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I used to have hair but Jesus set me free. I thought that was totally, totally appropriate.
(chuckle) Well I have enjoyed our time together so far. I hope that you have. The Gospel rolls
on. Paul said that the Gospel is the power of God and that’s the wonderful thing about the
Gospel. It is its own power within itself.
So many times when people hear the Gospel as we are sharing it at least, we are so addicted to
asking what to do…. well what do we do now? Well how do we get this to happen? It’s
amazing though that the power that the Gospel has in working in the heart and that it has its own
power. It does its own thing.
After several years of beginning to understand some of the Gospel, I admit I only understand
some of it now but as I begin to understand some of it, there were so many things that I didn’t
understand about myself. I wondered how in the world could I get this to change and that to
change about my own heart? I have just been absolutely amazed to just wait and let the Gospel
do its own work in my own heart. It really has given me a patience to just wait. There are
things about me and my heart that need to change and the incredible thing is that all the years
that I struggled for change and saw none, I just began to live in denial and just finally dropped
trying to change. I don’t know if anyone here can relate. It is an amazing thing. And if there is
anything that I’d like for you to do during this time that we have together is uh….well a lot of
people say, ‘well what are we here to accomplish? What are we going to do’? Well for just a
couple of days, I guess another day and a half we have left together, I want you to commit
yourself to ceasing to trying to change. Wouldn’t that be a nice break? Well I’m going to give
myself a whole day. I’m going to take tomorrow, Sunday of all days, and I am not going to put
forth one single effort in trying to change. Now, what does that do? Well it gives space for the
Gospel to begin to work. Folks! We are so addicted to our efforts to change and we try so hard.
I talk to people who have these faults and failures in their lives and I don’t think they are there
because you don’t try and you don’t care. I think in many cases it’s because we do try and we
try so hard that it eliminates the power of the grace of God from being able to have its effect in
our hearts and in our minds and in our lives.
It’s a scary thing to let go. It is a scary thing for us control freaks, and I’m sure you’re not one
of those, but for us control freaks who have learned how to control things; lets keep things in
control, to suddenly let go and to let the grace of God have its own work in our own hearts.
That’s a very bizarre thing to happen to most of us as individuals especially when we’ve spent
all of our lives learning how to do it. You say, “Well, what’s it?” That’s the funny thing about
it. Nobody knows what it is but we are learning how to do it. After we spent a lifetime learning
how to do it, we can’t even describe what it is. But we know we’ve dedicated our lives to it.
But just take a day. Take a break tomorrow. You wake up in the morning and say ‘this is one
day in my life I’m going to put absolutely no effort into trying to change’. You certainly
couldn’t be any worse off than what you have been. Let’s face it. Okay? It might even give the
grace of God just a little bit of an opportunity to do some work in our hearts.
I’m going to share with you tonight out of Hebrews. Actually we were going to wait until the
last night to do this. I realized we had progressed to the point where we were after doing the
session last night and this afternoon. If you were here, I thought the 2:00 pm session was just
fantastic. We want to encourage you about two things also.
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The tapes from the sessions are available but you need to sign up for them. Is that right Ann?
You need to sign up in the back for the tapes and go ahead and pay for them and they can get
everything ready. Also, if you’ve noticed, we have camera equipment here and that also is
available. I think I’ve actually stayed stationary here and not wondered off out of the camera
sight. I have really grown in grace. I can stand still for a little while now. If you want the
videos from the conference, there are so many people who enjoy videos over cassette tapes. In
fact, this series would be a really good video library for you to have. You can sign up for those.
Do we know what the five sessions are going to be for the videos yet? Do we have a price down
for those? Ann is checking on the price. It is $80.00 for the whole series; all five sessions.
That’s fantastic. That’s actually a very good deal. So those will be in the back and you’ll have
the videos that are there and I think I have enough light shining right over here to where you’ll
get a really fantastic glare off the top of my head. (chuckle) When you show them to people
you can say, “You can tell he’s holy. Look at that halo glowing around his head.”
We’ve progressed I think to where that we can see that some questions have come up. What I
really try to do or at least what we observe anyway is that there are certain things/subjects that
we share that produce certain questions and those questions really help direct me in where we
need to go next. And what I was actually going to do at the end of this seminar, I want to go
ahead and do tonight.
We are going into Hebrews Chapter 12. We’re going to take in this entire chapter. It also has
some absolutely startling things in it. It also has some things you will recognize as having been
preached on and taught on in the past. But this will probably be the first time that you’ve seen
them in context. How many of you have ever heard the verses quoted and preached and taught
on…’that whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth? Anybody heardeth thoseith?
(chuckle) Okay. Did anybody explain to you though, how he doeth it? And it’s so funny
because when I have taught in this area, the way that we teach it in context and I think that it is
correct, then my colleagues who disagree with that…they say ‘no, we believe that God does
chasten his people’. And I say, “Well how does He do that? Does He do it with sickness? Is
He going to make you sick? Well, what is it? Does He chasten you with poverty? And they
say, “No. No. He wouldn’t do that.” And the thing of it is, they preach the goodness of God
especially where I came from in the Word of Faith movement and that God wants to do
everything good for you and that every bad thing comes from Satan. Then they try to
incorporate the chastening of the Lord into that and then they left it to my silly little mind to
determine when I was being chastened or if I wasn’t. I was thinking that God might be
chastening me with every bad thing that happened to me. This must be it. How about you?
How about when you lost your job? Did you think that maybe God is finally getting you this
time? How about when your eyesight started going? Well, this is the consequence. This is it.
God’s getting me now. Or something happened to your children.
Folks! It is absolutely amazing how deeply ingrained into our society that religion is. People
that don’t go to church are religious. People that do not go to church are very religious because
religion has permeated our society. You don’t even have to go to church. You don’t even have
to go to a Synagogue. You don’t have to go to a denomination or a non denominational church
because that is infused into our society in North America. We look at people that have beliefs in
voodoo and things like that and we think how crazy for them to believe those things.
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But you know if you stop at where we are in believing that bad things are happening to us
because we’ve done something bad or that we’re being blessed because we’ve done something
very good, you are really not too far off from voodoo. When you begin to believe that
everything’s going bad because God’s catching up with you, you’re not very far off from that.
But it’s amazing how that once the mind is convinced of something, your mind will create for
you a sense that will lead you more toward failing than succeeding. Then when you do fail,
then of course, “See there, I told you.”
One of my favorite sitcoms is Frasier. I like Frasier. Anybody in here watch Frasier with me?
Okay. He’s pretty fantastic. Well, one of the last ones I saw was that he became convinced he
had a curse on him. He was going to his 10 year class reunion and every time he would attend
one, there was this curse. Every time he had a high school reunion, something bad happened,
then he was convinced every high school reunion, something bad was going to happen. He
became so convinced of it that when the high school reunion came around, he was the biggest
klutz that ever was and everything went wrong and he became more convinced that it was the
curse. It was the curse following him around and there was a certain mentality that came with
that. And I looked at that and I thought, ‘My! That is so close to the way that we are in
Christianity.’ We are so cause and effect that we can create these things in our minds and force
ourselves to believe based on our belief system that all of the things that are happening around
us is based on either God’s approval or his disapproval on our lives. We are either falling under
a curse or we’re falling under a blessing. This mentality is really no different than any mentality
that exists in people that do not even believe in Jesus Christ. People that believe in gods and
volcanoes and sun gods and everything else, their mentality is exactly the same. It’s strange that
a belief in Christ would take us deeper into that mentality rather than delivering us from that
mentality. Somehow it’s all gotten mixed together.
Now embedded in this is the doctrine of belief of chastening and scourging that comes from
God. What we’re going to do is take this chapter in context. We’re going to read through it. I
think it’s absolutely a fantastic chapter. I think that you will agree after we get through this. It
resolves so much. Yet, reading it out of context, you might as well take the verse where Paul
said ‘those that don’t believe in the resurrection from the dead, then those that are baptized for
the dead, then there’s no need of doing it.’ Then he would preach a doctrine that we’re
supposed to be baptized for the dead. Do you know how many thousands and thousands of
people believe there’s a doctrine of being baptized for the dead just because they pull a verse out
of context where Paul was debating with people who did not believe in the resurrection? He
was addressing their doctrine, not his. He was showing them they didn’t believe in the
resurrection of the dead but you’re being baptized for the dead. He was not saying it was a
doctrine of the church to be baptized for the dead. He was showing them that by not believing
in the resurrection, that their doctrine was crazy. So what do we do? We start baptizing people
for the dead. You know, somebody that’s dead, we baptize people for them. Now that’s not a
prevalent doctrine in America but around the world, folks, that is a doctrine that many tens of
thousands of people are caught up in; being baptized for the dead.
Something out of context can be absolutely misleading to us. It seems that it’s fairly simple. I
mean the statements have been made very directly that if God does not chasten you, then you
are a bastard and not a son. That’s a pretty direct statement, isn’t it?
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Well, I must be a bastard and not a son because God has never ever beat me up. You say, well
that’s not what chastening means and then we play on semantics of words. But in this, you’ll
find he calls it chastening and scourging; whom the Lord chasteneth and scourgeth. The word
scourgeth you can’t watereth down. It means beateth to pieces. What we’re going to do again
is take this into context. Now you know that I have a predisposition for the cross of Jesus
Christ. I believe that the cross may very well be the pivotal point of all ages, all doctrines, all
prophecies, all law, all salvation, all redemption, all cleansing, all sanctification, all things. He
is all in all and has fulfilled all things. Now excuse me for giving Jesus all of that credit but if
I’m going to error on one side of this folks, I would much rather error on the side of giving Jesus
more credit than He deserves. Think about that statement how ignorant that would be, that we
are giving him more credit than He deserves, rather than to take away the credit that He does
deserve.
So just for a moment, you know, just kind of play along with me here for a whole chapter and
let’s pretend for a little while that Jesus may have accomplished more than what we think He
did. I believe that all of us here would be willing to open up to the possibility that Jesus might
have accomplished more than you think He did.
Now if you are in error right now, do you think you probably error more on the side of not
understanding all that He did, or do you think you might be on the side of giving him too much
credit for something He didn’t do? Which side do you think you might be on if you are in
error? I think we’re probably on one side, if we are in error, of not giving him credit for all He
has accomplished. Now I think I heard somebody say that they’re not on either side. I really
wish I could say that with you but I doubt very seriously that all my doctrine is straightened out
just yet.
I think that we need to just stop and think of the possibility that Jesus Christ being Lord may
mean something far more than what we have may have ever entertained. Folks! Let’s face it.
The Church has not had the answers for this human race. It has not. I don’t care what church or
denomination we’re talking about, every one of us that have started a new one or started a new
movement say, “This is it, this is the one!” This is the one that has the answers. You know it
never turns out that way though. It doesn’t bring the answers that seem to be needed in this
world. You say, ‘well do you think you’ve got it’? Well, I don’t think we’ve got it but at least I
think we’re thinking. The thing that I hated about being stuck where I was is that I had stopped
thinking. Thinking was something that I wasn’t supposed to do anymore. I was supposed to set
my mind in this box and never dare to disagree with leadership; never dare to disagree with
what was being taught; never dare to think of the possibility that I might be wrong. I am free!
Free to what? I’m actually free to actually think I might be wrong even still yet. Folks! I tell
you, that is a great freedom to be able to stop and think. You know I may need to think about
that a little bit more.
So as we look into this, this very hard clad doctrine which I will agree with you, it’s pretty well
universal whether you’re Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, denominational, nondenominational,
Word of Faith, Charismatic or Pentecostal. It pretty well takes in all.
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What I’m going to share with you tonight, may I admit to you right up front, none of them agree
with this. But none of them have ever agreed with anything I’ve said so far this week anyway
so (chuckle) that shouldn’t surprise you a whole lot.
By the time that we get to Hebrews chapter 12, we have been told about the High Priest of Jesus
Christ. This priesthood of Jesus is so incredible because what we have been taught up through
these eleven chapters is that Jesus has taken on a role as high priest; a high priest in a role and
position that no one before him had ever filled. There have been other high priests, but it is
explained to us in detail that when God dealt with the people under the Old Covenant, He did
not look at the people to see whether or not their sin had been dealt with, He looked at the High
Priest and the sacrifice that the High Priest offered to see whether or not the people’s sins had
been dealt with or not. He didn’t go around to them individually saying, “Yeah you are. You’re
not. You are. You’re not. Smack you. Bless you.” He looked at the High Priest and He
looked at the sacrifice. God looked at the ministry of the High Priest. That high priest wasn’t
perfect and the sacrifice wasn’t perfect, but folks even under that, God did not determine what
He thought about the people by looking at them. He looked at the High Priest and the offering.
How many of you know that under the Old Covenant, neither the High Priest nor the sacrifices
they offered were perfect? That’s what Hebrews brings out. How many of you know that also
under this New Covenant, your High Priest, Jesus Christ and your sacrifice, Jesus Christ, is
perfect? So when God looks at the people under this covenant, He looks at your High Priest and
your sacrifice. So when He looks at you, what does He see? He sees the condition of the
priesthood which is perfect. He sees the condition of the sacrifice which is perfect. So when He
looks at you, what does He deem you to be? He sees you absolutely perfect in his sight. Is this
because your deeds measure up? Well, we absolutely aen’t going to go there are we because we
know that couldn’t possibly be true.
The power of the grace of God is number one. Thank God! I’m not going to get what I deserve.
Please don’t ever pray and just tell God “all I want is what I deserve’. You don’t want what you
deserve because you deserve chastening and scouring. You say, “Well I’m not that bad.” But
you see, it’s not that bad that gets chastens and scourged. It is anyone who trusted in the law
under the Old Covenant. If you offended in one point, you had broken the law under every
point. You say, “Yeah but you know, the thing that really gets God, you know, I read that
Sodom and Gomorrah story and He really hates homosexuality.” Well guess what? If you have
lied on your income taxes, you are guilty of homosexuality. (chuckle) That really never goes
over very well at all. (chuckle) You say, “Well I’ve never done such a thing!” You don’t have
to have committed the act to be guilty of it under the law. Well I’ve never murdered anybody.
Under the law, you don’t have to murder anybody to be guilty of murder. All you have to do is
to offend God in one point and the law imputes all sin to you.
Now why anybody wants to be under the law, I’m not really sure because the only thing I can
see is that we’re still trapped under the same false assumption as the nation of Israel. They
thought they could attain righteousness through that law and that they had the privilege of
judging someone else’s relationship with God. But folks I tell you, those are two privileges you
do not want. They are two privileges that are very costly to the heart and the mind of the soul of
the person. Believe me!
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Giving up your right to be righteous by your works, will be the most awesome deliverance you
have ever experienced in your life. Giving up your right to judge the relationship of another
man or woman has with God, will be one the most wonderful relief that you have ever had in
your life; it is to be free.
Hebrews Chapter 11 We’ll start at the bottom of this. We know that Hebrews chapter 11 is the
Hall of Fame of the heroes of faith. It leads into it. There are so many things that we could just
back right up and lead into it but we’re just going to jump right in. The last two verses of
chapter 11 says
Hebrews 11: 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the
promise.
These guys did not receive what? They did not get the promise. What was the promise? The
promise was according to all the rest of Hebrews was this righteousness that comes by faith.
They got a good report but they didn’t receive the promise, that through Jesus Christ, we would
be made righteous.
V 40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be
made perfect.
Have you read Hebrews Chapter 11 and what all these guys accomplished and what faith did for
them and then at the very end, it says what? God provided something better for us.
The subject of perfection is also one that you see all the way through the book of Hebrews. Let
me reassure you that despite what anyone says we have said, the fact is God only accepts that
which is absolutely perfect and faultless and without blame in his sight. There is no one going
to heaven that has the slightest fault in their life in God’s sight. If you are seen as being the
slightest thing other than totally spiritual, you are not going to make it. I think that the
scriptures bear this out very, very clearly that unless you are absolutely holy in God’s sight, you
are not going to make it. How many of you have heard these sermons? They are true. If you
are not seen by God as having fulfilled every law in the book, you’re not going to make it.
Unless you are seen in the eyes of God as being as perfect as He is, you’re not going to make it.
In the book of Matthew chapter 5:48, Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect.” How perfect? Be as perfect as your Father is which is in heaven.
Folks! The thing that I don’t understand about this whole debate thing is that my colleagues and
I agree. In fact, I believe these statements of Jesus. I believe that I believe it more than my
colleagues do. I believe you must be as Jesus said, absolutely perfect without sin in his sight,
absolutely righteous, absolutely holy. You must be as perfect as God himself in God’s sight.
Now they seem to think there are exceptions to those rules; that there are fence laws. Well if
you do this, but if you do that, well if you go back and you redo and you re-anti and you re-up.
But I’m sorry. Those are signs of imperfections and only that which is deemed as righteous as
God himself has any hope or any cause to believe that they are accepted by God at all. Now, the
Bible has given us two ways to be holy and righteous and faultless and blameless before God.
The Bible tells us that the people that aren’t going to make it…it gets right down to the person
that even has fear in their lives will not make it.
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You know we always want to pick out the biggies; the murderer, you aen’t going to make it; the
fornicator, don’t tell me that murderer, that fornicator’s going to make it…but the fearful aren’t
going to make it either. Those that are in strife aren’t going to make it either. So folks, if these
lists are lists that have determined under the New Covenant how we are made right with God,
then folks I might as well say to you, “Lets go eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you’re
going to die and go to hell anyway because you aen’t going to make it.” If God had ascribed at
least two ways to become holy and one was through his law; one he set down a set of laws, rules
and regulations and said anybody that keeps these laws then these people will be perfect and
righteous and holy in God’s sight. There was a little catch 22 to that plan. It was designed that
no one could keep the law. How unfair! No folks! Not unfair; very merciful.
Man’s mindset since Adam, was convinced there’s a tree of the knowledge of good and evil that
it was his works that made the difference and it took 4,000 years of the law to convince the
human race and to convince the Jew, we aen’t going to make it. In fact, they understood that so
clearly they weren’t going to make it through the law, they watered the law down. That’s just
like the church does today that claims that they are living their lives by the law yet at the same
time they water the law down. I do not water the law down. I am telling you that if you are
under the law and you’re guilty of one single thing under the law, you are going to hell. I don’t
care how good you are. I don’t care what you’ve done. One slip up and it’s over.
I respect God’s law. I respect it so much it made me fall in love with Jesus because I found a
new way of living. I found a new life divine. I have the fruit of the Spirit; abiding, abiding in
the vine.
There’s no one that’s going to preach to you any stronger or heavier. If I’m going to preach the
law to you, I’m not going to mix grace with it as they do and defile the law of God. I am not
going to pour new wine into old wineskins as they do believing somehow that the law of God
can contain the grace of God because that was the comparison Jesus was making.
Luke 5: 37-39
37And no man putteth new wine into old wineskins, else the new wine will burst the old
wineskin and be spilled and the wineskins will perish.
38But new wine must be put into new wineskins and both are preserved.
39No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, the old is better.
The old wineskin isn’t you. How many of you have been under the sermon ‘YOU’RE JUST A
BUNCH OF OLD WINESKINS. YOU CAN’T CHANGE!” No, the old wineskin in Jesus’
teaching was not you or any individual, the old wineskin was the Old Covenant; it was the old
law. And the new wine is the new wine of the New Covenant that Paul stated to us so clearly.
You cannot pour the grace of God into the confinements of the law and find something good
because it says that the new wine is alive. It’s growing. The old wineskin is rigid. It is not
flexible. It will not change and because the new wine is constantly growing and expanding, it
says that the new wine will rip that old wineskin apart and destroy its effectiveness and even the
new wine will be spilled out on the ground and both will become totally ineffective. You can’t
sew a new patch on a old garment.
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I believe my colleagues who say this message of grace is extreme. Yes it is extreme. How
extreme? I believe the garment is brand new. I refuse to sew a new patch on my old garment
and say, ‘I’ve got this new garment from Jesus but I’ve got to patch it up with my own
righteousness. No! I refuse. I traded in those old tattered garments for a robe of pure white.
It’s not patched up with my works. It’s not patched up with laws, rules and regulations that I
obey. It is a pure white robe of righteousness which God accepts me based on what He has
given me not on what I have given him. Yes I believe in reward but my reward is based on
what God has given me; not based on what I have given God. Because I’m afraid to tell you
folks, if my reward is based on what I’ve given God, I’ve got a little stink pile waiting for me
somewhere in Glory. (chuckle) Now yours may be a little bigger stink pile, but none the less
it’ll only be a stink pile because Paul declared that the righteousness of man is as filthy rags.
(Isaiah 64: 6…and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags)
You see, it’s a simple choice. It’s not confusing as the Christian community is making it. Oh!
It’s divisive! It’s divisive now. It was divisive when Paul taught it. It was divisive when Jesus
taught it. It will never cease to be divisive. Oh but division comes from the devil. So Jesus
came from the Devil? Did that not divide the people? Did Paul’s doctrine create a division?
Does anyone remember when Paul preached grace and it caused great division? Did it mean his
doctrine was of the Devil? You know it’s so funny. We always do that. There’s not anything
in this town, called a new church and is a non denominational church, that weren’t also accused
of causing division when they got the new doctrine about the Word of Faith. They started
believing these things in the Methodist and Baptist Churches and they were accused because
their doctrine caused division so it had to be of the Devil. It is those same people who now
stand as our accusers. Isn’t it funny that they would turn around and use the same old worn out
tactics to try and disqualify what disagrees with their teaching? It’s the same thing they were
accused of at one time.
Folks! This Gospel is powerful. I make no apologizes for the Gospel. It is either the gospel or
it isn’t the gospel. I am here. I am going to be leaving. I am not here to start a church. I am
not here to start a congregation. You have some very simple choices to make. Are they
difficult? Yes! Complicated? Not at all! Not at all!
Because of the fallacy of the doctrines that most of the Christian world has stood in for so many
years that are simply carryovers from Catholicism. Folks! We call ourselves Protestants but we
are not Protestants anymore. We are reformed Catholics. We just don’t do it with a robe and a
collar any more. We are constantly atoning for our sins. We constantly believe in the wrath and
the anger of God. We constantly believe that we don’t measure up. We constantly believe that
it’s going to take somebody else to help us get through this, other than Jesus Christ himself. We
are very Catholic. There is nothing Protestant about Protestantism anymore.
Until the time of Martin Luther, the entire belief that had anything to do with Christ had
descended into nothing but Catholicism. That’s all it was. Don’t argue with them when they
say they are the ‘mother church’. They are. It started long ago. It started long ago;
misconceptions that go all the way back. You can find even the argument between Paul and the
Apostles themselves. Their history does go back a long way. But it doesn’t make any
difference how far your history goes back; it doesn’t mean you’re right.
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Martin Luther nailed those 95 theses on the door of the Catholic Church some 200 years ago and
declared that a man is justified by faith and by faith alone and that would include all of the
things people had to go through to try to maintain, retain, and obtain relationship and fellowship
with God.
The reason it was called Protestant is because it comes from the word protest. There was a
group of people who finally decided that man was righteous by faith and the people who say
you’ve got to do this and do that to be right with God, we protest! I am a protestant more
commonly known as a Protestant now. The sad thing about it is, it is not just the Catholic
Church that we need to nail these things on their doors. It is denominations and non
denominations that have spread throughout the world who add some ‘thing’ to the Gospel of
Jesus Christ almost without exception. I protest. I rebel. I won’t go along. Now you have to
take statements like that and one of two things with it. Either this man is rebellious out of a
need to be a rebel or this man is a rebel and a protestor based on something that he may see as a
very grievous crime against the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now that’s something you’re going to
have to decide for yourselves folks.
I want you to understand that you’re not in a meeting tonight that we are trying to malgamate
(mix up) the doctrines of present Christianity in with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are here to
expose that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has very little and almost nothing to do with current
established Christianity in North America and around the world. Please don’t misunderstand
me. I do not want to mislead you. I want you to understand. We believe there is a very serious
problem. So what are we supposed to do? Set out to close the churches? No! What are we
supposed to do? No. Our protest is not in trying to come against anything or anybody. Our
protest is to declare the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the face of whatever we may have
to incur to get this message across to the hearts of the people.
Now you have a choice. It’s your decision. You have to decide whether or not this is truth; not
me. I have obviously already decided or I wouldn’t be teaching it. But it’s up to you to
examine. It’s up to you to look at it. It’s up to you to decide. We’re not telling you to stop
listening to anybody. You know, I’ve had people come up to me and say. “Boy! Bro. Mike,
now that I’ve got this Gospel, you know, I really shouldn’t be listening to this one or that one.”
I say, “Oh no. I turn on TBN every now and then. I turn on Pat Robertson. I turn on Oral
Roberts.” Well what do you do that for? I want to listen and see whether or not this doctrine
and this thing that I have become persuaded of in my heart and the things that are being
preached as common doctrine across North America and exported around the world, is there a
difference? And I suddenly realized, “Oh my God. It is so much more different than what I
thought it was.” Every time I turn it on, I think, where are we? You think you get concerned
about where we are and where we’ve come from and the possibilities of where we’re going.
When you turn on Christian television which because you identify with being a Christian, you’d
think I had turned on something which I could identify with and I hear something that I cannot.
I’m supposed to be hearing something that causes my heart to rejoice and I’m hearing things
that causes my heart to grieve.
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I realize this situation for Mike Williams at least is much more far blown even than that which
my critics accuse me of. Folks! We are either in a need for a Gospel revolution that is so
transforming or we’re just playing another religious game. I don’t want any more religious
games. I want to know the power of the Gospel that is that of Jesus Christ. A Gospel that has
the power to support my heart; not change all my circumstances necessarily because I can’t see
that the Gospel changed all the disciples circumstances but it caused them to have a strength in
the middle of life itself.
No matter what curves came, no what devastation hit, they had a joy and a peace because I think
they understood that these circumstances in life were no longer an implication of what God
thought about them at all. Oh my! Shouldn’t it have proved to Paul that he was wrong when he
was arrested by the status quo and put in prison for what he was preaching? Shouldn’t it have
proven unto him? Shouldn’t it have proven to Paul that he was wrong when he went before the
Apostles and they themselves had not resolved the issue of justification by faith and by faith
alone? Folks! The greatest freedom on this earth is not to know that you are 100% right. The
greatest freedom is to examine whether you are right or wrong. It is not that you know you are
right. From that position you will grow. From that position you can increase. From that
position you can become even more confident of what Jesus has done than all the things than all
the rest of us have possibly been able to do. You might say, “Well Bro. Mike, you know you
teach all of this and you seem to know a lot about this. But what do you think about us? What
do you expect of us?” I expect you to understand this better than I do, because I’m convinced
that the Holy Spirit is a better teacher than I am. And I am convinced that the little things that I
share….I know what happens in your heart. I share a little something and suddenly your mind
clicks into something that’s a question and you’re thinking this direction and that direction and
what about this, and suddenly you see things that I have never seen before in my life. And
that’s the way it ought to be because you have a teacher; the great teacher and that’s the Holy
Spirit himself. You trust him and you also trust that God has given you a brand new heart and
ears that can hear because He has. You do not have to be swayed by doctrines of fear. You do
not have to be persuaded that the truth is the truth because of the consequences of not believing
it the way you’ve been told. You’re free to decide for yourself.
This is only the introduction to Hebrews Chapter 12
We have a great cloud of witnesses, folks. There’s something that has happened. Nobody has
any place to go tonight so we’ll just stay here. (chuckle)
God provided something better for us so we’re getting ready to go into a chapter that tells us
what? It tells us God provided something better for us. No matter what you read about in the
Old Covenant; no matter what the people experienced, the declaration is, God has provided
something better for us. What an incredible statement.
Hebrews 12:
1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay
aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the
race that is set before us.
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Where are these witnesses? They’re in chapter eleven. What are these weights? What is this
sin? Folks! All we have to do is go back and read Hebrews, those incredible chapters, all the
way up through this, and you’ll find out that the weight was the law and the sin that doth so
easily besets us is that sin that draws us back into legalism; that draws us back into self
righteousness. That’s what this whole book is about. He says, “We have a whole cloud of
witnesses here…that no, they didn’t make it.” They never received the promise and we got a
whole cloud of witnesses to let us know this is not the way to go. Yes! Look what wonderful
things happened but we never got the promise. And all of this cloud of witnesses is trying to tell
us, God provided something better for you. God has provided something better for you. And
let us run with patience the race that is set before you. Is this a race in the law? No! This is a
grace race, folks! You say, “Well what am I trying to outrun?” You’re trying to outrun the law.
(chuckle) “Cause it’s ready honey, the law wants to take you captive again. The law wants to
put you under its bondage. You are in a race and it is not a race for righteousness. It is a race in
righteousness to stay free from self righteousness of the law.
2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of
God.
Looking unto Jesus… “How do you do this Bro. Mike?” How do I hang on to this and not fall
to this sin that besets everybody? I used to look at that and wonder, what is the sin that
everybody falls to? Well, I thought it was my particular weakness but then I realized some
people weren’t even interested in my particular weakness at all. (chuckle) But there’s one sin
that the whole human race is susceptible to and that is the sin of self righteousness. No matter
where you are born; whether you are born in the Gospel, out of the Gospel; in a Christian
nation; in a Pagan nation. The flesh wants its own righteousness and it shows up in every
culture.
The author and finisher of our faith…You’ll notice it’s italicized there, the word ‘our’. It’s
italicized because that’s what the translators felt would help us to understand this. But however,
if you leave out the word ‘our’, it simply says, Jesus is the author and finisher of faith. Folks!
Not only did Jesus fulfill the law for you, he fulfilled faith for you. You’re not on a ladder,
trying to get your faith bigger and higher and stronger and better. Faith has been fulfilled. He
authored it. He finished it. God authored the law and God the Son finished it. Jesus authored
faith and He finished it. All of those demands…how many of you have ever gone into Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John and saw the demands about being in faith. And if you really have faith,
you’d be able to say to this mountain, ‘be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and’ …ah
ah! You don’t have it! Do you know that the demands for faith are as severe as the demands of
the law? And guess what? The demand for faith has been fulfilled and the demand for
obedience to the law has been fulfilled. And guess who fulfilled and finished both of them? It
was Jesus Christ. You see…you mean, I don’t need any faith any more? There’s only one faith
you need and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. You mean I don’t need faith for healing? Ah, go
ahead and try but…so much better to put your faith in Christ and not a ‘thing’.
Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…what was the cross? What was the
cross? The cross was God’s chastisement that we were supposed to receive?
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And what did Jesus do? He endured it. Remember Isaiah said, “The chastisement of our peace
was upon him.” And how did he endure this chastisement? He endured the chastisement and
endured the cross despising the shame. What goes along with this feeling of impending
judgment and impending doom and chastisement? What goes along with it? Shame goes along
with it and Jesus endured it. Folks! There’s one thing you should never ever experience before
God any more after Jesus died on the cross. You should never experience shame ever again
between you and God. Never again!
3For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be
wearied and faint in your minds.
Oh my! Listen at the exhortation! You’ve got to realize that Jesus took all of this on himself.
What’s going to happen if you don’t accept that Jesus took this endurance on the cross for you?
When things start happening in your life, if you begin to think that it is something happening to
you and it is chastisement from God, you are going to get weary and faint in your mind.
Anybody ever go through that? Anybody ever think that what happened to you was God’s
chastening upon your life? You know anybody that has lost a child that thought it was the
chastening of the Lord on their lives because they conceived outside of wedlock? Have you
ever watched what the young girl has to live with the rest of her life because she believes that
the loss of her child was the chastisement of God upon her life because of sex before marriage?
You ever watched the toll of that upon the heart of a young girl? It’s deadly! I refuse to preach
doctrines that would reinforce that to cause a heart that is already crushed so severely by the loss
of a child or a loved one to point then to them that this is the chastisement of God on their life
because of their shortcoming. Folks! Don’t tell me that’s Good News. Don’t tell me that’s the
Gospel. Don’t tell me that is what Jesus left us here with to endure; the chastening and scouring
from God. Jesus said that he himself bore that in his body on the tree for us.
4You have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And guess what? You never will!
You weren’t the one who did this? How many people have resisted against sin to the point of
blood? Jesus is the only one. You say, “Well there are a lot of people that do that in rituals.”
But folks that doesn’t free them from sin. You can flog yourself to death. It will not free you
from sin. The shedding of your blood will not free you from your sins. Punishing yourself will
not free you from your sins. This is such a deadly mentality that it gets stuck in people’s minds.
If it ever gets stuck in your mind that God is against you because of the things you have done in
your life, you will even as Frasier did, prescribe for yourself a life of failure because you believe
that you deserve it anyway. There are many of you sitting here tonight that have no idea why
your life has taken such a turn and it seems that everything you touch turns to crap. There’s a
major mind change that needs to take place because you’re living under guilt, you’re living
under shame and it preprograms your mind to fail at everything you set your hand to do because
you believe you deserve to fail.
5And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son,
despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
And have you forgotten the exhortation…what exhortation? Where did this come from?
Folks! These are quotes again out of the Old Testament. What exhortation have they forgotten?
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Where did the Hebrews want to go? They wanted to go back and attach themselves to the laws.
They wanted to attach themselves to the sacrifices and the ceremonies all over again. And the
writer of Hebrews is trying to bring them back and help them understand. These are the reasons
you don’t want to go back there. If you want to go back there…you want to take on these things
all over again? You want to go back to the law which could make nothing perfect…the
sacrifices which could not make anything perfect. You want to go back to all of those things?
He’s saying you must take the ‘whole enchilada’ if that’s what you’re going to do.
Don’t just say we’re going to tra la la back to the law and just have this comfortable space
where everybody accepts this in society because the law of God was the way of society during
this time. To abandon it and live by the grace of God, it wasn’t just anti church, it was anti
social. Their whole social structure was built around this mentality the same way that the North
American culture is completely built around this mentality of ‘cause and effect’ religion whether
you go to church or not. You got it! It’s permeated in our society. Have you forgotten? Now
wait a minute. You want to go back to the law? This is what they were wanting and he’s gone
to such degree explaining the difference now under this covenant and the old one. Do you
really want to go back there?
But have you forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children? My Son,
despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
6For whom the Lord loveth he chastens and scourges every son whom He receiveth.
He chastens and scourges every son whom he receiveth. Now wait a minute! He says, “This
spoke to you as children.” Now where were they children? Were they children under the New
Covenant? No! They were children under the Old Covenant. They were called the children of
God under the Old Covenant. What are you called under the New Covenant? You are called
the sons of God. Have you forgotten how God dealt with children? The only way God accepted
somebody was going through this chastening and scourging process to being perfected through
the law, being beaten for every disobedience and finally to be grafted in or brought in through
the law into Sonship. How many people made it in as sons through the law? Not one single
person made it from being the children of Israel to the sons of God; inheritors of the New
Covenant. Not one of them made it and you’re wondering why you can’t make it. Why can’t I
attain? It was designed so you would fail. Now, how cruel! Not when you know what is at the
end of the failure. It is called faith, redemption, sanctification and holiness and it’s waiting on
you at the end of the failure of your own righteousness.
They forgot. Oh we want the law back! We want the sacrifices. We want the ceremonies. We
want all these things. But you forgot what goes with it! You’ve forgot that God chastens and
scourges you and you’ll never be accepted by just simply obeying laws because God is going to
have to chasten and scourge you for the laws you disobey. How many sons does God receive?
He only receives how many? Now how many sons has God receiveth? (chuckle) He’s
received only one; only one. Folks! God has only received one Son. You say, “Well how am I
going to make it?” You will make it because you are in him; you are hidden in him. He was
wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our
peace with God was upon him and the New Testament tells us He was scourged.
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7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the
father chasteneth not?
If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons if you have endured it and gotten
through it, then what are you? You’re a son. For what son is he whom the Father chastens not?
Who has made it into Sonship without being chastened and scourged first? The fact of it is, all
the chastening and scourging that Israel went through….did Israel go through chastening? Did
they go through scourging from God? Yes! Did they make it into Sonship? No! That was the
apple at the end of the donkey. That was the proverbial carrot being held out in front of them
that if you endure this you’re going to get to become a son; a co heir; an inheritor with God;
you’re going to get to be a son of God if you keep going. You won’t be just a child any more.
You’ll come in to full inheritance. And how many of them made it? Not one! Have you
forgotten? He was telling the Hebrews, “Have you forgotten? You say you want to go back to
all of these things but you’ve forgotten what goes with it.”
8But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not
sons.
But if you be without chastisement, wherefore all are partakers. How many are partakers?
All! Then are ye bastards and not sons. Wow! Have you seen back here through Hebrews the
way he says that you become a son of God and that it is through the sacrifice of Jesus; that it is
what Jesus did; it’s what Jesus did; it’s what Jesus did; it’s what Jesus did. Over and over in
Hebrews, Galatians, Philippians and Colossians and all of a sudden we have a brand new insight
here that the only way that you can really be sure that you’re a son of God that if you’re
chastened by God. Wow! The whole book has been dedicated to give me confidence that I’m a
son of God because of what Jesus did. And now I’m supposed to determine that I’m a son of
God because of what God does to me? Folks! This is a comparative teaching. He’s showing
them the total foolishness of going back to trusting in the law and the covenant the way it was.
Folks I have been a partaker of God’s chastisement. Why? It’s because I am a partaker of Jesus
Christ. I have been chastened. I have been scourged. Because when Jesus died on that cross,
who did he say was hanging on that cross with him? You are. I was. He took my place and I
am a partaker, not only because I’m a partaker of his chastening, his scourging, his wrath, guess
what I’m a partaker of now? I’m a partaker of his Sonship; his holiness and his righteousness.
Well, Bro. Mike. I’m just upset. I still believe God chastises us. How does he do it? I believe
he scourges us. How does he do it? Is it that torment in your mind? Is that how he chastens
you? Is that how he scourges you? Is it the loss of your job? Is it the loss of your family? Is it
the loss of your child? Is it a disease you’re going through? If you’re going to tell me that God
chastens and scourges me, please don’t leave it to my pathetic simple little mind to figure out
how he does it. If you are going to teach that God chastens and scourges, you have a
responsibility to tell the people how he does it because this world is living under such guilt and
condemnation, I’m telling you, that if you get a toothache, you’re going to be convinced that
this is the chastisement of the Lord upon your life because you know that you deserve
punishment from God. But folks, there’s a power in the Gospel that is so great that it can
deliver you from all that mentality. “You mean it can deliver me from my toothache?”
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Oh, I think it can happen but the most glorious thing isn’t that the toothache is gone. It’s the
mentality of thinking that God is chastening you, is now gone. It is no longer a punishment for
your deeds. It is just a toothache and it’s no longer a heartache included. You’re a bastard and
not a Son if God does not chasten you and scourge you. How are you supposed to know that
you are a son?
What did John say? I John 3:2Now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what
we shall be but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like him. What’s going to
make us just like him? We shall see him as He is not because we’ve changed but because
we’ll see him for what He is and whatever He is.
That’s what we are! How many of you believe He is holy? How many of you believe He is
faultless? How many of you believe He has absolute union with God? Once you see that, what
are you to deduct from that? We are to see that is what we are also. Glory to God!
You are like him not because you act like him, you are like him because you see him for what
He is! And suddenly a revelation comes to your heart that breaks through even the fact that you
have weaknesses, shortcomings, faults and failures and that you are a human. A divine
revelation comes into the heart of a human being who has weaknesses, faults and failures before
God and a revelation comes to your heart that you have been accepted into the beloved; into
Jesus Christ and that He has made you holy. He has made you righteous. Yes! You are a jerk.
Yes! You need changing. Yes! You have shortcomings. Yes! You have faults. The power of
the Gospel is not that it eliminates your faults. It is the power that your faults no longer have the
ability to alienate you from your God.
If the power of the Gospel is centered in that it changes all your actions and deeds and makes
you a non human who has no desires; nothing that distracts you. Then the Gospel is the greatest
failure on the face of this earth and Jesus Christ was the biggest fool for executing it because it
has not happened to even one single human being. Yet we develop churches and denominations
that ha the new plan to get us to that point to where we are no longer drawn to the things of this
world. That individual and that group that no longer has any faults, failures or weaknesses, does
not live on this earth. And if the Gospel was designed to eliminate your weaknesses, faults and
failures then Jesus Christ is the greatest failure that ever came to the planet earth, if that was his
goal. However, if his goal was to come here and to die for the human race so that your
weaknesses, faults and failures couldn’t be held against you even if you didn’t change, then
Jesus Christ is Lord. If what makes him Lord is that you now have it all straightened out, He
isn’t Lord. But if what makes him Lord is that even if you don’t have it straightened out and
you don’t, that didn’t take a revelation. But I’ll guarantee that it will take a revelation to your
heart and mind, especially because of your knowledge of your faults. You know! The person
sitting next to you does not know how many faults you have. The person closest to you does
not know how many weaknesses you have but you do. And because we hide them and because
we’re afraid of other people knowing fully what our real faults, failures and weaknesses are, we
hide them. We internalize them instead of exposing them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They
condemn us and cause us to fall back under guilt. And then, everything that happens to us, our
minds tell us, “See! See! This is what you get. This is what you get.
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9Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them
reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live?
…the Father of flesh? No! It’s the Father of spirits and do what? Live!
10For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit,
that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Now whatever this chastening is, it was for what? It was so that we would profit from it.
What’s the profit of this chastening? What’s the profit? What profit will I get out of this
chastening and scourging that He is talking about? This is the profit. This is the result that
comes from the chastening and scourging that he’s talking about. But he for our profit that we
might be partakers of his holiness. Folks! Whatever this chastening and scouring was, it was
so we could be…what? So we could be holy. Now how many people have become holy
through obedience to the law and being beaten by God until you got beat so bad you finally
decided to give up and be absolutely a good boy the rest of your life. How many of you attained
holiness like that? There has not been a single human being on this face of this earth.
But the chastening and scouring that he is talking about produces what? It produces holiness.
Folks! The only holiness that I know that I have is the holiness I’ve been given as a gift from
Jesus Christ. I’m a partaker of his holiness because He was a partaker of my sin. And because
He suffered the chastening and scourging and punishment from God for my sins, He therefore
imputed to me his righteousness. Since He has imputed to me his righteousness and I did not
deserve it, Jesus also did not deserve to be beaten and chastened by God. And I who deserve it
will never see it. O happy day when Jesus washed…he washed my sin all away…O happy day.
11Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised
thereby.
..Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous. Now! Now! Wait! Who is he
talking about? Who are we supposed to be looking at? Are we supposed to be looking at
ourselves in this chapter? Would you read for me verse 2 again. What does it say? Looking
unto ourselves? What is this all about? This chapter is all about whom?
2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of
God.
11Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous. Who is this referring to folks? You
mean Jesus suffered and now He has set a pattern for us to suffer? That is Catholicism! That’s
what that is and I protest!
But afterward…what happens? This chastening, what does it do? It yieldeth the peaceable fruit
of righteousness. What does this chastening make you before God? It makes you righteous.
What does this chastening make you before God? It makes you a partaker of his holiness.
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How many of you have become partakers of God’s holiness by going through sickness, disease
and poverty or whatever you may deem to be chastening or scouring from God? There’s only
one way that I know of that you can be a partaker of his holiness. And yes it is through
chastening, yes it is through scouring, but it is the scouring and chastening that Jesus took upon
himself. The chastisement of my peace was upon him that I might be a partaker of his holiness.
This chastening brings us the peaceable; it means the declaration of peace with God through the
blood of Jesus Christ and the chastening and scouring He received. Peace is declared and you
receive what? You receive righteousness.
Unto them who are exercised thereby. Exercised toward what? Exercised toward the law? No!
We’re exercised in getting away from the law. We’re exercising ourselves in training ourselves
in the faith of Jesus Christ.
12Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees.
Why are they hanging down? Folks! If you believe God is mad at you….(chuckle) People who
believe they’re going to be chastened and scourged by God, they’re not going to stand and
worship him. Their hands will be hanging down.
And the feeble knees….Weak in the knees! That’s what the term feeble means. What would
make you get weak in the knees? You would fear that God is going to get you. Folks! There’s
so many of us that have lived this way our whole lives; our hands hanging down; our knees
trembling. Well maybe it didn’t show on the outside by on the inside the hands were hanging
down. The knees were weak wondering, ‘what is next’? What’s next? God, what’s next?
13Make straight paths for your feet lest that which is lame be turned out of the way but let it
rather be healed.
What is that path? The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn; it gets brighter and
brighter. It’s not darker and darker filled with gloom with what might be coming.
Lest that which is lame…Lame from having chastening and scouring by God through the Old
Covenant. Not lame because something happened or you were in a car wreck. Folks! We’re
talking about the chastening and scouring of God. He says you’ve got to get out of that
mentality. Lift up the hands that hang down. Get those feeble knees some strength in them and
also make straight paths for your feet lest that which is lame be turned out of the way.
Healed from what? Healed from that horrible dread that chastening, scouring and judgment is
impending from God.
Folks! It’s time all this be healed. I’ve been healed. By his stripes I was healed. Healed of
what? I’ve been healed from ever being chastened and scourged by God. Healed from not
what’s been inflicted on me by the world and by being in the wrong place and getting the flu or
whatever. That’s not what this is talking about. By his stripes I was healed. He took my
beating folks so I could be healed from any beating that I would ever have to take from God.
By His stripes I am healed.
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14Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
Follow peace….Oh! All of a sudden we’ve switched from talking about how God deals with
people to… Oh well, lets just all live in peace. Folks! This peace is not between men that he’s
talking about. Follow peace! Follow the Gospel of peace. God has declared peace with you.
Don’t go to that mentality that God is angry and that he’s chastening and scouring.
Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man will see the lord. Wow! What
you going to get out of this chastening and scouring that Jesus took? You receive holiness,
righteousness and a revelation that God is at peace with you. He’s not angry anymore.
15Look diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up
trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
Look diligently…now wait! What is it to believe the other way? Now he said it’s going to take
some diligence here. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God…where do we
fail of the grace of God? Folks! This is it. The moment you begin to believe that God is
chastening and scourging you, you have failed of the grace of God. What does the grace of God
tell you? It tells you that you are not going to get what you deserve. You will get what you do
not deserve. If you believe that you are getting what you deserve and you think you are being
chastening and scourged by God, what have you failed at? You have failed at the grace of God.
Does that mean you are unrighteous? No, like Paul told the Galatians, it just means you’re
stupid. You’re still righteous. You’re just stupid. I’d rather be stupid than unrighteous any day.
But I don’t want to be stupid either, especially if I’ve already been made righteous. I don’t want
to be stupid after I’ve been made righteous and holy by the blood of the lamb. I don’t want to
be a fool and go back to thinking that the things of this life are the chastening and scouring of
God. I don’t want to be a fool any more. There’s something else that happens when you get
under the mentality that God is chastening and scouring you. It causes you to fail of the grace
of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you….oooh wait! If I believe that I’m under
the chastening and scouring of God, what’s going to spring up in me? Springing up in me will
be a root of bitterness toward whom? People have preached this at me about the root of
bitterness and how I had to forgive everybody and you know if bitterness got into me about
what Momma did or this or that or the other and the whole thing. But folks! This root of
bitterness has nothing to do with people’s relationship with each other. This root of bitterness
has to do with one thing and one thing only, and that is us going around believing that God is
angry with us and the circumstances in this life are the chastening and the scourges from God.
You don’t have to tell me! I know how bitter you’ve been against God. You couldn’t say it
even though you were bitter at God. You still had to go to church and sway with the best.
(chuckle)
I want to admit to you folks that I’ve been bitter with God most of my Christian life. I couldn’t
admit it. You will never know (you may) but it’s impossible to know until you have
The Gospel of Peace Series
God’s Chastisement
Tape VI
19
experienced the freedom that I had when I finally admitted, “Yes I am. I am so ticked off at you
God I could cuss you out right now.”
Oh I know that you’ve never been there. But I got enough of God’s grace to get mad at God
and admit I was and when I finally admitted it, that’s when He finally started showing me that
my whole mentality was completely screwed up. I was finally honest with Him. I’m angry at
you God.
I was molested when I was five years old. I was raped by three adult men that lived in our
community and I was raped every day of my life from the time I was five until I was eleven
years old. It so warped my mentality; warped my view of love and acceptance and attention and
all what that meant. I spent six terms in mental institutions in lock up wards; three attempts at
suicide; shock treatments every other day of my life for a period of time because my mind was
plagued with “why”. Why God did you allow this? A root of bitterness was in me so deep, yet
at the same time, I loved Jesus with all my heart and the plague of trying to figure out ‘why’.
Why me God? Why me God? Why me God? Why God? Why didn’t you stop it? Why God,
if you love me? Why did you let this happen?
Tape ended
Mike Williams Ministries