Mailbag

Send us comments on Twitter!
Watch What We Do!

Search

Looking for something specific? Try a search below!

  • Michelle – Father and Son

    Hi Pastor John,

    I have been reading “The Father and Son” chapters that Amy sent out. Wow I’ve had so many feelings and emotions. I was amazed at Gods order. From the beginning there has been such perfect order. Even in the midst of what seems to be horrific chaos God had everything in His perfect order. It makes trusting in Him easier. I know that we’re all given a measure of faith but when you understand His order it seems to help my faith. I was thinking when my life seems completely crazy if I just humble myself to the Lord and do His will (even if I don’t understand) everything will be ok. God is in control.

    And when I read about “Concealing the Truth” I was just completely dumbfounded. How amazing when you said that the prophets didn’t even know the right questions to ask and how they told about visions that they themselves could not understand. Not only does it make you appreciate the truth when you hear it but it makes me even more thankful that the Lord has given me His precious Spirit. Not only can we be moved by it but that it actually resides within us! How blessed we are how amazing God’s love is. I know that we live in a very stressful time, a time where sin seems to be devouring everyone, but in the same instance, to be able to live in a time where we actually have the Spirit in us and to be able to understand……. (beginning to understand) the Son and God’s amazing love is amazing, precious, overwhelming and exciting! I can’t tell you how many times I was reading and just had to stop and close my eyes and just let it all absorb in. Wow…….sometimes I feel like my heart is going to explode. I wanted to get on top of the building and just scream, “Thank you Jesus!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” — and even that doesn’t even begin to explain how full my heart has been.

    And then when I read about the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. The way he was beaten and torn. It broke my heart. I know that Jesus died for me, but when I read about how his face was so badly beaten that you could not recognize He was human, and how they mocked and ridiculed Him, and how you could count the bones in His body, it is just heart wrenching. Even now, writing this, I’m crying, the pain He must have felt. When I was reading, I had to stop, it hurt too bad. I told the Lord that I’m so sorry He had to go through so much pain for a wretch like me, but I’m so very thankful that He loved us so much. His love is truly amazing and something I don’t think any of us will fully understand — how wonderfully blessed we are! We have a loving and caring Master that is looking over us. It made me ask for forgiveness all over again, and when I asked Him to let me see and understand, it had a whole new meaning for me. The truth is precious I don’t ever want to forget that.

    And when I began reading about Gods patience……….it is terrifying. But also I felt thankful. I mean, I’m thankful that He is patient with His children. But I believe it also makes me fearful, which is good. I’m thankful that when I fall, He will have patience and help me up, but it makes me fearful that I don’t stay down too long.

    And when I read about Jesus going to sit on the right hand of His Father! Again my heart wanted to explode. It makes me want to make it that much more to be there in that perfect place.

    Thank you for writing this. I also thank God that He led me to His truth!

    God Bless,
    Michelle

  • Father & Son, Chapter 6 Questions

    Hi pastor John,

    I’ve been thinking about chapter 6 of the Father & Son book – there is too much there to take in at one sitting, but it felt so good going over it last weekend. As you mentioned on Wednesday night, it really seems almost preposterous to even attempt to contain an account of the revelation of God and His Son in a single book. The content of the book so far is so meaty and full that if God’s people out there read it – I mean really read it and humble themselves to it and to Jesus – it is going to change them, and try them. I know it’s probably going to be a long time before it is finished, but I can hardly wait to see what God does with it. Maybe it’s not even meant for this generation. Is there even anyone out there now who can take in some of the things Jesus has been showing you in this work? It seems they can hardly take in just the basic milk of the New Birth. Well, God knows, and that’s His business!

    Anyway, I had just a couple questions as I was reading back over chapter 6:

    Regarding the part on “wheat and tares” in heaven: How is it that God would allow sin in His presence, if “sin can never enter there”? Could it be that in heaven (before the Son was revealed), when angels, cherubim, Satan, and other heavenly beings were speaking with God, that they were actually speaking to God through an “Angel of the Lord”, similar to how God spoke to men on earth? It just doesn’t seem possible that evil-hearted beings could possibly be in the very presence of God, and that perhaps God was in His own “upper chamber” of heaven (so to speak) until heaven was purged.

    ==========

    Oh, we need not be concerned that God will be polluted. The prophet Habakkuk felt that way, and said to the Lord, “Your eyes are too pure to look at sin!” (1:13a), but Habakkuk’s real point was what came next, when he asked God, “Why do you do it?” (1:13b).

    As you know, Vince,”Sin Can Never Enter There” is the name of a song, but it was not a law that was always in place in heaven. It has, however, become the law of heaven that “sin can never enter there” since the Son was revealed and took his place at the Father’s right hand and set all things, everywhere, in order.

    The Psalmist said that God condescends to even look at things in both heaven and earth (Ps. 113:6), and it is said that “the heavens are unclean in His sight” (Job 15:15), and since we now know that when the Father glorified the Son, He “made him higher than the heavens” (Heb. 7:26), there must be somewhere beyond heaven where God dwells. After all, He must have been living somewhere before the Son created these heavens and the earth, right?
    ==========

    Is the heaven that exists now (the one that was purged and now includes paradise) going to be destroyed and a new heaven created at the same time the new earth is created (Rev. 21:1)? Or is it the new heaven now?
    ==========

    No, this is not the new heaven that John saw in Revelation 21. This is the one that will be destroyed, just as Peter said in 2Peter 3.
    ==================

    And if it’s not now the new heaven, what is wrong with it that God still plans to destroy it (seeing that now there is no evil there)?
    =============

    Sorry. That’s not my department. 🙂
    ================

    My next question is, what exactly is a throne? I’m thinking particularly about thrones in heaven. I know that John saw physical thrones in heaven, (and they even live and speak!) but what are they? Do they simply represent a position of power and authority or are they something more?

    I think that’s all for now. Thank you,

    Vince

    ==========

    Of course, the word “throne” can be symbolically used, but what John saw was real, and the thrones he saw represented some kind of authority that he did not explain, and may not have been told. Beyond that, all we can do is wait and see what we see when we see Jesus! Then we will not only understand the things you mention, we will also learn whether or not if the “thrones” we will receive when we reign with Jesus (Rev. 20:4) are symbolic or real. Either way, we are going to be happy.

    Good hearing from you, brother Vince!

    Pastor John

  • Questioning Christians

    John,

    I recall back in 1992 or 93, I had not yet met brother Gary, but Jesus was working in my heart nonetheless. I had attended a Congregational Church group ( a liberal denomination), and for some reason I just wanted to get involved, to be an active member, so I joined a planning committee that wanted to arrange some Bible classes and some children’s groups. The five of us met in a back room with the (woman) pastor, who was pregnant at the time. She was a real control freak, wanted to do everything, and run the whole show. It occurred to me that she would probably be too tired during her pregnancy to carry the responsibility of running several committees in addition to her obligations of pastoring and writing weekly sermons (which were always very intellectual and elaborately scripted.) Well, being the helpful, sensitive guy that I am, I made the mistake of gingerly implying that she ought to take it easier, especially during her pregnancy. Oops! Wow, she snapped back at me with a harsh remark that was very unfitting for a pastor, and I think she even embarrassed herself by her temperamental reaction. She was a very proud woman. That really put me off. I never went back there again.

    In another church, a year later, where I’d become more familiar with the pastor over several months, I asked him about speaking in tongues, and whether or not that happens at a person’s baptism. (I had just begun to read the Pioneer Tract Society’s tracts)

    He chuckled, condescendingly, and said, “No, not everyone speaks in tongues, but we’re going to be having a class on Wednesdays to learn to speak in tongues. You wanna take the class?” At that very instant, I felt a deep compulsion in my gut to run from this man—-and I did—–and that was my last participation in Xty. A few months later I met Gary, and subsequently you and Barbara, in the spring of 1994.

    I am still amazed that God enabled me to discern the wrong attitudes and wrong doctrines in Xty so early in my walk with Christ. Feels good to be rescued. Now look what His mercy has bestowed upon those who love Him!

    Brad

  • Tom – The Father and The Son reading

    Hi John,

    I agree with Stuart that other scriptures make more sense if in fact Jesus was not aware of Satan’s wickedness prior to the temptation. However, as you also said, Jesus may have known but humbled himself for forty days to the temptations of that wicked creature. Either way, it is very thought proving. Jesus was very humble in either case.

    Another thought I had was that Satan uses Christianity to hide who he really is from men on earth, just as God hid who He really is from Satan in heaven. I can’t describe how thankful I am to be called out of Christianity. Otherwise I would be lost. Thank you John for all the hard work and prayer you have put into this book. It will probably take a long time to realize the full extent of what Jesus has given us.

    Tom

    ==========

    Hi John,

    I have really enjoyed going over the Father and Son book again, I am so thankful that we have been allowed to understand some of the things that the Father has done with his Son. It seems like the more we learn about the Son, the more things open up for us to know and feel about our Father.

    It is astonishing how much he really loves us and cares about what we know about him. He wants us to know him more then we can even imagine. One thing that really stuck out to me yesterday in the reading, John, was how everything in heaven was tried. There was not one being in heaven whose heart was not put through a trial or test to see what they really wanted.

    Even his Son went through the temptation in the wilderness by Satan, to see what he really wanted, and he wanted to be with his Father and make a way for us to do the same.

    I like what you said about the Son. He may have not known just what was going on with Satan in heaven. I am sure he felt something was not right with him, but the Father may have kept some things to himself about Satan at the time.

    It would make more sense about what the Son went through in the wilderness if he was just learning how evil and wrong it was for what Satan had been doing all of the time he was in heaven, and why he may have felt that way at times about Satan. John, I just assumed or thought that the Son knew., since he created Satan, just what he was and how evil he had become. Wow. His thoughts are above my thoughts, and his understanding above my understanding! God help me keep my mind and my thoughts open and free of any wrong ideas about you. I know it will take him to do it, and his loving correction to change any wrong thought about him that we may have. And I know if we keep him first, he will show us everything we need to know. Thank you John

    Stuart

    ===========

    Thanks, Stuart. You may have been right, you know. The Son may have known everything about Satan all along. But the point was, we just don’t know, and there are some scriptures that make a lot of sense if he didn’t.

    jdc

  • Diane – the weekend

    Pastor John:

    This weekend was wonderful. Trying to still take it all in. 🙂 It is very humbling, and I know He is patient, but I am praying for Him to fix what He needs to in me, and to take all the lingering effects of christianity out of me. I remember Jim asking a question at a “Newcomers” class in this church in Charlotte. The ass’t pastor put down Jim’s question. (I realize now the pastor probably did not know the answer) But the pastor made the one asking the question very uncomfortable. And we could go on and on telling about our experiences in christianity.

    I especially wanted to mention, I loved it when we were sitting around after we had lunch, just talking. Those are very precious times to me. Sister Willie calls those, “Fireside Chats.” (I believe a past president called them that also. :))

    Thanks again for lunch. We did not want to leave either. 🙂

    Love,
    Diane
    ========

    I really meant it when I said, “I don’t want you all to leave!” Ha! The love of God is overwhelming!

    This is the most wonderful family in the world. I am so thankful for you all. It was humbling to have you all stay and spend more time here, together, and it touched me that so many even wanted to! Oh my, I pray that I am thankful enough for the family God has created here. There is just something very special about it.

    jdc

  • Satan’s Merciless Judgment

    “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (Jas. 2:13 ESV).

    I always thought that God won’t let Satan repent because he had committed some act of sin too bad to go backwards (like Judas). Not sure where i got that idea. This verse seems to add another layer to it; God doesn’t have mercy on Satan because he shows no mercy to others.

    Bekah

    ==========

    It’s probably some of both. We know that “to whom much is given, much is required” (Lk. 12:48), and those who sin after having a certain amount of knowledge and experience may find themselves in a position of having no further means of obtaining forgiveness (Heb. 10:26). Any sin can be an “unpardonable sin” if it is committed by someone so close to God, as Satan once was, that he knew, or should have known better. But it is always God’s call as to when that happens because only God really knows everything in the heart.

    But Satan’s merciless judgment and prosecution of others certainly played a huge role in the merciless judgment he had received from God.

    Good point!

    Daddy

  • Melchizedek

    Pastor John,

    Actually who was Melchizedek? What did GOD mean when HE said Melchizedek was the image of the Holy Ghost?

    Lona Faye
    ============

    God never said that, Lona Faye. At least, it isn’t in the Bible. Melchizedek was just a man who served as a priest to God in very
    ancient time.

    jdc
    ===================

    Pastor John

    I feel you didn’t understand my question. Please help me understand. I will try to explain myself better.

    In Hebrews 7:3, Paul says that Melchizedek was without father or mother. The Most High God is the Father of Jesus (Luke 1:32). But, God WAS NOT the father of Melchizedek. Paul is clearly saying that Melchizedek, like the Most High God, was without parents. Neither of them had beginning of days nor end of life. The two of them had always lived and there had never been a time that each of them had not lived. Melchizedek had always possessed life inherent. Life was not given to Him, He was not anyone’s son.

    “’You are My Son, today I have begotten You.’ As He also says in another place: ‘You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek . . . ‘ ” (Hebrews 5:5-6, NKJV)

    “Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead?’ ” (Luke 24:1-5, NKJV). Melchizedek is He who lives.

    What is this saying? Jesus was Melchizedek in the beginning, and when he was born of Mary he became the Son of God in the order of Melchizedek who had to be preeminent in righteousness. He had to be the “king” of righteousness.

    Malachi said that the Sun of Righteousness would arise with healing in His wings (Malachi 4:2). Malachi was precluded from using the word “son” because that would have implied that the One who became Jesus was someone other than Melchizedek. The term “Son” would have suggested that Jesus was in some way a son or a descendant of Melchizedek. Actually, the prophetic Sun of Righteousness and the King of Righteousness is the same person, Jesus Christ. Malachi said the Sun of Righteous would arise, and he meant that in a literal sense. Christ will descend from the sky, but before He descends, He will have to ascend (see Psalm 82:8).

    Am I even more confused? Please help me understand!

    Lona Faye

    ===========

    Hi Lona Faye!

    Thank you for writing back.

    Jesus was not Melchizedek. Melchizedek was just a man, possibly the greatest character who ever lived before Jesus, according to Hebrews 7:6-7. He was probably a Canaanite, but at any rate, he was human. He had both a father and a mother; there was just no historical record of them. The author of Hebrews was not saying Melchizedek was non-human. He was simply using the priesthood of Melchizedek as a pattern for the priesthood of Jesus. As far as the priesthood was concerned, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary and (it was believed) of Joseph, was “without father or mother”, too. One’s genealogical record was of extreme importance under the law; if a priest lost the record of his genealogy so that he could no longer prove on paper that he descended from Aaron, he was kicked out of the priesthood. This happened to a family of priests. During the Babylonian captivity, they had lost the record of their ancestry, and “these sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but it was not found: therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood” (Ezra 2:62; Neh, 7:64).

    In pointing out that there is no historical record of Melchizedek’s birth or death, the author of Hebrews is simply using the lack of historical records to make another point. Melchizedek was born, and he did die. We just don’t have any record of when or where. But Melchizedek was born, and he did die. He is, in a figure, like the Son of God, in that there is no historical record of when he came into existence, but his human birth did take place.

    Melchizedek is not the one being referred to, in the phrase “he who lives”, in Hebrews 7:8. “He who lives” is Jesus Christ. He receives the tithes that God’s children bring to men on earth if they bring God’s tithes to a man anointed by God to minister heavenly things to them and to receive those tithes.

    For centuries, from every theological direction, there has been mountains made out of the simple mole hill that we find in Hebrews 7 concerning Melchizedek. He was a very great man, but he was human. He was not an angel; nor was he the Son of God. You can forget what you have been previously taught about Melchizedek, and you need not fear that you will displease the Lord by doing so.

    I hope my explanation helps. Although there were many holy men in ancient history used as figures of the Son by the writers of the New Testament, no one is like the Son of God to the extent that you have been taught that Melchizedek was.

    Thanks again for writing. God bless.

    Pastor John

  • Who we are in Christ

    Pastor John,

    I know you’re quite busy writing lately but I wanted to run this by you.
    Over the past few weeks or so I feel like “living in the Spirit” means
    “not letting anything compromise the peace and joy the Spirit gives.” It’s
    hard to word, but I’ve felt a kind of peace when something — the flesh, a
    spirit, whatever — tries to creep in and I decide, “I’d rather have
    feelings of peace right now instead.” It feels like the right thing to do.
    A moment ago the “whatever” that was trying to creep was along the lines
    of, “I feel this way about things sometimes because as a child…” but
    each time it crept I felt like, “That’s not my peace! When I was a child,
    before I had the holy spirit, doesn’t matter.” That felt like the right
    thing to do… the result of that felt peaceful.

    My question is: When we say things like, “It’s been so hard for me to get
    over this because when I was growing up…” it seems like giving ourselves
    a reason to not just get over it and have peace. I know things from
    childhood can affect us, but it seems like it’s not who we are in Christ
    so we don’t have to think about it. Is that right?

    Thanks,
    Beverly
    =========

    That’s right, Beverly. As Jesus told Sister Sandy a few years back, in reference to old, ungodly family traits, “You’re not a product of THAT union any more.” And as he told Sister Sandy again in 2001, when we are “grafted in” to the family of God, we are given a NEW PAST. Those of faith in the scriptures are our ancestors now, and in Christ, all that matters is the kind of spirit our parents in the faith passed on to us.

    jdc

  • Last Night

    Good morning, Pastor John:

    I thank God for every time you couldn’t sleep, stayed up all hours of the night and morning, or had your brain fried studying and writing, and all the many hours of translations that the crew has spent to gather the material for the “God Had a Son” book. It was very satisfying looking on livestream and seeing the anticipation for chapter 6. I wonder what God thinks when we feel excited to hear from Him. I think He’s excited that we are excited, because he knows it is going to bring life to His body.

    This book is meat and not milk. I thank God, for whatever reason, that He has found us worthy to be able to take this in–it is a great honor, and very humbling. If one has a heart to truly want to seek and serve the real God and the real Jesus, then I know God will lead them to this truth. It is for hungry souls and it is the Truth of the whole matter concerning God’s son.

    I am still excited for this morning–there are more pages to read, more songs to be sung, and more praises to honor God with–He is, “WORTHY!”

    I love, I love it, I love it.
    billy m.

    ps: we still have Part Three to look forward to!

  • Chapter 6. . . Whew!

    John. . . . all I could do after you closed tonight’s meeting was to drop to my knees , lean against my chair, and weep. . . .

    I thanked the Lord for giving this “hidden” information to you. . . to us. . . so that we may further serve Him , with greater joy, and delight, and reverence too.

    It’s just wonderful. . . and with this wonderful knowledge comes more fear AND love of God. . . for to whom much is given, much is required. It makes me want to subdue everything to His will, and get to work…. for His people. . . our brothers and sisters who are in the dark.

    The least I can do is to pray for them, more earnestly than ever.

    I thank Jesus for loving us enough to give us this new, deeper understanding.

    Brad

Recent Posts