ProveAll

Things

byBetty Miller

First Edition Published 1980 Second Printing 1982 Third Printing 1983 Fourth Printing 1984 Fifth Printing 1987 Sixth Printing 1988

Seventh Printing 1989 Eighth Printing 1994 Ninth Printing 2001 Tenth Printing 2003

Print On Demand 2004-2017

Prove All Things

Copyright © 1980-2017

ISBN 1-57149-000-0

CHRIST UNLIMITED MINISTRIES, INC.Pastor R.S. "Bud" Miller - Publisher

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Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Versionunless otherwise indicated.

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Contents

Preface ...................................................................................... v

Foreword ................................................................................ vii

Credits and Acknowledgments .............................................. viii

Introduction ............................................................................. ix

Recognizing False Prophets ...................................................... 1.Proving Counsel ........................................................................ 4

Guarding the Ear-Gate .............................................................. 6

Spirit of Truth vs. Spirit of Error .............................................. 7

The Spirit of AntiChrist ............................................................ 9

Prove All Things ..................................................................... 11

A Vision of God or Satan........................................................ 17

When to Judge ........................................................................ 19

Judging Ourselves ................................................................... 25

Learning From the Word ......................................................... 27

Sins of Omission ..................................................................... 31

Index ....................................................................................... 35

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PrefaceGreetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ:

I present this book to the body of Christ as the Holy Spiritpresented it to me. I challenge you to allow God’s Spirit of truth,and the Bible, to test the accuracy of the words within these pages.This book, part of the Overcoming Life Series, is also addressedto all seekers of truth who know not THE CHRIST UNLIMITED,as it would be my privilege to introduce you to Him.

During the early years of the ministry, I struggled to learnhow to hear the voice of God. Once, while nervously waiting tospeak before a large audience, and not being sure on what subjectI should speak, I posed to the Lord in prayer this question: “Lord,what am I going to say to all these people?” In my spirit, I heardHim very clearly reply, “Betty, I was hoping you would not sayanything, as I really wanted to speak.” Yes, He wants to speakthrough us, as we yield to His Spirit. Submitting to the Lord andthe guidance of the Holy Spirit, I found, was not only possible,but the only way He wants us to minister. For it is not ye thatspeak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you (Mat-thew 10:20).

This book is a gift from the Holy Spirit. I take no credit for it.If something within these pages blesses you, enlightens you, bringsyou closer to the Lord, releases you from fear or bondage, or healsor delivers you, then please lift your voice in praise to the pre-cious Savior of our souls, Jesus Christ our Lord! On the otherhand, if you find some of these things difficult to receive, hard tounderstand, or totally heretical from your viewpoint, would youalso look to the Lord and ask Him if it could possibly be the truth?With an open and honest heart, will you ask God to change anypre-conceived ideas, and be free from traditions to receive of Him,His truth? His truth always brings freedom, never bondage. Andye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John8:32).

In walking with the Lord, I have found we must obey thethings we feel He is speaking to us. In my personal life, I used tobe fearful of speaking for the Lord because I was so afraid of miss-ing Him and making mistakes. (He, of course, has now deliveredme of all my fears. Praise Him!) He encouraged me not to quitbecause of mistakes when He spoke these words to me: “Betty, ifI receive the glory and praise for all the things that are a blessingto people, I also receive the responsibility for your mistakes, aslong as you are striving to please me. I am able to make even thosework for your good.” And we know that all things work to-gether for good to them that love God, to them who are thecalled according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). We serve a won-derful, loving God, who encourages us to follow and obey Himthat we might be blessed, and in turn bless others!

This book was written as an act of obedience to the Lord,whom I dearly love. I consider it an honor to write for Him. Yearsago, when I was in prayer, the Lord spoke that I was to write abook, but I never felt it was God’s timing, nor did I feel the unc-tion or anointing to begin this work until now. Over the past yearGod has performed a series of miracles to confirm that it is nowHis time, and has made the arrangements for this to become areality.

I pray that this book, along with the Overcoming Life Series,may help you learn to walk closer to our Lord, as He is THECHRIST UNLIMITED!

I am, by His love,A handmaiden of the Lord,

Betty MillerFebruary, 1980

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doc-trine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak ofmyself (John 7:17).

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Foreword It just seemed natural that I would do the foreword on this

book since my wife, Betty, and myself, are “one flesh.” God, through the Holy Spirit, has given by revelation to Betty many truths of His Word, which have been set forth in this book.

The Lord spoke to Betty about ten years ago that she was to write a book for Him, and that He would arrange the right time and place to write it. Betty simply took this vision and set it aside until God began to “quicken” her spirit to bring it forth. One morn- ing, very early, Betty awakened, and began to write as the Lorddictated to her. In giving her this small initial portion of the book, He showed her how, by submitting to His Spirit, and completelyyielding to Him, He would feed to her the message He wanted to share with the body of Christ. He also revealed how quickly and easily it would be completed. The messages that God has given in this Overcoming Life Series are to all who desire to become “over- comers” and be “conformed to the image of His son” (Romans 8:29). Our Lord is not satisfied that a person remains a “babe” in Christ, but longs for each “babe” to grow to maturity. He desires that we should strive to become overcomers, live the overcoming life, and claim the promises of the inheritance of all things that are to be given to the overcomers.

I thank God that He has allowed me to share such close love and companionship with Betty. I know that within her heart she has no personal ambitions, no personal ends to achieve. Betty has simply been doing the will of the Father in the writing of this anointed book. May the Lord bless you with this book, as He has blessed us in being a part of His work.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor R.S. "Bud" Miller

He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I willbe his God and he shall be my son (Revelation 21:7).

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Credits & Acknowledgments

ALL PRAISE AND CREDIT GOES TO THE CHRIST UNLIMITED!

Truly Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are to be praised,not only for this book, but for our very lives. His sacrifice onCalvary made it possible to know Him and all the members ofGod’s family.

As with the printing of any book, there are lots of peopleresponsible for the words on these pages, physical words as wellas spiritual words. All the people that have ever been a part of mylife, all the people that have prayed and supported this ministry,my friends and my family have truly contributed to this work.Special credit should be given to my husband, Bud, whose faith-ful and loving prayers, encouragement, leadership, and love are abig part of this book. Also, to everyone whose books and articlesI’ve read, to the ministers of the Gospel, whose sermons I’veheard, I express my gratitude. For each has contributed, in somemeasure, to this book. The list is endless, but eternity has therecords. So instead of naming individuals on this page and givingthem earthly credit, I prefer the Lord Jesus Christ to reward themeach as only He can. God bless you all, and may you be surprisedas you open up the box that contains your heavenly treasures.

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of hisFather with his angels; and then he shall rewardevery man according to his works (Matthew 16:27).

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Introduction

PROVE ALL THINGS is a guideline for “proving” the thingsthat are of God and the things that are false. Christ warned thatgreat deception would be one of the signs of the end times. In thisbook, instruction is given on how to recognize false prophets andteachings. Clear Scriptural guidelines are given on discerning theSpirit of truth versus the spirit of error. The book deals with howto judge without being judgmental.

We must be balanced in our approach to receiving new thingsto make sure they are from God. We can be so open we can allowthe lies of Satan to deceive us. Yet on the other hand we can beclosed minded because of fear and miss new truths of God. Thisbook presents the Biblical standard for testing spiritual experi-ences to see which voice we are hearing. A major trick of theenemy is to get Christians to receive something they think is fromGod that will ultimately destroy them. We need to be aware ofthese devices without being fearful of receiving the wrong things.

PROVE ALL THINGS covers more than just discerningwrong doctrine; it also explains the way to test spiritual experi-ences as to their origin. How can we know if certain men andwomen are speaking God’s truths? Prayerfully, this book will helpyou to determine the truth from error and follow the Master’svoice.

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Prove All ThingsI Thessalonians 5:21: Prove all things; hold fast that whichis good.

Recognizing False Prophets

One does not arrive at being an overcomer until he first learnsthe all important lesson of testing or “proving” the issues of thislife. In the hour that we live, there are so many things that are falseand evil. We must be constantly on guard and “prove” or testthings, lest we become ensnared by something that is wicked. Cultsare spreading. Eastern idolatrous religions are creeping into ourcountry in very subtle forms, and many Christians are being de-ceived and have accepted their practices without even being awareof their evil. Some religious groups have existed for years underthe guise of Christianity, and yet are far from the teachings ofJesus Christ. The Lord warns us of these false teachers and tellsus to beware of them.

Looking at Matthew 7:15-23, we find Jesus gives us theguideline for determining false prophets:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’sclothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall knowthem by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figsof thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit;but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree can-not bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bringforth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruitis hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruitsye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord,Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he thatdoeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will sayto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy

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name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy namedone many wonderful works? And then will I profess untothem, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniq-uity.

Certainly, we are admonished to be on guard. However, somego to such extremes as to become narrow-minded and closed tosome beautiful truths in the name of being careful. What shouldour role as Christians be in regard to acceptance of a new thought,idea or doctrine? We are told to prove all things, not to rejectthem because they might be strange or new to us. However, weshould not receive them either, until we first prove them. How dowe prove things? All true Christians are in agreement that ourstandard is the Word of God, the Bible. God left us this Book as areference, standard, or gauge so we could know whether some-thing is good or evil, truth or error, right or wrong. (2 Timothy3:16-17: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and isprofitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc-tion in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect,thoroughly furnished unto all good works.)

One of our major faults as Christians is that we tend to quotemen on certain subjects instead of referring to the Book God gaveus. We recognize that God gave us men to lead us into the truthsof God, but our problem becomes who are the true men of Godand who are the false ones that Christ warned us about? Some-times we tend to evaluate men according to the size of their min-istries, their popularity with men, or their endowment of certaingifts, etc.

The Lord said in verse 20 of Matthew 7 that we would knowthem by their fruits. What are these fruits? Galatians 5:22-24defines them as being the fruit of the Spirit. But the fruit of theSpirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness,faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with theaffections and lusts. We are told to look at their lives and see ifthese fruits are predominant in them and examine if they are living

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the crucified life. Of course, we must allow for imperfections thathave not been overcome yet; but we should readily see the fruit ofthe Spirit in more abundance than the imperfections. One way wecan check this is to notice the words that a man speaks. The Scrip-ture says in Matthew 12:33-35, Either make the tree good,and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruitcorrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation ofvipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out ofthe abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good manout of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth goodthings: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forthevil things.

Many people have been led astray when they could have rec-ognized the wrong spirit simply by the braggadocios and pridefulwords of men who exalted themselves instead of Christ. Otherswould have been spared if they had examined the lifestyles ofcertain men who claim to be God’s anointed if their lifestyles arefar from being temperate; reflecting the most expensive and ex-travagant clothes, diamonds, homes, cars, etc. This is not refer-ring to well-dressed men and women, and nice homes, but theextremes which reveal anything but the nature of Christ. Of course,neither is the other extreme of poverty the nature of Christ. Menof God should live temperate, moderate lives, overcoming pov-erty and avoiding extreme wealth. Jesus always went about giv-ing to the poor. He never stored up His wealth even though Heapparently handled a lot of money, thus the need for a treasurer,Judas. He gave away the things He could have used on Himself,yet He never lacked as He went about ministering. He should beour example today. The affection and lust for the things of thisworld do not portray the Spirit of Christ.

Examining the conversation of these leaders can quickly re-veal the God they serve. Do they speak of God’s kingdom, Hisrighteousness, and His love; or does their conversation center onthe things of this world and life? Are they peacemakers, sowingmercy and love? Are they gentle and patient, or do they lose their

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temper easily? Do they walk in faith, or are they continually look-ing to other men for their needs to be supplied? Are they alwayspressuring people for money, or do they simply receive those giftsof money as unto the Lord? Do they have the joy of the Lord, ordo they minister out of duty? Are they truly joyous with that joyspilling over to others, or do they continually complain and gripeover all the things that are not pleasing to them? Is goodness evi-dent in their lives instead of evil? Do they put people in bondageby always threatening them with the wrath of God, or is freedomof choice extended with the warning of the penalties of sin? Jesuscame to set us free, not to bring us under the bondage of men.

Let us prove all leaders and see if their fruit is good fruit. Dothey love and not hate, have joy instead of depression, and pro-mote peace instead of strife? Are they longsuffering (patient) orimpatient, gentle or harsh? Do they walk in faith, or doubt andunbelief? Are they meek, giving God the glory for their talentsand gifts? Or do they pridefully talk of all they are doing or theirgroup is doing? Does temperance prevail not only in their lifestyle,but in their personal habits as well? Or do extremes exist that donot glorify God? In essence they will not live for themselves, butfor others as Jesus did. They will live a crucified life that glorifiesGod!

Proverbs 20:11 says, Even a child is known by his do-ings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.

Examining lives by this standard we must be careful not togo to extremes ourselves and expect total perfection of all minis-ters. There are many godly men and women who are called ofGod, who have overcome in many areas, although they still havesome weak areas. They are believing as they walk with the Lordthat these too will be perfected.

Proving Counsel

God’s people sometimes have a tendency to exalt a pastor orteacher to a position that he or she certainly doesn’t covet. God’s

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leaders were set in the body of Christ to help lead or bring us toChrist, not act as Christ for us. Ephesians 4:11-15 says:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; andsome, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For theperfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for theedifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity ofthe faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto aperfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness ofChrist: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed toand fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, bythe sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they liein wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may growup into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

God’s men and women will help others to come into thatplace where they are perfected or mature. People sometimes wantministers to do all their praying and Bible study for them insteadof taking the responsibility to do it themselves. Then, when thatminister fails or gets into error, the person who has not studied orprayed for himself falls into the same lie with him. If they hadbeen following the Lord, instead of a man, they would not havefallen into this trap. Instead they would have discerned the errorand prayed for that man of God, so that he too might have seenthe light and been corrected. The prayers of the people could havealtered the minister’s course.

People sometimes even want their ministers to make deci-sions for them. It is so much easier than seeking God for theiranswers and looking to His word. God’s true ministers will nottake the position that God should have in our lives. They will praywith us,but will not act as a substitute for our own personal prayerlife. They will advise us, but never tell us we must choose a cer-tain course. The true minister will present what God’s Word sayson a subject and the consequences we incur if we break God’slaws and His Word, but he will always leave the individuals tomake their own choices; never will he dominate, threaten, or co-erce people to do certain things. The true man of God will pray

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and allow the Holy Spirit to do the convincing, wooing, and lead-ing of the individual.

On our end, we should prove the counsel the minister givesus. We should check it with God’s Word, spend time in prayer,and see if it bears witness with our spirits. Taking our problems toour pastor, we should never elevate a minister’s advice and wordto being equal with God’s Word, unless that word lines up withthe Word of God. Prophecies should also be examined in the lightof the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. God’s true ministers are ser-vants and they never dominate another’s life but always extendfreedom. Even when the counsel given is God’s, should the per-son refuse to listen, the true man of God allows the person free-dom to make a mistake while surrounding him with much prayer,love, and mercy.

Guarding the Ear-Gate

In Mark 4:24 the Lord warns us to Take heed what yehear. The sound Scriptural basis for examining the things we hearteachers or pastors say is found in this verse. There are manygodly shepherds who love their flocks, yet the Lord knew therewould be those that would come in sheep’s clothing, so He ad-monished us to “watch.” A pastor who tells his flock that he alonehas full revelation from God is, at best, vain and narrow- minded,and at worst, satanic. Such a shepherd is putting himself in theposition of God. In effect, he is saying that God speaks only throughhim.

The Holy Spirit does not force, coerce, intimidate, or usefear to direct us. He always gives us choice and freedom. Any-thing that brings bondage is not of the Lord, and neither is any-thing that involves domination of another. It is the enemy, Satan,working through people that will cause them to dictate to othersbecause it gives them the feeling of power. They want to controlthe lives and thinking of everyone with whom they deal.

Some people submit to this sort of doctrine because they

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refuse to take responsibility for making their own decisions. Goddoes not intend for people to evade responsibilities for their livesand their actions. God intends for us to grow spiritually through-out our lifetime. There is no possibility of growth if we don’tmake decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions.Certain people want to roll blithely through life absolved of allresponsibility. Those with weak wills fall prey to the enemy com-ing through false prophets. We are warned to beware.

Spirit of Truth Vs. Spirit of Error

Should we disagree with a minister or a portion of his teach-ing, we shouldn’t immediately call him a false prophet, but seekthe Lord as to what is truth and what is error. He could have 95%truth and 5% error and still be a man of God. We shouldn’t labelpeople false simply because we disagree, but should seek the Lordas to what is truth. Yet, on the other hand, we shouldn’t accepteverything we hear as being the truth just because we admire orrespect a man or woman. I John 4:1-8 gives us a guideline as tohow to test or prove the spirits:

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spiritswhether they are of God: because many false prophets aregone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in theflesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that JesusChrist is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spiritof antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; andeven now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little chil-dren, and have overcome them: because greater is He that isin you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world:therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that isnot of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth,and the spirit of error. Beloved let us love one another: forlove is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and

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knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for Godis love.

The Lord tells us through John that anyone confessing thatJesus Christ is come in the flesh is of the Lord. This obviouslydoesn’t mean that simply because a person is able to speak thosewords that he must be free of any false spirit. This has a muchdeeper meaning. Any religious doctrine that denies that Jesus camein the flesh is false. Those doctrines that deny that Jesus was bornof a virgin are false and are ruled by the spirit of antichrist. Thosegroups who deny that Jesus is bodily coming again in the flesh arefalse. If they say, “He has already come, He came in the spirit,”they are false because He is coming again in a physical body offlesh. The Word of God says He will come again in like manner asHe left. (Acts 1:11 says, Which also said, Ye men of Galilee,why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, whichis taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like man-ner as ye have seen him go into heaven.)

Those that deny His humanity, stressing only His deity, teacha false doctrine also. Jesus was totally man as well as totally God.The natural mind cannot comprehend this, but with the Holy Spiritwe can understand and believe this. I Timothy 2:5 says, For thereis one God, and one mediator between God and men, the manChrist Jesus, while John 14:10 says this, Believest thou notthat I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words thatI speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father thatdwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Every true doctrine willdeclare Christ’s divinity as well as his humanity.

The other true doctrine that involves Jesus coming in theflesh is the fact that those who now believe in Christ and are “bornagain” have the Lord dwelling within their flesh. We can be bap-tized and filled with the Holy Spirit and have Jesus within us be-cause of what He did on Calvary for us. We simply come to Himbelieving, repenting and asking Him to come and dwell in ourhearts, and He performs that glorious miracle of the “new birth.”The “new birth” which took place in Mary’s womb when she con-

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ceived of the holy child Jesus can now be repeated. Instead ofcoming in the physical, in the womb, He comes spiritually in ourhearts and we experience a “new birth.” Old things are passedaway and all things are made new. What a miracle that the God ofthe universe has chosen to come and dwell in us. The victory thatJesus obtained over death and the grave has made available to usthe power of the Holy Spirit. We can live filled with that powerevery day!

The Spirit of Antichrist

The verses we are looking at in I John 4 speak of the spiritof antichrist that is in false prophets. We know that “anti” means“against” and the Greek word for “Christ” is “The Anointed One.”So this Scripture is telling us that anything that is against Hisanointing is the spirit of antichrist. What is His anointing? In theOld Testament the prophets used oil to anoint those who werecalled of God. Today we who are called by His name have Hisanointing within us. 1 John 2:27 says, But the anointing whichye have received of him abideth in you... The anointing is sym-bolized by the oil, and the oil represents the Holy Spirit. From thiswe can see that anything that opposes the Holy Spirit is “antichrist.”

The Holy Spirit is represented always with power. We cannow see that those who oppose the power of God are againstHim. The Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost to give the disciplespower to witness. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are powerful gifts.(1 Corinthians 12:8-10 says, For to one is given by the Spiritthe word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge bythe same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to an-other the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another theworking of miracles; to another prophecy; to another dis-cerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to an-other the interpretation of tongues.) These gifts are for powerto speak words of God, power to heal, power to work miracles,power to speak in other tongues, power to discern spirits, etc.

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Those that oppose the power of the Holy Spirit are really beinginfluenced by the spirit of antichrist. Therefore we can see thatany doctrine that opposes the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit isthe spirit of error and not God’s truth.

Continuing our teaching on discerning false doctrines taughtby those who are in error, we are warned that this spirit exists, butwe are not to be fearful of it because 1 John 4:4 tells us thatgreater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. SinceJesus dwells in us and Satan is the god of this world, this meansthat through the Lord we have overcome the spirit of antichrist,the lies of the false prophets, and the works of the devil. (This ofcourse only applies if we are committed to God and His will; if weare not, we are open for error to deceive us.) Notice too in thisverse that John addresses them as little children. There is a lessonhere of which we need to be aware. In testing or proving others’doctrines we should do so with a spirit of humility. We shouldcome before the Lord as a little child, not with a “know-it-all”attitude. We should prayerfully ask God, “Am I wrong?” or “Lord,is this doctrine false and not of you?” Without humility on ourpart, we can be deceived also.

The Lord sums this lesson up on trying the spirits with twoimportant ways by which we can know whether it is the spirit oftruth or the spirit of error. He says that people that are in theworld (remember the world system is ruled by Satan) will speakof the world, and those that are worldly minded will hear them. Ifwe are truly dedicated to God we will not be interested in thethings of this world, but our conversation will be on things above.(Philippians 3:18-20 verifies this, For many walk, of whom Ihave told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that theyare the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruc-tion, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in theirshame, who mind earthly things. For our conversation is inheaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the LordJesus Christ.) Notice also in 1 John 4:6 that those who are God’sown will agree with one another, but those that are not God’s,

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will not. The true people of God will bear witness to truth whenthey hear it. We may not always understand everything we hear(just as we don’t understand everything in the Bible), but in ourspirits we will witness that it is true. We have all had the experi-ence of hearing a sermon and while agreeing with the preacher,suddenly we hear a statement to which we do not agree. Theproblem here is that one of us is in error, or we would agree orwitness with his or her statement. There is a possibility that it ison our end that the error exists. We need to humbly submit thething in question to the Lord and ask Him to show us if we arewrong, or if it is the preacher or teacher. We need to go to theWord of God and seek the answer in the Bible. We should nottake another’s word unless it agrees with God’s Word. If truth isbeing spoken through someone, we who have the Spirit of Truthwithin us will be able to witness to and hear that truth.

Another test we can apply is pointed out in verse 8 of 1John 4. What kind of spirit is behind the things being said? Is itthe spirit of love? The Scripture says, He that loveth not knowethnot God; for God is Love. A spirit that is pushy, arrogant, over-bearing, rude, impatient, argumentative, envious, touchy, or pride-ful is not the spirit of love (1 Corinthians 13). Even when thespirit of God ministers a strong word it will have God’s authority,stability, and love undergirding it. We are to try (test) the spiritsand not receive everything we hear, yet we are to always have thisbalanced with a teachable spirit so that the Holy Spirit can correctus when necessary.

Prove All Things

Not only are we to test or try the spirits in men, but we are todo the same with any supernatural manifestations that we mightexperience. Today, when the world is being exposed to so manyfalse things we need to be careful not to expose our spirits to falsedreams, visions, revelations, prophecies, voices, etc. The Word ofGod definitely teaches that God can manifest Himself in any, or

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all, of the above things; yet we are not to accept everything thatcomes in the name of Jesus. We need to test or prove these also.One of Satan’s greatest devices is to counterfeit the real things ofGod and come to us disguised as the working of the Holy Spirit.

How do we test these things? Let us look to God’s Word, asthere is always wisdom there to show us what is truth. James3:13-18 says:

Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge amongyou? let him shew out of a good conversation his works withmeekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strifein your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. Thiswisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual,devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusionand every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above isfirst pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated,full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and withouthypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace ofthem that make peace.

From this Scripture we can know that anything that causesconfusion, strife, or envy is of the devil.

Many times a dream will bring confusion, and by this we canknow that it is not of God. If a prophecy is given to us and itcauses fear or strife within us, we can know it is not of God.Some would say maybe it is a dream with a warning. God’s warn-ings will always leave a way out for us; never will He leave us inhopelessness or despair. Satan has stepped up his work at this lasthour and is sending many false spirits to cause many false spiritualmanifestations to occur. This can especially happen to anyone whohas ever been involved with the occult. If we receive devilish wis-dom, we will find it will create not only strife, fear and confusion,but also every evil work. The evil lies which Satan tells peoplethat lead them to destroy their lives and marriages are spawned inthe pit of hell. He tells people lies such as the following: God hasanother mate for them that is more spiritual than the one theyhave; their mate is standing in the way of God blessing them, so

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they should leave; or, God has a soul mate for them, and now thatthey are following God they should have the mate God has cho-sen for them, etc. All of these are lies and can be exposed as welook at this Scripture.

God’s wisdom is first pure, then peaceable. We are to bepeacemakers, not involving ourselves in the war of divorce. Weare to have pure hearts toward our mates and family, even if thosemates or loved ones are not walking in the light we have, or evenif they refuse to walk in it. We are to overcome evil with good.Romans 12:21 states, Be not overcome of evil, but overcomeevil with good. Our prayers, our love and our obedience to Christwill bring the victory in the lives of those that are the closest to us,as we follow in God’s ways. Any revelation that does not encom-pass God’s love is not of Him.

Is the voice we heard gentle? Or is it urgent and demanding?God is generally not in a big hurry. One of His virtues is patience.Usually, a demanding voice is not the Lord. Our Lord is gentleand kind.

Is our vision easy to be entreated? Or is it hard to believe? Ifit is difficult for us to receive, or beyond our imagination, weshould examine it as to whether it came from the Lord or not.God’s words are easy to be entreated.

Is our prophecy or vision full of mercy? Or is it instead harsh,threatening the wrath of God upon us or someone else? God is aGod of love and He does not send tragedy, curses, sickness orfear upon His own children. If we have a dream or vision withsuch as this happening, it is not from our Lord. It is the devil tryingto torment us and fill us with fear. If we are living for the Lord,the devil has no right to put his curse on us. If we are living for thedevil, then we need to repent and get our lives right with God.Then we will not have to fear what Satan would try to do to us,for we have been given the power to overcome him (Luke 10:19).Sometimes people do have a dream of Satan’s plan to destroysomeone. If this should happen, we can pray and offset any of theenemy’s plans. Some people may have a “feeling” that something

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bad will happen, and then it does. They call it a hunch or a pre-monition. When another premonition occurs they live in fear becauseof their initial experience; in their mind they believe it will happenagain. Due to their belief it usually does come to pass. As Chris-tians, our belief and trust should be in God, not our "feelings.”

Bad dreams and feelings can be averted through the powerof the Holy Spirit. As Christians, we do not have premonitions,but we receive a burden in the spirit for someone or something.This prayer burden is given to us to offset the plans of the enemy.As we stop and pray, we can overcome whatever he has planned.We can stay one step ahead of the enemy with the Lord on ourside. It is truly wonderful to walk with Christ and be aware of thedevices of Satan and defeat him first -- before he comes againstus. (Psalm 21:8: Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies:thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.)

We discussed the fruit of the Holy Spirit as being evident inour lives when we are walking with the Lord. James 3:17 alsomentions fruits. Does our dream, revelation or vision producegood fruit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness,faith, meekness, and temperance)?

James continues and tells us that wisdom from above is with-out partiality and without hypocrisy. Many people get in troublewith false revelation because they think they are the only onesthat are receiving a vision. They believe they are “special” untoGod, or that God has a “special work” for them that no one elsecould do. God is not a partial God; He will use anyone who obeysand follows Him. God always extends His hand to “whosoeverwill.” Revelation 22:17 says, ...And whosoever will, let himtake the water of life freely. Deceiving spirits can work on aman’s or woman’s pride and/or ego by telling them they are God’sanointed and special servants, and that they are the only ones ableto perform certain tasks. If they would stop and examine the hy-pocrisy of their walk with God, they would know that they arenot hearing God’s voice.

God’s pattern is to call us “to be” before He calls us “to do.”

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So many “babes” in Christ are eager to zealously go forth in afull-time ministry to save the world, yet they are not prepared forthis task. Romans 10:2 says, For I bear them record that theyhave a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. We musthave the knowledge of God’s Word, which takes some prepara-tion time, before we can go forth as an effective tool of the Lord.The real ministry flows from what Christ is doing “in us,” notfrom what we are trying “to do” for Christ. It is always a greaterservice that we render through our “being” than through our “do-ing.” It is a greater honor to be called to “be” something than to“do” something. Faith and preparation should precede “works.”A true ministry will be an overflow of our fellowship and relation-ship with Jesus Christ. It will just spill over on to others.

James ends chapter 3 by saying that the fruit of righteous-ness is sown in peace of them that make peace. The AmplifiedVersion of James 3:18 really makes it clear how to know ifa revelation is from the Lord or the enemy. We can know by look-ing at the fruit. And the harvest of righteousness (of confor-mity to God’s will in thought and deed) is (the fruit of theseed) sown in peace by those who work for and make peace -- in themselves and in others, (that is,) that peace which meansconcord (agreement, harmony) between individuals, withundisturbedness, in a peaceful mind free from fears and agi-tating passions and moral conflicts. From this we can examinethe voices we are hearing to be sure they are the Lord’s, and notthose of the enemy, as the Lord’s dealings will always producegood fruit. We can then know if we are receiving true or falsewisdom. Confusion always occurs when we are fighting a battleto determine truth versus error. We must go to God to determinetruth. We must find out if our confusion is resulting from Godtrying to show us error or Satan trying to rob us of truth. If ourhearts are right and we sincerely desire to know the truth, Godwill reveal it to us. We must not set a time limit on God as to whenwe shall receive the truth. Some truths come quickly, others wemust seek for diligently with our whole heart. Matthew 7:7 in

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the Amplified Version says, Keep on asking and it will be givenyou; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking(reverently) and the door will be opened to you.

Some people have thought that if they have asked God totake their vision or revelation out of their hearts and it still re-mains there, that it must be God. This is not necessarily so, asthey must have perfect faith, a cleansed heart, and the willingnessto suffer loss of their vision. We cannot say one prayer and expectto have instant truth in all areas of our life. We grow in truth as wewalk with the Lord. The more we study His Word and the morewe fellowship with Him, the more truth we possess. If, or whenwe come to the place where we are filled with His truth and faith,then those things we ask will be granted; but this place in Christ isthe place of the overcomer. If we were in that place, all that wewould speak would come to pass, and we would walk in the sameauthority that Christ walked in while He was on this earth. Wewould not have to tell people we were overcomers, as it would beevident, just as it was in Jesus’ life. John 15:7 shows us that it ispossible to come to that place as it says, If ye abide in me, andmy words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shallbe done unto you. Most of us are striving to reach that place. Sountil we do, we must keep taking things to God to check and seeif they are from Him.

We must give all our desires, dreams and visions to the Lordto be perfected and given back to us, as He sees fit. We usuallyexperience the death of a vision or dream before it can be resur-rected. We see this in the life of Joseph. He received a true vision,but He did not understand it nor know the time of its occurrence.God’s thoughts, techniques, and timing are different from man’s(Isaiah 55:8-9). We must realize when we are still young in theLord, there is much cleansing of the carnal mind that must takeplace before our thoughts and our hearts are trustworthy.(Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, The heart is deceitful above all things,and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search

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the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according tohis ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.)

A Vision of God or Satan

If we persist in our own way and our own vision, we couldeven receive it, but it would not be the highest and best for ourlives. We could miss the life of an overcomer by demanding thingsin the flesh. If we truly desire to do the Lord’s will, then we mustbe willing to be corrected and even embarrassed, if that’s what ittakes to set right the things that are wrong. Until the renewing ofour carnal mind takes place, we need to continually check out allthings with the Lord by prayer and His Word, so that we will notbe deceived by the devil with a false dream or vision.

Even though Satan gives counterfeit visions, God gives trueones. One type of vision God gives is a “warning vision.” TheLord will warn people if they are sinning and refuse to quit whatwill happen to them because of their disobedience. He does notplan tragedy as it comes only as a result of their sin and rebellion.The Lord desires for them to repent so that judgment may beaverted. (2 Chronicles 7:14 says, If my people, which are calledby my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek myface, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear fromheaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.)

He also gives us visions for the future so that we can walktoday with hope in Him. With our days filled with struggles,troubles, and the fight of faith, we need a vision in our hearts sowe can press on in the Lord. Proverbs 29:18 states, Where thereis no vision, the people perish... We must have hope in our heartsto continue when things are difficult. Some things we cannot dotoday for the Lord, but God has those reserved for a future timewhen we are ready for those responsibilities in His kingdom. How-ever, there are so many things we can do today. We can share thelove that Christ has brought to us with those in our homes andcommunities.

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Each of us has the ministry of reconciliation. And all thingsare of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit,that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath commit-ted unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are am-bassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us:we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2Corinthians 5:18-20). From this verse we can see that each Chris-tian, no matter how long he has walked with the Lord, has theministry of reconciling others to God. God will give us the holyboldness to proclaim the gospel to others if we but ask Him for it.He desires to use each of us to win souls for Him. This is oneministry that young Christians excel in as they are eager to sharewith others what they have found in Christ. If we will be contentto let God use us where we are, then He will prepare us to reachout unto the ends of the world. We read in Acts 1:8, Jesus’ words,But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is comeupon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusa-lem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter-most part of the earth. If we are faithful to serve Him in oursmall worlds of home and office, He will expand our outreach toa worldwide ministry. Matthew 25:23 states, His lord said untohim, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast beenfaithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over manythings: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. We need to allowGod to use us where we are, and He will then increase our sphereof influence.

We need to test and prove our calling. Is God calling me togo now, or later? Many sell all and go, thinking to follow Christ,only to find they are not yet trained to handle the responsibilitiesof a ministry. One of the first things that usually happens is anattack by Satan that overwhelms them. Because they are not yettrained in spiritual warfare, they do not know how to get the vic-tory. The Lord must train us to be strong warriors in the battle of

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prayer, so we can overcome the enemy every time. Even if we getahead of the Lord, but our hearts are right with Him, He willcorrect our course so that we do not end as shipwrecked. How-ever, sidetracks and disasters could be prevented if we sought theLord diligently before we moved out in a ministry.

Usually there is a period of time between our “call” fromGod and the actual ministry becoming a reality. We see this in thedisciples’ lives as they were called by Jesus, then trained by Himbefore He sent them out two by two. Paul, after his conversion,went to Arabia for about three and one-half years before he cameback to Jerusalem to begin ministering. Before we go forth, let ussubmit to God’s cleansing and proving so that we will be able tostand and be an example to others, as they seek God’s will fortheir lives.

One reason some people move too quickly to do the thingsthey believe to be God is that they are fearful of disobeying Him,and thereby angering Him. They do not yet understand the lovingand patient nature of our Father. The Lord never minds us testingor trying things to see if He is in them. It is only when we put Godon trial that we do wrong. If we come to Him with a humble andsincere heart, wanting to know the answer to an honest question,He is more than willing to reveal to us the truth about the matter.The only time we will not get an answer from God is when weapproach Him rebelliously, demanding an answer from Him.

When to Judge

Many Christians are hesitant about proving or testing thingsas they tend to categorize this right along with “judging,” andthey have been taught they are to judge no man. Most of us arefamiliar with the Scripture in Matthew 7:1 that says, Judge not,that ye be not judged. If we look at only this one verse, and weare trying to judge a situation, we will feel guilty about making anevaluation. However, we should look at all the other Scripturesrelated to this one, so we know how we are to judge. Let us

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continue to read the rest of this Scripture, For with what judg-ment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure yemete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdestthou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest notthe beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say tothy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and,behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first castout the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou seeclearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye (Matthew7:2-5).

Examining all these Scriptures, we see that Jesus is not say-ing we are not to judge, but rather how we are to judge.

Our judgment should be merciful. The judgment we judgeothers with will be the same way we shall be judged. Jesus hadjust instructed the people in His sermon on the mount, Blessedare the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy (Matthew 5:7).We can see here that we are able to “store up” mercy. If we wantothers to be merciful to us when we fail and make mistakes, wemust extend mercy to those that we now see who are makingmistakes.

1 Corinthians 6:1-8 also tells us we are to judge:Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to

law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye notknow that the saints shall judge the world? and if the worldshall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallestmatters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How muchmore things that pertain to this life? If then ye have judg-ments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge whoare least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is itso, that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one thatshall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goethto law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Nowtherefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go tolaw one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why

do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.

We are going to one day judge angels (the angels spoken about here are the fallen angels that were cast out of heaven down to earth and are now the evil spirits that roam the earth under Satan’s dominion). If we are to do this, we must begin by making judgments on this earth.

We need to judge according to God’s Word. We are to see if things line up with the Word of God. If we see sin in our own lives, or in others, we must call it sin. Then, we are to pray for those that are in sin, asking the Lord to deliver them. We are to ask counsel from those in the church that are wise and humble. We are not to go to those in the world.

Specifically, in these verses Paul is dealing with lawsuits be- tween Christians. He says it is a shame for Christians to go to court against one another. He encourages Christians to give up their rights and suffer loss of worldly things so as not to bring reproach upon the church. We see this sadly lacking in Christians today as there are even cases of ministries suing their elders over ownership of church buildings when church splits occur. What a shame for Christ's body, fighting over material possessions instead of going before God and giving Him everything, allowing Him to do our battling for us (1 Samuel 17:47). He is able to defend us or restore to us our material losses, if we only allow Him to have control over situations that seem unfair. Our attitudes are so much more important to God than maintaining our "rights." Above all things, the Lord is interested in the love that is perfected in our hearts. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this;Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. (Galatians 5:14-15). Fighting and going to court with Christians or non-Christians will only produce destruction for all parties. If we were walking in the Spirit, we would notget involved in the things of the flesh. And if any man will sue

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thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thycloke also (Matthew 5:40).

Scripturally, we see that we can judge. In 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 Paul writes, But the natural man receiveth not the things ofthe Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neithercan he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself isjudged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord,that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.This states we must have the mind of Christ on matters to be ableto make proper judgments. We are to have spiritual discernmentand not make judgments in the flesh. It does not matter what wemay think of a situation; the important thing is knowing the mindof the Lord. Man’s carnal judgments are not “after the Spirit”because he cannot see into people’s hearts. If we could see theinner man, we would not judge harshly those that are truly tryingto overcome, but are weak and continue to fail. We would extendlove and mercy. Jesus exemplified this in the account of the womanwho was caught in the act of adultery. When the Pharisees broughtHim the woman for judgment, He spoke these words, He that iswithout sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her (John8:7). The punishment under the old Jewish law was death by ston-ing for those who committed adultery.

The only times Jesus was ever severe in His judgment werein cases where men were hypocritical. In Matthew 23:23 we findthe following warning, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin,and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment,mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not toleave the other undone. Verse 33 says, Ye serpents, ye genera-tion of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Thereason the Lord could make this judgment is because He wouldlay down His life for these men who were rejecting Him. Beforewe make judgments on others, we too need to be ready to lay ourlives down for those souls. We can do this by prayer, fasting, suf-

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fering under their ungodly remarks, and believing for their souls.In this way our judgment will be pure, as we are not passing judg-ment without sorrow in our hearts for them. We are never to passjudgment as a retaliation.

The next thing we need to check when judging is to see if weare being hypocritical by pointing to others while we are unwill-ing to correct the things wrong in our own lives. Perhaps the sinwe see in others is only minor (mote), while in our lives there is amajor sin (the beam), which we are refusing to acknowledge (seeMatthew 7:3-5). Let us first deal with our own sin, before wejudge the sin in others. For if we would judge ourselves, weshould not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chas-tened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with theworld (1 Corinthians 11:31-32). How do we judge ourselves?This only comes as we see ourselves as guilty sinners who need aSaviour; for without Him we could not attain holiness nor be righ-teous. We must judge our own lives according to the Word ofGod. We must look and see how we are living up to the Word.When we do this we must be careful not to become legalistic. (Weshould obey from the heart and not bind ourselves to the letter ofthe law.)

This does not mean we are free to break God’s laws, but weare free from the bondage of the law. When we sin, we feel guilty;and guilt brings bondage. The law was not made for the purposeof saving or justifying. It was made to show us our need of cleans-ing and to point us to the great source of cleansing, Jesus Christ,our Lord. The Bible speaks of the law as a mirror to show us whatkind of people we really are. For if any be a hearer of the word,and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his naturalface in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way,and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. Butwhoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueththerein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work,this man shall be blessed in his deed (James 1:23-25). It isobvious that a mirror (the law) cannot remove a spot from the

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face. Its work is to reveal the spot and to point the dirty one to thesink for the actual cleansing. The law, in like manner, only con-demns the sinner by giving him knowledge of his condition, andthen pointing him to the cross for true cleansing. For by graceare ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it isthe gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast(Ephesians 2:8-9). Paul further emphasizes this point in Galatians2:16, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of thelaw, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed inJesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ,and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the lawshall no flesh by justified.

Right here we need to consider one of the most fallaciouspropositions ever set forth relating to the law. Countless sincereChristians have accepted the idea that the Old Testament encom-passes the dispensation of works, and that the New Testamentprovides for a dispensation of grace, and their separate events areunrelated. Under this misconception, people were saved by worksin the Old Testament and by grace in the New Testament. This issimply not true. The Bible holds forth only one beautiful, perfect,plan for anybody to be saved, and that is by grace through faith.Heaven will not be divided between those who got there by worksand those who got there by faith. Every single soul among theredeemed will be a sinner saved by grace through faith. Thosewho entered into salvation in the Old Testament trusted the mer-its of the blood of Jesus Christ, demonstrating their faith by bring-ing a lamb and slaying it. They looked forward, in faith, to theatoning death of Jesus. We look back in faith to the same crossand are saved in exactly the same way, by faith in what Christ didon the cross for us. All the redeemed host throughout eternitywill sing the same song of deliverance, exalting the Lamb slainfrom the foundation of the world. Law and grace do not work incompetition with each other, but in perfect coordination. The lawpoints out sin, and grace saves from sin.

The law is the will of God, and grace is His undeserved favor

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and power to do the will of God. We do not obey the law in orderto be saved, but because we are saved. Although we live in thedispensation of grace, and the Old Testament saints lived underthe dispensation of the law, both are still valid today as Jesus saidin Matthew 5:17, Think not that I am come to destroy thelaw, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.From this Scripture we can see that the law is still valid in theNew Testament.

An Old Testament example of God’s grace being availablethen is recorded in the life of David. In the eleventh and twelfthchapters of 2 Samuel, we have the story of David committingadultery and murder. Nathan the prophet was sent by God to Davidto convict and correct David. When he realized the gravity of hissin, David immediately repented and confessed his sin. SinceDavid’s heart was right, God was merciful and extended grace tohim. The penalty for his sin was death by stoning; however, sincehe quickly repented, his sin was put away by God, showing thatgrace was indeed operating in the Old Testament. And Davidsaid unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathansaid unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thoushalt not die (2 Samuel 12:13). We live by His mercy and grace.Grace is His undeserved favor and divine enablement, while mercyrequires no punishment for our sins. He took the punishment forus, so we don’t have to take it. Praise God! Mercy deals with thenegative side of our sin, while grace is positive since we receivethings we do not merit.

Judging Ourselves

In judging ourselves, we need to come to the Lord and askfor cleansing and forgiveness as often as needed. We need to con-fess our faults to Him and others. (James 5:16: Confess yourfaults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye maybe healed. 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful andjust to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all

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unrighteousness.) In confessing to other members of the body ofChrist, we should have the Lord’s guidance as to whom we shouldreveal our sins. Some people are unable to receive a confession,and it can do more harm than good. This is especially true if thatperson is not walking in the same spiritual light that you are. It isenough to confess those particular sins to God. Let the Holy Spiritguide you in these areas, as there are Christians that do not haveChrist’s nature of mercy formed in them yet, and they could usethe confession against you, instead of receiving it as unto the Lord.We should not confess to those that are outside Christ, as they donot understand God’s love and forgiveness.

Looking again to 1 Corinthians 11:31-32, we see that if wejudge ourselves, we shall not be judged; and if we are judged weare chastised of the Lord. How does the Lord chasten us? DoesHe do mean things to us? Does He send sickness, tragedy, etc. tostraighten us up? No, He does not; the Father chastens us byHis Word. Let us look at John 12:47-48; And if any man hearmy words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not tojudge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me,and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: theword that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the lastday. As Christians, when we do wrong we are immediately chas-tised by the Spirit of God convicting us. If we lie, we hear theWord of God in our spirit say, Thou shalt not lie. We feel guiltyand experience the Holy Spirit’s disapproval. If we immediatelyrepent and make things right with God and man, then we are re-stored to fellowship with God. If we refuse to repent and chooseto continue in our sin, we add sin to sin and end up with a brokenrelationship with the Lord. He cannot fellowship with those thatare in sin. He is a holy God. As long as this breach exists, we arenot right with God and it leaves the door open for Satan to attackus. Satan then has a right to come and put sickness on us, bringaccusations, send evil tidings, create fear in our hearts, etc., be-cause we are in his territory. Our own sins and backsliding bringthe problems. Our Lord does not send them to teach us some-

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thing. (Jeremiah 2:19, Thine own wickedness shall correct thee,and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore andsee that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsakenthe Lord thy God...)

Learning From the Word

The Lord teaches us by His Word, or His Book, the sameway teachers teach their children in school, by the book. The word"chastise" in the Greek usually denotes “to train children.” It sug-gests the broad idea of education by correcting with words, re-proving, admonishing and instructing. When we can grasp this,we can then know that God is not the author of evil, but it is ourwrong decisions that produce evil and its consequences. If we arewalking defeated Christian lives, it is not God’s fault. He made away for us to overcome by obeying His Word. When the trials oflife overwhelm us and we are defeated, it is because we did notpass the test. In school, when a child fails a test, we do not blamethe teacher, as the fault lies with the child who did not do hislessons and homework well. However, when Christians fail thetests in life, may times it is God who is blamed. He gets the blamefor taking little children’s lives in accidents, for sending sicknessupon His children, for burning down houses, for earthquakes,storms, etc. Could it be that if we did our homework by prayingand studying the Bible, that many of these things could be pre-vented? Yes, they could; the lack is ours, not God’s.

We believe in the motto, “Prayer Changes Things,” yet howmuch quality time do we spend in prayer? How many hours dowe devote to Bible study as compared to the hours we watch TVor devote our time to other time wasting endeavors? Yet, whensomething bad happens in our lives, we do not take the blame toourselves because it is so much easier to blame God. God gave usmighty weapons in His Word to overcome the devil and defeathim at every turn. Is it His fault we are not aware of these weap-ons? We have the book that tells us how to be an overcomer. That

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book is the Holy Bible. I would say few people reading this wouldnot have access to a Bible. The Holy Spirit is our teacher and Hisoperation manual for living in this world is the Bible. If we haveHim in our hearts and read His manual, there is not one problemthat we cannot overcome. We find few overcomers because wefind few apt students. We find a lot of people that know the Wordof God but they do not apply it to their lives. In school we mustapply what we know to pass the exams. If we do not know oursubject, we are doomed to fail from the start. That is why wemust know Him first, for in Him is all knowledge and wisdom.

If we are walking with the Lord, the Holy Spirit will alwaysdo His job of reproving us for sin. (John 16:8: And when he(the Holy Spirit) is come, he will reprove the world of sin, andof righteousness, and of judgment....) Sometimes we suffer underSatan’s false accusations when we are not guilty at all. How canwe determine when it is the Holy Spirit that is convicting us andwhen it is the enemy that is condemning us? When the Holy Spiritconvicts us of sin, He always shows us the way out and alwaysextends to us pardon. When the devil is condemning us, he neverleaves us a way out, he accuses us, and he condemns us to failure.He would whisper to us, “You will never change; you can neverovercome this weakness. God is angry with you and He will pun-ish you for this. You might as well go back into the world. God’sway is too hard. You are doomed to hell, anyway. Why, you havecommitted the unpardonable sin, etc.” These are a few of the liesSatan tells us when we have failed and sinned, and every one ofthem brings condemnation and fear. God always lifts us up andhelps us when we have failed Him, and shows us there is a betterway. He enables us to overcome if we do it His way.

If we forsake evil and turn to Him, we are never condemned;but if we continue to sin, we are condemned along with the world.

John 3:18-21, He that believeth on him is not condemned:but he that believeth not is condemned already, because hehath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son ofGod. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the

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world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because theirdeeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deedsmay be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. If wejudge ourselves, we shall not be condemned with the world be-cause we are a part of a “new world.”

The Lord gave a parable in Matthew 5:25-26 that gives us aguideline as to how we can judge ourselves and remain free fromSatan’s condemning lies. Agree with thine adversary quickly,whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the ad-versary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver theeto the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say untothee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hastpaid the uttermost farthing. The Amplified Version of the Biblemakes this even a little easier for us to understand. Come to termsquickly with your accuser while you are on the way travellingwith him, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, andthe judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; Truly, I sayto you, you will never be released until you have paid the lastfraction of a penny. We know that Satan is our accuser and ouradversary (Revelation12:10), so when we are walking with him,or keeping company with him by sinning, and he accuses us ofthat sin, we are to agree with him. If we have lied, and he says tous, “You are a liar and all liars go to hell,” we are to agree withthis statement, when guilty. We must not stop here, however; weshould then ask God’s forgiveness and tell the devil, “Yes, I havesinned, but I have asked God to forgive me and His Word alsosays, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgiveus our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1John 1:9). If we do not confess our sin, then we come under thejudge’s jurisdiction. We find that the judge is the Word of God,and the Word of God does declare that all liars end up in hell.(Revelation 21:8: But the fearful, and unbelieving, and theabominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcer-

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ers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in thelake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the sec-ond death.) So the judge (God’s word) takes us to the officer orthe guard. The guard is representative of the Holy Spirit, as Heguards the Word. If the Holy Spirit does not know us, then wemust pay the price for our sin.

By agreeing that we are guilty and asking the Lord for for-giveness, we can avoid the condemnation and the penalty. WhenSatan then accuses us, the Holy Spirit will have pardoned us be-cause Jesus paid the price for our sins so that we do not have topay it. Praise God! Even as Christians we can come into bondageand be held prisoner in our bodies, our emotions and our minds ifwe fail to ask for forgiveness of our sins. Satan has a legal holdwhen we have unconfessed sin in our lives. We should also askthe Lord to forgive us for those things that we do not, as of yet,recognize as sin, even as David did in Psalm 19:12: Who canunderstand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.The more of God’s Word that we know, the more we shall be ableto recognize our sin and be cleansed of it. Ephesians 5:26: Thathe might sanctify and cleanse it (the church) with the wash-ing of water by the word... Yes, the more of God’s Word wehave in our hearts, the more we shall be able to prove and test allthings. To know and understand the Word of God is to know thetruth, and in knowing the truth we indeed shall be free.

We then, being free, will not have to stand before God’s judg-ment for sin. What is God’s judgment on sin? It is the penalty forbroken spiritual laws. This penalty is brought on by our own sins(unless we receive Jesus, as He took the penalty for us on Cal-vary). The judgment of God can be averted by repentance andprayer. Disasters come to cities, and most of the time it is spokenof as “the judgment of God” coming upon the people because oftheir wickedness. If Christians were praying for their cities andasking God to be merciful and to deliver and touch the people ofthat town, we would see fewer disasters. Christians should be inprayer daily for their communities, seeking God on behalf of the

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city officials and praying for truth and peace to reign in their localareas. We, as Christians, have been failing, thus allowing Satan tobring disaster to areas because there are no interceding Chris-tians.

Sins of Omission

There are two kinds of sins. One is that of commission (sinsthat we commit) and the other of omission (things we omit). Thesin of omission is the failure to do the things we know we shoulddo. It is being committed every day when we fail to pray for ourcities and governments (James 4:17). We might ask ourselvesthis question, “If it were up to us to be responsible in prayer forour city’s welfare, would our prayers be sufficient for that task?”This will reveal to us that the lack is not on God’s part, but on ourpart, in that we do not pray diligently. It will take more than a fewtimes of praying, “God bless America,” for our country to have areal revival and turn from its wickedness. It will take real inter-cessory prayer and spiritual warfare for the victory to be won.

God is not responsible for the tragedies in our homes, citiesand country. We are responsible. Ezekiel 22:30-32 says, And Isought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge,and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should notdestroy it: but I found none. Therefore have I poured outmine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with thefire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upontheir heads, saith the Lord God. From this verse we can seethat it is our evil ways that bring destruction, not God. Destruc-tion is simply the result of sin. How terrible to blame God fortragedy and disaster! It is man’s nature to do this, because it ismuch easier to blame God than to take responsibility for his ownfailures and sins. Ezekiel 33:20 states, Yet ye say, The way ofthe Lord is not equal. O ye house of Israel, I will judge youevery one after his ways. We see the Israelites were guilty of thesame sin of blaming God for His alleged injustice, instead of see-

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ing their own sins. They were God’s people, yet they were full ofsin. Today we find the same scene. Many of God’s people are thevery ones blaming God for their tragedies, losses of loved ones,sicknesses, sorrows, etc. They are blinded to their sin, as it hastaken a subtle form of self-righteousness. They feel if they attendchurch regularly and give their tithes, they have fulfilled their ob-ligations to God. They do not recognize their complacency andtheir love for the world, as many of the clergy have allowedthem to bring the “world” into the church.

One of the greatest ills in the church today is the mixture ofthe church and the world. The church is no longer separated fromthe world, but looks just like the world. The world does not rec-ognize Christians because they do the same thing the world does.They eat and drink the same things, go to the same places, etc. InExodus 12:38 we find an account of a people called the “mixedmultitude.”

The background of this account tells about Israel being ledout of Egyptian bondage by Moses. When they left, some of theEgyptians who had married the Israelites left with them. Also therewere those that were half-Egyptian and half-Israelite. The OldTestament has many accounts of “types” that are lessons for ustoday. 1 Corinthians 10:5-6 says, But with many of them Godwas not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilder-ness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent weshould not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. The ex-ample we are to see here is a lesson of what happens to those whoare not true Israelites at heart. We see in Numbers 11 that afterthe Israelites had wandered in the wilderness awhile, they beganto gripe and complain. This spirit spawned from those that wereof the mixed multitude. The mixed multitude were those in theoutermost part of the camp. They didn’t come to the center of thecamp where the tabernacle was pitched, as they didn’t want to beexposed by the glory of the Lord. Their allegiance soon wanedunder trial and persecution, and they longed to go back to Egyptwhere the fish, cucumbers, melons, garlics, leeks, and onions were.

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Soon their lust for these things overcame them, and they weredestroyed by the fire of God and the wrath of the Lord.

Today we find the same problem in the church. The lust forthe things of this world, plus uncommitted hearts that contain amixture of this world and the Lord’s kingdom, will ultimately bringthe judgment of God. It was not God’s intention for Israel towander in the wilderness for 40 years, as He wanted to bringthem to the promised land that was flowing with milk and honey.It is the same today; He wants to bless His children, but theirrebellion and lack of commitment do not allow Him to do so. TheWord of God proves we have a loving and just God. As we seekHim and grow in His Word, we will not suffer His judgment onsin. The judgment of the wrath of God comes only upon sin in thisworld. If we have Jesus in our hearts and have been forgiven ofour sins and have renounced the things of this world, then wehave no need to fear the wrathful judgment of God. It will not fallon God’s children who are striving to follow Him. Praise God!

In concluding, let us look to God to prove all things. Prov-ing what is acceptable unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:10). Onlyby coming before Him with a teachable spirit can we be taught thetruth and recognize error. As we become more acquainted withthe real, we will be able to better discern the counterfeit. Thedevil has a counterfeit for every truth of God. However, we neednot fear being deceived if we are in fellowship with the Lord, forHe will deliver us from every evil as we continue to follow Him.

Our daily prayer should be "Lord, cleanse me from all errorand renew my mind. Lord, I desire to know the truth even if itmeans correction and embarrassment for me. Change my thoughtsand heart to be your thoughts."

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IndexA

Anointing 9Antichrist 7, 8, 9, 10

B

Bible 2, 5, 11, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29

C

Church 20, 21, 30, 32, 33Condemnation 28, 30Confession 26

D

Dreams 11, 14, 16

F

False prophets 1, 7, 9, 10False teachers 1Forgiveness 25, 26, 29, 30Fruit of the Spirit 2, 3

G

Grace 24, 25

H

Holy Spirit 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 26, 28, 30

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J

Judging 19, 23, 25Judgment of God 30, 33

K

Knowledge 5, 9, 12, 15, 24, 28

L

Law 2, 5, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30Lawsuits 21

M

Mercy 3, 6, 12, 13, 20, 22, 25, 26Mind of Christ 22Ministers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11

N

New birth 8, 9

O

Overcoming 3

P

Prayer 5, 6, 13, 14, 16, 19, 22, 27, 30, 31, 33Prophecies 6, 11Prophecy 9, 12, 13

R

Reconciliation 18Repentance 30

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Revelations 11

S

Satan 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 26, 28,29, 30, 31

Sin 4, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32Supernatural 11

V

Visions 11, 16, 17

W

Wisdom 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 28Word of God 2, 6, 8, 11, 21, 23, 26, 28, 29, 30

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Additional Books by the Author:

Book Titles in the OVERCOMING LIFE SERIES:

PROVE ALL THINGSTHE TRUE GOD

THE WILL OF GODKEYS TO THE KINGDOM

EXPOSING SATAN’S DEVICESHEALING OF THE SPIRIT, SOUL & BODY

NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALEEXTREMES OR BALANCE?

THE PATHWAY INTO THE OVERCOMER’S WALK

Book Titles in the END TIMES SERIES:

MARK OF GOD OR MARK OF THE BEASTPERSONAL SPIRITUAL WARFARE

Christ Unlimited Ministries, Inc.P.O. Box 850

Dewey, AZ 86327U.S.A.

For online orders, please visit our website: http://www.bibleresources.org

Postnote

The Millers are very glad to receive mail from their readers; however, they are unable to answer the letters personally due the volume of mail that they receive. They will be happy to pray along with their intercessors for all who write with a prayer request; although they do no outside counseling as they believe this should be directed to local pastors as outlined in Scripture.

Christ Unlimited Ministries, Inc. is a non-profit church 501(c) (3) corporation. All contributions are tax deductible. We appreciate your prayers, encouragement and support. Your purchase of this book makes it possible for us to share free copies of Bibles, teaching literature, tracts and downloadable audio/video materials with ministers in third world countries who would otherwise not be able to purchase them.

The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it (Psalm 68:11).

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For Additional StudyThis book is taken from a course of Bible studies called the Over-coming Life Series. The entire series is a virtual “spiritual toolchest,” as it covers a multitude of subjects every Christian faces inhis walk with God. It also answers questions that many believershave concerning the current move of God. These are dealt within a balanced approach and in the light of the Scripture. God’speople are not to live frustrated, defeated lives, but rather theyare to be victorious overcomers! Other books available with theircompanion workbooks are:

PROVE ALL THINGS - Christ warned that great deceptionwould be one of the signs of the end times. In this book, instruc-tion is given on how to recognize false prophets and teachings.Clear Scriptural guidelines are given on discerning the Spirit oftruth versus the spirit of error. The book deals with how to judgewithout being judgmental.

THE TRUE GOD - This is a teaching on the character of God,explaining why God does certain things, and why it is against Hisnature to do other things. It differentiates between the things forwhich God is responsible and the things for which the devil isresponsible. Our responsibility as Christians destined to overcomeis made clear so that we can live victorious lives.

THE WILL OF GOD - This lesson teaches us not only how toknow the will of God in our personal lives, family, ministry andfinances, but also brings understanding as to why God allows sin,sickness and suffering in the world. As overcomers, Christiansare not to suffer under many of the things we have accepted asnormal.

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM - Instruction on how to gain au-thority in God’s Kingdom through prayer is the topic of this book.Many principles and methods of prayer are covered, such as pray-

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ing in the Spirit, fasting and prayer, travailing prayer, praise, in-tercession and spiritual warfare.

EXPOSING SATAN’S DEVICES - This book is a powerfulexpose' of Satan’s tricks, tactics and lies. Cult and Occultic meth-ods and groups are listed so Christians can detect their activity.Demon activity is discussed and deliverance and casting out de-mons is dealt with in detail. Satan’s kingdom is uncovered and theChristian is taught to overcome through spiritual discernment andwarfare.

HEALING OF THE SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY - This bookteaches how to overcome emotional problems, as well as physicalones, and how to receive divine healing. It also teaches how torenew the carnal mind and walk in the spirit of life, thereby over-coming depression, loneliness and fear.

NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALE - What is the woman’s rolein the church and home? Who is a woman’s spiritual head andcovering? Does God call women to the five-fold ministry? Whatdoes God’s Word say about divorce, celibacy and choosing amarriage partner? These and other woman related topics areScripturally examined.

EXTREMES OR BALANCE? - Many Christians have hurt thecause of Christ through “out-of-balance” teachings and demon-strations. This book shows how to avoid those areas. It alsodeals wisely with the excesses and extremes in the body of Christ.

THE PATHWAY INTO THE OVERCOMER’S WALK - Thisbook contains answers to the questions an overcomer faces as hepresses toward the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. Howcan we be conformed to the image of Christ? How does the HolySpirit work with the overcomers in the end times? What are theovercomer’s rewards?

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PERSONAL SPIRITUAL WARFARE - Explains the invisibleworld of spiritual forces that influence our lives and how goodcan prevail over the evil around us as we prepare for the newkingdom age that is coming. This book will help you overcomeproblems in your finances, marriage, the emotional pressures offear, anger and hurt. Here are the keys to victory through spiri-tual warfare.

MARK OF GOD OR MARK OF THE BEAST - Much hasbeen written and said about the mark of the beast, but little hasbeen said about the mark of God. What does the 666 mean andwhat is this mysterious mark? How is it linked to the world offinance? Has this mark already begun? This book answers manyquestions about the mark of the beast and the mark of God, andhow they affect Christians.

Please visit our website for information on how to order the complete Overcoming Life Bible Study Series.

www.BibleResources.org

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Purpose and VisionGo ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptiz-

ing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observeall things whatsoever I have commanded you: and,lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of theworld. Amen.

Matthew 28:19,20

Christ Unlimited is not “another denomination,” sect, or justa separate group. It is an arm of the Body of Christ -- the Churchof Jesus Christ, which has been called to strengthen the Body atlarge. We also believe we have been called to help establish theKingdom of God in the earth.

Christ Unlimited is involved with all Bible-believing Chris-tians regardless of their church or denominational affiliations andcommitted to helping wherever possible in evangelistic and teach-ing outreaches.

Christ Unlimited believes that time is running out and theGospel has not been preached to every creature. Many nationshave not heard the Gospel, and in many places, doors for evange-lism are closing. We believe it is time all Christians cooperatedwith the Lord in breaking down denominational walls for a unitedfront line against the kingdom of darkness and in setting up theKingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Christ Unlimited provides such tools as to enable the saintsof God to establish the Kingdom of God in the earth. We encour-age groups of prayer warriors who will pray, fast, and intercedefor the nations. This, we believe, is weapon number one. We teachbelievers how to overcome through spiritual warfare and through

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knowing how to use their authority in Christ Jesus through theWord and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Christians need to know how to bring down the forces ofdarkness in their own lives and in the lives of those to whom theyminister. We provide such tools as Bibles, literature, Christ Un-limited books and an online prayer ministry. We publish the Gos-pel going out via any means of communication; including the in-ternet, videos, as well as literature. We have teaching seminars,Bible schools, and correspondence courses, all aimed at winningsouls to Christ and building the Body of Christ into maturity.

Bud and Betty Miller serve the Lord together as founders ofthe multi-visioned ministry outreach, Christ Unlimited. The out-reaches of this ministry have stemmed from a tremendous desireto see the Word of God taught in its balanced entirety. The Mill-ers are firm believers in prayer and, through prayer, have seenmany released from the bondages of fear, failure, and defeat.

The outreaches of Christ Unlimited are in obedience to thewords of our Lord in Mark 16:15: Go ye into all the world andpreach the gospel to every creature. This mandate from theLord presents a challenge to our generation as an estimated 25percent of the world’s population still have not heard the GoodNews of Jesus Christ.

Christ Unlimited Ministries also is dedicated to teaching God’sWord. Hosea 4:6 says: My people are destroyed for lack ofknowledge. Many Christians are leading defeated lives simplybecause they do not know God’s Word in its fullest.

Christ Unlimited Ministries has provided for those who de-sire to know God’s Word in a greater way. The main thrust of theteaching and literature is directed at “How to be an overcomer.”In the endtimes, we must be prepared to overcome the onslaughtsof Satan. Many Christians are suffering needlessly, because theydo not know how to overcome sickness, depression, divorce, fear,and financial failure. Christ Unlimited Ministries provides answersfor troubled families as well as trains workers for service.