LISTEN CAREFULLY TO ME (Part 1-2)

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Eric Aboadwe
November 12, 2017 ·

LISTEN CAREFULLY TO ME (Part 1)

We will take our reading once again from the same chapter and verse of Isaiah. But our focus will be on the sub-verse where God says:

“Listen CAREFULLY to Me, .... and let your SOUL delight in abundance” (Isaiah 55:2b).

Every passage and every jot of God’s “Word” no matter how small it may be is the Word of Life which is alive, and we must not take it for granted, but we must ponder quietly about it with spiritual minds to comprehend the GOODNESS and KINDNESS of our Creator.

When God says, “Listen CAREFULLY to Me,” we must do so because whether we are SAVED on not will depend on this. Those who do not “Listen CAREFULLY” will never understand God’s plan of SALVATION, and they will never comprehend the purpose for which God gave us His Commandments and the 613 Articles of His Law.

That’s why when a certain ruler came to JESUS and asked Him, “GOOD Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” JESUS answered him, “Why do you call me GOOD? No one is GOOD but One, that is GOD. You know the Commandment: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness.’ ‘Honor your father and your mother’” (Luke 18:18-20).

However, because this ruler did not “Listen CAREFULLY” to the Word of God which is JESUS CHRIST, he ended up being arrogant and boasting about His own “self-righteousness.” Therefore he told JESUS, “All these things I have kept from my youth” (Luke 18:21). This man misunderstood the revelation of the “LAW” of Moses right from the beginning when he came to believe in God. This is because he didn't “Listen” to God “CAREFULLY.” And even after meeting JESUS the Saviour of the world, still this man did not “Listen” to JESUS “CAREFULLY.”

But Our LORD told him, “Why do you call me GOOD? No one is GOOD but One, that is GOD.” If the ruler had listened “CAREFULLY” to the Words of JESUS, he would have realized that no human being is “GOOD,” and for that matter there is not a single “soul” who has been able to keep the Commandments. But because the ruler did not pay attention to the “Word” of God, his FAITH in God became an arbitrary faith which believes in God anyhow.

We must know that we cannot choose to believe in God anyhow or anyway we like. God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). That’s why He said we must “Listen CAREFULLY” to Him. But even as we speak now, many Christians do not “Listen CAREFULLY” to the Word of JESUS CHRIST. And even though JESUS said that “No one is GOOD” except God, they think otherwise.

Due to this, many Christians believe that they are also “GOOD” because they don’t steal, and they don’t commit adultery, murder, or bear false witness, and neither do they dishonour their parents. In other words, they challenge the “Word” of JESUS as if they can prove Him WRONG. This kind of believers do not “Listen CAREFULLY” to the LORD.

As a result, when JESUS even tells them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, UNLESS on is born of the WATER and the SPIRIT, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3), they still challenge the Word of God Who is talking to them, and they think they can be born again when they don’t do those things. This is all because they don’t “Listen” to JESUS “CAREFULLY.” Therefore in the whole of Christendom, the word “born again” is reserved for people who go to church and who have stopped stealing, killing, bearing false witness, and doing “GOOD.”

But the question is: Did JESUS tell us that we shall be “born again” when we obey the “LAW” and we don’t do those things? Are we SAVED by the “Word” of God (the works of JESUS) or we are SAVED by our own human goodness? Satan is therefore leading so many people including Christians to hell because they don’t “Listen” to God “CAREFULLY.”

There are some Christian who even have the erroneous belief that the can enter the Kingdom of God based on their Church Doctrine. They think that believing in the “BLOOD” of JESUS alone has made them born again. Meanwhile JESUS told us clearly that it is through His “WATER and the SPIRIT” that we are born again. But is so sad that they have given all their attention to their own human logic, and they don’t “Listen CAREFULLY” to what JESUS is saying.

But the Lord JESUS CHRIST who is God, “Is not a man, that He should LIE, nor a son of man, that He should REPENT. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He SPOKEN, and will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19). Our denominational doctrines can be a “LIE,” and the pastors, prophets, teachers, and the evangelists can also tell LIES.

Therefore if the Master of Creation and the ruler of the entire Universe says that “UNLESS” we are born of His water and the Spirit we cannot enter the Kingdom of God, we must not challenge Him and believe in anything else apart from this. It cannot be done in any other way. God cannot “LIE.” The Lord JESUS is the “WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE” (John 14:6:).

If a Christian can enter the Kingdom of God by his or her faith in only the BLOOD of the Cross, then the Word of JESUS in John 3:5 will turn into a “LIE,” and it will also mean that His “SPOKEN” Word is not true. As a Christians, we must seek for the TRUTH and ask ourselves, “What is this water and the Spirit which JESUS was talking about?”

Those who are sincere to themselves will be lead by God to discover the amazing TRUTH of the water baptism, the blood, and the resurrection of JESUS CHRIST in which the “mystery” of SALVATION is hidden.

Our study continues.................

Let us “Listen CAREFULLY” to God.



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Eric Aboadwe
November 13, 2017 ·

LISTEN CAREFULLY TO ME (Part 2)

We are still taking a look at our topic under study from the Book of Isaiah where God says:

“Listen CAREFULLY to Me, .... and let your SOUL delight in abundance” (Isaiah 55:2b).

The God-spoken Word above is so important that I wish every student of the Bible and those who desire to study the “Holy Scriptures” will read this passage from Isaiah in order to hear the “Word” of God and “Listen” to Him properly. This is because unless they do so, their many years of studying the Bible with theological PhD degrees will all be in vain (null and void).

Many people are seeking for human recognition and entitlements without seeking for the spiritual recognition of God granted to us through the “Holy Spirit” who is the “Teacher” of the “Scriptures” as our LORD told us (John 16:13-14). Before we became born again of the “water and the Spirit” of CHRIST, we were also people who were reading the Bible but we did not “Listen” to God “CAREFULLY.” This accounted for the reason why we were still SINNERS in Christian religion even though we believed in JESUS CHRIST.

But the moment we settle down, searched and reasoned from the Scriptures like the Bereans (Acts 17:10-11), listening “CAREFULLY” to God’s Word by comparing the Old with the New Testament, and linking the unblemished lamb (Leviticus 1:3) to JESUS CHRIST (John 1:29; 1 Peter 1:19), and connecting the laying on of hands (Leviticus 16:21) with JESUS’ baptism which He received in the same form of laying on of hands through John the Baptist (Matthew 3:13-17), and relating the blood of the sacrificial animal (Leviticus 17:11) to the blood of CHRIST on the Cross of Calvary (Hebrews 9:13-14), we became RIGHTEOUS.

These were the things which Moses wrote about JESUS CHRIST because no human being could keep the holy “LAW” of God in its entirety to enter the Kingdom of God. That’s why JESUS said that, “For if you BELIEVED Moses, you would BELIEVE Me, for he WROTE about Me. But if you do NOT BELIEVE In his writings, how will you BELIEVE My words?” (John 5:46-47).

As Christians, we have to “Listen CAREFULLY” to the Words of JESUS above. If you are a Christian and you don’t “BELIEVE” in the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle which Moses wrote, then JESUS is asking you, “how will you BELIEVE My words?” We must “Listen CAREFULLY” to this statement of JESUS very well. It means it is utterly impossible for us to “BELIEVE” in JESUS CHRIST if we fail to understand the TRANSFER of our SINS unto Him which God established in the Old Testament.

Therefore we cannot become TRUE Christians if we leave out or ignore the method of SALVATION which God planned even before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). That’s why the Scriptures tells us that, “do not REMOVE the ancient landmarks” (Proverbs 23:10). But it is so sad that many Christian denominations today have “REMOVED” that BAPTISM of the Lord JESUS from the gospel, which God established in the “ancient” times in the sacrificial system to TRANSFER our SINS unto Him.

If God says, “do not REMOVE the ancient landmarks,” we must “Listen CAREFULLY” to Him even if we have decided to establish a new denomination of Christianity. A new denomination does not mean we should CHANGE the “Word” of God to suit our own denominational “doctrines.” That’s why JESUS said that some people are “Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9).

As a result of this, different denominations means different “doctrines,” and different “believers” means different “FAITH.” But the Bible clearly tells us in an unequivocal voice that there is, “One LORD, one FAITH, one BAPTISM. One God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:5-6).

We must “Listen” to the Word of God spoken above here very “CAREFULLY.” It says that there is “One LORD.” But some Christians have believed in a different “Lord” who cannot forgive their SINS, and who tells them to offer the prayers of repentance every day. Therefore Satan, who “transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), has created so many religions, and he has polluted the Christian “FAITH” with man-made thoughts of the flesh.

That’s why the Apostle Paul said that, “Therefore it is NO great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of RIGHTEOUSNESS, whose end will be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:15). Here Paul spoke with all boldness given to him by the “Holy Spirit” that there are so many “ministers” of Satan, and they CHANGE the gospel of JESUS CHRIST by removing His BAPTISM from it, and they tell people that believing in the blood of the Cross is enough to SAVE them. This is how they “transform themselves into ministers of RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

But if it what they say is true, then why is it that their SINS do not go away? How can a “minister of RIGHTEOUSNESS” fail to talk about JESUS baptism by which JESUS Himself told John clearly that the purpose of His baptism is to, “fulfill all RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Matthew 3:15). Therefore if they don’t talk about this, then it can only mean that they are the FALSE “ministers of RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

This is because those who truly know CHRIST cannot leave out His baptism by which He fulfilled “all RIGHTEOUSNESS” for the sinful mankind. Paul himself testified about the baptism of JESUS by saying, “For as many as of you as were BAPTIZED into CHRIST have put on CHRIST” (Galatians 3:26). But because many believers have ignored JESUS baptism, they cannot “put on CHRIST.” This is the reason why they are still begging for forgiveness. We must know that putting on CHRIST is the only solution to our SIN problem.

However, the FALSE “ministers” tell people to believe in JESUS according to human logic, but God told us us in Isaiah that we must “Listen” to Him “CAREFULLY,” and He said that JESUS is the One “Who came by WATER and BLOOD... not only by WATER, but by WATER and BLOOD. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is TRUTH” (1 John 5:6). If the Spirit of God bears “witness” to this, can we add or remove something from it?

And in order to give us the final proof of this, God is going to show us something about JESUS on the Cross, and He says that we must “Listen CAREFULLY” to this one also. So He told us to “Search from the book of the LORD, and read” (Isaiah 34:16). And as we are doing the search, we have come to the gospel of John where it is written, “But one of the soldiers PIERCED His side with a spear, and immediately BLOOD and WATER came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is TRUE; and he knows that he is telling the TRUTH, so that you may BELIEVE” (John 19:34-35).

We must give all attention to this and “Listen CAREFULLY.” Even on the Cross, there was still the witness of the “WATER” of salvation. And as the saying goes, “A Word to a Wise, is Enough.”

Our study continues.....................