Pastor Joel Laswell

In Revelation chapter two Jesus tells the church at Ephesus that they have lost their first love. This “love” included wholehearted love for God and His truth, and love for one another as brethren and for their fellow men in general. History is being repeated all over the world and right here in our churches. God’s people are so scattered right now that it has become easy for the enemy to sow seeds of error and discouragement and many leave spiritually from our congregations if not physically. Many are losing their first love just as Jesus said. What is the remedy for such a condition?

Now these Old Testament prophecies were not just given to tell us the history of God’s people in ancient times. The prophecies were given to describe to us what is going to happen in our time and to warn us about what will happen if we give the same regard to the prophets, the messengers that God sends to us, as they did to the messengers that He sent to them. Why did God allow Israel to be taken by Babylon? Lets see and learn...

We are to come to God and ask for His guidance in determining what the Scriptures reveal… we are to reason from the scriptures, not come to the Scriptures with a belief and look for evidence that supports it. When you add to or take away from the word of God you have been seduced by a fanatical spirit and are in danger of promoting doctrines of devils. I quite often run into some major forms of fanaticism and I am going to speak about some examples to give you a heads up because before it is all said and done, each of us will be confronted by those of a fanatical spirit at some time.

Jesus made a very important statement to Phillip who had asked Him if they could see the Heavenly Father. Jesus replied, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father. The words and works of Jesus both bore testimony to His divinity, but they were still blinded too much by tradition to really see Jesus, and thus the Father in heaven. When we come to know Jesus more and more, we will come to know our Father in heaven more and more. Not because, as some believe and teach, they are one and the same being, but because they have the same righteous attributes, the same character traits. I encourage you to get to know the Father.

Beloved, we must awaken and be sober about the condition of our life in respect to the eternal God. We each have only so much time and opportunities to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, becoming a member of the family of God. What are we doing with our time and opportunities?

It is true that millions of God’s people have been persecuted and killed, both in ancient and in modern times. But the time is coming when the position of the oppressors and the persecuted will have a role reversal. Those who have been persecuted will receive their eternal inheritance, and those who have been the oppressors will be raised to receive their doom. Each one of us will either be on one side or the other. How do you know which role will be yours?

How was it possible for Lucifer to convince a third of all the angels in heaven to rebel against their Creator? Lucifer was well loved by all the angels in heaven; after all, he was a covering cherub and stood next to the Godhead. Angels loved to execute his commands which made his stealth methods that much more successful. His most effective method was his whisper campaign. He would talk to the angels alone, in secret, telling each what the other was supposed to have said, with the entire intent to paint God as unfair and controlling and himself as only interested in fairness and liberty. Satan used his words in subtle ways to deceive and it is how we use our tongue that I want to study at this time. We will either bring glory to God or to the devil by the use of the tongue.

Salvation is not complicated. It is simple enough that a child can understand it. All you have to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Believe is often translated faith in the Bible. The Greek word translated believe, means to believe something enough to make a commitment to it. It is not merely an intellectual knowledge; it is a commitment. To believe in Jesus is to make a commitment to Him.

Are you aware that your fear can be taken away? Psychologists will tell you that by facing your fear you can overcome it and some people have done just that. But it may just be that their fear has been transferred and not really removed. It is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. There has to be a change in our mind and heart before our fears can be completely overcome, and we cannot change ourselves. The change must come from outside of us. The Bible says that perfect love casts aside all fear, and the source of that perfect love is Jesus!

The Pharisees thought their system of works a certain passport to heaven; in fact, that was their reason for being Pharisees… to be more righteous than anyone else… even God! They fell for the same old trap that Eve fell for back in the Garden of Eden. However, Jesus said that their system of righteous works was less than worthless, as you cannot remove sin by works. Only by faith in the God that is righteous can sin be removed. It is by being connected by faith with Jesus, not works of righteousness, that anyone is saved! You see, being connected with the church will not save you—you must be connected with Jesus, who alone constitutes the church!

Our message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is a message of good news. We are not to be negative wavers though it may look gloomy all around us. There will not be any doomsday for the righteous; that is only for the wicked, those who have rejected the message of salvation that has been freely offered to all. The devil wants to seduce you; if that doesn’t succeed, then he wants to deceive you, and if that doesn’t work, then he wants to terrify you. We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and what He’s going to do for His people at the end of the world. It is the devil’s business to get God’s people discouraged, and the way he does it is by sending you a constant barrage of negative waves and predictions of doom. Give little heed to the negative wavers!

For all the prophecies concerning the Messiah to be fulfilled in the life of only one man—there wasn’t one chance in 84 X1 to the 100th power that it could ever occur. That is 84 with 100 zeroes after it. Yet it did happen, friends. And the man who fulfilled all of the predictions is none other than Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whose life has influenced history more than any other man who has ever been born.

God will give every one of us victory. Not because we have the power, not because there’s strength in us, or there’s great achievements in any of us, but because God wants to show His power through our weakness. Just like He accomplished a great victory with 300 against 120,000 so God wants to give us the victory now. He will do it no matter how weak we may feel we are. We are to blow the trumpet and let the light of Jesus shine from our earthen vessels and we will experience victory, just as assuredly as Gideon did!

There were many signs that occurred before the destruction of Jerusalem, showing that something awful was going to take place. One of the most interesting fulfillments of prophecy when you look at that historical event is that not one Christian perished in the city. Jesus had given His disciples warning and every one who listened to the warning was saved. This is a lesson for us who live in the time just before the battle of Armagheddon!

Though He desperately wants you on His side in this warfare, the choice to join God's army is left up to you. It is my hope that as we begin looking at what it means to be in the Lord's army that it will appeal to you and you will make the decision to fight on the side of right!

We each have a purpose in God's family. What is that purpose? To carry the Gospel to the world! How do we do that? That is the question to answer. I am going to begin this series of studies that will answer that question by what I hope is an encouragement for you. I am going to share with you what it means for me to be a Soldier for Christ in the hope that it will educate and inspire you to join the cause and fulfill the mission in carrying the Gospel to the world.

In part one we saw parallels between the war in heaven and the war between Absalom and his father, King David and I am hoping that you will be able to see that these are also parallels of what is going to happen between the professed church and the true church before the end of the great controversy.

In this study, we are going to look at, in miniature, the great controversy between Christ and Satan. The story of the great controversy has been told to us on a human level in miniature in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. As we study this I hope that you will see the parallels in the examples that have been written down for us who live here near the second coming of Jesus. These parallels are to teach us a lesson and prepare us for what is coming so we may be found faithful. I praise God for this!

When Jesus came to Israel they not only failed to recognize Him, they actually rejected Him. If we are not careful friends, we may just reject Him as they did! Lucifer rebelled because he wanted to be the Chief cornerstone and his kingly power attitude prevails in too much of Christiandom. This attitude creeps into church organization and if not checked, it will choke it to death. It happened to Israel as they rejected the Messiah. Let us learn and not repeat their mistake.

My friends, we are coming to a point in history where we must press together and organize together as God's church according to God’s plan if we want to finish the work of preparing to meet Jesus as faithful souls. Are we going to do it? I hope so beloved, I truly hope so.