Bible Believers' Newsletter #237
"We focus on the PRESENT Truth -- what Jesus is doing NOW . . ."
ISSN 1442-8660
Good to gather with you once again around God's unchanging Word.
May I remind you that CDs of the Church Website are available. Please send a copy of this Newsletter to your friends, inviting them to subscribe, and prove all things personally in your own Bible. . . Anthony Grigor-Scott
Earth Battles Bulge
August 3, 2002 -- New research says that the Earth is getting wider, but the scientists who discovered the change are not sure what is causing it. . . a startling study in the US has shown its waistline shrank for two decades and then, in the years since 1998, began expanding again.
The researchers behind the study noticed the bizarre phenomenon after studying satellite observations from the past quarter-century. . . Around four years ago, they found the Earth's width began to expand again, a trend which continues today. They say nothing on the Earth's surface, such as rising sea levels, could explain such a rapid change.
Full story: abc.net.au
Fed Chief Greenspan to Be Knighted
Washington August 6, 2002 -- Queen Elizabeth II has approved an honorary knighthood for Greenspan's "outstanding contribution to global economic stability," British Treasury announced Tuesday. A copy of the release was distributed in Washington.
Full story: washingtonpost.com
US West Nile Virus Matches Israeli Strain
Washington August 7, 2002 -- The strain of West Nile virus spreading rapidly across the country is a genetic match to one found in Israel, . . . says a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist. . . Harry Savage, "So it at least indicates that it came from that part of the world."
Federal scientists, however, are still trying to figure out how the mosquito-borne virus jumped the Atlantic, an unusual feat. Full story: worldnetdaily.com
What is Behind Bush's War with Iraq?
President George W. Bush appears to be obsessed with Iraq, even though that country cannot reasonably be considered a terrorist nation. This obsession is no new thing. Less than three months after the September 11 terrorist attack, we were hearing President Bush was about to unleash the dogs of war. He intended to give armed support to dissident groups in Iraq. He had ordered the CIA and his senior military commanders to draw up detailed plans for a military operation that could begin within months.
Comment: Photographs of US military men building airstrips on US-controlled territory in northern Iraq appeared on all five major TV networks, including Fox (Warmonger Watch Update August 6, 2002).Full story: hermes-press.com
Ramsay Clark Writes UN on US Threat to Iraq
Washington August 7, 2002 -- An attack on Iraq by the United States would violate the Constitution and laws of the US and expose President Bush to impeachment by the House of Representatives under the Constitution . . . for the highest of crimes, those against peace and humanity, to judgment by the US Senate and trial in federal court for crimes charged.
Unfortunately in recent years our Constitution has been more honored in the breach than in faithful observance of the rights it is intended to protect. Full story: iacenter.org
Microwave Weapons May Be Ready For Iraq
London August 6, 2002 -- An attack on Iraq is expected to see the first use of high-power microwave weapons (HPM) that produce a split-second spike of energy powerful enough to damage electronic components and scramble computer memories.
They are designed, at least initially, for use from cruise missiles and unmanned aircraft. . . Full story: aviationnow.com
US May put Iranian Nuclear Plant on Hit List
July 30, 2002 -- A nuclear power plant being built in Iran has emerged as a potential test of the Bush Administration's doctrine of pre-empting threats to United States security.
President George Bush has labeled Iran a part of the "axis of evil", and some of his defence officials argue that a nuclear plant at Bushehr, on the country's Persian Gulf coast, should be destroyed before it receives its first load of nuclear fuel from Russia, which is helping to build it. . . a pre-emptive strike appears to be supported by only a minority in the Administration, Israel has suggested it will not allow the plant to open.
(Comment: The only 'threat' is that of cheap power leading to economic development and prosperity. "Love your enemies, . . do good to them. . ." Matthew 5:42-43).
Full story: smh.com.au
Resist the Devil, and He will Flee
God's Word requires a total separation from unbelief. When Israel, on his way to receive the promise, fell in unbelief to God's unfailing Word, God placed the nation, and only that nation, under the curse of the Law.
The names of all adult Israelites in that first generation were removed from the Book of Life because of their unbelief, and are lost (John 6:49). Ezekiel 18:20, "The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. . ." God marched Israel around the desert for forty years until the last of that generation was dead. Sin prevented all but Joshua and Caleb from entering the Land. Unto this day Israel have not entered their sabbath, because that rest is Abraham's Promise by the baptism with the Holy Ghost which Israel refused when they killed the king of Glory (Psalm 95; Hebrews 4:8).
Here in type we see all those who were called out of Laodicea by this end-time Message, but failing to loose themselves from Pentecostal dreams, wandered in a Laodicean desert for forty years without entering their rest in Christ. These will perish without entering the eternal Land of the Millennium, like the generation that followed Moses out of Egypt died without entering the Promised Land.
Then God told Moses, "You have compassed this mountain long enough: turn northward. Command the people, You are to cross over the border of your brethren the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir; and they shall be afraid of you, so take care: don't start a fight; for I will not give you even a foot of their land, because I have given mount Seir to Esau for a possession" (Deuteronomy 2:3-5).
After tramping the foothills of Mount Seir for a whole generation, Israel was going to pass through Esau's land. Since they were the progeny of Israel's brother, the Edomites were his cousins. As Esau had married two Serpent's seed women whose offspring could never be on the Book of Life, they could not carry the seed of Abraham to realize God's promise to Abraham. These Edomites were largely mamsers through miscegenation. They type our denominational cousins who are bastard-born through hybreeding God's Word with human reasoning. Being spiritual Serpent's seed, they are not on the Lamb's Book of Life and can not inherit God's Promise to Abraham and his seed.
As Israel had to pass through the land of Esau to enter the Promised Land, but were not to vex him, Christ's end-time Bride must cross through denominational lands, en-route to the eternal Land of the Millennium. We mustn't touch their unclean things or excite strife, but we proclaim the revelation of the Message which calls both the wise and foolish virgin out from the world church system (Matthew 25:1-13; Revelation 10:8-11).
Revelation 18:4, "I heard another voice calling from heaven, Come away from of her, My people, do not teke part in her sins, or you will be punished with her plagues".
Christians are not Abraham's sexual increase, but his seed through the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Abraham was a Gentile, a Chaldean from the city of Ur and the father of the Israelites. God made a Covenant of grace with "Abraham and his seed forever." But his natural seed, the nation of Israel, rejected grace and received the Law on Mount Sinai which was a curse from God because of their unbelief. No Israelite has met the imperious demands of the Law (Daniel 9:3-15; Matthew 5:20; Galatians 3:6-16).
Show me one Scripture that hints at Abraham observing a sabbath day? Abraham was under grace, not under law. Abraham was a believer with faith, who loved and obeyed God, and needed no Law. Jesus Christ the promised Seed of Abraham was born and died under the curse of the Law (Deuteronomy 21:23; Galatians 3:13). Being made a curse for us, His death and resurrection redeemed us from the curse of the Law, that the blessing of Abraham might come on we Gentiles through Jesus Christ; so we might receive the promise of the Spirit or new birth through faith.
Show me one Scripture that implies that the early Christians, having received the promise of the Spirit through faith, observed a sabbath day? There is no Scripture, and since the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets where is your stand? From the birth of the Church on Sunday, "when the day of Pentecost was fully come" to the present day, no Christian has been required to observe any sabbath day. This is unthinkable.
"Jews" attempting to observe a sabbath day outside the Promised Land are hypocrites -- ignorant of the Torah and their own Prophets. The sabbath can only be observed in Israel (Isaiah 61:1). Any Israelite who is a Hebrew of the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is outside the Covenant of Moses so long as he is outside Israel, particularly since the state has been restored (as prophesied, to non-Semitic anti-Semitic people, who stole the land from its Semitic Arab and Hebrew owners, and who follow the lewd Talmud which negates the Law and the Prophets (Daniel 9:27; Luke 21:24; Mark 7:13). These "Jews" are not of the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but impostors, with no claims to the Covenant of Moses, or the sabbath).
Any one claiming to be a Christian yet attempting to maintain the old sabbath day is rejecting the free gift of grace, by implication denying the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. They are dishonoring God and serving a lying spirit. There is no Scripture commanding Christians to observe a sabbath day or any other day. The very idea is gross carnality, and doubly sinful because those who have received the promise of the Spirit are expressly commanded to observe no special day. No Easter day, no Christmas day, no saint this or saint that day (Galatians 4:1-11; Ephesians 2:20).
The Christian sabbath is the baptism with the Holy Spirit which is the new birth. It is an eternal rest for the soul which is sealed for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to the day of our physical redemption (Ephesians 4:30). One cannot be a Christian and observe a sabbath day for the one precludes the other. God is not double-minded: opposing laws can not coexist. "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or vice-versa" (Matthew 6:24).
Paul explains this quite clearly in Hebrews 4 where he says. had Joshua given rest to the people of Israel by bringing them into the Promised Land, king David, who ruled Israel 400 years after man's first failure to enter in to rest, would not have spoken of another day. And he instructs us that the place of this sabbath is not a geographic location but in the Presence of God whither Christ our forerunner has already entered -- having ceased from His works as God did from His.
You people claiming to be Christians while impersonating a sabbath day had better cease your carnal works programs and recognize that Jesus Christ has already accomplished the work you could never achieve. Curse this sabbath day impersonation which is the mark of the beast (i.e. reasoning against the faith). Get into Christ and rest. Relax, receive the grace He has purchased for you, and enjoy it. The mystery of God was finished when God took the Prophet William Branham Home. Christ's Bride has no excuse for presumption and self-works in this day, this is a relaxing time when we dress ourselves in "the true sayings of God" (Revelation 19:7-9). We live under the holy convocation or fiftieth day sabbath of the Pentecostal feast (Leviticus 23:16-21).
Serve God by grace through faith. Being freed from the Law and sin whose fruit is death, and become enslaved to obedience through grace, whose fruit is holiness, with everlasting life (Romans 5:12-13; 6:21-23). Curse Satan's false religion of self-righteous works.
Abraham who was called out from among his people to walk in a strange land, was a type of the Church, the 'ekklesia' (Gk.), the called-out and separated ones. Abraham's decision is a beautiful type of the Christian walk today. We have been called out from our worldly associations to walk with Christ by faith to an unseen Land just like Abraham walked in a strange land not knowing where he was going, looking for a City Whose Builder and Maker was God, only we know where we are going, and we know the way.
Jesus said, "In My Father's house are many mansions: were it not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And whither I go you know, and the way you know. . . I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by Me" (John 14:2-4,6).
Abraham did not know the way, for the sacrifice through Whom we return to the Father had not been made in his day. But the city was already there in another dimension, just above his head, "For whom God fore knew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Which is why Jesus has gone ahead of us). Moreover whom God predestinated, He also called: and whom He called, He also justified: and whom He justified, He also glorified" (Romans 8:29-30).
The theophanies of our glorified appearance were already in the Presence of the Lord when John saw the vision of Christ opening the Seven Sealed Book (Revelation 5:7-14). As Paul said in Ephesians 2:6, "God has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus".
"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? . . . When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" When they saw the revelation of their redemption through Christ (Job 38:4, 7). We've always been there. God's elect are a part of the Logos. We were always a part of God and eternal Life. Like Job, we just had to catch the revelation.
Brethren, we know the Way. All we need do is to recognize our day and its Message, and see that part of the Word living through us. We are the City or dwelling Place of God, the Place of His eternal sabbath. We don't need to work-up emotions or observe non-existent sabbath days, Jesus Christ has done everything that needs to be done. All we need do is recognize that He has finished the work, receive it as the free gift of faith, and die to self so that through our obedience His Life may live through us. Our objective is not what we can do but what we can stop doing so that He can do through us.
Works are faith expressed. Not you expressed or me expressed but His faith manifested through us. Like Abraham, we are following the leading of God's Spirit to an unseen Land. Our ten natural senses were given so we could see, taste, hear, smell and touch, reason, love, remember, etc., this natural, material realm. They cannot contact the unseen. Faith alone enables us to discern that unseen Supernatural realm which is our destination.
If we consider our natural circumstances and allow ourselves to be led by the sensations of our ten senses, instead of looking beyond the natural to faith in the promises of God's Supernatural Word, we will be reprobate like Israel's ten unbelieving spies who recognised only the natural circumstances, and whose unanimous report was unbelief in the revealed Word of God. Our ten senses contact the world which is sin since Satan is the god of this evil age. Our own body is the dust of the world; our mortal spirit was given by God, but it is not of God. Hence we know no man after the flesh, but after the spirit ruling that flesh. And we don't try to perfect the body, because it was conceived in sin, shaped in iniquity, and came into the world speaking lies.
Once our soul is born-again it has a 'new Husband' and is no longer subject to the world and the things of the world by serving the lusts of the flesh and mortal spirit. Since it is united with the Word and is one with the Word by faith, as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane (John 17:21-26), it has a new desire that requires it to bring the spirit under submission, which in turn brings the body subject to the revealed Word (Genesis 3:16). But the flesh cannot come to perfection before it is glorified. Paul said, "I find a law that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong". Our mortal flesh and spirit are as yet unredeemed, and being of the world, desire the things of the world.
Your mind and body are in constant war against the Spirit in your born-again soul. The flesh says, "I'm too tired." Or the mind says, "Do you remember when we used to. . ." or "imagine if I was. . ." So when God's Word states emphatically, "Rebuke the Devil, and he will flee from you;" "By His stripes we were healed;" or, "Your sins are remitted," you must take God at His Word. However if you reason against faith, doubt that healing is for you, or when the doctor says, "You're going to get worse," you believe the doctor and your pain instead of holding to God's unfailing Word of promise, you will serve your doctor and your worldly senses, and God's Word is not your Lord (Matthew 6:24).
The victory is yours to receive without money and without price. It has already been won for you by Jesus Christ. You don't need to fight for it, just take It, It is your right. All the promises of God are "Yes," and they are yours. Now! After Brother Branham revealed the Seven Seals God told us to go to Christ and "take the open Book from His hands." No "Please, Sir. May I"? The unsealed Book is yours. It is your right!
You are your soul. Your body is not you, it is the house you live in. Your mortal spirit powers the body and operates its brain. Their ten senses are only to contact this natural realm. You cannot trust the Supernatural God with those senses. You are united with the miracle-working God Who speaks of promised future events as if they already existed. He gave you His Spirit with which to contact and trust in Him because God is a Spirit and not flesh, and you believe things that are impossible for your mortal senses to conceive.
If you're an offspring of God and He is in you, He will believe His Own Word, although the healing or whatever it was has not yet manifested, and can't be seen, felt, tasted, smelt or heard, God in you will believe His Own Word. So you become dead to your senses and enticing spirits that reason against the faith, and hold to God's unchanging Word.
Christ has already healed you, and He's already saved you (I Peter 2:24). It's past tense. The only thing you have to do and all that you can do is to accept it by faith. You weren't saved ten years ago, you were saved and healed 2,000 years ago -- indeed you were saved and healed before the foundation of the world when in His foreknowledge God saw you crucified in Christ on Calvary.
Every Christian was judged and condemned, and has already paid for his sins in Christ on Calvary since we are each Attributes in the Logos of God. Then God raised Christ for our justification so we can never again come into condemnation. We were glorified and made to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Romans 4:13-25; 8:28-30; I Corinthians 5:13-21). Ten years ago, or ten days ago, or whenever it was you just became conscious and accepted your healing and your salvation. Wake up to the reality of God's Word and faith in His Word. Don't give-in to the Devil, he's only a bluff.
If you want to do right but something keeps preventing you. Or if you want to believe but something causes you to doubt and reason against God's revealed Word, saying It will not work for you; or if it prevents you from praying in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is an enticing spirit. And Christ commissioned His Church, "In My Name they shall cast out demons" so they can receive the blessings of God contained in His promises. That healing is yours, new birth is yours, freedom from oppression, and every promise of God is yours. Only sin in your life can hinder you from receiving it. Sin us unbelief!
Faith casts out demons and sets the prisoners free. When God veiled Himself behind a created Man in the days of Lot, when He veiled Himself behind the virgin-born Man, and when He revealed the Son of man veiled behind the flesh of Brother William Branham, God discerned the thoughts and intents of people's hearts in order to raise their faith, so they could reach out and take the blessings that are there waiting for them to receive. Seeing that He knew their name, where they lived, their past and even their thoughts, they saw God is a reality, and believed He could also heal them or cast out the evil spirit, and their own faith made themselves whole (Matthew 9:20-22; 15:28; Mark 10:51-52; Luke 17:11-19; Acts 3:16).
Forget about the lucky rabbit's foot of long prayers and fastings, sleepless nights searching your mind for some secret sin, or lack of penitence, and other works of the flesh. Without faith this is abomination to God. Superstition! Jesus Christ has already done the works. Simply take Simon Peter's prescription from the day of Pentecost - "Repent and be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and all these things will be added unto you".
Works without faith is death. Look at the Pharisees, whose righteous works of the Law crucified their own Messiah, because their works were without faith. Look at the Roman Catholics who whip and nail themselves to heavy wooden crosses they have dragged for miles, or crawl on bleeding knees to light a grease candle before the shrine of some dead person. Those are works without faith. Since the denominations rejected Christ in 1963 when the revelation of the Seven Seals brought Him back to earth in Word form, and put Him to an open shame - outside the door that bears His Name - they have crucified unto themselves the Son of God afresh. Today every denomination crucifies Him on a cross of Roman creed because their preaching is works without faith, and is not accepted of God. Jesus called them "blasphous names" (Revelation 13:1)!
All of these people were sincere. Deadly sincere! But Brother or Sister, if our sincerity is not grounded on faith, we are sincerely deceived. Come out of her, My people. For why would you perish?
It was their own faith that caused the demons to flee. Jesus, Brother Branham, any minister or believer, is simply an instrument God uses to help raise another person higher in their own faith to receive their needs. Sometimes God will expose Satan by revealing unconfessed sin Satan has held against a person. Confessing that secret sin disempowers the Devil and frees them to receive healing, or whatever their need may be.
Sin is unbelief in the revealed Word of God. Just as your faith will cast out the demon, your unbelief will invite him back again. Maybe that sin is a false doctrine, like observing a sabbath day. Whatever that false doctrine, one word contrary to faith in the Word of God is the kingdom of Satan, and will keep you from receiving the full blessings of God.
"When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he walks in dry places, seeking a home: and finding none, returns to find his old house sanctified and vacant, so he brings back seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they all enter in and dwell there. So the last state of that man is worse than the first" (Matthew 12:43-45).
Now when faith evicts the demon, let the Holy Spirit enter in. He can only enter by faith or a clear understanding of the revealed Word of God. The Word can only enter through your eyes or your ears, and if It is not rejected by intellectual reasoning which is sin, or unbelief, It will find rest in your heart when it welcomes that Word by understanding and agreement. But if you reason against Him He can not find that rest. And the Spirit of God will not go where the Word of God is unwelcome, for the Word of God is the Spirit of God in a form we can receive by faith.
If you just repent of your sins and perhaps even sanctify your life - without being born-again - you may be worse than ever you were before you repented. You must fill that place Satan once occupied with the Holy Spirit. Fill it with God's Word for this day as revealed to us by His Prophet. Then you'll have God in you because His Word is Himself in a form you can receive by faith. And if you hold the revealed Word in the strong hand of faith, the demons will tremble and sinners awake faith in Jehovah will anything shake.
I might be a sinner in your sight, but if I'm in Christ, God can't see my mistakes, because the Blood of Christ has atoned for my sins. Christians can not sin. I John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for His seed (or revealed Word) remains in him: and he cannot sin (or unbelieve), because he is born of God." Sin is unbelief in the revealed Word of God. One cannot have faith or understanding in God's Word and not believe It.
Christians do make mistakes but we can never sin. And when the Christian makes a mistake, he will confess it as soon as his error is revealed. A man truly born of the Spirit of God will not be in the Word one day, and in the world the next. If you are born of the Spirit of God, you are a Christian: eternal with God, and sealed to the day of your redemption.
When a woman gives birth to her baby, the water breaks first, next the blood, and then its mortal spirit and soul enter. All three stages are required to make it a human being, a living soul. These three stages in the natural birth type the three steps of faith required to give Spiritual birth to a babe in Christ. First we are justified by grace through faith in Who Jesus Christ is and what He has accomplished for our redemption, and we take His Name in Scriptural water baptism. Our second step is sanctification by the Blood. In the natural, God's only cleansing, healing stream is our blood which conducts the spirit of mortal life. In the Spiritual, the Holy Spirit which became flesh and blood in Jesus Christ, cleanses our lives by faith, showing us where we must separate from the world unto the Word that we may live holy lives all-pleasing to the Lord. Finally comes the baptism of the Holy Spirit by a clear revelation of our day and its Message quickening our soul to express the present Truth in our life. This is the new birth.
Just as a child can be still-born in the natural, one can be still-born in the Spiritual. You can be justified without being sanctified. Judas Iscariot was justified and baptized in water (John 4:1). You can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all of your heart, and not being sanctified, still carry your uncleanness with you. And you can be both justified and live a clean, holy life, without having the Holy Ghost. Judas was sanctified by the Word of God, and his ministry in the Supernatural was no less than that of the other 81 apostles (John 6:70 17:17; Matthew 10:1-4; Acts 1:1:17). Speaking in tongues, exercising other gifts or being a minister, is no evidence of the new birth (I Corinthians 13:1-3).
I John 5:7-8 says, "There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are One (Person). And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: these three agree in one" (born-again person). You can't have the Father without having the Son; you can't have the Son without having the Holy Ghost, for these are three Offices or dispensation claims of One indivisible Spirit. Likewise all three stages of grace agree in the Spiritual birth of one child of God.
Sadly, people are either not instructed, or they have not followed instructions that were given and they go away and give up. Then the demon that has bothered them for so long moves back and takes over again. When God tells you anything by inspiration through His Spirit, don't doubt that, or a worse thing will come upon you, and your last estate will be seven times worse than it was at the first.
Don't disbelieve, hold to God's unchanging Word. Tell the demon, "I will not be moved no matter how sick you make me, or how miserably you treat me." Job would not be moved. Job types those loyal 144,000 Israelites who will not move from the faith of Jesus Christ although the Judaeo-Roman Catholic church will take their life.
Be sincere from the depth of your heart but seize the victory by faith, and don't let go. Your sickness or oppression will lift, and everything will be all right. Remember, "Christ is the high priest of our profession. . . Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). nl237.htm
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Brother Anthony Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister. He has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in various countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to minister in your church.
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Bible Believers' Church
Currabubula, NSW 2342, Australiae-mail: ags@biblebelievers.org.au
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