In his second letter to the Thessalonians, Paul teaches that before the Day of the Lord, the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, will be revealed. This coming world ruler, the antichrist, will attract followers from all over the world with his magnetic personality.

He will be a financial and political genius.

In Daniel 7 he is referred to as the “man of sin, the “little horn.” Daniel wrote, “This horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boasts.”

He will be boastful and egotistical, a megalomaniac in his quest for world power. He will come preaching peace. But Daniel says, “through peace he will destroy many.” (Daniel 8:25)

His authority will be overpowering, his hatreds intense, his political techniques first rate. The news media will not be able to resist covering his every move and pronouncement – however outrageous.

He will be a master deceiver, able to make many people think good is bad and bad is good. During his administration, everyone will receive an ID number. You won’t be able to buy food or anything else unless you have this government-issued ID.

You may be thinking, “He won’t deceive me!” The Bible says, “He will deceive the very elect, if it were possible.”

Antichrist’s extraordinary ego will soak up the adulation and worship from his followers. Like his father the devil, what he ultimately wants is worship.

Paul wrote that he “takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” Some interpreters understand that to refer to a rebuilt Jewish temple in Jerusalem on or near The Dome of the Rock.

Other scholars think the temple of God may refer to the church, since Paul calls the church the temple of God elsewhere.

Paul wrote that the antichrist will be restrained until the right moment:

And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”

Paul says someone or something is restraining this coming world ruler, until just the right time. Who or what is this restrainer? Some scholars believe it refers to the Roman Empire or governments that succeed the Roman Empire.

Others believe the restrainer is the church. Other scholars believe it is the Holy Spirit working through the church. And still others think this restrainer could be Michael the Archangel.

Whoever or whatever the restrainer is, the restrainer functions to make sure the antichrist is revealed in his time and not before. But right now Paul says, even before he appears on the world stage, the mystery of lawlessness is at work.

What’s behind the mystery of lawlessness? This is the spirit of antichrist that has been at work throughout history. It has a venomous hatred toward believers. This spirit attacks Christians (and Jews) and tries to undermine God’s plan.

Ephesians 6 tells us there are spiritual forces of evil at work in the invisible, supernatural realm. These demonic entities deceive and lie and try to undermine and destroy Christian leaders, Christian marriages, Christian ministries, and Christian homes.

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We’re here in Jerusalem to remember the beginnings of the Church. The root of the Church is in the Acts of the Apostles, not in the ceremony of the Old Testament. The Church I want to be part of is the Church of the New Testament which began on the Day of Pentecost.

Jesus appeared to His disciples after the resurrection and in Acts 1:4 He said, “Wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father which you have heard from Me.

For John truly baptised in water…” Let me remind you that this baptism of John in water is a baptism of repentance by total immersion. Why? Paul explains in Romans and Colossians that we are buried with Christ in baptism – death!

Christ went into the grave and He rose from the dead! We are baptised into water, symbolic of death with Christ, and we rise from the water into new life!

Jesus continued, “John baptised with water, but you shall be baptised in the Holy Ghost… You shall receive POWER after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be My WITNESSES in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and in the rest of the world!”

The importance of the Holy Spirit is twofold. First, He is the endowment of the baptism of POWER. Scripture is clear: after you receive the Holy Spirit you receive power, literally the power and the energy that motivated Jesus comes into us! But secondly, the purpose of this baptism is that we must be WITNESSES!

Under law, you can only be a witness if you have personally seen, heard or experienced something. Not because of what someone else has experienced. But YOU! YOU must be a witness of what YOU have experienced.

Many years ago I was a pastor. But one day God challenged me and said, “Stop talking, I’m tired of listening to you!” I was an evangelist, a preacher, ordained, degrees… But God said, “Forget all that. Go out and do everything you tell other people to do! And only come back when you have done it!”

For fifty years I’ve been ‘out there’ doing it! Now I’m the witness of what God has done! It has to begin with a personal experience! When YOU receive the Holy Spirit, it will revolutionise your life until YOU become the witness of all that God has done!

Under law, you can only be a witness if you have personally seen, heard or experienced something. Not because of what someone else has experienced. But YOU! YOU must be a witness of what YOU have experienced.

Many years ago I was a pastor. But one day God challenged me and said, “Stop talking, I’m tired of listening to you!” I was an evangelist, a preacher, ordained, degrees… But God said, “Forget all that. Go out and do everything you tell other people to do! And only come back when you have done it!”

For fifty years I’ve been ‘out there’ doing it! Now I’m the witness of what God has done! It has to begin with a personal experience! When YOU receive the Holy Spirit, it will revolutionise your life until YOU become the witness of all that God has done!

What is my ambition? I’m an evangelist. In the fivefold ministry, the evangelist is the last. And in the Kingdom, I’ll be the last one to get in, because I’m so busy looking for the lost. My one desire as an evangelist, having received the Holy Spirit, is to win the lost sheep! That is the burden of my heart!

When I entered the communist prison in 1972, everything was taken from me. You are STRIPPED, your clothes, everything. You are left with absolutely nothing. Naked.

That is a powerful experience. You have NOTHING. Spiritually there has to come a time when we go through that experience before we can go forward. Stripped of EVERYTHING.

I found myself with the worst criminals. My best friend was a murderer. Without his help, I wouldn’t have survived. I shared a cell with drug smugglers, every kind of criminal.

Then I understood the Gospel, that for God to love you and me, He had to send His Son, STRIPPED of everything – divested – STRIPPED like I was in that prison! He came with no extra power.

Eighteen months ago I was in prayer, walking around a lake in Austria, saying, “Oh God, I want to live like Jesus, I want to do what He did!”

Now, before Jesus went to the cross He said to US, “YOU will do everything I have done, and more!” Come on! How many of us are doing what Jesus did?!

Let alone the greater things! I was walking around this lake, talking with the Lord. To me, praying is not reciting set prayers, it’s a conversation with an intimate friend who knows all your inner faults, who doesn’t see you just from the outside…

My family do not see me as an evangelist – I’m their dad! They know the real me! God doesn’t look on your bishop’s trappings, He doesn’t see the clothes you wear, He sees inside your heart!

My experience with God is a very personal one. I wouldn’t have survived in the prison for one month, let alone a year, if I didn’t have a very close relationship with the Lord. It was only 18 months ago, walking around that lake in Austria, that I was saying to Him, “Father, I want to do more than Jesus did!”

It was then that I realised, Jesus did not come with all the glory of Heaven. He came as a baby, born of a woman. But don’t believe the pictures you see in some churches! He didn’t stay like that, as a baby.

My Jesus is a man, with power and authority, who could bind and defeat the devil, who could fight every battle, a strong man, who died and rose as the Son of God. But He came in humility, with NOTHING!

Everything that Jesus had on earth He received through His relationship with His Father through the Holy Spirit! Everything that I have MUST come from HIM! Not from my birth, not from my education. I don’t care if you are born poor, an orphan, a reject. Or born a king, a prince.

What you are is NOTHING to do with your clothes, or your office, NOTHING to do with your position. All you have when you go out into the world is what you have and receive in your heart! That’s all. It’s a very personal relationship.

Jesus said the Kingdom is not filled with the holy, the righteous! He said the invited guests never come into the Kingdom!

Jesus said the Kingdom is filled with the people from ‘out there’, the rejects, the outcasts – they are the ones we have to bring in. My first desire is to bring the lost into the Kingdom… …My other desire is this: to KNOW who God is. The Church doesn’t know Him!

Religious ceremony is NOTHING to do with God. I HATE religion with a passion, because religion turns people away from God. The world out there does not like what it sees, and I don’t like it, because my God is not like this.

The God I know is a God of power, of love, authority, a God who answers prayer, works miracles – that’s my God! My desire is to show THIS God to an unbelieving world! I challenge you, YOU have to show an unbelieving world who our God is!

What kind of a God is He? Is He the God people see in religion? All dressed up – and empty inside?! That’s NOT my God! I have a burning passion to show the world who God is really is. To show His power.

That’s why I want to see miracles of healing! How else will the world out there know?! What does the Bible say about Jesus? It says He was a man like you and me. But anointed of God. By miracles, by signs, by wonders.

We have to show a world that sees God as a religious figure – that He is a God of love, power, forgiveness, a God of miracles! I’m emotional about it! But you can never do it because of your clothes, your universities, your colleges, your religious education, your status…

I have seen university destroy the faith of some of my friends, including former pastors.

Born again, strong Bible Believing Christians! Baptised in water, baptised in the Holy Spirt, went to Bible College, entered into full time ministry. But they let religion take over. It destroyed everything they had and left them with only the formality. Oh God deliver us from that kind of religion.

Oh God, give us Jesus! The whole of everything you can have and everything you can want is only Jesus. There is no other name under Heaven whereby men can be saved, only Jesus! No other name, no other power. I only live because He lives!

I want to show the unbelieving world out there – whether it’s Israel, Russia, wherever it is – I want to show them the Son of God, Jesus, in reality! In my life! And YOU have to live like that, until they see Jesus – in YOU. Not religion. Not empty words.

Oh God, shake us, change us! We need a baptism of FIRE! The Holy Ghost and FIRE! Until we burn up and explode with the Fire!

I first started preaching in the church when I was 13 years old. I printed flyers, invited the people in, got the musicians, preached the Word – and nobody repented. The only purpose of my preaching was to bring men to Christ. Can you tell me any other reason for preaching?! I went home disillusioned.

My father, a great man of God, converted in the Welsh revival, sat me down and said: “When the Holy Spirit is come, He – not you David, not you Bishops – He, the Holy Spirit, He will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgement. Shut up until you have received the Holy Spirit.”

From that moment I fasted, I prayed – for three months. I learnt the biggest lesson of my life: In the early days of my going to Russia, the milk cart would arrive in the street, the housewife would take her own jug, and they would fill it up. What did she take?

She emptied the dirty water out of the jug, cleaned it, so that when it was filled, it was filled with pure milk. If you want the Holy Spirit, empty everything out! If you want the same baptism of Fire that I have, don’t come half full of the world, the flesh!

Clean yourself up first! Then God will fill you. It will transform your life! I came here to Jerusalem in 1961 because I still wasn’t satisfied.

I was a pastor, an evangelist, baptised in the Holy Spirit when I was 13. But I wanted more! Another baptism of Fire! And why do I pray now? – Because I still want more Fire! Prayer is no formality to me. I look at the desperate world out there and I want more authority, more of the Fire and the Power of God.

Now look at the Church. The Church is the Body of Christ – and the Bride of Christ! God help you if a man gets married to a girl unless he’s in love with her! When I married my wife, she was in love with me.

There used to be a beautiful song, ‘The Bride sees not her garment, but her dear Bridegroom’s face!’ Yes, the Bride is beautifully dressed, but she’s only got eyes for the Groom! – That’s how it should be with the Church and Christ! The Greek word for Church, ecclesia, means ‘called out and chosen’.

The Bride of Christ will not be the Catholic or Orthodox Church, or the Lutheran or Charismatic Church – the Bride of Christ is called OUT! Out of the world, out of religion… I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward – to meet Jesus! And if you have met Jesus, you will want to introduce Him to everybody else!

You need to have a very personal relationship with Him! It’s not Church, it’s not religion, it’s Jesus! The only thing that is important is not how you dress up, it’s not your office or your position, it’s your relationship with Jesus, and how you share Him with others!

My life and my ministry is to show who the real Jesus is. I didn’t like the image I saw in the church here in Jerusalem – a woman, ‘Queen of Heaven’, with a small baby on her lap, saints gazing adoringly up at HER – do you realise the idolatry? Mary more important than Jesus?!

Who called the disciples, healed the sick, raised the dead, died and rose again? Who said He would baptise them with the Holy Ghost and Fire?! No I do not pray to saints and images, I only want to know the MAN Christ Jesus, Son of the Living God, who is the only Lord of my life! Nothing, no one else!

As I flew in to Israel yesterday for this summit, I had a song in my heart, ‘In robes of white I don’t deserve, I live to serve Your Majesty.’ Let’s live to serve Him and show the world who He is!

The secret of my evangelism (we are drawing the largest crowds of unbelievers in Europe) is that they want what I have – my Jesus! I love Him! I live to serve Him. And in serving Him I shall preach the Gospel.

The coming of Christ is sooner than any of you realise. I want you to be ready when He comes! I charge you with the simplicity of the Gospel.

The Gospel Jesus preached was so simple. Not theology. Not religion. I only want to preach Jesus. I’m an evangelist, I don’t wear fancy 

Message of David Hathway to the Jerusalem Summit of Conservative Apostolic Bishops 1.11.2015. From the Prophetic Vision Magazine

Image Credit: Faithfulnews.com

Last Friday in the dusty town of Kabwohe, Uganda, more than 5,000 people crammed into an enclosed field to worship Jesus.

They stayed from 7 p.m. until 6:30 a.m. for an all-night celebration that included dancing, singing, shouting, speaking in tongues and an altar call that resulted in dozens of conversions.

A few times during the evening, someone was set free from demons.

You might expect this in Africa, where Pentecostal churches have been growing for decades. But this event, which happens in Kabwohe once a month, is sponsored by All Saints Anglican Church.

Right after a demonized woman was carried away from the rickety wooden stage, Rev. Gordon Karuhanga led the congregation in the Apostles’ Creed. Then he and other robed clergy served Communion.

It took more than an hour to serve the bread and grape juice to the crowd.

This is the new face of revival in Uganda, where hundreds of traditional Anglican churches have been set on fire by the Holy Spirit. All Saints Church in Kabwohe had shrunk to a handful of people a few years ago.

But today the 400-seat building cannot contain the throngs of worshippers who show up for Sunday or mid-week services. When I spoke there last Saturday morning, many people sat in plastic chairs outside the building and watched through the windows because the church was packed.

Rev. Karuhanga is no traditional Anglican. He was persecuted by his bishop when he began teaching about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He sees people delivered from demons regularly, sometimes right in the middle of a church service.

His parishioners are now learning how to set local families free from the witchcraft that has been so prevalent in Uganda.

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Image Credit: Lee Grady

Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why is there so much hatred? Why is there so much evil? It can be summed up in one word: sin. We were born with a nature to do wrong. That is why it’s ridiculous when you hear some people say the answer lies within.

The problem lies within. The Bible says the heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9, NKJV). If you believe that humanity is basically good, then you must be having a hard time right now as you look at what humanity is capable of. It’s astonishing how wicked humanity can be.

It all comes back to the way we were born, with the nature we have inside. It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. There was a man put in that garden whose name was Adam.

He was given a free will to choose right or wrong and the freedom to obey or disobey God’s commands. And he made the wrong choice. He rejected God’s way and went his own way instead.

Many, if not most, of the problems in our culture today can be directly traced to our refusal to live God’s way. We disobey his commandments. We disregard the guidelines he has given us to live healthy and productive lives. We kill. We steal. We lie. We commit adultery. We do whatever we want if it will advance our interests.

So when we look at a society falling apart at the seams, let’s not shake an accusing fist at our Creator and say that he has somehow botched this. It is because of our rejection of the standards our Creator has given us that we are seeing the problems in our world today.

The history of the human race has been the story of our futile efforts to gain back the position that was lost by Adam’s fall.

The Bible says that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. … One trespass resulted in condemnation for all people” (Romans 5:12, 18, NIV).

But why should we suffer because of something someone else has done? The truth is, if you or I had been in the Garden of Eden, we would have done the same thing. Every day we are presented with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of choices to do right or wrong, to do good or evil.

Do you ever choose to do wrong? Of course you do. This simply indicates that you would have done the same thing – because the same nature is in you. In fact, there isn’t a single day that we don’t face the same test that was set before Adam.

The same two paths that God set before Adam have been set before us today: life or death, blessings or curses (see Deuteronomy 30:19). We are still free to choose life or death, blessings or curses. We still have the choice of good or evil.

The reason there is so much hatred in this world is that man chose, and continues to choose, to disobey God. We reap the miserable consequences because we are selfish, because we are prejudiced, and because we have wicked hearts. So let’s not blame God. The fault lies with us.

Like Adam, we were created to know and walk with God. And like Adam, we were made in the image of God with a conscience and the ability to clearly reason.

There are people today who claim that humans and animals are all equal. This is wrong, and it is not what the Bible teaches. Animals are not equal to people. I love animals. But they weren’t made to know God like we were.

They don’t have souls in the same sense that we do. God has placed human beings in a unique position of not only knowing him, but also of becoming like him. But sin has marred us.

Still, we have the ability to choose. We have the ability to know God and to have fellowship with him. He has created us with a void and an emptiness that only he can fill. Any attempt to fill it with something else will lead to futility.

Augustine said of God, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

The Bible records a time in Jesus’ ministry when he met a woman by a well in Samaria. She had a void in her life that she had tried to fill with men. She had been married five times and was living with a man at the time she encountered Jesus.

She probably was a very beautiful woman. And she probably had lived a hard life because she had been used and abused by men.

When she met Jesus, she was surprised that he, being a Jew, would even speak to a Samaritan woman. But Jesus began talking with her, and he said, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst” (John 4:13-14, NIV).

She had no idea what Jesus was talking about. She thought he was referring to the well they were standing next to. But Jesus was talking about the deepest thirst in life.

We could write Jesus’ words that day over other wells in life, so to speak. We could write them over the well of success. We could write them over the well of possessions. We could write them over the well of pleasure.

It could be said of each one, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.” We never will get enough. We always will come up wanting more.

Yet if we can know the God who made us and come into a relationship with him, we will find the meaning of life – not by seeking happiness or trying to find fulfillment in and of itself, but by coming to know God and his plan and purpose for us.

The wonderful byproduct is that we become happy and fulfilled. Jesus said, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:33, NLT).

When you get a new set of priorities, put God at the forefront of your life, and seek to live a life that is pleasing to God, you will find everything you are looking for. You will find fulfillment. You will find joy. And you will find peace.

Article originally posted here.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern and a member of the Church of England’s General Synod, has issued the following statement in response to the Archbishop Justin Welby’s Presidential Address to the General Synod on Monday (15 FEB):

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s presidential address at Synod addressed the aftermath of the recent Primates’ gathering in Canterbury, in which a compromise was reached between two diametrically opposed groups: those who hold to the Bible’s teaching on marriage and sexuality – and those who do not.

That meeting was not a success, and it is disingenuous to suggest that it was. It did not tackle the fundamental issue and instead it tries to keep us on a path that can never secure true unity.

It failed to challenge an overarching relativism which allows human ideas and current cultural trends to override God’s unchanging Word.

The Archbishop’s analysis reflects an approach that prizes the appearance of institutional, formal unity over true, organic unity. But without organic unity, institutional unity will crumble and collapse as we have already seen.

Real unity can only grow in the soil of truth. No amount of institutional scaffolding can substitute for healthy soil.

God’s pattern for marriage and His teaching on sexuality is not peripheral. Our approach to it tests our understanding of the authority of Scripture and the Gospel itself..

The underlying issue is whether the churches will submit to God’s Word.

An approach to unity which, as long as the institution is upheld, allows an ‘agreement to disagree’ on Scripture’s authority, is counter-productive and doomed to failure.

Unless there is a shared submission to God’s Word, we are not on a shared journey to a shared destination, and no amount of institutional scaffolding will take us there.

During his speech, the Archbishop spoke of the necessity of “unity which relishes and celebrates the diversity of freedom and [human] flourishing within broad limits of order.”

What we saw at the Primates’ meeting, and have seen for several years, is not true unity.

Members of the Communion who hold opposing views on the key issue of marriage will simply continue to co-exist in deep disagreement. The Archbishop himself admitted that members are in “very different” places theologically.

We know these conversations will continue, and we know that liberal members will continue to push their agenda under the guise of ‘love and acceptance’. Yet true love and compassion does not discard or distort God’s good patten for human flourishing.

Only a fortnight ago it emerged that a new ‘Anglican’ campaign group, LGBTI Mission, has been established, in order to pressure the Church of England to accept clergy in same-sex ‘marriages’. It demands that same-sex ‘marriages’ be considered equally valid to marriages between men and women.

How will the Archbishop address these increasing attempts to deviate from the standard God has set out for us in His Word?

The Scriptures outline God’s pattern for marriage as between one man and one woman. This is designed as a beautiful reflection of Jesus’ love for His church, an expression of intimacy and communion, in covenant.

Jesus promised He will come back for a pure and spotless Bride. Yet the Bride of Christ will not ‘flourish’ under compromise.  The Archbishop of Canterbury emphasized the need for a balance between order, freedom and human flourishing.

But what freedom is the Archbishop speaking of here?

He is right in reminding us that Jesus came to set us free. Yet true freedom is freedom from sin, which is found in repentance and the surrendering of human desires to the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not freedom to continue holding to disobedience of the Word.

Obedience to the Word of God is vital if the Church is to flourish.

If the Church compromises the Truth we are are not fit to evangelize. How can we evangelize with a watered down gospel that reflects the spirit of the age that is less appealing to many than the running club?

Obedience to the true Gospel is worth living and dying for: as Jesus predicted his death he said:

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels”.

We are not preaching a true Gospel message, if the teaching of the Bible on such a vital matter as marriage and sexuality is compromised. There can be no relevance if the truth is truncated.

The Archbishop spoke of the picture of humility that Jesus painted through the washing of His disciples’ feet. But in that humility and servant-heartedness, we must point people to truth. Archbishop Justin failed to speak of truth or of objective revelation from God. It is as if truth has been relegated to a ‘process of discernment’ not a matter of scripture, canons and creed.

This is a capitulation to the ‘spirit of the age’, not the Spirit of God who has spoken in Scripture.

Article originally posted here.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn who sustained long years of imprisonment and exile in Russia wrote that:

Are we prepared to learn from the past? Are people living in freedom able to learn from those living in need? Can the lesson they have learned be taught to the free world? Yes it can, but who wants to learn? Our proud skyscrapers point heaven ward and they say: it will never happen here. But it will happen…. I may say that my whole life has trained me to expect the worst much more often than not, I am always readier, more willing to believe, the worst.

In the camp I took to heart the Russian proverb: “Don’t let good luck fool you or bad luck frightens you. I have learned to live by this rule and I hope never to depart from it… Tragically the free West will only believe it when it is no longer free. Again to quote a Russian proverb, “When it happens you will know it is true, but then it too late.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia Warns of U.S. Internment Camps

Written by  Alex Newman  06 February 2014

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (shown) made headlines nationwide this week after bluntly telling law students at the University of Hawaii that internment camps to detain Americans would eventually return. Acknowledging that the infamous Supreme Court-approved internment of Japanese-Americans in wretched camps during World War II was wrong, the conservative-leaning justice followed up by adding that “you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again.” In “times of war,” Scalia said, citing a Latin expression attributed to Cicero, “the laws fall silent.”

According to the Associated Press, which first reported the explosive February 3 statements, Scalia was responding to a question about one of the Supreme Court’s most widely criticized decisions. Amid national hysteria following the Japanese regime’s attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an “executive order” in 1942 purporting to justify the mass detention of people of Japanese ancestry — the vast majority of whom were U.S. citizens. In 1944, the high court upheld the convictions of two men for failing to report to an internment camp in Korematsu v. United States.

“Well of course Korematsu was wrong. And I think we have repudiated in a later case,” Scalia was quoted as telling students and faculty during a lunchtime question and answer session. “But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again.” Pointing to the Latin expression about laws falling silent during war-time, the longest-serving justice said, “That’s what was going on — the panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot.”

“That’s what happens,” Scalia continued. “It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again, in time of war. It’s no justification, but it is the reality.” In other words, one of the nation’s top judicial officials believes that during a “time of war,” Americans run the risk of being unconstitutionally rounded up by the federal government and detained in camps like over 110,000 almost certainly innocent Japanese-descent individuals during World War II.

Keep in mind that the U.S. government is currently engaged in multiple unconstitutional wars, including many that could potentially go on indefinitely — especially the “terror” war, which now spans across the “Homeland” and the entire planet. Incredibly, buried inside the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress and the president have even approved a statute pretending to legalize the indefinite detention of Americans without charges, trial, due process, or any other constitutionally guaranteed rights.

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Tubman in 1887 (far left), with her husband Davis (seated, with cane), their adopted daughter Gertie (beside Tubman), Lee Cheney, John “Pop” Alexander, Walter Green, Blind “Aunty” Sarah Parker, and great-niece, Dora Stewart at Tubman’s home in Auburn, New York. Source: Wikipedia

Harriet Tubman (1820–1913), known for her role in leading dozens of slaves out of the South to freedom, succeeded in her work through trust in the Lord and a steadfast life of prayer.

She was born into slavery in Maryland in the early 1820s, and was christened Araminta Ross by her parents, Harriet and Benjamin Ross, but later decided to go by her mother’s first name. Her time as a slave was spent being hired out to do housework and later, physical labor outdoors. At fourteen, during an attempt to protect a slave who was running from his master, she was hit in the head by a large weight. She nearly died, and her recovery took months.

The resulting concussion caused Harriet to experience sudden sleeping spells for the rest of her life, but it may have also been the beginning of a deepening relationship with God. She “began having visions and speaking with God on a [regular] basis, as directly and pragmatically as if he were a guardian uncle whispering instructions exclusively to her and in the most concrete terms about what to do and not do, where to go and not go.”

Harriet had a dream in her heart: to be free from slavery. At age twenty-four she married John Tubman, a free black man, in 1844, but it wasn’t until 1849 that she felt the time was right to escape. But when she talked to her husband about escaping to freedom in the North, he wouldn’t hear of it.

He said that if she tried to leave, he’d turn her in.  When she resolved to take her chances and go forth in 1849, she did so alone, without a word to him. Her first biographer, Sarah Bradford, said that Tubman told her:

I had reasoned this out in my mind: there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other, for no man should take me alive. I should fight for my liberty as my strength lasted, and when the time came for to go, the Lord would let them take me…..When I think of all the groans and tears and prayers I’ve heard on plantations, and remember that God is a prayer-hearing God, I feel that his time is drawing near. He gave me my strength, and he set the North Star in the heavens; He meant I should be free.”

With the help of the Underground Railroad, she was able to make her way to Philadelphia and freedom. However, Harriet was not content to enjoy her freedom on her own and longed for others to be free as well. We need to be reminded that the slaves in America or Britain did not win their freedom, but it was bestowed to them by the government. As a result, this freedom did not bring true closure and fulfillment. Harriet Tubman knew that very few people would be willing to fight and die for this freedom.

She was fearless, and her leadership was unshakable. Hers was extremely dangerous work, and when people in her charge wavered or had second thoughts, she was strong as steel. Tubman knew escaped slaves who returned would be beaten and tortured until they gave information about those who had helped them. So she never allowed any people she was guiding to give up. “Dead folks tell no tales,” She would tell a fainthearted slave as she put a loaded pistol to his head. “You go on or die.”

After reaching Philadelphia, in 1850, she made the first of what would be approximately thirteen trips back into slave territory for the purpose of guiding others to freedom.

Harriet felt like her role in the Underground Railroad was a commandment she had been given from God. “The Lord told me to do this. I said, ‘Oh Lord, I can’t—don’t ask me—take somebody else.’” But Harriet also reported that God spoke directly to her: “It’s you I want, Harriet Tubman.”

For ten years Harriet would work tirelessly as a guide, helping around seventy people, including her own mother and father, make it to freedom. When rescuing her family she said,

I was a stranger in a strange land my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were [in Maryland]. But I was free, and they should be free.

Because the Fugitive Slave Law had made the northern United States more dangerous for escaped slaves, many began migrating to Southern Ontario. In December 1851, Tubman guided an unidentified group of 11 fugitives, possibly including the Bowleys and several others she had helped rescue earlier, northward. In his third autobiography, Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass wrote:

On one occasion I had eleven fugitives at the same time under my roof, and it was necessary for them to remain with me until I could collect sufficient money to get them on to Canada. It was the largest number I ever had at any one time, and I had some difficulty in providing so many with food and shelter….The number of travellers and the time of the visit makes it likely that this was Tubman’s group.

As Harriet would recount stories of rescue after rescue, stories filled with suspense and danger, it would become evident that the closeness of her friendship with God was a primary theme. He protected her and she trusted Him implicitly. Harriet’s testimony of God’s care for her was that she would only go where He sent her and that He would keep her safe throughout her journeys.

Harriet continued to make her trips down South until the eve of the War Between the States. Once the Civil War began, Harriet, always desiring to be active in the cause of freedom for her people, joined the war effort as a scout and spy, supporting herself by cooking and cleaning for the Union troops.

After the war, Harriet took care of her mother and father, became involved in the suffrage movement, and started a home to take care of those who were old and sick. Between 1850 and 1860, Harriet Tubman guided out more than three hundred people including many of her family members.

She made nineteen trips in all and was very proud of the fact that she never once lost a single person under her care. “I never ran my train off the track,” she said, “and I never lost a passenger.” At the time Southern whites put a $12,000 price on her head—a fortune. By the start of the Civil War, she had brought more people out of slavery than any other American in history-black or white, male or female.

The power of Harriet Tubman’s life was rooted in her constant communion and intimacy with Jesus through the Holy Spirit as she fought against injustice and served others. As someone testified about her, “Her relations with the Deity were personal, even intimate, though respectful on her part. He always addressed her as Araminta…” Harriet Tubman lived a life of intimacy with Jesus and wisdom that empowered her to accomplish the tasks set before her.

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The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. “Utterly pointless,” says the Teacher. “Absolutely pointless; everything is pointless.” What does a man gain from all of the work that he undertakes on earth?— Ecclesiastes 1:1–3 (ISV)

Settling unhappily into his Super Bowl seat, high behind the end zone, Joe spots an empty seat low and on the 50-yard line. He descends to it and asks the man seated next to him why the coveted seat is unoccupied. The man says, “It’s mine. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she died. This is the first Super Bowl since 1967 we have not attended together.” Joe says: “But couldn’t you find a friend or relative to come with you today?” The man replies: “No, they’re all at the funeral.”

This story is an apocryphal story for the American national rite, the Super Bowl. Super Bowls are so integral to the American psyche they are usually denoted with Roman numerals. (This year’s game, however, is designated Super Bowl 50 because Super Bowl L looks strange and most people have no idea how to read Roman numerals beyond V and maybe X.) It is appropriate that Roman numerals are used for the game that harkens back to gladiatorial games of Ancient Rome.

Throughout its history, Christianity has intersected with sports in both conflicting and congruous ways. In the earliest Christian literature, the apostle Paul used metaphors from the world of sports to align faith with the demands of discipline and the quest for victory that orient athletic activities. Although the earliest Christian writings do not address issues related to the acceptability of sports within the faith, they create a positive attitude toward dedication and competition, which are constitutive aspects of athletic activities.

Paul and Sports

The most expansive of Paul’s sports metaphors appears in 1 Corinthians:

You know that in a race all the runners run but only one wins the prize, don’t you? You must run in such a way that you may be victorious. Everyone who enters an athletic contest practices self-control in everything. They do it to win a wreath that withers away, but we run to win a prize that never fades. That is the way I run, with a clear goal in mind. That is the way I fight, not like someone shadow boxing. No, I keep on disciplining my body, making it serve me so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not somehow be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:24–27 (ISV) – (see also Hebrews 12:1)

Similarly, in 1 Timothy an appreciation of pugilism appears in the urging to “fight the good fight of the faith” (6:12), and images of athletic training direct the reader to a sympathetic understanding of the value of discipline and preparation (4:7b–8). In Philippians Paul also invokes the image of the finish line in a race as a way of focusing attention on the singular goal of faith: “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (3:13b–14).

The apostle also likened the Christian life to that of a track-and-field runner (Acts 20:24; Rom. 9:16; Gal. 2:2; 5:7; Phil. 2:16), a wrestler (Eph. 6:12.) He noted that athletes were obliged to compete according to rules (2 Tim.2:5), and that they competed for a prize (1 Cor. 9:24–27; 1 Thess. 2:19).

In contrast to the smug self-satisfaction of the Corinthian Christians, Paul uses a vivid sports metaphor to paint the actual condition of the apostles. Displayed us, the apostles, last, is a pitiful analogy drawn from the cruelty of the Roman arena. The apostles were like gladiators fighting to the death, or like criminals thrown to the lions, made a spectacle as the grand finale to a day’s sport in a colosseum.

For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display in last place, like men condemned to death. We have become a spectacle for the world, for angels, and for people to stare at.— 1 Corinthians 4:9 (ISV)

Since Paul used so many sports metaphors, it makes one wonder how fast Paul and Barnabas ran from the Jews of Antioch when the people did not hear the disciples’ words and the two shook the mocker’s dust from their feet and left them.

Throughout Christian history theologians and church leaders have continued to use popular sports imagery to express the challenges, processes and goals of faith. During the late 20th century, for instance, two gospel songs drew upon baseball and football for their inspiration, albeit with what many would consider a lack of propriety: “Jesus at the Home Plate” and “Drop Kick Me, Jesus, through the Goal Posts of Life.”

Although neither of these songs manifests the insight of Paul’s epistles, both rely on sports images to convey a basic Christian message.

More Important Things

While there are many illustrations in the Bible relating to sports, no sport is more important than your relationship with God. Ecclesiastes points out that “all is vanity”; everything is pointless if we are not right with God.

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Reuben Archer Torrey (1856-1928) was both an evangelist and Bible scholar. Long associated with D.L. Moody, he became most prominent during world preaching tours in 1902 and 1921, which took him to China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, India, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

His preaching in Wales in 1902 has been noted as one of the causes of the Welsh revivals in early 1900s, and spiritual awakenings followed him throughout his ministry as an evangelist. He became known throughout the world as an authority on the role of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life, and part of this message is an excerpt what he said about the Third Person of the Trinity:

The Holy Spirit is a Person

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, [do not offend or vex or sadden Him], by whom you were sealed (marked, branded as God’s own, secured) for the day of redemption (of final deliverance through Christ from evil and the consequences of sin).” (Ephesians 4:30 AMP)

The Holy Spirit is a Person Who knows the things of God and reveals to us what He himself knows: All these gifts, achievements, abilities] are inspired and brought to pass by one and the same [Holy] Spirit, Who apportions to each person individually [exactly] as He chooses. (1 Corinthians 12:11 AMP) Here the Holy Spirit is presented as a divine Person Who gets hold of us and uses as according to His will.

Yet countless sincere believers are going astray by trying to get hold of some divine power that they can use according to their will. What an evil thought that I might grasp divine power and use it in my foolishness and ignorance! Such is not the way.

But I rejoice that there is a Divine Person Who can capture my heart and use according to His infinitely wise and loving will. Every biblical reference to the Holy Spirit speaks of a divine Person who thinks, feels, and wills. May we so value His presence that we never grieve His infinite heart.

It is impossible to understand the work of the Holy Spirit or get into a right relationship with the Holy Spirit, without first coming to know the Holy Spirit as a Person. One of the most fruitful sources of error and misconception in the treatment of this whole subject is from trying to know the work of the Holy Spirit before we first come to know the Holy Spirit Himself.

The doctrine of the personality of the Holy Spirit is of highest importance from the standpoint of worship. If the Holy Spirit is thought of as impersonal influence or power, as so many do, then we rob Him of the worship that is His due, of the love that is His due and of the faith and confidence and surrender and obedience and worship that are His due.

I pause to ask you, “Do you worship the Holy Spirit?” It is one thing to theoretically acknowledge the Holy Spirit in the doxology, “Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” It is quite another thing to realize the meaning and the force of these words.

It is of the highest importance from a practical standpoint that we know the Holy Spirit as a Person. To think of the Spirit as merely an influence or power, then your thought will constantly be, “How can I get hold of the Holy Spirit and use it? How can I get more of the Holy Spirit?”

But if you think of Him the biblical way, as a Person of divine majesty and glory, your thought will be, “How can the Holy Spirit get hold of me and use me? How can the Holy Spirit get more of me?”

If you think of the Spirit as an influence that you are to get hold of, and then believe you have the Spirit, the inevitable result will be that you will strut around as if you belonged to a superior order of Christians. We see far too much of that today.

If you think of the Spirit as a divine Person of infinite majesty, who comes to dwell in our hearts and take possession of us and use us as He wills, it leads to humility. No great biblical truth more efficiently puts one in the dust and keeps one in the dust than this.

The Baptism with the Holy Spirit

The gift is for you and your children, says Peter to the Jews whom he was immediately addressing and the generations that would follow them which implied all the coming ages of the church’s history to Gentile as well for Jews: and for all who are far off- for all whom the Lord will call and bids to come Himself. (See Acts 2:36-39)

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is for every child of God in every age of the church’s history. God desires each of us to be clothed with power from on high. If I am baptized with the Holy Spirit, then souls will be saved through my instrumentality who would not be saved if I were not so baptized.

If then I am not willing to pay the price of this baptism, I am responsible before God for all the souls who might have been saved but were not saved through me. We may have a very clear call to service, it may be as clear as the apostles had-but the charge is laid upon us, as upon them, that before we begin that service we must be clothed with power from on high.

Anyone who is in Christian work of any type who has not received the baptism with the Holy Spirit should stop his work right where he is and not go on with it until he is. Recall that when the power came upon the disciples they accomplished more in one day than they would have accomplished in years if they had gone in presumptuous disobedience to Christ’s command. The same can be true for us.

How can we obtain the Baptism with the Holy Spirit?

Torrey’s clarity of teaching provided seven biblical steps in obtaining the baptism with the Holy Spirit, that whoever will take these seven steps will, with absolute certainty, enter into this blessing. This statement may seem very positive, but the Word of God is equally positive regarding its outcome.

The first practical question confronts us: How can we obtain the baptism with the Holy Spirit? The Word of God answers this question very explicitly. The seven steps are found in the word repent. What does repentance mean? It means to change your mind.

But a change of mind about what? As determined by the context in this case, the change of mind was primarily about Jesus Christ. Peter brought against his audience the awful charge that they had crucified Him whom God had made both Lord and Christ.

These words were spoken in the power of the Spirit and “they stung (cut) to the heart.” Peter told them that it was time for them to “change their views and purpose to accept the will of God in your inner selves instead of rejecting it.” In other words, it was time for them to change their minds from a Christ-crucifying attitude to a Christ-accepting attitude.

Accept Jesus as Christ and Lord—this is the first step toward the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Have you accepted Jesus as Savoir? Are you trusting completely in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, upon His atoning death for us, as the only ground of your acceptance before God? There cannot be a trace of works righteousness in it, as Paul reminds the Galatians of their experience with the Holy Spirit. (See Galatians 3:2)

The first step toward receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit is to rest entirely and absolutely upon what Jesus Christ has already done, not on anything we do.

The second is also found in the word repent, a change of mind from that attitude that loves sin and indulges in sin. This is the second step toward the baptism with the Holy Spirit: renounce all sin. Here we touch upon one of the most vital obstacles to receiving the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and we must make a clean-cut choice between the Holy Spirit and unholy sin. We cannot have both. It is at this point that many people fail of the blessing. They hold on to something in their inmost hearts that they more or less know is not pleasing to God.

If we are to receive the Holy Spirit, there must be very honest and thorough heart-searching. We cannot do satisfactory searching ourselves; God must do it. If we wish to receive the Holy Spirit, we should go alone to God and ask Him to search us thoroughly and bring to light anything that displeases Him.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalms 139:23-24)

Then we should wait for Him to do it. Often times it is what we are pleased to call “a small sin” that shuts us out of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. In reality, there are no small sins. There are sins about small things, but every sin is an act of rebellion against God, no matter how small it seems.

Many of us do things that we have persuaded ourselves are perfectly right, but that every time when we get nearest to God, these things come up to trouble our conscience. These must be dealt with in the light of God. If after patient and honest waiting, nothing is brought to light, we may conclude there is nothing of this kind in the way, and proceed to the next steps. But we should not conclude this too quickly. The sin that hinders often appears very small and significant (Hebrews 12: 1-2)

The third step toward baptism with the Spirit is water baptism. It was immediately after Jesus’ baptism that the Holy Spirit descended upon Him.

In Jesus’ baptism, though Himself sinless, He humbled Himself to take the sinner’s place, and then God highly exalted Him by giving the Holy Spirit and by the audible testimony:

You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased. (See Luke 3:21-22)

So we must humble ourselves to make confession before the world of our renunciation of sin and of our acceptance of Jesus Christ, by baptism.

The fourth step is obedience and it is clearly implied in Acts 2:38, but it is brought out more explicitly in Acts 5:32: “And we are witnesses of things, and the Holy Spirit is also, Whom God has bestowed on those who obey Him.”What does obedience mean? It is not merely doing one or two things that God commands, or even doing most of the things, but doing everything He commands. The heart of obedience is the will.

The whole essence of obedience is the total surrender of the will to God. It means that I come to God and say:

Heavenly Father, here I am and I all I have. You have bought me with a price and I acknowledge Your absolute ownership. Take me and I all I have, and do with me whatever You will. Send me where You will; use me as You desire. I surrender myself and I all I possess absolutely, unconditionally, forever to Your control and use.

More people miss the baptism with the Holy Spirit at the point of an unconditional surrender of the will of God, and more people enter into it at this point, than at almost any other. There are many who go a long ways in the matter of sacrificing for Christ, going even so far as to become foreign missionaries, who still stop short of full surrender to God and so stop short of the blessing.

There is absolutely no use of your praying for the baptism with the Spirit if you will not surrender your will to God, holding absolutely nothing back.

In the Old Testament days, it was when the burnt offering—whole, no part held back- was lain on the altar that “there came a fire out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar; and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.”(Leviticus 9:24 AMP)

And it is when we bring ourselves, a whole offering, to the Lord and lay ourselves thus upon the altar that fire comes and God accepts the gift. Many of us are afraid to make a full surrender to God because they fear God’s will.

They are afraid God’s will may be something dreadful, some hard thing. Remember who God is: He is infinite love, and absolute surrender to God is simply absolute surrender to infinite love. Is there anything dreaded in that? And God is our Father.

God’s love is not only wiser than that of any earthly father, but more tender than any earthly mother. “No good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless. (Psalms 84:11) The Amplified says, “For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows [present] grace and favour and [future] glory (honor, splender, and heavenly bliss)!

No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. There is nothing to be feared in God’s will. God’s will, will always prove in the final outcome the best and sweetest thing in all God’s universe. Lay your will down and look to your Father to baptize you with the Holy Spirit. (See John 7:37-39)

The fifth step is that within us there must be an intense desire that arises out of our utter need of power to do effective service for God that longs for it at any cost. And it may cost you a good deal. It may take you out of your comfort zone. And your intense desire must spring for the glory of God and not for your own glory.

The Scripture records the solemn case of Simon the magician who desired the Holy Spirit out of his unholy desire. Be careful at this point. Get alone with God and ask Him to show you whether you desire the Holy Spirit that you may glorify God as you should. (See Acts 8:18-23)

The sixth step toward the baptism with the Holy Spirit is to simply ask God for it. Ask God definitely for the definite blessing. (See Luke 11:13) With the first steps behind you, believing prayer is to be offered for the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is sincerely contended by some that we should not pray for the Holy Spirit.

The line for reasoning is that the Holy Spirit was given to the church at Pentecost as an abiding gift, so why pray for what you have already received? While it is true that the Holy Spirit was given to the church as a whole at Pentecost, each individual must still appropriate the gift for himself, and God’s way of appropriation is prayer.

But it is argued still further that every believer has the Holy Spirit, and this is certainly true. “And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9) It is quite possible to have some of the Spirit’s presence and work in the heart and yet come short of that special fullness and work known in the Bible as the baptism or filling with the Holy Spirit. We have an example given by Norman Grubb’s classic biography of Rees Howells during the Welsh Revival:

The Revival proved what the Holy Ghost could do through a company of believers, who were of one spirit and of one mind as on the day of Pentecost…..Whole congregations were melted, and people were crying out in agony of soul, “What must we do to be saved?” Multitudes experienced the power of the Blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse from all sin. But the real problem arose as the Revival proceeded and thousands were added to the churches. There were more children born than there were nurses to tend them.

The establishing of the converts became the greatest need, which if not met would be the most dangerous weakness of the Revival. As enthusiasm abated, there were bound to be many who had depended more on feelings, and not yet learned to have their faith solidly based on the word of God. The devil took advantage of this, some became cold and indifferent and the spiritual conflict began.

Those like Rees Howells, young in the Spirit though they were, but at least a bit more advanced than the converts in the Revival, were needed to be intercessors and teachers, to take the burden of new-born babes, and pray and lead them on. But these young intercessors soon began to find how mighty the enemy of our souls is, and that a conflict, not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the darkness of this world, cannot be fought with carnal weapons. They needed what they themselves had not yet received the enduement of the Holy Ghost for service.

Again, as Rees Howells later said:

The intercession of the Holy Ghost for the saints in this present evil world must be made through believers filled with the Holy Spirit.”(Romans 8:26-27) It was this that brought him and others to feel their need of the fullness. Just like many of us (italics mine) nothing had been lacking in the joy and satisfaction which Rees had found in the Saviour for his own personal life, but he did not know the secret of power for service.

“Many blamed the young converts for backsliding,” he said, “but we blamed ourselves, because we were not in a position to pray them through to victory. Oh, the tragedy, to be helpless in front of the enemy, when he was sifting young converts like wheat! In Isaiah 59 we read that God saw there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor, and this was just our case. Many of us felt the need of being “endued with power from on High.”

We were in the same position as those disciples whom the Lord told to tarry until they were endued. The record goes on to say that “they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” They had the joy before they had the power, so that joy was no proof of enduement of the Spirit. We had that same joy in the Revival, in the knowledge of a risen Christ and the assurance of eternal life—unspeakable joy—but at the same time we felt the lack of power for service.

Besides we have the plain, unquestionable utterance of Jesus Christ that we are to ask Him for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). We also have the accounts of Acts 4:31 and 8:14-17, where those who prayed for the Holy Spirit did indeed receive the Holy Spirit. Against all inferences is this clear teaching of the Word of God, by precept and example that the Holy Spirit is given in answer to prayer.

It was so at Pentecost, it has been since. Torrey testifies that those he met who give most evidence of the Spirit’s presence and power in their lives and work believe in praying for the Holy Spirit.

It had been his (Torrey’s) unspeakable privilege to pray with many ministers and Christian workers for this great blessing, and later to learn from them of the new power that had come into their service, none other the power of the Holy Spirit.

The seventh and last step, in some respects the simplest of all and yet to many the most difficult, is faith. For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will [get it]. (Mark 11:24 AMP)

God’s most positive and unqualified promises must be appropriated by faith.”But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:6-7)

Unless we believe the promise and confidently expect God to do what He has so definitely promised to do, our prayer will bring no result. Here is where countless seekers fail: they do not confidently expect the blessing.

But there is a faith that goes beyond expectation, a faith that just puts out its hand and takes the very thing it asks of God—“ believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you” “And this is the confidence (the assurance, the privilege of boldness) which we have in Him: [we are sure] that if we ask anything (make any request) according to His will (in agreement with His own plan), He listens to us and hears us. (1 John 5:14 AMP).

Part of this teaching was derived from the book, Person and Work of the Holy Spirit by R.A. Torrey, available from WholesomeWords.org and from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

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Many parents have been baffled over a son’s or daughter’s easily transferred loyalties from the original family to a new spouse. How can their young boy or girl so easily choose the new love over a long-established relationship? Here is the reason:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

When the Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” he answered and said to them:

Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matthew 19:1-6)

To leave our fathers and mothers does not mean we must cut off all relationship to them. We should relate to them, and honor them all the days of our lives. However, when we marry, our relationship to them must change. From that point the primary communion of hearts that is designed to alleviate the loneliness must come from our mates, not our parents. Anything else other than that will be perversion of both relationships.

Stress that is related to in-laws is one of the main destructive elements in a marriage relationship. And one of the primary forces that keep married people from learning to cleave to one another is the interference of their parents or in-laws.

Many parents find it very hard to let go of their children and allow them to live their own lives as mature and independent adults. But it is not natural for a man or woman to continue cleaving to their parents when there are mature adults especially after they get married. If they do, destruction of both relationships is guaranteed, as well as the wounding of their own souls.

There is a point in everyman’s life when he must become the man of his own home. And there is point in every woman’s life when she must establish her own household. Fathers and mothers may always help their children with advice and wisdom when it is requested. However, after marriage, any parent attempting to control his/her children will be destructive to their lives.

The Lord created us to be free and make choices, and if children are mature enough to marry, they are mature enough to make the decisions and bear the responsibility of their choices. If parents don’t allow the children to develop responsibility, it will make it much more difficult to accomplish God’s purpose for their lives.

As parents, we must understand that anything we do to interfere in the relationship of our children with their spouses may save them from some short term mistakes, but will usually be very detrimental to them in the long run.

We have to let them grow in their relationship to each other, by facing all life choices together, and dealing with the consequences whether bad or good. If we don’t let them grow, and make mistakes, the consequences of these choices will hurt them more.

One of the easiest routes to a conflict in marriage is when a husband has to compete with the wife’s parents for priority of relationship. Likewise the same is true for a wife whose husband has trouble cutting ties. This is why the instruction of Scripture is so strong and specific that a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

The words “leave your father and mother” means, while still part of their larger family, the new couple will have to form a priority family unit that begins with their marriage. This of course suggests a temporary state. But the words “united or joined” to his wife indicates a permanent condition.

The Parent and Child Relationship

The parent/child relationship is established by birth or adoption, but the husband/wife relationship is established by covenant. Marriage is a covenant commitment established by God and sealed by the Holy Spirit, therefore it supersedes blood ties. As someone has well said, “Blood may be thicker than water but it is not thicker than promise.”

Parents, when your children marry, the leadership and decision making responsibilities should be transferred from their former homes to the new home they are building together. All leadership and responsibility now devolves on them. They are responsible for making their own decisions and this includes allowing parents to be involved in supporting them when in any sort of crisis.

There is no doubt that any well intentioned but inappropriate interference of family members into the daily affairs of the couple’s life and relationship will definitely cause problems.

If possible, the newly married couples are to move as far away from their parents as they can to prevent the wrong kind of interference. Listen to what happened in the early years of a well known couple, Mary Beth and Steven Curtis. Here is part of their story:

A baby bottle sterilizer had been left on their kitchen stove. The apartment didn’t burn to the ground, but most of their earthly possessions were ruined from fire, smoke, or water damage.

The youngest of three children, Mary Beth called her parents in hysterics to tell them about the fire. A few hours later, they arrived to help, filled with good intentions, paint buckets, and ladders. Mary Beth wanted to believe that Daddy would fix it all—that he could somehow make it all better.

At the time, Mary Beth was recovering from a C-section. And Steven was trying to break into the music business while learning where he fit into the extended family dynamics.

The confrontation

One Sunday afternoon, when Mary Beth’s parents were up to their knees in soot and laundry, Steven’s mother and grandmother arrived after a two-hour drive. Somehow tensions mounted that day, and conflict blew up into an unfortunate disagreement:

Mary Beth’s parents were on one side of the room, holding their daughter and saying that they may need to take their little girl back to Ohio. On the other side was Steven’s family, with his mom saying, “Well, I’m going to take my son back to Paducah.”

So much had happened to Steven and Mary Beth in such a short period of time. A new baby. A fire. Temporarily staying with friends. In-laws visiting, day after day.

Feeling desperate, Steven knew that only the Lord could resolve this situation. He remembers literally yelling to the devil, the enemy of relationships: “You’re not going to have this family! You will not have this home!”

With two much older siblings, Mary Beth admits that she’s always been a daddy’s girl. And now she found herself in the middle of a mess bigger than soot and ash. Would she give her loyalty to her young husband, or to her father?

As she heard Steven pray out loud for his family, she knew she should support him. After all, their marriage had been established on biblical principles. On her wedding day, hadn’t she had pledged her loyalty to Steven above her parents (Genesis 2:24)?

But at the same time, she recalls, “I didn’t have a place to live and had this newborn infant that I didn’t even know how to take care of yet.”

Despite her emotional turmoil she somehow made her choice: Steven had her heart. Together they made a home. She and the baby would remain with him.

So parents, for the sake of your children, when they marry, let them go. It may be painful for a little while but it is necessary in order to be obedient to God’s Word and worse still it can be much more painful later if not done.

When God created the human race He began with husband and wife, not a parent and child. Therefore every couple needs to establish their own household, and identity as a family.

To listen to Steven and Beth sharing the lessons learned from miscommunication between the in-laws and other challenges, and how the Lord got them through this season of their lives…. download the Transcript here

Image credit: Heavens Call