John,

What a silly and nonsensical explanation the author of Hebrews would be making in Chapter one if Jesus and God were one in the same person. If the author believed and taught Trinitarian doctrine, what was the point of chapters 1 and 2 (well really the entire book of Hebrews for that matter)? Surely, Paul or whoever the author was wouldn’t have thought it necessary to teach that God is above the angels and other beings he created. Why is it that Christian’s today do not ask themselves “If the author knew Jesus and God were the same being, what was the point of letter? Surely they wouldn’t say it was to state the obvious.

So thankful for the freedom to see and believe the truth. I’m thankful I can read the Bible and not have to labor to maintain a doctrine that is contrary to common sense!

Michael D

Pastor John,

After this morning’s reading in the Father and Son book, I was thinking about these verses in Isaiah 14: 

13.  You have said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the Mountain of Assembly, on the far north side.
14.  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.  I will be like the Most High.”

Somehow I had not before clearly seen in these verses that Satan said these things in his heart.  That he even conceived of such a concept as promotion, of becoming something more, or even just other than what he was created to be was the problem. These verses speak of nothing but thoughts and desires of the heart – not actions.   He was instantly out of order with such thoughts.  His actions after this were based on his assumption that such a thing was possible , and the deceitfulness of his heart led him to think that he saw God working it out for him to be promoted.

The only creatures that can become something else (you could say promoted from below angels to above them), are humans, but that was only possible through the Son.

Another thing I am pondering is the description of Satan found in Isaiah 14:12:  “O weakener of the nations!”  One of the puzzles to me of the Father and Son book is that even though nobody understood anything, and so, Satan was not seen as evil at that time, the influence of his ways can be seen on earth, especially contaminating Old Testament Israel to the point where the leaders were described as sons of Satan by Jesus.  Somehow, as ruler over the earth, Satan’s wrong ideas about God’s government contaminated just about everything on earth, and that would seem to be indicated in the statement that he weakened the nations.

Things such as David’s attitude toward Saul portray the humble attitude of just being what God makes you.

Damien

Hi John.

I ​re-​read this ​proposed addition to the Father and Son book* today​ (“Promotion”) This was really good​,​ John. I think you covered it all, and then some. 🙂

It’s a blessed and peaceful place to love and be satisfied with what God made us – it’s a blessing to learn what that is! Reminds me that if we don’t know who we are, we can make a mess – so it’s important to know our place, and who we are.

Christianity promotes this “promotion” idea: look for a bigger place, more people, a higher position, win the world, etc.  If one has been in Christianity, you can see the influence this has had on people, and where it takes them, because it appeals to the flesh and it promotes envy.  If not overcome it will ruin lives (for example, I think of ​one particular brother… looking to be what he was not – it took him away.  He could have happily been your helper, and a good one, had he ​been content to be who he was.)  Looking back, I believe every young man wanting to please God, who is in Christianity, is tempted with this “promotion” idea.  The institution demands it.  This is just another reason that we must come out.

Thank God for the truth that you get to us day in and day out. Without it, I could have easily have been one of those people looking for a promotion, just like you have described.  What can I say but “thank you Lord!”

Thanks for getting this into simple and direct words like this. I really enjoyed it.

Gary

Promotion

Plants are never promoted to act as animals; animals are never promoted to act as humans; humans are never promoted to act as angels; angels are never promoted to act as cherubs; and cherubs, such as Satan, are never promoted to act as the Son of God, sitting at God’s right hand. Only plants can be plants and only the Son of God can sit at the Father’s right hand.

On earth, if God has ordained for a child to one day become a pastor, and then that child grows up and becomes a pastor, it is not that he has been promoted; it is only that he has become who he was ordained by God to be. That child can grow in wisdom and strength, and he can receive spiritual gifts, but he can never become more than what God ordained him from the beginning to be.  We may say that when a child who is ordained to be come a pastor, or prophet, or helper, actually becomes a pastor, prophet, or helper, such a child has grown into himself, as he has existed in God’s mind all along.

When the Son of God returned to heaven and sat down at God’s right hand, he was only doing what he had been created to do. He was ordained to sit at the Father’s right hand before the world began.  That glorification of the Son to sit at the Father’s right hand was not a promotion for him.  It had been his appointed place before the world began, and it is his unshakable place forever.  In spite of the fact that Satan had never seen a promotion given to any creature in God’s kingdom, he expected a promotion to sit and reign with God over all creation.  That expectation reveals his lack of the knowledge of God, for that office was far beyond what cherubs were created to do or be.  Just as one may grow in knowledge only within the limits of knowledge that pertains to his own kind of life, so he can function only within the limits of his kind of life.

In expectation of being promoted to sit at God’s right hand, Satan labored to attain to that supremely high office, and God used his efforts to accomplish His purposes. Ministers on earth who are like Satan also labor for promotions, and they envy one another and compete with one another for them.  But religions that offer the promotions they seek only promote envy and discontent.  God’s way promotes thankfulness and peace.  And as Satan learned, or will learn, it is madness to envy the position to which someone else is ordained.  If anyone has been ordained by God to a position, no one can keep him from it, and if he has not been ordained for it, he cannot truly occupy it at all; he can only want to.  Satan’s son, like their father, are not thankful, and they are always looking for a promotion, but only within man-made religious institutions can they one.  Such a system has no part with God’s kind of life.

Moses’ cousin Korah is a perfect example of how a son of Satan thinks and behaves.  Though greatly blessed to work among the most holy things in the tabernacle, Korah and those with him envied Aaron and his priesthood.  To obtain the priesthood, Korah persuaded most of Israel to rebel against Moses and Aaron, telling them that Moses had promoted himself and Aaron to the offices they held.  Moses’ humble response to this attempted coup d’etat was that they should all meet before the tabernacle and let God declare who was ordained to the priesthood and who was not.

Numbers 16

1. Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men
2. and rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown.
3. And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and they said to them, “You take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you lift yourselves up above the congregation of the Lord?”
4. And when Moses heard it, he fell on his face.
5. And he spoke to Korah and to all his company, saying, “Even tomorrow the Lord will show who are His, and who is holy, and He will cause him to come near unto Him. He will cause the one whom He has chosen to approach Him.
6. This do. Take you censers, Korah, and all his company,
7. and put fire in it, and put incense in them before the Lord tomorrow. And it shall be that the man whom the Lord chooses, he shall be holy.  You take too much upon you, you sons of Levi.”
8. And Moses said unto Korah, “Hear, I pray you, you sons of Levi!
9. Does it seem but a small thing to you, that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to Himself to do the service of the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation to minister unto them?
10. And he has brought you near to him, and all your brothers, the sons of Levi, with you! And do you seek the priesthood also?
11. This is the reason that both you and all your company are gathered together against the Lord! And what is Aaron, that you murmur against him?”

Only Moses could be Moses. Only Aaron could be Aaron.  And only Korah and his fellow Kohathites could do the work of the tabernacle appointed for them.  Everyone who was thankful for their place occupied it with joy, and everyone who was not thankful grew discontent with the ordination of God.  To envy someone in a higher position is to condemn God for making the mistake of giving that position to a less deserving creature.  It is, in truth, to consider oneself to be wiser than God, who places “the members, each one, in the body as He pleases” (1Cor. 12:18).

*To read the complete on-line version of Pastor John’s book, The Father and Son, click on the link below. 

http://www.goingtojesus.com/text/books/fatherandson.pdf (more…)

Pastor John,

This excerpt from the book is so good.*  It’s a wonderful thing to know that God is in charge of “everything” in our lives; there is peace in knowing and believing that.

Billy M

*To read the complete book, God had a Son Before Mary Did, by Pastor John, click on the link below.

http://www.goingtojesus.com/text/books/fatherandson.pdf

Pastor John,

Tonight felt so sweet.  Token’s dream and the reading really brought a sweet feeling with them.  Then the meeting was ending, and Gary and Joel began to sing about the wind.  In our science class today, the kids and I were discussing “wind” in our study of the weather.  I couldn’t help but ask the kids if they could see the wind, or if they could feel it and hear it instead.  We discussed Nicodemus and what Jesus told him about being born again and how Jesus compared the new birth to the wind and the sound that is heard.  So when Gary and Joel started singing about the wind, Daniel looked at me with excited eyes and a smile.  Jesus does this very often, with our school days relating to something that is said in the meetings.  It is so encouraging to me!  Daniel was already sitting next to me on the love seat when the song began.  After he heard it a little bit, he scooted on over next to me and snuggled up.  Tears of thankfulness that Jesus is hearing and answering my prayers were wetting the top of his little head.  Then he looked up at me and said very tenderly, “I love you, Mama.”  It was one of those priceless, genuine moments.  We couldn’t tell who it was that said they felt like hugging someone, but I squeezed Daniel a little tighter and smiled.  I feel very thankful.

Goodnight,

Cris

John,

I just have to write an email to say how very thankful I am to have been in the meetings over Thanksgiving. Live stream is great, but it can’t compare to being in the room with God’s people. When the first meeting was about to start, I felt like my heart was about to burst it was almost too much to take in. I’m so thankful that I was able to dance before the Lord. I just kept thanking him over and over for letting me love it! To watch Samuel and Samantha go up for prayer was such a blessing. We have needed it! These are things that I have daydreamed about for a long time now.

When I was going through everything when I had Grace, I remember testifying afterwards that English words couldn’t describe the thankfulness and love I was feeling for what Jesus and everyone had done for us. I feel the same way now. I’m so thankful for the prayers and love from everyone. Thankful that Jesus has kept me on this path. It makes me love him all the more!
Looking forward to the days ahead,

Carrie 🙂

John,

Thank you for sending the Father and Son excerpt on the Temptation.  I love this part of the book.*  Yesterday, I was reading through this (skipping around in the sections) and I had already read the part where you explained the influence of unclean spirits over the nations before I read footnote 6 in “A new kind of warfare”.  When I read that footnote, all of those thoughts together sparked something in me.  It was like another reinforcement of the message “it isn’t me.”  This is our warfare, too, and those unclean spirits are not us. That was so good to me.  

I loved the part of Darren’s song this weekend that talked about our sins being forgiven when we were baptized by the holy Ghost and spoke in tongues.  Who we were before then is irrelevant.  Jesus washed all my sins away.  I am not the person I was before. 🙂  

I woke up this morning hearing a song that Sister Barbara Pendergrass sung in the meeting the last time she was here, “There is power in the name of Jesus…to break every chain.”  Amen!

Lyn

*God Had a Son before Mary Did, Section II The Temptation

http://www.goingtojesus.com/text/books/fatherandson.pdf

Brother John,

I sure enjoy watching Brother Coy enjoy Jesus in the meeting tonight.  It feels so good to watch him love the feelings of the Spirit of God!  Some things that he said tonight as he testified of Jesus, things regarding “hearing a new thing” and “wanting to hear something he had never heard before”,  flipped a switch inside me as I listened.  It felt like Jesus showed me something.

Solomon said, “there is no new thing under the sun,” and we know he was right.  Even science has recognized that nothing can be created or destroyed, by men, on this Earth.  Everything on this Earth is either rearranged, rebuilt, reshaped, reconstructed, rehashed or repaired…etc.  But it is never, can never, be new.  It is always a reconstructing of something here.  Nothing is new.

But there is one thing that is new, the Word of God!  It is brand new every time it pierces the invisible barrier that surrounds this old and dying creation.  It is brand new every time it is delivered to a chosen vessel on this Earth.  How precious is that?  I couldn’t shake those thoughts tonight.  It brought me to tears.  How valuable is the Word of God?  A word from God?  How rare and special?  It is the only new thing within this creation, when It comes.

To understand that!

There are thousands if not millions of folk, all of the time, speaking a countless number of words about God.  Lifeless, dead words, rearranged, but never new. But one word FROM God is worth more than all of those rearranged words combined.  God’s word is alive, and it injects something new and alive, undying, into this creation every time It is delivered to a soul on Earth.  It changes this creation every time it enters in to it.  It is the only thing that does!  It is the only thing here that isn’t a rearrangement of existing material.

All of mankind should be clamoring for a word from our Creator!

I hope that I can understand and hold on to what God gave me a glimpse of this evening.  It felt so valuable.

Jerry

==========

Amen, Jerry.  There was something special about Brother Coy’s testimony tonight.  How much wisdom in Christ he has, wisdom that proud people will never see.  I am thankful that you heard what the Spirit was saying to you in Coy’s testimony and that you passed it on to us.  Those were valuable thoughts.

Pastor John