Good Morning Everyone from Hawaii to all the corners of the world, welcome to The Church Ministries. We are here to share with the world 53rd church service. We did not think this little Church would carry so much impact to the world, although we must remain small in heart, we do not want to be so large and start to fall into the world. When some of these large Churches get televised or something big, it becomes a race to get to the top with ratings. The top of what, not Heaven, the top of the world. We all are not here to build another tower of Babel. We are her to worship the Lord together and give a further education towards the Bible and the love and relationships toward the Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are here together, and the technology has made it possible to be sitting with a man on the mountains of India or a woman in the desert of the Sudan or a group of missionaries in China. The Church Ministries is just the name we needed. The Church which we wanted formulated with no name, just “The Church”, with no denomination and with respect to the early Church, which had no names, all the names were the Church “at” Philippi, or the Church “in” Ephesus, any way we look at it is still the church “at” or “in” a location, they had no other names in the Bible. There are several other references, for instance, The Church of Christ, or The Church of God, are mainly just another name to explain the Church. Many Churches today take the name as an expression to just further explain the church. Now the people are taking that name of a simple explanation for the early church. We have realized that we have are own true name of the church and we thought about it for a long time, with much prayer to God. We just did not want The Church “at” Hilo or The Church “in” Hilo, because this is a world wide Church without a specific location. Even though our Church is based in Hawaii, which is a central point for all the major parts of the world, we still do not want to be part of the world, we stand alone! We are the only Bible Truth Christian Church and our name we added for The Church, was Ministries to keep us set apart or to be the called out ones. We still are simple and we still are small and our God has supplied all that we needed to continue on this long, so in any event, we put the name of Ministries to our standard biblical name, The Church, because the location is world wide. Remember, we are not part of the world; we want to be like Jesus, just a small Church that overcomes the world. We still can enter into any computer at any time with our Sunday Service that can be read and worshipped any time during the week. So we all hope all of you are very much pleased with our faithful and loyal services for the past year. Now we stand firm and set out to accomplish our second year. God Bless all of you, and we thank you for all your support, Praise the Lord!!
Dear Heavenly Gracious Father in Christ Jesus, as we come today to your throne of grace and mercy please Lord, fulfill your promises to all of us that meet here today. Please deliver us all out of any distress and pain. Father today we need your encouragement and strength which can come only from Your mighty hand. Please make us able to completely trust in You with all things. Do not let us fall into the world. Please bring us away from worldly things. Please guide us by Your grace to be more Christ like, in all Your ways. Please God grant us courage to face the future unafraid and cast away all and any fear. Bring us all to the light of your heart. Father we are all here to worship You in Spirit and in truth. Please send the Holy Spirit upon us, and anoint everyone of us, and to open our eyes and ears and all our senses to Your, love, joy and teachings. Grant us Your peace in Jesus Name Amen.
This year has been very hard on me and this Church, as you all know, if you have read any of our earlier Sunday Services. I do talk a bit about myself and I should speak more about Our Beloved Jesus. As always, today I am being lead by the Spirit of God. I will return back to the parables of Matt.13, but when The Lord tells me to. I believe that is our basis of our Christianity, to be lead by the Lord, not to follow the traditions of man.
You know I have been calling out to The Lord for all the pain and suffering to vanish. I stand idle. We Christians know some of us are not going to live that healthy and wealthy life, although some do. I have seen so much suffering to, too many good Christians which opens the door to our general discussion.
I have traveled many mile’s and I have been to many Churches and have studied through many schools. We all know God is so real and we also know that our Churches have changed and split and divided into all different patterns and beliefs. As I pass through many upon many Churches in the course of many of my travels I was always open minded and tried not to judge but to analyze. There has been many times that I would leave a Church in tears and it could be in any state in any type of terrain, meaning a city, or the desert, or the mountains. It does not really matter. Our society has changed dramatically, and knows it has been following, for the most part, the ways of man instead of the ways of God. I am sorry to say many Churches are following a pathway to destruction. I feel it is my duty to bring all this to light, this is what the Lord is telling me this day, what to say. As we read through our Bibles, we see all different kinds of patterns in Church history. We know Our God has not been pleased with many episodes of Religion. You all must know that I am not a man easily deceived. The Lord has given me many gifts that I need and the experiences I have ventured. We know that we must follow God. Please turn your Bibles to 2 Chron.15:2
Then the Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded, and he went out to meet King Asa as he was returning from the battle. "Listen to me, Asa!" he shouted. "Listen, all you people of Judah and Benjamin! The LORD will stay with you as long as you stay with him! Whenever you seek him, you will find him. But if you abandon him, he will abandon you. 2Chr. 15:1-2
In this scripture, I can not go into the entire break down of the history of Asa, but we do know that King Asa was many of the O.T. Kings who failed to finish well. At the beginning of his leadership we discovered this timeless principle as the Prophet Azariah told him this principle, but after several years King Asa returned to his old leadership patterns and went back to relying on man instead of God. So, what I am trying to convey here is, that we keep in contact with people who are filled with The Spirit of God. Then you will receive and learn Gods council. So as we all want to advance with our relationship with God we should spend regular time in prayer and in discussing the roots of Gods love and His thoughts, not mans.
As we go any further I am not a man that has a boasting personality, I love all people and I cherish Gods love and I thank Him for sitting with me and teaching me what I need to say this Sunday. Do not get me wrong, I am just expressing my love for all the people, Churches, Pastors, Elders, Priests, and Chaplains, and all other church leadership, but I do not want to contradict there leadership out of respect. Remember this is a simple Bible Truth Christian Church, just to preach the truth, not to be judgmental or to criticize. As you all know preaching, or as they say, “the truth hurts” Let us all turn to the book of Matt. Chapter23. We all know that Jesus was very mad at the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
“Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and selfindulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!
“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Matt. 23:1-39 NIV
The Pharisee means separate; these groups of men were legalistic leaders who zealously keep the law to the smallest detail. Now the Pharisees formed a self-righteous self-denying Jewish Sect, that was very vindictive to others who did not teach their particular laws.
The Sadducees were a different class of Jews and more liberal in their Religious beliefs. They denied anything that was supernatural, like Angels, Spirits and Miracles. They were the rational religious priests and lay persons that were a part of the religious ruling body over Jerusalem known as the Sanhedrin.
As a whole Jesus was instructing others to follow there words, but not there actions, there confused priorities, two faced behavior, impure motives, and there damaging leadership. Jesus was pretty mad, but he was expressing the Sadducees and the Pharisees of being blatant sinners and hypocrites, and they spread their false teachings and their legalistic ways. The point I am trying to make is, that two thousand years ago the major religious leaders were leading people further away from Gods truth by taking them deeper into human tradition.
As Jesus being so angry six times he called these major leaders hypocrites. These major religious leaders of there time, had changed everything from what was Holy to hollowness and emptiness. The pretended to obey Gods word but constantly violated The Spirit of the Law.
We know Jesus was speaking against the rulers of his day and he still did it with love and respect. He was God and He knew the truth. We might try to speak like Him, but none of us ever will. The Spirit will lead us into what to say, but it may not come out with holiness as it did with Jesus, but if we are led by the Spirit, The Spirit will speak through us. We are carrying within us the dying blood of the Lamb and our flesh still has much war within ourselves.
Let us move to Jeremiah 5
Have you ever spoken to someone and realize that the person has not heard a word you have said? Jeremiah was speaking to his people and telling them to open up their ears and eyes because they were not listening to the message of God. The people of Judah and Israel were deaf when God was trying to tell them blessings for obedience, destruction for disobedience, plain and simple. When our God speaks through His word, we all should listen. How do you feel when you are in the presence of God? Do you not become humble with respect and trembling? God is so mighty, that here again He was mad at His people. He had to strip things away so that they would listen. As we read through these verses it sounds so familiar to our day and our people and our Churches.
I am the LORD, but you abandoned me and worshiped other gods in your own land. Now you will be slaves in a foreign country. Tell these things to each other, you people of Judah, you descendants of Jacob. You fools! Why don't you listen when I speak? Why can't you understand that you should worship me with fear and trembling? I'm the one who made the shore to hold back the ocean. Waves may crash on the beach, but they can come no farther. You stubborn people have rebelled and turned your backs on me. You refuse to say, "Let's worship the LORD! He's the one who sends rain in spring and autumn and gives us a good harvest." That's why I cannot bless you! A hunter traps birds and puts them in a cage, but some of you trap humans and make them your slaves. You are evil, and you lie and cheat to make yourselves rich. You are powerful and prosperous, but you refuse to help the poor get the justice they deserve.You need to be punished and so I will take revenge. Look at the terrible things going on in this country. I am shocked! Prophets give their messages in the name of a false god, my priests don't want to serve me, and you my own people like it this way! But on the day of disaster, where will you turn for help? Jer. 20-31 CEV
Paul summarizes Isaiah 29:13-14 to bring to light a point Jesus made Gods way of thinking is not like the thinking of the world, being normal human wisdom. You see, Our God offers us eternal life, the world does not offer us anything. To put it very plainly , we can study and learn all kinds of wisdom and knowledge which could take a whole lifetime, but a simple preacher, as some of these rich scholars would call a foolish poor preacher, can teach the most important thing in life, “how to have a personal relationship with God”. We must simply believe and come to our Jesus, who was crucified and raised from the dead and to have a loving joyful intimate relationship with Our Savior to receive our eternal life. When we look at the wise it probably refers to a Greek philosopher, the Scribe, is a term for a Jewish scholar trained to handle the law in detail. The disputer would probably be a Greek person who was trained and rhetoric, which is an art of communicating persuasively and memorably, plus it also, involves carefully organizing speech or writing to have a greater impact. The point of these scriptures is all human efforts to find favor with God, but I am sorry to say, they all fall short. Only through faith in Our Jesus can we be saved from our sins.
Then the Lord said,
"Because this people draw near with their words
And honor Me with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,
Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous;
And the wisdom of their wise men will perish,
And the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed." Isa. 29:13-14 NASB
Here again as we waltz back to Isa.29 we find more realism on what we are trying to say here. Even back during the time of Isaiah people even then claimed they were close to God, but they were disobedient and barely went through the motions, so then again God would bring about judgment upon them too. Even back the like today religion was a routine instead of being for real. Even today we fall into mans traditions of worship. Some of us just forget to give God our love and devotion. If we truly want to be called children of God we must act like it, we must be obedient and worship Him with, truth, honesty, and a heart of sincerity.
Now as we turn to Matt.15:7-9
We see the prophet Isaiah also criticized the people of being hypocritical. So in the same theory Jesus is calling the religious leaders the same thing. So, if we claim to honor God while our hearts are far from Him, our worship tends to mean absolutely nothing. It is just not enough to act religious so I do not want to repeat myself, but we have to have our actions of purity with compassion to worship Our God, we can not be lukewarm we have to be on fire for God , if we are not on fire, Isaiah’s words, as I have said, would also describe ourselves.
We know you are all wondering about salvation and why the Churches speak and teach so many different ways of salvation. We do know there are scriptures that all point to elements of salvation. There is not really anywhere in the Bible that says take a friend by the hand and go through the Salvation Prayer. There are scriptures that all lead you to salvation and I could list them all, but there is not any particular Salvation Prayer. Every Church and Denomination has there own prayer, may it be memorized or listed in a brief paragraph or a full page group of sentences. Some emphasize the prayer as the eternal security prayer, there are so many contradictions on this issue, but the main thing is , we should be studying the Gospels and read over all the explanations of what Jesus Himself is trying to teach us and show us. It is very plain as you read His words. What we should not do is fall into the doctrine of the world, different Churches like I said before are all different. The problem is who you shall listen to. Well you should not listen to anyone. You should pick up your Bible and read the words in red to fully find the way to salvation. I was reading so many books on salvation and they all are basically the same, but as we look back in the world again we can not listen to other men’s books or words, only the words of Jesus Himself. Salvation can be various different formulas in today’s world, salvation can be defined as Church membership, being kind to others , doing volunteer work for the poor and needy, certain doctrinal classes, Baptisms, a profession of faith, reading your Bible daily, witnessing to others, walking in the light, praying daily, going to church regularly, following the Ten Commandments, being obedient to the word of God, memorizing scripture, confessing all your sins, putting Christ first in your life, sharing with others, repentance of sin and evil doings, being joyful under any circumstance, being sincere to others and not lying, and the list goes on, but a true Christian does all these things anyway. It is not the road to salvation. We know that salvation is a gift. But what is salvation? It is not just the intellectual agreement on some basic facts of scripture leading you to that Jesus is The Son of God and He died on the cross for your sins and you welcome Him into your heart. I believe there is a lot more of this today than meets the eye. We also have some denominations that do not even believe that Jesus is the Son Of God. Some denominations today do not even feel that salvation is a major issue. Some have some particular verses and you say these particular verses than you are saved. Well there is a lot more to all of this, and we all know that. Some believe that it is a simple prayer to God and that once you say this prayer twenty years later you will still be saved, no matter what you have done in the past twenty years. It is like I almost want to say, do not listen to anyone, do not listen to me, just read the word, Christ’s words are all in red and have the Holy Spirit direct you. Some people can read over the whole Bible, back and forth, and without the Holy Spirits guidance and leading they might not understand a word of it. You need the Spirit to almost interpret the words you read to your Spirit. Worship God in spirit and truth, remember? Our spiritual lives our so important people today are just focusing on the word with there natural abilities. Some Churches as you sit and recite a Salvation prayer as a group of you should all be saved. Some have it you go to the front an pray by the alter they come up to you and say in a magical profession of faith and that automatically brings you to relationship to God.
You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.” Matt. 15:7-9 NIV
What did I say, a relationship with God, that is the key. Salvation is a relationship; then again a relationship to some people is not a relationship at all. See all denominations have their own relationship or meaning of salvation. Some think, yes I have a relationship when I go to church every Sunday, so for those two hours as we sing together for that to me once week, gathering and that is basically not a relationship of intimacy. As you sit and listen to another man talk about God in Church or you watch a drama, or listen to a solo or a duo sing and play a song, people think that is a relationship with God, and when Church is all over they completely forget about the message of love and compassion as they get into the parking lot and start fighting, yelling, and screaming over who is going to get out of the parking lot first. On top of that, all the while wandering how long they will have to stand in line at the Pancake House. Well, I do not think so; some of this is not a personal relationship with God.
Then Jesus cried out, "The one who believes in Me believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me. And the one who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me would not remain in darkness. If anyone hears My words and doesn't keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects Me and doesn't accept My sayings has this as his judge: the word I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on My own, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a command as to what I should say and what I should speak. I know that His command is eternal life. So the things that I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me." John 12:44-50 HCSB
Then you can ask a person at Church, well are you sure you are going to Heaven, and they immediately say yes, but it seems they even doubt their own answer, then you ask, how do you know, and they will say, “I said the salvation prayer sometime in the past” and then they even get puffed up on how long it has been for them, like lets say they made a statement ten years ago, and then another person comes up and said they made there statement only two years ago, so the man that made the statement ten years ago thinks that he is a better and more mature Christian and the other person with only two years, that person would say to them, your only a baby Christian. Does any of this sound familiar?
Let me add something to all of this. Anytime you base your salvation on anything you did in the past, you’re in real danger. Salvation is based on what you did today. You do not hear of anyone outlining their current relationship of submission and obedience to God. You will not hear anyone say they are going through daily changes and turning into the light of Christ with the aid of the Holy Spirit or you will not be told of the painful ripping away of the worldly flesh being done by God or there molding and shaping and thrown into the fire like a clay pot being formed, chipped at, filed down, painted, then thrown in the fire again, going through intense amounts of birth pains of being reborn into the new image of Christ. You do not here all the trials and tribulations that they are going through to strengthen there faith and trust. You do no hear of all the tears and the cries to God to perfect a perfect relationship to stay constantly in the relationship through prayer and cries and calls to the Lord.
You also will look to notice a person who shines a different light, almost a shine of God that you will see after they went through all the trials to perfect a person deep within the light of God. You will not see a person of repentance and humility that God has given to them unto their lives.
As we all know the situation at the old local church, you will see the average person well to do with that plastic type smile and they tell you that everything in there life is wonderful, and they are a saved Christian and they are receiving everything that they need and they are all blessed. Then they begin telling you all the things that they are planning to do and what they all have that is new, and being puffed up about there new accomplishments and there new raise or there new promotion. In fact they probably never bring up the Name of Jesus the whole time they are talking. So you step back and analyze the whole situation and you keep listening to all this good stuff that is happening to there lives, and you are asking yourself are they having a relationship of intimate love with our Lord. But then you look deeper into there heart and you see some loneliness, some frustration, some worry, but you don’t want to say anything to hurt their feelings to break up their dream, I just nice and politely hand then a card and say if you have the time, come and join our service Sunday, here is the address, you can attend at anytime.
The main point I am trying to make all Christians have different callings, and some have all different future jobs in the future and there is all different ways of true salvation, you can’t count on what you have said 20 years ago, times are changing and that once saved always saved just doesn’t hold up to scripture, we know that salvation is a gift from God, and He is the one that decides the when and the where, and it is our duty to continue to have a strong relationship that is truly intimate and caring with pure faith and trust, and some of us have to go through an awful amount of Longsuffering to achieve that main goal.
And Jesus called [to Him] the throng with His disciples and said to them, If anyone intends to come after Me, let him deny himself [forget, ignore, disown, and lose sight of himself and his own interests] and take up his cross, and [joining Me as a disciple and siding with My party] follow with Me [continually, cleaving steadfastly to Me].
For whoever wants to save his [higher, spiritual, eternal] life, will lose it [the lower, natural, temporal life which is lived only on earth]; and whoever gives up his life [which is lived only on earth] for My sake and the Gospel's will save it [his higher, spiritual life in the eternal kingdom of God].
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life [in the eternal kingdom of God]?
For what can a man give as an exchange (a compensation, a ransom, in return) for his [blessed] life [in the eternal kingdom of God]?
For whoever is ashamed [here and now] of Me and My words in this adulterous (unfaithful) and [preeminently] sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory (splendor and majesty) of His Father with the holy angels. Mark 8:34-38 AMP
My suggestion to all of you is to forget everything everyone that has ever told you, forget everything you learned from other people, and forget what you have heard in church, forget the sermons, just open your bible and go through all the gospels and read all the words and teachings that Jesus has spoken to all of us to hear and to learn. Try to make a fresh start forget all the books you took out at the library and forget all the Christian books you got at the bookstore, and even forget anything I have said, just remember this one thing and bury your head in the bible and read all those words in red, they made all those words of Christ in red for a reason. Plus when you get to start reading ask God and pray deeply for the Holy Spirit to show you the way and to assist and help and support you, spirit to Spirit, so the Spirit of the Living God can reveal just pure truth to your heart. And you will notice that thin red line of redemption running through the whole bible showing you the peace and tranquility of our Savior Jesus Christ, and you will learn the truth to the way of a lasting salvation and eternal life with a relationship that starts now, and your eternity also will start now, and when you find the truth and feel the presence of our Lord with you, then you will realize there isn’t anything to ever fear again. God will be with us always even till the end of the age.
