Truth and Temptation

I want to set forth some truth and reality today about what it means to be 'redeemed,' and also what it does NOT mean. In the old testament, if someone became poor and had to sell themselves into servitude to someone else, they could be redeemed by a near of kin who could afford monetarily to purchase their freedom. These things can be read about in detail in Leviticus chapter 25. We all were sold into servitude to sin and to the devil by our common father Adam, when he chose to disobey God in the garden of Eden (Rom. 5:12; Rom. 6:16; Rom. 7:14; I Cor. 15:22). God gave the law as a guide, but it did not provide the needed power to actually deliver anyone's spirit from the power that sin had over us all (Gal. 3:21; Heb. 10:4; Heb. 7:19). But as the last reference scripture listed here says, "For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope DID." And that is where the true redemption story begins to get really good. What that verse says is that the law could not make anyone's spirit complete because it could not 'redeem' anyone from being in servitude to sin, but that Jesus Christ the Redeemer can and DOES literally redeem those who truly believe on him. What I desire to be understood here is that Jesus suffered, died, and rose again to provide us with something MORE than what the law could do for us. The apostle Paul said it this way: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me FREE from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:2-4). There it is my friend, Jesus made the way for us that the law could not make, and that is to be truly redeemed from under the power of, and from being in servitude to sin. It really is that simple. Under the old covenant, when someone paid the price to buy a relative out of servitude, that relative WENT OUT OF SERVITUDE! They did not STAY in the house of bondage, and SAY they were out of it. Yet that is exactly what the modern Christian religion has taught its adherents to do: SAY you are redeemed, and confess in the same breath that you're still a sinner! Are you kidding me? What Bible did THAT come from??!! Listen to what my Bible says about the redemption that Jesus has paid for with the price of his life: "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us FROM ALL INIQUITY, and PURIFY unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Tit. 2:14). Now that means just what it says friend, and what it says is that Jesus literally delivers those who truly believe on him from the very nature, inclination, and committing of sin (I Jn. 3:7,8).

If that is not what is going on in your life then you are not believing the right way in the Redeemer! And the reason that most everyone in the Christian religion is not believing rightly in the Redeemer is because Christianity has taught people a Jesus who does NOT truly deliver from sin and the power of Satan. Christianity has taught God's people and everyone else in the religion that they have been redeemed by the price that Jesus has paid, but that they are supposed to STAY IN the house of servitude which he has purchased their freedom from. Now how much sense does THAT make??!! Do you want to know why this malady of mass hypocrisy exists? Because the one thing that Jesus suffered, died, and rose again to provide us with has been diminished to an optional, secondary 'Christian' experience; if it is allowed for at all. What am I talking about? Listen to the ONLY man sent by God to introduce Jesus onto the scene and tell why he was coming: "And [John] preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but HE shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (Mk. 1:7,8). Now listen to Jesus himself after he had paid that price and just before he ascended back to heaven: "And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence" (Acts 1:4:5). Sound familiar? Yeah, John and Jesus were in perfect agreement about what Jesus came to provide, namely the baptism of the holy Ghost by the hand of Jesus for all who truly believe on him (Jn. 7:38,39; Gal. 3:14). That would be the same holy Ghost baptism that came on the day of Pentecost, and it still has the same accompanying sign from heaven of "speaking with other tongues as the Spirit [gives] the utterance" (Acts 2:4). And what does the baptism of the Spirit have to do with redeeming from servitude to sin? Again Jesus explained right before his ascension: "But ye shall receive POWER, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8). That's right, sin had POWER over us, and we needed to have something imparted to us that would give us POWER OVER sin. The apostle Paul explained it simplistically: "For when we were yet WITHOUT STRENGTH, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. 5:6). So strength, or power, is exactly what we needed.

It's like Romans 8:3 says, the law was "weak through the flesh," and we needed something with power to get us out of sin. And like Heb. 7:19 says, " For the law made nothing perfect [complete, meaning our spirits], but the bringing in of a BETTER hope did." The law could not make the spirits of those who were under it complete for the simple reason that it could not take sin out of the hearts and souls of men (Heb. 10:1-4). And that is precisely what the redemption that Jesus has purchased for us DOES do; it gets us OUT OF SIN! That is why what Jesus has done for us is BETTER than the law. Jesus is our near of kin and he has paid the price to redeem us out of the house of servitude. He does NOT want us to stay in servitude when he has paid for us to escape it and be FREE: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Gal. 5:1). For us to say we are redeemed, and to also say and demonstrate that we are still sinners, is nothing but a religious hypocrisy at the cost of exchanging the glorious reality of what Jesus has purchased, for a lie. I say to you with divine authority my friend, that the cost of believing a lie is the same cost as it was in the beginning; and that cost is death (Rom. 6:23). For those who are serious about obtaining eternal life, the powerful admonition of the beloved apostle should be heeded: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And EVERY man that hath THIS HOPE in him purifieth himself, even as HE IS PURE" (I Jn. 3:2,3). Jesus is VERY pure my friend, and the scripture means what it says when is says that WE ALSO will have to be likewise pure if we hope to caught up to meet him at his coming, and given immortality as the apostle stated. And again the scripture rings loud and true to the same tune: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years" (Rev. 20:6). So is the true redemption story, and so are those who are truly redeemed by the blood of the lamb: "And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD" (Isa. 62:12). Amen.