Please do yourself a favour and read this or listen to it.I am not chasing “Likes and follows”!! .These messages came out of 35 years of struggle and prayer and fasting to know the Lord and what He has done.
Below is the audio message-click photo of myself (center) dancing Israeli dance in Jerusalem in 1997 when I served there for 6 months with Christians and Messianic Jews.
The falling away is falling from Grace it is not someone going and living in habitual sin or worshiping some foreign God it’s a falling from grace and this lines up with so many many portions of scripture.
For instance Jesus said “many will come and say “Lord Lord” and he’ll say “I never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness”. I’ve preached that before and people messaged and said this is hard to understand yes it’s hard to understand because it’s not preached in the church but this is what Paul preached to the Christians in Galatia.
Christians – born again, filled with the spirit, were going back to the old Covenant. They were getting circumcised, they were keeping certain elements of the law and Paul warned them warned them that to do that, if they did that, Christ would not profit them. Christ would not profit them !Do you hear that? So if you are in a church or you believe that you need to keep the law, I know it sounds like heresy to you, but if you believe that, then Christ will not profit you! Do you hear that? Christ will not profit you if you are trying to keep the law!
Oh does that mean we get to break the law? No that’s what they said about Paul’s preaching –
Romans 6- “shall we continue in sin that grace may abound”
That’s what some people were saying. It’s a whole different ball game because the ‘old man’, (Rom 6:6)the the old self he lived in a place of Separation trying to please God with his outward performance – that’s the old Covenant. But the new man is ‘one spirit with Jesus Christ'(1Co6:17) and Jesus Christ is the only one who pleases God that’s why God makes you one with him.
To fall away from the Lord is to go back to trying to please him by works. To try to keep the law is to reject the cross, to reject what he did and instead trying to do something yourself. It’s very subtle. So unless a large amount of Christians do that Antichrist would not be revealed but a large amount of Christians have been doing that for the last 100 years!
Pentecostals are the worst! Preaching the law from the pulpit, causing people to feel like they have to obey God and keep his Commandments is bringing /setting people up for this falling away… it’s setting your flock up to try hard to please God by having a perfect obedience to the law.
I heard a preacher the other day, I’m going to name him dear brother, Loren Livingston.. 50,000 views he got for his message.. I saw it a few days ago and he said, ‘I get up in the morning, first thing I do, and I begin to speak to myself that I’m going to be a good boy today.’ That’s basically what he was saying. ‘!
I’m going to be a good boy.. I’m going to do the right thing… I’m not going to sin today!
Friend, dear Loren, that is the old Covenant mindset! That is the old Covenant… and all you’re doing is preaching death! I know you’re sincere and I know you love Jesus! This is the hard thing to see.. God bless you.
Paul was teaching the Galatians that they were crucified with Christ. He ‘labored that Christ might be formed in them’.(Gal 4:19) But then along came the Judaizers, ‘false Brethren who came in'(Gal 2:4) suggesting to them that ‘it was not enough to just believe you have to be circumcised’..
And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage),
which led to other things they had to do as well and Paul recognizing that, because he was a Pharisee before said,
‘if you do this you’re a debtor to keep the whole law the the whole law. You can’t just keep one you!You are a debtor to keep the whole law because you’ve taken yourself out of Grace and now you put yourself under the old system then the old system demands that you must keep every one of the laws and see how you go doing that because, if you do that you will walk in condemnation, you will walk in Pride at times when you do well and when you don’t do well you’ll walk in condemnation and that is the experience of most Christians today. That’s because they are living according to the law and not according to the inner life and the grace of God and of course we learn as we go along, the holy spirit is teaching us but, it doesn’t help when you have preachers who haven’t learned it themselves and they’re pastoring God’s people and they’re bringing them under the heavy yoke of the law.
For decades and decades Pentecostals have been entrenched in this way of living, beating themselves up trying desperately to be good enough for God by Sunday so that they don’t feel condemned when they come into the building and afraid that they’re going to be exposed…
Friend you haven’t heard the gospel and so the falling away is a falling from Grace where you you don’t see the finished work and you insist on trying to complete the work that ‘Jesus just didn’t do‘(sic).
You feel so inadequate, you realize you continually fail at keeping the law though you try your darndest and you try so hard that you reason that ‘because I’m like this Jesus didn’t complete the work, I’ve got to try really hard in order to please God’ and so you’re in deception, you’ve left the arena of grace, though God hasn’t left you, but you’ve left him in your mind and now you have fallen from grace and there are multitudes of Christians exactly like that, and they’re in a church full of Christians like that, with a pastor who is keeping them like that by continually suggesting that they are falling short!, continually suggesting to them strongly, even directly, that they are falling short, and need to repent of all of their sins!
Friend Jesus has already forgiven you all your sins! Colossians 2:13 I believe
“who has forgiven you all trespassers who has wiped out the handwriting of the requirements of the law that were against you, that were contrary to you.
Contrary to you. You are now clean, you are now holy, washed, righteous,redeemed, permanently not just until you sin! You are the Holiness and righteousness of God because Jesus Christ has come to live inside of you.. as you! Joined with you.. God did not expect you to be able to measure up he gave you the one who measures up more than enough he gave you Jesus who is effectively working in You by his power !Working in you.. he is transforming you and he has transformed you.
He has given you a new heart and a new life and a new spirit so there’s no need for us to go back to try to please God by what we do… and there’s no need for us to fear because “we haven’t received a spirit of fear again unto bondage, but we have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry “Abba Father”! Rom 8
For we “are all sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ”Gal 3:26 You don’t become a son through obeying him… as I’ve heard some preach, you are a son by faith in Jesus Christ and that faith is the faith that belongs to Jesus! Gal 2:20KJV
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Jesus brought that Faith, “his faith” into you when He came to live in you.. It’s the only way. He didn’t leave it up to you to have enough Faith.. He didn’t leave it up to you to be able to obey him good enough… He came in! He forgave you, gave you a new heart… so you can just be yourself and rest in him knowing that he has got you… that he is carrying you… that he is living the life pleasing to God for you.
Preachers say ‘You should, now that you’re saved, you should live your life for God!” and they quote 2 Corinthians 5
Paul said “the love of Christ compels us because we judge thus: that if one died for all, then all died and he died for all that you should no longer live for yourself but for him who died for you.’
Preachers pounce on that– “you should no longer live for yourself but for God- live your life for God!!- they exhort their people… “Are you living for God?!” They suggest that going to the football or watching a movie is not living for God.. “That’s the world! That’s living for the world!” And so little by little the flock stops doing any of that. They stop having fun… because to have fun..? “That’s world”! and “to love the world, well, which is passing away, that’s worldly!” and so.. “You can’t say you love God if you love the world!” and so they don’t enjoy their life in this world because they’re afraid of “loving the world” because the pastor is preaching at them as if they are the old man with the old man’s tendencies to sin.
He’s not preaching to the new creation that they are and building them up on their ‘most holy faith’…Ju1:20– No. He’s accusing them and condemning them and holding them in that pigeon hole… he’s categorizing them as the old man, the flesh man who was crucified and buried in baptism with Christ… And you’re not that person anymore!!
So when Paul said “the love of Christ compels us, for we judge thus, that if one died for all,– Jesus died for all– “then all died!” All died! That old person you were.. that had a tendency to love the world.. died!!
But now you’re a new creature and he died for you — he died for you that you should no longer live for yourself Hallelujah!! But you will live for him Who died for you!
Friend do you hear that? That is what Jesus did for you! He died.. took you into his death.. so that now you do not live for yourself!! You live for God!!
Not because you’re trying to.. not because you go to church or you witness to people… he died that you should no longer live for yourself! Hallelujah!! You don’t live for yourself.. Born Again, New Creation brother or sister, you do not live for yourself – you live for God!!
When you’re brushing your teeth– you’re living for God-— When you’re making love with your wife or husband– you are living for God— When you are sitting on the edge of the beach with your children– laughing– you are living for God!! When you are singing along to the radio –some pop song– You Are living for God— oh Hallelujah!! When you’re walking through the forest with your children– or with your dog –with an unsaved neighbor– you are living for God!! Whether you talk about him or not!!
He died for you that you should no longer live for yourself but for him who loved you who gave his life for you. Hallelujah!!
You see preachers hold us in this pigeon hole and preach at us as if we are that “old man” and they’re worried that we’re going to go and sin.. so they bind us up and beat us up with- “You should live for God! Make sure every morning you read your word! Make sure every morning you get on your knees and pray! And it’s all Old Covenant rubbish!! It’s rubbish! It’s death! And you should get out of there.. you should ask God to lead you to a grace filled church where you’ll be set free and brought into his rest and his peace.. Hallelujah! more next time