mainly one verse, which is actually a salutation on
the end of the first epistel to the Thessalonicans. 1 Thes.5-23 " Now may the
God of peace Himself SANCTIFY YOU WHOLLy and may your whole Spirit, Soul and
Body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ "
Although this verse shows that there is such a thing as being
sanctified wholly, or as you will entirely, it also shows that this entire
sanctification will not take place until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. When I read
this scripture, as I remember may be 62 years ago, I understood it as Pauls
Salutation and blessings, actually meaning to express his desire that they were
going to make until the end . This understanding has been confirmed the rest
of my life by studying Gods Word and the conformation by the Holy Spirit.

By adding this word ENTIRE to the doctrine of sanctification, the
evil One is creating a lot of confusion, double talk and pride in many
Christians. He does that by suggesting that we can lead a complete sinless life. That
fills us with guilt when we find that we can not obtain it, or with pride, when
we imagine that we are perfect sinless already. So let us take a good look at
biblical sanctification.

The word sanctification [from the greek word Hagiasmos] according to
Webster means, "the state of growing in divine grace as result of christian
commitment, after baptisme or conversion." The verb sanctify[hagiazo] means;
"set appart for a sacred purpose". The word Saint comes from the greek word
Hagios. These are very good definitions, underwriten by God's word.

The complete picture, which the New Testament gives, is that
sanctification is both an instantanious happening at conversion and an ongoing drawn
out process, which comes to completion " in the twinkling of an eye " , when
Jesus takes us at our death or at the time of our rapture. At our true
conversion to Jesus Christ we all become Saints . And the bible calls us so. [ I
Cor.1-2 and Rom. 1-7 ] This is accomplished by Jesus shedding his blood and dying
on the cross for us to wash away our sins. And from then on God looks at us as
forgiven Saints.
However, there is no biblical support for the idea that we actually
reach a complete sinless state during our life. Our sins are continually
forgiven because when we remain in Jesus, He make intercession for us with the
Father. Beside Jesus Christ Himself, there never has been and never will be a
human who is perfectly sinless. God's word teaches us that " there is no one who
does not sin"[2Cr. 6-36]. And " there is not a just man on earth that does good
and does not sin" [Ecl.7-20]. Apostle Paul states in Romans that we all are
falling short and in Phil.3 he declares that he has not already been
perfected. If Paul had not reached that perfect state yet, who are we that we should
claim that we have, or even that we can obtain that state ?
We are exhorted by the word to continually pray for forgiveness of
our sin. lt would be useless if we did not commit any sins any more, would it
not ? That sanctification is a life long process is made clear by God's word.
For instance in Hebrew 10-14 it says; " for by one offering [Christ death on
the cross], He has perfected those who are BEING SANCTIFIED. Being sanctified by
the Holy Spirit is also is used in Romans 15-16 and it clearly indicates a
on-going process.
I must indicate that that process can be interupted by us. The Lords
stern warnings rings out loud and clear in Hebr .10-29. " We are worthy of
much more punishment, if we trample the Son of God under foot, counting the blood
of the Covenant [Jesus's blood] BY WHICH HE WAS SANCTIFIED, a common thing".
From verse 26 to verse 29, the Lord gives the most severe warnings to us. It
is awsome and very direct language. I recommend for all Christians to read this
over and over.

Because although we are new creatures ln Chrlst and have HIS promise
that He will hold us, we remain prone to sin. Those sincere Christians, who
are reading into GOd'S Word that one can lead a complete Sinless life, are
coming to a very eroneous and dangerous conclusion. It has shown to lead to all
kinds of wrong Interpretation of the Word. A presldent of an conservative
christian college wrote me one time, that they were holding the view that the
doctrine of entire sanctification was just another wording for the Baptisme with the
Holy Spirit ! I think he did not realize that he rejected this one time
instantanious event for today and the terminology that Jesus Himself used for it.
It also seems that they get fortified in this wrong thinking about
sanctification by mlsreadlng scriptures about Christian perfection and Holiness.
Specially the writings of John Wesley on Christian perfection seem to have
confused many Wesleyans. Although I think, that Wesley did not go so far as to
say that we can lead a sinless life and that he or anyone else was completeley
sinless. Some other writers in the past and contemporary, have gone through
great effort to explain away the scripures, which are sayIng that there are no
slnless human belngs on earth.

The word perfect comes from several different Hebrew and Greek words
used in the Bible. It shows how complex this concept is. In English it can and
is translated sometimes with mature, completed, finished and improved. The
way I see the word perfect, is that the bible shows that only God is perfect and
that Jesus was the only one who had lead a perfect live. That has to make the
word perfect rather relative to us.

The bible show us in different states of perfection. Babes, children,
young people, adults and elders. Therefore I believe that when we are in that
stage of christian Iive, in which our Lord has lead us, we can be perfect at
that level. In other words, a person who is born anew in Christ is perfect at
the level our Lord has brought him and there is no difference between a babe
in Christ or an elder, or vice versa. Each human being in a class at a certain
level is not better or higher rated than any other.

When a person is reborn, he is a new creature and made perfect by
the blood of Jesus. The Holy Spirit will grow him or her into more maturity
until he/she is called up . That is why the Lord is not unfair demanding from us,
when he said in Math.5-48, for us to be perfect. In 2 Tim.3-17 it says that
the man of God; may be perfect(complete] thoroughly equiped for every good
work. He also commands us "to be Holy ,even as I am Holy says the Lord". He knows
we can be Holy and perfect as long as we remain in His son Jesus Christ and are covered by his blood . In Him we are perfect and Holy ! AMEN

Desirable Riches?

2005-01-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

As sinful human beings, we seem always to be striving to gain more
finances and possessions. We are aiming to be more comfortable or to have more
power. We are even taught that unless you have this ambition, you are a
failure. There is a very popular saying among Wesleyan Christians and others: " Make
all you can, save all you can and give all you can ". It sounds so good and
Godly, but is it really?

For the first part, Jesus's words of Matthew19:24 come to my mind.
" It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to enter the Kingdom of God" Do we really heed this very serious warning?
The Lord considers this subject of "gaining" so important that He repeats it
twice in His saying of Mathew 27:26 and Mark 8:36. " For what shall It profit a
man If he gains the whole world and lose his soul ? " Do we as followers of Chr
ist have much regard for our souls ?

As far as saving all you can is concerned, the story of the rich
fool should be a serious lesson for us. [Luke 12:16]. Then, the Lords teaching
frcm Matthew 6:19/20" Lay not up for your selves treasures upon earth" is very
plain. That is not to say that you should never save. Joseph was let by the
Lord to lay up for the 7 years of famine. But we should only do it as led by the
Holy Spirit.

To give all you can is not the right idea either, although It sounds
very spiritual. There is strife in this idea and in following this concept
you feel compulsion! We never should give out of compulsion {2 Cor. 9:7] As
opposed to compulsion we should give with a cheerful heart. It will become
naturally for us to give our whole self cheerfully when we become Godly in obeying
God's Word. [Romans 12:1]

Can volunteer austerity be Godly ? It can be, but not necessarily
so! It depends on our motives. I used to be a real Dutch cheapskate. However,
my motive was not to please the Lord but to gain more for my self. I pray that
the Lord will eliminate this selfishness in me. In ancient times there rose up
a sect called the Asetics, followers of an old hermit who lived on roots and
berries, thinking that this would make him super spiritual. They preached and
inforced complete self denial. In their rigid self denial, they actually did
do serious damage to their bodies and were in fact very ungodly ! However
volunteer austerity, led by the Holy spirit can be a great help to conquer our
selfishness. Our motive then should be that we can do more for others with our God
given resources.

To be rich towards God should be our goal instead of gathering
riches for our self. Contentment with what the Lord has provided for us is also
much needed. 1Tim 6:6-8 says" Godliness with contentment is great gain" and to
be content with food and raiment." If we seek first the Kingdom of God, all
things will be added unto us and we will prosper even as our souls prospers. When
the Lord pours out His blesings of abundance upon us, riches will not become
a curse and a cause of losing our soul. A final thought. The Lord usually will
bless us only to the extend of which we can deal with. This in order not to
tempt us beyond our endurance. Praise His Holy Name! Amen.

Johannes G. Weiss

The Honey Coated Gospel

2005-01-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

Usually the honey coating of the Gospel is being done by sincere Christians, who have the desire to make the gospel more attractive. And they think that by doing that they will draw more people to Christ. They do not realize that they themselves have a problem accepting our Father God the way He says He is and acts.
Therefore they feel the need to make the Lord look better by softening up the message of the Gospel. Ofcourse this is actually very arrogant and displeasing to God, because in their mind they feel that our heavenly Father does not appear loving enough.
And so judging God to be less than perfect.
Most of the time this seems to happen when they are witnessing or
teaching on the " unconditional love of God " . As an example I will tell you
what I heard in a so called Spirit filled church recently. the sermon subject was the amazing Love of God for all people . The Pastors reasoning went as follows;
1 . God's love for all people requires our response and a relationship with Him . Amen !
2 . A relationship requires change , so God changed ! Wrong . God never changes . We have to change. Mal.3:6 " For I the Lord do not change"
3 . Then he made the explicit statement, of which He declared that it would surprise most of us. { It sure did surprise me unpleasantly } ; " God never send anybody to Hell .!"
Dead wrong again! Who did send into the Lake of eternal fire, Satan and His angels, the anti Christ and the false prophets ? Rev, 20:10/15 And of course there are numeral scriptures which are warning us thet certain sins will lead us to Hell.
The Honey coating of the Gospel seem to be wide spread . They are teaching that because God is Love, a loving God would not cause you physical or spiritual harm and throw you into Hell. They can not and do not accept our heavenly Father the way He says He is and does act. Disregarding totally Deut
32:89 Or 1 Sam 2"6, where our God states that He kills and makes alive , wounds and heals, brings low and lifts up , makes poor and rich . There must be very little understanding of the total sovereingnity of our God.
In Romans chapter 9 from verse 12 till end our Lord is addressing people who find Him unjust and dare to talk back to Him. He says " shall what is formed say to whom formed it , why did you make me thus ? "
No there is absolutely no need to sweeten up the Gospel and trying to make God look more loving. John 3:16 tells it all . Jesus declared in John
15:13 that there is no greater love than this " He lays his life down for his friend " And Jesus Our Lord Himself did do that, while we were yet sinners !
Amazing Grace !
The way we His followers are supposed to bring the Gospel is to bring this message of redeeming Love together with a warning where it will lead to if they reject it and refuse to repent. If a person rejects Jesus as is Savior and as the greatest proof of God's love, he is in serious trouble indeed and the Bible states that Jeus will then become a stumbling stone .
The message of the Love of God for His creation and the warning of Hell fire should be preached together. Jesus did so and God designed it to bring people into salvation.
the Fear of God is a much needed doctrine today,
" For our God is a consuming fire . ! Hebr.12:29
Yours in Christ, Johannes Weiss