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Man’s original vocation: a reflection
In biblical Christianity, the word vocation, which comes from the Latin word meaning “call”, refers in the original language to a holy calling of a creature by the Creator God, enjoining the creature to accomplish a specific task or to fulfill a definite responsibility.
From the beginning, God assigned to each of His creatures a specific vocation based on the realm of their existence, to the praise of His glory. For instance, all God’s angels are “His ministers, who do His will” (Psalms 103:21); they guard the presence of the Lord and minister to His people, i.e., the saints. “Day and night [the seraphim who stand around the throne of the Most High] never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come” (Revelation 4:8), proclaiming His distinctness and greatness. “The heavenly host bows down to [the Lord]” (Nehemiah 9:6). Inanimate objects, such as the mountains, the valleys and the seas, each perform a specific task as to the will of the Creator God; the animals, the birds of the air, sea creatures and all that moves on the earth, the grass of the field, the trees of the forest, the wind, the waves of the sea, every grain of sand, every speck of dust, every microscopic organism, every molecule, the stars, the moon, the sun and the expanse of the heavens, each have a definite vocation assigned by God at creation.
Nothing exists in the universe that has no mission. In the beginning, God made the light and caused it to shine in the darkness, and He “separated the light from the darkness” (Genesis 1:3). He made the expanse and summoned it to “separate the waters from the waters” (v.6). As for the stars, the sun and the moon, the Lord God said, “let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness” (v.14-18).
As for man, he is the crowning jewel of God’s creation, a volitional being equipped with a mind and a heart, to whom the Lord God gave the earth as his dwelling place. Moreover, he was chosen by God to reflect His holiness on earth, to act as God’s deputy regent on earth, caring for the rest of God’s creation as God Himself would. Man was designated by God to rule the earth, to fill it and to keep it. This was his original vocation. Of all His creatures, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). As God’s image bearer, man is a being capable of embodying the communicable attributes of God. In the moral sense, before the fall, man was good and holy like God – as it is written, “God made men upright” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
On the other hand, among all earthly creatures, man is the only rational being. His natural ability, in addition to his moral purity before the fall, makes him apt to act as God’s representative on earth, unlike other earthly living creatures, namely: animals, birds, sea creatures and every living being on earth – these are creatures of instinct. Because he bears the image of God, man was chosen by God to care for other creatures living on earth. He was called by God to work from the very moment of creation. The first task God commissioned Adam to do was to name the other creatures on earth – “And the man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field” (Genesis 2:20).
The Lord God is Himself a working God. “The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:8-9). God created everything in six literal twenty-hour days, “and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done” (Genesis 2:2). This does not mean that God stopped working, but rather that He rested from His work of creation. God is always working. “He upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). When the Lord made man, He entrusted him with the responsibility to keep the earth; He granted man the privilege to steward and care for the rest of His creation.
As it is written, “The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7). Then God took one of his ribs, after causing a deep sleep to fall upon him, and made the rib into a woman. Then “God blessed [the man and the woman]. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
Thus, from creation, man was appointed deputy regent by God to keep the earth, to the glory of the Lord. As God’s deputy regent, man is to faithfully represent His Maker on earth, so that the glory of God may shine in him. His ways and thoughts ought to be in accord with those of his Maker and Master, the Lord God. He must lead a holy life and rule the earth with uprightness, according to the standard of perfect holiness, which is God Himself. He must be blameless in all his ways and must take care of the earth in the same manner as the Lord would. In other words, man’s character, his manner of life and the exercise of his rule over the earth ought to be a faithful reflection of God’s perfections, a display of the beauty and excellencies of God, a reflection of God’s holiness, springing from righteous living, good stewardship of the earth, perfect obedience to God and conformity to His standard of goodness. Put simply, man ought to be holy in all his conduct, so that the Lord’s glory may shine brightly in him – for God is holy, otherwise man would fall short of the glory of God.
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The Glorious Light of the Gospel
The heart of man in its natural state is the throne room of iniquity, where every vile act and evil intent is brewed, and darkness rules and reigns. But when the Lord in His grace shines the light of the Gospel in that room, this enables the man to understand the misery of walking in darkness. For he begins to see where he is going. And the beautiful mystery of this gracious divine light is that it shines brighter and brighter as the man grows in the knowledge of his divine Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. At salvation’s birth, it is like a beam of sunlight, coming in through the smallest window of the man’s heart, which points him to the source of light and enables him to realize that he resides in darkness and to understand the danger of it. And the Holy Spirit of love who quickens the man directs and empowers him to flee from the darkness and to turn to the light. And as the man matures in his walk in the light, it is no longer a window but a door through which the light shines that is opened. And the light shines brighter in the chamber of his heart and reveals all hidden sins. Thus, as the man grows in holiness, many a sin he sees in the chamber of his heart as the light continues to shine brighter; he beholds more of the beauty and excellencies of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, which enables him to see every tiny speck, even in the most hidden corner of his heart.
#the gospel#the light of life#the light of the world#graciousheaven#free from sin#from death to life
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Man’s chief purpose in life
�� There is an undue confusion in the world today about the purpose of our existence. But the God who made the heavens and their host, the earth and all its inhabitants, and who also sustains all that exists, is not a God of confusion. For, not only has God plainly revealed Himself to us, but He has also distinctively made known to us all that we ought to know, that we may do all that we ought to do and abstain from that which ought not to be done. God did not leave us in a vacuum, with the expectation that we would somehow sort things out on our own. Even the very purpose of our existence, God has made it known to us. The Holy Scriptures clearly express that all things in heaven and on earth exist for the glory of God, to “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name” (1 Chronicles 16:29a). In other words, glorifying God is the ultimate purpose for which the host of heaven, the creation itself and all the inhabitants of the earth exist. And glorifying God, as defined by John Piper, means, ‘Feeling and thinking and acting in ways that reflect His greatness, that make much of God, that give evidence of the supreme greatness of all His attributes and the all-satisfying beauty of His manifold perfections.’
The Apostle John’s vision in Revelation 4 gives us a glimpse of the heavenly host ascribing glory and honour to God. John was in the Spirit when he was taken to the throne room of heaven, where he saw the Lord God Almighty sitting on the throne. “Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads” (v.4). V.6b, “On each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind.” V.8-11, “And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who is seated on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created.”
Human existence is not a cosmic accident as some suppose, nor is it devoid of purpose. We were made by God for the glory of God. We do not exist for ourselves but for God our Creator. The Bible not only clearly tells us that all things, man being no exception, are created by God for His own glory, but it also bears witness that the universe is a glorious display of the Majestic Glory (God). “In the year of King Uzziah’s death [Isaiah] saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:1-3).
These words spoken by God’s angelic ministers are a testimony that all things on earth are a glorious display of the beauty and excellencies of God. By His spoken Word, God brought into existence all creatures and assigned to each one usefulness, and to all a purpose: to glorify their Maker – each according to the ability He has given them – and to rejoice in Him alone. In other words, as creatures of God, the purpose of our lives is to glorify God and glory in Him – He is the object of our worship and the object of our joy. We are here on earth to exalt God, to display His beauty, and to delight in His person and works. The key verses that substantiate the affirmation that we exist for the glory of God are from Isaiah 43:6b-7, where God says: “Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.”
We, the inhabitants of the earth, and everything else on earth exist for the glory of God, to declare His praise (v.21) and to rejoice in Him and His works – just like the angels in heaven give glory and honor to the Lord and rejoice in Him. Thus 1 Chronicles 16:28-34 enjoins the whole universe, “Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength! Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; bring an offering and come before Him! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth; yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice, and let them say among the nations, “The LORD reigns!” Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for He comes to judge the earth. Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever!”
Nothing and no one in all creation should exalt themselves before God, not even the angels of heaven. For the Lord alone is God, and all glory belongs to Him. Nehemiah 9:6 says of the Lord, “You are the LORD, You alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and You preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships You.”
The angels not only worship God, but they also glory in His work of creation – when the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, He asked Job in Job 38:4-7, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you know understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” And apart from praising the power and wisdom of God revealed in the things He has made, the angels of the LORD also glory in His work of redemption – the Lord Jesus says in Luke 15:10, “I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
We ourselves, like the angels, exist to ascribe glory to God – the same is true of the creation. Psalms 19:1-6 reads “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.”
The manifold of God’s works reveals to us who God is. Through the infinite vastness and the beauty and diversity of the creation, God reveals to us His infinite wisdom, beauty, power, goodness, uniqueness, greatness and transcendent majesty. Moreover, God has revealed Himself to us in a very special way through His incarnate Son Jesus Christ, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), so that we may know Him more and greatly glory in Him. “For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross” (v.19-20).
As God’s creatures, in all things we must give glory to Him alone. That is to say, all our thoughts and actions and all the words of our mouths must always be a reflection of God’s perfection of beauty and goodness, and God must always be the only object of our worship and joy. For we exist for the glory of God and to glory in Him alone. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” Let us therefore earnestly pursue the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ and glory in Him alone, for to this we have been called. And may the Lord grant us His grace.
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THE WAR AGAINST THE SOUL
The impact of the fall on human existence is apparent in the various predicaments and afflictions that affect our daily life. There is pain and suffering, illness and death, wars and divisions, famine and poverty, and the like, which affect our physical well-being. But the most dreadful thing to which mankind has been subjected since the fall is the ugly battle against the enemy within, that is, sin and the flesh, and the enemy without, that is, the world and Satan. Sin, the flesh, the world and Satan are man’s cruel enemies. They all have one goal: to destroy the soul of man.
From man’s first cry to his final breath, no respite is known by his soul, because of these fierce enemies who constantly wage war against him. His daily life is marked by sin because he easily gets enticed by the sinful desires and lustful passions of his flesh, due to his fallen nature. On the other hand, he is constantly fed with lies and deceptions by the evil world system and enticed to do evil by Satan the Tempter. Everyone with a sound mind would confirm this. Moreover, it is clear that in this day and age the evil world system and Satan have inflamed their attacks on souls. They resort to very subtle, but sophisticated ploys, to entice hearts. Over the last few decades, the evil world system has enacted all kinds of so-called human rights legislations that subvert God’s sovereign decree and give men the freedom and right to conduct their lives as they please.
We now live in a world where truth is trampled on and every precept instituted by God to define human conduct and action is drowned in the sea of lust, at the peril of the souls of the sons of men. Never before has the world celebrated sin so much and desecrated the hearts of young people through indoctrination. Leaders who operate under Satan’s influence have elaborated all kinds of schemes to encourage self-gratification and rebellion against God and His Son. As it is written, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us’” (Psalms 2:2-3). They claim to promote freedom and human rights, when in reality they are taking souls captive to make them obey Satan. Not only do they rebel against the Lord, but they also encourage their subjects to follow them in their villainies, at the peril of their own souls.
The attack on the soul by the evil world system today stands as the culmination of a long-standing battle. Nowadays, more than ever before, the world has managed to make its abominable practices more appealing by decriminalizing them. Drug use, homosexuality, transgenderism, prostitution, bestiality, the killing of babies in the womb, and many other dark practices condemned by the Lord are legalised in many countries today, in defiance of the decree of the Creator God. Thus says the Lord in Leviticus 20:10-21, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
“If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity. If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or of your father's sister, for that is to make naked one's relative; they shall bear their iniquity. If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness; they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. If a man takes his brother's wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless.”
Thus, the Lord outrightly condemns any licentious conduct and unnatural sexual act among men. But the evil world system has set itself up against the commandments of the Lord, commandments meant to curb sin and its destructiveness in the realm of mankind. What God condemns, the world has declared legal, thereby making abominable acts desirable. Which gives free rein to carnal men and women to indulge in wickedness without restraint, at the peril of their souls.
In the Garden of Eden, Satan told Eve that eating the forbidden fruit would not result in her death, but rather that she would be “like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). But Eve’s obedience to the voice of Satan brought curse upon the earth and upon the entire human race (see Genesis 3:16-19); she and Adam lost Paradise and forfeited the sweet fellowship with God, His blessings and His fatherly love. They became spiritually dead because of their rebellion against God and also subject to physical death and eternal death. Moreover, the consequences of their obedience to Satan’s voice extended to their posterity, that is, to the entire human race. As it is written, “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Today, Satan’s world system is spurning God’s creative order. It is claiming that every person has the right to choose to be a man or a woman, and is expressly commending unnatural sexual acts and degrading conducts, which are not only sinful but an expression of God’s abandonment of those who reject Him and suppress the truth. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:18-32).
1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God.”
Satan, the all-time murderer, and his emissaries have baited their snares to attract more prey. In their hands is a shackle for the neck of men’s souls, called decriminalization. To the eyes of those who are spiritually blind, it has the appearance of a jewel – a crown of freedom. But in fact it is a deadly weapon against the soul. Laws that condemn the truth and encourage people to freely indulge in sinful practices and to subvert God’s instituted order – nothing is more deceitful and wicked.
Decriminalization is an overt act of hostility and affront toward God and a very subtle means of seduction used by the world to seduce the hearts of sinful men and spur them to continue in rebellion against the Lord. And the main purpose is to keep them at enmity with God and slaves of darkness, in order that they may incur condemnation and eternal destruction; “for the devious person is an abomination to the LORD, but the upright are in His confidence” (Proverbs 5:32). Psalms 1:1-6, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”
By validating the lascivious desires and vicious appetites of the flesh, the ruler of this world, through the agency of his emissaries, has further clouded the minds, stopped the ears, blinded the eyes, and hardened the hearts of those who walk according to the flesh against the Lord. By means of lying speech and promises of false hope, carnal men and women – especially young people – are drawn into the snares of the devil, the ruler of this world, and are held captive by death. They blindly engage in unprofitable acts, having lost all sense of their purpose in life. And to ensure his dominion over them and a furthered hardening of their hearts against God and His Son, Satan relentlessly works through his minions to lead them in this unavailing quest.
There are a multitude of secular books, videos and writings on social media today that advise people on how to find their purpose in life and on other related topics. They are empty teachings, devoid of knowledge and truth. The objective of the minds behind these ploys, although some of them may not even be aware of it, is to keep people in darkness. For what they teach is not rooted in objective truth, that is, the Word of God, but in falsehood. They have exchanged the Word of God for demonic doctrines that exalt man and make him the centre of all things.
On the other hand, many political, social, economic, and religious figures as well as show-business celebrities who despise God and His Word are using their influence and popularity to fiercely promote the licentious conduct and abominable acts condemned by God. And their main target is young people and children. In many nations today, young people and children from kindergarten are being imposed a sex education curriculum, which is mainly built to force into their immature brains the abominable practices and licentious lifestyle condemned by God, and to entertain in their little hearts hatred against God’s Word. The proponents of this diabolic plan are cleverly positioned everywhere by the ruler of this world to do his bidding, and their aim is to keep souls captive to him. They are using all sorts of tools – advertisements, TV shows, movies, cartoons, street parades, drag queen shows, rainbow-colored posters and flags, books and other media – to peddle their villainies.
These men and women are Satan’s mouthpieces: promoting lies and deceptions, they encourage people to indulge in the evil desires of the flesh rather than pursuing the glory of God. They claim that man’s purpose in life is his self-esteem, self-fulfillment, self-exaltation, self-determination, self-sufficiency, self-interest, and self-gratification. This is the devil’s lie, intended to keep man captive to sin and death, forever at enmity with God, away from His glorious presence forever.
“It is [the Lord] who has made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalms 100:3). He made all things – heaven and earth and all that is in them – for His own glory. Therefore, anyone who does not pursue the glory of the Lord, by his self-seeking shall he be destroyed. Jude 1:5-7 tells us “that Jesus [the eternal God], who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day – just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” Romans 2:6-8 reads, “[God] will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”
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#be reconciled to god#baptism of the holy spirit#spiritual baptism#be born again#born of the spirit#Spotify
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Who Can Receive the Holy Spirit
Unlike water baptism, which can be accessed by almost everyone, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is exclusively for God’s elect. It is administered by God to those whom He chose in eternity passed as an inheritance to His Son, according to the riches of His grace. Before the foundation of the world, God chose many men and women as a love gift for His Son. But all of them, like the rest of mankind, were short of the glory of God, because of their enslavement to sin. But in the fullness of His love for them, God purposed their redemption. And when the time appointed by God to purchase them came, the Son took on flesh and came into the world, being sent by the Father. The Son then lived and died as their substitute, thereby cancelling their guilt and setting them free from sin, death, Satan, and divine wrath. After His resurrection from the dead and His ascension to glory, where He now sits at the right hand of the Father, the Son sent the Holy Spirit to infuse their souls with life.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a precious jewel with which Christ the Lord arrays the souls of those who belong to Him; it is the gift of God’s Beloved to His bride the Church. Christ pours out His Spirit on those given to Him by the Father and for whom He died. Through the outpouring of His Spirit, Christ gives a new mind and a new heart to His elect and makes them all partakers of the divine nature and members of one body (the body of Christ), thereby setting them apart for Himself, the Lord their God. Thus, the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”
The Triune God works in perfect unity, harmony and love, and with great fervency, condescension and transcendency to complete our salvation – as it is written, “Those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30). In eternity past, God chose to bestow His love on some men and women and to make them a people of His own possession. These He draws to Himself, establishes an intimate relationship with them, and conforms them to the image of His own Son. And through the righteousness of the Son, which is graciously imputed to them, they obtain pardon from the guilt and penalty of sin and are treated by God as righteous. Now the day is coming when God will glorify them all.
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What is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the act by which the Holy Spirit, at salvation's birth, unites God’s elect to the body of Christ by taking residence in them and empowers them for spiritual growth and perseverance in the faith. By this sovereign and supernatural act of God, the Holy Spirit brings us from spiritual deadness to life in the Spirit and produces in us repentance and faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God. Which means that our baptism by the Holy Spirit and the regeneration of our heart occur simultaneously. In other words, the moment the Holy Spirit takes residence in us, we become a new creation; the Spirit brings us forth in Christ and seals us into the family of God. We are therefore born of the Spirit through our baptism by the Spirit of Christ, and we are blessed with the gift of salvation the very moment that Christ baptizes us with His Spirit.
Baptism by the Holy Spirit is the mark of a genuine believer, the proof that someone is a new creation. There is no new creation, there is no new birth apart from the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God regenerates us through the instrumentality of God’s Word – as our Lord Jesus says in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” Therefore, those who reject the Word of God remain spiritually dead; they cannot experience the new birth and are therefore condemned to eternal destruction – as the Lord Jesus declares in John 3:5, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”
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Who can Baptise with the Holy Spirit
The baptism of the Holy Spirit happens at conversion and precedes water baptism. And God alone has the prerogative, the authority and the power to baptise people with the Holy Spirit. As the Author of life, God regenerates those He predestined for adoption by baptizing them with His Spirit. By the baptism of the Spirit, they receive a new nature (the divine nature), and this new nature is evidenced by their repentance and faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God. Which means that regeneration precedes faith. And faith is a gift of God implanted in the hearts of God's elect at the time of their regeneration. So the Lord baptises us with the Holy Spirit, leads us to repentance and gives us faith to believe in Him, and He also seals us into His eternal love.
No one but God baptises with the Spirit – the Holy Spirit comes down from above. For instance, when Peter was preaching the Good News to Cornelius and his family and close friends, it is written in Acts 10:44, “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who were listening to his message.” Verse 48a reads, “And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.” So, through the instrumentality of the Word of God preached by Peter, the Holy Spirit regenerated these people and they began to speak in tongues and to glorify God (cf. v.46). And Peter, a witness of their conversion, ordered them to be baptised with water.
There are many false teachers and so-called prophets and apostles today who revile the Spirit of grace by claiming to wield the power to baptise with the Spirit – a prerogative that belongs exclusively to God. These are children of the devil, enemies of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, devoted to the work of their father the devil. They lay their hands on people and cause them to fall into an ecstatic state, and then spuriously ascribe their satanic schemes to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a force that man can draw upon or manipulate as he pleases, nor is He a violent being who knocks people down. The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Triune God: He is one in essence with the Father and the Son, and equal with Them in character. He is God and therefore sovereign. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is so gentle that when He descended upon the Son of God at His baptism He had the appearance of a dove.
The activity of these so-called miracle workers is therefore an utter blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. For the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an exclusive prerogative of Christ. No one but Christ has the authority and the power to baptise with the Holy Spirit. In John 1:32-34, John the Baptist asserts Christ’s exclusive authority to baptise with the Holy Spirit when he gives this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and stay on Him. I still did not know that He was the One, but God, who sent me to baptize with water, had said to me, ‘You will see the Spirit come down and stay on a man; He is the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen it,’ said John, ‘and I tell you that He is the Son of God.’”
In the Old Testament, the Lord promised to make a new covenant with His people – not like the covenant He once made with their fathers and to which they were unfaithful, but a covenant which they would not break. For God Himself would see to it: the keeping of this new covenant by the people of God would be attained thanks to the circumcision of their heart by the Lord. Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, God would put an end to the hardness of their heart and cause them to walk according to His precepts. Furthermore, in His steadfast love, God promised that He would forgive their iniquities and cancel their guilt. Jeremiah 31:31-34 reads, “‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD. ‘For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the LORD: ‘I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember’.”
Ezekiel 11:17-20 gives us a promise parallel to that made by God in Jeremiah. It reads, “This is what the LORD God says: ‘I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries among which you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. When they come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it. And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may walk in My statutes, and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.’”
God's promise in the Old Testament to circumcise the heart of men and to blot out their sins is not limited to the people of Israel but is extended also to those outside of the Mosaic covenant. The Lord promised in Joel 2:28-32, “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.” In Isaiah 44:3-5 the Lord declares, “I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, ‘I am the Lord's,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord's,’ and name himself by the name of Israel.”
Before His crucifixion, followed by His resurrection and ascension to glory, the Lord Jesus promised His disciples the coming of the Holy Spirit, saying, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:16-20). Christ had been with His disciples physically during His earthly ministry and would be in them at the coming of the Spirit of promise. For the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, sent by Christ to bear witness about Christ – as Christ Himself says in John 15:26, “when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me.”
On the Day of Pentecost the Lord fulfilled the promise He made to His disciples – “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). This was the first instance where the Holy Spirit came upon many believers at once, about 120 Jewish believers who were gathered together in one place. This primary event, which marked the transition from Israel to the Church, is an expression of God’s design to ensure the faithfulness of His people to the new covenant He has made with them, a covenant sealed with the precious blood of His own Son. It was followed by similar instances which involved Samaritan and Gentile believers. In Acts 8, the Samaritans who received the Word of God spoken by Philip also received the Holy Spirit when Peter and John – sent from Jerusalem by their fellow Apostles when they heard that Samaria had received the Word of God – laid their hands on them after an offering of prayer to God. In Acts 10, the Lord poured out His Spirit on Cornelius, his relatives and close friends – these were all Gentiles – while Peter was preaching the Word of God to them. All these events are a partial fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. For Joel’s prophecy will be completely fulfilled at the return of Christ, when He comes to establish His millennial Kingdom.
The Lord is the pillar and sure foundation of His Church. He has charged His followers to make disciples through the preaching and teaching of His word and to baptize them with water. But no one but Christ Himself has the prerogative, the power, and the authority to seal sinners into the family of God. The Lord is the One who baptizes sinners into His body; He baptizes sinners with His Spirit according to His definite plan and the riches of His grace.
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Be On the Alert
The day is coming when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire. He will inflict “vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might, when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-10).
There is no greater misery than one being cast out, away from the glorious presence of the Lord forever. Beloved, please, do not sleep today until you have answered this question for your own sake. Where will you be when the Lord Jesus returns to judge the world? Will you be among His saints, rejoicing at the coming of the King of glory and marveling at Him? Or will you be among the reprobates in the outer darkness, in the hell of fire, away from the Lord, where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:42).
I urge you today, beloved, if you do not know God personally nor have obeyed the gospel of Christ, to seek the face of God now while He is near. Please turn away from evil and do not rely on your good works to save you. Run to Christ the Lord and Savior. He died on the cross to save sinners. Do not harden your heart today! Seek His face while His grace is still available for you. For today is the day of salvation. The day of God’s wrath is coming speedily. Every day that passes brings us closer to it. And death, the enemy of all mankind, is never asleep; it claims the life of many every day and escorts them to the grave. No one knows when this enemy strikes.
Beloved, I want you to know that to die in sin is the beginning of eternal misery. For there is no rest for the ungodly, but torment. “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked” (Isaiah 48:22). Every unrepentant sinner is a wicked person in the sight of God. But there is hope, peace, rest, joy and life eternal for those who die in Christ. The Lord promises forgiveness, eternal life, inexpressible joy and everlasting peace to all who recognize their sinfulness, their inability to pay God the penalty for their sins, and entrust themselves to Christ the Lord. Please repent of your sins now and put your trust in Christ. All your sins will be forgiven and you will be among the saints of God on that day when the Lord returns. And you will share in His glorious inheritance and enjoy His presence forever. Please do so and pass the message to your neighbor!
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Who Should Receive Water Baptism
Christ instituted water baptism so that those whom the Father had predestined for adoption in eternity past, and for whom the Son died and who would be raised from spiritual death by the Holy Spirit, might identify with the Son in His death, burial, and resurrection. That is to say, water baptism must be administered to everyone who is brought from death to life by the Holy Spirit of grace and is led to repentance and faith in Christ, being justified “by the blood of His cross” (cf. Colossians 1:20). But today, more and more unregenerate people are being baptized with water, mainly because of the heresy of the Roman Catholic church and other denominations that teach that water baptism saves, but also as a result of the activity of false teachers whose hearts are trained in greed: they offer to the world a watered down version of the Gospel and a cheap Christianity that does not require a change of heart. They twist God's Word for their own evil purposes and preach a God who neither punishes sin nor hates the wicked. They make the Gospel palatable to those who love the darkness, thereby attracting to themselves huge crowds of carnal men and women. And as 2 Peter 2:19a says, “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.”
Hell will be filled with people who received water baptism without being born of the Spirit, because they were told that water baptism was the means of salvation. The growing number of Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and many other so-called Christians whose faith is founded on the destructive heresies they have embraced is astonishing. Not to mention that many of them have already left this world with their sins unforgiven. The world today is full of people who received the sacrament of baptism when they were young adolescents or children, but who now deny the faith they once professed and blaspheme the Truth. Such apostasy is proof that water baptism does not regenerate. Otherwise, they would have continued in the faith. For He who grants the gift of faith preserves all those united to Him by such faith. It is impossible for Him to lose them. “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out”, says the Lord in John 6:37. V.39, “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day.”
The Lord cannot lose any of His sheep. He preserves His own to the end (cf. John 10:28-30). He who begins a good work in the heart of sinful man brings it to completion (cf. Philippians 1:6). Such apostasy also shows that the new birth does not depend on human will, decision, or effort. Salvation is God’s sovereign work ((cf. Acts 2:47b). The natural man is both unwilling and unable to break the shackles that hold his soul captive. He is controlled by the flesh, and being double-blinded by Satan, he has no desire for the things of God – as the Lord says in John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Whoever receives water baptism and denies the faith afterward shows therefore that he has never been of the Truth. His wandering away betrays the hardness of his heart and his hostility toward God and testifies that he has not been born of God (cf. 1 John 2:19).
The Spirit of Truth abides in those He regenerates “and causes [them] to walk in [His] statutes and be careful to obey [His] rules” (Ezekiel 36:27). If you are regenerated by the Spirit of grace, as the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” For all who are born again become “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (1 Peter 1:4), and they no longer “walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). The Lord Himself affirms this in John 10:27-29 when He says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.”
Given the fact that water baptism is administered by man, access to it is very easy, especially nowadays. With the rise of false teachings and the proliferation of false churches across the world, many people receive this form of baptism because they have been told that it saves. Moreover, even in churches that are faithful to the Word of God, when it comes to the baptism of new converts, time is often needed to help determine whether the profession of faith made by someone at their baptism was genuine. For the circumcision of the heart, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, is a personal and invisible experience. No man can read the intention of the thoughts of his neighbour’s heart. For instance, Simon the magician’s response to Phililip’s preaching in Acts 8 at it first seemed genuine to Philip and other Samaritans, and so Simon too was baptized with water along with those who genuinely believed. But it was only later that the true condition of Simon’s heart was disclosed as he sought to “obtain the gift of God with money” (v.20).
This explains why someone can be a member of a local church and yet not of Christ, but is nothing more than a child of the devil. Receiving water baptism in order to be part of a local congregation, holding a vital role in a church, or devoting oneself to serving others, does not make a person a member of the body of Christ. There is no union with Christ without the circumcision of the heart by the Holy Spirit and His indwelling presence – as it is written, “Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him” (Romans 8:9b).
Water baptism without a prior renewal of the head and heart carried out by the Holy Spirit avails nothing. We have as proof Simon the magician who, prior to the proclamation of the Gospel in Samaria by Philip, “had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed” (Acts 8:9-13).
Now when news reached Jerusalem that the people of Samaria had believed God’s Word, the Apostles sent Peter and John. Verse 15-17 reads, “When they arrived, they prayed for the believers that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit had not yet come down on any of them; they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” V.18-19 tells us that, “Simon saw that the Spirit had been given to the believers when the Apostles placed their hands on them. So he offered money to Peter and John, and said, ‘Give this power to me too, so that anyone I place my hands on will receive the Holy Spirit.’”
It is obvious that this magician was not regenerated. Although he was baptised with water like the genuine believers, the intent of his heart did not change at all but remained wicked; he was still a slave to sin. He partook of the sacrament of baptism despite the fact that he was not born of the Spirit. And since water baptism does not regenerate, he could not bear any fruit consistent with repentance. His persistent inclination toward evil exposed his hypocrisy; it revealed the shallowness of his faith, a faith that was motivated by purely selfish reasons (cf. v.19).
The unfruitfulness of Simon the magician confirms what the Lord Jesus says in Matthew 7:18, “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.” A contrast between Simon’s lack of spiritual fruit and the instantaneous yield of fruit by certain residents of Ephesus who, like Simon, were once firmly established in the arts of magic, but came to faith through Paul’s Spirit-empowered ministry, enables us to clearly understand this affirmation. Through signs and wonders and the preaching of the Word, the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified in Ephesus, “And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver” (Acts 19:18-19).
A heart that is the throne room of iniquity cannot bear good fruit. It takes the circumcision of the heart of man and its pruning by the Holy Spirit for man to bear the fruit of righteousness. A person’s true identity is known by their fruit. The kind of fruit Simon bore thus revealed to the Apostles that he was a bad tree, one that had not undergone divine circumcision and pruning by the Spirit of truth. And in response to his sinful request (cf. v.19), the Apostle Peter then said to him, “May you and your money go to hell, for thinking that you can buy God’s gift with money! You have no part or share in our work, because your heart is not right in God’s sight. Repent, then, of this evil plan of yours, and pray to the Lord that He will forgive you for thinking such a thing as this. For I see that you are full of bitter envy and are a prisoner of sin” (verse 20-23).
Anyone who receives water baptism without being regenerated by the Holy Spirit does so at his own peril. It should be noted, however, that given the fact that water baptism is a requirement for membership in many congregations, some carnal men whose hearts are trained in perversity go through water baptism to gain access to the sheep pen and the opportunity to move stealthily among the sheep, carrying out the deeds of their father the devil. In other words, water baptism has become a means through which some wolves conceal their identity and sneak into the church to cause dissensions and divisions among the sheep.
The devil is a master of discord who likes to create strife among the children of God, and he does so through the agency of his own children. This explains why there is a growing number of carnal men and women who occupy the church pews or stand at the pulpit today. Like Simon the magician who received water baptism while he was still “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:23), they partake of the sacrament of baptism purely for evil purposes.
However, their presence in the church does not escape the sovereignty of the Lord: He has predetermined it. Moreover, He does not desire to oust them now, but to leave them until the day of harvest, as He clearly explains to us through the Parable of the wheat and the tares. According to this parable, these individuals are tares sown among the wheat by their father the devil (cf. Matthew 13:25). In other passages of the Bible, these sons of disobedience are called thorn bushes, goats dressed in sheep clothing, ferocious wolves who desire to devour the sheep. But when the King of glory returns, He “will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into My barn” (v.30). Christ will cut down and throw into the fire every tree that does not bear good fruit (cf. Matthew 7:19); He will expose the hypocrisy of the goats and separate them from His sheep; He will put an end to the revelry and viciousness of the wolves and thrust them into the eternal hell of fire. The Great Shepherd knows His sheep: He chose them and bought them with His precious blood, and through His resurrection from the dead, they have “been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God” (1 Peter 1:23), being baptized by the Holy Spirit of love.
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