Tag: Christians

Jesus did Miracles, Muhammad could not

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Injil Markus 1:40  And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

1:41  And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.

1:42  And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.

1:43  And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away;

1:44  And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

The sacrifices were to be evidence that the cure was real and that Jesus had respect for the law, the real law of God as opposed to the man-made traditions which were really a corruption to God’s law.  The healing was also a testimony to Jesus’ divine power, since the religious leadership believed that only God could cure leprosy (see 2nd Kings 5:1-14)

1:45  But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.

In the Injil (New Testament) there is no disease regarded with more terror and pity than leprosy.  When Jesus sent out the Twelve he commanded them “Heal the sick, cleanse lepers.”  Thereby he demonstrates that God has compassion on men and women.  (Matt 18:8)  The fate of the leper in that day was truly hard.  There were some other skin diseases which were mistakenly classified as leprosy such as ringworm or psoriasis and when they went away there was a prescribed ritual to go through to be declared “clean.”

The leprous person could not come closer than a stone’s throw to a non-leprous person and if they did people would typically react in fear and drive them back with stones.  From Peter’s recorded perspective it appears the leper came closer than allowed but it is also likely he actually did not, only coming as close as he could before falling to his knees and making his plea.  Whether he came closer than allowed by law or stopped short isn’t important; what is important is that Jesus cared enough to reach out and tenderly touch the untouchable one as well as completely cure.  It was a demonstration of the one true God’s compassion; if we will only approach and humbly request He will bridge the remaining gap because He longs to establish/restore the fellowship that has been broken by the barrier of sin between an unholy being and the thrice Holy God.

Many a man on the face of this planet ignorantly and arrogantly thinks he will be able to approach God and plead the case that he himself is not so bad as some of his fellows and for that reason alone he must be allowed into heaven.  Many a man thinks that so long as his good deeds outweigh his bad deeds then he must be accepted but that also is a corrupt teaching from sinful man.  Sadly, he will be met with justice rather than mercy because he has chosen to act in pride rather than humility.  It is only those who by faith apply to Christ Jesus for mercy and grace who will find that He is quite willing and capable of providing the mercy and grace they need and seek and he will bring them into the presence of the one true God.

Jesus then sent the man to go fulfill the prescribed ritual.  We need not see this man as failing to obey, for he probably completed the task assigned except that he simply could not keep silent for the joy of deliverance.  How can a sin-sick soul that comprehends the cure which has been effected by the power of such a gracious, loving God (yes, the one true God really does have compassion on us) be silent regarding the cure?

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Stand with Israel

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I stand with Israel

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Be alert

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Matthew 24 13

Time to wake up and be prepared.

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Messiah’s teaching is amazing

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Injil Markus frequently reports the amazement that Messiah’s teaching and actions produced.  The Scribes tended to teach the words of other teachers and the traditions of men.  Part of what was happening with the teaching from Jesus was that He was teaching Scripture, not from the Mishna or some other tradition of men; He was teaching them what God said and meant, not what some famous Rabbi of bygone days had said that perhaps God had really meant.  When a man teaches that a Hadith or a fitnah supersedes or abrogates something in the Quran is he not claiming the Quran is mistaken or corrupted?  Furthermore, because the Koran says the al kitab ul muqaddas is not corrupted, then whenever an Imam teaches something contrary to the Al kitab ul muqaddas he is acting exactly like the Rabbis who were opposing Messiah and he is not one iota less corrupt than they were.  I have already offered the testimony of Muslim scholars and Muhammad himself regarding the Holy Bible’s accuracy in a previous post.

Injil Markus 1:23  And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,

1:24  Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.

1:25  And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.

1:26  And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.

It was the demons who cried out.  Demonic possession tends to torment and destroy those who are created in God’s image, but the demon recognized that Messiah was a powerful adversary capable of destroying all the forces and schemes of jinn and Shaytan.  The phrase, “The holy one of God,” was perhaps used by the demons in accordance with the occultist belief that the precise use of a person’s name might give a certain amount of leverage against him but most definitely they have recognized the divine origin of Jesus.  Thereby they were saying in effect, “These foolish humans may not know who You are or the love the one true God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has for them, but we know who You are and we know what will happen to all of Your enemies.”

1:27  And they [the people] were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.

1:28  And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.

The whole subject of demons [jinn] is a difficult one, but no more so than the problem of the devil.  The devil is an unclean spirit, because he has lost all the purity of his former nature, therefore he acts in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit of God, and by his suggestions defiles the spirits of men.  There are many in our assemblies who quietly attend under merely formal teachers; but if the Lord comes with faithful ministers and holy doctrine then, by his convincing spirit, they are ready to say, like this man, What have we to do with thee!   That jinn was terrified that it was going to be sent to the place of punishment before the set time and knew that Jesus had the authority to send him there.  By the way, your Imam does not have that authority; if you have a loved one whom you wish to have freed from demon possession you will have to find a Christian who has been given that authority.  That is just one of the reasons that it is not wise to harass the followers of the Holy one of God.

No “disorder” could enable a man to know Jesus to be the Holy One of God.  The jinn wants to have nothing to do with Jesus, for he despairs of being saved by him, and dreads being destroyed by him.  Consider whose language they speak, who say to the Almighty, “Depart from us”.  This unclean spirit hated and dreaded Christ Jesus, because he knew him to be the Holy One of the one true God; for the carnal mind is enmity against God, especially against His holiness.  People who cannot stand to attend a Bible-believing/Bible-teaching Church here on earth should not expect to be able to tolerate Heaven where the one true God abides forever.

1:34  And he healed many that were sick of [various] diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him.

The demons knew and understood Him to be the Messiah, the one true and holy Messiah; Isa, Al-Masih, is kalimat-Allah and wadjih according to the Quran and for that reason they were powerless against Jesus.

When Jesus The Christ by his grace delivers souls out of the hands of Satan, it is not without tumult in the soul; for that spiteful enemy will disquiet those whom he cannot destroy. This put all who saw it to considering, “What is this new doctrine?”  A work as great often is worked now, yet men treat it with contempt and neglect, endangering their own soul.  If this were not so, the conversion of a notorious wicked man to a sober, righteous, and godly life, by the preaching about a loving, holy Savior, should cause many to ask, What doctrine is this?  Will he do such a work for me?

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Stop sinning and be Free, it can be done

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Name of Jesus

One of the seemingly easiest ways to excuse our sins is to judge others.  It is not wrong to exercise judgment but we must start with ourselves.  Only too frequently we are guilty of the sins we think we see in others but that is not necessarily always the case.  We need prayer and love if we are to perform “eye surgery” on our brothers and sisters.  We must judge them the way we want them to judge us.

Lightfoot said, “Cast out the little sin that is in thy hand: to which he answered, cast out the great sin that is in thine.  So they could not reprove because they were all sinners.”  Thus we see how great a calamity was cast upon Christendom by Calvin because he revived that antinomian spirit that said that we all sin all the time because we are only a sinner saved by grace and can never rise beyond that low-level of spirituality this side of heaven.  But Jesus commanded “Sin not,” and He knows full well how to help us live blameless before God.

We know that sacred things are liable to be abused by profane persons.  It should really come as no surprise, then, when they use and misuse the sacred text to attack us in order to inflict pain or intimidate us into being silent at the very time we should not be.  God does not give permission to the Christian to be silent; He has commanded us to be watchmen, holy watchmen, alert and sounding the alarm for the enemy of our soul is near at hand.

–Pastor Ward Clinton

The God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still speaks

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Jesus preached the good news of peace (Ephesians 6:15)  The penalty of being a fallen human being is to have a split personality.  In fallen human nature the beast and the angel are strangely intermingled.   Man’s trouble has always been that he is haunted both by sin and saintliness.  Robert Burns said, regarding himself, “My life reminded me of a ruined Temple.  What strength, what proportion in some parts!  What unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruins in others.”  The coming of Messiah Jesus brings forth the cure for that disintegrated personality and enables victory over the warring self through being conquered and completely consecrated by The Christ.

Jesus preached the good news of God’s promise (Ephesians 3:6).  It is true that men have always tended to think of God as a God of threats rather than a God of promises.  Look at the way some say the God of the Old Testament was mean – it demonstrates they still fail to understand who God is.  If you have eyes to see and understand, the God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shows His mercy and loving-kindness even in the Torah.  God’s grace (i.e. unmerited divine favor) is demonstrated in that portion of The Book, it is just much harder to see than it is in the latter portion which begins with the Gospel (Injil) accounts.

Jesus preached the good news of immortality (2nd Timothy 1:10).  To the pagan and the Sadducees alike, life was the road to death; man was characteristically a dying man; but Jesus came with the good news that through Him we are on the way to life.  Interestingly enough, the pagans that did believe in an afterlife had a rather dark view of what it amounts to.  I have to admit that I am not too impressed with what the followers of Mohammad believe regarding the afterlife either.  That is primarily because the god of the Koran doesn’t seem very trustworthy.  But, of course, disbelievers in Messiah Jesus, as revealed in the Holy Bible, should have a dark view of what the afterlife will be like for them.  The fact of the matter is that there was a time when you were not, but now there will never be a time will you will no longer be.  Therefore, embrace, make friends with, the holy one of the God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because, if you do not, this earth is as close as you will ever get to Heaven.

Jesus preached the good news (Ephesians 1:13) of salvation.  Salvation is not simply liberation from penalty and escape from the consequences of past sin; it is the power to live life victoriously and to conquer sin.  That makes the message of Messiah good news indeed.  It is a shame that most followers of Jesus do not live and walk in the full victory of life available to them.

Jesus preached the good news of Repentance.  Unfortunately, repentance is not as easy as we tend to think.  The Greek word metanoia literally means a change of mind.  That is part of the reason a new follower of Isa has such a difficult time trying to walk in holiness of heart and life; he knows he is a new creature, but he still has the old habits and needs help.  Of course, it does not help when the tradition of certain men gets in the way by suggesting that it cannot be done.  As for traditions, the earliest hadiths are only the result of traditions, nothing more, and created by men over a hundred years after Muhammad.

For the follower of Jesus, the Messiah, the trial that may lay ahead is never as strong as the power behind.  The children of the world (disbelievers in the holy one of God) have no such guarantee.  He, Jesus, is “wadjih” (worthy of esteem in this world and the next), according to the Quran.  The Quran also says Isa is kalimat Allah.

Pray to the God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who sees, hears, and still speaks to us today and longs to demonstrate His great love.

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Don’t be Bamboozled

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Syrian fighters

Don’t be bamboozled, they are not “refugees” they are invaders with malicious intent.

Keep your powder dry, you will need it.  Prior to that point in time when it will be needed we all need to be praying for a great revival to happen within all the Christian churches throughout America and that it would spill out into the streets in such a fashion as to spark a brand new Great Awakening such as sparked the founding of this nation as an independent country that has been mostly a force for good in this sin-darkened world.  Holiness unto God needs to be our watchword, now more than ever.

–Pastor Ward Clinton

The God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Speaks

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John had quite likely lost track of his cousin during his own scholarly and Godly pursuits.  On the other hand he may even have tried to recruit Him into the Essenes because he had always known there was something very special about his younger cousin although he did not know precisely what it was.  Perhaps he was still hoping that his cousin would leave the carpenter shop and join him in preparing the path for the mighty Messiah who would manifest miracles and whom he knew was due to arrive at almost at any time now.  Perhaps Jesus (Isa) had even gone out to hear John preach a time or two.

John’s message of preparation also pointed to something much better than mere water baptism because the Messiah was coming and the Messiah has the ability to baptize people with the Spirit of God.  Water can cleanse the outside only but the Spirit of the one true God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob can cleanse our innermost being.  John’s goal was to get people turned around from the path they were on and redirected towards the one who was greater than he; the one whom all men, without exception, need.  Remember this, the teachings that Isa will return show that we really need to know who Isa is and what He taught and expects from each one of us according to the Holy Bible.

Injil Markus 1:9  And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.

Jesus probably began His public ministry 27AD, when He was approximately 30 years of age.  As far as we know, he had spent most of his life in Nazareth.  Jesus approached the water where John was preaching and baptizing and perhaps John thought for a brief moment “Cool, here comes my cousin, perhaps he’ll consent to being part of my ministry preparing everyone for the arrival of The Messiah.”  Mark does not relate the brief exchange that took place between the two, which is something which was left to another gospel writer to tell us more about.  But suddenly John recognizes who Jesus really is because the God revealed the truth to him and he exclaims “I need to be baptized by You.”  And John begins telling his own followers, “Follow Jesus, He is the one I have been prophesying and preaching about.  Jesus is the Holy One of God.”

1:10  And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:

1:11  And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

For those who have eyes to see something very important has been revealed.

John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance intended for those who were sorry for their sins and desired to express their determination to be completely done with them.  What did such a baptism have to do with Jesus?  Wasn’t He the sinless one and therefore such a baptism would be irrelevant and unnecessary in His case?  Short answer, yes.

Jesus took upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh in that although He was perfectly pure and unspotted, He chose to be washed as if He had been polluted.  Therefore for our sake He sanctified Himself so that we also might be sanctified and be baptized with Him.  Jesus was and is the holy one from the one true God and He gave us the pattern of living the one true God desires to see reflected in each one of us.

1:12  And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.

1:13  And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.

“As soon as” He was baptized there was a voice from Heaven affirming Him and then He went into the wilderness for a period of time.  Matthew and Luke expand upon that wilderness experience but the Gospel of Jesus according to Mark marches on without even pausing for a breath.

John’s heraldic ministry was now wrapping up and it had accomplished much of that which it was supposed to.  Better results would have been nice but there was a resistance to his message.  Unfortunately that is the old, old story in that so many oppose God and His true messengers.  Fortunately, however, some do pay attention and obey.  So John exits the stage and the main feature begins because the long-awaited mighty messiah who manifests miracles is taking center stage.

1:14  Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,

1:15  And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

The good news from, as well as about the one true God, the God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He was calling for a change of heart and lifestyle.  He also had the message that the one true God actually cares about and loves us enough to send Isa (PBUH) to us to demonstrate that fact.  He is still trying to communicate that message to any who will stop and listen today.

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Jesus loves you

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John 3 16

Our God, the God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, loves us.

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Does God believe in you?

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everyone will believe

Better to believe now rather than wait and regret.

–Pastor Ward Clinton