Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

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On “Assurance”

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On “Assurance”

James R. Aist

“The God who conforms our will to His will in order to save us (John 6:44), is the God who keeps our conformed will conformed to His will in order for us to remain saved (Philippians 2:13).”

The Christian doctrine of “assurance” refers to the absolute certainty that whoever God saves will remain saved and will inherit eternal life. The question then arises, “Upon whom does this absolute certainty depend, the one whom God saved or the God who saved him?” Many Christians believe that, because God never cancels our natural-born, misaligned, will to make choices, a born-again Christian can exercise that same free will to abandon his saving faith, deny Christ and forfeit his inheritance of eternal life with God in heaven. And, they believe that many choose to do just that. Other Christians believe, instead, that the God who saved them is the same God who will keep them saved, while not cancelling their freedom to use their, now realigned, will. And they believe that no one who is truly saved (i.e., born again) will abandon his saving faith, deny Christ and forfeit his inheritance of eternal life with God in heaven. So, which, if either, of these two opposing views is better supported by the biblical witness, and which offers genuine assurance? Following are 21 of the most direct and to-the-point Scriptures that I believe, when taken together and in context, provide an answer to this question, followed by my commentary on each:

Ezekiel 36:26-27 “Also, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

Commentary: God is describing here some of the awesome details of the “born-again” experience that true believers in His promised Messiah (Jesus Christ) will undergo (click HERE for details). Note that God says that He will “cause” them to obey His statutes and that they “will” keep His judgments. In other words, the born-again believer will obey, and continue to obey, God, because God will cause him to do so, not because they will choose, of their own volition, to do so. Surely God’s statutes and judgments include salvation (cf., John 6:39-40); thus, God himself will keep them saved.

John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who has sent Me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”

Commentary: Since Jesus will (not just can or may, but will) raise him up on the last day, he will not, even if he could, abandon his saving faith, deny Christ and forfeit his claim to eternal life with God in heaven.

Philippians 2:12-13 “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but so much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the One working in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure.”

Commentary: Once you are saved, God himself works inside you to will to remain saved; that would certainly qualify as “His good pleasure”, would it not? Your will remains free to decide, but because your will is now realigned with God’s will, you have only one desirable choice and you’re “good” with that. So, “free will” becomes, in effect, a moot point, because you won’t ever want to abandon your saving faith, deny Christ and forfeit your inheritance of eternal life with God in heaven.

John 6:39-40 “This is the will of the Father who has sent Me, that of all whom He has given Me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Commentary: The Father’s will is that none (not some or most, but none) will be lost. Jesus will (not just can or may, but will) raise him up on the last day, because he will not abandon his saving faith, deny Christ and forfeit his inheritance of eternal life with God in heaven. Moreover, “everyone” whom God saves will stay saved, every one, and Jesus will raise all of them up on the Last Day…all of them.

John 10:28 “I give them eternal life. They shall never perish…”

Commentary:  This is also the central message of John 3:16, where Jesus said “…whoever believes in Him shall not perish….” One cannot forfeit their salvation and never perish! All who are saved will persevere to the end.

John 17:11b-12a, 20 “Holy Father, through Your name keep those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are one. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. I have kept those whom You have given Me. I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word…”

Commentary. Jesus is the one who “kept” the disciples saved while He was still alive in the world; they did not keep themselves saved. Here, Jesus asks the Father to keep them saved after He returns to heaven. So, who keeps us saved? Jesus’ Father, that’s who; we do not keep ourselves saved.

1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, and He will not permit you to be tempted above what you can endure, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.”

Commentary: God is faithful, and He has promised (elsewhere) to keep you saved. He will do that by limiting the temptations that you may experience and providing a way of escape, if necessary. Thus, God will control the influences that might otherwise convince you to abandon your saving faith, deny Christ and forfeit your inheritance of eternal life with Him in heaven.

1 Corinthians 1:8 “He will strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Commentary: God himself will strengthen you until the day of our Lord (i.e., to the end), so that you will not abandon your saving faith, deny Christ and forfeit your inheritance of eternal life with God in heaven.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 “May the very God of peace sanctify you completely. And I pray to God that your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.”

Commentary: Simply put, the same God who saved you is the One who will also preserve (i.e., keep) you until the second coming of Jesus Christ.

John 8:31 “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you remain in My word, then you are truly My disciples.”

Commentary: This verse is often passed over lightly, without really seeing the full implication of it. Jesus is implying that, of those “who believed Him”, those who truly accepted the Gospel are the ones who will remain saved (i.e., “in My word”). In other words, a true disciple will remain a disciple, and those who do not remain in His word are not truly disciples of His, but only appear to be. A parallel point was made more explicitly by John himself in 1 John 2:19, next.

1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us. But they went out, revealing that none of them were of us.”

Commentary: Here, John is speaking of  “antichrists”, those who denied Christ and left the fellowship of true believers. These folks appeared to be true believers, but they showed that they were not by denying Christ and walking away. True believers, on the other hand, will not deny Christ and walk away.

Romans 11:29 “For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.”

Commentary: This is a general truth, and Paul is applying it here to make the point that the Jews will, someday, also put their faith in the Messiah (Jesus) and be saved. Since this is a general truth, it also applies to the calling of all people to God and the gifts (i.e., grace, saving faith and salvation) given to them when they are converted; thus, salvation is not revocable, but permanent.

Philippians 1:4-6 “In every prayer of mine for you all, I have always made requests with joy, due to your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Commentary: The God who saved you is the One who will keep you saved until the day of Jesus Christ (i.e., the end). God will finish what He started!

Romans 8:34-39 “Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes, who is risen, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities nor powers, neither things present nor things to come, neither height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Commentary: Paul says that there is no outside influence whatsoever that can take our salvation from us (separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord). But what about our misaligned will; can’t we use that to separate us? Paul said “No”, when he included “any other created thing” in the list, because we are created things! So, nothing and no one – not even we, ourselves – can cause ourselves to revoke our salvation. Besides, the will of the saved has been realigned to agree with the will of God, and there will no longer be any incentive to disobey God.

Ephesians 1:13-14 “In Him you also, after hearing the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and after believing in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory”, with…

Ephesians 4:30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you are sealed for the day of redemption” with…

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and established the guarantee with the Spirit in our hearts.”

Commentary: Taken together, these previous three passages say that the Holy Spirit, dwelling in every true believer, seals our salvation and guarantees that we will not lose it, ever, and certainly not by an act of our realigned will.

1 Peter 1:3-5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance that does not fade away, kept in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Commentary: The power of God protects us, through faith, from denying Christ and losing our eternal inheritance. The God who saved us is the One who will keep us, by His power.

Hebrews 10:38-39 “Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who draw back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the saving of the soul.”

Commentary: Here, the writer is making it clear that those who shrink back do not have saving faith, whereas, those who do not shrink back have saving faith. He is not saying that true believers can or will shrink back or fall away. (Compare this to 1 John 2:19, above.)

Jude 24 “Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with rejoicing…”

Commentary: God is able to keep you from “falling” (i.e., denying Jesus and revoking your salvation). So, if God is able to keep you saved, then would He not, in fact, do it? After all, it is His will that you remain saved (John 6:39-40). God both saves you and keeps you saved.

My Conclusions: In view of the considerable, clear and direct biblical evidence presented above, I conclude that it is, ultimately, God who keeps us saved, and that it is not primarily by the power of our own efforts that we will endure to the end, but by the power and the will of God working in us and for us. In other words, once God has saved us, He so re-enforces our will to remain saved that we will, in fact, remain saved. The God who conforms our will to His will in order to save us, is the God who keeps our conformed will conformed to His will in order for us to remain saved. He does this through various means, including the work and witness of the Holy Spirit in us, the continued preaching of His word to us, the witness of other believers to us and continued warnings to us to not “fall away.”

Genuine Assurance: So, which version of assurance offers absolute certainty for the true believer? If the saved person is able to renounce his faith in the divinity of Jesus and lose his salvation, then his is only a hope of assurance, a hope that is contingent upon his own power and strength to retain his saving faith. His eternal security is only as secure as his faith is. I liken this, somewhat, to a letter in the mail that says on the outside of the envelope, “Congratulations, you are the winner of $5,000 a week for life!” But, when you read the letter inside, it says “…if yours is the lucky number to be drawn soon.” You have to wait until the drawing to find out whether or not you have won, and you cannot guarantee that you will win anything! What kind of a God would go to such lengths and pay such a price to draw us and save us, only to leave it entirely up to us to keep ourselves saved? On the other hand, if, as the Bible says, the saved person is protected by the power of God and given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that he will never renounce his faith in the divinity of Jesus and lose his salvation, then his is an absolute certainty – that is to say, real assurance – from the day of his salvation right on into eternity. His eternal security is as secure as God is faithful. Put another way, “Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.” (J.I Packer in “Knowing God”). Now, I don’t know about you, but I would much rather have God in charge of my assurance than me; He is far more trustworthy, faithful and able to keep me saved than I am!

Benefits and Potential Pitfalls: I have found that a right understanding and acceptance of this doctrine of assurance confers true peace with God and guaranteed security in my right standing with Him from the moment God saves me right into eternity. Such peace and security are true blessings of immense value to the born again believer. But, this same doctrine can easily be misconstrued to, seemingly, give us license to sin all the more, because of God’s abounding grace (Romans 5:20). To this erroneous manner of (wrong) thinking the Apostle Paul declares emphatically, “God forbid!” (Romans 6:2, 15). How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? And in Galatians 6:7-8, he issues this warning, “Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” The fact that this doctrine can be misunderstood and abused does not diminish, in any way, either its validity or its blessings to the one who understands and practices it rightly.

Who Gets the Glory?

Let’s now compare the doctrines of “sovereign assurance” and of “free will assurance” with respect to who gets the glory (i.e., the credit) for our persevering to the end (Matthew 24:13). If God’s assurance is sovereign, then God gets all of the glory, and we get none of it. But, if our free will is sovereign, then we can claim some of the glory, because it was, after all, our free-will decisions to continue to believe in Jesus that determined our eternal destiny. To my way of thinking, the latter is just another way of saying that we persevere to the end by works (i.e., our choosing to persevere). And, herein lies the primary reason that it matters what you believe in this regard: If you believe that you persevere because you continue to make the right decisions, are you really giving God all the glory that belongs to Him, or are you, in reality, claiming some of that glory for yourself? God has said “My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 42:8).

(To read more of my articles on biblical topics, click HERE.)

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How Could Jesus Have Been Born “Immaculate”?

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How Could Jesus Have Been Born “Immaculate”?

 James R. Aist

When Adam chose to believe Satan instead of God  and sinned (Genesis 3), two things happened that have affected all subsequent generations of mankind (Psalm 51:5; Psalm 58:3; Romans 5:12; Romans 5:17; and 1 Peter 1:18-19), not through a direct, genetic (biological) inheritance as we know it, but by a mysterious, spiritual inheritance that is associated with biological reproduction. First, we took on a “sin nature” (Colossians 3:9-10), or a predisposition to sin, that has been passed down to all subsequent generations, including ours. We have “inherited”, so to speak, from Adam, a “sin nature”, an inborn desire to reject God’s provision and follow our own path in life. This predisposition to sin is so pervasive as to render us, in our “natural-born” state, in rebellion against, and at enmity with, God. And second, we share in the guilt of the original sin of Adam that has been passed down to all of his descendants, because Adam was the representative of all mankind in his rebellion against God, just as Jesus, the second Adam, is the representative of all of Adam’s descendants who believe and trust in Him for their salvation (Romans 5:19; 1 Corinthians 15:22).

This sin nature and the guilt of Adam’s original sin that we are all born with present a dilemma that may seem irresolvable at first glance: the Lamb of God (Jesus) had to be “immaculate”; that is, without spot or blemish (1 Peter 1:19), entirely free of sin, the sin nature and the guilt of Adam’s original sin. So, how did Jesus escape inheriting the sin nature and the guilt of Adam’s original sin at His conception? All agree that Jesus did not inherit these from His Father, the Holy Spirit. But, what about Mary?

Let’s begin with the Roman Catholic solution to this dilemma.  According to Roman Catholic doctrine, Mary did not ever have a sin nature or guilt of original sin because of the direct intervention of God; Mary was immaculate as a divine privilege. Of course, there is no clear, unequivocal biblical evidence to confirm this view. It appears to me that the Roman Catholic Church invented this doctrine to resolve the dilemma, because they could not discover, in either the Bible or in Roman Catholic tradition, any other suitable resolution. Apparently, the main Bible verse they use is Genesis 3:15, which says “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” They claim that this verse refers to a battle between Mary and Satan, but a natural reading of the verse indicates that the actual battle will be, instead, between Jesus and Satan. Nonetheless, if God did, in fact, solve this dilemma in this way, then it is not for us to declare otherwise apart from the biblical witness.

Another solution, associated with Protestantism, posits that the sin nature and the guilt of original sin are inherited from Adam, generation to generation, through the fathers only, as seems to be implied by Romans 5:17 and 1 Peter 1:18-19 when taken together: Since Jesus did not have a human father to pass the sin nature and the guilt of original sin on to Him (His father was the Holy Spirit) and the sin nature and the guilt of original sin are inherited through the fathers only, then He could not have inherited either the sin nature or any guilt of Adam’s sin. Once He was conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit, He would automatically be the Lamb of God “without spot or blemish” (1 Peter 1:19). Problem solved. I have addressed this viewpoint more fully elsewhere (click HERE), and it does have its foundation in the biblical witness.

But, there is yet another feasible solution to the dilemma that I believe may be even more strongly and clearly supported by the biblical witness. This explanation requires knowledge and understanding that the Jewish followers of God, such as Abraham (and, for our purposes, Mary)  had an opportunity to go to Heaven based on their looking ahead to the price to be paid by the Messiah for their sins (based on Old Testament messianic prophesies), just as we today have an opportunity to go to heaven by looking back to the price paid by the Messiah, Jesus, for our sins (based on New Testament fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophesies). (For a more complete exposition of this biblical teaching, click HERE).

Now, to fully understand this third explanation, I will have to elaborate a bit, so bear with me if you will. Before Mary conceived, an angel spoke to her concerning who Jesus would be: “But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Listen, you will conceive in your womb and bear a Son and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of His kingdom there will be no end.” Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. Therefore the Holy One who will be born will be called the Son of God. Mary said, “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be unto me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her (Luke 1:30-35, 38).”

The first point I want you to see here is that, in effect, the angel preached “the Gospel of Jesus Christ” to Mary: 1) He will be the promised Savior (The name “JESUS” means “savior” or “God saves.” See also: Matthew 1:21, “She will bear a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”); 2) The Holy Spirit will be His father; and 3) therefore, He will be the Son of God. The second point is that, when Mary responded with “May it be unto me according to your word,” she was expressing agreement with, not only becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit, but also with everything the angel had said concerning Jesus. Thus, it seems that Mary may have been the first person in the New Testament to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and accept it by faith. The third point is that Mary apparently was saved before Jesus was conceived. This is a critical point, because, if this is true, then, when she was born again through her faith in Jesus, she instantly “became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith”, the righteousness of God in Christ (Genesis 15:6; Hebrews 11:7; Romans 3:22; 2 Corinthians 5:21). In other words, before Jesus was conceived, Mary may have already believed in Him (Luke 1:38) and, if so, she was already the righteousness of God in Christ and could not have passed on to Jesus either any guilt of Adam’s sin or a sin nature.

The gist of this explanation is that, if Mary was, in fact, saved before she became pregnant with Jesus, then there was no avenue whereby either the sin nature or the guilt of Adam’s original sin could have been passed on to Jesus, because  Mary’s new nature in Christ (2 Peter 1:4 speaks of the  “divine nature” of those who believe in Christ) would have already replaced her original sin nature (Colossians 3:9-10) and her righteousness of God in Christ would have erased her guilt of Adam’s original sin before He was conceived. If this explanation is, indeed, true and valid, then it’s a good thing the angel preached the Gospel to Mary before Jesus was conceived!

The “take home message” of this article is this, that one way or another, God saw to it that when Jesus was conceived, He was free of both the guilt of Adam’s original sin and of the sin nature. Add to that a sinless life (Hebrews 4:15) and we have a biblical explanation of how, when Jesus died on the cross, He could bear the sins of others (i.e., us). If He had had sins of His own to bear, then He would have died for His own sins, and our sins would still not be forgiven. In which case, it would not end well for us who believe and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and the salvation of our souls!

(To read more of my biblical articles, click HERE)

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How Could Jesus be “Without Sin”?

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How Could Jesus be “Without Sin”?

James R. Aist

The Bible says that “…all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Yet, Jesus Christ lived on the earth for 33 years as a man, was tempted to sin in every way that all other people are tempted, but was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). How can this apparent contradiction be resolved, and how could Jesus be the only man who did not sin? The full answer to this question may surprise you, as it did me.

The Dual Nature of Jesus

Part of the answer to this question lies in the fact that Jesus was fully man and fully God, at one and the same time. He received His humanity from His mother, Mary, and He received His Divinity from His father, the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20). With the Holy Spirit as His father, Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit from conception and always had the full power of the Holy Spirit available within Him to resist temptation. Moreover, as the Son of God, Jesus was God, and, as such, it was not in His divine nature to sin, but to be true to Himself as the “Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 43:3). But, there is another unique characteristic of Jesus that gave Him a “leg up” on the rest of us when it comes to resisting temptation, and it has to do with His humanity. Let’s see what that advantage is and how He came by it.

The “Sin Nature” of Man

When Adam and Eve chose, of their own “free” will, to believe Satan instead of God (Genesis 3), they took on a “sin nature” (Colossians 3:8-10), or a predisposition to sin, that has been passed down to all subsequent generations, including ours. We have inherited, so to speak, from Adam and all subsequent fathers, a “sin nature”, an inborn desire to reject God’s provision and follow our own path in life. This sin nature can also be aptly described as an ever present readiness to do evil (i.e., disobey God). This predisposition to sin is so pervasive as to render us, in our “natural-born” state, in rebellion against, and at enmity with, God. Thus, it is relatively easy for us to yield to temptations to sin; it’s part of the nature of fallen man to do so. Note that it is from (i.e., through) Adam, not Eve, that all subsequent generations of men inherited this sin nature.

Now, let’s “fast forward” to the time of Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20), not by a male descendant of Adam, as were all the rest of us. Thus, the inheritance of the sin nature was not passed down to Jesus. This is huge, because it means that, unlike everyone else since Adam, Jesus was not born with a predisposition to sin, as were all of the rest of us. This is why Jesus could say, in all truth, that Satan has nothing in Him (John 14:30); He did not have the sin nature that Satan takes advantage of when we are tempted. And, I believe, that fact must have had a lot to do with how Jesus could live for 33 years without sin. The “virgin birth” of Jesus achieved even more than I was aware of, until now.

What’s In It for Us?

Well, this changes everything for us, and here’s why. Whereas the First Adam sinned, and from that sin death entered into man’s relationship with God, Jesus, the Second Adam, broke the curse of that original sin by offering up to God a sinless life that enabled Him to pay the price for our sins and restore our relationship with God. Jesus undid the damage that was caused by Adam’s sin! But, without having lived a sinless life, Jesus’ sacrificial death would have paid for His own sins, not ours, and we would still be dead in our sins without any hope of escaping God’s wrath. All we have to do is to put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross and our sin problem vanishes; then we will have been made, in Christ, the righteousness that God requires (Philippians 3:9), and we will qualify for heaven. Have you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross yet? Why not let today be the day of your salvation?

(To read more of my articles on biblical topics, click HERE)

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Spiritual Encounters with God: A Witness, Two Prophecies and a Parable

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Spiritual Encounters with God: A Witness, Two Prophecies and a Parable

 James R. Aist

“‘In the last days it shall be,’ says God, ‘that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” – Acts 2:17

Introduction

This is the final article in a three-part series on “Spiritual Encounters with God.” You can read the first two articles HERE and HERE. They describe visions, voices, and dreams that I have experienced and understand to be direct communications from God to me. In this article, I describe three other personal encounters with God: the witness of the Holy Spirit, as mentioned in the Bible, two words of prophecy I received concerning my children and a renter, and a parable illustrating the sanctification process. Such spiritual encounters with God are not uncommon among contemporary, born-again Christians, and they are certainly not unique to me by any means. In fact, I believe that, because the Holy Spirit is present in all true believers, all of us have spiritual encounters with God of one sort or another. We just don’t always perceive them as such. Among Pentecostal and Charismatic believers, such personal, revelational encounters with God are commonly referred to as “Rhema.” As you are reading, please keep in mind that God interacts with each of His born-again children however He chooses, and one’s lack of a corresponding spiritual encounter with God does not lessen the validity of another’s.

That said, let’s jump right into the remaining four of my spiritual encounters with God: a witness, two prophecies and a parable.

A Promised Witness

This encounter happened in the mid-1980s, when my first wife and I were struggling with an impending divorce. For me, these were times of incredible stress, anxiety and depression. I could see my most cherished dreams – dreams of a lifelong marriage, a stable and lasting family life, and three children brought up to know and love God – I could see all of that disintegrating before my very eyes. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I had already tried everything I could think of, to no avail.

It was when I was at my lowest point, crying out for relief from the stress and confusion, that Satan literally spoke into my mind one day, as if he were sitting on my left shoulder. He said “Jesus isn’t the son of God. You don’t really believe that he is, do you? Look at how much stress that’s causing you. Why don’t you give up on that and just go along with the flow? That will make things a lot easier for you.” And he kept repeating the same message, over and over. But, whenever he would say this to me, something interesting would happen inside of me. The Holy Spirit would simply speak into my mind saying “You believe that Jesus is the son of God. Don’t ever let go of that; it’s the most important thing you have left.” When this spiritual battle between Satan and the Holy Spirit was over, I was still holding on to my faith in Jesus: Satan was defeated!

I found out later that this internal witness of the Holy Spirit was a direct fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy in John 15:26, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me…” And Romans 8:16 says “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” That witness of the Holy Spirit was the only thing that got me through that dark and sinister time of testing. What’s more, that witness of the Holy Spirit helped me hold on to the only real friend I had at that time, Jesus Christ. I believe that Proverbs 18:24 is speaking of Jesus when it says “… there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”

The lessons I learned from this encounter with God are these: When everything and everyone else has failed you, remember that you still have Jesus. He is all you need to see you through! And, the Holy Spirit in you will ensure that Jesus will remain your friend no matter what, or who, attacks your faith.

A Prophecy of Promise

In mid-June of 1992, I was at the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International Men’s Advance at Lake George in upstate New York. One day when they were baptizing some of the participants, in the lake, I stepped forward to be immersed by Pastor Don Yarborough. We had never met, and he knew nothing about me. As I approached him in the water, he just stared at me straight in the eye with a blank look, and kept staring. I thought to myself, “That’s strange; he doesn’t seem to even see me coming.” Finally, as I drew near to him, he reached out his hand to me, we shook hands and I introduced myself. Then he said that something very unusual had just happened; it had happened only once before in his ~20 years of baptizing people.

He said that as I was approaching him in the water, he received a prophecy for me, in the form of several Bible passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. They all had to do with the head of the household being saved and all of his family with him. He then proceeded to share with me all five of those Bible verses. When he had finished with that, he gave me the interpretation: God wants me to stand on and hold fast to these promises, which he is confirming to me and my children. Wow! Through this prophecy, God had just told me that all of my children will be saved! Needless to say, I was a “happy camper” the rest of that meeting.

Now, as it turns out, my daughter, Liesel, was visiting with me later that month. She knew nothing of the prophecy I had received just a few days earlier. The day before she left to go home, we were having a discussion about the things of God, and, to my utter amazement, she asked me if I had ever received any indication from God as to whether or not she would someday become a Christian! I was, for a moment, speechless. How in the world did she even know to ask me that? When I regained my composure, I told her about this prophecy. She was visibly pleased and very encouraged to find this out. God had arranged a “divine appointment” for sure!

About five years later, Liesel was, tragically, struck and killed by an automobile while crossing an intersection. In the days just before and after her death, I learned – from two, independent, reliable witnesses – that during the two weeks prior to the accident, she had given testimony of her faith in Jesus! God is good, and He is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).

A Prophecy of Provision

I received and gave this prophecy in the late 1990s when my wife, Janet, and I were renting our basement apartment to a veterinary student at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Her name is Penny. She had developed a pattern of not having enough money to fully cover the next month’s rent, and we always worked with her to pay the balance in a couple of weeks, and she always did. But, Penny was embarrassed to always have to ask us to extend this grace to her. One morning, when the rent was due in full the next day, she came upstairs and knocked on the basement door. When I opened the door, I saw that she had been crying. She came into our living room and, tearfully, explained that this time she didn’t have any rent money, and asked us to let her pay the full amount, $300, in two weeks. So we comforted her and agreed to let her be two weeks late for the full amount. She was relieved and very grateful as she returned to the apartment. After seeing her to the door, I turned and walked back into the living room. My wife and I looked at each other, said something to the effect that we are, after all, able to carry her debt for two weeks, and were about to get on with our daily routine, satisfied that the matter had been settled. Then, suddenly, something stopped me dead in my tracks. God spoke into my mind saying, very clearly, “No, she is going to have the money and will NOT be late with the rent payment!” While I was processing that message in my mind, God spoke again very clearly and with urgency, “Say it out loud, speak it out, now!” So, I made sure my wife was listening and boldly spoke the message out loud, “No, she is going to have the money and will NOT be late with the rent payment!” Then I had the sense that it was this prophecy that really settled the matter.

And, sure enough, that same afternoon, when Penny walked to the mailbox to get the mail, there was an envelope in the mailbox with her name on it. Inside was $300 in cash and a note saying something like , “I just felt that you might need this at this time.” Bam, prophecy fulfilled!

A Parable of the Wood Chips

This encounter with God happened in the early 2000s, and is told in a bit more detail HERE. I had, for many, many years, stacked into two neat and straight rows, the pile of cut and split firewood left in my yard by the dump truck. Then I cleaned up the mess of firewood “trash” that remained on the lawn where the pile of wood had been, and nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened. True to form, I had developed a routine for the tedious, but necessary, task of cleaning up the “trash” after the firewood was stacked. I would begin with the largest pieces, those that were too small to stack with the normal firewood but very easy to spot and gather into a box to use as kindling whenever I needed to build a fire in my wood stove. With those larger pieces removed, I could then more easily spot fragments of a smaller size and gather them into the box. And so on and so forth, until there was nothing left but tiny bits and slivers that I was not even aware of until all of the larger pieces had been removed. I would then rake together as many of these minuscule remnants as possible and deposit them into the trash. Finally — applying the concept of “good enough” — I would declare the project finished, even though, if I looked closely enough, there were still left even tinier fragments that I had not noticed before. Oh well.

One cool, crisp, spring day I was busy cleaning up the trash after stacking the firewood for the next winter. First the larger pieces, those that were easiest to see, then the next-largest pieces that were now, themselves, the easiest to see, and then the still-smaller pieces which had seemingly appeared out of nowhere when all of the just-larger pieces had been removed. Then, I paused briefly to rest and catch my breath. I was standing there, looking out over the “debris field” and thinking about how I could see the next-smaller pieces only after the just-larger pieces had been removed, when God spoke into my mind: “This is exactly how I clean the sins out of your life after you are born again! I begin by showing you the most conspicuous sins. These are the ones you are probably already painfully aware of, but have not yet dealt with for some reason. When these sins have been taken care of, it’s easier for Me to show you the less conspicuous sins, and we set about, together, to deal with those. And with those sins now out of the way too, it’s possible for you to see sins that you didn’t even know were there, and so on.” Wow! I thought I was just was cleaning up the trash in my lawn, but God was showing me how He was cleaning up the trash in my life! We commonly refer to that process as “sanctification”, and the Holy Spirit is in charge of it.

With this article, my three-part account of spiritual encounters with God is complete. I hope you have found them interesting, edifying and encouraging. Perhaps you are eager to discover how God has arranged spiritual encounters with you as well. If you do, you will be blessed. I’m sure of it.

(For more of my articles with biblical themes, click HERE)