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Precious brethren; beloved of our Lord – our prayers are with all of you as we await His awesome and momentous coming. May He lead each of us deeper into Himself, and the life that He has always and forever intended for us as His children; breathed of His Spirit, and enlivened with the very vitality of God and His Beloved Son. May we eagerly and faithfully press onward into this life of power and provision; into what the Scriptures call the simplicity of Christ. Do not be fooled dear saints, for there is but one rock from which we must drink, and that is the Lord of All, Jesus Christ. He alone is the heavenly bread of which we must partake daily, such that He alone would be our righteousness and strength. We cannot grow or overcome apart from Him, for He is the beginning of this journey into the heart of our Heavenly Father, and the end. He is both the means and the way! And all the glory belongs to Him and our Heavenly Father! Oh but look around and certainly there are some who have eyes to see that all is covered and hidden; that so little it seems is real and true. All the world saying, and so few actually doing. Wolves and tares masquerading as lambs and wheat – ready to be exposed in these last days! Pronouncements and plans from those deemed rich and clothed in their own eyes. The church in the world and the world in the church, and so many singing and rejoicing rather than tearing their clothes in repentance and mourning for how the Holy One is covered and scorned. So many building when they should more rightly be tearing down the works of men! Hypocrisy and deception; double-ness and misrepresentation - perversion, falsehood and every foul thing done in His Holy Name! Oh where are the prophets among this people? Indeed if they should appear would they not more readily seek to silence them? Now is the time for plain and direct words. Now is the time for openly revealing things as they really are, stripped of all sentiment and covering. Now is the moment for those who are truly His to stand up for Him, and for Him alone! Does it not break your heart dear children? Are you not torn up inside at how our Lord and the Father are misrepresented by this humanistic and idolatrous generation? Does it not grieve you deep down in the spirit at how His Holy Name is profaned among unbelievers? Or are you being fooled and blinded as are the many, by he whose ministers present themselves as angels of light and ministers of righteousness? Do not be deceived dear saints – for our Lord God who sits in the highest, and is clothed in truth and light is not mocked by the darkness of men and their false words and ways. And neither should we be, as His children; if indeed we are truly in the light, abiding in He who alone is the Truth and the Word come down among us. Yet the question is this – Do we in fact have eyes to see and ears to hear? Does our heart feel what He feels? Are we in fact following Him as commanded and ready to stand apart from the almost universal corruption of the Christian way in this world? "Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. (Matt 10:26) Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, {but wait} until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of {men's} hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God. (1 Cor 4:5) A word of warning to all those who by their lives and example somehow believe that the Lord God on High is some kind of naïve fool – prepare to be bitterly exposed for what you are. Holy Judgment is the ultimate equalizer my friend, and every proud grin will be wiped from every face before He who pierces all darkness and deceit. Those who will be doing the weeping and gnashing of teeth at the judgment will not be the wicked necessarily but the professing tares who believed themselves to be true wheat. Oh what frightening irony at that day; that all those that are “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears", those who will resist the Holy Spirit and the authentic life of the Lord Jesus Christ as it moves in His people – will ultimately be revealed for what they are. For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, "THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK, AND STOOD UP TO PLAY." Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. (1 Cor 10:1-12) Did you get that – “all passed through the sea”, but “with most of them God was not well pleased” and that all of this happened for an example for you and me? It is the most and the many that deviate from Him and His purposes. These are those of whom our Lord spoke constantly when He said they seek to appear acceptable and righteous; that they say but do not do, and that as tares they would grow up with the true wheat only to be revealed at the harvest for what they actually are. They will not enter into His promised reward because there is not faith in them, nor life in them. Again, are we paying attention saints? Is this getting through to us in this generation? And did he not warn us also that the days preceding His coming would be marked by an almost universal blindness and delusion? Recall if you will how John warned that they “went out from us, but were not of us.” . They perhaps received Christ but for many reasons refuse to walk in Him. How then can we know? How can we be sure what is true and what is false; who is of Him and what is of the evil one? In His letters to the churches, our All-seeing and All-knowing Shepherd reveals the hidden things, and we must be careful to catch what He is saying here. For some who considered themselves very much alive were actually dead in His estimation. And others who thought they could see, and were fully clothed and had need of nothing – (well read on for yourself…) "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: 'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. 'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. 'Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and {that} the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 'Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. (Rev 13:14-19) I might boldly suggest that if this does not stir you to the very core of your being; if it does not move you to be absolutely sure you are found in Him alone, abiding in the Light and living in Him completely and utterly in every sense of the meaning every second of every moment of every day – then perhaps you no longer desire to see; that you have chosen your cup to drink from, stiffened your neck and hardened your heart and effectively resisted the Holy Spirit in your life. Yet the admonition is clear – You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot live the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit at one and the same time. You are either in Him or you are in the world serving the god of this world. What then do you really truly want first and most? What then do you love, and who do you serve in reality? And remember, words and profession mean nothing. There are multitudes lined up saying this and saying that and all along believing in the delusion of their minds that God is well pleased with them. How will they respond when He spits them out of His mouth, and gives them eternal cursing and not blessing? Recall how our Lord called all those who ‘say and do not do’ sons of hell, and blind guides, and a brood of vipers, and members of the household of Beelzebub. Though they affirmed that they were walking in the light, they were in fact of the darkness. And worse than that, they perpetuated the darkness and couldn’t even recognize the Light when He stood in their midst and revealed them for what they were. Deluded and self-deceived they were; blind and stubbornly refusing to come to Him that He might wash their eyes so that they could see true things. How many today does this describe? How many of us say we have no sin and make The Lord Jesus a liar, that we might be affirmed? How many of us say we know Him and yet don’t keep His commandments to love God the Father first and our brother as ourselves? How many think they are abiding in Him and yet do not walk just as He walked? How many of us say we are in the light but hate our brother? Or how many say they love the Lord God when they in fact love the world and serve it with all lust and pride and idolatry? Fools and Blind! Deluded and destined for destruction! How foolish do we actually think the Lord is - He who made the universe out of nothing and holds our puny little existence between His fingers? BE NOT DECEIVED DEAR BRETHREN, for our God will not be mocked by you or me or the little games we play to honor ourselves and not Him! Do you not believe for one second that all those who follow a different gospel, and serve another Jesus, and are inspired by an altogether unholy spirit – will not be revealed by the Light that will suffer no darkness to obscure His Transcendent Glory? As John tells us, the spirit and delusion of antichrist pervades the world and the church and all religion and politics and indeed everything in these final days. Every false religion and every counterfeit manifestation of the true faith flows out of this pit of lies - and in this last hour we know that it will be universal in extent. The condition of men’s hearts and minds, as those with eyes can truly see – is marked by darkness, blindness, deception, delusion and deceit. In his first epistle, John makes this crystal clear; that there is indeed a recognizable distinction between the children of God and the children of the devil; and that by their fruits you will know them. Not their words, or church affiliation, or anything else. Yet all you followers of men and movements, have you not heard that there are counterfeits in the world, and that they are represented by the many, not the few – For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds. (2 Cor 11:13-16) Again, so many saying and so few actually doing and being and abiding in the purity and simplicity of Christ Jesus. The Apostle John had much to say about “those who say and yet…”, and by his writings we can distinguish the true from the false, those who merely profess and those who practice following Him as a living dynamic. I encourage you to read all of 1 John, which I believe speaks great wisdom to this time and generation. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and {yet} walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:6) Ah, so you are utterly convinced in your own heart and mind you are a peach tree? And so you may be. Yet if one sees only crabapples filling out your branches, then I have news for you – you are not a peach tree at all and your fruit has given you away. Your profession and belief mean nothing, when the reality is that there are no peaches anywhere to be found. You are deluded and a liar, and you have perchance listened to far too many men and not the Lord who knows “greater than our heart and knows all things.” "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? "I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds. (Jer 17:9-10) By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. (1 John 2:3) Ah, so here we see that only those who abide in Him and walk as He walked are the only ones who truly know the Lord God. (1Jo 2:9) The one who says he is in the Light and {yet} hates his brother is in the darkness until now. (1Jo 2:9) It gets harder and deeper dear saints – those of us who profess to be in the Light. How is it then that we still harbor hatred and bitterness towards our fellow saints? Hmmm. As one moves further into John's letter its gets increasingly difficult to gloss things over, or to resist the inevitable conclusions that it draws. Let's read some more... By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, {who} was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother's were righteous. Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. (1Jo 3:10 -) Ultimately, as our Lord and John spell out ever so clearly, it is the love of God that will identify His own at the end of this age; love for Him and his brethren. And this is no superficial love borne out of some superficial agreement in doctrine or anything else. Rather it is a heavenly, spiritual love borne out of a shared life and existence in the Lord. It is God’s very own love that flows in us and out of us, and is willing to lay even its life down for others. An identifying love such as this is not known to the world or those who are of it. It is not a love of profession and word, but grace and truth. It is not a principle or pattern but a living dynamic marking all those who have been claimed by He alone who knows our works, and sees our hearts, and loves us anyway. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35) Oh little children, let us go to Him now and ask that we might see, and know and let us confess our sins before Him. Let us hold nothing back, nor claim anything from Him – but as little children let us fall into His grace and provision, revealed in His Beloved Son – for He alone is worthy, and He alone searches the hearts of men. He alone will reveal all that is covered and hidden at His coming! Ask Him now to uncover all that is hidden in you, that you might live solely by Him and in Him! Ask that His transcendent love might fill us and identify us as His alone, and that we would affirm and honor His Holy Name, when all the professing masses would deny Him. Amen Please pray for us here at Living-Walk, that we would watch and see the Master at work, and understand what He would have us do. Your friend and servant in Christ Jesus, Wayne |
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