Transcription
Nearly all ancient cultures respected their elders as a source of wisdom and knowledge. Elders were consulted for advice and were sought for counsel when making major decisions. This was also the case in the first century church.
The term elder in the Christian church wasn't just an office of ministry you were ordained to. It also denoted a disciple of Jesus who held exceptional wisdom and understanding, tried and tested by age and experience. Elders are people, so they are sometimes wrong and they can make a mistake. Therefore, how you respect an elder is not by blindly following whatever they say, but by taking advantage of their wisdom and experience and carefully weighing and considering their counsel in light of what is written in the scriptures, by what is spoken in the mouth of multiple witnesses, and by the confirming witness of the Holy Spirit.
I was called by the Lord to serve as a teacher and then later as an elder in his church. I say this with confidence and assurance from God and other witnesses, but I say it without an ounce of pride. The Lord has seen fit to slowly, painfully strip me of my pride over the years. And anytime I seem to have any hope of getting a little, the Lord humbles me still more. I'm learning to see this as a precious and loving gift from my creator.
Now, I want you to understand, especially if you are new to this channel, that the church that I serve as a teacher and an elder knows no denominational borders. I am neither a Mormon nor a Protestant or an evangelical. These labels are the inventions of men designed to chain us down and put God in a box. I am simply a disciple and a follower of Jesus. If you cling to Christ and abide in him while he abides in you and you listen to, hear and obey the voice of his spirit, then you are part of the same church as I, even the church of the lamb of God.
At any church that denies the truth that all those who repent and come unto Christ are his church, vainly imagining that they are the one true church to the exclusion of anyone who refuses to bow the knee to their authority are not Christ's church. For it shall come to pass in that day that the churches which are built up but not unto the Lord, when the one shall say to the other, Behold, I I am the Lord's, and the other shall say, I I am the Lord's. And thus shall everyone say that hath built up churches, and not unto the Lord. Second Nephi 28:3.
It is this very truth, the truth the spirit of God began to reveal to me 30 years ago about who Jesus really is, who he counts as his sheep and the true definition of the church, which started me on this journey of leaving dead religion for relationship with Christ. Though I was called and ordained an elder in the church by my early 30s, I have only recently begun to walk in that ministry. As I approach 58 years of age, it has been a decades-long journey fraught with hazards and many lessons learned along the way. Some of those lessons were learned the hard way. But wisdom is a mighty gift, however it is gained.
No man living has perfect understanding of all things or can see with perfect clarity, and not even the prophets. Anything shared, even by the most spiritual among us, should be questioned and put to the test. To put your trust in men other than Christ is to be cursed, as Jeremiah said. And yet the servants of God are nevertheless expected, despite their many weaknesses, to testify to the things they have received as the spirit directs them. And because of the weaknesses of our human language and because of our own personal weaknesses, our biases, ignorance, and pride, truth is rarely communicated in purity. This can even be the case with scripture. But even so, the Holy Spirit allows truth to be transmitted between one person to another in spite of any imperfections or flaws on the part of the two people involved. This is why having God's spirit is so vital. And in the mouth of multiple witnesses shall every word be established.
I am keenly aware of my own weaknesses more now than ever. Nevertheless, I also recognize that God has invested much time and effort in me over these long years to help correct my understanding and establish truths to help set me free. In doing so, he began to draw a picture for me, a vision of things as they really are to confront the lies that I had learned from religion and from the world. God has done this and continues to do this because he loves me. But it is also an investment on his part, and I have been charged from time to time to share things that he has taught me.
This video marks a reset for both me and this channel. I have been absent from this podcast for at least a month, and I cannot tell you when I will publish a video next or how often I might post. Putting out content on a regular basis is no longer a priority. I believe I fulfilled the original mandate for this channel some time ago. I just hadn't realized it.
God started me on this journey with the podcast when he showed me that there would be a harvest out of the LDS church and other Mormon factions and that he had concern for those precious souls because of the many snares that the devil had prepared for them. Many have fallen into deceptions and still many more have lost their faith in Christ altogether. His spirit therefore moved upon me in compassion to speak certain truths and encourage those who sought the truth so that they may be encouraged to depart from dead religion and stop listening to prophets who are no prophets at all and gather instead to the good shepherd, even Jesus Christ.
This channel now has over 160 videos. Despite their imperfections and mine, they have helped a lot of people. I am glad of that. However, I recently felt the call to retreat with the Lord to take care of some important things in my own life that the time had come for me to take care of.
In the mid-90s, I had a life-changing experience, a conversion where I dedicated my life to Christ. Everything changed when I made that covenant with him. Everything that is, except for a few things somehow remained and served as an occasional stumbling block in my walk. For 30 years, it remained a mystery to me as to why God took so many unrighteous desires from me and so radically changed my life and yet left to struggle with a few remaining things. Only recently I came to an understanding that these struggles in my life were areas within my heart connected to deep trauma. At their core were wounds in my spirit which had attached to them certain unclean spirits. And yet in spite of this detriment, the Lord God forgave me. He taught me. He used me to minister to others. And he lovingly carried me through the years. How merciful the Lord is that he does not just cast us aside because of our imperfections. We must only have the desire in our heart to come up to higher ground and to step out in faith. And he will meet you right where you are. And he will work with you over time to correct those things that need correction, one step at a time.
Recently, I found myself slowly but inevitably coming into a crisis. A crisis that came about because of those wounds and those stumbling blocks that had remained with me which were contrary to God's vision for me, and they had become no longer tolerable. I was miserable. I could no longer stomach to simply try to manage those things. I wanted them gone completely. I desired a new nature to take its place. What God began with me in the 1990s, I was desperate for him to complete.
I took off to the lakes to spend some time alone with the Lord in a remote cabin. I was truly desperate. Desperate to finally be free. But more fundamentally, I was desperate to finally fully surrender everything over to Jesus, reserving nothing for myself. I had come to that cabin to die, with the hope of a resurrection.
While at the cabin, it was revealed that God had not been able to take those things from me all those years ago because I was subconsciously holding on to them. I was in need of deliverance. A deliverance that could only come when I was desperate enough to surrender everything over to God. I was no longer satisfied, therefore, with having given him 80% or 90% of my life. I felt a desperation to surrender everything and finally having a fuller understanding of the cause of these problems in my life and why they were there.
By the authority of Jesus Christ, I cast these spirits out of my heart. I did so without reservation, without fear of what that might mean. These spirits had been with me almost my whole life since childhood. And in a moment, I relinquished all control and abandoned every part of myself to the Lord, asking his spirit to come fill that void left behind in the areas of my heart that these spirits had occupied all those years, that I might finally begin to heal from those wounds. And praise God, I have been free of them ever since.
It was during this crisis and the days leading up to the weekend spent in the cabin and during my first night there that I experienced a baptism of fire. And in the process of going through it, I received insight into what that baptism really is. And I believe it can look different for different people. I have since met a few people who likewise recently went through a baptism of fire. This isn't necessarily something that would only last an hour or two. It it might last for days.
What was revealed to me in this experience is that there were many wounds in my spirit as a result of past traumas, aspects of myself, both as a child and as an adult, which are now being brought forth out of darkness and into the light, so they can be dealt with, so they can be healed by Jesus one by one. And I want to say that this is not an easy process. Nor is the baptism of fire. It is, after all, a refining fire. And it can be a painful experience. A good experience, but also a painful one.
The baptism of fire is not about purging sin. That belongs to the process of repentance and baptism of water and the blood of Christ being applied to wash away those sins, that being those sins which we have committed. However, the baptism of fire is really about burning away sin nature itself, and it is connected to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. At least this is how I understand it presently, based on what I experienced. While it can indeed be a painful experience, it is a tremendous blessing. The process requires a person to lower their defenses and allow themselves to become more vulnerable than they have ever been in their life. And it can only happen when a person dedicates themselves to surrendering everything, every aspect of their life over to the Lord. And some people are just simply not desperate enough yet. And there's fear and perhaps unbelief that holds them back, not knowing what that will really mean. I know this is something I struggled with. Fear of the unknown. What am I giving up? What am I really getting in return? How dangerous is this? I struggled with these things. Many people inwardly struggle with truly trusting God, even if they cannot admit it.
Since that weekend in the cabin, I have lived with what I can only describe as a perpetual broken heart. I frequently tear up because of what God is doing in me. In my experience, I think this process may be particularly hard on men because it goes against everything about how we were taught to be as men. We were taught to be tough, to be in control, to stuff our feelings deep down inside, and and whatever we did, we could not allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
I know that with this experience, as with many experiences that I have had with the Lord, that there will be certain takeaways, wisdom, knowledge that I will be asked to share with others so that they can be encouraged. It is what I do as a teacher. I will promise to share what I can as I feel led to share it. And in return, I I know that I will benefit from hearing from you as you share about your own experiences. We're all going through this together. May the Lord bless you if you are listening to this video.
The most amazing time in the history of mankind is just on the horizon. It it is unfolding even now. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. But that is not a call to become fearful. If we remove our faith in men, dead religion, churches, the political system, political parties, and other idols, and instead place our feet on the one true foundation, even Jesus Christ, we need not fear, for the Lord is calling us to the work. There is much work to be done and few are the workers. But to effectively do this work, we will need to surrender every bit of ourselves over to him.
Some counsel I would share with you for the hour that we find ourselves in. If you want to be used by God, put away the pointing of the finger. In other words, any self-righteousness, judgmental, or critical attitudes. I cannot stress enough that much of the church is currently being harshly judged rather than receiving mercy because we have harshly judged other people, pointing and condemning those sins we feel are especially disagreeable while remaining blind to our own sins. And to that end, I counsel you to set aside the politics of this age. It has become an abomination and an idol. Neither party is more righteous than the other party. You have been lied to. Both parties belong to Satan. He is their head, and you are being lied to. The current political game is one that nobody can win. The only way to win at this game is to not play at all.
Those who wish to birth the kingdom cannot do so by means of political parties, votes, court decisions, or passing laws. Jesus told Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this earth. If it were, my disciples would fight." Brothers and sisters, far too many of us are fighting in the flesh. Jesus's disciples did not fight because flesh and blood is not our enemy, but powers and principalities in the heavenlies and the unclean spirits that are broad in the earth. Also, ego and pride is a chief enemy, and in many cases it is rampant in the church. Lift up your eyes and put away the weapons of the flesh and take up instead the sword of the spirit and put on the armor of God. But in addition to this, be sure to wear the cloak of humility so that you are never blinded by your pride.
God has promised us his kingdom and everything that he has. Just think on that for a moment. The creator of all the universe and everything that is. He has promised to give it all to us as our inheritance. And he has promised that not just in the next life, but here and now on the earth, we can walk in the kingdom and all of its blessings on this earth. This is the secret Christianity has missed. Even though Jesus plainly taught it, God has promised to give us everything that he has, and all it will cost us is everything. This is the truth that Christianity has largely rejected, which has kept us operating in the flesh and caused the true spiritual gifts to be suppressed. We must learn to fully trust our creator and surrender our whole heart to him. We must be broken so that we can be made whole. That which has kept us in bondage must be burned away. And the Lord, his spirit is the refining fire.
Many of us have been baptized in water in relation to repentance and the washing away of sins. But because we did not fully comprehend what it means to make a covenant with the living God, we were taught both in word and in deed that we could go on living for ourselves and basically give a tithe of our lives to him. And because we have done this, most people have yet to experience the baptism of fire and the Holy Spirit. Being born again means the burning away and the death of our sin nature, our fallen nature, so that we might be filled every corner of our being with his spirit. And in this process, we begin to be conformed to his image, or the vision God had for us in the day that he created us. This is what it means to be born again. It is the path to true happiness and true fulfillment. Jesus said you must be born again. But Christianity has not been born again. It is stuck in the birth canal and is merely crowning.
The Lord shared this metaphor with me a while back, and now I speak the truth plainly to you for anyone who would watch this video so that you can catch the vision, embrace the truth and begin a course correction and process of rebirth. Let me tell you, you cannot do it under your own strength. You cannot will yourself to be born again. It can only come when we begin to reject the lies and begin to surrender everything to the Lord. We must become more than just a believer.
There will be many at the judgment who tell Jesus all the things that they did in his name, but because they did not have a genuine relationship with the real Jesus, but instead perhaps a relationship with a false idol they had set up in their minds, they are told to depart from him. It's not sufficient to just merely believe. Nor can you be saved by simply trying to be righteous enough on your own and and do a bunch of works to to earn his love. Both of these things are lies. Both of these things are two sides of the same coin. A coin that Satan himself has given to us. An argument to pick from. Option A or option B. But neither one is right.
Only when we become desperate enough, only when we come to the truth of just how far off the mark we are and become desperate enough to totally and completely surrender to him, can we be transformed by his power to be transformed by his love. This is the only way. He is the truth, the life and the way.
My friends, there is a cacophony of error and confusion regarding ind prophecy and events that are taking place around the world as we speak. Christianity is currently inundated with false prophets, false teachers, and false gifts. Which is why judgment must begin in the house of God, first among those who confess to know God but their hearts are far from him. The shaking must begin in the church so that the bride of Christ can be purified. It is the only way that she can fulfill her mandate.
Jesus is inviting each one of us to be more than just someone who says they believe in him. He's inviting us to become his disciples and to follow him. And only when we do this and spend time with him and enter into his presence daily can we become transformed by Christ into a new creation. And only then will the body of Christ be fully manifest in this world. Amen. Until next time, God bless. Let go.