Sword of the Spirit

2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 KJV Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;  [4] Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 2 Thessalonians 2:7 KJV For the mystery of iniquity doth already work:  2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 KJV Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,  [10] And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.  [11] And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:  [12] That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. ******* Brethrens, in these perilious times, in order not to be deceived by the coming Antichrist whi

O Wretched Man That I Am! (Excerpts) by Andrew Murray God does not work by His Spirit as He works by a blind force in nature.  He leads His people on as reasonable, intelligent beings, and, therefore, when He wants to give us that Holy Spirit whom He has promised,  He brings us first to the end of self, to the conviction that though we have been striving to obey the Law, we have failed.  When we have come to the end of that, then He shows us that in the Holy Spirit we have the power of obedience, the power of victory, and the power of real holiness.  God works to will, and He is ready to work to do, but, alas! many Christians misunderstand this.  They think because they have the will, it is enough, and that now they are able to do.  This is not so.  The new will is a permanent gift, an attribute of the new nature.  The power to do is not a permanent gift, but must be each moment received from the Holy Spirit.   The man who is conscious of his own impotence as a believer will learn that

We must know God before we can love Him.  To know God, we must often think of Him. And when we come to love Him, we will think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure. 

Our Calling (Excerpts) By Smith Wigglesworth  One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Ephesians 4:5 I must touch the thought of baptism this morning.  We must get away from the thought of water baptism when we are in the epistles.  If water baptism is at all mentioned in any way, it is always mentioned as a past tense.  We must always remember this, beloved, that while water baptism, in my opinion, is essential,  “He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.”  I wouldn’t say for a moment a man could not be saved without he was baptized in water, because it would be contrary to Scripture.  Yet I see there is a blending.  If we turn to the third chapter of John’s gospel we find: ...Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  John 3:5 I believe God would have us to know that we never ought to put aside water baptism, but believe it is in perfect conjunction and in operation with the working of the Spirit that we may be buried with Him. But o

The Ordinance Of Baptism By John G Lake It has been a great joy to me in these last few years to realize that God is revealing once again, by the Holy Ghost, the real revelation of the purpose of the ordinances that Jesus Christ established, particularly the ordinance of baptism.  This ordinance, in the beginning of the Church's history, was a great and blessed and dignified ordinance of God which caused men and women to come deliberately forward and commit themselves to the Lord as disciples of Jesus, notwithstanding that the mere fact of that deed meant that their names would be taken by a Roman officer. (I speak now of the time of the great and terrible persecution of the Christians after Christ, and which continued until the Third Century.) A Roman officer would take the names of the Christians who were baptized, and these were forwarded to Rome.  Instantly, they ceased to have any further right or protection of law under the Roman government.  Their estates were confiscated, a

True Religion Paul declared that true religion does not consist of meat and drink or any ritual observances.  Indeed, it does not lie in any outward thing whatever. It is not in anything outside the heart. The whole essence of true religion is in righteousness, peace and joy. Forms and ceremonies, even of the best kind, are outward things, and not true religion. Suppose these religious ceremonies to be decent, significant, expressive or spiritual things, and helpful to both the educated and the uneducated. Consider them, as on the case of the Jews, to be appointed by God himself Nevertheless, they do not contain true religion even during the time that God's appointment of them remains in force.  Strictly speaking, they do not contain true religion at all. This is even more true regarding rites and forms that are only creations of men. The religion of Jesus rises infinitely higher and goes immensely deeper than all of these ceremonies. Ceremonies are good in their place, just as lon