Name: Jefferson

comments: Hello, Pastor John my question is after recieving the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues, do you need to keep speaking in tongues after ?

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Hi Jeff.

According to Paul in Romans 8, we very much need the Spirit to pray through us for things we do not know how to pray about. So, to answer your question, yes.

Under normal conditions, the Spirit continues to praise God and pray through the person it baptizes. However, I know of some people who have not had this happen, and the Spirit ceased to speak through them after they received it. In one case, the man is old now, and it has never spoken through him since that day, over forty years now. In another, the Spirit was silent for a couple of years afterward. In both those cases, the people involved began quarreling with others over doctrine as soon as they received the holy ghost, and I have always wondered if that was the reason the Spirit went silent. But I assume that the Spirit can be quenched by several things. Whatever causes there may be, they are all summed up by what Paul called “the flesh”. Stay in the Spirit, and it will continue to work through you.

Many times, the Spirit is quenched because the newly-converted person has joined himself to a church that quenches the Spirit. Steer clear of church religion, and you will avoid the most dangerous of all the things that quench the Spirit.

Pastor John

Hey Pastor John.

What does it mean to be “wise as a serpent”?

Mxxxxxx
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Hi Mxxxxxx.

Serpents were known to be cunning because of their stealth. people didn’t know where serpents would show up. They could slide in and not without being noticed and could be in a place without anyone knowing. The serpent in the garden of Eden was very crafty. Eden didn’t know where the serpent was going with his words.

In telling his disciples to be wise as serpents, Jesus was counseling them to be discerning and not to talk a lot, and certainly not to throw their “pearls” before swine. Solomon said that fools utter everything that’s on their minds, and he also said that if you don’t talk much, people around you will automatically think you are wise. But more to the point, I think, is that if you are as quiet as a serpent, you learn to depend more on your other senses; in particular, you listen better and, consequently, you learn more.

Pastor John

Bro. John,

I have a question about tithes. A couple places I sell my writing to are kind of marketplaces escrow services, which withhold a percentage of each of my sales for their administration, marketing, etc. Usually, we tithe on what I originally charged for the writing, instead of what I receive after the middleman fees. Are we doing that right or are the fees business expenses we shouldn’t tithe on?

Beverly
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Hi Beverly:

God commanded His people to bring to His servants a tithe of their “increase”. In modern terms, that would mean “profit”. You should tithe only on the amount you earn after business expenses are deducted.

Pastor John

Hey Pastor John,

I had a question about today’s “Pearl of Wisdom.” It was: ‘Every prayer you pray without seeing results, you get weaker in God.’ I didn’t really understand it. It seems it’s implying we should only pray for what God leads us to pray for, otherwise, they are our own prayers/desires, and might not be His, thus, He may not choose to answer them. I’ve had prayers not answered, but I assumed that either, a) God had a better plan, or b) He would answer them in His timing, and I needed to be patient. What do you think?

Thanks,

Anna
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Hi Anna.

We should be led by the Spirit in our praying as much as in everything else; otherwise, we run the risk of becoming disappointed and discouraged. This was Preacher Clark’s point. John wrote,

14. And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us;
15. and if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have made of Him.”

And James said,

You ask, and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may consume it on your own lusts” (Jas. 4:3).

Preacher Clark was approaching the subject from the angle of these two apostles. Of course, there may be cases when a prayer is denied only because of God’s vastly superior wisdom, such as when Paul prayed for his “thorn” to be removed. But even then, Paul was looking at his thorn from the vantage point of his own desires, not God’s. So, what John and James said would even apply to Paul’s prayer.

It is good to remember that God is always right. If we do so, we will not become bitter if God does not do some things we ask Him in prayer to do. But a life of continually offering up unanswered prayers is a self-willed life, and that kind of praying, being in the flesh, wears down our faith and robs us of our spiritual strength. Preacher Clark was right. It is best to be so led of the Spirit that we know what to ask for before we pray because, to turn his quote around, “Every prayer you pray that gets results makes you stronger in God.”

Pastor John

Hi pastor John,

I have a question about Hebrews 9:16-17, where it says “For where a testament is, it is necessary to establish the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead; it has no force at all while the testator is alive”. But then in v. 18, “Hence, the first testament was not inaugurated without blood.” Who was the testator for the Old Testament? Was the blood of the animals that Moses sprinkled on the people just a figure of the testator that was to come? Moses wouldn’t be the testator would he, since he didn’t die (until later)?

Vince

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Hi Vince.

If Moses had been the testator, he would have had to die. No, under the law, animals were used for that purpose. Of course, those sacrificial animals represented Christ, but nobody understood that at the time.

Pastor John

Pastor John’s House Teaching Materials and Music Store

Pastor John,

What role does Satan play, if God is in control of all things?

Ross
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Thanks for the question, Ross.

When the Spirit spoke to me on August 23, 1981, and set me free from faith in the devil so that I could place all my faith and all my fear in my heavenly Father, Satan became irrelevant to me. However my Father chooses to use him is my Father’s business, and I do not have to even think about it. The overall point is that, whatever role that the Father decides Satan will play in any situation, Satan has no control and no authority over the circumstances of our lives. As I wrote in my book, “All Things” (Current title is Suffering and the Saints, see above link), Satan cannot even stick out his tongue at us unless God tells him to stick it out. And even then, he must keep it stuck out until God tells him to take it back in. The same is true of ungodly people. They cannot determine anything that happens to us, and that knowledge saves us from bitterness. It is so comforting to know that no matter what happens, God is still God, and Jesus is still Lord of ALL.

Pastor John