Sharing the happiness of God, part 16, the rooms of cosmic 2; John 15:11.

Title: Sharing the happiness of God, part 16, the rooms of cosmic 2; John 15:11.

 

Cosmic two: the hatred complex - fighting God.

 

Room #1: Negative volition at God consciousness, gospel hearing, or post-salvation NVTD.

 

Room #2: Cosmic degeneration. The result of prolonged residence in cosmic 1 where the individual rejects the God’s natural laws of normal living.

 

Room #3: The antiestablishment gate. The hatred of divine establishment.

 

Room #4: The cosmic panaceas. The individual seeking solutions to life apart from divine truth and in human viewpoint.

 

Room #5: The room of religion. Religion is Satan’s counterfeit of the plan of God for the believer in Christ.

 

Religion is a part of Satan’s policy of evil in which man by man’s efforts seeks to gain the approbation of God or of man.

 

Christianity is not a religion. In Christianity God saves man through His own efforts to the exclusion of human efforts.

 

Faith is the only non-meritorious system of thinking. When man has faith in God, all the merit in salvation goes to the object of faith, which is Jesus Christ who is the worker, God the Father who is the planner, and God the Holy Spirit who is the revealer and the one who empowers.

 

Being condemned at birth, man can do nothing to save himself. All the work for salvation was provided completely and permanently by Jesus Christ on the cross. And after salvation this policy of grace never changes as God cannot change. You are not saved by grace and then asked to maintain a relationship with God by works.

 

COL 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,

 

COL 2:7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith [doctrine], just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.

 

There is no overflow of gratitude if you are working and hustling around for God, but when God works and we receive in grace, there is nothing but gratitude.

 

Christianity is a relationship with God based on the work of Jesus Christ and the power of His word and Spirit within the Plan of the Father.

 

The Trinity does all the work and man receives all the benefit.

 

The policy of Christianity has been and always will be GRACE!

 

The believer who attempts to clean up his life or make certain changes using human viewpoint and human power will only open up an opportunity for satan to apply pressure. That believer becomes worse off than he was. Changes that are permanent because they are wrought with God’s power must always come by means of grace.

 

ROM 7:24-25

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

 

The “who” who is setting you free is not you.

 

In religion man seeks God through his personal works, his merits, while in Christianity God seeks man through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ totally apart from works — Ephesians 2:8,9.

 

EPH 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

 

EPH 2:2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

 

EPH 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

 

EPH 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

 

EPH 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

 

EPH 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus,

 

EPH 2:7 in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

 

 “surpassing” - u`perba,llw[huperballo] = transcend, surpass, exceed, excel.

 

EPH 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

 

EPH 2:9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.

 

Paul describes the religious leaders in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 as false apostles and deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ, as satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light.

 

Satan has used religion to fracture the body of Christ through trends of tradition, denominations, and cults. If satan can fracture the body then he can fight her more successfully.

 

Basically, throughout the entire church history from the day of Pentecost when the Church began we have a pivot that trends towards sound doctrine where everything is predicated on what Bible doctrine teaches.

 

But there has always been the trend towards traditionalism. It’s a mentality of, “this is the way we’ve always done it, so it must be right.” In the early church there was a struggle to leave behind the traditions of Judaism.

 

And within a few hundred years began the trend of denominations beginning with the Catholic Church at Rome and then the Greek Orthodox Church in the east. These also developed traditions which pushed doctrine aside.

 

With the reformation more denominations arose, which developed their own traditions. How silly it is to say that you are of Martin Luther, or of papal traditions, or of Baptist traditions, or Greek orthodox traditions when every member of the body of Christ has been placed into one body as God willed and being of one mind we are to have unity.

 

These denominations and their traditions have been planted by mere men. There should be no division in the body of Christ.

 

This does not mean that the World Council of Churches is correct in trying to get all denominations to be nice. If a group teaches religion and not grace, then separation is needed. We never, ever compromise true, sound doctrine.

 

If satan can fracture the body, and he has, he can fight it more successfully.

 

The other trend has been in the form of cults, which are evil.

 

Small local churches are the order of the day, as it was with Christ and with the early churches.

 

Christ had twelve men, John and James were his cousins, their mother, Salome was Mary’s [Christ’s mother] sister. We had Mary M., Mary the wife of Cleophas who was James’ the Less’ mother, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany [brothers and sisters], Joanna, John Mark [writer of the Gospel] and his mother as well as his cousin Barnabas. I’m sure there are others, but not many. Notice that several of them are related and that the band is actually quite small. The early churches were not large by any means. There would be several of them in the same area.

 

My point is that God does not need a massive building or a large group. Satan has so duped the human race that involvement in these massive denominations seem normal and what we’re doing seems cultish. The facts are that what we are doing would seem quite normal and common in the early church.

 

Remember Elijah who needed to recover from his fear of persecution. God showed Himself to Elijah. God showed a tornado, an earthquake, and a great fire, and God wasn’t in any of them. God was in the gentle whisper. God has never been interested in big numbers or outlandish presentations.

 

COL 4:15 Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also Nympha and the church that is in her house.

 

COL 4:16 And when this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.

 

COL 4:17 And say to Archippus, "Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it."

 

ROM 16:3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,

 

ROM 16:4 who for my life risked their own necks, to whom not only do I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles;

 

ROM 16:5 also greet the church that is in their house.

 

Do you think Prisca [Pree-skahn] and Aquila [Akoo-lahn] lived in a mansion?

 

Room #6: The room of demonism, which is the function of fallen angels under the command of satan to gain control of mankind.