May 26, 2008

• Background information before looking at the Blaspheme of the Holy Spirit by Pastor Don

  We had to take one of my son’s up to visit his college of choice which necessitated missing one of my April Friday Bible studies (April 14 – I am catching up!).  I do know that family comes first, but I was sad at missing one of the studies because we had been going over the elementary principles of faith in great depth.  Truth be told, I am sad at every study that I have to miss, for Pastor Don teaches so much that I feel deprived when I can’t be there. My friend offered to record the study for me and I am so grateful to her for doing so.  I spent yesterday listening and taking detailed notes because it is on the Blaspheme of the Holy Spirit, a very charged topic. So I took the notes almost verbatim, because I want to get the teaching accurate for you.

  Hebrews 6:1-3 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.

  We are now on the subject of eternal judgment. After “love” Jesus next most frequent subject to teach about was “hell.” Why? Because He didn’t want us to go there. In the last Friday Bible study we looked at the Revelation of Christ and the end times. We have to remember that when the Bible says “forever” it means the ages of the ages.

  There is nothing in scripture that tells us what will happen at the end of our age. This Bible is written to man for man’s time period. There was an age where God was in Heaven with the angels. And there was an age when God was in Heaven with the angels and He created man, and that’s another age. Well there’s another age coming which will be God in Heaven with the angels, and the angels come to earth with God, and God creates a New Heaven and a New Earth and we begin a new age with believers that have resurrected bodies and are now able to fully have the Mind of Christ as well as the Body of Christ, the resurrection Body of Christ. So that’s a different age. There is nothing that tells us what happens after that age or how it formulates. We don’t need to know because when we are with the Lord all things will become evident and we will be able to plug directly into the mind of the Father and then we will know all things. In the presence of God we will know all things and all things will be known to us quickly, instantaneously. We will have the mind of Christ.

  Now, in understanding that, there are some who err in their teaching, and here’s the error. They draw conclusions as to when the ages of the ages will happen and what will happen. We don’t know. We don’t know when one age ends and another begins, unless God has told us in scripture, WE DO NOT KNOW. All we know is that God, the Father, is coming down, there will be a New Jerusalem on the earth. We are going to be with Him forever and ever. That means from age to the next age to the next age. What He is going to do then, we don’t know.

  And we really need to hold people’s feet to the fire when they start telling us ridiculous things like at the end of the age everyone is going to be forgiven and there’s no more sin, no more punishment, no more nothing.

  Well, wait a minute, these things occurred in Heaven with the angels before man was ever created, there was evil. So we know that the narrative of the relationship with God with everything that He’s created will continue. What that will look like we don’t know. So get that old thinking out of your head that when we get to Heaven there’s going to be singing and praising God eternally, and nothing else to do. I don’t know where that idea came from. We will be praising God continually but there is stuff to do. The angels are before the throne praising God continually, but in the meantime they’re getting instruction and they are doing what God tells them to do when He tells them to do it, and they are carrying out their existence.

  Pastor Don told us that He can’t wait to meet his angel and ask him what it was like in the last age, before the age of man. And we don’t even know when God created the angels. They haven’t always been with the Father. We have no sense of life outside of Chronos time. You will grow hopelessly confused trying to figure out what forever looks like. So try not to believe what everyone tells you when they try to tell you what it’s going to look like because they don’t know.

  Someone asked if, when we are in Heaven could 1/3 of us get kicked out like the fallen angels? Pastor Don answered saying that we can’t because with a resurrection body comes a change in nature and in mind. Right now we are flesh dominated, we are carnal, and when we accept that we can understand why we are the way we are. We are carnal. Our flesh dominates us, it causes us to formulate opinions, to make errors, make wrong judgments, to look at circumstances and this affects our life and our health. But, when we get a resurrected body, we are going to be able to pass off the flesh. Yes, we will still have emotions, but we will not have this flesh. There is more to the flesh than we think.

  Pastor Don asked, how many of you have ever been hungry? Was your soul hungry? Does your soul need physical food? Well, what was calling out? Your flesh, your body. Your Spirit man doesn’t have a sex drive, that stems from your body, comes out of your flesh. Someone asked do you have free will? Pastor Don responded that you will always have that. The angels do. God will not take your will away from you. How can you love Him without free will?

  Someone said, the only timeline we know is the 1000 year reign. Pastor Don said, no, we know about the thousands of years in front of that. The timeline we have is a 7000 year period, that the Bible tells us about. Everything after that, the Bible always expresses, and Jesus says, as the ages of the ages. You will be with Me (Jesus) for the ages of the ages. We have a 1000 year period where Christ will reign on the earth, on this specific earth. We know that because the Scripture says it specifically. We don’t know when that happens, because it’s sometime between the 6000th year and the 7000th year of man. For whatever reason, God has us born in this particular gap of time. We are in the age between the sixth day and the seventh day. The apostles want to be us, sitting at the table with us. (Heather’s note, Friday Bible studies we sit around tables.) We are in the first generation that Israel is back in the land. Since 1948, this is the first generation, and that’s the time clock Jesus gave us. He said, that generation (this period of time) is the one that will see it all and right now we are seeing it all.

  The Midwest is getting battered right now with weather. (Heather’s note, look at the deadly tornados in just this past week, and the earthquakes.) All of that is going to continue. Jesus says it will be like the birth pangs of a woman, it’s just going to intensify. Pastor Don was talking about turning on the TV for the weather and seeing a news flash about a boy beating up his teacher, pummeling her in public. The people were standing around watching and one student took a picture with their cell phone. He said, in my generation we couldn’t even imagine speaking back to a teacher. You would be paddled by the principle and the gym teacher, then go home and both your parents would beat your head. What kind of world are we living in? The Bible tells us about how in the last days lawless men will wax cold. You have to be very cold to just stand by. It doesn’t matter what that teacher did, she didn’t deserve that. Others in the Bible study talked about similar incidents, like the 8 girls beating up one girl, and the 8 year old child who planned the abduction of her teacher with the help of classmates.

  In this study we see an amazing transition when it comes to eternal judgment. In all the other parts of this passage, the baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, we had to go to other passages of scripture to learn about these topics. But the writer of Hebrews deals with eternal judgment in the subsequent verses of Hebrews 6. We are going to deal with the standard by which God makes judgment of who’s in and who’s out. Why are they in and why are they out.

  The writer of Hebrews begins with the first condition, which is the BLASPHEME OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Jesus deals with this when He is talking to the Pharisees and He says clearly to them, you will be held guilty and judged for your blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. If you look it up, here’s what it means. It means speaking against the Holy Spirit. If you speak against the Holy Spirit in a serious manner, you are blaspheming. Jesus said you can speak evil against Himself, you can speak evil against Jesus and you will not be judged in the same manner. But to speak against the Holy Spirit and the Work of the Holy Spirit brings you eternal damnation. Brings you to the outside. And He (Jesus) says this not the the general population. He says it to the Priests and the Levites. Pastor Don asked, “Did everybody hear that?” He said it to the Priests and the Levites. They attack Him and respond to Him, but Jesus doesn’t change His position. He says, if you speak evil against the Holy Spirit, and to speak evil means not that you just call the Holy Spirit bad names, but it meant to speak and contradict what the Holy Spirit does, and how the Holy Spirit does it. Not only is the Holy Spirit God, but if you are speaking against the Holy Spirit, you are speaking against His mission, His call, and His duty and responsibilities. 

  Pastor Don told us that this would be like, you can say anything about Don Moore, you can ride the rail with  him, but when Pastor Don steps into the pulpit there is a divine connection between him and the mission and the anointing. When Pastor Don is under the anointing of God, in the pulpit, and you attack him in the pulpit, God’s going to hold you accountable. Therefore, you must recognize that when anyone is doing ministry, at the time that they are doing the ministry they are to be held in special arrangement with God. If you criticize the singers, the dancers in the house of God while they are really trying to do their best unto the Lord, the Lord will take it personally, as an attack on Himself.

  Pastor Don asked the rhetorical question, can you prove that?  Sure, what happened with the Apostle Paul? He was taking Christians, arresting them, throwing them into jail, some were getting murdered. Well Jesus appears to Paul on the Road to Damascus, and says, “Saul, Saul (Paul was named Saul before he converted) why do you persecute Me?” Saul says, “Persecute You? How am I persecuting You?” Well, obviously, if you’re attacking Christ’s body, you are attacking Him, and He considers the Believers as His Body, the Church is His body.  Therefore, we have to be careful about any of the saints that we verbally chastise or speak evil against. You can criticize and say well, she should have worn her dress longer, but if you say, “She should have worn her dress longer, the reason she did that is because she’s a hussy.” Then you’re guilty. You have gone too far, because what you are doing is implying that you understand the stated purpose and you understand the motive behind it.

  So, when you attack the Holy Spirit it is a similar thing. There was a man in this church years ago who used to continue to get together with a certain other member of the church so that they could laugh at Benny Hinn. They didn’t believe in signs and wonders and all of that, so when Benny would come out in his white suit, they would make fun of him and the things he was doing.  This man died a premature death, before that he lost his job and moved out of the area too. The Lord removed him from the Living Word Chapel, which cleared the way for Pastor Don to become the pastor. This guy had moved himself into a position of power and he didn’t want Pastor Don. But the Lord removed him. Before he left, the man came to Pastor Don’s office (Pastor Don was already doing the pastor’s job even though the title had not been conferred yet.) and told him that he couldn’t stay if they put Pastor Don as pastor. He went to Las Vegas. The reason was that his heart was preparing himself to oppose Pastor Don, and Pastor Don was the one God called to be pastor of Living Word Chapel. He knew that he couldn’t stay because that was a battle he could never have won.

  Someone then shared why they left the church for a season, and in response Pastor Don told us that some people who are walking with the Lord get to a place where they feel that some of their needs are not being met by God. For example, they are believing for prosperity and it doesn’t happen. We make a decision, some say my needs are not getting met here so we go off. Actually, sometimes what God is really doing is permitting us to go to these different places with that unmet need, and it helps us to realize that no other place can meet it either, that what we need to do and what we are supposed to do is stay the course. That there is some growing and stuff that we need to do. So then you go out in the world and you do your finances the way you’ve always done them, and then you find that things are not improving. Then you come back because you realize that I really didn’t want to follow instructions, I didn’t understand. Now I’m really ready to prosper, and then all of a sudden God does prosper you. And we do that in a lot of areas of our lives. So when we want to do something that Daddy (God) doesn’t approve of, we run away from the Church. It is part of the process that some (not all) of us prodigals have to do to check the Father’s heart. The prodigal son went away, he did his thing and what was the test?  The test was in his mind, if I go back and am rejected, I’ll be a servant.  He didn’t give his Father all the information. But the reality is the Father’s heart was bigger than what he had thought it to be. And so, when he went back, he was shocked to find, here’s a robe, here’s a ring, and the whole deal.  Who’s going to love the Father more? The Prodigal or the one who stayed?

  After this background we got into the Word.

  Hebrews 6:4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,

  We were told to to underline the words that I put in bold.

  It is IMPOSSIBLE, meaning it cannot happen. Now we have a series of things that a person needs to have before they can blaspheme the Holy Spirit. He has to be enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, be a partaker of the Holy Spirit (done signs and wonders and works) in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, tasted the good Word of God, and have an understanding of scripture and know that it is good and understand this aspect of the Word, and the power of the age to come. Therefore they have to know prophesy and have an understanding of the power that is released because of the prophetic word. A person has to qualify under all of these areas.

  What is the Heavenly Gift? (Jesus Christ). What is the Work of the Holy Spirit in the earth? People came up with answers: comfort, guide, bring to remembrance the things that Jesus has spoken, to reveal truth, chasten and correct. The Holy Spirit’s main work is to convict the world of sin and reveal Jesus. If the Holy Spirit did not reveal Christ to us, we wouldn’t know Him. God the Father, through the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to us.

  Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

  The only one who would meet all these criterion for blaspheme of the Holy Spirit is a really mature adult believer, not a babe in Christ. A lot of people go around saying, “I think I’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit,” but they do not meet these qualifications. In order to blaspheme Him you have to know Him. 

  Someone brought up a question and I could not hear it in the recording, but Pastor Don pointed out that there are some churches that teach that there are varying degrees of sin – there is venial and cardinal, etc. Then you start making labels on it. The truth is, whether you murdered, lied, or stole a bagel when nobody was looking, all sin is sin.

  Pastor Don gave an example. Years ago his wife baked a beautiful pie that was intended for company. Pastor Don knew that company was coming but when he walked through the kitchen he broke off a tiny bit of the crust to eat. His wife was very upset because she had baked the pie for company, and now when she presented the pie to the company the crust would be flawed. Pastor Don joked and said he offered to cut a slice out of the pie with the offending portion of crust in it, but he figured she wouldn’t buy that. Cynthia told him, “Don, you ruined the pie.” He didn’t see how he ruined it because it was just a tiny piece of crust. But she had wanted to present the pie as full and perfect.

  If the pie is righteousness, even a little pinch of sin can ruin the whole pie just as much as if you cut out a slice or eat half the pie. So what Jesus is trying to say to us is that a little lie is just as bad as a bold faced lie. Cheating on your taxes is just the same as robbing a bank. So Jesus is saying, don’t touch the pie, if you mess with the pie you are guilty.  As far as God is concerned you are going to be judged, for any percentage. It doesn’t matter that we don’t commit one type of sin, if we are committing another. We cannot look at our sins and think we are better than another person who has committed a sin that we think is far worse. It is an automatic human response. Jesus would respond, “Yeah, you didn’t do that, but what you did was worse than what they did, and worse than all the other stuff you did.” That’s why He said that the books would be opened and we will be judged by everything we said or did. Even our idle words, our negative speaking. Do you know what maturity is? It is when you think it, you hold it before it comes out of your mouth. That is the difference between a spiritually mature Christian and a babe in Christ. A babe in Christ says it and has to repent. If we get more mature, the words don’t come out, and as we mature more, we won’t even think of it.

  There is still much more to share, but this is a good place to stop for now, and I will write the rest for you tomorrow. I pray your day is abundantly blessed. Right now my oldest is putting together a new barbecue for us – the old one rusted away. I am already marinating chicken in Zesty Italian dressing for the grill, yum. And an ice cream birthday cake is in the freezer for my middle son, Edward, who just turned 18 today.

  Have a blessed Memorial Day, and thanks for being my Xanga friend.

  Heather

  • 12:43 pm
  • 5 Comments